Heartbreak and Honor (2 page)

Chapter 2

“Duke? What’s a ruddy English duke doing sneaking into a Scottish keep’s chamber?” Tasara flinched. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

“Why, rescuing you, of course.”

Did he wink?

Cocky fellow, wasn’t he? But then, he
was
a duke. The attitude came with the title, no doubt present from birth. Probably had his noble bum and snotty nose wiped with the finest linen or silk. Astonishing that he would deem to exert himself enough to muster a sweat. Didn’t nobility have servants do everything for them?

Muted shouts and calls echoed from somewhere in the keep.

She tilted her head, attempting to recognize a voice.

The horrific shrieks and roars of minutes ago had ceased, although an occasional shrill cry yet rang through the stone passageways, raising the hair along her nape.

“Ye be here to rescue us?” Holding Lala’s pudgy hand, György knelt on the bed, his ebony eyes wary and likely sprinkled with a dab of excitement too.

In the muted light, Tasara couldn’t be certain. Lads fantasized about adventures of this sort.

“I am, indeed, young sir.” His grace smiled, his teeth gleaming in the half-light. “Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

György shook his sister’s grip loose.

Jamming her thumb in her mouth, she toyed with the curls tumbling atop her left shoulder. Her gaze wide and distrusting, she stared at the duke.

After scooting from the bed, György gave a handsome bow. “György Faas, Yer Highness, and these be me sisters, Tasara and Lala.”

“It’s
Your Grace
, György, not Your Highness.”

I think.

Tasara’s attention swung between the duke and her brother. Harcourt undoubtedly
had
been treated like royalty his entire life.

“Grace? Are ye sure, Tasara?” György pulled a silly face and snickered. “That be a lass’s name.”

The duke chuckled again, the rich timbre resonating from his chest. “So it is. Most embarrassing, I’ll admit. But, I’m afraid, someone started the ridiculous tradition far too long ago for me to change things now. I’m just grateful they didn’t select Chastity or Prudence.”

“
Aye
, me too,
Your Chastity
.” György clutched his belly in glee and laughed harder, unaware of his impudence at addressing a duke so informally. “
Dinnae
ye have a given name?”

“Indeed, I do. Several as matter of fact. I’m named Rochester after my father, though I prefer to be addressed as Harcourt or Lucan, which is part of my middle name, Lucan-Ashford.”

His agreeableness irked Tasara. No doubt he could charm the fur from a fox and have the creature thanking him for the honor of losing its hide.

“Pray tell me, why is an English nobleman helping to free Scottish Highland travellers?” Tasara flung a glance to the entrance, unwilling to lower her dagger until a familiar face appeared. “And where the devil is everyone else?”

The duke leveled the children a guarded glance. “The others are either dealing with the . . . ah . . . remnants of the ugly business downstairs or searching chambers for more hostages.”

The whoosh of doors opening, and then banging closed, carried into the chamber while footsteps thudding on the stone floors verified their rescuers searched this wing of the keep.

“I don’t believe there are other captives.” Tasara partially lowered her knife and shoved her hair behind her ear again. “Isobel Ferguson fled this afternoon. The Blackhalls mistook her for someone else. I know of no others being held.”

“Yes, the wretches confused her for my cousin.” His deep voice soothed her fraught nerves. “Your father witnessed Miss Ferguson escaping and raced to inform her brother.”

“He did?” Her prayers, answered at last. Tasara had
known
Dat
watched the keep from the forest. “Father is here?”

“He is.” The duke motioned toward the door. “Along with a slew of other gypsies and McTavish clansmen.”

“Is your cousin Scots, then?” Absurd how pleased the knowledge Scottish blood might run in his ancestral lines made her.

“Yes, Lydia’s the daughter of Laird Farnsworth of Tornbury Fortress, my mother’s second cousin. Or maybe it’s third cousin once removed. I cannot get the extended relative rigmarole correct. I just know we share a common ancestor somewhere.” The duke pointed at her knife. “You can put the blade away. I mean you no harm.”

She frowned, still not trusting his conviviality.

