Stella Cameron

by Fascination

  “I’m coming,” Grace said unhappily. Her lust for adventure had rapidly sped away, and now she wished she had stood fast and refused to come outside.

  “Ooh, this is so thrilling,” Melony said in hushed tones, running ahead of Grace. The trees were so close that the two women had to dodge between trunks. Dense foliage closed out the moon.

  “It’s very dark,” Grace said, after almost bumping into a jagged stump. “How much farther is the lake?”

  “Not far at all.” Melony found Grace’s hand in the darkness and held on tightly. “See? The water’s ahead. You can see it shimmer.”

  Almost as soon as Melony mentioned the water, they were upon it.

  “So black,” Grace said. Her heart knocked hard. “Like swelling ink. It looks very deep.”

  “They say it is,” Melony responded. “Very deep and filled with the bones of forsaken lovers.”

  “Oh!” Grace tried to tug away.

  “Silly,” Melony said, laughing. “I’m only joking. There’s the pavilion.”

  Grace stood still, pulling Melony to a stop beside her. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely glorious. So mysterious. I’ve never seen anything so wonderful.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. We must hurry. If we don’t get back before the intermission, we’ll be missed. You do still want to see it up close?”

  “Of course.” Shedding her fear, Grace flew around the edge of the lake with Melony toward the little white gem of a building. Its dome and the four miniature minarets at its corners shone like freshly frozen pond ice in the moon’s light.

  Three curving steps led to a narrow entrance. “The door’s open,” Melony said, hanging back for the first time. “Shall we go in?”

  “We certainly shall.” Grace relished the thought of being able to remind Melony that in the end, she, Grace, had been the brave member of their expedition.

  “I don’t believe I can go first,” Melony whispered.

  “Well, I believe I can,” Grace said, releasing Melony’s hand and marching upward toward the black opening into the building. “Come along. If you were a man, I should call you jinglebrains. There is nothing to fear.”

  “Of course not,” Melony said from behind.

  Grace entered the pavilion and drew in a hushed breath. Inside, beams of white light as thin as threads crisscrossed the darkness from tiny holes in the dome. The beams caught glittering speckles in the marble walls.

  “Come on, do, Melony. This is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”

  A crash brought a shriek to her lips. “Melony!” Grace whirled around. “Melony! Where are you?”

  There was no reply.

  She took a few steps and stopped. The entrance no longer showed as an oblong in white walls. Running, Grace reached the place where she thought the doorway had been—and found it.

  Closed.

  Closed and apparently jammed.

  “Melony! The door’s stuck. Help me!”

  A scratching sound sent her whirling around. She pressed her back to the wall. “What is it? Who’s there?”

  It was probably a rat. “Melony!”

  “Hush, Grace.”

  A man’s voice spoke very nearby.

  Fingers sought her face.

  Grace screamed.

  “Hush, Grace,” he repeated. “It’s all right. You’re safe with me.”

  She closed her eyes and almost collapsed with relief. “Sir Mortimer. Thank goodness it’s you.”

  Chapter 22

  A man ought to make a habit of having himself a virgin from time to time.

  Exhilarating, Mortimer decided, resting his hands about Grace’s neck, her slender, unsuspecting neck.

  “The door must have blown shut,” she said. Her face was a pale blur touched by pinpoints of light from the holes in the dome. “Quickly, Sir Mortimer, we must open it.”

  “We will,” he told her, ensuring that his voice remained warm. “We will.”

  She stepped away, and he made no attempt to stop her. “Poor Melony will be out of her mind with worry. Melony! Melony, it’s all right.”

  After several seconds, she turned, and he heard her fumbling with the door. “It ... it is really stuck,” she said.

  Smiling, he fingered the key in his waistcoat pocket. “Let me try.” Settling a hand on her cool shoulder, he reached around and made a satisfactorily loud noise rattling the handle. “Dash me, the thing won’t open. Melony! Melony, are you out there?”

  “Perhaps she can’t hear us.”

  “Unlikely.” This must be handled exactly as he and Melony had planned.

