Sethwick must have ridden throughout the night to reach them—a testament to his tracking skills and devotion to his sister.
Five minutes later, the baron thundered through the forest and into the opening. With a cruel yank on the reins, his horse skidded to a stop, spraying Yancy with globs of filth.
Eyes rolling, the bay flicked his ears and swung its head, mouthing the bit. MacHardy had hurt the animal, the cawker.
Upon seeing Sethwick and the McTavish clansmen assembled, MacHardy’s bushy eyebrows launched to his hairline. He schooled his features and pointed at Yancy’s mud-splattered clothing, guffawing. “Ye should have moved, yer lordship. Yer natty togs be ruined.”
“What brings you to these parts, MacHardy?” Giving the Scot a cursory glance, Yancy brushed a speck of muck off his forearm. “And why the large escort?”
He motioned to the motley men accompanying the baron.
MacHardy’s crafty gaze roamed the area. A sneer bent his mouth, and he rested his elbow on the saddle. “I came to find ye. To demand justice.”
“Justice? I find it rather odd you would seek me here”—Yancy jabbed a thumb at the hut—“and not at Craiglocky. Why, pray tell, is that?” He quite enjoyed baiting the liar.
“Cause yer that fat, royal turd in London’s lackey, that be why.” Hatred etched across the planes of his face as the baron pointed a grimy finger at Sethwick. “McTavish attacked Dounnich House, killin’ several loyal Scots. I had me spies embedded there aidin’ in catchin’ the Blackhalls, MacGraths, and Claustons conspirin’ to revolt against the crown.”
Yancy slanted his head and crossed his arms. “Are you claiming to be an agent provocateur, that you’ve compiled evidence against the disgruntled Scottish clans for His Highness, ‘The fat, royal turd?’”
The glade erupted in hearty laughter.
Yancy gathered Skye’s reins and clicked his tongue. “And here I naïvely assumed you pursued Miss Farnsworth and had no idea Sethwick arrived before you.”
“What game be ye playin’, Ramsbury?” Reaching beneath his kilt to rearrange his privates, the baron surveyed the clearing again. “Where be the chit?”
Yancy shoved his foot into the stirrup, and with a curt nod, swung into the saddle. “Lydia Farnsworth never left Craiglocky lands.”
Let the bastard stew on that.
Except for the barest flinch, MacHardy remained stoic.
Sethwick and the others mounted. They pointedly encircled MacHardy, isolating him from his men.
“Your hirelings made a grave error. Have you any idea what that might have been?” Sword drawn and daggers shooting from his eyes, Sethwick edged his stallion forward.
“No, I can see by your face, you haven’t a clue.” With his sword tip, he deftly severed a button from the Scot’s coat. “The lackwits you hired abducted my sister.”
MacHardy gave his reins a reflexive jerk, and his mount sidestepped nervously. The baron’s shrewd eyes thinned to slits as he exchanged a speaking glance with his second in command. A chorus of swords swished from his soldiers’ sheaths.
“That be a grave accusation, and I be takin’ exception to such a foul charge. I had nothin’ to do with any abduction.” Rage contorted MacHardy’s features as he shook his fist. “I should call ye out, McTavish.”
“But you won’t.” Sethwick’s silky tone belied the wrath in his eyes. He rotated his sword in a small figure-eight. “We both know I would choose swords, and my skill with a blade is far superior to yours. Besides, if anyone is a hoggish piece of shite, it’s you. I wouldn’t give you three minutes against me, MacHardy.”
The baron’s jaw worked for moment. His fists clenched as he met Sethwick and Yancy’s sardonic grins. He spat and wiped his mouth with his forearm then stiffened as Sethwick’s men emerged from the woods.
“What be the meanin’ of this?” The baron’s vulture-like eyes narrowed. “Ye be in this together, Ramsbury? The Regent would be interested to hear ye be exploitin’ yer position and power.”
Yancy rubbed his nape again. “Actually, that sounds rather like what you’ve been doing, MacHardy. I doubt Prinny will be eager to hear of your treachery.”
