by Paula Quinn
Jamie MacKenzie’s dog, Daisy, had delivered eight puppies three months ago. Jamie had managed to find homes for six of them. Two sisters remained, one brown and tan and one solid tan. Both were the size of foxes, with short coats and pointed ears. Their mother was a mix of too many breeds to count.
Lily didn’t care while she rolled around in the dirt with them.
“I think two is even better than one, dinna ye agree?”
Lachlan turned to his wife and wondered when he’d stopped caring if he was going mad. He could have argued that two meant double the work—and more noise.
Old habits were hard to break. But he’d break them for her—for them.
He paid Jamie handsomely for the pair and nodded, trying not to look miserable when Mailie and Ruth invited Jamie and his family to the castle tonight.
Mailie moved against him and hooked her arm through his as they set their direction toward the next house. “I know this is upsettin’ yer peace and quiet,” she said, glancing up at him. “That ye’re still willin’ to do it means much to me.”
He kissed the top of her head and lingered to breathe in her scent. “It worries me how far I would go to please ye, woman.”
She filled his ears with laughter and made his heart feel light. She was correct to want to celebrate their marriage. He wanted to celebrate it also.
“What shall we call them?” Will asked, then laughed when one of the puppies chased his feet.
“This one,” Lily said, trying to carry the squirming solid tan pup in her arms, “is Li—” She stopped when Lachlan smiled at her and shook his head. She looked around, biting her lip, and then smiled. “Is Meadow!”
“That’s a lovely name,” Mailie gushed.
“And this one?” Lachlan asked Will.
His son thought about it and then looked up at him. “How about Fig?”
Lachlan laughed. “Ye give her an advantage with a name like that.”
They continued onward toward the homes of the people of Avoch. They gave all the good news of their marriage and adoption of Alice Monroe’s children. They drank mead or ale at every table and invited all to the castle for a night of music and merriment.
Music? Aye, reliable Ruth informed him of Katie Fraser’s wondrous skill with a lute. Lachlan smiled. Why the hell not?
With much to do, they returned home after midday and set to opening and cleaning the east wing.
Sometime later, Lachlan stopped while carrying two more large chairs into the great hall. He looked around at his wife and Ruth bringing in vases of heather from the solar. Their voices blended with his children’s laughter and the barking of two dogs.
Life was good.
Ranald Sinclair watched Mailie stroll to the castle on the hill with MacKenzie at her side. His blood sizzled in his veins at their hands intertwined. He couldn’t think. He wanted to kill. He wanted to ride to his cousin’s house in Shandwick and kill MacKenzie’s brat. He would kill her. He should have done it years ago instead of letting her live as a servant to his cousin George Sinclair and his wife Margaret. George had accused him of cheating at cards. He later tried to convince Ranald that it was all in jest. Ranald laughed with him, but the sleight to his reputation would never be forgiven. He’d brought the gel to him as payment on a debt and as a way to secure George’s death when Ranald told MacKenzie who had his daughter. And he would have told him. He’d waited two years to tell him. He hated Colonel MacKenzie for his part in foiling the Jacobite cause. He was a constant thorn in their sides, always finding their secret meeting places and ordering their arrests. Ranald had taken care of the problem and gained jewels in the mix. A jewel to use at a later time. He’d collected a number of them over the years. Mostly younger ones scattered in different places. They were children of the influential, or people with certain skills. Like Lachlan MacKenzie. They provided leverage, and leverage was power.
Everything would have worked out just fine if the MacGregors hadn’t found Mailie so quickly. Or if his damn emissary had done his duty.
None of it mattered anymore. MacKenzie had stolen Mailie from him and robbed him of his satisfaction.
No. His hands clenched into fists while he watched her disappear over the hill. He’d worked and planned too long to have her, to have George killed. Nothing had changed, save that now he had an even bigger reason to abduct her. Revenge.
Revenge against her for denying him and taking a hideous-looking madman to her bed. She looked happy. Did she think he’d let her be happy while he suffered her rebukes? No one made a fool of him.
