by Paula Quinn
She blinked, trying to adjust her vision as she approached the statue of David. A shadowy figure of a man moved away from it, as if stepping out of the stone carving to become flesh.
“Ed…Lord Essex, ye startled me.” She groped at her night robe as he stepped into her path. The fragrance of earth and leather flirted across her nostrils, going straight to her head. She stepped back. He moved closer. “Whatever are ye doing out here?”
“I had trouble sleeping and came here to seek my dreams.”
The smoky cadence of his voice above her head sent a warm tremor down her spine. She tilted her face and his breath fell upon her lips.
“A lover?”
“What?” She blinked slowly, enraptured by his closeness, his height, his scent enveloping her. Every other thought fled her mind, save one. She wanted to kiss him. Just once to help her remember during her marriage to Walter what something passionate felt like.
“Are ye meeting a lover, Miss Bell?”
Her head cleared instantly and she moved back, then skirted around him to head for the doors.
“Amelia.” His uneven breath as she passed him stopped her.
She didn’t look at him before she spoke. She didn’t want to see the censure in his eyes when she told him the truth.
“I was meeting with someone whose friendship I treasure. She is frowned upon by my mother, and so our friendship is forbidden.” She didn’t want to be talking to him about this. Not him. She picked up her hem and left, but he followed and reached her in two long strides.
“Why is it forbidden?”
“Because she is a servant,” she blurted, not slowing her pace. “Ye may have noticed her in the Great Hall. Sarah is difficult to miss. She’s quite lovely; red hair, dancing green eyes, a kind heart.” Dear God, why was she trying to convince him that Sarah had no faults other than her station?
“I did notice her.”
Her heart faltered, as did her steps. “Ye did?” she asked, turning to look up at him. She loved Sarah, but the thought of Edmund taking notice of her made Amelia want to weep.
“Aye, she followed ye when ye left the table and then hovered about fer most of the night. One of the men I traveled here with has been speaking of her all night, which is part of the reason I couldn’t sleep.”
“Lord Huntley.” Amelia almost sighed aloud with relief.
“Nae. Mr. Campbell.”
“I see.” She slipped her gaze from his. “And did he speak kindly of her?”
“Aye, I feel like I know her already,” he said, and the teasing lilt in his voice drew a smile to her lips.
“And our being friends?” she asked apprehensively, but now she had to know. “What do ye think of that?”
“If ye’re asking me if I approve of yer being friends with a servant, I find no fault in it. Where I live we don’t have servants. We are all equal, save fer our chief.”
Amelia stared up at him. She meant to say something to him about his kindness, but the sun began to break over the horizon and bathed the rugged angles of his face in its warm light and tempted her to promise her life to him, if only she could. Aye, she knew it was madness and had she opened her mouth she likely would not have pledged herself, but God help her, everything about him was so beautiful, so kind, and where in blazes did he live? No servants? She wanted to go there.
“I will say nothing to yer parents,” he promised, thinking her afraid that he would. “Ye have nothing to fear from me, Amelia.”
His eyes drew her closer. They were intense, warm blue embers mirroring her thoughts, devouring her, as she did him. He wanted to kiss her, and if she remained still but a moment longer, he was going to—and she was going to let him.
“I should go.”
“Aye,” he agreed roughly. He took her hand in his and brought it to his mouth. “But don’t.”
His breath felt warm against her knuckles, his finely carved lips, firm yet tender. She cursed her station in this life and the duty that bound her. She wanted to explore all the feelings Edmund ignited in her. She wanted to feel what his mouth was like, if his kiss would be indecent or chaste, like Walter’s. He didn’t want her to go, but how could she stay? If they were discovered out here, alone…
He didn’t seem to care about consequences when, still holding on to her hand, he pulled her in close enough to cover her with his size, his honeyed breath. “Grant me just a few more stolen moments, Amelia.”
