He was interested in the possibilities.
He just didn’t trust in them.
“I don’t blame you for being skeptical.” She opted for bluntness. “If I were in your shoes, I would be, too. But I can assure you that”—she placed a hand over her heart—“I know something of curses. These are different times than yours. People are more open. They share information about all kinds of things. Including how to break a—”
“My curse doesn’t need to be broken.”
“I’ve read about such things.” She spoke right over him, warming to the topic. “There are books on everything from the evil eye and spells to the effects of negative energy. Just as curses are known to exist, so are there ways to block or lift them. White candles and sea salt come to mind. There are even people who, for a fee, will come and—”
She snapped her mouth shut, staring at him. “What did you say?”
He arched a brow. “Just now?”
“Of course just now.” She put her hands on her hips. “You said your curse doesn’t need breaking. How can that be?”
“Because”—he spoke softly—“my curse already has been broken.”
“What?” She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He tensed visibly. “The Dark One lifted the curse before I came here. Now I have, shall we say, other difficulties to contend with, as I’ve explained.”
“You mean about having to stay uninterested in women for a year and a day?”
“That is the way of it, aye.” He left the hearth to stand at the windows. As before, he braced a hand on the carved stone of the window arch and appeared to avoid her gaze.
“It seems a strange stipulation.” Cilla persisted. “Maybe you should tell me what the original curse was.”
His brows snapped together.
Even though he stood half-turned away from her, she could tell.
She took a few steps toward him, ready to prod even though the stiff set of his shoulders and the dark look on his face warned her to leave him in peace.
“Trust me, you dinna want to hear about the curse.” His voice sounded final. “The tale isn’t fit for your ears.”
She bristled. “I think I’d like to decide that.”
He shot an annoyed glance at her.
She folded her arms. “If you won’t speak of it, maybe I should? Let’s take this testing time, for instance. Why was such an illogical penance chosen? There must have been a reason.”
His jaw tightened. He still wasn’t looking at her.
In case he did, she pretended to inspect a loose thread on her sleeve. “Did you know,” she began, plucking at the thread, “that in my country, we say that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“And I say that those who jab sticks into wasps’ nests get stung.”
“Be that as it may”—she kept examining the thread—“I am not a wasp.”
“Then be satisfied to know that my penance wasn’t wholly unjust.” He turned to face her. “Truth be told, it was more than fitting. The minstrel’s curse demanded that the Dark One require me to spend my proving time as he did.”
Cilla frowned. “So the curse had something to do with women?”
She wouldn’t have believed it, but he blushed.
The heat of it branded his cheeks and blazed up and down the back of his neck. The truth, for she deserved nothing less, sat like a clump of granite in his gut. Equally annoying, his head was beginning to ache and his mouth had gone so dry that he doubted he could form the words, even though he was now quite ready to do so.
“Well?” She’d moved closer.
He bit back a groan. “Aye, the curse had to do with women.” He stilled, already seeing the edges of his world curl and blacken. “Topping his outrage that I’d shut my door in his venerable face, the bard-wizard envied my supposed renown with the fairer sex.”
Cilla’s eyes widened. “So you were a ladies’ man.”
“Aye, and so I was, though no more than any other man of my station.” He laughed, but the sound was bitter. “The bard saw it otherwise and, once riled, took punishment on me in a way he knew would forever ruin my pleasure in women.”
Her eyes grew rounder. “He ruined your ability to . . . ah . . . you know, enjoy yourself?”
“Nae, he did just the opposite.” Hardwick’s heart almost stopped on the words. “He cursed me to be in a permanently aroused state, damning me to pleasure a different female every night for all eternity.”
“What—”
He raised a hand, silencing her when she tried to speak. “The dalliances weren’t a pleasure, sweetness. Leastways”—he spoke true—“no’ after the first fifty years or so. Thereafter, what should have been bliss turned into a living, or un-living, nightmare.”
“I see.” Her back went straight again, her shoulders squared and forbidding.
“You must.” He left the windows to stride forward and grip her by the arms. “My weariness of the task is why I asked the Dark One to relieve me of the curse. And, it must be said, his required payment is why I am now unable to touch or kiss you as I would so love to do.”
She glanced aside. “I thought you were weary of women.”
“I believed I was.” Hardwick tightened his hold on her. “Until the day I decided to relieve my boredom by sifting myself about Dunroamin, and you happened to enter a room I’d just arrived in.”
“You hid in the poster.” A smile tugged at her lips. “I thought you were a symptom of my jet lag.”
“And I thought I’d wakened from a seven-hundred-year sleep.” He slid his arms around her, pulling her close. “You took my breath and still do.”
She pulled back to look at him. “Even after so many other women?”
His voice deepened. “Especially after them.”
“But . . .” She glanced aside, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
“You canna doubt me.” He reached for her chin, turning her back to face him. “I am speaking true to you.”
“Oh, I believe you.” She met his gaze, her eyes clear and shining. “It’s just a great deal to consider. Your status as a ghost and now—”
“You’ve accepted my ghostdom.”
“I . . . well . . . of course, I have.” Her brow creased. “I’ve told you often enough.”
