by Gaelen Foley
His mind drifted, the wine warming his senses. It had now been three days since he’d had a woman, and he had not forgotten the way she had felt beneath him last night. He still wanted her in spite of himself.
Her lips’ dewy roses beguiled him, along with the teasing sparkle in those emerald eyes beneath her black velvet lashes. The candlelight brought out a golden luster in the depths of her light brown hair and danced along the delicate lines of her bare shoulders.
Was it wrong to want to lick the caramel sauce out of her splendid cleavage instead of drizzling it politely on the cheesecake? He did his best to keep a tight rein on his dangerous hunger for her, even as his hands tingled with yearning to caress all her creamy, glowing skin.
As he took another large swallow of port, he contemplated the fact that there was one sure way to find out if she was really as innocent as she would have him believe.
If she was a part of her forebears’ sinister conspiracy, it was unlikely that she was a virgin. He was keenly tempted to verify her status for himself by luring her into his bed and finishing what they had started last night.
But even if he sensed that a well-timed advance from him might not be unfavorably received, he refused to set foot down that road.
There were only two possible outcomes, and he already knew he’d regret it either way. If she was a heartless Promethean agent, he’d hate himself for joining his body with hers. If not, and she was as pure as his instincts felt her to be, well, that was almost as bad.
His father had taught him as a lad that what you broke, you paid for. If he bedded Kate and ended up taking her virginity, then he would be saddled with her in earnest. Which was precisely why he never dallied with virgins. He liked his women worldly and experienced, as coldly able to walk away from their couplings as he was, without a sentimental backward glance.
Nevertheless, he throbbed as he watched the languid motion of her fingertip circling along the brim of her champagne flute.
He had plied her with wine to get her to open up to him, and by now, they were having a rather cozy time of it.
She was chatting about her hobbies, for he had asked her what she liked to do for amusement, part of his subtle effort to draw her out. “As it happens, I have a terrible weakness for books.”
“What kinds of books?”
“All kinds.” Her white shoulders lifted in a charming little shrug, momentarily fascinating him. “History, science, natural philosophy.”
“Really?” Born and bred for action, he had never been much of a scholar himself.
“Oh, yes. The ancients. Traveler’s tales. And . . . Gothic novels,” she admitted, biting her lip with an impish twinkle in her eyes. “Ghosts and curses and such.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Don’t groan!” she protested, laughing. “You don’t know what you’re missing! I’ll bet you’ve never even read one!”
“I’m living one,” he muttered under his breath.
“Pardon?”
“Haven’t you heard? The castle’s haunted. Keep an eye out for the Gray Lady,” he said dryly. “You’ll find she especially likes the staircase. I am not jesting!” he added mildly as she scoffed.
“Your Grace!” She tilted her head, her green eyes shining as she narrowed them at him. “You don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Stranger things, Horatio.”
“Very well, I’ll play along—though I know you’re bamming me. Who is this ghost of yours?”
“The first Warrington duchess, Mathilda—supposedly strangled to death by her husband.”
She studied him for a moment. “Now that you mention it, I recall the smugglers trying to scare me with some cock-and-bull tale about your bloodlines being cursed. What’s all that about?”
He looked at her for a long moment, drumming his fingers slowly on the table. If she was feigning ignorance, perhaps he could lure her into giving herself away; she should already know the tale, being the descendant of the story’s villain.
Frankly, superstitious as he was, Rohan did not like talking about it. It seemed bad luck. But the story of the Kilburn Curse could provide him with a neat side entry into the darker matters they still had to discuss.
He heaved a sigh when he finally started. “A great long time ago, the first Lord Kilburn was a knight in the service of Edward the Black Prince, and one of his boon companions. My ancestors were the Earls of Kilburn before they were given the dukedom,” he explained as an aside. “Lord Kilburn was my courtesy title when my father was alive.”
“I see.”
“At any rate, a conspiracy to kill Prince Edward was unearthed. Justice was swift in those days, and all participants in the plot were sentenced to be hunted down and brought back, dead or alive. My ancestor, Lord Kilburn, volunteered to pursue the one conspirator that no one else dared oppose—Valerian the Alchemist. None of the other knights would do it for fear of the sorcerer’s black magic.”
She tapped her lip for a moment. “Valerian the Alchemist . . . why does that sound so familiar? I could swear I’ve heard of him.”
“Have you?” Rohan studied her keenly for a moment, but he could find no trace of guile or deception in her eyes.
“What was he? Some kind of court astrologer?”
“Oh, your average medieval sorcerer. A man of some renown.”
“I must’ve come across his name in one of my history books.” She nodded, smiled at him, and poured herself a little more champagne. “Go on, please. I like this story.”
“When Lord Kilburn finally cornered the Alchemist, there was a great battle. You can believe what you like, but according to legend, there were various demons involved, summoned by the power of the Alchemist’s dark spells.”
“Demons, too! Are you sure you didn’t get all this from Mrs. Radcliffe?”
