“’Tis a bit of an exaggeration,” Padraig demurred smoothly. If Aidan’s venture in Ireland went as they’d planned, however, Mira might indeed be correct. Padraig could scarcely wait to get to Chester to meet up with his brother and hear how things turned out.
Mira led the way to a set of closed double doors, and placing both her hands on the knobs, tossed a questioning look over her shoulder. “You’re certain? ’Tis not my wish to bore you with my trivialities.”
Padraig thought he saw something in her clear blue eyes for just a second, a shine of pure pride. Or was it something else?
Was there more to her than she usually showed? Padraig wondered. He hoped so. Both his mother and his grandmother were formidable women, complex and dynamic. It would be good for Aidan to find that Mira possessed qualities beyond the normal simpering flirtations of the spoiled and wealthy daughters of the peerage.
Mira opened the doors and they entered. The grand, richly appointed room smelled strongly of varnished wood and fresh paint, a smaller version of a very fine museum. The walls were lined with glass-fronted cabinets; the floor space filled with tables that had been built so that glass lay in the top, showcasing shallow recessed cases. The marble floors shone without a speck of dust, and the tall windows were draped with gold velvet hangings.
“What do you keep in here?” he asked.
Mira cast her eyes to her folded hands, and her sweet voice drifted through the cavernous room and off the high, coffered ceiling. “When I was a girl, I used to love to play in our attics. You see, they span nearly the entire manse, and are filled with hundreds of years worth of my family’s belongings. About two years ago, it occurred to me that a hobby was what I needed. Something to do that was more useful than painting tiny boxes and such. And so, my lord, I have been cataloging and displaying the Kimball artifacts that tell the story of our history.”
Padraig moved to one of the glass cabinets. Behind it was a battle-scarred medieval shield, its flaky paint displaying the Kimball coat of arms. It had a brass plaque beneath it, engraved with a small paragraph about Lord Randolff Kimball, the first Duke of Somerset, whose valiant service to the king was greatly rewarded.
All around the room were various such treasures: ancient swords and tapestries, journals and Bibles, chain mail and armor, and an entire case filled with ancestral jewels and jewelry.
“You did all of this yourself?” Padraig asked, greatly impressed.
“Yes. Papa allowed me to hire contractors to build the cabinets and such, and of course, he has indulged me with many trips to various towns so I could gather information. In fact, ’tis part of the reason I journey to Chester on the morrow. I am in search of any information about a Marquis in our family line, who apparently was quite the hero. I have his journals and a riveting log he kept during the War of Spanish Succession. He kept a home in Chester, and I’ve been in correspondence with the current owners, who have agreed to allow me access to their attics.”
Mira brushed her fingertips lovingly over one of the highly polished tables. “There is much, much more for me to do. I have only begun to sort through the many treasures in our attics. But I am taking my time with it, and enjoying the process. ’Tis been quite absorbing and rewarding.”
“What you’re doing here is wonderful.”
Mira blushed and fluttered her lashes. “I’m merely expressing my familial pride. Someday I shall do this same thing for my future husband’s family, should he approve of it, of course.”
Padraig fought the grin that wanted to break across his face. Mira Kimball did not waste time on subtlety. But her veiled promises aside, he couldn’t help but wonder if he or his brother would ever find the rarest sort of a woman: one who spoke her mind and heart.
Mira turned her eyes up to his, and laid a hand on his arm. Her touch was light and fleeting, as if a tiny songbird had landed on his jacket. “My lord, may I show something remarkable?”
“Certainly.”
Mira led him to the center case and pointed down at a slip of paper that was pinned to a soft cushion of velvet. The letter had tattered edges and a rich velvety texture that made the scrolling words bleed into the parchment. Though it had been carefully smoothed out, it still bore the lines that told tale of once being crumpled down the center, as if by an angry fist.
An odd weight settled in Padraig’s gut, though he knew not why.
