Nicola Cornick - [Scottish Brides 01]

by The Ladyand the Laird

  “I don’t think that scoundrelly is a proper word.” His hands checked on the knots, sure and methodical. “I had not thought to keep you restrained,” he added with the same slow smile, “but the idea has some appeal.”

  Oh.

  For some reason the thought and the look in his eyes made Lucy feel hot all over. She saw his gaze fall to her night rail, transparent in the pale light. Looking down, she could see what he saw, see the shadow of her nipples beneath the fine cotton, their peaks brushing the thin material. With her arms so widespread she could do nothing to cover herself. She felt hopelessly exposed and vulnerable and yet hot and excited at the same time. She shifted restlessly against the bed, and Methven’s gaze sharpened hungrily on her, dropping lower to the junction of her thighs before he raised it, deep blue and glittering, to her face again.

  Lucy’s heart turned over. Their eyes held. A furnace built in the pit of her stomach. Her lips parted.

  “I won’t take what isn’t yet mine,” he said.

  He pulled the covers up over her and turned away abruptly, snapping the taut thread that pulled between them, leaving Lucy feeling shaken.

  “Try to get some sleep,” he said roughly.

  “Like this?” Lucy asked.

  He threw her another dark glance. “You’ll manage.”

  He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Lucy felt her spirits sink a little lower. Tied up and locked in with him. He really did mean to marry her this time.

  Light was still penetrating the broken spars of the shutters. Here in the far north the daylight simmered down to a deep blue haze but never quite turned dark. Lucy could still make out the shape of the furniture, the wooden chair Robert Methven had thrown himself down on, which looked far too hard to allow for sleep.

  “Is there really no one else who can help you save your inheritance?” she said after a moment.

  He flicked her the slightest of glances. “You won’t sleep if you keep talking.”

  “I’m not tired,” Lucy said.

  He grunted. “Well, I am. Damnably tired. I rode all day to find you and scant thanks I get for it.”

  She could see he did not want to talk, but she persisted anyway. It might be the only chance she had to persuade him to let her go. If he did she would manage to cover the scandal somehow. Her family would help. They had done it before, when Alice had died. They could do it again. Hope bubbled up in her, the sort of hope that was probably completely pointless but she had to believe in it anyway.

  “If we could find another branch of the family,” she ventured, “there might be someone you could wed—”

  “Save your breath.”

  He sounded grumpy, as though the prospect of marrying anyone was repugnant to him in this moment. Perhaps it was. Lucy realized that she had never really considered his feelings about the arrangement, obliged to marry, given scant choice.

  “You have certainly dropped the formality,” she said, “now that you do not think you have to woo me anymore.”

  “Forgive me, but I did not think we were in a formal situation.” She could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “You are absolutely certain that I am the only woman who will do?” she persisted.

  This time she saw his eyebrows lift as though he was surprised by her question. Perhaps he had recognized the vanity beneath it. A small smile lifted one corner of his mouth and drove a crease down his cheek.

  “I am absolutely certain.” The wooden chair creaked as he shifted. “It is ironic, since you have no desire to wed me that you are everything I want in a wife.”

  That pleased her. It pleased her a lot, although she knew it should not. She also knew she should not ask the next question.

  “Why?” she said.

  He looked at her for longer this time, and this time he did not smile. “I want you,” he said.

  There was silence in the shadowed room, hot and alive, for five long heartbeats, and then he shifted on the chair again and turned away so she could not see his face. “I said try to get some sleep.” His voice was rough. “We have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

  “How do you know that I can ride?” Lucy said.

  “I’m sure you can,” Methven said. “The alternative would be to ride with me, and you would hate that more.”

  “Instead of which I’ll be tied to the saddle?”

  “Aye.” He was smiling a little grimly. “I’ll be leading you too. In case you make a break for it.”

