Читать книгу The Highlander's Dark Seduction - Joanne Rock - Страница 7

Chapter One

Scotland 1890

Most young ladies of Elizabeth Harrison’s acquaintance would have traded anything for the invitation to a summer party at Balmoral while Queen Victoria was in residence.

American heiress Elizabeth Harrison, however, would have given anything to leave Balmoral without the fanfare her great-aunt insisted on making as they stood near the horses. Elizabeth had been ready to part since dawn, desperate to escape the week of mockery she’d endured after a spurned suitor had spread rumors about her inability to wed due to her plainness. But Aunt Sophia had made their leave-taking a long and drawn-out affair.

“Aunt Sophia, I will be fine.” Elizabeth leaned closer to her maiden aunt who acted as her chaperone at Balmoral since Elizabeth had no luck convincing anyone else to accompany her to the Highlands. “I fear I should have been underway half an hour ago, so truly, I must beg your leave—”

“I only hoped that handsome Italian count would come down to see you off, my dear. What was his name?” Sophia patted her niece’s hand absently as she peered over the pristine lawns in the early morning haze.

“He’s a fortune hunter, Auntie,” Elizabeth insisted, more determined than ever to make her departure from the cruelty of a society where she’d never quite fit in. “He is a deposed count with no more holdings and his dwindling resources are the only reason he ever seeks my company.” She’d had enough awkward conversations with men who only saw her father’s bank accounts when they looked upon her. Or, more often, “up” to her. At almost six feet tall, Elizabeth often felt like a lurching beast among parties full of delicate girls. “Which is all the more reason I should depart since I have no wish to field indelicate questions about the extent of Father’s possessions. I will write you when I arrive.”

“You’re sure Lily is expecting you?” her aunt fretted. “I expect I should chaperone this journey, if not the visit.”

Elizabeth had argued to make the trip into the mountains alone, a point that she’d only won because her aunt detested country living and all the lack of luxury it implied. Elizabeth’s mother had died when she was barely out of the nursery, and it had forced her to be more independent. Her father had been too deep in grief to pay much attention to raising her so she’d raised herself and took care of him, too. Even now, she felt like more of the caretaker for her aunt than vice versa.

“Lily is a widow and a perfect chaperone. She can’t wait for my arrival,” Elizabeth lied, anxious to be free of society for a fortnight or however long she could stretch the visit. She would need a chaperone far less in the Highland wilds than she did in the corners of crowded ballrooms where men and women mocked the height they likened to a giraffe’s. “I will return before you know it!”

Calling to the driver through the carriage’s open window, Elizabeth waved to her aunt and began her journey at last. Away from the prospect of marriage. Away from self-important suitors who thought she should weep with gratitude when they asked her to dance because they were nobility while she was not only plain, but even worse… an American.

The word meant something entirely different for her than it did for them. Her friend Lillian Desalles, who’d very briefly been Viscountess Broadville, understood this. And if Elizabeth was truly going to see her old friend Lily from New York at the end of this journey, Elizabeth would be delighted.

Except she did not know what she’d find at the other end of her trip. Because the truth was that Elizabeth hadn’t heard from her best friend in weeks. She knew Lily had taken shelter at a nearby Highland castle after being unexpectedly widowed following a brief marriage. Lily had described the romantic, crumbling ruin of Invergale in her last missive, along with a few other peculiar details that left Elizabeth uneasy for her friend’s safety.

Withdrawing the letter from her reticule, she reread the lines that had her worried:

…I saw a man in the woods, dressed like a Highlander of days gone by. If that wasn’t strange enough, I pointed him out to the footman and he could not see the vision that was so clear to me! I am telling no one else about this for fear Father would threaten me with an asylum to push me into another marriage.

Elizabeth clutched the note tighter while the rhythm of the rocking carriage shook it lightly in her hand. Had Lily been imagining things? She had attended finishing school with her back in New York and had never known her to be anything less than completely sensible.

