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Synopsis
It's a mad, ill-advised journey that leads the usually sensible Lady Caroline Blacknall to the legendary isle of Muirin Inish, off the windswept coast of Ireland. Even so, she doesn't expect to find herself shipwrecked and then rescued by a man she believed she would never see again. A man who, long ago, held her life in his hands . . . and with it, her heart. Reformed rake Sir Grant Dunmore knew he could never forget the beautiful woman he once endangered nor will he ever forgive himself. But history seems doomed to repeat itself, for as long as Caroline stays on the island, she is trapped in a secret plot that could forever free Ireland-or turn deadly for all. And yet, now that she is in his arms again, how can he dream of ever letting her go?
Release date: June 1, 2011
Publisher: Forever
Print pages: 368
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
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Lady of Seduction
Laurel McKee
“4 Stars! Fascinating… readers will be eager to read the final story in McKee’s trilogy.”
—RT Book Reviews
“For a thrilling, sensuous trip to old Ireland, don’t miss Duchess of Sin… I recommend reading the first book, and I look forward to LADY OF SEDUCTION.”
—RomRevToday.com
“A truly remarkable book that I could not turn away from… a one-of-a-kind read [with] a love to warm the heart and an adventure
that never ended.”
—FreshFiction.com
“An unforgettable love story… captivating and poignant! Laurel McKee wields her pen with grace and magic.”
—Lorraine Heath, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight Pleasures with a Scoundrel
“4 Stars! McKee sets the stage for a romantic adventure that captures the spirit of Ireland and a pair of star-crossed lovers
to perfection.”
—RT Book Reviews
“I am completely hooked on this series already—and I was from nearly the first page of this book! Ms. McKee tells a masterful
story of love, rebellion, and beneath it all, devotion to a land and people… Elizabeth and Will’s emotional attachment, as
well as the obvious physical chemistry they share, leaps from the page.”
—RomanceReaderatHeart.com
“Ms. Laurel McKee’s magical pen captivates you instantaneously! She has fashioned blistering sensual romantic scenes and a
love story that will be forever etched in your mind.”
—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com
“Eliza’s and Will’s happy-ever-after, once reached, is both powerfully satisfying and forever engraved on the reader’s mind
and heart. Every word sings with unyielding intensity… Beautifully written, Countess of Scandal reads like a captivating love story of epic proportions. The ultimate page-turner.”
—RomanceJunkies.com
“A hero to steal your heart!”
—Elizabeth Boyle, New York Times bestselling author
“An immensely satisfying and sophisticated blend of history and romance. I loved every gorgeous, breathtaking page!”
—Julianne MacLean, USA Today bestselling author of When a Stranger Loves Me
“Countess of Scandal delivers on all fronts. The story raced along, zigging and zagging from Dublin to the countryside, from uneasy peace to all-out
war. And the romance… very satisfying!”
—MyShelf.com
“A vivid historical tale with breathtaking characters.”
—Michelle Willingham, author of Taming Her Irish Warrior
“Rich, vivid, and passionate.”
—Nicola Cornick, USA Today bestselling author of The Undoing of a Lady
Off the coast of Ireland, late spring 1803
This was not how Caroline Blacknall expected to die.
Not that she had ever thought about it very much. Living took up too much time and energy to think about dying. But she would
have thought it would be quietly, in her bed, after a long life of scholarship and travel and family. Not drowning at the
age of twenty on a crazy, ill-advised pursuit.
Caroline clung to the slippery mast as a cold wave washed over her and lightning pierced the black sky over her head. The
little fishing boat rocked and twisted under the force of the howling wind. Waves crashed over its hull, higher and stronger
each time, nearly swamping them completely.
She couldn’t hear the shouts of the crew any longer, or even her own screams. All she could hear was deafening thunder and
the crash of those encroaching waves.
She squeezed her eyes shut and held even tighter to the mast. She dug her ragged, broken nails into the sodden wood. A splinter pierced her skin, but she didn’t mind the pain, or
the bitter cold wind that tore through her wet cloak. It told her she was still alive, though probably not for much longer.
Behind her closed eyes, she saw the faces of her sisters, Eliza and Anna, saw her mother’s gentle smile. She felt the tiny
hands of her niece and nephew wrapped around her shoulders, heard her stepdaughter Mary’s laughter. Were they all lost to
her forever?
No! She had just begun to live again after her husband’s death a year ago. She had just begun to find her own purpose in the
world. That was what this voyage was about, putting the past to rest and moving into the future. She couldn’t give up now.
Blacknalls did not surrender!
She opened her eyes and twisted her head around to see the crew of the little boat scurrying and sliding over the deck as
they desperately tried to save the vessel and themselves. They hadn’t wanted to take on a passenger, especially a woman, but
she had begged and bribed until they gave in. No one but fishermen ever went to the distant, forbidding Muirin Inish.
She wagered that they would never take a “cursed” woman aboard again, if they all made it through this.
Caroline tilted her head back to stare up into the boiling sky. It couldn’t be much past noon, but that sky was black as pitch,
dark as midnight. Only jagged flashes of lightning broke through the gloom, lighting up the thick clouds and the turbulent
sea.
When they set out from the mainland that morning, it was gray and misty. One of the sailors muttered about the absence of
sea birds, the silence of the water, but despite these supposed ill omens they set sail. Birds couldn’t stand in the way of commerce, and Caroline refused to be left behind. She had traveled too far to turn away now, when her
destination was at last within her grasp.
She had even glimpsed the famous pink granite cliffs of Muirin Inish, so close yet still so far, before those black clouds
closed in. It was all much too fast.
Was he there somewhere, she wondered? Did he watch the storm from those very cliffs?