  “She must have gone for help.”

  “You don’t know Melony as I do. Highly strung creature. This will have frightened her. Mark my words, she’ll go home to get me.”

  Grace faced him once more. “Oh.” He stood so close, she automatically settled her hands on his chest and looked up into his face. “But you are not at home. You are here.”

  “Melony doesn’t know that, does she?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “So she will go home, discover I’m not there, and then try to decide what to do next.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, my indeed. She will not go back to the company for fear of Theodora’s—and your mama’s—wrath at her for bringing you out here.”

  Grace’s fingers curled on his chest. “So what will she do?”

  “I’m afraid she may take a very long time deciding what to do at all. We shall just have to find our own way out.”

  “Why are you here?”

  He’d been prepared for the question. “I felt a pang of guilt for not accompanying Theodora, so I decided to come on over. Popped along the gardens from Arran’s place. Used a route we knew as boys. Got this far and decided to put off the awful musicale a bit longer. I was wandering. What more can I tell you?”

  “I’m very glad you were wandering.”

  She sounded so sincere, he almost laughed aloud. “Y’know, if I remember correctly, there’s a trap thing above the door. To let more air in during the heat of summer. Opens inward on hinges from the bottom.”

  Grace clutched his waistcoat lapels. “Can we open it and get out?”

  “Possibly. Although I can’t think how to reach the thing. There’s nothing to stand on in here.” Marble benches lined walls on three sides of the pavilion; there were no other furnishings. “I recall getting shut in here with Arran when we were boys. If memory serves, he stood on my shoulders and made it out through that trap, but ...”

  “I shall do it.”

  Mortimer swallowed a chuckle. “Course not. Wouldn’t hear of it, m’dear.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to hear of it.” She moved beside him and peered upward. “I’m not terribly heavy. If you were to sort of curl over and lean against the door, I could step upon your back.”

  “I absolutely forbid it,” he said, and crossed his arms.

  Grace caught at his sleeve and tried to shake him. “Please. It is so frightening ... not being with you, but the thought of not being able to get out for goodness knows how long.”

  “I’m certain Melony will do something by morning.”

  “Morning!”

  “Hm. Perhaps that is too long to wait. I could lift you to sit upon my shoulder. That should be relatively safe.”

  “Do it.” Grace faced the door and spread her arms. “We shall do this very well together.”

  Oh, very well indeed.

  Mortimer clasped Grace’s tiny waist and felt a deep surge of heat in his loins. “Here we go. We must be very careful.” He hoisted her easily to sit on his left shoulder. “Can you reach it?”

  “I ... Yes! Yes, here it is.” She strained, searching for the catch. “It’s ... Oh, dear, I think it opens from the top.”

  “Then we shall give it up.” He tightened his grip on her waist.

  “No! Help me stand on your shoulder. I shall reach it easily then.”

  “Are you certain you—”

/>   “Absolutely certain.” With one hand on the door and the other firmly anchored in his hair, she shifted. “Steady me. I’m really very nimble.”

  Yes ... This was working even better than he had dared hope.

  Grace weighed so little—yet was so femininely shaped. His hands slid down over her hips, and blood began to pump, hot and hard, in his veins. Then she was hitching up her skirts and scrambling upward. Mortimer assisted until she stood upon his shoulder and reached for the top of the trap.

  He held her ankles.

  She stretched farther. “I think I feel a bolt.”

  “Good.” Slipping his hands up to her calves was so natural. “Can you move it?” Holding her knees would make her so much more secure.

  “It’s ... stiff.”

  The effort to shoot open the bolt caused her to wobble.

  Mortimer shifted his grip rapidly up Grace’s thighs. “Careful,” he said, hearing the thickening of his own voice. “Be very, very careful.”

  “I do believe someone has closed it permanently.”

  Another wobble took Mortimer’s hands even higher, past garters to such soft skin.

  “They have! It’s nailed shut and ... Oh, Sir Mortimer!”

  The tensing of her body let him know she’d finally noticed how intimately he touched her. “You’re perfectly safe. I’ll help you down.”

