Julia London 4 Book Bundle (105 page)

The other twin smiled so broadly that Arthur feared his face would crack wide open. “Aye, we are through there often enough.”

“Aha! I
knew
as much! I wouldna forget such handsome faces.”

The two round-headed idiots chuckled in identical, sheepish tones, and Arthur realized they were bringing the flatboat to a halt alongside Kerry.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, flashed a brief but smug smile at his look of disbelief in their sudden transformation. “I’m desperate to reach Dunkeld now. My family will be awfully worried. You willna mind terribly if we come along?” She followed the gaze of one twin to Arthur and hastily added, “Ah, but he was particularly helpful when the coach didna come. I doona think he is a sheepherder.”

What was the sudden fascination with sheepherding?

“He be a Lobsterback, lass,” the more talkative of the two said, to which Arthur snorted.

“Aye, that he is,” Kerry said, shooting him a quick, withering look. “But when the robbers came, he protected me with his very life. I would think that would mean he’s done a bit of a turnabout, eh? He’ll not be a bother, I promise.”

“Robbers?” the other one asked.

Kerry nodded solemnly. “Highwaymen.
Four
of them,” she said, holding up four fingers.

One twin looked suspiciously at Arthur, as if
he
had made that ridiculous claim. But the other twin, who had yet to peel his eyes from Kerry, piped up. “Aye, all right, then. We’ll take him as far as Dunkeld,” he said, ignoring the dark look of his brother.

“Ah laddies, thank you!” Kerry cried, and flashed a warm smile at them that even Arthur felt from several feet away. She turned her beaming grin to him and motioned him to hurry along.

With a low growl, Arthur stalked toward her, casting the twin bulls a look that clearly relayed his disdain as he helped Kerry onto the boat. He followed her, finding himself relegated to sit among the crates as the two bovine brothers pushed the boat into the river and continued their slow journey north. Much to Arthur’s considerable annoyance, however, Kerry sat perched upon a crate, chatting with the two as if they were long lost friends. Exactly
why
it annoyed him, Arthur couldn’t say. Other than he just didn’t like the way Mr. Richey and Mr. Richey—as he finally learned their names to be—looked at her. Nor did he like the way she smiled at them. Or how her lilting laughter seemed to fill the air around them.

After an hour or more, he grew so disgusted with her cheerful chatter that could fill the sail of a ship, that he turned his attention to the increasingly black sky. He glanced at the crude box built on one end of the flatboat and suppressed another groan. When the first fat raindrops fell, Mr. Richey Number One suggested Kerry step inside the little hut. Kerry insisted Arthur be allowed to come, too. That suggestion was met by an argument before the brothers grudgingly agreed.

“How very kind,” Arthur said snidely and stood, waiting for Kerry, who had moved to fetch her satchel.

That was the moment the downpour started, without warning. Instinctively, Arthur reached for her, but she mistook his meaning and thrust the satchel into his hand. “Come on!” he shouted, as rain came in sheets, and
Kerry nodded, grabbing onto a crate to inch her way around it.

The clap of thunder that boomed above them was matched by a fierce bolt of lightning that hit so close Arthur actually felt its jolt through his heart. He gasped, stunned by the sensation of it, and turned to look for Kerry.

She was nowhere.

He rushed to the edge of the flatboat, his fears confirmed when he glanced toward the Richey Brothers and one of them pointed downstream.

Bloody hell!
With a heavy sigh, Arthur tossed her satchel to shore, cast a quick but fierce and final frown at the two Richey brothers, then plunged headlong into the dark waters of the River Tay tributary.

T
HE HARDER SHE
fought, the deeper the current pulled her into the river’s clutches. Kerry felt herself sinking with the weight of the voluminous bombazine skirts that marked her a widow.
Was this the answer, then? She was to die so soon?

Her feet hit the sandy bottom—she had sunk so fast!
No!
her mind screamed, and she struggled again, kicking wildly but vainly against the weight of her clothing, dragging her arms against the water in a desperate bid to lift her head above the surface. Her lungs were burning, felt as if they would explode at any moment.
God grant her mercy, it was over!
She would die alone, drown in the river in her best black bombazine.

