Highlander Mine (23 page)

I paused to allow my intrinsic panic to quiet. Knox’s expression was smooth, unreadable. He waited for me to continue, which I did, slowly.

“She married him to keep us off the streets after the death of our parents. There was no money left after the debts were paid. We moved into an acceptable house not far from our parents’ home, but the business was not as prosperous as we might have hoped. James ran a gaming club, and after only a few months of marriage, he was forced to sell the house to fund the struggling business. We had no alternative but to take up residence in the club. Among the gamblers and the reprobates. I could not continue to go to school. I was needed as a worker at the club. As a dealer. I showed promise. I learned quickly.”

I faltered again, but there was no point prolonging the agony. I continued, laying it all on the table, coiling the curl of my hair tighter, keeping my voice as light as I could, but I could hear the resignation there, the return of my impudent survivalist guise. “In actual fact, I’m a prodigy with a deck of cards, Laird Mackenzie. I almost single-handedly kept the business afloat for the past five years, swindling drunken louts out of their money by counting the cards and sometimes by stacking the decks. I’ve been known to slip coins out of men’s pockets and to skim the winnings from a lucky hand. My livelihood is to lie, to cheat and to steal and I have a remarkable talent for all three. I had thought to attempt to reform my ways, but it’s no use, I’m afraid. I am what I am.”

“So you
did
lie to me.” I was almost surprised by the roughness of his rebuke.

“Out of necessity, aye. I—I’m sorry.”

Knox rose from his chair and began to pace broodily. His silence unnerved me. I could see that he was angry. Hurt, even. I could hardly blame him, but I would have preferred a livid tirade to this cold, impenetrable ire. “Would you have taken me in,” I said, “and Hamish, if you knew we had run from the halls of a gaming den? Or would you have turned us away?”

“I would have tried to help you as best I could.”

“Out of pity,” I said, “as you and your clan looked down on us like a couple of street urchins in need of charity.” I didn’t bother adding,
because that is what we are.
And for once, it had felt so damnably good to be free of our downtrodden reality, to play the ruse of what we might have been, if our lives hadn’t become debauched and dominated, steeped in fear of poverty and violence. It felt so good to be free.

He flicked me a surly glance, but he did not stop pacing. I wished he would. “Why, then, did you flee?”

I wanted to be honest with Knox Mackenzie, because I respected him and because he had changed my outlook. The pure honor that shone out of his approach was inviting in its sureness; he never had any need to lie, nor cheat. That must have been an immensely satisfying way to live one’s life, I thought. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it:
A very wealthy, nasty, horrible man was coming after me. He was going to rape me and I was very, very afraid. If I didn’t comply, he threatened to hurt Hamish, just so he could demean me, ruin me and own me.
I would be honest, but my answer was spoken with my most important priority in mind: keeping Hamish safe. “Some trouble was brewing at the club. It was no longer safe for Hamish. Nor myself. We fled to escape that trouble.”

This information piqued Knox’s interest sharply. He stopped pacing. “Is there any chance that the trouble you speak of might...follow you here?”

“Nay. I—”

“How can you be sure?”

“That...trouble...doesn’t know where we fled to.”

“If perchance that trouble happened to
find out
where you had fled to, would that trouble seek you out?
That
is what I’m asking.” His deep, imperious voice filled the room like a military hymn.

Damn my own weaknesses!
My eyes had begun to leak again, from shame, from fear, from knowing that eviction from heaven and straight into hell was imminent.

“It is possible, aye.”
More than possible. Guaranteed.

Laird Mackenzie was getting more irate with each word I spoke. He was not a man to yell or even to raise his voice, but his formal, steady reproach was in some ways far worse than an emotional rant might have been. “So you not only
lie
to me but you neglect to share
critical information
that could put
my clan and my family in danger,
if this
trouble
were to find its way to you?”

My heart felt broken. The periphery of my vision already felt darker, as though the city shadows were reaching out to me, calling me back. I could feel it: the possibility of salvation slipping away. The taint of my dishonesty coloring everything, dulling the vibrancy of the room and the fire-touched night. But not him. He was his own entity, separate from my scandals and my confessions. Untouchable, as ever.

