Enticing the Weary Warrior

by Tammy Jo Burns

  “Come in,” Clarissa called at the tap on the door. She sat beside Megan, making sure she did not slip into too deep of a sleep. Justin entered the room, walked over to his wife, and squeezed her shoulder.

  “How is she?”

  “Fine,” Megan answered on Clarissa’s behalf.

  “I’m going to check on the children,” Clarissa said. She gave Justin a kiss before leaving the room.

  “How’re you really feeling?” he asked, taking his wife’s seat.

  “I’ve been better. Everything throbs and aches. I swear Justin, if I see that man again, I’ll put a bullet in him.”

  “You’ll have to beat me to it. I’m sorry this happened. I should have paid more attention to what was going on with the facility and the recruits. I guarantee it won’t happen again.”

  “I know.” Silence settled between them and Megan plucked at the quilt before continuing, “Clarissa says I have Liam to thank for rescuing me.”

  “Yes. He knocked Williams unconscious.”

  “Then I owe him a great debt. Where has he been for these five years?” She stiffly asked.

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.” Justin clasped his hands together over his waist, slouched against the back of the chair, and watched his sister carefully.

  “When I eavesdropped on your conversation this morning, I never imagined you would be talking about Liam McTavish.” Megan stared at the ceiling.

  “How do you feel about his being alive?”

  “Confused. Elated, sad, cheated, angry, hurt. He has a lot to answer for.”

  “I think he’s been through hell,” Justin said.

  “I’ve been through hell,” Megan countered.

  “Yes, you have. But now you have Hamrick and the horses. I think he’s still there.”

  “How is Hamrick?” She tried to sit up, but winced at the sudden movement.

  “Easy, there, Meggy,” Justin helped her ease back down. “He has a bump but will recover. Speaking of recovering, I should let you rest.” Justin stood and crossed to the door.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being a wonderful brother.”

  “Get some rest,” he said before closing the door behind him.

  Megan stared at the ceiling once more, trying to bring to mind the young man she had been in love with. The man who had promised to come back to Scotland and marry her, but instead had died, or so they had thought. She had mourned him for years, never quite getting over him. Not even her marriage had erased Liam’s memory. Now he shows back up in her life, rescuing her.

  “Damn you, Liam McTavish.” She fisted her right hand and slammed it into the mattress. Megan closed her eyes, trying to block out the world, and somehow managed to fall asleep in the process.

  Chapter 4

  Liam’s body sagged against one set of manacles and chains imbedded into the brick and mortar of the building. The door flew open, banging against the wall. He struggled to stand up straight, not wanting his captors to think him weak.

  “Look what we have found, monsieur,” Soult announced upon entering the small room.

  “What would that be? Your manhood? Oh, no, the Little Tyrant has that, doesn’t he?”

  “Ferme ta gueule!” the French military leader snarled.

  Liam observed Soult stomp to him and raise the horsewhip in his hand, bringing it down sharply. The leather cut across his face, breaking the skin. He could feel a liquid warmth slip down his cheek. A metallic taste accompanied the drops of blood that slipped into the corner of his mouth.

  “Entrer!” the French leader yelled. “You will regret that comment, monsieur.”

  Liam watched, curious to see what he was going to bring in for punishment this time. His cheek stung and throbbed. Two soldiers entered empty-handed. “If this is all you have, they really aren’t my type. I much prefer—”

  “This?” Soult asked, a menacing smile forming on his face. He held out his arm as if presenting something to Liam.

  A muffled female’s voice was the first thing he noticed. Then he saw her. After all these years, she was still as beautiful as ever…and angry. She fought her captors like a hellcat, trying to free herself, until she saw him. Then she became incredibly still. He watched as a myriad of emotions passed through her eyes. Shock, anger, hatred. He refused to give a name to the one that hovered in her eyes warring with all the others. The French soldiers drug her to the wall across from his and locked her hands in a set of the chains as well.

