My Daring Duchess Page 15

  Simon nodded his acceptance with a smile. “And I owe ye thanks.”

  “Thanks?” Anne and her grandfather said in unison.

  Simon looked at Anne, and the love she saw in his eyes made her heart squeeze. “Ye have cared for this daring woman beside me,” he said, “and I hope she will soon agree to be my duchess.”

  Anne smiled, liking the image of them that appeared in her mind. “Your daring duchess,” she murmured to Simon, ignoring Mary’s wailing, which now filled the room. “I love the way that sounds.”

  “As do I,” Simon said, “as do I.”

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  Anne lay at one end of the bed while Simon reclined against the other. She looked up from the book she was reading when her husband’s work papers brushed her foot. Her breath caught in her chest at the sight of Simon in nothing more than leather breeches, which he had donned to go in search of the documents that Perceval had forgotten to put on the breakfast tray. The sculpted muscles of Simon’s chest made Anne’s stomach tighten with memories of the passion and the undying love she had found in his arms. The look of possession and hunger her husband gave her told her he was recalling the moments they had spent locked in each other’s embrace, as well.

  Simon grinned, looking rather like a wolf about to pounce on his prey, and he reached toward her, plucked her book from her hands, and took hold of the ankle of her shorter leg.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, as he pressed kisses from her toes all the way up to her thigh.

  He paused in his ministrations and arched his eyebrows. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  She shook her head, repressing the urge to moan as he trailed his fingers over the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.

  “Well, my duchess,” he said, as he’d taken to calling her, “I am seducing ye as I vowed to do every day for the rest of our lives.”

  She groaned with pleasure, recalling the whispered promise he had made in her ear on their wedding day. “We will never leave this bedchamber if each morning starts this way,” she said with a giggle as she squirmed to her back to give him better access to her leg.

  He laughed and trailed his kisses even higher. “Somehow, I do not get the impression ye mind so very much.”

  “Not at all,” she said, breathlessly, as he suddenly loomed over her. She slid her hands over his warm skin, marveling at the strength under her fingertips. “You are a most scandalous rogue, but it is my duty as your wife to grant your every wish.” She grinned, feeling deliciously wicked.

  “I wish for ye to give me five children,” he pronounced, kissing her.

  When he drew away, she caught his hand and placed it on her belly. “As usual, my duke, I am one step ahead of you.”

  His eyes grew wide. “My God, Anne. I could not love ye more.”

  “We shall see about that,” she teased, determined to prove her former rake of a husband wrong.

  Dear Readers,

  I hope you enjoyed this book. I invite you to try the first chapter of When a Laird Loves a Lady, Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts, Book 1.

  One

  England, 1357

  Faking her death would be simple. It was escaping her home that would be difficult. Marion de Lacy stared hard into the slowly darkening sky, thinking about the plan she intended to put into action tomorrow—if all went well—but growing uneasiness tightened her belly. From where she stood in the bailey, she counted the guards up in the tower. It was not her imagination: Father had tripled the knights keeping guard at all times, as if he was expecting trouble.

  Taking a deep breath of the damp air, she pulled her mother’s cloak tighter around her to ward off the twilight chill. A lump lodged in her throat as the wool scratched her neck. In the many years since her mother had been gone, Marion had both hated and loved this cloak for the death and life it represented. Her mother’s freesia scent had long since faded from the garment, yet simply calling up a memory of her mother wearing it gave Marion comfort.

  She rubbed her fingers against the rough material. When she fled, she couldn’t chance taking anything with her but the clothes on her body and this cloak. Her death had to appear accidental, and the cloak that everyone knew she prized would ensure her freedom. Finding it tangled in the branches at the edge of the sea cliff ought to be just the thing to convince her father and William Froste that she’d drowned. After all, neither man thought she could swim. They didn’t truly care about her anyway. Her marriage to the blackhearted knight was only about what her hand could give the two men. Her father, Baron de Lacy, wanted more power, and Froste wanted her family’s prized land. A match made in Heaven, if only the match didn’t involve her…but it did.

