The Adventurer (28 page)

Isabella didn’t wait for Fergus to respond. Instead she angrily pushed his pistol away. “How dare you point that at my father!” She turned into his arms. “Father, what are you doing here? Where is Mother and the girls? How in the world did you ever find me?”

“ ’Twas Douglas’s doing.” He looked at her, scanning her from head to toe. He touched her hair, mussed from the laundry work. “You are unharmed? Have they ... ?”

“No, Father, I have been treated very well.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Isabella turned just as Kentigern St. Clive came forward. “If anyone has so much as touched a hair upon your head, Isabella, I will have them arrested and hanged for the brigands they are.”

“Oh, really?” Fergus said, immediately rising to the challenge. “You and what army, Sassenach?”

“King George’s army, Highlander. In case you haven’t yet heard, he and his son the Duke of Cumberland know exactly how to deal with rebels like you.”

The mention of “The Butcher’s” name was all the prompting Calum’s men needed. A dozen or more pistols cocked in unison.

“Temper your tongue, St. Clive,” the duke warned.

“Pah!” he scoffed. “I am a peer of the realm. If they dared to kill me they would—”

A shot fired, burying itself in the gravel not six inches from the toe of his silver-buckled shoe.

Kentigern danced back on a shriek.

M’Cuick came forward. “Who’s the pouf?”

“Pouf?”
Kentigern drew himself up. “I’ll have you know you are addressing Kentigern St. Clive, the future Earl of Chilton.”

M’Cuick shrugged. “Never heard of him.”

Isabella saw Douglas suppress a smile.

“You filthy ...”

With one swift sweep of his arm, Calum had his dirk out of his stocking and was pressing it dangerously close to Kentigern’s nervously bobbing Adam’s apple.

He lifted a brow in challenge. “Care to finish that thought, Sassenach?”

There was a look in Calum’s eye, a dark, frightening look, that had Isabella taking a step forward. “Calum, please ...”

Kentigern’s wide-eyed stare swung suddenly her way. “Calum? You speak rather too familiarly with the man who had you forcefully abducted and carried off to this barbaric backwo—”

His last word was squelched when Calum lifted the flat of his blade an inch higher, pressing it into the soft flesh of St. Clive’s lily-white throat. “Now unless you want me to cut out your tongue and choke you with it, I would suggest you heed his grace’s warning and learn to temper it. Aye, Sassenach?”

Kentigern didn’t say a word, just stared at Calum in stony silence.

“Good. Now I’ll suggest we move this discussion to the hall.” Calum looked at Isabella’s father. “Your grace? Might I burden you with the task of keeping this one from any further unnecessary insults?”

The duke gave a nod. “Come with me, St. Clive. And endeavor, if you can, to keep your mouth shut.”

It was a stony silent gathering that convened in the great hall at Castle Wrath.

On one side of the long trestle table sat Alec Mackay, the duke, and Douglas with a seething St. Clive sulking at the end. On the other, Calum, Fergus, Mungo, and M’Cuick.

Hugh and Lachlann stood ready at the door, just in case they were needed.

And Hamish had come in bringing the bottles of claret and brandy Calum had asked him to fetch.

The rest of Calum’s small army of men had taken up posts along each wall, leaving Isabella with only one place to go.

She lowered into the chair at the head of the table.

Calum was on her right, Alec her left.

Neither seemed to know where to begin.

“Father,” Isabella said when she was unable to stand the silence any longer. “How is Aunt Idonia?”

“Hm? Oh, she’s well enough, I imagine. Went to Drayton Hall with your mother and sisters after Edinburgh, just in case you should have turned up there.”

“Your grace,” Calum said then, looking at her father. “I wish to offer my apologies for the worry and concern your daughter’s coming here must have caused you and your family. Though I wasna party to what took place on board the
Hester Mary,
my men were. I take full responsibility.”

The duke frowned at him in precisely the same way he used to frown at Elizabeth whenever she’d done something particularly unruly. “It would help settle things in my mind, Mr. Mackay, if I had any idea
why
my daughter was taken.”

“I can answer that,” Isabella said. “It was because of this, Father.”

She reached for the stone.

The duke lifted a brow. “That’s rather a large bauble you bought for yourself in Paris, Bella.”

