Sins of the Highlander (14 page)

Rob insisted they sail away the next time the loch’s tide favored a swift passage to Lochearnhead. Angus fretted that Elspeth shouldn’t travel yet, but Hepzibah said she was healing well enough, and sailing was easy on a body. The muscle in Elspeth’s thigh still ached, but the pain was manageable.

Besides, Rob scowled each time she limped, so she forced herself to walk as normally as possible. Hepzibah said evidence of her injury made him feel guilty, and that’s why his face screwed into such a frown, but Elspeth wasn’t so sure.

She bid Hepzibah a tearful farewell and promised to return to visit her next summer.

“Dinna promise what ye canna deliver,” Hepzibah said. “Search your Gift. Ye know in your heart we’ll no’ meet again in this world.”

Elspeth’s brows shot up.

“Aye, I ken ye have the Sight. I see it on ye, a silver mantle all a-shimmer.” The old woman’s eyes glistened. “But ye havena decided to take it up in earnest.”

“I canna control it. The visions come when they will and in ways that make little sense. And besides, having the Sight marks me as different.”

“Oh, aye, o’ course we’re all different. God doesna repeat Himself. Surely ye ken that by now.” Hepzibah gave her a basket filled with a couple loaves of rye bread and a round of cheese. “Dinna fear what ye dinna understand. Decide to understand it.”

Elspeth sneaked a glance at Rob under her lashes. “There’s much I dinna understand about a lot of things.”

Hepzibah laughed. “Admitting your ignorance is the first step to learning aught. And I’ll tell ye a secret. Opening yourself to your Gift is easy. Ye just stay out of its way and accept what comes, even if it makes no sense at the time.”

Hepzibah also cast a quick glance at Rob. “Opening your heart to another? Now that takes some doing.”

“I dinna think he wants me to try.”

The old woman waved her objection away with a bony hand. “Men dinna know what they want half the time. Oh, they’re good at recognizing hungers of the body, all sorts, but hungers of the heart go unnoticed ofttimes unless they’ve a woman to point it out to them.”

“Come, lass,” Rob called out to her from the deck of Angus’s boat. “We’re wasting the tide.”

“I thank ye.” Elspeth folded Hepzibah into a fierce hug. “For everything.”

She headed toward the shore, leaning very lightly on the cane, but Rob sprinted toward her and scooped her up. His scowl faded once she was in his arms.

She draped her arms around his neck, enjoying the added warmth of being so near his body. The westerly wind had taken a bitter turn. “I can walk, ye know.”

“Aye, but no’ fast enough to suit me,” he said gruffly as he carried her and her basket of food the rest of the way.

Rob set her gently into the boat, untied the line, and shoved the prow into the loch. A thin skiff of ice had formed along the shore, but the hull of the boat crackled through it with ease. Rob gave a running leap and landed on the deck beside her, setting the boat rocking wildly.

She wobbled, trying to bear most of her weight on her good leg. Rob caught her in his arms again.

“No’ going down, are ye?”

“No, just trying to stay upright while ye bobble us about,” she said and pulled away from him. Being treated like an invalid made her hackles rise.

The sail filled with the breath of the loch, and the boat glided into the center of the dark, open water. Hepzibah and her little cottage fell swiftly astern, but Elspeth kept waving until the wisewoman was lost to sight.

“Ye’ll be most comfortable in the cabin,” Rob said. “Hepzibah gave us an extra blanket for ye. ’Tis spread on the pallet.”

She was still wearing his cloak. Even with only his plaid for warmth, he seemed impervious to the growing cold. Not a hint of gooseflesh rippled on his exposed neck. Elspeth almost told him she’d be most comfortable in her own chamber in her father’s keep, but she realized that wasn’t true.

It made no sense when she examined the bald facts of the matter, but she honestly didn’t want to be anywhere except with Rob MacLaren.

As she ducked into the cabin, she wondered if this was one of those things Hepzibah would say she shouldn’t fear, just decide to understand.

Rob commandeered the tiller from his friend instead of joining her in the small space. Her belly spiraled downward with disappointment, but she soon had other company. Angus and Fingal crowded into the cabin with her.

The big man regaled her with tales of the loch as they skimmed over its surface, and his deerhound sidled up to her, sharing his shaggy warmth.

