“What is it?” On his knees, he stared up at her.
She stumbled to the opposite side and, after fixing her bodice, began to toss food into the picnic basket. In an effort to hold back her tears, she squeezed the peach too hard. Its juice and pulp seeped through her fingers as if it were bleeding.
“I’ll solve this on my own.” She swallowed hard, constricting her larynx to calm her shuddering vocal chords. “Johnny Boy is healed. You’re free to leave.” She steeled herself for the next words, wanting rather to gore out her own heart than speak them. “I must think of my nieces. You’re a thief, an addict. They don’t need such an influence in their lives. The odds are already stacked against them with a whore for a keeper. I have nothing to offer in your search for Mina. There’s no more reason for you to stay.”
She heard him stand, heard his stilted breaths. But she didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, she wiped the stickiness from between her fingers with a napkin. The sun had dropped low behind the clouds, cutting the light to a purple haze. Cook would be preparing dinner at the castle. Felicity shivered against the numbing frost rushing along her scar. She needed to be with her nieces—to feel their warmth in her arms.
Leaving the basket for Nick, she eased through the trapdoor and down the rope, knowing he would find his way to the castle once her ugly words had sunk in. Knowing he would hate her enough to leave on the morrow without ever looking back again.
Chapter Eighteen
Stubborn, hard-shelled crab of a woman.
Nick slid his earring into place and secured it, attempting to tamp his anger. What galled him most was what Felicity had said about herself. If he ever heard her call herself a whore again …
She’d been forced into that lifestyle. How could she forget?
So ironic. She made a point about him forgiving himself, when she couldn’t do the same for her own perceived sins.
Tilting the bottle of mead upside down, he waited for the remaining droplets to trickle into his throat. He cringed—the last swallow was always the most bitter. Hissing through his teeth to tame the flavor’s bite, he glanced outside. Moonlight slanted through the trees, and Jasper’s tombstone cast an eerie silhouette on the ground. Nick hadn’t even had a chance to question Felicity any more about the butterflies and her brother. He would never learn if there was a spirit roaming these grounds.
Not that it made any difference now. He didn’t belong here; these mysteries weren’t his. Felicity had made that abundantly clear. It was to that end he’d stayed in the forest until he was sure everyone had gone to bed.
He didn’t want to face her after she’d made a fool of him again. He’d opened his heart about Christian’s birth, shared that private, intimate ache, only to have her shut him down without a blink of her eye.
Well, that wasn’t completely true. She’d been sweet. So bloody sweet and nurturing as he told her. Even understanding, almost as if she empathized. Then, when he asked for her hand, she turned on him like a trapped bobcat. How could he blame her? She knew now that he killed his first wife through neglect. Were she to ever know the rest … the depth of his shame and addiction, how he’d almost given himself to a man—she’d want nothing to do with him anyway.
Tomorrow he would say goodbye to this dreary, rainy estate and its melancholy mistress in black. He would blot them from his mind forever and resume his search into the afterlife. He didn’t believe her, not really. That Mina was at peace. So odd, that while he’d been here in a place where spirits and hauntings seemed to reign, the need to connect with Mina had faded more with each hour.
When Felicity had asked him if he wanted a family, he blurted out a yes without even thinking. The thought of a life with her, Lia, and Aislinn gave him a sense of peace and warmth he’d been missing for far too long. That’s what had stifled his search for the past over the last few days. He’d began to see a future, being a part of the inner workings of a real family. He’d wanted to assure Felicity that he understood the responsibility which came with his marriage offer.
But that admission had backfired, and he didn’t know why.
Aislinn and Lia’s faces danced through his mental periphery, adding to the lonely ache. Such beautiful, special little ladies with so much to offer. Yet they were never to see the world—held prisoners in this castle by their aunt’s damnable fear of trust. That he had to leave with little Lia still angry stung most of all. He’d planned to seek penance for breaking her father’s dishes. Now, he would never have that chance. Because of Felicity.
“Get a hold of yourself, man,” he snarled. “You’ve known the woman all of eleven days.”
