That piercing yowl came again. She shuddered and edged even closer to Jamie. She had no way of knowing what sort of bloodthirsty creatures prowled this wilderness. Wildcats? Wolves? Bears? For all she knew, there could be a dragon stomping around in the crags above them, just looking for some tasty virgin to devour.
She stole one last longing look at Jamie before bending down and slipping the rope from her ankle.
JAMIE OPENED HIS EYES, going from deep sleep to sharp alertness with the peculiar ease that came from years of vigilance.
He was assailed by two immediate impressions.
There was a blanket draped over him that hadn’t been there when he went to sleep.
And there was a woman beneath that blanket who hadn’t been there when he went to sleep.
He blinked warily. Emma was curled up on her side facing him. Only a scant handspan separated their bodies, almost as if she had sought to get as close to him as she dared without actually touching him. Which touched him more deeply than he cared to admit, even to himself.
He was becoming accustomed to the dull ache that had plagued his groin ever since he’d been fool enough to abduct her. But this was a sharper and even more insistent pain, perilously near to his heart.
Her russet lashes were fanned against her freckled cheeks, making her look more like the vulnerable seventeen-year-old lass who had sought love in London only to find heartbreak than the woman that lass had become. Even with her arms folded around herself for extra warmth, she looked cold. She looked miserable. She looked lonely.
By waiting to send his ransom demand until they reached the higher climes of the mountain, Jamie had hoped to torment the Hepburn with hellish visions of a Sinclair stealing what belonged to him. But now Jamie was the one burning, the one tormented by visions of another sort altogether—visions of Emma’s pale, freckled softness beneath him, her lush lips eagerly parting to receive his kiss as she twined her arms around his neck, opened her shapely thighs and urged him to make her his own.
His mouth thinned to a grim line. No matter how eagerly she welcomed his kiss, she was still the Hepburn’s woman. She didn’t belong to him and she never would. He had no choice but to walk away and leave her to the cold comfort of her own arms.
She stirred. A frown furrowed her delicate brow. A sleepy little whimper escaped her parted lips.
Biting off a defeated oath, Jamie reached for her, drawing her up so that her cheek could rest against his chest. She nestled into the warmth of his arms with a throaty little moan of satisfaction, foolishly trusting him not to abuse the power he held over her. Before she was fully awake, Jamie knew he could have the laces of his breeches untied, Bon’s borrowed trousers around her ankles and himself buried so deep inside of her she would never again be able to call her body her own.
But if he succumbed to that dark temptation, he would be no better than the Hepburn. He would have become the very thing he despised: a man who preyed on those weaker than himself, who was willing to destroy the very thing he desired the most just to keep someone else from having it.
He would have to remain vigilant if he was to extract himself from her embrace at the first stirring of life from his men. He rested his chin on top of her head and gazed into the darkness, knowing that dawn would be a very long time coming.
Chapter Fourteen
EMMA AWOKE THE NEXT morning feeling surprisingly well rested. It was almost as if she’d spent most of the night nestled in a warm feather bed instead of sprawled on the cold, stony ground. Although the woolen blanket was tucked beneath her chin with painstaking care, Jamie was nowhere in sight.
She climbed to her feet, yawning and stretching her stiff muscles. A balmy April breeze had buffeted most of the clouds away, revealing a dazzling stretch of azure sky. Jamie’s men were milling about on the other side of the campfire, breaking their fasts and making their horses ready for the day’s ride.
At first she thought Jamie had decided to take her at her word after all and had failed to post a guard. But then she saw young Graeme lounging against a nearby boulder, pretending to whittle away at a block of wood that was growing more shapeless with each flash of his blade. When she started forward, he trailed a few steps behind, trying to look nonchalant. She was tempted to bolt for the trees just to see if he actually possessed the courage to stop her.
As she wended her way through the camp, her gaze instinctively seeking but not finding Jamie’s tall, imposing form, his men gave her a wide berth. Several of them even averted their eyes as she passed, devoting themselves to shoveling down mouthfuls of mealy porridge or waxing their bridles with renewed vigor.
