Kidnapped by a Rogue, kindle

by Margaret Mallory

“A long journey?” she asked in a soft voice that had the effect of fingertips brushing against his skin. “Where are ye taking me?”

  She appeared to accept that she was going with him. This was going surprisingly well.

  “I can’t tell ye where just yet,” he said.

  “But it is far?” she asked.

  “Aye.” He found it odd that his answer did not appear to upset her. But then, she was a cool-headed lass who did not reveal much.

  “Since you’re a Highlander”—her gaze darted to his kilt, which had the dual effect of making her cheeks go pink and his cock spring to life—“ye must be taking me somewhere in the Highlands?”

  “Aye.” He saw no harm in telling her what she already knew. He unwound the rope he’d brought from around his waist. “I’m sure ye understand I must take the precaution of binding your hands.”

  “I’ll make a bargain with ye, Highlander.” She stood up and backed away from him with her hands raised. “If you’ll agree not to bind me, I’ll give ye my word that I’ll go willingly.”

  “Ach, I cannot do that.”

  “Did ye not say this would be easier on both of us if I cooperated?” she asked, tilting her head in a verra fetching way. “On such a long journey, surely there will be many opportunities for me to attempt to escape or cry for help.”

  “That would indeed make the journey tedious,” he said. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to earn my trust.”

  “Me,” she said, “earn your trust?”

  “All right, I’ll give ye one chance,” he said, holding up his finger. “If ye try anything, I’ll bind ye hand and foot. Now, we must leave.”

  “I can’t go in my shift,” she said, sounding more shocked at this than at being kidnapped.

  When she looked down at the offending garment, his gaze followed hers and lingered. He could not see through the damned thing, and yet his throat went dry imagining her naked body beneath it.

  “If ye care nothing for my discomfort,” she said when he failed to respond, “anyone who sees me like this will know something is amiss, and you’ll be caught for certain.”

  Traveling with this lass in a night shift would certainly draw unwanted attention. When she started for the other room, he suspected a trick and caught her arm.

  “You may not come into the bedroom with me,” she said in a quiet but firm voice.

  Did she have a man in there, waiting for the opportunity to attack him? Finn drew his dirk. Holding her by the wrist, he eased the door open with his shoulder.

  The room was tiny and sparsely furnished with a narrow bed built into the corner. After finding nothing under the bed but a large basket, he relaxed. The opening to the loft above was too small for a grown man to fit through. And if a man did manage to squeeze through there to hide instead of protecting his woman, he wasn’t anyone to worry about. There was nowhere else to hide and no windows to offer Lady Margaret an escape.

  “Whose cottage is this?” Finn asked.

  “My friend’s,” she said. “He’s away.”

  Finn was curious who this friend was to her and why she came here. Sometimes bored noblewomen found it exciting to bed men not of their class. Lady Margaret was sinking low indeed if she was carrying on an affair with a villager.

  The room was so small that they were mere inches from each other and the narrow bed. He eyed the bed and imagined it would be a tight squeeze for two, but—

  “I need privacy to dress,” she said, interrupting his untoward thoughts.

  She glanced meaningfully toward the door, and yet his feet failed to carry him out. He was still imagining her lifting her night shift to reveal slender calves and thighs that stretched to…

  When his gaze reached her primly folded hands, he snapped his gaping mouth shut.

  This time, she gave him a stern look and pointed toward the door.

  “Ye don’t need help with the hooks on your gown?” he asked. “I’m good at that.”

  “I’ve no doubt you are,” she said, and it did not sound like a compliment. “But I can manage on my own.”

  ###

  Margaret’s heart was pounding in her chest so hard that she thought the Highlander must hear it. She was terrified he would discover Ella and Lizzie. Praise God for Lizzie’s quick thinking—she must have heard the voices and hidden Ella with her in the loft. Lizzie even had the wits to pull the rope ladder up behind her.

