by Cready, Gwyn
The woman took the handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. “I’m sure you don’t remember me, Master Jamie. But I remember you. I’m Mrs. Brownlow, your mother’s nurse. Oh, dear,” she said, touching his cheek. “What happened to your eye? In a bit of a stramash, perhaps? Come in, come in. Your grand-da’s not due back until the morn—” She stopped. “You have come to see him, have you not?”
Bridgewater nodded.
“Come, then,” she said, urging them to enter. “Let me find you a place to lay your head. The castle’s quite full—one of your grand-da’s councils, you know—but there’s still a room or two to be had. Is this your wife?” She gave Panna a welcoming smile.
“Oh, no,” Panna said quickly. “I’m an acquaintance of Captain Bridgewater from Penn’s Woods—Panna Kennedy. It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Brownlow.”
Mrs. Brownlow gave her a dainty curtsy. “Welcome, Miss Kennedy.”
She led them up a flight of stairs and down a long hall. At the end, where the hallway formed a T, two well-armed men stood guard in the corridor to the right.
“The clan chiefs are down there,” Mrs. Brownlow explained. “No one is allowed in.”
“Who is here for the council?” Bridgewater asked casually.
“Och, the usual. All the chiefs except McCann. He’s taken to his bed, and his son attends for him, though what good that wee snip might do, I don’t know. MacDowell, of course. Maxwell, MacClelland, Little, Beattie, Moffatt, Johnstone. A handful more.”
The names meant little to Panna, but she could see the muscles tighten on Bridgewater’s face. She felt as if a month had passed since she’d awakened that morning at Clare’s house. She’d be asleep before her head hit the pillow. Fortunately for all concerned, she’d already had her bath.
To the left, the direction in which Mrs. Brownlow led them, stood an alcove where a large crucifix hung. The woman crossed herself and mouthed a prayer as they passed.
When they reached the end of this hallway, Mrs. Brownlow lifted a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. “I shouldn’t let you down here, Master Jamie. Tis the woman’s wing. But I suppose no one will be fashed so long as I’m with you.”
She led Panna into a small, clean room with a four-poster bed, two desks and chairs, a basket full of dolls, and a shelf upon which a few slim volumes stood next to an ark and a carved set of animals. “This is the nursery. MacIver’s grandnieces stay here when they visit. Twas your mother’s room, too, Master Jamie. The ark was hers.”
Jamie stared at the items with as much amazement as if the actual ark and animals had been placed before him. He took an unsteady step toward the shelf and picked up a wooden elephant. One of the tusks was broken and the grain, smooth with age, gleamed in the candlelight.
“This was my mother’s?”
“Aye. She called the elephant a clobber because your grandfather told her that an elephant could use its trunk to hit attackers.”
He murmured, “Clobber,” and shook his head with an amazed smile.
“Now, let’s get you settled,” Mrs. Brownlow said to him. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to put you in the servants’ wing. There is an open bed there. I hope you don’t mind. Miss Kennedy, the kneeler’s there for your prayers. I shall have a pitcher and ewer brought to you, and I will lock the door at the end of the hall so you may rest easy. My room’s right there if you need anything. Will you be wantin’ a lady’s maid?” She opened a drawer and withdrew a candle, which she lit from the one she carried. Then she placed it in a holder.
Panna tried to shake the fatigue away, but it hung on her like a heavy coat. “No, I won’t need a lady’s maid, nor a pitcher and ewer. I’ll be going right to bed.”
She looked at Bridgewater, who had reluctantly returned the elephant to the shelf. “Good night,” she said. She didn’t know what the morning would bring or what his plans were. She wished somehow he could stay by her side. She felt safer with him at hand, but there didn’t seem to be any way for that to happen here.
He gave her a reassuring look. “I shall see you in the morning.”
Then Bridgewater and Mrs. Brownlow left, and the door closed with a click.
Panna undid the ties of her bodice, slipped out of the silk, and crawled gratefully into the bed in her shift. In the distance a cannon went off. Another of the English army’s warning blasts. It was in the early hours of Sunday morning. Her shift at the library began at noon. Somehow, she doubted she was going to make it.
TWENTY-FOUR
Undine’s Cottage, off the Road to Drumburgh
Adderly tied his horse in front of the small structure, cursing his pounding head. Even in the predawn darkness, without a single candle burning, he could tell Undine was there. A certain strangeness seemed to ooze from the windows whenever she was within. Gentry, the tracker, had said Bridgewater had bedded the woman. Adderly doubted it. The men who visited Undine wanted to know their fates, and they paid dearly for it. He supposed it sat easier on a man’s pride to say he needed a whore than to say he needed a woman to tell him how to cling to the path of luck and success or return to it if he’d gone astray.
What had Jamie Bridgewater come here for? That was the question. And did the answer have anything to do with a woman from the future arriving at his castle the same day?
Adderly stepped up to the low door and lifted his hand, but before he could knock a woman said, “Come in, Lord Adderly.”
Adderly ducked to enter. “Light a candle, if you would,” he said. “I cannot see you in the dark.”
“Do you need to see me?”