“Poor Fingal,” Angus said with a rough pat on the dog’s head. “He’s grown quite attached to ye, but he’ll have to bid farewell to his lady fair soon.”

“How soon?”

Angus peered out the open front of the cabin, taking note of passing landmarks. “At this pace, we’ll make Lochearnhead by nightfall. Then, come morning, Fingal and me will point our noses home.”

“And what will Rob and I do?”

Angus shrugged. “That I dinna ken. I agreed only to this part of the venture. And once I deliver ye safe and sound to Lochearnhead, I’m square with yon laddie.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Rob and the stern.

“If ye dinna mind my asking, what did ye owe Rob for?”

“The daft bugger kept me from being alone in the world. Single-handed, he saved me only nephew from being hanged by the English a few years back.”

“Really?” It was a fearful thing for a Scot to fall into the hands of English justice.

“Aye,” Angus said. “Young Hamish Murray is the son of my sister and the only family I have left to my name, so the boy’s dear to me, ye ken.”

Rob was alone in the world, as far as Elspeth knew. His parents were gone, and his wife…Elspeth didn’t want to think long about her, lest the willowy, copper-haired Fiona pay her another visit through a vision. She wasn’t ready to open herself to some things yet.

“What happened with your nephew?” she asked.

“Seems wee Hamish got himself mixed up with a rough sort down on the border. A bunch of renegade Campbells mostly, and the whole lot were captured for raiding Sassenach farmsteads. O’ course, the English said there was raping and killing being done, but I ken my nephew. ’Tis no’ his way. ’Tweren’t more than cattle thieving. A fine Highland tradition, that.”

“Aye,” Elspeth agreed with a smile. Even her father had reived a herd or two in his day. “But if he’d been taken by the English, how did Rob save Hamish from hanging?”

“Och, Rob’s always been a canny sort,” Angus said, tapping his temple. “The night before the hanging, with folk pouring into town from all the countryside around, he went to the magistrate, dressed as a priest come to hear the last confessions of the accused.”

Elspeth blinked in surprise. Rob was many things, but priestly wasn’t one of them.

“Once he got into Hamish’s cell, he pulled a monk’s cassock out from under his robe for my nephew to put on, and a pair of shears. He shaved Hamish’s beard and gave my nephew a tonsure on the spot!

“Then he called the guard back and overpowered him. Rob took his keys and released all the other prisoners. Then as the Campbells made a run for it, Rob and Hamish followed them out of the gaol, calling out warnings of an escape to the local constables!

“While the English rounded up the others, Rob and Hamish walked right out the city gates. No one ever gives a second look to a man of God, ye ken. ’Specially not one with a freshly shiny nob like Hamish had! Rob said later that they might as well have stayed to see the hanging, but Hamish wanted to put the English border far behind him.”

“Understandable.”

“Rob rode that black demon, Falin, home, but he made Hamish walk all the way back to the Highlands, as penance for being daft enough to fall in with Campbells, he said!” Angus laughed. “The plan was madness, but it worked.”

“Madness,” Elspeth repeated. “Then he’s always been known as Mad Rob?”

Angus’s face sagged. “No, that was only after Fiona…och, ye ken what happened. He ran a bit wild after that.”

Elspeth had seen Rob’s blue eyes glinting with madness in the cave after he abducted her. He’d looked right through her when his hand circled her neck, and Elspeth suspected he’d heard voices in his head.

But Rob had been in his right mind ever since then. Perhaps his lunacy was the sort that came and went.

And once Angus and Fingal left them in Lochearnhead, perhaps it would return.

The thought didn’t trouble her as much as it ought. If Rob was touched by the malady again, Elspeth would be ready for it. This time, she realized, she was armed with something stronger than madness.

Love.

It surprised her a little when the word bubbled to the surface of her mind, but it didn’t scare her.

Love.

Not the “flutter in the belly” sort, though she had to admit her stomach did a jig whenever she looked at Rob MacLaren’s handsome face. No, she had the “clear to the bone, willing to do something about it” kind of love.

And if Rob’s madness returned, she was prepared to act.

