Highland Temptations: Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 14

  “This is my fault?” Rufus growled, more incensed at hearing his own thoughts spoken aloud than he was at anything his cousin could have said.

  “Nay, I didna say that, nor would I. The fault behind all of this lies squarely upon the shoulders of one Ian MacFarland, and nothing will give me greater pleasure than seein’ ye cut him down like the dog he is. I only mean to remind ye that your brother could only do the best he could do. He was not strong enough to take back the land on his own, and he had not the friends ye have. William Blackheath recommended the men for this task, but Kenneth would not know him. He had no one to turn to. And if he had half the pride of the rest of us, I would wager it was a terrible strain, riding about the countryside when everyone knew of his shame.”

  “His shame? No shame in losing to one who cheated.”

  “That is easy for ye to say, or for myself,” Drew observed. “I canna imagine how it weighed on him. Perhaps I simply dinna wish to imagine it.”

  Rufus wanted to disagree, but there was little he could say in protest. There had been nothing for Kenneth to do but leave. Drew was correct in this. Anything would seem preferable to hanging one’s head in shame, knowing that those around him were aware of his defeat. Knowing he could never step foot on his family’s land again. That constant reminder of what would never be his.

  Kenneth was not a fighting man. He would not know where to turn or who to trust. It was simpler for him to start again elsewhere.

  “To leave in disgrace,” Rufus mused, a sick feeling rising in his stomach at the thought. “A MacIntosh, forced to leave in disgrace. Och, my poor father is turning in his grave at this very moment.”

  “I’m certain of it,” Drew agreed with a grimace. “Yet in the New World, there is no disgrace. No one need know. And ye can still make things right here, for your family. Ye can balance accounts.”

  And then what would he do? The question loomed large in the back of his mind. What would he do when there was no one to take ownership of the land? No one to tend it or to even make use of the house which he assumed still sat where it always had? What then?

  That was something with which he could concern himself later, once he’d dispatched with the vicious creature who had set all of this in motion. How sweet it would be to finally have his revenge, especially now.

  “Och, but I am tired,” he admitted, dipping his hands into the water and splashing his face again in an effort to rouse himself. Now that the sudden rush of confusion and dismay had passed, he was more fatigued than ever. “I do need to sleep.”

  “I know it,” Drew smirked, standing before offering his cousin a hand up. “I’ve known it all day, but I had the good sense to stay quiet about it.”

  “Thank ye,” Rufus scowled. It plagued him to know how easy it was for his cousin to see through him.

  He had no idea just how closely Drew had been watching until moments later, as they began the walk back to the tavern. “Ye ought to let the lass go,” he announced without preamble. “Now that we’re alone here, I feel that I can say it. Her brother caused this, and I canna stand the sight of her. Nor can the others.”

  Rufus gaped at him. “I—I dinna know whether I ought to laugh or not.”

  “I’m not jesting,” Drew replied, his face like stone. “For once. I mean what I say. Ye ought to let go of her.”

  Rufus came to a stop. “I canna make sense of this. Why would I do such a thing? Nothing has changed.”

  “Och, man. Listen to yourself. Everything had changed!” Drew roared. “Everything, all of it. None of your reasoning for having the lass with us matters now. I have to wonder if it ever did.”

  Rufus took a step toward his cousin, who did not move. He did not even blink. Of course, he would face anything Rufus had to offer. He’d stood toe-to-toe with men far larger, far fiercer, far more likely to inflict real damage.

  “Ye know if ye were any other man in the world, ye would be dangling off the end of my sword at this very moment,” Rufus whispered. “Ye are perhaps the only man alive, save Kenneth, who would not answer for that.”

  “I know it,” Drew replied, almost insolent. “I will not remain silent when I see something I believe might prove costly to all of us. It is not only myself I am concerned for.”

  “And ye believe ‘tis only myself I am concerned for?”

  “Nay, not at all.” Drew’s smile held no humor. “I believe it is the lass who concerns ye most of all now.”

  “Take care,” Rufus warned.”