  “Who’s she?” Liam attempted to bluff their way out of this situation, but Soult would have none of it.

  “Monsieur, I am disappointed. Your acting skills need much improvement. You are not ready for… What is the name? Oh, yes, Drury Lane I believe it is called, non?”

  Liam gave the man a frigid stare.

  Soult threw back his head and laughed a deep belly laugh. “Monsieur, you think to kill me with your eyes?” He shook his head and clucked.

  Liam watched the man move next to Megan and take her chin in his fingers. She jerked her head free. “Elle est belle. Monsieur McTavish, your woman is a beauty…and ripe,” he said as he lowered his hand and roughly squeezed Megan’s breast. Liam stared at the man and woman as a look of fear and repulsion entered Megan’s eyes. He observed her failing struggle to free herself from the Frenchman’s grip. Liam jerked at the chains. Soult said something to one of the soldiers. The nameless man marched across the room and landed a punch in Liam’s gut.

  “Leave her alone,” Liam growled, trying to regain his breath.

  “I do not believe you are in a position to be giving the orders,” Soult snapped. “I want information. Now!”

  “Go to Hell,” Liam growled, meaning every word.

  “Have it your way, monsieur.”

  Liam watched in paralyzed anguish as the man went to Megan once more. He ripped her dress open in two tugs. The sound echoed off the walls of the small space. Napoleon’s Marshal General turned his back on Liam and tugged at his pants. Soult approached Megan and easily lifted the woman in the air, despite her struggles. Liam stared at the woman of his past and his dreams. The woman he thought he would never see again.

  He put his head down and pulled at the chains once more. Dust filtered softly to the floor, but Liam remained firmly attached to the wall. He heard a whimper and raised his head to meet Megan’s eyes as she looked at him over Soult’s shoulder. She stared at him with equal measures of accusation and hurt. A pleading look quickly stole its way across her face, causing him to feel as if he’d been hit in the gut once more. When he saw the lone tear slip down her cheek he swore he would kill the Frenchman or die trying.

  Then something happened. Megan’s expression changed from pleading and accusatory to smirking and calculating. Suddenly her hands were free and the gag was gone. She entwined herself around Soult, all the while taunting Liam. He could feel the bile rising up the back of his throat.

  “No!”

  Liam sat up in bed, looking around the unfamiliar room. The nightmare left him covered in a fine sheen of sweat and breathing hard. He sat there for several minutes trying to catch his breath. He also listened intently in an attempt to see if he had disturbed the rest of the house. It seemed that he hadn’t.

  He fell back against the pillows and scoured his face, wondering if he would ever be free of the nightmares. It was not the same one over and over, but rather several that took turns tormenting him. This one had been new, taking a chilling turn by combining both of his pasts. The way the Megan of his nightmare had looked at him just before he woke, haunted him. Liam decided then and there he could not stay around and see her turn to another and look at him that way, especially when her Lord Dalmore returned. He was afraid of what he might do if he were to see the two of them together.

  Liam threw back the covers. The moonlight glistened off his sweat-covered skin. He walked over to the wash basin, dipped the cloth in it, and dragged it across his chest replacing swea
t with cool water. Within a quarter of an hour he was dressed and had left a note for Justin. He crept down the stairs with his bag, keeping near the wall so the steps would not squeak.

  He exited the house and made his way up the lane to the stables. His boots crunched in the gravel with every step he took. Liam slipped inside, set down his bag, and searched for a lamp to light. After two attempts, it flared to life. “Hey there, boy,” Liam approached his recently purchased horse. “I know this is asking a lot of you, but the moon is bright tonight, and we can be back in London by tomorrow morning. What do you say, Draco?”

  “Running away again?”

  A familiar feminine voice washed over him. His hand fisted in Draco’s mane causing the horse to neigh and fidget.

  “You’re hurting him.”

