by Jane Godman
Her unexpected coarseness shocked him. It also excited him. He knew she must have seen the flash of desire that he felt briefly light his eyes before he got it back under control. This night was not going quite the way he had planned it.
“I am sorry to be a disappointment to you, my lady.”
She laughed and it was a genuine, musical sound. “I’m sure you would be. We highlanders have very high standards.” She looked him up and down. “In everything.”
“Is that a challenge?” The words were out before the thought was even fully formed. What was happening to him? It hardly suited his code of chivalry to be considering the seduction of a woman whose home he had just commandeered. And yet…now that the idea was in his mind, nothing else seemed important. Hard—very hard—on the heels of that thought, a sudden erection strained against the tight material of his riding breeches. He was grateful that he had not removed his cloak since its folds hid his body from her gaze. He could not remember his body reacting so instantly to a woman since he had been a schoolboy. It was as if she had cast a sensual spell on him. He wondered how the hell she had survived to adulthood without being burned at the stake.
“Good God, no! Let us stop fencing with each other, Sir Edwin—” it seemed a strange phrase for a woman to use, “—and you can tell me when you wish me and my servants to leave.”
“I see no reason for haste in the matter, Lady Iona. We can discuss this further over the coming days. My men will arrive tomorrow, and I will lead them on to Fort William and discover there what our orders will be. In the meantime, if a room can be made ready for me, I will trouble you no more tonight.”
“I will send for Gordie, my steward,” Iona said.
Although the bell cord was easily within reach of her right hand, she made no move to pull it. Instead, she sat immobile for a moment or two with her eyes fixed on his face. Edwin regarded her in consternation. What on earth could she be waiting for? Biting her lip, she rose unsteadily to her feet. He wondered if she might have fortified her nerves with whisky and perhaps overdone it. It seemed the only explanation for her strange behaviour. Still keeping her right arm clamped to her side in that curious way, she turned her body so that she could use her left hand to ring for the steward. Edwin watched this manoeuvre with increasing astonishment. Once she had finished, Iona leaned against the back of the chair, breathing heavily.
“Are you quite well, my lady?” he asked, perturbed at the expression on her face.
She was looking at him as though he were a tiger preparing to pounce. He glanced down. The right sleeve of her gown was gradually darkening with blood, and one or two vivid droplets ran down her wrist and over the back of her hand. They splashed bright red and damning onto the stone flags of the floor. Realisation and fury dawned on Edwin at the same time.
Chapter Two
“Get your bastard English hands off me!” Iona spat the words out upon finding herself swung easily up into Edwin’s strong arms. Despite her weakened state, she managed to land a punch on his chin with her left hand that rocked his head backward.
“Keep still, you stupid little bitch! I’m trying to help you.” The sleeve of her gown was soaked through with blood, and the edges of her vision were beginning to darken. She caught a glimpse of Gordie’s concerned face over the Englishman’s broad shoulder. The steward took hold of Cù-sìth’s collar and drew the dog away before she could defend her mistress from this stranger who appeared to be attacking her. “Quick, man, where is her ladyship’s chamber? Is there someone who can help me tend her wounds? Good, send them to me immediately.” Swiftly, he took the stairs and kicked the bedchamber door open, lowering Iona onto the bed. His fingers were nimble as he untied the laces of her bodice.
“Try it and I’ll slit your English gullet so wide ye’ll be able to carry your innards around in a basket.”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “You have a charming turn of phrase, Lady Cameron. Rest assured, I have no interest, at this present moment, in the contents of your bodice other than to stop the flow of blood. I’m a soldier. I have experience of dressing battle wounds.”
She met his gaze. His eyes were as dark as midnight and fringed with thick lashes. They were beautiful eyes. They were also English eyes, she reminded herself sternly. “Aye, ’tis a battle wound right enough,” she said. “Given me by one of Butcher Cumberland’s black-hearted scoundrels.”
