The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell (16 page)

D
arach hadn’t gotten far when his trip to Skye was abruptly ended with the appearance
of ten horsemen blocking the road.

Buchanans.

He could take them all, slovenly, unfit bastards that they were. But it would slow
him up and he needed to get home and fetch Isobel.

“We have an agreement of peace with yer chief,” he called out. “Let me pass before
I kill every last one of ye.”

Someone laughed at his claim, provoking a tight smile to curl Darach’s mouth.

“Some of us dinna’ want peace. We want blood and we want what belongs to us. Ravenglade!”

“Well, lads, I want three women in m’ bed each night and I’d like to help in riddin’
Scotland of Buchanans once and fer all, but we dinna’ all get what we want.”

He dragged his claymore free of its scabbard and readied himself for a fight. None
came. Some heinous coward knocked him out and off his horse before he had time to
swing.

Hours, or mayhap days, later, Darach cracked his swollen lids open a hair to see where
he was. The searing hot pain in his face and his side helped him remember.

Lying prostrate on the ground, he moved, or tried to, and groaned as the pain of his
wounds overwhelmed him.

There had to have been more than ten.

His ribs were broken, hard to tell how many. His nose, as well, for he could barely
breathe through it. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, but he managed to discern that
he was in some kind of barn. The only source of light came through cracks in the doors
and walls. It wasn’t much and Darach was grateful. Even with his broken nose, the
stench of the barn threatened to overtake him.

To hell with peace. This meant war and Darach meant to see it come about even if he
had to bring it himself. He tried to move again, just an inch at a time, toward the
wooden doors and fresh air. Pain lanced through every inch of his body and he fought
with every ounce of strength he possessed not to pass out.

The doors opened and sunshine spilled inside, momentarily blinding Darach. He was
correct about the barn, unfortunately. Flies buzzed everywhere, searching out the
dozens of mounds of manure left to decay in the dark. Or was it the carcass of whatever
the hell died in here that they were looking for?

Someone stepped inside. Darach tried to sit up and realized that his ankles were secured
to the stall. He reached, instead, for the handle of some kind of tool lying in the
moldy hay and closed his fingers around it.

“Ah, the poet’s son,” said a male voice from the entrance.

Truly? Darach thought with disgust. After all the fights he’d won and all the Buchanans
he’d left bleeding on the road, his distinguishing attribute was being a poet’s son?
This was something he was going to have to remedy soon.

“Are ye thirsty?” the voice asked.

“Fer yer blood, aye.”

Laughter. Amused, mocking.

“I’ll tell ye what, Grant. If ye ever gain yer feet again in this lifetime, I’ll throw
down my sword and let ye take a swing.”

Darach did his best to focus on the man but all he could make out was a mane of fair
hair and a medium build. He coughed and thought he tasted blood.

“Ye have a deal,” Darach promised. “Only dinna’ throw doun yer sword. I wilna’ have
it said that I killed an unarmed man. Nae matter what a low-born pile of shyt he may
be.”

The man tossed his head back and howled with mirth. “I like yer confidence, despite
it being foolish. The thing that will end up killing ye, though, is not yer bravado
but that ye care about what others think of ye.” He moved closer to Darach and then
crouched above his head. “Mayhap my being a low-born pile of shyt,” he said softly
while he pulled the weapon from Darach’s hand, “is the reason I don’t care about crushing
yer skull when ye cannot even fight back.”

“Or mayhap ye never want to see me fight back.” Darach forced his eyes open as wide
as he could. If it was his time to die, he’d wouldn’t do it with his eyes closed.

The man laughed. “I dinna’ want to kill ye. Scotland is going to need young, fearless
warriors like ye when we become subjugated to England.”

Darach rubbed his head. “What d’ye know of the union?”

“Enough to know that we’re all goin’ to lose a lot more than castles we believe, rightly
so or not, are ours. I’ve spoken with yer kin Edmund MacGregor at length about our
troubles. We both believe the fighting between clans is silly and needs to end.”

