Perfect Strangers (33 page)

"I dinny want
any
woman, I want—!"

"Exactly." Ella's smile was irritatingly broad, the gleam of triumph in her brilliant blue eyes unmistakably bright.

The thickly uttered Gaelic curse that he tossed at his cousin's glorious red head was much more colorful.

Chapter 15

"Colin? Colin Douglas, are you down here?" Gabrielle called out as loudly as she dared. She stood poised in a doorway that, from what little she could see, led on to a dark, narrow hallway. How far the hallway extended, she'd yet to discover. The light from the sconce she'd stolen from an upstairs hallway extended only so far and, first, she wanted to be sure the man she sought was even down here before searching further.

She hadn't retreated to her room—nay, it was not her room, it was
The Black Douglas's
—after quitting the hall, but instead had roamed aimlessly throughout Bracklenaer's twisting corridors. Her thoughts had been focused inward, tumbling painfully over each other as she replayed the encounter with Connor in every minute, painful detail, not on where she was going. Without intending it as her destination, a moment ago she'd arrived at the narrow, steep stone steps leading down to the dungeon.

It had taken less than a minute for her to come to a hasty decision, and barely thrice that to retrace her path, retrieve one of the wall sconces, then hurry back and carefully navigate the treacherously steep stone stairway.

Gabrielle now stood at the bottom of the stairs. She leaned forward, straining to hear a reply, even a distant one. She heard naught but the clatter of her own heart pounding like thunder in her ears.

A frown creased her brow and her fingers tightened around the sconce's chilly metal handle. If Connor hadn't dispatched his twin and Roy Maxwell down here to the dungeon, where
would
he confine them?

The question had no more entered Gabrielle's mind when it was chased away by a sudden, unexpected flicker of movement.

Her attention jerked in that direction. The movement had come from in front of her, from somewhere down the narrow, pitch-black hallway. In the twisting shadows, at a point just beyond the flickering bath of sconcelight.

She heard a faint rustle of sound, then... aye, right there, it moved again!

Her knees rattled together beneath the rose brocade skirt; they felt weak, watery, threatening to buckle from beneath her as she lurched back an instinctive step. Her fingers trembled around the sconce's handle. Squinting, her gaze tried and failed to pierce the thick, concealing shadows.

"Hello? Is someone there?" Gabrielle called. She winced to hear the high, shaky quality of her own voice bouncing off the hallway's chokingly close stone walls.

Without warning, a man stepped from the clinging darkness and into the shimmering ring of pale, orangey-yellow light. The
click
of his boot heel atop ice-cold stone sounded startlingly loud.

The breath Gabrielle had been holding rushed past her lips in a sharp exhalation.

"Ye look shocked," Roy Maxwell observed as he hoisted higher the plaid strip tossed over his left shoulder. His green eyes sparkled in the flickering light. She detected an insolently mocking grin cutting between the thick fullness of his red mustache and beard. "Were ye not looking for me?"

"No, I—Where's Colin?"

"Och! lass, cease yer search. The mon is long gone."

"G-gone?"

"Aye. He left the second we broke out of that thing The Black Douglas calls a cell. Truth to tell, the door was as flimsy as the guard who stood outside it. Neither proved a worthy match for the likes of a Maxwell, don't ye ken?"

The fingers of Gabrielle's free hand fluttered nervously at the base of her throat. "You're escaping!"

"Nay, not yet." Roy shook his shaggy red head. "Colin, now
he
has escaped. Me, on the other hand, I thought 'twould be only fitting to delay me own escape until I found something here worthy enough to take back to Caerlaverock with me. Ye ken, I'm looking to procure compensation for all the time and trouble Connor Douglas has caused me. Something... Och! aye, something the mon shall maun sorely miss."

Gabrielle's eyes widened. Gulping, she retreated another step. A grimace furrowed her brow when her back came up hard against the craggy stone corner of the doorway.

Surely Roy Maxwell did not mean...?

She shook her head determinedly. If he was of a mind to take her with him, he'd best think again.

Bloody hell, she would not allow it!

In her short time on this cursed Border she had already been kidnapped thrice. That was three times too many. Nay, nay,
nay.
Gabrielle vowed that she would
not
allow herself to be so mistreated again, no matter what grisly atrocities Roy Maxwell used to threaten her into compliance.

Her tongue darted out to lick parched lips. Her thoughts raced, tripping over themselves. Roy Maxwell was almost twice her size, his body solid and well muscled. How on earth could she stop him from kidnapping her, if kidnapping her was indeed what he had in mind?

Like a dog chasing after its own tail, the question circled dizzyingly in her mind, the answer tantalizingly close yet always a teasing fraction out of reach. The solution was a good deal murkier than Gabrielle's resolution that, somehow, stop him she most certainly
would.

"Surely you aren't so foolish as to think The Black Douglas would let a prized possession slip from his grasp so easily, sir," she said finally, her words more an effort to stall than anything else.

"Och! lass, who's to say I'd be giving the mon a choice?" His green eyes dancing with mirth, Roy tipped his red head back and laughed. The sound was hearty, deep... and woefully short-lived.

"I do."

The answer came from a voice located so closely behind Gabrielle that she felt the hot, misty rasp of the speaker's breath filter through her hair and graze her scalp. Her scalp, in turn, tingled in warm response. The voice did not belong to Roy Maxwell; it was too resonant, too rich, and far too tight with fury. Her attention jerked over her shoulder to confirm the intruder's identity, even though deep in her soul she knew there was no need. The voice could belong to none other than The Black Douglas himself.

Connor's gaze raked Gabrielle. A sigh of relief hissed past his lips when he saw she was unharmed. Och! if he'd been a few minutes later, if Roy Maxwell dared to hurt her...!