“I suppose it would be useless to remind you that you set upon me, giving me no choice but to defend myself?” He looked up as Morag nervously entered the room. “Fear not. I wish only to ensure that your mistress suffers no further blood loss. Remove her gown and undergarments, if you please, then bathe the wound. I will need to be able to see the injury so do what is necessary to preserve her decency while ensuring I can do so. She seems to consider modesty—rather than the fact that she could bleed to death—to be the most important matter. I will be back when I have retrieved my pack from my saddlebags.”
“Ye did’nae tell me he was such a big, bonnie laddie,” Morag said, when he had gone. She hurried to follow Edwin’s instructions and began to remove Iona’s clothing. “To be sure ’tis shameful to waste looks so fine on an Englishman.”
Iona, too enfeebled by her injury and show of temper to respond to this foolishness, had to be content with glowering at her. When Edwin returned, Morag had managed to tuck the bed sheets around Iona and beneath her arms, so that only her shoulders and arms were left exposed.
“Morag will see to me.” She waved her left hand in a gesture of dismissal. “You can go.”
He ignored her and came to sit on the edge of the bed. Taking her right elbow in his hand, he turned her arm so that he could view the gaping wound in her flesh. A slight frown appeared between his brows.
“This will need to be stitched,” he said.
Iona had heard about the practice of stitching through flesh to close a wound, but had no intention of allowing it to happen to her. She tried to scoot up the bed away from Edwin, but found she didn’t have the strength. “No.” She shook her head. “Leave me be. You’ve done enough damage without sticking needles into me as well.”
“The wound will never heal if it is left open, and you are already at risk of fever if it cannot be cleaned. You’ve also lost a huge amount of blood. Now stop being so damned stubborn.” He looked up at Morag, who was regarding him with a combination of trepidation and dawning respect. Iona could tell what her maid was thinking. No-one had ever dared speak to her ladyship that way. Certainly not her husband. Even her brother would hesitate before doing so. “I know you will have plenty of whisky in a Scottish household such as this, but is there also brandy? It is the best thing for cleansing a wound. It might also quiet your mistress’s mouth long enough to allow me to complete my task in peace.”
Half an hour later, Edwin was washing the blood from his hands while Iona lay back on the pillows and studied him from beneath half-closed lids. She felt nauseous and dizzy, but whether it was pain or the brandy he had made her drink that was to blame, she could not be sure. Edwin had stitched the ragged edges of the wound together with twine and a serviceable needle. It was a task he had clearly undertaken more than once before.
“I think you enjoyed inflicting more pain on me.” She was annoyed at how much her voice slurred on the words.
He flicked a smile in her direction, but didn’t reply. She thought that smile probably stood him in good stead in most situations. It was extremely charming. He was too charming by far with his dark, rugged good looks and a body that rippled with muscle. His cheekbones and jaw were so sharp and angular they might have been carved with a blade. His nose was sword-edge straight and narrow. In contrast, his mouth was full-lipped and sensual. Proud masculinity, vital and virile, that was the sum and substance of this man.
“But English charm won’t work on me,” Iona said to no-one in particular, trying to keep her voice firm.
He came back to stand by the bed, looking down at her. His
face was serious. “Something tells me tonight was not your first such venture.”
“No,” Iona said, hiccupping slightly. “I’ve drunk brandy lots of times before.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. Who taught you to fence?”
“My brother.” She could feel her eyelids batting closed and tried valiantly to keep them open. “He is the Laird of Lachlan, and the best swordsman in the Great Glen.”
His voice seemed to come to her from a long way off. “Then I suppose I should be thankful it wasn’t him I met on the Devil’s Staircase.”
She thought she felt his hands draw the blankets up over her shoulders, but oblivion brought on by brandy and shock was so close that she couldn’t be sure. Despite the presence of an Englishman in her bedchamber and the desperate pain in her arm and shoulder, Iona gave herself up to the welcome embrace of sleep.
“Thirty thousand pounds was offered for his capture, yet he made his escape disguised as a serving wench!”
