Judith E. French Read online

  The terms of Cailin MacGreggor’s release from the death penalty had been clear. He had to take her out of Scotland at once. If she ever returned, she was subject to arrest and hanging. She’d insisted on reading the writ herself, and she seemed to understand the English. Still, she had pleaded with him to let her go. When he’d refused, she’d turned the full force of her anger against him, and they’d remained at odds with each other since they’d ridden out of Edinburgh.

  “Whatever ye plan on doin’ with me, you’ll regret it, I vow,” she flung at him.

  He reined in his horse. “Woman, I warn you. I’ve heard enough of your foul tongue. I saved your life. Can you get that through your thick Scots head? I slapped you, I admit it. It’s not an act I’m proud of, but it was the only way I could keep you from committing suicide. You were hysterical, and if I hadn’t brought you to your senses, you’d be food for the ravens.”

  “Aye,” she retorted. “’Twas all a favor you were doing me. And now ye will try to convince me that your running a sword through Johnnie MacLeod was for my own good too.”

  His hand ached to slap her again. Not even the sound of her husky whiskey-voice, which made him go shaky inside every time she opened her mouth, took the edge off his temper. He was not a man for using violence against women. It went against his grain, and he’d suffered many a bruise in his lifetime for coming to the defense of some soiled tavern flower. But this woman ... He gritted his teeth in frustration.

  “You murdered a better man than you’ll ever have the fortune to know,” she continued with obvious relish in English. At first, she’d contented herself with mumbling under her breath in Gaelic. Then, when she realized that he didn’t understand a word she said, she’d switched to his father’s tongue—liberally laced with a lilting Scots burr and an occasional sprinkling of colorful local expressions.

  “You prove yourself to be more of a fool with every word that tumbles from your lips,” he replied with exasperation. “Your Johnnie MacLeod was trying mightily to kill me. And damned near succeeded. Was I to stop every Scot I met on Culloden Moor and say, ’Pardon me, are you my future father-in-law?’ ”

  His barb struck home. For an instant, his gaze locked with hers, and Sterling read the surprise in her large, liquid eyes. Her lips twitched and almost curved into a smile.

  “Aye, he nearly did catch you with that parry, didn’t he?” The smile took hold and lit her face with a glow that was almost supernatural. “He was a caution with a sword, was our Johnnie.”

  Sterling sucked in his breath and turned away. What was this hold she had over him? Was it witchcraft, as the guard taking her to the gallows had muttered? One minute, he wanted nothing more than to choke the life from her—and the next ... He stiffened in the saddle and took the weight off his swelling groin.

  He desired her ... this Scottish prize of war. He wanted to peel the clothes from her and lay her down in a bed of heather. He wanted to see for himself what was hidden beneath the rough homespun. Small she might be, but she was all woman. Her breasts were high and firm, her waist tiny enough to span with both hands. Her rounded bottom . . . Heart’s wounds! Her backside was as sweet and curving as that of any bold wench who plied her trade on London’s stage.

  He could think of nothing else but seeing Cailin proud and naked, all that red-gold hair tumbled around her bare shoulders, arms upraised to welcome him.

  He swallowed at the thickness in his throat.

  He wanted her, but she had taken pains to tell him what she thought of him. He had never forced a woman—never had to. Wife or not, he was too old to change his habits. She must come to him, this little russet bird, of her own free will, lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded with sensual abandon ...

  “Luck. ’Twas luck alone, not skill, Englishman,” she said. “On a good day, Johnnie MacLeod would have carved you stern from stern.”

  “Then I’m fortunate to have met him on a bad day.”

  “It was a bigger mistake than you know. Untie me, Sassenach. You can keep your horse. Just let me return to my home and family. I’ve a blood feud to settle with you, but if you—”

  “Enough.” His composure was fast slipping away. Most women liked him as he liked them. He’d met angry ones before, but a smile and reasonable words usually brought them around. With Cailin, everything he said to her seemed to be a spur in her side. “There is nothing for you to return to,” he explained with more patience than he felt. “Your home has been confiscated by the Crown. The Highlands lie under Cumberland’s boot. Everything you had before the rebellion is gone forever. Accept it.”

