Highlander Mine (26 page)

I felt heartless, in that moment, and so very torn. I felt my eyes burn, but I held back the tears.

Knox then took a very different approach. He smoothed my hair with his hand. “Amelia. I know I have acted rashly. Irresponsibly, even. Something I have never done. I was blinded by my desire for you, and for that I refuse to feel regret or remorse. I love you. I do. I don’t care about your upbringing, or your past, whatever it involves. I don’t care that I’ve known you for only weeks. I don’t care that you lied to me.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “I—”

“I understand why you did it,” he said. “I thought about it this morning. As I was climbing down your homemade rope, as it happened. You cheated in order to help feed your family, is it not so?”

I stared at his extraordinary face, framed as it was by the shock of his rich black hair. “Aye,” I said.

“I’ve killed men to protect my family and I would do it again without hesitation. I would steal, cheat and certainly lie if it meant keeping any one member of my family or clan out of harm’s way. There’s no shame in that.”

Much of my association with Knox Mackenzie had been all about my futile grasp to be on equal footing with him. He was a laird and a leader, born and bred to not only act on but embody the complex intricacies and high expectations of his role. His lairdship was not only his job but his entirety. It clung to him and emanated from the set of his shoulders. It was written in his posture and sculpted into his form. It shone out of his eyes.

And here, after all my frustrations in the face of his overblown power, was a new discovery. He was informed and experienced. He was philosophically in tune with struggle and survival. And he was using all of this vast wisdom to
comfort
me. Not to disparage me. To guide me and help me.

“You’ve grown up in the backstreets through no fault of your own. You feel this way of life has become your identity. But it has not. I can see your worth, lass. You’re clever, as sharp as a knife blade. You were born to teach. And you have spirit. I have no doubt that whatever you aim to pursue in life will become yours for the taking, once you get your bearings.”

My perceptions felt shady, unreliable. After all the angst I had learned to bear over my upbringing and my circumstance, here he was, sweeping away the river of despair with a single empathetic exoneration. I was shocked by this. And indescribably heartened.

He understood me. And he forgave me.

“Not only that,” he continued, and his voice was roughened from some emotion I couldn’t define. “Every time I look at you, I think for a moment you might be a mirage, a fabrication of my own mind. Your fiery spark and your lively beauty surpass anything I might ever have imagined.”

“My beauty is
nothing
compared to yours,” I heard myself say.

“Then again, if I were to fabricate the ideal woman,” he mused huskily, “I might have made her just a touch less argumentative.”

I was quite literally speechless, from all that he had confessed, and all that he was offering.

“I felt myself come alive again when you walked into my life, lass.
Alive,
as I’ve never, ever felt alive. I want more of it. I want more of you. I want you to be my wife. This lonely wretch asks for your hand. Please. Please marry me.”

This was more than I could bear, truly. I felt my entire outlook shift. Powerfully.

Misconstruing my silence for doubt, he continued. With each word I fell deeper and more irrevocably in love with the man, until my heart might have seeped out of me and into a puddle on the already wet floor of the boat. “I love your smile,” he said, his voice rasped with emotion. “It lights up my world. I want you with me each day because you make me happier than I ever thought I could possibly be. I’ll take such good care of you. I promise to. I’ll cherish you, and love you as you deserve to be loved. You’ll have everything you could wish for. You’ll want for nothing, ever. I’ll move heaven and earth to make all your dreams come true. I’ll use all the resources within my grasp—which are considerable—to ensure that you are inundated with lavish finery of every description under the sun.”

By this time, the tears were trickling in warm lines down my face. I was holding tightly on to him, even though the waves had calmed. I didn’t care about
this
vulnerability. His beauty, of heart and soul, was opening me, changing me. “You don’t need to do that last one,” I whispered. “I have simple tastes.”

A little furrow appeared between his eyebrows, the one that creased there when I confused him. But then he smiled.
That
smile. The one that broke my heart every time he granted it. I wanted to keep it, keep him, just like that.

