Legends (22 page)

“They’ve come to confront you, Douglas, and you can’t bargain your way out of the trouble. So you’d better tell the truth about your plans for the village and the farms, as well as MacRoth Hall.”

“If they want a battle, they’ve got it. But you’re going to be on my side, this time.” He snatched her by one wrist and pulled her back down the stairs. Tugging her behind him, he went to the center of the courtyard and stood defiantly. When she tried to leave, he wound an arm around her waist and held her still.

“Sam, go,” he commanded, pointing to a distant corner. Sam reluctantly obeyed. “Stay.”

“They won’t hurt an innocent dog,” Elgiva said angrily.

“Oh?” His eyes flashed a challenge. “The MacRoths kept this castle under seige when they knew that women and children were starving here.”

“Because the Kincaid men were too proud to admit defeat!”

“And the MacRoths didn’t have that problem, huh? You stole a jeweled brooch from the wife of the Kincaid chieftain, and then refused to give it back.”

“Aye, but that was just a petty bit of fun by some of the young men in the clan. We were negotiating to return the bauble when you Kincaids tricked half of our men into a meeting—offered them hospitality, your clan did—and then murdered them treacherously!”

“We didn’t deserve to be banished by the Crown for one mistake! The MacRoths and Kincaids had been killing each other for centuries!”

“You broke the bond of honor when you lured your enemies into such a trap! The sharing of hearth and home was always a sacred covenant of truce!”

“We didn’t break the rules, we only bent them!”

“Och! Spoken like a true Kincaid!”

“Don’t you have any compassion for the women and children who died here?”

“Aye, but they wouldn’t have died if they’d surrendered! The MacRoths offered them the chance, Douglas, but they wouldn’t take it!”

“Maybe they preferred to die on Scottish soil rather than be shipped to the colonies like criminals!”

“You better be glad that Tammas Kincaid was captured and sent off to start a new life, or you’d be naught but a twinkle in a ghost’s eye right now!”

“Yes, my family survived, thank God.
The Kincaids
,” he intoned drolly. “We’re bad. We’re back. And now, as lord of this castle, I’m not going to put up with any trouble from any MacRoths.”

With fine timing Rob strode into the courtyard, his rubber boots slinging drops of water, a long overcoat whipping back from his big, powerful body, his brawny hands already clenched into fists. The others crowded in after him.

“Welcome, MacRoths,” Douglas said loudly.

Rob stopped an arm’s length away, his chest heaving with anger. “Let go of my sister and put up your fists, Kincaid.”

“I’ll do one—temporarily—but not the other.”

Douglas released her and, putting a hand on her shoulder, gently pushed her aside. He looked straight into Rob’s eyes and said calmly, “I won’t fight with you.”

Rob grunted with disdain. “You’re a Kincaid. You like nothing better than to prove yourself. You’ll fight.”

Douglas let both hands hang loosely by his sides. “No.”

Rob’s fist flashed out with lethal surprise and smashed into Douglas’s mouth. Douglas staggered but made no move to retaliate. A thick stream of blood slipped from a gash on his lower lip.

“Stop this!” Elgiva ordered frantically.

“Fight, Kincaid,” Rob growled.

Douglas shot him a patronizing smile. “Kiss my tam-o’-shanter.”

Rob punched him again. Douglas nearly fell down. Regaining his balance, he wavered drunkenly but refused to raise a hand in self-defense.

Elgiva leapt forward. “Why? Why are you doing this?” she begged, grasping Douglas’s jacket. “Why won’t you fight back?”

His mouth bleeding profusely now, his eyes squinting with pain, he looked down at her and said softly, “Because one of us has to compromise if this feud’s ever going to end.” He paused, his gaze searing her with its intensity. “Because he’s your brother, and I don’t want to hurt him. Because I love you.”

Elgiva’s knees went weak. She studied Douglas’s eyes until she couldn’t see through the blur of her own tears. Dimly she was aware of everyone gathering around them to watch and listen. “If you love me, why did you buy the estate?”

“ ‘War and wizardry—neither shall save them,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘Only true love shall soothe the pain and heal wounds of the past, that ancient sorrows may sleep at last.’ ” He smiled wearily. “I’m an actor at heart—I have a good memory for lines. The researcher I hired showed me that poem, and I read it at least a dozen times.”

