Beloved Impostor

by Patricia Potter

  “Then the deer turned and ran away. The hares, though, stayed, knowing they were safe. The birds took perches around the croft. The wolf joined them, ignoring the hares that ran back and forth in distress.

  “They were all guarding Sofia …”

  Felicia heard the door opening softly, and she saw Lachlan in the doorway. The flickering lights of the candle cast shadows across his face, giving the usually open face a dark, secretive look.

  “I thought you might be here,” he said, then cast a look at Alina. “And how’s my favorite lass?” he asked.

  Alina’s eyes sparkled with pleasure. “I am much better, milord.”

  “I am not ‘milord,’” he corrected, “I am Lachlan. And I am very pleased to see you looking so well.”

  “I want to have my hair cut like Lady—” she stopped herself, obviously not quite sure what to call her visitor.

  “She does look charming,” Lachlan said easily. “But for now I thought she might like to see the foal she named.”

  “She was telling me a story,” Alina protested.

  Felicia leaned over her. “You need some rest. I will tell you more tomorrow.”

  “Will you sing a song first?” Alina pleaded.

  Felicia looked at Lachlan. “Mayhap Lachlan would play the lute for us as well.”

  “Oh, yes,” Alina said, her face glowing. “Please.”

  Lachlan looked as if he were about to refuse, then he ruffled Alina’s long, dark hair and leaned down. “Lady Felicia looks charming, but I truly like your long hair.” He straightened up. “I will be back.”

  In minutes he returned with the lute in his hand. He started strumming a tune.

  She meant to sing along with him, but something about him stopped her. He had always seemed alone, somehow apart from his clansmen. There was an impenetrable sadness about him, one he tried to hide behind a light-hearted facade.

  He looked at her, and for a moment his eyes were bleak, but then they seemed to smile again. “You were going to sing,” he reminded her.

  She did, and wondered whether her own confused emotions were evident as well.

  Rory forced himself to stay away from the Campbells.

  Instead he went to the box in his chamber where he kept the opium. Before he left again for the sea he would give more to Moira, making sure that she understood its power.

  He broke away a very small piece. It would go in the wine of the man guarding the Campbell tonight.

  He then went to the window and looked out. Night had replaced dusk, and the sky was dotted with stars and framed by a part-moon. No clouds tonight, no mist. Only clear, cold night.

  Fires burned in the courtyard; small groups of soldiers huddled together. Women and children were using the great hall to sleep.

  The sound of pipes reached him, the plaintive wail matching his mood. The sound usually stirred him. It was as wild and untamed as the Highlands and its soldiers. Now it merely deepened the loneliness.

  He was frightened for Lachlan. For his clan. And for Felicia, if his poor plan failed to work.

  He wanted to go to Felicia’s room, to push away the uncertainty that plagued him. It was one reason he asked Lachlan to do so.

  Could Lachlan carry out the masquerade? Would the Campbell turn on them? Would Morneith be so foolish as to walk into their trap? Was his information true, or had it been a French attempt to sow even more distrust between the Scots and the English?

  Beneath him, the fires revealed two figures leaving the tower and moving toward the stable. He recognized his brother’s lanky form and Felicia’s smaller, graceful one. He wished he could see the pleasure in Felicia’s eyes as she watched the foal. It was a gangling animal already showing signs of beauty and breeding.

  He found himself moving toward the door, then down the stairs, and toward the stable. Lachlan would be a buffer between them.

  He greeted the clansmen he knew, realizing how many he did not know, how long he had been gone. But each looked at him with trust.

  God help him keep it.

  The door to the stable was cracked, and he slid inside and walked toward the stall holding the mare and her baby. He stayed back as he heard her talk softly to the foal.

  “Bonny lass. All legs and eyes, but you will be such a fine filly. She is, isn’t she, Lachlan? She is quite exceptional.”

  “Aye, she is. And do not forget she is yours. Rory gave her to you.”

  “But that was before he knew who I was.”

  “Rory never breaks promises,” Lachlan said. “It is a fault as much as a virtue.”

  “Why?”

  “Because life is never black and white, all one way or another. Circumstances change, and what seems so clear one moment may not be so clear another.”

  Rory sensed that Lachlan was speaking as much about himself as about Rory. But it was an arrow hitting its mark. He had lived in a self-imposed isolation because he had been helpless to save those he loved. And he had judged others by his own rigid standards.

  “He is lonely, is he not?”

  “Aye, I believe so.”

  A silence then, and he could see in his mind’s eye her fingers stroking the foal. He hurt inside. More than hurt. He felt his soul bleeding. Loneliness was a writhing snake within him. His brother was leaving on what could be a fatal mission. Felicia was forbidden. His older brother was missing.

  He stepped out of the shadows and approached them.

  Lachlan looked surprised, then slightly amused.

  Felicia looked startled, then wary.

  Did he look so fearsome then? Rory looked at her. “I came to take a ride,” he lied. “I could not but help hear part of the conversation. The foal is yours, my lady. There were no conditions.”

  “Thank you,” she said, then, “May I go with you?”

  “It is cold, my lady.”

  “I have been cold before. About ten days ago, in truth.”

