Dougal ground his teeth together, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth as slowly, laboriously, the Highlander rose to his feet against all sixteen stone of the massive body Dougal brought to bear.
The crowd hushed.
“Leave off now and save yerself a fair bit of pain,” the Highlander advised grimly.
“Go to hell, you bastard!”
“Ah, grand! I admit I would have been sorely disappointed if you’d chosen otherwise.”
With a sudden twist, the Highlander pivoted, jerking Dougal’s arm straight out. At the same time, he dropped his shoulder beneath Dougal’s elbow and wrenched down. The muffled crunch of breaking bone filled the room.
Kate’s stomach roiled at the sound. Dougal’s face drained of color. His blade dropped from nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor. He opened his mouth and howled.
With a look of disgust, the Highlander pushed the gibbering Dougal toward his friends. He spied the innkeeper. “You best get a splint on his arm, or he’ll no be driving a team agin.”
His words penetrated Kate’s frightened thoughts. She stared, no longer seeing the Scotsman, but only hearing his prophetic words, suddenly comprehending what had happened: she no longer had a driver.
Leaden feet carried her to the innkeeper’s side. With numb fingers she reached into her pocket and withdrew a few of the precious coins she’d sewn into her cloak’s hem. “Find someone to set his arm,” she said woodenly and turned to leave, uncertain of her destination.
Unless she could hire another driver, she would have to take the mail coach back to York. What with the increasing number of highwaymen, thieves, and brigands on the roads, and the early onset of what promised to be a fierce winter, few private agencies risked sending their cattle—or their men—to northern Scotland. She’d been surprised that the marquis had found a company willing to do so this late in the year. If she went back to York, there would be no second chance to make it to Clyth this winter.
She had to make it to Clyth. It seemed to her she’d been given one final chance to regain what they’d lost. And now that was being lost, too.
Her head swam, and for the first time in her life she felt faint. Too little food, too little hope. She swayed. Closed her eyes. Reached out for something to hold on to. Failed to find anything.
On the other hand, it might be a relief to give in, to finally just stop trying…
Strong arms gripped her elbows, steadying her. He smelled of leather and sweat and an odd metallic tang. She opened her eyes.
His back was to the hearth, and the light from behind created a nimbus of fire about his red-gold hair. She could see little of his features except for the stubble of his beard glinting along the edge of a hard jaw.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Me?” the rich voice purred, “Why, I’d be yer guardian angel, love.”
The sense that something momentous was about to happen crawled up Kate’s spine. She stumbled back, and to keep her from falling, the Highlander shifted, pulling her lightly against his side. The movement brought him around so that the light fell fully on his face. For the first time that evening she got a good, clear look at him: ruthless, icy green eyes, the lips of a rake, and the jaw of a Celtic warrior.
She crumpled in a dead faint into Christian MacNeill’s arms.
TWO
OVERNIGHTING AT TAVERNS, INNS, HOSTELRIES, AND OTHER LOW PLACES
KATE FLOATED BETWEEN consciousness and dream. A warm, masculine scent penetrated the darkness, rising from the dense surface against which she lay. She felt safe, utterly relaxed… slightly… blowsy. Blowsy?
She came more fully awake, her eyes opening upon a hard jaw and a strong, masculine throat. The gilt-haired Highlander looked down with eyes like chalcedony: pale green, silvery, and unreadable.
“Do you remember me, Mrs. Blackburn?” he asked. “Kit MacNeill?”
“Christian.”
The corner of his generous mouth twitched into a brief smile. “More Kit than Christian, I’m afraid. So, you do remember.”
Oh, yes. She remembered. She remembered sitting shivering in a room stripped of every ornamentation, staring into the wounded, fierce gray-green eyes of a young man who prowled the room like a wild beast, a man so outside her sphere of experience that she’d felt able to reveal to him things she hadn’t even told her own family—bitter things, angry things—because she’d been certain that their worlds, having collided for one brief hour, would never again overlap. She should have known better.
