No Other Woman (No Other Series) (40 page)

"You could fall."

"I won't."

"You could hurt yourself."

"But I won't."

"You could hurt our child."

"But—" Staring into his relentless gaze, she fell silent. They had already come back to the bed, and he set her down upon it, her back against the pillows plumped up at the headboard. "Are you so terribly dismayed?" he asked her, sitting by her side. His hand lay upon the whiteness of the sheet, seeming very darkly bronzed. She felt a flush of fever within her. His fingers were very long. His hands were rough and callused from the days he spent on horseback riding across the plains. But she knew their touch could be oddly gentle and rough....

"Dismayed?" she repeated in an incredulous whisper.

Was she so dismayed? In the endless hours in the tomb, she had prayed to live. Because of the child.

"Sabrina, we have to discuss this situation."

"Discuss the situation? Ah!" There was a bottle of brandy on her bedside table. "Major Trelawny, shall I pour you a drink? I think that I would like one myself—"

He caught her hand when she would have reached for the brandy bottle.

"Sabrina, you've just been rescued from vicious kidnappers who left you in a tomb and intended to kill you," he said.

"All the more reason I should have a drink!" she whispered.

She tried to free her hand from his to reach for the brandy bottle.

"Sabrina."

She bit into her lower lip, staring down at the white sheets. She slowly brought her eyes to his, feeling a rush of color flood her face. She looked to the door longingly again.

"Sabrina, you can't run away. I would think you'd realize," he said with a trace of humor, "since I am here, in a Scottish castle, that there is nowhere you can go where I cannot follow."

She stared into his eyes. "I really would like a drink."

"For courage?"

"I've plenty of courage."

"Reckless courage. No drink. Sabrina, you've taken Edwina's potion of herbs and such. You don't need brandy now."

She did—desperately. But she knew she wouldn't be able to get her hands on the brandy bottle.

"Right. I need—sleep?" she said hopefully.

He smiled. She wondered how he could become so arresting with that smile when at times, he looked so very...

Indian. Savage.

"Sloan, I—" She broke off. So much for courage. She pulled her hand from his and leapt from the bed. A mistake. She had moved too quickly. She only made it as far as the foot of the bed before she began to feel terribly dizzy.

"Oh, God!" she breathed.

But he was there.

And she was not able to withhold a gasp when, once more, he swept her up into his arms. "No!" she whispered fervently, but he wasn't going to let her fall. He held her, and, as he stared down into her eyes, she could feel the warmth of his breath, the strength of his arms, and the inner fire of his determination.

"Why are you trying to run away from me?" he demanded.

"Why are you here?" she cried desperately in return.

"Well, I didn't know that I'd arrive to discover that you'd been kidnapped, so I can hardly say that I rushed across a raging sea to rescue you," he murmured. "I'm here because Hawk has been my friend all my life, and because James McGregor told me the extent of David's problems here. And I'm here because—" He broke off.

"Why?" she whispered.

"It doesn't matter right now. The child matters."

Her lashes fell again. "Look, Sloan, what happened was an accident. Sloan, please..."

"Put you down? You need only ask."

She found herself seated against the pillows on the bed once again.

"Go away?" she suggested softly.

"Not on your life."

"You said that I only need ask—"

"That was the wrong question."

"Sloan! You don't have to—"

"I don't have to what?" He reached out, lifting her chin to study her eyes.

She shook her head. "You don't have to be responsible."

"How do you ask someone not to be responsible for a life?" he demanded.

"Sloan, I don't need your help—"

"I'm not offering my help."

"No? I do need a drink!" Sabrina insisted.

"No," he said firmly.

"I'll not be told what to do—"

"You need to be told what to do. You think you're a cat with nine lives, but you've used up several that I know about already."

"Damn you, Sloan, will you
please
leave."

"No."

"Then truly, I need a drink. Just a small brandy. Some doctors suggest that a small amount is actually good for women—women in the family way."

