* * *
The abbot stared thoughtfully at his folded hands, listening to Christian’s boot heels clicking on the corridor floor. The young man had grown more dangerous and vastly more threatening. The promise of violence made at his birth had been kept; the young wolf hadn’t been tamed after all.
The abbot’s thoughts rolled back twenty years. Early in his priesthood, he’d made it his mission to find the flower of Catholic Scotland, the last blooms of the old blood, the Highland blood. He’d scoured the country, sending out emissaries to seek those lost sons, having no other thought than to salvage them from the cesspits and stews of the cities. He’d only found four in the end.
Not that that mattered. Once he had discovered the metal of which his young charges were made, another idea had replaced his original intent. He would train them, hone them, and create modern-day knights, present-day crusaders. They wanted only a purpose, one which in time the French Terror had provided.
The abbot shook his head at such vanity, such amazing conceit. He had paid a dire penalty for his pride. But Christian and the others had paid even more dearly. They’d been so close. More like brothers than even… well, even the brothers of this order. Indeed, their friendship had been the single most important factor in their young lives. And that friendship had been destroyed by someone.
What would such a thing do to a sensitive young man like Andrew Ross, who hid his feelings behind devil-may-care japes? Or Ramsey, who’d adopted his urbane veneer from a half-remembered past that he dared not explore? Or Christian, who had never belonged to anyone or anything until these young men had claimed him?
The abbot rubbed his hand across his eyes, recalling Christian’s expression. He’d looked jaded, disillusioned, battered and lethal. So lethal, in fact, that for a moment, staring into Christian’s eyes, the abbot had felt his own mortality. The idea brokered no terror, just a deep frustration that those people who relied upon his information and knowledge would be stranded without his aid, and his penance would be forfeit.
But Christian hadn’t laid a hand on him. There was something in that, he supposed. Just as there was something in his care of Mrs. Blackburn. He’d seen the possessiveness in his posture, the manner in which he’d looked at her, held her.
But now… he had other matters to attend to.
With a sigh, he uncovered the letter that had arrived earlier that day. He recognized the hand; its owner wrote periodically if infrequently, and always had something interesting to impart.
That was, after all, Dand Ross’s job as a spy in Napoleon’s France.
ELEVEN
INTIMACY WITH ONE’S DRIVER: A SITUATION TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS
ONE OF THE MONKS had dragged a small, stone bench to the outside of the shed, and this is where Kit found Kate, her face lifted to a heaven scoured clean, the sun melting into the mountaintops. A few stars sparkled on the smooth twilight surface.
“We might see Andromeda tonight,” Kate said softly. She looked far better than she had upon their arrival just a few hours before. Warmth had given her cheeks back their color, and her eyes were clear and dark.
He’d come to tell her he was leaving her to the care of the monks, but now that he stood before her, he found himself reluctant to do so. She was so damned pretty, even pale and fragile looking, much like starlight. And just as unreachable.
Something had changed in their relationship, a shift in her manner toward him; there was an accessibility to her that he craved to take advantage of even though he knew that to do so would be the sheerest folly. But he could not walk away. “Andromeda?”
“The constellation,” she said with a shade of pride. “Named for Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, the king of a seafaring people, and his beautiful queen, Cassiopeia.”
“Tell me more,” he suggested, half expecting her to turn him down. He was a scarred commoner and a soldier. She was a lady. She might have tolerated his company when she’d had no alternative, but surely she’d cut herself off from him now. Kindly, of course. She would rebuff him with exemplary good manners.
“If you sit down.”
There was only one place to sit, and that was beside her. “I would rather stand.”
“And I would rather not get a crick in my neck. You’re very tall, you know. And you do rather loom when you are trying to drive home a particular point you wish to make, which you do often. At least to me.”
He looked down at her, startled and was amazed to see that she was smiling. Teasingly. It completely undermined every intention he had of leaving quickly.
“That is, unless you feel in need of the advantage afforded by your loftier position?”
He sat. “My position is, as you well know, in every way inferior to your own,” he said gruffly. “Now tell me about Cassiopeia.”
