Duchess of Mine (12 page)

He slowed and tried to catch his breath as he
saw her dip to the shore and trudge her way to the cave. Wanting to
catch his breath before he approached her, he took his time,
walking slowly and lifting his arms to try to get the air to stop
spastically going in and out of his lungs.

That was when he saw a small figure jump down
to the beach and begin to follow Fleur. Several scrawny shadows
scurried down to the cave.

Shite, it was a band of orphan lads who had
been thieving around the area. With so many men dead from Cromwell,
and many a woman as well, the orphans had risen to levels no one
knew what to do with. Gangs had escalated in the last year at an
alarming rate, but what’s more they were getting better and better
at organization and burglary.

Duncan didn’t waste any more time, but loped
toward the cave the fastest his legs would move. At the yawning
mouth of the hollow he saw about a dozen young men, couldn’t be
more than ten and three years of age, all clad in worn,
dirtier-than-hell plaids and all staring inward at Fleur.

“...all boys, so I had to learn how to defend
myself.” He caught the tail end of something Fleur said to one of
the tallest lads.

“Aye?” The lad’s voice cracked. “Well, that
makes sense. But ye can’t blame a man for tryin’.”

Fleur silently chuckled and glanced up at
Duncan. “Good morning.”

The lads turned as one to look at him gasping
for air. Somehow he muttered, “Ye all right?”

“Yer princess stole Jamie’s
sgian
dubh
,” a small blond lad hollered.

“I—I wasn’ goin’ to hurt her,” said the tall,
dark-haired lad a bit apologetically. “Not for real. Bein’ a
princess, just wanted any treasure she might’ve had.”

“I told you, Jamie.” Fleur shook her head,
holding the small knife in her hand and away from the boy. “I
haven’t got anything.”

“’Tis true that the mosstroopers stole from
her?” The tall boy, Jamie, asked Duncan.

It was a lot of a conversation to glean with
hardly enough breath in his lungs to save his life. He stared from
Jamie back to Fleur, who seemed completely comfortable with the
gang of wee thieves. Duncan narrowed his eyes, but nodded. “I
believe so.”

Jamie puffed out his chest. “Then, we’ll get
it back for yer princess.”

“Oh, no. That wouldn’t be safe. Besides,”
Fleur took a little breath and looked to the ceiling of the cave.
“Well, it’s complicated, but I did want to look again for
my...things, but I seriously doubt they’re anywhere near.”

Jamie took a tentative step closer to Fleur.
He was a little taller than she, and the lad seemed to relish in
the fact. The look in his young eyes was nothing short of
smoldering infatuation. “I’ll find it for ye,” he said more
seriously.

Fleur shook her head with a small smile.

“But—but I might need me knife back.” Jamie
looked away then, obviously a bit embarrassed he had to ask for his
own dirk.

At that Fleur narrowed her eyes. “Let’s get
out of the cave, and I’ll give you your knife back.”

The lads shuffled out toward the beach,
toward Duncan, but they carefully avoided him as if he were a
boulder in their way. Jamie came to stand a few feet from him,
rocking on his heels, craning his head back.

“Yer princess is a good one. We’ll not steal
from her.”

Duncan knew he should have corrected them
from the assumption that he was somehow affiliated with Fleur in a
way that conveyed possessiveness. But he didn’t. He liked the
notion. What pleased him the most was that Fleur hadn’t said
anything contrary herself.

Jesus, he didn’t know what had happened, but
sometime last night he’d made Fleur a priority, as if his life,
even his brothers’ lives, depended upon it.

Nodding toward the lad, Duncan moved closer
to Fleur. “Appreciate it if ye wouldn’ steal from anyone here in
Durness. Besides, sticky fingers still get branded if caught. Or
worse.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes and nodded too, as if
they were negotiating. With a cursory glance at Fleur, he said,
“Understood, aye. But we gotta eat.”

Fleur bit her lower lip, her dark brows
pressed together to create a wee perfect vertical line above her
nose. It wasn’t even half an inch long and utterly adorable.
Clearly the lads going hungry upset her, but she was outright
enchanting when she worried. It also urged Duncan to do anything he
could to ensure she not fret further. Not that he didn’t care about
the lads’ plight already, but with her there, her bonny face
scrunched so, he would move heaven and earth to get the lads
fed.