So this was the new chief, William Buchanan. Darach grimaced, since it hurt too much
to laugh. “It seems the rest of yer kin dinna’ agree, and after this, neither do I.”

“Shame.” The man moved to a stool and took a seat. “The ones who attacked ye have
been dealt with by me. Some were sons of the men killed upon yer return. That’s why
they—”

“Those men lay in wait fer us to return. They deserved their deaths.”

“Ye see, Will,” came a voice out of the shadows. So unexpected was it that Darach
almost leaped out of his chains. More surprising, it was a woman’s voice. “We shoulda’
just let him die.”

Darach’s eyes were still open, so he managed a decent look at the lass when she stepped
into the light. A pale, round cherubic face eclipsed by mounds of tight golden curls
that spread out like a blanket around her shoulders. How long had she been hiding
there, watching him, before the chief arrived? He didn’t like the fact that she wanted
him dead and he was helpless at present to stop her wishes from coming to pass.

“Nonsense,” William told her sternly. “The feuding has to stop, Janet. Killing him
would only keep the fighting going. And the next time ye ride out with Kevin and the
rest, with trouble on yer mind, ye’ll think again and return to me else I’ll shackle
ye
to the stalls. I’m chief now and ye’ll obey me. Understood?”

She glared at William first, then Darach, and stormed toward the doors. “I should
have killed him when I had the chance.”

William followed her departure with his troubled gaze and then turned back to his
prisoner.

“Is she yer wife?”

“My sister. Her betrothed was among those killed at Ravenglade.”

“My cousin…” Darach suddenly remembered Lucan and his reason for riding to Skye. He
tried to sit up. “I have to get home. If Luke dies, I vow, I’ll return here and kill
all of ye.”

William watched him struggle to rise and then sink back to the floor. “Ye’re in no
condition to travel, Grant. I can’t let ye leave until ye’re healed up anyway. Dinna’
want yer cousins coming here to lop off our heads.” He rose to his feet and headed
for the doors. “I hope yer cousin lives, but men die in battle. ’Tis why it should
end.”

He stepped out into the light and closed the doors behind him, enveloping Darach in
darkness once again.

Darach wasted no time. He felt around on the ground behind his head for the weapon.
He found it and, grimacing with pain, swept it close to his side. He should have realized
before that he didn’t have the strength to swing it over his head. He needed to escape.
He needed to recover a bit in order to do that. But he would. And then he was going
to kill every last one of them.

He would begin with William.

Amelia squealed with laughter, passed Sarah, and burst into Lucan’s room with Edmund
and Grendel hot on her heels. Once inside, she realized her error in trapping herself
within four walls. Her gaze darted about and laughter bubbled up to the surface.

“Ah, she flees to the knight fer aid.” Edmund stopped beneath the doorway, a bit out
of breath from the chase she had led him on. Grendel showed less reserve when he broke
past his master’s legs and leaped for her.

She squeaked, perking Grendel’s ears, and twirled out of his path to the window.

It took a single, softly spoken command from Edmund to halt the dog’s advance and
resume his authority.

“But yer champion is abed, lass.”

His deep, harmonic voice stopped her, too. She turned. Her eyes skittered to Lucan.
She smiled when he winked at her and then turned to her pursuer.

“Even if he wasn’t,” Edmund continued, moving slowly toward her. “He wouldn’t stop
me from what I mean to do. Would ye, Luke?”

“Nae, brother. I wouldna’ stop ye.”

Amelia cut him a wounded look, knowing it would aid her to tug on Lucan’s principles,
but his eyes were already off her and on Sarah, who was entering the room with a stack
of towels.

Everything happened so quickly just after Amelia turned her eyes toward her best friend
that she knew if she replayed it all over in her mind for the next year, she wouldn’t
be able to tell the exact moment when misfortune found where she’d been hiding.

