Nick was exhausted.

He’d been riding for hours, straight through the night. Though he didn’t dare stop at any inns and ask if the mail coach had passed, he did see the occasional bundle of post still by the road in villages. He could only hope this was the road she was on, that he was following the right coach. There were so many.

He was between Leicester and Nottingham, amid the countryside, when he crested a hill and spotted a coach in a stand of woods, turned on its side. His heart froze. His breath stalled.

He was visited by the most horrible thoughts in that fraction of a second.

None of them were tolerable.

Everything in him urged him to fly forward, but something about the scene was not right. It was difficult to make out the details in the dim light, but he recognized the fall of trees before the coach for what it was. An ambush.

His pulse skittered and his mouth went dry. He tethered his horse to a tree by the road and, skirting the shadows, moved closer on foot.

Before long, he was near enough to hear male conversation and laughs, and the thud as one package after another hit the ground.

“Oy,” one man said. “We should have brought a bigger cart.”

“Aye,” another said. “But a lot of this is rubbish.”

“We should load it up anyway, and go through it later. No telling when another coach will come along.”

A harsh laugh echoed through the night air. “Mayhaps we’ll rob them, too.”

Both men laughed then.

Bloody hell. Just as he expected. The coach had been ambushed and robbed. What a damn shame that in his hurry to find her, he hadn’t thought to bring a weapon. He sorely regretted it now.

Nick edged closer and scanned the scene. There was no sign of Isobel.

Was she still in the coach? Had she been injured? Or worse, killed?

Hell, if they’d hurt her, he’d hang them both by their balls. He would—

“Please!”

His knees nearly collapsed as he heard her cry out. Her voice was unlike anything he had ever heard. It had a tremble in it that made his gut churn.

His darling was frightened. She was—

“I’m telling you, I need to go.”

“Shut up, you,” one of the men growled. “I’m tired of hearing it.”

“It’s been hours,” she snapped.

Ah. This tone he knew. She was annoyed. For some reason, his heart lifted.

“You should have gone at the last posting house.”

“The driver wouldn’t stop. Untie me and let me go into the woods. Just for a minute. I swear I won’t run away.”

A heavy sigh echoed. “All right. You take her.”

“Me? Why do I have to take her?”

“Because I’m up here, you dolt.”

As the highwayman on the ground went to Isobel, who was, apparently, tied to the axle, Nick slipped closer, following the ditch by the side of the road until he came up behind the coach.

He tripped over something, then realized it was the mail coach guard’s legs. The man had broken his neck in the fall, judging from the angle of his head. Nick dropped to the ground and felt around until he found it. Yes! The blunderbuss tucked into the back of his breeks.

Stealthily, he slipped it free and checked the powder. A blunderbuss was not an elegant weapon, but one favored by the mail coach guards for its sheer brutality. Hopefully he would not need to use it.

But he would if he had to.

He watched as the highwayman led Isobel into the trees, debating whether to follow or wait behind. But in truth, there was no debate, because if he stepped out into the open, he would be seen.

He gnashed his teeth as he waited for her to emerge and then regretted not taking his chance when a hollo-ballo arose from the woods. A cry, a thump, a thud.

That it was a man’s cry was gratifying, but it did precipitate a flurry of activity from the other brigand. He cried out and leaped down from the coach.

And then he stilled.

As did Nick.

Isobel emerged from the trees holding something . . . tiny. She held it like a weapon, though it could hardly be one. A muff pistol was his best guess, one that could barely hit the broadside of a barn and would only annoy a beast like this.

But damn, she looked fierce. Clearly, she had no clue her “protection” was so feeble.

In response, the remaining highwayman raised his weapon, a Manton—an extremely accurate weapon, one with real bullets—and pointed it at Isobel’s heart.

Nick set his teeth, sucked in a breath, lifted the blunderbuss, and bounded out from his hiding place.

“Lower your weapon,” he commanded.

“Nick!” Isobel called. “You’ve come after me.”

“Aye. Of course I have,” he snarled, keeping his attention on the bastard with the Manton. He swiveled and pointed his barrel at Nick. Excellent.

Anywhere but Isobel.

He smiled, something snaggletoothed and evil. “Lower yours.”

“Doona point a gun at him,” Isobel snapped at the highwayman. Who, for some reason, ignored her.

“You should have run,” Nick told her, not taking his gaze from the brigand.

Her laugh danced on the breeze. “Run?”

“You should have.”

“But then I wouldn’t have known you followed me.”

Was she really pouting?

“Isobel . . .”

