With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  As if that was not vile enough, the bastard's fame had spread until many of those loyal to the crown even considered him a hero for protecting the beaten dregs of the Jacobites. Such loyalists were weaklings, to be sure, with no stomach for the steps that must be taken to subjugate rebels.

  They were bleeding hearts that wept over a passel of beggar children who strayed into the path of the war, forgetting how many decent, honorable English soldiers had lost their lives driving the Scots away from England's borders.

  Any loyal subject of the king should have been grateful that the soldiers saved England the cost of hundreds of gallows by cutting down the traitor scum in whatever stinking den they had crawled to.

  The mewling do-gooders sickened Dunstan, infuriated him. Their squeamishness had robbed the victory at Culloden Moor of its glory. Instead of viewing the British troops as heroes, they now shuddered as if the soldiers' hands were still warm and wet with blood—the blood of rebels, the blood of traitors who had all but stormed London's own gates. They seemed to forget.

  The only thing they never forgot was each humiliation of Sir Dunstan at the Glen Lyon's hands, every failed attempt to snare the rebel.

  Wells’ jaw clenched. Even now he could hear the Glen Lyon's mocking laughter in the wind, could feel the rebel jeering at him from whatever infernal hole he'd crawled into to escape English justice.

  Wells swore, his gaze sweeping with a commander's intuition across the moors where his men still searched.

  Incompetent idiots! Bumbling fools! How was it possible that the Glen Lyon's messenger had slipped their net? Dunstan had planned it out perfectly, the method they'd use to trail the messenger to the rebel's lair, the way they would run the Glen Lyon to ground. Their pistols had been primed, their swords honed. Every man in the ranks had been hungry for rebel blood and for the purse Wells had offered from his own pocket to the man who led him to his enemy. This animal that had not only defied the king, but dared to take Sir Dunstan's betrothed hostage.

  Wells’ hands clenched on the reins, images of his proud Rachel swirling before his eyes—sable hair, an arrogant lift to her chin, a warrior's eyes in a woman's face.

  The Glen Lyon could not have dealt a more devastating blow to Wells’ career or to his pride. Month after month, the rebel had systematically destroyed the honorable name Wells had built on the battlefield. Time and again the Glen Lyon had forced Wells to face an enemy that he'd never confronted in his military career. Failure.

  It was carved into Wells’ reputation now until every time his name was mentioned, there was an undercurrent of mockery, of contempt that drove him insane.

  Even his men had been altered by those emotions. Men who once would have charged into hell if he'd commanded it suddenly showed the signs of the most dangerous sickness that could infect a regiment—loss of faith in its leader. He could feel their confidence in him slipping away, and he could no more hold it back than he could pin the tide to the shore.

  "Sir Dunstan?" A voice hailed him from behind.

  Dunstan wheeled his huge animal around. A young private charged toward him on a winded gelding, the boy's face ash white and drawn.

  "Did you find him?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. We combed every inch of ground for ten miles. There's not a sign of the man anywhere."

  Rage rose in a red tide before Dunstan's eyes.

  "They say this Glen Lyon and his men are invincible," the youth stammered, "that he's not even human. They say he melts into the very hills."

  "You infernal fool! The Glen Lyon is a man! Just a man. This messenger he sent should have led us straight to his lair. But no. I'm plagued with a passel of sniveling cowards afraid of their own shadow."

  "Sir." A quiet, firm voice cut through his tirade, Dunstan wheeled and saw the stoic face of Captain Darcy Murrough as the swarthy soldier rode his mount out of the underbrush. Only once had Sir Dunstan seen the officer smile. That had been upon the stony outcropping where the Camerons made their final stand. Murrough had been grinning like a pirate's skull as he cut the traitorous bastards down, and Dunstan had known then that he'd discovered a kindred spirit.

  "Damn you, Murrough, tell me you didn't fail me."

  "There are a dozen trails made by two horses, winding all over the place, crossing and re-crossing paths until it's impossible to tell where they are going. We managed to track them all the way to Cairnleven, then all trace of them disappeared."

  "Blast it to hell!" Dunstan slammed one fist into his knee. "I should have captured that messenger then wrung the information out of him at the end of a whip. I could have broken him in five minutes, I vow."