“My captain is the laird’s brother. Let me
have a word with him to see if I can have an audience with Laird
Reay. There’s no need for ye lads to run ‘round as such for food.
We’ll figure this out.”

Jamie leaned back again. “I thought
ye
were the captain. Ye’re the one always tellin’ the troops what to
do.”

Duncan almost smiled at that, but he held it
in, wondering how much the boy knew about him. “Aye. Well, Captain
MacKay is new. I’m to help him.”

“Then ye’ll go back to Sweden after ye’re
done?”

Duncan nodded absent-mindedly, now very
unsure how the child knew him so well. He certainly didn’t know
anything about the tall juvenile.

He was about to ask, but Jamie said, “With
yer princess?”

Nodding once more, Duncan suddenly stopped
and stared at Fleur, but decided on another topic of conversation.
“Do I ken ye? Ye seem to ken me.”

Jamie smiled broadly. “Nay, but we’ve all
heard of Duncan MacKay, the bravest Highlander from Durness there
ever was. Yer brothers bragged about ye all the time. Sad, they
were taken. So sad. But it was obvious ye were good at what ye did,
what with yer ma’s house lookin’ like it does. ‘Tis the finest
house in all of Scotland.”

At that Duncan finally did let a grin crack
through. “That’s mighty fine of ye to say.” Then his smile vanished
when he said, “And if I catch any of ye stealin’ from my ma,
I’ll—”

“Fingers branded, cut off. They get it, don’t
you, boys?” Fleur asked the short band of miscreants.

Jamie scowled. But he turned toward Fleur.
“We’re not all bad, ye ken? We’re just hungry.”

Fleur’s sweet lips tipped down at the ends.
“Of course.” She looked at Duncan. “What can we do for them?”

Duncan blew out a sigh as he realized the
lads had weaseled their way close to Fleur, close to her heart.
Damnation, he was jealous of the children. What had this world come
to?

He nodded. “Let’s find ye something to break
yer fast, then I’ll try to locate my captain.”

~*~

T
hree hours later after he’d fed the
dozen lads as if he were their personal serving wench, Duncan
should have resented his new position. But how could he when Fleur
smiled at him so appreciatively, ran one of her wee hands up to his
shoulder and gave an affectionate squeeze?

Now, she sat next to Jamie on the ground
under an oak in the corner of his mother’s front garden, laughing
at something the lad had said. All the boys sat around her,
transfixed by her voice and anything she had to say. That he
understood all too well.

“Those lads of hers, she’s good with,” Helen
said, making Duncan jump a bit because she’d caught him unawares,
as well as staring at Fleur.

He nodded.

“Last night,” Helen said, “we stayed up, so I
could give her some clothes to wear—still can hardly believe
someone stole her things—and we talked and talked. I haven’t gabbed
like that since I was a lass. She told me her family was all boys.
Well, her grandmother raised her—How did she say it? That she was
her grandmother’s daughter? Something like that—Anyhow, everyone
else was a lad. She said something about not even having any
aunties close by. Isn’t that quaintest expression, auntie? Where
was I? Ah, aye, Fleur told me how she used to be eager to go into
town, just to see another lass.”

Duncan caught himself smiling at that, while
he kept his gaze on Fleur. He loved the way his mother could zigzag
throughout her own conversations, but he adored it that Fleur
shared so much with his ma.

Finally, he turned to his mother. “Thank ye
for feeding the lads.”

She shrugged. “Ye’re the one that gave me all
the money to spare, so why not, eh? I should be more charitable
anyway. I’ve recently thought about giving some money to the kirk.
Or, ye heard that Laird Reay is goin’ to build a new house for
Himself. The castle is crumbling down. Mayhap I should give him
some money for his house. What do ye think?”

Duncan glanced back at Fleur, furious. Of
course his mother wanted to give away the money he’d given her. It
was the one way he felt as though he could provide for her, show
his stepfather, although he was dead, he could do something
significant with his life. He was worthy. But she wanted to spend
it on an already rich laird’s new house? Jesus, he hated being back
home.

“Spend it however ye like.” His voice sounded
too gruff, even to his ears.

Helen sighed.

