by Paula Quinn
“Janet,” he whispered, dragging his lips over her chin. “I…” What? What did he almost tell her? That she made him feel like he could be content to do nothing more than sing about her glorious face, her honeyed mouth, and her fiery tongue? That she tempted him like no other lass before her to stay with her, to make her a permanent part of his life if she’d have him. No. “Janet, I think I hear yer brother.”
She cast a worried look down the dimly lit tunnel, then back to him. “Why did ye kiss me?”
How the hell was he supposed to answer that?
“I told ye already,” she warned with a tight whisper. “Never again take such liberties with me.”
“Ye enflame m’ blood,” he admitted to her on a ragged breath, “and tempt m’ to tame that wicked tongue.”
A flash sparked her eyes like lightning across the sky. “I would never let ye tame me,” she promised with zeal, lifting her chin.
She seared his blood with desire. His nerve endings burned with the force of it. His muscles throbbed to hold her, but she was too dangerous to his heart.
Thankfully, the rest of the hunting party had arrived, their footsteps shattering images of her naked and panting beneath him. Images of himself doing everything to please her. Only her.
Damn it, she made him ponder permanent things he thought he wasn’t ready for. He had to do what he came to do and get out before he promised those things to her.
Chapter Eight
“They never once challenged yer kin fer the castle?” William Buchanan asked Darach while they stood on the battlement wall watching the Menzies ride over the ridge, approaching Ravenglade.
Darach shook his head, keeping his eyes on the Menzies. “Never. ’Twas yer kin only who challenged us.”
“’Tis damned insulting.”
“Aye, ’tis,” Darach agreed with him. The Menzies were more cautious with their decades-long enemies, the Grants. They’d waited to pounce on Ravenglade till the Buchanans had set foot in it—a clan they weren’t afraid of. “Ye’re no’ to blame though,” Darach told him. “They arena’ afraid of many.”
“Will they be afraid of ye?”
Finally turning to him, Darach smiled. “Let’s find oot.”
His eyes caught Janet coming toward them and his smile vanished. He held up his palm to stop her advance. “Go back inside, Janet. I’ll handle this.”
She didn’t break stride but slapped his hand out of her path and peered over the wall. “Why is Roddie back so soon? He agreed to give me time.”
The effort it took her not to sound frightened pricked Darach in his heart. He knew her air of cool detachment was practiced and not genuine. She was afraid that Roddie Menzie had come to get her. She didn’t love the chief and she didn’t want to be forced to spend her life with him.
“He came at m’ invitation.”
She blinked and looked up at him. He thought he saw a speck of moisture in her eyes. “Why would ye do that?”
“When would ye have me begin in riddin’ us of them? In another pair of weeks?” Darach asked. When she opened her mouth to answer, he cut her off. “I’ll make certain ye dinna’ have to marry him, Janet. Will ye trust me?”
“When did ye invite them?”
He sighed. Hell, she was infuriating. “I left a letter in their camp after I counted them.”
She didn’t know what to say to that and remained quiet, which Darach found quite to his liking.
He readied his bow and pulled an arrow from the quiver tied to his back. Tied to the bow was a rolled up parchment, one he’d written this afternoon.
“May I read what ye penned to him before ye send it?”
He shook his head while nocking the arrow to the bowstring. He closed one eye and took aim at the ground just before Roddie Menzie’s horse.
“Am I not entitled to know the contents of yer correspondence, since part of it includes me?”
He watched the arrow sail high on the wind, the bowstring trembling in his hand. He followed its descent and waited until it landed an inch from where he’d aimed. Only after Menzie’s men hurried to retrieve it did he turn to pin her with an irritated look.
She met his coolest glare and matched it. “I want to know what ye discussed about me,” she demanded while the sun’s rays fell over her golden mane, one strand blown across her cheeks by the wind.
