Enraptured Page 13

  “You know we do. You knew from the start that you would talk me into it.”

  “Which makes it particularly gratifying.” Violet rose to her feet. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must change into my sleuthing attire.” She turned away, then pivoted back. “I have—it has been very . . . nice, dining with you. Thank you.”

  She whipped around and left the room before he could speak.

  Violet felt her eyes drifting closed, and she pulled herself awake, rubbing her hands over her face. Keeping watch was proving to be boring. One could do only so much thinking about scholarly topics without beginning to drift off. All other thoughts invariably led to Coll and the way he had looked the night before when he answered the door. His bare chest, the firm swell of muscle in his arms, the strength of his fingers as he gripped her arms.

  She had never before come face-to-face with a half-naked man. Heat stirred low in her abdomen at the memory. She shifted, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard wood floor, and reached into her pocket to look at her watch. It was just past two. She pondered awakening Coll. It would be kinder to let him sleep longer. On the other hand, it would be disastrous if she fell asleep and missed the intruder.

  She stood up, stretching her stiff muscles. It occurred to her how improper it would be to enter a man’s bedchamber. How strange. How titillating. She slipped up the stairs and paused at Coll’s door, then eased it open. The room was dark, the only light the glow of the sconce in the hall behind her, but she could see the looming bulk of the bed. Her breath was suddenly uneven as she started toward it.

  Despite the chill of the night air, Coll must be warm, for his bed curtains were drawn back and tied. As she neared the bed, she could see that the covers were pulled up only to his waist, his bare chest exposed to the cool air. Violet stopped, her eyes fastening on his chest. She wondered if he slept entirely naked beneath the sheets and blankets. Heat gathered insidiously between her legs.

  Coll stirred as she watched him, his head moving restlessly on the pillow. He let out a soft groan, turning onto his side, his hand spreading out across the sheet. He rubbed his cheek against the pillow, a whisper issuing from his lips. With another low sound, his fingers dug into the mattress beneath him. Violet realized that he was flushed. Was he feverish? Ill? She laid her hand gently on his arm, whispering, “Coll? Coll, wake up.”

  His eyes flew open. “Violet!”

  One hand shot out and grasped her arm, and he rolled onto his back, gazing up at her with hot, dreamy eyes. His mouth curved in a slow smile, and his other hand went to her hip, spreading his fingers out in a caress. “It is you.”

  His skin was searing hot where he touched her, and the soft movement of his fingers made warmth blossom between her legs.

  “Of course it is I.” She fought her jangling nerves. “Who else would it be? Are you sick? You feel hot.”

  Coll’s eyes widened. He jerked his hands back as if he had laid them upon a hot stove and shot up to a sitting position, grabbing the covers as they slid farther down his body. “Violet. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to wake you up, remember? Really, Coll, are you feverish?” Violet put her palm against his forehead, and he skittered back, clutching the covers.

  “No! I’m fine!” His voice rang in the silence. He lowered his tone. “I am not feverish. I—um—I was dreaming.”

  “Oh. A nightmare.” Violet nodded. “That was why you were twitching.”

  “Twitching? What was I—did I say anything?” Alarm mingled with the dazed expression on his face.

  “Nothing I could understand.”

  “Thank God.” He pulled up his knees beneath the covers and crossed his arms on them, muttering to himself as he dropped his head to his arms.

  “It’s most annoying when you mumble like that. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “It’s better you don’t know.”

  “No doubt.” Violet’s eyes strayed down his back, bared by his position. Her fingers itched to glide along the bony ridge of his spine, and she curled them into her palms. She noticed that the covers had slipped more when he moved, falling away at his side so that a slice of his bare hip was exposed. He was naked beneath the sheets.

  Her mouth went dry as dust. She had to wrench her eyes away. “Well . . . then, um, I shall go. If you are, uh, sufficiently awake.”

  “I am wide-awake,” he snapped, then sighed. “I am sorry. I’m a bear when I awaken. Anyone will tell you.”

