He arched a brow as she neared. “Here or upstairs?”
“Upstairs.” She handed him the candelabra so she could better manage her skirts. “I think—hope—that she’s going to want to speak with you, either tonight or more likely tomorrow morning.”
“About what?” Turning, Dominic followed her up the stairs; shutting the door behind him, he held the candelabra high enough to light her way.
“Let me explain what she and I discussed, and all will be clear.” Emerging into his bedroom, she crossed to the bed, turned, and sat. He’d passed through the room on the way to fetch her; the curtains facing Mirabelle’s tower were drawn tight, and the candles on the side tables beside the bed and on the tallboy across the room were already lit. She watched while he closed the stair door. He paused, looking at her, then crossed to set the candelabra on the writing desk before prowling to a halt beside her.
He looked down at her; she looked up at him.
Then he turned and sat beside her. “Tell me.”
She did, simply, concisely, and clearly. He heard her out in increasingly ominous silence; unperturbed, she concluded with, “I laid the situation out for her—if she holds off giving you the goblet, then she loses all chance of any effective revenge against Mama, and she also forgoes her best revenge on you. Oh, she may ruin you and the clan, cause financial devastation and hardship to all and hurt you through that, but that was never her real goal—that was merely a sword to hold over you to get you to enact her revenge. Her real goal, her most longed-for and true revenge, has always been directed against your father, via Mama, as he’s dead, and against you for holding to your honor and your loyalty to him. For choosing him over her—you can be absolutely certain that’s how she sees it.”
Drawing breath, she went on, “So I’ve left her with the choice of sitting and losing all she really wants, or acting and gaining the revenge she truly wants by insisting you ravish me, thus hurting Mama unbearably, and hurting you beyond recall by forcing you to an act that is the pinnacle of dishonor. She wants to know she’s succeeded in both, that nothing can lessen, make right, or circumvent the harm she causes Mama through me, and likewise that she’s succeeded in irrevocably stripping you of the one thing you hold most dear.”
She glanced at Dominic, not just silent but oh-so-very still, so contained she could feel the control he was exercising, a tangible, physical restraint. Elbows on his thighs, he was looking down at his linked hands. His profile was grim; she couldn’t see his eyes. She waited. When he said nothing, she prompted, “So now it’s up to her to choose, and I’m fairly certain which path she’ll take. We need to decide how to respond when she lays her latest and ultimate demand before you.”
He shifted but instantly stilled, as if the leash he held over that explosively strong side of him had momentarily slipped and he’d seized it again. Tense seconds passed, then he said, “That I don’t like any of this goes without saying, but before we address that, did you know it would come to this—staging a rape—when we spoke in Kingussie?”
She shook her head. “No—I wasn’t prophetic. I wasn’t trying to pave the way for something I foresaw from then. I thought we would succeed long before we were pushed to this. But as my words then bear witness, once I’d thought the situation through I knew you ravishing me would qualify as her ultimate revenge—it gives her everything, you see. Until this morning, however, I hadn’t dreamt we’d have to offer her that.”
He remained silent for a full minute, then he unlinked his fingers, reached across, and took one of her hands in one of his. His fingers slid over, then twined with hers, gripped. When he spoke, his voice was low, but steady and even. “I . . . am going to hate every minute of this, but I also accept, as I know you’ll tell me, that I—we—don’t have a choice, and, against that, that it will, after all, be nothing but pretence. That it will simply be the climactic scene of our necessary charade.” He paused, then looked sidelong at her, met her eyes. Stormy eyes, more gray than green, gazed into hers. “Have I missed anything?”
Holding his gaze, she squeezed his fingers. “Only that the reason you will do this is because you will always do whatever God and fate require of you to protect the clan—and that I will be with you, by your side, metaphorically, physically, and in every other way, through each minute. We will do this because we must, because clan is too important to let niceties of feeling stand in our way. We’ll do it and succeed because together we can, because together we’re strong enough to do even that without surrendering an iota of who we truly are, who we’ve together become.”
