No—no, no, no.
Her feet shuffled involuntarily backward, her grip on the door handle the only thing stopping her from backing far across the foyer.
“Karta, what are you doing answering the door? Why is no one tending the stables?” Her eldest stepson, now the current Viscount Leviton, stepped past her, stomping the snow off his boots. Freezing wet droplets landed on her bare toes.
She peeked past her stepson. There wasn’t another soul. He’d travelled here alone?
Karta closed the door and spun back to him, her look shifting between the drawing room entryway and her stepson removing his great coat and shaking it. More frozen droplets on her toes. “George, what are you doing here? And alone?”
“That is the lackluster greeting I get?”
Domnall picked that moment to appear in the doorway of the drawing room.
George’s eyes glanced to Domnall, dismissing him before he even saw him. But then his hands on his great coat froze and his look jerked back to Domnall, taking in his size. “Who is this?”
Karta stepped between the two men. “George, this is Lord Kirkmere. He owns Kirkmere Abbey across the glen. Domnall, this is Lord Leviton, my stepson.”
George’s eyes squinted at Domnall. “And just what, exactly, is Lord Kirkmere doing in my home?”
His home?
Karta bit her tongue. Of course the fop would consider this his house. He considered everything his. He had since the day she’d met him.
A frown captured her face. “Maggie—my maid, do you remember her? She is deathly sick and I went to Lord Kirkmere for assistance two nights past. He had a doctor and Maggie brought to the abbey where she could be taken care of properly.”
George looked around. “Properly? Where is the staff I pay for?”
She bit her tongue harder, nearly drawing blood. It was her thirds that paid for the staff. George had made sure of that fact when he’d kicked her out of the Leviton family home. She clasped her hands in front of her. “They are with their families for Christmastide. It’s why I had to fetch help. I couldn’t get the stable doors open to get one of the mares out to reach the doctor on my own.”
“You gave the staff Christmastide off while Maggie was sick?”
“She wasn’t sick days ago when they left. I presumed we would be fine, and then the storm hit and trapped us here. I am quite certain Maggie would have died had Lord Kirkmere and his men not helped us.”
The thin set of George’s mouth went tight and he looked past her at Domnall. “So why are you two not at the abbey?”
Karta flipped her hand up into the air between them. “We came back here to fetch some of my and Maggie’s items, as it seems her recovery will take several days.” She spun around to Domnall, the desperate look on her face begging him not to say a word. “Would you please be so kind as to fetch the bag I packed in my room above—the third door on the left—while I gather the rest of Maggie’s items?”
“Of course.” Domnall inclined his head to George and then moved to the staircase, disappearing into the corridor above.
Karta waited until she heard the door of her room creak open and she turned back to George. “What are you doing here, George?”
He’d removed his gloves and hat, and his bare fingers ran across the thick pomade slicking his blond curly hair tight to his scalp. “I’m here for you, Karta.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What? Here for me?”
“Exactly, here for you. Enough time has passed since father died. Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting a visit from me.”
“A visit…” Her words trailed off, her tongue at a loss for words. “It’s Christmastide, George. Shouldn’t you be with your family? Your brothers. Your wife? Your children?”
He waved his hand in the air. “The bat doesn’t care naught where I am, Christmastide or not. And it is time I took a present for myself.”
Her head shook slowly, trying to fight all the insinuations in his words. “A present—”
Domnall’s heavy footsteps on the staircase cut her words.
She looked up to him and he held a valise up. Where he had found it or what he had put in it, she hadn’t a clue, as she hadn’t packed a single thing.
“Your bag, Karta.” Domnall stepped down the last few stairs and set it next to the door.
George moved to stand in front of Domnall. “On further reflection, I was remiss in not thanking you for the assistance with what should have been my responsibility, Lord Kirkmere. And now that I have arrived, it only makes sense for Karta to stay here with me at the dower house, so her bag will not be necessary.”
Domnall stood straight, his words slow as his head tilted to the side. “But you have no staff.”
“I will recall them.”
“That will take days for how they are scattered through the countryside.” Domnall looked over his shoulder through the left side window and poked his thumb in the air. “Your cook, alone, is a three day carriage ride from here.”
“You seem to know much of the workings of my dower house,” George said.
“I know the area.” Domnall shrugged. “I must insist that you join us at Kirkmere Abbey.”
“I’m sure Karta can make a meal or two if necessary.”
Domnall stepped around George and aligned himself next to Karta. “I’m also sure that Karta would want to be at Maggie’s bedside as she recovers. She has been nowhere but there these last days.”
The left side of George’s mouth pulled back into a sneer. “A loyal employer.”
“The most.” Domnall nodded. “So I insist. You will come to Kirkmere, at least until the staff arrives back here from their celebrations.”
Karta glanced at George, a strained smile on her face.
Her stepson’s mouth twisted in a grumble, but then he nodded.
Thank the heavens.
Now she just had to make sure George was never in a room alone with Domnall. For if he was, if the two spoke, it was all over for her.
Domnall would never look at her the same again.