A strange sense of calm was beginning to wrap itself around her when she felt the hand of God clamp down on her shoulder. It
was
God—she felt herself being dragged upward, felt God’s legs kicking for both of them, powerful strokes, propelling them upward, upward, until her face broke the surface. Kerry dragged air into her lungs with a ragged cry, gasping, unable to get enough into her lungs. Oblivious to the rain, to the pull of her body through the water, to the struggle to lift her onto the riverbank, she gasped for air, choked on it, sputtering bile and water, then gulped for air again.

It was several moments before the cloud began to lift from her brain and she realized she was on terra firma, rain pelting her upturned face.

“It’s all right, Kerry, you are quite safe.”

God had saved her
—
He had sent Arthur to save her life!
The understanding of what had happened dawned harshly—tears erupted, blinding her, and she lunged into him, burying her face in his neck as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“There now, sweetheart. You are quite all right,” he said soothingly, caressing the back of her head.

No, no, he didn’t understand! “I almost
died
, Arthur. I almost died! You saved my life!” she wailed hoarsely, and choked on another sob.

Arthur forced her to lift her face to his, shook his head. “I would not let you perish, Kerry. And really, you weren’t under terribly long. It’s quite shallow.”

He did not understand, could not fathom how close she had come to slipping the bonds of this earth but for him. “I thought you were God,” she murmured.

That was met with a moment of silence as his gaze pierced hers hard, then slowly dropped to her mouth. “Not God. Just a man.” And he bent his head to hers.

The unexpected, soft touch of his lips paralyzed her—until the sensation exploded within her core, jolting her back to life. It was so surprising, so tender, that her body reacted of its own accord, melting into him, clinging to the warmth of his lips.

A moan rumbled deep in Arthur’s chest and suddenly his arms were around her, crushing her to him, nipping at her lips, sucking them, licking them. Kerry forgot the rain, forgot the river, forgot everything else as she opened her mouth and felt his tongue sweep boldly inside, tangling with hers, sweeping over her teeth, into her cheeks and producing a storm of emotion in her.

Her heart was pumping furiously now, stealing her breath again. She was aware that she answered the ardor of his kiss with an urgency of her own, one borne
from years of unanswered desire, of living in a sick house with the wasting, rotting flesh of a man. She desperately explored his mouth, dug her fingers into the thick waves of his golden-brown hair, stroked his ears, his shoulders and arms, then gripped him with the same strength he had used to pull her from the waters so that he would not let her go. One large hand covered the whole of her ribcage; the other cupped her cheek and ear as he drew her bottom lip between his teeth, then dragged his mouth from her lips, to her chin, to the hollow of her throat.

The hunger burning in her was overwhelming; she feared she might shatter at any moment, that her limbs would fail her. She clung recklessly to him as she dropped her head to one shoulder and bared her neck to his mouth. Arthur’s lips seared her skin, scorched the lobe of her ear. His breath in her ear sent a white-hot shiver of anticipation coursing through her veins. His hand swept the swell of her hips, pushed her body into his. Through the dripping fabric of their clothes, she could feel the ridge of his erection and inhaled a ragged, impassioned breath.

“Ah, God … Kerry,”
he murmured in her ear, then suddenly, as if she had been rudely startled from a dream, it was over. His hands slid up her arms until he found her wrists; he pulled her hands from his neck and clasped them tightly against his chest. “No more,” he said, and closing his eyes, pressed his forehead to hers, seemingly as breathless as she was. After a moment, he lifted his head and tenderly laid his palm against her cheek. “We must find shelter or you’ll catch your death.”

Shocked by her brush with death, numbed by the raw life in his kiss, Kerry could not respond, afraid if she spoke she would ask for more. Arthur took her firmly by the hand; Kerry stumbled alongside him, heedless of the distant thunder or the river rushing nearby, blind to everything but the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers, the comfort and safety in it, and the desire to feel that hand everywhere on her body.

Arthur found an overhang of sorts, where the river had cut yards below the bank and the canopy of trees above blocked most of the rain. He led her to a ledge just barely large enough to hold them both. He helped her remove as much of her wet clothing as was decent, then his own.