And full revenge against the man who had led the capture and arrest of the rebellion’s most powerful leaders—and then dared to steal what was Ranald’s.
MacKenzie would pay for touching her. He would pay dearly.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
One hundred and thirteen people filled Avoch Castle. They all shared pleasant conversation sitting at or standing around the long trestle table laden with food in the center of the great hall. Fires from two enormous hearths warmed the hall and offered light, along with a great candlelit chandelier hanging from a low beam.
Katie Fraser sat in a chair by the corner, against a backdrop of heather, playing her lute. She was skillful indeed, filling the air with the delicate sounds of strings.
Mailie sat at the table beside Lachlan and the children, taking in the sounds, letting them envelop her like the loving arms of family. She turned and looked up at her husband enjoying conversation with his tenants. He needed this. He needed them as much as they needed him.
She smiled and blushed remembering the last time they were alone. She’d come into the bedchamber to get ready for the gathering and found him standing before a small table, shaving his face. He wore nothing but a cotton towel wrapped low on his hips. The sight of him so broad, lean, and long snatched her breath away.
He hadn’t worn the towel, or remained on his feet, for long.
She’d been bold, pushing him into a chair and climbing on top of him. It still took her body time to adjust to his size, but she pushed and pulled and rode him hard.
As if sensing her renewed desire now, he reached for her hand in her lap and brought it to his lips for a kiss.
“Are ye enjoyin’ yerself, husband?” she asked him with tenderness framing her voice.
“Aye, my love, I am,” he told her. His smile was like a refreshing breeze from the sea. “But I’d rather be alone with ye.”
Goodness, but his appetite for her was insatiable. Thankfully, hers was just as ravenous. “If ’tis anything like the celebrations in Camlochlin, this could go on until morning.”
He tried not to scowl. She smiled and leaned in closer to his ear. “We could sneak away after we put the children to bed in an hour or two.”
When she withdrew, light danced across his silver eyes as they basked over her features. She could feel the touch of his gaze like a tender caress, a burning flame. “Have I told ye how beautiful ye are to me, Mailie?”
“Many times today, my lord.” She smiled, feeling like a fresh-faced maiden who’d won the heart of the most noble knight.
“Have I told ye how much I adore ye, Lachlan?”
His smile deepened. “Many times today, my lady.”
She leaned back in her chair and shook her head at the ceiling. “I fear I am lovesick.”
“I shall tend to ye if ye’re ill, love.”
They laughed and ate and toasted with their new and reacquainted friends. Lachlan made his way around the hall, making certain he spoke with everyone, while Mailie made plans to visit with some of the women while Lachlan was away.
Later, after they put their children to bed, they remained in the western wing and locked themselves away in their bedroom for a brief interlude.
They barely stepped away from the door before they were on each other, their hands groping and grasping for laces. Lachlan sprang free, swollen and ready, and with his breeches around his thighs, yanked up her skirts.
His s
mile, when he discovered that she wore nothing underneath, stripped her of everything else. When he lifted her and set her down on his hot lance, she took him fully, despite the slight pain of his size. She held on, kissing him as he carried her to the bed and set her down on the edge of it.
She cried out with each mighty thrust, at his mouth sucking and pulling at her rigid nipple, when her body seized him and quivered around his thick shaft until she drenched him.
But no one heard her.
They returned to their guests a bit flushed, but otherwise no one knew she’d just been ravished at the hands of her husband until he filled her to bursting.
They drank more wine and Mailie even danced with old Roddy Ross and Brodie MacKenzie—who wasn’t old but quite handsome and unwed. Mailie would have to get to know him better to discover if he was good enough for Nichola. How wonderful it would be to have her cousin living here with her.
“I should go check on the children,” Mailie told Lachlan two hours later. “If Lily has awakened, I willna hear her.”
“I’ll come with ye,” he said, rising to his feet.
