Chapter 2 #3
“I’m sure you’re wrong.” She didn’t know why she was defending Lord Murray.
Her pride stung. Both that she’d been wrong about him and at how quickly he’d left her.
The Highlander might have opened her eyes, but she wouldn’t thank him for doing so.
What woman wanted to be publicly humiliated by the man who was supposed to be her husband?
Who was supposed to care for her, but had so little regard for her that he would leave her to the company of brigands?
But they weren’t brigands. They were Macleans. She hoped there was a difference.
He reached down and took her chin in his hand. Holding firm when she tried to jerk away. His eyes were truly remarkable. A crisp and vivid blue.
“Don’t count on a rescue, my sweet. Not from him.
He’s not likely to run back to Edinburgh shouting to the rooftops of a failed elopement—or of his own lack of honor.
” He dropped her chin. “If you are done with the flagon, I have need of it.” She handed it to him.
“We will be leaving soon. Be ready when I call.” He turned and walked away, leaving her feeling strangely unsettled.
A feeling she was becoming used to when he was around.
She watched him return to his men, continuing on toward the edge of the loch. Her pulse jumped. Though it seemed an odd time for a swim, he quickly removed his plaid, leather jerkin, and boots and waded into the water.
She couldn’t look away. He was a striking man.
Not just handsome, but blatantly masculine.
His features seemed forged of iron, strong and hard.
His damp shirt molded against an impressive array of stomach muscles.
In his shirt and leather trews, she realized that he was less bulky than she’d initially thought.
Muscular and broad-shouldered, but honed tight as a bow.
It somehow made him seem more dangerous.
She gasped. Even from here she could see the enormous dark red stain that covered his shirt from under his arm to his waist. He winced as he used the water to loosen the cloth, pulling it away from his skin. She realized what he was doing. Cleaning the wound where she’d stabbed him.
She bit her lip. It must hurt something horrible, but he barely reacted. She turned away, refusing to feel guilty, and found another rock to sit on—this one she made sure was not part of a circle. She sat down and waited.
Her gaze slid to his men. They’d finished tending the horses and had started to build a fire. From the looks of it, a very hot fire.
She frowned, perplexed by the odd behavior.
Her abductor emerged from the loch and sat on the bank, pulling on his boots.
The man who looked like a Viking—Allan, she’d heard him called—handed him the flagon.
Her abductor grabbed it with a nod and took a long swig.
Handing it back to the Viking, he said something that seemed to cause a minor disagreement.
Her heart pounded as if she almost guessed what it was about. He lifted his shirt.
No.
He turned to look at her, as if she’d said it out loud, as the Viking poured from the flagon onto his open wound.
Her chest squeezed as his body jerked, but his face remained impassive. The pain must be excruciating. But except for the tightness around his mouth, she wouldn’t have known it.
She jumped up from the rock, at once understanding the reason for the fire. She’d seen it done once before, as a child. She took a step toward him and stopped when one of his men lifted a dagger from the fire. A dagger with a blade that glowed a fiery red.
Unconsciously, she clenched her hand, recalling the time she’d been trying to help in the kitchen and accidentally knocked over the large iron stew pot that had been simmering over the fire.
Without thinking, she’d grabbed for it, burning her hand badly.
She still bore the scars on her palm. She couldn’t imagine how much it would hurt on an open wound.
One of the men tried to give him a stick to put between his teeth, but he refused. He lifted his shirt, and her stomach lurched. She could see the gaping wound from here.
She took a step toward him and stopped. His eyes found hers as the side of the blade hit the wound.
The sizzling sound of the blade upon his flesh made her chest twist. Yet despite the pain, he barely flinched. And through it all, he held her gaze.
She could smell … it was horrible. She turned, breaking the connection, unable to bear it any longer.
She’d never witnessed anything like it. It was the most impressive display of control and strength she’d ever seen.
She wouldn’t apologize, but neither could she ignore the fact that she’d done that to him. Nor could she ignore the strange conflicting feelings he aroused in her. How could she admire a man who’d kidnapped her?
