by Nina Mason
“Third door on the right.” He brushed past her, enlivening every nerve ending.
She turned to watch him walk away, the jackpot question burning on her tongue. Unfortunately, emptying her bladder was her top priority at the moment.
* * * *
Leith, discomposed by the encounter in the hall, slipped into his bedchamber and locked the door behind him. Damn and blast. He hadn’t imagined her resemblance to Clara. She had the same ethereal beauty, wide-set hazel eyes, square face, delicate chin, and cherubic mouth that seemed made for his. Even more troubling, she had that mysterious light that warmed the darkest corners of his soul and the same irresistible blend of strength and fragility.
If it didn’t seem impossible, he might believe he had just met his wife’s ghost in the hall.
Clara’s spirit, however, did not haunt Glenarvon. Only her memory did. Or at least that had been the case before her twin had dropped out of the sky. What was he going to do with the lass? Tempted as he was to reclaim what he had lost, his curse made doing so impossible. His only choices, then, were to turn her over to the authorities or keep her here as his playmate.
Images of her in his playroom flashed through his mind. Handcuffed to the chaise with her legs in the air…spread-eagled and restrained on the four-poster bed…hanging upside down on the St. Andrew’s cross…bent over the spanking horse with her lovely arse at his disposal.
As appealing as the fantasies were, his sexual practices were not for the faint of heart. He would, therefore, have to see what she was made of before inviting her into his playroom. In the meantime, there was nothing to stop him from fantasizing about her.
Closing his eyes, he conjured a scene inside his mind. She was the lady of the manor’s abigail; he, the laird who had returned from a ride to find her in a compromising position with one of the grooms. She was on her knees in the hay while he was taking her from behind like a jackrabbit.
As their master entered the barn, the lovers broke apart. He grabbed the buggy whip off a peg on the wall and unleashed his fury on the groom as he jumped about, hobbled by his breeches.
After he drove the scoundrel off, he confronted the maid with a sinister grin and a snap of the whip against his boot. “You have been naughty and must pay for your transgressions.”
Thrills swam through his blood as her gaze lingered on the swell in his jodhpurs. He sauntered over, took her by the wrist, and led her into the tack room. Parking himself on a wooden bench, he pulled her across his lap and slipped a hand under her skirts, delighting in the velvety smoothness of her bare thighs and buttocks.
“What are you going to do to?”
“No more than the groom has already done,” he said, “and no less than you deserve.”
Just as his fantasy self took her over his knee, a knock sounded on his bedchamber door.
“My lord?”
The burr belonged to Gavin Brody, his longtime butler and secret-keeper. The Albert to his Bruce Wayne, so to speak.
Leith hurried to the door to find the butler, as expected, on the other side.
“Your guest is asking for you, my lord.”
“What does she want?”
“She wishes to convey her thanks for rescuing her.”
Leith stroked his stubbled chin, still unsure why he’d saved her. She would only be good to him if she was disposed to do some acting of the X-rated variety. Would she be? The idea intrigued him as much as her resemblance to Clara troubled him. Had he imagined the similarity? It seemed possible, given the darkness and the mud smeared on her face.
“Ask her to join me for dinner tonight,” he instructed Gavin. “She can thank me then.”
In the meantime, he would test the waters in stealth mode.
After the butler left him, he addressed the cat thusly in his thoughts: Here, kitty, kitty. Time to come out and play. I’ve got an assignment for you—a reconnaissance mission of sorts that will require you to assume a more domesticated form of your usual self.
Chapter 4
When a thump roused Gwyn from sleep, she opened her eyes to find Mrs. King poking at the log on the fire. The drapes were open and the sun was out. The groan of the bedsprings as she sat up brought the housekeeper’s gaze to hers.
“Good morning, dearie. How do you feel?”
“Remarkably well.” Truthfully, Gwyn felt better than she had in…well, ever.
“I noticed you didn’t touch your soup last night. How’s your appetite this morning?”
