Beyond the Highland Mist

  “I am no stranger to the darkness, lass,” he warned. “I will find you. I am the finest of falconers.”

  She said nothing, made no sound.

  “A haggard is a wild, mature falcon,” he continued, a hint of a smile in his voice. “Usually a falconer is reluctant to assume the challenge of training one, but sometimes, upon a truly rare moon like the harvest moon we had last eve, the falconer espies a bird of such brilliance, such magnificence, that he casts all caution aside and traps the haggard, vowing to bind her to him. Vowing to make her forget all her wild free past—whether in darkness or in light—and give herself freely only to her future with her falconer.”

  She must not answer him; he’d follow her voice.

  “My sweet falcon, shall I tell you how I will tame her?”

  Silence, absolute. They were circling in the darkness like wary animals.

  “First I seel my lady, which is to deprive her of vision, with a black silken hood.”

  Adrienne smothered an indignant gasp in her shaking hand. The folds of her gown rustled as she sidestepped quickly.

  “Then I blunt her talons.”

  A pebble skittered across the floor a mere yard away. She backstepped, clutching her skirts to keep them still.

  “I fasten jesses and dainty bells to her ankles so that I can be aware of her every movement, for I am in the dark too.”

  She drew a labored breath—almost a pant—then cursed herself for slipping, knowing he would track her traitorous gasp. She knew his strategy was to keep talking until he provoked her into revealing herself. And then what? she couldn’t help but wonder. Would the Hawk make love to her here and now in the darkness of the broch? A shiver coursed through her, and she wasn’t certain it was fear. Not certain at all.

  “Then a leash to tether her to her perch until I no longer need leash her. Until she becomes leashed of her own free will. And the best part—the long, slow process of binding her to me. I sing to her, the same sweet song until she grows accustomed to the sound of my voice and mine alone….”

  And his butterscotch rich voice began that same husky croon of a lullaby, melting her will.

  Adrienne stepped slowly backward; she actually felt the breeze of him passing by her, mere inches away. Where was that wall?

  She almost screamed when he found her in the blackness, struggled a long moment against his iron grip. His breath fanned her face and she struggled in his grasp. “Be still, sweet falcon. I will not harm you. Not ever,” he whispered huskily.

  Adrienne felt the heat of his thighs burning through her thin silk morning gown. She was enveloped in the heady scent of musk and man. Oh beautiful man, why couldn’t I have known you before my last illusion was shattered? Why couldn’t I have met you when I still believed? she mourned. She fought against his arms, which embraced her, cradled her.

  “Let me go!”

  Hawk ignored her protests, drawing her closer into the steel of his embrace. “Aye, I’ll simply have to have you seeled. Or perhaps I should bind your hands and hood your eyes with silk, and lay you across my bed, stripped bare and laid wide open to pure sensation until you become accustomed to my touch. Would that tame you, sweet falcon? Could you grow to love my touch? Crave it as I crave you?”

  Adrienne swallowed convulsively.

  “A falcon must be wooed with relentless and rough love. By taking away her light, by seeling her, she learns to understand with all her other senses. Senses that don’t lie. The falcon is a wise creature, she believes only what she can feel, what she can hold in her talon or her beak. Touch, scent, hearing. By slowly being given back her sight and freedom, she is bound to the hand that restores these things to her. If she fails to trust in her master and doesn’t grant him absolute loyalty by the end of her training—she seeks to flee at every opportunity.” He paused, his lips a scant breath from hers. “None of my falcons have ever flown my hand without returning,” he warned.

  “I am not a stupid bird—”

  “Nay, not stupid, but the finest. A falcon is the only other bird that can match a hawk for flight, accuracy, and speed. Not to mention strength of heart.”

  She’d been lost to him the moment he’d started singing. And she didn’t protest further when his lips brushed hers lightly. Nor did she protest in the next instant, when Hawk’s hands on her body turned hard, hot and demanding. Coaxing. Claiming.

  “Would you soar for me, sweet falcon? I’ll take you higher than you’ve ever been. I’ll teach you to bank heights you’ve only dreamed existed,” he promised as he scattered kisses across her jaw, her nose, her eyelids. His hands cradled her jaw in the darkness, feeling every curve, every plane and silken hollow of her face and neck with his hands, memorizing the nuances.