She’d already begun her step backward when Lucan vowed not to aid her. She looked
toward Sarah, not for aid, but support, as one lass to another.

“Don’t move, Amelia!”

As fate, horrible witch that she was, would have it, it wasn’t Edmund’s voice, but
Sarah’s that issued the command. Had it been Edmund’s, Amelia was certain she would
have obeyed.

Her arse hit the window ledge, or what she later found out was Lucan’s bedpan. She
knew she’d done something terrible when Sarah covered her mouth as the apparatus fell
out the window. She knew it was the bedpan when Malcolm’s voice boomed through the
courtyard and everyone in the room, save her and Lucan, ran every which way.

“I’d hide were I ye,” Edmund teased when she asked if he thought Malcolm would be
angry with her.

She worried her lip and stepped away from the window, imagining that her victim was
looking up and would see her.

“’Twas an accident.” Lucan was a bit more reassuring. “If nothing else, we’ll remind
him of that.”

“Amelia.” Edmund came to her and she let him take her in his arms. “Do ye hear all
that hollering, love?”

She nodded, feeling terrible for being the cause of something so vile.

“It means he’s alive and the bedpan didn’t kill him. It could have if it hit him at
a certain angle. As irritating as he can sometimes be—”

“And that’s often,” Lucan interjected.

“—none of us want to see him dead. I think ye have it all wrong.” He pulled back and
looked into her eyes. “I think ye bring fortune to what would have otherwise brought
calamity.”

Amelia’s heart welled up with a rush of warmth and worship so strong it nearly choked
her. The only way to release it was through her eyes. She smiled through it, letting
him know how he affected her. Every day she spent with him made it harder to envision
a day without him, so she chose not to.

He didn’t have to speak of his heart to her; she could see it in his eyes when he
looked at her and in his smile when he spoke to her. He made her feel silly and sensuous
and free to express both. After their first encounter in his bed a few days ago, he
hadn’t taken her back, but he wanted to. He told her he did.

He also told her that once he had her, he could keep her if he liked—something about
a ridiculous Highland law she’d already forgotten. The true dilemma, though, was that
she wanted to be with him. She wanted him to take her, to do this “claiming” he spoke
about. But how could he claim her without causing ruin to her father? How could she
tell her father that she would rather be the wife of an outlawed Highland patriot
than to the chancellor of Scotland? She couldn’t. She couldn’t. Dear God, he would
have seizures. Her uncle would likely bring an entire army down on the MacGregors.

Edmund broke away from her when the shouting below moved into the castle. He plucked
a small chunk of soap from the table and went to the open door. “Malcolm,” he called
down the stairs to his cousin. “’Twas Grendel trying to look out. Apologies, brother.”
He tossed him the soap when Malcolm roared his way to the top of the landing. “Go
wash in the river. Amelia and I were there a short while ago to clean some garments
and I saw Meg Walker just arriving with her sister Mary.”

The ruckus ended with a curt question and a mumbled oath about Grendel being a number
of unmentionable things.

Amelia cast the dog a guilty look. He wagged his tail and saved the plaited rug from
salvia falling from his jowls by lapping it up.

When he reappeared in the doorway, Edmund held his arms out at his sides. “Lady.”
His slow grin tempted her toward utter abandon. “Where is misfortune now?”

She moved toward him and turned briefly to Lucan as she went. “I wouldn’t want ye
to stop him.”

Edmund took her hand and kissed it on their way out.

T
he countryside swept past Amelia in a burst of color and the sweet spring fragrances
of heather and pine. But she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to Edmund’s chest,
preferring the feel of him while they thundered across the landscape on his stallion.
He smelled like this place, with a trace of something else. Something she couldn’t
define, like wind across a loch.

“How long would ye have chased me today?”

Her cheek rose and fell with his breath and she fell like one under a spell at the
cadence of his husky voice reverberating in her ear.

“As long as it took to catch ye.”

She chuckled and ran her fingers over his corded belly. “My answer would not have
changed. I cannot wed ye.”

