Stealing Midnight

by Tracy MacNish

  “And I don’t care for being drugged, but you don’t hear me crying rape.”

  “A woman cannot rape a man. Don’t be absurd.”

  “Mira,” he said, hoping she would heed his warning. “I’m losing what little patience I had.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she looked up at him. “And what will I tell everyone?”

  “Tell them you hate me.”

  “But I don’t hate you. I want to marry you.”

  “I don’t love you. I won’t marry you.”

  “You’re missing the point,” she whined. She stamped her foot and spread her hands, quite at her wit’s end. “I am your very best option. There are no other ladies of our station who are as pretty as me, nor as wellborn or as well-bred. I am the very best you could ever get, and all the other men want me. You’d be a fool to let me go.”

  “Mira,” Aidan said, trying for gentleness despite the pounding of his heart and the raging in his loins. “I don’t care.”

  “Stop using my given name. ’Tis rude and vulgar.”

  “It seems odd, calling you ‘my lady,’ when you are anything but. Ladies don’t drug a man and bed him to secure a husband.”

  “You could never do better than me,” she cried.

  “As you say.”

  “Your family is muddied, their history riddled with commoners and criminals. How dare you think you could jilt me? I am far above your station, in blood and in bearing.”

  “I will not argue the facts. Do we have a deal? My silence for your absence.”

  “No one would believe you. A man crying rape. ’Tis pitiful. Laughable, even.”

  “Would your father believe me, do you think? When I tell him you stole his special powders that he uses for his female acquaintances, do you think he might doubt you for even a second?”

  Mira drew back like a serpent ready to strike. “You are vile.”

  “I am,” he agreed easily. “So leave me. Please.”

  “There are things you don’t know. You shouldn’t be so smug, for you are making me certain that you are in need of a comeuppance.”

  “So give me one, Mira. But do it from a distance.”

  Mira squared her shoulders and met his gaze. For all her petite, kittenish, sunny beauty, she managed to look haughty and commanding. “You have no idea with whom you’re dealing.”

  “Do we have an agreement?” he asked abruptly.

  She turned away from him, and as he took in her filmy nightdress and the abandoned tryst behind her, Aidan felt a pang of pity for her desperation.

  “Mira, I am certain you will have no trouble finding another suitor. I hope you do, however, exercise better judgment.”

  “You could give me another chance.”

  “We’re not right for each other. There is no shame in admitting that before the vows are spoken.” Aidan ran a hand through his hair and promised himself a dip in the frigid ocean to cool his ardor. After he’d dealt with Mira. “Listen to me, aye? I’m not going to say a word about the cantharid. Let’s just call it even, and walk away with as little trouble as possible.”

  Mira turned back to him, and with her hands gripping the folds of her wrapper high against her neck, she pointed at the door. “Very well, leave. Go and be free of me. But make no mistake, my lord, I am not finished with you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Aidan kept to the abandoned corridors of the upper level of the manse. His blood was a thick thrum in his veins and he was as hard as he’d ever been, a hot, thick arousal that demanded satisfaction with each heavy pulse of his heartbeat.

  His desire was a potent, relentless scream in his mind. Find Olwyn, it said, and pull her beneath your body. He wanted to lick her skin from her head to her heels. He wanted to spend an hour between her legs, savoring every bit of her. He wanted to hear her cry out his name in pleasure, to feel her convulse with the intensity of her rapture.

  And so he was led to her door like a moth to a flame, pulled by his love and propelled by his lust. After Mira’s conniving, rose-scented falsehoods, he’d never wanted Olwyn more. He wanted her to draw him down into her scented darkness and give him the truth of her mouth, the honesty of her body, and the all-consuming sincerity of her mind.

  Aidan paused, his hand on her doorknob. He’d locked her door, imprisoning her as if she belonged to him, a thing, a possession, something he could lock away and keep for himself.

  Shame rose up in his body. The emotion was far weaker than his lust, but he still managed to attenuate it ever so slightly.

