With a chuckle, Gabriel settled lower in the blessedly warm water. “Find yourself a bed, not in the servants’ quarters. You’re not a servant. Wake me at six, and locate some damned trousers for me.”
A moment later he found himself alone. Lined with interspersed panels of heavy wood paneling and burgundy and gold wallpaper, and liberally decorated with large, stuffed animal heads, the room seemed close despite its size. Two sets of three tall, rectangular windows, presently closed tight behind dark curtains the color of wet pine needles, allowed a view of the world outside. Dominated by a large oak bed that practically required a ladder to mount, the bedchamber clearly belonged to a wealthy, powerful man who liked to be reminded of what he owned. Except that that man now happened to be him, and he didn’t feel nearly as comfortable with his possessions.
Even with three days spent fencing with the late Ronald Leeds’s solicitors to learn about the late duke’s investments and his holdings, he hadn’t felt the slightest connection to the man or his … things. In fact, he’d mostly felt annoyance—though perhaps fury was a better word—at his great-uncle once removed, for upending a simple, orderly life. The fact that his sister could benefit from his altered circumstances seemed the only positive turn in any of this.
Here, however, surrounded by echoes of the man and his ancestors—the ones who’d evidently taken the land and MacKittrick Castle from clan Maxwell in the first place—he had his first real sense of who the former Duke of Lattimer actually was. If this room truly was an indication of the man’s character, Gabriel didn’t much like the late Ronald Leeds and his exaggerated sense of self-importance.
The wind’s moaning resumed, the sound cold and mournful. The fire sputtered again, turning the room into a cave of deep, flickering shadows. He’d have to bank the fire before he retired for the night, or risk the wind pushing hot coals off the hearth and onto the old Persian rug set before it. Black-eyed Fiona wouldn’t weep any tears at his demise, but he was loath to make things that easy for her.
While the bathwater had been hot he hadn’t minded the dirt so much, but now that it had begun to cool he became very aware of the layer of mud settling beneath his arse. With a sigh he stood, stepping onto the chill stone floor and knotting the coarse linen towel around his hips.
He emptied the glass Kelgrove had left beside the bath of its generous pour of whisky, and walked barefoot across yet another dark, moth-eaten Persian rug to refill it. Three weeks ago imagining anything beyond how he meant to keep his men and himself alive beyond the next day, how he meant to win his next battle, had seemed a waste of time. If he ever had indulged in daydreams, he would never have been able to conjure anything as absurd as this. Even as a holiday. Him, the Duke of Lattimer, standing in a grand room in an ancient house set on more land than some of the American Colonies could claim for themselves.
The painting of a dog and yet more damned roosters that hung on one side of the chimney banged and set itself off kilter by a good two inches. Hm. Stepping up to the wall, he nudged the painting back to level. A gap or two in the chimney wouldn’t surprise him in the least, given the state of the rest of the building, but that could be dangerous. He’d have to look into it in the morning.
On the other side of the chimney a book jumped, and three tomes shot out and fell to the floor four feet away from where they’d begun. “Ah,” he said aloud, squatting down to retrieve the books. “You’re a ghost.” Gabriel turned the books over in his hands. “A ghost who doesn’t care for poetry. Well, I’m not fond of it, either.”
The idea of spirits wandering about the old castle—or anywhere, for that matter—didn’t particularly surprise him. In twelve years of fighting he’d seen too many things that neither logic nor the church could explain. The idea of some spook here in the room with him actually felt … not quite comforting, but almost fortunate. At the least, books flying off shelves kept him from dwelling on why he’d come here and what the devil he was supposed to do about it. He’d be more comfortable if someone would just point a gun a him.
“You make a fucking ridiculous duke, Gabriel,” he muttered, downing half the whisky in the glass and setting the rest aside for the ghost. The sooner he made Kelgrove’s new position official and returned to his own duties, the better.
He needed to leave as soon as possible, to go back to his command before he could lose the edge that kept his men and himself alive. Because while this might be a proper setting for a duke, it was too much, too opulent, and too frivolous for Major Gabriel Forrester—and that was the only person he knew how to be.
