Eyes of the Cat: Unholy Wedlock (Part 1 of a 4 Part Serial)

by Mimi Riser

  * * *

  “They’re mad!” A disheveled tartan-clad fury stormed across the dim chamber, flailing cobwebs out of her face as she went. “All of them!” She fumed back to the thick wood door, kicking through a pile of ancient straw on her way and startling a family of rodents. “Every last man Jack of them—completely and utterly stark raving mad!”

  Grabbing the door’s heavy iron handle with both hands, she braced her feet, threw her weight backward, and tugged with all her might.

  It refused to budge.

  Which was pretty much what she’d expected, having already tried to open it eleven times and gotten the same result with each effort. She hadn’t been able to resist a twelfth attempt, however, just in case it wasn’t actually locked, but merely stuck, and a really solid pull would jar it loose. A fancy born of desperation, of course, because she knew well and good that the horrid door to this horrid tower prison was horridly locked. She had very clearly heard its horrid latch scraping horridly into place when they had thrown her in there barely thirty horrid minutes before.

  It took two of them to do it, though.

  Tabitha studied the blood under her fingernails—none of it her own. That was some satisfaction, at least. The tartan gown was rather the worse for the tussle, her long hair had tumbled loose and probably looked like a banshee’s at the moment, but other than that—and a few definite dents in her pride—she was basically intact.

  So far.

  Which was more than anyone would be able to say for Duncan and Douglas. Or had it been Donald and Dunstan who had imprisoned her up here? Douglas and Donald, perhaps?

  She shook her disheveled head. Angus’s four sons all looked so alike, how could anyone be expected to tell them apart? Probably it made no difference. They were four peas in a pod—all insane, like their father. Some kind of congenital defect, no doubt. Only insane people could be thinking what they were.

  After all, they knew the truth now. She had admitted who she was long before they’d come in sight of this adobe monstrosity. She’d had to hold off a while, naturally, to insure Captain Lawrence and Lady Gabrina an adequate headstart, but she hadn’t waited a moment longer than necessary. Scarcely three hours out of Abilene Station, she had told all. It had been right as they were passing that other wagon, the one with the pleasant looking Mexican family. It had seemed such a providential time because, once the MacAllisters realized she wasn’t Gabrina, they certainly wouldn’t want her anymore, and she should have been able to hitch a return ride to Abilene with the Mexicans.

  Except…

  “Ah well”—Angus had shrugged after listening silently to the confession—“what canna be cured, mun be endured.”

  “Thank you so much for your understanding, Mr. MacAllister.” Tabitha had twisted around on the wagon seat, straining to see if the Mexican family was still in earshot. The explanation had taken longer than she’d intended. “I must say, you’re being very gracious about this.”

  Where was that other wagon? That couldn’t be it, could it? That pinprick on the horizon?

  “Oh, dear.” She had turned back toward Angus. “I’m terribly sorry about this, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to drive me back to Abilene.”

  “Why?” He had flashed her a big toothy grin. “Gabby or Tabby, ’tis such a wee dif’rence. Dinna you fear, lassie. Alan’ll still wed you.”

  A high-button shoe stomped onto a filthy wood floor.

  But I’ve no intention of wedding Alan! I don’t care if he’s Prince Charming, himself, I don’t even want to meet the man.

  The truth of the matter was, she had no intention of wedding anyone. Ever. Her Aunt Matilda had always preached that wedlock was a lock, indeed, little better than slavery for women. Tabitha wasn’t sure if that was entirely correct; she had known some girls who seemed content in their chains. But they were generally the type of Lady Gabrina, girls who hadn’t much stored in their attics, so to speak. She agreed with Matilda Jeffries that she, herself, was not especially well suited for marriage.

  “You are too intelligent and far too independent to tolerate such a union,” she could almost hear her aunt saying. “For you, Tabitha, marriage would feel like being nibbled to death by ducks. A slow torture. Leave it for the girls who can think of nothing else to do with their lives. You will be far better satisfied if you forge your own way in the world, as I have.”

  Right,” Tabitha answered aloud, stalking away from the locked door. “But the only way I’m interested in now, is whatever way will get me out of here.”

