Authors: His Wicked Ways
Meredith knew that she would never marry…
never
.
She had not told Papa of that horrible night. She never would. In truth, she’d never told a soul on this earth! Though it tore her apart to leave Castle Munro, she could not stay. She could not live her life afraid of every man she saw, wondering if it was he who had touched her, who had shamed her so. Nor could she tell Papa the truth of what had happened that horrible night…Indeed, even
she
did not know the truth of it.
It was why she had left the father she loved so dearly…why she would never return to her home.
When Meredith had asked that he bring her to Connyridge to join the sisters he had been puzzled. He had questioned her, but in the end he hadn’t refused. She was achingly aware that he fully expected her to remain cloistered here forever.
She had come to Connyridge solely to seek refuge. And it was here that the terror that night had wrought had finally begun to ease. She had found sanctuary within these walls; she had begun to regain a measure
of the peace she had feared was forever lost to her. Though it had taken time, she was comfortable at the priory, no matter that the cold seeped through her sandals and into her very bones. Not so long ago, she had made the decision to give her life over to God. As a nun in the service of the Lord, she would be shielded from the lustful appetites of men…
Yet her struggle had continued, oh, in other ways! For she had been so very confused—in truth, she still was. Though the choice was hers, she was no longer certain…Would she be doing the right thing in taking her vows? Was this her chosen vocation? She should have known it in her heart, yet she did not! These past weeks she had prayed daily for guidance in that one particular endeavor—that she had made the right choice.
She was to take her vows within the month…but would she even be
alive
then?
To some, such a life might have been a prison, for life at the nunnery was comprised solely of prayer, work, study, sleep, and meals. Idleness was believed to be an enemy of the soul. With her mind thus occupied, she need not think of…other things.
But the sanctuary she sought was no more. All because of him…
Yet another man whose name she knew not.
Meredith could not help it. She stared at him warily. In the gloom of the night he appeared dark and featureless. She shivered, wondering what he might look like in the full light of day. She sensed he was young, not so aged as her father and Uncle Robert. Oh, but surely such a wicked man would be ugly as the devil’s own sin! No doubt his teeth were gaping and yellowed and rotting, his skin mottled and pock-marked and dark as a heathen’s. She shuddered, think
ing that mayhap ’twas better this way. In daylight he might have frightened her to her grave!
She stood awkwardly as he spoke in hushed tones to his men; she could not hear what was said. The men nodded and strode away. Her mouth dry, she watched as he walked to a small cart that she hadn’t noticed until now.
Her apprehension spiraled as he turned back to her, then beckoned to her. With a heavy tightness in the pit of her belly, Meredith moved forward. Unable to help herself, she peered inside the cart. A woman lay within, long red hair dirty and snarled, strewn across the wooden boards. Her head was turned at an odd angle; dull, unblinking eyes stared back at her.
The woman was dead.
A scream curdled in her throat. She felt herself sway, but mercifully remained on her feet of her own power.
Lean fingers curled around her arm. “Remove your robe,” came his voice—a voice she had already begun to dread.
Meredith looked on as he removed the rope around her wrists, wondering if she’d lost her wits. Was this but a dream, a horrible trick of her mind? Her eyes squeezed shut, and she told herself she was back in her cell, huddled in her bed. Swallowing, she allowed her lids to drift upward.
Booted male feet came into view. Alas,
he
was there, a presence as unwelcome as ever…
And just as forbidding.
His jaw thrust out. “I’ll not tell you again.”
A foggy haze seemed to dance all around her. Nay, she thought, she couldn’t have heard him right. Her mouth opened. She felt her jaw move, yet no sound came out.
“Fine, then. It matters little to me.” Peremptory hands dropped upon her shoulders, seeking the neck of her robe. A jolt went through her as warm fingertips brushed her bare skin.
Meredith wrenched away as if she’d been scorched. “Nay!” she gasped.
“Do it…else I shall.”
She could well believe he meant precisely what he said. She need not see his features to know that he meant it. She could hear it in his tone, see it in the set of his shoulders. Aye, there was an unswaying purpose about him that could neither be denied nor ignored.
His threat resounded all through her. Her fingers were clumsy with fright…and with wrenching shame, knowing that she would be naked before him. Awkwardly she did as he demanded, berating herself all the while. Ah, but she was a fool to comply so readily! Why couldn’t she be stronger? she raged inwardly. Would she ever be meek and spineless? She was a weakling, in mind and heart and body, for she was powerless to fight him. Nay, she could not overcome his strength, nor his will, she thought, brutally chastising herself.
