The Iron Rose

by Marsha Canham

  “You had ghosts?”

  A sinfully roguish smile crept across his face. “Ask Beacom if you doubt me. He’ll tell you there are noises and odd occurrences that cannot be explained, and he is convinced one of our more shadowy ancestors crept into his room some nights and rearranged his belongings while he slept. It was just brushes and shoes in the beginning, but then desks and chairs started moving. Once, his entire suite was reversed and when he rose to relieve himself, he did so in his wardrobe by mistake. It drove him quite mad for a while. He even threatened to leave Harrowgate Hall and seek employment elsewhere but Father said he was far too valuable a man to lose and sent me away to school instead.”

  Juliet’s eyes sparkled. “You were the ghost?”

  “He was easy prey, as you can imagine.”

  Juliet was imagining far more than he was inviting her to do. She was imagining him as she had seen him when she stormed back to the house, his arms still clutched around the bolster pillow she had given him as a substitute when she crept out of bed earlier that morning. Seeing him like that, realizing he would still be holding her so closely had she stayed, had taken the wind out of her sails, had stripped her of her anger, had left her standing there in the doorway feeling helpless and bereft.

  Some of that helplessness flooded back now as she gazed into the midnight eyes. His face was unreadable, his thoughts untouchable, and she had no way of knowing if he was aware of how the blood pounded sluggishly through her veins each time he looked at her. Indeed, why should he? He’d made no attempt to touch her or broach the subject of what had happened between them last night. True, she hadn’t mentioned it either, not directly, but that was only because she did not know quite what to say. It was also true that he did not need to touch her. The simple act of him standing there looking at her made her feel as if his hands were running up and down her body, stroking the tender places, making them hunger for more.

  He smiled, and after a small hesitation, she smiled back.

  “We can take the easier way down, if you like,” she said casually.

  “I am entirely in your hands, Captain.” He bowed slightly and when he straightened, she caught her breath, for the guarded look in his eyes was gone. In its place was something else, an apology perhaps—to her, to himself—for his inability to pretend he did not want something that he wanted very much indeed.

  Juliet felt a shiver deep down inside. It was a strangely isolated sensation, for the rest of her body had gone suddenly numb. She was vaguely aware of him moving closer, of his hand reaching out to catch at a lock of hair that had blown across her face. He tucked it behind her ear, then smoothed the backs of his fingers along her cheek and the resultant thrill of pleasure that rushed down her spine nearly took her down onto her knees.

  Seconds ticked away on heartbeats and still he held her at arm’s length. Then, just as he slipped his hand beneath her chin to tip her mouth up to his, she shook her head and warned him away.

  “There are lookouts on every point of every ridge around the island. Easily six or seven are watching us right now.”

  He dragged his eyes away from her face with an effort and looked along the crest of rocks. She could see by the way his gaze flickered, then halted, flickered, then focused again that he located at least two of the sentries.

  His thumb caressed her chin and without looking back at her, he murmured, “Then you might very well have to carry me back down the hill, Captain, for I am not altogether sure I can walk without grave difficulty.”

  Juliet glanced down. A second welter of prickles and shivers washed through her body and it was with some difficulty of her own that she took a subtle step back, then turned and started walking down the path.

  Varian’s hand remained hovering in empty air for a long moment and did not drop to his side until the crunch of her footsteps had faded away. He hung his head a moment and cursed his own stupidity, then forced himself to follow after her.

  The path she had taken wound around the outer rim of the rocks where there were fewer trees and sharper breezes, but the descent was markedly less steep and gave the hardness in his body a chance to ease. Twice Varian caught sight of her ahead of him, but then he would round a bend or traverse a clutter of rock and she would be gone. He continued to curse himself ten ways to Sunday and almost missed the narrow fork in the trail that broke off from the main route. Something lying on the path caught his eye and he slowed.

  It was Juliet’s sword belt.

  He hurried forward and picked it up, a flash of alarm sweeping through his body as he unsheathed the blade and looked around.

  He searched the path, the surrounding bushes …

  There! Just ahead, something else …

  It was a boot. A tall black knee boot, and ten yards farther on, its mate.

  Almost running now, Varian’s first thought was that a wild animal had been stalking them, had leaped out of the bushes and attacked her. His second, more rational but equally paralyzing thought was that it might have been a two-legged animal lying in ambush. An animal who could remove a belt and boots and …

  A splash of white turned him off the path and had him slashing through the tangle of ferns and vines to snatch Juliet’s shirt off the branch. He saw an opening just ahead, hardly more than a deep fissure in the wall of rock, and looked around one more time, his fist gripping the hilt of the sword.

  There was no one else in sight. There had been no sounds of a struggle, no torn branches to suggest she had been dragged here against her will. He looked at the shirt again and realized how precisely it had been placed, with an arm stretched out and pointing to the crack in the rocks. He glanced at the boots, at the belt, and realized they had all been left as markers as well, guiding him toward the fissure.

