Page 99 of Tempted
“Coq au vin,” said Ada, rolling her eyes and licking her lips.
“Shameless hussy!” Tina said, trying to keep a straight face. “I have a craving for hippocras. Would you give Ada your secret recipe so she can make it for me when you are absent?”
“The recipe is simple; sweet red wine, cloves, lemon rind, ginger, and cinnamon. The secret is one of ritual. It must be heated in a caldron and served in a chalice. I shall make some for you tonight.”
Ram and his men worked against the elements to harvest the fields. A cold wind blew in from the sea, numbing their limbs, but they worked on, knowing that when the wind dropped, the drenching rain would start. The deluge didn’t come until eight o’clock, and by that time they had scythed and gathered in twenty fields. They stacked it in the sheds, managing to keep it dry, but they themselves were soaked to the skin and more than ready for the blazing fire and hot meal awaiting them in the hall.
Colin and Gavin sat with Tina before the fire, listening to her pluck out a hauntingly beautiful Scots lament upon her lute. The hall had been empty except for a handful of servers It quickly filled with dripping-wet men who were frozen to the bone. They jostled and cursed each other heartily and called for whisky.
Ram came toward the fire just as a page handed Tina a steaming chalice. “My lady, here is the secret brew ye bade Mr. Burque prepare,” he piped. A look of alarm crossed Ram’s face, and he knocked the chalice from her hand into the fireplace “Flaming vixen!”
She stared at him in disbelief, her cheeks suffused with embarrassment. Colin immediately retrieved her chalice, while Gavin slipped a protective arm about her shoulders. “‘Twas only hippocras!” she said with stiff lips. “I hate you,” she breathed.
Ram felt the sympathetic looks the two men gave her like a twist in the gut. “Seek yer room,” he ordered.
Like a prideful cat she threw him a look of utter contempt from her golden eyes, then walked from the hall like a queen.
Gavin clenched his fists, holding himself back from smashing his brother in the face. Finally he said, “I think I’d better be on ma way; the weather isn’t likely tae clear even if I wait ‘til mornin’.”
Tina went straight to the kitchens, where Mr. Burque warmed more hippocras for her. She took it upstairs, but perversely the last place she wished to go was her room. As she passed Colin’s chamber, she remembered all the sketches he’d made of her that he’d refused to show her, and her curiosity got the better of her. She was in a reckless mood, and invading Colin’s sanctuary was a challenge she couldn’t resist.
His chamber was exceedingly untidy, a thing she would never have imagined. There were easels, canvases, paints, and charcoal everywhere. There were stacks and stacks of sketches, some piled neatly and some scattered about until the floor was littered with his creations. As she bent to look at them, she saw they were all of naked women. Her eyes widened. Drawings of naked women did not exactly shock her—it was just that there were sketches of nothing else. She lifted a stack in the corner, yellow with age, and gasped as she recognized the unmistakable face of Damaris. “Omigod, if she posed for Colin—if she was unfaithful with Alexander’s own brother, no wonder he killed her.” She must show Ada. She slipped one of the drawings from the pile, blushed at the erotic pose, and quickly rolled it up. She was almost at the door when a painting sitting on an easel caught her eye. She drew closer, not quite believing that she stared herself in the face.
She lay stark naked in the purple heather, her arms stretched out to some imaginary lover, her face just as it must be when Ram was about to take her. The full, high creamy breasts were hers exactly, the flaming glory of her hair unmistakable, the fiery triangle of curls arched to lure her lover. Anyone who saw it would stake their life that she had posed for it. She fled from the room before the walls closed in on her. The smell of linseed in her nostrils made her want to retch.
Damaris’s chamber had been fitted with a new door, but there was no lock on it, and Tina felt vulnerable. She sat down on shaky legs and spread the sketch of Damaris across the bed.
Damaris arose from the window seat to see what Tina examined. Shock at what she saw almost felled her. “Oh, no!” she gasped. “Alexander spoke the truth!” The quarrel she had had with her beloved husband over fifteen long years ago was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. She remembered every accusation, every angry word, the ugliness, the betrayal, the hurt, the pain, the tears, the lingering death, the screams, the silence. Damaris returned to the window seat oblivious to her present surroundings. She was drifting back, lost in a reverie.