She reached for the snifter. He took it smoothly
from
her fingers. His eyes moved over her in a way that made her entire body seem to burn again. "Not that I didn't enjoy you when you had imbibed whiskey so heavily, but this doesn't seem the time... Alas, my dear, you need to learn to be careful with liquor. Too often your goal is to drown yourself in it."

"How can you be so wretched!"

Sloan's dark eyes grew very serious. "Drinking isn't good for expecting women. I've heard it from many wise women."

"What women? Sioux women?"

He arched a brow. "Yes," he said simply.

She looked down quickly at her hands. They were still trembling. This was all so absurd. She and Sloan had met under such awful, hostile circumstances.

And maybe she was just a little bit afraid. Afraid of the night she had been with him, afraid of his strength, afraid of the way he 'd made her feel. And truthfully, mostly, she was afraid because he might be U.S. Cavalry, but he was also Sioux, and he was very dangerous, and what he wanted, he would take; what was right, he would demand.

She closed her eyes, casting a hand against her forehead. "I really can't talk about this right now...."

His laughter infuriated her. She sat up, staring at him. "I shall throw something at you in a minute!" she cried, aggravated.

"You really do a wonderful Southern belle, but I can't begin to imagine you with the vapors, Sabrina."

"What vapors! I was cruelly kept a prisoner in a tomb."

He sobered. "Indeed, you were. You can't seem to stay out of trouble."

"I certainly didn't ask for this trouble—"

"You did, if I remember your words correctly, go wandering off into a cemetery alone in the dead of night?"

The way he put it, she felt like a fool.

"I heard a child's voice," she reminded him with defensive anger.

"How encouraging. You're going to make a wonderful mother."

She looked down at her hands again. "Sloan, I want you to realize, you are not obligated in any way," she told him, still looking at her hands and not meeting his eyes. "I don't blame you for anything—"

"Blame me?" he queried, a brow arched very high. "Since you didn't speak a word of truth the night we met, you most assuredly should not."

Sabrina gritted her teeth, fighting the rise of her temper.

"You're not obligated to me!"

"But you are obligated to me," he told her very softly. "I know that you need sleep, and I intend for you to have it, after you've listened to what I have to say. You won't be having my child without me, despite the fact that your journey here implies that you meant to disappear."

"That's not true—" she gasped. Was that what he believed?

"Nor, Sabrina, will I allow you to endanger your own life in any attempts to rid yourself of an infant with Indian blood."

She gasped, staring at him at last with incredulous anger. "I—I never suggested such a thing, you—bastard!" she breathed.

"In the white man's eyes, that is probably exactly what I am, no matter my grandfather's standing in the States. No matter, Sabrina, you may marry a bastard, but you'll not have one."

She broke off. She was shaking, completely unnerved by not just his appearance here, but the fact that...

He knew! Oh, God, he knew. And she couldn't deny what was happening to her, the life taking root inside of her, any longer.

She probably had wished at first that she might lose the child, and she was afraid of the fact that Sloan was Sioux. She had wished that until she had so nearly died herself, and then the life inside her had become everything. Yet she remained unnerved not just by what Sloan was, but who he was, the man that he was with the power both to infuriate her... and seduce her.

"Sloan, you don't have to marry me. I—I don't want to marry you."

"You intend to hand over the child to me?"

One look in the dark mahogany of his eyes and she knew that he was in deadly earnest.

"No! You—can't take my child."

"My child."

She moistened her lips, thinking that she might try a new tactic. "You—you don't know that. You can't possibly—"

"Indeed, I know."

The heat in his words silenced her. He turned away, walking back to the door. Leaning against it, he slid down the length of it to take a seat upon the floor. He lowered his plumed slouch hat over his eyes.

"Sloan, what are you doing?" she asked frantically. "Please go away! I—won't marry you. I won't."

He lifted the brim of his hat, watching her. "You won't marry me? Or you won't marry a savage?" he asked her quietly.

"I—" she began, and broke off. For her brother-in-law was a very unusual man, and he was married to her sister. She couldn't help how she felt toward the Indians in the West. She couldn't help the fear at the pit of her stomach. Sloan was one of them. Despite his charm, there was underlying fire with him. His exceptional good looks were...

