Chapter Two
There was little time for introductions. Brigham was greeted at the door by a gangly black-haired serving girl who ran off wringing her
hands and shouting for Lady MacGregor. Fiona came in, her cheeks flushed from the kitchen fire. At the sight of her son unconscious in
the arms of a stranger, she went pale.
"Coll. Is he—"
"No, my lady, but the wound's severe."
With one very slender hand, she touched her son's face. "Please, if you'd bring him upstairs." She went ahead, calling out orders for
water and bandages. "In here." After pushing open a door, she looked over Brigham's shoulder. "Gwen, thank God. Coll's been
wounded."
Gwen, smaller and more delicately built than her mother and sister, hurried into the room. "Light the lamps, Molly," she told the serving
girl. "I'll need plenty of light." She was already pressing a hand to her brother's brow. "He's feverish." His blood stained his plaid and ran
red on the linen. "Can you help me off with his clothes?"
With a nod, Brigham began to work with her. She coolly sent for medicines and bowls of water, stacks of linen were rushed in. The
young girl didn't swoon at the sword wound as Brigham had feared, but competently began to clean and treat it. Even under her gentle
hands, Coll began to mutter and thrash.
"Hold this, if you please." Gwen gestured for Brigham to hold the pad she'd made against the wound while she poured syrup of poppies
into a wooden cup. Fiona supported her son's head while Gwen eased the potion past his lips. She murmured to him as she sat again
and stitched up the wound without flinching.
"He's lost a lot of blood," she told her mother as she worked. "We'll have to mind the fever." Already Fiona was bathing her son's head
with a cool cloth.
"He's strong. We won't lose him now." Fiona straightened and brushed at the hair that had fallen around her face. "I'm grateful to you for
bringing him," she told Brigham. "Will you tell me what happened?"
"We were attacked a few miles south of here. Coll believes it was Campbells."
"I see." Her lips tightened, but her voice remained calm. "I must apologize for not even offering you a chair or a hot drink. I'm Coll's
mother, Fiona MacGregor."
"I'm Coll's friend, Brigham Langston."
Fiona managed a smile but kept her son's limp hand in hers. "The earl of Ashburn, of course. Coll wrote of you. Please, let me have
Molly take your coat and fetch you some refreshment."
"He's English." Serena stood in the doorway. She'd taken off her plaid. All she wore now was a simple homespun dress of dark blue
wool.
"I'm aware of that, Serena." Fiona turned her strained smile back to Brigham. "Your coat, Lord Ashburn. You've had a long journey. I'm
sure you'll want a hot meal and some rest." When he drew off his coat, Fiona's gaze went to his shoulder. "Oh, you're wounded."
"Not badly."
"A scratch," Serena said as she flicked her gaze over it. She would have moved past him to her brother, but a look from Fiona stopped
her.
"Take our guest down to the kitchen and tend to his hurts."
"I'd sooner bandage a rat."
"You'll do as I say, and you'll show the proper courtesy to a guest in our home." The steel came into her voice. "Once his wounds are
tended, see that he has a proper meal."
"Lady MacGregor, it isn't necessary."
"Forgive me, my lord, it's quite necessary. You'll forgive me for not tending to you myself." She picked up the cloth for Coll's head again.
"Serena?"
"Very well, Mother, for you." Serena turned, giving a very small and deliberately insulting curtsy. "If you please, Lord Ashburn."
He followed her down through a house far smaller than Ashburn Manor, and neat as a pin. They wound around a hallway and down two
narrow flights because she chose to take him down the back stairs. Still, he paid little notice as he watched Serena's stiff back. There
were rich smells in the kitchen, spices, meat, from the kettle hung by a chain over the fire, the aroma of pies just baked. Serena
indicated a small, spindle-legged chair.
"Please be seated, my lord."
He did, and only by the slightest flicker of his eyes did he express his feelings when she ripped the sleeve from his shirt. "I hope you
don't faint at the sight of blood, Miss MacGregor."
"It's more likely you will at the sight of your mutilated shirt, Lord Ashburn." She tossed the ruined sleeve aside and brought back a bowl
of hot water and some clean cloths.
It was more than a scratch. English though he might be, she felt a bit ashamed of herself. He'd obviously opened the wound when he'd
carried Coll inside. As she stanched the blood that had begun to run freely, she saw that the cut measured six inches or more along a
well-muscled forearm.
