Nicola Cornick - [Scottish Brides 01]

by The Ladyand the Laird

  The wind was cool on her face. Evening was falling and the shadows were lengthening. She wrapped her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and walked a little more quickly back toward the harbor. Ahead of her she could see a group of the island women and children scavenging over the rocks, collecting driftwood. So few trees grew on Golden Isle that timber was always very highly prized.

  The tide was coming in, sucking at Lucy’s bare feet, the chill sting of the water making her shiver a little. The water splashed her dress and petticoat, splashed too on the rocks where the children were playing in and out of the pools. Their calls and cries reached Lucy on the stiff breeze. It felt peaceful and yet for some reason she also felt a premonition she could not shake. Something was wrong.

  As she reached the quay she saw that Robert was there, and Jack. She felt the little lift of her heart that she always felt now on seeing her husband. She hurried her steps toward the harbor, but she had no time to call out a greeting. A strange hush had fallen over the crowd on the quay and they had turned out to sea where the sun was dropping into the water in a big ball of fire. In front of it, black against the fiery red, was a ship.

  “The navy,” someone murmured, and then the whisper ran around like wind through corn. “The press-gang...the gangers are here.”

  In the same moment someone turned and pointed away to the south where on the headland a beacon was flaring into life. “Attack! The village is under attack!”

  Lucy felt the ripple of something go through Robert like lightning. “Cardross,” he said. “He’s come and he has brought the press-gang with him.”

  Lucy could feel the terror and the hatred in the crowd like a living thing. They had seen this before, witnessed the destruction of their lives. Robert grabbed her hands. “Get to the Auld Haa,” he said. “Lock yourself in and come out for no man.” He kissed her. “I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”

  “No,” Lucy said. Her repudiation was immediate. “I want to help, Robert.” She turned and waved a hand toward the women and children in a ragged huddle on the quay. “Let me look after them. If Wilfred comes, then I can take care of myself. I’ll cut him down with a broadsword.”

  A flicker of a smile lit Robert’s tense face. “I know you could do that,” he said, “but I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous.” He pulled her to him and she felt the thunder of his heart against hers and the quick, impatient need in him to be away to defend his island. “You cannot risk your life, Lucy,” he said. “This isn’t just for me, though God knows I would do everything in my power to keep you safe. It’s for Methven.”

  Lucy understood then. He was talking about the future, the promise of the heir she could even now be carrying. She felt terribly torn, wanting desperately to help, hating the thought of waiting helplessly for events to unfold, yet understanding how important it was to Robert, to the entire Methven clan, that she should be safe.

  “Damn Wilfred,” she said unsteadily. “You must go, Robert. Stop him.” She threw a glance over her shoulder to where the gangers’ longboat was making its steady way ashore. “I know you won’t let them take any more men,” she said, “but be careful. The gangers answer to no laws and respect no man.”

  Robert gave her another hard kiss that for all its brevity shook her to her soul.

  “Come back to me,” she whispered. “It takes two of us to make an heir for Methven.” She drew back a little. “Besides, I love you and have no desire to be a widow quite yet.”

  “I love you too,” Robert said. He kissed her again, longer, deeper, before releasing her and turning away to where the men waited for him.

  Lucy walked slowly up the road to the Auld Haa in the gathering twilight. When she reached the gate, though, she hesitated. Ahead of her the road wound uphill toward the northern beacon. It had not been lit, which meant that no one had warned the crofters to the north of the island that they were in danger of attack. Again the sense of premonition tickled down Lucy’s neck. Wilfred had set fire to the crofts in the south. The press-gang were sweeping in from the west. But what if there was another attack here, on the vulnerable, unprotected crofts to the north? Golden Isle was riven with inlets and coves. Men could come ashore in any number of places and spring an attack before anyone had guessed.

  Grabbing the smoldering torch that lit the entrance to the Auld Haa, Lucy hurried up the track toward the beacon a few hundred yards ahead. The stony track slipped beneath the soles of her shoes. Away to her left, Golden Water shimmered in the last of the setting sun. The cold wind breathed gooseflesh down her spine. She felt as though someone was watching her. She thrust the torch into the heart of the kindling and turned back to the road, relief in her heart.

