Christ knew, Aidan's hands had been fairly burning to feel the bastard's throat beneath them, feel his fingers crushing the life out of the animal who had stalked those
Aidan Kane loved. Why was it, then, that he felt clinging fingers trying to hold him back? Why was it that he heard the faintest whisperings in the wind, a reproach in the rumble of thunder?
Why was it that he kept hearing Richard Farnsworth's mocking drawl, taunting him, slicing him with words as precisely honed as an assassin's stiletto?
It was insane, this tension biting into his gut, this pulsing instinct of danger that hovered over him, pressing on his chest more certainly than the stormy air.
Farnsworth was annoying, grating on his nerves. But he was Norah's stepbrother.
God, he had tried so hard to accept Farnsworth because of Norah. To endure him. Yet Aidan knew instinctively that if he had been at a gaming table with the man, he would have caught Farnsworth cheating or trying to stir up trouble.
What was it Farnsworth had said, with those eyes that seemed so guileless, hidden beneath their innocent mask?
Consider me responsible for anything that happens to your daughter from this moment on....
I would think a gambler the likes of you would know that life itself is one huge game, and the man who wins is the one willing to take the biggest risks....
When your daughter is with me, I vow she'll be as safe as if she were clasped to her mother's own breast....
They were the words of a pompous popinjay, weren't they? A harmless if irritating fool. One who had bumbled, sending Norah to Rathcannon... and then turned ap fortuitously with a stricken conscience after Cassandra had nearly been abducted.
Why? Aidan was damned certain Farnsworth hadn't come out of any devotion to his stepsister. Then why blaze his way into the wilds of Ireland? Ensconce himself in Aidan's castle? Endear himself to Aidan's daughter?
Why?
The thunder cracked, lightning shattering the sky into fragments of night.
Before half-blinded eyes, an image danced; Farnsworth rising to his feet amid dinner, stretching his stiff leg. His eyes had been hooded, something simmering beneath the lids.
How did you injure your leg? Cassandra's innocent question jolted through Aidan, followed by Farnsworth's reply.
I was racing about on a slick road with a green-broke team of horses and an ill-sprung curricle when it overturned. Lay on a cliffside for three full days.
No, this was madness, Aidan thought, leaning over his horse's neck, urging the animal to greater speed. Surely he couldn't believe... what? That Richard Farnsworth had more menacing reasons for coming to Rathcannon? Insinuating himself into Aidan's life? That Richard Farnsworth had had more nefarious motives for flinging his stepsister into Aidan's bed?
Aidan's mind filled with huge, dark eyes in a pale oval face, an uncertain smile tugging at lips that had never known a man's loving until he had kissed her, deeply, thoroughly, and lost his own soul. From the beginning, there had been something incongruous about Norah and the lovely bonnet that had perched on her dusky locks. What was it Aidan had thought in those frozen moments when he had seen her in the carriage circle? That she looked like a child got up in her mother's finery?
What had Norah said when she'd been attempting to smooth over Farnsworth's arrival at Rathcannon? That he had given her the gift of a trousseau. A nightgown fashioned of wispy lace and mist to tantalize a man's desires. Delicate gowns to set off Norah's quiet beauty, make a man want her.
Gowns Norah never would have chosen herself.
But Farnsworth had chosen them for her, bundled them into a trunk and sent her off to meet the husband he'd miraculously found to rescue her from the fate her stepfather had planned.
Coincidence. Aidan's fingers clenched the reins until the leather gouged into his gloved hands. This whole morass with Farnsworth was just coincidence. Just as it had been coincidence the night Aidan had sat by Cassandra's bed and told Norah the tale of Cassandra's necklace.
The necklace.
It's lovely, Norah had said, a tender wistfulness clinging in a web to her voice. It reminds me of one my mother once had, with miniatures of her and my father inside.
The necklace was a gift from one of Delia's lovers.... One of Delia's lovers...
A sudden shaft pierced Aidan's heart, crippling him with memories of a rain-slick road, screams—Delia's screams, Cassandra's screams...
What happened to the man driving the coach?
We never found him.
A carriage accident...I lay waiting for help for three days....
