He paced restlessly, watching a bar of moonlight brush the flagstones while his mind worked through details of the upgrade to be finished on Nicholas’s security systems. He couldn’t afford to be restless, and he definitely couldn’t afford to be careless.
Jared had learned that lesson well at the ultra-secret SAS explosives school in Norfolk when a fellow soldier had been torn apart by the blast from a device that was supposedly disarmed and absolutely safe. He had learned another rule there, equally important: You only get one chance.
Jared had blown his chance somewhere on a jungle hillside in Asia. He had died there with his blood slipping to a cold cement floor. In the normal course of things, he would have stayed dead, but he hadn’t. And the price of his return was a gift that was fast becoming a curse.
Moonlight broke over the restless water circling the abbey’s lawns. As Jared stared down, he wondered how the proud walls would look in spring, wreathed in bright roses and warm sunlight.
The odd thing was that part of him already knew the answer, though he’d spent no other season within the abbey’s weathered walls. Yet somehow he saw how roses would climb and twist, clustered over the gray stone.
His mouth tightened. He was losing his edge. Too much imagination played havoc with a man’s coordination and decision-making abilities, making him useless in a threat. He’d tried to tell Nicholas this a dozen times, but his friend had refused to listen. That kind of loyalty could get someone killed.
His body tensed as he revisited the dark alleys and cold nights of his past. He had faced more anger and despair than most men. One by one, he had fought down his enemies and conquered his regrets. But this sense of limbo he had felt since Thailand was a special kind of hell, and waiting was all he had left since he had glimpsed the manner and place of his own death.
It was moments like this, past midnight in the ragged hours of night, that the man from box 225 yearned for the brush of soft hands and the gentle glide of a woman’s hungry skin. If he were very lucky, maybe even with a woman of passion and curiosity like Maggie Kincade. In their heated joining he might have found some semblance of peace.
But the peace wouldn’t endure, he thought grimly. And he had never been a man to settle for pretense or empty fantasy.
So his bed went unshared and his pain went unassuaged. If he muttered or twisted in the night, there was no one else to hear, which was probably just as well.
He smiled wryly at the moon hanging over the gatehouse. Since his return, he’d learned to be versatile in his methods of physical distraction. A ten-mile run over steep, wooded slopes worked fairly well, but a predawn plunge in the abbey’s icy, spring-fed moat worked better still.
For the moment he decided to forget about female company and check the e-mail messages waiting for him on his laptop. Moving inside, he scrolled through a half dozen messages for products he didn’t need from companies he didn’t know. There was nothing of any importance waiting for him.
With a yawn, he flicked off his laptop and heard a woman’s silky voice purr goodnight. The sound file was a little joke from his computer-genius friend, who had assured Jared that the voice belonged to a sedate grandmother of six in rural Indiana. The knowledge did nothing to dim the effect of her smoky farewell.
Jared settled back in a deep wing chair beside the French doors overlooking the south lawn. Tomorrow he planned to finish testing the upgrades he’d made to the abbey’s south wall security. With luck the whole process should require no more than several hours, in spite of the minor bugs he had discovered in the program. If he was very lucky, he’d also manage to be out of sight whenever Maggie Kincade was present.
Frowning, he picked up the latest techno-thriller, hoping it might ease him down into sleep. His gaze narrowed on the slouching figure on the jacket flap, a writer who supposedly captured the gritty reality of post-cold war Asia. The truth, Jared knew, was a lot more boring—and far more inhuman than any best-seller.
The man from box 225 understood that better than anyone.
Still, a diversion was a diversion. He flipped on a single desk lamp and settled back, book in hand, only to feel a ripple of uneasiness. Mist drifted past the window as he rubbed the knotted muscles at his neck and told himself there was no reason for wariness. The abbey’s security was running perfectly, and no alarms had been triggered. This tickle between his shoulder blades had to be pure imagination.
