A Mackenzie Clan Christmas

by Jennifer Ashley

  “At daybreak, we’ll go back,” he said. “I will wake Magill then. I’ll not carry him down the hill.”

  “Neither will I,” Violet said decidedly.

  “Then the four of us will descend.” Ian leaned his head back on the bricks of the fireplace and closed his eyes. It was not comfortable, but at least this corner had warmed a bit.

  “The four of us?” Violet’s voice held a strange note. “You, me, and Mr. Magill make three.”

  Ian opened his eyes and stared at her. Violet held his gaze a moment and then turned scarlet, which Ian had learned from Beth meant a person felt flustered, or caught in a lie or secret.

  “How did you know?” she asked in a whisper.

  Ian resumed reclining against the wall. “You are sick in the mornings and then eat quite a lot. I have seen you come out of the nursery looking furtive, and you fuss over the youngest members of the household. Beth was much the same with our children.”

  “Damnation, Uncle Ian. Does everyone know?”

  Ian looked at her again. “I don’t know. Have you told Daniel?”

  “Not yet.” She smiled. “I was saving it as a Christmas gift.”

  Ian considered this, thinking of Daniel, the wild, impetuous boy who’d grown into . . . well, a wild, impetuous man. “A good idea.”

  “You’ll keep this our secret then?”

  Ian nodded. “But you must not ride the cycle anymore. You could have hurt yourself. You must be very careful.”

  “I was being careful. I’m a much better driver than Daniel. A snowbank fell on us. It doesn’t matter now anyway—the cycle is a wreck. Daniel will be heartbroken.”

  Ian gazed at her a long time, daring to meet her eyes. “No,” he said calmly. “He will not.”

  Violet and he shared another long look, and Violet nodded. “I agree.”

  Ian gave her a smile, then he leaned his head back again and let himself doze off. All would be well; he knew this in his heart.

  * * *

  Morning light blazed, cutting through the darkness to stab into Ian’s brain. He opened his eyes, ready to growl at Curry for letting the bedchamber grow so cold, and then he groaned.

  He sat on a thin blanket on a cold stone floor, a fire burned to ash behind him. Violet Mackenzie, moving as stiffly as Ian felt, yawned and rubbed her eyes. Between them, Magill let out a series of inelegant snorts and woke with a gasp.

  The light that had woken Ian came from the open door, along with cold wind. A silhouette blocked the light, one of a large Scotsman, who was already roaring in his loud way.

  “Ian!”

  Ian struggled up, but before he could make it to his feet, Hart reached down and hauled him the rest of the way up. Ian found himself immediately crushed in an embrace, his oldest brother as powerful as ever.

  Ian rested his hands on Hart’s shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said into Hart’s intense eyes. “You found me.”

  “I know.” Hart’s fingers dug into Ian’s arms, the man shaking a little. “Now, let’s go home.”

  Chapter 12

  Breakfast was a lively meal in spite of the late night, with the searchers, the rescuers, and Magill safely back home.

  Beth couldn’t leave Ian’s side. Ian had shoved poor Mr. Magill into the house but released him into Lloyd Fellows’s custody. Magill’s near-death in the frozen night had subdued him, and he’d gone off to bed with a hasty mumbled apology. Beth forbade Fellows from taking the man to jail or back to London until after Christmas. Yuletide was for family, and forgiveness.

  The ladies had found Magdala some clothes to replace the secondhand and too-large gown she’d been wearing, and Beth bade her tell her tale as the family feasted on bannocks and porridge, eggs and bacon.

  Jamie gazed at the young woman in some dismay. “So you’re my cousin?”

  “I am indeed, lad,” Magdala answered. “At least, I believe so.”

  Jamie looked crestfallen, and Gavina laughed at him. “You’ve broken his heart,” she said to Magdala. “He was smitten with our ghost.”

  Jamie flushed, though he was always one to admit the truth. “I was, aye. But it was not meant to be, I see. I don’t believe in cousins marrying. No matter what the eugenics people try to prove, breeding too close to the bloodline is a disaster. Especially when it comes to human beings.”

