by Pamela Clare
She whimpered, arched her back to give her breasts more fully to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. And he knew she burnt as he burnt.
He slid a hand down the curve of her waist, grasped her hips, and pressed the thick ridge of his erection against her mound, a foretaste of heaven. “Och, lass, I’ve lain awake so many nights for the want of you.”
Her thighs parted, and she lifted her hips to meet his in a response that was pure female instinct. “Oh, Iain, touch me! Make it stop!”
He heard himself chuckle, even as the blood pounded through his veins, hot and thick, demanding union and release. “I’ll no’ put out the fire so quickly this time, a leannan. There is so much more.”
He grabbed the fabric of her shift in his fist, drew the concealing cloth up her body, then brushed his hand over soft skin of her inner thigh, eager to touch and taste her sweetest flesh.
’Twas then he felt it—the raised flesh of a scar.
She gasped, bolted upright, and jerked her legs together.
But not before he saw.
’Twas a brand in the shape of a T.
For thief.
Her heart slamming in her breast, her body shaking with fear, Annie saw the bewilderment on Iain’s face turn to anger.
His eyes narrowed. “What is it, Annie? Tell me.”
The blood drained from her head, left her dizzy and bereft of speech.
Before she could recover her tongue, he grabbed her ankles, pulled her flat onto her back, and forced her thighs apart. Then his fingers traced her scar. “’Tis a brand, aye? And you are a convict, are you no’?”
“Please, Iain, stop!” She could not bear the shame of being held down like this, as her uncle had held her, and she struggled to free herself.
But he was so much stronger than she, and in the blink of an eye, he had captured her hands, stretched her arms over her head, and restrained her body with the weight of his. He was still hard, the bulge of his sex pressing against hers from behind the leather of his breeches.
“Quit your strugglin’ and answer me.” Fury darkened his face.
She met his gaze, forced herself to speak. “P-please, Iain, dinnae do this.”
For a moment he glared into her eyes. Then his gaze softened. He released her, rose, and went to stand by the hearth. “I’m waitin’ for your answer.”
She scooted to the far side of the bed, hugged her arms around herself, scarce able to believe this was happening. How could she have forgotten?
“M-my name is Anne Burness Campbell, and I—I am no’ a thief.” Her voice wavered, but she forced herself to meet his gaze. “I am no’ a convict. The brand is a punishment from . . . from my uncle.”
Then, feeling strangely removed from her own body, she told him how her father and brothers had been killed at Prestonpans and how she and her mother had eventually been forced to seek shelter with her powerful uncle.
“He saw to it that I wanted for naught. He treated me like a daughter, and he looked so like my father that sometimes I was able to fool myself into believing my father was still alive. I loved him.”
She told him how once in a while a servant or guest would die in a strange accident. Though servants whispered in quiet corners, she’d never suspected her uncle. Not even after her mother had warned her not to trust him. Not until the night she’d gone after her misplaced book and heard her mother’s cries.
“I looked through the crack in the doorway and saw her. He’d bound her to his bed. He was naked, and he was usin’ her . . . in unnatural ways. His hands were wrapped round her throat. He was hurtin’ her, and she was pleadin’ wi’ him to stop.”
She repeated what she’d heard them say, felt her stomach turn.
Enough! Please, stop!
I say when it’s enough. If you no longer wish to play my games, Mara, perhaps your lovely daughter can take your place. Does she have the same taste for pain as her mother?
Tears of grief spilled freely down her cheeks, but she did not feel them. “The next morn’, she was dead, blue marks about her throat. My uncle lied, said she’d fallen down stairs. He didna know I’d seen them.”
Her body shaking uncontrollably, she recounted how she’d taken her mother’s jewels and sewn them into the skirts she’d borrowed from her maid, hoping to make her way to Glasgow and her father’s old solicitor.
“But Uncle Bain caught me. He’d beaten a confession out of my maid, Betsy, and come after me. He turned me over to the sheriff, denied that he knew me, and saw to it the sheriff found the jewels. For three weeks he let me rot in gaol, where the men . . .” She could not speak of that.
