Draycott Eternal

by Christina Skye

  Ian’s pulse slammed hard. As always, she tore him into tiny pieces. One smile, one touch was all it took. He shoved off his kilt and went to work on her lingerie. “Then we’ll have to be certain they don’t find us. Actually, I was thinking of somewhere besides the bed. The kitchen, perhaps. Or maybe the back stairs.”

  Jamee’s hair spilled back in a wild flow of amber as she fitted herself to him. “We tried the floor last time, and I think I still have a splinter in my hip. I know I found two in your thigh.”

  “I liked the way you removed them.” His hands cupped her hips. “You have a lovely mouth.” Silken muscles rippled, making his pulse slam dangerously. Ian made a harsh sound somewhere between pain and ecstasy. “Among other things.”

  Jamee arched, seating him deeper, inch by sleek inch. Her fingers slid through the warm hair at his chest, then meandered lower, where their bodies met. “I could say the same for you, Scotsman.”

  Ian closed his eyes as she traced his heat. When she tightened around him, desire leaped to the flashpoint. “God, Jamee. Do any more of that and I’m either going to die or explode.”

  “Exploding sounds good,” she breathed. “You do that very nicely, as I recall. At least you did that night in the car when we drove back from visiting Duncan and Kara. Maybe next time I should wear something in black. All lace and transparent, revealing more than it conceals. And satin garters—”

  Her breath whooshed free as he twisted and caught her beneath him, pinning her to the white sheets. “Garters would probably kill me,” he growled. “They did last time.” He tensed his body, easing his hard length nearly free.

  “Ian, what did the doctor say? I know he called just before Adam and William arrived. Tell me about the tests.”

  “Later,” he growled.

  Her hips rose, seeking his heat.

  “Now I just want to watch you and feel you lose control.”

  It was impossible to say who moved first. Desire darkened Jamee’s eyes as Ian pressed within her. When she tightened, fighting to hold him, Ian decided explosion was a very real possibility. “I have those measurements for the new looms. They arrived this morning.”

  “Later,” she whispered, sliding her hands into his hair as she drew him deeper. “I’m too busy making love to a mad Scotsman who keeps managing to sneak into my bedroom.”

  Sweat dotted Ian’s brow as the hot, heavy pulse of release drove closer. He claimed her mouth, all his control lost, desperate to lose himself in the feel and scent of her as he palmed the skin where their bodies joined.

  Damp skin parted. He traced the tight bud. Retreated, teased slowly.

  Her breath caught in a gasp. As pleasure spiraled through her, Jamee rose against him, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “I love you, Glenlyle. Love you—love you—love you. Don’t ever forget it.”

  HE WATCHED HER SLEEP. Around her the guttering candles outlined the furry faces of the bears piled over the chairs, tables and bed. Her rest was calm, untouched by nightmare fears. There was no sign of the tremors or haunted walking Ian had seen that first day at Draycott Abbey in Adam Night’s harrowing video.

  The wind whispered against the deep windows while the fire crackled beneath mantels green with yew. Ian sank into a wing chair beside the bed and rested his chin on his palm.

  Watching Jamee sleep.

  A silver ball hanging above the fire turned slowly in the currents. Snow hit the window like the brush of soft fingers.

  As Ian watched, her hand cupped a threadbare toy, the same battered bear he had slept with every night until he was eight. So she could feel what he had felt going to sleep, she had explained.

  Ian slid his fingers over his jacket pocket and felt the outlines of the embossed leather box he had brought from the bank vault in London. A family heirloom, the beaten silver band was crowned with three winking sapphires the same shade as Jamee’s eyes when she was furious.

  Or when she spun away into passion beneath him.

  Beside him on the side table lay the thick file that had arrived that morning. The pages were crammed with scientific terms like idiopathic and indeterminate progression and acute phase completion.

  The meaning was far simpler.

  His vision was stable, color perception fixed at eighty percent of normal.

