This Fierce Splendor

by Iris Johansen

  He swung about slowly, his arms out, asking her to admire his hard-won paradise and comment appropriately. The second that he turned his back, he heard a soft popping sound. Something slapped him on the left side of the rump. Even through his thick overcoat, his tuxedo, and his custom-made underwear, he felt a sharp sting.

  Douglas whirled around. Lethargy washed over him. He took a groggy step and swayed in place. She held a small pistol in one hand. She wasn’t smiling anymore. Woozy, he craned his head and looked at his wounded hip. He fumbled with the long dart that protruded from his coat, and it fell to the soft pine-needle cushion of the forest floor.

  He was not an easy man to conquer, and for a second fury nearly overcame narcotic bliss. After cursing viciously, he told her, “You’ll never get it—whatever it is you want. My people have orders not to pay any ransoms.”

  She laughed. Laughed. Then she crossed her arms and watched him with an expression of undisguised victory on her face. Sam stepped forward and studied her closely, worried but curious. Sam had class; Sam wouldn’t attack a woman. This one seemed to know that, because she clucked to him calmly, and he wagged his tail.

  Douglas groaned with frustration as his bones seemed to melt. He sank to the ground, fury giving way to overpowering sleepiness. Rolling onto his back, he yawned helplessly. “Dammit. Dammit.”

  Dimly he was aware of the woman speaking to someone—not him, apparently, because her voice was too low. Sam came to him and lay down, oddly reassured, it seemed. He put his head on Douglas’s shoulder. Then the woman walked over and knelt beside him, a radio in her hands, and he heard a metallic sliding sound as she collapsed the antenna.

  “You can’t get away with … whatever,” Douglas protested, every word weighing heavy on his tongue.

  The woman leaned over him, and he squinted up into her whisky eyes. Iced whisky, now. “You won’t be telling me what I can and cannot do,” she said. The Scottish burr in her voice was a shock. She chucked him under the chin.

  “You’re an arrrogant devil, Douglas Kincaid, and no credit to your Scot heritage. Now go to sleep. I don’t mean any harm to you.” She raised her head, tossed the cape back, and jerked off the blond wig. Chestnut-colored hair, glinting in the forest lamps, wound around the crown of her head in flat braids. She studied the snowy night sky.

  Douglas groaned with frustration when he heard the whir of a helicopter. He tried to protest one more time, but now his mouth refused to work.

  When she met his eyes again, he glared sleepily at her. The grim set of her mouth widened into a sardonic smile. “You’ve naught to frown over, my fine, handsome, worthless Mr. Kincaid. You’re about to learn a lesson in humility, that’s all.”

  The hell I will, he thought, and feel asleep.

  Elgiva MacRoth didn’t relax until she and her companions were on their ramshackle little airplane headed north over Canada. Getting Douglas Kincaid out of the city had been a terrifying experience, considering that the helicopter had nearly fallen apart.

  Her cousin Andrew had warned, with great foresight, that the machine appeared to be in dubious condition and would probably be hard to maneuver. But they had had no choice. Happy to acquire a helicopter at all, they had gotten one only by bribing its drunken owner at a tiny, rural airfield in upstate New York.

  Even now, far away from the dreadful helicopter, Elgiva didn’t feel safe. Their cargo plane was protesting every minute of the journey back to Scotland. It was too old to be hopping all over the northern hemisphere in search of the shortest distance across the Atlantic. Each time Andrew landed it for refueling, the cabin walls rattled and the floor shook.

  Considering their third-rate getaway vehicles and their absolute lack of criminal expertise, it was a wonder they’d managed to kidnap Douglas Kincaid at all. The fates were obviously on their side, she thought.

  Using the wall struts to keep her balance, Elgiva staggered to the back. Douglas Kincaid’s wonderful dog trailed her like an old friend. She went behind a curtain and changed the embarrassing green dress for tan corduroy trousers and a brightly colored sweater she had knitted herself. She slipped her feet into comfortable leather hiking shoes. The trappings of home began to soothe her nerves as she returned to her captive.

  It was time to become more familiar with the man who was going to change—a less dedicated person might say ruin—her life. She took a chair beside a specially installed bed. “Aye, we’re anxious for you to ride safely,” she muttered to Kincaid. “You devil.”

  As she looked at his face, still set in lines of strength even while he slept, her heart rose in her throat. The next few weeks would go so much easier if he had been born ugly and dull. Elgiva never tried to rationalize her emotions; she might attack them with rigid discipline until they were subdued, but she never lied to herself about them.

  So now she admitted that Douglas Kincaid was attractive, at least on a physical level. That didn’t make her despise him any less, but she knew she’d have to deal with him as a provocative man as well as a prisoner, so she began preparing herself to do it.

