Rebellion - MacGregors 6 Part 3

"I'd like to hear more about it, but first, tell me what you can about the Bonnie Prince and his plans."

They talked for hours, draining the bottle of port dry and cracking another while the candles guttered. Formalities faded and disappeared until they were only two men, one past his prime, the other only approaching it. They were both warriors by birth and by temperament.

They might fight for different reasons, one in a desperate attempt to preserve a way of life and land, the other for simple justice. But they would fight. When they parted, Ian to look in on his son, Brigham to take the air and check the horses, they knew each other as well as they needed.

It was late when he returned. The house was quiet, fires were banked.

Outside the wind whistled, bringing home to him the isolation, the distance from London and all he held familiar.

Near the door, a candle had been lighted to show him the way. He took it and started up the stairs, though he knew he was still far too restless for sleep. The MacGregors interested him-they had since the first time he and Coll had shared a bottle and their life stories. He knew they were bound together, not just through family obligation but through affection and a common love of their land. Tonight he had seen them pull together with unquestioning faith and loyalty. There had been no hysterics when he had carried Coll inside, no weeping and fainting women. Instead, each had done what had needed to be done.

It was that kind of strength and commitment Charles would need over the next months. With the candlelight sending shadows leaping, Brigham walked past his room to push open the door to Coll's. The bedcurtains were pushed back, and he could see his friend sleeping yet, covered with blankets. And he saw Serena sitting in a chair beside the bed, reading a book by the light of another taper.

It was the first time he'd seen her look as her name described. Her face was calm and extraordinarily lovely in the soft light. Her hair glowed as it fell down her back. She had changed her dress for a night robe of deep green that rose high at the throat to frame her face. As Brigham watched, she looked up at her brother's murmur and placed a hand on the pulse at his wrist.

"How is he?"

She started at the sound of Brigham's voice but collected herself quickly.

Her face expressionless, she sat back again to close the book she had in her lap. "His fever's still up. Gwen thinks it should break by morning."

Brigham moved to the foot of the bed. Behind him, the fire burned high.

The scent of medicine, mixed with poppies, vied with the smoke. "Coll told me she could do magic with herbs. I've seen doctors with less of a sure hand sewing up a wound."

Torn between annoyance and pride in her sister, Serena smoothed down the skirts of her robe. "She has a gift, and a good heart. She would have stayed with him all night if I hadn't bullied her off to bed."

"So you bully everyone, not just strangers?" He smiled and held up a hand before she could speak. "You can hardly tear into me now, my dear, or you will wake up your brother and the rest of your family."

"I'm not your dear."

"For which I shall go to my grave thankful. Merely a form of address." Coll stirred, and Brigham moved to the side of the bed to place a cool hand on his brow. "Has he waked at all?"

"A time or two, but not in his right head." Because her conscience demanded it, she relented. "He asked for you."

She rose and wrung out a cloth to bathe her brother's face with. "You should retire, and see him in the morning."

"And what of you?"

Her hands were gentle on her brother, soothing, cooling. Despite himself, Brigham imagined how they might feel stroking his brow.

"What of me?"

"Have you no one to bully you to bed?"

She glanced up, fully aware of his meaning. "I go when and where I choose." Taking her seat again, she folded her hands. "You're wasting your candle, Lord Ashburn."

Without a word, he snuffed it out. The light of the single taper by the bed plunged them into intimacy. "Quite right," he murmured. "One candle is sufficient."

"I hope you can find your way to your room in the dark."

"I have excellent night vision, as it happens. But I don't retire yet." Idly he plucked the book from her lap. "Macbeth?"

"Don't the fine ladies of your acquaintance read?"

His lips twitched. "A few." He opened the book and scanned the pages.

"A grisly little tale."

"Murder and power?" She made a little gesture with her hands. "Life, my lord, can be grisly, as the English so often prove." "Macbeth was a Scot," he reminded her. " 'A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Is that how you see life?"

"I see it as what can be made of it."

Brigham leaned against a table, holding the book loosely. He believed she meant just what she said, and that interested him. Most of the women he knew could philosophize about no more than fas.h.i.+on.