Savage good looks. Good looks that seduced any number of women. He would always have a life she could never touch. He was amused by her, entertained by her. Frequently, she angered him. And he had wanted her...

But he would never love her.

"I—can't—" she began.

"Finish what you're trying to say."

"I—can't—"

"Marry a savage," he suggested.

Her cheeks flamed.

Only the visible tick of the pulse at his throat betrayed his anger. He spoke quietly to her. "Actually, our marriage isn't the primary focus at the moment."

"Then you'll—leave?"

He smiled, a curl of amusement in his lip. "I'm taking up position to guard you should any cloaked figures come your way."

"Oh!" she gasped, and she was amazed to realize that she would sleep, and feel safe, because he would be at her door.

"And I'm sorry, Sabrina, but circumstances being what they are, you will marry a savage. Me."

"Sloan, you can't make me marry you unless I want to," she whispered somewhat desperately.

He was silent a moment, then pulled his hat lower over his face.

"It seems, then, that I will have to make you want to," he said.

And despite herself, a feeling of heat seemed to sweep through her, and though she could sleep safely...

It seemed that she lay awake for hours before she did so, she was so very aware of his being very close....

* * *

Fergus Anderson, filled, as was his custom, with plenty of whiskey, snored at his wife's side when he was suddenly and rudely awakened by the sound of his flimsy door breaking in. He groaned, thinking one of the boys had got drunk and forgotten that they did not lock the door.

He sat up in his sweaty nightshirt, stroking his grizzled chin, and he shouted out, "I'll beat the tar out of the lad who did such damage, I'll beat y'to within an inch of your scurvy life, that I—will."

He faltered in his speech, for he was suddenly aware of a massive presence filling his doorway. The chill November wind was blowing through the main room of his house and straight into the bedroom where he lay.

A man walked in.

Fergus gasped. "Nay, it canna' be!" he cried.

But it was.

"Da?"

His children were awakening. Mary and Hamell crawled out of their mats in the main room; his sons Daryl and Cedric did the same. But though they came behind the towering dark man who had burst so violently into their home, they didn't attempt to touch him.

He was dressed all in black, and he looked like the devil. He wore a sword in a scabbard at his left side; twin pistols sat in holsters at his hip.

The devil indeed.

He was spawn up from hell.

"Get your stinking carcass out of bed, Fergus Anderson."

"No!" Fergus gasped. "David Douglas—it cannot be."

"Laird Douglas it is, you lying, scurvy rot of humanity."

Fergus didn't move fast enough. His wife jumped up and shrieked, flying across the room to stand with her back glued to the wall as David Douglas wrenched Fergus from his bed by his nightshirt, dragging him to his feet and all but strangling him now.

"Me lads—" Fergus cried, seeking help from his sons.

"For once in your rotten life, Anderson, do something decent, and don't get your boys killed."

The lads, however, didn't seem to wish to be killed in any fight for their father's life and honor. They stood still, gaping.

"By all the Saints! It is you, Laird David!" Hamell said.

"Aye," David said, turning his attention back fully to Fergus. "There's only one thing I want from you, but I swear, if I don't get it, I'll leave your entrails draped across this room."

"Aye, aye, what—"

"The boy. Where did you get the boy, Danny?"

"Why, 'twas my daughter, Gena—"

"You lie!"

The sword was out; its point at Fergus's throat.

Gena let out a cry, racing forward. "The girl from the castle brought him to us. We were told that it must appear that he was one of ours, and that it would be deeply appreciated if we were to keep the secret."

"What girl from the castle?" David demanded.

"The girl—woman—who has worked for Lady MacGinnis forever. The lady's maid. She brought the child, brought him while Lady MacGinnis was still away, and it seemed all of the place was in mourning. He came with gold coins, Laird Douglas," Fergus sputtered out at last. "And when he come so, we knew that we must keep the secret, as we were told. We knew who it was who really wanted the secret kept, of course."

"Who?"

Fergus, though terrified, was honestly puzzled. He cringed, very afraid that David Douglas's sword might well rend him in two at any minute.