by Tarah Scott
“You are fortunate,” Caroline said.
Taran appeared at her side, brandy snifter in hand. “You do not consider yourself fortunate?” He extended the glass towards her.
Caroline eyed it. She’d had two sherries already. One more drink couldn’t hurt. She took the glass and lifted it to her lips.
He continued. “Only last night you gave me the distinct impression you considered yourself most fortunate.”
The brandy slid down her windpipe. She sucked in a harsh breath and coughed.
“Taran!” Fiona slid across the couch to her side. She seized the glass and set it on the table. “You will kill her before the night is finished.”
“On the contrary,” he said smoothly, “I plan on—”
Caroline surged to her feet. “Sir,” she managed in a hoarse voice.
His expression was all innocence.
“Do not worry.” Fiona shot him a deprecating look. “Once you have provided the required heir, you may tell him to go to the devil.”
Caroline sucked in another harsh breath and swung her gaze onto the girl.
“Is that your plan, my dear?” Taran drawled.
Caroline jerked her attention back to him. He stared. Was that hope in his voice? He might despise Aphrodite. He might not forgive her, but he would gladly let her spread her legs for him. Taran’s words in the garden returned like a clap of thunder—‘It is more likely you fled the festivities to meet someone. The blue domino perhaps?’
Taran had seen her with Lord Edmonds.
‘I expect to hear news from you immediately’, he had said to William yesterday before they’d left her uncle’s home.
Taran had sent Lord Edmonds in search of Aphrodite.
Why hadn’t it occurred to her before? When he’d left her in the carriage, he’d told her to come to him when she could, but had planned all along to seek her out. If Taran saw her with Lord Edmonds, then he saw her speaking with Lady Margaret. No one could mistake Margaret for anyone but herself. Margaret would never betray her. But if she didn’t realise—Caroline’s head whirled.
“I—I—” she croaked. “I would—”
A loud pounding on the door interrupted her.
“Blackhall!” a muffled male voice shouted.
Fiona shot to her feet. “Ross.” Her face went ashen. “I told him to wait until tomorrow.”
“Blackhall!” Ross shouted again.
Taran started for the door. Fiona hurried around the table after him.
Patterson passed in front of the open doorway. “Coming, sir,” he called.
The pounding continued.
Taran reached the doorway. “Never mind, Patterson, I will see to the pup myself.”
“As you say, my lord.”
Taran disappeared into the hall, Fiona close behind and, an instant later, Patterson passed, heading back the way he had come.
Caroline stood rooted to the spot.
“Black—”
A loud bang of wood against stone reverberated through the hallway and into the drawing room.
“Lord Huntly, I see.”
Caroline shuddered at the dark tone in Taran’s voice.
He gave a harsh laugh. “Come to face our dawn appointment?”
“Lord Blackhall,” another male voice said.
“Reverend Gordon. By God, Huntly, you could not face me man to man? This is the man you would wed, Fiona?”
Caroline started towards the drawing room door.
“Ross,” Fiona said, “I instructed you to wait until tomorrow when Reverend Gordon could force Taran to see reason.”
Caroline reached the door and peeked into the hallway.
“Blackhall is not capable of seeing reason,” a tall, young man replied.
She winced. The lad looked barely nineteen and had to be at least four stone leaner than Taran.
Fiona laid a hand on his arm. “This is not wise.”
“Lord Blackhall,” the reverend said, “I performed the marriage myself. It is legal.”
“Legal?” Taran repeated. “You speak of legalities. Where is your morality? She is not yet out of the schoolroom.”
“Perhaps,” Reverend Gordon replied. “But the deed is done.”
Taran looked at Fiona. “Deed, is it?”
“Do not act as if I hid the truth from you,” she replied.
Ross gasped. “You told him.” His head snapped in Taran’s direction.
“Patterson,” Taran called, “my duelling pistols.”
Fiona seized his arm. “Brandish those pistols and I will shoot you with one of them myself.”