He sent her a dry look. “Though the sorcerer’s demons were sorely attacking our brave Lord Kilburn, at last, he got one clear shot and picked up his crossbow to put an arrow in the warlock’s black heart. Unfortunately, somehow, he hit the Alchemist’s bride instead.”
“Oh, pity! What was she doing at a battle?”
“It was her home. Kilburn had tracked Valerian to his castle and laid siege. She expired in her husband’s arms. Officially, my ancestors have always maintained that Valerian pulled the girl in front of him to use her body as a shield.”
“Most ungallant!”
“Quite. So, you see, her death was actually Valerian’s own doing—but that only heightened his wrath. Distraught as he was, he failed to defend himself and was struck down a few minutes later. But with his dying breath, he laid the curse on all the Kilburn lords, that they would murder their own wives in revenge for slaying his.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Our Gray Lady, the Duchess Mathilda, was the first, but I fear, not the last Warrington bride to die by her husband’s hand.”
“Oh, Lord. I’ll never fall asleep here now.”
Rohan smiled at her, but his eyes were grim. “Every few centuries, somehow, it happens again. Most unfortunate. The Lord Kilburn who cut down the Alchemist ended up strangling his poor Mathilda—allegedly.”
“Allegedly?”
“Some claim it was a disgruntled servant who attacked her. Others say she actually hanged herself after losing a baby, but Kilburn took the blame so she could be buried in the churchyard.”
“How sad!”
He shook his head and sighed. “Then there was the third duke, who allegedly pushed his lady off the tower roof.”
“Allegedly?”
“Gust of wind. Uneven stones. She might have tripped.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“The seventh duke discovered his wife in flagrante delicto with his best friend and, I’m sorry to say, shot them both. Not allegedly.”
“That’s terrible!” For a moment’s brooding silence, she peered into her champagne. “Well,” she said, glancing up again with a mischievous glimmer of deviltry in her eyes, “
at least your curse must keep the ton huntresses at bay.” She began chuckling merrily. “Honestly, it’s brilliant! What a perfect plan to keep all those matchmaking mammas at a safe distance. It’s the perfect excuse!”
He looked at her in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”
“Now I see how you managed to remain a bachelor all this time. Truly, it’s ingenious! All I want to know is did you concoct this tale yourself, or was it handed down to you by your forebears? This must be a perennial problem for eligible dukes.”
“You think we made this up?” he exclaimed.
“Well, surely, you are not serious!” She laughed harder. “How it must torture them! All of those haughty debutantes who long to set their caps at you—but are they brave enough to risk the Kilburn Curse?” she asked with feigned drama. “Believe me, I don’t hold it against you. I’m sure without some sort of device like this to drive them away, you would never have any peace, poor fellow! But it doesn’t lose you too much,” she added with a wicked sparkle in her eyes. “It does not altogether negate your appeal. In fact, to some girls, it might make it all the stronger. Gothic novels are the rage, after all, and curses are completely glamorous.”
Rohan scowled and picked up his dessert spoon, nonplussed by her irreverent mirth. “You asked me a question. I answered it. Nobody’s asking you to believe it.”
“Good. Because I don’t. Because it’s nonsense,” she added with a grin from ear to ear. “I’m not as gullible as some people.”
He could scarcely believe she was sitting there making fun of him—the fearsome, the terrible Beast. She ought to be paling and quaking and running for her life, from the horror of him, the assassin and his curse, but instead, she just sat there looking like the blasted cat who swallowed the canary.
Without another word on the subject, Rohan took a large, resentful bite of cheesecake and washed it down with a swallow of wine.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled.
She frowned. “You don’t really believe all this?”
“Of course I don’t,” he shot back with a self-conscious scoff.
“You do!” she said in amazement. “The ghosts, the curse, and all that! Oh, my goodness.” She stared at him, slack-jawed. “That is adorable!”
“Do you mind?” He threw down his napkin.
“So, that’s why you never come to the castle! I heard the smugglers complaining about that. But you don’t look like you’d be afraid to duel with the Devil himself, and some silly ghost—”
“I am not afraid of ghosts!” he declared.
But she just smiled at him—and Rohan suddenly found himself laughing. Damn her, she had disarmed him.
“I’m just a little superstitious, that’s all! The dead duchesses supposedly want revenge on the current duke. How would you feel?”
“Don’t worry, Rohan, I’ll protect you from the ghosties.”
“Little mockingbird!” He shook his head at her with half a mind to lunge across the table and stop her laughter with a hearty kiss. Instead, he glanced toward the sideboard. “You see that lemon meringue pie over there? You’re going to get it in the face if you persist.”
“Oh, no! A shot across the bow.”
“Fair warning.” He eyed her hungrily. “Now, eat your cake or whatever it is and try to be a good girl.”
“It’s German apple puff, for your information. Have you tried it? It’s delicious. Here.” She leaned slowly across the table and fed him a bite from her spoon.
He helped himself to a leisurely look at her décolletage as he opened his mouth and accepted. “Mm. That is good.”
“Told you so.” Her eyes twinkled as she leaned back in her chair in leisurely contentment.