“Ye have nae proof.” Some of MacHardy’s swagger evaporated. He licked his lips, and his gaze darted about the clearing. “There’s nae a man alive who can speak against me.”
“Perhaps, no man can, Sir Gwaine, but I most assuredly can.” Riding behind Dugall, Isobel’s high color added to her exquisite beauty. She speared the baron with an unpitying glare. “And have no doubt, I shall, with pleasure.”
MacHardy snorted and gave a dismissive flutter of his fat fingers. “The word of a tarnished wench? Worthless.”
Yancy sidled his horse nearer. If his position as War Secretary didn’t demand he act with judiciousness, he’d spit the bugger where he sat. Instead, he planted MacHardy a solid facer, knocking him from his saddle.
Yancy guided Skye to the prone bastard.
The horse quivered and raised his head, curling his lip. He blew out a breath. Seemed he didn’t care for the baron’s putrid stench either.
Sir Gwaine struggled to a sitting position and using the back of his hand, daubed at the blood trailing from his split lip.
Yancy leaned over. “Oh, I believe Prinny will be most interested in hearing what Miss Ferguson has to say. She is, after all, the sister of one of his favorite peers and my intended.”
Chapter 25
Two days later, using her hood and Dugall’s wide shoulders as buffers, Isobel avoided glimpsing the frequent, troubled glances Yancy directed her way.
He ought to be bothered, the dunderhead.
Riding left of the path’s center and a horse’s length away, he’d positioned himself in her direct line of vision. Her perfidious gaze kept slinking in his direction until she turned her head the opposite way and laid her cheek against Dugall.
She fully intended to complete the journey to Craiglocky and not speak a word to Yancy. That he blatantly manipulated the circumstances to his benefit peeved her no end. Matters were complicated enough without adding the betrothal lie to the mix.
Had he forgotten about Matilda? What was she to do if he threw her over? If he tossed the girl aside so readily, how long could Isobel expect faithfulness from him if he wedded her?
About as long as a stallion corralled with a herd of in-season mares.
She drew her cloak tighter, chilled both in body and spirit.
Marriage to a rake promised a lifetime of misery. For that reason alone, she wouldn’t touch matrimony to Yancy with a barge pole. Besides, everyone she held dear had found true love. Her parents were devoted to each other, as were Ewan and Yvette and Adaira and Roark. She could add Flynn and his new wife and Lord and Lady Warrick to the list too.
She’d aspired to the same.
Given her limited alternatives—a faithless jackanape or a loveless union—spinsterhood might hold some appeal, after all.
Flimflam and claptrap.
Scalding tears filled her eyes again, and she ducked her head deeper within the hood’s protective folds.
Grayness blanketed everything: the pewter sky, which promised more rain before they made the keep, and the narrow, muddy track they plodded along.
The bleakness encompassing my downtrodden heart.
Even the silvery squirrels scooting up the tree trunks and the smoky-brown hares springing to take cover in the dense charcoal shadows of the underbrush.
Everything—colorless and bland.
Ewan had probably prodded Yancy into making the betrothal announcement. Just like her brother to do something of that nature—under the guise of protecting her, of course.
Men.
She was well and done with the blasted lot of them. Maybe she’d enter a convent. And die
of boredom.
“Leave off jabbing me, ye bloody sod.” MacHardy’s petulant complaint sent a frightened squirrel scampering for the nearest pine and a trio of hoodiecrows to wing. The birds’ raucous cries echoed long after they had disappeared.
Yancy had taken MacHardy and his men into custody with astonishing little resistance. Wise on the part of the surly Scot since to a man, Ewan’s dedicated clan would have splayed the baron open and danced a jig afterward.
He would fare scant better in prison, unless the gibbet saw him dancing instead. His singular reprieve lay in deportation to Australia, and his lands would be forfeit to the crown.
Upon hearing the news of Angus and Dunbar’s deaths, relief swept through her for herself, Lydia, and the Faas children.
