“Steady,” he murmured. The line was jerking through the water in circles. “He’s wearing himself out, that fish of yours. You’re bigger, stronger, and smarter, too, than the fish. All you have to do is wait him out.”
“Shouldn’t you help her?” Mrs. Halifax asked.
“She hooked the fish,” Sophia said stoutly. “She can land it, too, never you fear.”
“Aye, she can,” Alistair said quietly. “She’s a brave lass.”
Abigail’s face was set in determined concentration. The line was moving more slowly now.
“Don’t let go your hold,” Alistair said. “Sometimes one fish is a wee bit smarter than the rest of his family and pretends to be tired, only to jerk the pole from your grasp.”
“I won’t let go,” the little girl declared.
Soon the movement slowed to nearly a stop. Alistair reached out and caught the line, swiftly lifting a sparkling fish from the water.
“Oh!” Abigail breathed.
Alistair held up the fish, flopping on the end of the line. It wasn’t the biggest fish he’d ever seen, nor was it the smallest. “A very fine trout indeed. Wouldn’t you agree, Sophia?”
Sophia solemnly inspected the catch. “The finest, I declare, that I’ve seen in quite some time.”
Abigail’s cheeks tinged a faint pink, and Alistair realized she was blushing. Pretending he hadn’t noticed, he caught the fish and, kneeling, showed her how to remove the hook from its mouth.
She watched intently and then nodded as he placed her fish with the others in the basket. “I’ll do it myself next time.”
And a strange emotion welled in his chest, so foreign that it took him several seconds to identify it: pride. Pride in this prickly, determined child.
“Yes, you will,” he said, and she grinned at him.
And over her head, her mother smiled at him as if he’d handed her an emerald necklace.
Chapter Nine
Truth Teller turned to the monster’s cage, and there already lay the woman.
He walked close to the bars and asked, “Who are you?”
The woman drew herself wearily to her feet and spoke. “I am the Princess Sympathy. My father is the king of a great city to the west. I lived in halls of crystal, wore clothes woven from gold and silver, and had my slightest wish granted.”
Truth Teller frowned. “Then why—?”
“Hush.” The lady leaned forward. “Your master is coming. He has caught the swallows, and if he finds you talking to me, it will anger him.”
And Truth Teller had no choice but to go inside the castle, leaving the lady caged. . . .
—from TRUTH TELLER
By that afternoon, Helen was wishing she could take a nap. Abigail and Jamie didn’t seem at all tired from their early morning adventure. In fact, they’d eagerly accompanied Miss Munroe and Miss McDonald on an expedition to go hunting for badgers. Helen, however, was yawning as she climbed the stairs to Sir Alistair’s lair.
She hadn’t seen him since morning. He’d been closeted in his tower all this time, and she’d just about run out of patience. What had he meant by those kisses? Had he simply been playing with her? Or—awful thought!—had he lost interest after tasting her twice? The questions had nagged her since that morning until she felt she must find the answers.
Which was perhaps why she carried some tea and scones to him now.
The tower door was partially ajar, and instead of knocking, she simply leaned her shoulder against it and pushed. It opened silently. Sir Alistair sat at his accustomed table, oblivious to her presence. She stood and stared. He was drawing something, his head bent to the paper in front of him, but that wasn’t what had caught her attention.
He drew with his maimed right hand.
He held the pencil between his thumb and the two middle fingers of his right hand, the hand itself held in an awkward hook. Just looking at him, Helen’s hand ached in sympathy, but he continued to make small, precise movements. He’d obviously been using his hand thus for many years. She thought about what it must’ve been like, returning maimed from the Colonies and having to relearn how to draw. How to write. Had he been humiliated at having to practice a craft every schoolboy had mastered? Had he been frustrated?
Well, of course he’d been frustrated. Her mouth curved in a tiny smile. She knew something about Sir Alistair now. He would’ve broken pencils, torn up paper, been angered beyond bearing, and somehow he would’ve stubbornly kept at it until he could once again reproduce the fine drawings she’d seen in his book. He must’ve done so because she saw the result in front of her now—a scholar working on his manuscript.
She started forward, but as she did so, he exclaimed and dropped the pencil.
“What is it?” she asked.
His head jerked up and he glowered at her. “Nothing, Mrs. Halifax. You may leave the tea on that table.”
She set her tray down on the table indicated but ignored his demand to leave. Instead she hurried over to him. “What’s wrong?”
He was rubbing his right palm with his other hand and muttering about females who wouldn’t listen.
She sighed and took his right hand gently in hers, surprising him enough that he abruptly fell silent. His forefinger was a reddened stump under an inch long. His little finger had been amputated at the first knuckle. The remaining fingers were long with slightly broader tips, the nails well shaped. They were beautiful fingers on what had once been a handsome hand. She felt a streak of sorrow pierce her middle. How had something so beautiful come to be mutilated?
She swallowed down the lump in her throat and said huskily, “I don’t see an injury.”
He glanced sharply at her, and her eyes widened as she realized her faux pas. “A recent injury, I mean.”
He shook his head. “It’s merely a muscle cramp.”