Mira, oblivious to his reaction, said, “Look, my lord. Here is a letter summoning my great-uncle, Bret Kimball, to your family’s property in Southampton, then called Beauport. ’Tis dated 1742, and appears to be written by the hand of your great-grandmother, Amelia Bradburn, the Duchess of Eton.” Mira turned her lovely face toward him, obviously quite proud of her discovery. “Isn’t it wondrous? It seems our families have known each other for more than sixty years.”
Padraig leaned forward and inspected the letter with more interest. “Her handwriting looks like my grandmother Camille’s.”
“Yes, well, that may be. There is more, however, my lord.” Mira’s eyes were shining, and her enthusiasm was evident. She fairly vibrated with it. “I have found journals from my great-uncle, as well. Bret Kimball was a man who understood history, I think, for he left several diaries that are filled with his writings. I’ve yet to read them, but the discovery spurred me to send a request to your mother, asking if I might tour the attics of the home in Southampton. Who knows what other links I might find between our families?”
“You did?” The girl was certainly tenacious. The property in Southampton was where Aidan had made his home, far away from London and court, where he could pursue his own interests. Mira could have waited a matter of weeks for Aidan to return, and asked him if she could join him there.
“I just couldn’t wait. Aidan is always so busy with his animals and his ships and his whiskey nonsense.” Mira wrinkled her nose prettily. “Your mother was just lovely about it. Not only did Her Grace send permission for me to spend as much time as I needed at Beauport, she sent a letter to the staff there, letting them know I am welcome anytime.”
Padraig smiled, thinking of the appropriateness of his mother’s formal address, Her Grace. Yes. If there was one thing Emeline Mullen had in spades, it was that.
Mira continued, burbling on, seeming nearly manic in her enthusiasm. “I am very passionate about my family’s venerable and prestigious history, and now to find such a link between the Kimballs and the Bradburns has just exceeded my wildest expectations.”
Mira drew in a deep breath, a sigh of pure happiness and excitement. “As soon as I am finished in Chester, I am going to travel to Southampton, to Beauport. I cannot wait to see what fantastic discoveries that will yield.”
And Padraig couldn’t help but notice that Mira hadn’t acted nearly so excited at the prospect of seeing Aidan again as she was to go digging in their attics.
Nor had she indicated that she thought of Beauport as more than a place to discover historical facts. When Mira and Aidan married, it would be her home.
Chapter Four
The sound of the night was broken by the creaking, rattling wagon and the wheezing of a horse that’d been pushed beyond its limits. Olwyn Gawain knew it was time to stop running, if only for a few hours.
She reined Nixie in to a stop in a small thicket, where hopefully, no one would be around to ambush her when she, too, stole a moment’s rest.
Fatigue was a crushing weight on her shoulders, and her back ached from sitting on the bare plank of wood that comprised the wagon’s seat. Her belly grumbled, unsatisfied by the few bits of bread she’d managed to swallow every time she stopped the wagon to climb into the back to coax water and honey down her charge’s throat.
But he looked better, she thought with satisfaction. As she unhitched her horse, tethered her, and strapped on the feed bag, Olwyn allowed herself to be proud of her accomplishment. She’d saved a man’s life, after all, and her own with it.
No more wasting her life away, desperate and alone. S
he was seizing the possibility of something more.
The wet from the grass seeped into her homemade boots and touched her feet with chilly fingers, making her shiver as she finished the last of her tasks. With Nixie tended to, Olwyn let the mantle of her weariness slide over her, no longer fighting it.
The wagon creaked as it took her weight, and Olwyn slid into the narrow space in the center, wiggling beneath the covers and furs to lie beside the man who slept there. She shifted the blankets so they covered them both, and as she did, she felt his skin.
It occurred to her she was about to bed down for the night with a man who was completely naked.
Olwyn dismissed the indecency of it. Sharing their warmth was only practical, she told herself.
So why then could she do nothing but think about dark gold hair framing a Prince Charming face, a long, smooth, muscled body, and large square hands?
