That wasn’t true. From the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, Colster had made her edgy and too aware of him—and she didn’t know why. She seemed to understand his drives and motivations better than she comprehended herself. He was angry she had responded to their kiss. He’d meant to punish her, but it hadn’t worked as he’d planned.
Nor could she believe she’d responded as wantonly as she had.
Charlotte had always guarded her virtue. It was the only thing of importance she owned that was truly hers to give. She’d been ten when her mother had been murdered, old enough to receive and remember her advice about men. There had been those who had tried, but only Colster had breached her defenses, and she didn’t like it.
She thought about knitting, but knew it wouldn’t relieve the tension inside her. Her lips still tingled and she remembered too clearly the way their mouths had melded together.
Charlotte had to stay away from the Duke of Colster. She didn’t want to understand his faults or forgive his temper. She wanted him angry and distrustful.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t wildly attracted to him.
“He is your enemy.” She spoke aloud, quietly, needing to impress the words on her rebellious senses. “Don’t be a fool.”
A heavy murmur as if answering in agreement escaped him.
She started. What if he’d heard her?
The cynical curve of his lips confirmed her worst fears. He raised the brim of his hat. His gray eyes were sharp, focused as he said, “You’re right, Miss Cameron. Don’t be a fool.”
For a second she feared he knew exactly what she was thinking, and then realized he couldn’t. She hadn’t given away anything, or so she thought until his gaze dropped to her breasts.
She didn’t know what emboldened her to say, “My face is farther up, Your Grace.”
He smiled lazily at her, completely unrepentant. Another insult. Then again, who would have thought the reserved, always refined duke of Colster could be so—Her mind searched for a word. Male. He was very male.
And she was female enough to be secretly thrilled that she’d attracted him. However, her voice was icy when she said, “Your arrogance doesn’t impress me, Your Grace.”
“Was I being arrogant?” he asked with mock sincerity. “I beg your pardon. I assumed I was being rude.”
Charlotte closed her hand into a fist. That was it. Her lustful thoughts toward him vanished. She had her equilibrium back. “Please, don’t assume, Your Grace. Let me assure you, you are.” Now, it was her turn to smile.
“Cheeky, Miss Cameron. And very American. They have no respect.”
“You’re right, Colster,” she said. “We Americans don’t know how to handle ourselves at all around dukes with wandering hands. Then again, that does allow a person a certain familiarity, don’t you agree?”
He gave her a grudging smile, free of any of his earlier hostility. “Very good, Cameron. Let’s be republican. You and I.” He paused a moment before adding in softer tone, “You have a good head on your shoulders. You’ll need it. I am a worthy opponent…however, I am starting to believe you are, too.”
It wasn’t the most flattering compliment, but Charlotte found herself pleased. She folded her hands in her lap, realizing that it might be the moment to offer an olive branch. “I understand your anger. I admit my sister treated you poorly—”
“You encouraged her to do so.”
“Are you purposely trying to make this difficult?” she demanded, all thoughts of a conciliatory tone fleeing. “Yes, I spoke up for her but only after I realized it was in your best interests, too. She loved another man. She would not have been happy married to you.”
“How pleasant of you to say so.”
“How honest, you mean,” she corrected.
“I like you better when you are being rude.”
His dismissive tone sparked her temper. “Why? Because it gives you license to return the rudeness?” She shook her head. “No, I won’t be angry. I have something to say. It deserves to be said. Your Grace—” she started, but he cut her off.
“Colster,” he interrupted quietly. “I think I like you calling me Colster. It reminds me that we aren’t friends.”
“You can call me Miss Cameron.”
His smile was genuine and quick. “Touché.”
She plowed on with the determination for which she was known. “Miranda meant little to you, and she has the right to be happy. I’m only apologizing because I know that a man with your excessive pride and overbearing sense of consequence suffered greatly at being jilted.” There, let him chew on that.
His smile hardened. “You’re right,” he agreed. “She meant nothing to me.”
