Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  Royce Campbell had said nothing of love, but had taken her and used her and cast her off.

  But he could awaken in her feelings and emotions which seemed to her, there in the corner behind her blankets, quite incapable of dying, ever.

  Sean Bloodwell was never mentioned in the stone hut, nor was Royce Campbell, but both of them were there.

  The winter ground on, day by day. Lord Seamus seemed to be growing stronger, rallying some days, then lapsing into fitful sleep. Brian, like a tethered horse, became impatient, bossy, and Will was alternately morose or ebullient, depending on how much liquor he had drunk. One night late in February, the tensions all came to a head.

  Will had gotten very drunk the night before, but managed to struggle out of the hut late in the afternoon. He brought back a few handfuls of dried beans, and that was all. It was too late to soak them properly, so Selena boiled them hard, and when the men began asking for supper, she spooned them onto the usual cracked stone plates and served them with a piece of black bread and cups of weak tea. There was no salt anymore; there had never been sugar. And goat’s milk was no longer purchased, in order to save a tiny cache of gold in case someone needed to be bribed at Liverpool.

  The men sat in a semicircle before the fire. She handed them the plates. Father hunched over and ate hurriedly, like an animal. His hands shook so, he seemed bent upon eating everything before he dropped the plate. Will took his plate, and grunted, looking down at the hard, ruddy beans. Brian took a spoonful, chewed for a moment, stopped, and looked up at her.

  “What is this merde you feed us?” he snarled.

  “The same your warrior friend buys, drunk, and brings home,” she shot back, pouring a cup of tea.

  Will Teviot looked up, rage building behind bleary eyes. “Ye didna seem t’ ’ave such spite fer me when I saved ye in the hills, now did ye, bitch!’’

  Selena bit her Up, but it was too late. Brian hurled his plate against the stone wall, and jumped to his feet. “Mind yer mouth, ye jagged-toothed freak,” he cried, and swung at Will, who leaned away, rolled on the floor, and jumped to his feet, ready for battle. Selena screamed. Lord Seamus was too weak to intervene, and watched them hopelessly. Brian and Will faced each other, fists ready. Then the spirit left their faces, and their arms went down. Will flung him-self out of the hut, and Brian told Selena he was going for a walk along the sea to clear his head. When they were gone, she brought her father his tea, and sat with him.

  “It won’t be much longer now, Selena,” he said, making an effort to smile.

  She fought back tears. “It’s still February. There is over a month yet to pass, and already we are like animals at each other’s throats.”

  “We must bear it. I feel myself getting stronger. We will make it yet. The thing to remember is that anger during times of misfortune is forgotten quickly when luck returns.”

  “Do you think that’s true?”

  “Yes. And luck will return. When we reach America…”

  The prospect was one of the things she had been holding in abeyance, not thinking about, as if to think of it at all might abnegate the very possibility. “Father, what will we do there? What are your plans for us?”

  He looked away into the fire for a time, deciding how much to reveal. “I hope to continue the fight against Great Britain,” he said then, slowly. “Now, more than ever. Whether in the long run it will lead to a free Scotland, I do not know. But the Empire and all that lies behind it is like a rock in my belly. I hope I live long enough.”

  “But the trip to Liverpool. Will it be safe? What if McGrover knows we’re going there? What if his men are waiting?”

  He sighed, and seemed to flag visibly.

  “It is our one chance, and we must take it. Would you help me to my blankets now, Selena? I must rest.”

  She did so, and then added a few pieces of precious drift-wood to the fire, knowing that Brian would yell at her for it, because her indulgence meant more work for him. At the same time, though, he would yell if the hut became too cold. After a time, she crept to her place behind the blanket barrier and dropped off to sleep.

  She was awakened by the clatter of the two protective stools being pushed aside. The fire was almost out, and a big form crouched beside her. She smelled the liquor hot on Will’s breath, as he bent over her, his hands rough and searching.

