Highland Temptation Read online

  Colin kept silent for the most part, trying to be polite with her when she spoke, but he was so disgusted with himself, he could hardly force words out.

  What had he been thinking, insisting upon taking her north? He was a fool. Stupid. Mad. She’d be far better off with one of the other Knights. He would have sent a letter to London already asking for one of them to take over, but he’d promised her he wouldn’t.

  He slid her a glance. She had taken out her art supplies, and her rapt focus switched back and forth between the scenery and the pad of paper she drew on.

  She was like no woman he’d ever known. Raised a sheltered English viscount’s daughter, she nevertheless didn’t behave like a spoiled princess. She faced this journey with a lust for adventure he admired and hadn’t once complained of boredom or discomfort, though her wounds surely must pain her sometimes. She reminded him of a caged lioness, her innate fierceness and strength muted by years of abuse. As the days progressed, he was seeing the emergence of those traits. He loved it.

  He thought of her last night, how fiercely she’d stood beside him even as his own weakness had appalled him. She had been magnificent. Somehow, her strength had seeped into him, bringing him back from the precipice he found himself hovering on far too often these days. Then she’d coaxed him to come to bed with her, and he had, sleeping like a wee babe for the remainder of the night, her arms protectively wrapped around him.

  Hell, he was here to protect her, but it seemed she’d done a better job of protecting him.

  A smile tugged at his lips as he gazed upon the muddy road. Despite the wetness, they had made good time, and would probably cross the border of Scotland sometime tomorrow. If the weather and roads cooperated, they’d be spending tomorrow night in Edinburgh. From there, it would be another three days of travel, depending on the weather, but at least they’d be in Scotland.

  “I’m ready,” she suddenly said.

  After such a long silence, her words jolted him, and he glanced at her to see that she’d laid her drawing aside. “What do you mean, lass?”

  She didn’t look at him, just sat straight and tall, staring ahead. “Ready to tell you more.” She swallowed. “About my father. About what happened.”

  Ah. His gaze flicked from the road to Emilia and back again. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “All right, then.” He waited.

  Another long silence, the rattle of the carriage’s wheels over the uneven road punctuated by splashes and sucking sounds as they drove through spots of deeper mud.

  “My father is the mastermind of a plot against the monarchy,” she finally said, her voice reed-thin.

  He clenched his jaw. This was what the most cynical part of him had suspected. He glanced at her, but she’d already begun speaking again.

  “He has been inciting high-ranking members of the government against the royal family. Spreading rumors that the Regent is unworthy of the throne, that the Hanovers need to be deposed for the good of the kingdom. He intends to take action sometime this summer, when the Regent and his brothers will be in London.”

  “What does he plan to do?” Colin’s voice sounded as tight and thin as hers.

  She swallowed hard—he could see her throat move roughly before she spoke again. “He’s hired assassins to kill the heirs of George III. And since the king himself is too mad to rule, he depends on the sensibility of the British populace to bring the Hanover line to an end and hence Britain back to glory.”

  Colin ground his teeth. “Is there anyone else involved?”

  She nodded, and when he glanced at her this time, he saw tears glistening in her eyes. “I know all of them. My father is the leader, but they have pledged to support him. Lord Chalmsworth. Lord Mountebank. Sir Benedict Fawkes…”

  More names of high-ranking noblemen and prominent statesmen poured from her lips without hesitation, a long list, and he wondered at this. Did she simply have an excellent memory or had she spent so much time thinking and worrying about it that all the names were branded forever in her memory?

  “All right,” he said quietly when she had finished. “I must inform the Knights.”

  “I know.” She twisted her hands in her lap.

  “In the next village with a posting inn, we’ll stop and write a letter.”

  “Yes.”

  She was blinking hard now, trying to control the flow of tears, he realized. He laid his hand on her arm. “Everything will be fine, lass. We’ll stop them.”

  “I know you will,” she said, but that didn’t appear to placate her. He knew why, of course. This was her father’s plot, and her father, if caught and found to be guilty, would hang as a traitor.

  “I know everything,” she whispered. “Meeting times and places. The names of the assassins they’ve hired. The plan to spread their propaganda.”

  “I believe that part of their plan has already begun,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yes. My father began the rumors, subtly, last autumn. They’ve been controlling how they disseminate the information, but now they’re trying to reach a broader audience.”

  “Is there written evidence that can prove these activities?”

  She chewed on her lower lip. “That was what I originally discovered. I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that my father was involved in…something terrible.” Colin nodded—he’d had those pit-of-the-stomach feelings countless times, and they almost always proved correct. “I started studying his files and reading his correspondence, late at night when the household was asleep. When they hinted at all this, I studied all of it until I could put the puzzle together.”

  “And he caught you looking through his papers?”

  She nodded. “The night that I came to your house. He was in bed, but perhaps he couldn’t sleep, or perhaps he sensed something was awry. In any case, he came down to his study. I’d picked the lock to his drawer, and found the offer he and the others had made to the assassins. A thousand pounds and safe passage out of England to be given for each murder after the deed is done. My father and his associates have hired several men, to ensure it’s done properly, and they have made it into a competition. The first to properly kill each prince receives the reward.”

