DARE THE WILD WIND (5 page)

She saw rare approval in Malcolm's face.  Brenna cared nothing if tomorrow's loaves blackened in the ovens.  She could gather what she wanted as she moved from the great hall to the kitchens.

The Earl's look said she could have done little in the way of preparation riding that afternoon through Lochmarnoch Wood.   

"Perhaps we'll enjoy more of your company before we bid you good night."

Brenna meant to be in her own bedchamber before Malcolm and his guests rose from their port, but she tilted her head in agreement, grateful to make her escape.  But as she gathered her skirts and left the candlelit refectory, she could feel the Earl's eyes boring into her back. 

Drake Seton could accuse her of treason.  But he made a mistake to think he could torment her at his leisure. 

Brenna could guess he had been sent to their corner of the
Highlands to hold their neighboring clans steadfast in their loyalty to the English king.  Arresting her would sit poorly with the chiefs of the clans who gathered at the castle tomorrow.  Malcolm wasn't well liked, but their father had been loved.  And seeing one of their own, wellborn and a woman, placed in irons, could anger the barons fiercest in their loyalty to the Crown.

If Drake Seton waited until the heads of the clans had left Lochmarnoch to accuse her, he would be too late.

Brenna would be gone with
Cam before he could spring his trap.  Whatever Cam had told Iain, Brenna would persuade him to take her with him.  Once Cam knew her safety was threatened, he would never leave her in reach of the Earl.

                           *****

Brenna sped toward the castle's curving stairway and the sanctuary of her bedchamber.  She had spirited her mother's small treasures from the sewing room and the velvet
lined jewel case where her father had placed them after Fiona Dalmoral's death.  Only a handful had any great value beyond the sentiment attached to them, and Malcolm had despised her mother.  It was a modest enough heritage to take with her when she left Lochmarnoch Castle.  If forced to it, she could barter a few pieces, though there were three Brenna would never sell.  A small ruby pendant on a delicate golden chain, a silver thimble her mother had worn to stitch Brenna's childish gowns, and the ring Gordon Dalmoral had put on Fiona's finger when they were wed.

Brenna might go to
Cam without the dowry her father had provided, very likely with nothing but the clothes on her back, but she would take a few precious mementos of her mother and one or two small prized gifts from her father.

Though tomorrow the great central hall of the castle would blaze with the light of candles and a fire the servants would kindle in the mammoth fireplace, tonight it was lit only by the stubs of candles in scattered sconces along the walls.  Dripping wax, they cast no more than a flickering uncertain glow in pooled patterns across the worn gray stones beneath Brenna's feet, and long shadows lay between them.  The winding staircase was no better lit, but Brenna could climb it in the dark. 

Then, as she reached the first step, bruising fingers shot out from the darkness to close around Brenna's wrist.  Gasping in shock and pain, she whirled.  

Drake Seton stepped out of the shadows, his topaz eyes angry slits.  With a sinking in the pit of her stomach, Brenna saw she had badly misjudged him. 

"Did you think I'd allow you to escape me twice in the same day?"  She tried to jerk free, and he caught her closer to him.  "Did you expect me to drink far into the night with your brother and forget you?"

It was exactly what Brenna had expected, and she heartily wished he had.  She had thought him safely occupied, cornered with Malcolm while he boasted and lied and grew drowsy with the effects of dinner and too much wine.

"No lady at court would linger once port is served," she said with frigid dignity.  "And I have duties to attend."

"Duties that take you back up the stairs to your room?" he asked with a pointed look at the stairway.

Brenna stiffened, aware her face must give her away.  "Where my duties take me are no concern of yours."

"Your adventure this afternoon makes it my concern."  His grip on her tightened, bringing her so close her body brushed his.  His voice dropped.  "You go nowhere tonight without my leave."

Brenna was suddenly conscious they were alone in the echoing ill
lit hall of the castle.  Even if a servant saw them, no one would interfere.  If he swung her off her feet to carry her up the stairs, not even Malcolm would dare to stop him.

Some instinct warned her a furious reaction could provoke him to a swift physical vengeance for her flight that afternoon.

"I take it ill when any man tells me where I can go," she said in a low acid voice.  "I can hardly plot to ride out again tonight."

He let out a sharp breath, as if he drew on a very thin store of patience. 

"Or find it as easy as you did today."  He loosened his hold a little.  "I've posted my own guard at the gates."

Brenna refused to let him to see her relief that he had eased his brutal grip.  "Then why are you detaining me?"

"One of my men lies wounded below stairs because of you.  I intend to have the truth from you."

Brenna shut her eyes for a second.  The sergeant major hadn't been killed.  Drake Seton's gaze flicked over her face.

"I'm gratified you don't relish credit for his death.  But I mean to know what you were about on the highroad this afternoon."

He turned to pull her after him toward the library.  Brenna resisted, but she might have been a child in his grasp.  Once inside, he shut the door behind them. 

Brenna saw at once that Malcolm had given her father's old retreat over to Drake Seton's use.  Maps and the scattered pages of an unfinished letter lay carelessly tossed atop the desk Gordon Dalmoral had used to do accounts for the estate.

"Save your curious looks," he said, releasing her arm at last.  "You won't find the Duke of Cumberland's battle plans in the dispatches on my desk."

Brenna was seized by the urge to back away from him, but she faced him and held her ground.

"It's my father's desk," she corrected, rubbing at her smarting wrist.

One of his brows lifted.  "Not your brother's?"

"Malcolm never comes here," she said flatly.  Brenna had avoided this room since her father's death, but not for Malcolm's reasons.  Malcolm preferred to conduct estate business in formal grandeur in the great hall, but the study still reminded Brenna too painfully of her father.

