There was no doubt he noticed the change in her appearance. His gaze moved over her like naked flame before it lifted to her face. She shivered again at the untamed emotion in his eyes. Desire, possession, and then, disapproval.
Nervousness attacked her composure as he came toward her. "Did you hear the thunder? We're going to have—to cover you up," he said sternly. "You will take a chill."
Before Rowena could protest, he had reached for the yellowed lace runner on the alcove table behind them. Deftly he yanked it out from beneath a pewter candlestick.
Her lips thinned as he settled the dusty lace across the cleft of her breasts, his touch hasty and impersonal. "You are too considerate, my lord."
"Think nothing of it," he said. "You wished to view the portrait gallery?"
She wished to kick him in the shin, but she . merely nodded, her face hot with humiliation as he motioned her to follow. He wasn't a pirate, she fumed inwardly. He was a paragon of piety and pretension. He was a prude and a—a—
"—pain in the neck," she muttered.
Douglas halted in midstep. "Your neck pains you?" he asked, clucking his tongue. "Well, I am not surprised, underdressed as you are."
Rowena very deliberately pulled the lace off her cleavage and dropped it at his feet. "I am in excellent health."
His gaze flickered downward for the briefest instant to the cleavage she displayed. His chiseled mouth tightened at the comers. "So I've noticed. However—" He retrieved the runner and settled it back over the swell of her breasts, his long fingers lingering for a dangerous moment. "—I should have to pinch myself purple if you came down With a lung infection."
Rowena's lips flattened. "How kind you are."
"Not at all," he said airily. "Now come. Your Highness. The dauntless Earls of Dunmoral are awaiting your inspection."
"I was in the black class at the convent," Rowena said unexpectedly as they plunged down an unlit passageway. "I—"
The muffled echo of thunder interrupted her. The air grew damp and pulsed with unrest. Glints of gray-gold light broke through the leaded lozenge-shaped windowpanes. Douglas frowned into the gloom. He was lost again, and he'd never wanted to seduce a woman more than at that moment, to take her against the wall with thunder rumbling around them, to couple with her in a darkened corner. He ached with the primal need to mate. He ached to give her exactly what she was asking for. Yet it would not be enough. The bonds he yearned to forge were not only of the flesh. He had discovered that there was trust and tenderness in his heart that needed to be expressed.
"The black class?" he said "That sounds perfectly ominous."
"I supervised theatrical performances," Rowena said.
"Did you?" I supervised pirate raids.
He led her toward a heavy door. He could hear her breathing lightly to meet his pace. The sound aroused him. He could too easily imagine her breathless in the darkness of his bed, her hair tangled over their naked bodies, his shaft impaling her.
He found the sight of her creamy breasts and back unbearably arousing. He knew serious trouble when he saw it.
'Twas dangerous for a friendly ship to sail up to a frigate with her gun ports exposed. One good giggle in that gown, and she would expose herself too. His masquerade would shatter. Could she ever love a man like him? Could she forgive his past, his attempts to mislead her?
"We talked about forbidden things in the convent," she said.
He reached for the door's iron ring. "You naughty girl."
"The Dragon of Darien was a favorite subject," she said dangerously.
Douglas stared at the unopened door, his heart stopping before it began to pound in irregular strokes.
So she knew. Or definitely suspected. If she knew for certain, they wouldn't be standing alone together in a tunnel of black temptation, sexual attraction and an impending storm charging the air.
Would they?
An unpleasant possibility occurred to him. Women were fascinated by danger. They were often fascinated by the wrong man. Could the princess be attracted to the infamy he wanted to forget? Could he have been ensnared in a trap of his own making?
He could not tolerate the thought, even though he had lived for such risky liaisons in the past. He needed her to believe in him for who he was. He needed her to believe the lie he had created. It made him all the more determined to prove he'd chosen the high road of moral reform… a pirate resisting the charms of a princess. He sighed heavily, wondering if he were strong enough to withstand such temptation.
