The Highlander (27 page)

"Aye, the Sun King is her grandfather, but it is my understanding that her father was an illegitimate son of the king. I learned later that King Louis legitimized all of his illegitimate children."

Gillian held her breath, unable to believe she was privy to hear such. She knew she should leave. Things like this could get one murdered, but she had to hear what Vilain had to say next.

"Yes, that is true," he said. "Louis was a devoted father. He did legitimize them...all of them."

"I would like to ask you to make a few inquiries as to whether anyone has seen the lass. Since you are known in the area, you can ask such questions without arousing all the suspicion my investigation would bring forth."

"And if I learn anything?"

"Just leave word for Mirren MacDougal at the Black Bull Inn."

Gillian trembled with anticipation. At last she had the perfect way to be rid of that French hussy, for there was little doubt in her mind that Jamie had bedded the wench. Gillian knew she could not afford to let him become too enamored with Sophie, or her hopes of being the Countess of Monleigh would be destroyed. Of course he would be angry at her, Gillian knew, but he would be angrier at Sophie for her lies and deceit. After a while, he would come to his senses.

With Sophie out of the way, everything would be as it had been before.

She knew she had to be away from here quickly so she turned away and went quietly down the hall and back up the stairs.

When Vilain entered the room half an hour later Gillian was lying naked on top of the bed, her legs spread the way Vilain liked them.

He began removing his clothes. "Ah
cheri,
you know the way to get a rise out of a man."

"Prove it," she said.

Simon Mclver, the proprietor of the Black Bull Inn, was drying tankards when the noise in the room suddenly dropped.

He looked up to see the cause—a woman in a long black cape, with the hood over her head, walked into the tavern.

"I have a message for Mirren MacDougal. Is he here?"

"Aye, ye can leave yer message here and I will see that he gets it."

"This is an unwritten message, meant to be delivered to MacDougal in person. Will you summon him?"

Simon put the tankard down. "Aye, ye can have yerself a seat over there to wait."

"I prefer to wait outside. Tell him I am in the coach."

She was gone before the innkeeper could raise a speculative brow or direct another question her way.

Ten minutes later, Mirren MacDougal tapped on the door of the coach. The door opened and a woman's voice said, "Mr. MacDougal, do come inside. I have some information that you will find most useful."

Captain Robinson, of the Black Watch, listened intently to what Mirrin MacDougal had to say. When MacDougal finished, the captain had a few questions.

"You mean this woman named Gillian is betrothed to Monleigh?"

"Aye."

The captain knitted his dark brows into a thoughtful frown. He folded his slender fingers with the well-manicured nails and rested his chin upon them. "Hmm... One would think she would fear Monleigh's wrath. When he learns she was the one who betrayed him and the French lass, she will be anything but dear to him."

"The way she feels, it would be better to have Monleigh angry than not to have him at all."

The captain nodded. "Aah... So he is smitten with the French lass?"

"Aye. Quite smitten, according to his fiancee," MacDougal replied.

Captain Robinson smiled. "It is always nice to experience a little pleasure while doing business."

"Aye, but how will you wrest the lass from Monleigh? 'Tis no easy task, ye ken."

"We will confront him, of course, and give him the opportunity to turn her over to us, with a friendly reminder that it is, after all, his duty as a member of the aristocracy."

MacDougal thought about that for a moment. "And if he refuses?"

"Then we have no choice but to arrest him."

"But he is the Earl of Monleigh."

"If he refuses to hand over the fiancee of the Duke of Rockingham, that makes him an enemy of the crown. Need I remind you that an enemy of the King of England has no rights?"

MacDougal shook his head. "No, you needn't remind me. How will you go about this?''

"Leave that to me," Robinson said. He opened a drawer, withdrew a small pouch, and tossed it to MacDougal.

The
clink
of money could be heard when Mir-ren caught it in one hand.

"Your thirty pieces of silver," Captain Robinson said.

Eighteen

If she be false, O! then heaven mocks itself.

I'll not believe it.

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright.
Othello
(1602-1604), Act 3, Scene 3

Jamie was in the midst of settling himself in bed when two glossy ravens perched upon the battlements.

Uneasiness settled about him at the sight of such a bad sign for, according to folklore, it was an ill omen to see two ravens, and he silently recited the admonition in verse.

To see one raven is lucky, 'tis true

But it's certain misfortune to light upon two

And meeting with three is the devil!

Were they the heralds of some misfortune that was to come, or an indication of something fated to end badly? Only time would prove the answer.

The ravens remained there until dawn and then, with great flapping of wings and a croaking cry, they flew away.