Harcourt cantered past, giving Isobel a jaunty salute. He truly was a rogue, but a charming one. She would give up clooty dumpling for a year to know who had darkened his daylights. Even with the bruised eye, and every bit as disheveled as Yancy, the duke appeared rakishly handsome.
Her gaze skittered to Yancy speaking to His Grace in low tones, and her pulse and stomach joggled peculiarly.
Most annoying. And disturbing.
She firmed her lips into a thin ribbon, determined to erect a protective wall against him and the havoc he wreaked on her emotions.
Singing and occasionally humming a bawdy Scottish ditty beneath his breath as he had for the past several miles, Dugall guided his horse around a moss-covered boulder.
Isobel released a trembling sigh. Oh, to be as lighthearted as her younger brother.
He turned his head and scrutinized her over his broad shoulder. “It canna be as bad as all that, lass.”
“Yes, it is. I am fair disgraced.”
“Why dinna ye marry the earl, then?”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
The same thing Yancy had asked.
She frowned, and Dugall faced frontward.
He hadn’t finished prodding, though. “Ramsbury not be hard to gaze upon, and he be a chum of Ewan’s for more than a decade. He seems a good sort, and he be taken with ye. It be plain as the tail on a hog.”
“Dugall, it is impossible.” She shook her head against his back, needing to share the truth. “He is promised to another.”
Dugall stiffened and threw her a shocked glance. “Be ye certain?”
His muscles flexed beneath her fingers as the horse plodded onward, every step reminding her of the excessive time she’d spent astride a horse of late. Her thigh muscles screeched for reprieve, and her battered buttocks ached.
“I’ll bloody rearrange his pretty face, if that be true.”
“You will do no such thing.” She tightened her arms about Dugall’s waist, a silent warning to behave. “And yes. I am certain. His intended made a point of telling me at Adaira’s Yuletide ball.”
“Why did he ask ye to marry him then?”
“Dugall, we both know Ewan gave him no choice.”
“Aye. That be true.” Dugall lanced Yancy with a searing glower and heaved a gusty breath. “God rot the bugger. I be sorry, Isobel. What will ye do?”
“I don’t know.” Tears trickled from her eyes. “I just don’t know,” she whispered into the folds of his plaid. “Go away, I think.”
What would she do? Where could she go?
Hopelessly in love with Yancy, she couldn’t seize her happiness at the expense of someone else’s ruination. Truth to tell, her trust had been eroded to a needle’s point, and his reputation as a rake and a scoundrel precluded placing further faith in him. In any event, she wasn’t certain Yancy or her feckless heart deserved another chance.
Emotional and physical weariness weighed heavily upon her. She let her eyelids lower and allowed the memories of last night to come, relishing the few moments of bliss she had experienced within Yancy’s arms.
She’d slipped into a fitful doze and awoke when they stopped beside a stream. While the clansmen watered the horses, she forced herself to eat a small repast, though she had no appetite and the stale bread stuck to her tongue.
Yancy attempted to waylay her as she returned from seeking a spot of privacy in the shrubberies. Legs spread-eagled, he blocked her path and gently placed his palms atop her shoulders.
She didn’t recall him ever having appeared vulnerable before, but marked uncertainty shone in his observant eyes and his mouth turned down as if he, too, suffered.
“Isobel, we must talk before we reach the castle.”
That he dared call her by her given name said much. She should object, but after all they experienced together in the past day, the breech of propriety seemed insignificant.
Her gaze firmly affixed to the droplets of water meandering the length of a fern frond, she shook her head. “No, there’s nothing to say.”
“Perhaps you have nothing to say, but I have a great deal.” Anger’s steely edge sharpened his words as his hold on her shoulders tightened a fraction. “I care for you, very much in fact. You’ve been compromised through no fault of your own. I would consider it the most profound honor to make you my wife.”
What an ironic paradox.
His valor could save her virtue.
He tapped the end of her nose. “Wouldn’t you enjoy being my countess?”
