A Very Gothic Christmas Read online

  Even now, as she sank deeper into the down mattress, listening to the wind buffet the walls and mourn hauntingly through the eaves, it wasn’t the cold that made her limbs ache and her insides knot painfully, but pure, undiluted desire. She burned with it.

  She shivered from the mental pictures of Duncan’s mouth fused to hers, his skin against her own, sleek, moist, and hard, his powerful thighs between hers . . .

  Rachel drew in an unsteady breath, stunned by the direction in which her thoughts were traveling, willing back the erotic visions until they were safely tucked away.

  A sound arose out in the hallway, bringing her fully alert and upright. Her breath suspended in her throat as she strained to listen, picking out the familiar creaks and moans made by the house, trying to reassure herself that whatever she heard had only been a product of the wind.

  Then the noise came again—and it was not the wind, but a low, eerie moan, a whisper of a voice that sent a shiver up her spine. Duncan? Could he be in pain? Had his injury worsened?

  Despite the alarms clamoring in her head, Rachel slid from the bed, tugged on her robe, and crept to the door, pressing her ear against the wood to listen.

  Cautiously, she opened the door and peered out. The hallway was dim, lit only by a few sconces scattered intermittently on the walls, their hazy yellow light glowing through an odd, diaphanous mist that appeared to shift in the shadows and coalesce gradually along the floor, lingering outside Duncan’s door.

  The lament drifted to her on a draft of wind, making her want to turn tail and fly back into her room, barricading the door until gauzy morning light filtered through the drapes. She had to remind herself that she was fearless, and that Duncan might need her.

  Taking a deep breath, Rachel eased across the corridor, her gaze focused on the gray mist that sprawled over the bare floor like a rug, slowly seeping along the knotted and pitted old wood to crawl around her ankles and slide up her calves.

  She tried to reason away the strange and creepy mist as a result of the equally strange and creepy weather; the low-lying fog sweeping across the moors had somehow found its way into the house, slithering over the front doorsill and through cracks in the windowpanes.

  Still, there was something disquieting about the smoky vapor, a tangible element. A pulse. As though it possessed a life of its own, inching along her skin, making the hair rise on her arms and her heart pound in her throat, hastening her steps toward Duncan’s room.

  Reaching his room, she stared at the closed portal for only a moment before turning the knob and easing open the door, wanting to escape the mist even as she justified her actions by telling herself she was simply checking on an injured man.

  She found him sitting silent and unmoving before the hearth, slouched in a enormous black leather chair, gazing into the blazing fire, his face and body painted by the flickering gold light.

  His head slowly turned, and his troubled blue gaze collided with hers. Her heart faltered at the certain despair in those eyes, and she was forced to check her need to rush across the room and comfort him.

  “I thought I heard voices,” she said, remaining motionless in the doorway.

  He made no remark, but continued to regard her from that brooding countenance, shadows obscuring all but his eyes—piercing as a dagger and deepened to ebony by his surroundings.

  She glanced away from him, needing to compose herself and the riot of emotions that tumbled through her whenever she was in his presence.

  She looked around the bedroom, which—unlike the rest of the house—she had not explored the day before, feeling as if it were somehow sacrosanct, off-limits. Now she allowed her gaze to roam.

  The room had yet to be cleared out, nor had the furnishings been covered over with sheets, as many of the other rooms had. It still held the masculine appeal of its normal occupant: dark furniture, deep wine-colored bedding and draperies, bookshelves flanking one entire wall, leather-bound novels crammed into every conceivable crevice, and the faintest hint of smoke and brandy.

  Rachel wondered if the current lord of Glengarren was anything like the man now watching her from across the room. The same blood ran through their veins, after all.

  Even so, would she feel the inexplicable pull that drew her to Duncan with another MacGregor? Would she ever feel this way with any man?

  She forced the thought aside, and quietly asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Aye,” he said, sounding weary. Then he motioned toward the bed. “I could not sleep in that. ’Tis like a rock, and too small.” He sighed. “It matters not. There is too much tae think about anyway” He looked again into the fire, his profile as perfect as a Greek coin.

  “Are you still worried about your men?”

  He nodded and glanced around the room. “This place . . . it discomfits me. I have looked many an enemy in the eye and cursed his name and have not felt the disquietude that this air gives me. ’Tis as if I am not alone.”

  “You aren’t alone,” she told him, though she well understood the sensation he referred to—the feeling of something being just out of sight, inches beyond reach—but she pushed her unease to the back of her mind. It was not a path she wanted to traverse at that moment. “I’m only across the hall if you need to talk.”

  His gaze captured hers, the look in his eyes bringing a rush of heat to her cheeks. “ ’Tis more than talk I crave, lass.” His meaning was readily apparent, and yet he had not acted on his urges. Rachel didn’t know whether to be glad he had controlled himself, or if she should give free rein to the disappointment swirling inside her. “Come and sit with me by the fire.” It was a request, not a command, and the first he had issued, though it didn’t make her decision any easier.

  She knew what would happen to her if she got too close to him, the onslaught of physical symptoms, as though she were running a high fever that only one thing could cure.