  No explanation why.

  The miracle that had begun on Blind Laird’s Rock had not wavered. Ian had no doubt that he had been cured by Jamee’s love that chill dawn.

  Faint images teased his mind. Falling snow and angry men. Warhorses that clattered through Glenlyle’s courtyard. Ian wondered if there might not be other sources of the miracle he had experienced—sources that dated to a far earlier age, when love had been betrayed and loss had left a man’s heart closed to light. Perhaps love truly did abide, reaching out from beyond the veil of time. Sometimes in dreams Ian could almost remember the pain of that loss and the look of a woman’s face lit by firelight. At such times, he felt with utter certainty that the legend of the doomed lovers was untrue. They had been betrayed not by each other but the hatreds of a primitive clan system that declared two people eternal enemies, no matter the yearning of their hearts.

  Color flashed at the corner of his eye. He studied the ancient McCall tartan hanging proudly above Jamee’s head, its colors faintly softened by age and handling. The heirloom wool had been passed down among the McCalls for generations, said to be the work of a local weaver of extraordinary skill, and its design had been preserved on all later family setts.

  The creation of one Maire MacKinnon.

  Ian still remembered how Jamee’s eyes had softened when she had touched the plaid. Perhaps the source of her skill lay earlier than either of them had guessed, deep in Glenlyle’s sad past.

  No matter. Her nightmares were banished, along with his own. Now her chest rose and fell slowly and her breathing was relaxed.

  No more walking in her sleep. No more cold memories.

  Ian smiled crookedly. The only thing that hadn’t changed was her habit of draping herself over him in the night like a soft, pliant blanket. More than once he had awakened to find her breath warm at the hollow of his neck and her thighs nestled between his.

  Her trust had been absolute.

  His desire had been instant and painfully evident.

  Ian smiled at some of the more unusual ideas she had come up with for resolving that pain.

  Abruptly the covers stirred. Jamee blinked sleepily. “What are you doing over there?”

  “Watching you sleep.”

  “I never did like spectator sports.” She sat up slowly. “Come back to bed. We’ll try for a team effort.”

  As the cover slid from her shoulders, Ian saw the curve of one full breast gilded in the firelight. “After what just went on in front of the fire, I might not have anything left.”

  Her grin was swift. “If you’re fishing for a compliment, you’ve got one, McCall. You’ve been voted the player most likely to succeed.” Her eyes slanted downward. “Definitely.”

  He loved how she smiled. He loved her cheeky laugh and unshakable generosity. Most of all, he loved the confidence that now shone in her eyes. “No more nightmares?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head, rising to hold out her arms. “Must be because of my bodyguard.” Her eyes narrowed as she saw the file beside him on the table. “What are those papers? Ian, is it the new reports? Did the doctor—” She was across the room in a second, her body draped over his.

  Ian wrapped a vast tartan around her as he settled her in his lap. “It’s the reports.”

  “What do they say? Blast it, why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  “Because, my lovely Jamee, I had more important things on my mind.”

  She glared. With every slide of her warm hips, fire began to uncoil through him anew. “More important than the results of your eye exam?” She gave him a shake. “What do they say?”

  He gave her the full medical jargon.

 
; She frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “That I’m cured. Color will remain at my current level.”

  With a ragged breath Jamee sank down against his chest. “You’re not making this up to humor me?”

  “I wouldn’t dare. You’d send those bloodthirsty brothers of yours after me.”

  “You bet I would, if I thought it would help. But it wouldn’t. You’re too stubborn, too independent and far too generous.” She moved against his legs. “And I wouldn’t change you for a million pounds.”

  Ian filled his lungs with her scent, a haunting mix of bergamot and roses, feeling desire pool thickly at his groin.

  Her voice fell. “I can’t help but think about him sometimes. Rob. I mean, Thomas Starkey.”

