Claimed by a Scottish Lord (2 page)

Colum rose. He was not as tall as Ruark. With Ruark standing five inches over six feet, few men were. ―Hereford‘s men are probably watching the road,‖ Colum said. I will remain with the stallion. He‘s a fine horse—‖

―Worth killing for? I want anyone watching this road to see this pack crossing the bridge. No purpose will be served if the warden‘s men learn any of us has been here. Give me your jacket.‖

Colum ran an impatient hand through his hair. He slipped out of his jacket and took Ruark‘s. ―You would leave that stallion to Hereford‘s men?‖

The question triggered an arched brow and the barest hint of a grin. ―I am disappointed in your lack of faith in me,‖ Ruark said, as he shoved his arms into the sleeves of Colum‘s jacket, testing the fit. ―There is nothing Hereford can take from me that I will not eventually reclaim. But I would rather lose a horse than give our good warden a reason to hang you as well. Besides, I have another reason to stay. Take the men and go now. I will be a day behind you.‖

Colum ordered all but four men to mount and ride. Amid the near silent commotion, another man approached carrying coffee. ―Here ye be,‖ McBain said. ―Thought ye might enjoy a refresher even on a blistering day like this.‖

―Thank you.‖ Ruark took a swallow of the coffee and smiled inwardly for it was blacker than hell, the way no one but McBain could brew it. Powerful and unforgiving. The way Ruark had come to appreciate the world since his years at sea had driven the softness from his life.

He fixed his eyes on the rolling hills. McBain followed his gaze, scrubbing his hand across his bewhiskered face. ―It‘s been a long time. A bluidy long time.‖

―Not long enough,‖ Ruark said, reflecting McBain‘s reservations aloud.

―Do ye think there‘s truth to the rumor that Hereford‘s daughter is alive?‖

―Aye, maybe,‖ Ruark said as he motioned for the remaining men to mount and drank the last of the coffee.

Ruark had not been home in almost thirteen years and he had no idea whom he could trust. But Friar Tucker was one of the few men he knew was not in Hereford‘s deep pockets. Ruark never understood the source of Tucker‘s bitter sentiments against Lord Hereford, but he hoped they would serve to ally Ruark and Tucker now against a common foe. If anyone knew the truth of the gossip, ‘twould be Tucker.

―If there is a daughter,‖ Ruark said, ―I doubt Tucker would appreciate what I have in mind for the girl.‖

He had never used another man‘s family to exact retribution, finding the practice repulsive. But watching Colum and the men disappear over the rise, he found himself dwelling on his father‘s second son. Jamie was a half brother Ruark had never met and knew not, except by the packet of letters he had found awaiting him one year when he had brought the
Black
Dragon
into Workington for a refitting. The lad had been only nine at the time and had introduced himself through the writings. For the first time since Ruark had left Scotland, a member of his family had attempted to communicate with him. Ruark had spent that evening reading the letters and every six months afterward for three years, he had sailed into Workington just for those letters.

Their father‘s death four months ago might have delivered Ruark the Roxburghe earldom, but Jamie‘s imprisonment had brought Ruark home.

That and the fact that Ruark and the warden were hardly strangers.

Lord Hereford was a former British naval captain who had retired a year ago to his borderland estate to take up the mantle of English warden. He and Ruark had a long history that included Ruark‘s father murdered and now his half brother arrested for cattle lifting, a hanging offense according to law. Ruark had only just been informed of his half brother‘s arrest when he landed in Workington a week ago. Hereford held the boy‘s life for ransom in an attempt to do more than impoverish the Kerr estate.

In Ruark‘s thinking, a man who would use a boy‘s life to entrap Ruark was a man who did not value his own life. Ruark would find Hereford‘s Achilles‘ heel if it was the last thing he ever did. Vengeance controlled him.

Indeed Ruark rarely left anything to fate.

“T
hey‘re gone, Miss Rose. They‘re all gone now.‖

Jack had run back from the hill overlooking the river and now stood at the cart as Rose held the pony‘s reins.

Thank heavens. She skimmed the open fields between her and the abbey. Sheer luck had caused her to see the riders in the distance or she would have been caught in the open when they crossed the bridge.

