"And here I always thought that the dubious honor of damning the Gilpatricks had been usurped by my ancestors, Sergeant." Aidan flashed his most beatific smile, cursing himself for a fool, knowing the price he could pay for his sudden bout of insanity. The Crown was brutal to those foolhardy enough to shelter fugitives. Still, Aidan couldn't seem to help himself. He tsked condescendingly. "Of course, I dare say it is no wonder you haven't apprehended the scoundrel yet."
Even in the moonlight, Aidan could see the soldier's cheeks puff in outrage. "What do you mean by that, sir?"
"Just that you are going the wrong way."
"What?"
"I nearly trampled two men fitting your description five miles north of here, near the ruins of Castle Alainn. Dashed ugly wound in the whelp, I must say. Fed me some nonsense about his being gored by a bull while trespassing on someone's field."
"Are you quite certain?"
"You have my solemn oath as a gentleman that it's the God's truth! Damned annoying, the way the bastards trespass! By the way they act, you'd think the island belonged to them!"
"I'm not speaking of that, you f—" The commander choked off the words.
Aidan raised one brow and examined the tips of fingers encased in the butter-soft leather of his riding gloves. "If you don't mind me mentioning it, you're speaking a good deal too much. I fear that your quarry may be getting away. Of course, if you care to continue your search in this direction, by all means do so."
"Sir Aidan." A whey-faced little private with hero worship in his eyes kneed his mount forward. "I fear that Gilpatrick and his cohorts have been making things quite uncomfortable hereabouts. In fact, it's rumored that they are planning some vile skulduggery. Not that they'll ever get a chance to carry it out."
Aidan's hands tightened on his reins. Damn, what if the Irishmen were plotting some dark deed and he were allowing them to escape? "What exactly are they plotting?"
"We don't know exactly. We've only heard rumors and such. The vaguest of whisperings."
The vaguest of whisperings weren't enough to hand a man a death sentence, Aidan reasoned grimly.
The soldier was smiling at him, adoration in his eyes. "If you should hear of anything that might be of help in bringing him to justice, Sir Aidan, I am certain your loyalty to the Crown will be as devoted as it was during the Peninsular campaign."
"I assure you, the depth of my... loyalty never wavers. Please, do inform me if you arrest the miscreants. I should so loathe to miss the spectacle of a hanging."
"Never fear. We'll run the bastards to ground. We know how to deal with traitors to the Crown." The sergeant shot Aidan an insolent salute, meant to convey exactly what he thought of the infamous wastrel who had so shamed a hero's laurels.
Aidan affected a bored grin until the sound of hoofbeats disappeared; then, with an oath, he wheeled his stallion and set it at a run toward the place where the Irishmen had been hiding.
He was out of the saddle the instant he reached the makeshift shelter, wondering how the devil he was going to get the wounded lad to safety, wondering why the devil he should even attempt it.
"Gilpatrick, the soldiers are gone," Aidan snapped, stalking toward the shelter. "You can swallow your goddamn Irish pride for once and let me hel—"
He slammed to a halt, stunned as moonlight drifted over the clump of brush, illuminating nothing but tangled branches, a dark void. Swearing, Aidan thrust his hand into the center of it, his skin scratched by bits of bark and thorn, gritty dirt dusting his fingertips. Dirt, and something wet, clinging to his skin.
Blood.
But there was no other sign that anyone had taken shelter in the copse of underbrush.
"Damn your eyes," Aidan snarled into the darkness, his gaze slashing about him, seeking some hint of where Gilpatrick and his wounded compatriot had fled to. "Let me help you! The boy will never last."
But only the wind whispered an answer, mocking Aidan, taunting him. Damn the Irish, they could melt into the hills themselves when they wished it.
Aidan stood up, furious, feeling as if he'd been trapped there forever, caught between the English soldiers at his back and the Irish cupped in the palm of the sheltering night. He belonged to neither, was loathed by both, held in contempt.
Nearly as much contempt as Aidan had for himself.
He swore as he grasped the reins of his stallion and swung up into the saddle. The devil take them all, then. Just as the devil was bound to take him.
