The Devil Wears Plaid (19 page)

It was as if she’d stumbled upon the only dwelling in Scotland constructed from timber instead of stone. With the window drawing the eye from every angle, the large octagonal room wasn’t so much a bedchamber as an eagle’s eyrie. Everything in the chamber—from the massive hand-carved bed with its plush nest of fur coverlets to the yawning hearth with its rough-cut stones to the oak rafters over Emma’s head—was oversized, as if fashioned for a race of Gaelic giants.

Despite its potential for grandeur, an air of neglect hung over the tower. Cobwebs drifted from the rafters in ghostly veils and the dog had been allowed to leave an array of half-gnawed bones around the ash-strewn hearth. There wasn’t so much as a hint of feminine comfort visible. No pillows aside from the one beneath her head, no graceful wax tapers in silver candlesticks, no dressing table littered with
brushes and bottles of scent, no floral watercolors or family portraits to adorn the rough-hewn walls. It was easy to understand how such an environment might have bred a man as virile and rugged as Jamie.

“Have you told your grandfather you have proof the Hepburn murdered your parents?” she asked him.

He spoke without turning around. “There’s nothing to tell. The Hepburn didn’t send the ransom. It was all for naught.”

Emma shook her head, wondering if blood loss had dulled her wits. “I don’t understand. I saw you talking to Ian. I saw him hand something to you.”

“Oh, the Hepburn delivered
a
ransom, but he didn’t send the necklace. He refused me the one thing I asked for—the truth.” Returning to the bed, he drew a folded piece of vellum out of his shirt and handed it to her. “He sent this instead.”

Emma unfolded the paper. It looked as if it had been crumpled and smoothed more than once. “What you seek is not mine to give,” she read aloud, puzzling over the words.

“I should have known the bastard was too canny to hand over the evidence that could have convicted him of murdering his own son.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life—however short that might be—looking over his shoulder, waiting for you to come for him.”

“He’s going to have to do that now anyway,” Jamie said grimly, a bloodthirsty glint dawning in his eye.

She shook her head. “None of this makes any sense. Why would the earl refuse you the necklace, yet send all of that gold?”

“The gold was never meant to be anything but a distraction. He had no intention of parting with it. The wagon driver took off the minute you were shot.”

His words deepened both her bewilderment and the dull throb in her shoulder. “I can understand why the earl might want to kill you, especially now that he knows you believe he murdered your parents. But what on earth would he stand to gain by killing me?”

He leaned over to brush his lips over her brow, the ruthless set of his jaw sending a shiver of foreboding down her spine. “Now that we know for sure the bastard didn’t succeed, that’s exactly what I intend to find out.”

U
NLIKE HEPBURN CASTLE,
the Sinclair stronghold had no elaborate labyrinth of dungeons buried beneath impenetrable layers of stone, no rusty chains dangling from dank stone walls, no secret passages winding their way through the earth. But it did boast a small chamber—really more of a cave—that had
originally been dug out of the side of the mountain below the tower to serve as a root cellar. It was plain and practical… and utterly impossible to escape.

Small rocks skittered beneath Jamie’s boot heels as he made his way down the steep slope. He paid no heed to the warmth of the spring sun on his shoulders or the fat woolly clouds frisking across the crisp blue of the sky.

Bon was waiting for him outside the wooden door that had been set directly into the rock face of the mountain. The impish twinkle in his cousin’s eyes had been extinguished, leaving them as cold and black as the deepest loch in winter.

“Miss Marlowe?” he asked, plainly fearing the worst.

“She’s awake,” Jamie replied, telling him everything he needed to know.

Bon sighed with relief, then nodded and unlocked the door, swinging it open without a word. Jamie ducked beneath its rough-hewn frame. The shadowy cave was lit by a single torch. After Bon closed the door behind him, blocking out the sunlight, it took a minute for his eyes to adjust.

A man sat with his back to the opposite wall and one long leg drawn up to his chest. His fine mulberry frock coat was missing, his silk waistcoat rumpled and his expensive linen shirt ripped at the shoulder. His left arm was in a filthy makeshift sling and an
ugly bruise darkened one of his aristocratic cheekbones. His dark hair hung around his face in lank, dirty strands.

Although he was plainly the worse for wear, Ian still managed to struggle to his feet to face Jamie. “I was wondering when you were going to make an appearance. Have you come to finish the job your men started?”

“Perhaps. But not until I have some answers.”

