“I’m not referring to them.” She reached up to caress his jaw. “I’m talking about you.”
His head shook to the side beneath her palm. “Ye’ll have my brothers and Temple wi’ ye. That’s more than I might have hoped for.”
“They are not you. I told you I will always choose you.” She laced her fingers through his hair and lifted her lips to his ear. “I love you, Connor.”
His arms crushed her to him. “Mo chridhe, I love ye, too. Naught I’ve ever done in my life has mattered more than ye. Be safe.”
“No…”
But he was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
“What is it about those MacKintosh men?” Temple queried lightly as she stared after Connor, into nothing. “Even the devil doesn’t have such luck.”
“How can you jest at a time like this?”
He clasped her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Who’s joking?”
“What the bloody hell is going on here?” Connor’s voice boomed from down the drive. “Dinnae gawp at me like a buggering fish. I asked ye a question. Ye! Come here.”
“That’s our cue.”
With no choice left to her, Piper sprinted down the lane to the east with Temple on her heels. Leaving Dinton Grange, and Connor, behind.
* * *
“I dinnae gi’ a damn if the bloody Messiah himself gave ye yer orders,” Connor blustered, flinging his arms wide and making as much of a spectacle of himself as he could to keep the attention of the dozen armed men gathered outside the front door.
When had so many of them arrived? Or had they been here since yesterday scouring the area for Piper? Either way, a thorough sweep was definitely about to be launched. With any luck, he could stall them long enough for Temple and Piper to get to his brothers.
“The duke’s paying us to find his woman,” one of them protested.
His woman. The words seared his temper like a fiery brand.
“I’ll gi’ ye a pound sterling to cease yer havering, ye riddy glaikit. Rutledge isnae in charge here. I am.”
Connor strode down the front steps, knocking aside the rifle one of the men held at the ready. “Point that thing somewhere else. I’ve already lost sleep because of ye, dinnae make me demonstrate how bloody pissed I am.”
“His grace’ll not like this,” one of them muttered.
“Then by all means, let’s wake him as well and I’ll make my point directly to him, aye?” He swept a vicious glance around the group. “Who’s wi’ me? Ye? Ye?”
A burly fellow at the rear of the group made a comment regarding the size of Connor’s bollocks, and Connor savored a moment of relief as they all stepped back and lowered their weapons. Nothing like a mad man to make even the worst thug wary.
“Disturb my rest again and I’ll have the lot of ye facing a firing squad come the dawn.” Outrage, having worked so well, appeared to be his best course of action. As the duke saw him as nothing more than a blustering Scotsman, it wouldn’t hurt to let his opinion sink even lower. “And get those men off the lawns. They’ll upset my goats.”
“Your goats?”
“Aye, my bloody goats. Ye want a search, let’s get to it.” He snapped his fingers under the man’s nose, enjoying its startling effect. “Sooner it’s begun, the sooner it will be done. Now move.”
Connor stormed back inside, hoping he’d created enough of a stir for Temple to whisk Piper away to safety. The greater question remained, however.
How was he to follow?
He’d created commotion enough to wake the rest of the household. Windows without and doorways within illuminated as the sky lightened to shades of pink and amethyst. Servants and more guards stumbled into the foyer. Mrs. Davies hung back at the end of the service hall in a nightcap and quilted robe, with one arm around the cook’s shoulders. Her eyes were wide, fraught with more emotion than he had yet to see her display.
“Now see here…” Another of the duke’s men came raging into the room.
“Nay, ye see here,” Connor thundered, grabbing the man by the lapels and throwing him up against the wall. “Ye’ve upset my morning over some wayward chit and I’ll no’ have it.”
