No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  "You'd only destroy the life of your own child to honor the MacGinnis name?"

  "Nay!" she cried. "I didn't know, I swear to you, I didn't know."

  "Do you deny that the boy is ours?"

  "No... I don't know. It can't be—except that the lad is... oh, God, where is he?" Shawna demanded.

  "I've seen to him."

  "You've seen to him? I must see him. David, you tell me that the child is mine, but you don't let me see him? David, tell me, where is—Danny?" she demanded in a pained whisper.

  The expression on his handsome face was exceptionally hard. "Safe," he told her.

  "Safe—where?"

  He leaned toward her. "Safe—away from all who bear the name MacGinnis."

  Chapter 21

  Tears flooded Shawna's eyes; she willed them back, furiously blinking. They reached her tower room; he closed and bolted the door before setting her upon the foot of her bed.

  Her child lived. All these years, she had been denied the babe. The cruelest jest of all time had been played upon her, and now she was being asked to pay for the game!

  "David, you don't understand. You had no right to take the boy!" she cried to him.

  "You've had him for four years. You've not exactly given him great maternal care-—"

  Shawna leapt to her feet. "I didn't know! I still don't know, I can't believe... I—"

  "You didn't know that you gave birth to a child?" he demanded hotly.

  She shook her head. "I—"

  "You ask me to believe that?" he demanded incredulously.

  "Damn you, if Danny is our child, how could you take him away?" Shawna cried. She suddenly found herself up and running across the floor to him, slamming her fists against his chest.

  He caught her wrists. She was sorry for her violence; sorry that she had touched him. His fingers wound around her upper arms, he lifted her, eyes burning into her, until he had retraced her path from the bed. He dropped her there, pinning her down as he leaned over her.

  "You've no right to that child."

  "Damn you, David, I didn't know!"

  "How couldn't you know? You had to know that you were pregnant for a child to come so far!"

  "I knew that I was expecting... aye! But I ran away to Glasgow to be away from everyone because I didn't know what had happened that night. And I didn't know what I was going to do after, I was just waiting for the babe... but he came early. I-—I was in horrible pain and the midwife gave me something to drink for it. When I came to, the midwife told me the babe had died. And she handed me a blood-soaked bundle and she suggested that I look and...."

  David suddenly pushed away from her, running his fingers raggedly through his hair. He walked away from her, then spun back to her.

  "I told you to tell me everything! What more have you lied to me about?"

  "I haven't lied to you!"

  "Omitting the birth of a child is strangely akin to a lie, as I see it!"

  Shawna eased up from the bed once again. "There was no reason to tell you, I tried... I tried to let you know that I certainly suffered from the consequences of that night, but then, it didn't make much sense to tell you that we'd had a child who had died without ever drawing breath."

  "And when you saw Danny it never occurred to you that he might be your own?"

  "I was handed a dead baby!" Shawna cried. "I held what I thought was my own dead babe in my arms! The poor, misshapen soul was taken away, buried in the earth in a Glasgow kirk. I thought that Danny was a MacGinnis, aye, but I've three healthy young male cousins who have been known to tarry in the village."

  He continued to stare at her, hard, implacable.

  "God damn you, David, I didn't know!" she cried.

  "Then who did?" he demanded.

  "I—don't know."

  "Who knew you were with child?" he shouted.

  "They all—all my family."

  "Who came to see you in Glasgow?"

  She hesitated.

  "Who?" he demanded.

  "Alistair was the one who came most frequently. He was the one who finally convinced me to come home. But at one time or another, all of them came to see me."

  "Who else from here?"

  Shawna hesitated. She shook her head, lowering it. "No one. Just my uncles and cousins."

  He came walking toward her then, clutching her shoulders, drawing her against him. "At least one of them, my love," he said to her furiously, "attempted to kill me. And, if what you say is true, made incredible arrangements to steal our child—to see it raised as a poverty-stricken ragamuffin to die in the mines! And you refuse to see it."

  "Let me go, David. You've taken the child—"

  "Damned right!"