  The Highlander grinned at her as he finally backed out the doorway. As soon as he closed the door, Lizzie’s head popped through the opening overhead. When Margaret put her finger to her lips, Lizzie nodded, then dropped the rope ladder and scurried down with Ella in one arm.

  Margaret took Ella, who was furiously sucking her thumb, into her arms and held her close. She glanced up just in time to see Lizzie start toward the door with a small dirk in her hand.

  Good heavens, Lizzie meant to stab the Highlander. Margaret grabbed Lizzie’s arm to stop her. Then she conveyed her plan to Lizzie with gestures, pointing to herself and Ella and then to the door.

  You’re going with him? Lizzie mouthed.

  Margaret bit her lip. She wished she had more time to think it through! But she’d wanted to find a man to take her to the Highlands. Now one had found her—albeit a kidnapper—and she was going to use him to get away.

  When she nodded that she was going, Lizzie’s eyes lit up, as if Margaret was embarking on an exciting adventure rather than making a desperate escape that could end very badly indeed.

  “He’s a Highlander and verra handsome,” Lizzie whispered, as if these were redeeming qualities that made this ridiculous plan worth the risk.

  “When we travel through MacKenzie lands, I’ll try to escape and find Sybil,” Margaret said in Lizzie’s ear. MacKenzie lands stretched from sea to sea across the Highlands, so they ought to pass through them.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when a deep male voice called through the door.

  “Are ye having trouble with those hooks, lass?”

  “Nay! I’m nearly ready.” Margaret quickly donned the servant’s gown and cloak she had borrowed—or rather, stolen, now that she could not return them. She felt bad about that, but it could not be helped.

  “What if ye can’t get away from him?” Lizzie asked in a low voice as she fastened the hooks at Margaret’s back.

  “Then I’ll be a hostage.” Highborn female hostages were usually treated well, even as guests.

  Weren’t they?

  “If you’re waiting for Archie to pay a ransom,” Lizzie whispered, “ye could be gone a long time.”

  That was her best hope. The longer she was away, the better her chances of avoiding her brothers’ schemes altogether. It may be wrong to wish they would be forced into exile again, but she did.

  She retrieved the basket from where Lizzie had shoved it under the bed. Ella immediately climbed into it and curled up, still sucking her thumb, which gave Margaret a sick feeling that Ella was accustomed to hiding in the basket. The poor child!

  “Shhh,” she warned Ella, then kissed her forehead and gently pulled the blanket over her head.

  She could not hide Ella from the Highlander for long. Her hope was to delay the discovery until they were too far away for him to want to turn back. Luckily, Ella was an unusually quiet child—Margaret could not let herself think about why that was now—and the night was dark. If she could just get Ella out of the cottage without the Highlander seeing her, her plan should work.

  Margaret blinked back tears when she and Lizzie embraced to bid goodbye.

  “I’ll miss you. Tell Alison not to worry,” she whispered in Lizzie’s ear. “I’ll send word when I can.”

  Lizzie held up her dirk, then dropped to her knees and strapped it to Margaret’s thigh before she could object.

  “What are ye up to in there?” the Highlander said through the door. “Fair warning, I’m coming in to fetch ye.”

  “Don’t!” she called out.

  Margaret’s heart rac
ed as Lizzie scrambled up the rope ladder and pulled it up behind her. As she picked up the basket, her gaze caught on the pouch with her shattered onyx lying on the bed. Without pausing to think why, she slipped it into the side of the basket.

  Then Margaret opened the door to her kidnapper—and whatever fate would bring her.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Highlander, who was pacing the small room like a caged animal, came to an abrupt halt and swept his gaze over her, which did nothing to calm her nerves.

  “Ye can’t take that,” he said, pointing at the basket. “We’re on horseback.”

  Sudden panic made her limbs weak and her throat tight. She had to persuade him to let her bring the basket.

  “Surely, ye cannot expect a lady to go on a long journey without a second gown, extra stockings, and”—Margaret turned to put her body between him and the basket while she fumbled for what else she could say was in it—“and…other things a woman needs.”

