Lost in Your Arms (27 page)

She would never be as weak as he had been . . . but she had. As the full horror of that truth sank in, she covered her face with her black gloved hands. The day in the mountains she had slept with MacLean and never considered the consequences. Worse than that . . . last night, although she knew well many babes had their start at the wrong time of the month, she still had succumbed to his allurement. Last night, she had lain with him in debauchery and pleasure not once, but three times.

She released a quivering sob. So the faceless man who had been her father was only a creature like herself, driven by passions beyond control. And she wanted to tell him so, tell him she understood . . . but she couldn’t. He was dead. He was dead, and she’d never even met him.

Enid’s knees gave way, and she collapsed onto the pew. Her hands trembled as she searched for the handkerchief in her sleeve.

The minister’s words intruded on her fumblings. “To speak of our laird, Kiernan MacLean, is to speak of a man driven by honor.”

Enid caught her breath on a pain so razor-sharp it cut at her lungs. MacLean rested in his coffin.

But he wasn’t dead. She knew he wasn’t dead.

“Our laird cared for us, each and every one, with a deep and abiding sense of duty and, more than that, a love that went bone-deep.”

Love. Enid shook her head. Not love. Not from him.

“Kiernan MacLean never gave his trust, his friendship or his love easily, but once given he could be depended upon forever.”

Forever.
I am a part of you. You are a part of me. We are forever.

She sobbed again, louder this time, and pressed the handkerchief to her lips to subdue the wailing that threatened to escape in a massive flood of sorrow.

Lady Bess rubbed Enid’s back, leaned over and whispered, “Very good.”

“Beloved son. Beloved of our sister Enid . . .” The minister glared at Enid as if he knew she had spent hours in MacLean’s arms, kissing him, loving him.

Loving him.

Enid’s chest hurt, her throat ached, her eyes burned, and painful tears dripped, one at a time, down her heated cheeks.

Love. She loved him, and she knew better. She knew that all that could follow such a love would be anguish. In all her life, no one had ever loved her enough to be with her. If she loved MacLean, if she married him, if she lived with him, someday she would be facing this moment in truth. Someday they would be separated by quarreling, by abandonment, by death, because no one ever stayed with her.

“Enid?” Lady Bess put her hand on Enid’s shaking shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Enid was not all right. She was in agony, weeping for the relationships that had never been, that would never be . . . weeping for herself. She loved MacLean. If she didn’t get away soon, this love that trapped her would deepen and flourish. She would give her whole heart and everything that was in her to MacLean. Then she would spend her life waiting for him to die or leave her. Never had she seen a love that was worth the pain at the end.

Never.

She had to get away.

MacLean reclined in the coffin, unmoving, on guard, waiting for the assassin to make his move . . . and livid with Enid. With nothing to do but wait, her defiance preyed on his mind..

Last night, for the first time since he had arrived back home, he had slept a deep and peaceful sleep. He had staked his claim on his woman. Enid understood her place was at his side. She would quarrel with him no more. She would settle down and behave. Or so he had thought.

In the chapel, he could hear the sobbing of the women, the snuffling of the men. One female, especially, cried as if each breath hurt her lungs, and for a sweet moment, he imagined it was Enid, coming to her senses. She
had
to come to her senses.

When he thought of her, he didn’t think of her background or her faults. He remembered only how she’d pulled him back from the brink of death, of her bravery in the face of danger, of her kindness to his family and
her pleasure in simple things. Everything about her character would bring honor to the MacLeans. The thought of her living far away, moving from one sickroom to another, always at the beck and call of some invalid, made him furious. Enid deserved the best. And she would get it, because she was going to get him.

She’d finally admitted she loved him. He had forced the issue, yes, but she’d needed to confess, to understand her own emotions before she could settle into her life here.

Yet then she had run. If he had not had this part to play, he would have gone and dragged her back.

The minister stopped preaching. MacLean concentrated as the congregation queued up to pass by the coffin. He couldn’t see, but he allowed his other senses to roam, listening for a guilty cough, sniffing for the scent of nervous sweat.

