No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  "Sherman?"

  "Alive and well and ruthless as ever."

  "But you remain in the cavalry?"

  "I've taken a leave. I served through the war, and I've kept my commission since, and I've done what I can no matter what hotheaded politicians around me do, or decree as policy. But now I believe I fight a losing battle. I have until January to return."

  "Again, I say it's good to see you. I'm grateful, Sloan, that you have come. I think our numbers might matter greatly in this strange battle we're fighting here."

  "A blood brother is a brother among the Sioux," Sloan said. "And if I recall, you were with us often enough against the Crow—and before that, during the war."

  David nodded, moving closer to Shawna and brusquely slipping his arm around her waist. "We should move more quickly; we've no cover beyond the tombstones in the cemetery, and these cloaked figures seem to rise from sheer earth." His pace was brisk as he urged them along.

  "Who are they? What are they, David?" Sloan asked.

  "The villagers suggest the mysterious happenings here are caused by the witches of Craig Rock," David said quietly.

  "The villagers are wrong; Edwina would never have hurt Sabrina in any way," Shawna insisted. "I would trust Edwina with my life far more quickly than I would trust your tavern drunks!" She met David's eyes in the moonlight. They remained so sharp, cold, and distant! His hold upon her felt like a grip of steel fingers. What had happened? She felt lost, and betrayed. He had said that he'd loved her.

  But he'd never really trusted her.

  And now...

  Something had happened that had made him angry with her all over again. What?

  They reached the main entry to the castle and entered the great hall. Hawk awaited them near the door. "I've taken Sabrina to her room. Skylar is with her."

  "Good," David said quietly. "Let's join them there."

  Sabrina lay on the bed, her muddied gown replaced by a soft, angelic-looking nightdress. Her face had been bathed, her hair brushed. Skylar sat by Sabrina's side, and Sabrina was sipping warm soup from an oversize cup.

  Shawna came around to the other side of the bed.

  "Sabrina, how are you?" Shawna asked her.

  "Incredibly angry—with those awful people and myself! I let them get me. I'm quite fine, Skylar needn't be fussing over me the way she is—I do have one hell of a headache. My bones ache. I'm in pain and—" she broke off, seeing Sloan where he stood next to Hawk and David. All the color that had come back into her face deserted her.

  "Sloan!" she gasped.

  "Yes, it's me," Sloan said.

  Sabrina struggled for composure. "Major Trelawny, how in God's name are you here?"

  "Ocean voyage," Sloan said briefly. "Which doesn't matter at all now. Sabrina, you need to tell us what happened."

  She didn't seem to hear him. She kept staring at him, remaining very pale.

  "Sabrina?" Skylar said worriedly.

  Sabrina forced her gaze from Sloan and looked at her sister. "They attacked me." She looked back to Sloan nervously. "I don't understand! How can you be here?"

  After he explained, he added softly, "Sabrina, we need to know what happened to you."

  She still stared at him, as if he were a ghost.

  "Sabrina!" Shawna said. "Please, we need your help. People in those cloaks have attacked us several times now. They were shooting at us in the cemetery when we were searching for you. We need to see that 'they' don't come back for anyone. Who are 'they,' Sabrina?"

  "The people in the cloaks," Sabrina repeated.

  "Aye, but—"

  Sabrina seemed to regain her wits. "Shawna, don't you think I'd say something if I knew who had done this? I was terrified and furious. They were going to kill me, I'm quite certain. It was terrible, waking up trussed like a hog in that awful vault... I'd like to see them hanged. But I didn't see anything at all. Except a white handkerchief coming at me and two—maybe three—people in cloaks."

  "Where were you taken from?" David demanded.

  Sabrina frowned. "I—I don't remember."

  "From the castle?" David persisted.

  Again, she caught sight of Sloan watching her. She focused her gaze on Shawna. "I—remember. I thought I heard a child crying. I followed the sound to the chapel—and then out the chapel door to the cemetery. That's—that's where they got me."

  "Do you remember anything else at all?" David queried her gently.

  Sabrina shook her head. "Maybe a few snatches of whispered conversation, but I'm not even sure it was real."

  "What was said?" Shawna prompted her.