“One day, Uncle Bain came to the gaol and gave me a choice—to come home wi’ him or to be branded as a thief and sent over the sea. I wanted to go home. I wanted all to be as it had been. I wanted to forget all I’d seen. But he had murdered my mother. I knew it would be only a matter of time before he did the same to me.”
She swallowed, tried to still her stomach. “When . . . when I refused, he ordered the guards to hold me down, and he . . . he . . . he branded me himself. And he enjoyed it.”
At these last words, her stomach rebelled altogether. She leapt from the bed, grabbed the water pail, and retched until she knelt weak and trembling, her body utterly purged.
She felt something touch her cheek.
The wet cloth.
He wiped her face, lifted her into his arms, and laid her down on the bed.
She curled up against the soft bearskin, unable to cease her shaking, barely aware of Iain’s cleaning up her mess or his pouring her a gill of rum.
He doesna believe you, Annie. No one will ever believe you.
Then he sat down beside her. “Drink, lass.”
She sat up, took the cup with unsteady hands, swallowed, shuddered at the taste.
“Now finish it.”
Uncle Bain’s words echoed unbidden through her mind.
Any man you try to love shall find it—and discard you.
Fighting despair, she went on. “Master and Mistress Hawes bought and registered my indenture in Albany. I’d been wi’ them for three months before the attack. Mistress Hawes hated me and thought me lazy because I didna ken how to milk a cow or darn socks or cook. She took my clothes and made me wear hers. She beat me wi’ a leather strap. When I heard her scream, when I heard the Indians shout their wild cries, I . . . I ran.”
Iain looked at the woman who sat beside him, pale and trembling, her golden hair in a tangled disarray about her shoulders, and fought the urge to comfort her. The lovely green eyes were the same, her creamy skin, her sweet, pouting mouth. But now she seemed a stranger.
She had lied to him. For weeks, she had deceived him. She wasn’t even Annie Burns. She was a cursed Argyll Campbell.
For a moment he said nothing, the only sound the crackle of the fire.
“You lied to me.”
“I am sorry. I didna know you. I told you as much of the truth as I dared.”
“You didna ken me?” The tumult inside him exploded into rage. “I’ve saved your life twice. I’ve bled for you. I’ve slept beside you, held you in my arms, and left your virtue intact. I told you the truth about my life. And yet in all these weeks did you no’ think you could trust me wi’ the truth about yours?”
She lifted her chin, her eyes glittering with tears. “I wanted to tell you. I wanted to trust you. I hated lyin’ to you from the beginning, but I didna think you’d believe me. No one else has. I couldna risk being sold again and findin’ myself the chattel of someone else who would beat me—or worse. I wanted to forget. I wanted my life back. I wanted to be free!”
Her words struck at his heart, but he was too enraged to hear them. “The trouble wi’ a liar, Miss Campbell, is that a man doesna ken what he can believe. Perhaps all is as you say. Perhaps you are a convict and a skilled storyteller doing all she can to avoid justly earnt bondage. How am I to tell?”
“Iain, I am sorry. I didna mean to deceive or hurt you. Yo
u must believe me!”
The anguish on her face tore at him, but his anger was far stronger. “Must I?”
He turned his back on her, grabbed his shirt off the floor, and strode toward the door.
Her voice, small and terrified, followed him. “W-will you tell Lord William?”
Without answering, he stepped out into the night and slammed the door behind him.
William stared at his chessboard, strangely unable to sleep. He’d moved the white queen out quickly and was now trying to ward off her attack with the black knight.
It had taken a damnable eternity to rid himself of the general. Abercrombie had insisted on questioning Major MacKinnon until well past midnight and then pretended to analyze the battle while drinking the better part of a bottle of William’s best cognac.
Thank heaven the general was leaving in the morning.
