The indigo eyes narrowed as he felt her fingertips, slippery with lather, begin to knead the ridge of muscles across his shoulders. “You realize what you are suggesting?”
“My brother is a Jacobite,” she said softly, unsure herself as to how she should react now that the words had finally been spoken out loud. “Furthermore … he was involved, if not outright responsible, for providing you with information for Lochiel.” Her hands stopped suddenly. “He was the one you came to Derby to see in the first place, wasn’t he? He was the mysterious ‘Colonel’ who gave you the information about the army’s state of readiness, the numbers and locations of the troops in England. He is still giving you that information, isn’t he? That was why you went to see him in London, and that was how he came to know so much about what had gone on in the rebel camp. He’s a spy. A Jacobite spy.”
“All this supposition from a look on my face? You are leaping ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”
“He called you Alex.”
The dark eyes flickered sardonically. “By all means, hang the bastard.”
“At the inn in Wakefield,” she said shrewdly. “He made you swear to guard my safety with your life—and he called you Alex. Rather too familiar for someone who has just discovered the duplicity of a supposed friend he had known only as Raefer Montgomery.”
“Very clever, Mistress Sleuth. What else do you think you know?”
Catherine pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Damien said the reward for your capture has been doubled.”
“Damien talks too damned much.”
“He also believes an assassin has been hired to track you down and kill you.”
Alexander drew a deep breath to control his temper. “Your brother is going to have a few very unpleasant moments when I see him again. He had no business frightening you with rumors that so far haven’t proved to hold a shred of truth.”
“He was only trying to protect you … and warn me, I imagine. Hired killers do that sort of thing, don’t they—go after the families of the intended victims in order to gain a hostage?”
Alex reached around, cradling her face between his hands and holding her within the intense blue depths of his eyes. “You are completely safe here. No one in Lochaber knows who you are, or where you came from, much less where you went after I put you on the Curlew. In fact, as far as anyone at home is concerned—in particular the Campbells and their ilk—you never left Scotland. You are still at Achnacarry Castle and can be seen frequently enough to prove it.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, puzzled.
“It was Maura’s idea. Just a precaution. She suggested we find a local girl who resembled you enough from a distance to fool anyone watching the castle. My ‘wife’ appears at the windows now and then, in the gardens, on the battlements. She is always under heavy guard; of course, but then what decent mercenary would expect anything other than absolute protection?” He smoothed his hands down her arms and smiled. “As I said, it is just a precaution. It isn’t you the Campbells are interested in; it’s me.”
He was lying, Catherine decided. There was something out there that worried both men—she had seen it in Damien’s eyes the other day in the woods, she saw it in Alexander’s now.
“Does this girl know the risk she is taking?”
“She isn’t taking any risk,” Alex insisted. “She is, on the contrary, enjoying an extravagant vacation away from the cornfields at my expense. She is in no danger, and neither are you—except perhaps from me, if you persist in questioning my good intentions.”
Catherine regarded him coolly and resumed gliding her fingers over the sleek, hard surface of his shoulders. She let them trail down onto his chest, onto the glittering wet mat of curling black hair, and the distraction pulled her gaze away from his. Awed that she never failed to uncover something new, some minute detail she had overlooked on her last voyage of discovery, she traced her fingertips over and around a small, crescent-shaped birthmark seated just above his right nipple. Dark strawberry in color, it was obliterated under a film of soap lather and reminded her of a Highland moon rendered opaque behind a veil of moorland mist.
Other discoveries had not roused such pleasant images— a new scar over his ribs, another at his waist, a myriad of small healed cuts and scrapes on his arms and legs, and the deep gouge over his left ear …
“You have that look of wifely concern on your face again,” he chided gently.
Catherine lifted her eyes slowly to meet his. She did not answer, but leaned forward instead to brush her lips over his cleanly shaven cheek. Before she could safely retreat, his hand was firmly around her wrist.
“My concerns, sir, are for the condition of my robe, which has rather more soap and water on it than I would prefer it to have.”
His eyes gleamed speculatively at the froth of rich lace that fashioned the collar and deep front placket.
“Easily enough remedied,” he mused, reaching over to unfasten the satin sash. A further gentle tug saw the dressing gown ripple to the floor. With a suggestive tilt of his eyebrow, he extended an invitation to join him in the tub.
“There isn’t room for two,” she said on a breathless laugh.
“Depends how friendly you care to be,” he murmured and drew her forward.
“Wait,” she pleaded, standing and walking naked to the dressing room. She emerged seconds later, her hair twisted into a golden coil and pinned haphazardly on the crown of her head. Still looking dubious, she stepped into the water and permitted his hands to guide her down so that her back was cushioned comfortably against his chest. His knees made equally passable armrests—wickedly wonderful ones, in fact, especially since the slightest move brought the coarse texture of his thighs into contact with her breasts.
Cupping his hands, Alex carried water up to her shoulders, leaving them sparkling like white marble. The wisps of hair straggling down her neck turned the color of dark honey and clung to her skin in slithery ribbons. His lips planted a row of kisses across her nape, his tongue triggered shivers of sensation from her shoulders to the delicate pink lobes of her ears.