She plagued him, she and her spicy mouth. He found her strength of heart equal to those who lived in Camlochlin and more alluring than he would admit. He’d had to battle his memory of her the first time he left her. He’d had to fight and resist giving in to the hole she’d put in his heart. For months he didn’t love or laugh, but lived in the misery of missing a lass he should hate. He’d had to win, else Janet Buchanan would have become the standard by which he measured all women.
Hell, he couldn’t love her. He was certain he could resist. But all the signs pointed to him succumbing to the strength of love, damn it.
“Ye’ll know soon enough” was all he said and then he turned back to the Menzies. He wanted—nae, he needed—to get on with things and return to Skye as soon as he could.
He waited a moment while Menzie had his missive read to him. He watched, hoping for a green flag, but expecting a red one. Thankfully, Janet remained quiet, waiting with him, though she didn’t know what for.
Menzie shouted to one of his men, the flag bearer.
Red.
“What does that mean?” Janet asked him, breathless against the hushed silence of the afternoon.
“It means he doesna’ except m’ terms.” He looked at her when she tugged on his sleeve, determined to have her answers. “It means we renegotiate.”
“What were yer terms?” she asked.
He glanced at her brother before giving in. “That he give up his claims on ye and on m’ cousin’s castle and I dinna’ kill him.”
Was that a smile he saw on her bonny face? It was like the sun bursting through the clouds. “Did ye truly think he might consent?”
“If he was wise and cared aboot his men, he would have. It doesna’ matter, I’ll make a new offer—”
He felt the pulse of air flash over his head and then watched his bonnet, pierced by an arrow, fly away.
The look of horror on Janet’s face was almost comical. An inch lower and it would have missed his bonnet and gone through his temple.
It wasn’t an accident. The arrow was Roddie’s and he had just made a point.
Darach plucked another arrow from its quiver, nocked it, took aim, and without any interruptions this time, fired it into the heavens. It landed, after a moment, in the chest of the rider directly to Roddie Menzie’s right. Whoever he was, he was Roddie’s kin and he fell to the floor in a dead heap. If the bastard wanted a war, he’d get one.
“They’re going to attack us now,” Janet told him, looking rather hopeless.
“Nae,” Darach promised her, readying one more arrow. This time, he had her brother fetch him the oiled rag and torch he’d left just inside the stairway.
“I’ll keep them oot ’til the morn,” he told them. “Tonight, I’ll visit their campsite and convince the chief that attackin’ wouldna’ be to his advantage.”
Before she had time to question him further, William returned. They tied the rag to the tip of the bow and then set it ablaze. As Darach took aim, the Menzies, watching from across the moat, scattered in every direction.
The fiery arrow landed with a thunk in the soil and instantly caught fire. They watched, a safe distance away on Ravenglade’s battlements, the wall of flames rise up as it swept across the ground in a huge circle around the castle.
“Yer brother and I and a few others laid out tar last eve, did we no’, Will?”
“Aye, Darach, we did, indeed.”
“Well then, come.” Darach ushered them toward the entrance. There was nothing to be done for now. They might as well fill their bellies. They’d caught plenty of game yesterday, much thanks to Janet’s skillful arrow. Tomorrow he w
ould send word to some folks he knew in Breadalbane, questioning Henrietta’s whereabouts. “Does Kevin how to prepare any French dishes?”
William laughed, and Darach noted that it was the first time the chief had laughed since Darach arrived. “If rabbit stew is French, then aye, he knows.”
“Chocolate mousse tarts?” Darach pressed, hopeful. “’Tis made with eggs and cream and chocolate.”
“What the hell is chocolate?” Will asked.
Darach lifted his gaze to Heaven. Well, fresh rabbit stew was better than month-old mutton.
He had to find Henrietta soon.
Chapter Nine
He gives me nae rest, day or night. Janet’s quill danced lightly over a parchment. Before he returned I was tortured by the memory of his glib smile and confident gaze. Now, I am tortured by the sight of him, the sound of him, the scent of him, close to me, kissing me. What am I to do? I am a prisoner to him, held captive by nothing more than the deep, melodic pitch of his voice, the slant of his lips, longing for his mouth on mine just once more.
