He bridged over half the distance but when Ian showed no sign of dismounting, he stopped in his tracks.
"What ails ye, laddie?" he called out, knowing his familiar smirk would gall Ian far more than his exaggerated burr. "Gettin" too much enjoyment from sneerin" down yer nose at a lowly Sinclair?"
Ian glared at him for a minute longer before sliding off the horse to face him. From this distance, he could have been that same proud, aloof boy who had been stoically taking a beating the first time Jamie had laid eyes on him. But as Jamie neared, the contempt written in every line of Ian"s bearing reminded Jamie that he hadn"t been that boy for a very long time.
Jamie didn"t stop until they stood eye to eye for the first time in four years. "Usually your uncle sends one of his attack dogs to do his dirty work for him. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company?"
"Perhaps he thought you"d be less likely to gun me down where I stand. Not out of misplaced sentiment or common decency, of course, but to preserve your own loathsome hide."
Despite his best intentions, Jamie felt his temper begin to rise. "Funny how you didn"t hate me until your uncle told you it was expected of you."
"I"m sure I would have if you hadn"t deliberately misled me. If you had told me who you were from the beginning. Exactly Exactly who you were." who you were."
Jamie shook his head sadly. "You still don"t know who I am."
Ian"s dark eyes glittered with barely suppressed fury. "I know you"re a no-good thief and a murderer. When I hunted you down that day on the mountain after my uncle told me how you had tricked me-how you had played me for a fool all those years at school and made me a laughingstock in his eyes-you didn"t even have the decency to deny shooting down his gamekeeper in cold blood."
"You just proved my point," Jamie said softly. "If I had to deny it, you never knew me at all." He could almost feel Emma"s gaze on his back, knew she was watching every nuance of their exchange even if she could not hear their words. "I didn"t come here today to argue with you. I came to keep my end of our bargain. As you can see," he said, jerking his head toward where she stood patiently waiting beside his horse, "Miss Marlowe is unharmed and ready to come with you."
Unharmed but not unf.o.o.ked.
Jamie had to close his eyes briefly as Bon"s impish voice danced through his head, accompanied by a vision of Emma lying naked beneath him on the blankets, her lips parted in a wordless sigh of pleasure as he drove himself deep inside her.
He opened his eyes to banish the vision. "Did your uncle send what I asked for?"
Ian nodded curtly, then turned and signaled toward the far end of the glen.
The six henchmen guarding the south entrance to the glen nudged their horses apart, making room for a flatbed wagon manned by a beefy driver to pa.s.s between them. As they closed ranks once again, the wagon came trundling across the gra.s.s toward Jamie and Ian. The vehicle made a half-circle, finally rolling to a halt facing the opposite direction a few feet behind Ian.
Jamie scowled at the wooden chests weighting down its bed. "What in the bluidy h.e.l.l is this?" he demanded, returning his gaze to Ian"s face to search for any sign of treachery. "Some sort of trick?"
"Of course it"s not a trick," Ian snapped. "It"s exactly what you asked for."
As Jamie moved forward, Ian"s hands curled into fists. But Jamie stalked right past him, heading for the wagon. The driver eyed him nervously over his shoulder as he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a fallen branch from the ground, but relaxed when Jamie moved to use the branch to pry open the lid of the chest closest to the back of the wagon bed.
The lid fell away with a clatter. The morning sunlight glinted off its contents, nearly blinding him.
Shaking his head in mute disbelief, Jamie moved to pry open the lid of the next chest only to find exactly the same thing awaiting him.
Gold. A king"s ransom in gold.
He spun around, turning his disbelieving gaze on Ian. "What is this? This isn"t what I asked for! This isn"t what your uncle promised me!"
"Of course it is!" Ian insisted, a shadow of bewilderment softening the contempt in his eyes. "It"s exactly what you demanded in your note. Enough gold for you and your men to live on for the rest of your wretched lives."
He reached inside his frock coat, forcing Jamie to move his own hand a few inches closer to the b.u.t.t of his pistol. But it wasn"t a weapon that appeared in Ian"s hand. It was a folded piece of vellum.
He thrust the paper toward Jamie. "My uncle also said to give you this."
Jamie strode forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the missive from Ian"s hand. He tore it open, this time not pausing to admire the fine quality of the paper or the elaborate Hepburn crest stamped into the sealing wax. There were eight words scrawled across the paper in a feeble, spidery hand: What you seek is not mine to give. What you seek is not mine to give.
While Ian stood there staring at him as if he were a madman, Jamie crumpled the note in his fist, fury rising like bile in his throat. The crafty auld b.a.s.t.a.r.d had done it again. He"d betrayed Jamie and left him standing there empty-handed and half blind with rage.
