Damned William.
Jamie knew the self- righteous prig would be making his way back to Duncrub.
He plopped down hard at an empty table. The rickety wood creaked as he sat, and he kicked a neighboring chair free, propping his mucky boots in front of him.
He’d make his bloody younger brother pay for the fiasco back in London. Jamie couldn’t believe the cripple had managed to free a prisoner out from under him.
And now his betters doubted his commitment and competence. Outwardly questioned Jamie’s ability to manage the simple imprisonment of fools.
Oh, little Willie would pay. Dearly, and for everything.
“Whisky,” he called to a passing servingwoman. He’d been riding hard north all day and was in a mood to pickle himself with drink. “And whatever slop you’re serving for supper this evening.”
He used his heel to scrape at the mud on his boots. It was late summer, and the rain had been heavy throughout Perthshire. “I feel like a goddamned mushroom,” he grumbled. “Perth. Sweet bosom of my clan. A seething heap of shit.”
“Beg pardon?” the wench asked, setting the whisky in front of him.
“Bring me ale as well, woman. And now.” He didn’t spare her a glance as she bustled away.
He needed to think. Needed a plan.
He’d return home to wait for his lame brother. Though their father was still alive, the old man had become an imbecile since suffering a fit two years past. And so little brother Willie had nobody to protect him now.
Chuckling, he swung his feet to the floor. Their father had adored Will, but it was
Jamie
their mother preferred. She claimed it was because Jamie favored her side of the family, but he’d secretly known it was that Will’s legs disgusted her.
Their mother knew how to love a strapping lad. But a feeble, broken one? No, it’d been Jamie who’d been his mother’s chosen son.
Not that Will had needed any more attention. His whole life, folk attended him as if he were a bloody head of state instead of a self-righteous cripple. His series of military victories with James Graham had been the last straw. Who’d have thought a cripple could fight on the battlefield?
He scowled. Graham had been a damned popinjay who’d deserved to die. Though the way the man had been lauded, one would’ve thought he’d been the bloody Messiah instead of a supposed war hero.
The Graham clan.
He cleared his throat and spat onto the floor. Jamie had married Graham’s cow of a sister, then wisely left her for a Campbell. At the time, he hadn’t cared who Campbell was fighting for; Jamie only knew it was against his brother, and that had been good enough for him.
He’d come to admire Campbell, though. Had come to respect the values that he and their Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, stood for.
And so he’d become a key figure in Cromwell’s inner circle, chasing down fools who dreamed of reinstating a Stuart to the throne. Cromwell recognized his potential, even if his own father didn’t. Jamie’s duty was to snare and cage Royalists like rabbits up in the Tower. Until his damned little brother had come along.
“
I wonder at your commitment, Rollo
,” Cromwell himself had mused.
Damn his brother.
Planting his elbows on the table, he scrubbed his hands through his hair. Will was a cursed bastard who continued to thwart him left and right. And no matter how exacting his planning, Jamie always ended up looking the incompetent one. Ever since they’d been lads, it had been thus.
Except . . .
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. Except for his greatest triumph, when it was Will who’d been beaten. The terror on his brother’s face when his prized pony charged . . . Jamie chuckled. It had been worth the beating their father had laid into him. His arse had hurt for a month.
The barmaid came back with a pint. She stood for a moment, waiting, but he ignored her, instead taking a big pull from his mug. She stormed off and he sneered, shaking his head. If the hag thought he’d spare her a coin for cloudy ale the temperature of piss, she was sorely mistaken.
Threading his fingers at the back of his head, Jamie leaned back to think.
Putting a burr under that pony’s saddle had been inspired. He needed something
that
good, that simple and far-reaching, to get back at his brother.
For the thousandth time, he imagined killing Will. But though he fantasized about it, he wouldn’t murder his brother outright. Not because of any moral compunction. He’d simply have the crippled prig alive, writhing in the knowledge that it was Jamie who finally triumphed.
He brought the whisky to his mouth, held it there, letting the fumes burn his sinuses. He needed to think, needed to come up with something that would torture Will for the rest of his days.
