My Lord Jack

by Hope Tarr

  Her greatest challenge had been in controlling the beast beneath her and navigating the throng, for her previous horseback riding had been limited to the parkland of Phillippe’s country estate. Barring a few minor mishaps, she’d soon enough found herself on solitary country lanes, rambling alongside fields littered with bracken and the husks of harvested crops. She made her way westward, skirting the Firth of Forth. Occasionally an errant cow or sheep crossed her path, a drover or farmer in chase, but otherwise she’d met no one. She was too far from the coastline to see the water, but she fancied there was the tang of salt in the air. There was even a glint of sunshine in the gray-washed skies above and the roads were blessedly dry. She’d be in Linlithgow within the hour, she felt certain, and then somehow she’d find a way to have Jack’s mare returned to him. The horse was costly but, more to the point, she’d come to understand how deeply he felt for the creatures under his care—no point in adding to her mounting pile of sins by stealing his beloved mount as well.

  Lost in her thoughts, when she first became aware of the pounding echo she shrugged it off as the beginnings of a headache. But no, the steady drumming came from behind, not within, and seemed to grow both closer and louder until it shook the very earth beneath her horse’s hooves. Another traveler, of course. Tamping down panic—she couldn’t expect to be the only one out and about on such a fine day—she slowed her horse to a walk and ventured a backward glance.

  At first sight the brownish-black dot bobbing along the horizon might have been a visual illusion caused by her staring directly at the sun. Or perhaps some distant landmark she’d failed to notice ere now? Only, like the expanding pupil of a startled eye, the dot grew ever larger until all at once it lost its circularity and assumed the shape of a single horse and rider.

  The sun broke free from its cover of clouds to limn both man and mount in golden light. The horseman’s bared head seemed to burst into flame. Recognition slammed into Claudia. Though she’d all but brought the mare to a standstill, she clutched the saddle to keep her seat. Jack Hamish Campbell charged toward her at full gallop, his black cape flying behind him.

  A treacherous trill shot through her even as she turned about and dug her knees into the mare’s sides. She’d purposefully taken the mare and left Jack Beelzebub because she’d feared the larger, more spirited bay would be too much for her. Now she regretted that decision and regretted it heartily. The mare might be light and strong enough to best the bay in a short race, but for the longer haul she hadn’t the stallion’s staying power.

  Some small stubborn part of her balked at being so easily conquered. She reached back and laid a stinging slap on the mare’s muscular hindquarters. The horse let out a shriek and bolted forward. Her loosened hair slashing at her face, Claudia crouched low over the saddle, dug in her knees and hung on for dear life.

  Closing in, Jack called for her to halt.

  “Jamais! Never!” she called back without turning around and struck the reins across her mare’s sweaty shoulders.

  The wind picked up, carrying a stream of Celtic curses to her ears. There was no help for it. He was gaining on her. Soon bay and mare were running neck to neck along the rock-strewn path, their exhaled breaths forming twin clouds of steam. Claudia knew she should keep her gaze ahead but she couldn’t resist a quick sideways peek at her pursuer. Sweat streaming the sides of his face, Jack turned to look at her. Gone was the soft-spoken man who was never too busy to return a fallen bird to its nest, deliver a tonic to a rheumy old woman, or untangle a child’s kite from the branches of a tree. Eyes gleaming feral and dark as chestnuts, white teeth bared, and hair flying back from his face like a crimson flag, this Jack was a stranger to her. For the first time since she’d first stepped inside his cottage, Claudia was well and truly afraid of him.

  “Rein in before ye break yer bluidy neck. Or I’m minded to break it for ye,” he demanded, fury thickening his burr into a full brogue.

  He shot out a hand and caught at her horse’s bridle. Foolishly she slackened her grip on the reins, which he wrenched from her, too.

  “Give those back!” She leaned across the gap between the horses and reached out.

  Jack’s eyes widened. “Mind the road, ye wee idjut!”

  She whipped her head about and saw that they had veered off into a small copse. The trunk of a massive birch loomed just ahead, and the frenzied mare was headed directly for it. Claudia screamed and grabbed for her saddle’s pommel, the only thing she’d left to hold on to.

