He had somehow restructured the boundary between them. She could no longer remember any of the reasons why she’d been so angry with him. “You confuse me, Erik.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“Good God, Christine.” Not nearly appalled as he sounded, he whipped out a handkerchief from inside his jacket. “Whoever taught you to wipe your nose on your sleeve?”
She snatched the handkerchief from his hand. “Heaven forbid that I ever learn to cry like a proper lady.” She blew her nose and glared up at him with determined, watery eyes. Then did something she had never done before.
She stepped into his arms. Not because he so obviously needed comforting—though clearly, he would never ask—but because she did, and his arms made her feel safe. She remained there without speaking or daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell between them. Somewhere behind her, the glass-dome clock ticked away the seconds and resonated like the beat of his heart against her cheek, as if telling her she could not remain in Erik’s arms forever. “Thank you for sharing your secrets,” she said.
“I have never told another soul what I told you,” he said. “Hell, I do not know why I told you, except I owe you some manner of explanation.”
“You are kind to think so.”
His chuckle bordered on satire. “I told you once before I never do anything out of kindness. I have my reasons for everything I do.”
A tightness squeezed her chest. She pulled away. “Why do you behave as if you do not care what I think about you? What anyone thinks of you.”
“Then allow me to recuse myself from any further comment on the topic of my confession, madam,” he quietly said, his eyes touching hers, “for fear it will prejudice you more against my character.”
“You fear too much, Erik. It is too easy to hide behind fear and guilt.”
Cognizant of the heavy thudding of her heart as he laid a knuckle against her jaw and tilted her face, she tried to look away. But he would not allow her. “And what do you fear, leannanan? Where do you hide?”
There was heat in his eyes when they met hers. He tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
He picked up the C. A. Sommers book he’d been fondling earlier. “Behind your father’s work perhaps? Or should I say, your work? Christina Alana Sommers?”
Tears filled her eyes all over again as she looked away. How could he know she was C. A. Sommers?
“He let me read your manuscripts. Your voice is all over that book.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Your father and I were in contact for a year before he passed away. I got to know you again through him. But I did not know for sure you were C. A. Sommers until you told me about his dragon. That theory had never been your father’s. But yours. He is the one who went out on the proverbial limb for you.”
“And paid for it with his professional reputation and his health.” She pressed her nose into his shirt and sniffled again. “When you came that day to the school with the tooth, it was like a miracle.”
“I don’t want to be the one responsible for crushing your dream. Go find your beast, Christine.”
And it was as if time had momentarily stopped and encapsulated them within its warm embrace. As if life had breathed springtime into her heart.
As if all her questions were suddenly answered.
If only all the answers were simple.
Her palms lay abreast of his thudding heart. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She felt the tremor that went through him, as if he read her thoughts in her silence. His fractured breath caressed her lips. Reaching his hand behind her nape, he drew her against him. “Know this now, my love. No matter what the future may bring, I consider you mine in every way. And our bargain has yet to be met.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. She was conscious of the primal need to have him even as she knew much remained unsettled between them, yet, knowing at least in this, tonight they were partners in every way. The fingers that splayed his chest, closed into a fist that gripped his shirt. No longer content just to touch him, she deepened the kiss. A slow, guttural moan escaped him, and her world spun as he pushed his tongue deep, tasted, and finally sipped.
Slowly, he raised his head, focused on her lips, then looked into her eyes. She inhaled the scent of rain that dampened his clothing and his hair, and tasted him in his senses. Her name on his lips, he explored the contour of her cheeks with his palms, the softness of her skin with his fingertips. There was heat in his touch. Heat in his body pressed to hers and in the hands that framed her face and, for a moment, as he traced his thumbs along the outline of her lips, she believed that she, who believed in dragons, truly feared nothing.
Threading his fingers into the thick mass of her hair, he loosened the scarf until it drifted to the floor in a streamer of blood-red silk. “Look at me,” he said.
She did as he bid, lifting her lashes slowly to peer into his eyes. She had expected them to be hooded, his thoughts hidden. Neither was the case. “I need this to be your choice. I cannot guarantee the future,” he said.
“Then I will guarantee it for us,” she whispered against his lips.
Her hands were already sliding his jacket off his shoulders as he carried her to the chaise longue. His hands worked the buttons on her bodice. With each sensuous push and pull of his lips on hers, she traced the play of his muscles on his back and his arms, their mouths hungry and searching. His shirt, only half unlaced, fell around her as he held himself braced with one hand above. She could feel her pulse pounding and the touch of his hand between her legs. He kissed her stomach.
“Is this still your time of the month?”
She shook her head, shocked that he would have known. “No.”
Then he was between her legs, low over her belly, releasing the tension of his thumb, he gently kissed her cleft, preparing her by the slowest degrees for his invasion. He brought her legs up over his shoulders and without preamble or seduction, he replaced his fingers with his mouth, the sheer force of his oral penetration driving her hips upward. His tongue flicked against her clitoris. She cried out, breathy and shaking. Her fingers curled in his hair.
