Chapter 31
Chapter 31
“You are far afield, Your Grace,” Dugan said. “Stirling Castle must not be to your liking these days.” ’Twas common knowledge that the duke kept his mistress there.
Of course Argyll’s men had seen Dugan coming from a long way off, and had sent guards with pistols to escort him to the duke.
Argyll looked up his long, pointed nose at him. “Laird MacMillan. I’d have thought you’d be at your own pile of rocks by now.”
“No need to rush home, Your Grace.”
“You seem to have a good deal of leisure time, MacMillan, when you ought to be seeing about raising funds to pay your rents.”
“Ah, but when the opportunity to grovel before my landlord presents itself, I take it, of course. Besides, I have some time before the payment must be made,” Dugan said with a grin of confidence that was likely premature. He didn’t have the French gold yet. But he could see about delaying Argyll from looking elsewhere for it.
“I might prefer to purchase my lands, Duke.”
Argyll barked out a laugh.
“I am quite serious.”
“You could not afford to pay—”
“What would it take? To buy my lands from you? Name your price.”
“Why, you insolent—”
“I am dead serious.”
“Ten thousand pounds!” Argyll bellowed, and the soldiers nearby turned to see what was amiss.
“Oh aye. I thought you would choose a bonny, round number,” Dugan said. ’Twas all such a gamble, and Dugan knew his cockiness could kick him in the arse. “Six thousand.”
“You are mad.”
“Mayhap. What say you?”
“Eight.”
“Make it seven and have your solicitor draw up the papers.”
“This is sheer idiocy.”
“Then I’ll have mine do it. Are we agreed?” Dugan asked. He extended his hand.
“Oh yes, we are agreed,” Argyll said with a mocking sneer. “Bring your rents—or the price of purchase—to me at Inverness on the appointed date. Or I will have you evicted within the week.”
Dugan felt oddly calm. Men like Argyll always won. But not this time. He felt it in his bones.
“Your men are hard at work. Digging, I see ...”
Argyll grabbed Dugan by the arm and ushered him farther from the site of all the digging. “ ’Tis none of your concern.”
“Whose land is this, anyway, Your Grace?”
“MacMil—”
“Is it Laird Grant’s? Er, no, I believe this is Chisholm territory,” Dugan said. “If I remember right, King Jamie’s French troops were given leave to make camp here during the rising of the clans two years ago.”
Dugan had the satisfaction of noticing a flush of color bloom on the duke’s cheeks. He’d succeeded quite nicely in riling the wee bastard.
“You mean the rebel uprising.” Argyll spat on the ground.
“Call it what you will, Duke.”
“Take your man and go, MacMillan,” he said. “You’ve no business here. And I ...” Argyll clamped his jaws tight.
“And you ... ?”
“Just go!”
It grew dark, and still Dugan did not return from wherever he’d gone. Maura’s restlessness did not abate, but her earlier fatigue returned. She had been asleep under the wagon for some time when she felt Dugan slide onto the fur bed and under the dry plaid next to her. He slipped his arm about her waist and pulled her into the curve of his body.
“Dugan?”
“Aye.”
“What happened?” She turned to face him. “Where were you?”
“Conferring with your cousin.”
“My— Who?”
“Argyll. We found him digging at Loch Monar.” He sounded pleased.
“Did you ... You mean you talked with him?”
“Oh aye. I believe he won’t be a problem for us, at least for a few days.”
She turned to look at him in the darkness, but she could barely make out the shape of his face. It did not matter, because she would always know his scent and the impression of his body against hers.
“How is the bump on your head, my bonny Maura?” he whispered.
“Sore.”
“And the headache?” His hand wandered the length of her back, slipping below her waist and pressing her pelvis against his. He was fully aroused.
As was she.
“Better.” Ah yes, her head felt much better now that he was there beside her. His touch sent shivers of pleasure through her, and when he touched his lips to hers, she ignited.
He sensed her arousal. He kissed her with a slow heat that sizzled through her, inflaming every part of her body.
He slid down and rained kisses on her throat while he opened her bodice, then pressed his mouth against her breast. “Ah, Maura ... I want you, lass.”
Yes, he wanted her, but Archie was wrong. He did not love her—he would never love a Duncanson.
His lips and tongue pleasured the tips of her breasts, bringing them to hard, sensitive peaks. “Ach, sweet Maura ...”
She reached for him, slipped her hand beneath his plaid, and found him ready. He made a low sound at the back of his throat when she encircled his hard length in her hand and stroked him.
He moved up to her lips and took possession of her mouth, turning her onto her back and sliding her skirts up so that they were body to body, his naked hardness against her bare, welcoming softness.
He was hers for now, and Maura wanted him in the most elemental way possible. She wanted to feel that same completeness she’d experienced when they’d made love before—she was breathless with the need to belong. With him ... Only with him. “Now, Dugan. I want you inside me.”
“Ah, Maura. You are not too tender?”
“No. Now, Dugan!”
“Aye, sweet.”
He kissed her mouth again, and all at once, she felt him slide into her.
