Delight

by Jillian Hunter

  They stopped laughing.

  Rowena nodded in satisfaction. "Please leave me alone with his lordship."

  "I want you inside the keep," Douglas said the moment the two men left. "I want to see your face behind that barred window before I go."

  "Take them with you," she whispered.

  "No. The pleasure of killing Neacail will be mine alone. Kiss me before I leave."

  She raised her face in chaste offering.

  The kiss he took was not chaste. It tasted of sin and promised dark passion. It made Rowena's heart race against her ribcage. He gripped her shoulders as she arched into him, hurting her with his hands.

  "At least wait another day, Douglas," she said when he released her to lean back against the stall door.

  "I can't." There was no place for compromise on that roughly chiseled face. He was, in fact, impatient to be gone from her. "I'm not waiting another year to bed you again either," he added with an attempt at a smile.

  She turned to face the stall, refusing to be patronized.

  Sighing, he kissed the back of her neck. She smelled like rain and soap and sex, and when he remembered how it felt to be inside her, his head swam with a haze of desire that the callous warrior in him coldly ignored. He had shown enough weakness.

  He studied the purple rope burns on her neck. Raw fury swept away every last speck of refined feeling. There would be time for tenderness later. He would not return to her until he had done what needed to be done. And if he failed, well, he would not return at all.

  "Do what Dainty asks of you," he said in a deliberately detached voice.

  She turned, her fingers pressed to her mouth. "You're unwise to go alone. Take Aidan—"

  He spun on his heel before she could finish. His obsession for revenge ravaged his fierce unshaven face. She stepped back at the bloodlust smoldering in his eyes. A stable-boy slipped into the stables, too intimidated by the sight of the warrior's resolve to utter a single word.

  Black panic welled inside Rowena. She knew nothing she did or said would stop him. He had the look of her brothers and father when they went off to battle, to a world where women did not exist. He moved with a power that belied his wounded body. Strength flowed from a hidden source that overrode human limitations.

  The Dragon would fight to the death this time.

  Baldwin's voice rose into the silence of the stable loft. "The princess is worried about him. Why do women fret so much?"

  "I'd have gone with him if he'd asked," Willie said, rolling on his back. "I could use a good battle to get my blood stirring."

  "She said he was hurt." Concern darkened Baldwin's face. "He isna the type to complain or ask fer help."

  Frances hoisted herself up on her elbows. "Some men catch a cold, and they're dying. Others, like Douglas, don't think 'tis manly to show any pain at all. They just cork up their complaining like wine in a bottle and when it gets full, they go out and kill someone to feel better. At least that's what the men I've known did."

  "And ye've known quite a few, Frances," Baldwin said by way of a compliment.

  She stretched back into the straw. "Of course, the men I knew were swine. Douglas is a gentleman now so I can't pretend to know his kind."

  Baldwin chewed a piece of straw. "I wonder what it feels like to be a gentleman."

  "Once a pirate, always a pirate." Willie passed him the bottle of rum. It was empty. "Have a drink."

  "Once a pirate…" Baldwin shook his grizzled head in admiration. "That's the most profound thing I've ever heard in my life."

  "I'm always profound when I'm drunk." Willie hiccoughed. "Isn't that true, Frances?"

  "No, you're always stupid." She peered down into the gloomy stalls below. "But I'll tell you what is true. A pirate needs a crew. He doesn't need three fools in a loft."

  "He doesna need an empty bottle of rum either," Baldwin said, peering down the hollow glass neck. "Willie, ye're a selfish dog, and that's the truth."

  24

  Rowena could not stand it another second. The waiting was killing her. She opened her mouth to complain.

  Her two bodyguards didn't so much as blink. They had stuffed lamb's wool in their ears after her first ungodly tirade three hours ago. They were afraid her caterwauling would weaken them.

  She picked up a tapestried pillow and hurled it from the window seat. Dainty didn't look up. He just raised his leather targe, the Scottish shield, and kept playing his game. She pitched a goblet of wine next. Aidan simply ducked as a wave of burgundy flew over the table.

  They were playing chess in the solar by candle-light in the afternoon gloom while the princess paced circles on the Turkey carpet.