  Magdala raised her brows at him. “You are a bit young for me, in any case, Jamie. I have reached my twenty-first year.”

  That brought more laughter, and Jamie again conceded graciously.

  “On the other hand,” the deep voice of Andrew McBride echoed down the table, “you’re not my cousin.”

  At twenty-one, Andrew was taller than his father, Sinclair, and he had the McBride handsomeness—fair hair, strong face, intense gray eyes. Magdala lifted her chin and gazed a challenge at him, but her cheeks were pink and her bravado faltered under his wide smile.

  Hmm, Beth thought to herself.

  She switched her gaze to Violet, who was sitting very close to Daniel. Violet looked weary, and a bit pale, but also very happy.

  Well, well, well. They had been waiting for more children to come, and now it seemed they had managed it.

  The year was ending satisfactorily, in Beth’s opinion.

  After breakfast, Ian headed for their bedchamber and much-needed sleep, but Beth followed him determinedly. Not quite yet, Ian Mackenzie.

  When she reached their chamber, Ian was unwrapping himself from his kilt, his coat already on the floor. Curry was not there to pick up after him—Beth had sent the man to bed, as he’d been up all night like the rest of them.

  Beth closed the door, getting lost in the sight of her husband’s fine body appearing as he shed his clothes. He glanced at her and his tired eyes softened.

  “Shall we to bed, my Beth?”

  His voice, low and vibrant, weakened her at the knees, but Beth made herself remain upright.

  “All’s well that ends well?” she asked. “Is that what you mean? Nothing more to say?”

  Ian continued to disrobe, his under-drawers falling away so that he stood naked before her.

  “Nothing.” His golden eyes glinted as he walked toward her.

  Beth held up her hands, and Ian paused, but the light in his eyes did not dim. “I suppose you retrieved the necklace.”

  Ian turned away without answering. He lifted his coat, rummaged in the pocket, and drew out the necklace, all gold and blue and green.

  He brought it to Beth and lifted it to rest against her bodice.

  Beth caught the necklace in her hand, the metal holding the warmth of Ian’s pocket. The piece was beautiful, the links intricately worked by some unknown jeweler nearly two thousand years ago.

  “I wanted to give it to you for Hogmanay,” Ian said softly. “But it will do for Christmas Eve.”

  Beth gazed at it in reverence. “It’s beautiful. But I still want it to go to a museum.”

  Ian regarded her in silence a moment, then gave her a nod. “It is yours. Do what you will.”

  “Don’t be offended. It’s just that I think more people ought to be able to enjoy it. It’s a treasure.”

  Ian’s glance told her he thought she was mad, but he wouldn’t argue with her daft ideas. He took her hand, lifting it to his lips.

  He was dissolving Beth’s attention again. Ian licked her finger, then drew it into his mouth, closing his eyes to suckle it.

  “You really didn’t need to give me such an extravagant present,” Beth began, but she trailed off, her breath deserting her.

  Ian kissed her fingertip, then lightly nibbled it. “I want to show you what you mean to me.”

  Beth’s heart fluttered, and every part of her began to heat. “You’ve already given me the best gift.”

  Ian’s brows rose. “Do you mean last Hogmanay? It was onl
y a painting of the dogs, and Mac did that.”

  “I don’t mean that. Although I love it.” The painting was very small, made to stand on her writing table, where she could see the doggie smiles of their current crop of pets, who would most likely be sleeping on her feet under the desk.

  “What then?” Ian returned to kissing her fingers, the backs of them this time. Then he turned her hand over and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist.

  Beth could barely continue. “You gave me you, ye daft Highlander. And Jamie. Belle. Megan.” Her heart filled as she spoke the names of her beloved children. “Ian, you took me in when I had no one. Now I’m surrounded by this wonderful family, and I have you, all to myself. I am the luckiest woman on earth.”

  Ian lifted his head again. His eyes filled with desire, Ian no longer interested in conversation.

  He snaked one arm around Beth and drew her against his delightful body.