***

Lochearnhead was a sleepy little village on the westernmost end of Loch Eireann. Night had fallen before Rob piloted the craft up to the wharf, but the moon hadn’t risen above the mountain called Ben Vorlich yet. The peak rose to the south, a sleek pyramid of granite with no trees spiking its top. A cap of snow glinted on its heights in the starlight.

“Ye surely canna mean to press on in the dark,” Angus said as he tied his boat securely to the dock. “Will ye stay on board this night, Rob?”

“No, I bespoke a room over the tavern for the past couple weeks because I wasna certain when we’d arrive,” he said as he gathered up his few possessions.

Elspeth was doing the same in the small cabin. Traveling light was easier if a man didn’t have a woman in tow. And if he didn’t care about her comfort. It made him feel even worse that Elspeth wasn’t the sort to complain. At least he could put a roof over her head and a hot meal in her belly this night.

“Paid in advance for the room,” Rob said. “It’d be a shame if we didna use it.”

Elspeth was saying good-bye to Fingal, and the deerhound responded with loud whines. Angus pulled Rob aside with a quick glance toward the cabin. “Have a care with the lass’s reputation.”

“Aye, I’ll make sure none hear her name or see her face.” Rob said, irritated that Angus didn’t think he’d protect Elspeth from gossiping tongues. “I didna set out on this course to harm
her
, just her bridegroom.”

“No, I believe ye didna, but sometimes the best plans go awry, and this one surely has on several occasions,” Angus said with a stern frown. “And besides, there’s all kinds of harm.”

“I dinna think Drummond will meet us along the road I intend to travel.”

“That’s no’ what I mean,” Angus said. “I ken ye can protect her from him. But can ye guard her from yourself? The lass is a maiden, gently bred. Have a care.”

“And what d’ye think I am? A ravening beast, I suppose.” Rob snorted. “I overheard ye telling Elspeth about Hamish and his brush with English justice. Rape is no’ his way, ye said.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Did it occur to ye that it’s no’ mine either?”

“I just mean—”

“I ken what ye mean. Nothing will happen to the lass that she doesna want. There. Are ye satisfied?”

Without waiting for an answer, Rob turned away and called to Elspeth. She emerged from the cabin and said good-bye to Angus with the same warmheartedness with which she’d taken leave of the witch of Loch Eireann. Angus was reduced to blustering to hide his blubbering, and the deerhound didn’t even try to disguise his sorrow at seeing her go.

“I’m ready, Rob.” She smiled tremulously at him and let him hand her onto the wharf.

Does
she
just
flit
through
life, collecting hearts as she goes along?
Rob wondered. His chest constricted.

Aye
, he answered himself.
She
does.

Halfway up to the tavern on the edge of the town, Elspeth stumbled. Rob picked her up again.

“Ye dinna have to scoop me up like a bairn every time I wobble a bit,” she protested.

“Aye, I do.”

“Rob, I—”

“Trust me this once, lass,” he said as he tugged the cloak around to hide her face. “’Tis for your own good.”

He blustered into the taproom of the tavern, announcing his presence and demanding the room he’d paid for. The tavern patrons had a good laugh, assuming him an overanxious bridegroom with a shy bride in his arms. A man would let a whore walk up to the room behind him, so Rob carried Elspeth on up to the second-story chamber, following the light of the tavern owner’s tallow candle. No one would be able to say for certain that it was Elspeth Stewart who spent the night with him above the tavern’s common room.

Then Rob went back down to order their supper. He passed on the mutton, which smelled pretty wooly, and chose the savory venison stew instead. He ordered a skin of wine, a round of cheese, and as a treat, a loaf of real wheat bread instead of coarse barley, along with a dish of thick clotted cream. Mrs. Christie, the tavern owner’s wife, promised to bring up their supper tray shortly.

Rob returned to the room, feeling pleased with himself. The tavern was clean and well ordered. After a cave floor, a cramped boat, and a witch’s borrowed bed, he was finally providing suitable lodging for a lady of Elspeth’s quality.

When he opened the door, she was seated on a straight-backed chair next to the small table that held a pitcher and ewer. The light of a single candle kissed her with a golden glow.

But unlike the time he’d stumbled upon her at Angus’s home, she wasn’t bathing now. She was fully dressed, with her skirt hitched up to her hip on one side, her stocking sagging to her ankle.

She was untying the length of muslin binding the wound on her thigh.

