―I‘ll no‘ deny my actions nearly started a war, lad. And I‘ll no‘ deny Jamie has had a bit of a hard time of it since his return. He is no‘ you to be sure, a big strappin‘ lad come home to take your da‘s place with a bonny Sassenach wife like yourn to warm a man‘s bed. But I would no‘ ever harm the lad.‖
A breeze fluttered the red ash trees and dappled the ground briefly with light. Ruark swore and looked away. ―What should I do with you, Duncan?‖
―I can find my own way, lad.‖
His glance touched Rose then he strode past her to his horse. After he tightened the cinch on the saddle, he mounted and, swinging the gelding around, nodded to them both and rode away.
―Oh, Ruark. You cannot mean to let him—‖
―Christ, Rose!‖ His voice cut across hers. ―Do not defend him to me again.‖ He started to step around her.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and drew herself tight against him, to keep him from walking away from her. She wanted to hold on to him forever to protect him. After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her. Gradually, the heavy thump of his heart eased.
He pressed his cheek to her hair. ―Duncan will be fine, Rose.‖
― ‘Tis not for him I am worried.‖
He set his hands on her shoulders and gently pulled her away. ―Your concern is appreciated but not needed.‖
―Yet, I am concerned. You told me you were to see my father‘s solicitor.‖ She dropped her gaze because tears suddenly veiled her eyes. ―You should have told me you saw my father. That frightens me. What did you talk about?‖
Cupping her chin, Ruark raised her face to his searching gaze. ― ‘Twas just business with the Black Dragon.‖
She didn‘t believe his inane response. ― ‘Tis never just business with him. Or you. Have I not already learned that?‖
―Come,‖ he said. ―I will get the horses.‖
Chapter 23
Ruark sat at his desk in the library, where he had spent the last few mornings dealing with business. He held a quill pen poised above one of the sheets of foolscap spread out before him. The scratching of the quill pen continued for a bit longer as he finished the letter to his banker. Then he replaced the pen in the silver inkstand and sprinkled fine sand from the pounce box onto the letters. He opened the top drawer on his desk and pulled out a signet ring. He folded over each of the four corners of the foolscap, then folded it in half, poured wax over the joint and impressed his ring before returning it to the drawer. For a moment, he turned the signet over in his hand and rubbed a callused thumb across the crest. He had never worn the signet ring. It had remained in this desk since his father‘s death.
A knock sounded and Julia peered around the door. Ruark stood as she entered. Something seemed to turn over inside him, and the unfinished chapter in his life had suddenly become a book that he had yet to close.
She looked lovely today in pale blue that matched the color of her eyes. Her fine blond hair was knotted in a thin ball at her nape. She had not changed much in appearance from the girl she had been. The years had bruised her heart immeasurably, though only her tightly clasped hands gave away her feelings.
―You requested to see me?‖ she tentatively asked, as if any request from the laird of Stonehaven was something to be feared.
Ruark closed the space between them, his steps quiet on the thick carpet. He indicated the upholstered chairs in front of the desk. ―Sit down, Julia.‖
The ease of her compliance annoyed him. He hesitated, then sat in the chair across from her. ―I am not going to bite you.‖
She stiffened. ―We have never really spoken since your return. What do you expect me to make of this summons? Especially when I have heard you have asked Duncan to leave Stonehaven.‖
―Duncan is free to go where he wishes,‖ Ruark said, having no intention of discussing his uncle with Julia.
She lowered her gaze to her lap.
―Julia,‖ he said. ―As the Dowager Countess Roxburghe, you have a special place here at Stonehaven, and I am obliged to see you cared for. I am giving you a monthly allowance that is yours to do as you please. I am responsible for Jamie‘s care but I will not presume to take him away from you. You may remain here. Or the Roxburghe family has holdings in Edinburgh and Carlisle if you wish for a more social climate some of the year.‖
She paled. ―Are you asking me to leave?‖
―Nay, Julia. When is the last time you made a decision for yourself?‖ Ruark raised a brow. ―Never?‖
He was wrong of course. Thirteen years ago, she‘d made a decision to elope with him. And she had made the choice not to go through with it.
She must have read the thought in his eyes.
―Did you ever think about me at all?‖ she asked.
―Would it make a difference if you knew that I had? Aye, I thought of you.‖
She considered this. ―That is something at least.‖
He leaned forward. ―I am giving you permission to be free, Julia. To make your own choices about your future. Fall in love. Marry whom you choose.‖
Tension seemed to leave her shoulders. ―I would like that very much.‖
They spoke a little more about the uncommonly warm weather for September. The new pony he had given to Jamie and the lad Jack, who would be remaining at Stonehaven. ―Your wife does seem to hold great affection for the little urchin,‖ Julia replied, less than pleased at the prospect of someone of Jack‘s birth sharing the same tutor as Jamie.
