Fair As a Rose: A Journeys of the Heart Romance Read online

  FAIR AS A

  ROSE

  A JOURNEYS OF

  THE HEART

  Romance

  Rebecca Ward

  Copyright 1989 by Cynthia Sinclair.

  To my friend Elly,

  who read the book first

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  THE SCREAMING WENT on and on, tormenting the darkness of the winter night. The big blond man who headed the riders reined in his stallion, and his ten men halted also.

  “Some animal—sounds like a horse,” the leader said. His breath billowed like smoke in the freezing air, and his heavy cloak was crusted with ice. “I’m going to take a look. Someone inside that stable might be able to tell us where we are.”

  The bearded rider nearest him growled, “You shouldn’t go in there alone, Gavin. Let me go with you.”

  “No, me,” the others urged, almost in unison.

  Gavin Morgan swung down from the saddle. He winced in pain as his left foot hit the ground, and the bearded man sucked in his cheeks. “A bitch of a ride,” he commented.

  Reese was right, Gavin thought. It had been a cold, hard day’s ride through the snow-covered Southern Uplands, and for the past few hours they had traveled in a darkness lit only by stars. Even young Darag wasn’t sure if they were on the road to Kilbraye. When they’d spotted a dim light, they had made for it—and found this stable.

  The screaming inside the stable broke off abruptly. “Stay here, all of you.” Gavin tossed the reins to the bearded man. “Reese, you’re in charge.”

  “Be careful, man,” Reese warned. “This country is full of Jacobites.”

  Years of training had made Gavin’s footfall as soundless as a cat’s. As he stalked through the snow toward the squat wooden building, he drew a pistol and rested his other hand on the dirk at his side. He was almost at the stable door when he heard voices.

  “No, Tam, wait. There has to be another way.”

  “I’ve already tried all the ways I know.” The voice that had spoken first sounded youthful. This one was tired, old. “We shouldna even be out here like this.”

  Gavin pushed open the wooden door and looked quickly around the stable. He could see a solitary lantern, a few horses stamping restively in their stalls, and a bay mare, big with foal, lying on the straw. Two grooms were on their knees beside the panting mare, one of them scanty-haired and bow-backed, the other young with a rough woolen hood pulled down over the ears.

  At the sound of the door opening, both grooms turned their heads. “Holy Saint Ninian,” the old one gulped, and grabbed for a pitchfork that lay in the straw.

  “Don’t,” Gavin warned. He put his boot down on the shaft of the pitchfork as the younger groom demanded, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Just a stranger in need of directions—” But that was as far as he got before surprise knocked Gavin’s breath down his windpipe. The dark-lashed, fear-widened amber eyes, the pure line of cheekbone, and the warm curve of mouth were a woman’s.

  A peasant girl—perhaps the old man’s granddaughter? Whoever she was, Gavin could guess her thoughts. With Jacobites and King George’s followers at one another’s throats, most of the men from this region were away fighting the war. Their unprotected women were prey to lawless stragglers from both sides.

  He put his pistol away and spoke reassuringly, “I’ll not hurt you. I was riding by and heard your mare in travail.”

  “Shut the door,” the woman commanded. “You’re letting in the cold.” Her wary eyes appraised him as she added, “The mare can’t birth her foal. Do you know anything about horses?”

  “Laura—” the old man began, but the mare’s whinny stilled his protest.

  The girl tried to soothe the animal, murmuring, “Softly, beag. Easy, my little one.”

  The mare hauled herself to her feet. She pushed, puffing and straining, bending her spine and stretching back her neck in agony. Her entire body heaved with fruitless effort.

  The beast’s suffering moved Gavin. “Let me look,” he said, and the girl scrambled over in the straw to make room for him. “Do you have any oil?” he asked.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “If I’m to help the mare, I’ll need to examine her.”

