But Gabriel put no conditions on Peter’s ownership. It was simple remuneration for years of loyalty and friendship. He wouldn’t force the man to take his sister as well, even if it was more than obvious that Peter was desperately in love with her.
He should have known that life would never be simple. All he wanted was a quiet glass of brandy, a little bit of reading, and a decent night’s sleep. But when he walked into the ramshackle study he saw Lizzie, curled up in a huge leather chair, sound asleep.
He was about to turn on his heel and leave when something stopped him. Some dark, wicked part of him, rising up, tempting him. She was a fool and a half if she thought he was harmless.
He moved across the room, slowly, silently, until he stood over her. Her face was delicately flushed from the firelight, and her breasts rose and fell with each sleeping breath.
He leaned down in front of her, putting his hands on the arms of the chair, trapping her there. He could make her run screaming back to Dorset—it would be simple and enjoyable. All he had to do was put one hand on her breast, the other beneath her skirt, and she’d wake up and slap him.
For some reason he was loath to do it. She looked so peaceful, so trusting, that some lost part of him hated to destroy that trust, even if it was the best way to keep his sanity and keep her safe. He told himself her peacefulness was deceptive—the moment she opened her eyes and started in on him, he’d have no qualms at all.
But for a long, painful moment he simply looked at her and wondered why certain things could never be.
Odd, how people sensed they were being watched, even in their sleep. She opened her eyes, slowly, sleepily, looking up at him as if she somehow expected him to be there.
“What . . . ?” she began, but he didn’t let her finish. He jerked her up roughly, into his arms, silencing her question with his mouth.
There was no seductive tenderness in him, and she fought, struggling against his tight embrace, but he simply trapped her arms between their bodies. She tried to jerk her face away, but he caught her chin in one strong hand, holding her mouth still for him, and he kissed her, slow and hard and deep, with insulting, deliberate precision. She didn’t have the sense to try to bite him, a blessing, that. He was already half-mad with the taste and the scent and the feel of her, and if she’d bitten him he would have lost what dubious self-control he still maintained.
This was an act, he reminded himself, feeling her breasts against his chest as she fought and struggled. He was doing this to fill her with disgust, to make her run away. It didn’t matter that her struggles were making his cock like iron—she’d had that effect on him anyway, whether she was rubbing up against him or screaming blue murder.
He lifted his head, looking down at her. She was breathless. Her eyes were filled with angry tears, and her lips were damp, swollen from his rough mouth. She didn’t deserve that, he thought. She deserved soft, loving kisses, not punishment, but she didn’t deserve it from him.
“Please,” she said in a strangled voice. “Don’t.»
He kissed her again, moving her body so that he pressed her against the wall, pinning her there. She tried to kick him, but she was barefoot, and he barely noticed. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, and she shuddered, with revulsion, he hoped, even as he grew harder and hotter and more needy. He could do this; he could survive, as long as he made her hate him. For her sake and for his.
He slid his hand between their bodies, covering her breast. The material of her dress was old, thin, and he tore it without hesitation, ripping the bodice downward. She gasped against his mouth, but he didn’t care. He wanted to taste her breasts, he wanted to put his mouth between her legs, and he wanted to take her every way he’d ever thought of and a hundred more.
She made a strange, choking noise, and suddenly he stopped, frozen. He put his hands on her face, pulling back to look at her. Tears were streaming down her pale skin, and he knew he’d accomplished his desire. She hated him.
All he had to do was step back, smirk, and make some lightly insulting comment. It would be so simple, and it would finish the night in fine style, complete her disgust of him and send her running back home to her father. All he had to do was move.
She looked into his eyes, frozen in time and space.
And then, to his shock, she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him, kissed him with her pale, bruised mouth and her pale, bruised heart. Kissed him as he’d never deserved to be kissed. Kissed him with love.
He shoved her away from him as if she were poison. “Go back home, Lizzie,” he said in a strangled voice. “There’s nothing for you here.”
“You’re here,” she said simply.
He could have her. It was that simple, that devastating. All he had to do was hold out his arms to her, and she would come to him, strip off her clothes for him, do anything he wanted. She would do it, and she would do it for love. The very notion terrified him.
He looked at her, and out of the deep recesses of his past he summoned a cool, condescending smile. “Not interested, love,” he said. He turned and walked from the room, praying he had the strength to keep going.
He slammed out of the house, back into the night, the steady rain, and when he reached the edge of Hernewood Forest he broke into a run, faster and faster, running as if the wild dogs of Arundel were snapping at his heels. The wild dogs that Lizzie had tamed with little more than a gentle touch and a soft word. The woods gathered around him, dark and welcoming, the smell of the rain and the tangy scent of fir trees, the oaks and the ash and the alder surrounding him. It was the home he knew, the home he trusted, the only place that was truly his. The warmth and laughter at Rosecliff was a lie, a fantasy, no more a home than the cold, empty rooms of his uncle›s house. He belonged in the forest, in the woods, in the rain. He belonged alone, without warmth, without love.