Shaking his head, Jared plowed into the story. After three pages, his vision darkened and the book fell forgotten at his feet. As he plummeted into the cold tunnels of sleep, his heart pounding, he was gripped by a pain that felt as old as the unsmiling Draycott ancestor in the portrait that hung above his head.
His fists clenched.
A dream, Jared told himself. Nothing more.
Just another bloody incomprehensible dream…
Moonlight.
Cold wind on a lonely cliff. Rain that slammed over rutted roads and danger that hung like a silent, twisting noose.
He had only until dawn to find her. After that she would be lost to him—and to everyone else who loved her.
He ran through trees, feeling the slap of cold boughs against his face and chest. Panting, half lost, he was. Half blind. Completely sick at the certainty of her loss.
He should have sensed her desperate plan at once. When she’d come to his bed, he should have known it was a ploy. Tying her to the great oak posts would have kept her from her reckless plan.
A plan meant to save him.
Worry gnawed at his chest. His dirk dug into his hip, and somewhere in the darkness came the stamp of feet. A musket discharged with sullen fury.
His hand clenched at the woman’s cry, off to the north.
The woman he had vowed to cherish and protect.
His fault.
All his fault.
Desperate to find her, he ran through the skeletal trees, heedless of safety or sense, falling straight into the trap that they had laid for him…
Jared awoke to a silent house and pain drumming in his head. No horses stamped in the courtyard, and no screams filled the chill hour before dawn.
With a curse, he rose, fighting away the ragged edges of sleep. Was it the cry of a bird that had woken him or the mist that whispered against the window? Or was it simply the unconscious knowledge of the woman who slept only a few rooms away?
Outside, the moon hung in fragments, caught between the arms of skeletal trees, which seemed to shift and move as if in a foreign landscape.
Probably another bloody dream, Jared told himself. Exactly like the ones that had begun in that cramped box dug into the jungle slope.
He was scanning two files that Nicholas had left for him when a beeper sounded on his laptop. He frowned as he saw a message flicker onto the screen. He began to type his reply, only to catch a hint of movement down on the lawn near the moat.
Make that someone, he thought grimly, seeing the flicker of pale clothing. The hour was far too early for lost hikers or innocent tourists, and hard experience had taught Jared to be suspicious. Quickly, he pulled on worn jeans and soft-soled shoes. Next thing he knew, he would hear the distant chime of church bells while the notorious abbey ghost shimmered into view beside the gatehouse, all rustling lace and hideous laughter. At least that was what a dozen tourists swore they had seen.
Jared didn’t believe a word of the tales. Had there been any ghosts at the abbey, he would have sensed them before this.
At the window he froze.
A woman stood by the moat, dressed all in white.
A muscle tightened at Jared’s neck. Maggie Kincade.
Why was she jaunting through the woods in the dead of night? And why was she wearing what appeared to be a nightgown?
There was an odd, dreamy quality to her movements that made him frown. Neither that nor her presence outside made any kind of sense.
A ribbon of mist curled up the hill, adding a layer of unreality to the night. He ran for the door…and stopped
cold as a wisp of sound drifted through his head, hauntingly sad. Like faint music it echoed from his balcony in teasing waves, now clear, now gone.
A piper here at Draycott Abbey? What mad prank was this?
Irritation and something darker lengthened his stride as he pounded down the abbey’s shadowed corridors. At the outside door cold air struck his face, and once again he heard the faint trill of music.
But now the woman in white was gone.
JARED WORKED HIS WAY ACROSS THE DARK LAWNS, DOWN through the whispering trees, and there he finally found her. She wasn’t crouched near the north wing, trying to pry open a window. Nor was she razoring out a square of glass to force the lock on a quiet rear door.
She was sitting on the edge of the stone bridge.
Just sitting.
Smiling, while her legs dangled and she traced invisible patterns over the old stone. Jared stared at her. “Maggie?” he called.
No answer.
