Set title

by O’Donnell, Laurel

  And that would be so for the rest of their days, whether he left her at Duncairn or nae. Legend declared the bond between a MacLean man and his one true love could not be severed.

  Not even by death.

  They’d simply come together again in the Celtic Otherworld, then repeatedly seek each other until the fateful moment of recognition in as many lives as were to bless them.

  But at the moment, Iain, the latest of the clan to be cast adrift on the runaway tide otherwise known as the Bane of the MacLeans, felt more cursed than blessed.

  Unlike other clansmen, long since blissfully mated, his tide of destiny hadn’t run a smooth course.

  Or even a straight one.

  He struggled to find other soothing words, ones to calm her without making her think she’d have to add madness to his long list of faults. “You needn’t feel ill at ease with me,” he said at last, the best he could do.

  “But I do not.” She touched his cheek. “At least not in the way I believe you mean.”

  “Then why do you remind me of a cornered roe-deer, ready to bolt?”

  She gave him a sad smile. “I have told you, it is my own self I fear, not you.”

  “Tell me why.” He frowned. “I would hear what fashes you.”

  “Be content knowing I am not afraid of you,” she said, holding his gaze. “Never you – not while life is in me. I have seen the goodness in you, and your valor.”

  “Then be sure that keeping life in you is my purpose,” Iain said, touched by her trust.

  For a moment, some of the weight on his shoulders lessened, but then he worried. Enjoying any such pleasure might have the fates snatching it right back from him.

  So he turned his attention to a safer, but equally important matter.

  “Lass…” He gripped her arms, not wanting her to turn aside. “Who were those men? The two in the public room. What did they want from you?”

  She looked down, brushed her hair over her shoulder. “I do not know,” she said, setting her fingers to work on the second brooch.

  “I think you do,” Iain pressed, not wanting to push her but sensing she wouldn’t speak of them unless he did. “You recognized them.”

  She stiffened. “Recognizing them or their vile intent doesn’t mean I know their names.”

  Still struggling with the brooch, she looked up long enough to let her gaze challenge him. Her eyes sparked green fire, daring him to argue with her.

  “Those men are strangers to me.”

  “But you know of them,” he persisted. “Enough to fear their purpose.”

  “I fear no one.” Her chin came up. “You err.”

  In a flare of surprising temper, she quit fumbling with the pin clasp and yanked hard on the brooch. It came free at once, a good-sized piece of jagged-edged cloth with it. The torn bodice, and her gossamer-fine shift beneath it, fell open, the creamy-smooth rounds of her breasts wholly exposed and wearing nothing but the chill night air and two tantalizingly taut crests.

  “Gah!” She clapped her hands over her nakedness. “Take heed, sir. Like you, Drummond women are known for their tempers,” she warned. “We rile easily.”

  Iain bit back a smile. “So I see.”

  “That is the problem!” She colored, her fingers splayed across the swells of her breasts. “You have seen everything and my gown is ruined. I’ve nothing else.”

  “Dinnae worry, sweeting.” Iain reached for her, to comfort her, but he caught himself and let his hands drop to his sides. “Gavin will have clothes for you when we join him and your friend on the road north tomorrow,” he said, glad he could ease some of her distress. “MacNab, at whose keep they are this night, has more sisters than you can count, and Gavin has instructions to secure fresh raiments for you.”

  “Proper clothes?” She peered at him, blinking. “You made such arrangements?”

  “I did.”

  “I thank you.” She looked him up and down, calming. “It seems you are kindhearted and valiant – along with other things.”

  “What else, then?”

  “Lustiness,” she said, surprising him.

  “I dinnae ken what you mean,” he lied, hoping his plaid folds hadn’t shifted. “I told you, you are safe with me.”

  A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “Your eyes stray, lord.”

  “Nae man could help but admire such beauty as you inadvertently displayed,” he spoke true this time. “No’ when bared breasts fair leap right at him.”

  “That was not my intent.”

  “The result was the same.” He smiled. “I’ll consider it a gift and nae man beyond this room shall ever hear of it, I promise.

  “Can you accept that?” He leaned toward her, his gaze duly above her shoulders. “I’d vow to forget what I saw, but that would be impossible and I’ll no’ lie.”

  “I appreciate your honesty.” She returned his smile. “I am not fashed. All is well.”

  Too bad it wasn’t for him.

  He almost lurched, her smile sending such a rush of pleasure through him. Sweet golden warmth only she could give him and that he was beginning to crave. Just now, it was everywhere in him, filling every crack and cranny in his soul.

  His heart.

  But the pleasurable sensations proved so strange, so unaccustomed, they skittered away the instant he focused on them.

  “Until I leave you at Duncairn, anyone we meet will think you my wife, and with a few obvious exceptions, I shall treat you as such,” he said, the cold seeping back into him with each spoken word. “Think you I could sleep a night – even an hour – between here and Duncairn if I allowed you to walk about in rags?”

  To his amazement, she took her hands from her breasts to grip and squeeze one of his hands. “I knew your heart was deep,” she said, tightening her grasp once more before clapping her hands back over her nipples.

  “You knew?”

  “I felt it.”

