No Other Woman (No Other Series) (41 page)

"Why—why, Lady Shawna, of course."

* * *

Stretched out in the master's chamber of the castle, arms folded behind his head, Hawk watched as his wife paced back and forth before the door. Though he had eaten fairly heartily of the fine venison stew Anne-Marie had brought on a tray from the kitchen, Skylar hadn't touched their food.

He watched another few minutes, then grew impatient. "Skylar, come to bed."

She kept pacing. He might have been no more than a bee buzzing on a spring day.

"Skylar! Quit that, and come to bed."

She turned to him at last, silver eyes wide, blond hair streaming brushed and beautiful down the length of her back.

"Hawk, your brother is in grave trouble-—"

"And is seeing to things in his own way. Skylar, I would do anything for David, my God, I risked
your
life today, which I never intended, but what lies between him and Shawna now, I cannot solve. And you should quit bringing it up. I'm incensed each time I think of you assuming that I was spilling children about the world without a care."

Skylar flushed. "I didn't really think—"

"Then you spoke with careless haste."

She arched a brow, nearly replied, then thought better of it.

"So—is it my brother's fertility we're discussing here—or your sister's?"

"Well, she is my sister. Hawk, there is such friction between them! What I can't fathom," she said, "is how it could have possibly happened."

Hawk patted the bedsheet. "Come on over. I'll show you."

"You know what I mean."

"Neither of us knows what happened. And for tonight, Sloan has asked to speak with Sabrina himself."

"We should be demanding to know—"

"Skylar, we need to be grateful tonight that Sabrina is alive and well and with us again!"

"Oh, sweet Jesu, yes, but this on top of the other—"

"Skylar, if Sabrina claims that she carried Sloan's child and he denied it and all responsibility, I'd have to take a shotgun to a very good friend. He has denied nothing; she has denied nothing. He has said that he will marry her. What would you have me do?"

"Nothing."

"You want Sabrina to tell you what happened. Not how it happened, of course, you do know that. But you're eaten alive with curiosity to discover when, and under just what circumstances."

"Aren't you?"

"No. I'm sure you'll tell me when you find out."

Skylar cast him a murderous glare and began pacing the floor once again.

"What about that precious little child? Hawk, you've a nephew! They have a little boy, Hawk, and they didn't even know it. And now your brother..."

"My brother what?"

"Has taken the child away."

"Skylar, there is some group within Craig Rock apparently trying to kill off the Douglases—and Shawna as well. That boy is the child of David Douglas, and if David were in truth dead, he would be Laird Douglas. And if his mother were to die, he would be laird of the MacGinnis holdings as well. He is only safe away from the castle."

"But where is he?"

"James McGregor saw to it that he was taken safely south."

"How can he be certain that the child is safe?"

Hawk arched a brow. "Do you doubt me again, my love?"

Skylar flushed. "Hawk—"

"The lad was taken to McGregor's mother."

"Oh!"

"Now, come to bed. We're all going to have to be alert tomorrow, even though I will cease to play at being Laird Douglas."

Skylar came to their bed, slipping between the covers. She sighed, laying her head upon the pillow, and closing her eyes.

Hawk rose on an elbow, watching her. "It's your last night to sleep with a laird," he reminded her. "My brother will take back his wretched title come tomorrow. And then again, you did ask me how Sabrina might have come about being with child."

She opened her silver eyes to his. "I know how she did it. But you may feel free to refresh my memory."

Smiling, he did so.

And later, when he lay with his arm around her, holding her against his chest and trying again in his mind to solve the strange puzzles plaguing his brother's life, she suddenly snuggled more closely against him.

"Hawk? You know, we really do know how to do it."

"It what, my love?"

"What it is my sister has been about."

"Skylar, what—"

"I believe that
our
Douglas heir will arrive before the end of June."

"Skylar..." he began, then jerked up, bracing his arms around her to stare into her eyes. "Our..."

"Child, Hawk, child. We're going to have one ourselves."

He smiled slowly. "You're certain."

She nodded gravely. "I didn't particularly want to say anything to anyone else here—I didn't want to encourage anyone in the belief that there would be more Douglases, since it's dangerous enough around here
not
being an actual target."

"My love, that makes good sense. But you can share the secret with me."

She smiled. "I've done so. Are you happy?"

"Well, other than the fact that we are surrounded by danger, my brother is in grave difficulty, and my world in America is falling apart—yes. I am blissful."

"Oh, Hawk."

"I am blissful," he said softly. "For the core of my world is you. And now, you and our babe."

* * *

When David returned to the castle, he went straight to the great hall, heedless now of who might come upon him.

David, Laird Douglas, was back. He had learned what he could in disguise and as a dead man.

And now, it was time to take his rightful place. And to deal with those who had deceived him.

Shawna...

He poured a large tumbler of whiskey from a tray on the long table, then stood before the fire.

Shawna.

He slammed a fist against the stone of the mantel, seeking to rid himself of the visions of her face that plagued him. Her eyes, blue in the extreme, her hair, silken skeins of blue-black, entangling him, when he knew far better than to seek her, then to want her. Have her.

And every time he left her, he wanted her more.

He had believed her. He had believed her! But the fear inside him allowed him to doubt her. Damn Fergus Anderson!

He trembled, thinking of the boy. He had a son. Daniel. The boy was brave, resilient, intelligent. A handsome child. With the very strange Douglas hairline...

And his mother's eyes. And hair.

He'd believed in her again tonight. Her shock at being told that Danny was hers had seemed so very real. She had passed out quite cold; she had been deadweight in his arms.