“I did not buy it, Father. It was given to me, when I went to Versailles. It belongs to the Mackay clan.”

“And when my men saw her wearing it on the deck of the
Hester Mary,
they recognized it.”

Calum went on to explain about the legend of the stone, and how it had gone missing when his father had died thirty years before.

“That is all well and good, Mackay, but it still doesna explain why your men waylaid the
Hester Mary
in the first place,” Douglas finally pointed out.

“MacKinnon,” Calum said, looking at him, “you were at Culloden?”

Douglas frowned. “Nae, I was not.”

“But your wife ...”

“I was in London when the battle took place, Mackay, fighting to win back the title and land my father had forfeited in the first rebellion. My brother, Iain, however, did march with the prince, along with other of my kinsmen.”

Calum looked at him. “Did they all come home?”

“Of course they dinna. Some died. Others were—”

“Transported?”

“Aye.”

Fergus nodded. “Aye, so was I.”

“And I,” added Mungo.

“Me, as well,” echoed M’Cuick.

The echo continued, rippling around the room like a storm wind as each and every man of Calum’s crew sounded off.

Douglas looked at Calum and nodded in understanding. “Lord Belcourt’s missing ‘bibles.’ ” And then he said, “You’ve got to know you can’t save them all.”

“I dinna intend to. Just one more.”

Kentigern, whose patience had been stretched about as thin as it would, finally stood. “Enough of your attempts at justifying your unlawful actions. You abducted an innocent woman and I demand satisfaction as her affianced groom.”

Isabella lifted her chin and looked at him down the length of the table. “I haven’t yet accepted any proposal of marriage from you, Kentigern.”

“Are you saying you would be foolish enough to refuse it, Isabella?”

As he stood there, staring at her down the length of that table, Isabella suddenly was taken by an image of him, of how he’d looked that day at the fair, standing on the hillside with his grass-stained breeches and bits of clover sticking out of his hair.

Poor Bella Drayton ...

You’re just a child ...

A silly, foolish child ...

Isabella stared at him, and wondered how she could have ever thought him a gentleman. “I do not accept you, Kentigern. There will be no marriage.”

St. Clive’s eyes went wide.
“You
do not accept
me?
You would throw away a marriage to the son of an earl? What are you saying, Bella? That you’d rather be some lawless pirate’s—” He stopped, sucked in a breath slowly, then nodded. “That is it, isn’t it? You’ve already slept with the filthy Scottish pirate. You gave your innocence to a fiend and a murderer and a traitor.”

Calum stood, made to pull out his sword. “You bluidy bastard. She doesna—”

“You are right, Calum,” Isabella said. She set her hand gently on his sword arm in an effort to calm him. “I do not have to tell Kentigern anything. I could simply marry him and never mention these past weeks again, leaving him to wonder for the rest of his life whether or not his accusation is true.” She looked at St. Clive. “Are you willing to live that sort of life, Kentigern? Wondering, always wondering, whenever you might visit my bedchamber whether I preferred you, or whether I spent my nights longing for the arms of the
filthy Scottish pirate?
Is the dowry my father promised you worth more to you than your own pride?”

Every man in the room was staring at her, staring with a look in their eye she had only ever seen trained upon her sister.

It was the look of unquestioned respect.

Except for Kentigern, who was looking quite ill.

“You whore!”

Isabella didn’t flinch, not even the slightest, at his insult.

Calum, however, was another matter.

He broke from Isabella’s grasp, stalking the three steps it took to circle the table. He pulled out his sword with a
whish
and trained the point straight at the man’s waistcoat. Isabella wondered if Kentigern’s heart was racing wildly beneath the polished steel.

“Apologize to her.” And when Kentigern didn’t immediately respond, Calum repeated loudly, “Apologize!”

Kentigern then showed more guts, or more patent stupidity, than anyone had ever given him credit for.

“No,” he said, turning a face that was twisted in a sneer. “Go ahead and kill me. Kill me right in front of her. Show her the sort of bloodthirsty savage she has given herself to.”

Calum stared at him hard, his face set as rigid as a stone, visibly warring with himself.

“Calum, please,” Isabella said. “He isn’t worth it.”

