Chapter Twenty-one
JAMIE COULD HEAR THE fuse attached to the legendary Sinclair temper smoldering in his head. It grew louder each day as they waited at the auld abbey ruins carved out of the stony hillside for Graeme to return with word from the Hepburn.
Jamie had spent a lifetime striving to master that temper, but he feared it was only a matter of time before that slow, steady hiss drowned out all patience and reason, resulting in an explosion that could destroy them all.
The last time he’d lost it, a man had ended up dead. Some might argue the man had needed killing, but no amount of justification could wash the stain of his blood from Jamie’s hands. That stain had cost him his dearest friend and it would be there until the day he died.
He had spent the long hours waiting for the Hepburn’s response prowling the crumbling ruins, his burning gaze searching the vale far below for any sign of an approaching rider. The morning of the fourth day found him simply sitting at the foot of a flight of stone stairs leading to nowhere, his stillness more ominous than the brooding underbellies of the clouds hovering over the mountain.
His men sought to relieve their tension by stuffing one of Angus’ auld shirts with dead leaves, hanging it from a tree and using it as a target to practice their archery. Which wouldn’t have been so distracting if they hadn’t invited Emma to join them.
Jamie’s eyes narrowed as her merry laughter rang out like one of the bells that had once graced this abbey. She’d barely spoken two words to him since following him to the glen where his parents had died but now she was grinning at Bon as if they’d been lifelong mates. It was impossible to tell if she was oblivious to the brewing storm or just didn’t give a flying fig. Jamie suspected the latter.
She’d somehow managed to twist her rebellious copper curls into an untidy knot, exposing the graceful curve of her throat and the downy dip of her nape where Jamie longed to touch his lips. His eyes narrowed further as Bon put his wiry arms around her slender shoulders to help her nock the arrow and draw back the string. The arrow left the bow with a sprightly zing, sailing across the clearing to pierce the crooked heart Malcolm had traced on the chest of the target with berry juice.
The men set up a hearty cheer but it died in their throats when one of them glanced over his shoulder and saw Jamie watching them. Emma marched blithely over and wrenched the arrow from the target, a triumphant smile curving her lips.
She was probably wishing it were one of his shirts, Jamie thought grimly. And that he was wearing it.
He ran a weary hand over his jaw. It was no wonder his nerves were shot. It wasn’t as if he’d been sleeping very well.
Or at all.
How was he supposed to sleep when Emma’s bedroll was only a few feet from his own? He was too busy glowering at the back of her tousled head to sleep. Too busy remembering what it had felt like to pass that first night on the road with her nestled trustingly in his arms. Too busy reliving those magical moments in the cottage when she had twined her fingers through his hair and kissed him as if she was on the verge of letting him do all of the tender, wicked things he had been aching to do since the first moment he had laid eyes on her.
He hadn’t even wasted his time trying to sleep last night. He had simply climbed to the top of a crumbling stone arch and spent the endless hours until dawn listening for the distant echo of hoofbeats.
Just like the ones that were now drowning out the steady hiss of the fuse in his head.
He surged to his feet, wondering if he’d dozed off into a dream. But the faint vibration of the rubble beneath his feet left little doubt that someone was coming. Emma glanced over at him, her smile fading.
He’d been waiting for this moment ever since his grandfather had taken him to that glen when he was nine years auld and shown him where his parents had been shot down in cold blood. So how was he to explain the sudden dread blunting the edges of his anticipation; the sinking sensation that finally getting what he had been waiting for just might cost him everything he had ever wanted?
A lone rider topped the edge of the bluff. Jamie’s dread and anticipation had both been for naught. It wasn’t Graeme returning with word from the Hepburn but simply the lookout Jamie had dispatched the previous night to scout the floor of the vale below.
Carson slid off his mount, his downcast eyes and the brief shake of his head telling Jamie everything he needed to know.
For a moment that seemed to hang suspended out of time, there was nothing but a white hot silence as the smoldering fuse finally reached the powder keg in Jamie’s brain.
