A Grand Design Part 16

"You must have. You have forgotten."

"Trust me, my dear. As delightful as I find your company, I am not so covetous of it that I would have the blatantly poor judgment to closet us alone in my library."

For some reason, Cate did not particularly care for that response. She was not, however, going to take the time to figure out just what it was that bothered her. Pressing her eye to the hole where the spindle would go, she peered into the hall. Rotate as she would, she could see no farther than four or five feet in either direction. She certainly did not see any fallen door pieces.

"Mac?" she called. Then, louder, "Gordie?" And finally, "Anyone?"

There was no response save some distant pounding.

"I did not see anyone on this floor as I came in," Tregaron informed her.

"No. They are all upstairs or down in the kitchens. Or . . ." Inspired, Cate sprang to her feet and ran to the nearest window. It looked out onto the garden-the empty garden. Apparently the visionary Mr. Patton and his men had finished their digging for the day and, with nothing yet to place in the trenches they made, had gone home.

"I suppose we could go out the window," she said dubiously, gazing at the stone patio several floors below. "We could tie the dropcloths together."

"We will do no such thing."

"It might work. Come have a look."

"No."

"But I really do think it might work. Why . . . ?"

He scowled. Not quite the fearsome scowl of all those weeks past, perhaps. Cate was becoming used to his expressions, she supposed. Used to him. "Because," he said sharply, "I am not about to let you go swinging out a second-story window, and h.e.l.l will freeze over before I do so myself."

"Well." Cate debated arguing, but thought better of it. As it happened, she had no great desire to go swinging from any window. She returned to the door. "Help!" she called through the hall. "Anyone!"

"Cate." Tregaron was behind her suddenly, one hand on each elbow, hauling her to her feet. "Youwill shout yourself hoa.r.s.e. Now"-he pulled the doork.n.o.b from her hand and gave her a gentle shovetoward the covered divan- "sit down for a moment. Let me see what I can do."

Cate was ready again to object, this time simply in response to his officiousness. But she found herself carefully lowering herself onto the dusty dropcloth instead, propping elbows on knees, chin on fists, and watching.

Tregaron knelt in front of the door, then folded himself smaller when he was still too tall to see through the hole. A moment later he was sliding a long finger into the works, trying to engage the latch mechanism. He kept at it for several minutes. Cate waited for the click that would indicate success. It didn't come. A quiet if audible string of rather impressive curses did.

"It's no good," he announced finally. "We need the piece, whatever you called it, from the other side." He sat back on his heels, brow furrowed. Then, rising, he went to dig beneath the desk's drapery.

Cate watched as he opened one drawer after another. He was clearly in search of something specific, just as clearly unsure of where it was. Or, perhaps, if it was there at all after so many years.

When he gave a satisfied smile and came up with a handful of quills, Cate could not imagine what was in his mind. Writing a note and shoving it through the door was all well and good, should someone happen along the hallway. In which case, shouting or banging away at the wood would serve as much purpose as a little letter requesting that the pa.s.serby release them. Beyond that, Cate expected there would be something of a problem in finding usable ink in the long-abandoned desk.

Tregaron chose the longest quill and rolled it carefully between his fingers as if testing its strength. Then, to Cate's surprise, rather than seeking out other writing necessities, he pulled his grubby handkerchief from his pocket. Nor did it make much sense when he attached the thing to the quill point and carried it back to the door. It wasn't until he stuck the creation, handkerchief first, through the k.n.o.b-hole, that she understood.

"I take it we surrender."

He surveyed his handiwork as best he could. It would do. "I've done enough battle against immutable objects in my life to know when surrender is the best option."

"Clever," was her response, nodding to the visible, feather-end of his makes.h.i.+ft flag.

"Only if someone sees it."

Satisfied that he had done what he could for the time being, Tregaron walked away from the door. Deciding that he might as well sit down, he joined Cate on the shrouded leather divan. It creaked. She moved to the far end. Doing his best to ignore the sting of that, he stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. If no one came along in the next half hour or so, he would try something else. For now, there was nothing to do but wait.

"G.o.d," he growled to himself, "I hate this b.l.o.o.d.y house."

"You shouldn't." Cate was staring at him intently from her comically safe four feet away. "It's a wonderful house."

He grunted.

"And," she continued, "it will be what you want it to from now on."

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?" She flushed. Novel, he thought, his Amazon blus.h.i.+ng.

"I mean that the house is merely stone and paint, wood and gla.s.s, some furniture. Whatever you place on the walls and tables. If there is more here . . . poor . . . a.s.sociations, it is up to you to banish them."

"As easy as that, hmm?"

