B
alfurin sat in the midst of a great lake, a single narrow stretch of road extending from the mainland to its front gates. The water surrounding the stronghold gleamed like glass. Craggy mountains stood sentinel around the lake. Sunlight fought to free itself from a sky of swollen gray clouds, almost the same shade as the castle’s gray stone. It was an awesome sight, and one he might have enjoyed if his thoughts were not so tangled up in the woman beside him.
Arriving in the yard, he lifted Astrid off her horse, none too pleased at the bold glances MacFadden’s men sent her way. He closed a hand around her arm possessively and shot the men dark looks as he followed his grandfathers inside the castle.
They passed through a great hall until they entered a drawing room of well-polished wood. Thankfully, the men and their insolent stares were left behind.
His grandfathers made themselves comfortable, one on a sofa, the other in a wing-backed chair.
“Becky, drinks,” MacFadden commanded, sending a young, eager-faced maid flurrying into motion. Glass clinked as she poured drinks from a sideboard and arranged them on a tray.
Griffin sank down onto a settee, pulling the silent Astrid down beside him, her body radiating tension next to him.
The maid carried the tray around the room, offering each of them a glass of what appeared to be whiskey. When she reached Astrid, she asked politely, “Can I fetch you some tea, ma’am?”
“Yes, thank—”
“Becky, do something with the lass, would you?” MacFadden interrupted, looking at Astrid with something akin to annoyance, almost as though she had
snuck
into the room with them uninvited.
Color spotted Astrid’s cheeks.
Becky looked from Astrid to MacFadden, clearly confused. “
Do
something?” she asked faintly.
MacFadden flicked a hand in Astrid’s direction, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Aye.
Put
her some place. Anywhere. I wish to speak with my grandson.”
“That’s enough,” Griffin snapped, rising in one quick motion, pulling Astrid up with him.
“Griffin,” Astrid broke in, “don’t—”
He cut her off, addressing the maid, “Would you show me to my room, please?”
“Griffin,” MacFadden’s voice rumbled out, brusque with disapproval, “we have much to discuss—”
“We can talk later,” he bit out, knowing he was close to losing control entirely. “Right now I’ll be shown to my room.”
Tossing an uncertain look at the laird, Becky began to lead them from the drawing room.
Griffin stopped abruptly and turned, the anger in him bubbling up from the surface. “Just a word of advice. You and I will get on much better if you take care in addressing my…companion with respect.”
MacFadden blinked, looking from him to Astrid and back to him again. “I see,” he murmured, nodding.
With a curt nod, Griffin turned and followed the maid out of the room, one hand still closed firmly around Astrid’s arm. Only with each step, his anger grew. And it was not solely directed at Hugh MacFadden.
Once again, she had put herself out there, exposed herself. Perhaps not to danger this time, but to scorn and derision.
Becky opened the door to a well-appointed bedchamber. “Your room,” she murmured, looking uncertainly between them. “I’m sorry the fire has not yet been lit.” She moved in the direction of the hearth, but Griffin’s voice halted her.
“Thank you, Becky, but I can see to it.”
“Very well.” She nodded and exited the room.
He thrust Astrid into the chamber before him and closed the door firmly after the maid.
She rubbed her arm where he had gripped her and moved to the center of the large chamber, watching him like an animal cornered, wary and ready to flee.
His temper burned even brighter at the sight. He dragged a hand through his hair, cursing himself for handling her so roughly, for making her look at him with such trepidation, even if she did manage to infuriate him beyond reason.
But now he only saw red as he stared at her. She cocked her chin in that gratingly familiar angle. The defiant action galled him.
“Have you learned nothing?” he demanded. “Could you not have simply bit your tongue and continued to pretend that we’re married?”
Her eyes flared, then narrowed to slits. “Don’t treat me like a dim child. My honor is not at risk here, among your family. I see no reason to carry on the pretense of being married now.”
“No?” he growled. “I do,” he replied, uncaring that his reply sounded more like a petulant boy denied a toy than a man in full control of himself and his emotions.
