by Cait London
Then another thought caused pain to ricochet through his heart. “Does this mean that you agree to be my wife?” he asked slowly. “Or is this part of your new bargain? Or is this to defy your father?”
“I hated him when he hurt you. More than I ever have before,” she said bitterly, trembling in anger. “I’ve decided to make my stand here in the midst of all I’ve dreamed. Fighting him on his own terms. But, my love, my husband, you must take Jack to safety... and yourself.”
She bent to kiss the ring. “Wear this with my love. Take whatever you and Jack need—only leave. You saw my father—he is obsessed with owning me. He won’t hurt me; he needs me too much.”
“You want me to run.” MacGregor’s bruised and cut mouth spat the words into the sunlit air. The ring gleamed in the late-afternoon sun as he curled his fingers into a fist. His knuckles whitened. “Or are you buying your freedom?”
Her fingers paused, her eyes widening. “I want you and Jack safe. Wear the ring as a reminder of our love.”
Venus whined, dragging her leg as she crawled to them. “My poor lovely...”
MacGregor soothed the greyhound gently, murmuring to her. “She’ll lose the leg. Give me a strip of lace to bind it.”
Venus quieted instantly, allowing him to tend the leg. MacGregor stood slowly, then bent and picked up the dog to carry her toward the cabin.
Tiny, Mose, and Pierre ran to them.
“Mon Dieu!” Pierre exclaimed taking the dog. “What has happened?”
MacGregor slumped into Tiny’s huge arms, and fell into darkness....
~**~
He awoke in the cabin that night. Regina’s soft body curved at his back, their baby kicking him. Her hand rested lightly on his side, and her breath brushed across his throat. For a moment MacGregor lay quietly, enveloped by her scent. “My love, my sweet desire,” she murmured sleepily, stroking the hair on his chest.
Venus limped to him, placing her head on his arm. MacGregor stroked the greyhound, noting the way Regina’s small foot had slipped to rest on his. She sighed and whispered something in her sleep, her breasts pushing firmly against him.
Taking care not to wake Regina, MacGregor eased from the bed and walked painfully into the clear moonlit night.
Regina’s ring weighted his hand, and he lifted it to the moonlight, studying the intricate design.
The shadows moved suddenly, and Pierre slipped into the moonlight. He patted MacGregor on the shoulder and handed him a bottle of whiskey. “So the little one’s baby awakes, mais non? Violet would not let anyone tend you but herself... her precious MacGregor. Such a baby... you wear a woman’s lace underwear around your head and faint at the smallest pain. That Violet, she stitched you up with silk... tiny little stitches and kissed every one. Even sewed your ear together.”
MacGregor leaned against the cabin wall, and Venus limped out to lean against Pierre. The Frenchman petted the animal’s head. “She lost the paw, but she is still one pretty damn fine dog, that one.”
MacGregor touched his ear, smoothing the tiny stitches. He lifted the bottle and drank deeply, savoring the burning taste as he swished it around his bruised mouth. Spitting it out, he wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “Her father wants Violet like a man wants a woman. I’ve promised not to kill him.”
“Sacrebleu! That one is crazy mean. When you are feeling better, perhaps we should visit this Englishman and draw his fangs....”
“Tonight. He took something of mine.” MacGregor touched his earlobe.
Pierre’s hand weighted MacGregor’s arm. “You are weak, my friend. Wait.”
“Wrap my ribs if you want to help—and saddle Kansas. I’m going.” MacGregor stared at him for a long moment, then slowly reached for his gun belt, which still hung on the cabin peg.
He strapped it to him slowly, painfully, then straightened. “Mortimer-Hawkes won’t be expecting me tonight. Saddle Kansas for me will you? Then help me with my boots.... Stay here with Violet.”
When Pierre helped MacGregor into the saddle, he warned, “The little one will be angry, my brother. She is very fond of your thick hide. If anything would happen to you, she would scalp me... I am coming, too. Tiny is awake. He will watch the women.”
Wrapped in her paisley shawl, Regina walked into the moonlight. “Like hell,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “MacGregor, you can barely move. It’s insane to be on your feet now, much less counting coup on my father.”
“Chere....” Pierre warned softly.