I raised my chin and looked him in the eye. “Aye. You’re right. My actions are unforgivable. I never, ever meant to bring my kind of trouble to your family. ’Tis time for me to be on my way. To go back to where I came from.” To face the hand I’d been dealt, whether I liked it or not.

His expression changed almost imperceptibly.

My hands clasped in front of my chest in a prayerlike grip. “You’ll be rid of me as soon as I can pack my bag, Laird Mackenzie. But this trouble has nothing to do with Hamish. He’s only a child. A beautiful, innocent child. I beg that you’ll allow him to stay. Please. He’ll be very useful to you, I’m certain of it. He’ll learn quickly, and he’ll work willingly. One day he’ll make a very fine soldier. He should be given a second chance.” My voice sounded hollow when I repeated, “He’s only a child.”

“You’re not to go anywhere,” he said, his eyebrows furrowing with his stern command. If I wasn’t mistaken, a note of alarm clung to his words. He reached out to grasp my hand in an almost trancelike reflex, as though his response was beyond his own control. He uncoiled my pleading clasp. But I slid my hand away, and withdrew from him.

Yet I needed his assurance before I took my leave. “You’d allow Hamish to remain with your clan, then?”

“Hamish has already proven himself useful.” Knox’s temper had taken a turn. His fury over my lies and my omissions hung on, yet there was a yielding thread to his curtness that I couldn’t define. As a stubborn, detached tenacity, perhaps, as though his anger was not only pointed at me but further afield. A lesser man might have clung to his rage, but Knox Mackenzie was a born diplomat and a trained leader; it was his way to remain calm and make peace. Or at least attempt to. “He’s clearly at home in the barracks.”

At home.
Aye, he was. “I can’t repay you, I’m afraid. He’ll do that himself, I’m sure. By proving himself, in time, to be among the finest of your recruits.”

I looked at the timeless flames of the fire, feeling utterly drained. If I was even allowed to bid him farewell, I knew it was likely that I wouldn’t see my nephew again for many years. Maybe one day he would seek us out, when he was a fully grown man. Maybe he would remember our long-ago life in the dirty alleys, where he’d never wanted to be. Or maybe he would choose to forget. He’d yearned for green spaces, even before he knew what green spaces were. He’d coveted his sword before he knew its purpose. Now he would fulfill all the abundant potential he possessed and I was glad of that.

I turned to face Knox Mackenzie. He had taken a seat once again on the tall, sturdy chair near the fire. His expression was no less stern, but behind the aggression lurked a concentration. An intensity, as though he was conflicted in new, unfamiliar ways. I was standing almost between his spread knees, which were as tanned as the skin of his throat. Something about his princely manner and his garb, the tall boots and the tartan kilt, the finely made leather belt and the golden ornamentation made him appear as though he’d stepped out of another time and place altogether, like a Roman god or an Egyptian pharaoh. I’d spent many an hour lost in the pages of books and my own imagination, aye; the beauty and perfection of him seemed more like those of a fictional character than a real, live man.

Of course, I knew I could have asked him for help. He had a large, formidable army at his disposal, after all, which could possibly have stormed all of Edinburgh and wiped Sebastian Fawkes off the face of Scotland with relative ease. His brothers led armies of their own, too, which could also be summoned if the need arose. Not that such a thing would be necessary, but the point was there were at least three armies—or possibly four, if the Munros were also petitioned—at Knox Mackenzie’s beck and call. If there was an injustice that needed to be forcibly addressed, and if I had the compunction to call upon him to do so, well, then I had certainly chosen my host well.

Aye, I considered it.

Even as I debated the matter in my head, I already knew I would not ask for Knox Mackenzie’s assistance. And as I made the decision almost before the deliberation had fully formed, I wondered at my own sacrifice. I simply was not willing to put him in harm’s way, even if doing so would make my task easier. It was, quite possibly, a foolish decision. The logical part of my brain assured me that my problems could be easily solved if only I were truthful with him. He might—and very likely
would
—offer to help me.

