The Blood of Roses (26 page)

Again and again he probed and taunted, withdrawing when it seemed she was but a tremor away from oblivion, returning again when the immediate danger passed. Water sloshed over the enamel lip of the tub, some of it spattering as far as the logs burning brightly in the grate. The crackle and hiss of exploding droplets found a sympathetic response in Catherine as her passion grew hotter and more volatile, threatening to turn the water to steam where it lapped against her scorched flesh.

Bold and hungry, Alex’s own need strained against the pliant roundness of her buttocks, his condition not alleviated in the least by the erotic motion of her hips and thighs rubbing against him. He wanted desperately to lift her from the restrictive confines of the tub—his own damned idea, he recalled with chagrin—to share the pleasure he could feel tearing her apart, but it was already far too late.

Cursing softly, he ran his fingers into the warm, sleek haven he had prepared so well, groaning as he felt the throbbing tightness close around him like the lash of a silken whip. His free hand slid up to her breasts, but they were still coated with a film of soap and the nipples slipped and slithered out of his fingers like well-oiled pearls.

For Catherine, the combined sensations were too much to bear. A moan rushed from her lips and a sheet of water was startled out over the carpet and floor as she writhed and gasped and twisted in an agony of pleasure. The pressure of his fingertips chased each shiver, isolated each spasm, prolonged each eruptive contraction until it convulsed into the next and the next. He urged her through wave after wave of consuming ecstasy as if he were there inside, sharing her exaltation, and when her cries began to diminish to whimpers, he continued to hold her, to ease her gently through the successive little pulsations that brought her drifting back to reality.

Was it minutes or hours before she could think or see clearly again? She was dimly aware of his lips nuzzling the curve of her shoulder, of his hands rinsing the last traces of soap from her skin. Her breasts were still flushed and rosy, her limbs weak, her belly fluttering, quaking from the force and power of the tumult he had released within her. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her back and she could see his hands were not as steady as they might be.

“How,” she demanded in a dry rasp, “am I supposed to ever look at a bed or a bathtub again without dying of absolute mortification?”

“That was the idea,” he murmured. “And we still have the floors, the walls, the tables—” A soft gust of laughter tickled her nape. “And I know this delicious little trick of painting warmed brandy on—”

“Never mind,” she croaked, and reached a wobbly hand for her wineglass. She drained it thirstily, the wine feeling smooth and mellow as it traveled down her throat, sweet and regenerative as it sent a blush of warmth through her veins. Too weak to bother setting the glass back on the low footstool, she let it dangle limply from her fingers as she leaned back against the wall of muscle, her lips parting on a deep-felt sigh of contentment.

Alex steered her chin around and angled her mouth up to his. Her eyes opened slowly, dreamily, and after a moment, when he became aware of their scrutiny, he gave her lips a final, lavish caress and released them.

“There it is again,” he commented wryly. “The look of wifely concern.”

“Oh, Alex, laugh at me if you like, but how I wish I could keep you locked in this room and never let you go. I wish … I wish—” Her eyes widened, the violet darkening and coming alive with a sudden flare of excitement. “Alex … why can’t you take me with you? You said there were women in the camp: wives, lovers—”

“No,” he said, cutting her off abruptly. “Absolutely not.”

“But
why
not? You said you missed me dreadfully and worried about me constantly. Lord knows I have missed you and been half out of my mind wondering if I would ever see you again. If I was with you—”

“No.”

“If I was with you,”
she continued emphatically, splashing more water over the rim of the tub as she half turned to face him, “I could at least see you occasionally and know you were safe. I would not have to live with this terrible fear of losing you.”

“You are not going to lose me,” he said firmly. “And you are not going to change my mind, no matter what weapons you bring into play against me.”

He was referring to the bright film of tears collecting on her lashes. Confronted by his implacably cold eyes, Catherine’s shoulders slumped in dejection.

“Do you really think me such a helpless weakling?” she asked miserably.

“I don’t know where you got that idea. You are neither weak nor helpless. Stubborn, perhaps, but not helpless.”

“I’m not stubborn,” she said stubbornly. “I’m just tired of feeling useless. Besides, you are my husband; I should be with you.”

“No.”

“You still think I would fall apart if I had to forgo the silks and satins and comfortable feather beds … but I wouldn’t. I would not miss any of this for a moment, not if I was with you. I would not complain either. Not ever.”

Alex said nothing, but it was easy enough to read the disbelief etched into his humorless smile.

“The dreams would stop too,” she whispered. “I know they would.”

“What dreams?”

Catherine bit down on her lip. She had not meant to tell him about her recurring nightmare, certainly not like this when he would assume it was merely another ploy to win his sympathy.

“Just … dreams,” she said, and put her hands on the edge of the tub in order to stand up.

“What dreams?” he asked again, tilting her chin toward him, forcing her to meet his gaze once more.

“Terrible dreams,” she admitted with a shiver. “Horrible dreams. I have them and I wake up crying … frightened half to death … screaming sometimes. They are always the same, they never change—not in the way they begin, anyway. Only the endings get longer and longer; I see more and more each time and I can’t stop it. I can’t wake myself up or change the way anything happens.”

She shivered again and Alex wrapped his arms around her. Feeling the chill sweep through her body, he stood and lifted her out of the cooling water, bundling her in one of the huge, thirsty towels that had been left to warm before the fire. Her skin had turned the color of ashes and he rubbed vigorously, trying to chafe some heat into her flesh. All the while, she stood mute and docile, her eyes downcast, her hands balled into tight, defensive little fists.

