“You hired me to look after you, but I’m afraid I’ve been woefully remiss in my duties.”
She shrugged. “You didn’t push me into the burn.”
“But I did fail to pull you out of it. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I might have heard your cries for help long before I did.”
“And come rushing to my rescue, just like the hero of my dreams?” she asked, mocking herself as much as him.
He cocked one eyebrow. “If nothing else, I could have tossed you a rope while I polished off the last of the whisky.”
Catriona glanced across the clearing to where the empty bottle lay glinting in the sun. “If I’m not mistaken, you just polished off the last of the whisky.” She frowned at him in puzzlement. “Why did you pour it out? Was there something wrong with it? Was it bad?”
He rested one elbow on his bent knee, gazing off into the distance as if he could see something she would never be privy to. “No. But it made me that way.”
Noting for the first time that his hands weren’t completely steady, Catriona couldn’t resist capturing one of them in her own. “You’ve never been truly bad. Only a trifle bit naughty on some occasions and a wee bit wicked on others.”
Simon lifted his hand to her cheek. His fingers gently cupped her jaw while his thumb feathered gentle strokes over her lips, coaxing them to part of their own accord. As she gazed into the fathomless green depths of his eyes, a sweet shiver cascaded through her.
He had been wrong. She was suffering from a fever. A fever that raced through her veins and burned away all traces of common sense, leaving only an unbearable yearning for this man.
She closed her eyes, already anticipating the tantalizing caress of his lips against hers.
Which left her feeling rather ridiculous when it didn’t come. She opened her eyes to find him standing a few feet away, his hands on his hips and his back to her. Something in his stance made her climb to her feet as well.
“You hired me to escort you to your brother,” he said, “not seduce you.”
“And what’s this? A sudden attack of scruples? If you lie down for a while and put a cool cloth on your head, I’m sure it will pass.”
He turned to look at her then, his expression grim. “My lack of scruples nearly cost you your life last night. Among other things,” he added pointedly.
“Yes, that’s why I really threw myself into that burn,” she said cheerfully. “I was playing at Ophelia because I couldn’t bear the shame of nearly being ravished by my own husband.”
He stabbed a finger at her. “Don’t call me that!”
“What should I call you?” She took one step toward him, then another, her long legs exulting in their freedom from stockings, petticoats and cumbersome skirts. “Darling?
Sweetheart? My lord and master?”
He took a step backward. “You are the most infuriating woman. I don’t even know who I am anymore. You make me a stranger to myself!”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are. You’re Simon Wescott—notorious libertine.”
“That’s bloody well right! I may not be a gentleman, but I don’t lose my temper, I don’t get mean when I drink, and I seduce women, not ravish them.” He shook his head helplessly, his voice both deepening and softening. “I’ve never touched a woman the way I touched you last night.”
She drew another step closer to him. “As if you’d been waiting your whole life to taste her kiss? As if you’d die if you couldn’t have her?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, you were the one who nearly died.”
“That’s only because I forgot what my brother told me all those years ago. That the Kincaids never cry when they can fight. I shouldn’t have run away last night. I should have stayed and fought for what I wanted.”
“And what was that?”
“You. Not Simon Wescott the legendary hero, but Simon Wescott the man.”
Simon didn’t exhale for a long moment and when he finally did, his exhalation was as fierce as his expression. “If you truly know what sort of man I am, then you also know I’m perfectly capable of making love to you without loving you.”
Another step and she would be close enough to touch him. “I’m not asking you to love me.”
He was the one who closed the distance between them then, drawing her into his arms and brushing the smooth, firm warmth of his lips over hers again and again, as if to savor their plump sweetness before delving deeper with his tongue.
If last night’s kiss had sought to take, this one sought only to give. To give pleasure, to give bliss, to give a tantalizing taste of the
services
he was only too capable of providing.
As his tongue danced over hers in the most compelling of rhythms, she felt like she was drowning all over again. Only this time she wasn’t sure she could survive without the life-giving sweetness of his breath in her mouth.