Honestly, he had given her the money to spend
whichever way she wanted. But he’d also given it to her as
proof...Hell, he didn’t even understand why he felt the way he did.
Yet he did feel it—resentment. Bitter resentment. He didn’t want to
feel it. After all, when Helen had made the choice to marry, she
had said she’d done it for him too. So he would have a roof over
his head, eat regularly, and no longer live the life of a pauper,
begging for scraps. He hadn’t minded that part though. Oh, he did
now, because everyone in the village remembered when wee Duncan
used to dance for a coin. They’d laugh about it. But those had been
tough times. Only, he’d had no idea how hard until Helen had
decided to marry Albert Cameron. Not that Duncan’s stepfather had
beaten him or his mother. Albert’s methods were much more
restrained, yet lasted a hell of a lot longer than a simple bruise.
Duncan’s step-da would first criticize, then the critical words
turned a bit meaner, a bit crueler with every mistake Duncan had
made. Helen had tried to shield him from the harsh words, but after
her second pregnancy she merely cleaned their sod-roof,
dirt-for-floors house. She cleaned every surface, often taking the
rushes off the floor and sweeping the ground until her fingers
bled. That’s how she’d spent the rest of Duncan’s youth, cleaning
or ignoring her husband the best she could.

By the time Duncan was sixteen, his two
younger stepbrothers lived with him in the barn. Then he joined the
last few years of the now called Thirty-Years’ War, although it
might have lasted longer. He’d gotten very good at the sword, but
more than that, he’d gotten good at tactics, figuring out how to
wheel around his enemy at whirlwind speeds, then break a line of
men who fought with pikes, swords, or even poked holes into a
cavalry line. His superiors had noticed, which had gotten him
prestige and then jobs. How he’d landed in Sweden protecting the
king was beyond him, but the money was good and in the summers it
reminded him of home. At once, he missed Scotland so much it nearly
broke his heart and then he’d hate it too. He didn’t understand the
conflicting feelings. So he tended to avoid thinking much about
those clashing sentiments.

But with Fleur here, his mother beside him,
and feeling more stuck than ever before, all the while knowing he
wanted
to stay stuck, he kept thinking about his past and
bitter resentments.

He really wanted to do the right thing by his
ma. Hurting her would be the same as what Albert had done for so
long. But the pain of the past haunted him at the worst of times.
He took a quick breath and forced a smile on his face. “Really, Ma,
spend the money how ye see fit. ‘Tis yers to deal with. I’m going
to...I’m goin’ for a bit.”

He didn’t give her time to ask where he might
be heading. He didn’t know. He just strolled away, feeling like a
prodigal son. Jesus, why couldn’t he have more manners? Why was he
so rough? He walked several hundred feet away from his mother’s
house into an open green field. But he wasn’t checking the early
autumn colors of the grass, the red purple of the heather, or the
little white and yellow wild flowers that sprang up under the
taller greenery. He hadn’t been watching where he was going at all,
when he ran into a thicket of heather that thrashed at the skin
above his hose. Stomping and muttering curses under his breath, he
finally broke free from the bushes when he heard an altogether too
close feminine and pretty chuckle.

Unsure how to react, feeling tenser than ever
before, he decided to ignore the sound, turned, and kept marching,
even if it was away from Fleur and her breathtaking visage.
Damnation, those full luscious lips.

Suddenly, cold strong fingers gripped him
around his wrist. He might have thought her digits delicate, but
Fleur stopped him in his tracks. He pivoted, staring into black
sparkling eyes.

“Rude much?”

Lord, he loved how she got to the point.
Loved even more her fiery spirit. He knew he was being impolite,
not talking, but he was so...God, when was the last time he’d spent
time conversing with a person. Still, he did have something to say
to her.

“I don’t brand fingers.”

Her arched brows knitted, forming that
perfect little line above her nose. “What?”

“I don’t brand fingers or cut them off.”

She still looked perplexed, which made him
think about kissing that line. But he swallowed.

“I—I’m not the sort of man who would cut off
a lad’s fingers for stealin’ food. That’s the laird’s justice if he
deems it so.”

“Oh.” She nodded, her eyebrows relaxing.

Lord, he started to dig a hole with his
idiotic blathering tongue. “Not that I’d even enforce a law like
that. I think it’s...barbaric, but the laird might...well Himself
might think it justice to brand the lads for stealin’.”