“The Duke of Dunncraigh would pay good blunt to get hold of her,” Brendan insisted. “She’s a new herd of sheep, all the tithes we’ve missed paying, and enough lumber to repair every cottage on the property.”
Graeme closed his eyes for a moment, still willing all of this to go away. “Where’d ye get her? We’ll put her back, let someone else find her, and be done with it.”
“She saw Connell, and she knows his name because the duckling told her. He told her my name, too.”
A large tear ran down the eight-year-old’s cheek. “Are the English going to hang me, Graeme? Brendan said I should bring her to the back of the inn. He made me do it!”
The inn.“Ye took her from the Cracked Hearth? Ye load of half-wits! Yer wagon tracks’ll lead them directly to our front door.”
“Nae. They willnae,” Brendan protested. “We spent an hour driving all over the countryside. Nae a man can track us, and the Sassenach has nae idea how far she is from the road.”
His jaw clenched so hard it creaked, Graeme took a half step back. “Go sit in the front room,” he finally ground out. “Dunnae speak, dunnae look at each other, dunnae go anywhere else. After I figure oot what to do with her, I reckon I’ll see to the three of ye. Until then, nae a damned word. Now nod at me that ye ken what I’m telling ye, and go.”
One by one they nodded and stomped off to the morning room, Brendan at the back and still looking as angry as he did concerned. All the sixteen-year-old saw, though, was the brilliant plan he’d laid out. As usual, the idea of consequences completely eluded him.
The consequences didnotelude Graeme, however. The female knew two of his brothers’ names, and at the least, the name of the inn from where she’d been taken. She might have people out looking for her already. Letting her go or handing her to her brother would both cause a tremendous degree of trouble for both him and his brothers with the law—if any sane man could call possible imprisonment or being transported for life merely “trouble”—but if the Maxwell heard about any of it, all the Maxton lads would be banished from the clan, and he could well find himself at the bottom of the nearest loch and his siblings vanished.
The alternative would be to do as Brendan planned and hand her over to the Duke of Dunncraigh. God knew what would happen to her if he did so, not to mention the outcome for Lattimer and all the Maxwells—former Maxwells, since Dunncraigh had banished the lot of them from the clan—on Lattimer’s land, though he had more than a hunch that it wouldn’t be anything pleasant. Dunncraigh wanted to own Lattimer Castle and its ten thousand acres, and this would give him a way to do so.
As Brendan had said, the Maxtons would benefit from aiding their clan chief. A bit of relief from debt, the prospect of making a profit from wool and crop sales and not having it immediately eaten by upkeep and taxes. He couldn’t even imagine it. All that in exchange for a spoiled aristocrat with whom he had no connection, and certainly owed no kindness. Hell, this would likely be the most good she’d ever done anyone else in her entire life.
Graeme faced the door again, then resumed pacing instead. Whatever the devil he meant to do next, he needed to do it soon.
***
More stomping, heavier and angrier—if bootsteps could sound angry—than before. Marjorie took a deep breath. Being tricked by a young boy certainly wasn’t her fault; any true lady would of course offer assistance to a child in need. But those weren’t the footsteps of boys, now. And disbelief, affront, or annoyance no longer felt adequate. Boys, or not, this was unacceptable. Now, sitting in a hard chair with her hands bound and a smelly sack over her head, she didn’t feel simply put out, the victim of some naughty boys’ prank. With those last bootsteps, this stopped being a rare misadventure and became very, very serious.
At least she’d managed to slip the awful cloth off her mouth, so she no longer felt half suffocated and completely helpless. If she had her voice, she had something. Not much, because both her hands and arms were growing numb, but more than she’d had ten minutes earlier.
“Steady,” she whispered to herself. Yes, she knew how to be polite and proper and appropriate. Evidently those very things were what had gotten her into this mess. But losing her wits now certainly wouldn’t help anything. Because that last, angry pair of boots didn’t belong to any boy, and she couldn’t keep pretending that she was having a very bad dream.
The door creaked open, and the footsteps entered the room, clattered around a bit, then retreated again to the entry. She held her breath, listening for anything that could give her a clue about who seemed to be standing there, staring at her. The silence, though, dragged on for what felt like hours.
“Whatever this is,” she finally said, trying to keep her tone calm and civilized despite the very uncivil circumstances, “I assure you that my main interest is being returned to the Cracked Hearth Inn and my carriage. The rest doesn’t signify.”
“It doesnae signify toye,yer highness,” a low-pitched, very Scottish voice replied, “but it damned well signifies to me.”
“I’m not royalty,” she returned, seizing on those words. The young men had known her name, but if this was a case of mistaken identity, well, thank heavens. “I’m just—”
“I ken who ye are, Lady Marjorie Forrester,” he interrupted. “Sister of the Duke of Lattimer, the man most hated in these parts by the chief of clan Maxwell. And that’s where ye are, lass. In the heart of Maxwell territory.”
Her heart stammered. Had she stumbled into a war? Her brother was quite fond of battle, after all. “If you know who I am, sir, then you also know that my brother is not someone with whom one trifles. And he would not look favorably on anyone who harmed his sister.”
“Andthat,yer highness, is precisely my problem.” Three fast footsteps moved toward her, and then the sack yanked free of her head.
She wanted to look. She wanted to see who’d ordered that boy to trick her into wandering off, and then tied her up and dragged her off… somewhere. But Marjorie shut her eyes tight. “If you’re worried about trouble, then make certain I can’t see you,” she said. “Just drop me by the roadside, and we can forget this ever happened.”
The silence seemed to drag on forever. “Ye saw my brother, lass,” he finally returned. “And ye know the names of two of them. That’s the rub. Seeing me should be the least of yer worries.”
“I won’t tell,” she insisted, putting every ounce of sincerity she possessed into those three words.
“I’m nae willing to risk my family’s necks on the word of a Sassenach,” he said. “Especially one accustomed to having her own way. Open yer damned eyes. Ye look ridiculous.”
If there was one thing worse than being ignored, it was being called ridiculous. “You and your brothers kidnapped me,” she retorted. “Don’t expect me to take your criticisms seriously.” With that Marjorie opened her eyes—and her heart stopped beating. A lion—a lion god—leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest.
A mane of dark brown hair shot through with deep red hung almost to his shoulders, stray strands half covering one eye and not at all lessening the impact of steel gray looking directly back at her. His nose was straight, his mouth spare and unyielding. And unsympathetic. She’d once seen a lion in the Tower of London, and the way he’d gazed at her—the undisputed king languidly sizing up a gazelle and deciding whether she was worth devouring or not—had made her shudder. And she shuddered now.
For heaven’s sake he was big; tall, broad-shouldered, and looking like he could lift a horse over his head. She would have been willing to wager that everything beneath that worn shirt and coat and those buckskin trousers was muscle.Think,she ordered herself. This was not the time for ogling like some schoolgirl, however striking this man’s appearance.
