The Great Scottish Devil (6 page)

“My body wants you, too, Brodie. You are experienced in dealing with desire, I am not.” She muttered something about impossible men. “I try not to watch you, not to desire your touch. Truly I do.”

As he faced her in exasperation, she gave him a pleading look, “Please, just let me leave here. It would be best for both of us.”

He fought down the urge to go back to her and sweep her into his arms. His body desired to take her to his bed, to drive deep into her. He, too, tried not to watch her, yet he did. He tried not to think about touching her, but he did. For the first time in his life—that he remembered, anyway—he was having a difficult time dealing with desire.

“I canna let ye go off alone. I will search harder fer a mon worthy of ye, Anna.” But it wouldn’t be Angus Gordon. There was something in the way the man looked at her that bothered Brodie, something more than the hunger he’d seen in the man’s eyes. It was a gut feeling, but he didn’t trust the man. At least not with Annabel.

He heard her grumbled agreement and he strode with grim determination toward the bailey. His life was so very complicated at the moment.

It only got more complicated. He hadn’t gone far when a guard on the wall called down to him. “Riders approach, My Laird. They wave a flag, probably bringing a message.”

Brodie steeled himself for news coming to him. “Let them in.”

Men who were walking from the keep back to the practice field stopped to await the arrival of strangers. Villagers walking about the area for one reason or another hesitated out of curiosity as well. He was certain Annabel wasn’t far behind him, waiting, too.

All too soon three riders bearing colors and heraldry he didn’t recognize passed over the wooden drawbridge and rode directly to where he stood. The front man leaned down to offer Brodie a rolled up parchment he’d pulled from a bag attached to his saddle.

“Ye may seek food and drink in the keep,” Brodie automatically offered the expected kindness.

With nods of acceptance, they dismounted and a couple of his young pages hurried over to take their horses. Knowing he couldn’t wait any longer, he unrolled the parchment. Annabel had managed to move to his side but she allowed him to read the message himself, though he suspected it was difficult for her not to look at the message as well.

The words he read were expected. His stomach knotted anyway. “Lady Stonewall should arrive in a day or two,” he told Annabel dully, speaking loud enough that many people nearby also heard him. It was both a relief and yet another problem.

“’Tis good, this.” He heard the false happiness in Annabel’s tone and understood it.

“Good or not, she comes.”

He looked up and already the news of his betrothed’s arrival was spreading. He saw mixed emotions upon his people’s faces, many of them glancing woefully at Annabel. But all knew he was expected to marry a woman King Edward had chosen for him. He just hoped they would be fair to Lady Stonewall when she arrived. It wasn’t her fault that Annabel had gotten here before her and already won their hearts.

Annabel turned away without another word. Her shoulders were slumped as he watched her walk quietly back toward the paddocks. She spent a lot of time each day doing this or that with her tinker’s wagon. He imagined she would do some sulking there now. Each time he looked at the wagon he wanted to order it dismantled. All too soon she would leave Urquhart, leave him. Even though he could offer her nothing else, he hated the idea of not seeing her every day. He’d become accustomed to her presence.

Heart heavy with resignation, he carried the parchment that changed his life forever into the keep. He needed time alone. He’d go to the solar and try to come to terms with this news. It was more important than ever that he find Annabel a suitable husband. He began going over, again, in his mind the unmarried men in his clan, in his group of soldiers, and in the unmarried men from the village. None met the requirements he’d set in his mind for her. Mayhap he needed to re-think some of the requirements. But he would not consider Angus Gordon any longer.

Annabel felt a soul-deep ache as she crawled into the back of her wagon.
Brodie’s betrothed will arrive in a day or so. Oh, God!
While she’d known the woman was coming, the reality of her arriving so soon was truly heartbreaking. She wished she’d never met him. No! No, she didn’t wish that. She would remember him always. The first man who had won her foolish heart, who had made her experience the first hints of what a woman feels for a man she is attracted to.

