Claiming the Courtesan

by Anna Campbell

  But there were only more mountains. Lines and lines of them as far as she could see.

  With a groan, she slumped back, ignoring the rain. She could be lost in this wilderness forever. It was worse than the desolate track she’d followed into the valley. She had no food, no map and no clothes, apart from what she wore.

  “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Oh, God, help me.”

  For a long while, she lay unmoving while weak, defeated tears trickled down her dirty face and mingled with the raindrops. Behind her, the duke waited to ensnare her with his tortured soul and sensual magic. Ahead lay an unforgiving wilderness where she could perish without trace.

  But eventually, she struggled to her feet. She couldn’t stay on this open ridge until winter froze her into an ice statue. There must be a way through the mountains. After she found it, she’d have everything she wanted. An independent life. A future for Ben and Maria. Hope. Purpose. Liberty.

  She ripped a strip off her petticoat, sobbing softly at the pain, and bound her torn and bloody hands. If she needed to climb on hands and knees again, she’d be in trouble. The wind had sharpened and she shivered, clutching her coarse coat more tightly about her. It was summer still, but in this cruel and terrible place, that word had no power.

  Had she made a dreadful mistake by running away? Both the duke and Hamish had warned her that people died in these ranges. Only now, when it was too late, did she believe them.

  With a shaking hand, she wiped the moisture from her face. She had to remember what rewards awaited her. She had to remember that the man she’d abandoned promised her nothing but humiliation and degradation.

  Summoning what little courage she retained, she took a deep breath. She couldn’t go back, and this open hillside offered no shelter. So she must go forward and pray she found some path out of this desolation. She put her head down and trudged through the thickening rain.

  Hamish rode up at sunset. Kylemore immediately noticed the filthy bundle tied to the Highlander’s saddle.

  “What’s that?” He failed to keep the dull hopelessness from his voice. All day, they’d searched without finding any trace of Verity. The image of her sliding helplessly into the loch had become more vivid with every weary mile he’d traveled.

  Hamish passed the bundle across to Kylemore. “I think the lassie dropped it as she climbed up the hillside.”

  This was the first genuine indication Verity was alive. Kylemore bent his head and tore at the bundle, but the humble contents told him nothing except that she’d now lost what few provisions she’d carried.

  Hamish was still speaking. “She must have had a difficult time of it. There were fresh rockfalls at the base. I’d no have thought a female could do it—it’s a climb most men would baulk at.”

  “Oh, I’ve never doubted her nerve,” Kylemore said on a surge of hope.

  She was brave, clever and determined. Perhaps she’d survive this unforgiving landscape until he found her.

  Hamish studied him. “She must be gey eager tae get away from ye, laddie.” The steady blue eyes sharpened on the duke’s face. “What in God’s name did ye do tae her?”

  Unseeingly, Kylemore gazed ahead, knowing he deserved every ounce of his companion’s condemnation. “I tried to break her,” he said grimly.

  Only now did he acknowledge he’d failed. As he’d deserved to fail. He shook himself out of his abstraction. Self-pity was an indulgence he couldn’t afford. With desperate eyes, he surveyed the rain-swept landscape. He’d get her back. Then he’d worry about the amends he needed to make. The amends he was capable of making.

  Hamish reached out to touch his arm. It was an act of terrible presumption that offered a brief reassurance which, in his distress, the duke noticed and appreciated.

  “Dinna fash yourself, laddie. We’ll find her.” He looked around. “But not tonight.”

  Kylemore became aware that the day waned. “Go back to the house and bring Angus and Andy here at first light. She obviously came this way.”

  “And what about ye? In the dark, you’ll tumble off a cliff yourself.”

  “I’ll be safe enough.” Verity faced the elements. It was only right he shared her discomfort and peril.

  The morning brought no letup in the cold drizzle.

  Kylemore jerked out of a restless doze. He straightened against the damp rock that had kept him from the worst of the rain, aware he deserved every stiff muscle.