  “You are lucky? I am the one who is lucky, my Beth. I saw you in at the theatre, I sat next to you, I met you. I told you exactly what I wanted, and instead of running away, you gave me your beautiful smile. I thought an angel had come to rescue me from all that was darkness. And you did. So wear the damned necklace.”

  Ian rarely spoke so heatedly, or made such a long speech. Beth couldn’t stop her smile, the same one she couldn’t hold back when he’d told her bluntly that faraway day that he wanted to marry her so he could bed her.

  “I love you, Ian Mackenzie,” she said. “All the words in the world can’t convey how much.”

  Ian cupped her cheek and brushed a lingering kiss to her lips. “You’ll wear it, then?”

  “And I love your stubborn single-mindedness. Yes, I’ll wear the necklace. Until after Hogmanay, when it goes back to the museum.”

  Ian never gloated when he won. He only gave her a triumphant smile and lifted Beth into his arms, cradling her while he carried her across the chamber.

  He laid her down on the bed where they’d spent so many nights and had conceived at least one of their children. Beth helped Ian with her many buttons, letting him pull—and tear—her clothes away. A night on the clifftop hadn’t diminished his strength.

  Ian showed her his single-mindedness again when he clicked the necklace around her throat. He leaned to kiss her breasts, his mouth warming the jewels and her skin.

  When he lifted his head, all his love shone in his golden eyes, brighter than the Christmas sunshine.

  “I love you, my Beth. You are the greatest gift the world has given me. I can only try to thank you like this.” He touched the necklace, the priceless thing that he’d gone to such trouble to find.

  Beth touched his face. Every year, her love for this man grew in strength, until she wasn’t sure her heart could bear it. “You don’t know your own worth, Ian, but I do.” She drew him to her. “I do.”

  Ian touched her lips. “No more words. Happy Christmas, my Beth. My love.”

  “Happy Christmas, Ian.”

  Beth surrendered to his kiss, nothing more she needed to say. Ian slid inside her, completing her as he always did, while the midday sun slid through the window to surround them with brilliance.

  A Mackenzie Clan Gathering

  Jennifer Ashley

  InterMix Books, New York

  Chapter One

  Scotland, September 1892

  Something woke Ian Mackenzie deep in the night. He lay motionlessly, on his side, eyes open and staring at darkness.

  A dozen years ago, awakening to total darkness would have sent Ian into a crazed panic, ending up with him on his feet, roaring at the top of his voice in English, Gaelic, and French. Servants would have rushed in, restoring lights some foolish footman had put out, to find Ian standing up beside his bed, swearing in rage and fear.

  Now, he lay calmly, absorbing the soft quiet of the darkness.

  The reason for his calm lay behind him on the bed—his Beth, curled against him in a nest of warmth.

  Whatever change in the huge house had alerted Ian had been too subtle to wake Beth. She slept on, her breathing even, one hand soft against his bare back.

  Ian’s mind rapidly churned through possibilities of what had dragged him from his dreams. His children—Jamie, Belle, and Megan—were fast asleep in their nursery. Ian knew whenever one of them was wakeful, knew it in his bones. They were shut behind the door of the large nursery at the end of the hall. Safe.

  He let his senses expand to every tiny sound of the night. This was Scotland in the autumn, and winds flowed down the mountains to swirl around Kilmorgan with the shrieking of a dozen banshees.

  The vast house itself, built a century and a half ago, was usually alive with noise. Creaking of pipes Hart had installed to bring running water to the bedchambers. The crackle of Daniel’s electrics experiments, the tinny sounds of the interior telephone system nephew Daniel had also created.

  At the moment, all those noises, except the wind, were silenced. All except the snick of a window somewhere in the darkness of the house.

  Ian and Beth were the only residents at Kilmorgan Castle, the vast mansion that stood north of Inverness. Hart, the Duke of Kilmorgan and master of the house, was in Edinburgh with Eleanor and his two children—they’d be here in the next day or so. His other brothers, Mac and Cameron, were at their respective country homes with their families, not due to arrive at Kilmorgan until a few days after Hart.