"Do you know of the Dragon?" Rowena asked.
"I have heard of him," Douglas said in a cautious voice.
"I memorized the tales of his exploits."
His shoulder muscles tensed. "Some people would consider that a deplorable waste of time."
"I thought he was wildly exciting."
"Wildly exciting." He turned around to face her, staring squarely into her eyes. "Do you have any idea what sort of temperament it takes to enable a man to live like that?"
"I know he has done things he probably regrets. I know he abducted the daughter of a Spanish don and held her for ransom on his pirate ship," Rowena said.
Did you know he blew up a shipload of innocent people?
"The rogue deserves to be horsewhipped," he said gravely.
"Some have said he should be hanged," she said.
Douglas mentally crossed himself. "Well, I wouldn't go that far. After all, he did have a letter of marque from His Majesty."
"No, he didn't," Rowena said.
"Yes, he did."
"No," she said slowly. "I've read everything ever written on the Dragon, and the scoundrel sailed under his own whim."
Douglas felt like putting his hands around her white shoulders and giving her a good shake. "I believe you are wrong."
She placed her hands on her hips. "I am an expert on the man, sir."
"And I am—"
He gazed down into her composed face. Calm on the surface, dangerous currents beneath. He wondered who was guilty of the greater deception, after all. He wondered, when all was said and done, who would emerge as conqueror. Purity had a power all its own. Even a sinner such as himself was not immune. "I am undoubtedly mistaken." His eyes glittered with cold irony. "Let us view the portrait gallery. I'll warrant there's not a pirate in the pack."
Rowena examined the painting of a florid-faced man in an ermine tunic. "Who is that?"
"That—that appears to be my great-uncle," Douglas said, deliberately standing away from the lady.
She rubbed the tarnished plate beneath the frame, chuckling to herself. "He's related to you?"
"Indeed, he is."
"The plate says Henry the Eighth. I did not realize you claimed royal ancestry."
"We try to keep it a secret," Douglas said, steering her to a portrait of a plain-looking woman in a ruffled collar and farthingale. "All those hangers-on, you know. Ah—now here is the queen."
"Queen Mary or Elizabeth?" Rowena said.
Douglas looked at the portrait. He didn't have a clue. "Mary-Elizabeth," he said.
"Mary-Elizabeth?" Rowena said with a puzzled frown.
"She's a little known figure in Scottish history. In fact, she was beheaded days after this portrait was painted. 'Tis a most tragic story."
"Is she related to you too?" Rowena asked.
"I don't think so," Douglas said. "But then again no one really knows what she did during the Lost Years."
She brushed around him, the comers of her lips twitching in a smile. She held her body with an unguarded sensuality that almost brought Douglas to his knees. She lifted her face to another portrait, but he was more interested in staring at the curve of her back and buttocks. That dress of hers was indecent. He loved it.
"He does not look at all like you," she stated.
"Who doesn't?"
"Your father." Or the man they both knew bore no relation to him at all.
"How do you—" He lifted his gaze from her backside to the
portrait of the seventh Earl of Dunmoral. Short. Fat. Caterpillar eyebrows drawn into a scowl. "Good God," he said, leaning back against the wall. "I should hope not. I take after my mother's side."
"Which would explain why you do not look much like Matthew either," Rowena said, turning to study him. "Except around the eyes. I do see a resemblance there."
His gaze was merciless. "And have you spent many hours staring into my brother's eyes?" he asked coldly.
Color crept into her cheeks. "Actually, I haven't."
"I suppose that was the purpose of the tryst, to stare into each other's eyes."
"The tryst?" Rowena looked offended. "The word has a romantic connotation."
Douglas searched her face. "You did not come here to seek a clandestine romance?" he said in disbelief.
Her fingers tangled in the lace at her throat. "Not with Matthew," she said irritably.
"You are not in love with my brother?" he demanded.
Rowena giggled. "You have such a silly look on your face, my lord."
She turned back to the portrait. And Douglas did not move, he could not move, wondering what the confounded woman was trying to tell him.
