"Spit it out, brother. Is it my behavior again?"

"Not this time, Sinjun. This concerns your wife."

"Christy Macdonald?"

"Aye. A message from your bailiff at Glenmoor awaited me when I returned home. There's trouble. Sir Oswald reports that the crofters have refused to pay the current levies. I've been handling your business because you professed to have no head for it, but 'tis time you accepted responsibility and took charge."

"I told you before," Sinjun repeated, "tell the king to send his soldiers to set them straight."

"'Tis more serious than that, Sinjun. I don't know how this is going to set with you, but Sir Oswald heard rumors that your wife is expecting a child."

Sinjun leaped to his feet. "What! Has she no shame? No honor? How could she do this to me?"

Disgust colored Julian's words. "How can you expect her to honor her marriage vows when your own conduct is less than n.o.ble? You've flaunted your mistresses without a thought for your wife's feelings."

"'Tis different for men," Sinjun claimed. "Christy Macdonald is not a courtesan. Those kind of women are sought after by men for their beauty and experience. Christy is a Highland la.s.s, neither beautiful nor experienced."

Julian's fine eyebrows arched sharply upward. "How do you know what she looks like? You've not seen her since she was a child of seven. I'd say her patience wore thin waiting for you to claim her."

"Don't preach, Julian. If the rumors are true, Christy is no better than a wh.o.r.e."

"You have no choice now, Sinjun. You'd best hie yourself to Scotland and straighten out this mess."

"Aye," Sinjun allowed. "But before I leave, I intend to obtain a writ of annulment from the courts. If Christy is indeed increasing, I'll present the doc.u.ment for her signature, a.s.suming she can write."

"You were given stewardship of Glenmoor into perpetuity, and that stewardship included a wife. Both are your responsibility."

"Glenmoor belongs to me and my heirs, I know that. But I will not have a wh.o.r.e for a wife. An annulment is inevitable if I find Christy carrying another man's child."

"I've asked Sir Oswald to return to London to make a full report on the situation in the Highlands."

"I can't wait for his return," Sinjun said, determined to confront his wife with her infidelity. For many years he'd enjoyed the freedom marriage granted him without being burdened with a wife, but Christy's behavior went beyond anything he could condone. No b.a.s.t.a.r.d was going to bear the Thornton name if he had anything to say about it.

Julian's intervention helped Sinjun obtain a speedy writ of annulment that required only Christy's signature.

Sinjun left London within the month. In a way he was grateful for the distraction for it served to keep thoughts of Flora from overtaking his life.

He traveled in his own coach, staying at posting inns along the way. When no inns were available, he found accommodations with English n.o.bles eager to provide a night's lodging to Lord Mansfield's brother, a man whose reputation had preceded him. Lord Sin's exploits had been the talk of the ton for years.

After two weeks of exhausting travel over nearly impa.s.sible roads, Sinjun spied the aging turrets of Glenmoor.

Chapter 5.

Perched on a bluff overlooking the loch, Christy folded her legs beneath her, pulled her cloak closer around her narrow shoulders, and stared out across water that reflected the color of the gray clouds scudding overhead. Christy loved this land. The heather-topped moors, the craggy mountains, even the mist that clung to the ground and hung over the loch. She heaved a heavy sigh as her thoughts wandered back to London and Sinjun. Two months had pa.s.sed since she'd left him but it seemed like an eternity.

It hadn't been an easy two months. The weather hadn't cooperated, and the coach ride home had kept her in a constant state of nausea. Rutted roads mired in mud had made the journey perilous, and the situation she'd returned to at Glenmoor was explosive.

Calum Cameron had been stirring up trouble in her absence. When she'd explained that she and Sinjun had reconciled and arrived at an amicable agreement concerning their marriage, he had been livid. He had expected her to return from London a free woman and take him as her husband.