When he had dried her and wrapped her in a fresh towel, he settled her into a large wing chair, which he dragged to the hearth. He added a handful of kindling and two enormous logs to the fire, and within moments it was blazing, causing the moisture on his own skin to steam dry. Satisfied with his efforts, he brushed the wood scraps off his hands and scooped Catherine into his arms once again, taking her place on the chair and keeping her cradled, towel and all, in his lap.

“Now, tell me about these dreams.”

Catherine shook her head and buried her face against the curve of his shoulder.

“It is not uncommon for wives to have nightmares when their husbands are away fighting a war,” he said soothingly. “But that’s all they are: nightmares.”

“No.” She shook her head again vigorously and clasped her hands around his neck, her voice so muffled he could barely decipher the words. “It started before I even knew there was a chance of you going off to fight. It started before I even knew I would
care
about you going off to fight. Do you remember the day we stopped by the gorge? The day we were attacked by the Black Watch and Aluinn was shot by Gordon Ross Campbell? Well … that was the first time it happened. We were having our lunch and the sun was shining and the day was warm and peaceful and there was so much beauty around us—” She lifted her head from his shoulder and Alex experienced a genuine jolt of alarm when he saw her eyes. They were dark and shimmering, seeming to stare straight through him, the centers enlarged so that barely more than a rim of violet remained. “It was only a brief flash—like someone lifting a curtain and allowing a glimpse into another room. I did not even know what I was seeing, or who I was seeing, but it was so real. I cut my finger on a knife … do you remember?”

“I remember,” he said, feeling an icy flush crawl across the nape of his neck. He was not a superstitious man, nor had he ever given credence to the old crones and ancients said to possess the
sicht.
Alexander Cameron did not believe in visions or omens, did not believe in any power but that of his own making. He was about to say as much to Catherine when she began to speak again, her voice low and inky, as if being drawn from a deep, dark well.

“I’m standing in the middle of a field. A huge field, littered with bodies. Hundreds of bodies! There are men fighting all around me, blocking my way, and I am trying to push my way through them, but they cannot see me. It’s as if I’m not really there, yet I
am
there, and I am running. I run and I run but … I’m not moving. Everything else is—the clouds of mist and smoke, the trees … horses … men … even the ground is shaking because of the cannon shells. And … there is blood everywhere.” Her voice faltered to a whisper and she slowly withdrew her hands from around his neck and stared at them in horror. “My hands are covered with it. It is raining and the blood is pink on my skin, but it won’t wash away—there is too much of it.”

“Catherine, stop. It’s all right. You’re here with me now; it’s all right.”

“No. No, I have to find you. I have to tell you—” She drew a sharp breath and sucked the terror inward. She stared at the bright flare of light coming in through the bedroom window, but the horror she was seeing was too shocking to put into words. “There!” She gasped. “On the hill. You’re fighting the soldiers—ten, twelve, maybe more, I don’t know, but they are all around you, closing in a circle, and they have their swords raised! I scream and you look around … but it’s too late! You try to fight them off, but there are too many, and your arm … oh God, Alex,
your arm!”

Alex grasped her by the shoulders and shook her, cutting off a shrill scream of hysteria. She gasped and for a moment looked as if she might strike back in rage. In the next instant she seemed to grasp hold of the reality that she was not on the battlefield, and she crumpled into Alex’s arms, the sobs wracking her slender body with great, heaving convulsions. Alexander held her close, stunned in mind and body over the extent of her fear.

“Alex, please … please take me with you!”

He closed his eyes. “Catherine—”

“If you leave me, I know I will never see you again. You will never come back. Everything will happen, just as in the dream, only I won’t be there to warn you!”

“Nothing is going to happen!” he declared fiercely. “It’s a dream, Catherine, a nightmare! Nothing is going to happen to me, nothing is going to happen to you!”

“But … it is so real,” she cried, her eyes round and wet.

“It only
seems
real,” he insisted, “because you’re worried about me. And I love you for worrying about me, only …” He took her face into his hands, and there was as much desperation in his eyes as there was fear in hers. “Only please don’t ask me to do something I cannot do. If I took you back with me and something—
anything
happened to you, however trivial or small: a cut, a scrape, a
hangnail
, by God! I would never forgive myself. Can you understand that, Catherine? Can you understand how important it is for me to know you are safe, regardless of the madness going on in the rest of the world?”

Catherine allowed herself to be drawn forward, allowed her lips, her very breath to be plundered by the savagery of his embrace. His hands raked up into her hair, scattering the steel pins as he freed the golden cascade and brought it streaming forward over her shoulders. Strong, determined arms lifted her and carried her to the bed where she was not permitted to speak again, not permitted a single thought beyond the ecstasy of their union.

And when, at last, they drifted together into a passion-drugged sleep, Alex held her molded against his body, refusing to surrender to his own exhaustion until he was assured of her calm and easy breathing.

“Just a dream,” he muttered thickly, as if to purge her sleeping form of any final, lingering doubt. Yet despite his own firm denials of any basis for her fears, he found himself dreaming of a battlefield, of men screaming and dying all around him, and of a woman with bright yellow hair running toward him …

8

I
f asked, Deirdre O’Shea would not have admitted to believing in omens or incidents of precognition either, but privately she crossed herself and spat over her shoulder if a black cat strayed across her path, and she was equally quick to recite an ancient Celtic homily if the wind was heard to whisper certain words. She was Irish and the caution was in her blood. That was why, as she stood before the fireplace, she found herself staring at an ominous configuration formed by a chance spill of charred wood and ash.

The image of a man’s and woman’s bodies twined together—not in life but in death—was dismissed in the wink of an eye as Catherine emerged from her dressing room, her arms burdened under a shiny mountain of rich, lustrous satin.