“Here?” she whispered. “People with telescopes watch, you know.”
He paused. If he were merely going to screw her, he wouldn’t care who watched. But since she would be going for a long, vertical walk afterward, he didn’t want witnesses.
Smiling, he stepped back and gestured to the door. She laughed as she walked ahead of him into the study. “Somehow I expected you to be more adventurous.”
“There’s a difference, my dear, between adventurous and stupid.” He went to the wall switch and turned out the lights, then locked the door. Calla stood calmly waiting for him, the city lights spilling through the windows, glittering on the jewels at her ears and throat.
He took off his dinner jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, not caring to have it smeared with telltale makeup. His shirt would likely bear the marks, but it would be covered by the jacket, and he would dispose of it as soon as he returned to his own hotel. As a last precaution he took his handkerchief from the jacket and put it in his pants pocket.
Arousal coursed through him as he stood in front of her and worked the tight sheath of her skirt up about her waist. She didn’t have on any underwear, but then he hadn’t expected any. He lifted her onto the desk and she leaned back until she was lying flat across the polished surface. They both knew what this was, and it wasn’t lovemaking. She didn’t pretend to have any romantic feelings, or demand foreplay. This was power sex, a gambit involving bodies, though she hadn’t yet realized the true game or that she wouldn’t survive it.
He unfastened his pants and stepped between her spread thighs, entering her with a smooth thrust that had her humming with pleasure. Good, he thought as he began thrusting. It would be nice if she enjoyed her last time.
Calla’s long hair fanned across the desk. Parrish closed his eyes and thought of Grace, of her luscious mouth. He imagined that the heat surrounding him was Grace’s heat, and he pumped steadily into it. She too would die afterward, but perhaps not immediately. Perhaps he would play with her for a while.
Calla gasped, arching. The response struck him as too theatrical, and he paused to consider her. Her eyes were half closed, her head tilted back, her lips open and moist. It was a lovely picture she made, and a totally false one. Why, she was faking, damn her, pandering to his ego. She probably faked it with all her rich lovers, twisting and moaning so they thought they were great in the sack, while all the time she was smirking inside and feeling nothing but contempt because men were so easily manipulated with sex.
Not this time.
He slipped one of her shoes off, dropping it to the floor. Deliberately he reached down between their bodies and pinched her clitoris, rubbing his thumb across it in a repeated motion. She gasped again, and tried to twist away from him. Parrish dragged her back, thrusting into her to the hilt and recapturing her hardened nub. “What’s the matter?” he softly taunted, his voice coming in soft pants in rhythm with his thrusts. “Don’t tell me you like faking it better than actually coming. Can’t you feel superior if you let yourself enjoy being fucked?”
“Bastard,” she hissed at him, digging her claws into his sleeved arms. Her breath was coming faster, her eyes furious and gleaming in the darkness.
“You like the power you have over men, don’t you? You like knowing you can turn them into panting beasts. Is that what makes your nipples get so hard, or do you fake that too, pinching them when no one’s looking?”
The glitter of her eyes almost matched that of her jewels. “I pinch them. Did you think a man could turn me on? Don’t be funny!”
“What does turn you on? A woman?” He kept his rhythm steady, his thumb moving ceaselessly back and forth while he thrust. Her hostility was far more exciting than her compliance had been; if it hadn’t been for her superficial resemblance to Grace, he would simply have pushed her over the railing without giving her a tumble first. But he liked her venom, her contempt; at least she wasn’t faking that.
“That would please your ego, wouldn’t it, if I were a lesbian? No wonder you couldn’t make me enjoy it, I’m a man-hater! No such luck,” she jeered. “I please myself, a lot better than a man can.”
“Until now.” He openly gloated as he felt how wet she was getting. Her breath was getting faster and faster, her nipples standing upright without being pinched. He read the signs and thrust harder and deeper, driving into her, and with a choked cry she began climaxing. Triumphant, he rode her to the end, until his own climax began boiling upward. He snatched the handkerchief out of his pocket as he jerked out of her, coming into the silk square while he stroked himself in the final pleasure.
