by Nora Roberts
Chapter Seven
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King Louis will not intervene." Brigham stood in front of the fire, his hands clasped behind his back. Though his eyes were calm and his stance relaxed, his voice was grim. "It becomes less and less likely as time passes that he will support the Prince with gold or with men."
Coll tossed the letter that had come earlier by messenger onto a table and rose to pace. Unlike Brigham's his impatience needed room and movement "A year ago, Louis was more than ready to lend support Ready? Damn, be was eager to lend it"
"A year ago," Brigham pointed out "Louis thought Charles might be of use to him. Since the French invasion was abandoned last March, the Prince is largely ignored by the French court"
"Then we'll do without the French." Coll turned to glare first at Brigham, then at his father. "The Highlanders will fight for the Stuarts."
"Aye," Ian agreed. "But how many?" He held up a hand to prevent his son from launching into a passionate speech. "My mind and my heart remain unchanged. When the time comes, the MacGregors fight for the rightful king. But it's unity we need, as well as numbers. To win, the clans must fight as one."
"As we have fought before," Coll said with a slap of his fist. "And will again."
"Would that were true." Ian's voice was quiet, one of reason and regret. And of age, he thought with an inward sigh. Growing old was the damnedest thing. "We can't pretend that every chief in Scotland stands behind the true king or will rally his clan for the Prince. How many, Brig, will stand against us in the government army?"
Brigham picked up the letter from the table and, after glancing at it once more, tossed it into the fire. "I expect word from my contacts in London any day."
"How much longer do we wait?" Coll took his seat again to stare into the fire. "How many more months, how many more years do we only sit and talk while the elector grows fat on the throne?"
"I think the time of rebellion comes sooner than you might think," Brigham murmured. "Sooner than we might be prepared for. The Prince is impatient."
"The Highland chiefs will meet again." Ian drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Like any wise general, he preferred to plan his war before raising his sword. "Care must be taken to keep such meetings from raising the suspicions of the Black Watch." Coll swore roundly at the mention of the Highlanders recruited by the English to maintain order in Scotland.
"Another hunting party?" Brigham asked.
"I had in mind something a bit different" At the sound of approaching carriage wheels, Ian smiled and tapped out his pipe. "A ball, my lads. It's time we did a spot of entertaining. And the lass who comes visiting is, I believe, a very pretty reason for dusting away cobwebs."
Brigham twitched the curtains aside in time to see Serena dash down the steps toward the waiting carriage. A dark-haired girl descended and launched herself into Serena's arms. "Maggie MacDonald."
"Aye. She's of marriageable age, as is my own first daughter." He set his gaze on Brigham's back a moment. A man would have to be blind, he thought, not to see that there was a tune playing between his young guest and his daughter. "Nothing more reasonable than to hold a ball to introduce them to a few suitable young bucks."
Fighting back annoyance, Brigham let the curtain fall into place. He didn't want to look at Serena now, with the sun falling on her face and her eyes dark with laughter. "It will do well enough, I suppose."
Coll only scowled at the toe of his boot. "I don't care for it. Bringing another giggling female into the house now. Damned if I'm going to find myself cornered into taking her for sedate rides and listening to talk of the latest bonnets when we should be polishing our swords." Ian merely rose to open the salon doors. "I've no doubt that Rena and Gwen will entertain her well enough without you." The moment the doors were opened, women's voices and laughter poured through. Coll grumbled and stayed stubbornly in his seat. "There's the lass." Ian's voice rumbled to the ceiling. "Come here and give your Uncle Ian a kiss." Smiling, Maggie danced across the hall. She laughed when he lifted her off her feet, but Fiona scolded him. "The girl's already been bumped enough on the journey. Go in and warm yourself by the fire, Maggie."
With her arm still tucked in Ian's, Maggie stepped into the room.
