“ ’Tis a ransom, not a sale,” Dugan retorted.
“Ach, ’tis a fine distinction!” Now she was incensed. “ ’Tis so much better to be ransomed to a man nearly fifty years my senior than to be sold to him!”
Conall was the only one who had the grace to appear abashed at the truth of her words.
Dugan said naught, and Archie gave a wee nod and bent his head to his meal.
Lachann did not yield her point. “You have created a world of trouble for our clan, Lady Maura.”
“You do not know the half of it, Lachann,” she said, offended by his insulting tone. If he wanted to insult her, she would give him the correct reason for it. “Did the laird inform you that his life was ruined because of—”
Dugan slammed his hand on the table. “My purpose in demanding the ransom from Kildary,” he roared, “had naught to do with—”
“Oh no, of course not! You took me because I was a female, alone and vulnerable—a mere hostage for you to use in whatever way you saw fit—without a thought for what was best for me!”
“Aye, and I would do it ten times over to save my clan!” Dugan bellowed.
Maura banged down the skillet and stormed out of the cottage. Fuming with anger, she ran to the barn to cool her temper. At the same time, she intended to get a look at Murray’s horse before it became completely dark outside. Oh yes, she was definitely going to take the beast during the night and get a head start on Dugan and his oblivious men. She owed them naught. They could all go to the devil.
She looked about for a saddle and bridle—because of course the wagon would be too cumbersome for swift travel. And she fully intended to stay far ahead of Dugan Mac—
The barn door slammed open.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Dugan demanded.
Feeling ridiculously vulnerable, Maura crossed her arms over her chest and stood fast. “Getting away from the lot of you highland tumshies and your unreasonable—”
“Unreasonable?” He advanced on her. “You steal our map and you think we are unreasonable?”
Maura took a step back and raised her chin to glare at him. “You intend to give me to Kildary whether or not you succeed in finding the gold!”
“I will not!” he roared. She backed up against the wall and he pinned her to it with a hand on each side of her head. “I told you I will not, and I am as good as my word!”
“Your word?” she shot back. “A man who would turn over an innocent woman to an old goat like Kildary for—for money!”
“An innocent woman? You’re a thief, Maura Duncanson, not to mention—”
“Oh yes. I am a Duncanson. My greatest sin.” She poked Dugan in the chest. “Just to be clear, Laird MacMillan, I had naught to do with the events that took place at Glencoe more than twenty years ago, for I was not yet born. Besides, I am just a lowly female who would not have been consulted on my kin’s despicable actions in any case!”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. She hated to think of him as a wee lad, fleeing that place of horror, his parents and brother murdered, likely before his eyes. It tore at her heart, yet whatever her horrible relatives had done to him, Maura could not pay for it with Rosie’s well-being. ’Twould only add tragedy to the wrongs already done.
“You are hardly lowly, Maura Duncanson,” he growled. Moving quickly, before she could even think, he pulled her into his arms and Maura shivered with the sheer heat of him. He made a deep, rasping sound just before he took possession of her mouth with his lips, his tongue and teeth.
He pushed her against the stone wall and held her there as he kissed her, preventing any chance of escape—not that Maura wanted to leave. She wanted to stay there forever, where her bleak future had no sway.
She kissed him back with all the violence she felt in his body. He was solid and taut against her, and she felt the strength in his big hands and his hard muscles pulling her ever closer.
His fingers roved down her back, pulling her hips against his, and she felt his rigid arousal rubbing and pulsing against her. Desire made her knees go weak. She wanted him, wanted more than he’d given her the previous night.
Maura ripped the thong of leather from his hair and knifed her fingers through the thick mass, tugging and pulling him down to her. She savored the taste and texture of him as he ravished her mouth, demanding more.
He groaned into her mouth and pulled up her skirts, cupping her bottom in his hands, lifting her off the ground. Maura wrapped her legs ’round him, and he lowered her to the straw-strewn floor.
