The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell (17 page)

“Grendel!” Edmund shouted to him.

Grendel stopped with a whine. He cast a last, brief glance to Alistair’s dog and then
returned to Edmund’s side.

Alistair stopped and looked behind him at the ruckus, and seeing his dog with Grendel,
he deduced where she had been while lost.

He shouted something at her that was caught on the wind and carried away before it
reached Amelia’s ears. Then he kicked at her, provoking Grendel to take off again.
Edmund held him steady.

“’Tis my fault he’s striking her. I must help her.” Amelia took off toward them, leaving
Edmund to watch while Alistair picked up his head and saw her coming.

His face darkened into a mask of anger. “Ye thieving bastards ruined my dog letting
her mate with that mongrel.” He yanked a short sword from his belt and lifted it over
his head.

Amelia screamed, unsure of whether he was going to kill her or the dog.

A pistol ball stopped him in mid swing as it shot into his hand, blowing away bits
of flesh from his fingers and spewing blood onto Amelia’s face.

She screamed again. And then she fainted.

A
melia opened her eyes on one of the plush settees in the private solar. A low fire
burned in the hearth, warming the chamber just enough to make it perfectly cozy. She
snuggled deeper into her blanket. A thought struck her. How had she arrived here?
She sat up, eyes wide open.

She remembered. She closed her eyes, feeling queasy again. Alistair Buchanan’s blood…She
touched her face. Someone had cleaned it.

Something brushed against her hand and she looked down to see Grendel sitting at her
side. She remembered the female and looked around. The dog wasn’t with them. Had Edmund
left her there, at the waterfall? Amelia would have to go get her if he had. She swung
her legs off the side of the settee when the door opened and Edmund entered the solar
with Grendel’s girl hot on his heels and Sarah behind them, carrying tea on a tray.

“Thank God, ye’re awake,” her friend cooed over her. “I was ready to skin Edmund alive
with fear that he shot ye.”

“I’m fine, Sarah.” Amelia smiled at her, then looked down at the dog. Edmund hadn’t
left her.

“She followed us home,” Edmund told her, coming to sit beside her. “She hasn’t left
my heel since we arrived. She nearly tripped me down the stairs three times. I stumbled
over her in the kitchen and fell into Henrietta, almost knocking the poor woman into
her oven.”

Amelia covered her mouth with her hand.

“Trying to avoid stepping on her toes,” Edmund continued, “I dropped the tray of tea
I meant to bring ye and burned my chest. Sarah finally took pity on me.”

Amelia giggled, unable to help herself. Especially when she looked at Sarah, trying
to conceal her grin.

“We have to send her back.”

“What? Nae!” Amelia took hold of Edmund’s arm. “Please, Edmund.”

“What’s all this talk of we?” Sarah asked, eyeing them both with a clever little glint
in her emerald eyes, a glint Amelia knew all too well. “And why do ye care if he keeps
a dog ye’ll never see again, Amelia?”

“Aye,” Edmund agreed, next to her. “Ye’re returning to Seafield. What concern is the
dog to ye?”

She blinked at him, then folded her arms across her chest. She wouldn’t let him blackmail
her with a dog. “I believe she was mistreated with the Buchanans. Look how bony she
is. There is no shine to her coat. I’ll not have her go back there.”

“Mayhap yer husband won’t mind taking her when he takes ye,” Edmund mused.

“I’m certain that fer me, he would make an exception.”

“What would the chancellor do,” Sarah teased, pouring Amelia’s tea, “with ye
and
a dog rainin’ catastrophe down on his head?”

“It could prove to be the end of him,” Edmund said with a sinuous smirk creeping across
his lips. “Mayhap ye should go to him and after a month, when he’s likely dead, I’ll
come back fer ye and ye don’t have to worry about yer father’s ruin.”

Amelia just stared at him for a moment, then she shook her head at him when he winked
at her. “What makes ye think I would want ye to come back fer me once I’m a widow
and free from the promise of marriage?”

“Because I would have yer dog.”