Her voice seemed to be coming from the right side of the room, but when she had spoken before, it had seemed to be coming from the other. “Aye.”
A flame hissed to life, though Adderly had heard no flint and seen no other candle. The glow painted the room in pale yellow. She gazed at him with her cat eyes.
“I thought the time passageway was closed to you now, Adderly. Or have you found another?”
He winced. He had wasted an opportunity to vanquish his enemies and enjoy untold wealth by dallying too often with that library keeper. Not the woman who had appeared at Jamie Bridgewater’s castle yesterday morning and stripped to her skin in Adderly’s room only a handful of hours ago. No, the library keeper he meant was Clementina Martindale. He could still smell the scent of roses in her thick raven hair and feel the gentle pop of her maidenhead as he took her.
“Had I known there was a limit on the number times I could visit,” he said with irritation, “I might have done things differently.”
“Tis not for man to know the secrets of the gods.”
“No, but since I paid you, I rather expected you to tell me.”
“You paid me to tell you your future. I told you the crossroads you faced would be found in the chapel at MacIver Castle.”
“Which is where I found the time passageway.”
She shrugged opaquely and gave him a smile. “I trust you found your time in the future advantageous.”
When he had returned after his first brief but alarming visit to the future, he had gone to Undine to beg her to tell him whether what he had done was dangerous and whether he could do it again. Undine had urged him to abandon his desire. She had told him the future is a dangerous place for a man ill prepared for its marvels. Since, as a nobleman, he considered himself fully prepared for any situation, and because she gave him no specific threat to fear, he ignored her petitions and returned, finding himself instantly smitten with the doe-eyed library keeper.
What a heady time that had been, finding Clementina and that odd, amazing library. She’d been so scared of him at the beginning—and desperate to fill her newly built library with books. He had made it a personal challenge to win her trust and seduce her. Gold had made both those things easy. Gold made so many things easy. He could still see the conflict on Clementina’s face, torn between a man she thought she loved and her fear of being “ruined.” He’d been amused by
her reluctance. As if learning to pleasure a man did anything but raise a girl in a man’s estimation.
“Aye, my time there was quite advantageous,” he replied.
In truth, he’d realized almost immediately what gifts the future could provide. And he would have acted upon them immediately if he had known his visits would be limited. Instead, he lost himself in pursuit of the girl. After several weeks he went back, determined to see Clementina’s library honor him; but after his third return, he found the space behind the door in the chapel transformed into nothing more than a storage space for candles and a broom.
Undine gave him a gentle smile. “Advantageous enough that the Bridgewaters are still the richest and most admired men in northern England.”
He didn’t like the way she’d said it, as if it were a question. Nor did he like the way she’d said “Bridgewaters,” as if she’d meant to include Jamie.
“You know as well as I do that I discovered a few things,” he said, his pique rising.
“You did indeed. That the English would one day control Scotland.”
“One day soon,” he added emphatically.
“Though I suppose knowing that does not provide a man with the sort of advantage he might have hoped for. Tis not as if you know the outcome of a specific battle, or the place in Yorkshire where a vein of silver will be discovered, or the name of the sea captain who will succeed in finding a shorter way to the Orient. Perhaps you could send a trusted confidant to retrace your steps, someone who has not exhausted the limit of three visits.”
As if Adderly had a confidant he trusted that much. He would rather die than allow any other man the chance to learn the future’s secrets.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, for the fairy woman said, “The idea is not to your way of thinking?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I understand. Why do you come, Adderly?”
He squared his shoulders. He hated the way she made him feel beholden to her.
“I have heard Captain Bridgewater was here.”
Undine regarded him coolly. “And if he was? There are many men who visit me, Adderly, each more desperate than the last.” She gave him a meaningful look.
Bloody witch. “There is a woman here who I believe came from the future—the same future I visited.”
“Indeed?” Undine’s brow arched. “Perhaps she was so taken with the statue you erected to yourself, she could not help herself.”
In his third and—unbeknownst to him at the time—final trip to the future, Adderly had undertaken to have a statue of himself made. It seemed only fitting, given that he had purchased most of the library’s contents, and Andrew Carnegie, that prideful man, had already seen fit to seize the honor of the library’s name. Adderly had overseen every detail of the design of the statue, choosing the artist, approving the materials, and even laying out the unusual design of the base—though of course that last had been for reasons other than artistic.
However, he had never told anyone in the eighteenth century about the statue, except for the locksmith he had consulted. Certainly not Undine, who had greeted each of his visitations with stronger exhortations that he stop. Had the locksmith spoken to Undine? Perhaps he had come to her cottage for a reading. He supposed locksmiths were as curious about their futures as any other men. Undine had a way of finding out whatever a man knew.
“Perhaps she was.” Adderly gritted his teeth, thinking of Mrs. Carnegie’s disappearance from his bedchamber. “I am more concerned, however, with the alliance I believe she has formed with Captain Bridgewater and what that might mean.”
“Mean? To you, you mean?”
“Aye, to me,” he said sharply. “I would like to know why Captain Bridgewater came here last evening.” He tossed a coin onto the table next to the candle.
“I don’t answer questions regarding my customers, Lord Adderly. What would an hour with me be worth if a man thought his deepest secrets would be spilled for the pleasure of other men?”