I outrank Matthew, he realized suddenly. Me, the bastard, rogue, and raider, and now I am going to steal his woman because he's stuck in Sweden with a broken leg. He grinned to himself. All in all, it was not looking like such a bad situation.
He frowned as he returned in thought to his previous realization. Rowena was not attracted to who he was but to what she thought he had been. The false romance of piracy had turned many a fair head.
The Dragon was dead. Douglas didn't think he could resurrect the wretched beast if he tried. He had become more like the man he masqueraded than his legend. Quite possibly he had become too high-principled for a princess whose mind was set on raising royal hell.
He was spared from further displaying his ignorance of Dunmoral's family history by Gemma's timely arrival. The girl hurried toward them, red splotches of color on her face. She forgot to curtsy, intent on delivering her message.
"There you are, Douglas, Your Highness. There's been a little trouble in the village. You might want to ride down there right away."
"What manner of trouble?" Rowena asked in concern. "The wolves again?"
Gemma glanced up at Douglas. "The wind has brought a few of the old cots down. There… there was a fire. We should have been better prepared for the winter."
"Are the men ready to ride?" Douglas said grimly, knowing full well that "a little trouble" meant the reivers had struck again.
"Aidan has already gone with Shandy and Phelps," Gemma said quietly.
"Perhaps I could be of help," Rowena said. "I know how to—"
"No." The vehemence in Douglas's voice clearly startled her, but he didn't care. "You will stay here with my sister," he said sternly. "The storm is breaking, and I will not have the worry of you both on my mind."
Rowena scowled. "As you wish."
He strode away without another word. A blue streak of lightning behind the window threw his harsh countenance into shadow before he disappeared.
He took the wooden stairs to the hall at a run, hearing Dainty's gruff voice growling out orders. The former galley slave had gathered the men together, fully armed and eagerly anticipating a fierce battle.
He strapped on his bandoleer over the padded velvet waistcoat, cursing the fashionable breeches and ruffled shirt that would hamper him in the rain. Someone shoved a pair of pistols at him across the table. Gemma threw his brogues down from the gallery. Baldwin brought him his good-luck Spanish broadsword. He gripped the dragon-embossed hilt and felt blood surging through his veins, empowering him.
"I thought I ordered Martin and Roy to guard the village," Douglas said. "They are capable men."
Dainty hadn't taken the time to shave. He wore a black leather jerkin over his bare chest. With his bald head and giant's build, he looked every inch as menacing as the first time he had bullwhipped Douglas senseless in the galley hold.
"They were on guard, sir. But the raiders set fire to a hut where a grandmother watched over five youngsters. The men had a choice of saving lives or taking them."
Douglas cursed. "How long ago did they attack?"
"They hit only an hour ago, in broad daylight," Dainty said. "The bastards have no fear of anything."
Douglas pulled on a pair of black leather gloves. "Then let us teach them what the fear of hell feels like."
18
The raiders had ridden roughshod over the humble preparations for the harvest festival. Shattered crockery and broken trenches lay strewn over the turf. A long trestle table had been cleaved in two by a battle ax. Geese scavenged the tom bags of precious oats and barley. A goat butted its head to be free of its byre, frightened by the confusion.
The heather-thatched roof of one stone hut had been set afire but hastily extinguished. Stinging rain fell on the smoke. No one had been hurt, but quiet terror bruised the faces of the Highlanders huddled at the base of the hill, waiting for their laird.
He walked through the wreckage in grim silence, startled when a child ran up to grasp his large hand for comfort.
His hand.
A half-crippled elderly man, sifting through the debris for his cane, straightened painfully to give him a nod. "Thank God, ye're here."
And like a chorus the words carried across the ravished glen. "He's here. The laird is here. Did I not tell ye he would come?" And he could feel their relief, their hope, their anxiety abating just because he stood in their midst.
A freebooter who had never done an admirable thing in his life. A stormy man who had left carnage in his wake without a backward glance.