’Twas a wondrous feeling, and when he rolled to his back, keeping her on top of him, she nearly wept with the pure pleasure of it.
“Move, my Maura. Any way you like.”
“I could stay this way forever.” If only reality did not have to intrude. If she could have been a MacDonald or a Frasier...
She settled into the feel of him, then lifted her bottom slightly, shuddering with pleasure when she slid back down the length of him. She angled her body just so...
“I’m not sure I’m doing this right ... I’ve not experience to guide—”
“Ach, Maura—if you did it any more right, I’d be dead.”
Maura found the rhythm that suited her, and by the quiet rumblings he made, she knew it pleased him well. She kissed his mouth and nipped at his ear and his neck. Pleasure built inside her, her womb stretching, tightening, frantically reaching...
Her muscles contracted ’round him and pulled energy from every inch of her body until it culminated where they were joined. Dugan shuddered and surged into her, and their shared pleasure made her feel complete. They remained joined together, weightless and breathless in a place where her name meant naught.
She did not know how long she stayed there, lying atop him, joined so intimately, but he made no move to shift their positions, and soon they slept.
When Maura woke, Dugan was gone. She left the furry bed she’d shared with him through the night, and while she performed her morning ablutions, considered her plan.
His traveling pack was still under the wagon, so she opened it and removed the three sections of the map. Then she walked to the place where the men stood saddling their horses and preparing to leave.
She heard Lachann’s voice. “All I’m asking, Dugan, is whether you’ll be able to turn the woman over to Kildary when the time comes.”
Dugan did not reply, but reached under Glencoe and tightened his girth. Then he lowered the stirrup.
Maura’s knees went weak and her step faltered. He did not deny that he would turn her over to the baron. He made no statement whatsoever to Lachann. Her sense that she and Dugan belonged together was based on naught but her own wishful thinking. She was not a MacDonald or a Frasier. She would always bear the taint of her Duncanson blood.
Oh God. Should she do this? Was she about to lose the only bit of leverage she had?
Rosie needed her, so she had to risk it. ’Twas the only way Dugan was going to let her go.
“What if Maura’s clues lead us to naught,” Lachann asked, “just like the one Argyll followed? You know ’tis possible there will be no gold.”
“I don’t think so, Lachann,” he said. “She is our ally. The one Grandfather said we would need.”
Maura shivered. ’Twas what the old witch had said, too. That she would need an ally.
She observed her brawny laird as he spoke so confidently to his brother, and hoped he was right.
She stepped into their midst. Dugan had made his promise to her, and she would trust him. “I have something I’d like to show you,” she said.
With the pieces of the map in hand, she went to the large oak tree near camp and knelt on the ground. Dugan followed, and crouched beside her. He watched her expectantly.
She unrolled the first map and turned it over with the drawing side down. She heard Lachann behind her, his sharp intake of breath.
“Ach, is that it?” Archie cried. “On the back of the map?”
Maura nodded and unrolled the second quarter, then the third. She put all three together, then sat back and looked at Dugan.
“The words are French,” he said.
“Yes. Sous le gros rocher ...” Maura said. “It means ‘under the large rock.’ ”
“Under the large rock?” There was no mistaking the disdain in Lachann’s voice. “That will surely help.”
“What’s this?” Dugan pointed to the word she had not been able to make out.
Maura shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
He touched the wax words—the clues that he had not seen until now. “This says Aveboyne.”
“Loch Aveboyne. And a la rive ouest. What I can tell is that it’s under a large rock of some sort on the western shore of Loch Aveboyne.”
Dugan looked ’round at his men. “Aveboyne. We can be there in just a few hours.”
“I’m ready, Dugan,” Archie said. Conall had already mounted his horse. Lachann stood looking skeptically at her.
She could not blame him. There were likely to be many large rocks at the loch.
“Archie, drive the wagon again.” Dugan picked up the maps and rolled them together as Archie jumped onto the wagon and started off behind Conall. “Lachann, go with the others. Maura, you’re with me.”
“Dugan ...” She swallowed. “You have what you need. ’Tis past time I made my way to Loch Camerochlan.”
Dugan took Maura by the shoulders. “I told you I would take you to your sister.”
“But not—”
“Maura, you saw the map. Loch Aveboyne is on our route to Loch Camerochlan. We would have gone past it first even if the clues had not pointed there.”
“But the highlands are so ...”
He could see turmoil in her eyes. “Maura, you trusted me with the clues. Will you not trust me to get you to Rosie?”
“What if you don’t find the gold?”
He pulled her close. Inexplicably, his encounter with Argyll had made him optimistic, perhaps unrealistically so. Mayhap the thought of being free of the duke had turned him daft. “We will find it.”
He kissed her deeply, recalling the heart-stopping intimacies they’d shared the night before, and determined to share many more.
Everything she’d done was for the purpose of rescuing her sister from the Crane woman. She could not possibly be less like her Duncanson kin.
“The best way to get to Camerochlan is through the Aveboyne glen. It’s just a stop on our way to your sister, Maura. You must trust me.”