The Scotsman (14 page)

Finally, slowly, she let the towel fall to the floor and reached for the clean gown Mairi had brought her. It was warm and dry, rough against her skin, eliciting more strange shudders as it rubbed over her sensitive nipples. The wool clung to her wet skin in damp patches, made worse by the dripping weight of her hair. She clubbed her hair into a single thick strand and twisted it to wring out the water, then pushed it over her shoulder to dangle down her back. Her movements were clumsy as she pulled the leather girdle around her ribs, fingers fumbling with the laces that tied it beneath her breasts. This gown was bigger, the scooped neck lower, and she adjusted it by tucking extra material beneath the girdle, bunching it so it would hold.

Then she used the cooling bathwater to wash the other gown, dunking it into the sudsy water and scrubbing it vigorously against the sides of the tub to dislodge dirt and any small creatures that may have taken up residence. She thought of the fuller’s earth her mother used, and the sweet-scented soap and preparations for cleaning garments. All that she had taken for granted, never dreaming that one day she would wish for just such drudgery. How amused her mother would be to hear it.

She was draping the wet gown over a chair before the fire when she heard the scrape of boots in the corridor outside the chamber and looked up, her heartbeat quickening. The key was in the lock and the door was opening
before she could move the table, and with a sudden push, it toppled over in a resounding crash.

Alex Fraser filled the doorway, scowling at her. “Do you think a puny table could keep me out, milady?”

Calmly, she said, “It was not meant to keep you out, but to give me warning should I have an unexpected audience for my bath.”

His gaze shifted to the puddles of water on the floor and the wooden tub, and his taut stance relaxed. He stepped into the chamber and closed the door behind him, seeming to fill the room with his presence. His black hair was tousled as if by the wind, and he smelled fresh and clean. A cloak was slung over his shoulders, reaching to his boot tops in the back and open in the front. He wore trews and a white sherte, and a padded leather vest that was belted around his middle. She glimpsed a sword hilt at his side.

“Your father sent news,” he said abruptly, and her gaze shifted to his face. He was staring at her through slightly narrowed eyes. “His envoy is delayed and will be here in a fortnight to conduct negotiations.”

“Then he has agreed to your terms?”

“He has agreed to nothing. He thinks to play me like a harp, delaying as long as possible.”

She shifted from one bare foot to the other. Her wet hair hung heavily against her back, dampening the wool gown beneath it. She shivered a little as a cool draft chilled skin still damp from her bath, and turned her back to the fire for warmth and to dry her hair. The smell of wet wool rose around her, vying with the musky fragrance of the soap she had used.

Alex’s gaze dropped, and a shadow darkened his face and eyes, his lashes lowering slightly as he stared at her. Her throat tightened. She stifled the impulse to cross her arms over her chest as his gaze rested on her breasts.
There was a heated intensity to his scrutiny that puckered her nipples and left her feeling flushed and strangely weak. Mortified by her body’s involuntary reaction, she reached up to bring her hair forward as if to comb her fingers through it, using the long strands to cover herself. The hair was cold and damp against skin left bare by the scooped neck of her gown, wetting the wool bodice where she draped it over her breasts to conceal her reaction to him.

His faint smile told her he was aware of her ploy, but the heat in his eyes did not lessen. Softly, his voice a husky murmur, he said, “Are you aware that the fire behind you outlines your body perfectly through that thin wool gown, milady?”

She stared at him, her fingers stilling in her hair. “No.” Her denial came out in a throaty whisper, forced from her lips only by great strength of will. She could not move, could not speak, could only watch with thrumming nerves and pounding heart as he moved toward her.

“’Tis true.” His voice was still so soft, languorous and heavy, a soothing purr like that of a great cat. “Yet I have seen your sweet form before, and ’tis not a sight to be soon forgotten.”

Firelight danced over him in flickering patterns of red and gold, its reflection glittering in his eyes and turning them to molten silver, then glancing off his belt buckle and the cloak pin on his shoulder. Her limbs felt weighted and unable to move; her hands were still trapped in her hair. Gently, he untangled her fingers from the silky strands that snapped with static life of their own, and he lowered her arms to her sides. Her world was a mass of contradictions, vying sensations, with the heat of the fire behind her, her wet gown cold against her skin, and the damp weight of her hair brushing over her breasts. She did not struggle, did not protest as he
touched her cheek, traced her quivering lips with his finger, curved his hand down over her throat to tilt back her head.

Dimly, she knew she should protest. This was the enemy, a man who did not respect her past or her present, who used her only for his own gain. But what else had she known in her life? She was a pawn, born into a world where she was of use only ais a device to gain more wealth, more lands, more power. If she was returned to Warfield, she would be bartered to Ronald of Bothwick in exchange for greater lands, greater influence—her wishes discarded as only the naive tantrum of a child.

But if she gave herself to this Scot, there would be no marriage with Bothwick, and no profit for her father. Yet the earl delayed negotiations, stalling for time with no thought of his daughter, what she might be suffering, what she might fear. It was the final proof that she meant nothing to him. She was only a tool.

Warm lips pressed against the curve of her throat, the smooth underside of her chin, then against the single tear that traced her cheek. His breath was heated, but soft against her skin, and she closed her eyes in surrender. What had she left to lose?

His head lifted and his hand wound into the length of her hair to gently hold her still as his other hand began a teasing journey. Strong fingers curled into the edge of her bodice, pulling it down to free her breasts, their weight uplifted by the leather girdle beneath them. A thumb raked across her beaded nipple and she shuddered. It was so different from earlier, from her own timid explorations and from the flat of palms so much softer than his callused hand. And the sensations he elicited were stronger, sharper, more vivid as he rolled the taut bud between his thumb and finger.