  No light shone beneath her door. He leaned his ear against it to listen and heard nothing. She slept.

  His heart raced as the cantharid sped through his system. Aidan knew sleep would elude him even more than usual, as the stimulant effect of the drug would take hours to spend itself.

  He leaned his forehead on the cool smooth surface of the wooden door, his hands on either side of the doorframe. He pushed against it until his muscles bulged and burned, feeling like a beast in a cage. Inside him a battle raged, his hunger versus his honor, both demanding their due.

  Aidan clamped down on his desires. He would not surrender to his base urges, no matter how fueled they were by Mira’s powder.

  He’d already carried Olwyn off and locked her away. He wouldn’t disrespect her further by entering as she slept and using her body for release.

  She also deserved better than to be imprisoned.

  Aidan reached into his pocket and withdrew the key to her room. He slid it under her door, hoping that when she woke she would see that he’d given her back her freedom. He’d had no right to take it from her in the first place.

  Despite the burning in his blood, Aidan turned and walked away from the temptation of her door.

  Time had crept into the wee hours, and the house was silent and dark. Aidan sought out the privacy of his rooms to spend his lust alone. It would be bread and water when he craved honeyed cakes and wine, but he would not inflict a passion on Olwyn that she had not fully inspired.

  He entered and shut the door behind him, turned the key and began to strip as he made his way through the darkness to his sleeping chamber. Shucking his jacket and his shirt, he dropped them to the floor, kicked off his shoes, and peeled off his breeches and stockings, leaving them behind him in a pile.

  Nude, his cock drawn tight and hard, Aidan found himself annoyed, aroused, and to his chagrin, alone.

  His bed had been turned down, and his fire burned low, casting reddish flickering light across the floor. He flopped on his bed, and with a sigh of resignation, wrapped his hand around his shaft.

  He closed his eyes and conjured up the image of Olwyn as she’d been the first night he’d brought her to the inn. He recalled the scent of her incense in the air, amber and Tamil mint, musky sandalwood, spicy ginger and exotic cardamom, the smoke a thin white curl that cast a genie’s spell. She’d moved in front of the fire, illuminating the shadowy shape of her legs and buttocks.

  His hand moved rhythmically, stroking, squeezing.

  He wished it were Olwyn touching him, her bare skin pressed to his, her silky hair falling over his face as she kissed him. He could almost hear her voice, whispering his name.

  “Lóchrann? Are you there?”

  Aidan froze for a second before rolling to his side. He grabbed a fistful of his sheet and covered himself. “Olwyn?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, as she came from the shadows of his sitting room. “I was waiting for you in the chair by the fireplace, and I think I fell asleep.”

  She emerged into the reddish light like a vision conjured by the power of his desire. She wore a plain white nightdress, a narrow column that fell from her slim shoulders with no adornment. Her hair hung down her back, the black of it disappearing into the darkness. As she neared him he could make out her expression: worry and caution, and something he didn’t dare to contemplate.

  Her untamed beauty never failed to stir him, even when he’d nearly been caught in an
act that men went to pains to keep hidden. He wondered if she’d seen what he had been doing, and the thought caused a dark desire to bloom in him as he envisioned pleasuring himself as she watched on.

  “How did you get out of your rooms?” he asked her, his voice husky and tight. He wished she would either get in his bed or leave, for he could not count on himself for much more restraint.

  Olwyn smiled then, a curve of lips that possessed all the mystery of a woman’s knowing. “Your mother.”

  Her meaning filtered slowly through Aidan’s embarrassment, surprise, and unspent arousal. His body throbbed, and he couldn’t stop staring at the way the fabric of the nightgown clung to the peaks of her breasts. “Pardon?”

