Authors: Johanna Lindsey
Love Me Forever
| Love Me Forever |
| Sherring Cross [2] |
| Johanna Lindsey |
| HarperCollins e-books (1996) |
Still mourning her mother's death, Kimberly Richards is incensed by the determination of her father , the Earl of Amburough, to marry her off as quickly as possible--just to please the jealous lover he plans to wed. And since Kimberly harbors a deep-seated dislike of gold-diggers and the whole distasteful state of affairs, the feisty young heiress already despises the worthy suitor she encounters at Sherring Cross Estate: Lachlan MacGregor, the dashing, newly impoverished Laird of Clan MacGregor.
A tryst with the handsome, haughty Lachlan seems dubious at--especially since the rogue has designs on the married Duchess of Wrothston. But strange turns and outrageous circumstances promise to lead a woefully mismatched pair to a wildly unexpected destination--where a hard, resisting heart can open to the true glories of love.
Love Me Forever
For Aaron, with appreciation and love
“L
achlan, are ye still alive, mon?”
It was doubtful. It wasn’t even desirable at the moment. Though the pain of his wound was more annoying than hurtful, as Lachlan MacGregor lay there losing his lifeblood to the sod, he realized it was his pride that had taken the killing blow. That the Laird of Clan MacGregor had been reduced to joining the ranks of common reavers was bad enough. That he’d been stupid enough to get wounded in the process…
“Lachlan?” The persistent inquiry came again from his clansman.
“Faith, if I’m no’ dead, I should be, so dinna be thinking of carting my body home for burying, Ranald. You’ll be leaving it here tae rot as it deserves.”
A chuckle came from his other side. “Didna I tell ye no’ tae worry, Ranald?” Gilleonan MacGregor said. “It’ll take more’n a wee lead ball from a Sassenach pistol tae hurt this great hulk of a body.”
Lachlan responded with a snort. Ranald, who’d been prodding him for signs of life, sighed now. “Aye, and I knew that,” Ranald said with an odd mixture of boast and relief. “’Twas worryin’ about gettin’ him back on his horse that I was doin’. If he canna manage it hisself, then he
will
be rottin’ here, ’cause we surely canna lift him, even wi’ the both o’ us tryin’.”
“Och, now, I dinna see a problem in that. I remember lightin’ a fire near his big feet once when he was a young’un. Amazin’ how a mon as big as the MacGregor will move real quicklike when—”
Lachlan growled low, remembering that time well enough himself. Gilleonan chuckled again. Ranald clicked his tongue and said in all seriousness, “I wouldna be tryin’ that, cousin. A fire would alert those Sassenach tae where we are, if they be foolish enough tae still be lookin’ for us.”
“True, and a fire wouldna be necessary if our laird had waited till we got ourselves home tae be fallin’ off his blasted horse. But seein’s how he didna wait, and here he lies, have ye got any other ideas?”
“I have one,” Lachlan said testily. “I break both your necks, then we’ll all three be rotting here.”
The two kinsmen knew Lachlan was sensitive about his size, all six foot seven inches of it. Their deliberate goading was their way of trying to get him mad enough to get up on his own—but hopefully not mad enough to kill them.
It was not clear just how mad he was at the moment, all things considered, and so Ranald said, “If it’s all the same tae ye, Lachlan, I’d as soon no’ rot so near the Sassenach border. Up in the Highlands, now, I wouldna mind so much,
but down here in the Lowlands, nay, I dinna like yer idea a’tall.”
“Then both of you shut up and let me rest a few moments, and I might oblige you by getting back on my horse under my own steam. Or what’s left of it.”
He got total silence to that suggestion. They were allowing him the rest he’d requested, he supposed. The trouble was, he didn’t think he’d have any steam left for any effort on his part, rest or no rest. He was growing weaker by the moment, could actually feel his strength draining away with his blood. Blasted wound. If he hadn’t felt the sting of the bullet going in, he couldn’t say for sure that it was somewhere in the general area of his chest. His torso had gone numb long before he’d toppled from his horse, and the hard landing had added other aches to his body. Another problem with his size. When he fell, he fell
hard
.
“I’ll wager his mind was a’driftin’ again, and that’s what got him shot,” Gilleonan started in again when Lachlan still hadn’t moved an inch after several minutes. “That’s all he’s been doin’ for more’n a year now, moonin’ over that bonny redhead the Sassenach stole from him.”
Lachlan knew very well that his kinsman was trying to provoke him to anger again, just so he’d get off his duff and stop worrying them. And damned if it didn’t work, because Gilleonan’s remark was all too true.
