He waved his hand. “So here I am.”
“And why is that?” She angled her head, studying him. “What are you looking for? What did your mother tell you?”
He looked at her then, and the intensity in his blue gaze made her breath trip. “She claimed I wasn’t her son. Hers or her husband’s—the man I had called father all of my life.”
Her heart squeezed at this declaration, knowing the anguish it must have brought him at the time, a son watching his mother die. She knew full well the effect a parent’s words or actions could have, the way they could haunt you for years—a lifetime even.
“And you think you’ll find answers at this Balfurin?”
“Hugh MacFadden, the clan’s laird…he’ll know. He’ll have my answers,” he replied grimly.
“What did your mother exactly say to you…at the end?”
“A fever struck the ship crossing over. My mother took me from a couple who died a day apart of each other. My real parents were Scottish like them, traveling to America for a fresh start…like them.” He smiled harshly.
She envisioned his adoptive parents, a young couple, indigent crofters like so many in Scotland even now, gambling everything on an uncertain future…and a child that wasn’t of their blood.
“But then everyone who comes to America is after a fresh start.” He glanced at her. “Running from something. Running toward something.”
He fell silent, his gaze returning to the mesmerizing dance of flames. And she knew he was talking about himself now. Knew that he was running away from something…running to something. Even if he didn’t know what.
Just as she was. She’d come to Scotland looking for a second chance. A chance at…
Staring at his face, realization struck her full force. Her lungs squeezed, chasing the breath from her body. A chance at this. Him. Freedom. Love.
She swallowed down her last bit of jerky, not tasting it as it settled heavily in her knotting stomach. Why should she want to return to her old life? When she had sampled freedom with him? As crazy as it sounded, this journey had been the most liberating experience of her life. Because of him.
She was more like her adventuresome mother than she ever realized.
“So you’re here to find your family,” she said, regaining her breath, eager to resume talking, to behave as though she had not just discovered a new, unwanted facet to herself.
His gaze cut to hers, hard and fierce in the muted light. “I had a family.” He flung the twig toward the fire with a vicious swing. “I don’t know why the hell I’m here.”
She dropped her chin back on her bent knees. “I thought I knew what I was doing here. Why I came to Scotland. Now…” her voice faded and she shrugged lightly, the careless gesture so at odds with the turmoil she felt.
He snorted. “I thought your motivation perfectly clear.”
“Yes. To stop Bertram,” she uttered, frowning as she faced a truth she had tried to ignore. “I’ve never held any influence over my husband. Why did I think I could convince him to do the right thing?” A deep sigh rattled from her chest. “In the few moments I had with him before…before he was killed, nothing I said swayed him to cease his charade. He actually offered to pay me if I would simply disappear and pretend I had never seen him.”
“Bastard,” Griffin growled.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought I could accomplish in coming here.”
“At least you did something. You tried. I imagine it’s more than some ladies would do. It took courage.”
She winced. “Courageous, I’m not.”
“Nor kind. Or so you’ve said.” His look turned speculative. “I’ve never met a woman so resistant to hearing herself praised.”
She fixed her gaze on the flames. “I don’t deserve praise.” She drew a ragged breath and confessed, “There’s much you don’t know about me. I’m not a very nice person.” She announced this without self-pity.
“Well, I’ll confess you’ve been a pain in my ass on more than one occasion since we met.”
Her gaze flew to his, astounded that he would speak so plainly. But that was Griffin, she realized. Plain-speaking. No mincing words.
“And,” he continued, “you can freeze a man with a look.” He leaned forward, capturing her gaze. “But I wouldn’t say you were an evil person.”
She smiled half-heartedly.
“But you think so,” he pronounced. “Why?”
She closed her eyes in a slow blink and shook her head. And then she said the words she had not spoken to another soul. Not even to Jane and Lucy…too afraid to see the disappointment in their eyes.
“When Bertram first left, things were…bad,” she explained, at a loss for a better word. “He took anything of value with him. I didn’t know what to do. His grandmother lived with us and she was ailing.” She grimaced. “We could not even afford a physician. Can you imagine? A Dowager Duchess swallowing down Cook’s remedies…I don’t even know if they helped or not.” She paused, wetting her lips. “And then there was Bertram’s sister.”
She gulped down a breath. “She agreed to marry a wealthy merchant. I thought our problems were solved.”
Griffin nodded.
She bit the inside of her cheek, coming to the hard part, the part where she sold her soul for the promise of security and comfort. The part where Griffin would look at her differently.
“Portia backed out.”
“With her own grandmother ill?” He frowned. “Rather selfish of her.”
“That’s what I told myself…how I justified what I did next.”
“Which was?”
She spoke quickly, as if spitting the words out made her actions less dastardly. “I drugged her and helped smuggle her into the merchant’s carriage so he could take her to Scotland and force her to marry him.” She shook her head. “I thought she merely suffered a loss of nerve. That she would come around.”
“Rather desperate,” he commented, his voice mild, lacking the judgment she expected to hear.