“Good.” Better than good, actually. She wasn’t just hungry, she was famished.
Mrs. King left the room and returned a moment later with a tray, which she set across Gwyn’s lap. Hunger rumbled in her tummy as she surveyed the offerings: A pretty teapot decorated with red and pink roses, a silver rack holding triangles of toast, a decorative jam pot, and an egg in a cup on a plate with a spoon. As the housekeeper poured the tea, the peppery perfume of Earl Grey wafted on the air.
Picking up her cup, Gwyn took a cautious sip. The tea tasted as bracing as it smelled. “What time is it?”
“Just after ten o’clock.”
“So late?” No wonder she felt so refreshed. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”
“Because you need your rest.”
Guilt murdered Gwyn’s appetite as images from the accident rose to the surface of her mind. Here she was, enjoying breakfast in bed while the loved ones of those poor women were getting the bad news.
If it’s any consolation, they didn’t suffer.
Blinking away the eviscerating memory, she set down her cup with a clink. “Did Sir Leith speak to the police about the crash?”
“Aye, lass. They were on our doorstep bright and early.”
“Did they find my backpack?”
“I don’t know what was said,” Mrs. King told her, “only that they came and are at the crash site now.”
“I still want to talk to Sir Leith.”
Mrs. King moved toward the door. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
Gwyn, prickling with frustration, sipped her tea and nibbled a wedge of toast. Why was Sir Leith trying to keep her at arm’s length? Well, whatever his reasons, he wasn’t going to get away with avoiding her. She came to Scotland to meet him, not to be sidestepped.
If he was in the castle, she would find him, dammit. First, however, she needed something to wear besides a flimsy nightgown. The castle was cold and she was modest. She did not want Sir Leith to think she was his for the asking, even if she was.
A soft scratching called her attention to the outer door. She stilled to listen. Scritch, scritch, scritch. There was the noise again, as unnerving as nails on a blackboard. Setting the tray aside, she crossing the room and opened the door just wide enough to see into the hall. There was no one there. Puzzled, she glanced up and down the empty corridor.
Just as she started to close the door, something soft brushed against her leg. Startled, she looked down. There, gazing back at her with slanted eyes was a sweet-looking black-and-white cat.
“Well, hello there. You must be the resident mouser.”
The cat rubbed against her legs before sauntering into the room, head and tail held high. Bending, she stroked the animal’s back. A quick peek told her the gender.
He headed straight for the towering mirrored wardrobe and started pawing at the door. Intrigued by his behavior, she went over and tried to open the door, but the lock was engaged. She puzzled a moment before remembering the key she came across last night. Hurrying over, she retrieved the tasseled key from the nightstand, inserted the long end into the keyhole, and turned.
The lock disengaged with a soft click. As she opened the heavy mirrored door, the squeal of the hinges shot her heart into her throat. She forgot her alarm when she saw the trove of historic gowns inside. She ran her fingers over smooth silks, textured brocades, and soft tartans. Several were lavishly embroidered. All were exquisite, perfectly preserved, and from the era of the Jacobite uprising.
&n
bsp; Holy smokes. Why did he have all these costumes? Was he maybe a re-enactor, too?
Whatever his reasons, she was in heaven. Ever since she was little, she had felt like she was born in the wrong time period. How she yearned to have lived back when women wore long, sumptuous skirts that rustled when they walked. Perhaps it had something to do with her past life.
She looked down when the cat rubbed against her leg. “Do you think your master would mind if I put one of these on?”
Meow.
Turning back to the wardrobe, the temptation to try on one of the gowns overwhelmed. She selected an ensemble consisting of a one-piece bodice and overskirt embroidered in shades of blue and rust with a coordinating copper underskirt.
She laid the pieces out on the bed before returning to the armoire to search for the accessories needed to complete the costume: a shift with ruffles on the sleeves, a set of boned stays, and a farthingale or petticoats. To her delight, she found all the things she needed in a large bottom drawer.
