Claimed by the Laird. Nicola Cornick
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her motives. He could remember what it felt like to steal food in order to survive, to beg and thieve and fight simply to stay alive. He had no time for those who had every privilege and still behaved like delinquents.
In the privacy of his chamber, a tiny little box of a room tucked under the inn’s eaves where he was too tall to stand upright beneath the sloping ceiling, he finally took out the pistol and examined it. It was a fine piece of workmanship, expensive, made entirely of brass and beautifully engraved. Lucas suspected it had been made in the late eighteenth century and that it would not look out of place in an aristocrat’s collection. He tucked it away at the bottom of his bag, then lay down to sleep. The inn was noisy, but he could sleep anywhere, another legacy of the years he had spent on the streets, seizing rest when and where he could, always half-awake to trouble. Tonight, though, he found it more difficult than usual. He thought he might be haunted by memories of Peter, but instead he slept in snatches of dreams, and always through them there was a woman running away, a woman he yearned for, a woman whose face he could not see.
CHRISTINA PUSHED OPEN the wooden picket gate that separated the grounds of Kilmory Castle from the road beyond. A path in the shadow of the high estate wall led past the neat row of gardeners’ cottages, shadowed by a tall stand of pines whose fallen needles were soft beneath her shoes. On the other side of the pines, a vast expanse of lawn, dotted with cedars, bordered the rose garden and led to a flight of steps up to the terrace. Christina walked slowly, unhurriedly. She had told her family that she was taking a stroll after dinner, and though she had been gone some time, they would not suspect anything. They never did.
Light glowed softly behind the castle windows. She did not particularly want to go back inside. She loved being out at night when the moon was high and the wind blew in the sea fret. She loved it more, perhaps, because ladies were not supposed to wander around alone after dark. She loved doing the unexpected because her days were governed by the expected.
Lucas Ross had been unexpected. She could still taste his kiss. She could still feel the touch of his hands on her body. His scent clung to her, not the cloying pomade and cologne some men wore, but a mixture of fresh air and forest and ocean. It seemed familiar, striking a chord in the region of her heart, making her shiver. Had it been that dangerous sense of recognition that had prompted her to behave with such reckless abandon? She did not know. All she knew was that she had almost made love with Lucas Ross and she could not quite believe what she had done.
Lucas was a servant. A footman, if his story was to be believed, but he had been far more than just a handsome face. He had been forceful, quick-witted and courageous. He had hidden his character well enough before the men and played the ignorant city boy, but she had known. Right from the moment she had first seen him, she had felt that he was different.
She had known that he was dangerous.
She shivered.
“Ma’am?” The door had opened and Galloway, the butler, was peering out, his face lined with worry. He had known where she had gone that night. All the servants knew. So did the entire village. Her involvement in whisky smuggling was the worst-kept secret in Kilmory. The only people who did not know were her own family, and that was because they knew nothing about who she really was and cared less.
“All’s well.”
The door yawned wider, yellow light spilling out into the night. It was time to become Lady Christina MacMorlan again.
Galloway locked and bolted the door behind her.
“Thank goodness you are back, ma’am.”
Christina paused to examine her reflection in the hall mirror. She did not look too bad; her hair looked a little windblown perhaps, and she had sand clinging to the hem of her velvet gown, but that was no surprise in this wild place. Her face was flushed and rosy. So was her throat. She remembered the delicious rub of Lucas’s stubble against her skin. Fortunately she could pretend that the high color was the result of a cold breeze. It would be more difficult to explain away the stinging pink of her lips and the way they were swollen from Lucas’s kisses. She prayed that the shadows in the hall would disguise much of the damage, since she would have a hard time explaining her exploits to her family. They saw her as passionless, almost sexless; efficient Christina who smoothed away all the little details of life that they did not want to trouble themselves with, a glorified housekeeper who kept home, family and clan together with never a word of complaint.
If only they knew.
For a moment she felt the echo of Lucas’s kiss through her blood again, his hand at her breast. It was a very long time since she had been kissed, touched. She had not wanted passion in her life. It belonged to the past, to a part of time that she had closed off and sworn never to think about again. Now, though, with the memory of Lucas’s touch, she felt restless, sleeping desire awakened again.
She repressed a shiver, turning away from the mirror, stripping off her gloves, removing her cloak.
“Is there a problem, Galloway?” she asked.
“Yes, my lady.” The butler was shaking, and Christina was suddenly and forcibly reminded of his increasing age and infirmity. That was why it was essential that they should recruit a quick, intelligent younger man as footman to be Galloway’s understudy. But not the man she had met tonight. Lucas Ross would have been ideal—strong, practical, clever—but she could not employ a man who had kissed her to within an inch of her life. Or one that would recognize her as the leader of the whisky gang—it could be disastrous.
“His Grace has lost his latest consignment of books from the Royal Society of Edinburgh,” Galloway said. “He has turned the library upside down looking for them and is quite beside himself.” A muffled crash from behind the library door gave emphasis to his words.
“I’ll find the books,” Christina said.
“Lady Semple went down to the kitchens to complain that dinner was burned,” Galloway continued, “and now Cook is threatening to leave and you know we cannot get good staff out here in the middle of nowhere—”
“I’ll smooth things over with Cook,” Christina said. “And I will speak to Lady Semple.” Her brother, the Marquess of Semple, and his wife, Gertrude, were the most demanding guests imaginable, always finding fault. They seemed to take pleasure in upsetting as many people as possible. It was the only sport they enjoyed.
“Lady Semple also mentioned that the water was cold again this morning, and Lord Semple complains of an icy draft in his bedroom,” Galloway said.
“I draw the line at any involvement in my brother’s marital affairs,” Christina said. Then, when Galloway looked at her, uncomprehending, “Never mind, Galloway. I suppose the stove went out again?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Galloway said. “It always blows out when there is a northwesterly.”
Christina gave a sharp sigh. Kilmory was a fourteenth-century castle with a heating system almost as old. It was utterly inadequate to meet the needs of guests like the Semples, who insisted on the best of everything. For the past three years her father, with typical eccentric stubbornness, had insisted on making his home at Kilmory rather than at his main seat at Forres. When she had asked him why, he had muttered something about the wild, west-coast scenery inspiring his academic studies.
“Lord Lachlan—” Here Galloway paused, his mouth creasing into disapproving lines.
“Foxed again?” Christina said sympathetically. “I shall go up and throw a pitcher of water over him, or if that fails I will shoot him.”
Galloway gave a thin smile. She was joking, but truth was it was a tempting option. Lachlan’s wife, Dulcibella, had left him six months earlier, and he had spent almost the entire time since in an alcoholic stupor. Christina was out of patience with him. There had been faults on both sides, but Lachlan had done nothing to try to heal the breach with his wife, who sat in her castle at Cardross telling