  "I'll never forgive you for what you're doing now."

  "What betrayal do I choose never to forgive you for?" he demanded. He was shaking. Shaking even as he held her, his eyes glittering a liquid green torment. The warmth suddenly surrounding her was terrifying. She wanted to fight him. She leaned against him instead. "David, for the love of God! Can you honestly believe that I'd have ever allowed Danny to be with the Andersons if I had known?" she whispered. "David, you can't begin to imagine how hurt I was! I believed that my child, our child was dead. David..."

  He was angry still; she knew that he was angry. But his fingers were suddenly moving in her hair.

  "Shawna..."

  She was in pain, she thought. Angry, hurt. And so tense that...

  She wanted him. The passion of her anger seemed to be filling her blood, her limbs, her being. She gripped her fingers into his arms, trying to shake him, trying to make him listen to her, believe her.

  "You have to understand!" she whispered with vehemence.

  "Shawna!" he warned, but her force against him had upset them both. They fell back upon the softness of her tower bed and she told him, "You are insufferable!"

  "Aye," he queried.

  "You need to let me go!"

  "Aye!" he agreed.

  His mouth fused with hers. He kissed her with a wild, emotional passion. His hands were everywhere as his mouth pinned hers. She dragged her fingers through his hair, raked his shoulders. Dimly, she was aware of a rending of fabric. Her purple riding habit was coming open in tatters. The ribbons of chemise and corset were torn. His mouth was against her bare flesh, and somehow, the blaze of fire between them that so awakened her body seemed to ease her soul. The play of his mouth against her breast sent a sudden spiral of lightning shafting through her, and she gasped, suddenly still, then suddenly trembling. Again, her fingers were in his hair. Her body arched and writhed to his. She felt him freeing himself from his trousers, felt the probe of his sex, and clung to him. Wanting him. Wanting him so badly.

  Such passion burned like the great fire that had rendered the stables black ash and rubble, burnt with a heat that could be sustained just so long. Wild, urgent, desperate, furious, it rose like a whipping wind, a storm surge.

  Then was spent.

  David's body strained like a bow, climaxed within her again and again, like waves against the shore. She dug her nails into his back, arching to each great thrust, then shuddering downward as the sweetness of satiation spilled atop her.

  He fell to her side.

  Shawna lay spent, her sense of bewilderment with herself strong. He had taken her child. And she wanted him still. Wanted to be held by him.

  What were they doing to one another?

  She wanted to curl away from him then as well. She wanted to tell him that she hated him, except she knew that she didn't really hate him, she hated the fact that she could no longer deny that someone she had loved and trusted all her life wanted her dead.

  "Shawna?"

  "I want you to leave me alone!" she whispered.

  David was quiet a moment. Then, he said, "Aye," and he pushed away, adjusting his clothing. "I'll leave you be, my lady, but don't play games. You're not so furious with me as you want to be. You can't bear to see the truth, and I have forced you to do so.
"

  "Danny!" she whispered.

  He leaned over her, touching her shoulder. "Shawna, the lad is safe and that is what is important! Now I warn you, m'lady, don't leave this room! Your kin seek to kill you, and I'm afraid that I cannot let you die."

  She rose as he walked away from her. "How can you! How dare you! You tell me that my child is returned, then take him from me. How dare you do this to me, then warn me—"

  "I dare what I do, my lady, because five years ago I fell into your arms—and awoke a dead man. I dare, because I have discovered that in all those years, I had a child. And that child was cast to the wolves."

  "Damn you, you've got to believe me—"

  "Shawna!" he said softly. "It's very difficult to believe what you never tried to tell me."

  "David, you can't just lock me in here. I have to know what is happening for myself!" she cried. "I have to try—"

  "You will stay here. I intend to find out just who is trying to kill us both!"

  He turned from her and started for the door. She raced after him. "David, you can't just leave this way—"

  "Indeed, I can."

  And—as David Douglas, laird of Castle Rock—he departed the room. As the door slammed, Shawna jumped, and stared at it for a long moment, shivering.

