The Campbell Trilogy

by Monica McCarty

  Cobwebs meant spiders.

  A shiver ran up her arm and down her neck, as if she were feeling them crawl across her skin. She inched forward in her seat away from the wall, sitting a bit more upright on the chair.

  What did she expect? She was fortunate to have found any kind of private accommodation this close to Drumin Castle, but nearly every village had an alehouse. The room—or, more accurately, alcove—above this one would have to do.

  The guardsmen who’d escorted her on her “emergency” journey to her cousin’s would be sleeping in the stables.

  She felt a twinge of guilt for the elaborate lies she’d concocted, and a bigger one for the ease with which it had come—it wasn’t just the guardsmen, but her brother she’d lied to. She’d thought about confiding in John—the girls were too young—but didn’t want to force him to choose between his love for his father and his love for the sister who’d been like a mother to him. So she’d invented a message from their cousin Margaret, the new Lady Lovat, requesting her immediate presence at Castle Fraser. Then, when they’d neared Drumin she’d feigned illness, forcing them to find the nearest accommodation. A little gold had gone a long way in persuading the ale woman to overlook the gentleman who would arrive later, ensure the guardsmen had plenty to drink, and to send her son with a message for Duncan at Drumin.

  She wrinkled her nose, looking at the old wool plaid covering the bed. Perhaps the guardsmen had the better end of the bargain; straw might be an improvement. But at least in here she and Duncan would be alone. That is, if he ever showed up.

  She peered out the window into the darkness as if willing him to appear. Where was he? She’d sent her note hours ago. What if he didn’t come?

  Panic pinched her chest. He had to come.

  She had to warn him. Though what she was going to say, she didn’t know. She could hardly tell him what she’d learned—to do so would not only betray her father, but put his life in jeopardy. She bit her lip. It wasn’t only worry about what she was going to say, but she suspected that Duncan wouldn’t exactly be pleased to see her. But as Huntly’s stronghold of Strathbogie was still some distance, she wasn’t in any real danger.

  The toe-tapping didn’t seem to be easing any of her anxiety so she stood and began to pace, which meant taking only a step or two in each direction in the tiny room.

  The sounds of loud, off-key singing, interspersed with laughter filled the night. It was well past midnight, but from the noise below you would never know. The raucous sounds of merrymaking only seemed to increase as the evening wore on, which spoke well for the ale, but not so well for the prospect of sleep.

  Not that she expected to be able to rest any time soon. Not until the battle was over.

  And perhaps not even then. What if he wouldn’t listen to her?

  Despair washed over her, but she forced it aside. She would make him understand.

  A horseman suddenly burst out of the darkness into the yard below. The shadow of a large man dominated the small circle of light provided by a few torches.

  Her pulse took a sudden violent leap, taking her heart right along with it.

  It was too dark to make out his features, but his size and fierceness of his movements told her all she need to know: Duncan had arrived.

  Taking a deep breath, she sat in her chair and faced the door, waiting with her hands folded calmly in her lap, though the erratic beat of her heart was anything but. For the first time, she wondered if she might have made a mistake in coming. She couldn’t escape the knowledge that it was something her mother might have done. But it was too late for second thoughts. Besides, what other choice did she have?

  It seemed to take forever before she heard the heavy sound of booted feet climbing up the stairs, coming to a sudden stop just outside the door. Then, finally, the door burst open.

  It was a good thing she was sitting, as the force of his anger hit her like a blast from a smith’s bellows.

  Her lips parted with a gasp and a shiver wound down her spine. Jesu, he was magnificent.

  Primed for battle, Duncan was an impressive sight. A flush of heated awareness swept over her, her body responding in a distinctly feminine fashion to the blatant display of masculine power. Black leather and steel encased every bulging muscle of his tall, powerfully built body. With his jet black hair and fearsome expression, he looked like a dark knight pulled off the lists of an ancient tournament—fierce, dangerous, and indestructible.

  He had to stoop to avoid hitting his head and angle his shoulders to pass through the doorway. Once inside the chamber he’d sucked the cool air right out with his heat.

  If the room had seemed small before, now it felt about as big as a mouse hole. A mouse hole crowded with almost six and a half feet of fearsome Highland warrior, his body honed as sharp and deadly as the edge of a claymore. He dominated the chamber, making her at once conscious of his strength—and his fury. Fury that rang every internal alarm bell she had until her entire body seemed to reverberate with the clamor. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck and arms stood on edge, sensing danger. She felt the strange urge to run, but there was nowhere to go. He was everywhere.

  His face was a mass of hard lines in the flickering candlelight, the dark shadows emphasizing the square set of his jaw and tight line of his mouth. His eyes narrowed on her with predatory intent, piercing blue appearing almost black. A muscle ticked ominously in his neck—an agonizing tolling of time when it otherwise seemed to stand still. Closing the door, he strode toward her. Even the way he moved was fierce and harshly masculine; he had the long, powerful strides of a lion. She resisted the ridiculous urge to cower, but if she’d ever been inclined to do so, it was now.

