Laurien gazed into the distance, where mountains stood out in pale contrast against the dark foothills of the Highlands. “Someday, mayhap. For now, I would prefer to let it remain in the past, Henri.” She wrapped up her books and Sister Emeline’s letter in the white fabric, tying it securely with the ribbons. “For now, what I want most is to go home. As soon as we can.”
Henri nodded. “We should ride on. It is a long way to the coast.” Rising, he helped her to her feet.
They walked over to the dappled stallion and secured her gift in Henri’s pack. Then they mounted the horse and continued on, riding southwest.
When night fell, they camped in a small clearing, sleeping side by side, not daring to light a fire for fear of providing a signal to those who were searching for them.
Long after her brother fell into an exhausted sleep, Laurien lay awake, her thoughts not of home… but of a blond swordsman with luminous blue eyes, who was now so very far away.
~ ~ ~
Laurien awoke with a start, some instinct sending a tingle of warning down the back of her neck. Moonlight had transformed the dark clearing into a pool of speckled shadows that shifted and danced.
Moving only her eyes, she glanced all around. She felt certain that she and Henri were no longer alone, yet she could hear no footfall, see no movement.
She raised herself to her elbows, slowly, and was about to awaken Henri when a gloved hand clamped over her mouth.
“What a charming scene,” a deep voice whispered in her ear. “I regret that I must interrupt.”
With a jolt of surprise followed by a quick rush of anger, Laurien recognized Darach’s voice. She struggled as he lifted her to her feet. His other arm quickly encircled her, holding her against him.
But Henri was already awake. “Laurien?” Reaching for his weapon, he jumped to his feet, brandishing the sword at Darach. “Release her!”
“You should choose your champions with greater care, milady,” Darach said coolly. “Not only does this boy take the most obvious road to the coast, he is a fool as well, if he thinks to best me in a sword fight.”
“Cease this, both of you!” Laurien cried, trying to break free of Darach’s hold. “Henri is—”
“You are not taking her anywhere!” Henri dropped into a fighting crouch.
Darach suddenly thrust Laurien behind him and drew his own sword.
Their male minds were intent on combat and neither of them was listening to her.
“Henri is my brother!” Laurien grabbed Darach’s sword arm to hold him back.
Darach turned to her with a look of astonishment just as Henri lunged. Laurien saw her brother coming and leaped forward, holding up her hands. “Henri, nay! Do not hurt him!”
Henri pulled up a hair’s breadth from wounding her, his face a mask of surprise at her action. The three of them stood in stunned silence an instant—then Darach took the advantage. Turning without warning, he hit Henri, landing a blow to the chin that knocked the younger man to the ground.
Before Laurien had a chance to react, she found herself scooped up and tossed over Darach’s shoulder.
“Put me down!” She pounded on his back as he carried her toward the road. “You have hurt him. We cannot just leave him!”
Darach did not slow his steps. “If I were you, milady, I would be more concerned about my own fate,” he growled.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, trying to wriggle out of his grasp.
“Home,” he said cryptically.
When they reached the edge of the road, he led his horse from the shadows and mounted, seating Laurien in front of him while she used all manner of unladylike words to describe him. He kicked the stallion into a gallop—not back up the road, Laurien noted with surprise, but into the forest on the other side.
“Where are we going?” she cried as they raced through the trees. When he did not answer, she grabbed one of the reins and pulled hard, intending to slow the horse.
Instead, the stallion reared, its wild neighing shattering the night.
Darach fought to control the panicked animal but lost his hold on Laurien. She twisted free, tumbling from the horse’s back, and barely missed being struck by one of its hooves. She landed hard with a yelp of pain, the breath knocked from her.
“Laurien!” Darach managed to control the horse and leaped to her side. He pulled her to her feet, anger and concern in his voice. “That was foolish beyond all meaning of the word!”
Laurien tried to fight him off as he checked her for injuries. “I despise you!”
“You despise me? Truly?” He pulled her into his arms after confirming that she was unhurt. “Then why did you not allow your brother to run me through?”
“I wish I had! Then I would be rid of you at last!” Though she could scarcely see him in the darkness, Laurien glared at him, fighting the familiar urge to melt in his embrace. “You have taken me hostage, lied to me, lain with me when all along you were married—”
“I came to your chamber this morn to explain. I should have told you last night—”
“I will not listen to your excuses!” She tried to push him away, desperate to escape his arms before her emotions overwhelmed her reason, as they had too many times before.
“By nails and blood, woman, you wanted the truth, and you shall have it. All of it,” he said gruffly. “You are going to listen to me, Laurien, and you are going to listen right now.”
Shifting his hold to her hand, he went to sit beneath one of the towering trees that surrounded them, pulling her down to sit beside him.