“It would have changed after I took ye back to my bed.”

She lifted her head off him and poked him in the side.

“Ye’re quite arrogant about yer skills.”

“Nae, but ye would never be disappointed. Still, ’tis not about that. ’Tis because
once ye consent to my body, the rest of ye is mine, too, if I so wish it to be. I
told ye that.”

She laughed. Honestly, he couldn’t truly have such barbaric notions about marriage
and look the way he did, or charm her senseless the way he had from the moment she
first opened her eyes on him.

“’Tis all the truth.”

“According to whom?” Her laughter relaxed into a smile. She almost wished it was the
truth and Edmund would decide to have her for himself. This fantasy they were living
was wonderful indeed, but soon it would all come crashing in.

“According to Highland law.”

She rested her head on him again and closed her eyes to think about it for a moment
to make certain she had it right. According to his laws, if she let him make love
to her, she might as well be consenting to marriage.

“Then as I told ye this morning before ye gave chase, I shall resist ye until ye return
me to Queensberry.”

He turned slowly and eyed her over his shoulder. She did her best not to laugh. “Admirable,”
he drawled, surprising her.

He slowed their horse to a halt, slipped out of the saddle, and reached for her. “I
want ye, Amelia,” he told her while she slid into his waiting arms, down his hard
body. “I want to explore every delectable inch of ye and set yer nerves aflame.” He
kissed her face, her mouth, and breathed fire into her, confirming his promise. She
went weak in his embrace and victory sparked his eyes like lightning across the night
sky. “I want to teach ye how to take me.” He bent her over his arm and pressed his
lips to her bosom. “I want to make ye wet and hot and ready with a few strokes of
my tongue and the tight head of my desire.” He grazed his teeth down her throat and
slipped his hand under her skirts. She was wet and hot already, groaning like a siren
at the mastery of his fingers. There was little left he needed to do to make her ready.
“I won’t hurt ye but I intend to make ye scream often.”

The velvet tone of his voice down her spine and the way he petted and played with
her made her want to scream now.

“Cease!”

He stopped almost immediately, pulling back his hand and setting her upright. He didn’t
look angry, but his eyes seemed to be cut from steel, as did the rest of him, she
thought when he stepped away from her and she looked down. “I’m trying my hardest”—he
took another step back and held his fingers to his nose and closed his eyes, lost
for a moment in her scent—“to continue to give a damn about yer answer.”

She chased him when he walked away. “That isn’t true! I don’t believe fer a moment
that ye would take me against my will. Or trick me into belonging to ye. Banns must
be read. We would need a priest.”

He shook his head. “Banns are public announcements of a forthcoming wedding at a church.
Many priests won’t marry MacGregors as part of the proscription. So there is no church.
No mass. When we want to unite, we only need consent. There are no banns and there
need not be a priest, but ’tis all very binding.”

“In what era?”

“This one. On Skye.”

“Skye is barbaric then.”

He took her hand and whistled for Grendel and his horse, then led them all toward
a grove of giant trees beside a waterfall. Amelia gasped at the beauty and the raw
power of it—and of the man beside her, the soft breeze stirring his golden waves around
his face.

“Skye is barbaric…” he said, staring at the woodland scene before him, “…and beautiful.
I was a wee lad when I first saw it. I thought ’twas the Eden my mother taught me
about from the Holy Book. But I knew ’twasn’t. ’Twas too brutal, too inhospitable.”
He turned to her and smiled, wrenching her heart from its place. “But I loved it there
from the instant I stepped foot off the ferry.”

They sat on a sun-warmed rocky ledge and watched Grendel chase a small animal around
a tree stump. They laughed about getting married, both admitting that it was impossible
but pleasant to imagine. They were quiet for a bit, enjoying the day, but their words,
though she laughed with him at them, weighed heavily on her. She was falling in love
with him. She could no longer deny it. She truly wanted the things he jested so easily
about. Oh, but her father had done too much to ensure her future—his and her mother’s
future.