Ruark reassured her she would grow accustomed to it.
Later, he gave Mary the letter he had written to post to Friar Tucker. She and Mrs. Simpson had returned from their ―holiday‖ last week, as Mary so brightly put it while displaying a new pair of paste earbobs upon her return.
At the door, Mary said, ―Herself has instructed that I tell ye she and the lads and Mrs. Simpson are aboot to go to the village, but that lunch will be served outside upon her return. She expects ye to join her to make up for missing supper with her last night.‖
Ruark recalled last night in a rather different light after he had returned late to find her in a bath. She had balked at him joining her in the tub as he stripped off his dust-worn clothes from working with the horses all day. But he could be most persuasive when he wanted something and he had presented his case quite convincingly.
The braided silver ring on Ruark‘s finger drew his focus as he pondered its relevance to his current state of mind.
For therein lay the crux of his problem.
Whether by seduction or violence, he had not survived as captain of the Black Dragon and as a man without the power to persuade, influence, or crush. Too much of his life had been spent as a marauder, taking by force that which he could not gain by determination and diplomacy alone.
Including Rose.
The very thing he wanted most had not come to him by her choice or free will. He had taken her first by force at the Abbey, used seduction to get her to the lodge, and in Jedburgh .
He was a stranger to uncertainty.
Not since he had been a boy had he felt vulnerable to emotions and doubts that were not fueled by anger and hate. He understood the helplessness that came when choice is stripped from your life, when the dictates of others control your fate.
It wasn‘t enough that Rose had given him her heart. For he was plagued with the reality that she had not yet found peace, or the home to which she had referred. He didn‘t want even a small ember of resentment left inside her.
He only knew that when he was with her, it was as if a hand reached into his heart, removed the dark and cold from his past and let free that which was once inside when he had been a young boy . before his mother had died, and taken what remained of his world with her.
Lord Hereford‘s two emissaries arrived a week later, riding onto Stonehaven land carried by a black coach, drawn by six black horses, the Hereford crest emblazoned on the lacquered door—two swords crossed against a blood-red turret—and eight liveried out
riders.
His hair wet with sweat and tied back in a queue, Ruark came from the other side of the house still wearing his fencing gear: thick leather jack that protected his shoulders and chest. Boots. Black leather wrist guards that reached up his forearms. He didn‘t bother changing before he strode into the dining hall, where twenty of his clan had followed the carriage through Stonehaven‘s gates and dozens of servants had gathered to receive the men. Both men stood nervously against the wall awaiting Ruark‘s arrival. Colum remained at the door to see that no one else entered.
The properly bewigged emissaries announced that they had come in the official capacity as representatives of the earl of Hereford, their fancy red velvet coats, gold satin waistcoats and dark orange breeches incongruous in a room filled with bearded, tartan-clad Scotsman. The two made their carefully rehearsed presentation to Ruark then stood back and awaited his reply.
The hall grew silent as everyone turned eyes on him, as if awaiting the word from him to remove Hereford‘s two jackals from Stonehaven and have them dipped in tar and feathered. Ruark leaned forward with his hands on the table, his leather jack creaking with the movement.
―Just what exactly does Hereford want?‖
The elder cleared his throat. ―He wants to visit his daughter.‖
―Like hell he will.‖
―He has brought her a gift. Many gifts, my lord. Her mother‘s belongings.‖
From the back of the room, he heard a commotion and looked up as Rose came running into the hall, the mumblings of her entry turning everyone‘s attention toward the door. Before Colum could stop her, she‘d swept past him, her skirts hiked to her ankles as she came to a stop below the window, her eyes bright with emotions. Her gaze came to a halt first on him then on her father‘s emissaries.
She started forward. He was quicker than she was and stepped around the table and into her path. ―Rose . you should not be in here.‖
―But is it true? Did my father send my mother‘s things?‖
―Yes, my lady,‖ answered the elder spokesman. ―We have brought only a few trunks with us. The rest will be delivered‖—dark eyes turned to Ruark—―as soon as Lord Roxburghe agrees on an arrangement.‖
Her eyes turned to Ruark. Again the elder spoke, ―Your mother‘s belongings, my lady. He thought you would want to have them.‖
To his disbelief, Ruark saw that after all her father had put her through, this would be the thing to put hope in her eyes.
And Ruark struggled with the burning awareness of his emotions sweeping through his veins worse than fire.
Worse than yesterday, when no one could locate her for half the day, and he had finally found her at the falls with Duncan— Duncan! —her herb basket looped over her forearm as his uncle cut lichen off the upper reaches of a tree for her. Enjoying herself as if she had not a care in the world, as if he had not asked her to stay away from his uncle.
And Ruark knew then that he loved her beyond all reason, and his anger had come as equally from jealousy as it had from fear for her.
Then she made them sit down together and share lunch with her.
