The Tempting of Thomas Carrick (37 page)

He’d been born not far away. He’d spent some of the most formative of his months and years close by, in these lands.

He hadn’t realized the connection still lived, buried beneath the layers of his Glasgow personality, the sophisticated façade he’d fallen into the habit of using as a perpetual mask while living there…where, if he was honest, he’d grown increasingly bored over the last several years. Not with the business, the running of it, but with all the other aspects of living there.

He’d missed coming back to these lands, missed connecting with his roots. Roots he hadn’t realized had remained so strong, so immutable.

But for today and those following, until his leg was sufficiently healed to ride Phantom back to Glasgow, he could indulge his inner self; he was, indeed, looking forward to discovering what the day might bring.

He heard Lucilla’s footsteps coming down the stone stairs; an instant later, she tapped on his door. Shrugging on his coat, he walked to the door, opened it, and found her waiting outside.

She met his eyes, read them, then smiled—one of her direct, open-hearted smiles that felt like warm sunlight to him.

He smiled easily back with just a hint of smugness, which she saw, but there was no reason to employ any façade with her. Her nose tipped up slightly, her challenge still there in the set of her head, her posture.

She stepped away. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ravenous.”

He picked up his cane, drew the door closed behind him, and followed. “A night of interrupted sleep can have that effect.”

She smothered a laugh.

They found Marcus already at the high table. Thomas sat Lucilla in her usual chair, then settled beside her in what had already become his accustomed place. He and she helped themselves from the array of platters and settled to eat.

A comfortable silence enfolded them, which, it appeared, none of them felt compelled to break. He continued to be curious about the relationship between Lucilla and Marcus; both seemed to know what the other was thinking, and possibly what they intended to do. They exchanged few questions along the lines of “What are your plans?”—presumably because they knew the answers.

It was curious to feel included, not as if he were a part of them but rather that he’d been accepted as a denizen of their small world and didn’t need to be entertained with polite but meaningless chatter.

They’d pushed their plates away and were sitting back, savoring their coffee or tea, when, as had happened the day before, Lucilla was summoned to deal with some household matter. She immediately excused herself, rose, and walked off, leaving him and Marcus still at the table.

Eventually, Marcus set his mug down and arched a brow at him. “I’m going to spend a few hours with the dogs, if you’d like to join me. I’m training the younger ones, and if you have any advice, I’d be pleased to hear it.”

“Where are the kennels?”

Marcus tipped his head to the southwest. “At the far corner of the rear yard. It’s not that far, and we have a training field behind the kennels, so you won’t have to walk any further.”

Although his wound still pricked and itched, and the muscle tensed uncomfortably when he walked, the pain had largely gone; unless he stood or walked for too long, the wound wouldn’t hobble him. He nodded and set down his mug. “Thank you. I’d like that. It’s been quite a while since I last worked with hounds.”

As they rose, Marcus glanced at him. “You didn’t keep your hand in with the Carrick pack?”

Gripping his cane, he followed Marcus off the dais. “When I realized how little time I’d be spending down here, I gave it up. Not fair on the dogs, and it’s not possible to keep even a pair in Glasgow.” Not in the fashionable area in which he lived. “Deerhounds would go insane from the lack of space in which to run.”

Marcus grunted. He headed for the archway Thomas had assumed led to the kitchens. Reaching it, Marcus paused to glance at him. “So who keeps the Carrick pack now? I know some are still there, even if Nigel sold off more than half—which, incidentally, seemed another very strange thing to do. I bought several of the bitches and a good-looking sire, too.”

Thomas shrugged. “Nigel was never that interested in the hounds—well, other than for hunting. He never saw the point in breeding them.” He hesitated—then, accepting that Marcus was unlikely to act in any way that might harm the hounds, he added, “I understand that several of the clan disagreed with his culling, and they spirited the most valuable breeders to one of the outlying farms. I’m not sure who is running the breeding now, but Nigel knows nothing of it.”

“Ah. I see.” Marcus led the way into the wide corridor.

“Speaking of breeding hounds,” Thomas said, limping behind him, “where are Artemis and Apollo? They were here when I arrived—or did I dream that?”

