With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  What had she stumbled into?

  Garbled, indecipherable babble pounded against her, as if a horde of demons had been set upon her.

  One of them ripped the blindfold from her head, taking a good-size hank of her hair with it. Light from blazing flambeaus bored all the way to the backs of her eyes, blinding her for long seconds, yet when her vision began to clear, she wanted to grab the blindfold again, to draw it over her eyes.

  She was staring into the face of the most hideous gnome she had ever seen. It was barely a hand's length away from her nose. Thick white paste stiffened its hair into gruesome spikes, and primitive, painted symbols traced grimy paths on skin dark with filth. One side of the creature's face was horribly distorted, its cheek bulging, its upper lip twisted. Despite all her brave intentions, Rachel couldn't keep from shrinking back. What was it?

  "We're not going to feed you even a crumb, Sassenach!" The gnome's hate-filled voice echoed through what seemed to be a rough stone cavern. "We're going to starve you until your bones stick right out of your skin."

  "No!" A creature that looked half human leaped with wild excitement. "We're going to pull her skirts all up and let someone jump on top of her and she'll scream and scream!"

  Her captor cut in. "The Glen Lyon will be the one meting out justice here. Of course, I'm certain he'll take your suggestions under advisement."

  She turned to see the man who had carried her away from the garden—a swarthy mountain of a man with ebony hair and a flashing grin that made her want to ram his white teeth down his throat. "Now let the lady up this instant," he commanded.

  Obedient demons? Rachel wondered incredulously as the pack of gnomes scuttled off her with groans of disappointment. She scrambled to her feet, her knees all but buckling as she braced herself against a rough stone wall. She towered over her tormentors, their faces shifting into better focus as one of them plopped a grimy thumb into its mouth.

  "Children," she gasped out, disbelieving. "They're children." The notion horrified her, the threats they had spewed out were even more disturbing because they had fallen from what should be innocent lips. "What kind of monster would keep children like animals?"

  "I suggested the Glen Lyon drown the lot of 'em, but he says they'd spoil the water for drinking." Was the man actually smiling? "Now, we don't want to keep him waiting."

  He guided her through a twisted passageway that led deeper into the cave, to where a fresh-hewn door had been fitted to the stone. Is it the rebel's lair? Rachel wondered. Or a prison buried so deep in the bowels of the earth that no one would hear me scream?

  The Lyon's den.

  Rachel felt as if she were about to become some monster's next meal. She steeled herself to confront the vile fiend who had ordered her abduction.

  But as her captor shoved the door open, revealing the makeshift chamber beyond, Rachel froze, her mouth gaping.

  A man sat at a wooden desk, a tousled dark-gold mane of hair tumbling in wild disarray about a lean face. Intense gray eyes peered through the lenses of spectacles at whatever was in his hands. He was spouting a string of words in perfect Latin. But despite the fact that Rachel had been educated far more thoroughly in the language than any other woman she knew, these were words she had never heard before.

  "Bloody hell," the man muttered to himself. "I'm going to murder that bastard when I get my hands on him."

  "On her, little brother. You did specify I was to bring you a woman."

  The man wheeled, stunned as if he'd been clubbed from behind by one of the demon-children. He leaped to his feet, his spectacles sliding farther down his nose, a bundle of garish scarlet velvet that could only be a woman's gown tumbling to the cave floor. A spool of thread bounced madly across the room to thump into the heather-stuffed mattress crammed against one wall.

  "Blast it, I've lost that needle again!"

  Rachel gaped at him, more stunned than if he'd been a naked savage gnawing on human bones. These two men were brothers? It seemed impossible.

  "Mistress de Lacey, may I present the dread rebel lord Glen Lyon."

  The golden-maned man stopped groping for the needle and straightened. He was tall, too thin, with the mouth of a poet, the expression of a scholar, and the eyes of a dreamer—the absolute antithesis of every raider Rachel had read about in her contraband French novels.

  She felt almost cheated. It was upsetting enough that she'd been abducted—but to be abducted at the order of a man like this!

