Then he saw that she was being... chased.
Chased!
Indeed, from the stones burst forth another figure, tall, caped, features hidden beneath a cowl.
What in God's name...?
He'd be damned if any other man was going to get his hands on the girl. Not when he'd come back from hell itself for his own vengeance.
He crouched instinctively at the water's edge.
And he watched.
And waited...
* * *
This is madness.
She'd lived here almost all of her life. She was the lady here; she knew not just every soul who resided in their wild hills and valleys, she knew their life histories as well.
Yet she was being chased.
She had to be dreaming, she told herself. However, this was a very realistic dream. She could feel the dew-dampness of the grass beneath her feet, feel the soft caress of the misty night, the movement of her muscles, the chill touch of the wind....
She could hear the gasping of her breath, the rampant pounding of her heart. She could feel the burning sensation in her lungs.
Oh, God, wake up.
She couldn't wake up. It wasn't a dream. She could hear and feel now the pounding on the earth behind her as her pursuer gained on her.
Then she stepped down upon a rock. Screamed in startled pain, staggered, fell.
It felt as if a thousand needles were ripping into her foot.
The footsteps were still coming from behind her. Coming harder.
Coming closer.
Running.
Coming after her with sheer menace.
She staggered back up, found her balance. Ran again. She had given him time, allowed him to come closer and closer. She zigzagged, realizing that she had been heading straight for the water.
A good idea, perhaps? She was an excellent swimmer. Yet, where would she swim? It was more than a mile across. Perhaps her pursuer could swim as well, swim, and drag her down...
She heard a strange rasping sound and turned back. In horror she saw that the dark figure had drawn a sword. She gasped out again, seeing the sword glitter in the moonlight.
Then suddenly, all light was gone. A cloud had scuttled cleanly beneath the moon, and hills and valley both had been cast into total darkness. She swallowed back a cry and spun, terror filling her heart as she raced along the shoreline.
He was behind her. So close she could hear him, almost feel him, smell him. He was going to reach out, touch her. A scream rose in her throat. Exploded from it.
The cloud slipped slightly. The palest light ventured forth upon the night once again. She veered toward the water, gasping, choking...
Then suddenly, out of the strange glow and shadow of the night, a form appeared.
Tall, massive, in the near darkness.
Huge, growing...
A beast coming from the water. Nay, a man. Nay, a demon.
Rising.
A man's form. Towering against the moonlight, dripping, broad-shouldered, formed as hard and solid as a Greek statue that might have been thrust up from the loch.
Naked—save a sword.
A massive, naked form, risen from the water.
She had lost her mind completely.
But the vision didn't go away.
And she could not stop herself. Her momentum was such that she couldn't stop; nor could she veer away. She saw the sudden, startling, impossible form, and then she crashed straight into the man, beast, or demon who had risen like the mist from the water's edge.
He was real. As solid as rock.
She shrieked in terror.
Hands gripped her shoulders; powerful, rough hands. Cold as ice from the water. Hard pressed against the figure, she could feel muscle and flesh.
She shrieked again, yet before she could fight the steely hold upon her, she found herself cast aside, and falling down to the damp softness of the earth.
She tried instinctively to turn as she fell, to watch what was happening, to discover if she was being rescued—or damned.
She had to catch herself, had to fight herself, if she was going to survive.
But she could not stop her fall.
Her body struck the ground against a cushion of grass; her head struck a jagged piece of rock.
Sharp pain exploded in her head.
As her vision blurred, she saw the naked figure of the man who had seemed to appear like a selkie or demon from the water quickly raise the sword he carried. His steel sliced the air just split seconds after he had cast her aside.
The hooded figure was upon him already, his sword slashing as well.
Slashing air...
Where she had stood just a breath of time before.
The two came clashing together now in a roar of steel.
She saw that much.
But saw them in mist, everything spinning.
Then dizziness seized her completely.
And she saw nothing but ebony mist engulfing her, blacker than the night.
Chapter 3
Oh, God, would this wretched nightmare never end?
Her head was spinning.
She lay somewhere between sleep and awareness, yet she could not fully awaken.
She was dreaming again, and the dreams were becoming horribly real. She was dreaming that there would be a reckoning. The surviving Douglas was coming from America, bringing his savage kin. He was not so civilized. She lay upon her bed in the ancient master's chamber of Castle Rock, and he and his kind surrounded her. Redmen in vibrant war paint. Feathers protruding from their heads. Their faces garishly colored in crimson, blue, black, their half-naked bodies painted as well. Each carried a weapon, a bow with arrows, a knife, a pistol. Each aimed his weapon at her. One lurked by the wardrobe, two flanked the window steps. One hunched down by the trunk at the foot of her bed. One...
One somehow different from the rest stood framed by the moonglow upon the old stone steps that led to the balcony window.
He was the most chilling of them all.
Somehow so familiar...
They had come to kill her.
A scream rose within her again with a terror so great that she awoke fully. Gasping, she sat up in bed. The savage at her side faded away. No war-painted brave perched by her wardrobe.
