Gather the Stars

by Kimberly Cates

  Let justice be done though the heavens fall...

  Ice dripped down her spine, spiraled through her soul.

  Justice.

  Whatever mystery enshrouded this man, there was no denying a single certainty. In the next few days, she would be fighting for his life.

  And in that battle, Rachel was suddenly aware she might also be fighting for her own.

  CHAPTER 6

  Something hard and knobby ground into Rachel's back, a chill seeping into her very bones. She shivered and shifted, attempting to find some comfortable spot on the cave floor, but despite her efforts in gathering up the scattered clothing into a makeshift bed, she felt as if she was dozing in a bramble patch. Even the fact that she had stripped off her corset in the dark shadows while her nemesis slept hadn't given her any ease.

  She groaned, shoving a wad of quilted satin petticoat more firmly under her cheek, but the embroidery on the garment scratched at her skin as the dampness of the cave penetrated her left stocking. Yet it was far better to endure such discomfort than to tumble back into dreams—dreams filled with gray eyes brimming with a sensitivity, an intensity, a compassion that slayed her, with a mouth, firm and inexplicably bewitching when it curved into an ironic smile.

  Galahad, as he peered down at the Maid of Astolate—a man excruciatingly alone.

  Who was he, this rebel lord whose fate now seemed locked so firmly to her own? This Englishman who dwelt in the caves hidden in the very bosom of the Scottish Highlands? Who sheltered a confused old woman, looked after a half-wild bevy of children, rode out to face a man he hated, yet forgot to take his pistol to protect himself? This man, who dismissed a threat to his own life as if it were less than nothing. As if he were less than nothing.

  Long after the Glen Lyon had drifted into sleep, Rachel had prowled the chamber, this time searching not for a weapon to arm herself, but rather for some clues, some key to unlock the mystery of the man who called himself the Glen Lyon.

  Yet the jumble of belongings she found only added to the mystery and confused her even more. Three illuminated manuscripts from medieval times had been wrapped in oilcloth, each a glowing jewel stunning in its beauty. "The Song of Merlin," "The Roman de la Rose," and "The Children of Lir"— wondrous tales brought to vibrant life by fingers that had long since turned to dust in some obscure grave. Tucked beside them were a sheaf of paper and some tiny paint pots, half-finished illuminated designs spilling across the pages, as if the monks who had labored over the beautiful manuscripts had merely slipped out of the cave to take a little sun.

  A pocketbook, awkwardly fashioned in Irish stitch, was tucked with the other cherished possessions in the trunk, a note inside it:

  Merry Christmas to Gavin Carstares, the most wonderful brother in the entire world. Thank you for not telling Mama that I fed Teddy a frog.

  Love,

  Christianne

  A small portrait, its corner water-stained, its frame battered, showed a cluster of animated, dark-eyed children aged from about three to fifteen, a mirror image of the man called Adam on one side, a laughing, red-haired woman cuddling the toddler in her arms. Only the slender golden-haired boy in the center of the portrait seemed out of place.

  As out of place as this rebel lord seemed here, in this cave in Scotland. As if he had wandered too far from the castle tower where he and his beautiful, dream-filled manuscripts belonged.

  Rachel rolled over, kicking out with one foot in frustration. Pain shot into her toe as it collided with the desk edge, rattling the jumble of things strewn across it.

  At the noise, the Glen Lyon shifted on the pallet, and Rachel heard a low curse.

  She stilled, willing the man to go back to sleep, more reluctant than she could imagine to confront her captor again. But it seemed the fates were against her.

  There was a rustle of movement, and she looked toward the cot to find the rebel regarding her with those disturbing, grave eyes.

  "What the devil..." he muttered, muzzily. The fingers of his right hand gingerly probed at the bandage. "Oh. That—that's right. Shot me. Been shooting since you were... eight."

  Rachel levered herself into a sitting position. "How are you? Does it hurt?"

  One dark brow rose with such eloquence, Rachel might have been tempted to laugh if she hadn't already been so shaken.

  "What the... devil are you doing on that... stone floor? I'm supposed to be the... one decreeing torture for you. You aren't... supposed to inflict it... on yourself."

