Conquered by a Highlander

by Paula Quinn

  He stepped out of their path and waited until Edmund and his mother passed him. “Campbell”—he held out his hand to stop Colin—“a word.”

  Colin nodded and waited until the captain picked up his pace again.

  “If you touch her,” Gates said in a quiet tone. He smiled at Lady Gillian when she looked over her shoulder at the two of them keeping far behind her. She scowled at him in return, but kept walking. “It could mean Edmund’s life. I can assure you”—he looked Colin straight in the eye—“it will most certainly cost you yours.”

  Colin didn’t flinch. After being here for two days, he knew that Dartmouth’s captain was far less interested in the deposition of England’s current king than he was in guarding Lady Gillian like she was the last living virgin in a realm besieged by dragons. But what the hell was he implying? This was the second time he’d threatened Colin in regard to putting hands on her. Did his threat now include harming Edmund? Who the hell would harm Edmund? “What do ye mean it could cost the babe his life?”

  Gates studied him with a wary eye, then turned back to the pair walking ahead. “You don’t ask about yourself, but about him. You care about the boy.”

  “Nae.” Colin almost laughed at the preposterous accusation. “I’m simply curious about who ye think would harm him.”

  “You were not paying attention last eve, Campbell. You did not see the control Lord Devon has mastered over his cousin?”

  “I did,” Colin said darkly.

  “He uses the child as a pawn to make her yield.”

  Ah, here was the chain around her neck, her ankles, her wrists, Colin thought darkly. She submitted to Devon’s cruelty to protect Edmund. ’Twas valiant, indeed. Sacrifice for the good of someone or something else was a virtue he admired highly.

  “He would harm Edmund if she left him before the prince arrived.”

  The prince was undoubtedly arriving then. But when? When? “How much time does she have?”

  “Why?” Gates eyed him again while they strolled. “Do you think you can rescue her before then? You can’t. If you try, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Rescue her from what?” Colin asked, ignoring yet another threat.

  “You are dense then.”

  Not completely, Colin thought. Gates wasn’t suspicious of his reasons for being here, or of his fighting skills. He didn’t care if his men were prepared for battle or not, because all his thoughts, his duties, centered around one soul. Lady Gillian. He didn’t want Colin getting close to her, putting his hands on her, trying to take her away. Did the captain love her?

  “What makes ye think I’m the rescuing kind?” Colin asked him seriously. He didn’t want Gates to mistrust him based on some misplaced fear of chivalry. “Tears do not move me. Battle does. But I would ask ye plainly, why would ye stand in the way of it if ye know she needs rescuing?”

  Gates paused again to look at him. “Which of the men here do you think has considered doing anything to her other than bedding her and igniting her father’s wrath against her yet again?”

  Colin stared at him. That’s why she was here. Because she had Edmund out of wedlock. Dartmouth was her punishment. Gates, whom Colin looked at in a whole new light, was keeping the men away from her to save her from having a more severe punishment inflicted.

  They walked in silence for a moment. Then Colin said, “Why do ye tell me these things?”

  “Because I want you to know why your life’s blood is spilling from your body if you interfere with her life.”

  Colin nodded, giving him the point. The captain was single-minded in his dedication to his duty. A good trait, that, and one Colin hadn’t seen in another man in many years.

  “Why do ye suggest that I am any different from the other men here?”

  “You’re frank,” Gates told him. “You’ll find that I am, as well. I suggest it because, though I doubt your sincerity in certain things, I don’t doubt it when you speak to him.”

  Colin knew whom he meant, but he looked toward Edmund anyway. His eyes settled on the babe’s downy crown, his chubby arm extended to his mother’s. Something swelled up in Colin like a deluge, robbing him of breath. His heart went frigid and warm at the same time. He liked the lad. Damn it to hell but he liked him. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself become so distracted from his direction.