  She dragged the knit bedcover from the bed and swept it around her half-clad shoulders, then hurried back to the door, throwing it open.

  David was gone.

  But she hadn't been left unattended. James McGregor sat whittling in a chair at the doorway.

  "How..." she began.

  "Lady MacGinnis," he said, offering her his strange gamin grin. "Laird Douglas is gone, but y'may rest in peace if y'so desire."

  "Rest in peace... they write that on gravestones!" she told him.

  He reddened. "Begging your pardon, my lady. What I meant was that I'd guard y'with me life."

  "David has gone?"

  "Aye, and ye'll not stop him this night, Lady. Trust me. I know him well."

  "You'll protect me—and you'll not let me leave this room as well, I imagine?"

  "M'lady, you do not want to leave your room. Evil is most assuredly afoot."

  Indeed, she was a prisoner. David's prisoner. She nodded to the little man, stepped back in the room, and allowed the bedcover to fall from her shoulders. She ripped away what remained of her ruined clothing. For long moments she stood, shivering. Tears dripped down her cheeks, and she allowed herself the luxury of sobbing like a child.

  But the tears only shook her so long, and she realized that she was standing naked in her bedroom, shaking. She donned a nightgown and a laced and ribboned robe, then went back to the hallway where James McGregor remained.

  "Come in," she told him. "Come tell me just how well you know Laird Douglas. And if you know," she whispered, "for the love of God, please tell me where he's had Danny taken."

  * * *

  Sabrina felt as if she were on fire.

  Life was not fair in any way, shape, or form.

  She had just come from a tomb, for God's sake. She deserved some reprieve. She needed peace and quiet, healing time. She needed to elude Sloan, but now, Shawna and David—having tossed Sabrina's world into chaos!—had gone to fight their own battle, and Skylar and Hawk had deserted her as well.

  The others had just left. Sabrina stared at the closed door, painfully aware that Sloan was behind her.

  "How can you be here?" she whispered, leaning her forehead against the closed door.

  He didn't reply to the question. "Sabrina, get back into bed before you fall down, will you. Please?" he added.

  She didn't move. She should have. She felt his hands upon her shoulders. His grip seemed as hard as steel; there was no way to escape it.

  Just as there had been no way to escape Sloan at the inn when she had inadvertently discovered his room while trying to hide from her stepfather, just as there had been no way out of playing the role that was to doom her to him tonight. It was all laughable, really. Upon just which occasion—out of two!—had they managed to bring about her condition—the first time when she 'd been so afraid, realizing far too late that she should have just told him the truth?

  Or the second time, the following morning, when she had awakened, seduced? In no pain whatsoever, other than that of all but dying of humiliation?

  "I'm all right."

  "Indeed?" he queried, his voice husky at her earlobe. "It appears that you are trying to claw your way out of this room. The door opens freely enough, but there is really nowhere for you to go."

  He suddenly swept her up into his arms.

  "I can walk!" she cried in alarm, meeting his fathomless, dark mahogany gaze.

  "You could fall."

  "I won't."

  "You could hurt yourself."

  "But I won't."

  "You could hurt our child."

  "But—" Staring into his relentless gaze, she fell silent. They had already come back to the bed, and he set her down upon it, her back against the pillows plumped up at the headboard. "Are you so terribly dismayed?" he asked her, sitting by her side. His hand lay upon the whiteness of the sheet, seeming very darkly bronzed. She felt a flush of fever within her. His fingers were very long. His hands were rough and callused from the days he spent on horseback riding across the plains. But she knew their touch could be oddly gentle and rough....

  "Dismayed?" she repeated in an incredulous whisper.

  Was she so dismayed? In the endless hours in the tomb, she had prayed to live. Because of the child.

  "Sabrina, we have to discuss this situation."

  "Discuss the situation? Ah!" There was a bottle of brandy on her bedside table. "Major Trelawny, shall I pour you a drink? I think that I would like one myself—"

  He caught her hand when she would have reached for the brandy bottle.