  “But that was not your choice.”

  She looked up at him. “That is not entirely true,” she parried. “But I would enjoy a ride.”

  “I intend to ride hard.” Another fabrication. He would not risk his animal by riding fast at night, not without a need to do so.

  “I am a good rider.”

  He did not doubt it. He knew he should say no, but she had been a prisoner here for too long. He also knew she would not try to escape as long as her cousin was here.

  Which would not be very long at all.

  Could he deny her a few hours of pleasure? Even at a cost of a few hours of agony for him? Rory glanced up at Lachlan for assistance. He found none.

  “I will saddle the horses,” Lachlan offered.

  Rory could have hit him.

  “My—Janet’s mare is here,” Felicia said eagerly. Her eyes were brighter than he’d seen them since he’d discovered who she was.

  Rory tried one last time. “The wind will be fierce along the coast.”

  “Of course,” she said, looking at him as if the comment was beneath him.

  He shook his head. She was as unlike Maggie and Anne as anyone could be. Both of them had relished peace. Felicia Campbell relished challenges.

  He knew it was a mistake, but at the same time it seemed safe enough. A short ride to the cliffs and back. A bit of freedom for both of them.

  He needed to get away from the keep and the concerns that tortured him. She needed a release from what must seem a prison to her.

  If there were second thoughts, they had no time to surface. The stable lad brought Rory’s favorite gelding to him, and Lachlan saddled Felicia’s mare.

  He helped her mount, then mounted himself.

  They walked the horses to the gate, and Rory ordered them opened.

  Once outside the walls, he guided them toward the point that overlooked the sea. The moon was bright enough to see the joy on her face as the cold wind buffeted them. She was as at ease on a horse as he was, and that was rare for a woman. But the exhilaration, whether it came from the ride
itself or the freedom she felt, was obvious.

  He felt it, too. It was something all too rare, this wild, uncomplicated surge of pleasure, the sharing of it with another person. He turned on a path that led to the sea.

  They stopped on a cliff, and he dismounted. He helped her down from the mare. The moment he did and felt a surge of excitement, he knew it was a mistake. Yet he had known from the moment they left the gates behind that this would happen.

  The wind blew the hood of her cloak off her head, and the short hair curled tighter in the damp wind that swept off the sea. The sea below was frothing, dancing high against the land.

  He had been here days ago. He had been alone then, and lonely beyond bearing, and for some reason he’d felt the need to bring her here and fill the great gaping wound that had been his heart.

  Now warm blood surged through his body, and he felt alive for the first time in many years.

  She was close, probably too close, and she moved into his arms just as they opened to her. Both moves, he knew, were instinctive rather than planned, an inevitable joining.

  It was what he had feared, and what he had needed.

  It was why he had tried to stay away from her, yet agreed to allow her to accompany her on this ride.

  He’d told himself she needed it, deserved it, but it was as much his own need that had spurred his action.

  But none of that mattered as he looked down at her and saw her upturned face. Her eyes reflected the stars above, and her hair was bathed in moonlight.

  He touched her face with his fingers, tracing the stubborn jut of her jaw up to the thick lashes that framed her blue eyes. Her short hair curled around his small finger like fringes of silk. Tenderness flooded him, as he ran his fingers through her hair, then pulled her to him.

  She melted into his body as if she belonged there.

  He bent his head and rested it on her hair, drinking up the scent of roses mixed with the tangy perfume of the sea. It was intoxicating.

  She moved and looked up at him with wide eyes full of expectation and wonder and bewilderment. So many emotions. He understood all of them, for they battled for his newly found heart as well.

  His lips touched her cheeks, caressed them, then moved down to her lips. They met his as eagerly has he sought hers.

  A wave hit the cliff and sent mist spraying against them. His arms tightened around her, his heat igniting hers.

  And on the cliff that overlooked the sea that had birthed a legend—and a curse—decades earlier, Rory sought to defeat it.

  Some destiny had brought them together. If not destiny, then the devil. He was not sure which. At this moment he did not care. He only knew that she had become his lodestone.

  Their lips joined with a fierceness that nothing could break, a natural joining of something right and destined.

  She responded hungrily, opening her mouth to his, her hands embracing him with the same frenetic desperation as his. Need begat a passion so deep and strong, he felt as if fire were consuming him. Their mouths savaged each other with a wild need to touch and feel and taste. To claim something that was forbidden, to make the impossible possible.

  Need burned all the way through him, until nothing mattered except Felicia Campbell and the way she made him feel. Whole and alive. So very alive.

  Her body melded against his, and he could feel every curve though her cloak. His body tensed, reacted, and hers responded by moving even closer until he felt he would explode with need. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to be swept away. Electric tension vibrated around them, enclosing them in a private world of their own.

  He did not want to let go. Instead he crushed her to him. His hands stroked down from her hair, along her back as his tongue entered her mouth, probing, seducing, and she met each exploration with an eagerness that surprised and delighted him. More than delighted. She touched a place in him that no one had ever reached before, the deep private part of him he’d always kept barricaded against invasion, even from Maggie.

