The Campbell Trilogy Read online

  Cobwebs meant spiders.

  A shiver ran up her arm and down her neck, as if she were feeling them crawl across her skin. She inched forward in her seat away from the wall, sitting a bit more upright on the chair.

  What did she expect? She was fortunate to have found any kind of private accommodation this close to Drumin Castle, but nearly every village had an alehouse. The room—or, more accurately, alcove—above this one would have to do.

  The guardsmen who’d escorted her on her “emergency” journey to her cousin’s would be sleeping in the stables.

  She felt a twinge of guilt for the elaborate lies she’d concocted, and a bigger one for the ease with which it had come—it wasn’t just the guardsmen, but her brother she’d lied to. She’d thought about confiding in John—the girls were too young—but didn’t want to force him to choose between his love for his father and his love for the sister who’d been like a mother to him. So she’d invented a message from their cousin Margaret, the new Lady Lovat, requesting her immediate presence at Castle Fraser. Then, when they’d neared Drumin she’d feigned illness, forcing them to find the nearest accommodation. A little gold had gone a long way in persuading the ale woman to overlook the gentleman who would arrive later, ensure the guardsmen had plenty to drink, and to send her son with a message for Duncan at Drumin.

  She wrinkled her nose, looking at the old wool plaid covering the bed. Perhaps the guardsmen had the better end of the bargain; straw might be an improvement. But at least in here she and Duncan would be alone. That is, if he ever showed up.

  She peered out the window into the darkness as if willing him to appear. Where was he? She’d sent her note hours ago. What if he didn’t come?

  Panic pinched her chest. He had to come.

  She had to warn him. Though what she was going to say, she didn’t know. She could hardly tell him what she’d learned—to do so would not only betray her father, but put his life in jeopardy. She bit her lip. It wasn’t only worry about what she was going to say, but she suspected that Duncan wouldn’t exactly be pleased to see her. But as Huntly’s stronghold of Strathbogie was still some distance, she wasn’t in any real danger.

  The toe-tapping didn’t seem to be easing any of her anxiety so she stood and began to pace, which meant taking only a step or two in each direction in the tiny room.

  The sounds of loud, off-key singing, interspersed with laughter filled the night. It was well past midnight, but from the noise below you would never know. The raucous sounds of merrymaking only seemed to increase as the evening wore on, which spoke well for the ale, but not so well for the prospect of sleep.

  Not that she expected to be able to rest any time soon. Not until the battle was over.

  And perhaps not even then. What if he wouldn’t listen to her?

  Despair washed over her, but she forced it aside. She would make him understand.

  A horseman suddenly burst out of the darkness into the yard below. The shadow of a large man dominated the small circle of light provided by a few torches.

  Her pulse took a sudden violent leap, taking her heart right along with it.

  It was too dark to make out his features, but his size and fierceness of his movements told her all she need to know: Duncan had arrived.

  Taking a deep breath, she sat in her chair and faced the door, waiting with her hands folded calmly in her lap, though the erratic beat of her heart was anything but. For the first time, she wondered if she might have made a mistake in coming. She couldn’t escape the knowledge that it was something her mother might have done. But it was too late for second thoughts. Besides, what other choice did she have?

  It seemed to take forever before she heard the heavy sound of booted feet climbing up the stairs, coming to a sudden stop just outside the door. Then, finally, the door burst open.

  It was a good thing she was sitting, as the force of his anger hit her like a blast from a smith’s bellows.

  Her lips parted with a gasp and a shiver wound down her spine. Jesu, he was magnificent.

  Primed for battle, Duncan was an impressive sight. A flush of heated awareness swept over her, her body responding in a distinctly feminine fashion to the blatant display of masculine power. Black leather and steel encased every bulging muscle of his tall, powerfully built body. With his jet black hair and fearsome expression, he looked like a dark knight pulled off the lists of an ancient tournament—fierce, dangerous, and indestructible.

  He had to stoop to avoid hitting his head and angle his shoulders to pass through the doorway. Once inside the chamber he’d sucked the cool air right out with his heat.

  If the room had seemed small before, now it felt about as big as a mouse hole. A mouse hole crowded with almost six and a half feet of fearsome Highland warrior, his body honed as sharp and deadly as the edge of a claymore. He dominated the chamber, making her at once conscious of his strength—and his fury. Fury that rang every internal alarm bell she had until her entire body seemed to reverberate with the clamor. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck and arms stood on edge, sensing danger. She felt the strange urge to run, but there was nowhere to go. He was everywhere.

  His face was a mass of hard lines in the flickering candlelight, the dark shadows emphasizing the square set of his jaw and tight line of his mouth. His eyes narrowed on her with predatory intent, piercing blue appearing almost black. A muscle ticked ominously in his neck—an agonizing tolling of time when it otherwise seemed to stand still. Closing the door, he strode toward her. Even the way he moved was fierce and harshly masculine; he had the long, powerful strides of a lion. She resisted the ridiculous urge to cower, but if she’d ever been inclined to do so, it was now.

  He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. Anger radiated from every inch of his powerful, mail-clad form.

  She gazed up at him tentatively, looking for a crack in his forbidding demeanor, but finding none. His expression was about as yielding as the steel that plated his chest.

  She swallowed, trepidation balling in her throat. No, definitely not pleased to see her.

  Duncan had been out of control precisely twice in his one and twenty years, and both times involved the lass seated before him as primly and properly as if they were meeting at court and not in some hellhole alehouse only a few miles from a looming battle.

  Tamping down the urge to pull her into his arms and vent his rage for scaring the blazes out of him, instead he pulled out her note from his sporran and tossed it in her lap like a gauntlet. “What the hell—” he stopped, clamping down on the reins of control “What is the meaning of this?”

  She picked it up without even looking at it and held it back to him. “I needed to see you.”

  He ripped the wrinkled parchment from her hand and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, holding it before her wary, green-eyed gaze. “I can see that,” he said, his voice deceptively calm, “right here where it says: ‘Come quickly, I must see you. We must act immediately.’ ” He stuffed the note back into the leather pouch and leaned over her menacingly, his arms on either side of her shoulders, bracing himself against the window sill, his face only inches from hers.

  Damn, he could smell her. He inhaled instinctively, drawing in the delicate scent of honeysuckle. And those lips … so soft and pink. A mouth like that should be illegal, conjuring images that could murder a man’s self-control. For a moment, desire blinded him, threatening distraction, but anger won out. “What it doesn’t say,” he said in a low voice, “is what possible reason you could have for following me into a damned war zone.”

  She lifted her tiny upturned nose in the air as haughtily as a queen. Her delicate, regal beauty was laughingly out of place in this hovel. “Stop trying to intimidate me when I’m only here to help you.”

  At another time he might admire her spirit. He wasn’t often challenged when he was in a temper like this. Clenching his fists, he drew a long, ragged breath, searching for patience, but finding it exhausted. “How could putting yourself