Norah.
Her name. Just her name. She had heard it spoken a thousand times, a plain name and simple. But it slipped from Aidan Kane's tongue like silvery moonlight, lilting, liquid.
Norah's fingers clenched as she drew back from that secret, beckoning warmth. She didn't understand him. Didn't know what he was attempting to do. When she had arrived at Rathcannon, he made no secret of the fact that he would have happily tossed her atop a donkey cart bound for Dublin if he could have gotten rid of her.
Last night he had come to her, belligerent, angry, trapped by his daughter's pleading. He'd all but dared her to be fool enough to wed him.
Now here he was, spinning out love stories and teasing her in a way designed to make feminine hearts melt.
If I intend to woo the lady...
The mere thought of Sir Aidan Kane turning that soul-searing charm upon her was the most terrifying prospect Norah had ever faced. Terrifying because she wasn't certain any woman who breathed possessed defenses against such a dangerous weapon. A weapon in a game Aidan Kane had obviously played many times before. A game in which Norah could only lose, come away bested by him, embarrassed past bearing—or, worse still, with an aching heart.
Norah's chin tipped upward. "I do not require wooing, if you remember, Sir Aidan. Even if we do enter into an agreement, it will be a practical one. A business proposition."
Cassandra's brow wrinkled in confusion. "A business proposition?" Heat flooded Norah's face, but Sir Aidan remained almost beatific.
"Cass, run and get the basket that Cook prepared and meet us by the carriage." Kane gestured toward the door.
The girl started to protest, but he only said, "If we don't get there early, all the prettiest things will be gone."
Cassandra turned in a flutter of hair ribbons and excitement and hurried from the room.
"I'm sorry," Norah stammered. "I didn't mean to say that in front of Cassandra. There's no need for her to know that this is a purely practical arrangement. I mean that we agree that—"
"That was before," he cut in softly.
Norah blinked. "Before what?" Before he'd been dazzled by her beauty? Before he'd seen past her pale face and into her soul? No, more likely he'd taken an unexpected blow to the head that had left his brain addled.
She watched one bronzed hand slip into his coat pocket, a smile melting onto his face, slow and sweet as fire-warmed honey. "Before I read these."
Norah stared in horror as he withdrew a packet of letters bound up in ribbon. Letters written in her own careful script, penned to a dream-love who didn't even exist.
From the moment Norah first entered her stepfather's house, she had learned to hide her feelings. Winston Farnsworth had no patience for a child's tears, shed over the father she had lost. Farnsworth said that any such display was one of weakness, and Norah knew instinctively that showing weakness to this great, scowling man who so disliked her would be a mistake. And now, to allow Sir Aidan Kane to see the tender places tucked beneath her defenses would be the worst mistake she could ever make.
Instinctively, she lunged at him in an attempt to snatch the letters from his hand, feeling as if he held the tenderest secrets of her heart in that careless clasp. Kane whisked them out of her reach.
"Give them back," Norah demanded between clenched teeth. "They're mine."
"I'm afraid I have to disagree," he said, reaching beneath the flap of his blue coat to tuck the letters into the pocket of his gold-and-sapphire-striped waistcoat. "They are clearly marked with my name: Sir Aidan Kane, Castle Rathcannon."
"You know they were not meant for you! I mean, you weren't the person who wrote... I was penning a reply to someone who—"
"Regardless of how they came to my hand, I've found the contents most... illuminating."
Norah was appalled to find her eyes stinging, her throat tight. But this man had already seen her too many times, vulnerable, lost. She forced her chin to bump up a notch, fighting back with the only weapon she could find at hand. "As I recall, my letters are not half so illuminating as the ones written in your name."
Kane winced as if she had slammed a hammer down on a particularly sensitive tooth. His silky-dark brows collided, a good measure of his charm vanishing. He shrugged, and Norah sensed he was attempting to adopt that aura of devilish arrogance he wore so often. But the stain of red along aristocratic cheekbones betrayed him.
