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  “A wee hellcat, aren’t you?” he said in her ear.

  She struggled violently. “Let me go!”

  But he didn’t. He only eased his tight grip enough to turn her around so that she was sprawled atop him, facing him. Big, big mistake, she thought mournfully. It presented a whole new array of problems, starting with her breasts being crushed against him, her leg caught between his, and her palms splayed on his muscular chest. His white linen shirt was open and pure male heat rose from his broad chest. There was blood trickling down his arrogantly curved lower lip, and for an insane moment she actually considered licking it off. In one swift, graceful motion he rolled her beneath him and she lost her breath. Her lips parted. She stared in mute fascination and knew in that terrifying instant the man she had married by proxy was about to kiss her and she was quite certain her life would never be the same again if he did.

  She snarled. He smiled and lowered his head toward hers.

  Just then the blacksmith burst back into the clearing. “Not a damned thing!” he spat. “Whoever it was is gone.”

  The Hawk jerked away in surprise and Adrienne seized the moment to push against him. She might just as well have tried to push the Sphinx across the sand and into the Nile.

  It was only then that Adrienne saw the arrow still quivering in the tree that she had been, moments before, standing directly in front of, soundly berating her new husband. Her eyes widened as she gazed up at the Hawk questioningly. This was all too weird.

  “Whom have you offended?” Her husband shook her smartly. “Who seeks to kill you?”

  “How do you know it wasn’t you they were after, that it wasn’t just a bad shot?”

  “Nobody wants to kill me, lass.”

  “From what I hear your last lover tried to do just that,” she retorted nastily.

  He paled ever so slightly beneath the flawless bronze of his skin.

  The blacksmith laughed.

  Her neck was getting sore from peering up at him. “Get off me,” she growled at her husband.

  She wasn’t prepared when the Hawk’s eyes darkened and he rolled over and pushed her from him.

  “Though you persist in rejecting me, wife, I think you may need me,” Hawk said softly.

  “I don’t think so,” she retorted fiercely.

  “I’ll be here, should you reconsider.”

  “I’ll take my chances. No one shot anything in my direction until you showed up. That makes two attempts that I know of on you, and none on me.” She stood up, brushing her gown off. Dirt and nettles stuck to the heavy fabric. She tugged a few leaves from her hair and dusted off her rump until she became aware of an uncomfortable sensation. Slowly she raised her eyes from her clothing to find both men watching her with the intensity of wolves. Large, hungry wolves.

  “What?” she snapped.

  The blacksmith laughed again. The sound was deep, dark, and mysterious. “Methinks the lady doth not see how sweetly cruel beckons such beauty.”

  “Spare me,” she said tiredly.

  “Fair the dawn of yon lass’s blush, rich and ripe and deeply lush.” Her husband was not about to be outdone.

  Adrienne stamped a foot and glared at them both. Where was her Shakespeare when she needed it? “For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright/, who art as black as hell, as dark as night,” she muttered.

  The smithy threw his head back and roared with laughter. Her husband’s lips curved in an appreciative smile at her wit.

  Hawk stood then and extended his hand. “Cry peace with me, lass.”

  Cry. The man could make an angel weep. But she was hungry. Thirsty. Tired. She took his hand, vowing fiercely to take nothing more. Ever.

  As her husband guided her from the clearing the smithy’s voice followed on a jasmine-scented breeze, and she was surprised that her husband didn’t react. Either he was not a possessive man, or he simply hadn’t heard. For clearly she heard the smithy say, “Woman who renders all men as weak kittens to cream, I can take you places you’ve known only in your dreams.”

  “Nightmares,” she grumbled, and heard him laugh softly behind her.

  Her husband glanced at her curiously. “What?”

  She sighed heavily. “Night’s mare rides hard upon my heels. I must sleep soon.”

  He nodded. “And then we talk.”

  Sure. If I’m still in this godforsaken place when I wake up.

  Sidheach James Lyon Douglas worried his unshaven jaw with a callused hand. Anger? Perhaps. Disbelief, surely. Possessiveness. Where the hell did that come from?

