The Blood of Roses (54 page)

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“Blame it on lawyer’s instinct, but I don’t like loose ends. There was a lot of brush growing down the side of the cliff. It isn’t likely a man could have survived a drop like that, but it is possible. I have been out almost every day scouring the forest and nearby glens, but so far there hasn’t been any trace of him. The whole camp and countryside has been alerted to watch out for him, so even if he did manage to walk away from a twenty-foot fall and a cracked skull, I doubt he could have gotten very far on his own. Nights have been colder than sin lately so you probably could assume that if the cats didn’t get him, the frost would.”

“Probably?”

Damien rubbed absently at a fading bruise on his neck. “I would just feel better if we had the body.”

Aluinn had already noticed the bruises and scrapes on Damien’s face. If they were already over a week old, he must have been quite a sight at the time. “Everyone else is all right?”

“Robert and Catherine were the only casualties,” Damien said glumly. “And I’m damned sorry about Hardy. If my reflexes were a few hairs quicker—”

Deirdre reached out and touched Aluinn’s arm. “Tell him he mustn’t blame himself for what happened. If he’d done nothing whatsoever, we would all be dead now and the prince would be in an English jail.”

Aluinn walked up to where Damien stood and stripped the glove off his right hand. “She’s right, you know. You have no reason to hold yourself to blame for anything. In fact, it sounds as if we have a great deal to thank you for, and I, for one, do so most heartily.”

Damien looked at the extended hand, then at the deeper offering of genuine friendship in the warm gray eyes.

“Besides,” Aluinn added, giving Damien’s hand an added shake, “there won’t be enough guilt to go around once Alex gathers it all onto his own shoulders.”

“Alex? But he was fifty miles away when it happened.”

Aluinn glanced at the closed bedroom door. “Aye, you know that and we know that …”

“You promised you would be back in a week,” Catherine said lightly, hoping to break the silence that had settled over the room since Deirdre and Damien—the cowards—had fled. Apart from moving over to stand by the window, Alex had not said or done anything to indicate he intended to stay too long himself.

She moistened her lips. “As I recall, you even waved your little knife around and—”

The implacable, dark eyes glanced from the window to the bed, freezing the words at the back of her throat. His mouth was a grim line, barely visible through the two-week growth of luxuriant black beard. There were other indications that he had not wasted time returning to Moy Hall. Shallow blue smears circled eyes that were red-rimmed and puffy from lack of sleep. Thin black crescents of dirt crusted his fingernails, and his hair was lashed roughly into a queue at the nape of his neck, dull with grime.

Catherine felt mildly ashamed at her attempted levity and wished he would just come over to the bed and take her into his arms …

“Are you not going to say anything to me at all?” she asked softly. “Are you not even going to ask me what happened?”

“You foiled an attempt to kidnap the prince, saved his life in the offing, and sent the king’s army running for the hills … all single-handed, no doubt.”

His sarcasm pricked her guilt into abeyance. “It must be your influence, my lord,” she countered smoothly. “How else should the wife of the legendary Dark Cameron behave? What else could be expected of her but to follow her husband’s example and try to take on the entire
world
single-handed?”

His eyebrow rose in a slow arch and Catherine braced herself. He was obviously angry—
very
angry—and she wondered how the air could feel so sensually charged and, at the same time, so cruelly cold.

“I did not deliberately go looking for trouble,” she said quietly. “And I did not deliberately stand in the path of a discharging gun so that I could win anyone praise or admiration. It was all quite horrible, and I was terribly frightened, and I would have been the first to run away and bury my head in the sand if it had been at all possible.”

Alex took a moment longer to study the pale oval of her face before he turned away from the window. “Very well.” His words were clipped, measured. “What happened?”

“Will you not sit down first?”

He took an even longer moment to follow the motion of her hand as she patted the side of the bed. From the hand, he traced a path from the gathered ruff of lace at her wrist, up the fullness of the creamy-yellow lawn nightdress, finally settling on the wide, imploring violet eyes.

“I have been in the saddle nearly forty-eight hours without—”

“I have seen and smelled worse,” she interrupted, patting the mattress again.

Alexander moved grudgingly to the side of the bed, then, with his gaze still locked on hers, he sat.

“Would you like a glass of wine or ale? I can have someone fetch hot food and drink for you if—”

He leaned forward without warning. His hand curled around her neck, his mouth claimed hers with a forcefulness that was more reminiscent of an invasion than a kiss. Catherine resisted the brutish assault for the span of a few sharp breaths, but just as she was on the verge of welcoming his passion, he broke away, leaving her more confused and unsettled than before.

“I thought I should do that,” he said obliquely, “just to get it out of the way. And now, if you don’t mind, perhaps you can tell me why it is you always manage to get yourself into trouble the instant I turn my back?”

The tip of Catherine’s tongue traced the moisture on her lips, trying to capture the lingering taste of him.

“Bloodlines?” she offered lamely. “My father was a highwayman, remember.”

Something flickered in the depths of the dark eyes, but it was brought swiftly and savagely under control behind a steel-edged glare. It was a glare that should have sent her cringing under the covers, but it had, in fact, the opposite effect. Her eyes held his without evasion, without faltering, and she could see beneath the anger to an emotion that had been so completely foreign to him for most of his life that he did not know any other way to hide it.

“Your anger is very formidable, my lord. I am sorry if I frightened you, or gave you cause to worry, but—”

“I lost ten years of my life running up those stairs”—he interrupted bluntly—“only to find the three of you reading bad poetry and laughing like jaybirds. How was I supposed to react?”

“You were supposed to react exactly the way you did: You were supposed to eject them from the room, take me in your arms, and tell me how proud you were of me and how brave you thought I was.”

