by Nora Roberts
"And spill it all over my clean linens in the bargain. No, thank you. You need your strength." She placated him as she would have her own brothers. "You lost a great deal of blood before you got to us—more when the ball was removed." She spoke as she spooned up broth, and her hand didn't tremble. But her heart did.
There was the scent of herbs and her own lavender fragrance. Ian began to think being fed had its advantages.
"If it hadn't been so cold," she continued, "you would have bled all the quicker and died in the forest."
"So I've nature as well as you to thank."
She gave him a measured look. "It's said the Lord works in mysterious ways. Apparently he saw fit to keep you alive after you'd done your best to die."
"And put me in the hands of a neighbor." He smiled again, charmingly. "I've never been to Ireland, but I'm told it's beautiful."
"So my father says. I was born here."
"But there's Ireland on your tongue."
"And Scotland on yours."
"It's been five years since I've seen Scotland this time." A shadow came and went in his eyes. "I've been spending some time in Boston. I was educated there and have Mends."
"Educated." She had already recognized his schooling by his speech and envied him for it.
"Harvard." He smiled a little.
"I see." And she envied him all the more. If her mother had lived… Ah, but her mother had died, and Alanna had never had more than a hornbook to learn to write and read. "You're a ways from Boston now. A day's ride. Would you be having any family or friends who will worry?"
"No. No one to worry." He wanted to touch her. It was wrong, against his own code of honor. But he wanted to see if her cheek could be as beautifully soft as it looked. If her hair would feel as thick and heavy. Her mouth as sweet.
Her lashes lifted, and her eyes, clear and cool, met his. For a moment he could see only her face, drifting over his. And he remembered. He had already tasted those lips once.
Despite his best intentions, his gaze lowered to them. Lingered. When she stiffened, his eyes flickered up. There was not so much apology in them as amusement.
"I must beg your pardon, Mrs. Flynn. I was not myself when you found me in the barn."
"You came to yourself quickly enough," she snapped back, and made him laugh until he winced at the pain.
"Then I'll beg your pardon all the more and hope your husband won't call me out."
"There's little danger of that. He's been dead these three years."
He looked up quickly, but she only shoveled another spoonful of broth in his mouth. Though God might strike him dead, he couldn't say he was sorry to hear Flynn had gone to his Maker. After all, Ian reasoned, it wasn't as if he had known the man. And what better way to spend a day or two than recovering in the lap of a pretty young widow?
Alanna scented desire the way a hound scents deer and was up and out of reach. "You'll rest now."
"I feel that I've rested weeks already." Lord, she was a lovely thing, all curves and colors. He tried his most ingratiating smile. "Could I trouble you to help me to a chair? I'd feel more myself if I could sit, perhaps look out the window."
She hesitated, not because she was afraid she couldn't move him. Alanna considered herself strong as an ox. But she didn't trust the gleam she'd seen come and go in his eyes.
"All right then, but you'll lean on me and take it slow."
"With gladness." He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Before she could snatch it away, he turned it over and brushed his lips, as no man ever had, over the cup of her palm. Her heart bounded into her throat. "You have eyes the color of jewels I once saw around the neck of the queen of France.
Sapphires," he murmured. "A seductive word."
She didn't move. Couldn't. Never in her life had a man looked at her this way. She felt the heat rush up, from the knot in her belly along her suddenly taut breasts, up her throat where her pulse hammered and
into her face. Then he smiled, that quick, crooked shifting of lips. She snatched her hand away.
"You're a rogue, Mr. MacGregor."
"Aye, Mrs. Flynn. But that doesn't make the words less true. You're beautiful. Just as your name says.
Alanna." He lingered over each syllable.
She knew better than to fall for flattery. But the center of her palm still burned. "It's my name, and you'll wait till you're asked to use it." It was with relief that she heard the sounds outside the house. Her brow lifted a bit when she saw that Ian had heard them as well and braced. "That'll be my father and brothers.
If you'd still be having a mind to sit by the window, they'll help you." So saying, she moved to the door.
They would be cold and hungry, she thought, and would gobble down the meat pies and the apple tarts she had made without a thought for the time and care she had given them. Her father would fret more over what hadn't been done than what had. Johnny would think about how soon he could ride into the village to court young Mary Wyeth. Brian would put his nose into one of the books he loved and read by the fire until his head drooped.