  Father would set the hounds of Hell themselves to track her down if he had the slightest suspicion that she was still alive. She was an inestimable possession to be given to secure Froste’s unwavering allegiance and, therefore, that of the renowned ferocious knights who served him. Whatever small sliver of hope she had that her father would grant her mercy and not marry her to Froste had been destroyed by the lashing she’d received when she’d pleaded for him to do so.

  The moon crested above the watchtower, reminding her why she was out here so close to mealtime: to meet Angus. The Scotsman may have been her father’s stable master, but he was her ally, and when he’d proposed she flee England for Scotland, she’d readily consented.

  Marion looked to the west, the direction from which Angus would return from Newcastle. He should be back any minute now from meeting his cousin and clansman Neil, who was to escort her to Scotland. She prayed all was set and that Angus’s kin was ready to depart. With her wedding to Froste to take place in six days, she wanted to be far away before there was even the slightest chance he’d be making his way here. And since he was set to arrive the night before the wedding, leaving tomorrow promised she’d not encounter him.

  A sense of urgency enveloped her, and Marion forced herself to stroll across the bailey toward the gatehouse that led to the tunnel preceding the drawbridge. She couldn’t risk raising suspicion from the tower guards. At the gatehouse, she nodded to Albert, one of the knights who operated the drawbridge mechanism. He was young and rarely questioned her excursions to pick flowers or find herbs.

  “Off to get some medicine?” he inquired.

  “Yes,” she lied with a smile and a little pang of guilt. But this was survival, she reminded herself as she entered the tunnel. When she exited the heavy wooden door that led to freedom, she wasn’t surprised to find Peter and Andrew not yet up in the twin towers that flanked the entrance to the drawbridge. It was, after all, time for the changing of the guard.

  They smiled at her as they put on their helmets and demi-gauntlets. They were an imposing presence to any who crossed the drawbridge and dared to approach the castle gate. Both men were tall and looked particularly daunting in their full armor, which Father insisted upon at all times. The men were certainly a fortress in their own right.

  She nodded to them. “I’ll not be long. I want to gather some more flowers for the supper table.” Her voice didn’t even wobble with the lie.

  Peter grinned at her, his kind brown eyes crinkling at the edges. “Will you pick me one of those pale winter flowers for my wife again, Marion?”

  She returned his smile. “It took away her anger as I said it would, didn’t it?”

  “It did,” he replied. “You always know just how to help with her.”

  “I’ll get a pink one if I can find it. The colors are becoming scarcer as the weather cools.”

  Andrew, the younger of the two knights, smiled, displaying a set of straight teeth. He held up his covered arm. “My cut is almost healed.”

  Marion nodded. “I told you! Now maybe you’ll listen to me sooner next time you’re wounded in training.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “I will. Should I put more of your paste on tonight?”

  “Yes, keep using it. I’ll have to gather some more yarrow, if I
can find any, and mix up another batch of the medicine for you.” And she’d have to do it before she escaped. “I better get going if I’m going to find those things.” She knew she should not have agreed to search for the flowers and offered to find the yarrow when she still had to speak to Angus and return to the castle in time for supper, but both men had been kind to her when many had not. It was her way of thanking them.

  After Peter lowered the bridge and opened the door, she departed the castle grounds, considering her plan once more. Had she forgotten anything? She didn’t think so. She was simply going to walk straight out of her father’s castle and never come back. Tomorrow, she’d announce she was going out to collect more winter blooms, and then, instead, she would go down to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. She would slip off her cloak and leave it for a search party to find. Her breath caught deep in her chest at the simple yet dangerous plot. The last detail to see to was Angus.

  She stared down the long dirt path that led to the sea and stilled, listening for hoofbeats. A slight vibration of the ground tingled her feet, and her heart sped in hopeful anticipation that it was Angus coming down the dirt road on his horse. When the crafty stable master appeared with a grin spread across his face, the worry that was squeezing her heart loosened. For the first time since he had ridden out that morning, she took a proper breath. He stopped his stallion alongside her and dismounted.