  “Feel me, lass. Feel what you do to me!” He pressed his body against hers and rocked his hips, making sure she felt the swollen manhood that rose beneath his kilt and teased the inside of her thigh.

  And there was the wall; it had been just behind her back all the time. Cool stone to her back and the inferno of the Hawk searing her through the front of her gown. She raised her hands to pummel him, but he caught and pinned them above her head against the wall. His strong fingers splayed her grip, twined with and teased her hands. Palm to palm, flat against the stone.

  “My sweet falcon,” he breathed against her neck. “Fight me as you will, it will come to naught. I have set my mind on you, and this is your first time to be seeled. In this blackness you will come to know my hands as they touch every silken inch of your body. I will not take from you any more than that. Just that you suffer my touch, you needn’t even see my face. I will be patient while you grow gentled to my hands.”

  His hands were liquid fire, sliding her gown up and over her thighs and oh! She hadn’t had the faintest idea where to look for undergarments this morning. His hands, his strong, beautiful hands were kneading her thighs, pushing them gently apart to slip the heat of his muscled leg between them. He purred, a rich husky growl of masculine triumph, when he felt the betraying wetness between her thighs. Adrienne flushed furiously; despite her intentions her hands fluttered up to rest upon his shoulders, then slid deep into his soft, thick hair. Her knees, already weak, went limp when he eased the bodice of her gown aside and dropped his head to her breasts, licking and grazing the swollen peaks with his tongue, then his teeth.

  She scarcely noticed when he pushed his kilt up; but she definitely noticed when his hard, hot, heavy arousal rose against her thigh. Adrienne made a throaty sound: half whimper, half plea. How had he done this to her? Merely by touching her, the Hawk had somehow managed to unravel every ounce of resistance she’d so painstakingly woven into the cloak of aloofness she wore.

  It had never been like this with Eberhard! Her mind fled her body and she clung to the hand that had seeled her. The hand that had denied her sight she tasted with her lips—turned her head to catch his finger with her tongue. Adrienne almost screamed when he took that same finger and placed it inside the slick heat between her legs. “Fly for me, sweet falcon,” he urged, cupping one of her heavy breasts with his hand and licking its puckered crest. He teased her mercilessly, nipping her gently, touching her everywhere.

  His lips returned to claim hers with desperation sired of a hunger too long denied. A hunger that might never relent. His kiss was long, hard, and punishing, and she reveled in his unspoken demands. A whimper escaped her when the pad of his thumb found the tiny nub of heat nestled between her folds, and Adrienne’s head dropped back as a burgeoning wave cast her up and up. Yielding to his fingers, his tongue and lips, she sacrificed the last vestige of her restraint.

  “Adrienne,” he whispered hoarsely, “you’re so beautiful, so sweet. Want me, lass. Need me like I need you.”

  She felt the heat of a place with no name she’d ever been taught—luring her deeper.

  Adrienne struggled to say the words she knew must be said. The one word that she knew would free her. This legendary seducer of women—oh, how easy it w
as to understand just how legions had fallen before him! He was so good at it. He almost had her believing that it was for her and only her that he hungered. Almost a fool again.

  But that was why they called them rogues. Lotharios. Don Juans. They applied the same skill and relentless determination to seduction that they applied to the art of war—to conquests of any sort.

  Resurrecting the tatters of her defenses, she steeled her will against his advances.

  The Hawk was lost. Lost as he’d been since the moment he’d laid eyes upon the bewitching lass. No matter her strange fancies risen from some secret and terrible past. He would discover a way to erase all her fears. The things Grimm had told him signified nothing. With love he could overcome any obstacle in time. His lady hawk she would be, for now and always. He treasured her yielding to his hands, savored like the rarest delicacy the sweet honey of her lips, trembled at the thought that she would one day feel for him as he felt for her. With her it would never be like it had been before, empty and hollow.

