“Do you always threaten your kidnap victims?” he asked. Then he untied the belt. “I can’t reach your other pocket,” he explained.
“There is no other pocket. Just the one.”
“Just one kidnapper. Just one pocket. I tend to distrust anything you say.” He jerked the far side of her robe across her belly and groped the material, searching for the pocket. When he found it he chuckled ruefully and dug his hand into the opening.
But all he withdrew was a small photograph in a hard plastic cover. He held it up. “Looks like a pro linebacker wearing a kilt. Someone ought to tell the crayon people about his hair color. That’s the brightest red I’ve ever seen. Who is this monster?”
Elgiva shut her eyes, aching inside. She had slipped Jonathan’s picture into her pocket for inspiration. He’d tried so hard to hide his disappointment with life. The least she could do for his memory was triumph over this man who had the kind of money and prestige Jonathan had always coveted.
But here she stood with Douglas Kincaid’s strong arm around her throat, her robe undone, his hot, amused breath on her neck, and his provocative masculine scent seeping into her senses—unwashed, brutal, yet still tinged with the essence of a fine cologne.
“Who is he?” Kincaid demanded again, jerking her lightly.
“My husband. But he’s dead. Two years dead. Put the picture back.”
“Oh, no. This could be very helpful. I’ll give it to my people when they find me. Which should be soon.”
She flashed a hand out and snapped the picture from his unsuspecting fingers, then twirled it to a safe spot on the floor. “Think again, Mr. Kincaid.”
He whistled. “Sam! Fetch!”
Obediently the big retriever went to the photograph and, after some maneuvering, got it into his mouth. Elgiva watched in despair. “Shom! No!”
The dog hesitated, watching them both anxiously, the photograph protruding from his mouth like a plastic tongue. “Sam! Come!” Kincaid called. Sam started forward.
“Shom! Stay!” Elgiva shouted. He stopped.
“Come!”
“Stay, beastie, stay!”
“Sam! Now!” Kincaid gestured to one side. “Shom, please, Shom.”
The dog whined sadly but trotted to the cell and deposited the photograph on the floor between the bars. He licked Elgiva’s hand then sat down, huffing in bewilderment. “It’s all right, poor beastie,” she whispered hoarsely. “You have to obey your brute master, I know.”
“If only it were that easy with you,” the brute grumbled.
She twisted against the corded strength of his arm. “You see that I haven’t got the key to the cell. Now let me go. Remember that I’m your only link to food and heat. Be a noble captive, Douglas. You’ll get as good as you give, that I promise.”
“Oh? I’ll expect this, then.” His hand delved under the robe, flattening across her midsection. Elgiva’s harshly indrawn breath made a loud rasping sound in the quiet cottage, and he chuckled with victory. “If the linebacker in a skirt is your late husband, which I doubt, did you wear these kind of feed sacks to bed with him?”
“This is a sensible gown, meant for keeping the highland chill from giving me pneumonia.”
“There are better ways to keep warm, Jumbo.” His hand cupped her navel, and his big, blunt forefinger began to trace a circle around it. “You could have gotten a lot more help out of me the other night if you’d used a different strategy.” His voice was low and rumbling. “Who knows? By now you might have persuaded me to do anything you want, whatever it is you really want.”
“You’re a liar, Douglas. I’ve studied you enough to know you’d never be a fool for love.”
He laughed heartily, while his hand rose by slow degrees up her stomach. “Did you think I was looking for love the other night? You’re a sentimental criminal, for damned sure.”
Elgiva clutched his free arm with both of hers. Despite her fierce downward pressure, his hand continued to rise. “Don’t do this,” she said between gritted teeth.
“What? This?” He curved his palm under her right breast, molding the heavy nightgown to the already oversensitized skin. Slowly his thumb settled on the tip of her nipple. “Why, Jumbo, that’s an alert little beastie you’ve got there.”
She dug her fingernails into his wrist. His arm jostled her neck enough to remind her that she was still held tightly. Elgiva groaned in pure fury. “You’ll pay for this, you nasty spawn of Kincaid.”
