The Highlander's Stolen Bride Read online

  Yet his restlessness went deeper, to a level he didn’t want to examine. A need had begun to stir within him, a desire to do something no devout bachelor would ever do.

  Settle down with one woman.

  He envisioned eyes of green fire and hair of the palest blond that fell nearly waist-length, like some fair maiden from a book of yore. But Lady Rosalyn Carmichael was very real.

  She had caught his eye the moment she had entered Clarisse’s ballroom three weeks ago for the coming-out ball of Lucien’s ward, Lady Francine. Derek had never believed in angels, or God for that matter, but the sight of Rosalyn had made him a believer. Only a higher power could have created something so exceptionally lovely.

  But it was far more than her beauty that drew him to her; it was the hint of sadness and vulnerability he glimpsed in her eyes. He had felt a strong desire to protect her—even before Lucien had filled him in on the girl’s murderous stepbrother, Calder Westcott, a man Derek’s fists longed to meet.

  Derek stared at the rope that he had yanked down from Rosalyn’s bedroom window. If he had been any later…He didn’t want to contemplate what would have happened.

  He wondered how Rosalyn was faring at that moment. Was she still frightened? Did she need him? He desperately wanted to go check on her, make sure she was all right. He’d nearly had a heart attack when he saw a shapely leg swing over the side of the windowsill, and then spotted the flaxen hair he had imagined gathering into his hands all night.

  Derek didn’t know what had drawn him to her doorstep. He hadn’t consciously decided to go to Clarisse’s house after leaving the soiree, but that was where his feet had taken him.

  Behind him, the door to the parlor quietly opened, then closed. “I see you’ve availed yourself of the liquor.”

  Derek turned and watched Clarisse as she moved with subtle grace across the floor. She was still a spectacular-looking woman, and many men would have killed to have her, but since her husband’s death she had chosen to remain alone. She was a strong woman, and he admired her. He was glad they had remained friends all these years.

  “Mind pouring me one?” she asked.

  “Already did,” he replied, reaching behind him for her glass.

  “You always were a resourceful man.”

  Derek nodded toward the door. “How is she?”

  “She claims to be perfectly fine. but while she is a surprisingly strong young woman, considering what’s she’s been through, I doubt she’s fine at all. She does not want to burden anyone, which only adds to her struggle. She could use a protector, and quickly.”

  “Are you suggesting I assume that role?”

  Clarisse smiled demurely over the rim of her glass. “I’m suggesting no such thing, my lord.”

  Derek shook his head. “You always were a cagey woman, Lady Dane. Far too smart for the likes of the men who pursue you so vigorously.”

  Clarisse sighed and sat down on the settee. “I fear she will try to leave.”

  Derek had worried about the same thing. “Where might she go?”

  Clarisse shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s got no one. Her horrid brother appears to be the only family she has left. How terrible to have to live in fear of the people who should protect and cherish you.

  “Well,” she continued with a sigh, “I shall come up with something. You’ve done more than your share. Had you not arrived when you did…” She shivered, then cocked her head and frowned. “Why, exactly, were you here in the middle of the night?”

  “I was restless, so I went for a stroll.”

  “A stroll, hmm?” A slight grin turned up the corners of Clarisse’s lips. “How very fortuitous for us.”

  Derek glared. “Yes.”

  “Well,” she sighed, rising to her feet, “I must get back to check on my guest. And you must get home. If I remember correctly, you are leaving tomorrow for Scotland.”

  “Yes.” He had come to England only to settle his mother’s estate. Now that that had been taken care of, he had no reason to stay.

  Except for Rosalyn.

  Something about her pulled at him. He had never considered himself particularly heroic, although Megan, the lass he had grown up with, would disagree. Her five very protective older brothers, however, did not share her opinion. They believed he should be skinned and hung from his ankles.

  “Are you all right?” Clarisse asked, regarding him with a furrowed brow.