Aidan tightened his knees about Hazard's sides and urged the stallion into flight. He plumbed deep to the hard, reckless part of himself. Let the whole lot of them plunge into the sea. He had more important matters to tend to.
He had to prepare for a wedding.
He grimaced.
Unless he had already convinced the bride that allowing Sir Aidan Kane to slip his ring on her finger would be the biggest mistake of her life.
CHAPTER 6
How did one greet a suspected murderer over a plate of scones and clotted cream? The absurd question tugged at Norah as she hovered outside Rathcannon's breakfast parlor.
I see that you are reading the London Times, Sir Aidan. Are there any edifying pieces on the most propitious time to bury corpses beneath the rosebushes? Or, better still: I received the most intriguing message last night. I do believe the droll fellow was attempting to tell me you killed your wife. Do confess if you did!
It was insane, absurd. The perfect coup de grace in an entire night of madness. Madness or the most ridiculous bout of melodrama Norah had ever indulged in.
She grimaced, berating herself for the all-too-vivid imagination she had nurtured as a lonely child. Hour after hour last night, she had lain in the huge bed that had belonged to Aidan Kane's first wife, her gaze flicking time and again to the silver jewel box where she had stashed the mysterious note, her heart hammering.
Norah had even considered attempting to move the armoire in front of the door joining her chamber to Kane's in an effort to block his entry, but she'd doubted she could move the heavy piece of furniture alone, and she'd supposed it would be a trifle awkward to roust up the irrepressible chambermaid and ask for assistance.
Pardon me, Rose, could you help me barricade myself in this bedchamber? You see, I suspect that your master might be a murderer.
The thought of such a ridiculous scenario had finally driven Norah to clamp her eyelids resolutely shut. After all, Aidan Kane could hardly murder her on the first night, could he? Cassandra would be bound to ask questions if the bride she'd provided her father were found dead. Besides, Norah had reasoned with grim optimism, even if he were a murderer, Kane had been married to his first wife a long while before he'd done her in. Norah had barely known him a day—hardly enough of an acquaintance to be worthy of homicide.
And yet, as slumber had overtaken Norah, she'd been forced to admit that it wasn't the specter of some murdering fiend that danced upon her nerves like a razor's edge. It was the image of a man with a far more subtle weapon, one more dangerous than anything Norah had ever known.
Eyes that taunted, that challenged, that seduced. A mouth cast with a blatant sensuality that made promises to the secret wanton who lurked in the heart of every woman.
She had been haunted by dreams of that dangerous, beguiling face, cleansed of dissipation by the touch of loving hands. She had been mesmerized by the image of the hard, cynical light in those green eyes shattering, exposing the man who lay beneath Aidan Kane's dissolute facade.
She had awakened with her skin damp and excruciatingly sensitive beneath her nightgown, her nipples tingling as if the fingers of her dangerous lover had left their spell on her forever. She'd sprung out of bed as if she could shed those sensations as easily as the bedclothes. Then she had attempted to put some small mark of normalcy on the morning by crossing to Delia Kane's escritoire.
There, she had penned the letter she had promised Richard what seemed an eternity before, her throat aching at the memory of his earnestne
ss and concern as he'd pleaded that she let him know when she arrived safely at her betrothed's home.
It had been too painful to imagine his distress over the disastrous situation she had fallen into, so she had merely written that she was safely at Rathcannon and that he was not to worry. She had sealed the missive and grimaced, certain she would be doing enough worrying for both of them.
She doubted she'd have come downstairs at all, were it not for the necessity of posting the letter. She ran nervous fingertips over the paper's edge, excruciatingly aware of how silly she must appear, hovering outside the door.
Even with sunshine spilling across Rathcannon's corridors and Cassandra's excited chatter echoing from the breakfast room, Norah was appalled to feel a heavy warmth spread across the tops of her breasts as Sir Aidan's deep chuckle rumbled from the chamber. Her tongue stole out to moisten lips that were suddenly trembling.
