Timeless Desire (28 page)

Unfortunately, all the questions were ones she couldn’t answer.

She sat down on the bed and thought about her own world, so far away. It was Sunday morning. The staff at the library would soon figure out she was missing her shift. Marie would try calling, but if Panna didn’t answer, Marie would probably assume she was ill and asleep. Monday was Panna’s day off. Marie wouldn’t get really worried until Tuesday.

The realization that no one would miss her for days made her feel like crying. They were two of the same sort, she thought, she and Bridgewater. Not lonely, but alone. She, at least, still had her brothers and their families. But that was different from having someone who tended to your wounds, worried about you when you were gone, and carried you constantly in his thoughts.

The morning light had intensified, and the gold strands in Bridgewater’s hair gleamed. She slid next to him, smelling the whisky scent that permeated his skin now. The bed was narrow, and she stretched out, eliciting from him a satisfied “Mmmm.” She knew she should wake him so that he could move to his own bed, but the pillows were so soft and her thoughts kept slipping back to that first kiss.

P
ANNA WAS SO DEEP IN HER
dreams, she mistook the knock for the distant boom of a cannon, and it wasn’t until she heard Mrs. Brownlow’s whispered “Miss Kennedy?” that she woke and, still muzzy from sleep, ran to the door and opened it.

Mrs. Brownlow was accompanied by a stooped man with a cane and a pistol.

“There’s been an intruder,” Mrs. Brownlow said.

“Oh, dear.” Panna held the door open only a few inches and blocked as much of it as she could with her body.

“Has anyone bothered you?”

“No.”

“Have you seen anyone?”

“No.”

“The lock on the door at the end of the hall was broken.”

The bed behind her squeaked, and the man punched the door with his cane, knocking it open far enough to drive the knob against the wall. Jamie had stood, and the bloodied sheet was clearly visible on the bed behind him

“This is how you come to me?” the man said, his brimstone eyes focused in fury on Jamie. “Despoiling a god-fearing woman in my house?”

Despoiling
? Then Panna saw the blood on the sheets. Jamie’s mouth fell open.

“Did he rape you, lass?” The man, who Panna realized must be Hector MacIver, stared at her with concern.

“
Rape
? No, I—”

“Nothing happened,” Jamie said hotly, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Who is your father?” MacIver demanded of Panna. MacIver was nearly as tall as Jamie and looked just as capable of violence.

“I—I—don’t have one. He’s dead.”

The man gave Jamie a disgusted look. “A fatherless woman?”

“You are mistaken, sir.” The cold steel of Jamie’s voice sent a chill down Panna’s back.

“Mistaken?” the man cried. “Mistaken about what? Finding you in her room? The blood of her maidenhead on the sheets? You are a rutting English blackguard just like your father. Go back to him, where you belong, and leave my castle in peace.” He swung around to face Mrs. Brownlow. “Aye, your Jamie has returned. Is he everything you expected?” Then he turned clumsily, his bad leg so twisted beneath him that he nearly fell, and hobbled out the door, slamming the cane against the wall as he left.

Mrs. Brownlow burst into tears.

B
RIDGEWATER STRODE UP
N
UNQUAM
’
S IMPOSING STAIRCASE
,
ANGER
burning in his belly. He was followed by his companion of the last few moments, a man with pistol drawn who had met him at the entrance to the women’s wing and followed him wordlessly as he made his way through the maze of hallways, offering no suggestions on which way to go.

“I assume this is the way to see MacIver,” Bridgewater said. The man didn’t answer. “Not much for conversation, are you?”

Bridgewater had donned his coat and straightened his clothes before leaving Panna to settle Mrs. Brownlow, who’d wailed, “Your mother’s heart will be breaking.”

Why he’d expected a polite welcome from his grandfather, he didn’t know. Clearly the man was as bitter now as the day his daughter had told him she was with child by an English nobleman.

He reached the top of the stairs and turned to the right, following the path of a servant carrying a tray. “I assume you’ll let me know—or shoot me—if I am proceeding in the wrong direction.”

“Shoot you more’s the likely,” the man with the pistol said.

Bridgewater’s back and buttocks were on fire, and it was all he could manage to keep from limping himself. He’d been shocked by his grandfather’s appearance. The last time he’d seen him, perhaps two years ago, the man had been as straight in his saddle as a ship’s mast. An apoplexy or worse had stolen his vitality, but it seemed he’d hold his venom to the last.

You’re a rutting English blackguard just like your father.

The only good thing about the incident in Panna’s room was that the explanation for the presence of the blood his grandfather had seized upon meant the real explanation had not crossed his mind. For that reason alone, Bridgewater would not correct him.

He wondered what it might have been like to take Panna’s maidenhead, and the thought sent a raw tingle through him: watching the growing pleasure on her face, feeling the grip of her hands as he took her, knowing she depended upon him to guide and protect her. He felt a small stab of jealousy for the man who’d been lucky enough to serve her in that.

Ah, but she was not a maiden. She’d buried a husband. The weight of that loss showed in her eyes and bearing. She was a woman in the full sense of the word.

The servant he’d been following entered a room then did an about-face and nearly ran into Bridgewater, who kept the tray from falling.

“Steady, now.”

The man hurried away.

Bridgewater looked into the room and saw what had caused the servant’s reaction. His grandfather was seated before a cross, head bowed. The room was not a chapel—at least, not the sort Bridgewater could recognize. Other than a plain oak table and chairs, the only furnishings were a few shelves of books. Bridgewater stood quietly, waiting for his grandfather to finish. He could hear the old man’s labored breathing.

“Not quite the ostentation of the library in MacIver Castle, is it?” his grandfather said after a long moment, head still bowed.

