Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  And Darius would conduct.

  Part One

  Scotland, 1774

  Castle Home

  Selena MacPherson stood atop the highest watchtower of Coldstream, in Berwick Province, Scotland, on the North Sea. The estate had been in the hands of her ancestors at least as far back as William the Conqueror, and the keystone in the arch at the castle’s outer wall read “Anno Domini 1152.” Stealing away, she had climbed the dangerous, swaying ladders this morning, to be alone. She wanted to think back upon those seven centuries, to find in them, as she had so many times before, the steadiness and strength to sustain her in a time of troubles. She had need of that support today, although she did not yet know why. Something was wrong, perhaps many things. Sean Bloodwell was one of them, to be sure; because of him, a crisis impended between her father and herself. Father was worried, too, she could tell, and not just over this business with Sean. There was more to it. Selena didn’t know what, and she watched sadly as his gloomy preoccupation cast a pall over the usually effervescent preparations for their annual Christmas trip to Edinburgh. Even Brian, her fiery, high-spirited older brother, was curt, distant. Throughout the long month of December, a vague disquiet, a growing sense of unease, had settled over Coldstream Castle, and on this very morning of the journey, with the grooms already harnessing six gleaming bays to the carriage in the courtyard far below, a shadow of fear, of imminence, enveloped her.

  It was all so complicated. In the beginning she had more than invited Sean Bloodwell’s attentions—as what young woman would not?—and she had been pleased with her success at turning his head. But it had soon become evident that Sean was unlike Selena’s usual beaux, and now she realized that what had seemed to her a quality of shyness, of reserve, was actually a sense of dignity and certainty unusual in a man of twenty-four, and a steely seriousness of purpose as well. He had told her that he intended to ask her father for her hand. That was serious indeed! She had never intended to let the flirtation go that far, especially now, with the ball approaching.

  Because just last year, at the Christmas Ball in Edinburgh Castle, she had fallen in love with Royce Campbell. They had been alone for only a short time, to share kisses, caresses—Selena had fashioned dreams, to which he’d listened—and it had been enough. She had been caught in a whirl of emotions that, until Royce held her in his arms, had seemed dim and unreal. But no longer. Need and want, desire and ecstasy, beat in her blood, and now with the long year finally drawing to its close, she would see Royce again.

  She was almost positive he would remember her.

  And this time she would be all of eighteen, surer of herself. Brian would not interrupt them, this time, and she would make certain Royce was invited directly to Coldstream after the holiday. And this time…

  Soft possibility wrapped itself about her like a cloak, and she could almost feel herself in his embrace. Then a gust of wind blasted cold against the battlements, snapping the pennants like the rigging on a ship.

  This time what, Selena? Because if Sean had already spoken to Father, she might never be able to win her desire.

  “An opportunist, and that’s but the start of it,” she’d once overheard Father say of Royce Campbell, while talking politics with some of his political and parliamentary friends who were always stopping at Coldstream. “Too rich and too bold. Too unpredictable for…for our purposes. I’d use him if I needed him, but the price would be high. Not a true patriot, by any means. Has trouble looking for a place to light, that’s the way I read the lad.”

  There had been much nodding, affirmative and judgmental, as the bowl went round again, as the thick smoke of the pipes swirled slowly upward to the flaming tapers on the castle wall.

  Remembering, Selena hugged herself against the chill, and pulled more tightly about her the lush traveling cloak of muskrat pelt. Her large violet eyes glimmered with inner conviction, and, almost defiantly, she shook her rich, wind-tousled mane of golden hair. A young girl, slim but strong of body, ripe for the future, not yet old enough to believe that she would ever die, Selena stood upon the battlements of her ancient home.

  Father would simply have to dissuade Sean, or at least put him off for a time. He must! That was all there was to it; her whole life and happiness depended upon it. She knew Father would move heaven and earth for her, if he had to, and she loved him still with a residue of childhood’s trusting affection. But his feelings toward Royce Campbell indicated a favorable reception to Sean Bloodwell’s overtures. The only advantage she had in convincing her father was the fact that Sean was not of the nobility. But that was something Father did not seem very concerned about anymore. Selena wondered why.