“My tastes are basic and somewhat lewd, in fact, I’m afraid,” I added, to ease any and every anguish he possessed.

He laughed lightly, the sound laced with relief. He held my hand to his cheek. “Aye,” he said. “I know of your lewd tastes. Shocking, you are.”

“Lurid, even, from time to time.”

He looked down at me and his eyes were glittering. “Does this mean aye?” he asked.

How to handle this? How to keep him and keep him
safe
while I attempted to find my sister and fight off Sebastian Fawkes? I felt a boiling anger at the thought, more than ever before. Very suddenly, there was much more at stake than just my own happiness, which had always felt small and unimportant before. Not that I had minded that. It was how things were, and what I was used to. I found joy along the way, in unexpected places and in small threads of each day, where I could. The look on Hamish’s face when I read his stories to him. The successful swindle of a hapless cad out of some of his money. The jingle of the coins in my pocket as I walked. The feel of a book as I leafed through its pages. There was happiness to be found between the lines when you looked closely enough.

But
this.

This was bigger than me. This was a chance to live a life that was good and decent, built on love. This was a chance to embrace happiness on a scale that I had never before imagined. Not just for me. For Knox. For his clan and a hopeful future. It seemed wasteful not to at least fight for the possibility with everything I had.

My arms curled around his neck and I gently pulled his head down to me. “Aye,” I said, kissing him. “Aye. I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you.”

His strong arms folded around me, crushing me to his great, hard form as his mouth took mine in an aggressive, erotic, brain-demolishing kiss. He was whispering love words in that eloquent, unreserved way he had that was such a departure from the staunch, authoritative shell of his public persona. “You are luscious and sweet and irresistible.” His hands roved over the bodice of my dress, fondling and gripping. “You are a sunny day and a moonlit night. A perfect flower.” So intimate, it was, and so endearing.
Mine,
I thought, loving him all the more for giving this part of himself to me, for letting his guard down.
This part of him is mine.

* * *

A
ND
SO
IT
WAS
.
I was now Knox Mackenzie’s betrothed who could be carrying his child—a child that would inherit the title of Laird or Lady of Kinloch and the leadership of the entire Mackenzie clan as well as all of its resources.

I supposed it was understandable, his imposed watchfulness, his guardianship. Possibly.

I might have
allowed
myself to be guarded except for the fact that Knox’s guardianship was in fact drawing him into my downward, possibly lethal spiral, which I desperately wanted to toss him back out of, before it was too late. I had to think of some way to protect him.

We were floating down a smooth, open stretch. Along the banks of the river, shadowy trees glided past, indistinct and shrouded in the lingering fog. I eyed Knox’s weapons belt, which holstered his gargantuan sword as well as several knives. If I could take one of them, I could use it when it was least expected of me. When the time came. When the queen of hearts played her final hand.

“Knox?”

“Aye, lass.”

“I have a request that I would like you to grant me, even though you won’t want to. Especially now.”

“What request is this?”

I knew it wouldn’t wash before I spoke it, but I wanted to say the words nonetheless, so he’d know why I left him, at my very first opportunity. I was more resolved than ever before that I would have my victory, that I would end this dreadful conquest once and for all. That I would gain my freedom and return to Kinloch, to Knox and Hamish, and live out my life.
I could do it.
It wouldn’t be easy. It would be terrifying. But it could be done. “I can’t allow you to accompany me to Edinburgh. I request sincerely that you allow me to go alone. I beg you to return to Kinloch at your first opportunity. I’m perfectly capable of doing what needs to be done without your assistance.” This was a matter up for debate, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

He didn’t even hesitate to consider it. “You might be capable. You could very well be capable. Nevertheless, I’m afraid that is one request I will not be able to grant you.”

I had expected this response, yet I tried again. “You
must
grant it to me.”

“Nay, lass. I don’t. And I won’t.”

Knox Mackenzie was more self-important than any human being I had ever known, and that was saying something. He had an overbearing way of speaking to me at times as though I were a child or a simpleton. I returned the favor now, embracing his technique. “The business that requires
my
assistance does not require
your
assistance. And I would prefer to conduct it alone. Do you understand this?”