Telling Calum and her clansmen that she was expecting Sinjun's bairn hadn't been easy. There had been an outcry of disbelief and disappointment Clearly no one wanted to believe she was carrying an Englishman's child.

"I thought I'd find ye here."

Christy started violently, surprised to see Calum bearing down on her. "Calum, you shouldn't sneak up on a person like that. You frightened me out of my skin."

Calum, a hulking giant of a man with s.h.a.ggy brown hair and bulging muscles, hunkered down beside her. Instinctively Christy scooted away. She wasn't exactly afraid of Calum, but the look in his blue eyes unnerved her. He would make a powerful enemy.

"We need to talk."

"About clan business?" Christy asked, pretending to misunderstand his meaning.

His cold blue gaze raked her figure, intense with loathing. "Nay, about us."

"There is no us, Calum. I have a husband. I've been married nearly three quarters of my life."

"Ye know yer clansmen dinna accept that English swine as yer husband. We canna forget that our land has been taken from us and our freedom denied the day our fathers were defeated at Culloden. Yer own father and brothers died that day. Lord Derby shames us all by his lack of interest in his wife and lands."

"I told you, Calum, Lord Derby and I are no longer estranged. I carry his bairn."

Calum's expression turned fierce. "Where is the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, then? Why is he not here with ye? Yer lying, la.s.s. There is no bairn, no reconciliation. No Englishman is worthy of ye."

His heavy hand came down hard on her shoulder. She flinched but made no other concession to his strength. "Ye know I want ye, la.s.s."

"You want to be laird," Christy charged. " Tis all you've ever wanted. The Highlands will never be ours again in our lifetime if the English have anything to say about it."

"The clan needs a man to lead the fight against oppression and the unfair levies that line Lord Derby's pockets."

Christy bristled. "What can you do that I haven't already done? I've verbally protested to Sir Oswald. We've even withheld the quarterly levies."

"A man would lead a rebellion. I would lead a rebellion," he said, his ma.s.sive chest swelling with pride.

"What good would that do us?" Christy challenged. "Lives would be lost, innocent lives, perhaps even those of women and children. Did you learn nothing from Culloden?"

"I learned not to trust Englishmen, la.s.s. Ye forget, I lost loved ones that day, too. Why dinna ye tell me the truth, Christy? Ye never saw yer husband, did ye? Yer not expecting a bairn, are ye?"

Christy sighed. There was no help for it. It was time to prove she hadn't lied about her condition.

"Give me your hand, Calum."

"Why?"

"Just give me your hand."

He held out a callused paw, and Christy guided it to the swelling beneath her waist. Though not large, it was hard and round and could be mistaken for nothing but what it was, a bairn growing beneath her heart. Calum's blue eyes grew as hard as diamonds and he jerked his hand away, as if scalded. His expression was so fierce that Christy feared he would strike her.

"d.a.m.n ye to everlasting h.e.l.l, Christy Macdonald! Why did ye do it? Why did ye play wh.o.r.e to an English swine?"

Christy raised her chin defiantly. "Sinjun and I are married. We reached an agreement, Calum. Since he prefers to remain in London and I at Glenmoor, we agreed to live apart. He gave me leave to rule Glenmoor as I please. There will be a Macdonald laird to take my place after I'm gone," she vowed, touching her stomach.

"What if yer bairn is a la.s.sie?"

"So what if it is? Am I not my grandfather's heir? The s.e.x of the bairn will make no difference."

"Yer grandfather did ye no favors," Calum said sourly. "He should have made me his heir."

Christy bristled indignantly. "You still don't understand, do you? The land is no longer ours to claim. It was taken from the clan as punishment for their support of Prince Charles, the pretender to the throne. Wouldn't you rather have an absentee landowner than one who rules you with an iron fist? One day my bairn will become laird. He will inherit Glenmoor from his father and a Macdonald will once again own the land."