Jesus, God, it had been years since that storm-tossed nightmare. Eight years. If Farnsworth was indeed the man who had taken Delia on that wild midnight ride, he must have been planning his vengeance all that time. Honing it to hellish perfection. Seeking out Aidan's jugular, to tear with fangs of agony.
Cassandra.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, seeing Norah flinging herself into the arms of her beloved brother. Introducing him to a bedazzled Cassandra. Farnsworth bending over Cassandra's golden curls with an attentiveness that would have bewitched any girl straight out of the schoolroom. Most painful of all was the memory of Cassandra staring up at the polished Englishman with an adoring light in her eyes.
A hideous premonition jolted through Aidan, freezing his blood, twisting his nerves into a raw knot of terror deeper than he'd ever known.
Aidan drew rein on his mount, wheeling his massive stallion around. The rest of his men struggled to halt their horses, shouts of confusion echoing through the night as they battled not to crash into the riders nearest them.
"What be amiss?" Sean O'Day bellowed, all but toppling from a gray gelding.
"I have to go back to Rathcannon."
"But—have ye gone daft, sir? The villain you seek is at the inn."
Aidan hesitated, his gut clenched. What if he was wrong? What if the man he sought was at the Thorned Paw, and this crazed goose chase would only mean that his enemy had slipped farther beyond Aidan's reach?
"You go on. I'll ride back alone."
"Sir, I—"
"Just do as I command!" Aidan bellowed. Then he slammed his heels into his stallion's sides, the powerful beast surging down the shadowed ribbon of road as if the dark demons loosed the night Delia had died had returned.
It seemed an eternity before he reined his mount to a halt outside the castle doors. An eternity of agony, of sensing disaster pressing the air from his lungs, uncertainty sizzling black poison through his veins.
Yet the first glimpse of the haven he had made for his daughter by the sea shattered him, impaling him with a soul-crushing certainty.
Tear-streaked, desperate, the chambermaid Rose was attempting to help Calvy Sipes onto a horse, the footman in obvious agony and barely clinging to the animal's mane. When the girls' eyes locked on Aidan, a shriek of relief tore from her throat and she abandoned the footman, running toward Aidan's stallion, her skirt flying, her hand rummaging in her apron pocket.
"Sir Aidan! Thank God you've come back!"
The stallion danced on its massive hooves, but the girl flung herself against Aidan's stirrup.
"Where's Norah? Cassandra?"
"You have to help her! Th—They're gone! Merciful Mary, he took... took the young miss!"
"Who?" Aidan snapped. "Who took Cassandra?" But he already knew.
"Mr. Farnsworth. My lady rode out after them. She left you this. Told you to hurry."
The little maid thrust something toward him with one hand.
Aidan cursed at the writing, blurred in the darkness. Guiding his mount until it danced beneath the ring of light from a lantern, he wrenched open the book to the page marked by a note, his eyes raking down the paper.
His breath stopped. His heart slammed to his toes. Bile rose in his throat as Richard Farnsworth's hideous words spilled their venom into Aidan's veins. A devil's bargain, a pact with hell.
Three wagers...
&
nbsp; Sir Aidan Kane will take a wife.... That wife shall take another man to her bed.... Kane's daughter will be abducted by a fortune hunter....
They were diabolical, fiendish in their perfection—the cleaving away of Aidan's soul a knife stroke at a time.
His memory flooded with images: Norah, his miracle, his bride, Philip Montgomery in the garden, his hands all over her, pleading with her to let him become her lover, the danger that had lurked in that same garden, a predator waiting, trying to steal Cassandra away.... And Farnsworth, forever smiling that sly smile, taunting Aidan with his double entendres, his mocking quips, knowing... knowing what he had in store for the enemy he'd come to Ireland to destroy.
God, was it possible that Norah—his Norah—had any idea what she was a party to? That she had come here, knowing—
No. The denial was swift, sharp, relentless. The mere thought that he might suffer betrayal at her hand was too hideous to contemplate. Impossible to fathom. He dashed it away.
He grabbed up the note, the book tumbling from his hands. What he read was even more hideous than the wagers themselves. The bastard was mocking him with the fiendish glee of Satan himself.