  Sabrina arched a brow. "They said things like, 'Death will come for the innocents, the innocents feed the earth.' And..."

  "What else?" Shawna prompted.

  "I think that someone kept saying that I wasn't really who they wanted, but perhaps I would have to do. They—they wanted—you, Shawna. You have escaped death so far. This all sounds so ridiculous, but it seemed that one of them was saying that you have changed the destiny death requires, and the gods of the underworld will come for you."

  "What nonsense!" Sloan said.

  "It's what I heard!" Sabrina declared defensively.

  "I didn't mean that you spoke nonsense, Sabrina," Sloan told her with a sigh of impatience. "This whole thing seems to be based on some pathetic, dangerous nonsense!"

  "I agree," David murmured.

  Someone was tapping on the door. Hawk opened it carefully. Edwina was there. She came hurrying in, an embroidered bag of her ointments and herbs at her side.

  "Sabrina, lass. Thank God. You're all right."

  She took Shawna's place beside Sabrina, touching her forehead, studying her intently.

  "I'm really fine. This fuss isn't necessary."

  "Everyone should be fussed over now and then," Edwina told her.

  "Her wrists and ankles are chafed where she was tied," David said, the Irish lilt in his voice.

  "I've ointments, Brother Damian; they'll heal her almost overnight," she promised.

  Gawain and Alistair stood in the doorway. Gawain entered the room to come behind Edwina, silently setting a supporting hand upon her shoulder.

  "Pour me a glass of water for her, please," Edwina said. Gawain did as she requested; Edwina added a vial of herbs from the bag to the water and bade Sabrina drink it. "It's a restorative," she assured Sabrina. "There's lemon rind, chamomile, and more of the like. It will help your aches and pains. This"—she produced a little jar—"is for your wrists and ankles." She stood, smiling at Sabrina. "You are a very strong young woman." She leaned close to Sabrina, speaking for her ears alone, except that from where she stood, Shawna heard her as well. "The sweet wee breed inside you fares well, you needn't fear."

  Sabrina stared at her without blinking and Edwina turned to the others. "The patient was healing fine without me, and I'll leave you all now to your private discussions," she said. "Gawain, will you offer me a sherry."

  "With the greatest pleasure!" Gawain assured her. "Brother Damian, will you join us?"

  David seemed startled, at last taken by surprise himself. "Shortly, and I thank you for the invitation."

  "I'm going to go have a drink. A huge one," Alistair said. He cleared his throat, "Hawk, your friend, Mr. McGregor, is downstairs. I'll see if he'd like a drink with me. A huge one."

  Gawain, Alistair, and Edwina departed the room. David closed the door behind them.

  "With Sabrina safe now, and nothing we can do about her kidnapping for the time, we've another bit of business to settle—Shawna," David said.

  His voice again seemed laced with that underlying, barely leashed anger she had been hearing all night. A feeling of dread welled within her, but she couldn't begin to imagine what could cause such a rise of antagonism from him.

  Even his brother seemed uncomfortable at the sound of his voice.

  "Perhaps you two would like to find some privacy—"

  "Nay, Hawk, this is a family affair we will dis
cuss, and I can use your assistance—and eyesight—to assure me that I've not lost my mind."

  "Perhaps I should join Alistair and James for a drink," Sloan suggested.

  "Sloan, you knew my father as well as any man," David told him. "And as I said, it is a family affair. Blood brothers are the same to the Sioux. Naturally, Skylar, you are invited to stay as well."

  "Well," Sabrina murmured, "it doesn't seem that I can leave."

  "What in God's name—" Shawna started to demand.

  "Indeed, what in God's name, my lady," he said furiously. "If you will all be so good as to allow me a moment's indulgence...?"

  They all stared blankly at him. David stepped out into the hall.

  "Hawk, what is the matter with him now?" Shawna asked anxiously.

  "Truly, Shawna, I don't know," Hawk said.

  David returned then before anyone could say more, carrying the sleeping lad, Daniel. His eyes, when they touched Shawna's, were as cold as green ice.

  Whatever he was going to say, she was suddenly glad of the others. She had never seen him quite like this, not even the night she had learned that he had returned.