Yet as I rehearsed my unspoken plea, I knew that it was one I would never make:
Oh, Knox, I’m in trouble. My sister waits alone for a husband who has committed countless crimes and who may or may not be alive. She is at the mercy of a sinister man who may have imprisoned her, or worse, to lure me to him. I knew this would be his reaction, yet I left her, anyway. And when I attempt to find Cecelia and ensure her safety, he will be waiting for me. He will have set an elaborate trap. Once he catches me, he will force me to submit to him. I’m afraid. I know him to be wicked. Greedy. His appetites will be laced with revenge. He will take great pleasure in my torture. It might placate you, after the exquisite moments we’ve shared, to assure you that he may touch my body but he will never touch my soul, not as you did. ’Tis one of the reasons I wanted you so much. So I could know and remember tenderness, real passion, love. And now I beg you to put your perfection at the mercy of these scoundrels in the hope that you may infiltrate their elaborate, entrenched underground web of criminal activity. I ask that you take your valued officers, like Lachlan, to Edinburgh, leaving behind their pretty wives and tiny, beautiful children. Sacrifice young warriors like Hamish will soon become, too, who are loyal and good. I want you to put these honorable soldiers at risk of death by men who kill solely for the thrill of it, for the power it grants them, for the game it represents. They have guns and knives and every advantage in the familiarity of their murky alleys. They would not hesitate to stab you in the back at their very first opportunity. I ask that you do this for me, because you are an honorable, charitable man. A beautiful, perfect, glorious masterpiece of masculine magnificence, whose—

I needed to concentrate
.

Regrettably, I had spent many years in the company of underhanded men. I understood them all too well. I understood lying, cheating, stealing and all the layered deceit they were capable of. I felt certain that, whether one army or four was summoned, whether a small war party was assembled or whether one lone stubborn, beautiful laird took matters into his own hands, there would be casualties. No matter how well trained and well armed the Mackenzie soldiers happened to be, I had a strong feeling they would not walk away unscathed. And I simply could not allow Knox, or Lachlan, or anyone else to be harmed. This was not their war.

It was mine.

“Good night, Laird Mackenzie,” I said. “And goodbye. Fare thee well.”

“Wait,” he said, grabbing my wrist.

I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t allow it. “Let me go. I will take my leave of Kinloch at once.”

“Nay. You will give me all the information I ask of you. Then I will decide the best course of action.”

“I already know what the best course of action is. Unhand me, Laird Mackenzie, and allow me to take my leave.”

“
I
will decide what the best course of action is,” he growled, pulling me closer as his grip tightened. His breath was uneven, and heavy. “I
demand
that you do as I ask.
You will answer me and you will obey me!
”

I returned his obstinate glare, where we remained locked in a glowering, heavy-breathed standoff. “I already told you, Laird Mackenzie—I am
not
one of your loyal subjects. You cannot
force
me with your haughty commands. Now unhand me!”

I struggled against him to no avail. My turmoil and my struggles had caused the neckline of my gown to open farther. Ailie’s design was a stunning one, but I might have suggested to her that a satin dress needed more to fasten it than a flimsy satin belt that happened to slip when one became agitated.

Then, Knox did unhand me.

And then, as he looked into my eyes, he grasped the edge of the bow that held my gown in place. Slowly, he pulled it.

I made a small gasp as the tie loosened completely, allowing the fabric of my gown to list open, revealing my pale curves, the bountiful mounds of my breasts. My pinkened nipples tightened under his gaze. My own near nakedness, rather than making me feel vulnerable, achieved quite the opposite effect. I felt empowered, as though I’d been reborn as a loch nymph who had no inhibitions and existed wholly in a lusty, sensual realm that allowed no regrets or hesitations. Knox made a low, savage sound when he saw I wore nothing underneath.

It was going to happen. It was happening. The air was heavy, almost bruised with anticipation; whatever anger or resentment or indignation that resided along with it was overcome by this current of desire that hypnotized us both. We drew closer. He bowed his head slightly, until his hair touched my cheek.

“I can’t sleep,” he whispered, as though this troubled him greatly. “I can hardly eat.”