  “Fine.” He stared down into his drink. “I’d like to stay on your couch tonight, make sure nothing else happens.” When he glanced up, he found Clarisse smiling again.

  “That would be wonderful. I’d feel ever so much safer knowing you’re here—as would Rosalyn,” she added pointedly. “I would prefer you sleep in a real bed, however, since I have seven of them. Perhaps the room next to Lady Rosalyn’s?”

  The temptation would be great, but what would be his excuse for declining? “That will be fine. Thank you.”

  Derek followed Clarisse from the room, telling himself that he was just staying until the morning to make sure nothing more transpired during the night and to see that Rosalyn had sufficiently recovered from her experience. Once he knew she was safe and taken care of, he would depart.

  He would hire a protector for her. A Pinker-ton man, perhaps. He also knew a high-ranking constable who had recently gone into business for himself, a fine fellow with spotless credentials. Either one would do.

  Derek glanced at Rosalyn’s closed bedroom door as Clarisse opened the next door over and gestured him inside. As he bid her good night, he wondered why he didn’t feel the least bit pleased with his decision.

  Two

  R osalyn sat bolt upright, her eyes snapping open as a scream built in her throat. She glanced wildly around the bedroom, certain a hand had been covering her mouth, and that hot, foul breath had fanned her neck. But she was utterly alone—the only thing that had touched her was the morning sunlight spilling through the curtains. It had been a bad dream.

  Daybreak had finally arrived, but she had slept only sporadically, her mind whirring with thoughts of what had nearly happened the night before. Something had to be done about her predicament. And now.

  She had not allowed herself to believe how far her stepbrother would go, but she now knew how determined Calder was. He wouldn’t give up until he had her where he wanted her.

  Wed.

  And dead.

  Rosalyn rose from the bed. Never had she felt more alone than she did at that moment. She paced the length of her room and stopped at the window to look out at the already bustling street below. London, with all its mysteries and delights, had been a welcome surprise, making Cornwall seem as though it existed in another time and place.

  An idea began to form in Rosalyn’s head. Surely she could get lost in a city of this magnitude. Why, there had to be endless places a young woman could hide! That could work. It must.

  Refusing to listen to the little voice that reminded her that a lady of breeding did not travel alone, she decided to view this as an adventure. A tale of derring-do that she could relate to little children on cold winter nights.

  She dropped down onto the edge of the bed with a sigh. There would be no children of her own to tell her tales to. She was barren. Infertile. A raging childhood case of scarlet fever meant there would never be a little boy or girl to call her own. But this was not the time to wallow in self-pity; she needed to come up with a plan.

  Calder had another thing coming if he expected her to be a lamb heading to his slaughter; this was a fight she intended to win.

  Hastening into her morning dress, Rosalyn dragged her trunk out of the closet, swiftly tossing in her clothes with none of the care that had gone into the original packing. She frowned when the top would not close.

  “Drat.” She plunked down on the lid and bounced, to no avail. She glared at the trunk, confounded.

  “Well,” she sighed, “the chiffon ball gown will have to go. I’ll have no need for it anyway.”


  Throwing the lid open, Rosalyn tossed the costly evening dress over her shoulder, pleased with the space she had achieved.

  With a hop, she resumed her position, but the lid still resisted her efforts. Huffing, she shifted to her knees and bent over the trunk, her rear end in the air and her hair hanging in her face as she fiddled with the lock.

  When the bedroom door swung open, it startled her so much that she lost her precarious balance and toppled to the floor, yards of delicate ruffles and lace nearly smothering her.

  Spitting out a ribbon that had found its way into her mouth, Rosalyn prepared to give the housemaid a piece of her mind. But all thoughts of anger vanished as mortification took its place. For staring down at her was the last person she wished to see her with her skirt bunched up around her neck and her pantalets exposed.

  Lord, her skirt!

  Rosalyn lurched upright and wrenched the unruly material down as embarrassment burned from her cheeks all the way to her toes, leaving her staring dumbly at perfectly buffed Hessians that would undoubtedly reveal the extent of her humiliation were she to look into their mirror-like shine.