With the alacrity of one of the black slugs creeping along the ground, Isobel’s gaze traveled from Yancy’s muddy boots to the stained buckskin covering his thighs, skittered past the bulge at his loins and his impossibly muscled chest, and settled on his throat.
Whatever happened to his cravat?
Whyever do I care at a moment like this?
A pulse beat steady and hypnotic at the juncture of his neck and collarbone. She had the oddest urge to place her mouth there, to feel his heartbeat beneath her lips.
“Isobel?” Yancy possessed the patience of a saint; she would give him that.
Thick stubble covered his lower face. A memory sprang to her mind, the sensation of those whiskers scraping across her breast. Had that been just last night? It seemed an eon ago.
Isobel crossed her arms against her traitorous nipples’ puckering. No other man caused her body to respond, so intense and uncontrollable, the way she did with him.
And no one else ever would.
She lovingly roved his features with her gaze. Yancy did have the most beautiful lips, and his high cheeks and aristocratic nose portrayed the blue blood thrumming in his veins. But his eyes, those mysterious green orbs, had always been her undoing. She could become lost gazing into them, her soul touching his.
“Isobel?” A soft rasp of yearning, he whispered her name and touched her unmarred cheek.
Of their own volition, her feet inched ahead, and she leaned toward him, her gaze locked on his mouth.
Dugall laid a heavy arm across her shoulders and maneuvered her from Yancy’s grasp. “Isobel, Father wants a word with ye.”
Dumping a bucket of freezing water from Lake Arkaig upon her head couldn’t have been more jarring. She blinked, trying to collect her thoughts. She’d nearly kissed Yancy. Right here in full view of everyone. Her fate would have been sealed.
“Isobel, he be waitin’.” Dugall squeezed her shoulder.
Giving herself a mental shrug, she forced her gaze from Yancy. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Dugall.”
“Would you give us a moment more, please?” Yancy’s touch to her elbow stayed her.
Dugall’s hesitant gaze shifted between Isobel and Yancy. A shuttered mien descended, and he shook his raven head. “Nae, me lord. Me sister’s made her position clear. Ye’ll need to speak to our father if ye have more to say.”
Isobel’s heart wrenched at the expression of desolation puckering Yancy’s face. Could he care for her, or did Ewan’s t
hreats cause his despair?
Determinedly keeping her attention on her father and Ewan, she hurried in their direction before she flouted good sense and bolted into Yancy’s arms.
His muttered, “Bloody, maggoty hell,” spurred her footstep a mite faster.
Afterward, she remained near her male relatives, giving Yancy no opportunity to catch her unaccompanied. She sensed his and Ewan’s growing frustration.
Too bad. She would not be manipulated into marriage.
Dugall must have warmed their father’s ears with her sad tale. All solicitousness, Father had once again become the great protector from her childhood. The man who, when she’d fallen and scraped a knee or had a splinter in her finger, had swept her into his embrace and tickled her tears away.
If only her waterworks and heartache might be eased that simply today.
“Mount up, and be quick about it. I mean to make Craiglocky by nightfall.” Already seated on Skye, Yancy gave the order.
Dugall waited for her by his horse.
She picked her way between the slugs littering the ground. Gads, the rain had brought the horrid, slimy beasts out in droves. They quite reminded her of the revolting mushrooms in the mash Sorcha served with beef fillet.
A God-awful stench wafted past, and Isobel pressed the back of her hand to her nose. She examined the bushes. Had something died nearby?
“I’d be thinking twice, lass, about speakin’ against me.”
Isobel’s attention lurched to MacHardy slouched atop a horse, his hands tied to the saddle. Unease pricked her, but she quashed it. He could do her no harm now.
Covered in reddish hair, his trunk-like legs poked from below his grungy plaid. The putrid reek emanated from him. The man proved foul in every regard.
She suppressed a gag. Pulling her cloak aside, she eyed him coldly. “I shall tell the truth, sir. It is up to the courts to decide how to act upon my testimony.”
Virtue and Valor: Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series Page 19