"Where?" Aidan rasped. "Where did that bastard Farnsworth go?"
"I don't know. Maybe to Noonan's abandoned cottage."
Noonan's cottage—one more legacy of Kane treachery. The tenants had been flung out in his father's time while the wife was in an agony of labor, the young husband shot when, in his desperation, he had dared attack his lord and master. The knowledge that Cassandra's screams might even now be battering those same unfeeling walls was an irony that sickened Aidan. The knowledge that Norah—gentle, sweet Norah—had gone after his daughter wrenched his heart from his chest.
Oh, God, what chance could his ladylight have against a monster like Farnsworth if she could even manage to find him in the storm-darkened wilds that rippled out from Rathcannon?
It was as if he'd been hurled back, to the moment he realized Delia had taken Cassandra. His daughter was lost somewhere in the vast abyss of night.
Aidan cursed himself. Why hadn't he dragged Sean and the others back with him? Why? Injured, Calvy could barely cling to the horse's back, let alone wrest Cassandra from Farnsworth if he could find them. Any man who might be of use was riding hell for leather in the opposite direction.
"Rose, you have to go after Sean and the others. Bring them back to help me, damn it."
The girl trembled, her fingers knotting against her breast as she eyed Calvy's horse with fright. "I don't—don't know. About riding... horses..."
"You can do it, girl. I know you can," Aidan said. "Cass could be anywhere by now. I need Sean and the others to help me search every road and path."
With an oath, he turned and spurred his mount into the night-shrouded hills, his mind filled with agonizing images of Norah, so brave, so broken by her stepbrother's betrayal; Cassandra, frightened, helpless. Again. Just as she had been the night Richard Farnsworth had imprisoned her in a runaway carriage, hurtling toward the cliffs.
Aidan knew, with each beat of Hazard's hooves on the turf, each searing breath he dragged into his lungs, that Farnsworth's prediction at the dinner table that night would prove right. Tonight he would dice with the devil. But the wager was far greater than anything Aidan had ever risked. It was the soul of his daughter and, Aidan knew with blinding certainty, that of the woman he loved.
* * * * *
Lightning lashed the sky in delicate whip cords of light, yet that subtle torture was nothing in comparison to the savage raking of guilt that battered Norah with each beat of her horse's hooves. Each precious minute that slipped through her fingers was a separate agony—a minute in which her imagination tortured her with images of what Cassandra might be suffering at Richard's hands.
Every pulse of her heart shuddered through her in exquisite terror that Richard and the helpless girl she so loved might even now be racing in some other direction, to vanish until it was too late. Too late to spare Cassandra unspeakable horrors, too late to save Aidan from the diabolical destruction Richard had woven about him.
Cassandra... Dear God, the mere thought of the girl lost in this nightmare was agonizing beyond belief. The thought of what might be happening to that bright beautiful girl right now didn't bear thinking about, lest she go insane.
And it was Norah's fault—Norah who had stripped away Aidan's layer of protection, Norah who had brought Richard into Rathcannon, leaving Cassandra vulnerable.
Guilt battered her as she groped for the butt of Aidan's pistol, the smooth feel of the weapon reassuring her at least a little.
She reined in her horse, searching for the road Rose had spoken of, the darkness an enemy that writhed and coiled about Norah's very soul, jeering at her helplessness. She was just about to spur her mount on when a bolt of lightning picked out a narrow trace that might be a path, all but obscured by the underbrush struggling to reclaim it.
Norah hesitated for a moment, then reined her mount down the pathway, praying with every fiber of her soul that she wasn't making yet another costly mistake.
The path writhed, twisted, her horse stumbling over tangled roots that wound across the abandoned road. Panic coiled deeper into Norah's chest with the certainty that if she had taken the wrong turn, she might not be able to find her way back until daylight. Too late to aid Cassandra.
She all but sobbed with relief the instant she caught the first glimmer of light from deep in a hidden valley, the white hulk of a tumble-down cottage crouching in the crook of a hillside like a wounded beast.
Rotted, wood-framed windows peered out like empty sockets, eyes blinded to human suffering, pulsing terror, the horror that might even now be taking place in the room beyond.