She was only able to sneak up on Angus and Malcolm because they were too busy arguing over a hunk of scorched bannock bread to notice her approach.
“Damn it all, mon, I told ye there weren’t eno’ left for the both of us,” one of them was saying as he plucked the bread from his twin’s hand.
“There would be if one of us wasn’t ye!” his twin insisted, making a vain grab for the bread.
Spotting her, they lapsed into sullen silence.
Emma eyed their tangled brown locks and full lips with poorly disguised fascination. Their off-center noses even looked as if they’d been broken in precisely the same spot. “So how do the other men tell the two of you apart?”
Pointing to each other, they said in perfect unison, “He’s the ugly one.”
“Oh, I see.” Still puzzled, she nodded politely and backed away, leaving them to return to their squabble over the bread.
“Watch yer step, lass,” someone warned as she nearly backed right into the campfire.
She turned to discover Bon sitting on a rock, hunkered over a rasher of bacon smoking in an iron skillet. Although the meat was already scorched to a blackened crisp, he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to remove it from the pan.
Following the direction of her glance, Bon glared up at her. “Now that ye’ve stolen me britches and boots, I suppose ye’ll be wantin’ me bacon, too.”
Emma glared right back at him with all the affronted dignity she could muster. “I didn’t steal your britches and boots. Your cousin stole your britches and boots and gave them to me. And I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of your breakfast, sir.”
Snorting, Bon stabbed the blackened strip of meat with the point of his knife and slapped it on a battered tin plate. He held the plate out to her, his impish face scrunched into a fierce scowl. “Ye might as well go ahead and take it. I wouldn’t want ye to shoot me.”
Emma hesitated, suspicious of any kindness on his part.
“Go on. I didn’t have time to poison it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Yet.”
Emma accepted the plate and took a nibble of the blackened pork. She couldn’t hide her grimace. It was like licking an ash can.
“Have you any more?” she asked, her stomach already rumbling a hollow protest. Ever since her papa had accepted the earl’s proposal, very little had been able to tempt her appetite, but suddenly she was famished. It had to be all the riding and the fresh air.
“Greedy wench, are ye? I would expect no less from the Hepburn’s woman.” Still grumbling beneath his breath, he speared another rasher of bacon with his knife.
Before he could slap the meat in the pan, she stayed his hand.
“Please. Allow me.”
He eyed her suspiciously, then reluctantly surrendered the knife and the bacon into her hand, muttering, “Probably end up with the blade stuck in me gullet for me trouble.”
She joined him on the rock and dropped the fresh rasher of bacon into the skillet. As it began to sizzle, Emma glanced over her shoulder to find the other men still giving them a wide berth. “Why are they behaving in such a peculiar manner? It’s almost as if they’re afraid of me.”
Bon stroked his pointed black beard. “It’s not ye they fear, but Jamie. He’s made it clear they’re not to trouble ye or they’ll have to answer to him.”
“And just what would he do
if they disobeyed him?”
Bon shrugged one skinny shoulder. “Probably shoot them.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Jamie told me he considered his men his brothers. Do you honestly believe he would kill one of them over me?”
“I didn’t say he’d kill them. I said he’d shoot them.” The perpetual twinkle in Bon’s eye made it impossible to tell when he was joking. “But ye needn’t worry the lads’ll think less o’ ye because of it. He’s also made it clear ye’re not his woman.”
Jamie’s woman.
Just a day ago, those words would have both outraged and terrified her. Now they sent a dangerous little thrill shivering through her soul.
She turned all of her attention to flipping the bacon with the tip of the knife, some perverse urge driving her to ask, “Has your Jamie had a lot of women?”
“Any lad born with a face like that can have as many women as he wants.”
It took her a moment to realize Bon hadn’t actually answered her question. When she slanted him a probing look, he blinked at her, looking as innocent as his fox-like little face would allow.
“Have you any potatoes?” she asked.