A life that was nearly ended by the arrow that came whizzing past them, burying itself with a deadly
thunk
in the trunk of a nearby birch.
Yelping with alarm, Catriona threw her arms around Simon’s neck. “What was that?”
His arms tightened around her waist, drawing her against the shield of his body. “If I remember my navy cant correctly,” he whispered into her hair, “I believe that was a warning shot fired across our bow.”
Simon’s words proved prophetic because a heartbeat later more than a dozen gray-and-green-garbed figures came melting out of the forest, bows drawn.
Simon tried to tuck her behind him, no easy feat since they were surrounded on all sides.
As he pivoted in a wary circle, Catriona danced on her tiptoes, struggling to see over his shoulder.
Dark hair hung in greasy braids around their attackers’ faces. They’d painted their cheeks with some sort of dried mud, which made their narrowed eyes stand out in stark contrast.
Gray, dark-lashed eyes the color of the morning mist hanging over the moors.
Catriona popped out from behind Simon, an astonished smile breaking over her face.
“Why, I know who you are! You must be my brother’s band of merry men!”
Simon snatched her back into his embrace, wrapping an arm firmly around her waist. “I hate to be the one to point this out, darling,” he murmured, eyeing the deadly tips of the arrows aimed directly at her heart, “but they don’t look particularly merry at the moment.”
C
atriona could only imagine what a sight she must make, stripped down to Simon’s shirt with her long legs exposed and her hair hanging in tangled elflocks around her face.
Even so, she could not bring herself to cower in mortification before these men. She held her head high as she scanned their forbidding faces, Simon’s arm still locked like an iron bar around her waist.
“You’re the band of men led by the outlaw who calls himself the Kincaid, are you not?”
she called out boldly. Unable to hide her eagerness, she studied each face in turn. “Is he here? Is he among you?”
The men exchanged uncertain glances. One of them—a head taller than the others—stepped forward, his deadly grip on his bow never wavering. His rawboned face might have been handsome had it not been stripped of every last trace of humor and hope.
“Why don’t we discuss that after ye hand o’er yer money and jewelry, lass?”
She tried, but could not quite stifle her laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no need for you to rob us. Why, I’ve brought you all gifts!”
One of the other men snorted. “Did ye hear that, Kieran? The lass has brought us gifts.
What does she think this is? Christmas morn?”
“I’ve allus wanted a spinning top and a set of tin soldiers,” one of his companions quipped, earning a rumble of laughter from the rest of the men.
“Hush!” Kieran snapped, stifling them in mid-chuckle. “There’s no need to mock. The puir wee lass is plainly daft.”
“That’s right, gentlemen,” Simon inserted smoothly. “The puir wee lass is indeed quite daft, and if you’ll give us leave to go, I promise to cart her right back to Bedlam where she belongs.”
Catriona trod firmly on his toes, earning a pained grunt. “I’m not going anywhere until I find what I came for, and that’s a man who calls himself the Kincaid. But you might know him as Connor Kincaid—my brother.”
Again those uncomfortable glances. A knot began to form low in Catriona’s belly.
“Connor never mentioned no sister,” one of the men called out.
She shrugged to hide how much his words stung. “That doesn’t surprise me. After he sent me back to London to save me from the redcoats, he probably thought I’d be safer if everyone forgot I existed.”
The Kieran fellow who seemed to be their leader lowered his bow and sauntered forward, jerking his head toward Simon. “If ye’re Connor’s sister, then who is he?”
She and Simon spoke at the exact same time.
“He’s my husband.”
“I’m her bodyguard.”
Catriona felt Simon tense as Kieran looked her up and down, his lascivious gaze taking in every inch of her, from the crown of her disheveled hair to her pink little toes. “Husband or bodyguard, it looks like he’s been performin’ his job with great enthusiasm.”
Suddenly it was no longer Catriona in Simon’s arms but the insolent Highlander. The man made a strangled sound as his bow tumbled to the ground and Simon rammed the muzzle of a small but quite deadly pistol against his jaw.