He had not meant to be sarcastic, not really. But her naive a.s.surance p.r.i.c.ked at him. She could guess, perhaps, about what had happened within the house's walls, but couldn't know. She was an outsider and, her spirit and intelligence aside, was clearly inexperienced in the ways of the world. She wouldn't understand the love that had been made in these rooms, the battles that had been waged, the histories decided. He himself wasn't aware of all of them throughout the house's history. He had more than enough to choose from among those in which he had partic.i.p.ated.

"Not necessarily easy," Cate was saying now. "I never said easy. It requires some effort, and perhaps some help."

In that instant, Tregaron could think of a hundred ways she could help banish some of the ghosts and cobwebs. Taking a broom to this very floor would be a decent start.

That, he thought, that glibness, was beneath even him. It was the first train of thought, of the ways she could ease his aches, that had been poking at him in so many different ways lately. The thoughts were there even when Cate was not present, surprisingly strong when she was. Cate, with her unpredictable tongue and predictably inelegant appearance. Not at all what he was looking for.

As if that ever mattered when b.l.o.o.d.y inconvenient l.u.s.t was concerned.

"Are you offering to help?" he demanded.

She stared back at him. One of her hands, he noted, was worrying at a worn spot in the ap.r.o.n she was wearing over yet another deplorable dress. "I have always endeavored to be as much use as possible to my family's business."

Tregaron did not think her uncles would care to know just what sort of business he had in mind. He might have laughed, only he laughed rarely and this was fast becoming a very serious situation.

"Well?" he pressed. "Are you offering me your succor, Cate?

Cate's fingers drifted over her knee to unravel more of the ap.r.o.n's frayed hem. Her eyes, however, were fixed on his, sharp and fiercely blue. "Will I regret it?"

She saw she had surprised him. Insofar as her whirling thoughts would allow, she had meant to. She was not quite so naive, she decided, as he thought.

"Will you regret it?" He appeared to ponder that for a moment. "I don't know. Are you the sort to regret your decisions?"

"Only the poor ones," she shot back, and lifted her chin.

He understood.

"Ah, Cate. Do you have any idea what you've begun?"

In a single motion, smooth as water, he slipped from his seat and came to kneel before her on the thick rug.

Everything was there in that face: a warning and a summons, weariness and vigor, a wickedness- and a tenderness so potent it made Cate s.h.i.+ver. Most of all, there was a desire in his eyes, for her, that could not be mistaken, even by the most suspicious heart.

He reached for her.

Cate considered herself well read. While she would never have admitted it to her family, the earthy, pa.s.sionate poems of John Donne were among her favorites. And she was not wholly without experience. Perhaps her brief and ill-advised interludes with Lord Fremont had ended unpleasantly- and, in retrospect, not precisely overwhelmed her while they were happening-but they had been illuminating.

Nothing in her life could ever have prepared her for the Marquess of Tregaron.

He moved slowly enough so that she could have easily evaded his touch. Instead, she watched, wide-eyed, as, one at a time, he undid the little b.u.t.tons at one wrist. Then the other. While the voice of decorum in her head screamed that she was being disrobed by a man, the rest of her sat utterly still while he loosened her sleeves. Gently and still so slowly, he pushed each sleeve up, past her elbow. And then he grasped her by the arms.

She s.h.i.+vered as his hands tightened. Then she actually gasped aloud when his thumbs slid into the hollows where her arms bent. Soft as a whisper, he moved his thumbs back and forth over the suddenly sensitive spots. Had she been standing, Cate knew her knees would have failed her. She had the distinct feeling that her bones were melting, one after the other. And he was just touching her inner arms.

She lifted slightly hazy eyes, looked into his face. His features were hard, unreadable, but his eyes were warm. And drawing. "Come to me, fiery Cate," he commanded, and pulled.

In a breath, she was on her knees on the floor, facing him. Only then did his hands leave her arms. He cupped her jaw in his palms, his thumbs tracing her lips this time, first the upper, then the lower, gently urging them apart. Cate very nearly went into an ungainly heap. She swayed backward, and was held upright only by the hard frame of the divan.

And Tregaron stayed right with her. His hands slid into her hair, scattering what pins had made it through the day, releasing the springy ma.s.s to tickle at her cheeks and tumble over her shoulders. He threaded his fingers deeper until they met and cradled the back of her head. Cate's eyes began to drift shut.

"Not yet," she heard him say gruffly. "Look at me."

She did. She watched as his face came closer to hers. A thick lock of night-black hair, always so controlled, had slipped forward to fall in an unruly arc over his forehead. One brow lifted, slowly.

