by Paula Quinn
“Good, aye?”
She nodded, closing her eyes with delight. Then she turned a mortified look toward Edmund. “Did I miss supper?”
“Nae,” he told her. “They just like to eat dessert first.”
“Etta’s dessert,” Darach corrected him.
Amelia nodded enthusiastically, then sat back in her chair and glanced around the Hall. “All we are missing is music.”
He wanted to bask in her lovely features. He could have stared at her all night, but hell, he wasn’t one of those courtly, flowery types. Or mayhap he was. Mayhap there simply hadn’t been any lasses in the past who compelled him to go soft on the inside. He wasn’t sure he wanted that kind of lass around him now. He had a country to save. A country that came before all else. He would do well to remember that.
Malcolm finished off what was left in his cup and swung his arm around Sarah. “Darach plays the pipes, and we’ve a set in the garrison.”
Darach aimed a murderous glare at his cousin and opened his mouth to protest. Amelia’s plea stopped him.
“I love the pipes! Oh, play fer us later, Darach. I beg ye.”
Poor lass, Edmund thought to himself, she didn’t know yet what a stubborn bast—
“If ye truly want me to.”
Edmund’s jaw went slack for a moment at Darach’s reply, but he understood it. None of them were safe around her. “No one plays the pipes as well as Darach,” he complimented.
“Many have tried,” Malcolm said.
“And failed,” Edmund agreed.
Supper went on in much the same manner, with banter and laughter exchanged, and the men fawning over their lady guests. It didn’t matter that they were kidnapped guests. The men of Camlochlin had been raised better than to treat women roughly or mercilessly. As long as Amelia and Sarah were with them, they would be treated kindly.
When supper was over, Sarah insisted on bringing a plate of Henrietta’s delicacies to Lucan. With her gone, Malcolm excused himself and left the castle in search of easier pursuits, and after Edmund removed Grendel from the premises, Darach gave himself over to what Edmund knew was Darach’s secret passion.
Edmund learned to play many instruments when he was a lad, but he’d never been able to master the pipes. He didn’t need to when they had Darach to play the way he did. As much as he wanted to walk with Amelia alone in the garden, he knew she was enjoying the music by the tears streaming down her face.
“’Tis so haunting and beautiful.” She sniffed quietly. “’Tis difficult to believe he could produce such a sound.”
Edmund smiled. “Aye, he likes to play the death marches. It helps him believe he’s not betraying his warrior instincts.”
She smiled and clapped her hands when the tune ended, and Edmund wasn’t certain—in fact, he doubted the good of his own eyes—that he saw a streak of crimson blushing Darach’s cheeks. He looked around, wishing the others were there to see it. They would never believe him.
They shared another drink with Darach before Edmund rose from his chair and offered to escort Amelia outside. He wanted to be alone with her. He told himself he could resist her. He could be alone with her, even kiss her, without involving his heart. He wasn’t the kind of fool who kidnapped his enemy and then fell in love with her. He made certain, walking with her to the garden, that his heart was properly guarded and remained separated from his desires.
The garden was quiet save for the sounds of a critter, finding its way in through one of the many cracks in the walls, and scurrying off into the tangle of bushes. The waning full moon cast its pale glow on an old stone fountain while deep shadows clung to gnarled trees and overgrown ivy.
“It must have been quite beautiful out here once,” Amelia said softly, keeping her arm looped through his.
Edmund didn’t remember Ravenglade in its grander years. By the time his father had brought him and his mother to Camlochlin, Malcolm’s kin had more or less left Perth after living there for three years and Connor Grant had begun building his manor house beneath the braes of Bla Bheinn Skye for his wife and bairns.
“We used to ride here many years ago, when we were younger, me, Malcolm, Luke, and Adam, our chief’s eldest son, after the Grants left it. We came fer hunting and lasses and to pretend that we were lairds of our own castle.”
She smiled and moved a bit closer to him. “Ye speak as if ye are old already.”
“I feel older,” he said thoughtfully and covered her hand with his. “Mayhap I’m just more serious.”