Still lost in his eyes, she tightened her grip on his fingers. “Trust me, we’ll win.”
He said nothing for a long moment, then the line of his lips eased. “You’re wrong, you know. About the one thing I hold most dear. It’s not my honor. If it ever came to it, I would unhesitatingly trade my honor and all else for—”
He broke off, head turning to look at the door.
An instant later, a sharp rap-rap was followed by, “Dominic—I need to speak with you urgently.”
Mirabelle.
He swore—in Gaelic; sliding his fingers from Angelica’s, he rose. Softly said, “Wait here. I’m not going to let her in.”
Unsure whether he’d been saved by fate, or cursed by his mother’s timing, Dominic crossed the room and opened the door enough to step out onto the landing of the tower’s main stair. His mother moved back and he shut the door behind him.
As he’d expected, she was carrying a candlestick, which cast sufficient light for them to see. She was still dressed as she had been at dinner, but her expression had changed to one of intense, almost shocking, avidity, her features invested with so much greedy eagerness he knew she’d come to a decision, one from which she wouldn’t be swayed.
“What is it?” His tone was unwontedly harsh, but she didn’t seem to register it.
“I’m prepared to let you have the goblet if you do one more thing.”
“What thing?”
“I want you to ravish Miss Cynster.”
The clear, definite, decisive demand damned her beyond recall. He scowled. “I’ve kidnapped her, brought her here—as you demanded. I’ve done what you wanted, and now this?” Lowering his head, he looked her in the eye. “Give me one good reason why I should—why I should do it, and why I should believe you’ll hold to your word this time.”
They argued; she would have grown suspicious if he’d simply agreed, but regardless he wanted to hear it all from her lips—her offer, her demands, her promises, and the malignant desires those revealed. He pushed her and heard it all—and it was exactly as Angelica had described it, as, in his heart of hearts, he’d known all along.
It wasn’t easy to listen to the vitriol, to the blackness that spewed out, but he needed to hear his mother condemn herself before he acted—before, ultimately, he brought her down.
He’d already thought further than even Angelica had; once this was over and the goblet once more in his hands, he’d have to banish Mirabelle, imprison her in some comfortable place where she could do no more harm to herself or anyone else. And that place could not be in the castle, not even on clan lands, but that was a decision he didn’t yet have to make. For tonight . . .
Finally, she glared and belligerently stated, “If you don’t do as I wish, I swear on your father’s grave that I will not give the goblet back in time for you to save your precious clan.”
His gaze on her face, in the corner of his vision, Dominic glimpsed movement in the shadows at the bottom of the stair, where it met the gallery. Head rising, drawing a tight, genuinely furious breath, he looked—and saw McAdie.
Dominic nodded. “All right,” he said to his mother, “but I want a witness to our agreement.” Raising his voice, he called, “McAdie—come up here and stand witness for the clan.”
The forcibly retired steward might be Mirabelle’s toady,
but Dominic entertained no doubt as to McAdie’s loyalty to the clan. When alerted by Angelica’s earlier question, he’d asked his senior staff about the old man, they’d admitted that no one had told McAdie the truth about Angelica, which explained his puzzlement; he didn’t understand why Dominic had brought her to the castle and imprisoned her. Letting the old man see the real caliber of the lady for whom he misguidedly entertained a certain regard might save McAdie from getting further involved in Mirabelle’s schemes.
Mirabelle had whirled to look down the stairs. After a fractional hesitation, McAdie started slowly up. As he neared, she asked, “Were you looking for me?”
McAdie nodded. “Aye, my lady.”
Dominic wondered why but wasn’t about to ask. McAdie reached the landing and bowed slightly. Dominic nodded crisply. “McAdie, my mother and I are about to voice an agreement of great importance to the clan. I’m asking you to bear witness for the clan. Are you willing?”
McAdie straightened. “Aye, my lord.”
Shifting his gaze to Mirabelle’s face, Dominic stated, “I am only going to make this offer once. There will be no negotiation of terms—you either agree to the offer as I make it, or you refuse it. Understood?”
