Another muffled, annoyed whumph emanated from their cargo. “I’ll manage,” he countered, ducking as the two servants lifted her, and declining to remind them of other heavy things he carried on a fairly regular basis.
He mostly wanted to make certain his other guest hadn’t slipped out during the night, but that would have to wait until he had this one secured. He’d set guards, of course, but that didn’t guarantee anything. She’d said she stayed because she still believed they could come to an amicable resolution. Graeme didn’t know if he believed that, but he’d accept it mostly because he wanted to. At the same time, he could not—would not—allow her to flee if they didn’t reach an agreement. And it didn’t have as much to do with protecting his siblings as he kept claiming; she’d assured him they would be safe, and he believed her. No, this odd need of his to have her close by was something as primitive as the need to protect, but it was at the same time much warmer and sharper.
They’d already prepared a second bedchamber for another unwilling guest, nailing shut the windows with the nails they’d pried out of Marjorie’s, and attaching the chain to a much sturdier part of the bed—though how petite, proper Marjorie had managed to break that slat, he still had no idea. The woman was a marvel, a bolt of lightning hidden beneath a smooth, soft, delicate-looking exterior.
Finally he pulled the sack from his newest captive’s head, to be rewarded by a pair of narrowed green eyes attempting to stare him down. A heartbeat later they widened, and she mumbled something around the rag he’d tied over her mouth.
“Ye recognize me, then,” he said. “Good. I’m going to cut the ropes and pull off the gag, and ye’re going to behave yerself and keep yer voice doon or they’ll all go back on again. Nod if ye mean to go along with that.”
A few more indecipherable words—ones he imagined weren’t all that ladylike—followed that, and then she nodded. These proper women were a damned handful. Leaning in, he unknotted the rag and pulled it free.
“Where is Lady Marjorie?” she demanded.
“Ye’ll see her shortly. I give ye my word.”
“You also gave me your word that you would help me find her and see that no harm came to her.”
“So I have, and so I shall,” he returned, cutting through the last of the ropes that bound the blanket around her. “There’s water on the table, there, and all yer things from the inn are in yer trunk.” Graeme gestured at the heavy, leather-bound behemoth Cowen and Ross had carried upstairs.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, sir,” she said as he turned for the door, “but I believe it to be a dangerous one.”
He nodded. “Aye. That it is.”
And it would continue to be dangerous as long as he refused to return Marjorie Forrester to the glamorous life she’d lived before they met. But the idea of sending her back to where he’d have no reason or excuse ever to see her again troubled him even more than the realization that he would very likely be going to prison for keeping her.
Chapter Ten
Marjorie awoke to the sound of a soft knock on her door. For a moment she waited to hear the click of the key in the lock, before she remembered that she had the key. Sitting up, she reached beneath her pillow for the cold iron.
Pulling the coverlet around her shoulders and slipping into her walking shoes, she yawned and crossed the room to the door. “Who is it?” she asked, leaning against the hard oak.
“It’s me, lass,” Graeme’s low voice returned.
“What time is it?” The sky beyond the curtains remained black, as it would until nearly nine o’clock in the morning here, but it felt early. Very early.
“It’s half five. Open the door before I wake the rest of the hoose.”
“Come back at a more decent hour. A lady doesn’t receive callers before sunrise.” It was about time she was the one deciding when her door should open, and for whom. And the fact that she could practically hear his teeth clenching made even this small victory all the sweeter.
“I brought ye a gift,” he said after a moment.
“You may show it to me at breakfast.”
“It’s likely to spoil before then,” Graeme returned.
Spoil? Had he brought her an iced cream? Or a rare, night-blooming flower? Neither would be appropriate, considering that she was not his guest and he was not some potential beau, but the idea of him finding something she might enjoy and then not even waiting for dawn to bring it to her … Her pulse shivered a little. “Very well,” she said, trying to sound reluctant.