Had she deceived him again? Even now, he didn't want to believe it. But Fergus, at sword's point, had spoken desperately. Shawna's maid had brought him the child, and, according to Fergus, Shawna was the one who wanted the secret kept.

He inhaled deeply. He'd certainly not take Fergus Anderson's word over Shawna's. And come the morning, he meant to have a very long talk with Mary Jane.

Yet, still, perhaps...

God, he was tired.

And he had learned through great torment that love could weaken a man and make him vulnerable.

Even if he were to trust Shawna completely, she was still dragging him down dangerously every time he tried to find the truth. She kept trying to protect the MacGinnis family. He had to be firm with Shawna, cold if need be. Her loyalty to others could be their very death now. It was her maid—who had been with her and the MacGinnis clan for years!—who had brought the child to Fergus. God! Shawna gave him so little of her faith, yet...

He was in love with sky blue eyes, silken hair, and a lithe form that awakened and renewed him; with a voice that was soft and sensual, stroking him like the gentle touch of a finger, with a promise... yet he could never quite capture the truth. It evaded 'him like a dark, winding trail.

She hadn't told him about having the bairn. If she had done so, he could rid himself of the doubts that tormented him now.

He heard a slight sound behind him and spun around, ready to draw a sword or pistol at a second's notice.

Alistair, tall, head high, a handsome young man. He was dressed in his own tartan, a variation of the Douglas pattern and colors, since the MacGinnises of Craig Rock were considered a Douglas of Craig Rock sept.

"Alistair," he said warily.

"Would you drink with me, David?" Alistair asked.

"Aye, that I will," David agreed carefully.

Alistair came forward, pouring himself a glass full of fiery whiskey from the decanter on the table. Alistair swallowed down all the whiskey, shuddered, and set his glass back down. He looked at David.

"I need to talk to you."

"And you seek courage to do so, so it seems."

"Aye, that's true."

"Talk to me, then, Alistair."

"I should have told you the truth—that truth which I know—when I came upon you and your brother in the tunnel."

"Any truth you have to tell me now, I'll be glad to hear."

Alistair hesitated only a moment longer. "Well, I was not surprised to discover that you weren't dead."

"Why was that?"

"Because," Alistair said, and he held his gaze steady with David's, "I've known since the morning that charred corpse was discovered that it was not yours, and that somewhere, you were alive."

"How could you have known that?" David demanded.

"Because I was the one who switched your body with that of the convict. I was the one who carried Shawna from the stables before the flames could consume her, and I was the one who saw to it that the convict's body was charred beyond recognition before placing it there beside her."

"And I was the one who made sure that the convict, Collum MacDonald, was buried in the crypt below, in a coffin bearing your name."

Chapter 22

James McGregor sipped brandy, enjoying the comfort of the Queen Anne chair before the fire, his legs stretched out on the footstool before it. The flames warmed his face, and he offered Shawna a smile that managed to make his ugly little face somehow beautiful.

But though he'd accepted her invitation for a brandy, and though he sat so comfortably in the chair, he looked at her and said, "You know, Lady MacGinnis, I cannot tell you a thing. Not a single thing. It isn't my place."

Across from him, Shawna frowned. "Not even where he has had the wee lad taken?"

James leaned forward. "I swear, he's quite safe—will that help you?"

"It will help. But what that tyrant has asked of you is quite cruel, you know."

James smiled, swirling his brandy in his glass. "The lad is healthy, well tended, and in fine health."

"How do you know?"

He glanced at her, startled. "Why... I was a physician, my lady. In a different life. The lad is well, and your Sabrina will be fine as well. I could have tended her tonight, but you wanted your friend here."

"It was important to me. Edwina practices witchcraft, but she is not among these awful people. I know it."

"So it's good that she came tonight," he agreed, and shrugged. "I met Laird Douglas upon a ship that was taking us both away for a lifetime of servitude. I only escaped my fate because of Laird Douglas, and therefore, though I do not consider him a tyrant, I do his bidding, and gladly."

"I don't know where my child is, so his bidding is wrong," Shawna said.

James leaned toward her, swirling his brandy, enjoying the amber color. "You cannot imagine how fine it seems to sit in comfort, and drink something of such quality," he told her, and smiled.

"You are paying me no heed, Mr. McGregor."

"Ah, but I am. I have been quite anxious to meet you, of course. In the very first moment, when Laird Douglas awoke to find himself called a murderer, he thought that you had been killed. And I think that he would have torn out the throats of captain, mate, and crew—before dying himself, of course—if he had not quickly realized that you were alive and well—he was the dead man."

"So he has spoken of me."

"Indeed."

"What he has said cannot have been kind."

"We lived together, my lady, in the cruelest of conditions. In London, good Queen Victoria has created a reign of chastity and propriety, but in her search for goodness, she overlooks the horror of the tenements, of the poor—and once a man is condemned, by fair means or foul, his fate is hell on earth. You are aware, I imagine, that David was taken aboard a ship, and sent to hard labor camps. I have fought rigging with him in the fiercest storms, I have broken rock at his side. I have seen him do the labor for others to keep whips of sadistic guards off their backs—in fact, my lady, it was in fighting for me that he finally won our freedom. I was very nearly killed. I don't think that David intended to kill the guard. In the fighting, the guard's neck was broken. We freed ourselves and a number of the others, and escaped. I tell you this just in case you don't understand what his past five years have been. You must bear in mind that obviously, over such an amount of time, a man would brood. And his anger would fester hard within his soul."

"But I'm not guilty of all that he thinks," Shawna protested. "Surely, he knows that now. I don't know exactly what he's told you, but I only meant to save my cousin—"