Chapter 24
Maura tore away the heavy woolen plaid that was draped over Dugan’s shoulder while he made short work of her bodice. Suddenly, his mouth was on her breast and he was pulling her nipple into his mouth. She arched into the sensual onslaught, desperate for more—more of his mouth, more of his caresses, more of his skin.
She shoved his shirt down his arms, and he yanked it off, pulling it from his plaid and over his head.
Maura could barely see his sculpted muscles in the shadows, but she felt their strength, knew their potent shape by touch, running her hands down his arms as he tormented her breasts with his talented tongue.
He slipped one hand under her skirts, his hand coming to touch the sensitive spot at the crux of her thighs.
His touch scorched her. Maura opened for him and arched against his hand as the sensations he created caused a potent coiling within her. She felt as tight as a spring.
“Dugan,” she gasped. She needed him desperately. Needed all of him.
“Aye, lass. I want you, too.”
He shifted slightly, hovering over her, his mouth coming down hard upon hers. She clutched his head in her hands as his hard, hot manhood touched her where she needed it most. And then he was inside her. But only partly.
She was frantic for him, needed him to fill the void inside. She wanted him desperately.
“Easy now,” he said, his voice a mere rasp. Maura felt sweat gathering at his nape. “I’ll not hurt you.”
He moved suddenly and she felt a sharp sensation akin to pain, but not exactly that. ’Twas more like a foreign fullness.
And she craved even more.
“Dugan . . .” She pushed against him and he plunged deeply, finally touching her where she felt the greatest need.
In her heart, and deep in her soul.
Keeping them connected, he rolled so that he was on his back and she was atop him, her hands poised upon his chest. “What . . . ?”
“ ’Twill be easier on you, lass. Slide down, pet. Let me feel you clasp my cock. Ah, Gesu.”
He slid his hand down between them and when he touched her, Maura thought she would come apart. He pressed his fingers against that sensitive nub at her crux, and her muscles suddenly clenched ’round him, causing an unspeakably exquisite sensation to ripple through her.
Maura cried out and collapsed against his chest. Dugan wrapped his arms ’round her as every inch of her body pulsed with an all-consuming pleasure. ’Twas even more overpowering than the sensations she’d felt the night before.
Dugan jerked sharply, at the same time gasping for air. He held Maura tightly against him as he moved inside her, shuddering with his own release.
Her ear against his chest, she heard the rapid beat of his heart, the great tugs of his breath. He was as undone as she.
But when she looked at him, his expression was not one of rapture.
Alastair Baird strode into the guesthouse inside the walls of Caillich Castle. The common room was sparsely furnished, but a small peat fire warmed it adequately. They saw no one about—no servants, no innkeeper.
“Do you really think Lady Maura would have stopped here, Lieutenant Baird?” Corporal Higgins asked. “There’s been no sign of her.”
Something caught Baird’s eye—a wraithlike creature hovering over the fireplace. It stared at him with unseeing eyes, and he shuddered when it pointed its bony finger at him.
“Lieutenant?”
The damned thing disappeared.
“Are you all right, sir?” Higgins asked.
Baird rubbed his eyes. “Find the proprietor.”
The corporal walked to the back of the building, leaving Baird alone. He stole a glance at the spot above the mantel again and saw naught. His eyes must have played a trick on him, for there was no wraith there now. No old woman to point and accuse—
“Lieutenant Baird,” Higgins said, returning to the entry room with a man wearing Caillich plaid, “here is Mr. MacCallum.”
“MacCallum, we are looking for a woman . . . a fugitive.”
“Aye?” The burly, dark-haired proprietor wiped his hands on a cloth as he looked at Baird, frowning. “What’s it to do wi’ me?”
“Did you happen to let lodgings to a young female yesterday eve? A red-haired woman . . . ?”
The man set his cloth aside, leaned forward on his clerk’s stand, and glared at his visitors in fierce highlander fashion. He shook his head. “Nay. Mine is a respectable house. I do’na make it a practice to house women alone.”
