"Legend has it that my ancestor Eremon of the O'Caighans made a wager with the chieftain's enemies, claiming that he could make the queen swell with bastard seed. If he succeeded, he would receive a hundred cattle and a torc of gold. The legend says Eremon used Druid arts to shape-change into a likeness of Maire's husband, then slip into the bed of the chieftain's wife in the darkness. She welcomed him into her body, for it is said she loved her husband more than life. But apparently the Druid arts did not shift Eremon's touch into that of the chieftain, and Maire suspected something was amiss.
"She tried to ignore her doubts, and when she bore a son nine months later, there was great rejoicing through the land. But as the years passed, the child grew up not to resemble the chieftain she so adored but became the mirror image of my kinsman—a man as notorious for chasing skirts as I have been. For ten years, Maire had been beloved of all, especially of the chieftain, but nothing could protect her from the whispers, the constant speculation about the child's birth. After all, she had been barren as the chieftain's wife for so long."
"But she couldn't have known... couldn't have guessed," Norah breathed.
"No," Aidan allowed, a pensiveness in his voice. "She couldn't have known that she had already met her doom. In an effort to cleanse the stain of scandal from her name, the good lady prayed to the Holy Mother to give her some means to verify the truth of her child's birth. The Blessed Mother answered her in a dream. Maire of the Thousand Tears gathered the entire sept at the Hill of Night Voices, where there was a standing stone that supposedly had magical powers. Then she had my kinsman brought there. She begged Eremon to swear to the king upon the holy rock that she was a true and faithful wife and never had they joined their bodies in bed."
"What happened?"
"My kinsman laid his hand upon the stone and attempted to lie. Something—supposedly whatever power was trapped in the stone—flung him to the earth and killed him."
A chill shivered through Norah. "It must be just a—a story. A stone couldn't possibly have—"
"Whatever power defeated my kinsman's lie—whether it was the Stone of Truth or the fact that Eremon couldn't resist gloating and finally revealed what he had done to someone with an unguarded tongue—the lady did realize the truth at last. The knowledge that she had unwittingly betrayed her husband would have been agony enough to that gentle lady. The knowledge that her son was a bastard, born of that unholy union, was torment. But the most hellish torture of all was the fact that the chieftain she adored would never forgive her this slur upon his honor. His fierce pride demanded that he set her aside. The grief ate at Maire until she flung herself from the top of the castle wall. Sometimes, the peasant folks say, you can still hear her crying."
"What a tragic story," Norah said, stepping through a narrow space in the fairy rath and into the castle's enchanted circle.
"Any tale involving a Kane is likely to be. There is a saying hereabouts that the only way a Kane could ever get into heaven is to steal the key." Aidan gave a noncommittal shrug. "As for the legend of Caislean Alainn, aren't most tales tragic when the players are foolish enough to give away their hearts?"
Norah picked her way through fallen rubble overgrown now with wildflowers and pressed her palm against the pitted stone of Caislean Alainn's wall. Her palm tingled with an almost painful awareness, as if she could feel the pulse of the people who had lived here, loved here, died here. As if their grief and joy, hope and fear, had been trapped forever, preserved inside the fairy ring. "Cassandra would say the stories were romantic," she said softly.
"Damnably depressing, that's what they are. It's enough to make a man swear off women for all time," Aidan insisted, levering himself up to sit on a ledge of stone and leaning back against the wall. A myriad of glistening sun drops tumbled across his dark hair as he drew up one breechclad knee and rested his arm lazily upon it. "The blasted things never turn out happily. Think about it for a moment. Do you remember Tristan and Isolde trotting off to their castle to play bed games and eat sweetmeats once their tale was done? Or Orpheus and Eurydice cavorting through fields of flowers in eternal bliss? No. The poor bastards always end up the same: in absolute agony, until they die—heroically, of course." He grimaced. "As if that is supposed to make up for everything they've gone through. Miserable and dead. That is the end result of these epic love tales you women get all dewy eyed over."