“I’d like some answers of my own, if you please. I’m afraid your men haven’t been particularly forthcoming. Did Miss Marlowe survive?”

“If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Jamie drew nearer to his old friend, struggling to keep the ragged edges of his temper from unraveling. “Now it’s my turn. Why her? Why would your uncle try to kill an innocent woman?”

“After being in your hands this long, I doubt she’s still an innocent.”

Ian’s mocking snort was cut off along with his breath as Jamie closed the distance between them in two strides, seized him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. Ian clawed at his arm with the hand not trapped by the sling. Jamie had taught Ian how to fight well and how to fight dirty, but when it came to brute strength, Jamie would always have the advantage.

“Now let’s try this again, shall we?” Jamie said, his
teeth clenched in a feral smile. He relaxed his grip just enough to allow Ian to speak. “Why did that wretched uncle of yours try to murder Miss Marlowe?”

Ian glared at him, his dark eyes smoldering with contempt. “Your merry band of cutthroats seized me before I could find the man who fired on her. How do you know for sure that it was one of my uncle’s men? Perhaps one of your own men misfired and accidentally shot her.”

Jamie tightened his grip again. “Wrong answer. I saw the barrel of the pistol at the top of one of the cedars before she was shot. Someone knew where we were going to meet. Someone who arrived the night before and took cover before anyone could spot him.”

Ian frowned, his mask of defiance slipping for a minute to reveal his bewilderment. “Dockett,” he finally breathed, all of the fight going out of him.

Jamie released him and he sagged against the wall. “Who in the hell is Dockett?”

“Silas Dockett. My uncle’s gamekeeper.”

Jamie folded his arms over his chest, unable to resist a mocking smirk. The one thing he hadn’t been able to forgive his friend was that Ian had been so willing to believe his uncle’s lies. To condemn Jamie for cutting down a man in cold blood without giving him a chance to explain the circumstances. “One I haven’t had the pleasure of murdering yet, I gather.”

“More the pity that,” Ian admitted, straightening and jerking the wrinkles from his waistcoat. “Dockett is even more ruthless than the last one. It had to have been him. My uncle insisted on speaking to the man alone after that lad delivered your demand. That’s when he must have given the brute his orders.” For an elusive instant, Ian looked more like the friend Jamie had once known than the embittered stranger he had become—the friend who had spent hours teaching him how to speak properly so he could disarm the bullies at St. Andrews with his words instead of his fists. “My uncle had to send me to the rendezvous, you see, so you’d believe he was sincere. But he didn’t dare tell me his scheme because he knew I’d never go along with such a thing.”

Jamie shook his head in fresh amazement at the earl’s audacity. “So he betrayed us both. He had to know there was a chance you’d be captured or even killed once Emmaline was shot. But none of this explains why he wanted her dead.”

His old friend disappeared into the past as an all too familiar sneer curled Ian’s lips. “Oh, he could care less about Miss Marlowe. The chit means nothing to him.”

Time flashed backward and Jamie was standing in that sunny meadow once again, watching Emma turn toward him after he’d called her name—her hair blowing in the breeze, her blue eyes shining with
a hope that was about to be vanquished forever. This time when he closed his hand around Ian’s throat, it was in earnest.

Through the roaring in his ears, he heard Emma’s voice coming to him like an echo from a distant place.
“Jamie, no!”

J
AMIE THREW A STUNNED
glance over his shoulder to find Emma standing in the doorway of the makeshift cell, a wide-eyed Bon beside her. The sunlight haloed her tousled curls and filtered through the folds of her white nightdress, making her look like an angel.

Or a ghost.

She swayed on her feet, forcing him to release Ian so he could rush over to catch her before she could fall.

“What are you doing out of bed, you wee fool? Trying to spare the Hepburn the trouble of killing you himself?”

He tried to sweep her up into his arms, but she resisted, clinging to his forearm but staying on her feet. Her face was nearly as bleached of color as her nightdress, but there was no denying the determined set of her delicate jaw. “I didn’t care for the
look in your eye so I followed you. I didn’t want you to murder someone on my account.”

Jamie shifted his glare to Bon. “And just how did she force you to open the door? Steal your pistol and hold it on you?”

Bon offered him a sheepish shrug. “She asked.”

