“The past doesn’t much matter, does it?” Jerome demanded with a level gravity that reminded Ian very much of his Uncle James. He reached out, gently grasping the whiskey bottle from Ian’s hands. “You’re wed to one another now. And since you’ve done the honorable thing, perhaps you should do the courteous thing as well, and return to the house.”
Ian took the whiskey bottle back from him. “Indeed, I should.”
Ian left his brother and cousins standing on the lawn. When he reentered the house through the breezeway, he found the servants clearing the remnants of the party. The guests had departed or retired. There was no sign of his parents, Teddy McMann—or Alaina.
He strode up the stairway and down the hall to his room. He hesitated. He felt as if his body had become one pounding drumbeat; he realized that the sound of his heart had become that excruciating pulse, and that the burning glow of the whiskey remained electrically about him.
He pushed open the door and paused.
All lamps had been snuffed in the room, but someone had built a fire in his hearth against the dampness, and the room was further illuminated as the doorway to the balcony remained slightly ajar. Moonlight spilled in. Enough moonlight to show him that his bride was curled into a protective ball on the far side of his bed. She was so curled, in fact, and so far on one side, that a breeze would send her falling to the floor.
Irritation seized him, along with the haunting knife of desire she could so easily arouse. He walked over to where she lay, looking down at her in the moonlight. Her eyes were closed; tears dampened her cheeks. She looked young. Angelic. Sympathy rose within him, until he wondered if she was crying for her lost love.
He reached down to touch her. Her eyes flew open; she hadn’t heard him come into the room. Moonlight spilled over her, making her face very fragile, her eyes twin circles of glowing gold. Her lips trembled, and one word issued from them in a broken sob. “Please…”
He drew away, afraid of the turmoil that raced within him, certain that he must either wrench her up and inflict some violence or walk away completely. He strode to the balcony windows and stood there, tension creating an ache in him from head to toe. He heard her sigh of relief. Did she think that he was leaving?
He turned back, unbuckling his scabbard to set his cavalry sword on his desk. He took a seat in the large leather wing chair behind his desk, setting the whiskey bottle he had carried in down by his feet. He leaned back, closing his eyes to mere slits, watching the firelight play before him, damning himself anew for his recklessness by the pool, and determining his position here now. He had a wife, one he hadn’t intended. She hadn’t wanted a husband—at least, she hadn’t wanted him as a husband. But she was truly a fool if she thought that he intended to go through all the years of his life as a celebate husband because she had intended on capturing a different lover.
So…
He frowned, sitting very still.
She had risen. Slipped from the bed. Her nightgown was an ivory shade, beautifully laced. Sheer. She covered it with the matching robe that had lain at the foot of the bed. Barefoot, moving with barely a whisper of sound, she came near to where he sat, looking down at him. Apparently, she thought he slept.
She bent, plucked up the bottle. He heard her sniff of disdain. She set the bottle on his desk and moved across the room to the balcony.
He gave her a second, then came silently to his feet. By instinct and long habit, he buckled his scabbard back on.
Then he followed.
She wasn’t on the balcony. He looked up and down the length of it.
She was on the lawn, he realized. She had slipped down the rose trellis and was moving across the lawn toward the woods.
“Damn her, what is she up to?” he muttered aloud. He swung his body over the railing and caught the trellis himself, climbing down it. She hadn’t the least idea that she was being followed. He kept twenty feet behind her as she scampered along the trail that led to the pool. Ian paused behind an oak as she stood in the center of the pool’s clearing, staring at the water.
Then a man suddenly rose from the night shadows that encompassed the log at the water’s edge.
Peter O’Neill.
“Alaina!” he called softly.
She spun around, long hair and gown flowing like liquid gold in the moonlight…
To meet her lover?
Chapter 6
“Alaina, I knew you’d come!” Peter O’Neill called out softly, coming toward her.
“O’Neill!” The quiet of the night was suddenly shattered with the deep thunder of another voice.