  Fury. Aye, that was it. Cold, dark fury was eating him from the inside out and the spirited Scotch was only aiding the ache.

  He had stood and watched his new wife with starvation in his eyes. He had seen her suffer raw and primal hunger for a man—and it was not him. Unbelievable.

  “Keep drinking like that and we’ll never make Uster on the morrow,” Grimm warned.

  “I’m not going to Uster on the morrow. My wife could be with babe by the time I got back.”

  Grimm grinned. “She’s in a full fury with you, you know.”

  “She’s in a fury with me?”

  “You were too drunk to wed her, much less bed her, and now you’re in a tizzy because she looked on Adam agreeably.”

  “Agreeably? Give the lass a trencher and she would have slid it under him, licking her lips as she dined!”

  “So?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Och, this one’s getting too deep for me. You said you didn’t care what became of her once the deed was done. You swore to honor the pact and you have. So why this foolish ire, Hawk?”

  “My wife will not make a cuckold of me.”

  “I believe a husband can only be a cuckold if he cares. You don’t care.”

  “Nobody asked me if I cared.”

  Grimm blinked, fascinated by the Hawk’s behavior. “All the lasses look on Adam like that.”

  “She didn’t even notice me. ’Tis Adam she wants. Who the bloody hell hired that blacksmith anyway?”

  Grimm mused into his brew. “Wasn’t Thomas the smithy?”

  “Come to think of it, aye.”

  “Where’d Thomas go?”

  “I don’t know, Grimm. That’s why I asked you.”

  “Well, somebody hired Adam.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Nay. I thought you did, Hawk.”

  “Nay. Maybe he’s Thomas’s brother and Thomas was taken ill.”

  Grimm laughed. “Ugly Thomas his brother? Not a chance on that.”

  “Get rid of him.”

  “Adam?”

  “Aye.”

  Silence.

  Then, “By the saints, Hawk, you can’t be serious! ’Tisna like you to take away a man’s livelihood because of the way a lass looks at him …”

  “This lass happens to be my wife.”

  “Aye—the very one you didn’t want.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Besides, he’s been keeping Esmerelda quite content, Hawk.”

  Sidheach sighed deeply. “There is that.” He paused the length of several jealous heartbeats. “Grimm?”

  “Um?”

  “Tell him to keep his clothes on while he works. And that’s an order.”

  But Hawk couldn’t leave it alone. His mind became aware of where his feet had taken him just as he entered the amber rim of firelight beneath the rowan trees at Adam’s forge.

  “Welcome Lord Hawk of Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.”

  Hawk spun about to come nose to nose with the glistening blacksmith, who had somehow managed to get behind him. Not many men could take the Hawk by surprise, and for an instant Hawk was as fascinated as he was irritated with the smithy.

  “I didn’t hire you. Who are you?”

  “Adam,” the smithy replied coolly.

  “Adam what?”

  The smithy pondered, then flashed a puckish smile. “Adam Black.”

  “Who hi
red you?”

  “I heard you were in need of a man to tend a forge.”

  “Stay away from my wife.” Hawk was startled to hear the words leave his lips. By the saints, he sounded like a jealous husband! He had intended to push the question of who had hired the smithy, but apparently he was no more in control of his words than he had been of his feet; at least not where his new wife was concerned.

  Adam laughed wickedly. “I won’t do a thing the lady doesn’t want me to do.”

  “You won’t do a thing I don’t want you to do.”

  “I heard the lady didn’t want you.”

  “She will.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “All the lasses want me.”

  “Funny. I have just the same problem.”

  “You’re uncanny rude for a smithy. Who was your laird before?”

  “I have known no man worthy to call master.”

  “Funny, smithy. I have just the same problem.”

  The men stood nose to nose. Steel to steel.

  “I can order you from my land,” Hawk said tightly.

  “Ah, but then you’d never know if she would choose you or me, would you? And I suspect there is this deep kernel of decency in you, a thing that cries out for old-fashioned mores like fairness and chivalry, honor and justice. Foolish Hawk. All the knights will soon be dead, as dust of dreams passing on time’s fickle fancy.”

