His aunt and uncle had arrived at Canniebrae already convinced that Samantha was a gauche American grifter leading him around by the cock as she merrily bilked him of everything he was worth. His defense of her hadn’t convinced them otherwise, but with her humor and her genuine interest in…everything, her thoughtfulness and her knowledge of the old objects and customs they found important and precious, she’d begun winning them over. Unless he was greatly mistaken, which he didn’t think he was, they even preferred her to the well-groomed phony presently hanging onto Reg’s arm and pretending to be nervous about the coming spook show, as Samantha had termed it.
Hopefully Eerika Nyland wasn’t aware of just where she ranked in the popularity hierarchy, because rank seemed to matter a great deal to her. He could almost feel sorry for her, except he remembered the chaos and embarrassment Patricia had brought into his life when she’d realized that all the money and attention and privilege in the world couldn’t fill an empty soul. He didn’t wish a sub-human like that on anyone – even Reg, and even if it seemed rather fitting and inevitable.
He was somewhat surprised the Viking hadn’t strapped a camera rig to herself so she could record her own reactions to the ghost show. Or perhaps that was Reg’s job – sex partner and reality show cameraman.
Samantha straightened. “Okay. I don’t want to oversell this, but hang on to your arses. To be fair there’s a thing called matrixing; it’s human nature to try to make sense out of random sounds or objects. So this could be that, but it might not be.” She took the seat beside him, reaching for his hand. Since she had dug through ancient things for half her life and never flinched that he knew of, he presumed the handholding was for his sake. He had no objection to that.
“All ready,” Walter said. “Yule?”
With a nod the butler lowered the lights. Richard was somewhat surprised the power was still on, since the weather continued to rage outside. Previously a slight breeze or a falling leaf had knocked them back into the literal Dark Ages. Perhaps the house wanted everyone to witness the evidence Samantha and Walter had found.
“Let’s start with the audio from Rick and Donner’s EVP session,” Samantha said.
A wiggly line went across the screen, bouncing in time with Tom’s recorded voice. “Did you ever wear this armor? Or was it just for show?”
A low whisper trailed his question.
“Goodness,” Aunt Mercia exclaimed, putting a hand to her ample bosom. “What did it say?”
“Turn up the volume, Stoney.”
Walter replayed the question, then the quieter response. This time Richard could make it out – or at least he could put words to the sounds, matrixing or not. “‘For Bonny Prince Charlie’?” he quoted aloud. “Is that what you heard?”
“You mean your mother’s family were Jacobites?” Reg cleared his throat. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“That’s what I heard, m’laird,” Yule put in, crossing himself.
“King James and Prince Charles were after the shining armor period,” Samantha put in. “It could be a soldier, just not the one who wore the armor.”
“Oh, it’s terrifying anyway. Is there anything else?” Eerika hid her face against Reg’s shoulder.
The next two pieces were both sounds that might have been speech, but no one could agree what they said. They might also have been a jacket rustling, but given the audience, Richard kept that thought to himself. Then he heard his own voice. “What say we go get a beer?” followed immediately by a very clear, “thirsty”.
“Good God, I heard that,” his uncle announced
“I did, as well,” his wife seconded. “’Thirsty’. I have the shivers!”
“Wait till you see the next one, then,” Samantha said. The monitor flickered on, showing two brightly-colored figures to one side, and misshapen purple and black shadows around them. “This is the thermal camera,” she explained. “The more heat something has to it, the more red and white you’ll see. The colder colors are purple and black. That’s Reggie and Eerika there, doing an EVP session.”
“Yes or no, is it hidden in a cave?” Eerika’s slightly distorted voice said. “In a—”
“I don’t hear anything,” Norway broke in, as if everybody didn’t already know what she and Reggie were digging after.
“Shh,” Tom interrupted.
“—a house somewhere? A cellar?”
As Miss Nyland asked her questions, the image flickered, a dark…fuzz blanking the image from left to right and then clearing again. “Leave me alone,” hissed out of the speaker, as Aunt Mercia shrieked. “Not for you.”