  "You should be with Douglas," she said. "Shame on both of you! Playing games while your lord risks his life."

  They ignored her. They couldn't hear a word she said.

  She marched over to the table. She leaned down, pulled the plug from Dainty's ear, and bellowed: "How can you just sit there moving those stupid things around when he's fighting Neacail alone?"

  Dainty jumped, dropping his pawn.

  Aidan removed his lamb's wool and gave her a blank look. "Did you say something, Your Highness?"

  Her eyes blazed. "Go after him. He needs you. The village needs you. I don't."

  "Can't," Dainty said.

  Aidan shrugged apologetically. "We promised."

  "I swear I won't leave here," Rowena said. "Chain me to the dungeon wall if you do not believe me. Just help him. His right and left arms—that's what he calls you. You are wasting your talents watching me."

  Dainty and Aidan stared at each other for a moment, not denying there was truth in what she said. Rowena held her breath, hopeful, praying. She felt ill. She'd taken only a glass of mulled ale all day.

  "No," Dainty said, shaking his bald head. "Can't leave you here alone. Douglas wouldn't like it."

  "We could chain you in the dungeon, though," Aidan said politely.

  She nudged the chess board with her hip, tempted to push it off the table. "Ride into the village, and summon Shandy and Phelps to assist him."

  "That's not a bad idea." Dainty's face was thoughtful. "We'd have to wait for Douglas to give his approval."

  "I'll do it," she said decisively.

  They returned to their game.

  Rowena slipped from the room.

  Rowena wasn't rash enough to ride out after Douglas again with darkness approaching. She would only be in the way. She could help, though, by enlisting a few of his friends to follow him. He had ordered most of his men to guard the castle, or the village as the people of Dunmoral prepared to move into the outer ward. Rowena decided to order them to guard Douglas instead.

  Within twenty minutes, she had discovered the escape tunnels that ran beneath the dungeon. Dust and sticky cobwebs decorated her hair as she scrambled up the steps and triumphantly shoved at the rust-hinged trapdoor to freedom.

  She smelled mud and mildewed damp in the air, and suspected she had reached a postern-gate passage into the woods that encircled the loch. With any luck a boat would be waiting.

  A boat was waiting in the fading light. So were Dainty and Aidan. Dainty reached down, and calmly hauled her out of the dark hole.

  "I was looking for the privy," she said.

  He brushed a cobweb from her cheek. "We'll be happy to take you there."

  "X marks the spot," Aidan added.

  "I am worried sick about him," she said in a broken whisper.

  "Would you like another cup of mulled ale to ease your worries?" Aidan asked.

  She pulled a pistol from the heavy folds of her dusty velvet skirts. "Get out of the way."

  Dainty backed up immediately. Aidan crossed his arms over his leather jerkin. "Which one of us are you going to shoot?"

  "Shoot me," Dainty said.

  "You can't shoot us both," Aidan said.

  "I'd rather be dead than let Douglas down again," Dainty said.

  Rowena ground her teeth. "I want to shoot you
both! He's in no condition for another battle."

  "Douglas is the Dragon of Darien," Aidan said. "He can't be hurt."

  Rowena shook her head in frustration. "No one believes in dragons anymore."

  Aidan gently took the pistol from her hand. "Well, I do," he said in a quiet voice, "because a dragon was the only one who believed in me. You see, my family thought I murdered my own wife because I was racing our carriage when I lost control of the horses. Never once has Douglas questioned my innocence."

  "Come, princess." Dainty extended her arm. "I'll escort you to that privy."

  25

  Neacail had tricked him. Douglas had gal- loped across bare moonlit moorland and over hill like an avenging chieftain. He'd searched musty caves and secret crevices, his body tense with anticipation, ready for battle.

  All to stalk a shadow.

  Neacail had laid a false trail, leading Douglas farther and farther away from where he belonged. He did not doubt that the tracks were set to lure him from Dunmoral.

  A wolf howled from the distant woods. The eerie sound echoed across the encroaching night and raised the hair on Douglas's nape. There was a warning in the animal's call. Another wolf released a deep-throated reply from the hills.