Tears streamed down her face and she sniffled. How could she bear seeing another woman come here to marry her dear Lord Devil? Hadn’t she already suffered enough with the loss of her father? But Dougal Henderson hadn’t raised a weak daughter. She’d bounced back after the terrible loss of her mother. Well, maybe not “bounced.” She’d accepted the loss and gone on. Yet she’d had her father’s shoulder to cry on, him to share her misery with. Now she had no one. And, Dear God, it both hurt and terrified her to be so alone.

She tried to bury the pain of losing a man she really hadn’t had anyway, Brodie. She put her mind to once more sorting through the trinkets, ribbons, threads, and medicinals stored in various wooden boxes in the wagon bed. Each item she touched reminded her of her parents. They’d so loved traveling all over and selling their wares. She had, too, for the most part. But secretly, she longed for a place to settle in. She wanted a husband who would love her and that she could love back. She wanted children. She wanted Brodie.

Stop it! There are many good men. You will find one who has far less problems in his life than Brodie Durward
. She would be prepared to leave the second Brodie would allow it. No! She didn’t have to wait for him to “allow” her to leave. She would stay—at the most—another week. If he didn’t find her a suitable husband as he was determined to search for, and she couldn’t find one on her own, she would leave anyway.

Her thoughts turned to Angus Gordon. The redheaded Scot was a handsome man, but not nearly as fine looking as Brodie. She’d never been overly drawn to red hair, though his was thick and wavy. Still, Brodie’s deep mahogany hair worn tied back made her want to pull the leather string from it, made her want to thread her fingers through it. And it was Brodie’s lips that called to her.

Annabel blew out a huff. She had to stop thinking about Brodie all the time. He hadn’t wanted her here, but he’d insisted she come with him and his men. He’d refused to let her continue on her tinker’s route by herself. He’d sworn to find her a husband to travel with. In truth, she hadn’t been ready then to go off by herself. But she was stronger now. She needed to get going soon. These last few nights when she’d longed to be with Brodie, she’d tried to force him from her dreams. She’d instead gone over and over the route her family had always taken as they wove their way around the Highlands this time of year. There were many stops she needed to make before the weather turned bad. Continuing on this late, she might have to cut out some of the stops in order to head back down toward the area around Bath in England where her family and other tinkers usually spent the winter.

She sighed and glanced out the back of the wagon. She was going to miss Urquhart and its people. So many of them had befriended her in the short amount of time she’d been here. And the beautiful Loch Ness… She would miss watching the mist rise from it in the early morns and dance across it at night.

Angus Gordon
. They were to walk this night around the bailey. Her heart wasn’t really in that, but she would make an effort. Mayhap if they got to know each other better, something could develop between them. Well, she had already noted that he lusted after her. When he’d lifted her down from the wagon earlier, she had seen the heat in his eyes as she’d faced him. It had made her feel uneasy. It was a different kind of uneasiness than when she noticed Brodie’s awareness of her. Something seemed off about Angus’s interest in her. But it was probably just that she was so inexperienced being around men. Her father had guarded her like a hawk, especially this last year.

Her hand moved up to smooth across her short, chin-length hair. She hadn’t really minded when her father had wanted her to cut off her waist-length hair since it had been so hot and such a bother to take care of anyway. But then he’d started suggesting she wear braies and a boy’s shirt instead of dresses when they arrived at a village or at a castle. Again, she hadn’t minded, except that she’d started feeling more like a young man than a young woman. When she mentioned her feelings about the matter, he’d always smiled gently at her, saying he only wanted to protect her, but he’d never said why he wanted to do so.

She swiped at sweat beading on her forehead and decided she’d been here as long as she could stand it. Just as she started to turn back toward the rear of the wagon, she noticed the leather pouch her father had never let her look inside. It was tucked in the corner behind a couple of boxes holding fabrics. He’d always said it was just held some notes he made about the items they sold, nothing of importance for her to worry about. Since she was the one in charge of everything now, she decided it was time for her to see what kind of notes they were. Decide if she should start making notes of the saleable items as well. Not for the first time in her life she was glad her father had insisted on teaching both her and her mother to read and write.