  Colin nodded. “What happened when he found you?”

  “I’ve never seen him so angry. He is no fool, and he understood right away that I knew everything. He locked the door and beat me.” She swallowed. “He keeps the cat-o’-nine-tails in his study for this purpose,” she whispered. “As…as he was beating me, he said if I ever revealed anything of the plot to anyone, that would prove what kind of daughter I was, and he’d kill me.”

  Jesus. Colin clenched the reins in his fists, his bluntly cut nails digging into his palms as hot rage settled over him. He would kill Pinfield. He’d tear the man’s fat limbs off, one by one.

  “I wilna let him touch you,” he said, trying and failing to hide the depth of his anger.

  She smiled sadly at him but continued, “When he finally stopped beating me, he sent me to my room. I waited for him to come upstairs, then, when all was quiet again in the house, I went back down. The fire had been going in his study and the documents were no longer where I’d originally found them. So it’s possible he burned all of it.”

  Colin nodded. “It doesna matter,” he said. “One of his accomplices will reveal everything.”

  Emilia closed her eyes. “He was right,” she said so quietly Colin had to lean closer to hear.

  “About what?”

  “I’m a terrible daughter. A traitor.”

  Chapter 11

  They stopped in the next post town to change horses and took a table inside a tavern, where they were served a luncheon of bread, cheese, and sausages while Colin composed his letter to the Knights.

  Emilia felt too shaky to draw, and she couldn’t eat. Her stomach was twisted into ten thousand knots. She hadn’t yet told Colin everything she knew, but she’d given him the most crucial informa
tion. She’d offer him the rest without hesitation when he asked for it.

  She felt like she was going to vomit. “Can you tell me names of the other accomplices again?” he asked her from across the table, looking up from his letter, the writing of which was painstakingly slow, given that he was writing it in code. “Chalmsworth, Mountebank, Fawkes. Who else?”

  She listed them, her voice quiet and flat. He sighed when she said “Lord Merrington,” the last name on the list, no doubt remembering their adventure to Vauxhall last year. She and her father, Lord and Lady Merrington, and their ten children had all gone to Vauxhall together to enjoy the music and fireworks. The night had started off pleasantly but that had come to an abrupt end when Colin’s brother Knight, Sir Ewan Ross, had been attacked, and the Knights had rushed Emilia and her father home.

  Merrington had been a constant in Emilia’s life since she was a small girl, and she counted several of his ten children among her few friends. She’d spent much of her life assuming she’d marry one of his sons, though neither her father nor Merrington or the boys had ever mentioned it as a possibility.

  Well, it certainly wouldn’t happen now.

  Anyone not in league with her father would tell her that she’d done the right thing. From the beginning, she’d known deep in her heart that she’d have to reveal her father’s intentions. There was no way she could allow him and his friends to murder all the Hanoverian heirs. There was no way she could be a willing party to treason of that magnitude.

  Still, she was faithless. Untrustworthy. A bad, bad daughter. After enduring so many years of her father accusing her of being a terrible daughter, she’d finally proven him correct.

  Suddenly, Colin’s hand closed over hers where it lay squeezed into a tight fist upon the table. “Emilia.” His voice was soft.

  She gazed into his solid amber eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

  Trying to smile, she nodded. But how can that be? she wanted to argue. How could it be all right? Her life as she’d always known it was over. Never again would she live with her father in their London house. And without that place to anchor her, where could she go? Where did she belong? Soon all of London society would know that she’d betrayed the Viscount Pinfield. That the Viscount Pinfield, her father, was a traitor. She’d be forever tainted by the stain of his treachery. The truth was, she’d be a pariah for the rest of her life. There was no way around it.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. He squeezed her hand then let go to continue writing. She watched him, not touching the food or the drawing pencils she’d brought in with her, for the next quarter of an hour.

  “It’s done,” he finally said.

  She struggled to breathe—her chest crushed under the weight of an elephant’s foot.

  “The mail coach headed for London arrives at ten after four this afternoon,” he said. “That means the letter will arrive in London about thirty-six hours later.”

  “So fast,” she murmured. The mail coach would be traveling much faster than they had. But then, the mail drove on through the night, every night, stopping only to change horses and collect or deliver the mail—although oftentimes “stopping” simply meant slowing down enough to throw the mailbag into the inn’s doorway and then catching the bag of outgoing mail when it was tossed from a window.

  “Aye.” He held her gaze steadily. “By the time we reach our destination, it might already be over.”

  Over. Meaning her father and his accomplices would all be imprisoned and awaiting their trials for treason. She shuddered.

  Colin spoke to a boy about readying their carriage and ensuring the letter was mailed safely, then pressed a coin into the lad’s hand along with the folded missive addressed to Major Campbell. Finally, he turned back to her and frowned at her untouched plate of food. “Have you eaten enough, lass?”

  “I’m not very hungry,” she managed.

  His lips tightened, then he turned to direct one of the hovering serving girls to bundle the rest of the food so they could eat it later. After the girl left, he turned back to Emilia. “I’d sit here and hand-feed you if I could. You need your strength. But we also need to be on the road. Since that woman recognized you last night, I dinna wish to take any chances.”