  “I have a sister, a grandfather, and a young brother. He’s only a child, and I promised him—”

  “You can do nothing for him. If you were caught on Scottish soil and he was with you, he would suffer for your acts. Any who give aid to proscribed outlaws will receive the same punishment.”

  “My family—”

  “Your grandfather and sister were well when last I saw them.”

  “Liar! Ye dinna—”

  “They were at the farm, were they not?” He turned and glared at her. “Your sister was the girl with the new baby?”

  Cailin stared back at him with eyes as cold as frost-glazed flint. “Aye, still weak from childbed and turned out into the rain like a stray cur.”

  “I ordered them sheltered from the weather and provided escort to a loyal household the next morning.” He glanced back at the narrow road ahead, remembering the tears running down the old man’s face as he’d asked Sterling what would happen to Cailin.

  “Ye expect me to believe—”

  “Believe what you want, woman. But never call me a liar again. I have many vices, but lying isn’t one of them.”

  “My sister’s bairn? Was it a lad or a lassie?”

  He swore mightily. “It was a babe. A crying, red-faced infant. How the hell would I know whether it was a boy or a girl?”

  She pursed her lips and looked at him shrewdly. “A good answer, but one that proves nothing. What of my brother, Corey? He’s seven years old. He’s safe with my sister, is he?”

  Sterling shook his head. “I didn’t see a child. Just the baby. I’m sorry, but—”

  “’Tis all right,” she replied. “I sent him away before the soldiers came.”

  “Then why in hell did you ask me—”

  “I was but testing you, Sassenach.”

  He felt the heat of blood rising in his neck and cheeks. “I told you I wasn’t a liar.”

  She nodded. “So ye did. So ye did.”

  She fell silent then, and Sterling rode in peace for the better part of an hour. The rugged Border land was becoming more settled now. Dwellings were closer together, and from time to time they passed herds of cattle and sheep. They were on English soil—had been for some time—but he knew better than to relax. This country had seen too much blood spilled. Scots and Brits had fought over every inch of this land, and before that, Saxons had clashed with Normans. Hell, he supposed Roman legions had battled the pagan tribes across these hills and wooded valleys.

  It wasn’t Romans or Scots that he was worried about today; it was outlaws. Not that the barons in the vicinity would trouble their consciences over a little mayhem and robbery. A man and woman traveling alone on good horses were always a target on the back roads of England, and if he didn’t keep alert, he might wind up in a ditch with his pockets empty and his throat cut.

  The lack of sleep was telling on him, and his head was splitting. He was getting old, he supposed. Ten years ago, he’d thought nothing of going without proper rest for days and then spending the night carousing with his comrades. He was tired and hungry. Another outburst of vile temper from his bride, and he swore he’d drown her in the next farm pond they came to.

  Cailin broke the silence between them when the sun was sinking in the west and the trees cast long shadows across the faint, rutted trail. “If ye did as ye said—if ye helped my sister, grandsire, and the bairn—I will let ye live, En
glishman.”

  Her audacity made him laugh. “That’s magnanimous of you.”

  “Ye did murder my father, but ’twas fair. It was battle, as you stated. And any man would do the same. I was a fool to blame ye.”

  “It took you long enough to come to that conclusion.”

  “Aye.” She nodded solemnly. “’Tis hard to reason when dealing with a Sassenach. You be the lowest form of human scum.”

  Just ahead, a covey of grouse broke from cover and exploded into the air. Both horses shied, and Cailin’s horse reared up. Sterling pulled hard on his mount’s reins to check the animal’s excited plunging and then reached out to tighten the lead line that held her mare. “Whoa, whoa, girl,” he soothed.

  Cailin sat her saddle as erect and calm as if she were tied into it—as she was—without showing the slightest expression of fear. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, revealing her glorious hair, and he was struck again by her likeness to the girl in his long-ago vision.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. She should have been in tears. But she wasn’t. She was still watching him with the ferocity of a hunting hawk. “Would you think me worse if I told you that my mother was a savage—a red Indian from America?”

