Sword Dance (3 page)

‘I said who's there?' The man was getting closer.

Bruce tore himself from Rose's mouth, and she buried her face against his chest.

‘Lord McGunn,' he answered with a snarl. ‘Can a man not enjoy himself at Westmore without somebody snooping around? Lord McRae said we could take our pick of the women.'

‘Of course, I beg yer pardon my lord,' the big man mumbled as he retreated. ‘It's just that I'm taking them damned foreigners back to the hunting lodge and I noticed one of the girls was missing. I thought she might be up to no good – you know, like stealing.'

‘Well, she is up to no good, that's true, but with me,' Bruce said curtly. ‘I'm taking her to my room for the night, and I can assure you that by the time I've finished with her she won't have the energy to wander around and steal anything. Now off with you. I have this beauty to unwrap.'

Rose quivered in his arms, but whether it was from fear or indignation at his crude language, he didn't know.

‘Certainly, my lord. I wish you much joy.' The man let out a low chuckle and left.

‘He's gone,' Rose said, trying to pull away. ‘You can stop now. You don't have to kiss me anymore.'

He yanked her back to him and whispered against the warm, scented skin of her throat.

‘Oh but I do,
graidheag
. I do.'

Chapter Two

‘What are you doing? Please stop,' she breathed, as his lips trailed along the curve of her throat.

He looked up and the seductive power of her sultry, heavily made-up eyes gleaming in the moonlight hit him like a bolt of lightning. Every fibre of his body reacted to the feel of her soft body against his, the warm fragrance of her skin.

She was right, though. What the hell was he doing? Once again he reminded himself that he had no right to feel that way, no right to want her, but damn it, the woman would tempt a saint. And he was no saint.

He swallowed a deep, hard breath, released her and made himself step back.

‘All right. We'll stay here a while and wait until McRae and his remaining guests have gone to bed. Where's your horse?'

‘I left it tied to a post behind the hunting lodge.'

‘What about your bag?'

‘It's still strapped to the saddle. By the time I spoke to the girls and the musicians, we had to get ready to come here.'

‘How did you manage to get into the hunting lodge without being seen by McRae's men?'

‘It wasn't easy. I got stuck as I sneaked in through one of the downstairs windows and ripped my - '

‘You got stuck?' He would have laughed if he weren't so angry.

‘The musicians had to pull me in. We had to be quick and very quiet, because Cameron's men were in the kitchen.'

Damn the woman. Didn't she care about the danger she put herself in?

‘So, after clambering through a window, you had the brilliant idea to disguise yourself as a dancer and throw yourself into the lion's den.'

She flinched at the harshness of his tone.

‘I thought I could avoid bumping into Cameron.'

‘You bump into everything and anything you come across, why not McRae?' he interrupted, taut with temper. ‘He could have recognised you when you were with the others in the music room.'

‘Then I would have confronted him and exposed him for the liar and the debauched rake he is in front of all his guests!' The baubles on her necklace tinkled like little bells as she shook her head.

‘Weren't you afraid of all those men ogling you, lusting after you?' Me included, he remembered, guilt tightening his chest.

‘Well, I… I didn't think I would have to dance. My plan was to get into the castle and hide until I could speak to Lady Sophia. Unfortunately, Cameron's manservant was watching us like a hawk and I had no choice but to go into the music room with the others. The girls promised to create a diversion so that I could sneak out unnoticed.'

‘A diversion? That's a mild way of putting it,' he sneered. ‘The girls' dancing was… ahem… striking, to say the least. Ask that poor old man who collapsed.'

He drew in a deep breath. ‘Anyway, where did you learn to dance like that?'

She lowered her eyes, snapped a leaf from a nearby bush and tore it into tiny pieces that spiralled to the ground.

‘Malika taught me, in secret. She always said I was good enough to be one of them.'

She was right, her dancing had been entrancing, mesmerising, but he wasn't going to tell her.

‘I still can't believe you took such risks tonight, just to talk to McRae's fiancée. It was stupid and foolhardy.'

