Desiring the Highlander (5 page)

He immediately stiffened and Ellenor thought for a second her ploy might work. Then he glanced down at her with eyes so blue they compelled one to stare into them. They held not annoyance. Instead, amusement glittered back. The beast actually thought her attempt at provoking him into an answer was funny.

Well, prepare yourself, McTiernay, for if you won’t tell me your name, I think I just gave you one
. Her inner dialogue did nothing to remove the look of triumph in his eyes, but it did make her feel better.

Wrenching her gaze free from his, Ellenor stared at the opening of his leine. The breeze caught his shirt and she could see the spattering of dark hair across his chest. It looked silky to the touch. She tried to look elsewhere, but his shirt continued to billow and her eyes were drawn to the inviting V the hairs created down the length of his torso. His stomach was rippled like the rest of him. Muscles on top of muscles. As male physiques went, McTiernay had one of the best she had ever seen.

“See something you like?”

Ellenor’s head snapped up, realizing she had been caught. Refusing to admit defeat, she coyly replied, “If you mean something I would like to pummel, then yes. I see something I like.” Then she squeezed her eyes shut and tried once again to figure him out.

The one question that kept cycling through her mind was
why
. Why would a man—especially this one—travel all the way from northern Scotland to haul a crazed woman back with him? But then again, she wasn’t crazy, and he had known that from the beginning.

Ellenor opened her eyes and caught him looking at her. She cocked her head to the side, moved to cross her arms, and grimaced as she was reminded of her bound wrists. She took two deep breaths and said, “You know I am not mad.”

“Aye.”

“If you knew I was not mad, why did you not say so to the baron?”

Cole shrugged. “Because it would have changed nothing.”

He had looked at her when he answered, not just passively, but deeply, as if he wanted her to understand that she
was
coming with him. She could fight it, but she would lose. A sharp retort came to her tongue, and yet, she couldn’t utter it. Something in those sapphire depths held her captive, a suppressed warmth she had not expected to see.

This man felt deeply; he just didn’t want to. He had learned how to cut off his emotions and she imagined very few had ever gotten close enough to see something other than a remote coldness reflecting back at them. Ellenor wondered if her own eyes mirrored the same kind of pain.

“I think you find me handsome.”

If it were possible, Ellenor would have throttled her own throat. That was twice in less than a handful of minutes he had caught her staring at him. “Not at all,” she lied. “I was simply curious about the scar on your chin. I was wondering how a man could get that close to the end of a sword and live?”

Ellenor had never seen a face deaden quite as quickly or as thoroughly. Her comment had inadvertently triggered a horrific memory. She knew. She recognized the icy hollowness evading every part of him. It happened to her each time someone said or did anything that yanked her back to the night her life changed. Her body went numb, her emotions dissolved until there was nothing left.

If she didn’t do something quick, the Scot would shut down and resurrect impenetrable walls made of nightmares. Then, she would have no chance of convincing him to cut her bonds. She needed to snap him back to the present, now.

“So, McTiernay, you’ve made it quite clear you did not wish me to come with you. You had the chance to leave me behind and yet you didn’t. You could even now drop me off and be on your way. I assure you I won’t return to my sister’s home. The baron would never know.”

“If I were going to ‘leave you behind’ as you put it, I would have done so.”

Ellenor chewed on his answer and realized his reason for getting her was not complicated, but simple. He had been sent to get her, and that was what he had done. Why she had been pretending to be mad or why Ainsley had desired her immediate departure mattered nothing to the overgrown beast. She would be sitting exactly where she was even if she
had
been mentally unbalanced.

“What about…” Ellenor choked out, grabbing Cole’s leine as his horse suddenly slowed its gait. “Hey, Scot! Make up your mind! Either keep me alive or take me back, but don’t kill me on this monster of yours!”

She let go of his shirt and Cole flicked his tongue out across his lips, smothering an instinctive smile. Any other woman would have undoubtedly required saving. Then again, they wouldn’t have been sitting backward perched on his mount’s neck. But not this Englishwoman. Her reflexes were immediate and accurate. Her snipe didn’t come from fear; it came from lack of control.