Upon arising, Jamie was in a state of uneasy calm, unable to shake the feeling that closed in around him—that this was not going to be an ordinary day. In spite of trying, he could not shake the presentiment of coming misfortune, although it was not clearly based on anything but the two ravens.

Deciding to put the ill omen out of his mind he dressed, not in his customary clothing, but in a white linen shirt and his plaid. His finest basket-hiked broadsword hung suspended from a tooled baldric with silver trim. Even the ever-present dirk he usually wore was replaced by one with intricate knotwork carving on the shaft.

Today promised to be a long one. He might as well face it well dressed.

Unlike the Lowlands, where the land was arable, the fishing good and trade with England plentiful, life in the Highlands was hard, physically and mentally. The land was rugged and remote, and the soil was poor, requiring the members of his clan to depend largely upon fishing and cattle.

The severe weather and bad harvests of the past year had driven many Highlanders to emigrate elsewhere, and Jamie still regretted the fact that many of those who left were members of his own clan.

Yesterday he had inspected the eroded hillsides where, due to overgrazing, much of the land was reverting to rough pasture, bracken and rush. Today he would ride out to inspect the lower slopes of damp grasslands and flush bogs that dotted the lower slopes.

Last night he had placed Fraser and Calum in charge of seeing that the cattle were moved from the higher plateaus of the mountains to the lower glens. Only moments ago Niall had reported his concern about the farms, which were barely scraping a living from the miserable Highland soil.

He had promised Calum that tonight they would go over the crops they planned to plant in the spring.

As if his mind was not preoccupied enough, Jamie kept having visions of his bachelorhood dwindling away before his open eyes. Soon the bards would be composing ballads of how the mighty Chief of the Clan Graham, after loving all the lasses, had given his heart to only one, for today he intended to ask Sophie to marry him.

He tied his hair back in a queue, put on his jacket and declared himself ready to face the day. He hoped that by nightfall things would be looking much better—after Sophie said yes.

He was about to leave his room when Bran knocked on the door and entered.

He did not greet Jamie in his usual jovial manner. His face was grimly set, his hps tight, as if he tried to hold back his words. "A regiment of the Black Watch was spotted a few miles from here," he said. "What do you suppose those English-loving bastards want?"

"Spying is their primary occupation, is it not?"

Bran nodded. "Aye, that along with arresting anyone they wish and turning them over to the English."

"Keep an eye on them, but stay out of sight. It could be nothing more than a patrol, or an advance group ahead of General Wade's road builders."

"Or, they could be here to quash the tribal fighting between the Crowders and the Mc-Crackens," Bran said.

"Aye, that too."

*
  
*
  
*

Out of the corner of her eye, Sophie saw Jamie come down the stairs like an immense black shadow, dwarfing everything around him. To her he seemed as tall and powerful as the towers of the castle, and everything about him was dark and hard as granite.

Her gaze fell on the claymore at his side, a cold and dangerous reminder of what he was capable of, and of the danger that seemed commonplace to the Grahams.

She was about to greet him when Arabella came rushing around the corner. "Jamie, come quickly...into the library. Wallace Graham has brought a woman and her five daughters to see you. He says the woman is a witch and has caused his cow to stop giving milk."

With an oath uttered in Gaelic Jamie headed toward the library with great, long strides, with Arabella practically running behind him to keep up.

Although Sophie was curious and would have liked to witness what was going on in the library, she did not feel it was her place to intrude upon a situation such as this, so she sat down on the bottom stair, chin resting in her hands, to wait.

Half an hour later, Arabella joined her.

"What happened to the woman and the children?"

"Jamie had one of the men take them back home."

"He didn't accuse her of being a witch, then."

"Of course not. The last witch was hung in 1727, but of course that doesn't mean people don't still believe in them."

"What caused the cow to stop giving milk?"

Arabella laughed. "The woman's husband was arrested by the English, and she has no money. So, she was getting up very early each morning to milk her neighbor's cow, so her children would have something to eat."

"So, how did Jamie settle things?"

"He paid the man for his cow and gave it to the woman so she can feed her children, and Angus Graham can buy himself a new cow."

Sophie smiled. Chiefs, she decided, were busy lads.

Arabella went to her room and Sophie was about to do the same when Jamie reappeared and invited her to ride out with him.

"Where are you going?"

"To look over the glens."

By the time she changed into her riding clothes Jamie had a fine chestnut mare saddled for her. She accepted his boost into the sidesaddle and drew the sides of her cloak together, careful to see that it covered her skirts.

A few feet away Jamie mounted Corrie and spurred him to a trot. Sophie watched him for a moment, then touched her whip to the mare's flanks and rode after him.