Her eyes flared at him, and she dropped her skirt to cover herself.

“Ye need to change the dressing, Elspeth. Dinna let me stop ye. In fact, let me help ye.” He steeled himself to look at his handiwork. It was his fault an otherwise perfect leg was marred for life.

“I can manage.”

“Let me. I want to be sure ’tis healing cleanly.” He sank to one knee beside her and uttered a word that rarely passed his lips. “Please.”

She met his gaze directly for a moment and then nodded.

Carefully, he drew her skirt back up. He tried very hard to focus on the wrapped section of her thigh, but it was impossible not to notice her tender calf and the tempting crease behind her knee.

He wondered if she was ticklish there.

She’d already started unwrapping the wound, so he continued, reaching around between her legs to remove the muslin strip. His fingertips brushed her inner thigh, that soft skin so near the tempting place between her legs. Her breath hitched on each pass.

“The entry wound looks good,” he said once he dropped the soiled cloth into the ewer.

There was no hint of redness around the scab, and he could smell only her warm, healthy scent. Her body was working to repair the damage his plan for revenge had caused. But she would always bear a scar.

He shifted to check the exit wound on her inner thigh. It, too, was healing nicely. He caught a glimpse of shadowy paradise beneath her skirt, just a hint of soft nether lips and silky curls.

He was going to hell without doubt. He should have been concentrating on her injury, but all he could think was how close her delicate womanly parts were to his hands.

“We need to apply the salve Hepzibah gave me.”

Her voice pulled him back to the matter at hand. He rummaged in her bag and came up with the small jar. The unguent didn’t have a foul odor as most medicines did. There was a hint of bayberry and mint, and when he smoothed the salve over her injury, it glittered silver on her skin.

He lingered a bit over the application, spreading the excess on her uninjured parts, reveling in gliding his fingers over her flesh.

“I can wrap the fresh dressing,” she said.

“Once I begin something, I like to finish,” Rob said, taking the length of muslin from her.

He brought it around her leg several times, taking care not to bind it too tight, but making sure it was snug enough not to slip down. Her skin was incredibly smooth, unbearably soft. He tortured himself by trailing his fingertips on each pass along her inner thigh.

He noticed a subtle shift in her scent. She was no longer just warm and healthy. There was a definite hint of musk in the air. The whiff of her arousal went straight to his groin.

“There, lass.” He tied off the dressing but didn’t move his hand from her thigh. “Looks like you’ll do.”

“Will I?” She was looking down at him, her lips softly parted, her eyes hooded.

His fingers inched closer to her mound. He bent and pressed a kiss on her knee. She didn’t protest.

“Elspeth.” Her name escaped his lips like a prayer as he slid his hand the rest of the way under her skirt.

“Oh, Rob.”

She was damp and tender and swollen. He covered her with his palm, and she throbbed into it with a long sigh. He could feel her heart beating in his hand. Such a knot of caring rose in his chest, he almost couldn’t breathe.

His cock stiffened to rock hardness as he stroked her gently, teasing her curls. Her knees edged farther apart. He kissed along the inside of her leg from her knee to the crease of her inner thigh, hitching her skirt higher with each one. Then when she was totally exposed to his gaze, he covered her mound with open-mouthed kisses.

She made a soft moan and slumped in the chair, edging her bottom closer to the edge of the seat. It was a clear invitation to stay.

He invaded her with his tongue.

Was there anything more miraculous on earth than a woman’s pliant wetness?

He was drunk on her scent. He wallowed in her, in every sigh, every moan, every shiver of muscle under taut skin.

Her legs trembled. He wrapped his arms around her hips and drew her closer. He nuzzled the soft lips of her sex, reveling in her obvious need for him.

Her hands smoothed over his head, her fingers tangling in his hair. She twisted and pulled, but he didn’t mind. She was too far gone to realize what she was doing.

From a distance, there came a rapping sound.

Elspeth’s breath came in short pants as he drove her on, closer and closer to completion. He ached to feel her unravel under his hand.

The rapping grew more insistent.

Her body stiffened as her release drew near.

“I say,” a woman shouted on the other side of the door. “D’ye want yer supper or no’?”