“Well,” she began, “Cassiopeia boasted that her beauty was greater than their neighbor’s, a lady sea goddess. Now, not only did this statement prove deplorably bad manners, but it showed an appalling lack of judgment, because Greek goddesses are not renowned for their charity. They are, however, right proficient with vengeance.”
She grinned impishly, and he saw the young woman that circumstance kept hidden too often. It might have been better had she remained that way. This young, bright-eyed Kate was too captivating, too vivacious by half.
“Are they?”
“Oh, yes.” She nodded solemnly. “We mortals are pitiful amateurs when it comes to vengeance, Mr. MacNeill.”
He did not bother arguing. He had his own notions about vengeance and his proficiency with it.
“The offended goddess demanded that her papa, who happened to be Poseidon, penalize the mortal queen for her vanity,” Kate continued. “Being a fond parent, Poseidon agreed, forcing King Cepheus to make a terrible choice: He must sacrifice either his daughter or his country to a horrific sea monster.”
“Unpleasant alternatives,” Kit prompted, for Kate had stopped speaking, her teasing smile fading. “Which did he choose?”
“He chose to be a hero to his people.” She spoke in a determinedly light voice. “He had his daughter Andromeda chained to a rock in the midst of the sea to await her fate, not only abandoning her but leaving her without any weapons with which to defend herself.”
She was no longer speaking of a mythological princess, he realized. She was speaking of herself, her sisters, and her father.
“What happened?”
“Perseus,” she said with forced airiness. “He was speeding along high above the earth on his winged sandals when he spied this poor, miserable girl latched to a half-submerged boulder. He flew down, demanded the particulars of her situation, and adjudged correctly that to act might prove extremely lucrative to an enterprising young hero.”
“A born politician,” Kit said with a smile, and for a second Kate’s brittleness melted.
“Indeed!” she agreed. “Then, as quick as the bronze on brass, Perseus slew the evil monster, rescued the girl, and accepted part of Cepheus’s kingdom as a reward. And everyone lived happily ever after.
“Much later, when all the principals of the story were dead, the gods decided it made a pretty enough story for a celestial tapestry, and so”—her voice softened— “there she is.” One slender finger pointed out a cluster of stars. “The Chained Maiden.”
“Did she ever forgive her father?” he asked.
Her face remained lifted to the bright night sky. “Forgive him for what? He did what a king does. Though I don’t doubt Andromeda found that an easier sentiment to embrace once she was off her rock and safely ensconced in her rich, handsome husband’s palace.” Her tone warned him not to press further, and he allowed her the evasion.
“Are there any others maidens up there?”
She released a small breath. “Not yet. But soon we might see the queen, Cassiopeia herself.”
“How do you come to know these things? I cannot imagine that astronomy is requisite in a young lady’s education. But then, I would hardly know what a young lady ought to learn.” Who was he reminding? Her or himself?
“It doesn’t matter what she learns,” Kate murmured. “Nothing can negate her vulnerability or her dependence. Except wealth.”
Ah, yes. The lifeblood of the aristocracy, without which nothing works, nothing matters, and nothing is worthwhile.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and her dark hair caught the fire of the setting sun. Her lips, ever a lure and an enticement, glistened—she had been sipping water or wine—and he remembered his suggestion—his threat—that she might drink from his mouth. His belly muscles tightened with lust, and she did not know. She was completely unaware of the devastation she was wreaking on his body.
“But we were speaking of the stars, weren’t we?” She smiled, clearly resolving not to let anything mar the conversation. Though why she should take such pains with him, he could not imagine.
“My father was an ardent astronomer. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on his lap late at night, looking through his telescope. If the nursemaid caught us, she’d tell my mother, and then there was the devil to pay!” She laughed, and his pulse quickened in response. He wanted to feel her melt against him again, lithe and indolent with sleep—or pleasure.
He struggled to marshal his rampant thoughts. “Did your sisters find it as enthralling as you?”
“No.” A remnant of childish scorn touched her voice, and she must have heard it, for she wrinkled her nose in self-deprecation. “Charlotte was just a tiny baby. Sometimes Helena would appear, but she always fell asleep within a few minutes and had to be carried back to bed.
“But sometimes Grace stayed up to see the night sky.” Her expression grew melancholy. “She was always so inquisitive and so very precocious. She used to insist she was going to buy the stars and make them into a necklace.”
