Available for the first time in e-book! Rediscover this classic tale of romantic suspense by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham.
Back in Ireland for the first time since the mysterious death of her husband, Kit McHennessey finds herself haunted by the unanswered questions from that night. Justin O’Niall, the man who comforted her through the tragedy eight years ago, is as darkly compelling now as he was then. And while she is passionately drawn to him, she is also certain she cannot trust him. Kit must uncover the deadly truths she once fled in order to confront the danger that threatens their future.
Originally published in 1987
King of the Castle
Heather Graham
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
It was a cold day. Miserable, wet, frigid. The wind tore around the jagged cliffs with such fury that its sound seemed to be a cry, high and forlorn. A banshee’s wail, desolate and anguished. Kit was restless, though, and despite the wind and the mist and the forbidding gray sky, she was determined to walk along the cliffs. She didn’t feel that she was being at all morbid, as Justin had accused her of being. She felt closer to Michael.
But it was another of those days when she felt as if she was being watched. She often felt that way.
She walked behind the cottage to the highest point, beyond the tufts of grass lying low to the wind. Vegetation disappeared, and the rock rose, high and naked and deadly. Down below, far, far below, the surf crashed against the stones known as the Devil’s Teeth. Kit looked down. The wind picked up the heavy length of her chestnut hair and sent it flying wildly around her. She felt close to the elements here. Close to Michael. She could remember the laughing and the teasing that first day together. Her one day with him…as his wife. The accent he had feigned, the warnings he had given her about leprechauns and banshees and gods older than time, older than the elements.
The feeling came again: that she was being watched. She turned and looked back. To the right and left of the cottage, there was only forest, lush and rich and green. Darkly green, secretive. The trees seemed to have eyes. They seemed to call to her, to beckon, to rustle and whistle and moan out a warning along with the wind.
The poor murdered girl had died around here, she thought. Just like Michael…
He hadn’t fallen. She knew he hadn’t fallen. In her arms, before he died, he had painfully formed a single word: Kayla.
The wind whistled even more ferociously, the shrieking of the banshees, ghosts whose cries signaled the coming of death. Kit swallowed fiercely and curled her fingers around the medallion that lay between her breasts: the Celtic cross. Michael’s last gift to her.
Kit trudged wearily back to the cottage. Justin was coming. He had said that he would take her to dinner, and he hadn’t waited for an answer. He was Justin O’Niall. The O’Niall. He didn’t wait for people to say yes or no; he spoke, then assumed that everyone would jump to do his bidding.
Justin was far more than a hereditary lord, she thought resentfully; they called him the King of the High Hill, and his family’s supremacy went back beyond the days of Christianity. Justin had been brought up believing in his own importance, and it seemed that everyone had neglected to tell him that he was living in the twentieth century. Nor were they likely to do so in the future, she reflected. The villagers were content to look to him for leadership.
Superstitious fools, she told herself, and then she was contrite, for Justin had taken charge the night that Michael had died, and he had been unfailingly kind to her—though even his kindness came with a nearly unbearable arrogance.
Justin O’Niall. His power here was godlike, and he himself was as pagan and elemental as the chilled, windswept granite cliffs and the ruthless wind. He even looked like some ancient god, with his towering height and unwavering teal-blue eyes. The idea amused her, but then she remembered Michael reading to her about the druids who had once reigned here, believers in Bal, their horned goat-god, the creature who gave them bountiful harvests and demanded sacrifices in return. Kit shivered.
Justin wanted her gone. Because of that, she couldn’t show him how utterly desolate she felt. He would press his case that she should leave, but she couldn’t, not when Michael lay buried in Shallywae earth. He had been dead three months now. She still couldn’t believe it, but because of it, she couldn’t leave.
Walking quickly, she returned to the cottage. She hesitated, her hand on the doorknob, before entering. It was open. She could have sworn that she had locked it.
Kit went in, entering the kitchen first and grabbing the broom. Not much of a weapon, but still… But after she had nervously searched the parlor, the bedroom and the bathroom, she set the broom down with a little sigh of relief. She had obviously forgotten to lock the door. She went back downstairs to lock it—securely.
She was cold, so she put the kettle on for tea, lit the heater in the bathroom and drew a tub of hot water, filling it liberally with bubbles. Downstairs, she fixed her tea, then brought it back upstairs to sip while she luxuriated in her bath.
When she had finished the tea, she lay back in her bubbles, a smile curving her lips. For the first time since the accident, she felt no pain. She felt deliciously drowsy, the warmth of the water and the bubbles teasing her flesh. She could hear the wind outside the cottage, and it sounded like a melody, pleasant to her ears.
She felt…wonderful.
“Really wonderful,” she said aloud. And she laughed. Drugged. That was it. She felt as if she had been drugged. Shot up with one of Doctor Conar’s sweet wonder drugs. The kind of stuff he had given her after Michael’s death to ease her worry and pain.
