“Aye.”
She sat up and pressed the tips of her fingers to her throbbing temples. Heaven help her. She might as
well
have been the one knocked senseless the previous night, because her brains were clearly addled. She, too, had forgotten who they were and why they were here. She desired Duncan passionately and had lost sight of the fact that he wanted to use her to
kill
a man in cold blood.
“You
still
don’t believe it, do you?” he asked. “You
still
think I’m mistaken, and that the people of Scotland have embel
l
ished the stories about your precious Richard. You’re
still
loyal to him.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I do believe that I was too hasty in accepting his proposal. I recognize the fact that I was naïve and did not take enough time to get to know him. But if I’ve learned anything from
all
this, it is that I must think for myself and form my own judgments. Therefore I cannot, in good conscience, condemn a man based on what his enemies say. I must at least
allow
him the opportunity to answer the charges. When I see him again, I
will
most certainly give him that chance.”
Duncan stood up. “The mere idea of you in the same room with Richard Bennett makes me want to vomit. I won’t
allow
it.”
“But even if he is guilty of those crimes of which you accuse him,” she said, “that does not give
you
the right to
kill
him. Even the worst criminal deserves a proper trial.”
Duncan’s brow darkened with displeasure, and he began to pace.
“If Richard is guilty of something,” she continued, “let him be arrested and dealt with according to the law. You should not darken your soul any further to ensure justice is served.”
“But my soul is already destined for
hell
,” he growled.
She shivered. “I don’t believe that. There is always hope. People can change.”
But did she truly believe there was hope where Duncan was concerned? He was the Butcher of the Highlands. He’d
killed
dozens of men.
They said nothing for a long time; then he shot her an irritated look. “You remind me of my mother sometimes. She was beautiful, and she was a stubborn idealist. She didn’t approve of violence, and she worked tirelessly to convince my father that she was right and he was wrong.”
“Did she ever succeed in convincing him?”
Duncan laughed bitterly. “Nay. That was a futile ambition.
She and I both ended up bruised and battered over it. My father was a warrior. He had no interest in diplomacy, and I was stuck in the middle, between her and his crushing, iron fist.”
Amelia sat back. Had Duncan protected his mother against his father’s brutality?
Not wishing to provoke him any further than she had already, Amelia waited a moment for his anger to cool.
“My father was a warrior, too,” she said in an effort to calm him, “but he could also be kind. He believed in peace.”
“He was a soldier, Amelia. He fought and he
kill
ed.”
She shuddered, for she had never thought of her father in that light, nor had she ever imagined him actual y
killing
a man. She did not want to imagine it now. “He fought for what he believed in.”
“As do I, lass, and for that reason, I cannot let your fiancé live.”
The comment struck her hard, like a punch in the stomach.
Alas, when Duncan had mentioned how he once tried to stand between his mother and his father’s iron fist, Amelia thought she might be able to draw him away from his murderous quest. But looking into his eyes now and seeing the fury that dwel
l
ed there, she knew he could not be persuaded.
«Will
you deliver me to Moncrieffe Castle?” she asked, needing to know how
all
of this would play out. “I know we are traveling in that direction, but even if Richard has left the castle and gone elsewhere,
will
you leave me there in the earl’s care? The earl was a friend of my father’s. Wouldn’t it be best if—”
“Nay!” Duncan said harshly, facing her. “I
will
not leave you anywhere! Not while your fiancé
still
lives.”
He breathed deeply for a moment, as if struggling to control his anger; then he moved around the fire. “You should sleep, lass, but I’m awake now, so I
’ll
sit against the stone and keep watch.”
He sat down, picked up the flask he’d left in the grass, but it was empty, so he tossed it onto the pile of saddlebags.
Shivering from a sudden
chill
in the air, Amelia lay down again and wrapped the fur around her. She closed her eyes and wondered miserably if she would ever feel sure of anything again.
* * *
The lass wanted him to spare Richard Bennett’s life. How disappointed she was going to be when he ended it.
No, it would be much worse than that. She would see him as the savage that he truly was. She would be repulsed by the blood on his hands, and the stench of death and despair that
followed
him everywhere. She would loathe him, far more than she did now.
He should not have tried to slake his lust for her tonight. If he’d been listening to his brains instead of his
ball
s, he would have kept her at a safe distance—perhaps even bound and gagged the entire time. He should not have revealed anything of himself to her. She knew too much as it was.
What was he to do, then? he wondered wretchedly as he watched her final y drift off to sleep. Let Richard Bennett live for the sake of her courtly, idealistic principles about order and justice? Let him continue to rape, murder, and destroy?
Duncan tipped his head back against the standing stone and stared up at the sky. If only he could feel some sense of peace again, or even hope to feel it one day in the future. Not long ago, he thought he would achieve it when Bennett was dead.
all
he felt now, however, was a heavy yoke of doubt and a deep, unfathomable emptiness.
He thought of his real mother then—the whore he never knew because she’d died giving birth to him—and the bishop who’d been slaughtered for his opinions on the matter of Duncan’s existence in the world as a bastard child.
That bishop should have known better than to pay insult to Duncan’s father. He’d ended up without a head.
Perhaps this was Duncan’s father’s legacy and a continued punishment for his sins—a life of war and wretchedness for his doomed son who had inherited his wrath.
all
good deeds were rewarded, Duncan supposed, and
all
sinners were eventual y escorted to
hell
.
* * *
Hours later, the sound of footsteps swishing through the grass startled Duncan awake. He had
fall
en asleep, sitting up against the stone. His gaze darted to Amelia. She was resting quietly, wrapped in the fur.
