The Pride of Lions

by Marsha Canham

  “Oh, Damien—” She looked up at him, her eyes swimming in a pool of tears. “Damien, thank God you’re here.”

  “Didn’t Raefer tell you I was coming?”

  “He … h-he knew?”

  “Of course he knew. We made arrangements last night—well, this morning, actually. I was to follow, meet you here at the inn, witness the annulment, then take you back to Rosewood in the morning.”

  Catherine gaped up at him in astonishment. “He … told you to meet us here?”

  Damien took the handkerchief out of her hand and wiped the wetness off her cheeks. “He may be a rogue and a bit unpredictable, but he isn’t without common sense. He suspected Father would regret his actions when he sobered up, but he couldn’t very well send you home alone, without an escort, and he certainly couldn’t take you back himself.”

  “He really was going to go through with the annulment?”

  “Of course he was. He isn’t in the habit of collecting wives, not that I know about.” He stopped and frowned. “Did you think—Good God, is that why you were about to scuttle out the window, to avoid your wifely obligations? Now, really, Kitty—”

  “Damien! Exactly how well do you know Raefer Montgomery?”

  “How well do I know him? Why do you ask?”

  “How well do you know him? What do you know about him?”

  His frown deepened. “I know about as much as I need to know, I suppose. I met him three or four years ago in Brussels, and since then he has sent a great deal of business my way.”

  “What kind of business?”

  He looked bewildered. “Import, export. He’s a merchant.… Catherine, what is the matter? Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  She swallowed hard and clutched his forearms as much to brace herself as to prepare him. “Damien … he isn’t who he says he is. His name is not Raefer Montgomery. He is not a London merchant. He isn’t even an Englishman!”

  “Isn’t …? Catherine, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about him,” she whispered fiercely. “He isn’t who he says he is. He’s a spy. A murderer. I heard him admit it from his own lips that if anyone knew they were here, it could start a war.”

  “A war? Come now, Kitty, I know you’re tired and your imagination is active at the best of times, but—”

  “Did you see the men he was with when you came in?”

  “There were two other men in the tavern,” he admitted slowly.

  “Well, they’re his cohorts, or his partners, or something—I don’t know what. I only know they were here at the inn waiting for him when we arrived. And when they leave, they are heading north.” She leaned forward through a dramatic pause and added, “They are returning home … to Scotland. They are spies, I tell you. Jacobite spies.”

  “Catherine”—Damien’s handsome face took on the dubious look of a man who believes that a loved one has gone completely mad—“I can understand why you wouldn’t like the man, but really, Raefer is neither a—”

  “His name isn’t Raefer. It’s Cameron. Alexander Cameron, and he’s wanted for the murder of two men near some place called … Archberry. If we had time I’m sure you could check it out for yourself.”

  “And if I did I’m equally certain we would find some logical explanation. Men change their names for all sorts of reasons, but it doesn’t make them spies and murderers.”

  “Mistress Catherine is telling the truth,” Deirdre said quietly. “I heard him say he was going home to Scotland and how they would have to be careful to avoid the border patrols and the Black Watch.”

  Catherine’s eyes gleamed triumphantly. “There is a bounty on his head. Ten thousand crowns. And he was definitely at Rosewood Hall last night to meet up with some colonel—good sweet merciful heaven, you don’t suppose it could have been Uncle Lawrence!—to receive reports on army movements that could not be trusted to regular couriers. Damien, can you not see that he’s only been using you, using your friendship and your connections to disguise his real activities?”

  Damien’s face had paled, and although there was still the shadow of doubt in his eyes, there was also the glimmerings of belief.

  “When did you say you heard all of this?”

  Catherine pointed to the crack in the wall. “I could see and hear everything perfectly. They obviously didn’t realize the walls were so thin.”

  Damien continued to stare at the peephole—so long that she grew impatient.

  “What are we going to do?”

  He turned to look at her. “Do?”

  “They’re spies. They’re traitors to our King and country. We cannot simply let them mount their horses and ride away.”

  Her words startled some color into his cheeks. “What other choice do we have?”

  She thought about it a moment and grasped his hands again. “If what you say is true, if he really does plan to go into Wakefield tomorrow to arrange an annulment, all we would have to do is tell the judge the truth and he could have Cameron arrested on the spot and thrown into gaol where he belongs.”

  She leaned back, proud of her plan, pleased at her own ingenuity. Her earlier panic had given way to confidence and, admittedly, some excitement at the prospect of capturing a dangerous criminal. Her conduct the night of the party would be exonerated, and she would be given a heroine’s welcome home. Hamilton would be bursting with pride, eager to claim her as his wife. Her plan was perfect, flawless, and far less risky than scrambling down a tree in the dead of night.

  “Well? Is there or is there not a detachment of militia in Wakefield?”

  “An entire regiment, if I’m not mistaken,” Damien murmured. “But the risk—”

  Catherine allowed a small, vindictive smile. “He kept us cramped in that horrid coach all day and hardly stopped long enough for food and water. He did not deign to tell me his intentions of annulling the marriage until well past noon—and you can imagine the state I was in by then! Worst of all, he did not even have the common decency to ease my suffering by telling me you were following behind. I’m so angry right now, I could scream for help and hang the risk.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” Damien cautioned hastily. “In fact, for this to have any chance of success, you are going to have to act as if nothing has changed. As if you haven’t noticed or heard anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I would rather scream.”