  Stopping in the center of the circular cell, she peered about, trying hard to determine her options, and harder to ignore the fact that there didn’t appear to be any. Except for the gloom, the must, and the dust—of which there was plenty—the cell was practically bare. Nothing but one heavy door with a small iron grate letting in scant light from the passage beyond, one narrow, deep-set window letting in a bit more from the nearly full moon outside…one torch in a wall bracket, offering no light at all, because it was unlit…one comforting manacle dangling from a short chain in the wall (the comfort being that it wasn’t dangling from her)…one foul smelling heap of straw…one small, scarred wood table…

  Was that all?

  But there had to be something here. Something she had missed. Something she could use?

  Swallowing down anger, frustration, and a rising panic, she forced herself to make another deliberate inventory. Table. Straw. Manacle. Torch. Window. Cat. Door…

  Cat?

  She rushed to the window. There on the floor below it, stately and dignified, like a king holding court, sat the biggest, blackest, most magnificent tomcat she had ever seen. He was almost too beautiful to be real.

  “Why, you marvelous creature… Wherever did you come from? I’m sure you weren’t here a moment ago.”

  The cat stared solemnly through large golden eyes as she reached down to him. He sniffed her fingers, rather with the air of a courtier kissing a damsel’s hand, and then began a deep bass purr while she stroked between his ears.

  “I wish you could show me how you got in,” she said, “because maybe I could get out the same way.”

  The cat stood up, gave a long regal stretch, and leaped neatly into the window crevice.

  “Oh, now don’t tell me you came in through there.” She shook her head at him. “We must be at least three stories high. Did you scale the tower, or simply fly? I don’t see any wings on your back.”

  “Nor I on yours, and I thought angels always had wings,” came a low voice from behind her.

  Her heart in her throat, Tabitha whirled about to confront a tall young man lounging against the closed door and studying her with obvious amusement. He was fair-haired, like most of the MacAllisters, but he spoke with a distinctly American accent and wore trousers instead of a kilt. Which meant… She allowed herself a discreet sigh of relief.

  He wasn’t Alan.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” he asked.

  The fellow might not be Alan, but he was someone with an apparent vision problem. Even in the gloom, her feline visitor was hard to miss.

  “The cat, of course,” she answered warily. “Don’t you see him?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But you must.” She glanced over her shoulder and suffered a sudden weird tingle down her spine. “Oh! It…it’s not there anymore.”

  “Well, don’t let it trouble you,” he drawled.

  Although Tabitha wasn’t sure what he meant by “it”—the cat’s disappearance, or the fact that she had seen it when he had not. Either way, she didn’t care for the man’s tone, nor the idea that he’d gotten into the cell without her hearing him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “At the moment, I rather wish I were Alan.” He grinned, and she didn’t care much for that either.

  “No, you don’t.” Her eyes slid over him like a glacier.

  The grin broadened. “Perhaps you’re right. I saw wha
t you did to Duncan and Dunstan. I’m Simon Elliott.” He looked as though he thought the name might mean something to her. When it didn’t, he shrugged and continued a bit cryptically, “You could call me a…a friend of the MacAllisters. I’m engaged in some…well, let’s just say some research here at the castle. Among other things, I’m studying old Highland customs.” He gave her another irritating grin. “Angus has been telling me all about you, Miss Jeffries. A fascinating situation you’ve landed yourself in, I must say.”

  “I’m so glad you find it amusing.”

  Her expression, which must have looked anything but glad, seemed only to increase that amusement.

  “Oh, come now, buck up”—he chuckled—“I’m sure things aren’t nearly as bad as you think they are.”

  “How would you know?” She turned her back on him.

  “I’m a wizard. Wizard’s know everything.”

  Marvelous. He was insane, too.

  “Look at it this way, perhaps, when you two finally meet, Alan will decide that he doesn’t care for you—as unlikely as that seems. Or, you may decide that you do care for him,” Simon suggested. “I don’t, of course. He’s a little too odd for me.”

  Tabitha gave a strangled laugh as she spun back to him. “All the MacAllisters are odd!”

