The Devil Wears Plaid (20 page)

W
HEN EMMA AWOKE THE
next morning the chair beside the bed was still empty, making her feel oddly bereft. A mournful sigh drifted across the chamber, warning her she was not alone.

She sat up to discover the deerhound stretched out in front of the hearth, his shaggy head cradled on his massive front paws.

“Nice pony,” she murmured, eyeing him nervously and wondering if he’d broken his fast yet. He looked large and fierce enough to leave
her
bones scattered around the hearth.

In response to her greeting, he simply sighed once more and closed his soulful brown eyes, looking more inclined to nap the rest of the day away than to gobble her down in a single bite. Perhaps he only ate deer.

Someone had already slipped into the room while she slept and wrestled open the wooden shutters,
inviting the sunlight to come streaming into the chamber. She gave her wounded shoulder an experimental shrug. It was far less stiff and achy than it had been the previous day.

“M’lady?”

Mags appeared in the doorway, struggling to balance a fat bundle of cloth and a ceramic washbasin filled with steaming water.

“Good morning, Mags,” she said tentatively, wondering if the old woman still believed Emma was Jamie’s mother or if she even remembered their moonlit encounter.

Mags shuffled over to deposit her burdens on the rough-hewn table to the right of the hearth, her eyes bright and clear. There was no sign of the adoring creature that had crept into Emma’s room to stroke her hair while she was sleeping. “And a bonny mornin’ it is, lass! I’ve brought ye a fresh gown and stockin’s and everythin’ ye’ll need fer yer bath.”

Puzzled by the change in the woman’s demeanor, but eager to test her growing strength, Emma climbed out of the bed and padded over to the table. “Your master didn’t punish you for disturbing me last night, did he?”

“Ha!” Mags leaned closer, the mischievous twinkle Emma had so briefly glimpsed the previous night returning to her eye. “I stopped takin’ orders from the master a long time ago. Now I’m the one
tellin’ him what to do.” She reached over to pat Emma’s hand. “Don’t ye fret, lass. I’ve brought ye
everythin’
ye’ll need,” she repeated, as if the words should have some special significance.

As the old nurse went shuffling from the room, the deerhound unfolded his lanky form to follow. Emma moved to close the door behind them both, wondering if Mags was simply a bit balmy or if she might actually be dangerous.

The basin of steaming water quickly distracted her from her worries. She tugged the nightdress over her head, taking care not to dislodge the bandage on her shoulder. As she dipped a rag into the heated water, she couldn’t help but remember sinking into the bath Jamie had arranged for her at Muira’s cottage. Had she known then what she knew now, she might have invited him to join her.

With her eyes closed and the warm water dribbling between her breasts, making her sigh with pleasure, it was only too easy to imagine herself and Jamie entwined in that tub, their bodies sleek and wet and straining toward that perfect bliss that could only come when they were joined.

Her eyes flew open. It would hardly do for Jamie to come striding through that door only to find her melted into a puddle of longing. For all she knew, he was perfectly content with the one night they had shared. He might even have spent those long hours
at her bedside nursing her back to life out of guilt, not devotion.

Growing increasingly out of sorts, she finished bathing and dried herself off. The gown Mags had found for her was more of a kirtle. It was cut from midnight blue wool and had a graceful bell of a skirt with a hem that swept the floor. As she donned it, struggling with the front laces of the old-fashioned bodice, she wondered if it, too, had once belonged to Jamie’s mother.

It wasn’t until she lifted the stockings that she realized Mags had left her more than just the garments.

Lianna Sinclair’s box sat on the table, just as it might have thirty years before. Emma’s heart took an unexpected plunge toward her toes. She stole a look at the door, knowing exactly how poor Pandora must have felt. She should probably just wait for Jamie or his grandfather to appear so she could return the box to its rightful owner.

There was probably nothing of any import inside anyway. Mags had most likely just been hoarding some cherished trinkets from her young mistress’s childhood—a watercolor landscape the girl had painted or perhaps some flowers she had collected and pressed.