Caroline barely repressed a laugh. That she would like to see. Not to mention, a bullet through Taran’s heart would solve all their problems. Well, not through his heart, just a thigh, or shoulder perhaps.
“Never mind,” Ross said with a resoluteness that surprised her. “If I must kill him to have you, then so be it.”
“Kill me?” Taran looked at Fiona. “The pup thinks well of himself.”
“You called, my lord?”
Caroline jumped at the sound of Patterson’s voice as everyone’s attention shifted to the butler, who stood at the other end of the hallway.
“Caroline,” Taran said. She looked back at him. “This does not concern you. Retire to our bedchambers. I will meet you there presently.”
She shook her head. “If I am to be made a widow only a day after being wed, I think that concerns me greatly.”
He scowled. “You and your family have a habit of underestimating me.”
She ignored the flutter in the stomach at the recollection of how Taran had threatened her uncle with a dawn appointment. “What do you expect?” she replied. “What reason have we to believe you can go about engaging in duel after duel and come out the victor?”
“It is not duel after duel,” he said, as if injured. “This is but the second.”
“In as many days,” she reminded him.
“Coincidence,” he muttered.
“Good lord,” Fiona snapped. “Taran, you are mad. Ross, we are leaving.”
Taran seized her hand. “Nay, sister. This whelp and I have unfinished business. Patterson, those pistols.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
The butler shuffled to the drawing room and brushed past Caroline.
“Lord Blackhall,” Reverend Gordon admonished.
“Taran,” Fiona began.
“Fiona,” Ross cut in, “you should retire with his lordship’s wife. I will see you presently.”
She gaped. “You are as mad as he is.”
The young man shook his head. “I will not spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. We will settle this once and for all.”
“The final match,” Taran said in a soft voice.
A tremor rippled through Caroline and she knew the others had caught the dangerous note in his voice when they quieted.
“Lord Huntly,” the reverend broke the silence. “You are no match for Lord Blackhall. Let me speak with him.”
“Listen to him,” Fiona pleaded.
Taran’s head dipped in her direction. “What is this? You have set the stage, yet do not wish to finish the play?”
“This is no play,” she snapped.
“Indeed.”
She levelled a look as dark as his own at him. “You will—”
“Huntly,” Taran shoved Fiona into his arms, “take her.”
The young man caught her. Taran whirled and Caroline realised his intent even before his eyes met hers. She retreated with the plan of locking the drawing room door against him, but bumped into a body.
A low cry from Patterson was followed by Caroline clutching at the butler’s arm as they toppled to the floor, her on top of him. Strong fingers clamped around her arm and yanked her to her feet, face to face with Taran.
“By God, madam, at least have the decency to wait until I am killed before seducing my butler.”
Chapter Fifteen
Taran hauled
Caroline over his shoulder.
“How dare you!” she howled.
“Patterson, ready those pistols,” he commanded, and strode from the room. “Huntly, bring my sister—if you have the stomach for it.”
“Ross, do not—” Fiona’s words were cut off when Ross threw her over his shoulder and followed.
Taran bounded up the narrow stairs, two at a time and was surprised to hear the young viscount hard on his heels.
“Put me down!” Caroline commanded.
Taran winced at the sound of each word echoing off the stone walls in a staccato that was punctuated by each step he took.
“Ross!” Fiona shouted.
Taran reached the second floor, turned left, and ascended the next flight of stairs. An unexpected elbow to his back sent a sharp pain through him.
“I will have your head for this.” Fiona shouted.
Taran couldn’t deny a stab of compassion for the boy. He really hadn’t grasped what he was getting into with Fiona.
Taran reached the third floor and strode towards the fourth door. He felt Caroline swing to his left and he veered right as he realised she was making a swipe for the claymore hanging on the wall beside his bedchamber door. He couldn’t prevent a laugh as he crossed the threshold. If she had managed the claymore, she would have brained him with it. He strode to the bed and tossed her onto the mattress. She bounced twice and started to push to her feet. Taran shoved her back down and straddled her. Light radiating from the low fire in the hearth lit her hair like ebony. He suddenly wished his sister and her hapless husband anywhere but here.