She thought she might scream and yet she held him there lifting herself higher so he could suckle all of her. He slid his tongue around the nub and then inside her, pulling, tasting, she could not decide if she should cry out in pain or pleasure. In the end, she did both as the pressure inside her released. Still rocked with tremors, Erik rose above her. He kept his eyes riveted on her face until she looked up at him, half-naked, her skirts rucked around her waist, her hair spread over the chaise and trailing to the floor.
“Mayhap there is one consolation for us, my love,” he whispered against her mouth, spreading her thighs as he pushed inside her. “We are made for this, you and me.”
Erik made love to her. Or she to him.
Christine did not know. Nor did she care.
She had come to Sedgwick to find a dragon. Not a myth, but one that might have once truly existed. It was the reason she married Erik.
And the reason why she later came awake in his bed upstairs in the darkness as warm arms encircled her and gently turned her on her back, and she felt that melting pleasure inside her all over again.
Christine cradled Erik’s head against her breasts, feeling his tongue against her hardening nipples. Then his mouth was hard against hers and her arms wound around his neck. He caressed her buttocks as she moved against him, opening her legs to join with him, and within minutes he had filled her, and the dragon in her dreams became the one in her arms.
Chapter 16
An hour before dawn Erik rang for Boris. Erik had left Christine asleep in his bed where he had carried her earlier. He’d finally risen and dressed.
Now Boris stood in the doorway of Erik’s private sitting room. Wearing a nightshirt and stocking hat, the aging man was a thin silhouette framed by the light behind him. “Did
you summon me, your grace?”
Erik glanced at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. “My apologies for waking you so early, Boris.”
“Yes, your grace. I came. I thought perhaps there might be a crisis.”
“It is too early for a crisis, Boris. I have personal business with which to attend and will be away from Sedgwick Castle. I need you to see that Lady Sedgwick gets this in the morning.” Erik handed him a wooden box holding the heavy iron key to the tower. He could have been handing over the key to his heart for all he knew. He’d felt strange all evening. “The place will need to be cleaned. But you stay out of the tower yourself. Too many bloody stairs, else someone will be calling me to bring an undertaker back.”
“Yes, your grace. Thank you.”
“Do you mind not calling me ‘your grace’ with every single syllable you utter, Boris. It is not necessary. And I find myself tiring of it.”
“Yes, your…sir,” Boris hesitated. “You have packed?”
“My valise has already been removed to the coach. I can see myself downstairs. I do not want the household awakened.”
“Yes. Very well.”
Erik pulled on his leather gloves. “My wife goes nowhere without Hamilton to escort her.”
“He will guard her with his life.”
“Thank you, Boris. I appreciate his loyalty. Just see that Hamilton keeps her safe. That will be all.”
“Good morning then.”
Erik turned back into the room. She lay on her side watching him.
He sat on the edge of the bed. His gaze slipped downward to caress the naked curve of her waist and each breast. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He pulled the covers over her shoulders. “The keep is yours to do with as you will, leannanan.”
His gaze hesitated on the hand that came to rest on his. A small corner of his mind cherished the urgency in her touch. “Thank you,” she said.
Erik pressed his palms against the pillow, bracketing her between his arms and his body, teasing the curls at her temple with his breath before he kissed her one more time. “Sleep.”
“You will keep yourself safe?”
Their warm breath mingled until at last, his thumb traced her bottom lip and he kissed her lightly. “Always.”
Erik walked the corridor to his daughter’s rooms, the cloak billowing out around his calves with his stride. Quietly opening the door, he let himself inside. A lamp burned on the table just inside her room. He walked to her bed. The doll she usually slept with no longer lay beside her. Instead, her arm lay protectively wrapped around Christine’s orange cat. Both slept soundly. For a moment, shaking his head, all he could do was stare down at her, then he bent and gently kissed her curls.
She didn’t know just how many times he had come in here during the night to watch her. He had never been very good at expressing tender feelings of affection. Never whispered the words I love you, to anyone. Not to Becca or Elizabeth or his own daughter. He didn’t even know if he knew how.
Once outside, he greeted his driver and footman with a nod, stopping briefly to glance up at the tower keep before he climbed into the carriage. As the coach rolled away, he dimmed the lamp and stared at the rivulets of rain slanting across the glass. He understood why the people of Scotland were known for their fierce resilience and independence. The weather alone bred stamina. A person had do grow tough or perish.
He was relieved that Christine had never been the type to simply surrender to circumstance and perish.
Christine stopped on the top-floor stair landing, then stepped into a room shrouded in a gloomy shadow, unsure what she would find. Having left Mrs. Brown and Aunt Sophie on the second floor, she had come up here alone to look around. She tied back the heavy curtains and, after coughing and choking on the dust, put her hands on her hips and surveyed her surroundings. Weak light stole through the leaded windows. Dust coated everything. Yet even through the grime, Christine could see that with a solid cleaning, the room could be magnificent again. The keep itself might be a throwback to the days of fifteenth-century medieval warfare, but the old master’s chambers inside had been gently tamed by modernization. The floors were carpeted in the colors of autumn. Corinthian stone columns supported the airy Wedgwood-style papier-mâché ceiling, in juxtaposition with the wild landscape outside.