Ian coughed pointedly, reminding them all of his presence. He was still slumped against the wall, massaging his throat. “Good day, Miss Marlowe,” he said with excoriating courtesy. “There’s no need to trouble your pretty head over me. I can assure you that I much prefer these accommodations to being trapped in a castle with my uncle and your charming family.”

Emma clutched at Jamie’s forearm, her face brightening. “How is my family? Have my mother and sisters worried themselves sick over me? Is my papa…”—she hesitated for a telling moment—“… quite well?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes at Ian, warning him it might not be in his best interests to add to her concerns.

“Your mother and sisters are bearing up with admirable fortitude and I can assure you that your father is in… robust health.” When Emma looked less than convinced by his words, he quickly added, “Before your hot-headed young champion here tried to choke the life out of me with his bare hands for the second time in this interminable day, I was getting
ready to explain to him that it’s not you my uncle wants dead. It’s him.”

“Then why didn’t he order his gamekeeper to shoot
me
?” Jamie demanded.

Ian’s laugh had a bitter edge. “Because my uncle is first and foremost a gentleman. He would never dream of sullying his own lily-white hands with Sinclair blood. Especially the blood of his own bastard grandson.”

Jamie scowled, his precarious patience still running dangerously thin.

Ian straightened, as if he wanted to be on his feet for this particular fight. “When you first abducted Miss Marlowe, my uncle told me the redcoats would never get involved in some silly Highland bride-snatching. That they’d just as soon we all feud to the death and leave them to pick our bones clean after we’re gone. But if one of their own were killed…”

Jamie’s breath froze in his throat. “So he has Emma shot…”

“… and claims you were the one who did it in an attempt to double-cross him after he delivered the ransom. The redcoats might be loathe to get involved in our affairs but even they couldn’t very well ignore the ruthless murder of an innocent young Englishwoman.”

“So they would be forced to come for me and my men.”

“And hang you all,” Emma finished for the both of them. “Leaving the Hepburn looking as blameless as a newborn babe.”

This time when her knees betrayed her, she allowed Jamie to whisk her off her feet and into his arms. She looped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his chest as if Ian’s revelation had drained what remained of her scant strength.

“Do you swear to me that you knew nothing of your uncle’s plan?” The look Jamie gave Ian over the top of Emma’s head left little doubt that Ian’s very life might depend on whether or not Jamie found his reply convincing.

“If I had, do you think I would have been standing out there in the open when the firing started?” This time Ian’s smile held no rancor, only a bittersweet echo of days gone by. “You taught me better than that, didn’t you?”

Jamie pondered his words for a moment, then nodded and turned to go, determined to get Emma tucked safely back in her bed before she collapsed altogether.

“So what happens to me now?” Ian called after them. “Are you just going to leave me here to rot or are you going to give me a chance to help you bring down that miserable whoreson who calls himself my uncle?”

As Jamie carried Emma from the chamber
without a word, Bon drew the door shut behind them, leaving Ian alone in the shadows.

E
MMA DRIFTED OUT OF
sleep that night to the delicious sensation of someone gently stroking her hair.

“Oh, Jamie,” she murmured, snuggling deeper into the feather pillow.

If this was a dream, she had no desire for it to end. She wanted to cling to it long enough for Jamie to tenderly brush his lips over hers, to coax them apart so he could give her a tantalizing taste of all the pleasures they were about to share.

“Sweet dreams, me bonny lass,” someone croaked in her ear.

Emma’s eyes flew open. It wasn’t Jamie’s handsome face hovering over hers but a dried brown apple with a shriveled slash of a mouth frozen in a toothless grimace.

Emma let out a startled shriek, realizing too late that it was only Mags. The nurse went scrambling backward to cower in the corner. She lifted her wizened hands to shield her face, keening a low-pitched lament.

Emma sat up in the bed, favoring her injured shoulder. The chair beside the bed was empty. After Emma had promised Jamie she would obey his stern order to remain abed, he had retreated to his own
bed to get a full night of sleep, his first since she had been shot.

Before he had left her, he had secured the heavy shutters over the window to hold the chill night air at bay. The fire on the hearth was dying but silvery ribbons of moonlight leaked through the wooden slats of the shutters. Emma could just make out Mags rocking back and forth in the corner like a frightened child. Her fear that the Hepburn had sent another assassin to finish her off quickly melted to chagrin.

“I’m so sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said softly, as if waking to the sight of the woman hanging over her bed like a vulture hadn’t taken half a year off her own life.