  She tilted her head back to look up at him as he towered over her. An errant thought struck. “Angus, are all Scots as tall as you?”

  “Nay, but ye ken Scots are bigger than all the wee Englishmen.” Suppressed laughter filled his deep voice. “So even the ones nae as tall as me are giants compared te the scrawny men here.”

  “You’re teasing me,” she replied, even as she arched her eyebrows in uncertainty.

  “A wee bit,” he agreed and tousled her hair. The laughter vanished from his eyes as he rubbed a hand over his square jaw and then stared down his bumpy nose at her, fixing what he called his “lecturing look” on her. “We’ve nae much time. Neil is in Newcastle just as he’s supposed te be, but there’s been a slight change.”

  She frowned. “For the last month, every time I wanted to simply make haste and flee, you refused my suggestion, and now you say there’s a slight change?”

  His ruddy complexion darkened. She’d pricked that MacLeod temper her mother had always said Angus’s clan was known for throughout the Isle of Skye, where they lived in the farthest reaches of Scotland. Marion could remember her mother chuckling and teasing Angus about how no one knew the MacLeod temperament better than their neighboring clan, the MacDonalds of Sleat, to which her mother had been born. The two clans had a history of feuding.

  Angus cleared his throat and recaptured Marion’s attention. Without warning, his hand closed over her shoulder, and he squeezed gently. “I’m sorry te say it so plain, but ye must die at once.”

  Her eyes widened as dread settled in the pit of her stomach. “What? Why?” The sudden fear she felt was unreasonable. She knew he didn’t mean she was really going to die, but her palms were sweating and her lungs had tightened all the same. She sucked in air and wiped her damp hands down the length of her cotton skirts. Suddenly, the idea of going to a foreign land and living with her mother’s clan, people she’d never met, made her apprehensive.

  She didn’t even know if the MacDonalds—her uncle, in particular, who was now the laird—would accept her or not. She was half-English, after all, and Angus had told her that when a Scot considered her English bloodline and the fact that she’d been raised there, they would most likely brand her fully English, which was not a good thing in a Scottish mind. And if her uncle was anything like her grandfather had been, the man was not going to be very reasonable. But she didn’t have any other family to turn to who would dare defy her father, and Angus hadn’t offered for her to go to his clan, so she’d not asked. He likely didn’t want to bring trouble to his clan’s doorstep, and she didn’t blame him.

  Panic bubbled inside her. She needed more time, even if it was only the day she’d thought she had, to gather her courage.

  “Why must I flee tonight? I was to teach Eustice how to dress a wound. She might serve as a maid, but then she will be able to help the knights when I’m gone. And her little brother, Bernard, needs a few more lessons before he’s mastered writing his name and reading. And Eustice’s youngest sister has begged me to speak to Father about allowing her to visit her mother next week.”

  “Ye kinnae watch out for everyone here anymore, Marion.”

  She placed her hand over his on her shoulder. “Neither can you.”

  Their gazes locked in understanding and disagreement.

  He slipped his hand from her shoulder, and then crossed his arms over his chest in a gesture that screamed stubborn, unyielding protector. “If I leave at the same time ye feign yer death,” he said, changing the subject, “it could stir yer father’s suspicion and make him ask questions when none need te be asked. I’ll be going home te Scotland soon after ye.” Angus reached into a satchel attached to his horse and pulled out a dagger, which he slipped to her. “I had this made for ye.”

  Marion took the weapon and turned it over, her heart pounding. “It’s beautiful.” She held it by its black handle while withdrawing it from the sheath and examining it. “It’s much sharper than the one I have.”

  “Aye,” he said grimly. “It is. Dunnae forget that just because I taught ye te wield a dagger does nae mean ye can defend yerself from all harm. Listen te my cousin and do as he says. Follow his lead.”

