My Heart's in the Highlands

by Angeline Fortin

  A wailing unlike anything she had ever heard filled her ears. Even through her closed eyes, she could see a dull red light pulsating. Pain, so much pain.

  Voices, shouts. She could feel the press of bodies surrounding her. The air was thick with their presence, so many words one over another.

  Hero fought to get away from them, struggled to get back to her haven at Ian’s side, but the nightmare had her firmly ensnared in its talons.

  The howling grew louder. The red light grew brighter, moved closer, until Hero was certain she could feel its heat against her skin, and still the voices jumbled in her head.

  Ian, her mind cried. Help me. Don’t let me go!

  A whimper escaped her. Please, no.

  “Come on, lass!” a voice shouted. “Bloody hell. Fight!”

  Hero woke with a gasp, sitting upright in the bed and feeling the chill of the early morning air waft across the fine sheen of sweat that covered her body. Pressing a hand to her heart, she took deep, gasping breaths, desperately trying to soothe the ache in her chest.

  “Hero?” Ian immediately spoke. “What is it?”

  Still, her heart was racing. Her head ached so badly that Hero couldn’t suppress the whimper that escaped her. Immediately, Ian’s comforting arms encircled her. He hugged her against him, tucking her head beneath his chin, rocking her gently.

  He murmured soothing nothings in her ear, and after a few moments Hero felt the pain fade as the lingering tendrils of the nightmare receded. Exhaling a shuddering sigh, she melted into Ian’s embrace.

  “Bad dream?” he asked, and Hero nodded into his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head in the negative. The terror was gone and she had no desire to revive it.

  “I hope it wasn’t a vision of our honeymoon.”

  A slight smile tilted her lips at his teasing, and Hero lifted her head to look up at him. Her breath caught in a way that had nothing to do with her nightmares. Awash in the light of early dawn, Ian was more gorgeous than Hero had ever seen him. His dark hair was mussed. Locks normally combed away from his face curled and feathered against forehead and cheeks. His cheeks were darkened by the overnight growth of his beard. His dimples deepened and his grin flashed in stark contrast. Beneath his thick, straight brows, Ian’s brown eyes caught the light and glowed like amber as he smiled down at her and reached out to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “What is it?”

  Hero’s heart was pounding once again, but for a much more pleasurable reason than her recent dream. Pushing the nightmare away, she smiled back, already feeling the rush of longing coursing through her, and her head buzzed pleasantly. “You look very handsome when you first wake.”

  His brows rose at her tone, and Hero knew he could hear her growing desire in the husky tones. Ian’s eyes darkened and he skimmed the back of his knuckles down her cheek.

  The bleakness in Hero’s eyes had faded away as she studied him. The melding of blues and greens had softened and blended, easing the crystallization of her terror. The anxiety that had been gnawing at him since Hero had cried out was swept away by her innocently provocative words, only to be replaced by stirring arousal. “Yer a lovely sight as well. Tousled. Warm. Flushed.” Still holding her gaze firmly, he moved his hand down her throat and brushed his knuckles over her breast. Hero’s breath caught as his fingers slipped over her nipple and his hand enclosed her breast.

  He could feel the fluttering within as her chest rapidly rose and fell, and Ian inhaled deeply, savoring the swell of his answering need as it flowed through him. “Yer heart is racing,” he murmured. “Because of the dream?”

  Hero shook her head mutely and Ian’s smile widened wickedly. “Because of me?”

  A blush was his only answer, but Ian didn’t need words to know what she wanted. What he wanted. Pushing aside the covers, he lifted Hero against him and kissed her gently, brushing his lips over hers. “This is a pleasurable way to spend a morning, but I hope you don’t make me late for my wedding. My fiancée would not approve, I think.”

  Hero slipped her arms around his back and boldly over his buttocks, and Ian groaned against the flood of want that overwhelmed the gentle swell. “I think she’ll forgive you,” Hero whispered in his ear before she caught the lobe between her teeth. “Love me, Ian,” she begged, running her foot down his calf.