She and Jack had taken the old drover trail out of town, which shortened the distance to the abbey from town by two miles. But while the trail took her to the backside of the abbey, almost directly to the stables, it also exposed her for a hundred yards to the riverbank.

This was former reiver territory, after all. Exercising caution was always wise in a world where power was its own law, and Lord Roxburghe was more powerful than most. One did not earn the name Black Dragon without cause. ―Are you sure it was Lord Roxburghe and his men?‖

―Aye, mum,‖ Jack said, excitedly. ―They carried a standard all splashed in blood with a fire-breathing monster flappin‘ in the wind like the tail of a dragon. Is it true he be a pirate, Miss Rose? I heard he‘s sunk
twenty
ships but that the king won‘t hang him because he‘s made the crown rich.‖

― ‘Tis a crimson standard, Jack.‖ Her eyes caught a flash of lightning. ―Get back on the cart. We don‘t need to worry about being seen now.‖

Bright hazel eyes aglow, the boy hopped nimbly into the cart and Rose clicked her tongue. The pony jerked forward.

―Coooee. The Black Dragon.‖ Squinting his eyes, Jack eagerly sought another glimpse of the riverbank, which was in full view as the cart emerged from the woods. ―Were we hiding because ye think his lordship would have trussed us like a boar to a spit and tossed us in the river?

Ye have yer dirk. Ye wouldna have let anything happen.‖

―Nay, I would not have,‖ she said, attempting to put his twelve-year-old imagination to rest before he gave himself nightmares. No doubt his mind lingered on the more gruesome details of capture, and though he liked to think himself as Rose‘s protector, he was still only a boy, recovering from his mam‘s death last year.

Jack had taken to Rose like a shadow since she‘d defended him from local riffraff some months ago. He followed her everywhere now. She was grateful that Friar Tucker allowed him to stay in the kitchens at the abbey or he‘d be sleeping on the ground outside her second-story window.

―Did you get the books ye wanted from Mrs. Simpson?‖ he asked.

―Yes, I did. And you aren‘t to tell anyone,‖ she reminded him again, having dragged the oath of secrecy from him before venturing into town. ―My visits to Mrs. Simpson are our secret.‖

He bobbed his blond head in reassurance, the perfect co-conspirator. Jack loved secrets. Last week he had helped her clandestinely bake a strawberry pie for Sister Nessa‘s birthday, which had required sneaking into the henhouse and stealing two eggs.

Wind gusts lifted her hair. They both looked up at the sky. ―Ye best be hurryin‘, Miss Rose,‖ he encouraged.

She‘d wrapped her books in her plaid scarf, but the thin fabric would not protect the leather-bound tomes from rain. She was relieved when they‘d finally crossed the open space and entered the woods surrounding the abbey, until the first crack of lightning sounded. A moment later Jack hopped out of the cart. As was their routine, she would take the horse to the stable while Jack slipped through a narrow opening in the stone wall and unlocked the garden gate.

The stable looming ahead of her, she leaped out of the cart and led the pony into the interior out of the storm. The heavy stone walls and thatched roof muffled the thunder, and she was at once met with the pungent smell of straw and aged leather. Her eyes shifted to the stall where Friar Tucker kept the Abbey‘s prize horse, an aged bay mare. The stall was empty. She still couldn‘t believe he would be away until the end of the month. He‘d said not to worry, but that was like telling the sky not to rain. He rarely left the abbey for more than a few days at a time. Now he would be gone three weeks.

After she unhooked the lead and chains, she housed the pony in the stall beside the plow horse, then scooped grain from the bin and fed both horses. Only after she returned to the cart and removed her books did she realize both oil lanthorns hanging from posts at each end of the stable had been lit. For some reason she had failed to notice this detail when she first entered.

Alarmed, Rose tightened her arms on the books and straightened. She peered up and down the narrow aisle, listening, but heard no one present. It was then she saw another horse, housed in the far stall. Not just any horse either.

The magnificent Irish hunter was a beauty, at least seventeen hands tall, with long legs and a full chest. Though its coat was dusty, she imagined it would shine a glossy red when brushed. Suddenly she had a vague recollection that this stallion looked familiar. Heart pounding, she stepped back and bumped a wooden trestle.

A leather bridle and saddle draped the rack. She traced her finger along the etching of a dragon. A chill coursed down her spine.

Impossible!

