by Nora Roberts
Absently he touched a hand to his shoulder. "A miscalculation," he said, "and nothing that really pertains to our little tea party."
"Tea party." She looked up at the ceiling. "How like a man to make light of insurrection."
"And how like a woman to wring her hands at the thought of a fight."
Her gaze flew back down and locked with his. "I don't wring my hands," she said precisely. "And certainly wouldn't shed a tear over the likes of you."
His tone changed so swiftly she blinked. "Ah, but you'll miss me when I've gone."
"The devil," she muttered, and fought back a grin. "Now go back to bed."
"I doubt I'm strong enough to make it on my own."
She heaved a sigh but walked to him to offer him a shoulder. He took the shoulder, and the rest of her.
In one quick move she was in his lap. She cursed him with an expertise he was forced to admire.
"Hold now," he told her. "Differences in politics aside, you're a pretty package, Alanna, and I've discovered it's been too long since I've held a warm woman in my arms."
"Son of a toad," she managed, and struck out.
He winced as the pain shimmered down his wounded arm. "My father would take exception to that, sweetheart."
"I'm not your sweetheart, you posturing spawn of a weasel."
"Keep this up and you'll open my wound and have my blood all over your clean floor."
"Nothing would give me more pleasure."
Charmed, he grinned and caught her chin in his hand. "For one who talks so righteously about the evils of war, you're a bloodthirsty wench."
She cursed him until she ran out of breath. Her brother John had said nothing but the truth when he'd claimed that Ian was built like an oak. No matter how she squirmed—absolutely delighting him—she remained held fast.
"A pox on you," she managed. "And on your whole clan."
He'd intended to pay her back for making him drink the filthy medicine she'd mixed. He'd only pulled her into his lap to cause her discomfort. Then, as she'd wiggled, he'd thought it only right that he tease her a little and indulge himself. With just one kiss. One quick stolen kiss. After all, she was already fuming.
In fact, he was laughing as he covered her mouth with his. It was meant in fun, as much a joke on himself as on her. And he wanted to hear the new batch of curses she would heap on his head when he was done.
But his laughter died quickly. Her struggling body went stone still.
One quick, friendly kiss, he tried to remind himself, but his head was reeling. He found himself as dizzy and as weak as he'd been when he'd first set his watery legs on the floor.
This had nothing to do with a wound several days old. Yet there was a pain, a sweet ache that spread and shifted through the whole of him. He wondered, dazedly, if he had been spared not only to fight again but to be given the gift of this one perfect kiss.
She didn't fight him. In her woman's heart she knew she should. Yet in that same heart she understood that she could not. Her body, rigid with the first shock, softened, yielded, accepted.
Gentle and rough all at once, she thought. His lips were cool and smooth against hers while the stubble of his beard scraped against her skin. She heard her own sigh as her lips parted, then tasted his on her
tongue. She laid a hand on his cheek, adding sweetness. He dragged his through her hair, adding passion.
For one dazzling moment he deepened the kiss, taking her beyond what she knew and into what she had only dreamed. She tasted the richness of his mouth, felt the iron-hard breath of his chest. Then heard his sharp, quick curse as he dragged himself away.
He could only stare at her. It unnerved him that he could do little else. He had dislodged her cap so that her hair streamed like black rain over her shoulders. Her eyes were so dark, so big, so blue against the creamy flush of her skin that he was afraid he might drown in them.
This was a woman who could make him forget—about duty, about honor, about justice. This was a woman, he realized, who could make him crawl on his knees for one kind word.
He was a MacGregor. He could never forget. He could never crawl.
"I beg your pardon, mistress." His voice was stiffly polite and so cold she felt all the warmth leach out of her body. "That was inexcusable."
Carefully she got to her feet. With blurred vision she searched the floor for her cap. Finding it, she stood, straight as a spear, and looked over his shoulder.
"I would ask you again, MacGregor, to go back to your bed."
She didn't move a muscle until he was gone. Then she dashed away an annoying tear and went back to work. She would not think of it, she promised herself. She would not think of him.
She took out her frustrations on the newly risen dough.
Chapter Four
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Christmas had always given Alanna great joy. Preparing for it was a pleasure to her—the cooking, the baking, the sewing and cleaning. She had always made it a policy to forgive slights, both small and large, in the spirit of giving. She looked forward to putting on her best dress and riding into the village for Mass.
