A Kiss
Alec had caught her off-guard.
Since seeing the river and green expanse blanketing Lainshaw’s surroundings, the horror of Sorcha’s dreams had haunted her every thought. She’d nearly gnawed her nails off from worry.
Alec’s unexpected appearance had distracted her—momentarily, at least. It was his sensual, overpowering masculinity and the way he’d kissed her with an intriguingly forceful kind of tenderness.
With his strong hands anchoring her close and the hard plane of his chest molded against her, she’d been unable to recall her worries—and that had been before he’d teased her mouth with the tip of his tongue.
The kiss he delivered was nothing akin to the awkward fumbling she’d experienced as a young, giggling lass flirting in the markets.
No. He possessed a touch that made her mind reel and her passion flare, thirsting for more.
It felt so right to stay locked in his embrace with the curve of his tongue plundering her mouth, seeking every hidden secret.
But then her dreams reasserted themselves in a flash, blazing across her mind: the image of the river, stained red with blood.
“No,” she gasped, tearing her lips from his.
Alec jerked. His muscles hardened beneath her. “No?” he repeated, his voice turning slightly hoarse.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the water flowing over the rocks. Red. The smell of it. She covered her mouth with her hands, trying not to gag.
Blanching at her response, he tried to step back, but she quickly dug her fingers into his plaid and went with him, clinging, refusing to let him go.
He paused in outright confusion. “What is it, lass?” he whispered into her hair then, softly slipping his arms back around her waist in a comforting embrace, making her feel safe.
How could she tell him? The dreams couldn’t be changed, and Christine had warned her not to reveal them. She’d ignored the wise-woman’s advice before and had paid with Seton. She wasn’t eager to repeat the blunder. Yet, she had to warn Alec. But how?
Almost desperately, she cast a quick look about, over the castle rising above the golden-leaved trees and the accursed river and then burying her face into his chest, she choked, “This place—Lainshaw—I dinna care for it.”
“Aye, nor do I, lass,” his deep baritone rumbled in agreement, and she felt him nod against her hair. “But I’m fair pleased to hear ye say it. I came to tell ye that ye must leave Lainshaw. At once.”
Sorcha tensed. It was not long ago that Christine had told her she must leave a place at once. Clearly, the hand of fate wasn’t done with her yet.
He mistook her reaction for reluctance. “’Tis my fault, I confess, but I must insist ye go, Sorcha,” he offered with sincere urgency. “I canna in all good conscience leave ye here at their mercy, lass. Not when I know there’ll be none.”
It sounded so ominous. She lifted a puzzled face to his keen, penetrating gaze.
“Robert’s pig-headed,” he declared with a grim twist of his carved lip and more than a little anger in his bearing.
“He’s always one to act afore thinking, and he’s fair convinced himself you’re tangled in some treacherous plot.
And Lady Margaret’s pride is ruffled over ye now as well.
I canna leave ye here, unprotected, with either of them. ‘Twould not be safe.”
Indignation rippled through her. How easy it was for the nobles to believe the worst of a simple chambermaid.
Did they not need proof first? Was their fancy simply enough?
Her na?ve childhood dreams of returning to the warm familial embrace of the Cunningham clan had delivered the chilling dislike of Lady Margaret instead.
Aye, she’d erred coming to this accursed place, but she could—and would—leave.
But her dreams. She couldn’t run from them so easily.
“And where have your thoughts fled, lass?” Alec asked, gently pulling her back to the present, his warm hands cradling her a little closer to his chest.
Aye, Alec. She searched his handsome face. No, she would not let this man ride into danger.
But then, an unexpected thought occurred. “When would we leave?” she asked, almost breathless with a sudden urgency.
His jade-green eyes crinkled with unspoken relief at the word ‘we’, and she could feel the tense muscles in his chest relax. Cocking a brow at the sky, he replied, “Let’s not dally, aye? Let’s ride while the skies are clear. In the morn.”
A burgeoning sense of relief welled up from the bottom of her toes. In her dream, the skies had been dark. And the Montgomerys riding out from Lainshaw had all been men. Half a dozen at least, and not a woman among them.
“And who would ride?” she asked, allowing her hope to blossom.
That elicited a chuckle from the man. “Are ye asking who would chaperone?” he inquired gamely before divulging, “Taran rides home to the highlands. ‘Twould be the three of us, but we’ll see ye safe, lass. Ye know that. And Taran’s a far better chaperone than even the Bishop of St. Andrew himself would be. ”
Three, a far less number than in her dream—and Taran was a Mackenzie. He’d not be sporting a Montgomery plaid.