  A slight, deliberate shift on his part and she started to fall.

  Mortimer grappled and it simply happened; her silk drawers parted to admit one of his hands.

  “Sir Mortimer!”

  He could not do other than save her from a terrible accident. “Trust me,” he said, bundling her skirts at her hips, cupping her delightfully rounded bare bottom, and swinging her legs around his waist. “Ah, yes. My poor Grace. Trust me and I shall make certain you forget to be frightened.”

  At the sight of Arran, the Muirs’ butler all but staggered backward. “My ... lord?”

  Arran, with Calum at his elbow, swept off his hat but made no attempt to remove his mud-splattered cloak. They strode into the foyer and glanced quickly around.

  The butler, a thin, white-haired ancient who walked like a puzzled partridge in his shiny black slippers, tilted his head and peered up into Arran’s face. “Lord ... Stonehaven?” His filmy eyes shifted to Calum. “And the boy?”

  “Good evening, Jarvie,” Arran said. The servant had been with the Muirs since before Arran first visited with his father in the summer of 1800. “You’re correct. I’m Stonehaven—the younger,” he added lest the old man think he was talking to Arran’s father. “And this is my friend, Mr. Innes.”

  Jarvie hitched rheumatic shoulders. “Your father died some years since, my lord. I was merely taken aback to see you. I had heard you no longer—”

  “Yes, yes,” Arran said. “I no longer do. But I’m here now and I’d appreciate your assistance. I’m looking for my cousin, Sir Mortimer Cuthbert, and his party. I believe they were to attend a musicale here this evening.”

  “Indeed,” Jarvie said. “Third floor. The green drawing room.”

  “I’ll check there,” Calum said, starting up the stairs, taking several steps at a time.

  “Lady Cuthbert arrived,” Jarvie said. “And her sister and the quiet young lady and her mother. But I don’t believe I saw Sir Mortimer.”

  Calum hesitated, looking down at Arran.

  “They’re about to go in for refreshments, sir,” Jarvie said loudly. “Supper’s set in the little drawing room and Lady Muir’s parlor. Second floor for the little drawing room. Third floor, Lady Muir’s parlor.”

  “We can’t afford to waste more time,” Calum said.

  Arran nodded. “I’ll go to the gardens. Just in case.”

  “The gardens, my lord?” Jarvie’s impressive brows jutted over a beaked nose. “The party is assembled above, not outside.”

  “Do not concern yourself,” Arran said. “Go on up, Calum. I’ll head for the pavilion. I know where it is.”

  She would be embarrassed for the rest of her life!

  “I’m so sorry,” Grace said. “I slipped.”

  “Think nothing of it.” Sir Mortimer’s voice was muffled. “But I fear we have a small problem. I must ask you to keep your legs where they are for a moment.”

  Her legs were still wrapped around his waist. “Why?”

  “We ... A part of your, er, apparel has become attached to a ... A moment and I’m sure I can undo the problem.”

  “Oh!” His fingers pressed into her most private places. “Really, I insist you let me down. Move your hand at once.”

  He did move his hand—in a rubbing motion that sent a burning sensation into her thighs. Grace tried to clamp herself together, to shut him out.

  “I shall simply have to loosen my own clothing,” Sir Mortimer said. “Otherwise we shall tear your dress. Then how shall we explain where you’ve been when we get you back inside?”

  Another stroke of his fingers caused a fresh rush of hot tension.

  His face was pressed to her breasts!

  “You are very soft, Grace.”

  “I do not care if my clothes are torn,” she said, struggling.

  “Of course you do.”

  He moved all about her, rubbing between her legs, lifting her higher whilst he hitched at she knew not what. And his very mouth grazed beneath the neckline of the bodice that was still too large.

  “Sir Mortimer!”

  Arran leaped up the steps to the pavilion and pounded on the door. It had been Grace’s voice he heard. Calum had been right. She was in there.

  “Grace! It’s all right, my love. I’m here. Open this door, Mortimer.”

