Highland Obsession (7 page)

Alan made a final attempt to lunge to his feet, but the guards held him firmly down.

Duncan’s kindly face swam before him. “Use your head, Alan MacDonald. Go to her father—he has a history with his lordship.”

So did Alan—his past with Cam was more extensive than any of the surrounding men could imagine—but what good was that to him right now? Alan blinked. Duncan was telling him to leave? He shook his head. “It’s too late for that. I’ve injured men in Cam’s—his lordship’s—service. And Sorcha”—his voice cracked—“my wife . . .”

He’d kill Cam for this.

He struggled against the men who held him. “Let me go to her, damn you.”

Duncan leaned toward him and spoke in low tones. “They understand, lad. Go home now, and there’ll be no more bloodshed. If ye persist, they’ll either have ye in chains or dead by night’s end.”

“I can’t—” Alan’s lungs constricted. He could scarcely breathe. Could he turn his back on Sorcha . . . allow Cam to have his way with her?

What would she do? From what he’d seen of her tonight, she was no helpless chit. She had fire within her. Was she still fighting him? Alan squeezed his eyes shut.

“Ye’ll be no good to her dead,” Duncan said gently. “Go, lad. Go to Stewart. He’ll help ye.”

He was no good to her defeated, either. Mustering all his strength, he lunged forward again, breaking away from the men who held him down. He sprinted to the iron gate and rammed his shoulder against it. The hinges groaned, giving slightly under the force of his blow.

But someone shouted, something slammed into the back of his head, and everything faded to black.

 

Cam was too fast for Sorcha. He leaped to his feet as she flung open the door, and he sprinted forward, catching her arm and jerking her around as she ran into the hallway.

She screamed, and though the noise was loud enough to wake half of Scotland, nobody ran to her rescue.

Cam hauled her up against him, wrapping a hand around her lower back. She fought him. Writhing in his embrace, she again sank her teeth into his arm as she scored his face with her nails, all the while screaming bloody murder. “Let me go. Let me go, damn you! I hate you! You bastard!”

His biceps stinging from her bites, he locked her wrists in one of his hands and dragged her back into his bedchamber, kicking the door shut behind him. Once he reached the bed, he tossed her onto it. She flipped her body over and made to scramble away, but he jumped beside her. He grabbed her ankle and yanked her toward him. He swung his leg over her, straddling her hips, holding her down with his weight and pinning her arms overhead.

Blast it, he didn’t hurt women. He hoped to God he wasn’t hurting her. By the twisted look of rage on her face, she wasn’t feeling it if he was.

He shook her. “Stop it, Sorcha. Do you hear me? Stop! Have you gone mad?”

“Have you?” she spat. “Do you think I’ll just lie here while you rape me? Make a cuckold of my husband as I simper in approval?”

“You will come to me on your own accord,” he said flatly, though he was beginning to wonder. Her vehemence shocked him.

Didn’t she love him?

“I’d rather rot in hell.” She tugged her arms as if to test his strength, then held still, staring up at him. Hostility flared in her green eyes.

Then again, what had he expected from her? Thankfulness? Perhaps from a lass less spirited, less honor bound than Sorcha. He was foolish to have thought Sorcha would fall into his arms, despite what they had once shared. She was a married woman, and he had forgotten how indomitable the bonds of marriage were to Highlanders.

Yes, she had cared for him once. He’d seen it in her eyes when he’d made love to her. Hell, she’d stood at the window and admitted it, not ten minutes ago.

“Let me go, damn you.”

She was beautiful, vibrant, alive. His cock swelled in his breeches. He raked his gaze down her body. Her bare breasts were tipped with dusky nipples, pebbled into hard little points, making his mouth water in anticipation of suckling one as he touched the other, rousing her passion . . .

Yet perhaps the state of her breasts had nothing to do with arousal. It was more likely due to the cold draft in the room.

He wanted her, but he could not take an unwilling woman. His code of honor wasn’t quite as rigid as hers, but it did know certain limits. Though those limits begged to be redefined at this moment.

“You want me.” It came out as a near growl.

She shook her head. “No! No, I do not.”

With his free hand, he reached behind him, gently slipping one finger between the silken lips of her sex. He found her slippery, open, ready for him. She jerked under his touch and let out a squeal of dismay.