Peter went dead still and deathly white.
Alaina froze as well, not certain if she was more stunned by Peter calling out her name or Ian calling out Peter’s.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was the horrible tableau created here. She’d been so desperate to escape his room, Cimarron Hall, him. She was accustomed to wandering where she chose at home; there, it didn’t matter, there was no one near them, and their closest neighbors would never harm her. She’d been quite certain that Ian McKenzie had passed out with his whiskey bottle; she’d seen him with his brothers and cousins at the far edge of the lawn and she had prayed for just such a respite. In a thousand years, it had never occurred to her that Peter O’Neill might be here now.
But he was. And she knew exactly what it looked like. Peter, in this copse. Awaiting her.
She could feel herself shaking inside with a strange depth of fear unlike anything she had ever known before. Ian stared at Peter, and Peter returned that stare. Peter wore a dress sword. He pulled it from its scabbard, causing Alaina’s heart to skip a beat. But then he threw the sword out on the ground. “McKenzie, we’ll not have bloodshed. I’m not armed!” Peter cried out suddenly.
Ian McKenzie deftly unbuckled his scabbard, letting it and his cavalry sword fall to the ground.
“No bloodshed,” Ian agreed, but his tone was deadly; his blue eyes appeared obsidian. But even as he spoke, the trail behind them suddenly came to life with the sounds of branches snapping and footsteps falling.
Julian, Jerome, and Brent burst into the copse, pausing just behind Ian.
“Jesus,” Julian breathed, surveying the scene.
Alaina felt Jerome and Brent staring at her. Neither spoke. She knew what was in their eyes: fury at her betrayal. They were her friends, Sydney’s big brothers, almost her own.
But they were McKenzies. The look in their eyes was merciless. Ian McKenzie had married her. She repaid him thus.
“Well,” Peter said, finding a certain courage. “Will you look at this! The great and powerful McKenzies! The white boys and the breeds, towering talents with guns, fists, and blades, and all lined up before me.” He lifted his arms. “If you think you can just murder me in the woods and get away with it because you are the great McKenzies, you had best reconsider. My uncle is a state senator. You’ll hang, every one of you.”
“No one is going to murder you, O’Neill,” Ian said, his voice deep and quiet. “Not now. But if I ever catch you near my wife again, I will kill you.”
Peter shrugged. Then he started to walk out of the clearing, away from the McKenzies. But he paused by Ian. “McKenzie, you just might find yourself having a rough time keeping your wife away from me,” he taunted, and he made the mistake of giving Ian a fierce shove.
“Please—” Alaina started to say.
Too late.
Ian lunged for Peter. The two went down in a split-second flurry. Ian was on top of Peter. There was no contest. Peter didn’t get in a decent blow. Ian caught Peter’s right jaw. Peter howled.
“Stop it, stop it, please!” Alaina cried out, rushing forward, wondering if she could somehow stop a murder by casting herself between the men. Then again, Ian might just as happily kill her.
She never reached the fighters. Brent caught hold of her, an arm firmly around her waist. “They’ll handle it, Laina,” he told her softly.
As Ian raised a fist to
strike again, Julian and Jerome came behind him, his cousin hanging on his arm, his brother on his back. “Ian, he isn’t worth it, he isn’t worth it!” Jerome hissed.
The two were able to drag Ian off his enemy. Julian knelt down by Peter. “He’s out, but he’ll be fine. Luckily, Ian, you didn’t break his jaw.”
Brent released Alaina and stepped forward, stooping down by O’Neill as well. “Let’s get him back to Cimarron,” Julian said. He and Brent took the burden of Peter and started back along the trail to the house. Jerome hesitated briefly, a hand on Ian’s shoulder, his eyes momentarily touching Alaina where she stood by the pool, barefoot and determined not to betray her shivering.
“Cousin?” Jerome murmured.
Ian, tense as a bow string, eyes hard on Alaina, spoke quietly as well. “I’m fine.”
