The Reiver (4 page)

He needn’t have worried. She wrapped her arms and legs around him the way she’d wrapped herself around his heart and urged him on. They rocked together as though they had made love like this hundreds of times before, each attuned to the other’s rhythms and sensations as both climbed toward the precipice and then tipped over it, in unison, into rapture.

The only thing that marred his pleasure was that, when she cried out his name, he could not call out hers in return.

“You shall have to give your name for the wedding ceremony, you know,” he observed some time later.

She lifted her head from its cradle in his shoulder and looked down at him, her expression guarded and a little sad. “You know I cannot,” she whispered.

“What if I promised not to seek revenge upon your family for the raid?”

Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. “You would do that? For me?”

He stroked her hair. “Aye, lass, I would. In fact, perhaps I should be thanking them.”

“Why?”

“Because if they had not tried to reive my cattle that night, I would never have met you.”

He pulled her head down toward his and gave her what he meant to be a sweet and reassuring kiss, but the instant their mouths touched, his intent was entirely forgotten. Her lips parted, ardent and inviting, and her tongue darted daringly into his mouth. He groaned as a fresh wave of desire spiraled downward through his loins. With no small effort, he broke the kiss and forced his raging need back under control. While he could make love to her a half dozen more times without consequence, the same could not be said for her. She’d be sore enough on the ride back to Lochmorton Castle as it was.

As he drew away, she reached up and traced her thumb across the scar that marred his left cheek. “Did it hurt terribly?” she asked.

He recognized that she was changing the subject, but decided to go along with it. “Aye. Like fire.”

The memory of that day was as crisp as if it had happened yesterday, and yet as confused and chaotic as the events themselves. His father had insisted that they join their cousin, John, Lord Maxwell, in his campaign against Sir James Johnstone. With decades of enmity between the Maxwells and the Johnstones, there’d been no doubt that the battle would be bloody and ugly.

What both his father and Lord Maxwell had failed to anticipate was the formidable advantage the Johnstones’ familiarity with the terrain of Dryfe Sands would give them despite their smaller numbers. Lord John had died in the ambush mere seconds after crossing the river. Duncan’s father, along with a sizable portion of the Maxwell, Armstrong, and Douglas clan had followed him to the grave minutes later. Duncan himself had managed to escape with the routed army, but not before receiving the sharp tip of a Johnstone sword to the cheek.

He had sworn on that day never again to enter a battle on territory he didn’t know as well as his own newly-altered face. And never to forgive the Johnstones for their perfidy.

But he did not want the hostility those old memories inspired to interrupt the peaceful contentment of the moment, and so he placed his hand over hers and held it against his cheek. “But at least I know now never to trust a Johnstone.”

“Aye, that you do,” she said softly, resting her head back on the curve of his shoulder. For the time being, he decided to let the issue of her name rest. After a few moments of silence, she stirred in his arms.

“What is the trouble now,
runag
?”

“I need to…that is…” she stuttered, her cheeks pinkening. “I must go outside and relieve myself,” she finished in an embarrassed rush.

Being a gentleman, of course he allowed her to get up and put on her shirt and breeches before heading out into the windy chill of the afternoon. And after what had just passed between them, it didn’t occur to him to follow her outside to keep an eye on her. After all, he trusted her.

It was only when he heard the sound of horse’s hooves that he realized the truth.

She hadn’t needed to relieve herself at all. All along, she had planned to escape.

The border between Maxwell and Johnstone land was in sight. Jamie Johnstone, great-niece of Sir James Johnstone and one of his many namesakes—albeit, as far as she knew, the only female one—was nearly home.

Duncan Maxwell’s big black stallion bore her over the rough, rocky terrain with breathtaking speed and ease. Saddled now with the roan mare he’d given her to ride, the laird of Lochmorton would never overtake them before she reached safety. Likely, he would not even try.

Free.
She was almost free.

Why, then, did she feel as though her heart was being torn to shreds and pounded into the ground with every beat of the horse’s hooves? Her throat was raw and her eyes burned, but still she rode toward the border.

This was for the best. If Duncan discovered the truth of who she was, he would hate her. He had said himself he had learned never to trust a Johnstone. Until that moment, she had held out the smallest sliver of hope that they could be happy, that perhaps he did not share in his family’s ingrained hatred toward hers. But that had always been a slim and dangerous hope, for she had known from the beginning that he had been at Dryfe Sands, that he had lost his father there. The Lockerbie lick on his cheek told the tale of his participation in the battle, even his tongue did not. And how could a man fail to despise the people who had killed his own father?