Charlotte’s sisterly defenses rose. “Then I am glad she married Alex. They were meant for each other.”
He leaned back, his expression inscrutable. “That’s good because that is all they have.”
“Alex is very capable of making money. You don’t control the world, Colster.”
“I do in England, Miss Cameron. He’s not making money there.”
Charlotte crossed her arms. “Well, we aren’t in England anymore, are we?”
“We are,” he assured her. “The king’s reach certainly covers the Highlands.”
He was so smug in his own sense of omnipotence. “Laird MacKenna may be of a different opinion,” she answered.
“Then I shall set him straight,” was the curt answer, but Charlotte had caught the flicker of doubt in his half-hooded eyes.
Suddenly, she understood. “You are on you way to meet Laird MacKenna. Why? He doesn’t like you. Not at all.”
Instead of answering, he said, “If you are wise, Miss Cameron, you will turn on your heels and go running back to London as quickly as possible.”
“And miss this meeting? I think not.”
Grimly, he warned, “Beware of involving yourself in business that is none of your concern.” He started to pull his hat down over his eyes again, but Charlotte’s curiosity had been whetted.
“It is my concern, Your Grace,” she said. “You made it so when you accepted my hospitality for a ride in this coach and in return manhandled me—or is that some sort of medieval feudal right you were exercising?”
His brows came together. “You have a sharp tongue, Miss Cameron.”
“And a sharper wit,” she informed him.
Was it her imagination, or, in spite of her insolence, did she see a ghost of a smile on his lips?
She had. And with his humor, the stiffness seemed to leave him. He appraised her a moment before sitting forward, his manner changing. Without the earlier animosity, he asked, “Why are you visiting MacKenna?”
“Because he invited me,” she said simply, and couldn’t resist adding, “and because you have made it very difficult for me to feel comfortable in London. I’m welcome on very few doorsteps. Which I can handle,” she hurried to assure him, “except that my friends the Seversons are also being forced to share my guilt. They have done nothing save extend the hospitality of their home to me and my sisters. In return, they have been practically shunned by polite society.”
The line of his mouth flattened. “Not because of me. I’ve done nothing.”
“You don’t have to. People are so anxious to please you they anticipate what they believe you want.”
“I can’t control what people imagine—” he started, but was interrupted when the door in the roof slid open. Wind blew rain into the coach’s compartment. Caught up in the furies between herself and Colster, she’d forgotten about the storm outside.
“We’ll be stopping,” Klem said. “The rain’s letting up, but the horses are spent.”
Charlotte couldn’t hide her disappointment. “This morning you had hoped to reach Nathraichean by nightfall.”
Klem frowned down at her. “This morning I did not expect such a storm. We’re done, miss. The horses and us have had enough. I have a cousin with a small inn not far from here by Loch Airi
gh. We’ll stay the night. It will also give us a chance to let him off,” he added, nodding to Colster. “Malcolm will be happy to see us. He doesn’t get much decent custom.” He slid the door shut, the matter closed before Charlotte could question what he’d meant by “decent custom.”
Colster sat up, apparently fine with the arrangement. Charlotte wasn’t. After two days of travel, she really was sick of being in this coach. Before she was tempted to bang on the door in the roof and demand Klem keep driving, His Grace removed his hat and pushed his fingers through his hair. Every hair fell back into place, giving Charlotte a new concern to worry over.
She must appear remarkably untidy. Turning away from him, she repinned her hair the best she could and reached for the hatbox on the floor that held her straw bonnet trimmed in a matching green for her dress.
Having finished with his own hasty toilette, he watched her. It made her self-conscious and her fingers clumsy. She feared the bow she tied under her chin appeared lopsided, but she wasn’t going to fidget with it. She pulled on her gloves and picked up the hatbox, intending to take it with her, and placed her knitting bag inside it.
The coach leaned as they pulled off the road. The ride was rough. It was as if they weren’t traveling on a road at all. The shades were down over the windows because of the weather, but she sensed they drove through a forest. After half an hour of this, the coach came to a halt.