  “Perhaps. But Laird Alan is the oddest of the lot.”

  Double marvelous.

  “Did you climb all the way up here just to tell me that?” she asked icily.

  “I came to cheer you up,” he replied warmly.

  “Well, I’m sorry to inform you of this, Mr. Elliott, but you have been anything but cheering.”

  “How unfortunate. I must try to do better.” He stooped to retrieve a black wood box from the floor near his feet. “See? I’ve brought you a gift to brighten your stay here. It’s one of my latest toys.”

  Curiosity driving back her upset for a moment, Tabitha reached for it. It was a little heavier than she had expected from its size, and it had a glass globe covering a wire coil sticking out of its top. “How do you work it?”

  Her interest appeared to please him.

  “Place it on the table, and I’ll show you.”

  When it was positioned, he touched something on its back with one hand, while flourishing the other in the air, declaring, “Let there be light!”

  And there was. While Tabitha stood blinking in the glare of it, Simon quickly and quietly left.

  “I told you I was a wizard,” she heard him whisper just before the lock clicked back into place.

  “Yes, and I’m Cleopatra,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the contraption. What an annoying man. Rather ingenious, though. This was a very serviceable electric lantern. Smaller than the one Mr. Edison of New Jersey had come up with a few years earlier, but it produced even more illumination. The compact size with the increased brightness, in fact, were two of the improvements her aunt had been trying to perfect right before she died. If Tabitha had been older at the time and had had the funding to continue the work, she might have worked out something like this, herself. But the investors had been appalled. A woman scientist had been dubious enough—regardless of her sterling credentials—but a teenaged girl?

  She shook her head. There had been nothing to do but finagle her way into a paid position with that prestigious service agency, ignore the foibles of the wealthy women she companioned, and plan for the day when she had enough money saved to continue her aunt’s research. It was a bit aggravating, naturally, to realize that someone had beaten her to the punch on this lighting device. However, modifying Mr. Edison’s idea had been only one of Aunt Matilda’s projects—everyone and their brother had been working on the same problem, it seemed—and there were so many more interesting and original discoveries waiting to be made.

  But I’ll never get a chance at any of them unless I get out of here!

  Reaching around the back of the box—obviously some sort of power storage unit—Tabitha felt for the trigger… Ah, there, a small lever. She flipped it and the bright glow popped out with a distinct crackle.

  “That didn’t sound good. The voltage is unstable,” she muttered. “You had better be careful with your toys, Mr. Elliott. I don’t believe you’re quite as clever as you think you are.”

  Something nudged the side of her foot. She jumped, certain it was one of the rat colony from the straw, and then laughed with relief.

  “Oh, you’re back, are you? Where did you disappear to before?”

  The black cat gave a long, resonant yowl.

  “Goodness! You sound like an alarm siren, and I entirely agree. This predicament is alarming. But what can I do? I know it seems absurd, but I’m like one of those fairytale damsels-in-distress. Complete with the imprisonment in a genuine towered fortress.” Kneeling by the cat, Tabitha stroked him from the top of his satin head to the tip of his long tail, his purr rumbling like a steam engine at full throttle.

  “I don’t suppose you know of any knights-in-shining-armor who could come to my rescue, do you? You’d think a castle this size would have at least one Sir Lancelot or Galahad. A Robin Hood, perhaps?” She sank back on her heels. “Right now, I’d even settle for Friar Tuck.”

  Studying her intently, the cat yowled again, then leapt onto the table. He sniffed the lantern, arched his back, and gave a ferocious hiss.

  “Yes, I agree with you there, too. Mr. Elliott won’t be any help. I’d already discarded that possibility, myself. Any other ideas— Oh! Be careful, you might hurt yourself!”

  Her four-footed confidant had just lashed out and batted the lantern clean off the table. The glass globe shattered, and the box split open, spilling wires and coils all over the dusty floor. Tabitha stared at the mess, feeling her eyes bug. There, in the center of the jumble, was what must have caused the unstable current. A long, curious iron key.

  The key to her prison? The key to freedom?

  She looked at the cat, sitting motionless in the center of the table like a big furry black Buddha.

