The Bodyguard (20 page)

By the time Alex had finger-combed his hair, washed the sleep from his eyes, and swallowed a bannock with some tea, Ian MacDougal and Duncan Fraser had arrived. Before the sun was fully visible all of the MacKinnon clansmen were present. Sitting on the floor, on the benches on either side of the table, and standing along the walls, they filled up the small stone cottage.

Alex stayed by Lady Katherine’s side as she greeted the men. He made eye contact with each one, confirming
his intent to protect her from danger even if it came from her devoted clansmen.

When Lady Katherine called the meeting to order, Ian interrupted her and said, “Now that all of us are ready to act, I see no reason why The MacKinnon should risk her life on this raid. ’Tis dangerous for a woman—”

“The plan is mine, and I’ll see it through,” Kitt interrupted.

“I canna allow it,” Ian said.

Her eyes went wide and then narrowed as her brows lowered ominously. “Canna allow it? Who are you to say what The MacKinnon will or willna do? I can fend for myself as well as any man.”

Ian shook his head. “I canna let you go.”

A fierce expression settled on her face. “You dinna tell me what to do.
I
am The MacKinnon.”

“She’s right,” Alex said quietly. “There must be one leader, and one only. Unless you’re willing to replace her now, she goes.”

Ian looked around the room for support for that alternative, but found none. “She might be killed,” Ian protested.

“I’ll be there to protect her,” Alex said.

Resigned to having Lady Katherine present on the raid, Ian said, “ ’Tisna necessary that she throw herself into the fray, is it? She can wait nearby to give whatever aid the wounded might need.”

Kitt opened her mouth to object again, but this time Alex agreed. “He’s right, Lady Katherine. We may need
someone to doctor those who get hurt. You would be most helpful standing by with your herbs to do what you do best.”

Kitt looked around to gauge the feelings of her clansmen, and Alex saw the moment she resigned herself to waiting nearby while the others put themselves in the path of danger.

“I dinna want any of you dying, so I’ll be there to make sure none of you do,” she said at last.

It was a broad enough statement that Alex wondered for a moment if she harbored any thoughts of thrusting herself forward at the last minute. It would be his duty to see that she did not.

“When shall we go?” Ian asked.

“I’ve learned the soldiers will be on maneuvers and gone from their barracks sometime within the next two weeks,” Kitt said. “We can set a watch to learn the day they leave and break Patrick out of jail while they’re away.”

It was agreed that Kitt would send word to those involved in the raid when the time was right. The planning done, the men left to go about their daily tasks, so there would be no suspicion among the authorities that this day was different from any other.

Once he and Kitt were alone again in the cottage, Alex’s thoughts returned to what had happened between them that morning. One look at Kitt’s face revealed the same awareness. He was afraid that if he stayed anywhere near her, he might be tempted to do
something foolish for which, since he was fully awake, he would have no convenient excuse.

“Fletcher asked if I could give him some help in the fields,” he said. “His wife offered supper afterward, so I’ll be back late. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, when you are to ride with the earl.”

“I’d forgotten,” Kitt said. “I suppose we’ll see if you ride as well as you swim.”

“Aye,” he said, wondering if she would prove as enticing on horseback as she had in the water. “I suppose we will.”

One of the reasons why Kitt hated the Duke of Blackthorne so intensely was because she had been forced to sell her horse, Blanca, to pay the high rents on the land. She had raised the dapple-gray mare herself, and it had nearly broken her heart to part with her two years before. She had not ridden since.

Alex showed up for breakfast looking red-eyed and slightly dissipated. “I had a pint or two with Fletcher,” he confessed.

“Can you ride this morning?”

“I can … if I can,” he said with a lopsided grin.

As it turned out, Alex was a more than capable rider, something he proved when it became apparent that Carlisle had provided him with a fractious mount. Or, to be more precise, a black Thoroughbred stallion with hellfire in his eyes and hatred in his heart.

Carlisle had already mounted Kitt on a well-mannered Thoroughbred chestnut mare with a white
blaze when Alex’s friend Laddie showed up driving a cart with the curvetting stallion tied on behind.