She turned the key and pulled open the door. And her heart skittered again. In the hallway’s dim lamplight a scruff of dark whiskers shadowed the lower half of his face, softening the hard, precise line of his jaw. His hair hung long and damp around his face, disarming and enticing all at the same time. As her wandering gaze lowered past an old, dark shirt and coat, she paused again.
He wore a kilt. A few of his men did, as she’d seen from the window before he’d chained her away from it, but this was the first time he’d worn one in her presence. The red, green, and black plaid suited him somehow, fit the wilder, more dangerous, more rugged part of him that he generally hid behind a grin and a lifted eyebrow.
“Do ye want to know what’s underneath it?” he murmured, and caught her mouth in a kiss that scratched her lips and shivered all the way down her spine.
She twined her fingers into his lapels, pulling herself close against him. Oh, it was so, so wrong, and she’d never experienced anything nearly as exhilarating. Was this her gift? She couldn’t—shouldn’t—accept, but for heaven’s sake she wanted to. What did it matter? She was ruined anyway. Everyone would whisper behind her back that she’d shared a bed with him, so she might as well do it.
Before she wanted him to, he broke the kiss. “Ye’re a damned tempting lass, yer highness,” he whispered, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “Come let me show ye yer gift.” Shifting, he took one of her hands in his, twining his fingers with hers.
The intimacy of that simple gesture thrilled her. Had she truly lived a life so proper and so isolated from the … warmth of others that a mere handholding could stir her blood? The idea shocked her, and yet the evidence lay in her fingertips. This was the same man who’d tried to force her into marrying him, true. But this morning he was asking—and that made a great deal of difference.
He led her to one of the doors at the front end of the house, then faced her again. “Before ye try to club me, I had a reason. I’ll explain it to ye after ye stop cursing me.”
Marjorie lifted both eyebrows, watching as he pulled another key from his pocket and unlocked the door. “A lady doesn’t curse,” she said automatically.
“Ye will.”
Graeme opened the door, nudged her inside, then shut it again as she faced it. She listened, abruptly cold and worried again, for the sound of the lock turning, but he didn’t do it. If he had, all chance at an alliance would have been lost.
“My lady!”
Whirling back around to face the dim, candlelit room, and nearly tripping beneath the heavy bulk of the coverlet around her, she gasped. “Mrs. Giswell!”
The stout woman sat on the single, plain chair by the wall, her hair a disheveled crow’s nest and her simple muslin gown wrinkled and more than a little askew. Even more telling, she was barefoot. Mrs. Giswell stood, a chain rattling along the floorboards in response, and Marjorie flung out her arms to envelop the older woman in a tight hug.
“That damned barbarian,” Marjorie snapped. “What in the world happened?”
“Oh, my lady, you vanished into thin air!” Mrs. Giswell sobbed. “We looked everywhere for you, asked everyone we met, but no one knew anything! I should have sent for your brother immediately, but I … I was selfish, and I didn’t wish to be let go for losing you. I’d decided to send Wolstanton to fetch him this morning, but I should have done it much, much sooner. I am so, so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Gabriel didn’t know she’d gone missing? T
hat could be good for Graeme, but that shouldn’t be the first thing that occurred to her, blast it all. “Of course I forgive you,” she returned, patting her companion’s shoulder. “For goodness’ sake, you’re the one in a locked room with your ankle chained to a bed.”
“Better me than you.” Mrs. Giswell took a deep breath, clearly trying to gather her wits back around her. “I might have fought harder when they captured me, but that man told me he would bring me to you, and that you were safe.”
“And so I am.”
She settled Mrs. Giswell back into the chair, perched on the edge of the bed, and tried to explain the last five days. She left out the kisses and her unexplainable … interest in Graeme, but she included everything else—ending with the fact that she was now posing as a tutor for Graeme’s younger brothers.
“That was very clever of you, to announce that you were a tutor in front of witnesses. That fortune hunter! Shocking.”
“It wasn’t as straightforward as that, but no matter the circumstances I am not about to put my future into someone else’s hands,” Marjorie returned. “Not when I finally control it myself.” Or what remained of it, anyway.