Her features twisted with rage as she sat up. It wasn’t just that he’d made her climax, but that he had pulled away from her at the last and accomplished his own pleasure without her, taunting her with the reversal of her usual role with men.
Calmly Parrish folded the handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket, to be disposed of when he could safely do so. He straightened his clothing, tucking and zipping, then assisted her off the desk. She stood silently as he restored her dress to its proper position. “Don’t sulk,” he advised. “It isn’t becoming. You should learn, my dear, to be a better loser. And to be a better judge of the men you play your power games with, because I fear you badly misjudged the situation this time.”
She glared at him, not ready to give him any sort of victory, and bent down to retrieve her shoe. Parrish stayed her with a hand under her elbow. “Not yet,” he said, smiling, and clipped her under the chin with his fist.
She obligingly sagged forward, and he lifted her in his arms. She wasn’t unconscious, just stunned, and she blinked owlishly at him as he swiftly carried her out onto the balcony. “I would apologize for the little bruise you’ll have,” he told her as he stood her up at the waist-high wall, “but really, my dear, no one will notice.” Then he bent and caught her ankles, and tipped her over.
She didn’t scream at all, or if she did, the sound was stifled by terror. Parrish didn’t linger to watch; after all, they were fifty-six stories up, and it would take her several seconds to hit the street. He went back into the study and picked up her shoe, then returned to the balcony. Crouching, he pressed the heel of the shoe against the polished marble until the high, sharp heel snapped off. He thought about tossing the shoe over too, but someone might notice its arrival on the street several seconds after its wearer, so instead he left it lying on the marble. All that remained to do was to retrieve his jacket and rejoin the guests, and wait for the cops to arrive and tell Skip his wife had apparently taken a header off the balcony. That should take long enough for everyone to be hazy about the time he rejoined them, especially since the wine and cocktails had been freely flowing for at least an hour now.
He did regret having to soil his handkerchief.
Chapter 10
GAELIC WAS A BITCH. GRACE HAD SPENT TWO WEEKS WORKING on the Gaelic section, and made very little headway. The language wasn’t in her computer programs, so she had no electronic aid in deciphering the faint chicken scratches. Whoever had copied the originals had tried to darken the copy to bring out more detail, with little success. She could see the tattered edges of the originals on the copy, telling her that the Gaelic sections hadn’t fared as well as those written in Latin. Perhaps the paper hadn’t been of as good a quality, or the pages had gotten damp at some time. Not that a good, clear copy would have helped much.
She had bought a Gaelic/English dictionary, and several guides to speaking Gaelic to aid her in figuring out syntax. The problem, however, was that she hadn’t been able to find any guides to Gaelic as it had been spoken in the fourteenth century. She thought she would go mad with frustration. There were only eighteen letters in the Gaelic alphabet, but the Scots and Irish had overcome that restriction by using wildly creative spelling. Add to that the archaic styles of handwriting, word usage, and no standard spelling anyway, and the effort involved in translating one sentence was twice what it would have taken her to do an entire page
of Latin or Old English.
But even with all the difficulties, eventually she pieced together sentences that made sense. The Gaelic section detailed the exploits of a Highland renegade called Black Niall. Though the section’s inclusion with the rest of the papers made it likely Black Niall was the same man as Niall of Scotland, Grace didn’t automatically assume they were one. She had already dealt with the complication of different spellings of the same name, so it was just as possible that the spelling could be the same but refer to someone else. After all, any number of Nialls had lived in Scotland. Her Niall was Niall of Scotland, of royal blood; what connection would royalty have with a Highland renegade? These chronicles were different from the others; different handwriting, different paper. They could have been mixed by accident with the others, simply because of the name.