“Then accept me as a man.” He looked at her deeply, willing her to do so.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Hardwick knew he had a chance. Hope flashed through him, and he shoved a hand through his hair, scarce able to believe it. Half-afraid he might say something that would change her acceptance, her willingness to trust him. Then, before the world tilted and tipped him off its edge, he sent a prayer to whate’er saints or gods or whatnot might aid him.
He couldn’t bear to lose her, didn’t want to slip back into the empty dark he now knew he’d dwelt in for so many uncountable years.
His jaw clenching on the possibility, he drew a tight breath, bracing himself to continue. For him, at least, there was no going back. Not now, and even if he could ne’er truly make her his. He could pleasure her in other ways. After all, he’d already seen how responsive she was to passion. His, though much restrained, and, for truth, her own.
For the rest, the sweet warmth that had filled him when he’d spoken of his home and she’d touched a caring hand to his chest, trying to comfort him . . .
Such bliss was more than enough for him.
He only hoped she’d feel the same.
“See you, lass”—he considered his words, seeking ones that would explain rather than unsettle her—“although I did enjoy the women I encountered in the early days of my cursed state, I canna recall the name or face of a single one of them.”
Her face bloomed pink, but she didn’t glance aside. The rapid beat of her pulse at her throat showed her struggle against her emotions. And seeing it made him wince. If only he could just bend his head to hers and kiss her until the doubt and worry left her and he, too, could forget his oh-so-sordid
-sounding past.
Instead he simply reached out and smoothed the back of his knuckles down her cheek, hoping to soothe her.
Then he cleared his throat. “Hear me well, lass. Of the ladies who’ve crossed my path in the centuries between then and now”—he paused, watching her—“let it be known that they are naught but a great blur.”
She blinked. “A blur?”
He nodded. “I can think of no other way to describe them. Now, since meeting you, my time with them is as if it ne’er happened. They are no’ even a faint beat in my memory.”
“And me?” Her eyes started glistening, and there was a catch in her voice. “Where do I fit in with all those others? How would you descr—”
“You?” He looked at her, his heart bursting. “You are the sweet, golden light I didn’t know I was missing. The honeyed warmth I doubt I e’er knew existed, even in my earth life. You may no’ be the first woman I’ve drawn into my arms, but you are the only one I’ve given my heart.”
“O-o-oh . . .” She slid her arms around his neck, leaning—no, melting—into him. “Hardwick—”
“The women before you are of no importance.” He spoke over her, his heart thundering. “What matters is that you are the one I would love to see as my last, with no one coming after you. If”—he had to tell her—“we are e’er able to find a way to undo my pact with the Dark One.”
She pulled back, her eyes rounding again. “What do you mean your pact with the Dark One?”
“Exactly that.” The truth lanced him.
He’d been dreading this all night.
He sighed, knowing he had no choice but to tell her. “Once a year and a day rolls around and I have remained unaroused, I will be granted the eternal sleep I requested.”
She paled. “You mean a different kind of ghostdom than you’re living now?”
“It will be no ghostdom or afterlife at all.” He tried not to shudder. “There are many layers to the Otherworld, see you? I asked the Dark One to send me into a deep, black sleep from which there is no waking. He agreed.”
He looked at her, wishing that with all his ghostly powers he could turn back time and undo his request.
“But that’s horrible.” Her brows snapped together and her face clouded. She fisted her hands against his shoulders and he caught the tremors rippling through her.
“Such was my own desire, sweetness.” The admission just made it worse. “I only wanted relief at the time. A way out of a curse I could bear no more. Would that I had known I’d meet you . . .”
Her frown was formidable.
Almost frightening.
But just when he reached to smooth her brow, her face brightened.
She moistened her lips. “Am I correct in understanding that this forever sleep will claim you if you get through the proving period without becoming aroused?”
“Aye, that is the way of it.”
“O-o-oh, but I have it!” She did a fast little spin, her smile sunnier than he’d ever seen. “I know what we need to do to save you!”
“I canna be saved, lass.” He folded his arms. “The Dark One is all powerful and always holds a soul to his bids.”
“But that’s excellent.” She beamed. “We want him to keep his word.”
“Och, he does that, to be sure.”
“Then we’re home free! Don’t you see?” Her voice rose with feeling. “We only need to get you aroused, and the pact with him is null and void. He can’t whisk you off into some deep, dark oblivion.”
“Ach, lass, forgive me.” He winced inside, hating that he had to dash her hope. “I did no’ explain the testing period well enough.”
Her face fell. “You mean there’s more?” She stared at him, her eyes bright.
He couldn’t lie. “The most damning part, aye.”
“Then tell me so I know.”
“If I allow myself to become aroused, in the fullest sense, mind”—he spoke quickly—“the proving period will end immediately.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But that isn’t all of it.”
“Nae, it isn’t.” He reached for her arms, lowering them from his neck. “Should the like happen, the minstrel’s curse will return at once. Only this time I will not have the freedom to roam the world at will and choose my own partners for each night’s required bedding. The Dark One would whisk me into the coldest corner of hell, leaving me to pleasure the hags who dwell there.”