Tina went to the fireplace for another look at the portrait of her beautiful aunt. Her fingers traced the delicate features, the lovely blond tendrils of hair, the sweet vulnerable mouth She somehow felt the young woman’s innocence through the contact of her fingers upon the haunting face. Tina’s mind flew back down the years. In her mind’s eye she saw Damaris out upon the moors with Colin, just as she herself had been. She distantly heard their words, their laughter, and she knew the girl had posed innocently, unaware of the dark longings of the man who was sketching her. Tina jumped as Ada spoke to her: “Oh, Ada—I didn’t hear you come in.”
She saw Tina pale and trembling. “Are you all right?”
“Yes … no—oh Ada, whatever do you make of this sketch I found in Colin’s chamber?”
A look of comprehension came into Ada’s face as she looked at the erotic drawing. “Damaris and Colin were lovers,” she breathed.
“No! No, they were not!” Tina said sharply.
“Tina, don’t be naive—the evidence speaks for itself,” Ada said.
“You are wrong,” Tina insisted. “He’s done a nude painting of me that is far more erotic than this! His room is filled with drawings of naked women.”
“Colin?” asked Ada with disbelief. “He must be as twisted as his body. What if Ram sees it?”
“If Ram sees it, he will be convinced I posed for it. He will think me whore. He once said all Kennedy women are whores.”
“You must get the painting and destroy it. Come, we’ll go to his chamber now.” The two women hurried to the west wing of the castle, but Colin’s door was locked fast. Ada lifted her fist to bang upon it, but Tina grabbed her arm and pulled her away. She whispered, “I don’t want a confrontation with him, Ada. I’d die if anyone saw the painting. It must be done in secret. I’ll get it tomorrow, when he leaves his chamber.” Ada nodded, and they slipped quietly back to Damaris’s room.
In the morning when Ada reported that Colin had gone down to the hall for breakfast, Tina hurried to his chamber. She was appalled to find the painting gone from the easel. In its place stood a half-finished painting of her in the gown she had worn that day, her hair blowing prettily in the breeze of the moors. Though she searched frantically, she could find no trace of the nude portrait. She was certain of only one thing: She had not imagined the erotic painting.
A finger of apprehension touched her. There was something indefinably sinister in the very air today. Castle Dangerous … Castle Dangerous. A shudder ran down her spine as the two ominous words repeated themselves in her brain. When she told Ada the painting had been replaced by a respectable one and that the nude had disappeared, Ada seemed to look at her oddly, as if she had been letting her imagination run away with her.
Tina could not throw off her mood of apprehension. It was as if the day had a foreshadowing of disaster. What if Ramsay had already seen the painting? He might deny the child she carried was even his. He had spoken to her so cruelly in the stables. What were his words? “I’m not concerned with yer miserable carcass.” Nay, she told herself, if he’d seen the painting, he would have said more than that. He would have slapped her senseless She hoped and prayed he would leave today. She needed time to locate the damning portrait and learn more about Colin. She decided to go down and talk to Gavin. Perhaps he knew something of Colin’s dark side. When she learned that Gavin was long gone, however, she felt almost afraid.
Today the downpour had eased to a drizzle as fine as mist. Ram set the men to sharpening their weapons and repairing the harnesses. He knew he must leave on the morrow, yet he wondered how he could leave Tina when things were so bad between them. He had been a fool to knock the hippocras from her hand. If he loved her, he must trust her. It was as simple as that. In the borders at Castle Douglas, things had been so good between them. He remembered the night the Gypsies came and how they had made love. He wanted it to be that way again between them. How had the rift happened? They were like strangers, not even communicating anymore. It was ridiculous and could not be allowed to continue.
He should be the happiest man on earth now that he had filled her with his child. Tonight he would set things right between them. He would love her and give her the emeralds. He closed his eyes as his shaft filled. Just thinking of her aroused him. He allowed himself the indulgence of remembering how she felt when he was buried deep inside her, and he went weak at the knees. They had been so hot, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He could taste her mouth and her other lips between her lovely legs, and she had tasted him, making his gut melt. He stood in the bailey gazing up at her window, oblivious to the soaking drizzle that penetrated every layer of his clothing.
