by Joanne Rock
His eyes lifted to hers again as a hint of amusement twitched one side of his mouth.
“Tell me, Lily Rothmore Desalles.” He moved so close she stopped breathing. “Could a phantom do this?”
He cupped her jaw in one warm, broad palm, his thumb lightly caressing her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered in shock at the intimacy. The irrefutable proof that he was very much a living, breathing man.
“Or this?” His voice hit a deeper note.
Tipping her chin up to his, he sketched a touch along the fullness of her lower lip, the action so blatantly sensual she felt an answering touch in the most private of places. Her whole body tingled in answer.
She was all but swaying on her feet when he dipped his head to capture her mouth in a kiss not even a fevered imagination could have conjured.
Chapter Three
He’d stolen the kiss by surprise.
Iain guessed Lily would recover herself in a moment and he’d have to contend with some form of maidenly outrage. A backhand to the face, perhaps. Or another round of shrieking until her aged servant finally roused from his tired stupor and came to her rescue.
Until then, Iain took unfair advantage. What healthy male, abstinent as long as he had been, would lay blame at his feet? She hadn’t refused.
Her parted lips were soft and yielding, the tentative kiss of an innocent. Even more innocent, in fact, than he’d imagined. He had thought her a virgin by her stunned surprise when he’d warned her that he wanted her. She’d been utterly unaware of the spark between them.
Of course, he hadn’t known she was a widow or he wouldn’t have guessed as much in the first place. But he’d been right about her innocence. Her marriage had obviously been a sham. She even kissed like an untried maid.
Now, cupping her chin, he angled her face for better access to the sweetness of her mouth. The scent of cinnamon and exotic spices clung to her skin and her night rail. The softness of her curves was unfettered by the complicated garb women wore during the day. He kissed her carefully, slowly, so as not to startle her. He wanted to draw out the moment for as long as possible. If only he could take her away from here, out into the misty forests where time seemed to stand still.
She sprang away from him suddenly, her hand lifting to her mouth as if she could take back the kiss. Or stifle all future kisses.
With wide eyes, she studied him, her color high. Her gaze tracked his. The scent of her filled his nostrils.
“You will leave this chamber and not return,” she ordered, her voice steady even though her hands shook as she wrapped her arms around herself. “You must not take such liberties again.”
“No woman commands me.” He needed to remember his duty to his clan. Discover if she was a nuisance visitor or if she posed a real threat. “You may stay in my chamber only by my leave. I protect the entrance to this doorway always. I keep you safe from it, as I do every other soul who comes near it.”
“I am sure I can have the door sealed.” She frowned, having no idea what might come through that door if he wasn’t on guard with his brothers at all times. “And I have a legal right to these lands,” she argued in that charming accent he now understood was American.
“Then we will meet tomorrow to discuss it.” He would learn her purpose and test his theory about why she could see him clearly when other trespassers of her era could not.
She had been surprised to learn that he was a real man and not a ghost. Yet he had been equally stunned to find out she was a flesh-and-blood woman herself. Lily Rothmore Desalles was not a Sidhe. That didn’t mean she wasn’t his enemy. But what if his foes had started using mortals to carry out their unholy work?
“Where?” she asked, hugging herself tighter, her dark hair catching the firelight in a way that made copper strands appear. “I will bar the trap door so you cannot return that way.”
“I want you to bar that door like your life depended on it, Lily. And we shall meet at the forest’s edge just before sunset, where you first saw me.” He had more options for dealing with her there. Close enough to his clan to call for help should she plan an ambush. Near enough to Sidhe lands that he could step into a magical place between realms where time did not follow the usual law of nature.
If he had a chance to kiss Lily again, he would ensure they were in a place where he could draw out the moment for hours. Days even, without her knowing.
His body responded to the thought instantly, his hunger for her roaring to life with new fierceness.
“When?” Her voice quivered a little, and he wondered if he’d somehow betrayed the direction of his thoughts.