It was pouring by the time he reached the tower. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him once he stumbled into his lair. Locked doors wouldn’t keep the ghosts out, and no one else would be fool enough to come after him. The rain had gathered force, coming down heavily, and he was soaked. He ripped off his shirt and sent it sailing, remembering the last time he’d been caught in a rainstorm, and who had sheltered here with him.
He was safe from her, he who was seldom afraid of anything. There were still a few coals in the fire, and he kicked them into life, tossing fresh wood on top of them. He didn’t bother with the candles—he knew what his tower room looked like. Like a mad monk’s cell, full of light and color and rich, decadent furnishings. The bed was far smaller than that monstrosity in his bedroom, covered with velvet throws and animal furs, and he threw himself down on it, cradling his head in his arms and watching the fire. He would stay there forever, stay there until he damned well pleased, and nothing, and no one would make him go home.
“What are you doing here?” It was Brother Septimus, of course, looking disapproving. He seemed to have no other expression on his ghostly face.
“I live here,” Gabriel snapped.
The old monk shook his head. “Not any longer. Go home, my boy. The answer lies there.”
“I’m not looking for answers, I’m looking for peace. Go away and haunt someone else. Go bother Lizzie, since you seem so fond of her,” he said irritably, closing his eyes to shut out the apparition.
“She won’t see us again. Not unless you foul things up even more than you have.”
His eyes flew open. “Go away,” he said again. “Or I’ll have you exorcised.”
“We’re not demons, Gabriel,” Brother Paul said in a plaintive voice. “And we’d like nothing more than to move on to the next realm. Unfortunately we have no idea how to accomplish such a feat.”
Gabriel groaned. “Brothers, have mercy on me. I haven’t slept in days, a crazy woman has taken over my house, and my sister seems doomed t
o a life of miserable spinsterhood. If she even makes it that far, considering what the Chiltons might be planning. Just leave me in peace for a few short hours.”
“I don’t approve . . .” Brother Septimus began earnestly, and Gabriel rolled over on his stomach and covered his ears, shutting out the sepulchral tenor. Everything was silent, and after a moment he opened one eyelid. No apparitions, nothing to disturb him. The rain was pelting against the sides of the tower, ensuring that he wouldn’t be disturbed. He had escaped the worst temptation he had ever faced, and no one would dare follow him.
With a sigh of pure pleasure he closed his eyes again and drifted into a sweet, erotic dream.
Chapter Twenty-Two
LIZZIE STOOD IN the center of Gabriel’s ramshackle library, numb with shock. Her mouth hurt. Her breasts burned. Her chest ached. And in her heart raged an anger so deep she shook with it.
Down the endless corridors she heard the door slam, and she knew he had gone out into the rain again, running away from her, running away from himself.
She’d be damned if she’d let him.
She stepped over her discarded boots. She didn’t bother with any kind of coat—the rain was so heavy it would simply soak through. She followed him, barefoot, into the storm, her sheer fury guiding her.
He could be a thousand different places, but she knew exactly where he’d gone. Into the woods, back to his tower, back to his ghosts, where he could be safe from life, from caring, from her.
Not this time.
She slipped on the stone steps, smashing her face against the wall, but she scarcely noticed it, so intent was she on getting to the top of the tower and telling Gabriel Durham exactly what she thought of him. How dare he kiss her like that? How dare he walk, no, run away from her when she was foolishly ready to offer him her heart and soul? He’d be lucky if he escaped with his life.
She would have enjoyed slamming the door open to announce her arrival, but it was already ajar. She had to make do with stomping inside and slamming it behind her. It was hard to stomp in bare feet, and the door was too heavy to slam properly. She marched up the pitch-dark stairs and stormed into the room before wisdom could catch up with her.
The only light came from the blazing fire, but she could see well enough. He was lying on the bed, shirtless, watching her out of hooded eyes. She strode over to him, putting her hands on her hips. “You,” she said, “are a royal bastard.”
“In fact,” he said, “I am.”
It stopped her cold. “I beg your pardon?”
“My father was one of the king’s many brothers. I’m not quite sure which one, and I don’t suppose it matters. I was seen to as befits one of my heritage, dumped on Sir Richard for a goodly price. It’s little wonder I lack some of the subtleties of kindly behavior.”
She shook off her momentary surprise. “That’s no excuse,” she snapped. “I don’t care how miserable and unloved you were. You still have no right to go around making other people feel miserable and unloved.”
“Is that what I did to you?” He sat up, and she wished he hadn’t. The firelight gilded his strong shoulders, gleamed in his long, damp hair. “Do you feel unloved, Lizzie?”
“You tried to rape me.”
“I don’t think so. If I had planned on actually raping you, nothing would have stopped me. And I suspect it wouldn’t have ended up being rape.”