  Lucy tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position. On the lumpy mattress it was no easy matter. She was furious to be so restrained, but now that her first wave of fury had simmered down she had to admit that she had been less than mature in telling him she would run away. It would be the height of stupidity to do so, alone, unarmed and in a state of undress. There were plenty of masterless men roaming the wild glens, and she had no desire to plunge straight into further danger. On the other hand, she had seen clothes in the chest of drawers that had held the scarves that tied her. There might be something there she could change into. And if she were able to arm herself, as well, escape was not impossible. She could return to Durness and from there she could take a carriage home. Since Methven would not help her she would have to do it for herself.

  She thought about it for a long time, planning, calculating and desperately hoping.

  Methven shifted again, giving a long sigh of discomfort.

  “Are you not intending to sleep?” Lucy inquired innocently. The sooner he fell asleep, the sooner she could start trying to slip her bonds.

  “I could sleep if you would be quiet for long enough.” He sounded even grumpier now, as though sleep would be impossible on such an uncomfortable piece of furniture. Well, it served him right.

  The mattress smelled musty, of damp and mouse droppings. Lucy wrinkled up her nose and tried not to inhale too much of it. She wished she could have had a bath. She probably smelled as bad as the bedclothes.

  In the cracks of light that came through the shuttered window and in the dying glow of the fire, she saw Methven’s sword belt lying across the back of the chair, discarded for the night. A prickle of excitement crept along her skin. He would be certain to carry a pistol, as well.

  Stealthily she tested the ties again. The silk was slippery. That gave her hope.

  She settled down to wait for Robert Methven to fall asleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE WOODEN CHAIR was abominably hard.

  Robert’s body ached in places he did not even recognize. It had been a punishing two days. Lady Mairi MacLeod had woken him in his bed at the Durness Inn during the early hours of the previous morning with some panicked story of how her sister had been carried off. He had not slept since, searching for Lucy along all the roads from Durness, following the trail of the abductors until he had finally caught up with them in this godforsaken place. He had dispatched the hired thugs and sent Wilfred packing. He had tended to Lucy while she was sick and all the thanks he got for his efforts was a repeated refusal of his offer of marriage and the threat that she would run off.

  She was stubborn, Lady Lucy MacMorlan, and spoiled, and a great deal of trouble and yet he still wanted her.

  And now she was tied to the bed, and that made the wanting all the more acute. He might be exhausted but not so much that he could not make very thorough love to her. Robert thought about the slippery silk ties and about Lucy restrained. He thought about the delicate curves and hollows of her body beneath the thin night shift. He thought about the scent of her skin and the sensation of it beneath his hands. All the thinking and no doing was playing havoc with his senses, making him so hard he could burst, making him want to part her sweet thighs and plunge into her.

  Madness. He ran a hand over his hair, rubbing his forehead to try and banish the images of lust. He cursed his vivid imagination as he grew an even more monstrous erection.

  He shifted for the hundredth time on the chair.

  “You are still awake.�
�� She did not sound pleased.

  “So are you.”

  “I am uncomfortable.”

  “So am I,” Robert said, with feeling. “Why don’t you invite me to join you on the bed?” he added. “It would be more pleasant for both of us.”

  It could do no harm to make love to her now, now that she was to be his bride. He ached to have her. The desire pounded in his blood.

  “I don’t think so.” She sounded prim, but underneath the formality ran a thread of anxiety. He was forcibly reminded that she was a virgin. She needed careful wooing, not ravishment. She certainly should not be seduced on a frowsty mattress in a mouse-infested inn.

  Damnation.

  “Then we are both destined to endure an uncomfortable few hours,” he said.

  Nevertheless he did sleep, after what felt like several eternities. He was troubled by visions of Lucy slipping wraithlike through his dreams—at one point he even imagined her hands on him—and he stirred but did not fully wake. The exhaustion of the past two days, the relief that she was safe and the promise of the future all lulled him.

  He awoke several hours past dawn. The room was cold and full of pale gray light. The shutters were open, rattling in the breeze. It took him no more than a split second to come completely awake, instinct warning him that something was wrong. He leaped from the chair with an oath. All his muscles screamed a protest.

