Colin held his arms out, palm up. “Are ye happy with what ye see?”
Her gaze trickled down his naked chest, and her cheeks darkened further still, a feat he had not realized possible.
“That question is highly inappropriate,” she said in a breathy voice and angled herself away from him.
“I meant the men.” He added a wink.
She spun back around toward him, her lips parted with a stammering explanation. “I knew what you meant—rather, it was not appropriate for you to ask so precipitously.”
Her chin lifted another inch, haughty and indignant. Brianna Lindsay apparently did not like being wrong.
A carriage rattled in through the gates behind her, catching Colin’s attention. It approached without slowing.
If she heard the coach’s entrance, she did not acknowledge such and continued her stumbling speech of justification.
“Your skill, I confess, is most impressive,” she said. “I want to ensure the men are learning what needs to be done in order to replicate your tactics. It’s still so early yet, you see, and I felt I must—” Her jaw clenched.
The carriage continued forward with extreme haste.
Her fingers smoothed down the front of her bodice. “I have many tasks that require me elsewhere. Continue your training.”
She didn’t wait for his response before turning abruptly on her heel and stepping away from him. Directly into the path of the speeding coach.
• • •
Someone shouted Brianna’s name, but the sound was too distant to register. Her focus was locked on the four great black horses charging toward her. Their musty odor assaulted her nostrils. The clatter of their hooves thundered in her ears. Their black eyes met hers with bestial indifference.
Sweat prickled her flesh and the hair on her scalp rose. Her delicate shoes slipped against the slick cobblestoned surface, and her feet were suddenly no longer beneath her. There was nothing to grab, nothing to hold onto. Her world spun around and her stomach dropped. She was falling.
Fear ripped through her heart.
This was how she would die.
Chapter Seven
Strong hands gripped Brianna’s waist, halting her abrupt descent to a grisly fate.
Her backside pressed against something solid. A body hardened with muscle—warm, firm, and smelling divinely of soap and musk.
“Are ye hurt, lass?” Colin’s deep voice sounded against her ear.
Her nipples tightened against her bodice, and heat flared in her cheeks.
He turned her to face him and drew her protectively into his massive arms.
Brianna licked her suddenly dry lips. The pressure of his touch burned through the fabric of her gown and left her breathless with an excitement she didn’t recognize.
Her hand braced in front of her, against the heat of his naked chest. His skin was slick, and his heartbeat thudded beneath her fingertips.
She snatched her hand back, but not without an embarrassing squeak.
Brianna cleared her throat in a pathetic effort to mask the unladylike sound. “No. I’m unharmed.” Her hand balled into a fist in front of her chest. The burning sensation of his naked skin against her palm did not fade. “Thank you.”
He cradled her waist still, an act highly inappropriate for his station, and yet she could not find the strength to order him to release her.
His eyes glinted with a hint of mischief. “I’ll make sure I train the soldiers to watch out for carriages, as well.” His voice carried an intimacy that should have left her uncomfortable.
Should have, but did not.
That’s the part that did make her uncomfortable.
“For continued safety after you leave?” she murmured, more to herself than to him. Six months would be over quickly, and he would be gone. She would be free of him.
Somehow that idea did not seem as pleasant as it had only minutes before.
“Aye, for when I leave.” He smiled down at her, and a small dimple appeared in his left cheek. She hadn’t noticed that before.
Her gaze lowered to the sensual line of his lips. They looked soft and supple, the way poets described them. Would they feel as soft and supple against hers? A low pulse warmed between her thighs.
“Unhand her, you savage!”
Her cousin, Lord Robert Lindsay, stepped from the glossy black carriage. He strode forward with a proud gait, his head lifted with self-importance.
Colin’s fingers slid from Brianna’s waist, his movements slow, caressing where his fingertips lingered on her hips.
A delicate shiver danced across her flesh. Was he so hesitant to let her go?
Her pragmatic side stepped in then, declaring her a romantic fool. And rightly so. Colin was the kind of man who flattered all women.
She was no different.
“I said unhand her,” Robert repeated, stopping before them.
Dread slithered into Brianna’s stomach at his presence. He would ask to see the earl. He always did. This visit from her errant suitor was wholly unwelcome.
Robert placed his hand on the decorative sword he wore at his side.
Brianna bit back a retort and offered a friendly smile. She hoped it looked more convincing than it felt. “Robert, this man is Edzell’s new Captain of the Guard.” Her words were spoken with measured patience. God knew she would need much of that this evening if Robert intended to stay for supper.
“I was saving her from being run over by yer horses,” Colin said in a strong voice, coming to stand beside her. “I’d suggest ye no ride through here with such haste next time.”
A sense of comfort slid over Brianna like a cloak. Perhaps she was not so alone in her stand against Robert after all.
“A new Captain of the Guard?” he asked incredulously. “One who is threatening his betters, no less.” He snorted. “If I knew Edzell was so short on funds, I would have given you coin rather than have you select your servants from rapacious mercenaries.” His eyes narrowed. “You aren’t short on funds, are you?”
