The Pleasure of the Rose Read online

  Rosalyn raised an eyebrow. A plan? She didn’t believe him for a minute. “But it does concern me, Geddes. I cannot simply consent; I’d feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter.”

  He took her hands and gave them a brotherly squeeze. “Things will work out, Rosalyn. They always do.”

  • • •

  Fletcher wrapped the cord of the expensive silk robe around his waist and crossed to the window. It was black as pitch outside and a cold wind howled angrily, rattling the windows. Damned weather. Aboard ship, he had learned that the wind was the island’s most constant visitor just as it was a ship’s most welcome one. Here, it barreled down from the north where there were fjords and icebergs, with wicked glee sent with it clouds of cold mist and fog.

  He shivered and poured himself a glass of whisky—his third or fourth, he’d lost count. His mind was going numb, but not numb enough. What in the hell was he doing here? For the first few weeks he’d had to gather his strength; the fever and the trip over had been hard on him. Though he had always felt he was strong and could handle most anything, he discovered he did not have sea legs and perhaps never would. And he analyzed everything. He began to wonder at the price he’d paid to get out of prison. Geddes had promised that Duncan, Gavin, and Kerry would be found, but what if they weren’t? He couldn’t stay here, living in luxury, when the safety of his siblings was unknown. He didn’t care what he would lose by leaving, he would have to go and search for them himself.

  Because he had no information about them, his mind became filled with all of the horrible possibilities. Again he wondered if Grandfather had died. If so, what would the children do? What were they doing at this very moment? Were they cold? Homeless? Ill? He swore and gripped the snifter so tightly he heard it crack.

  And now, with him thousands of miles away, how would he ever know what had happened if word never arrived? It had eaten at him for weeks.

  He questioned if he’d accepted the freedom Geddes had given him just to get himself out of the bind he was in. He hadn’t thought much beyond that, but what choice had he had? It was either accept Geddes’s offer and hope that the children could be found, or stay and be hanged, abandoning them forever. It was his fault entirely. He cursed himself for falling under Lindsay’s spell.

  He finished off the whisky in the cracked snifter, enjoying the buzz that blurred his brain. As he made his way back to the bed he wondered how in the hell he was going to sleep—his demons were strong, his conscience and the memories of a woman who had tempted him ate at him, and no amount of whisky seemed to diminish either one.

  • • •

  Rosalyn dreamed of sex. She dreamed of wanting it; she dreamed of needing it. When she woke, her fingers were at the apex of her thighs. “No.” She hissed the word, making it sound like a curse. Then, slowly, she touched herself. She needed this. She closed her eyes and felt herself bloom. She lay there, satisfaction imminent.

  Suddenly something, a sound, intruded upon her pleasure. She stopped and listened.

  It was him. He was shouting.

  She threw back her covers, rushed from the bed, and ran down the hallway. There was another sound, as pain-filled and frightening as the first. She flung open the door and stepped inside.

  He lay thrashing on the bed, mumbling and murmuring.

  Fearing his fever had returned, she closed the door and hurried to his bedside. “Your Grace?”

  He was restless almost to the point of agony.

  She touched his forehead. He was sweating, but he was not feverish. “Your Grace?” she said again, hoping to awaken him without startling him.

  He grabbed her arm; she tried to jerk away but he was too strong.

  “My fault,” he murmured.

  “Sir?”

  “Lindsay! Don’t leave me,” he hissed.

  “Nay, ’tis Rosalyn.” Her heart drummed against her ribs.

  The moon appeared from behind the clouds, the pale light gliding across the room like a stealthy shadow.

  “Lindsay, please…” he said again.

  Rosalyn shook him, wanting to wake him from his nightmare. His hands gripped her shoulders and he pulled her toward him. “Lindsay.” He sounded relieved.

  Rosalyn struggled against him, attempting to free herself.