But no, this was different. It was as if someone had put something in her tea. Then she started to fall asleep. She was drowsy, but she didn’t want to go to sleep. She wanted to keep feeling the bubbles against her skin. She could feel the water, too, and it was delicious against her flesh, gentle and sleek and erotic. The storm was really rising, she knew. And she could feel that, too. Feel the passion of the wind, the charged energy of the waves. She even imagined that she could hear them, thundering and crashing against the granite walls of the cliffs.
She heard her name called, as if from far away. She wanted to answer, and yet she couldn’t be bothered. Her eyelids felt so heavy. Her lips continued to curl into a sweet smile.
“Kit!” She heard her name called again, more urgently, and closer. She forced her eyelids to open.
Justin was standing in the bathroom doorway. He wore a heavy wool coat, but beneath it she could see his suit. A black suit, stunning with his dark hair and teal eyes.
He was frowning at her—must he always frown? She wasn’t a child….
“Kit, what’s the matter with you? I’ve been calling and calling—I finally broke the damn door down.”
She didn’t answer him. She was ready to laugh, he looked so angry and exasperated. His bronze features were drawn as tightly as a thundercloud.
He pulled off his coat and approached her in the bath, kneeling down beside the tub and placing his hands on her shoulders to shake her. “Kit, have you been drinking?”
“Don’t be absurd,” she managed to say airily.
“Then what’s the matter with you?”
She looked at him, amused that he should be so alarmed. But as she stared at him, a tight coil of heat seemed to form within her. Her breath caug
ht in her throat, and she stared at his face. At his magnetic blue eyes. His dark, thick brows, the high planes of his cheekbones, the slight hollows beneath them. And his mouth, tight and compressed.
She touched his cheek with her dripping knuckles. She felt the rough velvet quality of his flesh.
“Justin…” she murmured. She started to slip in the tub, and she stopped herself, laughing.
“I’ve got to get you out of there,” he muttered. “Don’t drown!” he snapped, stepping out of the bathroom. He came back a second later—minus the coat, shirt and jacket. Then he stooped down, scooped her from the bubbles into his arms.
She felt the coarse hair on his chest rasp against her breasts. Beneath her fingers, she felt his muscles, contracting and rippling as he held her and walked with her. She threw her head back and smiled. “Justin…”
He glanced into her eyes; his seemed to be exceptionally hard, and she laughed again.
“Kit, lass, you must be drunk.”
“I’m not!”
He started to deposit her on the bed and stand, but he couldn’t because her hair had tangled around his hands, and she cried out sharply when he moved. He leaned closer to her, trying to disentangle himself.
“Justin!” she cried out, and he stopped to meet her eyes.
“Please, Justin…”
Her lips were trembling, her eyes liquid. Her arms curled around him, and she arched against him, crushing herself to his naked chest.
“Kit,” he muttered. “Damn it, I’m no saint! Nor made of stone. Stop this. You would hate me for this—”
“Hate you?” She knew that she wasn’t Kit anymore; she was some other woman, one who could tease and taunt a man and do with him what she would. Kit was a misty figure who belonged to another world. “Hate you? How could I hate the King of the High Hill? The O’Niall. The grand O’Niall. Ah, Justin! It’s comical, you know, to an American. The way you had to take the poor little lass under your wing because her catastrophe happened on the King’s high hill!” She broke into a gale of laughter.
He started to scowl. She had made him angry, but she didn’t care.
He extricated himself from her embrace, firmly casting her arms aside. “I’ll make tea,” he muttered.
He left, but Kit didn’t really care. She could say anything; she could do anything. She felt all-powerful. It was magnificent, as if the wind were part of her, as if she had its strength. A tempest was brewing, and she was part of it.
“Here, lass, drink this.”
He was back beside her, lifting her by the shoulders. He made her sip the tea, and she heard him gulp some of it himself. She could feel him again. Her hair was splayed out all over his chest, and he was hot and taut, living steel, and resting against him was incredibly erotic. Of course, because she was naked and he was with her, she couldn’t really be Kit. She was the wind; she was the earth. She was fire, all elemental. She was part of the mystical land.
She heard him murmur something unintelligible, and she felt him tremble. She turned, burying her face against his chest, teasing his flesh with her tongue.
“Kit, stop it. Kit…”
His voice faded into a ragged gasp, and she heard the teacup fall. She wound her arms around his neck and together they rolled over, until he braced himself above her, staring down at her in a confused fury.
She tangled her fingers into his hair, pulling his head to hers, and she pressed her lips to his. She heard him groan softly, and then his arms were around her. It was wonderful to lie within them. His lips covered hers, his tongue delving hungrily into her mouth.
She felt it all acutely, and it was so good that she almost wept. His hands moved to her breasts, and she arched and twisted, crying out as his thumb teased a nipple, gasping as his mouth burned a trail of hot whispered kisses down her throat, then tugged with sweet fire at her breasts. His hand moved lower to her hip, caressed her belly, then traveled again before resting between her thighs.
His hands were so warm. Where he touched her, she felt as if she were melting; where he didn’t, she longed that he might. He knew where she wanted to be touched, and his every touch was bold and sure and confident. She whimpered his name; she writhed, aching for him. She showered his shoulders with kisses, and all the while she heard the winter wind raging around them, urging her into a more volatile passion.
