The Campbell Trilogy Read online

  He couldn’t believe it. He’d been so certain. Maybe Jeannie was right. Maybe her husband had nothing to do with what happened to him.

  As he replaced the papers where he’d found them and closed the drawer, he felt the distinct prickle of guilt. Should I have trusted her?

  His instincts rarely failed him. His gaze scanned the room and landed on a trunk, tucked into a small alcove in the wall. Lifting the top, he found himself staring at a thick stack of parchment.

  Every nerve ending stood on edge. This was it. He removed the papers and began to read.

  Near the bottom he found the missing map, creased where it had been folded in ninths. Parts of the wax still remained where it had been sealed closed, and scribbled on the back in one of the boxes created by the folds was a note:

  This came to me unexpectedly. Consider it a betrothal gift.

  Grant.

  His mind raced, trying to sort out what this meant. Betrothal gift. Had Jeannie known about this all along? He’d thought he’d been wrong, that she hadn’t betrayed him. He’d wanted to trust her.

  A few pages later he found a short correspondence, again from Grant to Francis Gordon, dated three days after the battle, the same day gold had been found in his belongings. It discussed the king’s approach and near the end words that sent a chill down his spine: The rumors you alluded to at our last meeting should give you no cause for concern. I have dealt with the matter and you can be assured that nothing will stand in the way of this betrothal. He was “the matter.”

  Duncan’s insides twisted. Vindication was cold comfort.

  He felt the subtle shift in air at the same time as a beam of flickering light spilled over his shoulder.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  He stiffened at the sound of her voice. He’d been so engrossed in what he’d found that he hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps. Holding the map in his hand, he slowly turned to face her. Jeannie stood in at the edge of the tunnel, a candlestick in her hand.

  Long red curls, blazing fiery gold in the candlelight, tumbled freely around her face and shoulders down the front of her thick velvet dressing gown. God, she was beautiful. So beautiful it hurt to look at her. He hated the doubt that consumed him.

  “What are you doing?” she repeated. Her eyes shifted behind him, seeing the papers, and her face filled with horror. “My God, you’re spying on me.”

  Jeannie gazed at him in stunned silence. To think she’d been unable to sleep because she’d been warring with herself about what to do. He’d saved her daughter’s life and quite possibly her own. With all he’d done she couldn’t stand aside and allow him to hang. But Dougall’s future hung in the balance. She’d wanted to find a way to help him and protect her son at the same time.

  Now here he was spying on her. He’d found the room. How could she be such a fool to allow herself to think that he’d changed? That he’d trusted her? Betrayal curdled in her stomach.

  Her accusation hung in the cold night air. He didn’t deny it. Instead he held out a couple of papers in his hand, his eyes once again cold and unyielding. “How do you explain these?”

  Not knowing what to expect, her fingers shook as she took the wrinkled parchment in her hand.

  Her heart thumped when she realized one of the documents was the map he’d been accused of selling to her father. She flipped it around, read the note, and then the letter.

  Saying nothing, she handed it back to him. A cold chill swept across her skin. Dear God, what had her father done? She’d wanted to think he hadn’t been involved, that the map had merely fallen into his hands. Had Francis been involved, too? Even posing the question felt disloyal. “This proves nothing.”

  His eyes flared dangerously. “It proves your husband was involved.”

  “What it proves is that my father sent the map to my husband. We already knew my father sent it to the Gordons. It changes nothing. Francis had nothing to do with framing you for treason.” Did she say it for her benefit or for his? And if Francis had been behind it, did it really change anything? He’d still protected her and her son.

  Duncan’s eyes scanned her face. “What has he done to deserve such loyalty?”

  She heard the raw emotion in his voice and had to turn away, lest she be tempted to tell him. Instead she turned his accusation back at him. “Why are you so quick to implicate Francis? My father even says the map came to him unexpectedly.”

  “And how did it come to him?”

  Her chest pinched. His question shouldn’t hurt so much. “I did not give it to him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Then who did?”

  “Was there no one else with opportunity?”

  “I removed my sporran twice. Once with you and once when I returned to my tent.”

  “And you slept alone?”

  He gave her a long look. “My father, brother, and a few of my father’s closest clansmen slept in the tent as well.”

  “Yet you immediately assumed it was me?”

  “Given your father’s actions that day, you were the most logical. But I did consider other possibilities.”

  “And?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “And I am still the most logical?”

  He waited for a long moment. “I don’t want to think so.”

  Her gaze met his. He was looking at her as if he wanted to believe her. “What do you think in here?” she asked, pointing to her chest.

  He flexed his jaw. “I don’t.”

  Because he thought his heart had led him astray.

  When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “And what of the letter? Do you still deny your father was involved with what happened to me?”

  Her gaze dropped to the floor. “He could have meant anything.” It rang false even to her own ears. Her father had been involved. She knew it as well as he did.

  He held her gaze for a moment longer, as if waiting for her to reconsider. To make a different choice. To choose him.

  God, how she wanted to. Standing this close to him, alone, feeling his strength surround her, she ached to touch him, to take refuge in the force of the connection between them. Every instinct urged to throw herself in his arms, rest her cheek against his shoulder, breathe in the warm, spicy scent of him, and forget her troubles.

  He would kiss her.

  The memory of his mouth on hers was almost enough to throw caution to the wind. She knew how it would feel. How he would taste. How pleasure would crash over her like a wave, drowning out everything but sensation. Her troubles would fade away like the mist upon the dawn. For a moment. But, like the mist, when darkness came they would return.

  She had to think with her head and not with her heart. The fact that he was here spying on her, accusing her, told her that she had been right not to trust him with her secret.

  She would not deny that there was something between them. That in the past few weeks she’d felt twinges of her former feelings for him. That she’d found many new things to admire in the man he’d become. That when he’d kissed her she’d felt more passion, more emotion, than she’d felt in ten years. That even now, she feared he would pull her into his arms and she would be lost.

  But though the old feelings were still there, so was the distrust. As much as her instincts urged her to throw caution to the wind, experience had taught her control. Duncan deserved to clear his name, she wanted him to, but she had to protect her son.

  With what he’d found, Jeannie knew it was going to be harder and harder to do. She felt as if she were living in a house of cards and one by one Duncan was plucking them from under her.

  He would never understand why she was doing this. To him, it would seem another betrayal. That she was siding with her father and husband against him even when she suspected their complicity in his downfall. She knew what she was sacrificing. But the thought of her son suffering for her mistakes …

  If Duncan proved her husband complicit, at best her family would expect recrimination fr