The Wicked Viscount (The Campbells)

by Heather McCollum

  Cat’s hands landed on her hips. “Then ye would have needed me instead of holding me down.”

  “I did not hold you down.”

  “Ye grabbed my foot, twice.”

  “To keep you inside to protect you.”

  “I do not need ye protecting me.”

  By now they were nose to nose next to the cow. “You are rash. Someone needs to protect you,” he countered.

  “Aye, and that someone is me, ye thick-headed dalcop,” she said. Anger and frustration shot through Cat, muddling her thoughts. He considered her weak, a weak fool who rushed in without thinking. A foul smelling, dirty, weak fool. No wonder he wanted to be platonic. And damn her for wanting more than that one fever-induced kiss.

  Nathaniel shoved both hands through his hair as if he wished to rip it from his scalp. Given the chance, she’d help him. “Cursing and flinging blades might protect you in the Highlands,” he said, finally leveling his gaze on her and dropping his hands. “But in England…” He shook his head. “Ladies fight with words and glances, whispers and subtly placed insults. They listen for weak links in strategies and smile despite the intrigue around them.” The fury from before seemed to deflate from his voice.

  “And ye think I will stand out like a filthy Scots peasant,” she said, her voice lower, resigned.

  His hands fell upon her shoulders. They were warm through her shirt, strong and gripping without feeling like he was trapping her. He exhaled. “No, but I would protect you from being ridiculed or worse, thrown in the Tower for an offense against the wrong person.”

  Worry added weight to his voice. She’d never had anyone worry about her before. Her father had been completely obsessed with fighting royal tyranny when he wasn’t drinking himself into a ditch, and her mother had most often been weeping, asleep, or staring off without speaking. Cat had always looked out for herself and her sister.

  She inhaled through her nose. “I would not be much of a Highland lass if I crumbled under ridicule.” She nodded. “But I will heed your warnings so as not to go to the Tower.”

  “That was too easy,” he said low. He didn’t believe her.

  “Once we reach England,” she said. “This is still Scottish soil under my boots.”

  …

  It had been the longest day of his life.

  Nathaniel stirred the small pot of stew, cooking the last of the wild boar he’d brought. Cat and he had carried back an armload of root vegetables from the farm at the end of the trail of hoof prints they’d followed to take the milk cow home to its grateful owner. He’d added them with the herbs Cat brought over. But it wasn’t the delay by their nighttime visitor that had made it long. It was the silence. Cat hadn’t said a word through the entire day, except to answer his direct questions with short replies.

  She rode Stella without complaint, and he heard her speaking low to the horse. When he’d turn to look her way, she was always glancing into the woods as if spotting a bird or patch of winterberry. Now it was twilight and they were stopped again, the silence pressing in on him like the growing night.

  He sat down on the opposite side of their small fire, stretching his legs before him. She stared at the pot perched amongst the low coals. Fury was better than apathetic silence. If he hadn’t learned anything else from his two dear sisters, he’d learned how to infuriate a woman by telling her what she shouldn’t do. With an exaggerated exhale, he leaned back on his fists that were propping him up on the fir boughs they’d laid upon the snow.

  “I would not mention that you are armed and lethal when we arrive at court. And unless the queen mentions it, do not say you are a healer for whom the queen sent. The king already has an army of physicians. If you reveal Queen Catherine’s request for another healer, you will alert any possible assassins that she is suspicious. And letting courtiers know you are…well, different from any lady who has ever walked across the threshold of Whitehall Palace could exclude you from circles where you might hear something of interest.” He rubbed the back of his neck, watching her. “So do not mention your ability to skewer a person and then fix them back to health.”

  She snorted softly. “Ye have taken away everything that I am.” She turned her gaze to him. “What then shall I be? Your Highland whore?”

  “You are a friend to the queen, and I am your escort down from Finlarig where you two met over Christmastide. The rest of your background you can make up as you go, without mention of those few things. Just stick as closely to the truth as you can.”

  “Without mentioning that I am a deadly healer. Perhaps I should not bring up my father either.”