Ellenor Howell was just as disturbed by him as he was by her.

The woman had practically probed him with her eyes a few minutes ago, and he sensed she glimpsed something…something he didn’t want her or anyone else to see. So, he had teased her, and her comeback, while innocent, had revived emotions he had long ago suppressed.

Indifference
, Cole whispered to himself. That was the only way he was going to survive the next few days. “Steud is not a monster. He’s a horse. And you would not have been in danger if you had been sitting properly and not jumping around all the time.”

Ignoring his comment, Ellenor asked, “Did you say Steud?”

“Aye.”

Ellenor muffled a laugh but could not keep from rolling her eyes. What kind of man named his horse…
horse
? “Why did you slow down? I thought you were in a rush to get back to your precious Scotland.”

“I was.”

“But then…” Ellenor halted in midsentence as she answered her own question. They had just crested Windy Gyle. England was now behind them. “Well,” she began with a huff, “I suppose you are pleased with yourself, Scot, but I could care less where we are just as long as it’s not Durchent Hall.”

“Then we are finally of accord,
babag.
”

“We are most certainly
not
in accord,
Elmer
. My hands are tied. I am incredibly uncomfortable and I am finding it harder and harder to remain atop your
monstrous
horse.”

“I suggest you try harder,” Cole returned, refusing to react to her latest nickname for him.

Ellenor’s jaw dropped open. The man was actually smiling. Not a large one that spanned from cheek to cheek, but the sides of his face were definitely crinkling and Ellenor was positive it qualified as a grin for the hulking brute. Probably a large one.

Laugh while you can, Scot, for it will be I who will be laughing last
, Ellenor vowed. “I have tried,” she replied with mocking innocence. “But I can no longer sit as I am, and sitting facing the front without support is also painful. That leaves only one choice. You.”

“What do you mean me?” Cole shouted, unaware his voice had risen several levels.

“Simply that I shall have to rest against you,” Ellenor replied calmly, knowing how bad she stank. And then taking a deep breath, Ellenor gripped his tunic, turned back around to face the front, and commenced to wiggle even farther back into the seat. When she was done snuggling against him, her whole backside was touching him from his shoulders down to his groin. Then, she sucked in her breath and waited.

For well over a year, she had successfully avoided being in the presence of a man, let alone touching one. Now, suddenly, she was practically lying in the arms of one that radiated more primitive masculinity than any man she had ever met. And instead of screaming and clawing her way to safety, her instinct was to get even closer.

She felt no abhorrence, no repulsion. The taste of bile and the uncontrollable need to flee did not invade her every sense. There was only an unfamiliar desire to touch him and discover if the rest of his body was just as hard and solid.

Licking her lips, Ellenor tried to ignore the confusing messages her own body was sending her, but it was impossible. A hypnotizing warmth seeped through his tunic and her gown and into her skin. His powerful chest was huge, and with each step his horse took, she could feel his muscles move to keep both him and her atop the animal’s back. The Scot could overpower her anytime he wanted to, but instead of feeling caged in by his strength, she felt protected by it.

Cole was anything but unmoved by her new attempt at freedom. He knew she was not trying to use her femininity to induce him to loosen her bonds, more likely the opposite. The woman had been hoping her odor would make her nearness unbearable. And while she didn’t smell good, it was far from repulsive. His men had stunk worse than she ever could, even if she continued to abstain from bathing for another month. Moreover, he was not about to concede to her latest challenge.

Pushing her back upright, he grunted, “I suggest you try harder to find another position.”

“And if I cannot?”

“Then I will find one for you…starting with across the back end of my horse.”

A sudden shower of angry sparks flashed from Ellenor’s eyes. She whirled around to face him and almost fell. He caught her, but she shrugged him off. “You wouldn’t dare, Scot.”

“Oh, I certainly would.”