Amelia looked at Grendel’s girl, her tongue hanging out of one side of her panting
mouth, huge, brown eyes fastened on Edmund. Amelia had to smile. He would have her
dog all right. The beast loved him already. She sighed and smiled, letting Edmund
have the win, for now. “She needs a name.”

“Nuisance,” Edmund supplied.

“Nae.”

“Miss Fortune.”

Amelia cast Sarah a dark look for her suggestion.

“Pest.”

“Edmund! Stop that! She adores ye and ye’re sitting here hurting her feelings! How
could ye?”

“I don’t need another dog, Amelia. Honestly. Grendel is enough to handle.”

“How about Gazardiel?” Amelia suggested, ignoring him. “’Tis the name of the angel
of new beginnings.”

At the mention of her new name, Gazardiel wagged her tail. Edmund cast a glance heavenward,
and Sarah offered him a pitying look.

Quite pleased with herself, Amelia leaned back in the settee and waved at Lucan and
Malcolm when the latter helped Lucan limp into the solar.

“What are ye doing dragging him about the castle?” Sarah scolded Malcolm as he helped
Lucan to a chair. “I told ye he’s not ready to be up on his feet yet.”

“He’s strong enough to…” Malcolm began, then stopped when Gazardiel stepped in front
of him and nearly sent him sprawling to the floor. “What the hell is that?”

“She’s a dog, Cal,” Lucan said, reaching for her shaggy head and scratching her behind
the ears.

“I can see that. What’s she doing here?”

“Her name is Gazardiel,” Amelia told them with a happy grin. “We can call her Gaza
fer short. Edmund saved her from Alistair Buchanan and we’re keeping her.”

For a moment, Malcolm simply looked at them. Then, “I must ask ye, Edmund, d’ye think
all this is wise? I’ve said nothin’. How can I? But how far will this go?”

Edmund stared at him liked he’d just sprouted a tail. “How far will what go?”

“This.” He motioned to Amelia. “Enjoyin’ her is one thing—”

“Cal!” Lucan growled when Amelia blushed to her roots where she sat.

“Och, hell, she knows he must let her go,” Malcolm argued with his cousin. “The days
are gettin’ shorter. Soon we’ll know if the treaty is bein’ postponed or not. If it’s
not—”

“Malcolm,” Edmund cut him off with a quiet warning.

“Think clearly, Edmund!” his cousin continued. “She’s too valuable to us right now.
Ye’ve forgotten our cause.”

“Nae, I have not.” Edmund stood to his feet. “Not fer a moment.”

Amelia listened with a heavy heart. She knew all of this. She’d known about Edmund’s
cause and his devotion to it from the start. They’d pretended, lived like they had
all the time in the world. But they didn’t. Neither one of them wanted to forsake
their responsibilities to their families by running away from them and into each other’s
arms. But she’d almost done it. She’d let herself care for him, perhaps even love
him. She assumed he felt the same. But he’d stayed detached. He’d kept his feelings
for her separate from his purpose. It broke her heart and made her wish she had been
just as strong.

The truth hit hard, making her feel ill. She had to leave before she fell to the floor
in a heap of sobs.

“Ye’re lettin’ her keep a dog, cousin,” she heard Malcolm say. “How much more will
ye grant her if she asks?”

Amelia didn’t want to hear his answer. Either way, it was the end for them. She wasn’t
prepared for the pain. She took off with Grendel close behind. God help her, she loved
his dog. She escaped into the garden and sat on the stone bench, hugging Grendel.
All his talk of possessing her, about having a life with her and a pair of dogs, felt
so right, like everything she’d ever wanted.

It hurt too much to lose.

But she knew it had never been hers to begin with.

E
dmund watched Amelia flee the Hall with Grendel and he moved to go after her. Malcolm
stopped him.

“She wasn’t supposed to mean somethin’ to ye.” Cal took him by the upper arms and
fixed his level gaze on him. “I thought ye understood that, Edmund. Ye’re always the
levelheaded lad of the bunch. Fall fer her, and our cause is lost.”