  Bending low, he ducked through the split in the wall. Ten feet on the other side, he emerged into a cavern, the ceiling rising to a thirty-foot vault, the sides spanning fifty or more feet across. The earthy smell of damp stone and thick moss mingled with the warm steam that rose off the pool that took up much of the space inside. Although there were no torches, no visible cracks in the ceiling overhead, no other sources of light that he could see, the water shimmered an iridescent green. It was so clear he could see the pale, sandy bottom and the dark coiling shape that streaked below the surface.

  Juliet rose to the top with one strong stroke, her hair and face streaming sheets of water. She saw him and swam easily to the side, where it was shallow enough to stand. There, she rose like some gleaming marble goddess, her skin shining, reflecting green lights from the pool, her hair clinging in a sleek curtain down her back and over her shoulders. She walked right up to him, naked as a sea nymph, and drew his mouth down to hers.

  The kiss was brief, lush, and full of wicked promises as she smiled and backed slowly into the water again, the steam curling around her thighs like soft caressing fingers.

  “You will forgive the brief delay, will you not? Everyone on the island would have known within the hour that you kissed me and I let you.”

  Varian waved the sword ineptly. “You had me worried that some wild beast had caught you and dragged you off into the bush.”

  “Like most who bear the Dante name, I am not that easy to catch.” She laughed once, then dived beneath the surface and streaked away.

  Wordlessly, Varian thrust the sword back in its sheath and set it aside. He stripped off his shirt, tugged off his boots, flinging them into the moss, then peeled his breeches down, hopping through a moment of acute discomfort as his enormous erection sprang free.

  Juliet was on the far side of the pool, her body hanging in the water, her hair spread out in a wet fan around her shoulders. When she saw him walk into the soft sand, she jackknifed under again and vanished briefly in the shadows below.

  Varian’s long body cut cleanly through the water, reaching the spot where he had last seen her in a matter of a few powerful strokes. He trod water for a few moments, trying to see through the filtered layers of light
and shadow to where she might be hiding, but did not see her until a splash told him she was back on the opposite bank.

  Twice more they crossed paths, with Juliet spending more time under the surface than above. She brushed by his leg once and escaped, but the second time he was able to grasp her around the ankle and haul her back to where his feet could touch bottom. Slippery as an eel, she wriggled free again, and would have swum away if he had not planted his feet in the sand and pointed an ominous finger.

  “Stay right where you are, dammit.”

  She watched him walk toward her, the sand kicking up in small clouds around his feet. It sparkled like a million shards of glass, lit by the same unknown source that fed light into the cavern.

  When he reached her side, there was no preamble, no teasing foreplay. He cupped his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her against his body, bringing her down with gentle ferocity over the straining thickness of his flesh. His mouth was there to cover her gasp, and to turn her husky groan into soft, shallow sighs.

  Juliet wrapped her legs around his thighs, tightly enough he needed only one hand to support her while the other rose and cradled the nape of her neck. His mouth was warm and ravenous. His hands were strong and very sure of themselves as they began to move her back and forth over his flesh.

  A shamelessly feverish cry had Juliet flinging her head back, gasping a plea into the steamy shadows above. The water began to churn around them with the movement of her hips, and a twisting, writhing effort to bring him even deeper inside ended with both of them clinging steadfastly to one another, not wanting a single shiver or spasm to go unspent.

  Varian held her until the hot, pulsing contractions of her climax faded into warm shudders, then with her body still quivering around his, carried her to the bank of the pool and lowered her onto the cool bed of thick moss. He ignored her faint whispers of protest when he eased her legs from around his waist and draped them over his shoulders. He kissed his way down the trembling length of her body until his face was buried between her thighs, and when the cavernous walls echoed with her cries again, when he was hard and thick and strong enough to give her all the pleasure she could bear, he surrendered himself completely to the passion that was Juliet Dante. He thrust himself eagerly into the explosion of light that burst behind his eyelids and to the dark, exquisite peace that followed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Juliet was wakened by the pungent smell from the large booted foot that was planted with a deliberate lack of care beside her nose.

  She opened her eyes and followed the leather trail up to the amused face of her brother Gabriel. He, in turn, glanced wryly at the nude body of Varian St. Clare and murmured, “I suppose this helps to explain why Jonas and I could not find you last night.”

  She yawned and stretched, then pushed herself up on her elbows. “How did you manage now?”

  “Nathan told me what happened on board the Rose, and when I couldn’t find you at the house, I thought you might have come here … though I confess,” he said after a pause. “I didn’t expect you to have company.”

  She threw a scowl over her shoulder as she stood and waded into the pool. Gabriel looked away with brotherly disinterest as she rinsed the sand and moss off her body, and focused his attention on Varian St. Clare instead.

  Varian had come awake when he heard their voices, and when he recognized the intruder as Gabriel Dante, he searched unsuccessfully in the shadows for his discarded clothing. His shirt lay like a pale blot against the darker green and it was Gabriel who spied it first and plucked it off the moss with the tip of his rapier.

  “I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of a formal introduction,” he said, conveying the garment on the point of his sword. “But then my sister often neglects her manners.”

  Juliet emerged from the water. “Varian St. Clare, his grace the Duke of Harrow; my brother, Gabriel Dante, his grace completely lacking.”