"You don't see Macbeth as a villain?"

"Why?" She hadn't meant to speak to him, much less hold a conversation, but she couldn't resist. "He took what he felt was his."

"And his methods?"

"Ruthless. Perhaps kings need be. Charles won't claim his throne by asking for it."

"No." With a frown, Brigham closed the book. "But treachery differs from warfare."

"A sword is a sword, thrust in the back or in the heart." She looked at him, her green eyes glowing in the light. "If I were a man I would fight to win, and the devil take the method."

"And honor?"

"There is much honor in victory." She soaked the cloth and wrung it out again. For all her talk, she had a woman's way with illness, gentle, patient, thorough. "There was a time when the MacGregors were hunted like vermin, with the Campbells paid in good British gold for each death. If you are hunted like something wild, you learn to fight like something wild. Women were raped and murdered, bairns not yet weaned slaughtered. We don't forget, Lord Ashburn, nor forgive."

"This is a new time, Serena." "Still, my brother's blood was shed today."

On impulse he placed a hand over hers. "In a few months more will be shed, but for justice, not revenge."

"You can afford justice, my lord, not I."

Coll moaned and began to thrash. Serena turned her full attention to him again. Automatically Brigham held him down. "He'll break open his wound again."

"Keep him still." Serena poured more medicine into a wooden cup and held it to Coll's lips. "Drink now, darling." She poured what she could down his throat, murmuring, threatening, coaxing all the while. He was s.h.i.+vering, though his skin was like fire to the touch.

She no longer questioned Brigham's presence, and she said nothing when he stripped off his coat and tucked back the lace at his wrists.

Together they bathed Coll with cool water, forced more of Gwen's mixture past his dry lips and kept watch.

During Coll's delirium Serena spoke to him mainly in Gaelic, as calm and steady as a seasoned soldier. Brigham found it strange to see her so unruffled when from almost the first moment of their acquaintance she had been animated by excitement or fury. Now, in the deepest part of the night, her hands were gentle, her voice quiet, her movements competent.

They worked together as though they'd spent their lives doing so.

She no longer resented his a.s.sistance. English or not, he obviously cared for her brother. Without his aid she would have been forced to summon her sister or her mother. For a few hours, Serena forced herself to forget that Lord Ashburn represented all she despised.

Now and then, over the cloth or the cup, their hands brushed. Both of them strove to ignore even this minor intimacy. He might have been concerned for Coll, but he was still an English n.o.bleman. She might have had more spine than any other women he'd known, but she was still a Scots terror.

The truce lasted while Coll's fever raged. By the time the light turned gray with approaching dawn, the crisis had pa.s.sed.

"He's cool." Serena blinked back tears as she stroked her brother's brow.

Silly to weep now, she thought, when the worst was over. "I think he'll do, but Gwen will have a look at him."

"He should sleep well enough." Brigham pressed a hand to the small of his back, where a dull ache lodged. The fire they had taken turns feeding during the night still roared at his back, shooting light and heat. He had loosened his shut for comfort and a smoothly muscled chest could be seen in the deep V. Serena wiped her own brow and tried not to notice.

"It's almost morning." She felt weak and weepy and tired to the bone.

"Yes." Brigham's mind had s.h.i.+fted suddenly, completely, from the man in the bed to the woman by the window. The first hints of dawn were behind her, and she stood in shadow and in light. Her night robe cloaked her as if she were royalty. Her face, pale with fatigue, was dominated by eyes that seemed only larger, darker, more mysterious, for the faint bruises beneath.

Her blood began to tingle below her skin as he continued to stare at her.

She wished he would stop. It made her feel... powerless somehow.

Suddenly afraid, she tore her gaze from his and looked at her brother.

"There's no need for you to stay now."

"No."

She turned her back. Brigham took it as a dismissal. He gave her an ironic bow she couldn't see, but stopped when he heard the sniffle. He paused at the door. Then, dragging a hand through his hair and swearing, he moved toward her. "No need for tears now, Serena."