Feet shuffled past. At the head of the coffin, a woman stopped and sobbed as if her heart were breaking.

No. It couldn’t really be Enid. Why would she cry with such passion?

He wanted to stand up, to see, but the line snaked by him interminably. He was especially aware of his sporran, attached around his waist with a leather strap. If Enid and Harry had done their job correctly, the spy would believe that any information passed from Stephen to MacLean would be contained therein.

Hands reached out to touch him. Some people mentioned that he still felt warm. Some exclaimed that he looked like he was sleeping. Some pitied his mother and that poor lass who so loved him and who wept so terribly.

So it
was
Enid who was crying. Why? Did she imagine he would let her go? He had carried her over the threshold of Castle MacLean. She was his bride.

As the chapel emptied, nothing happened. In a secret part of him, he almost hoped the funeral would fail to flush out the traitor. Then he would have an excuse to keep Enid at his side, to keep her safe.

Yet he knew the danger would remain and they could never be free to fight and love as they should.

He waited and waited. Most of the line passed. The chapel grew quieter as people proceeded toward the lawn where the funeral feast had been set up. Only Enid’s crying continued unabated. His mother whispered comfort, and MacLean could only imagine Lady Bess’s incredulity. Even he couldn’t believe Enid mourned for him, for a man not dead . . . but if not for him, what did she mourn for? He feared he wouldn’t like the answer.

Then fingers slid across his belly, grasped his sporran, sliced his leather belt.

Opening his eyes, he seized the arm.

For one incredulous moment, Jackson stood looking down at him, wide-eyed with horror. Then he screeched in fear.

MacLean grabbed at Jackson’s throat.

Jackson threw himself backward, toppling the coffin from its stand, spilling MacLean onto the stone floor . . . rebreaking one of his ribs. For one essential moment, MacLean doubled over in pain.

In the swiftest recovery MacLean had ever seen, Jackson realized the ruse and threw himself into the fight. On his knees, he slashed with the razor, his blue eyes cold with determination.

He had the reflexes of a killer.

Lady Bess dragged Enid away from the coffin. The minister exhorted the men to peace. Of the two remaining mourners, one was a footman who ran shrieking from the chapel, calling for help. The other, a maid, plastered herself against the wall.

Holding his ribs, MacLean dodged backward, then lunged at Jackson from the side. Swift as a snake, Jackson sliced the air just above MacLean’s throat. MacLean seized Jackson’s arm again, but he couldn’t win using only one hand. So although it hurt to move, to breathe, MacLean let go of his ribs and punched Jackson in the face with his free hand.

Jackson’s nose broke beneath his fist.

Jackson punched back, aiming right at MacLean’s broken rib. MacLean danced backward, loosing his grip on Jackson’s arm. Jackson slashed again. MacLean kicked out, tripping Jackson. Grabbing the razor arm again, he held Jackson, knowing that if he didn’t win this contest, he would be back in the coffin for good.

They swayed, trying each other in a brief test of strength. Jackson leaned his whole weight toward MacLean. MacLean pressed against Jackson. White powder flaked off MacLean’s face in a shower. Their arms shook from the strain, but MacLean narrowed his eyes at Jackson and smiled. A confident little smile, one to shake his opponent’s confidence. “You’re on my land. You can’t get away.”

Jackson answered with a lunge at MacLean’s throat.

Enid screamed.

But MacLean clutched him still, and that lunge was Jackson’s last big effort.

“You can’t win. Give up,” MacLean said to him. He had just begun to inch Jackson’s arm back, forcing the razor toward Jackson’s throat, when Enid, red-eyed and wild, appeared behind Jackson. Lifting the tall iron candle stand from the altar, she smacked Jackson in the back of the head. The force compelled Jackson forward. The razor sliced MacLean’s throat.

Unconscious, Jackson slithered to the ground.

Wrapping his arm around his middle once more, MacLean stared at Jackson, face bloodied by his nose, the back of his head split.