And damned brave, too
, even though he would never admit it. Gripped by conflicting urges, he towered above her, his fists clenched and his jaw set.

If only he could shake some sense into her. He swallowed hard. Shaking some sense into her wasn't all he wanted to do. He longed to kiss her, make love to her, right here, right now. To take her back to Wrath and keep her safe there with him, always.

‘Surely you understand I must warn Lady Sophia about Cameron,' she insisted as she started picking small bell-shaped flowers.

‘Because you think she'll believe you? Anyway, why do you care so much about her? Maybe she deserves to wed a rake like McRae. From what I heard she's a spoilt brat, a harpy – a younger version of Lady Patricia, with whom I suspect she gets on very well.'

‘You don't understand. There are things she must know, and not just about Cameron tricking me into a fake wedding. He is a rake, a depraved scoundrel. You saw how he behaved tonight. Well, the girls told me that's what he does almost every night. He takes his friends to the hunting lodge for private soirées, he forces them to dance then he… you know. Morven sometimes comes too. They say he's the worst.'

She paused.

‘They're all so scared, but they are trapped here until Cameron decides to send them back to Algiers.'

Sighing deeply, she added, ‘They told me something else. About Malika. It's my fault she'd dead.' And she buried her face into her hands.

‘What is it, Rose?'

She lifted tear-filled eyes towards him.

‘Malika did travel on the
Sea Lady
but she was kept in a separate cabin for the whole journey, and later in the hunting lodge she was locked away in an upstairs room. The girls tried to talk to her through the door but she was asleep – drugged probably – most of the time, and when they did manage to exchange a few words, she didn't make much sense. She told them there was another girl in the room with her, a young girl, but they didn't know whether it was true or not because they never saw or heard anyone else.'

‘What else did she say?'

‘That she followed Cameron the night we argued in Algiers – the night before my… wedding. She saw him take the woman dancer – the one who was later found dead in the harbour – to the
Sea Lady
so she sneaked on board to spy on them. She said Cameron hurt the girl in a fit of drunken rage, and that she was caught as she tried to help her. So you see, I am the one to blame if Malika was on Cameron's clipper and came over to Scotland. She only wanted to protect me from making a terrible mistake.'

‘What happened to Malika and that other girl at the hunting lodge?'

‘The
Ouled Nails
don't really know. Late one night they heard some shouting and crying inside Malika's room. The following morning her door was wide open, and the room was empty. Both Malika and the girl – whoever she was – were gone.'

She paused, plucked a few more tiny flowers from the bush next to her, then let them fall to the ground like snowflakes. Tears burned her eyes, and her throat was now so tight she could hardly speak.

‘According to McRae, Malika boarded the
Sea Lady
because she was upset that you two had argued and she wanted to make it up to you. Then one day she left without warning.'

‘You think it's possible she ran away with that other girl?'

‘It's possible, of course. Maybe they managed to escape and met some unsavoury characters on the way to Wick, Thurso… or Inverness.'

His eyes clouded over. He remained silent for a moment.

‘It must have been a terrible shock for you to hear about McRae's sordid behaviour,' he remarked at last.

Embarrassed, almost ashamed, she bent her head and drew in a shaky breath.

‘That's the thing. It wasn't a shock, not really. Malika warned me about Cameron in Algiers. She said that he visited girls in dockside taverns and sometimes took them back to the
Sea Lady
, but I didn't want to believe her. I told her she was mean and jealous. When she said she'd bring me the proof, I pushed her out of my hotel room.'

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. ‘That was the last time I saw her.'

She bowed her head as tears pearled at the corners of her eyes. Bruce put his hands on her shoulders once again. Their warmth seeped through the thin fabric of her dress.

‘I don't understand why Cameron was so eager to go through with this fake wedding,' she said quickly. ‘It's not as if he really wanted me. He didn't even seem to enjoy… ahem… his conjugal duties that much.'

