by Paula Quinn
The first and easiest thing to figure out was that she was in a saddle, propped up against a formidable chest. How many in their company? She listened to the hoofbeats around her. Three horses, including her captor’s. Who were they?
“This will teach that arrogant bastard, Grey, not to refuse a Winther, and most especially not with lies about the redhead having a fever.”
Alison? When had Harry lied to them about Alison?
“What does it matter?” the one behind her in the saddle said. “Oliver changed his mind and wants this one.”
Oliver Winther wanted her? Why? How did he even know she existed?
She continued pretending to be unconscious. She didn’t need to reach in her pocket for reassurance. She knew she carried Malcolm’s sleeping tea. All she needed was water. She thought of Gascon and whoever else they may have hurt, Cailean, Alison, to keep her mind set on one thing. If the Winthers killed her dog, or anyone else she cared about, then they already started the war. She didn’t care how powerful they were or how many of them there were, if she needed to kill these three, she would. The problem was she didn’t know the woods. How would she find her way back to the brothel?
“Let’s stop for a while,” a thick voice said to her right. “I want to sample the goods before Oliver gets her. She’ll be good to no one when he’s done with her.”
“You won’t lay a hand on her,” said the man sitting behind her. “Unless you want the whip.”
“John, Oliver wouldn’t have his own cousin whipped,” the man to her right said.
“You’re correct,” John said. “He’d do it himself.”
Emma breathed through her nose, trying to slow her pulse. She’d heard of Oliver Winther. Women described him as a golden god with beautiful pale green eyes as cold as death. The baron liked death. He liked bringing it to others, mostly innocent folks who didn’t support him. His methods of killing were what invoked fear into everyone’s heart at the mention of his name.
Emma was glad it was she that these men had taken, and not Alison or Brianne. They would be too afraid to do anything. Emma was afraid, but she’d been afraid before, losing her parents, her brother, her home, and her sight. She knew fear well, until she learned how to use it.
Malcolm was correct. She wasn’t the frail little mouse Harry thought she was. And she wasn’t about to be sampled by Oliver Winther or anyone else.
She coughed and opened her eyes. Instantly, her captor’s arm tightened around her waist. She coughed again.
“Water. Please,” she begged.
The brute behind her thought about it for a moment, then untied his pouch of water hanging from his saddle and handed it to her.
She uncorked it, then wiped the rim with her fingers and brought it to her mouth. She pretended to drink a sip and then coughed again.
“Do you have anything stronger?” she asked, then turned to the man on her right as if she could see him there. “I’ll show you things I’ve learned living at Fortune’s Smile.”
The oaf laughed. “You look too innocent to know much. But don’t fear, I’ll teach you what you don’t know.”
She went into a fit of coughing and refused her captor’s water.
“Give her your wine, Rubert,” the man behind her, John, commanded. “She’s choking.”
Finally she was handed another pouch. When she popped the cork, the scent of stale wine assailed her senses. She pinched a thicker bunch of her special mixture between her fingers and dropped it into the pouch, as she’d done with the previous container. No one noticed. To their eyes, she didn’t appear to be doing anything more serious than wiping the spout before she drank. She pretended to drink and then handed it back.
“I heard you were blind.” The suspicion in Rubert’s voice made her cringe. “I can’t catch it from you, can I?”
“Only if you come in contact with my blood,” she reassured him.
John swore behind her and loosened his grip.
Simple beasts, she thought. They were worse than ignorant, they were indifferent to their ignorance.
Now, if they’d only drink from their pouches. There was still one more brute. She’d have to figure something out. But first, she needed to know if she should kill them once they were helpless to her.
“Did you kill my dog, or anyone at the brothel?”
“You mean that ugly mongrel that came after us?” Rubert asked, then popped the cork on his pouch and guzzled his wine.
“Did you kill him?”
“Reggie there”—he paused and must have motioned to the rider on her left—“he stopped the beast with a rock. Ask him.”
Emma turned her head, wishing for her sight for a moment so she could see the man’s face who’d hit Gascon with a rock.
No matter, she thought when John yawned. Soon enough it would be just her and Reggie.
She was going to need a knife.
Chapter Seventeen
Malcolm didn’t pause or rest his horse, but kept pace with Gascon as the dog raced around trees and crashed through shallow streams. Gascon had her scent. Malcolm had their tracks. Three riders traveling northwest, toward Newcastle. Even if they took her three or four hours ago, they still had at least six hours before they reached their destination. They couldn’t be much farther in the distance.
Malcolm looked up at the darkening sky and swore under his breath. The only thing that could hinder her discovery was rain. Too much of it and tracks would be washed away, scents would be lost.
Beside him, Gascon seemed to sense their urgency and raced even harder.
Malcolm had never met a more intelligent dog. His kin would do well to breed him with Grendel’s daughters.
Gascon stopped so suddenly that Malcolm had to rein up his horse on its hind legs. He said nothing, listening to the sounds of the wood creatures scurrying, the wind… He waited another moment while Gascon’s low growl rumbled around him.
Or was it thunder?
He heard a sound. A distant scream, a bird overhead? Gascon took off, like a shadow of destruction, still silent, still about to take his victim by surprise.