Rob roared in frustration. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, stomped to the door, and opened it a crack. The tavern owner’s wife balanced a tray on her hip and raised her fist to pound the door again. Mrs. Christie stopped with a flinch when she saw him glaring at her.

“If I dinna answer the first time, ye’ll no’ knock again.” He filled the opening, careful to shield Elspeth from the woman’s sharp eyes. “D’ye understand?”

“Aye, my lord.” Mrs. Christie was all meekness now. “But the supper?”

“Bring it back in an hour, and be sure it’s piping hot,” he growled. “And if I dinna answer the first knock, go away and return in another hour.”

He slammed the door and turned back to Elspeth.

She hadn’t moved. She was still sitting on the chair with her skirt bunched at her waist and her knees sagging apart, her sweet slit glinting all pink and wet at him. The tops of her breasts heaved above her tight bodice with the frustration of being so close to release and yet denied.

She was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“Rob,” she said with a sob in her voice.

“Hush, lass. Dinna fret.” He laid her down and climbed in beside her, pulling up her hem to bare her again. She was fair all over, beautiful in all her parts. “Once I begin something, I like to finish.”

***

Elspeth felt as if she’d drunk another cup of Hepzibah’s mind-altering tea. There was only bliss. Only pleasure.

But there was no sense of unreality this time. Rob’s mouth, Rob’s blessed hands on her were more real than anything in her entire life.

Then there was only need. Only aching. Only longing to be filled.

She’d die of wanting, she was sure.

And then she did.

The spasms were so intense her whole body shuddered with the force of her release. Rob covered her mouth with his, and she tasted herself, all salty on his lips. He slipped a finger inside her, drawing out her pleasure. She continued to tighten around him, unable to stop, not wanting to stop, afraid she would stop.

She surrendered control of her body and let him lead her through that dark, hot place. Then once the madness was spent, she finally stilled, jerking only occasionally, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

She felt wonderful. Even the ache in her thigh had subsided to a distant throb.

His mouth was still near enough for her to nip, to suck his bottom lip. She fisted his hair and pulled him closer for a deep kiss. She suckled his tongue and felt the hard ridge of him against her hip.

She was done wondering what he’d do if she reached under his kilt. Her hand found him, and he groaned into her mouth. She swept his length, clasped her hand around his base, and stroked. She fondled his balls.

Then she pushed against his chest.

“I want to see ye,” she told him.

His mouth turned up in a crooked smile, and he rolled onto his back, his hands laced behind his head. “Look your fill then, lass.”

“Lie still.”

She drew the bottom of his kilt up to his waist, and there it was. Licked by the light of a single candle, a long, thick, glorious rod of maleness lay on Rob’s flat belly. And below that in a nest of dark curls, his ballocks were drawn into a taut mound.

He was so fine.

She reached out to touch him, and his cock rose to meet her palm. She drew back in surprise.

“Did ye make it do that?”

“Aye and no.” Rob chuckled, and when his belly jiggled, his cock did too. “He has a mind of his own sometimes, ye ken.”

“Oh, aye?” She walked her fingers up and down his length and was rewarded by the way a muscle ticked in Rob’s cheek. “
He
, is it? Does
he
have a name?”

“Plenty of names, but none fit for polite company.”

She stroked him again, enjoying the smoothness and warmth of the skin drawn taut over his granite-hard length. “If he has a mind of his own, he needs a name of his own.”

“He’s what ye might call single-minded. With only one thought generally, and a verra simple means of expression.”

“Then a simple name is needed.” She trailed her fingertips around his balls and then traced the line of darker skin that marked the centerline of his scrotum. “What is Rob short for?”

“Robin,” he said through clenched teeth.

She found a patch of rougher skin near the head. A pearl of fluid formed at the tip of him when she teased that spot. “Then we’ll call him Robin.”

“He’ll no’ answer to it.”

“Mayhap he needs training.” She grasped him with firmness.

Rob’s breath hissed over his teeth. “He’s fearsome stubborn. There’s only one thing that’ll vanquish him.”

“What’s that?”

He grasped her wrist so she was forced to look at his face instead of his cock. “Ye dinna have any idea what ye’re playing with. A good hard swive is all he understands.”

She leaned down and kissed Rob’s lips, his cheeks, his closed eyes.

“Then that’s what we’ll have to do.”