“Go on,” the highwayman said, aiming at Isobel again. “Lower it or I shoot the girl.”

Something in Nick’s belly fizzled. It was probably rage.

“Oh, he won’t shoot me,” she said cheerfully. “I’m a prime piece.”

“What?” Had he thought that previous feeling rage? How naive of him. He raised the blunderbuss higher, and his expression must have warned the villain that he was serious, because the man took a step back. Then the man stumbled, over a rock or a package or something, and his arms wheeled. And then, to Nick’s horror, the Manton fired.

Not at Isobel.

A blessing, that.

But it hit Nick, slicing through his chest in a scream of agony. He fell back, unable to stop his tumble, and hit the road hard. Just before everything went black, he had a fraction of a second to think of her, his Isobel. A fraction of a second to regret the fact that he hadn’t been able to save her.

* * *

Isobel stared at Nick as he fell to the ground. A terrifying flower blossomed on his shirt.

Something descended over her then, a grief unlike anything she had ever known, and a raw fury as well.

She turned to the highwayman, who held a now-spent pistol. As she approached him, stalked him like a panther, he burbled, “I didn’t mean to shoot him. I swear.”

But she didn’t care. She couldn’t.

Slowly she lifted her pistol and pointed it at his chest.

He took a closer look, then his lips tweaked. He laughed. “You’re going to shoot me with that?”

It was the laugh that did it. That he could laugh, after what he had done, after shooting the man she loved . . . Oh, he needed to die.

Her expression hardened.

He realized that she did, indeed, intend to shoot him and tried to cover himself. But Isobel was a dead shot, with a bow and arrow or a tiny pistol.

Heart filled with rage, she took aim and fired.

The sound of the shot reverberated through the clearing.

His eyes widened. He clutched his chest. His mouth went agape . . .

But only for a second.

Then he laughed . . . again.

Perhaps she should have come closer. Perhaps the bullet was too small. For whatever reason, he did not fall as she had hoped. He did not die.

And then he started for her, with a malevolent look in his eye. “You will pay for that, my lassie,” he said, which only infuriated her more. She was not his lassie.

So he wasn’t dead. Maybe it would be better if he just wished he were dead.

As he lumbered toward her, she lifted her skirts and pulled back a leg and, when he was close enough, she landed her knee soundly in his crotch. He collapsed with a high-pitched scream.

She threw the weapon to the ground and ran to Nick, hoping, praying that he was all right.

She fell to her knees at his side and took his face in her hand. He was pale, unmoving. The blot on his shirt had expanded.

Her heart lurched.

No. No. He couldn’t be dead.

What would she do? Who would she be without him?

She called his name, shook him, cried out to God, but there was no response. Not from either of them.

Despair filled her heart. A thunder filled her ears. She was—

No. Not thunder.

Hooves.

She looked up, through the tears, to see two carriages bearing down on them. She nearly collapsed in relief as she recognized her uncle’s crest on one of them.

Thank heaven.

Help had arrived.

Now if only Nick could survive.

* * *

Nick’s uncle Ewan was the first out, and he ran to her side.

“He’s been shot,” she wailed, though that was perfectly obvious.

Ewan grunted and felt at Nick’s neck. “Thank God, there’s a pulse.”

“We need to get him back to that last inn and call a doctor,” Nick’s father said and Isobel blinked, because in that moment, she was surrounded by all of them. Her father, her uncles, and all of Nick’s kin, including Declan and Robert.

And then her mother emerged from the carriage and ran to her side, pulling her into a hug. All of a sudden the floodgates opened and Isobel began to weep.

“Darling. Darling,” Mama murmured. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

“Nick was shot,” she blubbered.

“But he’s breathing,” Ewan said stalwartly. “And he’s a Moncrieff.”

“I was shot once,” Papa said. “And I’m fine.”

Nick’s father nodded. “I was shot once, too. About in the same place. And look at me.”

“I, too, have been shot,” Uncle Lachlan said, patting her on the shoulder.

“I was shot more than once and I survived,” Ewan said. He put out his chest as though this was something to brag about. And maybe it was, because both Declan and Robert remained silent and looked a trifle put out.

“We need to move Nick into one of the coaches,” Papa said, and he, the dukes, and Isobel’s father lifted him gently.

“Put a board across the seats,” Mama commanded. After all, she’d done this before. It made Isobel feel so much better that she was here. “And doona jostle him.”

“We’re no’ jostling him,” Papa said.

“Be careful.”

“We’re being careful.”

Declan and Robert, even more put out that they were not helping, continued to pout. “What shall we do?” the former asked.

