Chapter Thirty-Two. An Unwelcome Intrusion

C HAPTER T HIRTY-TWO

An Unwelcome Intrusion

THE pipes groaned as hot water poured from the brassy lion-shaped faucet and filled the bathing tub. I might have relished the luxury of it all, if I didn’t reek of death. I drove my thumbnail beneath the nails on the other hand, trying in vain to remove as much of the dirt as I could before stepping into the tub. A habit I’d picked up during the war—worrying them until they bled. I could not rid myself of the filth quickly enough. I shimmied out of my dress, unsteady fingers struggling with the buttons, and left it in a heap on the floor. I would burn it in the morning and hope Mrs. Penrose forgave the transgression against my wardrobe. I sensed she might in this instance.

The dead medium’s scent permeated my clothes and clung to my skin and hair. I quickly divested myself of my sweat-stained undergarments, pausing briefly before the dressing table mirror to look at my nude body in the reflection. A body not unlike that of the woman in the grave. With lines and curves. Softness and bone. Scars and imperfections from a life well lived. A dozen or more angry scrapes were visible on my neck from the broken glass.

Were the dead woman and I so very different?

Someone had crushed her skull and left her there like rubbish. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to forget the image—to not see my own face staring back sightlessly from that rocky grave. Turning away from the mirror, I unfastened my locket from around my neck and laid it on the dresser, before slipping off the ring and placing them there together.

The tub was nearly full to the white enameled rim. Steam rose up in the cold room as I stepped in. Thousands of needles pricked my skin where the heat chased away the Scottish cold, and the water slowly went from clear to cloudy to yellow. I sank deeper beneath the surface with only my chin above, scrubbing hard enough that my skin stung from the effort.

And yet her scent would not go away.

I let out a muffled scream, throwing the fragrant bar of soap across the room, where it landed with a wet smack on the floor before I finally descended fully beneath the water.

At last in the silence and warmth, I found peace in the one place the dead could not follow. I remained submerged until my lungs burnt and my body threatened to surrender to the water’s call. Just as I came up for air, I heard the door latch click.

I wasn’t alone.

My heart hammered in my chest.

“Ruan?”

Perhaps he’d come to make sure I was safe. But I’d locked my door and Ruan didn’t know one end of a lockpick from the other.

The cold air pricked my skin as I rose from the tub, my voice cracking. “You know this isn’t amusing.”

Silence.

Had whoever shot me come to finish the job? If so, I wasn’t about to die naked. I grabbed a thin towel, wrapping it around myself, and stepped out from behind the screen. The key remained in the lock as it had been when I came in. The door to Mr. Owen’s room, however, was now wide open.

I slipped open the drawer on my dressing table for Mr. Owen’s revolver, when I realized one terrible thing.

The ring was missing.

I’d set it on the dressing table, not ten steps from where I’d been submerged in the tub. My breath came in short bursts. Someone had been in here with me—waiting… watching for the moment to take it.

I threw a clean chemise over my damp skin, wrapping myself in Mr. Owen’s dressing gown—one I’d kept for myself—and thrust the gun into the pocket, before entering the next room.

Empty.

Heart thundering in my chest, I darted out into the hallway looking down the corridor, left then right.

Empty.

Fool! Fool! Fool! What was I thinking? I should have allowed Ruan to come with me, for no other reason than to keep the ring secure. But no—my fear of appearing weak had caused me to lose the best clue we had.

Barefoot, I ran down the hall to Ruan’s room, pounding on his door with a flat palm. I didn’t care if I woke the whole damn castle. There was a thief here. A murderer and a thief. I shivered as the damp chemise clung to my skin.

The door flew open and Ruan quickly took me in, from my dripping hair to my bare feet, and grabbed me with his left arm, tugging me into the room and slamming the door behind us.

He held me against his chest as if he could will away whatever bothered me if he only held me tight enough. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

My breath evened as I listened to the slowness of his heart.

