Claimed by a Scottish Lord (40 page)

“D
uncan‘s in place,‖ Ruark said as he handed the glass to Angus.

He swung Loki around and faced the horseman. Strung out for a mile in the meadow behind him, four hundred Kerr men were amassing along the ridge. They wore no flashy accoutrements to catch the moonlight, and they had ridden the last pair of miles silent and under the cover of darkness. Dark like the mist.

Beside him, Colum said, ―I estimate forty.‖ His voice was not strong.

With icy calm, Ruark‘s gloved hand tightened on Loki‘s reins. ―Are you sure you aren‘t still seeing double,‖ he said, perturbed that Colum had insisted on coming, even with the head wound McBain had sutured. The thickness of his clothes, and a leather jack had saved him from three arrows. The two boys were safe as well.

Ruark‘s gaze was riveted to the center of the line behind him. He had already given everyone instructions. He kicked his heels and sent Loki to the ridge. For a savage moment horse and rider were motionless, a silhouette in ebony framed against the round lantern moon behind him. He came forward just a few feet, his horse restlessly pawing at the ground as if he knew Ruark‘s mind and his heart. Then four hundred men followed him onto the ridge. Their horses stretched out for as far as he could see into the darkness. Ruark raised his sword high. All around him, a battle cry went up that resounded across the sky.

He would not give Hereford time to amass or organize. And he was trusting Duncan to guard Rose‘s life with his own.

Ruark‘s arm came slashing down. And four hundred screaming Scotsman thundered down the ridge.

R
ose had once heard that same bloodcurdling battle cry in Jedburgh. But this time her heart soared at the sound. Duncan grabbed her arm before she could go two steps. She fought him. ―Nay, my lady Rose,‖ he said, pressing her head to his chest. ―I am here on Ruark‘s command.‖

She heard her father shouting orders. She caught his furious glare from across the camp where he had run to retrieve his pistols and sword. He had expected her price as hostage to bring easy surrender. Instead, it brought hell down upon him. Men scattered. Some on horseback. The others on foot.

Duncan pulled her to a tree and threw her on the ground beneath its boughs. He unclasped the wood broach and with a twist of his hands, it opened into a deadly knife. He cut the bonds on her wrists, then dropped the bearskin cloak over her. And she became a shadow in the night. Warm and protected by its thick pelt.

But no shot was fired, no arrow flew, no knife was thrown.

Only the mountebank, who had crawled beneath the wagon, was still present in the camp when Ruark reached the glade. He dismounted while the horse was still moving, already at a run when he hit the ground. His spurs jangled with each step and Rose was suddenly in his arms, where she remained. Duncan beside them ever watchful.

Within ten minutes, the Scots had routed the small group of reprobates and scattered the lot into the woods, and the skirmish was over. Still, Rose did pull away from the bristled cheek pressed against her temple, and he did not force her. No words were spoken between them.

His eyes on his uncle over Rose‘s head, Ruark asked, ―Where is Hereford?‖

―On foot,‖ Duncan said. ―I saw the one called Geddes following on horseback. There is only one way out of these woods for anyone looking for the border. I will take some men . ‖

Rose pulled away and looked up into Duncan‘s face. He touched her shoulder. ―I should no‘ have hurt ye earlier with the lies, but I had no choice. I needed ye to believe I was against Ruark.‖

―Oh, aye,‖ she said, gently indignant. ―You convinced me well enough.‖

While Ruark‘s men gathered up the horses, he remained with Rose beneath the trees. He gently tilted her chin, looked at her face and examined the dark bruise on her swollen lip. ―I would have been here sooner, but I had to find a way to get someone into this camp. Duncan would allow no other.‖

―How did you know where to find me?‖

He laughed softly against her hair. ―You ask that, love, when you have my heart and I have yours? I will always find you.‖

He
had
found her, she realized.

Or she had found him, he might argue.

―Will we ever know all the answers, Ruark?‖

In the end, it was Rolf, the mountebank, who told Ruark everything.

Rolf confessed that it was Geddes who had murdered Ruark‘s father for the gold Hereford paid him to do the deed, a dissolution of the partnership after Ruark‘s father could not pay the enormous debt owed to Hereford.

If Ruark would have surrendered tonight as Hereford had wanted, Hereford would have made sure he never made it to England alive.

But Ruark would never allow Hereford the chance to threaten any of them again.

Before Ruark would ever find peace, he had to first find Hereford. So Ruark and Duncan left Rose at Stonehaven.

Three days later, they found him dead at the bottom of a hollow near where he had vanished in the woods. He had apparently fallen or been pushed, as Duncan surmised, as it looked as if a fight had taken place on the ground above the drop.

Geddes was found two days later outside Castleton, riding the black cavalry horse Ruark had stolen some months prior from the captain of a dragoon regiment, and was promptly arrested, which was why he was in custody when Ruark found him. Ironically, the horse had been the one Geddes had taken the day he took Rose. It had been the horse Jack had ridden to the falls. Ruark did not linger long but returned to his wife and family and found Rose in the sitting room, her hands clasped in Mrs. Simpson‘s, for she had already received the news about Hereford‘s death. But that wasn‘t why she was crying.