  But Jack had both sets of reins firmly in hand and, cursing furiously, he somehow managed to cut a sharp left. They bypassed the tree with bare inches to spare, Claudia’s cape catching on bark, and came to a teeth-slamming halt.

  Shaking with reaction, head whirring from the speed and the nearness to which she’d come to dying yet again, she watched Jack leap down from the saddle. She gasped when he reached for her, powerful hands closing about her waist in a far from gentle hold.

  With the immediate threat of crashing into the tree removed, Claudia’s thoughts turned inward. Close, she’d come so very close. Seven miles more, ten at most, and she would have gained the sanctuary of her father’s castle where, she told herself, nothing bad would ever touch her again. Bitter anger swallowed up every other emotion, enabling her to forget that her first reaction to Jack’s pursuit had been relief.

  “Non!” She kicked out with her foot, still caught in the stirrup, and shoved at Jack’s shoulders.

  “Suit yourself.” He released her and she half fell, half slid from the saddle onto the spongy turf.

  Panting, she stared up at him and from somewhere found the breath to ask, “H-how…how did y-you f-find me?”

  Arms crossed, he glared down at her. “Och, but even an unschooled clot-head such as myself can reckon one and one sums to two, though it took me a while, I’ll grant you that.” The look of loathing he lanced her sent a chill of dread shooting down her spine. “When Luicas was minded of how you’d said you were going ‘home,’ I didna think it was back to France.” He laughed then, and the harsh, biting sound of it made Claudia wince. Turning away to rummage through his saddlebag, he continued, “Then I was minded that it was to Linlithgow you’d first asked me to take ye. But to be sure, I had a wee chat with the lad who’d saddled the mare for you. So you see, mistress, ye’re no quite so clever as you like to think.”

  Claudia didn’t feel clever. She didn’t feel clever at all. Anger spent, she fumbled beneath her cloak for a handkerchief. When she looked back up she saw Jack advancing on her. An arrow of sunlight shot through the treetops, setting off the glint of metal in his one hand. In a flash of pure blinding panic, she realized the object he carried was a set of wrist shackles.

  She shook her head, seeking even now to dislodge all the memories associated with that particular implement—Maman, Phillippe and most recently that day two months before when, hobbled hands gripping the prisoner’s bar, she’d looked back to a sea of stern-faced villagers and prepared herself to die.

  “Oh, Jack,” she said, dimly aware that her tears flowed freely now. “Oh, please, no.” She backed up, striking the mare’s damp side, but the horse didn’t budge.

  And neither, it seemed, would Jack. “Give me your hands,” he said, already reaching for them.

  Dumb with horror, she shoved them behind her, continuing to shake her head though her throat had gone too dry to voice further protest.

  Indecision flickered across his face, giving her a moment’s hope, but then steely resolution returned. “Now Claudia,” he began reasonably. Another step brought him directly in front of her. “Dinna make this any harder on yourself than it need be.”

  Reaching behind her, he caught her left arm. When she resisted, he tightened his hold, forcing it around to the front. She struck out with her free hand, but it was no use. Hearing the metal cuff clamp closed, feeling the cold finality of the steel banding her wrist, she suddenly saw why it was that wild animals sometimes gnawed off their trap
ped limbs rather than submit to capture. Panicked, she reached out with her free hand and dragged her nails down the side of his face. He cried out and reared back even as his hand, powerful as any manacle, kept its bruising hold. Another few seconds of wrangling while he maneuvered her arm above her head and then the second metal cuff locked in place, signaling her defeat.

  Chest heaving, Jack stepped back. Swiping a hand down his bloodied cheek, he said, “You’re no one to make things easy, are ye?”

  Finding her voice at last, she took a step toward him, chains clinking. “I am not a good horsewoman. If you do not free my hands, I will not be able to keep my seat.”

