Chapter Fourteen

Delilah had wished she’d never looked at Kaid’s book. She wished she’d never heard his story.

But she had, and now she would need to press on regardless.

She reached for the book with a trembling hand and let her fingers part the pages near the back. Her gaze wandered toward the sketch there to find a woman, not being tortured or killed, but up close and drawn with such great affection it made her chest squeeze with jealousy.

The woman was drawn with the same striking quality as the previous work. The smooth strokes were beautifully poetic.

Page after page revealed the woman—different angles, different facial expressions, everything different but the woman herself.

Delilah’s fingers barely touched the page to turn to the next. The woman again. Her face turned up, her dark eyes wide and full of emotion.

Delilah’s pulse flickered.

On the cheek of the woman, below the side of her mouth was a freckle.

Just like hers.

She leaned forward to examine the drawing. Perhaps it was only a fleck of charcoal. She blew at the drawing gently, but the mark remained. She scraped the edge of her fingernail against it and still it remained.

This woman was her.

Her heart swelled. She turned page after page and found new drawings, all of her.

She stopped on one where her head tilted in contemplation and her fingers lingered over her lower lip. Her skin was flawless save for the freckle, every line smooth and perfect.

He’d drawn her beautiful. The way she’d always wished she could be.

She swallowed and turned to him.

He stared at the ground and the muscles of his jaw showed in hard lines against his cheek.

“You drew me.” Delilah held up the book, though he hadn’t bothered to look up.

He remained silent.

She knelt down beside him. “Kaid.”

His gaze rose to hers, displaying the impact of her betrayal—the injury, the offense.

“Why did you draw me?” she asked.

He studied her a moment. “Because ye’re beautiful.”

Her heartbeat staggered.

He thought her beautiful enough to draw her again and again and again, the way lovers in stories did. The way real men did not.

And yet he had.

She wanted to speak, but found the words thickening in her throat. She swallowed against it. “I’m sorry.”

He smirked. “I am too.”

A distinct heat welled in her chest and rose into her cheeks. She remembered the touch of his lips to hers, the press of his body cradled between her legs, the tenderness of his stare, as if she’d been the only woman he could ever love.

If only they were different people in a different world.

His stare went hard, reminding her they were not.

“Who are you?” he asked finally.

She shouldn’t have replied, but knew herself how hard it was to wait for answers. He’d been considerate with all her questions. She would afford him the same courtesy.

“My name is Delilah.”

Donnan chuckled behind Kaid. “I dinna think that could be more fitting.”

Kaid tossed an irritated look over his shoulder.

The barb struck her deeper than she should have allowed. Their ire would not keep her from completing her task.

She looked down at the journal still clasped in her grip.

Nor would the pretense of love.

Even the suffering of Kaid’s people could not.

“You gave us the courtesy of being captured without being bound. Can I do the same?” she asked. “Will I have your word you will not run off?”

Kaid nodded. “Aye, ye have our word.”

She should be skeptical, she knew—but then, they had trusted her and Leasa, hadn’t they?

She leveled a hard stare at him. “Then I will bestow upon you the same favor you granted Leasa and me.”

From where Leasa stood within earshot, she nodded at Delilah with gratitude. The decision was not made precipitously. If the men decided to escape, Delilah knew she was fast on her feet. She could catch Kaid at the very least. If she’d taken him down once before, she could do so again.

She leaned over Kaid and untied the rope she’d secured only minutes before.

The bulk of it slipped from his large shoulders and tumbled to his side. He shook the remainder of the coil from his torso and stood with a stretch.

They ate their dinner that night in silence. Even Donnan’s typical good humor and the light note of his whistled tunes did not grace the cool summer air. It all fell over Delilah like a thick, somber blanket.

After a gloomy supper which seemed to drag on for an extraordinary amount of time, it was finally time to sleep. Delilah had long since thought of how to handle their situation—not only to ensure the men did not escape, but that she would hear if they tried.

The only thing she could determine was to sleep side by side, and so that was what they did.

Leasa slept beside Donnan who slept beside Kaid who slept against Delilah.

And so Delilah lay nestled near the warmth of Kaid’s chest and tried to ignore the subtle male scent which triggered too many recollections of their shared pleasure. His breathing came deep and even, stirring the wispy hairs at the back of her neck and sending delicious little chills down her spine.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if doing so could block out the sensations, the memories, the desire even now beginning to hum through her betraying body.

Suddenly she realized she was not truly afraid of holding them for the next two weeks, she was afraid of herself.

Could she truly spend another fortnight with them and still turn them in, knowing the harshness of the punishment they’d face?

Kaid.

His name in her mind squeezed at a secret place in her heart, a girlish place of hope which had somehow been left untouched by King James.

Kaid was the man who loved her as she’d always wanted to be loved, the man who drew her in the beautiful way she’d never seen herself. No, she reminded herself—the man who loved her when he thought her to be another woman.

Regardless, he did not deserve what awaited him in a criminal’s death.

Tears, hot and unexpected, blurred her vision.

Despite everything they’d been through—the passion, the lies and the insanity of how they’d met—could she truly allow herself to be responsible for his death?

Could she, in good conscience, further expose his people to more brutal slayings?

And in the depth of her heart, she did not want to answer.

• • •

Kaid sat on the horse behind Delilah, no different than they’d been the day before.

But it was different. Very much so.

Now he was the captured, or so he let her believe.