"Englishmen owning Scottish soil is an abomination," Calum muttered darkly. "Ye were supposed to ask yer husband for an annulment and demand that he reduce the high levies we pay him. But what did ye do? Ye fell into his bed like a mare in heat. Have ye no shame, Christy Macdonald? Yer husband is a debaucher of women, a rake, a man without morals or scruples. He cares nothing for ye."

Christy winced. Calum's words held more truth than fiction. Doubtless Sinjun had forgotten she existed hours after she'd disappeared. She held no fear that Sinjun would come to Glenmoor. Should he by chance try to find her, which she seriously doubted, he would look to Cornwall, not Glenmoor.

Christy tried not to think of Sinjun with other women, but it was impossible to imagine Lord Sin without a beautiful woman on his arm or in his bed. Would he return to Lady Violet? Or would he find a new mistress to flaunt before the ton?

"Perhaps what you say is true, Calum, but an annulment is no longer an option. I am carrying Lord Derby's child. Nothing you can do or say will change that."

Calum surged to his feet. "We'll see about that, la.s.s. The clansmen are awaiting ye at Glenmoor. Macdonalds, Camerons, Ra.n.a.lds, and Mackenzies. They've come to protest the excessive levies. Ye'd best come along and try to placate them."

The weather that had been merely threatening earlier suddenly turned dark and foreboding. Before she reached the ancient fortress where she had been born, the skies opened up.

Glenmoor was a desolate place, Sinjun thought as his coach clattered down the nearly nonexistent road to the fortress. The weather had turned raw, and rain pelted the land.

"Abominable country, rotten weather," Sinjun muttered, cursing his willful wife who had brought him to this inhospitable land. Had he not been required to travel to the Highlands to learn if the rumors about Christy were true, he might have gone to Cornwall to find Flora. He'd tried to tell himself he didn't care about her, but deep in his heart he knew better. G.o.d, he remembered every little detail about her. The silky texture of her skin, the way her nipples peaked at his slightest touch, the moist tightness of her body as he sheathed himself inside her.

He groaned and adjusted his breeches to accommodate his growing arousal. Just thinking about her made his shaft hard as a pike. He'd thought a return to debauchery would turn his thoughts away from the woman who had captured his fancy so completely, but he'd been wrong. He'd been angry, was still d.a.m.n angry. Flora had made him care about her, and he didn't know how to handle rejection. Never again would he allow himself to care for a woman. He wasn't a violent man, but he was so furious with Flora that were he to see her now he wouldn't be responsible for his conduct.

The coach pulled up before the stone steps of Glenmoor. Sinjun leaped down, instructing John Coachman to take the horses to shelter and present himself in the kitchen for a hot meal. Then he made a dash up the steps. He flung the heavy wooden door open and encountered pure chaos. The main hall was packed with men, women, and children. A cacophony of angry voices bounced off the walls. Curious, he moved closer. No one noticed him as he paused just inside the hall to listen.

"Our people canna survive the winter if we pay the levies demanded of us!" one man loudly proclaimed.

"Our children will starve," a woman interjected. "What kind of monster would condemn innocent children to death?"

"Lord Derby, that's who!" another man roared as he jumped onto a table to be better heard. "The English have raped our land, married the orphan daughters of our n.o.blemen, and left us with nothing but our pride. When the tax collector comes around again we must defy his authority."

"Sir Oswald has returned to England," a man exclaimed. "And good riddance."

"He'll send the king's soldiers," a woman said on a sob. "Lord save us all."

"What the clan needs is man to lead them," the Highlander standing on the table charged. "The Macdonald is too weak to lead the clan."

As if on cue, people began to shout, "Calum! Calum! Calum!"

Calum held up his hands for quiet. "Aye, tell The Macdonald who ye want for laird. The English lord hasna set foot in Glenmoor since he was wed to The Macdonald."

"Calum! Calum! Calum!"

Sinjun watched in astonishment as Calum jumped down and lifted a woman onto the table where she could be seen. Her back was to him as she confronted her angry clansmen. So this was his wife, he thought dispa.s.sionately as she raised her hands for quiet. Then she spoke, and a roaring began in his ears.