She hesitated, but she knew he had to give her what she wished. She nodded. “Very well.”
“I, Dominic Lachlan Guisachan, Earl of Glencrae, will accede to your specific demand that I ravish Miss Angelica Cynster on the following conditions. One, you will not be allowed to witness the act, but I will agree to allowing you into the room immediately afterward to visually confirm. Two, the ravishment will be carried out in a place, and at a time, and in a manner of my choosing. In return for agreeing to your demand, immediately the deed is done and confirmed, you will surrender to me the Scottish coronation goblet.”
Mirabelle opened her mouth, then shut it. She frowned, then said, “The goblet isn’t in the castle, but it is close by and I can give you the directions to where it’s hidden immediately the deed is done.”
He nodded. “Immediately the deed is done and confirmed, you will surrender to me the directions to the goblet’s hiding place.” He paused, ran through his evolving plan in his mind, then asked, “Do we have an agreement?”
Eyes glittering, Mirabelle nodded decisively. “Yes. If you’ll do as you state, I’ll return the goblet.”
“McAdie?” Dominic glanced at the old man. McAdie looked shocked; even in the poor light it was evident he’d paled. More gently, Dominic prompted, “Do you bear witness to the agreement?”
McAdie blinked, then nodded. “Aye. I do so bear witness.”
Dominic looked at his mother. “Done.” He turned his back on her and opened his bedroom door.
“When?” she asked.
He glanced back, saw again the stomach-churning eagerness in her face. “Tomorrow.” He paused, then added, “After lunch.”
Opening the door just wide enough, he went in, shut it, then locked it. Turning, he saw Angelica, still clothed, lying on the bed. She arched her brows at him. Walking to the bed, he halted beside it. “You heard?”
“Tomorrow, after lunch. But the door’s so thick I couldn’t hear any of the rest.”
Sinking down beside her, he repeated the agreement. Meeting her eyes, he concluded, “So now we have to plan your ravishment.”
Lolling beside him, she grinned. “I’m all ears.”
He stretched out on the bed, like her still clothed, the better to think. Crossing his arms behind his head, he did, then grimaced. “In all honesty, I seriously doubt I’ll be able to perform as required.” He glanced at her, met her eyes. “We’ll most likely have to fake it.”
Her expression now serious, she arched her brows. “That would be seriously dangerous given your mother is hardly a virgin herself and we can’t risk her even questioning that anything about this ravishment, not even the smallest detail, is fake. This is our last throw of the dice—if we fail in this, we won’t get another. However . . .” Wriggling higher in the bed, she leaned over him and trailed her fingers down the center of his chest. “If you will simply surrender yourself into my hands”—fingers trailing lower still, she demonstrated—“then as long as we lock the door, and no one else can see, then I’m utterly, unassailably confident that I’ll be able to convince you to have your wicked way with me.”
Eyes closing, Dominic’s lips curved, but all he said was, “We’ll see.”
“Is that another challenge?”
“Take it as you wish.”
She chuckled, sultry and sweet, and set out to convince him that she was up to it.
Mirabelle and McAdie didn’t speak until they reached the safety of her tower. Halting inside the stairwell, she swung to the old man and eagerly asked, “Well? Is he here?”
“No. A boy came with a message—apparently the gentleman has returned from his trip, but is unable to attend you tonight.”
Mirabelle’s face drained of all expression. “Damn him—I wanted to gloat. He didn’t think I’d be able to force Dominic to do as I wished, but I’ve finally triumphed over my intractable son. I’m one step away from gaining my revenge . . .” Lips compressing, she paused, then slowly smiled. “But perhaps it will be even better this way. Come up.” She started up the stairs. “I’ll give you a note. You can take it across tomorrow morning, then he can join me for my moment of ultimate glory, when I’ll have even more to share with him.”
