by Marie Laval
The old man’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. He let out a strangled cry, dropped his glass of whisky to the floor where it shattered. Clutching at his chest, he fell backwards with a thudding noise.
‘Someone get me some brandy or a glass of water! Quick!’ The young man cried out in a panic.
Bruce knelt down beside him and loosened the man’s cravat. The man’s breathing was fast and raspy, on one side his face had fallen and a streak of saliva dribbled out of his mouth.
‘I think he has suffered a stroke,’ Bruce said.
‘What happened?’ McRae asked, standing next to him.
‘Too much excitement, I would guess.’ Bruce pointed to the pieces of broken glass and added. ‘And far too much whisky. Actually I think he drank his glass as well as mine…’
McRae hissed in annoyance, raking his fingers through his brown hair.
‘Blast, he certainly chose his moment.’ He sounded more angry at the disruption to his soirée than worried about his guest’s sudden illness.
‘We’ll have to move him, of course. Can you help me take him to a quiet drawing room while I send one of my people to fetch the village doctor? I don’t want to alert anyone, and certainly not his wife, who’s probably enjoying a cup of cocoa with the other ladies right now. We don’t want any of them to find out how Sir Colin’s malaise came about, do we?’
‘Don’t you think they will, anyway?’ Bruce said as he grabbed the man under the armpits while Cameron took hold of his feet.
Together they carried him to a nearby drawing room where they lay him onto a sofa. By the time Bruce returned to the music room, most guests had left. The musicians gathered their instruments, while the girls got dressed. If he wanted to talk to them, now was his chance.
He walked towards the men first and introduced himself. They muttered what he supposed was a greeting in their language. As he started talking about Malika, they waved their hands, palms up, as if to signal that they had no idea what he was talking about.
Bruce said Malika’s name again, but the men only shrugged and shook their heads. Letting out an impatient sigh, he turned to the dancers. Maybe they spoke a little English. The girls stood at the back of the room, and took a few steps back when he approached.
‘I want to talk to you about Malika Jahal,’ he started very slowly. ‘Can you tell me what happened before she left?’
One girl started crying, another said something very fast in a shrill voice but he had no idea what it was. It was hopeless, they couldn’t understand each other. He was about to give up when he noticed that one of the dancers was missing – the girl who had kept her clothes on.
‘Where is your friend?’ he asked.
He gestured to the back of the room where the girl had been dancing. Maybe that one understood a little English. Although unlikely, he had to try.
The girls glanced at one another. An uneasy, almost scared look flickered in their eyes and they all started talking at once. He caught a name, Ourida, that they said over and over again. He guessed it was the girl’s name.
‘Can Ourida speak English?’
One of the girls nodded. ‘English, English,’ she repeated.
‘So where is she?’
This time the girl cast a sideways glance towards a half-open door partly concealed behind a black curtain. Bruce frowned. So the girl had slipped out of the music room. The question was, why? Perhaps she had a secret assignment with one of the gentlemen present tonight.
A more sinister thought made him frown. What if one of McRae’s guests was so aroused he’d decided to take the woman by force?
He lifted the curtain, pushed the door open, and followed an empty corridor leading to an orangerie. One of the tall patio doors was ajar. The woman they called Ourida must be in there. He stepped into a hot and humid jungle, filled with exotic fragrances of vanilla, sandalwood and jasmine.
‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Ourida, or whatever your name is… are you in here? You have nothing to fear from me, I only want to talk to you.’
There was no answer. Silver moonlight poured from the high glass ceiling and cast ink-black shadows onto the ground. He took a few steps in the central alley, paused, his body tense, and all his senses heightened, heard the rustling of leaves and the soft metallic clinking of the dancing girl’s bracelets and necklaces, and smiled. Now he’d got her. He directed his steps towards her.
A metallic object fell to the ground with a loud noise, followed by an impatient cry.
‘Bedbugs!’
His heart skipped a beat. Now he had really gone mad. He could have sworn it was Rose’s voice uttering her silly, inappropriate, but wonderful curse. But it was impossible. Rose was miles away, safe on Wallace’s farm.
A slim woman’s silhouette cast a long shadow on the moonlit slate floor in front of him. As she retreated behind a tree, the silk of her dress rustled, and her bracelets and necklaces rang in the silence. There was something in the way she walked, something…
Snapping out of his daze he strode towards her. And there she was, standing behind the broad leaf of a palm tree, bathed in moonlight in her exotic costume.
‘Rose? Is that you?’ He grabbed hold of her slender shoulders and pulled her to him.
She tilted her face up. She had taken her veil off and her eyes appeared unusually dark and large. She was wearing the dancing girls’ heavy make-up.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ He put his hands on her delicate shoulders, unable to decide whether to shake her senseless for disobeying him or draw her against him and smother her in a tight embrace.
‘I could ask you the same question. How come Cameron didn’t throw you out once you threatened to wreck the Sea Eagle?’
‘I changed my mind about that,’ he replied, shortly. ‘But don’t try and turn the tables on me. I asked first.’
‘Very well. If you must know, I was hiding in case that horrible man came to take us back to the hunting lodge.’