But as this Christmas approached, she was by turns depressed and irritated. Too often she caught herself being snappish with her brothers, impatient with her father. She became teary over a burnt cake, then stormed out of the house when Johnny tried to joke her out of it.
Sitting on a rock by the icy stream, she dropped her chin onto her hands and took herself to task.
It wasn't fair for her to take out her temper on her family. They'd done nothing to deserve it. She had chosen the easy way out by snapping at them, when the one she truly wanted to roast was Ian MacGregor. She kicked at the crusty snow.
Oh, he'd kept his distance in the past two days. The coward. He'd managed to gain his feet and slink out to the barn like the weasel he was. Her father was grateful for the help with the tack and animals, but Alanna knew the real reason MacGregor had taken himself off to clean stalls and repair harnesses.
He was afraid of her. Her lips pursed in a smug smile. Aye, he was afraid she would call down the wrath of hell on his head. As well she should. What kind of man was it who kissed a woman until she was blind and deaf to all but him—then politely excused himself as if he had inadvertently trod on her foot?
He'd had no right to kiss her—and less to ignore what had happened when he had.
Why, she had saved his life, she thought with a toss of her head. That was the truth of it. She had saved him, and he had repaid her by making her want him as no virtuous woman should want a man not her husband.
But want him she did, and in ways so different from the calm, comforting manner she had wanted Michael Flynn that she couldn't describe them.
It was madness, of course. He was a rebel, once and forever. Such men made history, and widows out of wives. All she wanted was a quiet life, with children of her own and a house to tend to. She wanted a man who would come and sleep beside her night after night through all the years. A man who would be content to sit by the fire at night and talk over with her the day that had passed.
Such a man was not Ian MacGregor. No, she had recognized in him the same burning she had seen in Rory's eyes. There were those who were born to be warriors, and nothing and no one could sway them.
There were those who were destined, before birth, to fight for causes and to die on the battlefield. So had been Rory, her eldest brother, and the one she had loved the best. And so was Ian MacGregor, a man she had known for days only and could never afford to love.
As she sat, brooding, a shadow fell over her. She tensed, turned, then managed to smile when she saw it was her young brother, Brian.
"It's safe enough," she told him when he hung back a bit. "I'm no longer in the mood to toss anyone in the stream."
"The cake wasn't bad once you cut away the burnt edges."
She narrowed her eyes to make him laugh. "Could be I'll take it in my mind to send you swimming after all."
&nbs
p; But Brian knew better. Once Alanna's hot temper was cooled, she rarely fired up again. "You'd only feel badly when I took to bed with a chill and you had to douse me with medicine and poultices. Look, I've brought you a present." He held out the holly wreath he'd hidden behind his back. "I thought you might put ribbons on it and hang it on the door for Christmas."
She took it and held it gently. It was awkwardly made, and that much more dear. Brian was better with his mind than with his hands. "Have I been such a shrew?"
"Aye." He plopped down into the snow at her feet. "But I know you can't stay in a black mood with Christmas almost here."
"No." She smiled at the wreath. "I suppose not."
"Alanna, do you think Ian will be staying with us for Christmas dinner?"
Her smile became a frown quickly. "I couldn't say. He seems to be mending quickly enough."
"Da says he's handy to have around, even if he isn't a farmer." Absently, Brian began to ball snow. "And he knows so much. Imagine, going to Harvard and reading all those books."
"Aye." Her agreement was wistful, for herself and for Brian. "If we've a good harvest the next few years, Brian, you'll go away to school. I swear it."
He said nothing. It was something he yearned for more than breath, and something he'd already accepted he would live without. "Having Ian here is almost as good. He knows things."
Alanna's mouth pursed. "Aye, I'm sure he does."
"He gave me the loan of a book he had in his saddlebag. It's Shakespeare's Henry V. It tells all about the young King Harry and wonderful battles."
Battles, she thought again. It seemed men thought of little else from the moment they were weaned.
Undaunted by her silence, Brian chattered on.