Malcolm followed the dog until he saw what Gascon had heard. Emma! She was running from a man who chased her on foot. His head looked to be covered in blood, but he appeared quick on his feet and was almost upon her.
Malcolm and Gascon raced after him. The dog reached him an instant before Malcolm’s tiring horse did. Gascon finally barked—it came out more like a guttural shout, spinning Emma on her feet—before he sank his fangs into the assailant’s ankle. The man screamed in agony as his bones crunched beneath him.
Malcolm was glad she couldn’t see his massive claymore swinging across the man’s throat.
“Gascon!” she shouted, and reached out her arms to gather her dog into them. “Thank God you live! Thank God! Oh, you found me! Thank you, Gascon!”
Malcolm reached them and swung off his horse. He went to her, not expecting her to turn her most radiant smile on him when he spoke her name. He’d only meant to check her for injury but he took her in his arms just as he reached her. He held her there, feeling her life pounding against his chest, thankful that she was still alive. He didn’t try to kiss her. Saints knew he wanted to. But she’d just been running for her life. She needed comfort, not kissing.
He needed to know the whereabouts of the other two riders. The tracks didn’t lie.
“Emmaline, my dear,” he said, pulling away enough to look at her, almost lose his wits right there to her. “Where are the others?”
“There are two others,” she confirmed. “I fed them your tea. They’ve fallen into a deep sleep a short distance away. Did they harm anyone at the brothel?”
“Nae, lass.” He smiled without thinking of impressing her. He smiled for no reason other than because he found her, and because looking at her, being in her company, pleased him. He wished she could see how happy she made him by surviving. He would have to find ways to tell her. She was brave and capable…
&nbs
p; “Thank you.” She graced him with a smile and then reached up, on the tips of her toes, and planted a kiss at the edge of his mouth.
The innocent gesture shook awake every emotion he’d tried to avoid. It took strength he didn’t know he possessed to keep from closing his arms around her and branding her mouth with his. He wanted to hold her and kiss her. Never before had his body ached so to taste a woman, to breathe with her, to touch her so intimately with his mouth, his tongue. He bent instead to scoop her up and said nothing while he carried her to his horse. When she hooked her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek close to his chest, he nearly doubled over with a desire to protect her.
Hell, how could he have gone with Bess when the thought of days without Emma in them terrified him? When things like the quirk of her mouth, the furrow of her brow, or her delicate fingers falling over everything she needed to see haunted his every thought?
While he carried her, he looked down at the dip of her gaze, as if she were trying to hide, mayhap from her memories of Clementine. Mayhap, from him. He knew what hiding was like. It was lonely. He didn’t want that for her, or for himself anymore.
“I have ye now,” he whispered.
“Thank you for coming for me, Malcolm. I think that last man would have killed me in another moment or so. I could hardly keep running without injuring myself against a tree.”
He closed his eyes, thinking about what would have happened to her if he weren’t here.
He thought about his earlier decision, but to hell with leaving. She needed him here. He’d just have to be strong and not take anyone else to his bed, including her.
His instincts told him to move back, stay away. This was only his dragon rearing its mighty head, making him even more keenly aware of the absence of real passion in his life. But when he leaped into the saddle behind her and curled his arm around her delicate waist, he knew there was more involved than a dragon. There was something much stronger. His heart.
If it wasn’t turning his whole world upside down he might have almost smiled at the irony of falling for a lass who couldn’t see the face and form he’d relied on his entire life to get him what he wanted.
They hadn’t gone more than a hundred feet when the skies opened up with a peal of thunder that drove Emma deeper into his arms. He wished he had his plaid to cover her. When she began to tremble, he closed his arms around her tighter and bent his head to her ear.
“Are ye afraid of the thunder, lass?”
“I try not to be,” she confessed, turning slightly in the saddle to be closer to him. “But ’tis very daunting.”
He caressed her to him and stroked her hair. “’Tis only a sound,” he told her close to her lobe. He lingered there, then brushed his lips lightly over it. “’Tis far less dangerous than three men bent, I’m certain, on ill intent. And look what ye did to them.”
She stopped his heart when she smiled up at him and then set it to pounding when she wrapped her arms around his waist.
He felt himself melting into her, stroking his fingers over her arm, wanting nothing more than to protect her—even if most of the time, she didn’t need protecting.
Soon, the rain soaked through his clothes and Gascon whined, looking as lost as Malcolm knew they were. It was best to find shelter and stop and wait out the storm than try to ride through it. He could barely see, not to mention his fidgeting horse.
It wasn’t safe to keep going. They had to stop. He’d be alone with her. Hell.
He found a shallow cave, which was really a rock overhang that fit him, Emma, and Gascon and kept the rain out. His horse had to wait it out under a nearby tree.
They were still cold, but at least they were less wet.
“Was Gascon hurt?” she asked him when she patted the dog’s head and it whined. She crouched against the cave wall, beneath a splash of light issued from the sun trying to appear. She hugged the dog to her more gently. “They told me that the one chasing me had killed him with a rock.”
Malcolm’s blood still boiled but he managed a smile at Gascon, glad that the beast had gotten revenge.