His fingers clenching to white-knuckled tightness around the hilt of the broadsword sheathed at his hip, Connor abruptly swerved his thoughts from that dangerous course. He turned the full force of his attention on his rival.

Roy Maxwell had the good sense to squirm. While the echo of his mirth still ricocheted off the cold, confining stone around them, he was no longer laughing. The man's expression sobered instantly. A glint of nervousness flashed in his shrewd green eyes as his gaze shifted past Gabrielle to meet and hold Connor's.

"The lass has been shifted from hand to hand long enough," Connor said. "'Tis in my hands she is now, and in my hands she stays."

Roy's face reddened with an impotent fury that was reflected in his terse tone. His fingers clenched and unclenched at his sides. "Situations change, Douglas, especially on these Borders. Ye should ken that well enough. Whether I take her back with me tonight, or take her back a fortnight—two fortnights, more—in the future, rest assured that the Maxwell
will
take her back. Eventually."

"Ye and yers can
try,"
Connor snapped as he stepped out from behind Gabrielle and into the flickering ring of sconcelight. In one confident stride, he moved to protective position in front of her. Roy appeared to be unarmed, yet Connor refused to rely on appearance and chance. He couldn't. Not where Gabrielle Carelton's life was concerned. "Howe'er, ye'll have to go through me to get to her, and I'll warn ye now, I'll not give ye an easy time of it. I'll defend the lass with my life's last breath if need be."

"Och! mon, she's hardly worth
that
maun trouble."

"I disagree," Connor growled, the words punctuated by the steely rasp of his sword being drawn from its hilt. He felt Gabrielle stir behind him, but resisted the urge to glance back over his shoulder at her.

"Ye joke!"

Connor's glare was hot enough to melt stone. "I've ne'er been more serious. While her looks may not rival that of the Blessed Virgin's, I'll grant ye that and no more, the lass is sweet-tempered—Och! well, normally, when she's not riled—gentle and maun loving than any woman I've e'er kenned." The tip of the blade lifted, coming to rest on the place in Roy Maxwell's neck where his blue-veined pulse throbbed and the lump in his throat bobbed with a dry, nervous swallow. "Och! aye, she's worth that. And more. Maun, maun more. There are few men on either side of the Border who would ride in the dead of night to rescue an old woman from the enemy's clutches; Mairghread, a woman she'd barely met. Yet she did. At least, the wench tried. The action speaks for itself, would ye not agree?"

"Well, I'll be guddled! Siobhan tried to rescue yer aunt?" Roy asked, his eyes widening as he pursed his lips and scratched at the furry underside of his jaw. "'Tis maun unlike the lass. The last raid on Caerlaverock—ye remember that, do ye not?—she was the first out the tunnel. Mayhap the ver same tunnel yer twin escorted ye from. Nary a soul was surprised by it. 'Tis well kenned that Siobhan be a fine muckle fond of staying close to her kettles and herbs... and as far from danger as she can get." He scowled and shook his shaggy red head. "Yet she tried to rescue yer aunt, ye say? Och! I'm surprised."

Roy Maxwell wasn't the only one.

Realization hit Connor like a fist colliding solidly with his belly. An icy wave of shock washed over him, punching the air from his lungs and... aye, there was no mistaking and less denying it, he
did
feel the heat of a blush—the first in his life—flood his cheeks and seep slowly, slowly down his neck. If his air-hungry lungs had the breath to spare for it, he would have groaned.

Good Lord, the man was talking about Siobhan, the Maxwell's
cook, not
Gabrielle!

Connor's mind raced and his spine went rigid. Was there a chance, even a wee one, that Gabby had somehow missed hearing his incriminating words? He closed his eyes, sighed. Nay, no chance at all. It would take a good deal of luck for such to be the case, and as the ballads were fond of saying—and he was equally as fond of arguing—what need did the notorious Black Douglas have for luck when he possessed the cunning and skill of ten seasoned reivers combined?

Were the situation not so infernally dire, he might have laughed at the irony.

Pity take it, it would require the shrewdness of three times that amount of men to maneuver his way out of the mire he'd just unwittingly created for himself.

As suddenly as Connor's embarrassment came, so did it ease. Deep down he had to admit that if given the chance to take the words back, he would not do it. Oh, aye, he'd known when he spoke the words that they were the raw, unornamented truth. Yet not until this very second did the full depth of understanding pierce him with a tip more sharp and deadly than the one he held poised against Roy Maxwell's throat. A bevy of strange yet oddly comforting emotions coiled like gossamer-thin threads around his heart. Threads of emotion that, for all their fragility, twisted and linked into tight, unbreakable knots.

Nay, even if he could, he would not take the words back. He was a Douglas to the core; his tenets ran deep and true. It would be a formidable lie indeed to rescind the most sincere words he'd ever spoken in his life.

Gabrielle's grip tightened around the sconce's handle, and the fingers of her free hand shook when she wrapped them loosely around his upper arm. Connor felt the warm fullness of her breasts as she leaned to the side and peered at Roy from around Connor's shoulder.

Cloth rustled.

Unbidden, the image of rose brocade skimming soft, creamy thighs sprang to mind.

Connor's eyes snapped open. Had they only been closed for a fraction of a second? It seemed much longer. His slitted gray gaze locked on his adversary.

Roy Maxwell grinned knowingly, his attention shifting to Gabrielle. Her grip tightened. Connor felt her fingertips digging into his upper arms as she seemed to instinctively press more closely against him.

"Am I right in assuming it's a cook you're after, not a captive?" Gabrielle asked. Her voice was husky and low, cracking with an emotion Connor couldn't decipher.