"Well, Miss Buchanan?"

It took Cate a moment, but she realized he was waiting, asking her permission to go on. She nodded shakily, thinking she had never wanted anything quite so desperately in her life. He smiled-a slow, wicked smile that she felt all the way to her toes.

"Now," he said. "Now you can close your eyes."

And he kissed her.

Perhaps it was that he tasted and smelled of woodsmoke. Or that they were so close together that she could feel the radiating warmth of him. Or perhaps it was just the kiss. Whatever the reason, Cate was certain she was on the verge of bursting into flame. His lips were hard as they slanted over hers, yet amazingly yielding. And thorough-so very, very deliberate and thorough.

Cate couldn't summon up so much as a sliver of memory from her short embraces with Fremont. She summarily dumped twenty-odd years of faery tale notions. This was what she had been waiting for.

When he broke the kiss, gently holding her face away from his, she sighed with the loss. "So?" he asked. "What have you to say for yourself, my dear?"

Cate sighed again. "Is it a regret if I am sorry that I had no idea what I've missed?"

He chuckled, low in his throat, as he shoved several books and an empty inkwell out of the way behind him with one hand. The other he wrapped firmly around her waist. When he lay back, stretching his full length over the carpet, he took her with him. She was leaning against him now, one hip pressed against his, one hand on his chest, her hair a tangle aura around her pale face as he looked up at her.

It was all too scandalous to be contemplated, and too wonderful to be refused.

"Someday," he murmured, tracing a fingertip along her jaw, "painters will return to depicting the mythological and legendary. Hippolyta, Guinevere, Saint Joan. And when they do, Catherine Buchanan, you will be their muse."

Had he known how easy it was to make her blush with the right words, he would have taken to doing so much earlier. The pink started at her throat and rose all the way to those marvelous cheekbones, softening her face, giving it a glow.

"Don't flatter me," she said.

"Whyever not?"

"Because it is all flummery, and I do not need it."

Tregaron disagreed. Oh, he imagined Cate believed her own words, but how wrong they were. Every woman needed to be flattered. Not for vanity's sake, like members of his own s.e.x, but for the acknowledgment that members of his s.e.x, a dismally dim-witted lot among whom he fully and unhesitatingly placed himself, noticed her.

Cate Buchanan, he decided, had not been flattered nearly enough in her life. He supposed he could change that easily enough. Just not right then.

"Let us get back to matters at hand," he suggested, running one hand up her back until it rested between her shoulder blades. "Kiss me, Cate."

Her mouth curved. "A thieving bard and a rake."

He found himself smiling back. "No man with a Cate in his arms could help but steal that one line. And I am a dismally poor example of a rake."

"I don't believe that for an instant," she whispered, single-handedly turning the term rake into the highest of praise.

"Only because you have so little with which to compare me, my dear."

As quickly as it had appeared, her smile vanished. Suddenly, he was holding a very solemn, noticeably hard-faced woman. "I find that contrary to what I once believed, I have nothing with which to compare. But you . . ." She glanced down as if studying their intertwined arms and the meager distance between her breast and his. "Oh. Oh, dear."

"Cate . . ." He held on, but she still managed to pull away until she was sitting upright by his side.

"Did you love her very much?"

"Who?" he demanded, knowing d.a.m.n well of whom she spoke.

"Your wife."

"Good G.o.d, Cate. This is hardly an appropriate time to bring up Belinda."

"I disagree," was the sad reply. "I think it a perfectly appropriate time. She puts me in my place, you know."

He hauled himself up onto his elbows and stared at her, completely bewildered. "And what is that supposed to mean? She is dead. She does nothing."

"Nothing?" Short of calling him a liar, Cate's shrug couldn't have said it more clearly. "Yes, she is dead, and she was beautiful and vivacious, mistress of all this"-she waved an arm at the walls-"and perfectly suited to a t.i.tle and this wretched Town."

"Cate, I have no idea what on earth you're trying to say, but it is not adding to the moment."

"Yes, I know. Stupid of me, isn't it? Here I am in a perfectly wonderful, wholly improper position, and I cannot seem to keep myself from spoiling it." She tugged one sleeve back down and toyed with a b.u.t.ton. "Did you love her very much?"

"Not at all, according to so many of my peers," he replied caustically. "The others claim I loved her to the point of madness."

"Oh, hang your peers," she retorted, startling him. "I want to know why she haunted you right out of your home for so many years and why I feel so haunted now when all I did was engage in a bit of a roll on your filthy library floor!"

That one struck him, much like a fist in the sternum. True or not . . . true, perhaps, but . . . "Is that what we were doing?"