The MacKinnon's Bride (19 page)

And she... she was so... plain.

He couldn’t possibly desire her for anything
but revenge.

Truly, he must have been toying with her,
playing some cruel, cruel game, for a man such as he could never
want a woman such as she.

Not even for the space of a heartbeat.

His kindness only served to confuse her. It
made her heart wrench painfully.

The lilting brogue and the soft tone of his
voice tormented her, for it made her wish for things that could
never be... a lover’s embrace... a whisper at her ear... his breath
upon her lips.

All the things she’d heard whispered about
in the dark corners of her father’s home.

“
What is it, lass?” he
asked softly.

Page turned abruptly away, unsettled by the
wicked turn of her thoughts. She felt the flush creep into her
face. “W-we’ve ridden all day without the least chance to rest,”
she complained. “Nor to—” She gazed at him quickly, and then her
glance skittered away. She was both annoyed and disconcerted that
she should have to broach such a tender subject—hurt and
disappointed, though she had no right to be, that he would play
such games with her tattered soul. “You know...”

How could he? she asked herself.

He couldn’t know that the shreds of her
heart were welded so delicately together. That a single whisper
from his beautiful lips could melt her piteous heart like the first
tender snowflakes upon the sun-blistered ground.

Nay, as far as the MacKinnon was concerned,
she was her father’s beloved daughter. And she... She was his
vengeance against the man who had stolen his precious son.

She started suddenly when he bellowed a
command to his men in his Scots tongue. At the fierce sound, Page
startled where she sat. Anger was her first thought—he was angry
with her— and she shuddered.

What had she done?

God’s truth, she couldn’t even remember what
she’d said!

His men at once changed course, away from
the valley they’d been following, up the rise of a gently rolling
hill. The MacKinnon spoke to his son briefly, the boy nodded, and
he then bellowed for his cousin Lagan to come and attend him. He
handed his son to Lagan, sparing a quick glance toward Page, and
then snapped an indecipherable command to his cousin. He reached
the distance between them suddenly, seizing her reins, and then
veered onto a path that led into a sparse woodland, away from the
party.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
To gi’ ye the privacy ye
need,” Iain snapped, angry with himself, not so much for neglecting
her needs, but for what he spied in the depths of her eyes. His men
didn’t stand on ceremony where bodily demands were concerned, they
simply did what they must. He’d forgotten to consider hers, and was
irritated by the fact, but what angered him most was that goddamned
wounded look she’d given him.

Damn her father for an uncaring ass!

Though her bearing was proud and unbroken
still, her eyes revealed everything. He’d recognized the attraction
at once, in the impassioned depths of her dewy-eyed gaze, and his
body had reacted tenfold. As if he were a beardless youth, the
sweat from his palms had begun to salt the leather reins he held.
And God, his arousal had been immediate and painful. He’d sat
there, listening to her ramblings, and had been hard put to keep
his thoughts on any single word she spoke.

Even the sound of her voice seduced him.

Lulled him.

Husky and breathless.

The way she might sound after being
thoroughly loved.

The thought set his heart to pounding.

And then just as quickly as her passion had
unfolded, it had vanished, and was replaced with that same wounded
gaze he now recognized from the first time he’d set eyes upon
her—the look of a woman scorned.

Christ, man, didn’t she realize what her
presence did to him? Had he not made it clear enough last eve? He
had half a notion to find the most secluded spot here in these
woods, yank her down from that mount, and show her just how much he
was affected by her.

Bloody hell, how could she not know?

“
What of the rest?” she
asked a little anxiously. “Where do they go?”

Iain’s jaw remained taut, though he tried to
rid himself of his anger. For her sake. “To find a place to settle
for the eve.”

“
Without us?” She sounded
distressed, and a little breathless, and Iain turned to appraise
her. She was staring again, those beautiful soulful eyes wide and
fraught with anxiety. She nibbled at her lip nervously, and he
lapped at his own gone dry.

Afeared to be alone with him, was she?

Somehow, the thought both tormented and
pleased him immensely.

“
We’ll catch them,” he
assured, turning away. “As soon as we’re through.”

“
Where will they
go?”

“
Just beyond the rise.
‘Tis a secluded enough place, we’ll not be troubled.”

“
I see,” she said, but
didn’t sound so very reassured.

“
There lies a loch, as
well,” Iain added. “I thought perchance ye would wish to refresh
yourself.” He peered over at her, watching her expression as she
rode, gauging her mood, and then added, “Suisan.” Christ forgive
him, he hadn’t meant to test the name so soon, hadn’t even thought
about what to call her, but the name came to his lips even so, and
he thought it suited her perfectly.

Delicate and beautiful, like the lily she
was, but sturdy, too, coming back each spring after weathering the
bitterest of snows.

Her gaze flew to his, and she blinked, then
turned abruptly away. “I am no beast to be named at your pleasure!”
she hissed.

Iain didn’t know what to say. It was true.
Leading the rest of the way in silence, he drew her into the
thickest part of the forest, and then reined in and dismounted.

“
No, you’re no’,” he
acknowledged finally.

Page remained stiff in the saddle. Iain went
to her side, intending to help her dismount, but he made the
mistake of peering up at her in that instant.

There were tears in her eyes.

He could see them though she wouldn’t meet
his gaze, and his heart wrenched. Had he acted wrongly? he
wondered, and then knew he had, for when she turned to look down at
him again, there was anger in her eyes, an anger so filled with
pain that Iain’s heart bled at the sight of it.

Damn, but why should he care what she felt?
He didn’t know this woman. Didn’t owe her a bloody damned thing!
Hadn’t wanted to bring her...

And yet he had.

