Fairy Tale (7 page)

Duncan forced her back even farther, not caring that he left her little room to breathe. The point of their conversation eluded him. Minuscule droplets of fine summer mist spangled her hair, reflecting the moonlight. He felt like a dragon snorting fire on a fairy princess. He also felt like an idiot for longing to believe the innocence in her eyes when logic warned him she had to be lying.

“You were meeting someone, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied, seeing no reason to lie.

He covered an unexpected jolt of disappointment with a cynical smile. “Lover or spy?”

“Neither, actually.” She shrugged blithely, her conscience clear. “I was looking for my uncle, but I don’t know which cave he calls a covenstead these days.”

A peculiar alchemy of feelings clashed inside Duncan: relief, amused contempt at his own suspicious nature, and some other deeper emotion he didn’t care to explore. “Your uncle—”

“The wizard,” Marsali said, fascinated by the sudden medley of strange emotions that transformed his face, hinting at roiling depths below the calm surface.

A droplet of mist ran down the curl that caressed her cheek and etched a silvery track to the base of her throat. Duncan slowly lifted his hand and smudged it with his thumb, his touch amazingly tender. “You defied me,” he said in a subdued voice. “I’m afraid I’ll have to discipline you.”

His voice was low with undercurrents as powerful as the sea outside, and no doubt just as treacherous if a woman let herself wander out too far. Unfortunately, Marsali’s spirit had always loved a bit of adventure. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said again, a shudder of anticipation shooting all the way down to the soles of her feet.

He smiled slowly, his eyes taunting her. “Then I’ll give you more work tomorrow.”

A spurt of anger broke through the spell of sensual
lassitude that immobilized her. “You’re a bastard,” she said. “You enjoyed humiliating me.”

“Aye,” he admitted, chuckling. “There were moments.”

“The…
the tide is rising, my lord.”

He tugged lightly at the curl that touched her cheek, twining his forefinger around the auburn threads of her hair. “Let it rise.”

She lowered her eyes, studying the ruffles of his finely embroidered shirt until her vision blurred. “My heart is pounding like the surf outside,” she said softly. “I’m not sure my legs will continue to support me. My head is swimming, partially because the tapestry fell upon it but mostly due to you, and—” She drew a breath, her gaze flying to his as he hooked his thumb into her gown and drew her by the rough muslin against him. The warm abrasion of his callused skin against the swell of her breast sent tendrils of heat curling deep down into her belly. Marsali had never experienced such delightful confusion. She had never known a man like him in her life.

She shivered, whispering, “What are you doing?”

He was silent for a moment, his blue eyes unfathomable. “God only knows, Marsali, and He’s probably too afraid to watch.”

Before she could decide how to handle this, he had drawn her into his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with an erotic tenderness that electrified her. Her entire body jerked as if seared by lightning at the contact. His mouth tasted cool and redolent of wine, possessive, gently demanding an answer. When he gripped her tighter, she felt her resistance melting into a strange anticipation. The power of his kiss stole her breath. She trembled violently.

“Marsali.”

His deep voice resounded in the distance. She was falling down a bottomless hole, floating on a current of endless enjoyment—until he brought his hands to her shoulders to give her a rousing shake.

“You’re shivering like a larch in a spring gale,” he said in amusement. “Do I frighten you that much, lass?”

She blinked, resenting the return to reality. “Sometimes you do,” she admitted with a deep sigh, snuggling into him.
“But I’m probably shivering more because the water is coming up to my toes, and it’s damned cold at the cove even in summer.”

Duncan stood perfectly still as she rubbed her feet against his ankles. Uninhibited, unaware of how she affected him, she had no inkling of the black urges he was battling. Very carefully, he lifted his hands from her shoulders. Her innocence flayed him to the core. Only a minute ago his anger at her had threatened to rage out of control. And now here he stood, spellbound
, forgetting time and place, in
trigued by a girl who had never trod one dainty toe beyond his wild land. A girl who had watched her clansmen smear his naked body with sludge and chicken feathers only hours ago.

A girl whose fey power he was just beginning to understand. The power of a pure heart and unbroken spirit, of loyalty and the ability to laugh in the face of adversity. A girl who trusted even him, and who tempted him beyond reason.

“You’re a strange wee thing.” He caught her chin in his fingers, examining her face as if it held an answer to her puzzling allure. “Most women
wouldn’t notice the cold when I was kissing them.
Didn’t I do a proper job of it then?”

“I have nothing to compare it to,” she said honestly, then leaned into him with a gasp as another wavelet broke around their feet.

“Your betrothed never kissed you?” Duncan asked in astonishment.

“Aye, but not like that,” she confessed, grinning mischievously. “My father would have killed him.”