  Frowning, the girl considered this, and Gavin waited. As he sat shoulder to shoulder with her, he could feel the coarse flax of her shirt rubbing against his arm, and he was aware of a faint perfume that clung to her. Elusive, tantalizingly familiar, the fragrance rose above the stink of the stable.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “All right,” the girl decided. “Tam, get him the oil.”

  Gavin removed his cloak and pulled off his travel-stained shirt. The bitter cold of the stable sent chills along his powerful, smooth-muscled arms. Hands shaking, old Tam handed over a flask, and Gavin anointed his arm up to the shoulder. Then, after timing the mare’s contractions, he began an internal exploration.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “She’s bone-dry.”

  The girl bit her lower lip, “The waters came earlier, but she can’t drop her foal.”

  “I can see why.”

  The foal’s head wasn’t resting on its knees as was normal, but was bent back. There was no way to turn it, and pulling the foal out in this presentation would break its mother’s pelvis.

  The old groom was quavering, “No way to birth a foal like this. I say, kill it and pull its carcass out of the dam.”

  Gavin was about to agree when the girl spoke. “No. Killing is so easy . . .”

  He looked at her swiftly, saw the expression in her gold-flecked eyes. “You’ve lost someone in this war?”

  She didn’t answer, but Tam said. “ ’Tis only lately that she buried both father and cousin. But a foal is not a man, Laura beag.”

  “Even so, it wants to live,” Stubbornly she met Gavin’s eyes. “And there’s another thing—horses are valuable. Do you know a way to save both?”

  Gavin thought of his men waiting outside in the killing cold. He thought of their long journey and the ride still ahead of them. He began to shake his head.

  “Please,” Laura whispered.

  Fatigue must have made him soft, he told himself. That and the look in her eyes. “It might not work,” he warned.

  But her face had gone bright and eager. “What must I do?”

  He told her to fetch him a thin rope, then explained that he would try to loop it through the foal’s jaws. Then perhaps he could draw the head back into a proper birthing position.

  Tam looked doubtful, but Laura hastened to get what he needed. As Gavin tried to maneuver the loop into place, he asked, “I saw no sign of a town or village. What land is this?”

  “Ye’re in Kilbraye,” the old groom muttered.

  Gavin’s surge of triumph momentarily wiped out every other thought. Even in this February darkness, he exulted, Darag’s sense of direction had held true. They’d reached Kilbraye at last! “But I saw no lights anywhere,” he remarked.

  The old groom spat. “We’re not making it easier for Cumberland’s Wolf t’ find us.”

  So that’s what they were calling him these days. Gavin smiled wryly as he thought of the rumors that must be flying through these glens and fells. But of course he had to expect that the people would hate and fear him as the man who’d come to supplant their dead laird, Sir Keith Kilbraye. And maybe later he could make that fear serve his purpose.

  Suddenly, he felt the slipknot catch between sharp little teeth. “Laura,” he commanded, “take the end of this rope. Pull it gently while I help the mare push. Between us, we should make the foal’s head turn.”

  She obeyed, watching him for guidance and keeeping a gentle tension on the rope as he began to push against the mare’s contractions. Soon the foal’s head appeared, and the mare did the rest. As the small body slid to the ground, she began to sniff her newborn.

  “A stallion,” the girl exulted. Then she looked up at the man beside her. “You did it,” she told him. “You saved them both.”

  Her eyes sparkled with relief, and the smile she gave him was so joyful that his heart lightened. “We did it together,” he reminded her.

  “I’m glad now that Tam didn’t pitchfork you.” She held out her hand. “My thanks.”

  Her slender hand was lost in his, but its grip was firm. She’d pushed back her hood, and red-gold hair the color of corn silk flowed over her shoulders and down to the small of her back. The poor light in the stable cast shadows on the finely chiseled bones of her heart-shaped face.

  Looking into her dark-lashed topaz eyes, Gavin was reminded of a mountain cat he’d once seen, a proud, sleek, untamed animal. Now her eyes were almost pure gold with relief, like the honeyed haze of a summer afternoon, but he could easily picture them b
lazing and stormy.

