No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  "And to the lairds of old, it was a prosperous night," Alistair interjected, "for many bairns to work the land in times to come were conceived upon that night."

  "A madness with a reason behind it," Skylar commented.

  Her sister choked slightly on her water.

  "I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

  "At one time, of course, a Moon Maiden was sacrificed," Alistair said.

  "That practice ended many, many years ago," Shawna said firmly.

  "Well, that's quite a relief," Skylar said.

  "You would have been quite safe, as the laird's lady," Alistair told her with a mischievous grin. "Now, the lovely Sabrina, an innocent foreigner... she might have done well. But..."—he turned to Shawna—"the perfect sacrifice would have actually been my fair cousin."

  "Alistair!"

  Alistair laughed. "In fact, when we were younger, and Shawna proved to be too great a pest to us older boys, we did upon a time or two determine to tie her to the altar known as the Druid Stone—those standing rocks are known as the Druid Stones, plural—and pretend that we actually might get permission to offer her up to the gods."

  "Alistair!" Shawna protested.

  But Hawk was laughing, and even Skylar's sister seemed amused at last.

  "Actually, I do remember an occasion when they did have you on the Druid Stone. You were spouting away furiously, ready to draw blood, and I think David came along and suggested that you must be let up before your father came out and saw to it that we were all switched for good measure," Hawk told her.

  "Aye, and thank God you taught them about playing cowboys and Indians instead," Shawna said, turning to Skylar. "In your husband's games, my lady, the cowboys always lost."

  "Knowing my husband, I'm quite sure anyone who went against him lost," Skylar said with a wry smile. She caught herself then just before yawning. "I am so sorry... I guess... if you'd be so good as to show us what sleeping arrangements have been made for us, I'd appreciate it very much."

  Shawna glanced down the table to Hawk. "I've vacated the master's chambers for you and your wife, and Sabrina shall have the room to the left of them."

  Hawk frowned, glancing from Shawna to Gawain. "I wrote that you were not to disturb your own living quarters, that I could not stay that long."

  "I did not have my niece make changes, Hawk. Indeed, it seems I have little enough influence over the lass these days."

  "I'm old, Uncle," Shawna said sweetly.

  Hawk winked at Gawain. " 'Tis true, she's nearly decrepit."

  "I'm twenty-four," Shawna said.

  "You shall decay within the week!" Hawk assured her, smiling, but then adding seriously, "We cannot stay, that's why I asked you not to bother unduly with changes."

  "I merely moved a few of my things to leave room for yours," Shawna said as she rose. "If you like, I can escort you—"

  "I do know the way," Hawk murmured somewhat dryly.

  "Of course." Shawna smiled. "Then if you'll excuse me, we had a bit of a trying day here as well."

  "I heard," Hawk told her, staring at her in a way that unnerved her. His green eyes were so like his brother's. "We stopped for an ale at the tavern; I understand that you are quite the heroine among the people, rushing down into the shafts and trying to crawl into the most narrow of the tunnels to rescue a boy."

  Shawna flushed. "We were all within the tunnels; Gawain, Lowell, Alistair, Alaric, Aidan, and I. It is our responsibility, we run the operation, nothing more."

  "It is much more," Hawk assured her. He rose as well, as did the others. He set his hands upon his wife's waist in a gesture that was both possessive and tender.

  "Well, thank you, I shall accept the compliment," Shawna said. "And I will bid you all good night, since you do know the way." She kissed Gawain and Alistair on their cheeks, bidding them good night. She walked to the foot of the stairway, looking back. Hawk remained at his wife's side. They were a gloriously beautiful couple, she so blond and delicate in appearance, he so dark and powerful. Shawna was suddenly quite glad for his happiness, and wretched in her own knowledge that Hawk would soon know that she would have a great number of good deeds to do ahead of her to make up for the treachery she had once practiced.

  "Good night, Sabrina," she said as well.

  Sabrina smiled. "Good night. Thank you for your care and hospitality."

