Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 03]
“I’ll see you safely clear of this place…for a kiss.”
The Highlander showed no alarm about what was happening outside. “A kiss now, or more later,” he continued.
“Oh, very well.” Maddy reached up to twine her fingers behind his neck. She tugged him down, briefly pressing her lips to the corners of his.
He stood fully once more. “Ah, aingeal, that was sweet, no doubt of it. But no’ quite what I had in mind.” He cupped his rough palm over her nape. “I’m demanding a deep, wet kiss. Until you’re panting.”
“Panting?” she murmured. “Truly?” How…titillating.
With his other hand, he cradled her face and brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “It’ll be easier just tae show you….”
Acclaim for Kresley Cole!
“One of romance’s fastest rising stars!”
—Romantic Times
“With a captivating brand of passion all her own, Kresley Cole is destined to be a star of this genre!”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“Kresley Cole writes like a master!”
—Romance Junkies
And praise for her novels…
IF YOU DARE
A Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers’ Choice Award Winner
“Classic romantic adventure…If You Dare will leave you breathless!”
—New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn
“Cole’s voice is powerful and gripping, and If You Dare is her steamiest yet!”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller
“A tale that sizzles, generating heat that will scorch the reader.”
—Reader to Reader
“A passionate, action-packed romance sure to satisfy every heart.”
—Fresh Fiction
NO REST FOR THE WICKED
A Romantic Times Magazine Top Pick
“Sizzling sex and high-stakes adventure are what’s on tap in mega-talented Cole’s sensational new paranormal!”
—Romantic Times
“Kresley Cole writes another spine-tingling, adventurous, and passionate romance with her newest addition to The Immortals After Dark series.”
—Romance Reviews Today
A HUNGER LIKE NO OTHER
A USA Today bestseller
“Unquestionably an awe-inspiring romance!”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
“With intense action, devilishly passionate sex, and fascinating characters, A Hunger Like No Other leads readers into an amazing and inventive alternate reality.”
—Romantic Times (Top Pick)
“A unique romance—it truly stands on its own!”
—Sherrilyn Kenyon, New York Times bestselling author
“Not just another romantic read…it’s a powerful experience!”
—The Best Reviews
THE PRICE OF PLEASURE
A Romantic Times Magazine Top Pick
“A splendid read! The sexual tension grips you from beginning to end.”
—New York Times bestselling author Virginia Henley
“Sexy and original! Sensual island heat that is not to be missed.”
—New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham
“Savor this marvelous, unforgettable, highly romantic novel.”
—Romantic Times
THE CAPTAIN OF ALL PLEASURES
A Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers’ Choice Award Winner
“An exciting, sensuous story that will thrill you at every turn of the page.”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
“Electrifying…. Kresley Cole captures the danger and passion of the high seas.”
—New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston
“Fast-paced action, heady sexual tension, steamy passion…. Exhilarating energy emanates from the pages…very smart and sassy.”
—Romantic Times
Books by Kresley Cole
The Captain of All Pleasures
The Price of Pleasure
A Hunger Like No Other
No Rest for the Wicked
If You Dare
If You Desire
Available from Pocket Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Kresley Cole
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5648-0
ISBN-10: 1-4165-5648-6
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5648-0
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
Dedicated to the readers…
For letting me share the MacCarricks with you.
Thank you and warmest wishes to you all.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the wonderful staffs of the University of Florida research libraries. These guys know everything and helped me navigate all their many resources: obscure texts—filled with fascinating details to enrich fiction, Victorian diaries—with first person accounts of my era of interest, and mapping and imaging—for authentic historical settings. I greatly appreciate all your help.
The love of a good woman?
To save a wicked man like me?
Never…because there’s no woman born
who’s as good as I am bad.
—ETHAN ROSS MACCARRICK,
LAIRD OF CLAN MACCARRICK,
EIGHTH EARL OF KAVANAGH
I didn’t steal it—I swear!
Oh, as if things never fall into your pocket!
—MADELEINE ISOBEL VAN ROWEN,
SNEAK THIEF, OPPORTUNIST
Prologue
Iveley Hall, Buxton, England
Spring 1846
Ethan MacCarrick thought the bored wife he was about to tup might be a bonny wench.
However, this was a best guess. At present, his vision was compromised by whisky, the great equalizer of women’s charms. Even after the wind-whipped half-hour ride to her home, he was drunk; in fact, he seemed to be getting worse.
But the woman behaved as if she was pretty, he assured himself as he removed his jacket, tossing it toward a divan in her opulent bedroom and missing it. Even in his muddled state, he detected a superficial silliness about her that men would tolerate only if she was fair. Plus, she’d been confident when she’d propositioned him in the shadowy hall of the Buxton tavern, having had no doubt whatsoever that he would meet her tonight.
