“Because you seem very sure of yourself,” she said to Duncan shakily.
He paused and staredat her for a long, tension-filled moment until the impatience in his eyes slowly faded into something else—something reluctant and melancholy.
“I saw her head in a box,” he said. “And there was a note, describing what happened, and why.”
Feeling sick and dizzy, Amelia placed her hand on her stomach. “And what was the reason? I must know.”
He lowered his eyes and gripped the hilt of his sword. “I’m going to satisfy your curiosity, lass, only because I’m sure that once you hear the truth, you’lllearn to hold your tongue and keep quiet—especial y in front of Angus.”
She waited, breath held, for Duncan’s next words.
“Muira’s death was a punishment meant for Angus’s father, who is a powerful clan chief, a celebrated warlord, and a persistent, outspoken Jacobite. He was the one who raised the army that fought at Sherrifmuir, and he was also the one who shot your father down on the battlefield.”
Amelia flinched. She had nothing to do with any of this—
she hated war andkilling—yet she was caught up in this tangled and dirty web of vengeance, as theyallwere. “You think Richard wanted revenge … because of me?”
Duncan removed a pistol from a saddle pouch and slipped it into his belt. “I don’t know the answer to that.allwe know is that Angus’s father was standing over yours with his sword in the air, about to strike the deathblow, when your fiancé came riding out of the gunsmoke and clobbered him.
Weeks later, Angus’s sister was dead and evidently your father was approving your engagement.”
“So you think he saved my father’s life to secure his own rise.”
“Aye.”
“Do you believe also that my father was involved in this woman’s death?”
“Nay. Your father was a good man. I know he was fair. I do not suspect him of such treachery.”
She breathed a heavy sigh. “But you do not feel that way about Richard.”
Duncan shook his head.
Amelia tipped her head back and looked up at the gray sky—a perfect circle framed by the treetops.
“I don’t know what to say aboutallthis.”
She could make no sense of her feelings. She was in shock and felt very lost. The one man she believed would come to her rescue like a knight in shining armor was in fact being accused of horrendous acts of villainy.
“I feel very naïve,” she continued. “I trusted my father to choose a husband for me, but now I must accept that his judgment may have been flawed. Who, then, do I trust? Who do I believe in?”
Duncan strode toward her. “You rely on your own judgment, lass. No one else’s.”
Shepulledher gaze from the sky overhead and regarded his concerned expression. There was wisdom in his words, she knew it, but what seemed more relevant at the moment was the faint light of compassion she saw in his eyes, aswellas the heavy beating of her own heart. She regarded him with curious wonder, let her eyes roam over the features of his face, and felt as if he understood what she was feeling.
He looked away, toward the trees. A muscle clenched in his jaw; his chest expanded with a deep intake of breath.
Amelia stood rapt, stricken by the need to know—what was he thinking?
He moved closer. “You have much to learn about the world, lass.”
More than ever, Amelia was shaken out of her comfortable,well-planned existence and had to accept that he was right, for none of this fit into her sheltered and clearly deficient realm of experience.
Then he reached out to her, and for some reason she was not afraid as he brushed his thumb across her lips. His eyes roamed over her face, a bird chirped in the treetops, then he leaned forward and gently touched his mouth to hers.
It was surprisingly comforting, which made no sense to her. No sense atall.
She immediatelypulledaway and backed up a few steps, but hefollowed.allher senses began to hum, and she felt as if she were dissolving. She couldn’t think.
