Dark Duets Part 24

Good Lord. He was stunning-all dark hair that looked like thick sable, skin bright and bronzed in the candlelight, and cheeks and jaw and brow strong and powerful like some kind of statue-a Greek G.o.d. A Roman athlete.

Except there were things about him that weren't so perfect: a scar above one eye, long and wicked; a mouth set in a cruel line, like he'd never in his life smiled; and cold, gray eyes filled with weariness. With tragedy.

Why?

No. I wasn't transfixed. I wouldn't be transfixed.

He was an intruder. In my house, lighting my candles.

And he must be stopped.

I hefted the ax with renewed vigor. "Are you a squatter?"

One side of his mouth twitched, just barely. "I appear to be standing."

This wasn't a joke to me. "I have a key."

"Where did you get it?"

"I-" Wait. I didn't have to answer him. "It doesn't matter, as I also have a deed."

"I a.s.sure you, not to this castle."

I raised a brow. "No, you're right of course. To a different castle. Scotland is, I'm sure, overrun with castles just waiting to be inhabited."

"It is, rather," he said.

I ignored him. "Look, whoever you are, this is my castle. You're trespa.s.sing."

"Where is this deed?" He sighed, as though it was he who was put out and not I-exhausted, without my luggage, my only worldly possessions a half-eaten package of almonds, a pocketful of change, and an ax.

"I'd get it for you, but as you can see, my hands are occupied."

A very heavy ax.

"You can put it down, you know. I don't plan on attacking you."

"Would you tell me if you were?"

"Probably not."

Oddly, his honesty was a comfort. I let the ax fall to my side with a heavy thud. "How long have you been living here?"

"Long enough to know that you shouldn't be here." With that, he turned away. Taking the light with him into the dark bowels of the castle, leaving me no choice but to follow, ax trailing behind me, through the ma.s.sive entryway and down a long, unlit corridor to an enormous library, spanning two huge floors with a balcony of bookshelves that stretched high above us. I caught my breath inside the door.

He turned to face me at the noise. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "What every little girl dreams of."

He placed the candelabrum on a desk littered with papers and sat in a large wing chair. "You like books."

In hindsight, I should have been surprised that the words weren't a question, but there was a fire roaring in the fireplace, and he had already stretched his long legs toward the heat, the wool of his trousers pulling tight over muscled thighs and knees, s.h.i.+elding the tops of his shoes. He wore a fine white linen s.h.i.+rt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, collar open to reveal a perfect triangle of skin.

The man was dressed for business and draped in wealth. He was no squatter. "Your deed," he said, extending one long arm toward me as though saying the words could produce the doc.u.ment.

And they could, apparently, as I was already reaching for my purse. Extracting the paper, I pa.s.sed it to him. He looked at it, turning it over, inspecting every inch of it before setting it down on his great mahogany desk. My desk. "Where did you get this?"

I inched toward him, dragging the ax along the floor. "I was left the deed and the key."

His brow furrowed. "An inheritance?"

"Not exactly." Not at all.

"How, exactly?"

"As a tip."

His eyes widened, and if I wasn't mistaken, there was a hint of laughter buried in their depths. "As in, a gratuity? For services rendered?"

It hadn't seemed so insane until he said it aloud. My cheeks suddenly felt warm. "Yes."

"For what kind of services?" The question was filled with lascivious curiosity, and warm quickly became hot.

"Not what you're thinking, I a.s.sure you!" I crossed my arms at his disbelieving expression. No wonder this man lived alone in a castle. He was insufferable. "Someone should shave that eyebrow right off your head."

"That happened to me once," he said, the smile edging toward fondness. "All right . . . you are not a lady of the evening."

"I am not."

"The gratuity, then?"

"I'm a waitress."

He stilled. "A waitress."

I nodded.

"And someone gave you a castle."

"Yes."

"In exchange for soup."

I scowled at him. "And a sandwich."

He let out a big, booming laugh. "Let me guess, a woman wearing red gave it to you."

"How did you know that?"

"The same way I know she gave you the key."

Nerves made it easy for me to steel my voice and repeat myself. "How did you know that?"

Instead of answering, he turned away and poured himself a gla.s.s of amber liquid from a large crystal decanter on a nearby sideboard. A brief smile played across his lips as he lifted the gla.s.s into the air and murmured, "Giving a castle to a waitress as a tip-fairly inventive."

He downed the scotch and poured himself another, without offering me one. After a sip, he leaned back against the sideboard, swirling the gla.s.s lazily in his hand. In the candlelight the scar slas.h.i.+ng through his eyebrow appeared stark and severe.