  Duncan beckoned her—with words. And without. Yet even knowing the danger he posed—no longer to her well-being but to her heart—she still wanted to be near him.

  Shaking slightly, from nerves this time rather than cold or fear, she padded across the room and sat down in front of the hearth, her back to the flames and Duncan before her, regarding her from beneath drowsy lids.

  “How is your shoulder?” she asked.

  “It vexes me little. ’Tis the ache here that bothers me more.” He placed a hand on his heart. “My men will believe that I deserted them.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They won’t think that.”

  “And what makes ye so certain?”

  “Because you wouldn’t abandon them. They know it . . . and I know it.” Rachel couldn’t say how she knew what Duncan would or would not do, what things his honor commanded of him. Yet she felt as if she knew him as well as she knew herself.

  “And what else is it that ye think ye know about me, lass?”

  His gaze was hooded, so Rachel couldn’t tell if he was mocking her, or if he was truly interested in hearing what she thought. Regardless, she told him.

  “For one, I think you’re not as tough as you look.”

  A dark scowl clouded his face. “Are ye saying that I’m a coward?”

  “No. Of course not. I’m simply saying that somewhere beneath that hard shell resides a compassionate heart.”

  He grunted, appearing moderately satisfied with her answer, the fierceness slowly easing from his face. “What else?”

  “Well, you fight for what you believe in. You care deeply for your people. And I suspect you’re very honorable, though something tells me you don’t readily show that side of yourself.”

  “Honorable, am I?” His gaze bore into hers, transfusing heat into her very soul, before dipping to her lips, that lone glance making them tingle. “And might ye know what honorable thoughts I’m thinking right now, sweet witch? That my mind turns over with visions of being less honorable at this moment. That, in fact, I wish tae be very, very dishonorable and tae take what I
desire, tae seek heaven where I know it can be found, a tunnel of slick warmth tae sheath me and loving arms tae hold me close.”

  Rachel’s flesh felt as though it was on fire. The very spot he so boldly spoke of began to ache, her body wanting him to do exactly as he wished. But perhaps any warm body would do just then, any female to help him forget the turmoil of his life for a few desperate, pleasure-filled hours.

  “You’re just lost,” she said, staring down at her hands, not wanting him to see what was in her eyes.

  He tipped her chin up. “I am not lost at this moment, lady.” His eyes conveyed all she had wanted to see but was afraid to look for. Then, the tension returned to his body, the hand beneath her chin moving to clutch his shoulder, a black scowl marring his face as he sat back. “Bloody Gordon,” he hissed beneath his breath. “The man is the bane of my existence.”

  Rachel was growing to dislike this Gordon almost as much as Duncan did. The name seemed familiar, yet she couldn’t remember why. Something elusive tugged at the back of her mind, but at that moment, her thoughts were too focused on Duncan. He looked ready to shatter.

  Wanting to comfort him, she placed her hand on top of his. The contact was electric. Jolting. As if something inside her had merged with something inside him . . . their hopes and desires, fears and joys . . . their very souls.

  Frightened, she attempted to pull away, but his hand closed around hers. “Don’t,” he whispered, tugging her closer until she knelt between his thighs.

  His large, warm hand cupped her cheek, searing her. She could not resist, or perhaps she simply didn’t want to. Instead, she gave in to the need inside her, closing her eyes and leaning into his touch as she had ached to do.

  Odd how such a short time ago this huge warrior had sent tremors of fear through her. No more. For the first time in a long while, everything seemed right with the world, as if she had come home at long last.

  Was it selfish, she wondered, to want to hold on to that feeling, to wish to steal time and hold it close? Christmas was said to be the season of miracles. Perhaps this man, this haunted, beautiful man, was her miracle?

  Or perhaps he would disappear as suddenly as he arrived, leaving her emptier and more desolate than she had been before.

  The thought chilled Rachel, and she forced herself to pull away from him, drawing her resolve around her like a cloak, striving for some semblance of rationality before she did something foolish.

  Something that couldn’t be undone.

  She searched for something to say, and noticed he still wore his stained clothing. “There might be something you can wear to bed in one of the bureaus.”

  He regarded her with those dark, unfathomable eyes—eyes that had the power to unravel her. “I wear nothing tae bed,” he stated, watching her reaction, which was immediate, heat prickling her skin and warming her face.

  The image of Duncan’s naked body sliding beneath the sheets was a powerful one. Evocative. Unnerving. Rachel knew she had to put distance between them—or risk the chance of answering the desire in his eyes with her own.

  “This is where I say good night.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that she realized her hand was still clasped within Duncan’s, the contact seemed so natural, so . . . right.

  He was reluctant to release her, and she, reluctant to be released. Yet, slowly, she eased her hand from his, wondering why the chill air assailed her the moment they were no longer touching.

  “Don’t leave me, lass,” he whispered in a heated voice, the request beguiling, beseeching, and terribly hard to resist—but resist she must.

  “Good night,” she murmured, rising unsteadily to her feet, trying not to run for the door and across the corridor that separated them, even though far more separated them than the width of the hallway, and she had to remember that. Hundreds of years stood squarely between them.