  "M'lady, tell me now, you know no more about what happened the night of The Fire than what you have told me."

  "What is this new accusation?" she demanded furiously. "I swear to you, there is nothing more—"

  She broke off, her voice trading away as he ignored her to take a hand and shift the ink black curls from the neck of the sleeping youngster on the bed.

  "Hawk, Sloan, if you please, take a look at this child for me?" David requested icily.

  The two men walked curiously by Shawna.

  Hawk and Sloan then both stared at David, startled.

  "Damn you all!" Shawna cried. She had endured a great deal; once upon a time, she had believed that she was a strong woman. But between the murderous cloaked men, Sabrina's kidnapping and rescue, and David's behavior, it was suddenly far too much. "Damn you all!" she repeated with soft vehemence. "What in God's name is it?"

  "The boy is—" Hawk began.

  "See," Sloan said gently, pointing to the hairline at the boy's nape where the hair grew in a peculiar pattern and a tiny half-moon of hair edged over that line in a small but distinct crescent shape.

  "I don't know what you're saying," Shawna protested. "I've never seen such a mark. If it's a Douglas mark—David has no such mark."

  Staring at her, Hawk lifted his thick black hair, twisting slightly so that she could see the crescent shape at his nape.

  Skylar Douglas gasped, so stunned that indiscreet words tore from her lips. "Hawk, you told me that you'd never slept with Shawna!"

  "Oh, God!" Shawna breathed.

  "And thank you, wife, for that vote of confidence!" Hawk returned, indignant and aggravated.

  "The child is mine," David stated. "I've no such peculiar pattern of hair growth myself, but my father had it and it often appears in the Douglas family." Staring at Danny in shock, Shawna suddenly felt the icy green fire of David's eyes burning into her again. "Lady MacGinnis knew nothing more of what happened that night, yet she bore my child, and turned the babe over to the most wretched pair in all of Craig Rock to be raised among their brood!"

  Indeed, the night had brought with it far too much.

  Shawna was dimly aware of his murderous gaze, then no more. She fell to the floor in a dead faint.

  * * *

  Images whirled through her sleep. At first, she ran. Ran though wave after wave of thick, swirling ground fog. Cloaked figures chased her. Then they disappeared, and the images that haunted her were far worse, cutting through her like a knife.

  She was in the small room she had taken at the Tudor-style tavern at Glasgow. She had left Craig Rock to be on her own, to decide how she would handle her life once her babe arrived.

  The first pain hit her just at dawn. She refused to acknowledge it because it was more than a month too soon for the babe to arrive.

  For hours, she had labored on her own. Then, miraculously, the midwife appeared.

  And for hours more she had labored. The pain had been intense, and through it all, she had prayed for the child. To ease the pain, she fought again the constant battles in her mind. What to do? She didn't want to go back home, because David had died there in the fire at the stables.

  She carried the Douglas heir, and he was about to enter the world, but she'd never wed David Douglas, and in all the time that had passed since David had died, she hadn't decided whether to tell his father about the child. She didn't want him to think that she wanted anything from the Douglases, but by the same token, she didn't want to deny him David's child either.

  Day turned into night.

  In the end, it didn't matter. Because she'd gone into labor far too early.

  Her pain was incredible, and still the babe didn't come. The midwife urged her to drink a painkilling brew, and she accepted it.

  That was all she could remember until she awoke from a deep sleep to discover that it was daylight. The midwife told her that the child had been stillborn.

  The gentle old woman told her, "Lass, there's no help for it, the wee bairn didna have the proper time for birthin', and there was nothing anyone could do."

  Her poor wee bairn was dead. She fought against the exhaustion and pain that seized her. A misshapen bundle was placed in her arms, and she wept. She tried to look at it, but the midwife took it away again, telling her that the babe was a pile of deformed blood and bones.

  All of David was now lost to her. In the end, in the only way that she could have done something for him, she had betrayed him. She had let his child die as well. She was disconsolate. Ready to die herself. But when she hadn't died, and her family had come...

