He tipped his head to one side, his expression puzzled.
“I should give anything to dance in the streets,” she said. “But I’ll never do it. I shall fall in love, if I’m lucky, and I shall marry the poor fellow because I must not disgrace the family. I’ll turn into somebody’s wife and the mother of his children, and I shall never be anybody else or do anything else. Unless, of course, he dies and leaves me a wealthy widow and I can carry on as Great-Grandmama did—but no, I can’t do that, either, because women can’t do that anymore—or if they do, they must be much more discreet, and I’m hopeless at being discreet.”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t understand. What man would or could? Even he saw her first as a woman and second—or forty-second—as Olivia. Or maybe he didn’t distinguish.
“What do you want?” he said softly. “What do you really want? Do you know?”
I want you, nitwit. But that was like her, to want to leap over the cliff when there were perfectly good, safe meadows to play about in.
Even she wasn’t so reckless, though, as to aggravate an already difficult situation by telling him she was—What? Infatuated?
She looked out at the world below them.
This was the highest point for miles about. She could make out the outlines of houses, faint twinkles of light in their windows, in the villages nestled in the valleys beyond. On a height not far away stood another castle. Starlight and moonlight bathed the scene. The cool wind rippled across her skin and lifted the ringlets fashionably framing her face. The brisk breeze felt wonderful.
“For a start, I want something like this,” she said. She waved her hand over the silvery landscape. “Magic. Romance. The way I felt when I first saw this castle, when I stepped into the great hall. What do you think I want? You know me. Who but Mama knows me better? You know I want to be swept off my feet.”
He looked out at the moonlit landscape and up at the moon and the sparkling cloud of stars.
“You silly girl,” he said.
She turned away from the parapet and laughed and threw up her hands. He’d never change. Romance wasn’t facts. She might as well have talked to the moon and stars. They’d understand better than he ever could. To him, she spoke a foreign language—from the moon, probably.
He pushed away from the wall and held out his hand. “Come, it’s cold up here.”
Practical as always. But that was who he was, and he was her friend. He couldn’t help doing what he did to her. She knew he truly didn’t mean to.
In any event, she was a selfish wretch to keep him up here. He wasn’t used to the climate. Since he was probably chilled to the bone, he’d think she was, too. He only wanted to take her back inside, out of the wind. Protective.
She took his hand.
He tugged, and she lost her balance, and he pulled her into his arms. The next she knew, she was bent backward, one muscled arm under her waist and the other round her shoulders. Her arms went up, instinctively, to circle his neck. She looked up into his face. He was smiling a little, looking into her eyes. His were pure silver in the moonlight.
“Swept off your feet,” he said, in the same low voice. “Like this, do you mean?”
Chapter 12
It was the moonlight and the starlight and the silver in his eyes and the sound of his voice. He’d swept her into his arms and swept away thought.
“Yes,” she said. Exactly like this.
“What else?”
“Think,” she said.
“Passionate kisses, I suppose.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Dangerous.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Reckless girl,” he said. “What folly.” He bent his head and kissed her.
Perhaps it had seemed like playacting. It wasn’t, couldn’t be. There was no laughter in his voice or in his eyes and nothing lighthearted in the touch of his lips. But then he wouldn’t be playing, because Lisle didn’t. He didn’t pretend. She was easily false. He was never false.
His mouth wasn’t feigning. It was firm on hers, pressing until she gave way, and she did, instantly. His kiss, hot and insistent, took up where they’d left off. The feelings remained. All the talking and logic in the world couldn’t banish them. They’d seethed, hour after hour, waiting to be let loose again.
Unfinished business. They should have left it unfinished, but it—whatever drew them together—refused to subside quietly.
And the truth was, she didn’t want it to go away. She didn’t want it to stop.
She could taste the wine he’d drunk, and that only enhanced the taste of him, and that was the taste she’d craved. She’d waited a lifetime for this, for him.
Yes, she was swept away. It was like drinking in the moon and the stars and the magic of the night. It was like flying into the moon and the stars.
Don’t let go. Don’t ever let me go.
Her arms tightened around his neck and he pulled her up and against him, and staggered back against the parapet. This time his hands moved more quickly and surely than before. He drew away her shawl and broke the kiss to trail his mouth downward, along her jaw. Wherever his lips touched, they left heat, all the way down her throat until they touched the bared skin of her breast.
She felt the quivering excitement all the way down, and she couldn’t keep back the sound, a mingled cry and moan. This was one thing she couldn’t master or control. It caught her up, a dizzying whirl of sensation, as his lips glided over her breast.
Then his hands were there, cupping her breasts. She started to cry out, but his mouth covered hers again. The fierce kiss silenced her, and she surrendered, utterly, happily, sinking into a sea of feelings, and glad to drown there.
She moved her hands eagerly over his powerful arms and shoulders and back. He was warm and strong, and she couldn’t get enough of touching him; she couldn’t get close enough.