How can my thoughts, my heart, be utterly obsessed with a man whose arrogant habits make me want to slap him most of the time? What has he done to me that I cannot control my own desires? Oh, if he would only promise me what he’s clearly given to no one else. But I can already see the desire in his eyes to leave.
Janet dropped her quill on the table and stared down at her writing. How could her heart pound so fiercely just thinking about him? She was in trouble. She hated admitting it, but there it was. He wouldn’t leave her thoughts the first time he barged into her life and she knew the second time was going to be much harder. She’d never forget the sight of Roddie’s arrow just missing his head. If he had died, would she have fallen at his body?
Thank God, supper had been uneventful, with little or no talk of Roddie Menzie. After sharing smiles with Agnes and the rest of her female cousins clucking around him, eager to serve him whatever he wanted, Darach had finally turned his attention to her.
She wondered throughout the entire meal if he worried about anything or if his cocky self-assurance was a natural part of his demeanor. She hadn’t thought he could, but he made her feel safe.
She let out a gusty sigh and picked up her quill.
I feel foolish at the way I sat enthralled watching him eat, as if his lips and his tongue peeking out every now and then are part of some fairy glamour he possesses to make me tremble in my skin. I cannot—
A sound coming from above made her lower her quill again and leave her seat. Was that… bagpipes?
She left her room and looked around the cavernous hall. The music was coming from the battlements. Who was it? She knew her uncle Amish played, but he hadn’t picked up the pipes in years, and he’d never sounded like that! Why, whoever was playing these pipes was a master. Could it be Darach? She almost laughed as she made her way up the stairs. Darach playing pipes? He was a warrior, not a musician.
The closer she got to the sound, the more convinced she was that it wasn’t Darach playing. It couldn’t be. The music was too… delicate, too haunting and serious, like the sorrow-filled wails of a lover who had just lost the one his heart treasured.
Darach didn’t treasure anyone, did he?
Coming to the archway, she paused and looked out at the parapet wall, which was cloaked in the muted golden rays of sunset. The music played on, drawing tears to her eyes.
She stepped outside and looked in the direction of the sound. There he stood, leaning against the castle wall, the hide bag under his arm, pins and drones casually tossed over his shoulder, the chanter held tenderly in his hands while he filled the air with beautiful music.
Janet stood quietly watching him, disbelief still making her doubt the good of her ears, her eyes. Lord help her, she’d thought he looked handsome before, laughing over supper, getting ready to kiss her within the shadows of the tunnel. But that was nothing compared to the poignant emotion now radiating from his softened expression. He wasn’t playing the music. He was feeling it with every fiber of his being. He opened his eyes and beneath the sooty sweep of his dark lashes, the light from the setting sun made his eyes shimmer in shades of green that rivaled the emerald isle.
She could have watched him, listened to him for ten lifetimes, but he caught sight of her and lowered the mouthpiece from his lips.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
He smiled, not the confident grin she was accustomed to seeing him wear, but something more humble, more vulnerable. “I didna’ hear ye there.”
“Ye play verra’ well,” she told him softly, liking this different side of him she hadn’t seen before.
He shrugged his shoulders and the drones slipped to his arm. “’Tis just something I learned as a lad. I dinna’ play often.”
“Pity.” She moved toward him, as if pulled by an unseen tether. “Ye seem to love it.”
His penetrating gaze took her in, seemed to search her through and through until she shifted in her spot, feeling naked before him.
“I love many things,” he told her, setting the pipes down at his boots and ignoring her look of disappointment. “I love m’ sword, m’ pistols, m’ country, m’—”
“Did ye not tell me last spring that yer father is a poet?”
His mouth snapped shut and he nodded… reluctantly.
She smiled when he looked away from her toward the distant hills. What was it he didn’t want her to see? Like some of the Grants before him, he had a reputation in the bedchamber and on the battlefield. But there was more to him than lust for fighting and women. She’d seen it in his eyes a few moments ago.
