Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
First kiss?
Damien touched his lips with the same hand that had just been holding that lass’s elegant, lovely hand, shapely with long and clever fingers. Christ, but it had been hard to keep from imagining what those hands might do as they trailed down his chest, then lower?—
He interrupted those thoughts. Bad enough that he’d apparently just sullied an untouched virgin. Never mind having such thoughts about a woman promised to another.
That thought soured in his stomach, though, and shuddered against his bones like a blow from an iron blade.
Yet, neither of those was as bad as the sense that his very soul balked at the idea. His gaze followed her fleeing form, while his very blood hummed, Mine.
But it was all coincidence, was it not? Nothing but a diversion he should enjoy recounting to his men—the last thing he expected to happen in Fallenworth. He’d come here to hunt, to add another bloody mark in seeking revenge for his father.
And yet he could not stop recalling how the English lass had emerged from the crowd, taking the path to him like a slim and elegant ship. One cutting across a sea in the last path of crimson sunlight before it was swallowed up by a storm. Those unique eyes behind those pretty glasses, that hazel-green color that seemed to subtly shift with her every thought and motion, even though her focus had not…
A fearless woman, bold as brass, and twice as clever as every man in England, had been his first thought. Then, his next had been a jolt of grasping after memory, a sense of recognition that went deeper than an arrangement of features, and something in him had whispered, finally, there ye are, me lass.
“Shitestorm,” Damien muttered and dragged a hand over his face, feeling the roughness of his beard.
Even that had not deterred her. If anything, she seemed to enjoy it.
Strange. I rather thought you enjoyed it.
Christ, but Damien had. Every moment with her, even as he knew that this was madness, that he should stay away from someone so clearly trailing trouble.
The trouble was, he’d never shied away from that in his life. And he loved a bold, bossy woman—he’d been raised among them. He loved a good debate, a rousing bit of banter, and a good jaw. When she’d said that, he’d almost gone down on his knees and admitted that he wanted the damn key to her mind—even as he wanted to put her over his knee and…
Or better, make her go down on her knees, put that wicked mouth to work.
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head, rubbing the back of his hair, his finger sliding across the string of his eyepatch. Och, he was losing his mind because he knew that he’d never get to have someone like that lass or the bonny, fearless women of Scotland. Nay. Thanks to the Queen’s Edict, he’d be lucky if he had an English lady who didn’t faint at the sight of him.
‘Twould nae be fun, but duty must come first.
And at least, he could now picture that long-legged, bright-eyed lass, with her sharp tongue and soft, full lips.
Christ, how unexpected that she’d taken such a hold of him. He’d always wondered at the way men lusted after certain women—and while he still had one good eye, no one had stirred his blood and loins with one glance like she had.
Perhaps I am keen on beauty and brains.
Damien sighed. Too bad he’d never know what it would take to make a lass like that come apart, to beg for his mercy and his touch. His jaw clenched, and he shook himself. How long had he been standing there, daydreaming of such things?
Was she a Fae? Had she cast a spell on him?
Again, Damien looked in the direction she’d gone, every instinct clamoring to go after her.
Instead, he set out to find those two men who’d frightened his fearless lass. If he could not have her, he’d at least do her this last favor.
After all, she was his first kiss since he’d become Laird.
It was easy enough to find the two men. They were slinking out of a tavern at the edge of Fallenworth, leaning against each other and complaining. One burped and tilted sideways, nearly crashing into a lass with a basket over her arm, and he leered at her.
She squeaked in fright and darted away, while the two laughed and said cruel things to her back, not noticing the shadow that stalked them. Night had fallen, with scant torchlight at this end of town, and yet Damien would never let himself be caught so unawares. Nor would any of his men.
He frowned to himself, wondering at their self-conceit, and then he heard their accents. He drew up short.
These are well-to-do men-at-arms.
His mind flashed back to his conversation with the Englishwoman. She’d also spoken flawlessly, he realized, only so bluntly and fearlessly that his focus had gone to that.
Cursing himself for overlooking that, though not sure why, he was about to seize hold of these brigands when they answered his question.
“Traipsing all over bloody England and now at the northern border for that uppity wench. I tell you, Lord Lovell does not pay us enough to mind his daughter.”
Damien’s blood froze in his veins.
Lord? Daughter?
No, he could not have been so foolish and kissed an English noble. Only, his mind began to grasp at other clues, putting things together, and he wondered why that name sounded so familiar.
“Needs must. At least we have a location, though I can’t say what to do now after she kissed that pirate.”
Rage shot through Damien, and he realized he had one of his swords halfway out before he caught himself.
“Lady Highbrow should just show herself to that Laird that the Queen wants to marry her off to, and he’ll go runnin’, I’m sure,” the man groused. “Ain’t natural for a woman to be that tall.”
Laird. Queen.
Damien pulled in a breath, and his blood ran hot.
That woman, Lady Helena—she’s promised to one of me people.
His hands clenched, and a roar bubbled up his chest.
What if…?
At the same time, though, he felt a bloodthirsty urge to do both bastards in. How dare they speak of Lady Helena like that? In such sneering tones, as though she were no better than a pauper, when clearly, they were simply intimidated by her, probably sensing that she was a hundred times cleverer than they could ever hope to be.
In another way, he was selfishly glad, for it seemed that only he could see her beautiful, full lips, the curve of those cheekbones, and that cloud of dark hair around her starry eyes. The shy kindness that had come and gone, along with the bloom of roses on her cheek.
“We could teach her a lesson—probably our only chance, boyo.”
Now, Damien’s blood ran cold, cold as the deep waters of the Firth of Lorn around his home.
“More than deserves it, since we might be killed for telling her father what she’s been up to—trying to shake us off her mighty tail.” The man let out a dark chuckle. “Foolish wench, thinking that sullying herself would stop this.”
The other one barked out a laugh. “Teach her to defy men. Why, kissing that one-eyed lout just means that she’s not worth?—”
He let out a squawk of terror as Damien loomed up, a sword in each hand and a blade at each of their throats.
“Ye will lose any part of yer body that touches her,” he snarled.
Despite the pale light from the rising moon and the torches flickering along the outer wall of the town, he saw the blood drain from their faces.
“D’ye hear?”
Both went down on their knees, nearly blubbering, shaking with terror, their eyes wide, pleading that Lady Highbrow was not worth it.
Damien scoffed and stepped back, his lip curling. “Leave and dinnae tell yer master what happened here.”
He did not miss the flash in their eyes as they stood—the fear of naming their master—and it was that threat that seemed to propel them to action. Damien hissed between his teeth, meeting a hard blow from one sword, before kicking the man in the chest so that he sailed through the empty gate. Grabbing the other man as he charged at him, he tossed him bodily outside the walls of Fallenworth.
They scrambled in the dark, their blades flashing, trying to fight, but they were all but lost in the dark space between the woods and the wall.
All they saw was the shadow of Damien as he moved, fast and lethal, his blade flashing. They put up a decent fight, for English blokes, and there was some swordplay that almost got Damien’s blood up. But before they could attract attention, before these two fools truly understood how outmatched they were, they were dead.
Damien scoffed, before he cleaned his blades, and then set about dragging their corpses to the river that led to the sea.
Tossing back his hair, eyeing the scatter of stars overhead, he wondered where the woman was. Had she found some inn to hunker down in? Or had she long fled from Fallenworth?
Standing on a small rise that overlooked the town and the sea beyond, the wind ruffled his hair, and he allowed himself a smile.
“Och, lass, ye are keen, but I’m afraid ye dinnae realize the simpler truth—never kiss a Highlander when ye can simply have them kill yer enemy.”