Jack had seen Roxburghe and his men cross the bridge.

Rose spun on her heel, swirling straw with her movement, and slammed headlong into a wall.

Or what could have been a wall. Her head smashed against a man‘s jaw with a blinding
thunk
. Her books flew from her hands, barely missing the water barrel, the impact propelling her backward. She would have fallen had two large hands not grabbed her arms and steadied her.

Her lashes snapped upward as her chin tilted and she stared into a pair of eyes, not quite black but indigo. Sensation bolted down her spine. Then just that fast, as if he felt it too, the expression of annoyance on his face vanished and her own alarm melded with something more pliable than fear.

Shock perhaps, for she would admit to nothing else.

Close up, Lord Roxburghe was even taller and more solidly built than she‘d thought when she saw him atop his horse in the village. But his strength did not come from his appearance as much as it did from some unseen force inside him.

One glance into his unshaven face told her why people called him the Black Dragon. Though it had been the name of his frigate, he wore the mark like a mantle of armor. Heat burned where his hands held her.

―Loose me,‖ she whispered on a caught breath, cleared her throat and said the words again with more authority. ―Now, if you will.‖

His grip loosened. She stepped backward but not so quickly her actions signaled fear or retreat. Her foot bumped one of her precious books that lay scattered in the straw.

―Allow me,‖ he offered and stooped to gather up the books.

She started to protest but he had already knelt at her feet. Instead she let her gaze trace the width of his shoulders beneath his jacket. His hair was nearly black in the shadows that seemed to steal the setting sun‘s light from the surrounding sky and clubbed back from his face with a leather thong. A small silver hoop pierced his left earlobe and gave him an irrepressibly wicked look. She stole another glance at his face as he rose and had to suppress the urge to step back. She had never met a man taller than she was. Being this close to such a rarity stole her breath.

―You read,‖ he said, turning each leather-bound tome over in his gloved hands. Amusement laced his expression. ―
Arthurian Legends
?
The Myth of Merlin
?
Metallurgy and
Electricity
?‖

She removed each book from his hands and held them protectively to her chest, not about to trust
this
stranger with her secrets. She was conscious of a prickling warmth that spread where his fingers had brushed hers as if the books had become electricity themselves. ―Is it so strange that a woman should read? Or that I should be interested in science?‖

His eyes filled with growing amusement brushed down her, taking in her simple dress and wrap. ―Both perhaps.‖ His mouth crooked and revealed white teeth. ―Those are very old tomes. Valuable.‖

She did not dispute that fact. Nor did she explain how she had got her hands on such valuable antiquity. She balked at fearing him. ―You are not planning to steal them from me, are you, Lord Roxburghe?‖

―You know who I am?‖ His eyes narrowed perceptively on her hair, then her height. ―I would remember if we‘d met.‖

Rose withheld a frown beneath his scrutiny. It was too true that she was memorable to people for all the wrong reasons. He would be no exception. ―I was one of your many minions lining the street when you passed through Castleton.‖ She graciously inclined her head in an act only the dimmest would construe as subservient. ―No doubt the speed with which you rode through the village, you missed us all standing along the streets cheering your return. ‘Tis understandable if you missed the village entirely, small as we are, my lord.‖

Amusement lifted the corners of his mouth, though his eyes as they peered into hers remained more thoughtful. She wanted to turn away from the disturbing gaze. No one, not even the lowest field hand had ever eyed her thusly, in a way that caused a curious sensation in her stomach.

―A thousand pardons, m‘lady. Had I seen you standing there, I would have surely stopped—‖ His hand motioned to her hair, and she thought he might touch her. ―If only to discern the color of your curls. Like a radiant sunset burning against the ocean. The color of warm cinnamon.‖

Her hair? A radiant sunset? Warm cinnamon indeed. She stared speechless and saw the laughter in his eyes. But before she could give him the rebuke he deserved, he humbled himself with a light bow. ―My horse has come up lame,‖ he said with seriousness. ―I am seeking shelter for my men and me tonight and a conversation with the prior of this keep.‖

Rose looked beyond him. The abbey did not have enough food in its stores to feed his small army. Nor did she understand who Jack had seen crossing the bridge.

―There are only four of us,‖ he said, clearly reading her mind. ―I will compensate this abbey for its trouble, Miss—‖