“Good God,” Fiona cried as Huntly stumbled into the room.
“This is ridiculous,” Caroline snapped. “Get off me.”
Taran gave her an appraising look. “Tired of me already, wife?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If your sister does not shoot you, I will.”
“But I will,” Fiona growled. “Ross, put. Me. Down.”
“Now, Fiona,” he began, but she cut him off with a scream.
Caroline winced, then her gaze latched onto Taran’s. She seized his shoulders and dragged him closer. “You will not kill the boy?” The words, spoken in a whisper that couldn’t possibly be overheard above Fiona’s command to be released, held a chill that startled him.
“Do not say you are concerned.” The edge in his voice sounded dark even to him, but an odd sense of foreboding suddenly rose.
Her mouth thinned. “You go too far with this ruse.”
“Ruse?” he repeated.
“You will rue the day you married me!” Fiona shouted.
Taran twisted to see his sister had begun to thrash wildly. Huntly stumbled backwards, barely managing to keep her from slipping from his grasp. Taran jumped to his feet and pulled Fiona from the younger man’s shoulder just in time to keep her from being squashed between him and the wall.
Huntly straightened. “Damnation, Fiona, you nearly knocked yourself senseless.”
From the corner of his eye, Taran saw Caroline slip from the bed.
Fiona swayed. “Release me.” She yanked in an effort to free her arm. Taran obliged. She fell to her backside on the rug.
“By God, Taran.” Her head snapped in Huntly’s direction. “Ross, do something.”
His brow creased. “What more would you have me do?” He gave a snort. “Come, Blackhall, I wish to be done with this business.” He whirled and disappeared through the door.
Taran started after him. “I believe you have your wish, sister.”
Fiona scrambled to her feet. “What are you talking about?”
“You coming, Blackhall?” Ross called from the hallway.
“On my way,” Taran shouted back, then said to Fiona as he grasped the door handle, “Your husband rues the day he married you.”
Caroline lunged for the door. “Blackhall!”
He slammed the door in her face.
* * * *
Caroline crashed into the shut door. Dull pain radiated through her shoulder. She gritted her teeth against the throbbing, seized the handle and yanked in unison with the sound of steel sliding against steel. The door didn’t budge.
Fiona appeared at her side. “He’s used the claymore to bar the door.”
Caroline stepped back and Fiona grabbed the handle and yanked. Wood rattled against a clank of steel, but remained firm. She pounded a fist on the door. “Blackhall! Blackhall!” She placed an ear to the wood for a moment, then straightened. “Damn him.”
Caroline stared at the door, still unable to believe it. Taran had bolted the door from the outside with the sword.
“If he kills Ross—”
“He has no intention of shooting your husband,” Caroline cut in.
“Did he tell you that?”
“Well, no.”
“You said two duels in as many days. What was the other duel about?”
Caroline flushed. “He, well, he…”
“Threatened a duel in your honour, did he?” She faced the window again. “Taran does not make idle threats.”
“Surely, he must know you would not forgive him.”
“Taran never asks forgiveness.”
Caroline felt as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs. “He must know he cannot stop you.”
“He knows he can stop me if Ross is dead.”
“He would not kill the boy,” Caroline said under her breath. The man who made love to her in the carriage was no murderer.
“Ah ha!” Fiona cried. “Your bedchamber.”
“What?”
Her sister-in-law raced to a door on the left wall and seized the door handle leading to Caroline’s bedchamber and pushed. The door didn’t open. She shoved with her shoulder. Still nothing. Fiona took a step back and looked the door up and down. “He locked this door as well? I did not hear him enter the closet.”
