With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  "Please, Nate." Rachel laid a restraining hand on Rowland's arm. “You've obviously had too much to drink tonight. You don't know what you're saying."

  He blinked at her, a lock of hair tumbling boyishly across his brow, his eyes over-bright and hard. "I am merely trying to aid you in your quest, Rachel. There is a Jacobite rogue called the Glen Lyon whom no man has been able to capture. A highwayman who steals rebel scum from beneath English noses, and ships them off beyond the reach of British justice."

  Lord, why didn’t Nate just fling wine in the officers' faces and be done with it? Rachel thought. The effect would be the same.

  "I've heard of this Glen Lyon." She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "Absurd tales."

  "Blast it, Rowland," Cumberland blustered, his features an alarming shade of red, "I'll not have a lady subjected to tales of such a rebel cur."

  "Why not, your grace? Do you fear the Glen Lyon will snatch her from beneath our very noses?" Nate taunted, then turned to Rachel. "The Glen Lyon is a will-o'-the-wisp, as impossible to capture as lightning. The Highlanders see him as savior. By God, I think they're making him a bloody legend. That's what your papa convinced you that you want between your sheets, isn't it? A damn legend instead of a man who might lose his accursed leg."

  "Rowland, if you weren't a cripple, I would call you out!" Lieutenant Pringle roared.

  "Call me out! Put a damn bullet in my brain. I've thought about doing it myself often enough." Nate's gaze swept with searing misery to where his wife was now engaged in fervid conversation with her Hessian, blushing and breathless and beautiful.

  "Nate, enough," Rachel pleaded in alarm, taking his trembling hand in her own. "Come, and I'll sit down with you for a little while."

  "A lady such as yourself should not have anything to do with this puling knave!" Pringle growled. "I am certain Sir Dunstan would forbid it."

  "Come now, gentlemen," she chided. "A soldier too deep in his cups should be a most familiar sight to you after years of campaigning. Nate and I are friends from a long time ago."

  "A long time ago," Nate echoed, laughing bitterly. "When I was yet a man."

  Aching for him, Rachel led him away from the cluster of warriors, feeling furious glares burning into her back. Yet better to brave the officers' displeasure than to allow Nate to humiliate himself further. She couldn't bear to leave the young man with more nightmares to torment him once the numbing haze of alcohol evaporated.

  "Rachel, the garden. Let's go to the garden," Nate said. "What I wouldn't give for a breath of fresh air away from heroes and tales of battle glory and lies."

  Rachel headed toward the doorway that led to the gardens.

  "This Glen Lyon is your hero, Rachel," Nate insisted, as they wove through a maze of low-growing hedges. "A masked rider no brigade of the king's soldiers can capture. He's quicksilver, liquid lightning that slips through his stalkers' hands."

  "Only a coward hides behind a mask." Rachel's fingertips skimmed to the ivory-painted miniature that always dangled by a black velvet ribbon about her neck,

  Nate glanced at it, the flambeau casting eerie shadows across Dunstan Wells’ proud, aristocratic features.

  "Ah, Rachel," Nate said softly, his voice strange. "If you only knew. There are many kinds of masks."

  She suppressed a prickling at the nape of her neck.

  "Your betrothed would be mad as the devil if he heard me tell you of the Glen Lyon. Sir Dunstan, the hero of Culloden Moor," Nate sneered as they paced out into the night air. "But he's not cutting quite such a bold dash anymore. When you're the Great Chosen One of the Duke of Cumberland, I suppose it's damned embarrassing to be outwitted by a cowardly rebel."

  "Sir Dunstan and this—this rebel—"

  "Have become sworn foes." Nate sank down on a stone-carved bench beside a yew hedge in the farthermost reaches of the garden, hidden from view of the ballroom windows or any guests who might stray outside. Yet no guests seemed to have availed themselves of the moon-kissed loveliness, the flambeaus set about, splashing pools of light on empty marble tiers scattered with statuary.

  "Nate," Rachel protested, "I cannot believe that a prominent officer like Sir Dunstan would have to concern himself with such a—”

  "The man who has swept over three hundred Scots to safety?" Nate arranged his crutch beside him. "That is where your betrothed is, even now. Hunting the Glen Lyon like a madman. Been doing so for months. I think he was hoping to present the poor devil's head to you on a silver platter. Spoils of war, don't you know."