  “I know ye dinna wish to hear it, and it gives me no pleasure to say—ye can believe that. Ye might very well be the only man in the world I have no desire to brawl with. And I would hope that now ye have the good sense not to turn this into a brawl. I merely ask ye to look at why ye do this now.”

  “The reason has not changed.”

  “Has it not? Are ye certain?” Drew’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I have eyes, man. I can see what ye have become to her. The way she watched ye when ye spoke to Uncle Hamish, it was plain as day. And it made me sick. But,” he continued, raising his hands, “I am not a cold-hearted man. Not entirely. I know she canna help herself any more than she could have helped being born a MacFarland. When I think on it in that fashion, it seems to me that this is terribly unfair. Nothing could ever come of the lass and ye, so why lead her to believe anything else could be true? She shall have nothing once this is over and her kin are all lying dead. It would be better for her to go on with her life now.”

  Rufus struggled to keep up, to make sense of this. Davina? Watching him? “Are ye trying to say she took a liking to me?” he asked, knowing when he did that he sounded like the world’s greatest fool. There was simply no getting his head around it, however. The very notion was unthinkable. Davina, caring for him.

  “Och, lad. I gave ye more credit than that.” Drew strode away, shaking his head.

  “I truly have no notion of what ye speak!” Rufus trotted to catch up with his cousin. “I mean it.”

  “Well, I suppose ‘tis easier for another man or woman to see these things than it is for us to see it ourselves,” Drew allowed with a grimace. “I never did care much for such attachments or goings-on myself.”

  “Nor have I. I dinna still. I’m certain ye must be mistaken.”

  “Perhaps I am.” Drew stopped again, turning to face Rufus with an expression of blank seriousness. “It matters not—if anything, if she does not care for ye, that will make it all the easier to rid yourself of her. And rid yourself, ye must, for we have work to do. Ian will not care that ye have her, this I know. Nothing will matter to him more than keeping his grasp on your land.”

  This, Rufus found himself in agreement with. He’d been questioning Ian’s reaction when he saw his sister with the enemy ever since hearing what a brute he’d been to her, but never so much as now, when he knew for certain that it had been Ian who’d left her alone in the woods.

  Hearing Drew putting words to it only convinced him that she was of no use to them.

  But leaving her behind…? He could not bring himself to imagine it.

  “Och, damn it,” he whispered, turning away from his cousin, looking toward the village. Damn it, and damn him, for Davina was not alone in having grown fond.

  He reached for Drew’s arm when the sight of a head bobbing above the others caught his attention. A bald head, gleaming in the sun, like a beacon.

  “I see him,” Drew muttered, and the two of them hurried to where Clyde approached.

  “What is it?” Rufus asked, sensing the man’s trouble at once and fearing he knew the reason for it.

  “She was speaking with a man in the road,” he growled, his chest heaving. “I lost sight of them. Both of them. She’s gone.”

  21

  “Would ye please be so kind as to release my arm, ye brute?” Davina wrenched her arm from her brother’s tight grasp, rubbing the life back into it once she was free. The motion brought to mind Rufus’s hands on hers, rubbing them to increase her circula
tion.

  Ronald turned to her, cursing under his breath as he lowered the hood of his cloak. “What part of our havin’ to hurry did ye not understand, lass?”

  “What part of my not understanding why we have to hurry at all did ye not understand?” she spat.

  They were in the woods beyond the village, on the side opposite the one which she’d entered with Rufus. Ronald led both her and his chestnut gelding, the fuss she’d made when he tried to throw her across the saddle causing him to panic and drag her along instead.

  Ronald rubbed his temples, bringing to mind the headaches he sometimes suffered. Just the sight of that familiar gesture softened her heart. She reached for him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Your head aches?”

  “Aye. Terrible.”

  “I’m sorry. Here. Sit down. I shall water the horse and bring him back to ye.” She helped him sit against a boulder between two trees before opening his fingers and taking the reins from his hand.

