“I’ll just call in Mrs. Potts to see them put away,” Hero said, stepping to the door. “Then tea, perhaps?”
“I’m afraid I cannot let you do that,” Girard said lightly.
“Call for tea?”
“Non, madam, call for help.” Girard opened his jacket and pulled out a pistol, training it on her. “My apologies.”
“Monseiur Girard, whatever …” Hero stopped, her eyes widening as the door opened and a woman slipped inside. “Daphne! What is the meaning of this? How did you get in here?”
“I came in Girard’s carriage, obviously, but I think you also know very well what the meaning of this is, Hero,” Daphne said snidely. “Come, don’t pretend stupidity now.”
Hero shook off her surprise and crossed her arms over her chest, keeping a wary eye on the gunman. “You think that if you kill me Ian will have you?”
“I would prefer not to, Hero,” Daphne surprised her by saying. “It is not my first choice at all, but I will if you don’t do as I say.”
“Which is?”
“You’re going to ride along with Girard and myself and take a very long holiday on the Continent,” Daphne explained. “I want you out of here. I want you gone so you cannot ruin my plans any more than you have. Come now, we must go.”
“You don’t think I’ll just meekly follow where you lead, do you?” Hero asked incredulously.
“If you want your father to live, you will,” Daphne threatened. “If you want Ian to live, you will.”
“You’re mad,” Hero said. “Ian will never be yours.”
“When you’re gone, he will be,” Daphne insisted. “After some small time has passed, he will see that he was mistaken in his infatuation with you, and he and I will wed.”
“He couldn’t do that even if he wanted to, because we …” Hero bit her tongue to cut off the words. Apparently Daphne did not know that the wedding had already taken place. She didn’t know that even if Hero disappeared Ian could not legally wed another. The last thing Hero was going to do was provide Daphne and her henchman with a reason to pull the trigger on her.
“He will!” Daphne screeched, calming when Girard shushed her. “Now, will you come along peaceably or not?”
Hero knew she should agree for the sake of others within the castle but couldn’t bring the words of concession to her lips. She couldn’t simply relent to such insanity. Her mulish resistance didn’t seem to surprise Daphne at all. Indeed, reluctant respect seemed to light her green eyes.
Daphne shrugged. “I didn’t really expect capitulation but I have come prepared.” With that, she drew a small bottle and a cloth from her pocket. Uncorking the bottle, she doused the cloth and approached Hero while Girard did the same, holding the gun to Hero’s head.
“Just take a few deep breaths, Madam Ayr,” he said encouragingly. “The choice is really out of your hands.”
“What are you getting from all this?”
His dark eyes lit. “Ah, madam, the rewards they are many, you see?”
“I can double whatever she is paying you!” Hero cried as he grabbed her arm and turned her against him. Daphne twisted Hero’s other arm and pressed the cloth over her mouth and nose. Thrashing her head from side to side, Hero fought to dislodge the cloth but could not fight against the two of them. Her body tingled then numbed. Her vision darkened and her head swam.
Just before darkness claimed her, Hero felt Girard’s lips at her ear. “Non, madam, you cannot.” And then to Daphne, “Careful, ma chère, she must walk from here, not be carried.”
The cloth moved away, and Hero inhaled deeply. Clean air brought light to her vision, but Hero’s head remained thick, her thoughts scattered, as if she’d just drunk a whole bottle of wine herself. She staggered to the side, but Girard caught her arm and hooked an arm around her waist. Vaguely she heard him instruct Daphne to make sure the way was clear, and within moments, Hero was inside Girard’s closed carriage, which had been waiting for him in the north courtyard inside the rampart walls.
To her surprise, one of her own grooms came to the carriage window. “Dickie’s at the gate right now fer ye, Miss Kennedy. Yer clear through if ye go now.”
“Thank you, Ranald,” Daphne said, smiling prettily up at him and running a finger down his cheek. “Gather him up after I’ve gone and come to me in Ayr for your reward.”