“I would think you would want no lies between you and your family. You’ve only just met. Your relationship with them shall grow stronger whereas our association shall end altogether in a short time. They should have complete honesty from you. Who cares how they treat me?”
“I care,” he hissed, seizing her by the arms.
Her eyes grew wide, lips parting on a whimper. She stared at him a long moment, her lips trembling as if she wanted to say something. He waited, wondering what traipsed through that head of hers.
Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and he had to force his thumb not to brush the tempting pink lip, to lean down and draw it into his mouth, to taste her.
“Are they so wrong? Have I not done with you precisely what they judge me to have done?”
He shook his head, refusing to accept her logic. “I’ll not stand by while you’re treated like a whore.”
She flinched, but continued in a maddeningly even voice. “Then you should have provided me with that escort and sent me on my way.”
“Not that again.” He gave her a small shake. “I gave my word to see you safely to Edinburgh.”
“When?”
“When I’ve concluded my business here.”
“Rather vague,” she muttered. “I’ll not be held hostage to your whims.”
“You’ll be on your way soon,” he heard himself promise, wondering if that was a vow he could keep. The feel of her in his hands even now fired his blood. He was not yet tired of her…and he somehow suspected he wouldn’t tire of her anytime soon.
She stared at him a long moment, her dark eyes inscrutable. “Then you must see how your family’s opinion fails to signify. A year from now we shall be but a dim memory to each other. What are we anyway save two people forced together by circumstance?” Each clipped word struck him like a jagged little stone. Her eyes gleamed like polished onyx, reflecting nothing—no light, no sentiment.
Galled at her words, at her emotionless stare, his hands fisted at his sides.
How could she be so cold, so without feeling?
“Circumstance,”
he growled, the word rolling off his tongue like an epithet. “There is more than circumstance between us, Astrid.”
Circumstance
had little to do with the fact that they had become lovers. Or that the world faded, disappeared entirely, when he held her in his arms.
Dim memories?
Did she honestly believe such nonsense?
He’d been with enough women to know that what was between them was real.
Rare
. He would never forget a moment of their time together. Startled and angered at thoughts that dangerously bordered on sentimentality, he cursed beneath his breath.
“Please, Griffin,” she murmured, all coolness and ice. “Don’t try to make this more than it can be.” She motioned around them. “We’ve reached civilization now. We cannot continue as we were. You know that.”
He glared at her, wanting to deny her words, to tell her he didn’t know anything of the sort.
She continued. “I’m sure you intend to stay for a while and acquaint yourself with your family. Can you arrange for an escort to take me as far as Edinburgh?”
He stared at her for an astonished moment, the dignified angle of her chin, the firm set of her lips, and knew she was serious. She meant to go, to leave him.
And why not? She spoke the truth.
He could send her on her way under the care of escorts, confident in her safety. That had been his motive for helping her in the first place. Nothing demanded he keep her with him now. Still, his mind searched, seeking a reason. To
not
accept that the time had come for them to part ways. To let her burrow back into her privileged shell and return to her life among the echelons of High Society. No doubt she would remarry a proper aristocrat like herself who would bank the fires Griffin knew existed within her, hungry to be lit.
“No,” he heard himself declaring in an intractable voice. “I would not entrust you to someone else’s care. I said I would see you as far as Edinburgh and I will. I’m a man of my word. You were seen leaving Bertram’s room. You’re still a likely suspect in his death. For all we know, they’re still scouring the countryside for you.” A sound reason, completely justifiable, to keep her with him a bit longer.
Her smooth brow wrinkled. “A man of your word.” Her lip curling back over her teeth. Angry splotches broke out over her smooth complexion. “How singular.”
“I’m aware that such a man is unfamiliar to you,” he shot back, calling himself a bastard when she recoiled.
And just like that, he knew.