  Laura loosened his hand and stepped back. Her graceful movement was almost reluctant, and Gavin noted her suddenly pink cheeks. Beneath her soiled, coarse homespun his practiced eyes noted high, proud breasts, a slender waist, rounded hips, and long legs that would surely be shapely- Innocence clung to her like her elusive fragrance, but there was also a promise of fire in that lithe, slender body. She mightn’t know it yet, he told himself, but this woman was ripe for a man’s bed.

  “How did you know what to do?” she was asking him.

  Surveying her had made him forget his weariness, and the heat in his blood hadn’t come from this cold stable. Gavin sternly pulled back from his wandering thoughts. A pretty peasant girl was the last thing he needed.

  “When I was in Spain, one of my duties was to care for the horses,” he told Laura. “A mare foaled like this, and another soldier showed me what to do.”

  “You’re a soldier?” She was immediately wary.

  Gavin saw the old groom stiffen up like a hound with a new scent. “You could say so.”

  “But do you fight for George the Second or for Charles Stuart?” the girl persisted.

  “I fight for myself.”

  “That’s no answer!” Tam exclaimed. He pushed his wrinked face closer to Gavin. “Who are ye and where are ye from?”

  There was no point in announcing his presence until he was firmly established at Kilbraye House. As Gavin hesitated, Laura shrugged slim shoulders. “He’s no enemy, Tam. If he were, he’d have killed us, wouldn’t he? He’d certainly not have helped the mare.” She patted the old groom’s arm. “These days a man may have a good reason for keeping his name and business secret.”

  Looking unconvinced, Tam growled. “There’s water in the urn yonder if ye want t’ wash.”

  Gavin cursed the stab of pain in his left foot as he walked toward the urn. While he cracked the ice that had formed on the rim and sluiced an icy flood over his arms and torso, he heard the girl murmuring. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her sitting cross-legged in the straw.

  The sight of her touched nerves he’d forgotten he possessed. Laura’s head was bent, her face soft with love as she watched the mare and its nursing foal. Light caught the red highlights in her hair, and Gavin had to battle an urge to run his hands through that fiery silk.

  It was high time he left. As he reached for his shirt, she looked up at him.

  “You favor that left leg. Are you hurt?” He didn’t answer, and she added earnestly, “We can’t offer you much hospitality, but why not stay the night? There’ll be a warm place to sleep and hot broth at Kilbraye House.”

  Before he could appreciate the irony of her invitation, the stable door was kicked open. “Gavin!” Reese bellowed. “Gavin Morgan, are you all right?”

  “Gavin Morgan?” Laura’s voice rose and cracked. “Cumberland’s Wolf,” she breathed.

  “You won’t be harmed,” he said, but it wasn’t fear that hardened her face. Cursing inwardly, he turned to Reese. “Weren’t my orders clear?” he snapped.

  “But, Gavin—”

  “Get out and shut the door after you. Do I have to teach you how to take orders?”

  “Sir!” Reese’s voice was very stiff. “We were just worried. You took so long, man—”

  “Get out!” But as Reese hastily shut the stable door, Laura sprang forward into Gavin’s arms.

  She’d caught him off guard, and in the half-second it took him to realize what was happening, she’d gone for his dirk. Her lithe, slender body was tense with purpose, and she was quick. She had the knife out of its sheath before he caught her wrist and twisted it.

  “Let it go!”

  The dagger thudded into the straw. Gavin put his foot on it. Tam was snaking toward the pitchfork, and Gavin drew his pistol, covering the old man.

  “Cumberland’s Wolf.” With her free fist, Laura hammered at his chest. “Butcher’s dog.”

  She was cursing him in Gaelic, and he answered her in kind. “Let be. Stay quiet and behave yourself. My men are out there and they’re not as patient as I am. You,” he snapped at Tam, “talk some sense into her if you don’t want her hurt.”