Taking heart, she nodded fiercely. “Aye then, I’ll go. But Lady Margaret—”
“Leave Margaret to me,” he cut her worry short, his voice deep, soft as velvet. “Then we’ll ride at dawn. We’ll escort ye to Heather House—”
That scared her and she instinctively pushed him back. “Nay, I canna go back. Not there!”
He tilted his jaw in curiosity and, pushing her back against the dairy wall, placed a palm flat on either side of her shoulders to cage her in his lean, muscled arms. “And tell me why? Are ye running from peril, lass?”
If only she could tell him. She took a deep breath, but once again, found the over six foot, rock-hard pillar of muscle beyond distracting. “I canna go back,” she whispered. It was less than an answer, she knew, but she prayed it would be enough.
It wasn’t.
“Tell me, lass,” his voice deepened in concern. “Have ye been wronged?”
The sincerity in his gentle green eyes almost opened her lips, and for a moment, she was truly tempted to confess the truth.
Her dreams. The Second Sight. It was all on the tip of her tongue, but then the words dried up.
Such a thing would be a disaster. He’d most likely think her a madwoman—at best. Unsettled, she slipped from the circle of his arms and lifting her skirts, half-ran to the river snaking through the nearby trees.
Aye, the river.
She couldn’t look at it without seeing and smelling the blood.
Bending down, she picked up a stone and tossed it into the swirling current angrily. “I’ll not let ye seal his fate,” she hissed in a low warning.
“Whose fate is this?” Alec’s baritone sounded from behind her.
Disconcerted, she jerked, unaware she’d spoken aloud. She couldn’t answer his question. “I fear this river,” she deflected instead, her eyes locked on the water tumbling over the boulders.
But Alec drove to the heart of the matter. “Ye told me to stay away from it in Neilston,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ve seen only sorrow in a river,” she replied, sticking as close to the truth as she could. She paused, and then added in a hushed whisper, “’Tis the reason I canna return to Heather House.”
Sympathy fell across his face, and he nodded in agreement, apparently thinking it related to her father’s ill-timed fate and the Montgomery raids.
She felt a twinge of conscience for failing to correct him, but if it got him out of Lainshaw before disaster fell, then what did it matter?
And truly, did she have any other choice?
“Then whither shall we take ye, lass?” his voice broke into her thoughts. “Have ye kin elsewhere?”
She heaved a loud sigh. “I dinna know,” she answered, relieved to be on sound footing with the truth once again. “The Graham of Mugdock advised I should seek out the Aiket Cunningham elders, to ask what they might remember.”
It wasn’t until he winced and replied with a strained “Aiket isna far” that she recalled he was a Montgomery.
“I dinna ask ye to take me there,” she amended quickly.
A droll gleam of amusement entered his eye.
“Aye, but I will,” he answered with a wry grin.
“Though I confess, ‘twill not be a jolly time filled with merrymaking. But I have faith the Cunningham of Aiket is not likely to murder a Montgomery in cold blood, aye? Not without asking first why I’m there, and not when he learns he’s wed his own daughter to my brother. ”
The vision of the river and its blood returned with force. “Nay,” she shook her head vigorously. “’Tis foolish. I’ll find my kin another way. I dinna know if they even live, so I’ll not chance it. ‘Tis ye I fret over, Alec.”
His response was far different than she’d expected. His dark lashes dropped over his piercing eyes, and a slow, lazy smile accentuated the dimple on his chin. “’Tis the first time ye’ve called me by my name,” he observed.
It was his voice, so deep and so soft, softer than velvet, and the possessive look in his eye that suddenly made everything seem so surreal as he stood in front of her, tall and braw, his green plaid unfurling in the quickening breeze.
Only a few weeks ago, she’d known a simple life and had been with Christine in Heather House.
Now, she faced a bold Montgomery—one she couldn’t deny made her blood quicken.
Downstream, she could hear the women laughing over the rushing river.
Behind the dairy, the cows lowed as chickens squawked nearby.
A chill gust of wind blew through her hair.
Yet, more real than any of that was the man standing within arm’s reach, a tower of sensuality casually undressing her with his eyes.
He closed the distance between them and reaching out, framed her face with his hands to ask with a bold, boyish grin, “Tell me, lass, do ye like kissing me?”