His flesh was warm and smooth in her hands. He smelled not of perfumes and powders, as she imagined all Englishmen did, but of
horses and sweat and blood. Oddly enough, it stirred something in her and made her fingers gentler than she'd intended.
She had the face of an angel, he thought as she bent over him. And the soul of a witch. An interesting combination, Brigham decided as
he caught a whiff of lavender. The kind of mouth made for kissing, paired with hostile eyes designed to tear holes in a man. How would
her hair feel, bunched in a man's hands? He had an urge to stroke it, just to see her reaction. But one wound, he told himself, was
enough for one day.
She worked competently and in silence, cleaning the wound and dabbing on one of Gwen's herbal mixtures. The scent was pleasant,
and made her think of the forest and flowers. Serena hardly noticed that his English blood was on her fingers.
She reached for the bandages. He shifted. All at once they were face-to-face, as close as a man and woman can come without
embracing. She felt his breath feather across her lips and was surprised by the quick flutter of her heart. She noticed his eyes were
gray, darker than they had been when he'd coolly assessed her on the road. His mouth was beautiful, curved now with the beginnings of
a smile that changed his sharp-featured aristocratic face into something approachable.
She thought she felt his fingers on her hair but was certain she was mistaken. For a moment, perhaps two, her mind went blank and
she could only look at him and wonder.
"Will I live?" he murmured.
There it was, that English voice, mocking, smug. She needed nothing else to drag her out of whatever spell his eyes had cast. She
smiled at him and yanked the bandage tight enough to make him jerk.
"Oh, pardon, my lord," she said with a flutter of lashes. "Have I hurt you?"
He gave her a mild look and thought it would be satisfying to throttle her. "Pray don't regard it."
"I will not." She rose to remove the bowl of bloodstained water. "Odd, isn't it, that English blood runs so thin?"
"I hadn't noticed. The Scottish blood I shed today looked pale to me."
She whirled back. "If it was Campbell blood, you rid the world of another badger, but I won't be grateful to you for that, or anything."
"You cut me to the quick, my lady, when your gratitude is what I live for."
She snatched up a wooden bowl—though her mother would have meant for her to use the delft or the china—and scooped out stew and
slapped it down so that more than a little slopped over the sides. She poured him ale and tossed a couple of oatcakes on a platter. A
pity they weren't stale.
"Your supper, my lord. Have a care not to choke on it." He rose then, and for the first time she noticed that he was nearly as tall as her
brother, though he carried less muscle and brawn. "Your brother warned me you were ill-tempered."
She set her fist on her hip, eyeing him from under lashes shades darker than her tumbled hair. "That's fortunate for you, my lord, so
you'll know better than to cross me."
He stepped toward her. It couldn't be helped, given his temper and his penchant for fighting face-to-face. She tilted her chin as if braced,
even anxious, for the bout. "If you've a mind to chase me into the wood with your grandsire's claymore, think again."
Her lips twitched even as she fought back the smile. Humor made her eyes almost as appealing as anger. "Why? Are you fast on your
feet, Sassenach?" she asked, using the Gaelic term for the hated English invader.
"Fast enough to knock you off yours if you were fortunate enough to catch me." He took her hand, effectively wiping the smile from her
eyes. Though her hand curled into a fist, he brought it to his lips. "My thanks, Miss MacGregor, for your so gentle touch and
hospitality."
While he stood where he was, she stormed out, furiously wiping her knuckles against her skirts.
It was full dark when Ian MacGregor returned with his youngest son. After his quick meal, Brigham kept to the room he'd been given,
leaving the family to themselves and giving himself time to think. Coll had described the MacGregors well enough. Fiona was lovely, with
enough strength in her face and bearing to add grit to beauty. Young Gwen was sweet and quiet with shy eyes—and a steady hand
when she sewed rent flesh together.
As to Serena… Coll hadn't mentioned that his sister was a she-wolf with a face to rival Helen's, but Brigham was content to make his
own judgments there. It might be true that she had no cause to love the English, but for himself, Brigham preferred to weigh a man as a
man, not by his nationality.
He would do as well to judge a woman as a woman and not by her looks, he thought. When she had come racing down the road toward
her brother, her face alive with pleasure, her hair flying, he'd felt as though he had been struck by lightning. Fortunately, he wasn't a man
who tarried long under the spell of a beautiful pair of eyes and a pretty ankle. He had come to Scotland to fight for a cause he believed
in, not to worry because some slip of a girl detested him.
