The Virgin's Pursuit (4 page)

Cormac heard her stirring before dawn.

She moved quietly about his bedchamber, her steps quick and light as the woodland dweller she'd become over the last year. He had fully expected her to try and escape him, but he had not anticipated it would come so soon.

Their lovemaking had been the most powerful consummation of his life, their union searing into his memory with the force of raw emotion. She must have felt it as well. So why leave so soon afterward, when she had to be exhausted from the long journey and he had as good as promised her a lifetime of protection as his wife?

Perhaps he should not feel betrayed since she had warned him she would try to flee. But for some foolish reason, he thought what they'd shared would change her feelings. Soften her heart.

He lay still in the darkness, taking note of her progress about the chamber as she slid on her garments and boots. When she opened the door and slipped out into the corridor beyond, he vaulted to his feet and dressed. He could have stopped her earlier, but then he would not know the means she used to get away.

Besides, part of him still could not believe she would really choose a solitary existence in hiding over a life at his side. Growing angrier by the moment, he hastened into the passage outside his chamber and listened to the sounds of the keep before dawn. In the distance, he heard a soft echo of footsteps moving into the courtyard at the center of the keep.

What way out could she find there? He charged down the steps, in her wake, grabbing a torch off the wall on his way.

Reaching the courtyard, he saw nothing out of place. Moonlight slanted down onto part of the stone expanse, but there was no movement here. A bit of his anger shifted to worry as he strained to hear her footsteps again. Shouldn't he have gained ground on her?

Then, recalling how long she'd remained hidden in the forest, he guessed he'd underestimated her ability to keep to the shadows. How many times had she seen him in the forest when he had failed to spy her?

Tossing aside his torch, he allowed the darkness to swallow him again. If she moved with stealth through the predawn hours, so would he. Never had a hunt been as important.

He breathed deep, searching for her scent in the still air. Her fragrance remained on his skin, but even if it hadn't, he would never forget the essence that was hers alone. Keeping to the shadows against the wall, he followed his senses and his instincts, alert for the smallest sign of her.

He could not let her go. Would not let her leave him when she didn't fully comprehend the dangers—

Her scream chilled his blood and sank his heart like a stone to his feet.

“Isolda!” he shouted, running toward the far side of the courtyard where her shriek still echoed.

And echoed.

Skidding to a halt near a wooden barrel, Cormac listened to her lingering, hollow cry and understood exactly where she was.

The woman who'd captured his heart had fallen into the well shaft.

“Isolda!” he shouted again, leaning into the pit from which they drew water.

The smell of damp stones and moss wafted up from the cavern below, where a fresh stream rushed in a fast-moving current. His fingers dug into the spongy growth around the well as he waited for a response. Was she injured too badly to speak? Or could she be so intent on escape that she would not even give him a cursory reply?

Heart fist-tight, he reached for the rope that must have held her at one time. He would follow her either way. The fierceness in his chest told him he would follow her into Hades itself if necessary.

“I am all right.” A muffled reply drifted up the shaft finally.

Blood drained from his legs so fast he nearly fell back. He'd never experienced such profound relief.

“Stay there,” he ordered, tense with residual fear for her. “I will come for you.”

“Nay.” Her reply was resolute. Determined. Yet it contained a hint of sadness that the dark and hollow distance between them could not conceal. “I have known freedom for too long to become a bartered object ever again. I have no wish to trade marriage rights for my blood ties to Iness.”

She would argue with the one man who could save her? No wonder stubborn Isolda had survived the wild alone.

He did not know if it was his fear for her safety or his need to quarrel with her that hoisted his leg over the side of the well, but he didn't think twice about scaling down the narrow shaft to follow her wherever she went. The stony passage had been build for little more than a bucket to pass through it; the space was more suited to a woman's smaller frame than his.

“Cormac?” Her voice loomed nearer this time and he realized he must be close.

The sweet worry in her tone spurred him past a spot where his shoulders stuck against a protruding rock in the wall. His tunic tore along with his skin, but he eased downward a little more.

His knees slid free of the narrow confines as the sound of rushing water filled his ears. Praying he did not have far to fall, he relaxed his grip on the stone walls and fell.

The ground rose fast to meet him, surprising him with how fast he hit muddy sand, smashing his knee on a jagged rock. He heard Isolda cry out and was surprised to realize he could see her.

Impossibly, the light of dawn penetrated the cavern from a small opening in the rock wall nearby. He realized it must be a passage in and out of the keep. Isolda's means of escape.

He shook his head to clear it and slowly got to his feet in the inky black cave beneath Iness Keep. Sharp rocks were padded by dark moss in a space that seemed no bigger than his bedchamber.

“You are not a bartered object.” He wiped his hands on his braies before he reached for her, needing to feel her healthy and whole. His fist-tight heart expanded in his chest with new realization. “
You
are a treasure that I've long searched for.”

She stilled for a long moment. Studied him with new eyes glowing in the dim light.

“You sought me for my name and title. You cannot deny that.” Her fair hair lay in tangles about her shoulders, her surcoat tied awkwardly from her hurried departure and her hem ragged from her fall.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

He edged her away from the current to safer terrain alongside the underground stream. Dark rock surrounded them, while the water glistened with the hint of rising dawn.

“No more so than the man your father betrothed you to.” He recalled that she'd had a contract for marriage before the invasion. A contract that came to naught when her intended husband had died protecting Iness.