  Her child hadn't died! Her child was here. Danny, oh, aye, the boy looked like a MacGinnis, for he was a MacGinnis, her child, and some terrible, cruel prank had been played upon her by someone who had attempted to kill David, and attempted to kill her.

  And now...

  David would kill her himself.

  She opened her eyes, lost, disoriented. A fire crackled; she felt the clean smoothness of sheets beneath her. Her mouth was so dry.

  She tried to focus, but she couldn't quite do so. She had been laid on a bed. Her purple riding habit loosened from her throat to her breast. She was in Sabrina Connor's bed, she realized, and Sabrina, looking very well in her anxiety regarding Shawna, was curled upon her knees at her side. Shawna's head was still spinning. The room seemed to lie in shadowy darkness, except for the two of them. She was grateful to be alone with Sabrina.

  "Sabrina, it can't be, oh, God..."

  "Shush, it's all right..."

  "Oh, God, Sabrina—"

  "It's all right, it's all right. I'm here. You're safe."

  "Oh, God!" she gasped, grasping Sabrina's sleeves. She had to get a grip upon herself, her emotions, but she couldn't. She felt hysteria rising within her.

  "It can't be... it can't be. Oh, Sabrina, don't let terrible things happen to you; tell everyone about your child. Oh! The father is an Indian, that's what Edwina meant, isn't it? 'A breed bairn.' Oh! Oh, God, Sabrina, is it Hawk's babe?"

  "What?" cried a voice from across the room.

  It was Skylar.

  With dismay, Shawna realized that she wasn't alone with Sabrina Connor. Sabrina stared down at her with stunned dismay as her sister, along with Hawk and Sloan, came forward to stand at the foot of the bed.

  "Sweet Jesu, Hawk!" Skylar gasped.

  Hawk's glance toward his wife was one of fury. "Skylar, what in God's name has come over you? I guarantee you that your sister's child is not mine!" Hawk sounded deeply offended.

  "Of course not!" Sabrina gasped out, still staring down at Shawna.

  "But, Sabrina," Skylar said quietly, "you didn't say a word to me. Are you—expecting a child?"

  Sabrina hesitated, staring at Shawna.

  "I thought we were alone!" Shawna mouthed softly. "I'm so sorry—"

&n
bsp; "I know," Sabrina returned. "I doubt if it matters. David was in the tavern the day Edwina spoke to me about the babe. And they're all blood brothers," she added bitterly. "Especially now, he would have felt compelled to tell my brother-in-law eventually."

  "Sabrina, I don't understand why you couldn't tell me," Skylar admonished softly. "And if the child is of blood, and it's not Hawk's—"

  Sabrina tensed, not turning around, continuing to stare down at Shawna.

  "Quite obviously," Sloan Trelawny drawled from the foot of the bed, "the child is mine."

  "Oh, God!" Skylar gasped. "Sloan, you needn't take responsibility if there's some mistake—"

  "The child is mine," he repeated.

  And it was true, Shawna knew. She saw it in Sabrina's eyes as she kept them glued to her own.

  "Oh, Sabrina, I'm so, so sorry—" Shawna began again, because there was another presence in the room, one she had so nearly forgotten...

  David.

  Whiskerless and clad in black denim pants and a black, full-sleeved cotton shirt, David came to stand by her side. He swept her up into his arms despite the wave of dread that filled her and her protesting hand upon his chest.

  "It seems to me the time has come for private discussions," he said. "A little late, perhaps, since we've managed to give away the secrets of others and nearly destroy my brother's marriage."

  "I asked for no audience—" Shawna began.

  "I needed my brother and Sloan. For other than the lad's curious crescent-shaped hairline, he is all MacGinnis, and I had to make you realize the fact that he is a Douglas cannot be denied. But now... I think we should all fight our battles out alone. Sloan, Sabrina, Hawk, Skylar, forgive us, and excuse us."

  She pushed against him as they exited the room and headed down the hallway and up the stairs for her tower abode. "Laird Douglas, I'm delighted that your intelligent, reasonable brother has met a kind and gentle lass and entered into what appears to be a tender and loving relationship, something with which you are entirely unfamiliar."

  "Circumstances—lass."

  "I'd not destroy his marriage, and I'd never purposely hurt Sabrina—"