Klem and Fergus jumped down from the driver’s box with a call of greeting. A man’s voice answered in a thick brogue.
There was a moment of almost unintelligible conversation as the cousins exchanged greetings, and then the coach door opened. Charlotte moved forward, her hatbox in her hand, waiting for Fergus to put down the step.
With a flourish, Klem said, “Welcome, miss, to Loch Airigh. The water is over beyond. You can tell where it lies by the fog, but you wouldn’t want to be wandering around at night or you might fall in. This is my cousin Malcolm, who owns the inn.”
He nodded to a man about five feet tall with a balding head, a straggly beard, and a nose that appeared to have been broken several times. A man who Charlotte would wager had been up to no good more than once in his life. “Good eve to you, miss.” He kicked aside a chicken that had been pecking too close to his feet. The bird issued a protest and took a few quick steps out of the way.
Charlotte hung back. Something wasn’t right.
The rain had turned into a mist. Fog drifted along the ground, swirling around the crumbling stone walls of what appeared more a rundown cottage nestled beneath the boughs of overhanging fir trees than an inn. In the gloominess, the light in the small, narrow windows seemed welcoming until a burst of rough male laughter coming from inside punctuated the air.
“Malcolm makes a mutton stew that tastes better than anything that could ever grace a king’s table,” Klem offered, as if to entice her.
Her stomach rumbled loudly.
She wished it hadn’t done that, not with Colster listening. Still, she was hungry. Her last meal had been breakfast, and she’d been so anxious about arriving at Nathraichean she’d not taken the time to purchase anything to take with her for the road.
“Malcolm, go dish Miss Cameron a bowl of that stew,” Klem ordered with the familiarity that made her uncomfortable.
“That I will.” Malcolm turned and left. He walked with a pronounced limp. Charlotte shifted the hatbox to her right hand and offered her left for Klem to help her down. Her shoes sank into a bed of wet pine needles almost as deep as her ankles. “Not many coaches stop here, do they?”
“Malcolm sees to a local custom, miss,” Klem said, moving around to the back of the coach. Charlotte followed.
“I really wish we could reach Nathraichean tonight,” she said. “Do you not believe that we could push on?”
“We’re hours away,” Klem answered, “and the horses need a rest. It’s been a hard drive through that storm. Yes, I could have stopped sooner, but then I would not be seeing my cousins.” He opened the boot to bring out her bag packed with her personal items. Her trunk was tied to the roof. “Malcolm has a room with a cot. It’s not fancy but good enough—” The tone of his voice changed to mild surprise. “Well now, this is a fine saddle.” He’d had to move Colster’s saddle to get to her bag and now took a moment to rub the leather with an appreciative hand.
Colster, who had been left to his own devices, had come around to join them. He took the saddle from Klem. “I need to hire a horse.”
Klem lifted his gaze from the saddle, his expression speculative. “The only horses here are my coach horses.”
“Name a price, and I’ll pay it.”
The coachman gave another appraising look at the fine quality of the saddle, and Charlotte decided it was about only fair Klem knew the identity of the man he’d been carting around. At the very least, both her drivers deserved a more than handsome tip for rescuing His Grace.
It was also a way to pay the duke back for all the difficulties he’d caused her and her sisters.
“He means what he says, Mr. Klem,” she said. “The Duke of Colster has plenty of money to spend on whatever he pleases.” She hadn’t meant to sound quite so bitter, but it didn’t matter because Klem’s reaction was completely unanticipated.
“Colster?” The word seemed to explode out of him. “You are the Duke of Colster? The Maddox?”
“I am the duke,” Colster said impatiently, shifting the weight of his saddle while he reached inside his coat and pulled out a heavy leather money purse. With a world-weary sigh he said, “And, yes, you should receive recompense for your aid—”
Klem knocked the coins Colster was about to offer out of his hand. “I don’t want Maddox money. It’s blood money. If I’d known it was you by the side of the road, I would have run you over.” He turned and walked up to Fergus, who had unhitched the horses and held them by lead ropes. “It’s the Maddox. The bleeding Maddox.”