Duncan fought the reaction that rose inside him, the stirrings of conscience and uncomplicated lust. This woman had no protector, he tried to remember, unless he counted himself, as a surrogate, as her laird and chieftain, and the impulses racing through him were anything but paternal. In fact, they were unspeakably wicked.

“Let go of me, Marsali,” he said, taking a breath and praying the cool sea air would quelch the fire building in his loins.

“Why, my lord?” She sighed, pressing closer, confused by
the resurgence of anger she detected in his tone. Had she done something again to offend him? It seemed he was angry because he’d kissed her, but for her it had ended far too soon. “You’re keeping me warm, and I like the feel of you.”

“Wear a plaid,” he said curtly, bringing his hands to her shoulders to push her away. The fire inside him wasn’t dying out, after all. It was raging into a bloody bonfire, and if the damned girl didn’t have the sense or experience to understand he was a heartless bastard who would take advantage of her innocence, then she could only blame herself.

“What about this uncle of yours?” he asked harshly, suddenly wishing someone else would assume responsibility for her. “And don’t ever tell a man you like the feel of him again.”

Marsali stiffened, remembering where she was with a horrible jolt of conscience. Whatever had she been thinking? What would happen if Uncle Colum were to suddenly materialize behind them? After all, a wizard possessed certain powers that even a chieftain could not claim.

What if her uncle were to catch her in Duncan’s arms and change Duncan into a lobster, a power Colum allegedly owned but that Marsali had never witnessed? What if he hit Duncan over the head with his yew staff in his temper and knocked him out? Dear heaven, what if Colum took a very dim human view of the situation and demanded that Duncan marry his niece? Marsali snorted softly at the ridiculous image, picturing herself standing at the altar pledging her troth to an unconscious lobster.

Duncan arched his brow. “Most women don’t snort the first time I kiss them either.”

“Well—”

She broke off with a gasp of alarm, grabbing Duncan’s arm to tug him toward the mouth of the cave as a large wave rolled toward them and thundered against his knees. The impact barely budged him, but it did bring his head around in surprise.

“We’re going to drown, my lord! The cave fills within minutes.”

Even as she spoke, the next wave gathered force and crashed against them, its unleashed power propelling them
deeper into the cave. Marsali staggered backward as if drawn by an invisible hand, so slight it took little to unbalance her.

She fell backward, throwing her hands out behind her, only to feel icy sand envelop her up to her elbows. As the wave broke against the wall, saltwater stinging her eyes, she realized she had stumbled into one of the hidden sinkholes Uncle Colum had warned her about more times than she could count. She wasn’t really worried, though. She knew the chieftain would save her.

C
h
apter

7

D
uncan swung around to grab her, belatedly remembering the deadly riptides that had borne more than one of his relatives to an early and unexpected death. What in God’s name had he been doing? Dallying with a dirty-faced hoyden. Misusing his power to intimidate a maidservant. He was worse than one of his raw teenage recruits, letting himself be charmed by a girl who had more audacity than his entire regiment.

How the hell had it happened? He had set out intending to punish her. Instead, he had trapped her like a lion in his lair. He had taken advantage of her inexperience, and in the end it was the sweet innocence of her response that had punished him.

Cursing his unawareness, or
rather his irrational ab
sorption with Marsali, Duncan dragged the sputtering girl into his arms and ran, carrying her outside in a wild race against the next wave. With an agility that he had sharpened on foreign battlefields, he splashed around a bank of submerged rocks and tumbled her down to a secluded inlet overshadowed by a cliff. To his amazement, she was grinning impishly at his efforts to save her, amused by a misadventure that could have swept them both out to sea.

He grunted and stretched out flat on his stomach, grateful at least that the cold sea water had dampened his absurd desire for the brat.

“It’s very nice to be appreciated,” he said wryly.

She burrowed up next to him; he tried to elbow her away and rolled onto his back. “Stop doing that. It’s annoying.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’m wet and cold.”

“Do you often ride alone at night?” he asked, scowling up at the sky.

“I do in summer.” She sat bolt upright, flinging sand in his chest. “The horses—”

“—had the sense to seek higher ground.” Damn if she didn’t roll against him again, the position all the more arousing because she’d initiated it. “You’re going to have to obey a curfew like everyone else,” he said, wiping off his shirt. “No more riding alone.”

“Hmmm.”

Duncan cursed softly as he felt her wet little body relaxing against his, soft curves seeking a haven in the hard contours of his flank, tempting him all over again to take advantage of her drowsy vulnerability. “Look, I’m sorry you lost the man you loved,” he said in a desperate bid to break the dangerous intimacy between them. “When Abercrombie finishes the accounts, I’ll see if I can manage to dower you. God knows I’ll probably only be able to scrape up a chicken or two.”