Baird could not tell if he was lying, but there was something in his tone . . . “This one m-might have been in the company of a group of men . . . highlanders. Clan MacMillan.”
The innkeeper rubbed a hand over his heavy beard. “MacMillans? Here? Ye jest, Lieutenant. Do ye no’ know the Duke of Argyll is up at the Lord’s Tower?”
Baird felt his heart trip. He did not want anyone to know he’d lost Maura Duncanson—especially not her kin! If Argyll found out and word got back to Aucharnie . . .
He refrained from nervously wiping his brow, but merely cleared his throat. “No, I did not know.” How would he have known, when Argyll had been in Glasgow at Ilay House only a few days ago? Or had it been longer? A week? More? Baird pressed his fingers against his forehead and tried to remember exactly how long it had been since they’d left Glasgow.
Since he’d left that witch dead on the floor of her croft outside Fort William.
“Aye,” said MacCallum. “Yer duke is here conferring with Laird Caillich.”
Alastair could not think, not when the icy grip of bony fingers spread across his neck. He swatted them away, but not before he heard the voice. Ye bear the stink of death upon ye.
“Damnation,” he blurted. He refused to be cowed by a figment of his imagination. There was no ghost, no old woman pointing accusing fingers at him. No wraith to choke him, to confuse him.
He caught the proprietor looking at him askance and quickly lowered his hand from the back of his neck.
“How long will the duke be staying at Caillich?” Baird demanded somewhat more forcefully than necessary.
MacCallum leaned forward onto his forearm, and when he spoke, sarcasm drenched his words. “Oddly enough, Lieutenant, I am no’ privy to the duke’s plans.”
“Well then.” Baird straightened his coat and shrugged off the weird sensations that were now crawling up his spine. Perhaps when he found Maura Duncanson and disposed of her, these unnerving sensations would disappear. Aye, that was it. He only needed to rid himself of Lady Maura, and all would be well again. “Have you any rooms to let?”
The highlander grinned, baring his teeth. “Nay, Lieutenant. I have nary a one. Beggin’ yer pardon, o’ course.”
The cold hand returned to the back of Baird’s neck. Again, he slapped his hand against it but found naught. “I don’t believe you, MacCallum.”
“Ach, aye. I can see how ye might think I’d keep my rooms from ye just to keep ye from finding yer comfort tonight.”
“Well, then are you?” Baird asked, feeling entirely unsettled. He continued rubbing the back of his neck to dispel the cold, clammy feel of the hand that would not leave him be.
The proprietor crossed his arms over his chest and watched him. “Weel now—”
“Lieutenant . . .” Higgins touched his arm. “Mayhap we should go elsewhere.”
Baird shook off Higgins’s hand. “Where do you suggest, Higgins? Are there so many other rooms to let here at Caillich?” Even to his own ears, he sounded more than slightly panicked. He lowered his hands and took a deep, if unsteady, breath.
Alastair, always the one to lose your composure.
He felt weak. His father never admonished him. Never.
“Never mind. We’ll go.” He would not stay and listen to . . . No. It could not be his father’s voice. And that gruesome wraith over the fireplace? It had merely been a trick of the shadows.
Baird turned and stalked out of the guesthouse. MacCallum was overtly antagonistic and would not have told him if Maura Duncanson had gone right up to him and identified herself as Lord Aucharnie’s daughter.
“Lieutenant,” said Higgins, “I’m sure we can bunk in with Lord Caillich’s men.”
“Oh, you are sure, Higgins?” Alastair asked irritably.
“Reasonably sure, sir.”
“Then why don’t you just go to the barracks and see what you can find.”
All Baird wanted was a good night’s sleep. He’d been plagued by those headaches and more than a few horrible nightmares since Fort William, but he felt certain ’twas only because they’d been sleeping on the hard ground, in the damp air. Once he spent the night in a proper bed—and dealt with the wench who was the cause of all his troubles—all would be well.