Catriona could only gape at him, dizzied by the swiftness and grace of the move. She hadn’t even known he
owned
a pistol, much less carried it on his person.
Using his captive as a shield, Simon swung in a tight circle, making sure every man in that clearing saw the weapon pressed to their leader’s bobbing Adam’s apple. “This pistol only carries one shot, but I can assure you that’s all I’ll need. Now toss your bows to the ground or you’ll be one man short.” The brisk note in his voice warned that he would brook no disobedience. “Or should I say one head short.”
After a round of hostile mutters and surly glances, the Highlanders reluctantly complied.
“Your knives as well,” he demanded, watching with grim satisfaction as a host of blades emerged from grimy sleeves and secret pockets to clatter into the growing pile of weapons on the ground.
“Nicely done. Now, if one of you is Connor Kincaid, I suggest you step forward and apologize to your sister for allowing these mannerless ruffians to insult her.”
The men shuffled their feet for a minute or two before a squat fellow with jug ears and two front teeth missing finally stepped forward. Simon frowned. He certainly couldn’t see a family resemblance.
The man scuffed one rag-wrapped foot on the ground, the mud streaking his cheeks only making his broad, homely face look more doleful. “Conner isna with us no more.”
The blood drained from Catriona’s face, leaving it as pale as an alabaster mask. As she swayed, Simon swore beneath his breath, wondering if he was going to have to free Kieran so he could catch her.
But she bit her bottom lip, visibly composing herself, and asked softly, “How long?”
Before the man could reply, Kieran spat, “The bastard ducked out on us before the winter snows. Said he was sick of our drinkin’ and our wenchin’ and our thievin’ ways.
Said we could end up dancin’ a fling at the end of a hangman’s noose if we wanted, but he’d had his fill o’ this life and the cursed Kincaids.”
Catriona didn’t say a word. She simply turned, walked over to the wagon and stood with her back to them all.
Kieran squirmed violently in Simon’s grip. Sensing that the man was no longer a threat to them, Simon shoved him to his knees and slid the pistol into the waist of his trousers.
He moved toward the wagon. Catriona’s shoulders were bowed. Her slender white hands gripped the wagon’s bed as if it were the side of a rapidly sinking dinghy.
Simon rested a hand on her shoulder, murmuring, “I’m so sorry, darling.”
She turned to look up at him, but it was fierce joy that lit her face, not sorrow. “Why are you sorry? Don’t you see? My brother is still alive!”
Simon gazed down at her, waiting for her words to make sense. When they finally did, he almost regretted it. “Do you mean to say that you dragged me all the way up to this godforsaken wilderness without even knowing if this brother of yours was dead or alive?”
“Uncle Ross tried to convince me that he was dead. I haven’t received so much as a note from him in the past ten years. When Eddingham came to my uncle’s house, he told us that the outlaw they called the Kincaid had vanished several months ago. Naturally, I feared the worst.”
“Eddingham? What does Eddingham have to do with all this?”
She sighed. “I’m afraid the marquess just bought this parcel of land from the Crown.
He’s planning to use English soldiers to hunt down the last of the Kincaids so he can use the land for grazing Cheviot sheep.”
Simon’s ears were beginning to feel curiously hot. “And just when were you planning to tell me all this? Before or after the redcoats ran me through with a bayonet?”
“I was afraid you’d back out of our arrangement. I know you don’t care for…”—she inclined her head, the first flicker of guilt dancing over her delicate features—
“complications.”
“Oh, my life has become very complicated indeed since that unfortunate moment when you strolled into my jail cell.” He paced a few feet away from her and then back, raking a hand through his hair. “Just when is Eddingham planning to carry out this plan of his?”
Catriona swallowed. “As soon as the winter snows thaw.”
Simon glanced down. They were standing in a puddle of mud. The bright spring sun and westerly breeze had melted away every trace of the snow that had fallen the night before.
Grabbing Catriona by the hand, he yanked her toward the front of the wagon.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried, stumbling after him.