“It’ll be worth it. A man ought to be punished for enjoying himself this much without the least bit of guilt.”
“I’m sure that’s a familiar attitude for you.” Her breath broke in her lungs as his hand went to her other breast, squeezing gently. She shivered when he took the rigid nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed it. It tightened even more under his care.
“Why, Jumbo, is this the Loch Ness monster?” he asked coyly. “Or are you just glad to see me?”
“You can’t shame me with your lecherous pawing,” she whispered, stomping the floor in frustration.
“I’ll have to try harder, then. Oh! Look what I found on the feed sack! Buttons!” His fingers were nimble as they unfastened the white stoneware buttons that ran from beneath her breasts to her throat. “How prim. Are you sure you’re the same woman who nearly fogged my mirror?” He dipped his hand inside her gown, and Elgiva cried out in dismay.
“I don’t understand you,” he whispered gruffly. His hand trailed from one turgid peak to the other, exploring with an unexpected tenderness that was maddening. “This is not the reaction of a woman who doesn’t want me to touch her.”
She was shaking, so embarrassed and confused that she could barely keep her teeth from chattering. “I can’t help what a man’s touch does to me! It’s of no consequence under the circumstances!”
“Stop pretending, Jumbo,” he ordered, but there was a note of bewilderment in his voice. “Tell me what you really want from me.”
“I want you to go back to America and trouble me no more!”
“Why are you risking your future for a stupid scheme?” He loosened his grip on her neck a little. His free hand lay still over her heart, the fingers between her breasts. “Are you the heir who’ll get everything of MacRoth’s if I don’t buy it?” He drew a sharp breath. “Of course! A greedy relative! I should have known!”
“That’s not the way it is!”
“Do you honestly think you can kidnap me, coerce me, then blithely go free, a happy heiress, the lady of the estate?”
She put her hands to her forehead, shut her eyes, and laughed wearily. “You can’t understand. I’m doing this for the MacRoth heritage, not myself. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”
To her amazement, he let her go. His hand slid up from her breasts to hold her chin, though not in a harsh grip. Trembling violently, Elgiva turned around and, as his hand seared her skin, stared up at him. His dark eyes swept over her face in angry assessment.
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” he said grimly.
“Then don’t listen to them. Listen to your heart. Maybe it’s the same thing.”
“I’ll listen when you let me out of here. Do it now and I’ll be a reasonable man. I swear it.”
“You mean you’ll be ‘reasonable’ by your own terms. No. Too much is at stake.” She stepped back quickly.
“You’re undoubtedly the MacRoth heir. What’s your first name?”
“Slugger. Don’t try anything again, or I’ll live up to it.”
He pounded one fist against the bars. “You can’t keep me here for a month! I have deals under way all over the world! I can’t stay holed up in this godforsaken place!”
Without his hands on her any longer, calm began to return. Elgiva eyed him firmly. “Your most important work is right here. Now eat your breakfast. I’m sure it’s cold.”
She gestured toward the table by the serving window. On it sat two platters filled with food—fried eggs, sausages, pancakes, blue
berry scones, and biscuit bread. There was handsome silverwave, a cloth napkin, and an insulated coffeepot filled to the brim. She had even taken the risk of giving him another beautiful old cup.
“You’re an unusual kidnapper,” he said, sounding troubled.
“I don’t mean you any harm. I keep telling you that. Which is more than you can say to me.”
He studied her for a moment. His stomach rumbled loudly. As if on cue he and she both glanced down at the photograph that lay at his feet. Elgiva held her breath as he picked it up.
“It’s truly my husband, and he’s truly dead,” she murmured. “He wasn’t a MacRoth. Don’t keep his picture out of spite.”
“Here.”
When he held it through the bars, she advanced cautiously, gauging his intentions. But if his expression was troubled, it was also calm for the first time. She took the photograph from him and tucked it back into the pocket of her robe. Then she said something she never thought she’d say to Douglas Kincaid.
“Thank you.”
“You left my family pictures in my wallet. Thank you.”
