The Blood of Roses (25 page)

Trembling, Lady Caroline raised a hand and laid it gently on her daughter’s cheek.

Catherine was deep in thought as she made her way along the deserted hallway. She stopped to retrieve the bottle of wine from the table where she had left it, then proceeded to her bedroom, unlocked the door, and entered the room as if she were moving in a trance. She had been given a great deal to absorb in the last half hour. Sir Alfred was not her father. Her blood had not descended through the veins of a dozen generations of Ashbrookes, but from a highwayman and scoundrel who periodically terrorized the English countryside before disappearing back to his lair in France. Jacques St. Cloud. Was he still alive, still playing the roguish bandit as Lady Caroline wanted to believe, or had he died years ago, his neck stretched on a gibbet like a common thief?

“Catherine? Is something wrong?”

She looked over at her husband, a man guilty of treason, murder, and espionage in the eyes of the law. She had more in common with her mother than either of them realized.

“Catherine?”

“What? Oh, no. No, nothing is wrong. I’ve just come from seeing my mother. She is in the middle of packing …”

“Packing?” Alexander relaxed back against the support of the tub and lifted his hand away from the cocked pistol he had placed within easy reach on the table beside him. “I thought she was adamant about staying at Rosewood Hall.”

“She is running away with Captain Lovat-Spence. He has just arrived now with the carriage.”

Alex’s hand paused midway to raising a thin black cigar to his lips. “You don’t seem to be too upset at the news.”

“I’m sure she will be happy with Captain Lovat-Spence; she says he makes her laugh.”

Wary of his glaring lack of understanding as to how a woman’s mind functioned, Alex frowned and drew deeply on his cigar. Spying the bottle of wine in Catherine’s hand, his face brightened. “Are you just going to stand there tempting me, or did you bring glasses as well?”

“I can see you are feeling much better now that your belly is full and your skin is wrinkled. How long do you plan to stay in that tub?”

“Until I am given a good reason to get out,” he said, his gaze roving down to where her breasts strained against the bodice of her robe. “No one thought it odd you were wandering around the house in the middle of the day in your bedclothes?”

“This robe happens to cover more than some of the gowns I own,” she countered tartly. “As for anyone noticing, I should think you could rouse more attention by shooting a cannon down the halls, but not much. I counted only five people on the grounds, not including Deirdre or my mother and her maids. You will be happy to know Cook was one of the ones who stayed, although I am not surprised. She has developed such an appreciation of her own talents over the years, she can barely waddle from one room to the next without resting.”

“You will hear nothing contradictory from me about her talents.” Alex grinned, indicating the tray of food that had been swabbed clean of the tiniest crumb.

Catherine poured out a glassful of wine and handed it to him. “The groom stayed, but there are only two horses in the stables, one of them a mare in foal.”

“Mmmm. Would he object to an extra guest for a few days?”

“Shadow?”

Alex nodded. “I left him with a smithy about a mile or two from here, but I don’t imagine he is too pleased or behaving himself very well.”

“Then by all means we should fetch him home.” Catherine took a sip of wine before her eyes rose to meet her husband’s over the rim of the glass. “Did you say what I think you just said? A few days?”

“Maybe more, depending on how long the prince decides to accept your father’s generous offer of hospitality.”

“The prince? Here? At Rosewood Hall?”

“He has to sleep somewhere, doesn’t he? At the very least, his officers will require billeting—” The rest of what he said was muffled under a pair of soft and deliriously overjoyed lips.

He was staying! A day, two days, three days … it did not matter exactly how long, only that he was not planning to leave in the next twelve hours, as originally announced. Of course, Sir Alfred would pass a kidney stone when he heard the Jacobites were camped on the grounds of Rosewood Hall. He would pass another when he heard his wife had run off with another man, his daughter was playing hostess to the renegade Stuart prince, and his son … What was his son playing at?

“Alex?” She leaned against the side of the tub and trailed her fingers over the milky surface of the water. “Exactly what part has my brother played in all this? Was he really just Raefer Montgomery’s friend, or was—
is
he something more?”

