“What does he want with her?”
“Cannae say as I know or give a damn. The gent has coin t’pay. That’s all that matters.” Munro flashed a hunting knife. “Walk away. I’ve business with the woman.”
“I knew ye to be a fool. But ye’ve gone and shoved yer head up yer arse if ye believe I’d leave the lass to the likes of ye.”
“Ye’re cocky now. But ye won’t be.” Munro tapped the blade against a gnarled table. “Ye think I willnae use this? Ye’re wrong. I’ll gut ye.”
Connor clutched the bludgeon at his side. Low. Out of sight. “Not bluidy likely.”
Eyeing Munro’s grip on the hilt, he calculated his aim. The thug was comfortable with the knife. Confident. Overly so.
He swung. The cudgel slammed into Munro’s wrist.
Lead cracked against bone. The knife slid from the big bastard’s hand, landing on the table as the boisterous crowd surrounding them drowned out the man’s low, agonized cry.
Another swing of the cudgel. Quick. Sure. The weighted strap jabbed a spot on Munro’s jaw, just below the ear.
The thug’s eyes went wide. With a groan, his head dipped, and he fell. Collapsed, like a sack of worm-eaten potatoes.
Connor caught Johanna by the hand. He’d bought them time. But it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed the unconscious man.
“Come along, lass.” Connor shoved the bludgeon in his pocket and retrieved a revolver from beneath his jacket. There was still a chance Munro had an accomplice waiting beyond the tavern door. If anyone else dared come after Johanna Templeton, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike.
…
Johanna stifled a cry of her own as Munro sank to the floor. A thin trickle of blood dribbled down his cheek. Nearly stumbling over the big man’s inert mass, she rushed from the tavern. She clung to MacMasters’s hand, knowing her legs had gone weak and her stomach had turned against her.
The cool air hit her face like a bracing blow. She welcomed the sensation, even as she wobbled a bit. MacMasters steadied her against him. The heat of his body was oddly reassuring, and she allowed herself to draw from it. If only the dull throb radiating through her arm did not envelop her.
He led her to a sleek black phaeton. “I took the liberty of acquiring a carriage.”
Discarding any sense of propriety, she leaned against him. She needed his strength and the comfort of his nearness.
“I’m not… I’m not feeling quite myself.” Her words were little more than a whisper. She pressed her palm to her mouth, praying she wouldn’t lose what little dignity she still possessed by casting up her accounts.
“Damnable shame ye had to see that, lass.” MacMasters’s rich, rumbling tones enveloped her, comforting and strong. “The sight of blood does that to many a soul.”
Beneath the gaslight, she caught the concern in his gaze. How peculiar that she should see compassion in the eyes of a man who might well be her adversary.
Her lids felt weighted. So very heavy.
“It’s not that,” she murmured. “It’s not…his blood that’s set me off kilter. It’s mine.”
Chapter Six
Johanna blinked at the light streaming into her face. She’d never known the rays from a gas lamp to appear so blindingly bright. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as if that would clear her head and allow her to focus.
She lay against plush cushions, her legs stretched out, her head propped up on a soft pillow. Not on a bed. No, beds didn’t have backs. She was on a settee, one arm nestled against the tufted upholstery, the other dangling over the seat. Her fingers grazed a textured carpet. Even without glancing, the density of the pile told her it was expensive. This was no workman’s tavern.
Pity she had no idea where she was or how she’d come to be there.
A heavy quilt covered her. She swept a hand beneath the coverlet to explore her state of dress…or undress, as seemed the case. Good heavens! Her corset had been removed, as had her blouse and her skirt. Her flimsy cotton combination and her lace-trimmed petticoat were all that covered her. Someone had even taken the time to slip her shoes from her feet.
“So you’re awake. About time you decided to join us.” A man’s voice, deep and flavored with a subtle burr.
She pressed up on her elbows, wedging herself against the settee. A very handsome, very masculine man stared down at her. Jade eyes framed with dark lashes met her gaze. The same intense green hue as the devil named MacMasters possessed. Yet in the most subtle of ways, utterly different.
