Unraveled By The Rebel (8 page)

“An animal doesna care where you live, so long as he’s loved.” Paul reached over to ruffle the kitten’s ears and took him from her.

“It would be too difficult right now,” she admitted. And every time she saw the animal, she would think of Paul.

“He wants naught but to be close to you,” Paul said, his dark blue eyes staring at her. “To sleep beside you and have you look upon him with a smile.”

Blood rushed to her face, for she suspected he was no longer talking about the kitten. Before she could find the words to tell him no, he cut her off. “I remember what you said to me last night in the barn. But I also remember that we were friends once. And I’m no’ wanting to lose that.” His eyes locked with hers. He’d shielded all emotion from his gaze, watching her with a patience she didn’t understand.

“Why?” Her palm clenched and unclenched, so afraid of what he was asking.

“Because you’re worth waiting for.”

The words were like salt against her wounded heart. If he knew anything about her past, he would never say such words. “I need to be back in London,” she reminded him. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever return.”

Paul’s expression sobered. Then his eyes held a sudden knowledge that struck her hard. “You’re running away.”

“N-no. I like it in London. I lived there for most of my girlhood.”

He studied her for a long moment, as if he didn’t believe her. “And that’s where you would be happiest?”

She gave a nod without any hesitation at all. Though it wasn’t the place that drew her there. It was the sweet angel whose laugh had brightened her heart. And because there, she was safe from harm. “I don’t suppose I’ll see you again, will I?”

He gave the kitten back to her. “Are you wanting to?”

Color suffused her face, and she turned her gaze downward to avoid looking at him. If she let him see her eyes, he’d know the truth—that the loss of his friendship wasn’t at all what she wanted. But there was no choice, was there?

“Be safe,” she said quietly. She had no right to lower the walls around her heart, not when she was incapable of making him happy. It would only hurt both of them.

A thread of anger knotted inside her until she couldn’t help but stare into his dark blue eyes. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to go back to the beginning, to be the girl she’d once been. She wanted to be honest with Paul and confess what had happened, feeling the sanctuary of his arms around her.

But admitting the truth would change nothing. She could not let him love her, nor risk her own heart. She held on to the kitten with one hand, forcing back the urge and strengthening her resolve to say nothing. No, he wouldn’t understand.

She took a deep breath and bared one truth to him. “I will miss you when I go.” Before she could lose her nerve, she reached out and touched his roughened cheek.

Paul stared at the snowdrifts for a long time, his mind in turmoil. Juliette wanted to return to London. The thought of living in the crowded streets was not something he relished. He’d accepted the necessity of living in Edinburgh during his medical studies, but he’d ached for his beloved Highlands.

Here was where he belonged. Here, he was among his family and friends, and they needed him. So many had suffered from the evictions. Aside from his mother, the clan’s midwife and healer, Paul was the only man with medical knowledge to help them. Left with naught but superstitions and remedies passed on by their grandmothers, the crofters often did more harm to the wounded folk than good.

A part of him believed that if he’d known how to stop the bleeding on the night of the raid, he might have saved Malcolm and the factor.

He might have saved his father, if they hadn’t died.

After he’d gone to live with his uncle, Donald Fraser, in Edinburgh, he’d vowed that one day, he would become a doctor. Although it wouldn’t bring back those he’d lost, Paul wanted to
save the lives of others. He’d taken the knowledge passed on by his mother, intending to use it to prove he was worthy of acceptance into medical school.

But then, his uncle had revealed a secret that had ripped the foundation of his life apart.

His father had never spoken of his brothers, only saying that they were from Edinburgh originally and that he’d left to wed Bridget. Paul had never met his paternal grandfather, nor anyone from that side of the family. Not until he’d been sent away.

When his mother had forced him to leave after his father’s death, he’d thought it was banishment. Now he wondered if she hadn’t been trying to mend her husband’s broken past. By sending Paul away, she’d given him the chance for another life. Yet, from the first moment he’d met his uncle, he had believed Donald Fraser despised him.

“So, Bridget sent you to me, did she?” His uncle Donald rubbed absently at his salt-and-pepper beard. His eyebrows tufted above his eyes as if he were a bird staring at its prey. “How old are you, boy?”

“I’ll be eighteen in a few months.” Paul straightened, trying to appear older. Exhaustion weighed down upon him, for he hadn’t slept for more than a few minutes at a time on the journey south from Ballaloch. Most of the trip had been on a farmer’s wagon, with nothing to shield him from the rain. He’d spent days miserable in cold, wet clothing.

“That would make you seventeen,” Fraser corrected. “Answer the question correctly, and don’t bother me with information that doesn’t matter.” His eyes narrowed upon him. “Your mother says they hanged your father for a crime you committed. Is it true?”

“I killed no one.” Frustration and grief poured through him at the raw memory. “It was my friend Malcolm who wanted to raid.”
His hands clenched into fists. “He and my father are dead because of Lord Strathland.” The bemused expression on his uncle’s face angered him even more. What reason did he have to smile when Paul’s life had come crashing down around him?