  “How?” Iain eyed her sharply, something about her tone sending little nips of wariness down his spine.

  “Women know such things,” she said, meeting his gaze with clear, deep-seeing eyes.

  And he found the look she gave him every bit as intriguing as the delectable plentitude of her naked breasts.

  More so, in fact.

  A truth that unsettled him for it gnawed at every barrier he struggled to keep between them.

  “Drummond women are also known for their daring.” She raised the hem of her skirts, letting him see the dirk-hilt protruding from her boot. “We are strong. I am not afraid to face my challenges.” Dropping her skirts again, she flicked them into place. “I know my limitations and thank you again for securing fresh clothes for me.”

  “Forget the gowns.” Iain frowned, his mind on her dirk. A one-armed stripling could snatch it from her with ease, use the blade against her. “Just now, I’m more interested in your dagger. Dinnae tell me you’ve been traipsing about the land, thinking to protect yourself with it? ‘Tis a bairn’s blade.”

  “I said I shall face my challenges.”

  “With that wee blade?”

  “It is sharp enough to split a hair,” she said, a new kind of glitter in her eyes.

  She also tightened her lips then and something in the way she regarded him made his nape prickle. Surely she didn’t mean to use the blade without provocation?

  Iain blinked, dragged a hand down over his chin.

  The uisge beatha, or more likely, the nearness of her bared breasts, had surely turned his mind to mush.

  Addled his wits.

  The strain of keeping his gaze above her shoulders was giving him a headache. A worse one than if he’d tossed down the entire flagon.

  He was not the paragon she took him for, and his ability to uphold such a sham was fast dwindling. Leaving her standing beside the wooden tub, he strode to the bed, tossed his leather satchel onto its feather mattress.

  “Take your bath before the water chills,” he urged her, rummaging through the satchel until he fo
und the sphagnum moss. “I will stand before the window, my back turned, until you are done.”

  And if, perchance, the devil got the better of him and he risked a peek, the linen-lined tub looked deep enough to hide her nakedness to her shoulders, which was exactly why he wanted her in it.

  A fool notion if ever there was one, he decided, the moment his ear caught the first soft rustlings of her hastily stripping off her clothes. But it was her sigh of pleasure as she lowered herself into the scented water that undid him.

  That, and the splashy sound of water lapping against her naked skin.

  “Odin’s bone,” he swore, his supposed gallantry forgotten.

  Frowning darkly, he dropped the lump of moss into an earthenware bowl on the table. Blessedly, the bowl had a matching jug, and someone had thoughtfully assured it held fresh water. This he used to fill the basin and that was a blessing.

  He was not going anywhere near the bathing tub.

  Not with her in it.

  In particular now that she’d helped herself to the little jar of lavender-scented soap. It’s sharp-sweet scent blended with her own lighter, heathery one to rise from the heated water and waft about the room.

  Drift directly beneath his nose, beguiling him and increasing his difficulty in playing the gallant.

  Taking great care not to look her way, he carried the sphagnum infusion across the room and plunked the bowl onto the top of the brazier.

  Then he went to stand before the shuttered window, his back to the room, as promised. Inhaling deeply, he took some satisfaction in having found her at last.

  Even if he could only enjoy her for the short few days needed to reach Duncairn.

  Resting a shoulder against the window splay, he folded his arms and peered down through the shutter slats at the ale yard, awash in drifting mist and slanting sheets of rain.

  Muffled laughter and song rose from the common room, testament of continued drinking and carousing. And not far beneath the window, the ale-stake bobbed and creaked in the wind, a garish intrusion in the storm-dark night.

  And not unlike Iain himself, somehow out of place in the world around him.

  The ale-stake’s supports groaned, rusty cries against the the indignities of being tossed about on the night wind. But its screeches and moans served naught, much as his own protests brought no relief from a life gone wrong.

  Closing his ears to the ale-stake’s wails, and to the softer, sweeter sounds of Madeline’s ablutions, he let the cold draught blowing through the shutters carry off any residual doubts. After all these years, he finally had to accept the truth of the clan legend.

  How could he not when he’d never breathed so freely or known such warmth to curl round his heart? He felt more alive than ever, in the hours she’d been at his side.

  She even made him smile, something he’d never thought to do again.

  Not a whim or fancy, she was indeed the other half of his heart, and he would never again scoff at legends or magic.

  Leaning harder against the window’s edge, he drew a rough breath and faced one more truth.

  Perhaps the most vital of all.

  He could not – would not – walk away from Duncairn without her.

  Regardless of what it cost him, and the gods knew she deserved better, but she would leave Duncairn at his side. And she’d go as fit her...

  As his bride.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Madeline rested her head against a folded towel she’d placed over the edge of the linen-draped tub. Sinking lower into the heated water, she concentrated on every one of Iain’s emotions ever to spool around her heart or drift through her dreams.

  Her eyes half-closed, she curled her fingers over her knees, and recalled them…

  An ache that could never be soothed.

  A void too deep to be filled with joy and light.

  A profound love so all-consuming it burned with a brilliance to rival the light of a thousand stars.