  “You’re insolent. And as of this moment, you’re unemployed.”

  “You’re afraid,” the smithy marveled.

  “Afraid?” The Hawk echoed incredulously. This fool smithy dared stand on his land and tell him that he, the legendary Hawk, was afraid? “I fear nothing. Certainly not you.”

  “Yes you do. You saw how your wife looked at me. You’re afraid you won’t be able to keep her hands off me.”

  A bitter, mocking smile curved Hawk’s lip. He was not a man given to self-deception. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep his wife away from the smithy. It galled him, incensed him, and yet the smithy was also right about his underlying decency. Decency that demanded, as Grimm had suspected, that he not deprive a man of his livelihood because of his own insecurity about his wife. The Hawk suffered the rare handicap of being noble, straight to the core. “Who are you, really?”

  “A simple smithy.”

  Hawk studied him in the moonlight that dappled through the rowans. Nothing simple here. Something tugged at his mind, drifting on a scent of memory, but he couldn’t pin it down. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “You do now. And soon, she will know me as well.”

  “Why do you provoke me?”

  “You provoked me first when you pleased my queen.” The words were spat as the smithy turned away sharply.

  Hawk searched his memory for a queen he had pleased. No names came to mind; but they usually didn’t. Still, the man had made his game clear. Somewhere, sometime, Hawk had turned a woman’s head from this man. And the man was now to play the same game with him. With his wife. A part of him tried not to care, but from the moment he’d laid eyes on Mad Janet this day he’d known he was in trouble for the first time in his life. Deep, over his head, for had her flashing silver eyes coaxed him into quicksand, he would willingly have gone.

  What do you say to a man whose woman you’ve taken? There was nothing to say to the smithy. “I had no intention to give offense,” Hawk offered at last.

  Adam spun around and his smile gleamed much too brightly. “Offense to defense, all’s fair in lust. Do you still seek to send me hence?”

  Hawk met his gaze for long moments. The smithy was right. Something in him cried out for justice. Fair battles fought on equal footing. If he couldn’t hold a lass, if he lost her to another man … His pride blazed hot. If his wife left him, whether he had wanted her to begin with or not, and for a smithy at that, well, the legend of the Hawk would be sung to a vastly different tune.

  But worse even than that, if he dismissed the smithy tonight, he would never know for certain if his wife would have chosen him over Adam Black. And it mattered. The doubt would torment him eternally. The image of her as she’d stood today, leaning against a tree, staring at the smithy—ah! That would give him nightmares even in Adam’s absence.

  He would allow the smithy to stay. And tonight the Hawk would seduce his wife. When he was completely convinced where her affections rested, well, maybe then he might dismiss the bastard.

  Hawk waved a hand dispassionately. “As you will. I will not command your absence.”

  “As I will. I like that,” Adam Black replied smugly.

  Hawk walked through the courtyard slowly, rubbing his head that still ached from a bout of drunkenness three nights past. The troth King James had commanded was satisfied. Hawk had wed the Comyn’s daughter and thus fulfilled James’s final decree. Dalkeith was safe once again.

  The Hawk had high hopes that out of sight was truly out of mind, and that King James would forget about Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea. All those years he’d done James’s twisted bidding to the letter, only to have the king demand more of him, until by royal decree James had taken from the Hawk his last claim to freedom.

  Why had it surprised him? For fifteen years the king had delighted in taking his choices away, whittling them down to the single choice of obeying his king or dying, along with his entire clan.

  He recalled the day James had summoned him, only three days before his service was to end.

  Hawk had presented himself, his curiosity piqued by the air of tense anticipation that pervaded the spacious throne room. Attributing it to yet another of James’s schemes—and hoping it had naught to do with him or Dalkeith—Hawk approached the dais and knelt.

  “We have arranged a marriage for you,” James had announced when the room quieted.

  Hawk stiffened. He could feel the eyes of the courtiers resting on him heavily; with amusement, with mockery and a touch of … pity?

  “We have selected a most suitable”—James paused and laughed spitefully—“wife to grace the rest of your days at Dalkeith.”

