Tempting the Wolf (13 page)

“How do ye ken? Since when has the Black Celt had such a rosy view of the world?”

“Since…” The big man faltered for a moment, and O’Banyon rushed in, slicing sideways, plowing a shallow scratch across the Scot’s Herculean chest.

Hiltsglen glanced down in surprise.

“Living soft with bonny yon lass in yer arms has made ye slow,” O’Banyon said, grinning. ‘Twas rare indeed when a combatant severed so much as a hair from the Scotsman’s head. “Slow and weak.”

“Weak is it?” Hiltsglen rasped and leapt forward.

There was no time for talk then. Barely time to think. Only to parry and swing and advance and retreat. Metal clashed and sang and sparked and blurred.

The Scotsman had strength on his side. But O’Banyon was quick and wary, with the senses of a wolf and the mind of a troublemaker.

They stood finally, faced off, at an impasse, their weapons met before them as they rasped for breath, muscles quivering and spent, sweat slick against hot skin.

“Tell me, laddie,” Hiltsglen rumbled. “How long has it been since ye yerself has been with a bonny lass?”

O’Banyon would have preferred to strike rather than answer, but his muscles quaked at the idea, and his legs refused to move. ” ‘Tis none of yer affair, Scotsman.”

The grin again, so irritating O’Banyon wanted nothing more than to wipe it off his face with the blunt side of his weapon. “So the wee white maid refuses yer advances, does she?”

“The wee white witch.”

“What?” The axe dropped a fraction of an inch.

O’Banyon shook his head. “Naught. ‘Tis naught,” he said and took another swipe at the Scotsman’s chest. But it was a weak attempt, set aside by a wobbly blow.

“Ye think the
countess
be dabbling in the dark arts?”

“Nay. Aye! I dunna ken!” snarled Banyon and struck again. Again it was sliced wearily aside. “She is…” He struck. Hiltsglen parried. “She avoids me.”

“And thus ye accuse her of sorcery?” The Scotsman’s laughter melded with the clash of their weapons. “I knew ye to be vain, Irish, but—”

“I can think of none other but her.”

They parried weakly.

“Aye,” agreed Hiltsglen, seeming to think it the most natural of things.

“She haunts me every dream.”

The Scotsman nodded and advanced.

“And when I touch her…” Even now, O’Banyon felt the lightning of her nearness.” ‘Tis like thunder to me soul. Like a wound to the very heart of me.”

“God’s balls, Irish,” said Hiltsglen, drawing back and breathing hard.” Yer na hexed, ye bloody fool. Yer in love.”

O’Banyon felt himself pale. “Ye shut yer mouth, Scotsman.”

The other laughed out loud, throwing out his muscled chest. ” ‘Tis just like a bloody Irishman to prefer to be cursed than besotted.”

” I am na—”

“Ye can think of none other even in yer dreams. Ye touch her and are set ablaze. ‘Tis na different than any other man what has found his true mate.”

O’Banyon scowled and let his ax droop to his feet. ” ‘Tis how ye felt, Scotsman, when ye first met your wee flower?”

The other didn’t speak for a moment, but then he nodded. ” ‘Tis how I yet feel,” he said finally. ” ‘Tis like pleasant torture every time I look into her bonny eyes or touch her tender—”

“What the hell goes on here?” someone snarled.

The men turned in unison. The Celt’s wee wife stood not twenty feet away. She made a comely sight, her legs spread, a pistol held steady in both hands. Unfortunately, the pistol seemed to be pointed rather directly at O’Banyon’s head.

“Na to worry, me love,” Hiltsglen rumbled. “We were but stretching our muscles.”

“Stretching your muscles!” She skimmed her husband’s body. Blood was smeared across his chest. His muscles quivered with fatigue. And scattered around them in a thirty-foot radius, was firewood the size of button hooks. She turned her gaze to O’Banyon. Her eyes were slightly narrowed, her mouth pursed.

He gave her a grin. Even that was tiring.

“He’s bleeding,” she said.