“Get my horse,” MacGregor ordered curtly, his eyes never leaving Regina. “Now.”
“MacGregor, I will not have you—”
But even as she spoke, Regina knew MacGregor would not bend this time. She could do nothing but move close, circling his body with her arms, praying that he would be safe. “Husband,” she whispered, for if nothing else, she could give him that.
Moment’s later, Regina’s small hand gripped Kansas’s bridle. Trapped in the moonlight and her shawl, her hair flowing around her, her beauty caught MacGregor.
“Move away from the horse,” he ordered. “I’m doing what has to be done.”
“I see. Male pride must be appeased, regardless of pain or tender emotions,” she threw at him bitterly. Then her fingers caught his trousers, her face luminous in the night. “Oh, please don’t do this.”
“Wear your ring or not, Violet... but I won’t run.” Shadowed by his hat, the harsh planes of MacGregor’s dark jaw caught the moonlight.
Regina breathed heavily, recognizing his set expression. Stepping back, she nodded. “Very well, then. If you must go, I insist on going with you. Pierre, please saddle Je t’aime.”
“You stay put.”
MacGregor shifted on the saddle, his ring glowing in the night as he threaded the reins through his fingers. “I won’t kill Mortimer-Hawkes, Violet,” he said, watching her. “Take care of my babies.”
Kansas’s mottled coat slid into the dark shadows, and Pierre touched her shoulder. “Chere, MacGregor is a man of honor and one who must protect his family. Let him keep his pride. He does right, seeking the rattlers in their pit when they least expect him. He loves you. You must trust him now.”
“I trust him completely. It is I who cannot be trusted near my father. Go with MacGregor and keep him safe.”
~**~
Chapter Nineteen
Nigel Mortimer-Hawkes threw his tooled silver chalice into the fireplace of the main room. The goblet rolled out onto the new lumber floors, and he kicked it with his slipper. “This heathen country. Not a civilized being within territories....”
Pagan was civilized, he corrected as he adjusted the sleeves of his satin smoking jacket. The Mariah women were perfect mates for powerful English noblemen. The muslin drapes covering the windows shifted with the night wind, reminding the marquess of the gauze costume and Mariah’s wonderful heathen shawl. The savageness of her Bedouin blood had excited him, but she could act like a lady when needed... just as Pagan would serve him.
Today had proved MacGregor’s weakness. A quick death would make him a martyr. “Rather that he is brought to his knees in front of her. She’ll soon see how weak he is.... I won’t kill him at first.”
Hawkes glanced around his room and grimaced. “How I miss Fordington. Galas and glass windows. Blooded horses and women with cultivated tastes.... Once MacGregor is finished off, Pagan will be easily controlled. Her brat will ensure that.”
MacGregor slid into the room, standing in the shadows as the marquess pivoted toward him. “MacGregor!”
“What’s left of me.” The mountain man’s low drawl held the sound of a mountain cat ready to spring. In the half light MacGregor’s tousled black hair and beard framed his rugged, bruised face.
His eyes darkened savagely, piercing the marquess. A long cut ran across his high cheekbone, and Mortimer-Hawkes noted the tiny, neat stitches in MacGregor’s earlobe. She’d tended him, had she? He would pay for that attention well...
&nb
sp; Surveying the room in a glance, MacGregor rested his weight on one long leg in a lazy stance. He opened and closed his right hand slowly, then rested it on his gun butt. “Don’t bother calling for Tom. We palavered a bit... chatted, as Violet says, and now he’s tied to a tree, resting. Tucked in a few of his men, too. The rest of your help didn’t mind staying put in the root cellar. The door has a good latch from the outside. I guess that leaves us alone to settle this hash.”
In an instant Mortimer-Hawkes grabbed a fencing foil from its stand, slashing the protective tip away. He sliced the blade through the air, a hissing sound filling the room. “So you came back for another taste, my savage friend....”
MacGregor leaned against the log wall and leisurely poured wine into a silver goblet. Raising the glass, he drank slowly, then replaced the goblet on the silver tray. He slowly surveyed the large, empty room, then sauntered to the cherry wood mantel.
MacGregor lifted an ornate gold frame to the light, studying the small oil portrait of Regina and her mother. A young girl, Regina was dressed in a costume to match her mother’s gauze-and-beaded one.
