Seduced by the Highlander (3 page)

His loathing cut her to the quick, and she fought harder against his unbreakable hold.

“I am not stealing anything!” she shouted, even though she knew nothing about herself or her past. Half the servants believed she was an imposter. Now it seemed they were correct.

Nevertheless, she felt compelled to defend her honor, for she had not come to Drumloch to deceive anyone or take what did not belong to her. That much, at least, was true.

“I don’t know what you speak of,” she argued. “The dowager countess traveled to Italy to claim me as her granddaughter, and she insists that is who I am.”

“With no help from
you
?” His fierce gaze swept over her whole face. “No spells or potions?”

Catherine winced at his words. “Explain what you mean, sir!”

He dipped low and thrust his hips between her legs. “
This
ought to remind you. Surely you know what I can—and cannot—do with it.”

His arousal was undeniable, his size and strength overwhelming. Her heart thudded against her breast. “No, it only tells me that you are a brute!”

He wrenched her closer, his grip punishing on her arms. “Aye. That’s what I am, only because you made me so. But I shouldn’t need to explain it to you. Do you not see
everything
in the stones?”

She didn’t know what he was referring to, but she could not risk angering him further. “I will be honest,” she said, swallowing tightly. “I have no idea if I am the real Catherine Montgomery or not, but I did not come here looking for any of this. I meant it when I said I don’t remember meeting you, because I have no memory of anything. I do not know who you are.”

His dark eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

“No one here knows where I have been for the past five years,” she continued to explain, “but you seem to know something. If you could tell me why—”

Suddenly he covered her mouth with his big, callused hand. Her eyes grew wide with panic.

“I admire the effort, Raonaid, but you cannot fool
me.
I’ve been hunting you down for three years, and now that I’ve found you, you’re going to do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

A mixture of rage and desire burned in his eyes. As a result, she did not dare provoke him. She would do what she must to keep him calm. Catherine nodded her head.

Slowly, he withdrew his hand from her mouth, but used his body to keep her pinned against the stone.

Everything inside her—all her thoughts, senses, and emotions—screamed with alarm, but she had to keep her head. She had to explain herself logically. Make him understand.

“You called me Raonaid,” she carefully said.

“Aye, that’s your name.” His voice lost some of its hostility in that moment. A quiet, more curious arousal seemed to take its place.

Catherine took in a shaky breath. All she wanted was to understand why he was here and to find out what he knew about her past. Perhaps if she heard something familiar, her memories might return. And if she understood what she had done to him, she might be able to appease him somehow.

“What is it that you want me to do?”

“I want you to fix it.”

Her pulse throbbed. “Fix what?”

“The curse.”

He had mentioned a curse before, but still no memories returned to her.

“Have you cursed so many men that you don’t remember one from the other?” he asked as he pulled her snugly against him.

All her instincts roared at her to go along with this, at least until she understood what he wanted. He seemed to be growing more aroused. Perhaps if she could get him to let down his guard, she might be able to strike back at him and escape.

He reached down and gathered her skirts in his hand, and began to tug them upward. “You look different,” he said, his voice husky with desire. “The clothes, the hair, the perfume. It’s a wonder I even recognized you.”

He slid his hand up her thigh.

“What are you doing?”

She squeezed her legs together and pushed his hands back down, but he was persistent.

“Lift the curse, Raonaid. You know what will happen if you don’t.”

“No, I assure you, I
don’t
know.” She punched at his arms and tried to shove him away. “Stop, or I will scream!”

“You want me to stop?” he scoffed. “And you expect me to honor your wishes? Thanks to you, it’s been three years since I’ve had a woman, and suddenly, I’m as randy as a bull. I didn’t expect it to be quite so stimulating—not with
you,
of all people
—
but I suppose I’m in a worse state than I imagined. Since it’s your fault I’m this way, here is my proposal.” He paused and brushed his lips across her cheek. “You’re going to do one of two things for me today. Lift the curse, or relieve some of my pent-up frustrations. It’s your choice.”

