With Dreams Only of You

by Kathryn Le Veque, Suzan Tisdale, Eliza Knight, Cynthia Wright, Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon

  “If you look up, you’ll see the murder hole,” a man said from the shadows of the stairwell just to her right. It seemed as though the stone archway hid him in a dark cloak. A cloak that suited his massive frame very well.

  Did those stairs lead up to the guard walk? Had he been watching her arrival?

  And that voice. . . Oh god. It was delicious. Dark and low and rumbling like liquid chocolate laced with brandy. Who did it belong to? She had a sneaking suspicion but she prayed she was wrong.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “The murder hole, Ms. O’Neil, was a castle defense,” he drawled. “Unwelcome visitors were pelted with stones or boiling oil.”

  She let out an awkward laugh. “Good thing I’m welcome.”

  He was silent.

  Well, this was strange. She glanced up at the square door in the ceiling, for a moment envisioning the horrific death that had awaited someone hundreds of years ago.

  “Should I be concerned?” she asked, trying to tease.

  “Oh, not just yet,” he said in a perfect tone.

  She’d never heard an accent like the man’s in the shadowed archway. It was like listening to Prince William in interviews. Perfect, smooth, unshakable but ridiculously sexy in its assuredness.

  Mr. Allen inclined his head slightly. “Ms. O’Neil. This is Lord Reign.”

  She cringed. That voice truly belonged to the man she’d traveled over five thousand miles to meet? It didn’t seem fair that Lord Reign was as intimidating as his castle.

  Mac stuck out her hand. She wanted him to come out of the shadows. There seemed to be something about him. Something that very firmly suggested he wasn’t at all pleased that she was there.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.

  Lord Reign stepped out of the darkness. At least six foot three, jet black hair was swept back from his strong face. Black eyes the color of obsidian stared at her. And his mouth? Lush. Positively lush. But at the moment, there was nothing welcoming about it.

  “You’re here to see the crypt?” he asked abruptly.

  She swallowed. “Yes.”

  He inclined is head. “Let us go, then.”

  Well, that was fast. He probably just wanted to show her about quickly and then send the annoying American on her way.

  Mr. Allen cleared his throat. “Should I serve refreshments, my lord?”

  Lord Reign stared at her as if assessing her, deciding if she should be shunted out without ceremony or allowed to stay and peer in at his world. “In an hour. In the hall. Thank you, Allen.”

  And that was that.

  Lord Reign turned without further ado and strode out to the courtyard.

  Clearly, she was supposed to follow.

  Mac headed after him, having to walk briskly to keep up with his impressive stride.

  “I really appreciate this opportunity,” she said to his broad back.

  He didn’t reply. Just kept walking until he came to the steps of a building that looked very much like a chapel. It was attached to the castle, but was its own building.

  She followed him in through a door within the large double door at the entrance and couldn’t help another gasp.

  The windows. . . The windows were glorious. Stained glass of every color painted a dazzling rainbow on the tiled floor. Even the floor was a rich tapestry of interwoven geometrical objects.

  Once, this was what all the churches of England had looked like. Well, maybe not all had been as sumptuous as this private place of worship, but before the Reformation, worship had been a place of riotous color. A rare glimpse of rich, jewel tones in a woefully bleak world.

  Lord Reign folded his hands over his beautifully woven, cream sweater. He peered down at her.

  Given his height, she assumed it wasn’t total arrogance that made him seem like he was staring down his nose.

  “Your thesis is The Influence and Restrictive Power of Tudor Propaganda Upon the History Plays of William Shakespeare?”

  She nodded. She loved her title. It had taken her six months to choose all the right words. Sure that sounded crazy, but that was Academia.

  “You’re not a Tudor fan then?” he asked with a slight arch of his black brow.

  Her lips twitched. His disdain was apparent, even though he was clearly trying to hide it. It seemed that James Reign was not a fan of shows like The Tudors or other silly nonsense which glamorized that formidable, but dysfunctional, family.

  Which was too bad because she absolutely loved all the really so bad, so good adaptations of the Tudor family.

  She grinned. “Your Plantagenet roots are showing.”

  He smiled briefly. “You tell me, Ms. O’Neil. Is that a bad thing?”

  “Only if you still hanker after the throne of England,” she quipped. “That one slipped your grip a thousand years ago, Lord Reign.”

  He stared at her for a long moment then laughed.

  It boomed off the walls and reverberated slightly.

  It seemed so irreverent and yet, this was his home. Even the chapel.

  “What did I say?” she asked.

  “Will gave me the nickname ‘King’ when we were at St. Andrews. Said he was lucky I didn’t want to challenge him for the crown.”

  Mac tried not to choke on his casual mention of the Prince of Wales. Prince William had indeed attended the prestigious party school St. Andrews in Scotland. And James Reign was his friend apparently.

  She was standing next to someone who was intimate with Prince William.

  And yet, she wasn’t awed. Not by the acquaintance. Lord Reign was a powerful enough figure on his own to leave her slightly out of her comfort zone.