"How did you know that the woman who gave me the key was wearing red?" I said, clenching my hands by my side.

The stranger grinned, but it was not a grin of mirth. His eyes bored into me. "Lucky guess?"

Before I could argue, he cut me off. It was like a switch had been thrown, and whereas before he'd begun to soften, he'd once again turned cold and immovable.

"You should leave here. Now."

Maybe he was right. But I wasn't going anywhere. "No."

He turned on me, gray eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "You can't imagine where you are. What has brought you here. You don't belong here."

"You don't know that," I said.

"I know you're lost," he spat out. "I know you have traveled an immense distance-farther than you've ever gone in your life because you're afraid of where you've been and even more afraid of where you are going. And I know it never occurred to you that where you were going might be worse. That here might be worse."

His words startled me, and I hated him then, this dark, handsome stranger in his stupid gothic castle.

My stupid gothic castle.

He didn't seem to care, turning away. "You took the last ferry to the coldest, dreariest place in Scotland, Emily-to an isle at the end of the earth-and you thought that you'd find rainbows and faeries on the banks of the North Sea, all because some red-dressed b.i.t.c.h whispered a promise that offered you escape from the life you lived." He drank, finis.h.i.+ng the scotch and setting the gla.s.s down next to the castle deed before he added, "Following whispered promises isn't brave adventure. It's sheer idiocy."

For a moment the room was silent. In the distance came the far-off sound of something howling-a dog baying for its master. The sound brought the stranger's attention back to me, the mask dropped from his face. His eyes glistened with something familiar.

Pain.

"You should leave this place and never come back."

Cold raced up my spine. "How do you know my name?"

In two steps he was in front of me, his hand held out as though to cup my cheek but his fingers never quite reaching me. "Oh, Emily . . ." he whispered.

Did he think it was a game? That I was a p.a.w.n, willing to be maneuvered?

No. I was through being maneuvered. And this man was obviously everything that was wrong in my life. But I had a key and a deed, and if he wanted some fight, he'd get it. I'd get a lawyer. I'd fight for this.

Like I'd never fought before.

" . . . You fall for it every time."

The words stung. I wanted to throw something at him. Wanted to clear the desk in a single dramatic gesture, sending his ordered papers and pens to the floor. Wanted to plant the ax that was still in my hand into the center of the heavy mahogany, through deed and blotter and centuries-old wood.

But I didn't. Instead I lifted my deed from the desk, folded it carefully, placed it into my back pocket, and said, "I'll take idiocy over isolation any day."

I stormed from the room, leaving the ax and the man.

I'd just made it to the front door when he caught up with me. "Stop," he said, as though he'd never had to make a request in his life.

I yanked open the heavy oak and stepped into the rain that had blossomed in the minutes since I'd entered the castle. His hand closed around my arm. "Where are you going?"

Without bothering to answer, I wrenched free and stormed down the path marked by poplars and willows toward the boat landing.

"The ferry won't be back tonight."

I kept walking.

"The castle is the only thing on the island!" he called out.

The rain intensified. I turned back. "What?"

He emerged from the fog, inches from me. "The island is all deeded to the castle."

I blinked. "So you're the only one here?"

"Yes."

"Nowhere else to stay?"

"No."

A gust of icy wind whipped around us, my hair coming loose from its moorings and whipping my face like a harsh, stinging lash. "Where am I supposed to sleep?"

He looked as furious as I felt. "I think the better question is where are you going to sleep."

"Not with you."

"I do not recall inviting you."

I narrowed my gaze. "A good thing, too. I wouldn't if we were the last two people on earth."

He leaned in close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my lips. "If I could do so, I would leave you out here to spend the night with the wolves and the rain. Maybe that way, you'd resolve to leave here forever."

Something lodged in my throat-fear perhaps. Because I didn't think he was joking. A s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed through me at how callous this man could be, if he wanted to.

And I was alone with him. Great.

He turned away and headed back through the fog, which seemed to have thickened in the mere minutes that we'd been outside. The rain began in earnest now, and that's what pushed me over the edge; I'd trade my pride to be warm and dry. I had to follow the G.o.dforsaken man or get lost on this G.o.dforsaken island in this G.o.dforsaken weather.

What an idiot I was.

Once we were back inside the castle, the door tightly closed, he lifted the candlestick from a nearby table and started up the large winding staircase toward the upper levels.

I didn't follow, watching him go, taking light and warmth with him, until he spoke again, the heavy, dark words falling down toward me. "Do you want a bed? Or not?"