Read Just in Time for a Highlander Online

Authors: Gwyn Cready

Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Time Travel, #Fantasy, #Fiction, #Highlander

Just in Time for a Highlander (14 page)

BOOK: Just in Time for a Highlander
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Twenty-four

Duncan simmered as he descended the darkened stairway to the main hall. Hospital orderly, unpaid muscle, and now pack mule for her husband-to-be. There seemed to be no end to the roles he could perform for her. His cheeks warmed thinking of the role she’d enjoyed most of all.

The castle was quiet, not surprising at this late hour, though he could hear the convivial noise the clansmen gathered outside in the bailey were making. After a few wrong turns and locked doors, he found the stairway to the base of the west tower. This was the tower he’d glimpsed to the left of Lachlan’s tower when he’d stood in the town’s market square. The only light came from a narrow window through which the northern sky’s glittering sea of stars flickered and flashed. He thought of his grand-da, who loved the night sky. Was he too looking at the Northern Lights? He closed his eyes and said a prayer.

Hang
on, Grand-da. I’ll get there.

But if he wanted to go, he’d best fulfill the requirements of the spell. He hadn’t realized “strong arm” would be taken so literally.

By now, his eyes had grown used to the dark, and he could make out the different doors well enough. The first room held rugs, rolled and standing on their sides; the second casks, the peaty smell of whiskey in the air. He found the chains in the third, as well as pulleys, ropes, and stacks of scrap metal.

The chain sat in a rusty heap.

So
you’re to be wrapped like a miser’s arms around Rosston’s fortunes, are you?

He decided with some satisfaction that any man who needed a chest of gold to get into a woman’s bed probably had a very small cock.

He lifted the first length of chain over his shoulders, and it was immediately clear he wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of it all, which had to be close to three hundred pounds. He could bench-press two fifty, but this weight wasn’t neatly attached to each end of a bar, and he’d be climbing stairs with it.

He needed wheels.

With a booming crash, he dropped the chain and headed back to the casks. Casks needed wheelbarrows. This room was deeper than the others, and darker. He was working mostly by hand and gut, feeling the ancient wood staves and rough iron bands, hearing the echo of his breath. The shelves ended a few feet before the adjoining wall, leaving an empty space. He stretched his hands forward, wondering if he’d found another hallway, but found only wall. The echo from his breathing changed tone, and he paused instinctively to consider the reason.

He reached for the wall again, and nearly fell when it swung away from him.

A bright light blinded him and resolved into a vision of Abby standing before a narrow stairway, one hand holding the now-open door and the other a flickering lantern.

“I was wondering how long it might take you to find this.”

Twenty-five

The look of shock on Duncan MacHarg’s face nearly made her laugh, but the way he looked at her when the shock dissipated took her breath away. She realized with a start she was on the verge of becoming foolish about him, and not just foolish like this morning. Foolish in a far more dangerous way.

She turned away, flustered. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought this was the best way.”

“Why would I mind?” He brushed the cobwebs off his shoulders and peered up the stairs. “It’s only time away from dragging a quarter ton’s worth of chain through the castle like Marley’s ghost.”

“Marley?” She closed the door behind them and threw the latch.

“An acquaintance of mine. Dead.” He looked around the small space. “More Kerr secrets, is it?”

“I don’t know about more. It is certainly secret—at least until now.”

“And what does a chieftess like you have to hide?”

There was an air of danger about him that made her senses come alive.

“Whiskey, weapons, and wealth,” she said, “the three
W
’s every clan chief hoards.”

He looked into the ascending darkness. “Given the steepness of these stairs and lack of shelves or storage, my guess would be that it is a different
W
the Kerr chiefs have wanted to hide, something a little, shall we say, more warm-blooded.”

“Women. Aye, I suppose that’s true as well.”

“Barring yourself, of course, milady, whose desires would never run in the direction of such carnality.”

She swallowed. This was a different Duncan MacHarg than the one she had known for the last day and a half. She found herself uncertain and a little scared.

“Indeed, my predecessors were known to bring the occasional woman here. Barring, of course, Cailean Kerr, the fourth chief, a buggerer of some renown whose only son was sired by the town’s rather dim-witted but strong-as-an-ox stonemason, breathing new life into the Kerr blood and happily infusing generations to come with an irrepressible need to extend the castle’s perimeter.”

“Buggery is probably the least of the sins that have taken place here. I assume I should follow you.”

“I…well, yes.” His presence overwhelmed the small space. It was more than the size of him, though that seemed to have doubled since she saw him last. It was his tang of sweat and labor, the way his whiskey burr reverberated within these walls, and the inexplicable sense of him as a devil-in-a-box, ready to leap at her at any instant.

She hurried up the steps, already regretting her carefully plotted plan. A small fire, a comfortable seat, and a chance to share the story of elevation to the Kerr chiefship with him was all she’d wanted. Their easy rapport had stirred something in her she thought she’d locked away forever, and the chance to unburden herself away from the gossiping tongues of the castle had seemed an elixir more powerful than wine. Now, as she hurried to keep herself beyond the reach of the storm-like current that seemed to pop from him, she wished she’d drunk the claret she’d set out before sending the maid to him.

