Page 105 of Tempted
“Promise me!” he insisted.
She nodded and lifted her hand to touch his cheek. “I promise,” she whispered.
He held her close all that night. Somehow he knew that what she needed from him was his strong arms. She clung to him, never loosening her hold even in slumber.
Valentina hated traveling in the wagon while everyone else, including Ada, was mounted. The only thing that prevented her from springing down from the warm nest of the featherbed was the fact that it eased Ram’s mind about her comfort. Whenever he rode alongside her to verify that all was well with her, she forced herself to smile sweetly and curb her fiery temper.
Cumnock was less than twenty miles from Douglas, but nevertheless the wagon train did not arrive there until the afternoon, and Ram decided they would rest there all night.
For the first time Tina saw Black Ram Douglas through other eyes. The people of Cumnock, from the laird down to the lowliest tenant, treated him as if he were a deity. Lord Vengeance was their divine benefactor, come to bring food for their children and fodder for their beasts. He brought gold to pay for new trappings in the church. He brought manpower to help them rebuild their burned homes He brought medicine, ointment, and bandages for their wounded and burned, but most of all he brought them new hope that the enemy who had descended and destroyed would be hunted down by Hotspur Douglas in retaliation for their suffering. He would wreak revenge for them.
The men shook his hand or touched his shoulder, the women kissed him, the children came up to him shyly to stare at the valiant Lord Vengeance. Tina saw him pick up one child after another. He tickled them, ruffled their hair, whispered in their ears, and succeeded in bringing smiles to their serious little faces. She had had no idea until this moment how much he loved children. And suddenly she knew she loved him. So this was love then, this passionate, wild, all-consuming emotion as powerful as hatred, nay, more powerful. Love was far too tame and pallid a word to describe this thing that was between them. It was closer to madness than sanity, closer to violence than peace. It was primitive, savage, wanton, untamed, reckless, and unquenchable.
She gazed at him with the eyes of a woman who is proud of her lover. She recalled the verbal exchange they’d had when he came to offer for her “The Douglases are renowned for their ambition, pride, greed, and treachery,” she had said.
“And valor,” he had added with a wolfish grin. He had spoken the truth. Ram Douglas was innately valiant, and she adored him for it.
They ate sparingly, and after Ram saw her and Ada bedded down in comfort, he and his men worked far into the night restoring some of Cumnock’s destruction.
When they departed in the morning he left behind ten of his men-at-arms with instructions to meet him at the ship when they had finished rebuilding. Lord Douglas Was received at Ochiltree with the same adulation as at Cumnock. By now, Tina thought it amusing that they treated him as if he had just descended from Mount Olympus. They should see him when his Douglas temper was unleashed, or see his unsavory condition after a night of debauched drinking, she thought wryly. Then he cradled a burned child so tenderly, it touched her very soul.
Again, he left men to help rebuild the village. The River Doon lay only seven miles away, and they expected to reach it by dusk. Tina looked forward to spending the night with him aboard the Revenge before she went home to Castle Doon. He had been very careful not to make any demands upon her since her illness, but tonight Tina was afire to make demands of her own.
They rode along the banks of the Doon until the ship came into view. She was amazed at how camouflaged it was, tucked into a bend in the river. They only had three men with them, so Ram came himself to lift her down from the wagon. She was grateful for the strong hand at the small of her back as they ascended the gangplank of what had once been the Valentina. She looked up in surprise as her brother Davie came forward. She did not recognize the man with him.
Black Ram Douglas had no trouble recognizing him, however. As Lord Dacre stepped forward, a score of uniformed men surrounded them and held Lord Douglas at swordpoint. “In the name of the king, I arrest you for piracy on the high seas.” Dacre turned to David Kennedy. “Do you identify this man as the infamous Lord Vengeance?”
“I do,” said Davie Kennedy with relish.
“No!” gasped Tina, rooted to the spot by the enormity of what her brother had done.
Ram Douglas struggled fiercely and received a smashing blow to his temple from a heavy swordhilt. It drove him to his knees. Tina screamed, and as Douglas raised his pewter eyes to her, she saw hatred written there. She was the only one who knew he was Lord Vengeance. She had betrayed him! “No!” she cried again, her hand going out to him in supplication.
Hotspur saw her through a red mist of fury. Their entire relationship had been based upon revenge. She had emerged the victor in the battle between them. To this vixen, love had meant weakness, and she had put a knife in his back.
Tina’s eyes never left his face, lingering on the hard, chiseled mouth and strong arrogant jaw. His prominent cheekbones reinforced the impression of power and ruthless vitality. His dark, harshly handsome features brought a rush of love. As they dragged him past her, she threw out both hands in supplication, the gesture begging him to believe she had not done this dishonorable thing.
Ram’s eyes were murderous. They bored into hers, promising her the thing she understood better than any woman alive—they promised revenge.
Chapter 31
“Get the women off the ship,” Dacre ordered David Kennedy, and like a sleepwalker she allowed her brother to lead her down the gangplank. In shock she stood on the banks of the Doon and watched her own ship being sailed away to England. Her heart constricted as she realized there was only one way they would keep Black Ram Douglas aboard, and that was in heavy irons.
She turned to Davie with an incredulous look upon her face, as if she could not quite believe that this was not some nightmare from which she would soon awaken. “You filthy little turd!” she screamed, and flew at him, her nails raking his face.
David grabbed her wrists with cruel hands, and she almost vomited at his touch. “How could you betray him to the bloody English?” she cried in anguish.
“Douglas is more my enemy than Dacre. I met him many a time when I visited Carlisle with mother.”
“God’s passion, you’ve not seen the atrocities Dacre and his English raiders have committed! They fired the entire village of Ochiltree, burning women and children!”
“Don’t speak tae me of burns!” he spat, holding up his scarred arm
She looked at him in disbelief. “You think you’ll get your thirty pieces of silver, but let me tell you, Davie Kennedy, you have just frittered away your life! The powerful Douglas clan will hunt you down like a dog. You are a dead man!”
He looked at Ada, standing with a protective arm about Nell, then his eyes narrowed and fastened upon Tina “You are the only witness, and women are soon silenced.” He raised his hand to strike her, but Tina was quicker. The moment he let go of her wrist, she slapped him full in the face. At the same time she brought her leg up and kneed him in the balls. He went to his knees, howling for his men to grab her
Tina turned to face the four red-headed Kennedy men with a sweeping look of contempt Not one of them made a move toward her Her golden eyes blazed their challenge “Is there any one of you man enough to drive my wagon to Castle Doon?”