―I thought it time to reveal everything,‖ Mrs. Simpson said.

Ruark stared as Mrs. Simpson turned to him and told him she was Rose‘s great-aunt, sister to her grandmother. Using a lace-edged handkerchief, she dabbed at her eyes. ―I married quite young, you see, and quite outside the expectations of the family. I did not care a whit. Marrying my husband gave me a freedom in my life I could never have had with the strictures of my family.‖ Her eyes on Rose, she said, ―After your mother died, Friar Tucker and I knew you were in great peril. No one could know about me.‖

―But if you are still alive, then I am not the sole female heir to the barony or to Kirkland Park.‖

―Nay, you are not. Friar Tucker held the trust because I asked him to. I am the one who agreed to trade Kirkland Park for your future. If Hereford knew I was alive . you were important to him only as long as he thought you were valuable to him. In my role to you, I could always be near you without threat to either of us.‖

Mrs. Simpson told her about Friar Tucker and the deep abiding love Rose‘s mother and he had shared, and that Elena had made the mistake of telling Hereford. ―Friar Tucker loves you as his own, Rose. It was his idea to let you find the puzzle box in the crypt.‖

―I . I do not understand.‖

―My husband and I uncovered the box at the Arthurian site in which he was working years ago, not far from here. It was one of the many trinkets and relics he had discovered in his travels and it sat useless in my home for years. Friar Tucker thought you needed something to believe in, to occupy your mind and your heart. He and I wanted you to have it. You were so desperate to believe in something, and the mind is powerful when it sets itself on a thing. We never expected the box to open, much less have anything inside.‖

―Then ‘tis an authentic Arthurian relic,‖ Ruark said.

― ‘Twas found in an ancient grave along with another ring that has since been lost to us. No one truly understands what power, if any, the relics hold.‖

But deep inside, Ruark did.

His gaze caught and held Rose, who had taken his hand in hers, and for a man who had believed in very little his entire life, he had come to believe in something powerful. Whether by magic or by fate, his life had changed.

A
s Lord Hereford‘s only surviving heir, Rose inherited Kirkland Park on the fourth of October in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-five. Ruark had seen that the estate would remain hers in a special trust and would pass to their daughter just as it had done to all the Kirkland daughters for generations.

She had not wanted to visit the estate in the beginning, but Ruark had asked her go with him. She needed to go.

During an unusually warm week that followed, as if he had willed it himself, Ruark gathered up Jack and Jamie and brought Rose to Kirkland Park. There they met Friar Tucker at the gates. Ruark took the boys and let his wife and the friar walk through the gates alone as he remained outside a few moments more. The gray stones of the manor, covered in leaves and vines gilded by the cooler temperatures of fall, stretched against a bright, brilliant blue sky.

That night the ring came off his finger as Ruark was washing his face. He looked into the porcelain bowl and saw the piece of silver glittering in the clear water beneath. Rose found him and saw the ring as well.

She picked it up. Their eyes met over the silver circlet. Was it real?

He knew only that whether it was by fate or enchantment his life had changed. What he wanted most in the world touched him like a velvet sunrise on a warm dawn, imprinting itself upon his heart and his soul. Rose was the magic in his life.

That the ring had fallen off only now was surely a coincidence.

―Are you tempted?‖ he asked her, wondering if her life was complete, for despite everything he could not entirely banish all doubt.

He loved her so.

―Is there anything you want, Rose?‖

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, then took his hand to lay it against her abdomen. ―Nay, my love. I believe you have given me all that my heart could want.‖

She was going to have his child.

Before the thought could fully register, she kissed him again, and he knew a power such as he had never known.

Love had many faces. But like the circlet of silver, love was endless.

With no beginning and no end. It was both darkness and light. Opposite the other yet coexisting, like day and night. Happiness and sadness.

Love holds no expectations but simply is.

Ever changing. Yet forever constant.

And the Scottish lord had claimed her heart.

About the Author

MELODY THOMAS is a wordsmith, a creator of dreams, and a passionate believer in happy endings. A product of thirteen schools and twenty-two moves stretching across the United States and Europe, she is a self-proclaimed gypsy. Her fascination with historical romance began when, in her teens, she visited the Tower of London and learned that Henry the Eighth had beheaded two of his wives. This was great fodder for her teenage imagination and the start of a love affair with history, intrigue, and irresistible heroes.

Melody now lives with her husband near Chicago and invites you to visit her website at
www.melodythomas.com.

Also by Melody Thomas

Claimed by a Scottish Lord

Beauty and the Duke

Passion and Pleasure in London

Sin and Scandal in England

Wild and Wicked in Scotland

Angel in My Bed

A Match Made in Scandal

Must Have Been the Moonlight

In My Heart

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author‘s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CLAIMED BY A SCOTTISH LORD. Copyright © 2010 by Laura Renken. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition July 2010 ISBN: 9780062002822

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