by Caro LaFever
His boxers mercifully covered the rest of him.
She’d been with a man many times. According to Brekelly gossip, she’d been with many men, many times. At the end, Gareth had believed those lies and had punished her with his will. But she’d never been with a young man. Had never actually gazed at a young man’s naked body.
Before she could stop herself from showing any weakness, she stumbled back.
“The satellite crew is here, sir.”
“And she happened to be around and came inside.” He flipped his hair over a surprisingly broad shoulder before swinging his legs to the floor.
“Yes, that’s how it went…” The weasel’s voice trailed off as the man stood.
Ceri was glad she had the wall to sag on.
In bed, he was glorious. Standing, his body took on more power, more male beauty. Will had been tall and lean. His son resembled him in this. Yet where Will’s shoulders had slumped and his hair had turned white, his son’s spine was straight and true, his hair his crowning glory.
He appeared entirely unaware he was almost naked. Walking to the window, he pushed back the curtains.
The artificial light had glossed his allure with a fine tint. The sun turned him into an impossible god of a man. Ceri’s imagination blasted to life, framing him as some long-ago Highland hero with a kilt and a sword in his big hand. The sunshine lit his hair into a sea of flames. His skin went from white to pearl. Every line of every muscle went into sharp relief.
“Ye will both leave.” His gentle command drifted across the room from the window. His gaze never left the view. “Ye can send the satellite crew to me, Reid.”
“Come along, Mrs. Llewellyn.” The weasel reached for her elbow.
Awaking from her trance with a start, she shoved the man’s hand aside. Anger surged, replacing any thoughts of fantasies and warriors. “You have no right to install anything in this castle.”
One white shoulder twitched like he were flicking off a fly. “Mr. Reid.”
“Um.” The older man wrenched a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “She’s bigger than me, sir.”
He didn’t move from the window. “Then call security.”
She would not be thrown out of her own castle. But she could see she had no weapons left right now. She couldn’t fight with a man when he was almost naked and almost mouth-watering. She also couldn’t force all four men to go away and take their damned dish with them. “I’ll hire my own solicitor.”
Lorne Ross said nothing.
“It would be best, Mrs. Llewellyn.” Reid looked at her with an imploring gaze. “If you left.”
She left.
Ceri didn’t allow herself another glance at his nakedness before she stomped out of the bedroom and down the tower stairs. That was at least a small victory.
Not enough, though. Not nearly enough.
Lorne knew she was gone at the very moment she left.
Which was strange.
He’d never been good with sensing. Sensing people and where they were and what they were thinking. Sensing the unexpected or the unusual. He’d learned to keep himself in narrow areas of life where he functioned well without needing to rely on anything except his brain.
Yet it wasn’t his brain that sensed she was gone. It was an organ he usually listened to only during his morning shower.
“Mr. Lorne Ross?” A gravelly voice came from the door.
The satellite crew.
“I’ll make sure she’s left, sir.” The sound of Reid’s footsteps clattered on the stone as he followed her down the stairs.
“Yes. I’m Lorne Ross.” He addressed the words to the window pane. “If ye would give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Ross.” The double doors slammed shut.
He winced. Like he’d winced when she’d slammed them open. The noise had awakened him from a deep sleep filled with disturbing images he had no desire to explore. Walking to his armoire, he pulled out a fresh shirt and the same pants. He hoped Doc would hurry on the new clothes. Even he could tell these were unsuitable.
Putting on the shirt and trousers, Lorne snaked a tie around his neck and frowned into the small mirror attached to the side of one of the wardrobe’s doors.
She had been wild looking.
The hallway light had outlined her from behind, telling him she still wore baggy, heavy clothes which gave nothing of her real body away. Added to this, the light gave him none of the other distractions he’d already catalogued: her red lips, her dark eyes, her white skin. For a moment, as he sat up in his bed, he’d counted himself lucky.
But then he’d realized her curly hair had fallen out of her ponytail, a mess of strands sliding over her round shoulders, her elegant neck. A picture popped into the inactive lustful part of his brain he rarely used outside the shower.
Fantasy. Dream. Chimera.
The picture was of the woman. The Llewellyn woman and no other. Naked. Her black hair swirling around her face, onto his pillow, into his hands. Swirling on her arms and across her breasts. Swirling around him, choking his logic, stealing his rationality.
He’d croaked his first question out in the hopes of shutting down the vision.
It hadn’t worked.
The harshness of her voice didn’t deflate his erection. Her accusations hadn’t stopped its eager pulsing. Reid’s appearance should have kicked his control back into gear, yet it hadn’t done the trick, either. Not until the light had come on and he’d realized he’d soon be giving her a weapon if she glanced at a certain part of his body, had he moved to lessen the damage already done.
The window pane had a glaze on it, an old-fashioned shimmer. If a man focused with intensity, he could wipe his mind clean trying to understand the way the sun filtered through it as opposed to a modern pane.
The pane, and his formidable focus, had saved him.
