Page 66 of Never Kiss a Scot
“I don’t know.” She looked up. “Brock! If you can hear me, jump. It’s your only chance!”
A shape flew through the pouring smoke and came crashing down into the hay. Joanna and Duncan rushed to the edge of the wagon and peered down at the hay. Brock lay on his back, eyes closed, a stunned badger curled up in his arms. For a second Joanna couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think. Shock electrified every cell in her body as pure joy collided with pure terror. Were her eyes betraying her? Did she actually see her husband alive and well, or was she dreaming?
“Brock?” The name had barely passed her lips when the skies opened up and a torrential rain began to fall.
Brock jolted up in the wagon and cursed. The badger scrambled free, burrowing deep into the hay.
Duncan climbed up on the wagon and grabbed the reins of the horses. “We should get to the stables.”
Joanna leapt onto the open end of the wagon and held on as Duncan drove them to safety, staring at her husband, speechless. He stared back at her, just as wordless. Unable to wait any longer, she crawled toward him across the hay, and with a shaking hand she touched his ash-covered cheek, making sure he was real. The moment her fingertips touched his skin, he opened his arms she threw herself against him. He caught her as they fell back into the hay.
“Ah!” He winced. “Don’t forget my back, woman.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to let go of him. She ignored the prick and crinkle of the hay against her skin as it poked her through her thin chemise. Nothing in the world mattered except her husband lying beside her, safe.Alive.
“Never apologize for that. I would take every pain in the world to hold you in my arms.” His voice was low and raspy. His gray-blue eyes seemed all the more intense now that they were red-rimmed from the heat and smoke. He coughed violently. Ashes feathered the top of his head, and a layer of soot coated his skin. And yet he looked like the most handsome man in the entire world.
Joanna thought of all the things she had never said before she climbed out the window. But she had told him the one thing that mattered.
“I love you,” she said again, holding her breath, hoping she’d finally hear him say it in return.
He held her gaze as the wagon entered the barn, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, Mr. Tate, the groom, the driver, and the maid were all gathered around them. Brock’s servants were safe.
“My lord!” Mr. Tate climbed onto the back of the wagon. “I turned back from Edinburgh. I had an awful feeling—”
“I’m sorry, Tate,” Brock said on a sigh, the sound so very world-weary. “Your sister is gone.”
Mr. Tate’s face fell, and he looked to the burning castle. “In there?”
Brock nodded. “She… She went mad. Tried to kill us all.”
Mr. Tate looked to the ground. “Then it was even worse than I feared.”
“You knew?”
“I had my suspicions. She never got over Lord Kincade’s death, ya see. She was always quite taken with him, and well…” Tate sighed. “Heusedher, played upon those affections. Tossing her aside and then wooing her back on a whim. I didna know she was still so focused on him that she would try to kill you and my lady. I discovered she was stealing from the estate, changing the account books when I was in the village.”
“Why?” Brock asked.
“I think she felt it was owed her. She hated him as much as she loved him. I learned it was best not to talk about the man when she was around. I feared someone would discover the theft, an’ I was trying to find a way to make things right. Then you sent me to Edinburgh before I could explain.” Tate shot them both an apologetic glance. “I feared for you, my lady. I thought she might have tried to hurt you. I visited your chambers, looking for her, fearing what she might do if she were ever alone with you. I didna think about the tea she prepared. It is my fault you were sick…and now my fault the castle is burning.”
Brock placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It is my father’s fault, not yours.”
“The rain is quenching the fire!” Duncan called.
They all stood at the edge of the barn door, watching the castle for a time. There was little to be done right now. They didn’t have the numbers to fight the fire themselves. Nature would decide the building’s fate.
Brock slowly lay back down into the hay, pulling Joanna with him so she lay against his side. Neither of them had enough energy to move for the moment, and if the castle continued to burn, that was something they could not stop.
“I’m sorry about your home,” she said. The rain rattled against the wood roof of the stables above them. The sound was soothing, and she was so very tired. If she dared to close her eyes she might slip into sleep, and she didn’t want to, not when she wanted to watch over Brock and make sure he was all right.
“I’m not,” he said after a while. “It was filled with so many bad memories. Now I have a chance to build something new.”
“Wedo,” she corrected gently.
“Aye. We do,” he agreed, and they listened to the rain and waited for dawn.
The next morning,Brock awoke to the sounds of men shouting. He sat up in the hay, aching all over. His back was wrapped with clean cloth where he’d been cut, which meant Joanna must have tried to tend to him. He was alone. There was no sign of his wife or his few servants. He stumbled out of the wagon to push the barn doors open.
