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  EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  HEBBURN, ENGLAND

  Chapter One

  I thought travelin’ with ye would be different, a bit of an adventure mayhap. But since we entered Hebburn, ’tis been nothin’ but ridin’ and rain. Where is this brothel ye told me aboot?”

  Beneath his hood, Malcolm Grant smiled at his brooding brother riding ahead of him. He didn’t bother to look up since, in the downpour, he couldn’t see an inch in front of his face anyway.

  “We’ll be there soon enough, Cailean,” he called out, “and then ye’ll thank me fer makin’ haste and ridin’ in the rain.”

  Malcolm had been to Fortune’s Smile before. He’d practically lived there for several months after the proprietor’s wife had been killed. He hadn’t been back in four years. But now he was here for Cailean. His old friend Harry Grey owned and ran it so Malcolm knew he could expect the best room, the best girl, and the best whisky. Once in a while there was nothing better or more soothing to a man who lived in a hard world than a full belly, a soft bed, and a warm body to share it with. His brother was twenty and one and still a virgin. It was high time he lay with a lass who knew her way around a man’s body. Fortune’s Smile was the perfect place to go for such pleasures.

  “’Tis just up ahead,” he said as he guided, knowing how to get there in the pitch black or pouring rain. He caught up with Cailean and they followed the inviting warmth of fire-lit windows to the front of the two-story brothel. “I know how yer passions turn toward cookin’,” he said to his brother, “but stay oot of Harry Grey’s kitchen if the need to cook strikes ye. His wife died in it and he’s verra’ sensitive aboot it.”

  “Not to worry,” Cailean drawled quietly.

  “Let me do the talkin’,” Malcolm continued, dismounting and handing his reins over to a stable boy. “Save fer Harry, the men are no’ friendly here. They’ll look fer the first excuse to fight.”

  “So?” Cailean challenged, straightening his shoulders against the pelting rain. “Practice with our kin, nae matter how gruelin’ ’twas, has prepared me to stay alive against folks who might someday try to kill me.” He slowed and waited for Malcolm to reach him. “Let them look fer a fight and I will give them one.”

  Malcolm shrugged, quite used to Cailean’s bravado, seeing the same in almost every male—and many females—of the Grant/MacGregor ilk. He was, of course, of the same mind. He didn’t mind fighting, but he’d like a damn drink first.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Familiar scents assailed his nostrils and he closed his eyes for a moment to savor them. The aromas of rose and wine, jasmine and whisky, sex and sweat. The only smell he loved more was early morning in Camlochlin.

  Temporarily content, he swept his hood back from his head, releasing a tumble of deep chestnut hair splashed throughout with bolts of gold. He moved his gaze over the patrons, seated at dimly lit tables in the cozy dining hall, and then over a few of the lasses who worked there. He didn’t recognize any of them. It didn’t matter if he knew them or not. They stopped and waved at him, looking a bit breathless. He personally didn’t consider himself handsome, not with his bent nose and mostly disillusioned expression that tainted his grin. But he had dimples, and according to the lasses at Camlochlin, lasses liked dimples, deep ones.

  He smiled at them, one by one, wondering who would be best for Cailean’s first time. Though Malcolm was infamous for being a heartless rogue, he hadn’t come for himself. In fact, he had no intention of taking any one of them to bed. What he wanted was a warm fire, warm whisky, and a warm bed for sleep.

  “Close the damned door before I get up and put your head through it!” a patron shouted, spoiling Malcolm’s good mood.

  Malcolm turned to give the fool a deadly look. Truly? Could a soul not rest for a wee bit before he wet his tongue? What the hell else was new?

  Very well then.

  “Close yer mouth,” Cailean called back, taking his time with the door, “before I walk over there and put m’ fist in it.”

  “I doubt you’re worthy of such a boast, boy.” Rising from his chair, the fool continued, as fools often do.

  Malcolm assessed him quickly. Medium height, densely built, slow reflexes. Cailean could handle him.

