Bitten

by Lynsay Sands

  Emily glanced at Mrs. MacBain. Encouraged by her kindly expression, she admitted, “I do not wish to marry the earl. I never have.”

  “Then surely ye don’t have to now?”

  “No, but—” She hesitated, then admitted, “I fear if you contact the earl and I am returned to him, I shall be pressured to honor the agreement and—”

  When she hesitated again, Mrs. MacBain patted her hand with understanding. “Time is what ye need, deary. Time and space to sort the matter and decide how to handle it. And there is plenty of time and space here. It would be nice to have another woman’s company for a bit.”

  Emily felt relief pour over her, then tensed again and asked, “But what of your employer?”

  Mrs. MacBain shrugged that concern away. “It’s doubtful His Laird would notice, let alone mind, if ye stayed on a bit.”

  “His Laird? Your employer is a lord?” Emily asked with surprise.

  “Well, no. Not any more.” Her gaze skittered away from the curiosity in Emily’s face and she said, “Anyway, don’t worry about the master. He’s never about during the day and is often out at night, feeding. It’s most likely you’ll be sleeping while he’s prowling about.”

  Feeding? Prowling? Emily was confused by the woman’s odd choice of words and would have asked about them, but Mrs. MacBain distracted her by giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. Then the older woman stood and moved to the chest at the foot of the bed.

  “Yer dress was quite ruined by the storm, but there is surely something suitable here for ye to wear.” She began sorting through the contents of the chest as she spoke. The housekeeper fished out, examined, and discarded several gowns as apparently unsuitable before settling on a pale blue one with a matching girdle and long draping sleeves.

  “Take yer time about eating, dear,” Mrs. MacBain said as she set the gown across the foot of the bed. “Once ye’ve finished and changed, come below to the kitchens and I shall show ye to the library. The master is an avid reader, so there’s quite a selection to entertain ye.”

  “About your master,” Emily said as the woman moved toward the door. “I should like to speak to him, to thank him for rescuing me.”

  A cloud seemed to pass over the woman’s face, then she forced a smile and waved a hand in an attempt at airy dismissal. “Oh, la. He willna be around until dar. . . dinnertime, but ye can speak to him then.”

  “Dinnertime?” Emily smiled. “No doubt it’s your cooking that brings him home.”

  Another shadow crossed the woman’s face at Emily’s attempted compliment, but all she said was, “He prefers to dine out. Still, he’ll be here then.”

  Leaving Emily to wonder why anyone with such a marvelous cook would prefer to seek his meals elsewhere, the housekeeper slid out into the hall and softly closed the door.

  Emily peered around the room she had slept in, hardly aware of how gloomy it was anymore. She was free. That thought kept running through her mind, and yet Emily had been resigned to her fate for so long that she could hardly believe it had changed. She didn’t have to marry the earl of Sinclair.

  Smiling, she pushed away from the table and stood. She was quite full and finished with her meal, but there were things to do here. Emily was grateful to Mrs. MacBain for allowing her the time to sort out her situation, but wouldn’t add to the woman’s work. She was young and strong and would earn her keep by helping about the castle. And she would start by taking the breakfast tray below to the kitchen.

  Keeran woke the moment the last rays of sunlight disappeared beyond the horizon. For a moment he lay quiet and still, listening to the activity in his home. There was a hum of energy on the fringes of his consciousness that he’d been aware of through his sleep, a stirring in the air that told him something was different. He usually awoke to the soothing awareness of the MacBains’ calm presence somewhere in the keep, but this night was different. While he was aware of the older couple, their energy was less calm than usual, less soothing. There was an underlying excitement to their life force. There was also a third presence in his home. He knew it was the girl from the boat. She had been asleep when last he’d awoken, her presence quiet and undisturbing. Tonight, he could feel the energy pouring off of her in waves that permeated almost every corner of his castle. She was awake—that was obvious—and would now have to be dealt with.

  Keeran tried to concentrate on her energy and sense exactly where she was in the castle, but found himself unable to. Her vibration seemed to fill his home. That realization made him scowl. He was usually able to sense where individual souls were, but this woman seemed somehow different.

  He pushed the loose lid of his coffin aside and sat up, regretting that he had brought her here. Keeran hadn’t intended to, but then he hadn’t planned on rescuing damsels in distress in the first place.

  He’d been returning to the castle after the hunt, eager to get in out of the rain and wind, when Keeran had heard her screams. 1 hey’d seemed distant at first. Recognizing that they were coming from the coast, he’d turned in that direction. Her cries had become louder the closer he’d got, until by the time he reached the shore it was as if she were screaming in his ear. She hadn’t, of course, and he hadn’t even been hearing her with his ears, but she had a strong mind and her distress had reached him clearly. Keeran had quickly taken in the situation. A ship was in trouble on the water. He’d known at once that she was the only one left alive and had sensed that the ship was about to shatter on the coral reef that had taken so many other ships over the years.