“I knew we should have hired outriders,” Mrs. Giswell returned, shaking her head. “Though if I’d had any idea how dangerous it would be for you to be up here, I would have objected to this trip much more strongly. Highlanders? A clan war? Good heavens.”
“I’m only thankful that you didn’t race about the countryside announcing that Lady Marjorie Forrester had gone missing. You kept things from being much worse. But yes, the bit about the clan war with Gabriel would have been nice to know.”
Never making this journey, though—not only would it have meant not meeting her brother Gabriel’s betrothed, whether she would ever have a chance to do so now or not, but it would have meant that none of the last five days had ever happened. That she wouldn’t have met Connell or his brothers. Or his oldest brother. If nothing else, she’d felt more … alive, more challenged than she could ever remember. And for that, she had to thank Graeme.
Of course, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be having a very stern word with Graeme once she left Mrs. Giswell. That last kiss, especially, left her feeling uncertain of her balance, as if the floor wasn’t quite firm beneath her feet. And this had been after he’d given her the key, after he’d lost the ability to lock her in a room. For that moment she hadn’t been his prisoner, nor he, her captor. She’d liked that kiss, very much. She wanted to repeat it. And heaven help her, she did want to see what he had beneath his very fine kilt.
But those thoughts certainly weren’t appropriate when Mrs. Giswell sat in chains. She shook them off, or at least managed to push them back a little. “Can you remember the route you took to get here?” she whispered, not certain how close by Graeme might be. “We could follow it back to return to the inn.”
“They put a smelly sack over my head,” her companion said with a sniff. “All I know is that we drove for hours and hours.”
“Yes, that was my experience as well, blast it all.”
“Lady Marjorie. Your language.”
Ah, she had her conscience back, not that she generally needed reminding. “My apologies.” She stood. “Now. See if you can get some sleep, and I will see if I can get that barbarian to take that shackle off your leg.” She headed for the door, belatedly noting in the growing glow from outside that this room was much smaller and plainer than hers. Not that that signified.
“Remember that a lady who controls her temper, controls her situation.”
Abruptly she also remembered why she’d once wished that the trip north had been considerably shorter. Marjorie smiled. “I shall keep that in mind.”
She opened the door and shut it behind her to give Mrs. Giswell some privacy. When she turned around, though, Graeme wasn’t lurking in the hallway. Nor was he on the stairs or in the foyer when she leaned over the railing to look.
Fine. This would be a conversation best had after she was dressed, anyway. Deliberately going out and kidnapping Mrs. Giswell, after he’d agreed to terms with her, and after he’d claimed to be so angry with his brothers for doing the same thing to her. The nerve of that impossible, arrogant man.
Stalking back to her room, she shut and locked the door. The only gown to hand was the fancy emerald one, and so she cleaned up, dressed, and put up her hair as swiftly as she could. Graeme Maxton needed a lesson taught him, and she would have to be the one to do it.
Leaving the room again, she started for the stairs, but stopped when she heard a sound coming from the half-open door beyond hers. The room at the very back of the house belonged to Graeme, so she turned around and marched up to it.
He stood in the middle of the large bedchamber, his back to the doorway, and his rough shirt and coat on the floor at his feet. All he wore, in fact, was the kilt belted around his hips. As she watched, he ran a wet cloth over his face, under his arms, down his chest, and around the back of his neck. The play of the muscles across his back, the flex of his arms and shoulders—it left her mouth abruptly dry and sent warmth between her legs.
Marjorie had always been a logical woman; she’d never been able to afford to be otherwise. Flights of fancy were for the rich. Given her birth and her monetary circumstances, she’d known for a very long time where to set her sights, in which direction lay the chance for her best possible life. She’d landed precisely where she’d aimed, becoming the well-educated companion to a short series of wealthy, elderly women. It hadn’t been particularly fulfilling, but it had provided her with lodgings, spending money, and a certain degree of freedom during the few hours each week she wasn’t needed.