  Damien rubbed a hand across his brow. “I should go back downstairs myself. They might become suspicious if I stay up here too long.”

  Catherine clutched his arm. “You aren’t going to leave us here alone!”

  He stroked gently at a strand of golden hair that had fallen across her cheek. “I am going to go downstairs—exactly as I would have done if you hadn’t accosted me at the door. I am going to sit with them and drink with them and, now that I know who and what they are, I am going to listen very carefully to everything they say and perhaps learn something that will be of use to our side. You, meanwhile, are going to try to relax and get some sleep. You will need all of your strength and courage tomorrow. And remember: You are perfectly safe as long as you do everything they expect you to do.”

  Catherine’s lips were bloodless, her eyes wide and shiny with fear again.

  “Deirdre is here with you,” he reminded her. “Good God, they wouldn’t dare kill all three of us—plus two coachmen, who, I might add, are engrossed in a game of dice in the stables. Just as a precaution, however, I will be sure to mention that I told at least a dozen people where I was bound and why.”

  “You will be careful?” she pleaded in a whisper.

  “I shall be the soul of discretion. It will be difficult, since I rather liked the fellow up to now. But I admit I like my own skin more.” He planted a tender, brotherly kiss on her forehead and moved toward the door. “Remember now: eat and sleep. No more thoughts of vaulting through the window, and no more hysterics. I need you to be strong for me tomorrow.”

  Catherine manag
ed a weak smile. “I will be. As long as you promise that when this is over, you will exaggerate shamelessly to Father and all our friends about how brave and fearless I was.”

  Damien grinned. “I shall shout it from the rooftops.”

  His grin stayed in place until he pulled the door closed behind him. But by the time he had arrived at the bottom of the rickety stairs, his brows were drawn together in an unbroken slash and his hands were balled into fists by his side.

  The three men were seated in front of the fire. Raefer Montgomery had his back to the wall, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He cradled a pewter tankard, half filled with black ale, in his hands.

  “Well?” he asked without looking up. “What did I tell you? Alive and well, although if this fiasco had been for real, your sister might have found herself nursing a well-tanned backside. Pull up a chair and help yourself to some ale or wine. You must be cold from the long ride.”

  “I am cold, but not from the ride.” Damien’s gaze shifted to the two men seated opposite Montgomery. The younger one, his expression gloweringly distrustful, was staring back. The third man actually started to offer up a friendly smile, but the gesture was halted with Damien’s next words. “My sister has just finished telling me a very interesting story. It seems the walls between the upper rooms are very thin. So thin, in fact, that both she and her abigail heard every word the three of you said. They know who you are and what you are.”

  Alexander Cameron’s midnight eyes turned from the fire, though he was the only one who did not flinch when Damien’s fist came smashing down on the tabletop.

  “Goddammit! Why weren’t you more careful? I pleaded with you … I begged you to watch what you said and did in front of her. Good Christ, it was insane enough that you went through with the marriage, let alone that you brought her here.”

  Aluinn MacKail raised an eyebrow. “Marriage? What marriage?”

  “You mean he didn’t tell you?” Damien snorted with contempt. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? What’s to tell, after all? Only that he showed up bold as brass at my home and single-handedly managed to piss off half a regiment of dragoons. Only that he fought a duel over my sister’s honor and was forced to marry her while her wounded fiancé screamed for vengeance overhead. Not an entirely wasted evening by any standards, though possibly not as extraordinary as I supposed it to be if neither of you seemed concerned enough to ask how he came by the wounds on his temple and thigh.”

  Cameron patted his breast pocket and produced a cigar. “You’re becoming a little overexcited, aren’t you?”

  “Overexcited? You appear unannounced on my doorstep, jeopardizing both our positions. You antagonize half the guests at the party by defending the politics of a rebelling country, then compound the situation by whisking my sister—who just happens to be the fiancée of an officer in the Royal Dragoons—into the garden, where you make damned sure Hamilton Garner sees what you are about. You goad him into challenging you to a duel, after which my father forces you at gunpoint to marry Catherine! You bring her here and frighten her half to death with stories about spies and murderers! And you accuse me of being overexcited?”

  Aluinn and Iain both gaped at Alexander Cameron, who calmly struck a match and held it to the end of his cigar.

  “In the first place,” he said slowly, savoring a long drag of smoke, “there was no way to forewarn you that I was coming to Derby—we missed you in London by half a day. Second, I did not deliberately set out to antagonize any of your guests—pompous, bigoted, anarchist fools that they are. And third, your sister was asking for trouble. I may have taken advantage of that particular situation, but if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else. Furthermore, you know damned well I tried my utmost to avoid accepting the lieutenant’s challenge; he just wouldn’t let it lie. As for the absolute legality of the wedding ceremony—”

  “Ye mean it’s true?” Iain blurted with a grin. “Ye really are married tae the wench?”