Abercrombie’s presence had been disruptive and aggravating, but there’d been little William had been able to do about it. The man was his commanding officer. William had never cried to his uncle or his grandsire for political favors, preferring to earn his way in the world so that he might merit whatever praise came his way. Yet he was hard-pressed to see how he was going to tolerate much more of Abercrombie’s foolishness in the waging of this war.
True, it had been entertaining to watch him put Major MacKinnon through his paces shooting at marks, not only because it had angered the major so mightily, but also because Major MacKinnon was such an impressive shot. William would never admit it to anyone but himself, but he envied the major his skill in battle. Not that he himself wasn’t deadly with a flintlock, but William was nowhere near the marksman that the major and his Rangers were. Then again, he hadn’t grown up firing a rifle to fill his belly.
He advanced the knight, checking the white queen’s advance, then pondered the queen’s next move.
What galled William most about Abercrombie’s unexpected visit was that he’d been able to spend no time on the question of Annie Burns—no more amusing dinners, no time to observe her. Still, she was ever in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain he’d seen her someplace before. Yet how could that be true? He certainly would have remembered meeting a woman as lovely as she. Still, the feeling remained.
He’d gotten daily reports from the surgeon, who’d taken a fatherly interest in her welfare, and what he’d heard had only served to intrigue him further—her quick mind, her ability to face sickness and injury without flinching, her apparent concern for the welfare of men she did not know. He’d seen these qualities himself just this evening, when he and Abercrombie had visited the wounded.
And he’d seen something else, too—her fear for Major MacKinnon’s safety and her relief and joy when she saw he was still alive. She cared for him. Deeply. Why that should vex him, William knew not. They were both Highland Scots, both bound to the American frontier, both unmarried—a match, it would seem. But while Major MacKinnon was the grandson of a barbarian laird and descended from ancient Celtic kings, Miss Burns was ostensibly of common birth.
And yet, she was not common at all. Rescued from squalor and death on the frontier, she’d read Shakespeare, pretended rather ineffectively not to know her table manners, and carried herself with a grace and poise more common amongst nobility than Scottish crofters. And she had bested him at chess. None of it fit. She was no mere husbandman’s daughter—William would stake his life on that.
He also found it strange that she did not wish to leave Fort Edward. He’d never met a woman who’d willingly chosen to live here—apart from camp followers, of course. Based on Dr. Blake’s observations, William guessed Miss Burns was afraid of returning to Albany.
With any luck, he’d soon know why. Shortly after Abercrombie had deposited his girth on William’s doorstep, William had sent a man to Albany to seek information about her and the people with whom she’d been living. Surely, they must have come into Albany for supplies now and again. A young woman as lovely as Miss Burns would be hard to forget.
Aye, someone would remember something.
Iain swung his claymore, felt his sword connect with Morgan’s. The shock of steel striking steel traveled from his palms to his wrists to his shoulders. He deflected his brother’s blade, lifted his own, and sliced downward, narrowly missing his brother’s skull.
Morgan thrust his blade into the earth, his face an angry scowl. “What the bloody hell is wrong wi’ you this morn’? That’s the second time you’ve come near to takin’ my head off!”
Iain lowered his sword, caught his breath. “There’s naugh’ wrong wi’ me. You’re no’ payin’ heed.”
“The only reason your blade is no’ lodged between my ears is that I am payin’ heed!”
Iain knew Morgan was right. “Sorry, brother. I’m worried about Connor and the men.”
“This is no’ about Connor! ’Tis about her!”
Morgan’s words cut deeper than any blade, and the rage Iain had carried with him through the night surged up from his gut. “Dinnae speak to me of her.”
“McHugh helped her across the bridge this morn’. He said she looked as if she’d spent the whole night weepin’. Is that your doin’?”
Iain wanted to shout in his brother’s face that Annie Burns was Annie Campbell—a liar and possibly a thief. Yet he found he could not shame her. Nor could he reveal her secret to Wentworth, who would surely see her sold again. As angry as he was, he could not bear to think of her in bondage. And so the truth festered inside him, mired in rage and anguish and his lingering desire for her.
“Shut your bloody gob, or I’ll shut it for you.”