With soap in hand, Alex worked up a rich lather and began massaging it over the smooth flesh, taking deliberate care to seek out the nooks and hollows he knew to be the most susceptible to the warm, slippery strokes. He lavished attention on each supple arm, attended each nerveless finger with a fastidiousness that soon turned her breathing shallow and dry.
Anticipating where his hands would venture next, Catherine braced herself for the shock of feeling the long, tapered fingers glide up along her ribcage and mold themselves around the sleek fullness of her breasts. The dark fingers on her skin were a bold contrast, the strength of them seeming to promise pain rather than arouse pleasure. But how delicately he touched, stroked, teased, caressed … as if his hands were made of velvet!
She gripped the edges of the tub as the tangled knot of desire tightened within her; her nipples swelled and tautened and rose like tiny mountain peaks through the foaming whitecaps of soap. The tension began to build and coil, to twist inward and outward, settling finally and insistently as a throbbing tremor between her thighs. Despite the obvious temptation to pursue those tremors, Alex lingered over the round, plump mounds of her breasts, ignoring the convulsive shivers that wracked her slender body until they became violent enough to disrupt the placid surface of the water.
Adjusting their positions slightly, Alex dipped his hands lower, moving them with delicious precision from her breasts to her waist to her hips, then sliding them soapily around to the soft triangle of tawny curls. Catherine tensed as his fingers traced slow, languid circles on her inner thighs; she shivered and gasped for breath each time a thumb rasped with catlike stealth over flesh almost too sensitive to bear the torment.
“You are splashing water all over the floor,” Alex chided, his lips pressed to her ear. “What will the servants think?”
Before she could form an answer, his fingers curled into the quivering petals of f
lesh, bringing her head arching back against his shoulder. His questing strokes became more intimate, more determined as his fingers probed and darted between the silky creases, touching, testing, manipulating her to within a breath of release, only to retreat and leave her trembling on the brink of ecstasy.
Catherine did not know where to look, what to do with her hands, what further torment her body could endure without bursting and splintering into a thousand fragments. She was afloat in a dark world of flesh, aware of every touch and stroke, feeling every soft vibration within and without. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. She wanted to plunge over the precipice and experience the spiraling pleasure of sensual madness, but she was at the mercy of his fingertips, and they had learned their skills from the devil himself.
Again and again he probed and taunted, withdrawing when it seemed she was but a tremor away from oblivion, returning again when the immediate danger passed. Water sloshed over the enamel lip of the tub, some of it spattering as far as the logs burning brightly in the grate. The crackle and hiss of exploding droplets found a sympathetic response in Catherine as her passion grew hotter and more volatile, threatening to turn the water to steam where it lapped against her scorched flesh.
Bold and hungry, Alex’s own need strained against the pliant roundness of her buttocks, his condition not alleviated in the least by the erotic motion of her hips and thighs rubbing against him. He wanted desperately to lift her from the restrictive confines of the tub—his own damned idea, he recalled with chagrin—to share the pleasure he could feel tearing her apart, but it was already far too late.
Cursing softly, he ran his fingers into the warm, sleek haven he had prepared so well, groaning as he felt the throbbing tightness close around him like the lash of a silken whip. His free hand slid up to her breasts, but they were still coated with a film of soap and the nipples slipped and slithered out of his fingers like well-oiled pearls.
For Catherine, the combined sensations were too much to bear. A moan rushed from her lips and a sheet of water was startled out over the carpet and floor as she writhed and gasped and twisted in an agony of pleasure. The pressure of his fingertips chased each shiver, isolated each spasm, prolonged each eruptive contraction until it convulsed into the next and the next. He urged her through wave after wave of consuming ecstasy as if he were there inside, sharing her exaltation, and when her cries began to diminish to whimpers, he continued to hold her, to ease her gently through the successive little pulsations that brought her drifting back to reality.
Was it minutes or hours before she could think or see clearly again? She was dimly aware of his lips nuzzling the curve of her shoulder, of his hands rinsing the last traces of soap from her skin. Her breasts were still flushed and rosy, her limbs weak, her belly fluttering, quaking from the force and power of the tumult he had released within her. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her back and she could see his hands were not as steady as they might be.
“How,” she demanded in a dry rasp, “am I supposed to ever look at a bed or a bathtub again without dying of absolute mortification?”
“That was the idea,” he murmured. “And we still have the floors, the walls, the tables—” A soft gust of laughter tickled her nape. “And I know this delicious little trick of painting warmed brandy on—”
“Never mind,” she croaked, and reached a wobbly hand for her wineglass. She drained it thirstily, the wine feeling smooth and mellow as it traveled down her throat, sweet and regenerative as it sent a blush of warmth through her veins. Too weak to bother setting the glass back on the low footstool, she let it dangle limply from her fingers as she leaned back against the wall of muscle, her lips parting on a deep-felt sigh of contentment.
Alex steered her chin around and angled her mouth up to his. Her eyes opened slowly, dreamily, and after a moment, when he became aware of their scrutiny, he gave her lips a final, lavish caress and released them.
“There it is again,” he commented wryly. “The look of wifely concern.”
