Stealing Midnight

by Tracy MacNish

  The fierce birds were magnificent, prized for hundreds of years by nobles and landowners for their hunting skills. Olwyn remembered back to Aidan’s casual suggestion that they trap a rabbit, and how she’d been amazed that he’d risk being charged with poaching game.

  And now she understood. Aidan was a landowner, and as such, he had the right to hunt and trap. It struck Olwyn as bitterly unfair, for Aidan and his class were well fed and had more than they needed, while a man who might secretly trap a rabbit to feed his hungry family would be fined or imprisoned if caught.

  Aidan lived in a world where he could do as he pleased, where his wealth and titles opened doors for him that were closed to most of the populace. He moved through a society that would overlook nearly anything he did, simply because of his name.

  Olwyn looked down on her new gown, ran a hand over the luxury that wealth afforded. It seemed so unfair, and yet, it was the way of things, and she knew that fairness was not a part of life.

  “Olwyn?” Aidan said as he entered. He had his voice low and soft so he would not disturb the birds. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Aye,” she answered, before gesturing to the hawks. They were all in motion of some sort, opening their beaks, spreading their wings, shifting from talon to talon, cocking their heads, and listening with fierce attention. The room was filled with the tinkling of the belled jesses that trailed from each bird’s legs, the music of captivity. It made a pain bloom in Olwyn’s chest as she felt their restless wanting for what they could not have. “They all want to be free.”

  “’Tis not their lot in life.”

  He said it simply, matter-of-fact.

  “You are a man who longs for freedom,” she said softly. “You ought understand them better than most.”

  “Aye, and I do. Which is why I see to it that our falconer flies them often.”

  “But he brings them back.”

  “They belong here. They belong to me,” he said, and for a second his voice revealed his own bitterness. He recovered and said, “I see it as guardianship, Olwyn, not an imprisonment. For as much as they are here in my mews, they are spared winter’s harshness, and they are sheltered from storms and starvation. They hunt for me, but I am merely their steward. Just as I belong to my family, and I serve them as they do me, my birds of prey receive more than they sacrifice.”

  Olwyn watched one of the hawks as it strained at the end of its leash, great wings beating the air the way a drowning man thrashes in water. He opened his beak and screamed, and the primitive sound sent shivers down her spine.

  The bird screamed again, and it was as if something were stabbing Olwyn in her heart.

  “He so wants to fly freely,” she murmured, and a lump formed in her throat as she saw the bird’s desperation.

  “He is my favorite, and by far the most untamed,” Aidan said from behind her. Slipping on a thick leather glove, he trilled a few notes that calmed the bird, and urged him back onto his perch. “He is called Shaughraun, because of his tendency to go astray. It takes a falconer of great experience and patience to get Shaughraun to return once he’s flying high.”

  The bird was striped with brown and cream, his belly nearly white. He had thick, powerful legs ruffled with creamy feathers, and talons that could break a man’s arm.

  “He is magnificent. Powerful,” she said.

  “Aye, he is.”

  “And he is enslaved, despite his strength. He’s given what he needs and he’s well treated, but it’s just a luxurious cage,” she said, her throat aching. “Forgive me, Lóchrann, but I need to leave. I know this is just the way of things, but it plagues me nonetheless. I feel their desperation to escape, and it’s too much for me, for I felt much the same for far too long.”

  She turned and rushed from the mews, and when she emerged outside and the sun shone down on her face, she held her head back and breathed deeply.

  She was free of the dungeon and her father’s keep, she reminded herself. She was not his captive anymore.

  So why, then, she couldn’t help but wonder, did she feel the strange prickling of her intuition? If she didn’t know for certain that her father could have no idea who Aidan was or how to find her, she would have sworn the tingles that raised the hair on the back of her neck were a premonition of danger.

  Aidan’s hand came to rest on her shoulder as he stood behind her. Slowly, he turned her to face him. He cupped her cheeks in his large hands and tilted her head back so she would look fully into his eyes.