At the sound of Emma’s voice, the woman abruptly stopped keening and lifted her head. She hesitated for a moment, then scrambled to her feet and came creeping back toward the bed. She bore little resemblance to the sharp-tongued old biddy who had sparred with the Sinclair over Emma’s bed earlier that day.

The woman perched on the edge of the bed and lifted a gnarled hand to stroke Emma’s disheveled curls. “So pretty,” the woman crooned. “Me bonny wee lass. Me sweet Lianna.”

A chill danced down Emma’s spine. Jamie’s words echoed through her memory—
Mags went half-mad with grief for a while after they were found.

Perhaps the woman was still half-mad with grief. Or perhaps Emma’s arrival had simply stirred up old memories, some of which were better left buried. For all she knew, this might be the very chamber where Mags’ young charge had once slept.

“It’s Emma, Mags,” she said gently, taking care not to make any sudden moves. “Not Lianna. Lianna doesn’t live here anymore.”

The woman continued to chant in her eerie sing-song as if she hadn’t spoken. “Ye were always such a good girl. Such a fine daughter. Ye hadn’t a rebellious bone in yer body. Ye always had such pretty manners and did what yer papa told ye to do.”

Emma’s chill deepened as she realized the old woman
could
have been talking about her. She didn’t know if it would be kinder to try to correct her again or to allow her the brief comfort of believing Jamie’s mother had finally returned. “You loved your Lianna very much, didn’t you?”

“Aye. I loved ye like a mother would. That’s why I knew ye’d come back to us someday. I told him he just had to be patient and never give up hope.” The nurse leaned closer, lowering her voice to the same hoarse croak that had awakened Emma. “I told ye I’d look after it fer ye and I did. I’ve kept it safe all these years. He tried to bury it so deep no one would ever find it but auld Mags knew just where to look.”

Emma watched with reluctant fascination as the
woman drew something wrapped in a scrap of fabric from the pocket of her homespun skirt. She placed her offering on Emma’s lap, then nodded toward it, beaming with pride.

Hoping she wasn’t about to find the rotting corpse of some bird or mouse, Emma gingerly unfolded the cloth to reveal a simple cherrywood box with a hinged lid. The box smelled damp and moldy, like something that had been in the ground for a very long time.

Emma gently brushed away the bits of dirt clinging to the lid to reveal an oval miniature of a young girl set into the wood.

“Her father gave it to her when she turned seventeen,” Mags said, warning Emma that she was once again drifting between past and present. “Had the likeness painted from a sketch done by a traveling artist, he did. She was so proud of it! I still remember how she threw her arms ’round his neck and smothered his face with kisses.”

Emma turned the box toward the window, studying the miniature by the gentle glow of the moonlight. Although she would have sworn Jamie was the very image of his grandfather, he carried something of his mother in him as well. It was there in the regal angle of his cheekbones, the beguiling way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

Emma squinted at the likeness, struggling to make
out the shape of the necklace adorning the graceful column of Lianna’s throat. It appeared to be some sort of Gaelic cross.

“Go ahead,” Mags urged. “Open it.”

Emma reached for the lid, her hand trembling ever so slightly.

“Mags! What do ye think you’re doin’?”

Both Emma and Mags jumped guiltily, jerking their heads toward the doorway.

Jamie’s grandfather was standing there. He looked even taller and more imposing with his broad shoulders draped in a cloak of shadows. “Ye mustn’t trouble our guest, Mags. The lass needs her rest.”

“Aye, m’lord. I was just checkin’ to see if she wanted another quilt.”

Emma moved to throw a fold of her coverlet over the box only to discover it had already vanished back into Mags’ pocket. Before the old nurse turned away from the bed, she startled Emma anew by giving her a mischievous wink.

Jamie’s grandfather stood aside to let her shuffle past him. “Don’t mind auld Mags, lass,” he told Emma. “Sometimes late at night when she can’t sleep, she wanders—both in mind and body.”

For an elusive moment, he looked nearly as wistful as Mags had when she’d come creeping toward the bed to stroke Emma’s hair. Emma wondered if he, too, still spent sleepless nights wandering the
fortress, haunted by memories of his poor doomed daughter.

“Sleep well, child,” he said gruffly before melting back into the shadows, his shoulders more stooped than when he’d appeared.

Emma collapsed against the pillows with a sigh, still troubled by her brief glimpse of Jamie’s mother and wondering why her lonely bed had to be visited by everyone except the one person she most desired to see.