  Sometimes, when she was younger, she’d found herself wishing that she had been born a commoner, like one of the rowdy peasant girls in Coldstream village. They seemed not to have problems. They seemed happy enough teasing and being chased by the rough, grinning, open-faced boys of the countryside. And more, too. On festival days, when Selena accompanied Father and Brian on ceremonial visits to the common, she saw the boys and girls sneaking off, two by two, edging into the dark grove of shielding trees hard by the graveyard. And she could hear, even over the tumult of the revelers on the green, the giggling and laughter down among those trees, then the long silences, and now and then a moan so delicious one could fairly shiver with the pleasure that gave rise to it. Gave rise, indeed! She blushed, in spite of the cold, recalling the lewd, good-humored chatter of the scullery maids at Coldstream, their ribald idea of the measure of a man.

  A peasant girl, at eighteen, would have had more opportunity to make her own appraisals of a man, Selena had often thought. But, oddly, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. With Sean, she felt cherished and protected, and that might have been more than enough had she never experienced anything else. But with Royce Campbell, last Christmas at Edinburgh Castle, she had known something more, something wild, almost dangerous. The very air encircling their embrace had crackled with delicious tension. It had been like bobsledding in the Lammermuir Hills in winters long past; you went over the crest and dropped down and down, forever down, into the bright, blinding fever of depthlessness.

  Selena drew back and pulled herself out of the memory of that fall. She was not sure Royce would even be in Edinburgh this year. Last April, she’d heard that he’d left for India, and there’d been no news since. And then there was Sean Bloodwell to consider, and his hopes. And Father, with his responsibility for the future of the MacPherson family. And all the rest of it. Once again, for just an instant, she envied the peasant girls. Being of the nobility was like being locked in a tower forever. So she thought that morning, on her remote watchtower, as she began to realize that her life was not entirely her own.

  Then, far below, she saw her father stride out of the main hall and look about. One of the coachmen raised an arm up toward the tower on which Selena stood, for Lord Seamus MacPherson lifted an arm as well, to beckon his daughter down. They would be leaving for Edinburgh now. She saw his mouth open as he called to her, and in a few moments the sound carried up: “Selena. We’re ready. Come down and let’s be off.” In spite of the distance, she read in his voice that tone of worry that had been so much a burden to him lately. Why didn’t he open up and tell her what the trouble was? It had to be more than Sean Bloodwell alone—assuming Sean had even spoken to him yet! She would have been willing to give everything (Royce Campbell excluded) to restore her father’s smile and customary cheer.

  Waving her response, she stepped back toward the trapdoor, where the ladder was. Then, on impulse, she looked out once more over the North Sea, tumbling in winter fury, and her gaze drifted over the buildings and gardens and fields of Coldstream. This was home, and for no reason she could fathom there came into her mind a sudden premonition: Look long, Selena MacPherson. You may never see these sights again.

  The force of the feeling was momentary but overpowering. “Rubbish,” she steadied herself. “We’ll return, as always, with the New Yea
r.”

  But she was shaken. Within an instant, her spirit had been rendered as barren as the sere, burnt plains of Northumberland, across the English border, which she could see from Coldstream Castle. Upon this tower, in centuries past, men of Scotland had stood vigil against the swarming armies of English kings. Thank God, she thought, the Act of Union had put an end to all that fighting and death. Now there was naught to be seen but a single hawk, hunting far above those fields of ancient England, with its black, angular wings outstretched, coasting on the morning wind. The hawk held steady for a minute, drifting, then swooped, silent and deadly, toward some quarry in the dark December hills of Selena’s beloved Scotland.