They came in bringing cold and melting snow and loud masculine voices.
Ian relaxed as he noted it was indeed her family. Perhaps it was foolish to think the British would have tracked him all this way in the snow, but he wasn't a man to let down his guard. He saw three men—or two men and a boy nearly grown. The elder man was barely taller than Alanna and toughly built. His face was reddened and toughened by years of wind and weather, his eyes a paler version of his daughter's.
He took off his work cap and beneath it his hair was thin and sandy.
The older son had the look of him but with more height and less bulk. There was an ease and patience in his face that his father lacked.
The younger matched his brother inch for inch, but there was the dew of youth still on his cheeks. He had the same coloring as his sister.
"Our guest is awake," Alanna announced, and three pairs of eyes turned to him. "Ian MacGregor, this is my father, Cyrus Murphy, and my brothers, John and Brian."
"MacGregor," Cyrus said in a voice that rumbled. "An awkward name."
Despite the pain, Ian stiffened and pushed himself as straight as possible. "One I'm proud of."
"A man should be proud of his name," Cyrus said as he took Ian's measure. "It's all he's born with. I'm glad you decided to live, for the ground's frozen and we couldn't have buried you till spring."
"It's a bit of a relief to me, as well."
Satisfied with the answer, Cyrus nodded. "We'll wash for supper."
"Johnny." Alanna detained her brother with a hand on his arm. "Will you help Mr. MacGregor into the chair by the window before you eat?"
With a quick grin, Johnny looked at Ian. "You're built like an oak, MacGregor. We had the very devil of a time getting you into the house. Give me a hand here, Brian."
"Thanks." Ian bit back a groan as he lifted his arms over the two pairs of shoulders. Cursing his watery legs, he vowed to be up and walking on his own by the next day. But he was sweating by the time they settled him into the chair.
"You're doing well enough for a man who cheated death," Johnny told him, understanding well the frustrations of any sick man.
"I feel like I drank a case of grog then took to the high seas in a storm."
"Aye." Johnny slapped his good shoulder in a friendly manner. "Alanna will fix you up." He left to wash for supper, already scenting the spiced meat.
"Mr. MacGregor?" Brian stood in front of him. There was both a shyness and intensity in his eyes.
"You'd be too young to have fought in the Forty-five?" When Ian's brow lifted, the boy continued hurriedly. "I've read all about it, the Stuart Rebellion and the bonny prince and all the battles. But you'd be too young to have fought."
"I was born in '46," Ian told him. "During the Battle of Culloden. My father fought in the rebellion. My grandfather died in it."
The intense blue eyes widened. "Then you could tell me more than I ca
n find in books."
"Aye." Ian smiled a little. "I could tell you more."
"Brian." Alanna's voice was sharp. "Mr. MacGregor needs to rest, and you need to eat."
Brian edged back, but he watched Ian. "We could talk after supper if you're not weary."
Ian ignored Alanna's stormy looks and smiled at the boy. "I'd like that."
Alanna waited until Brian was out of earshot. When she spoke, the barely controlled fury in her voice surprised Ian. "I won't have you filling his head with the glory of war and battles and causes."
"He looked old enough to decide what he wants to talk about."
"He's a boy yet, and his head is easily filled with nonsense." With tense fingers, she pleated the skirt of her apron, but her eyes remained level and uncompromising. "I may not be able to stop him from running off to the village green to drill, but I'll have no talk of war in my house."
"There will be more than talk, and soon," Ian said mildly. "It's foolish for a man—and a woman—not to prepare for it."
She paled but kept her chin firm. "There will be no war in this house," she repeated, and fled to the kitchen.
Chapter Three
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Ian awoke early the next morning to watery winter sunlight and the good yeasty smell of baking bread.
For a moment he lay quiet, enjoying the sounds and scents of morning. Behind him the fire burned low and bright, shooting out comforting heat. From the direction of the kitchen came Alanna's voice. This time she sang in English. For a few minutes he was too enchanted with the sound itself to pay attention to the lyrics. Once they penetrated, his eyes widened first in surprise, then in amusement.
It was a bawdy little ditty more suitable to sailors or drunks than a proper young widow.
So, he thought, the lovely Alanna had a ribald sense of humor. He liked her all the better for it, though he doubted her tongue would have tripped so lightly over the words if she had known she had an audience.