“What I am about to tell you,” he said, holding fast to her hand, “was not a problem to me before—until I met you. But it is now. Do you understand what I am saying? I do not have an answer to it, but I wish I did… because it matters now.”
Laurien kept her gaze on the grass and her back turned to him, not caring that it stretched her arm into an awkward position.
Darach sighed heavily. “Have you never done aught you regret? Aught you are ashamed of?” When she did not reply, he continued. “I have. And it is not a thing I have spoken of to many. But I will not allow secrets to divide us any longer. If you are going to despise me, at least despise me for the truth.”
Laurien looked up at the night sky, at the stars and a sliver of moonlight that glimmered through the canopy of leaves over their heads.
“It all began on a night ten years ago. Sibylla—” He said the name as if it were a curse. “—had been my wife for only a year then. I was gone most of that time, trying to win my knighthood. During the summer tournaments at Edinburgh, acting like the young fool that I was, I challenged a man twice my age and twice my size. He not only unhorsed me, he nearly killed me. That entire summer, I lay fighting for my life, but she never once came to me.”
His voice became harsh.
“’Twas only after I won my spurs and returned home that I discovered she had been bedding my older brother Eamon the entire time.”
Laurien gasped, turning toward him despite herself. “Your own brother?”
“By then, she was carrying Eamon’s child,” Darach confirmed, his words choked with bitterness. “I nearly killed him when he confirmed that the babe was his. And then I only wanted to get away. From him, from both of them. From all of it. When I went to tell Sibylla that I was leaving, she was already gone… but she had left the baby behind. I claimed him as my own because without me, he would have had no one. I named him after my grandfather, Aidan.”
Laurien’s shock began to give way to understanding, something inside her aching with hurt at what Darach had suffered.
Was it any wonder that he had kept such painful secrets unspoken? Or that he viewed the world with such wariness, and gentle emotions with distrust?
He paused, and Laurien could hear his breathing, shallow and uneven in the stillness of the night. “In truth, Aidan is my nephew. But everyone believes him to be my son, and over the years, in… my heart, that is how I have come to th
ink of him.” He cleared his throat, and it was a moment before he could continue. “He is all that is left of the Glenshiel family. Eamon is gone, and my parents, and my younger brother, Galen.”
Laurien felt tears welling in her eyes, hearing the sorrow in his voice, the loneliness. It was like watching Darach shed his armor of cool control, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of it.
“And Aidan is all the family I will ever have,” he said flatly. “I have never been able to find any trace of Sibylla—and unless I can prove that she no longer lives, the Church considers me married.” He released Laurien’s hand. “So that is the truth, milady. I have a wife, but I do not have a wife. I have never had a son, yet I have a son.”
Laurien turned to face him, and the last of her anger left her, like fog burned away by the rising sun. Before her, she saw not a heartless warrior who had carelessly deserted his family, not a liar who had coldly used her.
She saw a man who wanted naught so much as the two things fate had denied him: love and family.
“It was Galen who summoned me home,” he said roughly, “after our father died two years ago. He wrote to inform me that I was now lord of Glenshiel, and asked me to return to Scotland and join the fight against the English. This was in the letter.” He pulled out the little wooden knight concealed in his left boot. “Aidan made it for me. I suppose Galen thought it might… remind me that I once was capable of caring about people other than myself.”
“And now you carry it as a reminder… of both of them,” Laurien said softly.
A muscle flexed in his jaw.
She reached out to touch his cheek. “And you are capable of caring. Darach, if you were not, you would not be here. You would be in some distant land, spending whatever coin you earned as a mercenary, drowning your sorrows in drink and violence.”
“Which I did for many years,” he pointed out, tucking the little knight back into his boot.
“But whoever you were then,” she said quietly, “that is not who you are anymore. When Galen wrote to ask for your help, you came home to help. You stood up to protect your family, your people… everyone who needs you. That is what a noble champion does. He stands up. And risks his life to save the people who need him.”
He finally lifted his gaze to hers. “I never meant to mislead you, Laurien. At first, I did not tell you any of this because… you were not supposed to mean anything to me. And later…” His voice became rough with emotion. “Later, I did not tell you because you mean so much to me.”
Laurien felt a tear spill down her cheek.
He reached out to smooth her hair back from her face, his thumb brushing the drop of moisture away. “When I found you missing,” he said in that strained voice, “I realized how much… it would hurt if I lost you.”
He cupped her face in both hands, drew her close, and kissed her deeply.
~ ~ ~
At the first touch of his mouth, her lips parted beneath his. Darach had thought he remembered how sweet her kiss could be, but she surpassed even his most vivid memories. His tongue claimed her velvety heat, and his body tensed with desire.
He broke the kiss quickly. He could not make love to her—not now, not ever again. ’Twas not right. He had already hurt her too much. He was not going to treat her as if she meant no more to him than a pleasant tumble.