She twisted around slowly, her dark tangled hair falling against Duncan’s arm. “But I don’t need you to dower me,” she said in confusion. “I just need you to stay here and make sure there’s no more killing. As soon as my brother’s back is a little better, we’re all going to Virginia to raise tobacco. I expect I’ll find a husband there.”

“You’re what?” Duncan stared at her, the statement so patently absurd and yet sincere he couldn’t help bursting into loud insulting laughter. “Virginia, Marsali. You’ve heard too many fairy tales, the romance of the red Indian, the wealthy planter’s wife. Didn’t anyone ever warn you of the dangers you’ll face?”

She dribbled a handful of sand through her fingers, pursing her lips in annoyance that she’d revealed her private hopes, only to have him laugh in her face.

“There are dangers enough here,” she said steadily.

He raised up on his elbows to look at her, his face sardonic. “You didn’t exactly strike me as a woman who avoided danger this morning on the moor. You’re courting it, Marsali. Someone is going to get killed.”

Marsali’s delicate features tightened in resentment. “The idea is to humiliate and discourage the English, not to kill them. You know there will be bloodshed enough once they finish that road on the coast and install their troops in the old fort.”

“You ought to be at home raising babies, not chasing soldiers around the moor.”

“Perhaps I could raise babies if there were any decent men left to have them with,” she said heatedly, the subject a sore spot. “But
I
won’t have to run around the moor now that you’re here to keep the English under control, will I?”

Duncan lapsed into noncommittal silence, studying the sea to avoid her hopeful gaze, which pricked his conscience. He ought to tell her he’d been sent to do exactly the opposite, but he wasn’t in the mood to shatter her naive faith. Let her believe in her silly dreams. He’d be gone before disillusionment dimmed the stars in her eyes.

“Talk to me,” he said restlessly, aware that those eyes were riveted to his face. “Silence can be a dangerous thing.”

Talk? Marsali flexed her fingers, suddenly wide awake. What a strange man he was. “What shall we talk about, my lord?”

“I don’t care. Anything.” Anything to distract him from the raw ache she had raked alive in him, a craving that had nothing to do with seduction, but a need to let the brightness of her unblemished spirit into the dark, cobwebbed corners of his own. Anything to delay returning to that castle where memories of grief and rejection mocked every success he had struggled to achieve since his banishment.

“Will you make the English go away?” Marsali asked, her voice so earnest that he could not bear to look at her.

“I don’t want to talk about politics, lass,” he murmured, flicking a bit of sand onto her knuckles with a self-mocking smile.

Marsali stared down in perplexity at his compelling profile. “Your clansmen won’t respect you if you don’t take
a strong stand against the Sassenachs. You should know that.”

Duncan lifted his broad shoulders in a nonchalant shrug, pretending indifference. “They only have to respect me the length of the summer. After that, the chieftain who replaces me can worry about how to handle them. Johnnie shows possibilities, don’t you think?”

An unpleasant chill of apprehension darted up from the base of Marsali’s spine. For a moment she’d tricked herself into believing in him again. Now she couldn’t believe how cold, how uncaring he’d become. “Johnnie? Standing an oath on the white stone? He’d be laughed right into the sea. Johnnie would never make a chieftain. He doesn’t own a single sheep.”

“Hell, that doesn’t matter,” Duncan said, warming to the idea. “I’ll deed him the castle. It’s not as if it holds fond memories for me.” He eased up higher on his elbow, lifting his free hand to tug at the black silken cord that disappeared into the cleft of her breasts. Yes. Anything to divert the conversation from the painful topic of his past.

“What’s at the end of this thing then?” he asked in amusement, oblivious to the confusion that gripped her. “No, let me guess. It’s a peat-bag crystal you wear for luck. Or a chicken bone blessed by your mystical uncle.”

Marsali held her breath, her emotions churning, as he slowly drew the cord from between her breasts. The nerve of him. The slow glide of silk began to tickle her skin. The length of the summer. The words surfaced through the fog that had invaded her mind, cold spears prodding her into tense expectancy. That was what he had said. He had no intention of staying at all. His beauty had betrayed her. The corrosion that had eaten away at his soul years ago had destroyed every last bit of decency in him. Clearly she could not count on him to save the clan.

He sat up, unaware of the emotional battle she had fought in the space of a few seconds, his face intent on the silver object that hung on the end of the cord.

“Ah, it’s a Celtic cross. My God, these are real rubies.” Incredulous, he practically yanked her neck off trying to get a closer look. “I’ve seen this before, haven’t I?” he said slowly, sounding puzzled.

“How should I know?” she said through her teeth, annoyed at his stupid preoccupation with a piece of jewelry.

He raised his head, suspicion burning in his eyes. “Where did you get it?” he said coldly.

