The Blood of Roses

by Marsha Canham

  Maggie MacLaren was a local girl, and as such, never submitted without a show of resistance. However, once she had been dutifully “conquered,” she was not the least adverse to employing any and all of her considerable talents to ensure there was always some extra token of esteem left on the nightstand each morning.

  Grinning, his mouth still clamped to her breast, Garner pushed her down onto the mattress and, without further preamble, unfastened the codpiece of his breeches and thrust himself between her thighs. His groan was genuine; she was hot and slick and tight as a leather glove. She offered the usual show of defiance, struggling to unseat him for all of a minute, her hair flying, her teeth bared, her feet kicking and gouging and digging into the bedding for traction. But just as suddenly, her curses became moans and her efforts to bar his driving thrusts became violent surges to grind as close to him as humanly possible. Her hands fought his restraining grip until he released them, then they were flung up and around his shoulders, clawing and tearing into him until their frenetic activity nearly sent them lurching off the side of the bed.

  As it was, Hamilton thought she might never let him go. The long, energetic legs were locked tightly around him, holding him in place until every last possible shiver of ecstasy had run its course. When she released him, Hamilton collapsed limply on the mattress beside her, his flesh throbbing with aftershocks. The sweat rolled off his brow, soaking a wide damp patch on the satin coverlet; his wig had been torn off his head and cast aside to land precariously close to the flame of a burning candle.

  “Thank Christ the rebels never thought to use you as a weapon.” He gasped. “They could have had the rebellion won by now.”

  Maggie’s head was tilted forward, her brows crumpled in dismay as she inspected the damage brought about by his brass buttons, leather belts, and starched lapels. Her breasts, large enough to satisfy any man’s wildest fantasies, were chafed as red as the dye in Hamilton’s woolen tunic; her inner thighs were pink and itching from the friction of the nankeen breeches. All in all, however, she supposed the discomfort was worth the price of seeing her Sassenach lover quiveringly depleted. He was insufferably vain, obsessed with his own self-image, and ambitious enough to be a cunningly dangerous man.

  Tall and lean and undeniably handsome, the flaxen-haired officer exercised daily to keep his body in peak condition. He also dueled with fellow officers at the hint of an insult, mainly to dispute any taint of cowardice that might have clung to him following his former command of the 13th Dragoons. Immediately after the fiasco at Colt’s Bridge, it was said he ordered his two junior officers shot for cowardice and hanged twenty men from the rank and file as an example. Following a repeat of their performance at Prestonpans, Garner’s regiment had only managed to come away with their lives upon the intercession of General Cope himself, who had wisely counseled that to have them all shot or hanged would serve no purpose other than to delight their enemies.

  Garner’s approach to women was as cool and arrogant as his personality. He was an adequate lover—not the best she had had by any means, but energetic.

  “If tha’s how ye judge yer weaponry, Sassenach,” she said sardonically, eyeing the limp digit of flesh that flopped out from beneath his codpiece, “I’d still be wary O’ yer chances against ma kin.”

  The jade eyes opened slowly. “One of these fine days, my rebel minx, I might begin to think your tongue is growing a measure too sharp for my liking.”

  “As long as it’s only ma tongue”—she laughed—“then ye’ve nae worries.”

  Garner contemplated the swollen moistness of her lips a moment, then let a smile curve across his own. Until recently, he had shown little interest in her background. Other than noting the fact she was Scottish and posessed exemplary skills between the sheets, he had barely paid any attention to her. Winning her on the toss of a die was not exactly a challenge to his manly powers of seduction, but where most women were easily captivated and made slaves to his blond, virile dominance—and, in turn, quickly boring him—Maggie MacLaren was proving to be the exception. Only one other woman had shown the same combination of fire and ice. Catherine Ashbrooke had been the embodiment of passion and desire; it had raged in every sultry glance, glowed from every luminous curve of soft white flesh. Yet she had held herself aloof, as if she hadn’t cared a wit if he were alive or if he dropped dead at her feet.

