A Highlander for Christmas (7 page)

They pulled back into the shadows but couldn’t begin to move the board or Iain, who was still softly snoring. Juliet reached over and held her hand to his mouth, but that only made the snore come out his nose with a soft snuffling sound.

Oh dear.

“Someone’s coming!” Ruck whispered. “Quick, we have to move him.” Ruck took a shoulder and pushed him upright. Juliet went around to the other shoulder and together they heaved him to his feet. He wasn’t completely unconscious once they moved him about, so he was able to stand, or rather sway, on his feet. They each put one of his arms around their shoulders and half dragged, half carried him around the stone corner toward the entry. Hopefully, whoever was walking around the great hall wouldn’t notice the board at the foot of the stairs.

With his feet barely shuffling and sometimes sliding behind him, they managed to get him outside, where Juliet collapsed against the weight. “I can’t go another step,” she whispered.

Ruck let the other side down and propped Iain against a stone column. “Let’s drag him back into those bushes. You sit with him and I’ll fetch the carriage.

“Mother is going to strangle us for this.”

“We’ll say it was the MacLeon’s idea. You’re not at fault.” Ruck grinned, his eyes so bright with adventure in the moonlight that Juliet felt a pang of love for her brother. She nodded for him to go, but kept wondering.

What would become of them all?

Chapter Seven

I
ain woke to the jolting of a carriage at full tilt. He groaned and clasped his head with one hand, bracing himself from falling to the floor with the other. He tried to sit up but had to lay back down with another groan. His head felt like a giant melon about to split open. He turned his head and tried again to open eyes that were as heavy as sandbags. He couldn’t even blink, only try and open the swollen lids a slit.

Total darkness.

Where was he? And who was driving this thing at breakneck speed?

Who they were he couldn’t begin to fathom. He could hardly put enough wits together to remember where he had last been, and with whom.

“Thank God, you’re rousing,” a low, lyrical voice said near him.

He turned toward it instinctively, not remembering if it belonged to someone good or evil. It sounded good.

She sounded good.

Something about it, that soft, low, husky sweetness, touched a deep place that he hadn’t remembered since his mother’s soft voice had coaxed him from a childhood nightmare. There had been many nightmares, especially when his father was gone from them, Iain watching his kilt flap at the back of his legs as he left for some cause or another. All important missions—stopping tinkers from stealing their sheep and cattle, protecting their lands and fighting with other clans—he understood that much, but still, when he was gone from them the nightmares would return.

“Iain, can you hear me?”

That voice again.

It reached down, drawing something from him; like a bucket in his well, it dipped and demanded something new from him. Something he hadn’t ever had to answer to another person to before.

He turned his head away from it.

“Can hear me? MacLeon…Iain?”

Iain turned his head back toward the voice. She sounded afraid.

He tried to sit up and failed, only barely lifting his shoulders. What had they done to him?

“Shhhh,” said the gentle voice, and then his head was repositioned, moved onto a soft lap. He resisted the urge to turn into her, to nestle against the warmth and sweet smells of a woman. He turned his head away again, but then she put her hand against his brow. “There now. I can see you need to rest a bit more. I’ve got you. We’re almost there.”

Juliet…

He knew her then. Knew her voice and her smell and her softness. He also knew that something terrible had happened to him. Had he been shot? Poisoned? Bludgeoned over the head? He didn’t feel pain in any particular area, just an aching head and the knowledge that something was very wrong. And yet he trusted her.

He trusted her like he’d never trusted another breathing soul.

He turned toward her and pressed his nose against her belly. It was there that he trusted her, there that he would know her his whole life.

He took a long breath, pressing into her, and slept again.

 “Juliet! Juliet, wake up!”

Juliet woke with a start, the rocking of the carriage having lulled her into a fitful sleep. She looked down at Iain’s head still in her lap, slid it to the side onto the seat and rose. She leaned over and turned the latch to the door, opening it a crack.

The earth, still moving beneath them, could be seen and heard beneath the opening of the door. “Ruck! What is it? Are we nearly there?” she yelled it as loud as she could manage up through the crack of the door.

She saw her brother, a long flap of hair over his forehead swinging with the motion of the carriage as he leaned from the coachman’s box toward her. “We’re close. But it appears we have company.”

The minute he said it, a pistol exploded from behind them.

Juliet fell to the floor and pulled the door closed with a scream. On her knees she went to Iain and shook him. “Iain, you must wake. Iain!”

Another shot from a pistol and shouts of men. Oh dear. It had to be Lord Malcolm and his men. They would drag her back to Eden Place, or worse, force her into marriage at Gretna Green with the wrong man. What had they been thinking? They were leading her enemy to a place where they could accomplish their goal so easily.

No. She must stop thinking like that. They couldn’t force her to wed. Could they?

Iain was rising to a sitting position, his head in his hands, but his eyes were open. “What’ve ya done, lass?”

The full weight of what they had done crashed into her, making her grip the seat beside him and look down. How to explain that they had kidnapped him? The MacLeon? It sounded preposterous.

“Tell me quick, lass. I have to know what’s to be done.”

Juliet nodded. “My brother gave you some laudanum in your drink. I wasn’t in agreement with his plan but then, Lord Malcolm…we heard him say that he was going to take me in the morning, this morning, to his home and force me—”

“The two of you carried me to this carriage?” He shook his head and rubbed one hand over his face, still struggling to wake up, it seemed.

