Highland Velvet Read online

  “Damn her.”

  She held her breath; she’d recognize Davey’s voice anywhere.

  “She always did have seven lives! All of which I mean to take,” he added viciously. “And that English husband of hers! I’ll show King Henry the Scots rule Scotland.”

  “There goes her horse!” said another voice,

  “Let’s go!” Davey said. “She can’t have gone too far.”

  It was a long time before Bronwyn moved. She was too stunned, too upset at first, to move. When her brain cleared a bit, she turned cautious. She wanted to be sure that Davey left no one behind in the area. She hoped to hear the sound of approaching horses, her own men, but when they did not appear in an hour, she stopped hoping.

  It was full dark when Stephen groaned and made his first movement.

  “Quiet!” she said, running her fingers along his cheek. Her right arm was dead from his weight on it for so long.

  Slowly, listening for each sound of the forest around her, she moved the leaves away. Her eyes were keen in the dark, and she’d had some time to listen to her surroundings. There was a stream not far from them at the bottom of a steep ridge. She ran down to it, then knelt and tore away a large square of linen from her underskirt and wet it.

  She knelt by Stephen, placed a few drops of water on his lips, then wiped the gash on the back of his head. The gash was not bad on his forehead, but she knew that sometimes such wounds had more serious consequences. It was quite possible that his brain could be addled.

  He opened his eyes and stared up at her. The moonlight made his eyes silver. She leaned over him with concern. “Who am I?” she asked quietly.

  His face was very serious, as if he puzzled over her question. “A blue-eyed angel who makes my life heaven and hell at the same time.”

  She groaned in disgust, then dropped the bloody cloth in his face. “You are, unfortunately, the same.”

  Stephen made a sorry attempt at a grin, then tried to sit up. He raised one eyebrow when Bronwyn quite naturally slipped her arm around him and helped him. “Is the news that bad?” he asked, his fingers rubbing his temple.

  “What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

  “If you’re helping me, the news must be worse than I thought.”

  She stiffened. “I shouldn’t have covered you but left you exposed for them to find.”

  “My head is killing me, and I don’t feel like arguing. And what the hell did you do to my back? Drive steel pins into it?”

  “You fell off your horse,” she said with a certain amount of satisfaction. Even in the darkness she could see his look of warning. “I guess I should start at the beginning.”

  “It would please me greatly if you did,” he said, one hand on his head, the other rubbing his back.

  She told him as succinctly as possible about Davey’s plan to kidnap Stephen.

  “And no doubt you agreed,” he said flatly.

  “Of course not!”

  “But getting rid of me would have solved many of your problems. Why didn’t you agree to his plan?”

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

  “His arguments were quite logical, and it was a perfect way to get rid of me.”

  “I don’t know!” she repeated. “I guess that I really didn’t trust him. Here, while we were under the leaves, I heard him say…that he meant to kill both of us.”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “How could you?”

  He touched a curl of her black hair. “Just a guess based upon the number of arrows aimed directly at you. And the way they tried to separate us from the men. It’s upset you, hasn’t it?”

  Her head snapped up. “What if you heard one of your brothers say he’d just tried to kill you?”

  Even in the darkness she could see Stephen’s face turn white. He looked at her in horror. “It is an impossible idea,” he said flatly, finishing the subject. He looked around. “Where are we?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What about the men? Are they around here?”

  “I’m only a woman, remember? How would I know about war strategy?”

  “Bronwyn!” he warned.

  “I don’t know where we are. If the men don’t find us soon, they’ll return to Larenston, where we must go as soon as possible.” She put her head to one side. “Quiet!” she whispered fiercely. “Someone’s coming. We must hide!”

  Stephen’s first impulse was to meet whoever it was head on, but he had no weapon besides the little dirk at his side, and he had no idea how many people there were.

  Bronwyn took his hand and pulled him forward. She led him to the crest of the steep ridge, then over the side. They quietly snuggled down into the thick bed of leaves and watched the two men who approached. They were obviously hunters, looking for game instead of the missing laird and her husband.

  Stephen made a gesture as if he meant to say something to the men, but Bronwyn stopped him. He looked at her in surprise, but he didn’t make a sound.

  When the men were out of hearing distance, he turned to her. “They weren’t David’s men.”

  “Worse,” she said. “They were MacGregors.”

  “Don’t tell me you know each of the MacGregors personally.”

  She shook her head at his stupidity. “The cockades on their hats bore the MacGregor colors and insignia.”

  He gave her a brief look of admiration for her extraordinary night vision.

  “I think I know where we are now.”

  He turned over, leaned back against the bank, and sighed. “Don’t tell me,” he said sarcastically. “Let me guess. We’re in the middle of the MacGregor’s land. We’re weaponless, horseless, no food or gold. We’re hunted by your brother, and the MacGregor would just love our heads on a platter.”

  Bronwyn turned to look at his profile, and suddenly a little giggle escaped her.

  Stephen looked at her in astonishment, then he too smiled. “Hopeless, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes dancing.

  “Of course, this is no time to laugh.”

  “None whatever.”

  “But it is almost funny, isn’t it?” he laughed.

  She joined his laughter. “We’ll probably be dead tomorrow, one way or another.”

  “So what do you want to do on your last night on earth?” he asked, his blue eyes picking up rays of moonlight.

  “Someone could stumble on us at any moment,” she said quite seriously.

  “Hmmm. Shall we give them something to see?”

  “Such as?”

  “A couple of sublimely happy, totally nude wood-spirits.”

  She pulled her plaid close about her. “It’s awfully cold, don’t you think?” she said coyly.

  “I’ll wager we can find a way to get warm. In fact, it makes a great deal of sense to combine our warmth.”

  “In that case—” She launched herself from the ground and jumped on him.

  Stephen gave a gasp of surprise, then laughed. “I think I should have brought you to the MacGregor’s land before.”

  “Quiet, Englishman!” she commanded as she lowered her head and began to kiss him.

  Neither of them seemed to remember that they were perched on the side of a very steep ridge. Their passion, intensified by the danger of their predicament, made them oblivious to even more immediate dangers.

  Bronwyn was the first one to lose her footing. She’d just moved to Stephen’s side, slipped her skirt off while he removed his clothing, when the next instant she was rolling down the side of the hill.

  Stephen made a grab for her, but his senses were dulled by his passion and he missed her. But he’d extended himself too far and tumbled down just after her.

  They landed together in a tangle of nude, moonlit skin and a flurry of leaves.

  “Are you all right?” Stephen asked.

  “I will be as soon as you get off me. You’re breaking my leg.”

  Instead of moving off her, he moved his body m