She had a French accent and was tall, he thought, though she was now reclined, and he’d only briefly stood next to her when they’d met. They’d been together just long enough for her to pass him an expensively perfumed note with directions to her home, to ask if he could be circumspect, and to murmur what she planned to do to him.
Ethan was a red-blooded male of twenty-three—her wicked plans for him had seemed just the thing.
As he crossed the spacious room to the whisky service, she rose to her knees on the bed. “Did you wait to leave fifteen minutes after my maid and I left?” She feared her husband might hear of this indiscretion when he returned from his trip.
Ethan served himself a drink. “Aye, I waited.” He wouldn’t have traveled with her, anyway. A rake’s first rule of thumb? Always ride your own horse to a meeting with a woman you’re abou
t to bed, so you can leave when you like. Else they’ll want to cling for the night.
Ethan loathed clinging women.
“Did anyone see you riding here?” she asked.
“No, no’ a soul.”
“Because I can’t have my husband hearing about—”
“Enough!” She was already grating on his nerves, and he hadn’t even used her yet. “You’re no’ the first married woman I’ve had,” he answered honestly. “I’ve done this many a time before.”
“Of course, I’m sure you have,” she said hastily. When he finally made his way toward her, she murmured, “You’re such a handsome young devil, Ethan. So tall. So strapping.”
He drank, frowning into his glass at her use of his given name. He hadn’t quite caught hers back at the tavern, when she’d been whispering in his ear, describing herself on her knees, sucking him deep. “Young devil? I dinna get the impression you were that much older than I am,” he said as he reached the bed.
She laughed. “Just a bit.” Her features were clearer now. She was pleasing enough. Maybe early thirties. “I’m old enough to know what I want, and when I saw you, I knew I had to have you.” She took his drink from him and set it on the bedside table. “But I bet women throw themselves at you, don’t they?”
“Everywhere I go,” he said, not bothering to hide his arrogance. It was true. He was a young, rich laird, and women liked his looks. And it seemed the more drunken and cruel he became, the more they wanted him.
“So if it hadn’t been me tonight, it could easily have been another woman from the tavern?”
“Easily,” he replied. When he’d left, the raven-haired barmaid he’d been contemplating had cast him a hurt expression. So had her sister. He’d shrugged at them as if he hadn’t cared. Because he hadn’t. “One woman or two.”
“Then why me?” the wife asked breathlessly, angling for a compliment he wouldn’t give.
“I like married women better, find them more convenient.” He never heard from them again. A married woman readily faded into the past, one among many in his memory—as she should. And if her husband was weak enough and stupid enough to get cuckolded, then he deserved it, and Ethan would oblige.
“So all I am is a convenience?” She gave a mock pout as she began unbuttoning his shirt with deft fingers.
“Aye, precisely.”
His callous treatment seemed to be exciting her. “Say my name with your accent,” she whispered.
“Doona know it.”
She smiled. “It’s Sylvie—”
“Doona need to,” he interrupted sharply, making her gasp with desire.
He was used to women who liked a cold, domineering male in their beds, but he sensed she might want him to be worse than that. On his solitary ride over here, he’d had time to think about the situation, and his drunken mind said something wasn’t right about her.
Her perfume cloyed, but not more than that of the woman he’d had last night. She was tall, voluptuous, and dark-haired—the type that normally attracted him. Yet as she licked his chest, brushing his shirt away from his body, he again found that something about her was off-putting.
People had long said that Ethan had no more feelings than an animal. Well, right now pure instinct was telling him not to take her. He frowned as her mouth eased down his chest to his navel, her destination unmistakable.
But could the message possibly be louder than the Scotch and the promise of a below job?
Aye, it is. He plucked her fingers from his trousers and stumbled back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.” Bending for his shirt, he lost his balance, but he swiftly righted himself. He knew he’d been drinking too much lately. He was the oldest brother and head of a family that suffered, and the responsibility of it, and the inability to change it, weighed more heavily on him than anyone would dare suppose.
But his drinking was helping nothing.
“Leaving?” she cried. “You can’t be serious.”
He gave her one curt nod.
“Then why did you come here? What did I do?”
“No’ a thing.” Where the hell had he dropped his jacket? “Just doona care to any longer.”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. Anything,” she added plaintively, making him shudder in disgust.
A clinger.
Turning from her, he said, “Doona want anything from you. No’ anymore.”
“You cannot do this!” She shot to her feet and stormed over to him. “Just pass me over like a woman you’ve bought.” Her anger transformed the refined French inflection of her voice to a sharper, more common accent. Ethan had heard similar before—it was a lower-class accent. “Like some stray whore!”