  She shuddered for that nameless prey, turned, and climbed down the ladder, following the intricate corridors and passageways of the castle, which had been her playground since childhood, and which she knew as well as her own image, reflected in a glass. The heels of her new boots echoed on the old stones, and as she passed the chambers, the halls, the great rooms, she felt again that intimation of finality, of leave-taking, as if she were passing in review before the place in which her life had been spent. All the servants had gathered at the entrance to the main hall to see them off. She bade them farewell, they gave her Godspeed, and she climbed into the glistening, rust-colored carriage with Brian and her father. The coachman cracked a long, black whip, and the bays moved off, their hooves ringing on the stone.

  Edinburgh was a long day’s journey, and for a time they rode in silence, wrapped in furs against the cold, staring moodily at the passing landscapes. The frozen road, scarred and potholed, slammed again and again beneath the wheels of their coach; the passengers jounced and swayed against the sides of the carriage, and tried to avoid colliding with each other.

  This is the fifth time, Selena was thinking. She had been fourteen and Mama had still been alive when, for the first time, she’d been permitted to make the trip and to wear one of the exquisite gowns fashioned just for her by Coldstream’s seamstresses, to attend the great banquet, and then to dance at the Christmas Ball itself, with the glittering decorations, tangy punch, heady music, and, of course, the young men of the great families of Scotland. Selena had been a bit nervous, that first year, but she ought not to have worried. In the years that followed, she attracted all the attention any girl could have wanted, and she’d overheard some of the old dowagers talking, saying: “Have you see that horrible crowd of boys around the MacPherson girl? One would think she fancied herself a princess, holding court. Well! Do you know what I think…?”

  Holding court. A princess. Selena rather liked the idea. She had grown more practiced, and regal each year. Until last year, when Royce Campbell appeared; under his frank, appraising gaze, she’d once more felt like a fourteen-year-old school girl, giddy with a bright, flashing surge of magnetic heat.

  Royce Campbell. His image swept over her, held her, as the horses trotted along to their first stop, at the mead shop in the village of Lauder. This year. This year they would be alone. Brian would not come barging along—as if he hadn’t known she and Royce were there!—and this year there would be the place and the time to give him all that he wanted, because that was what she chose to give. And after that? After that didn’t matter. Yes, it did, Father. Sean. Don’t think about it. Not yet, not now. There had to be a way to have what you wanted without disappointing those who loved you in different ways.

  There in the rocking, swaying coach, Selena made tight fists, concentrating, and pressed her eyelids closed. Brian, trying to doze, paid her no heed, but when she opened her eyes, her father’s glance was puzzled.

  “Christmas wish?” he asked, with the hint of a smile.

  Selena nodded, although wish was a pale word indeed for her secret aspiration. She looked away, and her mind returned to last year’s ball, when her life had changed so greatly. All the girls her age, and most of the women right on up to ninety, were abuzz with the news of that holiday week: Sir Royce Campbell would attend the ball. The news flew up and down the long corridors of Edinburgh Castle, in which the revelers were traditionally ensconced. The news was passed down long tables in banquet rooms, spread in the salons, pavilions, and courtyards. It was an event.

  Selena had heard a great deal about Royce Campbell. Not yet thirty, this reckless son of Scotland’s most fabled Highlands clan roamed the world at will, his fleet of fast ships available for any purpose to anyone who met his price, whether king or merchant or bloody mercenary with a steel knife in his teeth and a hunger in his belly for stolen gold. News of his exploits, both martial and amorous, were stock-in-trade at the great ports of the British Isles, Edinburgh and Liverpool, London and Southampton. In his personal flagship, the Highlander, it was said, he had ravaged pirates and privateers in the West Indies, had made the seas in those regions virtually his own private domain. He had been to Asia, India, Africa, and seen everything, and somewhere behind the stories of adventure and plunder was the half-heard whisper of a woman, Royce Campbell’s woman, more sensual and beautiful and mysterious than other women—of course, for a Campbell, she would have to be—remote as royalty, passionate as sin, the peerless perfection of her sex: fire and ice.

  Selena refused to believe those stories. After all, he had been unaccompanied at the ball last year, had he not?