“We had a wee bit of trouble getting him saddled,” the boy admitted. “Are ye sure ye want to ride him, Alex?”

“Do you have another mount for me?” Alex asked Carlisle.

“You see the extent of my stables, sir,” Carlisle replied from atop a solid bay gelding whose bloodlines were somewhat suspect. “If you cannot manage Lucifer, I am afraid we will have to leave you behind.”

It was plain to Kitt that Carlisle had planned all along to leave Alex behind. She wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or not. These days, the earl seemed less of a threat to her than Alex.

Kitt watched as Alex approached the wide-eyed stallion, its ears laid back flat, speaking to the animal in a soft, calming voice. He waited until the stallion’s ears came up before he untied the reins and slipped them over the stallion’s bobbing head. In that same singsong voice he said, “Move the cart away, Laddie.”

Kitt expected Alex to lead the huge stallion to the same stump Carlisle had used as a mounting block. Instead, he grabbed a handful of black mane and launched himself gracefully onto the horse’s back. A second later his boots were lodged in the stirrups and he was ready for whatever antics the stallion might provide.

Lucifer did not disappoint him. The stallion reared and pawed the air. His angry, trumpeting neigh raised gooseflesh on Kitt’s arms. She gasped, afraid Alex
would slide off the stallion’s back. He simply held on to the mane and leaned forward to speak in the stallion’s ear, using that same quiet voice. The stallion landed on all four hooves and stood quivering, listening.

Alex looked Carlisle in the eye and said, “Shall we go?”

Carlisle said something under his breath that Kitt didn’t catch, but she didn’t ask him to repeat it. “This way, Lady Katherine,” he said, heading for the hills near Castle Carlisle. He spurred his mount into a trot, glancing back at Alex to see whether he could manage to keep the stallion at such a sedate pace.

In fact, he could not. Lucifer bucked at the restraint, then curvetted. Alex steered the prancing, crow-hopping stallion in a complete circle around Kitt and the earl, who continued in a trot along the road.

“I’ve been looking forward to this ride ever since I last saw you,” the earl said. His eyes registered his pleasure as they moved over her face and form.

“So have I,” Kitt said. Though she had been looking forward to the ride itself, not the visit with the earl.

“I suppose you’ve heard we have a thief in the neighborhood,” Carlisle said.

Kitt struggled to keep her face impassive. “ ’Tis all anyone talks about. Does Mr. Ambleside have any idea who it might be?”

The earl scowled. “He suspected me, if you can believe it.”

“No! Why would he think such a thing?” Kitt said.

“It is no secret my pockets are to let,” the earl said.
“But I would never dishonor my family name by stealing from the duke. Though I suppose what I am doing is certainly questionable enough.”

“What are you doing?” Kitt asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Mr. Ambleside has agreed to rent me the lands my brother sold to the duke and to defer any payment on the rent until I’ve seen a profit.”

Kitt couldn’t believe her ears. Mr. Ambleside had refused to defer Patrick Simpson’s rent, and yet he had offered a much greater consideration to the earl. The reason for Mr. Ambleside’s generosity quickly struck her. Carlisle was an Englishman. And the duke was an Englishman.

And she had to marry an Englishman and somehow manage to swallow her enmity and live her life with him.

At that moment, Alex crossed in front of her on the curvetting stallion. His eyes burned with a rancor that matched the look in his mount’s eyes. Unfortunately, she could not afford to indulge such feelings. She must make conversation. She must win the earl’s regard.

She pulled her Thoroughbred back to keep it even with Carlisle’s slower mount and said, “Where did you get Lucifer?”

Carlisle shot her a chagrined look and said, “I practically stole him at Tattersall’s in London. Or so I thought, until I tried to ride him.”

“You mean you have not?” Kitt asked.

Carlisle shook his head. “He threw me every time I
mounted him. Nor has any friend of mine ever been able to ride him.” He cocked a brow. “Your bodyguard has the best seat and lightest hands I have ever seen.”

Kitt looked closely at Carlisle and saw he meant the compliment sincerely. It took quite a man to be able to admit he had been bested and to do so with grace and charm. She must see the good in the earl and forget he was an Englishman.