This man was taller, his build leaner. His tailored tweed jacket and pressed trousers bespoke a civilized gentleman rather than a renegade in ebony boots. But there was no denying the resemblance.
“Who…who are you? You look so very much like…him.”
“Him?” Amusement tilted the stranger’s mouth. “I presume you mean…” He cocked his head to the man marching through the door, each thud of his boots heavy against the wood floor. “Him.”
“Ye didn’t think I’d abandoned ye to those heathens, did ye, lass?” MacMasters towered over her. Gone was the heavy coat. He’d stripped down to his shirtsleeves, the white linen garment draping muscular shoulders and sleek, sinewed arms. Awareness surged through her, electric and dynamic and primal, and somehow, rather frightening. Something deep within warned her to protect herself from this man. Yet, his nearness stirred an innate need.
Her lips were dry, so parched she couldn’t resist moistening them with a flick of her tongue. Or so she told herself. An ordinary response, really. Nothing to do with her body’s instinctive response to MacMasters. Surely a sip or two of water was all she required.
“Why are you here?” Her question came out weak. Pitifully voiced, in fact. Squaring her spine against the hoodlum with a knife had not sapped her of spirit. What had come over her?
“I brought ye here after ye fainted.”
“Fainted?” Being careful to keep the blanket tucked around her, she scooted to the edge of the settee. “I am not a woman who swoons.”
“Then ye did a fine imitation.” His eyes gleamed with a good natured humor. Perfect. Precisely what she didn’t need. She didn’t want to like this man. He’d ruined the exchange she’d arranged, the delivery of the ransom that would save her niece.
MacMasters’s mirror twin brushed a tendril from her face. His touch was warm. Gentle. Blessedly, the contact did not propel a sensuous current through her as the devil’s had. “You were awake and aware, but a bit dazed when you arrived. I don’t doubt you’d lost consciousness at some point after the incident. You were in considerable pain.”
“Pain?” The word triggered a rush of memory. The preceding hours flooded her as if she were reliving the events in that single moment. “I remember now. The knife. That beastly man…he cut me. I even remember coming here, to this house. But I don’t know why…why I am here.”
“I am a physician, Miss Templeton. My brother brought you here because you were in distress.”
“Brother.” The word settled into her brain. So, that explained the similarities as well as the subtle differences between the two men.
“Seeing that you’d been hurt, I examined you to ensure you had sustained no other injuries. Thankfully, you were unscathed other than the laceration on your arm,” he went on. “I tended your wound and administered medication to ease your discomfort. The compound induced sleep, but now, I suspect it’s left you in a bit of a fog.”
Digesting his explanation, she struggled to steady her rampaging thoughts. Fog seemed an accurate description, indeed. But now, as the confusion lifted, questions bombarded her.
Finally, she settled on one.
“How do you know my name?”
“It is embossed on your traveling bag,” he answered matter-of-factly, as though it were every day that he treated a woman whose identity he’d discerned from the lettering on her valise.
The ransom. An invisible rock dropped into the pit of her stomach. She’d left the bag—and the book—
unguarded. Heaven knew she’d no reason to trust that these men possessed a shred of honesty between them.
She plastered her features into a bland mask. It wouldn’t do to reveal her apprehension. “My valise…may I have it, please?”
A flash of understanding in the devil’s eyes told her he’d heard the concern in her voice. The rock in her belly grew heavy, massive as a boulder poised to tumble from the cliffs along the Cornwall coast. Without a word, he left the room.
His brother’s mouth firmed into a stern line. “You’ve no need to trouble yourself about your possessions. The bag and its contents are secure. As a physician, I must advise you to allow the draught I administered to do its work. The solution has quelled the pain. I can see that much on your features. But you need to sleep.”
For the first time, she noticed the bandage. Pristine white, neatly wrapped and tied, directly over the spot where the leg-of-mutton sleeve of her ivory blouse had puffed. “There is a slight throb, but it is not overly troubling. But…I’ve no intention of sleeping. I need that case.” If only her eyelids weren’t so heavy, her voice so strained.