As she dressed, the cat watched her intently. A disquieting feeling crept over her as she hooked and laced herself into the pieces. The cat, the same sort as Sylvester from the Warner Brothers cartoons, was a smaller version of Heath MacDubh’s alter ego in Knight of Cups.
To hunt and escape sticky situations, the faery knight shifted into a rare breed of wildcat found only in Scotland. Long believed to be a mythological creature, the existence of the Lynx-sized “faery cat” was confirmed when one was caught in a farmer’s snare near Kellas in the mid-1980s.
Gwyn, growing increasing uneasy and suspicions, locked gazes with her green-eyed voyeur. “Please tell me you’re not the master of the castle come to spy on me.”
Meow.
Still unsure about her furry companion, she moved to the dressing table and checked herself in the mirror. A dish on the glass-covered top offered an assortment of old-fashioned hairpins. In a rustle of skirts both thrilling and inexplicably familiar, she sat on the antique vanity chair and fixed her hair in an up-do. Occasional glances at the cat’s reflection let her know his gaze never left her.
After completing her primping, she returned to the armoire, liberated a pair of brocade slippers she spotted while hunting for underpinnings, and sat on the bed to put them on. Now dressed and ready, she got to her feet, ready to set off in search of her reluctant host, unless, of course, her suspicions were correct.
Turning back to the bed, she met the cat’s unsettling stare head on. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, he jumped down and slipped out the door, which was still ajar.
Lifting her skirts to avoid tripping, she trailed the loping cat down the carved wooden staircase, through the oak-paneled great hall, and into a room lined with bookcases. She paused in the doorway to catch her breath. In the center, atop a worn Persian carpet, a stately desk faced a fireplace. Piles of books and papers surrounded an open laptop atop the desk’s broad surface.
The cat jumped onto the ledge of one of the bookcases and meowed, as if he wanted to show her something. More convinced than ever he was not a real cat, she crossed to where he had perched himself. Her mouth fell open as she skimmed the spines on the shelves above. She had expected to encounter many peculiar things here at Castle Glenarvon, but not this.
All of the books in this section were related to BDSM.
Was Leith MacQuill into domination? Biting her lip, she took down his copy of Beauty’s Punishment, the second book in an erotic trilogy written by Anne Rice under a pseudonym. Set in a medieval fantasy world, the books were loosely based on the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.
(Very loosely, in more ways than one.)
In the first of the three, Beauty fell into an enchanted sleep after pricking her finger. Instead of kissing her awake, as he does in the better known version, the prince stripped the sleeping princess naked and claimed her virginity. Afterward, he took her back to his kingdom, where BDSM was the norm.
Gwyn, long fascinated by sadomasochism, had read the books in college, as well as many others describing Dom/sub relationships. As counter-intuitive as it seemed, she thought she might be able to handle a BDSM relationship more easily than she could handle a vanilla one.
She hadn’t yet tested her theory—mostly out of sexual shame, but also because she hadn’t yet met anyone with the right combination of qualifications. The right Dom for her needed to understand how to work with survivors of sexual abuse.
Was Sir Leith that man?
She had come here hoping to sleep with him, but never imagined his interests might dovetail so well with hers. Had his sexual tastes always been unorthodox or had he grown bored after centuries of vanilla sex? Well, whatever his reasons might be, she needed to think carefully about her own comfort level. Yes, she had entertained the idea that bondage might, ironically, free her from her hang ups, but she still wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea of being beaten and humiliated.
Pursing her lips, she moved her gaze to the cat, now almost certain he was Sir Leith. To her surprise, the animal was no longer where he was…or anywhere else in the library.
Beauty’s Punishment was still in her hand. Opening the book to a random page, she began to skim. The passage explicitly described a male sex slave being sodomized by his master. Oddly, the scene both repulsed and excited her. She speed-read a few more pages before turning back to the bookcase, her nether regions now atingle. Her curiosity was just as aroused. As she returned Beauty’s Punishment to its place, she set her sights on the higher shelves. What might he keep out of arm’s reach?