  The man had managed to totally unsettle her again. "In case you hadn't noticed, this chamber isn't exactly brimming with beds. There is only one. You're in it. What would you have me do? Sleep with you?"

  "There's no reason why you shouldn't."

  "No reason!" Rachel sputtered, scooting away from him as if she half expected him to haul her onto the heather pallet by the tail of her robes. "You're... you're a—a man, and I'm a—"

  "A person who is going to catch... her death of cold, lying on that damp floor. There's plenty of space... up here. There's no reason why we can't... share it."

  "Aside from the fact that you are man. A virtual stranger. A—"

  "Rebel villain who had you abducted? Rachel, I told you I wouldn't hurt you. I won't so much as touch you if you... come to bed."

  Come to bed—why did that phrase sound so intimate in the velvet of the dim shadows that clung about the cave? Why was she suddenly so excruciatingly aware that the Glen Lyon was naked from the waist up, his skin gleaming with a flame-rich gold? In his sleep, his hair had come loose from the ribbon that bound it at the nape of his neck. It clung, tawny silk, in seductive contrast to the cords of his throat. His elusive eyes, stripped of their spectacles, were the color of smoke. And the pain lines that bracketed his mouth and tightened about his eyes only served to make him suddenly seem more... more... God, was it possible? Beguiling... a tousled lion—lean and drowsy and somehow dangerous.

  Rachel's mouth went dry as one long artist's hand reached out to her in invitation. "I'm perfectly comfortable here," she protested.

  "Blast it, Rachel. Even if I wanted to ravish you, at the moment, I couldn't do it."

  She regarded him, disbelieving, wondering what her real fear was—that he would touch her, or that she almost wanted him to. Her wrist still tingled where those supple, sensitive fingers had encircled it before he kissed her. "What do you mean you couldn't?" she demanded warily.

  "A man has only so much blood. When you've lost a deal of it through a wound, you haven't much to... ahem... spare. If it all goes rushing to his loins, an amorous gentleman is likely to faint dead away."

  "How could you possibly know that?"

  "By passing the camp followers' tents while we were on campaign." He grinned devilishly. "My favorite episode was the time Adam had gotten a particularly glorious wound in a skirmish, and was eager to impress the ladies by displaying it as we passed. He fell face first into the dirt the instant a pretty woman swished her skirts at him."

  Heat prickled along Rachel's cheekbones. She had seen the camp followers while traveling with her father, known them as laundresses and such. It had not been until she was older that she'd come to understand scraps of bawdy conversation she'd overheard, and realized that some of the women performed other tasks as well.

  But even that hadn't been so upsetting as the time she'd stumbled into her papa's tent while a pert, golden-curled laundress was paying him a most improper visit.

  The general had been furious, his face dull red, and it had been the only time Rachel had ever seen him embarrassed. Later, he'd had a brisk talk with her, informing her that men had needs a lady need not know about. Every man in camp visited one of the laundresses from time to time, and Rachel's mama had been dead a very long time.

  It was as if he'd not been able to decide between defending himself and forcing her to erase the incident from her memory. She had left, feeling guilty and shaken and confused. Now, so many years later, she felt a little sickened by t
he image of the Glen Lyon wrapped in a pretty camp follower's embrace.

  "Rachel?" His voice roused her from her musings, but the queasy, crawling sensation in her stomach remained.

  "Pardon me. I was just enjoying the image of you pitching face first into the dirt."

  Understanding dawned on his features. "I never managed to humiliate myself in quite that fashion. I just wanted to reassure you that you'd be safe. For God's sake, don't be stubborn, woman. There's no reason to be miserable."

  Rachel gave a choked laugh. "No reason to be miserable? I've only been kidnapped, held prisoner, shot a man, sewed up the wound—"

  "And a damn fine job you did of it, too."

  He was looking up at her with such unnerving earnestness.

  "Thunderation, don't—don't look at me like that! I'm not about to get into that bed with you!"

  The Glen Lyon swore, low. "Fine."

  He levered himself up, his face contorting with pain. His face was flushed, sweat beading on his skin with the effort it took him to rise.

  "Wh-what are you doing?"

  "Getting out of the bed so that you can take it."

  "But you can't!" Rachel gaped at him, stunned by his chivalry. "You're injured."