After several moments he stepped back wordlessly, taking my face in his one hand. A flurry of emotions crossed his face. Frustration. Fear. Anger.

But not at me.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew without me uttering a single word that something had gone terribly wrong. “You have to tell me, Ruby. You must talk to me.”

I opened my mouth and a sob came out. Good God, why was I being such a ninny tonight? It was only a stolen ring. I’d already found the body, and whatever Mariah had been hiding was long gone. The ring didn’t even matter anymore and yet the tears would not stop. I sank down into a chair by the fire and buried my face in my hands.

I was broken and couldn’t even articulate why I was upset.

The floor creaked as he stooped down before me, brushing my wet hair back from my face with a rough hand. “Are you harmed? Has someone hurt you? Touched you?” His voice was achingly tender. It made me want to scream.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head, and the words came out in a rush. “The ring is gone.”

His shoulders sagged in relief and he whispered something in Cornish, rocking back on his heels. It was in that moment I realized he was wearing only his trousers. I must have interrupted him while he was changing his bandage as the red wound in his shoulder was completely exposed—Andrew’s stitches on fine display. The air around us was thick with the scent of yarrow and calendula.

Ruan brushed the tears from my cheek, his roughened fingers still vaguely sticky from the medicine he’d been applying and my beleaguered heart cracked fully open.

“I can’t stop crying.”

“There’s no shame in it.” He was close to me now. Close enough his green scent invaded every pore of my body, pushing away the memories of the dead woman and replacing them with him.

“I was in the bath. They… they waited until I was submerged and—” I shook my head. I didn’t want to speak of it. Didn’t want to think on it.

No. I needed to be useful. To do something. I reached for the jar sitting on the table beside him, my hand knocking into it clumsily. “Let me help you.”

He pushed my hands away, taking the jar from me. “You can help me by sleeping. By not haring off and trying to get yourself killed every time I turn my back.”

I smiled despite the ache in my chest. “You’re a mother hen.”

“Someone needs to have a care for you…” He grumbled beneath his breath, uncorking the lid and placing two fingers into the substance, slowly pulling them out before carefully working the salve into the muscles around his wound.

I swallowed hard, unable to look away. Good God, Ruby, how can you think such things not five seconds from tears? He turned toward the fire, revealing that deep scar that went along his spine. I wiped at the wetness of my face, trying not to laugh at the inappropriateness of this bone-deep need I had for him. Just being near him was enough to make me… content. Easy.

The room was unbearably hot from the roaring fire and I slipped out of Mr. Owen’s dressing gown and adjusted my chemise. Soaked as it was it left little to the imagination. But this wasn’t the first time he’d seen me in my underthings. I’d been wearing little more than this when we first met on the shores of Tintagel.

“What do we do now that they have the ring?” I asked, watching as he set about dressing his wound.

He mumbled over the bit of bandage he held in his teeth. “We worry about it in the morning. At dawn, I’ll go see to the body.” He finished fastening it, and looked at me squarely. “But you need to sleep.”

My pulse sped up at the thought. “I… I don’t think I can go back there tonight. Not after…”

He turned back to me with the strangest expression. “Why the devil would you go back there? You’re staying with me. Here. Where I can be reasonably certain you won’t get yourself killed before I wake up.”

The narrow bed was scarcely wide enough for him. “And you think you can give me orders… Honestly, Ruan Kivell, you should know me better than that by now.” But I was grateful for his offer, such that it was. I would make myself a pallet by the fire and be perfectly happy being near him. It would be enough.

It’ll never be enough, you little fool.

I brushed the thought away as I went to his wardrobe, grabbing a spare blanket. Ruan took me by the hand, turning me to face him. “You’re shaking.”

I glanced down at my hands.

So I was.

I tugged my hand away, laying a thick woolen blanket on the wooden floor.

He swore again. “Get in the bed. Now.” He jerked his chin toward the narrow bed in the corner.

“I’ll be fine right here.”