"It's obvious I didn't write the letters. You should thrust the damned things in the fire. Now, the carriage is being brought 'round, so if you're hungry, scoop up a scone or currant bun, something to munch on our way. What is it to be, my love? A nibble of one of Mrs. Cadagon's sugar buns?"
"I am not your love, we are not betrothed, and I am not about to subject myself to an afternoon trapped with you anywhere! Especially when you're acting like a candidate for Bedlam!"
"Bedlam? Blast it, I haven't come down to breakfast attired in nothing but my nightshirt and riding breeches again, have I?" He made a great show of examining his attire, from the polished leather of his Hessian boots to the impeccable sleeve of his coat. "No," he observed, "all seems to be in order. And it was no mean feat, I might add, since I barely slept all night."
Norah glared at him. "If lack of sleep always has such an improving effect on your disposition, I suggest you give up slumber altogether."
"But you are not impressed by the change."
"Sir Aidan, at the moment I would not trust you if you said the sky was blue."
"Very astute. A desirable quality in a woman, though there are men who want their wives mutton-headed and docile."
"And ripe and rosy," Norah snapped, then flushed, furious that she had allowed him to hear how much his careless comment the night before had stung her. It wasn't as if she'd wanted him to find her attractive, was it? A man like him? A rogue? A scoundrel?
She silently damned him to a torturous death as he reached up and caught her chin in his fingertips. Jerking away, she intended to storm down the corridor, but in a heartbeat Kane had trapped her in the sinewy prison of his arms, his palms flattened on the wall, his thumbs entangled in the wild curls of her hair.
"Norah, have you ever strolled in a garden?"
"You are mad! What could that possibly have to do with—with anything?"
"Humor me for but a moment. When you first stroll through the gate, what do you see?"
"Weeds that the gardener hasn't bothered to pull."
His lips quirked in that disarming way, and he chuckled just a little. "Why doesn't that surprise me? But flowers, Norah. Which ones do you notice first?"
"This is insane. I don't—" The futility of arguing with a madman bore down on her, and she snapped out, "I suppose, the roses."
"Yes. And why is that?"
"They have the brightest colors. They're the most beautiful."
"Not necessarily. I suppose that on first glance one would say that was so, but if you wander about, with a watchful eye, there will be other blossoms even more lovely, tucked away beneath the rose's shadow."
Wonderful, Norah thought with a grimace. She now had a murdering parental rakehell horticulturist holding her prisoner in his dead wife's bedchamber. "I'm sure I haven't the slightest idea what this has to do with anything."
"Have you ever seen heartsease growing in a crack between stones? There is nothing more delicate, more fragile; and yet I think they are far stronger, even braver than the rose that grows in the walls of your garden. A man could crush one beneath his heel and not even know it. He could pass it by without seeing the way sunlight turns golden on the petals."
What was he trying to say? she wondered a little desperately. Norah swallowed hard, excruciatingly aware of the hard plane of that masculine chest brushing the tips of her breasts.
But it was his eyes that suddenly held her, impossibly green, starred with thick, dark lashes. Eyes in which she had seen so many conflicting emotions since her arrival at this castle by the Irish shore, so many warring revelations about
a man whose soul seemed as tangled as any enigma woven of a sorcerer's spell.
"I—I don't understand what this has to do with—"
"With you? With us?" The timbre of his voice roughened just enough to make a shiver of heat wash through her. "I just think that there might be a chance I have... heedlessly passed over something beautiful."
She didn't know why his words hurt so badly. "I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Say things that are ridiculous."
"You mean it isn't possible that I have nearly cast aside a treasure? You forget, I lost the first five years of my daughter's life because of that same blindness. Anything is possible, Norah. Just ask Cassandra."
Cassandra, beloved, indulged in every whim. Cassandra, who had not yet found herself pitted against the real world, its harshness, its ugliness, its cruelty.
Anything is possible.... Kane's words echoed through Norah, vibrating in the fragile threads of her own storm-battered dreams. She closed her eyes, remembering the cryptic message tucked in the silver box in the bedroom of a woman who might have been murdered. She shuddered at the memory of Kane ripping back the darkest part of his soul, ruthlessly exposing the throbbing anger he dulled with gambling and women.
