Chapter 7 #2
“You’re wrong,” she said woodenly. “I didn’t come here on a flight of fancy, I came because I love you and don’t want to see you hurt. I’m sorry my presence so displeases you, but I can assure you I’m in no danger—I brought half-a-dozen guardsmen with me.”
“No danger?” He could barely contain the fury in his voice. “Do you realize that there are almost fifteen thousand men camped not three miles from here, poised to do battle?” He shuddered to think what she’d told her guardsmen to get them to bring her here.
She drew her brows together over her nose, looking up at him uncertainly. “Strathbogie is still a day’s ride—”
“Huntly is no longer at Strathbogie, he’s at Auchindoun.”
She paled, then chewed on her lip. A surge of heavy heat rushed to his groin and he had to force his gaze away.
As always, the intensity of the desire he felt for her was getting in the way, and he didn’t like it.
The lack of control bothered the hell out of him.
He’d never felt like this. Ever. Nor had he expected to.
But love had hit him like Thor’s thunderbolt.
Would there ever come a time when he could think rationally around her?
“Oh,” she said softly.
“Oh?” he repeated, his voice booming. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
His words had the opposite effect than he’d intended. Her cheeks splotched with angry red. “I do not answer to you, Duncan Campbell.”
He grabbed her wrist before she could poke his chest and looked down into her flashing eyes. “You will,” he said through clenched teeth. “Once you are my wife, you will damn well answer to me.”
She gave him a pitying look, as if he was quite deluded in that respect, and wrenched her hand free. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”
His eyes narrowed. For the first time he noticed the genuine turmoil in her expression.
Whatever had brought her here was significant enough to be causing her grave distress.
His anger cooled perhaps a degree or two.
Standing, he dragged his fingers through his hair and pushed it back from where it slumped across his face, trying to uncoil the emotions twisting inside him since he’d received her note.
He sighed with exaggerated patience. “Why are you here, Jeannie?”
She stood and turned toward the window, her back rod straight and hands fluttering fretfully at her narrow waist. “We need to leave together now. In a few days it will be too late.”
Her vague response did nothing to keep his temper in check.
He fought the spike of impatience and managed to mask his frustration behind an even tone.
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m in the middle of fighting a war.
I don’t have time for puzzles, Jeannie. Explain why you are here, and then you can turn right around and go back home. ”
She turned to face him, her eyes softly pleading.
“There is something …” She seemed to catch herself and took another uneven breath.
“A feeling of disaster that I cannot shake.” She placed her hand on his chest and leaned toward him pleadingly.
“If we don’t leave now I fear we will never be able to.
We will never marry. If there is to be any chance for us, we must go now. Tonight.”
His jaw clenched. “And that is why you are here?” He paused. He couldn’t believe she would act so precipitously. But that’s exactly who she is. Blood pounded through his veins, clamoring for release. “A feeling?”
Her eyes scanned his face, shimmering with tears. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“Based on what? A bad feeling? I do trust you, but what you ask is impossible. I will come for you as we planned in a few days—”
“Don’t you see,” she cried wildly. “By then it will be too late. We must go now!”
Her fear seemed so intense it bordered on irrational. “Is there something else, Jeannie? Some other reason—”
“No,” she cut him off, shaking her head adamantly.
Too adamantly. He studied her for a moment. Part of him wondered if she was hiding something …
Nay. He recalled how scared she was when he left. This was nothing more than a young girl’s fears of war talking. He thought she’d understood how important this was to him, but obviously she hadn’t. He was not a man to be led around by leading strings.
He unlaced her hands from around his neck and set her purposefully away from him. “Return home and I’ll come for you when the battle is over.”
“No, you have to listen to me.” Her hand clenched his arm, squeezing. “Something terrible is going to happen. I don’t want you in the middle of it.” Her voice had grown increasingly desperate. “Please, if you love me.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
Anger hardened inside him. Why was she doing this? Didn’t she know how hard it was for him to deny her anything? All he wanted was to make her happy. “I do love you. But what you are asking for is blind obedience not trust. If you have a reason beyond a ‘bad feeling,’ tell me now.”