He caught up her hand and kissed the wet fingertips. “What makes you think he is anything more than a friend?”

“The look on your face, for one thing.”

The roving lips paused a fraction of a second too long. “Not exactly grounds for a conviction.”

“Not the only evidence against him either,” she said evenly.

“Do you think you know something, or are you just guessing?”

“Both,” she replied, exchanging her wineglass for the bar of soap. “I never did feel absolutely comfortable with his performance that night at Wakefield. Damien would never have ridden away and entrusted me into your hands if he did not know precisely who you were, where you were going, and why you were going there. Moreover, he would have had to have known how important it was for you to reach Achnacarry with the information you had collected for your brother. In order to know that, he would have had either to know what some of the information was, or … to sympathize with the urgency of seeing it reach the proper hands.”

The indigo eyes narrowed as he felt her fingertips, slippery with lather, begin to knead the ridge of muscles across his shoulders. “You realize what you are suggesting?”

“My brother is a Jacobite,” she said softly, unsure herself as to how she should react now that the words had finally been spoken out loud. “Furthermore … he was involved, if not outright responsible, for providing you with information for Lochiel.” Her hands stopped suddenly. “He was the one you came to Derby to see in the first place, wasn’t he? He was the mysterious ‘Colonel’ who gave you the information about the army’s state of readiness, the numbers and locations of the troops in England. He is still giving you that information, isn’t he? That was why you went to see him in London, and that was how he came to know so much about what had gone on in the rebel camp. He’s a spy. A Jacobite spy.”

“All this supposition from a look on my face? You are leaping ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

“He called you
Alex.”

The dark eyes flickered sardonically. “By all means, hang the bastard.”

“At the inn in Wakefield,” she said shrewdly. “He made you swear to guard my safety with your life—and he called you
Alex.
Rather too familiar for someone who has just discovered the duplicity of a supposed friend he had known only as Raefer Montgomery.”

“Very clever, Mistress Sleuth. What else do you think you know?”

Catherine pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Damien said the reward for your capture has been doubled.”

“Damien talks too damned much.”

“He also believes an assassin has been hired to track you down and kill you.”

Alexander drew a deep breath to control his temper. “Your brother is going to have a few very unpleasant moments when I see him again. He had no business frightening you with rumors that so far haven’t proved to hold a shred of truth.”

“He was only trying to protect you … and warn me, I imagine. Hired killers do that sort of thing, don’t they—go after the families of the intended victims in order to gain a hostage?”

Alex reached around, cradling her face between his hands and holding her within the intense blue depths of his eyes. “You are completely safe here. No one in Lochaber knows who you are, or where you came from, much less where you went after I put you on the
Curlew.
In fact, as far as anyone at home is concerned—in particular the Campbells and their ilk—you never left Scotland. You are still at Achnacarry Castle and can be seen frequently enough to prove it.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, puzzled.

“It was Maura’s idea. Just a precaution. She suggested we find a local girl who resembled you enough from a distance to fool anyone watching the castle. My ‘wife’ appears at the windows now and then, in the gardens, on the battlements. She is always under heavy guard; of course, but then what decent mercenary would expect anything other than absolute protection?” He smoothed his hands down her arms and smiled. “As I said, it is just a precaution. It isn’t you the Campbells are interested in; it’s me.”

He was lying, Catherine decided. There was something out there that worried both men—she had seen it in Damien’s eyes the other day in the woods, she saw it in Alexander’s now.

“Does this girl know the risk she is taking?”

“She isn’t taking any risk,” Alex insisted. “She is, on the contrary, enjoying an extravagant vacation away from the cornfields at my expense. She is in no danger, and neither are you—except perhaps from me, if you persist in questioning my good intentions.”

Catherine regarded him coolly and resumed gliding her fingers over the sleek, hard surface of his shoulders. She let them trail down onto his chest, onto the glittering wet mat of curling black hair, and the distraction pulled her gaze away from his. Awed that she never failed to uncover something new, some minute detail she had overlooked on her last voyage of discovery, she traced her fingertips over and around a small, crescent-shaped birthmark seated just above his right nipple. Dark strawberry in color, it was obliterated under a film of soap lather and reminded her of a Highland moon rendered opaque behind a veil of moorland mist.

