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Trailing her hand along the cold stone wall, she moved cautiously on the faded red runner. The stones seemed to come alive beneath her fingers, undulating mute portents into the marrow of her bones.
Beware. The warning pulsed directly into her brain. Her head snapped back to see who stood behind her. Nothing but the entry’s heatless light met her gaze.
Shaking her head to dismiss the creeps crawling over her skin, she followed the sound of muffled voices. She turned back every now and then to make sure she wasn’t being followed, unable to quite shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She passed several more arched wooden doors with black iron hardware and tested the latches. Why were all the doors locked? What dark secrets lay behind the cloistered portals? What skeletons?
The voices got closer. Through the half-opened library door, she spotted Jonas Shades. The arrogant snob chatted pleasantly with his guest as if nothing had happened—as if he hadn’t pulled the rug out from anybody. Cathlynn regained her sense of purpose. Her anger billowed to new heights, and she reacted before thinking.
“How could you?” She cried. “How could you make such an outrageous bid?”
Two men turned toward her with startled expressions on their faces. Jonas recovered from his surprise quickly and stepped toward her.
“Alana, darling, no need for such a fuss.” The rich, deep timbre of his voice floated pleasantly to her, but his smile was near-glacial when he drew her close and kissed her forehead with a featherlike brush of lips.
“Play along,” he whispered.
“What?” Cathlynn tried to pull away, but his hand captured one of hers, and his narrow glare warned her not to defy him. What had her mad impulse propelled her into?
“We can talk about whatever’s troubling you later, darling. Why do you think I bought back the Aidan Heart? For you, my sweet.”
“What are you talking about? How could you? You, you—” As waves of conflicting feelings battered her, the insult stuck in her throat.
“Because you mean the world to me, darling.” His smile held not a trace of warmth and his expression gave her the feeling the words left a rancid taste in his mouth.
Before she had a chance to respond, he turned her toward the distinguished-looking gentleman with the gray hair and neatly trimmed mustache, his palm wide and hot against the small of her back. “Do you remember Sterling Ryder, your father’s lawyer?” Her mouth opened to speak, but he plowed ahead. “No? Well, thirteen years can change a man, can’t they? He’s come from London in time to celebrate your birthday in two weeks.”
“Are you crazy?” What sort of game was Jonas Shades playing? Calling her by a name not hers, and pretending it was normal, the man had to have a screw loose somewhere. Holding the Aidan Heart as ransom for her cooperation, how low would the man go to get what he wanted?
“Darling—”
“What do you—”
“Not now, darling.” His gaze steeled and clouded dangerously. “Say hello to Sterling.”
As he waited for her reply, his fingers tightened with admonition around her waist, making Cathlynn wonder what might happen if she didn’t elect to play along with whatever perverted little game he was playing. Trying to loosen his controlling hold on her, and drown the speck of fear floating to her mind, Cathlynn pasted on a smile and offered Sterling her hand.
She’d play for now. For the Aidan Heart. Then Dr. Jonas Shades would see he wasn’t the only one who could bluster like a blizzard.
“Nice to meet you again,” Cathlynn managed to say, covering her stunned dismay. Who was Alana anyway? And why would Jonas pretend she was her? “How nice of you to come all the way to Ste-Croix for my birthday.”
“Well, this is an important one and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Sterling released her hand and eyed her curiously. “Besides, it will be my last official duty before I retire. I’m rather looking forward to it.”
The last official duty or the retirement? Cathlynn couldn’t help the sarcastic streak turning her thoughts sour. Well, enough of this. Satisfied at having played her part in Jonas’s charade, she smiled at him.
“You could have told me you’d let me have the Heart. It would have saved both of us a lot of trouble, sweetheart.” She gushed the endearment, secretly pleased at his camouflaged discomfort. “Can I go pick it up now?”
“Why don’t you wait a minute? Sterling was just about to go and freshen up. There’s something I need to discuss with you. About the Christmas fete.”
I’ll bet! Ooooh, would he have some answering to do! “All right, sweetheart, but I don’t have much time and a lot of details to see to.”
Cathlynn perched herself on a Louis XIV chair next to Sterling and waited while Jonas rang the intercom by the door. A worn Oriental carpet delineated a cozy sitting area, brightened by a fire glowing in the stone hearth. Three of the four walls held ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, with some of the tomes looking quite ancient. Idly, Cathlynn wondered which of the books she’d have to pull to disclose the hidden access to the dank and musty passageways which surely crisscrossed the bowels of this ugly monstrosity. The fourth wall showcased the fireplace, as well as two tall windows topped with heavy crimson velvet curtains that gleamed like wet blood in the flickering firelight. A garish medieval tapestry decorated the chimney above the stone mantel.
Sterling’s gaze brought her attention back to Jonas’s guest. Curiosity glinted openly in his pale blue eyes. An uneasy feeling quivered in her stomach under his scrutiny, but Cathlynn put it down to having to choke her anger so fast.