The guards carried an enormous key ring. The metal loop wouldn’t fit inside a coat without leaving a noticeable bulge. His grace’s pocket—if he truly was a duke—contained no such telltale lump.

Mayhap he wasn’t who he claimed. Wary, she adjusted her clasp on her dagger. “How did you get the key to open the door?”

“I didn’t use a key.” He withdrew a narrow piece of metal from inside his jacket. “I picked the lock.”

Having never seen a lock pick before, it might have been an oversized toothpick or nail cleaner for all she knew. Tasara gave a short nod. Curious, that—a duke carrying around a lock pick. What other peculiar habits did he have?

Never mind. She didn’t want to know.

Strolling to the room’s center, he buttoned his jacket. Several dark blotches marred the fabric and his pantaloons.

Blood.

A shudder rippled through her, and she involuntarily sought his sword. Had he killed someone during the rescue?

Possibly, given the violent nature of her abductors.

Why would he risk his life for strangers, Highland travellers, to boot?

Society—principally the snobbish English—never withheld their contempt of the black tinkers, lumping them in the same inferior category as the persecuted Roma. Each a people scorned and shunned worse than lepers because their customs and traditions differed from what Polite Society deemed acceptable.

“So, why are you here?” Tasara waved her hand in an arc.

“I had just arrived at Craiglocky to visit my cousin when this disagreeableness began. Miss Ferguson’s brother is a long-standing friend of mine, so naturally, I insisted upon helping.” The duke did wink this time and grinned too, the boyish actions sending her unsteady pulse cavorting again.

Aye
, a ruddy dangerous man, he was indeed. Hazardous to simple, gypsy maidens unused to a rakehell’s practiced wiles.

“Besides, I’d grown a bit bored.” He struck a dramatic pose. “And what could be more invigorating or honorable than rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress?”

Comical and glib of tongue too. Slick and sly, like most blue bloods tended to be. However, he’d seen to their freedom, and as such deserved her gratitude. Regardless of her misgivings, a smile tugged one corner of Tasara’s mouth.

“Damthel in a dreth?” Lala spoke around her thumb while flapping her grungy skirt back and forth. “Me have a dreth.”

“Indeed you do, fair maiden.” The duke bent low in an exaggerated bow. “And I shall see you safely delivered to your father.”

Lala smiled, her thumb securely anchored between her small teeth.

Tasara pulled in a long expanse of air and fought back tears of relief. Their ordeal had finally ended. She’d not been as brave or strong as she would have liked, but she hadn’t crumpled into a worthless, sobbing mass either. Travellers were resilient and sanguine despite their hardships.

She bent and slid her blade into its sheath inside her boot.

Harcourt, smooth and silent as a Scottish wildcat, ambled to her. A ray of corridor light bathed his face as he gazed downward.

Her traitorous heart gave an excited tremor. So different from the shaggy-haired, broad-faced men of her clan.

Sharp hewn features, high cheekbones, a square jaw, and surprisingly black-lashed eyes and dark eyebrows bespoke his aristocratic heritage, no doubt many generations old. His sculpted mouth spread into a knowing smile, revealing square teeth and a charming dimple in his right cheek.

She wanted to touch the indentation.

Verra attractive and verra dangerous, indeed.

Angelic? Or devilishly handsome? Which better matched the man’s character and personality?

“What say you, a trifling reward for my efforts? I’d ask for the honor of a waltz, but we’re not likely to have the opportunity. Perhaps a kiss instead?” He dipped his head, his lips mere inches from hers.

She’d never been kissed.

“A kiss? Ye
canna
kiss her.” György’s tone turned belligerent. “Ye
dinnae ken
each other, and ye
nae
be wed.”

Harcourt grazed her lips with his, a butterfly wing’s wispy touch, no more.

“How dare you?” Tasara stiffened her spine and thrust her chin out. Mindful to keep her voice tempered for the children’s sake, she glared at him and fisted her hands. “What, because I’m a traveller, you think I’m fast and free with my favors?”

