But he would not be able to deny his darker longings, and she knew that, too. Her Lóchrann of the darkness desired her in ways that were visceral and elemental. And if she went to the dinner, perhaps she would see glimpses of that need, that aching, urgent pull that tethered her to him as nothing else.
Just one of those moments would be worth whatever else the evening would bring.
“Yes, my lady,” Olwyn said softly, her voice low and husky despite her effort to sound normal. “I will come.”
If Camille noticed, she gave no sign. She paid for the meal and rose, leading the way to the shop next door. Olwyn followed without paying attention, her only thoughts for Lóchrann, and the minutes that spanned the time until she would see him again.
She barely noticed that Camille had led the way to a dressmaker’s shop, and when Olwyn took note of the walls of fabrics, the bundles of laces and bags of buttons, the racks of partially sewn gowns and drawers spilling undergarments, she began to realize what Camille had in mind.
She turned a surprised look to Camille, who only smiled. “Will it offend you overmuch if I purchase you a gown or two?”
“That’s not necessary,” Olwyn answered quickly, her face flushing with deep embarrassment. She’d thought Camille had turned a blind eye to her appearance, but apparently, she hadn’t. “I am quite comfortable as I am.”
Still, her eyes moved longingly over the pretty gowns, feasting on the fabrics that were a delight to behold: silks, brocades, velvets, and lace of every color.
For a woman like Olwyn, whose entire wardrobe was fashioned ancient garments found in closets, and pieced together from bolts of fabrics traded for foodstuffs, it was a veritable assault of beauty on her eyes.
And then she saw it—a huge mirror mounted against the far wall.
Fabrics and gowns forgotten, she murmured to Camille, “My lady, do you mind?”
Camille followed her gaze and looked puzzled for a moment. It dawned on her then, for she said, “You’ve not seen yourself?”
“Not that I can recall,” Olwyn confessed quietly. She raised her hands to her face and touched the planes of her cheeks, the shape of her nose, and met Camille’s eyes. “Am I so ugly, my lady?”
“Go see for yourself,” Camille answered gently, and with a raise of her hands she gestured for the shop staff to give them privacy.
Olwyn walked toward it with the pace of one moving toward the gallows. She heard her father’s voice, calling her hideous, saw Mira’s face, etched with revulsion, and recalled Padraig looking at her curiously, asking why Aidan came to her.
A young woman came into view in the mirror, and Olwyn held her breath as she looked at herself.
The first thing she noticed was her eyes, and in that instant, meeting her own bold stare in the looking glass, Olwyn understood why people stared at her. They were gray and clear, but also arresting, otherworldly, primal, and fierce, something like an animal’s gaze. Thickly fringed with black lashes, they were beneath thin, slashing black brows, and her skin, so fair and white, was stark against her black hair.
She was a study in neutral contrasts, shades of black and white and gray, save for the seashell pink of her lips. And they were soft looking, feminine and plump, feline in their shape. She licked her lips, saw her small tongue dart out, and she laughed at the sight of her mirror image doing as she did, like magic. As she laughed she saw her teeth where small and white and straight, no half-rotted witch’s fangs.
She was slim, the bones in her face and hands and neck delineated, and her body was nicely made, with a tight, tiny waist and breasts that were full and round and in proportion to her shape.
She reached up and untied the ribbon that held her hair back. Waves of shiny black tresses cascaded around her face and shoulders, and there it was, a narrow streak of pure white running down her left side like lightning slicing through darkness. With the odd streak and her piercing eyes, she understood why they called her a witch, for she was most certainly striking, and with her outmoded garments, and a dagger in her scarred, thick belt, she looked unusual and a little dangerous.
But there was one fact that was irrefutable.
“I am beautiful,” she whispered.
“You did not know?” Camille asked her, standing behind her in the mirror. “Surely you must have noticed the way men respond to you.”
“Only one,” Olwyn murmured, and she saw her own blush in the mirror turn her cheeks pink.
“You are a rare beauty, Miss Gawain. That’s a fact.”