  “Your mother, the duchess.” He could hear the tone of admiration in Olwyn’s voice. “She heard from your brother that you’d locked my door, and she came straightaway. She said that no one has the right to lock a woman away. And most especially, not one of her sons. She said you ought to know better, my lord, you of all people.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Aye. And she told me that many years ago, she’d known just how I might be feeling after being bullied by a man. She said that I had far more choices than I might realize, and she told me to make myself comfortable in this home, and to know that as long as she was under this roof, I would have my freedom to come and go as I pleased. She said she’d see to it herself. No woman, Her Grace told me, would ever be imprisoned as long as she had the power to free her.”

  Despite himself, Aidan grinned. He came from a family rife with headstrong women, and Emeline was no different. She was a force to be reckoned with.

  His musing was interrupted as Olwyn moved a step closer to where he lay. Aidan was naked, abed, and his cock was as hard as stone. It wouldn’t take much provocation for him to surrender to his urges, but he realized that Olwyn had no idea that she’d crept into the lion’s den.

  “And your way of exercising the freedom my mother bestowed upon you was to sneak into my rooms?” he asked softly. “What are you here for, Olwyn?”

  Standing before him, she met his eyes with all the ease of a woman who did not understand the force of her own beauty. She could not possibly know how desirable she looked, clad in a simple sheath of white fabric, her black hair framing the Druid magic of her face, a medieval priestess prepared to reveal sacred secrets.

  “I wanted to talk with you.”

  “What couldn’t wait until morning?”

  “I fear I might have brought danger to your doorstep, my lord.” She spoke gravely, her voice hushed and serious as if she confessed a terrible sin. “I feel something coming.”

  “You’re safe here.”

  “You are not listening. I tell you I feel the danger.”

  Aidan realized she hadn’t come to him for a stolen moment, but out of great fear. “Tell me what you feel.”

  She hesitated, and he noticed that her hands, though clasped tightly together, were trembling.

  “My father,” she finally whispered. “He is near. Perhaps you find it strange that I can be so certain, but years of being on my guard has honed my intuition. It isn’t possible for me to ignore it, nor do I dare disbelieve it.”

  Aidan remained silent, allowing her the time to find words for the emotions she obviously struggled to articulate.

  “My father is not altogether well. He’s two men in one, the intelligent man I remember from my youth, and also a madman. It’s the madman I fear, the part of him that knows nothing except the voices in his head.” Olwyn swallowed heavily before adding, “He cannot keep himself from hearing those voices. And he always obeys them.”

  Olwyn squeezed her hands tighter together, and in the firelight Aidan could see that she was digging her fingernails into her skin. He leaned forward to capture her gaze.

  “Olwyn, I know you are afraid, but do you also understand that I will stop at nothing to keep you safe?”

  “And he will stop at nothing to get me back. To put me in my place,” she answered him softly.

  “Your place is with me now.”

  He saw her lips trembling, and he longed to cover them with his own, to kiss away her fears. He would never let anything happen to her, nor would he allow anything to take her from him.

  Aidan had needed to die to find her, had awakened at her touch. He belonged to her, as she did to him.

  “No, my lord. You do not see. You still aren’t listening.” Her voice was now full of frustration, and her gray eyes gleamed like crystals as they reflected the firelight. “I am the last of his family, the only one of his blood. I was never to leave him.”

  Olwyn released her grip on her hands long enough to push her hair back from her face. And he saw thin, crescent slivers of blood where her fingernails had been.

  And he desperately wanted to go to her, to comfort her. But the drug was potent in his blood, and he knew that comforting her would soon turn to much more. That was not what Olwyn had come for, and he would not disrespect her by turning her midnight confession into a stolen tryst.

  “I now know why there were no mirrors in our keep,” she whispered. She rubbed her hand over her forearm where thin, silvery scars marked her fair skin. “He controlled me in so many ways, convinced me of so many lies. He made me afraid of everything: the outside world, others’ opinions, even dogs…and most especially my own face.”

  “And rats?” Aidan asked, hoping humor would reach through her fear where his words of comfort did not.