Chapter 10
Christmas Eve day had passed and she’d managed to avoid both Domnall, and more importantly, George.
Karta stood from her seat by Maggie’s bedside and stretched her arms high above her head, looking out the window into the darkness of the evening. The moon still big and bright and reflecting off the snow made it look like twilight, even though it’d been dark for hours. Her spine cracked in three places, indicative of the many hours she’d sat in there today.
Maggie had been in and out of fever the entire day. The stretches of lucid moments stretched longer and longer, though the doctor said she could slip back into full fever at any moment. Karta had tended Maggie’s head with cool wet cloths and set spoonful after spoonful of broth to her lips.
Karta twisted her torso, loosening the muscles along her sides. She needed bed and she needed to eat before she fell into exhaustion herself.
Now she just had to make it down to the kitchens without encountering anyone.
What her stepson hoped to accomplish here in Badenoch—if she’d taken his insinuation correctly—was beyond the pale.
Just because George knew her secret didn’t give him carte blanche to her body—something he’d clearly decided in the last six months he had every right to. He’d always made it known that he was entitled to anything and everything—from every scrub brush of the estate to the smallest crumb in the kitchens—and apparently, he had deemed himself entitled to her. Even though he had a wife and several mistresses, now he thought to own her as well.
Thank goodness Domnall had the good sense to extract her from the situation at the dower house. She just had to now figure out how to extract herself even further from George’s slimy clutches.
She could find a cottage on the far coast of the Isle of Skye—too far of a journey for even George. But she would need her thirds to afford that, and by using it, George would be able to follow her if he became determined. Plus,
she couldn’t disappear until Maggie was well enough to travel with her.
She could travel back to her father’s home, but George was such a frequent guest there that she would be serving herself up on a fine silver platter to him.
Or she could stay at the dower house and attempt to shut down his advances from there. It would be much easier if the full staff were present.
She wasn’t sure how far George would dare press her—but what she did know was that he’d never heard the word no in his life. That made him dangerous.
So for now, her best course was to stay at the abbey.
She moved away from Maggie’s bed, stopping at the closed door and listening. Not a sound in the hallway. Hopefully it was late enough that everyone had retired.
Slipping into the corridor, she pulled Maggie’s door closed and passed into the shadow of the sconce at the end of the hall toward the stairs. She made it down the steps and past the drawing rooms, library, study, dining hall and moved down the rear staircase to the kitchens. The door to the study had been ajar, a fire lit inside, but she didn’t stop to see who was in there. She most certainly didn’t want to encounter George, and she wasn’t yet ready to tackle Domnall.
Not yet.
He’d been a gracious enough host to George, but in every interaction she’d witnessed between the two men, she could see under Domnall’s strained smile that he wanted to crush George’s skull.
Domnall had restraint like no one she’d ever known.
She stood next to the table in the kitchen, reaching for a chunk of bread. Tearing off a piece, she popped it into her mouth. Still warm. Cook must have just taken it from the oven before retiring.
Karta turned, leaning against the table as she tore chunks and popped them into her mouth. Chewing silently, she stared at the glowing coals on the hearth.
“I thought I heard a little mouse scurrying about.”
Karta jumped, spinning around.
George advanced directly at her, stepping in front of her and blocking her path to the doorway. He wore only a night robe on his thin frame, the skin of his chest peeking above the top fold of cloth and his feet were bare on the stone floor of the kitchen.
“G—” She choked on the piece of bread stuck in her throat, coughing, slapping her chest until it wedged free and she managed to swallow it. “George. I thought the household was asleep.”
“It would bode well for us.”
“For us?” Her eyebrow cocked at him. “What do you mean, us?”
“Us. Don’t try to deny it, Karta. I knew it from the moment father brought you into Leviton Hall. You want me. You’ve always wanted me.” He took another step closer, closing in the distance between them. “And now that he’s dead, you can have me.”
He moved in so swiftly, so stealthily that she didn’t have time to react. His lips on her mouth, crushing hers. The stench of cognac about him, invading her nostrils. His hand gripping her right wrist, twisting it behind her until the bread fell from her hand.
“And I know how you like it. I know exactly what to—”
She wedged her left hand up, slapping him. Hard. The force of it tearing his lips from hers.
He sucked in a wicked breath and took a step backward.
“You’re delusional, George. I don’t want you. I never wanted you.”
“Not want me?” His hand went to his cheek, rubbing as his mouth twisted in fury. “You’ve always wanted me, so why not now?”
Karta edged along the table, her fingertips moving across the edge of the roughhewn wood, trying to gain the clear angle to the doorway. Run, scream, whatever it took to get away from her stepson’s madness.
George’s eyes went wide, rage flashing in his green eyes, his lips snarling. “Oh, it’s that brute, isn’t it?”
She froze in place. As much as she wanted to escape George’s clutches, she wasn’t about to let him disparage Domnall. Not in his home. Not ever.
A growl like she’d never heard from her lips laced her words. “He’s not a brute.”
“He’s a giant oaf.”