  "I would much prefer a bouquet of roses as a love token." Rachel tried to keep her tone light, hiding how unnerving she found Nate’s words.

  “Your betrothed is most creative in his gifts,” Nate said, kneading what remained of his leg with unsteady fingers. "In fact, he served up quite a diabolical one to the Glen Lyon a month ago, a veritable banquet of destruction and butchery. All that remains to be seen is what retribution the rebels will take. My hand to God, if I could sit a horse, I'd ride beside them."

  "Nate, you must stop this at once," Rachel cautioned, glancing warily about. "Papa always said mercy can be mistaken for weakness. War can be a brutal thing. Sometimes drastic measures are necessary to put an end to the battling."

  "It's all right then, to make war on women and children? Starving innocents." He looked at her, a horrible indulgence in his eyes. "No, you wouldn't believe the truth about what's been happening here in Scotland even if I drew it out for you line by line in a sketch book. You'd just spout more of your father's military theories."

  "Perhaps so," Rachel said, stung. "But you're spouting treason. I know you're intoxicated, but —"

  "I'm not nearly drunk enough. I can still hear those poor bastards at Culloden Moor screaming for mercy as we butchered them. I can still picture my wife, setting up an assignation with that cur of a Hessian—plotting what time she'll steal from her bed. Not that I'd be aware of it anyway. She sleeps as far away from me as she can now. She hasn't touched me since . . ." His voice cracked, and pity knotted in Rachel's throat. "Hellfire, I can't blame her. I sicken myself.”

  She caught one of Rowland's hands in her own. "Your wife is a fool, Nate. You are a hero. A woman worthy of your love wouldn't care about your leg. She'd be grateful you were alive to come home to her, You still have arms to hold her, and I know somewhere you still have that devilish smile that made half the belles of the season fall in love with you."

  "Rachel, Rachel, still the lord general's daughter, fighting back against enormous odds. But it's too late to save me. I've lost the battle, fled the field, struck my colors. Yet I've heard that the Glen Lyon did the same at Prestonpans. A coward who ran. Perhaps it is not too late."

  He stared out across a bank of wisteria, his eyes so bleak Rachel couldn't bear to look at him. "Rachel, forgive me," he said softly, capturing her hand in a grasp that unsettled her.

  "Forgive you for what? Helping me escape that mob of officers before my face cracked with the effort it took to keep smiling? I've been hoping that we would find time to chat, catch up on everything."

  He squeezed her hand, and Rachel sensed that he knew she was lying. "It's all right, Rachel. I know it's awkward to be around me now." The gentle words made her cheeks burn. "I need to go inside now. This leg aches damnably from the chill of the bench. But there is a lovely cascade of roses down this path a little ways. My wife was telling her Hessian about them, and I know how you adore roses. Besides, considering that I am a pariah, it might be best if you weren't seen re-entering the ballroom with me."

  She was touched by his consideration, and ashamed by the relief she felt at the chance to escape his company. "I would love to see the roses, Nate. It was good to talk to you. I want to do so again. Soon." He gave her hand a parting squeeze then limped off, leaning heavily on his crutch.

  She tarried near the stone bench until he disappeared through the doors leading to the ballroom. Turning, she retreated deeper into the maze of shrubbery, heading
for a bank of stunning roses.

  Night shadows pooled, velvety dark, blurring the edge of earth and sky. The wind stirred the rose petals and lifted their scent to the stars. Yet as the ballroom fell farther behind her, a sudden chill penetrated the thin veil of linen draped about her, teasing skin used to heavy layers of velvets and satins, petticoats and jewels.

  She reached up, untying the velvet ribbon that held Sir Dunstan's miniature, and cupped it in the palm of her hand. Her gaze skimmed it in the moonlight.

  She had achieved everything she'd ever dreamed of in her betrothal to Sir Dunstan. She should be happy. So why did doubt seep in, taunting her with a vague sense of disappointment? In Dunstan, she wondered, or in herself?