McAdie toiled slowly up the stairs in her wake. His head was spinning; he could barely believe the agreement he’d been called on to witness. He was shocked by what the laird had agreed to do, but he fully understood why. He couldn’t claim any moral high ground; he knew full well the importance of the goblet. Beneath his long-held rancor over the laird’s dismissal of his services, in his heart he held nothing but respect, albeit grudging, for the man Dominic had become.
A pity he hadn’t remembered that sooner.
Before he’d told Mirabelle the combination to the safe.
While he was horrified by what the laird had been forced to agree to, he was even more horrified by his own unthinking role in the unfolding drama.
As for his role as go-between and doorkeeper for the countess and the “gentleman” she’d taken as her lover . . . he’d originally agreed because he’d felt sorry for her in her isolation, because he’d seen her and himself as both suffering from the neglect of the Guisachan in showing them far less respect than their due, but over the months he’d grown increasingly uneasy. Not because of the countess’s interest in the gentleman; her motives were clear enough. But the gentleman’s interest in the countess . . . to McAdie, the man’s motives were worryingly suspect.
Of course, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—say anything. He stood beside the countess while she wrote out her missive at the pretty desk in her sitting room. He’d chosen the desk himself, long ago, smitten by her face, by her smile. She had been so beautiful when she’d first come there, he’d been agonizingly jealous of Mortimer, yet she hadn’t once looked his way. She’d never seen him as a man, only as someone to give orders to, to use when she wished.
He hadn’t minded, not until now.
Now . . . he was starting to wonder just how much of an unthinking old fool he’d become.
Chapter Twenty
Breakfast in the great hall was a tense affair. Dominic and Angelica stuck to their agreed roles. He had no difficulty behaving appropriately; anger and frustration rolled off him in waves. He deliberately lowered the shield he usually kept his temper screened behind, and let the chill touch of menace, of violence barely restrained, reach out and spread.
For her part, Angelica kept her head down. While she no longer cringed, she definitely shrank, projecting the image of a woman who knew herself to be weak and helpless, and potentially subject to unspeakable threat; she conducted herself as if her entire being was focused on slipping past a dangerous, raven
ous animal unnoticed.
Hungrily, greedily, avidly and intently, Mirabelle watched and delighted, while everyone else saw and wondered.
Dominic had already spoken with Scanlon, Jessup, and Mulley, with Brenda and Griswold, with John Erskine and Mrs. Mack. He and Angelica had agreed that no one else needed to know that anything dramatic was afoot, and even those—his closest and most trusted staff—knew only that he and Angelica wanted the keep cleared of everyone but them, Mirabelle, and McAdie immediately after luncheon ended. Dominic had opted for that time precisely so that he would be able to ensure a clear field—one on which no one else would be involved in any way.
Immediately breakfast ended, Angelica slid out of her chair and found Mulley waiting to escort her back to the store room and lock her in.
Inside, she paced and thought, planned, and considered. Like any play ever staged, her ravishment would benefit from being plotted and structured, and Dominic had proved adept at following her cues. “Just as well.” The skirts of the drab, dun-colored gown Mirabelle had provided swirling as she turned, she paced before the locked door. “Clearly one of us is going to have to lead, and given how he feels about this, it won’t be him.”
Dominic had elected to take the boys out hunting with Scanlon and his lads; he would leave the group and return to the castle in good time to meet with her before luncheon.
“So,” she murmured, “I have three hours to come up with a workable script, and then decide how much of it to tell him.”
Outwardly, luncheon was its habitual, unremarkable event, but about the high table feelings ran high. Frustration, anger, and building expectation mingled with heightened awareness and burgeoning uncertainty.
Mirabelle had disrupted Dominic and Angelica’s plan to meet by insisting Angelica spend the latter half of the morning with her in her sitting room. Although until then Angelica had taken her meetings with Mirabelle in her stride, this time, knowing what Mirabelle had set in motion, what she’d demanded Dominic do, and that she was gloating over and savoring—indeed, all but salivating over—what she expected would be Angelica’s upcoming terror, distress, and devastation, had literally turned her stomach.