  “Oh my,” she breathed. “Do you think we could possibly have misjudged Mr. Elliott?”

  The feline’s only answer was to leap off the table, snatch the key in his mouth, and dart pell-mell across the cell.

  “No! Bring that back!” She raced after him, but he’d already disappeared through the narrow recessed window. “I thought you were my friend!”

  She could almost have sat down and cried, but that certainly wouldn’t have solved anything. There was nothing to do but slide into the window crevice after him. Due to the thick walls of the prison tower, it was nearly three feet deep and a bit of a squeeze, but she thought she could manage it.

  However is he getting up and down from here, anyway?

  “Heavens, what a monstrous tree! Why didn’t I notice that before?” she asked aloud, staring in fixed fascination at the massive branches grazing the outside of the tower.

  “Because you didn’t check the window before, you nitwit,” she answered herself.

  An understandable oversight, though. The window was so deep-set it was difficult to see out of, unless one actually climbed into it. And she’d known she was too high to make escape that way a possibility. Also, she just happened to have this absolutely ghastly horror of heights. It was the one habit her aunt had never even tried to cure her of. Because Aunt Matilda happened to be horrified of heights, too.

  Probably an inherited trait, Tabitha mused, clutching the adobe sill with a white knuckled grip and trying desperately not to be sick as she peered out into the new spring leaves. There sat the cat among them, just out of reach, with the key jutting jauntily out the corners of his mouth and what appeared to be a highly amused expression in his large amber eyes.

  “Oh, you think this is funny, do you? Don’t you dare yowl and drop it, you little imp. Bring it here to me.”

  He stood up on his branch, stretched, and padded a few steps toward her.

  “That’s right…that’s a good boy…come here…one more step…come on, a
ngel,” she coaxed. “Oh! You naughty little devil!” She glowered as he spun and flitted back the way he’d come.

  Key in mouth, he strolled about the nearest branches, pausing here and there to sharpen his claws, stopping occasionally to level that warm golden gaze on her. “I’ll give you the key if you’ll come here,” he seemed to be saying. “Come on, it’s perfectly safe. Look at me. It’s easy.”

  It’s insane, Tabitha thought. Everything was crazy, the situation, the castle, the MacAllisters, the cat…

  “And I’m the craziest of all. Oh, how I hate heights,” she groaned, sliding through the open window.

  It was a heart-stopping scramble from the sill to the first branch. Tabitha never was quite sure how she accomplished it, because she’d had her eyes squeezed shut during the whole process. When she did dare look, there was the cat sitting two branches below and staring encouragingly up at her, as if to say, “You did that very well. For a human.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now may I please have that key?”

  “No. I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “It’s a cat’s purr-ogative, you know.”

  At least, that was how Tabitha interpreted his response. What he’d done was to turn his back to her and leap down four more branches.

  He’s right, she realized, gazing mournfully from the cat to the window. “I couldn’t possibly steel myself to climb back there, even if I wanted to return to that wretched room. The lesser of the two evils now is to continue the way I’m going.” The branches were large and sturdy, and there were plenty of them. With the worst part behind her, she supposed it wouldn’t be too terrifying to make it the rest of the way down.

  She managed it surprisingly well—for a dyed-in-the-wool acrophobe who was certain she was going to pass out and plummet to her death at any second. Except the tree seemed to have taken a distinct hankering for her clothes. Anything they could catch on, they caught. And ripped. And left pieces of themselves fluttering festively among the spring leaves like gay tartan streamers.

  She tried not to think about it—far too embarrassing—but by the time she made it to the lowest branches, she was down to hardly more than her corset, corset cover, plain white cotton drawers, and high button shoes. Even her modest black stockings had been shredded. Her long hair spilled about her shoulders; she was scratched, bruised, hot, flushed…

  And extremely perturbed when she reached the final position, where the cat sat waiting, and discovered that there were still nearly five yards between her and the ground. Fifteen feet to go, and no more branches. Marvelous.

  “All right, my fine furry friend, you got me into this. Now tell me how I’m supposed to get the rest of the way down.”

