Cates, Kimberly (2 page)

"Nate, enough," Rachel pleaded in alarm, taking his trembling hand in her own. "Come, and I'll sit down with you for a little while."

"A lady such as yourself should not have anything to do with this puling knave!" Pringle growled. "I am certain Sir Dunstan would forbid it."

"Come now, gentlemen," she chided. "A soldier too deep in his cups would be a most familiar sight to you after years of campaigning. Nate and I are friends from a long time ago."

"A long time ago," Nate said in echo, laughing bitterly. "When I was yet a man."

Aching for him, Rachel led him away from the cluster of warriors, feeling furious glares burning into her back. Yet better to brave the officers' displeasure than to allow poor Nate to humiliate himself further. She couldn't bear to leave the young man with more nightmares to torment him once the numbing haze of alcohol evaporated.

"Rachel, the garden... let's go to the garden," Nate said. "God, what I wouldn't give for a breath of fresh air away from heroes and tales of battle glory and lies."

Rachel headed toward the doorway that led to the gardens.

"This Glen Lyon is your hero, Rachel," Nate insisted, as they wove through a maze of low-growing hedges, "a masked rider no brigade of the king's soldiers can capture. He's quicksilver, liquid lightning that slips through his stalkers' hands."

"Only a coward hides behind a mask." Rachel's fingertips skimmed to the ivory-painted miniature that always dangled by a black velvet ribbon about her neck.

Nate glanced at it, the flambeau casting eerie shadows across Dunstan Wells's proud, aristocratic features.

"Ah, Rachel," he said softly, his voice strange, unnerving. "If you only knew... there are many kinds of masks."

She suppressed a prickling at the nape of her neck.

"Your betrothed would be mad as the devil if he heard me tell you of the Glen Lyon. Sir Dunstan, the hero of Culloden Moor," Nate sneered as they paced out into the night air. "But he's not cutting quite such a bold dash anymore. When you're the Great Chosen One of the Duke of Cumberland, I suppose it's damned embarrassing to be outwitted by a cowardly rebel."

"Sir Dunstan and this—this rebel—"

"Have become sworn foes." Nate sank down on a stone-carved bench beside a yew hedge in the farthermost reaches of the garden, hidden from view of the ballroom windows or any guests who might stray outside. Yet no guests seemed to have availed themselves of the moon-kissed loveliness, the flambeaus set about, splashing pools of light on empty marble tiers scattered with statuary.

"Nate," Rachel protested, "I cannot believe that a prominent officer like Sir Dunstan would have to concern himself with—with—"

"The man who has swept over three hundred Scots to safety?" Nate arranged his crutch beside him. "That is where your betrothed is, even now—hunting the Glen Lyon like a madman—been doing so for months. I think he was hoping to present the poor devil's head to you on a silver platter—spoils of war, don't you know."

"I would much prefer a bouquet of roses as a love token." Rachel tried to keep her tone light, but shuddered inwardly at the image his words had painted.

"Your betrothed is most creative in his
gifts,"
Nate said, kneading what remained of his leg with unsteady fingers. "In fact, he served up quite a diabolical one to the Glen Lyon a month past, a veritable banquet of destruction and butchery. All that remains to be seen is what retribution the rebels will take. My hand to God, if I could sit a horse, I'd ride beside them."

"Nate, you must stop this at once," Rachel cautioned, glancing warily about. "Papa always said mercy can be mistaken for weakness. War can be a brutal thing. Sometimes drastic measures are necessary to put an end to the battling."

"It's all right then, to make war on women and children? Starving innocents..." He looked at her, a horrible indulgence in his eyes, an engulfing wave of hopelessness in his laugh. "No, you wouldn't believe the truth about what's been happening here in Scotland even if I drew it out for you line by line in a sketchbook. You'd just spout more of your father's military theories."

"Perhaps so," Rachel said, stung. "But you're spouting treason. I know you're intoxicated, but—"

"I'm not nearly drunk enough. I can still hear those poor bastards at Culloden Moor screaming for mercy as we butchered them. I can still picture my wife, setting up an assignation with that cur of a Hessian— plotting what time she'll steal from her bed. Not that I'd be aware of it anyway. She sleeps as far away from me as she can now. She hasn't touched me since..." His voice cracked, and pity knotted in Rachel's throat. "Hellfire, I can't blame her. I sicken myself."