He lifted his burning gaze to the bed of the wagon. Ian was right. There was enough gold in those chests to last a lifetime. It could keep Muira and her family and all those like them on this mountain in milk and meat for many winters to come. His own men could finally stop running, stop hiding, settle down and have cottages and wives and children of their own if they so desired.
He glanced over his shoulder at Emma. Tension was written in every line of her bearing, as if she sensed something had gone badly amiss.
She had been right as well, Jamie thought bitterly. She was nothing to the earl. Just to have the last laugh in their lifelong battle of wits, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been willing to gamble that Jamie would set her free in exchange for the gold instead of marching right back to her, shoving the mouth of his pistol against her temple and pulling the trigger.
Jamie closed his eyes briefly just to block out the sight of her. Despite what his parents had been foolish enough to believe, this feud would never end. But he couldn"t keep dragging Emma all over the Highlands indefinitely. She might not survive the next drenching rain, the next surprise snowstorm, the next harrowing ride up the mountain while trying to elude the Hepburn"s men.
She might not survive him.
"Wait here," he snarled at Ian.
Rubbing a hand over his rigid jaw, he went striding back across the glen to Emma.
"Did you get what you wanted?" she asked as he approached, the proud tilt of her chin reminding him that he had made her believe there would always be something in this world he wanted more than her.
He couldn"t very well tell her he wasn"t even sure what he wanted anymore. That everything he had dreamed of, everything he had fought for up until the day he first laid eyes on her, now seemed less than worthless to him.
So he simply said, "You"re free."
She nodded, then turned and went walking toward Ian. At first Jamie thought she meant to leave him without so much as a backward glance, which would be no less than what he deserved. But she had only traveled a few feet before she turned and came running back to him.
Clutching his arm and standing on tiptoe, she touched her lips to his ear and whispered, "There won"t be any strapping young lovers. There will only be you."
He reached for her but she was already gone. All he could do was stand there and watch her walk away from him, his empty hands slowly curling into fists. Her back was straight, her shoulders unbowed despite everything she had endured since arriving in Scotland.
What a bluidy fool he had been! He had tried to steal something so precious he should have been willing to sacrifice a king"s ransom to possess it.
She was nearly halfway to Ian now. Jamie willed her to turn and look back at him one last time, to see in his eyes all of the things he had been too cowardly to confess. But she just kept walking.
He had to stop her, to tell her that he was even more of a fool than his parents had been. At least they had died with something to show for their folly, even if it was only a few stolen months of happiness. If he let Emma go riding out of that glen with Ian, he would have nothing except the memory of the one night she had spent in his bed and a lifetime of regrets.
He was already taking a step when a beam of sunlight glinted off something high up in one of the cedars to the east of the wagon, distracting him. He squinted toward the tree, just barely able to make out the gleaming black barrel of a pistol protruding from the dense sweep of boughs.
Jamie frowned. His men knew better than to scale a cedar that high. If something went wrong, it would make it too easy for Hepburn"s henchmen to cut off their escape route.
That was when he realized it was the wrong tree.
The wrong man.
Like a sleeper wading through the cloying fog of a dream, he followed the line of fire from the pistol to its target-not his breast but Emma"s. Not his heart but hers. Oblivious to the threat, she continued across the glen, utterly alone, utterly exposed.
Jamie yanked his pistol from the waistband of his breeches and lunged into motion, knowing even as he did so that there was no way he could shoot down the a.s.sa.s.sin from this distance, no way he could reach her before it was too late.
Time seemed to unfold as if the seconds were being measured by a laboring clock someone had forgotten to wind. He was charging forward but the distance between him and Emma seemed to be growing-each step he took carrying her farther and farther out of his reach.
"Emma!" he bellowed. he bellowed.
She stopped and turned toward him, a desperate hope shining in her eyes.
A blast rang out.
He saw her body jerk. Saw a look of blank shock descend over her face like a mask. Saw the crimson stain begin to blossom across the shoulder of her gown.
Jamie had seen the exact same scene a thousand times in his imagination. He"d heard the pistol blast thundering in his ears. He"d seen the crimson stain blossom and spread until it seemed to obliterate all of the other colors in the world. He"d witnessed the look of betrayal on a woman"s face as she fell.
A roar of pure anguish exploded from his chest. Time resumed at twice its normal pace as he raced toward Emma, firing wildly toward the cedar where the gunman had vanished.
The glen exploded in a storm of gunfire.