They almost made it out of the hall together when Father MacKay, who married them, stopped Lachlan to speak to him. Mailie waited a moment, but thoughts of Lily calling for her urged her to step away. She smiled at Lachlan when he caught her eye.
“If she sleeps, I willna be long,” she said, and then quickly left the hall, leaving Lachlan with the priest.
She hurried down the dimly lit corridor, past the buttery, and headed for the light of the west wing.
She heard a sound and stopped.
“Lily?”
The hair on her nape rose off her skin. She looked over her shoulder at the darkened corridor, and then up the stairs. She hurried forward.
She almost made it to the top when she saw him standing on the steps, a pistol in his hand. Ranald! She nearly fainted with the terror of finding him right here in Lachlan’s castle.
“Make a sound and I’ll kill the children.”
She held up her hands instantly and kept her mouth shut. No! No, he couldn’t be here! If he hurt Will or Lily— “What are ye doin’ here?” she asked him, doing her best to sound calm while her insides roiled. She wasn’t sure if he would use his pistol, but he’d gone to the trouble of having her ripped from her family knowing she had rejected him. She wouldn’t take the chance that he’d do far worse than that.
“I came fer ye.” He stepped down another stair, getting closer to her.
She remembered how much he repulsed her, and stepped back when he reached for her. His dark auburn hair had grown longer and was tied back behind his nape. His cheekbones and jaw were cut with softer strokes than most of the men she knew. She would dispute with no one that Ranald Sinclair was one of the prettiest men she’d seen yet. It was his eyes that chilled the blood though. They were dark pools of arrogance and the promise of cruelty.
“Leave now and Lachlan willna kill ye.”
“Lachlan?” His smile sharpened his wide mouth as he pointed the barrel of the pistol at her face. She closed her eyes and bit down hard on her lip to keep from crying. “We’ll discuss him later. Fer now, I’ll leave after ye.”
Mailie turned and descended the stairs, glad to lead him away from the children. She prayed she’d meet Lachlan before they reached the doors.
“How did ye get inside?”
“With everyone else,” he replied. “Keep going. Open the doors.” He pushed the pistol against her spine. “Hurry! Dinna make me kill ye, Mailie. If I do, there’s no longer a reason to keep anyone else alive.”
She did as he demanded and opened the heavy wooden door. He pushed her forward and shut the door behind him.
“Ye’re a loathsome creature, Sinclair.”
“And is MacKenzie any better?” he demanded, shoving her toward his horse. “He massacred thirteen men and set almost all of them on fire. I heard he even watched them burn.”
“They killed his daughter, as ye well know,” she ground out.
“Ye defend a traitor to the Jacobite cause?” He jabbed his pistol into her spine. “Has he touched ye?”
“Ye’re goin’ to die fer this,” she promised.
He laughed, then, “Get on my horse.”
“He’s goin’ to come fer me,” she warned, turning to him. One of the first things her father ever taught her was how to disarm a man. She braced her legs.
“Let him come.” He pushed the folds of his plaid away, exposing two more pistols tucked into his belt. “I have these and four others ready to fire in case I miss with the first three. Now get on my damned horse before I start hurting people.”
It wouldn’t do any good to take his pistol if he had six more. With no other choice for now, she fit her shoe into the stirrup and pulled herself up. She looked at the doors. Did she want Lachlan to come if Sinclair was so prepared to kill him? Mayhap it was better if she let Sinclair take her. He was likely going to take her to Invergordon, since he believed the MacGregors didn’t know of it. If she could keep herself from killing him on the way, they’d likely end up somewhere between her kin and Lachlan.
“Ye know what he did to those men,” she said while he mounted behind her in the saddle. “Do ye think none of them had pistols?”
He said nothing. She hoped he was afraid. He should be. “Even my kin couldna triumph over him.”
He kicked the horse’s flanks and snapped the reins before her. They took off in full gallop, heading for the dark forest rather than the open village.
Her heart beat frantically. Her fingers felt too numb to hold on. How would Lachlan find her, and would she freeze to death before he did? She wore no arisaid or defense against the bracing wind.
