Kathleen Harrington (31 page)

Francine tore through the tall grass, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Lachlan yanked on his reins and dismounted from the moving horse. He raced to meet her. She was looking back at her pursuer, who’d staggered after her, then toppled to the ground face first. Unaware of Lachlan’s approach, she crashed into him, still screaming.

“’Tis me, Francie,” he shouted. “You’re safe.”

“Where’s Angelica?” she cried, gasping for breath. “Where’s my baby girl?”

“Wally has her,” he soothed. “Your daughter’s safe.”

At his words, she threw her arms around Lachlan and buried her head against his chest.

“The magic worked!” she sobbed. “The magic worked!” She tipped her head back and looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Did I sound like a banshee?”

He grinned in relief as he drew her close against him. He kissed the top of her disheveled hair. “You did everything perfectly, darling lass. They could have heard you in the Highlands.”

She looked up at him again, her lower lip quivering. “I killed that man.”

“He was going to kill you. Now wipe off your tears,” he told her gently. “You wouldn’t want to upset Angelica any further.”

“I’m not crying,” she protested as she wiped away the tearstains with the heel of her hand. “I’m just a little shaky.”

He embraced her once again. Her entire body trembled with fright. “Brave lass,” he murmured.

Francine had never felt safer in her life as she did in Kinrath’s arms at that moment.

They turned together to view the battlefield. The bodies of the hired soldiers were scattered up and down the roadway. MacRath kinsmen were moving slowly through the wreckage, checking the dead and interrogating the wounded.

Walter stood beside Angelica, still seated firmly on her little pony. On the other side of Merlin, Lucia stood steadfast, her hand grasping the child’s leg protectively.

With a grin of satisfaction, Walter led the Welsh pony through a circle of six dead attackers.

“Signora Grazioli never left the wee lassie’s side,” Walter called to them as he approached. “Blood and bones! The nursemaid held the pony’s reins so it wouldn’t bolt from fright during the fighting. Damn brave thing for a female to do.”

As Francine hurried toward her daughter, Walter lifted the child from her mount.

Angelica ran to meet her. “Mummy, Mummy,” she cried. “Walter and Nursie took care of me, and they told me not to be scared because they’d stay right beside me and never leave me. And were you afraid of those bad men?”

Francine knelt down and gathered her child in her arms. “Oh, not a bit,” she lied, attempting to smile through the tears that blurred her vision. “I knew Laird Kinrath would come to save me. Just as I knew Wally would protect you and Lucia.”

Francine rose and moved to the burly Scot. Before he realized what was happening, she threw her arms around him and kissed his sea-weathered cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving my baby’s life.”

Walter stood speechless for a long moment. “My lady,” he croaked in a voice thick with emotion. “I would gladly give me own life . . .” He stopped short, aware that Angelica stood watching them with a quizzical look on her face.

When Francine stepped back, Lucia immediately took her place in front of Walter.

Making the sign of the cross, the diminutive Italian knelt down before the giant, as though he carried the relic of some famous saint. She took his battle-scarred hand and kissed his gnarled fingers.

“
Mille grázie
!” she said. Then added in her heavily accented English, “A thousand thanks.”

Walter’s eye’s widened in mortification at being treated like some holy saint.

All of the Scots stood watching the tableau with astonishment. Every last man had believed that Signora Grazioli detested them all.

As Colin approached, Kinrath moved slightly apart to confer with him.

“What do you want us to do with the wounded?” Colin asked quietly

His hands propped on his hips, Kinrath glanced around the roadway, littered with bodies. “Are you through questioning them?”

Colin nodded. “They’re Scots mercenaries. Their captain was the only man who knew who’d hired them.”

“Where’s the captain?”

“You killed him,” Colin said with a shrug. “That’s his head over there on the road.”

“Damn.”

“What shall we do with the rest?”

“Finish off the ones who are mortally wounded. There’s no sense in prolonging their agony. Leave any man likely to survive here on the road. The soldier who got away will most likely double back once we’re gone.”

Kinrath turned, looking surprised to find Francine listening so closely to their guarded conversation.