Through the crimson veil that had descended over his vision, Jamie saw Ian standing frozen beside the wagon, a stricken look on his face as he gazed at Emma"s crumpled form. He saw his own men come spilling out of the trees, yodeling fearsome battle cries and firing at anything foolish enough to move. He saw the driver bring his whip down on the backs of his team with a savage crack, sending the wagon careening wildly out of the glen. He saw the Hepburn"s men spur their horses into motion, driving them down the rise and into the thick of the fray to join the ambush.
Ian reached into his coat. This time his hand emerged not with a note, but with a pistol. Gritting his teeth, Jamie swung the mouth of his own weapon around, pointing it at Ian"s chest. No power on earth was going to stop him from getting to Emma, not even a gun in the hand of the man who had once been his dearest friend.
Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, but before Jamie could fire, Ian shouted, "Get her, d.a.m.n it!"
Ian turned and went sprinting toward the cedar where the a.s.sa.s.sin had disappeared, running low and hard to try to avoid the pistol b.a.l.l.s whizzing around him.
From that moment on, Jamie only had eyes for Emma.
If she was still alive, he knew he had only one hope of keeping her that way. He broke his stride just long enough to scoop her up in his arms like a child and went racing for the nearest boulder.
Collapsing to his knees behind the boulder, Jamie gently cradled Emma across his lap. She gazed up at him, her beautiful eyes glazed with pain and shock.
"It"s all right, la.s.s," he said hoa.r.s.ely, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood spilling from her shoulder with his free hand. Her freckles were standing out against her pallid cheeks in stark relief. He rested his forehead against her cold, clammy brow, willing her to focus her eyes and look at him. To really see see him. "I"ve got you now. I"ll not let you go." him. "I"ve got you now. I"ll not let you go."
"It"s too late," she whispered, a lifetime of tenderness and regret shining in her eyes as she struggled to lift her hand to his face. "You already did." Then her eyes fluttered shut and her fingers fell open, going as limp as the petals of a dying flower against his cheek.
Chapter Twenty-five.
THROUGHOUT THE REST OF that endless day Jamie rode as he had never ridden before-through the waning sunlight, through the rising mist of twilight, through a cold, driving rain that only deepened his desperation, and finally through a night as deep and dark as any he had ever known. that endless day Jamie rode as he had never ridden before-through the waning sunlight, through the rising mist of twilight, through a cold, driving rain that only deepened his desperation, and finally through a night as deep and dark as any he had ever known.
Once the Hepburn"s men had realized they were both outgunned and outmanned, they had wheeled their horses around and beat a hasty retreat. Jamie had been left with no choice but to trust Bon to tie up any loose ends. He"d never abandoned his men before, but he couldn"t afford to wait for them. Not when every minute lost might be another minute of Emma"s life ticking away.
He couldn"t even afford to linger in the glen long enough to deal with Ian. He"d only had time to bark out quick instructions that he was not to be harmed if captured, but brought directly to his grandfather"s stronghold for questioning.
By the time Jamie finally reached that stronghold himself, it was well after midnight and Emma"s makeshift bandage was soaked through with a mixture of blood and rain. As he dismounted, drawing her into his arms and tugging the hood of the cloak over her head to shield her face from the worst of the downpour, she was as still and limp as a corpse in his arms. Her breath against his throat felt more insubstantial than a will-o"-the-wisp drifting across the moors on a moonless night.
As he staggered through the mud, churning gusts of wind drove the rain into his face, blinding him. He stumbled and nearly fell before finally reaching the ancient keep perched at the crest of the steep hill.
The earth and timber structure had served as both home and fortress to the Sinclairs ever since they had been driven out of their own castle over five centuries before. The gatehouse and most of the outbuildings had burned long ago, leaving only the central tower standing to battle the elements. Even that was beginning to crumble in spots, making it impossible to predict just how many more seasons it would survive.
Cradling the lifeless bundle Emma had become against his chest, Jamie pounded on the rough-hewn door with his fist. "Open the bluidy door!"
There was no response to his pounding or his desperate roar. He and his grandfather hadn"t exactly parted on the best of terms the last time they"d spoken, but he"d never known his grandfather to turn his back on him in a moment of need. He continued to slam his fist against the door and shout until both his knuckles and his voice were raw.
His desperation gave way to rage. He wasn"t about to just stand there in the pouring rain while Emma died in his arms. He was backing up and preparing to give the door a mighty kick when it began to swing inward with a rusty creak. The darkened crack between frame and door slowly widened to reveal a face as familiar as his own.
Jamie glared at his grandfather, his expression both fierce and pleading. "Stand aside, auld mon. Your grandson has come home."
