God’s bones.
A peculiar rumbling echoed in the distance. Glowering, Liam glanced upriver.
What was he to do with this woman? Or the three dead people, for that matter?
Undecided, he sighed, plowing a hand through his soaking hair. He could tie Deri to the rear of the vehicle and drive the coach himself. At least Miss LeClaire would be out of this damnable weather.
He’d leave the assassins here. But he wasn’t keen on placing the dead aunt inside the coach with the lass or securing her corpse with the luggage either. Besides, the miry road would make for painfully slow travel. What was more, he had no desire to endure the beastly weather perched atop the conveyance and a potential target for a lightning bolt.
Eyes oddly vacant and shoulders slumped in misery and grief, Miss LeClaire shivered. Tears careened down her wan cheeks, but she made no sound. Her silent agony tore at his consternation. Kristin had been a screamer.
He scowled again, frustration beating an irritating staccato down his spine.
It would take hours to reach shelter by coach. At least two hours on horseback, too. However, Deri could make the hunting lodge—the only accommodations within twenty miles—and wholly inaccessible by any sort of traveling vehicle. In fact, when stocking the lodge—more a small cabin than grandiose accommodations—he used pack horses to carry the supplies.
As he stood upright, Liam eyed the mucky road then the rising river with a practiced eye.
So much for making it home by nightfall.
This thunderstorm made reaching Eytone Hall impossible. He released the team before returning to Emeline. It would be cruel to leave them harnessed in this weather. God only knew how long it would be before someone could return for them. Days mayhap.
At once, the pair dashed toward the haven the woods provided. Smart animals.
“I’m goin’ to put yer aunt inside the coach,” he gently told Miss LeClaire. “I’ll send my men for her as soon as the wynds are passable again.”
Uncertainty and a hint of fragility in her gaze, she searched his eyes. Even sopping wet and strain etched across her face, he couldn’t help but notice her refined features. He was still a healthy young man in the prime of his life, after all.
High cheekbones, a dainty, slightly upturned nose, almost too full lips, and unusual treacle-colored eyes, much too big for her face, met his perusal. Fingers curled into the fabric of her gray and burgundy traveling gown, she gave a stiff, barely discernable nod before presenting her rather aristocratic profile.
He sighed in relief that she hadn’t fought him on the matter. He’d have moved her aunt, with or without her consent, but he’d wasn’t keen to rile her temper.
Over four hellish years of marriage had provided him a lifetime’s worth of shrewish female behavior. The result was he had minimal patience for petulance, histrionics, and most especially, female wiles.
Emeline leaned down and kissed her aunt’s forehead. “I’m so verra sorry,” she whispered brokenly before signaling Liam with a slight flexing of her eyes she was ready for him to take the dead woman.
“Ye have my deepest condolences for yer loss, lass.” It was hard enough to lose a loved one but to witness their murder—“I’ll see ye are kept safe until ye reach yer home.”
Och, mon, shut yer damned wheesht. She’s nae yer responsibility. Dinna make promises ye canna keep or that might lead to misunderstandin’s of a romantic nature.
He booted his recriminations to the roiling river. He was simply helping an unfortunate lass in desperate circumstances. Nothing more. Common decency demanded he do so.
Once he’d wrapped the dead woman in her cloak and placed her in the vehicle, he dragged the coachmen beneath the conveyance. Someone might recognize them, and that could lead to the person who hired them to kill Miss LeClaire.
At least he knew their names. Hamish and Walter. Two verra common Scots names. Nevertheless, that proved very fortunate and might help a great deal.
It was too soon to ask her who had cause to wish her dead, but it was a conversation they’d have to have. Either with him or the authorities. Probably both. Except, she’d claimed she had no enemies. None she kens about.
He swiped his forearm across his brow, not that the gesture brought any reprieve. As if he weren’t bloody uncomfortable enough, a combination of sweat and rain ran in irritating rivulets down his forehead and temples. Into his eyes, too. The salty sweat stung, further obscuring his visibility.