  Where had Verity slept? Had she slept? He prayed she’d found shelter somewhere.

  Oh, dear God, let her be alive.

  The words beat an ominous tattoo in his heart as he rose. In the predawn half light, he saddled Tannasg, who hadn’t fared much better than his master. The horse had a longer line of aristocratic antecedents than he did and wasn’t used to roughing it through a wet Highland night.

  Scotland could be a damned awful place, he thought, stretching to ease his aching body. He must be getting soft. He’d often spent a night in the open when he’d been a boy. Once, when he hadn’t managed to reach his usual hiding places, he’d run off into midwinter snow to escape his father’s uncontrollable rage. On that occasion, he’d been gone three days before Hamish had found him, starving and blue with cold.

  Not that he’d emerged unscathed from that particular escapade. His raging fever had come near to killing him.

  Kate had nursed him back to health, he remembered. The Macleishes spoke of what they owed him. He wondered if they realized what he owed them in return.

  The rain eased as the morning progressed. With every hour, Kylemore’s hopes waned of finding Verity unhurt. Even if alive, she must be cold, tired, hungry, confused.

  Why the hell hadn’t she listened to him and stayed safe in the glen?

  He knew why. She was afraid he meant to force her into his bed again. They both knew he couldn’t keep his hands off her, damn it all to hell.

  As he followed the jagged ridge, he wished it had been otherwise. He wished he’d been another man, one worthy of the woman he pursued. But he was the same wretched miscreant he’d always been. Redemption, expiation and absolution were utterly beyond his reach.

  But, God be his witness, if he found her in one piece, he was at least willing to try to reform.

  He was fording a stream at the top of a waterfall when he looked ahead to see her picking her way through scree on the other side. For one brilliant moment, blazing relief transfixed him, and he just stared speechlessly at her.

  She had her back to him as she threaded her way through the field of rocks. The falling torrent muffled the sound of his approach as he spurred Tannasg toward her. When she finally turned, he was close enough to see her gray eyes darken in shock, then terror.

  When had he come to this? When had a matter of simple physical desire degenerated into this nightmare of fear and coercion?

  “No!” She flung herself into an awkward run across the rough gravel.

  He chased her, ignoring the dangers of the uneven surface. Tannasg snorted in protest at such cavalier treatment, but his loyal heart responded and he bounded forward gallantly.

  No power on earth could keep Kylemore from catching her now. She was his. He’d die before he let her go.

  “Verity!” he shouted after her retreating figure.

  She only tried more frantically to get away.

  “Verity, you’ll hurt yourself! Stop!”

  She was now trapped on a jutting point with a sheer drop on either side. Kylemore’s massive gray horse blocked her exit. There was nowhere for her to go.

  “Leave me alone!” she panted, backing away. The fear and hatred he heard in her voice cut him to the heart.

  “I can’t,” he said with perfect honesty and piercing regret.

  “I’m not coming with you,” she said bravely, although she must have known her bid for freedom was over. She raised her chin and glared at him as she’d once glared at him across Sir Eldreth’s drawing room.

  He almost laughed, in spite of the moment’s g
ravity. Break her? He might just as well try to catch the moon and bring it down to earth.

  Even if he managed such an unlikely feat, he’d merely set the moon before her for her delight. His passion for this one woman was his eternal fate.

  He dismounted swiftly and took a stride toward her. Tannasg was perfectly trained and stayed where he was.

  “Verity, it’s over. Give up. You’ll never find your way through these mountains.” Trying to sound unthreatening, he stretched his hand out. “Come to me.”

  She shook her tousled, dark head. She looked tired, dirty, wet, bedraggled. And heart-stoppingly beautiful. The bizarre assortment of clothes she’d stolen from the house hung too large on her and added to her air of fragility.

  “No.” She was frighteningly near the edge, and he didn’t want to startle her into any sudden move.

  He made his voice soft and coaxing. “Come to me, Verity.”

  “I haven’t gone through all this for nothing,” she said bitterly.