  Her brow wrinkled as she considered that notion for a moment. “Nay,” she said finally. “That might be why ye show some intelligence. For an Englishman.” She smiled. “In truth, I must tell ye that my father’s spilled blood still lies between us. I will hate ye to your grave, but I won’t try to kill you—not unless you force me to it.”

  “That’s comforting to know.”

  “What can you expect?” She shrugged. “Ye come unasked to my country, murder those I love, and—”

  “And saved your neck. Don’t you feel the slightest bit indebted to me?”

  “Nay. What ye did, ye did for reasons of your own, not for my sake.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  She grimaced. “All men act on their own desires. Since Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden, men have done as they pleased. ’Tis only when a thing goes wrong that they seek out a woman to blame.”

  “I am not your enemy, Cailin. I am your husband in the eyes of God, of church, and in law. As hard as it is for you to understand, I mean you no harm.”

  “So ye say.”

  “We have far to go. If we can’t have peace, can we make a truce between us?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed so that her thick, dark lashes hid her expression. “Can ye turn back time? Change what happened at Drummossie Moor?”

  “Can you?”

  “Nay,” she admitted. “But I would if I could. I would trade my immortal soul to do so.” She looked away so that he’d not see the tears rising in her eyes, and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  The thing about death was that it was so final, she thought. All else could be altered, softened, done again to make a wrong into right. So many of hers were dead ... her mother ... her laughing cousin Alasdair ... poor dumb Finley ... Johnnie ... Why was it that they were dead and she was spared from the gallows by her greatest foe?

  If only her necklace held truth. Or magic. One wish, the legend promised, one wish for the bearer, even unto the power of life and death. But what to wish for? Her mother’s life? Her first husband’s? For Prince Charlie’s victory, or for his death before he led so many good Scotsmen to their unhallowed graves? Or would she abandon them all to their fates and wish her little Corey safe in her arms?

  She let the breeze dry the tears from her cheeks, then looked again at the man who held her future in his hands. His back was rigidly straight. He rode with the grace of a true horseman, his hands firm on the reins.

  She drew in a deep breath and tried not to think of his hands. She had always been a woman to notice the hands of men. Sterling’s hands were clean but scarred and callused from years of holding leathers and steel. His nails were unusual for a man, trimmed short and neat. His palms were wide, his fingers lean and powerful. His thumbs were broad and squared off at the tip.

  A man’s hands told a lot about his character, she mused. Iain’s hands had been cool and dry, but Sterling’s radiated heat. She moistened her lips with her tongue and tried not to wonder what those sinewy fingers would feel like against her naked skin.

  Better not to permit herself such wanton images. Sterling Gray was a soldier, an Englishman, and her enemy. She shouldn’t think about him at all.

  Still ... She suppressed a shiver. There was something more, something that eluded her. Then she remembered the way he handled a weapon, deft and precise. Yes, if she touched Sterling’s hands with her eyes blindfolded, she would know from the rough feel that he was a horseman and a swordsman.

  From the moment he’d first laid hands on her at the farm, she’d been aware of his strength. The soldiers who had held her down and forced their will upon her had been strong and brutal, but Sterling Gray was not a brutal man. As much as she wanted to hate him, she had to be honest about that.

  Were he a Scot instead of a Sassenach, she might have sought him out. There was an aura of wild unpredictability about him that called to the reckless side of her own fierce Highland nature.

  She had not wanted to wed him—never that. As much as she desired children of her own, she had never wished to surrender her independence to another man. Husbands brought too many controls. A wife gained respect and position, but in doing so, she surrendered her own will to that of her lord and master. Cailin had been a maid, a bride, and a widow. She greatly preferred the freedom of being a woman grown, with the right to make her own choices.

