Dancing for the Devil

by Marie Laval

  I wasn’t very hopeful of apprehending the gang until I came across new evidence pointing to the culpability of a certain Donald Robertson. A former private in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders from the parish of Tongue, Robertson was arrested after a brawl in a Thurso tavern four weeks ago, during which he stabbed a man to death.

  The weapon he used was a four-inch folding knife with the following inscription carved on the bone handle: ‘2ème cuirassiers, toujours’. A search of Robertson’ person and belongings produced the sum of three pounds and ten Napoleons. At first, Robertson refused to explain how the above came to be in his possession, but he later confessed to taking part in the ambush and the killing of the Frenchman.

  As he was charged with murder he claimed to have been instructed to carry out the attack on Pichet by a ‘person of high distinction and status’ whom he promised to name at his trial. It was all lies of course. Robertson was a thief and a murderer without scruples or conscience, who had made so many enemies he got himself stabbed to death in his cell the day before his trial.

  I hope you will find that justice has been done in the case of Captain Pichet. I remain at your service should you require further information.

  Yours faithfully, Sub-Inspector McLellan’.”.’

  The room became dark and cold, almost as cold as his heart. He swallowed hard, and pushed a long gulp of air into his lungs.

  He closed his eyes as a memory he thought he had managed to forget flashed into his mind. It was summer. He was sixteen years old and on leave from the military academy and was caught one evening by one of his grandfather’s men getting a little too familiar with the blacksmith’s daughter. The man sent the girl home and dragged him, barefoot with his shirt hanging out of his breeches, all the way back to the Lodge and his grandfather’s study where Dougal had given Bruce a resounding slap.

  ‘I thought the army would teach you how to be a man of honour,’ he had said, seething with anger. ‘I should have known you’d be too much like your no-good father. In fact, not only do you look more like him with every passing day, but you are following in his footsteps and proving eager to sow your bad seed and produce your own bastard children, just like he was.’

  His eyes had narrowed to slits, hardly visible under his bushy grey eyebrows. His face flushed bright red with rage and drink, he had spat one last insult. ‘The man dishonoured your mother, brought her nothing but misery. He killed her, as surely as if he had pushed her off that cliff himself.’

  Pointing to Bruce’s medallion he added, ‘Get rid of it. That’s the only thing your father ever gave your mother. Can’t imagine how a man like him got hold of it in the first place. He probably stole it …’

  So his drunk of a grandfather had been right after all. The great mystery of his birth had been cleared up, thanks to Rose Saintclair and her father’s diary. At long last he knew who is father was.

  Donald Robertson. A vagrant soldier. A murderer.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘That’s all there is about my father’s involvement with Niall McRae.’

  Rose closed the diary and let it drop onto her knees.

  Lord McGunn sat still and silent, with his eyes closed. Shadows danced on his face, emphasised his cuts and bruises, the tight lines around his mouth and his dark beard. He hardly seemed to be breathing yet the air sizzled with tension around him.

  ‘Could I possibly take a look at … would you let me …?’ She bit her lip.

  His eyes flicked open. With the flames from the fire reflecting in their gunpowder grey, they were like windows onto a wild, stormy soul.

  ‘Let you do what?’ he asked sharply.

  She swallowed hard and took a step forward.

  ‘Take a look at your medallion. I want to see if it is indeed Niall McRae’s.’

  ‘Who else’s could it be? I don’t think there are many Battle of Alexandria medals cut in half, do you?’

  He let out a bitter laugh and unfastened the top buttons of his shirt. Tugging sharply on the medallion, he yanked it from his neck and held it out.

  ‘Here, keep it if you want. I certainly don’t want it any more.’

  She closed the gap between them and reached out for the medal. It was still warm from his skin. With trembling fingers, she traced the outline of the moon crescent, of the half star next to it and the sunrays all around. She had noticed the two numbers before ‘18’. No doubt the other half bore the numbers ‘01’.

  ‘I wonder how your mother came to have it.’