Her eyes downcast, she stepped from the coarse dark fabric now puddled on the ground at her feet. Burning with shame, she tried to shield her body with her hands—not just from the cool night air, but from the prying of those steel-edged eyes.
Yet he spared her not a glance as he bent and scooped her robe from the damp ground. Instead he strode to the cart, where he proceeded to strip the gown from the dead woman. To her surprise, he tossed it at her.
“Put this on!”
This time Meredith did not delay. With shaking hands she donned the dirty, ill-fitting gown, glad of the chance to cover herself once more.
By the time she finished, his men had reappeared, leading three horses. Meredith’s heart leaped. Did they plan to take her with them? Her mind had scarcely formed the thought when the two men stepped toward the nude woman who still lay on the ground. Stunned, she watched as they dressed the woman in the robe she’d discarded—
her
robe! When it was done, they glanced inquiringly at their leader.
“Do it,” came the low-voiced command.
One man grabbed the woman by her left arm, the other by her right. Together they dragged her some twenty yards to the east. What happened then shocked Meredith to the marrow of her bones.
The woman was cast down the cliffs to the jutting rocks below. Of course there was no scream—yet Meredith could hear it in the soundless chambers of her mind. There was only a dull thud…
Meredith cringed. The rocks below would tear into the woman’s flesh like the gnashing teeth of a sea monster, leaving her body bloodied and broken…that poor creature! Perhaps it was a blessing that she was already dead…yet why would they kill her? Why kill her, only to throw her over the cliffs…?
A paralyzing dread seized hold of her. Would she be next? No one could survive a fall from the cliffs. They were deadly; their height alone was enough to kill. Indeed, though Meredith had no fear of heights, she had always avoided the cliffs.
Her heart twisted as she thought of the woman. She’d been pretty. That much had been clear. Young and pretty and far too young to die…
Even as she sent a quick prayer heavenward for the
woman’s soul, Meredith blanched. Only then did she begin to realize the significance of what she had just witnessed. The flaming red hair…dressing the dead woman in her robes…
Her eyes slid to him. He stood motionless, his gaze upon her, as if awaiting her reaction.
“Saints above,” she said faintly. “I…they will think that…” She could not go on. Swallowing, she tried again. “You mean for the sisters to think that…”
“That the woman is you.” His smile was rimmed with satisfaction, a satisfaction she could not even pretend to understand. “Her body will be mutilated on the rocks,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Bloodied and broken.”
God’s mercy, he was right. Shortly after she’d come to Connyridge, the body of one of the villagers had washed up on the rocks—he’d been a fisherman. His flesh was torn to shreds, his face bloated and white so that he was unrecognizable. It had sickened her so that she’d nearly lost the contents of her stomach. Oh, aye, her note was damning indeed. The nuns would see the reddish blond hair of the woman and think that she had thrown herself from the cliff.
Meredith’s heart wrenched. At least the poor woman had already been dead…Suddenly her breath caught. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed her!”
The tension spun out endlessly. He said nothing…a stifling silence that said far more than mere words.
Meredith shook her head. For one awful moment she feared she would be sick there and then. “Why?” Her throat ached so that it hurt to speak. “Why would you do such a thing?”
Again that debilitating silence.
“And I am next, am I not?” Drawing upon a daring she hadn’t known she possessed, she straightened her shoulders and struck her breast with one knotted fist. “Kill me, then, if you will! Kill me now!”
“Kill you?” His laugh was harsh and brittle as he gestured to the cliff. “Come, now. Do you truly think I’d have gone to such trouble if I meant to kill you? Now, then. Will you come, or must I bind your hands again?”
Meredith lowered her head, battling within herself as never before. A woman lay dead because of her, and all she could think was how she might save her own soul! She was not only weak but selfish as well, and she could only hope that God would forgive her! Yet something within her protested—something refused to let this vile man win so easily.
Meredith knew she’d been dismissed as he glanced away. He made a sign to his men, who led the horses forward. He did not even deign to glance at her as he motioned her forward.
“Come,” was all he said.
Meredith took a deep, fortifying breath. “Nay,” she said clearly.
Now she’d done it, it seemed. She felt the touch of those ice-fire eyes return even before she forced herself to meet his regard.
“Y-you are a madman, and I’ll go nowhere with you.”
Beside her there was a curse. There was a stunning blow to the middle of her back that sent her toppling forward. It was
he
who caught her and saved her from falling headlong before his feet.
“Nay, Finn, leave her be!”