  She liked men. In general, she would rather be in their company than that of females. She loved the sound of their deep, booming male laughter and the way their broad shoulders filled a doorway. She found their bluntness of speech and directness of manner a relief from the deviousness and petty jealousies of most women. She enjoyed playful flirtation and the easy camaraderie that came with knowing a good-natured man well.

  And she was not immune to the intense pleasures of lovemaking. Sex was the one thing that had never been wrong with her first marriage. And since her widowhood, she had twice indulged herself with the comfort of strong arms and the whispered delights of a night of abandon.

  Both of those men were dead now, she realized with a start. And for the first time, she wondered if she were a jinx. Make love to me and die young, she thought wryly. Her mouth curved into a smile. What would Sterling Gray think of that? Had anyone realized what she had done and whom she had done it with, they might have started calling her the “black widow” as they had Mary MacDonald, who had wed and lost four husbands in as many years.

  Perhaps the blessing in the Eye of Mist had ebbed away, leaving only the curse, she mused. ’Twould serve her captor right if she turned some of her foul luck on him.

  Her stomach growled, and she shifted in the saddle, suddenly becoming aware of a hollow feeling inside. She was hungry. The bread and cheese they’d shared at midday seemed to have been devoured weeks ago. She’d always had a keen appetite. Going without decent food had been one of the worst things about being in prison.

  That and worrying if she was with child by her rapists ... She sighed with relief. That terror at least was behind her. Her body had healed, and she’d not been left with the guilt of carrying a child of shame. Had she been in the family way ... She shook her head. There was no use reliving the terrifying incident or her weeks of mental agony afterward. She only hoped that what the English soldiers had done to her had not ruined the act of love for her forever.

  She’d felt rage against her attackers and a desire for revenge, but she’d known she was blameless. She had fought them tooth and nail with every ounce of her strength. They had overpowered her only because there were three of them. And what they had done to her had no relation to the natural beauty of the act between a willing man and woman. They had been worse than beasts, and she had contented herself by imagining their souls consigned to eternal hell.

&
nbsp; She had done so logically. One by one, she had mentally brought each man before a clan tribunal. She had been the only judge and jury, but she had replayed each moment of the offense in detail. She had given them a chance to speak in their own behalf, and she had questioned them with the detachment of an Edinburgh barrister. Once their guilt had been declared, she had taken days to come to a decision about the sentence. Death, she’d decided, would be too easy. In the end, she’d stripped them of their immortal souls.

  Later, she wondered if the imaginary trial had been an act of madness. Her delusions had been so real that she had been able to forget the damp stone walls and the stench of the dungeons. But dementia or sanity, her staged drama had allowed her to put her brutal violation behind her. The painful memories of her assault no longer haunted her dreams or caused her gut to twist with pain. Right or wrong, she had found her own version of justice.

  “Cailin.”

  She started as Sterling Gray called her name. She’d been so lost in her own thoughts that she’d forgotten him.

  He pointed to a cluster of structures at a crossroads ahead. “There is an inn, the White Fleece. They bake a tasty pigeon pie, and the beds are free of vermin. I mean for us to spend the night under their roof.”

  “So?”

  “Would you rather ride in with your hands bound like a criminal or peacefully as my wife?”

  She considered his offer. “Untie me.”

  “Do you give me your word that you won’t slit my throat in the night or try to escape?”

  “Aye,” she agreed readily enough. This was war. Any soldier could lie to an enemy without losing honor.

  “Can I trust you, Cailin?”

  She flashed a wide-eyed look of innocence. “Of course. As ye say, I am your prisoner and your wife. It would make no sense for me to risk your displeasure.”

  “That’s the part that troubles me,” he said as he dismounted and walked back toward her mare.

  Cailin smiled and held out her wrists.

  Chapter 7

  Cailin was so weary that she could hardly keep her eyes open long enough to eat the lamb stew and hot baked bread the serving girl had brought her. She sat alone at a small round table in a shadowy corner of the White Fleece Inn. Sterling had escorted her to a table, ordered a meal, and then had gone out to oversee the care of their horses. For the first time in months, she was not manacled or under close guard, and every instinct bade her use this opportunity to escape.