“About what?” she asked after a slight catch in her breath when their fingers touched.
“My duty.”
“Then ye’re correct,” she told him, glancing up at him with the moonlight in her eyes. “Only a mature man can put away his selfish desires fer something greater than himself. Or have ye already mastered them, Mr. MacGregor?”
She was correct. He had to put away his selfish desires of being with her. He had to keep his eyes on his duty, his true passion. But looking into her eyes, he wondered if she was aware of the effect she had on him. What a successful assassin she would make had he an enemy intelligent enough to use her. She made him doubt his discipline, cast his concerns to the damn four winds, and ache to carry her to his room and kiss her out of her clothes.
He bent to her and pressed his mouth to the pulse at her temples. “Edmund, if it pleases ye, lass. And nae, I haven’t learned to master them as well as I’d hoped.”
She read his meaning and swept her head away, blushing. He stared at the throat she exposed to his hunger and was tempted to run his lips, his teeth, down the creamy length of it.
“Ye have a sweet nose, lass.”
She met his gaze with a curl of her lips that, coupled with the beguiling curve of her of nose, nearly drove him mad with more than just desire. He wanted to spend more time with her, enjoy her company, bask in her loveliness.
“Ye have a strong nose, Edmund.” Her smile widened along with his when she used his given name. “And a lovely mouth.” She sighed close to his lips when he dipped closer to kiss her. “But…”
She moved away from him but remained fastened to his hand. “Tell me how I might trust a man who has already used me fer his own gain? Whether or not I understand yer duty, I prefer not to be manipulated because of it.”
He slowed his steps, pausing to mull over her words. She had a valid point. He’d used her as a pawn in a dangerous chess match. He couldn’t ever love her without giving up everything he believed.
His struggle with always doing the right thing was getting more difficult because of her. Hell, he was beginning to doubt what the right thing was anymore. They could all end up dead over this. Would he even care about laws and treaties if Malcolm and Luke or Darach were dead?
Aye, he did feel older than the rest. He’d put the weight of a country on his shoulders.
“There was no laughter in my life for the first four years of it,” he began hesitantly. He never spoke of this to anyone. He wanted to tell her to help her understand what drove him. “When I first arrived in Camlochlin, I soaked up my childhood like dry soil after a drought. I played hard, and practiced hard, both in the list and in my grandmother Kate’s library. I was accepted fully into the fold, but I felt I had more to prove because I wasn’t born a MacGregor. Foolish, it might be, but sometimes I believe that doing my part in saving Scotland will prove my love and my commitment. I truly am sorry fer bringing ye into it.”
She was quiet for a moment, pondering his words. Then, “Yer kin don’t sound like they need proof from ye. In fact, from what I’ve heard of them, they sound like they would prefer it if ye lived a happy life, committed to a wife and children, not to dying young. Also”—she raised her head and looked at him—“if ye’re trying to save Scotland to prove something, then ye’re not doing it fer the right reasons.”
When he remained quiet, she tugged his hand. “Are ye angry at my words?”
He shook his head and drew her closer. “I was wrong
fer taking ye. But I don’t regret it. I would keep ye here with me longer…to appease my own selfish desires.”
She laughed and the sound of it was refreshing to his weary soul.
“’Tis a good thing really, that ye kidnapped me. Fer Sarah would have come with or without me. And I would much prefer to be with her and watch over her.”
“If ye remember, lass, I asked ye to come away with me and ye agreed. I wouldn’t necessarily call it kidnapping.” He smiled and winked at her.
She pinched his arm hard. “I am the Duke of Queensberry’s niece. Ye kissed me and then smothered me with a rag and handed me over to be delivered here. How precisely is that not considered kidnapping?”
When he considered all his possible replies, none seemed worthy of her.
“Never mind it all.” She grinned playfully up at him. “I will forgive ye for it all if ye promise not to harm Walter or my—”
Her words came to an abrupt halt as an arm appeared out of the bushes, followed by a big, muscular body, and took hold of her.