A swell of pure anger that was so violent as to be hatred welled in her chest, a squeezing hot fist of razors around her heart.
Her father had lied to her all those years.
Olwyn saw the rage rise in her face, for her eyes became flinty and cold, and her brow raised to form a peak above one eye.
“All my life he told me I was hideous,” Olwyn said, choking the words out. “He told me that no man would want me, that I was a piebald beast of a woman.”
Camille moved closer, and she put her hand on Olwyn’s back, a comforting pressure. “He lied to control you,” she said simply. “Tis cruel, but effective.”
“How could he? My own father.” Olwyn wanted to weep, but not because she was sad. She wanted to cry because she was so angry that Rhys was not there, that there was nothing she could do with the rage except feel it for all its impotence. “I stayed with him. Was loyal, and for it he lied to me.”
“Sometimes you do the right things for the wrong people,” Camille said gently. “And when enough time has passed, you can take comfort in that.”
Olwyn nodded, knowing that Camille was right. She had done the right thing for the wrong man, and in that wisdom came another insight. Doing the right thing said more about Olwyn than it did about Rhys. He was still a liar, but she was no longer his victim.
Like her mother before her, Olwyn had escaped.
She took a breath, and then another, and finally another. The anger dissipated slowly, and finally she let it go. Rhys could not control her any longer.
Meeting Camille’s gaze in the mirror, she told her, “Thank you for bringing me here. I will never hear his voice in my head again.”
Camille gave Olwyn a squeeze before wandering the shop. She picked up a gown of shimmering silver silk and brought it to Olwyn. “You would be stunning in this. ’Twould please me greatly if you would try it on.”
Olwyn twisted her hands in her scratchy woolen skirt and eyed the dress with trepidation. It was the gown of a lady, the fabric so fine it could have been spun by a fairy, shining with a mystical, metallic gleam that shifted in the light. “I dare not.”
“Tis a gown, nothing more. Pieces of cloth sewn together,” Camille urged her softly. “Do not be afraid of it.”
“Such a thing must cost,” Olwyn’s voice faltered, and she cleared her throat and forced out, “a fortune.”
Camille approached Olwyn and laid the gown in her arms. “All of my life I have never wanted for anything material. But as I told you on our ride here, I never had much kindness shown to me until I met my husband. Since then I’ve learned the value of such blessings, but I’ve also learned that gifts are sometimes harder to receive than they are to give.”
Camille reached out and touched Olwyn’s cheek with the backs of her fingers, a maternal gesture that went straight to Olwyn’s heart, where the little girl who’d cried for her mother still lived on. “Please, let me give you this gift. I would be grateful if you would allow me to be kind to you.”
Chapter Seventeen
After having managed only a few fitful hours of sleep, Aidan spent the day with Padraig and Rogan discussing business. They reviewed documents and plans, looked at proposals, and projected risk-to-gain ventures.
Shipyards full of frigates meant hour after hour of maps and charts, trade routes and bids. The family’s land holdings meant attention had to be paid to the many acres of land, houses, tenants, crops, and rents, that all needed to be duly given their
attention.
All the while, though, as Aidan spoke with his father, his mind raced with other thoughts. When will you set me free of the worry? Tell me it isn’t me. Tell me I won’t have to follow in your footsteps. Tell me I am free to be my own man.
And by the time they had wrapped up everything, Aidan’s restlessness raced like a fire through his blood.
Ready to escape his own reality for a while, Aidan went for a thundering ride. He rode his stallion to the ocean, pushing the horse to his limits as they raced across the shoreline. The horse kicked up huge clumps of watery sand, and Aidan leaned into the frigid wind, so cold it burned his lungs.
When his steed had had enough, he eased up and headed back to the manse. Night drew in, and Aidan deliberately skirted the woods, avoiding any sight of the trail that led to the cottage.
He could not get Olwyn out of his mind, but at least he could stay away from her.
He’d failed miserably in his effort to find something with Mira that even vaguely resembled what he felt for Olwyn. There was no replicating something so visceral, and he had been a fool to even try.
