by Paula Quinn
“I treated her well, Captain,” Walter argued. “I agreed to marry her when no one else would.”
“I don’t care.” The captain shrugged and looked at his soldier. “Lewis, find the chancellor a tree to sleep under and deposit him there.”
“Queensberry will hear of your defiance to your duties,” Walter warned while he was carried away. “You will be stripped of your title!”
Amelia folded her knees to her chest and hugged them. “Will ye?” she asked the captain quietly.
“That’s not your concern.”
“I’ll speak fer ye…to my uncle.” She wiped her eyes but looked away anyway. She wanted to ask him what happened to his hand, to Walter’s leg. But she didn’t want to know the answer. Not yet. If they fought Luke or Darach and were wounded from it, how did her friends fare? Where was Sarah? What had these men done? She wanted to know, but her heart, her mind, wasn’t prepared to hear it.
“How did ye find us?” she asked instead.
“Ennis Buchanan the first time and Alistair Buchanan the second.”
She cut her gaze to him again, her heart pounding against her ribs. “Alistair? When did ye speak to him?”
“Right after you all left Ravenglade.” He stood up and stretched and looked around for a tree. “It seems your MacGregor made a lot of Buchanan enemies over the years.”
Amelia closed her eyes and gritted her teeth not to scream. Alistair. He was Edmund’s enemy because of his hand, because of Gaza, because of her.
She knew it would happen. Edmund was dead because of her.
She didn’t know she sobbed until the captain rested his hand on her shoulder. “Come, lady. Get some sleep. Things might be different tomorrow.”
Chapter Forty
Edmund raced out of Jack Robertson’s inn with his cousins and Gaza behind him. Jack had told him who poisoned him and who took his woman. Outside, he stared out into the coming dawn and took a deep breath, readying himself for what was to come. He tugged on the collar of his shirt. He missed his plaid. He hated wearing English or Lowland attire. He was a Highlander and today he was going to fight like one. Today he was going to kill like one.
He didn’t speak to his cousins while they mounted their horses. There was nothing to say. They would return to the inn for Sarah later, after they rescued Amelia. And they would rescue her.
Whose blood had he found on the floor in his room when he woke from his slumber?
Edmund didn’t want to ride slowly, but tracks were easier to find that way. He couldn’t assume Amelia was being taken directly back to Edinburgh. That would be too easy. He knew who took her, and Captain David Pierce was no lackwit. Still, he had to know he would be followed. Why hadn’t the captain killed them all when he had the chance? Why leave four angry warriors alive?
He shook his head, not really caring why. Soon, and likely sooner than later thanks to Gaza’s picking up their scent and leading them forward, Amelia would be back in Edmund’s arms and their enemies would be sprawled out in puddles of blood.
“What’s that?” Luke pointed to something dangling off a bush.
It was a bloody rag, Edmund realized from his saddle when he came to look down on it. The sun began its ascent and spread a shaft of golden light on the fabric. He recognized it and leaped from his horse to snatch the rag from its place.
“What is it?” Malcolm rode close to him and peered at it.
“’Tis Amelia’s,” Edmund told them quietly. He held the rag away from him and let it uncoil in his hand. It was hers. The blood in his room. Now this. The panic he’d been subduing since he opened his eyes finally engulfed him. What had they done to her? Why was the rag left for him to find? He would kill them, however many there were, he would kill them all.
“It may no’ be her blood.”
Malcolm was correct. Edmund looked at him and nodded. It might not be her blood.
He shoved the rag beneath his belt and sprang to his saddle with renewed vigor. “Let’s get her.”
They were riding for a quarter of an hour when they came upon the captain’s camp barely concealed within a stand of trees.
“’Tis a trap,” Luke whispered, surveying the scene before him.
“Aye,” Malcolm agreed. “They want us to rush in and—”
Edmund marched by him and straight into the camp, cutting off the rest of Malcolm’s words.