He removed his hand and held his finger up before her, showing her the glistening proof of her arousal. “But you do.”

She stilled beneath him and stared up at him with hard, determined jade-colored eyes. Only her fingers moved—curling and releasing relentlessly above her head where he pinned her wrists.

She spoke quietly. “My body remembers you, Cam. It remembers this place, this bed, the nights we spent here.”

He nodded in understanding. His body remembered too.

“The flesh doesn’t know right from wrong. It doesn’t understand honor. It has no conscience. But my soul does, Cam. My heart does. To take your pleasure with me now will destroy all the memories I have of you, all the affection I’ve held for you over time. Please.” A single tear escaped her eye and traveled down the side of her face, but she didn’t blink.

“You want me, Sorcha. You love me, and it is me you desire, not Alan MacDonald.”

“I beg you. Please don’t do this. Don’t force me to do something that will make me hate you forever. Please don’t destroy me. I haven’t the strength to resist you, but if you do this now, know that my heart and soul will never succumb. Is that what you want?”

Struck dumb, he merely stared at her. What
did
he want from her? First and foremost, he wanted her body. But he wanted more. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d accept anything less than the whole, especially from a woman he cared for so deeply, who occupied his thoughts night and day.

He was a bloody fool to have waited until her wedding day. If only he’d understood his feelings before he’d seen her with Alan tonight.

Nevertheless, she’d given herself to him freely once, and she would do so again.

 

Alan came to slowly, the throbbing in his head and body guiding him through a haze of pain back into reality. He lay on his stomach, and his shirt was gone. He crawled onto his knees, gripped his head in both hands, and took stock of his surroundings.

He was at home, and there were people all about. Sorcha’s family—her father and brothers and sister. A fresh, cheerful fire crackled in the hearth, and the smell of peat smoke wafted pleasantly through the air.

Someone smacked him on the shoulder. “Aye, we can see that yer awake, but Stewart willna release me to me bed till I’ve stitched ye up nice and tight.”

He turned to stare at the woman who’d spoken. As shrunken and wrinkled as a dried-up apple, Mary MacNab gazed at him with cruel, ice blue eyes, small pinpricks of light nestled in the tanned-leather skin of her face.

Alan winced as his head pounded harder. Mary MacNab. What in God’s name was she doing here? She was the town healer, well-known for her poor bedside manner toward men. It was rumored a man had wronged her once, and she held a grudge against his sex ever since. While she was ever kind and gentle with women, she seemed to relish a man’s pain.

He rubbed his temples, and the memory of the night’s events slammed into him.
Sorcha.
His hand in hers as the priest married them. Her dark, silky hair. Her parted, panting lips as he’d thrust inside her. Spilling his seed over her belly. Holding her afterward, loving the feel of her slight, warm body pressed against his as she’d snuggled into him. The sweet smell of her.

And then . . . Cam. Attacking him, grabbing Sorcha. The encounter with MacLean and the later, hopeless battle against Cam’s men.

It took Alan several moments to reach the conclusion that it was not some bizarre dream.

Mary MacNab waved a large, menacing needle at him. “Unless ye wish me to sew up that gaping mouth o’ yers, ye’d best lie down.”

He scanned the occupants of the room in rising panic. She wasn’t here. The bastard still had her.

“Sorcha!”

He made to scramble off the bed, but a strong hand closed over his shoulder. “Nay, lad. You’d best let Mary sew you up. Then we’ll worry ourselves over my wee daughter.”

He looked into the hard face of William Stewart, Sorcha’s father. Stewart was a strong, stalwart man, always fair, who doted on his four surviving children. He’d lost the youngest—and his wife—in childbirth. Sorcha’s brothers, James and Charles, and her sister, Moira, stood behind Stewart, staring at Alan with varying shades of blue and green eyes. They all looked alike though. Their close familial ties to Sorcha were unmistakable.

“How did I get here?”

“Duncan MacDougall and some of Lord Camdonn’s men brought you home and put you to bed. Then they sent a messenger to say that you were injured, so we came straightaway. You were soaked in blood, lad. Mary just arrived to sew you up.”

“How long?”

James, younger than Sorcha by five years, took a step closer, peering at him through narrowed green eyes. He was a handsome, dark-haired youth, but tonight his anger showed through in his stormy expression.