When he’d been shot, he had been distracted in thinking about the bonny Megan with her flaming red hair and big midnight blue eyes, a more lovely lass he’d never come across. But he thought about her every time they raided near the
English border, because that was where he’d met her—and lost her. ’Course, he thought about her too much at other times too, but that was his problem and best left to him, not discussed in general, no matter what the purpose.
“I stole her from the Englishmon,” Lachlan mumbled. “He merely retrieved her. There is a difference.”
“Retrieved her and beat the tar out o’ ye—”
That reminder deserved a good clout, and Lachlan’s punch, even lacking strength, still knocked Gilleonan out of his crouch. Gilleonan grunted in surprise as he landed on his backside, even though he’d been expecting and hoping for just such a reaction from his laird.
Ranald, on the other hand, laughed. “Verra good, Lachlan. Now if ye’ll just put that same energy into gettin’ yer big self onto yer wee horse, we’ll get ye home so Nessa can see tae that wound.”
Lachlan groaned. Gilleonan, having that same thought, snapped at Ranald, “Are ye daft, mon? I’d be runnin’ in the opposite direction if I had Nessa fussin’ o’er me tae look forward tae. She bullies ye tae wellness, she does—after she cries all over ye first. Och, ’tis a sickenin’ sight, tae be sure.”
Ranald lifted his brow. “Ye think she’d bully the laird?”
“I know she would,” Lachlan mumbled.
And fitting punishment
, he added to himself, for his own stupidity.
With that thought, he rolled over and forced himself to his hands and knees. His vision blurred, not that he could see much to begin with, as dark as it was. A good time for reaving, a
moonless night. But reaving and mooning sure as hell didn’t mix, and he was going to have to do something about separating them—if he survived this fiasco.
“Point me toward the wee beastie,” he told his friends.
They did more than that, they tried to help him up. In the end they were more trouble than help, and he shrugged them both off with a growl. But somehow, he got back in the saddle. And somehow, his two kinsmen managed to get him home, though he had very little memory of that long, grueling ride and the stops on the way that saw his wound tended to before Nessa got her hands on it.
She did get her hands on it though, and on him, and it was a frustrating three weeks before he was able to insist that she leave him be and have her pay attention to that command. The problem with Nessa was she fancied herself in love with Lachlan and took it for granted that they’d be married someday, though he’d never given her the least encouragement. But the fact that he’d never seriously courted anyone else was all the encouragement she seemed to need. Yet when had he had time to do any courting? He’d had the responsibility of the entire clan dropped on him at such a young age.
Nessa lived in his household, as did a great many others of his clan. She’d been underfoot for as long as he could remember, his playmate when they were younger, a nuisance when he started becoming interested in girls, because he didn’t put her in that category, tomboy that she was. She was five years younger than his twenty-six, had a devil of a temper, and had pretty much taken
over his household when his father died and his stepmother absconded with every tangible bit of the MacGregor wealth aside from the land, forcing him into the unwanted life of a reaver.
He had told the bonny Megan that reaving ran in his family, but it wasn’t true. It had been more than two hundred years since his family had actively taken to the roads late of a night, and even back then it had been more to bedevil other clans than to fill the coffers. The MacGregor wealth had come down through the years from royal gifts, a few shrewd endeavors, and one lucky gambler, but there had been a sizeable amount to pay for repairs to the old castle and for the innumerable weddings that cropped up yearly, and to make sure no one ever went without whatever was needful.
The few crops they sowed were seasonal, the small sheep and cattle herds they had couldn’t feed the entire household on a regular basis, any more than they ever had. And the one investment that had continued to supply them with ready cash each year had gone sour. Yet they still would have fared well if it weren’t for Lady Winnifred.
It put Lachlan in a foul mood whenever he thought of what his stepmother had cost the clan. She hadn’t raised him, though she had been at Castle Kregora for a goodly number of his growing years. He hadn’t disliked her during the twelve years of her marriage to his father. She had simply been there, part of the landscape, with an occasional smile, but rarely more than that, since she was simply too flighty to be bothered with children, was always concerned only with herself and, of course, his father.
Never would anyone have guessed that she
was a thief, but that she was. Not one week after her husband’s death, she up and disappeared, and Lachlan’s inheritance went with her. They searched for her for more than a year, but no trace was ever found. It was as if the theft and flight had been well planned, right down to the last detail. But that would speak even worse for her character, and enough had been said to paint a black picture as it was.