  No, what she was feeling was merely what she’d seen her father suffer at the end of every military engagement—battle won, mission accomplished. A dead calm that left a person restless. Restlessness. That emotion had always been as much a part of her as her sable hair and the quick impatience in her crystal-blue eyes. A feeling that she might burst if something didn't happen.

  A scream rose in her throat then died there, as one of the shadows came alive. Something huge and dark and monstrously strong captured her in sinewy arms.

  Outrage flooded through her, and she was certain that one of the officers she'd known since childhood was playing a prank on her. The brilliant officers that filled the ballroom to brimming were the same terrible boys who had leaped out at her from closets and tied her hair in knots when she was a little girl.

  "This isn't amusing," Rachel snapped, jerking around. "Release me or—"

  She froze, too stunned to move as she saw a face blackened with burnt cork and a white Stuart cockade—a pale smear of doom against the night.

  The symbol of the Glen Lyon.

  Dunstan's miniature tumbled from numb fingers. She fought and kicked, desperate as Nate's words about the rebel lord sent terror through her. Something coarse was yanked over her head, killing even the faint light of the flambeaus, cutting off the air. She dragged in another breath to scream, but her mouth filled with choking dust, ropes cutting into her wrists as they were bound in front of her.

  Sweet heaven, she was being kidnapped in the middle of a military ball with half the officers in the English army a garden's length away.

  This was impossible. Someone would hear her. Someone would come.

  She attempted to scream again, but the breath left her lungs in a whoosh as strong arms flung her up onto a horse's back. Pinning her effortlessly to the saddle despite her wild struggles, her captor mounted the horse behind her.

  "Don't be afraid, Mistress," a deep English voice rumbled as the horse was spurred into motion.

  "As if I'd be afraid of a cowardly traitor!" Rachel choked out, trying to fight the rebel and keep from breaking her neck at the same time.

  Her defiance shattered on a cry as the horse suddenly launched itself over a barrier she couldn't see. She half expected to be hurled over its head onto the turf as its front hooves slammed into the ground, but her captor held her fast.

  Helplessness tore at her, she who had been helpless only one time. The night her mother had died. She fought the sensation even more furiously than she had fought her assailant.

  "You'll never get away with this," she spat out as the horse regained its balance, its gait all but jarring the teeth from her head. "I know who you are."

  "Just who am I?" the rough baritone asked in the infuriatingly amused tone one might use with a temperamental child.

  You're a monster, she wanted to say. A giant—huge and thickly muscled and terrifying. But she flung back her answer like her papa's own daughter. "You're the rebel bastard Glen Lyon."

  Laughter, rich and unexpected, rang out, shaking the hard chest against which she was imprisoned. "I wouldn't even attempt to claim that title, hellcat. The Glen Lyon is ten times the man I am." There was just a touch of awe in the man's voice. Enough to tighten the vise of fear about her chest.

  "He is ten times the traitorous villain, you mean," Rachel flung back, her head reeling. Not the Glen Lyon? The villain hadn't even bothered to abduct her himself?

  Her captor's words resounded through her.

  Ten times the man I am.

  Her imagination flooded with images of this legend-spun rebel lord—stronger than Samson, more cunning than Caliban, more demonic than Lucifer himself.

  What would such a beast want with her?

  The Glen Lyon and your betrothed are sworn foes. Nate's words returned to her.

  Sworn foes.

  She caught her lip between her teeth to keep from crying out. Memories stirred in her head, whispered accounts she had overheard of horrors beyond imagining, the fates of women who had fallen into enemy hands.

  Surely this Glen Lyon would not dare to . . . To what?

  Ravish her?

  Ice poured into her veins. The traitorous rebel was a coward—a craven coward who had kidnapped the betrothed of the bravest man in all England. There could be only one reason to commit such a nefarious crime. To have her completely at his mercy. What better way to wound the proud Sir Dunstan than to brutalize his betrothed?

  Terror was a living thing inside Rachel. She renewed her struggles, yet it was as if her captor was hewn of granite, immovable, impossible to defeat.

  Tears burned her eyes, and in their wake, her father's admonition rose as it had a thousand times before: A soldier never cries.

