Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) Read online

  Jacob straightened his shoulders like a soldier standing to attention. His obvious pleasure at being singled out was evident in the foolish expression he wore.

  Beth wondered if perhaps it was a little like having a fox guard the henhouse. She leaned toward Samuel, lowering her voice.

  “And he won’t—?”

  There was no need for her to finish her question. He understood her meaning. Samuel moved his head solemnly from side to side. “Not unless he wishes to have his eyes put out.”

  It was a gruesome image, but it did make Beth feel safer. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t want her to misunderstand. Samuel would never rob Duncan of his due. “”lis Duncan you should be thanking, mistress, not me. While you are here, you are under his protection.”

  Yes, she thought, but what or who was to protect her from Duncan?

  Beth pushed the thought from her mind as she looked down at the tub. The water called to her seductively. Her inclincation toward caution began to slip away, lulled by Samuel’s promise.

  She’d been won over, Samuel thought, reading her expression, and he was pleased to have her trust. She had done well by Duncan, and thus had earned his loyalty. He clapped his hands together once, signaling that the others were to depart from the room.

  He herded them out, then turned and backed away himself. He gave Beth a reassuring smile as he placed a hand on each of the open double doors.

  “Anything you need, you’ve but to ask,” he reminded her, a moment before he rendered the doors shut.

  “This’ll do very well, thank you,” she murmured.

  Hurrying to the door, she locked it, then tested its strength. The lock was secure. But to put her mind at ease completely, and to prevent Jacob from taking any action they might both regret, Beth dragged a heavy chair over and set it against the door.

  That done, she surveyed the room slowly with a critical eye. Walking toward the wall that separated their two rooms, she pushed aside tapestries and ran her tapering fingers along the frames of the portraits. But there were no suspicious indentations in the walls, no knotholes that might be unobstructed at will.

  It appeared as though she was indeed safe from prying eyes.

  The water had cooled somewhat as she had conducted her search, but her heart was finally at ease.

  Quickly, not to waste any more time, Beth shed her garments and then eased her body gratefully into the tub. A sigh that was nothing short of ecstasy escaped her lips as the waters embraced her.

  Without, standing guard at her door, as Samuel had instructed him to do, Jacob smiled to himself. He wished with all his heart that he were braver. If so, he would crack the door but a little and steal a glance at the woman.

  As it was, he had to content himself with the multitude of fantasies that were racing through his young mind. Though what Samuel had told the lady was a lie—for Duncan would never put out an eye for such an offense—Jacob still knew that if he did look upon the woman’s form, even for half a breath, there would be consequences to face. Duncan did not look favorably upon the breaking of one’s word, especially not if it involved his as well.

  To incur Duncan’s displeasure was enough to trouble the heart of any of his men. Jacob’s most especially, since he worshipped the man.

  So he sighed in secret and stood his guard. And let his mind drift.

  In the next room, Duncan smiled to himself as he stretched out on his bed. He had heard Beth’s sigh as well. Both of their windows were open, despite the rain, and the sensual sound that had escaped her lips had carried. Someday, and soon, she would sigh that way beneath him, a moment before she cried out his name. A moment before they were joined.

  Anticipation heated his blood.

  For now, Duncan told himself, he would act the genial host and proper gentleman.

  Or perhaps, not too proper. He would render to her no less than she required. And no more.

  The hunt, he smiled, had assuredly begun.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Duncan hated the idea of being weak, even temporarily. The very thought imprisoned him in a state of mind in which he did not wish to be.

  While Beth took her bath in the room beside his, Duncan pushed himself out of bed, restless to test his strength. It was in shorter supply than he had been given to believe. Grasping the bed post with a sweaty palm, he forced himself to take a few steps.

  His head spun like a downy-faced lad taking his very first swig of ale. Gritting his teeth together, sweat pouring from his brow, Duncan forced himself to make an incomplete circle about the border of the bed, going from post to post and then back again. His legs felt a bit steadier, but his head still spun, and he cursed it for its lack of loyalty to his command.

  With a mighty sigh, he dropped back against the pillows, taking care not to unduly jar his shoulder. An invalid. He felt like a bloody invalid.

  “Damn!”

  Though he was in charge here at Shalott, in charge anywhere his men were with him, the ghost of years past rose up now to haunt him. Years past when he had been but a young whelp of a lad, to be ground under any gentleman’s boot if the whim took the man.

  The way it had the man who had given him seed within a night, his mother had recalled, filled with great suffering and pain.

  The very memory of the man who had sired him had Duncan clenching and unclenching his hand at his side in controlled rage. It did not help quell the rage to know that the man had paid, paid dearly for his brutality, both then and later, to the woman he had raped . . . Duncan’s mother.

  This frustration drumming within him would aid nothing, Duncan told himself, willing the hot blood from his veins. He would be up and about soon enough. He needed but dip a little into the pot of patience Samuel was continually babbling about.

  His dipper, Duncan thought with a rueful smile, had a hole in it.

  Once more about, he thought, his bare feet touching again upon the dark wooden floor. He’d push himself a bit more, and then be done with it for a while. He needed his strength to return if he was to be of any use as a man to the fair creature that the winds of fate had seen to blow his way.