Her fingertip moved slowly across the sky, pointing out a wide swath of concentrated stars. “The Greeks called it the ‘Road of the Gods.’ He taught me that.”
Her father. Kit hesitated, pulled by an impulse he barely understood. He knew less about the relationships between parent and child than he did about the far side of the moon. But he’d seen her anguish, her sense of betrayal. God help him, compassion filled him. He didn’t want to feel anything for her, not compassion, not tenderness, not empathy or understanding. He would accept the lust that rode him because lust was safe. Distancing.
“He didn’t mean to leave you and your sisters, Kate. He didn’t expect to die.”
She stiffened, but her eyes remained fixed on the sky. “He didn’t have to die. He had a choice. You said so yourself.” Her dark gaze fell to his. “Offering himself like that was…irresponsible! He owed it to us to safeguard our futures by safeguarding his life! What I would dearly love to know is, why did he chose to die for you rather than live for us?”
He did not take offense. He understood perfectly, to a degree he doubted any other man could. She had lost those things she held most dear through what she thought of as betrayal. Aye, that he understood.
Abruptly, her eyes widened with mortification. “Oh! I am so sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that I thought he loved us—”
He ignored her apology. “He did. But he had to do what he”—he searched for the right words—“what he had to do.”
“I wish I could believe that.” She looked down at her hands twisting in her lap. “I know it is wrong to feel this way. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? Right or wrong. When a person feels something deeply, logic cannot dislodge it.”
Dear God, was she a Sybil or a siren?
She looked over at him helplessly. “How can I possibly explain?”
“I understand.”
She tilted her head questioningly, her realization that someone else shared a similar burden obvious in her midnight-colored eyes. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes. Of course you do.”
Amazingly, he felt mostly sadness rather than the familiar black current of rage that usually swept through him at the thought of his betrayal, his lost comrades.
Kate’s eyes shimmered in the shadows. “How do you live with it? The betrayal?”
“I don’t,” he said, his voice hardening. “I hold on to the belief I’ll find the truth and someday be able to confront the man who betrayed us.”
“And if he’s dead? The man who betrayed you?”
Why her? Why did this empathy, this deep, effortless honesty, have to be with her? “I don’t know.”
“I do.” She said somberly. She leaned toward him. “Let him go. Whoever he is.”
“I can’t. There’s a debt to pay, the debt I owe Douglas.”
The earnest plea in her lovely face faded. “Certainly I am in no position to criticize that quality in you.”
What did she want from him? A declaration that even if he hadn’t promised her family every effort on their behalf, that even if he hadn’t pledged an oath to serve her, he would still have done everything in his power to see her safe and cared for and content? That he would fight for her? Steal for her? Give up his life for her?
Abruptly he stood up.
“You’re leaving,” she said tonelessly.
“Aye.”
“A pressing engagement, no doubt.”
He wanted to hear her laughter again. But another part of him wanted to hear an entirely different sound, wanted to hear her breathing catch in hunger and surrender. His gaze fixed unwillingly on the soft swell of her lower lip, the sheen of skin disappearing beneath the wool collar of her cape, the thin, blue-veined delicacy of her wrists, and the glow of her eye.
Desire for her exploded within him so thickly that for a second his head swam with the rush of it. He had to get out of here.
“MacNeill?”
There was a well outside the garden walls. The water used to be icy cold. God willing, it still was. “You’ll be fine here. They’re deluded and naive, but decent men. They’ll see you fed and rested.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I’ll be back in a few days.”
“Will you—” She paused, her brow wrinkled. “Are you going back to that castle? Because I do not think it safe.”
He laughed, and the lie came easily. “No. I told you. I will see you safely to your destination before I pursue my own concerns.”
She relaxed, and his heart thundered in his chest that she had cared enough to ask, that she had worried over his welfare. It had been years since anyone had cared about his safety. There was a trap there. A snare.
“And after you come back, we will go on to Clyth?”
He should be thanking her for reminding him of where she was going and to whom and why. But he only felt a fire in his gut and a coldness settle over his heart.
“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed formally, and before she could flay him with more innocent words, he left.