by Paula Quinn
She hadn’t dreamed him. He was real, dripping with more virility than any man in the palace—any man she’d ever known.
His diamond-cut gaze was already on her, only her, stripping her of everything, all her layers down to her most hidden, secret parts. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
Had he come for her? What should she do? She was torn between running to him and running away.
She looked at Goliath, understanding the horror on many of her guests’ faces. He wasn’t so bad. In fact, he was a good dog, a loyal friend to Adam. She lifted her lips in the slightest of smiles. Goliath responded with a step forward, his long tail wagging slowly behind him.
A word from Adam stopped the hound from going to her.
“Sina!” Eloise rushed to her side, while Poppy hung back a bit. “Who is he? Do you know him?”
“I…” When he began to move toward her, she closed her eyes, wishing that everyone in the hall would disappear, save him. She didn’t want to miss him, but she did. Damn him, why had he come? It couldn’t be for her. What about the safety of the clan? What if he’d toss that all aside and was here to bring her back? Could anyone stop him? Did she want them to?
“He’s magnificent!” Eloise breathed, yanking her from her plaguing thoughts. “Oh, we simply must find out who he is.” She pulled on Sina’s sleeve. “Do you think he’s a viscount? A baron? Look! He’s coming over here!”
Sina cast a panic-stricken glance at Poppy, who caught on immediately and hurried to intercept him.
When the red-haired beauty stepped in front of him, Adam smiled.
Sina forgot what Eloise was talking about and cursed herself for sending Poppy to save her.
But soon enough, his gaze settled on her again even while Poppy shared words with him. What was her friend telling him? He smiled at her. She popped open her fan.
“Who is that, and what in God’s name is that creature next to him?”
Sina turned to William coming to stand at her side. He closed his arm around her waist and she nearly passed out when Adam took a step forward like death coming for her cherished friend.
Poppy grasped his arm and looped hers through it, ignoring Goliath’s growls.
“I don’t recall ever seeing him before,” William said curiously, oblivious to the threat. “Did my mother invite him?”
Sina bit her lip.
What was he doing here? If William found out this was a MacGregor, he’d run straight to her father before either one of them could.
“Ehm, sir?” William called out, not waiting for any answers from her.
Poppy said something to Adam that tore his gaze from Sina. He nodded and put on a smile.
“Lord Standish,” Adam greeted coolly, moving forward.
Sina’s insides grew warmer with each step that brought him closer. She hadn’t forgotten how big he was, but having him close again was like being caught in the warm shelter of a mountain in the middle of a storm.
“We finally meet.”
Or perhaps he was the storm.
“Lord Adam Hamilton,” he introduced himself, “grandson of the Duke of Hamilton.”
What was this? Sina stared at him. Why was he pretending to be someone else?
“A Scot.” William’s smile was a bit stiff. “I don’t recall seeing your name on the guest list,” he said, dragging Adam’s attention away from Sina and onto him.
“An oversight.” Adam’s husky voice rang through her, overriding William’s lofty one. “As I assured my grandfaither.”
“He was at my birthday celebration, William,” Poppy said, sounding bored with the introductions. “If you had been there, you would have met him then.” She turned her exquisite face up to Adam. “You attended the Duke of Sussex’s wedding last year, did you not?”
“I did,” he replied, playing along.
“I don’t remember him,” Eloise told her.
Poppy smiled indulgently at her. “You were engaged in someone else’s company, my dearest.”
William finally relented, not wanting to cause the duke’s grandson any more insult. The Standishes were all about appearance and opinion. A duke’s favor was well won. “I’ll be certain to let my mother know. In the meantime, you’re welcome to anything here.”
Sina drew in a tight little gasp and looked away when Adam’s gaze boldly stole to hers.
“Miss Warwick,” Eloise purred at him. “Are you married, Lord Hamilton?”