Brianna bit a sharp comment from her tongue. The last thing she needed was to offend her cousin and arouse suspicion.
Alec appeared silently beside Colin and settled into a wide stance that begged for challenge. He stared down at Robert, unblinking, his gaze hard as ice.
“At least these barbarians are a far cry better than the old goat you had here before.” Laughter wheezed out of Robert’s thin chest.
Brianna’s throat constricted at the slight against Bernard. Poor, wonderful Bernard who had died for her.
Colin folded his arms over his chest, all the playful merriment gone from his gaze. “As Captain of the Guard, it is within my rights to know who ye are and why ye are here.”
“I am Lord Robert Lindsay, cousin to the beautiful Lady Lindsay.” His arms shot out, gripping her around her waist and pulling her against him. “Her betrothed.”
Brianna tried to carefully extricate herself from his grasp, but his grip on her was too strong.
Before she could speak to defend herself, Colin did so, his eyebrows lifting in bored disbelief. “I am certain the lady would no agree with what ye claim, and if ye dinna release her, I’ll be forced to draw my weapon.”
Alec pulled his sword from its sheath behind his back, revealing black-tinged steel that reflected purple opalescence in the sun’s rays. The upturn to his usually grim-set lips evidenced his hope that Robert would ignore Colin’s request.
Robert’s arm eased from Brianna’s waist, freeing her. She sidestepped him and gasped discreetly for clean air.
“Uncivilized barbarians.” The words snarled from his throat like a dog’s low growl. “That’s what you get when you take cheap labor, cousin. I suggest your father consult me next time before hiring anyone.”
“Is there a purpose for your visit, Robert?”
“I’ve come to dine with you and to ask after your father.”
Of course by asking after him, Robert meant speak to him. A most impossible
task. Her heart and stomach churned together in a dizzying rush of anxiety.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll have the cook informed of our unexpected visitors.”
“I knew you would be welcome to the idea, Brianna.” His dark gaze slithered down her gown and made it feel invisible.
She fought the urge to fold her arms across her breasts. Instead, she tightened her hands into fists until her fingernails bit into the softness of her palms.
With a guest like him, the evening promised to be long and arduous.
• • •
Brianna admired the small white marzipan flower set atop a precious orange, a note of beauty in an otherwise horrendous day. Having Robert at her side was unnerving, but his visit had been blessedly uneventful thus far and was drawing to a close.
Hopefully.
Magda lifted the delicate confection from her orange, her eyes bright with excitement. “What a delicious end to a remarkable meal.”
Robert smirked. “I’m sure it’s so good you’ll want to say it twice.”
Magda laughed with naïve joy at his joke.
His spiteful comments were becoming more and more unbearable.
“Perhaps she says it twice so ye can understand.” Colin sat beside Pastor Thomas at the end of the table, but Brianna still heard the barb. The pastor snorted a laugh, but quickly covered it with a muffled cough.
“This orange is as sour as the company.” Robert spat a mouthful of the fruit onto his plate and rose, his hand extended toward Brianna. “Walk with me in the garden, my sweet.”
She glanced toward the windows. The sun was sinking and darkness would soon descend.
“Thank you, but I’m enjoying my dessert,” she said politely and bit into her orange. The juicy nectar exploded against her tongue with a tangy sweetness, cool and refreshing on the warm summer evening. The bitterness of Robert’s fruit doubtless lay with the man eating it.
“In that case, I shall seek out your father. He left me waiting in the solar the entire afternoon.” Robert’s statement ended in a petulant tone.
Brianna did not turn toward her pastor. Not when the young man knew so much. He’d given her father his last rights and watched him die. He knew of Brianna’s decision to keep her father’s death secret and let himself be sworn to secrecy.
She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Father did not come down at all? Poor man has taken a turn for the worse and was most likely sleeping off his fever. Please do forgive him.”
“He can beg forgiveness himself tonight when I speak to him.” Robert turned away from the table. “My father wishes me to convey a message.” He paused, his back still turned. “One of great import.”
This time Brianna did meet Pastor Thomas’s gaze, and found his gray eyes wide with fear. “Perhaps I shall join you for a walk after all.” Brianna slid her chair away from the table. If her cousin possessed important information, she would need to convince him to share it with her.
She cast a regretful glance at her dessert and made her way to where Robert stood with his annoying smirk.
Together they walked outside where everything was quiet and still. The gentle pink notes of dusk settled over the lush garden and subdued the floral hues to muted grays and violets. The oppressive heat of the day had gone with the sun, and a cool breeze stirred the leaves of manicured bushes. Brianna closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar perfume of blossoming roses. Her mother’s memory would forever live on with each vibrant bloom, season after season.
“You look ridiculous when you do that.” Robert’s comment broke through the gentle lull of comfort and remembrance.
Despite her determination not to let his criticism bother her, his words hit their mark, and self-consciousness edged through her.
She opened her eyes and found his face an inch from hers. “Marry me, Brianna.”