"I am The Macdonald," Christy said when the angry chanting subsided. "We must not lose our heads. Tis not the time for rebellion. There will be bloodshed. Women will lose their men, perhaps their own lives. Children will be without fathers and mothers. As long as I am laird, there will be no rebellion."

"We carina support the high levies," a man shouted.

"Are you willing to sacrifice your life, Donald Cameron?" Christy challenged. "Your wife and children will go hungry should they lose your support."

"'Tis easy for ye to say," came Donald's angry reply. "Ye have an allowance from yer husband. Ye dinna have to pay taxes or rent. I say we set aside The Macdonald and choose another laird from our ranks."

"Listen, all of you." She touched her stomach. "I carry the Macdonald heir. He or she will be your protection for the future. For now, all I can say is that Lord Derby has promised to look into the unfair levies."

Sinjun sucked in a startled breath. He knew that voice! Little by little he recognized other things about The Macdonald. The shimmering waves of copper-colored hair, the trim curves, the regal bearing. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! Flora. No, not Flora, but Christy Macdonald, his very own wife, and she was carrying his child! His fists clenched at his sides and his face grew mottled. How dare she do this to him! How dare she plot behind his back!

Everything she'd told him had been a lie. Who she was, where she lived, her elderly husband. She had a husband, all right, but he was neither old nor senile. Had he wanted to impregnate his own wife he would have done so long ago, but to be tricked like this was unconscionable. And more than a little disturbing.

He stared at her in silent fury. His eyes froze into chips of ice, and his gaze raked her from head to toe. Did she have to look so beautiful? A length of Macdonald plaid was slung over her shoulder. Her copper hair was plaited into a single braid, and her head was topped with a chieftain's cap adorned with a single feather.

He felt used, helpless, as if he'd lost control of his life. He wanted to storm through the throng of people and shake her until her teeth rattled. The conniving little witch had gotten under his skin as no other woman ever had. When he recalled how distraught he'd been after she'd left him his anger intensified. Her hasty departure had left him bereft and suddenly in possession of a conscience, something Lord Sin had managed to avoid during his lifetime.

Suddenly Christy spun around, as if sensing his presence. He saw her eyes widen, saw her mouth his name. A hush fell over the hall as his presence became known. Someone whispered his name, and it traveled through the room like wildfire. But Sinjun heard nothing, saw nothing except Christy, who teetered dangerously on the tabletop.

The crowd parted as he started forward, his face unable to mask the seething rage in his heart. He was halfway there when Christy swayed perilously close to the edge of the table. He spit out a curse and broke into a run. He s.n.a.t.c.hed her to safety scant seconds before she pitched to the floor.

"Where is her room?" Sinjun bit out to no one in particular.

Margot stepped forward. "Follow me, yer lordship."

Suddenly Calum stepped in his path. "Ye are Lord Derby?"

"Aye. Let me pa.s.s, man."

"What about the levies? Ye have raised them until we canna pay them without our families suffering.

"We will discuss it later," Sinjun said, shoving past him. "Lead the way, Margot"

Margot hurried up a winding stone staircase and opened the door to a large chamber at the top. Sinjun carried Christy to the bed and eased her down onto the feather mattress. Then he stepped back and stared at her through shuttered lids.

"Does she do this often?" he asked Margot.

"Nay, yer lordship, never before. Seeing ye at Glenmoor was a shock."

"I shouldn't wonder," Sinjun said dryly. He sent Margot a censuring look. "You were her conspirator in this ruse."

Margot stiffened. "Aye. 'Tis the only way Christy could keep Calum and the others in line. They wanted her to pet.i.tion for an annulment and marry a Scotsman. Calum was so determined to become laird that Christy feared he would ... force her and seize power for himself."

Sinjun's brows rose sharply. "Force her to bed him?"