“Sunset.” He would learn everything he needed to know from her then. “We may speak without reservation on neutral terrain.”
Her eyes dipped to the floor for a moment before returning to meet his gaze with new determination.
“Fine. But first, how did you know about me?” She clenched her teeth for a moment. “What made you think I was an innocent?”
The lady was full of surprises.
He grinned. “Do all American females speak so boldly?”
“Observing proper decorum has brought me naught but heartache.” Her jaw flexed and her lips pressed into a hard line. “Besides, it is imperative that I know what gave me away.”
Interesting. He tucked away that bit of knowledge to chew on later.
“It wasn’t any one thing.” He savored the memory of that conversation. “But the sum of several. You seemed fearless in your defense of your right to Invergale. Yet when the conversation turned a bit…er—” Carnal. “—personal, you retreated. More than that, you seemed confused. Nay, bewildered.”
She could not have hugged her arms to herself any tighter. The effect on her generous breasts was—he reminded himself—unintentional. He lifted his gaze to her burning cheeks with an effort.
“Is that all?” She seemed to choke out the words, her chin held high.
Why was the answer so important to her?
“An experienced woman feels the possibility of mating in the air.” It was more of a clarification, really. But she’d gotten him thinking. “It comes down to awareness.”
Her brow furrowed, her nose wrinkled in annoyance.
“How perfectly heathen,” she noted crisply, an unsteady hand gesturing toward the passage door. “But thank you for your insights.”
He hoped to have the opportunity to make a few more. But he thought it wisest not to mention it.
“We meet at sunset, then.” Ignoring the secret passageway, he moved toward the main door to the tower chamber and raised the bar. “Until then, I hope you enjoy my hospitality, Lily.”
Departing before she could dispute his ownership yet again, Iain took the tower stairs down to the great hall. He kept the memory of Lily’s kiss at the front of his mind as he passed the threadbare tapestries still hanging behind the dais. The images stitched on that tattered fabric were a part of the past he’d rather forget.
Because although he was no phantom himself, he had ghosts of his own to keep at bay.
* * *
Leaving Invergale far behind, Iain rode into a hazel grove deep in the Caledonian forest. He recognized the figures waiting for him in the shadow of Cairn Eilrig, their horses prancing nervously where they were tethered.
“Who is she?” a voice barked at him from a ledge near a mountain waterfall, a place where the three often met.
“Good to see you, too, Magnus,” Iain shot back at the older of his two younger brothers. Magnus had the disposition of a troll and a quick sword arm to go with it.
The combination had gotten the Darrochs in more battles than Iain could count. Then again, Magnus’s sword had also got them out of quite a few.
“Do ye think I care for pleasantries when a woman takes up residence at Invergale uninvited?” he growled, his brogue growing thick in his anger. “Ye’ve been gone for hours.”
Iain climbed up to a flat rock covered with moss, just out of reach of the fine mist coming off
the waterfall. Ferns grazed his calves as he walked, the constant swish and burble of water muting the call of night birds. Dropping onto the mossy ledge beside Alexander, the youngest of four siblings, Iain bit back a sharp response. He knew they’d worried about him.
“Who is she?” Alexander passed Iain a flask with one hand while he coaxed a tiny flame to life from a pile of twigs with the other.
Their time together was short, as always, but Alexander had a habit of lighting a fire when they met. As if they could recreate a hall and hearth they would never again share.
Dragging his gaze up from the sparking tinder, Iain thought about the woman. Lily.
“I think she’s mortal.” He would know better tomorrow after they met at sunset.
“Impossible,” Magnus scoffed, clambering down beside them, his sword clanking against the rock as he found a place. “You said her eyes picked you out of the forest right away. Mortals are slow creatures. Their vision doesn’t track the likes of us.”
True. Yet Iain had fought to hold on to his humanity. He tipped the flask to his lips, downing the fiery brew.