Emma ran a finger over the miniature portrait set in its lid, surprised to discover how unsteady her hand was. She wondered if Jamie’s mother had already met
her young lover when the miniature was painted. Lianna might have the demure smile of a girl, but she had the knowing eyes of a woman—a woman with a dangerous but delightful secret to keep.

He tried to bury it so deep no one would ever find it…

The echo of Mags’ words both frightened and tantalized her. For it wasn’t Lianna’s secrets Emma longed to discover. It was her son’s.

The next thing Emma knew, she was lifting the lid. A handful of off-key notes drifted through the room, as haunting as they were beautiful. It wasn’t just a box. It was a music box. A yellowed piece of paper was nestled within its oilcloth-lined interior.

Emma pulled the paper out and gingerly unfolded it, taking care not to tear the brittle edges. Squinting at the faded ink, she carried it over to the window.

Sunlight streamed over the paper for the first time in years, illuminating the words scrawled across its face. Emma studied it for several minutes before lifting her disbelieving gaze to the snow-capped crags beyond the window. Apparently, Mags wasn’t the only one who had lost her wits. Because she couldn’t possibly be seeing what she thought she was seeing.

“I’m obviously not making enough of an effort to keep you in bed, am I?”

Emma whirled around to find Jamie standing in the doorway, looking every inch the Scottish laird in a maroon and black tartan kilt and a cream-colored
linen shirt with full sleeves and a fall of lace at the cuffs. She had been so preoccupied with her find that she hadn’t even heard him open the door.

Still speechless with shock, she tucked the hand clutching the paper behind her back. She could only pray he wouldn’t notice the open box sitting on the table.

He cocked his head to the side, looking increasingly suspicious. “Just what have you been up to?”

“Nothing,” she said hastily. “Nothing at all.”

“Then why do you look so deliciously guilty?” He sauntered toward her, favoring her with an indulgent smile. “What is it, sweeting? Have you managed to get your hands on one of my grandfather’s pistols? Now that you’re on the mend, are you planning on shooting your way out of here?”

As he advanced on her, Emma shot a panicked glance over her shoulder. Unless she planned to back right out the window, there was no escaping him. But she could evade him, at least until she figured out a way to tell him that everything he had ever believed about himself was a lie.

She planted her fists on her hips, still keeping the paper carefully concealed, and glared at him. “And why would I have to shoot my way out of here? You proved in that glen that you were only too eager to be rid of me.”

He stopped in his tracks, eyeing her warily.
“Perhaps I should go tell my grandfather to lock up the pistols.”

“Don’t bother denying it! The earl didn’t even give you what you asked for, yet you couldn’t wait to let me go.” As Emma felt her temper begin to rise in earnest, she was surprised to discover that she meant every word she was saying. “All he had to do was wave a little gold under your nose and you practically shoved me into his arms. I’m surprised you didn’t offer to trade me for a horse. Or maybe even a… a… sheep!”

Jamie’s lips twitched, as if he desperately wanted to smile but knew he didn’t dare. “After spending the night in your arms, I have to confess that even the most devoted sheep has lost its appeal.”

“Why, Jamie?” she asked, refusing to let him charm his way out of answering her question. “Why did you let me go?”

“Because I didn’t believe you were mine to keep.”

She turned back to the majestic view beyond the window, not wanting him to see she was on the verge of bursting into tears. She’d tried to be strong for so long but the events of the past few days seemed to be catching up with her all at once, compounded by the shock of what she had just discovered.

When Jamie’s voice came again, it was a husky whisper in her ear. “But I was wrong.” She could feel his strength, his heat, warming her deeper than any
beam of sunlight ever could. “Even before you were shot, I knew what a bluidy fool I’d been. I was already coming after you. That’s why I was able to react so quickly when I saw the gunman. Because I realized that I—”

Emma turned to gaze up at him, so mesmerized by his words that she forgot all about her shoulder… and all about the piece of paper in her hand. Until it slipped from her limp fingers and went fluttering to the floor at their feet.

She scrambled to retrieve it, but unhampered by a wounded shoulder, Jamie was able to reach it first.