The Earl's expression told her he had guessed she had very little love for her brother. 

"Then we can speak without fear of interruption."  His eyes impaled her.  "Who set you on the Inverness road this afternoon?"

"No one."

"Don't play games with me," he said harshly.  "You acted as a decoy in an ambush laid for my dragoons."

Brenna defied his gaze.  "We met only by chance."

"A woman of rank doesn't ride alone."     

"I've ridden the moors and the wood above
Lochmarnoch Castle since I was old enough to sit a pony."

"Astride and in the garb of a country wench?"

"I told you we were rustics here," Brenna said tartly.  "A sidesaddle makes it far less comfortable to sit a horse, and I care nothing for fashion."

"Except when it suits you?" he countered, his eyes going to the plunging neckline of her gown.

"Except when ceremony requires it," she told him, her hand itching to slap the cynical appraisal from his face. 

"Should I be flattered my presence was sufficient occasion for ceremony?" he asked, with another deliberate and insolent glance at her all but exposed breasts.

"I dressed as my brother bade me," Brenna said shortly.

He let out a short, dry laugh.  "Then it was the first time you obeyed him today.  Who rode with you to the ruined abbey?"

"I told you before.  I was alone."

His shrewd hazel eyes measured her.  "Then you rode to meet someone.  And I want his name."    

"I can't give you a name," Brenna shot back.  "He was only an honest Scotsman.  He happened on you and your soldiers by chance."

"As you did?" he challenged, cold disbelief in his voice.

Brenna's temper overruled her caution.  "He had the same bad luck.  Do you think I'd willingly encounter a filthy dog like your sergeant major?  Do you think I find it amusing to face a troop of English dragoons?"

Brenna saw a brief reaction in the Earl's face, but it was quickly masked.

"You had no reason to be on the highroad this afternoon," he snapped.  "Your brother was eager to assure me he's taken every precaution to secure the castle walls.  His men have orders not to let anyone in or out of the gates without his leave, not even his spoiled sister."

"Malcolm didn't always rule at
Lochmarnoch Castle," Brenna  flared.  "I refuse to be his prisoner."

"And now you're mine."  He paused to lift a paperweight from her father's desk, a speckled water
smoothed pebble the size of an egg.  Brenna had found it when she was small, and taken it at a run to present it her father.  Examining it for a second, he hefted it in his hand and spoke in a deliberate voice. 

"You took a risk to leave the castle today.  And you left to meet a man who called out to you by name."

His new calm made Brenna even more uneasy than his anger.

"High or low, every man in the county knows my name."

"And the trail you rode through Lochmarnoch Wood?" he countered.  "Have done with your lies.  Who is he?  Your lover?"

"No!" Brenna burst out.  "I have no lover."

Though she wished she could say in truth she did.  Brenna wished
Cam had met her instead of Iain, that she could have spent the afternoon in his arms. 

"You damn yourself with your denials.  If you didn't ride to meet a lover, you force me to conclude you rod
e in the Rebel cause." 

"I rode to meet a friend."

"A friend w
ho was an excellent shot."  

Brenna looked away for a second, and then she let out a furio
us, frustrated hiss of breath. 

"Yes.  A friend since I was six."  She whirled back to face him.  "One who risked his own life to save mine.  How can you think I'd name him?"

Her sudden rush of honesty startled him.  He paused a second before he spoke.

"Your life was hardly in danger this afternoon."    

"Wasn't it?" Brenna spat out.  "Your English troops are notorious in the
Highlands."

His face set in hard lines.  "Not troops in my command."

"Oh?" Brenna asked, advancing a step toward him.  "Is your sergeant major an example?  I'm glad he's not dead, but I'm not sorry he'll have som
ething to remember from a Scot.”

His mouth moved oddly.  "You could fault a general for strategy, Lady Brenna.  But your sentiments don't change one fact.  Your Rebel friend shot an English soldier, and if he called on you to meet him, you were part of his plan."

"There was no plan."

"You've admitted you slipped out to meet one Rebel.  You have another confederate who allowed you passage through the castle walls.  Do you deny you rode out as an informant?"

Brenna responded with a disbelieving laugh.  "On what?  All the countryside around knows chiefs loyal to the Crown will gather here tomorrow."

"Yet you refuse to name t
he two men who helped you?"

Her defiant stare answered him.  He let out a reluctant sound.  "Do you know the penalty if you keep your silence?"

Brenna met his look.  "I know well enough I can hang."

He reached out to snatch her to him by both wrists.  "Then make truce with me and speak."

Held captive against him, Brenna could feel the heat of his body against hers, the hard columns of his legs through her petticoats and skirts.  A treacherous wave of reaction ran through her at the male strength of his body, the scalding unexpected contact between them.  Instantly furious and ashamed, she fought to break away.  But he only brought her closer, pinning her arms and dragging her twisting against his thick
muscled chest.

Abruptly she was aware her breasts all but spilled from the low satin bodice of her gown, and of the sudden ragged pattern of his breath.  She quelled her instinct to struggle.  With an effort, she stiffened and drew on all the dignity she possessed.

"I'm no spy, and none of this was a Rebel plot," she said in a clear, contemptuous voice.  Inches from his face, her eyes locked with his.  "How could any of us have known you or your men would be on the highroad today?"

She took a quick shallow breath.  "My brother expected the Duke of Cumberland's emissary to arrive tomorrow.  How could even a Rebel know you'd come a day early?"

She sa
w her point strike home.

"If you ask that question, you give me hope you're not a spy," he said, his breathing even again.

Brenna stared at him.  H
is hold on her relaxed a little.