  “I promise I won’t hurt you.” He risked another step. She was almost within reach.

  She laughed scornfully. “I know what your promises are worth.”

  “Verity,” he said and lunged across the last distance to grab her.

  She jerked away, and his hand slid uselessly on the smooth skin of her arm. She screamed as she toppled over the edge.

  Chapter 16

  “Jesus, no!”

  Was it a prayer or a curse? Kylemore didn’t know. Verity’s scream rang in his ears as he flung himself to his knees and crawled to the edge of the cliff. Every second seemed to stretch into an hour. Every falling stone echoed like a thunderclap.

  “Thank God,” he whispered as he peered over the ledge.

  She clung to the precarious slope about a dozen feet down. The cliff didn’t fall away in a sheer drop, but the stony surface was unstable and she could slide to the base of the ravine any time in a deadly tumble of rocks.

  “Hold on.” He looked directly into her terrified eyes, desperate to instill what strength he could.

  “Of course I’ll hold on!” she snapped back.

  This reaction was so purely her, so utterly true to the woman he’d come to know, that he almost smiled. She fought her fear the only way she could. With anger. He understood the response. But unspoken terror flattened her lush lips, and her arms strained against the rocks. His own terror coiled like a cobra in his belly. If she let go, nothing would save her.

  He fought to keep his voice steady. “I haven’t got a rope. But if I throw you my coat, you can use it to climb up.”

  He lifted himself up far enough to strip off his coat with trembling hands. All the time, he held her gaze, as if he kept her on that rockface through sheer mental power alone.

  “Hurry, Kylemore.” This time her voice held no bravado.

  “Don’t look down,” he said urgently. “Look at me.”

  She closed her eyes, as if gathering her will. When she opened them again, they focused unwaveringly on him.

  “Trust me. I’ll get you out of this,” he told her.

  Let it be true, oh, let it be true, his heart pleaded.

  He reached out as far as he could and threw the long coat, holding tightly to one sleeve. Even with his arm fully extended, the garment still landed a good four feet above Verity. He swore under his breath and cast again.

  It was no good. The coat was too short.

  “Verity, Hamish should be here soon. Can you hold on? If I climb down to you, the whole hill will likely go flying.” A small rockfall near her left hand confirmed what he said.

  “I can’t be sure.”

  Her reply was a thread of sound. He saw in her face that she didn’t expect to survive.

  If sheer determination alone could get her out of this, by God and all His angels, he’d get her out of it. He studied the uneven rocks between the coat and her. “Wait.”

  He surged to his feet and ran back to Tannasg.

  “Steady, boy,” he whispered.

  The thoroughbred sensed his desperation and sidled nervously under his hands as he removed the saddle. With deftness born of necessity, Kylemore dismantled the saddle and swiftly buckled the straps together.

  The task still took too long. With every second’s delay, the possibility of her tumbling to her death increased.

  “Verity?” he called.

  Was she still there?

  “Yes. Hurry!” He could tell she was near the end of her endurance. Few would have contained their panic so long.

  With a yank, he tested the makeshift length. He desperately hoped it would reach her. And that his improvised rope held. And that she’d have the strength to grasp it when he threw it.

  Desperate hope was all he had. How would he survive if he didn’t bring her safely through this?

  He couldn’t dwell on failure. He would rescue her.

  Breathing hoarsely, he dashed back to the edge and collapsed to his knees. God be praised, she was still there.

  But she was tiring. Her hands, in their filthy ragged bandages, had clenched into claws, and even at that distance, he heard her rapid and uneven breathing.

  Verity looked up when he appeared above her and managed a shaky smile. Not for the first time, her courage humbled him.

  “Did you have a sudden inspiration?” She still strove to sound composed, but the words emerged on a gasp.

  “I hope so,” he said fervently. “Hell, I hope so.”

  Fumbling with the weight and length, he swung the awkward combination of leathers down. It landed just above her.