  And certainly not by a woman. That was the most dangerous. He had seen what women had done to the men of Camlochlin. It made them soft. It made them change who they were and give up what they loved. His father, a warrior who could cut down three men at once with a sweep of his claymore, had learned how to pluck a delicate sprig of heather without losing a single bloom. His eldest brother had been willing to cast aside his birthright for the love of a lass. His once-scoundrel, good-for-naught brother Tristan had denied his entire way of living and devoted his life to one woman. His sister’s husband, Connor Grant, had left the Royal Army and England to be with his wife and dedicated himself to the task of fulfilling each of her dreams.

  Colin wanted no part of such weakness. He had no time for it, nor any inclination to change.

  He had to leave Edmund and his mother to their own paths.

  “I’m not here to change anything,” he heard himself say.

  “Good,” the captain muttered beside him while they walked.

  How the hell was he going to tell Edmund that he wasn’t going to spend any more time with him? He needed to remain distant, detached, and undiscovered. Spending time with Edmund and his mother—Colin looked at the delicacy of her profile as she turned to speak to her son—was too dangerous. Apparently, for everyone. He wasn’t here to care about why. He desired her, just as he had desired other women in the past. Some he had taken. Others he had not. But ’twas nothing more than that. He wouldn’t risk a child’s safety for it. He hadn’t grown that cold.

  “I’ll tell the lad I’ve come down with something and cannot fish with him.”

  “No,” Gates said, his gaze hard on Colin but going soft as it swept over Lady Gillian. “He will be unhappy and she’ll blame me.”

  “Ye love her,” Colin ventured boldly. If the captain denied it, then he did indeed think Colin a fool.

  “I will admit she is dear to me.” The captain paused, watching her, then shook his head and said briskly, “No. You will not disappoint the boy.”

  “But I—”

  “I am not asking,” the captain warned. “Just make certain you form no attachments with her.”

  Colin was about to reassure him that forming attachments was not his habit, but just as he was about to do so, Edmund broke away from his mother and ran toward him.

  Watching the babe’s stubby legs and flushed cheeks, Colin wondered if Devon would truly harm him. The thought near made him choke on the anger boiling up from within. How the hell did his brothers live each day with the knowledge that something terrible could befall their bairns at any moment? He looked away and cursed silently. Babes. They were even more perilous to a man’s fortitude than a woman.

  “Colin, will you sup with me in my room? Mummy won’t mind.”

  Colin looked at Lady Gillian hurrying toward them, offering him an apologetic glance. He remembered her submission to her cousin yesterday after his subtle threats against Edmund. She would do anything for her son… even risk the company of a mercenary to please him.

  “I cannot,” Colin refused Edmund as she reached them. “I must sit at my lord’s table tonight and every night.”

  As he feared, the lad’s eyes rounded with dejection. But he didn’t cry and he didn’t beg. Colin wished he had, for then he might be able to tell himself that the child was overindulged and needed a firmer hand. Instead, Edmund shoved his thumb back into his mouth and turned away.

  “Forgive him.” Lady Gillian caught her son and took his hand once again. “He grows bored with me. I will speak to him about his unreasonable requests.”

  She turned, taking Edmund with her and leaving Colin to look af
ter them, his jaw tight and his belly feeling oddly out of sorts. Unreasonable requests? What was so damned unreasonable about the child wanting company other than his mother? And why the hell was Edmund excluded from supping with the others as if he were a mangy dog? And while he was at it, Colin wanted to know why in damnation Gates hardly spoke to the poor lad. Fearing Devon was one thing, making a child an outcast in his own home was another.

  “Why would Devon hurt him?” He turned to the captain. He didn’t care if he was pushing too hard for answers. He wanted them, though they had nothing to do with battle. “And what does Prince William’s arrival have to do with any of it?”

  Gates stopped and smiled at him, not bothering to hide the search in his gaze when his met Colin’s. “You are curious indeed.”