Norah spurred her horse on faster, racing up to the building, flinging herself from her mount in the shadow of a dying hawthorn tree.
Splintered wood sliced her fingers as she grasped the cottage's door latch, flung the panel wide.
In a heartbeat, the scene in the chamber seared itself into her mind. Cassandra, huddled on a musty pallet, her skin painted in hellish hues by the flickering light of the oil lamp upon a rickety stool. Her golden hair tumbled about her face, bits of grass and leaves tangled in the strands, her gown a torn puddle on the dirt floor. The delicate cotton of her chemise drooped over one babe-soft shoulder. Silk cords bound her wrists, a nasty scrape on her elbow, a darkening bruise on her jaw.
While Richard, stripped to the waist, stalked her with an expression of distaste on his handsome features.
At the sound of the door crashing against the wall, Cassandra screamed. A stunned Richard wheeled to face the door, his haughty cheek scored with the glistening tracks Cassandra's nails had cut into his skin.
His hand flashed toward the pearl-handled pistol pillowed on his cast-off clothing. But suddenly he froze, recognition and stark astonishment registering in his eyes as they slashed from Norah's wind-tousled curls to the breeches that barely clung to her waist.
"I'll be damned," he muttered, his lip curling in dark amusement. "Who would have believed—"
"Richard, have you gone mad?" Norah demanded. "Let her go!"
"N—Norah!" Cassandra's cry pierced her heart. The girl fought against her bindings, trying to dart toward her, but she was trapped by Richard's tall frame.
"Not so fast, my dear," he said, taking up the pistol and jamming it in the waistband of his breeches. "We aren't quite ready to receive felicitations as yet—even from the stepsister who made our romantic liaison possible. But as soon as we get the unpleasant business of our bridal night over with..."
"No, you can't be married," Norah said. "You can't—"
"I intend to bed the chit first. In fact, I would already be finished with the infernal task if she hadn't managed to lunge off my horse and nearly escape me. She led me the devil of a chase, but I caught her and dragged her back. I promise you, she'll learn obedience once she is my wife." His hand swept up to the scratches o
n his cheek.
"I'll never marry you!" Cassandra choked out. "Norah, please help me!"
"Norah can't help you," Richard cut in with an ugly laugh. "Even if she was tempted, it wouldn't be in her best interests to do so. Once your precious father discovers her involvement in the wagers I made, he will hate her. She'll be cast off—utterly helpless, alone in the world. But you needn't fear for Norah's future, Cassandra. She will gain complete independence as a reward for her part in my plot—enough money from your handsome dowry to set her up quite comfortably."
Norah gaped at him. He seemed for all the world like a clever boy who expected approval for some cunning trick he had played. It sickened Norah, horrified her.
"Norah," Cassandra breathed in a tiny, broken voice. "You—you knew about what he was going to do?"
"No, angel. No." Norah said, her heart shattering.
"Of course she didn't," Richard scoffed. "I was the one who came across your letter. I was in control from the very first. The only thing I couldn't predict was that she would be fool enough to fall in love with a womanizing rakehell like your father. It complicated things in a most annoying fashion."
Norah sucked in a steadying breath, groping for some way to reason with this man, this stranger before her.
"Richard, let her go. Whatever demon is driving you to this terrible thing, you must know that Cassandra is innocent. She's a child. For mercy's sake—"
"Mercy? Don't preach to me about mercy! Her father left me to rot on a cliff for three days, broken on the stones, waiting for death to claim me. If I hadn't managed to crawl up the cliff face, I would have died. That bastard Kane wanted me to die."
"No. I don't believe it." Norah shook her head, trying desperately to grasp the threads of Richard's tale. "Aidan would never do such a hideous thing. You're not making any sense. What could Aidan have possibly had to do with your accident?"
"You want to know, little sister? I'll show you." He wheeled on Cassandra, his fingers catching hold of the necklace that dangled by a thin chain from her neck. He snapped the chain and flung the trinket down upon the hard-packed floor. The heel of his Hessian crashed down on the delicate bit of jewelry; a horrible cracking sound like snapped bones echoed through the room.