They’d both despised dancing class and vowed if they needed to dance well to impress a husband, he was not worthy of them. Back in those days, they hadn’t realized what a very serious business their marriages would be. Or how their small freedoms would be over once they were given to husbands who saw them only for their income potential. One particularly cutting remark she’d overheard two days prior had been that her features would have ensured she died a spinster if not for her fortune. Another man had likened her to the proverbial “bull in a china shop” when she danced at a recent party, even though she knew from an academic perspective that she performed the dance with textbook perfection.

Elizabeth turned her attention back to the letter.

…Part of me wonders if the remnants of the old Caledonian Forest surrounding Invergale are making me overly fanciful. A pity, though, since the Highlander I saw was a finely made man!

Indeed, Elizabeth could empathize with wanting to wish an appealing man into reality. Her father and stepmother had bundled her off to London to find a husband with a title no matter how ancient or distasteful. They’d draped her with jewels and gowns that advertised her wealth more clearly than a Fifth Avenue shop window, an approach that only made her feel all the more awkward and unattractive by contrast beneath the glittering finery. They were disappointed that Elizabeth had yet to choose one of her few brave and desperately poor suitors while Lily had agreed to a match with an aging viscount shortly after arriving in London. Little did Elizabeth’s parents know how cruel Lily’s father could be in forcing his daughter to his will.

A fact which made Elizabeth all the more eager to attend to her friend’s safety. Besides, a few days away from Balmoral ensured Auntie Sophia wouldn’t be able to parade her past potential fortune-seekers, especially the earl who’d all but threatened to compromise her reputation in order to secure her hand.

Perhaps Elizabeth would find a finely made Highlander in the ancient wood surrounding Lily’s home instead. A very tall one, at that. The thought made her smile as she settled back against the leather bolster to rest her eyes. Soon, the rhythm of the jostling conveyance, coupled with the steady drum of horses’ hooves, soothed her with their strange lullaby. She’d been thinking about her trip the night before and hardly slept a wink….

So when the carriage later jerked to a halt later, Elizabeth couldn’t be certain if she’d slept for a few moments or a few hours. Maybe she could tell by the position of the sun—actually, where was the sun?

She yanked aside the red curtain that covered the decorative slats on her open window. Long shadows outside meant it was either nighttime or that they’d ventured so deep in the Highland forest that the trees obliterated the sun. Or maybe both were true. The scent of pine and decaying wood drifted into the dark conveyance on a cool breeze, the thicket unnaturally still, as if she’d awoken inside a dream.

She shook herself to chase away whimsical thoughts. Yet, even the horses made no sound.

“Lawrence?” Elizabeth called to the driver, a stab of panic going through her as she straightened.

When he did not respond, fear crawled up her back in an icy scuttle. Had something happened to him? Was there someone else out there?

She stuffed Lily’s fallen letter back into her reticule, hands trembling. Should she step out of the carriage to see what was the matter or would that be entirely foolish? Her heart slammed against her ribs as she reached for the door. She couldn’t stand not knowing what was out there. Especially if her aunt’s trusted driver was hurt and needed her assistance.

Twisting the handle, she pushed the door until a shaft of unnatural gray light filtered inside the carriage, as if the moon had suddenly broken through the tree cover. Perhaps she dreamed. Elizabeth debated giving herself a pinch when the door was wrenched the rest of the way open.

“You must come now,” a man’s voice barked at her even as hands reached toward her, a voice nothing like the ancient Londoner Lawrence who drove her carriage.

Her eyes could not seem to focus, the scene before her was so strange. For a moment, surprise trumped fear as she spied the forest transformed under a sudden trick of moonlight. Every tree branch and moss-covered rock sparkled with a silvery glow as if each surface had been sprinkled in moon dew or fairy dust.

Surely she dreamed.

“What is this place?” she whispered, half afraid to break the beautiful spell of this enchanted spot, not that there appeared to be anyone to hear her. Her driver was nowhere in sight. “Have I died? Is this heaven?”

“It’s the Highlands, lass. But I’d call it a slice of heaven, myself.” The thick brogue of a Scotsman reached her ears as a huge, half-dressed Highlander in a tattered kilt stepped directly into her view. Muscles bulged in places she’d had no idea men possessed muscles. And although she’d once dreamed of a tall man to sweep her off her feet, she had no idea that men could actually be so tall. So large in general.

