Highland Scoundrel (Campbell Trilogy #3)(2)
A short while later she had her wish. From the first moment she'd jumped from the rock perched a few feet above the loch into the shock of icy water she'd felt reinvigorated. Freed from the grief and guilt she'd been mired in since her husband's death. Now, with the warm afternoon sun beating down upon her face, floating aimlessly atop the pool of blue-green, she felt relaxed. The gentle sway of the undulating water lulled her into a state of peace that she'd not felt in a long time.
She paddled around on her back a little longer, though the hour she'd initially allotted had come and gone. A soft wind swept over her, the wet skin of her exposed chest prickling with gooseflesh. Suddenly, the warmth on her face vanished, replaced by a dark shadow. Opening her eyes, she gazed up into the sky to see the clear blue stretch of sky marred by a thick roll of clouds.
A sign, it seemed, that her moment of peace was gone.
She rolled over and plunged through the water one more time, diving deep and swimming the twenty or so feet to the edge of the loch before bursting through the glassy surface in an explosion of water and light.
Trudging through the hip-deep water up to the shore with the goopy silt of the loch floor squishing between her toes, the hint of a smile curved the corners of her mouth. She felt lighter. Happier. Almost refreshed. For the first time since Francis had died, Jeannie felt as if she could breathe. The horrible smothering tightness in her chest finally had loosened its virulent grip.
She'd been right to come. For once an impulse had not led her astray.
Emerging from the water, she wrapped her arms around her chest in a futile attempt to ward off the blast of frigid air. Teeth-chattering, she gazed down and blushed. Every inch of her body was very clearly revealed in the sodden ivory linen plastered to her damp skin. She glanced around, hoping that Tavish had kept his promise to watch over her from afar. If not, he was certainly getting an eyeful. In her current state, as her old nursemaid used to say, very little was left to the imagination. But it was remarkably still … and quiet. Almost unnaturally so.
A whisper of disquiet swept across the back of her neck.
No. She pushed it aside. The Marchioness's doom and gloom would not spoil this day.
She ran the last few steps to her belongings and snatched a drying cloth from the top of the pile to wrap around herself. Going right to work, she rubbed the swath of linen over her face and limbs, removing as much of the water as she could from her skin before using the cloth to squeeze some of the excess from her hair. But the long, thick waves would take hours to dry even sitting before a fire.
Cursing her strange apprehension, which she fully attributed to her mother-in-law's interference, she glanced around one more time to make sure she was alone, then yanked her wet sark over her head, letting it drop at her feet, before reaching for a fresh one.
Bent over, naked as the day she was born, Jeannie heard a sound behind her. A sound that turned her blood to ice and made every hair at the back of her neck stand up in fear.
The guardsman never saw it coming.
Engrossed in ogling the woman swimming in the loch, he crumpled at Duncan's feet like a poppet of rags. Out cold, blood trickled from the gash at his temple.
Duncan could almost feel sorry for him. It wasn't the first time this woman had been the cause of a man's fall from grace.
Not that it was any excuse for such an egregious failure in his duty. If he were one of Duncan's men, there would be severe consequences beyond a knock on the pate for the lapse. His men were revered for their discipline and control, as much as they were feared for their dominance on the battlefield.
Bending over the prone man, Duncan quickly divested the fallen warrior of his weapons, and then returned his own dirk to the gold scabbard at his waist. The blow from the heavy, jewel-encrusted hilt wouldn't do any lasting damage, but the pain in the man's head when he woke would give him something to think about. But that wouldn't be any time soon, buying Duncan time enough to complete his unpleasant task.
This was a meeting better had alone—and without interruption.
He heard a splash coming from the loch, but resisted the urge to look at what had so enthralled the guardsman. He knew. Instead, the man feared from Ireland to across the Continent as the Black Highlander—dubbed not just for the color of his hair but for his deadly skill at warfare—motioned for his men positioned at the edge of the tree line to keep an eye on the guardsman in case he stirred, and circled around the loch to the place where she'd left her belongings.
If leaving the castle with a worthless guardsman to frolic in the loch was any indication, Jeannie hadn't changed one whit. He'd half expected her to be meeting a lover for a tryst, and had waited before approaching her just to make sure. But she was alone—this time at least.
He moved through the trees as soundlessly as the wraith some might think him. He'd been gone a long time.
Too long.
Only now that he was back did he allow himself to acknowledge it.
Ten years he'd bided his time, forging a new life from the ashes of his old to replace the one denied him by birth and treachery, waiting for the right moment to return. Ten years he'd waged war, honing his skills and laying scourge across countless battlefields.
Ten years in exile for a crime he didn't commit.
For so long he'd forced everything that reminded him of the Highlands from his mind, but every step that he'd taken across the heathery hills, grassy glens, rocky crags, and forested hillsides of the Deeside since he'd landed in Aberdeen two days ago had been a brutal reminder of how much he'd lost.