Highland Scoundrel (Highland Brides) (18 page)

Shona laughed a bit too loudly. "Nay. Of course not." She cleared her throat. "I, uhh..." She finally managed to snatch her arms out of Dugald's grasp. What the hell was wrong with her? What had she been thinking? "Dugald saved my life. I was but giving him a chaste kiss to express my thanks."

She was amazed to see how her father's eyebrows could shoot into his hairline, and when she glanced at Dugald, she was surprised to see that his brows, too, could rise to an astounding height.

"Saved ye?" Roderic asked. "Do ye mean to say that ye would have perished had ye not been kissed at that precise moment?"

She laughed again. Still too loud, she reprimanded herself. "Nay, Father, ye tease me," she said, but for the life of her she could not think of another single thing to say.

"Then might I ask, Daughter, what horrible evil threatened ye here on Dun Ard's tower roof?"

"I... nearly fell while I was leaning over the parapet."

"Fell?"

"Aye. I was hanging over the edge watching some feathers fall. Twas as if I was entranced, as if the wind was insisting that I leap from the parapet, for suddenly it felt as if I could fly, as if Dragonheart gave me his power. And I was not thinking. I could feel myself soar like a bird on the wing. Already I was falling," she rambled wildly. "But suddenly, like an earthbound angel, Dugald caught my hand and snatched me from the slavering jaws of death." Dear God, this was the weakest statement she had ever heard. What a pity it had come from her own lips.

"Let me get this straight in my mind, Daughter. Are ye saying that though ye have climbed down this tower since your infancy, ye can no longer be trusted to stand near the edge?"

"Ye knew I climbed down—" she began, but she stopped her words abruptly and bit her lip.

"Considering the circumstances, I think ye should be thanking Dugald instead of..." She paused.

"Instead of considering what you're considering."

"And what am I considering, Daughter?"

"I shudder to think," she murmured.

"Surely there is no need to shudder," Roderic said. "So long as Dugald the Dapper agrees with your tale, he will indeed have my thanks and none of the horrid possibilities that worry ye."

The world was quiet. Shona turned her gaze on Dugald, imploring him to corroborate her story.

"Did ye save my daughter's life this morn, lad?" Roderic asked.

"In truth, my lord," Dugald said, "I cannot think of a maid I would sooner save. But I fear I am no hero."

Shona winced. "He must have forgotten," she said weakly.

"Mayhap your kiss has addled his senses, Daughter. Why don't ye go see your mother while I discuss that problem with him?"

"Nay, I—"

Roderic turned his gaze on her. His eyes, blue as river water and sharp as glass, cut clean through to her soul. “Mayhap I misspoke, lass. I didna mean to ask for your agreement."

She swallowed. Rarely did her father get truly angered, but when he did, she would rather not be in the vicinity. Still, she was not a child, to be sent flying hither and yon at the first sign of trouble.

"I hardly think he should be reprimanded for saving my life when—"

Roderic lifted his hand. "The lad's chances of surviving this gathering already look grim.

Methinks ye should leave before ye dash what wee bit of hope he has left."

She swallowed once, cleared her throat, and fled.

Dugald stood with his back to the parapets. His conscience beat relentlessly on in his brain.

What the hell was wrong with him? He knew better than to get involved with this woman. She was a traitor. A vixen Tremayne had called her. She was planning the king's death. Tremayne was certain of it, but he was not so foolish as to call for a public execution and risk the wrath of her family. No. She must die of a seeming accident, quietly, painlessly, as only Dugald could do it. And Dugald had agreed, for if he were loyal to anything it was to Scotland and its boy king. So why now did he feel this overwhelming desire to hold the very woman he had been sent to kill?

"Would ye care to tell me your version of the story?" Roderic asked.

Dugald drew himself back to the matter at hand. "I doubt I could improve on your daughter's tale, my lord. She's quite innovative."

"Try." Roderic's tone brooked no argument.

"From down below I saw her leaning over the parapet. I but came up to make certain she was safe."

The world went silent.

"You're right. Ye would not do well as a storyteller."

Dugald watched the man the world knew as the Rogue. Under different circumstances, he might like this man—might even admire him. But it was always best not to become overly fond of someone you may have to kill before lunch.