"It's even better to listen to him," Brian continued enthusiastically. "He told me about how his family fought in Scotland. His aunt married an Englishman, a Jacobite, and they fled to America after the rebellion was crushed. They have a plantation in Virginia and grow tobacco. He has another aunt and uncle who came to America too, though his father and mother still live in Scotland. In the Highlands. It seems a wondrous place, Alanna, with steep cliffs and deep lakes. And he was born in a house in the forest on the very day his father was fighting the English at Culloden."
She thought of a woman struggling through the pangs of labor and decided both male and female fought their own battles. The female for life, the male for death.
"After the battle," Brian went on, "the English butchered the survivors." He was looking out over the narrow, ice-packed stream and didn't notice how his sister's gaze flew to him. "The wounded, the surrendering, even people who were working in fields nearby. They hounded and chased the rebels, cutting them down where they found them. Some they closed up in a barn and burned alive."
"Sweet Jesus." She had never paid attention to talk of war, but this kept her riveted, and horrified.
"Ian's family lived in a cave while the English searched the hills for rebels. Ian's aunt—the one on the plantation—killed a redcoat herself. Shot him when he tried to murder her wounded husband."
Alanna swallowed deeply. "I believe Mr. MacGregor exaggerates."
Brian turned his deep, intense eyes on her. "No," he said simply. "Do you think it will come to that here, Alanna, when the rebellion begins?"
She squeezed the wreath hard enough for a sprig of holly to pierce through her mittens. "There will be no rebellion. In time the government will become more reasonable. And if Ian MacGregor says any different—
"It isn't only Ian. Even Johnny says so, and the men in the village. Ian says that the destruction of tea in Boston is only the beginning of a revolution that was inevitable the moment George III took the throne.
Ian says it's time to throw off the British shackles and count ourselves for what we are. Free men."
"Ian says." She rose, skirts swaying. "I think Ian says entirely too much. Take the wreath in the house for me, Brian. I'll hang it as soon as I'm done."
Brian watched his sister storm off. It seemed that there would be at least one more outburst before her black mood passed.
Ian enjoyed working in the barn. More, he enjoyed being able to work at all. His arm and shoulder were still stiff, but the pain had passed. And thanks to all the saints, Alanna hadn't forced any of her foul concoctions on him that day.
Alanna.
He didn't want to think about her. To ease his mind, he set aside the tack he was soaping and picked up a brush. He would groom his horse in preparation for the journey he had been putting off for two days.
He should be gone, Ian reminded himself. He was surely well mended enough to travel short distances.
Though it might be unwise to show his face in Boston for a time, he could travel by stages to Virginia and spend a few weeks with his aunt, uncle and cousins.
The letter he had given Brian to take to the village should be on its way by ship to Scotland and his family. They would know he was alive and well—and that he wouldn't be with them for Christmas.
He knew his mother would weep a little. Though she had other children, and grandchildren, she would be saddened that her firstborn was away when the family gathered for the Christmas feast.
He could see it in his mind—the blazing fires, the glowing candles. He could smell the rich smells of cooking, hear the laughter and singing. And with a pang that was so sudden it left him breathless, he hurt from the loss.
Yet, though he loved his family, he knew his place was here. A world away.
Aye, there was work to do here, he reminded himself as he stroked the mare's coat. There were men he had to contact once he knew it was safe. Samuel Adams, John Avery, Paul Revere. And he must have news of the climate in Boston and other cities now that the deed was done.
Yet he lingered when he should have been away. Daydreamed when he should have been plotting. He had, sensibly, he thought, kept his distance from Alanna. But in his mind she was never more than a thought away.
"There you are!"
And she was there, her breath puffing out in quick white streams, her hands on her hips. Her hood had fallen from her head and her hair swung loose, inky black against the plain gray fabric of her dress.
"Aye." Because his knuckles had whitened on the brush, he made an effort to relax his hand. "It's here I am."
"What business are you about, filling a young boy's head with nonsense? Would you have him heave a musket over his shoulder and challenge the first redcoat he comes to?"
"I gather you are speaking of Brian," he said when she stopped to take a breath. "But when I go a step
further than that, I lose my way."
"Would you had lost it before you ever came here." Agitated, she began to pace. Her eyes were so hot a blue he wondered they didn't fire the straw underfoot. "Trouble, and only trouble from the first minute I came across you, sprawled half-dead in the hay. If I'd only known then what I've come to know now, I might have ignored my Christian duty and let you bleed to death."