“And what’s this, lass?” he asked, shooting her a bemused glance as he straightened. “Were you penning a ransom note of your own? Because at the moment I don’t think my grandfather would give you two shillings for me.”

He studied the piece of paper briefly before giving her a curious look. “It looks like a page torn from some auld church register. Where on earth did you get it?”

“Mags gave it to me,” she reluctantly confessed.

“Ah!” He returned his gaze to the paper, shaking his head fondly. “Mags has always been like an auld crow, collecting odd treasures to feather her nest—pretty rocks, auld coins, shiny…” His voice trailed off, fading along with the color in his face. When he lifted his eyes to her again, they had gone dark with
shock. “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “What is the meaning of this?”

She attempted a weak smile. “Apparently you’re not as much of a bastard as I thought you were the first time we met.”

He glanced back down at the paper, his lips moving as he read the last two signatures on the page once again.

Lianna Elizabeth Sinclair.

Gordon Charles Hepburn.

“I know this must come as something of a shock,” Emma said gently. “But your father didn’t just seduce your mother. He married her. According to this, your parents must have secretly eloped months before you were born. You’re not a Sinclair after all. You never were. You’re a Hepburn and you always have been.”

Jamie glanced up at her again, his look of abject horror almost comical.

She shook her head, marveling anew at their discovery. “You’re not only the Hepburn’s grandson but his legitimate heir. The heir to an earldom.”

Jamie spun on his heel and stalked across the room, crumpling the fragile proof of his lineage in his fist as if it was so much garbage.

He drove his other hand through his hair, ruffling it beyond repair before wheeling around to face her. His expression was as savage as she had ever seen it.
“So they weren’t eloping the night they headed down the mountain?”

Emma shook her head. “Apparently not. Perhaps they were going to tell the Hepburn that they’d been wed all along, that he would have no choice but to acknowledge their love… and their son.” She took a few steps toward him, longing to smooth the tousled sable strands from his brow, to lay her lips against the troubled furrow between his eyes. “This doesn’t change who you are, Jamie. You’re still the same man. What are you so afraid of? That if you lay claim to your inheritance, you’ll have to give up your wild ways? Your freedom?”

“I’m reasonably certain the Hepburn only requires your soul to enter his service.” He shook the fist holding the paper at her. “You know damn well the auld goat will never acknowledge this. Where did it come from anyway?”

She lowered her eyes. “I told you. Mags gave it to me.”

“And where did she get it?”

Not sure just how many more shocks his battered heart could take, Emma reluctantly nodded toward the table where the old nurse’s offering still sat. Jamie crossed to the table and picked up the empty box, jarring a few more off-key notes from its rusted works.

The look on his face as he lowered the lid, coming face to face with his mother’s miniature, made
Emma’s own heart clutch in her breast. “I’ve never seen her before,” he whispered. “She’s even more beautiful than I imagined. But where did Mags find it?”

“She left me with the impression that your mother had trusted it into her keeping but that someone else had taken it from her after your mother’s death and buried it to keep it from being discovered.”

Their eyes met, both of them realizing in the same breath exactly who that someone must be.

“Why?” Jamie asked hoarsely. “Why would my grandfather do such a thing? Why would he pretend to love me, yet lie to me with his every breath?”

Emma shook her head helplessly. “I have no idea. Perhaps he was afraid of losing you to the Hepburn. If the earl had known from the beginning that you were his legitimate heir, he might have tried to claim you for his own. Perhaps your grandfather felt he had no choice but to bury it—along with the truth.”

“Then I wish to hell it had stayed buried!” Before Emma could stop him, Jamie hurled the box to the floor.

The rotting wood gave way, splintering wide open to reveal a false bottom and sending a necklace spilling out at Jamie’s feet.

T
HE NECKLACE WAS A
tarnished Gaelic cross on a chain of braided pewter. Even before Jamie knelt to gather it into his hand, Emma recognized it from the miniature on the lid of the box.

It was his mother’s necklace.