“But I still don’t—”

“Knowing how seriously you take your family history, I was afraid that you’d never forgive and forget. I decided that one of my grand gestures was needed.”

“He’s trying to talk his way out of trouble, Ellie,” Rob interjected.

Douglas never took his gaze from hers. “No, El. My gesture backfired, that’s all.”

With a shaking hand she reached up and wiped blood from his chin. “What did you think I’d do when you told me you’d bought my home?”

He grasped her arms and pulled her closer. “I thought you’d marry me.”

Mutters and yelps came from the crowd around
them. “Strange way of thinking these Americans have,” Duncan said, sneering.

“I think he’s addled from Robbie’s beating,” Andrew observed.

“Hit him again,” Mrs. M ordered.

Elgiva’s grip tightened on Douglas’s jacket. He looked a bit disheveled from Rob’s powerful blows—blows that would have knocked most men flat—but he didn’t seem confused.
Marry him?

“I know we’d have to agree on some changes in our lives,” he told her. “But we can do that. Do you ever think about marrying me?” he asked. “Even though I’m a Kincaid?”

Elgiva gazed at him blankly. “I think about it all the time.”

A large, incredulous smile slid across his mouth despite the painful-looking injury. “My Lord, El, I didn’t know. I thought—”

“Why would I have told you? You said that I’m not blond, I’m not blue-eyed, I’m not—”

“Very good at remembering details,” he finished. “Otherwise you’d recall that I said all that during a time when you had accused me of a lot of disgusting things, called me names, rapped my knuckles with a piece of firewood, tried to feed me into a stupor, and pretended to fall asleep when I did a striptease. I would have said
anything
to aggravate you in return.”

“But … the sapphires, for a blue-eyed blonde. Douglas, I know that you just bought another piece to add to your collection.” She told him what the museum curator had said.

He chuckled. “I do collect sapphires. But you should see my collection of emeralds. Yes.” He touched her chestnut hair, and his eyes gleamed with plans. “Yes,” he said, his voice softer, “you’ll like wearing the sapphires, but you’ll love wearing the emeralds.”

“Ellie, he’s bluffing,” Rob warned, but he sounded perplexed.

Elgiva shook her head numbly. “Douglas, why did you think that buying the MacRoth inheritance out
from under me and my brother would make me want to marry you?”

“Because I was going to present it to you as an engagement gift.” He winced. “Because I
am
presenting it to you as an engagement gift.”

“You mean that if I don’t marry you, you’ll keep the estate?”

“Now the plan shows its true colors,” Rob said darkly.

Elgiva looked into Douglas’s gently rebuking eyes for a long time. “That’s not what he meant at all, Rob,” she whispered. “He would have given the estate back whether I said yes to the marriage or not.”

“Sure,” Duncan said sarcastically. “He paid for something you would have owned anyway, so he could give it to you. He donated a lot of money to old Angus’s estate for nothing, because it’s all been willed to the Bank of Scotland. Douglas Kincaid gave a donation to the Bank of Scotland just to make a sentimental gesture! Hoots, man! That’s a fairy tale!”

Douglas never stopped looking into her eyes. He seemed lost to the world around them, and she was beginning to feel the same way. “I trust him,” she announced. Then, much softer and to him alone, “I think you’ve come to appreciate fairy tales a bit.” Elgiva rose on tiptoe and kissed the unhurt corner of his mouth.

He took her in his arms and held her tightly, his mouth against her ear, moving privately and whispering so that only she could hear, “I love you. I love you, you beautiful MacRoth.”

“Everybody make friends with Mr. Kincaid,” Mrs. M commanded in her most authoritative classroom voice. “If he backs out on his marriage proposal,
then
we’ll give him a beating.”

Elgiva leaned away from Douglas and looked at him with despair. “Now wait, wait—”

“Do you love me?” he asked, frowning at her reluctance.

“Oh, dear man, can’t you see it? Can’t you see that I love you so much that it makes me miserable?”

“That’s not quite the way I wanted you to say it, El.”

She took his face between her hands. “Douglas, have you forgotten? I may not be able to have children. How would you feel if I couldn’t?”

“Disappointed.” He kissed her. “But not sorry that I married you. I helped raise Kash Santelli—I know how I feel about being an adoptive parent. I’d be happy with that. After all, wasn’t it common for us Scots to take the name of our clan’s chief? Adopting kids would be a fine way to make certain that there are plenty of Kincaids in the world to keep the MacRoths under control.”