Manners prevented Coll from scowling, and he began to rise reluctantly. Then, manners or not, his mouth fell open. She still looked hardly bigger than a doll beside his broad-shouldered father, but the skinny, smudge-faced pest he remembered had miraculously been replaced by a slender vision in dark blue velvet. Her hair, dark as midnight, fell in curls beneath a hat that framed her face. Had her eyes always been that beautiful, like the loch at twilight? he wondered as he managed to close his mouth. Had her skin always looked like fresh cream?
Maggie smiled at him. Then, because she had planned her moves carefully during the journey, she turned to curtsy to Brigham. "Lord Ashburn."
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Miss MacDonald." He took her offered hand and brushed his lips over her fingers. Behind Ian, Serena's breath came out in a quiet hiss. "I trust your journey wasn't too taxing."
"Not at all."
Because Maggie's hand was still in Brigham's, Serena couldn't prevent herself from stepping forward. "You remember Coll, don't you, Maggie?" With a little more force than was necessary, she pulled Maggie away from Brigham and toward her brother.
"Of course I do." Maggie had practiced a friendly, almost impersonal smile in front of her mirror night after night in preparation for this first meeting. Though her heart was pounding, she put her practiced smile to use now. He was even more handsome than she remembered, taller, broader, even more exciting. Growing up had taken so long, but now, at this moment, it seemed worth it "I'm happy to see you again, Coll. I hope your wound is healed."
"Wound?" He took her hand, feeling unbearably clumsy.
"Your father explained that you were wounded on the way from London." Her voice was mild as a spring morning. She wondered he couldn't hear the furious thundering of her heart. "I trust you've recovered?"
"It was nothing."
"I'm persuaded it was a great deal more than nothing, but it's good to see you up and about again." Because she was afraid that if her hand stayed in his another moment she would faint with delight, Maggie drew herself away and twirled around. There was a blush in her cheeks now that she prayed everyone would take for excitement from the journey. "It's wonderful to be here again. I can't thank you enough, Uncle Ian, Aunt Fiona, for asking me to come."
Refreshments were brought in, seats were taken. Rather than making the excuses he had prepared, Coll found himself jockeying for the chair nearest Maggie. Brigham took advantage of the situation and leaned close to Serena as he passed a plate of cakes.
"Will you try one of these, Miss MacGregor?" he asked. Then, in a quiet voice that was covered by the conversation: "You've been avoiding me, Rena."
"That's ridiculous." She took a cake and wondered how she had been maneuvered to the fringes of the party with him.
"I agree completely. Avoiding me is ridiculous."
Her cup rattled in its saucer. "You flatter yourself, Sassenach."
"It's gratifying to see I make you nervous," he said quietly, then turned and continued in a normal tone, "Gwen, I must tell you how charming you look in pink."
He never tells me I look charming, Serena thought as she bit, almost viciously, into her cake. He never gives me gallant bows and pretty compliments as he did with Maggie. With me it's barbs and snarls. And kisses, she remembered with an inward shiver. Deep, dark kisses.
She wouldn't think of it—or of him. When a man treated a woman that boldly, he wanted only one thing. She might have been raised in the Highlands, but she was no fool when it came to the ways of the English aristocracy.
She would be no man's mistress. Certainly she would be no Englishman's mistress. No matter what magic he could make her feel, no matter what wonders he could make her dream of, she would never shame herself or her family.
If she avoided him, it wasn't that she was afraid, it was that she was being sensible.
"Daydreams, my love," Brigham murmured, making her jump. "I hope they are of me."
"They are of cows to be milked," she said between her teeth. When he chuckled, she put up her chin and prepared to speak to Maggie. Her friend, at that moment, was bubbling with laughter and smiling beautifully at Coll. Her brother, Serena noted, was flushed and glassy-eyed.
"Apparently Coll doesn't find Miss MacDonald a nuisance after all," Brigham commented.
"He looks as though he's been hit on the head with a rock."
"Or struck through the heart with Cupid's arrow."
Her eyes widened at that, then narrowed consideringly. In a moment she had to smother a chuckle of her own. "Who would have thought it?" Too amused to do otherwise, she leaned closer to Brigham. "Do you suppose he'll start spouting poetry?" He caught a whiff of her hair and imagined burying his face in it. The woman was made to drive him mad, snapping one moment, smiling the next. "Men have been known to do worse when so afflicted."