Francine gazed at the courageous warrior, her lump in her throat. He looked at her with tender regard, unaware of her changed assessment of his character. He most certainly was not a man who would murder a wounded enemy on the battlefield.

“Mount up,” Kinrath ordered his kinsmen. “We’re not taking any chances that coward will be back with reinforcements.”

City of York

North Yorkshire, England

T
hanks to the long summer day, they arrived in York just as night fell, despite the brutal skirmish on the Great North Road. They passed through the Micklegate Bar into the walled city beneath the light of a full moon.

Instead of riding through York’s narrow, winding lanes to the duke of Northumberland’s castle, Lachlan took his small party directly to the Boar’s Head Inn. The building’s back walls were nestled snugly against the stone fortifications that surrounded the entire city.

One of Lachlan’s scouts had ridden ahead and leased the entire inn for the duration of their stay in the ancient fortress city. He was taking no chances on another ambush.

Lachlan smiled to himself as he glanced at his beautiful companion riding nearby. The frosty silence between them since their last evening at Pontefract Castle had melted away after the skirmish on the road leaving Tadcaster.

Francine remained close to the earl of Kinrath for the rest of the journey to York. Whenever they took small respites, she would frequently touch his arm, reassuring herself that she and her daughter were safe. She never let Angelica out of her sight.

“I’m sorry I’ve been clinging to you all day,” Francine apologized, as their horses clattered over the cobblestones and into the inn’s large courtyard.

“You can cling to me as much as you want,” he said. “You can crawl into my sporran, if you wish.”

“Fie!” she exclaimed, bursting into laughter. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Having me the size of a doll. You could take me out and play with me anytime you’d like.”

His eyes lit up at her words. He favored her with his tantalizing, sideways grin. “’Twould be my idea of heaven,
a ghràidh
.”

“Shame on you!” she scolded. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Francine looked up at the sign of the boar’s head and sighed. “I’ll be glad to climb into bed tonight,” she said.

“So will I, Mummy,” Angelica agreed wearily. “May I sleep with you tonight so I won’t have bad dreams and think there’s a witch in the cupboard again?”

“You may stay till you fall asleep, dearest,” Francine told her. “Then I’ll carry you to your own bed. Signora Grazioli will be sleeping next to you, should you wake.”

Francine glanced over to Kinrath and then as quickly looked away. The hunger she read in his eyes flooded her senses with an unrequited longing she didn’t understand.

Dismounting, he lifted her down from her spirited mare. “I was hoping I’d be the one sleeping beside you tonight,” he murmured in her ear.

Smiling, she shook her head and looked away, without making a reply. But when she glanced back, he was grinning in satisfaction.

Kinrath had duly noted her omission.

She hadn’t actually said
no
.

T
he noises of the Boar’s Head settled into a peaceful silence by midnight. MacRath kinsmen were stationed in the stables, at the doors, and on the landings of the three staircases.

Francine, her daughter, and the nurse had been awarded the entire top floor, which comprised a suite of rooms set aside for wealthy patrons.

As usual, Walter kept guard in the child’s chamber. Signora Grazioli no longer merely tolerated his presence with a brittle silence. She chattered happily in Italian, pointing to where the child’s baggage and her own should go. Roddy had placed his master’s baggage in an extra room of the suite and then gone to help Colin stand the first watch.

Earlier, Kinrath had thrown his pallet on the floor in front of the suite’s bolted outer door. He looked up when Francine appeared at the open portal to her bedchamber.

Francine knew that soon enough they’d be in Scotland. They’d already reached York, and the days were flying by. After the royal wedding in Edinburgh, she’d return home. She’d never see the Scottish earl again, for he would return to the sea. Or to his beloved Highlands.

And she would go back to Parmerton Manor and her life as a widow with a young child, never having experienced what it would be like to lie beside this charismatic Highlander or to be held in his powerful arms. For she had made a vow to her dying sister. A pledge that must last a lifetime.

“Angelica is sound asleep,” she told Kinrath in a whisper. “Would you carry her to her to her bed for me?”

Lachlan rose and entered Francine’s room, breathing in that marvelous scent of lavender and roses. Scooping the wee lassie up in his arms, he carried her into her own chamber and placed her on the small cot that had already been turned down for her. Nearby, Lucia stirred and opened her eyes, as Francine bent over her child and kissed her forehead.