  “Ye will not bolt with him, then?” he muttered, eyes closing as he leaned his head against the rock with an expression of utter agony twisting his familiar features. He was so like their mother, all softness, and curves, a bit fleshy but with a great deal of muscle beneath.

  She’d certainly felt that muscle when he tried to throw her across the saddle, had she not? But they’d been in public, with too many eyes to witness her kidnapping.

  “I will not,” she promised. “I shall only take him a short way from here. Do ye hear the stream flowing yonder? That is as far as we’ll go.”

  “Aye, then,” he groaned, lost in pain.

  She wished she did not care so, that the sight and sound of it did not tug at her heart. Her poor, soft brother with his mop of auburn curls like her own. Those curls and their mother’s eyes never ceased to bring to mind their blood tie.

  Her mind raced as she led the horse through the thick brush to where the water flowed over smooth, glistening stones. The tired beast lowered its head and drank greedily, making her wonder when Ronald had last eaten or drank.

  And what he was doing there when the rest of the family was at the house on Moray Firth—if they were at all.

  The canteen hanging from the saddle was empty. Ronald never was one for practical matters. She filled it, then returned both it and the horse to her brother. He waited where she’d left him, as she’d left him, still agonized thanks to what he’d once described as a roaring, blinding pain.

  “Here,” she offered, pressing the canteen into his hand. “Ye need to drink.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Can,” she insisted. “Do not make me pour the water down your throat, lad.” She busied herself with tying off the horse in a grassy area where he might eat to his heart’s content before returning to Ronald with a hundred questions.

  Questions which she felt she could not ask while he was indisposed.

  Instead, she hummed quietly, hoping to calm him, all the while wondering why she remained in his company when she could very easily escape. He would never be able to catch her in his condition, and she certainly had no desire to remain in his presence.

  Yet she continued to hum a tuneless song in the hopes of quieting the roar in his head. Over the course of many endless minutes, the lines between his brows smoothed. His mouth relaxed, no longer in a grimace. His breathing slowed. He seemed peaceful.

  She proceeded with caution, asking in a whisper, “What brings ye here?”

  He turned his head slowly, away from hers. “I could not stay there.”

  “Ye reached the house, then? The MacIntosh land?”

  “Not theirs any longer,” he reminded her. “Ours.”

  “Yours,” she corrected. “Not mine, for I am no part of ye. Of any of ye.”

  “Davina…” he whispered.

  “Nay, lad. You’ll not get around me that easily.” She jumped to her feet, then used one of them to kick him in the ribs. “Did ye feign your headache, then? That I might not drown ye or beat ye to death with a rock for what ye did to me?”

  “Nay, nay, of course not,” he groaned. “Please. It is only just barely gone.”

  “I ought to beat ye to death now, right where ye lie,” she spat. “Ye left me to die, Ronald. My own brother. Ye left me there, knowing I might starve or be food for the animals, knowing I could be torn to pieces by a wolf, yet ye rode away because Ian told ye to. Ye left me!”

  “I know it, and I have not had a decent night’s sleep since, lass,” he murmured, eyes still closed. “Believe me when I tell ye, I have never regretted a decision more than I regret not demanding to bring ye on the back of my saddle. I hate myself for it. For my weakness. Ye know I always have.”

  “Do not do that to me,” she warned, shaking her head. “Do not think ye can get me to feel sorry for ye, because ye cannot. I will never feel a moment’s sorrow for any of ye black-hearted bastards.”

  “I know it. I dinna deserve it and would not expect it from ye. That is not my intention, earning your sympathy. I only wish for ye to know it was not a decision I made easily. And I regret it still.”

  “Your regret means nothing, just as it would have meant nothing had I died. Would regret bring me to life again had I died? Would it keep me from starving or being torn to shreds? Do ye know how I suffered?” She kicked him again in spite of his protestations. “I care nothing for your sleepless nights, ye heartless beast. I did not sleep, either. I shivered and wept in pain and remembered, again and again, the sight of your face as our brother decided I was not worth helping.”