  Ian knew the exact location of each house of his brothers, and how long it would take the families to travel to Kilmorgan to celebrate Hart’s birthday next week. None of them could have arrived early, in the middle of this night, without Ian knowing about it.

  Kilmorgan was quite empty for now, except for Ian’s family, the skeleton staff needed to run the place, and three of the dogs.

  Dogs . . . They were in the stables, guarding the prize racehorses. They weren’t barking or making a fuss.

  But Ian knew, without understanding how he knew, that someone who shouldn’t be there was inside the house.

  He slid out of bed, moving smoothly enough not to wake Beth. He stood a moment at the bedside, strong toes curling on the soft carpet, cool air brushing his bare skin. His valet, Curry, had dropped a nightshirt over Ian’s head as Ian had headed to bed, but later, when Beth had joined him, the nightshirt had been quickly tossed away.

  Ian moved past the shirt, a pale smudge on the carpet, to reach for the long folds of plaid Curry had laid across a chair to warm before the fire. Ian wrapped the kilt around his large frame, tucking the excess folds in around his waist. He then moved to the chest of drawers, opened the top one, and slid out a Webley pistol.

  Ian never kept loaded guns in the house. Far too dangerous with children around. All shotguns were locked into cabinets in the steward’s house near the stables; any personal handguns were kept unloaded, ammunition locked away in a separate place. Ian had made this a firm rule, and Hart had agreed.

  Ian moved from the bedroom to his connecting dressing room, unlocked a cubbyhole within a cabinet, and pulled bullets from a box there. He lined up six in a perfect row, returned the box and locked the cabinet, and slid the bullets into their chambers with precision.

  He left the dressing room through the door that led to the corridor, paused long enough to click the pistol’s barrel into place, and strode swiftly and silently down the hall toward the gallery at the end.

  Clouds covered the moon tonight, but a gaslight near the staircase illuminated a long stretch of corridor lined with windows. This was the front of the house, overlooking the drive that led to Kilmorgan. From the outside, the row of floor-to-ceiling windows was part of the grand façade created by Malcolm Mackenzie, the ancestor who’d first turned Kilmorgan from a cold castle into a home.

  Ian saw no one in the upper hall, no furtive movement in the shadows, nothing out of place. He crept toward the staircase, his bare feet making no noise on the carpet.

  Lights on the landings
were kept burning all night, so that members of the household who wandered about wouldn’t fall headlong down the stairs. Tonight, no one but Ian was in sight as he quickly descended.

  Not until he turned along the ground-floor gallery that ran toward Hart’s wing of the house did Ian find anything wrong.

  A flurry of movement at the far end of the gallery caught his eye. Ian took in what he saw, assessed it all quickly, then pushed the conclusions to the back of his mind as he sprinted toward the half dozen men in dark clothes trying to exit through the garden door.

  Ian could move swiftly and in silence, and he was upon them before they realized. He heard muffled curses in several languages, saw the bulk of bodies and what they carried. Several of the men made it out before Ian wordlessly landed amongst them.

  The man Ian caught by the back of the neck expertly broke from him, swung around, and jammed a short cudgel toward Ian’s stomach. Ian, who’d learned about dirty fighting both from his brothers and on the streets of Paris, avoided the cudgel and grabbed the arm that wielded it.

  He swung the man around and into another, then Ian shoved his pistol into the second man’s face.

  In the next moment, both men crashed themselves into Ian, fighting for the gun. One man got his hand around it, but Ian yanked hard, and the pistol fell, skittering across the floor into darkness, out of sight, out of reach.

  The toughs were good, but so was Ian. They had layers of clothes hampering them, while he fought like his ancestors, in kilt and bare feet.

  The first man grunted as Ian ripped the cudgel out of his hand and bashed it into his abdomen. The second man’s fist came at Ian’s face. Ian caught the fist with his big hand, then the second man punched Ian right in the gut.

  Ian spun away, fighting pain. The man he’d cudgeled was doubled over, and Ian spun back to the second man, battling until he got him into a headlock.

  The first man, holding his stomach, went for the pistol. A growl escaped Ian’s throat. He slammed the second man away from him and went after the first.