The braided silver ring on Ruark’s finger drew his focus as he pondered its relevance to his current state of mind.
For therein lay the crux of his problem.
Whether by seduction or violence, he had not survived as captain of theBlack Dragonand as a man without the power to persuade, influence, or crush. Too much of his life had been spent as a marauder, taking by force that which he could not gain by determination and diplomacy alone.
Including Rose.
The very thing he wanted most had not come to him by her choice or free will. He had taken her first by force at the Abbey, used seduction to get her to the lodge, and in Jedburgh ...
He was a stranger to uncertainty.
Not since he had been a boy had he felt vulnerable to emotions and doubts that were not fueled by anger and hate. He understood the helplessness that came when choice is stripped from your life, when the dictates of others control your fate.
It wasn’t enough that Rose had given him her heart. For he was plagued with the reality that she had not yet found peace, or the home to which she had referred. He didn’t want even a small ember of resentment left inside her.
He only knew that when he was with her, it was as if a hand reached into his heart, removed the dark and cold from his past and let free that which was once inside when he had been a young boy ... before his mother had died, and taken what remained of his world with her.
Lord Hereford’s two emissaries arrived a week later, riding onto Stonehaven land carried by a black coach, drawn by six black horses, the Hereford crest emblazonedon the lacquered door—two swords crossed against a blood-red turret—and eight liveried outriders.
His hair wet with sweat and tied back in a queue, Ruark came from the other side of the house still wearing his fencing gear: thick leather jack that protected his shoulders and chest. Boots. Black leather wrist guards that reached up his forearms. He didn’t bother changing before he strode into the dining hall, where twenty of his clan had followed the carriage through Stonehaven’s gates and dozens of servants had gathered to receive the men. Both men stood nervously against the wall awaiting Ruark’s arrival. Colum remained at the door to see that no one else entered.
The properly bewigged emissaries announced that they had come in the official capacity as representatives of the earl of Hereford, their fancy red velvet coats, gold satin waistcoats and dark orange breeches incongruous in a room filled with bearded, tartan-clad Scotsman. The two made their carefully rehearsed presentation to Ruark then stood back and awaited his reply.
The hall grew silent as everyone turned eyes on him, as if awaiting the word from him to remove Hereford’s two jackals from Stonehaven and have them dipped in tar and feathered. Ruark leaned forward with his hands on the table, his leather jack creaking with the movement. “Just whatexactlydoes Hereford want?”
The elder cleared his throat. “He wants to visit his daughter.”
“Like hell he will.”
“He has brought her a gift. Many gifts, my lord. Her mother’s belongings.”
From the back of the room, he heard a commotion and looked up as Rose came running into the hall, the mumblings of her entry turning everyone’s attention toward thedoor. Before Colum could stop her, she’d swept past him, her skirts hiked to her ankles as she came to a stop below the window, her eyes bright with emotions. Her gaze came to a halt first on him then on her father’s emissaries.
She started forward. He was quicker than she was and stepped around the table and into her path. “Rose ... you should not be in here.”
“But is it true? Did my father send my mother’s things?”
“Yes, my lady,” answered the elder spokesman. “We have brought only a few trunks with us. The rest will be delivered”—dark eyes turned to Ruark—“as soon as Lord Roxburghe agrees on an arrangement.”
Her eyes turned to Ruark. Again the elder spoke, “Your mother’s belongings, my lady. He thought you would want to have them.”
To his disbelief, Ruark saw that after all her father had put her through, this would be the thing to put hope in her eyes.
And Ruark struggled with the burning awareness of his emotions sweeping through his veins worse than fire.
Worse than yesterday, when no one could locate her for half the day, and he had finally found her at the falls with Duncan—Duncan!—her herb basket looped over her forearm as his uncle cut lichen off the upper reaches of a tree for her. Enjoying herself as if she had not a care in the world, as if he had not asked her to stay away from his uncle.
And Ruark knew then that he loved her beyond all reason, and his anger had come as equally from jealousy as it had from fear for her.
Then she made them sit down together and share lunch with her.
He could no more destroy the hopefulness in her eyesnow than he could yesterday. Though in the end, he and his uncle had talked and perhaps even begun to heal, he saw no similar good ending here. She would know that.
But Hereford had found his single weakness.
Yet, with a nod to Angus, Ruark sent him to deliver the trunks to his wife’s chambers.
Mrs. Simpson smoothed the hair from Rose’s damp cheeks. She sat on the floor, her pink-petal skirts spread around her, her head in Mrs. Simpson’s lap as the elder gently spoke.