"But Coll? Coll and Maggie! A few years ago he couldn't wait to dust Maggie off his boots."
"And now she is a beautiful woman."
A little pang of jealousy warred with friendship. "Aye," Serena murmured, and wondered fleetingly what it would be like to be tiny and fragile. "You certainly seem to think so."
His brow lifted at that, and then a smile ghosted around his lips. "For myself, I've come to prefer green eyes and a sharp tongue." She looked at him then and blushed despite herself. "I have no way, my lord, with drawing room flirtations."
"Then that is perhaps one more thing I shall teach you."
Choosing to retreat rather than fight with a dull sword, Serena rose. "Let me take you up, Maggie, and show you your room." Maggie's company was precisely the distraction Serena needed. It had been nearly two years since they had been together, but time and distance were swept away. They talked late into the night, rode out together into the forest, walked for miles in the hills. As always, Maggie spoke whatever was in her heart, while Serena kept her innermost thoughts close. The fact that her friend was still in love with Coll didn't surprise her. The fact that Coll seemed equally besotted with Maggie did.
It pleased her. Though Serena had never believed, as Maggie always had, that Coll would fall in love with her friend, she couldn't deny what was happening in front of her eyes. He made dozens of excuses to be in their company, when just two years before he had made twice as many to be out of it. He listened to Maggie's cheerful ramblings as though she were the most fascinating person on earth. And with the sharp and always critical eye of a sister, Serena noted that Coll was taking great pains with his appearance. She even had it from Mrs. Drummond that Coll was asking Parkins's advice on his wardrobe. She would have laughed about it if she had not felt constant prickings of jealousy. More than once she had caught herself sulking when she thought of how rosy and dreamy being in love had made her friend. And how nervous and unhappy falling in love was making her. The weakness infuriated her, and made her only more determined to see that Coll and Maggie had their hearts' desire. Coll accompanied them on some of their rides, which meant they more often than not rode as a foursome, including Brigham. The new situation gave Serena as much pleasure as it did discomfort.
The weather was brisk, but the bite of winter was easing. In another month, Serena thought, the trees would be greening and the first hardy wildflowers would brave their way out to the sun. For now, there was the slap of a March wind on her face as she rode. The spring thaws had not yet come, and the ground still rang hard under the horses' hooves, but there were birdcalls and occasional bright flashes of wings as the horses disturbed the midmorning quiet. Ice and frost had melted from the trees, leaving them wet and glistening. They kept to a sedate canter that caused Serena to rein in her impatience, as well as her horse. She knew Maggie could ride as well as anyone, but her friend seemed to prefer picking her way daintily along the path.
"You would prefer a run?" Brigham asked as he came up beside her.
"I would," she said feelingly.
He shot a look over his shoulder while his own mount danced beneath him. "Let them catch up." Though she was tempted, she shook her head. Her mother would never approve of their going in pairs rather than in a group. "It wouldn't be right."
"Afraid you can't keep up with me?" He was rewarded by a flash in her eyes.
"There isn't an Englishman alive a MacGregor can't beat on horseback."
"Easy talk, Rena," he said mildly. "The lake's less than a mile."
She hesitated, knowing proper manners dictated she remain with her guest. But a challenge was a challenge. Before she could stop herself, she pressed in her heels and sent her mount leaping forward.
She knew the way as well as she knew the corridors of her own home. With a light hand, she guided the horse through the curves and twists, whipping under low-hanging branches, leaping over or skirting fallen limbs. The path was barely wide enough for two, but neither gave way, so they rode all but shoulder-to-shoulder. She glanced over to see Brigham's face alive with laughter as he spurred his mount forward. The forest rang with her own as she leaned forward to coax more speed out of her mare. There was a pleasure here that came as much from the company as the race. There was a freedom she experienced only with him, but one that, for now, she didn't question Brigham's part in. She only wished that the lake were ten miles away rather than one, so that they could continue to ride fast and reckless, with the sun shooting beams through bare trees. She rode like a goddess, he thought. Brilliantly, with a careless disregard for life and limb. With another woman he would have held back, slowed the pace out of concern for her safety, and perhaps her pride. With Serena he only pushed harder, out of the sheer pleasure of seeing her fly along the path, her plaid streaming over her dove-gray riding habit. With a grin he watched her gallop half a length ahead, regretting only that she had chosen the habit over breeches.