  “For today, let’s leave it all behind,” he said softly.

  “Yes,” she answered him, as her fears and worries slipped away beneath the warmth of his touch and his regard.

  For today, he’d said. The words resonated in Olwyn’s heart. Today, the here and now. It was all the time there was.

  Let the worries fester and rot, she thought. For today she would see the ocean for the first time, with Aidan by her side.

  Riding behind Aidan on his horse, Olwyn had her arms wrapped around his middle, her cheek pressed against his back. With her eyes closed, she listened to the steady thumping of his heart as she felt the heat of him sink into her.

  They rode in silence, each of them absorbed in the simple pleasure of being together in the quiet splendor of the woods. Chase ran ahead of them on the trail, leading the way, and above them swallows darted through naked branches and dipped low, skimming the ground.

  The soil turned slowly to dark, rocky sand as the knotty, gnarled trees thinned and gave way to the grassy dunes. The horse took the trail with familiar ease, and Olwyn leaned forward. The winds picked up and the salty smell of the sea grew stronger. Olwyn inhaled deeply, breathed it in.

  And then she saw it, the dark, bluish gray of the ocean. It rippled and heaved, as mesmerizing as fire, as magnificent as anything she’d ever seen. Her eyes were drawn to the horizon, where the sky merged with the sea, and then to the waves as they rolled and spread onto the shore. Sunlight glittered on the swells, and white-tipped waves curled in the distance.

  Olwyn tightened her arms around Aidan and said, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “Hold on, Olwyn,” he responded, and he kicked his horse into a run.

  They sped along the shoreline, kicking up clumps of sand and water in equal measure. Wind and bits of sand stung her face, and her hair streamed free behind her. Chase raced beside them for a while, barking with excitement, and she heard Aidan laugh freely. He thumped his horse again, let him have his head. Chase gave up the race, his happy barking becoming more distant as they thundered ahead. The ride was fast and fierce, and Olwyn loved every second of it.

  When they’d reached an area where piles of enormous rocks jutted into the sea, Aidan slowed the wild pace.

  Aidan reined in his stallion and dismounted before reaching up to help Olwyn slide to the sand. “Take off your shoes and stockings.”

  He saw her expression of shock, and he laughed. “Come on, Olwyn. We’re beyond such shyness, aye?”

  Aidan bent and shucked his own boots and stockings, set them on a rock, and turned away to give her privacy. With a blush rising on her cheeks, she did as she was told, and unhooked her stockings from their garters and rolled them off, tucked them inside her new shoes, and set them beside Aidan’s. Her dainty velvet shoes and his large black boots looked intimate together, side by side.

  The sand beneath her feet was cold and damp and coarse, and she sank into it as she walked toward him, holding up the hem of her new gown. The wind whipped her skirts, her cloak, and her hair, and she laughed with the exhilaration of it, as if freedom itself was contained in the wild wind that blew across the water.

  Chase loped around, his nose high in the air, sniffing. He began barking, different than his happy bark, and he took off toward the trees.

  Aidan saw the question in Olwyn’s eyes. “He probably smells deer.”

  Olwyn brought her attention back to Aidan, and saw that he, too, was happier just for being near the ocean. His
hair had also come undone and it blew free in the wind, tousled streaks of flax and honey and gold. With his bare legs and his shirt billowing with the wind, he looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him, natural and completely at ease.

  “What do you think?” he asked her, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the waves and the whistling of the wind.

  “I never want to leave,” she answered with another laugh.

  His grin grew wider. He swept a hand to encompass it all—the sea, the ocean, the rocks, and the land itself. “Aye, this is why I live at Beauport. Nothing compares.”

  Olwyn couldn’t decide what was more beautiful to her—the wild restlessness of the ocean, or the untamed masculine strength of Aidan standing before her, his feet buried in the sand and sunlight gleaming in his hair.

  “Lóchrann of the darkness,” she said softly. “Lóchrann of the sea. Lóchrann of the cottage, the distillery, and the mews. Lóchrann of my heart,” she dared to finish, and the words came out as nothing more than a strangled whisper.