“I thought you said a while ago you had no room left for the sweets.”
“I’m pacing myself. Besides—” She took another dainty nibble off her dessert spoon. “There were no corsets in the trunk of goodies your servants brought me, so, you see, I’m wonderfully free to make a glutton of myself.”
This little fact arrested his full attention. His stare homed in on her figure—what he could see of it over the table. “You mean . . . ?”
“Indeed, Your Grace. Tonight, I go au naturel.” She laughed like she enjoyed teasing him and took another remorseless bite of German apple puff.
Rohan watched her with strange sensations of delight.
God, she was a maddening woman. An unpredictable blend of innocence and passion. Intelligent, mercurial. Her prickly side amused him, but he liked her even better like this, open and relaxed.
Uncorseted.
In her scintillating humor, she threw off light like the candle glow as it played over the cut-crystal facets of their wine goblets. In short, she enchanted him. Maybe she had inherited some of her ancestor Valerian’s magic.
Rohan had a feeling he was doomed.
He could sense a most unforeseen bond growing between them and did not know what to make of it.
“Staring again, Your Grace?”
“I’ve just decided you are rather naughty. And I like it.”
She shrugged. “You said we were celebrating. Anyway, it’s your fault. If you wanted me to behave, you shouldn’t have made me try so many wines.”
“Why on earth would I want that?” he asked softly.
“Hm.” She caught a bead of condensation running down the shaft of her narrow champagne flute on her fingertip and brought it to her lips.
Damn, but just watching her got him hard.
“Rohan.” The way she purred his name made his blood pound with wild potency.
“Yes, Kate?” he responded barely audibly.
“Can we talk about serious things now?”
He gazed deeply into her eyes, slowly pushing his lust aside along with his dessert plate. “Yes. I think we should.”
“I still have many questions.”
“As do I.”
“You do?”
He nodded, bracing himself for the chess game. “Is there anyone you need to contact? Let them know you’re safe?”
“No. There’s no one.” She shook her head, lowering her gaze, but she held her chin at a proud angle despite this painful answer.
“There must be somebody—”
“There’s not,” she said sharply. “I want to know what Peter Doyle said.” She glanced up again in defiance, as though daring him to pity her.
He saw her prickly side was back, defenses up and ready to shield her pride.
“Was I right?” she persisted. “Are they stealing women to sell to depraved men of means?”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re sure?”
“Trust me, I’m entirely certain.”
She furrowed her brow and slowly looked away. “But then, that would mean that I . . . was the sole target of their scheme.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flared with alarm. “But, why?”
“You tell me.”
She looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
He paused, then took another tack. “Peter Doyle seems to think that someone is after your father.”
“But that’s impossible.” She shook her head with an incredulous look. “My father is dead. He’s been dead for over a decade.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure! What a thing to ask!”
“Do you mind if I ask how he died?”
“At sea. He was a merchant captain. He was making the run from India. His ship hit a terrible storm off the Horn of Africa. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” he asked quietly.
“Like you think I am lying!”
He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Tell me something.” He ignored her feisty scowl. “What do you make of Pete’s claim that your last name is Fox?”
The scowl faded slowly; her eyes grew large and soulful.
“Kate? ”
&nbs
p; The question had clearly upset her. Her face had paled, and she looked a bit shaken.
It did not escape his notice that she made no attempt to conceal her emotions. They were written plainly on her face, and no Promethean agent would ever allow that.
Besides, no one was that good an actress, especially after three glasses of wine. Avoiding his scrutiny, she let her gaze wander off across the table. “All right,” she whispered more to herself than to him, then she nodded. “There is something that I-I think I need to tell you.”
Stoic down to his bones, he refused to betray any sort of reaction, though her quiet words struck him like a punch in the gut. “I’m listening.”
“It makes no sense that I can figure. None that puts my mind at ease. An old childhood memory . . .”
“Yes?” he urged when her words trailed off. “Go on.”
“I’m not sure where to start. You don’t want to hear my whole life story.”
“I’d like that very much, actually.” He leaned his elbow on the table and rested his face against his fingertips.
“Well, it’s fairly hazy, because I would’ve only been about five years old,” she began in a halting voice. “I had just been sent to live ashore after my mother’s death. Wait—let me back up,” she amended with a wave of her hand. “As I said, my father was a merchant captain.”
“His name?”
“Michael Madsen.”
Or Gerald Fox? Rohan wondered. Pete had said that “Madsen” was just the captain’s alias.
“I was born at sea,” she continued. “In my earliest years, we lived aboard Papa’s frigate. Our floating home. The crew was like our extended family. That boat and everyone on it was my whole world.”
“Sounds like a colorful childhood.”
“I suppose it was. But that’s not the half of it.” She offered him a pensive smile. “My parents’ story was the most romantic thing you ever heard.”
“Really? Do tell.” She had his full attention.
She rested her crossed arms on the table before her. “My mother was a French émigrée, the daughter of a count at the time of the French Revolution.”
“Do you know his name?” he asked, holding his breath.
“Of course—though I never met him. The Count DuMarin.”