At the third turn, the small square door stood open, revealing the silk, linen, and velvet that hung in the wardrobe that shielded the stairs from sight.

He disappeared into it before she had a chance to give a single word of explanation. She blew out the lantern’s flame and crawled in behind him.

Her head had no more than emerged through the fabric when he caught her by the waist, lifted her to her feet, and enveloped her in his arms.

“Your bed,” he whispered.

She didn’t know if this was a question or statement about the room in which they now stood. In an instant it didn’t matter. His bruising kiss seared her mouth, and his arms expertly maneuvered her against the wardrobe through which they’d climbed.

“What am I here for, chieftess?”

Abby’s legs tingled and she struggled to catch her breath. Another kiss cut off any response but a hungry return of his attentions.

He lifted her like a sack of beets and turned. A crash of metal filled the room.

“Bloody goddamned quiver.” He kicked the arrows aside and laid her on the bed. “If ye want me,” he said, pulling off his sark, “ye will have to tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

His chest, dusted generously with auburn curls, gleamed in the candlelight.

“Do ye understand?” he said. “Every step. Ye command me, aye? So give me your command.”

He stretched himself over her and looked into her eyes, the iron of his arms as striking as the forged steel between his legs.

“I only wanted to talk.”

He laughed. “Did you?”

His kisses trailed down her neck to the valley between her breasts. His hair tickled her sensitive flesh, and blood rushed to her nipples.

“Then talk,” he said.

“Not here.”

“Oh, not here.” He swung her from the bed as he stood. “Where then? Here?” With an easy movement, he brought her thighs to each side of his hips and backed her into the tapestry-covered wall. He was ready. Through the silk of her gown she could feel it, and her own desire burned as he moved her slowly up and down.

“No,” she whispered.

“Over here perhaps, then?”

His footsteps echoed on the worn wood, and he swung them both into the deep sill of her window. His hands slid up her gown and, finding her hips, arranged her over the peaked wool of his plaid.

Wildly unsteady, she anchored herself in the only way she could, with palms against the glass panes. He took the nipple that jutted before his mouth and tugged.

The hunger in her moan surprised her.

“Do ye want me to undress you?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“Say it, chieftess.”

“Undress me.”

He freed his hands from her skirts and unbuttoned the bodice. Then he lifted the silk over her head and tossed it to the floor.

In an instant, the straps of her chemise were around her elbows, and her breasts, freed from their bindings, swayed gently with her heart, which now beat even harder.

His eyes widened, not, as she had wanted, in desire, but in shock.

“Tell me what you see,” she said.

“Milady…”

“You said I am to command you. I command you. Describe it.”

He brought a hand to her shoulder and gently traced the scar’s ragged outline. “A wound,” he said, the hardness gone from his eyes, replaced with penetrating sorrow. “Healed, aye, but terrible nonetheless. I saw the other side of it, I guess, when I saw you diving. But that mark was no more than a line. What happened?”

“I was shot. ’Tis part of the story of my ascension to the chiefship—and an important part of my life—but I dinna wish to talk about it now. Not
right
now,” she added, bringing a hand to the rough, tawny stubble of his cheeks. “I find I dinna want to talk at all, at least not with words. I want…what we have started.”

His eyes, full blue, gazed at her through long, black lashes, and he pulled her into an embrace so gentle, she smiled.

“I willna break,” she said. “I promise ye.”

“No, it’s not you.”

Her face was buried in the lustrous waves of his hair, and her breasts pressed against the warm expanse of his chest. Yet even through the tenderness she could feel the hesitation.

“I dinna think…” He stood, taking her with him, then placed her on the floor and turned away. “I dinna think I can do what you want.”

Abby flushed. She suddenly felt very exposed—and very foolish. “Why?”

“The truth?”

“Aye. Always.” She returned her chemise straps to her shoulders though it hardly mattered. He gazed into the fire.

With evident effort, he relaxed his hands, which had balled into fists, and turned back to her. “I’ve never been so addled by a woman before. On the one hand, I should like to throw you in the bed, grab that bonny bottom, and bend ye to my pleasure. There’s nae place on ye I shouldna like to bury my tongue, roll under my palm, or feel pressed against the head of my cock. If we dinna finish what we’ve started here, only an eager hand and the most wicked imagining will free me from the thought of you tonight—and for many nights to come, I should think.”

The fire deep in Abby’s belly flared. “But?”

“But ye use me. And ye lie—or withhold the truth. I dinna want to be the man who comes to ye when you’ve sent your husband from your bed—or your husband-to-be.”

“It’s not what you think.”

He held up a hand. “The worst part is, I dinna want to be that man, but I know I will. That’s the part I hate.” His breath was ragged now. “But ye make it even worse for me.”

“How?” Her throat was so tight, the word caught.