  The Glen Lyon? He looked more like a Glen Kitten. But couldn't a man like this be even more dangerous? Weak men were often the most cruel, to compensate for their own shortcomings. It was obvious that this rebel had a whole brigade of minions ready to act upon his command. The man who had plucked her from the garden looked strong enough to tie iron bars into knots if the spirit moved him.

  "Miss Rachel de Lacey?" The Glen Lyon sketched her a bow, as if they were at a soiree. "I'm—"

  "You don't need to introduce yourself," Rachel shot back. "From the moment I arrived in Scotland, I heard tales of the coward of Prestonpans. But I had no idea that you were so craven that you wouldn't even take your own prisoners. What kind of a man are you? Forcing others to do vile deeds for you because you lack the courage."

  She'd called him a coward, an accusation that would have made Dunstan violent with rage, but this man didn't even have the grace to blush! She expected some reaction—an explosion of masculine outrage, a gruff denial of the charges levied against him, or at the very least, shame. Instead, amusement twinkled in the Glen Lyon's storm-cloud eyes.

  "Abducting ladies isn't my strong suit, I'm afraid. I would've made a disaster of it. There's nothing more upsetting than a botched abduction. However, I trust that Adam saw to your every comfort?"

  Her mouth hung open like a fishwife's. Was he jesting?

  No, the knave was toying with her the way a cat tormented its prey. He had her in his power. He had all the time in the world to torture her. He wasn't fooling her with that solicitous smile.

  "Comfort?" she sputtered. "I was snatched from the midst of a ball, slung over a saddle and hauled off to God knows where. Then I was set upon by demons."

  "Demons?" He frowned, lifting off his spectacles and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Then his grin widened, as if lightning had struck his all-too-numb brain "Ah. They aren't demons. They're Picts, first mentioned in Roman records toward the end of the third century. They raided what few Roman settlements there were in Scotland to loot silver to make ornaments to deck themselves out in battle."

  "I couldn't care less about ancient civilizations!" she blustered in disbelief.

  "That's obvious enough. Your attire is completely wrong."

  He'd just had her abducted and he was giving her a lesson in historical costuming? The man truly was insane. Insane people were dangerous.

  "You were attempting to wear a gown of the Grecian mode, I presume," he continued. "The beauty in classical styles comes from flowing, draped lines. The ancients believed that the gods had endowed women with their own natural beauty. They didn't believe in crushing their ladies into torture chambers of bone and steel until they couldn't breathe. So to remain true to the time period, your corset should definitely have been discarded."

  "My corset?" Hot blood warmed Rachel's cheeks, while the cave's coolness suddenly kissed bare skin where her robes had sagged askew. Her breasts, pushed high by the garment, were half revealed, an edge of stiff-boned silk corset visible to the Glen Lyon's eyes—eyes that were suddenly anything but vague and distracted. His gaze lingered on breasts suddenly blushed with heat.

  Clenching her teeth, Rachel jerked up her robes with trembling fingers. "I suppose you're going to ravish me," she said, straining to keep him from guessing how the prospect terrified her. "I warn you, no matter what horrendous, savage, vile things you do to my body, sir, you cannot touch my soul."

  The Glen Lyon's gaze sprang away from her breasts. "Ravish you?" he echoed, blinking hard. "Mistress de Lacey,
I assure you, I fully intend to see that everything possible is done to see to your comfort, but there are limits to even my hospitality."

  Rachel stared at him. Was this traitorous coward telling her that she was safe from the horrors she'd been imagining? She should have been elated, relieved. Instead, fury sizzled through her.

  The corner of his mouth ticked upward. Though he hadn't made a sound, the cur was laughing at her. No one laughed at Lord General Marcus de Lacey's daughter!

  "I doubt you would be man enough to take a woman. In fact, I'd not be surprised if you fancied boys." Even Rachel was shocked by what had slipped past her unguarded tongue—acts she'd heard whispered about the army camp. Was she insane? She was all but daring him to prove his manhood by raping her! Yet for the first time since that awful moment she'd been snatched from the garden, she felt as if she'd struck a blow in her own defense. The sensation was far headier than anything so somber as caution. She would rather have been flayed alive than back down.