  “Not so fast, cousin.”

  Wilfred Cardross was standing directly in front of her, no more than a black shadow against the cobalt blue of the night dark sea. Behind him were five of his clansmen. Lucy could hear the beacon fire hiss and spit as it roared higher. At least it was too late for Wilfred to douse it now, and soon it would be seen from the crofts. They would know to rally their defenses.

  Wilfred was walking slowly toward her. She could see his face now in the livid light of the flames. He was dressed in all his finery, foppish laces and bows, but the expression in his eyes was feral, a contrast to the refined elegance of his attire. Lucy’s heart thumped. She raised her chin defiantly and met his eyes.

  “Wilfred,” she said. “I see you have brought more men this time. How wise of you.”

  “Cousin Lucy,” Wilfred swept her a bow. “How charming to find you here. I do thank you for saving me the trouble of coming to look for you.”

  He gestured with his head and the clansmen moved forward. Their expressions were hungry. Lucy felt the fear claw at her throat and beat it back.

  “How neglectful of Methven to leave you to fend for yourself,” Wilfred said contentedly. “He should have been more careful in protecting his property.”

  “My husband,” Lucy said, “is protecting his clan, a concept I believe you are unfamiliar with, Wilfred. You steal from yours, don’t you? Rob them and steal their cattle and burn their houses?”

  Cardross laughed. He was looking to the south where a line of fire now marked the devastation his men were wreaking on the island. “There is precious little left to protect here,” he said. “The press-gang will take the remaining islanders and all the Methven men, as well.” His gaze came back to fasten on her. “And when I take you, that will be the end.”

  He came a step closer. Lucy could see his face in the firelight. He was smiling. He was enjoying this. She backed against the rough stone of the beacon wall, groping for the handle of the torch she had brought with her. Her fingers grazed the stone, felt the lick of the heat. At all costs she had to keep Wilfred from guessing what she was about. He thought she was not armed; she did not want to give away the element of surprise.

  “What’s the matter?” she said contemptuously. “Are you afraid I will push you over if you come too close, Wilfred?”

  Wilfred raised his sword point and touched her beneath the chin. Lucy felt the prick of the blade against her throat.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Wilfred said. “Nor of your laird.” He raised his head, listening. “Here he comes.”

  There was the scrape of hooves on stone in the road, one horseman, alone. Lucy turned her head sharply and felt the sword bite deeper. A trickle of blood ran down her neck.

  “Methven!” Wilfred had raised his voice. “I am so glad you got my message. I have your woman.”

  “No—” Lucy began, but Wilfred moved the sword over her breast, to rest against her heart.

  Robert walked forward into the circle of the firelight. He was alone. Immediately four of Wilfred’s clansmen surrounded him.

  “Ah, Methven,” Wilfred said courteously. “Throw down your sword, there’s a good fellow.” When Robert did not immediately comply, he pressed a little harder against Lucy’s breast. Lucy bit her lip hard between her teeth to smothe
r her gasp.

  Robert threw down the sword. His gaze never left Lucy’s face.

  “Good,” Wilfred said. He shifted, the sword moving over Lucy’s breast like a caress. “There is something you should know, Methven,” he said. “Your lovely wife has been betraying you.” His sword flicked Lucy’s bodice, tearing a gaping rent in it and leaving a long scratch on the white skin of her breast. Lucy caught her breath at the sting.

  “Betrayal,” Wilfred repeated, smiling a little as he admired his handiwork. “It is so ugly, is it not?”

  Lucy’s heart was starting to race. She felt sick nausea rise in her throat. She knew Wilfred was reveling in this. When she had bested him by the loch he had been humiliated. This was his revenge.

  “I fear,” Wilfred said silkily, “that you will get no heirs from your wife’s body.” Again the sword flicked. There was another tear in the gown now, crossing the first, so that Lucy’s bodice fell farther apart and the slivers of material floated to the ground like falling leaves. Looking down, she saw another cut from his sword on her breast. The pain followed a second later. It was sharp and the blood showed red in the firelight.