His kindness, no matter how fleeting or reluctant, was so affecting that tears came to her eyes. Mortified by his power over her emotions, Elgiva hurried into the front room, shutting the door behind her. Shaking, she stripped, then stood naked in the little stall in one corner and took the only kind of shower the water tank could provide—ice-cold. It was much needed.
Three
Douglas woke with a start, his mind still tuned to a potently erotic dream about his captor. In it she opened the door of his cell and came to his bed, naked, warm, seething with needs that only he could satisfy. And despite the open door all he could think about was reaching for her, stroking her, pulling her down beside him onto the narrow bed. He didn’t want to leave.
Douglas shook that foolish idea aside and squinted into the afternoon sunlight. Gold-eyes was gone; the fire burned low on the hearth, and Sam was sound asleep on a rug nearby, snoring.
No wonder. She had fed Sam a huge meal at lunch, too, and she was a fantastic cook. Afterward she’d worked at her spinning wheel, and the rhythmic clicking of the treadle had been as hypnotizing as a metronome. Douglas had lain on the bed on his stomach, facing her, too stubborn to start a conversation, but secretly eager to watch her as she worked.
Occasionally she had smiled in his direction, but she seemed no more willing to discuss their outrageous situation than he was. Lulled by the sound of her spinning wheel, a full stomach, the crackling fire, and a feeling that bordered on stoic acceptance of his fate, he had fallen asleep.
Now he ruefully patted his stomach. She was stuffing him on purpose to keep him lazy and content, like a fat lion caged at a zoo. Boredom and confinement would make it easy to fall into her plan. Douglas shook his head. He’d look like Orson Welles unless he got out of there soon. And he would get out soon.
T. S. Audubon was probably on the verge of finding him already. Audubon was not only a longtime personal friend, but he also was the best executive-protection expert in the world.
And what then? Douglas asked himself, frowning. Capture Gold-eyes and her cronies? Definitely. Find out the true nature of their scheme? Certainly. Try to have the whole bunch extradited to America and send them to prison for the rest of their Scottish lives? He hesitated.
Out of bed now and moving restlessly around the small cell, Douglas wondered if it was foolish to be swayed by the MacRoth woman’s story about ancestral homes and desperate tenants. But there was a sincerity about her, an uncluttered idealism, that disturbed him. Was he really going to hurt people by buying the estate? Did it mean more to them than he realized?
He shook his head. He had not built a three-billion-dollar fortune by being indecisive and soft hearted. His father had been both, and had suffered for it. In business Douglas had established a reputation for generosity, honesty, and superb management, but also for toughness. No matter how much Gold-eyes intrigued him, he wouldn’t give her what she wanted, and he wouldn’t let her get away scot-free.
Douglas corrected himself grimly. Scot-free.
Elgiva walked against the cold January wind, her head bowed and her hooded cape held tight against her body. Several miles from the cottage, after crossing ridges and woodland, she came to the shores of Loch Talrigh. The northern tip of the great inland lake was surrounded by steep mountains covered with firs. The air was calm; the mountains held the wind at bay. The water was deep and so black that it had a purple tint.
In the center was a craggy island. And on the island, nearly consuming every foot of the rock, were the ruins of Castle Talrigh. Elgiva tossed her hood back and stood on the shore studying the mighty old place. Then she searched the water’s edge and, after a moment of careful exploration with the toes of her rubber boots, found the stone causeway a few inches under the water.
The walk across to the castle took a long time, because the ancient causeway zigzagged and one had to look carefully to find its path. Many a warrior had discovered himself and his horse swimming in the loch while the castle’s defenders rained arrows or, later, musket fire on him. Many of her own ancestors had died that way, in fact.
When she reached the brooding fortress she went into a crumbling courtyard and sat down on a pile of stone blocks. The winter sun cast long shadows. She had come here to think about Douglas, but she didn’t have much time before dark.
Yes, she decided finally, this place was where she should begin his education. She’d show him photographs and try to condense seven hundred years of Kincaid history into a pretty little package that wouldn’t bore him. After she set him free perhaps he’d care enough to come here and see his ancestral home firsthand.