And they were his reward, these people and their troubles, granted on the whim of the king known as the Merry Monarch.
He hefted the girl into his powerful arms. "Are you frightened, lassie?"
"Aye, I was." She buried her face in his long black hair. Her chin rested on the strong column of his throat. "But not now."
Henry broke from the huddle to walk with him. "They were full of wickedness, my lord. I canna believe no one is dead."
Douglas gently set the child to the ground. The acrid tang of dying smoke stung his eyes as he glanced around. "What stopped them?"
"Old Bruce the Blind Seer stumbled up to the top of the hill in his nightshirt and pointed his scrawny finger straight at Neacail. The old man looked like a banshee with the wind blowing his gray hair. Gave Neacail the Evil Eye."
Douglas stared through the wisps of smoke and I rain, imagining the scene. "I will send more men to stand guard. If there is any sign of trouble, have Gunther move the entire village into the castle."
"They'll be back." Henry scrubbed his hand over his soot-blackened cheek. "They promised they'll be back."
Dainty plucked a wreath of dried broom and gorse from the wreckage. The villagers watched him in awe, a monster of a man in an armless jerkin who did not seem to feel the icy rain. They did not fear him, the laird trusted him, and that was enough.
"We'll need better horses to ride them down, sir," Dainty said as he settled the wreath on the little girl's head. "Swift retaliation is the only way to stop this sort of intimidation."
Aidan stepped out from behind an overturned cart, a sack of shriveled apples in his arm. "The three of us will go alone," he said.
Douglas looked around at the devastation. "No. Aidan, you stay here to patrol the glen. Dainty, go back to the castle and watch the women. I'll find Neacail."
They didn't argue. They'd watched Douglas pull off too many impossible raids and rescues to doubt either his instinct or ability. He wanted to bring down his nemesis by himself. If he found satisfaction or even death in this, then so be it.
Douglas would do as he pleased anyway, and they would not interfere with what another man needed to do.
Douglas's ride across the storm-swept moor aroused an unexpected reaction. In a strange way it felt like he was back on the Main,
chasing some coveted treasure with a single-minded resolve that bordered on obsession.
Except that instead of muggy swamp, he struggled through bracken underbrush and peat bog that slowed his mount's progress. At least an alligator or Spanish soldier in a steel helmet wouldn't appear out of the shadows to attack him. A Scottish outlaw with a deadly grudge and claymore would. The huge fang-toothed rocks that protruded from the hills could shelter a deadly enemy.
The rain fell now in a gossamer film that clung to his lashes and chilled his skin. Sunlight could blind a man. Mist could deceive him.
Neacail might hold the advantage of knowing the land, but Douglas learned fast, memorizing every boulder and fox den that he passed. He would study the moods of the moors and mist as he had the wind and sea.
A tawny owl hooted from the womb of a pine wood that bordered the moor.
Douglas stiffened and slid from his horse. He lowered his hand to his sword. Unmoving, he listened. Pewter shadows of gloaming gave way to evening.
The woods were alive with the stirring of nocturnal predators. A wildcat stalking a blue hare. A vole shuffled through a tangle of conifers and fallen needles. Water rushed over the smooth brown stones of a burn. He studied the rhythm.
A footfall. So stealthy, so controlled he might have imagined it. A human predator lying in wait. He exhaled in measured breaths.
He unsheathed his sword. The beveled blade shone like silver against the mist. He melted through the trees, his spine rigid with anticipation. Then he was backing toward the burn, his brogues brushing wet clumps of bog myrtle.
"I've been watching you," the man before him said.
Dying wisps of light outlined the male figure in a filthy tartan who stood alone on the footbridge. Neacail of Glengalda, his shaggy ashen hair framing a face that some women would find intriguing. Broken nose. Cruel mouth. Nordic features. He was a head shorter than Douglas but bulkier with the mean strength that comes from surviving on the land. His right arm was bandaged with what looked like a woman's stocking.
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