“I must say, Alana, you look marvelous,” Sterling said. “The years have treated you well. Why, I remember telling Jonas at your wedding reception, you were a rose that would bloom more beautifully with each passing year. And I was right, wasn’t I?”
Wedding reception? Sterling thought she was Jonas’s missing wife! What had she gotten herself into?
“How kind of you,” was all she could think to say. She’d make Jonas pay for this.
“You have put on a few pounds, but it suits you. I always thought you were much too thin.”
Cathlynn bristled at Sterling’s misplaced mirth, and bit her tongue in order to keep her retort civil. The ten extra pounds she carried around were a source of aggravation. They clung to her no matter what she ate or how much she exercised. A failure in her docket of successes. She didn’t appreciate the reminder.
“You seem to have held up quite well, too,” she said. “Men your age tend to go to pot.”
Sterling beamed at the compliment, not realizing she hadn’t meant it that way. Jonas twitched uncomfortably in the background, and Cathlynn nearly gave away her pleasure at his discomfort by smiling. Let him suffer. He’d started this vile charade, not her. She didn’t even know the ground rules.
“Well, one does what one can. I take pride in exercising every day. Sherry, my dear?” Sterling stood up to freshen his glass.
“No, I don’t drink.”
As he poured from the crystal decanter on the mahogany silent butler, Sterling raised a questioning eyebrow.
Jonas stood with mechanical discomfort.
“The calories,” Jonas mumbled.
“Oh,” Sterling said, but his expression gave away his doubt.
“Tell me, Sterling, what’ll you do after you retire?” Cathlynn asked to twist the light away from an obvious faux pas.
Sterling sat down and leaned sideways, closing the gap between them. “I’m planning a grand history tour. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories behind the ghosts who haunt the castles of England. But with as many fingers as your father had in so many pies, there wasn’t time for much else except work.”
“You can get an early start on your retirement, then.” Cathlynn placed a conspiratory hand on Sterling’s arm, noting out of the corner of her eye Jonas’s sharp glare. The ice cubes he dropped into his glass clinked a strident warning. The expensive material of his shirt shifted and stirred fluidly with each movement, but couldn’t hide the caged tension beneath. She forged ahead anyway. “I’ve heard some people from the village say they’ve seen a woman haunting this place.”
“Really, how interesting!”
“A local legend about monks and a sacrificial virgin,” she said, repeating the rumor she’d heard earlier.
As he filled his glass with amber liquid, Jonas shot Cathlynn a look of silent condemnation. Had she gone too far? Some even say he killed her himself in one of his fits of rage.
“It’s only gossip,” Jonas said.
Just then the door yawned open and a uniformed butler with a beaked nose and thinning white hair came in.
“Valentin,” Jonas said with obvious relief. “Please show Mr. Ryder to his room.”
“Oui, monsieur.” The old butler bowed. “If you’ll follow me.”
Sterling picked up the briefcase by his feet and rose. “When can we go over the trust paperwork, Alana? I want to be sure you understand everything for the reversion and signing on your birthday.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Jonas interrupted. “Supper is served at seven. We’ll see you then.”
Sterling looked at Cathlynn and honored her with a smile that reminded her of a jackal’s glee. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She shivered despite herself and snatched her hand away as soon as she could. There was something about the man that inspired no confidence. How ridiculous, when this old man’s jovial good looks could be mistaken for a trim Santa Claus!
“And Valentin,” Jonas said as the butler reached to close the door, “please return when you’re done.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
The dark glower in Jonas’s eyes, the grim set of his jaw, the coiled sensuality of his movement when he turned toward her had Cathlynn wishing Valentin had left the door open for an easy escape. Not one to lie in wait, she decided to turn the tide in her favor.
“Well, Dr. Shades, care to explain what all that was about?”
“Funny, I was about to ask the same question. What kind of game did you think you were playing?”
“You started it, you go first.” Cathlynn sat back and crossed a leg over one knee, pretending a calmness she didn’t feel.
Jonas turned and walked to the massive English walnut desk nestled in the corner by two banks of bookshelves, giving him height, width and breadth. Did he feel it, too, the strange thickening of air in the room? Did he need the exterior props to shield himself from it? Or did the viscous atmosphere originate with him? He pivoted to face her and skewered her with a dark glare.
“I need a wife.”
“Pardon me?” As her foot slapped the floor, Cathlynn was sure her mouth hung open with disbelief. She leaned forward. Did he expect her to marry him, or just play the part?
“I need a wife,” he said as if it were a perfectly normal thing to say. Chilling apprehension snaked coldly through her. The man was insane!
With his chin cradled over a fist, he cocked his head and looked her up and down. His slow appraising look made Cathlynn feel like one of the antiques he’d put up for auction this afternoon. “Your coloring and height are about right, and you seem to have fooled Sterling.”
“Fooled Sterling about what?” Then it hit her. “You think I look like your wife?”
“Sterling thinks so, and that’s what’s important.”
Cathlynn rose from her chair, sliding her gloves on. “I didn’t come here to discuss my looks, to fool anyone, or to get engaged. I want the Aidan Heart, then I’ll be on my way.”