Cinching the knot around his neck, Lorne stared at himself. His blank eyes stared back.
His lust was gone. Everything inside him was normal again.
“May we come in, Mr. Ross?” The gravelly voice reached him from behind the door. “We need to get going if we’re to make our other appointments.”
He strode to the doors and opened them. “I want the dish right outside this window.”
“Not a problem, guv.” The shorter of the two men smirked. “Now that we’ve got that caterwauling woman out of the way, we’ll make short work of it.”
He stilled.
There was something inside him that went off. Something in the man’s words that made the center of him…made it…
He squinted at the man.
The man blanched and grabbed the cap off his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to offend ye.”
Lorne went back to his armoire and selected the Ferragamo loafers. Slipping them on, he mentally shrugged away the last few minutes. What was important was that within the next few hours, he would be writing code again. Code was where he lived and breathed. Code never confused him or made him feel off.
Code never gave him an erection.
He stilled again, his hand on the hanger of his suit coat.
“We’ll have this done for ye in a couple of hours.” The taller of the two walked to the window and opened it wide. “Is there a way up to the top of the tower?”
A fresh breeze wafted into the bedroom, bringing with it the crisp scent of cool air, and the distinctive smell of peat. Lorne’s nostrils filled with the familiar, making his mind go dizzy.
His mum laying the Christmas fire before wrapping him in a hug.
His da marching across the moor, digging into their land for the best places to cut the turf.
The nights he’d fallen asleep in this room, the window opened, although he’d asked for it to be closed. Letting the smoky, sweet scent coming from the chimneys of Pictloch cover him in the past, in his roots.
“Is there, Mr. Ross?” The taller man poked his head back in from looking outside.
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“Is there what?” He kept his focus on the floor. He’d never liked the rug his father had picked for the room. The Celtic knots around the perimeter confused him, while the jumping stags and deer only made him wretchedly aware of what a disappointment he was as a son.
He would have to tell Reid to get rid of this rug at some point.
“The tower roof, sir. Is there a way to get up there?”
Lorne forced himself to meet the man’s eyes. “Yes.”
Both men gawked at him in a way he’d become used to in childhood and at Oxford, yet hadn’t dealt with in quite some time. As if he were a bit deranged.
The center of him contracted. Like someone had jabbed him.
“Follow me.” He turned toward the door.
The men came behind him.
The stairway to the top of the tower was old, the stone steps worn in the center from too many soldiers tromping up to do their patrol. When he’d been very young, he’d clambered over these stones onto the roof without worrying about falling. That had been before he’d realized he was strange, before his father and mother had begun to worry.
He yanked open the door and stepped onto the battlements. Surprise hit him. The north wall was crumbling and the east one needed repairs too. This was unlike his da. To let this go. There could be further damage inside the castle itself, if this weren’t taken care of soon.
“Over there.” Shaking off the observation, he pointed to the far side. “It’s right below the bedroom.”
The men shuffled out of the small entrance and glanced around. “We won’t be able to get the dish up the steps.” The shorter man frowned. “We’ll have to lift it from the outside.”
Lorne stepped back into the well of the stairway. He had no interest in what he’d been interested in as a child. And someone else could be hired to do any repairs to the roof. “Just get it done by the end of the day.”
The need to return to the familiar washed through him. For a second, he wondered if he shouldn’t let the Llewellyn woman have her way. Apparently, he’d miscalculated. She didn’t appear to be packing or planning on leaving today. He’d have to escalate the conflict, make her see things as he did by using threats and solicitors.
He didn’t like to do that. He usually preferred precise plans, not conflict. He enjoyed quiet, not yelling.
Why did he care if the Ross estate and castle weren’t in his hands? As Hugh had pointed out, he had enough money to buy a dozen castles from here to Germany to Russia. Why did this one old, and clearly crumbling, piece of property matter?
It mattered.
It wasn’t logical. He knew that.
It wasn’t reasonable. He knew that, too.
But it mattered.
Chapter 6
The certified letter arrived as she’d finished her morning tea.
Ceri gaped at the words, words that hovered in her sight, blurring and hazing.
Her hand shook when she placed the paper on her kitchen table and carefully brushed her tears from her cheeks.
For a moment, she wondered if she should cede this war. She had so few real weapons compared to Lorne Ross. He had his heritage, the title, and his gobs of money. She only had the memory of Will’s trust, his signature on his last bequest, and the conviction she was meant to be here.
Standing, she walked to the kitchen sink and plunked her teacup down. She’d planned on having a bite to eat before tackling the last of the rose bushes.
Now? Now it seemed futile, and she had not a speck of appetite.
This caveat is registered against the Certificate of Title issued to one, Ceri Olwen, under the disposition of William Stewart Ross…
Blah. Blah. Blah.
She hadn’t attended university, but she wasn’t stupid. What the document meant was Will’s son was shutting down the castle tours. She was now legally prohibited from doing much of anything with the estate until he’d had his day in court.
With all his lawyers and money.
