The Blood of Roses (55 page)

Struan, his loins tingling anew, set off in a thundering stride toward the edge of the forest. He prowled first along the common paths that led to the stream, then spread the search wider to include several smaller arteries. He was contemplating firing an angry shot or two into the gloomy silence to flush Lauren out from wherever she was tending her private needs when he thought he saw a bold splash of crimson high above on the slope.

“What the devil is she doin’ up there?” he wondered aloud.

Not waiting for ghostly voices to provide any answers, he veered off the path and started climbing, moving stealthily, and still with some degree of good humor, as he envisioned the look on her face when he sprang up out of the bushes.

After a hundred yards or so, he unstrapped the heavy, clanking broadsword from around his waist, leaving it by a tree stump with the two pistols he wore slung on leather thongs around his neck. Fifty yards farther up he tossed his blue wool bonnet onto a juniper bush and divested himself of the thick and cumbersome leather jerkin he wore.

He halted again after a few more minutes of climbing, a slow, dark frown replacing his smile when he realized she was not alone. There was a man with her—an old man to judge by the way he was bent over and leaning heavily against a thick, gnarled stick of oak. They were perhaps another hundred yards away, moving in the opposite direction, and Struan dropped all pretense of gamesmanship as he straightened to his full height and shouted Lauren’s name to catch her attention.

Lauren stopped dead in her tracks, her face blanching white as chalk as she whirled around to locate the source of the shout. Rooted to the spot, she was unable to do more than gape down the hillside at her husband as he commanded her to stand fast while he tramped the rest of the way up through the tangle of junipers and leafless saplings to join her. Beside her, she heard a shuffle of tartan and a distinctive click of metal as Jeffrey Peters cocked the hammer of his steel-butted pistol.

“Dinna be a bluidy fool,” she hissed. “Ye fire that bluidy thing, ye’ll have the whole glen alive an’ up here on the run.”

“Then you had best think of something real quick,” he said with a snarl. “Because it isn’t just my throat he’ll be going after, Mrs. MacSorley—or have you forgotten the part you played in all this?”

Lauren had not forgotten. Nor could she believe the thing she had dreaded most could possibly be about to happen!

After the plan to capture the prince had failed, she had been set to cut her losses and make her way to Inverness before the government troops withdrew. She certainly did not want to linger about until Struan and the others returned, for as soon as the yellow-haired bitch recovered from her evening of adventure, Alasdair would undoubtedly whisk them all away to Achnacarry as intended. It was a shame sweet Catherine had not died outright; equally unfortunate she had not miscarried and bled to death on the side of the mountain!

Fully convinced it had been the other
Sassenach
, Damien Ashbrooke, who had accosted her in the woods, Lauren had genuinely been shocked to learn the real culprit’s identity. She had been even more shocked when, the evening after the botched kidnapping attempt, she had found the broken and bleeding Jeffrey Peters waiting for her in the small cave she had painstakingly provisioned for herself when they had first arrived in the glen. How he had managed to crawl down the mountainside, she would never know. He had badly wrenched an ankle in the fall, broken three ribs, and his skin was crusted with blood from so many cuts and contusions, it looked as if he had run through a hail of broken glass.

Faced with the very real possibility he could be caught and forced to talk, Lauren had found herself with two choices. She could kill him herself and be a heroine in the eyes of the men who were scouring the woods and glens hourly. Or she could nurse him back to health and take him at his word when he promised to see her safely back into the hands of Major Garner.

One choice would leave her on her own, forcing her to make her way to Inverness and rely on the goodwill and protection of the
Sassenachs
to see she came to no harm. The troops in Inverness were under the command of the English, but they were still mainly Highlanders, recruited locally, and she would be in as much danger from their lunatic ideas of loyalty and betrayed honor as she was in Jacobite hands.

The second choice—to trust Peters—involved a greater immediate risk of being seen going back and forth into the forest, but it also gave her time to think, perhaps to arrive at a third possibility where she would win everything and lose nothing. In the end, revenge for past injuries, the forty thousand pounds Garner promised for the
Camshroinaich Dubh
’s capture, and the gnawing, unresolved insult of the yellow-haired
Sassenach’s
continued good fortune were convincing reasons to stay, despite the risk.