Jerome nodded. “Well, then, good night.” He turned to follow his brother and Julian down the trail. Alaina very nearly shrieked out to him that she wasn’t fine at all, and that he had to come back and protect her. From her husband, his cousin.
She didn’t cry out; she couldn’t get her jaw to work. Ian didn’t move. He just stood there, dark hair fallen over a dark blue eye, features set in so grim a line he might have been composed of stone.
“Well?” he murmured quietly.
“This wasn’t what it appeared—”
“Oh?”
“I had no idea he would be here.”
“You just felt the urge to run out to the pool and strip and swim again?” The sarcasm in his voice was as cutting as a blade.
“No, I just felt the urge to escape your house, you, your room—”
“You dislike my house so much?” he inquired politely, arms crossed over his chest as he began to take steps toward her. “I’d rather thought it a handsome place, and I’m quite fond of my own room.”
She was on the defensive, turning to face him to keep from being cornered as he circled around her. “I detest your house and your room,” she whispered. “I—”
“But you weren’t meeting O’Neill?”
“No.”
“Ah, well, say that you didn’t arrange a meeting with O’Neill. Doesn’t it ever sink into that foolish little head of yours that running about naked can be dangerous?” he demanded furiously.
“I’m not naked—”
“Naked this afternoon; half naked now, Mrs. McKenzie!”
The way he said the words made her cringe inwardly, snapping out his own name with such contempt and anger that she had no choice but to fight back.
“No!” she cried. “No, I am not in danger, from you or anyone. I am not a weak and sniveling little thing ready to become a victim, sir. I can defend myself—”
“You can defend yourself?”
“I am excellent with a sword, sir.”
“Well, I didn’t notice that you brought a sword with you here,” he commented wryly, “but that aside, are you really so excellent that you feel you can defend yourself from all would-be attackers?”
“I took lessons for years. I bested a cavalryman quite easily this afternoon,” she informed him uneasily. He was circling her again. She had to keep turning to keep him from being at her back.
“Fine, then. Have at it with me,” he said. He gaze seemed like onyx. Hard, unyielding. Brutal.
“Have at it?”
“Indeed.”
“You want me to…”
He reached to the ground and drew his sword from his scabbard, tossing it toward her. It spun in the sandy dirt at her feet and she stared down at it before staring back at him.
“Pick it up,” he commanded. “Mine is a good sword. Peter’s is a silly dress sword, but I shall take it as my weapon and give you the advantage.”
“Don’t give me anything,” she warned him, wondering at what idiocy was driving her now. He was absolutely furious, she knew. And yet, he seemed as cold as ice. It made him all the more dangerous, his complete control.
“Pick up the sword; fight me.”
“For what?” she whispered.
A grim, taunting smile curled into his lip. She felt her breath catch, for his hair fell in dishevelment over his forehead, his gaze was ice-hard, and the taunting curve of his mouth was oddly sensual against the rock hardness of his handsome features.
He had Peter’s sword in hand. He swept it through the air and gave her a mocking bow. “You can defend yourself; so you have said, when I warned you of the dangers of your recklessness. Fight for your honor. Best me, and walk away. Run back to your island with your father. Lose, madam, and your honor is mine.”
“My honor will never be yours!”
“If you can defend yourself as you claim, no man could take it from you, am I right?”
“I can defend myself!”
“Are we agreed on the terms?”
“The terms?”
“My terms.”
“We are not—”
“Yes, we are agreed; it is the very crux of the argument, for if I were any stranger with ill will and the violation of your chastity in mind, I would simply seize what I wanted—were I to win.”
“No one can seize anything from me.”
“So you say. Then fight me.”
“I will win!”
“Pick up the sword, girl. Defend yourself. Show me how infallible you can be, and that I need not worry about your half-clad midnight meanderings to bring shame upon our marriage. The sword! Pick it up!” he roared at her.