  “Your father?” He knew that Cat and Izzy were orphans, that her mother had died two years ago. But he didn’t know the details.

  “Aye, he was slaughtered at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge.”

  Everything inside Nathaniel clenched, his chest, stomach, and fists. Damn. Foking hell. After a long breath, he cleared his throat. “He was a covenanter, a Presbyterian refusing to worship as King Charles decreed?”

  “Aye.” She tipped her head to the side. “And who are ye supposed to be?”

  “Excuse me?” His mind churned with her revelation. Cat’s father. A Scottish covenanter.

  “At court. What is your role there?”

  “Me? Myself, the Viscount of Lincolnshire, needing to come down to run my English estate. I volunteered to escort you on to Whitehall.” Sard it all. Bothwell Bridge. He’d tried to push the memory of it behind him, yet here it stood frowning at him.

  “With Jane Pitney of course,” she reminded him.

  What were they talking about? The trip down to Whitehall. “Uh…yes.”

  “For ye must avoid scandal,” she said.

  The covenanters at Bothwell Bridge had not been the worshipping type. They had been armed and ready to fight, ready to storm down into England to kill the royal family.

  Cat continued. “And to be seen with me in any sort of…compromising situation would be scandalous,” she said.

  He stared at her, pulling his thoughts back to her words, replaying them in his mind. This was a trap. He could feel it but wasn’t sure exactly where it lay. “Yes,” he said slowly.

  “Because I am a ragged, unimportant, country lass,” she said and stood up. “I’ll be sleeping in a tree. Good eve.”

  He followed her. “Cat.” Of course she didn’t stop. “I did not take you for a girl who runs away.” That halted her in her tracks.

  “I do not run away,” she said, pivoting to face him.

  Just in case, he strode across the space so he’d be within arm’s length. She stared up at him with contempt as he spoke. “Stop putting all these words in my mouth and thinking they are true. I have never thought of you as ragged or whatever else has you so angry. You throw words out as if I have said or thought them, making me the most fault-finding triptaker born to womankind.”

  If she had a musket trained on him, he’d be in mortal danger from the look in her eyes. Hell, she didn’t need a musket. The tip of her tongue came out from between her lips to wet them, the movement tugging at his discipline. “But,” she said, pausing to draw out the t. “I am not good enough to be anything more than a platonic spy for Queen Catherine to ye.”

  Staring down into her gaze, he picked up on the slightest bit of hurt in the tightness of her mouth. She thought him indifferent to her. Lord, her judgement couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything about Cat pulled at him, her courage and self-reliance, the wild freedom that clung to her like the unique dotting of her freckles.

  The fact that her father had been a traitor to the crown meant nothing to him. Hell, if he hadn’t been raised to uphold all his pledges, he might have turned traitor himself by now. And right at that moment, the lurking hurt in Cat’s eyes, combined with the hazy memory of their kiss, beckoned him like a siren. Nothing else mattered except correcting her idea that he didn’t desire her.

  His words were a rough whisper. “I have no words that you won’t twist a
gainst me.” He shook his head slightly. “So, no more words.”

  His breath came fast. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her own, pressing against the confines of the leather jerkin that held her lush form inside. Nathaniel caught her shoulders and pulled her into him. How could she believe he didn’t desire her? Discipline be damned.

  His arms wound around her back as his mouth lowered to her lips. The touch was explosive, obliterating the world around them and sending his lust over his carefully erected dam. Her body was warm and soft in his arms, her kiss full of growing fire. Fingers wound into his hair, and he heard a low moan rise from her throat. She slanted across his mouth, and he answered by molding her against his length, his hand sliding down to lift under her curvy arse.

  His senses were completely full of Cat Campbell. The soft curl of her hair tickled against his neck, her warmth penetrating his shirt where she leaned into his open cape. She smelled of fresh outdoors and the sweet musk of woman, pushing away any practical thoughts of secrets and remorse. Her fingers slid along his chest, lower still until she curled them into the top edge of his trousers. She breathed against his lips.