  The image of dropping dead—or wounded, as it were— at her feet caused Hamilton’s face to harden perceptibly. Wealthy, refined, spoiled, and beautiful, Catherine Ashbrooke had come the closest to winning an honest proposal of marriage from him. Instead, she had played him for a fool, manipulating herself between two lovers and selling herself to the victor. The humiliation he had suffered in losing the duel to Montgomery had been nothing compared to the mortification of discovering she had not sought an annulment for their marriage, had not left the black-haired merchant at the nearest inn as she had promised, had not even deigned to leave a note telling of her change of heart so that he, Hamilton Garner, might be spared the nudges and exchanged winks of his men as he chased up and down the length of England searching for her.

  “Was she pretty, Sassenach?”

  “What?” he asked, startled out of his reverie. “Who?”

  “Whoever ye’re thinkin’ about wha’s makin’ the drool hang down yer Up an’ wee willie there spring back tae life like as if he’d been stung by a bee.”

  Hamilton glared at her and sat upright, the flush in his cheeks betraying more than the distant gleam in his eye. More than enough to provide Maggie with a fistful of barbs.

  “Do I remind ye O’ her?”

  “Not likely,” he snapped, cursing as a button on his waistcoat became snarled around a loose thread. Maggie, sniffing some profit to be made, rose to her knees before him, her nimble fingers taking over the task of unfastening belts and buckles, buttons and laces.

  “Was she beautiful?”

  The muscles in Hamilton’s jaw flexed. Beauty was relative, was it not? Compared to spun gold, Catherine’s hair was indeed beautiful. Compared to sunlight and moonlight, her face was more radiant, her body more ethereal. Compared to nectar, her lips were sweeter.

  “She was a bitch, actually.” Hamilton sighed wanly. “A yellow-haired, blue-eyed bitch. But she came with a very impressive pedigree and could have set me up quite nicely for the rest of my life.”

  “Could have? Ye mean ye lost her?”

  “The duel was rigged,” he blurted angrily. “The contest was hardly fair, what with her and—” He stopped, noting the gleam of interest in Maggie’s golden eyes. He had answered more than she had asked, had told her far more than he had ever intended to let her know. She was studying him closely, speculatively, as she loosened his shirt and ran her fingertips down over the smooth bulge of muscles across his chest. Lower still and she encountered the hard ridge of scar tissue over his ribs—the only blemish of ugliness on an otherwise classically perfect body.

  “So,” she mused. “Ye fought a duel f’ae her an’ lost.”

  The jade eyes flared and his hands grasped her shoulders so tightly his nails gouged her flesh. “No one has ever bested me with a sword,” he hissed, jerking her forward. “No one!”

  Her eyes glowed maliciously. “Ye have the scars tae prove someone did.”

  “The duel was supposed to be to the death. I drew first blood, by God, and was about to finish him off when the coward balked and turned away, his sword tip lowered as if to concede. And when I, suffering some delusion of mercy, thought to grant him his life, he attacked. I lay near death for days, and when I regained consciousness, I learned the bastard had run away. Both of them had run away. Oh, she lied so sweetly. Lied to me as I lay bleeding in my humiliation, but I should have guessed the two were in collusion all along.”

  Releasing the pressure on Maggie’s shoulders, he clenched his fists on his lap and ground the heels of his palms into his knees as he continued. “When I was fit, I followed them. I spent weeks combin
g the inns and posting houses, hoping to pick up their trail and deliver them both their just rewards. But they were gone. Vanished. I could not believe it at first—they were hardly an invisible couple. But everywhere I asked after a slender blonde woman and a tall, black-haired, black-eyed bastard from hell, I was shrugged aside.”

  Maggie was engrossed in watching the remarkable shades of fury that colored his expression, but at the description of the errant lovers, her eyes grew larger and rounder, the breath quickened in her throat, and an unwitting rush of excitement caused the skin around her nipples to pucker and darken in anticipation.

  “Having found them nowhere, I gave up and returned to my regiment just as the news of Charles Stuart’s arrival reached London. I have not forgotten nor forgiven either one of them, though, and sometimes … the image is so clear, the desire to win my revenge is so strong, I see his face on the enemy—in taverns, in crowded streets, even once riding at the head of an enemy patrol. It wasn’t him, of course. It couldn’t be. Montgomery and his whore-bitch are hundreds of miles away, crawled back into their London snakehole or, more likely, somewhere on the Continent, laughing over what a fine fool they made of me. Dearest Catherine. Dearest, sweetest Catherine … how I do hope we meet again someday.”