  He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. Anger radiated from every inch of his powerful, mail-clad form.

  She gazed up at him tentatively, looking for a crack in his forbidding demeanor, but finding none. His expression was about as yielding as the steel that plated his chest.

  She swallowed, trepidation balling in her throat. No, definitely not pleased to see her.

  Duncan had been out of control precisely twice in his one and twenty years, and both times involved the lass seated before him as primly and properly as if they were meeting at court and not in some hellhole alehouse only a few miles from a looming battle.

  Tamping down the urge to pull her into his arms and vent his rage for scaring the blazes out of him, instead he pulled out her note from his sporran and tossed it in her lap like a gauntlet. “What the hell—” he stopped, clamping down on the reins of control “What is the meaning of this?”

  She picked it up without even looking at it and held it back to him. “I needed to see you.”

  He ripped the wrinkled parchment from her hand and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, holding it before her wary, green-eyed gaze. “I can see that,” he said, his voice deceptively calm, “right here where it says: ‘Come quickly, I must see you. We must act immediately.’ ” He stuffed the note back into the leather pouch and leaned over her menacingly, his arms on either side of her shoulders, bracing himself against the window sill, his face only inches from hers.

  Damn, he could smell her. He inhaled instinctively, drawing in the delicate scent of honeysuckle. And those lips … so soft and pink. A mouth like that should be illegal, conjuring images that could murder a man’s self-control. For a moment, desire blinded him, threatening distraction, but anger won out. “What it doesn’t say,” he said in a low voice, “is what possible reason you could have for following me into a damned war zone.”

  She lifted her tiny upturned nose in the air as haughtily as a queen. Her delicate, regal beauty was laughingly out of place in this hovel. “Stop trying to intimidate me when I’m only here to help you.”

  At another time he might admire her spirit. He wasn’t often challenged when he was in a temper like this. Clenching his fists, he drew a long, ragged breath, searching for patience, but finding it exhausted. “How could putting yourself
in danger and jeopardizing not only our future, but also your father’s involvement with our side, possibly help me? Do you know what would happen if anyone discovered you were here?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I wasn’t thinking of that—”

  “Of course you weren’t,” he said scathingly. “You weren’t thinking at all. You just acted, following whatever damned fancy led you to think coming here was a good idea.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her. He hated hurting her, but hell if he’d temper his anger and risk her ever doing anything like this again.

  “You’re wrong,” she said woodenly. “I didn’t come here on a flight of fancy, I came because I love you and don’t want to see you hurt. I’m sorry my presence so displeases you, but I can assure you I’m in no danger—I brought half-a-dozen guardsmen with me.”

  “No danger?” He could barely contain the fury in his voice. “Do you realize that there are almost fifteen thousand men camped not three miles from here, poised to do battle?” He shuddered to think what she’d told her guardsmen to get them to bring her here.

  She drew her brows together over her nose, looking up at him uncertainly. “Strathbogie is still a day’s ride—”

  “Huntly is no longer at Strathbogie, he’s at Auchindoun.”

  She paled, then chewed on her lip. A surge of heavy heat rushed to his groin and he had to force his gaze away. As always, the intensity of the desire he felt for her was getting in the way, and he didn’t like it. The lack of control bothered the hell out of him. He’d never felt like this. Ever. Nor had he expected to. But love had hit him like Thor’s thunderbolt. Would there ever come a time when he could think rationally around her?

  “Oh,” she said softly.

  “Oh?” he repeated, his voice booming. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  His words had the opposite effect than he’d intended. Her cheeks splotched with angry red. “I do not answer to you, Duncan Campbell.”

  He grabbed her wrist before she could poke his chest and looked down into her flashing eyes. “You will,” he said through clenched teeth. “Once you are my wife, you will damn well answer to me.”

  She gave him a pitying look, as if he was quite deluded in that respect, and wrenched her hand free. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

  His eyes narrowed. For the first time he noticed the genuine turmoil in her expression. Whatever had brought her here was significant enough to be causing her grave distress. His anger cooled perhaps a degree or two. Standing, he dragged his fingers through his hair and pushed it back from where it slumped across his face, trying to uncoil the emotions twisting inside him since he’d received her note. He sighed with exaggerated patience. “Why are you here, Jeannie?”

  She stood and turned toward the window, her back rod straight and hands fluttering fretfully at her narrow waist. “We need to leave together now. In a few days it will be too late.”

  Her vague response did nothing to keep his temper in check. He fought the spike of impatience and managed to mask his frustration behind an even tone. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m in the middle of fighting a war. I don’t have time for puzzles, Jeannie. Explain why you are here, and then you can turn right around and go back home.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes softly pleading. “There is something …” She seemed to catch herself and took another uneven breath. “A feeling of disaster that I cannot shake.” She placed her hand on his chest and leaned toward him pleadingly. “If we don’t leave now I fear we will never be able to. We will never marry. If there is to be any chance for us, we must go now. Tonight.”

  His jaw clenched. “And that is why you are here?” He paused. He couldn’t believe she would act so precipitously. But that’s exactly who she is. Blood pounded through his veins, clamoring for release. “A feeling?”