He used his body to hold her captive against the stone while he pushed his kilt to the side and began to wrestle with her skirts. A blazing hot fireball of terror shot through her bloodstream.

“Tell me how to lift it, and I will!”

She squirmed against him and tried to escape, but he was too big, too strong—and all of a sudden he was brimming with sexual need.

“You can feign innocence all you like,” he said, looking into her eyes, “but I’m not as easily swindled as your doting grandmother. I know who you really are, and I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment—for you to undo what you did to me three years ago. Lift the curse now, or you will soon fall victim to it.”

Instantly Catherine gave up any hope of appeasing him.
“Let go of me!”

She spit in his face and kneed him in the groin. He doubled over in pain.

Bolting toward the manor house, she shouted,
“Help! Someone help me!”

She barely reached the other side of the stone circle before the sound of the Highlander’s heavy footsteps pounded fast in pursuit. She glanced over her shoulder, and the slight twisting of her body caused her skirts to tangle around her legs. She flew toward the ground, scraped the heels of her hands on the grass, and split her lip open.

He came down on top of her, then flipped her onto her back.

“
You’re insane!
” she cried, fighting to shove him away, glaring at him with fierce and vicious determination. She slapped him across the face, kicked at his legs, and scratched his neck.

“
Lift the curse!
” he demanded.
“Do it now, woman, or I swear, by all that is holy…!”

“I cannot!”
she insisted.
“I cannot remember anything! Let me go!”

For a moment, the whole world went quiet, and the Highlander paused, suspending the attack. He stared down at her in a cloud of hazy shock; then his eyes focused on her bloody lip. It seemed almost as if he were seeing her for the first time.

Catherine lay motionless beneath him, afraid to move, lest he grow violent again. All she could do was stare up at him in bewilderment, waiting for him to do something, to say something.
Anything.
He squeezed his eyes shut and touched his forehead to hers, grimacing as if he was in terrible pain.

Catherine slid out from under him and scrambled backwards. He withdrew onto his haunches, gaping at her with dark, suffering, bloodshot eyes.

“Look what you’ve done to me,” he growled, shaking his head. “I despise you, Raonaid.”

“I’m sorry…,” she replied, even though she had no memory of what she had done. And it was ridiculous for her to be apologizing to
him,
under the circumstances.

He watched her with a strange mixture of shame and desperation, then spoke quietly, through gritted teeth. “I beg of you—just lift the curse, and I’ll leave you be.”

“I assure you, I would have done so already if I’d known what you were talking about, but I have no memories. I don’t know who I am.”

His eyes darkened. “You are Raonaid, the oracle. The witch who put a curse on me three years ago. You are not the Drumloch heiress.”

All the blood in Catherine’s body rushed to her head as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. Was it true? Was she some kind of mystic, and had she unknowingly been deceiving the Montgomerys all this time? Half the servants believed she was a fraud. But why would her grandmother lie? Or was the woman simply in denial, refusing to believe that her only granddaughter was still missing, or possibly dead?

Just then the resounding
crack
of a gunshot ripped through the air. Catherine jumped back while the Highlander fell to his side, cupping his upper arm.

“
Shit,
” he groaned, utterly defeated as he rolled onto his back and grimaced up at the sky.

Catherine rose to her hands and knees, just as her cousin John came striding into the interior of the stone circle, reloading his pistol.

“I heard your screams,” he explained as he dismounted. “My apologies, Catherine, for taking so long to arrive, but I needed a clear shot.”

Lying flat on his back, moving his legs about in discomfort, the Highlander swore something in Gaelic. Catherine could not understand the words, but she recognized his tone of self-recrimination. Blood seeped through his linen shirt and dripped onto the grass.

John finished reloading his pistol, cocked it, and strode closer. He stood over the wounded Scot and pointed the gun at his face. “I am John Montgomery,” he said. “Fifth Earl of Drumloch. This woman is my cousin, and I would be within my rights to shoot you dead, you vile savage.”