“If the shoe fits…”
“No one treats me this way, not now. No one!” She darted in front of him. He turned from her once more, and she did it again, antagonizing him. Already his decision to leave was justified. “I’ll have you horsewhipped for this!”
Finally he spotted his jacket. “Get the hell out of my way.”
“I’ll whip you myself!”
“Temper, temper, wench.” He faced her with a sardonic expression. “Now I’m really no’ going to fuck you.”
She screeched, flying at him, nails raking down his face before he could shove her from him. He pressed his sleeve to his cheek and saw the crimson, stark against the white linen. “You goddamned bitch! You doona ken what you’re provoking.”
He headed for the door, but she beat on his back, screaming, “Do you know what I could have done to you?”
When Ethan whirled around, her face was streaming with tears, her eyes alight with fury. “Touch me again, and I’ll break my rule about no’ slapping crazed bitches who canna take no for an answer.”
“Do it, then!” Had her expression flashed with excitement?
To scare her so she’d leave him be, he made as if to backhand her—
The door crashed open.
There stood a gray-haired, enraged man. Must be the aging husband, Ethan thought with a tired exhalation as he lowered his hand. Pistols at dawn and another death on my hands.
“He tried to force himself on me!” the wife shrieked, tears still streaming.
Ethan swung his gaze on her. “Are you mad, woman? You invited me here!”
More men filled the doorway, hardened ones—henchmen. A blond giant flanked the old husband, looking almost more enraged.
“Never!” she cried. “He must have followed me home from the inn tonight.”
The husband narrowed his eyes on Ethan’s face. Ethan swiped a hand over his cheek. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said wearily. “She scratched me when I wanted to leave.” Though Ethan was still drunk, even he recognized how ridiculous that sounded.
“Sylvie, are you injured?” The husband’s grasping for this like a lifeline.
“You canna be serious. Can you no’ see she’s lying?” Ethan made a disgusted sound. “The witch asked me here, I vow it—”
“No,” she wailed loud enough to crack glass. “He tried to rape me, but I fought him. Do you see his face?”
Ethan gave her a look of pure fury, staring at her while telling the man, “Ask at the inn, ask anyone there. She invited me.” But she had been circumspect. Would any of the patrons have seen them together in that hallway for the brief moments when she’d approached him?
The woman shook her head fiercely. “My maid was with me at the inn and when we came home. Ask Flora! Ask her!” Touching the back of her hand against her forehead, she sank to the edge of the bed. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “I was so afraid.”
Ethan gaped in amazement. Christ, she’s good—
With a bellow, the old man charged for Ethan. Habit took over. Ethan threw a fist, breaking his nose—blood spurted.
“I’ll see you in Newgate for this!” the husband roared, cupping his face.
It was important for Ethan to remember something. What was it? “Goddamn it, I did no
thing to this woman…and she instigated it all.”
“Get him!” the old man thickly commanded his men.
At that instant, the answer Ethan sought came to him, and he lunged for his jacket.
A blow crashed against the back of his skull. His face pounded the floor. Fists rained down again and again, kicks to the gut…. He fought the blackness for as long as he could; he had to explain, had to defend himself.
He dimly heard the bitch crying to her husband, worrying about the scandal if this were to go to trial…their reputations, their standing…other husbands with his power would take care of this themselves.
Ethan knew that in this isolated part of the country the lords were their own entities, laws unto themselves if they chose, always with henchmen willing to do black deeds. And they hated strangers, much less foreigners.
The note, his deliverance, was stowed in his jacket pocket just feet from him. He tried to speak but could only grunt in pain. An attempt to reach for it earned him a booted kick to the chest.
Forcing his eyes open, he saw that she was crying hysterically, seeming to believe her own lies. “With you and Brymer gone, I was an easy target.”
The cuckold was soothing her, wrapping her in his coat. “I should never have left you—”
“Th-that fiend was in the house with me, with Maddy!” she added significantly. Whoever this Maddy was, the mere mention of her in this context made the old man swing his gaze on Ethan. Seeming dumb with rage, eyes glazed over with it, he assured her they’d take care of this on their own—no one would have to know. Ethan felt true fear rippling through him.
They’d make sure the Scottish bastard never raped another woman as long as he lived.
Castration. Cold sweat broke out over Ethan’s body; they were going to take a knife to him.
The old man hesitated, then gave a nod. “Brymer, take him out back. See it done.”
This Brymer was the giant with the killing look in his eyes. “It will be a pleasure.” He hauled Ethan up, dealing a punishing blow to his jaw. Ethan tried to shake it off, but blackness consumed him….
He woke to the bite of a rope cinched around his wrists. A bone-deep ache radiated from his shoulders up to his clenched fingers. He tried to open his eyes—only one swollen lid would crack enough for him to see—and found himself strung up to the rafter of some type of stable. A blood-soaked gag filled his mouth.