  Turning his attention back to the girl, Garner saw that her hands were lying quite motionless in her lap, and her complexion had turned pale around the large, amber tiger eyes that now seemed to have widened to encompass her whole face.

  “Maggie? What is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Did ye say … Catherine?”

  “Catherine Ashbrooke: Why do you ask?”

  “An’ his name? Ye said it was Montgomery?”

  “Raefer Montgomery. Why?”

  Maggie’s hands dropped away completely and she sat back on her heels. It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t be!

  “Good lord,” she muttered. “O’ course it could! She said once as how her fiancé were an officer wi’ the dragoons.”

  Hamilton’s frown deepened as a low, throaty laugh burst from her lips. She tried to stifle it. She covered her mouth with her hands and rocked back, but it was no use; the laughter came harder, the irony of it all producing tears of mirth that streamed all the faster, the angrier the major became.

  “What the devil are you on about?” he demanded. “Who said her fiancé was an officer in the dragoons?”

  “Catherine,” Maggie managed to choke out over a new peal of laughter. “Aye, it were deaf, sweet Catherine. A yellow-haired, blue-eyed Sassenach bitch what come tae Achnacarry … oh … seven, eight months ago. Newly wed too. Tae him. Tae the black-haired devil himsel’: the Camshroinaich Dubh!”

  Far from sharing the girl’s amusement, Hamilton gripped her arms tightly again, shaking her so brusquely her titian-red hair flew around her shoulders in a shiny tumble.

  “Will you stop and tell me what the hell you are talking about!” he shouted.

  “I told ye!” She gasped. “It were him! It were him an’ it were her at Achnacarry! Only his name isna Montgomery, ye daft bastard. It’s Cameron! Alasdair Cameron! An’ when ye thought ye saw him across the field leadin’ a rebel patrol, ye most likely did see! He’s Alasdair … Alexander Cameron, brither tae Donald Cameron O’ Lochiel!”

  “How do you know?” Garner rasped. “How do you know it is the same man?”

  “There couldna be two like him in the whole world. Besides—” She brought her laughter under control and wiped at the moisture streaking down her cheeks. “—I should ken ma own cousin, should I na?”

  “Your … cousin?”

  “Aye.” The amber eyes lifted to his, the irony still sparkling brightly in their depths. “Cousin tae the grand Camshroinaich Dubh, I am. Cousin tae his brither Lochiel as well, and tae Dr. Archibald—”

  “Donald Cameron of Lochiel … the Chief of Clan Cameron … you are related to him?”

  “Gie’s ye a wee shiver, does it?”

  “And … Raefer Montgomery”—Hamilton moistened his lips and adjusted the suddenly damp grip on the girl’s shoulders—“you’re absolutely certain he’s …”

  “The Camshroinaich Dubh? Aye, I’m certain. He boasted O’ duelin’ a sour-faced redcoat Sassenach f’ae the privilege O’ marryin’ his yellow-haired bride. Aye, it comes back tae me now; Alasdair mentionin’ he’d used the name Montgomery tae start a shippin’ business out O’ France.”

  Hamilton was only partially listening. His head was reeling—not from the amount of wine he had consumed earlier, but because he had just learned the man he had fought his duel with seven months ago was none other than Alexander Cameron—the man reputed to be the greatest swordsman in all of Europe, possibly in all of the civilized world! Catherine’s involvement hardly merited a passing thought. Hamilton had studied with the great masters and had heard the whispered rumors surrounding the legendary Dark Cameron, the Scottish warlord living in exile. To think he had actually fought Cameron … and damned near bested him!

  “Where is he?” Hamilton demanded eagerly. “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “Well, unless he’s taken a likin’ tae wearin’ red,” she snorted, “he’s still wi’ the prince.”

  Garner cursed inwardly. Of course, he knew that. Calm yourself! He’s out there somewhere and he’s not a ghost anymore. He’s real, by God. Real!

  “Maggie, listen to me—”

  “Lauren,” she said, interrupting.