  Before he’d even known what he intended to do, Keeran was on the ship freeing her. He had removed her to shore, planning to lay her beneath a tree on the beach for someone to find in the dawn. The villagers would have realized that she was from the ship, but would have assumed that she had somehow managed to make it ashore. As for the girl, she had been a drowned rat, already half-dazed when he’d reached her, but the blow she’d taken to the head as he’d untied her from the mast had knocked her unconscious. Keeran had felt sure she wouldn’t recall his presence on the ship, or—if she did—would believe she’d imagined him.

  However, Keeran’s plan to leave her there on the beach had died when his drowned rat had stirred as he knelt to lay her in the sand. She had opened pain-filled eyes and peered straight at him with a sort of wonder that had made him pause.

  “You saved me. Thank you.” It was all she’d said before drifting back into unconsciousness, but he’d found himself staring at her, unable to abandon her. Then he’d peered down to see that her hand clasped his, holding him like a child clinging to her mother. Trusting that she would be safe.

  Strangely reluctant to leave her alone and defenseless, he had straightened with her still in his arms and carried her home in the predawn hours to be left in his housekeeper’s care.

  When he had awoken last night, Keeran’s first thought had been of her. He’d been concerned when Mrs. MacBain informed him that the girl had slept through the day and had yet to awake. Then he had thought she might perhaps awaken during the night and not know where she was. To prevent her suffering any unnecessary alarm, he had foregone his usual nightly hunt and watched over her through the night, disappointed when the approaching dawn had forced him from her side.

  He now told himself that his disappointment had only been because he was eager to learn what he needed to know to see her back to her people and out of his home. Keeran preferred his life to move along in an orderly and routine fashion and knew instinctively that this woman’s presence would disrupt that. And as he had feared, she already had. That realization filled him with irritation as he left the hidden room where he rested during the day. The energy pouring off of his guest was stronger than any he had felt in a long while. He found himself drawn to it and annoyed by it at the same time.

  Keeran made his way to the stairs leading to the first floor at a quick clip. He had every intention of speaking to his unwanted houseguest, finding out who she was and where she belonged, and making
the necessary arrangements to return her there as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Two

  Emily finished scrubbing the last little bit of the dining room floor, then sat back on her haunches and wiped her forehead with a sigh. She was hot and weary from hard work, but she was also deeply satisfied. She had gotten a lot done this afternoon.

  It had taken a good deal of talking and cajoling, but Emily had finally convinced Mrs. MacBain to allow her to help about the castle. She had then taken a quick tour of the first floor of the castle before deciding on starting in the dining room. Mrs. MacBain had told her earlier that she only bothered with the kitchens, library, hallways, and the office, but still Emily had been dismayed at the state of the dining room, which obviously hadn’t been cleaned in years, perhaps decades. It had taken little thought to decide that this room was where she should start her efforts, and she had set to it with a vengeance. In the one afternoon, she had swept and washed the stained and cobwebbed walls, cleaned the paintings, polished the oak table and chairs, and scrubbed the stone floor.

  Her gaze slid around the now-pristine room, and Emily smiled faintly. A new coat of paint would have been nice, but the room was much improved. So much so that she felt sure that Mrs. MacBain’s employer might see his way clear to joining her in dining there this evening. At least, she certainly hoped so. She would be pleased to have a word or two with the man.

  Emily grimaced at that thought. Earlier in the day she would have liked to dine with him so that she might thank him for rescuing her. But after her tour of the castle, she wanted to discuss an entirely different matter altogether. Specifically, his lack of consideration for his staff. Emily could not believe the amount of work that the elderly housekeeper tended to on her own. Most castles boasted a chef concerned only with the daily task of cooking, their time taken up with baking bread and making the full-course meals the lords, ladies, and other wealthy employers demanded. Mrs. MacBain did this daily, plus all the other chores a full staff would be expected to do: dusting, sweeping, scrubbing. This castle was huge and old and even with only part of the ground floor to tend to, the task was herculean. The ground floor alone consisted of the kitchens, an office, two separate salons, a sitting room, a dining room, a long book-filled library, a ballroom, and various other miscellaneous chambers. Some of the rooms were obviously kept closed, the dining room among them, but the others were spotless, obviously dusted and scrubbed daily.

  Then there was Mr. MacBain. While collecting the paraphernalia she would need to clean the dining room, Emily and Mrs. MacBain had chatted. Along with learning that Mrs. MacBain’s employer was “Laird Keeran MacKay—who was no longer a lord” for reasons that the older woman had somehow avoided explaining, Emily had learned that while Mrs. MacBain had the duties inside the house, Mr. MacBain tended the stables, yard, and everything else without help as well.

  Emily had hidden her dismay from Mrs. MacBain, but inside she was seething over the situation and could not believe that Laird Keeran MacKay—who was no longer a lord—could be so cruel. She could understand that financial setbacks might make the man thrifty, but this was ridiculous. The couple were too old to be working this hard, and she intended to tell the man so when he returned to the castle this evening. The only question in her mind was whether she should do so before or after thanking him for saving her life.

  “What the devil are you doing?”