  He paused, sitting at the edge of the bed, bracing himself on his right arm. His left arm was tucked tight over his injured ribs. "Mistress de Lacey, I've slept in far worse places with wounds far more serious than this one. You look like the very devil after all you've been through. It won't kill me to sleep on the cave floor for one night."

  Rachel's eyes widened at his choice of words, dread cold in the pit of her stomach as her fears surged again to the surface. If anything happened to this man...

  He started to stand, and she scrambled to her feet, panic prickling inside her. "No! Don't! Please!" She rushed toward him, her hands grasping his shoulders, pressing him down.

  He groaned, wincing at the contact, but she wouldn't let him go. She was far too terrified he would insist on getting up.

  The sleek satin of his skin seared into the palms of her hands, the silky waves of his hair tangling about her fingers.

  He raised his gaze to her, and she was surprised to see a look of stubbornness she hadn't suspected the Glen Lyon possessed. "I'm not... sleeping in this... bed, while you are... on the floor, Mistress de Lacey—so you can just... let the devil go of me."

  Determination. Rachel had enough of her own supply of that quality to recognize it in another. The man was already becoming feverish. A continuing battle over who would sleep on the floor would only make him worse. Win or lose, he was spending strength he couldn't spare. There was only one thing she could do. Surrender.

  "No. Don't try to get up."

  His chin jutted out at such a mutinous angle, she finished hastily. "I—I've decided that you're right. There's no reason why we shouldn't... uh... share the bed."

  The coiled muscles beneath her palms eased a little, and he looked up at her. She was excruciatingly aware that his face was mere inches from the swells of her breasts. His breath, hot and moist and rapid from exertion, teased at her tender skin.

  She snatched her hands away as if he'd burned her, then she rubbed her palms on her skirts. "There's no reason why we shouldn't share a bed for one night. After all, it's not as if we are—are attracted to each other, or anything." Her gaze flashed to his full mouth, her lips tingling with the sudden remembrance of his swift, hot kiss. "And, anyway, you did give me your promise that you wouldn't"—she swallowed hard—"ravish me."

  She was babbling. The realization infuriated her. But if she could just get him to lie down again, go to sleep, she'd be able to slip back out of the bed without him noticing, wouldn't she?

  He eyed her suspiciously, then sank back down onto the heather ticking. His jaw knotted at the impact of hard muscle against the soft mattress, and his eyes drifted shut. In that instant, the bed seemed to shrink three sizes. She prayed that he had lost consciousness again, but it seemed the fates weren't disposed to be that kind. His voice—rough velvet— came softly.

  "Rachel. Despite all that bite-the-bullet, stiff-upper-lip rubbish, this wound hurts like hell. Lie down. Please."

  Warily, she crept to the end of the bed, the largest space in the area tucked closest to the wall. She knelt down, and attempted to crawl up into it. She tried not to jar him, but with each shifting movement of the mattress beneath her weight, she saw the Glen Lyon's jaw tighten, heard the hiss of his breath between his teeth.

  Finally, she lay down, crowded back against the cave's wall as if every inch she could squeeze between the rebel's body and her own were to be filled with gold. He was bigger than he'd appeared—long and lean, his chest rippling with muscle she'd not suspected when it was hidden beneath his clothes. The heather scent of the bed mingled with the tang of sweat, with a subtle hint of leather and wind and secrets.

  She lay there beside him, every muscle in her body stiff, the aches that had plagued her earlier intensifying a thousandfold. The silence pulsed and roared and chafed as she watched him, waited for his eyelids to grow heavy, those thick, gold-tipped lashes to drift down onto aristocratic cheekbones in sleep.

  Yet the unfathomable gray of his eyes still shimmered in the light of the candles, ageless, questing, as if he were attempting to untangle her secrets as patiently as the patterns of Celtic design she had discovered earlier.

  The sensation disturbed her so much, she was stunned to hear her own voice filling the void.

  "Who was that woman who came in earlier? Your mother?"

  "Mama Fee?" He shifted onto his right side with great care, tucking his arm beneath his head. "She is everyone's mother. Mine and Adam's and all the children that you saw when you arrived. She even mothered a wild bird fallen from its nest three weeks ago. She was born to be a mother. But she's not the woman who bore me."