  “Will!” she cried, in a hoarse whisper. A quick look about the hut showed her Brian had not returned. Then the thought struck her: maybe Will and Brian had fought, and her brother was even now lying unconscious somewhere in the snow. If so, she was defenseless, and Will was as determined as he was drunk.

  Because of the constant cold, Selena slept in the uniform, but this proved no obstacle, and with one mighty rip, Will tore it down the front. She felt the cold air on her breasts, and then his hands, and then his mouth. A rough hand slipped, fumbling, beneath the breeches and between her thighs.

  “Will, stop it! Get away!” she told him as calmly as she could, putting both hands on his shoulder and trying to push him away. It didn’t work. Her resistance seemed to excite him more, and he took her nipple between his teeth and bit. She cried out in pain. He seemed startled and raised his head, grinning doubtfully, running his tongue over the savaged teeth.

  “I don’t mean nothin’, Selena, ’tis just that I must…” and with that he lay down beside her, pinning her there with one huge arm, and slobbering a drunken kiss on the side of her face. She could feel his manhood, already exposed, throbbing hot against her thigh. Her first instinct was to scream and struggle, but she knew struggling would be of no avail against a man as big as Will Teviot, and she did not want her father to know. So she forced herself to stay calm, to buy time. If he wanted her, he would take her, and no doubt of it, but if she could refrain from enraging him, his drunken state and his passion might be used against him.

  “Please, Selena,” he was muttering, slobbering, forcing her legs apart with his huge hand, and she started as the hand touched tender flesh. A short, involuntary cry escaped her.

  “Lak it, do ye?” Will asked, and shifted his weight to mount her.

  “No, no,” she whispered, softly now, trying to pull him back down next to her. “Not yet.”

  He stopped, on his knees beside her, puzzled.

  “I said not yet,” she whispered, trying for the right tone. With one arm around his neck, she pulled his head down to hers, and with the other hand she sought that part of him in which his brain was temporarily buried.

  “Go slowly,” she whispered, stroking him. “It will be of greater pleasure if we take the time.”

  For one amazed moment, he hesitated, and then she could feel him decide, acquiesce. She took a deep breath and kissed him on the mouth, easing slightly out of his grasp as she did so, and thinking incongruously of how it had been with Royce Campbell, how there had been a certain look about him, at one moment, when he had been entirely and utterly in her power. It was a moment that any man could be brought to, and if she could do it now…

  Selena broke off the kiss and slid a little to the side.

  “Lie back,” she whispered, and continued to stroke him gently, but a little faster now.

  What offered her ploy the chance of success was her knowledge that, for all his strength and ready fury, Will Teviot was a good man. She eased him, befuddled by drink and amazed at his luck, down next to her until he was lying on his back. Slowly, still caressing him, she rose into a half-seated position, braced on one arm. Then she felt his big arm slip proprietarily around her waist. But his breath was coming fast now. Watching for the time to break and run, she lengthened and accelerated her stroke, and he gasped, breath whistling between his teeth. On the other side of the room, next to the fire, Father was sleeping. Only five feet away was the door, but outside it was freezing, and she was half-naked, her breasts exposed. If she could leap up and somehow grab a blanket, what then? Would he pursue her out into the snow and take her there, enraged? Or would he come to his
senses? She decided.

  “All right now,” she said, shifting her weight slowly, to be ready, and continuing to pleasure him at a steady pace. Will panted now, his body bucking beneath her hand.

  Then she whipped back her hand, leaped up, and reached the door, yanking it open even as she sought to draw the edges of the ripped uniform back across her bosom.

  Brian was walking toward her, only paces away. His eyes widened in surprise, then alarm.

  Behind her, in the hut, Will’s moan of abandonment and need changed to a growl of anger.

  Brian rushed into the hut. The two men confronted each other. Will sought to cover himself, but too late. Brian saw the torn uniform, the fear on Selena’s face, and then Will’s own downcast aspect of shame and sorrow and disgust.

  There was no more to be said. It was all over for them.

