Seducing the Highlander (20 page)

“The man is too occupied with his pretty wife,” Edward scoffed. “He isn’t a threat. Give him a willing wench and he’s happy enough.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Therese remembered the speculative glance Robbie McCray had given her across the dinner table when she sat next to the soon-to-be Cameron laird. It had not been typical male appraisal—no, not at all. It had been more an awareness of her flirtatious behavior toward his wife’s cousin.

The man had looked at her if he
knew
.

Edward drained his glass, a dribble of scarlet liquid running down his weak chin. “So what the devil do you want to do about him?”

“Julia’s new husband? I am not sure yet.” At the window, Therese pulled back the faded silken drape, staring outside. Almost absently, she said, “Adain is openly jealous. If something happens to the bonny McCray, no one will doubt who had the most cause, now, will they?”

With obvious unease, Edward objected, “Julia might well produce the pin if something happens to her husband and her cousin looks to be the guilty party again. That is not to our purposes at all. So far you’ve convinced her not to go the magistrate, and she seems to have enough uncertainty to go along with us.”

“The little bitch is as unsuspecting as a newborn babe, and besides, she knows you won’t back up her story.”

“The rumors you started are still circulating. Public opinion has Adain, if not condemned, at least still the main suspect in the murders. If something happened to McCray also, there could be a trial. It will do us little good if Adain is convicted and condemned before you have a chance to ensnare him into marriage.”

With a feline smile, Therese turned and looked at her brother, noting with contempt the beads of sweat on his upper lip. “Trust me, Eddie. I have everything well in hand.”

T
wo minutes in the company of John Hexham told Robbie a great deal and he was suddenly glad Julia had been detained in the village by an offer to see the newborn babe of the cooper’s wife. From a seat on a carved wooden chair, he glanced around the comfortable cottage, noting the fine quality of the draperies at the small windows and the elegant harpsichord in the corner. He said with deceptive casualness, “My wife told me a little about you, Hexham. How long were you at court?”

The young man was slim and fair, his face slightly flushed as he fiddled with a kettle, settling it over the glowing coals of a previous cooking fire. “Two years,” he responded reluctantly.

“I’ve been there,” Robbie commented neutrally. “Never have I seen such licentiousness and lack of morality. Music and poetry always seemed out of place in such a veritable pit of intrigue and openly flaunted vice. Tell me, who sponsored you?”

Hexham cleared his throat uncomfortably. “The Duke of Bonsford.”

“Ah. We’ve met. I suppose that explains your apparent affluence. Bonsford is notoriously generous when he grows tired of his . . . special friends.”

His face tightening, the young man stood abruptly. “What are you implying, sir?”

Robbie simply smiled lazily. “Nothing. I am a worldly man, that’s all.”

A subtle defeat slumped Hexham’s shoulders. “If you are here to offer your censure and disapproval, sir, I want neither. I am not hurting anyone and live a quiet, retired existence. A man like you probably doesn’t understand how desperately I value my anonymity here.”

One brow lifted, Robbie kept his expression bland. “I’m not judging you, Hexham, so relax. And I’m certainly not going to say anything to anyone. What you do and whom you choose to do it with—man or woman—is your affair. I am simply trying to investigate the disappearance of my wife’s brother. His close friendship with you seems to throw a new light on things.”

Almost warily, Hexham nodded in a brief tilt of his head. “We had very similar . . . interests, if you will, for lack of a better way of putting it. However, I don’t think he quite realized just how similar. It is a difficult conclusion to draw about yourself, believe me.”

“I can imagine.”

