03 - Dreams of Destiny Page 7

  And apparently, the rumors never stopped.

  Lord Aytoun had not been charged with Emma’s murder, but the court of public opinion had found him guilty. And for his part, David didn’t know if he would ever think of his brother without thinking of Emma’s death.

  Gwyneth interrupted his thoughts. “You must also know that Lord Aytoun and his new wife spend a large part of the year at Millicent’s estate at Melbury Hall.”

  “So what are you looking for? An invitation?” he responded shortly. “I told you that we are not stopping for anything but a change of horses until we reach Northampton.”

  “Of all the impertinent…David, you are the most stubborn man that I know. I already told you that I mentioned it for your benefit.” She shot him a narrow glare. “You are back in England, but you say nothing to anyone. Believe it or not, they all care for you so much. I attended Pierce’s wedding earlier this month. Your entire family was there, but their happiness would have been so complete if you were there. Now, why could you not have come?”

  “You seem to forget that I have been dutifully serving king and country in Ireland.” David looked out the window again. The news of his second brother’s marriage was partly responsible for the decision he’d made regarding the resignation of his commission.

  When he had received his orders to report to the Massachusetts Colony, he had sensed that something was not right. There, he was to report to Admiral Middleton, a man rumored to work at the shadowy edges of military activity. David had heard other things, too, about what was happening in Boston and the other cities in the colonies. He had already heard that his brother’s business transactions in Boston were being questioned. Efforts were already underway to link Pierce to the infamous Captain MacHeath, a man with a bounty on his head, who was smuggling arms by sea and selling them to the rebellious Sons of Liberty. Knowing Pierce, David suspected that his brother and MacHeath were one and the same, but that was not a thought he cared to dwell on. There was no doubt in David’s mind that Admiral Middleton, who had a reputation for shrewdness, was moving him to Boston to help trap his own brother.

  Despite their lack of correspondence, David was troubled by that. It was true that his duty lay with the Crown. As an officer, he had sworn to protect the interests of the British government. While in Ireland, though, he had struggled with British policies that were clearly unjust. Now, he simply would not allow himself to be used as a pawn against his own family.

  While he was still considering his course of action, he had learned that the woman Pierce was marrying was a granddaughter of Admiral Middleton—a newly acknowledged granddaughter, he corrected. This put the Admiral too close to the door of MacHeath. If David were in Massachusetts and under Middleton’s command, he would be expected to provide the key. Rumor and complication were piling on top of another until it was all starting to take on the look of a tavern brawl in Belfast—no clear sides and no possibility of any bystander or participant coming out unscathed. No, it was time to step away from the fray. It was time to take his life in a new direction. David looked across the carriage at his new direction.

  “When do you need to return to Ireland?” she asked.

  “I am not going back. I have sold my commission.”

  Gwyneth made a face and slid back into the corner.

  “Too bad,” she said quietly, going back to her writing. “I liked you far, far better when you were not around.”

  *****

  Standing by their horses behind the grove of scrub oak, the three riders gazed intently at the wayside stable and the small blacksmith shop attached to it. Several small cottages and a mill clustered around the shop, and that was just about all there was to the sleepy little village.

  “Are you certain this is the right one?” one of the watchers asked, motioning toward the carriage that had reined up at the stables not an hour earlier. The horses had been changed for the next leg of the journey, and the driver and the groom had finished with their pints of ale. The two stood by the carriage, inspecting the new team and talking with the burly smith and his soot-covered apprentice.

  “The ruddy carriage is here when it should be,” the leader replied. “And the wench fits the description.” He continued to keep his eye on the young, red-haired woman now standing before the open door of the carriage and talking to someone inside.

  “Considerin’ what we’re to make on the job,” the first man grumbled, “I don’t see why we can’t jist snuff the chit here and go get paid.”

  “The take is what ‘tis, ye scurvy dolt,” the third man said hoarsely, “‘cause they want us to put a musket ball in ‘er ‘ead after she’s done with ‘er business at Gretna Green. We do it right, and this job’ll pay better’n holding up the St. Albans coach a dozen times.”

  “Hold there! Who’re ye callin’ a scurvy dolt?”

  “Enough of that.” The leader of the three kept his eyes on their prey. “Biding our time, following them north, keeping enough distance to raise no suspicion, and doing the killing right is the trick.”

  The men moved their horses back a little as the passenger inside the carriage stepped out and stretched. He was a giant of a man, and all of them took notice that he was armed with a sword. He probably had pistols in the carriage, as well. Few traveled without a brace of loaded weapons these days. He exchanged a few words with the driver and the groom before turning to the woman.

  “The bloody bull looks to be a bit much to handle, I’m thinkin’,” the third man said wearily. ’Tis all to the good we were told to leave ‘im be.”

  “He could still be real trouble, though, when we go for the chit.”

  “I was told not to worry about him, lads,” the leader assured them. “He should cause us no trouble.”