Her name falling from his mouth sounded rich and so very warm. She wanted to grant him whatever he wished. But another scandal would end her father. So she pulled away, trembling with an unfamiliar ache she didn’t think she could resist another moment in his company.
“I must go,” she said again and broke free of him.
She didn’t go far when she turned and looked at him standing there next to David. Her first error. She would never forget her night with him. She didn’t want it to end. Not yet. No one would discover them. Just one more stolen moment and she would be satisfied. Hiking up her nightdress, she ran to him, into his arms.
He met her halfway and cradled her face in his hands. His kiss was open, hungry, and raw with need, sending fire straight to her belly and below. He played with her mouth, tasting her lips, devouring her tongue to taste her more fully. As their kiss deepened, he cupped her nape in one palm and her back in the other and hauled her closer to his hard, supple angles.
Her heart beat furiously at the scandalous passion of his embrace. He enveloped her like smoke, molded her limp, yielding body to all the tight, hard planes of his own. She groaned against him, certain that no man, especially not the chancellor, would ever kiss her like this again.
Finally, and with languorous reluctance, he withdrew. Amelia watched his eyes drift open, the residue of passion still smoldering within their depths. It made her head spin. Oh, she couldn’t marry Walter. Not after that!
“Come away with me,” he whispered, not letting her go.
“Away?” She giggled against his mouth. “Where would we go at this hour?”
“Ye’ll see.”
“All right then, I…” She didn’t remember much after that, only a cloth coming over her face, Edmund’s cool blue eyes looking down at her, and a single thought.
She knew something terrible would happen for behaving so recklessly with him. She was right. He was kidnapping her! The lying, scoundrel bastard.
Edmund lowered an unconscious Amelia into Darach’s arms. Just for a moment, he let his gaze linger on her face, the smudge of her lashes resting on her cheeks. He ignored the battering of his heart against his ribs. He liked her. He’d wanted to kiss her and he did. Now it was over and time to get serious about what needed to be done. He wished there was another way.
There wasn’t. He would stay his course, steady and relentless, seeing his duty to Scotland through. Nothing would stop him. He was born to do this and no mere lass would get in the way.
“Follow the road to Canongate,” he told Darach. “Luke will meet ye there.”
“What aboot ye?”
“I must leave the letter fer Queensberry and Seafield. Once that’s done, I’ll retrieve Grendel and catch up with ye. I don’t know where Cal is, but he knows the plan. He’ll be there.”
Darach nodded and hefted Amelia over his shoulder.
“And Darach,” Edmund called out before Darach left the garden. “If she awakens before I get there, reassure her that no harm will come to her, aye?”
Darach nodded again, then left without another word.
Edmund watched him go. He would make certain that no harm came to her. She was a valuable pawn in Edmund’s cause. But there was more to it than that. He’d kidnapped her. Now she was his responsibility. He hoped he didn’t regret it.
All that was left now was to pen a note to Amelia’s uncle and one to her betrothed. If they wanted to see her alive again they should disband their commissioners and publicly denounce the Treaty of Union. He would be in touch with them after that about her
return. He would write it in French just to throw them off and keep them guessing for a while.
He smiled as he headed for the duke’s study. Soon, Scotland would be liberated.
Chapter Seven
Edmund narrowed his eyes on his troupe waiting for him in the distance. He was glad for the dawn and the light it afforded. He could see Amelia sitting straight up in Darach’s saddle. What would he say to her? How would he explain what he’d done? Why he’d done it? Would she understand, when her own uncle was the one rallying for the act to be signed? Her father had even fooled himself into believing Scotland would be better off in subjugation to England. Then again, mayhap Edmund was being too kind. Mayhap all John Bell cared about were his coffers and that was why he’d secured a wealthy husband for his daughter.
Edmund gritted his jaw. What did he care about the lass and whom she married? He planned on never seeing her again when this was all over. Still, the memory of her sweet lips, her soft yielding body against his, her easy laughter…
He shook his head, trying to rid his thoughts of the memory.