He exploded off the steps, pacing the length of the clearing in long, furious strides.
“Take cover, lads,” he heard Bon murmur through the roaring in his ears. “Here we go.”
“What in the bluidy hell does that miserable whoreson of a Hepburn think he’s doing?” Raking a hand through his hair, Jamie wheeled around only a step before he would have crashed into a tree at full tilt. “Has the mon gone completely daft? Why would he be fool enough to leave his helpless bride in the hands of a band of desperate men, knowing full well that every second he delays they could be doing any number of turrible things to her?”
He went charging back across the clearing. His men had heeded Bon’s warning and all retreated a step or two. Only Emma was bold enough to remain in his path, forcing him to either stop or trample right over her.
He jerked himself to a halt and stabbed a finger toward her chest, thankful to have found a target for his ire. “Why, look at you! You don’t belong here! You’re just a wee Sassenach lass without the good sense God gave a mushroom.”
She blinked up at him, her dusky blue eyes strangely serene, the loose tendrils that had escaped her untidy knot of hair blowing gently in the breeze.
“You should never have been let out of your bedchamber without a nursemaid and a fully armed guard, much less out of England! Isn’t your doting bridegroom the least bit worried about what might be happening to you right now? Why, if you were my woman…”
His words echoed through the ruins like a crack of spring thunder, followed by a silence so complete you could have heard a caterpillar inching its way across a leaf. A ridiculous wave of heat began to creep up Jamie’s throat as he realized that not only Emma but everyone on that hillside was holding their collective breath, waiting for him to finish.
“What, Jamie?” Emma finally asked softly, her use of his Christian name stinging more than a slap. “If I were your woman, just what would you do?”
Unable to answer the bold challenge in her eyes, Jamie turned his back on her, turned his back on them all. He paced a few steps away to the edge of the bluff and stood with hands on hips, gazing off into the misty gray haze that hovered over the distant moors. That was when he heard a most unexpected sound behind him.
Emma was laughing.
He slowly pivoted to find his men retreating yet another step, as if they feared a fresh explosion of his temper, this one even more damaging than the last.
“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Emma asked, her eyes sparkling with tears. His men might mistake them for tears of mirth but he knew better. “The joke is on you. The earl wouldn’t waste so much as a handful of shillings to save me. I have no value in his eyes. I was never anything more to him than an empty womb where he could plant his seed. And God only knows there are plenty of those for sale between here and London.”
She shook her head, her husky ripple of laughter mocking them both. “You’ve tortured my poor family and dragged me halfway to hell and back for naught. He’s never going to give you what you want. He doesn’t care what you do to me. So there’s no longer any need for you to play the gentleman.” This time it was her turn to close the distance between them. Stopping so close he could see the agitated pulse fluttering in the creamy column of her throat, the enticing quiver of her bottom lip, she tipped back her head to look him in the eye. “So go ahead, Jamie Sinclair. Do your worst.”
For one dark moment, J
amie was tempted to do just that. Tempted to seize her by the hand and haul her deep into those ruins where he could show her just exactly what he would do if she were his woman.
Everything he would do if she were his woman.
“Jamie?” Bon’s voice was barely a whisper.
Jamie continued to gaze down into Emma’s eyes, transfixed by the unforeseen power of her passion.
“Jamie?” Bon repeated, more urgently this time.
“What in the bluidy hell do you—” Jamie swung around just in time to see Graeme come staggering out of the trees on foot.
Chapter Twenty-two
GRAEME WAS CLASPING HIS ribs in a white-knuckled grip. One of the boy’s eyes was swollen shut and an ugly bruise, already beginning to yellow around the edges, stained his clenched jaw.
Several of the men rushed to aid him but it was Jamie who reached him first. He slipped an arm around Graeme’s shoulders just as the boy’s legs began to crumple beneath him.
“Would’ve been here sooner…” he rasped out, leaning heavily against Jamie’s chest. “Damn horse threw a shoe a few leagues back.”
