Highland Obsession (22 page)

Bowie’s youthful face was completely blank as he held out a folded sheet of parchment. Cam took it and went to stand by the light of his desk lamp to read.

Cam stood motionless for a long moment, rereading the brief note several times. He didn’t know what to think.

How could he fight Alan MacDonald? The man was like a brother to him.

He had forced his friend’s hand, given Alan no choice. Of course Alan would feel there was no other way to reclaim his honor. Cam had offended him in the basest fashion—by coveting his wife and then attempting to trick him into adultery. For either one of those transgressions, Alan’s honor would demand a challenge.

Drawing in a breath filled with the close, smoky air of his study, he glanced up at Bowie. “Please wait whilst I compose a response.”

“Before you do that, it’s my duty as the laird’s second to determine the source of the misunderstanding and to attempt a reconciliation.”

Cam raised an eyebrow at the lad. “Is it?”

“Aye.” But the boy had nothing further to offer, and Cam just stared at him.

“So,” Cam finally said. “You know it wasn’t a misunderstanding, don’t you?”

“Aye. I know it well.”

“You believe there is no hope for a reconciliation, don’t you?”

Bowie shrugged. “Have you any ideas to offer?”

“No. None.”

“Very well.” Bowie crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on and write your response, then.”

Could Alan really trust such a young lad as his second? But Bowie was seventeen, eleven years younger than Alan—man enough to go to war, and man enough to be his kinsman’s second. Cam didn’t doubt that Bowie would represent Alan with the dedication of kinship and clan.

Before he’d abducted the man’s wife, Cam undoubtedly would have been Alan’s foremost choice as a second in any duel he fought. They’d even discussed it once and had agreed to back each other up should they mistakenly offend someone.

But who would serve as Cam’s second? So entranced had he been by Sorcha since he’d set foot on the grounds of Camdonn Castle upon his return from England, he’d scarcely paid attention to his reputation. It was his own fault the Highlanders kept their distance. He hadn’t done a thing to earn their respect, after all. He had only tried to earn Sorcha’s—and look how that had turned out.

He’d lost her to his best friend. His rival. The man he most admired in the world.

A sullen part of him thought on how easy it was for Alan to saunter home from England and have the villagers and his few tenants and even his stranger of a wife instantly fall to their knees in loyal adoration. Despite his mother’s English blood, Alan was a Scot through and through. He held himself like a Highlander. He spoke like one, his Gaelic fluent and perfect.

Cam had always preferred to speak the more comfortable English. His English ties were what guided him as a child. When he went to England for school, he pretended to be one of them, while Alan stood apart, never feeling the need to shed his plaids or his Highland ways. And when Alan was challenged—rare once people got to know him—he proved his mettle with his fists.

Cam had wanted respect. He’d wanted to fit in, so he’d ignored his background and had used his English title, Viscount Manderly. He took on the accent, the posture, all of their “civilized” ways.

After all that, Cam had only gained the respect of social climbers. Alan earned more friends, more esteem, and more admiration with seemingly no effort. Even Cam’s father preferred Alan to his own son. Once when Cam was fourteen years old, his father had come to London. Alan had joined them for dinner one night, and afterward the earl said Cam should study Alan to learn how to behave like a man.

Cam didn’t understand exactly what his father had meant, but he did know Alan had lost his virginity to a willing girl just a few months before. So when he’d gone home with his father on the next holiday from school, he made it his first order of business to go to one of the whores on the mountain to learn about the carnal arts. He was certain that his own loss of virginity would turn him into a man in his father’s eyes.

It hadn’t worked. It seemed no matter what he did or how hard he tried, Cam still wasn’t good enough.

And now he realized his father was right. There was no doubt of it: Alan
was
the better man.

Cam suppressed a sigh and pressed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. Hell, he needed to choose a second. He had no close kinsmen left in Scotland—his cousins all lived in England. He had no real friends other than Alan, and that was over, ruined by his own impulsive actions. The only reasonable choice would be the blockheaded Angus MacLean.

He’d prefer young Bowie.

Wearily, Cam walked to his desk and lowered himself into the ornately carved chair behind it. He pulled out a blank sheet and dipped his quill into the ink to compose his response.

Relief washed over him. Thank God. It would all end soon.

CHAPTER TEN

A
lan brushed his horse’s flank and tried to cool his heated blood. His cock was at full stand, eager to claim Sorcha again. He wanted her, and he’d take her again inside the comfort and privacy of his home. But he’d be damned if he’d lose all control this time. He wished to give her pleasure too.

“Alan?”

Alan jerked his head to see Bowie enter, his cropped blond hair standing in damp spikes across his head. “Back already?”

“Aye, and with a response from the earl.” Grimacing with distaste, the boy held out a folded, sealed paper between two fingers.

Alan took the letter, broke the wax of Cam’s seal, and quickly scanned the contents. Cam had acknowledged his challenge. They’d settle it tomorrow at daybreak, on Glenfinnan Moor. He glanced back up at Bowie. “As I expected. Tomorrow, at dawn.”

With tight lips, Bowie nodded. “You must get your sleep tonight, Alan.”

“Aye, I will, and you too. Meet me at Glenfinnan by the water’s edge an hour before sunrise.”

“Aye.” With an incline of his head, Bowie strode outside and left him alone.

Alan turned back to Eachann and finished brushing him down. The animal blew out the occasional contented breath between his lips, but otherwise Alan worked in silence. When he finished, he hung the brush and left the horse with some oats.