THE LAST THING EMMA remembered after the glen had exploded in a fiery cloud of pain was falling. Falling so hard and so fast that not even Jamie"s arms could catch her. remembered after the glen had exploded in a fiery cloud of pain was falling. Falling so hard and so fast that not even Jamie"s arms could catch her.
Then everything had gone as dark as the blackest night. But even in the murky hours and days that followed, Jamie had been there-his big, callused hands easing her to a sitting position with a tenderness that should have been impossible for them; his gruff burr coaxing her to open her mouth wider so he could spoon a bitter-tasting broth between her lips; his cool lips brushing her brow when it was ablaze with fever; his warm arms enfolding her when she was wracked with chills; his head bowed as he clutched her limp hand and pleaded with G.o.d to let her live.
So it was no surprise it was his presence she sensed when the first glimmers of light began to pierce the receding shadows. She slowly pried open her eyes, waiting for her head to stop spinning and the wavering world to come back into focus. When it finally did, she found herself gazing into the gentle eyes of an enormous brindled beast sitting in front of a crackling fire on a crude stone hearth.
"Why is there a pony in here?" she asked, surprised by how rusty her voice sounded to her own ears.
""Tis not a pony, la.s.s. "Tis a dog."
She frowned at the towering creature. "That, sir, is no dog."
"Aye, it is. "Tis a deerhound."
As the creature folded its long limbs and sank into a reclining position, her frown deepened. "Are you sure it"s not a deer?"
She gingerly turned her head, wincing at a lingering twinge of stiffness, only to find herself gazing up into a pair of arctic green eyes fringed with thick silver lashes. A wave of shock rippled through her. The man she had been arguing with wasn"t Jamie at all, but Jamie as he would look forty years from now.
His thick hair might be the snowy white of h.o.a.rfrost and his face as craggy as the side of a mountain, but time hadn"t robbed this man of his vigor as it had the Hepburn. He still possessed the impressive shoulders and rugged vitality of a much younger man. He wore a green-and-black tartan kilt and a ruffled shirt with falls of lace at the throat and cuffs that made him look as if he belonged in some Gainsborough or Reynolds portrait from the previous century.
Realizing she couldn"t have possibly been asleep for that that long, she whispered, "You must be Jamie"s grandfather." She blinked up at him, unable to drag her gaze away from those oh-so-familiar eyes. Everything about the man was larger than life, including the wooden chair he had drawn next to her bed. Still too muzzy-headed to censor her words, she blurted out, "I thought you were dying." long, she whispered, "You must be Jamie"s grandfather." She blinked up at him, unable to drag her gaze away from those oh-so-familiar eyes. Everything about the man was larger than life, including the wooden chair he had drawn next to her bed. Still too muzzy-headed to censor her words, she blurted out, "I thought you were dying."
Ramsey Sinclair leaned forward, his eyes twinkling as if he was about to confide a delicious secret. "Well, for the past few days, I thought ye were dying, too."
"Mind yer tongue," a voice croaked. "I"ve worked too hard to keep the la.s.s alive to let ye scare her to death."
Emma could not stop herself from recoiling on the pillow as a woman who looked ancient enough to be the Hepburn"s grandmother came shuffling toward the opposite side of the bed, the rounded hump in her back forcing her to stoop almost double. Stringy strands of hair the color of tarnished silver hung around cheeks so sunken as to be nearly hollow. As she drew closer to the bed, Emma realized what she had mistaken for a toothless grimace was meant to be a smile.
"There, there, dearie," the woman crooned, patting Emma"s hand. "Don"t let the auld rogue affright ye. The worst is o"er. Ye"re goin" to be just fine now."
"Mags is right about that," Jamie"s grandfather said dryly. "If ye have a strong enough const.i.tution to survive the foul stench o" her poultices, then gettin" shot certainly isn"t goin" to kill you."
This must be the Mags Jamie had mentioned, Emma realized with a start of shock. The woman who had once been his mother"s nursemaid.
The old dame wagged a bony finger at the Sinclair. "If it weren"t for me foul-smellin" poultices, Ramsey Sinclair, ye"d have been molderin" in yer own grave a long time ago." She gave Emma a gloating look. "For years, he could barely leave the fortress without gettin" his fool self shot or takin" a tumble off o" his horse. Lucky for him, that stubborn neck o" his was too hard to break."
The Sinclair made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a harrumph. "It was ne"er as hard as yer head, woman."
As they continued to trade barbed insults, Emma"s fascinated gaze bounced between the two of them. They weren"t behaving like master and servant but bickering like an old married couple.