  His eyes narrowed, his face hardened.

  ‘I think it’s obvious. Donald Robertson gave it to her after killing Pichet, probably as some kind of love token. At least now I know who I really am. The bastard son of a murderer.’

  ‘No, that can’t be true,’ she protested weakly, even though she’d had that same thought too.

  He rose to his feet and closed his hand around her fingers and gripped so hard the medal’s ragged edges dug into her skin. She gasped and he immediately loosened his grip, but did not release her hand.

  He snorted. ‘There you are. It seems you were right all along about me being a thug and a brute. Hardly surprising really, considering who my father was.’

  ‘You’re not a thug or a brute!’ Her throat was suddenly too tight to speak, her heart filled with a feeling so powerful it took her breath away. ‘And even if you do happen to be Donald Robertson’s son, it doesn’t mean that you are like him in any way.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? My grandfather used to say I was a bad seed. He even called me the devil’s spawn whilst in one of his drunken rages. Now I understand why, and I can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘Well, he was wrong.’ Her cheeks were hot, her breathing uneven. ‘How can you say you’re evil when you care so much about your people, about the families evicted by Morven and the men who served under you in the Punjab? You’re a good man, Bruce McGunn, I know you are.’

  He arched his eyebrows and the ghost of a smile appeared on his lips.

  ‘You’re not exactly a good judge of character, are you, gràidheag?’

  ‘Well, I …’

  She bent her head. What could she say? He was right, at least as far as Cameron was concerned. She had been naive and easily taken by appearances and lies. But this was different. He was different.

  ‘Anyway,’ she started again, unable to understand why she cared so much about him all of a sudden, ‘even if you are … who you think you are, there are still a few things that remain unexplained, like who that third letter was addressed to, for example.’

  Faced by Bruce’s stubborn silence, she carried on.

  ‘And why Cameron and Lady Patricia want my father’s diary so badly.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps they want to blackmail me, use it to force me out of Wrath once and for all.’

  He took the medallion from her.

  ‘Well, that won’t happen. The only thing that connects me to Robertson is this wretched medal.’

  With one sweeping gesture, he threw it aside, towards the fireplace. It made a clanking sound when it hit the cast-iron fireguard.

  ‘What are you doing? It was your mother’s, you must keep it.’

  She started toward the fireplace, but he still held her and he yanked her back toward him.

  ‘Leave the damned thing alone. It makes me sick just thinking I wore it all these years.’

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and slowly, brushed his lips against the red lines the medal had cut into her palm. Shivers coursed along her arms, down her spine, as heat gathered and spread inside her.

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’

  He looked down, and in his eyes was so much pain and darkness her heart ached. On an impulse she stood on her tiptoes and kissed the side of his mouth. It was only a light, gentle kiss meant to comfort and soothe, but his whole body shuddered under her touch.

  He let out a low, almost savage growl and his arms flew around her waist. Tugging on her hair, he tilted her face up and
kissed her with the urgency and raw need of a starving man. His mouth tasted faintly of whisky as he parted her lips open and took possession, in turn soft and hard, demanding and tender. It was hotter, darker, a thousand times more potent than the kiss he’d given her that morning – so potent she slumped, limp as a rag doll in his arms.

  His hands spanned the width of her waist. He stroked the small of her back, slow and insistent, hot enough to sear her skin through the thin fabric of her nightdress. All she heard was the gallop of her heart, their fast, ragged breathing and the rustle of their clothing as they moved against each other. Once again, all she felt in his arms was the overwhelming desire to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.

  She brought her hands up to his shoulders and clung for support whilst his fingers raked through her hair and brushed it aside. He bent down to trail slow kisses along the curve of her neck, from her earlobe to her shoulder, and then back again. She wriggled and sighed as the heat of his breath tickled, the stubble on his cheeks scraped her skin, and the pressure of his lips created tremors at very core of her being.