  Gavin pushed Laura into the old groom’s arms. Tam held her fast, his lips counseling prudence while hatred burned in his eyes. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted, Gavin thought, and he blamed himself. If he’d followed his common sense instead of listening to a peasant girl’s pleading, none of this would have happened.

  He pulled on his shirt, retrieved his dagger and cloak. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I promise you we aren’t going to rape the women and fire the countryside,” he said grimly. “You’ve nothing to fear from us.”

  “Do you think we fear you?” Every line and muscle of her slim body bespoke defiance; her eyes were on fire with it. “Do you know what we think of you, Wolf Morgan?”

  He was suddenly angry. “You’d better start thinking of me as the new laird of Kilbraye.”

  Deliberately turning his back, he opened the stable door and stepped outside. That foolish action could have earned him a pitchfork in his back, he realized, and he was angry with himself as he approached his anxiously waiting men.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin,” Reese began penitently, “but when you didn’t return—”

  “When I need a wet nurse, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Sir!”

  He was being unfair, snapping at Reese because of a peasant wench’s scorn. Gavin was disgusted at himself as he swung into the saddle and abruptly wheeled his horse around.

  “The noble Kilbrayes are waiting for us,” he said, grimly. “Let’s not disappoint them.”

  Chapter Two

  “LAURA, HOW COULD you have done such a thing?” Isabel wailed.

  Dressed in a high-waisted, high-necked dress of plain black wool, Lady Laura Kilbraye stared unhappily down at her plate of uneaten porridge. The heavy coil of red-gold hair at the back of her neck contrasted sharply with her pale cheeks. She felt physically ill, and no wonder—Wolf Morgan was lodged in Kilbraye House.

  He and his men had already reached the house when she returned from the stable. She hadn’t had to face him, though, for Lochiel had already seen to that. As the senior servant and leader of those men who had remained behind, he’d met Morgan and his followers as they came riding up to the house.

  Lochiel was seventy-four. When he was a younger man, he’d lost an arm fighting for his clan, and he had arthritis in the other arm. Nevertheless, he stood proudly at the door of Kilbraye House and explained that the Lady Isabel and her nieces were abed and could not be roused at such an hour. Like it or no, Lochiel had informed Morgan, those were the facts.

  In reality the ladies were wide awake. Laura’s elder sister Margaret and her aunt Isabel had clung to each other on the upstairs landing and trembled at Lochiel’s defiance of the new laird. But Morgan had merely ordered that he and his men be given quarters in the house. “I will meet the ladies in the morning,” he had decreed.

  Now morning had come, and Isabel was accusing Laura. “If it hadn’t been for your lantern in the stable, they’d have missed us in the dark.”

  Isabel was a tall woman, deep-chested, but so thin that she looked slightly unbalanced. For many years the widow of Sir Keith’s younger brother, Donald Kilbraye late of Duinn Stair, Isabel wore deepest mourning not only for her brother-in-law but for her only child as well. Eighteen-year-old Colm had also been killed while fighting the English.

  “Those ruffians would have ridden right past Kilbraye,” Isabel went on. “I’ve given up expecting you to have good sense, Laura, but Tam should have known better.”

  “They would have found us eventually,” Margaret soothed, and Laura sent her sister a grateful look. Margaret, too, looked as if she hadn’t slept all night. There were dark circles under her gentle blue eyes. “Besides, Aunt, our father taught us to care for our livestock. He saw nothing wrong in helping Tam at foaling time.”

  “It wasn’t Tam’s fault,” Laura added. “He wanted me to go back to the house, but I had to help that mare.”

  Isabel glared at her younger niece. “You have excuses whenever you do anything wrong,” she sniffed. “Your father spoiled you abominably, Laura. You don’t know the first thing about behaving like a lady.”

  “I think Laura was brave,” Margaret protested. “And you didn’t worry about her ‘behaving like a lady’ when she and Tam traveled to the battle lines and brought Father and Colm home.” She put her small white hand on Laura’s, adding, “That, too, was bravely done.”