“I did all of that? I must have missed it.”

“I didn’t,” she whispered softly. She brushed her fingertips across his brow and down his temple, letting them linger beside the dark, midnight eyes. “It was all right here.”

For the first time since bursting into the room, the heavy lashes fell, guarding against any further betrayals.

“Mind you, you did a very fine job of startling Damien and Deirdre out of their skins. They are probably still running.”

“I will apologize to them later,” he sighed after a moment.

“Sweet merciful heavens, never do that. You will lose all credibility as a tyrant and warlord, and I’ll not be pampered an inch more than my life is worth.”

The dark lashes rose again. “It is worth a great deal to me, madam. You might do well to remember that in the future.”

“I promise. No more rescuing princelings by moonlight.”

His gaze settled on the bandages padding her arm. “Would you care to tell me what happened?”

“Are you sufficiently calmed enough to hear it?”

A frown was firmly in place as he leaned forward to place the gentlest of kisses on her lips. “Reasonably so … if I am not tested too far.”

Detecting the first true hint of menace in his voice, Catherine proceeded with care to relate the events as they had happened, from Laughlan MacKintosh’s urgent warning, to her confrontation with the prince, to the shock and surprise of Jeffrey Peters’s treachery.

“It did not feel anything like I expected it to feel,” she said, indicating the wound in her arm. “It was more like someone had punched me very hard. But then I felt something warm and wet running down my arm and I knew I had been shot, and … and I guess I fainted.”

She sounded so miserable admitting it, Alex had to refrain from smiling and assuring her it was probably only her delicate condition that prompted such a mortifying lapse in her constitution. No sooner had he finished the thought in his mind, however, when it caused a very real constriction in his gut.

“The baby is fine,” she said quickly, seeing the unnerving shadow flicker in his eyes again. “Lady Anne sent for a doctor at once—and if you think you aged ten years running up the stairs, poor Damien aged fifty carrying me down the mountain. But I am assured that everything is fine. Absolutely fine. And if you do not believe me, here—” She took his hand and held it over the roundness of her belly. “Let your son tell you himself.”

Catherine had been aware of the small, butterfly tremors for several weeks now, and she had been thrilled to the verge of tears when the doctor had explained the cause. She was not sure if Alex could feel it; it was enough just to see the startled, awed look on his face as he tried.

“The doctor also said I was not to exert myself too soon,” she added, sinking back into the nest of cushions. “He said I was lucky the bullet did not do more damage than it did, but it will still be some time before I can move my arm without … without a great deal of pain.”

She looked sincere enough for him to believe she still suffered some discomfort, but far too plaintive for him not to smile. “I have no doubt Archibald will be eager to supervise your recovery. And if it is pampering you want, madam, you will likely have more than you can tolerate at Achnacarry.”

“You want rid of me that badly, do you?”

“I don’t want rid of you at all—God knows to what heights you will aspire the next time I leave you alone for any length of time. But the plain truth of it is, with the prince’s army in Inverness, Cumberland has no choice now but to come after us, and I do not want you anywhere near here when it happens.”

“When it happens, my lord husband,” she said, drawing him forward, “I will leave only too willingly, you may be sure. Until then, however, can we not find some better way to spend our time together other than arguing?”

Her breath was soft and warm against his skin, her tongue sweet and seductive as it flitted between his lips.

“I thought you were in dire pain?” he murmured.

“I am,” she agreed, lifting the edge of the blanket. “But it is not the dire pain in my shoulder that needs tending the most right now.”

Struan MacSorley lingered at the main house only long enough to complete his personal duties and assure himself the
Camshroinaich Dubh
would not be requiring a bodyguard for the rest of the day and evening.

Back in camp he nodded, smiled, and exchanged greetings and news with those who rushed forward to meet him, all the while searching the crowds and campfires for a familiar shock of bright red hair. As soon as he could break away, he left his pony in the able hands of one of the young gillies and strode purposefully toward the tent he shared with his wife. The ache was urgent and pounding in his loins as he neared the low-slung canvas tent; his need was so great, he could almost taste the sweetness of her flesh on his tongue.

“Wife!” he roared, throwing back the flap of the canvas door. “By the Christ lass, have ye no’ heard—”

He stopped, his grin temporarily held in abayence when he found the tent empty. There were signs she had been there recently—clothes strewn into the corners, a dirty mug beside the bed of crushed leaves and quilts, the tantalizing, musky scent of her skin.

A quick search into the neighboring supply wagon deepened the frown of impatience, and he planted his hands on his hips, scowling up at the brooding silence of the forest.

“A hell O’ a time tae go f’ae a pee,” he muttered under his breath. He paced to the edge of the camp, then back again, stopping when he heard a good-natured jibe behind him.

“Ahhh! Mac-a-Sorley! You look-a like you lose something!”

Struan cursed and turned, laughing heartily when he saw Count Giovanni Fanducci, his peacock-blue tricorn perched askew over the side of his head, being practically dragged under cover of canvas. His clothes were already half undone, his satin breeches were loosened, and the grasping pink hand of Ringle-Eyed Rita was lewdly enticing him to leave go of the tent pole and join her inside.

“You wish-a to make the wager again,
Signore
Struan? Not how much whisky this-a time, but how much nectar?”

Ringle-Eyed Rita, her name derived from an affliction that sent her eyes rolling in opposite directions whenever she was caught in the throes of ecstasy, saved Struan the necessity of giving an answer. A second hand was thrust out of the door and into the satin breeches and, with a squawk that sounded like it had come from the throat of a dying chicken, the count buckled forward and lost his grip on the wood support.