“No, but thank you.” She backed up, and a marble bench caught her behind the knees. She sat down hard. The tight grin on Robert’s face told her everything she needed to know.
He dusted off the bench and settled beside her.
She glanced around the darkening garden. Robert’s men were not present, nor was Magda with her.
Apprehension tightened a hard grip around her spine.
She and Robert were completely alone.
Chapter Eight
The silence of the garden seemed to swallow Brianna in its dark obscurity. No one could see her or Robert where they sat, no one could hear them.
She shifted uncomfortably on the bench and tried to devise a way to escape her predicament without being rude. The warmth of the sunbaked marble seeped through her gown.
Robert’s cheeks were flushed in the dying light, his eyes bright. “Why must I keep asking you to marry me?” he asked in a clipped tone.
Brianna considered her reply with great care to avoid enraging him further. “I have no wish to marry.”
Robert sneered down at her. “That’s ridiculous. Don’t you want a husband?”
She folded her hands in her lap and paused to collect her patience. The less she explained to him, the better. Not that he would ever understand.
She had no wish to yield her freedom for the shackles of matrimony, for vows that would strip her life of books and fill it with mindless days of needlework, her belly swollen with children she would seldom have opportunity to visit. Her every decision would hinge on the approval of a husband who would fail to appreciate her efforts. Her mother had lived thus, and it had robbed her of her spirit before slowly killing her.
No, Robert would never understand. No man would.
“Your father doesn’t want you to be a spinster. He wants you to have a husband to care for you.” He leaned close to her. “He’s promised you to me.”
Robert’s words in her ear sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine. “I was not informed of a betrothal.” She spoke with a confidence she did not possess. There had been too many times when Edzell’s laird had been so taken with pain that his speech was almost incoherent. Too many times when he’d agreed to something, but did not fully understand what was asked.
If such a thing were true, there would be a signed betrothal. Something she’d not yet come across in her search through her father’s documents.
Robert scooted toward her until she was forced to teeter on the edge of the bench. “There’s an attraction between us, Brianna. You feel it too, don’t you?”
His eyes shone in the moonlight, his breath quickening.
Before she could redirect the conversation toward the information he’d said he had for her father, Robert grasped her shoulders and pressed his mouth to hers. His tongue probed her closed lips, slicking her face with saliva.
Brianna jerked her head back. “Robert!”
His small eyes narrowed and almost disappeared in his face. “It’s him, isn’t it? I saw how you let him hold you.”
“What are you talking about?” Her mind reeled. Was that what married women endured from their husbands?
“The barbarian.” Robert sneered down at her. “He’s put his hands on you, hasn’t he?” His hands locked tighter on her shoulders. “Has he taken what belongs to me?” He looked pointedly to her lap.
Realization dawned on Brianna, and she drew back in horror. “How dare you—”
“No, cousin, how dare you?” His fingers bit into her flesh, and his free hand slid down her waist. “You will not refuse me again, beautiful Brianna.”
She sucked in a breath and tried to push his groping hands away. “Stop, Robert.”
“You will not deny me,” he growled. “You will marry me.”
His fist tangled roughly in her hair and yanked her head back. His lips ground against hers once more. This time she tasted blood.
She shoved at him and twisted against the grip on her head. Robert’s hand tightened, securing his hold, and his arms came around her. She pushed at him once more, but the velvet of her dress was unyielding where it stretched tight over her shoulders.
She jerked her elbow toward Robert, as far as the dress would allow, and patted the voluminous skirts with a frenzied panic.
Where was the entrance to her pocket?
Robert twisted an arm behind her back, but she didn’t stop her frantic search for the slit with the hand still free.
Where was the entrance to her damn pocket?
Her bodice jerked forward, and cool night air assaulted the tops of her breasts. Surprise stilled her search for the dagger sagging heavy and useless against her thigh.
Humiliation lodged in her throat and scalded her cheeks. She couldn’t cry out, couldn’t stop the attack. Her fingers now clawed at the sagging fabric of her dress in a vain effort to preserve her modesty.
The hand on her shoulder was an unyielding vise, and she was held captive. Stars of pain danced before her vision, brilliant white against the darkness shrouding the garden.
When had he become so strong?
A movement caught the corner of her eye, and the hollow, muted thud of a hard fist to soft flesh sounded in her ears. The relentless grip loosened and Robert slid from the bench.
• • •
The impact of his fist connecting barely registered with Colin. However, confirmation of his aim lay in a pathetic pool at his feet. Had Brianna not been present, he would have beaten the man within an inch of his life.
Alec would not have stopped him.
As it was, Brianna’s frightened tears shimmered in the fading light.
An ache tugged at his chest. Colin offered his hand to help her to her feet and averted his gaze as she tugged her gown into place over the exposed part of her corset.
She placed her hand in his. Her palm was hot, moist with her tears. She rose to her feet in a rustle of fine skirts and faced him, her back straight and her shoulders squared with authority.
“With your permission, we will remove him from Edzell, my lady,” Colin said. Alec drew closer, obviously anticipating the task he would deem a pleasant one.
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