Her heart seemed to stop; her head pounded. Her shawl lay on the floor, muddied and damp. Her cotton gown was damp as well, clinging to her flesh.
She hadn't dreamed all of this! She had risen. She had walked to the water. She had run from the cowled man and crashed into the demon from the loch.
And somehow come back here.
A sound, a whisper on the wind, alerted her. She looked up. To the window.
And froze.
The savages were gone, oh, aye. Faded back to the realm of her imagination, from where they had sprung.
But a man remained framed in the window. Different from the savages, for he wore no breechclout, but stood there framed in a silhouette of light and shadow that clearly defined his Highland boots, scabbard and sword, and kilted mode of dress.
He, too, would fade, she thought.
She prayed.
Yet he did not. For long moments she stared at him, waiting for him to do so, both her limbs and her tongue frozen.
He'd come like a ghost. No, dear God, he was real. Silently come into her room. Ghost, selkie, beast, demon, man—did it matter which? He watched her from her window, in the silence of the night, and watched her with a menace that seemed palpable on the night air.
Fool! she chastised herself—whoever or whatever, the figure in the window meant her harm. She needed assistance, fast. She leapt from her bed, ready to race to the hallway, scream, and cry for help. Too late, for the Highland demon had sprung from the old stone steps, accosting her before she could reach the door. Her scream became a gasp, the very air wrenched out of her, as he reached for her and caught her. She heard the cotton of her gown ripping, yet heeded it not in the least as she determined to rac
e onward to escape. But no matter what the strength of her will, it seemed his was stronger, for his hands were on her again, this time seizing her with such force she was spun around into his arms. When she managed to draw breath to scream in earnest, his hand clamped hard upon her mouth. She struggled fiercely, to no avail. She found herself swept up, and down, and pinned by his massive strength as he straddled her on the bed. She twisted, arched, fought wildly. The clouds were again covering the moon, and she could see form and shape but no substance. She couldn't free her mouth to scream, she couldn't wrench or writhe enough to free herself from the grip of his thighs. Lack of breath was making her strength wane; she feared she would black out again. It seemed she had been rescued only to be assaulted anew by a terrible and ruthless strength. A Highlander indeed, and certainly a man,, flesh and blood: he was bare beneath the kilt. Her torn wet gown eluded her more and more with each of her own frantic struggles. But she couldn't cease to fight, she could not, could not...
"Ah, my lady, what then is this? Why, this is so strangely similar to the last time we met. Ah, yes, similar, but then different. If I recall the occasion, you were enchanting then, intending to give so very much! Perhaps not quite as much as you did give me that night, but then, timing is everything, is it not? And my own was rather pathetic at that! But then, I was distracted."
She went dead still. Her blood seemed to freeze within her veins. It couldn't be.
Dear God, no, it couldn't be. She had lain beside his charred remains, smelled burning flesh. She had somehow been dragged from the fire alive. He had not been dragged from it until he had been nothing but the charred remnants of a human being.
He could not be alive.
His hand no longer covered her mouth. He sat quite comfortably straddled atop her now, arms crossed over his chest.
He was, in fact, so very comfortable that he leaned against her, taking a match from the bedside table to strike against the stone of the wall and light the candle upon the small table there.
The room was suddenly flooded with the soft, ethereal, golden glow of candlelight. And she was free. He did not hold her. He straddled her still, staring at her, arms crossed over his chest once again.
Yet now she could not move. She did not attempt to do so, nor did she think to try to scream. She was far too stunned at first to do anything other than stare upward at him and wonder if his face, the voice she heard, could possibly be real, if, indeed, he could be the Douglas.
Returned from the grave.
David, oh, God, David, it couldn't be, but it was, David, sweet Jesus, David...
A gasp of pure disbelief and absolute amazement echoed from her lips.
"Have I distressed you by my appearance? Your heart does seem to be beating quite quickly, my lady. How's the head? Surely, it wasn't so hard a blow. Nothing to compare with the blow I suffered that fateful night."
Her head reeled. "You are dead!" she whispered. "I saw you dead!"
"Then I am a ghost, risen from the loch in flesh and blood. Vengeful blood."
"My God, how have you come to be here?"
"God does, it seem, work in mysterious ways."
"You rose out of the loch! You came naked out of the water—"
"Rather good timing this evening," he said dryly, "wouldn't you agree?"
"But here now, tonight. In my room—"
"Oh, pardon me, my lady. If you will recall, it is my room."
Once again, the fickle moon moved in the heavens. Now it seemed that the room was alive with light, and she saw his face quite clearly. Broad cheekbones, set high and ruggedly hewn. Ink black brows a clean dark arch over eyes the fierce deep green of the forest. Long straight nose, hard squared jaw, generous mouth now compressed to a taut slash against the sun-bronzed darkness of his flesh. The faint line of a scar now ran across his left temple toward his eye. Where the whole of his face had been handsome before, it was hardened now.
He was real, no ghost, no dream. Real, alive.
Something within her leapt with joy. Alive. He was alive. And she was tempted to throw her arms around him, to allow the warmth and happiness that seized her to guide her. She was so grateful to see that he had not died a hideous, terrible death. She wanted to hold him, tell him how glad she was.