“D’ye love yer quill, too, Darach Grant, son of a poet?”
He slid his gaze to hers. He looked rather stunned for a good moment or two, and then one corner of his mouth hooked into a tender smile. “What d’ye know of me, Janet Buchanan? Did ye miss me so much while I was away that ye found oot whatever ye could?”
Oh, for goodness sakes, the man was insufferable! She forgot how much she wanted to hit him with something. “The only time I ever spared ye a thought was to hope I never had to see ye again.” His widening grin proved that he didn’t believe her. “Roddie Menzie would be a better husband than ye!” He pouted, indulging her tirade, and it took every ounce of strength she possessed not to pinch him, or laugh at her own insane rant and then fall into his arms. “How foolish of me to think ye anything but a rooster too in love with his own feathers to—”
“I do love m’ quill.”
“What?” She blinked at him. Did she hear him right? “Ye jest.”
“Nae.” His green eyes sparkled in the light. “’Tis more powerful than the sword, is it no’?” He moved off the castle wall and took a step toward her. She didn’t back up but tried to still her thumping heart. “With it, deeds are remembered, laws are decreed, love is defined, and…”—he lifted his fingers to a tight curl falling over her cheek and swept it away with the tenderest of care—“hearts are revealed.”
She smiled as he bent his head close to hers, waiting for his kiss. She was correct about him then. There was, in fact, more to him than—Hearts are revealed? No! Oh no, he couldn’t have… She would rather die than think it true. She never wanted him to know how she felt. He didn’t feel the same way else he would have returned to her… for her sooner. The humiliation of it would be too much.
“Ye read my letters then,” she whispered against his succulent, irresistible mouth. She wanted to bite him and draw blood.
“Only one,” he whispered back, ready to kiss her senseless.
He didn’t get the chance.
No! He knew! He knew how she felt! The rogue! The bastard! He’d read her letter! Which one? Oh, it didn’t matter which one. They were all the same—all about him! She shoved him away, ignoring the hard strength of him beneath his shirt. “Ye’re just like the rest of yer kin, Darach Grant! A heartless, vain knave who will do and say anything to have his way.”
“Janet.” He reach
ed out to grab her but she escaped him.
“Say nothing, please. I’ve listened to ye enough. Think me a fool because I fell under yer spell and gave ye my heart! I hope I amused ye!” She swiped a tear from her eye and ran from the battlements before he could stop her, before she heard him call softly after her. “I fear, fair Janet, the fool is I.”
Chapter Ten
Darach heard Janet’s words over and over in his mind as he left Ravenglade later that night. She’d given him her heart! What the hell would he do with it? What if he broke it? Had he done that already? But how? He hadn’t even been here. Lasses had lost their hearts to him in the past, but the difference was that Darach never cared enough to do anything about it. He never returned, doing them both the favor of not letting attachments form. But the thought of attaching himself to Janet wasn’t abhorrent. In fact, it pleased him.
He’d try to figure it all out later, he thought, reaching the end of the tunnel. He turned back to look over his shoulder. No one followed him from the castle. He’d refused when Will offered to come with him to lessen the number of their opponents the quiet way. He could move faster alone. He left the tunnel and ran into the shadows fed by the night sky. When he reached the wall of fire he stood before the flames and said a silent prayer that he hadn’t gone completely out of his mind and didn’t know it. Was he truly going to run through the fire and risk life and limb to save Ravenglade for Malcolm, and Janet Buchanan from Roddie Menzie?
The full moon provided no answers but would afford some light on the other side, once the fire was behind him. He would have little trouble finding the Menzie campsite.
He reached into his leather saddlebag and pulled out a large cloth soaked in water.
How much longer could he deny that he was doing this to stop Roddie from having Janet? Menzie would have to kill him before he let it happen. He could take the slow chief in a fight. Darach preferred not to have to kill Roddie and start a war, but if he needed to kill him to keep him from Janet, Darach wouldn’t hesitate.