  The wetness on her cheeks came as a surprise. She was weeping. “Why am I not worth it? What did I ever do to deserve that? My entire life, I’ve done nothing but serve the lot of ye and listen to ye boast and brag and know that ye would never see me as one of ye. But I was your sister. Your blood. That was still not enough. I was never enough!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t care!” It came out as a scream, loud and strong enough to frighten the birds from the trees and the squirrels from their romps among the roots and underbrush.

  The gelding lifted its head from its feast and whinnied in response.

  Ronald took a deep breath, arms still crossed over his ribs. He opened his eyes, turning his face to hers, looking up with those gray eyes that reminded her so much of the only person who had ever truly loved her. Even that had been denied her when her mother had died. “We were wrong. I was wrong. I was weak and stupid, I always have been. And I’m running away now, just as all men who are weak and stupid do in time.”

  The admission took her breath away, made her forget her fury and heartbreak for a moment. “Running away? Is that what brings ye here?”

  “Aye,” he grunted, sitting up straight now that his head no longer plagued him so. “I left not long after we arrived. I could not be there. There was a haunted feeling about the place.” Davina scoffed, but he shook his head. “Perhaps my conscience plagued me, aye. I know I deserve that. No matter the reason, I tell ye, I felt the spirits of the dead walking about the place. Demanding vengeance.”

  “Ye have lost your senses, lad.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed with a shrug. “No matter, for it was enough to drive me away. More than that,” he added. “I could not be party to it any longer. Ian’s demands. Knowing the MacIntosh would come for him, speaking again and again of how good it would be to kill him. How he wished to bathe in the man’s blood.”

  It chilled her to the bone—the fact that she could imagine the words coming from Ian’s mouth, could hear them spoken in his voice, made the horror all the more real. She rubbed her arms to calm the gooseflesh which had appeared there. “Who remains with him, then?”

  “Only Fergus and Malcolm. The cousins peeled off as we rode. They told us they had other matters with which to concern themselves, but I suspect they were reluctant to face MacIntosh and the men he gathered to help him.”

  This looked better than she could have hoped for. She found herself smiling at the thought
of Ian watching five men ride to the house to face their band of three. It would be a quick, merciless victory for Rufus.

  “Why are ye smiling?”

  She blinked rapidly, looking down at her brother. “What did ye say?”

  “I asked ye why ye smiled. Ye did, ye ken. Why? Do ye hate him that much?”

  “Ian? Ye know I do. Why should I not?”

  “It was more than that,” he insisted. “Ye were… satisfied. What are ye not telling me, lass?” He sat up straighter than ever, his head moving back and forth. “How did ye make it out of the woods alive? How did ye make it here?”

  “All good questions.” A familiar voice.

  She snapped her head at the new voice. A voice she knew only too well. One she’d never forget.

  Rufus appeared momentarily, his pistol aimed at Ronald’s head as he stepped out from behind a nearby tree. There was no mistaking the murder in his voice, his face as he took slow strides toward them. “I believe ‘tis fittin’ for a brother to care about his sister’s welfare.”

  “Rufus…” she whispered, her eyes darting back and forth between the two men.

  Ronald’s face went slack, the color draining from it in an instant. “What are ye… why…” Then, understanding dawned, and he turned to Davina. “Of course. Now, I see.”

  “Good,” Rufus smiled as Drew, Tyrone, Alec, and Clyde closed in from all sides. “And now, unless ye wish for me to end your worthless life on the spot, you’ll begin answering my questions.”

  22

  What a weak, spineless, pitiful creature this Ronald MacFarland was. Rufus would have been hard-pressed to find a resemblance between the quaking, shuddering excuse for a man before him and the fierce, passionate sister standing off to the side, her arms folded as she glared at her brother.

  How could they have come from the same parents? Then again, how could she share blood with Ian? It was all a mystery, and none of his concern at the moment.

  “What are ye doing here?” he asked, no longer holding his pistol. He did not need to, with Clyde standing beside the man as a towering, silent reminder of what might befall him who did not answer questions clearly and completely.