Seducing the Highlander (24 page)

Then all sounds stopped except for a faint, distant splash and only one figure stood there.

Heart pounding, Julia sank down on the path, no longer able to stand, not able to make herself follow and investigate. She closed her eyes and tears seeped between her lids, and she could not stop shaking. What kind of bizarre dream was this?

Then someone loomed over her, knelt, and a familiar voice said, “Julia?”

A very real pair of arms went around her as she shuddered, her face pressed against a solid shoulder that both comforted and brought tears to her eyes. “Randal?”

Her brother said in a matter-of-fact tone, “In the flesh.”

 

 

Four hours in the saddle, half a bottle of whiskey, and a generous dose of Cameron drama, and all Robbie wanted was to go up and fall into bed and sleep. . . .

Well, perhaps not
just
sleep.

Julia sat next to him, her dark head on his shoulder, her lashes lowered slightly over her pale cheeks. Now and again, she opened her eyes to look at her brother in wonder, her remarkable green eyes soft with affectionate regard.

He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved, and her tangible happiness made
him
happy.

“So you knew Therese and Edward had killed your father,” Robbie asked Randal, refraining from stroking his wife’s lustrous hair by sheer will. “Didn’t it make you wary? How did she catch you out by the cliff?”

Randal shook his head. “No, I didn’t know they’d killed him. I knew she and Edward were in financial trouble. How bad it was exactly, I didn’t guess. When she followed me that day, it didn’t occur to me she would attack me. I didn’t even try to defend myself, I was so taken off guard.” Color burned into the other man’s cheeks in splotches, his fine bone structure reminiscent of his lovely sister’s.

“I was only half conscious when she pushed me off the cliff and I hit the water below,” Randal Cameron elaborated, “and I don’t really remember anything after that. I think I must have washed onto shore, for when I woke, I was in the sheepherder’s cottage.”

Adain sat, drinking ale and watching his cousin with narrowed eyes, though his expression was more relaxed than Robbie had yet seen it. “Why didn’t you contact us? We were looking for you. For that matter, I am sure we came by there, asking if you’d been seen. That cottage isn’t ten miles from here. The old man said nothing about you.”

Julia’s brother shifted a little. “I healed very slowly. By the time I realized where and who I was, weeks had passed, maybe months. The sheepherder was kind, but also elderly and deaf, and I’m sure he didn’t understand your questions. He died about a month ago, very peacefully in his sleep.” Randal’s gaze slid briefly to where John Hexham sat quietly in the corner. “I needed some time to sort things out, and when I discovered I was presumed dead, I took advantage of it. I went up to the cliff often to sit and think, though the walk was long. It’s private there and close to home. I was never far away.”

Hexham said quietly, as if they were the only two people in the room, “I can understand that, Ran.”

“Can you?”

“I can’t. How could you?” Julia stirred, straightening enough that Robbie snaked his arm around her waist to support her. Her mouth trembled. “We were frantic. Adain is right. You should have let us know right away.”

“I’m sorry you were worried.” Julia’s brother looked contrite. “But please realize I took a severe blow to the head, and it took me a while to recover. For weeks, maybe months, I couldn’t even see. As my vision returned and I realized where I was, I contemplated my return but, I confess, put it off. I knew Adain had things well in hand, probably better than I would ever manage. Believe me, if I had remembered sooner that Therese had been the one to push me off the cliff, I would have come home. As it was, I recalled flashes only. None of it was clear until tonight, when I saw her standing there, and I remembered all of it. I was on one of my late-night pilgrimages to the cliff and as I took the path from the opposite direction, I heard Julia’s voice, and then Therese threatening her.”

“Thanks be to God you were there,” Robbie said fervently, looking down at his wife with his heart tightening. She looked fragile and exhausted.

And so very beautiful.

“Yes,” Adain agreed, his expression somber. “I’ve sent men to inform the magistrate about all that has happened and to look for Therese’s body. If she survived the fall, she’ll hang.”