"I have done some checking into your history, lad," Roderic said.

A spark of fear speared through Dugald, but he doused it quickly, for he could not afford that luxury. "May I ask why?" he said evenly.

Roderic remained quiet for a moment as he paced the perimeter of the tower. "Despite my daughter's..." He scowled as he searched for the proper words. "High-spirited nature, she is a good lass, and I am rather fond of her."

Dugald watched him as he would watch any adversary, from behind hooded eyes that spoke of a spirit jaded by debauchery.

"It seems ye are, too," he finished.

"Fond of her?" Dugald asked, genuinely surprised. He didn't like to be surprised. It was poor planning. And that he couldn't afford either.

"Mayhap fond is not the proper word," Roderic said.

"Perhaps 'attracted' would be more apt in your case."

Dugald offered a wry grin. "I think that if you had these conversations with every man that was 'attracted' to your daughter, you would have little time for anything else."

For a moment, he thought he saw the flicker of a smile on the Rogue's face. But it was quickly put away.

"I dunna worry until she is attracted back," Roderic said.

"In which case you march the swain up here to reprimand him?" Despite his dry tone, Dugald could not help feeling a spark of joy to know that Shona's obvious attraction to him was not a common day occurrence.

"Only if the match is unacceptable."

Anger followed quickly on the heels of joy. For more than a score of years he had been unacceptable, first in Japan, then in France. In truth, Scotland was the homeland of his heart, for in the wild hills of his island haven he had found a fragile peace of sorts.

"You needn't worry," Dugald said. "Your daughter is...well, there seems little point in denying her allure, and I do not doubt her good breeding, but if the truth be told, I am looking for something different in a bride."

"Such as?"

"Someone who can give me limitless funds without causing me undue trouble." He flicked an invisible mote of dust from his sleeve. "The tailor does not work for free, and I am a peace-loving man. I much prefer a good bottle of wine to a battle."

The anger was perfectly obvious on Roderic's face. "Then I suggest ye look elsewhere for a bride," he said. "For if ye touch my daughter again, the tailor will be spending his time taking in the inner seems of your breeches." He stepped closer until his face was only inches from Dugald's. "Do ye understand me, lad?"

Dugald shoved down the anger, tamping it carefully away, but he could not quite keep the sharp edge of it from his voice. "Aye," he said evenly. "I understand you very well."

Dugald did not compete in the games again that morning. On the previous day, he had taken advantage of the nearly empty castle and searched several rooms for some sort of clue. But clues were difficult to find when he didn't know what he was looking for. All he had learned was Shona was hard on her clothes, Hadwin kept a pair of bone handled knives hidden under his mattress, and William and the earl of Angus both slept surrounded by a bevy of their own guards.

Today, Dugald watched Shona. He knew he shouldn't. He knew he should do the job he'd been sent to do—trained to do, since birth. Dugald the Dragon had been hired, for there was none who could match him in the art of killing—even when he was retired, settled onto his own estate on the windswept Isle of Fois.

He had refused the mission, but Lord Tremayne knew which strings to pull to make his marionette dance. When the promise of wealth hadn't changed Dugald's mind, there was the boy king to consider. Young James, orphaned by his father, all but abandoned by his mother, and sure to die before ever reaching manhood if the evil plots against him were not foiled.

And Shona MacGowan was at the center of those plots, Tremayne had said, a cold and calculating wench with designs against the crown. Dugald narrowed his eyes as he watched her laugh with her cousins. Mayhap she did have designs against the throne, but as for cold and calculating...

A dozen images of her flashed through his mind—Shona with a man's wet tunic clinging to her breasts as she fished hopelessly for trout that were destined to elude her. Shona laughing with Kelvin.

Shona warm and potent as hot rum when she kissed him.

None of these images corresponded with the picture Tremayne had painted of her. True, she was spoiled and conceited, seeming to think herself capable of anything. But why would she wish to kill the king? Tremayne's belief that she planned to marry above herself and see her husband on the throne seemed ridiculous now that Dugald had met her; especially in the light of King James's marriage proposal to her. Strange that Tremayne hadn't told Dugald about
that.
Stranger still, to hear it from Kelvin, who had relayed the tale with sober sincerity.

