If You Dare (15 page)

She sucked in a breath between her teeth. She'd begun shivering, her teeth chattering.

“Get out of the dress,” he ordered as he set her away. When she didn't move he said, “Be changed by the time I come back,” and slammed out of the room. Five minutes later, he barged in to find her shivering more forcefully, lips pale, yet still in that wet dress. “Damn it, lass, I'll strip you down if you will no' take it off yourself.”

At that she reached forward to pummel his shoulder. “C-Can't! You ignorant brute!”

He whirled her around. The ties in the back were tight and intricate. She'd been stuck in this thing. With a frustrated growl, he set to work, but gained no headway. The laces were swollen from the water, and his hands were fumbling, clumsy against her slim back.

“Stay here,” he barked, then stomped outside to his saddle bag for his hunting knife. When he returned with it, her eyes went wide, though she had to know what his intentions were. Was she truly afraid of him? Was the sight of him with a knife—albeit a very large knife—so frightening? When he again turned her, she resisted. “Stay still.” She didn't. “If you doona I may end up cutting you.” More struggling.
“What is it?”
he bellowed.

“I-I don't want you to s-see.”

In the midst of all this, she now chose to be the prim little lady again. Where was that lady when she kneed his chin? “You're no' in a position to get what you want. You forfeited any say you had when your rock met my temple. Understand?”

“I-I can manage!”

In a low, menacing voice beside her ear, he said, “In five seconds, I'm taking this thing off even if I have to put you face down on the cot, your wrists in my hand and my knee on your arse.”

She went perfectly still but for her shaking. Carefully, he rent the dress. It sagged, but she caught it up to her front. Another cut and her petticoats plunked heavily to the floor. “Step out of them.”

She shook her head.

“You prefer on the bed, Annalía?”

She stepped out of the material. He peeled the sodden dress from her, leaving her in her corset, pantalettes, and shift.

All of which were wet, two to the point of transparency.

It was as though she'd hit him again. Her body was slight but strong, and she was rounded, perfectly rounded, in all the right places. Her nipples were hard and pink, pressing against the clinging fabric. His mouth watered thinking of how he longed to lick them, now when they were wet, and he
scrubbed a hand over his mouth as he took a step toward her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, hands on opposite shoulders in an
X,
and cried, “Not again!”

Her expression was one of complete disgust. His desire for her brought out disgust, yet she was ready to bed Pascal. Had chosen Pascal over him. He hid his anger and gave her a bored look. “I'm a man—you're a woman I want to tup. Get used to it.”

•  •  •

When MacCarrick stormed from the room, Annalía dove for her clothes. Undressed like this! Here, with no lock on the door! She yanked one bag to the bed, casting away the bunch of bound wildflowers she'd hastily hidden behind it. One of the mercenaries had given them to her this morning, and she hadn't wanted MacCarrick to know his men had let her outside.

But MacCarrick returned not a minute later with a towel. He tossed it to her, and as she'd known he would, he glanced past her, scowling at the flowers on the floor. “You were outside with them?”

“How deductive you are!” she exclaimed, wrapping the towel around her.

“Who gave those to you?”

“I don't know.” Some younger, fairly handsome redhead had. “Someone called Mac-something.”

“They're all called Mac-something.”

“Which is precisely why it is so difficult to differentiate, and hardly of any account anyway”—she skewered him with a look—“since you are
all the same.”

He looked like he'd throttle her. “Is that so?”

“Aye,” she said with a sneer, hating him so much it burned inside. She'd had
enough.

Before MacCarrick had returned to toss her into an icystream
and strip her by knife, his men had freed her, apparently for their entertainment. They'd towered over her, and on Liam's suggestion, they'd wanted to touch her “wee, soft hands,” fondling her like the clan's new bizarre pet.

They'd wanted to hear her speak Catalan and French. A few asked to smell her hair, like animals, and the rest thought that a fine idea, but she'd peered up to the one-eyed giant helplessly, and he'd drawn the line. Literally. Over his throat to tell the others without words to behave.
Enough.

“Who?” MacCarrick's huge fists were clenched, his sleeves rolled up so she could see bulging ridges in his arms.

She had to wonder if her better prospect might be letting the horde smell her hair.

“I don't know who.” As the giant had shown her around, the entire scarred lot of them had come up to her and introduced themselves, and of course all the names had sounded the same. She exhaled wearily. “Mac-something.”

“An entire morning with the crew?” His tone was deceptively calm and all the more terrifying for it. “They're no' a modest lot. Far from it. I bet you saw sights you'd never seen before.”

She felt her face flush, which seemed to make him even angrier. It wasn't as if she'd sought to watch brawny Highlanders without their shirts, sweating and fighting in the sun. But yes, she'd continued watching, even when one tripped another to the ground and she'd discovered that at least one Scot wore nothing beneath his kilt.

She'd watched not only out of dazed curiosity—she'd also been noting
where and how
they hit each other. “I will concede that I saw . . . things a proper young lady should not.”

“A proper young lady, then?” he asked as he closed in on her. “You've decided that I'm nothing but a lowly Scot and a brute, but I'm no' quite convinced what you are.” He grabbed her by the waist, making her cry out in surprise, then carried
her to the table in the corner. When he dropped her on the edge, the wood snagged the material of the bath linen. “Tell me, would a proper young lady kiss the first lowly Scot to come into her home?” He grasped her chin in between his thumb and forefinger. “Would she clutch his shoulders so the brute would no' stop tasting her skin?” He put his lips directly by her ear. “I doona believe she'd moan when he shoved himself between her legs and took her mouth.”