The necklace she had been wearing when the artist sketched her likeness. The necklace that had vanished on the night she died, ripped from her throat by the hand of her murderer.

But both the chain and the clasp of this necklace were intact, as if someone hadn’t torn it away from its wearer but tenderly removed it from her lifeless body.

Emma heard Jamie’s words echo through the room as clearly as if he had just uttered them:
It was naught more than a worthless trinket.… It wouldn’t have been of value to anyone but a Sinclair.

Jamie slowly lifted his eyes to hers. It wasn’t the
emotion in the arctic wasteland of those eyes that froze her soul, but the damning lack of it. Without a word, he straightened and went stalking from the chamber, the chain of the necklace dangling from his clenched fist.

Emma stood staring at the empty doorway in dumb shock for several precious seconds, then went racing after him, fearing this was one murder she might not be able to prevent.

E
MMA’S THROBBING SHOULDER FORCED
her to slow down on the narrow spiral stairs that wound down into the heart of the tower. When she reached the long, high-ceilinged room that must have once served as the great hall of the keep, it was to discover that the large oak door at the far end of the room was standing wide open.

She hurried across the hall, afraid she might already be too late. If Jamie reached his grandfather before she reached him, she feared he would be lost forever, not just to her but to himself.

She emerged from the gloom, blinking in the bright sunshine. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Jamie just topping a small rise to the east of the keep. She called his name but he kept walking as if he hadn’t heard her, his stride as ruthless as his countenance.

She lifted the hem of her gown and hastened after him. When she reached the top of the rise, she saw Ramsey Sinclair tilling the stony ground of the slope below with a heavy iron hoe, his snowy white mane of hair blowing in the wind.

Fearing the hoe could end up being used as a weapon, she quickened her steps.

“So are you burying more secrets, auld mon? Or perhaps some actual bodies this time?” Stopping right in front of his grandfather, Jamie lifted his fist to dangle the tarnished necklace in the man’s face.

Ramsey Sinclair didn’t even look surprised, only resigned. It was as if he had been waiting twenty-seven years for this moment to arrive and now that it finally had, it was almost a relief.

“Jamie, please,” Emma said softly, stopping a few feet from the two men.

He took his eyes off his grandfather just long enough to point a finger at her. “This is none of your concern, lass. And don’t you dare swoon! Because if you do, I’m bluidy well not going to catch you.”

Emma held her tongue. Despite Jamie’s warning, she knew that if she keeled over at that very moment his arms would be around her before she could hit the ground.

To her keen relief his grandfather moved to sink down on a rounded boulder at the edge of the garden, laying the heavy hoe aside. With his shoulders
stooped beneath the weight of Jamie’s contempt, he looked every minute of his age.

“I adored yer mother, ye know,” he said, squinting up at Jamie in the sunlight. “She was all I had left after the fever killed your grandmother. It broke my heart nigh asunder when she ran away with that rogue.” He shook his head, his craggy face lined with sorrow. “I searched for months to no avail. I might have never found them until they wanted to be found if Mags hadn’t managed to get word to me that Lianna’s babe had been born. But by the time I reached the crofter’s hut, it was too late. They had already gone.”

“So you hunted them down.” Jamie’s flat words were not a question.

Anger flared in the elder Sinclair’s eyes, making them look eerily similar to his grandson’s. “How can I expect ye to understand when ye’ve ne’er had a daughter o’ yer own? My Lianna was always a good girl. And he was just another miserable greedy Hepburn used to takin’ whate’er he wanted, no matter the cost. It wasn’t the first time a Hepburn had preyed upon an innocent young lass he happened upon in the woods. Why, yer own grandmother—my sweet Alyssa—” He broke off, his voice strangled by rage and remembered anguish.

Emma closed her eyes briefly, understanding all too clearly how this legacy of hatred had been passed from generation to generation.

“I knew the young rogue had seduced my Lianna. Maybe even raped her. Made her his whore.”

“She wasn’t his whore!”
Jamie thundered.
“She was his wife!”