“No dream.” Marcus walked through another archway into the bustling kitchen. He moved to one side, out of the way of the maids, and halted; Thomas joined him. “That evening, I had the dogs in to show the children. I do that every now and then, so the dogs learn children aren’t prey to chase, and the children get used to them. Normally Artemis and Apollo are the only dogs allowed in the house, but they have the run of the place. They used to stick to me and Lucilla like glue, but now they’re so old, they spend most of their days moving from fireplace to fireplace on this level.” Marcus tipped his head to a pair of shaggy heaps stretched before the main kitchen hearth. “At this time of day, they’re invariably here, waiting for leftover sausage and bacon.”

Thomas grinned; he watched the two dogs for several minutes. “They look like they’re dreaming.”

Marcus smiled. “Let’s leave them to it. We can go out this way.”

Thomas followed his host into another corridor that led to a rear door. They stepped out into a cobbled courtyard and walked slowly toward the southwest corner of a very large rear yard.

As they walked, he looked around. The ancillary buildings made Casphairn Manor feel more like a village; he noted a blacksmith’s forge, and what appeared to be a tannery, and an active buttery with butts of ale neatly stacked along one wall.

Marcus had noticed him looking. Thomas arched a brow. “You have a strange and different mix of trades—not just the ones for farming.”

Marcus nodded. “From the first, we’ve always had all the trades needed to survive. Historically, given how much of the year we’re snow-bound, that made sense, but even now, we don’t need to rely on the outside world for anything vital. Every necessary trade is here somewhere, either at the manor itself or on the farms—which, as I mentioned, are relatively close.”

Thomas had looked out of Lucilla’s window that morning and had seen several of the farmhouses. Although not so visible at ground level, they weren’t far from the manor at all.

The kennels proved to be a relatively new structure, at least as far as buildings at Casphairn Manor went.

“We built it when I—and Lucilla, but mostly me—decided to seriously breed the hounds.” Marcus led him down the central aisle toward a large open area at the far end. Along the way, he unlatched the doors of the large pens to either side, and dogs of all sizes and a good blend of colors rushed out, eager to hunt, eager to please—and hoping to run like the wind.

Thomas laughed as the dogs brushed and jostled him, and younger pups scampered around and about, but after circling and scenting him and deciding he posed no danger, the older dogs led the milling pack on down the aisle, to gather, curious and eager, in the clear area at the end.

The next two hours went in a pleasure he hadn’t so much forgotten as set aside. How to deal with the large, strong, and ever-curious deerhounds instantly returned to him; he joined Marcus in putting the older dogs through their paces, then, once those dogs were satisfied and ready to slump, tongues lolling, and rest, he and Marcus ran through a succession of training exercises with the year-old youngsters. The puppies were too young to train, but the yearlings needed to start learning the signals, whistles, clicks, and waves by which a hunter controlled his dogs.

At the end of the session, assisted by the two kennel keepers, they steered the dogs back to their pens. Thomas paused to rub the shaggy head of one brindle-coated yearling.

Marcus leaned on the gate of a nearby pen. “That’s one of Apollo’s descendants.”

“Really?” Thomas pushed back to study the dog’s lines. “Yes—I can believe that.”

Marcus straightened. “Perhaps we should close the circle, as it were.” When Thomas looked his way, Marcus pointed to the dog. “I could give you a pair of hounds—one from Apollo, one from Artemis.”

The notion tugged at something inside him, but Thomas shook his head and stepped back, allowing one of the kennel keepers to pen the dog. “That’s the one thing I truly dislike about Glasgow—it’s no place for hounds.”

Marcus stared at him for several seconds, his expression—never easy to read—especially inscrutable, but when Thomas arched his brows in question, Marcus merely dipped his head and said, “There is that.”

With a wave, Marcus started them walking out of the kennels.

Thomas had crouched more than a few times; his injured calf was now reminding him that he still carried a wound.

Although he said nothing, and he was damned if he showed anything, Marcus seemed to sense his discomfort and kept to a slow, ambling pace.

They were still some way from the kitchen door when a voice called, “Mr. Carrick, sir!”