  His gaze darkened. "A woman who has just been abducted might be wise to mind her tongue."

  "Why else would an outlaw like you keep that pack of beastly urchins? They were threatening to starve me, rape me. Where do you suppose they might have learned about such ghastly things? Perhaps I should ask them."

  "Say a word to them, and it will be the last time you ever speak." He squeezed the words through bloodless lips. "If those children are not the perfect little cherubs you'd prefer, Mistress de Lacey, you can thank your betrothed for that. Children have to work through the unspeakable horrors they've seen any way they can. These—little animals—are only repeating what they've seen. The British army starved their families on purpose, every living thing slaughtered, every shelter destroyed. They were dying by inches. But when that wasn't expedient enough for your betrothed, he sped up the process by setting his ravening dogs on their mothers, their sisters, even their grandmothers."

  Her stomach pitched. "Soldiers can lose control. Even Papa admitted that. It's hardly their commander's fault if a few of the men do despicable things."

  "In my opinion, a commander is responsible for every blade of grass his soldiers crush beneath their boots, but that's immaterial here. Tell me, Mistress de Lacey, would the commander be responsible for what happened if he gave the order to his men to rape and slaughter and kill women and children?"

  The words pierced her, thickening her throat. "Are you even daring to hint that Sir Dunstan Wells, the most honorable officer in his grace, the Duke of Cumberland's army, would do anything so barbaric?" She was fairly frothing with outrage.

  "I'm not hinting anything. The truth is, I have an aversion to officers who believe they are God, and to spoiled general's daughters who play nasty little games with men's lives."

  "I don't play games!"

  "What else do you call battles set up for your entertainment? Men breaking their necks to prove their courage to you, cutting each other down in duels?"

  His accusation affected her like the nettles she'd wandered into as a child, stinging until she squirmed inwardly. "How could you possibly know about—" She choked off the question, glaring at him, but all her resolve couldn't keep telltale heat from spilling into her cheeks.

  "I've been in society enough to have heard all about you. You're quite notorious, in fact."

  Rachel swallowed hard. When she had jested about her challenge with the other officers, it had all seemed incredibly amusing, delightfully mischievous. How could this nobody—this cowardly rebel—make her feel almost ashamed?

  She struck back the only way she knew how. "Perhaps you know me, but I hadn't a clue you even existed until I came to Scotland. But then, a coward and rebel would hardly have moved in the same circles as Lord General de Lacey's daughter."

  "No. That was one misery I was spared. But for the time being, Mistress de Lacey, you and I are going to have to come to an understanding. You aren't holding court among a battalion of besotted men now. You are a guest of the Glen Lyon. If you abide by my rules, you will be released not much the worse for your little adventure. Defy me, and you invite ugly consequences."

  She gave a scornful laugh to cover up her disquiet at the fierce intensity that suddenly shimmered in his hooded eyes, an intensity that made her forget first impressions of clumsiness and ineptitude, leaving behind the aura of a sleepy lion—currents of danger buried deep.

  The trembling in her hands intensified, and she knotted them into fists, her nails cutting crescents in her soft palms. "Nothing you can say will ever make me bow to the will of a poltroon like you," she sneered. "My papa, the general, would rise up from his grave if I ever resorted to such behavior."

  She had meant to mock him. She had meant to drive back her own chill fear. But something stole into the man's eyes, an ember of understanding that made Rachel want to turn away from that probing gaze that saw too much.

  In a heartbeat, that odd spark of understanding vanished, the Glen Lyon's voice cold. "Your betrothed made the error of underestimating me. Don't make the same mistake. In the months since Prestonpans, this coward has learned ruthlessness from a master. I'll do whatever I have to do to force you to submit while you're in captivity. Whatever I have to, Mistress de Lacey. And as you can see, my little band of outlaws will be creatively helpful in their suggestions."

  "What kind of monster are you? They're children. Children!"