Marsali refused to answer him, too enmeshed in her own misery to bother. She couldn’t understand the fuss he was making over a family heirloom, and at the moment, her personal disappointment in him overrode the urge to care. Let him think she had stolen it during a raid. He didn’t give a damn about the castle or his clansmen, which he treated as unwanted possessions. The years had only hardened him. She did hate him, after all. She hated everything he represented.

“This necklace belonged to very dear friend of mine, Marsali.” His eyes bored into her like strands of blue ice. “In fact, he was the only man I left behind whom I could call friend. He carried this cross with him everywhere because it had belonged to his young wife.”

Marsali looked up slowly, his words penetrating her anger. “The wife he mourned,” she said, intrigued by the depth of emotion in Duncan’s voice when only a moment earlier he had been so detached she could scream. Aye, there were feelings in him, all right, but he guarded them behind a thorny wall of indifference, which a person might never pierce. She could not understand why he had spoken of her father with an astonishing affection, even reverence.

“How do you know about his wife?” He nudged her face into the moonlight with his knuckles, the cross pressing into her chin. “How did you come to be wearing this?” he asked gruffly.

Again she was tempted to let him believe her a common thief, but the bruised anguish in his gaze stopped the impulse.
“It
…
it was my mother’s.”

“It wasn’t.” He swallowed, his eyes searching her face in stark denial, almost a plea. “Tell me you’re lying. You
are
lying.”

“Papa asked me to wear it always when he went off that last time with your father,” she whispered dryly.

Duncan slowly drew his hand away from her face, stricken by the truth he saw in her defiant loveliness, unprepared for the joke that Fate had executed at his expense again. To
seduce the orphaned daughter of the one person who had helped him salvage what scrap of human dignity his stepfather had not thrashed out of him. He took a breath, the self-contempt that rose in his throat thick enough to suffocate him. Why had he come back? Even a damned dukedom wasn’t worth the price of this emotional torture.

His embittered laughter broke the silence that had fallen. “Now I know why you se
emed so familiar, Marsali. Now I
know who I saw every time I looked in your face. Sweet wee Marsali. Dear Jesus, Andrew Hay would be rolling over in his grave if he could see what you’d become.”

“What have I become?” Marsali asked in guarded fascination, realizing that by an accident of birth she had suddenly been elevated to a position of mysterious importance in Duncan’s eyes, wondering what it would mean to her, her cunning mind plotting how to make the most of it.

“A criminal. An outlaw. A
…
” He frowned down into her enrapt face, alarmed to discover he had slipped his other arm around her waist while they were talking. “Respect for your father prevents me from saying the word aloud,” he finished grimly.

“What word?” Marsali asked, curiosity more compelling than propriety.

He wrenched his hand away, afraid to imagine what might have happened in another moment. “Never mind. It doesn’t bear saying.”

“How dare you,” Marsali said, her back stiffening at the insult, which had taken on graver proportions for being unspoken.

“How dare
you,
Marsali Hay.” His heavy black eyebrows drew together into a reproachful scowl. “How dare you ambush and undress men on the moor, only to let them take advantage of you on the beach like a—Well, it’s that word again. God, when I think about what we almost did.”

“What
you
almost did,” she said indignantly. “I didn’t do a damn thing. I was only trying to get warm.”

His smile was merciless. “In another minute I would have had you lying beneath me with your skirts pulled up, and you would have liked it too.”

“You hypocrite,” Marsali exclaimed, her temper flaring. She sprang to her feet, wanting only to escape him before
she could give him the pleasure of watching her break down like a bairn, accusing her of something she barely understood. He gripped her wrist and drew her back down onto the sand. But this time stark distrust replaced the mood of playful seduction that had built between them.

“I gave you a chance, my lord,” she said, breathless with anger. “But you
are
a black demon.”

“Yes.” He stuck his forefinger under her nose, his face unrepentant. “Hypocrite, bastard, demon, murderer, I’ve been called every dirty name under the sun, but let me tell you one thing, Marsali: You were the apple of your papa’s eye. Yes, I remember the day you were born. Andrew was already planning to marry you off to a Danish prince. ‘My daughter is descended from Olaf the Black,’ he told any poor idiot who would stop to listen after your birth.”

An unwilling smile eased the taut line of her mouth; she missed her father so much. “Really?” she whispered distrustfully.

“Yes, really. And no one was allowed to so much as breathe on his precious little princess. That old wizard uncle of yours drew a charmed circle around your cradle and stood vigil until your christening to prevent an evil fairy from claiming your soul. I should have made the connection. Damn it.”

Moisture glistened in Marsali’s eyes. “Papa always protected me,” she said, her heart aching with a pain she rarely allowed herself to acknowledge, a pain she avoided by filling her life with dangerous distractions.