Teresa Medeiros (3 page)

“As are you, dear brother,” Sabrina whispered in his ear, “if that gossip about that little milkmaid in the village is true.” He reached to yank one of her curls, but she danced out of his reach. “Did old Angus MacDonnell truly pay court to you, Mama?”

A smile softened her mother’s lips. “Indeed he did. The gallant fellow offered me a side of beef from a stolen cow, Cameron I suspect, and his own black heart. I’ve always felt a bit guilty. When I chose your father over him, it broke a peace of almost”—she counted on her fingers—“six hours.”

Sabrina’s cousin Enid, who was visiting from London, trotted from the room, clutching two Ming dynasty fluted vases that had braved stormy seas and rutted roads to travel from Peking to Cameron. A thump and the sound of shattering glass was followed by a muffled “Oh, dearie me.” Sabrina winced.

Sighing wearily, her mother sank back on her heels and surveyed the drawing room. Stripped of its exotic treasures, the hall was a barren shell that hearkened back to another era, when the tower had been the heart of a primitive fortress instead of the drawing room of an elegant manor house.

They all knew that even now Dougal Cameron was in the courtyard instructing their clansmen on the finer points of courtesy that would allow them all to survive this night. One overturned wine goblet or upset pepperbox could result in a massacre that would destroy
the illusion of civilization Elizabeth Cameron had devoted a lifetime to preserving. Her fierce passion had coaxed both her genteel children and her precious English roses from the harsh Highland soil. Her dejection wounded them all.

Hoping to cheer her, Sabrina stood on her tiptoes and plucked a crystal rose from its vase on the mantel. “The Belmont Rose, Mama. Shall I hide it in the buttery with the rest of your things?”

Her mother rewarded her with a smile. “No, princess. ’Twas a gift from King James to my father for saving his crown at the battle of Sedgemoor. Carry it up to the solar, where no one will be tempted to crush it.” Spirits restored, she wiped her hands on her skirt and began firing off commands. “Bestir your lazy self, Brian, and help Alex with that chest before I take the starch out of your ruffles. Enid, stop sniveling behind that fire screen, or I shall write William and tell him what a silly goose he’s raised for a daughter.”

Heartened by her mother’s recovery, Sabrina climbed the curving stairs to the gallery, twirling the rose’s smooth stem between her fingers. She’d always found the Belmont Rose an object of fascination.

Fragile and exquisite, the handblown glass glowed beneath the sunlight streaming through the oriel windows. Her fingertip traced a petal more delicate than all the teardrops she’d never shed for one MacDonnell. As she entered the serene gloom of the solar, a knot tightened low in her belly, a knot she’d thought to be long unraveled.

For five summers Morgan MacDonnell’s shadow had fallen across her life. Five summers of waiting for the next hairy spider to drop down her back. Five summers of stumbling over the grubby foot that shot into her path. His final blow had landed the summer she was eight, when he had finally befriended her brothers and enlisted them in his pranks. Her wistful affection for the tall, proud boy had been slowly buried like a stone in her heart.

His father had summoned him home in his sixteenth summer after some fool MacDonnell got himself
gutted stealing a Cameron sheep. Swinging on the garden gate, Sabrina had watched him go, mystified by the tears that choked her throat. Her fondest wish had come true. Morgan MacDonnell wouldn’t be coming back to Cameron Manor. Not next summer. Not ever.

Until tonight.

With painstaking care Sabrina laid the rose on the crushed-velvet runner atop her mother’s harpsichord. The wretch was probably dead by now, she thought unkindly, stabbed by one of his own treacherous kin or shot dead in the bed of some jealous crofter. When he was only fifteen, the maidservants had already begun to admire the broad flare of his shoulders and the bold invitation in his sleepy green eyes that had never looked at her with anything but cool disdain.

Sabrina wandered to the window. Her restless gaze followed the jagged crest of the mountains. Snowy white clouds raked their peaks. The MacDonnells might even now be lumbering out of their lair and down the rugged trails toward Cameron. Did the only son of Angus MacDonnell ride among them?

She shook off a sudden chill, hoping neither she nor her father would find the price of peace too high.

As Morgan MacDonnell rode out of the shadow of the mountains, he kicked his mount into a canter. Warm autumn sunlight breached the clouds and spilled over the meadow in defiant splendor. He narrowed his eyes against its brilliance. Pookah’s hooves pounded the aroma of heather from the spongy turf. The wind tore at Morgan’s hair, urging him forward, bending him low over Pookah’s mane until he almost believed he could outdistance them all and ride to freedom.