  “That many have been with you when you wake up?”

  “What? No. I mean—I dinna mean . . . Meg and Ma and um . . .”

  “And a few other women.” Violet watched the color flare along his cheekbones. She wasn’t sure why the sight made the nerves dance beneath her skin or why she enjoyed the tumult. Or why she felt such a compelling urge to provoke him. It was almost as if she wanted to see him explode.

  That was such an odd, disturbing thought that she turned away abruptly. “Well. I shall go to bed then. Good night.”

  Coll stared after Violet as she strode into the dark hall and out of sight. Letting out a low noise, half groan, half growl, he flopped back onto the bed. He rolled onto his side and buried his face in his pillow, muttering oaths, none of them adequate to express what burned through him. What if she had understood his mutterings? Had she realized the state he was in?

  He had been dreaming of her. It had been summer in his dream and they’d been swimming at the loch. She had worn only a shift, and the wet cotton clung to her body, revealing every delectable inch. She lay back on the ground beside the loch, holding up her arms to him, and he went to her, burying his mouth in hers, his hands sliding under her shift and over her slick skin.

  Then she had said his name, and he had opened his eyes to see her standing before him. For an instant, still lost in passion and sleep, he had reached for her. He was fortunate he had come to full consciousness before he dragged her into his bed.

  He grunted. Aye, fortunate. So much better to be lying here sweating and shaken, still hard as a rock and no chance of release, at least not in the way he ached for. Why did he let the woman torment him so? Yes, she had those doe-soft eyes, lambent and huge, and her breasts were full and soft and would cup so sweetly in his palms. Her lips were luscious, eminently kissable. But other women were beautiful, other women were softer, sweeter, more pliant.

  Yet none of them beckoned him as she did. That tartness in her made it all the more tantalizing to taste her sweetness. The possibility of watching the warmth and pleasure unfold in her lured him. He yearned for the powerful, primal satisfaction of awakening that most hidden part of her—as if she had locked inside her some deep, shimmering secret that only he had the key to open.

  Coll sat up. He must get up and dress; he must turn his mind to other things, forcing the roiling, pulsing hunger inside him to ease. If he did not learn to do so, it would be an exquisite torture living in the same house with her. Perversely, it seemed that he ached to race straight toward that torment.

  Sighing, he lay back, crooking his arm across his eyes, and, for just a few more moments, gave himself up to thoughts of her.

  Violet sailed into the dining room the next morning. Despite the fewer hours of sleep the previous night, she felt strangely invigorated. Coll was already seated at the table, nursing a cup of tea.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully, going to the sideboard.

  Coll’s response was more a low grunt than a greeting. Violet cast a glance at him over her shoulder. His eyes were clouded and his hair tousled, drifting every which way. A long, thin, red line ran down one side of his face where he had obviously slept against something ridged. He hunched over his cup of tea, one hand cradling it, as if it were his only comfort, looking rumpled and sleepy and disagreeable. Somehow the sight of him lightened her chest.

  “It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?” She piled food onto her plate.

  “It’s raining.”

  “Ah, but ra
in can be lovely, can it not? I suppose it’s all in how one looks at it.” She sat down across from him with a smile.

  Coll cast her a jaundiced look. “Are you always this . . . bubbly in the mornings?”

  “You, I take it, do not greet the morning with pleasure. I would have thought you were accustomed to rising early, growing up in the country.”

  “I am accustomed to it. Doesn’t mean I enjoy it.” He took another swallow of tea.

  “Perhaps I should be the one taking the last watch. I appear to be more alert.” Violet decided not to mention that she had struggled to keep her eyes open on her own watch. “Though I admit I would be less useful at subduing the intruder.”

  “Mm. Perhaps you could talk him into insensibility.” Coll looked up at her from beneath his lashes, eyes glinting.

  Violet struggled to suppress a smile, but could not. “Ah, I see your brain has awakened.”

