“De what?” Cilla’s jaw slipped. She resisted the urge to poke her fingers in her ears and wriggle them.
She couldn’t have heard correctly.
Either that or she’d eaten too much of the haggis filling in her chicken ecosse.
“Tell me again.” She eyed him, sure it was the haggis. “Who did you say you are?”
“Sir Hardwin de Studley,” he repeated, his deep burr rolling. “ ’Tis a good Norman Scots name. You won’t hear it much nowadays.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“Friends call me Hardwick.”
That’s even worse! Cilla almost blurted, but before she could, he flicked a finger at the wooden tub and it disappeared, his little sleight of ghostly hand making the words lodge in her throat.
“Since you chose no’ to avail yourself of it.” Sounding as if that were a great shame, he leaned back against the doorjamb and settled himself, his long legs crossed at the ankles.
Cilla stared at him.
He looked much too comfortable lounging so casually in her bathroom doorway.
She couldn’t let him stay that way.
Especially not when he continued his tricks, this time making a quick flipping motion with his wrist, and his shield appeared in his hand. Holding it loosely at his side, he smiled at her.
A curl-a-girl’s-toes kind of smile she knew better than to let get to her.
The man was all smoke and mirrors.
Walking danger, and she wasn’t even going to think about how his mere presence made her tingle.
His burr alone could stir a woman to climax.
She’d been hovering on the edge of one ever since his fingers had slid across her nipples. Heaven help her if those long, skilled-looking fingers ever came anywhere close to her clit.
“Look here, Sir Hard-whoever-you-are, I’ve already told you that your shield trick doesn’t impress me.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “As for beaming yourself in here when I’m trying to shower, that’s just rude.”
“Rude?” Hardwick blinked, the heat in her eyes spearing him.
It wasn’t the kind of simmer he was accustomed to stirring in women.
“I think, lass”—he pushed away from the door and drew himself to his full height—“that you have no idea what it cost me to be here.”
“Then why are you?”
“No’ to see you naked!” The words escaped before he could stop them.
“Oh!” Her cheeks bloomed red. “I don’t believe this!” she cried, scooting past him out the bathroom door.
Hardwick scowled after her.
Good, if he’d vexed her into leaving.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t meant to do it thusly. And watching her dart across the polished—slippery—floor, grab a robe off the bed, and don it in all haste didn’t feel like the triumph it should.
It felt rather lousy.
Never had he seen a lass dress so swiftly. And rarely had he felt such an urge to bite off his tongue. He’d burned to see more of her nakedness. Ever since glimpsing her full, round breasts the possibility had consumed him, unwise as such yearnings were.
He pulled a hand down over his chin, furious with himself and his plight.
“You misheard me.” He spoke to her back, trying to make it better. “I meant, seeing you unclothed is the last thing—”
“So you’re not only rude, but insulting!” She whirled on him, her blue eyes ablaze.
“Holy heather!” He jammed his hands on his hips and stared at her. “You still dinna—”
“I understand perfectly well.” She yanked on the ends of her robe’s belt, making a knot. “And I’ll ask you again. Why did you appear in my bathroom?”
“Because I heard you scream.”
Her eyes rounded. “You were listening at my door?”
Nae, I was guarding it.
The true answer hung unspoken between them. She needn’t know he was troubled by certain goings-on at Dunroamin and meant to look into them.
Or that he hoped doing so would help him to keep his mind off of her.
His mouth twitched on that impossibility.
The great silvery Kyle would sooner dry up and all the noble peaks of the north slip back into the earth before he could put her from his mind.
She’d bespelled him more thoroughly than that wart-nosed, bent-backed bard of old could have done in his wildest conjuring dreams.
Watching her, he almost laughed at his predicament and would have if he didn’t wish to upset her even more. Seeing her naked had nearly undone him. Feeling her sleek warm skin, all smooth and wet beneath his hands when he’d caught her, was a torture he couldn’t risk again.
If he’d held her a moment longer, even the Dark One’s threats wouldn’t have mattered.
As it was, he’d almost nipped and nuzzled her neck when he’d bent to whisper in her ear. He’d even considered slipping a hand between her legs and using one expertly circling finger to show her the kind of bliss a man could give a woman after seven hundred years of experience.
An urge that was surely responsible for causing one of the hell hags to gurgle a laugh from the shower. In the same moment, he caught a whiff of root-dragon’s breath, its foulness chilling his blood.
He blinked against the lingering steam, certain the Dark One’s hags and dragons wouldn’t sneak so openly into this earthly realm. Yet he swore he saw sharp nails and the flash of a scaly tail.
He shuddered, turning back to Cilla when the image faded.
Even now she tempted him.
Damp, disheveled, and wearing a Dunroamin plaid robe with her name stitched across the breast in ridiculously large letters, she stirred him more than any other lass he’d ever known.
Having seen her naked was a gift.
And a worse burden than the curse that had plagued him for so many centuries.
“So?” She was still staring at him, her gaze intent. “Were you eavesdropping or not?”
He frowned. “I have ne’er done the like in my life. Or thereafter.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She swept her hair behind an ear. “Let’s not forget you’re a ghost.”
