The Prize (21 page)

"This is Miss
Hughes, Sean. Miss Virginia Hughes of Sweet Briar,
Virginia
."

Virginia
started, stunned he would
introduce her so, and then she noticed that Sean seemed even more shocked.

"Miss
Hughes?" he echoed.

Why was Sean so
surprised by her name?
Virginia
wondered in sudden confusion.

"Let's have a
drink. We have a lot to catch up on," Devlin said, clapping his back.

But now Sean stared
at
Virginia
—and he didn't look pleased,
either.

A feminine squeal
sounded.

Virginia
started and saw a dark-haired
woman rushing from the house. For one instant,
Virginia
saw only thick, straight black hair, a
voluptuous figure and a huge smile, while more happy cries sounded. She
stiffened as the woman halted right in front of Devlin, her heaving bosom
mostly revealed by her low-cut blouse. She was dark and sultry enough to be a
Spaniard or a Gypsy. "My lord! Welcome home! Oh, Captain O'Neill!
Welcome!" she cried, looking an instant away from jumping into his
arms—and his bed.

Virginia
folded her arms across her own
nondescript chest and scowled.

A look of recognition
crossed Devlin's face. "Fiona?"

"Yes, it's me,
my lord!" she cried, clapping her hands together. "My lord, it has
been so long, and I am so happy you are home—we all are, my lord Captain! The
hero of Askeaton has returned! We are so proud of you!"

Devlin said,
"Thank you." His tone was polite.

"Fiona,"
Sean interjected. "It's Captain or Sir Captain or Sir Devlin now."

Fiona nodded,
grinning. "What can I do for you, my lord?" she asked, and there was
no mistaking her meaning. In fact,
Virginia
felt certain the other woman had already enjoyed Devlin's lovemaking in the
past and intended to do so again, very shortly.

"Please show Miss
Hughes to a guest room," Devlin said, "and bring her a tray of
refreshments once she is settled in." His gaze wandered past the house and
settled on the ruins of the castle.

Fiona blinked,
glancing at
Virginia
for the first time, clearly not
having even noticed her until then. Her gaze met
Virginia
's, slid down her figure and back up and
instantly became dismissive. She turned back to Devlin, beaming. "Yes, of
course, my lord. I am
so
happy to see you again." She curtsied and
Virginia
expected her breasts to fall
free of her blouse, but they did not. The woman clearly wore no underclothes,
not even a corset.

"I am very happy
to be home," Devlin said. He was gazing at the house now, as if
inspecting every inch, and not at the maid. His expression was just a bit
softer than usual and it made him far less intimidating—it made him seem human.

Virginia
almost relaxed. He hadn't seemed
to notice that Fiona was pretty and very voluptuous and wishful of being in his
bed. And why should she worry? Last night, she was the one who had enthralled
him.
Virginia
didn't have to have any
experience with men to know that Devlin O'Neill had been swept up in the same
rapture as she.

"Connor, Miss
Hughes's bags," Sean instructed another servant, this one an older man.
"Fiona, please show Miss Hughes to the yellow room. Bring flowers,"
he added.

Fiona nodded, never
even looking at him. She only had eyes for Devlin.

Suddenly Devlin
turned and strode to
Virginia
. She didn't move. 'There is
nowhere to go. You know that."

She didn't—just as
she wasn't certain she wished to go anywhere, not just yet—but she nodded,
anyway.

"As far as the
eye can see, the land belongs to me or my stepfather, the Earl of Adare. Do you
comprehend me, Virginia?" he asked softly, with real warning.

170                          

She thought about how
easily he had thwarted her escape in
Limerick
.
She had no doubt that escaping him in the heart of his holdings would be as
futile. She smiled at him. "I won't try to escape again," she said as
softly. She was far too curious to think of attempting another escape now.

He started.
"What I wish to say was that here you will be treated with the utmost
respect, your every need will be met, and I will try to see to it that your
stay is brief."

She heard him but added,
"You have my word."

He stared at her for
a very long moment. "Whatever you intend, I suggest you rethink it,"
he said tersely.

"How do you know
that I intend anything?" she asked sweetly. But she
did
intend
something. Before she left Askeaton and Ireland, she wished to experience all
that she had thus far discovered in her captor's powerful arms—and even more. The
urgency he had awakened was simply too great to ignore or even resist.

"Because you are
too clever and too stubborn to simply roll over upon my command," he said
slowly.

She hesitated.
"Perhaps that was then—and this is now. Perhaps I await your command, Sir
Devlin," she murmured.

He leaned close.
"Do not even think to tempt me again!"

"Why not?"
she whispered back.

He seemed utterly
taken aback. "Because I am far stronger than you, Virginia, and I suggest
you never forget that." He gave her a hard look and started toward his
brother, who was listening raptly to them.

But
Virginia
was beginning to understand her
captor. She smiled as sweetly as she had before at him. "I never said you
weren't," she murmured.

He flinched but did
not halt. Sean appeared very distressed now, and he finally followed his
brother inside.
Virginia
began to grin. Oddly, she felt
as if the tide were

turning in her favor—somehow,
it felt as if she had won that last encounter. And then she looked up into
Fiona's hostile black eyes.

Clearly the
"yellow room" hadn't been used in years. As
Virginia
stood in the doorway of a large bedroom
where the walls were painted a soft, muted shade of gold, she watched Fiona
angrily plump the pillows, dust billowing from them.