“And if we refuse to accept that?”
He blinked, not sure he’d heard her.
She laid a hand on his arm, her grip firm. “We can just go on as we are, can’t we?”
Hardwick almost choked. To be sure, he wanted what she suggested. The notion rode him day and night. But he’d ne’er been a man to build his castles of clouds. Truth was, he doubted he could go on this way much longer.
He was more than close to overstepping himself.
But her touch and determination made it impossible to naysay her. As did his own burning desire to make such a foolhardy, shaky-footed proposition work.
He started to scowl at the improbability of it, but slung an arm around her instead, pulling her close. “Aye, sweet, we can continue as we are.”
For the now, he added in silence.
A good while later, in the smallest hours of the night, Hardwick stood just inside the bolted door to Dunroamin’s unused wing and tried his best not to sneeze. Damp and musty, the chill, seldom-seen rooms reeked of dust, old leather, and moldy books. With surety, there were a few other things he couldn’t identify.
Molting stags’ heads, ancient stuffed birds, and faint traces of candle wax were reasonable guesses.
Blessedly, he couldn’t detect the slightest tinge of dragon breath. Nor did he catch any subtle wafts of sulfur or the unpleasantly sharp-sweet odor of hell hag. Not that he was presently in the state of mind likely to attract his heinous watchers.
Even so, he frowned.
His brow furrowed even more when a small four-footed something scuttled out of a shadowed corner and darted across the uneven wood-planked floor. Tiny legs pumping, the wee creature disappeared into the unsavory-smelling blackness beneath a torn and tattered armchair.
As if, like him, the mouse wanted nothing to do with dark and dust-coated places, he reappeared in a wink. He took a few cautious steps forward and then sat up on his haunches, fixing Hardwick with a curious stare.
The wee beastie didn’t appear frightened of him, as some creatures were wont to do. Far from it, the mouse angled his head jauntily.
His cheeky perusal made Hardwick’s heart clutch.
Any other time, he would have smiled.
As things were, he flicked his fingers to conjure a fine morsel of cheese. This he threw to the teeny, bright-eyed mouse. Snatching it, the beastie scampered behind a cracked gilt mirror propped against a wall.
Feeling an odd tightness in his chest, Hardwick placed his hands on his hips and looked around. He took care not to breathe too deeply. While not quite malodorous, the air held enough piquancy to twitch a sensitive nose.
And—as he’d only now just learned—it would seem his nose was quite discerning.
His heart, too, saints preserve him.
He swallowed a sigh.
Now wasn’t the hour to dwell on such revelations. He was here for a reason, and an important one. So he moved deeper into the dingy passageway, taking care to peer into each open door and shadowed niche. Dark, dreary, and filled with indistinguishable clutter, these less-frequented rooms and deliberately hidden corners beckoned with treasures.
In particular, the room he knew to be filled with bolts of ancient tartan. He’d seen the room once and meant to find it again now.
His pulse leapt at the prospect.
He quickened his step, his mien purposeful.
He needed the tartan.
To that end, he nipped into the dimness of a promising room only to walk straight into the pointed corner of a dark oak table.
“Owww!” He rub
bed his hip, scowling.
He made matters worse by backing away from the table and nearly tripping over a great, untidy pile of moth-eaten velvet window draping.
When a great swath of hanging cobwebs brushed across his face, clinging, he almost sifted himself out of the cramped and cluttered rooms.
There was only so much that a man—corporeal or otherwise—should be made to endure.
But the lure of the plaid bolts was greater.
A piece of true tartan, deftly applied, would protect him far better than any strip of plaid crafted in his usual finger-snapping way.
Sure of it, he threw open the door to yet another of the dark little rooms. He spotted the tartan at once. The colorful cloth was everywhere. Great teetering piles in such profusion, his heart near jumped from his chest. In one corner, the stacked bolts even reached the ceiling.
The room was empty otherwise, though a spill of ivy grew in through a crack in one of the grime-coated windows. The spreading green had claimed much of the far wall and some of the bolts stored there.
Even so, there was more than enough cloth to suit his purpose.
Relief—and hope—pumping through him, he stood on the threshold and surveyed his choices. Ancient and covered with a thick layer of dust, the tartan patterns were difficult to distinguish.
Not that the sett mattered.
What did was the tartan’s strength.
He needed one whose weave hadn’t been weakened by damp and centuries. Or worse, its proud threads assailed by moths and beetles. A single strip was all he required. But whatever he chose, the cloth had to hold securely, not giving at all once he’d fastened it into place.
His life—or unlife—depended on it.
And though he had little cause in his ghostdom to raise his sword in battle, his warring instincts were still finely honed. He hadn’t gone through life on the winning end of a blade without having first used his head, always making the land and circumstances work in his favor.
So he eyed the bolt stacks carefully, considering.
It took him all of two beats to know what must be done.
Rubbing his hands together, he strode directly to the largest pile of tartan and thrust his arms deep into the center of the dusty bolts. He closed his fingers around the one that felt right, pulling the bolt swiftly from the pile.
Tall, Dark, and Kilted Page 20