  There had been no preliminaries, no explanations. Selena had seen him first, a lean, dark-skinned, black-haired stallion of a man striding toward her across the glittering ballroom in Edinburgh Castle. She had known immediately who he was, not only from the stories, but also from the manner in which men and women alike turned to follow his passage, almost as if it were royalty that moved in their midst. A smile passed over his mouth, half amused, half ironic, a smile that obscured more than it revealed, and kept secure the detachment he seemed to be guarding, as if his thoughts were like those of no other man. The smile flickered again when he saw her, a smile that was at once for her and because of her, as if he frankly invited feminine lures without permitting himself to become entranced by them. Ah, that was it. The smile was a challenge. And Selena just seventeen.

  At first, when she saw him start across the floor in her direction, she could not believe he was coming to talk to her. Surely, there must be some mistake. Her breath caught and she felt her skin grow warm in the anticipation of something she could not name. Beside her, she felt Sean Bloodwell, her escort for the evening, and the man with whom she believed herself in love, grow tense with a kind of quiet readiness, like an animal exposed to the possibility of attack.

  And everyone seemed to be watching. The whole world seemed to be watching.

  Then Royce Campbell was standing before her, smiling that smile, bowing slightly. His skin was tanned deeply by wind and sun, and his eyes were a shade of blue so pale they seemed translucent. When he smiled, she saw his teeth were strong and white and even.

  “I am Royce Campbell,” he said formally, bowing slightly. Then he offered Sean Bloodwell his hand. It was taken courteously, as was Sean’s way. His looks were of a different kind—a lighter complexion, reddish-blond hair, a more open expression—but they were two strong men who regarded each other in cool appraisal. It would almost have seemed they were evenly matched, in spite of the fact that Sean was five years younger. But, of course, there was no contest taking place, was there?

  “My apologies, my lady, for approaching you without first having been presented,” Royce said to her, in a tone that held no hint of an apology, “but I wish to pay my respects to your father. I had heard that he might have need of such services as I might be able to provide…”

  Father? Father had need of the kind of services Royce Campbell was said to deliver?

  “…and I have been unable as yet to locate him at this…” he waved his hand icily, indicating the crowded ballroom “…this most elegant affair,” he concluded.

  He smiled again, this time with a perceptible touch of mockery. There had been a cold, strange tone as he pronounced the word “elegant,” much l
ike the intonation he’d used when addressing her as “my lady.” Selena was surprised into irritation. Wasn’t the Christmas Ball the most exciting social affair in all Scotland? Didn’t Royce Campbell think so?

  “Father has been delayed,” she said, recovering. “He remained at table to talk with certain gentlemen. I’m sure he’ll be joining us directly.”

  Again, that smile, but less blatant this time. “Politics can be a dangerous business, young lady.”

  “So can privateering,” Sean interjected coolly, with a touch of his own irony.

  Selena knew everyone was watching. The two men measured each other.

  “Ah, yes, that Bloodwell,” Royce said, as if recalling a fragment of idle information. “The ambitious young man with all the collieries and textile mills. Have you won yourself a title yet?”

  Sean flared, but resisted the bait. The fact that his father had been a commoner, albeit a wealthy and powerful commoner, made him overly conscious of class distinctions. After all, times were changing, and the rising entrepreneurs could buy and sell half the nobility on a quiet afternoon.

  “I expect,” he said grimly, “that it does little good to discuss genealogy with a pirate.”

  Royce Campbell laughed good-humoredly. “Pirate? Bloodwell, what have you been hearing? I am a capitalist, like yourself. I offer my services for whatever the market will bear, as do you. And, just between you and me and the MacPherson beauty here…” he glanced at Selena, and it seemed that he actually winked, as if they were sharing a joke “…a title and a ha’penny will buy you all of a piece of stale bread.”

  Sean looked at him, not knowing how to take the remark. Campbell seemed serious now, but to Sean an elevation to the peerage possessed the aura and significance of a sacred relic. To doubt the value of title would be like doubting the True Cross or the worth of Scotland itself.