Part 4 (2/2)

Thanks to the kernel of truth in his words, Emma had to struggle to look outraged instead of woebegone as she watched him turn and walk away from her, his lean hips rolling in a natural swagger. As his men averted their eyes and quickly set themselves to other tasks, she touched her trembling fingertips to her lips, wondering if in defending her reputation, they had put something even more vulnerable at risk.

Chapter Nine.

TO EMMA'S KEEN RELIEF, Jamie allowed the lanky lad with the saffron-colored shock of hair to stand guard while she performed her morning ablutions on the bank of a nearby brook. After finding herself so deeply shaken by what was only intended to be a mock kiss, she doubted she could have found the courage to disrobe if Jamie were anywhere in the vicinity. Jamie allowed the lanky lad with the saffron-colored shock of hair to stand guard while she performed her morning ablutions on the bank of a nearby brook. After finding herself so deeply shaken by what was only intended to be a mock kiss, she doubted she could have found the courage to disrobe if Jamie were anywhere in the vicinity.

The last of the clouds had scattered during the night, leaving the sky a dazzling shade of azure. Although a chill still hung in the air, glowing shafts of sunlight pierced the boughs of the slender birches growing along the banks of the brook, their warming rays releasing the smell of the quickening earth. Emma could not resist drawing a bracing breath of the crisp air into her lungs. It was almost possible to believe spring might yet come, even to these harsh and wintry climes.

After taking care of her most pressing need, she knelt beside the brook and splashed handfuls of icy water over her face. Eager to divest herself of the tattered rag that had once been her wedding gown, she climbed to her feet and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. After depositing a pile of garments on a nearby stump, the boy had retreated to stand at stiff attention at the edge of the pines, his back to her.

”You're not going to peek, are you?” she called out to him.

”Oh, no, m'lady,” he a.s.sured her, his nervous swallow audible even over the babbling of the brook. ”Jamie said if he caught me peekin', he'd tan me hide, he would.”

Emma frowned. ”Does your Jamie often threaten to tan your hide?”

”Not unless I deserve it,” he replied as she awkwardly groped behind her for the endless row of mother-of-pearl b.u.t.tons securing her bodice. It would have been much more convenient if Jamie had abducted her maid as well.

After a brief and largely futile struggle, she hooked her fingers between the b.u.t.tons and yanked. The expensive silk gave way at the seams, sending b.u.t.tons popping every which way. She felt a treacherous twinge of satisfaction, followed by a sharp pang of guilt. The earl had probably paid a fortune for the gown. He'd insisted on providing an entire trousseau for her designed by the most fas.h.i.+onable French modiste in London. Her sisters had also reaped the benefits of his generosity. A trunk overflowing with new gowns, slippers and bonnets had arrived at the manor house just in time for their journey to the Highlands. The house rang with their joyful squeals as they pirouetted in front of the dusty cheval gla.s.s in their mother's bedchamber and sent bonnets sailing back and forth through the air as each determined which style was the most flattering to her coloring.

Emma knew she ought to be doubly shamed by how seldom her thoughts had turned to her bridegroom since being s.n.a.t.c.hed from his arms. She doubted his frail heart could take too many shocks before giving away entirely. Jamie Sinclair might try to turn her against the earl with his half-truths and unreasoning hatred, but she would do well to remember where her loyalties belonged.

She peeled away the bodice's built-in stays as if she were escaping from a cage, ma.s.saging the red welts the stiff whalebone had left on her tender skin.

”You seem rather young to be riding with a band of outlaws,” she observed to her companion as she moved to investigate the pile of garments on the stump. Jamie had provided her with a long-sleeved tunic and a pair of trousers that would doubtless make a fine pair of pantaloons to be worn under her skirts. If she had any skirts.

”Oh, I'm full grown, m'lady. I'll be fourteen come summer.”

The same age as Edwina, who still slept with her battered and much beloved rag doll tucked beneath her chin.