  Blinking enigmatic eyes, he swiveled, crouched, and sprang, landing lightly near the base of the giant trunk.

  “Yes, I was afraid you’d suggest something like that.” Tabitha sighed. “But are you sure that’s the only possible way? I mean really, really sure?”

  He peered up at her a moment, pointed ears on alert, swishing his tail from side to side, then suddenly turned—the now useless key still in his mouth—darted around the tree, and was lost to view.

  “I guess that means he’s sure.” She shook off an uncanny feeling that she was somehow being observed. Impossible, of course; there wasn’t a soul in sight. “I could call for help, I suppose… But that would rather defeat the entire purpose of an escape.” Not to mention, that whoever came would find her in little more than her undergarments. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the jump.”

  It might prove fatal, but if anyone saw her like this, she’d die of embarrassment anyway. So, drawing a deep breath and clamping her eyes shut, Tabitha leaned forward, let go of her branch, and dropped—

  Straight into a waiting pair of arms.

  Her eyes flew open. So did her mouth, but her scream shriveled in a scorching blaze of shock. She was too startled to breathe, let alone make a sound. The arms that had caught her were attached to a… Well, not a MacAllister, at any rate. She supposed she ought to be grateful for that. But…

  A Comanche?

  The Comanche were the people who had once roamed this part of Texas, weren’t they? She had thought they’d all been moved onto reservations, but one, at least, had stayed. That much seemed definite.

  A Comanche with clean-chiseled, motionless features and warm tanned skin. A Comanche with thick black hair grazing what would have been his collar, if he’d been wearing a shirt. A tall, powerful Comanche in the prime of manhood, with shoulders like a gladiator’s and deep amber eyes. Eyes that were fixed on her with the penetrating gaze of a cat. They seemed to bore straight into her soul. It was worse than distracting. It felt weirdly intimate, almost invasive, somehow.

  He was holding her so close, she was aware of every hard muscled contour of his bare chest. Too aware. The heat of his flesh sent the most indefinable tingles shivering through her. Tabitha had never felt anything like them before, and wasn’t at all sure she relished the sensation now.

  “Th-thank you,” she finally managed to strain out. “I-I’m extremely indebted to you, b-but do you think you could put me down?”

  The Comanche apparently did not think so. All he did was to shift her even closer, sending a fresh hot wave of those disturbing tingles washing over her.

  Oh! Perhaps he doesn’t understand.

  “Down. You. Put. Me. Down,” she enunciated slowly and distinctly, pointing to him, herself, and the ground.

  “Are you sure you’re able to stand?”

  Tabitha almost laughed with relief. He did speak English. Quite well, in fact, in a rich, husky baritone, with just a subtle touch of some nebulous accent.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she assured him. “Thank you, but it really is all right for you to… Really, I’m…fine…”

  What was he doing? He’d stopped listening and appeared to be engrossed in studying every inch of her, shifting her this way and that in his arms as though she were no more than a ragdoll. A very confused and unnerved ragdoll.

  “You’ve a lot of scratches,” he announced. “Not serious, I think, but they should be cleansed. I’ll take you where they can be seen to.”

  “No!” Tabitha squealed, as he began carrying her toward the castle’s towering keep. “Not there!”

  He halted in midstep, frowning. “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t let any of the MacAllisters see me!”

  “Aren’t you a MacAllister?”

  What? He thought she was… Well, she did have the MacAllister coloring. And probably to an Indian, all white people looked alike, anyway.

  “Oh, perish the thought,” she said with a shudder, and explained her predicament as quickly and coherently as possible, considering the circumstances. The Comanche’s gaze never left her face, and his granite expression never changed.

  “So, you see,” she finished a little breathlessly, “it’s imperative that I escape. Quickly! If you’ll help me, I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

  “A tempting offer.” The man stared at her, an unreadable look in his eyes. “But you should be careful about agreeing to a price before you hear what it is. You can never be sure what a person might…propose.”

  “I don’t have time for bartering!” she snapped, not taking the time, either, to wonder why she was so willing to trust this stranger. Not considering that she was grabbing at straws, and not worrying that he might turn out to be as stable as a loose straw in a stiff wind. In desperation, she grabbed at him anyway. There were too many miles of wild open country between herself and Abilene to attempt both alone and on foot.