  Reaching over to snag a slice of bacon from Violet’s plate, Coll leaned back in his chair, chewing thoughtfully as he studied her face. “And I can see that you’ve some mad new scheme on your mind. Go ahead. Out with it.”

  She lifted her brows haughtily. “Just for that I should not tell you.”

  He simply waited.

  “Oh, very well. I did a good deal of thinking last night as I waited for our culprit.”

  “Lord help us.”

  “Returning to the house multiple times would increase the thief’s chances of getting caught. It seems very foolish.”

  “Which would be unsurprising if it’s Will Ross.”

  “That may be true, but I wondered if the small items taken were merely incidental to the main purpose. An impulsive grab, thinking it would not be noticed and reasoning that he deserved some bit of payment for failing in his main objective.”

  “Which was?” Coll lifted his brows.

  “What if he was searching for something larger? More valuable. So valuable that it is worth returning time and again to search for it.” Violet leaned forward, her eyes intent on Coll’s face.

  “And what might this valuable object be?”

  “Well, Mr. McKay suggested—”

  “Auld Angus! What the devil does he have to do with it?”

  “Nothing, except to offer his opinion, as he is wont to do.” Violet’s lips curved up in amusement.

  “I might have known. When did he favor you with this opinion?”

  “He’s come to the site twice now. The first day it was to critique our work. Yesterday he seemed more interested in the intruder.”

  “I’d like to know how he learns everything that happens in the glen when he lives like a hermit.” Coll glowered. “I suppose he pointed out I’d bungled the thing.”

  “No. So far he has not had to go further afield than my workers to find ample things to criticize. He and the workers discussed the possibility that the intruder was seeking treasure.”

  “Treasure! Oh, bloody hell . . .”

  “Adam seemed to think your sister and the earl discovered the French gold brought home by Malcolm Rose. Angus declared that to be nonsense.”

  “Angus has the right of it—much as I hate to agree with the man. All Meg found was a bit of leather and a couple of coins. Hardly a treasure. Those coins could have been the laird’s traveling money.”

  Violet frowned. “I can see that you are determined to take the most prosaic view possible.”

  “I’m a prosaic man,” Coll retorted. “Simple explanations tend to be the likeliest.”

  “Be that as it may, the existence of the treasure is not the point.”

  “No? Then what is?”

  “The fact that people believe it exists. And that some believe it is hidden in this house. That could be what the intruder is looking for.”

  Coll set his jaw stubbornly, but after a moment he let out a sigh and relaxed. “You may very well be right. But there’s nothing I can do about it if people are determined to believe it’s here.”

  “Well, there is one thing we could do.”

  “Aye, and what’s that, then?”

  “We can find it first.”

  12

  A treasure hunt? That is your solution?” Coll stared at her.

  “No, my solution is finding the treasure. Until it is discovered, people will persist in thinking it is here and will look for it. But if we found the treasure and secured it in a bank, they will know hunting for it here is useless.”

  “But I have no idea where it is.”

  “That is why we have to discover what happened to it.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “You just want to look for buried treasure.”

  Violet laughed. “I do in fact enjoy a good puzzle. That does not make finding it any less necessary. Besides, it will give us something to enliven the evenings.”

  “I think my evenings have been lively enough since you arrived.” Coll sighed. “Very well. But exactly how do you propose to find it? The one place I am certain we would not find it is here in Duncally. Damon’s family was on the opposite side of the war. They would never have been entrusted with money meant to save Prince Charlie’s cause.”

  “Might they not have stolen it from the laird? Do you know anything about what happened to it?”

  “We know that Lord Mardoun was in England at the time, not here. We know that Sir Malcolm returned because Isobel and Jack found his body. And we know he was murdered by his wife and brother.”

  Violet stared. “His wife and brother killed him? Why?”