“Morgan! Morgan me lad! Where’s that blasted son o’ mine gotten off to?”

At his father’s roar, Morgan rolled his eyes heavenward, thankful God had given him shoulders broad enough to bear the weight of his clan. He reined in the horse and wheeled around. ’Twas just as well the harsh reminder had come so quickly. There was no place for
a MacDonnell in this world of open meadow and soaring sky. Even on Pookah’s wings, he could ride forever and never find a place where he belonged. The mountain cliffs were both his sanctuary and his prison, the only home he would ever know.

He nudged Pookah back up the trail, forcing him between two of his squabbling kinsmen.

“Eh, Morgan, this rascal stole my cheese. Mind if I shoot him?” his cousin Ranald asked, drawing his pistol.

Ranald had inherited his Gypsy mother’s snapping dark eyes and raven hair. People tended to look twice at him as if to see if he was really as handsome as they thought or if the striking beauty of his features might have paled when they glanced away. Morgan felt like a homely gargoyle next to him.

“By all means,” Morgan replied, smiling pleasantly. Ranald cocked his pistol at the young thief’s paling face. “That is, if you don’t mind me breakin’ your neck when you’re done.”

Pouting, Ranald lowered the pistol. “Dammit, Morgan, I ain’t killed nobody all day. My trigger finger is gettin’ stiff.”

Ranald’s prettiness was surpassed only by his lack of judgment. Morgan plucked away the moldy hunk of cheese, fed it to Pookah, then knocked both the men’s heads together hard enough to leave their ears ringing.

Shepherding the motley remains of Clan MacDonnell to Cameron was like herding a flock of quarrelsome children. During the eight-hour journey, Morgan had broken up three fistfights, thwarted two rapes, and buried a great-uncle. His uncle hadn’t even the dubious honor of being dispatched by a relative. He’d simply fallen off his horse in a drunken stupor. Before his head had struck the rock that would kill him, his more resourceful clansmen had relieved him of both purse and boots. Morgan had dug the grave in stony silence while the others wept loudly, passed around a jug of malt whisky, and toasted the old man’s journey to hell.

“Sorry ’boot your uncle, lad,” one of the men
called out as Morgan picked his way up the rocky path. “Ol’ Kevin was a bonny fellow, he was.”

“Kerwin,” Morgan growled under his breath.

“Aye,” another agreed. “No one could spin a tale ’round the fire on a cold winter night like puir ol’ Derwin.”

Christ, Morgan thought, the man had been dead an hour only and they couldn’t remember his name. He wondered if they would forget him so easily.

“Morgan! Damn it to blasted hell, where’s that lad o’ mine?”

Morgan ground his teeth. There were times when he wished his father would forget him altogether. He drove Pookah into a lope until he reached the old man’s side.

Angus MacDonnell’s eyes twinkled in their deep crannies as he gazed up at his son. “Ah, there’s the fruit o’ me loins.” He nudged the hooded figure riding beside him. “Took a mighty oak to plant such a strappin’ seed.”

“Aye, but even the mightiest of oaks can wither with age,” Morgan shot back.

His father cackled at the gentle jibe. “The lad’s wit draws more blood than his ax. As sharp as his ol’ da, he is.”

Morgan grunted, refusing to commit himself. He’d never worn the mantle of his father’s pride comfortably. It had been too long mixed with cunning, jealousy, and the willingness to use his only son as a pawn against Dougal Cameron. Since Morgan had last returned from being fostered by his father’s enemy, he’d been the true leader of Clan MacDonnell, and they both knew it.

“Greedy wee bugger.” Angus’s voice rose with each word. “Never had a mother, so he just latched on to whatever comely teat he pleased.”

“Still does,” Ranald called out, evening the score for Morgan’s earlier interference.

The men burst into bawdy laughter. Morgan aimed, cocked, and fired his finger at Ranald. Ranald
clutched his heart in mock distress and weaved in his saddle.

Angus’s shoulders were hunched beneath the weight of his moth-eaten plaid. A yellow pallor tinged his leathery skin. “A glorious day this is,” he called out, “when those scoundrel Camerons come crawlin’ to us on their bellies, beggin’ for peace!”