  "Sabrina, you've just been rescued from vicious kidnappers who left you in a tomb and intended to kill you," he said.

  "All the more reason I should have a drink!" she whispered.

  She tried to free her hand from his to reach for the brandy bottle.

  "Sabrina."

  She bit into her lower lip, staring down at the white sheets. She slowly brought her eyes to his, feeling a rush of color flood her face. She looked to the door longingly again.

  "Sabrina, you can't run away. I would think you'd realize," he said with a trace of humor, "since I am here, in a Scottish castle, that there is nowhere you can go where I cannot follow."

  She stared into his eyes. "I really would like a drink."

  "For courage?"

  "I've plenty of courage."

  "Reckless courage. No drink. Sabrina, you've taken Edwina's potion of herbs and such. You don't need brandy now."

  She did—desperately. But she knew she wouldn't be able to get her hands on the brandy bottle.

  "Right. I need—sleep?" she said hopefully.

  He smiled. She wondered how he could become so arresting with that smile when at times, he looked so very...

  Indian. Savage.

  "Sloan, I—" She broke off. So much for courage. She pulled her hand from his and leapt from the bed. A mistake. She had moved too quickly. She only made it as far as the foot of the bed before she began to feel terribly dizzy.

  "Oh, God!" she breathed.

  But he was there.

  And she was not able to withhold a gasp when, once more, he swept her up into his arms. "No!" she whispered fervently, but he wasn't going to let her fall. He held her, and, as he stared down into her eyes, she could feel the warmth of his breath, the strength of his arms, and the inner fire of his determination.

  "Why are you trying to run away from me?" he demanded.

  "Why are you here?" she cried desperately in return.

  "Well, I didn't know that I'd arrive to discover that you'd been kidnapped, so I can hardly say that I rushed across a raging sea to rescue you," he murmured. "I'm here because Hawk has been my friend all my life, and because James M
cGregor told me the extent of David's problems here. And I'm here because—" He broke off.

  "Why?" she whispered.

  "It doesn't matter right now. The child matters."

  Her lashes fell again. "Look, Sloan, what happened was an accident. Sloan, please..."

  "Put you down? You need only ask."

  She found herself seated against the pillows on the bed once again.

  "Go away?" she suggested softly.

  "Not on your life."

  "You said that I only need ask—"

  "That was the wrong question."

  "Sloan! You don't have to—"

  "I don't have to what?" He reached out, lifting her chin to study her eyes.

  She shook her head. "You don't have to be responsible."

  "How do you ask someone not to be responsible for a life?" he demanded.

  "Sloan, I don't need your help—"

  "I'm not offering my help."

  "No? I do need a drink!" Sabrina insisted.

  "No," he said firmly.

  "I'll not be told what to do—"

  "You need to be told what to do. You think you're a cat with nine lives, but you've used up several that I know about already."

  "Damn you, Sloan, will you please leave."

  "No."

  "Then truly, I need a drink. Just a small brandy. Some doctors suggest that a small amount is actually good for women—women in the family way."

  She reached for the snifter. He took it smoothly from her fingers. His eyes moved over her in a way that made her entire body seem to burn again. "Not that I didn't enjoy you when you had imbibed whiskey so heavily, but this doesn't seem the time... Alas, my dear, you need to learn to be careful with liquor. Too often your goal is to drown yourself in it."

  "How can you be so wretched!"

  Sloan's dark eyes grew very serious. "Drinking isn't good for expecting women. I've heard it from many wise women."

  "What women? Sioux women?"

  He arched a brow. "Yes," he said simply.

  She looked down quickly at her hands. They were still trembling. This was all so absurd. She and Sloan had met under such awful, hostile circumstances.

  And maybe she was just a little bit afraid. Afraid of the night she had been with him, afraid of his strength, afraid of the way he 'd made her feel. And truthfully, mostly, she was afraid because he might be U.S. Cavalry, but he was also Sioux, and he was very dangerous, and what he wanted, he would take; what was right, he would demand.