“Aye. On a board. ’Tis a long story.”

Another pistol shot, closer this time. Iain threw himself on the floor beside her. “And now Malcolm and his men are following us?”

“I believe so. Unless it’s highwaymen after us. We are close. Ruck—oh, I’m so worried about Ruck up there on the seat, so exposed! Ruck said we’re nearly there.”

Iain paused and turned his head toward her, his eyes blazing with intensity. “And just where are we goin’, lass?”

Juliet gulped and said in a weak voice, “Gretna Green.”

His eyes took on a hint of mirth despite the dire circumstances. “And what did you plan to do once we arrived in Scotland?”

More shouts could be heard and Juliet leaned close to him in fear, her lips trembling as she looked up at him. She could not tell a lie. “Marry.” She let that hang there and then rushed out, “It was Ruck’s idea but I…I did start to go along with it.”

His face went from shocked to hooting out a laugh. “Perhaps you should have taken a more traditional tact and just asked.”

Relief pooled through her that he didn’t seem to be too angry. Before she had time to think more about that, Iain had pulled a pistol from his belt, scooted across the floor to the door and opened it. “Stay down,” he said to Juliet, and then leaned out and around the door, took aim and shot at the men behind them. His arm jerked back as he looked up at Ruck and yelled, “Gretna Green is just over that hill, lad. I’ll hold them off, now get those horses moving!”

“MacLeon?” she could hear her brother exclaim. “Thank God, man. I thought you would sleep all day!”

Iain shook his head as he reloaded the pistol with black powder and grinned at Juliet, the crinkles at the sides of his eyes making him look more handsome. “And ’e’s complainin’ to me.” Iain shook his head. “The lad has brass, I’ll give him that.” He leaned around the door and shot again. Juliet crawled onto the seat and peeked over the back of the seat and out the window. They were too far away to see their faces, but one man had fallen from his horse so it appeared Iain’s shots were working—they were falling back.

“I see the village!” Ruck shouted from his high seat.

“None too soon,” Iain yelled back. “Head to the blacksmith shop.”

“The blacksmith shop? But isn’t that where couples go to be married?” Juliet asked, the fact well known.

“Aye.” Iain sighed and leaned toward her, his gaze roving across her face and settling on her lips. “’Tis the only way to save you from your fate.”

A wild mix of emotion made Juliet’s stomach tremble. Was this really what he wanted? “What about your clan? What will they think of a marriage to an Englishwoman?”

“I’ve less concern of them than what God has arranged.”

“God? You mean Ruck?”

He chuckled, grasping her to him in a sudden move that made her squeak. He stared down into her eyes with a look that turned heated, making the breath in her chest pause…waiting…waiting. His head lowered and her eyelids fluttered shut as his mouth closed over hers. This kiss was nothing like that stolen kiss in the garden by the earl. His was branding his own self, his clan, upon her. She could feel it in every fiber of his body straining toward her.

His voice was low and warm in her ear. “Nay, lass, not Ruck. I’m convinced only God’s helping hand could have made this plan succeed.” He shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for a sign from Him. I wouldnae have imagined such a harebrained idea as kidnapping the MacLeon but, as I’ve said, His ways are not my ways.”

He seemed so sure. But did she want him marrying her only to save her from Lord Malcolm? Did he love her? He made no mention of the word.

She didn’t have time to think it over any further. The carriage came to sudden halt, and as she sat up and looked out the window she saw that they had indeed reached the village and were stopping outside a building with a sign that said “Blacksmith Shop.”

Iain took her hand. “We’ve not much time, lass. We’ve only scared them off a little. They’ll be coming up from behind us at any moment.”

Juliet nodded and followed him from the carriage.

They ran toward the door, the three of them, Ruck grinning at Iain’s seeming return to health and agreement to the plan.

“He’s agreed, then?” Ruck whispered to Juliet as they flung open the wide wooden door.

Juliet nodded, excitement…fear…astonishment…relief—all expanding from her heart.

“I told you he was in love with you.”

“Aye, you did,” she said, skirting around him. She laughed as Iain grasped her hand, and she followed him into the large room where the heat of the forging fire made the room bright and warm, reflecting shadow and light on the stone walls.

A large man with a round, florid face turned and greeted them, a dangerous-looking hammer in his hand. “Are ye eager to wed, then?” He took in Iain’s tartan, gave a small bow toward him and reached out his hand.

Iain stretched out his arm and clasped the blacksmith’s hand in a tight squeeze. “I’m the MacLeon, chief of the Clan MacLeon of the highlands.” He turned toward Juliet. “This is Lady Juliet Lindsay of Northumberland and her brother Ruck Lindsay.” Iain took a deep breath. “I’ve not the time to tell the whole tale to you, I fear. A man who thinks he is the better choice of groom will be upon us any minute. We’ve need of a fast wedding, as fast as may be, my good man.”

“Oh, certainly.” The blacksmith grinned. “’Tis a specialty of mine, to be sure. Just over here, then.” He motioned to a large anvil that sat on a wooden block in the middle of the floor. Nearby was a prayer book, which he picked up and opened to a page that was clearly worn.

“If you would be so kind to repeat after me, MacLeon.”

Iain nodded and grasped Juliet’s hands in his. They faced each other and in that moment it seemed as if time—all sound and room and persons—dropped away and left only the two of them staring into each other’s eyes.