Black Niall was an entertaining rogue, though. Deciphering his exploits occupied all her free time, except for the hours she spent with Harmony’s “mean little greaser son of a bitch,” one Mateo Boyatzis, a delicate and deadly young man of Mexican and Polish heritage. Matty knew more dirty tricks than a political ad man, and as a favor to Harmony he had agreed to teach “Julia” a few basics of fighting to win. She had no illusions about her slowly growing skill; she was not and never would be anything approaching expert. All she hoped to do was to be able to use the advantage of surprise to protect herself and the papers.
Not that she had anything to worry about, she thought, rubbing eyes grown weary from hours of wading through incomprehensible spellings and unlikely pronunciations. Any minute now, Gaelic was going to reduce her to drooling insanity, and then she wouldn’t care what happened.
To give herself a break, she put the Gaelic section aside and turned on the computer, then scrolled through until she came to a section in Old French. The papers weren’t in any chronological order; putting the story together was like placing pieces of a puzzle, an ancient one in many languages.
She saw the name almost at once, so attuned to it that her eyes picked up the familiar pattern of letters almost before she’d brought the words into focus. Black Niall.
“Whaddaya know,” she murmured, leaning forward. It looked as if Black Niall and Niall of Scotland were indeed one and the same. Why would papers written in French detail the exploits of an obscure Scots rogue, unless he wasn’t so obscure after all? A Templar of royal blood, excommunicated, under the penalty of death should he ever be taken outside Scotland, and Guardian of the Treasure to boot—obscure perhaps by design, but certainly not unimportant. There had been people, perhaps remnants of the Order, who had known who and what Black Niall was, and made a point to keep track of where.
But royal? She had gone over and over the genealogical charts in the Newberry Library, and there hadn’t been a Niall recorded during that era.
“Who were you?” she whispered, seeking that elusive wisp of contact, almost like touching the mind of a man who was centuries dead. She had never before realized how powerful her imagination could be, but she took comfort in the sense of connection. She didn’t dare let anyone else too close, not even Harmony, but there were no limits with the man who lived now only in her dreams. She didn’t have to be wary with him, didn’t have to hide her identity, didn’t have to disguise herself.
These papers were yet another account of his exploits, where he had searched out a band of raiders and destroyed them, leaving no man alive. Niall had evidently gone to a great deal of trouble to protect his stronghold, dealing swiftly and harshly with any threat. This was another sticking point: if he were royal, he would have a title, and legal claim to his stronghold. The Gaelic papers, however, called him a renegade, a man who had taken by force a remote castle in the western Highlands, and held it without title or deed, without anything except the power of his sword. Could a royal be a renegade, and if he had indeed been outcast from the family to such an extent that his name had been stricken from all records, would or could Robert the Bruce have tolerated such insolence within his own borders?
The Gaelic papers would probably be more enlightening, but her brain simply couldn’t absorb any more of it that night. Putting aside the French papers, she thumbed through until she found the pages in Old English.
Again, the name almost jumped off the page at her: Black Niall, a Scots warrior so bold and ruthless he was feared throughout the Highlands. His stronghold, Creag Dhu, was never breached, except once by “a layde who entered bye wicked trickery.” Grace felt a tiny spurt of amusement when she read that, for of course a woman couldn’t have accomplished the seemingly impossible without using “wicked trickery.”
“She fooled you, didn’t she, laddie?” she murmured to Niall, almost smiling as she imagined his disbelief, his outrage at finding his castle’s protection breached by a lone woman. He would have been in an absolute fury, the kind that had the castle guards hiding from him—Grace stopped her thoughts, grimacing as she realized her imagination had kicked in again. She might dream about him, he might seem so real that sometimes she thought she could turn her head and actually see him standing there, but in reality he had turned to dust a good six centuries before she’d ever been born.
Reading on, she found that Black Niall had captured the woman, so the “layde”’s trickery had gained her nothing, except his attention, and perhaps that was what she had wanted. The papers didn’t indicate what he had done with her after capturing her. Bedded her, probably, Grace thought. He’d been a lusty man, ill suited for monkhood.