  “God damn Dorchester’s bloody eyes,” Duncan gasped, as his knees suddenly buckled beneath him.

  Had he not been holding onto the post, he would have surely found himself eye to eye with the knotholes on the boards in the floor.

  Beth stifled the urge to run to his aid. She had just now come to see him, to thank him for the tub, and been in time to witness the display of weakness on his part. Men were such prideful creatures, and though it made little sense to her, she knew accepting her help,

  except under the most dire of circumstances, or upon his own conditions, would shatter that fragile shell known as manly esteem.

  She purposely hung back in the doorway and made her presence known. “You’re up, I see.”

  Her voice floated to him, as sweet as any spring breeze scented with blossoms. He turned to look in her direction.

  “Not nearly as much as I would like.”

  Silently cursing his legs, and the wound that had rendered them to the consistence of Amy’s runny gruel, Duncan lowered himself upon the bed. Pride or no, he held onto the bedpost. It would be far more embarrassing to fall before her than to admit to a need for assistance.

  Sitting, he turned and arranged himself on the bed, then looked in Beth’s direction. He regarded her with intense enjoyment. She had changed again, and wore a dress of light pink. Pink, like the color which rose so easily to her cheeks.

  “Do you always enter a man’s room unannounced?” Amusement highlighted his ruggedly handsome face. “If so, you might just see more than you bargained for.” His eyes glinted as a smile entered them as well. “Unless, of course, that is what you bargained for.”

  It seemed, she thought, her mood still deliciously mellow from the bath, that she could not readily expect a leopard to change its spots.

  “I see your tongue seems none the worse for your injury.”
She spread her dress as she took a seat on the chair beside him. “And to answer your question, I knocked.”

  “I did not hear.” Though in truth he was not listening for the soft rapping of knuckles upon his door. He was too busy silently chastising his own weakness.

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” she agreed. “You were grumbling too loudly to hear anything but Gabriel’s trumpet, and perhaps not even that.”

  Duncan shrugged, letting it pass. He hadn’t been aware that he was speaking aloud at all.

  Beth leaned forward, curiosity poking rigid fingers at her. He had worn a particularly angry expression when she had entered. “Who is Dorchester?”

  He was not about to let her pry into his affairs. “No one you would want to hear of.”

  She hated that firm, distancing tone, that tone that separated men from women, the very young from the old. She always had. It was a tone that meant to keep her from opening knowledge’s door.

  Her face hardened with an accusation. “I see. My secrets are open for examination, but yours are not.”

  Their eyes met. There was no room for argument within his. “Exactly.”

  He was like all the others, save her father. Anger flashed in her eyes at being so dismissed.

  “That is not fair, sir.”

  He meant to divert her from the subject that was hurtful to him, even after all these summers had passed.

  “The only fair thing in this room is you.” His tone belied his intense feelings. Duncan’s eyes swept over her in delighted appraisal. “You seem refreshed.”

  Beth locked her temper away. It served no purpose, arguing with the man. What did she care if he shared his thoughts with her or not? They meant nothing to one another and never would.

  She inclined her head in acknowledgment of his words. “That is why I came, to thank you for your kindness.” Because it felt too confining to remain so close to him, she rose once more and moved about the room, though there was nothing to take her attention there, save him. “It was unexpected.”

  He watched as she moved, sheer poetry embodied in a supple, tempting body.

  “It should not have been. I can be very kind.” His voice was gentle and coaxing, whispering promises without forming any. “But you will come to learn that.”

  Why was it that a single glance from him could make her mouth so dry and the rest of her body hum with anticipation? She drew herself up and turned toward the window. The scene had not changed. Rain, nothing but monotonous, annoying rain.

  “That will take time, sir, and I do not have that to spare.” In her heart, she cursed this foul weather. “It cannot rain forever.”

  The laugh was deep and sultry. It pleased him that it no longer hurt to laugh. “The English countryside might surprise you.”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “The English surprise me.”

  “How so?” He leaned back against the pile of pillows and patted the place next to him. After a moment, Beth crossed to him. She took the chair again instead, just as he knew she would. He smiled as she seated herself. If the challenge was easily met, then it was not a challenge.

  Beth looked at him, her words earnest. “The war we fought between us is not that far in the past. Why would you want to help me?”

  He ached to slip his fingers along her face, to acquaint himself with the feel of her lips, and weave his touch so that his hands could memorize her body.

  “I fought no war with you, Beth.” A cynical look crossed his brow as he thought of those years. “Wars are for old men to plan for gain.”

  That wasn’t why they had fought the Revolution. She was proud to have been born in a country that had forged a singular place in history. “There were principles involved in our war.”

  Our war. She was a rare woman, indeed. Like none other he was acquainted with. “And I see that they were important to you. But you are too young to remember what it was like.”

  He couldn’t be that much older, she judged, yet he spoke as if he had wisdom and she possessed but childish notions. “Freedom is something one is never too young to savor.”