It occurred to him suddenly that if he truly
hadn’t wished to bring her, he simply wouldn’t have. He cared what
she felt, because she’d reached some part of his soul that had lain
untouched for too many years. Somehow, she’d pierced that shadowy
realm with that first heart-stirring glance.

Mounted before him, towering above him as
she did, her long plait unraveling down her back, her dark eyes
flashing and luminous, and her stance proud, she seemed almost a
wild thing in that instant. Wild and unapproachable, like the deer
of the forests, those wide brown eyes both forbidding and heedful
at once.

For an instant Iain was wholly mesmerized by
those fathomless dark pools, some part of him yearning to leap into
their misty depths, discover the hidden mysteries... and
pleasures.

He knew she thought he pitied her, that much
was apparent. He could spy it in her eyes, but God... it was so far
from the truth. If anything, he admired her. Not many men could
have taken the abuse he sensed she’d received at her father’s
hands, and still come through unscathed as she had.

Though wounded she might be, she was far
from conquered.

He envied her, too, he realized. Envied her
for the freedom she was unafraid to embrace.

He thought about the moment he’d first spied
her, soaked from a midnight swim no true lady would have dared even
fancy. Her eyes had flashed with defiance, though she’d been cast
at his feet.

Christ, he wanted, in that moment, not to
conquer, but to join her.

Too many years he’d lived in this dark room
that was his life—always doing what was right, what was just, never
pursuing the candlelight that beckoned just beyond his chamber
threshold.

He’d been his father’s only son, and for all
intents and purposes had been born into the world a man. His
father, though Iain was certain had loved him well, had never truly
been a father at all, but a teacher, instead, always fearful that
his only heir would somehow depart this life before him and that
his sovereign bloodline would end. He had both protected Iain
interminably and trained him fiercely so that he might fend for
himself and his clan when at last the old laird closed his eyes.
And Christ, he’d closed them all too soon, his final time during
Iain’s seventeenth winter.

His father would have been proud of him, he
thought, for he had given everything to his clan. Every moment of
every waking hour of his life.

He’d spared them naught.

And still some part of him was not his own
to give, for it eluded even him.

And then he’d been alone.

He’d never known his mother, had never
ceased to mourn that fact. Though sometimes... sometimes... he
thought he spied her kindly face shrouded amidst his deeper
memories.

Nothing more than fancy, he knew, for she’d
never even held him within her arms. He’d never had the chance to
look into soothing eyes— didn’t even know what color they were,
though he had the vaguest impression of blue—to suckle as a babe at
her breast, to spy her watching him as he played with other
children.

Mairi, too, had been his duty to his
clan.

He’d wanted so much from her, so much—mayhap
too much. He was willing to take that much responsibility for her
death. Hell, he’d taken it all—as ever was his duty. Her rejection
of him, and the infernal ends to which she had gone to escape him,
had finally extinguished the lone guttering taper he had tended so
zealously all of his life. In the space of a heartbeat, in the wake
of her flight from his high tower window, the candle had flickered
and died.

The woman sitting so proudly before him was
like that light shining just beyond his threshold, beckoning him
out from the darkness he knew so well.

God... and he wanted to follow it.

Those brief moments of reflection were
Iain’s undoing, for she seemed to recover herself from the stupor
they had shared, and reacted suddenly with all the vengeance her
eyes foreboded.

Too late, he seized the reins from her
hands. She spurred Ranald’s mount furiously. The horse reared,
surging forward. Iain lost hold of the reins with all but one
finger, and with that tentative hold, he tried to force her to
stop.

Ranald’s mount, addled now, seemed to
hesitate, and Iain at once tried to regain his hold upon the reins,
but she spurred the horse again, more furiously this time, and he
was flung forward. The leather sliced the flesh of his hand,
searing it with the force of its pull. His arm twisted within the
rein, and he was dragged with her.

He howled in pain, trying to find a
foothold, but the horse tore away too swiftly. Realizing in that
moment that she was bloody well going to kill him, that she wasn’t
going to stop, that he would need pursue her with his own mount, he
tried to free himself at once. He succeeded, though not before
managing to drag himself under the horse’s hooves. His answering
curse was a cry of pain.

His arm untangled and he was flung to the
ground.

His head impacted with a crack that
reverberated clear into his unconscious mind.

It took Page an instant too long to free
herself from the angry fog that had enveloped her. Realizing
suddenly what she’d done, she whirled her mount about, and sat,
horseflesh rippling impatiently beneath her as she stared at the
body lying so still upon the ground.

Sweet Mary, what had she done to him?

Some part of her wanted to go to him.

Her heart twisted painfully.

She turned to stare in horror and panic at
the path that led to freedom, and for an instant was anguished and
torn.

There would never be a greater opportunity
for escape.

And some part of her wanted to go—to her
father—some part of her truly did, but the greater part of her
could not leave with him lying there as he was.

So still.

Her father’s enemy, she reminded
herself.

A liar and a faithless cheat.

The man who had treated her with nothing
less than kindness. The man whose worst crime against her had been
to give her a name her father had never stirred himself to
bestow.

Suisan.

Her heart wrenched. She wondered what it
meant.

The sound of it upon his lips, like a
lover’s whisper, had made her heart leap, had filled her eyes with
tears she’d never dared to shed.

Aye, and she’d dared in that moment to love
him, this fierce stranger, whom she dared not even like.

Her heart hammered as she stared at the body
lying so still before her.

The realization that he pitied her had
turned her heart to stone, her thoughts to fury.

She came aware of tears streaming down her
cheeks.

Sobs rang in her ears—her own?

Jesu, but why should she weep for this
man?

How could she not go? She’d waited all her
life for her father to want her, and now that he did, she must go
to him! She must!

Jesu, but this man had betrayed him, had
broken faith. Why should she care that he lay there?

Possibly dying.

Possibly dead.

Her stomach twisted.