She had to get out of here.
It was her worst nightmare. Banished to the Highlands and forced to marry an uncouth savage. Now would be the best time to escape, while he was weakened. Slowly, she started moving back.
His head snapped around, and she froze.
“Flora.” His voice was hard and steady. “Take one more step and you’ll regret it.”
Not weakened at all. The man was inhuman.
Another night had passed by the time they climbed up the sea-gate stairs to Drimnin Castle. Lachlan’s side ached, and his head felt as if it had been split in two with Allan’s battle-ax. The bleeding had stopped, but if he didn’t get some rest soon, he knew fever would set in. If it hadn’t already.
He led them across the yard and up the timber forestairs to the entry of the keep. As was common with most tower house castles, the only entry was from the first floor. If any attackers made it through the gate, the stairs could easily be removed or burned.
It was more of a relief than he would admit when they entered the warmth of the keep.
Flora looked around the entry, obviously unimpressed, and spun on him immediately, eyes flashing. “Where is he? I demand that you take me to your laird, now.”
“Demand?” His temper flared. He was in no mood for her sharp tongue. “Have care, little one. Remember your status here.”
“How could I forget? I’m a prisoner. Abducted by a band of Highland barbarians.”
His hand whipped out to grip her arm, and he peered down into that beautiful mutinous face. “I do not like that word.” His voice cut like steel. “Do not use it again.”
He saw the spark in her eyes, delighting in the knowledge that she’d gotten to him. “The truth too painful?”
His gaze slid down the length of her body. A barbarian would know exactly how to shut her up. “Would you like it to be?”
“How dare you—”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t dare, and you’d do best to remember it.” He nodded, and his men and the servants retreated, leaving them alone.
She didn’t miss the silent command. “Just who do you think you are?”
He smiled, but it was without humor. “Who do you think? Your host.”
Her eyes widened. “You couldn’t be.”
Her disbelief shouldn’t bother him, but it did. He was the Laird of Coll, and she’d damn well better believe it.
“But …” Her voice dropped off.
He could tell by her expression what she was thinking.
That he wasn’t refined enough and had none of the courtly graces of a laird.
Damn right. He was too damn busy fighting her brother.
Too damn busy protecting his clan from years of floods and famine.
And war. What learning he’d had was forged on the battlefield.
“Why have you brought me here?” she asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’ll never marry you.”
The certainty in her voice infuriated him. “I don’t recall asking,” he said coldly.
“A man like you wouldn’t ask. He’d take.”
He took a step closer to her. She didn’t know when to stop. By God, she would learn. “And what kind of man am I?” he asked in a dangerous tone.
She lifted her chin and met him square in the eye, refusing to cower before his intimidation. “The kind who abducts a lady with no care for the plans he’s upset and forcibly brings her to his keep.”
“You would have been miserable with him.”
“He was my choice.”
He didn’t understand her. She didn’t deny that her marriage would have been a mistake, but she was still angry that he’d interrupted her elopement. There wasn’t enough time in the day to decipher the mind of a lass.
She gave him a sidelong look from under her long lashes. “So you do not intend to force me to marry you?”
“No,” he answered truthfully.
Her nose wrinkled, as if she weren’t sure whether to believe him. “Then it’s my brother Hector. You intend to use me to get to him.”
It hadn’t taken her long to figure it out. Part of it, anyway. The lass did not have just a sharp tongue and beauty, she had wits as well. He gave her a long appraising glance. He would have to be careful. If she learned what he was about, it could make his task difficult.
She had a smug expression on her face. “Well, you are in for a disappointment if you think to use me to bargain with Hector. I barely know him.”
“But I do.”
Too well. Lachlan and Hector had been at each other’s throats for years, since the day of Lachlan’s father’s funeral, when Lachlan was not yet ten and Hector had used the burial as an opportunity to take over Coll.