MacLean touched his own neck, and his fingers came away crimson and sticky with blood. Taking a huge breath, he shouted, “Damn, woman, I was doing fine. Now, thanks to you, I’ve got my throat cut.”

Chapter 27

“You’re welcome!” Enid shouted back. The man was an ungrateful wretch. She didn’t know why she had ever cried for MacLean. She didn’t like him at all. “Why are you holding your chest? You broke your ribs, didn’t you?”

“Not many!”

Pointing to the front pew, she said, “Sit down so I can wrap them.”

Still holding his side, he limped over and eased himself down. “I was winning the fight.”

“None too quickly,” Enid snapped.

Harry looked into the chapel, and hearing the shouting, vanished again.

Turning to the open-mouthed Lady Bess, Enid asked, “Could you get me a long roll of bandages?”

Lady Bess nodded silently.

“And Mother, get someone to pick that piece of trash off the floor.” MacLean pointed to the inert Jackson.

“Right away,” Lady Bess said.

“Fighting in the chapel. In God’s house.” Mr. Hedderwick shook his white-wigged head. “You were always such a good lad, Lord MacLean. What’s happened to you?”

Enid tossed back her veil and considered the old minister. He had seen a man rise from his coffin, and all he could say was that he shouldn’t have fought?

“Mr. Hedderwick, won’t you come with me?” Lady Bess tucked her hand in his arm. “We’ll get bandages for Kiernan’s ribs.” She looked at the gaping serving girl. “We’ll
all
go get bandages for Kiernan’s ribs.”

The serving girl curtsied and scurried down the aisle, racing to tell the others that the MacLean was alive.

“I’ll keep everyone out,” Lady Bess said to MacLean.

“Thank you, Mother.” He bit off the words.

“He wouldn’t be hurt if he hadn’t been scrapping.” Enid heard Mr. Hedderwick’s querulous voice fade as Lady Bess led him from the chapel.

Hands on hips, Enid stood over MacLean. White powder smeared his clothing and unevenly dusted his face. He glared at her and grimaced in pain at the same time. And he was alive. Thank God he was alive. “You weren’t supposed to fight!”

“How the hell else did you think this would end?” MacLean dabbled his fingers at the oozing cut on his throat. “How bad is this?”

She glanced at it. “It’s just a scratch, but I can put a tourniquet on it if you like.” She grinned evilly at the idea of tying a bandage tightly around his neck.

“Funny.”

She handed him her handkerchief. “Press it on the wound.” Without drawing breath, she returned to their argument. “I thought Harry would get him.”

“Because Harry is well enough to fight?”

MacLean’s logic infuriated her. “Then Mr. Kinman.”

“May I remind you, we didn’t know if Kinman was the blackguard and we didn’t tell him I was alive.”

“All right. You’re right! You’re always right.”

Her sarcasm went right over his head. “I wish you’d remember that.”

The serving girl came scurrying back up the aisle, a roll of bandages in her hand. She viewed MacLean as she might view a phantom, handed the bandages to Enid, and backed up the aisle as fast as she could go.

“You could have been hurt,” Enid said.

“I was hurt.”

He was so stupid. “Badly hurt,” she explained. “Killed!”

“Would you have cried for me again?”

She didn’t want to answer that.

With gentle insistence, he asked, “Enid, why were you crying? You knew I wasn’t dead.”

Enid untied his blood-stained cravat. “Ease your shirt off your shoulder.”

“You’re going to have to answer me someday.”

Steadfastly, she ignored him. “Which ribs?”

He must have been in real pain, because he gave up and answered, “I don’t know. It hurts enough to be all of them.”

His bare chest too easily recalled the night before,
and the criss-cross of scars reminded her how close he’d been to death not so long ago—and today. She had to get out of here. Before she cried again. Before she gave in to temptation. Before she ruined her life.

But first . . . kneeling before him, she stroked her fingers over his skin, probing for breaks. She knew she’d found one when he sucked in his breath harshly. He didn’t complain, but she hated to see him so hurt.