  Her answer pleased him to a degree that surprised him. “Ah, we think alike. I’ve no great love for the men who wish to keep others beneath their yoke.” He could see by her dubious expression that she needed convincing of that. “I am English by the very whimsical happenstance of birth, not affiliation. Or choice. My loyalty is to my men and to those I serve.” His eye narrowed as he thought of his past. “Whom I choose to serve. I have no love of aristocrats.” He spat the last word.

  His sentiments confused her. “An odd thing to say, for a man who owns all this.” She waved her hand about the room, then looked at him, suspicion entering her gaze. “Or did you steal it?” That would seem more than likely, given the man’s beliefs.

  “Neither.” Her confusion heightened and he all but laughed to see it. “I am but overseeing the manor and its lands for a gentleman presently residing in the Colonies. The States,” he amended, “I believe they are called now, out of earshot of the King. Saint John Lawrence is the present Earl of Shalott, not I.”

  “Sin-Jin?” she asked, her eyes wide. Could they be speaking of the same man?

  “Yes.” He leaned forward, intrigued. “You say his name as if you know him.”

  “I do,” she affirmed quickly, stunned at the coincidence. Fate, she was beginning to perceive, was a very odd thing. “He is a neighbor.”

  Duncan’s smile was wide in his pleasure. “Then that makes us neighbors as well.” He reached for her hand. “By association.”

  She moved her hand before he could fold his fingers about it again and send her heart racing. “By very limited association.”

  His laugh was lusty, then tolerant by turns. “As you wish.”

  Her curiosity returned as she looked upon him. Eyes the color of the sea he professed to love, hair like a golden flag unfurled about his broad shoulders. And still he wore no shirt, a fact that was playing very badly with her reserve and her nerves.

  “What I wish is for you to tell me who you are.”

  Her quietly voiced question rippled along his skin. “Why?”

  She sought refuge in but part of the truth. “You are my host. My well-being has temporarily been placed in your hands.” She drew herself up. “I would like to know to what manner of man I have entrusted that welfare.”

  Here was a woman who could probably outtalk the devil. Had she been Eve, the serpent would have been induced to take a bite of the apple himself. “You turn an argument well.”

  “As do you.” He was attempting to flatter her away from her purpose. She stood by it. “I am waiting.”

  Duncan shook his head in admiration. “Would that my mother had your fire and tenacity.” His mother had been a sweet-faced woman, kind of soul, with no more backbone than a flea. “I would have, perhaps, had another father than the one who begat me.” He spoke the last of it to himself rather than to Beth.

  “Dorchester,” she guessed, and saw his eyes darken again. She guessed correctly.

  Duncan nodded grimly. “Yes, the late Earl of Dorchester.”

  There was something in the way he said it that aroused her unease. “He died?”

  “Aye, by my hand.” He could see it all even now, if he but closed his eyes.

  This was too heinous a fact to comprehend. Surely there was some mistake, or barring that, an explanation that would absolve him in some way, though how, she did not see.

  “You killed your father?”

  He would not lie to win her, not about this. “Yes, but not by design, though in my heart a thousand times I had done the deed in as many ways. But that evening, when I went to him, it was only to talk, to ask for a share of what was mine by rights for what he had done to my mother.”

  Duncan looked at her and saw no reason to sugarcoat the words. If she would know, then he would tell her. “He raped her.” He saw the horror enter Beth’s eyes, just as it must have his mother’s. “She was the stablemaster’s
daughter and he took her there, in the stables, with no gentleness, no love, not even a kind word.

  “He took her by the right of ownership.” The words left a foul taste on his tongue. “It broke her spirit.”

  Duncan had never known her any other way, except with a sadness in her eyes. She had loved him as best she could, but there was only a part of her left to give the young boy, only a small part to show him the way.

  “I was twelve when she died. Dorchester would have none of me after that. An hour after the funeral, he had me cast from the estate, to find my way on the streets of London.” Bitterness twisted his mouth as he recalled the event. “He had a wife and two foppish sons. He did not need to look upon a bastard.”

  Beth’s heart ached for the motherless child he had been. Her own life, though filled with impatient trials, had always known love. There was not a day she was without its comforting arms.

  “Samuel found me.” A smile rose at the memory. “He cut a finer figure then. He took me in and taught me a trade. Not a noble one.” A smile curved his generous mouth. “But one that helped me survive long enough to return to my roots.”

  Beth held her breath, though he had already told her the outcome. “And what happened?”

  “I was eighteen when I finally confronted my father with my claim. I was young and angry, and still a little idealistic, perhaps. That had been my mother’s doing. She always waited for things to become better. She died waiting. I was not about to.

  “But Dorchester was no more of a mind to accept me then than he had been six years before. Less. He threatened me. That failing, he tried to stab me with his dagger. It was not the best of homecomings.” His breath caught as he recited the events dispassionately. “I meant only to deflect the blow, but he fell. And the dagger found a different target.”

  He took a breath as he looked out the window. In a way, it seemed as if all this had happened to someone else in another lifetime. “I went to sea that night, a price upon my head. I took the others with me and we learned another sort of trade.”