  Do not stop. Do not end. For the combination of pressures on him and the feeble tether of this truce between them, it may never happen again. He caught her face in the palms of his hands, pouring every bit of his building passion into feeding the flames of the kiss. It turned almost savage as she pressed into him, her one leg hiking up around his hips so that she could rock into his stiff yard. Nimble and strong, she leaned forward and lifted her other leg, and he caught her under the arse, pressing her into him in a rhythm that drove him mad.

  Behind him, he heard a horse neigh, but he didn’t care that Stella and Gaspar were near and possibly watching. The only thing he cared about was Cat’s passion and the all-consuming fire engulfing them both, as if they’d been smoldering coals, ready to ignite.

  “Don’t bloody hit the doxy. I’ll be stripping her out of them trousers.”

  The man’s crude words yanked Nathaniel back to their world, and he whipped them around to face four men, dropping and pushing Cat behind him. Dressed in a mix of kilts and ragged trousers, they stood grinning, one of them holding a smoking musket while the others held swords.

  “Hell,” Nathaniel said. “I am starting to bloody hate your countrymen.”

  A tall bastard stood next to the one aiming the musket. He leaned to the side as if trying to get a better look at Cat. “Thought we would just kill ye and take your horses, but after getting a look at the lass, I’ll be—”

  “Dead,” Cat said at the same time she stepped forward beside Nathaniel, her dagger whipping through the air.

  The musket went off as Nathaniel threw himself over her, rolling them together. He leaped back up to see the man holding the gun fall forward, Cat’s blade stabbed through his unshaven throat. Nathaniel palmed his dagger, flipping it forward with enough force to embed in the skull of the leader who’d been leering at her, and pulled his sword. The remaining two lunged for him at the same time. Ducking, he was able to slice through one, the man’s scream filling the night. He pivoted to take on the next, but the man had run for Cat, grabbing her, a dagger held against her throat. He yanked her around to face outward, a shield before him. If Nathaniel threw another dagger, it could hit her.

  “Let me go, ye gòrach pìos de cac,” she yelled.

  Wild eyed, the man peeked out around her hair. “One move and yer lady will be bleeding out right in front of ye.” Already a line of red showed on the pale column of her neck. But looking back at Cat’s eyes, he only saw resolve. No fear. She glanced about and then back at him as if she were trying to tell him something. Was she looking for a savior? Doubtful. More likely she wanted a distraction, something to make the man lose his concentration on holding her.

  He nodded at her and shifted his gaze back to the frantic man. “Very well,” he said, lowering his sword to the snow. “She is my wife, but not a very good one. She is a terrible cook and messier than our twelve children. And when she starts to scream—”

  On cue, Cat let out an ear-piercing scream.

  …

  Heart thumping, the scream seared up her throat to skewer the night, and Cat felt the slight give on the brute’s hold. Her nails curled inward on his arm that held the knife to her throat, and she shoved it from her, dropping her body and twisting in a crouch. Surprise was in the sound of his grunt, but he fought to catch her, desperation making him rough as he grabbed her arm in a crushing pinch. But she still had control of his knife-wielding hand.

  Stepping into him, she thrust upward, her weight giving her a lightening-like strike. Upward, the dirty tip of the knife flashed until she hit, right in the bend of the fiend’s chin against his throat.

  He gurgled on a scream, surrendering her instantly as his hands came up to the protruding knife. He fell to the snow, red soaking the white under him. Cat stared at his twitching body, unable to throw off the chains that held her gaze. Vomit coursed up her gullet, and she forced her legs to move.

  “Cat.” Nathaniel’s voice was close, but she couldn’t look at him. She only made it two steps away before she gagged, the ale she’d just drank coming up. His hand pressed gently on her curved back.

  For several minutes, she bent silently, letting the chill in the air wash through her. “Here,” he said, handing her a flask. She held it to her lips, hands shaking, and drank, spitting some out. Silently, he stood by her side.