His grandfather lifted the back of one trembling hand to his mouth. “I didn’t know that then. I didn’t find the page from the weddin’ register in the pocket of his coat until after they were dead. By then, it was too late.” His voice faded to a choked whisper. “Too late for all of us.”

Emma wondered how he had borne it all these years—knowing he had murdered his daughter and her husband for a crime neither one of them had committed. No wonder his heart was finally failing beneath the crushing burden of his guilt.

The Sinclair turned his beseeching eyes back to his grandson. “I never meant to hurt her, lad. I swear it! I just wanted to bring her home. When I caught up to them in the glen, I drew my pistol, thinkin’ it might frighten that young whelp into givin’ her up without a fight. But he shouted that she was too good, too fine to spend the rest o’ her life with the likes o’ the Sinclairs. That she belonged to him now. That he would
never
let her go. Then everythin’ went red and all I could hear was the roarin’ in my ears as I lifted the pistol and pointed it at his heart. At the very instant I squeezed the trigger, she threw herself in front o’ him.”

Jamie pressed the fist holding the necklace to his lips as his grandfather continued. “I’ll ne’er forget the look in her eyes. The shock, the betrayal and worst of all, in those last precious seconds of her life—the pity.”

The elder Sinclair bowed his head, as if already knowing he had forever relinquished any right to his grandson’s pity. “Hepburn caught her as she fell, just sat there rockin’ back and forth with her in his arms, weepin’ like a babe. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. But all I could think was if not for him, if not for all the Hepburns who had pissed all over the Sinclairs through the centuries, my precious baby girl would still be alive. So I walked over to him and put the mouth of my pistol right between his eyes. He didn’t even fight. He just gazed up at me as if daring me—no, begging me—to pull the trigger.”

“So you did,” Jamie said bleakly.

“Aye. And there they lay. Dead in each other’s arms.” His grandfather’s jaw hardened. “I couldn’t bear the thought o’ him still touchin’ her, tryin’ to lay claim to her even in death. So I pulled them apart. Made sure he would ne’er touch her again. I was about to turn the pistol on myself when I heard it.”

“What?” Emma asked softly, well aware that both men had probably forgotten her presence. “What did you hear?”

He cocked his head as if haunted by the echo of
a moment long past. “A gentle cooin’ like that of a dove. I walked over to the bushes and there ye were. They must have tucked ye away when they heard my horse approachin’.”

The look on Jamie’s face broke Emma’s heart anew. “I was there in that glen on the night they died? But you told me they’d left me with Mags.”

His grandfather shrugged. “What’s one more lie added to a thousand?” A shadow crossed his face. “For one dark moment, I was tempted to kill ye, too—to destroy the last remainin’ evidence of their love. But when I reached down to do it, ye just looked up at me without cryin ’. Without blinkin’. Then ye grabbed my finger in yer tiny little fist and held on for dear life.” The old man turned his face to Jamie, tears of remembered wonder glazing his eyes. “In that moment, I knew ye weren’t theirs after all. Ye were mine.”

When Jamie continued to gaze down at him, his face as beautiful and merciless as an avenging angel’s, the Sinclair swiped away the tears, his hand growing ever more steady. “I didn’t want to live with what I’d done. But I knew I had no choice if I was to look after ye. So I took ye back to Mags at the crofter’s hut and swore her to silence, then returned to the glen late that night with my men so there would be witnesses when yer par—” He swallowed. “—when the bodies were found.”

Jamie’s voice was dangerously dispassionate. “And I suppose it was easy enough to blame their murders on the Hepburn. After all, he and his kin had been responsible for most of the ills around these parts for centuries.”

“Aye. That was the only part of my divilment I couldn’t bring myself to regret. At least not until now.”

Emma’s heart nearly stopped when he reached into a hidden fold of his kilt and withdrew an ancient-looking pistol with a flared muzzle. But he simply offered it to Jamie, butt forward.

“Go on, lad. Take it and do what I should have had the courage to do all those years ago.”

Jamie gazed down at the weapon in his grandfather’s hand, his eyes as cold as Emma had ever seen them. “You always told me the truth could kill you. Or it could keep you alive. I believe I’ll let you just keep on living with what you’ve done.”