A crack sounded above her, loud as a whiplash, and she looked up to find that the mast, her one lifeline, had cracked. Horrified,
she watched it slowly, oh so slowly, topple toward the deck.
Caroline felt paralyzed, captured, and she couldn’t move. But somehow she managed to throw herself backward, tearing her numb
hands from the wood.
She moved just in time. The broken mast drove down into the beleaguered deck and cut a wound in the boat that swiftly bled
more salt water. The boat twisted onto its side, and Caroline was thrown into the waiting sea.
She had thought it was cold before, but it was not. This was cold, a freezing knife-thrust into her very heart that stole her breath away. The waves closed over her head and dragged
her down.
Somehow she ripped away the ties of her cloak and kicked free of its suffocating folds. She had learned to swim as a child,
lovely summer days with her sisters at the lake at their home Killinan Castle. She blessed those days now as she summoned
all her strength, pushed away the numb cold, and swam hard for the surface.
Her head broke through the water, and she sucked in a deep breath of air. The hulk of the floundering boat was far away, a
pale slash in the inky sea. The rocky cliffs of the shore beckoned through the darkness, seemingly very far away.
Caroline kicked toward it anyway, moving painfully slow through the waves. Her arms were sore and terribly weak; it took every
ounce of her will to keep lifting them, to not give in to the restful allure of the deep. She knew that if she couldn’t keep
moving, she would be lost, and she couldn’t give up.
A piece of wood drifted past her, a section of the broken mast. She grabbed on to it and hauled herself up onto its support.
It floated toward shore, taking her with it, and all she could do was hang on tightly.
Once it had been fire that separated her from him—burning, scarring fire and the acrid sear of smoke. Now it was water, cold
and just as burning. It felt like the primal wrath of the ancient Irish gods that she loved studying so much.
Caroline pressed her cheek to the wood of her little raft and closed her eyes. “This shouldn’t be happening to me,” she whispered.
It was utterly absurd. She was a respectable widow, a bluestocking who preferred quiet hours in the library to anything else.
She was not adventurous and bold like her sisters. How did she find herself caught in a perilous adventure straight out of
one of Anna’s beloved romantic novels?
But she knew why it was that she came here. Because of him, Grant Dunmore. A man she should have been happy to never see again. They seemed fated to brave the elements together through
their own folly.
Caroline felt something brush against her legs, something surprisingly solid. She opened her eyes to find she was not far
from the rocky shore of Muirin Inish. She tried to kick toward it, but her legs had become totally numb and refused to work.
She sobbed in terrible frustration. The tide was catching at her, trying to drag her back out to sea, even as land was so
tantalizingly near!
Above the wind, she heard a shout. Now she was surely hallucinating. But it came again, a rough call. “Hold on, miss! I’ve
got you.”
Someone grabbed her aching arm and dragged her up and off the mast. She cried out at the loss of her one solid reality and
tried to cling to it, yet her rescuer was relentless. He wrapped a hard, muscled arm around her waist and pulled her with
him as he swam for the shore.
Caroline’s chest ached, as if a great weight pressed down on her, and dark spots danced before her eyes. She couldn’t lose
consciousness, not now so close to redemption! She struggled to stay awake, to hold on.
Her rescuer carried them to shore at last. He held her in his arms, tight against his chest, as he ran over the rough, stony
beach. Caroline was vaguely aware that she was pressed to naked skin, warm on her cold cheek, like hot satin over iron strength.
His heartbeat pounded in her ear, quick and powerful, alive. It made her feel alive, too, her heart stirring back into being.
He laid her down on a patch of wet sand and gently rolled her onto her side. “Diolain, don’t be dead,” he shouted. “Don’t you dare be dead!”
His voice was hoarse from the salt water, but she could hear the aristocratic English accent under that roughness. What was
an Englishman doing on an isolated rock like Muirin Inish? What was she doing there? She couldn’t even remember, not now.
He yanked at the tangled drawstring of her plain muslin gown, ripping it free to ease the ruined fabric from her shoulders.
Through her chemise he pounded his fist between her shoulder blades, and she choked out the seawater that clogged her lungs.
The pain in her chest eased, and she dragged in a deep breath.
“Thank God,” her rescuer muttered.
Caroline turned slowly onto her back as she reached up to rub the salt water from her aching eyes. The man knelt beside her,
and the first things she noticed were the stark blue-black tattoos etched on his sun-browned skin. A circle of twisted Celtic
knot work around his upper arm, a small Irish cross on his chest. Dark, wet hair lay heavy on his lean shoulders.
Dazed and fascinated, she reached up to trace the Celtic cross with her fingertip. The elaborate design blurred before her
eyes.
He suddenly caught her hand tightly in his. “Caroline?” he said. “What the devil are you doing here?”
She slowly raised her gaze to his face, focusing on those extraordinary golden-brown eyes. She had seen those eyes in her
dreams for four long years.
And now she remembered exactly why she had come to Muirin Inish.
“I’m here to see you, of course, Grant,” she said. Then the world turned black.
Sir Grant Dunmore carried Caroline gently in his arms as he climbed the steep, ancient stairs cut into the granite cliffs.
The cold rain still pounded down from the dark sky, and thunder echoed off the stone. He had wrapped her in his discarded
shirt, but that was quickly soaked through, and she trembled against him.
The sea might claim her yet, if he didn’t get her warm and dry as quick as could be.
Her head lay heavy on his shoulder, her heart-shaped face pale as snow. Her dark hair clung to her skin like seaweed, and
purple circles were like bruises under her eyes. She had always been slender, like an elegant willow, but now she seemed even
smaller, a featherweight in his arms.