“Because I want you. You face such challenges. And you do it with such fierceness and determination. I want to be the man that you take to your bed—even if I’m not the only one.”

Someone knocked, and Abby groaned. MacHarg was already reaching for his sark.

“The door’s locked,” she said under her breath.

“Abby?”

The voice belonged to Rosston. MacHarg met her eyes.

She said, “I should talk to him.”

“Of course.” He slipped the sark over his head stiffly.

She grabbed a blanket from the bed, threw it around her shoulders, and scurried to the door. MacHarg had retreated from sight.

Cursing Rosston from the depths of her soul, she unlocked the door and opened it a crack. She could feel MacHarg’s exasperation at her back. “Aye?”

“I hoped we could talk.” Rosston held out a bottle of old brandy.

“It’s late. I’m tired.”

“Jock said you missed your meeting with him. I was worried.”

The
meeting
in
which
he’ll tell me I have no choice but to marry you
, she thought. “Aye, my father was causing a wee stir.”

Rosston sighed. “I’m sorry, Abby. I know ye struggle.”

“It’s done now.”

“I have something that might set your mind at ease. I have brought to Castle Kerr—”

“I know what you brought,” she said. “I had to order new chain for it from the blacksmith. What sort of mad man parades a king’s ransom through the borderlands like that? Ye of all people should know better.”

“I did it for you, Abby. I dinna want you to worry anymore.”

His chestnut eyes reflected the fire’s flickering gold. She knew he cared for her. But that just made it worse.

She gave him a heartfelt hug. “I know. And I thank ye for it.”

“I burn for ye, Abby. Invite me in. Let my money save you.”

She stepped back into the relative safety of her bedchamber. “Watch your words, Rosston. A less agreeable woman might think ye intended to buy your way between her legs.”

“And a less prideful one might recognize such an offer as a generous and fair one.” He swept her into a kiss that was urgent and brief. “I willna wait forever.”

She had no interest in being forced into anything, including a kiss, and she gave him a firm push. He shook his head, disappointed, and disappeared into the darkness of the hall, bottle at his side.

She steeled herself for MacHarg’s reaction.

He stood slouched against the wall, arms crossed, staring moodily at the floor. “Ye seem to have an abundance of suitors this evening.”

She held her breath, terrified he’d walk out.

“I’m not going to leave,” he said, “because I want to hear the truth about the two of you. Even if it kills me, I think.”

She tugged his arm, and he followed her reluctantly, but when he saw she was leading him toward the bed he stopped.

“I cannot.”

“Lay with me. Or sit at least. When I was a girl, my friend Eleanor used to say ’tis impossible to tell a lie when you hold hands with another.” She wove her fingers into his. “See? No lies.”

“No lies?”

She shook her head.

“Are ye free to fall in love as ye choose?” he said.

She inhaled sharply. “Have I not taught ye to engage an opponent more craftily? Ye dinna start with the coup de grâce.”

She pulled him onto the bed and lay beside him, so that they both looked up into the plum velvet folds of her canopy, clasped hands between them.

“I’ve been promised the truth,” he said, “and yet ye dinna answer.”

She took a deep breath. “Who is ever free to love as they choose?”

He wrenched himself out of her grasp, but she caught him again before he stood. “MacHarg, please. Who
is
free? Have you chosen the girls you’ve come to love? It’s not as if we stroll through the stalls in Covent Garden and point to ripe peach and say, ‘This is it. This is the one.’ We may be offered a gleaming peach, yet for a reason we canna explain we willna be talked out of a bruised pear.”

The muscle in his jaw flexed. She had gained a foothold.

“Sit,” she said. “Please.”

He laced his fingers back into hers and lay back on the bed.

She let go of his hand only for an instant as she stood, transferring the constancy of touch to their knees. He watched her, uncertain. With a deep breath for courage, she slipped off her chemise. Those sea blue eyes widened and grew more guarded. She crawled beside him again, taking his hand.

His silence lasted so long she nearly reached for the chemise again. His eyes remained fixed on the canopy ceiling.

“Ye have put me in an awkward position,” he said at last.

“More awkward than mine?”

He chuckled, and she felt him relax a bit.

“Eleanor said ye canna lie holding hands. But I want to show you I can tell you the truth in the most natural position in the world to lie—in bed with a man, lying naked. Why, the words themselves prove it! ‘Lying naked’!”

He made a small laugh but did not turn his head.

“I will tell ye the truth,” she said, “and if I dinna, ye may do as ye wish with me.”

“If ye dinna, I will leave.”

“I know. And what bigger blow could a woman suffer than have the man she courts leave her naked on a bed after she has thrown herself at him? I have given you the weapon with which to eviscerate me.”

“I hope not to use it.” He stroked her palm with his thumb. “Is he in love with you?”

Love?
An irrelevance for a clan chief. Yet the idea, once so elusive, seemed to glimmer in her mind’s eye as a possibility for the first time in her life. “If he does,” she said, “it is the love of a child for a toy he does not wish to share.”

BOOK: Just in Time for a Highlander
10.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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