Her entire body was quivering, the throbbing ache
between her legs a steady pulse that was mystifying and urgent. Her sensations were heightened, so that she felt the brush of the wool gown against the back of her thighs, the heat of the fire, the weight of her hair, and the tantalizing brush of his hands against her breasts, all at once. She wanted to open her eyes but did not dare, afraid that she would see her own wickedness reflected in his gaze.

Then her eyes flew open and her back arched with shock as he took her nipple into his mouth. He suckled first one, then the other, his mouth wet and hot, lips tugging on her with strong motions that summoned the most exquisite pain between her thighs. Her eyes shut tightly again. Her entire body was as taut as a strung bow; she felt as if the least pressure would make her snap.

Somehow she was clinging to him now, her fingers clutching the voluminous folds of his cloak, her body bent backward and supported by his arm behind her waist. His dark hair tickled the bare skin of her throat, smelling of wind and fresh air, a masculine fragrance that filled her nostrils. He pulled her hips against him; his belt buckle pressed into the soft swell of her belly, sharp and hard through the thin wool. The muscles in his arm flexed behind her, and his hand spread over her buttocks, fingers digging into her soft skin. He was bent over her like a dark hawk, the winged folds of his cloak enclosing them, his body a lean pressure against her willing softness.

A trembling moan filled the air, vibrating between them, a wordless plea and surrender suspended in time and mind and memory. Catherine felt herself falling, her body being cradled in strong arms and a great dark veil being pulled down, blotting out everything but the beautiful, scarred face above her, the fierce gray eyes and hard intensity that seared her to the soul. She was lost, and she felt a liberating, swooping joy in it.…

He burned for her. Agony, to cradle her supple body in his arms and not take her; torture, to deny himself the release he craved by plumbing her depths until they were both satiated with it.

But he had given his oath.

Ah, Christ have mercy, he had sworn to deliver her to the earl unspoiled, and by all that was holy, he could not risk Jamie’s life by yielding to the clamoring demands of his body. Not now. Not when success was yet a possibility.

He throbbed with urgency, his body tight with arousal to the point of pain. And she was willing … he had seen it in her eyes when she looked up at him from before the hearth, had seen her trembling lips and tightened nipples against the thin wool gown, seen surrender and confusion and need, and he had known before she did that she would yield. It had undone him.

From the beginning, he had recognized his desire for her but rejected it because he had no other option. To yield to it would make him no better than the earl, promising
one thing while doing another. What he had not expected was this sudden, complete capitulation from her. It had been much easier when she feared and hated him, made it simple to keep his own hunger at bay.

Now the barriers were gone, her defenses giving way to this heated surrender that left him dangerously susceptible.

The muscles in his belly tightened. So beautiful, this fair English flower, tousled and still damp from her bath, gleaming skin rosy in the firelight, her small, perfect breasts impudent and teasing.

If he had any control, he would leave now, before his body outvoted his mind. But he knew, even before the thought faded, that he was going to stay, to hold her, to touch her and ease the need that thundered through him like a storm.

Lifting her, he carried her the short distance to the narrow cot against the wall and lowered her gently to the mattress. The fresh fragrance of heather surrounded them as he knelt beside her. She was staring up at him now, her eyes hazy beneath half-lowered lashes.

“Close your eyes, catkin,” he murmured, and smiled a little when she wordlessly obeyed. Fine time for her to become pliant. Now, when she was in danger of being deflowered by the enemy, she should be fighting him tooth and claw.

And, oddly, he found himself curiously at a loss. Kissing her had been impulsive, a temporary yielding to the need she’d provoked in him. Now that she was acquiescent, he felt strangely reluctant. Insanity, to continue, and torture to stop. But he had gone too far.…

He unfastened the clasp at his throat and shed his cloak, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed. Raking a hand through his hair, he gazed down at her, at the gentle rise and fall of her breasts with each breath she took,
her flushed skin and parted lips … bending, he kissed her on the mouth, teasing her lower lip with his teeth until he heard her breath quicken.

When his own breath came in harsh pants, he sat back to regain control, a little rueful at how easily his restraint weakened with this fair maid. Her eyes were still closed, dark brown lashes shadowing her cheeks. Delicate eyebrows like graceful wings puckered slightly as he traced the sculptured line of her mouth with his fingers, the elegant curve of her cheek and jaw, and the arch of her throat. His hand moved lower, fingers dipping into the hollow of her collarbone. A small pulse beat there, rapid as the flutter of a frightened bird.

His body throbbed. He knew he was going to regret this, knew that he would suffer for it, yet he wanted her with a ferocity that shocked him. Nothing would ease the hard ache in him but the feel of her closing around him, the deliriously tight bliss of plunging his body into hers and hearing her soft moans in his ear.

When her tongue came out to wet her mouth in a quick slide over the exquisite tumble of her lower lip, heat exploded in his belly. His fingers paused on her damp skin, his large, brown hand a vivid contrast against her white softness.

He unlaced his leather jerkin and unbuckled his belt, tossing them atop his cloak. His white linen sherte followed, and cool air filtered over his heated skin as he leaned over her. He took her hand and pressed her palm against the bare muscles on his chest, watching her lashes flutter at the contact. Slowly, he dragged her splayed fingers down the length of his torso in a light, erotic glide. The fire in his belly burned higher and hotter when he reached his waist and the band of his trews. Her hand was cool and quivering against him. He tightened his grip, and with his other hand, untied the cord that held
his trews closed. Her long lashes flickered again, and he watched, fascinated, as the tip of her tongue swept over her lips.