“The medicine has made you crave slumber. Don’t fight it, Miss Templeton. Rest will prove restorative.”
She pushed herself up with the heels of her hands. Her knees rebelled as a fresh ripple of pain shot through her upper arm. She plopped back onto the cushion. “You don’t understand…”
The world felt as if it had slowed, just a bit. She fought the urge to close her eyes. It wasn’t like her to laze about, regardless of the circumstances. Devil take this man and his medicine. “I’ve urgent matters I must attend to… I must be on my way.”
He slowly shook his head. “You’re in no condition to be going anywhere.”
Why didn’t this man understand? “What’s in that case…it’s a matter of life…and death.”
He offered a nod and clasped one of her hands in his. Nothing sensual in that touch. No, this press of his skin to hers was gentle. Reassuring. Perhaps even pleasant. But no awareness infused the contact, no sense of instinctive recognition like that which pulsed through the slightest brush of MacMasters’s fingertips.
“Whatever is in that case, it can wait,” the doctor said with practiced patience. “You’ve lost some blood. You must regain your strength.”
“I’m strong enough…to leave. I need my valise. I don’t know you or your brother, if that’s even who he really is.”
He swept small, soothing circles over the back of her hand with his thumb. His touch comforted her, just as her older brother had eased her childish fears during lightning storms so many years ago.
A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “In that case, it’s high time I rectified the situation. My name is Harrison MacMasters. I completed my medical studies in Glasgow. This is my residence. And my brother, Connor—” He glanced toward the open doorway as thuds against the wood announced the devil’s return.
MacMasters strode through the doorway. Fixing her with a stare, he dangled her satchel between his fingers. “Men tried to kill me tonight to get to this case. Why?”
Harrison shot him a glare. “This is no time for inquiries.”
“The hell it’s not.” MacMasters hoisted a wingchair from the corner and plopped it beside the settee, as effortlessly as if he’d lifted a child’s stool.
The vee between Harrison MacMasters’s brows deepened. “You’ve picked a damn peculiar time to rearrange the furniture. I’d appreciate you leaving everything in one piece.”
MacMasters ignored his brother’s statement. He settled his large body in the chair, leaned forward, and set his attention squarely on Johanna. His gaze seemed to cut into her, exposing the fear and determination rampaging through her veins.
“Are ye goin’ to tell me the truth, or shall I find out for myself?”
Harrison came to his feet. At his full height, he was an imposing figure. His lean-muscled strength would certainly give a thinking man pause before launching an attack. But his eyes did not glimmer with danger as the devil’s did, and he could not conceal the air of civilization that cloaked his words and expressions.
“Miss Templeton needs to rest.” The physician’s husky brogue had grown more pronounced. Was that anger she detected in his voice?
“I’m not asking her to toss a bluidy caber. Three sons of bitches wanted me dead tonight. I need to know why.”
Harrison cocked a brow. “Only three this time? I’d say that’s an improvement.”
“Bah.” MacMasters waved his brother away. “Tell me the truth, lass.”
Johanna pressed her palms against the cushions to steady herself. “Why are you asking me? Am I to believe you haven’t rifled through my possessions?”
“If you’re saying I’ve opened your satchel, ye’re right,” he said without hesitation. “Men were prepared to kill for what’s in that bag. I need to know what they’re after.”
She cocked her chin. A show of defiance might well put him in his place. “In that case, you already know what I’m carrying. I presume you were able to read it.”
His scowl might have made a pirate captain proud. “Tell me what you’ve hidden in that bag.”
Willing herself to stand, she gripped the arm of the settee and came to her feet. Her legs wobbled, drat the luck.
Harrison MacMasters gently took her elbow, steadying her. “You’re still weak. And the medicine I gave you is going to make you feel weary. Please, sit.”
Defeat washed over her, and she sank back to the cushion. “I must be on my way. I do not wish to sound overly dramatic, nor overly imaginative. But this truly is a matter of life and death.”
Harrison seemed to digest her words as he took the case from his brother and placed it in her hands. “Tell us the nature of your business, Miss Templeton. We will help you.”