  He released her lips and moved his own along the contours of her face. He felt her breath, warm and quick. Lightning leaped between them, jagged and violent, blinding with intensity.

  He wanted to take her. In the cold. On the cliff. He wanted to become a part of her and make her a part of him. The violence of that need rocked him.

  Not here! Not now!

  The voice of reason? Or the voice of conscience? Whatever it was intruded, made him step back before he hurled both of them into an abyss of betrayal and tragedy.

  “No,” she protested.

  He tipped her chin up until their gazes met.

  “We cannot,” he said. “If it were just the two of us—”

  But even then he knew he could not allow this. Two wives dead. His mother dead within a year of her marriage. Patrick’s within three. Lachlan’s mother died in childbirth. His father had become a bitter man, blaming the Campbells and having nothing in his heart but hatred. Certainly there had been no warmth. Only the one rule: Kill Campbells.

  And he had followed that rule.

  If she knew …

  He took another step back. Why had he brought her here?

  Because he was a fool. Perhaps part of him had believed that by bringing her to the place he had brought Maggie, to the place he had come as a boy, he might clear his head.

  Or was he merely excusing inexcusable behavior.

  “I am sorry, Felicia. We should not have come here.”

  “Why?”

  He had to hurt her. He had to do it for both their sakes. “I used to bring my wife here.” He did not add that he used to laugh at the curse, despite the history of his family. He did not say that he and Maggie were going to prove it meant nothing …

  She bit her lip. “Did you love her?”

  “Aye. I did.”

  “I am sorry.”

  He dropped his fist from her chin and turned around. He could no longer meet those wide blue eyes. She was obviously willing to risk everything for him.

  He could not do the same. Nor would she want that if she knew everything.

  “We should go back,” he said.

  Neither moved, though. Instead the wind moaned, and the sea below them crashed against its barrier.

  She reached out and touched the side of his face, an expression of yearning crossing her face.

  Then she stepped away and turned toward the horses.

  He followed her and helped her mount, feeling the warmth once more. The connection. The fire.

  He released her quickly and strode to his own horse. He mounted and, without looking at her, walked the horse back to the main road. He sensed more than saw that she was following him.

  But he knew that while he could avoid glancing her way now, he could never remove the image of her wistful expression as he turned away from her.

  Chapter 20

  Felicia rode back to the keep, her gaze fastened on stiff, tense shoulders of the man riding beside her.

  It was not hard to realize that he regretted the ride, and regretted the kiss even more.

  She did not. It had been a moment she would always remember.

  She knew nothing could come of it. The one thing she had discovered about Rory Maclean was his sense of honor. She saw him battling it. And it was hurting him. More than hurting him. She feared it was destroying him.

  At the same time, she felt stronger. For most of her life, she’d felt like little more than a poor relation, and then more recently, like nothing more than a pawn. But now people valued her. Some even valued her after knowing she was a member of an enemy clan.

  And she’d had moments of magic that would light the remainder of her life, even if she had nothing more. Even now she was still comforted by the warmth that had so briefly enveloped them, with the attraction that was a live, wonderful thing between them.

  She still tasted him. She still felt him as she’d leaned into his body. She would always remember, and treasure, the fire and the passion, and
a windswept eve by the Sound of Mull.

  Lachlan sauntered to the Campbell’s room, a flagon with him along with a blanket.

  The guard was standing outside the room.

  Lachlan stopped. “My brother sent me to ask him questions,” he said.

  The Maclean soldier nodded.

  “I thought a little wine might loosen his tongue.”

  “’Tis too good for the likes of a Campbell.” The guard gazed at the blanket in Lachlan’s hand. “He no’ need no coddling. Should ha’ left him in the dungeon.”

  “Aye, I agree. But my brother thinks otherwise.”

  The guard frowned but obviously struggled to hold his tongue. His life and livelihood depended on the goodwill of the laird.

  Lachlan held out the flagon. “Would you like a dram or two?”

  The man looked thirstily at the flagon. Lachlan could tell what he was thinking. He was being offered a taste by the brother of the laird. No harm done in taking a sip. Or two.

  “Thank ye,” he said and lifted the flagon. He took a long swallow, then another before handing it back.

  Lachlan opened the door, stepped in, and closed the door behind him.

  The Campbell was lying on the bed but sprang quickly to his feet. He’d obviously been waiting, and none too patiently.

  He straightened. “What time is it?”

  Lachlan placed the blanket on the table. “An hour or so before dawn. There is no way to open the gates before then.”

  “I saw two riders last night. One was my cousin.”

  “Aye. She wanted to go for a ride. My brother accompanied her.”

  “At night?” the Campbell growled.

  Lachlan shrugged. “He was going for his usual ride. Lady Felicia wished to accompany him.”

  Lachlan saw the angry rise in the Campbell’s face. “He should not think about playing with my cousin.”

  “My brother is not dishonorable,” Lachlan said, praying with all his remaining soul that it was true. There was something between Rory and Felicia Campbell that was like dry tinder in a forest. The merest spark could create a conflagration that could destroy everything, and everyone, in its path. It is not your concern. It is Rory’s. And only Rory’s.

  But was it?