She caught one of Rowland's hands in her own. "Your wife is a fool, Nate. You are a hero. A woman worthy of your love wouldn't care about your leg. She'd be grateful you were alive to come home to her. You still have arms to hold her, and I know somewhere you still have that devilish smile that made half the belles of the season fall in love with you."

"Rachel, Rachel, still the lord general's daughter, fighting back against enormous odds. But it's too late to save me. I've lost the battle, fled the field, struck my colors. Yet I've heard that the Glen Lyon did the same at Prestonpans—a coward who ran. Perhaps it is not too late."

He stared out across a bank of wisteria, his eyes brimming with a sorrow so bleak, so vast, Rachel couldn't bear to look at it. "Rachel, forgive me," he said softly, capturing her hand in a grasp that unnerved her.

"Forgive you for what? Helping me escape that mob of officers before my face cracked with the effort it took to keep smiling? I've—I've been hoping that we would find time to—to chat, catch up on... on everything."

He took her hand, and Rachel sensed that he knew she was lying. "It's all right, Rachel. I know it's awkward. Strange." The gentle words made her cheeks burn with shame. "I need to go inside now. This leg aches damnably from the chill of the bench. But there is a lovely cascade of roses down this path a little ways. My wife was telling her Hessian about them, and I know how you adore roses. Besides, considering that I am a pariah, it might be best if you weren't seen re-entering the ballroom with me."

She was touched by his consideration, and ashamed by the sting of relief she felt at the chance to escape his company. "I would love to see the roses, Nate. It
was
good to talk to you. I want to do so again. Soon." He gave her hand a parting squeeze, then limped off, leaning heavily on his crutch.

She tarried near the stone bench until he disappeared through the doors leading to the ballroom. Turning, she retreated deeper into the maze of shrubbery, heading for a bank of stunning roses.

Night shadows pooled, velvety dark, blurring the edge of earth and sky, the wind stirring the rose petals and lifting their scent to the stars. Yet as the ballroom fell farther behind her, a sudden chill penetrated the thin veil of linen draped about her, teasing skin used to countless heavy layers of velvets and satins, petticoats and jewels.

She reached up, untying the velvet ribbon that held Sir Dunstan's miniature, and cupped it in the palm of her hand. Her eyes skimmed it in the moonlight.

Dear God, she had achieved everything she'd ever dreamed of in her betrothal to Sir Dunstan. She should be happy. Why, then, did shadows of doubt seep from the corners of her heart, taunting her with a vague sense of disappointment? In Dunstan, she wondered, or in herself?

No, what she was feeling was merely the emotions she'd seen her father suffer at the end of every military engagement—battle won, mission accomplished. A dead calm that left a person restless. Restlessness—that emotion had always been as much a part of her as her sable hair and the quick impatience in her crystal-blue eyes—a feeling that she might burst if something didn't happen.

A scream rose in her throat, then died there, as one of the shadows came alive, something huge and dark and monstrously strong capturing her in sinewy arms.

Outrage flooded through her, and she was certain that one of the officers she'd known since childhood was playing some sort of prank on her. The brilliant officers that filled the ballroom to brimming were the same terrible boys who had leaped out at her from closets and tied her hair in knots when she was a little girl.

"This isn't amusing," Rachel snapped, jerking around. "Release me or—"

Breath snagged in her throat and she froze, too stunned to move as she saw a face blackened with burnt cork and a white Stuart cockade—a pale smear of doom against the night.

The symbol of the Glen Lyon.

Dunstan's miniature tumbled from numb fingers. She fought and kicked, desperate as Nate's words about the rebel lord sent pinwheels of raw terror careening across every nerve of her body. Something coarse was yanked over her head, killing even the faint light of the flambeaus, cutting off the air. She dragged in another breath to scream, but her mouth filled with choking dust, ropes cutting into her wrists as they were bound in front of her.

Sweet God in heaven, she was being kidnapped in the middle of a military ball with half the officers in the English army a garden's length away.

This was impossible... impossible. Someone would hear her... someone would come...

She attempted to scream again, but the breath left her lungs in a whoosh as strong arms hurled her up onto a horse's back. Pinning her effortlessly to the saddle despite her wild struggles, her captor mounted the horse behind her.