  Whoever he was, and whatever he was doing at the castle, it seemed obvious he wasn’t one of them. If he’d been allied with the MacAllisters, he’d have thrown her back to them already, wouldn’t he? Much as her inbred independence chaffed at the realization, she did need some sort of knight-errant to help rescue her. And the Comanche were kind of like knights, weren’t they, with their horses and long war
lances? Gazing at his smooth, tanned skin, Tabitha fancied she could almost see the sheen of polished armor over it.

  “Please, there’s no telling how long I have before they discover I’m not in the tower, and the moment they do, they’ll come searching for me. I have to be well away from here by then! Won’t you help me? Please?”

  Those curious cat eyes locked onto hers, holding her firmer even than the powerful arms locked about her tense form.

  “And you’ll pay me whatever I ask?”

  She forced herself to meet his stare unblinking.

  “I promise.”

  The Comanche gave a short whistle, and out of nowhere it seemed, trotted a giant Appaloosa stallion, snorting and shaking his head. There was nothing on him save a blanket and a simple leather halter.

  Tabitha gulped. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had hoped for, but this wasn’t it. “I…I’m sorry. I do ride, but I’d never be able to handle him.”

  For the first time since she’d dropped out of the tree and into his embrace, the savage smiled.

  “No worry.” He winked. “I can.”

  With one fluid motion, he tossed her onto the stallion’s back and leapt up behind her, spurring past the kitchens and several other low buildings toward the rear of the castle’s great inner courtyard. “We’ll use the postern gate. I left it open when I rode in tonight,” he called just a moment before they cleared the emergency exit through the back of the massive bailey wall.

  “What about the moat?” Tabitha gasped, seeing only a narrow footbridge spanning it at that point.

  For answer, her knight-errant spurred his charger faster.

  The moat was nearly twelve feet wide and waterless, due to the dry climate, but its bottom and sides were porcupined with sharp dagger-like stakes. Horrified, Tabitha watched it rushing toward them. He couldn’t possibly be planning to—

  She felt the Appaloosa gathering itself.

  Oh, God, he was!

  “Hold tight,” the Comanche ordered.

  Like she couldn’t figure that out for herself? Silly man. A dynamite blast couldn’t have loosened her grip as they soared through the air and landed with a jolt on the opposite side of the moat. A second lunatic leap, and they were flying over the outer palisade. The stallion never even broke stride as his hooves struck earth, but thundered off across the moonlit prairie like a giant dappled bat straight out of the jaws of Hades.

  Tabitha fought to regain her breath. She had a sudden mental image of something being thrown from a frying pan into the flames.

  The something was her.

  And the flames were in the Comanche’s glittering amber eyes…

  “We’ll need to stop here,” he finally spoke, some immeasurable distance later, as their mount slowed to a canter, then a trot, then an agitated walk. He pulled him to a halt by the side of a small spring, jerking the stallion’s head up when it stretched toward the water.

  “Why did you do that?” Tabitha demanded. “He’s thirsty!”

  “I don’t doubt it. He’ll get a drink as soon as he’s cooled off.” The savage jumped to the ground and lifted her down beside him. “This spring is fed from deep underground, and the water is cold. If I let him drink now, it could make him sick.”

  “Oh.” She backed a few hasty steps away. His hands had lingered on her a just little too long when he’d lowered her off the horse. As much as she appreciated his help, his way of offering it was beginning to grate on her nerves. “I wish he could be solicitous without being so…so tactile about it,” she muttered under her breath, watching warily as he harvested a handful of tall dry grass and used it to wipe down the stallion’s froth speckled flanks. Then, with a sharp slap, he sent the animal trotting off.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t stray far from the water.” He turned to Tabitha. “What was that you just said?”

  Drat the man, he must have ears like a fox.

  “Um…I was only asking if I should wait to drink, too,” she improvised, lowering her gaze.

  “A few more minutes might be wise. We can use the time to bathe your scratches.”

  Her gaze flew back to his. “We?”