Someone knocked at his door, and he walked over to pull it open. Black eyes widened, and Fiona took a quick step backward. “I— Where’s yer damned valet?”
Gabriel allowed himself a grin, both at her discomfiture and because she’d stopped his mind from traversing a road he had no wish to explore. Yes, she’d caused him to jump into a mudhole, and then get lost in a bog for nearly three hours, but at this moment he felt grateful. “Adam Kelgrove isn’t a valet. He’s my aide-de-camp. And I sent him off to bed. Is there something you required?”
“I— Nae. I dunnae require a thing from ye.” She looked down at his hands. “Ye like poetry, do ye?”
For a bare moment he’d hoped she would say yes, she did require something, and that it was sex. That was what he wanted of her. The chill from the hallway began to wash into the room and swirl up his legs beneath the towel. “No. I don’t read poetry. Evidently there’s a ghost in here.”
“Aye? I’m nae surprised. There are nasty spirits all aboot the castle.”
Gabriel nodded. “No doubt. I’m getting cold standing here, so either come in or go away,” he said, turning his back to head for the fireplace where it was warmer, and setting the books down on the mantel. “And I assume you wanted me in this room because of the wind stirring up the fireplace and that attractive moaning sound it makes? And the ghost, of course.”
She followed him into the room, closing the door behind her. The hairs on his arms lifted; perhaps she did want something, after all. He damned well hoped so. Gabriel took a slow breath.
“I wanted ye in here because it’s the laird’s bedchamber,” she retorted, hefting the bundled material she carried against her chest. “Do the ghosties and the wind trouble ye, Lattimer? I can give ye a different room. It willnae be as grand, of course.”
“Don’t bother. It’s out of the weather, which puts it above most places I’ve spent the night.” He faced her again, and caught her quick gaze lifting from his torso back to his face again. From her expression, though, he couldn’t tell whether the patchwork of scars that decorated his back and chest intrigued or horrified her. He was accustomed to both reactions from the fairer sex.
“Dead Highlanders looking fer bloody vengeance against an English soldier dunnae trouble ye, either?”
Faint suspicion over the ghostly events and her timing in coming to call on him touched him, but he set it aside for later. Instead he chuckled. “Dead enemies don’t trouble me much at all, Miss Blackstock. Not nearly as much as live ones.”
Her scowl deepened. “Well, then. Suit yerself.” She tossed the bundle of cloth at his bare chest. “Ye said ye had naught else to wear. Seems foolish to me that ye’d ride all the way to the Highlands withoot a change of clothes, but mayhap that’s the way of Sassenach these days. Those”—and she gestured at the bundle—“belonged to my brother. Ye’re of a height, I reckon.”
“Thank you.” He wouldn’t put it past her to have sprinkled them with pepper, but he did appreciate the gesture. “And I do have clothes; my trunk should be arriving via mail coach by the end of the week.”
She folded her arms across her rather modest bosom. “Mail coach? Ye’re the mighty Duke of Lattimer. Ye can purchase a dozen coaches, ye ken.”
When had it happened, that other people understood his life better than he did? “I suppose so. I’ve recently been handed an entirely new set of rules. I’m still learning them.”
&n
bsp; “Ye admit to that?” She sounded surprised.
Did admitting that he didn’t know how to be a duke equate with some sort of weakness? It didn’t feel that way. Nothing he’d said would prevent him from doing his duty. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked aloud. “I’m a plainspoken fellow, and I don’t feel the need to lie about who or what I am, Miss Blackstock.”
“Ach, I didnae lie, either. Nae a man asked if I was still Kieran, and I didnae volunteer the information. So ye keep yer high horse oot in the stable.”
He grinned. “A sensitive subject, is it? I don’t have a high horse, but I’d be willing to commiserate with you here in private.” Deliberately he sent his gaze down the length of her and up again. Moving up to her, Gabriel hooked his finger into the lace neck of her gray gown. She smelled of heather. He’d never found that arousing before, but he did now.