“Thirteen years is a long time and the changes are plausible,” Jonas continued as if he hadn’t heard her. His gaze lingered disquietingly on the curves of her body. “Alana was raised in Boston, so even your accent works.”
“Thank you for your unadulterated show of approval. Now, about the Aidan Heart—”
“How much is two weeks of your life worth to you?” he snapped sharply, like a man who’d made a decision and didn’t intend to have it contradicted.
“Excuse me?” Again, Jonas’s unmitigated gall caught her off guard. My God, he meant it. She saw it on his face, the uncompromising look of a man used to getting his way.
“Two weeks, how much is that worth to you?”
Cathlynn sank to the chair and sat primly on the unyielding surface, elbows on the armrests. She held her chin high and looked him straight in the eye. “More than you can afford.”
The fluid unfurling of tensed muscles as he rounded the desk and came toward her had her blood tripping through her veins at high speed. What fuse had she lit now?
Cathlynn had the compelling urge to jump up and run, but held her ground. She’d show him she was just as strong as he was.
He leaned down, placing his hands on her chair’s armrest, his fingers brushing her arms accidentally, striking her like hot lightning. He trapped her there with his aura of power and physical might. The heat of his breath caressed her cheek, turning a wave of trepidation in her stomach. His woodsy scent caused a ripple of turbulence along her skin. The cyclone in his storm-darkened eyes pierced her soul and whirled a myriad of sensations, chief among them an acute feeling of danger.
“Play my wife until the Christmas fete, until Alana’s birthday,” he said in a deep low voice that vibrated through her like an approaching storm’s warning thunder. “And I’ll give you the Aidan Heart.”
Chapter Two
“I won’t do it.” Cathlynn ducked under Jonas’s caging arms, and moved toward the door—away from his magnetic aura, from his enchanting scent, from his piercing gaze, which both frightened and exhilarated her at the same time.
“Not even for the Aidan Heart?”
She hesitated, her hand hovering above the doorknob. “You can’t buy me.”
“Yours free and clear in exchange for two weeks of your time. It seems a fair deal for something you want so desperately.”
Damn, he’d pinned her into a neat little corner, hadn’t he? She’d spent most of her adult life looking for the darned thing, and most of her childhood dreaming about it. Now, to get the Aidan Heart, and see her grandmother’s eyes shine once more, she’d have to compromise her standards. She’d have to live a lie when she was known for her honesty. She turned to face him. How far would he go?
“No. I’m sorry, I don’t have two weeks to spare. I have a business to attend to, a grandmother who needs me.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” Jonas said after a short silence. Not even a hint of remorse crisped his stern features. He moved to his desk and riffled through the mess of papers on it.
“I already told you. I’m not for sale. From what I hear, you’re not in a position to make such a generous offer.”
“Idle village gossip. I hadn’t thought you the gullible sort.” He opened a drawer, the solid flex of his muscles beneath the shirt uninterrupted by her barb. He searched the drawer’s contents, slammed it shut, then started on the next. “Everyone has a price.”
“You don’t even know who I am.” Arms crossed over her chest, Cathlynn waited for his next move, icy expectation standing between them.
He stopped suddenly. His shadow loomed long and spectral on the wall behind him. “Your name is Cathlynn O’Connell and you’re an antiques dealer from Nashua.”
His smile caught her off guard. It lit up his face in a most attractive way, and she almost forgot her anger.
“How did you know?” She turned away from the desk, eclipsing his smile from her sight.
He picked up an index card and let it float back to his desk. “Your registration card for the auction.”
He resumed his search and came up with an antique silver frame, then handed it to her, his fingers hesitating for a moment against hers. She took the frame more to break the unnerving contact than anything else, but a warm shiver still managed to snake through her. Even as she focused on the picture, she couldn’t stop the heated hum where skin had touched skin.
The photograph showed the face of a happy bride. The hair color, framed in white lace, was different than hers, she noted—darker, richer. The eyes also appeared darker, but the picture’s colors had mutated with time. The facial features were similar enough that Sterling might put down to maturity the differences in their looks. Yes, the young girl in the picture might have grown into something like her. A shiver crawled along her scalp and slid down her spine.
“Uncanny, isn’t it?” Jonas’s voice startled her from her reverie.
“Yes.” Cathlynn placed the picture on the desk and retreated to the fireplace. She needed warmth to thaw the cold ice clogging her veins.
“Think of this as a vacation.”
“I haven’t said I’ll take your offer.” She rubbed her hands and offered her palms to the heat emanating from the weaving flames.
“I saw the way you looked at that piece of glass.” Jonas came to stand behind her. His presence pulsated along her skin, raising the hairs along her arms in static protest. “I saw how fervently you tried to hide your desire while you bid.” His breath caressed her hair like a Chinook wind. “You want the Aidan Heart more than you want anything else in the world.” His voice wooed her like a gentle spring breeze. “What’s a few weeks of your life for something you want so much?”