  “Ms. O’Neil, I have no tragic longings for a crown. The English monarchy is a mad dash of various families and the real rule is done by parliament. It has been for hundreds of years. I’m more than fortunate to still have so many lands, a title, and the ability to take pride in my family history.”

  “Notorious as it is,” she piped before she could stop herself.

  “Indeed.” A bemused look softened the hard angles of his gorgeous face. “We are a colorful lot.”

  Well, that was putting mildly. The Plantagenets and the de Reynes (which was the original spelling of Lord Reign’s name) weren’t exactly the nicest people around. Brothers trying to kill brothers, usurp thrones, political backstabbing. Margaret de la Pole, one of the greatest Plantagenets had even locked her own daughter-in-law up in a nunnery so that they could keep the girl’s lands.

  Now, this man standing before her? He wasn’t at all what she expected.

  Most ancient families who had started out as bloody warriors, wielding sword and mace, now had descendants with the physical forms of willows, posh voices, and an abhorrence of vulgarity.

  She often wondered what the first forebears of the great families would think of their current missish heirs.

  James Reign looked like he could step onto a War of the Roses battlefield and charge into the melee with the best of them, sword drawn, shield high, and the promise of death in his gaze.

  “Was there a chapel with the old ruins?” she asked suddenly.

  Lord Reign paused as if taken aback by her abrupt question. “Actually, yes. The chapel that housed the oldest graves was on the hill. It was part of the old garrison castle. But it was decimated during the War of the Roses, the period that interests you so. My ancestors built this place of worship almost immediately after and moved the graves to this crypt.”

  Mac fought a shiver. Just on this small bit of land there was so much history. So much death. It was hard to fathom.

  With a gracious gesture of his strong hand, he said, “Let’s descend.”

  She walked down toward the altar.

  It really was remarkable that this chapel seemed so untouched by Cromwell and his destructive force. Then again, when you were a family as powerful as the Reigns it was possible to avoid even the worst of political events. .
. If the family was savvy, something the Plantagenets hadn’t always been.

  He stepped around her, his gorgeous and expensive Italian style boots thudding softly on the tile as he circled back behind the altar and approached a wrought iron gate.

  He opened it with a tug.

  The thing had to weigh a ton. It looked positively medieval. It probably was.

  “After you,” he said.

  A strange feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she went down the stone steps into the cool, damp space.

  Lights, their cords visible, hung along the stone wall, bathing the space in golden shadows.

  The floor was grooved by countless, and long dead, passersby.

  A low, arched ceiling pressed down on them. To her right and left there were nooks. And from what she could surmise, each nook was large enough to hold a good-sized effigy or grouping of statues.

  She hesitated.

  Maybe this was crazy. Maybe she shouldn’t be here at all. But then she slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the small poesy ring.

  Mac squared her shoulders and stepped forward. This was what she’d come here for and she wasn’t running now.

  Chapter Two

  James Reign eyed the American and searched for his usual dislike of those who came to gawk at the gilded tragedies of his family history. It was one of the main reasons he kept the castle closed to the general public. The vultures. The carnivorous humans who loved to come and pick over the bones of his cursed family.

  He’d only given his approval because she was, indeed, a MFA candidate from a university in Oregon writing about Shakespeare and the Plantagenet line. Otherwise she would have received a polite, sod off.

  He refused to believe he was so shallow that her red hair, pale skin, and dash of freckles over her pert nose had anything to do with his surprising approval of her.

  Then again, most visitors didn’t have the courage to directly tease him about the Plantagenets, the throne, and his possible wish to be king. Anyone who wished to be king was an idiot in his opinion. He actually felt a degree of sorrow for William. But while William’s mother had died tragically, the prince didn’t have a family with untimely death after death in almost every generation.

  The de Reyne family was a family worthy of Shakespearian drama.

  His grandfather had even changed the family name hoping that would do something. It hadn’t.

  He studied the young woman in her slightly worn jeans and loose, green sweater. She wasn’t the sort of woman he was typically drawn to and he was drawn to her. In fact, he was damned tempted to offer a few nights stay in the castle just so he could see what was so damned fascinating to him.

  Oh, she was beautiful with a sort of shiny hope. A newness touched by the slightest melancholy. He’d spotted it when she’d stood outside his castle, staring at his massive door. Something in her stance had been sad. He’d wanted to take that sadness. Which was positively ridiculous. He didn’t know her and in his experience, sadness couldn’t be taken. . . Merely overcome.

  So, now, he lingered, following her two steps back as she stared at each effigy, studying the inscriptions and running her eyes over every detail as if she were searching for something.

  In fact, with each step she took further into the crypt, her casual manner and smile vanished. Instead, a sort of desperation started to make her gaze sharp. Her soft pink mouth pressed into a line.

  “Are you looking for something specific?” he asked, hoping that she wasn’t about to prove herself as odd as some of the other visitors who’d come to his ancient home with delusions of past lives. Those visitors had seemed relatively stable on paper but they’d proven quite unhinged once they’d appeared on his doorstep. Another reason he didn’t generally allow visitors.

  She stopped in front of one of the oldest monuments.