“Gunter found him,” he told her, happy along with her that Gascon lived. “He was knocked out fer a bit, but his determination to save ye woke him from his slumber.”
“I don’t know why he loves me so,” she said, and kissed the top of Gascon’s head.
Hell, Malcolm could have named a dozen reasons. “He’s a good friend,” he said. “If not fer him, I dinna’ know if I woulda’ found ye.”
She smiled at him and nodded, stroking her dog’s head. Gascon panted, then rested his head in her lap, content.
As Malcolm felt—here, under a rock roof, soaked to his skin, watching a wet lass hugging an even wetter dog.
She lifted her head to him and smiled, giving him what he was after—an invitation into her private world. His heart faltered, along with his gaze. She grew more bonny every time he looked at her, and each time, he wasn’t prepared for her effect on him.
He wanted to kill the rest of the men who tried to take her. He didn’t give a damn if they were Winthers or not. He’d kill them all if they dared touch her again.
“Fergive me, lass.”
“What for?” she asked softly.
“They took ye right from under m’ nose.” He wouldn’t let it happen again.
“You were asleep, Malcolm. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Nae, I wasn’t asleep. I was…” He couldn’t tell her about Bess. “… with Harry.”
He’d never be worthy of a lass like Emma. How could this be? How could he finally feel something for a lass who wanted the kind of man he could never be? It made his muscles tighten and his legs grow heavy. He’d slept with Bess. Och, nae, he just couldn’t take it in. How could he forget? Had he been drugged? Had he fallen asleep and Bess undressed him? Why had she been naked too?
Damn it. What if he could lose his heart and it still wasn’t enough? He didn’t want to lose his heart to Emma. Not if he wasn’t sure he could give his heart to her alone. She wanted more in a man than a handsome face or a charming smile. He didn’t know if he was more than that. But he wanted to be. He realized he’d wanted to be more for a long time now. Finally, he had a reason.
He almost laughed at himself. He was no knight.
But did that mean he could never become one?
“Tell me about your life in Skye,” she said. Her voice rang like music across his ears. She snuggled closer to him, trying to get warm.
He was in trouble.
“And about your family. I know Cailean, and Caitrina is a pirate. Tell me of the rest, and of you.”
Malcolm may not have shared his relatives’ romantic natures, but he loved them all.
“I had a good childhood,” he told her, astonished at the ease with which he spoke. He’d never sat with any woman and told her things about himself. He wanted to tell her, to show her more of him. “I built strong relationships with m’ cousins durin’ games and fights, and any bit of trouble we could come up with.”
She smiled. He drew a long breath.
“Trouble seemed to follow me more than the others. Fer as long as I can remember, I was the one who stood before his faither the most times.”
She breathed against him. “What’s he like? Your father?”
Malcolm thought of a way to describe Connor Grant, former captain of England’s Royal Guard. Highland husband to the daughter of the infamous Devil MacGregor.
“He’s a happy man.”
She laughed. “Is that it?”
“’Tis enough. His laughter can often be heard across the vales. His wife and children love and respect him and so do her brothers and her faither. And every woman in Camlochlin.”
“Ah, ’tis him you take after then,” she teased.
“I’m nothin’ like him,” he told her. “He has all those attributes ye’re so fond of.”
She sat up, moving off him, making certain he could see her face. “I think you have t
hem too, Malcolm. You just try to keep them behind you.”
He thought of waking up under Bess.
“Mayhap,” he allowed, though he didn’t mean it. “I’d like ye to be right, lass, but I dinna’ think ye are. I would save ye the heartache I bring.”
She weighed him with a grin. “What if ’tis I who bring the heartache?”
“Then I’m doomed.”
She shook her head and came in closer, closing her eyes. “No,” she whispered, her warm breath covering him, her plump lips tempting him beyond endurance. “I will save you.”
He smiled and traced the contour of her upper lip with his thumb. He moved in, drawn to the honeyed fullness of her mouth. It wasn’t safe for him to kiss her.
But he didn’t give a damn.
Chapter Eighteen
His heavy, uneven breath boomed through Emma’s ears and sent warm trickles down her back. His hands on her face were hard, callused, but gentle on her flesh. She could almost hear his blood, his desire pulsing through his veins, as he drew her closer.
Emma had never been kissed on the mouth before. She didn’t know if she would even like it. But then Malcolm Grant swept his soft lips over hers. It was a good thing she was sitting, for her knees were as good as gone. It got even better, or worse, depending on how one looked at it, when his mouth covered hers in a masterful kiss that tempted her to follow him to the ends of the earth. She felt caught up, crushed against him, his mouth, hungry and possessive. She liked it. No, she loved it. She loved how he felt all hard and demanding. She wanted to give in to his every command, and then Emma wanted to give some commands of her own.
Gascon shifted and moved away from her lap, giving her space to move into Malcolm, deeper into his kiss. When his tongue flicked across her lips to part them, she gasped, then felt her face go up in flames when he withdrew.
“Fergive me.”
Forgive him? He chose to be chivalrous now? “No! Forgive me!” She felt foolish, like a child who knew nothing about life or love. “I’ve never been kissed before.”