Yet she refrained from moving, for he stared down at her with hatred and fury seeming to burn as the very life force within him. And she was afraid, as she had never been before.
She didn't know him anymore. At all.
She didn't know the stranger who stared at her with such hatred.
The man who oh-so-apparently assumed that she had somehow attempted his death in that fire!
She was suddenly chilled.
He was here, no mistake about it.
But he hadn't come to try to help her understand what had happened that night.
He had come, having already condemned her.
"You're back, but you've become a demon then," she told him. "Fierce and cruel; it's in your eyes. Nothing more than a beast—"
"A selkie, would you? Ah, lady, you've yet to see the beast fully furred, taloned, and fanged! Indeed, what irony! I come to wrest my own revenge only to discover that I must first seize you from another man intent upon severing you with his sword. Tell me, Lady MacGinnis, have you not fared so well then since you achieved my supposed murder?"
"I have fared quite well—"
"So you do admit to attempted murder?"
"Nay, I do not!" she cried furiously.
"Ah, how strange!" he murmured, easing himself from her prone and tattered form. He strode some distance from her, hands folded behind his back. He swung back to look at her and said politely, "Yet you thought me dead?"
"I saw you dead!" she whispered.
"Alas, my dear, you did not. And you claim to have done so well, yet when I am eager to strangle you myself, I find I must first battle an unknown thug."
"The man who chased me!" she gasped. That David was alive was a shock. That she had been chased by another assailant as well was simply too incredible to be fathomed.
"Who was he?" David demanded sharply.
"I've no idea, I never saw his face."
"Why did he chase you?"
How in God's name should I know? she asked herself.
Shawna sat up, determined that she must have more dignity for this conversation. She was at such a terrible disadvantage. So stunned. So sweetly relieved and disbelieving to see him alive, yet... so unnerved by his restrained yet furious manner. She tried to draw the torn shoulder of her nightgown upward lest she lose more of her damp gown.
She didn't succeed well.
Because she hadn't replied to his snapped-out demand quickly enough.
He was back before her, wrenching her to her feet by the very hand that attempted to hold her gown in place. His gaze fell upon her breast. She felt the flush of heat that rushed into her face. His eyes swiftly fell up and down the length of her, and a wry smile curved into his lips. His grip around her wrist tightened. The tone of his voice did not change. "Did you not hear me, lass? Why did that fellow chase you? What new treachery has sprung up here in my absence? Who was the man?" he demanded.
"I don't know," she snapped back. Who was he indeed? What was going on? How could she begin to care or think or reason when David was here. Holding her in so merciless a grip.
She forced herself to stare into his eyes and reply heatedly, "You should have asked him."
"I would have enjoyed doing so, but I'm afraid it was his life or my own. We had no time for conversation before I was forced to make his acquaintance through my sword. Pray tell, my lady, just where are your kin? Your great-uncles and cousins? What are they up to these days? Could one of them have now decided that you should have joined me in the coffin those many years ago?"
"How dare you—" Shawna began furiously, but he gave her a hard shake that silenced her, and his green stare sliced into her with the commanding power of a steel blade.
"I dare because you
attempted my murder, my lady. The question here is, how dare you?"
She shivered, the fire within him seemed to burn so hotly. What words could she say? How could she cry out that she did not know the truth, that she had suffered like the damned herself when the night had turned from blaze to ashes? His fingers, clenched around her wrist, just brushed the tender flesh of her breast, and she longed to shriek out in protest of the disturbingly sensual touch. One that he did not even seem to notice.
She had to fight for breath to speak. To moisten her lips in order to form words with them.
"I never attempted to kill you," she said.
Yet his eyes condemned her. She thought that there was nothing she could say that would change him.
Still she tried.
"I tell you, David, I never attempted to murder you, I never wanted you dead—"
"Really? Someone did. And you were the one who lured me to the stables that night."
There was, she realized quickly, no forgiveness within him. Had he brought her back here to make sure she was well aware of who was dealing a deathblow to her when he fell upon her?
"Talk to me, Shawna!" he demanded, his fingers biting into her flesh.
She could no longer bear his nearness; his casual, intimate touch. She drew her fists up between them, slamming down hard against his chest. Talk to him? She'd been trying to talk to him. The truth meant nothing to him; he refused to accept it. "Go to hell, Laird Douglas! You've judged me already; I've nothing more to say." She slammed her hands against his chest again with all the force she could muster, managing to force him back a step. She instantly saw her small reprieve, and knew she had but little chance to quickly make the best of it. She spun around, determined to make a mad dash for the door.
She barely moved a step before he caught her upper arm. She was spun roughly back to face him. To meet the glittering green fury in his eyes.
"You might well have been dead now yourself if I had not come from the water! Do you deny that some conspiracy exists her?"
"I cannot deny evil exists in the world! Or that there are evil men who might wish to steal from us, who might assault a woman in that quest. Now, let me go—"
"It may well be your own family."
No Other Woman (No Other Series) Page 4