Now, three years later, Castle Kregora was falling to ruin, because Lachlan couldn’t steal enough from the few Englishmen he robbed down by the border to repair the old edifice. Yet he refused to steal more, as he was afraid someone else might actually be harmed financially by what he took, even if they
were
only Sassenach. He was living with that burden himself, could just barely manage to feed those he was responsible for. As it was, marriages were being postponed, and some clan members who had lived all their lives in the castle or on MacGregor land were moving out of the Highlands altogether.
It had been ingrained in him what his responsibilities were, but an abrupt loss of wealth had never been taken into consideration. At twenty-three he had been unprepared for the burden. At twenty-six, he found the situation much worse and still had no feasible way to rectify it that wouldn’t leave more of a sour taste in his mouth than the reaving did. He was already in debt to the few wealthy distant relatives that he had. And everything of value that the castle had possessed had long since been sold.
It was a sorry state of affairs, which was why, while Lachlan was still recuperating from his
wound, he called for a discussion on the subject with his two closest cohorts in crime, Gilleonan and Ranald.
Gilleonan was a second cousin and a few years older than Lachlan. Ranald was a third cousin and a year younger. Neither lived in the castle. Both had houses nearby, though they were more often than not found at Lachlan’s side, as they were now, sharing a dinner with him on this blustery cold November eve.
Lachlan waited until the meager fare was finished before he made his proclamation, “It isna working.”
Since his friends had had prior warning of what was to be discussed, they didn’t ask for clarification. “’Twas workin’ well enough afore ye got yerself shot,” Ranald pointed out.
“My wound has nothing tae do with the obvious. Look around you, Ranald,” Lachlan said, and then reiterated, “It
isna
working.”
It wasn’t necessary to look to see the lighter patches on the wainscotting where paintings had once hung, the china cupboard empty now, fine crystal and silver goblets no longer gracing the table. Of course, it had been so long since these things had gone absent, perhaps his friends had forgotten how the dining room had looked when Lachlan’s father was still alive.
“Ye’re sayin’ there’ll be no more reavin’?” Gilleonan asked.
“I’m asking, what’s the point? Only once did we bring home a purse fat enough tae make a difference for a short time. We’re making that long ride six or seven times a month, and having barely anything tae show for it.”
“Aye, I’m no’ tae fond o’ that ride anymore
meself, especially this time o’ the year,” Gilleonan agreed. “But our trouble is, we ne’er took the thing serious. It’s been no more’n a lark.”
Lachlan had to agree with that. Until he’d been shot this last time, they’d had more fun than not, but that was hardly the issue.
“Embrace it in earnest, Gill, and we’d be no better’n thieves,” Lachlan said.
Gilleonan raised a brow. “And we’re no’ that now?”
Ranald snorted. “I dinna consider stealin’ from a Sassenach thievin’.”
Lachlan had to smile. No, that had been the fun part. The Scots and the English might get along fine now in most dealings, but they’d always be enemies at heart. At least the Highland Scots as well as the border Scots, who’d been preying on the English for too many years to count, saw it that way. On the border, tempers and feuds could still run high, animosity too ingrained and carried over from generations gone by.
“Reavin’ was suggested when things didna look so dire,” Lachlan pointed out. “But we’ve reached dire, and something else mun be considered now, afore we lose Kregora as well.”
“Have ye something in mind, then?” Gilleonan asked.
Lachlan sighed. “Nay, but as always, I’m open tae suggestions.”
His kinsmen settled back in their chairs, Gilleonan swirling the cheap wine in the tin cup he was holding, Ranald plopping a leg over the arm of his chair. Lachlan braced his hands behind his head, prepared to shoot down any suggestions that weren’t to his liking.
“I’ve heard they’re findin’ gold o’er in that Cal
ifornia place,” Ranald remarked. “Great nuggets of it just lying around on the ground for the takin’.”
Lachlan raised his brow, but before he could reply, Gilleonan said, “Aye, I’ve heard the same, but the MacGregor here canna venture so far from the hearthstone. Mayhap we could send a few of the clan tae see what’s what. Arnald’s got the itch tae do some travelin’, and his brother would likely agree tae go wi’ him. But we canna depend on rumors, nor wait so long as that tae do something ourselves. ’Twould be months afore we even heard from anyone we sent that far.”
Lachlan couldn’t have said it better, so he didn’t add to that other than to nod, though he regretted the fact that he
couldn’t
travel so far afield. But Gilleonan was correct. The head of the clan had to be accessible.
“Agreed,” Ranald added. “We can put it tae Arnald tae see if he cares tae go gold huntin’, but in the meantime…I thought o’ a solution a while back, but figured Lachlan was tae young then.”