But even as she tried to cling to those memories, another image shuddered to life in her mind: the fleeting flash of anguish, the self-loathing, the helplessness that had shone so briefly in Aidan Kane's eyes when he spoke of his daughter's uncertain future.
What was illusion?
What was real?
Norah shivered as the questions tugged at her with chill fingers, teasing her with an even more daunting enigma.
What fate might befall any woman who tried to find out the answer for herself?
* * * * *
Sunlight glinted off new tinware, turning pots and pans, spoons and ladles, into shimmering ornaments of silver. A crowd of Irish crofters already thronged the rows of booths, bickering over prices, laughing over gossip, chattering about the latest news. Bright shawls and kerchiefs were splashes of brilliance, as voices cried out their wares, trying to conjure up the coins from the pockets of passersby.
It was a perfect day for a fair, as Cassandra had pointed out at least a dozen times. And, greedy little baggage that she was, the girl had spent hours dashing about gorging herself on the sights and sounds, the wonderful smells and the bright trinkets that had delighted her since childhood.
Aidan watched her hold up her wrist so that the sunlight could sparkle on the little coral bracelet he had bought her at the last booth. Her fingers were sticky from candies, and her bonnet hung by its ribbons down her back.
He might have been able to pretend she was a child again, caught back five years in some delightful enchantment, if it weren't for Cassandra's continued attempts at matchmaking. And if it weren't for the fact that half a dozen village lads kept stealing up to Cassandra to present her with necklaces woven of wildflowers and dainty sweets to nibble on. The smile she flashed in gratitude was one that would break the poor lads' hearts. Of that much, Aidan was certain. God knew, it was slowly demolishing his own.
Aidan swerved around a vendor's cart, tempted to scoop up a bright-skinned orange, hoping the sweet sting of the fruit would distract him from his thoughts, but Cass had uttered a squeal of pure delight and was off, hastening toward the cluster of bright painted carts at the far edge of the fair. Aidan grimaced as he noticed which campsite had lured his headstrong daughter.
"Trust Cassandra to single out the most disreputable gypsies in the entire fair." He grumbled beneath the brim of Norah's bonnet as he regarded the two gypsy women bickering over their goods.
Herbs were bundled up on gossamer veils spread across boards between two wagon tongues. Cards bearing the strange figures of the Tarot were scattered out to lure the curious to peer into their future. Sinister-looking vials were lined up in a rainbow of mystic colors. Aidan didn't even want to guess what they contained—distilled lizard's blood and spider's legs, or warts scraped from an old woman's nose.
From the looks of the older of the two crones, the caravan needn't fear running short of that particular ingredient for some time to come, Aidan thought in wry amusement. The unsightly blemishes clustered about the gypsy woman's nose like bubbles in a washerwoman's tub. But Cassandra seemed to see no further than the bright black eyes of the woman.
Aidan could only be grateful for that girlish oblivion, for neither did Cassandra notice the way the crowd of fairgoers melted away wherever Aidan chose to wander. But he sensed that Norah was aware of the arctic glances, the way the lowliest crofter's wife snatched her children from his path, as if afraid he bore some fatal disease, some wickedness that could be passed to another by the mere brush of his hand.
He had scanned the crowd for hours now, searching for some sign of the Irish rebels he had encountered the night before, wondering which, if any, of these people were hiding a wounded, frightened fugitive from the king's justice somewhere in their pathetic little cottage.
It wasn't his affair.
That stubborn bastard Gilpatrick had made that clear enough last night. And God knew, it should've been a lesson Aidan had mastered long ago, when he was ten years old.
He had done his damnedest to dismiss thoughts of wounded rebels and arrogant soldiers, burning stables and a gaping wound in a boy the age of his own cherished child. He had plunged into the fair determined to focus on Cassandra's pleasure and that of the woman who sat so quietly, so strangely solitary, beside him.
But from the instant they had drawn in sight of the bustling crowd, a restlessness had stirred in Aidan, a chafing sensation deep in his gut that had left him edgy and off balance.