There it was again! That damn grin. Except it was a little larger this time. The intolerable beast was laughing at her. Maybe not out loud, but the man probably didn’t know how to. His awkward grin was practically guffawing at her and all from the possibility of her lying prone across the ass of his mount.

“Don’t you have any compassion?” she wailed.

Blue eyes dropped to hers and any warmth shining in them just a moment ago had been sniffed out by that single question. They darkened considerably until only cold navy stones remained. His face was once again void of emotion. “No.”

Ellenor swallowed. His voice had been low, even, and full of disdain. His antipathy toward her had all of the sudden become personal, but she had no idea why. She had done nothing to him. “You…really hate me, don’t you?”

Cole broke free from their locked gaze and concentrated again on the jagged trail. “I despise all who are English,” he said simply.

“I didn’t say the English. I said
me
.”

She waited for him to say something, to explain, to tell her she was wrong, but his mouth was set in a grim line, indicating he had said enough. “That’s it? That is all you have to say?”

More silence.

“You insufferable oaf. You don’t even know me! At least
my
reasons for detesting you are based on personal interaction,” Ellenor hissed, waving her bound wrists in the air so that he could not mistake her meaning.

Cole bristled. He didn’t want to admit she intrigued him and that in some odd way he respected her determination to control her fate, despite the way she went about it. He hated the English, and every word she spoke aloud proved her ancestry. Honor demanded that he despise her and so he did. Everyone had accepted his position long ago, and until today, no one had questioned the intelligence of his stance. If he hadn’t explained his reasoning for his blanket hatred of the English to his own family and clan, he certainly wouldn’t explain himself to her. Besides, she was wrong. His grounds for disliking her
were
personal.

“Do your reasons for disliking me include reeking?” Cole shot back. “Trust me, mine do.”

Clenching and unclenching her bound hands, Ellenor fought the rising need to strike him and said through gritted teeth, “I stink because I have not been able to bathe.”

“Nay. You stink because you
chose
not to bathe.”

Denial was pointless. The man was infuriatingly right. People had begged her to wash herself, but she had adamantly refused. Precious isolation had been hard to attain and being offensive had allowed her to keep it. Acting out of control was difficult to do for prolonged periods, but smelling foul, while uncomfortable, was easy to accomplish and even easier to maintain. Not to mention that the more she stank, the more everyone left her alone.

Unfortunately, that was no longer the case.

It appeared she had company, whether she liked it or not. Better yet, it was not her stench that would keep his hands off her, it was who she was—an Englishwoman. If she had to be in a man’s arms, there were no safer ones than this Highlander’s.

“And I suppose you are going to make me take one,” Ellenor remarked, waiting for his order to bathe the second they made camp. And she would. One of her most favorite things in the world was a bath. It mattered not where—a tub, a river, a lake—she just loved the feel of water against her skin. Nothing was better.

Cole chuckled against her shoulder blades and Ellenor felt something inside her deflate. A bath was not in her near future.

“You obviously enjoy your stench,
mùrla
. Why should I stop any English from being what they are?”

Ellenor had had enough of his name-calling. First, it was a filthy female and now he was referencing her horribly matted head of hair. Despite the oaf’s belief otherwise, she did not like to reek. Her odor even offended herself, and since it was no longer necessary, she had no intentions of staying that way. Squaring her jaw, she announced, “I shall bathe when we stop.”

“Not tonight.”

Ellenor stiffened at the casually issued challenge. “And why not tonight? I have decided to bathe, and I will, Scot. You have no idea how stubborn I can be when I have decided upon something.”

“Aye, I have an idea.” Cole couldn’t help admiring her spirit. He had no idea what hell she had endured to cause her to walk the path of feigned madness and stench, but the woman was a survivor and she had not become one by succumbing to anyone’s decrees.

“Then you concede?” she said with a hint of smile.

“That depends.”

“On…” she pressed. The man’s short answers were infuriating. If only her sister and Ainsley had spoken so little, isolation would not have been so appealing.