“Holy crap!” Tom exclaimed, lurching backward and then sitting quickly forward. “Play it again!”
Walter did so. Looking more carefully this time, knowing what was coming, Richard noted the shape could have been a drift of cold air, or it could have been what he’d felt walking through the portrait gallery. If so, he had a dead highwayman loitering there.
“Do you think that could be Will Dawkin?” Uncle Rowland asked, the older man’s voice not quite steady. “Telling everyone to leave his treasure alone? That’s what Reg has been barking about for the past month, anyway.”
“Which means there is a treasure,” Reg said, sending Richard a hostile glance.
“Or there was,” Samantha countered. “I don’t think the passage of time means much in ghost land.”
Richard took a slow breath, the highly logical part of his brain going through possibilities like stray drafts, creaking floors, anything that might have caused that sight and sound. On the other hand, a few months ago he and Sam had unearthed a supposedly cursed diamond – and had suffered through several supremely odd circumstances. “That was impressive,” he said. “I’m not convinced it wasn’t a draft and the sound of the wind, but it definitely gives me something to think about. And to sleep on.” He tightened his fingers around Samantha’s.
“I don’t think I’ll sleep ever again!” Aunt Mercia exclaimed.
“Is there any more?” Tom asked, downing the rest of his glass of whisky. “Because my pants are nearly scared off.”
“That was it,” Samantha returned. “We found a few more ‘maybe’ sections, but it could have been somebody breathing or walking. Eerika, did you or Reggie find anything on your EMF recorder?”
“No.” Reg straightened a little. “Not even that bit about leaving whoever it was alone.” Eerika leaned her head close to his and muttered something. Immediately Reg stood, pulling her up beside him. “I think Eerika’s a bit wobbly. We’ll say goodnight now.”
As they left the room and Yule turned the lights up again, Samantha leaned against Richard’s shoulder. “Any bets they’re gonna go listen to their recording again? And probably go stake out the portrait gallery with some more questions?”
“I am not taking that bet,” he returned. “I am, however, ready to retire for the evening.” He’d been ready to give her that aloe lotion massage for a couple of hours, now, and if they didn’t get on with it soon he was going to have to go massage himself. And that seemed a damned waste.
“Will you join us in the library?” Aunt Mercia asked on the tail of that thought. “I need some brandy and some conversation if I’m ever going to be able to close my eyes tonight.” She smiled at Walter. “And I should very much like to get to know you, Mr. Barstone. Sam credits you with raising her.”
Walter paused in his disassembly of the spook equipment. “She does?” he said, lifting an eyebrow that sent creases halfway up his scalp.
“Yes, she does,” Samantha put in with a slight, fond grin that made Richard a little jealous despite how well he knew that Walter was a father figure, and nothing else. A much better father figure than her actual father had ever been.
“Well, I do like a good brandy,” Walter admitted, turning off the monitor.
Uncle Rowland chuckled. “Ah ha. Very good, then. You as well, Tom. We’re all family here. I’m certain you have some stories to tell.”
Tom sent Samantha a lifted eyebrow of his own. “Oh, that I do.”
Now even if he and Samantha could make themselves scarce, Richard wasn’t going anywhere. Not while Walter and Tom were being questioned about Sam. Especially if they were going to be drinking.
“We’re not retiring now?” Sam breathed, somehow still managing to sound amused.
“Nope.”
“Okay. But what did you think of the video?” Tugging him to his feet, she slid an arm warmly around his waist and fell in as they led the way to the library. “Really? Not the cynical, for public consumption stuff.”
“Since I met you,” he returned, drawing her more closely against his side, “I’ve realized there are more things in heaven and earth than my philosophy covers.”
“Way to plagiarize Hamlet. Do you mean it?”
“I’m not certain what that was, my lass. Just like I didn’t know exactly what to make of that supposedly bad-luck necklace you found.” He took a slow breath. “This is an old, old place. I’m actually glad you seem to have found a soldier and a highwayman. I imagine there have been much worse hereabouts.”