Perhaps the majesty of it would touch him as nothing else could, and he’d understand why she’d taken him prisoner to preserve her own heritage. Then again, after he learned what it meant to be a Kincaid, he might seek revenge on her with even greater delight.
She thought for a while longer, then decided upon her plan. She would tell him his family history but avoid explaining why Castle Talrigh, ancient clan seat of the Kincaids, had been destroyed.
She most definitely would not tell him by whom.
T. S. Audubon had been twenty-one years old in the summer of 1971, a summer that he’d spent trying to survive in the jungles of Vietnam. He had been one of the toughest, smartest, and most respected sergeants in his battalion, but he wouldn’t be alive now except for the bravery that summer of an eighteen-year-old corporal named Douglas Kincaid.
The hard-nosed Chicago kid had carried his wounded sergeant to safety through a hail of enemy fire. Blood had been streaming down Kincaid’s face from a shrapnel wound. The fact that Kincaid was belting out an off-key rendition of “God Bless America” at the time always lent the memory a special drama to Audubon.
Their wartime friendship had grown over the next two decades, as Douglas’s brilliance and ambition shot him to the top of the moneyed world that Audubon had inhabited since birth. They shared a love for the good things in life, a flair for the dramatic, and an innate idealism.
Within an hour after Douglas was discovered missing, Audubon set the awesome expertise of his fifty-member team to work on finding him.
They were now a little closer to doing that. As he shook hands with the ruddy-faced little man seated at the table in Druradeen’s pub, Audubon’s sixth sense told him that the village’s mayor would lie at the drop of a tam-o’-shanter. The man was too pleased to see him.
“State your business, Mr. Audubon,” Duncan MacRoth said, smiling. “The sheriff over in Terkleshire called to say you’d be by. Something about a local woman you’re looking to find.”
“Yes.” Audubon laid a sheet of paper on the table. “See this emblem? The griffin and the rams? I was told that it’s the crest of the MacRoth clan.”
“Aye, and a bonnie one it is.”
“The woman I’m looking for was wearing a piece of jewelry with this emblem on it at a party
last week. In America. New York City, to be exact.”
“Folks here don’t travel too much. They’re lucky to get down to Edinburgh once a year, much less to America. What are you needing this woman for?”
“I’m a private investigator. She’s involved with a client of mine. She’s a tall woman, and very well built, if you understand my meaning. Early thirties. Very pretty. With blond hair—a wig, I suspect.”
“Faith! I’d remember if we had such a woman in this village! She doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Oh? I understand that Elgiva MacRoth, who runs a little sweater shop down the street here, fits my description. Except that she has dark reddish-brown hair. Her shop is closed. I was told she was on vacation. Could you tell me where?”
“Oh! Elgiva! Well, she’s away in … uhmmm, let’s see … Florida. Yes. Perhaps she did go to America. To Disney World. That’s right.” The mayor beamed and nodded. The hard glitter in his eyes told Audubon that he didn’t give a damn if anyone believed him. It was his story, and he was going to stick to it.
“An interesting choice.”
Mayor MacRoth shrugged gracefully. “She has unusual interests, that Elgiva. Niece of the laird, you see. And old Angus was an eccentric.”
“She’s wealthy, then? One of the laird’s heirs?”
“Oh, she’s not wealthy. Angus was a mean bastard. Treated her and her brother worse than beggars. But she and her husband put a wee bit of money away over the years. They had no children to spend it on, poor folks. He was a fisherman. Drowned in a storm—”
“She has a brother?” Audubon asked impatiently.
“Aye. He’s a fisherman too. And a writer, on the side. Not published yet, though. But a fine, fine, man—”
“Could you tell me where he is?”
“Disney World,” a feisty voice interjected.
Audubon looked up to find a grandmotherly little woman watching him from the pub’s door. “Disney World,” she repeated firmly, and snapped the jacket lapels of her sturdy dress suit for emphasis. “To see those mice. Mickey and Minnie. Yes. They’re kin of ours, you know.”