Edmund heard his cousins call him back in hushed tones, but he ignored them. While they were standing around contemplating, he killed the first sleeping solider guarding her. The next guard roused from his sleep and clutched his severed throat before falling back to the ground. Edmund barely had time to gut his next victim when the rest of them began waking up. He took out two more with a half turn, a two-handed slice, and a backward jab that brought him to one knee.
Malcolm and the others had barely reached him when a shout halted everyone’s movement.
“MacGregor!” the voice called. “Move a hair and I’ll start shooting your relatives.”
“Where is she, Captain?” Edmund called out.
“She is safe and in my care. If you ever wish to see her again don’t kill another one of my men.”
“Bring her to me!”
The captain turned to a man at his right. They watched him disappear and then return with Amelia in his grip.
“Edmund!” she screamed, pulling on her captor to get to him.
He didn’t move to get her but flicked his gaze to the pistol pointed at Darach. “If ye’ve harmed her—”
“I said she was safe.”
“The bloodied rag?” Edmund pulled the cloth free of his belt.
“Mine.” Pierce smiled and held up his hand. “Your dog attacked me as I turned to kill you at the inn.”
Edmund stared at him like his ears had just deceived him. “My dog?” He thought he’d dreamed her.
“Aye.” Pierce pointed at Gaza. “You are fortunate to own the beast. It saved your life.”
Edmund looked down at Gaza sitting at his feet and for the first time, he saw her. She’d hardly left his side since he took her from Alistair. Even when Grendel had abandoned him for Amelia, Gaza had remained at his feet.
He patted her head now.
“I would like to keep her after I’m done with you.”
Edmund looked up at the captain again with a smirk curling his mouth. “Tonight I’ll leave here with both ladies and your head.”
Pierce shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “You might indeed.” He lowered his pistol and tucked it into his belt. “Let’s discover if you are correct.” He pulled a sword free from a scabbard hanging from his side and called his men to stand down. He waited for Edmund to do the same.
“Captain!” Amelia called out. She glared at the chancellor when he finally roused himself from his sleep and came near. “If ye harm him, I will not return with you to my uncle, or to my former betrothed. In fact”—she pulled up her skirts, drawing all eyes to her bare knee and the small pistol secured to it; she freed it and aimed it at Seafield—“I will kill the chancellor and do my best to kill ye, as well.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes on her as if trying to figure out if she would do it. Finally, coming to his conclusion, he lowered his sword.
Edmund thought he looked more disappointed than any man he’d ever seen.
“I don’t do this for you, Seafield.” Pierce sighed, putting away his sword. “I do it for her. If she is willing to hang to save MacGregor, then she deserves to save him.”
“Keep the pistol on him, lass,” Malcolm called out to her when she began to turn away from the chancellor.
It was too late. In the time it took her to form a single breath, Seafield leaped at her, knocking over the soldier who had brought her to them.
The pistol fired. Everyone froze save for Edmund. He ran to Amelia and reached her as Seafield slipped down her body to the ground.
“Walter!” Amelia cried out, clutching him. “I didn’t mean to…”
He
looked up at her. “You aren’t done with me yet.” He scowled for all he was worth and then he fainted.
Unfortunately, he was correct. The ball entered his side. Damage was minimal. He would live to see another day.
“Bring him to the horses,” Pierce ordered his men. “Tie him to the saddle if you must.” He smirked at Amelia when she caught his gaze.
“Ye don’t like him,” she said.
He shrugged, straining the shirt across his shoulders. “I still have to return him safely to Edinburgh.”
“And me?”
“You, I like.”
She smiled and opened her mouth to speak but Edmund beat her to it. “Ye like her, yet ye’re willing to let her wed a man who faints at a flesh wound?”
Pierce walked around his horse and came to stand directly in front of Edmund. Confidence lit his flinty gaze and curled the tips of his mouth. “She’s not my woman, MacGregor. If she were, I wouldn’t let me take her.”
“I don’t intend to let ye take her anywhere, Captain.”
Pierce beamed. “Good! A fight for her then. Not to the death.” He turned and grinned at Amelia. “If you disarm me, she is yours.”