“Edmund!” she screamed, terrified, holding out her arms to him.
His thoughts fled, abandoning him along with doubt and hesitation. His dagger was out of his belt and hurling end over end before the bastard had time to react and hurt her. She screamed and leaped into Edmund’s arms while her attacker crumpled to the ground, Edmund’s dagger in his throat.
“I’ve got ye, lass,” he whispered, lifting her to his pounding heart. “I’ll let nae harm come to ye.”
She smiled while he carried her back to the castle. “Edmund?”
“Aye, lass?”
“Now I trust ye.”
He smiled and pulled her closer against him. Neither of them heard the bushes rustle or the footsteps running away as the attacker’s unseen companion fled in the darkness.
Edmund brought her to the solar. He sat her on the cushioned settee and covered her with a blanket when she trembled. Damn it, he thought while he started a fire in the hearth. This would not have happened if he hadn’t put Grendel out while Darach played the pipes. Grendel had taken off, mayhap as far as Skye to get away from the sound. Had he been here, he would have alerted Edmund to the man waiting in the shadows. Edmund swore again. He’d done nothing but put her in danger since he took her.
He swallowed and turned to look at her.
She looked up from her silent appraisal of the flames sparking to life. “Perhaps,” she told him quietly, “ye should be away from me before I get ye killed.”
He blinked and then tossed her a disgruntled half smirk. “I think yer fergetting who flung his dagger and did the killing, lass. I’m a wee bit insulted that ye have so little faith in my skill.”
He decided then and there that her wry smile was every bit as bonny as her sincere one.
“Truly, there isn’t one among the bunch of ye who doesn’t think his sword is the most deadly.”
“Not as deadly as yer tongue,” he countered, coming to sit beside her.
Their eyes met and they smiled at each other.
“There is nothing deadly about me, save the curse I bring to others.”
He laughed softly, bending to her mouth. “I disagree, Amelia. Fer ye’ve brought nothing but light to me.”
He cupped the delicate contour of her jaw in his hand. He watched her with hooded, heated eyes as she parted her lips to receive him. When her body wilted against his, he coiled his arm around her waist and pulled her in closer. Her soft groan against his mouth made his body jerk as if a wet whip had been slapped across his back. The bewitching innocence of her tongue fluttering inside his mouth made every inch of him go hard as steel. He’d forgotten how damned good it felt to kiss her.
He’d been with a few other women, playful romps in the hay of his aunt’s barn before he grew more serious about his love and his fight for Scotland. But none had ever tempted him to offer them anything more than pleasure. None of them enchanted him with their winsome smiles and restrained defiance—though the worst she had done was befriend a servant and fall asleep barefoot in a garden.
He pulled back slowly, reluctantly, knowing that if he continued kissing her it would only make him more desperate to carry her to the nearest bed and end any other man’s claim on her. More desperate to keep her. And no matter what he felt about her, he could never do that without betraying his homeland.
Chapter Fifteen
Lucan MacGregor lay in bed and scoured his mind, trying to recall what he’d done to bring this misfortune upon him. To be in a sickbed, as helpless as a babe…He detested the thought of it so much that he couldn’t finish it. How long would it take him to rise to his feet and fight for her properly?
“How badly does this pain ye?” Sarah looked up from examining his wound and poked his stitches gently.
Lucan had been sliced up a few times, both on the practice field with his uncles and cousins, and on the battlefield, upholding his name and his country. But no wound had been as serious as this one, none so deep that it grew infected. He knew it was by the red-hot pain coursing over his nerve endings. His breath faltered, and as it did, a ginger curl popped loose of her side braid and dangled over her eye.
He smiled at her. At least, he thought he did. His head still felt rather cloudy and to be honest, he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming. She looked like a dream working so diligently over him. She’d caught his eye from that first night in Edinburgh, when she stayed so closely by her dear friend. He’d tried to share words with her that night at the would-be celebration, but Malcolm had beaten him to it. Later, when his cousin brought her along, Luke had wanted to beat him senseless. Being attracted to her and then riding away from her forever was one thing. Having her around day in and day out to distract him and drive him mad every time she smiled at Malcolm was another thing entirely.