“Aye, miss.” Ranald cast a regretful look at Hero but shrugged and turned away.
“How many?” Hero slurred.
“How many of your faithful servants have come to my side?” Daphne asked with a little laugh. “Don’t fret for Lord Ayr, Hero. The rest of his staff are loyal, and in time I will have their loyalty as well.”
The horse leapt into action and Hero’s nearly limp body slammed back against the seat, her head hitting the carriage wall so hard she saw stars, not only at the pain but also at the shock of what she had just learned. Not only was Daphne behind all this but she had Hero’s staff at her beck and call. Young Ranald had been here for years. His father had run the stables for more years than Hero had been about.
And Dickie. A lad of about twenty. His mother had worked in the kitchens for just as long. These young men, Hero thought. These young, impressionable men had somehow been seduced from their loyalty to the castle they had grown up in and won over by Daphne’s persuasive charms. Had there been more? How could she have not known? “Just them?” she asked.
“I told you,” Daphne answered. “Just the lads I needed to get you out of there. They are so easily impressionable. Not real men.” She slid her hand up Girard’s thigh with a siren’s smile.
“And Jennings?”
“Ah, well, Jennings is another matter entirely,” Daphne told her. “Funny, all he really wanted was the power. He’d had a taste of it before Uncle Robert married you and had it again when you left. With the promise of more, he was all mine.”
“You are a vile woman, Daphne,” Hero ground out. Her head was beginning to clear now, and the feeling was returning to her extremities. She needed to do something. But what?
“Not vile,” Daphne retorted sharply. “Determined. Determined to take for myself what life has not provided.”
“I think you took Charlotte Bronte’s work too literally,” Hero said, looking out the window as the gravel drive carried them across the lawns and toward the aqueduct that marked her last true chance for help. If she didn’t get out of the carriage before they left the estate, she might very well be dragged all the way to France. God only knew what future awaited her there. “It was fiction, Daphne, not a bible.”
“It was truth!” Daphne shouted, waving off Girard’s attempts to calm her.
There! Hero saw it then. Dickie might be manning the gates, prepared to let Daphne steal her through, but there were others, dozens of others, patrolling the grounds. She could see them, a pair of her huntsmen on horseback heading away from the drive.
With the gates just a few score feet away, Hero used all of her strength to thrust herself out the window and screamed for help at the top of her lungs. “Thomas!” she screeched as loud as she could. “Andrew …” Hero gasped as Girard grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back in, but she threw her head and shoulders back against his face and screamed once again, “Help!”
The coachman whipped the horses into a run in an attempt to get away, tossing Hero and Girard back against the cushions. Daphne, in the rear-facing seat, fell to the floor with a curse.
There were shouts.
A gunshot.
Chapter Thirty-Three
They had her.
Even more than twenty-four hours later, Ian couldn’t help but smile at the thought. His only regret was that he hadn’t been able to spare Hero her brief abduction or to see to her rescue himself. Yesterday had seen the delivery of Daphne and all her accomplices into the magistrate’s hands, and today the castle celebrated. It seemed only fitting that the summer solstice festival was taking place in Ayr that day. An actual party with food, wine, a
nd music for his entire staff to enjoy, but for him and Hero a more private celebration was in order.
They were free. Free of the troubles. Freed of the pall those worries had hung over them.
Free to truly begin their lives together.
Ian followed the sound of the piano playing to the music room once more, without fear that Hero would be gone. This time the tune was a lively one and he could hear laughter as he approached. At the door, Ian watched Hero play without disturbing her. The setting sun slanted through the west-facing windows and caressed her skin, casting it in gold. His heart warmed just as it always did when he looked at her or even simply thought of her. Still, it never ceased to surprise him, this consuming love.
Beaumont sat by her side as she played, turning the pages of the sheet music for her. He was speaking quietly to her. Ian couldn’t hear the words, but whatever the duke said brought a slight smile to her lips. Hero’s lips moved in response, and Beaumont laughed buoyantly.