In two weeks, Peters had already improved remarkably, venturing out on longer walks to build up the strength in his legs, wandering farther and farther from the sight of the concealed cave, yet never anywhere near the normal traffic areas frequented by the men and women in the camp. MacSorley must have stalked the woods like a panther for neither one of them to notice until he was practically on top of them! But, by God, she was not about to fall apart now. Not after everything she had been through!

All of this passed through her mind in a split second. With Peters beside her, his finger tightening ominously on the trigger of his gun, she threw off her tartan shawl and started running down the slope.

“Struan!” She shrieked happily. “Struan, is it really you!”

“In the flesh, lass,” he roared, catching her as she flung herself into his outstretched arms. He spun her around and around, laughing at her greedy eagerness as she kissed his lips, his cheeks, his throat, finally lashing her tongue into his mouth with such a feverish passion he temporarily forgot himself and returned her ardor thrust for thrust.

A squeal of feminine delight sent his hands down to cup the plumpness of her buttocks, pulling her against the swift and potent response rising in his loins. She tightened her arms around his shoulders and rubbed herself against him—breasts, belly, and thighs—gasping with a pleasure that was not entirely feigned.

“Struan.” She moaned. “Struan, Struan, Struan … sweet Mither O’ Christ, but, I missed ye.”

“Missed me, eh?” His eyes narrowed and his teeth flashed through the golden bush of his beard. “Enough tae go walkin’ in the woods wi’ anither man?”

“Anither …?” She laughed heartily and clawed her fingers into his hair, savaging his mouth again before she answered. “He’s naught but an’ auld daft clootie lives in the caves wi’ his sheep. Eighty years, if he’s a day, ye randy bastard, an’ so crippled wi’ damp he canna straighten his back, no’ never mind any ither part O’ his body. I come here sometimes tae trade f’ae fresh cheese.”

Struan tried to glance back over his shoulder but determined hands and lips kept his thoughts pinioned elsewhere.

“He’s gone by now,” she whispered huskily. “Yer bellow near caused a rupture in his spleen—mines too, truth be known, but no’ f’ae fear.”

He swung around anyway, in spite of the wriggling invitation and the hot, moist lips sucking eagerly at his. Indeed, the old man was gone. Struan’s keen eyes could just make out a smear of dark tartan well along up the slope … but moving far too nimbly and hastily to be wrapped around the shoulders of an eighty-year-old reclusive shepherd.

The old clutch of suspicion returned without warning, combining with shades of jealousy and unwanted, nagging doubt.

“Cheese, ye say?”

“Aye, husban’,” she purred. “But I’ll settle f’ae fresh cream … if ye have any tae spare.”

MacSorley’s frown eased into a thoughtful grin as he turned again, backing her up until she was crowded against a fat tree trunk.

“Mayhap I’d have a pint tae spare,” he murmured, his hands reaching down to tug at her skirt. “Mayhap two or three.”

“Oh … oh, aye, Struan. Aye … but na’ here. It’s cold an’ … an’ the auld man might come back. It’s only a wee hap-step-an’ lowp tae the camp, where it’s warm an’ there are blankets tae lie down on.”

“Ye dinna need blankets, lass. I’ll keep ye warm enough. As f’ae lyin’ down—” He inserted a hand between her thighs, his sudden roughness lifting her onto her tiptoes with a gasp. “I’ve never known ye tae balk at takin’ yer pleasure where ye may. Ye did say ye missed me, did ye na?”

“Aye,” she said on a forced smile. “Aye, Struan, O’ course I missed ye.”

“An’ ye
have
been faithful tae me, have ye na?”

The amber eyes widened. “Course I have, Struan MacSorley! I told ye, he were naught but a shepherd! An auld, bent-up shepherd!”

His face loomed closer and his hand curled deeper, the blunt, calloused fingers probing into her flesh like red-hot irons. “If ye ever gi’ me cause tae think ye’ve gone back tae yer whorin’ ways, lass, ye’ll wish ye stayed in Edinburgh wi’ yer
Sassenach
lover.”

“Edinburgh!” she cried, recoiling from his cruelty. “Struan! What are ye talkin’ about? Ye ken I didna take any lovers in Edinburgh! Especially no’ a
Sassenach!”

“Aye, there’s the hell O’ it, lass,” he said evenly. “I dinna ken any such thing, I only have yer word on it. The night we were wed, ye bleated an’ grated an’ twisted yersel’ intae rare knots tae please, me, but when ye cried out yer pleasure, it wisna ma name ye were cryin’.”