  Emily’s heart leapt into her throat and she jerked around on her knees at that sharp question from the doorway. She hadn’t heard anyone approaching and was taken completely by surprise to find herself staring at the handsome, dark-haired man with the sad eyes. However, his eyes weren’t sad at the moment, rather they were cold with what might have been fury. And while he was handsome, the planes of his face were sharp and harsh as if chiseled from marble, definitely not the softer face from her memory. He looked more like an avenging angel than the angel of mercy who had saved her. Still, there was no mistaking this man as anyone but Keeran MacKay, the man who was no longer a lord.

  “Well?”

  The sharp question startled Emily out of her temporary paralysis and she blurted the first thing to come to mind. “Cleaning.”

  This answer only seemed to infuriate the man further. “I have servants for that. You are not expected to sing for your supper, nor clean for it. Get off my floor.”

  Flushing with embarrassment, Emily struggled to her feet, nearly losing her balance and falling when her legs cramped in protest at being on her knees for so long. Only the quick reaction of her host as he stepped forward to take her elbow in a hard grip kept her on her feet until she had regained her legs. This only increased Emily’s humiliation. Where moments ago she had felt pride in her accomplishment, she now felt shame at her weakness and her rumpled condition. Her first meeting with her savior and host wasn’t going at all as she’d planned. For one thing, she’d intended to clean up and make herself presentable before meeting him. For another, she had never imagined finding herself feeling at such a disadvantage. But then, she had never expected the man to be offended at her efforts to help Mrs. MacBain.

  Reminded of the older woman and the unrealistic expectations of the man now glaring at her, some of Emily’s embarrassment faded, being quickly replaced with righteous anger.

  “Yes. You have servants,” she agreed grimly. “Two servants expected to tend to this entire castle and its grounds. Surely you must realize that one poor elderly couple cannot tend to all this work on their own? They need help, and since you haven’t seen fit to hire them assistance, I took it upon myself to do so to show my gratitude for how kind they have been.”

  She paused and huffed out a little breath, then sucked more air deep into her lungs, holding it there briefly in an effort to regain her temper. Emily had the mildest of temperaments. It was very hard to stir her anger, but she could not stand injustice of any sort and the situation the MacBains suffered here was ridiculously cruel in her mind. This man was working them into the grave. Though, she admitted to herself, he might not be wholly aware of the fact. Men seemed to be ever oblivious to domestic matters, and she realized his cruelty might merely be a matter of thoughtlessness. That possibility calmed her enough that she tried for a conciliatory tone as she said, “If it is a matter of financial distress—”

  “I assure you I suffer no such distress,” he snapped, obviously insulted at the suggestion, and Emily felt her temper shoot up again.

  “Then it must be that you are simply a skinflint, my lord. Saving money on the backs of the MacBains.”

  A gasp from the doorway drew her attention to the elderly woman now standing there. The alarm on Mrs. MacBain’s face and the direction of her gaze made Emily aware that—in her upset— she had been poking her host in the chest. Flushing, she withdrew her finger, cleared her throat, and stepped back, suddenly finding herself unable to look at the man she had just been berating.

  Keeran turned away from Mrs. MacBain’s alarmed expression and back to the woman before him. He had walked the earth for well over two hundred years and had never before met a woman like this one. Unless they were in his thrall, most females quailed before him, acting as skittish as spooked colts. But, while she was pale and stiff, this woman showed no signs of quailing any time soon. He was scowling his displeasure at this when it suddenly occurred to him why she was different from all other women. The girl was daft, of course. She’d been left strapped to that mast out in the wind and rain too long. Obviously all the banging about had shaken her senses. The waves had probably washed the brains right out of her head.

  Satisfied with this explanation, Keeran felt himself relax until he peered back to his housekeeper and noted that she was still looking alarmed, as if she feared he might take a bite out of the woman right there in front of her. He hadn’t seen that expression on her face in a good thirty years—not since she had gotten used to him and concluded that he would not harm her. To see it there now upset him almost as much as his guest’s lack of fear dis
combobulated him.

  “I—” Mrs. MacBain glanced from him to the tray she held, then to the woman who had been berating him just moments ago. “I was just... I thought—”

  Irritated, Keeran waved her explanations away and moved past her out of the room. He was upset by both his housekeeper’s anxiety and all these changes in his home. Keeran disliked being upset. He enjoyed peace and quiet. He preferred routine, the same routine day after day. That being the case, it was not surprising that at that moment he wished for nothing more than to send his unwanted houseguest home and—

  Dear Lord, he had forgotten to find out where she belonged, he realized, and came to a halt. The woman had so overset him that he hadn’t asked the questions he’d intended to. He turned to peer back up the hall and could hear the hushed conversation taking place in the dining room. Mrs. MacBain was asking rather nervously what had taken place. She also addressed the girl by name. Emily. A pretty name for a pretty girl who was now admitting that she had taken him to task for his lack of consideration in regard to his staff.

  Shaking his head in wonder that she had dared to do so, Keeran turned away and continued up the hall. He would talk to the girl later, after he had fed. Every time she had blushed or flushed, a wave of hunger had rolled over him, making him almost faint. He would feed, calm down, then sit her down and talk to her. Hopefully by that time she would be calmer, and possibly would have those smudges washed off her nose and cheeks. She had been annoying, but she had also looked rather adorable with the smudges. It had been a long while since Keeran had found anyone adorable.

  “Oh, child.”