“I’ll watch over our darling girl,” Lucia said softly in Italian.

Walter sat on his pallet near the door, sharpening his dirk by the light of a tallow flame. He jerked his chin in a brief salute to his laird and then continued his task.

Francine took Lachlan’s hand and led him out of the child’s sleeping chamber and into her own room.

He closed and locked the door behind him.

She sat primly on the edge of the bed, wearing a flowing nightrobe of sky-blue satin. Her brown eyes soft as velvet, she watched him warily. Her loose golden curls, burnished by the flickering flame of a torch on the wall, fell to her hips.

“There’s something I must tell you,” she began. “I would appreciate it if you’d remain where you are until I’m through. Please hear me out. And then you must go.”

Lachlan leaned against the closed door and waited.

“I need to explain, once and for all, that nothing more can happen between us,” she continued in a firm, no-nonsense manner. “All I can offer you is my undying gratitude, Kinrath. Your willingness to sacrifice your own life to save me and my child has earned you a place in my heart. A place that no one else can ever fill.”

“I don’t need your thanks, Francine,” he told her gruffly. “’Tis my responsibility to guard you.” He tried in vain to tamp down the lust that surged through him. His physical need for her had become a continuous, pulsating ache that refused to be ignored.

She sat with her hands folded tightly in front of her, stiff and tense as a young bride on her wedding night. “Still, I owe you some explanation,” she continued as though she’d rehearsed her speech and was determined to give it, whether he wanted to listen or not. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Surely you must realize by now that I want you . . . in . . . a carnal way.”

Lachlan crossed the floor in two quick strides. He crouched down in front of her and started untying her robe. Somehow, he knew that she wore nothing beneath its voluminous folds.

“We can talk later, darling,” he said, his voice rusty with suppressed passion. “I’ve waited too long for you to tell me you want me. Now that you have, I’m not wasting another minute.”

She tried in vain to hold her robe closed. “First, Kinrath, we need to talk about something in my past.”

Lachlan chuckled softly. “I don’t care about your former lovers, Francie. Believe me, I’m not going to judge anything you’ve done before we met.”

He pushed the blue satin aside to reveal the sumptuous beauty beneath. His heart stalled in his chest. Sweet
Jesu
, she was perfection. Her lush breasts with their round pink tips ignited a raw, primal hunger inside him. A hunger that only she could feed.

“The past is exactly what I need to talk to you about, Kinrath,” she persisted.” I need to make a confession. But first, you must swear to absolute secrecy.”

“I’ll swear on my dirk,” he immediately agreed, smoothing his hands over her silken thighs. He pulled his weapon from the sheath on his belt and held it up like a cross. “I swear on this sacred image, Francine, I will never reveal your secret.”

Her hands trembled as she took the dagger from him and placed it on the coverlet. “Very well,” she whispered. “I will trust you with something that no one else must ever know. Something that has to do with others, as well as myself.”

“Later, darling,” he assured her, as he moved the weapon safely to the floor. “Later, we can talk all you want. I’ve traveled the world. I promise you, nothing you can say will shock me.”

Lachlan rose from his crouch to kneel in front of her. He kissed her tenderly on her temple, her cheek, her chin. He nibbled lightly on her upper lip, then traced her lower lip with the tip of his tongue, as he cupped her breasts in his hands. He bent his head to lave her nipples, until they grew erect under his loving ministrations. He suckled her and she arched her back in pleasure. Her breasts were round and full and heavy with desire. Beneath his greedy mouth, they swayed gently to and fro.

Lachlan was nearly insane with lust. Beneath his kilt, he was taut and hard with a sexual excitement he’d never known before. Clamping an iron will on the frustration that had tortured him for far too long, he forced himself to slow down. He would take his time. He intended to wipe away the memory of any other man she’d ever lain with.

“Tell me what pleasures you,” he urged, sliding his hands up and down her bare legs. “Dinna be shy with me,
a ghràidh
. You’ll find that I am eager to please you. If there’s something special you want me to do, just whisper and it is yours.”