Another account began: “Black Niall, the MacRobert—” and Grace sat upright as all the tumblers clicked into place.
Niel Robertsoune—son of Robert, and a great warrior in an order renowned for its warriors. Niall MacRobert—again, son of Robert, and a warrior so great his stronghold was never breached, save by that unnamed enterprising lady. “A Scot of Royal blude”… son of Robert… son of Robert the Bruce?
Electrified, she quickly checked the dates, only to sag back in disappointment. She could only guess at Black Niall’s age, since she knew neither his birthdate nor the date he had died, but he had been a grown man when the Order had been condemned in 1307. King Robert I of Scotland, the most famous Bruce, had been too young to be Black Niall’s father. Quickly Grace rechecked her notes on the chronology of Scotland’s royal line. Robert the Bruce’s father, the Earl of Carrick, had also been named Robert.
Was Black Niall brother to Robert the Bruce? How? The Bruce’s four brothers, Edward, Nigel, Thomas, and Alexander, had been well documented as they fought with their brother and king to push the English out of Scotland. The only way Niall could be connected, but left in obscurity, would be if he were illegitimate.
“That’s it,” Grace breathed, sitting back.
The ramifications, the possibilities, made sitting still impossible. She jumped up and began pacing the confines of her small room as detail after detail fell into place to complete the puzzle. A bastard half-brother, in medieval times, wouldn’t have been that unusual or even that important—unless the legitimate heir happened to be aiming for a throne. Scotland had always been different from the rest of Europe in the way it looked at kinship, and while Niall’s bastardy would normally have put him beyond the pale, in Scotland the crown had been up for grabs by the one who wielded the most power. The Bruce had been an undeniably powerful warrior and foe, but Niall’s skills in warfare had been legendary. His very existence would have been a threat to Robert.
The wonder was that he hadn’t been murdered, to remove that threat. The fact that he hadn’t suggested that he had been held in some affection. Then, too, he had joined the Templars, so perhaps his ambitions had been churchly rather than political. No—remembering what she’d already read about Black Niall, he hadn’t been the churchly sort at all. So why had he been a Templar? Adventure, wealth? She could see where the promise of both might have lured Black Niall to the Order, but overall his nature seemed far too fierce and earthy for him to accept the restrictions.
Whatever his reason
s for becoming a Templar, his doing so had been convenient for the future King of Scotland. The Bruce wouldn’t have had to worry about a monk gaining the crown, because his vows of chastity would have precluded heirs to the throne.
His chastity had ended with the destruction of the Order, Grace thought, if she had translated some of the passages correctly. The references to sexual activity hadn’t been explicit, but fairly plain for all that. However Niall had honored his vows while a Templar, after the Order had been destroyed he had embraced life—and women—to the fullest. He still would not have been a threat to the throne, because as an ex-Templar he would have shunned exposure.
But it explained so much—why Niall had been able to take Creag Dhu and hold it without interference from the King, even why the Bruce had been the one European monarch who had not only not enforced the papal death sentence against the Templars, but whose country had become a sanctuary of sorts for the hunted men. Robert had refused to sign his half-brother’s death sentence. It even explained why Niall had been chosen as Guardian; the Temple Masters had known his lineage, known he and the Treasure would be safer in Scotland than anywhere else in the world.
She inhaled suddenly, and the room turned dark around her as knowledge struck with the force of a blow. The Treasure. Ford and Bryant had died because these stupid papers told the location of the famed, lost Treasure of the Templars: Creag Dhu.
Money. That was what it came down to. They had died because of money, money that Parrish Sawyer wanted. Because she had the papers, he had either assumed she had already translated enough to know what they were about and also told Ford and Bryant, or he had wanted to wipe out all knowledge of them regardless.
She had thought the grief would be easier to bear if she just knew why.