Bridegroom Wore Plaid (40 page)

He steered her toward the path Ian had shown her through the woods soon after her arrival. It started off close to the house, meaning there was little likelihood anybody would see Augusta with her demented escort.

Please
God, keep Fiona safe.

The baron hustled Augusta along in silence for some yards, his grip on her arm destroying her balance to the point that she stumbled. From the corner of her eye, she saw Fiona streaking around the corner of the stables, making straight for a woods crammed with hunters who were armed to the teeth and likely shooting at anything that moved.

***

“Your Highness.” Ian bowed to his neighbor. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” A gun went off about fifty yards to their right, while the Prince Consort acknowledged the bow.

“Do you know, Balfour, how the number of children in a household can make the summer months seem particularly riotous? My wife has remarked on this phenomenon herself, but she seems to think it a wonderful thing.”

Albert was tall, good-looking, with a fashionable set of side-whiskers and a kind of bluff, German common sense to him. He was also possessed of sufficient strength of character to husband the lady reigning over the most far-flung empire known to humankind. Ian had liked the man on sight.

The Prince Consort was known to appreciate decent libation too, as well as deer stalking, fishing, and grouse hunting.

“My thanks for that brew you sent over,” Albert continued. “Are we trying to murder every creature in the woods?”

“We’re celebrating,” Ian said. “There were betrothals announced at last night’s ball. Missed you, of course, and your lovely wife.”

Albert frowned as another gun went off at a greater distance. “I sent you regrets, at least for the ball, and a note accepting your invitation today. It was with all that prosing on from the College of Arms.”

Ian passed his companion a flask and settled on a boulder. The hunt would sweep past them, pushing the game toward the edges of the wood. “I didn’t get it.”

“You didn’t get a royal epistle? Time to fire your domestics, Balfour, except I forget: up here, you hire your distant family members so you at least get some work out of all those you support.”

“We hire them,” Ian said quietly, “so they don’t follow all our cousins and leave the realm entirely.”

Albert had the grace to grimace, then took a sip from the flask. “You need to scare up that letter, Balfour. You’re harboring a baroness without portfolio. Her uncle is larking around under some false colors, and my wife is inclined to frown on such behavior among the peerage. Excellent stuff.”

“Keep it.” Highland hospitality—and political common sense—required such generosity. “What baroness am I harboring?”

Albert grinned and pocketed the flask. “Augusta Merrick, of course. Victoria got your epistle a week or more ago, the telegrams and pigeons were sent off, and I sent you the answers. The Gribbony barony is Scottish, while the Altsax title is English. Doesn’t happen very often, unless the titles are quite old.”

“I knew the Gribbony title was Scottish,” Ian said slowly, “but what does that have to do with Augusta?”

A racket started up in the undergrowth to their right, and Albert immediately had an ornately decorated rifle against his shoulder.

“Uncle Ian! Uncle Ian!” Fiona gasped as she emerged at a dead run from the bushes. “Don’t shoot me. He has Augusta, and he has a gun!”

Albert lowered his rifle and shot Ian a quizzical look. “You’ve got trouble, Balfour.”

Fiona pelted into her uncle, tears streaking her face, her breathing harsh. “The baron’s going to kill her, and you have to save her!”

“Fiona, calm down.” Ian propped his rifle against the boulder and scooped his niece up. “Take a breath and let it out slowly. There’s my girl. Again.”

“He’s going to
kill
her. He came to her room and made her leave with him.”

“Balfour, what’s the signal?” Albert was pointing his gun at the sky as he spoke.

“Three shots,” Ian said. “As close together as you can.” Ian walked off a few paces with Fiona, while the prince gave the signal ending the hunt.

“Which way did he take her, Fee?”

“Up the path behind the stables. He has a big gun, and Augusta is going to
die
.”

“No, she’s not.” Ian kissed the child’s forehead. “She is bloody damned not going to die while I have breath in my body.”

Albert, a man exceedingly familiar with small children, reached for Fiona. “Give her to me. I’ll gather a party at the stables.”

“We haven’t time for that,” Ian said, passing Fiona over. “Keep the women safe, explain to my brothers what’s afoot, but don’t alarm the neighbors.”

“Mama will yell at me,” Fee said, curling into His Highness’s neck. “I was really bad, going into the woods when you were hunting.”

“She won’t yell at you,” Albert said. “My word as a papa. Have a care, Balfour. Decent neighbors are hard to find.”

Ian smiled at that and melted into the woods.

Sixteen

“You turned that bull loose on us, didn’t you?” Augusta gathered her shawl more closely around her, but nothing was going to penetrate the chill in her bones.
I’m going to die in Scotland after all.

“Of course I turned the bull loose on you,” Altsax said. “I also literally tried to move mountains to put period to your miserable existence, but Scotland has ever been unwilling to accommodate the plans of her betters.”

“Because she has none,” Augusta said. “Must you drag me at such an unseemly pace through this bracken?” She raised her voice as much as she dared, hoping the noise might alert someone from the hunting party.

“She has none? When all her best and brightest have long since deserted this heathen realm? The only Scots left behind are those too poor or stubborn to abandon the place. May disease and poverty soon finish them off. Come along.”

He jerked her elbow hard enough to send Augusta to her knees, where she briefly considered wrestling him for the gun.

“Get up, you stupid bitch. This hunt won’t last all morning, and your tragic demise can’t happen just anywhere. You have to be found in an area the hunt has passed through.”

Thank
God
for
that.

“If you don’t let me catch my breath, I’m going to expire right here.” Augusta sat back, chest heaving with a drama that was only slightly feigned. Let him think her stays were too tight, though thank God she’d never held with the extremes fashion demanded of young women.