She looked at him sharply, expecting to see censure there and finding none. “I did a terrible thing.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But someone needed to be sensible and save the family. It wasn’t as if you could marry the man yourself.” He broke another twig. “It must have baffled you that your sister-in-law did not share your sense of responsibility.”
Blinking, she gave a single jerky nod, wondering how he understood her motivations so well. “Indeed. I would have married him myself if I could have.”
“So what happened?”
“Portia escaped him.” Thank heavens. “Apparently she had engaged the affections of the very wealthy Earl of Moreton. Only I was unaware of their tendre for one another.”
He cocked a dark brow. “Might she not have told you and eased your mind? It might have prevented you from resorting to drugging her.”
Astrid rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know. Portia and I were never close. She was always a dreamer while I was…”
“Practical. Sensible,” he supplied.
She nodded.
“Your sister-in-law and this earl? Did they wed?”
“Yes.” She smiled wistfully. “By all accounts, they’re quite happy. A love match, if you can believe it. So rare among the ton.”
“And here you are.” He flicked his gaze over her worn dress. “Still in dire straights?” It was more statement than question. At her silence, he made a disgusted sound.
“I don’t expect anything from them,” she hurriedly explained. “Not after what I did.”
“Her brother abandoned you. I don’t think it unfair to expect a little assistance considering she is in a position to lend it. Enough at least to put some meat on your ribs.”
“I could never ask—”
“She and her husband should offer.”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“So this is your great sin?” he demanded. For some reason he sounded angry, his voice like a lashing whip. “
Why you insist you’re not a nice person?”
“It’s enough, isn’t it? If Portia had not escaped, she would now be married to the wrong man when she loved another. Then you would not be so quick to shrug off my actions.”
His brow furrowed. “And how is it she escaped?”
She waved a hand. “I’m not sure of all the particulars…I sent the earl after her and—”
“Wait.” Griffin held up a broad palm, shaking his head. “You sent her earl after her? You’re saying you helped save her?”
“Yes, but I’m the one who placed her at risk in the first place.”
“Look, I can see you’re determined to wear the hair shirt for the rest of your life, but think on this: you made a mistake, one not so unforgivable in my estimation, but then you repaired it. That’s all anyone can hope to do.”
She stared at him, amazed he did not find her actions so unpardonable…and tempted to believe they weren’t.
“No.” She shook her head. “I could have never made the mistake in the first place.”
Whether one was sorry or regretful or tried to make amends, failed to signify. Mistakes, her father had taught her, were forever that. A weakness in character not to be overlooked. Which explained why, when her mother sent word that she was stranded and without funds in Paris, he had refused to send for her. He didn’t want her back. Not after her betrayal. A person receives only one chance in life, Astrid, and your mother had hers. She can rot in a French gutter for all I care—a fitting whore’s death.
One chance.
Astrid may not have abandoned her husband and child for the thrill of a lover’s touch, but she, too, had dispensed her share of betrayal. She already had her chance. She’d gone too far with Portia. Her actions couldn’t be undone.
What had she been thinking to come to Scotland? To try and stop Bertram? Like her mother, dead of an unforgiving French winter, redemption was not hers to have.
“Yes, well, life doesn’t work out that way, does it? We’re not perfect creatures,” he bit out.
She stared hard at his furious expression, confused at why he should be so angry.
“We all make mistakes,” he continued. “For some of us, the mistakes are far worse than the one for which you punish yourself.”
“Oh. And what terrible mistakes have you made?” she demanded.
He looked at her intently, the pale blue of his eyes darkening. “I’ve killed. In the war.”
“Soldiers fight. They kill,” she returned. “I wouldn’t call that a mistake. It was your duty.”
“Do soldiers kill women?” The question fell hard, heavy. “Is that part of their duty?
Unease tripped down her spine. Her fingers flexed around her knees. “What do you mean?”
He continued to stare at her, his gaze steady, unflinching…searching. “You remind me of her,” he whispered.
She frowned. “Who?”
“Not your face. Not your hair. But the first time I saw you…I saw her.” He rubbed a finger beneath his eye. “I can’t explain it. It’s the eyes. Dark as coal.”
Her chest tightened, the breath freezing in her lungs. He no longer seemed to see her as he talked. No longer seemed to be with her at all. His gaze drifted over her head.
“Her eyes were so dark. You could see your reflection in them.” His eyes snapped back to her then. “The same as yours. Haunted. Sad.”
“Who?” She asked again, needing to hear, even as she feared his answer.
He shrugged. “I don’t know who she was. A laundress. A prostitute. There were a few women there. Amid the blood and gore.”
“And you killed her?”
“I didn’t save her,” he countered, eyes flashing.
“Another soldier killed her, then,” she surmised. “You can hardly blame yourself for that.”
His eyes locked on hers. “Can’t I? I was there. A party to it all. We won the day. There was no need to keep on killing…to kill her. A woman…” His voice faded to a whisper, but she felt that whisper deep in her own soul. Knew the echo of it, ceaseless, merciless, flaying your heart to ribbons, rendering you useless, worthless for yourself or anyone else.
“My father never looked at me the same way after that.”
“Was he there, too?”