Julia turned a little, her face poignantly unhappy as she stared at her cousin. “I owe you an apology, Adain. How . . . how do you say you are sorry you suspected a man of murder? The only thing in my defense is that Therese had evidence, for she claimed that Edward found the pin I gave you near my father’s body. She had been such a supportive friend, so sympathetic, and I had no cause to think she would lie to me. With all the other ugly whispers, I am afraid I lost faith.”

Adain’s expression was bleak, but he forced a smile. “You were grieving. . . . We all were, but none as much. I wish you had come to me and told me about her accusation, but there is no way to rewrite what happened. I am also at fault because I didn’t wish to tell you I’d lost the pin. It never occurred to me it might have been stolen, because it was unique, and if anyone else wore it they would be exposed as the thief. Therese was a ruthless and clever woman, and we were all taken in.” He lifted a brow and glanced at Robbie. “If you hadn’t brought McCray here, who knows, I might have ended up trapped into marrying her eventually.”

That was going to be as close to a thanks, Robbie guessed wryly, as he would ever get from Adain Cameron for helping clear his name, but it would do. Standing in one fluid motion, he lifted Julia in his arms without regard for the gathered audience, making Mrs. Dunbar chuckle. Robbie said meaningfully, “If you will please excuse us, it has been an eventful evening and I think Julia needs to go to bed.”

“She needs some sleep, young Robbie,” the housekeeper said pointedly.

He grinned and winked. “Eventually.”

Julia protested in an indignant hiss as she clutched his shoulders when they left the room. “Must you always be so . . . so impetuous?”

“Yes, lass, I must when it comes to you.” A deliberate, devilishly suggestive smile curved his mouth as he headed for the stairs. When they got to Julia’s room, he shouldered his way through the door and deposited her on the bed. Leaning down with his arms on either side of her body, he looked into her eyes, feeling as if his soul were caught in those shimmering emerald depths. “So what happens now?” he asked softly.

Her hand came up and her fingertips lightly traced his mouth in a tender gesture that made his heart skip a beat. “I imagine we’re going to take our clothes off and you’ll demonstrate once again why you are so notorious.”

“That sounds like a reasonable prediction.” His erection swelled, there was no doubt about it, but why wouldn’t it, when Julia lay amid a tumble of silken skirts and ebony tresses, her eyes half-shut and her soft pink lips slightly parted? But his need aside, he was plagued with important, life- altering questions. He asked with honest raw emotion, “I meant now that your brother is safe. It changes everything, lass.”

Her mouth trembled a little. “Randal is still alive, but it doesn’t affect my inheritance. I still get half, since I married, so you’ll get what you were promised.”

“Damn the stupid ships.”

“But—”

“Don’t.” His mouth came down hard, crushing hers, the kiss wild, yet tender. When he lifted his head, he said thickly, “Let’s talk about the rest of our bargain. I am not releasing you from our arrangement. And since this is over, I’m leaving in the morning; what say you to that?”

“You are?” Her tongue swept out and licked her lower lip.

“Indeed. And you’re going with me.”

“Am I, now?”

Of course, it was just his luck to fall in love finally with a stubborn, raven-haired lass who would challenge him at every turn, he thought wryly. Served him right, most would say, as penance for his licentious past. “I want you to go with me,” he amended.

“Why?”

How had he known she would ask that? Damn all, she was going to make him say it. “Because,” he hedged, “if you don’t, who will provide me with ghosts, murderous neighbors, and hostile former lovers? I might perish from boredom.”

“I am merely entertainment to you, then?”

Why was it that women had such an infernal sense of how to wring the truth from a man? “No,” he said, his throat tight. “You are my wife. I ask you humbly to share my life, Julia, and if you wish my heart, I pledge it to you.”

Julia swallowed and blinked, her eyes filled suddenly with tears. After a small pause, she whispered, “I promised you children, I believe, McCray. There is only one way to get them, as far as I understand the process. Don’t I have to go with you so that part of our bargain is fulfilled? Are you implying I’d go back on my word?”

Relief and desire flooded through him at the teasing tone of her voice and the open emotion shining in her green eyes. “Never, but you’ll have to prove it.”