Pulling the pouch out, she untied the leather string around it and reached inside. Paper crinkled at her touch. After a second she withdrew several yellowed pieces of parchment. Curious, she smoothed them out, looking quickly over the first two items. The ink scratches were indeed about the various notions they sold, but the pages were nearly unreadable.

Her back aching from being bent over for so long, she sat on one of the bigger boxes with the last piece of parchment. Again, the ink writing was difficult to read. She strained to make out the words, tried to understand what she read. All she saw were a few odd ramblings.
Katherine worries that we should take our precious Anna to… Braden would have forgotten… Ala…vow to kill Anna…

Annabel held the parchment with trembling hands, felt lightheaded from what she had read. Not that she understood any of it. But… Secrets. Who was Braden? Was this “Ala…” the man her father had tried to warn her about as he lay dying before her? Someone wanted to kill her?
Kill her
!

Fear of the unknown curled through her. Breathing was nearly impossible with her heart racing. She needed to know more, but there wasn’t anyone to ask. Her parents had spent the winters around other tinkers, yet they’d kept mainly to themselves. What should she do? What
could
she do?

“Annabel?” Brodie’s deep voice rumbled from somewhere outside the wagon, surprising her. “Annabel, are ye in here? I wish to speak with ye. I’ve found another man fer ye to meet.”

“Nay!” she protested. “I have other matters on my mind now. Go away.”

Of course, he didn’t. He stuck his head into the back of the wagon and frowned in displeasure. “What matters?”

Without thinking it through, she handed him the wrinkled parchment she’d been reading. As he took it, she tried to grab it back. “Nay! ‘Tis private. I was not thinking straight.”

But, stubborn man that he was, he held it out of her reach and looked it over. His brow furrowed when he glanced up. “Who is this Braden?” His expression hardened to the fierce warrior she knew many feared to face on the battlefield. “What means this ‘vow to kill Anna’?”

Kill Anna
. Hearing him say it aloud only made it more horrible. “I…I understand none of it,” she answered, her voice trembling. She looked at him and reached with a nervous hand for the parchment. “Da tried to warn me about an Ala… as he spoke his last words. He did not tell me his full name. I do not even know if that was part of the man’s first name, his last, or even if it referred to a man at all.”

Instead of giving her the paper, Brodie took hold of her arm and pulled her to him. He lifted her from the wagon as if she weighed no more than the piece of parchment. His mighty arms swept around her and he held her tight. Oddly, she wasn’t sure if it was for her comfort or for his. It didn’t matter; she welcomed the warmth and strength of him.

“No one will harm ye,” he said in a fierce growl. “No one.”

“Except you,” she whispered, trying to get free.

Suddenly he released her and stepped back, moaning, putting his hands to the sides of his head. His face darkened with pain. “God’s teeth!”

“Brodie, what’s wrong?” Annabel flew at him and put her small hands to his cheeks. Her heart raced in worry. All thoughts of him hurting her, or of needing to get as far from him as possible, fled. “What can I do?”

The color had bleached from his tanned face and his eyes were glazed over when he looked at her. “’Twas something about the name Braden,” he gasped out.

She gently held his cheeks, wishing she could do something, anything, for him. “A memory, you mean?” While he continued to grimace and hold his head, she pressed, “Are memories starting to come back to you? Has this happened before?”

“Aye.” He nodded and seemed to feel better. The grimace of pain faded. “In the long months I’ve tried to bring back memories, I couldna. Until I met ye.”

Annabel blinked in confusion. “How can I have anything to do with your memories? We’ve never met before.”

She picked up the parchment he had dropped and jammed it next to some boxes. Then she reached for his hand, determined to take him back to the keep. The cook acted as the castle’s healer. She hoped the kind older woman could help him in some way. But he shook off her touch.

Miffed, she said, “I was only going to…” She stopped speaking when she caught the heat in his eyes. Curious, she glanced down and saw his kilt pushing out again. “’Twas a simple touch. You picked me up, held me, yet I cannot even hold your hand? Have you no control at all, my lord?”

Her scowling Scottish laird was back. “I was frightened fer ye at first. When I calmed down… Nay, apparently I have no control. We canna touch. ‘Tis too dangerous.”