“Oh, I understand it. I will not, however, agree to it. It simply is not going to happen that way.”

“Then I regret that I will have to take my leave of you when you sleep—and you will have to sleep eventually.”

Our eyes remained locked in a dueling challenge of wills.

“Why won’t you let me help you?” he asked. The tiniest trace of pained affront clung to his subdued indignation and his muted outrage.

“I don’t need your help.”

“I don’t believe that. There’s more to your story than you’re telling me. As usual. What little I do know allowed me to figure out your riddled message. It wasn’t difficult to decipher, not at all. The knave is not only spared but well protected, which can comfort us both. Your brother-in-law—regrettably—seems to have met an untimely end. Your sister is in danger and the ‘trouble’ you referred to is waiting for you—to return to Edinburgh under the threat of her murder with the blade of his knife. Am I getting all that right? And I’m not letting you wander off into the night without protection, unless you assure me beyond a shadow of a doubt that where you’re going is safe. Which, quite clearly, is not the case. Therefore, I’m afraid, you’re stuck with me.”

With that, he took some sort of device out of the pocket of the coat he was wearing. I saw the glint of metal in the flickery darkness, and before I could object or even react, I felt the cold clasp of a metallic ring click into place around my wrist. There were two rings, I could see. Adjoined by a short chain. I heard a second click as Knox secured the second ring around his own wrist.

He had locked us together.

It took me a moment to grasp the audacity of his high-handedness. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him. I could feel the heat of my outrage burning my cheeks.

“I’m ensuring that you don’t take your leave of me when I sleep—and I will have to sleep eventually.”

I tugged at the constraints, fingering the cool silver cuff to search for a release of some sort. “You are the most incorrigible bully of a man I’ve ever met! Release me at once!”

“I’m afraid that is something I cannot do.”

“You can!”

“All right, then, I can. But I won’t.”

“Give me the key. Give it to me!”

He reached into his pocket again, extricating a thin, looped leather cord. A small silver key hung from it. I grabbed for it, but he held it out of reach, dangling it from the end of his very long arm as though this were some sort of game. I thought I detected a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

I crawled onto him, straddling him and grappling for the key roughly. He didn’t fight me, but the fury of our little altercation caused us both to topple backward off the seat and onto the wet floor of the boat. He landed with a thud onto his back and I lay on top of him. I clawed for the key, but he grabbed my wrist in a viselike grip. As furious as I was, the hard bulk of his big, masculine form under mine inspired a raft of impassioned memories. My body echoed with the astounding pleasure he had inspired. I arched against him and felt the stirrings of a deep, visceral warmth.

“Damn, you little heathen,” he growled. “Calm down.”

“I will not
calm
down!
Now give me the key.”

But Knox Mackenzie was far stronger than I might have given him credit for. He lifted me in all my writhing indignation easily, setting me back on the seat as he slipped the looped cord over his neck, tucking the key inside the layers of his shirt and his coat. At the same time the boat lurched abruptly as we struck the sand of the river’s edge. Only then did I realize he had steered us ashore. We were beached in a small cove. Knox jumped overboard, wetting his boots. The link of our cuffed bonds pulled me along with him, causing me to nearly topple out of the lurching rowboat. He pulled the boat with a muscular one-armed heave onto the shore, securing it. Then he reached in and scooped me into his arms. The man was as strong as an ox, and equally as bullheaded.

“Let go of me, you brute!” I said. “I’m getting back into the boat.”

“Not if you want to live, you’re not,” he said through clenched teeth. “There’s a waterfall just around that next bend that will smash that boat to splinters, and grind you to a bloody pulp. And
that
would be a damn shame.”

This rendered me temporarily silent.
Overbearing bastard.
Among all his other kingly attributes, we could now add to the list that he had saved my life. I could admit the information quieted me somewhat. He was carrying me across a meadow that was dotted with large haystacks and a few small trees. “Where are you taking me?”