“Are we simply to believe yer word, then?” Darach called out, listening to the conversation.
“If he’s lying,” Edmund assured them calmly, “I’ll kill him.”
“Ah, a confident man. I like that.” Pierce drew his sword and ushered Edmund into the center of the clearing. “How long have you been wielding a sword?”
“Since I was four,” Edmund told him, unsheathing his blade.
“Who taught you?”
“My father.” Edmund faced him and eyed the captain’s wounded hand. Pierce was either a terrible fool or one of the most confident—
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when, using only one hand, Pierce swung and nearly knocked Edmund’s sword out of his grip.
All right then, fighting with one hand wasn’t one of the captain’s weaknesses. Edmund repositioned and parried three successive blows to different parts of the captain’s body in the space of two breaths.
“Though I hate losing men, I was impressed by your entrance.”
Edmund didn’t answer him but cut a swipe across the backs of the captain’s legs, angling his blade at the last instant so that only the flat surface struck, doing no damage.
Pierce almost went to one knee as he spun in a full circle. He held himself upright by sheer force of will. When righted, he paused with his back to Edmund and his front to Edmund’s kin. Luke waved to him, and Darach chuckled.
Edmund waited while the lads had their sport. They deserved it for being so patient. Pierce didn’t seem to mind; when he pivoted around he was already smiling.
“Speaking doesn’t distract you then.”
Edmund laughed. “Ye don’t know Darach. He never stops talking.”
He watched the warrior twirl his hilt about in his hand, end over end, making it flash beneath the sun and dance as if it were an extension of his arm.
“And ye’re not disconcerted by having only one hand.”
“Let us test your theory.” Pierce came at him in a hailstorm of quick slices and jabs.
Edmund countered every swing raining down upon him, battering the strength of the captain’s wrist, barraging him over and over with heavy, two-fisted parries. He couldn’t give the captain time to launch a different assault and mayhap rest his arm a moment or two. Pierce was seasoned, like Edmund’s father and uncles. His experience might save him the day if given the chance. Edmund couldn’t give him the chance. He was fighting for Amelia. For her, he would beat Pierce into a living mound in the grass before him, begging for mercy.
Malcolm and the lads were roused and riled up by their cousin’s skill and power. Their excitement fevered Edmund’s blood, his determination to win.
He swung hard and was momentarily blinded by the sparks shooting down their grinding blades. Eyes closed, he dipped his knee and whirled his claymore beneath and parallel to Pierce’s. Metal struck metal again. Edmund rose up with the force and power of his full body behind him and cracked his blade down on the other.
Pierce’s stunned gaze followed his sword’s decent to the grass. When he looked up again, he offered Edmund a nod with a hint of amazement widening his eyes.
“Fight for me,” Pierce said, taking hold of Edmund’s hand.
“I cannot fight fer what I don’t believe in,” Edmund told him. “Ye come fight with me.”
Pierce laughed and shook his head, stepping away. “We’ll meet again, MacGregor. For now, take your prize and go.”
Edmund went to her like he had no other choice but to go. He didn’t. Not since the night he woke her in the garden where she’d been dropped by God, and then again in her soup. “Not a prize but a gift,” he told her, catching her in his arms.
“One more thing,” Pierce called out, looking toward the chancellor. “He does worse than faint at a flesh wound. He also beds barons’ wives.”
Chapter Forty-One
A crimson shaft of light poured inside the room, casting the cavernous chamber in a cozy, rosy light. Not too bright for waking up to, but a soft invitation to begin another day.
Amelia opened her eyes and stretched. She ran her hand over the warm body beside her. When he moaned, she turned and curled herself against his back. Pressing her nose to his bare shoulder, she breathed him in. “How is it that everything in Camlochlin is perfect?”
“’Twasn’t until ye got here.”
She smiled behind him and kissed his shoulder. He wasn’t telling the truth, of course. He was being kind. He’d told her much about his home on the way here, but nothing in her wildest imagination could have prepared her for this place. She wasn’t sure which was more primitively beautiful, Camlochlin Castle, carved from nature, or the land that surrounded it. When she first laid eyes on it all, including the cliffs that were as beautiful as they were treacherous, she wasn’t sure she would ever grow accustomed to the isolation of Skye.
