Legends (15 page)

Elgiva went on raggedly, her hands digging into the arms of her chair. “We had naught to bargain with, Douglas! Just our traditions! Just our legends! Just our love for our homes! What would that mean to a man such as yourself, who judges everything by its price in money?”

“Aye, ’tis a sad state, even for a Kincaid,” Rob taunted.

The others began nodding and talking all at once. “Aye, a Kincaid! Even for a Kincaid! You’d think he’d have a drop of his ancestors’ loyalty to hearth and kin! We didn’t want to have a Kincaid for our laird, but a
loyal
Kincaid would have been—”

“What is this?” Douglas yelled. “Are all of you
going to push this bogus ‘clan of Kincaid’ story to save your hides? If so, forget it!”

Elgiva stood, her shoulders squared, and faced her fellow kidnappers resolutely. “He doesn’t believe,” she told them. “It’s useless to discuss what he won’t listen to. And if he did, what’s to say he’d change his mind about buying the MacRoth holdings? No, let’s talk to him in the only way he’ll consider. Let’s bargain using something that he really wants.”

“This ought to be interesting,” Audubon interjected.

Elgiva faced Douglas’s stern scrutiny. “My brother and I are the MacRoth heirs, but I’m the eldest, and I’m the one who kept you prisoner. Can’t you have me arrested and let the others go?”

Loud protests rose from the group in the cell, led by Rob’s shouts of disapproval. Douglas clasped his hands behind his back and waited with a taut look of patience on his face until everyone quieted. “I won’t have you arrested the way your martyred self would love,” he mocked lightly. “Instead I’ll take you with me.”

“You won’t do it!” Rob yelled.

Elgiva’s relief mingled with dread. “To where?” she asked numbly.

“To wherever I feel like,” he retorted.

“For what purpose?”

“For whatever I feel like.”

Rob shook the cell bars. “I say no! No!”

Her pulse racing, Elgiva studied Douglas’s eyes. She nodded toward her brother and the others. “And they’ll go free? And you promise not to take any other action against them? Or against anyone else but me?”

He nodded. “I swear it.”

“So be it, then. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Elgiva,” Rob protested in helpless fury.

She gripped the back of the chair for support but kept unyielding eyes on the man who now held her future in his vengeful grasp. “He’s not a bad man, Rob,” she said, never taking her eyes from Douglas.
“He only covets what he can’t possess easily. Now that he’s got me, he’ll let me go soon. You’ll see.”

“I’ll let you go when it suits me,” Douglas said with a thin, cool smile. “And it won’t be until after I’ve bought the MacRoth estate.”

She forced a shrug. “Just keep to your word about not sending anyone else to jail.”

“Oh, I will.” Authoritative and brusque, he turned toward Audubon. “You witnessed all this. Elgiva MacRoth and I have an agreement.”

The enigmatic Audubon merely sighed. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in years, but yes, consider me an official witness to the deal.”

“Let’s get out of here, then.”

Elgiva’s nerves jumped. “I want my people turned loose first!”

“You’re in no position to give orders,” Douglas informed her.

“When we get to Druradeen, we’ll send someone back to open the cell door,” Audubon said. He turned to gaze drolly at Duncan. “I’ll speak to the mayor’s mother about it. I’m sure she’ll know who to send. I’m curious, mayor. What part did your mother play in the kidnapping? Was she the decoy in New York?”

“Aye. She distracted Kincaid’s security people so that Elgiva could sneak into his New Year’s Eve party,” Duncan said smugly. “She pretended to faint in the lobby of his skyscraper. Aye, not even the employees of the coldhearted Kincaid could resist a wee old lady with a dizzy spell.”

Elgiva met Douglas’s eyes again and found them dully amused. The humor died quickly and was replaced by determination. “Congratulations for your deception,” he told her. “Now you’re going to pay for it.”

“Stop threatening, Douglas, and get on with it. If we’re going, let’s go.”

“Ellie,” Rob called. She hurried to the cell, her vision suddenly blinded by tears. He took her hands, and they shared a long, intense gaze. They put their
heads together, and she spoke to him in Gaelic. “He’s a good man, Robbie. I’ll be safe with him.”

“How can you say that, sister?”

She gazed up at Rob with absolute conviction. “Because I love him, and I know his heart.”

Rob’s eyes widened with amazement. “Does he love you?”