Sina’s hands tightened into fists at the bottom of her stomacher. Was she breathing? Why did she suddenly feel like weeping for him and for herself for a terrible circumstance they had no choice in making? She darted her gaze back to him and caught his eyes on her.
“Aye,” he told Eloise. “Recently married. But I lost her.”
Oh, why had he come to court? Why was he pretending to be Lord Hamilton? Why did every muscle in her body ache to fall into his arms…or run and hide until he left?
“Come, Lord Hamilton.” Poppy pulled on his arm. “Let me introduce you to anyone you don’t already know.”
A few salutations were exchanged, but Sina didn’t know what anyone said. Adam had gone back to looking at her, his gaze piercing through all her logic.
What was going to happen now? What was he planning to do? What would William do if he found out who Adam really was? She wasn’t going to be able to keep this from him for long. Just looking at Adam, remembering his patience and laughter, his storytelling voice, was enough to tempt her to seek him out. No! It was too dangerous, for his clan and for William.
Adam looked over his shoulder at Sina while her best friend, Miss Berkham, pulled him toward another group of people he had no interest in meeting. He wasn’t here to kiss English arses. He was here for her.
He wanted her back. He wanted to be chief with her at his side. He wanted to see her in his bed every night and wake up with her every morning, sore and swollen, ready for more.
He nodded and smiled when Miss Berkham introduced him to some other stately, stuffy, powdered faces and engaged in conversation with them.
Adam found Sina through the crowd Miss Berkham had put between them.
It was hard to look at her in her tight bun and rogue waves spilling around her face and not stride forward, gather her up in his arms, and kiss the hell out of her.
Somehow, he’d lost his heart to her. Mayhap it happened while he carried her to bed, or home from Will’s after a night of laughing and drinking. Mayhap it was her soft voice and the fire hidden beneath her cool control that made him burn to strip her bare. It didn’t matter when she’d taken his heart. She made him doubt every conviction. She made everything appear pale and dull in comparison to a few moments with her. Because of her, he’d come someplace he swore he’d never set foot. To England.
He wanted her heart, the one she’d given to him.
William Standish.
His frame was slight, his shoulders narrow beneath his flared, red coat. He had a cool gaze and a mouth carved in cynicism.
Adam didn’t know him, but he’d been right about him. Sina’s beloved was pitifully dull. Though he possessed haughty airs, he surrendered easily to the weight of propriety.
Adam eyed him, frowning when Standish reached out to touch the curls falling over Sina’s shoulder. Adam didn’t like him touching her. In fact, he suffered a fleeting thought of ripping Standish’s arm from his shoulder.
He resisted. He couldn’t be a fool about this. He couldn’t defy the king, for the sake of his clan. He wanted to find out why her father had called her back. What was the king’s position on the MacGregors? And if it was poor, Adam wanted to change his mind and win his daughter’s heart.
But if he wanted a chance to speak to the king, make friends with him as his aunt Maggie had put it when she helped him plan everything, he wouldn’t get the chance in his plaid and muddy boots. He didn’t mind the confines of his English clothes, though the high cravat did tempt him to tear it loose and celebrate the ability to swallo
w again.
He resisted that too.
He stopped when Miss Berkham pulled him further along.
“Fergive me, Miss Berkham, but tell me again why ye’re doing this. Ye said ye were Miss de Arenburg’s friend and I should do as ye say. So I did. Now tell me what this is about.”
“Please,” she said, stepping closer, “call me Poppy.”
Adam shook his head and smiled. Flirtations were nothing he wasn’t used to. He often found that being blunt worked best at warding off unwanted attention. “’Tis more intimate than I want to be, lass.”
He spread his gaze over her shoulder and spotted Sina sitting with her friend Miss Warwick.
“Oh, I’m not interested in you, my lord,” Sina’s friend told him, dragging his gaze to her dazzling smile and dimpled chin. “That’s not why I’m here with you.”
“Then why are ye here?”