“I suppose you think to avenge their deaths? Having all the wisdom of a lad who believes he’s a man.”

“Strathland will pay for what he did, aye.”

Fraser studied him from head to toe. “You haven’t two coppers to rub together, and you’re naught but an uneducated Highlander. How could you ever be anything except dirt under the earl’s feet? You’re nothing and never will be.”

The mockery sent Paul’s fury over the edge. He grabbed Fraser’s shirt and shoved him against the wall. “Don’t be talking to me like that. I will bring him down. I swear it, on my life.” His blood thundered through him at the taunt. He didn’t care if no one believed it but him.

“If you attack him with that sort of rage, it
will
cost you your life.” Fraser pressed him back gently, straightening his coat. “You haven’t the first idea of what it takes to bring down a man of his rank.” He lowered his voice, and it held an edge Paul had never guessed. “Unless you put aside your anger and learn.”

The words quieted his anger, offering him a pathway of hope. “What do you mean?”

“You want him gone from Scotland, am I right?”

Paul nodded, letting out a slow breath. If the earl abandoned his property there, they could live in peace with no one to tell them how to live. “I do.”

Fraser walked over to a bookshelf containing leather-bound volumes. He reached inside and pulled one out. “Killing Strathford won’t make him go away. His heirs will only rise up and grow stronger. A man of his power will yield only to a greater power. And you, lad, have no power at all.” His uncle handed him the book. “Can you read?”

Paul nodded, for his father had taught him since he was a lad. “Well enough.”

“Good.” He pointed to the shelf of books. “Your education will be the gateway to power. Learn quickly, and you can change yourself.”

He might have suspected his uncle would try to fight his battles without fists. Paul didn’t believe it for a moment. What good were books and learning when it came to Strathland, who could twist the law into what he wanted?

“Why should I? I could wait a few months, return, and burn his home to the ground.”

“The coward’s path,” Fraser chided. “And what then? You’ll go back to herding sheep until they bring you to trial and hang you. Just like your father.”

Before Paul realized what had happened, Fraser grabbed his shirt and slammed him against the bookcase. His head knocked against the wooden shelf, and he saw stars for a moment. “And here I thought you were smarter than that.” His uncle eyed him with distaste.

“I
am
smart,” he gritted out, tasting blood on his lip. “But books willna avenge my father’s death.”

Fraser released him. “Go back to Scotland, then, if that’s what you want. Kill the earl, and waste your life. I won’t grieve for the loss of a brainless lad.”

“I canna let it go,” Paul insisted
.

“Don’t you understand, lad? Dying is easy. Wouldn’t you rather he suffered for his sins? Would it not be a greater punishment for him to live in the same poverty he put you in?”

Paul hadn’t considered that, but his uncle’s words made him hesitate.

“If you were a more intelligent lad, you’d know that patience would bring a greater fall to the earl. As it is…” His uncle lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “You’ll hide away in Edinburgh for a few months, return to Ballaloch with a loaded pistol, and end both
your lives.” He shook his head, his mouth curling with a dark smile. “Because you’re too eager to act now, instead of learning how to truly bring down your enemy.”

He wove another picture with his words: “Imagine Strathland suffering through a winter with no food. With not a coin in his pocket, debt-ridden, until his heirs inherit nothing. He’ll have to sell off any unentailed land, possibly the property in Scotland. Or he’ll abandon it to live in a dirt-ridden hovel in the city, bemoaning his lack of coin until he drinks himself to death. That would be a more fitting revenge. To bring him down where he belongs.”

Paul’s earlier rage had died down, and the image of a fallen earl was more welcome than a dead one. Strathland had never known hardship. He’d never gone to sleep hungry, the empty ache in his stomach making it impossible to rest. He’d never shivered beneath a thin coverlet or worn patched shoes in the deep winter snows. Not the way Paul had.

“What must I do?”

“Watch those who are wealthy. Learn from them, and discover their weaknesses.” His uncle gestured toward his house. “I am not a poor man, though I was like you once. Did your father ever tell you about me?” There was a sudden narrowing of the man’s eyes, as if he were hiding secrets.

Paul shook his head. “I ne’er knew he had brothers. He didna talk of you at all.”

His uncle Donald shrugged. “Kenneth was the youngest of three brothers. We grew up in this house.”

Paul was startled to hear it. He’d never guessed that there was any money at all on his father’s side of the family.

“You’re probably wondering why Kenneth turned his back on us. Our father threw him out when he wanted to marry your mother. He was hot-headed and lashed out, saying he’d never come back or have anything to do with us.”

“Then why would my mother send me to you?” Paul asked.

“Because your mother was wiser than Kenneth. She knew that you were all that was left of us. One day, this will all come to you. If you prove yourself worthy of an inheritance.”