Edmund cared for her, but she knew he loved his country and his kin so much more.
It frightened her to think what he would do for either. Would he kill her uncle or
Walter to stop the kingdoms from uniting? If he did, what would become of her father?
What would become of his kin when war was declared on the MacGregors?

“When will ye contact my uncle about my ransom?”

“I already have,” he told her. “The night we took ye I penned a letter to him with
my demands. Of course, I didn’t tell him who we are. No need to have him send an army
to Skye.”

“And yer demands are?”

“Stop the Treaty of Union from being signed. Draw up something new that will protect
the men and women of Scotland against the whims of kings.”

Amelia shook her head. “He’ll never give up the influence and power he has with the
English by doing either of those things.”

“Even if he thought it would cost ye yer life if he didn’t?”

“I fear not.”

“And the man who is fortunate enough to be yer future husband?” He looked into her
eyes and Amelia knew what he would do if he bore that title.

She smiled instead of giving him an answer right away. “’Tis not fair what ye do.”

“What do I do?” he asked, hooking one corner of his mouth in a soft grin.

“Ye hold other men to yer high principles. ’Tisn’t fair, because none of them can
measure up.”

He threw back his head and laughed. She basked in the sight of him, delighted in the
sound of him. She wanted to look at him, hear him, touch him, and more for the rest
of her days. Back there on the road, she was tempted to let him carry her to the closest
bush and have his way with her. Never, ever in her life had any man made her feel
such stinging passion. She ached for the hot stroke of his tongue…there. His big,
broad hands cupping her buttocks while he lifted her hips higher so that he could
drink her deeper.

She had to keep a clear head. She had duties to her family, just as he did.

“I’m pleased that ye think that way of me, lass.” He grinned, scattering her thoughts.
“But there are men whose standards make mine look fit fer a fool. Men who would give
up their lives fer what they believe in and fer those whom they love. Men who understand
that nothing is more vital to their breath than protecting what is theirs, whether
it be their family, their land, their religion, or their name.”

She stared at him, loving his principles because she understood them. She would do
anything to keep her father safe. And hating those same principles because they would
keep Edmund from her, and she, from him.

“What do ye fight to protect, Edmund?”

“All of it. Scotland is my home, Amelia. The MacGregors are my kin—I am joined to
them by more than the marriage of my mother or the love of Camlochlin. I am joined
to them by blood. I mentioned my brother and sister to ye already, did I not?” When
she nodded, smiling, he told her about them.

“Kyle is very much like my father. In fact, he looks almost exactly like him. He’s
quite stealthy and secretive and is very close to Caitrina, Malcolm’s sister. He wanted
to come with us but I don’t want him fighting in my line of vision. ’Twould distract
me.”

“Ye love him.”

“Very much, and Nichola, too. Ye would like her. She’s full of life and joy. Everyone
in Camlochlin adores her.”

Amelia smiled, liking that he was so close with his siblings. “What is Camlochlin?”

He closed his eyes and inhaled as if he were just transported to another place. A
better place.

“’Tis home.”

She smiled, seeing the love for it in his eyes when he opened them and looked at her.

“We’re outlawed, lass,” he reminded her. “We prefer folks don’t know where we live.
Skye is a big island.”

“The MacGregors remind me of Sarah,” she told him, looping her arm through his and
resting her head on his shoulder.

He laughed. “How?”

“People aren’t allowed to associate with them. They are looked down upon as if they
are worth less than others. Sarah is looked at that way because she is a servant.”

He kissed the top of her head. “But ye defy the rules. Ye love her and stand by her
side despite yer kin’s disapproval.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “Aye. I do.”

“’Tisn’t just the MacGregors who suffer the scorn of others unjustly. ’Tis Scotland,
as well. The English don’t esteem our law or our Parliament. We are our own country.
We don’t need to unite with those who would subjugate us.”