  “You’re here,” he murmured, threading his fingers through her long, loose hair. “You’re alive!” He reached up and touched her face, running a finger along her jawline. “One last kiss before I die…”

  His kiss was gentle, yet filled with a raw pain that Rosalyn felt deep in her soul. Oh, by the holy, it felt so good. She pressed her hands to his chest and gave herself up to the kiss, mindless of the consequences. All she knew was that she wanted his touch everywhere. She needed to be gratified.

  His hands began to roam her body and reality came screaming back to her. “Your Grace,” she whispered. “Please.”

  His lips found hers again and he kissed her, using his tongue, forging a path into the intimate recesses of her mouth. Unable—or perhaps unwilling—to resist, she opened for him. He tasted of whisky, tangy and sweet, his tongue wet and smooth as it circled hers. She took hold, imprisoning it, sucking on it, pulling it in, drawing on his need.

  “Sweet, sweet…” He murmured the words against her lips, and his breath on her skin sent shards of want deeper and deeper into every corner of her sex-starved body. His fingers drew her nightgown up and she spread her legs, the hungry cramping she’d experienced earlier intensifying. He touched her; she nearly flew apart.

  She pressed her face into his shoulder and gritted her teeth, want, need, and the urge for fulfillment so strong she bit him.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned. He fingered her, finding her center, briefly circling the thickened nub before dipping inside. She felt her muscles clamp down on his moving finger and she rocked with it, her hips trying to find the rhythm.

  “So sweet and wet,” he murmured.

  She was on the very verge of orgasm, the satisfying prelude escalating.

  He stopped; she felt a dash of disappointment. And then he drew her astride him. As if she’d done it dozens of times before, she straddled him. His shaft was wide and long and she impaled herself on it, biting down on her lip to keep from screaming her pleasure. He lifted her hips up and slowly down, up and slowly down. They began a rhythm. His hands cupped her buttocks and spread them wide, squeezing each cheek as he thrust deeply into her.

  Rosalyn leaned forward, pressing her clitoris against him, and he took hold of her nipple through the fabric of her nightgown. An itchy, tickly sensation sprang from her breast, spreading over it, across her abdomen and down to her vagina. She cried out as the orgasm exploded and every nerve in her body quivered, from the base of her spine to the roots of her hair.

  He shuddered as he came and she fell on top of him, taking in deep breaths as she tried to gain control. Her ears rang. Her body sang. She was damp with sweat and still throbbing around him. She needed this. She had forgotten how much she needed this. She closed her eyes and didn’t know how long she lay like that—minutes, hours—but when she glanced at the window, dawn had come.

  He stirred beneath her and was staring directly into her eyes, his expression clear and focused. Awake. Mocking? “Why, if it isn’t the widow Rosalyn. What on earth are you doing in my bed?”

  Chapter Six

  Geddes opened the bedroom door just as Rosalyn, dressed only in her nightclothes with her hair in long tangles around her face, was scrambling off the bed.

  “Rosalyn? Is he ill?” He could imagine no other scenario that made even a modicum of sense to him. His gaze went from Rosalyn to the duke, whose face was pinched into a look of amused puzzlement.

  “Your Grace?”

  The duke shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry. I was having a dream, and suddenly it was real.” He looked at Rosalyn, who was plastered against the far wall, near the door. He offered both of them a wry grin. “Normally, I’m not one to question such a gift, but
—”

  Stunned, Geddes said again, “Rosalyn? What is going on here?”

  She huddled near the door, her fist clenched to her chest, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged, and her hair loose and wild around her shoulders. She was speechless, it seemed. He had not seen that level of panic on her face in years, not even the day before, when she’d been attacked by MacNab. Suddenly, she let out a cry of frustration and ran from the room, slamming the door soundly behind her.

  Baffled, Geddes crossed to the bed. “Your Grace, what happened? Are you all right?”

  The duke stared at him from the bed, his dark eyes boring deeply into him. “I’m fine, thank you. I wish I could explain what just happened here, but I’m not sure I know.”

  Equally confused, Geddes said, “I must find Rosalyn. Please, I shall return shortly.” He strode from the room and ran to Rosalyn’s suite. When he found his sister, he shook his head and sighed. She sat in an overstuffed chair in the corner, her knees to her chest and her face pressed against her hands.