“I am amazed myself at how well Alex rides.” Kitt turned to the earl with an impish grin and proposed, “Shall we test him to see just how good he is?”

Carlisle shot her a crooked smile that made him look almost boyish. “Why not? If you’re sure you’re up to it.”

Kitt’s response was to drive her heels into the mare’s flanks. She had missed the feel of the wind whipping in her hair, the feel of a powerful animal beneath her. She hid her face against the mare’s neck and let her have her head. It felt like she was flying.

She turned to share her joy with the earl—and found Alex on Lucifer beside her instead. She jerked her head to look for the earl and saw that he was far down the hill behind them, and that his struggling mount was losing ground every minute.

She started to pull up, but Alex grinned and said, “I’ll race you to the loch.”

She gave the earl one last glance before she grinned back at her bodyguard and said, “You’re on!”

Alex would have won handily, except the stallion flushed a covey of quail that sent him leaping sideways
a full five feet and nearly caused Alex to lose his seat. She laughed as she passed Alex at a gallop, kicking her lathered mount to even greater speed.

She was sitting on a stone beside the loch, her mare grazing nearby, by the time Alex caught up to her. He slid off the blowing stallion and tied the animal to a tree before he joined her.

“I won,” she announced with a smile. “Where’s my prize?”

He had already bent to kiss her before she could stop him. It was intended as a quick kiss, a bare meeting of lips, but it turned into something more. Her lips clung to his, and when she pressed her hand against his chest, she could feel his heart beating a rapid tattoo.

She turned her face away, and he straightened abruptly. She touched her fingertips to her damp lips and looked up at him. “Why did you do that?”

“ ’Twas what I would have asked if I had won,” he said simply. He dropped to the grass in front of the stone where she was sitting as though he had not just turned her world upside down. He leaned back, crossed his hands behind his head, and said, “I dinna know when I’ve enjoyed anything so much.”

Was he referring to the kiss or the ride? Kitt wondered. “I enjoyed it, too,” she said. For either one, her answer would have been the same.

They sat in silence for a very long time, the sun beating down on them, warming the stone and the grass and their flesh, until she could hear the wind in the
leaves and the lap of water against the shore and the occasional splash of a fish in the loch.

“I wonder where Carlisle ended up,” Alex said at last.

“It was awful of us to leave him behind,” Kitt said.

Alex looked up at her and grinned. “You could have turned back at any time.”

She laughed. “And miss beating you? Never. Where did you learn so much about horses? I thought you were a sailor.”

He hesitated, then said, “I was a farmer first.” Before she could ask another question, he rose gracefully to his feet. “We’d better go find the earl.”

“I suppose we should.” She stood and realized the stone she had been sitting on was too high to use for mounting her horse, and there was no stump handy. “I’ll need you to help me mount.”

“Certainly, my lady.”

Kitt was confused by Alex’s sudden formality. He had been quick enough to kiss her and happy enough to sit with her, but now he acted as if he couldn’t put distance between them quickly enough. What was wrong with him?

One look into his eyes gave her an answer. There was nothing distant about his eyes. They were dark and heavy-lidded. His lips were full, his features taut.

And they were very much alone.

Kitt felt the lure of the forbidden. She had some inkling of what it might be like to make love to Alex, had been overwhelmed, in fact, by the feelings he had
inspired when she had woken him in the barn. It was tempting to ask for another touch. Another taste.

But it was folly to expect a wolf to sniff at a piece of succulent meat and then not to swallow it whole.

She said nothing, nor did he, as he threaded his fingers together to make a stand for her foot and boosted her up into the sidesaddle. A moment after that he was in the saddle again, and they were on their way.

The danger had been averted.

An opportunity has been lost
, she thought with a surge of regret.

“There you are,” the earl said, riding toward her, greeting her with a rueful smile. “I don’t blame you for leaving me behind. I hope you had a nice ride.”

“I did,” she said, returning his smile, grateful that she was to be forgiven for leaving him and glad he had not come upon them a little sooner.

“I looked for you in a different direction,” the earl continued. “I should have known you would come to the loch.”

“ ’Tis beautiful this time of day.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

Neither of them looked at Alex. Both of them already knew what they would see on his face.