“Ah, good evening, Ian!” the duke boomed, spotting him in the doorway, and Hero raised her bonny eyes to his. They softened and a different kind of smile turned up the corners of her lips.
Hero looked up to find Ian leaning gracefully on the doorjamb, his arms crossed casually across his broad chest and his eyes darkened with love. Her own heart quickened, and she smiled warmly at him, unaware that intense love shone as obviously in her eyes as in his.
“Good evening, my lord,” she said softly.
It never failed to amuse Ian that no matter how intimate they became, when in public or even within the servants’ hearing, she would always address him in a formal way. He teased her about it so mercilessly that Hero sometimes wondered if she continued to do so only to cause that humor to light his eyes.
“Good evening, Lady Ayr,” he said softly as he approached and bent to place a gentle kiss on her upturned lips. “Harry, Cooper awaits you below to attend the summer solstice festival.”
“I think not,” Beaumont said.
Hero and Ian exchanged surprised looks. “I thought you were excited about the festival, Papa.”
“I am more tired than excited,” the duke said, waving a hand as she reached out to him. He then surprised her even more by using her name. “No, Hero, don’t worry about me. I shall go straight to bed and you shall have an evening alone with your new husband. It has been a long week, has it not?”
Hero nodded. “Are you certain?”
“I am.” He kissed her cheek and rose, making his farewells as he went.
“I hope he’s all right,” Hero said after he left.
“I’m sure he is,” Ian told her. “Harry isn’t one to withhold how he feels. Now the staff has gone and your father will soon be abed. Would you care to walk with me on the ramparts, my bonny bride?”
“That would be lovely,” Hero replied.
Tucking her hand firmly in the crook of his arm, Ian led his lady through the castle and out between the ramparts. Hero went in front of him, skimming her fingers across the top of the wall and skipping over the spaces just as she had the night they first met. Just as she did each time they came out here to their favorite spot. Four … five … six. Hero stopped and Ian pressed in behind her, snuggling her slim body against his. She leaned her head back against his chest with a sigh, tempting Ian to place an affectionate kiss on the top of her head. He sighed in contentment.
As a boy, Ian had always been reclusive, interested more in books and individual activities than in those pastimes typically undertaken by the rowdy lads at school. Still, he’d had companions aplenty, whether he sought them out or not. It seemed that his disinterest in garnering the approval of others only served to make his friendship that much more desirable. Among his classmates, he would participate in random amusements. In those moments, he enjoyed sports and pranks with the others and was quick to laugh, but there was a true camaraderie and absolute friendship lacking there that might have made him relish those times. Never had Ian preferred the company of another over solitary privacy until Hero had come to him.
Now Ian wondered if he could ever live life that way again. If something were to happen to her, he wondered if he would experience true loneliness for the first time.
No, there was no question; Ian knew he would.
At least he wouldn’t have to face such an event any time soon. They had been freed of their nemesis. In just a few more days, Daphne would face the magistrate and head off to prison.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Hero sighed as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the sky in red and purple that reflected on the waters of the firth below. Turning his attention to more pleasant thoughts, Ian joined her in watching the sunset. Beautiful as it was, it didn’t hold a candle to Hero’s bonny face, and he told her so.
Though he couldn’t see her face, he felt her smile. “No regrets, then?”
Bending his head, Ian nuzzled her neck and whispered in her ear, “My only regret is that I did not find you before Robert did.”
“You wouldn’t have liked me then. I was woefully prim,” she said.
“And you aren’t now?” he chuckled softly when she slapped his hands playfully. “No? How about proving me wrong?”
Her hands reached back, sliding down his hips and grasping his buttocks as she wiggled her backside against his groin. “Haven’t I already?”
Ian groaned, feeling the rush of lust that always gripped him at her slightest touch. Always it was the same. Even if they had just found heaven moments before, Hero could arouse him as easily as a man deprived for years. He didn’t need to hope that it would be that way for the rest of their lives. He simply knew it would be. “Little minx,” he growled in her ear. “Are you trying to provoke me into taking you right here?”