  “He was a lonely, mixed-up boy, Jamee. He and his brother found someone to hate, someone to take the darkness out of their life. They only wanted you because hurting you would hurt Adam most.”

  She shivered slightly, and Ian’s hands tightened.

  “I wish things might have been different.”

  He didn’t answer, knowing that evil was sometimes as certain as good. But Jamee didn’t need to know that. In fact, Ian meant to spend the rest of his life seeing that she had no opportunity to learn.

  She shook her head and frowned. “I might have to change a few things about the workrooms. You need better lighting and central heating. It’s too hard to sew in the cold weather. And Angus and I have been working on those new blueprints for the looms. By widening the work bed, you could double the markets you sell to. I know designers in Paris who would kill to have fabric of Glenlyle’s quality. Tartans are all the rage, you know. Just last month, Armand told me how hard it was to find good wool with a soft drape. When he heard I was coming to Scotland, he asked me to scout some out. Unofficially, of course.”

  “He did, did he?” Ian settled his hand against her back and drew her forward. “Maybe you could convince a hidebound Scotsman to change. Unofficially, of course.”

  Her eyes darkened as she eased her legs around him. “It would be my definite pleasure to try. Do you think we could start…right now?”

  Ian closed his eyes as she moved against him. “There should be something in it for you, I hope.”

  Her laugh was low and husky. “Oh, there’s plenty in it for me. And every inch is absolutely unforgettable.” Her sleek muscles closed around him, sheathing him perfectly. “Unofficially, of course.” She closed her eyes, shivering as Ian buried his fingers in her hair. “You see, miracles really do happen, Ian. Sometimes wishes really can come true. Terence told me all it took was the right dream. Sometimes I almost think I feel him taking care of all of us. I only wish he could see how happy I am now…” She smiled crookedly. “Now that sounds certifiable.”

  “Not a bit,” Ian said. “And why shouldn’t he be here? Glenlyle had seven ghosts at last count.”

  “Ghosts? But you said—”

  “By the way, someone wants to meet you.”

  “Who?”

  Ian said three words.

  Jamee’s eyes widened in shock. “No.”

  “Yes. In fact, it amounts to something of a royal command. She was very taken with those weavings for Balmoral.”

  She froze. “But when—how?” She swallowed hard. “What should I wear to meet her?”

  “What you’re wearing now would be nice,” he said huskily. “But she is advanced in years and might be a little shocked.”

  Jamee looked down, blushing. The only thing she was wearing was a diamond solitaire necklace glinting on a fine silver chain. “All I seem to be wearing is you, my lord. And very pleasantly, I might add.”

  Ian groaned as Jamee’s arms closed around him. Desire speared through him, and he forgot all about three nosy brothers named Night and an impending royal visit.

  Time shimmered, drawing them both deep. Pleasure roared in his ears as the lingering shadows of loss and betrayal were swept away. For a moment, a woman’s laugh seemed to echo up Glenlyle’s dark stone stairs and through the empty halls.

  Above the bed the ancient tartan glimmered in a light that was not from fire or any manmade source. The hum of low, ancient voices rose against the crackle of the flames.

  Jamee did not notice, her body locked to Ian’s.

  Her laird didn’t see, too finely tuned to her soft cries and the satin thread of pleasure that was already unraveling through his own body.

  His fingers tightened. His back arched as he rasped a low phrase of Gaelic.

  Somewhere an off-key tune drifted down the quiet halls and up the stairwell. And if a cat cried far in the snow-swept distance, out beyond the ruined stones of the old well, no one heard but the wind.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1479-2

  DRAYCOTT ETERNAL: WHAT DREAMS MAY COME & SEASON OF WISHES

  Copyright © 2008 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the

  individual works as follows:

  WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

  Copyright © 1992 by Roberta Helmer

  First published by Avon Books in 1992

  SEASON OF WISHES

  Copyright © 1997 by Roberta Helmer

  First published by Avon Books in 1997

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