And his eyes would stop seeing things that were not there.
Dugan could not remember a time in his life when he’d felt so utterly rattled. He had never deflowered a maiden, nor had the act ever wrung from him the degree of pleasure he’d experienced with Maura.
A Duncanson.
He wanted to gather her into his arms and carry her inside to Murray’s bed and spend the night with her there, exploring all manner of sensual pleasures with her.
“Let me up, MacMillan,” Maura said.
Dugan moved aside. He could barely see her in the shadows. Gesu, he’d taken a virgin on the floor of a barn. He ought to be whipped. “Are you . . .” He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Gesu, Maura, are you all right?”
She began to right her clothes—clothes he’d practically ripped from her. “Yes.”
He could still taste her sweet skin, feel the silk of it beneath his lips. And he wanted more.
He rose from the floor. “Let me help you.”
“I can manage.”
But he took her hands and pulled her to her feet. When she kept her head down and started working on the fastenings of her bodice, Dugan moved her hands aside and did them himself. He ought to apologize, but could not bring himself to say the words.
She was ominously quiet.
Dugan tipped his head down and captured her lips. She gasped, but melted against him when he pulled her close. He was not sorry at all for taking possession of her. His only regret was the appalling setting in which she’d experienced her first lovemaking.
“I will not apologize, Maura, for I fully intend to let you ravish me again,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Me? Ravish you?”
He laughed. “Oh aye.”
“Dugan MacMillan, you are the most vexing man in all—”
She started to pull away, but Dugan held her fast. He took her mouth again, intent upon wiping the irritation from her voice, from her mind. He did not want to argue.
Chapter 25
Maura’s heart pounded madly.
She stood at the door of the barn, with Dugan right behind her, snaking his arm ’round her waist. Pulling her against him, as though he had not just made love to her again.
And she had allowed it, knowing how he despised her name.
“You’ll sleep beside me tonight, Maura,” he whispered in her ear.
Oh God. Maura wanted to. But she wanted more than this night and knew she could not have it. Lachann and the others were counting on Dugan to pay their rents, and they all knew how nebulous the promise of gold was.
She felt raw and helpless against him. “Dugan—”
“Hush, lass. Go i
nto the cottage and eat,” he said. “I’ll join you soon.”
Join her? In Murray’s bedchamber?
Lachann already thought badly of her, and Dugan had not even told his brother that she was one of the hated Duncansons. She left the barn and started for the cottage, unsure how she was going to face the others after what she’d done. She was unsure how she could face herself.
She wondered if Dugan’s opinion of her had changed, now that he’d bedded her. Had anything else changed? She was still a Duncanson, and her own uncle might have been the one who’d killed Dugan’s family.
It made her feel queasy. She’d never cared for Robert Campbell, and now she knew it was for good reason. Any man who would murder families—innocent women and children—was not worth the leather that soled his boots.
She stepped inside the cottage where Lachann and Calum had already wrapped themselves in their heavy plaids and were sleeping on the floor near the fireplace. Archie had fallen asleep sitting up with his head on the table, next to the empty bottle of whiskey.
Now she understood why they seemed dead to the world and was glad she did not have to worry about facing them tonight.
The cottage was nearly as dark inside as it was out, so Maura lit a lamp and brought it to the table. She touched Archie’s shoulder and he roused himself just enough for him to belch before bidding her good night. Then he followed the example of the others and, without another word, found a comfortable place to lie down.
Maura prepared another meal with the unused ingredients, and just as she took it from the fire, Dugan returned.
He glanced ’round the darkened room, then spoke quietly to her. “Were they all asleep when you came in?”
She held up the whiskey bottle that had been at least half full when she’d left the cottage. “Yes. Archie fell asleep in his plate. I woke him and sent him to bed.”
Maura felt self-conscious as Dugan observed her scooping out two servings of food onto plates for them. She set down the pan and went to wipe her hands on her apron, but realized she’d lost it somewhere.
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