He smiled—he couldn't help it—and started to speak, but she plunged on.
"First you nearly pull me down in the hay with you, kissing me even though you'd a ball in you. Then, almost on the moment when you open your eyes, you're kissing my hand and telling me I'm beautiful."
"I ought to be flogged," he said with a grin. "Imagine, telling you that you're beautiful."
"Flogging's too kind for the likes of you," she snapped with a toss of her head. "Then two days ago, after I'd fixed you breakfast—which is more than a man like you deserves—"
"Indeed it is," he agreed.
"Keep quiet until I'm done. After I'd fixed you breakfast, you drag me down on your lap as though I were a—a common…"
"Do words fail you?"
"Doxy," she spit out and dared him to laugh. "And like the great oaf you are, you held me there against my will and kissed me."
"And was kissed right back, sweetheart." He patted his horse's neck. "And very well, too."
She huffed and
stammered. "How dare you?"
"That's difficult to answer unless you're more specific. If you're asking how I dared kiss you, I'll have to confess it was more a matter of not being able to stop myself. You've a mouth that's made for it, Alanna."
She felt herself go hot and began to pace again on unsteady legs. "Well, you got over it quickly enough."
His brow lifted. So she wasn't in a temper over the kiss but over the fact that he'd stopped. Looking at her now, in the dim light of the barn, he wondered how he'd managed to do so. And knew he wouldn't again.
"If it's my restraint that troubles you, sweetheart—"
"Don't call me that. Not now, not ever."
Gamely, he swallowed a chuckle. "As you wish, Mrs. Flynn. As I was saying—"
"I told you to be still until I've finished." She stopped to catch her breath. "Where was I?"
"We were talking about kissing." Eyes glowing, he took a step toward her. "Why don't I refresh your memory?"
"Don't come near me," she warned, and snatched up a pitchfork. "I was simply using that as a reference to the trouble you've caused. Now, on top of everything else, you've got Brian's eyes shining over the thought of a revolution. I won't have it, MacGregor. He's just a boy."
"If the lad asks questions, I'll give him true answers."
"And make them sound romantic and heroic in the bargain. I won't see him caught up in wars others make and lose him as I did my brother Rory."
"It won't be a war others make, Alanna." He circled her carefully, keeping away from the business end of the pitchfork. "When the time comes we'll all make it, and we'll win it."
"You can save your words."
"Good." Quick as a flash he grabbed the staff of the pitchfork, dodged the tines and hauled her against him. "I'm tired of talking."
When he kissed her this time, he was prepared for the jolt. It was no less devastating, no less exciting.
Her face was cold and he used his lips to warm it, running them over her skin until he felt them both begin to shudder. He dragged a hand through her hair until he cupped the back of her neck. His other arm banded her hard against him.
"For God's sake, kiss me back, Alanna." He murmured it against her mouth. His eyes were open and hot on hers. "I'll go mad if you don't, mad if you do."
"Damn you then." She threw her arms around him. "I will."
She all but took him to his knees. There was no hesitation, no demur. Her lips were as hungry as his, her tongue as adventurous. She let her body press to his and thrilled at the sensation of his heart hammering against her.
She would never forget the scent of hay and animals, the drifting motes of dust in the thin beams of sunlight that broke through the chinks in the logs. Nor would she forget the strong, solid feel of him against her, the heat of his mouth, the sound of his pleasure. She would remember this one moment of abandonment because she knew it could never last.
"Let me go," she whispered.
He nestled into the sweet, fragrant curve of her neck. "I doubt I can."
"You must. I didn't come here for this."
He trailed his mouth to her ear and smiled when she shivered. "Would you really have stabbed me, Alanna?"
"Aye."
Because he believed her, he smiled again. "Here's a likely wench," he murmured, and nipped at her ear.
"Stop it." But she let her head fall back in surrender. Lord help her, she wanted it to go on. And on, and on. "This isn't right."
He looked at her then, his smile gone. "I think it is. I don't know why or how, but I think it's very right."
Because she wanted so badly to lean against him, she stiffened. "It can't be. You have your war and I have my family. I won't give my heart to a warrior. And there's the end of it."
"Damn it, Alanna—"