  She gave a tight nod. “I will. But why must I leave now and not tomorrow?”

  Concern filled Angus’s eyes. “Because I ran into Froste’s brother in town and he told me that Froste sent word that he would be arriving in two days.”

  Marion gasped. “That’s earlier than expected.”

  “Aye,” Angus said and took her arm with gentle authority. “So ye must go now. I’d rather be trying te trick only yer father than yer father, Froste, and his savage knights. I want ye long gone and yer death accepted when Froste arrives.”

  She shivered as her mind began to race with all that could go wrong.

  “I see the worry darkening yer green eyes,” Angus said, interrupting her thoughts. He whipped off his hat and his hair, still shockingly red in spite of his years, fell down around his shoulders. He only ever wore it that way when he was riding. He said the wind in his hair reminded him of riding his own horse when he was in Scotland. “I was going to talk to ye tonight, but now that I kinnae…” He shifted from foot to foot, as if uncomfortable. “I want te offer ye something. I’d have proposed it sooner, but I did nae want ye te feel ye had te take my offer so as nae te hurt me, but I kinnae hold my tongue, even so.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What is it?”

  “I’d be proud if ye wanted te stay with the MacLeod clan instead of going te the MacDonalds. Then ye’d nae have te leave everyone ye ken behind. Ye’d have me.”

  A surge of relief filled her. She threw her arms around Angus, and he returned her hug quick and hard before setting her away. Her eyes misted at once. “I had hoped you would ask me,” she admitted.

  For a moment, he looked astonished, but then he spoke. “Yer mother risked her life te come into MacLeod territory at a time when we were fighting terrible with the MacDonalds, as ye well ken.”

  Marion nodded. She knew the story of how Angus had ended up here. He’d told her many times. Her mother had been somewhat of a renowned healer from a young age, and when Angus’s wife had a hard birthing, her mother had gone to help. The knowledge that his wife and child had died anyway still made Marion want to cry.

  “I pledged my life te keep yer mother safe for the kindness she’d done me, which brought me here, but, lass, long ago ye became like a daughter te me, and I pledge the rest of my miserable life te defending ye.”

  She gripped Angus’s hand. “I wish you were my father.”

&
nbsp; He gave her a proud yet smug look, one she was used to seeing. She chortled to herself. The man did have a terrible streak of pride. She’d have to give Father John another coin for penance for Angus, since the Scot refused to take up the custom himself.

  Angus hooked his thumb in his gray tunic. “Ye’ll make a fine MacLeod because ye already ken we’re the best clan in Scotland.”

  Mentally, she added another coin to her dues. “Do you think they’ll let me become a MacLeod, though, since my mother was the daughter of the previous MacDonald laird and I’ve an English father?”

  “They will,” he answered without hesitation, but she heard the slight catch in his voice.

  “Angus.” She narrowed her eyes. “You said you would never lie to me.”

  His brows dipped together, and he gave her a long, disgruntled look. “They may be a bit wary,” he finally admitted. “But I’ll nae let them turn ye away. Dunnae worry,” he finished, his Scottish brogue becoming thick with emotion.

  She bit her lip. “Yes, but you won’t be with me when I first get there. What should I do to make certain that they will let me stay?”

  He quirked his mouth as he considered her question. “Ye must first get the laird te like ye. Tell Neil te take ye directly te the MacLeod te get his consent for ye te live there. I kinnae vouch for the man myself as I’ve never met him, but Neil says he’s verra honorable, fierce in battle, patient, and reasonable.” Angus cocked his head as if in thought. “Now that I think about it, I’m sure the MacLeod can get ye a husband, and then the clan will more readily accept ye. Aye.” He nodded. “Get in the laird’s good graces as soon as ye meet him and ask him te find ye a husband.” A scowl twisted his lips. “Preferably one who will accept yer acting like a man sometimes.”

  She frowned at him. “You are the one who taught me how to ride bareback, wield a dagger, and shoot an arrow true.”