  "You truly believe that?" Murrough was questioning him, an impudence that drove Sir Dunstan wild.

  "The Glen Lyon is far too wily to trust such a vital mission to a weakling. He had to know that his life, and the lives of the vermin he protects, depended on that single man's courage."

  "Courage?" Dunstan spat. "How dare you lay such a word on that rebel dog!"

  Murrough's eyes met Dunstan's, scathingly honest. "I never underestimate my enemies, sir. Much as I hate the Glen Lyon, no one can deny his boldness."

  Was the rebel able to wring such praise even out of Sir Dunstan's own officers now? The notion infuriated the knight. Sir Dunstan would have to send word to his commander that he had been outmaneuvered once again.

  It had been hideous enough to face Cumberland and the rest of the officers after his past defeats. The Glen Lyon had raised the stakes a thousand-fold by taking Sir Dunstan's woman.

  Never had a man looked more a fool than Dunstan did now, his hands empty of the ragged traitor he'd sought for so long, and his betrothed—the darling of the English military, the trophy all men envied him—plucked from the midst of a ball and taken hostage by the very man he sought.

  Worst of all, it seemed that the bastard finally had achieved his goal. Every shipload of refugees the man managed to sneak away from Scotland strengthened his position as hero. Every stolen loaf of bread he pressed into the hands of the starving heightened the sense of mystery, of legend that seemed to swirl about him.

  Now, stealing Rachel from beneath Cumberland's very nose had made the rogue seem invincible.

  Blast, did the man never take a misstep? Never make a mistake? The bastard had complete power again, over him, over Rachel. All Dunstan could do was sit and await the Glen Lyon 's next move.

  No! He'd be damned if he'd pace by the fire and wait. He'd find a way to force the rebel's hand, to drag him out into the open. And when he did Sir Dunstan Wells would be waiting. Dunstan's veins filled with lust for the kill, a dark, primal hunger. Even if it cost him Rachel, Dunstan vowed, he'd make the Glen Lyon pay in blood for his crimes.

  The hills were like a Druid goddess, ageless, lovely beyond the imaginings of a mere mortal. A purple mantle of twilight draped Scotland's peaks and valleys, bathing the land in magic eons old. The wind whispered of legends spun in mystic circles of stone raised up by a people who had faded back into the mists of time. The tang of sea spray and heather mingled, the very essence of enchantment, swirling about Gavin and Adam as they wound through the moors.

  Gavin didn't belong here. He was an Englishman, an outsider. Yet, the ancient magic of this place never failed to move him. Move him, and break his heart as well. Every time he stared out at the fairy-kissed beauty of this land, he thought of the children who had grown up running wild through these hills; of men who had sacrificed their homes, their lives, the futures of their women and children in a hopeless quest for glory; of women who had watched their husbands and sons march away without reproach, their parting gifts to their menfolk the white Stuart cockades that would adorn the Scotsmen's bonnets when they charged into battle.

  It was as if the weight of all their lost dreams pressed down on Gavin's chest, an endless litany drumming inside his head.

  Why? Why am I alive, while they are dead?

  Yet today, as he rode toward the Glen Lyon's encampment, the heather
-scented breeze against his face, there was another, even more insistent dirge of regret that plagued him.

  How could I take an innocent woman captive, embroil her in this disaster between Sir Dunstan and me?

  He pictured her in his mind's eye, stumbling into his cave chamber with her hair tumbled about a face so lovely she’d stolen his breath away. She was the embodiment of every classical goddess or mythical heroine who had ever sparked his boyhood imagination.

  Despite his best intentions, he had done nothing to calm her fears. Instead, he had threatened her, made her feel his power over her. It was an act more worthy of the officer he'd left behind in the glen.

  In the hours since Gavin and Adam had eluded the soldiers who had attempted to trail them, he had done his damnedest to figure out a way to make things right.

  Let her go. It's the only way. The words rippled through Gavin's exhausted mind. In that moment, he thought he would sell his soul to be able to do so, but then his imagination filled with a wreath of childish faces: Barna, his anger and stubbornness a shield to hide agony far too large for his little heart to contain; Aileen, with her sweet, lilting voice that could spin out a hundred bard's songs; Andrew, Catriona, and little Lachlan, who still cried out for their mama at night, and all the other little ones who had no hope but to escape upon the ship that would land at Cairnleven in three weeks' time.