Fear stifled her scream before she could voice it, her throat raking over silence. A strangled mewing sound emerged from her lips as she shrank back into the carriage.

Oblivious, the man only scowled before he continued, “Heaven or no, these sidhe bastards lurking at the edge of the clearing would rather eat yer soul for breakfast than sing an alleluia. We’d best hurry.” He held out a hand to her as if to help her from the carriage.

Or drag her from it by the hair, perhaps.

“Who are you?” She scooted away from his outstretched fingers, her voice shaking as it returned. “What have you done with my driver?”

The man canted back as if he’d been scalded.

“What have I done?” The Scotsman glared at her from under thick, dark eyebrows. His eyes were light but she could not determine their color as he glowered in the moonlight. He crossed powerful arms over his chest, his shoulders so square they might have been hewn from a quarry. A navy plaid draped around his waist and chest did not cover all that it should, providing her with a distracting lesson in male anatomy at a time when she should be defending herself. He carried a sword at his hip. An honest-to-God sword.

She swallowed hard, responding carefully.

“Lawrence does not answer when I call him,” she clarified, sitting up straighter, trying to hide her fear the same way she would when meeting a fierce hunting dog or a spirited mount. “Where is he?”

The dark gloom around them seemed to deepen, the silver mist on the trees glistening brighter in response. What caused that strange glow?

“Your driver stopped to answer the siren’s song of some soulless she-devil in the wood.” The stranger threw his hands in the air as if the very idea disgusted him. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll go moony-eyed for a poetry-spouting spectral yourself, so hurry lassie, before one of them kisses the sense right out of you and you’re turned into a wood nymph to plague me for the rest of my days.”

“Excuse me?” Her heart pounded faster. He ranted nonsense like a lunatic. Perhaps he’d escaped the asylum.

“The sidhe are coming.” His voice grew more urgent as he waved her forward. “Can ye not see their enchanted light all around? We must flee and fast.”

Surely he was crazed. Yet the only thing that gave her pause was that Lily had described seeing a man like this, in a forest like this one. Except no one but Lily had been able to see him.

“But I’m on my way to see my friend, Lillian Desalles, at Invergale. Once I retrieve my driver—”

The Highland menace leaned right into the carriage, his shoulders a hair’s breadth from hers so that she could feel the warmth of all that brawny flesh.

“That’s Lily Darroch, these days,” the man corrected her. “Yer friend is my new sister-in-law and ye have her to thank for sending me on this fool’s mission to bring ye to her!”

And with that cryptic warning, the man’s hands landed on her waist and hauled her toward him.

“No!” she cried out, shoving at his thick slab of shoulders even as he pulled her from the carriage, her skirts snagging on the door handle.

“We must hurry,” he urged, dodging a blow she aimed for his head. “Did ye nae hear? Lily sent me!”

He hefted her against his chest and she heard the fabric of her ruffled traveling gown shred down one seam. The horses danced backward at the commotion, or maybe it was the unnatural stillness of the forest that spooked them. Whatever it was, the animals bolted with the empty carriage, reins dangling.

“No!” Her bag was still strapped to the gleaming black cabin quickly disappearing. “Release me,” she huffed and struggled, twisting in her captor’s iron grip.

A noise rose up behind them. The sound distracted her, a distant hum on the breeze like a thousand bees swarming past her ear. The light in the forest grew, concentrating into a pinpoint of brightness so intense she would have shaded her eyes if she didn’t hold onto the Highlander’s shoulders for dear life.

“By the saints.” She gripped the man’s arms tighter, suddenly grateful for the breadth of his warrior’s body between her and that spinning white light as he pitched forward in a blazing sprint.

The humming sound exploded in her ears. The light blinded her. She ducked her forehead against the stranger’s shoulder, hiding from whatever was happening out there in this unholy place.

Eyes squeezed shut, she tried to block out the light and the sound and the fear. She concentrated on the man’s solid chest against hers. The feel of strong arms holding her tight.

Moments ago, she’d been afraid of him. Now, she understood that he kept her safe.