“I haven’t figured out why she can see me yet, but I will.” Tomorrow. When he met her again outside of Invergale.
“When? We could be wasting time while she amasses forces against us.” Alexander risked a look up from the ball of flame. And even in the darkness, Iain could feel his younger brother’s assessing stare. “Why didn’t you return through the tower passage? Who is safeguarding it?”
If Iain had, he would have arrived on the other side of the waterfall since a long tunnel connected the two places. The escape route had been built in the thirteenth century when Invergale had been constructed by a long-ago Darroch.
“It is locked. And I wanted to walk through the keep, in case I could learn more about her.”
“But everything looked… normal?” Magnus passed Alexander a more substantial stick to feed the flames.
“The tapestries are still hanging. She has not disturbed anything that matters.” She’d cleaned the place and lit the hearth fires. The effect had been strangely comfortable.
Iain had meant to question her thoroughly about her motive in coming to Invergale, and had ended up kissing her instead.
“You like her.” Alexander fanned his new fire with a fallen rowan branch full of dry leaves.
“Nay.” He lied on instinct, knowing he could not indulge himself with a woman who could still be the enemy.
“Are ye daft, Iain?” Magnus yanked the flask out of his hands. “Do nae give the Sidhe a tool to hurt us.”
The brogue was back, making him sound just like their father.
Iain tensed.
“Even if she is not a Sidhe, she could be helping them.” Alexander, ever reasonable, kept a cooler tone. But as he piled small rocks around his fire, Iain sensed his frustration in the careful precision of his movements.
“This I know.” He’d spent a century keeping trespassers out of Invergale since it was a known doorway to the Sidhe world. He prevented humans from being lured by their false promises of love and happiness in a land where mortals could not reach, the way his sister had been. “We must keep watch on her servants or any visitors who come to see her.”
He would not allow anyone to steal Lily away or curse her to share his fate for daring to follow his sister into Sidhe lands. Immortality was no gift when you were doomed to endless wandering. All three brothers carried a small, eternal flame within their chests, a light that had not been out since the fae bastards had planted it inside them.
“What mortal woman braves Invergale?” Magnus mused aloud. “She can only be here to serve some foul purpose. To lead others to Invergale. The Sidhe grow hungry for more souls after one hundred years of being thwarted by us.”
Iain did not answer. Instead, he watched Alexander. Just as his brother finished his rock ring around the small fire he’d built, Alexander swept the stones over the top of the flickering light, crushing the flames.
“You still believe her unaware.” Alexander observed as smoke drifted on the breeze.
“Aye.” She would need Darroch protection, that much was certain. Iain could not deny that he would be happy to give it to her. She had been an unexpected treat delivered in the midst of a life of wandering, her kiss a sweetness he would never forget, even if he lived as long as those Sidhe bastards had promised he would. “And she will sleep under our roof until I say she is a threat.”
No one spoke for a long moment.
“There is one other possibility,” Alexander said finally, coming to his feet to begin another long and cursed trek through the mountains. Magnus had been the one to take the journey the night before and Iain would travel on the morrow’s eve after he met Lily.
“And that is?” Iain wondered what he could have missed. If Lily was not an enemy Sidhe immortal, or working for the Sidhe, she must be a mortal woman who happened into an age-old feud.
Magnus edged forward, taking the flask from Iain’s hands. “Go on, brother. Speak yer piece afore your feet get ahead of you.”
Already, Alexander was retreating from them, the curse of wandering a double blight on the Darroch brothers since they could never travel together. They’d tried for years, but the results had been mayhem at best. Debilitating physical pain at worst.
“Only this,” Alexander began, his voice fading as he moved deeper into the Caledonian wood. “If she is mortal, perhaps the reason she can see you is that she’s your soul’s one true mate…”
The last word was barely whispered on the breeze as Alexander disappeared completely. But it might as well have been shouted from the top of CairnGorm for the way it reverberated in Iain’s ears.