His grandfather struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on the handle of the hoe. “I don’t want yer mercy, lad! I have no need of it!”

A scornful smile curved Jamie’s lips. “Oh, I haven’t any mercy where you’re concerned. There’s just no need for me to hasten your journey to hell. You’ll get there soon enough on your own.”

With his mother’s necklace still dangling from his fingers, Jamie turned his back on his grandfather. As
he walked past her, Emma reached for him. But he continued on as if she wasn’t even there.

She hesitated for a moment, then turned to follow. She half expected to hear the thundering report of a pistol behind her. But when she paused at the top of the rise to glance over her shoulder, it was to discover that Jamie’s grandfather had already taken up his hoe and gone back to tilling the rocky soil.

She would have hated him as much as Jamie did in that moment but she knew he was simply doing what the Sinclairs had always done.

Surviving.

W
HEN EMMA REACHED THE
balcony crowning the very top of the keep, Jamie was already there, standing with his back to her and his hands gripping the wooden balustrade.

As she emerged into the sunlight, an involuntary gasp escaped her. The Highlands were sprawled below them in all of their rustic splendor. A misty veil of green draped the lower passes and glens while dazzling patches of white still crowned the highest crags. Winding streams poured down the mountainside, fattened by the melting snows and glistening silver beneath the kiss of the sun.

As an ethereal wisp of cloud drifted right past the balcony, she understood how Jamie’s grandfather
might have come to fancy himself the ruler of some mighty kingdom. Why live among the mere mortals down in the foothills when one could reside among the clouds? While overlooking this breathtaking view from such a dizzying height, a man might very well fancy himself the ruler of heaven itself.

At the moment, Jamie looked more like the dark prince of some Stygian underworld where doomed souls were sent to await their punishment.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said without turning around. “You belong in bed.”

“Whose bed?” she asked softly, joining him at the balustrade. “Yours? The earl’s?”

He turned to face her, his expression so distant it sent a dark shiver of dread down her spine. “Your own bed. The one in your bedchamber in Lancashire. The one with the robin’s nest right outside your window and the family of mice living in the dining room baseboards. You belong a thousand leagues away from here—away from all the deceit and treachery… and death.”

“Away from you?”

His hesitation was so brief she might have imagined it. “Aye.” He returned his gaze to that grand sweep of moor and mountain, his profile as stern and intractable as a stranger’s. “As far away from me as the road can take you.”

“And what if I don’t choose to go?”

“You don’t have a choice. Didn’t you hear my grandfather? I come from a long line of men with a history of destroying the very thing they love the most.”

Hope surged within her, pushing the dread aside. “What are you trying to say, Jamie? That you love me? Is that what you were about to tell me before you discovered the page from the marriage register?”

She touched his sleeve but he pulled away from her. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her before, but now it was as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, much less touch her.

“What are you trying to do?” she cried, her frustration growing. “Pretend that night in the bell tower never happened?” Could he pretend she had never lain beneath him, shuddering in helpless wonder as his nimble fingers and powerful body gave her the sweetest and most devastating pleasure a man could give a woman? “Can you truly tell me that night meant nothing to you?”

He turned to look directly at her then, the indifference in his eyes even more chilling than the contempt he had shown his grandfather. “I kept my end of our bargain. You asked me to ruin you, not pledge my eternal love. If you’re well enough to travel on the morrow, I’m taking you down the mountain. Your family may very well believe you’re dead. I need to get you back to them before they leave Scotland for good.”

Emma shook her head, reeling from his curt dismissal of all they had shared. “What about the Hepburn? He might not have murdered your mother but he did try to murder me. And I’m sure he’ll be only too delighted to learn that there’s no need for him to find himself a new bride since he already has an heir.”

A grim smile canted Jamie’s lips. “Oh, you can leave the Hepburn to me. He’s no longer your concern. I’ll deal with him.”

He turned on his heel to go, then paused, frowning down at his hand as if he was surprised to find his mother’s necklace still looped through his fingers.