  “Thoroughly,” Ian whispered, astounded that his passions could rise so rapidly. The previous night the urge to devour Hero, to possess her, had almost overwhelmed him. He had feared that his unleashed passions would frighten her, but Hero had met him wholeheartedly, bringing them to a thundering climax. It had been incredible but over too quickly.

  Now, with the urgency gone, he would savor. He would make love as he never had before and, bending to kiss Hero tenderly, he proceeded to show her how.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  More than an hour later, Ian leaned against the door to his bedchamber and watched with amusement as Hero dashed across the landing to her own bedchamber, clutching her wadded nightgown against the dressing gown that was wrapped haphazardly around her. After today, there would be no need for secrecy. He would have her in his bed openly and without interruptions.

  Thankfully, he had thought to rise in the early hours of the morning and lock his door, barring any potential attacks while Hero was at his side. If he hadn’t, Dickson would have gotten quite an eyeful of something more profound than the grain of oak that morning. Ian grinned again at the memory. Just a matter of minutes before, Hero had been in the throes of another orgasm when his valet had rattled the knob. She had frozen, panting painfully, but Ian hadn’t allowed her to draw away. He had continued on, forcing her to completion and capturing her cries of ecstasy with his kiss as she strained against him.

  She had lain on his bed, gasping at the powerful climax, but had roused the strength to slap his arm weakly when he fell on to the mattress next to her. “You’re terrible,” she hissed without venom. “What if he heard?”

  “I don’t care if he did,” Ian had answered, reaching for her. Hero had eluded him though, rushing for her dressing gown and slipping it on hastily to cover the blush that encompassed her entire body. Ian had barely had enough time to pull on his trousers before she was at the door. He had stopped her there, pinning her against it and kissing her passionately until she had surrendered, wilting against him, before he had allowed her to go.

  Now Hero reached her bedchamber and opened the door, pausing to look back at him. Ian grinned wolfishly. “You’re still terrible,” she whispered.

  Her eyes widened in alarm as Ian strode purposefully toward her. Her eyes darted left and right as she shook her head and shooed him away, but Ian came anyway, pushing her through the open door as he caught her face between his hands. The force of his voracious kiss drove her farther back until she was pressed up against one of the posts of her bed. Her hands encircled his wrists, pulling, but Ian drew her tightly against him, bending her over his arm until she was once again warm and pliant. “I am a man in love, and for that, all can be forgiven,” he whispered in her ear and released her.

  A gasp filled the room, and he turned to find Mandy standing in the dressing room door. The towel she had been holding fell to the floor. “I was wondering where you were, my lady,” the maid stammered nervously. Her wide eyes lingered on Ian’s bare chest before sliding to the side, and Hero moaned painfully in embarrassment.

  “It’s quite all right, Mandy,” Ian assured her with a wink as he went to the door. “Lady Ayr and I are to be married. Today, in fact. Wish us well.”

  “My lady!” the maid exclaimed as Ian left.

  “Terrible,” Hero muttered as the door closed behind him and Ian returned to his own room with a soft chuckle.

  “Is that it, then? She’s the reason?”

  Ian turned at the strident voice to find Daphne at the door to the Round Drawing Room. Looking back to the State Room, Ian knew that Daphne would have had a clear view of which
room he had come out of. Still, he was in no mood for an explanation or an argument. He meant to have words with her regarding his suspicions but not yet. Not while he was still savoring his night and morning. “Not now, Daphne.”

  Ian opened his chamber door and entered, swinging the door shut behind him. To his surprise, Daphne caught it and entered behind him, shutting the door firmly.

  “What are you thinking, lass? You cannae come in here.” Ian waved her away imperiously, before snatching his dressing gown from a chair and slipping it on. “Now go.”

  “Bah!” she swept his command away with a similar wave of her hand. “It’s her, isn’t it? She’s the reason you don’t want to marry me!”

  There was no acknowledgement of his attraction to or relationship with Hero that Ian was willing to bestow on this invidious woman, so he denied, “You are mistaken in what you saw.”

  “It’s her fault,” Daphne insisted. “If she weren’t here you wouldn’t have denied me. I knew the moment I heard she was in Glasgow that she was going to cause me problems.”