  “You can’t reach the ones on your back,” he pointed out.

  And for the second time since she’d met him, the Comanche smiled. But to Tabitha, it suddenly looked like the hungry grin of a wolf.

  “My back can wait until I reach Abilene,” she said, turning that part of her anatomy toward him.

  “Did you know there’s a great rip in the seat of your drawers?”

  With a gasp, she spun around again, reaching behind herself. “Oh! You— There is not!”

  “I know. I just wanted to make sure I had your attention.” His expression turned to stone. “There’s something we need to discuss before riding any farther.”

  “What?” Her expression was beginning to take on the quality of a bayed rabbit.

  “My payment.”

  “Oh, but I can’t possibly pay you now. I thought you realized that.” She frowned in flustered confusion. “I was expecting to wire for funds from Abilene Station. I have no money with me.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of money.”

  He flashed her his third smile of the day, and Tabitha suddenly felt as though she were wrapped in ice. Ice so cold it burned her. No… It was the gleam in his eyes that was burning her. So it had come to this, had it? Her knight had become a dragon? She steeled herself to meet his look without wavering.

  “What, then? What do you want?”

  As if I don’t know, she thought.

  “What do I want in payment?” He took a step forward. “It may surprise you.”

  “Really?” She struggled to keep her voice level. Was the man an idiot? Surely he didn’t think she was that naive. “Try it,” she said ominously, “and I may surprise you.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks, threw back his handsome head, and howled with laughter. “Tabitha Jeffries, after seeing you leap out of that tree in your underwear, I doubt there’s anything you could do that would surprise me!”

  It snapped her tense control. An attempted assault was bad enough, but being made fun of was absolutely, positively intolerable. She flew at him like a five-foot-two, hundred pound freight train, knocking him several steps backward. She fought like a wildcat on wheels. It took him several minutes to bring her even partly under control. And then another one to wrestle her to the ground.

  “I was wrong,” he panted out, his breath hot on her face as she battled beneath him. “You do surprise me.”

  Tabitha tried to spit at him, but her mouth had gone dry. “Wa-water,” she croaked—and went limp, as though she’d swooned.

  She felt his lean, hard torso relaxing against her, watched from beneath lowered lashes as his expression changed from suspicion, to concern, to genuine alarm. Then she was free of his weight and studying his muscular back in the moonlight as he knelt by the spring. When he rose and turned around from it, she was standing there, brandishing his own belt knife before herself like a miniature saber.

  The Comanche heaved a ragged sigh, and let the water in his cupped hands spill onto the parched prairie. “Full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said simply. “But enough for now. I’m tired. Give me the knife.”

  “Try and take it. Just try!”

  “If you insist.”

  And the next thing Tabitha knew, the knife was somewhere in the nearby brush, and she was snug against the Comanche’s solid, naked chest. His arms tightened about her like iron bands, pulling her off her feet, bringing her face level with his.

  “Any other requests?” he whispered, his lips grazing hers.

  “Y-yes”—an intensified replay of those wild, weird tingles sucked the air out of her lungs and stampeded all coherent thought from her head—“p-please don’t d-do this.”

  “Do what?” His lips brushed hers again.

  “K-kiss me!” she gasped.

  “If you insist.”

  His mouth covered hers.
<
br />   An electric shiver jolted through her, like a lightning strike. Her whole body went rigid—then melted into his. Much to her amazement, she kissed him back. Kissed him fervently and full and hard and deep.

  Who was this girl?

  His hold released, and she dropped back to earth, staggered as he stepped away. Breathing heavily, he stood there staring at her like she was a puzzle he couldn’t possibly piece together.

  “To think I believed there was nothing else you could do to surprise me,” he said on a husky rasp. “I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anything about you that isn’t a surprise.” Spinning on a moccasined heel, he whistled for the stallion. “We’d best go now.”

  What? He was still going to take her to Abilene?

  Tabitha watched through a cloudy red haze as the Comanche led his Appaloosa to the spring. Gradually, her breath and pulse returned to normal. She shook her head. It was impossible to accept what had just happened.