‘I meant what are you doing here, at Westmore? All dressed up and dancing like a – like a…’
Words failed him as he looked up and down her body. She looked exquisite in the moonlight – an enchantress, and a creature from a man’s wildest dreams.
‘I had to get inside the castle and it was the only thing I could think of.’
‘Why did the other girls call you Ourida?’
She smiled. ‘It’s my name in Arabic. It means little Rose. It’s what my friends and family usually call me.’
‘Where is Wallace? Is he waiting outside?’
She looked down, bit her lower lip.
‘No… The thing is… I kind of lost him this morning during the riots at Porthaven.’
Anger flooded him, coupled with an incomprehensible but irresistible urge to kiss her – a desire so potent he didn’t trust himself. He let go of her and stepped back.
‘Lost him? You did it on purpose, didn’t you? You are still chasing after the dream that McRae would want you back if you begged him.’
He paused to draw another breath. Of course she was hoping to change McRae’s mind. It was only natural. She had been used and deceived by the man.
‘It’s too late, you know,’ he added in a softer voice. ‘He announced his engagement at the ball tonight. Everybody knows he’s marrying Lady Sophia now. I am sorry, Rose, but you must try and forget you’re in love with the man and think of - ’
‘I’m not in love with him,’ she protested. ‘I don’t think I was ever in love with him. Malika was right about him. You were right about him. He is a cruel, despicable man. That’s why I came, you see – to confront him and warn Lady Sophia off. The poor woman mustn’t marry him.’
He hesitated. ‘You mean you don’t want him?’
She shook her head and her chains jingled and glittered in the moonlight.
‘Of course I don’t want him. If you had let me talk yesterday evening, I would have told you that.’
Something shifted inside him, a great,
oppressive weight he didn’t realise was there.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she said. ‘It’s important. It’s about -’
The clumping of boots echoed in the orangerie, and a gruff man’s voice called.
‘Who’s there?’
She stared at Bruce, panic making her eyes wider.
‘It’s that guard again. What am I going to do?’
‘You’re going to kiss me.’ He pulled her into his arms, bent down and covered her mouth with his.
He knew he was being too brutal but he was unable to stop himself. What started as a pretence to hide her from the prying eyes of Cameron’s henchman became an irresistible torrent of passion sweeping through him, far too strong to curb. He wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground. Her lips were soft, her body pliant, the silk covering her so thin she might as well be naked, and he could feel her every curve.
‘I said who’s there?’ The man was getting closer.
Bruce tore himself from Rose’s mouth, and she buried her face against his chest.
‘Lord McGunn,’ he answered with a snarl. ‘Can a man not enjoy himself at Westmore without somebody snooping around? Lord McRae said we could take our pick of the women.’
‘Of course, I beg yer pardon my lord,’ the big man mumbled as he retreated. ‘It’s just that I’m taking them damned foreigners back to the hunting lodge and I noticed one of the girls was missing. I thought she might be up to no good – you know, like stealing.’
‘Well, she is up to no good, that’s true, but with me,’ Bruce said curtly. ‘I’m taking her to my room for the night, and I can assure you that by the time I’ve finished with her she won’t have the energy to wander around and steal anything. Now off with you. I have this beauty to unwrap.’
Rose quivered in his arms, but whether it was from fear or indignation at his crude language, he didn’t know.
‘Certainly, my lord. I wish you much joy.’ The man let out a low chuckle and left.
‘He’s gone,’ Rose said, trying to pull away. ‘You can stop now. You don’t have to kiss me anymore.’
He yanked her back to him and whispered against the warm, scented skin of her throat.
‘Oh but I do, graidheag. I do.’
Chapter Two
‘What are you doing? Please stop,’ she breathed, as his lips trailed along the curve of her throat.
He looked up and the seductive power of her sultry, heavily made-up eyes gleaming in the moonlight hit him like a bolt of lightning. Every fibre of his body reacted to the feel of her soft body against his, the warm fragrance of her skin.
She was right, though. What the hell was he doing? Once again he reminded himself that he had no right to feel that way, no right to want her, but damn it, the woman would tempt a saint. And he was no saint.
He swallowed a deep, hard breath, released her and made himself step back.
‘All right. We’ll stay here a while and wait until McRae and his remaining guests have gone to bed. Where’s your horse?’
‘I left it tied to a post behind the hunting lodge.’
‘What about your bag?’
‘It’s still strapped to the saddle. By the time I spoke to the girls and the musicians, we had to get ready to come here.’
‘How did you manage to get into the hunting lodge without being seen by McRae’s men?’
‘It wasn’t easy. I got stuck as I sneaked in through one of the downstairs windows and ripped my - ’
‘You got stuck?’ He would have laughed if he weren’t so angry.
‘The musicians had to pull me in. We had to be quick and very quiet, because Cameron’s men were in the kitchen.’
Damn the woman. Didn’t she care about the danger she put herself in?
‘So, after clambering through a window, you had the brilliant idea to disguise yourself as a dancer and throw yourself into the lion’s den.’
She flinched at the harshness of his tone.
‘I thought I could avoid bumping into Cameron.’