Grendel, cantering at his horse’s side, took off at a full gallop when he heard Lucan’s voice. In the early dawn Edmund saw Amelia recoil at the dog’s approach. He called out and Grendel screeched to a halt and returned to him.
“Where the hell is Cal?” Luke asked when Edmund reached them. “We need to be away from here before the sun comes fully up.”
Edmund nodded. Damn Malcolm for doing whatever he was doing instead of being there with them. Edmund would have words with him later. Right now, he set his eyes on Amelia. The fury in her gaze almost made him look away.
“I know ye’re—”
“Please.” She held up her hand, then grimaced with pain and cradled her hand in her lap. “Do not speak to me. I’ve heard enough lies from ye fer one night.”
“What is the matter with yer hand?”
When she didn’t answer him, he turned to Darach, then to Luke.
Luke answered first. “She refused to let me relieve her of Darach.”
“I didna’ even know she was hurt.” Darach shrugged. “She tried to take a bite out of me and leaped from m’ horse.”
“I didn’t leap,” Amelia corrected him sharply. “I’m not a fool. I fell off when I—”
She squealed with either surprise or fright, or both, when Edmund reached over his saddle, fit his hands under her arms, and swung her onto his lap.
“Let me have a look.”
“Get yer hands off me!” She tried to push him away with her good hand. When he didn’t budge, she swung at him, missed, and almost tumbled to the ground.
Grendel leaped up and snapped at her.
“What in God’s name is that thing?” she screeched, lifting her face away from the beast’s dripping fangs and wedging herself deeper against her captor.
“A dog. He doesn’t like it when anyone tries to strike me. Now give me yer hand and quit being stubborn.”
“I will not give ye my hand. These two were discussing what needs to be done with it and I’ll not let ye touch me.”
“Amelia.”
When he spoke her name, she looked up at him and her eyes glistened large and bright in the soft luminance of the morning.
His heart broke a little for her, for what he’d put her through, and for what he was about to put her through. He wanted to protect his country. That didn’t make him a heartless rogue.
“Yer fingers need tending. It must be done.”
She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears threatening to spill out. Silently, she held her hand out to him and squeezed her eyes tighter. When he touched her, she startled and opened her eyes. “Wait! Make me sleep like ye did before.”
“I have nothing left. What I had, I stole from one of yer mother’s alchemists.”
She cast him a sour look, then closed her eyes and readied herself again. He took her hand gently and examined it. Two fingers needed readjusting. He knew the pain would be intense and he hated having to do it.
“There’s Cal,” Darach informed them, peering over Edmund’s shoulder. “It appears he has someone with him.”
Amelia opened her eyes to look and Edmund drew her close and popped one finger back in place, and then the other. He did it quickly, ignoring her first cry. When she buried her face in his chest to muffle another cry, he cupped her head in his hand and held her closer, more gently than he thought he could ever touch anyone.
“There now, lass,” he whispered into her hair. “’Tis all done. Fergive me. Fergive me, Amelia.”
She shook against him, sobbing quietly and soaking his shirt. He turned his mount away from Darach’s and Lucan’s watchful eyes…and came face-to-face with Amelia’s handmaiden, Sarah.
“By the saints!” Luke shouted, bringing his horse close to Malcolm’s. “What the hell were ye thinking bringing her?”
Edmund had to agree. “Cal, bring her back,” he warned, while the woman in his lap and the one in Cal’s reached for each other and began a high-pitched dialogue Edmund did not understand.
“Nae time. The guards are wakin’. We’ll be discovered.”
Lucan whirled on Edmund. “This is madness. Fighting fer Scotland is one thing, kidnapping lasses and bringing them to Ravenglade is something entirely different. There’s nae honor in this.”
“’Tis too late fer integrity, Luke,” Malcolm told him, his arm looped around Sarah’s middle as if he meant to keep her forever. Edmund knew him better than that. “We have our kin to think about, brothers and sisters we dinna’ want enslaved by England’s laws. We’re doin’ the right thing.”