  “Who?” Hawk allowed himself only the one word. To say more would have betrayed the angry denial simmering in his veins. He couldn’t trust himself to speak when every ounce of him screamed defiance.

  James smiled and motioned Red Comyn to approach the throne, and Hawk nearly roared with rage. Surely not the notorious Mad Janet! James wouldn’t force him to wed the mad spinster Red Comyn kept in his far tower!

  The corner of James’s lip twisted upward in a crooked smile. “We have chosen Janet Comyn to be your bride, Hawk Douglas.”

  Soft laughter ripped through the court. James rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  “No!” The word escaped Hawk in a burst of air; too late, he tried to suck it back in.

  “No?” James echoed, his smile chilled instantly. “Did We just hear you refuse Our command?”

  Hawk trained his eyes on the floor. He took a deep breath. “Nay, my king. I fear I did not express myself clearly.” Hawk paused and swallowed hard. “What I meant was ‘no, you’ve been too good to me already.’ “The lie burned his lips and left the taste of charred pride on his tongue. But it kept Dalkeith safe.

  James chuckled, grandly amused by the Hawk’s quick capitulation as he enjoyed anything that showcased the extent of his kingly powers. The Hawk reflected bitterly that once again James held all the cards.

  When James spoke again, his voice dripped venom. “Fail to wed the Comyn’s daughter, Hawk Douglas, and We will wipe all trace of Douglas from Scotia. Not one drop of your bloodline will survive unless you do this thing.”

  It was the same threat James had always used to control Hawk Douglas, and the only one that could have been so ruthlessly effective, over and over again.

  Hawk bowed his head to hide his anger.

  He’d wanted to choose his own wife. Was that so much to ask? During his fifteen years of service the thought of choosing a woman of his own, of returning to Dalkeith and raising
a family far from the corruption of James’s court, had kept his dreams alive despite the king’s efforts to sully and destroy them, one by one. Although the Hawk was no longer a man who believed in love, he did believe in family and clan, and the thought of spending the rest of his days with a fine woman, surrounded by children, appealed to him immensely.

  He wanted to stroll the seaside and tell stories to his sons. He wanted lovely daughters and grandchildren. He wanted to fill the nursery at Dalkeith. Och, the nursery, the thought stung him; this new realization more bitter and painful than anything the king had ever done to him. I can never fill the nursery now—not if my wife bears seeds of madness!

  There would be no wee ones—at least not legitimate ones—for the Hawk. How could he bear never holding a child of his own?

  Hawk had never spoken of his desire for a family; he’d known that if James found out, he’d eradicate any hope of it. Well, somehow James had either found out or had decided that since he hadn’t been able to have the wife he wanted, neither could the Hawk.

  “Raise your head and look at Us, Hawk,” James commanded.

  Hawk raised his head slowly and fixed the king with lightless eyes.

  James studied him then turned his brilliant gaze on Red Comyn and appended a final threat to ensure cooperation, “We will destroy the Comyn, too, should this decree be defied. Hear you what We say, Red Comyn? Don’t fail Us.”

  Laird Comyn appeared oddly disturbed by James’s command.

  Kneeling before James’s court, the Hawk subdued the last of his rebellious thoughts. He acknowledged the pitying stares of the soldiers with whom he’d served; the sympathy of Grimm’s gaze; the complacent hatred and smug mockery of lesser lords who’d long resented the Hawk’s success with women, and accepted the fact that he would marry Janet Comyn even if she was a toothless, ancient, deranged old crone. Hawk Douglas would always do whatever it took to keep Dalkeith and all her people safe.

  The gossip mill had churned out endless stories of Janet Comyn, a crazed spinster, imprisoned because she was incurably mad.

  As Hawk trod the cobbled walkway to the entrance of Dalkeith, he laughed aloud at the false image he’d created in his mind of Mad Janet. He realized that James had obviously known no more about her than anyone else, because James never would have bound the Hawk to such a woman had he known what she was truly like. She was too beautiful, too fiery. James had intended Hawk to suffer, and the only way a man would suffer around this woman was if he couldn’t get his hands on her, if he couldn’t taste her kisses and enjoy her sensual promise.