‘You bump into everything and anything you come across, why not McRae?’ he interrupted, taut with temper. ‘He could have recognised you when you were with the others in the music room.’
‘Then I would have confronted him and exposed him for the liar and the debauched rake he is in front of all his guests!’ The baubles on her necklace tinkled like little bells as she shook her head.
‘Weren’t you afraid of all those men ogling you, lusting after you?’ Me included, he remembered, guilt tightening his chest.
‘Well, I… I didn’t think I would have to dance. My plan was to get into the castle and hide until I could speak to Lady Sophia. Unfortunately, Cameron’s manservant was watching us like a hawk and I had no choice but to go into the music room with the others. The girls promised to create a diversion so that I could sneak out unnoticed.’
‘A diversion? That’s a mild way of putting it,’ he sneered. ‘The girls’ dancing was… ahem… striking, to say the least. Ask that poor old man who collapsed.’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘Anyway, where did you learn to dance like that?’
She lowered her eyes, snapped a leaf from a nearby bush and tore it into tiny pieces that spiralled to the ground.
‘Malika taught me, in secret. She always said I was good enough to be one of them.’
She was right, her dancing had been entrancing, mesmerising, but he wasn’t going to tell her.
‘I still can’t believe you took such risks tonight, just to talk to McRae’s fiancée. It was stupid and foolhardy.’
And damned brave, too, even though he would never admit it. Gripped by conflicting urges, he towered above her, his fists clenched and his jaw set.
If only he could shake some sense into her. He swallowed hard. Shaking some sense into her wasn’t all he wanted to do. He longed to kiss her, make love to her, right here, right now. To take her back to Wrath and keep her safe there with him, always.
‘Surely you understand I must warn Lady Sophia about Cameron,’ she insisted as she started picking small bell-shaped flowers.
‘Because you think she’ll believe you? Anyway, why do you care so much about her? Maybe she deserves to wed a rake like McRae. From what I heard she’s a spoilt brat, a harpy – a younger version of Lady Patricia, with whom I suspect she gets on very well.’
‘You don’t understand. There are things she must know, and not just about Cameron tricking me into a fake wedding. He is a rake, a depraved scoundrel. You saw how he behaved tonight. Well, the girls told me that’s what he does almost every night. He takes his friends to the hunting lodge for private soirées, he forces them to dance then he… you know. Morven sometimes comes too. They say he’s the worst.’
She paused.
‘They’re all so scared, but they are trapped here until Cameron decides to send them back to Algiers.’
Sighing deeply, she added, ‘They told me something else. About Malika. It’s my fault she’d dead.’ And she buried her face into her hands.
‘What is it, Rose?’
She lifted tear-filled eyes towards him.
‘Malika did travel on the Sea Lady but she was kept in a separate cabin for the whole journey, and later in the hunting lodge she was locked away in an upstairs room. The girls tried to talk to her through the door but she was asleep – drugged probably – most of the time, and when they did manage to exchange a few words, she didn’t make much sense. She told them there was another girl in the room with her, a young girl, but they didn’t know whether it was true or not because they never saw or heard anyone else.’
‘What else did she say?’
‘That she followed Cameron the night we argued in Algiers – the night before my… wedding. She saw him take the woman dancer – the one who was later found dead in the harbour – to the Sea Lady so she sneaked on board to spy on them. She said Cameron hurt the girl in a fit of drunken rage, and that she was caught as she tried to help her. So you see, I am t
he one to blame if Malika was on Cameron’s clipper and came over to Scotland. She only wanted to protect me from making a terrible mistake.’
‘What happened to Malika and that other girl at the hunting lodge?’
‘The Ouled Nails don’t really know. Late one night they heard some shouting and crying inside Malika’s room. The following morning her door was wide open, and the room was empty. Both Malika and the girl – whoever she was – were gone.’
She paused, plucked a few more tiny flowers from the bush next to her, then let them fall to the ground like snowflakes. Tears burned her eyes, and her throat was now so tight she could hardly speak.
‘According to McRae, Malika boarded the Sea Lady because she was upset that you two had argued and she wanted to make it up to you. Then one day she left without warning.’
‘You think it’s possible she ran away with that other girl?’
‘It’s possible, of course. Maybe they managed to escape and met some unsavoury characters on the way to Wick, Thurso… or Inverness.’
His eyes clouded over. He remained silent for a moment.
‘It must have been a terrible shock for you to hear about McRae’s sordid behaviour,’ he remarked at last.
Embarrassed, almost ashamed, she bent her head and drew in a shaky breath.
‘That’s the thing. It wasn’t a shock, not really. Malika warned me about Cameron in Algiers. She said that he visited girls in dockside taverns and sometimes took them back to the Sea Lady, but I didn’t want to believe her. I told her she was mean and jealous. When she said she’d bring me the proof, I pushed her out of my hotel room.’
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘That was the last time I saw her.’
She bowed her head as tears pearled at the corners of her eyes. Bruce put his hands on her shoulders once again. Their warmth seeped through the thin fabric of her dress.
‘I don’t understand why Cameron was so eager to go through with this fake wedding,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s not as if he really wanted me. He didn’t even seem to enjoy… ahem… his conjugal duties that much.’