“They look alike,” MacGregor said, running his thumb over the heavy frame.
A heavy gold ring glowed against his dark skin, and MacGregor toyed with it while he studied his grazed knuckles.
“Had to take off Violet’s ring when Tom and I chatted.” Then he carefully replaced the picture to the mantel. “She tells me that the keeper of the Mariah was entitled to wear it. That would be me. You never knew, did you? That her mother and nanny—Jennifer, wasn’t it? kept that from you. Of course, it was under your nose all the time, but you never knew, did you? That the right belonged to the man who kept the Mariah, the ruby and the woman, safe. Since I have kept both safe, again, that would be me.”
Moritimer-Hawkes inhaled sharply, fighting to keep his temper under control. If he had Mariah and Jennifer in his hands now, he would make them pay.... That ring was his, as was Pagan and the Mariah Stone. He had to have them both!
But MacGregor’s eyes were narrowed on him, those hunter’s eyes, waiting for him to take the bait. This lout knew how to taunt, did he?
“Pagan will surpass her mother, given time,” Mortimer-Hawkes murmured, pleased that he could contain his fury and return the taunt. “How does it feel to bed a lady?” he prodded, circling MacGregor. “Did you enjoy her? Tell me, what does she like the best? What part of her flames first?”
But the younger man didn’t react foolishly. He only smiled coldly, and for a moment fear clawed at the marquess. In a desperate show of confidence he slashed a velvet pillow with the foil, leaving it in shreds. MacGregor lifted an eyebrow and yawned.
“Do I bore you?” Mortimer-Hawkes asked mildly. Then the foil slashed across MacGregor’s chest, cutting his shirt.
MacGregor stepped back slowly, drawing his gun before Mortimer-Hawkes could strike again. “Since this is a family matter, I’d like to keep this talk on friendly terms, Mortimer-Hawkes. Just so you’ll know the rules.”
The marquess laughed, lowering the tip of the foil to the floor and placing his free hand on his hip. “You amuse me, MacGregor.... Rules? Tell me, what are the rules to this game?”
MacGregor smiled slightly, then lowered his gun. The first shot splintered the foil at the handle guard. The second shot followed immediately, blasting a hole in the floor an inch from the marquess’s left slipper. “Those are my rules.”
“Pagan is mine!” Mortimer-Hawkes roared, shuddering with anger as MacGregor casually replaced the gun to his holster. In the next instant the marquess lunged at MacGregor.
The younger man moved easily, despite his pain, sidestepping and jerking Mortimer-Hawkes’s arm up behind him. In the next movement the Englishman lay on the floor with MacGregor’s Bowie at his throat. “You take one move toward Violet that I don’t like, Mortimer-Hawkes, and you won’t make another one,” MacGregor stated quietly.
“I want the jewels,” Mortimer-Hawkes muttered wildly, arching his neck away from the blade.
“They’re Violet’s. Since they were her mother’s, I reckon she’ll want to keep them. She’d probably want that picture, too.”
He touched Mortimer-Hawkes’s earlobe with the knife tip. “Violet thinks highly of my earring. Reckon you’ll want to give that back,” he drawled lazily, rising to his feet.
When Mortimer-Hawkes lay still, shaking in fear and anger, MacGregor threw the blade. It stuck deeply in the wood beside the marquess’s severed blond lock. “Now.”
After MacGregor slid into the night, Mortimer-Hawkes’s scream of rage echoed through the empty lodge.
“They work in pairs,” Tall Tom muttered in the night, sagging against his ropes where MacGregor had tied him. “First her, then him. This time he’s left the kill up to her. The bitch is coming to take the rest of me.”
~**~
Regina pressed her hand to her side, caressing the baby. Night sounds of frogs and crickets echoed through the woods. An owl, spreading his wings against the stars, swooped to his prey in the meadow. Tiny and Mose spread their bedrolls near the cabin, sleeping with guns at their sides.
“Oh, please, Lord God, let MacGregor return safely,” she prayed, hugging herself in the paisley shawl.
Three hours passed, then four hours, and over the rugged mountains, dawn began to lighten the night sky. The moon clung to the heavens, fighting the day. A layered mist floated over the stream; the first mockingbird call ventured into the still morning, then another.