“Yes, I remember.” Heat piled into her cheeks and throat. “How—why are you here?”
A dark-winged brow split by a deep scar rose sardonically. “You don’t believe in guardian angels?”
“No.” If there were such things, hers had been so derelict in his duties he’d probably been drummed from the ranks years ago. She shifted, and he jounced her in his arms, settling her more comfortably and forcibly reminding her that she was being carried by a man who was for all purposes a stranger to her. “Please. I can stand.”
Without comment, he set her down and she swayed, light-headed. He reached out, but she drew back. “I’m fine.”
His well-shaped mouth flattened into an enigmatic smile. The young man who’d brought her family the glorious golden roses had been fierce, but there had been something about him that had touched a kindred spark in her. In some odd manner, she’d felt she’d known that Christian MacNeill. She did not feel that way about this hard, lean “Kit” MacNeill. What was he doing here?
“Which room is yours?”
She indicated the nearest door, and he pushed it open, stepping aside so she could enter. She turned, and the light spilling out of her doorway revealed what the shadowed corridor had concealed: blood clotted the gilt hair at his temple. Wounds from a tavern brawl. Her gaze slipped to his hands. The knuckles were raw and bleeding, broken on another man. She shivered at this evidence of brute violence.
“You’ve been hurt.”
“It doubtless looks worse than it is. ‘Tis often the way of head wounds.”
She hesitated. Perhaps it was his familiarity with wounds, perhaps another vestige of her sense of duty; for whatever reason, she held the door open. “At least avail yourself of the washbasin. It’s better than the horse trough.”
“And that is my only option?” he asked with a wry smile.
“I took the last room, and unless one has since been vacated, yes, it is,” she answered coolly, refusing to be baited. She gestured toward the chipped china bowl. “Please.”
He snorted and then, with the air of one indulging another’s incomprehensible whim, came in, shutting the door behind him. He went to the bowl and bent over it, splashing water on his face, leaving her to study him.
It was no wonder she hadn’t recognized him at first. The gaunt lines of his face had fleshed out, developing hard angles and planes. More marks had been added to the scar on his brow that she had noted earlier. Three years ago he’d already had too many scars.
He was bigger than she remembered, too. Broader. His back flexed as he scrubbed his face, stretching the torn linen shirt, revealing glimpses of heavy muscles bunching and shifting. Everything about him was masculine. Too masculine.
Why had he shut the door? He should have left it open. A gentleman would have found another woman to act as chaperone—God! What was she thinking? A tavern girl was hardly an adequate doyenne. And he was hardly a gentleman—despite his educated accent. And that accent hadn’t been so refined in the tavern room. What was going on?
She shouldn’t have invited him in. Perhaps he’d think she’d some other reason than simple human kindness for doing so. She had no idea what sort of man he was, what he did, or what he had done.
Roars from the tavern room below shook the thin floorboards further, bearing in upon her the potential danger she was in. If she was to cry out, no one would hear her. She glanced furtively at the closed door and edged nearer it.
“Do you have a towel?” He straightened, and she started, but handed him a cloth before darting nervously back. He regarded her a moment before turning his back to her.
“I assume you are acting like a scared rabbit because you are afraid of me. I am not going to rape you, Mrs. Blackburn,” he said, toweling off his face, as if accusations of rape were a daily and tiresome occurrence.
Her cheeks burned, and she felt sheepish.
He turned back to the basin and the mirror hanging above it, leaning forward and studying the cut on his temple. She relaxed a bit as he ignored her and wrung out the cloth, wiping the blood from his hands.
Even his eyes had changed, she noted, watching him in the mirror. Once they had been doors leading to a savaged interior; now they gave nothing away, not even a glimpse of the man they served. The only thing familiar about them was their beauty—long eyes, frosted green between thick gold-tipped lashes. He pitched the stained towel aside. Fresh blood oozed from the cut at his temple.