The recent daring exploits of Bonnie Prince Charlie were the burning topic of conversation among the militia. It was bad enough that the Jacobite leader had managed to flee the battlefield at Culloden. The prince had managed to remain hidden for many months. This was despite the fact that the Duke of Cumberland had brought thousands of men north of the border and charged them with the sole task of finding him. More recently, under the very noses of the redcoats and disguised as a maidservant, the prince had been taken aboard a sailboat across to the Isle of Skye. It was now known he had evaded capture completely and made his way back to France.
“’Tis common knowledge that Cumberland was happy to allow his soldiers to pillage the glens, killing the men, raping the women and putting houses to the torch as long as the prince was found in the process. He wanted a royal Stuart head to adorn the spikes on Tower Bridge. Cumberland is not happy that his kinsman got away and ’tis the remaining highlanders who must bear the brunt of the Butcher’s wrath.”
Edwin thought back to Iona’s comment the previous night about the conduct of his fellow Englishmen toward her people. A sour, uncomfortable feeling rose in his gullet. Alongside every other true soldier he knew, he wanted no part of the atrocities Cumberland was wreaking on this brave land. The Jacobites were the enemies of England, that much was true, but these were not the tactics of honourable men. Soldiers did their fighting on the battlefield, not among the women and children. Edwin knew better than anyone what damage power in the wrong hands—cruel hands—could do. He knew he could no longer wear his red coat with pride. The time had come to resign his commission.
Edwin rode at the head of the troop of soldiers and allowed their conversation to wash over him, while his mind continued to replay the remarkable events of the night just passed. Iona had still been sleeping when the soldiers arrived at Cameron House, and he had checked on her before departing with them for Fort William. The brandy had done its job. She lay on her left side, with her hand under her cheek. Her breathing was deep and even, and she didn’t stir even when he leaned close to examine her injuries. The wound to her right arm stood out stark and ugly against the perfection of her flesh.
He had watched her as she slept, annoyed at the conflicting emotions she aroused in him, wishing he had not glimpsed the frightened, angry girl beneath the dignified woman. The fact that she had forfeited her lands to him through her husband’s treachery didn’t mean he owed her anything. So why should he feel under any obligation to care for her? Nevertheless, he did. After ten years of deliberately avoiding getting close to other people, it was a new sensation for Edwin. He also had a dreadful foreboding about this newfound sense of responsibility.
“She will need to rest. I should return in a few days,” he had said to Morag. “Do you think you can contrive to keep her out of trouble until then?”
“No-one has ever managed it yet.” Her pessimistic reply had been accompanied by a heavy sigh that did nothing to ease his discomfort.
His mind tuned back into the conversation of the men around him. “Many of the clan chiefs who followed the Jacobite cause have had their homes burned to the ground or forfeited to the English. They, and all their people, have been turned out into the glen with only the clothes on their backs.”
“They are the lucky ones,” another man said. “I have heard other stories…”
“Hush up, man. Watch what you say.” Edwin felt, rather than saw, the sidelong glance that was directed at him.
“No need to keep silent on my account,” he said. “Cumberland has stated his plans loud and clear. He intends to strip as much wealth as he can from the highlanders in the hope that those remaining starve or freeze to death.”
“Or leave the glens altogether as many have already done,” his sergeant said. “There is a better life to be had in the Carolinas, and hundreds have headed there rather than wait here to face what our leader may bring them next.”
They rode on in silence for a short distance. The sergeant drew his horse level with Edwin’s, and his voice was low when he spoke next so that only Edwin could hear.
“There is one thing I do not understand. If the Duke of Cumberland is so determined to exact retribution from all those involved in the Jacobite rebellion, why have the Laird of Lachlan’s lands not been taken?”
A lone rider approached Cameron House, and Iona, watching from the window of her bedchamber, felt her heart beat a little faster. As he drew nearer and the sun caught the red-gold of his hair—so like her own—she recognised her brother. The flush of apprehension that had tinged her cheeks faded. It wasn’t Edwin returning from Fort William, and she was glad. Of course she was. But what could have driven the Laird of Lachlan from his home when his wife was due to give birth to their first child at any time?