The words ripped him. “Would that I could.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’d rather hear what you were doing outside my door.”
Hardwick considered how much he should tell her.
“Two lads carried coffers up here earlier and I followed them.” That was certainly true enough. He just didn’t mention he hadn’t liked the looks of them.
Tall, red-haired, and strapping, they’d struck him as too young, too bonny, and—most damning of all—too alive.
“Coffers?” She’d come closer, her blue eyes rounding.
Hardwick blinked, the two youths forgotten.
“Aye, coffers.” He glanced to where the strong-boxes stood near the shuttered windows. “They looked heavy and—”
“Those aren’t coffers.”
He surveyed them carefully, certain they were.
To his surprise, she laughed.
Not a mocking sort of laugh, but a light and breezy kind that slid through him with ease, warming him in ways that were more than dangerous.
“Those are packing crates full of chipped and cracked porcelain.” She went to stand beside them. “Uncle Mac never throws out anything, and he said I could have them. The boys you saw are Roddie and Robbie, Honoria’s nephews. Aunt Birdie mentioned they do odd jobs around the estate. They brought the crates down from the attic.”
Hardwick’s brows drew together. It annoyed him that she knew the lads’ names. Not to mention so much about their business.
Even more irritating, although he considered himself most enlightened to the ways of her world, he’d never heard of packing crates.
Nor had he suspected that Mac MacGhee’s fortunes had turned so poorly that he’d be forced to give his visiting niece damaged goods as a welcome gift.
The very notion made his heart sore.
“They’
re beauties.” She’d opened the lid of one of the coffers—he refused to think of them as anything else—and withdrew a small flowered cup, lovely save the jagged crack in its side and a rather conspicuous chip at the gold-edged rim. “I’ve rarely seen such treasures!”
She held up the cream-colored cup for his inspection. “Er . . . humph.” Hardwick found himself at a loss for a suitable comment.
Instead, he stepped closer and examined the cup.
Decorated with pink roses surrounded by smaller flowers in purple, yellow, and blue, the design enhanced with a scattering of delicate green leaves, it would have been a treasure indeed if not so sadly marred.
Surprisingly, she didn’t appear at all disheartened by the cup’s flaws, which said a great deal about her character. She clearly didn’t wish to offend her aunt and uncle by seeming disappointed in their gift.
Hardwick frowned. He didn’t like the direction his mind was taking.
It served him better when she speared him with that fiery blue gaze.
For one thing, he now knew beyond doubt that a henwife couldn’t claim a hand in the color of her honey-gold hair. That knowledge alone could have dire repercussions if he allowed himself to dwell on how he’d made such a discovery.
It was one thing to imagine a sweet triangle of golden curls topping her thighs, all soft and inviting.
And something else entirely to have seen those curls!
Nor had he yet recovered from the pleasant ring of her laughter. How it’d warmed him. Learning she possessed a caring heart along with her fine curves and other charms was more than he wished to know.
“Here’s another.” She plucked a small flowered plate from deep inside the coffer’s strawlike filling. “Who would have thought Uncle Mac’s attic would hold such gems?”
“No’ I, to be sure.” Hardwick tightened his grip on his shield.
Then, because her delight in the pathetic wares apparently overrode her objections to him, he peered dutifully at the plate when she held it in his direction.
Covered with pink and deep-red roses, again with a few artfully placed green leaves and gold trim, this piece, too, had seen better days. A jagged crack zigzagged across its center, marring its onetime perfection.
She didn’t seem to see the defect.
Far from it; she beamed at the dish, her excitement clearly mounting when she turned it over and studied its underside.
“English.” She ran a finger along the crack, pausing over a line of squiggly black lettering. “Early 1900s, I’m guessing.”
Hardwick’s gut clenched.
She sounded overjoyed that the plate was not only damaged but, considering her time, quite old.
“Uncle Mac isn’t the only one in the family who loves old things,” she mused, her eyes misty. “This”—she hugged the cracked dish to her breast—“is just what I needed.”
“Nae, it isn’t. No’ at all.” Hardwick couldn’t help the denial. Every chivalrous bone in him railed against seeing her so soppy-headed o’er such shameful offerings.
Equally painful was imagining Mac MacGhee’s reaction.
A proud man, the laird surely knew his niece deserved better.
Unable to stop himself now that he’d spoken, Hardwick indicated the two coffers with a flick of his hand. “More’s the pity your uncle couldn’t give you something finer as a welcome gift,” he said, hoping his voice held more sympathy than disapproval. “A maid like yourself ought be welcomed with ropes of shining pearls and glittering gemstones, no’ cracked and chipped bits of cast-off cups and—”
She laughed.
A beautiful golden sound, rich and honey-edged, but damning in its portent.
Somehow—and he didn’t know where—he’d erred.
Just as embarrassing, he’d blethered on like a love-sick calf.
Ropes of pearls and glittering gemstones, indeed!
If Bran had heard him utter the like, he’d be the laughing stock of ghostdom and beyond.
He frowned, already willing himself elsewhere.
Perhaps Mac MacGhee’s armory, where he could claim a chair and let scores of targes glower down at him, each one reminding him of his plight and how he’d best hold his tongue—and his lust—around the laird’s fetching niece.