“You’re still bleeding,” she murmured.
He touched the wound and looked at his blood-tipped fingers in annoyance. He stood uncertainly. There were no other towels in sight. She hesitated a moment, then impulsively reached under the bed for her deceased cousin’s luggage, an ornately tooled leather trunk with brass fittings.
As well as Grace Murdoch’s belongings, it contained the sum total of Kate’s own wardrobe: three of her mother’s best gowns, made up so that when she arrived at Castle Parnell, she wouldn’t look like the beggar she was. Carefully, she lifted the tissue wrapped dresses onto the bed. At the bottom, she’d carefully folded her undergarments.
Once they’d been a new bride’s treasure, made from the sheerest batiste, embroidered in silk, and edged in Brussels lace. The finest had worn out long ago, the lace having been stripped to adorn Charlotte’s school dresses. What were left were thin from washings and repaired more times than Kate could remember. There were bandages in the hospitals with more thread in them.
“What are you doing?” MacNeill asked.
“You can’t go about bleeding like that.” She ripped an ancient chemise at its seam. “It isn’t decent. Sit down.”
He tilted his head, regarding her with surprise, but came to her side and sat down on the room’s only chair. She moved behind him, tearing her chemise into thin strips. Then, making a thick pad, she pressed it over the cut on his temple. “Hold this.”
He clamped his hand over hers. Like the rest of him, it was large and rough and scarred but with unexpected notes of elegance, the fingers slender and long, his wrists broad but lean. Hastily, she slipped her hand free from under his and began wrapping his head.
His breath checked at her touch.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No.” He probably had other wounds hidden beneath the thick, disheveled red-gold hair. With gentle fingers, she explored his scalp, moving closer. He stayed very still, his hands upon his knees, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
Standing over him, she glanced down and through the rent in his shirt glimpsed the heavy plane of his chest, glinting with dark hairs. A man’s body. She’d forgotten the contours a masculine form—
“It’s low you’ve fallen, darlin’,” he said.
She jumped guiltily, but he only said, “I doubt you would have bandaged my head three years ago.”
“Oh?”
“You were very much a fashionable young lady. Perfect. Clean.” His voice dropped to a musing whisper. “The cleanest thing I had ever seen.”
She straightened, stung by his implication. “If I am less than immaculate now it is because I have been traveling,” she said.
He laughed, a sound of amusement that utterly disconcerted her. She searched his words for some underlying meaning. Was he trying to gauge whether her reduced circumstances led to reduced morals? More than one man had made that mistake and had been given an ear-blistering lecture in reply; for all that they’d been low, lousy creatures, they had still been ruled by some social considerations. Kit MacNeill didn’t look as if he was ruled by anything. He certainly didn’t look as if he’d be deterred by a tongue-lashing.
She cleared her throat. “You’re quite correct, three years ago I would have sent you to the kitchen and had the housekeeper attend you. I may no longer have a housekeeper or a kitchen, but I have not fallen so low that I do not understand the concept of obligation and gratitude, particularly on behalf of one less fortunate than myself. I hope I always shall.”
Another flash of amusement lightened his harsh visage. “I stand corrected, then. You would have, of course, acted properly. How fortunate for me that you have not abandoned your manners. “
“You say that as if there was something fundamentally suspect about proper behavior, Mr. MacNeill,” she replied haughtily, tearing off another strip of batiste with her teeth. “From what I have seen of the world, behaving in a manner prescribed by polite society is an agreeable alternative to acting on base impulses and violent tendencies.”
She did not look at him as she said it. She did not need to. Her meaning was quite clear.
Her temerity amazed her. She should have clung to her earlier fear. Her unquestioning belief in her invulnerability was yet another vestige of a way of life long ago ended. And another entry for her book: As one of the genteel poor, a lady need be constantly mindful that she is no longer a part of society where a lady’s safety, if not welfare, was once guaranteed.
“I do not mean to sound ungrateful,” she added nervously.