  "It's your sister's home," Shawna reminded her wryly.

  "Still, it's in your care."

  "I hope you'll allow me to show you some of what is MacGinnis property as well," Shawna told her.

  "I'd be delighted."

  "Do you ride?"

  Hawk laughed. "Sabrina is a demon on horseback."

  "I look forward to seeing this land through your eyes," Sabrina assured Shawna.

  "Tomorrow, then," Shawna said. She looked at Hawk. "When we've finished with the books, of course."

  She started up the stairs at last, slowly at first, then fleeing when she reached the second floor landing. She hurried down the hall to the narrower stairway that led to the attic rooms, and found the one she had chosen in the north turret. She entered her room, bolted it, and started pacing.

  There was sufficient room to pace. Once upon a time, prisoners taken in warfare had been kept here, sometimes for months at a time, since Highland feuds could entail the necessity of a fair ransom before a hostage might be released. The room was circular in shape, with two windows. Both were smaller than the window in the master's chambers, but the one boasted steps and a small balcony as well, allowing the castle's "guest" to look out on the world where he or she was no longer free to roam.

  It was fitting that she had come here. She felt like a prisoner.

  She should have returned to Castle MacGinnis, she thought. But then, she'd departed the master's chambers here with such speed that she couldn't possibly have planned a great deal.

  But now, this deed was done.

  She sat upon the bed, shaking. Hawk was home, with his wife. And David would find the real help he needed in his brother now. She had lost complete control of her world, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She rose, distractedly shedding her clothing, donning her nightgown. If David made any of his mysterious appearances tonight, he would crawl into his brother's bed.

  It was what she had wanted; what he deserved.

  What she had planned.

  Yet she felt anxious now, worried that she had lost all chance of communication with David, that, in fact, she had lost David.

  But she'd never had David. And what had once been something of a relationship had been lost five years ago.

  Shawna doused the lights. Mary Jane had seen to it that she had a warm fire here. She curled up in the bed and stared at the flames. She closed her eyes against the light, anticipating a night of uninterrupted sleep.

  * * *

  With the door closed upon the master's chambers, Hawk walked up the steps to the window and balcony while Skylar looked around the room, at the ancient rock walls, the furniture that was hundreds of years old, and the Victorian touches that had added an element of elegance to the room.

  "It's spectacular," Skylar said. She saw where Hawk had gone, and she quickly climbed the steps to join him, slipping her arms around his waist from behind him. "You are truly a diverse man, my love. I've now abided in the most elegant manor home, a tipi, and a castle." She laid her head against his back. "I pray that David is alive, Hawk. I know what it will mean to you."

  He turned at her words, taking her into his arms. "I pray that he lives as well."

  He still had no more evidence that his brother was alive than the mysterious message left with his attorney by a supposed "little jackanapes of a man" that he should come to the Druid Stones on the Night of the Moon Maiden.

  That, and his brother's Douglas insignia ring.

  He kissed his wife's lips lightly, then found that his mouth lingered upon them. "Let's get some sleep, shall we?" he said. "The journey has been agonizin
gly long, and I want to show you my father's ancestral home tomorrow." He was exhausted, but he wasn't sure he wanted to sleep yet. What he'd intended as a gentle brush of affection had created a slow burning within him; he was tired, but not too tired to desire his beautiful wife. "Well, let's at least get to bed," he suggested.

  Skylar came down the steps, her fingers unfastening tiny buttons on her bodice. "There's a great deal here that's stunningly beautiful," she agreed. She turned back to him. "Like Lady MacGinnis."

  Hawk couldn't help but smile. He'd thought the tempestuous days that had begun their marriage were in the past.

  She still questioned him with just a touch of jealousy.

  He came down the steps to her, sitting at the foot of the bed and drawing her against him as he worked at the tiny buttons himself.

  "Shawna is beautiful. She grows more lovely with age. Yet, even when she was just a babe, she was beautiful. Her eyes are so incredibly blue, her hair like ebony."