Other discoveries had not roused such pleasant images— a new scar over his ribs, another at his waist, a myriad of small healed cuts and scrapes on his arms and legs, and the deep gouge over his left ear …

“You have that look of wifely concern on your face again,” he chided gently.

Catherine lifted her eyes slowly to meet his. She did not answer, but leaned forward instead to brush her lips over his cleanly shaven cheek. Before she could safely retreat, his hand was firmly around her wrist.

“My concerns, sir, are for the condition of my robe, which has rather more soap and water on it than I would prefer it to have.”

His eyes gleamed speculatively at the froth of rich lace that fashioned the collar and deep front placket.

“Easily enough remedied,” he mused, reaching over to unfasten the satin sash. A further gentle tug saw the dressing gown ripple to the floor. With a suggestive tilt of his eyebrow, he extended an invitation to join him in the tub.

“There isn’t room for two,” she said on a breathless laugh.

“Depends how friendly you care to be,” he murmured and drew her forward.

“Wait,” she pleaded, standing and walking naked to the dressing room. She emerged seconds later, her hair twisted into a golden coil and pinned haphazardly on the crown of her head. Still looking dubious, she stepped into the water and permitted his hands to guide her down so that her back was cushioned comfortably against his chest. His knees made equally passable armrests—wickedly wonderful ones, in fact, especially since the slightest move brought the coarse texture of his thighs into contact with her breasts.

Cupping his hands, Alex carried water up to her shoulders, leaving them sparkling like white marble. The wisps of hair straggling down her neck turned the color of dark honey and clung to her skin in slithery ribbons. His lips planted a row of kisses across her nape, his tongue triggered shivers of sensation from her shoulders to the delicate pink lobes of her ears.

With soap in hand, Alex worked up a rich lather and began massaging it over the smooth flesh, taking deliberate care to seek out the nooks and hollows he knew to be the most susceptible to the warm, slippery strokes. He lavished attention on each supple arm, attended each nerveless finger with a fastidiousness that soon turned her breathing shallow and dry.

Anticipating where his hands would venture next, Catherine braced herself for the shock of feeling the long, tapered fingers glide up along her ribcage and mold themselves around the sleek fullness of her breasts. The dark fingers on her skin were a bold contrast, the strength of them seeming to promise pain rather than arouse pleasure. But how delicately he touched, stroked, teased, caressed … as if his hands were made of velvet!

She gripped the edges of the tub as the tangled knot of desire tightened within her; her nipples swelled and tautened and rose like tiny mountain peaks through the foaming whitecaps of soap. The tension began to build and coil, to twist inward and outward, settling finally and insistently as a throbbing tremor between her thighs. Despite the obvious temptation to pursue those tremors, Alex lingered over the round, plump mounds of her breasts, ignoring the convulsive shivers that wracked her slender body until they became violent enough to disrupt the placid surface of the water.

Adjusting their positions slightly, Alex dipped his hands lower, moving them with delicious precision from her breasts to her waist to her hips, then sliding them soapily around to the soft triangle of tawny curls. Catherine tensed as his fingers traced slow, languid circles on her inner thighs; she shivered and gasped for breath each time a thumb rasped with catlike stealth over flesh almost too sensitive to bear the torment.

“You are splashing water all over the floor,” Alex chided, his lips pressed to her ear. “What
will
the servants think?”

Before she could form an answer, his fingers curled into the quivering petals of flesh, bringing her head arching back against his shoulder. His questing strokes became more intimate, more determined as his fingers probed and darted between the silky creases, touching, testing, manipulating her to within a breath of release, only to retreat and leave her trembling on the brink of ecstasy.

Catherine did not know where to look, what to do with her hands, what further torment her body could endure without bursting and splintering into a thousand fragments. She was afloat in a dark world of flesh, aware of every touch and stroke, feeling every soft vibration within and without. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. She wanted to plunge over the precipice and experience the spiraling pleasure of sensual madness, but she was at the mercy of his fingertips, and they had learned their skills from the devil himself.