  Her words caught his attention and Ian’s eyes narrowed on her. “You knew she was in Glasgow?”

  But Daphne wasn’t paying him equal mind. Her eyes were glued to his bed, the covers rumpled and most hanging over the side. “You fucked her already?” she screeched incredulously.

  The fury building in her was palpable, but Ian’s was no less at her crude language. Rage boiled in his blood and not only at the thought of her using that word to describe what had occurred between him and Hero. “Were you responsible for Hero’s accident in Glasgow?” he grated out. His hands were fisted tightly, the urge to strangle her barely restrained.

  “You fucked her!” Daphne shot back as she went to the bed, yanking the covers away furiously. “Damn her! I knew it. I knew it, that bitch! That whore!”

  “Cease!” Ian grabbed her by the arms and glared down at her as he shook her. “I won’t tolerate you speaking of her that way.”

  “Why not?” she spat out. “Because Hero is such a lady? There isn’t a man in Glasgow that hasn’t wanted to fuck her. That’s why I didn’t want her here. She shouldn’t be here taking what’s mine!”

  “Is that why you tried to have her killed?” The question emerged softly, with stone cold fury.

  “I didn’t try to have her killed,” Daphne denied with a sneer. “Injured. Severely maimed, perhaps. A few scratches to roughen up her pretty face. Didn’t stop her, did it? It took me a couple days to get my brother over here and that’s all it took, isn’t it? She drew you in like a dozen before you. What a bunch of saps you men are.”

  She had admitted to it; Ian could hardly believe it as he stared down into her resentful green eyes. Was there more? Had she taken that envious hatred of Hero a step further? Ian reined in the urge to shake the answers out of her.

  Unaware of his thoughts, Daphne’s gaze became calculating as she continued in a more conciliatory tone. “Fine, so you’ve had her. I don’t mind if you have a fling or two. You can have all you want, but we can still marry. You can even keep her as a mistress on the side, if you like. I can’t imagine you would want to if Hero is as cold as they say. Given the number of mistresses Robert had, she must be. Was she?”

  “Do you really believe that I would wed you after what you just told me?” Ian asked in amazement. “You tried to kill the woman … And the rest of it? Eliminating the competition or me? Either option would work out as well?”

  Again, Daphne seemed to hear only part of what he was saying. “The woman you what?” she taunted. “So it’s like that, is it? You think you love her? She’s good at that, isn’t she? I think Cam is half in love with her, too. Why? Why her? God, I hate her!”

  Blood boiling, Ian shook her again. “I have never hit a woman but you might be the first if you don’t hold your vile tongue,” he threatened, and Daphne stilled at his menacing tone. “I want you gone from here. You and your brother will leave Cuilean within the hour, do you understand?”

  “Leave? Why?”

  “I think you know very well the answer to that,” he answered, waiting for some measure of the truth to be revealed in her gaze. Daphne did not look away, nor did she even blink. “And you can call off your henchmen as well; they will be of no more use to you. You will leave this place knowing that I am marrying Hero. There will be no stopping it. No more accidents, do you understand?”

  A huff of disbelieving laughter escaped her. “My God, you bloody well think you’re in love with her, don’t you?”

  Ian wasn’t about to answer that question. He went to the door and opened it, gesturing that she should go. “Within the hour, Miss Kennedy.”

  Daphne parted her lips to say more, but seemed to think better of it. Instead she shrugged as if it were all of little matter. “As you wish, my lord, but when your bed turns cold—and it will—remember, I will be waiting for you.”

  Ian shut the door firmly on the heels of her retreat, hoping that Daphne would leave peaceably now that she knew he was on to her. Surely she would accept that her cause was a lost one and cease with her campaign to have Cuilean at any cost.

  It would be easier to just have her arrested, and for that reason, his purpose in Ayr the previous day had been threefold. Not only had he gone to arrange for his marriage to Hero, he had also gone to deliver his would-be assassin to the magistrate and speak with him regarding the attacks. His assailant, named Jim Cravet, had given them nothing more than what Ian had already learned, however. He didn’t have the name of his employer and could provide only a vague description of a “toff” of an age nearing forty. There was no mention of a woman being behind it all.