  Her eyes scanned his face, shimmering with tears. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me.”

  “Based on what? A bad feeling? I do trust you, but what you ask is impossible. I will come for you as we planned in a few days—”

  “Don’t you see,” she cried wildly. “By then it will be too late. We must go now!”

  Her fear seemed so intense it bordered on irrational. “Is there something else, Jeannie? Some other reason—”

  “No,” she cut him off, shaking her head adamantly.

  Too adamantly. He studied her for a moment. Part of him wondered if she was hiding something …

  Nay. He recalled how scared she was when he left. This was nothing more than a young girl’s fears of war talking. He thought she’d understood how important this was to him, but obviously she hadn’t. He was not a man to be led around by leading strings.

  He unlaced her hands from around his neck and set her purposefully away from him. “Return home and I’ll come for you when the battle is over.”

  “No, you have to listen to me.” Her hand clenched his arm, squeezing. “Something terrible is going to happen. I don’t want you in the middle of it.” Her voice had grown increasingly desperate. “Please, if you love me.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

  Anger hardened inside him. Why was she doing this? Didn’t she know how hard it was for him to deny her anything? All he wanted was to make her happy. “I do love you. But what you are asking for is blind obedience not trust. If you have a reason beyond a ‘bad feeling,’ tell me now.”

  She looked back at him, eyes wide and pained, and opened her mouth, but said nothing.

  “Very well then.” The look on her face tore at his chest. He knew he had to get out of here. He strode toward the door. “At first light you will ride for Freuchie and await my arrival.” He gave her a long look, not immune to the fear in her eyes. “I will come for you, Jeannie. Of that I promise.”

  I’ve failed.

  Jeannie stared helplessly at his back, watched as he put his hand on the latch, taking in every heart-wrenching detail of the man who’d claimed her heart from the first moment she’d seen him, as if by doing so she could hold on to him forever. Her eyes scanned the tall, powerful frame, the wide shoulders, narrow waist and long muscular legs, the big callused hands, and the silky black hair that curled at his neck.

  He was a fortress of masculine strength—seemingly indestructible.

  Seemingly, there was the rub. He might look like a rock, but he was flesh and blood.

  Fear, panic, and desperation conspired in one final attempt to make him see what she could not explain: That if he left now, he might never return. “Duncan, wait, you can’t go. I …”

  Dear God, what can I say? How could she make him understand without betraying her father and putting his life—and the lives of her clansmen—in danger?

  The politics of who was right and who was wrong in the religious dispute between Huntly and the king meant nothing to her. All that mattered was that two men she loved were on opposite sides—how could she protect them both?

  If she told Duncan what she’d learned, she knew him well enough to know that he would consider himself duty bound to inform his cousin of her father’s perfidy. He could not stand aside and allow a wrong to go unchecked. Betrayal such as her father intended to a man of integrity like Duncan would not be worthy of understanding or mercy. Duncan would always do what was right and just, no matter the personal cost. She knew that about him.

  But if she didn’t tell Duncan—or somehow stop him from leaving—her father’s treachery would put Duncan in grave physical danger. No matter what she did, Jeannie knew all hope of their family being persuaded to make a match between them was gone. It was the other match that worried her—the one her father had arranged to Francis Gordon and which she’d unwittingly agreed to. She felt a twinge of guilt. Her father had invoked a powerful weapon: duty. She wanted to be a good daughter and defying him would be extremely difficult.

  She was caught in an impossible quandary, torn between two conflicting loyalties. Either way she lost.

  Somehow she h
ad to convince Duncan to heed her warning, but she had to be careful. He was too astute—he might guess what was happening if she said too much.

  He looked back at her over his shoulder, his handsome face set hard against her with cold determination.

  It was the way he looked at other people—not her. His ability to shut off his emotions so completely, so easily, unsettled her.

  “I need to do this, Jeannie. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”

  Hard? What a prodigious understatement. He had no idea how this was tearing her apart.

  She ran toward him and put her hand on his arm, tears of fear and frustration streaming in hot rivulets down her cheeks. She gazed up at him, imploring him with all the love in her heart. “Please, you can’t leave like this.”

  He stood very still and didn’t say anything, but the edges of his mouth turned white. He was fighting something. Me, she realized. Denying her was hard for him. It was a small crack in an otherwise impenetrable façade. Gently, he unlatched her fingers from around his arm and turned away from her.

  Her heart twisted with a fresh spike of panic. He’s going to leave. Stop him. Hold on to him. Not knowing what else to do, she flung herself against him, putting herself between him and the door.

  She clung to his mail-clad chest, but he wouldn’t look at her. His expression stony and unreadable, only the tick below his jaw betrayed his effort. She couldn’t bear that he was holding himself apart like this. “Please, don’t be angry with me,” she begged, tears choking her voice. “I know you think I’m being silly and was foolish to have come here like this. I can explain.” Her chest heaved as she fought to breathe between the sobs. “I’m just so scared.”