Magnus turned to him, his shaggy eyebrows raised. Iain could already see the question in his eyes.
“Never.” Iain would not consider it. The mere possibility rattled him more than facing a whole forest full of Sidhe. The forest ancients liked to say that true love was the only way out of immortality, but Iain had never pinned his hopes on the vague possibility that any woman would feel that way for him.
Besides, he would allow no one to love him. Not when a future was so uncertain. For all he knew, he could end up consigning a woman to share his fate instead of being saved from his curse.
He started down the rock ledge, determined to shake loose some answers from Lily Rothmore Desalles. She was a mortal woman, plain and simple. A mortal woman with acute vision and a misplaced sense of adventure to choose Invergale of all places to rest her pampered head.
The sooner Iain could convince her to leave, the better.
* * *
Lily watched the sun slip behind the mountains in the reflection on the loch. She had thought of this moment all day, impatiently waiting for sunset so she could see the mysterious Iain Darroch again.
She would have believed she dreamed the whole startling episode the night before if not for the secret doorway he’d revealed in her bedchamber. She had spent the better part of an hour moving all her wardrobe chests against the entrance. They would not keep out a strong warrior, but anyone trying to enter in the future would be forced to make a great racket.
Turning her back to the placid loch at the end of a mild day, Lily watched the tree line where she had seen the Highlander before. Was it foolish to meet a man alone at the forest’s edge? Everything she had ever been taught told her yes, but her instincts trusted Iain’s honor. He could have dared much with her during the kiss that had so affected her, but he had not. Because of that, she felt a certain amount of safety around him. And yet, a bit ensorcelled, too.
Perhaps it was this place—so ruggedly beautiful and wild, unlike anything she’d ever seen in New York or London. With the mists hanging over high mountain peaks and the deeply green forests full of ancient trees and unnamed beasts, the Highlands seemed enchanted. Even Invergale itself was straight out of one of Ms. Radcliffe’s gothic novels, with its echoing corridors and cold drafts that seemed to have no relationship to a
ny weather outside. The castle felt full of secrets. Being here made her feel different.
Less constrained.
“Lily.” She heard Iain’s voice before she saw him.
Her gaze ran the length of the trees, searching. She found him lounging against the trunk of a thick old ash, his shoulder tipped against the bark.
By now, the sight of his bare legs clad only in dark gartered hose did not surprise her. The belted plaid he wore draped over one shoulder revealed a crisp white tunic, now tied at the neck, unlike the first time she’d spotted him. His hair was damp, too, and tied neatly in a queue that rested on one shoulder. He had the appearance of a man freshly washed and laundered, and she wondered if he’d made the effort for her sake. Her heart beat rapidly as she approached him.
“I have been looking for you,” she admitted, dispensing with drawing room manners that had no place in these wild lands. She liked that about Invergale.
“Have you?” His green eyes seemed lit from within, a fanciful notion she must have imagined. “I thought you might have your man servant here waiting to gut me for daring to intrude on your slumber last eve.”
“Certainly not.” She hoped to entice Iain Darroch to…court her, perhaps. She needed a very specific favor from him and it would require some time to broach such a delicate subject. “I have been curious about you.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He offered his arm with a kind of old world gallantry she had not expected. “Perhaps you will not mind if I ask you a few questions, as well.”
“We can take turns.” Looping her arm through his, she rested her fingers on his strong forearm. Warm muscle shifted under her touch. “But wherever will we walk? It will be fully dark any moment.”
“I know an open path that moonlight always touches.” He gestured ahead, and she thought she could see a break in the trees. “May I show you?”
When she hesitated, he stopped walking.
“Would you like to bring your servants?” he offered, no doubt trying to put her at ease.
“No.” She had not forgotten the awkward sensation of seeing Iain when others did not. “I will follow you if it isn’t far.”