  Brusquely she unsnapped the belts that passed across his chest and thighs. “Your legs are too long and skinny for such a puffed-out rooster’s chest,” she taunted, as she unbuttoned his overcoat and flipped it back on both sides.

  “And you’ve got big, mean hands like a gorilla’s. Oh, I know all about you, Douglas. You were a boxer in your young years. Hmmmph! Someone pounded that nose a time or two, from the looks of it. What a crooked, nasty thing it is. Suits you—suits that thick, belligerrrant chin. I’ll bet that some of your flashy white teeth are false, and the rest are capped.”

  She pushed one of his eyelids open. “Brown. Plain old brown, like the moors when all the heather has died for the winter.” Her hand trembled. Be honest, she silently told herself. They’re like the dark, pretty eyes of a Terkleshire wolf.

  Elgiva made a soft sound of disgust and drew her hand away. “And such eyelashes! Only girls should have lashes so long and thick! You’re not a real man, Douglas Kincaid.” She glanced at the front of his tailored trousers. “You probably stuff a sock into your panties to give that grand show.”

  She stared for a moment, mesmerized, then angrily drew her attention to his head. She ruffled his hair with a rough hand. “Faith! Look at this black, wavy mess! Tamed with sprays and mousses, I’ll warrant.”

  When she sank her fingers into his hair to inspect its coarse luxury further, a low, rich sound of pleasure rumbled from his throat. Elgiva jerked her hand away and watched him keenly. What appetites the man must have to sigh like that in his condition!

  “If you come to, Douglas, you’ll get popped with another round of sleepy-bye medicine.” Just in case, she reached into her trouser pocket and rested her fingertips on the capped syringe there. Dr. Graham, the village physician, had provided an ample supply.

  But after a moment it was obvious that Kincaid was still soundly drugged. A little dismayed by the fear he had provoked, she grabbed his head between her hands and glared down at him. “Where’d you get that starburst scar on your cheekbone, you mangy bull? I’ll bet one of your ladyfriends whacked you with her diamond ring.”

  The skin of his cheeks was beginning to show a faint hint of black shadow. “You’re just a furry savage,” she observed primly. “For all your high-muckety-muck clothes and jewels, your clansmen were naught but hellions.”

  She ran her fingers down the front of his beautiful white shirt, trying to ignore the warmth and hardness of the chest underneath. “What ridiculous finery!” Set among crisp little pleats on his shirt front were onyx buttons rimmed in gold. A large diamond glittered in the center of each one.

  Though she had studied him and his life-style, she was awed. Here was the embodiment of a fortune she could barely imagine, and while everything she cherished had taught her to reject such frippery, his use of it fascinated her. Combined with his brutally handsome face and body, the effect was potent. She molded her hand to his chest and
slowly stroked the center, intrigued and a little breathless.

  “Ellie! What’re you doin’ with him, lass?”

  Her brother’s incredulous voice made her whirl around in the chair. Rob had come back from the cockpit, but she hadn’t even noticed. His eyes glittered with surprise and dismay.

  Elgiva hadn’t blushed in years; now she felt her face burning. Damn Douglas Kincaid! “I was just checking him over! Don’t be sneaking up on me like that!” She whipped around and jammed a hand into one of Kincaid’s trouser pockets. “I can’t sit and stare at the beast, you know. I have to make sure that he has no weapons.”

  “His only weapon is between the covers of his bankbook,” Rob replied grimly. “And inside that surpassin’ devious mind of his.”

  And in other places that only a woman would think about, Elgiva added silently. Busying herself, she withdrew a set of keys from Kincaid’s pockets. She muttered darkly, and Rob stepped closer to look over her shoulder. “Have you ever seen the like?” she asked. “Gold car keys with jewels set in them. And the names of the cars engraved. Porsche, Lamborghini, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Lotus. How many automobiles can one man use? What’re these? I don’t recognize them.”

  “His classics. His 1936 Cord and 1938 Studebaker. Don’t you remember from the magazine articles? The man is naught but a gangster. He loves all those American criminal styles from the thirties.”

  She tossed the keys onto a nearby seat. “That’s his idea of history, I suppose. No wonder he didn’t bother to find out about his true heritage. He’ll be forced to, now.”

  “Aye.” Rob’s chestnut hair gleamed in the cabin lights as he bent forward to study the drugged billionaire. Her brother, his love for outlandish plaids subdued by caution, looked dashing in solid black trousers and a turtle-necked sweater.

  She put a hand on Rob’s broad shoulder. “You and Duncan should be putting on your ski masks, just in case Kincaid wakes for a moment. We should go to the cockpit and tell Andrew and Mrs. M to do the same.”