  Wilfred smiled. He gave another flick of the wrist and now her bodice was in tatters, shredded, the gleaming skin of her breasts exposed in the firelight. Robert made an instinctive movement and immediately Wilfred’s men pressed closer to hold him back. Lucy raised a hand to cover herself, but Wilfred raised the point of his sword to her throat again.

  “Keep still, coz,” Wilfred said.

  Someone laughed. Lucy saw a pulse beat in Robert’s jaw. His muscles were locked with tension. And still he did not speak.

  Wilfred’s attention had come back to her. “Speaking of betrayals, cousin Lucy,” he said softly, “your maid will do anything for a handful of gold. She was the one who sold your secrets to me.”

  Lucy felt the nausea rise in her throat. She thought of Sheena standing in the bedchamber at the Auld Haa with the pot of pennyroyal in her hand. She felt dizzy with shock and disbelief. Wilfred raised his voice. “Your deceitful wife, Methven, visited the wisewoman to purchase a brew to ensure that she never conceived a child. All the time you were plowing her—” the sword skipped down between Lucy’s breasts to point lewdly to the junction of her thighs “—she was ensuring that she would not fall pregnant. Whilst you waited for the good news of an heir, she knew it would never be. She has betrayed you as surely as if she handed your estates to me.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Lucy found her voice. It was raw from the smoke, pleading. “It was never like that! Robert, I swear—”

  Robert ignored her words. He was looking only at Wilfred.

  “Let her go, Cardross,” he said.

  Wilfred laughed. “Lady Lucy comes with me,” he said. “I’ve waited a long time for my sport with her. When I’ve done I’m sure my men will want their share too.” He had taken Lucy’s arm now, his fingers biting into the flesh above the elbow. One of his men had come forward to her other side. Lucy reached back a little farther and felt the end of the torch slide into her grasp. The flames scorched her palm, but she gritted her teeth against the pain.

  “Come along, coz,” Wilfred said. “You won’t be so dainty with me by the time I have finished with you.” As he jerked Lucy forward, Robert let out a roar. He spun around on the closest of Wilfred’s clansmen, knocking him off balance, leaping aside as the other three men piled in on him. He grabbed the fallen man’s sword and turned to face his assailants, laying one of them out with the flat of his sword and making short work of a second. In the same moment Lucy brought her arm around in an arc, bringing the flaming torch swinging in to Wilfred’s body. Wilfred screamed as the fire caught at his lacy sleeves and burned. He let go of her and ran. She heard the splash as he leaped into Golden Water.

  Lucy swung the torch back toward the other man who had been standing foolishly gaping at her, mouth open in shock. He backed off with a yelp and ran, Robert hastening him on his way with a wicked slashing of his blade. Some of the Methven men were coming running now, encircling the pond where Wilfred still splashed and swore, two of them running up to engage Wilfred’s remaining clansmen.

  Lucy dropped the torch back into the fire. She was shaking so much she could barely stand. Robert had reached her side in two strides. For a brief moment his hands rested on her shoulders as he surveyed Wilfred’s handiwork, the slashed bodice, the angry-looking crisscross of cuts on her breast. His expression was flat with murderous fury.

  “If you had not set fire to him,” Robert said, “I would have killed him myself for what he did to you.”

  “It’s only a scratch,” Lucy said. Her teeth were chattering. “It was for show, to humiliate and frighten me.”

  Robert’s hands fell to his side. “You must get back to the house and have it tended,” he said.

  For a long moment he looked at her, but there was no gentleness or warmth in his gaze. Then he said, very quietly. “I know what Cardross said was true. I saw it in your eyes.”

  He turned and walked back to where his horse was tethered. Lucy ran after him. Her heart was cracking.

  “Robert, wait!” she called. “Please let me explain—”

  Robert half turned toward her. He made a sharp gesture and she stopped.