‘Then he's not only a liar and a rake, but the biggest fool I ever knew,' Bruce said in a soft voice. He inhaled deeply and added, ‘Anyway, it was because of the diary. It was always about the diary.'

‘You mean about you and Donald Robertson, your father?'

‘Aye. It's all about me and my father indeed.'

He seemed about to add something, but he stepped back and pointed towards the glass windows.

‘I think we can leave now. I don't care if you didn't have the chance to talk to Lady Sophia, I'm taking you away from here.'

He led her through the maze of moonlit alleys, his shoulders brushing against thick, waxy leaves and fragrant petals which reminded him so much of the Punjab; he only had to close his eyes to imagine he was back there. There were mango and pipal trees, karnkar and white sandalwood, further along were simmal trees with their hundreds of red blooms. He even spotted a couple of saraka bushes with their fluffy orange pompoms.

Further down, one scent dominated – the heady, potent fragrance of night-blooming datura flowers, the plant some had named the Angel's Trumpet because of its white colouring and distinctive shape, but others called the Devil's Weed because of its deadly powers. True enough, the white flowers drooping from the bush in front of him let out a ghostly, almost malevolent glow in the moonlight.

His head started spinning. He stopped. That scent. He had smelled it recently…

‘What's wrong?' Rose put her hand on his forearm and looked up. ‘Are you feeling ill again?'

‘No… No, I'm fine.'

He caught his breath, regained his balance.

‘Be careful not to touch these bushes, they are poisonous.' He pointed to the datura plants. ‘They're used as a narcotic but they're extremely dangerous. Even simple skin contact with the leaves induces hallucinations and heart failure, and ingestion can be fatal. I saw men become raving lunatics after drinking datura tea when I was stationed in the Punjab, and a few die from taking too much of the stuff.'

Rose stared at the tall, thick bushes. ‘Why would Cameron grow datura here?'

‘I have no idea, but these plants look well established, as if they've been here for decades. Perhaps Niall McRae brought some seeds back from Egypt.'

Niall McRae, again. He didn't seem to be able to keep the man out of his mind.

They reached the entrance to the orangerie.

‘Put your veil back on, keep your eyes down and don't say a word,' he instructed as he tried a couple of doors, found an unlocked one and stepped onto the terrace.

He needn't have worried. The sudden and untimely illness of Cameron's guest had spelled the end of the festivities at Westmore, and the courtyard was empty and quiet.

‘For such a big place, the security in the stables is surprisingly lax,' he remarked as they walked into the stable block. Most boxes were occupied but he soon found Shadow. He unhooked the tack from the wall, worked fast to get the horse ready and led it outside.

Once in the courtyard, he lifted Rose into the saddle, climbed on behind her and they rode in the direction of the hunting lodge. Her body shook with cold so he enclosed her tightly in the circle of his arms. Although a few lanes and parterres were still lit up with torches, the further from the castle they rode, the darker it became, and by the time they reached the woods the moon was hidden by the tall trees and it was pitch black.

‘I'll get your horse, and then we're out of here,' he said as they arrived in sight of the hunting lodge. A single light glowed in one of the downstairs windows.

‘Wait.'

He jumped down then helped her to the ground

‘Can I not tell my friends I'm all right? They'll worry about me.'

‘No. There must be guards inside and I don't want to take any risks.'

She looked so small and frail next to Shadow that his chest tightened. Even though she didn't complain about the cold he knew she must be freezing in her flimsy dress. He quickly took his jacket off, wrapped it around her shoulders and started down the lane.

Rose's mare was still there, right where she said she'd left it. He patted its neck and side to quieten it, untied the reins and led it back towards the wood.

He now had to find a place for Rose to spend the night and the next few days. He needed her out of the way and safe so that he could focus on playing his cards right.

So much depended on it: his life, the future of Wrath and his people. Right now, however, he couldn't think beyond the next few hours.

Chapter Three

‘This way my Lord, and… er… miss.'

‘Thank you, lass.' Bruce slipped a coin into the girl's hand.