“I’ve got one, miss.” Emma started as the hulking man with the scar carved deep into his left cheek thrust his hand over Bon’s shoulder.
She hadn’t realized Jamie’s men had been creeping closer, drawn by the succulent aroma of the bacon she was gently coaxing to crisp perfection. Most of them were still keeping at a respectful distance, as if working up the courage to approach.
Bon scowled at the man. “Ye know better than to sneak up on a lass like that, Lemmy. With that face o’ yers, ye’re liable to give her a fright she won’t survive.”
The towering man ducked his head shyly, his drooping mustache with its curling ends making his long face look even more melancholy. “Beg yer pardon, miss. I didna mean to startle ye.”
Shooting Bon a chiding look, Emma took the potato from Lemmy’s hand. “Why, thank you, Mr.… Mr.… Lemmy. That’s precisely what I needed.”
His offering was slightly withered and sprouting more eyes than a gorgon, but Emma made a great show of slicing it into neat cubes and dropping them into the pan next to the bacon, where they began to soften in the hot grease.
“I’ve more where that one come from, miss,” Lemmy announced eagerly before heading back to his saddlebags.
“If Jamie were here,” Emma muttered, stirring the potatoes with the point of the knife, “I suppose he’d try to convince me the earl personally cut that scar into Lemmy’s cheek with his engraved letter opener for stealing a potato.”
“’Tweren’t a potato, but a bushel o’ turnips. And ’tweren’t the earl,” Bon said matter-of-factly. “The auld buzzard don’t like to get his own hands bluidy so he ordered one o’ his men to hold Lemmy down while his gamekeeper did it.”
Emma jerked her head up, gazing at Bon in horror. “The same gamekeeper who was going to cut off Graeme’s hand?”
Bon shook his head. “The one before him. Or was it the one before that?” He ticked off a few gamekeepers on his fingers before giving up with a shrug. “The earl always did have deadly taste in gamekeepers. The more bluidthirsty, the better, as far as he’s concerned.”
Emma swallowed, her appetite suddenly deserting her. She was still having difficulty believing the gentle soul who had rescued her family from ruin could be the monster these men were describing. Perhaps he just had terrible judgment when it came to hiring gamekeepers.
“Your cousin told me all about the longstanding enmity between the Hepburns and the Sinclairs,” she said. “But this hatred between he and the earl seems more virulent somehow… more personal. Have you any idea why Jamie despises the man so?”
“All ye need to know is that Jamie Sinclair never does anythin’ without a damn fine reason.”
“Even kidnap another man’s bride?”
When Bon looked away, no longer able to meet her eyes, she knew she had struck a raw nerve.
“Why, you don’t know what those reasons are, do you?” she said, understanding beginning to dawn. “That’s why you were saying those dreadful things about me, wasn’t it? To try and goad him into telling you.”
A muscle in Bon’s jaw twitched, but he kept his gaze fixed on the leaping flames of the fire. “He’s always had a temper and a wild streak, just like his grandfather and all the Sinclairs who came before him, but I’ve never known him to be reckless. I don’t know what he wants from the earl but I do know it’s got a powerful hold on him. He’s willin’ to risk everythin’, includin’ all our necks, to get it.”
Before Emma could press him further, a young fellow with moss-green eyes and a thick ginger beard appeared at her elbow to offer her a dirty package wrapped in paper and string. “I’ve some more bacon, miss.”
“And I’ve some bread,” said another man, shyly handing over half a loaf of brown bread so stale it felt like a rock in her hand.
“And we’ve some cheese,” Malcolm and Angus chimed in unison. They engaged in a brief shoving match to determine which one of them would win the privilege of dusting the furry, green crust of mold off the cheese before presenting it to her with a flourish.
As the rest of Jamie’s men gathered around her, Emma studied their expectant faces. They looked less like a band of fierce outlaws in that moment than a pack of grubby little boys desperate for a warm sugar biscuit straight out of the oven.
Shaking her head ruefully, she said, “Stand back, lads. A lady needs room to work.”