Both of her arms swung out, smacking him in the chest. He faltered two steps backward. “He’s gentle and respects me and he’s a thousand times the man you are.”
George’s hands whipped up and he snatched her wrists in the air, leaning over her, snarling. “Then I’ll tell him—I’ll tell him what you are. He doesn’t know, does he? If he did he wouldn’t give you the slightest glance.”
She bit her lip. “You cannot.”
“You think I’m not respectful? I think I am.” He threw her wrists down. “To prove it, I’ll give you one day. Think over what you truly want in life. What is actually attainable for you. Give me what is mine and I keep my mouth shut. Or don’t, and I tell him the truth and ruin you in his eyes. It’s your choice.” He took another step backward, his head nodding. “But I do imagine, either way, you’ll end up in my bed at the dower house, Karta.”
“You don’t have a bed at the dower house, George.”
A smirk snaked onto his lips. “I do now. One way or another.”
He left the room, the sickening stench of his pomade wafting out in the air behind him.
Chapter 11
Domnall opened the door of the Leviton dower house and peeked his head inside.
Silence.
For the quiet stillness, he wouldn’t have believed Karta had come back here again if not for one of his horses from Kirkmere resting in the stable. She had left the saddle on her mare, which told him she didn’t plan to stay for an extended period of time.
Or so he hoped.
He stepped into the foyer, quickly walking down the center hall of the house and finding all the rooms empty. A floorboard creaked above him and he reversed course and went up the stairs.
He pushed the door to Karta’s room wide open, only to find the top of her body buried deep in the wardrobe in the far corner of the room.
Leaning against the doorframe, he watched her backside for a long moment. Selfish leering, but he wasn’t about to apologize for it. “It’s Christmas day. What are ye doing here, Karta?”
She jumped with a squeak and spun to him, her hand flat on her chest. “Dom. Blast your damn stealth.” The words came with a screech.
“Apologies.” He couldn’t hide the smile on his face. “What are ye doing here, Karta?”
She pointed over her shoulder. “I actually did need some clothing to change into, since my valise that you brought back with us only contained a pillow.”
He shrugged with a grin. “It was the closest thing to snatch when I was up here. It took me too long to find the bag, so I grabbed the first thing I could find to plump it up. I wasn’t about to leave ye alone with Lord Leviton for a moment longer than necessary.”
A grin lifted her cheeks. “I presumed as much.”
“Ye could have sent me for your items—or Rory could have come.”
She shrugged. “There wasn’t a need. I saw Colin take George out for hunting and I thought it was a good time to escape.”
“Escape from me or escape from him?”
“Him.” A crooked smile crossed her lips and her look shifted to the side wall. “And maybe you.”
He straightened, his fingers curling into fists. “That bastard wants exactly what I think he wants from you, doesn’t he?”
She inhaled, her chest lifting high as her eyes met his. She nodded. “Yes.”
He turned and his fist went solid into the frame of the door. Pain shocked up his arm. Worth it. Worth every sharp twinge quaking along his bones.
“Dom.” Her breathless word floated through the air thick with rage surrounding him.
He didn’t lose control. Not like this. Not over anything.
Anything, except Karta.
With her, his control was always on the edge, always a thin glass pane, splintering and cracking bit by bit, waiting to break at the slightest vibration.
He seethed in a breath and then turned to her, shaking the shock fr
om his arm.
He’d had enough.
Whatever the reason that caused her to push him away, to run from him again and again, he needed to know. Now. “And why did ye need to escape from me?”
Her eyes wide, her head shook. “I didn’t want to face you, not today. Not alone.”
“Why not?”
Her head went down, her fingers twisting together in front of her belly. “I’ve been avoiding it since you brought me into the abbey and I was hoping for just another day—one more day, especially because it’s Christmas.”
“A day for what?”
Her head lifted and her golden brown eyes pinned him. “A day before I told you the truth.”
He reeled slightly backward. Not enough to force a step. But he reeled.
Almost imperceivable. But she saw it. She saw everything about him. She always had.
And Domnall didn’t reel. He didn’t sway. He was a block of granite that time and rain and ice could not touch.
Exactly why she didn’t want to have to do this. Tell him.
“Whatever it is, whatever truth you’ve been keeping from me, Karta, ye need to tell me. Now.”
Her eyes closed, her breath shaking into her chest as she tried to manifest strength she didn’t think she had.
Her eyelids cracked, her look steady on him. “When I told you I was different now, Dom, it is about who—about what I’ve become. About the things that happened with my husband.”
He took a forceful step into the room. “Ye told me he didn’t hurt you, Karta.” Rage quaked deep in his words.
Her hand flew up between them. “No. He didn’t. Not intentionally.”
He took another step toward her, moving within arm’s length. “Then why do I see shame in your eyes? You’re fighting something. Hiding something.”
“He died upon me, Dom.” The words flew out of her mouth, bitter spikes she shot into the air. “He died on me. In bed.”
Domnall froze, his eyes squinting at her. “He died with you in bed?” The words were slow, agonized.
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