As his men gathered around them, Jamie eased Graeme to a reclining position on the ground, stricken by guilt. He should have known Hepburn wouldn’t have any qualms about shooting the messenger. He should have sent Bon—someone who was as crafty as the Hepburn, someone who wouldn’t have underestimated the auld buzzard’s potential for treachery.
“What did those bastards do to you?” Jamie demanded, wincing along with Graeme as he ran a careful hand over the boy’s battered ribcage.
“Nothin’ I won’t survive.” Graeme grinned up at him, his split lip giving his smile a rakish tilt. “Got in a few good licks meself, I did. Made those fancy footmen o’ the earl’s think twice aboot knockin’ heads with Graeme MacGregor.” Reaching inside his jacket, Graeme tugged out a leather pouch, his hand trembling ever so slightly. “I did just what ye said, Jamie. I gave the Hepburn yer letter and he said to give this to ye.”
Jamie accepted the offering, managing a pained smile of his own. “You did us all proud, lad. Especially me.”
As Jamie rose, Lemmy dropped down to take his place, tugging Graeme’s head into his lap with a gentleness that should have been impossible for his enormous hands.
Jamie gazed down at the Hepburn’s missive. No cheap foolscap this but a thick sheet of creamy vellum, folded into perfect thirds and sealed with a daub of crimson wax bearing the Hepburn’s crest.
He broke the seal and carefully unfolded the paper beneath the watchful eyes of his men.
Even though he’d never learned to read, Bon bounced up and down on his tiptoes in a desperate attempt to see over his shoulder. “Don’t leave us danglin’, lad. What does it say?”
It didn’t take Jamie long to scan the handful of curt words scrawled on the paper. He refolded it with painstaking care. He had imagined this moment for so long, had anticipated the dizzying rush of triumph he would feel.
But as he lifted his eyes to meet Emma’s questioning gaze, he felt nothing but a piercing stab of regret. “He’s agreed to our demands. The ransom is to be delivered on the morrow.”
He only managed to hold Emma’s gaze for an elusive moment before she turned and disappeared into the ruins without a word.
EMMA SAT AT THE EDGE OF the round stone platform that had once housed the old bell tower of the abbey, hugging one knee to her chest. The roof and most of the walls of the structure had collapsed long ago, leaving the platform open to the sky and reachable only by a flight of narrow stone stairs worn nearly smooth by rain and time.
The wind that usually raged so passionately over this mountain had subsided to a mild breeze that sighed against her cheek and toyed with the loose tendrils of hair at her nape. The moon hung over the uppermost peak of the mountain like a glowing pearl, twice the size it had been in Lancashire yet still far beyond her reach.
A loose pebble went skittering off the far edge of the platform.
She turned, unable to stop a treacherous surge of hope from leaping in her heart. But it was only Bon who emerged from the shadows at the top of the stairs. He hovered at the fringes of the moonlight, plainly uncertain of his welcome.
“Don’t worry, Bon. It’s safe,” she assured him. “I’m not armed.”
He moved to stand beside her, his snaggle-toothed grin no longer menacing to her eyes but winsome. “The way ye were handlin’ that bow today, I’d wager a man’s heart will never be entirely safe as long as ye’re around.”
“Perhaps that’s why your cousin is so eager to be rid of me,” Emma replied lightly, hoping to hide the bitter edge in her voice. “Why aren’t you down there celebrating with him? He must be beside himself with joy. After all, the earl is about to give him his heart’s desire.”
“He still won’t tell me or any o’ the lads what that is. And it’s not like Jamie to keep secrets from me.”
“This may be the first time he’s ever had one worth keeping.”