  ****

  She was a habit that—no matter how hard he tried—he could not b. Sitting in the fields by Greenbrae Hall, watching from a distance, hoping for a glimpse of her. Always trying to be where he knew she was. Still though, he kept away from the tower house for what was left of the spring—for fear of her showing up. For fear of lacking the shred of control he’d displayed the first time.

  True to her way, Emma ignored him in public. She never spoke to him in the company of the others except in the most casual way. But in those few instances when they passed each other and there was no one else around, there was not even a trace of cordiality in her. When the warm, drier days of summer arrived in Baronsford, he started going back to his tower house.

  She never came again. Her indifference made him begin to believe that perhaps their first kiss had only been in his imagination. He felt foolish for placing so much weight on something that obviously mattered so little to her. What he witnessed one afternoon while walking back through the deer park to Baronsford, though, changed his mind.

  There were playful voices ahead. As he approached, he recognized them as belonging to Emma and David. In a clearing past the line of trees, he espied the two beside the small loch that tumbled down through a glen into the Tweed. David was lying on his back on a flat rock, gazing up at the sky. Emma was crouched beside him and laughing at something he was saying. It was an innocent scene. It was a moment like so many he’d seen the two share.

  Emma’s gaze riveted on him when he moved at the edge of the clearing. David said something he could not hear, but her laughter stopped. Suddenly, she sat down on the rock, her arm resting on her companion’s chest, but her eyes remained focused on him.

  When he saw her lower her head and kiss David’s lips, he turned and ran until he could run no further.

  CHAPTER 5

  Whatever foolish, immature infatuation might have still been lingering within her toward this tall, handsome barbarian, it was gone now for sure, dissipated into thin air like a summer mist. Just who did he think he was to treat her so foully? She was no criminal. He had no right to lock her up like some wandering miscreant. She was not even related to him. And none of what he was doing looked in the least like protection, no
matter what he said.

  He was being a tyrant, pure and simple.

  She continued to pace the six feet of space at the foot of the bed. She was too upset to sit, never mind sleep. The tray of food they had left on her trunk by the bed had long ago been thrown out the second story window. The horrible man did not even want to eat with her. He’d asked for her trunk to be sent up to the tiny cell that they called a room, ordered that her food be brought up to her, and then walked out, turning a massive key in an ancient lock.

  She didn’t know what in heaven’s name she’d done to deserve this. She certainly could not understand what it was about him that had ever appealed to her.

  Gwyneth went to the window and looked down at the narrow alleyway that ran beside the tavern. A foul smelling ditch lay beyond it, and then a muddy looking pasture. She could just see the open door of the stable behind the inn. A few buildings lay beyond that. She glanced once more up and down the alley. She could not understand why no one had answered her cries of help.

  And why wasn’t Sir Allan following them? She’d hoped he would leave a message with the driver suggesting a time and place to rendezvous. He could easily have come to her window now. This was the time when she needed him.

  It was a very sad situation when the men who populated her stories were far more heroic than anyone she knew in real life.

  Gwyneth turned away from the window and stared at the cramped and run-down condition of the room. David could not even pick a respectable tavern in which he could lock her away. They appeared to be the only travelers staying in this isolated inn on the outskirts of Northampton. When they arrived, she saw only a half dozen drunken farmers gathered about a smoky hearth in the taproom and a portly woman who appeared to be in charge of things. From the condition of the place—including this room—she guessed that nothing had been cleaned in months. Perhaps longer.

  The idea came to her almost out of desperation. Running away would be complicated. She would have no trunk. She would need to find their carriage tonight or hire another. She would need to pass through the dark streets of an unknown market town to accomplish it. But even if she were not successful, Gwyneth thought, it would be worthwhile to at least give David a scare. She might even just take another room and let him panic when he couldn’t find her in the morning.

  She looked again out the window at the alley below. The narrow way was littered with stacks of wood and old ale barrels in a variety of conditions, piled up and lying on their sides, as well. What looked like a pile of straw—most likely there for the stables—was sitting near the corner of the building. There was another window next to hers and another one beyond that. She might be able to hang from the sills, work her way along, and then drop onto the straw. Even without it, though, the fall should not be too bad…except for the barrels.

  She looked one last time for anyone passing through. No one. No one had come or gone for the couple of hours she’d been locked in there. They had no reason to. David had intentionally chosen a room that overlooked nothing.

  wyneth tucked her notebook into her dress pocket, tied her purse around her wrist, and then, with just a quick glance behind her, started to climb out through the window.

  *****

  Because of the warm summer night, the doors of the stables had been left open. The young stable boy working there had disappeared some time ago. With the exception of the occasional racket from the ill-tempered creature upstairs, the night had been still. David almost enjoyed the solitude of sitting on an upturned barrel just inside the stable door, his back against a post, waiting for what he believed was inevitable and thinking of his family.

  Taking Gwyneth to Greenbrae Hall meant that he was going back to Baronsford. That too was unavoidable. His brother Pierce had told him in his letter that he and Portia intended to stay there for a few months after the wedding before making the journey back to the colonies. Since it was August, David assumed Lyon would be there, too.