When she lifted her face to look up at him, those soft-looking lips parted, his cock jumped. He tugged her up against his chest, very aware that only a thin muslin gown and a towel separated them.
“So ye mean to have me, do ye?” she murmured, chocolate-colored eyes meeting his.
“I’m a man with an appetite,” he returned in the same tone. “You sent me into a bog, and the entire time I couldn’t stop imagining you peeling yourself out of that muddy gown.” He leaned down, capturing her mouth in a hard, heated kiss. Her mouth was just as he’d imagined, soft, warm, and molding against his. When her hand dug into his damp hair, the tight rein he held on himself loosened just a little. Three weeks of his world spun off its axis, but this, this, he knew how to do.
Her mouth retreated from his just a little. “I’ll have to do as ye demand, Yer Grace,” she stated. “I suppose it’s better me than one of the maids.”
Gabriel scowled. “I’m not ‘demanding’ a damned thing. You kissed me back. I felt it. A man and a woman. You and me.”
Her gaze remained on his mouth. “A duke and an employee,” she corrected.
“What? So now I can’t have a woman if I outrank her? That’s ridiculous. And you’re not my employee, anyway.”
Finally she met his gaze. “I’m yer employee until ye dismiss me.”
Fuck. “That’s a fine use of strategy, Miss Blackstock,” he countered, “but your hand’s still in my hair.”
Swiftly she withdrew it, her fair cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “I was trying to keep my balance.”
“No you weren’t. And now you know for certain what I want. I believe you want it, as well.”
She opened and closed her mouth, then belatedly shoved away from him. “I most certainly dunnae yearn fer your touch, Lattimer.”
And yet she remained alone with him in his laird’s bedchamber. Reminding her of that fact wouldn’t benefit him, however, so he didn’t mention it. She’d used some sound strategy, even if it did rely on him being of good character. He couldn’t count that as a compliment, but it was close to one. If she wanted this to be a game of wills and wits, she was welcome to try to stand against him. “We’ll see about that,” he said aloud. “I’m not often wrong.”
“Well, ye are this time. I dunnae even want ye here in Scotland. This isnae the place fer anyone to be fumbling aboot like a wee infant. I ken ye have a bushel of other properties south of Hadrian’s Wall, and I wish ye’d gone to one of them to learn how to be an aristocrat.”
“And yet I’m here because of you, Miss Blackstock,” he returned, noting just to himself that she still stood close enough to touch. Gabriel curled his hands into fists, but that did nothing for the warm rush of lust still humming just beneath his skin.
“Me?” she retorted. “How the devil could ye be here because of me when the first time ye knew aboot me was when ye dragged me oot of the mud?”
“Because old Lattimer’s solicitors wrote you five times asking for the estate’s financial report before you finally answered—and that was only to threaten them. I am now responsible for this property. The ‘knife in the gizzard’ reply didn’t give me much of an idea of what might be amiss here, but it did suggest something was wrong.” Nor did having a hot-tempered female as a steward satisfy his requirement for a responsible leader who could stand in his stead.
“Ye’ll have all yer facts and figures, then. But ye willnae have me.” She turned on her heel. “Good night.”
The view of her swaying backside nearly made him consider suggesting once again that she stay. For the devil’s sake, he hadn’t had a woman in … weeks. And tonight that seemed like a very long time. He caught her arm, twirling her around to face him and dragging her up against his chest. “Good night, Your Grace,” he murmured, brushing the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. So soft, so free of the tired cynicism that marked most women of his acquaintance. If he was the Beast of Bussaco, she was some sort of sharp-tongued angel. He’d never met her like. Leaving her be, unless she expressly ordered him to do so, was out of the question. And he’d spent better than a decade assessing people at a glance. She might claim not to be interested, but everything about her said she was lying. And so until he figured her out, until he had her, he’d sooner give up breathing than this hunt.
Her shoulders squared. “Good night, Yer Grace,” she enunciated, glancing at him and then away as he released her. Taking two quick steps, she opened the door and then very firmly pulled it closed behind her.