  “Was it true?” he said. “About the tincture?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, “But—”

  “And when did you procure it?” His voice was cold, but beneath the anger Lucy could feel pain. She could see it in his eyes too, the searing hurt of betrayal.

  “When, Lucy?” His voice was very steady.

  “On the morning of our wedding,” Lucy said. Her voice was thin, shaking. “But I didn’t take it! Please believe me! I never took it!”

  Robert shook his head. He looked weary, heart sore. “I thought you trusted me,” he said. “I told you that you could. Yet it seems you never believed me.”

  “It wasn’t like that!” Lucy said. “Yes, I trusted you, but—”

  She stopped. That one small, betraying word was all it needed because it showed just how little faith she had placed in his word.

  “You know how it was for me,” she whispered. “I was terrified. I needed to feel safe.”

  “You were safe,” Robert said. “You were always safe with me. The pity of it is that you never trusted me.” His voice changed and she knew it was the end. He would accept no justification, no further explanation. Maybe in time he would be prepared to listen, but the lovely, bright and infinitely precious future they had only just started to build lay smashed in pieces at her feet. Lucy was stubborn and determined, but she could not find the words; her throat felt raw and tears smarted in her eyes.

  “You must be cold,” Robert said. “You have done much for Golden Isle tonight and I am grateful.” His chilling politeness felt like another blow. “I will take you back to the Auld Haa and then I must get to the village to help my men.”

  “Of course,” Lucy said stiffly. Her heart cracked a little more. “Do not trouble to take me back—”

  “I insist.”

  He held out a hand to help her mount before him. She could not help a tiny wince of pain as her burned hand touched his. He turned it over so that the palm was cradled in his.

  “You’re burned,” he said.

  “It’s nothing,” Lucy said. “No more than a few blisters.”

  Robert let her go and she missed the warmth of his touch so badly it pained her more than the burns. They rode in silence down the track and he left her at the gate of the Auld Haa without another word.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ROBERT WORKED THROUGH the night alongside his men to damp down the fires and make sure that all his people were safe. He did not rest. He did not want to think, did not want to feel. Cardross had been captured and all his men taken. In an even greater feat the privateer Le Boucanier had been captured too, drawn out by Jack, who had used Cardross’s yacht to lure him to a rendezvous. The press-gang had swept in
and taken the pirate as their prize. It was a rough justice that worked in the islands, so far from the rule of the king’s law, but Robert was satisfied with it. Cardross would be tried for treason and Robert’s lands were safe.

  Eventually, as dawn was breaking over the eastern sea, Jack came up to him, filthy and smelling of smoke, looking, Robert thought, very much as he must look himself. Jack handed him the leather drinking bottle and he gulped down the liquid gratefully, feeling it ease his rough throat.

  “You need to rest, Rob,” Jack said.

  “There’s more to do,” Robert said tersely.

  “And time to do it all,” Jack said. “Go. Sleep. Talk to Lucy—”

  Robert made an uncontrollable movement and Jack paused, his green eyes steady on his cousin’s face.

  “Lucy was trying to save Methven for you,” Jack said. “You fool, don’t you see? Lucy needed to feel safe in order to wed you. She had been through a terrible ordeal when she was too young to be able to deal with it. She was trying to protect herself against anything like that ever happening again. The potion gave her the courage to marry you and help you save Methven from Cardross.”

  “She should have trusted me,” Robert growled.

  Jack sighed. He ran his hands through his hair, smearing soot all over his face. “Yes, she should have trusted you,” he said, “but at that stage she could not.” He looked up. “She could have refused you again, Rob,” he said simply. “But she did not. She believed in you and she wanted to save Methven.”

  Robert glared at his cousin. “You have an interesting way with an argument,” he said. “You should have been a lawyer.”

  Jack grinned. “You know I’m right.”

  “What I don’t know,” Robert said, “is how you know all this.”

  “That deceitful bitch of a maid told me,” Jack said. “I think she thought it might help save her miserable hide.” His gaze narrowed. “Everyone on Golden Isle loves Lucy for her courage tonight.” He sighed. “You love her too. Don’t let Cardross ruin it, Rob. Don’t let him win.”