He smiled wickedly. “Blood relatives or not, you’re all frighteningly alike in temperament.” Douglas’s smile faded and he looked at Elgiva seriously. “Marry me. I love you. I’ll be good to you and good to everyone and everything that you love.” He paused and glanced over her shoulder at Rob. “Even him.”

Elgiva twisted to look at her brother. Rob glared from Douglas to her. “If he marries you, I’ll accept him,” Rob told her. “But he’s still a Kincaid, Ellie. Are you sure you want to take his name?”

Elgiva turned back to the man who held her with such possessive arms. “I’ll always be a MacRoth,” she murmured, losing herself in eyes as handsome as those of a Terkleshire wolf, but not wild at all, at least for the moment. They were frowning at her pride a wee bit, but loving her for it, and promising to share their secret delights with her for the rest of her life.

“I’ll always be a MacRoth,” she repeated, making her tone a little smug, “but I won’t mind bearing the Kincaid name too.”

Douglas kissed her. Then he lifted his head to the surrounding crowd, but looked above them as if he might also be addressing the castle and the spirits of all the Kincaids who had lived, and died, there. “I,
Douglas Kincaid, the Duke of Talrigh, chief of the clan of Kincaid, declare permanent peace between the Kincaids and the MacRoths. Let love soothe what war and wizardry—and kidnapping—could not.”

He lowered his gaze to Elgiva. “Now, Elgiva MacRoth, will you seal this peace treaty by marrying me?”

Elgiva put her arms around his neck and told him, smiling, that she would.

They stood in the moonlight by a lovely old window, wrapped inside a blanket and each other’s arms. She shivered a little from the drafts that crept across their bare feet, and Douglas pulled her closer. His contentment made him chuckle softly. He had a split lip, he’d spent a bundle on an estate that he hadn’t needed to buy, and then he’d given it away. Now he was spending the night in one of the expensive bedrooms that he’d bought and given away, a cold bedroom full of ugly Victorian furniture and ancient dust motes.

But he’d never been happier in his whole life.

Elgiva tilted her head and brushed a careful kiss across his injured mouth. Her hands slid up and down his back, stroking affectionately. She rubbed her naked chest against his naked chest and gave him a look of naughty invitation from under one arched brow.

He smiled. He winced with pain. He smiled. He chuckled at his good luck.

“Douglas Kincaid, I think you’re delightfully off-center tonight,” she told him.

“I love you so much.”

Happiness glimmered in her eyes. “Dear man, stay off-center. I’ll do my best to keep you there.” She took his hands and began to draw him toward a rumpled, four-poster bed. “You poor, injured darling. Come let true love soothe your pain a bit more.”

“True love. Are we talking about legends again?”

She pulled him down on the bed, where they were
soon intimately bundled under the covers. “Aye, and promises for future legends,” she assured him.

Douglas felt the sweet, giving touch of her hands and saw the devotion in her eyes. “I believe you,” he whispered.

“Believe this—I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you that a MacRoth knows how to make a Kincaid deliriously happy.”

“But no better than a Kincaid knows how to keep a MacRoth happy.”

“Is that a challenge, you
arrogant
Kincaid?”

“You betcha, MacRoth.”

And he kissed her, just to get some trouble started.

THE EDITOR’S CORNER

Welcome to the new Loveswept!

It’s really thrilling to unveil the first eight Loveswept titles and to share with you these treasured classics:

Iris Johansen’s voluptuous historical
THIS FIERCE SPLENDOR
.

Sharon and Tom Curtis’s heartbreaking
LIGHTNING THAT LINGERS
.

Debra Dixon’s searing western
TALL, DARK, AND LONESOME
.

Juliana Garnett’s magical medieval
THE VOW
.

Sally Goldenbaum’s sexy romp
THE BARON
.

Annette Reynolds’s heart-melting contemporary romance
REMEMBER THE TIME
.

Adrienne Staff’s alluring
DREAM LOVER
.

Deborah Smith’s legendary
LEGENDS
.

These very special novels made hearts beat faster when they first appeared in the 1980s and 1990s, and we haven’t changed a word of the original text or updated them in any way—they are as seductive, intimate, warmhearted, and sizzling as when they first appeared. I know that you’ll love them as much as we do—whether they are new to you or beloved reads from your past that have been far too long out of print and unavailable.