Her people.

She slowed the horse to a walk after the crossing the border. There was no indication that she was being followed, and although the animal showed no signs of tiring, even a horse as magnificent as Curaidh could not maintain such a breakneck pace indefinitely. It would be difficult to convince her brothers to return a horse as fine as he to the Maxwell stable, but she could not in good conscience keep him.

That alone told her a great deal had changed. Once upon a time, she’d had no conscience at all.

Jamie Johnstone’s days as a reiver were over.

Squinting in the darkness, Jamie closed the stall door behind Curaidh, wincing at the loud creak of the hinges. She paused for a moment, listening for any hint of a human presence, but heard only the annoyed snorts and curious whickers of horses whose nightly rest had been disturbed.

She took a deep, cleansing breath. It was ridiculous for her to be so on edge. No one would anticipate a reiver breaking into his stables to
return
a horse. A smile tickled her lips as she thought about Duncan’s reaction on the morrow, when he discovered his prized steed had been returned—though her brothers, ever the opportunists, had seen to it that the stallion had left a few “deposits” with several of the Johnstone mares in the months before they’d brought him back.

Of course, James and Robbie still thought this entire plan was mad and dangerous. And yet, perhaps because they felt some latent sense of guilt for her months of imprisonment in Maxwell territory—a fate they considered several orders of magnitude worse than death—they had acquiesced to her decision. And now, she was but a few steps from meeting them outside.

Not so mad or dangerous , this…

“Oof!” Just feet from the door, she came to an abrupt halt against an immovable object that felt remarkably warm and strangely malleable. Rather like a human chest. And a damnably familiar one at that.

Damn and blast!

“So, reiver, we meet again.” Duncan’s voice was low and gravelly and terribly arousing. He grabbed her wrists and yanked her flush against his body. Her eyes widened. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who was aroused. “What did you come to steal this time?”

“You know as well as I that I have not stolen anything from you,” she retorted.
Please, let James and Robert have gotten away.
As long as they were safe, she could bear any indignity at Duncan Maxwell’s hands. She reckoned she deserved every one he could dish out after what she’d done.

“On the contrary,” he murmured against the top her head, “you’ve stolen my heart. I was hoping you came to return it.”

The raw, unconcealed pain in his voice took her aback.

“I—I—” she stammered. Her heart hammered like a blacksmith’s mallet against her breastbone. “I came to return Curaidh.”

“I know,” he said softly, grazing her ear with his lips as he spoke.

Gooseflesh rose on her skin, racing down her arm. She didn’t know what to make of this strange situation. It seemed rather more like seduction than detention.

“What do you want?”

“I should think that would be obvious. I want you, Jamie Johnstone.”

She gasped, incredulous. “You know my name!”

“Aye, lass.”

“But—but how?”

“You did not think I just
let
you escape, did you?”

She stared up at him blankly, a rather fruitless enterprise in light of the darkness. “What choice did you have? You had a slow horse and no clothes on.”

“True, and I could not have prevented you from getting away…not without shooting you, and though I’ll admit I was sorely tempted, I might have missed and shot Curaidh instead.”

She burned with instant indignation at the insinuation, but then she caught the twinkle in his eyes.

“But in any event, ‘twas simple enough to
track
where you’d gone,
runag
. And once I realized you were a Johnstone, it was only a matter of making inquiries of the right people to discover the rest.”

Jamie’s mind whirled. All these months, he had known who she was, who her family was, and yet he’d made no effort to exact justice for the raid. He could have petitioned the Warden for redress, or even the king, but obviously he had not.

“Since then, I’ve been waiting for you,” he added, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. “Not entirely patiently.”

“What? But—what on earth could have made you believe I would come back?”

He shrugged. “I know you, and I knew you would not steal from me. Not after what we shared.”

“But I ran away—“

He pressed his finger to her lips to shush her. “I did not give you much choice, did I? Telling you I’d never trust a Johnstone. That was why you asked about the scar, wasn’t it?”

“Aye,” she admitted. “I wanted to know if you still hated my family for what happened at Dryfe Sands.”

“And I did. Then, and for some time afterward. And I was furious with you for breaking your promise.”