  Yet she couldn’t forge a new path into his heart, or invite him into hers. No matter how hard she tried, she could no longer reach the deepest part of him. All she felt was her own emptiness, her hunger and doubt.

  That, and the two words that hovered in the air between them. Shimmering before her, but elusive as the wisps of steam rising from her bath.

  She thought the words were entwined destinies.

  If so, she knew what they implied – an unbreakable bond between Iain and the woman who held his heart. Ties that reached back in time, and forward, connecting the two for eternity. Love that existed before they’d drawn first breath and that would go on even after they’d expelled the last.

  Her eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed, she sat up and plunged her fingers into the little pot of soft, lavender-scented soap. Blessedly, the warm water relaxed her as she scrubbed her arms, then her legs, scouring her skin until it tingled and shone with a fine rosy glow.

  Sadly, she couldn’t rid herself of the stain of the two words.

  They flitted about in the half dark, taunting her from the shadows and reminding her that she had her own path to follow and that another woman accompanied Iain on his.

  Yet…

  He’d looked on her with favor, and more than once.

  He’d certainly enjoyed kissing her.

  But how could he desire her, and the proof of his arousal had been unmistakable, if his heart belonged to someone else?

  So wishing that for once she’d be able to make use of her gift at will, she drew a deep breath and held it, then slipped beneath the water to wet her hair.

  She soaped her hair and scrubbed her scalp with special care, appreciating the fine and fragrant lather. A pleasure every bit as enjoyable as the swirl of warm water rippling across the top swells of her breasts.

  Uncertainty lapped at her, too. If she couldn’t probe the depths of Iain’s heart to find answers, she’d voice them directly.

  She’d ask him.

  Her decision made, she reached for a pail of clean water to rinse the soap from her hair. The cold water sluiced over her head and down her back, making her shiver, but also carrying away any last hesitation.

  Feeling more in control of her fate than she had in weeks, she lifted her chin and reached behind her to twist her wet hair into a thick rope. She’d hardly begun to wring out the moisture when a crash shook the walls.

  “Mercy!” She shot to her feet, her heart slamming against her ribs.

  “By the hounds!” Iain grabbed his sword hilt – only to lower his hand again as swiftly.

  A glance through the still-vibrating shutter slats revealed the cause of the ear-splitting commotion. Gusting winds had ripped the ale-stake from its hinges and sent it plunging to the ground.

  “It was the ale-stake,” he said, turning to face Madeline. “The wind-”

  He froze, jolted to the core.

  In his surprise at the crash, he’d forgotten about the lass bathing.

  Now…

  She stood in the wooden tub, her naked glory rendering him speechless. White-hot heat surged through him, shooting straight to his groin, his need hard and tight.

  She stared back at him from eyes wide with shock, her nude body wet, glistening, and rosy. Damp hair, a tangled mass of dark red ringlets, hung over one shoulder, the curling tendrils clinging to her naked flesh, molding sweetly to each lush curve.

  “Sakes!” He tried to look away, but making his heart stop beating would have proved easier. Fire raced through his veins as he stared at her, his gaze on the rivulets of water trickling down her breasts. Some pearled on the hard-budded peaks, clinging there for long, tantalizing moments before dripping off one by one.

  Then a droplet fell onto the red-gold curls topping her thighs, and his entire world contracted to the fierce lust thundering through his loins.

  He stared at the bead of water, watched it disappear into the wet curls, and the moment it slipped from sight, his wits returned.

  “Forgive me, lass.” He turned b
ack to the window, glowered down at the felled ale-stake.

  He’d also been felled.

  At least the throbbing part of him that shared distinct similarities with the long, hard length of the ale-stake.

  Worse, the lass wanted him. He’d seen her desire, for a woman’s eyes tell all. Leastways, if a man looked deep enough, and he had, even in that fleeting glimpse before she’d lowered her lashes.

  And as much as a certain part of him would wish otherwise, his heart and, aye, his honor, wouldn’t allow him to touch her so long as shadows of doubt clouded her eyes.

  Pain had been there, too.

  And frustration.

  All warnings of just the sort of shaky foundation he did not want to build a new life upon. The kind of ghosts he would not allow to loom between them.

  He’d started one marriage with a maid whose eyes held shyness and fear. Time banished those shadows, even replacing them with love, but it’d never been the urgent, all-consuming passionate love he knew he could have with Madeline. If he didn’t let the raw and fiery lust gnawing at his innards drive him to rushing her.

  Nae, that, he would not do.

  Even if she danced naked before him and begged him to take her.

  He wouldn’t lay a finger on her – in that way – until nothing but purest love, shining and untroubled, shone in her eyes.

  Until his own ghosts were laid as well.

  He burned for her nonetheless. Knowing her naked, wet, and willing, so near behind him and yet so far, proved the greatest trial.

  Aware of his ragged breath, he stared down at the ale yard, watching as someone flung open a door and a stream of shouting men poured out to gather around the downed ale-stake.

  He recognized two men.

  The miscreants who had thought to accost his lady.

  And he welcomed their timely appearance, for they took his mind off the sound of Madeline stepping from the bathing tub. They also reminded him of the danger facing her, a thought that cooled his ardor in one fell swoop.