  His spine rigid, he wheeled the stallion's head and climbed a stormy incline. At first, he did not realize what had disturbed the wolves, creatures who lived on the fringe, as he had. Creatures who were either admired for their thieving habits or despised, but never understood for what they were.

  He could not see the castle at all. Metal-gray clouds like thunderheads obscured the square towers, the irregular outline that strangely had become a home to him. The castle where his princess waited with his young sister.

  Then the clouds began to part, illuminated from behind by a sky of black and gold. Smoke and fire. His heart stopped. For a moment he did not realize that it was the village, not the castle, that had ignited like a torch. Surely by now the Highlanders had taken refuge in the outer ward.

  There would be no more innocent blood on his hands. He pressed his spurs to his mount, giving the animal its head. The horse needed little urging. It was trained to obey. The old earl might have been a flower-growing fool, but he'd recognized good horseflesh. A Scottish gypsy had raised the stallion for racing.

  The fire would spread. The raiders, heady with success, would move to the castle unless Douglas stopped them.

  Douglas and Jerome fought back to back as darkness fell. Aidan had apparently let the young whelp escape the castle to placate Rowena. The smoke was so overpowering that at times they knew each other only by the bump of a shoulder or disembodied shout. Douglas would not have thought the lad had the courage or stamina for such an undignified battle. But perhaps Jerome felt he needed to atone for leading Rowena out of the castle to begin with.

  Douglas appreciated the help. Neacail's men fought mean, and Douglas was admittedly not at his best.

  "Look out!" Jerome shouted as a burly Scots outlaw with a beard hanging to his belly came hurtling from the dark at Douglas like a boar.

  And no sooner did Douglas stop the man with his sword than another jumped Jerome from behind, almost cleaving the lad in half with an ax before Douglas pulled his dagger from his waist and threw it with a deadly accuracy perfected from doldrum days at sea.

  The smoke began to thin. The village lay in blackened ruins. Shandy and Phelps, the two men ordered to guard the deserted village, had climbed the hill to hunt for other raiders.

  Douglas retrieved his dagger, and stretched, letting the cold air flow over his sweating body. The astringent stench of blood and charred wood clogged his nostrils. Moonlight fell across the grim scene. He could not afford to lower his guard. Neacail had not yet been caught.

  Jerome leaped like an acrobat into the water trough to wrestle a raider hiding there. The man died without a sound.

  Douglas grunted in amusement. He admired the boy's energy. His own was dangerously lagging. "A useful skill. You were a traveling mountebank in your infancy?"

  The lad somersaulted down at Douglas's feet. "I've counted three left still looting homes on the hill. What do we—"

  Douglas's sudden shift in posture stopped Jerome midsentence. Simultaneously, they looked up across the moonlit clearing. A light-haired man with a muscular build had just bolted into the single hut that remained standing in a circle of destruction.

  "That would be Neacail?" Jerome said, glancing at Douglas.

  "Aye." Douglas wiped his sword across his breeches. "That's the hut of Old Bruce the Blind Seer. I thought Neacail was too superstitious to burn it down."

  "Thank God you had the villagers moved before this happened."

  Douglas strode past him. "Aye," he said absently. "Thank God."

  Douglas had broken into a run before his companion realized his intentions. He threw his unhurt shoulder against the door of the hut with a war shout that sent a fresh surge of blood through his system.

  He burst into a nest of cowering outlaws. Neacail crouched on the floor.

  He sent three armed men flying before the other three wrestled him to the dirt floor. Somewhere behind him a cat mewed plaintively in a hidden comer of the loft. He struggled against the combined assault of the others, kicking one man in the teeth, breaking his jaw. A stool crashed against his legs. He gripped someone by the throat, and sent another headfirst into the hearth when the wild ululations rose from the night

  Pagan cries.

  "What in the name of Christ is that?" Neacail said, reaching in panic for a pistol that had fallen to the floor.

  Douglas grinned, his white teeth flashing like a wolfs as he slipped his hand into his belt. "Pirates," he said conversationally. "Not your garden-variety privateer who politely wipes his boots on the deck before helping himself to your hope chest, but the scum-of-the-earth, skull-and-crossbones, booty and bottle of rum pirate who's taken an oath in blood to the Brethren of the Coast."