Nothing but…him. When he closed his arms around her and pushed his chest to her back, she stiffened. “If ye dinna move away from me, I will be ill all over ye and then I will scream and no’ stop until we get to where we’re goin’.” While she spoke, she rubbed her foot against the horse and pushed her shoe off her foot. Lachlan was a tracker, a hunter. She had to help him find her.
“Dear, trust me,” he drawled against her ear, “ye’ll scream when I want ye to scream and be silent when I command it. My will shall be done from here on.”
Mailie wanted to kill him for threatening her children, her husband. She was tired of being abducted like a helpless sheep. She wasn’t. She was about to show this wolf which of them would be silenced.
Without turning in the saddle, she reached behind her back and found one of his pistols tucked into his belt. Before he had time to stop her, she twisted the barrel around, pointing it at him, and fired.
She didn’t know if she hit him or the horse. Her captor struck her in the temple with the handle of his pistol as his curses filled her ears, and then everything went silent.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lachlan shut the castle doors as the last of the villagers left, and looked up the stairs. It had been two hours since Mailie had gone to check on Lily. She had likely fallen asleep in bed with them. He thought of letting her sleep without disturbance and walked toward his chamber. He heard footsteps and looked over his shoulder at Ruth descending the stairs. “I didna know ye went up.” He smiled at her. “Do they all sleep?”
“The children do, but Mailie must have gone to yer bed. She is no’ with them.”
He nodded, happy that Mailie was in his bed. “Go home, Ruth. Ye’ve done enough fer me. Yer husband needs ye. We’ll take care of the children when they wake.”
“My husband likes his time alone. After raisin’ a brood of bairns, ye’ll want it again too. And ye know I love ye, and I love doin’ things fer ye, Lachlan. That willna change because ye have a family.”
“Ye’re my family as well.” He drew her in for an embrace and then bid her good night and continued on to his bedchamber.
Mailie wasn’t in his bed—or in the kitchen when he pushed open the door.
Where was she? He met Ruth on his way up the stairs.
“She’s not there. Are ye certain she’s not with Lily?” Before she could answer, he rushed past her to check for himself.
His heartbeat grew louder, faster in his ears. She wasn’t with the children.
Two hours.
“Stay here,” he told Ruth, trying not to think the worst. She would never leave them. Someone had taken her. Sinclair. No. “Stay with the children. I’m goin’ to search the castle. I’ll be back shortly.”
Every inch of the castle he covered brought him closer to the edge of panic. He shouted her name, but only echoes filled the corridors.
His blood rushed through his veins even as his heart sank with dread. Did the bastard Sinclair have the boldness to enter his house and take Mailie? Had he truly escaped with her while Lachlan laughed and drank in the great hall?
He raced back to the doors.
“Ruth!” he bellowed toward the stairs. She appeared a few moments later while he threw on his coat and loaded two of his pistols. “I’m going to get her. I need yer horse.”
The instant Lachlan stepped out of the castle, he knew catching up with Sinclair would be difficult. Besides Lachlan’s needing a lantern to see any tracks, many of the villagers had arrived on their horses, and had left on them. There were tracks everywhere. He hoped the bastard was on his way to Invergordon, but which direction had he taken? Sinclair would want to stay hidden while he rode off just in case Lachlan had come out looking for her.
Dear God, why hadn’t he?
Mounting Ruth’s horse, he turned toward the forest. There shouldn’t be tracks this way, but there were. They had to be from Sinclair’s horse. Lachlan’s heart leaped as he rode away. The tracks were difficult to see, so when he found Mailie’s shoe a short while later, he wanted to smile at his clever wife, but his rage and fear of what Sinclair might do to her stopped him. He had to find her.
He had allowed Mailie to distract him from how serious a threat Sinclair truly was to her. The Earl of Caithness had her kidnapped and then he’d sent Graham to kill Lachlan and take her again. He should have known Sinclair wasn’t going to let her go so easily.