Even now, in possession of more money than she could possibly spend in a lifetime, employing her own companion and with boundless free time, she approached her life logically and cautiously, supported the correct charities, did her shopping at second-best stores where her being an upjumped duke’s sister would cause the least commentary, expended countless sleepless nights worrying that she would never fit in despite her efforts and careful planning.
This, though—that man and what she badly wanted of him—had nothing to do with logic, or the future he’d tried to force on her. This was about her dreams, and her much-denied desires. It had everything to do with how she felt when she looked at him, and when his dark gray eyes met hers.
His actions and those of his brothers had ruined what small chance she did have to settle into proper Society, and his so-called offer of marriage wouldn’t have altered that. It might have saved him, but not her. He owed her something for embroiling her in this mess, didn’t he? Even if the warmth and intimacy she craved from him was fleeting, she would at least know what it was like to want someone so badly she shook at the very sight of him, and to have him touch her in return.
Marjorie squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, she found him handsome and attractive, and she even admired the way he, at twenty years old, had stepped up to become the de facto parent of a newborn and two other young brothers. That didn’t mean she could—or should—ignore the other things. No, he hadn’t kidnapped her, but he had prevented, and still prevented, her from leaving. And just hours ago he’d snatched Mrs. Giswell, probably frightened the poor woman half to death, and chained her to a bed.
That was what she needed to keep hold of, for her own sake. The anger, the righteous fury at the way he decided his troubles should be resolved, and damn everyone else. He’d never even asked if she’d been happy with her life before he’d ruined it, though he seemed to assume that she had been.
Squaring her shoulders, she shoved open the door, marched in, and pushed it shut behind her. As he faced her, she ignored his bare, muscular chest with its light dusting of hair and instead kept her attention on his face, on the half smile he’d assumed when he saw her—as if he knew precisely how attractive she found him.
“How dare you?” she snapped, and slapped him hard across his handsome face.
His smile dropped, a
nd he grabbed her wrist before she could swing it out of his reach. “If I hadnae fetched her,” he said flatly, “how long do ye reckon it would have been before she told someone who ye truly are? Especially once she heard from Father Michael where ye are? And then how long would it be before Hamish Paulk heard it? He’s but two miles from here right now.”
“You called her my ‘gift,’” she retorted, wishing she’d been taller so she wouldn’t have to lift her chin and stand on her toes to look him in the eye. “Is that it now? If someone might—might—cause you trouble you simply grab her and utterly destroy her life, her reputation, and her future?”
“I dunnae think we’re talking aboot Mrs. Giswell, are we?” He yanked her closer. “I didnae grab ye, lass.”
“No, you merely locked me in a room and put a chain around my leg, and kept me here long enough that no one will ever risk sending me an invitation to a ball or a dinner, or ask me to go driving in Hyde Park. Not one of my pointy-nosed neighbors wishes me a good morning as it is. My own neighbors, in a place I’ve always wanted to live. And now it won’t just be a nightmare. It will be impossible.”
She lifted her free hand to hit him again, but he grabbed that wrist, as well. “Are ye mad at me fer that, or fer snatching Mrs. Giswell? Ye need to decide, though ye do look very fine standing there with yer eyes glinting like sapphires.”
“I—you—I don’t need to ‘decide’ anything,” she retorted, refusing to be distracted. “I’m mad at you for everything, including making marriage a threat. Now let me go.”
“So ye can hit me again? Nae. Ye can just stand there and glare at me.”
Marjorie tried to pull her wrists free, but she might as well have been wrestling with a wall. “I demand that you at least free Mrs. Giswell.”
“Nae. I’ll nae risk Sir Hamish stumbling across her. Ask me someaught else, and I’ll do my damnedest to give it to ye.”
“Let me go. And don’t make me ask you again, you heathen.”
“Ah, heathen, is it?” Maxton bent his head and caught her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss. “Then I’ll be a heathen.”
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