She shook her head, thinking of petite blondes with all sorts of worldly business and social skills; blondes with blue eyes suited to sapphires; blondes who could bear children. Then she drew Rob’s hands through the bars and kissed the back of each.

She looked at him calmly. “But he won’t harm me. The only way Douglas could harm me would be if he said that he loved me, too, and it was a lie. I’m sure he’ll let me go soon. Perhaps I can soften him toward our inheritance. Who knows? But you can rest your mind about my safety. I’ll call you if he lets me. Take care now. I love you, brother.”

He drew her hands to him and kissed them in return. “I’ll do all I can to get you out of this mess, Ellie.”

“End of conspiracy. Speak English,” Douglas ordered. He draped a blanket around Elgiva’s shoulders and took her arm. His eyes were shuttered and unhappy; more so after a sound of grief broke from Elgiva’s throat without her permission. She ducked her head and struggled for composure.

“You bastard,” Rob said to him. “You’re breaking her heart, and you don’t care.”

Douglas ignored him. “Elgiva, you agreed to leave with me. Now keep your word.”

“Good-bye, all,” she said gruffly.

“Good-bye, your ladyship,” John Callum whispered.

“God go with you, Lady Elgiva,” Richard Maxwell offered.

“Bless you, cousin,” Andrew said hoarsely.

“I apologize for doubting you,” Duncan grumbled.

“Ellie,” Rob murmured in a torn voice. “Remember,
he’s only a Kincaid. A MacRoth will never be bested by a Kincaid.”

Elgiva swung away, and with Douglas’s firm hand guiding her mercilessly, left the cottage.

“You do realize,” Audubon asked over a thin, imported cigar, “that you’ve given Elgiva MacRoth plenty of reasons to despise you? I’m curious as to how you intend to repair the damage.”

“She’s done some damage of her own.” Douglas lifted a hand and stroked his temple. Watching Elgiva suffer tonight had given him a fierce headache. “She’s not above manipulating me in ways I don’t care to discuss,” he added by way of self-defense.

Douglas turned and gazed, frowning, past the plush black couches and teakwood tables of his private jet. Toward the back of the cabin were a set of double doors. Elgiva was asleep—or at least pretending to be asleep—in the bedroom. Sam lay by the door, looking forlorn.

“Sam seems to be on her side,” Audubon observed.

“She’s brainwashed him with food. She makes herself easy to like.” When he faced forward in his seat again, Douglas stared out the window at a night sky as bleak as his mood. “But she’s hell on wheels when you make her mad.”

“Nice sweater you’re wearing,” Audubon commented. “Did she knit it for you? In Druradeen her work has quite a reputation for excellence. What a marvelous gift.”

“I
earned
it.”

“What do you plan to do with her?”

“Overwhelm her. Make her admit that she’d enjoy having what my money could buy for her. Maybe I’ll offer to market her sweaters all over the world. Hmmm. Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

“A strange revenge. And then?”

“She’ll admit that she was wrong about me.”

“Oh? So you’re not going to purchase the MacRoth estate?”

“Of course I am. But I want her to admit that I’m capable of treating it well.”

“Will she admit this before or after you evict all of her relatives and friends?”

Douglas groaned. “I’m not going to evict any tenants. My God, it’d be like kicking Andy and Aunt Bee out of a Scottish version of Mayberry. I never realized what the place meant to them.”

“A change of heart? How interesting.”

“But that’s a secret between you and me. Elgiva is going to see things my way first.”

“Oh, and
then
you can be chivalrous, when you’ve humbled her?”

“Dammit, Audubon! I’m not trying to humble her. It’s only—” Douglas shoved his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how to give up my territory without a fight. I love to negotiate, but in the end I have to be the winner—it’s my only obsession. I suppose I developed it when I was a kid. Obsessions put food on the table. Obsessions paid my father’s medical bills. And my sister’s.”

“I understand. But I think you need to conquer this outmoded obsession before it costs you someone about whom you care very deeply.”

“I just want to prove to her that she loves me regardless of anything else.”

“Did it occur to you that she might love you now?”

“Not after what she did to me a few hours ago.” Douglas placed a call from the air-to-ground telephone on a console beside his chair. “Gert? Yes, it’s yours truly. Yes, I’m fine.… Hmmm. So you were able to keep the family from knowing where I was? … They think I’ve been in Paris? … Good work.… Yes, I’ll give you all the details later. Gert, I’m on my way to the island.