  Her lips parted on a shallow breath as his hands slid past the opening of her nightdress, and cupped her breasts through the fabric. She hardly noticed it when she threw her head back and arched against him, seeking the pressure, the heat, the hardness of his body. When he started rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, in a slow, insistent caress, a flash of heat pierced right through her. Her legs trembled and buckled under her, and she let out a soft, hoarse moan he stifled with a kiss.

  Still holding her tightly, he stumbled back into the armchair, pulled her down into his lap and cradled her in his arms. The scent of his skin, the erratic drumming of his heart echoing her own made her weak and dizzy.

  He said something in Gaelic – something wild, rough and tender all at once that she didn’t understand – kissed her mouth again, and took her into the heart of the storm. His fingers traced slow, feverish patterns along her throat, over her breasts until they felt full and tight, and strained against the fabric of her nightdress. None too gently, he pulled the nightdress down and trailed kisses along her throat, on the soft swelling of her breasts, while caressing the inside of her thighs, in long, feathery strokes. And when his mouth closed on a nipple, and his tongue teased and aroused, she could only bite her lip hard to repress a moan.

  Her body filled with aches and needs that coiled, twisted and grew inside her – an explosion of sensations, a chaos of desires and torment. There wasn’t a coherent thought in her mind, yet she knew with blinding clarity that what she felt right now was more than the physical urge to touch and be touched.

  It was the overwhelming need to be his. It was the strongest, brightest and most wonderful feeling in the world – as intense and dazzling as the Sahara sun.

  She loved him.

  How could she not have understood it before? She nestled closer and slid her hand into the opening of his shirt. She needed to touch him, feel his heartbeat under her fingertips. His arms were taut bands of steel around her, hard and strong, yet she felt them tremble when she stroked his bare chest and traced the outline of the tattoo he called his ‘curse’.

  His arms, his whole body tensed. He moved back, and with a shaky hand rolled her nightdress back up to cover her up.

  ‘It’s late.’ His voice was gruff. Under the palm of her hand, his heart beat fast, too fast.

  Hers felt like it was shattering into a thousand pieces.

  ‘I must leave you to get some rest.’

  Gently he pulled her hand away from his chest, lifted her off his lap and rose to his feet. A fierce, merciless pain clawed at her heart. He didn’t want her. She all but gave herself to him and he couldn’t wait to get away.

  Pressing a hand against her mouth, she turned towards the fireplace. Suddenly he was there, right behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and spun her around.

  ‘Rose, gràidheag …’

  Unable to meet his gaze, she stared down at her bare feet but he slid his thumb under her chin. His grey eyes bore deep into hers. There was heat, and kindness, and something else – something that looked like pain.

  ‘I’m sorry. I took advantage. It was unforgivable.’

  His voice was low, so low she could hardly hear.

  ‘For a moment, I forgot everything. I forgot who I was, and I forgot the whole damned world around us. It was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened.’

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t speak even if she tried. Her lips were still swollen from his kisses, her body tingled from his caresses, her heart filled with love and longing for him, and he said it had all been a terrible mistake.

  He let go of her and stepped back.

  ‘You should get some sleep. I’ve arranged for Wallace to come over early in the morning and take you to his farm.’

  She flinched. Her breath caught in her throat.

  ‘His farm? I don’t understand. You said I would go to Westmore with you.’

  He shook his head. ‘That was before I knew Morven and his thugs were after you. You’ll be safer with Wallace.’

  So he wanted her as far away from him as possible.

  ‘I told you I wanted to see Cameron, and speak to him.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you still harbour any illusions that you are married to him and that he’s going to announce your wedding at the ball?’ There wasn’t a trace of kindness now on his face, in his voice. ‘Believe me, sweetheart, you aren’t. He may have bedded you but it’s Lady Sophia and her money he’s marrying, and begging him won’t make a blind bit of difference.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, you don’t understand. I want to …’

  ‘The sooner you accept McRae deceived you, the better,’ he cut in.

  She stomped her bare foot on the floor. ‘Bedbugs and stinky camels! Will you let me explain?’

