Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 93

Hawk shook his head, his gaze shuttered. “Not yet. Truth be told, I’ve been loath to bring it up. She doesn’t. I keep my silence. Once we’ve wed and left, there will be time to speak of it.”
“Hawk, perhaps the Rom—”
Hawk shook his head impatiently. He’d already tried that tactic this morning. It had been his last ditch chance. He’d found Rushka up on the southwest ridge with his people, digging the trenches and gathering the seven woods for the fires. But Rushka had flatly refused to discuss his wife in any capacity. Nor had the Hawk been able to lure him into a conversation about the smithy. Damned irritating that he couldn’t even force answers from those who depended upon him for his hospitality. But the Rom—well, the Rom truly depended upon no man’s hospitality. When things became difficult, they moved on to a better place. Absolute freedom, that.
Nor had the Hawk, for that matter, been able to find the damned smithy.
“Mother, where’s Adam?”
“The smithy?” Lydia asked blankly.
“Aye. The forge was cold. His wagon’s gone.”
“Fair to tell, I haven’t seen him since … let’s see … probably since the two of you left for Uster. Why, Hawk? Do you think he has something to do with Adrienne?”
Hawk nodded slowly.
Lydia attacked from another angle. “Well, see! If you take Adrienne away and Adam does have something to do with it, he can just follow you. Better to stay here and fight.”
She gasped when the Hawk turned his dark gaze toward her. “Mother, I will not risk losing her. I’m sorry that doesn’t please you, but without her … ah, without her …” He lapsed into a brooding stillness.
“Without her what?” Lydia asked faintly.
The Hawk just shook his head and walked away.
Adrienne walked slowly through the bailey looking for the Hawk. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left their bed early that morning. Although she knew she’d be standing beside him soon pledging her vows, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong.
She approached the mossy stones of the broch. Looking at it reminded her of the day Hawk had given her the first lesson in how a falcon was tamed.
How deliciously a falcon was tamed.
She opened the door and peered inside, a faint smile curving her lip. How frightened and fascinated she’d been by the Hawk that day. How tempted and hopeful, yet unable to trust.
Was that the flutter of wings she heard? She squinted into the gloom, then stepped in.
A part of her wasn’t surprised at all when the door closed swiftly behind her.
As she was plunged into darkness she had an abrupt flash of understanding. This was the danger she had so feared—whatever or whoever was behind her.
Adrienne felt as if she’d been balancing on the edge of a razor since last night, waiting for something bad to happen. Now she understood perfectly what had kept her awake all night—it had been her instincts again, warning her of impending doom, clamoring that it was just a matter of time before her world fell apart.
And whoever was behind her was certainly the harbinger of her destruction.
“Beauty.”
Adam’s voice. Adrienne’s body went rigid. Her jaw tensed and her hands fisted when he grabbed her in the darkness and pressed his hips hard against the curve of her rump. She lurched forward but he tightened his arms around her and dragged her back against his body.
When his lips grazed her neck she tried to scream, but not a sound came out.
“You knew I’d come,” he breathed against her ear, “didn’t you, lovely one?”
Adrienne wanted to protest, to scream denial, but some part of her had known—on a visceral, deeply subconscious level. In that instant, all her strange encounters with Adam Black were suddenly washed crystal-clear in her mind. “You made me forget,” she hissed, as memories flooded her. “The strange things you did—when you took the Hawk’s face at the fountain—you made me forget somehow,” she accused.
Adam laughed. “I made you forget when I took you to Morar too, even earlier than that. Do you remember lying in the sand with me now, sweet Beauty? I’m giving them back to you, those stolen times. Remember me touching you? Remember when I took you to my world to cure you? I touched you then, too.”
Adrienne shuddered as the memories unfogged in her mind.
“I take from you what you don’t need to recall, Beauty. I could take from you memories you’d love to lose. Shall I, Beauty? Shall I free you from Eberhard forever?” Adam pressed his lips to her neck in a lingering kiss. “No, I have it, I shall erase every memory you have of the Hawk—make you hate him, make him a stranger to you. Would you like that?”