“Have the staff meet me down there within twenty-four hours. And Gert, I have a personal project that needs your attention. First of all, I need a complete
wardrobe for a woman who’s six feet tall and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of ‘twelve stone.’ How much is that in American lingo? … Ah-ha.… That much, eh? … No, every stone is in the right place. Hmmm. Yes. The green dress. She’s
that
woman. Now here’s what I want …”

Twenty minutes later he finished giving his assistant directions for Elgiva’s arrival at the Isle of Kincaid. Audubon puffed slowly on his cigar and smiled at him under contemplative, half-shut eyes that were the muted green of old money. “If you’re going to keep Elgiva MacRoth, you need to offer a lot more than expensive bribes,” he said.

Douglas laughed grimly. “I believe I can manage a
little
personal magnetism.”

“Good.” Audubon reached into a burnished leather briefcase on the seat beside him and withdrew a folder, which he handed to Douglas. It was full of information on Elgiva. “My friend,” Audubon said glibly, “Elgiva MacRoth is made of the finest grade of steel. I hope your magnet is exceptional.”

Satin. Blue satin sheets on a king-sized water bed. A
heated
king-sized water bed. In a bedroom the size of her whole apartment over the shop in Druradeen. And this was just the bedroom on Douglas’s private plane. She listened sadly to the soft hum of the jets. She didn’t even know where Douglas was taking her.

Elgiva lay on one side, fully dressed, her hands huddled against her chest, tears sliding onto the cool satin cover of the pillow as she stared at a stereo system that covered one wall. Behind her she heard the soft click of the room’s double doors. Elgiva clamped her eyes shut and nuzzled her tear-streaked face into the pillow, as if she were asleep.

Douglas settled onto the bed close to her back. She smelled the familiar scent of his wool sweater—a scent only a woolens expert would know—but more
than that, she knew the scents of his skin and his hair. They were still on her body, still in her soul.

His leg nestled against her as he leaned forward. Elgiva couldn’t feign sleep any longer after his big, blunt fingertips touched the tears on her face. Her expression set in careful lines of resistance, she turned over on her back and stared up at him. He looked disgruntled and tired, with grizzled beard stubble on his cheeks. His black hair was badly ruffled. His dark eyes grew more shadowed as he studied her.

“You look like the devil’s hind end,” she observed in a small voice that came out sounding more distraught than she’d planned.

“So do you.” He mumbled a weary curse. “Audubon has a file of information on you,” he told her. “I just finished reading it.”

“Oh? Sizing up your worst enemy, are you? Tell me what you learned that makes you look like a thundercloud.”

“Your grandparents opened MacRoth Hall to the allied forces as a convalescent hospital during the war. They contributed most of their personal savings to the hospital, and they were never reimbursed. By the time your father inherited the place, it was badly run-down. Your father was a struggling poet; your mother was a seamstress. Between them, there wasn’t enough money to keep up any kind of estate, much less one the size of theirs.”

“Aye. So far you’re right. For whatever it means. Home is home, no matter how shabby, and we thought it was a grand place.” She was bewildered.

“Along came mean-spirited Uncle Angus, who’d been away for years making himself a fortune in dubious investments. He wanted the estate; his brother wouldn’t sell. There was a mysterious fire in the upstairs living quarters. You were nine years old; Rob was seven. Your parents tied bed sheets around you both and lowered you to the ground. But by then it was too late for them to save themselves.
“You saw them burn. You didn’t speak a word for two years after that, and Rob stuttered until he was a teenager. Some people said the fire was Angus’s doing, but there was no proof. Angus inherited the estate.”

He stopped for a moment. His fingers idly stroked a strand of hair from Elgiva’s forehead. Whether the action was meant to be soothing or simply to remind her that he was in charge, she couldn’t tell. But it felt soothing. “Go on,” she murmured.

“He didn’t want either you or Rob around. He turned you both out. Gave you to a pair of his crofters—an elderly farmer and his wife—to raise. After they died, the other tenants, including the people in the village, formed a sort of coalition to make certain that the two of you were raised decently. You were shuffled from home to home, with nothing much to call your own.”

Elgiva swallowed hard and forced herself to nod. “Aye.”

“Jonathan MacMillian loved you and married you, just as his mother and your mother had planned years earlier. His family was convinced that you’d inherit the MacRoth estate someday. After Angus announced that he wasn’t leaving
anything
to you or Rob, Jonathan’s family accused you of deceiving their simple, good-hearted boy.