“Oh, Alex, laugh at me if you like, but how I wish I could keep you locked in this room and never let you go. I wish … I wish—” Her eyes widened, the violet darkening and coming alive with a sudden flare of excitement. “Alex … why can’t you take me with you? You said there were women in the camp: wives, lovers—”
“No,” he said, cutting her off abruptly. “Absolutely not.”
“But why not? You said you missed me dreadfully and worried about me constantly. Lord knows I have missed you and been half out of my mind wondering if I would ever see you again. If I was with you—”
“No.”
“If I was with you,” she continued emphatically, splashing more water over the rim of the tub as she half turned to face him, “I could at least see you occasionally and know you were safe. I would not have to live with this terrible fear of losing you.”
“You are not going to lose me,” he said firmly. “And you are not going to change my mind, no matter what weapons you bring into play against me.”
He was referring to the bright film of tears collecting on her lashes. Confronted by his implacably cold eyes, Catherine’s shoulders slumped in dejection.
“Do you really think me such a helpless weakling?” she asked miserably.
“I don’t know where you got that idea. You are neither weak nor helpless. Stubborn, perhaps, but not helpless.”
“I’m not stubborn,” she said stubbornly. “I’m just tired of feeling useless. Besides, you are my husband; I should be with you.”
“No.”
“You still think I would fall apart if I had to forgo the silks and satins and comfortable feather beds … but I wouldn’t. I would not miss any of this for a moment, not if I was with you. I would not complain either. Not ever.”
Alex said nothing, but it was easy enough to read the disbelief etched into his humorless smile.
“The dreams would stop too,” she whispered. “I know they would.”
“What dreams?”
Catherine bit down on her lip. She had not meant to tell him about her recurring nightmare, certainly not like this when he would assume it was merely another ploy to win his sympathy.
“Just … dreams,” she said, and put her hands on the edge of the tub in order to stand up.
“What dreams?” he asked again, tilting her chin toward him, forcing her to meet his gaze once more.
“Terrible dreams,” she admitted with a shiver. “Horrible dreams. I have them and I wake up crying … frightened half to death … screaming sometimes. They are always the same, they never change—not in the way they begin, anyway. Only the endings get longer and longer; I see more and more each time and I can’t stop it. I can’t wake myself up or change the way anything happens.”
She shivered again and Alex wrapped his arms around her. Feeling the chill sweep through her body, he stood and lifted her out of the cooling water, bundling her in one of the huge, thirsty towels that had been left to warm before the fire. Her skin had turned the color of ashes and he rubbed vigorously, trying to chafe some heat into her flesh. All the while, she stood mute and docile, her eyes downcast, her hands balled into tight, defensive little fists.
When he had dried her and wrapped her in a fresh towel, he settled her into a large wing chair, which he dragged to the hearth. He added a handful of kindling and two enormous logs to the fire, and within moments it was blazing, causing the moisture on his own skin to steam dry. Satisfied with his efforts, he brushed the wood scraps off his hands and scooped Catherine into his arms once again, taking her place on the chair and keeping her cradled, towel and all, in his lap.
“Now, tell me about these dreams.”
Catherine shook her head and buried her face against the curve of his shoulder.
“It is not uncommon for wives to have nightmares when their husbands are away fighting a war,” he said soothingly. “But that’s all they are: nightmares.”
“No.” She shook her head again
vigorously and clasped her hands around his neck, her voice so muffled he could barely decipher the words. “It started before I even knew there was a chance of you going off to fight. It started before I even knew I would care about you going off to fight. Do you remember the day we stopped by the gorge? The day we were attacked by the Black Watch and Aluinn was shot by Gordon Ross Campbell? Well … that was the first time it happened. We were having our lunch and the sun was shining and the day was warm and peaceful and there was so much beauty around us—” She lifted her head from his shoulder and Alex experienced a genuine jolt of alarm when he saw her eyes. They were dark and shimmering, seeming to stare straight through him, the centers enlarged so that barely more than a rim of violet remained. “It was only a brief flash—like someone lifting a curtain and allowing a glimpse into another room. I did not even know what I was seeing, or who I was seeing, but it was so real. I cut my finger on a knife … do you remember?”
“I remember,” he said, feeling an icy flush crawl across the nape of his neck. He was not a superstitious man, nor had he ever given credence to the old crones and ancients said to possess the sicht. Alexander Cameron did not believe in visions or omens, did not believe in any power but that of his own making. He was about to say as much to Catherine when she began to speak again, her voice low and inky, as if being drawn from a deep, dark well.
“I’m standing in the middle of a field. A huge field, littered with bodies. Hundreds of bodies! There are men fighting all around me, blocking my way, and I am trying to push my way through them, but they cannot see me. It’s as if I’m not really there, yet I am there, and I am running. I run and I run but … I’m not moving. Everything else is—the clouds of mist and smoke, the trees … horses … men … even the ground is shaking because of the cannon shells. And … there is blood everywhere.” Her voice faltered to a whisper and she slowly withdrew her hands from around his neck and stared at them in horror. “My hands are covered with it. It is raining and the blood is pink on my skin, but it won’t wash away—there is too much of it.”
The Blood of Roses Page 19