  She nodded, and a few moments later the maid returned with their luncheon, now wrapped in a clean linen cloth and tied with a bit of twine. “Thank you,” Emilia murmured, taking the package.

  “Your carriage is ready, sir,” the boy said, rushing toward them from the entrance.

  “Well done, lad.” Colin took her arm in his and led her out to the circular drive at the front of the inn, where their phaeton already awaited them, a pair of fresh horses hitched to it. In moments the town was behind them, and they were back in the countryside.

  Emilia could so easily allow herself to melt into a complex soup of self-loathing and fear, but she desperately wanted to avoid that. The truth was, for the first time in her life, she was truly free. She didn’t yet know what to do with her freedom, but freedom was precious and highly sought after for any young lady of the ton. She shouldn’t squander it.

  Once again, she took out her pencil and paper and a square board to work upon, and began to draw, soon becoming engrossed in the task, her gaze flicking between her paper and the fields of endlessly rolling green, punctuated now and then by pale yellow bales of hay and dotted by the occasional flock of sheep.

  Beside her, Colin was a quiet, steady presence, and she was glad for that. She didn’t know how she could possibly talk to him right now and sound like a sensible, rational human being.

  Hours passed, and it was near dusk when Colin shifted beside her. “You havna eaten your luncheon yet, Emilia.”

  She looked up at him, blinking her eyes as if emerging from a long sleep. “I forgot,” she admitted, and her stomach growled, perhaps in annoyance at her lack of concern for it. Emilia returned her attention to her drawing, tilting her head to study it.

  Colin made a whistling sound through his teeth. She slid him a glance to see his gaze on her drawing. “You’re talented. You didna tell me you were so skilled.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the paper. One of the problems with her drawings was that she could always see the flaws in her work, never the beauty. She threw most of her drawings away because of that. But now, even though the flaws of this one laughed at her from the sheet and her fingers itched to grab the paper and crush it in her fist, she didn’t.

  Holding both reins in one hand, he reached over and touched one of the sheep she’d drawn. “A black-faced lamb.”

  “Yes, we passed one a while back. It was with its flock near the road. Did you see it?”

  He shook his head. “Nay. I saw the flock. They were a baying and restless bunch.”

  She smiled. “That was them.”

  Glancing up at the dark sky, he said, “It means rain.”

  “What means rain?”

  “The behavior of those sheep.”

  “Really? Sheep can now predict the weather?”

  “Mayhap.” He shrugged. “ ’Tis one of the superstitions I learned as a lad. Another was that of the black-faced lamb.”

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Black-faced lambs bring good luck.”

  “Do they?”

  “Aye. And since you drew one, I’d wager that means we’ll be doubly lucky.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  “You may disagree, being English, but I’ve found that much Scottish superstition has a basis in truth.”

  “I’m not very familiar with Scottish superstition, so I couldn’t say I have an opinion one way or the other.”

  He nodded, a corner of his lips tilting up in a smile. “I’m sure you’ll hear your share of superstition in the next few days.”

  “Please teach me about your superstitions. I’d like that.”

  “Oh, aye? Even the stories of the monsters that lurk in the lochs and the moors?”

  “Y
es.” She gave him a dry look. “I’m not easily frightened.”

  He chuckled softly. “Aye, I’ve learnt that. You’re a brave wee lassie.”

  Heat flushed over her cheekbones at the sweet compliment. No one had ever called her brave before.

  He nodded. “I will, then. I’ll be telling you all the stories of the sidhe and brownies and kelpies that my sisters told me to scare me at night.”

  “Oh yes, please do.” A part of her wondered whether the stories of monsters his sisters had told him had given even more life to his demons.

  “But this…” He touched the black-faced lamb in her drawing. “…’tis good luck. I’m sure of it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “And you’ve a fine eye for drawing, lass.”

  “Thank you.” She set the paper and the wood board beside her and unwrapped the linen bundle of food and began to eat small pieces of bread and sausage.

  “I thought we’d continue on a bit longer tonight,” he said.

  “All right.” It made sense. The horses were still fairly fresh, the clouds threatening rain had not delivered, and the puddles from yesterday had begun to dry.

  At dusk they stopped for a few minutes to relieve their bladders and light the lanterns on both sides of the carriage. They continued on at a slower pace as the light disappeared and pinpricks of stars began to glow in the small clearings between the clouds.

  As the sun disappeared, so did any semblance of warmth, and Emilia tucked herself up against Colin’s body and covered them both with plaids.

  “Colin?”

  “Hmm?”

  She hesitated, chewing on her lip. Then she whispered, “I want to learn about your superstitions, about your fairies and your monsters, but first…will you tell me about your demons?”

  His body gave a small jolt then instantly grew tense. “Why?” The word was a mere crackle.

  Emilia kept her breaths even. “One should know one’s enemy, don’t you think?”

  “ ’Tis my concern, Emilia. Not yours.”

  A part of her tried to wither at the harshness of his words, but she wouldn’t let it. “I said I’d help you. I meant it.”