There was all the gruff disgust of a boy in those unremittingly masculine features, a boy who had long since given up believing in Father Christmas but who very much wished that he still did.
Norah was stunned to feel her lips tugging into a wary smile. "Surely there must be one or two with a happy ending."
"Not a one that comes to my mind." His face stilled, his eyes intent beneath thick lashes. "I wonder how our tale will end, Norah Linton."
Norah turned away from that probing gaze and went to a window that let in a keyhole-shaped block of light. "Sensibly, I would hope," she said with forced lightness. "There is something to be said for avoiding jealous passions, ill-fated love potions, and such like. The one certainty in the matter is that it will end. And considering the circumstances, the sooner it does the better."
She heard the soft crunch of Aidan's boots on the rubble that littered the castle floor, the sound of Aidan coming near her. She stiffened, aware of him—every line and sinew, every dark angle and coiled muscle—even before his shadow covered her.
"You are ready to be quit of us already, then?" His voice was like aged whiskey, warm and intoxicating. "I wonder if I could change your mind."
She started as those sinewy hands closed on her shoulders, turning her gently to face him. His touch sent sizzling awareness racing through her veins, whispering of the danger in him, the perilous allure. His eyes burned her with a glittering intensity.
"Norah, do you believe in fate?"
"Fate?" The echo came out in a breathless whisper.
"That some things are preordained, no matter how we carry on about having free will."
"Of course not. I..." She gave a sad laugh. "No, that's wrong. I must believe in fate. I'm sure I do. Look at my mad actions when I got the letter advertising for a woman to be your bride."
"How did you come to receive Cassandra's letters?" he prodded gently.
"My stepbrother has a friend with connections at the London Times. When the letter came, his friend was making a jest of it, showing it around his club."
"Perfect." Aidan winced, and Norah could guess just how uncomfortable that notion made him. "Bloody perfect."
"Richard saw the note, and he was certain the position was ideal for me," Norah hurried on. "He knew how desperately unhappy I was. He gave it to me, and I—I thought..." She stopped, her cheeks burning, her gaze dropping to where the crisp white of Aidan's shirt was edged by his dark green waistcoat. But he forced her to meet his gaze, curving one palm against her cheek, tipping her face up toward his with warm, callused hands, suddenly almost tender.
"What did you think, Norah Linton?" he encouraged, more gently than she would have imagined possible.
"I thought you were my destiny. Isn't that absurd?"
"If you had asked me that question yesterday, I would have agreed. But I'm not so certain anymore."
Norah's heart fluttered in her breast, her fingers trembled. He was confusing her—utterly, completely, disarming her.
"Did you ever stop to think that we need each other?" he asked. "Badly?"
Need—hadn't that been what Norah had wanted when she'd set out for Ireland? Some purpose in her life, some direction? Somewhere to belong? Someone who needed her? Loved her?
She hadn't admitted it even to herself, how much she wanted someone to cherish her, just a little. The admission alone made her draw back, wary.
"I need a home, Sir Aidan. And from what you said yesterday, what you need is to be left in peace. Your life is arranged just as you like it."
"What would you say if I told you I was drowning, and that you—yo
u may be the one person in the world who could reach out a hand, pull me back to shore?"
Norah winced inwardly at the echoing of her own secret dreams, her most dangerous fantasies. "Now I know where Cassandra inherited her flair for the dramatic, Sir Aidan. I cannot imagine what I could possibly do to... how did you say it? Pull you back to shore? Especially since it's so evident you are swimming with all your power in the opposite direction."
Aidan's eyes darkened, earnest, almost... supplicant. "You could open the doors to society for Cassandra. Your name could restore to her everything I threw away."
Her heart tripped. It was as he'd said: The honor of the Linton name had been the one legacy her father had managed to leave her.
"With Cassandra's beauty, my wealth, and the name Linton to lend her respectability, I know Cass could weather whatever snubs are directed at her. You know how winning the girl is. Within weeks, she would have the old dragons at Almack's eating out of her hand."