Caroline Blacknall. What was she doing here, at the ends of the earth, after so long? After the terrible things he did to her, to so many people,
he could not imagine why she would ever want to see him again. When he had glimpsed the hulk of the damned ship from his tower
and ran down to try to save who he could, he had never dreamed he would find Caroline in those waters.
She let out a deep sigh and twisted restlessly in his arms. He held on to her tighter, the soles of his sodden boots slipping
on the wet steps. “Not much farther,” he muttered against her ear, and she went still.
He had heard that she married a few years ago, and she wore a slim gold band on her finger. What sort of husband was he, to
send his wife out into the middle of the sea on some wild, unknown errand? He obviously wasn’t taking care of her as she deserved.
The bastard.
Grant laughed ruefully at himself. He had no room to criticize anyone at all. He wasn’t even able to take care of himself,
let alone a bluestocking Blacknall woman.
At last, he reached the top of the cliffs and turned along the twisting, narrow path that led to his home. Muirin Castle was
cold and forbidding, no place to nurse a woman back to health, but the small village was too far away. A freezing gray mist
had wrapped around the whole island, closing them off from the world.
That was why he came here four years ago, wounded, scarred, trying to atone for his sins. If he hid here, he couldn’t hurt
anyone again. He should have known the past would catch up with him.
She said she came here to find him—and he had led her into danger once more.
Her fingers suddenly tightened on his shoulder, and her eyes fluttered open. Those eyes were the same as before, deep coffee-brown
and fringed with long inky lashes. And they still seemed to look deep inside him, seeing every cursed shadow of his soul.
“We’re almost there, Caroline,” he said. “You’ll be warm by the fire in no time.”
She said nothing, just stared up at him. She slowly raised her hand to his cheek and brushed her cold fingers over the scarred left side of his face.
He recoiled, as if the fire that left those marks touched him again. Her hand fell away.
“It’s been so long since I saw you, Grant,” she whispered. Her hand dropped to his shoulder. “Yet it feels like it was only
yesterday. How is that possible?”
Grant knew why that was for him—he thought of her every day of his lonely life here. But he said nothing, just held her tighter as he carried her through
the gates of Muirin Castle.
His home was built of dark gray stone, nearly covered by thick skeins of overgrown vines. It blended into the mist, like an
enchanted, cursed castle in some fairy tale. The tall, crenellated towers were shrouded in fog, and no light glowed in the
narrow, old arrow-slit windows.
Grant pushed open the stout, iron-bound door with his shoulder and stumbled into the dim foyer. It was just as cold there
as it was outside, with the cracked flagstone floor and stone walls. But his housekeeper, old Mrs. McCann from the village,
stood at the top of the twisting stairs, staring down at him and his “guest” in open-mouthed astonishment.
“Light a fire in one of the bedchambers, Mrs. McCann, quickly,” Grant shouted. He ran up the steps two at a time; Caroline
had gone limp and silent in his arms again. “And send someone to the village for the doctor.”
“He’s gone to the mainland yesterday,” she said. She scurried after him into the one upstairs chamber that was habitable besides
his own.
“Then we’ll have to nurse her as best we can,” he muttered. He laid Caroline down carefully in the middle of the cavernous old bed and pulled off her wet clothes before wrapping her in the heavy velvet counterpane. She sighed and slid
deep under the haven of the covers.
“But—who is she?” Mrs. McCann said. She stood in the doorway, twisting her hands fretfully in her apron.
“A mermaid,” Grant said. “We need a fire, hot water, and some soup. And clean clothes for her. Now!”
Mrs. McCann dashed away, and Caroline murmured in her sleep.
Grant leaned over the bed to tuck the blankets closer, not even noticing the cold on his own damp skin, the rivulets of rainwater
that dripped from his long hair down his bare back. He only saw Caroline, so pale in the huge old bed. Caroline, flown suddenly
back into his life.
He gently smoothed the tangled, seaweed-like hair back from her brow. Her skin felt slightly warmer under his touch, a faint
trace of pink beneath the white marble of her cheeks. Don’t let her catch fever! Her soft, pale lips parted on a breath, and he remembered how once, so long ago, he had tasted that mouth with his own. The
merest, lightest brush of a kiss, and yet he remembered it so much more vividly than any night of lust with any other woman.
“Caroline,” he whispered. “Why were you out in that storm? Why does your husband not take better care of you?”
“Because he is dead,” she whispered. Her eyes opened, and she stared up at him with an unfocused intensity. “I take care of
myself.”
He smiled at her. “Not doing a very good job of it, are you?”
“I was doing all right, until today. It doesn’t seem you can take care of yourself, Grant. You’ll surely catch a cold standing there with no clothes on.”
He gave a startled laugh. Caroline Blacknall had not changed—she was still bossy, tart-tongued, and practical. But there was something new in her eyes as well, a flash of womanly
awareness as her gaze swept over his bare chest.
Before he could answer, two of the footmen hurried in with buckets of coal for the fire. The maids followed with towels and
hot water, and Mrs. McCann shooed him out of the room as they all set to work. He had never seen such efficiency in his quiet
home before.
At the doorway, he glanced back to see that Caroline’s eyes were closed again. She seemed to sink back into exhausted sleep
even as the maids swathed her in towels and a clean nightdress.
“I’m so sorry, Caroline,” he whispered as he closed the door behind him. How he wished she had not come back to him again,
reminding him of all he could never have. All that his sins had cost him.
The flames scorched Caroline’s skin, the thick smoke was acrid and bitter in her throat even from a distance. She watched helplessly
as the old warehouse collapsed in on itself—with Grant inside.
It was a dream, Caroline knew that very well. She had this dream so many times over the past few years, a vision of a frozen
winter river embankment in Dublin and watching the fires of hell consume the night. But while it was happening, she could
never rouse herself to reality. She was trapped, reliving that fire over and over.