  I don’t do things like that. I don’t even consider them!

  Maybe it was some kind of momentary hallucination?

  “I must have hit my skull in the scuffle and imagined the whole thing,” she told herself. “I mean, I know I’ve been up to some foolish business lately, pretending to be Lady Gabrina and all. But there was a good reason for that.”

  What possible motive could she have had for…for kissing him?

  At the memory of his lips on hers, her recalcitrant body flooded her with so many reasons, she couldn’t suppress a groan.

  The reason for the groan glanced over his shoulder at her. “You’d best come drink. ’Tis a dry ride back.”

  Still dazed, Tabitha walked to the spring. “It never happened. I never did that. I imagined it,” she repeated inaudibly, over and over, while drinking and splashing cold water on her face and arms.

  That’s right. You imagined it, a voice spoke in her mind. And you’ll go on imagining it. If you live to be a hundred, you’ll never forget it.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said.

  The Comanche glanced at her, the ghost of a grin haunting his lips. “Who are you arguing with?”

  “Myself,” she answered through clenched teeth. “I do it a lot.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Interesting. You must always win, then.”

  “No, hardly ever.” She sighed. “Can we go now, please?”

  The moment they were remounted, he swung the stallion’s head in the direction they had previously galloped from.

  “Wait a minute!” Tabitha squirmed around to glare at him.

  “Do you know your eyes flash like emeralds in the moonlight?”

  “Don’t change the subject. This isn’t the way to Abilene!”

  The arm about her waist tightened. “I realize that.”

  “But you promised!” She struggled against his hold.

  “So did you. Sit still or you’ll startle the horse,” he ordered, as she tried to throw herself free.

  “This isn’t fair.” She pulled as far away from him as was possible in the short space on the stallion’s back.

  He yanked her back against himself, sending a hot flush spiraling through her. “Isn’t it? I kept my end of the bargain.”

  “You did not. You said you’d take me to Abilene!”

  “I said I’d help you away from the castle. And that, I did,” he corrected. “I never promised I’d not return you.”

  Tabitha strained around to glare at him again, but all she could see was his firm mouth scant inches from her own. She hastily faced front again.

  “You never had any intention of taking me to Abilene Station,” she ground out. “Why did you go to all this trouble to bring me out here, anyway? Simply to…to molest me?”

  A maddening low laugh rumbled against her spine. “’Twas only a kiss, dear. Don’t tell me you’ve never been kissed before.”

  She clamped her mouth shut, but her sudden trembling gave her away.

  “I never would’ve guessed it,” he said more to himself than her. “One more surprise.”

  “Let me off this horse,” she said darkly.

  The arm about her hardened into hot steel.

  “Let me off this instant. Or…or I’ll spur him into that ravine ahead and kill all three of us!”

  “You can try. But he can jump that ravine.”

  As her trembling spilled over into frustrated sobs, Tabitha felt angrier with herself than her captor. This was mortifying.

  “Whoa.” The Comanche reined them to a halt. “Listen, lass”—he wrapped both arms about her and lowered his head close to hers, his voice a soft purr in her ear—“I’ll admit ’twas a bit of folly to ride you off the way I did. You were so anxious to be rescued, I…I’m afraid I couldn’t resist. But my intentions at the spring were honorable. I simply wanted to…propose something, you might say. You just never gave me the chance to explain what.”

  “So explain now!” she snapped, her tears evaporating in the heat of a new anger.

  “Later,” he said. “You’re too miffled now, I think, to give me the answer I—”

  “Miffled?” Tabitha almost strangled on the word. “I’m a good deal more than miffled. Do you think I like the idea of being locked in a rat’s nest? Because I promise that’s what will happen if you don’t let me go.”

  “And if that’s all that’s bothering you, I can promise you’ll not be shut in the tower again.” He chuckled.

  “How? How can you promise me anything?” she blazed back. “Why should you even care? What difference is it to you whether I return to the castle or not? Who are you?”

  The Comanche answered by spurring the stallion forward into a furious gallop.

  “I’m the Laird of the castle!” he declared over the thunder of the hooves. “I’m Alan MacAllister—your future husband!”