She was the wind, she thought, as he was fire, searing her, igniting her. He was as hard and rugged as the cliffs, and she had never known such intimate ecstasy as the feel of him against her. Her cries rose with the storm to a raging crescendo, again and again, until exhaustion blanketed the magic and she drifted into a nether realm of sleep.
She began to dream, the same haunting, recurring nightmare. Phrases slashed through her mind—spoken in Michael’s voice.
“The druid priest arrived… He was the one to take the virgin… The next year would be her sacrifice. When the harvest was in. They slit her throat first…blood, you know…”
He had laughed and teased her. Michael, the great scholar of ancient Irish history.
But he wasn’t laughing now.
She saw Michael on the rock. His eyes were open, accusing, and he spoke in a rasp like a saw against wood. “Kayla!”
He was walking toward her, smiling. Then, suddenly, the man coming for her wasn’t Michael anymore. It was Justin. Muscled and sleek. Naked. Stalking her. Then she saw that he wasn’t naked at all; he was wearing a black cloak, and he was putting on a mask.
The mask of the horned goat.
* * *
Kit awoke with a pounding headache—and the dawning of horror.
She could remember, but the memory was foggy, confused and distorted. She had been in the bathtub, and then she had been in Justin’s arms, and then…
She swallowed. She could still feel him. His hand was cast negligently over her breast.
She opened her eyes. His dark head was near her shoulder, and he was sprawled beside her, still holding her. Naked and muscled and sprawled across her bed—touching her.
He was sleeping soundly and easily.
She choked back a scream, and tried hard to hold back her tears. What had happened? What had she done? She could remember, and yet she couldn’t.
Near hysteria, Kit shifted from beneath Justin’s touch. She was shaking as she silently looked around the room for clothing. She didn’t dress there, but escaped downstairs to stumble into her jeans and sweater. It was cold and miserable in the cottage, yet she welcomed the misery. She had never felt so ashamed in her life. Michael was dead, and she had betrayed him.
What had happened? A groan of agony escaped her. She didn’t understand it. She clutched the gold Celtic cross, her talisman. Michael’s talisman.
She had even worn Michael’s cross.
She didn’t understand anything. Michael had died here. They had all claimed that it was an accident, but she had bent down beside him, and he had whispered that one word to her just before he had died. And then that poor girl had been murdered on the same night. There were secrets here, and a legend-filled past. And she dreamed here. Oh, God, how she dreamed! About the horned goat-god and the priests and the sacrifices offered over the cliffs.
And Justin. His scent was still on her body. She dreamed about Justin, and she had slept with him, when Michael…
She had to get away.
Kit hurried to the hall closet, where she got her heavy coat and her boots. She was barely able to stumble into the boots, crying and cursing, but at last they were on her feet. She pulled on her coat, then grabbed her purse—and the keys to the rented Toyota.
At the door she paused. She didn’t want anyone looking for her. She scribbled out a quick note. Justin—as you’ve suggested all along, I’m going home. I want to forget this place.
When that was done, she walked to the door. She didn’t look back as she fled, at last, for home.
Away from Ireland—and Justin O’Niall.
CHAPTER 1
Kit should hav
e known that morning on the last day of August that circumstances were conspiring against her.
In her apartment east of the park, she sipped a cup of coffee and stared down at the children playing along the tree-lined street. She stared at them, not seeing them, for a long time. Then, at last, she returned to the kitchen table and stared down at the newspaper again.
Irishmen didn’t often make the social pages of the New York Times, but there he was, just as she remembered him. A little silver now touched his temples, but otherwise Justin O’Niall appeared exactly as he had almost eight long years ago.
“Good luck to you, my friend,” Kit murmured softly. She meant it. The events of that short period of her life in Ireland had never left her, but what she had come to feel, and continued to feel when she allowed herself to do so, was a strange sense of confusion and loss. Well…that wasn’t quite true. Her heart always seemed to give a slight thud when she thought about Justin. Nothing major, of course. It had been eight years. But there was still that flutter…and a certain pain.
As distinguished a bachelor as Justin might be, he wouldn’t have made the Times all by himself. According to the article, he had just become engaged to Susan Accorn, heiress to one of the multimillion-dollar disposable-diaper companies.
Well, Kit thought philosophically, if and when Susan and Justin decided to start a family, they would be able to save an absolute bundle on diapers.
Kit closed the paper. Reflexively, she wound her fingers around the little cross that she still wore about her neck.
She stared up at the bulletin board above the table. It held a profusion of newspaper articles and clippings, her grocery list and other odds and ends. She lifted one of the articles and looked at the scrap of paper with a single word written in her own handwriting that hung beneath it: Kayla.
She stared at it pensively, then shrugged. In college she’d had an Irish professor whose first language had been Gaelic, but he’d never heard the word.
Kit dropped the clipping back into place and wandered restlessly to the window, cradling her coffee cup in her hands.
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