Guilt. That was what he attributed it to, plain and simple. A few loose scruples rattling around somewhere in his psyche that he hadn't managed to pickle in gin or stamp out like embers drifting across dry tinder. That was the trouble with tendering even the most minuscule of scruples: Left unattended, they could flare up into the most uncomfortable brush fires. And before a man knew what he was about, he was taking insane risks—interfering in arrests, surrendering fortunes fairly won at the hazard table.
Aidan shook himself inwardly. No, there was only one table he should be focusing on at the moment, and that was the one full of gypsy wares that his daughter was poring over with unabashed delight.
Cass leaned over the collection of herbs and flowers, her nose poked into a bunch of dried yarrow, until she dissolved into a fit of sneezes.
"Miss Linton, did you ever hear anything so amazing?" Cass cried, turning to where Norah stood and thrusting the bundle into the Englishwoman's hands. "Madame says that if you stitch this into your clothes it can ward off all manner of sickness. And if you distill this nightshade and a person drinks it up, they will believe whatever you tell them."
"How convenient," Aidan muttered. "Perhaps I should lay in a supply for the next time you get into one of your stubborn fits and won't stop arguing with me."
Cassandra laughed, tossing her curls. "Better to put it in your own porridge, Papa. That way you would know that Miss Linton is the perfect bride for you."
"Cassandra." Norah set the yarrow down hastily, color creeping along her cheekbones. "I really wish you would not discuss this."
Aidan caught Norah glancing at the keen-eyed gypsy women, felt her gnawing discomfort. "You had best prepare yourself, my dear," he warned. "When Cassandra desires something, she is like a dog on a bone. She'll gnaw on your nerves, give you no peace until she gets her way."
Those great dark eyes peered up at Aidan from beneath the sweet curve of bonnet brim, eyes too serious, a mouth too soft. "We do not always get what we want most. It's a lesson Cassandra will learn someday, whether you will it or not."
The warning made Aidan wince, not in resentment, but rather because it was true. His eyes shifted to his daughter. Cassandra had darted over to finger the glass vials, holding them up to the sun so that the light glinted through the s
trange mystic colors trapped beneath the glass.
"What is this one for?" she demanded, holding up a rose-colored liquid.
Madame hobbled over, squinting at the vial. "Ah. Powerful, is that one. Very powerful. To heal the heart that is bleeding inside."
"You mean if someone is having palpitations, it can cure them?" Cassandra asked. "Why, I think that Mrs. Cadagon's grandmother has a weakness in the heart. Miss Linton, do you think I should take this to her?"
Aidan felt Norah stiffen, her discomfort rippling over him in waves. But he cut in, "Absolutely not. I'll not have you poisoning poor Granny Cadagon, Cass."
"He is right, your papa," the gypsy said. "Is not heart bleeding from wounds of the flesh, but from a far more savage knife blade."
Cass gave a delicious shudder, her gaze flicking again to the vial. "What knife blade is that?"
"Love." The woman hobbled toward Norah, scrutinizing her with those strange eyes, and Aidan felt the brush of Norah's skirts against his thighs as she edged a trifle closer to him.
"Do you know the bite of that knife, me lady?"
"N—No. Of course not."
"Pah! You have the look of a wanderer about your eyes."
"A wanderer?"
"One who journeys through time, searching.... Would you like me to see if this journey is the one you find him?"
"Him?"
"The sea to your storm, the sun to your moon. He who is crystal-blue water to the thirst that burns inside you."
"No. I had very much rather not."
"Oh, please, Miss Linton!" Cassandra begged, her eyes sparkling. "Let Madame conjure over you! It gives me the most delicious shivers!"
"Your hand, me lady. Give it to me."
Norah glanced from Aidan to Cassandra, and he could tell she was loath to disappoint the child. He took possession of her hand.
"It might be amusing," Aidan allowed, unbuttoning the glove at the fragile pulse-point of her wrist. "After all, it's just so much nonsense. A mere parlor game." With feather-light touches, he stripped the delicate kid away from each of her fingers—fingers suddenly trembling. He could only hope from his seductive touch, and not from her nervousness about the whisperings of the occult that clung about the carts.