“No. Never free,” Harcourt murmured for her ears alone while trailing a finger over her lips. “If you lived closer to London . . .”

Did he suggest he would
pay
for her favors, the conceited, insulting bounder? A scarlet haze of rage momentarily blinded her. Tasara jerked away from his touch and let fly with a solid punch.

Lucan’s grunt of pain and the impact of Tasara’s blow resonated loudly in the chamber. The wench had walloped him in the face. Damned hard, too.

“Thithter, why ye hitted the man?”

“’Cause he be a duke, that be why,” György sneered. “
Gentlemen
should
nae
be forcin’ kisses on unwillin’ lasses like these Highland whoremongers did.”

“György.” Tasara shot her brother a stern look. “Watch your language in front of your sister, young man.”

Had Tasara been accosted?

Bloody hell. Lucan should have assumed as much. He touched his already swelling flesh in disbelief. He’d have a deuced difficult time explaining the discolored eye. He heard the hoots and snickers already. Unless he convinced the others the injury resulted from fighting the Blackhalls.

Yes. Just the thing.

No one should suspect anything else. He’d fought a battle, hadn’t he? Even if the scuffle ended almost as quickly as it began. Still, hand-to-hand combat might give a chap a bruised eye.

Pulse careening, he sucked in a deliberate, tempering breath. Tasara riled his temper, further piquing his desire to taste her lips.

Most women of his acquaintance simpered and fawned in his presence, mistakenly thinking he preferred compliant, biddable ladies. A wise man treaded warily around their deceptive kind, not vixens speaking their thoughts and planting men facers. He doubted Tasara capable of subterfuge.

György—wise child—had hit the mark, straight on.

Lucan
didn’t go round stealing kisses, but then, gypsies didn’t go about clobbering dukes either.

Posture rigid, she retreated until the back of her knees collided with the bed. Lala scrambled into Tasara’s arms, and György—glowering at Lucan—scooted to her side.

Noble little lad.

Quite an age difference between the three. Tasara must be in her late teens and the youngest couldn’t be more than, what? Three? Four?

Lucan probed the tender flesh with his fingertips and winced.

You bloody well deserved it.

He had, dammit.

Propositioning women, especially ones who’d undergone the distressing ordeal she had experienced these past weeks, was beyond the pale. But when she’d gazed at him, her eyes luminous and mouth parted—the tempting honey-spot near her lower left lip taunting him, begging to be kissed—he’d lost his last vestiges of reason.

His senses, already highly attuned and stimulated from fighting, swiftly transformed to sexual arousal. Not typical behavior for him and most disconcerting. He prided himself, above everything, on being a gentleman. Instead, he’d been an imposing cur, and chagrin chafed his conscience.

Lucan adored women.

He enjoyed playing the gallant and the flirt—enjoyed complimenting aging dames, shy spinsters, and plain wallflowers as much as he did confident, pampered beauties. And he enjoyed dancing, which made him a hostess favorite since they relied upon him to coax the shyest of maidens onto the dance floor at least once.

He’d been set on securing Tasara’s freedom, and once they returned to Craiglocky, drinking himself senseless to obliterate the two men’s faces he’d killed storming the keep. This to rescue a woman he’d never met and wouldn’t ever see again.

Well, not only to free her, but also to assuage Sethwick’s rage and reap vengeance on the Blackhalls for stealing his friend’s sister away. Insult Sethwick and you insulted Harcourt. Plus, the barbarians had designs on Lydia. Their interest in his cousin bore further investigation. Why the Blackhalls had held the gypsy lass prisoner, he hadn’t the faintest notion.

The three forms, huddling in the dimness, stared at him.

What color were Tasara’s eyes, anyway?

By God, why did he care?

Still probing his swollen eye, he sighed. “That was abominable and unpardonable of me, and I must beg your forgiveness, Miss Faas. Please, let me assure you I’m not in the habit of imposing myself on women.”

“Hmph.” She jutted her dainty chin up a degree, and Lala, thumb firmly planted in her mouth, rested her head against her sister’s shoulder. “Handsome is as handsome does.”