Trying to move quietly, he eased his legs from the pallet. The business of standing took some doing and left him dizzy and weak and infuriated. He had to wait, wheezing like an old man, one big hand pressed for support against the wall. When he had his breath back he took one tentative step forward. The room tilted and he clenched his teeth until it righted again. His arm throbbed mightily. Concentrating on the pain, he was able to take another step, and another, grateful that no one was there to see his tedious and shambling progress.
It was a lowering thought that one small steel ball could fell a MacGregor.
The fact that the ball had been English pushed him to place one foot in front of the other. His legs felt as though they'd been filled with water, and a cold sweat lay on his brow and the back of his neck. But in his heart was a fierce pride. If he had been spared to fight again, he would damn well fight. And he couldn't fight until he could walk.
When he reached the kitchen doorway, exhausted and drenched with the effort, Alanna was singing a Christmas hymn. She seemed to find no inconsistency in crooning about amply endowed women one moment and heralding angels the next.
It hardly mattered to Ian what she sang. As he stood, watching, listening, he knew as sure as he knew a MacGregor would always live in the Highlands that her voice would follow him to his grave. He would never forget it, the clear, rich notes, the faint huskiness that made him imagine her with her hair unbound and spread over a pillow.
His pillow, he realized with a quick jolt. It was there he wanted her without a doubt, and so strongly that he could all but feel the smooth, silky tresses shift through his fingers.
Most of those thick raven locks were tucked under a white cap now. It should have given her a prim and proper look. Yet some strands escaped, to trail—seductively, he thought—along the back of her neck. He could easily imagine what it would be like to trail his fingers just so. To feel her skin heat and her body move. Against his.
Would she be as agile in bed as she was at the stove?
Perhaps he wasn't so weak after all, Ian mused, if every time he saw this woman his blood began to stir and his mind shot unerringly down one particular path. If he hadn't been afraid he would fall on his face and mortify himself, he would have crossed the room and spun her around, against him, into him, so that he could steal a kiss. Instead he waited, hopefully, for his legs to strengthen.
She kneaded one batch of dough while another baked. He could see her small, capable hands push and prod and mold. Patiently. Tirelessly. As he watched her, his rebellious mind filled with such gloriously lusty thoughts that he groaned.
Alanna whirled quickly, her hands still wrapped around the ball of dough. Her first thoughts shamed her, for when she saw him filling the doorway, dressed in rough trousers and a full open shirt, she wondered how she might lure him to kiss her hand again. Disgusted with herself, she slapped the dough down and hurried toward him. His face was dead white and he was beginning to teeter. From previous experience, she knew that if he hit the ground she'd have the very devil of a time getting him back into bed.
"There now, Mr. MacGregor, lean on me." Since the kitchen chair was closer, and he was of a considerable weight, she led him to that before she rounded on him. "Idiot," she said with relish more than real heat. "But most men are, I've found. You'd best not have opened your wound again, for I've just scrubbed this floor and wouldn't care to have blood on it."
"Aye, mistress." It was a weak rejoinder, but the best he could do when her scent was clouding his mind and her face was bent so close to his. He could have counted each one of her silky black eyelashes.
"You had only to call, you know," she said, mollified a bit when she noted his bandage was dry. As she might have for one of her brothers, Alanna began to fasten his shirt. Ian was forced to suppress another groan.
"I had to try my legs." His blood wasn't just stirring now but was racing hot. As a result, his voice had a roughened edge. "I can hardly get on my feet again by lying on my back."
"You'll get up when I say and not before." With this she moved away and began to mix something in a pewter cup. Ian caught the scent and winced.
"I'll not have any more of that slop."
"You'll drink it and be grateful—" she slapped the cup on the tabletop "—if you want anything else in your belly."
He glared at her in a way he knew had made grown men back away or run for cover. She simply placed her fisted hands on her hips and glared back. His eyes narrowed. So did hers.
"You're angry because I talked with young Brian last night."
Her chin lifted, just an inch, but it was enough to give her anger an elegant haughtiness. "And if you'd been resting instead of jabbering about the glory of war, you'd not be so weak and irritable this morning."
"I'm not irritable or weak."
When she snorted, he wished fervently that he had the strength to stand. Aye, then he'd have kissed her to swooning and shown her what a MacGregor was made of.