And it felt so very real, that heat on her face, the ashes that stung her eyes. The tears for a man who was lost, in so many
ways.
“I haven’t even started learning who I might be,” he had told her as they sat together in that freezing warehouse, kidnapper and captive bound together in the moments before
the inferno. Bound together by an understanding that was strange and deep. “Except for my evils, of course.”
Caroline couldn’t argue with the evils part. Grant had wanted to marry her beautiful sister Anna, to make Anna part of his social and political ambitions, his perfect wife for his high place in society. When Anna preferred his cousin
and enemy, the wild Irish Duke of Adair, Grant kidnapped Anna—and accidentally caught Caroline in that snare, too.
Yet in that moment, as Caroline stared up into his inhumanly beautiful face and saw the deep sadness of his eyes, she couldn’t
help but reach out to him. To try to touch the heart that he claimed he no longer had. She traced her fingertips over his
cheek, and the feel of his skin, the harsh angles of his face, were more real to her than anything.
“I think there is more to you than evils,” she had whispered.
Those beautiful golden-brown eyes had narrowed as he watched her. Very slowly, as if he fought hard against something inside
himself, he leaned toward her and his lips touched hers, lightly, tenderly. This was not how she imagined her first kiss would
be, with a too-handsome, kidnapping villain in a freezing old warehouse. Yet a sudden feeling of rightness shivered through her, as if this was what she had been waiting for her whole life. All her studies, all the tales of the
fiery, forbidden passions of ancient Irish gods, could never have prepared her for the feelings of that kiss.
She reached out for him, desperately—and then the world exploded…
Caroline sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath. For an instant, she thought the smoke choked her again. She had no idea
where she was, and a cold panic washed over her. What was happening to her? Was she going mad?
Then she felt the softness of old velvet under her hands and the gentle heat of the fire on her face. It was the comforting crackle of flames in the grate, not the consuming inferno of four years ago. It was just a dream. That was all over and done with. But she was still in trouble, for she was sleeping in Grant Dunmore’s house.
Caroline slid back down against the pillows and stared up at the embroidered underside of the faded canopy. Everything came
flooding back to her then—the storm that gathered so suddenly, overwhelming the little fishing boat. Being swallowed by the
sea, and plucked out again by Grant.
He had carried her here, to this strange castle that looked like the dwelling of some magical ogre in an old myth. She was
at his mercy again, miles and miles away from civilization.
She groaned and closed her eyes, listening to the crackle of the fire and the lash of freezing rain against the narrow, old
windows. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Not the near-drowning, of course, but to find Grant, to ask for his help. It
seemed so easy, in her snug house back in Dublin. After all, that terrible drama was years ago, and she was a sensible widow.
Not so sensible now. Grant was not the sophisticated, aristocratic gentleman that he had once been, the man all the ladies
swooned over. The most handsome man in Dublin. He was a wild, long-haired, tattooed islander now, his gorgeous face scarred
by that fire, his eyes hard. Whatever she had once glimpsed in them, whatever connection she once imagined, was gone.
And she had no way off Muirin Inish.
Caroline eased back the bedclothes and carefully slid her legs off the edge of the mattress. She felt battered and weak after
fighting with the sea, her muscles sore, but she made herself climb down from the high bedstead to the floor. She wore a strange nightgown that was much too large for her,
a voluminous tent of white flannel that flapped over her hands and pooled around her feet. Those feet were bare, the scarred
wooden floor cold under her soles.
Her head spun with dizziness as she stood upright, and she clung to the carved bedpost until it passed. Her chamber was large
and dim, lit only by the fire in the stone grate, and it was full of old, heavy, dark wood furniture. It smelled slightly
dusty and stale, as if it was not much used.
She carefully moved across the floor, holding on to chairs and chests when she became dizzy again, until she came to the window.
She pushed back the green velvet draperies and unlatched the old-fashioned mullioned glass casement to throw it open. A blast
of cold, salty air washed over her face and blew away the last clinging vestige of her dream.
She found herself looking down over a cliff face into the lashing, roiling sea far below. It crashed against the rocks as
if it would carry the castle away, but the old stones stood firm.
She shivered as she remembered the cold waves closing over her head. Where was the poor crew of the boat? Had they been rescued,
too? Or was she alone?
The chamber door flew open behind her, and she spun around to find Grant standing there. He held a lamp in one hand, and its
flickering golden light cast shadows over his lean, ruined face and the tangled waves of his brown hair. He was more fully
dressed now than he had been before, in a loose white shirt and doeskin breeches, but that wildness still clung to him. It
was a part of him now; it was him.
He had changed. He was a stranger to her. A frightening, primitively attractive stranger.
“Diolain, Caroline,” he growled. “Are you trying to kill yourself with the ague?”
He plunked the lamp down on a table and crossed the room in four long strides to catch her up in his arms. He swept her high
against his chest and carried her back to her abandoned bed.
“I wanted to see if the storm had passed,” she murmured as he tugged the blankets up around her again.
“It hasn’t,” he said. “And it won’t, not for a few days anyway. It’s a very foolish time of year to try and cross from the
mainland.”
Caroline noticed that he carefully kept the scarred left side of his face turned from her. From the right, he was as beautiful
as ever, his profile all sharp, clean, elegant angles, high cheekbone and arched brow. Yet she wanted to see all of him, the real him, as he was now. Not as he had lived in her dreams all those years.
“The captain of the boat said the weather would stay clear long enough to reach Muirin,” she said.
“Then he was a fool,” Grant said harshly. “Both because of the weather and because of the French. Haven’t you heard they patrol
these waters?”