  No. It was impossible to release Rachel de Lacey until the children were safely away from Scotland. Yet, Gavin could sit down with his defiant captive and tell her the truth about why he had resorted to kidnapping her. He could promise her that he had no intention of hurting her, whether or not Sir Dunstan Wells met his demands.

  He could tell her how sorry he was to put her through this ordeal. He winced inwardly. What must she be feeling after a whole day locked in that cave chamber, knowing she was at the mercy of a man she saw as a desperate rebel one step away from a headsman's ax?

  Gavin slipped his fingers beneath his spectacles and rubbed eyes gritty from exhaustion. Guilt only ground deeper as he imagined one of his own beloved half sisters in Rachel de Lacey's place, helpless and afraid. He'd want to kill the son of a bitch who was responsible.

  To kill. Every muscle in his body tightened, a sense of sick futility welling up inside him until he was afraid he might choke on it. That was a lesson Dunstan and others like him had taught him far too well.

  He looked up, stunned to find his gelding nearing the mouth of the cave. God alone knew how long he'd been lost in his own private hell. For once, it seemed, Adam had been angry enough to let him stay there.

  "Get off the blasted horse, Saint Gavin," Adam snapped, flinging himself from his own restive mount. "I'll take care of the animals this time. I'm sure you're just itching to go bury yourself in sackcloth and ashes."

  Adam was reading his mind again, and Gavin could tell it was making his soldier brother disgruntled as blazes. Gavin dismounted and tossed the reins into Adam's hand.

  "There's no way to gloss over what I have become, Adam."

  Adam glared. "And just exactly what are you, brother?"

  Gavin looked away, but he was certain Adam had caught a glimpse of the desolation in his eyes.

  Adam swore. "Gavin, I just wish the world was filled with worthless, cowardly, irredeemable sons of bitches like you. It would be a much better place." With those words, Adam stalked away, leading the horses behind him.

  Gavin watched him for a moment, affection welling up in the wake of his brother's words, but even Adam's fierce loyalty couldn't salve the wounds in his spirit today. Nothing could, except going to Rachel de Lacey, telling her he was sorry.

  He sucked in a deep breath and entered the cave, the coolness closing around him. The walls echoed with the familiar sound of children squabbling, the vague scolding of Fiona Fraser, who tended them as if they were her own babes turned young again. Babes whose blood had nourished Scotland's soil on a half-dozen battlefields.

  The woman turned from where she stood working a crude bowl of dough and smiled at him.

  "I trust ye looked for your brother, that naughty wretch, runnin' up into the hills and worryin' his poor mama."

  "I looked for him," Gavin said, knowing the woman wasn't inquiring about Adam, but rather a boy he had never even seen. Gavin's heart ached as he looked into eyes that had once been vibrant and bright and filled with adoration for her sons. Eyes that were now closed to a reality so harsh she couldn't bear to face it.

  "Well, he'll be back by dinner," Mama Fee said with a breezy wave. "He cannot get enough of my bannocks."

  Gavin gave her hand a reassuring squeeze then went to the chamber door. He knocked, calling out. "Mistress de Lacey? May I come in?"

  "What poor, weak woman would dare defy the wishes of the bold Glen Lyon?" She might as well have called him the scum off of Satan's well, her voice dripped with so much scorn. Amazement jolted through Gavin that she could still sound so resolute after a day of imprisonment.

  Respect made the pity he'd felt for her earlier seem a pale thing. Rachel de Lacey wasn't like any woman he'd ever known before. She left him feeling as if his feet had suddenly grown three sizes and his hands were clumsy hams. He slipped loose the thick length of oak that barred the door, and entered the chamber.

  A stubby candle glowed on his desk, casting the stone alcove into shadow. Rachel stood with her back against the far wall. Her Grecian robes fell in limp, dirt-smudged tatters, skimming her sandal-clad insteps. Her dark hair was wild and wind-snarled, but her eyes gleamed in the candlelight with a rare fire—sapphire blue, filled with courage and resolve and a sense of fierce conviction that Gavin envied.

  It had been so very long since he'd believed in anything—especially himself. He turned and locked the door.