Ruan sighed heavily and took a step closer to me. Then a second. I swallowed hard, looking up into his green eyes—bright in the firelight. He placed his hand on my arm, his thumb rubbing the bare skin there. “Ruby…”

Oh God, this would never do.

He walked me backward in this strange hypnotic dance until my knees hit the mattress and I sank down onto the soft bed. Ruan’s eyes never left mine, nor did I want them to. I swallowed hard as he stooped down, lifting my legs with his warm hand and tucked them neatly under the heavy bedding and sat down on the mattress beside me, gathering me to his side.

“I should have never left you tonight,” he whispered half to himself, reaching up and rubbing my temple with his thumb.

I closed my eyes against his uninjured side. “You did exactly as I asked. What happened tonight is no more your fault than my own. I do not want to talk about what happened. We will deal with it in the morning. I want—”

Ruan pulled me closer against him, cautious of his wound, and I allowed myself this small indulgence. “What do you want?”

You. “Peace.”

“I know that feeling.” His mouth moved against the skin at my brow as he spoke, sending a shiver down my spine. “When I was at Oxford…” he began, his one hand lazily running a finger up and down my arm, lulling me into complacency. “I hated myself then. Lost. Confused. Taken away from everything I knew and wildly different from all the other lads in ways they had no way of comprehending. Hearing their judgments, their prejudices. Gods, Ruby, I knew I didn’t belong there but they certainly agreed with the notion.”

I closed my eyes and allowed myself to listen to the rumble of his chest. “They were asses.”

He chuckled low. “I appreciate your support in this, Miss Vaughn.”

My mouth dried. I shouldn’t like it so much when he called me Miss Vaughn. “Go on then. I’m fond of stories.”

“At that time in my life there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have given to be like them. To sound like them, to look like them. To think like them. To play the games and wear the clothes. I would have gladly excised that part of me that made me different and thrown it into the fires of hell. Gods know I tried back then to make it stop. To be ordinary. And yet my difference is what put you in my path. I wonder sometimes… if I would have met you at all if I were an ordinary man?”

I opened my eyes, resting my chin on my fist, and looked up at him at last. “I’m glad you’re not. I don’t like ordinary people with ordinary lives. They’re boring.”

A flicker of something crossed his expression, that deep divot forming between his brows. Worry.

I reached up, smoothing his brow with my thumb. “I’m not afraid of what you are… what you might yet be. I never have been. Besides, you could never be boring, Ruan Kivell. Even if you were an ordinary man.” The words relaxed him somehow. As if he feared that I might no longer care for him if he was no longer the Pellar.

Ruan leaned closer, his nose touching mine, and I might have let out an undignified whimper. I certainly inhaled, breathing in his scent. How could this man ever be ordinary? Even now, unable to hear my thoughts, he controlled every one of them without even trying.

He moved slightly closer, silencing me with a kiss and stealing the last of my good sense. It was madness. Utter madness the way I craved him and yet I could not stop. Could not walk away.

Witch indeed.

The edge of his mouth curved up as he broke the kiss, then pressed a far more chaste one to my forehead before pulling the blanket over the both of us. “Now. Sleep.”

I let up a startled laugh. “I cannot believe you.”

He chuckled beneath his breath, holding me closer against his left side. And for the briefest of moments I saw it—a glimpse of peace, locked away as we were from the rest of the world.

“You tricked me into your bed. I thought…” Well, I had perhaps an idea of where this might have gone. But neither of us was in any condition for that sort of exertion.

“I wasn’t about to let either of us sleep on the floor. Besides, it’s not the first time you’ve spent the night in my bed.”

“It’s the first time you’ve been in it with me.”

“Good night, Miss Vaughn,” he mumbled with his eyes closed and his fingers tangled loosely in my hair, holding me against his heart like some precious thing he could not bear to lose. My lids grew heavy and I fell asleep memorizing the scent and feel of his body against mine. Angelica and rosemary. Sage and feverfew. Primrose and calendula.

Oh God.

I loved this man.

And that would never do.