  “Stonehaven?” she called. “Oh, thank goodness.”

  He heard Mortimer curse.

  “The door won’t open,” Grace said. “It’s stuck.”

  Arran remembered another time, years ago, when he’d chased Mortimer, threatening him with the thrashing he richly deserved for tormenting a kitten. On that occasion Mortimer had also become “stuck” in the pavilion.

  He drew in a calming breath. “The lock must have shot home by itself. Remember how it did that time when we were boys, Mortimer?”

  Silence.

  “I’m sure that’s what happened. Check the wall to the left of the door. There should be a key on a ledge.”

  “Is it there?” Grace sounded near hysterical.

  He would kill Mortimer if he’d ... Later must be soon enough to deal with that.

  “Dash me,” Mortimer said loudly. “Here it is.”

  In seconds the door swung open and Grace tumbled out. “Stonehaven! Oh, thank you. Thank you. I was so—”

  “Dashed grateful, old man,” Mortimer thundered with spurious enthusiasm. “Quite forgot that key.”

  “Are you all right?” Arran asked Grace. He gathered her against him and said softly, “You aren’t hurt?”

  “N-No.”

  “She almost was,” Mortimer said. “We were trying to open that trap above the door. Grace is a game little thing, Arran. You’ve a good woman there. Insisted upon climbing on my shoulder and—”

  “The trap was nailed shut when we were children,” Arran said.

  “Well, no harm done,” Mortimer said, and his eyes met Arran’s above Grace’s head.

  If there was no harm done, it was only because Calum had managed to virtually drag Arran to Edinburgh. “No,” he said slowly. “No harm.” Keeping communication open with Mortimer would be the best course. Easier to watch him that way.

  “Mama will be so concerned by now,” Grace said. “I cannot imagine how long I’ve been out here.”

  “Not long, I should think, m’dear,” Mortimer said heartily. “But Arran had better get you back inside before you catch your death. Flimsy gown, that.”

  Arran’s spine ached with the longing to knock the bastard down. “Lead the way, Mortimer.” In future he intended always to be where he could see his cousin’s back.

  “No. Think I
’ll pass. Thanks all the same. I’ll pop on back to our place.”

  “My place, d’you mean?”

  “Exactly. Who would have thought they’d have nailed that trap shut?”

  Arran helped Grace down the steps. “You would, Mortimer. Muir caught you climbing through it once too often. Don’t you remember? He had you do the nailing.”

  He didn’t wait for a response from Mortimer. Once back inside the Muirs’, and with Jarvie hovering nearby, he inspected Grace. “Best make sure you don’t look as if you’ve been building a pavilion,” he temporized. “Are you certain you aren’t at all hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “Miss Wren went for a walk in the garden,” Arran told Jarvie. “She got herself stuck in that pavilion.”

  Jarvie tutted. “You don’t say, my lord.”

  Arran raised Grace’s chin and looked into her eyes. “There is absolutely nothing I should know? About your unpleasant experience?”

  “Nothing.”

  He didn’t miss the unhappy shadow in her golden eyes. Little imagination was needed to suggest what might have caused Grace to scream Mortimer’s name in the pavilion. The debauched scoundrel had been in the process of forcing himself upon her; Arran would make a wager on that.

  “Well, you certainly look marvelous.” And she did. In red satin, she was startling. Automatically Arran smoothed back a silver-blond lock that had begun to work free of the tight chignon that had become her preference in the past few days. “You are a jewel in that dress. A fascinating scarlet jewel. You should be wearing the rubies.” His attention dropped lower. The bodice did not fit particularly well—which was all to the good in this instance. The satin dipped loosely between her pretty breasts. How easily accessible they would be. His body’s response was predictable.

  Mortimer could have ... Arran clamped his teeth together.

  “Do you have a kerchief, Stonehaven?”

  His gaze shot back to her eyes. “A kerchief?”

  Grace tugged her bodice higher and spread a hand over her décolletage. “Yes. A kerchief.”

  “I’m afraid not. Are you injured?”