He tried to withdraw his hand from hers, but she hung on. “I’ll see if Mrs. McCleod can warm a salve for you later. Tell me exactly where the cramp is.”
She held his hand between both of hers and massaged his broad palm with her thumbs, pressing firmly. His hand was warm, the skin smooth. He had calluses at the base of his fingers as if from some type of physical work.
“There’s no need—”
She looked up, suddenly angry. “Why isn’t there need? You’re in pain and I can help you. It seems to me that there’s every need.”
He looked at her, his eye cynical. “Why would you care?”
Did he think she’d back away at his harsh words? Run with girlish tears on her face? She wasn’t a girl—hadn’t been one since the age of seventeen.
She leaned into his face, still holding his hand. “What kind of woman do you think I am? Do you think I let just any man kiss me?”
His eye narrowed. “I think you’re a nice woman. A kind woman.”
The patronizing answer nearly drove her to violence. “A nice woman? Because I kissed you? Because I let you touch me? Are you mad? No woman is that nice and certainly not I.”
He simply looked at her. “Then why?”
“Because.” She took his face in her palms, the left side of his face bumpy and ragged under her hand, the right side smooth and warm. “I do care. And so do you.”
And she set her lips against his. Deliberately. Softly. Putting all her longing, all her loneliness into the gesture. She started the kiss lightly, but he tilted his head beneath hers, angling and opening his mouth, and somehow she found herself on his lap with his tongue in her mouth.
Not that she protested. She’d been waiting for this for days now, and the reality set her limbs to trembling. She’d been a mistress, a bought woman, for all of her adult life, but this was something beyond her experience. A sharing, an exploring. She was an equal in this place with this man, and somehow the knowledge that she was as accountable as he, as involved as he, made her all the more aroused. Her fingers actually shook against the wool fabric of his coat as he explored her mouth with his tongue. Sweetly, darkly, erotically. Until she feared that she might meet her culmination simply from his lips.
She drew her head back, gasping. “I—”
“Don’t stop me,” he murmured. His hands were on the laces of her bodice, rapidly pulling them free. “Let me see you. Let me touch you.”
She nodded and watched him. Stopping was the very last thing on her mind. His face was intent, his one eye entirely focused on the task of opening her bodice. She could feel a blush start at her throat. It’d been years since Lister had bedded her, and even then she didn’t remember this intensity, this single-minded purpose. What if she disappointed him? What if she was unable to please him?
Her bodice parted, and he drew it off her, laying it absently on the table along with her fichu. His gaze never left her bosom. He began working on her stays.
She cleared her throat. “Can I—”
“Let me.” His eye flicked up to hers. “Do you mind?”
She shook her head, biting her lip. She held very still as her stays drew apart. His fingers brushed her bare skin, but he didn’t pause. She was conscious of each breath she drew into her lungs, of his own even breathing, of his unwavering gaze. Then her stays were off, and he drew her shift down her shoulders until she was bared to the waist.
He simply stared.
She raised her hand without thought, instinctively moving to cover herself.
He caught her wrist and drew it to her lap. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Let me look at you.”
She closed her eyes then, because she could no longer bear the sight of his gaze taking her in.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “Beautiful enough to drive a man insane.”
He traced the forefinger of his left hand from the rapid pulse at her throat, down, down to the swell of one breast. She waited, her breath nearly stopped. He drew his finger slowly to her nipple and circled it, making it pucker.
She swallowed.
“I want this,” he said.
She opened her eyes to see him staring at her intently, his mouth hardened into an arrogant, flat line.
His gaze flicked up to capture her own. “I want all of you.”
Her mouth went dry. “Then take me.”
He reached behind her and shoved aside the mess on his desk. She heard pencils skitter and drop to the floor and the thump of a book. Then he grasped her about her waist, lifting to set her on the heavy table.
“Take off your skirts.” He rose suddenly from his chair and strode to the tower door, locking it.
When he returned to her, she was still fumbling at the ribbons at her waist. He pushed her hands aside and began working at them himself. She felt a wild spurt of joyous laughter start in her mouth, but she tamped it down ruthlessly. Instead, she reached up and around his head and drew the tie from his hair. The heavy dark locks fell forward against his lean cheeks, wild and untamed, and she threaded her fingers through them, reveling in the intimacy.
He didn’t even seem to notice her gesture, so intent was he on removing her remaining clothing. A moment later, he flung aside her skirts. She was left in just her stockings and shoes and would’ve felt more than a little silly if he wasn’t so grave as he drew them off. Then she was naked, sitting with her bare bottom on his wooden table, and he was looking at her as if she were Aphrodite come to life. It was a heady feeling, being regarded thus. Heady and frightening at the same time, for she was no Aphrodite. She was simply a woman past her third decade. A woman who’d had only one other lover in all her life.
“Alistair,” she whispered.
He shrugged out of his coat. “Aye?”
She didn’t know how to put her concern into words. “I don’t… that is, I’m not very experienced with… with…”
A corner of his mouth kicked up. He was only in shirtsleeves now. “Helen, lass, dinna fret.”