  The doors crashed open. Baldwin fired a pair of flintlock pistols into the air.

  Willie had forgotten his false teeth.

  "Demons," Neacail whispered. " 'Tis true what I heard…"

  Douglas kicked the pistol from the man's trembling hand. He drew his sword. "Nothing short of the Second Coming will stop me this time." Neacail bared his teeth and came at Douglas with a rusty dirk.

  Douglas said a silent prayer and took his revenge, his death blow swift and clean.

  26

  "I will not be carried to my woman on a stretcher," Douglas said, flat on his back, his face a hideous mass of cuts and bruises.

  "Then we'll be roilin' ye in the rest of the way because ye canna walk," Baldwin said as he bumped into the roped bridge rail that hung over the black waters of the loch.

  Douglas swore at the top of his lungs. "Are you trying to kill me when my enemies failed?"

  'If we'd wanted ye dead, we wouldna have joined the battle," Baldwin retorted, backing up to the other rail, which sent a white-hot wave of agony crashing over Douglas's battered body.

  He groaned, trying to ease his frame into a bearable position. "I suppose I should be grateful," he said, staring up at the midnight sky. "No doubt you dunderheads meant to be helpful."

  " 'Twas our pleasure," Baldwin began. "We've—"

  Douglas sat up abruptly, his bellow of outrage so loud and unexpected that Baldwin almost dropped him. "Turn this goddamned stretcher around. I want Neacail of Glengalda's head, and I want it now."

  "Then you'll have to go back to the village and dig up his body before the wolves and worms do their work," Willie said.

  Douglas lowered back onto his elbows, blinking at the castle. "He's dead?"

  The two men carrying him grinned at each other across the stretcher. "Ye dinna remember killin' him?" Baldwin said.

  Douglas subsided onto the stretcher with a scowl. "That pleasant memory has apparently been denied me. Why does my head swim like a lagoon? Have you dolts drugged me to make me docile?"

  "Doc
ile?" The young man being borne across the bridge on the stretcher behind Douglas gave a weak hoot of laughter. "Douglas of Dunmoral does not know the meaning of the word."

  "Douglas of Dunmoral." Douglas sighed. "I suppose I shall die as such. Docile Douglas. The Daisy of Dunmoral."

  Baldwin shook his head. " 'Twas the doctor who drugged ye and yon young warrior. To dull the pain."

  "What pain?" Douglas said. "I am a man. I feel no pain."

  "Douglas!" Rowena could be heard shouting from the gatehouse as the drawbridge was being lowered. "Dear God, he's on a stretcher."

  "Are they dead?" Hildegarde demanded.

  Gemma started to shout. "Is my brother dead? Answer me, Baldwin. I have a right to know!"

  Frances joined in the women's wailing and weeping. 'Twas more than Douglas could bear. He lurched to his feet, swaying as if he would topple off the bridge.

  Baldwin and Willie wheeled him around. Shandy and Phelps moved to his rear with Jerome's stretcher lest Douglas tumble backward off the bridge.

  "Water," Douglas said, pointing down inanely at the loch. Then he looked at the drawbridge. "Gangplank."

  Baldwin grinned ruefully. "Not exactly. Captain."

  Douglas raised a heavy black eyebrow. "Remind me to have you flogged in the morning for insubordination. "

  "Oh, Douglas," Rowena said softly, startling him as she galloped across the drawbridge from behind.

  He pivoted woodenly. He stared at her in wonder, endless seconds of silence elapsing. Tears of relief ran down her face until she giggled and Douglas pulled her clumsily against his chest with his good arm. Then those tears fell on his chest, dampening his filthy shirt.

  Still, he said nothing. He fingered her soft hair with reverence. He gazed down into her face, his eyes glazed, his expression bemused.

  Rowena frowned in suspicion. "Do you not know who I am, my lord? You have a distant look that alarms me."

  Douglas was offended. "Of course I know who you are," he said with swaggering arrogance. "You are my woman. You wait for me when I return from battle. You will bathe me, and I will bed you."