  Nay, with this lass he would mate for life. She had no eye for the beauty the other women had so adored. This lass possessed secrets of her own. Horrors of her own. Depth of her own. All in all, a rare lass indeed. He was sinking, sinking into her depths … the kiss deepened ferociously and he felt her teeth graze his lower lip. It maddened him beyond control.

  “Oh!” she breathed, as he nipped her silken neck.

  Emboldened by his success, he breathed the first tentative words. He needed to tell her; needed her to understand that this was no game. That he had never in his life felt this way, and never would again. She was the one he’d been waiting for all these years—the one that completed his heart. “Ari, my heart, my love, I—”

  “Oh, hush, Adam! No need for words.” She pressed her lips to his to silence him.

  Hawk froze, rigid as an arctic glacier and every bit as chill.

  His lips went still against hers, and Adrienne’s heart screamed in agony. But how much worse would it scream if she became a fool again?

  His hands dug cruelly into her sides. They would leave bruises that would last for days. Slowly, very slowly, one by one, his fingers unclenched.

  She had said his name!

  “The next time you say Adam’s name, lass, is the time I stop asking for what I already own and start taking. You seem to forget that you belong to me. There is no need for me to seduce you when I could simply take you to my bed. The choice is yours, Adrienne. I bid you—choose wisely.”

  Hawk left the broch without another word, leaving Adrienne alone in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  ADRIENNE SHOULD HAVE WORKED UP AN APPETITE. SHE’D spent the rest of the day after the falcon incident wandering every inch of the bailey. Was this day ever going to end? she wondered. She must have walked twenty miles, so she should have burned off some of her pent-up frustration. Even her elite guard had looked a little peaked when she’d finally consented to return to the castle proper and brave encountering the Hawk.

  Dinner offered fluffy potato soup, thick with melting cheese and spiced with five peppers; a delicate white fish steamed above a fire in oiled olive leaves, garnished with buttery crab; asparagus seared to perfection; plump sausages and crisp breads; puddings and fruits; lemony tarts and blueberry pie. Adrienne couldn’t eat a morsel.

  Dinner was awful.

  If she glanced up one more time and caught the look of death the Hawk had fixed on her, she would have to stuff a fist in her mouth to keep from screaming.

  Adrienne sighed deeply as she spooned at the soup everyone else seemed to be relishing. She pushed it, poked at it, smashed the fluffy stuff. She was busily rearranging her asparagus into neat little rows when the Hawk finally spoke.

  “If you’re going to play with your food, Adrienne, you might give it to someone who’s truly hungry.”

  “Like you, my lord?” Adrienne smiled sweetly at the Hawk’s plate, which was also laden with untouched food.

  His mouth tightened in a grim line.

  “Is the food not to your liking, Adrienne, dear?” Lydia asked.

  “It’s wonderful. I guess I still don’t have my appetite back—” she started.

  Lydia sprang to her feet. “Perhaps you should still be resting, Adrienne,” she exclaimed, shooting an accusing look at her son. The Hawk rolled his eyes, refusing to get involved.

  “Oh, no, Lydia,” Adrienne protested quickly. “I am totally recovered.” No way she was going back to the Green Lady’s room and playing invalid. Too many strange memories there. Tonight she planned to find a new room to sleep in; there certainly wasn’t a shortage in this massive castle. She was rather looking forward to exploring the place further and selecting a room of her own. “Really, I’m fine. I just ate too much at lunch.”

  “You didn’t eat lunch,” Hawk said flatly.

  “Oh, and who are you to know?” she shot back. “Maybe I ate in the kitchen.”

  “No you didn’t,” Tavis added helpfully. “I was in the kitchen all day, I’ll say. Plumb forgot to eat is what you did, milady. A time or two I’ve done the same myself, I’ll say, and the hungrier I get, the less I feel like eating. So you better be eating, milady. You’ll be needing your strength back and I’ll say that again!” An emphatic nod of his cheerful head punctuated his decree.

  Adrienne stared at her plate, a mutinous flush coloring her cheeks.

  Lydia glared at Tavis as she came to stand protectively beside Adrienne’s chair.

  “I find I’m not all that hungry myself,” Lydia said. “What say you and I go for a walk in the gardens—”

  “With the brute force trailing behind?” Adrienne muttered, glancing at Hawk beneath lowered lashes.