Scowling, Emma slipped the tunic over her head. The beaten buckskin covered her to mid-thigh. The fabric felt as soft as velvet against her skin yet was st.u.r.dy enough to s.h.i.+eld her from the sharp bite of the wind. ”Just how did you come to ride with such a motley crew? Did Sinclair abduct you, too?”

”Aye, m'lady. He abducted me from the Hepburn's gamekeeper just before the mon's ax could come down and chop off me right hand.”

Emma spun around, clutching the trousers to her chest. True to his word the boy was still standing at rigid attention and facing the opposite way, as stalwart as any soldier beneath orders from his commanding officer.

He must have heard her gasp though because he continued, his tone matter-of-fact, even apologetic. ”I'd been caught poachin' a string o' hares on the earl's lands, ye see. It had been a long winter and the scarlet fever had taken me mum and me da. Me belly was turribly empty but 'twas still me own fault. Everyone knows the punishment for thievery and I was almost nine then, auld enough to know what I was about.”

Suffused with horror, Emma clapped one hand over her mouth. What sort of monster would order his servant to cut off a hungry child's hand for poaching a rabbit? Surely a civilized n.o.bleman wouldn't sanction such an atrocity. Perhaps the earl had been wintering at his London townhouse at the time and the gamekeeper had simply taken it upon himself to mete out such harsh and terrible justice without the earl's knowledge.

”What happened to the gamekeeper?” she asked, regretting the question the moment it left her lips.

She didn't have to see the boy's face. She could hear the smile in his voice. ”The earl had to hire a new one.”

Emma slowly turned back around, her fingers digging into the supple fabric of the trousers. She wanted to feel nothing but disgust and contempt for Jamie Sinclair, but all she could see in her mind's eye was an upraised ax glinting in the sunlight, a little boy's thin, dirty face blanched with terror.

Shaking off the disturbing spell the lad's story had cast over her, she slipped into the trousers. Once she had rolled up the cuffs to keep them from dragging the ground, they were a near perfect fit. Jamie must have confiscated the garb from one of his smaller men. His own garments would have swallowed her whole.

Emma stole a peek over her shoulder at her own backside, marveling at the decadent way the buckskin molded itself to her curves. A grin curved her lips as she imagined her mother fainting dead away if she saw her in this getup. Back in Lancas.h.i.+re a mere glimpse of feminine ankle was enough to ignite a scandal that could persist for generations. Why, Dolly Strothers and Meriweather Dillingham had been forced to wed after Dolly had tripped while exciting a carriage and inadvertently exposed the garter above her knee to the blus.h.i.+ng young curate!

Her mother had preferred to turn a blind eye to the fact that Emma had slipped out of the house on more than one cold winter's morning, garbed in her papa's hunting coat and a pair of his oversized trousers. When a freshly roasted grouse or hare would turn up on their supper table after a week with no meat, her mother would simply bow her head and thank the good Lord for His benevolent care, ignoring the fact that her eldest daughter had risen before dawn to a.s.sist Him with His handiwork.

Emma was most relieved to find a pair of st.u.r.dy leather boots to replace her flimsy kid slippers. They would have been three sizes too large were it not for the pair of thick woolen stockings that accompanied them.

She was about to tell the boy he could turn around without risking his hide when she realized one of Jamie's offerings was still draped over the stump.

It was a narrow strip of tanned leather, the perfect length to bind back her hair and keep it from blowing wild in the wind. Bemused by the small kindness, Emma attempted to rake most of the tangles from her hair with her fingers before using the length of leather to gather the heavy fall of curls at her nape. It wasn't exactly a satin ribbon plucked from the window of some Bond Street linen drapers shop, but at the moment she would be hard pressed to find a gift more practical or dear.

Without dozens of hairpins poking her tender scalp, she felt positively light-headed. And ridiculously lighthearted-almost as young and carefree as she'd felt as a girl when she and her sisters had tumbled about in the garden of their country house from dawn to dusk like a quartet of st.u.r.dy puppies.

But when she turned around, her young guard was waiting for her, a stark reminder that she wasn't free at all but the captive of a dangerous man willing to resort to thievery, kidnapping and even murder to get what he wanted.