No one moved. Finally Calum glanced to the side of the room, summoning two of his men with a short toss of his head. “Take him. Lock him in the stables.” He stared at St. Clive. “Better yet, put him in with the swine so he’ll no’ feel out of place.”

“You’ll regret this, Highlander,” Kentigern said. He turned to look at Bella. “As will you, Bella Drayton. No one of any respectability will ever wed you now.”

Isabella walked around the table until she was standing but a foot in front of him. “If you are to be considered an example of respectability, then I’m glad for it.”

The two men who Calum had charged with taking him shoved him toward the door. “Get movin’, Sassenach ...”

Isabella stood and watched as they went.

When he’d gone, the room fell silent. No one seemed quite certain what to say or do next.

It was the duke, however, who broke the silence, sighing audibly from his end of the table. “I don’t know what your mother could have been thinking when she talked me into the notion that he would be a fitting husband for you.” He shook his head. “Addles my brain, that woman does. Thank God I had sense enough left to require your agreement to it.” He looked at his daughter. “I am sorry, Bella.”

She smiled. “You never could have known, Father. And I don’t regret it. Had you not arranged the marriage, I never would have had the satisfaction of turning him down.”

The duke grinned, his eyes shining proudly. “That’s my girl.” Then he turned to Calum. “As for you, sir ...”

“Father—”

“Bella, the man was responsible, albeit indirectly, for abducting you. Once St. Clive gets back to London and starts the telling of his side of the affair, there will be a scandal. Scandal I can endure. Lord knows we’ve endured enough of them with your sister. Dishonor, however, I cannot. I mean to ask Mr. Mackay what he intends to do about that.”

“That is simple, your grace,” Calum said easily. “I intend to marry your daughter.”

“I expected no less.” He turned to his son-in-law. “Douglas, is it not the law in Scotland that a marriage merely requires the mutual consent of both parties before witnesses?”

“Aye, your grace.”

The duke grinned. “Oh, yes, that’s how Elizabeth got herself wed to you, isn’t it?” And then he laughed out loud at his own jest.

Douglas merely shook his head.

“Bella, dear,” the duke said, looking at his daughter. “Is it your wish to marry this man?”

Bella smiled. “Yes, Father, it is.”

“And you, Calum Mackay, are you willing to be my daughter’s husband?”

Calum looked at Isabella. “I’m quite certain there isna a man present who wouldna be willing to wed her.”

Calum’s men responded with a resounding “Aye!”

The very loudest cheer came from Hamish.

“Aye, but I’m not asking them, Mackay, am I? I’m asking you.”

Calum turned, looked at Isabella, who was waiting, along with her father, for his answer. He said, “Your grace, it would be my great honor to take Isabella as my wife.”

“Well, then,” said the duke, “I guess all that remains is for you to kiss her and be done with it.”

Isabella looked at her father. “Now, Father?”

“Yes, Bella, now. Before the man changes his mind.”

“Impossible,” Calum said, grinning as Bella turned to him.

He lowered his head, and covered her lips with his in a kiss.

The resulting cheer had the windows rattling in their panes.

“Your mother will expect the thing done again, you know,” the duke said when the kiss had ended. “She’ll never countenance having not been present when
two
of her daughters were wed. Poor Catherine, I fear, will be locked away in her room until the nuptial morning.”

Isabella grinned. “Unless Caroline devises a way to get her out.”

The duke nodded. “Oh, and that she would. You know the little imp actually did race that pig of hers at the fair?”

“She didn’t!”

“Aye, she did. Hitched him to a pony wagon, ribbons and all. Said I’d only forbidden her from entering the sidesaddle races. I apparently had neglected to include the buggy races in my instruction as well.”

Isabella smothered a giggle.

“Daughters ...” the duke muttered, shaking his head. Then he turned to look at Douglas. “Bear that in mind, MacKinnon, when my Elizabeth brings that child of yours she’s carrying into the world. If she’s a daughter you’d do best to prepare for a head full of graying hairs”—he turned to Isabella and smiled—“and a lifetime of the greatest joy you’ve ever known.”

Isabella blinked, walked up to him, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Father.”

He tipped a finger under her chin. “Just be happy, my girl,” he said softly. “You deserve nothing less.”

She glanced at Calum. “I am happy, Father.”