  “But which one of you is going to pay for letting in the rain to soak my clothes?”

  Malcolm thought about it while he untied the laces of his cloak from around his neck. “I’ll give ye two pence fer yer boots. The rest should have been put to the flame last month.” With a flick of his wrist he freed the wool from his broad shoulders and snapped it like a whip, showering the patron with cool droplets.

  A true fight would do the youngest Grant good, Malcolm thought, stepping aside and watching the patron go barreling into Cailean. He didn’t bother to see how his brother fared against the troublemaker, but turned his restored grin on a long-limbed, extremely lean man limping toward him from the inner parlor. He approached with a cup in one hand and a bonny woman in the other.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d see ye pass this way again, Malcolm!” Harry Grey let go of the lass and grabbed him in a tight embrace.

  “Where would I be, Harry?” Malcolm accepted the cup and tossed his arm around his good friend. “And dinna’ say wed or dead. Ye know I’d never fall to either one. Why the hell are ye limpin’, old friend?”

  “I was stabbed in the leg and didn’t care for it soon enough.”

  Malcolm shook his head, staring at him. “What have I told ye aboot hirin’ men to protect ye? Ye dinna’ know how to fight.”

  “I do have a guard, but he’s serving another duty presently.”

  They both watched Cailean make a quick end of his opponent and toss him out the door.

  “M’ brother,” Malcolm said proudly.

  “Of course.” Harry sighed, sounding worried. “You remember Bess?”

  Malcolm sure as hell did remember her. Last time he was here, he’d stayed for several months and Bess had grown quite fond of him. She was one of the last women he’d been with. A wild cat who jabbed her claws into him and had a hard time letting go.

  Harry thanked Cailean for disposing of the man and not leaving him there bleeding on the floor. “I heard yer sister was kidnapped by pirates last year,” he told Malcolm as he led him to a table.

  “She wasna’ kidnapped,” Malcolm corrected him, patting his brother’s back as Cailean sat.

  Harry stopped and turned to him. “She went of her own free will?”

  “Aye,” Malcolm told him, as if there were absolutely nothing wrong with it. To him, there wasn’t. “She’s the adventurous kind.”

  Malcolm smiled indulgently when Bess settled into his lap and proceeded to tell them about her adventure from Ayr to Hebburn last spring. Malcolm didn’t think pointing out the difference between her journey and his sister’s would do her any good.

  They sat together for the next hour, drinking and laughing while Malcolm recalled how he and Harry had met.

  “Harry saved m’ life,” Malcolm told Cailean, “when the Buchanans of Perth were still our enemies, before ou
r cousin Darach wed the Buchanan chief’s sister, Janet. A group of them had come upon me on the road and had taken me by surprise. They beat me unconscious and dragged m’ body to the brothel, where they celebrated their victory with wine and loose women. Harry discovered me tied to a horse in the stable later that night. He hid me in one of the rooms upstairs and left me alone to recover and live another day. Though Harry is English,” Malcolm praised, “he didna’ throw me oot of the establishment on m’ Highland arse.”

  “That’s because”—Harry raised his cup to him—“you kept the men who killed my wife from killing me, as well. Though, sometimes I don’t know whether to bless you or curse you.”

  Malcolm nodded, not understanding why any man would rather be dead with his wife than alive without her.

  “You’re hard.” Bess looked up at Malcolm with dewy blue eyes as vast and empty as the skies. “Like steel,” she purred against his neck while she spread her hand over his arm and then down his chest. “I’ll wager you’re still just as hard all over.”

  He groaned from somewhere deep in his throat. Bess knew her profession of how to please a man to bursting. But he left her pining after him once. He sure as hell wouldn’t do it again.

  “Ask Harry for me,” she whispered across his ear, “and I’ll find out for myself just how hard you can get.”

  She bit his lobe and settled her narrow hips deeper into his lap.

  He wanted what she offered, likely he wanted it more with her than any lass since he stopped sleeping with them. She was good at what she did.