WHEN JAMIE CAME STRIDING back into the camp, the last sight he expected to see was his men hunched over tin plates, shoveling food into their mouths with the blades of their knives as if they hadn’t eaten in a month and might never again have the chance.
He might have been more mystified by their behavior if the irresistible aroma of sizzling bacon hadn’t come drifting to his own nose, luring him forward. Even though he’d eaten a chunk of stale bread paired with a thin strip of dried venison before slipping out of camp before dawn had yet to blush the sky, the succulent aroma still made his stomach clench with yearning.
That yearning sharpened to something infinitely more dangerous when he saw the woman presiding over their feast. Emma was leaning over Graeme’s shoulder, scraping a fresh serving of potatoes—fried up tender on the inside and crispy on the outside just the way Jamie liked them—onto the boy’s plate. Graeme gave her an adoring look before stuffing a heaping portion into his already full mouth.
Jamie glanced at the other men’s plates to discover more potatoes, several rashers of bacon and thick slabs of bread toasted in bacon grease with cheese melted over the top.
He shook his head in disbelief. “’Tis a good thing we’ll have food and shelter tonight since you lads appear to be gobbling down the stores of a fortnight in one sitting.”
The men still had enough of their wits about them to look abashed but they didn’t stop eating.
“Could I interest you in some breakfast, Mr. Sinclair?” Emma asked, the crisp formality of her tone only serving to remind him of the helpless little sounds she had made at the back of her throat while he was kissing her last night. She plucked a rasher of bacon from her own plate and offered it to him.
He reluctantly took the bacon from her fingers, knowing exactly how Adam must have felt when Eve handed him the apple.
Still eyeing her warily, he sampled a piece of the crisp pork. If the smell was heavenly, the taste was pure rapture. Before he knew it, the entire rasher was gone and he was licking the grease from his fingertips without a hint of either manners or shame.
“The lass cooks like an angel,” Bon mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes. “If she wasn’t already promised to the earl, I’d marry her meself.”
“Why, thank you, Bon,” Emma replied, beaming with pleasure. “Even though my mother said it was a common pastime hardly befitting a lady, I’ve always loved to cook. When I was a little girl, Cookie used to have to chase me o
ut of her kitchen with a broom. Fortunately, it was a passion that served my family in good stead after Cookie… retired.”
She lowered her eyes to avoid Jamie’s sharp gaze. She had probably taken over the cooking after her papa had squandered Cookie’s wages on faro and cheap gin. Jamie couldn’t help but wonder if any of her sisters had ever lifted a hand to help her.
Reminded of the errand that had sent him stealing out of the camp before any of them had risen from their bedrolls, he retrieved the brace of cleaned and dressed hares slung over his shoulder and tossed them at her feet.
As her startled blue eyes met his, he said, “As long as you’re riding with me, you’ll never lack for fresh meat on your table.”
With that, he turned on his heel and headed for his horse. “Finish stuffing your faces and pack up your gear. If we wish to reach Muira’s before midnight, there’s no time to dawdle.”
“Who is this Muira?” Emma called after him.
“A friend,” he said shortly. “And don’t get too attached to the lass,” he tossed over his shoulder to his men. “She’s not a pet. You can’t keep her.”
As their crestfallen groans echoed in his ears, Jamie decided he might do well to heed his own warning.
JAMIE DROVE THEM AT a relentless pace through that endless day, frequently glancing back over his shoulder as if fleeing some devil only he could see.
At first Emma tried to sit stiffly in the saddle behind him, pride preventing her from clinging to him. But after the third time she was forced to make a frantic grab for the back of his vest to keep herself from sliding off the horse and over the edge of a cliff, Jamie bit off an exasperated oath, dismounted and swung himself back up behind her. Sliding one arm around her waist, he tugged her into the cradle of his thighs with a grip that warned he was in no mood to be defied.
As the hills grew steeper, the trees more scarce and the terrain ever more rugged, Emma was almost thankful for his bullying. Without his imposing chest and muscular arms to support her, she probably would have gone tumbling into some stony ravine and broken her neck.
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