  "Mistress de Lacey," he said to the oaken panel, reluctant to face her. "We need to talk."

  "You won't like what I have to say, you treasonous bastard!"

  The words bit like a lash, but he couldn't suppress the wry twist of a smile that tugged at his lips. Lord, the woman was tenacious! Still spitting fire, stirring up tempests. If anything, a day locked in a cave room had only sharpened her tongue. But he wasn't going to let her infuriate him again. He was going to be patient, downright kind, even if it killed them both.

  "Mistress de Lacey, I know we began badly, but I hope we can make a new beginning."

  "We shall, now that I have your pistol."

  "My pistol?" He chuckled. "I just came from a meeting with your betrothed. Only a fool would charge into such mayhem completely unarmed."

  Gavin groped at his waist, intending to display his weapon. He found nothing for his pains but a handful of waistcoat. No! It was impossible! Had this woman so unsettled him that he'd walked out of the room without the damned thing?

  Heat stung his cheeks and he turned to find himself looking straight down the barrel of-- saints be damned! His own pistol!

  The one blessing was that—with curious children prying about—he hadn't been accustomed to leaving it loaded.

  He grimaced. "Now I'm certain you see why I didn't abduct you myself." He walked toward her, hands stretched out before him. "Mistress de Lacey, I know that you are frightened."

  "You should be the one who is frightened, Master Cowardly. You're the one with a pistol ball just a whisper away from your villainous heart."

  Gavin shook his head with almost tender compassion. "I don't blame you for trying to defend yourself, but the pistol isn't loaded. Now set it down, and we can—"

  "Oh, it's loaded, that I promise you. Pistol balls were stored underneath your nightshirt; the powder flask was tucked into the toe of a boot."

  Gavin froze, his gut clenching. "You didn't—"

  "Load it?" she enunciated with grim pleasure. "I most certainly did."

  "Gunpowder isn't a plaything, woman!" Real alarm jolted through Gavin—alarm that had nothing to do with saving his own skin. "God's wounds, put that gun down! If you didn't load it right, the blasted thin
g could explode right in your face! It's dangerous."

  "I suppose the Cowardly Villain Handbook didn't warn you not to leave a dangerous weapon lying about."

  "This isn't a joke!" Gavin snapped. "The slightest twitch of your finger on that trigger could blow you all the way to England! Now, give that pistol to me."

  "I think not." Her eyes snapped fire. "I intend to keep it as a trophy to show my betrothed when I return home."

  Gavin's jaw tightened at the mere mention of Wells. "Give it to me before you hurt yourself.” He moved toward her.

  "No! Stay right there. If you take another step, I'll shoot." Any other woman would have been making a hysterical threat. Rachel de Lacey's voice was cold steel. "One more step and you're dead. There's nothing I'd like better than to put a bullet through your cowardly heart!"

  She was doing it again. Jabbing at his temper. "From your past escapades, I know exactly what a bloodthirsty little creature you are, Mistress de Lacey, but you will give me that gun before somebody gets hurt." His eyes clashed with hers, his hand reaching up, closing on the German silver barrel.

  "Stop! Don't!" A howl of feminine rage mingled with his own guttural cry of surprise as the pistol spit fire. Pain seared Gavin's side, the explosion reverberating through the Glen Lyon 's cave.

  Chapter Five

  The recoil of the pistol vibrated up Rachel's arm. A thick wave of horror spilled in its wake as the Glen Lyon staggered backward, scarlet blossoming on his gray coat. Her nostrils filled with the stench of sulfur and burnt powder and the sickly sweetness of blood.

  "You shot me!" he accused, incredulous. He staggered to the cave wall, bracing his lean frame against it. His fingers groped for his left side.

  "I didn't do any such thing!" She flung the weapon away as if it had suddenly turned into a snake. "You grabbed the gun and it went off! This is all your fault!"

  She rushed toward him, outrage and panic mingling inside her. "I was never going to shoot you, you blockhead!" she raged, comforted by the fact that he wouldn’t be standing if he were badly injured. "A hostage is no good to anyone once he's bleeding all over the place." She reached for his jacket, intending to bare the wound, but he shoved her hands away. Her stomach rolled at the slippery feel of his blood on her skin.