“I thought that was just hysterical gossip. There’s been so much of that since the Uprising. And since the Peace of Amiens,
we have a truce with the French, do we not?”
The corner of his sensual lips quirked, almost but not quite, as if he would smile. “You never did heed gossip, did you?”
“No. I have better things to do with my time.”
“You would have done well to listen this time—and stayed away from Muirin Inish.”
“Would I?” Probably she would, if she was as sensible as she thought. Bu. . .
—RT Book Reviews
“For a thrilling, sensuous trip to old Ireland, don’t miss Duchess of Sin… I recommend reading the first book, and I look forward to LADY OF SEDUCTION.”
—RomRevToday.com
“A truly remarkable book that I could not turn away from… a one-of-a-kind read [with] a love to warm the heart and an adventure
that never ended.”
—FreshFiction.com
“An unforgettable love story… captivating and poignant! Laurel McKee wields her pen with grace and magic.”
—Lorraine Heath, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight Pleasures with a Scoundrel
“4 Stars! McKee sets the stage for a romantic adventure that captures the spirit of Ireland and a pair of star-crossed lovers
to perfection.”
—RT Book Reviews
“I am completely hooked on this series already—and I was from nearly the first page of this book! Ms. McKee tells a masterful
story of love, rebellion, and beneath it all, devotion to a land and people… Elizabeth and Will’s emotional attachment, as
well as the obvious physical chemistry they share, leaps from the page.”
—RomanceReaderatHeart.com
“Ms. Laurel McKee’s magical pen captivates you instantaneously! She has fashioned blistering sensual romantic scenes and a
love story that will be forever etched in your mind.”
—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com
“Eliza’s and Will’s happy-ever-after, once reached, is both powerfully satisfying and forever engraved on the reader’s mind
and heart. Every word sings with unyielding intensity… Beautifully written, Countess of Scandal reads like a captivating love story of epic proportions. The ultimate page-turner.”
—RomanceJunkies.com
“A hero to steal your heart!”
—Elizabeth Boyle, New York Times bestselling author
“An immensely satisfying and sophisticated blend of history and romance. I loved every gorgeous, breathtaking page!”
—Julianne MacLean, USA Today bestselling author of When a Stranger Loves Me
“Countess of Scandal delivers on all fronts. The story raced along, zigging and zagging from Dublin to the countryside, from uneasy peace to all-out
war. And the romance… very satisfying!”
—MyShelf.com
“A vivid historical tale with breathtaking characters.”
—Michelle Willingham, author of Taming Her Irish Warrior
“Rich, vivid, and passionate.”
—Nicola Cornick, USA Today bestselling author of The Undoing of a Lady
Off the coast of Ireland, late spring 1803
This was not how Caroline Blacknall expected to die.
Not that she had ever thought about it very much. Living took up too much time and energy to think about dying. But she would
have thought it would be quietly, in her bed, after a long life of scholarship and travel and family. Not drowning at the
age of twenty on a crazy, ill-advised pursuit.
Caroline clung to the slippery mast as a cold wave washed over her and lightning pierced the black sky over her head. The
little fishing boat rocked and twisted under the force of the howling wind. Waves crashed over its hull, higher and stronger
each time, nearly swamping them completely.
She couldn’t hear the shouts of the crew any longer, or even her own screams. All she could hear was deafening thunder and
the crash of those encroaching waves.
She squeezed her eyes shut and held even tighter to the mast. She dug her ragged, broken nails into the sodden wood. A splinter pierced her skin, but she didn’t mind the pain, or
the bitter cold wind that tore through her wet cloak. It told her she was still alive, though probably not for much longer.
Behind her closed eyes, she saw the faces of her sisters, Eliza and Anna, saw her mother’s gentle smile. She felt the tiny
hands of her niece and nephew wrapped around her shoulders, heard her stepdaughter Mary’s laughter. Were they all lost to
her forever?
No! She had just begun to live again after her husband’s death a year ago. She had just begun to find her own purpose in the
world. That was what this voyage was about, putting the past to rest and moving into the future. She couldn’t give up now.
Blacknalls did not surrender!
She opened her eyes and twisted her head around to see the crew of the little boat scurrying and sliding over the deck as
they desperately tried to save the vessel and themselves. They hadn’t wanted to take on a passenger, especially a woman, but
she had begged and bribed until they gave in. No one but fishermen ever went to the distant, forbidding Muirin Inish.
She wagered that they would never take a “cursed” woman aboard again, if they all made it through this.
Caroline tilted her head back to stare up into the boiling sky. It couldn’t be much past noon, but that sky was black as pitch,
dark as midnight. Only jagged flashes of lightning broke through the gloom, lighting up the thick clouds and the turbulent
sea.
When they set out from the mainland that morning, it was gray and misty. One of the sailors muttered about the absence of
sea birds, the silence of the water, but despite these supposed ill omens they set sail. Birds couldn’t stand in the way of commerce, and Caroline refused to be left behind. She had traveled too far to turn away now, when her
destination was at last within her grasp.
She had even glimpsed the famous pink granite cliffs of Muirin Inish, so close yet still so far, before those black clouds
closed in. It was all much too fast.
Was he there somewhere, she wondered? Did he watch the storm from those very cliffs?
A crack sounded above her, loud as a whiplash, and she looked up to find that the mast, her one lifeline, had cracked. Horrified,
she watched it slowly, oh so slowly, topple toward the deck.
Caroline felt paralyzed, captured, and she couldn’t move. But somehow she managed to throw herself backward, tearing her numb
hands from the wood.
She moved just in time. The broken mast drove down into the beleaguered deck and cut a wound in the boat that swiftly bled
more salt water. The boat twisted onto its side, and Caroline was thrown into the waiting sea.
