Duncan's Rose Read Online Free Page B

the upper story, lined with windows as tall as the ceiling and covered with sapphire, French-style draperies with frames carved with golden wolf heads. The wolf head seemed to be the castle’s theme. The light of the chandeliers spread a warm light, easy on the eyes, throughout the corridor. They turned left, and Miranda stood in front of an oak door that covered half of the wall.
    “One moment, please,” the butler said, excusing himself. He knocked and opened the door with such ease it amazed her. As she waited, the fragrance of lilac hit her nostrils. She loved that smell, but she hadn’t used it for a long time because it reminded her of Rose in her visions. Rose wore that scent all the time. Miranda’s heart pumped with anxiety at the memory. After a few tense moments, William opened the door and led her in. “I’ll bring tea for you,” he said before he left, closing the door behind him.
    “Thanks…” The guy was fast in disappearing. Are they all like that?
    Miranda gazed around the room. It looked like an office, with walls filled with books on shelves between two tall windows. This room was the size of a small apartment in New York. A mahogany cabriole sofa in dark blue, a mahogany writing desk…the colors were masculine and tasteful. If it were her choice of furniture, she might have chosen the same, except she would add greenery to the whole theme.
    “Miss Blair, welcome to my home.” The gentleman who stood beside the window was tall, with a broad chest. He wore a robe and a pair of trousers. The office was dark except for the soft light that filtered from the writing desk, which was not bright enough for her to see his face.
    “Thank you, I hope I’m not intruding,” Miranda said.
    “Not at all, it’s my pleasure to have you here.” He walked toward her with steady, lazy steps; as his face came into the light, his features became clear to her.
    Her eyes widened as a flash of a memory from her visions hit her. That face…his grayish-blue eyes. “Duncan…” The name slipped from her lips just as all feeling leached from her limbs.
    His face blurred and the room swirled around her as she fell straight down, into his arms.
     

 

Chapter Three
     
    Strong arms carried her to the sofa. Miranda felt as if she were flying on a fluffy cloud. As he carried her, a fresh wave of anxiety overwhelmed her.
    Those eyes, the face. Although this man was wearing a white mask that covered the left side of his face, she recognized him: Duncan. Much as she had with Rose, her first glimpses of him had been hazy and unclear, but with time, he gained substance. He became clearer with each vision she had, until his gray-blue eyes haunted her every vision.
    When he had appeared in the last two vivid mental images, she had enjoyed every minute of his soft touches and kisses. She blamed this on her own inner desire for a man in her life.
    She remembered one day when she was in her mother’s kitchen, two years earlier, when she’d had a vision. Suddenly, she was in a different house and area. She wore a ball gown and danced the waltz in the arms of a stranger. She felt his strength, his warmth, the crazy yearning in her soul for him, not knowing who he was, but at the same time believing he meant the world to her. Then, when she turned up to kiss him and see his face, the visual perception evaporated. She’d gotten only a faint glimpse of him and a feathery touch of his lips. His eyes were grayish-blue and rimmed with a thick layer of dark eyelashes. She’d whispered his name. Duncan!
    Miranda had not dated anyone for two years after her separation from Jack. Loneliness struck her as never before. Jack had been her first love after her graduation from Yale University.
    She’d been writing about the Marcas Wardlaw case at the time of that first vision. She blamed herself for being so obsessed with the case that she invented those visual faculty—her doctor had said that was a possible result of her obsession