"Don't be afraid, Mistress," a deep English voice rumbled in her ear as the horse was spurred into motion.

"As if I'd be afraid of a cowardly traitor!" Rachel choked out, trying to fight the infernal bastard and keep from breaking her neck at the same time.

Her defiance shattered on a cry as the horse suddenly launched itself over a barrier she couldn't see. She half expected to be hurled over its head onto the turf as its front hooves slammed into the ground, but her captor held her fast.

Helplessness tore at her, she who had been helpless only one time... the night her mother had died. She fought the sensation even more furiously than she had fought her assailant.

"You'll never get away with this," she spat out as the horse regained its balance, its gait all but jarring the teeth from her mouth. "I know who you are."

"And just who am I?" the rough baritone asked in the infuriatingly amused tone one might use with a temperamental child.

You're a monster,
she wanted to say,
a giant—huge and thickly muscled, and terrifying,
but she flung back her answer like her papa's own daughter. "You're the rebel bastard Glen Lyon."

Laughter, rich and unexpected, rang out, shaking the hard chest against which she was imprisoned. "I wouldn't even attempt to claim that title, hellcat. The Glen Lyon is ten times the man I am." There was just a touch of awe in the man's voice—enough to tighten the chill vise of terror about her chest.

"He is ten times the traitorous villain, you mean," Rachel flung back, her head reeling. Not the Glen Lyon? The villain hadn't even bothered to abduct her himself?

Her captor's words resounded through her.

Ten times the man I am...

Her imagination flooded with images of this legend-spun rebel lord—stronger than Samson, more cunning than Caliban, more demonic than Lucifer himself

What would such a beast want with her?

The Glen Lyon and your betrothed are sworn foes....
Nate's words tore at her spirit.

Sworn foes...

She caught her lip between her teeth to keep from crying out. Memories stirred in her head—whispered accounts she had overheard of horrors beyond imagining, the hideous fates of women who had fallen into enemy hands.

Thunder in heaven, surely this Glen Lyon couldn't... would not dare to...
to what?

Ravish her?

Ice poured into her veins. The traitorous rebel was a coward—a craven coward who had kidnapped the betrothed of the bravest man in all England. There could be only one reason to commit such a nefarious crime—to have her completely at his mercy. What better way to wound the proud Sir Dunstan than to brutalize his betrothed?

Terror was a living thing inside Rachel. She renewed her struggles, yet it was as if her captor was hewn of pure granite, immovable, impossible to defeat.

Tears of hopelessness and despair bit at her eyes, and in their wake, her father's admonition rose as it had a thousand times before:
A soldier never cries....

The words reined in her panic, tamping it down with fierce resolution.

No. She would not let these traitors make her cry. She had to think, to plan, to find a way out of this disaster.

Whatever vile fate Glen Lyon had in store for her, no paltry coward would ever defeat Rachel Alexandra de Lacey. The general's daughter was about to embark upon her own private war.

CHAPTER 2

Rachel had never suspected that war was so uncomfortable. Hot spikes of pain screwed themselves deeply into every joint of her body. The rough blindfold made her eyes itch. The constant jolting of the horse jarred her until her teeth threatened to chatter right out of her head.

They had been riding for an eternity, an eternity Rachel had spent listening to every sound with excruciating intensity, trying to gather any clues that might help her retrace the horse's steps once she escaped.

Blinded by the strip of cloth still secured over her eyes, she'd distinguished the rushing music of a burn spilling over stone, and had tried to count the number of times her body shifted in her captor's arms as he guided his mount up sweeps of hills.

She'd congratulated herself for her genius when she'd begun demanding to be allowed to answer calls of nature whenever she guessed that they might be near some particularly distinct landmark. Those few moments of grudging privacy had given her time enough to sneak up the hem of the blindfold and glance at the wild highlands of Scotland engulfing her.

The sensation had set terror clawing inside her, the terror Persephone must have felt as she was dragged down to Hades' domain. However, Persephone had been face to face with her nemesis from the moment of her abduction, while Rachel was left at the mercy of a too-vivid imagination. To her, it seemed as if the Glen Lyon was vengeance incarnate. The hintings of his dark deeds had made Rachel's spine tingle with foreboding while she was yet safe in the garden. Here, in the vast wildness, they iced her skin with pure dread.