Aye, Edmund knew his cousin spoke the truth. But…Ah, hell, there were so many buts.
He wanted to be with her. He couldn’t stand the thought of her marrying the chancellor…or
anyone else for that matter. They’d played a dangerous game, pretending like they
hadn’t a care, or a purpose or duty. He’d gotten so caught up in it that he had forgotten…
But he couldn’t forget. Scotland needed him. Malcolm was right, she was too valuable
to what they needed to do.

A year ago he was prepared to do anything to stop the treaty from being enacted. Twice,
he’d managed to postpone the Acts of Parliament from being signed. He was so close
now, and this time, it could work. But not if he threw it all away because of his
heart. She tempted him beyond reason. But how could he bring her to Skye with him
and still use her as ransom? Was he willing to give up his only means of getting her
uncle to listen to him? Was he willing to give up his fight?

No.

He needed to get his heart back where it belonged. She would understand. She had her
own loyalties to stand by and fight for. Her father’s good name was a cause he admired,
but he would have rathered it if marrying the chancellor wasn’t part of that cause.

“We need her.”

Edmund nodded at Malcolm, clearing his head. “I know.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Sarah walking up to him. He turned to look at her
and wished he hadn’t. Disappointment tugged at her mouth while anger fired her emerald
eyes. He didn’t back up when she lifted her hand and slapped him hard across the face.
Nor did he deny it when she called him a heartless bastard. She pulled her arm away
from Lucan when he would have stopped her from leaving.

Edmund watched her go, most likely to her friend’s side.

With nothing more to say to either of his cousins, he left them, with Gaza at his
heels.

He thought about Amelia as he walked Ravenglade’s halls. He could grow old happily
with her. And if his years were not to be long ones, waking up to her for a few more
of them would be all he asked.

If she weren’t the Protestant niece of his greatest enemy.

He knew enough about kidnapping to know that if he loved her, she was no longer leverage
for his side, but for her uncle’s, if the duke found out.

Thank the saints it hadn’t gone that far. He didn’t love her.

He slowed his steps when he came to the entrance of the garden and heard Amelia crying.
He didn’t go to her, determined to create distance between them. He leaned against
the cool stone entryway and watched her weep into Sarah’s shoulder. Twice, he stilled
his feet from moving. But he couldn’t stop his chest from aching with her. Every part
of him ached for her. What had become of him, he agonized while her sobs reached his
ears. He’d stopped thinking about Scotland and begun thinking about her. All the time.
He missed her smiles, her touch. He missed everything about her and he felt lost without
her at his side.

God help him, he thought, closing his eyes as the truth dawned on him. He was wrong.
He had gone that far.

He’d been sitting so long his arse ached. Och, but what did he care? Soon, he’d have
his weight in gold. His clan wouldn’t need Ravenglade. He’d have something built that
was even bigger. Buchanan Hall he would call it, and he would be chief over his kin
instead of his dead brother’s son, William.

Ennis looked around the private quarters of the Duke of Queensberry and tapped his
finger on his knee. He wondered if the duke’s butler repeated the message correctly.
The duke’s guest knew the whereabouts of someone who might be missing among them.
Ennis mulled it over in his head and frowned. Now that he thought about it, it could
easily be misquoted.

Surely if the duke understood it to mean the whereabouts of his niece, he would have
rushed in straightaway.

No matter, soon the duke would know and Ennis would be rewarded. He could be patient
and wait all night if he had to. He’d been patient at Jane Ogilvy’s, hadn’t he? After
that hound from hell had attacked him, he would have perished if not for Jane. She
took him and nursed him back to good health. He would remember her when he came into
his fortune.

He’d been laid up for so long he worried that the duke’s niece had already been found.
If she had, Ennis prayed that the rest of his message would hold some value. Sympathizing
with a MacGregor was a crime. He wondered what kissing one would be considered.