Because of his birth, he thought as he paced to the window and back. He'd never had any cause to be other than proud of his lineage.
His grandfather had been a man respected and feared—as his father had been before death had taken him so early. From the time he
was old enough to understand, Brigham had been taught that being a Langston was both a privilege and a responsibility. He took neither
lightly. If he had, he would have stayed in Paris, enjoying the whims and caprices of elegant society rather than traveling to the
mountains of Scotland to risk all for the young Prince.
Damn the woman for looking at him as though he were scum to be scrubbed from the bottom of a pot.
At a knock on the door he turned, scowling, from the window. "Yes?"
The serving girl opened the door with her heart already in her throat. One peep at Brigham's black looks had her lowering her eyes and
bobbing nervous curtsies. "Begging your pardon, Lord Ashburn." And that was all she could manage.
He waited, then sighed. "Might I know what you beg it for?"
She darted him a quick look, then stared at the floor again. "My lord, the MacGregor wishes to see you downstairs if it's convenient."
"Certainly, I'll come right away."
But the girl had already dashed off. She would have a story to tell her mother that night, about how Serena MacGregor had insulted the
English lord to his face—a face, she'd add, that was handsome as the devil's.
Brigham fluffed out the lace at his wrists. He had traveled with only one change of clothes, and he hoped the coach with the rest of his
belongings would find its ponderous way to Glenroe next day.
He descended the stairs, slender and elegant in black and silver. Lace foamed subtly at his throat, and his rings gleamed in the
lamplight. In Paris and London he'd followed fashion and powdered his hair. Here he was glad to dispense with the bother, so it was
brushed, raven black, away from his high forehead.
The MacGregor waited in the dining hall, drinking port, a fire roaring at his back. His hair was a dark red and fell to his shoulders. A
beard of the same color and luster covered his face. He had dressed as was proper when receiving company of rank. In truth, the great
kilt suited him, for he was as tall and broad as his son. With it he wore a doublet of calfskin and a jeweled clasp at his shoulder on
which was carved the head of a lion,
"Lord Ashburn. You are welcome to Glenroe and the house of Ian MacGregor."
"Thank you." Brigham accepted the offered port and chair. "I'd like to inquire about Coll."
"He's resting easier, though my daughter Gwen tells me it will be a long night." Ian paused a moment, looking down at the pewter cup
held in his wide, thick-fingered hand. "Coll has written of you as a friend. If he had not, you would now be one for bringing him back to
us."
"He is my friend, and has been."
This was accepted with a nod. "Then I drink to your health, my lord." He did, with gusto. "I'm told your grandmother was a MacDonald."
"She was. From the Isle of Skye."
Ian's face, well lined and reddened by wind and weather, relaxed into a smile. "Then welcome twice." Ian lifted his cup and kept his eye
keen on his guest. "To the true king?"
Brigham lifted his port in turn. "To the king across the water," he said, meeting Ian's fierce blue gaze. "And the rebellion to come."
"Aye, that I'll drink to." And he did, downing the port in one giant gulp. "Now tell me how it happened that my boy was hurt."
Brigham described the ambush, detailing the men who'd attacked them, and their dress. As he spoke, Ian listened, leaning forward on
the big table as though afraid he might miss a word.
"Bloody murdering Campbells!" he exploded, pounding a fist on the table so that cups and crockery jumped.
"So Coll thought himself," Brigham said equably. "I know a bit about the clans and the feud between yours and the Campbells, Lord
MacGregor. It could have been a simple matter of robbery, or it could be that word is out that the Jacobites are stirring."
"And so they are." Ian thought a moment, drumming his fingers. "Well, four on two, was it? Not such bad odds when it comes to
Campbells. You were wounded, as well?"
"A trifle." Brigham shrugged. It was a gesture he'd acquired in France. "If Coll's mount hadn't slipped, he would never have dropped his
guard. He's a devil of a swordsman."
"So he says of you." Ian's teeth flashed. There was nothing he admired so much as a good fighter. "Something about a skirmish on the
road to Calais?"
Brigham grinned at that. "A diversion."
"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 fashion.
"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 shivering, 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 assistance. 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 nobleman. 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 passed.
"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 shifted 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 God." 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."