She had thought it was cold before, but it was not. This was cold, a freezing knife-thrust into her very heart that stole her breath away. The waves closed over her head and dragged
her down.
Somehow she ripped away the ties of her cloak and kicked free of its suffocating folds. She had learned to swim as a child,
lovely summer days with her sisters at the lake at their home Killinan Castle. She blessed those days now as she summoned
all her strength, pushed away the numb cold, and swam hard for the surface.
Her head broke through the water, and she sucked in a deep breath of air. The hulk of the floundering boat was far away, a
pale slash in the inky sea. The rocky cliffs of the shore beckoned through the darkness, seemingly very far away.
Caroline kicked toward it anyway, moving painfully slow through the waves. Her arms were sore and terribly weak; it took every
ounce of her will to keep lifting them, to not give in to the restful allure of the deep. She knew that if she couldn’t keep
moving, she would be lost, and she couldn’t give up.
A piece of wood drifted past her, a section of the broken mast. She grabbed on to it and hauled herself up onto its support.
It floated toward shore, taking her with it, and all she could do was hang on tightly.
Once it had been fire that separated her from him—burning, scarring fire and the acrid sear of smoke. Now it was water, cold
and just as burning. It felt like the primal wrath of the ancient Irish gods that she loved studying so much.
Caroline pressed her cheek to the wood of her little raft and closed her eyes. “This shouldn’t be happening to me,” she whispered.
It was utterly absurd. She was a respectable widow, a bluestocking who preferred quiet hours in the library to anything else.
She was not adventurous and bold like her sisters. How did she find herself caught in a perilous adventure straight out of
one of Anna’s beloved romantic novels?
But she knew why it was that she came here. Because of him, Grant Dunmore. A man she should have been happy to never see again. They seemed fated to brave the elements together through
their own folly.
Caroline felt something brush against her legs, something surprisingly solid. She opened her eyes to find she was not far
from the rocky shore of Muirin Inish. She tried to kick toward it, but her legs had become totally numb and refused to work.
She sobbed in terrible frustration. The tide was catching at her, trying to drag her back out to sea, even as land was so
tantalizingly near!
Above the wind, she heard a shout. Now she was surely hallucinating. But it came again, a rough call. “Hold on, miss! I’ve
got you.”
Someone grabbed her aching arm and dragged her up and off the mast. She cried out at the loss of her one solid reality and
tried to cling to it, yet her rescuer was relentless. He wrapped a hard, muscled arm around her waist and pulled her with
him as he swam for the shore.
Caroline’s chest ached, as if a great weight pressed down on her, and dark spots danced before her eyes. She couldn’t lose
consciousness, not now so close to redemption! She struggled to stay awake, to hold on.
Her rescuer carried them to shore at last. He held her in his arms, tight against his chest, as he ran over the rough, stony
beach. Caroline was vaguely aware that she was pressed to naked skin, warm on her cold cheek, like hot satin over iron strength.
His heartbeat pounded in her ear, quick and powerful, alive. It made her feel alive, too, her heart stirring back into being.
He laid her down on a patch of wet sand and gently rolled her onto her side. “Diolain, don’t be dead,” he shouted. “Don’t you dare be dead!”
His voice was hoarse from the salt water, but she could hear the aristocratic English accent under that roughness. What was
an Englishman doing on an isolated rock like Muirin Inish? What was she doing there? She couldn’t even remember, not now.
He yanked at the tangled drawstring of her plain muslin gown, ripping it free to ease the ruined fabric from her shoulders.
Through her chemise he pounded his fist between her shoulder blades, and she choked out the seawater that clogged her lungs.
The pain in her chest eased, and she dragged in a deep breath.
“Thank God,” her rescuer muttered.
Caroline turned slowly onto her back as she reached up to rub the salt water from her aching eyes. The man knelt beside her,
and the first things she noticed were the stark blue-black tattoos etched on his sun-browned skin. A circle of twisted Celtic
knot work around his upper arm, a small Irish cross on his chest. Dark, wet hair lay heavy on his lean shoulders.
Dazed and fascinated, she reached up to trace the Celtic cross with her fingertip. The elaborate design blurred before her
eyes.
He suddenly caught her hand tightly in his. “Caroline?” he said. “What the devil are you doing here?”
She slowly raised her gaze to his face, focusing on those extraordinary golden-brown eyes. She had seen those eyes in her
dreams for four long years.
And now she remembered exactly why she had come to Muirin Inish.
“I’m here to see you, of course, Grant,” she said. Then the world turned black.
Sir Grant Dunmore carried Caroline gently in his arms as he climbed the steep, ancient stairs cut into the granite cliffs.
The cold rain still pounded down from the dark sky, and thunder echoed off the stone. He had wrapped her in his discarded
shirt, but that was quickly soaked through, and she trembled against him.
The sea might claim her yet, if he didn’t get her warm and dry as quick as could be.
Her head lay heavy on his shoulder, her heart-shaped face pale as snow. Her dark hair clung to her skin like seaweed, and
purple circles were like bruises under her eyes. She had always been slender, like an elegant willow, but now she seemed even
smaller, a featherweight in his arms.
Caroline Blacknall. What was she doing here, at the ends of the earth, after so long? After the terrible things he did to her, to so many people,
he could not imagine why she would ever want to see him again. When he had glimpsed the hulk of the damned ship from his tower
and ran down to try to save who he could, he had never dreamed he would find Caroline in those waters.
She let out a deep sigh and twisted restlessly in his arms. He held on to her tighter, the soles of his sodden boots slipping
on the wet steps. “Not much farther,” he muttered against her ear, and she went still.