Regina watched Rosebud graze with two new longhorn cows as Ned and Daub moved through the stream’s mist to drink.
“MacGregor’s foolish male pride will kill him,” she whispered, tracing the pink dawn sliding over the jutting mountaintops. “Foolish lark in the dead of night to prove a foolish point, whatever that is.... A man’s lofty honor, indeed.”
Dew dampened her cotton nightshift, and it clung to her bare legs. She remembered the morning in the meadow when she awoke to MacGregor’s desperate need.
Bold, slashing knight of her dreams, swaggering a bit when he had his way... disarming her with his courting smile, and fretting about her approaching childbirth.
Scanning the sprawling meadows, Regina inhaled deeply. She’d sought a new land and a new life; she’d found them with MacGregor. She wanted his strength for their child.
MacGregor, spawned in the wilds by unknown parents, vowed to safeguard Jack against the horrors of an orphan. MacGregor, a woodsman, drinking tea with a napkin on his knee to please her.
MacGregor, playing his courting flute, his dark eyes watching her.
MacGregor, loving his son and anxious for the new child before its birth. A gentle man until roused, his eyes caught her with their midnight softness, trapping her heart when she would have it free.
MacGregor listened to her dreams and ideas for ranching, blending his thoughts with hers. He trusted his son and his fortune to her keeping, a gesture of faith that her father would scorn.
When had her love begun? With the bargain on the blanket? When he took her tenderly, despite his desperate need?
Regina plucked a fat lavender head as she passed the garden’s fence row and smiled softly. She brushed the tiny flowers against her cheek. “Whatever he is, MacGregor is the man I love,” she murmured, her smile deepening as her hand ran across the new life within her. “We’ve mated, after all.”
Kansas whinnied, the ghostly white of his mottled coat sliding through the shadows at the edge of the meadow. Then Regina was running, picking up her skirts and flying to MacGregor.
Slumped in the saddle and holding his ribs, MacGregor allowed Pierre to lead Kansas from the woods.
“MacGregor... oh, my love....” Regina called, running faster as he straightened.
The pride, the honor, and the arrogance of MacGregor were in the defiant, wary tilt of his head. His deep-set eyes gleamed in the shadows, a tousled wave cutting across his forehead. “Stay back, wife,” he ordered when she stood near his boot
.
“The devil I will,” she returned hotly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she added in a soft whisper, “Husband.”
Tiny touched her arm, then bent to her ear. “Allow him his pride, missus. A fightin’ man—”
She shook free, slashing the back of her hand across her tear-filled eyes. Stepping nearer, she touched MacGregor’s leg, and his muscles tensed beneath the cloth.
The earring shone in his ear, nestled in the silk stitches. Her ring glowed on his dark skin, his knuckles swollen and grazed. Pride kept him upright, and she wouldn’t take that away from him. Clearing her throat, Regina stepped back.
“Did you accomplish your goal, Mr. MacGregor?” she asked formally, her heart beating wildly as she noted a bloody gash in his cheek.
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, watching her. “And Mortimer-Hawkes is alive.”
Aching to hold him, Regina straightened her shoulders. If MacGregor’s pride needed tending, she would not offend him. “Of course. You kept your promise, as you always do. Let me have your hat now....”
She stepped back, enveloped with love for this tender warrior. “Mose... Tiny... Put MacGregor in my bed. He’ll need his rest.... I intend to sleep with my husband tonight. You have until then to make a larger bed of any sort. Pierre, Lilly cried all night. You’d better tend to her.”
She smiled softly up at MacGregor. “I am so pleased that you returned safely, husband. I’ll mend your shirt.”
Then, wrapping her shawl around her tightly, Regina turned and walked back to the cabin.
“That is one damn fine woman, Two Hearts,” Pierre murmured, watching her stiff back.
MacGregor allowed Tiny to help him to the ground. “Violet’s on the hunt,” he stated tightly, then grimaced in pain. “She’s stirred up, the same as when we raided Covington’s camp.”
Pierre dismounted and chuckled. “Beware, my friend, this time you are the prey she stalks. From the light in her eyes, I say the lady has decided to take a lover into her bed.”