  He heaved a sigh and gave her a lopsided smile. “All right, princess.”

  With his easy smile and that twinkle in those deep blue eyes, fringed with impossibly long dark lashes, this Highlander was far too good looking to trust. Handsome men were the worst.

  While she was shamelessly staring at him like a girl half her age, he took the basket from her before she realized it.

  “By the saints, lass, what do ye have in here? Rocks?” he said, hefting the basket.

  She barely managed to stifle a gasp as Ella began to wiggle beneath the blanket. Moving quickly, Margaret leaned over the table to blow the lamp out.

  A steel grip clamped around her arm. “I hope ye weren’t planning to slip out in the dark and escape.”

  “This is my friend’s home,” she said. “I don’t wish to risk setting it afire by leaving a lamp burning.”

  “Just who is this friend?” he asked.

  “He—” She stopped speaking because the Highlander was no longer listening for an answer. With her heart sinking, she followed his gaze to the wriggling blanket covering the basket.

  “Sh-i-t-e,” the Highlander said on a long exhale.

  ###

  God grant him patience, did the lass have a dog in there? Ladies like her were fond of those wee snappy ones with sharp teeth. Finn whipped off the blanket before the damned thing could bite him.

  A bairn with curly blonde hair, rosy cheeks, and enormous blue eyes stared up at him. He was so stunned that words failed him. Slowly, he dragged his gaze from the apparition to Lady Margaret.

  “What in the hell is this?” he asked. “No one told me there would be a bairn. They said you were barren.”

  She winced slightly at the word barren, but he was too upset at the moment to apologize.

  “Whose bairn is this?” he asked.

  “Mine.” Lady Margaret picked the child up and clutched her to her chest. “She’s mine.”

  “I meant, what man does she belong to,” he pressed her. “Who’s the father? Is it your husband, Drumlanrig?”

  “He’s not my husband any longer,” she said. “And Ella is not his.”

  Then the child was the result of an affair. An adulterous affair. This must be the true reason her husband discarded her.

  “Who is the father, then?” he asked.

  “She’s mine alone,” she said, and pressed her lips firmly together.

  “Ach, ye haven’t told him, have ye?” he said. “A man has a right to know.”

  “You’re a kidnapper, and ye judge me?” she said.

  “’Tis wrong to take a child from its father.”

  “Sometimes,” she said, rubbing her cheek against the child’s curly blonde head, “’tis the only right thing to do.”

  “O shluagh,” he said, calling on the faeries for help as he ran his hands through his hair. “’Tis bad enough I have to take a highborn lady unaccustomed to rough travel. I cannot take a bairn as well.”

  “You’ll not take me without her,” she said, and the iron in her voice surprised him. “If ye try, I promise ye I’ll fight every moment of every day to get back to her.”

  That would surely make for an unpleasant journey. And if Lady Margaret did manage to escape, she would be in danger until he found her again. Damn it.

  “Besides,” she said, “’tis to your advantage to bring her along.”

  “To my advantage?” He gave a dry laugh. “I cannot wait to hear this.”

  “The men my brother will send to search for me will not be looking for a woman with a child,” she said.

  “Why not?” he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “Archie doesn’t know about her,” she said. “No one does.”

  “How did ye manage to keep your daughter a secret from your family as well as the father?”

  “Ella has been living with a woman here in the village,” Margaret said. “Everyone believes she’s her daughter.”

  “Well then, this problem is solved,” he said, relief pouring through him. “Ye can leave the wee bairn with her.”

  “The woman died suddenly…of a fever,” she said. “That’s why I had to rush here in secret at night from Holyrood.”

  The faeries were surely laughing at him in their faery hills tonight. What in the hell was he going to do? He shuddered at the prospect of tearing the child from her mother’s arms and carrying a screaming and wailing Lady Margaret off over his shoulder. And then the lass would give him no end of trouble with her attempts to escape.

  He glanced down at the child. Though he knew next to nothing about bairns, even he could see this one was too young to be left on her own. He could leave her on the doorstep of one of the neighboring cottages, but he had no way of knowing if the family would take good care of the wee thing.

