Devil's Highlander

“But I love you,” he said, and his voice cracked.



She wavered for a moment, wanting it so badly. Wanting his words to be true. But she couldn't trust them. His promise had proven untrue. How could he love her when he didn't care enough even to pretend to help her?



She shrugged. It was his guilt that spoke, not any love for her.



He mistook her shrug. Perhaps he thought it was assent, but he leaned down to kiss her tenderly on each cheek.



Her body hummed to life at his touch, and she despised herself for it. Was she so helpless to him? She felt tears burn in her throat. If she were ever to regain her dignity, she'd need to part from him.



He cradled her neck, and she clenched her eyes shut tight. There was such strength in those broad hands, and yet their touch was so gentle.



She couldn't help opening herself to him, and his kisses grew fervent. Panic drove his passion, she decided, panic at the potential for duty denied.



When she pulled away, his blue-gray gaze was waiting for her. It was a gaze that made her heart break and her body ache with two very different kinds of wanting.



She couldn't fight it. She'd enjoy this for what it was — physical passion — one last time. “Kiss me more.”



“I will, love,” Cormac said earnestly. “I will. I'll kiss you again and again.” He swept her up and carried her to the bed where he laid her gently down. “But first tell me you love me. Tell me you'll marry me.” Her flesh had awoken, and she writhed against him, trying to pull his body over hers. One last time. Her throat ached with the knowledge it'd be their last time together. “Kiss me. I want you to be inside me.”



“Not until you say the words,” he said, his voice husky. “Not until you say you'll be my wife.”



“I won't say those words.” She pulled away from him as all her hurt and shame erupted to the surface. She couldn't do it, couldn't lie to him, and making love would be a lie. She couldn't pretend she could experience passion without emotion. “You broke your promise to me, and instead of giving me a reason, you think to distract me with a marriage proposal. You toy with my heart as though I'm still a girl of ten. No, Cormac,” she said, cursing the crack in her voice. “You're just as they say. You are the devil.” He sat up, and the look he gave her was bleak. “Then you should've known better than to trust my black soul.” They both startled at the banging on her door.



“What?” She bounded off the bed. Anything to get away from him.



Fiona spoke urgendy from the other side of the door. “Sorry, mum. So sorry. But the—” Marjorie flung it open.



“So sorry.” Fiona stared, wide-eyed, looking from Marjorie to Cormac and back again. “But I wanted to warn you.



You told me to keep my ears open for talk of the bailie. But he's here. Now. In the drawing room with your uncle.”



“The bailie is here?” Panic flared in her chest. If only Cormac would help her deal with the situation. And now it had appeared on her own doorstep. She prayed she wasn't the one who'd led the bailie to her uncle's. “What ever could he be doing here?”



“He is a respectable man in society, Ree.”



Her focus shot to Cormac, seated at the edge of the bed, chin in hand. She glared at him, not particularly eager for his opinion at the moment.



Even though she knew he was right. It could be a matter of a simple explanation. “Did you hear him say why he was here?” she asked her maid.



“No mum, he just bustled in, him and that wife of his—”



“His wife?” Marjorie shuddered at the memory of rumbullion and hideous women in feather-plumed hats. “Adele is here, too?”



“Aye, and a nasty piece she is,” Fiona muttered, and then her jaw dropped, appearing shocked she'd spoken aloud.



She ignored Fiona's comment. Her maid's peculiar muttering was to be expected, and Marjorie had only one concern at the moment. “Did they ask for me, or are they here only for Humphrey? Tell me, Fiona, are the children safe?”



“Aye.” Fiona straightened proudly. “Archie came and took them all.”



“What?” Marjorie gasped, stumbling backward into the wall. She propped herself against it, her fingers feeling cold and drained of blood.



“He came to pay a visit. He told me he wanted to help, and took the lads with him back to Saint Machar.” She fiddled nervously with her apron. “I didn't do wrong, did I?”



Cormac flew from the bed, strode by them to the door.



“Where are you going?” she demanded. A clammy chill prickled her skin all over. Archie had the boys, Archie took Davie. She forced herself to stand upright. She went to grab her wrap from where she'd tossed it on a chair. “I'm going with you.”



“You canna!” Fiona gasped. “It's almost full dark outside.”



“Aye,” Cormac said, his voice steely. “Listen to the maid. You can't leave. Lock yourself in. Open for none but me or Fiona.”