“You’ve been home a good two hours,” the boy gritted out.

“Hell,” Alan muttered. He covered his face with his hands. Behind his palms, he closed his stinging eyes. Surely it was too late by now. He’d failed her. God, they hadn’t even been married a full day, and he’d failed her.

“Lie down, lad. You’ll be no good to Sorcha if the wound festers.”

He wished people would stop telling him he’d be no good to Sorcha
if
. He was no damned good to Sorcha as it was. He pushed a frustrated hand through his tangled hair.

James nodded curtly, agreeing with his father’s wisdom. “That’s one hell of a gash, Alan. You’d best have Mary see to it.”

Stewart flashed a quelling look at his son for his language, and then turned back to Alan, his face grave. “Aye, it’s a deep cut indeed.”

At the time, it had stung, but he’d thought it little more than a scratch. Now it was hot and flowing fresh blood, and it hurt like hell.

“You’ll not be fit to join Lord Mar in Perth, then,” James muttered. “We were hoping to march south next week.”

Despite his men’s enthusiasm, Alan wasn’t convinced joining the Jacobites right now would be the best course of action for his people. If King James landed in Scotland with a French army at his back, that would be a different matter altogether. But the king had given no indication that he’d be arriving anytime soon, which left the Earl of Mar to lead his cause.

Alan had known the Earl of Mar briefly in England, and he’d found him to be a self-serving sort whose loyalties swayed toward those who offered him the most compensation. He was not the kind of man who inspired Alan’s trust, and Alan hesitated to risk his own men to the whims of such a commander.

Stewart frowned at his son, and James turned away in disgust, fists balled. Alan sighed. The lad was too eager for battle. Then again, so were most of the MacDonalds.

Stewart turned away from James and lowered himself into the chair nearest Alan’s bed. “You’ll be scarred for life, I’ll wager.” For a long moment, he simply stared at Alan as his three children bustled about, heating water and gathering cloths to clean Alan’s wound while Mary MacNab snapped instructions at them.

“Lie down now.” Stewart’s voice was firmer this time, and Alan obeyed. He was in no mood to argue with his father-in-law, and his back burned like fire.

“This’ll hurt like you’ve fallen into the rivers of hell,” Mary MacNab pronounced gleefully.

“It already does,” Alan grumbled.

If he managed to survive her brutal ministrations, at least it was likely the wound wouldn’t fester. Despite her cruelty, the villagers believed Mary MacNab’s magic could ward off all manner of infection. For that reason only, he’d suffer through whatever torture Mary MacNab had planned for him. He needed his health in order to rescue his wife.

Mary snorted. “Like all the sniveling members of yer sex, ye have no understanding of true pain.”

He turned his head to the side to see her sneering at him.

“Is that so?” he mused aloud, wondering if the agony of watching your wife being dragged away by your closest friend qualified as true pain. He’d never experienced anything so brutal. The thought of a witch like Mary MacNab stabbing a needle into his flesh suddenly didn’t seem so daunting.

“Indeed. You men weep like babes at the merest twitch.”

He sighed. “Just get it over with.”

Mary glanced across the room at Sorcha’s sister, who was busy near the fire. “Moira, lass. Ye wanted to learn more about stitching deep wounds. So watch. And you, boy”—she pointed a crooked finger at Charles, the youngest of the Stewarts—“get to boiling that butter as I directed ye.”

Charles retrieved a pot and hurried to the hearth, and Moira, Stewart’s second-eldest child after Sorcha, nodded and came to stand beside Mary. Moira was a cheerful, freckled splash of sunlight with long, dark auburn hair. She watched in fascination as Mary began to scrub away the blood with a coarse cloth. Alan gritted his teeth against the pain.

At the first jab of the needle into his skin, Alan stiffened and closed his eyes. He would not think on the agony of it. Instead he’d think about Sorcha dancing at their wedding earlier tonight, her green eyes sparkling, her skirts lifted up past her ankles. Just looking at her had made his heart soar to new heights.

When Alan was eight years old, his father had died. By the time he was nine, his mother had decided to return to her childhood home in England. Alan had grown up there, raised by his mother and his English grandfather, but he had always known one day he’d return to the Highlands, where he’d acknowledge his birthright as laird of the MacDonalds of the Glen.