“Fraser.” She came down the stairs at the same time that he entered through the huge doors. Two days had passed since her sword fight with Edwin, and her arm still pained her, but Iona was able to hold both hands out to him in greeting. “What brings you here?”
“You do, of course.” His eyes were troubled as he scanned her face. “Why must I hear from others that your lands have been seized, Iona? Why did ye not come to me as soon as the notices were served upon ye?”
Gordie appeared, bearing a decanter of whisky and a plate of oatcakes. He set these on a table next to the fire and waited while Fraser removed his cloak. It caused a sharp, bright pain somewhere deep in Iona’s chest to see her proud Scots brother clad in the coat and breeches of an Englishman.
“How is Martha?” Iona steered the conversation to commonplace matters while Gordie was present.
“She is well—” a smile crossed his face, softening his features, “—and eagerly awaiting the bairn’s arrival. She sends her your love.” Fraser accepted a glass of whisky from Gordie with a word of thanks and waited until the little man had bustled away. Then Fraser turned the full force of his hazel gaze back to his sister’s face.
“Ye’ve enough worries of your own without adding mine to them,” Iona said, in answer to his earlier question.
“D’ye not think my cares would be made worse if I learned my sister was wandering the Great Glen with only the clothes she stands up in to call her own?” When she didn’t answer, he continued in a gentler tone. “When we were bairns and something bad happened, ye were ever one for trying to convince yourself that, if ye did’nae speak of it out loud, it might go away.”
Although he took a seat beside the fire, Iona remained standing, her face half turned away from him as she stared out of the window at the view of the sweeping valley. Fraser had always been able to come close to reading her thoughts. “Aye, there is that mayhap,” she said at last. “But I was also afraid for you and Martha.”
“How so, lass?”
She came to him and knelt at his feet, taking one of his hands in hers and holding it against her cheek. “Do ye not see? The whole of the Great Glen is alight with rumour and speculation, but there is one which burns brighter than all the rest. The quest
ion to which everyone wants, and yet fears, an answer… When will Lachlan fall?”
“Lachlan will not fall.”
“Ye can’nae say that with such certainty!” The words burst from her lips in an agitated rush. Cù-sìth, sensing her mistress’s distress, came to lie on the floor next to her, resting her head on Iona’s lap. “Those days are no more, brother mine, and we’ll not see them back again. When the orders of forfeiture were served, I was sorely afraid that, if I did come to you, it would give the English the excuse they were looking for to destroy Lachlan. If you were known to be harbouring the widow of a known rebel, a woman guilty by association of high treason against the king…”
“The English need no excuse, lass.” He placed a calming hand on her head. “If they wanted Lachlan, it would be theirs already.”
“Yet how can they not want Lachlan? It was one of the great Jacobite strongholds of the rebellion. How is it that you still walk free, Fraser? You fought and nearly died on that stinking field called Drumossie Muir. I have heard the stories. They say you went after Cumberland himself. By rights you should be in the Tower of London awaiting execution. That is if your head was not already long since on a spike outside Traitor’s Gate.” She shuddered at the thought.
Now it was Fraser’s turn to appear lost in thought. “Do the clans believe I’ve gone over to the English side? Is that what people are saying?”
Iona shook her head fiercely. “They’d not dare say such a thing to me!”
“’Tis true that, once Culloden was over, I agreed to try and mediate between the king and the highlanders. In return for my help, I have a signed document that gives me exemption from attainder.”
“I thought that attainder meant the English could find you guilty of treason, take your lands and goods and condemn you to death, all without trial? Since you took part in the rebellion and fought at Culloden, they surely can’nae make you exempt. Cumberland himself must be baying for your blood,” Iona said, breaking an oatcake and feeding it to Cù-sìth. “You may act as a mediator, but I can’nae believe the English have any wish to be conciliatory toward you. They gain nothing from such an arrangement.”