He strode to Miss LeClaire and, hands on his hips, regarded her forlorn form. She hadn’t moved. Likely shock had set in. Just what he needed—an incapacitated female miles from the nearest town and anyone who might aid them.
Hells clanging bells. Now he was breaking rule number three: Never offer assistance to an unwed female.
A dark stain marred the ground before her and, for the first time, he noticed the crimson smeared across her chest. Pray God it was her aunt’s and not hers. He knew next to nothing about tending wounds.
The earsplitting roaring grew louder. Alarm bludgeoned him as he finally comprehended what the unearthly rumble meant. Shite! Giving a shrill whistle, he summoned Deri. He grasped Emeline’s arms, pulling her unceremoniously to her feet. Peering into her blank umber eyes, he gave her a sharp shake.
“Lass! Flash flood!”
Every ounce of color drained from her already wan face. She gasped, jerking her attention behind him to the river.
“God above,” she choked out, her voice thin with terror.
Deri trotted to Liam and tossed his head.
Liam brusquely lifted her onto the destrier, legs astride, and grabbed the reins. “Scoot back,” he yelled, leaping into the saddle. “Hold on tight.” He kicked Deri hard. “Go, lad! Go!”
The horse needed no encouragement. He bolted up the incline as the wall of fulminating water tumbled down the riverbed, sucking anything unfortunate enough to be in its path into the brownish-black, undulating mass. Leaning low, Liam urged the straining horse upward, away from the frothing, churning, deadly tumult.
Not a hair’s breadth between them, Miss LeClaire clung to him, her wet head pressed into his back, her hands fisted together at his middle. Violent shudders shook her as her breasts scuffed his spine. Her breathing came in harsh little pants in between what, he suspected, might be supplications to The Almighty. Good. They needed all the help they could muster, divine or otherwise.
What seemed like hours later—in reality, only a mere handful of minutes had crawled passed—the gelding at last, crested the hill. His sides heaving, he snorted and jerked his head up and down.
“I ken, laddie. I ken. Ye did verra well.” Liam ran a hand down the horse’s lathered neck. The poor beast needed a reprieve from this devilish tempest, too. “Ye saved our lives, ye did.”
He relaxed a fraction as he dismounted then turned to survey the heaving, unforgiving waters. Had they been even five minutes later, the flood would’ve caught them, too.
Of the coach, there was no sign. Likely, the three corpses would never be found now. At least not in identifiable condition. He’d not voice that unpleasant truth, however. The knowledge might prove more than Miss LeClaire could bear in her fragile state.
“Are ye all right, lass?” He glanced over his shoulder.
As all right as any woman who found herself in this dreadful situation might be. Despite the seriousness, he couldn’t help but admire her long, milky white legs, bared to just above the thigh.
He wasn’t dead, for God’s sake. Nor a monk. Just a man who deliberately steered clear of innocent maidens.
Face pale as death, she raised her head, that umber-tined owlish gaze round and uncertain. Her pale pink lips parted. “I…” The next instant, her eyes rolled back into her head.
Arms outstretched and uttering an oath, Liam lurched toward his horse and caught her limp form.
Chapter Two
Emeline gradually awoke, becoming aware she lay on her side atop an unyielding surface. A n
agging sense that something was horribly wrong prodded her awake. Simultaneously, another part of her insisted she surrender to sleep’s blessed forgetfulness once more.
Feeling as if bricks weighted her eyelids, she edged them open. God save her, the effort was almost too much.
Across the room from where she lay, a fire burned low in a soot-stained stone hearth. Its failing glow cast weird shadows upon the equally bucolic walls. Eyebrows pinched in confusion, she raised her gaze a fraction. A rough-hewn ceiling met her bleary inspection.
What was this place?
Where was this place?
The last thing she recalled was sitting astride a massive gray-toned horse amidst a fierce storm.
Or had she dreamed that?
Disoriented and her forehead furrowed, she skimmed her palm over the rough blanket covering her on the narrow bed built into the cottage’s wall. A series of memories came crashing back, encapsulating her in a tidal wave of anguish.