  He was tempted to walk out the door and not look back, but there would be grave consequences if he did. Moray and the Gordons would lose the leverage they needed to force Archibald Douglas to release the young Gordon chieftain. And then, once the lad came of age and returned to rule his clan, he’d hold a grudge against Finn for the next fifty or sixty years. Finn would have to leave Scotland and never return.

  “Shite!” What choice did he have? He spewed a long string of Gaelic curses interspersed with a few more shites until he noticed that Lady Margaret’s eyes were wide with alarm and she was holding her hands over the bairn’s ears.

  He did not mean to frighten her—at least not more than he needed to.

  “All right, ye can bring your daughter, but only”—he paused and pointed his finger at her—“if ye promise to give me no trouble.”

  Lady Margaret broke into a smile that made him feel as if he’d just walked into a valley filled with sunshine and birdsong. Jesu, the lass was dangerous.

  ###

  Margaret peered into the darkness, afraid that someone would see them—or hear the Highlander muttering more colorful Gaelic curses. She could feel that Ella was frightened, but she neither cried nor whined as any other child of three would do. Instead, she merely sucked her thumb and held tightly to Margaret’s hand.

  “It will be all right, sweetling,” she leaned down to whisper, and hoped she was right.

  “Must we take this damned basket?” the Highlander asked again from the other side of the horse.

  “Aye,” she said. “Ella cannot sleep without it.”

  The Highlander had already tried to persuade her to leave it behind, but it would comfort Ella to sleep in it and the child had lost everything else, so Margaret held firm.

  “All I wanted was to get this journey over with,” he said under his breath as he tied the basket behind the saddle, “and now we’ll be traveling at the pace of a peddler.”

  Margaret sucked in a startled breath when the Highlander suddenly appeared behind her. He stood so close that she felt the heat from his body. He lifted her and Ella onto the horse.

  When he swung up behind her, she was suddenly surrounded by brawny male Highlander. A blade of grass could not have fit between th
em anywhere. The hard muscles of his thighs rubbed against hers, his breath ruffled a loose strand of her hair on the side of her face, and her backside was pressed against his…

  She would just have to do her best to ignore him.

  “One peep from you as we leave the village,” he whispered in her ear, “and the bairn stays behind.”

  Margaret refrained from pointing out that she’d been quieter than he had. She’d learned long ago that men resented being told of errors in their thinking.

  They rode into the black night and left the village behind. Despite the uncertainty and dangers that lay ahead, when she felt Ella’s heartbeat beneath her palm, a wave of happiness spread through her. She and her daughter were making their escape.

  CHAPTER 9

  Margaret awoke from a deep sleep to find herself lying flat on her back with the Highlander leaning over her.

  “Have a good sleep, m' eudail?” my treasure, he asked with a wicked grin.

  She had no notion where she was or, more importantly, how she came to be in this position. The last thing she remembered was riding through the night. She blinked, struggling to clear her head, but it was hard to gather herself while staring up into those deep blue eyes.

  “Please move so I can get up,” she said, doing her best to pretend she did not feel the least bit awkward about finding herself practically lying under her kidnapper. “And I am not your treasure.”

  “Ye are a treasure to me—or ye will be once I deliver ye,” he said with a wink, and offered his hand to help her sit up. “So ye speak the Gaelic? I suppose that means ye understood all my cursing as well.”

  “Quite well, as a matter of fact.” After their former king learned Gaelic to win the hearts of the Highlanders, her family required her to learn it in the hope of winning his.

  “That will make things easier for ye where we’re going.” With a smile in his voice, he added, “M' eudail.” My treasure.

  “Where’s Ella?” she blurted out, suddenly remembering she had a daughter. Her hand went to her chest. “God forgive me, I’m a terrible mother!”

  “’Tis all right. The wee lass is right here.” The Highlander put an arm around Margaret’s shoulders and turned her to the side.