He could no more destroy the hopefulness in her eyes now than he could yesterday. Though in the end, he and his uncle had talked and perhaps even begun to heal, he saw no similar good ending here. She would know that.
But Hereford had found his single weakness.
Yet, with a nod to Angus, Ruark sent him to deliver the trunks to his wife‘s chambers.
Mrs. Simpson smoothed the hair from Rose‘s damp cheeks. She sat on the floor, her pink-petal skirts spread around her, her head in Mrs. Simpson‘s lap as the elder gently spoke.
Rose sat amidst her mother‘s finery, porcelain figurines, etchings, portraitures, silver ewers, gowns, and laces. She clutched a gown with silk blond lacing that resembled spun gold.
Her mother‘s hair had been the color of gold.
―I remember so many of these things.‖ With eyes closed, she breathed in the faded lilac and knew now why she so loved springtime. ―I thought I had forgotten. Everything.‖
Mrs. Simpson held a small portraiture of her mother cradled in her palm. ―You have her face, my dear. She loved you so.‖
Rose lifted her tear-stained face. ―How can you know?‖
―How can any mother not love her child, lass?‖
The door opened and Ruark entered. Even at this later hour, he still wore the thick leather jack and boots she had seen him wearing in the dining hall, though he had removed the fencing gloves. His hand on the doorknob came to a sudden halt.
Rose came to her feet, as did Mrs. Simpson. ―I will see you in the morning,‖ the elder said.
After Mrs. Simpson left, Ruark walked over to her, his deep blue eyes filled with gentle concern. ―You are crying. Why?‖
She shook her head. ―I am happy.‖
The back of his finger caught a tear. ―Is this happiness, love?‖
―We must get the rest of what he has,‖ she said. ―We must. If it entails him visiting here, what can be the harm if he will bring the rest to me?‖
―This is the harm, Rose. To see what this is doing to you. He is not here for your happiness.‖
Unable to bear the intensity of his gaze that came with the tender brush of his fingertips against her cheek, she laid her hand over his and looked down at all her mother‘s beautiful things.
―I know. I know.‖
She did know. More than anyone, she knew her father never did anything without a reason, without intent. But what could be the harm in allowing him to see her just one more time if it meant .
She looked up into Ruark‘s face, beseeching. ―He did not have to do any of this. Yet he did. Why? Why would he do this? Why now? I don‘t understand. I don‘t deserve this from him, Ruark. How can he . This has something to do with your visit to him.‖
He wrapped her protectively in his arms. ―Rose . ‖
She ignored the hard, flat tone of his voice. Stepped out of his arms and faced him with her palms on his face as she forced him to look at her. Her courage wavered. He had done something. Once again, he had brought this fight to his doorstep because of his actions. But whatever it was he had done, he must have passionately believed it was the right thing to do. She knew that much about her husband.
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him equally as passionately.
―What happened in Mawbray?‖ she asked.
He stared at her. A finite second. A heartbeat no longer. ―The Black Dragon is sitting in the shallows of the Solway Firth burned to her waterline,‖ he said. ―I sank her rather than hand her over to Hereford.‖
Rose‘s jaw dropped open. She couldn‘t begin to form words around her thoughts and looked away.
Sadness engulfed her. She looked around her, then back up at him.
She leaned her cheek into his palm. She felt the ring on Ruark‘s finger and felt more than the warmth of his flesh, and then she remembered what Mrs. Simpson had said about the ring that long-ago day in her cottage. ― What you think you want may not be what your heart wants, and nothing great is ever accomplished without sacrifice.”
She kissed him. Wrapping herself to him. He spanned her chin with his long, hard fingers.
―Hereford thought that by trying to take the Black Dragon, he was taking what meant the most to me,‖ Ruark said into her open mouth, walking her backward into the wall. ―He was wrong. I needed him to know that.‖
He bracketed her with his hands. ―I needed him to know what he threw away. I needed him to know that he had no more power over you and that you were mine.‖
He laid his palm against her chest. ―I feel your heartbeat, Rose. Here. As if it were my own, as if something has been returned to me that I lost many years ago. I have struggled to understand. I only know I live in fear of losing it.‖
Rose wound her arms around his neck. ―Have I not convinced you that my heart is freely given?‖
’Tis only a ring, she told herself as his mouth
slanted across hers with an urgency that equaled her own, and he gave her his own brand of magic that shimmered around her and made her float.
Picking her up in his arms, he carried her into his bedchambers.
―You have been in the fencing room,‖ she said, attempting to unfasten the jack so she could touch the warm flesh beneath.
He lowered her feet to the ground. ―Aye, Colum needs the practice.‖
His hands moved along her spine. He undressed her as quickly as he undressed himself. He bared her breasts and fell with her to the bed. Both of them seemed to disappear into the soft silken folds of eiderdown and fur.
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