  The statue of his ancestor Sir Eryx de Reyne and his wife, the Lady Frederica. The couple had been gone hundreds of years, but he’d always been awed by this particular burial. There was something in the cutting of the stone, now worn, that suggested the pair had loved each other deeply. It might have also been the fact that they were holding hands. Something highly unusual for the period.

  But this couple was long before the timeline that MacKenzie O’Neil was interested in.

  “Ms. O’Neil?” he prompted with a degree of sharpness that surprised himself.

  She shook her head and stared.

  Her hands curled into fists and her brow furrowed.

  Is that how she always looked deep in thought? As if nothing could penetrate her reverie?

  “Th-There’s something missing,” she whispered.

  Dread settled in his stomach. She was going to prove inconvenient after all.

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Oh, is there?”

  She nodded but said nothing. Her hand slipped into her pocket.

  “Yes. There was something here. A. . . A sword?”

  James’ blood ran cold. This had to be a sick joke. A joke that wasn’t at all amusing. “Ms. O’Neil, I think perhaps it’s time you leave.”

  She didn’t reply, as if she hadn’t heard him. Instead of backing away, she took abrupt steps towards the monument.

  Her foot caught on a low, uneven stone and she pitched forward.

  James reached out but he couldn’t grab her. She plunged towards the stone and cracked the side of her head against Sir Eryx stone boot.

  He managed to catch her just before she fell to the floor.

  Blood slipped from her temple and she was blinking rapidly.

  His own heart pounded like a machine.

  The sword. That’s why she was here? That sodding sword? And that sword was why she now had blood streaming down her pale face.

  Given the history of the blade, she was damned lucky.

  “Ms. O’Neil,” he demanded.

  She licked her lips, her body limp in his arms. “Mac.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Name’s. . . Mac. Not Ms. O’Neil.”

  He let out a harsh breath. “Mac why the hell are you here?”

  But before she could answer, he swept her up and cradled her against his chest. She might be mad, or obsessed, who knew? But something deep in his gut demanded that he look after her. It was impossible to explain but something like a centuries old call insisted he hold her and the soft feel of her body against his felt terrifyingly perfect.

  Now, he just had to find out what the hell an American woman was doing looking for an ancient cursed sword.

  Chapter Three

  Mac raised a hand to her throbbing temple and stared at her scuffed boots. Oh God. How was she going to look at him? She’d made a complete fool of herself. Yep. Right in front of the most gorgeous man she’d ever met. She’d tripped and cracked her head on a grave in his family crypt!

  Well, she’d always wanted to see the inside of a private castle. She sighed. This wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined doing it.

  He’d carried her. Carried her into the room that was as massive as most homes. He’d then placed her, as if she weighed a good deal less than her one hundred sixty-five pounds, gently onto a couch that looked like it belonged on Downton Abbey.

  It was tempting to bolt for the door, the hall, and her car. But even she knew she shouldn’t be driving right now and she refused to look like a coward as well as an idiot.

  She focused on the vaulted ceiling covered in a beautiful painting, no doubt done by some ridiculously important artist. The subject appeared to be Athena, goddess of the Hunt. A suitable image given the warlike nature of the Reigns.

  “It will hurt like the devil for a little while,” James Reign said, striding through the tall, beautifully framed doorway, a bowl in his strong hand.

  She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m sorry for bleeding all over you.”

  His dark brows drew together in confusion.

  She pointed to his sweater. It was so tempting to bury her face in her hands. She’d ruined his sweater.
A sweater that probably was more expensive than her monthly rent on her studio apartment.

  It wasn’t exactly if she’d ever been grace personified but she’d never been a total klutz.

  He looked down at the red spot. “Ah. Well. A small price to pay to save the maiden fair.”

  The words should have been teasing but there was a hardness to his beautiful face that belied the words. “You’re angry.”

  “You’re blunt,” he countered.

  Oh boy. Could this be any more awkward? “It’s the American in me.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “In my experience, Americans are always avoiding the truth.”

  She shifted on the couch. “What?”

  “If you ask an American how they are,” he said as he towered over her, “they will always say fine.”

  “Oh.” That was largely true.

  He put the bowl on the table beside her and knelt. His chest blocked her view of the room.

  She dug her hands into the soft damask, damask older than the American Constitution if she had to guess, and made herself meet his gaze.

  He took a small bundle from the bowl, gazed down at her even though he was kneeling, and pressed it to her temple.

  Blessed cold brushed her skin.

  God, he was beautiful. He smelled of some natural, expensive cologne. To her shock, she wanted to bury her face in his neck and just drink it in.

  The crazy thought had to come from hitting her head.

  “Ms. O’Neil—”

  “Mac,” she cut in.

  He paused, his lips forming a slightly displeased line before saying softly, “Mac.”

  “It’s short for MacKenzie,” she rushed. “I always thought that name sounded too much like a last name and it was too long. . .”

  What was she doing? She was rambling. That’s what she was doing.

  “Why are you here?” he asked with a surprising degree of gentleness.

  She swallowed. Did she dare put all her cards on the table? “What do you mean?”

  He gave her a skeptical look. “You’re not here for your dissertation.”