  He’d gone too far. And over a lass and a boy who had no meaning in his purpose. Already they made him careless, reckless. “Nae.” Colin shook his head and continued walking. “Tell me nothing more. ’Tis not my concern.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gillian wasn’t late to the supper table that night or the one after that. She had George to thank for his caution with her time. He made certain, as he had every day over her long stay here, to have her returned inside with time enough to bathe her son and play with him while he ate. She never forced the issue of Edmund not dining with them with her cousin. She told herself that Edmund was better off away from the ill-mannered, crude company of Geoffrey’s garrison. She would have preferred to stay away as well, but loose talk around the supper table had earned her William of Orange’s trust. Traveling mercenaries often carried with them gossip from other nobles’ kitchens.

  Tonight was no different. She picked at her food and inclined her ear to the men’s conversations going on around her. Geoffrey’s laughter drew her attention to him. She would never wed him. But what would he do if he suspected that she’d already asked the Dutch prince not to let her cousin have her? She prayed he would never find out. Even if he did, he knew she would never obey him again in anything after he harmed her son. She would kill him first and leave him to the dogs.

  William of Orange would protect her. He had to. What was to stop Geoffrey from sending Edmund away… or worse, after he took her for his wife?

  She brought a shaky cup to her lips and cut her gaze to the farther end of the table, where Colin Campbell sat drinking with the rest of the men.

  She thought for a moment that she might hate him even more than Geoffrey. What did she care that he’d stopped speaking to Edmund? Why should it surprise her that he’d offered her son his time and then deprived him of it without thought? He was no different from any other man she knew and every question Edmund put to her, asking her to explain why Colin no longer liked him, made her dislike him anew.

  He turned from smiling at something someone said and met her gaze across the crowded table. She glared at him and then looked away.

  “Gillian, play something for us on your lute.”

  She blinked at Geoffrey, who was leaning back in his chair with Margaret sprawled across his lap.

  “My lute is out of tune, Cousin.”

  “My good man, Martin!” he bellowed to one of his musicians. “Give her your lute. My poor ears have bled enough this night from your foul lack of talent. Give it to her and listen to the music of the heavens.”

  She didn’t want to play. Her music was her most beloved treasure after Edmund and she didn’t want to share it with her cousin or his men. Besides, she was in no frame of mind to play anything Geoffrey would enjoy. “Geoffrey, I must decli—”

  Martin shoved the lute in her hands and trudged away, cursing her under his breath.

  “Play, Gillian.”

  Gillian stared at her cousin, defying him with every fiber of her being. “As you wish.”

  She stood and walked around her gloating cousin with her chin tilted slightly in the air, lest he think her defeated. She knew he made her tend to him, sit with him, and kept her from her son with the hope of breaking her. She would die first. She waited in the center of the Hall until one of his men brought her a chair. The man happened to be Colin Campbell.

  She looked at him long enough to let him see clearly the anger she felt toward him. Then she thanked him politely when he set the chair at her feet and stepped away.

  She sat, arranging her skirts neatly around her and sweeping her hair off her shoulder.

  “Gillian!” Geoffrey pounded his palm on the table. “Play something, damn you!”

  Casting him her worst death stare, she set her fingers to the strings and then scowled. The lute was horribly out of tune. She hastened to tune it as best she could and then began to play. She closed her eyes to the clang of cups and bawdy laughter coming from the men around her and listened only to the melody filling her ears from Martin’s poorly neglected instrument. As always, when she played, she soon grew lost in the rapture of giving her heart a voice. She plucked and strummed a haunting melody that brought tears to her eyes. She did not open them, lest anyone see.

  Before long, the clamber of the Great Hall faded to silence. Gillian heard nothing amid the lingering notes masterfully pulled from her fingers.

  “Dear heavens, Gillian.” Geoffrey’s voice dripped with disdain when he interrupted her. “If I wanted to hear a death march, I would have taken one of the men outside and shot him. Play something upbeat before you sour my pleasant mood.”

  She’d learned how to hold her tongue, but she could never master concealing her bitterness toward him. It poured from her eyes, her taut smile, and her clenched fingers, revealing her weakness. Geoffrey basked in it.

