No Other Woman (No Other Series) (23 page)

"Laird Douglas, your eloquence with women is unmatched. Please, do feel free to take your seat before the fire, where you so nobly and happily kept watch before I rudely interrupted you with my cry."

"I was not happy where I sat."

"A pity."

"I didn't wish to disturb your sleep."

"How kind. Then—"

"You are no longer sleeping," he reminded her.

Warmth pervaded her. She longed to tell him that she wished for nothing other than to find the deep solace of sleep again.

But she didn't think that she could sleep now. Not with the visions that haunted her mind. She wanted to feel the flesh and blood of the living man, lie down with powerful arms around her, in order to shake off the fear of the cold and clammy grave that had settled upon her.

She slid into his arms with a soft, glad cry. For a moment, she felt the sheer comfort and security of his embrace. Then more...

So much more...

His fire burned within her and without her, and when the sweet violence of climax seized them like the shimmering of sparks given off by a bursting log split apart by the intensity of a blaze, she drifted ever downward.

Yet retained his warmth...

He would leave, she knew. Leave by the first hours of dawn, and she would not know where he went.

Only that he continued to see and hear... everything.

She roused, ever so slightly, when he rose from her bed at last. The room remained heavy with shadows, but faint streaks of light were beginning to touch upon the stone of the castle.

She felt the heat of his lips upon her brow, then the warmth was gone. He seemed to disappear, as cleanly as a dream. His touch nothing more than a memory.

She closed her eyes and felt an awful emptiness. She wondered if he could ever really be more than a dream to her.

* * *

Sabrina could not sleep.

How long had she tried to ignore the queasiness that had plagued her on the ocean voyage? How long had she tried to pretend that the obvious could not be?

She lay down to sleep, then rose. She slipped a robe over her nightgown, and began pacing the room before the fire. Oh, dear God.

Sloan!

She could remember every detail of their first meeting, in his hotel room. She was so desperately trying to hide from her stepfather while Sloan was under the assumption that she was the "new" girl, sent from the nearby whorehouse! She could scarcely explain her position, which had become steadily worse and worse until she...

Well, she had managed to remain hidden from her stepfather. And she was alive, wasn't she?

Alive, and now responsible for another life within her!

"Oh, God!" she whispered aloud, shuddering.

The night had been bad enough. Come the morning, he'd known nothing different than what she had told him—nothing. And his assumption had remained that she had come from the whorehouse and...

It wasn't that he had been horrible or cruel. He had roused her from sleep, and she had been sensually seduced before she had fully wakened. Yet that had been it! One night, one morning! And then, of course, the horror of discovering that he wasn't only a half-breed cavalryman with a heart and will of steel, he was her brother-in-law's best friend. Destined to be near her frequently. A single man, confirmed in his bachelor status, accustomed to the company of any woman he chose, white or red. Sloan could be exquisitely charming when he chose, and ruthlessly pigheaded when he chose as well. She was obliged to him for his help as well when her stepfather had done his best to hunt down and kill her and Skylar.

Sabrina hugged her arms around her chest.
And he was a half-breed.
Part of the Sioux Nation, torn by the conflict approaching them. She wasn't afraid of him, she told herself. She wasn't afraid of anything.

But she was. She was afraid of the savagery of the Indians, and despite his exquisite manners, she was certain that a fire burned deeply beneath the civilized surface of Sloan Trelawny, as fiercely savage as that within any feathered and painted redman on the plain.

Sabrina searched her room, going through the handsome cherry wardrobe and desk, hoping to find a bottle of brandy or sherry. Whiskey would do just as well. Then she paused, remembering how Edwina had told her what drinking could do to a child. Just one little brandy... she was going to have a bastard anyway.

The thought brought a choking sensation to her and she hurried to her window, anxious to inhale the night air. She was no naive child, and she hadn't been when she'd desperately traveled west from Maryland to reach her sister. She could be hard and determined herself, since she'd grown up with the manipulating man who'd managed to murder her natural father, and get away with it smelling like a rose, a man who had become a renowned politician. A man with so many connections he'd followed her trail west. Rather than let him discover her, she'd wound up in a room with Sloan Trelawny—drinking whiskey to stall for time. And when the following morning had come, she had been furious. Furious with herself, for not trying to explain the truth, for allowing Sloan Trelawny to believe she was a novice prostitute. Furious with him. Because she could have lived with herself if she could believe she had made a sacrifice for Skylar's and her own life. He had made the encounter more. He had made her see what making love could be, yet he had done so assuming he was educating a whore. When she had managed to depart at last, he had surely dismissed her as easily as his morning coffee. And when they had met again, she'd been stunned. And hateful herself. And now...

She could never tell him.

Fine! Then what was she going to do? Convince her sister that she was about to have history's second virgin birth?

She could lie, of course, and tell Skylar that there had been a man back in Maryland.

Then she'd have to leave her sister. Skylar, now, of course, had Hawk.

And a world about to explode on them, the Sioux situation in the West was so tense. Still...

Her head was killing her. She didn't want to think anymore. One little sherry or brandy wouldn't hurt her babe,

she determined. It would definitely help her sleep, and she was desperate to sleep.

She pulled her blue velvet robe around her shoulders, quietly departed her room, and hurried down the stairs.

In the great hall, she saw a brandy decanter with glasses on a tray in the center of the huge dining table. She hurried to the table and poured herself a brandy.

A small one.