She looked up at him with a challenge in her twinkling green eyes. “I will put the same question to you, Mr. MacGregor.”
Adam kept his smile intact. How much had Sina told her?
“You’re the one who let her go,” she continued, addling him further.
Now he gave her his full attention. She took a step back, unprepared for it. “She told ye that?”
“She told me much,” she said with a satisfied sigh as her eyes took him in from foot to crown. “She did not embellish.” She flapped open her fan and waved it in front of her face.
“I’m not going to tell anyone who you are, my lord. You have my word.”
She perplexed him, but he believed her.
“I must ask. Do you know what we’re celebrating tonight?”
“Nae, ’tis only by good fertune that I came during a celebration and was able to enter the palace with the other guests.”
She smiled, but it looked strained. “Good fortune. Yes. Come, Lord Hamilton. Let’s walk together.” She took him by the arm and let him lead.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” she said on a sigh, “so I’m going to just say it. We are celebrating Sina’s betrothal to Lord Standish.”
He stopped and took a step to go back. Nae! She hadn’t agreed to wed the proud peacock again, had she? “She gave up on me so soon, then,” he muttered on a pained growl.
“How was she to know you would ever come? Have you even come for her? Would you prefer she grew old waiting for you?”
“That wouldna have happened,” he said, lowering his brow over his eyes. “It has been exactly twenty-one days since I last saw her. I know it felt longer but—”
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” she interrupted without breaking stride. “If your answers satisfy my desire to protect my closest friend, I will let you ask me anything about her.”
“And if they dinna please ye?”
“Then I will ask you to leave her alone—or I will go to the king.”
“Let’s no’ waste our time,” he said, pausing to turn to her and letting his Highland burr flow naturally. “I’m certain I willna measure up to yer fine standards.”
She smiled as though the sound of him delighted her. She tugged on his arm and pulled him forward. “You don’t know what my standards are. First question, what did you think the first time you saw her?”
Interesting first question, Adam thought. Lady Berkham was clever, and she seemed to genuinely care about Sina. “She was like a sparrow caught in a net. Her tears made me feel like the monster who’d captured her.”
“Hmm,” Miss Berkham murmured, staring up at him without blinking. “Good answer. Next, is she safe where you live? Would anyone there seek to harm her?”
“There is no place safer on this earth than my home,” he told her, vowing to himself at the same time that he would keep it that way. “We are kin and would never hurt one another.”
“Kin?”
“Family.”
Her eyes glistened beneath the sun as she repeated his reply.
“Last one,” she said, fanning herself. “Why did you wait so long to come? You broke her heart.”
This question wasn’t so easy to answer. When he heard that he broke her heart, his own heart broke as well. Was it too late? Had he waited too long? “I couldna just come and take her withoot possibly bringin’ an end to my clan. I need to do this the clever, peaceful way. Fer that, I needed a wee bit of time to prepare.”
She smiled and snapped her fan shut and tapped him on the shoulder with it. “Your answers were better than I would have expected from the best men I know. So, well done. Now ’tis your turn.”
He smiled, being found worthy. Miss Berkham was perceptive. If anyone knew Sina, it was this lass.
“I willna ask ye fer her secrets,” he told her.
She smiled at him again. “I won’t tell any of them to you, but I can tell you this, she has wanted nothing more in her life than a family. ’Tis her dream, not her secret.”
He could give her that. She’d been accepted by his kin, the same way Kate Campbell had once been when she first stepped into Camlochlin.
“And,” Sina’s friend continued, “because I was so pleased by your answers, I will also tell you that her heart inclines toward the romantic.”
Hell, the romantic? Adam brooded.
Miss Berkham tugged his cuff, pulling back his attention. “She wants a man who cannot live without her, who would travel hundreds of miles to see her again, or fill her bed with heather. As much as I love William, he is not that man. He packed up and left her for years for some grand adventure. Where was he today? He returned home. He only comes here when he must. They are finally reunited after more than three years. Why aren’t they off making love until neither one can walk straight?”