  "So you have noticed this about her, of course," Skylar said. He realized she had ceased undoing her buttons and was now redoing them just as quickly as he was attempting to unbutton them.

  "Naturally."

  "Oh, God," Skylar groaned. "Was she a part of your past?"

  He laughed, realizing that although Skylar had learned a great deal about his life in America and probably knew his soul better than anyone else alive, she knew little about this part of his past despite all that he had told her on the way to Scotland.

  He met her silver eyes, drawing her closer against him. "I never slept with her, Skylar."

  She frowned. "How curious that there was not... something."

  He shook his head. "Not curious at all. She was infatuated with David when she was a child. He was amused by her at first, then..."

  "Then?"

  "Well, she grew up. And she was stunning and full of life and very proud, and she was charming and flirtatious and reckless. She drove him halfway insane, but I think that she really cared for him. And she taunted him so fiercely because she was jealous."

  "Jealous?"

  "David was his own man. He would not be tricked, coerced, or taunted. He had a place in the government waiting for him, he'd been in the military, he was welcomed in political circles in all of Great Britain and American. I think Shawna was always afraid that she'd give everything to him, then find herself rejected if he discovered himself falling in love with a young woman of greater sophistication elsewhere. But still..."

  "Still?"

  He grinned. "If anything, she's like a little sister to me, and I felt terrible for her after my brother's funeral. She was lost then, completely broken. She could barely talk, even to me. Maybe especially to me."

  "She was very charming tonight."

  "She was."

  "Yet, it seems most apparent that there's some mystery involved in what happened the night your brother was presumably killed. Could the beautiful Lady Shawna have attempted to do away with your brother?"

  Hawk shook his head slowly. "I think not."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I believe with my whole heart that she was in love with him."

  "Then we need to look suspiciously at the MacGinnis men?"

  "Whatever we need to do, we can do in the morning. Douse those lights. And come to bed."

  "Demanding, aren't you?"

  He shrugged. "For tonight, my love, I am the laird of the castle."

  Skylar sniffed, then gasped slightly as he suddenly leapt past her, dousing all the lights within the room, then crashing upon her to land upon the bed. For the longest moment they lay together, entangled in silence as his lips found hers in a deep, slow, sensual kiss.

  Then there was the strangest sound. A rasping so faint Skylar thought she might have imagined it.

  But then, in the shadows of the room, so close to her she could almost feel his heat, she heard a muttered, "Damnation."

  Skylar nearly shrieked aloud. Someone was in bed with them.

  Then she heard her husband speak, his voice trembling. "David?"

  "Hawk?"

  Skylar had been about to scream. She leapt up instead, grasping a match and lighting it in the fire to set the candles aflame once again.

  As the glow illuminated the room now, she realized that she wasn't Lady Douglas.

  David did live.

  As tall as her husband, as dark, as broad in the shoulder, as trim in the hips. Dark hair touched by auburn where Hawk's was black, his green eyes incredibly the same, his features equally handsome in their European planes and angles as Hawk's were with their Indian heritage. The two men stared at one another, then embraced warmly, and the seconds ticked by.

  At last they parted. With no introduction, David Douglas turned to Skylar at last. "Dear God, I am sorry. I was most anxious to meet you, but I didn't intend to crawl into bed on you."

  "Why on earth did you crawl into bed?" Hawk demanded.

  David arched a brow. "Well, I—"

  "You were expecting someone else?" Skylar suggested.

  "Naturally," Hawk moaned, staring at his brother. "Shawna. So she knows you're alive."

  "She does."

  "My God, then... does she know what happened to you, where—David, where the hell have you been all this time?"

  "Shawna knows only that I'm alive. She refuses to see that someone in her family intended to kill me, and is trying to kill her now. And as to where I've been..." He glanced at Skylar. "It can be a long tale."