  His face stony, he opened the door. ‘There’s no need for you to explain anything. You’ve said enough. Now make sure you lock up after me and keep these curtains closed.’

  And after a last, scorching look, he walked out and shut the door behind him.

  The sound echoed into the room, and into Rose’s heart, hard and final.

  ‘I don’t want Cameron, I don’t love him,’ she whispered in the empty room. ‘I love you.’

  The sound of his footsteps decreased in the corridor. There were a couple of odd thudding noises and a door slammed shut. Perhaps she should go after him, try to explain once again why she had to go to Westmore.

  She didn’t move. There was no point. He had made it clear he didn’t want her. Now that he could no longer use her in his bitter war against the McRaes, she was just a nuisance, an embarrassment. She was the woman who knew about his illness and his guilt-ridden nightmares … and about his real father.

  She fell to her knees, curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her body shook with deep, wracking sobs. Never since her father died had she felt such intense, overwhelming pain. It squeezed her heart in a tight fist until she gasped for air. It churned and clawed at her insides, relentless, ripping her apart.

  She had no idea how long she stayed there, prostrate on the floor and lost in darkness and grief.

  The sudden hiss and crackle of logs collapsing on the fire grate forced her eyes open, and she remembered.

  The medallion!

  Pushed by an urge she didn’t understand, she jumped to her feet, rushed to the fireplace and leant into the fire. Lodged between two logs, the medallion glowed as red as the flames, its leather tie already blackened and charred. It was far too hot for her to touch with her bare hands. Using the wrought-iron fire tongs, she lifted it off carefully, carried it across the room and dropped it into the washstand bowl. The water hissed, bubbled and a plume of steam rose in the air.

  It would take a while to cool down. Lord McGunn didn’t want it right now, but he might regret throwing it away one day and she would keep it safe for him. She looked around, her
eyes widening when she spotted the jewellery pouch peeping through the opening of her tapestry bag. Of course. That could work.

  An hour later, she sat on the bed in front of a glittering pile of necklaces and bangles. She selected a necklace, untied Bruce’s medallion from its burnt leather tie and secured it to the chain amongst other baubles and charms. Holding the necklace out in front of her, she nodded with satisfaction. The medal was undetectable.

  She slipped the necklace on but tidied the rest of the jewellery into the pouch. When she saw the wedding ring Cameron had given her and ordered not to wear before the ball, a fresh wave of anger and self-loathing washed over her and she tossed the ring across the room.

  It bounced on the floor and rolled into a corner.

  She had been fooled by Cameron. He was a liar and a cheat; she knew that now.

  Her breath caught in her throat. What if he was more than that? The day before the so-called wedding, Malika claimed that he visited bordellos every night in Algiers, and that girls were afraid of him and his unpredictable, drunken moods. Rose had shouted that she was mean, petty and jealous and pushed her out of her room. But what if Malika had been right all along, and his behaviour during their wedding night hadn’t been an aberration caused by too much champagne and her frigid response?

  Her throat tightened as she recalled that night again. Cameron had rolled off the bed. Dishevelled, red and panting, and a snarl at the corner of his mouth, he had readjusted his breeches and yanked his shirt back on. ‘What a silly girl you are to make so much fuss. You’ll see, next time will be better, much better. I’ll teach you to enjoy me, and to make me enjoy yourself more. I’ll teach you all the things a good wife should know … for now, I’ll leave you alone if you give me your father’s diary. I want to read it again.’

  When she had told him that the diary was in her mother’s safe at the bank, he had become very pale, cursed loudly and stormed out of his suite. He had only returned at dawn to announce he was sailing back to Scotland on the Sea Lady right away. She was to keep her suite at The Excelsior, retrieve the diary and wait for his other clipper, the Sea Eagle, to arrive in Algiers and take her to Scotland. In the meantime she shouldn’t wear her ring or tell anyone about the wedding, not even her mother, since he wanted to keep it a surprise until his birthday ball.