Chapter 6
His mother was dying on the floor, gasping her last breath, and in that last breath imploring her sons to escape their bondage, live good lives, and they must not worry if they had to abandon one another to do it.
He could remember every single one of the soldiers’ faces who had torn the small children away from the screaming tavern wenches’ arms. How they tied the rope around his neck as if he were a lamb on its way to the slaughterhouse.
How he had frayed the cord with the dirk he lifted out of the soldier’s boot before handing it back to the man.
The blood oozing from his fingers as he worked the fibers loose one by one.
But this time, he was not able to break free—he was still captive!
The walls were closing in around him, and he could not escape…
Callum MacNair sat up with a start. Thank God it was only a dream.
His duty—his destiny—was mapped out in front of him as clear as day: He must avenge himself on MacTavish, find his brother William, and then the two of them could roam the land together, not as the rogue warrior he was today, but as soldiers dedicated to searching out injustices and meting out punishment wherever they found it.
But something was holding him back. He had a duty to perform, a task to finish, and for the first time in Callum’s life, he did not feel alone.
A warm body shifted next to him and the sound of steady breathing reached his ears.
As the dreams receded and reality took over, Callum noticed his body had turned to the side, and his wrist that had the cord knotted around it was draped over Lady Meria’s waist. Their bodies were slotted together as neatly as two spoons in a box.
Callum had never spent the night with a woman. This was a new experience for him, to rise to consciousness and feel a softly feminine form molding herself to the hardness of his body.
Once, a maid had tried creeping into Callum’s bed in the room he shared with three other soldiers.
Wrapping his plaid around his waist with a tired sigh, Callum had dragged the young maid back to the castle.
After a few more attempts by the females living in and around the castle, it became widely understood that the MacNair orphan was married to his revenge and his destiny, and they left him alone.
The humiliation of having Callum MacNair dragging a girl out of his bed and leaving her at the castle doors in the middle of the night was too much for any woman to bear.
And here he was again with a warm female body pressing herself against him, but Meria was so sound asleep she was not even aware of it.
As he watched her sleep, Callum experienced the feeling of wishing his life had taken a different path.
Had so much death and suffering in his childhood turned him into an uncompassionate man?
As he gazed down at Meria, he noticed her face was not slack.
He could tell from the way her features trembled and her eyelids fluttered that she was dreaming.
Callum hoped it was a good dream and that she would wake up happy.
He had a very good idea that someone in the taproom had dropped a word in her ear about what sort of man MacTavish really was.
Callum smiled. The girl had wasted no time springing into action.
She had spirit, and he had to admire that about her.
But she had a lot to learn about how to bend a man to her will.
Ordering him around was not the way to reason with him.
Callum had a built-in mistrust of women who considered themselves to be above making a polite request. The more he looked down on the lady’s pretty face, the more he had to fight the desire to kiss her soft cheek.
Gently and slowly, he swept away the red tendrils of hair off her face.
He had to use the hand that was bound to her waist to do it, and he felt her stir as she felt the cord move.
Meria was facing away from him; her traveling cloak had become bunched up under her neck, pulling down the lace tippet that had been tied around her shoulders.
Hardly daring to breathe, he drew one finger across the soft skin of her delicate collarbone.
He felt his body become aroused immediately and had to bite back the urge to kiss her.
Meria sighed and turned to lie on her back.
He did not want to rouse her, but they could not lie abed together all morning, especially not with him in the state he was in.
He bent his head and inhaled the scent of roses that seemed to be emanating from her hair as if he could not resist imprinting this moment onto his senses forever.
“What are ye doin’?” she murmured. He felt her arch her back into a stretch like a little cat.
He wasted no time in untying the cord around his wrist. Then he slid his hands around her waist and began untying the end around her waist. “I cannae tell ye how horrid it feels to sleep in one’s corsetry, Mister Kerr,” Meria informed him, her voice still husky with sleep as she waited for him to free her.
“Will ye give me leave to use the retirin’ room?
Or do ye want to follow me there as well? ”
He said nothing, nor did he move. He waved his hand in a shooing gesture to indicate she could go and wash.
When she had left, Callum groaned and rolled onto his back to stare at the canopy of the bed.
The scent of her hair and the sensation of her skin stayed in the room with him like the shadow of some enchanting nymph.