His gaze wandered from the road ahead to her glossy brown hair in front of him.

Not that she couldn’t best him in a fight. Obviously she could, or he wouldn’t be in this position now.

Granted, he’d held back, afraid of injuring her. No man was used to fighting a woman, especially not one with her fighting skills.

Delilah.

What a fitting name for a woman of such beauty and betrayal.

Leasa’s easy laugh carried over from the left where she and Donnan rode in their usual jovial exchange of conversation, as if nothing had happened.

A pale boulder nestled between two hills caught his attention. He’d played on that rock as a boy. It lay on the border of his lands.

His men would be patrolling the perimeter. They would be found.

He wasn’t sure how much Delilah knew about him—hell, he didn’t know anything about her at all—but he wasn’t about to risk losing this opportunity to get out of the situation.

He’d given her his word he wouldn’t escape, but had said nothing about letting her be captured by his lot.

“Who are ye?” he asked.

Her answer came without preamble or pause. “No one.”

It wasn’t exactly the kind of distracting conversation he’d hoped for.

“Nobody is no one.” He tried to keep the frustration from his tone. “Where do ye come from?”

“England.”

“I figured,” he answered dryly. “Where in England?”

Delilah was quiet a moment. “A house in the country.”

“Did ye have any brothers or sisters?”

She gave a mirthless chuckle. “A few.”

Kaid scanned the horizon, picking through foliage for the familiar images of his men. Nothing. “Did ye no’ get along with them?”

“I didn’t not get along with them.”

Kaid frowned. “I dinna understand.”

She shifted in her saddle. “I’m done talking about this.”

He looked at the open landscape, swollen with the rise and fall of hills velvety with lush grass. They were definitely on his land now. He could not have her notice if she knew the area. And perhaps she did.

Most likely she did.

Delilah might be deceitful, but she was undeniably extraordinary.

“I thought I knew ye as Elizabeth.” He lowered his voice to a more intimate level. “I want to know ye as Delilah.”

Though he’d spoken the words with a luring intent, he realized he meant them. He wanted to know how she came to live in Scotland, to speak Gaelic, to fight like a man.

Delilah pulled in a quiet breath, but didn’t answer for so long, he thought she might not at all. When she finally did, her voice was quiet, somber. “I’m the middle child of fifteen children, the eldest unwed daughter. I was a burden for my family, who could barely afford food, and was sent to work for a rich relative at court in London as many poor relations often do. Suffice it to say, things did not go as planned.”

She shifted in her saddle to look back at him with a pointed expression. “I am a far cry from the well-bred noblewoman you assumed me to be.”

Her gaze slid past him, and her eyes widened. “Get down.”

She jerked low and he instinctively followed. An arrow sailed over their heads, narrowly missing her before it thunked into a tree in front of them.

A warning shot.

Delilah lay low against the horse’s strong neck. Her hand slid into her pocket and she withdrew a dagger. The very one she’d pressed to his throat after they’d made love.

Kaid straightened and looked behind him. Two men approached him, Lachlan and Dougal. Grins showed on their faces.

“Mighty fine of ye to bring us a couple lasses,” Lachlan said.

Delilah shifted her hold on the hilt of her blade, edging her grip lower with the obvious intend to hurl it toward the men.

“Dinna do that,” Kaid cautioned.

Delilah gave him a confused look, but her movements paused.

“Ye couldna handle these lasses,” Donnan said from somewhere behind him.

Lachlan stopped next to Kaid’s horse and stroked the beast’s neck. “We were wondering when ye’d come back.” He nodded toward Delilah, who had gone stiff in front of Kaid. “Who is she?”

“MacKenzie’s bride-to-be.” Kaid knew the words would pour realization over Delilah like a bucket of cold water.

She jerked a hard look at him over her shoulder.

Lachlan gave Kaid a wide grin. “I know what ye’re doing.” He gave a hearty laugh and patted the horse’s neck one final time. “We’ll walk with ye to Ardvreck. I canna wait to see the clan’s faces when they see this.”

Delilah’s body tensed in front of him.

Kaid covered the hand holding a dagger with his own. “Ye know fighting wouldna be wise.”

She jerked away from him and slipped the dagger back into her pocket. Angry though she appeared, he knew she understood his warning.

“You lied to me,” she growled. “I trusted you.”

The wind blew over the rolling hills and swept the length of Delilah’s hair from where it lay against her back, allowing the slightest bit of her naked neck to come into view.

He wanted to brush her hair aside and let his lips wander over the slender curve of her neck. Giving in to the temptation, however, would probably result in a knife to the gut.

“I gave ye my word I wouldna run off,” he said. “I’m no’ running off.” He pulled his gaze from her lest he give in to his desire. “Ye were the one who came onto my land and guided me toward my home.”

“And will you hold us as prisoners?” she asked in an icy tone.

“Ye’ll stay as my guests,” he answered. “So long as ye cause no trouble.”

“Of course—you have my word.” She spoke the last phrase in harsh mockery.

He knew she’d be upset, of course, but not for long. Or at least he hoped it wouldn’t be for long. It was part of his plan.

Knowing she was not Elizabeth Seymour had rocked his scheme for peaceful negotiations with MacKenzie, but Kaid had come up with another idea.

To have Delilah help him.

All Kaid had to do was convince Delilah to play Elizabeth for the man to whom it would really matter—Laird MacKenzie.