He tossed two more coins on the table, his blood boiling. He expected his requests to be fulfilled.
“You may keep your money.” There was an edge in her voice now. “I am willing to answer whatever questions you may have about your own future, but I cannot entertain inquiries about other men.”
“Damn you,” he said, furious. “I have paid you and paid you well. If this new library keeper possesses the future’s secrets and has provided them to Captain Bridgewater, I will know about it.”
“You will not know about it from me,” Undine said, eyes flashing. “Your money cannot buy my honor. Please take your gold and leave my home.”
“Honor.” He laughed. “Don’t talk to me about honor, you damned filthy whore. You were happy to take my money when it suited you.”
“Get out.”
“You say you’re not willing to spill other men’s secrets?” He picked up the candlestick. “Well, something’s going to be spilled here, and whether it’s Bridgewater’s secrets or something else depends very much on what you do next.”
He pinched out the candle’s flame, lifted the brass in the air, and took a step toward the sound of her terror-filled gasp.
TWENTY-FIVE
Nunquam Castle
Bridgewater’s mouth felt as light as butterfly, Panna thought dreamily, skimming her neck, collarbone, and the valley between her breasts. He came to rest on her nipple and suckled, pasting the thin linen against her flesh. The cool made her shiver, and her flesh hardened. He caught the other nipple and twisted, releasing a wave of wetness between her legs.
They were in her bed, though how they’d gotten here she couldn’t say.
“I will serve you,” he said. “And then you will serve me. Do you understand?”
His hand slid under the cover, caressing a knee. Her belly contracted so hard, she bit back a moan.
“Your skin is like warm silk.”
Down her thigh his hand traveled until he reached her mound. He palmed her slowly, as if he kneading bread. Her hips rose automatically to his touch. She knew he could feel her damp heat. It had been so long.
“You like to be frigged?” He whisked the tips of his finger over her bud.
“Yes,” she said, the word a puff of exhaled breath.
He stroked her more directly, kindling the flames. “Aye, you do. And do you like to do it yourself as well?”
She closed her eyes, unwilling to have him see the answer.
“Do you try to hide the truth?” He tugged her nipple and her legs strained farther apart. “There is no hiding the truth in carnal embrace. Your body betrays you.”
“Just as yours betrays you.” She could feel the pulsing of his blood in the hardened flesh at her side.
She bit her lip to endure the exquisite movement of his thumb.
“Touch yourself,” he said, and stood. “Do it now. I want to watch you.”
She shook as she slipped her arm beneath the covers. The warmth rose on her face, and he observed, his eyes glowing in the darkness.
The familiar first touch sent a charge through her, and the second and third spread the warmth like reverberations in a smooth pond.
“Oh, aye, you are practiced.”
She closed her eyes, used to summoning the images that would serve her, but changed her mind and opened them.
“Take off your clothes,” she said.
He chuckled, but his eyes turned a clear emerald. He slipped off his coat. His shoulders were wide and his waist narrow, and as the shirt slipped free of his breeks, she could see the lean muscles of his back.
His chest was lightly furred, and curlicues of sparkling sable and gold ran in a thin line down his belly, disappearing into the fabric.
Powerful waves of desire rocked her, spurred by the sight of that chest and the tightly clinging breeks.
She beckoned him with a finger and he stepped toward her. Four brass buttons, each within arm’s reach. She slipped one through its buttonhole, then its twin on the other side. The
fabric loosened enough to reveal the edge of a thick patch of curls. She slipped her fingers into the silky mass. His belly was flat and hard.
The third button strained over the tip of the thick length it covered. She laid her palm over the end and pressed.
“Ooh. Wench.”
She grinned. “Undo your knee buttons.”
She could have done them herself but wanted to see the outline of his hips as he bent. The flexing divot of muscle sent a shiver through her.
“Shall I take off my boots?” he asked.
“Absolutely not.”
She undid the third button, taking care to tease the flesh as she did it. The top of the breeks were sagging now, held in place only by a feat of marvelous physical engineering. She tugged the last buttonhole over the brass. The breeks fell to the floor.
Unlike his brother, whose plumage would have underwhelmed a sparrow, Bridgewater’s peacockery riveted her attention and stoked her desire.
“Don’t move,” she said.
“There are certain parts over which I am not sovereign at this moment.”
She laughed a low, throaty laugh that reached all the way to her belly. She was like a pot of simmering water, and her fingers stirred the roiling liquid higher and higher. He watched her eyes, and she could see her desire reflected in his own.
He was right about the sovereignty, and she rolled the inebriating image of his twitching flesh in her mind like a piece of candy on her tongue, riding the waves higher and higher.
He sank onto the bed. She wanted desperately to grasp that warm steel and taste the salty proof of his desire. He pressed her back against the pillows, running a finger over her lips. She parted them automatically and he smiled. But instead of bringing that part of him to her mouth, he lay alongside her and turned her toward him. Pressed between them, her hand worked its sweet rhythm, and he kissed her, a long, slow, searching kiss that she returned with equal hunger. He laid a hand on her cheek, and she pressed hers over it.