The Nightingale Legacy (Legacy 2)

ing Mark was nowhere to be found in that region, that everyone had been wrong, and the split-apart earth proved it. No King Mark in southern Cornwall. Your grandfather believed that this oak tree copse was where King Mark met his nephew Tristan to exile him from Cornwall, both him and Isolde. It was here he died, supposedly from a poisoned arrow from one of Tristan’s supporters, and here he was buried—in one of these hillocks. Perhaps there is something here, who knows? Now, don’t laugh, North, I’m trying to take your male ancestors a bit seriously.”

“I’m not laughing just yet. But I must tell you, Caroline, that I’ve never heard of an earthquake down south of us. Did my grandfather write about which monk it was? His name? His order? Is there even a text in the library penned by this supposed monk claiming all this happened?”

She slumped down a bit. “No, of course not, but I didn’t scour through every shelf and every volume, North. You know what really stymies me: that blasted gold armlet. Where did it come from exactly? Odd that your great-grandfather never gave its exact location. And what the devil happened to it? Why doesn’t your father say a word about its suddenly disappearing? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I came here just to see what I could find.”

“And you’ve found nothing?”

“Not a single thing, not even a small piece of iron that could have belonged to a long-ago sword. All your ancestors seemed to live a very long time and all of them wrote not only about this King Mark business but about the perfidy of women as well. Do you know, North, that your great-grandfather actually wrote that women should be locked away, just like in those Moslem harems, and taken out only to be used to beget heirs? Did you know your grandfather, North? Did you know about his dislike of women?”

“I remember him, yes, too well. And yes, I know all about his dislike of females. It was an obsession, not only with him, but with his father and his own son. He looked like a Nightingale man, like me, in other words.”

“All dark and hairy, and utterly exquisite?”

He grinned down at her, kissed the tip of her nose that was fast becoming sunburnt, and said, “Exquisite, am I?”

“Oh yes, and I think I’m in danger of becoming even more overwhelmed by you now than before. Yes, I think you should continue to let me have the upper hand for a while longer.”

His eyes nearly crossed with lust. He pictured himself flat on his back, his legs sprawled, his wrists tied over his head, wondering how long he could bear what she was doing to him before he brought his hands down to her.

“North, your breathing is very fast and very uneven. Are you all right?”

“No.”

“Well, in that case—” She shrugged out of her riding jacket. He froze, just staring at her. She grinned wickedly at him, tossed her jacket on the ground, and began to unpin her riding hat.

“Caroline, it’s very open here—”

She grabbed his hand and tugged at it. “Then let’s go to the copse. It will be cozy and warm and I can kiss you until I fall into a swoon.”

Before they reached the copse, they were running, Caroline’s bright, happy laughter warming his blood as much as his unbridled lust for her, a seemingly unending lust.

28

IT WAS AFTER midnight and still North lay awake, but he was careful to lie still because Caroline was pressed against him and her even breathing told him she was soundly asleep. He was frowning up at the dark ceiling for it had just occurred to him that he’d forgotten to ask her what Dr. Treath was doing there, what he was showing her, why he’d kissed her cheek. And she hadn’t volunteered a thing.

He shook his head. Was he so much like the other Nightingale men that all his dealings with women—particularly his wife—were poisoned by distrust? Was it in his blood, this near obsession with betrayal?

Damnation.

He wouldn’t think about it again.

Come to think of it, with each of his mistresses, he’d not questioned his possessiveness, his insistence that when in his keeping she keep herself only for him. One girl, of course, had taken another gentleman, and surely his reaction to it had been too ungoverned, his anger too cold and hard and deep, because she’d been naught but a mistress, after all, and life was life, carrying tears and laughter and disappointment, and men and women simply weren’t saints. Ah, but when he thought about it now, he could remember the roiling fury that had torn through him when he found out she’d slept with another man, and it was at that moment his father’s bitter diatribes came crashing through long-forgotten memories. Ah, they’d seemed to come from deep within him, from a place he hadn’t even recognized as being a real part of him. Aye, he’d allowed this poison until he’d realized what he was doing, what he was thinking and remembering, and forced himself to think of other matters.

Had she distracted him with sex so he wouldn’t ask her?

He couldn’t stand himself. He wished he’d never read even a small part of that damned diary Tregeagle had given him before he’d married Caroline. It was filled with anger and rage; it was vicious and it was poison and there was a sickness to it that frightened him. And it went all the way back to his great-grandfather. Surely that was beyond coincidence, all those betrayals by Nightingale wives. Surely.

He kissed the top of Caroline’s head, squeezed her against him, and nearly leaped off the bed when she said against his shoulder, “Why can’t you sleep? What’s wrong?”

“I suppose it’s because I am in such dire need. You haven’t done your wifely duty by me, Caroline. It’s been a good six hours. I’m in a bad way. I probably won’t sleep the rest of the night because you’ve not seen to my relief.”

Had that easy flow of words really come from him? Why hadn’t he simply just brooded out a single curt word to her? Why was he being amusing? He didn’t begin to understand himself, this new self that bandied about words and mocked and teased and smiled a great deal too much, surely, and even laughed more than was necessary.

But then he forgot about being dark and melancholy. He forgot everything except her breasts against his chest, her hand stroking over his throat, his shoulders, down his arms until her fingers were clasped in his. Then she was between his legs, over him, and she was staring down at him in the darkness, and he blessed the fact that there was just a touch of moonlight coming into the bedchamber and he could see the shadows on her face and he saw that she was smiling down at him, and then he closed his eyes because her palms were spread on his belly, going lower and lower, and he groaned.

“Forgive me, North, for not treating you as I should.”

He felt the warmth of her breath and shuddered with the power of it. He sought for just a hint of melancholy, just the forgotten flavor of it. He sought for brooding, even for a dollop of wit, but there was nothing but a growing wildness in him, and there too, a vast space, always there but never recognized by him before, and this space was filled with her and with what she was doing to him and making him feel. And when her hands closed around him, he ceased worrying about anything at all, and managed to say, “ Caroline, your mouth, put your mouth on me.” She did and he thought he’d die from the glory of it.