Maybe she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she was restless and had come outside for some fresh air.
All the way to the moat? And she didn’t look drunk. She looked for all the world like she was playing a quiet game, waiting for a lost friend to appear.
Jared plunged down the hillside, frowning as he drew closer. Her bearing seemed wrong. Even her face seemed different here in the moonlight and mist.
Younger.
Excited.
Then the soft white gown moved, skimming her breasts and leaving his stomach twisted in a vicious knot of naked awareness. He hadn’t been intimate with a woman in months—he hadn’t wanted to be. He’d had no inclination for the agonizing link of raw emotions that such a contact would have forced upon him.
So why did desire lash out now? Why did he feel her with every nerve in his body?
The whole scenario was ludicrous, entirely impossible. Then Jared remembered mat Draycott Abbey had a reputation for bringing the impossible to life.
Her mouth swept into a quick smile as he approached. Her head tilted, and her laughter rippled like morning sunlight.
The sound chilled him. It was too young, too innocent. What in God’s name was happening? “Maggie?”
As before, there was no answer. He stared, suddenly cold, feeling the ground turn to foam beneath him.
Moonlight touched the long sleeves of her simple white gown with silver as she rose to her feet. Her full breasts rose and fell, each high curve outlined clearly through the soft fabric of her gown.
Jared’s jaw clenched at the sight. “Why don’t you answer me?”
Her head cocked. White and silent, poised at the top of the bridge, she was a study in innocence.
“Well?”
A frown marred the pale beauty of her face. She shifted from side to side, and the dry leaves in her hands fell like scattered rose petals.
“Answer me.” Exhaustion made his voice harsh. “Say something, damn it.”
Her fingers plucked at the folds of the cambric gown. “My lord? Do you finally come for me now, after all these months of silence?”
There was a sweetness to her voice that fit perfectly with the surreal atmosphere of the night. She might almost have been a child—if Jared could have ignored the full curves and dark, enticing hollows beneath her thin gown.
Which he bloody well couldn’t. No man could have.
His muscles locked in aching awareness. “Get down or you’ll be hurt.”
But she only leaned forward, smiling. “Nay, my lord. Come, catch me here as you were wont to do.” Her hands stretched toward him. “Unless the fine ladies at court now hold all your regard.”
“Stop,” Jared hissed, realizing she meant to fall and let him catch her. But it was too late. She moved toward the edge of the stone bridge and stepped off.
He caught her with a jolt of pain, cursing as they toppled onto the damp earth, barely missing the moat. Jared rolled sideways and pinned her beneath him.
Softness anchored him at hip and chest, tightening his throat, while the intimate contact slammed his body to full arousal. She was strong for a woman, her muscles trim but defined by hours of work at shaping and cutting metal. But it was the force of the link between them that left Jared weak as he plunged into the chaotic images of her mind. She was still asleep, he realized. And in her dreams, she seemed to recognize him.
Not as he looked now, but with a different face and different garb.
What in the name of heaven did it mean?
He pulled away, afraid to touch her longer. “What are you about, woman?”
She stared up at him, puzzled. “Why so cold, my lord? You were not so harsh when last we parted here on the bridge.” Her chin rose. “’Tis the court which is to blame, I trow. The Queen and her ways make you frown most ill.”
Court? What was she talking about?
“Do not measure me so bitterly.” Her fingers opened, tracing his cheek, and Jared felt the touch race through a hundred searing nerve ends.
“I don’t. I’m simply trying to understand you.”
She sighed. “My father gave up long ago. Now court holds him in its thrall, too. He has forgotten my very existence.”
“Damn it, what are you talking about?”
Her palm gently covered his mouth. “Have I done aught to offend? Has cook’s fare been ill? If so, I will tend it with my own hand.” Then her cheeks filled with sudden color. “Perhaps my doublet and hose displease you.”
Her words made the tiny hairs rise along Jared’s neck. Doublet and hose?