  She didn’t know which was worse—nearly being kidnapped, or being found arse-up on the floor by the most stunning man the Lord had put upon the earth.

  “My lady?” Derek’s outstretched hand appeared in Rosalyn’s line of vision, and her first impulse was to slap it away. Had the rude creature seen fit to knock, she would not be in her current state.

  With as much dignity as she could muster, she rose to her feet. When Rosalyn met Lord Manchester’s bluer-than-blue eyes, she nearly forgot what it was she had intended to say. It was not normal to be so infatuated. He was just a man—he behaved as others of his gender did, spoke in the same cultured tones, could wear no more than a single pair of trousers at any given time, and did not possess any special qualities that she could discern. And yet…

  He was not like any other man she had ever encountered. He was the one who could fulfill her fantasies, bring to life the hot, sultry dreams that tormented her night after restless night.

  “Forgive my unpardonable breach of etiquette, my lady,” he said, though his tone and manner implied he would barge in on her again if it suited him to do so. “I fear I couldn’t contain my concern for your safety.”

  Rosalyn lifted her chin. “My safety? How ironic, considering you nearly gave me apoplexy with your unannounced arrival.”

  “Please accept my apologies. I heard several loud thuds as I was dressing.”

  “Dressing?” Rosalyn frowned. Why would he be dressing? Then a terrible thought struck her. Had he slept with Lady Dane? Clarisse was a beautiful woman. Men adored her. Perhaps Derek did, as well.

  “Yes, I stayed the night. I was in the next room.”

  Clarisse’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. “Why?” she asked.

  “I wanted to make sure your slumber remained peaceful.” His voice held an odd warmth.

  Rosalyn blinked. “Oh.” Oh, indeed. He had stayed for her. It was almost unbearably sweet, and she felt the strangest desire to reach up and kiss his cheek. She had to turn from him to put a safe distance between them.

  Had he heard her tossing and turning all night? What if she had run screaming from her bed and ran smack into him garbed in nothing but her nightgown? Would he think her mad?

  Or would he hold her close and whisper calming words in her ear? Somehow she knew he would. She would melt, undoubtedly, and then act out her desires, tug him back into her room by the lapels of his shirt and drag him down to the bed on top of her. He would sprinkle warm kisses down her neck as his hand traveled up her calf, over her thigh, and between her legs. And oh…yes, he would touch her there, skim a single finger along the moist seam and part her, touch her engorged peak, working her effortlessly toward ecstasy.

  “Are you all right, my lady?”

  Derek’s voice yanked Rosalyn back to the present. She turned abruptly from him, her cheeks scarlet. “Perfectly fine,” she replied breathlessly, laying a hand to her chest, her heart thumping like a tinner’s hammer.

  Oh, how she wished she could go back in time so that she could be standing before the window, awash in the morning sun, looking dewy and serene rather than disheveled and rampant with lustful thoughts.

  As usual, Derek was perfectly tailored, ever the English peer and Highland laird, a man who commanded others and undoubtedly never knew a single fear. Which was not surprising, with that tall, ruggedly built frame. If the man possessed an ounce of fat, Rosalyn defied anyone to find it.

  “My lady?”

  Rosalyn’s head jerked up from drinking him in, and she felt that dratted heat blossom in her cheeks. He must think her an utter loon.

  Had she known that Derek was actually thinking she was the most stunning creature he had encountered in his thirty-one years, her concerns might have been allayed.

  He had never seen hair as she had, like spun gold, wild now from her tumble from the trunk and haloed around her head, the sun backlighting her, bringing to mind a stained-glass image that had captivated him as a child.

  The window rested over the altar in their chapel at Glen Cairn, which sat high atop a crag on Castle Gray’s property.

  The glass had come all the way from a master craftsman in Belgium and had been fussed over as though it was the Holy Grail. Derek had watched as the heavy glass piece, with its kaleidoscope of colors, was lifted high into the air and shifted gently into its spot, fitting in place as though it had always belonged there.