“So it’s a fight you want, aye?” In the blink of an eye, Morgan’s claymore was back in his hands, and he drove hard at Iain, scarce giving him time to ward off blows that surely would have cleaved him apart had they met flesh.
But Iain had been sparring with Morgan since they were lads. He knew his brother’s strengths and his weaknesses. He parried, struck hard at him, forced him backward, and might have driven Morgan’s blade from his grasp had Morgan not foreseen his move and countered with a blow of his own.
They fought like two men possessed, slashing at each other until Iain’s arms ached, his heart hammered, and sweat poured down his face, the clash of steel against steel ringing through the bright morning. The Rangers gathered in a crowd around them, though Iain did not see them.
Then abruptly Iain’s blade flew from his hands, and Morgan’s fist connected with his jaw. He found himself on his back, dazed, the breath knocked from him, the tip of his brother’s sword at his throat.
“You’ve been bested, brother.” Sweat dripped from Morgan’s brow and his breath came fast and heavy. “You shouldna fight when you’re so distraught. You’ll wind up dead.”
Iain knocked his brother’s sword aside, drew air into his lungs, and got to his feet, pain helping to clear his mind. He reached out, clapped Morgan on the shoulder. “You’ve a strong fist and a keen sword arm.”
Then he went after his claymore and strode off toward the river to clean up, aware that his men were staring at him.
He would go see Wentworth and suggest another scout.
He needed to leave the fort.
Chapter 22
Annie stirred the embers and added wood to the fire. It was a warm spring day, but she needed to boil water to make herbal infusions for Dr. Blake, who had been called away by Lord William on a matter of some importance. The herbs had been cleaned and waited to steep in copper bowls on the nearby table.
Behind her, Connor and Killy slept, the last two Rangers to remain in the hospital. Both had been battling fevers, but Connor was now on the mend, thanks to his own infuriating stubbornness—and the little jar of stinging salve. Killy’s belly wound, which luckily had not pierced his entrails, was healing, but the scalp wound on his head had festered badly.
Two more of Iain’s men had died—Alban and Hamish—both of gunshot wounds that had pierced their bellies, sp
illing their own poisons into their blood. Annie had done all she could to relieve their suffering—given them laudanum, cooled their brows, held their hands—and had wept at their passing. The rest of the Rangers had recovered enough to move back to their wee cabins on the island, where they waited for their comrades to return from their mission.
Iain had been gone for six days now, and for each one of those six days, Annie had prayed for him—and feared for him. For all she knew, he lay hurt or was fighting for his life at this very moment. She remembered the endless leagues of their frightful journey through the forest and felt sick when she thought of him thrust into such danger once again.
He’d left that next morning, and Annie knew in her heart that he’d gone away at least in part because of her. Did he hate her so much he couldn’t bear the sight of her?
Weighed down by the gloom of her own thoughts, she turned from the hearth, picked up a basket of linen strips, sat, and began to roll them into bandages, her eyelids heavy. No matter how she tried this past week, she could not sleep, at least not deeply. Plagued by unquiet dreams, consumed by regrets, she’d spent more time staring into the darkness and weeping than asleep.
She’d give anything if she could take that night back. She’d have halted his kisses and told him the truth before he could discover her lie himself. Perhaps then he’d have believed her. Perhaps he’d have found it in his heart to forgive her. Or perhaps it had always been too late.
He was willing to marry you, Annie.
And she would have accepted. No matter that he was a Catholic, the son of Jacobites, a man who despised her king. None of that seemed to matter now. Aye, she’d have married him—and thought herself the luckiest of women.
She loved him.
God save her, but she loved him.
She loved his strength, his courage. She loved his fairness, the protective way in which he led his men—a true son of Highland lairds. She loved his gentleness, the way his big hands, so fierce with rifle and blade, moved tenderly over her skin. She loved the deep blue of his eyes, the velvet of his voice, the exotic markings on his sun-browned skin. She loved his manly smell, the hardness of his body, the way his kisses set her aflame.