His thoughts were consumed with Olwyn, an attraction that came from a place Aidan didn’t fully understand. He knew not why or how it came to inhabit his soul, yet it was there, an inexorable possession of his desire.
That was hard enough to reconcile, but there was a deeper truth that was even worse.
Roman de Gama had unknowingly made him see what he’d been trying to avoid, had asked a question that had only one answer, and Aidan was forced to surrender to the truth of it. He loved her.
It was not just mindless attraction, or lust, or infatuation, although he felt those, too. It ran deeper, was more meaningful, and yes, he admitted to himself, it was love.
He loved her the way he loved his cottage and Chase, his whiskey and the sea, the quiet company of horses and the untamed cry of a soaring hawk. He loved her the way he loved simple pleasures, an unmitigated, straightforward love that lacked complexity or reason. He loved her the way he loved life.
She was distinctive and different, honest and sincere, earthy and elemental. She was unlike any other woman he’d ever known. The truths of who she really was and what she saw in him had spoken to Aidan’s heart, opened it, and now existed there like a hidden treasure he could show to no one.
The fact that Olwyn wanted him in return made it even harder to stay away from her. She was so close by in the cottage; she slept in his bed, read his books, and felt the magic of the place the way he did. And she desired him, of that he was certain, could feel it in her body, see it in her eyes, and taste it on her tongue. He dared to wonder if she loved him, too, a dangerous thing to contemplate.
He entered the manse, fatigued and irritable, ready for a drink to numb his thoughts and feelings. He glanced at the timepiece on the mantle, saw that he was late for dinner.
Dreading the evening ahead with Mira and his family, Aidan took his time and went the long way to the dining room, wending through the east wing. The halls were quiet, the servants finished with their above-stairs duties. He passed by the suite of rooms his grandparents used, and stopped. He heard a small noise come from inside, and saw the flickering of a single candle beneath the door.
Patrick and Camille were never late for dinner, and would not keep the entire family waiting on them.
Wondering if all was well, he knocked softly. When no one answered, he pushed the door open and was greeted by complete darkness. The scent of an extinguished candle hung on the air, along with the faintest scent of roses.
“Mira?” he called softly. “Are you in here?”
Silence hung thickly, and no answer came. Aidan strode over to the mantel, fumbled for the tinder, and lit a candle. The room was neat, nothing seemed disturbed. In the bedchamber he saw that the bed had not yet been turned down, and the fire had been laid but was not lit. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet a prickling on the back of his neck prompted Aidan to look around a bit more. The bathing alcove yielded no discovery, nor did the balcony.
“Aidan?” His grandmother said from the doorway. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I think not. I thought I heard something, but nothing seems amiss.”
“Come and join us,” Camille said with a smile. “We are all waiting on you.”
“Is Mira there?”
“She was, before she went off to fetch the drawings of her wedding gown in order to show Portia and Sophia. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” Aidan waved his hand to dismiss the notion that Mira had been snooping in his grandparents’ room as absurd. He took Camille’s elbow and escorted her to dinner.
As they walked he said, “Did you happen to find a chance to drop in on Miss Gawain today?”
“I did, in fact. We had a lovely visit.”
“How is she?”
“She seems very well.”
Aidan wanted to ask if Olwyn had inquired about him, did the cottage smell of incense, did she seem as if she missed him? But instead he said, “Good, good. Thank you.”
“She is an interesting girl. She reminds me a bit of myself when I was young.”
“How so?”
Camille glanced up at her grandson as they approached the parlor where the family gathered, their conversation and laughter spilling from the room. She smiled as she entered, turned to Aidan, and said, “She is not afraid of who she is.”
Aidan didn’t reply, for his throat had gone suddenly dry. There, amidst his grandparents, cousins, aunt, uncle, parents, and brother, stood Olwyn Gawain.
She wore a glistening silver gown, stunning in its simplicity. It hugged her breasts and then cascaded the floor, skimming her curves along the way in a fashion that was nothing less than mesmerizing. Her black hair was glossy and piled high on her head, twisted with a strand of jets that winked and glittered in the light of the many candles and fire.