Or maybe he’d sift himself out to MacGhee’s peat banks and watch for Viking ghosts.
That, after all, had been his original plan before he’d spotted the two redheaded giants, Roddie and Robbie, lugging the coffers abovestairs.
Coffers that had somehow managed to make him look the fool again.
He bristled.
It was a mistake he wouldn’t make a second time.
“Broken china is my passion.” Her words came to him as if from afar.
He watched her return the plate to the coffer, now seeing her and her chipped treasures through the mist beginning to whirl around him.
She didn’t notice as the grayness swirled faster, almost cloaking him.
He could have—should have—simply vanished. Leaving in the mist took longer. But despite his embarrassment, he wanted to savor those last lingering moments to admire how her hair, so glossy and bright, spilled across her face as she bent over her prizes.
His heart squeezed, and he damned his curse.
How he’d love to see those fair tresses spread across her pillow, twine his fingers in the silken strands as he settled himself above her, kissing her. . . .
Then trailing an openmouthed blaze of fire down her naked skin to dip a questing tongue into the slick, sweet heat he knew waited between her thighs.
Hardwick groaned, knowing she’d no longer hear him.
He clenched his fists and drew a tight, uneven breath, willing the mist to spin faster. Once, something hot, dry, and clawlike snatched at his ankle, but he jerked free, keeping his gaze on her.
“The broken china is my work,” she said then, still rummaging in the coffer’s straw. “I make jewelry from antique porcelain.” She picked up a crescent-shaped shard of rich blues, appearing to admire it. “Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, you name it. I even do some wall art, mirrors and stained glass pieces and such. That’s why Uncle Mac gave the boxes to me. Not as a welcome gift.”
Cilla made a sweeping gesture, taking in the paneled bedroom with its clutter of Victorian gothic furnishings. “I didn’t need a welcome present from Uncle Mac. Being here is gift enough,” she added, not mentioning how she’d dreamt of coming to Scotland all her life.
How she hoped her time at Dunroamin would fill the emptiness inside her. And not the void left by Grant A. Hughes III. Since Hardwick’s arrival in her life, she could hardly even picture Grant’s face. But she hadn’t designed a thing—not even a beaded hairpin—in weeks.
And that frightened her.
Her creative well was dry.
“Oh yes.” She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “Being here is exactly what I needed.”
Humph.
The snort sounded muffled, almost more like the wind soughing past the window shutters than Hardwick’s buttery rich burr.
“In return”—she tucked the bit of Delft china back into the crate—“I’ve agreed to teach Dunroamin’s residents how to make broken china jewelry. Aunt Birdie and Uncle Mac hope that if they have something creative to keep them busy, they won’t think so much about the Viking ghosts—”
She broke off and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Heat flamed her face.
Who was she to make light of old folks thinking they saw Viking ghosts running across the moors at night when she was standing in the middle of her bedroom having a conversation with one?
When she erupted in a blaze of orgasmic tingles each time he appeared?
“Oh, man.” Her entire body went cold and hot at the same time.
What she needed to do was tell him to stop materializing everywhere she went. If that was what his sudden appearances out of thin air were called.
She didn’t want to be haunted.
And if she was imagining him, she wanted to stop that, too.
It couldn’t be good for her.
But when she turned around to tell him so, he was gone.
Her jaw started to slip but she didn’t let it. Instead, she put on her best I-am-in-charge look and made a careful circuit of the room, turning on mock Victorian oil lamps as she went. One by one, they cast little pools of softly glowing light, but not near enough to chase the shadows from every empty space and corner.
She paused near the hearth, glad for its cheery birch-and-peat fire.
Much better to continue her survey of the room from here, standing in the warmth and light of the fire, than to keep stalking about with her every foot-step echoing off the polished wood floor to unnerve her.
Each tap-tappity-tap gave her the willies, making her think someone was sneaking along behind her.
Frowning, she considered just going to bed and pulling the covers over her head.
But her bed—great, dark-wooded four-poster that it was, complete with heavy, embroidered hangings—seemed to hunch in wait for her. As did the other, equally clunky furnishings, each piece appearing to hold its breath in the silence, watching to see what she’d do.
She shivered and rubbed her arms.
“I am not on the set of a bad horror film.” She spoke the words slowly, distinctly. “There’s nothing any more odd about the shadows in this room than the ones in my apartment back in Yardley.”
The room was just a little heavy on the gothic.
It was simply Dunroamin.
Her echoing footsteps had been just that—footsteps. The few creaks and groans breaking the stillness were only the sounds of ancient woodwork settling down for the night. All old houses made such noises.
And all antique dresser mirrors had ghosts in them.
“Gaaaah!” She jumped.
The ghostly woman leapt closer to the mirror glass and gaped at her. Pale, wild-eyed, and with a tangled mane of hair, the specter shook her head and began withdrawing into the mirror’s depths. Each retreating step took her deeper into the shadows until she stopped cold, frozen in place, the very moment Cilla backed into an enormous overstuffed chair.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She threw her hands up, laughing out loud when the ghost did the same.
Tall, Dark, and Kilted Page 9