  Damien glared at the younger man. “I’ll thank you to remember that the ‘wench’ is my sister. My only sister, whom I love very much. And in case you have forgotten, she also knows who you are.”

  Alexander clamped his teeth down on the butt of the cigar. “Now, that truly is an unfortunate turn of events.”

  Damien sighed as the fight went out of him and reached for a tankard. “Having the pox would be an unfortunate turn of events right now. Having Catherine ready and eager to drag you in front of the local militia, however …” He shook his head and splashed ale into the mug.

  “We can’t afford any trouble just now,” Aluinn said quietly. “She’ll have to be kept away from the authorities—at least long enough for us to get across the border into Scotland. The last thing we need right now is more patrols searching for us.”

  “I fully agree,” Damien said. “I just don’t know how you’re going to do it. When she has her temper up—and believe me, it’s at full cock now—you’d have an easier time taming a cobra.”

  “Ye could always tell her ye’re one o’ us, Colonel,” Iain said with a smirk. “Mayhap she’d wear a white cockade under her bonnet as well.”

  Damien’s pale blue eyes iced further at the sarcasm. “I doubt that very much. She would probably scream twice as loud, twice as long.”

  “Are you saying you don’t think you can control what she says or does over the next few days?” Cameron asked.

  “I’m saying … she has confused priorities at the moment, compounded by a stubborn streak a mile wide. I think as soon as she is set free all hell will break loose. She’ll have every hound in England set loose to hunt you down, and if she even suspected I was involved in helping you, she would send them after me as well.”

  Cameron took a deep breath, uncrossed his ankles, and stood up. “What if the consequences of such actions were spelled out to her?”

  Damien studied the hard, uncompromising set to Cameron’s jaw. “I don’t want her frightened any more than she is already.”

  “Threats don’t usually come sugarcoated.”

  “Maybe I can talk to her.…”

  Cameron tossed his cigar into the fire. “We can’t take the chance she won’t listen.”

  He strode across the room and went up the stairs. Damien started to follow, but Aluinn was there to block the way.

  “He can be diplomatic when he wants to be. And extremely persuasive.”

  Cameron used his boot to kick open the door, not bothering to slow down or knock before he entered Catherine’s room. The force tore the iron latch out of the wall and sent it cracking against the wood with the report of a gunshot. Deirdre, in the middle of undressing Catherine’s hair, scattered a handful of steel pins across the floor. Catherine jumped to her feet, her cheeks instantly flushing with two hot spots of indignation.

  “What is the meaning of this? How dare you burst into my room uninvited!”

  The dark eyes held hers for the span of several throbbing heartbeats, then flicked to the maid. “Leave us alone for a few minutes.”

  “Stay where you are,” Catherine cried and reached out to grasp Deirdre’s hand. “Whatever you have come to say, sir, you can say to both of us.”

  He nodded, his eyes now narrowing. “I suppose that is only fair, since you will both undoubtedly be sharing the same fate.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “In plainer language? I understand you have been eavesdropping on my business. Eavesdroppers often hear things they shouldn’t—things that prevent them from remaining healthy for too long.”

  Catherine glanced at the shattered door. “Damien,” she whispered. “What have you done to him?”

  “Nothing. Yet.”

  “I want to see him. I want to see my brother.”

  Cameron crossed his powerful arms over his chest, posing a formidable threat. “You are hardly in a position to make demands, madam.”

  “What do you plan to do … Mister Cameron? Kill us? Damien
told Father he was coming after me. If anything happens to us they will send every soldier in England after you. They will catch you and drag you before a tribunal, and they will see that you die a slow, terrible death as a traitor and murderer before they hack you to pieces and feed you to the dogs!”

  “My, what a picturesque imagination you have. But just how do you propose your father—or anyone else, for that matter—will find me, let alone catch me?”

  “Your arrogance is misplaced, sir. You sadly underestimate my father’s influence with the army.”

  “On the contrary; I warrant he and his hordes of avenging devils would not hesitate to turn London upside down in their search for the elusive Raefer Montgomery. But how long would it take them, do you suppose, to realize Mr. Montgomery no longer exists?”

  The truth of what he said struck Catherine like a cold, cruel slap. No one outside the walls of this inn knew that Raefer Montgomery was a disguise. Even Hamilton, who had sworn to come after her, would instinctively follow the road to London, searching for clues to her disappearance. By the time the deception was discovered—if it ever was—their slain bodies would be long overgrown with weeds.

  “What do you plan to do with us?”

  “That, madam, depends entirely upon whether or not we can come to an agreement.”

  She crossed her own arms over her chest and studied him belligerently. “What kind of an agreement?”

  “I will tell you what I need from you”—the dark eyes narrowed—“and then we can decide what method of persuasion to use to win your cooperation.”

  “Never,” she said promptly. “I will never cooperate.”

  “I need a week,” he continued, as if he had not heard the interruption. “I need time to reach the border, cross into Scotland, and ride up into the Highlands without anticipating a shot in my back every step of the way.”

  “A musket would be too merciful. They hang spies, you know. They draw and quarter them and stick their severed heads on pikes until they shrivel and blacken like figs.”

  Cameron grimaced wryly. “You have been reading too many novels.”