He had heard that she married a few years ago, and she wore a slim gold band on her finger. What sort of husband was he, to
send his wife out into the middle of the sea on some wild, unknown errand? He obviously wasn’t taking care of her as she deserved.
The bastard.
Grant laughed ruefully at himself. He had no room to criticize anyone at all. He wasn’t even able to take care of himself,
let alone a bluestocking Blacknall woman.
At last, he reached the top of the cliffs and turned along the twisting, narrow path that led to his home. Muirin Castle was
cold and forbidding, no place to nurse a woman back to health, but the small village was too far away. A freezing gray mist
had wrapped around the whole island, closing them off from the world.
That was why he came here four years ago, wounded, scarred, trying to atone for his sins. If he hid here, he couldn’t hurt
anyone again. He should have known the past would catch up with him.
She said she came here to find him—and he had led her into danger once more.
Her fingers suddenly tightened on his shoulder, and her eyes fluttered open. Those eyes were the same as before, deep coffee-brown
and fringed with long inky lashes. And they still seemed to look deep inside him, seeing every cursed shadow of his soul.
“We’re almost there, Caroline,” he said. “You’ll be warm by the fire in no time.”
She said nothing, just stared up at him. She slowly raised her hand to his cheek and brushed her cold fingers over the scarred left side of his face.
He recoiled, as if the fire that left those marks touched him again. Her hand fell away.
“It’s been so long since I saw you, Grant,” she whispered. Her hand dropped to his shoulder. “Yet it feels like it was only
yesterday. How is that possible?”
Grant knew why that was for him—he thought of her every day of his lonely life here. But he said nothing, just held her tighter as he carried her through
the gates of Muirin Castle.
His home was built of dark gray stone, nearly covered by thick skeins of overgrown vines. It blended into the mist, like an
enchanted, cursed castle in some fairy tale. The tall, crenellated towers were shrouded in fog, and no light glowed in the
narrow, old arrow-slit windows.
Grant pushed open the stout, iron-bound door with his shoulder and stumbled into the dim foyer. It was just as cold there
as it was outside, with the cracked flagstone floor and stone walls. But his housekeeper, old Mrs. McCann from the village,
stood at the top of the twisting stairs, staring down at him and his “guest” in open-mouthed astonishment.
“Light a fire in one of the bedchambers, Mrs. McCann, quickly,” Grant shouted. He ran up the steps two at a time; Caroline
had gone limp and silent in his arms again. “And send someone to the village for the doctor.”
“He’s gone to the mainland yesterday,” she said. She scurried after him into the one upstairs chamber that was habitable besides
his own.
“Then we’ll have to nurse her as best we can,” he muttered. He laid Caroline down carefully in the middle of the cavernous old bed and pulled off her wet clothes before wrapping her in the heavy velvet counterpane. She sighed and slid
deep under the haven of the covers.
“But—who is she?” Mrs. McCann said. She stood in the doorway, twisting her hands fretfully in her apron.
“A mermaid,” Grant said. “We need a fire, hot water, and some soup. And clean clothes for her. Now!”
Mrs. McCann dashed away, and Caroline murmured in her sleep.
Grant leaned over the bed to tuck the blankets closer, not even noticing the cold on his own damp skin, the rivulets of rainwater
that dripped from his long hair down his bare back. He only saw Caroline, so pale in the huge old bed. Caroline, flown suddenly
back into his life.
He gently smoothed the tangled, seaweed-like hair back from her brow. Her skin felt slightly warmer under his touch, a faint
trace of pink beneath the white marble of her cheeks. Don’t let her catch fever! Her soft, pale lips parted on a breath, and he remembered how once, so long ago, he had tasted that mouth with his own. The
merest, lightest brush of a kiss, and yet he remembered it so much more vividly than any night of lust with any other woman.
“Caroline,” he whispered. “Why were you out in that storm? Why does your husband not take better care of you?”
“Because he is dead,” she whispered. Her eyes opened, and she stared up at him with an unfocused intensity. “I take care of
myself.”
He smiled at her. “Not doing a very good job of it, are you?”
“I was doing all right, until today. It doesn’t seem you can take care of yourself, Grant. You’ll surely catch a cold standing there with no clothes on.”
He gave a startled laugh. Caroline Blacknall had not changed—she was still bossy, tart-tongued, and practical. But there was something new in her eyes as well, a flash of womanly
awareness as her gaze swept over his bare chest.
Before he could answer, two of the footmen hurried in with buckets of coal for the fire. The maids followed with towels and
hot water, and Mrs. McCann shooed him out of the room as they all set to work. He had never seen such efficiency in his quiet
home before.
At the doorway, he glanced back to see that Caroline’s eyes were closed again. She seemed to sink back into exhausted sleep
even as the maids swathed her in towels and a clean nightdress.
“I’m so sorry, Caroline,” he whispered as he closed the door behind him. How he wished she had not come back to him again,
reminding him of all he could never have. All that his sins had cost him.
The flames scorched Caroline’s skin, the thick smoke was acrid and bitter in her throat even from a distance. She watched helplessly
as the old warehouse collapsed in on itself—with Grant inside.
It was a dream, Caroline knew that very well. She had this dream so many times over the past few years, a vision of a frozen
winter river embankment in Dublin and watching the fires of hell consume the night. But while it was happening, she could
never rouse herself to reality. She was trapped, reliving that fire over and over.
And it felt so very real, that heat on her face, the ashes that stung her eyes. The tears for a man who was lost, in so many
ways.
“I haven’t even started learning who I might be,” he had told her as they sat together in that freezing warehouse, kidnapper and captive bound together in the moments before
the inferno. Bound together by an understanding that was strange and deep. “Except for my evils, of course.”