  “Nay worries,” he answered, already moving to tie the mare’s reins to those of the bay. “You’ll be riding with me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Judging from Claudia’s stiff posture, slender back held ramrod rigid to keep from brushing against him, she did not relish the ride back to Edinburgh. Just before they entered the city gates, exhaustion finally bested pride and she fell back against him. It was bad enough he’d spent the past few hours inhaling her scent. To also have her slender torso molded to his belly and chest and her firm little rump wedged inside the vee of his open thighs was torture pure and simple. Despite the brisk air and the chill brought on by the setting sun, his cock and balls burned hot as cinders.

  To ward off desire, he focused his thoughts on the myriad ways she’d wronged him. That she’d lied to him alone sufficed to put her beyond the pale. But she’d also bamboozled his apprentice, stolen his horse and then ridden off without leaving so much as a note. That he hadn’t merited so much as a few scribbled lines of farewell cut deepest of all. He should hate her, he did hate her and yet he wanted her still, more now than before—and that made him hate her all the more.

  A league or so from Edinburgh, he’d stopped to take off the manacles. Not because he felt guilty, well, at least not much, but because he didn’t care to draw any more unwanted attention. Far better for the Tweedies, indeed all the inn’s occupants, to believe that he and his “wife” had simply had a lovers’ quarrel than to suspect the truth.

  Or at least that’s the reason he gave himself as they rode into the cobblestone inn yard. He dismounted, hurled the reins to the sleepy-eyed ostler and then turned back to lift Claudia down. But instead of setting her on her feet, he tossed her over his shoulder.

  “Set me down, you…you swine.” She punctuated the demand with a kick that went no further than the air.

  Jack laughed a bitter laugh and shifted her to hang sack style over his left shoulder. For the benefit of the boy, who stood staring at them open-mouthed, the reins all but forgotten in his hand, he said, “Now is that anyway to address your lord and master? Are ye no happy to be once more in my arms, my sweet?” He started up the steps to the entrance, Claudia making use of her freed hands to pummel his back.

  Gaining the landing, he reached for the brass doorknob even as the knob turned and the door swung back. Mistress Tweedie must have been watching for them at the window. Chubby hand braced on the doorframe, she looked from Jack to Claudia slung over his shoulder.

  “Why, Mistress Campbell,” she shrilled, angling her capped head to address Claudia. “Good heavens but what a fright ye gave us all, ridin’ off by yourself like that.” Looking past Claudia to Jack, she gushed, “Will you and the missus be taking supper in your rooms then, Master Campbell? I’ve a lovely leg o’ mutton saved back from supper and jacket potatoes and apple tart for dessert.”

  Balancing a seething, squirming Claudia in his arms, Jack moved to step past her.

  “Pray dinna trouble, Mistress Tweedie,” he said, reaching for a rush light from the demilune table set next to the stairs. “My wife and I will be retiring.”

  “But surely a bite of supper first and then—”

  “Good night, Mistress Tweedie,” he called back, already halfway up the stairs.

  “Jack,” Claudia protested, slamming a knuckled hand into his shoulder when he kept on. “I am hungry. I have not eaten all day.”

  “And whose fault might that be?” he demanded, stalking down the hallway to their room.

  On his orders, Luicas had left the door to their chamber unlocked. He shouldered it open and stepped inside. Reaching around Claudia’s flailing feet, he slipped the candle in the wall bracket and then pulled the door closed with a satisfying slam.

  The dressing room door opened simultaneously and Luicas stuck his tousled head out, Elf holding to his side. “Mistress Claudia, ye’re back!” he announced, beaming, as though he hadn’t spent his morning roasting inside a locked wardrobe on account of her.

  Jack, however, was in a far less forgiving mood. Stalking toward the bed, he barked, “Leave us and dinna even think about coming out again until morning.”

  The boy’s smile dropped with the swiftness of a falling brick. “G’night, then,” he said and, ducking back inside, pulled the door closed.

  Coming up on the bed, Jack threw a wriggling Claudia down upon the mattress, so hard that she bounced.

  She pulled herself up on her elbows, eyes flashing. “You promised you would not beat me.”

  “And you promised ye wouldna run off, so I suppose that makes us both liars.” He came down on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. A palm braced on either side of her, face bare inches from hers, he hissed, “Tell me, Claudia, what’s in Linlithgow that you maun risk your neck to get there, and dinna give me that shite about dressmaking. I’ve seen your handiwork with needle and thread—ye’d no last so much as a day.”