  The last thing she saw as she closed her bedroom door was Duncan’s large frame silhouetted in front of the fire, blue eyes cutting through the shadows and delving into her soul, the darkly haunting whisper of a single word reaching out to her.

  Rachel . . .

  chapter

  5

  THE MORNING DAWNED gray and cloudy, with a steady drizzle of rain that hinted of snow.

  As Rachel stood shivering at the cliff’s edge, she gazed out at the silver-limned water of the River Ness, willing back the rise of emotion within her as she thought about her parents and how they had loved this place.

  She tried to see it as they had, and not as the desolate, tragic shell it had become. It must have been grand once, must have possessed a certain magic, when the grounds stirred with men and women and children. The thrum of life.

  Those days were gone now. But they had once existed . . . back in Duncan’s time.

  Would he ever return to where he belonged? And would she be able to forget him once he was gone?

  Rachel forced the thought aside, knowing such questions were unproductive. What would be would be, and she could not change that, no matter what she wanted.

  Though she closed one door in the passageway of her mind, another opened, full of poignant memories—visions of her parents, of what they would be doing right now had they still been alive. They had found such joy during the holidays. They had known such love.

  Sadness took hold of Rachel, enclosing her in its relentless web. Soon she would have to say good-bye to them, and the sorrow of that moment made an ache unfurl and expand inside her, like an old wound newly lanced. She was not yet ready to let them go.

  She closed her eyes tightly and tipped her face up to the sky, allowing the drizzle to bead upon her chilled face and run like tears down her cheeks—replacing the real tears that longed to flow. But she was too afraid she would drown in her grief should she allow them to fall freely.

  What irony, she thought. What cursed fate. That in this very place where her parents had found love, she had, by some skewed miracle, conjured up a man who epitomized her most secret fantasies, her most longed-for wishes, and the wretched reality was . . . he could never belong to her.

  No doubt Duncan was pacing Glengarren’s shadowed corridors, despairing over his circumstances, a spirit and soul wrenched from his existence by the whims of fate, his mind consumed with thoughts of how he would find his way back to his own century—while she wondered if she really wanted him to find the answer.

  A gust of frigid air whipped up from the gorge below, bringing her back to the moment—and banishing dreams that she would be foolish to hold out hope might be granted.

  Rachel opened her eyes to find the first flurries of snowflakes brushing against her cheeks as lightly as ghostly kisses.

  The sight reminded her that Christmas was nearly upon her. Families the world around were decorating trees and wrapping presents to the familiar strains of “Deck the Halls” and “Silent Night” Soon they would be drinking eggnog and eating fruitcake . . . while visions of new toys and games danced in children’s heads.

  Rachel’s gaze shifted to the castle that jutted out of the earth like a gray mountain, her thoughts once more returning to Duncan—and where they would both be on Christmas Day. Perhaps it was best not to know.

  The temperature suddenly plummeted, and she trembled as the cold cut through her layered clothing like a dull knife and began to numb her gloved hands and booted feet.

  Bundling her coat close around her, she hastened toward the house. As she stepped through the front door, shaking the snow from her hair, she paused, noting that the foyer felt surprisingly warm.

  Slowly, she closed the heavy portal behind her, her gaze sliding to the library, where a glowing light spilled out over the threshold, burnishing the floor with a golden hue.

  A roaring fire burned in the hearth, the flames licking greedily against the long-unused grate, making wild shapes dance over the walls and floor like writhing apparitions.

  Rachel started as the lights suddenly flicked on and off. On and off. On and off. A moment
later she heard a distinctive male grumble and a curse. She turned to find Duncan flipping the light switch on the wall up and down, his face a mixture of confounded amazement.

  She smiled at the sight he made. He looked so beautifully perplexed and utterly disgruntled over his new discovery that her heart did a little flip. This warrior, who lived in a time of bloody combat, was held captive . . . by the power of electricity.

  “Having a good time?” she asked, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it up on a peg near the door.

  With a fiercely concentrated scowl, Duncan’s gaze snapped to hers. “My home is full of witch’s magic.”

  Rachel sighed and removed her wet boots. “It’s not witch’s magic. It’s simply modernization. A lot of years have passed since you lived here.”

  Duncan grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “sorcery” as he regarded the light switch and bulb dubiously, his expression conveying that he was decidedly wary of this artificial illumination as he gave the switch another flick.

  At last he grew tired of the marvels of modern science and turned to face her, moving out of the shadows that had partially cloaked him.

  Rachel’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she got her first full glimpse of him—clad only in a pair of faded jeans.

  Sweet heaven, there was something awe-inspiring about the way God had created a man’s body—particularly a man at the height of his sexual peak.

  He gestured to his crotch. “This . . . thing”—he tugged on the zipper—“it sorely vexes me. I pull and I pull and yet it remains steadfast, mocking me. God’s teeth! How do men in this century have time for such nonsense?”

  The answer to that question eluded Rachel. She had never been particularly concerned with men’s dressing habits. Then again, very few looked as this man did.

  “It’s probably stuck,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice that she sounded slightly out of breath. “Wiggle it a little bit.”