He brushed a kiss across her mouth, whispering wickedly against her lips, “I won’t fuck you unless you call me by my given name, beautiful Julia.”

Breathlessly, she sighed. “Please . . . Robbie.”

I
t was a mere scythe, a pale crescent that barely illuminated the road. The kind of moon they called a traitor’s moon, because it could hide any manner of ill deeds.

Adain Cameron put his booted heels to his horse, making the animal surge forward despite the encroaching darkness. The shots had been followed by a definitely female scream. The sound had come from up ahead, and as he rode around a bend in the road, he saw both the source and the reason for it.

A carriage sat in the middle of the road. He could see three men, one on horseback, two others in the act of dragging a young woman out of the vehicle. She screamed again as one of them lifted her free, her frantic struggles having little effect on her much larger assailants. A body lay on the ground, undoubtedly that of the hapless coachman.

Perfect
, Adain thought.

If the truth be told, he was spoiling for a fight.

“Halt,” he called harshly as he pulled his sword free. “What goes here?”

The man on horseback held the leads of his companions’ horses, but he let them go as Adain charged up, reaching instead for the pistol jammed into his belt. Without hesitation, he leveled and fired, but Adain was on a moving horse and the shot luckily did no more than graze his sleeve.

With the slightest tug of the reins, his horse swerved, his sword flashed, and the bandit—for Adain had a fair idea of what was happening—uttered a low cry and pitched from the saddle.

That was one down. Not a bad start.

He pulled up his stallion and slid off, bloody sword in hand, and stood in front of the other two men. There was no mistaking the menace in his stance. “The lady seems to take issue with being removed from her conveyance. Let her go.”

Lawlessness was the order of the day in the Borders, and the two other robbers looked the part: unkempt, unshaven, but well armed, for like their fallen companion they both carried pistols and dirks. One of them let go of the young woman’s arm, shoving her at his companion. “I’ll take care o’ this gallant,” he said in a low growl as he drew his sword.

“You are welcome to try, of course.” Adain felt an unholy delight as he parried the first thrust and easily blocked another.

The man was an oaf, and Adain experienced little triumph as he ran him through. With a groan, the would-be assassin crumpled, clutching his belly, and pitched onto the muddy road. Adain turned purposefully, but the fight was enough for the third man, who released the girl and grabbed one of the loose horses, jumping on, and departed with almost comical speed.

Not much of a damned battle after all.

What a disappointment. Adain wasn’t even breathing hard.

He turned to the young woman, who now leaned weakly against the side of the carriage, her eyes wide in the faint light. Tendrils of soft fair hair had escaped her chignon and curled against the slender length of her neck, framing her delicate features.

“Are you hurt, lass?” he asked her, jabbing his sword back into the scabbard to hide the dripping blade.

“No . . . no.” She took in a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

“You’re English.” He frowned at her accent, even those few words giving away her origins. With tensions running so high right now between Scotland and her nemesis, most of the English stayed south of the border. “Good God, where’s your escort? No one should travel these roads without a guard,” he stated bluntly, taking in her fashionable rose-colored gown and the quality of the carriage. He knelt by the slumped figure of the driver, but unfortunately the man was dead, shot through the chest.

“Yes, I’m English.” The girl watched him, her voice unsteady as she answered, “And as for guards, we haven’t any.”

Adain stood and stared at her. “That’s ill- advised enough during the day, but what are you doing traveling into the night? It’s beyond foolishness and onto madness.”

“My uncle said we could not afford to hire one. Nor to stop at an inn when it began to grow dark. We hoped to be in Hawick by now, but he’s been ill the whole journey.”

Her uncle’s tight purse and lack of foresight would have cost her some very unpleasant moments had the highwaymen dragged her off, but she already looked ghostly pale, and Adain didn’t pursue the subject. Instead, he peered in the open door of the carriage, wondering why her uncle, ill or not, had not even done so much as lift a finger to protect his niece.

The man appeared to be sleeping, but how he could manage that through both gunfire and the brief but bloody fight was a mystery.