Lachlan’s uncle Neil Mor had thwarted the brash invasion, cutting off the heads of the Duart Macleans and tossing them into the stream now known as Struthan nan Ceann, the Stream of Heads.
Hector had never forgotten—or forgiven—his defeat, and Lachlan had been fighting for what was his ever since.
Tensions had run high between the two branches of the clan for years, but the feuding resumed not long ago when Lachlan refused to bow to Hector as the superior branch of the clan.
It was a bit of posturing by Hector to answer for his invasion of Lachlan’s lands in Morvern.
Hector claimed that his actions were justified by Lachlan’s refusal to take his part in his blood feud with the MacDonalds—a duty that was owed to a chief.
The kinship between the two branches of Macleans, descended long ago from brothers, was all but forgotten.
As a feudal baron, Lachlan didn’t owe fealty to anyone, except perhaps the king.
And with King James’s recent maneuverings, even that was debatable.
“Hector has something of mine. Now I have something of his.”
“What does he have? Your favorite dog?”
“No,” he said flatly. “My favorite castle.”
Her eyes widened appreciably. “Breacachadh, on the Isle of Coll?”
“Yes.” His fists clenched. With Hector’s ancestral seat, Duart Castle, sequestered and seized by the king’s commissioners for his treasonous dealings with Queen Elizabeth, he’d turned his sights to Lachlan’s.
“But how?”
“I was away.” While Lachlan was gone, Hector had led a force to Coll and, using trickery, captured the castle. But Hector would pay for his treachery.
“Why did you not appeal to the king?”
His jaw clenched. “I did.” He’d tried to follow the rules, but it had only made things worse. Much worse. He would never make that mistake again.
“You’ve kidnapped me for nothing. My brother has been after Coll for some time, he will not exchange it for me. A sister he barely knows.”
“You underestimate your worth, Flora.”
He knew right away that it was the wrong thing to say.
Her face went taut, and her voice grew thick with emotion. “I know exactly my worth.”
There was something significant about her words, but he didn’t have the energy to figure it out. He wouldn’t feel pity. She was a means to an end. He was finished with this conversation. Before she guessed what he intended, he lifted her in his arms and started to carry her up the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to your room.”
“W-h-h-y?”
To shut her up so he could get some sleep. And it had seemed like the most effective method at first—until he was forcefully reminded of his injury.
“You shouldn’t be carrying me. You’ll reopen the wound.”
“Since you’re the one who put it there, I’m surprised you care.”
“I didn’t mean—” She stopped. “Well, I did, but … well … Forget it. You can bleed to death for all I care.”
“Your concern is touching.”
He swung open the door; it squeaked and rattled off its hinges a little.
The years of famine had taken its toll. Drimnin Castle was old and in desperate need of repair.
He looked around the sparse room, knowing that it was far different from what she was used to, but until he got his castle back, it would be her home.
He dropped her on the bed.
“You can’t mean for me to sleep here?”
Her horrified tone only fueled his anger. “Is there someplace you would rather sleep?” He leaned over her, and she tried scooting back away from him, but there was not much room to maneuver on the small bed.
He moved closer, looming over her. Only a few inches separated them. “My bed, perhaps?”
Her eyes widened. “Never.”
He didn’t move. Tension crackled between them thick and heavy. God, he could smell her. Could hear the furious beat of her heart. He could almost taste the warmth of her lips beneath his. Opening. So soft and sweet. His body ached with pent-up desire.
He should take her right now. It would be over, and she would be his. And God knows he wanted her. Many men in his position would.
But not him.
He jerked away, furious, his body drumming with anger and lust. He’d never used force to get what he wanted, and he wouldn’t start now. Now matter how tempted. He’d have her. And soon. Even if she didn’t know it yet.
Flora MacLeod would be his bride. The ransom demand to Hector would give him the time to convince the lass to marry him.
Like it or not, he needed her. And it couldn’t be done with force.
But pandering to the contrariness of a termagant left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He cursed the need for her approval, but there was no doubt about it, she would be his.
And if she tried to stand in his way …
There would be no mercy.