While she had to still find a way to pay the monthly estate taxes, starting in two short months.
Her hands tightened on the edge of the counter. Will had left very little money when he’d died. Yes, the distillery produced a million bottles of single malt which sold well in the town and all over Scotland, yet the production and the labor ate most of the profit. Yes, his herds of sheep and cattle provided fine wool and steaks, yet again, the cost of feed and care wasn’t cheap. Yes, the hunters and bird watchers and fishermen had paid good money for access to the forest and the estate. Still, even those fees hadn’t been enough.
The castle tours had made the difference in the Ross finances during the last four years. But now, the final Ross aimed to shut that down.
What was she going to do? Ceri sucked in a shaky breath.
She couldn’t leave. She wouldn’t leave.
Not again. Not ever again.
Elis needed the stability of this place, even though he was just shy of eighteen and about to launch himself into the world. He thought of this as his home. She couldn’t take that away from him.
Will had told her, on the last night of his life, how content he was to have her in charge of his estate. He’d been worried, he’d said, about what would happen after his death. His son, he’d confided, wouldn’t be interested, and wouldn’t know what to do if he was.
His son might be interested, at least for now, yet he clearly had no clue what was best for the Ross land and Pictloch.
More than anything, though, it was about her. For once, she deserved this and she wasn’t going to let it go. Not her dreams and hopes, not her plans and her future.
Here. Her future was here at Castle Ross.
With a firm step, she walked to her purse lying on the kitchen counter and pulled out her cell phone. After making an appointment with Will’s solicitor, she stuffed the damn letter into the side of her purse and swung it over her shoulder.
She might not have gobs of money. She might not have a team of solicitors.
But she had Will’s wishes set on a legal document. And she had Pictloch’s residents, too.
What would they do when she made copies of this damn letter and gave one to each store owner, every restaurant proprietor, every one of the villagers who had come to depend on the stream of tourists in the summer?
They’d revolt.
They’d come to the castle, pitchforks in hand, and confront that odd, eccentric man. He wouldn’t be able to ignore them as he ignored her. He wouldn’t be able to stare out of the window in all his naked glory and pretend no one else existed.
The villagers existed.
She existed.
And she’d make damn sure he knew it.
“Sir.”
Lorne decided right then and there: Reid had to go. His constant presence and consistent whining had become more than an irritant. He’d become an obstacle to his work.
He never let anything or anyone obstruct his work.
“Sir.”
The man had been handy in the kitchen, he would give him that. He’d gone to the store in town and come back with adequate staples. He’d produced sandwiches and salads and some kind of heated meat whenever Lorne stated he was hungry.
But on balance, it wasn’t enough.
“Ye can return to London.” He kept his concentration on the three monitors streaming his code.
“Leave you?” Reid’s voice rose. “I can’t go. You need me.”
He did not. He was quite sure of that. Hunger could be satisfied easily. The legal papers had been drawn up and filed. The woman would have received the paperwork earlier today. His solicitor had served his purpose, and he was now a distraction.
A particular piece of code caught his eye, and he stopped the stream with one click.
“Mr. Ross.”
He felt the heat of him right by his elbow. The man had come too close. “Go away.”
The solicitor huffed. “There are some people to see you.”
The code was off somewher
e. He ran his gaze over the data, searching for the error.
“They are insisting on talking to you.”
There. He shifted his fingers onto the keyboard and fixed the problem.
“Sir.”
Hadn’t he been clear? Why did people not take him at his word? Why did they insist on fabricating additional motivations or pretending there were alternative meanings to what he said?
“Mr. Ross.”
Lorne clicked off the computer and turned in his chair, putting his back to the man. He would have to escort Reid off the property himself. Standing, he walked to the bedside table where he’d left his phone. He punched one key and lifted the phone to his ear. “Have the limo at the front door in a half hour. Ye will be returning to London with Mr. Reid.”
The older man’s face went slack before turning distressed as usual. “She’s made trouble for you. And you need me here to help you deal with this.”
He placed the phone on the table. For the first time, he heard the voices from below. Loud voices. “She? Trouble?”
“The Llewellyn woman, of course.” The solicitor pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “She’s with them downstairs.”
“Them?”
“I tried to keep them out.” Reid’s hands fluttered as if he were trying to shoo some small children away. “But they came in without my permission.”
“They?”
“The villagers, sir. They only stayed below because I promised them I’d come and get you.”
“What do they want?” Lorne tried to stave off the low throb of panic, yet he knew he hadn’t, because the line of his spine went damp.
“She’s shown them our letter.” The man appeared pained. “They’re unhappy about the cancelation of the castle tours.”
“Why?” He straightened his tie and reached for his jacket.
“The tours bring tourists to the village, Mr. Ross. They bring money with them.”
He should have thought of that. Doc would have. He suddenly wished, with all the passion he usually didn’t bother with, he was back in London.
“I told you this would happen.” Reid’s expression turned smug. “I told you she’d make trouble.”