Two months later, nothing could ever take her away. She was never lonely. Ever. How could she be when her dearest friend in all the world lived right down the hall from her? Married, on the same day as Amelia, equal, accepted, adored.
“I want to lie here for the rest of the day,” she whispered.
“I like that idea,” Edmund agreed quietly, half asleep. “Let’s do it.”
“I can’t. I’m going hunting with Abby and Caitrina. After that I’m meeting Sarah and Mailie in the kitchens where yer aunt Isobel is going to teach us to cook another one of her delicious recipes. After supper I promised—”
He flipped over and switched their positions, cradling her against his naked, hardening angles. When he nuzzled his face in the folds of her hair, she lost her train of thought.
When he slipped his arm around her waist and pressed her buttocks tighter against his full erection, she remembered.
“—I promised Nichola and Violet I’d teach them how to make tarts. Darach has been driving me mad to make them.”
“All these promises to everyone else. What of yer husband?”
“What about him?” she asked, doing nothing to hide her haughty self-confidence that her husband wanted for nothing.
“He hungers.”
“Fer food?” she giggled, being careful to keep her voice low.
He scooped her hair away from her neck and kissed her sensitive flesh. He pressed slower, more sensuous kisses along her throat until he came to her lobe. “Fer ye,” he growled in her ear.
Her legs opened of their own accord while he pushed his cock against her. Her movement only engorged him further. When she lifted her arm behind her to tug on his hair, he dipped his head and closed his mouth around her tight nipple.
Her cry of ecstasy only provoked him into clasping her hands and pushing her belly down flat on the bed. He climbed atop her, his lance thick and hard and pulsating for her. He spread her knees with his and thrust his shaft deep. The more she cr
ied out, the harder he sank into her. He took her in long, fiery hot strokes that drove him to the edge of madness with the need to come until he passed out.
But he didn’t.
He slipped his hand beneath her and took her hot nub between his fingers. He tugged and rolled her until she panted under him. Then he turned them over one more time, and with him on his back beneath her, his hungry cock buried to the hilt, and his fingers working her hard, they came together in a symphony of groans and cries.
They lay there, done, breathing hard, relaxed, for a moment before the whining began.
“Do ye want to go?” she asked him, hoping he would say aye. She was so tired all over again.
She watched him rise out of bed, the sun, a bit brighter now, spilling gold down all the contours of his sleek body.
David.
She closed her eyes but was awakened a moment later by a cold, hairy mouth.
“Edmund, ye always pick up that one. What about his sisters?” When she left the bed, she turned and watched Edmund holding Gaza’s only male pup in his hands. She smiled, knowing why he always picked up that one. It looked exactly like its father.
Bending to retrieve the gown she’d laid out on the chair the night before, she began dressing for the day and smiled when Gaza rose from her place with her pups and went to the edge of the bed next to Edmund.
“Gaza still loves ye best.”
Edmund smiled. “Nae, she doesn’t. She loves Goliath best.”
Amelia went to him and pinched him and then kissed the pup in his hands. “Do ye think Captain Pierce received yer letter asking about the dogs? Do ye think he will want one? I do pray he sees to my request to offer my father a place here. Ye will love him as much as I do.”
“I’m certain I will, love. As fer Pierce, aye, he’ll bring yer father, and he will want a dog. Everyone wants one. They’re Gaza and Grendel’s. They come from excellent stock, aye girl?”
Gaza rested her head in his lap, happiest when he was petting her. Which he did all the time. She never left his side…until she had her pups.
She helped him heal from losing Grendel and she mended Amelia’s heart, as well. Thanks to Gaza, Amelia never again considered herself misfortunate. How could she when, if not for her begging Edmund to keep Gaza, Gaza wouldn’t have been at the inn to save his life. He wouldn’t now have Grendel’s scruffy, floppy-eared son to train up.