  “What?”

  “Ma name’s no’ Maggie … it’s Lauren. Lauren Cameron, an’ if ye dinna stop squeezin’ ma arms, I’ll have nae bluid left in ma fingers.”

  Hamilton’s hands sprang open. He stared at the livid marks he had left on her skin for a moment, collecting his thoughts before he reached for her again, this time by two clenched handfuls of thick, curling hair.

  “Catherine,” he said suddenly. “What do you know about Catherine?”

  “Nae more than what I want tae know. Only that she didna gladden too many hearts by comin’ tae Achnacarry, hangin’ on Alasdair’s arm lookin’ at us all as if we were scullery maids.”

  Her words struck him like a wet cloth. “He brought Catherine to Scotland!”

  “That’s what I said, did I na? He brung her tae Achnacarry—a Sassenach, nae less. Auld Sir Ewen must have turned in his grave.”

  “Is she … still there?”

  Lauren narrowed her eyes consideringly. If she said the bitch was back in England, would he go tearing off to find her? Losing Alasdair to her had been a bad enough blow to her vanity; losing her gilded Sassenach major would just be too much to tolerate. Lauren was far from finished with him. He shared some of her main qualities—greed and ambition—and she was not about to give him up until a better prospect came along.

  “Aye,” she said coolly. “He left her at Achnacarry wi’ the rest O’ the simperin’ lot.”

  “Where is this Achnacarry? How do I get there?”

  “Achnacarry?” Lauren scoffed openly. “Ye must be daft. Naebody just goes tae Achnacarry Castle. Even if ye could get through the fifty miles O’ cold, black forest an’ scaled the dozen corries atween here an’ there, ye’d never get through the wall O’ clansmen wha’ dae naught all the blessed day long but look f’ae Sassenachs an’ Campbells. Achnacarry’s no’ had an uninvited guest since … since auld King MacBeth took the keep by siege. An’ he only held it a day or so afore fleein’ f’ae his life. If ye dinna believe me, ask yer friend, the Duke O’ Argyle. He’s been tryin’ tae get inside Achnacarry’s walls f’ae years. Aye, an’ he’s also been tryin’ tae put a hangman’s noose around Alasdair’s throat f’ae the past fifteen years, but never come so close as tae catch sight O’ him. If it’s revenge ye’re wantin’, ye’ll have tae stand in line ahind about five thousand men.”

  Hamilton flung her aside with a curse and stood up. He paced to the far side of the room, standing at the heavily curtained window for several minutes until a faint tinkle of laughter drew his gaze b
ack to the bed.

  “Surely ye still dinna want the bitch?” she asked, uncurling her long feline body and standing up. “No’ after what she’s done tae ye.”

  “I want … explanations,” he said carefully. “I have heard of this Dark Cameron and of the various crimes he has committed. Perhaps he forced her—”

  “Forced?” Lauren scorned the word and the idea. “I didna see her bein’ forced tae rut wi’ him day an’ night in every room an’ cavie in the castle. Fact is, she’d drag him away from the table afore he’d half finished a meal, an’ leave a trail O’ torn claythes tae the nearest bed.”

  Garner was in motion before she could scramble out of the way. The slap echoed in the silence like a whiplash, the force of it spinning her back to sprawl across the bed. She screamed as he caught a fistful of hair and arched her head back.

  “Bitch! What do you know about it!”

  “I ken what I saw!” she insisted, the rage in her voice causing it to tremble. “She couldna keep her hands off him, nor keep from keenin’ an’ bleatin’ her pleasure loud enough f’ae the whole castle tae hear!”

  “Liar!” He roared, striking the small white face again. This time she came up fighting, her nails bared and raking at his chest, her teeth flashing whitely through the crimson slash of a split lip. Lunging at him, she was caught in midair, but the sheer violence of her attack threw them both off balance and they crashed together on the floor. Hamilton was on top of her in an instant, rolling the weight of his body over hers to restrict the wild thrashings. He felt her nails carve into his shoulder and he grunted as a well-placed knee came crushingly close to its target. He struck her again, smearing the fiery red mane of hair across the carpet, aroused despite his anger as he felt himself pressed up against her heat and wetness.