In sharp, jerky movements, she searched for the end of the roll of bandages. “At least two are broken. They’ll not hurt so much once you’re bound.”

He put his hands over hers. “I’ve been bound for quite a while, lass, and by you. You just don’t seem to realize it.”

She stilled and muttered, “Don’t.”

“Don’t?” His voice rose again.

Good. It was easier to deal with his anger than his hurt.

He continued, “I spend the night convincing you you belong in my arms, and you say, ‘Don’t’?”

She had reached the end of the roll. “What do you want me to say?”

“Aye! I want you to say aye.”

“To anything you propose?” Leaning into him, she placed the bandage flat on his rib. “Hold that.”

He placed his hand on it. “I’m proposing marriage.”

So he’d said it at last. “Marriage.”

“Marriage. The institution of holy wedlock, wherein our two souls are united for all time.”

Dear God. He spoke words of extravagant passion, words that could have mocked and hurt—and he meant them! He wanted her for his wife, and he saw no shame
in declaring himself in all seriousness. But she . . . she couldn’t marry him. He might pretend to forget her circumstances, now, but no man ever truly forgot.

The strip went over his fingers, holding the end in place. “You called me a bastard.”

“I was angry. I apologized.”

“Let go now.” When he did, she wrapped her arms around him, bandage in hand, and wound the broad strip of cotton around his rib cage. “You asked if I slept with you for money. You called me a whore.”

“I was very angry—and I apologized.”

Her fingers trembled. “So every time you’re angry, you’ll call me a whoring bastard?”

“When I’m angry, I’ll shout and rage, and you’ll shout and rage in return, but I know you’re not a whore, and I don’t care that your parents weren’t married.” He tried to lift her chin so he could look in her eyes.

She jerked away. She would have run, but she was tied to him by a bandage and by words spoken in passion.
I love you
.

“I was hurt. For the first time in months, I knew who I was, and I realized the woman who had guided me through the darkness wasn’t my wife. I feared you’d misled me on purpose. And I couldn’t bear that.” He stroked the side of her neck. “Enid, I was a fool.”

“Yes, you were.” Her lips trembled. She was ready to cry again. Cry over a bit of name-calling done days ago. But MacLean had done the name-calling, and the ache subsided only to rise again.

“I’ll never hurt you like that again. Enid—” He shifted, slid off the seat.

Alarmed, she tried to shove him back into place. “What are you doing?”

“When I apologized, you said you forgave me, but you didn’t forget.” He faced her on the hardwood floor. “So I’ll kneel to beg your pardon.”

“What? No!” Oh, she didn’t want his face so close to hers! “I’m wrapping your ribs.”

“No, you’re not. You’re crying.” With a grimace of pain, he bent to peer into her face.

She whisked the tears away with her free hand.

“I apologize for making such hurtful accusations. In this holy place, in the presence of God, I vow I will never make them again, nor even think them.”

She avoided his gaze.

“To me you are everything that is courageous, compassionate and loving.”

“All right. All right!”
Just stop talking like that. Stop sounding sincere. Stop using words like
vow. “Now sit back on the pew so I can finish your ribs.”

He didn’t stir. “Do you believe me?”

“I believe you. You always tell the truth.” It was almost a failing, the way he always told the truth.

“Do you forgive me?”

Forgive him? Ah, now that . . . that was not easy. But he wasn’t going to give up. Not until she had forgiven him, really forgiven him. And could she? He’d wounded her with his malevolence, driving a stake into a heart made tender with caring. Yet . . . yet when she thought about it, she understood how a man who discovered he’d been lied to about his very identity could lash out in rage. He would never hurt her so again. He had made a vow, and she trusted him to keep it.

She had to take a few breaths before she could answer. “I forgive you.”

“Truly this time?”

“Truly.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Sit up on the pew. I can’t wrap your ribs until you do.”

In a deep, vibrant tone that reminded her of love-making and love-having, he asked again, “Will you marry me?”