She slapped him, the sound shocking in the night air. The force of her blow knocked him back, but it didn’t wipe the faint smile from his face. Lizzie’s hands were shaking with rage, and she knew a moment’s gratitude that there was nothing sharp near at hand. She definitely would have stabbed him.
“What would you call it then?” she said icily. “Vigorous flirtation?”
All amusement left him. “I thought it was obvious. I was trying to drive you away. You’re a remarkably hard woman to get rid of.”
The words hit her with the force of a blow. She backed away from the bed, and a chair seemed to appear behind her. She collapsed into it, numb with too many emotions.
“Oh, God,” she said softly, lost in pain as the realization washed over her.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, staring at her in sudden concern. “Oh, God, what?” he said.
She was too mortified to say another word. The room was dark beyond the glow of the firelight, and she wanted to sink back into the shadows, to simply disappear like a phantom. She lifted her head suddenly. “Where are the ghosts?”
“Watching us,” Gabriel said. “Why are you looking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you just swallowed a spider.”
It made her laugh, when she never wanted to laugh again. “Maybe I did,” she said hoarsely. She needed to get up, get out of there before she disgraced herself even more thoroughly. She’d been so stupidly wrong, so blindly certain that he cared about her beneath his cool, untouched exterior.
But he hadn’t. Not even on the most shameful of levels. He didn’t even want her as a whore—he’d only kissed her to disgust her, not because he wanted to kiss her. No wonder he’d run away when she kissed him back.
“I should go,” she said vaguely, trying to push herself out of the chair, but her limbs felt strangely heavy.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, climbing out of the bed and coming toward her. She flinched when he approached, and he halted, staring at her in consternation.
“Just give me a moment,” she whispered.
He stepped back in baffled frustration, and she closed her eyes, trying to pull herself together. It wasn’t the end of the world, she told herself. She’d made a complete fool of herself, but it wasn’t the first time, and it doubtless wouldn’t be the last. Old Peg had warned her to beware of the Dark Man, and she’d woven all sorts of unspoken romantic fantasies about him, when all Old Peg meant was beware making a bloody fool of yourself.
She heard him talking, and she jerked her head up, but he was across the room, deep in shadows, talking to nothing in a hushed, angry voice. At least, she thought it was nothing. If she blinked and unfocused her eyes she could almost see the outline of two monkish figures, but she didn’t want to start thinking about that again, and she shook her head, driving the vision away.
Gabriel turned back to look at her, a strange expression on his face. “I need to get you home.”
She rose, pushing against the arms of the chair, suddenly determined. “I’m fine. You don’t need to trouble yourself any further . . .”
She was halfway across the room when the door slammed, and she heard the sound of a bar being dropped in place.
Gabriel was nowhere near the door. His response was immediate and blasphemous, and he raced across the room, pushing against the door and cursing savagely. He turned and looked at her, pushing his hair out of his face. “They’ve locked us in,” he said in a grim voice.
“Who? The Chiltons and their friends? I didn’t hear anyone . . .”
“Not the Chiltons. Worse. The monks.»
She was about to say with automatic calm that she didn’t believe in ghosts, when she remembered that she did. “But why?”
He moved away from the door, but not before giving it one last kick. “They’re sick of being here.”
She tried to be prosaic. “I can’t blame them, but why lock us in? Did they want company?”
He went to stand in front of the fire, and she watched for a moment as the flickering flames cast strange golden shadows across his chest. And then she averted her gaze, deliberately.
She went instead to the door, pushing on it, but it held fast. “It won’t do you any good,” he said in a low voice. “They’re not going to let us out until they’re good and ready.”
“Ask them why not.”
“They’re gone. I can’t a
sk them anything. They said you were the key, and then they vanished.”
She pushed her damp hair away from her face in helpless frustration. “If I have to spend any more time trapped with you, I’m going to jump out the window,” she said in a deceptively calm voice.
“You wouldn’t fit.”
She glared at him. The truth of the matter didn’t help things. The high medieval tower only had very narrow slits, not much more than arrow loops, and she doubted a child would be able to slip through. “All right,” she said. “Do you know why they locked us in here? Did they happen to share that vital information before they vanished in a puff of smoke?”
“They did.”
“Well, then, whatever you need to do to get us out of here, go ahead and do it,” she said irritably.
He looked at her. A long, slow, considering look that she could see quite clearly through the shadows. And then he started toward her.
She backed up against the door. “No,” she said flatly.
“They’re a romantic pair. They think we belong together, and they’re locking us in until we realize it.”
“You’re demented.”
He shrugged, his shoulders smooth and golden in the firelight. “Not me. They’re the ones who think it.”
“Well, convince them of the truth. You wouldn’t touch me if your life depended on it. You had to steel yourself to put your hands on me, and that was in a desperate effort to get rid of me . . . what are you laughing at?”
He was standing right in front of her, too much flesh, too much heat, and he blocked her view, leaving her nowhere to look but at him. “Lizzie, Lizzie,” he said, shaking his head in amused disbelief. “Is that what you really think?”