“Not so bad?”
He hadn’t realized he’d started breathing, or that he was smiling like an imbecile now. “It feels hot.”
He watched her while she returned her attention to his flesh. The span of her shoulders made him feel like a giant next to her. She would be easy to carry away…all the way to Skye if she asked him to take her.
She’d saved his life. She made him dream of her and dulled his pain. How was he supposed to woo her properly when he could barely sit up on his own?
It was bad enough that he couldn’t save her from a bastard Buchanan waiting in the shadows, the way Edmund had saved Amelia the night before. But what made it all the more undignified was that, propped up on a silk pillow, he couldn’t protect her from Malcolm.
“I think ’tis infected.” She looked up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I will have to get Amelia. She knows more about herbs than I do.”
He stopped her when she turned to go, closing his fingers around her wrist. But when she turned to discover why he’d stopped her, he didn’t know what the hell to say.
“Thank ye fer spending so much of yer time here.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. She laughed, as if he were mad to make such a ridiculous statement. “How d’ye know how much time I spend here? Ye’ve been asleep fer most of those hours.”
“But I know when ye’re here.”
Her laughter faded and she finally met his gaze head-on. “Ye do?”
He nodded. Damnation, this was the perfect moment to move closer to her. But he couldn’t. “Ye wear a scent about ye of peat and morning dew. It makes me think of home. And of ye. I’ve dreamed of ye twice now.” He looked away, not wanting to embarrass her when he quirked his mouth, remembering the images that were fired into his thoughts. “I’m grateful,” he continued, capturing her gaze again, “fer yer attention.”
She didn’t blush like others might, but paled until her eyes shimmered in a dozen different shades of green.
“That isn’t something ye need to thank me fer, Lucan. ’Tis m’ duty.”
“Why? Ye’re not a servant here.”
“It matters not.” Her spine stiffened and
she freed her wrist with a gentle tug. “I do it because I should, and fer no other reason.”
“I see.” He nodded. “Such dedication to yer duty is even more commendable.”
She opened her mouth to say something but the door burst open and Malcolm, slayer of hearts, pestilence to purity, entered, all smiles and carefree abandon.
“Good day, Luke, ’tis pleasin’ to see ye up and—” He narrowed his eyes and rethought his next description. “Ye dinna’ look all that well in truth.”
Lucan cut him a sharp smile, or he may have frowned. He wasn’t certain. The chambers didn’t look so clear either, and hell, but when had it gotten so hot in here?
“Yer insults have no effect on me, Cal. Someday ye’ll understand that ’tis what’s inside of a man that makes him a man, not his appearance.”
“And someday, Luke, m’ courtly brother, ye’ll understand that ’tis what a man conceals beneath his plaid and his skill at usin’ it that makes him a man. Now dinna’ vex me. I’ve had to withstand the company of eleven Drummonds this morn when they came to collect the dead fer the Buchanans. I’ve already warned Will Buchanan that if we are attacked again, the only peace his people will know is what is carved into their chief’s headstone.” He moved closer to the bed and touched his knuckles to Lucan’s cheek. “When are ye goin’ to— Hell, ye’re burnin’ up.”
He turned to Sarah. “Where’s Amelia?”
“Malcolm, don’t shout at her,” Lucan warned. Damn him for not being able to do more than that.
“She was in the garden this mornin’,” Sarah’s soothing voice flirted about his ears.
“I’ll get her,” Malcolm said. “Ye stay here with him.”
Kind of his cousin for suggesting she stay, Lucan thought, drifting off. He would have to thank him later. “Sarah.”
“Aye?”
“If I had legs I would kiss ye, lass. I’d make ye ferget him and anyone else.” He closed his eyes, happy to be dreaming about her again.
She smiled and coiled her arms around his neck as he floated toward the ceiling. “Prove it,” she teased, parting her lips.