  "By God! Then the MacGinnises are guilty!" Hawk exploded. "And Father and I handed everything over to them—"

  "Hawk, wait. I don't believe that the entire family is guilty of evil. Oh, they will protect one another—they are Highlanders. But though I'm sure the entire family was trying to protect Alistair from the possibility that I might bring charges against him for tampering with the books, I'm equally certain that they are not all so callous as to ignore an attempted murder."

  "Alistair! I should slit his throat!" Hawk said passionately.

  "Wait, now, I'm not at all certain that Alistair was guilty of anything more than being young and careless. From what I've discovered since I've returned, Alistair appears to have become a fastidious, hardworking businessman. And one willing to risk his own life for others."

  "Then who is guilty?" Skylar asked softly.

  "I don't know, but I will find out the truth. It's a long story, but I'll make it as short as possible. I met Shawna at the stables that night because she wanted to talk. Someone knocked me out before the fire started; yet someone dragged me from it alive, allowing everyone to believe that I was dead. I was given the identity of a Glasgow murderer and sent off on a ship bound for Australia. When I first woke up aboard the ship carrying me to Australia, I fought to convince the ship's master that I was David Douglas, but I was nearly killed for my efforts. I'm not sure it mattered who I was once I came aboard that ship; the man whose identity I had been given was supposed to have been hanged. The captain of the ship thought himself God's vengeance, I believe, while he sold men into virtual slavery in a manner that was not quite legal, making escape all the more difficult. I worked as a convict in Australia for more than four years before finally escaping with a friend, Dr. James McGregor, the little fellow I sent to America with my ring. We escaped with nothing and began working our way across the seas as sailors. In all that time, I'd never been able to convince anyone—other than Jamie McGregor—that I was David Douglas, and not the murderer, Collum MacDonald." David hesitated a minute. "It didn't help matters that we had finally managed our escape because I killed the guard on duty, a vicious fellow determined on whipping another man to death on the rocks. I had to get out of Australia quickly, and I knew that I was going to have to come back to Scotland in person to prove who I was, yet it was a long journey and my friend Jamie was not well. When I heard from some Scottish sailors we encountered that Father had died, I sent Jamie to you while I came here as quickly as possible, took up residence in the caves, and beg
an to keep watch at Craig Rock."

  "You've indeed been through hell, but you should know that Father died of natural causes," Hawk assured him. "Skylar was with him," he added.

  "It was his heart," Skylar said quietly.

  David's fists clenched at his sides. "So he died, and I never saw him again, and he endured the pain of believing until the last day he drew breath that his eldest son had burned to death."

  "Father was a fighter, remember that," Hawk told him. "He was busy manipulating my life with his last breath, so he was assured that his line would continue, at the very least."

  "He didn't stay here," David said grimly. "He chose to live more completely in America—and since then the MacGinnises have ruled here."

  Hawk set a hand upon his brother's shoulder. "David, we will find out the truth." He hesitated. "Is Shawna guilty in this?"

  "Shawna was guilty of bad judgment."

  "No more?"

  "She's yet to prove her complete innocence."

  "But she's part of this now, she knows you're alive, and she has kept the secret?"

  "So I believe. I've managed to keep an eye on the MacGinnises when they don't know I'm about."

  "We'll find the truth," Hawk repeated determinedly.

  "Aye." David clasped his brother's arm. "Aye, that we will, and yet I am nearly sorry that I sent for you. I didn't know at the time that you had a wife, or that you would bring her here. I pray that I haven't put you in danger."

  "He is forever determined to put himself in front of someone's gun or bow," Skylar commented about her husband. "He can surely be in no greater danger here than at home."

  David smiled at her. "But what of you, Skylar?"

  "I shall be careful, I swear," she promised.

  "And that you will be," Hawk warned.

  She sensed or saw something in his eyes. For a long moment, she stared at him, then seemed to draw her gaze from his and clear her throat. "So this is where you sleep as well. We shall have to make some arrangement—"

  "No arrangement, Skylar. I apologize again for so rudely interrupting you. I've business elsewhere tonight."

  "But—I believe others may still be about. You can't just walk out if you wish to keep yourself hidden—"