Meredith was half-afraid to breathe. She could feel his hands around her wrists like clamps of iron, im
prisoning her as surely as a trap. Oh, aye, she could feel the strength in him and knew that were it his will, her life would be forfeit.
Slowly she raised her head from the awesome breadth of his chest.
“I’ll go nowhere with you.”
“Ah, but you will, Meredith Munro. You will.”
“I will not,” she stated again. She raised her chin, all at once not so sure of herself. In her heart she was appalled at her audacity. Mayhap
she
was the one who was mad!
“Who are you? Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?”
He released her. Meredith resisted the impulse to turn and flee. Instead she held her ground, her bare toes digging into the dew-draped earth.
“Who are you?” she said again. “You pretend to know me, yet I vow I’ve not laid eyes on you before this night!”
“Nay, lass, you have not.”
“Then who are you?” Determination swept away her fear and uncertainty. If she was to die, she would at least know why—and she would at least know the identity of the man who would slay her! “
Who are you
?”
His eyes scraped over her, like a sword of molten steel.
“I am Cameron”—he stated but this one thing…and alas, it was all that was needed—” of the Clan MacKay.”
It was revenge that brought him to Connyridge—revenge and the blood feud that had been going on for a century and more.
It had not been a difficult task to find her. She was the only daughter—indeed, the only child—of the Red Angus, chieftain of the Clan Munro. Yes, a kiss given here, a coin there, and the information Cameron had sought became his for the asking.
Of course, there had been a few that balked at his plan. Murray had shaken his shaggy, unkempt head. “Ye canna do that! A woman of God, yet!” he’d cried. “What price will ye pay, man?”
“She has not yet taken her vows.” Cameron was already prepared. “And whatever price I pay, I shall gladly yield.”
Cameron was a God-fearing man, as much as any, yet it wouldn’t have mattered if Meredith, daughter of the Red Angus, were the prioress herself. Nay, there would be no dissuading him…
He would have his revenge, no matter the cost. It was this which had driven him to heal…it was this which drove him to
live
.
As if to remind him, the jagged scar on his lower back began to ache. Raw pain ripped through him,
but it was a pain of the heart and not of the body. Inside he cried out his anguish. Why had he been spared, when no one else had been? Why had he lived, when everyone else had died? His father and his six brothers were gone. All had perished…
all
of his brothers. Niall, the eldest. Burke, so handsome and hearty. Bryan and Oswald. So vibrant. So alive. Kenneth, always ready with a laugh and a smile. Thomas, but a tender lad of ten who could not yet wield a sword…
Cameron was the only one left.
The weeks had not eased the fury within him; indeed, they had only sharpened it.
Remembrance went through him. Rage seared his soul. His body tensed, like a red-hot sword plunged into his gut. That was how his brothers had died. Bloody and butchered…
Beneath the blades of Red Angus and his clansmen.
He sucked in a harsh breath. He had grown weary of the years of hatred between the MacKays and the Munros, the years of skirmishes and fighting, though there had been a period of relative peace these past few years. But all that had been shattered on a serene, tranquil hillside not two months ago. In truth, he did not want war or this blood feud continued, yet everything within him clamored for revenge.
He would not rest until he had it, for only then would the deaths of his father and brothers be avenged.
Now, having revealed his name, the memory assailed him anew. Cameron could not help it. A seething fury pounded in his veins. His hand crept to the handle of his sword. His fingers clenched and unclenched. Now, as he watched her eyes grow huge, the silence of awareness fell over her.
Recognition flared across her features. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged.
“I am the son of Ronald, brother of Niall and Burke…” One by one he named his brothers. “Perhaps you and the good sisters prayed for their safe arrival in heaven?”
He heard the breath she drew. She gave a slight shake of her head. “Heaven,” she repeated, then swallowed. “Do you mean to say they are—”
“Aye,” he stated flatly. “They are dead. Killed at the hands of your father and his men.”
He did not imagine the blood draining from her features.
A primitive satisfaction washed over him, for he knew she awaited his next move…Would she cry? Beg for mercy? He relished the thought of either.
She did neither. Instead she stepped forward and bowed her head. Her lashes swept down, shielding her expression. She turned her head ever so slightly, baring her neck. Cameron knew that, despite his assurance otherwise, she fully expected him to strike her down that very instant.
That had never been his plan.
Indeed, he was darkly amused that twice now she had invited him to kill her. Clearly she thought him a barbarian, to strike her down—and a woman, yet! Never would he take a woman’s life, for he had only the deepest scorn for a man who would prey on those weaker than himself.