The Irishman shrugged. The ax fell from his fingers with the effort. ” ‘Twas naught but a lucky strike, me lady.”

“Lucky?” She tightened her fingers and advanced.

“Unlucky. Unlucky!” O’Banyon corrected and managed to lift a trembling hand toward her. “Hiltsglen…” He shook his head. “He be me best friend in all the world.”

“You almost killed him.”

“Oh now, lassie,” he said, shaking his head and retreating unsteadily. “Ye flatter me, but truly, the Black Celt is all but impossible to kill, na matter how hard I may—”

She cocked the pistol. Hiltsglen chuckled and stepped toward his blushing bride.

“There now,” he said, reaching out and easing the weapon from her fingers. “If ye shoot him, lass, who will I spar with next time?”

“How I detest whist,” said the baroness of Hendershire. She was plump and fair-skinned. Mayhap her brown eyes were charming and her dimpled cheeks alluring, but at that precise moment, O’Banyon couldn’t recall her given name, for she sat directly across from the white countess. “Perhaps I should wear gloves as Lady Colline does, then I might hide my hideous cards inside,” she said and threw down her hand. They were attending a house party at Chitwick Hall. There was always a party, it seemed, a gathering filled with elegant guests and worthless banter. But O’Banyon did not mind. For from his vantage point some tables away where he held his own cards, he could watch and learn.

Love
, Hiltsglen had said? Was it possible? He didn’t know, and yet, when he looked at her, feelings skittered like June bugs through him, lighting his soul. ‘Twas not very manly.

“May I ask why you forever wear gloves, countess?” asked Lady Trulane. She had a sallow complexion and teeth that protruded forward like an aged gelding’s. She did
not
have charming eyes, but she was known to spin a lively yarn, and her dogs certainly adored her. Indeed, a small, skewbald cur sat on her lap even now and alternated between licking his backside and giving O’Banyon a jaundiced glare. Dogs tended to dislike him quite fervently. And the smaller they were, the more they disliked him. He could only assume it was jealousy.

“I wear them because they match the color of my eyes, of course,” said Antoinette.

“They’re white,” countered the young baroness.

“As are much of my eyes,” quipped the countess. “Or at least I hope it is so.”

The others laughed.

“I have always suspected,” said Mr. Winters, throwing in his cards, “that her hands have been hideously scarred.”

“Like the king of Siam’s,” said Lady Trulane.

They all turned to her.

“Surely I’ve mentioned the time I spent with King Rama.”

There were moans mixed with laughter. Sometimes the lady’s far-fetched tales could meander for hours.

“The countess’s hands are not scarred,” argued Lord Bentley, approaching with a glass of sherry. He set it reverently at her elbow, which was also covered by her glove. “They are as lovely as the rest of her.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” said the white lady and gave him a gracious nod.

“You’re most welcome, my dear. Is there anything else I might fetch for you?”

He looked like nothing so much as a panting hound, with his drooping eyes and puffy jowls, O’Banyon thought uncharitably. Another minute and he’d be licking her slippers and begging to go out.

Tightening his fingers on his fluted glass, Banyon reminded himself to relax. It wasn’t as if the saggy little duke was asking her to bear his children. Although it was entirely possible he was considering the possibility. The hair on the back of the Irishman’s neck rose eerily at the mere thought. God’s balls. What the devil was wrong with him, he wondered and trumped the others’ cards.

He had not played whist before a few months ago. Indeed, he did not believe it had been imagined when last he found sport in the cities of his homeland, but he had a gift for games of chance. Hiltsglen had once suggested it was a devil’s gift, and indeed, it had not gained him a host of merry well-wishers and lasting friendships, but he had scars aplenty.

“No thank you, my lord,” said the countess. “But you are indeed kind to offer.”

“Not at all,” said the duke and beaming, drew away to gaze at her from afar.

The evening wore on. O’Banyon won a small fortune and tucked it into the pocket of his wine-colored waistcoat, but it was the gained knowledge he truly cherished, the wee tidbits of information that thrilled him.