The wide doors of the chamber opened and Ennis stood to his feet when the duke entered
with a host of other men and a woman behind him. Most of the men carried weapons.

“Remain standing, if you please.” The duke snapped his fingers at Ennis, then sat
down behind an enormous table that seemed to swallow him up. His chest barely made
it to the table surface.

“Ye claim to have news on my daughter’s whereabouts?” another man, standing off to
the side, asked.

“Selkirk!” The duke’s voice crackled with annoyance. He glared at the other man, waiting
for the latter to back down. But Selkirk continued to wait for Ennis’s answer.

“Well, did ye make such a claim?”

“Millicent,” the duke growled, shifting his hard gaze on the woman present, “if your
husband makes another sound, I will have you both removed.”

Millicent reached out her hand and grasped her husband by the wrist. “Mind your mouth
and let him take care of this, John,” she commanded. “I don’t want to be removed and
miss what this man has to say. Do you?”

He shook his head and stepped back, into the shadows.

“Now you may speak,” the duke told Ennis. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out or
it will mean your head.”

Ennis rubbed his hand over his throat. This wasn’t going to go the way he’d planned.
But mayhap, he could change that.

“The MacGregors have yer niece.”

Selkirk rushed forward but was stopped by a sword blocking his path. Millicent covered
her mouth and then swooned.

“Kill this fool for wasting my time.” The duke pointed to Ennis, rose, and moved to
leave.

“James!” Millicent called out, stopping him. “What if they do have her?”

“Do you mean like the French had her?” The duke smirked. “You were certain about it,
weren’t you, Millicent?”

“In my defense, brother, the note that was left—”

Queensberry held up his palm, quieting her. “We already know that Lord Dearly, Viscount
of Essex, and Lord Huntley, distant cousin to the Stuart queen, have taken her.”

“I don’t know who Lord Dearly is, but I know Edmund MacGregor,” Ennis told them, clearing
up the argument and hoping to save his life. “Huntley is Malcolm Grant. His kin, the
Grants, are not only related to the queen but to the MacGregors.”

“They are outlaws!” Millicent wailed, then wobbled on weak knees. Instantly, two older
men from their train of followers stepped forward to aid her. “No, no,” she cried.
“It cannot be true!”

“I saw MacGregor with my own eyes,” Ennis continued, “speaking to a lass who said
she was the Duke of Queensberry’s niece.”

“They pretended to be—”

“Obviously,” the duke snarled at his brother-in-law. When he returned his attention
to Ennis, beads of sweat began to form on Ennis’s brow. “Where is she?”

“I want coin fer what I am to tell ye.”

The duke moved toward him, stopping a hairsbreadth away. He looked Ennis over from
foot to crown, and then with an expression of pure disgust, he agreed.

“Very well, tell me where they are and I will repay you richly for the information.”

Ennis smiled, letting relief wash over him. “Ravenglade Castle in Perth.”

The duke smiled, then headed back to his table. He waved his hand at his guards. “Give
him two gold and send him on his way.”

Two gold? Was that all Queensberry’s niece was worth? Ennis stopped when two guardsmen
escorted him to the door. “There’s more. I was hoping that this extra tidbit might
sweeten my pockets a wee bit more.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yer niece,” Ennis said, casting a pitiful glance at the lass’s parents. “She does
not appear harmed.”

Her parents visibly relaxed.

“In fact, she seems quite at ease with her captors. At ease enough to kiss one of
them.”

Millicent threw her shaking hands to her mouth.

The duke rose out of his seat again. “Which one?”

Now was a good time, Ennis decided, to put Malcolm Grant to a fitting end. A wee fib
would ensure Grant’s demise, and once he was dead, he or someone from his clan could
take over Ravenglade. “Malcolm Grant,” Ennis lied. “But it would be in yer niece’s
best interest to retrieve her before she becomes a sympathizer with the outlaws.”

The duke scowled at his sister when she wailed, then he turned to a slightly smaller
man stepping out of the shadows.

“Queensberry,” the man said, his voice gravelly, like he needed to clear it. “I don’t
want a sympathizer for a wife. Do something about this liar.”