  “—while my son gets some beans from the buttery and brews us a fine cup of coffee for our return,” Lydia continued, dangling the bribe as if she hadn’t been interrupted.

  Adrienne sprang to her feet. Anything to escape his eyes, and coffee to boot.

  Betrayal shone in the Hawk’s eyes now.

  Lydia took Adrienne by the hand and started to lead her to the gardens.

  “I’ll brew the coffee, Mother,” Hawk said to their backs. “But see to it that Maery has Adrienne’s things moved to the Peacock Room.”

  Lydia stopped. The hand holding Adrienne’s tightened almost imperceptibly. “Are you quite certain, Hawk?” she asked stiffly.

  “You heard her. She is completely recovered. She is my wife. Where best to guard her?”

  “Very well.”

  “Where’s the Peacock Room?” Adrienne spun on her heel to face him.

  “On the third floor.”

  “Will I have it to myself?”

  “As much of it as I don’t use. ’Tis the laird’s chambers.”

  “I am not sleeping with you—”

  “I don’t recall asking you to—”

  “You oversized, arrogant, conceited jackass—”

  “Really, Adrienne, my son is none of those things,” Lydia chastened.

  “No reflection on you, Lydia. I really like you,” Adrienne said politely. Politeness decamped abruptly as she glared at the Hawk. “But I’m not sharing your bed!”

  “Not quite the topic to be bandying about over the dinner table, I’ll say,” Tavis offered, scratching his head, a flush stealing over his cheeks.

  Hawk laughed and the dark rumble vibrated through her body, leaving her nipples erect and her heart hammering.

  “Wife, you will share my room this eve if I must have you tied and carried there. Either you can suffer that humiliation or you can come willingly upon your own two feet. I’m not much concerned with how you get there. Just get there.”

  Mutiny rose up in her breast, threatening to steal her very senses. Dimly she heard the door behind her open and shut and caught the scent of a cloying perfume that turned her stomach. Whatever the scent was, it reminded her of the orphanage; of attics and mothballs and days the nuns had made her scrub the floors and dust the heavy dark furn
iture.

  “Lover!” came the cry of feminine delight from behind her.

  Lydia’s hand tightened painfully on hers. “Olivia Dumont,” she muttered almost beneath her breath. “Dear heavens! I doubt I’ll see this day through sane.”

  “Olivia?” Adrienne echoed, her eyes flying to the Hawk’s.

  Olivia, the Hawk thought gloomily. This day was rapidly running the gamut from bad to worse. He refused to meet Adrienne’s questioning gaze. How dare she call him Adam in the midst of their lovemaking and then ask questions about another woman? She had no right. Not after she’d said his name.

  Fury consumed him every time he thought about it.

  Adam.

  Images of his hands ripping apart the smithy flesh from bone comforted him for a moment.

  Then desolation overwhelmed him. Now he had two problems: How was he going to make Adrienne want him? And what was he going to do with Olivia?

  Fix Olivia up with the smithy?

  That brought a grin to his face, the first in a while.

  And naturally, Adrienne misunderstood it, thinking his smile was meant for Olivia, as did Olivia. As, it appeared, did his mother from the scowl on her face. Grimm cursed softly beneath his breath. Tavis shook his head, muttered a heated oath, and stalked from the heavily laden dinner table.

  “Olivia.” Hawk inclined his head. “What brings you to Dalkeith?”

  “Why, Hawk,” Olivia purred, “need you ask? I’ve missed you at court. You’ve been away from my … side … for far too long. I surmised I’d simply have to come collect you myself if I wanted you. So,” she finished with a flutter of lashes and a blatant come-hither look, “here I am.”

  Hawk realized belatedly what a stupid question he’d asked as Adrienne fixed Olivia with a chilling gaze. Hawk knew from experience that Olivia could answer any question—no matter how innocent—with a loaded innuendo, but he’d shut the unpleasant memory of her antics from his mind the moment he’d returned to Dalkeith. It occurred to him that he would do well to resurrect those memories quickly. It would be unwise to forget Olivia’s penchant for troublemaking; the asp was in his nest now.