“No, but he heard the stories.” He laughed then, the sound hoarse. “And I told him about her. I shouldn’t have, but I was drunk.”
“I’m sorry, Griffin.”
“You see,” he murmured, his face strangely unmoved as he looked at her, as though he fought to keep emotion at bay. A practice she well knew. “Your sin’s not so great.”
She opened her mouth to tell him neither was his. That he couldn’t blame himself for the actions of other soldiers, that war was ugly for all involved…but something in his eyes stopped her, trapped the words in her throat. Nothing she said could alter his thoughts on the matter. Just as nothing he said could change her.
She slid down against the saddle. Folding her arms over her chest, she turned her face to the side, away from him, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 18
Her eyes flung wide open on the wind of a gasp. She drew another gulp of air deeply into her lungs, starved, desperate for breath as she blinked against the cold night. Moonlight filtered through the treetops. Wind whistled through the rustling leaves.
“Astrid?”
Griffin’s shadow rose beside her. Instantly, she knew him. His touch, his heat, his smell. She knew. She remembered. And she craved more. Again.
His hard arms surrounded her. Wide-palmed hands flexed over her flesh, long-fingered and strong, expertly running along her body, drawing soothing circles on her back and making her breath come quicker.
The nightmare was familiar. Rocks. One after another they came, pressing down on her, pushing the air from her chest. Faces loomed above her, each one adding a rock to the ever-growing mound atop her. Her father. Portia. Bertram.
“Only a bad dream.” Griffin’s deep drawl slid through her, chasing the chill, purging the terror of moments ago, liquefying her bones, imbuing her with a languid warmth, almost as though she had imbibed one too many glasses of sherry.
“I’ve dreamed my share,” he confided, his voice rumbling from his chest and vibrating against her body.
“Yes.” Her fingers tightened their grip on his shirt, pulling him closer. “I imagine you have.”
His breath ruffled her hair.
Her gaze lifted to his. Blue ice glittered down at her, hooded beneath a fringe of ink-dark lashes. Her breath snagged in her throat. He brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek, the rasp of a callused thumb dragging across her skin.
“You said the first time you saw me…you saw her.”
He tensed against her.
The notion of him seeing death—seeing all he believed himself to have failed at in his life—when he looked at her filled her with a gnawing ache. She did not want to inspire ghosts or ill memories.
She wanted to inspire him.
Her fingers flexed against him. “Do you still?”
He spoke, his words rough and deep, feathering against her cheek. “I see you.”
His words sent a small thrill up her spine, igniting a tiny flame of feminine power within her. She nuzzled the cold tip of her nose into the warm skin of his neck with a small sigh, inhaling his manly scent.
“Cold,” he hissed on a strangled chuckle.
Warm me, she thought, pressing herself against the length of him with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
He shifted, hands falling firmly on her arms, distancing her from him.
The fire had burned low, the burnt wood mere embers. Shadows sheltered them, the only light that of the moon and the gleam in his blue eyes.
“Don’t,” he breathed, the single word final, inflexible, for all she barely heard it.
She held his gaze, understanding what he was telling her with that single word…but too aroused from the feel of him, the smell, the look to
care that she was going against the very rules she had set forth.
She snuggled against him, dipping her face into the crook of his neck, parting her mouth so that her breath fanned the swiftly thudding pulse at his throat.
“Astrid,” he warned, his voice a dry whisper, his throat vibrating beneath her lips. “I’m only a man.”
She slid her hands between them, flattening her palms over his shoulders. “That’s all I want you to be.”
With a stinging curse he rolled her onto her back, the full weight of him coming over her, a wall of humming heat pressing her into the tarp as his lips crushed hers.
His hands dropped between them, hiking up her skirts and sliding her drawers down in a rough, anxious move.
Her breath hitched, his eagerness heightening her own desire.
“Are you cold?”
With him? Never. She shook her head fiercely in response.
He paused, taking care to cocoon them beneath the blanket. She felt sheltered, safe, cherished. He braced one arm beside her head. His other hand delved between them to free himself from his trousers. Without a word, she parted her thighs, allowing him to settle between her legs. She tilted her hips, eager and ready for him.
The long heat of him slid inside her in one slick motion. Her breath escaped in a hiss. Her neck arched, coming off the ground.
He held himself still, the fullness of him lodged deeply inside her, pulsing in rhythm with her heart.
She dropped her head back down, rolling her neck side to side, mindless and moaning as he began to move, his rocking thrusts slow and deep, stoking her, building the fire, tormenting her, drawing out her pleasure until she thought she would die if it did not come swifter, harder.
She dug her nails into his taut buttocks, bringing him harder against her, trying to increase his tempo, but he continued his torment, easing out of her in slow drags of heated flesh.
“Griffin,” she wept, lifting her head.
“Say it,” he growled.
“What?” she gasped, senseless, mad with need.
“That you want it. You want me. That you always will.” His tongue swept the curve of her ear in a hot brush.
She moaned again. It was the height of manipulation for him to inveigle such a promise from her when she was lost with need. When she had to have him or die from wanting.
Surrender to Me Page 15