  "Then how did she come to be here?"

  A long-fingered hand splayed across the bandaging at his ribs. "We found her in the ashes of a village that had been burned. One of the other women there told us that Mama Fee had seven strong sons before Prince Charlie landed at Eriskay. They ran off to join the Stuart cause. Bonnie Prince Charlie or death." There was sorrow in that deep, quiet voice. Sorrow, soul-deep.

  "She began to get letters, one by one, telling her that they were dead. Only her youngest, Timothy, was never accounted for. She believes with all her heart that he'll come home one day."

  Rachel looked away, imagining all too easily the boisterous family the Scotswoman must have raised. She wondered what it must have been like to be showered with the adoration of a woman born to be a mother, what it might be like to feel the easy caresses Mama Fee had lavished on the two men hours before, her smiles warming and free of any demands. The woman's devotion twisted at her heart and left her aching.

  "She's crazy, then? Lost her mind?"

  "Sometimes, I think Mama Fee is... the only one who is sane," he admitted. "She's managed to create love... where there is only hate, beauty where there... is horror, hope where there is only... despair. I just wish to God... I could convince her to sail to the Americas, or to... the continent—anywhere safe. But she... she has to wait for Timothy."

  Tragic, poignant, the simple words wrenched unexpectedly at Rachel's heart, unleashing a score of questions.

  "And you... what do you wait for?" The query hung in the silence of the room of stone and shadow, softly probing. "Who are you? What are you doing here, in this cave in the middle of nowhere?"

  Sea-blue glints twinkled in the mist of his eyes. "As of approximately three hours ago, I was getting shot."

  "No," Rachel said, insistent, her fingers curling around a handful of the heather ticking. "I'm serious. I want to know."

  "I suppose that's a reasonable request for a lady to make if she is to spend the night in the same bed with a man." He was teasing her, despite his pain. "Before Culloden Moor, I was Gavin Carstares, Earl of Glenlyon."

  "An earl? But—but I'd never hear
d of you."

  "I wasn't very good at it, I'm afraid. All that gambling and ball-going and curricle-racing and spending days at a tailor's to capture the perfect cut to my coat. It's little wonder you didn't know me. However, I did see you once."

  Rachel couldn't stem a sudden wave of curiosity. "Where?"

  "One of my neighbors was having a house party near our family estate in Norfolk. I was out riding when I saw Lieutenant Viscount Woulfe and the honorable Captain James Darwin holding some contest for your entertainment. If I remember rightly, Woulfe was attempting to slash an apple from atop Darwin's head at full gallop. I was curious which was to be your hero—Woulfe, for his feat with the saber, or poor Darwin, for standing there, icy calm, while a half-drunk madman slashed away at his head."

  Rachel winced. She could just imagine what this man must have thought. She wanted to deny what he'd seen. She wanted to make excuses—she'd been younger and foolish and headstrong and dazzled by her own power over England's most courageous men. Instead, she said, "There can be no doubt that you would not be brave enough to perform such a feat."

  A low chuckle rumbled from his chest, then ended on a gasp of pain, doubtless from his sore ribs. "No. I would definitely not be... brave enough." It should have been an admission of cowardice. Instead, the words made Rachel feel like a swaggering child being indulged by a much older and wiser adult.

  "I suppose it is not your fault—your lack of... dash. Your father was doubtless a bookish scholar, locked away in his library, plaguing you constantly with Latin recitations."

  She was attempting only to regain a sense of control. She didn't expect the lightning flash of emotion that crossed the Glen Lyon's face.

  "My father was a brash, bold warrior of a man who should've been born during medieval times—a knight merrily slashing and bashing and fighting with sword and shield from dawn to dusk."

  "But—you... you don't seem like— I mean, your father must have been..."

  "Disappointed? Dismayed that I didn't share his passion for hacking away at things? Undoubtedly. Though, to his credit, he attempted to disguise his feelings on those rare occasions he visited me. Fortunately, he had Adam, who made up for my shortcomings. He's my half brother—the firstborn by three months. It's a pity he couldn't have inherited the earldom. God knows, he would've been better suited to the title than I was."