She shot MacMasters a pointed glare. “He already knows what’s in here. I can only pray he did not damage it. I cannot imagine he would treat such a rare find with the respect it deserves.”
She opened the valise and removed the book. A treasure, indeed.
“A book?” Harrison’s brows knit into a line. He rubbed his jaw as if it ached. “Frankenstein’s monster, no less.”
“Aye, a blasted book.” MacMasters pinned her with his dark gaze. “I’ve no interest in mad scientists and piecemeal bodies. And neither does Cranston. What are ye hiding?”
Johanna hiked her chin. “I’ll have you know Mrs. Shelley’s work is a classic. This particular volume is uniquely valuable.”
“Valuable?” His scowl deepened. “It’s time ye start telling us the truth. The woman who wrote that drivel didn’t have men chasing after her who wanted her dead. What you’ve got hunting you is real, lass. Not the product of an intellectual female’s overactive imagination.”
Devil take the man. She’d been prepared for an ill-spoken brute. But Connor MacMasters was articulate. Intelligent. And as arrogant as a buccaneer of old.
She kept a firm grip on the novel. “I will have you know this book is quite rare, a first edition, published anonymously in a printing of only a few hundred copies. Mrs. Shelley wrote an inscription on the title page. Only a handful of volumes bear her handwritten words.”
“Ye’re telling me Cranston wants a book about a monster?” MacMasters plowed a large hand through his straight, dark hair.
“This is not merely a novel. It’s a treasure. One of a kind.”
“May I see it?” Was the physician’s voice always so subtly coaxing, or had he reserved that velvet tone for women who showed up on his doorstep, wounded and carrying an immeasurably valuable book?
She offered him the volume. Handling it with the respect it deserved, he inspected it with a scientist’s regard for detail.
“I see nothing questionable,” he observed. “How did you come to possess it?”
“I received this book as a gift.”
MacMasters’s eyes narrowed. Did suspicion always play in those green irises? “Who gave th
is to ye?”
“An acquaintance.”
“A man ye’ve been involved with?” he pressed.
“Involved with?” Heat crept over her cheeks. They’d likely stained scarlet. “No. Nothing like that.”
He folded his arms at the waist. Impatience infused the simple movement. “Who is he?”
“No one you’d know. He’s not from these parts,” she stalled. How much could she safely disclose to these men?
His eyes went flinty, like shards of emerald mixed with silver. “Ye need to tell us who gave ye this book.”
When he looked at her like that, she could feel her pulse speed. She pulled in a breath, then another. “I really don’t see that this your concern.”
“Ye were wounded tonight. The man who wielded that knife would’ve slit yer pretty throat, if I’d given him the chance.” MacMasters came closer, towering over her. “That makes it my concern.”
Maddeningly, the stern set of his features eased her apprehension. His expression was not the carefully constructed mask of a liar, and the rawness in his voice bore no trace of deception.
Still, she couldn’t afford to trust him. She wasn’t so addled by the medicine the doctor had given her and the heady effects of MacMasters’s nearness that she didn’t remember that.
If only those perceptive eyes didn’t draw her in and the curve of his masculine mouth did not conjure unwanted heat deep within. Would his lips be gentle against hers? Or would his kiss exact a far rougher possession?
She drew in a lungful of air, pushing away the scandalous images. What on earth had come over her? Had the events of the past fortnight left her shaken? No wonder, that. Her orderly existence had been shredded. Uncertainty, unlike any she’d ever known, shrouded each moment.
She banished her mind’s rebellious wonderings to its far recesses. Perhaps someday, when this nightmare was over, she’d tap into those sensual images to fuel her next heroine’s adventures. She would need a fresh bottle of ink and a thick notebook to record the seductive scenes this Highlander inspired.
He eyed her beneath hooded lids. “Ye don’t know what ye’re dealing with, lass. If ye’ve got a brain under all that hair, ye’ll turn around and head home. There won’t always be someone around to protect ye.”
The Highlander Who Loved Me Page 5