The young man’s smile was a twist of open cynical amusement. “I somehow doubt that, McCray. Your love of the
opposite
sex is well-known. Anyway, Randal was drawn here time and again, but he was . . . I don’t know what would be the correct word, sir . . . mortified, frightened, repelled, even, to discover our relationship growing to be something he considered unnatural.” Hexham paced across the room, his face grim with recollection. The autumn breeze coming in the open window ruffled his fair hair, giving him an almost ethereal look. “I tried to explain to him that it isn’t as unusual as he thought it was, that I’d met scores of men with his inclinations, but he was much too concerned with what his clan might think if his family discovered he was a . . . a—”

“You may spare yourself the nasty labels,” Robbie said with sincerity, thoughtful over this new twist, “for while I don’t quite understand your preference, I don’t condemn it either. I doubt any man would choose it, but rather I believe it chose you. Tell me, would Randal have left because of all this? Did the two of you quarrel over it?”

Hexham gave a definitive shake of his fair head. “We never quarreled. Randal was confused, yes, but I have never thought he would leave without a word to me. That would be much like you leaving your wife and not looking back.”

Which, in fact, was exactly what Julia wished Robbie to do in a few weeks. She wanted a house—her own—and enough money to live on. The recollection of their bargain startled him . . . and it sure as hell wasn’t going to happen, he decided then and there with pure masculine arrogance.

He was becoming involved with his beautiful bride, he admitted to himself. He liked her spirit, her responsiveness in bed, but mostly there was just something about
her
. Something unique and fascinating in his experience—and he had quite a bit of experience. In many ways, they were kindred souls, and whether she realized it or not, he was beginning to see it. When she loved, she loved fiercely. The servants were fond of her because she was gracious and treated them liked family. She had pride, but not to an extent that she was haughty, and he had seen no evidence of vanity in his lovely wife.

Grief and confusion had sent her into his arms, but he intended that contentment and joy would keep her there.

And when the devil had
that
realization about their marriage happened? It might have even been the evening when she’d appeared out of the mist with an outrageous proposition—for he still was not completely sure why he’d agreed so quickly. The ships were tempting, but just for that he would never have tied himself for life to one woman. Her beauty was entrancing, but again, there was no shortage of lovely women in Scotland.

Infatuation at first sight? Oh, yes, he knew that was possible, but
love
at first sight?

Maybe.

“I wouldn’t leave my wife,” Robbie said curtly, “but then again, I am not in the midst of some moral dilemma over my own sexuality either. Randal was also faced with the heavy responsibilities of being laird, when he had no inclination for the job. It seems to me that leaving would have solved a lot of his problems.”

“Randal is a lot of things, but not a coward. And he sincerely loves his family and would not willingly cause them pain.”

There was a chilling conviction in that flat statement. Robbie glanced up, feeling some sympathy for the obvious strain on the young man’s face. “So you think he has come to harm?”

“Look at what happened to his father. I cannot imagine any other scenario. Since I just declared I don’t believe he would walk away without a word, what other choice is there but to suspect foul play?”

Unfortunately, Robbie had the same suspicions. But something felt not quite . . . right, and his gut was rarely wrong. “Did he ever discuss Therese Gibbons with you?” he asked, rubbing his jaw and gazing at his brother-in-law’s lover. “I understand she expected a marriage proposal at any time. He wouldn’t be the first man to marry to hide his less than socially acceptable inclinations.”

Hexham shook his head. “Even if he were as drawn to women as you are, he wouldn’t have married Therese. He disliked her intensely, though I know he kept the sentiment from his father and Julia, since both Lord Larkin and Lady Therese are practically family.”

“I see. What was the source of this enmity?”

Frowning, the young man shook his head. “He never told me specifically, though I know Edward Gibbons had borrowed money from him time and again, especially this past year, since his father’s death.”

Now,
that
was interesting. Financial straits and murder often held hands and walked a primrose path together. Robbie got to his feet and gave John Hexham a straightforward look. “In the interest of finding out what happened to Randal, would you care to do me a favor?’

The other man said fervently, “For Randal? Anything.”

 

 

Julia inhaled the acrid scent of burning leaves deeply as they rode along, finding the warm fall afternoon sheer pleasure for the senses. As she guided her horse around a hole in the road, she stole a covert glance at her husband. Tall and dark, he sat his mount with the ease of a born horseman, a faint frown furrowing his brow. Opening her mouth to ask exactly what it was that he had discovered, she barely registered the retort until she saw him jerk slightly.