He moved his hands lower, and in the night’s quiet, the rustle of her skirts sounded like thunder. But that was only her heart, beating and beating with happiness and fear and an excitement so intense that she ached with it.
This time he pulled up her skirts more quickly than he’d done before, less patiently. His hand, so warm, slid up her thigh and swiftly found the opening of her drawers.
The intimate touch was a shock, but she’d waited a lifetime to be shocked like this. The warmth of his hand, cupping her there, so intimately, possessively, and the way it felt, so wicked and delicious and mad-making all at the same time. She moved against his hand because she had to. Something inside, in the tight place in her belly, compelled her.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.
She couldn’t speak but she could act the words, her tongue tangling with his while her body moved against his hand. Then he slid his finger inside her and she thought she’d fly to pieces. If he hadn’t been kissing her, she would have screamed.
He stroked her there, the place whose secrets only she knew, but he knew them, every one, and more. Everything inside her was vibrating. All the feelings gathered up, like a flock of birds, and spread their wings and shot up into the heavens, the way the birds had done this day, from this same tower, and her body shuddered, as though it was her soul that had flown up, up, into the stars.
Then she knew what had to be. Every cell of her body knew.
She’d been moving her hands over him, over the muscles of his arms and over his back and down over his buttocks. Now she found the flap of his trousers, and fumbled for the buttons. He moved a little to give her room, while he stroked her still, more urgently, and she nearly fell back, wracked with pleasure. But her hands moved instinctively, and she pushed one button from the buttonhole.
When she heard the sound she thought at first that she’d made it. Then she realized it wasn’t her and it wasn’t the
crows shrieking.
Someone was screaming.
A chilling, soul-shriveling shriek.
Lisle’s head came up, and the world spun about him. A black and silver world. Stars, millions of them.
A woman in his arms, so warm and soft.
Olivia, her face luminous in the moonlight, and her breasts, pearly white, thrusting proudly from the bodice of her dress.
The thick red haze in his mind cleared, as though a cold wind had blasted through it.
His hands on warm, slick—
No. Not again.
He pulled his hand out from under her dress, and her skirts fell back into place.
He pulled up the bodice, stuffing her breasts back inside. What else? Her shawl . . . Where? There. He snatched it up and wrapped it about her.
He did it all quickly, instinctively. No time to think first. He was used to that. But what . . . ?
Screaming. More. Where?
He looked down over the parapet. In the courtyard, figures ran about.
Think.
No bodies on the ground.
Good. That was good.
He started toward the door to the stairway.
“Lisle, your trousers.”
He looked down. “Damn me. Damn me to hell.” He fastened the button. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dunce.”
“Never mind,” she said. “Never mind.”
She was arranging her clothing. Because of him. He’d done that. Disarranged her. What was wrong with him?
“I have to deal with this first,” he said. “But—”
“Go,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
It took a while for Lisle to penetrate the hysteria and make any sense of what had happened. Some gibbered about cutthroats and some wailed about intruders and some shrieked about ghosts and some were simply bewildered.
Eventually, he and Olivia managed to herd everyone back into the castle. That would have been more difficult had the servants been able to take refuge elsewhere. Some had fled to the stables, but he doubted they’d stay. It was too cold, and the area was too exposed. If they had any sense, they’d come back to huddle with the others.
Sure enough, by the time he and Olivia had settled the ladies in front of the fire, with large glasses of whiskey, all of the servants had gathered in the great hall.
Safety in numbers.
He noticed that the servants had not, as previously, gathered under the minstrels’ gallery in what used to be the screens passage. Instead they’d drawn nearer to the opposite end of the room where the great fireplace stood.
As one would expect, most of them didn’t know what had happened. When the screaming started, they’d simply panicked and run.
It took patience as well as Olivia’s help with the questioning, but eventually he ascertained that Lady Cooper had screamed first. The others had taken it up without knowing what they were screaming about.
At present she was arguing with Lady Withcote about what she’d seen.
“It was a ghost,” Lady Cooper said. “I saw it, as plain as day. Up there.” She waved her glass at the other end of the hall. “In the minstrels’ gallery.”
Every head turned that way and looked up. There was nothing to see. The gallery was dark.
“What did it look like?” Lisle said.
“It looked like a ghost, all white and shadowy,” Lady Cooper said. “Filmy. Like a fog. It flitted across the gallery.”
Several servants shuddered.
“What nonsense,” said Lady Withcote. “I know what happened. You fell asleep, as you often do, and dreamed it.”
“I know when I’m asleep and when I’m awake. I didn’t dream anything!”
“How long was it there?” Lisle said.
“It was never there,” Lady Withcote said.
Lady Cooper glared at her friend. “It was there,” she said. “Some of the servants saw it, too. I’m not sure how long it remained. It might have been hovering there for some time, watching us.”
More shudders.
“When I looked up,” Lady Cooper went on, “there it was. I screamed. What else should I do? What would anyone do? One hears of such things, but never with my own eyes had I seen a ghost, in the flesh.”