He and Marcus both looked and saw a farmer—one from the Vale who Thomas had seen in the Great Hall, but could not put a name to—standing on the other side of the yard fence, leaning on the top rail.

“I was wondering, sir, if you’d mind if I picked your brains over the sheep—the longhairs the Carricks run. I oversee the herd here, which is all white-faced natives, but I wondered if you had any pointers you could share.”

Marcus glanced at Thomas, a query in his eyes. In reply, Thomas changed direction and limped across to lean against the fence. Marcus followed and introduced the farmer as Mr. Gatehouse. Thomas exchanged nods. “They’re Lincoln Longhairs, as I recall.”

“Aye, that’d be them.” Gatehouse nodded solemnly. “We’ve been wondering”—he included Marcus with a tip of his head—“whether there’d be any sense us getting a few in, just to see.”

“That,” Thomas said, settling more comfortably against the rail fence, “depends on what you want to achieve.” To his surprise, details of the breed several of the more isolated crofters ran to supplement their income from logging were still clear in his memories. “The Carrick crofters chose the Lincolns because they could get a decent return even with just a few animals, principally because of the weight of the fleece.”

The three of them stood leaning against the fence, swapping observations and weighing the benefits of the longhairs versus the local white-faced breed, which was highly prized for its silken fleece as well as its succulent meat.

At one point, remembering his earlier exchange with Marcus, Thomas asked, “What do your weavers think?”

And that opened up another field for extensive discussion.

It was nearly an hour later when they parted from Gatehouse and continued their ambling progress toward the manor’s back door.

Halfway across the open section of the yard, Thomas halted. Leaning on his cane to ease the pressure on his leg, he lifted his gaze to the surrounding hills, scanning their forested lower slopes and the higher, bald peaks.

Realizing he’d stopped, Marcus halted a few paces ahead and turned to look back at him.

His gaze resting on the hills to the north, on the ridge that separated Carrick lands from the Vale, Thomas murmured, “It’s been so long since I was here, on the land and with my feet on the ground, so to speak. I hadn’t expected my memories to be so clear—so sharp and precise.”

Marcus considered him for a long moment; Thomas felt his steady gaze, but before he turned to meet it, Marcus, too, looked up at the hills, at the northern ridge. “Once this country claims you, it sinks talons into your soul, and as far as I’ve seen, as far as I know, it never lets you go.”

That sounded like some old saying. Given all he knew of Marcus’s situation—his unquestioning acceptance of his future in the Vale—Thomas wasn’t sure how to respond, so he merely tipped his head and resumed his journey toward the house.

Marcus watched Thomas for several moments, then sighed and followed him.

* * *

Late that night, when the manor had fallen silent and all were abed, Thomas lay sprawled on his back between Lucilla’s pale green sheets, with his head on her pillows and with her stretched half over him, sated and asleep.

He was sinking toward slumber, too, equally sated and so deeply satisfied—so very deeply relaxed on the mental plane as well as the physical—that his mind seemed to be floating, hovering, observing.

Able to see and recognize aspects of himself that normally lay concealed.

Such as the reason he was so very at ease, at peace on a level he couldn’t remember ever having attained.

Despite the limitations imposed by his injury, his day—this day—had…suited him. Had unexpectedly fulfilled him. From the first, it had been pleasant—pleasing, engaging, and satisfying in an unprecedented way—and, courtesy of what flared so hotly between him and Lucilla, had ended in soul-wrenching pleasure.

His mind dwelled on the revelation—on the answer to the question of what he needed in order to feel this way. A question he hadn’t previously asked for the simple reason that, until now, he hadn’t realized it was possible to feel so content. So sunk in contentment.

Now he knew, but he also knew it couldn’t last. His wound would heal and he’d leave for Glasgow—and by then this…madness, whatever it was, with Lucilla would have run its course. If their mutual fire hadn’t reduced to ashes by then, the flames would at least have started to subside. To lose their potency, their power.

They hadn’t yet, but they would. Such was the way of life.

To you, I will always bring life.

Perhaps, but all things died with time. Like the screen he’d originally deployed between him and her that their passion had reduced to cinders.