  “Jealousy. His younger brother resented him for getting the title and estate. And Sir Malcolm’s lady had ample reason for her jealousy. Sir Malcolm loved another woman. But it seems clear that neither of them took the money. Until Meg and Damon found those coins, we assumed it had been stolen or else he had not brought it back with him. Now Meg believes the laird entrusted it to Faye Munro. Our grandmother.”

  “She was the woman he loved?”

  Coll shrugged. “No one knew who our grandfather was; Faye dinna reveal it, and she died giving birth to our mother. Meg had a bee in her bonnet, wanting to find out who the man was, and when she managed to track down the location where they exchanged messages, she found two French louis d’or and a scrap of leather with the Roses’ emblem. Whether that proves that the treasure existed or not, I dinna know. But I suspect it does mean Sir Malcolm was Faye’s mysterious lover.”

  “So you and your sister are related to the Roses then. And you so despising the aristocracy!”

  “On the wrong side of the blanket. I’ve little delight in discovering my grandfather was a philandering aristocrat, another man who went about taking his pleasure when and where he liked, betraying his lawful wife and also abandoning the woman he professed to love. It certainly does not make me any more than I was before.”

  “No, you would not be a man whom that would change.” Violet smiled faintly. “But it does make you cousins with Mrs. Kensington.”

  “That is a good aspect of it, I suppose.”

  “How did your sister track down the meeting place? Why did she think Sir Malcolm had entrusted the treasure to your grandmother?”

  “It came from Faye’s journal.”

  “The book you were reading that night in the library?”

  He nodded. “Sir Malcolm gave it to Faye. He taught her to read and write.”

  Violet’s face softened. “Truly?”

  Coll laughed. “Trust you to find that romantic. Meg did, too.”

  “Of course. It shows he really knew her. That he truly cared for her. A man might toss any woman a trinket, but to take the time and trouble to do that indicates something more than mere desire.”

  “Apparently he knew her well enough that he entrusted her with the treasure.”

  “She wrote that he gave her the gold, but she didn’t say where she hid it?”

  “She was very cryptic about the whole matter. She never wrote his name, only called him ‘my love’ or ‘he.’ She referred to his leaving her someth
ing and talked about wondering what to do with it. She says she moved the thing he left her. There are some pages torn from the book as well.”

  “A mystery indeed.” Violet’s eyes sparkled. “The journal is where we will start.”

  “We will?”

  “Yes. Don’t be stubborn, Coll. There isn’t a reason in the world why we shouldn’t hunt for this treasure except for the fact that you like to aggravate me.”

  “I like to aggravate you? ’Tis you who delight in driving me mad.”

  “What nonsense.” Violet grinned and popped a final piece of bacon in her mouth as she rose from her chair. “Then this evening, after supper? In the library?”

  “Yes. We will begin your treasure hunt.”

  Violet was waiting for Coll when he walked into the library. Paper and pencils were laid out neatly on the table before her. He was prepared to see her—indeed, he had spent far too much of his day thinking about it—but still it gave him a little jolt of excitement.

  It was absurd. He was becoming a stranger to himself, prone to bouts of nerves and frustration, churning with anticipation over even the most mundane of things. All through supper, he’d found himself contemplating the edging of lace along the neckline of Violet’s gown or the way the fringe of her shawl brushed over her bare arms, separating softly over her skin. He wanted to draw her, to catch the shadowed cleft between her breasts, the fragility of the lace upon her milky skin. No, it would be better in wood; nothing flat could capture her allure, her grace.

  He had lost track of their conversation so often that Violet doubtlessly wondered if he was a fool. Coll was certain he was. Being with her, watching what he wanted and could not have, made him ache. Yet here he was, condemning himself to an evening with her. And eager to do so.

  Violet looked up as he walked in, and she smiled. Jumping up, she pulled out the chair beside her. “I’m glad to see you. I need your help.”

  Coll was unsure whether it would be worse to sit across from her and look at her all evening or beside her, only inches away. Either sounded like a bad idea. He took the chair she indicated, and she resumed her seat, sliding a piece of paper in front of him. She leaned in to point at what she had drawn.