Ennis’s complexion paled. “My lord, I would never—”

“What would you have me do, Lord Chancellor?” the duke sneered.

“Captain Pierce,” the chancellor called out to the guard nearest Ennis. “See that
he never speaks poorly of my wife-to-be again.”

“Wait! Please, my lord—” Ennis tried, but to no avail. He was dragged into the outer
courtyard and shot once in the heart.

Inside, the duke rubbed his hand over his face. “Well, we know who has her and where
she is.”

“Ye cannot sign the act,” John Bell said, anger clearly defined in his voice.

The duke laughed at him. “And what am I to do? Denounce the treaty I’ve spent the
last year preparing? Give up everything I’ve been toiling over for years because of
a letter promising to kill Amelia if the union takes place?”

“They are MacGregors.” John Bell argued, pleaded. “They will think nothing of killing
her. Ye have to do as they say. Please, I will be forever in yer debt.”

The duke was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I’ve already postponed the gathering
of both Parliaments. I suppose a few more weeks to go fetch the girl won’t make that
big of a difference.”

“Let us not forget that Miss Bell was seen in the arms of a MacGregor sympathizer,”
the chancellor added sourly. “I do hope ’tis just a rumor.”

“Whether it is or it isn’t,” the duke said, turning to him, “you will fulfill the
promise you made to her and her father to marry her or I will personally see to it
that you are removed from office before the union takes place. You do still want to
be the Lord High Chancellor of England, do you not, Seafield?”

The chancellor’s expression went from sour to amiable in an instant. “Of course, my
lord.” He bowed to all, letting his eyes linger on Millicent. “If you will excuse
me.”

Millicent Bell smiled at him and watched him leave, then patted the duke’s hand. “We
owe you much, brother. Don’t we, John? Once again he covers for our daughter’s indiscretions.
Oh, how could she do this to us? How could she sympathize with outlaws and give herself
to them?”

“This is no fault of Amelia’s,” her husband snapped at her. “Stop thinking of yerself
fer a bloody moment, woman, will ye? We have to get her back!” He turned to the duke.
“We know where she is. When can we leave?”

The duke looked at him the same way he looked at his mad son. “Have you ever fought
against Highlanders? History has been made on countless occasions because of the will
and determination of these barbaric zealots.”

“What do ye suggest, then?”

“I don’t want to make war with my own countrymen just before I put my name to a treaty
that half of Scotland is against. We need a show of force, but just a show. I think
once these mountain men see our numbers they will hand Amelia over without a fight.”

“Then let’s do it,” John said.

“We need the army, and that will take a bit of time.”

“Amelia may not have time,” her father argued.

“John may be correct,” Millicent pointed out. “What if she shames us by falling for
one of her captors? I met both of these men and they were charming and quite handsome.”

“Amelia isn’t such a fool to throw away a life with the lord chancellor, sister,”
the duke said. “She may be the bringer of black clouds, but she knows better than
to go against our wishes and plans for her.”

John Bell felt sick to his stomach. He hadn’t slept, and he’d barely eaten since the
night she disappeared. His poor gel. He hadn’t known if she was dead or alive. Now
that he knew, now that he had hope again, he was eager to save her.

Millicent Bell stepped out into the garden and looked around. When she found who she
was looking for, his back to her, she smiled and headed toward him. When she reached
him, she slid her palms up over his back. She wished he had more muscle, like her
beloved statues, but one couldn’t be too choosy.

“There now, all will be well.”

“It better be.” He turned to face her and she thought how handsome he was, how lucky
her ungrateful daughter was.

“All you have to do is continue to prove to John how much Amelia means to you. He’s
already given his consent. Don’t lose it, and don’t let him know that my brother is
involved in this. Do you understand?”

His smile chilled her blood. “Do
you
understand?” He pinched her face between his fingers. “If your daughter makes me
a fool—”

“Walter, no—”

“I will destroy all of you. Beginning with your brother.”