A bearded tartan-clad Highlander chargin’ across the road, dirk in hand.
A flash flood bearin’ down upon us.
Clingin’ to a broad, muscular back.
The two men wantin’ to kill me.
Aunt Jeneva! Och, God. God. Aunt Jeneva is dead. Dead!
Eyes pooling with scorching tears, she gulped in a great rush of air. Fear and sorrow speared her, eviscerating her with pain equal to being cleaved in half. She jerked upright, cracking the top of her head on another shelf-like bed directly above hers.
Ouch!
Soft snores echoed nearby and, blinking away her tears while rubbing her sore head, she stared hard at the wooden slats, mere inches from her face.
Was he up there?
The man with the ridiculously muscled back and chest? And the wild untamed silver-streaked mane of raven hair and equally wild beard? The brave Scot who’d risked his life to save her?
What was his name?
She put two fingers between her eyes and gently pressed.
Liam. Liam MacKay.
And according to her dear friend, Berget Jonston, not just a Scot but the Baron of Penderhaven. Although, truth to tell, the fierce man who rescued her resembled an uncivilized warrior rather than a feudal baron and laird of an extensive estate.
She licked parched lips.
God, she was thirsty.
Holding her breath, she flung back the blankets. She swung her legs over the edge of the cot and paused for a moment, waiting for the sickening dizziness causing her head to spin like a child’s toy top to subside. After she inhaled a few deep breaths, the swirling ceased, and she further examined the humble cottage’s interior in the muted light.
It might well be a rustic hunting lodge. No, lodge was far too generous a description. Cramped cabin, better described the simple rectangular, single-room building. Everything about its interior heralded masculinity, from the barren walls to the crude, no-nonsense furnishings. The adjacent wall boasted another pair of bunks.
Ah, there in the lower bunk, his immense size dwarfing the small area, slumbered her savior.
One elbow slung across his face, he lay on his back. A gray-brown coarse woolen blanket like hers covered his torso. His sculpted chest, deliciously sprinkled with curly midnight hair, lay bare for her inspection.
She unashamedly looked her fill.
Indecently large muscular arms and a thickly corded neck gave testament to his strength. Strength she’d experienced firsthand. Earlier, he’d picked her up and plopped her atop his horse as if she weighed no more than a loaf of bread.
Though she wasn’t one to ogle the opposite sex, Emeline would have to have been dead not to appreciate what a marvelous specimen of manhood Liam MacKay, Baron of Penderhaven, presented.
Seldom—fine, never—had she seen the like. If she hadn’t been so traumatized by the series of events which had occurred but hours ago, she might’ve thrilled at the recollection of his touch and the generous amount of exposed virile masculinity before her now. If she were a woman who took note of such provocative displays.
She put her fingers to her ribs where she could still feel the imprint of his large palms spanning them. A flush of sudden mortification scoured her, and she flattened her hand on her torso. Good heavens. She wore nothing but her shift.
Where were her clothes?
Scrutinizing the cottage, Emeline relaxed slightly upon spying her gown, cloak and stockings. They, along with Liam’s garments, had been draped over a thin rope which stretched from one side of the room to the other. He’d placed her shoes and his knee-high boots on either side of the hearth.
At the realization he’d undressed her, another blush swept her from ankle to neck.
She’d fainted. Dead away.
Before today, she’d never swooned. However, she supposed, given the horrific events of the past few hours, she was entitled to a moment of womanly weakness.
Satisfied she’d not have to parade about in the presence of a man in nothing but her underthings, she finished inspecting the lodgings.
A scruffy table with four mismatched chairs sat in the middle of the single room abode. Beside the door, a six-paned window—the only one—looked out into the inky sky. Glass was highly unusual for a humble abode such as this, shutters being much more common and less expensive.
The fireplace dominated the final wall. Next to it, a shelf contained all manner of items from books to cups and plates to what appeared to be a chess set. A moth-eaten, slightly crooked, stag head hung directly above the fireplace. Pegs protruded from the posts bracing the beds and from the door as well.