  Will left the next morning. He had pleaded with Selena not to tell her father what had happened—“Yer Father’s one o’ the bravest an’ most decent men I ever knew, an’ once ’e let me save ye, ’cause ’e trusted me, so, please, I’m askin’ ye, don’t…”—and she told him she would not now, and never would.

  “It was not Will Teviot did that, last night,” she told him. “It did not happen. God grant someday I have the chance to pay you back for helping all of us.”

  So, when he told Lord Seamus in the morning that he was leaving, he explained his decision in another light.

  “Sir, ’tis clear we ’aven’t the food fer four, an’ after all this time, I think ye’ll be safe ’til April. I figure on goin’ t’ Iceland first, an’ then mayhap t’ Nova Scotia, t’ see some o’ that New World we’ve been hearin’ about, an’…”

  If Lord Seamus suspected anything at all, he said nothing. Will’s arguments about food and safety were plausible enough, and when he left the village on horseback, turning to wave at them one last time from the top of the rocky cliffs, Lord Seamus waved back, and said it was for the best.

  “Godspeed, Will Teviot,” he murmured to the empty air, waving across the distance to the horseman on the hill. “Godspeed, and if things come out even in this life, the MacPhersons owe ye a lot before the ledger’s closed.”

  Back in the hut, it was quiet for almost the entire day, but in late afternoon, with the sun dropping down into the diamond-glinting sea, Selena looked up from the sewing of her clothes. The sound was unmistakable. Hoofbeats, coming down from the cliffs. Had something happened? Had Will Teviot been forced to turn back? Or were they under attack?

  Hastily, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and went to the door. The horseman rode fast, with confidence and flair, yet with a hint of anxiety. The horse was white, and the rider, who wore a heavy winter cloak of blue trimmed with gold, saw her at the hut, and guided his mount toward her, never slackening the pace. He knew it was she. And she knew immediately, felt immediately—the solid, commanding figure in the saddle, the vigorous blond looks—that it was Sean Bloodwell, come for her.

  A second chance.

  I won’t fail anyone this time, she vowed to herself. I will do what I should have in the first place, before I went mad with Royce Campbell.

  And she believed it. And it was true.

  If Sean Bloodwell was surprised at receiving such a passionate, loving kiss from the young woman in the sailor’s breeches and the blanket—in the full sight of almost a hundred villagers’ eyes—he certainly did not show it.

  He hugged her, and kissed her with an abandon equal to hers.

  “Selena! Thank God you’re safe. I met Will Teviot in the hills. He said your father’s none too good…”

  Excited and grateful, Selena drew back from Sean a little. He looked tired, and a little older than when she’d last seen him. But it had been a long trip; fatigue was to be expected.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said. “Did Will tell you? We’re having a hard time of it here. I don’t know if we can endure until spring…”

  Sean glanced at the crude stone sanctuary and nodded grimly.

  “Better than execution or other things I might name,” he said, putting his arm around her and leading her toward the hut. “I must see your father before I…

  He stopped as Selena opened the door for him. He saw Lord Seamus against the wall, an old man wrapped in blankets. The acrid smoke of the fire stung his eyes. He grimaced. Selena read his expression. He understood how far the MacPhersons had fallen. Just a few months ago, Selena had been a princess of nobility, taking for granted all the privileges which were accorded her, taking for granted, too, the attentions of Sean, for whom, as a wife, she would be a precious and glittering prize. But all that was gone. Now she was the daughter of a traitor. She lived in a hut like a hunted animal, and looked to the whims of blackguards like Royce Campbell for transport to safety, having already been his captive and possession in the flesh. She had nothing.

  Thank God Sean was the kind of man he was. Thank God, even more, that he was wealthy.

  She took him into the house, making no excuses. Lord Seamus struggled to his feet—he had a dignity that only death would ultimately eradicate—and the two men shook hands.

  “Please, your lordship,” said Sean, motioning the older man back to his blankets. “I met Will Teviot in the Highlands. He said you…had been ill.”