Convinced that she’d be skewered on the spot if she did not, Alaina bent down quickly for the sword, leaped back, and prepared to face Ian. “You’re a fool,” she cried out. “I know how to use this and if you—”
His sudden movement sent the steel of his sword clashing against her own. The force behind his blow was staggering, but she kept her grip firmly upon her own weapon. Picking up the skirt of her nightgown in her left hand lest she trip on it, she determined that she must go on the offensive herself, before the force behind his blows weakened her arm. She could move like lightning, and she went after him aggressively with a series of swift blows, nearly dancing across the soft earth of the pool’s embankment with the speed and grace of her movement. He fell back, and she felt a moment’s triumph. Then she realized that he was falling back merely to allow her to expend her energy while he feinted every blow. She had pressed him backward a good twenty feet when his sword suddenly started swinging in a series of arcs that she parried just by the skin of her teeth. She was forced back the twenty feet she had gained. They both paused for breath.
He made a sudden blur beneath the moonlight with his blade—one that she feared for a split second would indeed cost her her life as his steel just missed slicing into her breast.
She wasn’t cut. The delicate lace ties of her gown were neatly severed instead.
She knew better than to grow angry; a cool head was needed here. But she was infuriated. She began to attack him again with a swift series of blows. She was so swept up in her tempest that she made a swinging strike that would have severed his legs at the calves had he not been swift enough to leap from her attack and land on the fallen log just behind him. Not willing to lose the advantage, she attacked instantly, determined to bring him to the ground where she could rest her sword point against his throat and thus end the matter.
The log shattered; he lost his balance, falling flat upon his back. She leaped over the scattered pieces of wood, certain of victory, but just as she came for him, he made a miraculous flying leap back to his feet, striking her sword with a merciless blow that would have broken her arm if her fingers had not instinctively let go of the reverberating hilt.
Her sword flew, arced in the moonlight, came to rest point down in the earth about ten feet away.
She stared into the deep, damning blue of Ian’s eyes. She started to make a mad leap for her sword. His suddenly struck the ground before her, embedding his blade in the earth there in a manner that brought her to a dead halt.
She stood very still as he
came around her, drawing his weapon from the ground. He raised the sword to her again, the tip of it resting just below her chin.
“Madam, do you surrender?”
She refused to answer, then inhaled sharply at the sudden flick of his weapon. But his blade didn’t touch her flesh. It lifted the fabric from her right shoulder. She felt the softness of the sheer gown and robe falling from her right side. She willed herself not to move. A second flick of the sword lifted the gown from her left shoulder. With the delicate lace ties slit, the length of the silky gown and robe pooled to her feet, and she stood naked in the moonlight, facing him.
He studied the length of her. Assessing her, his gaze amazingly dispassionate. He leaned upon the hilt of his sword. “Well?”
“Well?” she whispered, the breeze swept around her, seeming to touch her with strange fingers, so cool against the growing heat of her flesh.
“You have been beaten.”
“Never beaten, Ian; you have merely cost me my weapon.”
“You are beaten, and the point here is that you must learn that you can be beaten. If you would duel, you must meet the terms. Ah, the terms. I believe you’re supposed to seduce me.”
The breeze grew very chill; she burned against it. She remembered the feel of his hands, his lips….
“Seduce you! That was not in the terms!”
He grinned at her distress.
She moistened her lips. “I’ll die before I ever make any attempt to seduce you, Ian McKenzie,” she said without heed to her circumstances. She was standing there in front of him naked, and he was most probably still convinced that she had somehow made arrangements to meet Peter even after she and Ian had married. Perhaps she had best control her own temper and appeal to something in him other than the fury she knew she all too easily aroused. She curbed her tone to be very quiet and softly condemning: “You’re not behaving in the least like a gentleman.”
“Really, my dear wife?” His dark brows shot up. “Well, bear this in mind; Had you been acting like a lady at any time in all this, we’d not be standing here now. Hmmm, let me think a moment… No. No, it’s true; I’ve yet to see you behave like a lady.”