"You think a triumph at Almack's will guarantee her happiness? Did your time among the haute ton bring you such joy?"
Tempests swirled in the green mist of Sir Aidan's eyes, a muscle in his jaw working. "Cassandra is different. Special. If you would only marry me, she could rise above Delia and me—be what we never could be. Something wholesome and good, strong and happy... She deserves to be happy."
There was such passion in his words, a catch of desperation in the husky tones. Norah couldn't help but feel a tug in her heart.
He raked one hand through the tumbled ebony of his hair. "Norah, I'm asking you—no, begging you—to help us."
For all his attempts to paint himself a villain, there was a fierce pride in the chiseled handsomeness of his features that allowed Norah to see exactly how much that plea cost him.
For a heartbeat, she felt a mad urge to reach up and lay her hand against that stubborn jut of jaw, smooth back the lock of dark hair that fell across his brow. But she reined herself in harshly. It would be all too easy to succumb to Sir Aidan Kane's entreaty. The man was intoxicatingly dangerous, as compelling as a siren's song.
She didn't dare forget the perilous bargain he wanted her to make. How could she enter into such a cold and loveless marriage? Agree to the terms Sir Aidan Kane had flung out at her like a duelist's glove the night before?
A marriage that was no marriage. A husband who would slip his ring upon her finger, then do his best to forget she even existed.
A business arrangement, he had called it; and yet what would it be like to watch her husband with his lights o' love? Knowing that those were the women whose company he would delight in, who would see him laugh and feel the power of his kiss?
The instant Cassandra was launched into her own life, Norah would once again be a stranger in a house that did not belong to her. A useless appendage that her "husband" would cast away with no more thought than a waistcoat whose color he had wearied of.
Why did that stark reality make her suddenly feel so desolate?
She sucked in a steadying breath. "Sir Aidan, I know you are fearful for Cassandra's future, but to enter into marriage —to take holy vows—knowing before we even begin that the promises have no meaning..."
"You lied to me then when you said you wanted a comfortable home? You hunger after the grande passion instead? As one who barely escaped its fires with my life, I can assure you, the experience is highly overrated."
Norah cast her gaze away from him, a troubled churning in her breast at those careless words, and the ease at which she could picture this man—so gloriously sensual, so wild and reckless, indulging in such earthly pleasures, such savage passions—passions Norah couldn't even begin to understand or hope to possess for herself.
The pain, the loss, in surrendering hopes that had once fluttered in her heart surged again inside her, and she raised her chin a notch, clinging to the legendary Linton pride. "You want me to marry you to ease your daughter's way. To shield her from the humiliation a scandal tied to your past might cause her, do you not?"
"Exactly so."
"And yet, if I were mad enough to wed you, wouldn't my fate be exactly that which you are battling so hard to spare your daughter?"
Dark brows lowered over a patrician nose. "What do you mean?"
"You fear that your daughter will become the target for cruel jests and mockery because of your actions."
His face whitened, that flash of anguish and self-loathing burning in the fierce green lights of his eyes. "You need me to say it? Yes. That is exactly what I fear. Damn it, there is no justice on God's earth if that girl has to suffer for my sins."
"On that we both agree. But if I do decide to aid you..." Her voice trembled just a whisper. "If I were to become your bride, what will happen when Cassandra is safe? What possible use will you have for me?"
"Your task will be done. I would grant you any wish within my power, to the last drop of my blood."
"Anything," Norah said softly, "except honor."
Aidan stared at her, his voice low, roughened with earnestness. "If you spare my daughter pain, you will be honored by me above all other women."
"I suppose I should be flattered. After all, from our previous conversations, I gather that the annals of your regard is quite overflowing with those of the gentler sex."
"What are you saying?"
"Just that I saw enough of my stepbrother's friends to know the way of men like you. They lavish gifts and entertainments on mistresses who are bright and beautiful, bold and dashing. When they are forced to think of their wives at all, they make sly mockeries of them, often within the wife's hearing, as though a wedding ring upon a woman's hand deadens her to all feeling."