If Shona MacGowan was the grasping wench Tremayne made her out to be, why hadn't she snatched at James's proposal? True, she was at least a decade older than the king, but such marriages had taken place before. Indeed, Eleanor of Aquitaine had made such marriages fashionable four hundred years before. Or if she had no wish to marry the lad, why not at least hold that proposal as a threat over the king's advisors in order to gain what she could? Hardly would Tremayne allow a wild Highlander access to the throne, especially one with the power of the MacGowans and the Forbeses behind her.

Could that be why Dugald had been sent to kill her? Could it be that she was no threat to the king at all, but only a threat to Tremayne's grandiose plans for James's future?

Ridiculous, Dugald told himself. Tremayne was nothing if not loyal to the crown. But...

Dugald's gaze skimmed the crowd then returned to Shona a moment later. There was something about her that attracted the eye, something more than her bonny looks—an allure, a bright boldness.

He watched as she accepted the drinking mug Hadwin had won for the hammer toss. The stocky warrior's left eye was swollen nearly shut from the fisticuffs of the day before. Still he beamed as she smiled at him, looking as if any pain was worth her simplest attention.

Her laughter wafted out on the morning breeze, and her hair glowed like burnished rubies in the sunlight. Surely she was...

Was what? Dugald asked himself. Too bonny to be a murderess?

In truth, he didn't know what this woman was capable of, and if he wanted to keep his
own
head attached to his neck, he'd blindly do the job he'd been sent to do or at the least, find out who the real culprit of the assassination attempts were.

And if it was she...

Dugald narrowed his eyes. He'd do what he had to do, he told himself. But just at that moment, she lifted her eyes. Their gazes met across the crowd, and suddenly it was as if there was nothing standing between them—not her father, not her multitude of swains, not his own mission. There was only that lightning bright spark that had flared between them before, draining his body, filling his soul.

He was draw to her like a lamb to slaughter and felt himself pulled forward.

But in a moment Hadwin offered her his arm. Her gaze shifted rapidly away. Her smile lifted again, but not for him, the son of a heathen beauty and a lowly French knight. Nothing changed that heritage, not training, not secret alliances. Not even in Scotland.

It was not much later that Dugald returned to the hall with the assemblage for the nooning meal.

A few times, he allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation by a woman named Mavis, who shared his trencher. As it turned out, she too was part French, a distant cousin of Shona's on her mother's side, and a bonny young woman who had already been widowed once. She was now, it seemed, married to a man more than twice her age. And not happily married, if her hand on Dugald's knee was any indication. He obliged her flirtation. After all, it would surely seem strange if he did not. But she could shed little light on her cousin's true nature. Indeed, it seemed they were not the best of friends. And so, as Dugald flirted, he let his attention flit elsewhere, absorbing the nuances of the crowd around him and filing away information to be considered and analyzed later.

The earl of Angus was here. But his wife, the queen, was not. It was not like the queen's ambitious husband to mingle with the lowly northern clans. What did he hope to accomplish here?

Was it he who had planned the king's death?

Before arriving at Dun Ard, Dugald had heard rumors that the Munro was gathering his unruly island clansmen. Was it true? And if so, why? Twas a well-known fact that the Munros always rode with mayhem in their wake.

Why had William of Atberry, the king's cousin, come? Was he here solely to win a wealthy bride, or were there other purposes? It seemed strange that if he had a chance of marrying Shona, as rumor suggested, he didn't show more passion for the possibility. In truth, the only true excitement he had shown was when Dugald had slandered the king. Why was he so quick to defend the young monarch?

And what of Stanford? He was moody and calf-eyed and probably willing to do anything Shona asked of him, including a bit of murder. Hadwin, on the other hand, was gay and amusing while hiding away a small arsenal of knives.

Then there was the person Shona had followed to Dugald's room—unless she had been lying about the entire episode. Indeed, that possibility seemed greater with each passing hour, for she had neglected to tell her father of the incident. In fact, the events of that night seemed fuzzy to Dugald, with only the feel of her skin and the touch of her lips remaining clear as crystal in his memory.