Nothing too twisted, I hope.
Unable to read their titles, she reached to the shelf above, but wasn’t tall enough to pull anything down. Luckily, there was a ladder in the library—the kind on a track that rolled along the bookcases. Positioning the ladder before the shelves she wished to explore, she climbed the narrow rungs with caution. Between her voluminous skirts and leather-soled slippers, the ascent seemed perilous. She was, however, determined to see the rest of his collection.
She did not recognize most of the titles. She was, however, acquainted with the name of the author of some. The Marquis de Sade, the French nobleman from whom sadism took its name. More intrigued than ever, she climbed higher, a task made more perilous by her trembling legs and sweating hands. She scanned the next row’s unfamiliar titles before lifting her gaze to the highest shelf.
Her pulse quickened when a particular group of books caught her eye. In the top right-hand corner of the highest shelf, were a series of spines bearing these compelling titles: Sexual Abuse Recovery through BDSM, Healing Sexual Abuse through Submission, and Reclaiming Sexual Power and Identity through Roleplaying.
The books were out of reach. Holding tight to the ladder with her left hand, Gwyn stretched her right as far as she could, but to no avail. Biting her lip, she looked down. A sick feeling washed over her when she saw how high she was. If she had any sense, she would give up and climb down while she was still in one piece.
Returning her gaze to the books she coveted, she redoubled her determination to reach them. Gingerly, she moved her right foot to the next rung and pushed herself higher. Extending her arm, she swiped at the spine. Her middle finger grazed the edge of one spine, but she still couldn’t establish her hold. Straining harder, she managed to wedge a finger between the binding and the shelf. Just as she separated Reclaiming Sexual Power and Identity through BDSM free from its likeminded companions, a sharp click sounded somewhere below her.
The ladder shook as the bookcase shifted. Clutching the rails, she dropped the book, which hit the floor with a thunk. Impossibly, the shelves swung toward her, causing her perch to rock alarmingly. Paralyzed by fear, she hung on for dear life.
It took her a moment to work out what was happening. The bookcase must conceal a secret room, probably his bondage chamber. The shelves moved again, slamming into her perch this time. As the ladder broke free of its brackets, she lost her grip. Panic exploded inside her as she plummeted toward the flo
or. She shut her eyes, bracing herself for the devastating impact.
Instead of the hard floor, as expected, she landed on something solid yet yielding. That something smelled of soap and manly spices. Her eyes flew open to meet an equally astonished pair the color of amethysts.
Words and breath escaped her, owing equally to the shock of the fall and the thrill of finding herself in the arms of the man of her dreams. For some reason, she didn’t mind the feel of his touch. In fact, she felt remarkably at home in his arms.
He was even more handsome than she imagined. Wavy, shoulder-length dark hair framed chiseled features, luminous eyes, and a full, sensuous mouth. Morning stubble shadowed his angular jaw and cleft chin.
A song began to play inside her head—a song she knew, but couldn’t think how.
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
His face so soft and wondrous fair
The purest eyes and the strongest hands
I love the ground on where he stands
Black is the color of my true love's hair
Of my true love’s hair.
His lavender eyes, as breathtaking as the rest of him, were deep-set and flecked with danger and sorrow. As she studied him, those bewitching eyes darkened and caught fire, warming her all the way to her toes, which still dangled in the air. Despite her safe landing, he still cradled her in his arms like the knight he was; only, in place of armor, he wore a sweater whose thick cables were twisted between her fingers. Her heart was racing and the tightness of her corset was making breathing difficult. Or was it the feel of his body against hers?
When his gaze alighted on her lips, Gwyn nervously licked them. He just stood there looking as if he wanted to kiss her as much as she hoped he would.
“I should probably set you down now.” His sheepish smile charmed her to the core.