Sparse. Plain. Functional. A man’s abode for certain.
The baron’s?
Emeline swallowed against the dryness scraping her throat. Water. She must have a drink of water. When she was positive she could stand without falling onto her face, she braced one hand against the wall and gingerly levered to her feet.
The floor was freezing, and she almost jerked them back beneath the blanket.
“What the devil do ye think ye’re doin’, lass?”
Liam’s husky, sleep-thickened question so disconcerted her, she gave a tiny yelp and jumped. She tottered unsteadily for an instant.
“Ye startled me,” she said inanely. Och, for pity’s sake. Shaking off her discomfit, she made a feeble gesture. “I’m thirsty. Is there any water to be had?”
That was the God’s honest truth. Her mouth felt as dry as parchment.
Half-groaning and half-sighing, he sat up. Although, unlike her, he was careful not to smack his head on the upper bunk. The blanket slid to his waist, revealing even more of his gorgeous body, including the rippled muscles of his sinewy torso and the stair-steps of his ribs.
As irrational as it was, she envied the blanket. For it was permitted to caress that fascinating flesh while she was not.
Attention fixed on him, she worked her captivated gaze over every inch of exposed flesh. How very different a man’s body was from a woman’s.
Emeline swallowed again and dropped her attention to the floor, suddenly finding her cold, pink toes quite the most enthralling things. Not as enthralling as the man in yonder bed, however.
Was he totally nude beneath the blanket?
At once, all sorts of naughty—delicious—images leaped to mind.
God help her and her vivid imagination. She wasn’t convinced the peculiar flutterings in her stomach were dismay at all. She studiously kept her focus fixed on the worn floor as he rustled around a bit.
“Ye can look now, lass.” Distinct humor colored his rumbling burr.
Expecting to see him clothed, she glanced up. Her jaw sagged like a worn-out cushion, and the tingles shooting through her had nothing to do with disapproval or censure. Good God. Flames licked her already hot cheeks.
He’d simply secured the blanket haphazardly around his narrow waist.
Had the man no sense of decency?
No, that wasn’t at all fair.
Hadn’t he risked his life to rescu
e her but hours ago?
She was made of sterner stuff than to get her feathers ruffled over a man’s naked chest. And deliciously carved torso. And the tantalizing strip of coal-black hair disappearing into the blanket…
Even if he was spectacular enough to rival Hercules. Adonis. Apollo. Zeus.
My word, she’d been so cold but a few moments ago. However, such was certainly not the case now. No indeed. Her swallow this time was more of a gulp of overpowering, sensual awareness.
Dragging her musings from dangerous paths, she forced logic and reason to the forefront of her mind. Undoubtedly, his clothing had been as saturated as hers. To expect him to sleep in the sodden garments to preserve her sensibilities—especially when she’d been insensate—was preposterous.
He motioned to a pail atop a narrow table beneath the window. “There’s fresh water in the bucket.” His long strides eating up the short distance, and his bare feet making soft slapping noises, he strode across the room. Dark sable hair covered his calves and even sprinkled his toes.
Never before had she considered a man’s feet sexy. But when had she ever seen a man’s feet before? Good God. She didn’t have some kind of warped foot fetish, did she?
He filled the cup then lifted it toward her. “Come, doe eyes. Dinna be shy.”
Doe eyes?
She rather liked that.
Conscious of the thin fabric covering her, Emeline seized a blanket off her bunk and, after wrapping it around her shoulders, crossed to him. She greedily drank the soothing water. The cool, sweet liquid was balm to her aching throat. Crying always made her throat hurt.
Anguish assailed her again, and she thrust the cup at him as she aimed her gaze to the floor.
Aunt Jeneva was dead. Dead.
Strict, a devout woman of faith, and disposed to punitiveness, she hadn’t been the kindest or most nurturing person. But she was the only mother Emeline had ever known. Her own had died giving birth to her. And now, she had no one, other than distant second or third cousins in France that she’d never met and had no desire to.
To Woo a Highland Warrior Page 2