She looked back at him, eyes wide and pained, and opened her mouth, but said nothing.
“Very well then.” The look on her face tore at his chest. He knew he had to get out of here. He strode toward the door. “At first light you will ride for Freuchie and await my arrival.” He gave her a long look, not immune to the fear in her eyes. “I will come for you, Jeannie. Of that I promise.”
I’ve failed.
Jeannie stared helplessly at his back, watched as he put his hand on the latch, taking in every heart-wrenching detail of the man who’d claimed her heart from the first moment she’d seen him, as if by doing so she could hold on to him forever.
Her eyes scanned the tall, powerful frame, the wide shoulders, narrow waist and long muscular legs, the big callused hands, and the silky black hair that curled at his neck.
He was a fortress of masculine strength—seemingly indestructible.
Seemingly, there was the rub. He might look like a rock, but he was flesh and blood.
Fear, panic, and desperation conspired in one final attempt to make him see what she could not explain: That if he left now, he might never return. “Duncan, wait, you can’t go. I …”
Dear God, what can I say? How could she make him understand without betraying her father and putting his life—and the lives of her clansmen—in danger?
The politics of who was right and who was wrong in the religious dispute between Huntly and the king meant nothing to her. All that mattered was that two men she loved were on opposite sides—how could she protect them both?
If she told Duncan what she’d learned, she knew him well enough to know that he would consider himself duty bound to inform his cousin of her father’s perfidy.
He could not stand aside and allow a wrong to go unchecked.
Betrayal such as her father intended to a man of integrity like Duncan would not be worthy of understanding or mercy.
Duncan would always do what was right and just, no matter the personal cost. She knew that about him.
But if she didn’t tell Duncan—or somehow stop him from leaving—her father’s treachery would put Duncan in grave physical danger.
No matter what she did, Jeannie knew all hope of their family being persuaded to make a match between them was gone.
It was the other match that worried her—the one her father had arranged to Francis Gordon and which she’d unwittingly agreed to.
She felt a twinge of guilt. Her father had invoked a powerful weapon: duty.
She wanted to be a good daughter and defying him would be extremely difficult.
She was caught in an impossible quandary, torn between two conflicting loyalties. Either way she lost.
Somehow she had to convince Duncan to heed her warning, but she had to be careful. He was too astute—he might guess what was happening if she said too much.
He looked back at her over his shoulder, his handsome face set hard against her with cold determination.
It was the way he looked at other people—not her. His ability to shut off his emotions so completely, so easily, unsettled her.
“I need to do this, Jeannie. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
Hard? What a prodigious understatement. He had no idea how this was tearing her apart.
She ran toward him and put her hand on his arm, tears of fear and frustration streaming in hot rivulets down her cheeks. She gazed up at him, imploring him with all the love in her heart. “Please, you can’t leave like this.”
He stood very still and didn’t say anything, but the edges of his mouth turned white. He was fighting something. Me, she realized. Denying her was hard for him. It was a small crack in an otherwise impenetrable facade. Gently, he unlatched her fingers from around his arm and turned away from her.
Her heart twisted with a fresh spike of panic. He’s going to leave. Stop him. Hold on to him. Not knowing what else to do, she flung herself against him, putting herself between him and the door.
She clung to his mail-clad chest, but he wouldn’t look at her.
His expression stony and unreadable, only the tick below his jaw betrayed his effort.
She couldn’t bear that he was holding himself apart like this.
“Please, don’t be angry with me,” she begged, tears choking her voice.
“I know you think I’m being silly and was foolish to have come here like this.
I can explain.” Her chest heaved as she fought to breathe between the sobs. “I’m just so scared.”
Perhaps it was the honesty of the emotion that finally penetrated, but suddenly his arms were around her and she felt the comforting security of being held against him. He stroked her hair and murmured soothingly, “I know, my love, I know. But have faith in me.”
I do. But I’ve no faith in treachery.