The white countess, for instance, did not like sherry. Oh, she sipped it from time to time but only for the sake of politeness.

She favored her left hand, holding her cards in her right.

She had a fondness for the oddly named delicacy called whim wham. He could tell by her expression, though she ate it slowly, by careful spoonfuls and did not indulge in a second.

She did not choose her friends for their handsome countenances. Indeed, the people she seemed to find most amusing bordered on homely—a depth of character which did not make O’Banyon feel particularly secure. There was the countess of Anglehill, with her long, equine features, Lady Trulane whose teeth were slanted and her complexion poor, Mr. Winters, whose face was round and red. On the other hand, Anglehill was as smart as a whip, Trulane had a thousand ready stories, and Winters’s wit was as sharp as a Highlander’s blade.

And while Antoinette seemed to appreciate each of them, she was polite but formal with one and all. Except, he mused, thinking back, with that quiet ray of sunshine called Sibylla. He had sensed something between her and the girl that he’d not witnessed elsewhere. Something gentle and comfortable, for he had been afforded the opportunity to observe her in the conservatory for some time before she’d noticed him.

And when she had, she had straightened her back just the slightest degree, as if to add height, as if to challenge the world to see beneath her lovely facade, just as she did now when their eyes met with a velvet clash.

“So you are renting Lady Farrell’s winter home?”

O’Banyon turned his attention back to Cecilia.

He had moved from the card table, and though the widow was comely and well endowed, his gaze continued to stray toward the countess in white.

“Aye,” he said, disciplining himself to focus on the woman before him. “She was kind enough to allow me its use while I am yet in London.”

Mrs. Murray smiled knowingly and took another sip of her claret. Beneath the rouge that brightened her cheeks, there was a ruddy flush, suggesting that this glass was not her first. “I rather doubt it was kindness that caused her generosity,” she said.

He resisted glancing toward the countess, though he longed to do so. “And why might that be?”

She watched him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Evelyn’s husband is all of fifteen years her senior.”

He cocked his head. “I dunna ken what that might have to do with an empty manor house.”

“Oh come now, sir,” she chided coyly. “I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.”

He grinned. “Mayhap,” he admitted and reaching for her hand, kissed it, “but that does na mean I’ve na wish to hear the words said aloud.”

She laughed, and in that second he felt the countess’s attention flicker toward him. Lightning sizzled along his nerve endings for an instant and then she turned away, distractedly responding to another.

“Then I shall say it,” murmured Cecilia. “You are an ungodly attractive man, and any woman who is a real woman would want you in her bed.”

He raised a brow.

“Have I shocked you, sir?”

“Can ye na see me blush?”

“No,” she said. “Where do you keep it?”

He chuckled. “Ye flatter me, lass.”

“Enough to tempt you?”

“Me lady,” he said, smiling down at her. “Surely ye ken, I’ve been tempted from the first moment we met.”

“Indeed?” she asked, peering at him through her kohl-darkened lashes.

He meant to answer. In fact, it defied a cardinal rule of flirtation to do otherwise, but at that moment Antoinette laughed. He felt the tingle of the sound in his very soul, and he could not help but turn toward her. Could not help but wonder if something honestly amused her or if, perhaps, she was merely playing the social games of the elite.

Why?

Aye, she was wealthy and well bred. But the same could be said of any of the others who stood in the knot round about her, yet none of them seemed to feel the need to present such a flawless face to the world. Indeed none—

“She would not generate much heat.”

O’Banyon turned his attention abruptly back to the handsome widow before him. “Yer pardon?” he said.

Her eyelids were low over her sultry, bedroom eyes. “The countess,” she explained.

He canted his head and kept his idiotically chivalrous instincts at bay. The lady in question did not need him to come to her protection—verbal or physical. And sometimes he thought that terrible sad, for he would like nothing better than to lift a sword between her and danger, to right the wrongs he knew in his soul had been done to her, to feel the silver ecstasy of her smile for himself alone.

“She is
not
a real woman,” added Murray coolly.