Her question stuck in her throat as Robbie suddenly threw himself at her and tumbled her from her horse. She struck the ground with such force that she had the wind knocked from her lungs. Her husband rolled to the side and covered her body with his larger frame as her startled horse skittered to the side.

Stunned and bewildered, Julia lay sprawled underneath him in a pile of leaves next to the road, trying to take a struggling breath. When she could manage it, she squeaked furiously, “What are you doing, McCray? Get off me.”

“Not until I find out if he is going to reload and fire again,” her husband told her, his expression uncharacteristically grim. “Of course, lucky for us, the bastard has imperfect aim. For that I suppose I should be grateful. He just nicked me.”

“You’re shot?” Sure enough, even as she spoke Julia could feel an alarming warm wetness soaking her blouse from his encircling arm.

“Just a little.”

“Dear God.”

Gazing around, still holding her protectively as they lay on the hard ground together, Robbie murmured nonchalantly, “It’s nothing. I’ve had headaches after a night of hard drinking that hurt worse. . . . Ah, where are you, my cowardly assassin? That copse of trees ahead is my guess. The cover is thick enough to conceal someone hiding, though if he is at all canny and saw he missed, he should be slipping away as we speak.”

“Why would anyone shoot at you?” Julia was amazed at how distraught she felt. And how
safe
she felt pressed against him, even with an assailant in the woods intent on firing deadly bullets in their direction. There was something comforting in her husband’s easy, bold confidence . . . and something undoubtedly sensual about lying beneath his tall form, whether on a road or in a bed. She could feel the lean, muscular hardness of his body and the protective embrace of his arms.

“Now that”—his dark gaze was amused and speculative as it shifted to her face—“is an interesting question, sweet Julia, isn’t it? Who would have a motive to kill me?”

Looking into his eyes, she said slowly, “Adain seems a logical choice.”

“Aye, I agree. Too logical, lass. You no longer trust him, I realize that, but do you think he’s stupid?”

As she’d known her cousin all her life, Julia knew full well that Adain was intelligent—and what was more, a very good shot. Had he been aiming at them from such a short distance, she doubted he would miss. She shook her head. “Who else, then?”

“I don’t know. But what would the rest of Scotland think if I had been shot dead, as surely was the intention?”

All that potent energy and sexual charm gone? Julia fought a stab of fear and sorrow at the thought of the vital and attractive Robbie McCray slain. Impulsively she reached up and touched his cheek. “I’m sure they would think my cousin the villain,” she whispered.

“And that he shot me in a jealous rage over you.” His statement was thoughtful, and Robbie eased off her, getting to his feet in one graceful, athletic movement. “Stay down for a moment or two while I make sure it is safe.”

“Be careful,” she said, rolling to watch him vault onto his horse, the big stallion shaking his head and whinnying. Robbie turned toward the woods, his dark hair gleaming in the afternoon sun, the beautiful day suddenly taking on an ominous cast as she thought of an unknown villain waiting and willing to kill. Her husband’s white shirt was decidedly bloody, Julia saw as the horse plunged away, one sleeve streaked dark red, his jacket discarded earlier in deference to the warm afternoon.

When he returned a few minutes later, he slid from his horse and helped Julia to her feet. “There are fresh tracks behind the copse, but our friend is gone.”

“Let me look at your arm.” Julia felt a fresh wave of horror over what might have happened, her gaze riveted on the patch of scarlet wetness on his left sleeve.

“It’ll keep until we get back to the house.” Robbie shrugged dismissively and gave her one of his reckless, intoxicating grins. “There you can play nursemaid all you like, my sweet. In fact, I might need quite a bit of your . . . attention. My arm aside, there are certain parts of my anatomy that could use a little ministration from my beautiful wife.”

Julia muttered, “You’re impossible.”

“I assume you mean impossible to resist?”

She couldn’t help it. A small laugh escaped her lips at his deliberately outrageous leer.

“I haven’t tried yet, as it would infringe on our bargain.”