He was not about to tell her the truth about the woman she was so convinced he’d murdered. Nay, they had discovered her on the roadside only hours before; ’twas this which gave him the idea to let the Red Angus believe that his only daughter had taken her own life.
How much better than to simply abduct the wench!
Aye, he thought with satisfaction. He would rob the Red Angus, chieftain of the Clan Munro, as he had been robbed…He would make the old man suffer…as he now suffered.
Dawn broke over the clouds on the horizon; her back was to the North Sea. Behind her, the sky was streaked with pale shades of yellow and gold. For an instant, it was almost as if a halo had crowned the peak of her head. She looked like an angel, but for the fire of her hair…She was no angel. She was a Munro. Ruthlessly he pushed aside a niggling guilt. She spoke of God. But God was on his side, not hers, he decided with a ruthless dismissal. Aye, Cameron was convinced that the Almighty was on his side. Why else would he have sent the red-haired woman by the roadside?
No, Meredith was no angel. She was a Munro, daughter of Red Angus.
His scrutiny sharpened. Her skin was deathly pale. He could see the ragged rise and fall of her chest. She was quaking where she stood, trying desperately to hide it…and not succeeding in the least.
She was afraid. Well, that was good. It was the nature of the Highlanders to cast an uneasy eye upon those stronger than themselves, and he was pleased she recognized it.
She was a strange one, according to those who had known her—small and meek and timid as a child, even more so now that she’d grown to womanhood. For nearly two years she’d been sequestered at Connyridge, yet it was only now that she’d decided to take the veil.
That would never happen. If he had his way, she
would never return to Connyridge…or Castle Munro.
Silently he watched her. Gleaming moonlight touched the slender, vulnerable arch of her throat exposed to him. An odd sensation gripped his belly. Lord, but she was a wee one! Cameron took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air. His gaze rested interminably long on the tangled skeins of reddish gold hair tumbling about her shoulders. A beauty, that’s what she was, he thought suddenly. Faith, but he’d not expected that of a woman about to take her vows—nor from a woman of the Clan Munro.
A vile blackness swept over him. He was suddenly furious, with her for being so damned comely…and with himself for recognizing it.
Resolve clamped down upon him. He straightened his spine. He could afford no weakness. She was a Munro, he reminded himself. Enemies they were…
And enemies they would stay.
They had been traveling for hours. The noonday sun shone high and bright, as if in approval! In all truth, Meredith was amazed she was still alive. For one paralyzing moment, she’d thought he would kill her, for surely in that instant all the fires of the devil seemed to burn within him, as if from the inside out. Instead he’d set her jarringly upon his horse before him.
Not a single word was cast her way.
For Meredith, the morn had been the worst kind of torment. Her muscles ached, but not just from the unfamiliar hours in the saddle. His arms encircled her, brushing against her sides, an unwelcome reminder of his strength. His legs imprisoned her own, like bars of iron—the intimacy of it was almost more than she
could bear. She sought to hold herself stiffly erect, for she stringently determined to avoid any contact with his body. Aye, it was a physical pain, riding with him…
And an agony of the heart as well.
By now surely the nuns believed her dead. When she did not appear for Prime at dawn, someone would have gone to her cell and found the note. No doubt they had long since gathered in the chapter house, shocked and stunned. Sister Amelia, who cared for the vestments and altar cloths, would be weeping—Mother Gwynn forever lost patience with the woman’s sentimentality. Perchance someone had already found the body at the cliffs, the body believed to be hers.
Then there was Papa.
Cameron MacKay had come to Connyridge—but had he come from Castle Monro? She shuddered, thinking of the poor woman who lay at the foot of the cliffs. Had Papa met the same brutal end? And Uncle Robert? What of them?
It wasn’t long before they halted. Cameron’s men—Egan and Finn, she’d learned they were called—led their mounts to the stream, where they drank thirstily. Egan was an evil-looking fellow—a giant, taller even than Cameron MacKay, with a jagged scar that ran down his cheek. His eyes were pale blue ice. Finn was shorter and heavier and bearded. Behind her, Cameron MacKay vaulted from the saddle in one lithe move. Meredith hesitated, uncertain what was expected of her. When he made no move to help her, she slipped from the saddle, falling hard to her knees, for the ground was a long way down! She gasped as a sharp stone dug into one knee.
The hairs on her neck prickled. She raised her eyes
to find him watching her, his regard infinitely cold. Brushing the dirt from her hands, she got to her feet.