No. This was absurd, she struggled to reassure herself. Even when she confronted Aidan Kane face to face, the man wouldn't have a clue about the cryptic warning she had received, nor about the scandalous things she had dreamed of: his hands stripping away her gown, his mouth searching out the dips and hollows of her naked body, where heat pooled, an untamable need to be tasted...
"So are you going to join us, or should I have your breakfast served here in the corridor?" The deep male voice made Norah nigh jump out of her skin. She glanced up to see Aidan Kane lounging in the doorway, one tanned hand braced on the door frame, a bedazzling grin turning his face into a study in raw masculine beauty.
A quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet whispered through Norah's mind: One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Her eyes widened, and she took an instinctive step backward, as if to avoid a shower of sparks. Dazed, Norah struggled to form a coherent reply, but once again Kane had taken her completely off guard.
"You're late for breakfast, Miss Linton," he observed. "You must've been sleeping like the dead." An unfortunate choice of words. Norah caught her lips between her teeth in an effort to keep another bubble of melodrama from washing away her hard-won sense of logic.
Kane seemed oblivious to her unease. He stunned her by capturing her empty hand in his and raising it to his lips. He chuckled as she snatched her fingers away from the moist silk of that mouth that had invaded her dreams. "I do hope you found your chamber comfortable."
"Comfortable?" Norah choked out. With whisperings of murder clinging to the shadows? With her own indecent imaginings taunting her?
She would have had a far more restful sleep if he'd bound her to a bed of thorns.
"I—I slept just fine," Norah lied hastily, stuffing both her hands behind her as if half expecting him to take possession of them again. The letter crinkled in her hand, and one of Kane's diabolically dark brows shot up.
"I hope that is not intended for me? A letter of farewell?" He seemed genuinely concerned as he drew the missive from her hand.
"No! I wrote to my stepbrother to let him know—know I had arrived."
"And that you'd been met in the carriage circle by the castle ogre?" He leveled a self-deprecating smile at her, one purely dripping with potent male charm.
"No, I... there seemed no need to... to—" To what? a voice jeered inside her. Tell Richard that she was under the roof of a man who might be a murderer? A man who wanted nothing to do with a wife?
"I intend to make certain that you will have a great deal to write to your brother in the future." There was husky promise in that honeyed voice.
At the slight sound from the far end of the corridor, he angled a glance to where the bright-eyed Rose was industriously polishing the marble toes of a statue of Perseus.
"Rose?" Kane beckoned to the chambermaid. The girl's saucy smile froze as she glimpsed the object in his hand. Unease tickled the back of Norah's neck as the cheeky girl hung back a little, wary, her fingers twisting the buffing cloth.
"Sir Aidan?"
"Have this letter posted for Miss Linton. It seems her brother is anxious to know she has arrived in one piece."
"But I—I know nothin' about such like, not bein' able to read. Calvy Sipes could do it."
"As long as someone does. At once."
Rose took the letter and bobbed a curtsy, then hastened away.
"There. That should ease your stepbrother's mind. Do you think it would help if I penned a letter myself?" The timbre of Kane's voice dropped just a whisper, roughening just enough to set Norah's pulse racing. "A man likes to know a woman he cares about will be well taken care of when she leaves his protection."
Norah stared at Kane, unnerved, confused. The man acted as if yesterday's disaster had never happened. He had never stood in the carriage circle bellowing at his daughter, hadn't raged at Norah for her rashness, then stormed into her bedchamber to lay out a most indecent proposal.
That angry, sullen, sensual man with his hot eyes and rumpled clothes had been replaced by an Aidan Kane whose dark hair fell in silken contrast to the hard lines of a clean-shaven face, whose impeccable breeches were molded to his thighs and whose dark coat fit his broad shoulders to perfection.
But it was the flashing smile that made Norah feel even more disoriented than she had when he'd nearly kissed her in the bedchamber last night. It was a smile that reminded her of tropical plants she had read of, so beautiful they lured the unwary to touch their petals, but deadly dangerous beneath that exotic allure.
The image was brushed aside by a vision in white dimity and angel-gold curls as Cassandra darted out of the breakfast parlor.