  But he was weary of empty embraces.

  He shook his head. “I’m payin’ fer yer night with m’ brother.”

  She cast him a lecherous smile. “I’ll have you both.”

  He laughed. Hell, she was perfect for Cailean’s first. If anyone could suck the demons out of a man, it was Bess.

  But Cailean didn’t seem interested in Bess at all. Instead, his eyes were fixed on a bonny lass with russet curls and humble breasts. Harry explained that the gel was bought and paid for for the night by Andrew Winther, brother of the Baron of Newcastle. If Cailean wanted her, he would have to wait until tomorrow. Cailean didn’t want to wait, but he accepted things the way they were, as he was known to do, and set his sights on someone else—until his fiery-haired interest was flung into a chair by Winther.

  Malcolm watched Cailean rush to the lass’s side and then turn in time to punch the oncoming culprit clean across the room. Malcolm couldn’t have been any prouder.

  When Andrew Winther’s companions ran toward Cailean next, Malcolm hurried to his brother’s side. He swung. It landed a brutal punch to the closest assailant’s face. The man swayed, trying to gain his wits. A second punch cracked a bone and knocked the man out.

  Malcolm glanced at his brother and found him releasing another man’s unconscious body to the neatly swept floor. Malcolm smiled and turned his attention on the third victim, who was coming at him with a dagger raised high.

  Malcolm picked up a poker from the large hearth and swung it across the man’s belly, breaking two ribs and leaving him squirming on the floor.

  The whole thing was over rather quickly, with the four Winthers dumped unconscious outside where the rain washed the blood from their wounds.

  A handful less Englishmen in their presence was a good thing. With the place less rowdy, Malcolm and Cailean returned to their table, Cailean with Alison, his russet-haired prize, and toasted the sound of cracking bones.

  Harry sat slumped in his chair, his complexion drained of blood. “The Winthers?” he panted at Malcolm. “Why them? You don’t know what you’ve done.”

  Malcolm hadn’t expected Harry to fight with them, he was the proprietor after all, but he did expect Harry to have hired a few strong arms around the brothel to keep the shyt out, the way he used to.

  “Harry,” Malcolm soothed. “Dinna’ fear—”

  Harry shook his head. “You don’t know the Baron of Newcastle. Oliver Winther is a merciless son of a whore, arresting and hanging or beheading anyone who comes against him. He has the support of his entire family, whose number, it’s rumored, is in the thousands. He has a passion for killing that’s only exceeded by his lust for women. I don’t want him to ever come here—for any reason.”

  Hell, Harry looked about to shyt his breeches. Malcolm hated that his friend lived in such fear, but this was Harry’s home, not Malcolm’s. What did it matter what Malcolm thought of the bunch of gangly English who collapsed to the ground after three punches? Why, his sister could have taken them on two at a time. He did all to reassure Harry that the Winthers were nothing to fear. He and Cailean would stay on as long as Harry needed his protection.

  “Drink with us, Harry.” He pushed another round at Harry and laughed when his friend accepted. “Bess!” he called out to the bonny blonde who’d scurried off during the fight. Where the hell had she gone? He shrugged and smiled at the rest of the girls who worked there.

  Here’s what he missed—being surrounded by women. What he needed to put away all other thoughts and concerns. What the hell was he doing being celibate? It wasn’t his passion in the bedroom that needed taming.

  It was the monster biting at his heels, reminding him of what he’d never have.

  “Pardon my intrusion.”

  Malcolm looked up at a lass he hadn’t seen before. Then again, would he have remembered her? There was nothing remarkable about her appearance. A slight, wee thing in a gown that was neither colorful nor cut to show off her curves, like the girls’ gowns around her. She was rather pale, with large, dark eyes, and even darker circles beneath them, and long, yellow waves. She stood facing Harry, her delicate hand resting in the crook of a brawny arm.