  Aidan walked toward her, and Olwyn’s heart picked up its pace. He reached out, lifted a lock of her windswept hair, and pressed his lips to it, inhaling as if he held a flower. “You unravel me,” he said. “Piece by piece, a dissection of my soul. You have never looked more beautiful to me than you do right now. I want to kiss you, Olwyn. Here on the sand, in front of the sea, with the wind in your hair and the sun sparking your eyes to crystal fire.”

  Her lips parted and shook, but she did not keep from saying what nagged at her. With Aidan, she could be nothing less than boldly honest. “You are engaged to be married, and you said you would not keep me as your mistress. So where does that leave us, my lord? Stealing kisses until we part ways?”

  “I have decided to end it with Mira, no matter what the outcome. I do not love her, I never did, and I know that I never could. My heart, you see, has been stolen by a very special Druid witch, and ’tis eyes of gray that I see when I close my own.”

  Olwyn’s heart raced like Aidan’s stallion had, kicking up doubts and hopes, fears and dreams.

  But she’d promised herself that tomorrow’s worries would not spoil the perfection of the day, and so she leaned toward him in silent invitation.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aidan wrapped his arms around Olwyn’s waist and held her to him. His body was warm, shielding her from the cold air that blew in from the sea. As he looked down at her, the beauty of his sapphire eyes captured her and held her in thrall.

  Her feet sank into the sand, the chilly, gritty grains of it a new, wondrous sensation. With the wind in their hair and the din of the ocean beside them, Olwyn felt completely caught in nature’s grip, at one with the primitive surroundings. Certainly, she thought, there was nothing civilized about the damp heat between her thighs or the tingling in her groin that made her crave his body in ways she didn’t quite understand.

  She strained into him, the sheltering sanctuary of his body. When he held her, everything else fell away.

  Olwyn closed her eyes, ready for the dizzying crush of his mouth on hers. But what followed shook her, had her trembling.

  He brushed his lips over hers, tender, tasting. And she felt the ripple of pleasure pass through his body, too, a simultaneous shiver that took them both.

  A sigh slipped from her lips, an involuntary sound of wanting. He heard it and dipped his head so he could kiss the slim column of her throat from where it had come. He traveled up to her ear, and with the tip of his tongue, he traced the shape and delicate curves of it, stopping to whisper her name.

  Olwyn held tightly to him, eyes closed, lost in the feeling of his soft hair sliding across her face, the rasping stubble of his cheek on her skin, the warm caress of his mouth, and the beauty of the moment.

  Aidan groaned, the sound of a man at odds with his desire and his restraint. He could not have both.

  He held his mouth to her ear once more, his voice a harsh whisper. “I will not steal from you, Olwyn. What do you give?”

  She wasn’t completely certain what he meant, whether he asked for her kisses or her body or her future, but it didn’t matter. The answer, it seemed, would be the same. “I give you everything, Lóchrann.”

  His groan slid into a sigh, the sound of surrender. He had a hand cupping her head and the other splayed across her lower back, easily spanning the narrow nip of her waist. He made her feel fragile and vulnerable, and yet she was aware of the power she had over him. The size and strength of him didn’t frighten her. She could deny him with a word, and by his honor alone, he would obey her wishes.

  Aidan slid his hands down her body, skimming her curves before they settled on her hips. His fingers tightened around her, her blood, already a hot thrum, began a wild race through her veins. He pulled her closer to him, an intimate press of his bulging manhood against her belly.

  She felt a hot spurt of fresh desire for him, knowing that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. It was a heady, wanton knowledge, lusty and lewd. She knew it was shameful, but she didn’t care. She wallowed in it.

  His lips took hers again, and this time he did not hold back. Olwyn reached up and slid her fingers through his wealth of dark gold hair, her tongue sliding against his, her body writhing beyond her control. She wanted his skin on her skin, the weight of him on top of her, and to finally know the feeling of him possessing her completely.