  Eyes mutinous, she tried pushing at his chest. “I do not owe you an explanation.”

  “Och, but ye owe me. Were it no for me and the lies I told about your addled wits you’d be rotting on the end of a gibbet ere now.”

  “Ah oui, Monsieur le Borreau, you would like that, would you not?”

  For the first time in more than a month she’d called him the name, and he was stunned at how much hearing it hurt. To anchor his anger, he grabbed hold of her wrists. “Who are you?”

  “You already know who I am.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes; normally the promise of them would suffice to soften him, but frustrated desire and hurt swallowed up all softer feelings, most especially pity. These past two months he’d treated her with kindness and consideration, had begun to gift her with his trust, and still she’d played him for a fool. Now he meant to break her, not her body but her will, and if they must tangle and snap at each other like a pair of wild beasts, then so be it.

  “I ken yer name, witch, if indeed Claudia Valemont is your true name, but I dinna ken you.” He stretched her arms above her head, his thumbs sinking into soft, delicately veined skin.

  “Bête! Cochon.” She tried kneeing him, but he caught her before she could get her leg up. To ward off further attack, he shoved a knee between her legs, spreading them wide.

  She was little and she was light but she fought him with all she had and like a cat with claws unsheathed she proved herself to be a formidable opponent. Sweat streamed the sides of his face, salting the fresh scratches on his cheek.

  “The day of your sentencing you said your sire was an earl—a Scottish earl. Why, Claudia? Why would you say such a thing if it wer’na true?”

  Head lashing the pillow, she cried out, “I told you, I told you, I did not wish to die.”

  “And then there’s the wee matter of your hands.” He grabbed one now and turned it on the pillow above her head to regard the ring of newly formed calluses rimming the flesh where her fingers joined her palm. “Until two months ago these hands had ne’er done so much as a day’s labor. Had they? Had they! What really brought you to Scotland, Claudia? Damn you, answer me!” he demanded when she only pressed her lips together. Firm, full and infinitely kissable, that lovely, lying mouth was the portal to all the answers he sought. “Verra well,” he said, a sudden treacherous calm claiming him. “As I willna let ye up until I have the truth, and ye willna see your wa
y to giving it to me, I suppose we’re in for a long night of it.”

  Claudia was still struggling when the shock of his mouth coming down on hers caused her to go stock-still. At the first bruising assault, she felt the resistance draining from her limbs. She stopped fighting his hold, stopped fighting him and melted into the moment. The scrape of Jack’s unshaven jaw against her cheek. The bright crimson stripes where she’d scored his cheek. The earthy aroma of sweat and musk and man mingled with the evergreen and mint of the soap he’d used. After the first crushing onslaught he gentled both his kiss and his hold. His mouth was firm on hers, steady and sure but not hurtful, and the thumbs that had been pressing into her pulse points now moved over the insides of her chafed wrists in slow, soothing circles.

  She moaned into his mouth, some foolish endearment intertwined with his name. He tasted nice, delicious even. Some combination of cinnamon and mint, she thought, with perhaps a pinch of anisette. And though she’d promised herself she’d fight him tooth and nail, when he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she sighed and opened for him like a flower.

  He slipped inside, delved, explored. With his tongue he teased the sensitive underside of her lip, touched the tip to hers, then plunged deeper. There was anger in his kiss still but there was tenderness too and passion such as she’d dreamt of, prayed for, but until now never truly known. The combination was a heady mix of magic and madness, and Claudia couldn’t think beyond the heat.

  Still kissing her, he released her wrists, filled one palm with her breast, hesitated, sighed and then gently squeezed. Pleasure or rather the promise of it, streaked through her, ending in little teasing tongues of flame that lapped at her lower belly and brought her womanhood to full throbbing life. At some point her legs had become wrapped around his torso. She felt cool air brush her stocking-clad calves, the draft reaching up to her bared thighs, and the hard, hot heat of him pressed against her belly and knew that despite their quarrel, despite her lies and his fury, she wanted to take him inside her.