  Two strides took him to the bed. It was empty, the bonds hanging limp on the wooden rail like a mocking taunt. They had not been cut, which could only mean that Lucy had managed to wriggle out of them somehow. He frowned. That must have hurt. As a sign of how determined she was to escape marriage to him, it was speaking loud and clear.

  The window was wide. He ran across to it and leaned out. There was a low roof beneath, sloping down to within six feet of the ground. Spinning around, he took a swift inventory of the room. The drawer in the dresser was half-open, spilling clothing onto the floor. Lucy’s nightgown lay abandoned in a pile of tumbled white.

  His sword belt had gone from the chest. His pistols had been taken, as well—along with his money. This time he swore even harder. At least he still had his dirk. Grabbing his coat, he unlocked the door and headed down the stairs, taking them three at a time. There was a rusty old claymore adorning the lath-and-plaster wall of the hallway; he took that, as well.

  His horse was missing. By now he was not in the least surprised. He had underestimated Lady Lucy MacMorlan before. This time his mistake had been spectacular. He had thought that as long as the door was locked and he held the key, as long as she was physically restrained, he could let down his guard. It was an amateur mistake. Lady Lucy might be the oh-so-proper daughter of a duke, but she was the descendant of Malcolm MacMorlan, the Red Fox of Forres. She was from warrior stock through and through. Scratch the surface and the trappings of nineteenth-century civilization were thin in all of them.

  He smiled grimly. Lady Lucy was magnificent. She was indeed everything he wanted in his wife and the mother of his children.

  The only other horse in the stable was a mangy nag that looked as though it was going to keel over if ridden too hard. It would have to do. Ignoring the angry shouts of the landlord, who had lost a blunt claymore and had been cheated of both the price of the room and the hire of the nag, Robert headed off down the road toward Thurso at the fastest trot the horse could raise.

  * * *

  LUCY HAD BEEN traveling for several hours. She was not at all sure she had been going in the right direction. Navigation was not one of her strong points. Nor had she seen anyone to ask. The countryside of high crags and bare rock was golden with bracken and hazy purple-gray with heather. The sun was already bright and hot. Nothing and no one moved in the landscape. Only an eagle circled lazily above in the pale blue.

  It felt unnaturally quiet and Lucy felt a prickle of unease. The horse felt it too. His ears were pricked and Lucy could feel tension in him.

  She liked Robert Methven’s horse. He was a rich chestnut with bright, intelligent eyes. He was fast, brave and clever. He reminded her of his master, but that she did not really want to think about, for she had treated Methven shamefully, stealing his horse, his pistols, his sword and his money. It had been quite easy in the end. He had been sleeping deeply and barely stirred when she had lifted the sword belt from the chair and swung the saddlebags with the pistols in them over her shoulder. Lucy had judged searching his pockets for the key to the door to be too risky, so she had clambered out of the window and taken the low drop to the stable yard instead. She and Alice had spent years climbing in and out of windows at Forres Castle. Or at least Alice had. Lucy had watched, so she knew how to do it.

  The only thing she was not entirely happy about was her outfit. She had not had long to rummage through the chest of drawers and so had emerged with a motley collection of clothes. There was a low white blouse, which she wore with a bright scarf to conceal her décolletage, there was a pair of boy’s breeches that were a passable fit, a jacket that was too small and tight and some stockings with holes in them. Footwear had been a problem until she had reached the stables and had been able to steal a pair of well-worn boots from one of the grooms. They were slightly too big and would give her blisters if she tried to walk far in them. Her hair was loose and unbrushed. All in all she knew she looked ragged and unkempt.