“Struan!” She gasped, hesitating the slightest fraction of a second too long. “It must be the devil’s work. On ma honor, ye’re the only man I’ve taken tae ma bed since …” She searched her memory for a plausible name, knowing full well she had never presented herself to him as a virgin, knowing equally well he had not expected nor particularly wanted one.

“Since?”

“Since ye fairst taught me the difference atween a boy an’ a man, Struan. On ma honor, it’s so.”

“Ye shouldna fling yer honor about so carelessly, lass,” he cautioned. “‘Tis a precious thing, tae be guarded wi’ yer life.”

“Then I’ll swear it on ma life, Struan MacSorley,” she declared vehemently, becoming almost desperate to squirm out from under the assault of the scraping fingers. “I’ll swear it on anything else ye’d have me forfeit as well!”

Her sigh of relief was audible as he removed his hand from under her skirts. His gaze never left her face as he smiled lazily and reached for something sheathed in the belt at his waist.

“Life an’ honor go hand in hand, wife. If ye’re willin’ tae swear one against the ither, an’ if the dark gods dinna strike us both deid where we stan’, then it’ll be good enough f’ae me, an’ I’ll never question ye again.”

Lauren, stunned by the quiet fury of MacSorley’s jealousy, felt the press of cold steel in the palm of her hand. As soon as she recognized the shape of the dirk and understood what he wanted, the tension melted out of her spine like a rush of icy water. To a simple lummox like Struan MacSorley, an oath was all that was required to confirm her status in his eyes. He had frightened her half to death, chafed her raw with his suspicions over her activities the past two weeks, when all he needed and wanted was a little manly reassurance. If an oath was what he wanted, an oath was what he would get; the most heart-melting, teary-eyed oath she could produce.

With a shine already formed on the surface of the amber pools, she raised the dirk solemnly and pressed it to her lips.

“Struan MacSorley, I swear by all tha’s—” She stopped, her gaze shooting back down to the carved ebony hilt of the knife she held. She had no control over the gasp that parted her lips or the sinking sensation that drained the blood out of her face, leaving it a pale, gray mask.

The dirk was the same one she had used to silence Doobie Logan, all those months ago. She had last seen it sticking out from between his bony shoulder blades, the day Alasdair’s
Sassenach
bride had been stolen from the gardens at Achnacarry Castle.

Logan had been a slimy, treacherous creature who had betrayed the clan’s trust for a few miserable gold coins and a moment or two of self-glorification. After selling Catherine to the Campbells, Logan had swilled himself into a drunken stupor—his usual state of mind—and Lauren had feared a loosened tongue might aim an accusing finger in her direction. Killing him had seemed to be her safest recourse, for who would suspect her involvement with scum like Logan? Who indeed would believe she could ever have befriended such a Judas, let alone conspired with him to have sweet Catherine kidnapped?

Indeed, no one had. Not until now.

But if Struan had carried the knife with him all this time, it meant he had also carried his suspicions, hiding them well, waiting for the right moment to confront her.

“Is that why ye came back?” MacSorley hissed. “Tae finish what ye started?”

Her eyes flicked past his shoulder, glancing in the direction Peters had taken. Struan unwittingly followed her gaze, breaking his concentration just long enough for Lauren to reverse her grip on the dirk and thrust it forward with all her might. At the last possible moment instinct brought one of his hands forward to deflect the aim and he felt the blade slice through his fingers, severing the tendons through to the bones. He managed to twist the blade up and away from its intended target even as his other hand shot up and closed around her wrist, squeezing it so tightly she screamed with the pain. A second hot flaring of agony cut the scream short, ending it on a harsh gasp of incredulity.

Slowly the tiger eyes widened and she looked down— down to where the blade of the knife had punched through the fabric of her bodice just below her right breast. Little more than half the blade had penetrated, but as she watched, Struan leaned forward and she felt the cold, sharp slash of steel thrust deeper into the cavity of her chest.

“No.” She gasped. “No, Struan, I—”

He pushed harder, giving the knife a savage twist as it pierced through the wildly beating muscle of her heart. The small red border marking the entry of the blade burst suddenly into a widening stain across her bodice, and he heard the ugly gurgle and hiss of blood rushing to flood the chest cavity.