  Gabriel executed a formal bow, something Varian could not do with a bundle of crushed linen clutched about his waist.

  Juliet pulled her own shirt over her head, then found her breeches. “Your concern for my well-being warms me, brother dearest.”

  “You require further warming?” He glanced idly at Varian, who sat immobilized on the mossy bank. “Does he speak at all, or is that another of his appealing qualities?”

  “I am quite able to speak,” Varian said coldly. “It’s just that you have appeared rather suddenly, and—”

  “And now you fear you are in mortal peril of being driven to the chapel at the point of my sword?”

  Varian’s jaw muscles twitched while he groped to find an appropriate response, for that was, indeed, one of many disjointed images that had flashed before his eyes.

  Gabriel did not wait for Varian’s tongue to become unglued from the roof of his mouth before he cocked an eyebrow at his sister. “Good God, Jolly, if you were to marry the swiving fellow, that would make you a duchess, would it not?”

  “The devil himself should geld you,” she said on a sigh, “and slice off your tongue while he is at it, for I would sooner hang all day in a suit of tar and chicken feathers as deal with your misbegotten sense of humor. Furthermore, it isn’t as if you have never been caught with your breeches down around your knees, brother dear.”

  “No, but all men are lusty beasts and it’s expected, whereas you—” He touched a finger to the side of his nose. “You’re a sly minx and lead all the louts to think the only blade you crave is the one that hangs in their baldrics.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Unless you want to answer to my blade, you will keep your tongue firmly between your teeth and say nothing about this to anyone.”

  “Ah. And just what would my silence on this trifling matter be worth, dear sister?”

  “Two unblackened eyes and two unbroken legs.”

  Gabriel’s handsome mouth puckered thoughtfully a moment, then eased into a smile. “A fair trade, all things considered. Shall I assist you in finding your breeches, your grace?”

  “I can manage,” Varian said in a low growl.

  Dante shrugged and resheathed his sword. “Fair enough. I’ll wait outside, shall I? Give the two of you a moment for a final sweet kiss.”

  Juliet hurled a boot at his head, but he ducked in time and hastened toward the exit in the rocks. When she glanced back at Varian, he was stepping into his breeches and it was obvious from the frown on his brow that he was not amused. If the light had been better, she might have said his mouth was white around the edges. The fine patrician nostrils were definitely flared, the jaw was rigid, and when he raked an angry hand through his hair, the veins stood out on his temples like those on a leaf.

  “Out of curiosity, what would happen back in London if a man and a woman were found naked together by a member of her family?”

  “Assuming one was not the king and the other not a milkmaid, they would probably be wed before the week was out.”

  “Even if that man was a duke?”

  Varian avoided meeting her eyes. “If he was a duke or an earl or even a baron, he would most likely try to buy his way out of any further commitment. Unless of course he had a scrap of honor about him.”

  “Are you an honorable man, your grace?”

  He looked up. “I assure you I am prepared to accept full responsibility for my actions.”

  “By marrying me?”

  He straightened slowly and his voice was as brittle as a dry stick. “I will happily discuss the details with your father as soon as I am given an audience.”

  “Without asking me first?”

  The shadows prevented her from seeing more than a faint glint of light from his eyes but she did see that light flicker out for a moment, as if he had closed the lids in utter disgust—at himself for falling into such an obvious trap, and possibly at her for setting it.

  “Of course. Mistress Dante, if you would kindly do me the honor—?”

  Juliet laughed and interrupted before he went any fur
ther. “I would have to rise on a morning and see two suns in the sky before I would even think of marrying you, your grace-ship, and even then it would have to be for a far, far better reason than having spent a few hours naked together. Accept that we have enjoyed our little diversion and leave it at that. Unless, of course, you were hoping a physical dalliance would put me in thrall and win an ally to your cause?”

  “My dealings with your father played no part in this, madam,” he said with quiet resentment.

  “Would you have refused and said, ‘No, no, do not trouble him at a time like this,’ had I taken you to him this morning, all a-blush like a blissful puppy, and insisted he listen to your pleas for peace?”

  Varian shook his head, having gone from one ludicrous situation to another so fast he could barely keep up. “No. No … I … I doubt I would even have been able to face your father this morning, much less convince him to obey an edict from the king. Damn and blast, woman”—he twisted his hands into his hair in a gesture of frustration—“you were right! After what happened on board the Argus, I am not even certain I want to convince him. I am half inclined to encourage him and every other pirate and privateer who hunts in these waters to sally forth and smash the treaty to a million bits. Smash it hard, and smash it well enough that Spain will never recover!”

  For several long seconds, the startling declaration was met with silence, the only intrusion a faint blip blip of water dripping down the stone wall.

  “But of course, I cannot do that,” he said, blowing out a harsh breath. “I am bound by my oath to present your father with the unpleasant alternatives he faces if he refuses to comply with the terms of the king’s Act of Grace.”

  “Act of Grace?”

  “An amnesty, if you will. A complete pardon for all past transgressions to every privateer who agrees to return to England until such time as a system of fair and lawful trade can be negotiated by the kings of England and Europe.”