“And what does this fair lass have to do with our duty to Scotland or our families?” Luke asked him, pointing to Sarah.
Malcolm smiled and shrugged. “Verra little, I imagine. She’s here to keep me in good humor.”
Edmund glared at him. He loved Malcolm like a brother, but sometimes the frivolous Highlander thought entirely with his groin and not with his head. “Malcolm, ye can saunter into any village or tavern from here to Perth and have a dozen lasses at yer beck and call. Why her?”
“Och, Amelia, what have they done to ye?” The handmaiden looked up at Edmund and shook her head like a disapproving mother. “Ye did not have to kidnap her, ye brute. She was pinin’ fer ye all night.”
“Sarah!”
Sarah cast her friend an apologetic look.
“Ye see how they care fer each other?” Malcolm pointed out. “That could work to our advantage if the lady here”—he motioned to Amelia—“tries to escape or warn her uncle.”
“Remind me to beat yer head into something hard when we reach Ravenglade,” Luke said, then turned his horse away.
“What’s done is done,” Edmund said, knowing that if this was going to work, his kin needed to stay calm, determined, and focused. The last thing they needed was another woman to distract them, but it was too late to bring Sarah back. “We need to go before discoveries are made.”
“Why?” Amelia asked as they rode away from Edinburgh. Her soft voice drew Edmund’s attention to her. He gazed down at her profile, aimed straight ahead. He fought not to regret what he’d done. “Why did ye kiss me and then cover my face with a poisoned rag? What kind of barbarian does such things?”
Hell, what could he say? She didn’t shout at him this time. He wished she would. She sounded defeated and betrayed, and he felt like a cad because he was responsible for it.
He leaned down closer to her ear so she would hear him. “I would speak with ye about it later, when we make camp and…”
She turned in the saddle, and he closed his arms around her to keep her from falling again. “I am in my nightdress, ye bastard!”
“Undress is the fashion, lass.” He wanted to tell her how completely ravishing he found her with her hair loose and tumbling down her creamy, gauze-draped shoulders.
She shook her head at him. “I was terribly wrong about ye.”
He knew she’d be angry with
him. But he still didn’t like it. “Aye, ye were.”
“I would know yer intentions now. Do ye intend to force me to lay with ye?”
“What?” His eyes opened wide. “Nae, of course not.”
She turned away, refusing to look at him. He hated himself for thinking it, but there had to be another way to save Scotland. “We have no such heinous plans fer either of ye. This is a purely political move against the duke. Unfortunately, ye were caught in the crossfire.”
“My uncle?”
“Aye.”
“Ye’re kidnapping me to get to the duke?”
“Or yer betrothed. We wish to stop them from signing the Treaty of Union.” He might as well tell her everything.
“I see, so this is about the signing, and nothing else. What happened between us tonight was just…”
Her voice went so soft he almost didn’t hear her and leaned in closer. A breeze swept a few loose tendrils of her hair across his face. He inhaled the scent of her. Wildflowers. Honeysuckle, mayhap.
“…a clever deception to get what ye wanted. None of it meant anything to ye.”
He thought about dancing with her, laughing with her, kissing her. “That isn’t entirely true.”
She turned and looked at him now, allowing him to see the disappointment and hurt in her eyes. “Nothing ye say can be trusted. Is yer name even Edmund Dearly?”
He shook his head. He would lie no more. It was best if she knew the truth about everything from the beginning. Besides, he was proud of who he was. He would never deny his name. “I’m Edmund MacGregor of the clan MacGregor.”
Her eyes widened on him. “The outlawed clan MacGregor?” When he nodded, she narrowed her eyes on his wig. He quickly pulled it off and released a tumble of golden waves over his eyes.
She snatched the wig, slapped him with it, and then threw it to the ground, where it was promptly seized by Grendel and torn to shreds.