  He saw the ghost of a smile curve her trembling mouth.

  “No, my lord. The rats did that on their own.”

  “You now know that your father was lying. The opinions of those who spurned you were made out of ignorance and deceptions.” Aidan watched her, unable to keep from noticing her every detail. “And the beauty of your face, my love, is unrivaled.”

  “But there were things that were absolutely true,” she insisted. “He did not contrive the madness that exists in him, and if anything, the lengths to which he was willing to go to keep me with him should prove just how determined he has been to see that I never leave.”

  “But you did leave. You are free of him.”

  Olwyn blew out her breath and spread her hands. “I suppose there is no explaining my father to you. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

  “I do see.” He couldn’t keep himself from saying the truth. “I see how beautiful you are in the firelight.”

  “It isn’t exactly compassionate to ogle me as I stand here before you, terrified and worried sick.”

  “Worrying is just praying for what you don’t want, Olwyn. Put your energy to better use.”

  “And if I am correct, and my father is near?”

  “We’ll deal with it as it comes.” Aidan meant the words completely. Since waking from the sickness that nearly killed him, he’d learned that each moment was the only time there was; the past was gone, the future unknowable. “That’s life, isn’t it? Each problem can only be dealt with in the moment. And right now, my love, we are here, together in my chambers. The fire is low, the hour late, and we are alone. I’m naked and abed, and you’re before me, a vision more beautiful than anything I could have dreamt. I wouldn’t change this moment in the slightest, except there’d be less space between us.”

  She sighed again, glanced around the shadowed room, and seemed to take it in for the first time. Her gaze went from the elegant framed art on the walls, to the cases of leather-bound books, and finally to the mantle that encased the creamy, gleaming marble fireplace in front of a thick Persian rug.

  “Such riches,” she murmured.

  “Things,” he said flatly. “Possessions, that if set on fire and burned to the ground, the world does not miss.”

  “But you would miss them.”

  “I enjoy the luxuries that wealth brings, but I don’t need them. I’m as happy in my cottage or my mews or aboard one of my ships.”

  “More riches,” she pointed out.

  “Very well.
But just the same, I was as content in the stone hut where you tended me. Belongings, Olwyn, are not the measure of me. I’ll ask that you not appraise me by them.”

  Olwyn folded her hands, let go, and wrapped her arms around herself in an embrace that made her look lonely, at loose ends, and incredibly sad. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why be sorry? I don’t expect you to be comfortable here. I don’t expect anything from you, save your honesty. If you can give me that, the rest will come in due time.”

  Olwyn shook inside, her entire being quaking with emotions she could not suppress and could scarcely contain. As he spoke of words of honesty, she trembled further.

  She’d come to warn him of the danger. After considering the situation for many hours, Olwyn decided that Aidan deserved to know what was likely heading his way. If he was going to protect his family and himself, he would need to know who and what he was up against.

  She did not, however, come to tell him the entire truth.

  Come morning, Olwyn planned to escape.

  If her father could not find her at Beauport, he would leave the Mullen family behind and continue his search for his wayward daughter.

  She hadn’t sought Aidan out lightly.

  Olwyn had thought that she’d steeled herself against Aidan’s pull. She’d managed to convince herself that she could come to him and offer him a warning, to see him one last time, and to bid him good-bye in her own way.

  She’d even gone so far as to believe that she could resist the urge to lie with him for just one more night, a few hours of the heat of his skin seeping into hers. She told herself that the memory of it would have to be enough, for she could not climb into his bed and expect that she would have enough strength to leave the next day.

  What she hadn’t planned for, counted on, and prepared for was the erotic sight of Aidan lying naked in his bed, his hand moving over his erect flesh, his breathing harsh and rough in the silence of his chambers.

  She’d caught only the barest glimpse of what he’d been doing, but the image burned in her brain like a carnal conflagration. It was all Olwyn could do to keep from sliding beside him on the bed, asking him to show her exactly how he liked to be touched.