“Not at all,” he replied. “I am indebted to you for your tutelage.”
She didn’t want his thanks. She wanted him gone. He disturbed her. He frightened her. But long ago, riding lessons had taught her that one must never allow a dangerous animal to sense one’s fear.
“The bleeding should stop now,” she said. “Thank you for what you did for that boy.” She stepped aside, clearly indicating that he should leave. He didn’t. “And now, allow me to bid you good-bye.”
Still, he didn’t move. “I fear my actions have left you stranded.”
“You were entirely courageous.” She wadded up the cloth scraps, facing him with a smile she hoped looked calm and dismissive. “Any inconvenience must be weighed against the greater good.”
“I didn’t risk much,” he said.
“I disagree. Dougal had a knife. I saw it. You were most heroic.” This time she took a step toward the door and placed her hand on the latch, preparing to open it.
“And you, if I recall, have no use for heroes,” he murmured.
At her silence, he shrugged, effectively dismissing both Dougal’s knife and the potential outcome as equally unimportant. Why was he still sitting there?
“At the very least I owe you coach fare to”—his brow lifted inquiringly—“York?”
“No.”
“Surely ‘proper behavior’ doesn’t prevent you from accepting money from me?”
“I’m not going to York. I am headed in the opposite direction.”
She meant it. True, she had no money, but certainly Grace’s brother-in-law, the marquis, would pay whatever price a driver demanded. He’d already sent one coach for her. And she was making this journey on his behalf. Well, somewhat on his behalf. Ostensibly on his behalf—
MacNeill’s gaze raked her from top to bottom, missing nothing from the telltale rust of her gown’s thrice-turned seams to the worn leather of her oftresoled boots. “And having no driver, you believe you can make other arrangements?”
“Yes. I am certain of it.”
“I am afraid you are going to be disappointed,” he said. “This is not a coaching inn, Mrs. Blackburn. It’s a haunt for thieves and highwaymen.”
“You sound as if you are well acquainted with it,” she clipped out.
“And a hundred just like it,” he replied agreeably.
She didn’t care how many dens of iniquity he’d frequented. He did not know her situation. He did not know what was risked and what stood to be gained. He did not understand that she might, if she managed everything perfectly, win back her life. As well as her sisters’.
“Your welfare is at risk,” he said. “I cannot, in good conscience, leave you, especially as it is my actions that have marooned you.”
“It is none of your concern.” She carefully iced each syllable with all the hauteur at her command.
Satisfaction licked his slow smile. “But, my dear Mrs. Blackburn, moments ago you lectured me on how important proper behavior was in separating civilized man from the likes of, oh, say, heathen Scotsmen. You can’t permit yourself proper behavior and deny me the same.”
She flushed. He’d maneuvered her most adroitly. “You are wasting your time trying to convince me to turn back. I am going north, to Clyth and from there to Castle Parnell. That is, unless you intend to physically remove me from here, Mr. MacNeill,” she threw out recklessly.
His smile became gentle, as if she’d said something profoundly quaint. “My dear woman, look at me.”
With lethal grace, he uncoiled from the chair and spread his long arms out at his sides. Muscle rippled beneath tanned flesh. Blood stained his damp shirt. Sweat still shimmered at the base of his throat. Everything about him was uncivilized and torn anddangerous . “Do you doubt for a moment that I’m capable of doing just that?”
“I think,” she said in a small voice, “that because of that debt you once insisted you owed my family, you would not like to cause me any distress.”
He tensed as if struck. A sharp smiled cleaved his face. “A palpable hit, ma’am. I commend you. But now you’ve put me in the difficult position of either importuning you or allowing you to endanger yourself.”
“This has nothing to do with you. Forget we met if it troubles your conscience.”
“I am cursed with an excellent memory. I told you once being in debt was a burden. I pay my debts, ma’am, that I might be beholden to no one,” he said. “So, tell me, my dark little instructress, what does polite society dictate I do?”