Not so easy, he murmured to himself as he spotted the sun striking the lake's surface in the distance. With a kick of his heels they were neck and neck again, thundering down the rise toward the water.
They reached the bank together, and his heart stopped as Serena waited until the last possible instant to rein in. With a ringing whinny, her mare reared. She was laughing in the moment she hung suspended between sky and earth, her eyes dark and reckless, her body fluid. If Brigham hadn't already been in love, he would have fallen then, as quickly and as dangerously as a man hurled from a cliff. "I won, Sassenach."
"The devil you did." Breathless, he patted his horse's neck and grinned at her. "I had you by a head."
"Head be damned," she said, forgetting herself. "I won, and you're not man enough to admit it." She took a deep, greedy breath of air that tasted of pine and water. "If I hadn't been hampered by riding sidesaddle, I'd have left you in my dust" Then she was laughing at him, her eyes greener than any of the lush lawns he knew in England, her flirty little hat tilted askew from the race. "You've nothing to be ashamed of," she said with her tongue in her cheek. "You're as good a horseman as any Englishman might be, and nearly as good as a lame Scot with a blind eye."
"Your compliments put me to the blush, my lady. Regardless, the race was mine, but you're too vain—or too mulish—to concede." She tossed her head so that the hat fell off to hang by its ribbons. The hair that Maggie had labored over that morning tumbled down in a mass of sunset curls. "I won. A gentleman would have the grace to admit it."
"I won." Reaching over, he loosened her ribbons and snatched the hat away. "A lady would never have raced in the first place."
"Oh." If it had been possible, she would have stamped her foot. Instead, she swung her horse around until they were face-to-face. She didn't mind being called vain and mulish, but to have her lack of ladylike graces tossed in her face was too much. "Isn't that just like a man! The race was your idea. If I had refused, I would have been a coward. But I accept, and win
, so I'm not a lady."
"Accepted, and lost," Brigham corrected, enjoying the way temper flushed her cheeks. "You've no need to be a lady for me, Rena. I prefer you as you are."
Her eyes kindled. "Which is?"
"A delightful wildcat who wears breeches and fights like a man."
She hissed at him and, on impulse, gave his mount a slap that had it leaping forward. If Brigham hadn't reacted quickly enough, or had his skill been less sharp, he would have landed headfirst in the icy waters of the lake.
"Vixen," he murmured, half in amazement, half in admiration. "Have you a mind to drown me now?"
"It would hardly be my fault if you sank to the bottom. You have a head like a stone." But she was biting her lip to keep from laughing. Tossing her head again, she looked up at the sky. It was a glorious day, perhaps the most beautiful she would ever see. Annoyance with him faded easily when she remembered that he had given her the chance for a run.
"I'll call a truce," she decided. "Coll and Maggie will be here soon. If I'm angry with you, I'll have no one to talk to while they make moon eyes at each other."
"So, I have my uses." Brigham slipped from his horse. "You warm my heart, madam."
"The race, and winning it, put me in a pleasant mood." She unhooked her knee from the saddle and laid her hands on his shoulders as he stood to assist her to the ground.
"I'm delighted to hear it." Before she had an inkling of his purpose, he had tossed her over his shoulder. "But I'll remind you, I won."
"Are you mad?" She thudded a fist against his back, not certain if she wanted to laugh or swear. "Set me down, you oaf."
"I've a mind to do just that." He took a few easy strides to the verge of the lake. Serena's eyes widened. Rather than beat against him, she dug her fingers into his jacket.
"You wouldn't dare."