  The words reined in her panic, tamping it down with fierce resolution.

  She would not let these traitors make her cry. She had to think, to plan, to find a way out of this disaster.

  Whatever vile fate Glen Lyon had in store for her, no paltry coward would ever defeat Rachel Alexandra de Lacey. The general's daughter was about to embark upon her own private war.

  Chapter Two

  Rachel had never suspected that war was so uncomfortable. Pain screwed itself into every joint of her body. The rough blindfold made her eyes itch. The constant jolting of the horse jarred her until her teeth threatened to chatter right out of her head.

  They had been riding for an eternity. Rachel had spent the time listening to every sound, trying to gather any clues that might help her retrace the horse's steps once she escaped.

  Blinded by the strip of cloth still secured over her eyes, she'd distinguished the rushing music of a burn spilling over stone, and had tried to count the number of times her body shifted in her captor's arms as he guided his mount up sweeps of hills.

  She'd congratulated herself for her genius when she'd begun demanding to be allowed to answer calls of nature whenever she guessed that they might be near some particularly distinct landmark. Those few moments of grudging privacy had given her the chance to sneak up the hem of the blindfold and glance at the Highlands of Scotland engulfing her.

  The sensation had heightened her fear, reminding her of the terror Persephone must have felt as she was dragged down to Hades' domain. However, Persephone had been face to face with her nemesis from the moment of her abduction. Rachel was left at the mercy of a too-vivid imagination. To her, it seemed as if the Glen Lyon was vengeance incarnate. The hints of his dark deeds had made Rachel's spine tingle with foreboding while she was still safe in the garden. Here, in the vast wildness, they iced her skin with dread.

  The one thing that had kept her sane during the grueling trek had been the hope that she would be rescued at any moment. Nate must be aware she hadn't returned to the ballroom by now, and a party of soldiers would be riding hard in search of her.

  To aid them in their quest, she had done all in her power to slow her captor's progress. She dallied as long as possible during his merciful moments when he would shove a crumbling bannock into her hands or press an otter skin full of water to her lips. Yet as time ticked by, even Rachel had to admit that it would be more and more difficult to track her in this immense Scottish wild land.

  That admission left her two choices. Give way to blind panic, or summon her courage.
She must prepare to confront the despised enemy of her betrothed as though she were a captive queen, to face the rebel who was almost a legend.

  She swallowed hard, imagining a primitive Scot warrior with tangled hair and bestial eyes, lust twisting a cruel mouth—the very object of every maiden's worst nightmare in the days of the border wars. She shivered, recalling the tales Dunstan had told her, the ruthless savages that had murdered his father and brother and countless other ancestors through the ages.

  She was just dismissing the image as one more folly when a shrill sound shattered the silence, drawing a stifled cry from her own lips.

  Not even her wildest imaginings had prepared her for the barbarian war cries that erupted around her as her captor pulled the horse to a halt. The Gaelic cries cut at her like the blade of a claymore, left her knees shaking no matter how desperately she tried to stop them.

  "You've got her! That bastard Wells' woman!" A high-pitched voice pierced her ears through the cacophony of sounds.

  "I hope to hell I've got the right one," her captor called out, dragging her down off the horse with him. "It'd be damned inconvenient to have abducted the wrong woman."

  He flung Rachel over his shoulders like a bag of grain, crossing to who knew where with long strides. Rachel could feel fingers plucking at her, poking her.

  "Did she scream and faint?" someone demanded to know.

  "If she didn't already, the Glen Lyon'll make her wail like a pig with its tail caught in a gate," another voice insisted.

  "The Glen Lyon can go to hell!" Rachel snarled despite the cloth over her head. "Take your hands off me, you traitor scum." Yet it was unnerving—the voices pounding her like battle clubs, the chill that seemed to envelop her, the hard hand of her captor smack in the middle of her upturned rump. Without another word, he dumped her unceremoniously onto something cool and hard.

  She struggled to stand up. She'd be damned if she was going to face these traitors on her knees. But before she could, a swarm of fiends engulfed her—crawling over her legs, tugging at the sack, their hands sticky-sweet. With blood? The gruesome possibility sickened her.