  He relaxed his grip, softly patted the horse, and slowly turned around. Her familiar scent wafted towards him, which caused him to clench his fists at his sides. She stood in the shadows. Liam ached for her to step into the light so he could see her better. He wanted to see her just once more. Then he would leave. He would allow her to live her life because he couldn’t be what she needed. Not anymore. He was too damaged in too many ways. Life with him would be a prison sentence. Besides, she had moved on. “What’re you doing down here? Shouldn’t you be recuperating?”

  “I believe you’ve lost the right to question me, don’t you?” Silence. “So you were just going to leave without saying goodbye to anyone,” Megan accused.

  “I left a note for your brother,” he replied defensively.

  “I remember a time when you would have left a note for me instead.”

  “That was a long time ago, Lady Dalmore.”

  “Not that long,” she argued.

  “A lifetime,” he countered.

  “So you come riding in here like some knight returned from war just in time to rescue the damsel in distress, and now you’re off to another battle.”

  “Something like that.” He moved across the stable and picked up his horse’s saddle blanket, refusing to look at her any longer. It didn’t matter that she was hidden in shadows, it hurt too much to look at her. Just knowing that she was this close made his arms ache to hold her. He wanted to feel her once more, to see if she still smelled like the Scottish Highlands after a rain. He longed to feel the womanly contours of her body pressing against him. Liam curled his fingers into the blanket.

  “I suppose I should thank you for saving me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Damn you, Liam McTavish! You just waltz in here and waltz back out and expect everyone to just be all right with it? To accept it?”

  “It wasn’t my choice to come here,” he growled. “I didn’t know that Justin would be here, let alone you. I was tricked into coming here.”

  “I see,” Megan said and took a step into the stable. The lantern light illuminated her bruised face. “If you knew I was here, you wouldn’t have come at all, would you?”

  Liam looked at her and took a sharp breath. “I should have killed the son of a bitch while I had the opportunity.”

  “It looks worse than it is.” She crossed the stable to two horses on the other side. “Answer the question,” she ordered.

  “No, I wouldn’t have.”

  He watched her coo to the horses. They brushed kisses with their soft muzzles along her neck. Liam was entranced as he watched her smile and accept the animals’ affectionate nuzzling. She reached into a pocket of her robe and withdrew an apple that had been sliced into two halves. Each horse eagerly took its treat from her.

  “Who are they?” he asked gruffly. How could a grown man be jealous of a bloody horse?

  “This is Lady Belle,” she said, stroking the forelock of the coal black horse. “I’m going to breed her with a winning race stallion soon. And this handsome boy is Legend,” she said, combing her fingers through his mane. “Legend is a Thoroughbred and a direct descendant of the Godolphin Arabian,” she explained, naming one of the founding sires of English Thoroughbred racing.

  “You always did want to raise racehorses.”

  “Aye, I did.” She patted the horses once more before crossing the stable, sashaying past him. She reached the door and turned to look at him one last time. “I had to replace the children I won’t have with something.”

  “You’re married, aren’t you? Surely Lord Dalmore can give you the children you want.”

  “He tried, but it didn’t work out.”

  “And where is Lord Dalmore now? Why wasn’t he here to save you?”

  “Because he’s dead, Mr. McTavish. A little over a year now.” Megan leveled her full gaze on him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Go to hell, Liam,” she bit out. “You lost any right to feel anything for me. You disappeared on me over five years ago. We believed you were dead. I’ve mourned you every day since.”

  “Of course you did, Lady Dalmore. You mourned me enough to marry.”

  “Don’t you dare question what I did or why I did it. You’ll never know the hell I lived through and what I suffered. I thought you were dead,” the words barely made it through her gritted teeth. “Do you understand what that does to a person to believe the other half of them is gone forever? And now you just show back up and demand answers to questions you have no right to ask. I think it’s a good thing that you’re leaving, after all.”