Almost two weeks. But it felt like more, somehow. As if a lifetime of waiting had finally been appeased, just by the appearance of this one piece from his past. What they shared all those years ago, that moment when her eyes met his and he begged her not to give up, not to die—that intense emotional connection had spun a gossamer net around them, binding them. Instead of time severing it—the passing years had cinched the snare ever tighter. And now that he’d finally met her, the entanglement threatened to strangle him.
Nick growled and scrubbed his face with a palm. The friction of new-sprung whiskers served as a reminder of the time. Everyone should be abed by now, and he needed rest himself. However, he regretted eating the entire contents of the picnic along with the wine at such a late hour. His stomach lurched—every bit as discontented as his heart. Cursing, Nick threw the empty bottle to the corner of the outlook post. The clunk of heavy glass reverberated through his dizzy head, shaking his skeleton from his teeth to his toes.
He plunged through the trapdoor with basket in hand. The rope burned his thighs and palm as he tried to slow his descent. When his feet finally touched ground, he swayed. Or perhaps it was the forest that swayed. The dark trees seemed to bend to him, reaching for him. He stumbled forward, convinced they’d shoved him with their limbs. A cool breeze licked his face and a drizzle spattered his skin through the firs.
The chill, and several hooting owls, kept him sober enough to use the sparse moonlight and stay on the trail. He remembered Felicity’s vague reference to bogs. Peat bogs. Their existence had roused an idea in him … one he couldn’t quite grasp at the moment. It was as if cotton swirled around his brain, muffling his thoughts.
He half expected the gate to be locked against him when he arrived at the stone fence, but it opened easily. Latching it shut behind him, he stopped to stroke the slick bars where he’d held Felicity pinned for one of the most poignant and thrilling kisses he’d ever experienced.
He pressed his forehead against the cold iron, hard enough to induce a dull ache. No. They hadn’t merely kissed. He understood that, even in this hazy state of mind. It had been an exchange of mutual need and desire between two broken people.
She might be a master at denying her feelings, but in that one moment, he’d forced her to face them. She would remember that if nothing else.
Heat rushed from Nick’s neck to his temples, pounding in rhythm with the raindrops as he turned to follow the path to the castle’s front door. He scrubbed wetness from his face. No woman was worth this much misery. He couldn’t wait to be gone. He only wished he’d managed just once to bed her—to leave her with a smile in place of that sour scowl. Or better yet, with a laugh of pleasure in her throat. Lord, when she laughed, the sound was like a wind chime … and it lit up her face like a sunrise. Too bad the occurrence was rarer than a lunar eclipse.
He let himself inside the castle. After dropping the basket in the lightless kitchen, he trudged up the stairs. Candles flickered in the sconces, illumining the mud left upon the marble tiles with each footstep. It mattered naught. The maid wouldn’t mind. Unlike Felicity, Rachel liked having reminders of him about.
The way she always leaned over him to clear his dishes from the table, swathing him in her honey-scented skin; how her bright, red hair brushed across his hand as she knelt before him to prop his leg upon a pillow. Just to think upon
her daunted efforts at seduction soothed his ruffled male ego.
Nick paused at the top of the second flight and clenched the railing, veering a gaze down the dimly lit corridor toward Felicity’s room. He didn’t want to leave. Hated that she had the power to make him. Every muscle twitched, holding back the urge to break her door down and insist she listen to reason.
Or he could blackmail her. Hell, she was expecting it, considering his greedy and thieving nature.
But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being right … or the benefit of a second chance. She would soon realize just how well he could hold a secret. For he was never to utter another word to or about her again.
Gritting his teeth, he turned in the direction of his chamber, grateful he’d only have to sleep in Lia’s tiny bed one last night. Every time he moved, he feared he’d break the frame. That’s all he needed, to ruin something else of the little sprite’s.
A few feet from his chamber, he stalled, seeing a blur of movement at the door as someone slipped out, jingling some keys. In the darkness, a woman’s silhouette took shape. His heartbeat stuttered.
“Fel’city?” He cringed at the slur in his voice, defeated in his battle against the mead.