Shaking off the heavy haze of slumber, he sat up.
Everything was as it should be. The bags were untouched.
Turner was nearby. But then Duncan heard the faint whisper of footsteps again.
Slowly, with careful, hushed movements, he reached for his axe and closed his grip around the
well
-worn handle. If the wolf had returned to make a meal of them, he would not think twice. He would
kill
her. He would do what was necessary to protect Amelia.
He rose to his feet and moved without a sound around the ashes in the fire pit. The stars were
all
gone now, the sky a deathly black. Even the air was thick with the suffocating aroma of blood and doom.
The footsteps grew closer, and he moved forward like a cat stalking its prey. His gaze traveled from east to west, searching the landscape. He’d never felt more attuned to danger. He would protect Amelia, even at the cost of his own life.
The visitor appeared then,
ill
uminated suddenly by the moon, which emerged from behind a wispy cloud.
“El
l
iott,” Duncan said, lowering the axe to his side. “What are you doing back here? Where’s your father?”
“He stayed with the flock,” the boy said. “But I ran away. I
followed
you. I
stalked
you.”
Duncan frowned. “What do you mean, you stalked me?
Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I know who you are. You’re the Butcher, and you’re a vicious
kille
r.”
A hot, burning star from the sky dropped into the pit of Duncan’s stomach. He wanted to disagree, to say he was no such thing, but he could not speak. At least not those words.
“I’m going to
kill
you,”
Elliott
said, drawing his sword. “Then I
’ll
be a hero, just like you are.”
Duncan shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying, E
ll
iott. Put down the sword. Go back to your father and drive your flock to market.”
“Nay, I want to take your head to London.” He raised the sword and shouted a wild cry for justice, then dashed forward.
Duncan reacted on instinct. The boy came at him, and he swung his axe.
To defend myself. To protect my identity. To save
Amelia.
El
l
iott’s head flew threw the air, spinning like a
ball
kicked by a boy in a stable yard.…
The wolf watched with indifference from the crest of the
hill
, her tongue hanging out while she panted.
“Fook!”
Duncan startled awake and crawled away from the stone as fast as he could. He couldn’t breathe! His stomach was churning with a sickening fire that was burning his guts. He crawled through the grass, needing to expel the contents of his stomach, but his body only heaved violently with a dry and pointless purge of emptiness.
“Duncan, what is it?”
He felt Amelia’s hands on his back and tried to
tell
himself it was not real. It had not happened. It was only a dream.
Elliott
was not dead. The boy had not
followed
him here.
He put a hand on his forehead and
collapsed
onto his back. “Ah, Jesus.”
“What happened?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It was a dream.” He said the words aloud, compel
l
ingly, to convince himself.
He was sweating, gasping for air.
It was a dream. It did not happen.
Amelia cradled his head on her lap and pushed his hair away from his face. “It’s
all
right now. It’s over.”
It took a long time for his heart to stop pounding, and when it final y did, he stared up at the sky but quickly closed his eyes and struggled against the unbearable memory of the dream.
The
following
morning, Duncan said very little. Amelia looked across the fire at him and felt as if she were looking at a stranger. He was exactly that, she supposed, regardless of the fact that he’d held her and kissed her and almost made love to her the night before. She wished she could push it from her mind, but the desire
still
lingered in her blood this morning like a treacherous fever, which made no sense.
How could she feel such pleasure with this man, who had kidnapped her and refused to restore her freedom by delivering her to safety? Despite her protestations, he
still
had every intention of
killing
Richard, and she could not understand such a hunger for violence and bloodshed. That was why the civilized world had courts of law—to decide whether a man was guilty of a crime, and to assign the proper punishment. This hunting and stalking approach—ending in the bloody slaughter of another human being—was barbaric. It was outside the realm of her understanding.
Nevertheless, her insides
still
burned with something. An eager, aching lust that shamed her. She swore to herself that she would do her best to conquer it.
* * *
That night, Duncan decided it would be best to keep his distance from Amelia. As a result, they ate in silence around the fire and when she tried to make conversation, he told her he had no interest in pointless talk. The truth was, it was simply too difficult to listen to the cadence of her voice, nor did it do him any good to watch the enticing movement of her lips when she spoke.
Later, however, not long after she
fell
asleep, he moved closer to the bed of fur and looked down at her. She lay on her stomach, with one long slender leg bent at the knee and drawn up into the thick tangle of her skirts. Her wavy hair was splayed out on the fur, shining like wild flames of fire. He
recalled
too easily the honeyed flavor of her lips and the soft texture of her tongue, swirling freely around his own. Growing agitated and resentful, he backed up a few steps and sat down on his haunches.
The moon was high in the sky. Cloud shadows moved swiftly across the quiet glen. There was a strong perfume of late-summer blooms in the air. In the far-off distance, thunder rumbled softly over the mountaintops.
He sat for a long time watching Amelia sleep while the curve of her hip played tricks on his mind.
With a soft moan, she
rolled
over onto her back and settled into a flauntingly feminine, seductive pose. Her breasts—too tightly confined by the stays, which she refused to take off, even at night—seemed to reach out and beckon to him lasciviously. Sexual hunger overwhelmed him, and he wished he could unlace
all
those constricting articles of clothing, slide her skirts down over her hips, and run his hands across her naked flesh. She lay before him like the embodiment of human sexuality, and he realized this was more a test of his strength than any violent swordfight on a battlefield.