"Miss Linton!" she cried. "You will never guess what a wonderful day we are to have! Papa has agreed to take us on an outing to the Tinmartin fair, so that the two of you can become better acquainted! We're to have a picnic, and if we see something pretty he shall buy us both presents."
Norah glanced from the girl's face to Kane's. The man's eyes were all innocence, but his mouth curved with a knowing expression, one that set all Norah's instincts on edge. "A fair?"
Kane shrugged one shoulder with lazy amusement. "The child has always been diverted by them. Nothing Cass likes better than gorging herself on pastries, robbing my pockets to buy herself ribbons and hovering around the gypsy carts, sniffing their musty herbs and begging for tales of their witchery."
"The gypsies have the most wondrous things of all. Bright ribbons and magic herbs, potions and balalaikas that make the most lovely music."
"They're thieves, every one of them. I can't imagine why I continue to allow them to strip me of my coin. But perhaps this time I shall find something useful in their carts."
"What could you possibly want from the gypsies?" The question tumbled from Norah's lips of its own volition.
Kane's gaze caught hers with an intimacy that made her quiver with a pulsing heat that reminded her all too clearly of the feel of Kane's breath, hot and filled with dark promise against the tingling curve of her lips.
"What could I want from the gypsies?" he echoed, in a seductive voice. "Perhaps a love potion to enchant my betrothed."
"I'm not your betrothed!" Norah cried, flinging a dismayed glance from that meltingly sensual grin to Cassandra's brightening face. "Sir Aidan, I thought we'd discussed—" She pressed cold fingertips to cheeks hot as fire, angry and discomfited, confused and infuriatingly prey to the shivers of attraction sizzling through her veins. "It's not necessary..."
Those green eyes skated over her face with a caress so sensual she felt as if she'd been touched by Kane's fingertips. "I'm quite certain Tristan and Isolde didn't think a potion was necessary either, before they mistakenly sipped the cup that was to bind them," he said.
"Bind them? Or send them to their doom?" Norah barely knew the words had escaped her, so stunned was she that the cynical knight even knew of the star-crossed lovers. But then she supposed that to be a successful rakehell, a man would have to know the secrets of feminine hearts. And there were few things more likely to put a woman in a sentimental mood than a tale of l
ove so beautiful it had clung to people's imaginations for generations.
She was jarred from the thought by Cassandra clasping her hands together in girlish delight. "Oh, but Tristan and Isolde shared the most wonderfully romantic doom, Miss Linton!" the girl enthused, proving Norah's theory about the effect of such tales on the feminine sex by heaving a dazzled sigh. "They both fought so desperately not to love each other, struggled not to betray Isolde's husband, but the potion was so strong they could not fight it." The girl's face shifted to an odd expression, bemused, a little eager, as she echoed, "They could not fight it."
Norah turned away.
The ancient story of impossible love had haunted her from the first time she'd heard it. Honorable Tristan, escorting his liege lord's intended bride to Cornwall. Isolde, the Irish princess whose mother had so wished for her daughter's happiness in marriage that she had secretly sent a love potion along with Isolde's maid. The servant had been instructed to slip the potion—a potion destined to meld the lovers' spirits in a fiery passion unbreakable even by death —into the bride and bridegroom's cup when the party reached Cornwall.
But tragic Isolde had not shared that cup with the husband her family had chosen for her. Instead, she and Tristan had unknowingly partaken of its sweet poison, condemning them forever to a love so fierce, so tragically beautiful, that the tender-hearted still wept over it though thousands of years had passed.
Norah looked away, a quiet sorrow closing about her heart at the memory of herself as a child, dreaming of such soul-deep love. But she'd learned since that such love was for other girls, not for her.
"Cass, if I intend to woo the lady, I suppose I would have been wiser to choose a different tale," Sir Aidan said, his voice tinged with soft amusement and some other more subtle emotion she couldn't name. "One with a happy ending. After what happened to those two poor unfortunates, the mere suggestion of love is enough to send one fleeing into the night. Is it not, Norah?"