  Since Emma’s death, his brothers had clearly moved on successfully with their lives. David considered this for a moment. He was ready to move on, as well. In fact, he had already set the wheels of change in motion. Marriage, family, the responsibilities that went along with such things had a certain appeal. None of that frightened him; he knew in order to keep the past successfully buried, he needed to cultivate the ground for a harmonious future. This meant finding a wife, of course. Even that posed no particular problem. Tasting different wines to find the one he liked, though, had never been his way of doing things. He was certainly not willing to endure the boredom of another Season in London just to see who was on the marriage market. Indeed, he had specific tastes, and that was why it was easy for him to narrow his search.

  His wife would be someone that he knew. Perhaps someone who had carried a torch for him for most of her life. Someone with a reasonable income and from roughly the same station in life. Attractiveness was an asset, of course, and so was a sense of humor. A calm, patient temperament was a must, naturally, and a…

  David jumped to his feet when he saw Gwyneth’s feet emerge from her window. So he wasn’t going to get everything he searched for in a wife, but he was close.

  He stepped out of the stables and watched her slither out, her legs and then her shapely bottom, followed by her back and shoulders. Suddenly, she was hanging by the tips of her fingers from the window and looking around somewhat desperately.

  Good, he thought, watching her with mild surprise as she reached out and successfully grasped the next window sill. As her body swung over, though, she didn’t have the strength to get a firm hold with her other hand. She was obviously going no farther. He quietly moved across the stable yard to the alleyway.

  “Need help?” he called up to her.

  She gasped in shock, twisted around slightly, and her fingers lost their remaining grip. He took a step forward just as she fell into his arms.

  She didn’t stay there for more than a second, squirming and pushing at him. And her immediate squawk of protest was loud enough to awaken every person in Northampton. He put her down but held her tightly.

  “You…vile…suffocating…beast of a…”

  She turned in his arms and punched him repeatedly in the chest. When she aimed her fists at his face, he managed to get hold of her wrists.

  “You locked me in that room…without food or water.” She kicked him in the shin, though the blow was largely ineffective against his boot. She tore one wrist free. “And you call yourself a friend? I am going to kill you.”

  Her next blow caught him on the ear. In an act of self-preservation, he tumbled both of them onto the pile of straw next to the building. After receiving a sharp knee to the vicinity of his groin, he somehow trapped what had to be her dozen limbs under his body.

  “Let me go, you beast. You’re crushing me. What kind of gentleman are you? I am going to murder you with an ax. I am going to strike you between the eyes and fell you like a decrepit old bull.”

  David couldn’t stop the laughter from bursting forth. Yanking her hands above her head and holding them there, he looked down at her flushed face. “You know how to use an ax?”

  “Just give me one, and I’ll show you,” she said threateningly, twisting under him and churning up the straw and sinking them both deeper into it.

  “I shouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he whispered, holding both of her hands with one of his and reaching down to remove some of the straw out of her hair. The silken ringlets curled caressingly around his fingers.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t murder you.” She moved again, stretching, trying to free herself. “I don’t even need an ax. A knife will do, too. Even a fork. I am not picky. I’ll be very creative. I could cut out your stony heart with a spoon. But I shall make certain that you feel every bit of the pain.”

  “No doubt.” He stared at her mouth, and his thumb gently traced her bottom lip. “Now I remember. I remember last night.”

  “And such a grand memory, to be s
ure. You and a group of your fellow rogues being so loud and obnoxious that the Lord Mayor of London himself was probably ready to send in his men.” She moved her head, trying to rid herself of his touch. “If I were you, I would be trying to forget it.”

  “I remember what happened in your room after the innkeeper left us.”

  She went completely still. David touched her fevered cheeks with the backs of his fingers. She was so soft, so beautiful. He looked into her eyes. Even in the darkness of the alley, her gaze was bright and alert.

  “I kissed you…and you kissed me back.”

  It seemed he couldn’t stop touching her. The tips of his fingers lightly caressed her furrowed brow, the ridge of her nose. He touched her lips again. She didn’t appear to be breathing. A good sign.

  She finally shook off his touch, turning her face away for a moment. “You had too much to drink last night. You mistook me for someone else.”

  He smiled down at her. “I’m sober now.”

  He brushed her lips with his own for a taste. She didn’t fight him. His hold on her hands loosened, and he bent his head and kissed her again, this time delving a little deeper. A soft moan escaped her throat, and her lips opened up beneath his.

  David took what she offered. He kissed her deeply, and she responded hesitantly at first. Then gradually she became bolder as he encouraged her with his lips and tongue. Her arms encircled his neck. Her breasts pressed softly against his chest. That small noise she made in the back of her throat was the most erotic sound, and his body became hard. He threaded his fingers into her hair and pulled back.

  Both of them were breathless. David willed himself to think of something else—anything but the perfect fit of his body between her legs, anything but how exquisitely her breast would fit in the palm of his hand, anything but how much he wanted to tear away the clothes that separated them.