And there in the dark, in the cold, and completely alone, Olwyn blushed hot and red as she envisioned his most private parts.
He moved in his sleep, and her body molded to his as if made to fit against him. The nest she’d made for him was surprisingly warm, and heat seeped into her skin, relaxing her.
It did not escape her awareness that she had not touched another live human being since the day her mother left.
It felt so good to have his skin near hers, to hold him as she liked, and to give the simplest of affection: a hug. So she let her arm drape over his broad chest, and she held him to her.
Olwyn mentally named him her prince. And laughing at the fanciful nature of her imaginings, she let her mind wander down a path that was dangerous for all its allure.
She envisioned him waking, and added that it began with her kiss. Why not? It was her fantasy. She would have it as she liked.
And so she kissed her prince awake, and he fell in love with her from the start. He whisked her off to his castle, wooed her gently, and welcomed her into his life, his embrace. And of course, she added, they lived happily ever after.
It was a dream as nebulous as a bubble, easily popped with reality’s prick.
She well recalled the fear in his eyes when he’d looked at her.
Her prince stirred in his sleep, and a low sound of contented comfort came from his throat. It stirred her in a curious way.
“Do you like my body against yours, as much as I like yours against mine?” she asked him, emboldened by the knowledge that he could not hear her.
Testing the waters, she ran her hand over his chest, touched the small nub of his nipple, feeling the springy hairs there.
He sighed and shifted toward her.
She propped herself on her elbow so she could look down on his face, his handsome sleeping face. “If I kissed you, would you wake?” she whispered.
Smiling at her own fancy, she leaned down and kissed his lips. She’d meant it to be a quick peck, but his breath exhaled against her mouth, and so she lingered, inhaling his essence. His lips tasted of the honeyed water she’d given him, and they felt soft and alive.
She pulled back and touched his face with her fingertips, skimming over his features with a butterfly caress.
He made a sound in his throat, distinctly of pleasure. And so she kept stroking him, over his ears and down his neck. “You are alive,” she told him. “And soon, when you’re healed enough, you’ll wake.”
Olwyn stroked down his chest and over the narrow plane of his belly, felt the firm tautness of it, and growing bolder, ran her hand down his flank. She couldn’t help but admire him; he was beautifully made, like a sculpture, an Adonis of a man.
Her prince turned his head toward her, still sleeping, his breath warm on her face. And he sighed with another sound of pleasure.
“Come alive,” she urged him, and beneath her hand she felt the warm curve of his large thigh muscle as it ran down into his knee. “Wake and find your life again.”
He moved once more, curling against her warmth.
“Who are you?” she asked him in another whisper. “Are you my prince? Will you save me the day you come alive?”
She leaned down and kissed him again, a slow, gentle pass of her lips over his. All the while she stroked him like a cat, long, slow petting over his smooth, soft skin, admiring the taut, tensile strength beneath it, and the masculine shape of him.
And knowing it was so very, very wrong, Olwyn let her hand drift to where it ought not be unless she were his wife. It was the briefest touch, but she felt his warmth there before pulling her hand away, her face flaming.
He moved again, closer still.
“I am sorry,” she told him, her voice hushed with shame and hesitant with curiosity. “I should not have done that.”
She lay back down beside him, wrapped her arm across his chest and cradled him to her in an embrace that was less than chaste, but the best she could manage.
Hours passed before she found sleep.
Olwyn spent the next day like the first, following the map the trader had given her.
And by the time night fell, she began to feel safer.
Surely she was now beyond Rhys’s grasp; she’d taken their only horse. On foot, he had no chance of catching up to her.
Olwyn lit a lantern and pulled back the blankets to look at him. Still unconscious, the man’s color had faded once again.
The night was still and quiet around her, the sky thankfully clear, but lacking in much light as there was only the thinnest sliver of a moon.
She needed to get her charge by a fire.
Olwyn consulted her map again. According to the trader, there should be a small stone hut up ahead.