Edwina's warning still disturbed her. She touched the glass to her lips, just tasting the brandy. She started then, swirling around, certain she had heard a noise coming from the hallway that led to the castle's chapel. "Hello? Who's there?" she demanded.

She thought she heard a sniffling sound in return. The cry, perhaps, of a lost child. "Hello, I won't hurt you!" she called softly. "Who's there, can I help you?"

She continued to hear the sniffling sound. She set down her glass, and started down the dark corridor.

* * *

In her cottage, Edwina awoke with a start, staring up at the shadows of light and dark that played upon the ceiling.

She wondered what had wakened her.

She rose and moved restlessly to her window, looking out at the night. The moon was so nearly full.

An unease settled around her. Evil was afoot. She wished that she could do something about it, but she had no proof, no knowledge, just a feeling.

She had warned Shawna. And Sabrina Connor as well. And she had been overheard and taunted by the village drunk and ne'er-do-well for her pains!

That didn't really matter, she told herself. She had been mocked before. Frequently. She should have told Lady Shawna more. She should have told her about the boy.

The wind suddenly rose. The door to the cottage suddenly banged inward.

A man towered in her doorway.

"You have come," Edwina said.

He entered her cottage and closed the door behind him.

The wind continued to moan.

Clouds passed over the moon, then shifted away from it. It glowed yellow in the heavens. So very nearly full.

* * *

Sabrina found the door to the chapel open and she slipped through it, certain that she could still hear a child crying. A lantern blazed on each side of the altar, but another beam of light cast a glow into the ancient chapel, and she saw that the door leading to the cemetery beyond had been left open. She knew that Shawna had recently brought a little boy to live at the castle, and though she mocked herself that it was too early for her to be feeling maternal instincts, she was still definitely worried. She couldn't bear the sad, frightened sound of the sniffling.

Sabrina hurried through the chapel, past the thick castle walls, and into the cemetery.

It looked as ancient as the chapel. The remnants of ancient wooden crosses remained alongside stone Celtic crosses. Marble angels sat guard among more simple stones; tall mausoleums rose to greet the dead of one particular family or another. Tombstones rose with dire messages for the living chiseled most sternly upon them.

Sabrina shivered. By day, she had thought the cemetery magnificent. By night...

If a child had awakened in the night and lost his way here, he would quite naturally be terrified.

The sound came again. It seemed to be originating from just beyond a large, full-winged angel about a hundred feet from the castle wall.

"Hello! Let me help you!" Sabrina called out. She started to pick her way through the cemetery toward the angel, her robe and hair flowing behind her in the rising wind.

As she hurried across the dew-damp ground, she thought she heard footsteps following in her wake. The wind picked up and the moon was suddenly covered by a dark cloud.

Sabrina spun around.

Too late.

She never screamed, for a foul-smelling cloth was clamped over her face far too quickly.

Chapter 13

"It's the shaft to the northwest of here which is supposed to be haunted, is that right?"

Hawk was posing the question, and though Shawna was aware that he was speaking, she didn't immediately respond. A huge yawn prevented her from doing so....

"Shawna?" he repeated, frowning. "Shawna, this is the shaft which is supposed to be haunted, right?"

She couldn't believe it, but she had actually been nearly asleep. Nearly asleep, and standing. Deep in one of the tunnels of the coal mine.

But then, she hadn't had much sleep in what was beginning to seem like a very long time, this morning less than usual. It was just barely dawn. She couldn't have closed her eyes for more than a few moments after David had left before she had heard a pounding at her door—his brother, determined on touring the mines before the workers started for the day.

"Aye," she said quickly, "this is where the trouble has been, where we've had the accidents, though I believe it is your brother who has done the 'haunting.' "

"Perhaps. But this is where the cave-in took place?"

Shawna lifted the kerosene lamp she carried to shed more light around them. "You can see where they have worked to shore up the walls here." She pointed out where carpentry had been done with solid columns of sturdy wood to prevent any more rocks from falling from above. "We're not far from the loch now, of course, and many of the tunnels beneath are waterways. So far, we've had no problems with the tunnels getting flooded. You've already heard that we nearly lost a child at the cave-in, but luckily, your brother was nearby 'haunting,' and he rescued the boy."

"The lad who works at the castle now?" Hawk queried.

Shawna shrugged.

"He's the look of a MacGinnis about him," Hawk commented.

Shawna felt a rush of warmth sweep through her. "So do many hereabouts. Just as we've a plentiful group of green-eyed, auburn-haired children among us."

Hawk didn't reply. He frowned suddenly, pressing a finger to his lips. "Perhaps we should cease to discuss matters pertinent to either the Douglases or the MacGinnises," he murmured. Then they both heard a tapping. It seemed to be coming from the north, where the shaft made a natural, curving turn.

"Do you hear it?" He barely mouthed the words.

She nodded.

He started forward, and she quickly followed him. They had come here alone. Skylar was waiting at the entrance to the mines, ready to warn them when the workers began to arrive for the day, but within the mine itself, they should have been completely alone.

He paused after a few steps, listening again.

There came a tap, then another.

Hawk moved his booted feet over the ground, moving in a circle. He stopped. The sound came again.

He watched her, a curious smile curving into his features.

"We're being lured!" Shawna murmured.

Hawk nodded.

She shook her head. "We shouldn't move forward," she said. "We should go back. Get help—"

"And add to the belief that the mine is haunted?" he asked her lightly.

She exhaled. "If we go forward..."

"I won't let anyone hurt you," he assured her.