Caroline couldn’t argue with the evils part. Grant had wanted to marry her beautiful sister Anna, to make Anna part of his social and political ambitions, his perfect wife for his high place in society. When Anna preferred his cousin
and enemy, the wild Irish Duke of Adair, Grant kidnapped Anna—and accidentally caught Caroline in that snare, too.
Yet in that moment, as Caroline stared up into his inhumanly beautiful face and saw the deep sadness of his eyes, she couldn’t
help but reach out to him. To try to touch the heart that he claimed he no longer had. She traced her fingertips over his
cheek, and the feel of his skin, the harsh angles of his face, were more real to her than anything.
“I think there is more to you than evils,” she had whispered.
Those beautiful golden-brown eyes had narrowed as he watched her. Very slowly, as if he fought hard against something inside
himself, he leaned toward her and his lips touched hers, lightly, tenderly. This was not how she imagined her first kiss would
be, with a too-handsome, kidnapping villain in a freezing old warehouse. Yet a sudden feeling of rightness shivered through her, as if this was what she had been waiting for her whole life. All her studies, all the tales of the
fiery, forbidden passions of ancient Irish gods, could never have prepared her for the feelings of that kiss.
She reached out for him, desperately—and then the world exploded…
Caroline sat straight up in bed, gasping for breath. For an instant, she thought the smoke choked her again. She had no idea
where she was, and a cold panic washed over her. What was happening to her? Was she going mad?
Then she felt the softness of old velvet under her hands and the gentle heat of the fire on her face. It was the comforting crackle of flames in the grate, not the consuming inferno of four years ago. It was just a dream. That was all over and done with. But she was still in trouble, for she was sleeping in Grant Dunmore’s house.
Caroline slid back down against the pillows and stared up at the embroidered underside of the faded canopy. Everything came
flooding back to her then—the storm that gathered so suddenly, overwhelming the little fishing boat. Being swallowed by the
sea, and plucked out again by Grant.
He had carried her here, to this strange castle that looked like the dwelling of some magical ogre in an old myth. She was
at his mercy again, miles and miles away from civilization.
She groaned and closed her eyes, listening to the crackle of the fire and the lash of freezing rain against the narrow, old
windows. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Not the near-drowning, of course, but to find Grant, to ask for his help. It
seemed so easy, in her snug house back in Dublin. After all, that terrible drama was years ago, and she was a sensible widow.
Not so sensible now. Grant was not the sophisticated, aristocratic gentleman that he had once been, the man all the ladies
swooned over. The most handsome man in Dublin. He was a wild, long-haired, tattooed islander now, his gorgeous face scarred
by that fire, his eyes hard. Whatever she had once glimpsed in them, whatever connection she once imagined, was gone.
And she had no way off Muirin Inish.
Caroline eased back the bedclothes and carefully slid her legs off the edge of the mattress. She felt battered and weak after
fighting with the sea, her muscles sore, but she made herself climb down from the high bedstead to the floor. She wore a strange nightgown that was much too large for her,
a voluminous tent of white flannel that flapped over her hands and pooled around her feet. Those feet were bare, the scarred
wooden floor cold under her soles.
Her head spun with dizziness as she stood upright, and she clung to the carved bedpost until it passed. Her chamber was large
and dim, lit only by the fire in the stone grate, and it was full of old, heavy, dark wood furniture. It smelled slightly
dusty and stale, as if it was not much used.
She carefully moved across the floor, holding on to chairs and chests when she became dizzy again, until she came to the window.
She pushed back the green velvet draperies and unlatched the old-fashioned mullioned glass casement to throw it open. A blast
of cold, salty air washed over her face and blew away the last clinging vestige of her dream.
She found herself looking down over a cliff face into the lashing, roiling sea far below. It crashed against the rocks as
if it would carry the castle away, but the old stones stood firm.
She shivered as she remembered the cold waves closing over her head. Where was the poor crew of the boat? Had they been rescued,
too? Or was she alone?
The chamber door flew open behind her, and she spun around to find Grant standing there. He held a lamp in one hand, and its
flickering golden light cast shadows over his lean, ruined face and the tangled waves of his brown hair. He was more fully
dressed now than he had been before, in a loose white shirt and doeskin breeches, but that wildness still clung to him. It
was a part of him now; it was him.
He had changed. He was a stranger to her. A frightening, primitively attractive stranger.
“Diolain, Caroline,” he growled. “Are you trying to kill yourself with the ague?”
He plunked the lamp down on a table and crossed the room in four long strides to catch her up in his arms. He swept her high
against his chest and carried her back to her abandoned bed.
“I wanted to see if the storm had passed,” she murmured as he tugged the blankets up around her again.
“It hasn’t,” he said. “And it won’t, not for a few days anyway. It’s a very foolish time of year to try and cross from the
mainland.”
Caroline noticed that he carefully kept the scarred left side of his face turned from her. From the right, he was as beautiful
as ever, his profile all sharp, clean, elegant angles, high cheekbone and arched brow. Yet she wanted to see all of him, the real him, as he was now. Not as he had lived in her dreams all those years.
“The captain of the boat said the weather would stay clear long enough to reach Muirin,” she said.
“Then he was a fool,” Grant said harshly. “Both because of the weather and because of the French. Haven’t you heard they patrol
these waters?”
“I thought that was just hysterical gossip. There’s been so much of that since the Uprising. And since the Peace of Amiens,
we have a truce with the French, do we not?”
The corner of his sensual lips quirked, almost but not quite, as if he would smile. “You never did heed gossip, did you?”
“No. I have better things to do with my time.”
“You would have done well to listen this time—and stayed away from Muirin Inish.”
“Would I?” Probably she would, if she was as sensible as she thought. Bu. . .
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