Bridgewater flushed. Criticized for ostentation by a man who’d built not one but two castles? He bit his tongue.

“Why are you still here?”

“I told you,” Bridgewater said, “I have a matter of importance to speak to you about.”

The man was nearly prostrate on the ground. How with a cane and a crippled leg he’d managed to get to his knees, Bridgewater could not imagine. His grandfather turned to his side and, with evident effort, lifted himself onto a stool.

“There are many who wish to speak with me, including a dozen men under my roof right now whose wishes are more important than yours. What makes you think I would waste my time with you?”

“It concerns what may or may not happen between the clans and the English army in the next three days.”

The chief of Clan MacIver’s eyes widened for an instant, but he buried his interest in a look of cool detachment. “You are aware an intruder was shot attempting to scale the castle wall?”

Bridgewater froze. “I heard there was an intruder.”

“Tis a dangerous time in the borderlands. I dinna think even an English spy would be brazen enough to try that. Twould be sure death.”

“If an English spy had tried it, he would have succeeded, and you would never have known.”
If a well-trained one had, in any case.

His grandfather snorted. “If we find the man, I promise you, his death will dissuade anyone from attempting the same thing for many years to come.”

The hair on Bridgewater’s neck stood on end. The last spy who’d tried to infiltrate the clans had been a lieutenant in a Northumberland regiment whose head still sat on a spike on a bridge over the river in Dumfries.

“Where is your uniform, Captain?”

Bridgewater shifted. “I am not here on behalf of the army.”

“Are you telling me your father is not aware of your appearance here?”

His choice of “your father” instead of “commanding officer” or even “the earl” was like a parry at the start of a swordfight, designed to provoke his opponent. It took all of Bridgewater’s fortitude, whose levels were already perilously low, to hold his tongue. “No.”

“I see. And what would happen were he to learn of your ill-timed appearance here?”

It was a barely veiled threat, though Bridgewater had understood what he would be risking before he came. “I would prefer he did not.”

His grandfather gave a little chuckle and dragged his leg up under him. “I doubt he would be quite so concerned about your defilement of the girl, though. Tis rather a tradition in your family, is it not?”

Bridgewater’s ears started to buzz. “Let us not venture down that road, MacIver. His treatment of my mother was hardly worse than yours.”

The old man’s eyes blazed. “Your mother abandoned the teachings of her god—”

“
You
abandoned the teachings of her god,” Bridgewater cried. “My father broke her heart, but you killed her. Slash the blossom from the stem and it dies. When you threw her out of your heart and home, you destroyed her—just as surely as if you’d wrung her neck.”

“Your mother . . .” MacIver shook his head and pressed his lips together, his eyes shut tight. “Your mother broke my heart,” he cried, his face suddenly streaked with tears. He rocked forward with a furious growl, planted his cane on the floor, and dragged himself to a standing position. He jabbed the gnarled stick at his grandson. “Dinna speak your mother’s name to me. Ever.”

Bridgewater vibrated with fury. He wanted to take the man by the neck and fling him onto the floor. But he knew he could no more take those fragile bones into his hands than he could a child’s. It was heartbreakingly cruel that his first meeting with the man had to come when it was too late to kill him.

“I will never share any part of my mother with you,” Bridgewater said. “Of that you can be certain. But that does not change the reason I have come. Let us get to it, shall we, and bring this ill-conceived reunion to an end.”

MacIver’s gaze bore a hole in him. “Speak.”

“Does your word still carry the force of law with the clan chiefs here?”

MacIver’s eyes betrayed nothing. “One man, one vote has always been the way of the borderlands, Captain. Surely your father told you that.”

“I want your word that what I tell you will remain between you and me.”

The old man shook his head. “You have my word—but only if I believe what you say. So I would suggest employing your strongest powers of persuasion. The chiefs here would find great satisfaction in making an example of you.”

“The English army has been given the order to prepare for a battle.”

“Bloody bastards!” MacIver hobbled quickly toward the door. “I’ll have my scouts confirm this. If the army thinks we shan’t meet them blow for blow—”

“Wait.” Bridgewater stepped in front of him. “Let me finish.”

The servant with the tray reappeared and made his way toward the table.

“Leave us!” MacIver said sharply.

The man bowed and exited.

MacIver eyed his grandson with the intensity of a jungle cat, and Bridgewater could see a vein beating under the pale skin of his forehead.

“We have been prepared for this,” MacIver said. “The time has come to bring this matter to a head. The clans of Scotland will not endure an army at our doorstep.”

“I want you to convince the clans not to respond.”

MacIver’s eyes widened. “Are you insane?”

“You will lose. You must believe me.”

Bridgewater knew he had already committed treason by revealing the army’s plans. The line he had drawn for his own conscience, however, was that he would not reveal the number of soldiers or the fact that the queen’s orders gave the army only until Wednesday to wait for a battle before they had to return south.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” MacIver said. “To take your victory without a struggle.”

“Twill be no victory for anyone if your men and the army come to blows.”

MacIver stepped closer to his grandson, close enough that Bridgewater could feel the man’s sour breath on his face. “You’re saying to me that you want the clans to throw down their arms and allow the English army free reign to cross the border?” His eyes shone like two blue flames.

“I’m saying I want you to keep the clans from attacking. You do not need to throw down your weapons. But you must keep them from mounting an offense.” Bridgewater could see the machinations in his grandfather’s eyes as he considered what it might take to reverse that plan.

“You ascribe too high a power to me, Captain. The clans will do as they wish. They always do.”

“You must stop them. If your men attack, they will be slaughtered. I am not a Scot, but I do not wish to see that any more than you.”