“Really, Agatha, it could hardly be in the flesh. What nonsense you talk.”
“You screamed, too, Millicent.”
“Because you frightened me out of my wits. I thought it was bloodthirsty Scots come to kill us. Then you raced out of the hall and out of the door, into the night, and half the servants after you, in a panic. I didn’t know what to think. Had your petticoat caught fire?”
Lisle glanced at Olivia.
That was to say, he glanced toward where she’d last been. She wasn’t there.
He looked wildly about the great hall. Despite the ample supply of candles, its corners were dark. How easy it would be, he realized, for an intruder to slip in among the others, unnoticed in all the confusion. How easy to snatch someone—
But no, what was he thinking? Anyone who tried to snatch Olivia was in for a surprise.
He’d hardly thought it when a light appeared in the darkness, coming from overhead at the north end of the great hall. He turned his gaze upward.
Olivia stood in the gallery, a small branch of candles in her hand. Every eye turned that way.
Trust her to make a dramatic entrance.
“Whatever was or wasn’t here before,” she said, “there’s nothing here now.”
She moved to the center of the gallery, in front of the arched window recess. She set the candelabra down upon a table someone had placed there. Bathed in candlelight, her hair glowing red-gold, she stood in the posture of a queen: head up and shoulders back, completely unafraid. A fanciful man might imagine an ancient ancestress adopting such a pose as she urged her vassals to defend the castle at all costs.
“There’s nothing here,” she said again. “No ghostly vapor trails. No muddy footprints. Nothing at all.”
Lady Cooper’s voice broke the spell. “But I saw it, dear, plain as day.”
“I don’t doubt you saw something,” Olivia said. “A bird might have flown in through one of the broken windows. A prankster might have found a way in, too.”
She paused for a moment, to let that sink in.
Then, “Bailey, fetch me a broom and a length of muslin,” she said.
While the maid went on her errand, Lisle became aware of the atmosphere changing, the mindless fear melting away. From petrified silence, the audience relaxed into a low murmuring.
In a few minutes, Bailey appeared in the gallery with broom and cloth. Olivia gave her the candelabra and sent her out. The gallery was in darkness once more.
Shortly thereafter, Lisle heard a soft rustling. Then a white something billowed at the rail of the gallery.
He heard a collective intake of breath.
“All one need do is stand in the doorway, with a length of thin cloth on the end of a long stick,” came Olivia’s voice from the darkness.
“Good heavens!” Lady Cooper cried.
More murmuring from the servants. A little laughter.
After a time, Lady Withcote said, her satisfaction plainly audible, “Well, it only goes to show how easily one may be gulled.”
“But who would do such a thing?” Lady Cooper said.
“The sort who like to play pranks,” said Lady Withcote. “The world never lacks that sort.”
Olivia reappeared in their midst as abruptly as she’d disappeared. She came forward to stand in the full light of the fireplace.
Though Lisle knew it was dramatic effect, she took his breath away. She looked almost unearthly, standing before that enormous fireplace, backlit by the flames that played over
the red curls, the creamy skin, the heavy silk of her gown.
She remained in her Chatelaine of the Castle persona, Lisle saw, hands loosely folded at her waist, spine straight.
“It was a silly prank,” she said to the company. “More than likely, a few local boys wanted a laugh at the Londoners’ expense. They must have thought it a fine joke, watching everyone running about, shrieking in terror.”
“Who can blame them?” Lady Withcote laughed. “It was comical, you must admit, Agatha. Put me in mind of the trick Lord Thorogood played on his wife. Do you recall?”
“How could I forget? They said her lover couldn’t raise a shaft for a week afterward, he had such a fright.”
While they continued their bawdy reminiscences, Olivia sent the servants about their business. She called Nichols and Bailey aside and told them to check all the rooms and passages. That would reassure anybody who feared that the intruders were still in the castle.
When bedtime came, she said, she wanted calm and order. “Drug them if you have to,” was her final command.
They departed on their assignment.
Soon thereafter, the ladies staggered off to their beds.
That left Olivia and Lisle in the great hall.
She stood gazing at the fire. The firelight gilded her hair and glowed a soft pink in her cheeks and the sight made his heart ache.
What am I going to do? he thought. What am I going to do about her?
“That was wonderfully quick thinking,” he said. “You brought everyone to their senses in a matter of minutes.”
“It didn’t want thinking,” she said. “I’ve created ghosts often enough. I’ve even conducted séances. It’s easy.”
“The performance shouldn’t have surprised me,” he said. “But it did.”
“Surely you can’t have thought I believed in ghosts,” she said.
“You’re romantic.”
“Yes, but not gullible.”
No, not gullible or naïve or innocent. She’d never been any of those things. Or inhibited or squeamish. Or anything like any other woman he’d ever known.
It came into his head and into his blood all at once: her quick passion, the softness of her skin, the taste and scent of her, the curves of her body, and the heat raced through him, making his head spin.