“Nay. It be me, Yer Graceship.” Rachel’s answer dragged over him—an erotic yet grating stroke of sensation. She came into view beside a fluttery candle on the wall which highlighted the ripe feminine assets beneath her maid’s uniform. “I was seeing to the fireplace in yer room.” She fondled the buttons of her blouse where it gaped to show ample cleavage. The woman wasn’t wearing a chemise or corset. Nick’s body responded in spite of his drunken state.
She stepped closer. “Midnight be a strange hour for wanderin’ the grounds. When ye didn’t come to sup, I was a bit worried ye’d left.”
Nick ran a hand over his chin, letting his whiskers prick his skin in an effort to clear his head. “I’m leavin’ tomorrow.” He stumbled around her in the narrow hall, fighting every impulse to press her against the wall and spend his pent-up desire and anger for Felicity. Mead was a drink rumored to promote virility. He was beginning to think there was something to that particular piece of Irish folklore.
Rachel had left his door ajar. As he coaxed it open, her cool fingers clamped his bicep over his shirt, curling to mold his tautened muscle. “Why sir, yer as wet as a pickled goose.”
He jerked away. “Better y’keep distance, sweeting. This goose has a scorpion’s sting.”
Rachel stopped the door from closing. He rounded on her—the only sounds the crackling fire and Johnny Boy’s snoring from behind.
She reached for Nick’s shirt placket, her honeyed scent enfolding him. “Let me help with yer clothes. I can have them clean and dry by morn.” She moved closer and began to tug the tail from where he’d tucked it in his trousers. Her chill nails trailed the hairs along his bare abdomen. He groaned, losing his resolve. “And I’ll help ye into bed. Bein’ yer last night here, I should like to treat ye hospitable.” Her sultry green eyes left no room for misinterpretation.
Nick cursed and dragged her all the way in, shutting the door behind her. The hairs on the scruff of his neck lifted, a warning he didn’t have the will power or sobriety to hearken to. He shoved her against the wall, his body pressed to hers. The crispness of her apron rustled with the movement. “I’ll not be thinking of you … I’ll tell y’that now. Are you still willing?”
Rachel arched into him. “I be a fine replacement for any fantasy, Yer Graceship. And I’ve much more stamina than the old dowager.”
Nick balked at her audacity. “What makes y’think—”
“I’ve seen the way ye look at her ladyship. The woman is an ice queen. I can make ye forget ever wantin’ her. I’ve done it before for another man…”
Biting back the urge to send the maid packing, Nick pushed himself harder against her. Her buxom shape and plump, hot flesh felt hearty and receptive, unlike Felicity’s delicate frame, fragile curves, and softness.
Lord, how she’d felt beneath his hands … her breasts, even hidden under the cloth as they were, her skin, her long, lithe leg wrapped around him. Somehow, Felicity was mysterious … foreboding. Yet at the same time, a comfort. An enigma, that woman.
Bending his head, he shut his eyes in an effort to imagine Felicity in the maid’s place, sobering enough to speak clearly. “How quiet can you be?”
Her palm slid up his thigh and grazed his arousal. She gasped and he clenched his jaw. “A man yer size … I’d have to bite off me tongue to keep quiet…”
Dizziness seeped into his head at her touch. His disgust at her smugness didn’t keep him from wanting to bed her. He’d been down this road many times: using women’s bodies to appease his emptiness, to counteract disappointment. Never having to like the woman or care how she felt; leaving her the moment the act was over.
Exactly how those men had treated Jasmine.
Even as Rachel kissed his neck and begged his touch, that thought crashed over him like the icy-cold waves of the ocean. He couldn’t be one of those men any longer. Not after learning how the Earl had defiled Felicity’s innocence so blithely. The mere thought of anyone hurting her made his pulse pound in his temples. But hadn’t Nick himself intended to do the same that night at the brothel, before he’d saved her from the stabbing?
Yes. He’d intended to use her. Use her like a damned drug.
Laudanum.