He glanced at Yule, who finished lighting a fire in the hearth and then went to bring in some brandy snifters. With the butler as a witness to the ghost reveal, he imagined that the second the weather cleared half the village would know that Will Dawkin had made an appearance, that he’d asked to be left alone, and that he’d declared his treasure didn’t belong to the Addisons. Which was fine with him, because he happened to agree with that sentiment.
The part that bothered him was how the suspicious and superstitious locals would view this. They were already extremely nervous about anyone caught digging where they shouldn’t be. Of course, his own interpretation of Will Dawkin’s supposed message didn’t quite match the one the villagers would likely have. In his opinion the “not for you” referred to Reg. Not to Sam. Who else would a highwayman want to find his treasure but his modern counterpart?
He stayed remarkably pleasant for the next three hours if he said so himself, until with a flash and boom the lights finally did go out. For once he was glad for the iffy power, and as soon as he’d handed torches to everyone not already equipped with one, he dragged Samantha out of the library.
“Don’t run me into a wall,” she said, chuckling.
“We’re getting out of here before the lights come back on. I thought I was going to have to put a stack of books in my lap.”
“You say the sexiest things.”
She’d probably learned the floorplan of Canniebrae five minutes after they’d arrived and could get to any room even in the pitch dark, but she seemed content to hold his hand and let him lead the way with the torch he carried in his free hand. At least Yule hadn’t skimped on batteries for the house.
He half expected to see marching suits of armor and floating candles now – the things he’d heard and seen tonight had pushed up against some very deeply-ingrained beliefs, and explaining them all away to his own satisfaction would take some time. A life that had been exceedingly well-ordered up until a year ago now orbited around a thief who broke into his house when she got bored. Now he stabbed people with antique swords, and other people shot at them and tried to blow them up every other week. Why not ghosts who delivered warnings and yearned for glasses of beer?
No one hurled anything at them as they wound through the maze of corridors, and he released her hand to push open their bedchamber door. One of the maids had lit the fire in the large fireplace, and he flicked off the torch in the warm orange glow.
“It’s still pouring,” Samantha noted, tilting her head to listen. “I hope the hole those guys dug for the wiring doesn’t turn into a swimming pool.”
“Or an ice skating rink,” he added. “I really don’t want the cellar foundation cracking.” Richard sat on the chair by the fire and pulled off his shoes.
Samantha dropped into the chair opposite him and removed her own tennies. “I’m glad we’re kind of on the same team again, even if you still won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“I ca—”
“I get it,” she cut in, standing again and walking over to sit on the arm of his chair. “But I also feel better about finding the books you hid in the hatbox. They were pretty helpful.”
She’d found them. Of course she’d found them. The part of him that wanted to know if she’d actually had to search was immediately shouted into submission by the part that wondered if it had even taken her five minutes to track them down. “Is that your way of telling me you’d be running circles around me if we weren’t on the same side?” he asked instead, pulling her down across his thighs.
“There might be some pride involved,” she admitted, running her fingers through his dark hair and then pulling his face closer for a kiss. She wiggled her bottom against him. “You weren’t kidding about needing a dictionary to hold down Captain Stiffy, were you?”
Richard shut his eyes for a moment, enjoying the sensation of her moving against him. “We are not calling it that.”
“No?”
When she began bouncing, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the waist-high bed. He’d always enjoyed sex, but God, she excited him. Every time with her reminded him of the first time, when they’d gone out to dinner and then hadn’t even made it home. The blue Bentley Continental was one car he would be holding onto, just because that was where he’d confirmed that she hadn’t just been teasing or flirting to get something from him. She’d wanted him, as much as he’d wanted her. As much as he still wanted her.
“Where’s the aloe?” he asked, jumping onto the bed and attacking her jeans zipper amid the loud metal squeaking of the frame.