  As if reading her mind, he let go of her long enough to lift her off her feet and sweep her down to the sand. He laid her atop her cloak, and covered her with the long length of him.

  She felt her skirts sliding up her legs as he gathered up the fabric until his fingers stroked the line of her garter, touching her sensitive, naked skin. She shook in his arms, worried he would reach up and touch the center of the wet heat that throbbed between her thighs, and also worried that he wouldn’t.

  “I can feel the warmth of you,” he said, his voice husky and tight. “It beckons me like a drug.”

  “All I am, I give you,” she whispered.

  “Aye, you do. But I will only take you when you are mine to have forever.”

  Aidan held her close, so close that his heartbeat was hers, and her breath was his. He looked down on her, intensity etching his features. His eyes traveled over her face, her hair, her neck. “I cannot imagine my life without you in it.”

  Olwyn swallowed heavily, for inside raged a desire so strong she could scarcely bear its force, and alongside it a strange and awful terror grew apace. She tried to disregard the fear by focusing on Aidan and the sheer pleasure of feeling his body pressed so close to hers.

  But he must have seen something pass through her eyes. “What troubles you?”

  “Nothing at all,” she murmured, as she reached beneath his cloak so she could stroke his back. She felt the tension and strength in his muscles, and delighted in the feel of them rippling beneath her fingertips.

  “Your face hides naught.”

  There was no use trying to deny it—fear brewed in her belly and prickled her neck. “Lóchrann, I am afraid.”

  “Don’t worry, Olwyn. I just want to hold you, to lie here with you.”

  “It isn’t this,” she whispered. “I find no fear in your arms.”

  She turned her head in the direction Chase had run, and saw nothing but an empty stretch of beach, and the ragged sketch of dark antediluvian boulders against the sky. “I feel something coming.”

  “What?”

  “Something evil.”

  Aidan followed Olwyn’s line of vision. “From where?”

  “I know not.”

  Olwyn’s intuition was like a divining rod, leading her away from danger for much of her life, well sharpened by living with a lascivious drunk and a manic madman. She’d learned early and fast to listen to the subtle vibrations of her instincts.

  A tremor ran through her, a single violent quake that shook her. “We must go.”

  Aidan rolled from her with no hesitation, gathered their thi
ngs, and sat beside her to brush the sand from his feet before pulling on his stockings and shoes. Olwyn did the same, as waves of apprehension crashed over her as surely as the sea pummeled the shore.

  He stood and reached a hand down to help her up, and as Olwyn put her narrow, slim hand in his much larger, square, strong palm, a tiny bit of her fears abated. Aidan was powerful, and he would protect her. That much, she knew.

  And yet a voice inside her asked a question for which she had no answer. What if it is Aidan who is at risk, and you are the one who has brought danger to his door?

  Worry gripped her belly. Could it be that her father was near?

  She told herself that Rhys could not have found her; it was impossible. He had no money, no horse, and no way of knowing where she’d gone. Any investigating and searching he might do would have to be conducted on foot, and would certainly tax Rhys’s physical limitations.

  It had occurred to Olwyn that Rhys might be determined enough to find her by asking around Chester to find out who’d been buried recently, but by doing so he’d most certainly confirm suspicions of his illegal anatomy studies. Olwyn had learned from painful experience just how much more Rhys valued anatomy over his only daughter.

  “Olwyn, you are pale.”

  She offered him a wan smile. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look it, aye? Tell me what’s going on with you. Tell me what evil you fear. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”

  Olwyn noticed how he watched her with concentrated attention. The hand that held hers was hard and tough, a hand for fists, the hilt of a sword, the butt of a pistol. And he waited for her answer, trusting the honesty she always gave him.

  Her prince charming he might actually be, prepared to slay a dragon for her.

  But what if the dragon was her own father?

  “Perhaps it is the unknown I fear,” she said, hating herself for denying him the whole truth. But she’d not endanger Aidan by telling him her suspicion, for she knew he would search the recesses of England and Wales to protect her.