He went outdoors and strode past the cottage to the loch. Steam drifted across the surface of the water, spreading ghostlike tendrils to curl like clutching fingers over the black pool.

Alan removed his plaid and shirt, gritting his teeth against the frigid air. Dropping his clothes on the grassy bank, he walked in, sucking in his breath at the frozen bite of the water, until he was waist-deep. He ducked his head and scrubbed the smell of horse from his body. Steeling himself against the cold, he waded out, grabbing his clothes on the way to the cottage.

He pushed open the door. Warmth and the smell of burning peat washed over him. Sorcha had stoked the fire, and it burned cheerfully in the hearth. He paused at the threshold of the bedroom. His wife lay on the bed, her dark hair spread over the pillow.

She turned toward him, resting her head in her palm. Her eyebrows shot upward. “Alan! You’re naked!” This statement of the obvious was followed by an instantaneous flush.

He couldn’t help but give her a rakish grin. “Aye. I stank of horse.”

Her surprise dissolved into an impish grin. “You’re lucky Shielagh didn’t attack you.”

“Shielagh?”

“You don’t remember?” She arched a brow. “Our wee kelpie.”

“Ah.” He searched his memory for a recollection of Loch Shiel’s evil water horse and found nothing. “Is he so wicked, then?”

“He’s never bothered me, but . . .” She shrugged. “Perhaps he prefers men.”

He doubted that. “Well, if I were a kelpie . . .”
I’d turn myself into a human and lure you onto my bed of weeds . . .
Rather than finish the thought, he allowed his voice to dwindle.

She bit her lip, looking at him shyly. Then, tentatively, as if she’d built her courage, she held out her arm. “Come. I’ll warm you.”

Alan took a spare plaid from a peg on the wall, and using it like a towel, scrubbed it over his skin. Then he joined her, crawling under the covers and pressing his cool body to hers, watching her grit her teeth. She let out a hiss of a breath. “Ooh.”

“Cold?”

“Aye.” But very deliberately, she turned to him, wrapped her arms around his body, and pressed herself against him, draping her leg over his thigh. As surprised as she had seemed to see him walk in naked, she was also completely bare, and they were touching, skin to skin, from head to toe. Her silky heat spread through him, an incredibly satisfying feeling, and his cock responded, warming and growing as her heat stole away the chill.

Slowly, he reminded himself. As much as he wanted to bury himself inside her and stay there, he couldn’t. Something continued to hold him back from being himself.

Despite what had happened between them earlier, the still-raw knowledge that his wife wasn’t who he thought she was hung in his chest like a heavy stone. She had loved someone else.
Cam
.

And then there was the knowledge of the increasing power she wielded over him. He was treading dangerous ground to become this close to a woman he couldn’t bring himself to trust.

“Do you believe in mythical creatures, Sorcha?”

She shrugged. “My da taught us not to place too much credence in the old superstitions. Yet . . . one can’t help but wonder.”

“Has anyone ever actually seen the kelpie?”

“Oh, aye. I have.”

He chuckled. “Have you?”

She nodded, snuggling closer to him. “He’s black and shiny, with humps on his back. He has golden eyes. I think he’s not interested in me, though, because once he set eyes upon me, he swam away, leaving me frozen in fear up to my knees in the loch.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Not so long. Maybe two years.”

“Were you dreaming?”

“Maybe I was . . .” Her lashes lowered in lush velvet arcs, and she pressed her palm against his chest. Alan sucked in a breath.

“You’re hot as a brand,” he said in a low voice. “When you move away, will the imprint of your hand remain?”

“I hope so.” An edge of heat tinged her voice.

He didn’t respond. By her actions in Gràinne’s cottage, it was clear she thought to possess him. As much as logic screamed at him to rebel against that concept, he found it oddly pleasing.

He wished to possess her as well. He’d be damned if he’d share her affections with any other man. He was glad it would end tomorrow. Whether in victory or defeat for him, thank God it would end.

Raising his hand, he smoothed a dark arched brow with his fingertip. She seemed to revel in his touch; her eyes drifted shut. He continued exploring her face, smoothing his fingers over the faint creases in her forehead, brushing across the line of her hair. Moving lower, he descended the slope of her nose, touching each of the near-invisible little freckles. Last, he traced the soft, supple curve of her lip.

His cock was so hard it ached. Throbbed. God, how he wanted her. His little hotheaded wife. His lying, treacherous wife.

He loved her.

No, he didn’t love her. He felt strongly because a bond had been formed between them under God, and no man of honor took that bond lightly. He would feel equally strongly about any woman he took to wife. Wouldn’t he?

A subtle smile curled the edges of her lips. Her hand slid upward, and he jerked as her fingertip skimmed his chest.

“Do you like being touched there, Alan?”

“Aye,” he said, his voice gruff.

Slowly, she circled his nipple then pinched it between two fingers. His cock pulsed in response.

Her fingers dipped lower, down his stomach to graze the tip of his eager shaft. “Oooh,” she breathed, smearing a tiny drop of liquid over the head. In an abrupt motion, she burrowed underneath the covers, and before he comprehended her intent, her wet, hot, slightly rough tongue lapped at the moisture.

“Mmm,” she murmured, as if it was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. And then her mouth closed fully over him, and he groaned low in his throat.

Her lips sealed around his length, beginning a gentle motion downward, then back up. Her tongue swirled across and over the crown as she neared the tip. He reached under the blanket, finding her head and cupping it in his palms, fucking her mouth as if it were her tight sheath, rotating his hips and pushing on her head until he felt the back of her throat touch his sensitive glans.