"My dear, have I told you that a Langston never, absolutely never, refuses a dare?" She kicked and gave a passing thought to biting as his hand slid up her calf. "Can you swim?"
"Better than you, Sassenach, I'll swear. If you don't let me—" Her threat was cut off by her squeal as he feinted a toss. "Brigham, don't!
It's freezing!" She began to laugh, even as she kicked and struggled. "I swear I'll murder you the moment I'm free."
"That's hardly incentive for me to release you. Now if you'll concede that I won the race…"
"I will not."
"Well, then." He had started to step closer to the water when Serena landed a blow with the toe of her boot close enough to a sensitive area to make him wince. In defense, Brigham stepped back and tripped over a root. They went down in a flurry of petticoats and curses. For propriety's sake, and his own sake of mind, he removed his hand from the taut curve of her bottom.
"We've been here before, I believe," he managed as they both struggled to catch their breath. Serena shoved herself off him and remembered, belatedly, to cover her legs. "Damn you. You've stained my skirts."
"My lady, you came a great deal too close to ummanning me."
She grinned and pushed the hair out of her eyes. It was a glorious day, and she felt too alive to remember to be a lady. "Did I? I'll do better at the next opportunity." After a glance at the dirt on his breeches, she snickered. "Parkins will undoubtedly scold you for ruining those."
"My valet does not scold." But Brigham rubbed at the streak of dirt. "He simply looks mortally offended, which causes me to feel as though I were a schoolboy again."
Serena plucked at the turf. "What is he like, your Parkins?"
"Steady as a rock, infuriatingly proper. Stubborn. Why?"
"Mrs. Drummond has decided he would make a likely husband."
"Mrs. Drummond?" Brigham turned his head to stare. "Your Mrs. Drummond, and Parkins?" Family honor brought the light of battle to Serena's eyes. "And why not? Mrs. Drummond is a fine woman."
"You'll get no argument from me. But Parkins?" Brigham leaned back on his elbows and laughed. He could do nothing else when he thought of the scarecrow-framed Parkins and the prodigiously built cook. "Does he know?"
"She'll get around to letting him." Because she had found the pairing funny herself, Serena lay back on the grassy bank and smiled at the sky. "She'll charm him with her tarts and sauces, just as Maggie is charming Coll with her pretty eyes and shy smiles."
"Does that bother you?"
"Maggie and Coll?" Serena cushioned her head with her arm and thought it through. "No. She's been in love with him for as long as I can remember. I'd be more than happy for them if they make a match, and since she's already my friend I wouldn't have to worry about hating the woman Coll chose for a wife. But—"
"But?"
"Seeing them together has made me think. Things are changing, and there's nothing to be done to stop it." She closed her eyes, content to have the chilly breeze dance over her face. "When spring comes, love comes. So they say." If her voice was wistful, she blamed it on the air. "When this spring comes, war comes. There will be nothing to stop that, either."
"No." He reached over to toy with the ends of her hair. "Would you have it stopped, Serena?" She sighed, opening her eyes to watch the wispy clouds chased by the wind. "Part of me hates not being able to take a sword and fight myself. Yet another part, a part that seems to have just begun, wishes there was no need to fight at all. That part of me wishes we could go on living as we have been, watching the flowers come up in the spring."
He took her hand. It was too fragile to hold a sword, he thought, however strong her heart. "There will still be flowers. And there will be other springs."
She turned her head to look at him. It hadn't occurred to her that she was relaxed with him, content, even happy to be alone with him on the banks of the lake. It was her favorite place, one she came to when she was deeply troubled or very happy. Now she was there with him, and it seemed so right, somehow—the gentle call of birds, the smell of the water and damp earth, the almost harsh light of the sun.
Her fingers curled into his in a move so instinctive that she didn't know she had done it until it was too late, until the change had come into his eyes, the subtle darkening, the sharpening of intensity. It was as if in one instant the rest of the world had slipped out of its orbit and only they were left, hands linked, eyes only for each other.
"No." Quickly she pushed herself up so that she was sitting rather than lying on the bank. It had seemed a move of self-preservation, but it was a poor one, as