  She kicked snow over the evidence of her weakness and stepped away. “I prefer bringing life into this world over dispatching it.” She’d only killed one other man, during the attempt on the queen’s life. Now she’d killed two more and had felt the give of the blade through the last man’s skin, muscle, and windpipe. “I…” she said, taking a cleansing breath, “I am sorry.” She handed back the flask without looking at him.

  “Shite. You have nothing for which to apologize,” Nathaniel said. His voice was harsh. “I am the one who let my damned guard down, did not even hear them sneak up on us.”

  She turned to see him standing there looking at the fallen man, his fists tight as if he wished the bastard would rise so he could kill him again. He shook his head, meeting her gaze. “I let myself get distracted, and it nearly cost you your life.”

  Distracted? That’s what their kiss was to him, a distraction. The familiar heat of anger licked up within her, steadying her. There was power in the emotion, one that gave her strength. She’d learned to embrace fury through the lives and deaths of her parents. As long as she could keep the flames of her ire simmering, sadness, loneliness, and fear couldn’t well up within her, making her weak and worthless.

  “Perhaps then, there should be no more damn distractions,” she said, looking pointedly at Nathaniel.

  He frowned at her, staring as he inhaled through his nose. When he didn’t say anything, she almost breathed relief as her anger grew enough to steady her hands. “No more kissing then. It makes us blind and deaf to the threats around us.”

  “Very well,” he said, and she turned away, her gaze going to some of the larger trees where she could sleep. Ire would keep her warm, instead of Nathaniel. They would be traveling companions and spies for the queen, nothing more. A simple arrangement without the tangle of distracting kisses. An ideal situation, really.

  Why then was disappointment threatening to wash away her anger?

  Chapter Five

  Nathaniel stared up at the large oak where Cat slept. It was just dawn, and he’d spent a restless night after dragging off the thieves. They hadn’t any papers on them to indicate that they were anything but villains unlucky enough to attack a lethal couple.

  Couple? He snorted softly, reaching down to pick up a few acorns, which Cat had exposed in the snow with her footprints the night before. She’d wrapped herself in two woolen blankets and tied herself to the thick trunk and wide limbs of the old tree. Its mass blocked two sides of her from the winter wind.

  “Cat
,” he called. She moved but didn’t wake. Apparently, she was comfortable sleeping in trees. His brows dug inward. What had made a young woman learn to sleep so? Her parents had died. Her sister had left. So she’d been alone. With scoundrels like the English Lieutenant who had been stalking her in the woods, it was no wonder she’d learned the art of hiding.

  “Cat,” he called again and tossed one of the acorns at her shoulder. The ropes creaked as she moved, making his pulse pick up speed. He neared the tree, arms ready in case the ropes gave way. His heart was beating damnably fast.

  He threw another acorn, and it hit her on the back of her head.

  “Bloody hell,” she called, her hand rising to where he remembered she’d bumped it at the inn. Red curls cascaded down, as she turned to glare at him.

  “You sleep like the dead,” he said and shook his head. “In a tree. I cannot imagine you have not fallen before.”

  Cat stretched her arms overhead, her head dipping backward to stare at him upside down for a moment. Ruffling her wild, red tresses, she let them fall like a sheet of wavy silk down the gray bark. He watched as she untied the ropes that had held her secure. “I asked Craig, the Killin blacksmith, to teach me the proper way to tie knots so I would not fall out.”

  She threw down the ropes. They thumped the beaten snow, and he watched her unwrap the wool blankets from around herself. As she lowered her boots to the ground, the tension in his shoulders ebbed. “You will sleep on the ground the rest of the journey,” he said.

  “Just another unacceptable thing about me, aye?” She grabbed up some snow, washing it over her face. The clean water made her skin shine. The brown freckles, framed by her wild hair, were beautiful in the dawn light.

  He turned away. “I cannot sleep thinking you could fall out of a tree.”

  “I will not.”

  He rubbed a hand through his tussled hair. “We will stay in a hunting cabin tonight if we make good time. No damn need for trees.”