He ran like the wind. Maybe it was just another mad illusion since her perceptions all felt skewed. She focused on his steps, listening for his footfall on the dead leaves of the forest floor. She timed her breaths to his every fourth step. Then, as they moved farther away from the light and the peculiar nature of the forest clearing, her breathing slowed more.

Her captor had saved her.

Elizabeth acknowledged as much by the time he pulled up short and settled her on her feet. The cool feel of the dirt and pine needles came through her lightweight leather shoes and she curled her toes against a sudden chill now that the man no longer held her.

“Thank you.” Feeling off-balance in every way possible, she glanced up at her rescuer with new eyes.

He blinked fast, the nuances of his expression more difficult to see now that they’d moved away from the unnatural brightness of… whatever had happened back there. Still, she had the sense her gratitude caught him off guard as he whistled softly to a huge horse that emerged from the trees.

“It was but a moment’s work.” He waved away her thanks as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “I have been at the job for many a year.”

His Scots brogue was softer now. Less noticeable. Still, he would never pass for a noble lord at Balmoral. And thank goodness for that. A lord from her auntie’s party probably would have left her to her own devices in that clearing and fled with the carriage horses. The man was pleasing enough to look upon though. Strong features gave his face a rough-hewn appearance with prominent cheekbones and a chiseled jaw. Dark slashes of eyebrows did nothing to soften his expression. Elizabeth felt a pinch of guilt for noting his looks given how much she resented being judged by her own.

“Well, you have my thanks. And my apologies for the scuffle I caused.” Remembering it, she peered down at her skirts and noticed the tear up one side. Thankfully, an inner layer of her petticoat remained intact beneath her traveling gown. “I’m Elizabeth Harrison, by the way. And I’m still confused about how you know my friend Lily or how you knew to look for me here.”

She had no idea where “here” was.

“I’m Magnus Darroch.” He nodded in a way that was just a slight incline of his head. Yet the way he held himself, the straight spine and chin tilted up, made it look like a courtly bow of a bygone era. “And your friend wed my brother a fortnight ago.” He waved her closer. “Can you ride astride in that…er… garb?”

He studied her dress as if it was a great mystery. In the meantime, she hadn’t heard anything past “your friend wed.”

“It cannot be.” She shook her head, unable to digest the words. Lillian’s parents were still in New York.

“Very well.” He nodded. “You can ride in front of me.”

Once more his broad hands clamped around her waist and he lifted her high onto the back of the monstrous horse.

She made a small, undignified shriek, but the horse did not even twitch as she landed sideways on the beast’s back. In a trice, Magnus Darroch flung himself beside her without the help of a stirrup or even—goodness—a saddle.

“We will fall off,” she protested, grabbing a fistful of mane in one hand before the man—Magnus—scooped her up and dropped her across his hard thighs as easily as he might handle a sack of grain. “Oh!”

“I’ve been riding horses for even longer than I have been dodging sidhe,” he proclaimed, wrapping an arm around her waist and clamping her tight to his chest. “There is nae a chance you will fall on my watch.”

He had no saddle, but he held reins in his hand—a simple bridle around the horse’s head that didn’t seem nearly enough to keep the animal in check, but with the slightest encouragement from Magnus Darroch, the powerful beast responded to a simple nudge of the rider’s knee. A nudge Elizabeth felt all too well since she was seated on his lap.

Heaven help her, the night had been thoroughly shocking from the moment she’d opened her eyes. She had no business making the trip to Invergale while wrapped in a foreign warrior’s arms. She’d be ruined. Fodder for scandal. Completely…

Unmarriageable?

The idea suddenly took on a certain appeal, especially since it would discourage the destitute earl she’d refused and others of his shallow ilk….

But then she came to her senses. She must be even more distressed and out of sorts than she’d realized to entertain such a notion. Her first priority right now should be figuring out what on earth was happening. Had Lily been drawn into the same strangeness that Elizabeth felt right now?

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me.” Her hand rested on the warrior’s forearm that went around her waist. She stared at it, hardly recognizing it as her own. His flesh was so warm. The muscle beneath impossibly strong. Magnus Darroch seemed to be the only stable, solid thing in a world suddenly off-kilter. “I don’t even understand where we are. What was that place?”