She turned away, humiliated, but he laid his coarse hands on her cheeks and forced her to look up at him. At length, she said, “You are correct.”

His eyes narrowed. He had the devil's own eyes. And when his face was drawn like this, the deep starburst scar below his temple whitened. When he'd first come to her home, she'd run her fingers over it. Tenderly. She was not being treated tenderly in kind.

“I'm
not
the lady I strive to be. Clearly I'm flawed. I might even be so
im
proper that I would welcome one of these men into my bed, though I was meant for better.” She pulled from his hands but still met his eyes. “But it would
never
be you, MacCarrick.
Mai en la meva vida!”

“Never in your life? But it would be Pascal? Did you let him kiss you?”

She shut her eyes to that. “Did you?

Did he touch you?”

“No, but he will! And I'd let him before you any day!”

“You've just sealed your fate.” His jaw tensed and his hands landed on her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. “Because he will no' before I do.”

He leaned forward against her pushing hands, and slanted his lips over hers. The kiss was punishing, forceful, the stubble on his chin scraping her skin until her eyes watered. “No!” she said against his lips as she struck him with her balled hands.

When he drew back, heeding her, as somehow she'd known he would, she wiped her lips. He watched her, brows drawn, then slowly raised his hand as if to brush her stinging face. She flinched.

Then he was gone, leaving her trembling and confused and burdened with more hatred that she'd ever grappled with in her entire life.

I
've heard you've been going to Llorente's room each night. What is this about?” Pascal demanded.

Olivia answered easily. “When I can't sleep, I enjoy plaguing him.” Her face was cold.

He scrutinized her for a moment, then gave her a smile of relief. “I'd worried. Some women might find him handsome.”

“He is weak. I could never see past that,” she said in a steady tone. She'd learned to be like this when her relatives first sent her to live with Pascal. She'd been ten and had just lost her mother, Ysobel Olivia, who had been her entire world.

Her relatives thought her an abomination, and treated her as one, frightening and confusing her because her gentle mother had adored her and showed her how much every day. Compared to them, Pascal hadn't seemed so bad once she learned that he wanted her to be like him.

She'd excelled, fooled everyone, fooled herself, until that one night last spring just before they were to leave for Andorra
when she'd overheard the servants whispering about her mother. They'd talked of Pascal and his three favored soldiers riding into her mother's village, smelling of “blood and evil.” Pascal had been instantly besotted with the beautiful widow Ysobel.

As ever, he'd taken what he desired. . . .

“Perhaps you will refrain?” he asked Olivia, though they both knew it was an order.

She looked him in the eye, making her face like marble, her expression blank. He liked that about her. He'd never know the secrets her mind held. Like how she knew that the night he took her mother, he'd been feeling generous.

“Of course,
Papa,”
she said, though there was only a twenty-five percent chance that he was.

•  •  •

After a dinner where he ate little and drank nothing, Court joined Niall outside on the porch, sinking onto a rough-hewn bench. The night was cool and the moon cast light as if it were day. Shadows framed every corner and tree, making it impossible to relax.

“How's the lass?” Niall asked. “Specifically, what state have you put her in?”

Court shrugged. She wouldn't even look at him when he brought her food, just sat on that unwieldy cot with her knees drawn up to her chest, body tense, and eyes glittering with fury. Her chin was scraped from his kiss.

She should be furious at him; he'd behaved like the beast she thought him and had no explanation for himself, much less for her. He'd never lost control like that.

She'd said Pascal hadn't touched her and he believed her, but had he kissed her? Had Pascal shown more restraint than Court had? Likely. And she'd chosen him over Court. She probably found the man attractive. He scowled at the thought, knowing every woman would find him so.

“Do you think she's planning something?” Niall asked.

“Count on it, after her stunt at the riverside.”

“You'd have done the same thing in her position.”

“Aye, but that does no' help me now. She'll keep trying. Do I go in there and force her to believe her brother is dead? I'm a bastard, but I doona know if I can shake that into her. Besides, Pascal and his daughter have her fooled.”

“Hell, Pascal fooled us.”

Court couldn't argue with that.

“Listen, your brothers'll flay me if I let anything happen to you.”

“No' again,” he snapped as he stood to lean against a splintery pillar.

“The curse, Court,” he said simply.

Walk with death or walk alone.
They'd all heard it. “You know you can never have a woman of your own. And still, sometimes you look at the lass as if you'd like nothing more than to keep her.”

“I doona plan to.”

“Things have a way of happening outside of our plans.”

“No' to me, they doona. Never in fact. And I've got a book to prove it.”

“Aye, the book. ‘Death and torment to those caught in your wake,' ” he quoted. “Do you think the lass truly will be safe when we leave her in France?”

“Does no' matter, does it? I broke it and I'll fix it, then it's done. I dinna sign on to be her lifelong guardian.”

“The idea of leaving her behind is no' sitting well with the men. Both MacMungan brothers said they'd take her to wed right now, and more are on their way. Even Liam said he'd take her if we're just going to throw her away.”

Court's answer was a cruel laugh. Annalía, being so unusual and vivid, would wither like fruit on the vine among the dour MacMungan clan. Liam could never control her.
“The only reason they'd be infatuated is because they've never encountered anything like her before.” He couldn't fault them for freeing her for a morning even as his ire grew just thinking about it. He was responsible for this—he'd brought a delicate foreign beauty among a band of coarse Highlanders. “I wonder if they ever considered her unbounded hatred of Scots?”