“Nah,” Fergus said with disbelief, and then looked past Klem’s shoulder, eyes wide in disbelief. “Are you certain?”
“Told me his name himself. Wait until the others meet him,” Klem predicted darkly. He marched into the inn without a glance even to Charlotte.
Fergus’s behavior was equally strange. He backed away from the horses, his gaze not leaving Colster until he turned to run inside the inn.
Charlotte had a very bad feeling—and knew it was her fault.
She’d seen men react this way before. Her father and his friends had this same urgency whenever they set out to deal frontier justice. “Take one of the horses while they aren’t looking,” she advised Colster. “Get out of here.”
“You want me to steal a horse?” he answered, puzzled.
“I want you to save your skin,” she responded. At the same moment Klem, Fergus, Malcolm, and four other men came pouring out of the inn door as if to confirm her worst suspicions. They were big men with barrel chests who rolled up their sleeves and doubled their fists. Malcolm pushed to the lead, an ugly cudgel in his hand that could crack a man’s skull with one blow.
“Run—.” She turned to urge Colster, her earlier grievance forgotten in her anxiety that he escape what was coming his way.
However, her warning caught in her throat when she saw the small pistol the duke aimed at the angry party of Scots.
“Hold it right there, gentlemen,” he commanded. He cocked the trigger.
Chapter 4
The pistol had been stored in a hidden holster attached to Phillip’s saddle. He had used it to put down his horse Dynasty. His skill was equal to putting a hole through a pheasant’s eye at ten paces with it; but he had never dueled, had never aimed a gun at another man. He was relieved his hand was steady and prayed that the powder cap was dry.
Malcolm pulled up short, as did the others.
“I’m not here to quarrel,” Phillip informed them.
“Then you shouldn’t have come at all,” Malcolm answered.
“You’ve the wrong man, mate,�
� Phillip said. “I’ve done nothing to you. I’ve never set eyes on you.”
“Nothing?” Malcolm questioned. “My great-great-great-grandfather and his brother hanged because of your scum of ancestors.”
“Great-great-great-grandfather?” Miss Cameron repeated as if confused. “What is this all about?”
“Go inside, Miss Cameron,” Phillip ordered. “You’re safer there.”
But Miss Cameron wasn’t one to listen to good advice. Especially from him. She stood her ground. “You want to kill him. Why for?”
“For what I said,” Malcolm snapped, his patience at an end. “For the lives of five good MacKenna men. Men who had served their rightful king while he and his were more interested in titles.”
Miss Cameron took a step toward Phillip. “Pretend I know nothing—because I don’t—and explain what is going on.” When Malcolm started to protest, she said, “If you all want me to docilely wait inside, you’d best give me a reason.”
“The reason is the Battle of Worcester when his ancestors sold out all of Scotland and the MacKennas,” Malcolm said.
“When did this battle take place?” Miss Cameron asked.
“Sixteen fifty-one,” Phillip answered grimly.
“Aye,” one of the Scots said. “And it is time to settle the score.”
“His family name was Maddoc then, miss,” Klem explained. “They changed their name when they sold out to the Sassenachs.”
“The what?” she asked, sounding lost again.
“The English,” Klem interpreted. “There was always a rivalry between the MacKenna and the Maddoc, but it turned sour during that battle. Their chieftain sold his pride for an English title. He betrayed our plans to Cromwell, and Charles barely escaped with his life. We helped him, and, for aiding him, five men paid with their lives.”
“But that was a long time ago,” Miss Cameron said reasonably. “It doesn’t have anything to do with any of you.”
“It has everything to do with us,” one of the Scots said, stepping forward. He was almost as tall as Phillip but stronger, meaner. “When Davy MacKenna was hanged, our ancestors swore vengeance, and none of us will rest until it’s done. We were robbed, and that’s why so many of us live dirt poor now.”
In the Bed of a Duke Page 4