A cheer rose from his clansmen. Angus took advantage of the pause to tip an earthenware jug to his lips. Morgan exchanged a glance with the hooded figure at his father’s side. The hood bobbed in understanding, and Morgan winked gratefully. The faithful shadow had ridden at his father’s side for as long as Morgan could remember, tugging off Angus’s boots when he lapsed into stupor, covering him from the damp night chill and watering his whisky to keep him from meeting the same fate as the unfortunate Kerwin.

His father had an audience now. He no longer needed a son. Morgan sent Pookah cantering down the hillside, leaving his clansmen to their dreams of remembered glories and imagined victories. He preferred the warm, sinewy reality of Pookah. The approaching twilight shed cooling pockets of air in their path.

As badly as it chafed him to admit it, Morgan knew the Cameron’s invitation was an errand of pity, not humility. The MacDonnells had wenched, robbed, and skirmished their way into too many graves, leaving Morgan master of little more than a band of rash outlaws. Only the tattered armor of their ferocious reputations kept the Grants and Chisholms to the north from declaring open warfare. Their last hope for survival lay in allying with the Camerons. But Morgan had no intention of crawling to Dougal Cameron on his belly. Not to save his clan. Not even to save his life.

He topped a rise to find the Cameron’s domain spread across the glen below like a checkered quilt. The disparity between their lives struck him a harsh blow.

The MacDonnells skulked in the mountains like rabid wolves. The Camerons presided over a spacious valley dotted with fat livestock and ringed by well-tended fields. The MacDonnells lived in a crumbling
ruin in imminent danger of sliding down a cliff. The Camerons lived in a manor house nestled among rolling hills and crowned by a castle tower.

The bloody Camerons even had a princess.

A rare smile touched Morgan’s lips. Would Dougal’s daughter remember him? For five summers the stubborn child had remained true to her pledge. She had never once tattled on him, not even when his mischievous tricks bordered on cruelty. Upon discovering he had picked all the threads out of her embroidery, she had simply tilted up that wee prim nose of hers, telling him silently that she expected no better from a no-count MacDonnell.

If a pistol ball exploded through his heart before he reached the manor gate, Morgan would know whose dainty hand had wielded the weapon.

Oddly cheered at the thought, he thundered down the slope, letting loose a jubilant Highland cry that would give the villagers of Cameron Glen nightmares for months to come.

Sabrina wiggled forward on her elbows to peer over the edge of the gallery, bunching her cumbersome nightdress beneath her.

“Careful,” Enid whispered, nibbling nervously on one of her fat braids. “My brother Stefan once got his head caught in the banister and we had to saw it off.”

“His head?”

“No. The banister.”

Enid, Sabrina’s Belmont cousin, had arrived on their doorstep that spring with a trunk and an apologetic letter from Uncle Willie, hinting at some sort of disgrace. Sabrina found it difficult to imagine the docile girl being involved in anything more sordid than hoarding sugarplums from the dinner table. Her only vice seemed to be her craving for the lurid scandal pamphlets her brother sent from London. Tonight her round face was flushed with excitement at the prospect of being ravished and murdered by a clan of Highland savages.

The drawing room had been stripped to spare medieval splendor. Braces of candles and bowls of oil had usurped her mother’s ornate lamps. Hazy light flickered over the faded tapestries that had been carried down from the attics to adorn the walls. At each end of the hall, banners emblazoned with the Cameron crest fluttered from the massive rafters. Sabrina found the effect enchanting.

The Cameron men milled below—Sabrina’s uncles, cousins, and brothers, lean and resplendent in their stylish cravats and waistcoats. Her father had draped a narrow shoulder plaid over the sleeve of his velvet coat in deference to his heritage. Most of the men had wisely left their women at home, but as mistress of the manor, Sabrina’s mother flitted among them, exotically defiant in a shimmering
saque
gown that would have served her equally well during her days as a lady-in-waiting for Queen Anne. Pride swelled in Sabrina.

“Mama looks like a queen, doesn’t she?”

“Quite,” Enid dutifully agreed, although her hands were pressed over her eyes in terrified anticipation.

Fists thundered on the massive door at the end of the hall. Enid almost bit her braid in two. Sabrina gave her cousin’s icy arm a squeeze.

Total silence reigned below. The doors swung open with an agonizing creak. Sabrina swallowed a knot of trepidation. Even Enid dared to peek through her fingers as the Camerons turned as one to greet their guests, her father flanked by the tense forms of Alex and Brian.