  Her father’s eyes were bright. He saw deliverance in Sean Bloodwell’s unexpected visit. “Yes, I fell ill on the run, eluding McGrover. But I’m getting better now.” Slowly, watchful of his bones, he settled down again next to the fire. “Selena, bring some tea.”

  “We’ve no more tea,” she said, before she thought, “Brian went to the mead shop to see if he might borrow…”

  She stopped. Sean Bloodwell was looking at her closely. She tried to smile. “…might buy a better kind. That last supply was really quite inferior…”

  She didn’t bother to continue. He understood.

  “Even warm water would be fine,” he said quietly, and she hoped that the expression in his eyes was not pity. “Anything warm, in fact, after a ride like I’ve had.”

  “Are my men still in the Highlands?” Lord Seamus inquired, in a painfully transparent attempt to change the subject and to spare Selena further humiliation.

  Sean’s face darkened. He had been familiar with the plan of security: to shield Lord MacPherson in the coastal stronghold, behind the ring of rough country, guarded by hundreds of seasoned fighters.

  “There are some men up there,” he allowed.

  Lord Seamus was not one to cherish illusions in the place of facts, when facts were needed. “Some?”

  Sean was equally direct. “Sir, speaking the truth, as I know you want me to do, the Rob Roys are no more.”

  Selena, busy at the fire, and worrying about what she might possibly put together—or even obtain—for supper, was startled.

  “No more? But there must be…” All this time they had savored visions of a small army guarding the Highland passes, protecting them. Her father silenced her with a gesture.

  “And here above us, in the hills?” he asked Sean.

  The young man shook his head. “Four or five stalwarts, and that’s all. I was stopped only once. Even the last of them are preparing to melt away into the hills…”

  “I cannot say that I blame them,” Lord Seamus said, after a pause, “but that means…”

  He didn’t have to say it. That meant a vulnerability more dangerous than before.

  “And those taken in Edinburgh, the night of the ball?”

  “Dead mostly, by now. The Rob Roys are gone, root and branch, with only here and there a bud saved, mostly by accident, McGrover and the Secret Offices handled it very well. The general public is not even aware that anything untoward has occurred. Torture uncovered the names of the Rob Roys, and executions took place in secret. The bodies of many a fine man now rot in the muck of the lowest dungeons, or feed the fishes on the bottom of the North Sea.”

  “What about Gil?” asked Selena. “The man who took me out
to the coast that night? He was to go back and tell you where to find us. If McGrover found him—”

  “McGrover found him,” Sean said.

  In the stillness, the fire crackled. Boiling water began whistling in the teapot.

  “Dead,” Sean said. “He came back into the city on the morning you went aboard the…” he seemed to have trouble uttering the word “…the Highlander, and found me in the castle. He told me where you would be, and for how long. He was captured only an hour after he left me.”

  “Then that means he must have told the police where we’re hiding,” cried Selena.

  “No, thank the Lord. He didn’t. I saw it happen. Gil was in the courtyard, and of course it was all pell-mell that day, with the arrests and the interrogations. He had to get out the main gate, but didn’t want to be obvious about it, so he spent some time brushing his horse, talking to the grooms, waiting for the right chance. Finally, McGrover himself came riding in, and all the lackeys made for him, to lick his boots. It was Gil’s moment. He mounted his horse slowly, and began to amble her toward the gate. There were still a few guards present, of course, and he rode up to them, easy as you please. They stopped him, and I saw one of the guards talk to him for a moment, and then the guard waved him through. I thought it was over then; I thought he was safe. Then the other guard seemed to have a second thought, and looked after Gil, as if he’d seen him before. He must have called out, although I was too distant to hear, because Gil suddenly spurred his horse, and the beast leaped forward into a run, but the sign of flight was damning enough. A sentry on the watchtower brought him down with a thrown lance.”

  The kettle was screaming now, and Selena set it off the fire.

  “What have I done?” Lord Seamus grieved. “Devastation all about, and good men dead. Sean, I am going to make it up. We’re going to America to begin again.”