Their eyes caught, and time held still. The gravest of looks crossed his face, as though he'd come to a great decision.



“I'm going to make this right,” Cormac said, and he stormed from the room.



But Marjorie knew she wouldn't be there when he returned.



Chapter 33



She'd told him no. Marjorie had refused his proposal, and he'd seen the surety in her eyes.



Cormac upped his pace, thinking of Gregor's fine chestnut gelding, stabled at the Broad Street mews. He'd make it to the docks faster on horseback. But it was the horse of a wealthy man, and galloping through the darkness, he'd summon every eye in Aberdeen.



Wealth. He'd told Marjorie she deserved a wealthy lord. Was that why she'd balked at marriage? Was the prospect of life with a fisherman not so appealing after all? He frowned. He'd not give the notion a moment's credit.



She'd been so angry when he'd told her he couldn't destroy the Oliphant. Surely it was simple anger that drove her refusal.



Because surely Marjorie loved him. She'd told him before that she loved him. God help his cursed soul if she didn't.



He cursed his soul, wondering why he hadn't said the words to her sooner. He loved Marjorie more than life, so why hadn't he told her when he'd first had the chance?



But



even as he speculated, he knew why. He was a coward. Losing his brother and then his mother had almost destroyed him, and he'd been afraid he'd get hurt again. So he hadn't told her of his love — as though, by not saying the words, it might not exist.



Furious with himself, he ran harder through the streets. He might be a fool, but he'd be a coward no more.



He'd convince Marjorie of his love. Sacrificing his blackened soul, if need be — his devil's soul — to do her bidding. He'd failed those he loved before. He'd not fail now. He would find Aidan. He'd make his brother stop whatever mischief he might be about. For Ree.



And then he'd stop Archie and Jack and whomever in hell else he had to stop to make her happy.



He stood, panting, at the head of the quay, ready to confront a brother stolen from him thirteen years ago.



The moon was bright, and the modest sloop bobbed in a shaft of white light. The Journeyman. Cormac imagined he felt his brother's presence close by.



“Cormac,” someone said from the shadows along the edge of the pier.



He tensed. The voice was new to him, but something in its timbre struck a chord in his heart. It was Aidan's voice.



Cormac turned, wondering how it was he hadn't noticed the figure seated along the dock, feet dangling over the water. Aidan had always been the only one able to sneak past him.



“Is it truly you?” Cormac's chest tightened with emotion.



Aidan stood, stepping into the moonlight. Even in the dark of night, Cormac could see that his brother's skin had grown weathered, his tone duskier, with lines about his eyes and mouth. The years had hardened him.



Cormac went to embrace him but stopped. Gone was the playful scamp of their youth. Instead, the man who stood before him had a body scored with the muscle of hard labor, his rigid stance speaking to rage barely contained beneath the surface. “Aidan… “



“There's a name I've not heard in some time.” He gave Cormac a hard smile.



It was a type of vertigo, meeting this brother, whom he'd loved above all, as though they were strangers. “What are you called, then?”



“For years, I was simply Boy.” He tilted his head, examining Cormac through slitted eyes. “I thought I'd seen you, you know. Earlier on the dock. But then you were gone, and I thought mayhap you were just a ghost. I live among many ghosts.”



Cormac didn't know what gulf his twin needed to cross, but he did know that he wanted Aidan back among them, and he'd help him across this final stretch. “I felt like I died when they took you.”



“Funny that,” Aidan said, his tone brittle. “I just about died in truth.” Cormac swallowed. What had his brother endured, who had he become? He appealed to a different tack. “How long have you been back in Scodand? Why didn't you try to find us? Why did you not come home?”



“Home? I've no home. Scotland is your home.”



Deep inside Cormac, a ten-year-old boy fumed, and he fought the urge to cuff his brother. “Are you angry with me?”



Aidan shrugged. “You're right, of course. I have much anger. None of it for you, Cormac.” He stretched out his hand. “Come, let's meet as brothers.”



As they clasped hands, Aidan attempted a smile, but Cormac could see the uneasy strain of it. His brother cut a quick glance at the Oliphant, and Cormac wondered what he might be hiding.



“Let's walk from here. We can walk, and you can tell me news of our esteemed family,” he said sardonically. “I imagine Mother didn't take the whole kidnap nonsense very well.” Cormac bristled. “Mother died within the year.”



Aidan blinked slowly. It was a simple movement, but a brother knew, and in it Cormac saw a lifetime of pain, of hopes dashed.