“We wouldn’t begrudge him nothin’ he wanted,” Bon admitted. “He’s sacrificed too much for us. He’s allus been a canny lad, ye know, haulin’ around books he was barely big enough to carry. He could have stayed down there in the Lowlands and made his own fortune like a proper gent. But when he heard his grandfather was ailin’, he came back here. To take care o’ us. To take care o’ everyone on this mountain who’ve always depended upon the Sinclairs for their survival.” Bon hesitated as if he longed to say something else. Something more. But he finally just ducked his head, gazing down at his feet. “I just come to tell ye I’m sorry we ruined yer wedding. And I hope ye and the earl will be”—he cleared his throat, plainly struggling to choke out the words—“verra happy together.”
“Thank you,” Emma whispered, the sudden tightness of her own throat making it impossible for her to offer him any other absolution.
After he had made his way back down the stairs, leaving her alone, she turned her face back to the moon only to find it shimmering behind a watery veil. The girl who had gazed upon that same moon from her bedchamber window as it drifted over her father’s orchard seemed like a stranger to her now—a naïve child who had believed a man’s quality could be measured by the eloquence of his speech or the fine cut of his coat.
How was she to accompany the earl’s men back down that mountain on the morrow and pretend she was still that girl, who had never tasted Jamie’s kiss, never felt her body begin to melt beneath the smoldering heat of his desire for her? How could she be content with jewels and furs and gold or even a nursery full of children conceived not out of love or passion but desperation and duty?
After feeling her body and her heart come alive beneath Jamie’s touch, how would it be possible to lie night after night in long-suffering silence with the earl grunting and heaving on top of her, her teeth clenched to keep from screaming? Especially now that she knew he might not be a kindly old man after all but a murderer, ruthless enough to cut down his own son for daring to love the wrong woman.
She blinked back her tears, bringing the moon into crisp focus. She wasn’t the same girl she had been and she would never be that girl again. No matter the cost, she was no longer willing to deny her own passions, her own desires, simply to preserve the peace of those around her. Her mother had spent Emma’s entire life living just such a lie, sacrificing her own happiness so she could go on making excuses for Emma’s papa.
But she was not her mother. And she was no longer the girl who had stood before that altar in the abbey of Hepburn Castle, prepared to pledge her heart to a man she would never love.
All she needed was someone to help her prove it.
* * *
JAMIE BRACED BOTH HIS hands against the rough stone of the abbey’s altar. That single stone had somehow survived the devastation of battle and years of neglect, proving there were some things even time could not destroy.
He wondered how many christenings it had seen, how many weddings, how many burials. How ma
ny lives had begun there? How many had ended?
The small church had been a ruin for as long as he could remember, no doubt destroyed in one of the many wars and skirmishes that had left their scars on this rugged and beautiful land. Even though it had been reduced to little more than roofless walls and moss-covered rubble, an air of dignity still hung over the place, as if neither God nor time had forgotten this had once been holy ground.
He ran his hands over the pocked stone, wishing he had the words to express the tumult he was feeling. Although he’d always been a believing man, he’d never been a praying one. He’d assumed it would be best if he and the Almighty didn’t discuss their differences of opinion.
For how could God claim vengeance was His when Jamie could feel the weight of it resting so heavily on his own shoulders? They’d always been strong enough to bear that burden in the past but now he felt as if it was dangerously close to crushing his heart. Tomorrow he would send Emma down the mountain. He would never again sleep with her warm body tucked into the shelter of his own. Never again hear his name on her lips. In a few days she would be standing before an altar just like this one, preparing once again to become the Hepburn’s bride.
He dug his fingertips into the stone, wishing he could smash the altar to rubble with his bare hands.
“Jamie?”
At first he thought he had imagined that melodic whisper of sound, that it was nothing more than a product of his own feverish longings.
Relinquishing his grip on the altar, he slowly turned.
Emma stood there at the edge of the moonlight like the ghost of all the brides who had come to this place to pledge their hearts to the men they loved.
“What do you want?” he asked hoarsely, no longer able to pretend her answer didn’t matter to him.
She lifted her chin, her gaze as cool and steady as it had been on the night she had pointed his own pistol at his heart. “I want you to ruin me.”
The Devil Wears Plaid Page 18