“Enough,” he growled, fighting the spell of her odd speech and the soft perfume that drifted from her skin. “What are you doing out here, Maggie?”
“Maggie? I know no Maggie.”
“You are Maggie.”
Jared could have sworn there was genuine confusion in her face. “Nay, not I.”
He gripped her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’re coming inside and no more discussion.”
“As you will, my lord. And would you choose for me to share your bed—”
Bed?
Jared froze, every muscle tense. “What are you talking about?”
“As your wife, it is only meet and proper.” Her voice fell. “Unless you find me repellent and not to your liking.”
“No, damn it, of course I don’t find you repellent. That is, I don’t find you any way at all.” He jammed hard fingers through his hair. How had he gotten into this bloody argument? There was no wife lurking in his past. He had made damned sure that no one was entangled with him. Not wife, or mistress, or any other partner.
She looked at him, all innocence, her eyes overflowing with adulation and love.
Was she a lunatic?
With a curse he turned, half-shoving her up the rocky slope toward the house. “Fine,” he muttered. “If your name isn’t Maggie, tell me what it is.”
She stumbled over a rocky outcrop. “My name? You must know it full well by now. It has been four years since we met, my lord.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Very well, my—” She caught back the phrase just in time. “I am Gwynna. You took me as your wife.”
“I have no wife, damn it.”
She spun about, her eyes huge and wild. “You were never wont to be so cruel, my lord. Cold and distant, but never knowingly to deal such pain. You know full well that we were wed.”
Jared watched a tear creep down her cheek. He clenched his hands against a restless urge to pull her close and trace that salty path with his mouth. Somehow he seemed to know exactly how she would taste, how she would feel against his painfully hardening body. Madness or not, the image enflamed him until thought and breath seemed impossible.
In his turmoil, he almost missed the first faint probing. It came weblike at his back, slow and tentative. Jared stiffened as the touch grew sharper.
Someone was behind them, out in the darkness. Watching.
Again the feeling came, light and subtle, like the brush of searching fing
ers. Some new infrared tracking device? If so, Jared had never felt such contact before.
Gripping her arm, he pulled her back into the shadows.
“Why—”
“Quiet.”
To her credit, she caught his urgency and fell silent beside him. Overhead the leaves stirred in a wild dance that set shadows flickering over the cold slopes.
He tried to ignore the restless network of her thoughts and the warm pressure of her body, while he focused on the threat behind them. Somewhere to the north a bird shot from the dense foliage.
“Stay down,” he ordered, pulling her toward the dense trees behind the stables. With luck and careful movements, they might avoid being seen. But first they had a rugged, stony slope to traverse. “No noise.” Jared pointed up to the abbey, visible through the trees. “We’ll head up the back way.”
Her brow creased. “’Tis a sort of game you wish to play?”
Jared didn’t have time to argue or explain. He had to get them inside. “Just keep quiet and stay close.”
Grimly, he tugged her forward, keeping to the mottled edge of shadows. The first yards were slow but manageable, and then the slope pitched sharply, rising to a tangle of rocks.
“Go ahead of me,” he whispered, gripping her waist and pushing her forward. He stiffened at the contact, struck by the rush of her fear and confusion. Yet again he glimpsed his face as she saw him.
Wrong, he thought. All wrong. A different face with longer hair and younger, happier eyes. The face of a stranger.
But Jared had no time now to ponder the image. As soon as he could, he released her, gasping as the contact broke. To his relief she moved ahead without further prodding. Her steps were surprisingly nimble, as if she had taken this route before, but Jared was certain that he had not brought Maggie here.
Two yards. Three. Four.
Abruptly he felt the probing return. So they’d been spotted, their passage marked. Long nights in dangerous places had taught him to expect the worst, and he did that now. Body tense, he shoved Maggie directly in front of him, shielding her from a laser sight or the bullets that might target them at any second.
The Perfect Gift Page 9