A thought Adam would prefer not to have was planted in his head. “Is there no passion between them?” he asked, wanting to know now.
“None. He promised to try though.” She paused to let him ponder how ridiculous it was. “He is comfortable, like a blanket she has grown used to. But he is devoted to her and takes great pride in the fact that she loves him. He will not take losing her without a fight, and she does not want to hurt him.”
Adam didn’t know why Miss Berkham was telling him these things. But he was thankful for the insight.
“Thank ye,” he said, turning to shine his smile on her. “I’ll consider it all while I win her from him.”
“Oh, Lord Hamilton,” she teased. “Stop before you make me swoon. Tell me, do you have any brothers?”
“Two, but I fear they are no match fer ye.”
She smiled at him. “Whatever I can do to help, you just let me know.”
He was about to thank her when he spotted a drunken man arguing with Standish. The much bigger man took a swing at William and hit Sina, who was standing with Standish, in the shoulder.
Adam pushed Miss Berkham out of the way and leaped over a table, shattering plates as he trampled them.
He reached the intoxicated nobleman, grabbed him by the throat, and smashed his face into the wall.
When the drunken man’s drunken friends attacked him, Adam had no choice but to fight.
When it was over, which wasn’t too long after it began, he turned to Sina, wanting to make certain she wasn’t hurt, and was promptly taken into custody by the king’s guards.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Adam had wanted an audience with the king. But not like this. Not standing before him bound at the wrists, clenching his bloody hands behind his back. Not when he was ready to kill if someone didn’t tell him where Goliath was.
Adam knew what was at stake if he spoke too harshly to the king. All his plans and good intentions would be for naught. He would lose Sina unless he kidnapped her and started a war.
Still, it was his dog.
“I ask again, Yer Majesty.” He kept his voice at an even, nonthreatening pitch. “Where is my dog?”
“You’re in no position to ask any questions, Lord Hamilton. You came into my home and saw fit to beat a dozen men senseless.”
“They attacked me.”
“Yes, after you broke Lord Geoffrey Markham’s nose!”
“He struck Miss de Arenburg,” Adam cut him off mildly. “He is fortunate I did not kill him.”
The king bounded from his chair, his face red with fury. Obviously, he had not been given the full tale. “Have Lord Markham taken to Newgate prison after his wounds are seen to,” he barked at a guard standing behind Adam. “And bring Lady de Arenburg to me immediately.”
He set his hard, dark eyes on Adam again. “As for you, you should have left the matter to my guards. I won’t have my guests fighting in the halls, no matter whom they fight for. Do you understand?”
“Not if ye’re telling me to do nothing if I see a man strike a woman in yer palace.”
King George narrowed his eyes at him. For a moment Adam feared the king suspected him of being a MacGregor.
He slowed his breathing. There was no reason for the king to suspect Adam wasn’t who he claimed to be. George spent most of his time in Hanover. According to Aunt Maggie, he wouldn’t know many of the noblemen in England and especially in Scotland.
“Release him,” the king ordered his guards.
The instant he was freed from his bonds, Adam strode toward the door.
“Lord Hamilton,” the king called out. “I’m assured your dog remains exactly where you left it and is safe. Return and have a seat. I wish to ask you some questions.”
This was what Adam wanted. He could charm the crown off the king if he put his mind to it.
“I would have him returned to me first,” Adam told him, trying to sound as respectful as he could. He turned for the doors just as they opened and William Standish plunged inside.
“Your Majesty. ’Tis your—” His gaze slipped to Adam and the king’s guards. “’Tis Miss de Arenburg. I fear she is about to get herself shot.”
Adam was the first one out.
Rushing to the hall, he saw that a crowd was gathered around where he’d left Goliath. The music had stopped. Where was Sina?
With his heart thundering in his chest, he pushed his way through the onlookers.