“It was one of your promises, wasn’t it?” Hero asked, turning in his embrace and looping her arms around his neck. “I believe you said something about me and that wall? How would that work, exactly?”
A shudder ripped through him at the thought. Images of just how it would be done. His body tensed with need, urging him to do it, but Ian pushed the idea away. For all the carnality, their interludes were not purely sexual. When he made love to Hero, Ian took immense pleasure in watching her, in seeing the rapture of her expression when she found her release. “I was jesting, my love.”
“So we would never make love here?” she asked, smoothing her palm over his chest as she leaned into him. Her vibrant eyes were dancing, and Ian was hard put to scratch his recent thoughts then and there.
“Aye, we could, my love,” he murmured with an equally wicked grin. By God but she was intoxicating. “But I might just set you on top like this,” Ian said, clasping his hands around Hero’s waist and lifting her onto the low wall. “Then I could simply push your skirts up like so.” Gathering her skirts up, he pressed between her thighs until he was pressed snugly against her welcoming heat. “See? A perfect fit.”
Ian bent his head and met her expectant lips in a searing kiss. Her lips parted immediately, urging him to continue, but he retrained himself, keeping the moment light. Savoring the tension between them, building the anticipation. Hero knew him well by now and kicked her heels against his calves impatiently, drawing a low chuckle from him. “You are ever impatient, my love.”
“And you are ever tormenting,” she whispered into his neck, nipping at him playfully. “Will you make love to me right here, Ian? The staff has all gone to the summer solstice festival in Ayr. We are very alone.”
“But for Boyle, your father, Simms, and the security staff who remain,” he said.
“Yes, see?” Hero laughed softly, the puffs of her breath tickling the side of his neck, arousing Ian even further. “Very alone.”
“Ah, my love,” he responded with a low moan, running his hands up her thighs. “I never would have imagined that you would be one to find a thrill in the danger of discovery.” His thumbs found the slit in her pantalets and brushed against her damp curls. She tensed with anticipatio
n and held her breath. Parting her, Ian circled his thumb around her sensitive nub, and her breath released with a shaky sigh that that nearly drove him over the edge.
“It is rather exciting,” she said breathlessly, adding with a laugh, “That breeze is quite unexpected, though.”
“Good, though?”
Hero nodded, rocking her hips forward, and Ian grinned. “Mmm, my fair Hero likes it outside, does she?”
“Oh, yes.”
Kissing her again, Ian savored the delicious gasps as his thumbs teased and swirled until she was panting desperately, clinging to his shoulders to keep from falling over the edge. A keening moan built in Hero until her head fell back, leaving Ian’s damp lips to cool in the evening breeze. He bent his head, sucking lightly on a sensitive spot just below her ear. Her skin was hot beneath his open mouth despite the breeze. “Come for me, my love,” he urged and she did, the dam breaking on her passions as she cried out her release. “Aye, my love, my God but I love watching you. So bonny, so lovely.”
“Ian, please,” she begged, a blush overriding the passionate flush of her cheeks at his words. “Come with me.”
“Always,” he murmured, throwing caution to the wind, and reached down to unbutton the flap on his trousers, freeing himself into Hero’s welcoming hand. She stroked down his length with a hum before guiding him to her, and with one thrust Ian plunged into her molten heat with a growl of satisfaction. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he drove into her again, taking her mouth with his as she lifted her legs around his waist.
Capturing her mouth with his once more, Ian pounded into her again and again. She tightened around him, pulsating, until Ian felt as though the earth was literally moving beneath them. She climaxed with a cry of ecstasy, and with a final violent thrust, Ian came apart with a hoarse shout.
And then the ground did shift.
Or at least the wall did. Under the force of their movement, the foot-wide wall began to break apart with the grind of rock against rock. One stone fell away before Ian was able to regain his senses and realize what was happening.
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