His words made Amelia angry, not with Edmund, but with her uncle and with Walter.
She didn’t pay much attention to politics, but hearing Edmund’s side made her wish
she had learned more so that she could confront the men who were making the decisions.

She listened while Edmund told her what he believed would happen to Scotland once
the union took place. The more he shared his feelings on the matter, the more she
was determined to stand on Scotland’s side when he returned her home.

When would that be? She didn’t want to return. Oh, she didn’t want to marry Walter
or return to her mother’s constant criticism. She did miss her father and Alice though.
And how they must be worried about her.

She didn’t want to think about any of it now.

She wanted to remain there with him, kissing him, being held in his arms, for the
rest of the day but Grendel’s barking interrupted them twice.

Finally, with a muffled oath, Edmund left the ledge and called for the dog to come.
When Grendel didn’t return after another moment, Edmund turned to Amelia, a bit pale,
then took off toward the woods. Amelia followed, calling Grendel’s name and feeling
sick to her stomach when they heard him whine.

They followed the pitiful sounds until they came upon him. But Grendel wasn’t alone.

“What the hell do ye mean by not coming when I called ye?” Edmund demanded as if he
expected the dog to answer him.

Grendel looked at the slightly smaller blond dog beside him and then back to Edmund,
giving all the answer he could.

Amelia smiled and tugged on Edmund’s sleeve. “She’s very bonny.”

“Grendel,” Edmund demanded. “Get back to the horse.”

“Edmund.” Amelia pulled him away. “Give him some time with her.”

“Amelia, I would not. She could be diseased—”

“She looks healthy enough. Now come on with ye. Leave the poor boy to his sport.”
Before he could protest any further, she pulled him away.

“If my dog gets his gel, then so do I.”

Amelia laughed when Edmund reached for her. She took off running but came to an abrupt
stop when she hit a wall.

She looked up into deep, dark blue eyes and a sneer that could have frightened the
sun from shining. When the brute closed his beefy fingers around her wrist, Amelia’s
breath stopped, along with her heart.

“Where is my dog, woman?”

“Let her go, Alistair,” Edmund warned in a low growl behind her.

“Or what, MacGregor?”

“Or ye’ll face the same fate as the rest of yer kin when they showed up at our door.
This is Malcolm’s land. Ravenglade is his. Accept it and be gone.”

“I’ll go as soon as I get my dog. Now where is she?”

Amelia turned and aimed an apologetic look at Edmund. This was her fault. Alistair
was obviously a Buchanan and his dog was likely not going to be returning to him in
the next few minutes.

“Better yet, keep the dog.” Alistair grinned at her, exposing two missing teeth behind
his dark beard. “I’ll take this wee lass instead.” He turned to go, yanking her along
by the wrist.

“Amelia,” came Edmund’s silken voice behind her. “Cover yer face.” The metallic click
that followed was likely no louder than the snap of a twig underfoot, but it boomed
and thundered through her ear and rattled her knees.

Alistair dropped her wrist as if it were on fire. He held up his hands and turned
slowly to look down the barrel of Edmund’s pistol.

“There’s no need fer that now, MacGregor. I’ve not harmed her.”

“Look at her.”

Alistair obeyed Edmund’s command and slipped his wary gaze to her. He squeezed his
eyes shut when Edmund pushed the tip of the cool metal into his temple. The pistol
was locked and loaded, ready to fire.

“Remember her. Warn yer kin of her. Fer if harm befalls her at yer hands or at the
hands of anyone in yer clan, I will come fer ye first. Understand, Buchanan? ’Twill
be me who ends yer life.”

“Aye, I understand.”

Amelia looked away, taking pity on the grimy would-be kidnapper. Well, the second
kidnapper actually.

“Go then.” Edmund dropped his pistol to his side. “Wait around the bend fer yer dog.”

He didn’t have to wait long. He hadn’t yet made it to the curve in the road when both
dogs barreled into the clearing, then raced toward Alistair on long legs and sleek
muscles.