Catherine rose quickly to her feet and laid a hand on John’s arm. “It’s all right,” she told him. “He didn’t hurt me, and look, he is wounded. You can lower your weapon now.”

John refused to do so. “This dirty Highlander tried to disgrace you, Catherine.”

“Indeed,” she replied, “but he regained control of himself before doing so.”

And she could not let him die, for he was the first person she had met who seemed to know something about her whereabouts over the past five years.

“I cannot let him go free,” John declared.

The Highlander’s lips pressed together in a thin line while he glared up at her cousin with contempt. “She’s not who you think she is.”

John raised the pistol again. “And how would you know anything about it?”

“Because I know this crafty lass,” the Highlander ground out, struggling awkwardly to sit up. “And she’s a nasty, vengeful witch.”

Catherine sucked in a breath at the cold insult to her honor just as her cousin swung back a heavy boot, kicked her attacker in the head, and knocked him out cold.

Chapter Two

Lachlan woke to the burning agony of a red-hot branding iron searing the flesh on his upper arm. Eyes flying open, he thrashed about with violence but could not strike back, for he was strapped down to a table. He bellowed a few vile profanities, but a balled-up rag had been stuffed into his mouth, so nothing resonated quite as he intended.

The sound of his skin sizzling like bacon inflamed his anger to dangerous levels, and he spit out the rag. He roared savagely while the smell of his smoldering flesh churned in his guts.

A second later, it was over. The hot iron came away. Lachlan lowered his head onto the table, panting with rage, while he brooded over the fact that he was still cursed and Raonaid had won.
Again.

What the devil had happened back there at the stone circle? How could he have failed so miserably after all the months planning and conniving, imagining his freedom at last from this hellish torture?

Bloody hell, he knew the answer, and it lit his existing frustrations into an even bigger inferno of rancor.

After three years of celibacy, the mere act of touching a woman—
even Raonaid
—had provoked him to such a state of desire, he’d lost sight of his goal.

He could barely comprehend how quickly it had happened. How could he have so strongly desired the woman he despised? As soon as he put his hands on her body, a fire exploded in his veins and all he wanted to do was take her, without preliminaries, up against that rock. It was not what he’d expected.

And now here he was, tied down, yet again.…

Letting out a sharp breath of annoyance and needing to get a handle on his bearings, he lifted his head and glanced around. He was being held in a stable tack room, surrounded by leather bridles, harnesses, and whips, all hanging from the walls. A fire blazed in a hot forge, and when he turned his head to the side, he saw an anvil and a bucket of hammers, chisels, and tongs. All useful weapons, if he could get to them.

“Unfortunately it was just a surface wound,” a voice said.

Lachlan flashed a threatening glare at the Earl of Drumloch, who stepped into view as he moved around the side of the table.

“Untie me,” Lachlan snarled.
“Now.”

The earl was a large man, but not a handsome one. His cheeks were pockmarked, his eyes set too close together on a greasy face that was pudgy like the rest of him. He wore a long dark curly wig and an embroidered waistcoat over a white shirt with a full cravat. His riding jacket was tossed over a nearby chair.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Drumloch replied. “I cannot take the risk that you might strike out at me, or flee back to the Highlands. The magistrate is on his way, you should know. I sent a lad to report what you did to Lady Catherine.”

Lachlan shut his eyes and spoke through tightly clenched teeth. “I told you before, she’s not who you think she is.”

The earl leaned over him. “And why should I believe you? You’re nothing but a foul, rutting savage. If not for my cousin’s delicate sensibilities, I would have shot you dead when I had the chance.”

Rutting savage, indeed. He
still
wanted to rut her. Good and hard.

Raonaid stepped into the doorway just then. She wore the same rich green gown of plush velvet and silk, with a low neckline that showed off her opulent bosom and deep cleavage to fine advantage.