Twelve #3
He looked around the camp. Some of his clansmen sat around the cook fires, talking with a camaraderie he’d not heard among them for quite some time.
The guard was posted. He could see one of them from where he stood.
All was in order and there was a sense of unity, of purpose.
It was what had been missing, what had driven him to search out the Sword of the MacKenna— The silence was broken by a shout from Thomas’s tent.
Gordon started in that direction but was almost bowled over by Grace carrying a blanket that appeared to be filled with her belongings. Thomas took a step outside his tent. “I’ve treated you well enough,” he insisted.
“Aye,” Grace agreed, sidestepping Gordon, “for a whore. But I’m thinking I want to try something different.”
“Who is he?” Thomas demanded.
“There is no other man,” she said. “I’ve a mind to sleep by myself for a while.”
“And who will take care of you?”
“Not you,” she informed him saucily. “Excuse me, Gordon. Do you believe Fiona will take me in?”
“I imagine she would,” Gordon said, bemused.
“There,” Grace said to Thomas. “I’ll be sleeping with Maggie and Fiona, and you can take care of yourself.” She flounced away.
Thomas started to yell something after her but then thought differently.
“She’s a bitch,” he practically growled to Gordon.
“More trouble than she was worth. She’ll be back in a day.
” He went back into his quarters. Gordon heard him kicking something and then yelping in pain, probably having stubbed his toe.
And then he realized that it didn’t matter where Constance was. Her presence had filled every corner of this camp. He also knew as certainly as he knew there was a moon in the sky that she wouldn’t leave. Not now. She was in charge.
Suddenly tired, he went to his tent. Tad had escorted Fiona home and now met him there, going into the tent first, his tail wagging. Gordon followed, but pulled up short inside the doorway.
Constance slept on the pallet wrapped in the quilt.
She’d left the lamp lit for him, its golden glow highlighting the curves of her body.
She had removed the brown dress she was wearing earlier and appeared to wear nothing more than her petticoats now.
Her dancing gown with its frivolous lace had been washed and was hanging to dry over the chair.
Her hair was in a loose braid and she looked young, innocent, and exhausted.
He knew about the latter because there had been many a night when he’d slept as soundly and for the same reason.
In another time and place, he thought, he would have met this woman in a ballroom without any other thought than begging an introduction. They would have flirted, perhaps courted, and life would have been so very, very different.
Or perhaps their paths would have crossed in life without one noticing the other.
He let the leather flap fall. She didn’t stir.
Constance had not forgotten him. She’d folded his blanket next to hers, and he didn’t know what to make of it—
Her eyes opened.
She smiled up at him sleepily, as relaxed as a wife. “Did you speak to Fiona?”
“Yes.”
Her lashes slowly lowered. “I knew you would make it right,” she whispered, and Gordon felt an irrational surge of anger. Did she not realize what she did to a man? How seductive she was curled up on his bed?
Or did she think he lacked the primal instincts of any other man? Because that certainly wasn’t true…especially right now.
Right now he was tired of being alone. He wanted to lie beside a woman…even one he was honor bound not to touch.
If Constance had been wise, she would have searched out quarters with one of the families in the clan or shared a tent with single women like Fiona. But she hadn’t. She’d placed herself here, on his pallet. If that wasn’t an invitation, what was?
And yet, as he took off his boots, as he stretched out on the pallet, his back to her, Gordon knew he’d not take advantage. He could not afford to give in to human weakness, though he knew he was powerless to leave her.
In front of the door, Tad grinned wolfishly at him.
“Keep your thoughts to yourself,” he warned the dog.
Tad lowered his head, closed his eyes—and then opened one just as Constance, with a soft sigh, rolled over and snuggled into Gordon’s back.
The warmth of her body felt good. Her curves melded against him.
For a minute he dared not breathe. Tension ripped through him. He’d never been so damn hard. At that moment he’d like nothing better than to roll her on her back and bury himself to the hilt.
But his soul hungered for something more. Something he dared not name.
There was no place in his life for a woman. It was the choice he’d made. If something happened to him, he would not be able to protect her…just as he’d failed his sister.
Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t curve his body to shelter hers. He was even bold enough to rest his arm over her waist, needing to hold her close, although he knew better than to go further.
Constance didn’t move.
“What have you done to us?” he whispered. And then added silently, to me?
Her answer was to sleep with the contentment borne of trust…something he’d all but forgotten.