  Rob gave their sleeping prisoner one last frown. “You’re right, Ellie. Let’s not take any chances.”

  From the cabin came a sour-faced little man. Form-fitting black trousers and a turtle-neck red sweater were less kind to him than to Rob. “I’d like to make certain that the bastard doesn’t see us,” Duncan MacRoth sneered. He lumbered to Kincaid’s side and jerked the man’s head back roughly. “We ought to blindfold him so tight that his eyes burn for a week. A man like this won’t cooperate unless you hurt him.”

  Duncan’s ugly treatment of their prisoner infuriated Elgiva. Ordinarily the mayor of their village was merely pompous and overbearing. But he was afraid of Douglas Kincaid’s power, as was everyone in Druradeen, and his fear made him cruel.

  Elgiva bit her tongue and watched anxiously. From the corner of her eye she saw Rob stiffening with anger. Kincaid’s dog shoved himself against Duncan’s legs and snarled.

  “Aye,” Duncan continued grimly, and jerked Kincaid’s head back a little farther. “We should bring him to Scotland wearing a few good bruises.” He curled one hand up and started to slap him.

  “No!” Elgiva and Rob said at the same time. Elgiva cupped her hands over Kincaid’s face. “He’s helpless, Duncan. He’s my charge. And I say you won’t hit him.”

  Kincaid’s dog was now growling with a deep, wild tone. From the door to the cockpit came a crackling little voice. “Son? Duncan? We canna whack the poor helpless American unless he’s awake. Now calm yourself.”

  Duncan stepped back, his eyes glazed with restrained anger. “I was just having a wee bit of fun with him, Mother.” Elgiva shot an amused, grateful look at the elderly sprite in a black woolen dress.

  Mirah MacRoth was Elgiva’s second cousin four times removed, or some such thing—the clan genealogy was very complicated. Elgiva was glad to be related to Mrs. M, but sorry to be related to Mrs. M’s son, Duncan, even if he was the best mayor the village had ever had.

  “I can’t wait to get this work done!” Duncan grumbled. “See that you don’t muck it up, Elgiva!”

  “Watch how you speak to my sister,” Rob warned.

  “Come, Duncan, and stop your naughtiness,” Mrs. M ordered. Duncan would always be ten years old to her. She had been Druradeen’s schoolmistress since 1949, and every adult in the village was still ten years old in spirit, as far as she was concerned.

  Duncan stomped into the cockpit to sit with her and Andrew. After he slammed the door, Elgiva tilted Kincaid’s head to a comfortable position and resisted an urge to smooth the hair Duncan had mussed. She stood quickly. “Best go and get your mask, Robbie. Duncan will pounce on the least excuse to complain.”

  Rob gripped Elgiva’s arm and gazed hard into her eyes. “It’s not too late for you to put on a mask too. We could change the plans.”

  She shook her head. “I suspect that Kincaid looked me over verrry well when I preened in front of his silly little one-way mirror. I don’t think he’s the kind of man who’d forget the details of his kidnapper’s face.” She hugged her brother and swallowed hard to keep the tears out of her voice. “It has to be this way, Robbie. If we get what we want, I won’t be sorry. Sssh, now, you big-hearted brute.”

  She stood back and shook him lightly by the shoulders, as if he were still smaller than she. His handsome, angular features tightened with sorrow, and Elgiva tried to distract him. “Robbie, I think Mr. Kincaid’s got you beat. He must be a good centimeter taller.”

  “Och! No!” Rob’s eyes glittered with dismay, as she’d expected. “The thieving bastard’s naught but a midget next to myself!”

  “We’ll bring him down a notch or two. Don’t fret.” Douglas Kincaid’s dog licked her hand anxiously.

  “Sssh, now, he’ll be fine,” she said soothingly, stroking the dog’s broad, golden head. “It’s me you should be worrying over, lad. I won’t get out of this as well off as you and your grand friend here.”

  Rob touched her arm. “Go up and sit with the others, Ellie. I’m going to change his clothes.”

  “No. I’ll help.” At Rob’s grim silence she glanced up. “Brother of mine, I was married for twelve years, you know. A man’s body is nothing new to me. And if I’m going to be alone with this one for a whole month, I’ll probably see more of him than I ever wanted.”

  He cursed softly. “I must have been crazy when we decided this plan. A true man wouldn’t let his sister—”

  “A true man knows when his sister is the best choice for a job. Now stop worrying!”

  “If anything goes awry—”

  “I’ll have done what my heart and soul told me to do. Now come. Let’s get this great, vain beast into some practical clothes.”

  Together they began undressing Douglas Kincaid. By the time they finished Elgiva was quivering inside from touching him, and she knew for certain that living alone with him for the next month would be more dangerous than she’d ever imagined.