  Without evidence, the magistrate had told Ian, there was nothing that could be done. He doubted even Daphne’s offhanded admission this morning would count for anything. The Kennedys were a prominent family in Ayr, the magistrate explained. He would be a fool to accuse without tangible proof of her complicity. The magistrate’s advice had been for Ian to protect himself against further attacks, and so he would.

  Daphne Kennedy would gain nothing from him.

  Her efforts had almost paid off twice more the previous day, however, leaving Ian to wonder how many plots against him had already been set in motion. Like the attempt made by Cravet, the two attempts following had forsaken subtlety in favor of a more direct approach. First, gunshots had been taken at him on his ride into Ayr with Cravet in tow. It had been cleverly done, as he crossed through his northern woodlands where his own hunters and occasional poachers had been known to injure stray riders with a mistaken shot on an early morning hunt.

  Ian was lucky that a fast horse and the dense forest had kept the bullets from finding their mark, but he couldn’t help but speculate how the assailants had known to be there at all. Either they had been sitting in wait on the prospect of catching him unawares or the mastermind had eyes within his home.

  Again, Daphne was a perfect choice. The only one with motive that he could see.

  Of course, the magistrate had not agreed.

  Then, more blatantly, ruffians had set upon him and the bishop on their departure from Ayr. Luckily for Ian, the bishop was a sporting man who enjoyed an occasional bout in the ring. With his assistance, they had been able to fight off their attackers and backtrack to Ayr with the trio bound. Ian had delivered them to the magistrate, hoping for a confession that would identify who had hired them. All he had gotten from one of them was a confirmation that their attack hadn’t been purely random, but no further information had been forthcoming after the informant’s two compatriots had hushed him to silence.

  Disheartened, Ian and the bishop had set of for Dùn Cuilean once again. This time they had been accompanied by a pair of guards to whom the magistrate had referred Ian. The two men would remain at Cuilean as added protection until he could find some proof of Daphne’s culpability in the incidents.

  He would not allow Daphne even the smallest measure of success.

  The old adage to keep o
ne’s friends close and one’s enemies closer had crossed Ian’s mind. It was the reason he hadn’t banished her away with his first suspicions. He thought to watch her, to catch her in the act of sabotage. He’d had his valet follow her, keeping track of her activities, hoping to gain the evidence he needed for her arrest.

  And he still might have kept her at Cuilean if she hadn’t learned of his night with Hero. For all that he might subject himself to risk, Ian would never expose Hero to even a moment’s humiliation. Daphne would go, taking her covetousness and animosity with her, and he would be wed.

  Pushing the entire matter aside, knowing that he had done all he could for the time being and that Daphne Kennedy would soon be leaving his home, Ian stripped off his clothes and walked into his dressing room, where a hot bath was already drawn and waiting for him. Ian looked around curiously, thinking that Dickson must have come in through the marchioness’s chamber to complete the task either while he was in Hero’s chambers or while Daphne was in his.

  With a grimace, Ian cast a prayer heavenward that his valet would be discreet regarding either event. The last thing he needed was his argument with Daphne being parried about the servants’ dinner table. Or worse, Ian winced as he eased down into the steaming water, for anyone to assume that it had been Daphne who had spent the night in his rooms before he wed Hero.

  Sighing, he leaned back in the tub and considered Daphne’s taunting words regarding his soon-to-be wife. Her implications regarding Hero’s reputation were obviously fabricated. Hero’s name was spoken with respect in Glasgow and among the staff here at Cuilean. If she had played fast and loose with Robert, it would have made satisfying fodder for the gossipmongers.

  Even without being privy to the gossip in Glasgow over recent years, Ian knew that there would not be such talk about the Marchioness of Ayr. Hero was simply too innocent, besides being too reserved. On the other hand, her natural politesse and decorum might leave a man she rejected with the impression that she was frigid. Cold, as Daphne put it.