"If I'm irritable," he said between clenched teeth, "it's because I'm near to starving."
She smiled at him, pleased to hold the upper hand.
"You'll get your breakfast after you've drained that cup, and not a moment before." With a twitch of her skirts she returned to her bread making.
While her back was turned, Ian looked around for a handy place to dump the foul-tasting liquid. Finding
none, he folded his arms and scowled at her. Alanna's lips curved. She hadn't been raised in a house filled with men for naught. She knew exactly what was going through Ian's mind. He was stubborn, she thought as she pushed the heels of her hands into the dough. But so was she.
She began to hum.
He no longer thought about kissing her but gave grave consideration to throttling her. Here he sat, hungry as a bear, with the enticing smell of bread baking. And all she would give him was a cup of slop.
Still humming, Alanna put the bread into a bowl for rising and covered it with a clean cloth. Easily ignoring Ian, she checked the oven
and judged her loaves were done to a turn. When she set them on a rack to cool, their scent flooded the kitchen.
He had his pride, Ian thought. But what good was pride if a man expired of hunger? She'd pay for it, he promised himself as he lifted the cup and drained it.
Alanna made certain her back was to him when she grinned. Without a word, she heated a skillet. In short order she set a plate before him heaped with eggs and a thick slab of the fresh bread. To this she added a small crock of butter and a cup of steaming coffee.
While he ate, she busied herself, scrubbing out the skillet, washing the counters so that not a scrap of dough or flour remained. She was a woman who prized her mornings alone, who enjoyed her kitchen domain and the hundreds of chores it entailed. Yet she didn't resent his presence there, though she knew he watched her with his steady, seacolored eyes. Oddly, it seemed natural, even familiar somehow, that he sit at her table and sample her cooking.
No, she didn't resent his presence, but neither could she relax in it. The silence that stretched between them no longer seemed colored by temper on either side. But it was tinted with something else, something that made her nerves stretch and her heart thud uncomfortably against her ribs.
Needing to break it, she turned to him. He was indeed watching her, she noted. Not with temper but with… interest. It was a weak word for what she saw in his eyes, but a safe one. Alanna had a sudden need to feel safe.
"A gentleman would thank me for the meal."
His lips curved in such a way that let her know he was only a gentleman if and when he chose to be. "I do thank you, Mrs. Flynn, most sincerely. I wonder if I might beg another cup of coffee."
His words were proper enough, but she didn't quite trust the look in his eyes. She kept out of reach as she picked up his cup. "Tea would be better for you," she said almost to herself. "But we don't drink it in this house."
"In protest?"
"Aye. We won't have the cursed stuff until the king sees reason. Others make more foolish and dangerous protests."
He watched her lift the pot from the stove. "Such as?"
She moved her shoulders. "Johnny heard word that the Sons of Liberty arranged to destroy crates of tea
that were sitting in three ships in Boston Harbor. They disguised themselves as Indians and boarded the ships all but under the guns of three men-of-war. Before the night was done, they had tossed all of the East Indian Company's property into the water."
"And you think this foolish?"
"Daring, certainly," she said with another restless movement. "Even heroic, especially in Brian's eyes. But foolish because it will only cause the king to impose even harsher measures." She set the cup before him.
"So you believe it best to do nothing when injustice is handed out with a generous hand? Simply to sit like a trained dog and accept the boot?"
Murphy blood rose to her cheeks. "No king lives forever."
"Ah, so we wait until mad George cocks up his toes rather than stand now for what is right."
"We've seen enough war and heartache in this house."
"There will only be more, Alanna, until it's settled."
"Settled," she shot back as he calmly sipped his coffee. "Settled by sticking feathers in our hair and smashing crates of tea? Settled as it was for the wives and mothers of those who fell at Lexington? And for what? For graves and tears?"
"For liberty," he said. "For justice."
"Words." She shook her head. "Words don't die. Men do."
"Men must, of old age or at sword's point. Can you believe it better to bow under the English chains, over and over until our backs break? Or should we stand tall and fight for what is ours by right?"
She felt a frisson of fear as she watched his eyes glow. "You speak like a rebel, MacGregor."
"Like an American," he corrected. "Like a Son of Liberty."
"I should have guessed as much," she murmured. She snatched up his plate, set it aside, then, unable to stop herself, marched back to him. "Was the sinking of the tea worth your life?"