The wind on her face was cold, but the sun was out and her black cape did a good job of absorbing much of its warmth. She was glad when they left the narrow track through the mountains and entered the moor, for then she could ride beside him, instead of following behind.

They rode along a burn to the place where it curved into a pool in a shallow fall. Bushes of heather grew in clumps between the gray rocks.

"In the summer the flowers here smell like honey," he told her, and she felt a sadness deep inside knowing she would not be here when the flowers returned in the spring.

They rode past ancient forts, standing stones and cairns into a glen where history seemed to stand still. She stopped her horse and looked around as Jamie told her this was a sacred place, where eight thousand years of history lay crumbling. They dismounted and led their horses over the hummocky ground with its jutting outcrops of rock, interspersed with patches of heather.

They did not stop until they reached a large stone and Sophie inquired about the carving of a rod, crescent moon and what looked to be spectacles.

"No one knows what they stand for. The knowledge has died out," he said, and she was reminded of the days when men walked the earth, imbuing each stone and tree with a living spirit, only to vanish and leave nothing but his ancient stones and strange markings behind, as witness that he had ever existed at all.

They walked on for a while and stopped by a stone cairn. Jamie was about to help her mount when she stepped on a stone and turned her ankle.

She looked down, prepared to kick the stone away, then paused and, leaning over, picked it up. "It looks like a small teapot," she said.

He took it and looked it over. "It's an ancient stone lamp," he said, and handed it back to her. "It's probably lain there for thousands of years, right where someone dropped it. Bring it with you if you like."

She started to take it with her but had a second thought. "No, somehow it doesn't seem right to move it."

He flashed her a grin. "Are ye afraid it will carry some sort of curse? You aren't superstitious, are you?"

"No," she said, and felt a cold chill ripple down her neck. "At least not very superstitious."

He laughed and put out his hand to take the lamp. "Very well, we will leave it here."

He put the lamp back in its resting place and turned back to her. "Seems like I finally have ye all to myself."

His words were exciting, and the spark of fire in his eyes caused a ripple of desire to pass through her. She felt paralyzed, unable to move. Tightness gripped her throat. Something strange seemed to settle over her, hungry and impatient.

He must have felt it, too, for his arms came around her.

She leaned back against one of the stones and lifted her face to his, waiting for the kiss she hoped would come, and she was not disappointed.

It had been so long since she had kissed him, and she was swept away with a sense of urgency. His mouth was hot and his hunger matched hers, and she wanted him now, right here, at this very spot, not caring that they were completely out in the open, in the middle of the day.

Weak from his kisses, she began to slide down the length of the stone until she was sitting down. She saw Jamie had already dropped his claymore beside them on the ground.

He dropped down beside her. His hands gripped her hair as if holding her for the kiss that followed: raw, sensual and earthy—a kiss as barbaric as his ancestors, and she knew their mating would be primitive and frantic. She clung to him, arching against him as he slipped her clothes off.

She whimpered when the cool air washed over her, and groaned with satisfaction when he covered her warmly with his heat, the hard length of him cradled against her belly, then moving lower, teasing her with each grinding stroke of his hips until she could stand it no longer and captured him in her hand.

The heat, the size, the heady sense of power it gave her to hold him thus, to see the beauty in a face she loved, even when the beloved tanned features were gripped with aching desire, startled her.

It was an exhilarating feeling: a lightheadedness that came upon her like too much wine—intoxicating and so powerful.

She realized at that moment that she liked the heady feeling—the daring of making love to him here, in the open, and the reckless spirit, the threat of danger that always hovered close beside him. Her desire for him stabbed at her until she cried out, wanting, needing to satisfy an insatiable craving that gripped her in its jaws and would not let go, until she heard herself begging .... ' 'Please, Jamie... please..."

He went over the edge at the sound of her whisper. She lifted her hips to meet his entry, taking all of him and giving all she had to give in return. At last he was where she wanted him to be, kissing her, touching her, whispering what he wanted to do to her, leaving her screaming for more and telling him not to stop.

"I could never stop. You have been mine, a part of me since the beginning. You don't know what it's like to touch you, to feel you open like a flower, welcoming me home. Every time I make love to you, I die a little inside...slow and painless until I realize I'm halfway to heaven."

His words wrapped around her and she wondered if the magic of it was because of the place they were in, if there was still some lingering presence from long ago, when the gods came down and copulated with the inhabitants of the earth.

Too powerful, she thought. He had cast a spell over her that was both mystical and erotic. And still he teased her, bringing her to the edge until she arched against him, ready to be swept away, then withdrawing, almost leaving her completely until she clutched at him and whispered, "No, don't leave."