  So, Malcolm thought, glancing at the owner of the arm. Here was the seemingly only guard in the brothel and he was too busy rutting to see to his duty.

  “I was wondering if I might bring Gascon inside for the night.”

  Her voice swept across Malcolm’s ears like a symphony of tinkling stars. It was light and flimsy, like a veil settling over him, capturing his attention within a web of sensual French inflection.

  He liked French lasses.

  Why hadn’t Harry brought her to him?

  “’Tis still raining—”

  “Now, Emmaline.” Harry sighed, sounding sincerely regretful.

  She lowered her head, displaying the full cut of her mouth and the small slope of her pert nose. Her almost silent sigh of resignation pricked at Malcolm for some annoying reason he didn’t know.

  “Haven’t we discussed this long enough? Dogs don’t belong inside, getting everything muddy and wet.”

  Malcolm laughed, bringing Emmaline’s attention to him. “Then ye would hate my home, Harry. We have five wolfhounds, or whatever in blazes they are, roamin’ the halls right along with everyone else.”

  “You’re correct,” his friend agreed. “I would hate it.”

  Malcolm thought he caught the lass’s slight smile beyond the tilt of her head. He wanted to see it full on.

  Who was the escort? Malcolm thought, sizing him up. The brute had no interest in her but to keep her attached to his arm. If he did care for her, he would be trying to comfort her from her obvious distress.

  “’Tis a heavy downpour oot there.” Malcolm gave it a try, looking toward the door. He might be the worst rogue in Scotland, England, France, but he had a heart. And he liked dogs. He knew firsthand that they perished just like anything else when exposed to the elements. He looked at his brother, remembering Sage, Cailean’s faithful hound.

  Turning back to Harry, he said more seriously, “Come now. I’ll pay fer a room fer the mongrel and a lass to clean him up. I’ll count it as a favor,” he added when Harry looked about to refuse him, as well.

  “As would I,” Cailean said, sounding far less friendly.

  “Put your coin away,” Harry relented, and held up his palms. “Go, Emmaline. Fetch your dog from the rain.”

  Ha
rry smiled and blushed a tinge of claret when she pulled her hand free of her escort and placed it on his arm. “Thank you.”

  She turned in a half circle, spinning her long waves over her shoulders and over the smile she aimed just a wee bit to Malcolm’s left. Her joy was radiant and infectious. “Thank you, my lord.” Without waiting for his reply, she turned again and hurried toward the door.

  Malcolm watched her, his smile fading from his lips when she banged into the table in front of her.

  “Emmaline!” Harry said harshly. “Wait for Gunter! And what the hell have I told you about not coming down whilst I have guests?”

  Gunter with the brawny arms hurried after her and returned her hand to his elbow once again. Harry shook his head, turning back to Malcolm.

  “She’ll want the beast inside every night now.”

  “She’s blind.” It became even more apparent while Malcolm watched her wait for Gunter, who had run out into the rain. She didn’t move. She didn’t watch the door, but inclined her ear toward it instead.

  “Completely,” Harry confirmed.

  Hence, her need for Gunter, Malcolm thought as her escort returned, soaking wet and not alone.

  Gascon, a tall hound of some sort, with flowing brown and tan fur, quite a bit more handsome than the hounds of Camlochlin, galloped into the foyer and sprayed water everywhere. When he saw Emmaline he immediately sat on his haunches, reaching her waist and still dripping all over the floor. The dog’s reward for his good behavior was a hug from his mistress.

  “Someone’s going to have to clean that up!” Harry called out.

  The lass nodded, then grasped Gascon by the scruff of his neck and, abandoning Gunter altogether, let the dog lead her away. A dog that helped her see.

  Fascinating, Malcolm thought. He wanted to know where Harry found her. “Who is she?”

  “My sister,” Harry told him, reaching for another cup of wine.

  “Yer sister?” Malcolm laughed and shook his head when Bess returned and held a cup to his lips. “Ye never mentioned her before.”

  “I thought she died ten years ago. She found me last month.”