A burst of chill evening air had Jamie turning in his seat. A man stood at the door, scanning the room, letting his eyes adjust to the light.
He was taller than average, with hair that shone like a woman’s. Jamie glowered. He didn’t know what the world was coming to; there were popinjays all around.
He took a big swig from his mug and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He always acted instinctively boorish when faced with pretty lads like this one. Pretty men in pretty velvet coats were beneath contempt.
Belching, he sat tall in his chair. It dawned on him that he angled for a good fight. His brother was nowhere about, but bloodying up this pretty lad’s face would be just the thing.
And he knew just the way.
Downing the rest of his glass in one swig, he watched as the man politely flagged down the barmaid, made his request.
Jamie interrupted them, bellowing, “More whisky.”
The man turned and spotted him, and Jamie knew he’d approach the table. He was the only other man there not soiled by a day of hard labor.
Jamie might not be one for lace at his cuffs, but neither did he disguise his wealth. He knew his clothes showed it. Fine materials and a simple, elegant cut. And he knew fops like this one couldn’t resist the company of wealth.
“A fine evening, sir,” the man gushed. “May I join you?”
Jamie’s only response was to kick a chair in the man’s direction.
He eyed it, eyed Jamie, and with the merest of shrugs, took a seat.
“M’lords,” the servingwoman said.
Jamie looked up, surprised to see the old crow had returned. “You certainly made haste for
him
.” He gestured to the stranger who promptly began to dig in his coin purse.
“Oh,” she cooed, accepting a copper. “Verra generous, sir.” She narrowed her eyes accusingly at Jamie, plunking a chipped bowl in front of him. A charred slab of biscuit glistened on top, the aroma questionable at best.
“Ah, a filthy bowl of”—he inhaled deeply—“let’s see. I suppose that’s food you’ve brought us, correct?”
“Shepherd’s pie.” She crossed her arms over her scrawny chest. “I don’t make it. You dinna have to eat it.”
He eyed her. The sass was unexpected.
“A moment,” Jamie stopped her, digging in his pocket, then flicked a coin in her direction.
Open-mouthed, she stared at him a moment, then quickly tucked the bit of silver safely at her sagging bosom. “Thank ye, sir,” she muttered in surprise, scuffling away before Jamie could change his mind.
The stranger had been watching the proceedings with wide eyes, and Jamie’s hand twitched with the irrational urge to gesture against the evil eye. The impulse made him more churlish than before.
“To the Lord Protector,” Jamie announced suddenly, lifting his glass to his companion. A sly sneer dared the man to challenge the unpopular sentiment.
I’ll have my fight before the night is through
, he thought.
A hush fell around them. To propose a toast to Cromwell in such a public spot was at best audacious. At worst, it was suicide.
He’d expected the stranger to take the bait. Rise in some grand, foolish-foppish manner to stand against Jamie. The man shocked him, though, when he merely raised his own glass, chiming, “To the cause.”
Perthshire straddled both Highlands and Low, and it seemed folk were accustomed to dissenting opinions, for chatter in the pub gradually resumed.
Jamie took a swig from his whisky, following it with a deep pull from his ale. This stranger piqued his curiosity, and he found he wanted to bide a time with the man.
Jamie belched into his hand. “Where are we anyway?”
The dandy shot him a skeptical look.
“Och, man, easy. I’ve been on the road. I can’t recall how many inns in how many villages I’ve seen these last weeks.”
“Ah,” he replied, easing visibly. He smiled and sipped his ale. “I too am a traveling fellow. And we two are currently enjoying the hospitality of
Uachdar Ardair
,” the pretty man said with a flourish, using Auchterarder’s Gaelic name.
“That close, eh?” Jamie’s eyes grew distant.
“Close to—?”
“Och, close to my bloody family.” He took a quick gulp of ale and slammed his hands down on the table as if he were turning over a new leaf, then and there. “So tell me, man, how is it you find yourself in such a dreary wee offshoot of Perthshire?”
“I am a minister and a seeker, wending my way through the countryside, sowing the seeds of God’s word, nourishing myself on the gentle wisdom of the simpler folk.” He sighed gustily. “Until I met a goddess.”