  “Rosalyn? What happened? What were you doing in there?”

  “Oh, God, don’t ask me.”

  “But Rosalyn, I…it’s…what…” He couldn’t form a coherent thought.

  Rosalyn lifted her head and took a deep breath. Although he no longer saw panic in her face, he saw embarrassment, something that was not often evident in Rosalyn’s demeanor.

  “I woke up during the night because I heard him call out. I went to his room and he wasn’t rational. He kept saying some woman’s name over and over again.”

  “He was probably just having a nightmare.”

  She hesitated and then nodded. “Aye, perhaps that’s it.”

  Relieved that she probed no further, he asked, “He got you into his bed, Rosalyn?”

  She nodded again.

  A strange calm settled over Geddes, replacing the shocking image of his sister scrambling off the duke’s bed. Suddenly their future seemed on the verge of being quite secure indeed.

  “I don’t know how that happened.” Slowly she rose from the chair and crossed to the window. She parted the curtains and stared outside.

  Geddes tried not to sound pleased when he said, “You were compromised, dear sister. Good and compromised. I see a wedding in your future. Don’t fret, Rosalyn. Everything will be fine. Just fine.”

  As he hastened to speak to the duke, he heard his sister’s muffled cry of frustration.

  • • •

  Fletcher stood at his bedroom window as he mulled over the morning’s curious events. Lindsay had come to him in a pristine white gown, a wide circle of bright red blood on her chest. She had hovered above the bed, a wistful, sad smile on her face. He wanted to tell her he hadn’t killed her, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him or didn’t understand. And then suddenly she was there, in bed with him, and he knew that he had to have her one last time.

  He felt a twinge at his shoulder and glanced down. Bite marks? He ran his fingers over it, remembering that in their passion, she had bit him. Rosalyn had bit him. The perfect dream had been a different reality; the widow’s presence proved that. He closed his eyes, willing himself to remember more, but he could not.

  She had been in his bed and they had made love. His smile turned grim. Made love. Hardly that. In his liquor-soaked dream it was Lindsay he pulled astride, impaling her. But in truth it had been Rosalyn.

  Fletcher felt an odd squeezing in his chest, an emotion he couldn’t describe. Bemused, he looked out beyond the trees where he could see the stables. Later in the morning he planned to dress and take a turn around the grounds; he enjoyed seeing what he had inherited. He made a face. But before he could enjoy himself, he had to meet with two crofters about a dispute over a goat. And then at some point he was going into the village to face the nasty pub owner.

  There was a knock on the door and Geddes poked his head in, his face a study in concern. “Might I speak with you?”

  Fletcher nodded.

  Geddes walked toward him, wringing his hands. “It’s a most unfortunate situation, my lord. My sister claims you cried out in your sleep, and when she hurried in to find out what was amiss, you, well, you dragged her into your bed.”

  “Dragged her into my bed?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. That’s what she claims.”

  Fletcher didn’t know what he had done or what she had done. All he knew was that she was in his bed when he awoke.

  Geddes cleared his throat and pulled at his collar. “Circumstances have forced me to talk to you.”

  “About your sister?”

  “Yes, but more importantly about the terms of the will.”

  Fletcher lifted one eyebrow. “Terms? You told me about the will in Texas.”

  “Not all the terms.”

  Fletcher felt a great unease creep into his stomach. “So there are more conditions, other than just my being here?”

  Geddes nodded. “By coming to Hedabarr, you have inherited the castle and the land, but unless you produce an heir within a year of your arrival, the MacNeil fortune will be awarded elsewhere.”

  Fletcher strode in front of the long table that held the ancient chime clock. “You never told me this.”

  “You became ill on the trip. I hadn’t the chance.”

  “Who gets the money if I don’t comply?”

  “The most sniveling, self-righteous prig ever to be born, who at this moment, I am certain, is waiting to hear that I have failed in my duties to bring you here and agree to the contents of the will.”