  She played something a bit more up-tempo, plucking the strings as if they were Geoffrey’s eyeballs. When the other musicians picked up the tune behind her, she cringed at the missed chords and flat tone.

  Soon, the merriment of getting soused returned to the Hall. Gillian’s gaze drifted over her cousin, nuzzling his face into Margaret’s neck. Poor girl, she had no one to protect her from Geoffrey’s paws. Gillian’s gaze moved down the table, past Rodrigo Alvarez, a mercenary from Spain with eyes as dark as his soul, and Philippe something or other from France sitting beside him. When her eyes found Colin Campbell, they lingered over him longer than they had on the others.

  She let her gaze traverse his form, long and lean and appearing more comfortable in his hard chair than any man at Dartmouth had a right to be. The soft glow of the enormous hearth fire accentuated the rugged angles of his face, the golden shards in his eyes. Saints, but he was handsome, and not in the way that George was handsome. The Scotsman’s expressions were not elegant or serene, giving the impression of complete control, though Gillian didn’t doubt he possessed confidence in abundance. An air of danger clung to him like the dark mantle draping his shoulders. It could have been the way his sharp eyes noted the movements of the other men, the hint of something fierce in the curl of his amiable smile, the slow, deliberate way he moved his fingers around the rim of his cup.

  Of course he was dangerous; she shivered and looked away. All the men here were. Why had she ever considered him good company for Edmund? Dear Lord, was she so desperate to hear her son laugh that she would allow him to grow fond of such a man? George had been correct to warn her about him. It was just as well. There was nothing he could do to help her and Edmund, even if he wanted to. Which he clearly didn’t. But he didn’t have to break Edmund’s heart. Even the worst among Geoffrey’s men hadn’t done that.

  She turned to glare at him one last time and found him watching her. His expression of bland interest to what was going on around him didn’t change. He sized her up, boldly enough to make her miss a note on her strings. He didn’t look at her with desire, but with careful consideration, as if he were trying to decide if she was worth his notice.

  She tilted her chin a fraction higher, wanting to tell him she didn’t want, or need, his attention.

  He smiled ever so slightly while his eyes moved over her like faceted jewels caught by the fl
ickering light, robbing her of breath and her wits.

  Her gaze darted toward George. Thankfully her guardian’s attention was fixed on Geoffrey, as he was leaning in to share a word with him. Neither one saw the exchange between her and the mercenary. It was fortunate, for his gaze seemed a palpable thing, a touch across the distance.

  No. She wouldn’t let any man touch any part of her. Never again.

  Against her will, her eyes returned to him, but he’d gone back to speaking with his comrades. She let out the breath she’d been holding and set her thoughts to her music. Geoffrey snatched the lute from her hands, interrupting those thoughts.

  “Enough, Gillian,” he said, standing over her. “Come. I will escort you to your chambers tonight. I wish to have a word with you.”

  She looked to George and then rose from her chair without quarrel when her captain nodded his consent. She would have preferred being smashed against the rocks outside to spending a few moments walking alone with her cousin. He wouldn’t touch her. He feared her father’s retaliation, and his own captain’s blade, too much to be so bold—yet. But she loathed the thought of listening to whatever new threats he’d conjured up against Edmund to satisfy his cruel delight in making her bend.

  “What is it now, Geoffrey?” she asked him with a long drawn-out sigh as he led her out of the hall. George would have been angry with her for her inability to mask her disdain.

  “Good news, my dear,” her cousin announced gaily, choosing to ignore the slight upon his illustrious presence. “Lord Shrewsbury and the Viscount Lumley have put their names to the prince’s invitation. Only one more name and the parchment can be sent to the prince.”

  She couldn’t let him see the hope in her eyes. She had to pretend dread at William’s arrival, but that didn’t stop her from looking up at him, sincerely astounded at how cruel and unfeeling he believed he was being. “And why do you imagine that is good news to me?”

  “Why”—he gleamed at her—“it means our wedding night may be but a few months away. Surely you are pleased with these good tidings, Gillian.”