She wore no jewelry or other adornments, and in Aidan’s mind, needed none. No necklace or earrings or ribbons or lace could further enhance the exquisite loveliness of her face, and the pure Druid magic of her beautiful, luminous, uncanny gray eyes.
Spéirbhean, his mind whispered.
He watched as Padraig poured her wine and handed it to her, and as her slim fingers embraced the goblet, he felt a pang of jealousy for the glass, that it felt her touch and would be raised to her mouth. Another punch of envy followed, stronger than the first, as Padraig stayed in her presence and engaged her in conversation.
And damn his cousin, Roman, too, for like a moth to flame he wended his way over to her, bringing her a small plate of cheese and figs.
So they would vie for her, would they? Bastards, he named them both silently.
They would never know her the way he did, never appreciate her earthy appeal, never feel for her what he felt.
Rogan approached Aidan and pressed a glass of whiskey in his hand, then drew near enough to speak for his ears alone. “Mind your stare, son.”
Aidan looked away and drank deeply, just as Mira entered the room. He didn’t glance her way, didn’t trust his face to not betray his feelings.
Mira crossed the room and took her place at Aidan’s side, and as her rose perfume touched him, he wondered if his first instinct had been correct. Had Mira been snooping in Patrick and Camille’s rooms, and if so, what could she possibly be looking for?
“I secreted the drawings back into their hiding spot,” she chirped to Portia, and with the tip of her fan she playfully tapped Aidan’s arm. “No trying to find them, my lord. You will have to wait and be surprised.”
“You will be a lovely bride,” Sophia said, and she took a seat beside her father, Matteo, on the sofa. “Someday I want a wedding gown as fine.”
Kieran smiled teasingly at her daughter. “You could wear my dress, Sophie. Wouldn’t that show how much you love me, if you’d wear it?”
“That thing? Mama, you must jest. ’Tis terribly out of fashion.”
“Your mother w
as a vision in it,” Matteo interjected softly.
Kieran tilted her face up to his and smiled, “’Twas when I was young and beautiful, signore, a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday,” Matteo corrected her.
Aidan scarcely heard them. He surreptitiously watched as Olwyn sipped her wine, saw the shine of it on her lips, and he licked his own. From the corner of his eye he saw Mira take notice of the way he looked at Olwyn. He knew his gaze was covetous and inappropriate, insulting to his betrothed, and offensive to everyone else present. And still, he couldn’t stop himself.
“You look amazingly well this evening, Miss Gawain,” Mira said with a sweet smile. “’Tis just incredible what a difference a bath and a new frock can make in a woman’s appearance.”
“Thank you,” Olwyn said simply, and if she took offense at the untoward jab at her earlier appearance, she showed no sign.
“Whoever fixed your hair is a miracle worker,” Mira continued on. “All those tangles have been combed out, and I can’t even see your odd stripe of white.”
“Yes, Molly and Alice are both very patient and kind,” Olwyn said easily, and again to her credit, her face betrayed no affront.
Aidan reached his arm around Mira and rested his hand on her shoulder. He gripped it hard enough to send a warning.
Mira looked up at him briefly, a smile on her lips and spite in her eyes.
She turned back to Olwyn. “I say, I scarcely recognized you when you arrived this evening. You look fair civilized.” She laughed, and added, “Where is your dagger, Miss Gawain?”
Before Aidan could take Mira to task, he saw Olwyn’s left brow form that witchy peak he had come to know so well, and knew she needed no defense from him.
“Come outside with me, my lady, and I will show you,” Olwyn invited coolly.
Mira gasped, scarcely audible beneath the choked laughter that went around the room as each person struggled to hide their mirth behind their hand, a sip of wine, or a sudden interest in a piece of art.
Aidan noticed, however, the nasty look Mira’s father sent his family, stern disapproval followed by a disdainful glance at Olwyn. The earl then faced Aidan full-on, a challenging gaze meant to prompt him to rise to his betrothed’s defense.
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