  The slap of leather on the rough surface created another rockfall. Kylemore’s belly knotted in dread as he realized the hillside was about to subside.

  “Reach for it, Verity,” he begged. Then an entreaty that came from the depths of his being. “Reach, my love.”

  Live, my love.

  Her silver eyes, glittering with fear and despair, widened at the unprecedented endearment. Then he saw her realize that to grab the straps, she had to let go of the hollow in the rock face that supported her.

  “Come on, Verity. You’ll be all right.” He hoped to the bottom of his worthless soul that he was right. Asking her to chance her safety was the greatest risk he’d ever taken in his misbegotten life. “It isn’t far.”

  Her beautiful face, streaked with dirt and tearstains, turned up toward him, and he saw her swallow. Her expression was rigid with fear. “I can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can.” He injected certainty into his voice. “Don’t fail me now. You’ve never given up before.” He tried to tell her with his eyes how he believed in her.

  She bit her lip and nodded. He held his breath as she let go and stretched upward. The shift in weight sent rivers of stones slithering past her.

  “Only a little further,” he urged. His knuckles whitened on the leathers as he prepared to take her weight.

  She grunted with effort and pushed herself up. With a sharp cry he felt to his boots, she lurched up and snatched the line.

  Not a moment too soon. The cliff around her collapsed in a deafening roar.

  “Kylemore!” she screamed while the world around her turned to chaos. “Kylemore, help me!”

  “I’ve got you.” He leaned back as her full weight dragged painfully on his arms. For a long moment, she swung free. Then she fell back against the rock face.

  “Hold on. I’ll pull you,” he said after the worst of his paralyzing horror had passed. His muscles strained to support her and the leather creaked in protest.

  Slowly, unsteadily but, thank God, surely, he hauled her upward inch by inch. A few times, ledges or hollows disintegrated under the weight of a hand or a foot, but having brought her so far, he wasn’t letting her fall now.

  Finally, he hauled her over the rim. His arms and legs felt like they were on fire. He was too damned relieved to care.

  With a groan, he crumpled to his knees and wrenched her into his arms.

  “Never do that to me again,
” he gritted out and pressed her face into his chest with hands that shook uncontrollably.

  Dear heaven, he smelled good. Warm. Alive. The special scent of Kylemore. Sobbing, Verity buried her nose in his filthy shirt and closed her eyes while reality slowly returned.

  She wasn’t lying crushed and broken at the foot of the ravine. Instead, she was with Kylemore.

  She tried to regret the failure of her desperate escape attempt, but all she felt was overwhelming gratitude that she hadn’t plunged to her death. Overwhelming gratitude and shaming joy to be with him. She’d thought never to see him again. The pain of leaving him had weighted every step out of the valley.

  Curling her arms around him, she burrowed into his embrace. Her heart pounded with the remnants of terror, and she couldn’t dam her weak tears.

  She cried in reaction to her ordeal. She also cried because she’d fought so hard and long against this surrender. Her hands clenched in the linen covering his powerful back.

  In spite of all her efforts, every trial she’d endured, she was still Kylemore’s captive. As the heat of his shuddering body surrounded her, she realized she’d never be free. Even if he let her go, she was his forever.

  “Shh, mo cridhe. Shh. It’s all right,” he murmured. He stroked her tangled hair, soothing her convulsive sobs. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

  Except you, she whispered silently.

  But even that insight couldn’t make her pull away.

  She’d expected him to be furious with her, as he’d been furious in Whitby. Instead, he just offered endless comfort. She told herself his fleeting kindness meant nothing, but she couldn’t stop her aching heart opening to his every word.

  She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, kneeling on the stony ground like survivors of a shipwreck. With her face pressed against his chest, she listened as gradually his heartbeat slowed.

  He’d been so calm, so sure when he’d hauled her up that hillside. But now she knew he’d been terrified too.

  “Your Grace?” Hamish’s question sliced into their silent communion, a communion full of gratitude and relief and emotions she’d never dare to name.