Never in her life had she drank anything so crudely from a bottle, but good manners had no place here, she supposed.
Not with this man, who sat on afelled tree in a forest, looking like he wanted to either strangle her or wrestle her to the ground and have his way with her.
“Before I’m done with you,” he said with grim resolve, “I’llmake you see that your English officers in their fancy red coats can be just as savage as any Scot in a kilt.”
She was taken aback, shaken by such an image, but the sound of approaching hooves interrupted any further discussion. She lowered the jug and spotted Gawyn and Fergusgallopingacross the glade toward them.
The Butcher stood, seized the wine from her hands, and walked toward them. “I thought you’d never get here,” he said broodingly. “I need to take a piss.”
With that, he shouldered past her, heading toward a dense grove of conifers.
“What do you want us to do with her?” Fergus shouted after him.
“I’m sure you’llfigure something out,” the Butcher replied, not bothering to look back before he disappeared into the curtain of branches.
Fergus leaped off his horse and smiled crookedly. Gawyn dismounted and stood behind her. She felt completely surrounded.
Suddenly it was quiet.Tooquiet. Even the leaves in the treesseemed to be holding their collective breaths.
Wishing the Butcher had not chosen this, ofallmoments, to leave her alone, she turned to face the others. And then, as if matters weren’t already unpleasant enough, Angus came thundering out of the bush at afullgal op. He swung himself to the ground, quickly recovering from the momentum of his charge with a few heavy, pounding footsteps across the grass, which brought him face-to-face with Amelia.
Hands clenched into fists at her sides, she did her best to be brave while the three fierce Highlanders surrounded her. It was not an easy task, however, when two of them looked like they wanted to eat her alive and the third looked ready to slice her in half.
Chapter Five
Duncan sat down on a boulder at the water’s edge, took another sip of wine, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Head bowed down, he wished there were enough booze left in the jug to get thoroughly soused, but even if there were, it would do him no good. There was no escaping what plagued him.
He’d thought it wouldallbe over by now and that today he would return to that quietness he’d once known, before this war began. It was an internal calm he had taken for granted and perhaps neverfully appreciated.
But life didn’t always proceed according to plan, he had discovered. If it did, he would not be sitting on this cold rock with a half-empty jug of wine in his hand, his hair hanging loose in his face, while he struggled over what to do with a stubborn and impossibly beautiful woman who was devoted to his mortal enemy.
No, not just devoted. She was in love with him.
God, how he hated her for defending that monster. Yet when he woke up in the cave that morning, his desire for her was considerable, and for the second time he had had to crush the urge to flip her over onto her back and simply take her. He’d wanted to bury himself in her depths and prove that she was no longer his enemy’s property. She was his now, because he had stolen her away.
But that violent need to conquer and possess was more than a little disturbing to him—for his contempt of men who used such force upon women was the very reason he was hunting Richard Bennett in the first place.
Duncan took another swig of the wine and watched the water flow cleanly around the rocks in the stream.
Perhaps this vile hurricane of wrath inside him was a fate he would never escape. He was, afterall, the bastard son of a whore, and his father had been a cruel brute. Fierce passions and uncontrollable vengeance ran in his blood.
He had never questioned it before, but everything was more complicated today—because he had never had such trouble resisting a woman. Most Scottish lassies were fair game, and if anything, he was the one fightingthemoff. But this haughty, infuriating Englishwoman who despised him—and rightly so—reminded him that he was a man with hearty sexual desires. Politics and vengeance had nothing to do with it.
At least the others had arrived in time just now; otherwise he might not be sitting here sipping wine and watching the water flow. He might instead be back in the clearing, shaking some sense into the lady,spelling out, word for word, the gruesome details about her precious beloved. Giving her a lesson or two aboutvillainsand heroes.
He tipped the jug back and drank thirstily, then rubbed the heel of his hand insmallcircles over his chest to ease the ache that had suddenly lodged itself there.
He wondered if Bennett knew how lucky he was, to have the affections of a woman such as Lady Amelia. Not that he deserved her love, oranywoman’s love, for that matter.
What he deserved was to have his fiancée ripped out of his world, severed from his life, quickly and harshly, without warning or any chance of restoration.
An eye for an eye.
Duncan lifted his head, accepted the heavy descent of his foul mood like a pounding hammer in his brain, and took another swig of wine.
* * *
Amelia wanted to run but felt as if her muscles had turned to stone. She was so terrified, she couldn’t move or speak or breathe. Angus, the blond one, stood in front of her, feet braced apart, his face a mere inch from hers—so close, she could feel the rapid beat of his breath on her cheeks. A sudden breeze gusted across the treetops and swirled around the glade, and her heart drummed against her rib cage.