Aidan's features darkened, his mouth tightened. "You think that is how I would repay you for sparing my daughter pain?"
"You wouldn't have to make jest of me. Others would be happy to do so for you."
"Norah—"
She raised one hand in protest. "Can't you imagine what they would say? How they would speculate about our marriage?"
"Why the devil should they?" he demanded, stalking away a few paces.
"Because—look at you," Norah exclaimed helplessly. "At everything you are. Then look at me."
He turned, his arms crossed over the hard plane of his chest, the Kane belligerence she had seen in Cassandra carved much more formidably in her father's aristocratic features. "I see nothing but a man and a woman who both need what the other can provide."
"Society will see a desperate spinster and a man who could not possibly love her. They'll see you with women battling for your favors, and believe that you are trying to wash away the sour taste of a night in my bed." Norah's cheeks flamed, her voice faltered, but she plunged onward with brutal honesty. "That is, if they believe you ever seek my bed at all."
Green eyes clashed with hers, and she felt as if the mere weight of his pulsing intensity were crushing her, making it impossible to breathe. "Do you want me in your bed?"
Norah gave a pained laugh. "And if I did? Are you saying you would accommodate me in exchange for my services to Cassandra?"
"Norah, I've attempted to be honest with you. As honest as I know how to be. You be honest with me. If you want me as your lover, I'm certain we could do well enough."
The words poured hot acid into the most vulnerable place in Norah's battered heart. "What? Would we make consummation part of the bride price? Perhaps we could get it written up in the marriage contract: 'Herewith, Sir Aidan Kane does solemnly swear to perform his husbandly duty every month on the last Tuesday—'"
"Blast it, what do you want me to say?" Aidan roared with a helpless gesture. "That I'm madly in love with you? We'd both know that was a lie. Truth to tell, after what happened with Delia, I'm not capable of loving any woman, ever."
"You made that quite clear already."
"Do you want me to promise that I'll never look at another woman?" he demanded. "Or that I'll duel every ton bastard who dares make mockery of our marriage? Why shou
ld they stand in judgment? When it comes to marriage, society has always set far more store by practical considerations than anything so fleeting and ephemeral as love. And as for your fear of being scorned because of my infidelities, you needn't worry. Taking lovers is as common a practice among the ton as sipping ratafia at a rout party. You might even find a man who strikes your fancy one day—and you can be sure I would wish you both a most pleasurable dalliance."
The words bit into Norah like a lash, and rippling fire shot through the tattered remnants of her pride. She groped for something to say—something with which to wound him, to make him feel the desolation drowning her in crushing waves. But the slightest movement, the tiniest breath, and she feared she would disgrace herself by bursting into tears of exhaustion and soul-deep disappointment.
Sunlight and shadow pooled on that harshly masculine face alive with restlessness and impatience, his burning gaze clashing with hers. "Blast it, don't look at me that way—as if I were some blackhearted villain who dragged you here by your hair! When you left England it was with every intention of—" He cut off the words, pressing his fingertips against the hollows of his eyes.
"Of what?" Norah demanded with icy dignity.
"Of marrying a man blindly." His hand fell away to reveal eyes glittering with a recklessness already too familiar. The heat of his anger fired hotter still with a darker intent that stirred raw panic inside her—panic and something more.
"Perhaps that is where I have erred in my wooing of you, Miss Linton. Perhaps I should give you a taste of that which you seem to crave."
Norah took a step backward and collided with solid stone. "No!" she said, fighting desperately to hide her alarm. "You're mistaken if you think—"
"If I think what?" Aidan purred, flattening his palms on either side of her. "If I think you came here to taste of a man's passion before it was too late?"
Norah swallowed hard, her heart hammering, her pulses racing. "Whatever I came here seeking, I'm certain I haven't found it."
"You should fall down on your knees and thank God for that. Love is poison when compared to simple passion. Love blinds you, seeps into your marrow like the most insidious venom, weakening you until it strips away everything— your strength, your honor, your pride."
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