“A goddess, eh?” Jamie chuckled.
“A god-dess, I say.” He pronounced the word grandiosely, his eyes clouding dreamily. “With hair like the sunlight and the otherworldly mien of an uneasy angel.”
“So where’s your god-
dess
now?” Jamie tipped the last of his whisky back.
“Alas, she travels with another. And so I come to drown my sorrows on my journey home.”
“Funny, we seem to have much the same goal.” Jamie’s voice had just the slightest slur at the edges.
“To our common aspirations.”
Jamie slammed his whisky glass down and raised his ale to the stranger’s toast.
“May I know the name of the man who shares my most admirable objective?”
“Rollo,” he said simply, swiping his sleeve along his mouth.
The minister spewed ale from his mouth. “Any relation to the Lord Rollo?”
“I
am
the Lord Rollo.” Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “The eldest.”
“One of the esteemed Lords Rollo of Dunning Parish? It is an honor,” he said warily. “Though, you are not familiar to me. You must have been away for some time.”
“Aye.” His voice grew menacingly quiet. “Some time.”
“Then”—his eyes flashed wide—“you are brother to the one who claims the hand of my Venus.”
Jamie barked out a sharp laugh. “Surely you’re mistaken. My brother’s a cripple who—”
“I’d know him anywhere.” It was the minister’s voice that grew quiet now. “He rode with Montrose, for the King.”
“Aye, that’s the self- righteous prig.” Jamie’s face flattened, his eyes grown chill. “My brother travels with . . . a woman?”
The minister nodded vigorously, pleased to have met a conspirator as appalled by this turn of events as he. Jamie studied the man. He seemed a self-involved sort. The sort whose narcissism left him guileless, too utterly caught up in his own affairs to suspect the designs of another.
Skepticism turned to a sly sort of hope, as it dawned on Jamie just what sort of grief he could cause his brother. “What’s your name, minister?”
“Robertson.” He tipped his glass to Jamie. “Alexander Robertson. Witch pricker.”
“Robertson of Dunning,” he stated, understanding dawning.
“I see you’ve heard of me?” The minister’s affected virtuosity curdled into something considerably less high-minded.
An ego
, Jamie thought with a wicked smile. “Oh indeed. Your good works precede you.”
He’d strike up an alliance with this minister, he decided suddenly. One never knew when one would need the friendship of a power hungry religious lunatic. It was gravy that the man had taken a fancy to Will’s woman.
He’d meet this woman. See if she might not be the dagger he could stab into his brother’s back.
Chapter 11
“Wow, it’s so pretty here. Look.” Felicity pointed. “There’s another stream, do you see? Just over that rise.”
Will gave a noncommittal grunt.
Felicity looked at him with raised brows, the smile not budging from her face. Will had almost kissed her, and nothing could get her down. Not even his grumpy mood.
Because he’d said she was
lovely
. He almost kissed her
and
he thought she was lovely.
Too lovely
, if she recalled correctly.
“So, what’s the difference between Perth and Perthshire anyway?
Perthshire
. It sounds like something from
The Hobbit
.” She inhaled deeply, and her breath hung like mist in the crisp air. Will had given her a tartan shawl, and she loved the feel of the chill on her face while her body was so comfortably warm. “That’s us, just riding our horses down to the shire.”
“It’s pronounced
Perth
-sure,” Will muttered. “Not Perth
shire
.”
Maybe he was grumpy because he
hadn’t
gotten to kiss her. Her grin grew wider at the prospect.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she pressed. “Is Perth—”
“Perth is the city.”
“So are your parents close to the city?”
“Somewhat.”
“Hey,” she exclaimed. Will was no longer by her side, and realizing it, she pulled her horse to a stop. “Where’d you go?” Putting a hand at the rear of her saddle, she twisted her body around to face him. “Is something bothering . . .”
Will’s reins were knotted high on his horse’s neck, and he was in the process of dismounting.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“It’s time for a rest,” he answered in a clipped voice.
“Mm-hm.” Felicity’s eyes narrowed. “We’re, what, an hour away from your castle, and you’re resting?”