As she drove by, she passed tall standing stones. They were her markers, proof that she was on the correct path. Shivers traveled over her skin, prickling awareness of the ancients who’d erected the stones. They loomed like sentinels guarding the secrets of the past, of the Druids who’d peeled bark from trees, worshipped the sun for the life it gave, and left the timeless stones behind when their mortal bodies returned to dust.
Up ahead a dark shadow on the horizon suggested she neared a pile of stones, perhaps a cairn, or perhaps the shelter she sought.
Nearing it, her heart began to thud in nervous expectation, for she could see it was in fact a small, round dwelling, built into the side of a hill in the manner of medieval construction. There were literally hundreds of such stone huts dotting the English, Scottish, and Welsh countryside, a few occupied by humans, most inhabited by small animals.
She approached the structure in relative quiet. No lights came from within it, and as she drew even closer, intense relief slid over her like a warm blanket.
It was still abandoned.
She reined Nixie to a stop and, taking her lantern, hopped down to investigate.
Its hewn door listed to the side, and two tiny windows were on either side of it, as darkly blank as vacant eyes. The oiled skins that had once covered them hung in tatters, their torn, wispy remains moving gently in the night breeze. The part of the dwelling that protruded from the hillside was thatched, its floor merely dirt, but Olwyn would not find fault. It would provide them shelter.
She silently thanked the kind trader. He had not failed her.
Olwyn set the lantern inside the structure, and quickly got to work. Delighted to see that it had a fire pit hollowed into the hillside, she rushed to pull kindling and squares of peat from the wagon and immediately began building a fire.
Years of living without servants had taught Olwyn well; in a few minutes she had a fire burning in the pit, and was busy laying a pallet in front of it. When a makeshift bed had been laid, she grabbed two blankets, doubled them, and tacked them into place, using the iron pins that had once held the oiled skins taut. Hopefully that would hold in some heat and keep out the winds.
And then, taking a deep sigh of resignation, she turned her attention to the task of moving the man by herself.
She backed the wagon up to the door, and pulling, tugging, swearing, and hauling at the wra
ps around him, she managed to slide him from the wagon bed down to the ground. Rolling him, she heaved and pushed until he was finally settled on the pallet in front of the fire.
Completely exhausted, Olwyn leaned against his bulk, waiting for her breathing to return to normal. Her belly clenched with hunger, and she needed to get up, get to the wagon, unhitch, feed, and water Nixie, bring food, water, and more firewood into the shelter. But her body would not obey her, and despite her best efforts to stay awake, warmed by the fire and her relief, she fell fast asleep.
Aidan Mullen became aware of pain before anything else. His body felt as if it had been badly beaten. Every single inch of him ached and burned.
Too weak to even open his eyes, smells wove their way into his senses: fire smoke and earth, tanned furs and boiled wool, musky incense and sage.
The last thing Aidan recalled was dying. It came back to him in sickening detailed snippets of memory. The heaving, rocking ship. The throat that felt as if it were full of hot, broken glass. The burning fever. The spasms of wrenching, wracking convulsions. And the gradually encroaching black shroud of death, numbing him until there was nothing left.
His body remembered the pain, and he shuddered as the memories rolled through him.
Aidan slowly began to come more awake. He realized he was completely naked, his skin prickling with awareness against scratchy wool and silky furs.
His fingers twitched. His foot moved.
And beside him, a person shifted and sat up.
Aidan’s heart, already weak, nearly stopped. Where was he, and who lay beside him?
Aidan held perfectly still, eyes kept closed, feigning deep sleep. Fingers gently touched his neck, feeling for his pulse. Hair fell over his face like silk rain, scented with exotic incense. A cheek pressed against his, soft and most definitely female.
She whispered in his ear, a quiet, fluid stream of language he did not know, a lilting melody that sounded like a song. Her voice was sweet and slightly husky, and when she finished speaking, she sat beside him silently, stroking his cheek.
Stealing Midnight Page 4