Gabriel eyed the door for a moment after she left, weighing whether to go after her or not. Strategically it made more sense to give her the night to think about him, to remember that kiss. He couldn’t be the only one to think it had been rather spectacular. The bulge in the front of his towel certainly agreed.
As for the ghost of MacKittrick and his curse, he had a feeling that at least one of those things had more to do with Miss Blackstock than a dead Jacobite after revenge. And if any Highlander tried to slip in and kill him tonight, they would serve as a warning against anyone else attempting it again.
Blowing out his breath, he finished toweling off and then pulled a clean shirt over his head. At least Kelgrove had stuffed an extra shirt into his travel bag. Once he’d blown out the candles and banked the sputtering fire, he climbed the trio of wooden steps pushed up against the side of the bed and rolled beneath the heavy, soft covers. With every movement he seemed to sink farther into the plump mattress beneath him, until he began to feel as if he were about to drown in satin and feathers. Despite the chill in the air and the wind whistling down the fireplace, the heat from his own body surrounded him, closing him in a baking, goose-down coffin.
“Damnation,” he swore, sitting upright and flinging sheets and quilts and pillows off the side of the bed. He tried lying back again, but immediately began to sink into the mattress once more. “Bloody hell.”
After ten minutes of hot, wallowing torture he sat up again, swam his way to the edge of the behemoth, and slid to the floor. Christ. He’d fought Frenchmen who put up less of a fight than that damned bed. Breathing hard, he lay down on the pile of blankets he’d shoved onto the stone floor. “You can take the bed, MacKittrick,” he muttered aloud.
So this was his first night as a duke in his own castle. As he contemplated his situation, he couldn’t deny one thing—parts of it felt familiar. A foreign land, surrounded by hostile forces who wanted him either gone or dead and didn’t much care which one it was, and him with the assignment to bring order out of chaos. And the fact that the opposing forces were led by a supremely desirable black-eyed female with dusky hair? He would manage her just as he’d managed every other obstacle in his path before now. This was about sex and it was about war, and he was a damned expert in both.
Chapter Four
“Did he piss himself, Miss Fiona?” Fleming the butler asked in a hushed whisper, his hands brushing lovingly across a half-dozen of the strings that traveled through the usually hidden passageway in which he stood, through the wall, and out to the backs of a trio of paintings—among other things—in the bedchamber beyond.
“I tied off one of those
dusty old books on the top shelf, too,” the young footman just beyond him breathed. “They sent half the bookshelf onto the floor, I reckon.”
“Aye. Has he run yet?” the butler took up again.
That had been the plan, of course. Her father and Uncle Hamish had run the original strings themselves, some twenty years ago. Their experiment marked the last night the old duke had laid his head at Lattimer, as a matter of fact, and no one believed that had been a coincidence. And what worked for one duke would work just as well on another. Or it should have.
But this duke was young—younger by some fifteen years than Lattimer had been at the time of his last visit, she reckoned. And this duke bore scars, not just of an unlucky brawl or a fall from a horse, but of war. A war he’d fought, rather than standing at the back and ordering other men to die. And he’d kissed her like he was drowning and she was air. She’d protested, of course; an arrogant, invading Sassenach had no right to lay a finger on her, much less his mouth. She hadn’t noticed the heat and the solid strength of him, and she certainly hadn’t appreciated any of those things. Yes, he looked like the personification of Ares, and yes, that and his self-confidence might be attractive to some English lass, but she wasn’t English.
“Did he run, Miss Fiona?” Fleming repeated.
She blinked. “Nae,” she said absently.
“Nae? But we put him in there especially,” Hugh, one of Lattimer’s two dozen footmen, protested, as he sent a longing look at the additional strings in his hands. “And I tested it during dinner. It should’ve worked.”
“It did,” Fiona conceded. “He’d just picked up the books when I knocked. He said the living frighten him more than the dead.” Well, that hadn’t been precisely what he’d said, and she had the feeling that nothing much did frighten him.
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