Nick clenched his eyes tighter at the siren’s call. God help him. He didn’t want to face tomorrow. Didn’t want to go back out into the lonely world. With Johnny for company, he might last a few months before he’d trip over his addiction. Or would he? Even now, the opium’s serenade swirled within—a promise of oblivion, an illusion of heaven’s peace too sweet to deny.
The closest a man could come to killing himself without pulling a trigger.
His eyes snapped open. He pushed aside Rachel’s seeking hand then ran a fingertip down her collarbone, between the burgeoning rolls of her cleavage, over her clothes all the way to her waist. He stopped atop her apron, just above her pelvic bone.
She tensed, mouth agape and lashes trembling—anticipant.
“When I ask for your silence,” Nick said. “I mean can you keep a secret?” His fingers shifted to drop into her apron’s pocket and fish out her keys. “I’d like to borrow these.”
“What would ye be givin’ in return?” Rachel whispered and pressed her lips against his ear, trailing to his earring.
Shaking off the heat that surged through his body, Nick held her at arm’s length. “A secure position.”
Shoving a fallen tendril of hair behind her ear, Rachel tilted her head. “I be secure in whatever position Yer Graceship prefers…”
Nick frowned. “I’m referring to your employment.”
The maid’s brows furrowed. “Her Ladyship would ne’er cut me loose. Where else would she find a maid willin’ to be prisoner here in this castle? Sides, the lady is loyal to me mum.”
Ah, yes. Nick had forgotten about the familial association. It’s why the cook scolded and nit-picked this maid more than she did the other servants. He looked at the young woman offering herself to him, so obviously desperate for a life other than this. A parent’s opinion was so much more important than she could imagine at her age. “I doubt your mother would approve of your clandestine nocturnal excursions—breaking into guest’s rooms to seduce them. I’ll not damage your reputation in her eyes.” He squeezed the keys and started to tuck his shirt in.
The maid’s jaw dropped. “Ye mean we aren’t to—?”
“Ah, Rachel. You’re so tempting. But…” Nick gently helped her straighten her blouse. “Some men prefer ice queens. It’s the challenge of melting them, you see.”
As he helped secure her buttons, the blush which crept into her face had nothing to do with embarrassment. His rejection had humiliated her.
He hadn’t intended to hurt her. But it was better this way. He’d sensed Felicity’s self-consc
iousness when Rachel was around. Considering Donal’s tryst with the maid, Felicity’s aged façade no doubt fed Rachel’s superiority complex. It would be good for her to experience the insecurity Felicity battled every day. It could mature her, make her safer from the rogues of the world. From men like himself.
Head bowed, Rachel turned toward the door. Nick banked his palm against it, holding it shut. With his free hand, he jingled the keys in the firelight. “Which one unlocks the dining room’s sideboard?” His mouth dried on the question.
He would only raid Clooney’s medical supply for enough laudanum to ease the torment so he might sleep tonight. He needed to take advantage while he had access to the drug for free.
Flimsy justifications for a crime he already hated himself for committing.
Finger trembling, Rachel pointed to a gold key with a long shank and rectangular tooth at the end. “The skeleton key … opens most every lock in the castle.”
Nick stepped back so she could leave. “Hang your apron on the peg next to the pans in the kitchen. I’ll assure the keys are back in place in your pocket by morning. And remember, not a word to anyone.”
The maid nodded without looking up, then slipped silently from the room.
Nick stopped at the top of the second flight, an unopened bottle of opium tincture secured in his trouser pocket. He trailed the cork seal with an eager fingertip. A cold sweat washed over him, making him shudder. Dread or anticipation, he didn’t know. All he did know, was that with a few swallows of the sherry-flavored bitterness, he’d be back in that familiar place with his dead wife and son … lost to oblivion.
He shouldn’t feel guilty for stealing. Clooney kept a hefty supply of laudanum. Nick suspected they were for medicinal purposes, perhaps even Felicity’s sleep draughts, but they were covered with dust as if they hadn’t been touched in years. Of the seven bottles, Nick had settled for one. Least that showed an ounce of restraint.
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