Silent, Kerry sank down, exhausted and bewildered by a kiss that had awakened something long dormant in her. That awakening seemed the final straw—the weight of her life, the frustration and fears and hopes and needs came crashing down on her, and the tears erupted anew. She tried to stop them with every ounce of will she had left, but she was suddenly mired in an overwhelming sense of despair. “I’m sorry,” she muttered miserably, appalled that she could not seem to make herself stop.

Arthur said nothing, but eased himself down beside her. Silently, he put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her head to his chest and held her, brushing the wet hair from her eyes and her face, caressing her back in long, comforting strokes while Kerry cried until there was nothing left in her. The last thing she knew before drifting into a dead slumber was the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.

What in God’s name was he doing?

What insanity had befallen him, what monumental foolishness had seeped into his brain? Arthur stared at the woman sleeping beside him, her hair a wild mess of curls and dark corkscrew ribbons spilling all around her. Her lashes, thick and black, brushing skin with the luster of opals. A pretty widow …

But a Scottish crofter’s widow!
And one who was perched precariously on a ledge in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands at that!

Arthur looked away from her, stared at the black sky above, indistinguishable from the steep hills around them.

What, dear God in heaven,
what
was he doing? What divine forces had moved that he might find himself
here
, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, the sudden protector of a pretty young widow struggling to make her way home? Some protector—who was
he
to lead her out of this quagmire? And how could he possibly have allowed himself to
join
her in this quagmire? Bloody hell, he had no earthly idea what they might do now!

Except walk. Yes, keep walking, for surely they would eventually walk off the face of the earth or meet with some semblance of civilization.

He stole another look at her.
Jesus, he was a Rogue!
It was hardly as if he was so pure a gentleman that he never took advantage of women in vulnerable situations. Frankly there were times he had actually created vulnerable situations, but those situations had involved women of the
ton
, women who understood and knew how to play the game. This woman … this woman was as innocent about the world as she was stubborn. This was a poor crofter’s wife who had, somehow, managed to find herself abandoned in the country and was trying her best to stand up to the mounting challenges of this extraordinary little journey.

All right, he had no right to have taken advantage of her. But devil take it, those crystal-blue eyes were drowning in tears, and her lips,
God
, her lips! He had meant only to comfort her, had only meant to kiss her once.

Righto. And he believed in fairies, too.

Worse yet, she had responded with such fierceness, such incredible longing, that just the memory of it made him hard all over again.

Kerry sighed in her sleep; Arthur silently extracted himself and gained his feet, jammed his fists into cold damp pockets and tried not to think how she had opened her mouth so eagerly beneath his, had thrust her hands in his hair and raked her fingers across his shoulders.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Damn it all to hell, but the woman had captivated him long before that kiss, had knocked him for a loop the moment she had marched off into the woods in search of the River Tay. She was impudent and vulnerable, courageous and timid all at once. Her financial woes, whatever they were, brought a glint of determination to her eye that was immediately softened by the glow of admiration when she spoke of Glenbaden, and her Big Angus, May, and Thomas. She had walked miles without complaint until her cheap boots had forced her to stop long after he would have begged for mercy. She had fallen in the river, kissed him with fierce passion obviously smoldering beneath that black bombazine, and then had cried herself to sleep like a child.

God, she was exhausting!

But she was unique, unlike any woman he had ever known. He was, as much as he was loath to admit it, completely enchanted by the widow who had shot him. There was something about her that made him feel strangely alive, as if she had awakened him from a deep slumber with that shot, shown him a sun and a moon and the millions of stars that seemed to hang above Scotland.

Oh yes, he was dangerously enchanted.

Bloody fabulous. Enchanted with a woman he could never have. He had come to Scotland for Phillip, not to fall victim to such treacherous emotions.
Christ God
, he would see her home, say his heartfelt farewells and put her out of his mind. He would settle Phillip’s affairs and return to his life in England where women like Kerry McKinnon simply did not exist. He had perhaps caught a Scottish star in his hand, but he could only hold it for a moment.