  Fletcher rocked back on his heels, noting that Geddes was sweating. “Sniveling prig, huh?”

  “Indeed, Your Grace.”

  Fletcher pinned Geddes with a level gaze. “Why do I feel that as of this morning, you now have someone in mind to carry my heir?”

  A look of guilt passed over Geddes’s features but was quickly gone. “I didn’t, not at first.”

  “You mean to tell me that you hadn’t given your sister a thought?”

  Geddes continued to perspire. “I admit I did. But she wouldn’t agree to such an arrangement and was absolutely vehement. Please, believe me. She is often stubborn and headstrong, but she is not devious. In fact, she told me she couldn’t agree to such an arrangement because you could very easily disregard her as a possible wife.”

  “Yet I found her in my bed this very morning.” He turned to Geddes once again. “Don’t you find that convenient?”

  Geddes looked offended. “Your Grace! You are not implying that she and I, in any way, planned this, are you? For I assure you, Your Grace—”

  “For God’s sake, Geddes, will you stop Your Gracing me?”

  “But, what am I to call you?”

  “I don’t know,” Fletcher answered with an impatient swipe of his arm. “But when we’re alone, like we are now, it sounds so damned pompous. If you have trouble using my name, well, then don’t call me anything at all.

  “Now, as to your sister. She could be carrying my heir now.” He leveled another gaze at Geddes.

  “Yes, she could,” Geddes agreed.

  “But if I ever learn that this was planned—”

  “Believe me, it was not planned.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Make whatever arrangements you have to. I’ll marry her, on one condition.”

  Geddes stared at him. “And that is?”

  “You give me some information on my siblings. Bringing them here was part of the deal, Geddes, if you remember.”

  “Of course. I’ll check on it immediately.”

  “Is there something else?”

  “No. No.” Geddes left.

  Fletcher stared into the fire. As a half-breed living and working with the army, he’d become jaded and suspicious of people. His question about being set up quickly dissipated when he recalled the way Rosalyn had scurried from his bed and fled from the room. Geddes was an honest man and had been sincerely shocked to find his sister there. Any subterfuge would have been evident on the man’s face, in his ey
es. And over the years, Fletcher had become adept at catching someone in a lie. Geddes was simply not a man who could lie and get away with it.

  Fletcher’s thoughts went again to the early morning hours. He had been satisfied, as had she. He liked that she was spirited. She spoke her mind to him. And she was quite easy on the eyes.

  His life had changed. It was as if a door to another world had opened the day Geddes came into his cell. Here he and his family could live and live well, but not without the money attached to the will. Marriage was something he had thought out of his reach, so he had never asked himself if a family was important to him.

  Now all that remained was getting his brothers and his sister here. He needed them with him; he wanted to see them grow up. He wanted to try to make right the mistakes of his youth. Until he’d set foot on the Scottish shore, he hadn’t realized how much he needed them. And until they were here and safe, he would not rest well.

  Later, he saddled a mount and rode into the countryside to consider the question of the goat and the sheepherder.

  A burly middle-aged man with his arms crossed over his chest stepped into the road ahead of him. A thick wad of tobacco bulged from his lower lip. “Ye’ve come about the goat, I’m thinkin’.”

  No niceties. Fletcher appreciated that. “You must be Douglas?”

  The man nodded. “Douglas MacDougal. They call me Lum.”

  Fletcher raised his eyebrows.

  “I clean lums,” he explained. “Fireplaces.”

  “Where’s the goat?” Fletcher dismounted and threw the reins over a long plank in front of the croft.

  “Damn thing eats everything. All me prize clover and grass for me sheep, the goat gobbled up like a pig on swill.”

  Fletcher followed him to the back of the small house. There, on the grass next to a padlocked shed, was a tarp. He briefly noted that the shed windows appeared painted over. Douglas the Lum lifted the tarp and there lay the dead goat, a bullet hole in his head. “Whose goat is this?”

  “Damn thing belongs to Bill Duncan. Bill the Goat.”