Caroline remained rooted to the spot. She knew the door led to the small room that connected her bedchamber with Taran’s, for she had locked and unlocked it a dozen times, torn between the notion that a locked door might discourage him from visiting her should he return home late that night. She had decided the idea was nonsense and had left the door unlocked, or so she’d thought.
Fiona blew out a frustrated breath, then whirled in the direction of the curtains of the bay window and hurried to them. With a jerk, she yanked aside the heavy fabric to reveal French doors leading onto a balcony. She threw open the doors and disappeared on the left side of the balcony. Caroline hurried outside and found Fiona, skirts tugged above her thigh as she lifted a leg over the wrought iron railing.
“Fiona!” She lunged for the girl, caught her arm, and dragged her backward.
They tumbled onto the hard stone floor.
Fiona scrambled to her feet and gave her a deprecating look. “What are you doing?”
Caroline grasped the back of a chair sitting at the small table to her right and pulled herself up. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“I am going to jump to that balcony.” She pointed to the neighbouring balcony that opened to the lady’s suite.
Caroline scowled. “‘Tis five feet, maybe more. You will break your fool neck in the attempt.”
Fiona gave a decisive nod. “That would teach Taran a lesson.”
Caroline gave her a horrified look. “You are as insane as he is.”
Fiona barked a laugh. “It is well known the Blackhalls often skirt reason.” Her eyes shifted past Caroline. She gasped and pushed past her.
Caroline turned and startled at sight of three figures marching across the mist shrouded lawn. Young Huntly led, with Taran several feet behind, a lantern in hand, and Reverend Gordon nearly running to catch up.
Fiona grasped the balcony railing and leant forward. “Stop!” Pale moonlight shadowed Taran’s face, but revealed the rigidity in his posture.
He shouted something to Ross. Fiona turned and lunged towards the railing near the lady’s balcony. Caroline caught her arm.
Fiona turned a tear stained face towards her. “He will kill my husband.”
Caroline glanced at the men, who were still heading deeper into the fog. Taran had nearly caught up with Ross. The dangerous note in Taran’s voice when he’d challenged her uncle rose in memory. Fiona was right, the threat hadn’t been idle.
“Stand aside.” She yanked up her skirts. Cold air rushed across her legs, sending a prickle of gooseflesh racing up her thighs.
Fiona glanced anxiously at the other balcony. “Are you certain you should jump? I am younger and more agile.”
Caroline scowled. “I am but two years your senior.”
“Yes, but—”
“For God’s sake, Fiona, will you stand here and argue while your husband takes a bullet?”
The girl paled.
Regret stabbed at Caroline, but she kept her voice even and said, “Pull yourself together.”
Fiona straightened and gave a nod.
Caroline hoisted a leg over the rail and lowered her foot to the outer edge of the balcony. She swung the other foot over. A quick glance at her feet caused a rush of dizziness. The ground disappeared into a dark, airy abyss. She lifted her eyes to Fiona’s face. The girl held her gaze for an instant, then her warm hand covered Caroline’s white-knuckled fingers gripping the railing. Releasing one hand, Caroline extended a foot towards the other balcony and leant. Her toe nearly reached. She leant further.
“Just one…more…inch.” She stretched, then cried out when her grasp on the railing loosened.
“Caroline!”
She swung herself back to the railing, insides shaking so badly, she felt as if she would vomit. She met Fiona’s wide-eyed gaze. Fiona gave a wordless shake of her head. Caroline blew out a shaky breath, then willed her racing heart to slow and again reached for the other balcony. She stretched until her arm felt as if it would disconnect from her shoulder, before cold iron grazed her fingertips.
“Just a bit more.” She gasped, stretching.
“You cannot reach.” Fiona tugged on Caroline’s fingers.
Caroline took a deep breath and leapt. Her fingers clamped around cold iron as her slippered foot made contact with the tiny ledge on the outside of the balcony—then slipped. Her hip crashed into the stone ledge and her shoulder wrenched with the weight of her body hanging from the railing. She cried out in unison with Fiona’s shriek. Pain seared her hip.