  Long after his father and the workmen had left, Derek had stood staring up at the woman forever etched in the panes.

  Her head was turned slightly over one porcelain shoulder, her blond hair flowing down her back like a river of gold. The sun in the upper corner of the frame shone down on her, her billowing white dress glimmering as her soft wings spread to catch the sun’s warmth.

  Her profile was as flawless as a Greek coin, yet a hint of a mischievous grin teased her lips. She was an angel with an impish side, sent down from heaven to bring light into the dark.

  Derek had always found comfort with her when his parents were arguing, as they often did while he was growing up, and she had given him strength during the conflicts between the clans—conflicts that never seemed to end. That was the very reason for his hasty trip to London: to settle his mother’s property and put England behind him.

  His loyalty to Scotland had been questioned from the moment of his birth since his mother was an English lady. Now that he governed the clan, he had to show them once and for all where his loyalty lay.

  “My lord?” Rosalyn queried tentatively, wondering what thoughts were running through Derek’s mind as his gaze was fastened so fiercely on her. To be the sole focus of all that unwavering attention was disconcerting.

  He stared at her for another heartbeat and then shifted abruptly on the balls of his feet and closed her bedroom door, isolating them from the world.

  Rosalyn’s mouth went dry, and her heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings. She was completely alone with him—six-plus feet of glorious virility that even a saint could not overlook.

  Rosalyn lifted her chin. “I presume you wish to speak privately to me, my lord?”

  “Derek.” He leaned a shoulder against her bedpost. “There are to be no formalities between us.”

  He had said that before—right after she had shamelessly kissed him in the Senhavens’ garden, behind an overgrown rosebush whose lush fragrance Rosalyn found herself recalling every night in her dreams—along with the taste and texture of his mouth, which her gaze kept drifting to.

  “We need to discuss last night’s visitor.”

  “What is there to discuss? As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.” No good would come of worrying another person. She had made her decision and would stick by it.

  His gaze ran slowly over her, bringing an unexpected heat to those places. “I’m not so sure about that. Perhaps I should check?”

  Ro
salyn’s heart missed a beat as she searched for her voice. “While I appreciate your diligence, I—”

  “Going somewhere?” he interjected, his gaze shifting to her trunk, where a pair of lacy pantalets trailed from the open top. Rosalyn hastily tucked them in and prayed her mortification didn’t show on her face.

  Meeting his gaze, she replied, “I intend to take a trip.”

  He quirked a single dark eyebrow. “Really? And where had you planned to go?”

  Rosalyn frowned at him, not appreciating the amused light in his eyes that said he knew she had nowhere to go.

  “I don’t know precisely, but you needn’t worry. I have several ideas.”

  “Such as?” he prompted, moving close enough that she could see how perfectly shaven he was, though a shadow would surely darken his chin by sunset.

  There was something enigmatic about him, a quality she could not quite describe. Dangerous, perhaps? Yet that seemed inadequate. Maybe it was his restless air. He reminded her of a caged tiger, and when she was around him, she felt like a tigress.

  She started as a hand gently cupped her chin. There was an oddly tender expression on his face. “No one is going to hurt you,” he murmured. “I won’t allow it.” He held her like that for a moment, then dropped his hand away, his brows drawing together, and his voice turning brusque. “Get whatever you need together, then meet me downstairs.”

  He headed for the door, but Rosalyn’s question stopped him on the threshold. “Where are we going?”

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “To Scotland.”

  “Scotland? You must be mistaken. I cannot go to Scotland.”

  “As I see it, you have no other choice.” He walked out the door.

  Rosalyn headed after him, but Clarisse suddenly appeared and took her by the arm. “Don’t fight him, my dear. He will get what he wants. He always does.”

  Rosalyn stood in a state of confusion. “I can’t go to Scotland. What can he be thinking?”