Hurriedly she wiped at her cheek with her knuckles. "I thought he would die. I didn't realize how afraid I was of it until it was past." She swiped a hand over her face again. "I've lost my handkerchief," she said miserably.

Brigham pressed his own into her hand.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," he managed when she handed it back to him crumpled and damp. "Better now?"

"Aye." She let out a long, steadying breath. "I wish you would go."

"Where?" Though he knew it was unwise, he turned her to face him. He only wanted to see her eyes again. "To my bed or to the devil?"

Her lips curved, surprising them both. "As you choose, my lord."

He wanted those lips. The knowledge stunned him as much as her smile did. He wanted them warm and open and completely willing under his own. Light broke through the sky and tumbled like gold dust through the window. Before either of them were prepared, he reached out so that his fingers dug through her hair and cupped her neck.

"No," she managed, amazed that the denial was unsteady. When she lifted a hand in protest, he met it, palm to palm. So they stood as the new day began.

"You tremble," he murmured. Lightly he ran his fingers up her neck, kindling small fires. "I wondered if you would."

"I've not given you leave to touch me." "I've not asked for leave." He drew her closer. "Nor will I." He brought their joined hands to his lips, dropping a soft kiss on her fingers. "Nor need I."

She felt the room tilt and her will drain as he lowered his head toward her. She saw only his face, then only his eyes. As if in a dream, she let her own eyes close and her lips part.

"Serena?"

She jerked back, color flaming into her face at the sound of her sister's voice. Shaken, Serena gripped her hands together as Gwen stepped into the room. "You should be resting yet. You've only slept a few hours."

"It was enough. Coll?" she asked, staring toward the bed.

"His fever's broken."

"Ah, thank G.o.d." Her hair more gold than red, curtained her face as she bent over him. In her pale blue night robe she looked very much like the angel Coll had described. "He sleeps well, and should for a few hours yet." She glanced up to smile at her sister and saw Brigham by the window. "Lord Ashburn! Have you not slept?"

"He was about to retire." Serena moved briskly to her sister's side.

"You need rest." Gwen's face puckered into a frown as she thought of his shoulder. "You'll do your wound no good else."

"He does well enough," Serena said impatiently.

"For your concern, I thank you." Brigham bowed pointedly to Gwen.

"As it appears I can be of no further use, I will seek my bed." His gaze swept down Serena and up again. Beside her sister she, too, looked like an angel. An avenging one. "Your servant, madam." Gwen smiled after him as he strode out, her young heart fluttering a bit at the sight of his bare chest and arms. "So handsome," she sighed.

With a sniff, Serena brushed at the bodice of her robe. "For an Englishman."

"It was kind of him to stay with Coll."

Serena could still feel the determined press of his fingers on the back of her neck. "He's not kind," she murmured. "I don't believe he's kind at all."

Chapter Three

Brigham slept until the sun was high. His shoulder was stiff, but there was no pain. He supposed he owed Serena for that. His lips curved into a grim smile as he dressed. He intended to pay her back.

After he had pulled on his breeches, he glanced at his torn riding coat. It would have to do, as he could hardly wear evening dress. Until his trunks arrived he would be roughing it. He ran a hand over his chin after shrugging into the coat. His stubble was rough and his lace far from fresh. How his valet would have cringed.

Dear, dour Parkins had been furious at being left in London while his lord traveled to the barbarous Scottish Highlands. Parkins knew, as few did, the true purpose of the trip, but that had only made him more insistent about accompanying his master.

Brigham tilted the shaving mirror. Parkins was loyal, he thought, but hardly competent to do battle. There was no finer-or more proper- gentleman's gentleman in London, but Brigham hardly needed, or wanted, a valet during his stay in Glenroe. With a sigh, he began to strop his razor. He might not be able to do anything about the torn jacket or the drooping lace, but he could manage to shave himself.

Once he was presentable, he made his way downstairs. Fiona was there to greet him, an ap.r.o.n over her simple wool gown. "Lord Ashburn, I trust you rested well."