As much as she drove him mad with her inconsistencies, fire in his arms one moment, the ice-cold duchess the next—he
wanted
her. More than he had wanted any other woman. Even if keeping her a while longer meant everyone at Balfurin would continue to see her as his mistress. He would challenge anyone, his newfound family included, who treated her shabbily again. Because he could not give her up. Not yet.
Perhaps never
.
“I’m certain you’re being overzealous in your concern. I don’t think it necessary—”
“Nonetheless, this is the way it shall be. You will depart when I do. I, and no other, will see you safely onto that train.” He dropped onto the large tester bed, bouncing on it a bit as though pleased at its spring. “Until then you shall remain with me, under my protection.”
And in my bed
.
She watched him warily as he stripped off his jacket and vest. “And how long before you decide to depart? You’ve only just met your grandfathers.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, removing his boots.
“Am I to be your prisoner, then?” Further color spotted her fair cheeks, breasts rising enticingly against her gown. “I have a life waiting in London.”
“And it shall continue to wait.” He leaned back on his elbows, eyeing the length of her, wondering when precisely he had come to find waifish blondes with demon dark eyes so appealing. He had never favored women of her coloring before. Hell, he had never favored women of her prickly temperament.
Her lips compressed into a hard line, those eyes sparkling like chips of coal. With a disgusted snort, she began to pace, her hands folded tightly before her as she moved. Stopping abruptly, she expelled a great breath and faced him again.
“I’ll not remain here as a
toy
to
serve
your needs during your stay, if that’s what you have in mind. No doubt there is some willing girl about for that. One with proven breeding potential.” She added this last bit with a decidedly cruel twist to her lovely mouth.
He rose in one fluid motion, catching her around the waist and pulling her down to the bed with him, determined to thaw her, to recover the sweet, responsive creature he had enjoyed before his grandfathers discovered them and brought them to Balfurin.
“Don’t behave as though you want nothing to do with me. We both know the truth.”
She struggled in his arms. “The truth?” she sneered. “And what would that be?”
He coiled his arm tighter about her waist and brought his other hand down on her breast, cupping the firm mound. Her nipple sprang to attention against his palm, pebble-hard. The heat of her flesh burned through the fabric of her gown, singeing him, firing his blood, turning him rock hard in an instant.
She stilled, her breast rising and falling fast against his touch, her heartbeat a speeding drum alongside his palm.
“That you want me—this—every bit as much as I do.” He rubbed his palm over her breast in a fierce motion, imagining the blushing crest of her nipple in his mind, pretty and velvety as rose petals.
“I know what you want,” he growled, moving to knead the other breast. Small mewls of desire escaped her mouth, each tiny sound twisting him tight as a bow string ready to snap.
Her eyes gleamed darkly, lids falling low as she thrust herself up into his hand.
“I know,” he repeated, his voice thick and unrecognizable to his ears as his thumb traced her nipple in feverish circles, drawing widely over the tip before closing in, squeezing and rolling the nub between two fingers, “what your body craves.”
He forced his hand to fall away, pleased at the sound of her disappointed moan, evidence of the desire she would pretend not to feel for him.
Her head fell back on the bed, breasts rising on sharp breaths, lids still heavy over her eyes.
“I know
you
, Duchess.” He grasped her hips and pulled her roughly against him, letting her feel the proof of his desire. “Don’t hide from me anymore. Not after everything that’s passed between us. You’ll leave when I’m ready to let you go,” he announced.
A thoughtless, absurd edict, he knew. And yet he was selfish enough not to care. Wanted her too much to care. Wanted her enough to damn both of them.
Defiance sparked in the dark depths of her eyes and he knew he’d touched a nerve. She wedged a hand between them, trying to shove them apart. “Arrogant pig,” she hissed.
He reached for the hem of her dress, determined to ease the straining ache against his trousers, to sink into her heat, to prove to her that they were far from finished, that they would share a bed. And their bodies. For however long they were together.
She was a fool to think otherwise, to think they could return to being polite strangers…that he would allow that to happen.
He had grown too accustomed to the warmth of her body.