  “Meg—”

  “Don’t you dare call me that again. I was another person then. You lost the privilege of knowing me intimately when you chose being a spy,” she practically spit the word at him, “over being a husband. Mr. McTavish, I hope you have a good life, but I would appreciate it if you would stay the hell out of mine. Forever.”

  Liam watched her spin and leave the stable. He heard her boots crunch the rock as she walked away from him. The sound eventually faded into the night. He threw the bridle in his hand across the stable, startling the horses. Liam turned his anger onto a post and pummeled it until his fists were bruised and bloody.

  “Megan?” he heard another feminine voice ask. “Oh, Mr. McTavish, I apologize. Megan wasn’t in her room and I saw a light on in here.”

  “You just missed her.”

  “Oh, no, look at your hands. I’ll fix you right up.”

  Liam turned them over and alternately fisted them and flattened them out. Blood streamed from his knuckles down his fingers.

  “Sit,” Clarissa ordered.

  “Lady Southerby, you shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “My name is Clarissa, and I’m always taking care of someone around here. Now, sit.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s better. You and Megan spoke?” She asked as she took the things she needed from a cabinet.

  “You could say that,” he said.

  “You fought,” she said sagely. Clarissa looked at him when he remained silent. “All right, you said something that made her angry, and she unleashed her temper on you. How does that sound?”

  “Like you know Meg quite well.” He winced when she dabbed at the wounds on his hands.

  “What exactly did you fight about?”

  “Her marriage to the late Lord Dalmore.”

  “Oh, Mr. McTavish, of all the things you could have spoken about, did it have to be that?”

  “Liam. If you are to be Clarissa, I am to be Liam.”

  “Don’t you know one should not ask another about their paramours?” She worked on his hands. In her peripheral vision she saw his bag and looked up at him, questioningly. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that a bit cowardly?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a hero. You have survived these gruesome wars and lived to tell your tale. Yet you are going to run away from your past and what could be your future?”

  “You don’t understand. I have—” he broke off, stopping himself from saying more. Why was he even confiding in this woman who was a stranger to him?

  “Wha
t?” she queried.

  “Nothing,” he muttered. He remained mute, refusing to share any of his problems with this woman. She held his hand tenderly as she might a young child. She dabbed some sort of ointment onto his knuckles and then wrapped his hand with a bandage. He watched his friend’s wife silently repeat everything she had just done to his left hand to his right.

  “Thank you.”

  “Liam, I know that you have suffered, but there is something important that you need to remember.”

  “What is that?”

  “You made your choices. You chose to leave Megan behind. You chose to become an agent. You chose to fake your death. Yet, all of the things that you chose left lasting consequences on those that you left behind. Those you left behind weren’t able to make choices, but instead had to live their lives based off of yours. You might remember that before you make another choice that will have long-lasting consequences. We all have nightmares and pasts we must face, that is part of life. How we deal with them determines how we live our lives. Do we face them head on, or do we run from them like a coward?”

  “And what would you know of jaded pasts and nightmares, Clarissa?”

  “Plenty,” she said succinctly, but would not elaborate. “Liam you do not strike me as a cowardly man.”

  “Is that all, Lady Southerby?”

  “No, Mr. McTavish, it isn’t. I hope to see you in the morning, but if not, I do wish you well and hope that you find happiness.”

  Liam watched the woman twitch her coat to keep from touching him, as if he carried some deadly disease that she wanted no part of. He sat there, his elbows braced on his knees, and his hands loosely clasped. His head drooped low. Liam stayed like this for a lifetime after she left before he stood and walked across the stable. He picked up his saddle and bridle, then finished the process of saddling his horse. He secured his bag to the back of the saddle, blew out the lantern, and led his horse over to the mounting block. Liam guided the horse down the drive, and at the end, he turned around. On the second floor of the house, he watched a curtain fall into place, blocking out the light from the room.

  “Goodbye, Meg,” he whispered before turning the horse and carefully guiding it down the country lane.