“I am honestly worried that once you get started with that, I’ll end up so slippery I’ll slide off the bed,” she returned with a laugh, lifting her hips as he yanked her pants down.
The sight before him stopped him for a moment. “So those are Spanx,” he mused, sliding a finger beneath the elastic waist and tugging on it.
“Suddenly I feel all Bridget Jones,” she commented, eyeing him. “Do I look sexy?”
“How in God’s name am I supposed to answer that?”
She snorted. “At least help me roll them off. They’re tighter than a wet suit.”
Between the two of them they managed to remove them, and he tossed them over the side of the bed. Her bright pink bikini underwear followed them a second later. The insides of her thighs were a little pink still, and he imagined a day or two ago they must indeed have chaffed. “I’m still willing to lotion you,” he commented, pulling his shirt off over his head. “Extremely willing.”
“Well, if you insist,” she murmured, reaching over her head for a plastic bottle on the nightstand and handing it down to him.
While she pulled off her shirt and pink bra that matched her underwear, Richard shed his own jeans and put a careful amount of aloe lotion on one palm. It smelled pleasantly of coconut, but he didn’t want either of them slathered in it, particularly since it wasn’t edible. Sliding down onto his stomach, he started at her knee, working his way up in small, slow circles. She sighed happily, then jumped when he extended his thumb to brush it along her folds as he massaged high up on her inner thigh.
“I think that’s cheating,” she gasped, arching her hips.
“I do not.” He did the same thing up her other thigh, and by the time he’d finished she was writhing on the bed with enough enthusiasm that any other foreplay had left his thoughts. Sliding up between her tropical-smelling thighs, he licked the lovely apex between them. The taste of her excitement was intoxicating.
“Dammit, Rick, you know the damn aloe was just a ploy. Do it right.”
By “it” he assumed she meant sex, but since she’d been driving him mad practically since they’d arrived at Canniebrae, a little payback seemed fair enough. Especially this kind of payback. “I didn’t quite hear you,” he said, sliding a finger inside her. “Were you begging for s
omething?”
She slid away from him, sitting up. “Me?” she asked, an excited grin on her face. “I don’t beg.”
“Sam—”
Samantha slowly rolled onto her stomach and hitched her arse up in the air. “You, on the other h—”
Oh, fuck the foreplay. Richard pushed up onto his knees, grabbed her by the hips, and pulled her backward as he moved forward, entering her deeply from behind. With a shivery sigh she arched her back, and he bent forward to cup her breasts as he thrust into her.
He couldn’t have summoned a clever reply if he’d wanted to, but from the keening sounds of pleasure she was making and the loud, rhythmic squeaking of the bed, she probably wouldn’t have heard him anyway. Richard pinched her nipples, pulling lightly, and with an abrupt shudder she came, shivering and tight, around him.
It became all sensation, him thrusting in hard and fast, pushing as deeply as he could, her lowering her head, gripping her hands into the sheets. Yes, they might have begun as a loose-cannon adrenaline junkie and a buttoned-up businessman, but they’d always, always fit here.
Closing his eyes, he came, shoving hard into her and keeping himself there as she met him just as solidly from the other side. Reaching around, he grabbed her left knee and pulled it to the right, collapsing them onto the bed sideways with him still inside her.
“How are your thighs?” he asked, panting.
“Nicely unchaffed.” With a breathy chuckle she snuggled back closer against his chest. “I think two days without having you may be my tolerance limit.”
And thank God for that, because even after a year, even when they argued, he wanted her. All the time. This was where he didn’t have to worry about her past, their present, or their future. This was literally just them, together. Richard drew the hair away from her face and kissed her throat. “Likewise.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad it’s not just me.”
“Mm hm. Don’t get too cozy. We’re going to be here for a while.”
“I am thinking,” Reginald snapped, pacing to the window and back. Sometime during the night, the rain had turned to snow and then stopped. It left behind a white blanket that looked fetching but that would probably be a muddy mess by midday. It was rather emblematic of this entire bloody holiday, really.
Barefoot in the Dark Page 23