“There’s a highwayman over there.” Isobel pointed to where he was still wheezing on the ground. “He’ll need to be firmly trussed. And Mr. Breedlebum, in the coach.”

“Mr. Breedlebum?” Declan asked.

“Oh, please doona truss him. He was the other passenger. I doona know if he is alive.”

“We’ll check, Isobel. Don’t worry. Why don’t you go sit and wait?”

Sit and wait?

She didn’t. She couldn’t. She would not leave Nick’s side. She followed him to the coach and took the prime seat beside him and held his hand, even though he didn’t respond. Mama came to sit across from her and she set her hand on Isobel’s knee and murmured silly things like, He’ll be fine and Doona worry.

As all the men set about cleaning up the mess, including helping a dazed Mr. Breedlebum from the coach and collecting the two highwaymen—including the one Isobel had beaned with a rock—she stayed by Nick’s side.

It seemed to take forever for everything to be finished, but finally the men piled into the other coach and the cavalcade turned around and headed for the inn they’d passed several miles back.

Isobel passed the time in a fog, alternately kissing Nick’s face and covering it with tears. Mama tried to comfort her, but the fact was, Susana Dounreay Lochlannach had never been much of a comforter. Isobel wished her father were riding in this coach. He had always been able to soothe her.

Aye. A girl needed her father. And a boy did, too.

And now they—if they indeed existed at all—might lose their father before they were even born. What a tragedy that would be.

Which started the flow of tears again.

Which made Mama even more uncomfortable, because she was powerless to stop them.

“Darling, please,” she said in a tone that was almost peevish. “You have to be strong. You’re no good to him if you make yourself sick.”

Isobel paused in her weeping to glower. “I’m no’ making myself sick.”

“You will if you continue this caterwauling.”

“The man I love has been shot,” she snapped.

Mama blinked. “You do love him then?”

Tears welled. Isobel’s throat closed. Still, she managed to say, “Of course I do. I lo-lo-love him with all my he-he-heart.”

“Then why, darling? Why did you leave like this?”

Why? “Because I’m a fool. I thought I could escape it, but I canna.”

Mama frowned. “Escape what, for heaven’s sake? What is there to escape? The man is a prince among men. And a viscount to boot.”

“I kn-kn-know.”

“What . . .” A deep, reedy voice mingled with her sobs, and Isobel stilled. She looked down at Nick’s face and her heart swelled when their gazes clashed. Oh, lud. She’d thought she might never see his eyes open again. And lovely. They were lovely.

“Nick, my love.” She covered his face with more kisses and tears, but these tears were a trifle happier.

He took her hand and squeezed it. Hard. She frowned at him.

“What?” he asked again.

“What, what?” All right, perhaps a little brusquely, considering the fact that he had almost died and everything. But could he not be more clear?

It took him a moment to gather the words. “What . . . did you want to . . . escape?”

Oh, dear. “Darling.” She smoothed back his hair. “We can talk about this later.”

He narrowed his eyes and set his chin, just so, in a way she didn’t recognize. It looked like it might be stubbornness. “Now.”

Aye. Stubbornness, indeed.

“What did you want to escape?” This time with more strength. “Me?”

“Not you, darling,” she cooed.

“What then?”

“It’s stupid. Can’t we just—”

“No.”

Oh, dear. She had no idea he could be as stubborn as she.

“Tell me.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then realized she might as well tell him. He was clearly not going to let her wiggle out of the confession. And indeed, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “Fear,” she said. “I was deathly afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Aye.”

His wince pierced her heart and she kissed him gently. “Of how I felt for you. You made me want to turn it all upside down.”

“All what?”

“My life. My beliefs. My ridiculous determination to avoid marriage.”

“I made you want to marry?”

“You made me want to marry you. No one else.”

His smile was her reward for her courage. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. “You called me your love.”

“Because you are. Edward Nicholas Wyeth, I love you with all my heart.”

His grin turned wicked. Aye. He was definitely feeling better. “And you promise to surrender to me in every way?”

She frowned.

“To obey my every command? To always do as I say?”

Heavens. How did she answer that? The truth? Or a lie to appease him? “I . . .”

But before she could respond, he laughed and pulled her close and kissed her.

“Isobel, my sweet. I will never try to change you. How could I? I love you just as you are. With all my heart as well. I certainly know better than to command anything of a Lochlannach lass.”

“Well, thank God,” Mama muttered drily.

She kissed him again, wreathed in happiness and relief. He would be fine. They would be fine. And one day, there would be babies. Maybe very soon they would be a family.