And he would ask again and again until she convinced him she would not. She needed to get done and get out of here. “Why me, when you can marry a proper Scottish girl with lots of money and become a proper Scottish laird with proper Scottish children?”

“Because I wouldn’t be happy.”

She waited. At last she realized that that was it. He had decided he would be happy with her. He accepted her as she was, and the doubts and fears that plagued her didn’t exist for him.

She
had
to get out of here. “Sit up on the pew. Please. My knees ache from this floor.”

He did, but he moved carefully like a man in pain.

Pulling the bandage to drive his ribs back in place, she wound with greater briskness. When she got to the end she pulled it tight and tucked it in. “Is that better?”

“So much better.” Before she could rise, he slid his fingers under the veil that drooped down the back of her neck. Lifting her chin with his other hand, he looked into her eyes. “You’re trying so hard to escape me. A normal man might think it was him, but you shout at me, you stand up to me, you cleave to me in glorious passion.”

He gazed at her so solemnly, his beautiful eyes alight with not just possession but some deeper emotion as well. She felt she could sink into his soul and rest there, safe and at one with him, forever.
Forever
. He’d promised forever. She could almost believe him.

On the floor behind them, Jackson groaned.

Enid wrenched herself away from MacLean.

“No!” MacLean tried to catch her but stopped. The moment was gone, and he knew it.

Saved. Enid could scarcely breathe for relief. Jackson’s return to consciousness had saved her from the most frightening, impetuous step she could ever imagine.

“Damn him for a blackguard!” MacLean half-rose. “There’s a coil of rope in the coffin. Hand it to me and I’ll tie him.”

“I can tie a knot,” she said in irritation. The rope had spilled out of the overturned coffin, and without hesitation she tied Jackson’s wrists behind his back, then his wrists to his ankles.

A reluctant smile played about MacLean’s mouth. “Where did you learn that?”

“From Dr. Gerritson. We used to castrate calves.”

When Jackson opened his eyes, MacLean chuckled. “From that look of panic, I’d say Jackson heard you.”

“Good. When I saw that razor in his hand . . .” Her voice shook as she recalled that moment of terror.

MacLean took her hand and stroked it. “A razor is a good choice of weapon for a valet. No one seeing him with it would be suspicious.”

From the floor, Jackson spoke. “I was after the sporran.”

“And you would have slit my throat if you’d known I was still alive,” MacLean said.

Jackson twisted to look up at MacLean. “So the sporran was a trap. There was nothing in there after all.”

With a smile, MacLean said, “But there was.”

Enid’s head snapped up. “What? No!”

“After you suggested we hold the funeral, I began to think. Stephen knew the sporran was my dearest possession, and that I would never let it out of my custody. If he wanted to pass a message to me, he would surely use that sporran somehow.” MacLean smiled grimly. “The blast sealed the clasp, so I slit the seam and turned the sporran inside out.”

Enid understood at once. “The badger skin is tanned leather on the inside.”

“On it, Stephen had written the names of all the spies in England.” MacLean’s smile faded. “Including Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh, the nobles who recommended Jackson for this position.”

Enid remembered the old couple who had been such gossips—who had been such trusted friends of Throckmorton. “Are you saying they’re spies?”

“Very important ones.”

“Have you sent a message to Throckmorton?”

“Last night. He should know by now.” MacLean rose to his feet and strolled over to Jackson. “You tried to kill me, and more important, you tried to kill my lady.”

Instantly, Jackson said, “I didn’t shoot at you in the gallery.”

“Do you really think we’re going to believe that?” Enid exclaimed.

“I set the fire, I stopped the train, I shot at you when you ran to the castle, but I didn’t shoot at you in the gallery.” Jackson wiggled in indignation. “I don’t know who shot at you, but he was a fool.”

With her fingers worrying the black cravat at her throat, Enid said, “Jackson, you had to be the one who fired that shot.” For if he had not, the assassin remained at large, and she—and MacLean—were still in danger.

“If all had remained quiet, you would have dropped your guard, and I”—Jackson glanced up at the narrow-eyed MacLean—“I would have discovered the list.”