THE SINCLAIRS HAD ALWAYS been known for three things-their quick wits, their quick fists and their quick tempers. In truth, their quick tempers were attached to a slow fuse that might smolder for days-or even decades-before finally exploding in a rage that had been known to blast through castle walls and level entire forests. They might not yell at you if you crossed them but they were perfectly capable of biding their time until the opportunity came to quietly cut you up and bury you in fifteen different graves. been known for three things-their quick wits, their quick fists and their quick tempers. In truth, their quick tempers were attached to a slow fuse that might smolder for days-or even decades-before finally exploding in a rage that had been known to blast through castle walls and level entire forests. They might not yell at you if you crossed them but they were perfectly capable of biding their time until the opportunity came to quietly cut you up and bury you in fifteen different graves.

As Jamie paced beside the horses, waiting for Graeme to return with Emma, he could already hear the sizzling of that fuse in his ears-low-pitched but as inescapable as the sighing of the wind through the pines. Which was exactly why, after nearly half an hour had pa.s.sed, his men stopped casting him nervous glances and devoted all of their attention to polis.h.i.+ng pommels that were already s.h.i.+ny and checking cinches that had been tightened a half dozen times or more.

Jamie knew they were still puzzled over his and Emma's earlier display. He wasn't exactly in the habit of forcing his attentions-or his kisses-on any woman, be she Scots or English. As he stopped glowering in the direction of the brook long enough to glance in his cousin's direction, Bon wiggled his fingers at him and blew him a mocking kiss.

In lieu of throttling Bon with his bare hands, Jamie moved to check the bridle on his own horse. They'd squandered enough time in this place. They needed to reach the higher climes of the mountain just in case he had miscalculated and the Hepburn did decide to send his men to track them before the ransom demand could arrive.

He was beginning to fear Emma had bashed Graeme over the head with a rock and was even now skipping her way merrily back down the mountainside when she reappeared at the edge of the clearing with the lad following several respectful paces behind her.

The reins in Jamie's hands slipped through fingers that had gone suddenly numb. When he had first spotted the Hepburn's bride standing in front of the altar at the abbey, she had been as pale and spiritless as a lamb being led to the slaughter. He had a.s.sumed it was fear of him that had drained the color from her cheeks and made her look as if she was wearing a grave shroud instead of bridal clothes.

But if that were so, she had returned to the clearing as the boldest of women. The brisk breeze had stirred roses into her cheeks and kindled a sparkle in her dusky blue eyes. Her fair skin with its coppery dusting of freckles seemed to glow beneath the caress of the sunlight. Even with her slender feet weighed down by the clumsy leather boots, there was a determined spring to her step.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bon's mouth fall open. His cousin had no idea that Jamie had pilfered the garments from his saddlebag while he'd been off p.i.s.sing in the woods. Even Bon would have to admit that Emma looked a d.a.m.n sight better in the garments than he did. They perfectly suited her lithe grace, making her look like a wood sprite that had just emerged from a hollow tree after a restful hundred-year nap.

As she neared, Jamie's gaze strayed to the petal pink softness of her lips. Lips that had twice melted beneath his with an eagerness he had not antic.i.p.ated, giving him a tantalizing taste of both innocence and a hunger that was echoed in her eyes every time she looked at him. His body was still aching from the memory. It had been a very long time since he had kissed a woman without expecting-or receiving-anything more.

As she approached, he schooled his features into an indifferent mask.

”I suppose I should thank you for the ribbon, sir,” she said. ”The wind had whipped my hair into a dreadful tangle.”

”It wasn't meant to be a gift for m'lady,” he said with a deliberate edge of mockery. ”I was just hopin' if someone spotted us on the road, they'd be more likely to mistake you for a lad.”

If they were daft. And blind.

”What road?” she asked pointedly, squinting at the wilderness surrounding them as if he was the one who'd gone daft.

Ignoring the question, he gathered the horse's reins, mounted, and offered her a hand.

She took a wary step backward, plainly fearing he intended to toss her facedown over his lap as he had in the abbey.

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