  "I try to help them remember that." Storms whipped up in his eyes—gray and blue tempests of something like despair. Then his gaze hardened until she felt it like a dirk blade pressed against her throat.

  "Mistress de Lacey, your stay here can be as comfortable or as miserable as you choose to make it. But if you do anything—anything—to upset those children, I swear this will be the most hellish month of your life."

  "I hardly expected it to be anything else! The only question is why. Why kidnap me? What do you expect to get in return?"

  "Perhaps the pleasure of humiliating your betrothed. Or perhaps the harbor at Cairnleven cleared of the bastard's soldiers."

  "Why clear the harbor? So you and your loathsome rebels can skulk away with your tails between your legs?"

  "Absolutely. My loathsome rebels will leave Scotland with the satisfaction of knowing that we've brought the bastard to his knees."

  "Sir Dunstan would die a thousand deaths before he allowed a miscreant like you to bring him to his knees. You're not going to get away with this, no matter what you threaten to do to me! The British army doesn't strike deals with traitors!"

  "Then I suppose we will be stuck with each other, Mistress de Lacey." He looked about as pleased with the prospect as she felt. "Of course, I suppose I could read through the Cowardly Villain Handbook to find out the procedure for ridding oneself of an unwanted hostage. But at the moment, I have an appointment with your betrothed. There is the small matter of laying out terms for your safe release."

  He spun on his heel and stalked from the makeshift chamber. The oak door slammed shut behind him then Rachel heard the heavy, scraping sound of a thick wooden bar sliding into place, imprisoning her in the echoing silence alone.

  She stumbled to the desk where he'd been sitting, and sank down onto the chair. She bit her lip, hard. She was tired, bone-weary, soul-deep.

  And frightened.

  The words whispered through her consciousness, despite her efforts to crush them. His threat to research a way to rid himself of a hostage had dripped with sarcasm. Yet, would that bitter humor disappear when the Glen Lyon discovered she was right?

  The soldiers might rip Scotland apart searching for her, yet they had been searching for the Glen Lyon for over a year and had never found his lair. It was possible that they might never find her. In time, despite her station as general's daughter, the troops would have to turn their attention back to issues of more pressing national concern. They would be forced to abandon her as one more casualty of war because their honor would never allow them to bow to the demands of someone like the Glen Lyon.
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  "Oh, Papa," she whispered. "What am I going to do?" It wasn't a whimper, but it was close enough to appall her.

  She could almost see her father's thick white brows crash together in a formidable scowl, those piercing general's eyes drilling her with disapproval.

  A soldier never wastes energy on fear, girl. If the enemy captures him, it is the soldier's duty to escape, even if it costs him his last drop of blood.

  Rachel's chin bumped up a notch. Papa was right. Only a weakling or a fool would sob in a corner, waiting for someone else to rescue her. If the army couldn't help her, then she would find a way to save herself.

  The resolution sent renewed strength surging through her. Her gaze scanned the chamber. She was about to cross to the splintered chest against the wall, to search for something to use against her captors, when she saw it, half buried among the litter upon the desk's battered surface: blue-black metal, polished to a deadly sheen.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief.

  Thunder in heaven! The man is a complete idiot! No, even he couldn't be stupid enough to . . . She didn't dare formulate the thought because if she was disappointed, it would be too crushing.

  She rushed over, oblivious to her aching muscles, and plowed through sewing implements and tattered books until her fingers closed around her prize—the Glen Lyon's pistol.

  Chapter Three

  Waiting was hell.

  Gavin sat astride his gelding, his body taut as a steel trap about to be sprung, every instinct for survival he possessed twisted to its highest point. For nearly an hour, he had waited here; the only sounds were those of horse's hooves shuffling against the turf and the thunderous pronouncements of disapproval emanating from Adam, who sat rigidly astride his horse an arm's length away.

  "You might as well fit a noose around your own neck and be done with it," Adam growled, the muscles in his jaw standing out in stark relief. "We could be walking into the middle of an ambush. Sir Dunstan could have a hundred men hiding in the shadows, ready to blast us into hell."