  The lane wound slowly downward toward a loch that gleamed in the sun, reflecting the soft blue of the sky. There was a scattering of crofts by the side of the track, barely enough to be thought a village, with a few chickens scratching in the dust and some washing flapping on a line. The walls were falling down, the earth so poor it could barely support the neat rows of cabbage and beans that had been sown. Farther out, Lucy could see houses that had been abandoned, the roofs fallen, grass growing through the cracks in the walls. Some had been burned and the charred and blackened remains of fallen spars gleamed malevolently in the sun. There was a strange atmosphere about the place, part fear, part despair. Lucy felt it with a trickle of apprehension down her back.

  As she drew level with the first croft, a man came out of the gate, laying aside his hoe and dusting soil from the palms of his hands. He was young, no more than three or four and twenty, but his face was lined with tiredness and he moved slowly.

  “Good morning...mistress.” He raised a hand to shade his eyes as he looked up at Lucy, clearly unsure what to make of her. She could read his thoughts; the horse was highly bred, she was wearing a man’s sword on a belt that was far too big for her, the saddlebags bulged and her clothes were cheap. She suspected he thought her a thief, though he spoke politely enough.

  “Where do you travel?” he asked.

  “To Durness,” Lucy said. “Am I on the right road?”

  “You need to turn northwest,” the man said. His eyes had widened at her cut-glass accent and he stood up a little straighter. “The road forks past the knot of pines.” He pointed. “You can water your horse by the loch there.”

  “My thanks,” Lucy said. She turned back on a thought. “Who is the laird here?” she said.

  The man’s face darkened. “Cardross,” he said, and spat in the dust.

  Cardross.

  So these people were Wilfred’s tenants, so poor they could barely scrape a living from the neglected land. Lucy felt chilled although the sun was hot. It had not occurred to her that she might have wandered back onto Cardross land. She was going to have to be very careful.

  She felt the man’s eyes on her back as she rode down to the loch, but when she turned to look back he had gone. She wished she had some food. She could have asked back in the village, but she suspected they would have none to spare. She rode a little way along the strand, allowing the horse to drink its fill. She did not dare stop longer now that she knew she was on Wilfred’s land. Robert Methven might have sent Wilfred and his men away with their tails between their legs yesterday, but they would surely be back and they would want revenge.

  There was a sho
ut behind her and she wheeled around. To her horror, three men on horseback were coming out of the knot of pine trees directly toward her. One, on a prancing gray, she recognized immediately as her cousin Wilfred Cardross. He had found some clothes and evidently he was planning on getting his hands dirty this time.

  Lucy yelled an alarm. She had no idea if anyone could hear her and still less if anyone would come to her aid, but it was worth a try. It also had the benefit of unsettling Wilfred’s highly bred gray, which reared up and almost unseated him.

  She grabbed one of the pistols, her fingers slipping on the buckles of the saddlebags in her haste, and aimed it at the man to the right who was hurtling toward her. Her hand was shaking and the shot went wide. She had never been much of a marksman. Alice had always bested her at the archery butts. The man reached her a few seconds later and grabbed her, toppling her from the saddle. She tumbled painfully to the ground, winded, the pistol spinning from her grasp. Instinct prompted her to scramble up, to try and run, but her assailant caught her by the arm and spun her about. She could feel the ground vibrating under the hooves of the other approaching horses.

  The man hit her hard across the face. She stumbled, falling over on her back, the rock jarring her. Stones scored her palms. Shock and pain intermingled. No one had ever raised a hand to her before in her life. Suddenly her situation was very real; real and terrifying.

  She heard Wilfred’s querulous voice:

  “I told you not to hurt her!”

  The man swore in reply.

  Lucy rolled over. She was not going to lie here at Wilfred’s feet like a helpless offering. Sheer determination and a refusal to be beaten had brought her this far. She could not lose her nerve now.

  Something hard dug into her hip: the hilt of Robert Methven’s sword. For a moment she was absolutely still. Then hot, fierce fighting spirit swept through her and she grabbed the pommel and leaped up, spinning around, holding the weapon in both hands, taking her assailant completely by surprise with a long, slicing cut to his arm. He howled in pain, staggering back, and with an oath the other man threw himself from the saddle, drawing his own sword as he ran toward her.