She shrugged, a frown pulling her brows together. “A bird that's never known freedom does not miss what she has not experienced.”

Cormac tried to appreciate what she wanted and what she'd been willing to risk.

“You could have died in that well shaft.” He approached her slowly, needing to impress his point without scaring her away. “And what if you now carry the babe you wanted so desperately? Would you risk a child for the sake of a freedom fraught with danger?”

He wanted to tuck her under his arm and keep her safe. He had seen much violence in the world and knew how quickly life could turn upside down without the least warning. He would not let anything happen to the people he cared about.

And this woman was the only person he'd thought about for many a fortnight.

“I have been more unwise than I realized,” she admitted. “I only thought to see if the escape route still existed, and perhaps to test the rope to make preparations for another day.”

As a bit more light penetrated the cave, or perhaps as his eyes adjusted to it, he spotted a fresh scratch on her cheek and rubbed a bit of dirt away from it.

“You planned to leave eventually, just not today?” The revelation stung while his body still hummed with the pleasure she'd given him.

“I hoped that we might find happiness together, but I could not sleep until I knew there would be a way out if you only wanted a marriage because I was the heir to the former laird.” Her blue eyes revealed a tenderness he had not spied from her even when he had cradled her body to his. “I knew that I could not sit idly by as you broke my heart that way.”

The raw honesty of that confession touched him. The words marked the first hint that their future might hold a far greater treasure than he'd imagined.

“You credit me with enough power to break such a staunch heart?” He smoothed her tousled hair away from her face, and wondered if a woman like Isolda could ever be tamed.

Somehow, he suspected he would grieve if her bold spirit was ever dampened.

Her gaze tracked his. Cagey. Careful.

And he realized he went about this all wrong.

“Wait.” He began again, hoping he understood now how to appeal to a woman who'd stood strong in the face of so much hardship and heartbreak. “I will tell you instead that you, Isolda of Iness, have enough power to break
my
heart. Indeed, you fairly crushed it to naught when I heard your scream echo through the courtyard. I thought I'd lost you forever.”

“Perhaps you felt that way because you see me as a key to legitimizing your claim to Iness.” She lifted the same argument that she had since he had first revealed his identity, and he debated how to smash it for good.

“Would you trust my intentions if I forsake Iness?”

She went as still as the stones all around them. He could swear he heard her heart beat over the gurgle of the rushing water.

“What?” She blinked.

“I would regret the loss of what I won by the sword. But our king will remain grateful to have a Scots keep back in Scots hands. Malcolm would surely trade some other holding with me if I presented a reasonable exchange. Until then, I have Glenmore as my birthright.”

He had no trouble making that vow if it meant keeping her. She was worth far more to him than the holding.

Isolda fought off the chill of the cave as she tried to absorb what Cormac said.

It sounded like he would be willing to give up Iness just to demonstrate that he wanted her—no matter her political importance. Could he really mean that? She recognized she was tired and overwhelmed from an endless ordeal, but there could hardly be any other way to interpret his words.

Perhaps a man who would do such an unconventional thing as forsake a hard-won keep would not mind her less-than-conventional ways.

“You would do that for me?” A soft prickling began in her heart, like the sensation of pins and needles in a limb when it awakens after going numb.

“Aye.” He ripped off a small patch of his tunic, tearing the fabric so that he held a small square of it. This he dipped in water and wrung out before applying the cold cloth to her cheek. “I have found a woman who can survive a harsh northern winter with no maid and no retainers to help her. Imagine what that kind of woman could accomplish with a household at her command. Imagine what you could do to improve the lives of the villagers who have lost loved ones to war and possessions to raids.”

She tipped her head to one side as he cleaned her cut. His gentle touch reminded her of his lovemaking and so many other touches.

“I do not want to marry for the sake of a good work partnership,” she pressed, although by now, she was beginning to guess Cormac of Glenmore saw the potential for much more than a political alliance here.

Pleasure radiated from his touch on her cheek to her temple. Her shoulder. Her breasts.

Her heart.

“Then marry for love,” he suggested simply.

Her pulse spiked wildly. Real hope filled her mind with visions she had not dared to allow herself.

“You are a warrior. A conqueror.” She did not say it as an accusation, but as an observation. “What do you know of love?”

He tipped her chin straight to look at him head-on.

“I know it takes hold of two people who seek each other day in and day out for many moons.” His hands smoothed over her shoulders, down her arms and back up. “I know it only grows when the marriage bed is a place of intense pleasure.”

A thrill shot through her faster than the water quickening at her feet. Warmth flooded her cheeks. Shyly, she smiled. “Can you find love with a woman who pretends to be a laundress and attempts to seduce you in the forest?”

He tossed his head back and laughed.

“Aye. That is just the kind of place you find it.” He wrapped his arms about her waist and drew her close, tipping his forehead to her. “That is where I found it.”

Her whole body sighed with happiness. Relief. And best of all, dreams for the future.

“So did I, my hunter.” Arching up on her toes, she brushed a kiss over his lips. “And I do not want you to give up Iness.”

“Are you certain?” He tensed, his gaze penetrating.

The warrior was back, if only for a little while. Isolda smiled, thinking she would come to love this side of Cormac, too. Maybe she already did.

“Positive. Now, my warrior, let us find our way out of here so we can celebrate a new beginning.”

Happiness seemed to glow like a fire inside her, and for the first time since her return to Iness, she felt at home.

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