“If you don’t get moving,” Altsax said, shifting to stand right over her, “I’m going to sacrifice finesse for effectiveness.” He cocked the gun.

That little click, a small, common sound, settled something in Augusta’s mind. She was going to die. Very well. Everything born to earth died sooner or later, but she was going to die fighting.

She hadn’t fought. Hadn’t fought when she was shuffled off to Oxford, hadn’t fought when her fiancé deserted her, hadn’t fought when her uncle claimed all manner of impossible things about Trevisham, hadn’t fought when she thought her cousins had turned their backs on her.

Hadn’t fought to keep the man she loved when she’d had the chance, but rather, had meekly concluded he’d be better off sorting through the heiresses and debutantes, when what the man needed was somebody to love him, not to be a banker in the marriage bed.

“Uncle.” Augusta got to one knee. “You may go to hell.”

She surged upward, pitching her hat at his face at the same time she jammed the hat pin straight into his gut. For an instant, she saw victory, while the baron cried out in indignation and pain. Augusta moved off, thinking to put as many trees as she could between her and the baron’s bullets.

Only to fall flat on her face three feet away.

“Oh, well done, Augusta.” The baron’s voice was smug with delight. “A brave show, at long last, but brought low by a damned tree root. My condolences on your failure and on your impending death.”

“Not so fast, Baron.” Ian loomed right up out of the undergrowth not two feet from where Augusta had fallen. “You have two shots, but you’ll need both of them to bring me down. I’m that big, that mean, and that determined you will not escape justice.” He moved a step closer. “Augusta, get up and run. I’ll stand between you and this idiot’s gun, and then I will kill him for you.”

She somehow got her legs under her, though relief was making her knees unreliable, and fear was making her heart pound in her chest. “Don’t let him kill you, Ian.”

“Not a chance.”

“For God’s sake.” Altsax tried for a lofty tone, but Augusta heard the quaver of fear in his voice as she got to her feet. She picked up the old shawl and balled it up in her arms. “You don’t know what she is, Balfour. You don’t know what she could do to me. You’re supposed to be a member of the peerage. Have you no respect for a fellow peer?”

“To the extent you refer to yourself,” Ian said, shifting so he stood between Augusta and the baron, “none whatsoever. Give me the gun, and I might let you live.”

“Don’t trust him, Ian.”

“Scat, Augusta. I’d spare you the sight of his blood and sound of his begging.”

“I might like to hear that.”

“You’re both mad,” the baron said, raising his gun. “I’ll shoot you through the heart, Balfour. Married to your heir, my Genie will be the countess then, and nobody will listen to some bitter old spinster’s version of the tale. I’ll have Augusta committed… and she
will
meet with an accident in very short order.”

Augusta gave Ian little warning taps—one, two, three—between his shoulder blades, then pitched her wadded-up shawl into the air straight over Ian’s shoulder. Ian took advantage of the distraction to tackle the baron where he stood. The gun went off, and Augusta’s heart lodged in her throat.

“Ian!” He lay over the baron, who was blinking rapidly up at the canopy above him. “Ian, for God’s sake, say something. For God’s sake… please.”

Ian groaned and shifted back onto all fours. “Bastard actually fired.”

“You’re hit! Oh, God, you’re hit.” Augusta tried to get him to his feet, which was futile, since he outweighed her by nigh six stone.

“Augusta, my heart, I am not hit.” Ian wove to his feet. “Altsax, before more witnesses gather, I suggest you make your peace with the woman you’ve wronged.”

“Never,” the baron gasped where he lay. “She was going to ruin everything. Everything…” His breath came in a desperate rasp while blood welled from a wound high up on his left shoulder.

Ian’s hands landed on Augusta’s hips and turned her into his body. “Don’t weep for him. The bastard’s too tough to oblige us by dying.”

“I’m not weeping for him.” She smacked Ian hard on the shoulder. “I’m weeping for you! He was trying to kill you!” She fetched up against Ian’s chest, and his arms closed around her.

“He’s been trying to kill you, you mean, and I suspect this is not his first attempt.”

Augusta nodded and clutched Ian more desperately. “He said he tried to move mountains to kill me. He p-poisoned Ulysses. He hates me.”

And this—which should have been obvious—had her sobbing uncontrollably against Ian’s chest.

She heard him crooning to her in Gaelic, felt him lift her and move with her away from where the baron lay. When Ian settled with her on a boulder, Augusta lashed her arms around his neck and still could not stop crying.

“
Hush, beloved. You’re safe.
You’re safe, and he’ll never hurt you again. I vow this, I swear it.”

Ian’s voice, not his words but the sound of his voice, the soft, Gaelic music of it, the care and concern in his tone, gradually calmed her. When Augusta looked up, a half circle of men stood a few yards off, their expressions grave.

Gil, Con, Matthew, and another kilted gentleman who looked familiar, all wearing expressions of solemn concern, and each sporting a weapon in his hand.

“There’s been an accident,” Ian said, his gaze going to the fourth gentleman.

“Of course. There has been an accident,” the gentleman said, irony wreathing his slight German accent. “Most unfortunate, but these things occur to those who are careless. We will provide all possible aid to the injured. You’ll see to the lady, Balfour?”

Ian nodded and rose with Augusta in his arms.

“I can walk,” Augusta said, her voice a mere croak.

“You can walk,” Ian retorted, making no move to put her down. “You can cheat death, you can outwit a man bent on your destruction, you can subsist on hope and tough chicken for years, you can see my brothers happily married despite all odds to the contrary, and you can bloody damned well let me carry you.”

“Yes, Ian.” She tucked her face against his neck, more than willing to let him do just that.

***

The three weddings held in the days following were very quiet: Matthew married Mary Fran in the family parlor; Con and Julia married on the terrace; Gil and Genie were married at the foot of the garden.