Christine walked into an adjoining sitting room and tied back those curtains as well. She could make these upper rooms her workspace. They were big enough for her needs, the lighting ideal and the gothic ambience a perfect suit to her tastes. Still, there was a sadness in the cold shadows that pervaded her thoughts as she touched a hand on the wooden seat just below the window.
From the sitting room she continued her exploration higher into the tower, slowly climbing the circular stairway to an upper room. Here she glimpsed her first hint of the destruction of which Erik had spoken. A chair and table were overturned. A lamp shattered. Her feet crunched on glass and, startled by the sound, she cautiously lifted her skirts. She moved into the chamber and came to an abrupt halt.
Several tall glass-fronted cabinets lined the wall, their doors shattered. Tables were upturned. Papers and books raked from the shelves and strewn in heaps over the debris-ridden floor. Nothing had escaped the inhuman destructive force that had gone through this room and the adjoining one.
Knowing who had done this only made the scene more horrific. Saddened by the destruction, Christine backed away and returned to the floor below.
She would take out the bedding, tapestries, the draperies and all the carpeting. She would remove the furniture. She would make these rooms alive again.
The sound of clacking against the stone stairs leading into the lower bedroom drew her around. She hurried downstairs and peered into the circular stairwell.
“Good God, girl!” Aunt Sophie gasped. “You will be the death of me!”
Christine hurried down and took Aunt Sophie’s elbow as she helped her the rest of the way upstairs. “I told you not to come up these stairs.”
“And how exactly did you plan I should get here? Fly?” Leaning against the silver head of her cane, she waved away Christine’s concern and looked about her. “Do not tell me you intend to live here. Why, the servants will rebel and throw you off the battlements.”
Christine walked to the window and looked out across Erik’s world. “But you can’t deny the beauty of the scenery. These rooms are perfect, Aunt Sophie. Not just to work in, but to live in as well.”
Christine leaned against the glass and looked down into the unkempt courtyard. “I shall surprise him when he returns from Dunfermline.”
Daylight seeping in through the leaded glass touched the silver band on her right hand, drawing her out of her daze.
She found herself tracing the ring on her finger.
There was a reason she had always lived by certain rules of pragmatism, she told herself. Rules kept her from behaving like her idealistic students who believed in such silly things as magic, curses, and one’s destiny being divined by a braided band of antique silver. And yet, pragmatism aside, she did believe.
She believed so hard and with such passion, she knew everything must work out. Christine closed her eyes. “Have you ever wanted to touch the wind, grab on to it with all of your might, and let it take you wherever it willed?”
When Aunt Sophie failed to respond, Christine dropped back down to earth with a mental thud. She slowly turned. Aunt Sophie was sitting in a high-back velvet tufted chair, like a queen on a throne, staring at her. “I have suspected all along that something was wrong with you,” her aunt said. “I should have checked you for a fever and put you to bed with a cold compress long ago.”
“Do you believe in magic, Aunt Sophie?”
Aunt Sophie crossed her hands over the silver knob of her cane. “Do you?”
Toying with the ring, Christine found herself hesitating. Aunt Sophie’s gaze dropped to Christine’s hand.
The room seemed to grow quiet. “Come here.” Aun
t Sophie motioned for Christine to stand in front of her. “Let me see what trouble you have got yourself into now.”
Christine did as Aunt Sophie bid, feeling much like a child called to task for disappointing her elders. She knelt beside the chair.
“Give me your spectacles,” Aunt Sophie said. “It’s about time I saw the world around me a little clearer.”
Christine eased the glasses off and handed them over to her aunt. Aunt Sophie applied them to her nose, tilted her head up and down, then took Christine’s hand and examined the ring in the light.
Christine had always wondered how her aunt could see so well at her age and now realized she could not. Aunt Sophie’s vanity surprised her for Christine had always thought her aunt immune to the opinions of others.
She caught Aunt Sophie peering at her from over the top of the spectacles. As if she had read Christine’s mind, she said, “It is not my vanity that keeps me from wearing spectacles. It is admitting to myself that I am old.”
With a sigh, Aunt Sophie returned Christine’s spectacles and sat back in the chair. “I gave that ring to the granddaughter of a friend of mine as a…”
“Joke?” Christine helpfully supplied.
“I am hardly that cruel. Babs needed a lift. Something to get her mind off her mam’s passing. She needed a miracle and I gave her one. At least in her mind.”
“Her mind? Babs’s wish to come to school at the abbey came true.”
“Pah! There was no magic involved. I already knew she’d been accepted at the abbey. I am the one who paid her tuition to remove her from beneath her father’s thumb. They had no money. He was preparing to send her to a workhouse.”
Christine paled. “But Amelia and Joseph…”
“Were making eyes at each other before he went to Edinburgh. You were just too blind to see anyone or anything outside the walls of your laboratory.”
Christine shook her head, refusing to believe that the simplest of explanations could account for everything that had happened to her since Erik had knocked at her classroom door. Her heart began to race.
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