Virginia
glanced around. This room was
far more luxuriously appointed than her own bedroom at Sweet Briar or the two
guest rooms there. The canopied bed in its center had gold velvet coverings and
matching drapes were held back with gold tasseled cords, while a brown-and-gold
Aubusson rug covered much of the scarred but polished oak floors. The ebony
wood mantel over the fireplace was intricately carved, a lush chaise and
ottoman adjacent to that, and several old portraits and landscapes adorned the
walls.
Virginia
walked over to one window and
actually cried out with delight. The view was stunning. Her eyes swept across
the rolling fields of corn to an endless series of green pastures arid hills
and finally to the bare edge of the river itself. The ruins of an old and
crumbling stone keep were just to her left.

Virginia
gripped the sill.
Ireland
somehow called out to her the way that her
home had, although the country was so very different. She wondered how she
would feel if she were at Askeaton under other circumstances. She might never
want to leave.

Fiona had stopped
fussing with the bed.
Virginia
turned away from the window and
found the other woman staring at her with open hostility. She was,
Virginia
thought, about twenty-five. "I
should like some sandwiches and tea," Virginia said as if she were Sarah
Lewis and back at the Marmott School for Genteel Young Ladies.

Fiona stiffened.
"Be right up." But she didn't move.

"And I'd like
some roses from the gardens,"
Virginia
added, increasing her intonation, so she sounded more like a queen than a
genteel young lady. "Oh! This gown. Do help me remove it. It needs
pressing immediately. I'd like it back for supper, please."

Fiona looked ready to
scratch her eyes out. "Are you to be his
wife?"
she asked with
scalding anger.

Virginia
started, then, indifferently,
she shrugged.
His wife.
One day, Devlin O'Neill would settle down, take
a wife, have children. Why did this notion mesmerize her? When that day dawned,
she would be home at Sweet Briar, in fact, she might even be old and gray.

The confusion that
had so recently begun and that seemed to crop up now whenever she thought about
her captor swept over her with full force. She finally looked up.
"Perhaps," she managed to say lightly.

Fiona started,
scowling.

"And you? Were
you Ms mistress? I thought so at first— but he didn't recognize you, so I am no
longer sure."

Fiona stalked
forward.

Virginia
held her ground, even though the
other woman had a stone or more on her.

"He hasn't been
home in six years," she hissed. "I was a child back then, I was only
fifteen but I loved him and I gave him my maidenhead. I'm a woman now, and I
know a trick or two I am certain he will enjoy! In fact, I cannot wait until tonight,
my lady, I cannot wait to pleasure him in every way I can think of! By tomorrow
he will not even know your name."

Virginia
stiffened, afraid the other
woman might be right. But now she had to wonder what kind of man stayed away
from his home for six long years?

And
Virginia
began to worry on another score.
Devlin had been eighteen, she thought, when he and Fiona had carried on, and
she hated the fact that he had been her first lover. Nostalgia might be
attached to their affair.

"How old are
you?" Fiona asked with scorn.

"I'm
twenty,"
Virginia
lied.

Fiona rolled her
eyes. "I'd wager you're sixteen. Let me tell you something, my lady. He
won't ever look at you the way he looks at me. You're too skinny! A man likes
meat on the bones, a man likes this." She cupped her heavy breasts and
then she smiled, sighing and clearly thinking of Devlin fondling them instead.

Virginia
turned her back on the
housemaid. Her confidence, never high, vanished completely. Who was she fooling?
If Devlin had a choice, he would seek out the older woman. She had no doubt.

She should be
thrilled. She wasn't. She was upset, distressed, bewildered and even hurt by
the prospect.

Fiona laughed at her
distress. "So set them eyes somewhere else, my fancy lady," she
hissed. "Here at Askeaton we got no use for the English and them royal
airs. Here at Askeaton we got no use for you and your kind. Go back to where
you came from!" Fiona left the room triumphantly.

Virginia
ran after her. "I'm
American, you fool. I'm American, not English!"

But if Fiona cared,
she gave no sign. She never faltered as she hurried down the hall.

Virginia
stepped back into her room,
closing the door. Too late, she realized Fiona hadn't helped her undress, she
hadn't taken her awfully soiled gown and she hadn't intended to bring water,
refreshments, flowers or anything else.

Virginia
took a small chair and pulled it
up to the window. There she sat in dismal silence, staring out at the
countryside, thinking about her captor.

Devlin poured two
whiskeys. Sean faced him with dark, angry eyes. Devlin handed him a glass,
ignoring his brother now, his gaze moving around the library, then to the
French

doors and the terrace
beyond. He relished the view, the moment. God, it was good to be home.

Gerald smiled
conspiratorially at him. "Don't breathe a word of this to your mother, you
hear?"

Devlin walked toward
the French doors, no longer smiling, drinking instead.

His father's eyes,
wide and angry, staring up at him from the bloody stump that was his head.

"Are you going
to explain? Is she
Eastleigh
's daughter? It isn't enough that
you bed his wife?" Sean demanded furiously.

He saluted Sean,
forcing the brutal memories aside. "She's his niece. His orphaned American
niece." He had expected Sean to be outraged, but that did not mean he
liked it.

"So that
explains everything. What the hell are you doing!" Sean cried. "And
how old is she? Have you seduced a child?" He was disbelieving.

He studied the
contents of his glass as if indifferent. "She's eighteen, and no, I
haven't seduced her," he said, wondering how his righteous and oh, so
moral brother would react if he told him that she might well decide to seduce
him.
"I'm ransoming her, Sean." He smiled, real mirth returning. "Eastleigh
is on the verge of debtor's prison. He can ill afford a ransom, much less the
one I will demand." He actually chuckled. "I shall, of course, toy
with him a bit first. However, to free his niece he may very well have to sell
off
Eastleigh
itself. This may be the moment
we have been waiting for."