She could stand it no longer. She had to know. She wet her lips. “My father,” she said, her voice very low. “Is he—” She stopped, for she could not bear to say it aloud, could scarcely stand to even think it.
There was a taut silence. Standing with his feet braced wide apart, he made no answer.
She tried again. “Please tell me. What have you done with my father?”
She held her breath. It seemed to take forever before he answered curtly, “I’ve harmed none of your kinsmen.”
Meredith lowered her head, that he might not see the tears that stung her eyes. She was endlessly thankful Papa was safe. But now she knew for certain…
It was her that he was after.
Throughout the day, every tale of MacKay savagery she’d ever heard had returned to haunt her, tales of Munro clansmen captured and tortured, of men beaten and murdered, of women raped and abused. A shudder coursed through her. The MacKays were a cruel, wild lot. As a child, whene’er she had ventured out, she’d been warned not to stray far from home, lest one of the MacKays had wandered onto Munro lands, up to no good.
Nervously she wet her lips. “What will you do with me?”
“That is none of your concern!”
The bite in his tone made her flinch. She longed to argue that it
was
her concern—indeed, it was her very life! Quaking inside, she sought to reason with him. “I am a woman. I’ve done naught to harm you.”
His eyes seemed to light with the blaze of a light
ning bolt. “You are a Munro! Your existence clouds the very air around me.”
He spun around and she knew she’d been dismissed. “Wait!” she cried before she thought better of it.
He whirled.
“I present no threat to you. I will spend the rest of my days at Connyridge, I promise you, for I was to take my vows within the month. Indeed, I still may if you will only release me.”
“Nay, Meredith, I think not!” Four steps had brought him before her. He smiled…oh, it was frugal, dangerous, that smile!
“I pray you, let me go.” She prayed he wouldn’t detect the tremor in her voice, in her very limbs. “Cease this madness.”
His smile vanished. His hands shot out and she was snatched against him.
His lips stretched back over his teeth. “Madness!” he hissed. “Had you seen the way my brothers died, you would not dare to speak of madness!”
Meredith froze, taken aback by his outburst.
“Does that surprise you? That I am still alive? That I was the only one who survived? The only one your clan did not kill?”
“Nay!” she gasped. “I know naught of killing!” Her heart throbbed with fear. Never in all her days had she encountered such rage. The very air about him seemed to thunder and seethe. Her legs would have buckled had his hands not held her upright.
“You know naught of killing,” he sneered. “And I promise you, I know naught of mercy, for your father showed none! Did my father receive mercy when his throat was slit from behind? When my brother Bryan was stabbed in the back and I was left to die?
Well, let me tell you of killing. My father—and all of my brothers—died beneath the swords of your kinsmen. Beneath the blade of your father, at the orders of your father!”
“That cannot be,” she said, shocked to the core by such butchery as he’d detailed. “My father would not do such things! He would not allow it!”
“
Your father did
!”
She shrank back from his fierceness. There was no denying the rage fired in his breast. It vibrated through him, so intense she could feel it in every part of his body. Sensing the demon within him, terror winged through her anew, but she was not so foolish as to challenge him now. Nay, now was not the time to argue.
His lip curled. “Aye, you
will
go with me. You
will
remain with me. You may beg. You may plead. But know this, Meredith Munro. Do not try to run, for I will find you. I will hunt you to the ends of this land. Do not try to hide, for I will bind you to my side with a chain that will forever be unbroken.”
There was naught of mercy in his tone—in his very being. Meredith was shaking so that she could scarcely stand.
But at last she fully understood. It was not the feud alone which had brought him to Connyridge…to her. His brothers and his father had been killed. This was why he had taken her.
She was to be the instrument of his revenge. He would avenge the death of his kinsmen through her…
through her
.
Her lungs burned. Had Mother Gwynn even now sent word to her father that she was dead?
“Ah, I see you understand. Your father must live with the certainty that you, his only child, are dead.”
The thought tore her heart to shreds. He was right—the sisters would send word of her death, and Papa’s grief would know no bounds. He would be devastated, thinking that she was gone. She well remembered her father’s desolation when her mother had fallen ill and died one long-ago winter, though she had been but a child of ten. Aye, she thought bleakly. Cameron MacKay had chosen well, for such news might very well kill her father…
All too soon they were on their way again. Miserable beyond anything she’d ever known, Meredith scarcely noticed the purple haze of darkness creeping across the hill until they stopped again in a small clearing. As she leaped to the ground, her cramped muscles objected to such effort after the long hours in the saddle. One of Cameron’s men, the bearded one called Finn, heaved a grating laugh as she staggered.