For he knew, with a certainty that was growing stronger every moment, that she meant far more than that. He could not bear to let her go.
But he must.
Standing, he helped her to her feet, then released her, afraid that if he did not gain a bit of distance, he would take her right here on the forest floor. “’Tis late,” he said gently, “and we need to find shelter. We have a long journey on the morrow.”
“And we have to go back for Henri,” Laurien said.
Darach led his horse over. “Your brother is not hurt. He will have a sore jaw and a bad temper for a few days, no more. Like as not, he will be downing ales in an inn before we are halfway to our destination.”
“Not Henri,” she said confidently. “He came all the way from France, alone, to rescue me. He will come after us.”
“I am not easily followed.”
“Henri is very persistent.”
“Let him come.” Darach frowned.
“Darach, you would not hurt him—”
“I wish him no harm.” He mounted his horse. “But no man will take you from me again. Not even your brother.” He reached down a hand to her.
Sighing, she put her hand in his and let him lift her onto his lap. “Then we are not going back for Henri?”
“Nay, we are not going back for Henri,” he said flatly.
Darach nudged his horse into a swift pace, trying to ignore the very pleasant sensation of having Laurien tucked securely against him as they resumed their journey through the forest.
“What did you mean, when you said you were taking me home?” she asked quietly. “Did you mean to France?”
“I am taking you to my home, Castle Glenshiel.”
“Your home—”
“I will not be turning you over to de Villiers.” He tightened his arm around her. “Malcolm and I have devised a plan to secure the alliance while also ensuring your safety.”
“But… but how is that possible?”
“By giving him what he wanted before we abducted you: ten thousand silver marks. We mean to buy your freedom.”
She blinked at him in astonishment. “Darach, how?”
“By selling our lands to a wealthy lord whose holdings border ours.”
She shook her head. “Nay, I could never allow you to make such a sacrifice—”
“And I could never live with myself if I turned you over to de Villiers to be abused. The thought of that animal getting anywhere near you…” His arm flexed around her. “I will not let that happen, Laurien. I need to protect my people… but I also need to protect you.”
“Darach,” she whispered, her voice full of emotion. She buried her face against his neck.
“And when the alliance is signed and my mission is complete… I will escort you back to France, to your convent. As you have always wanted. You can return to your studies and your work, and become part of the sisterhood at Tours.” His voice became hoarse. “And I will always think of you there, in the gardens and the sunlight, Camhanach.”
She did not try to question him, or argue with him, but he felt her tears, warm against his skin.
~ ~ ~
A long time later, they came to a group of rustic cottages scattered about a clearing. At Darach’s summons, an elderly man trudged out of one of them, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Darach exchanged a few words with him in Gaelic, then tossed him a generous sack of coins.
Riding to a shack that served as a stable, Darach stopped and gently lowered Laurien to the ground. While he stabled the horse, she gazed up at the starlit sky, waiting for him to return.
When he came back, he tilted up her chin with his fingertips. “Promise me that you will do as I ask, Laurien—that you will not try to interfere with my plan.”
She would do as he asked. For love, she could at least do that.
“Aye,” she agreed softly, thinking it the hardest promise she had ever made. “I promise I will not interfere with your plan.”
Darach lowered his head to hers and kissed her, the briefest sharing of breath to seal her vow.
But even that brief joining sent passion and need searing through her.
He led her around to the back of the stable, where a ladder led to the hayloft above. Then he stepped away, nodding in the direction of the loft. “You should sleep. I will stay out here.”
Laurien realized he was trying to do what was noble and honorable, and it only made her love him more.
But in that moment, she knew what she wanted, more clearly than she had ever known in her life.
She wanted to be his, in every way. They could not have forever, or even tomorrow.
But they could
have tonight.
She touched his shoulder and felt a tremor shudder through him. “Darach—”
“Laurien,” he rasped, his voice deep with longing, his body tense. “God’s breath, I want you, but I cannot make you mine. I can offer you no vows, no future. I do not want to hurt you—”
“The only thing that can hurt me now is the thought of never knowing this feeling again. To never be able to touch you this way again.” Her other hand came up to stroke his shoulder. “If we cannot have forever, let us have tonight. Let us share a memory so that I may hold you forever in my heart.” She lifted her mouth to his. “Make love to me, Darach, please, take me, now.”
He captured her in a fierce embrace and they were in the loft before she knew whether she had climbed the ladder or he had carried her. With a groan that came from deep in his throat, he fell with her into the hay. She could see little by the scattering of moonlight that pierced the darkness. The loft smelled surprisingly sweet, filled with the scents of fresh hay and bunches of herbs that hung drying from the rafters just above their heads. Darach kissed her with an urgency that set her senses afire.
Laurien felt a shiver, part apprehension, part excitement, when Darach stretched out beside her and raised her hands above her head. His eyes never leaving hers, he unfastened her cloak with his free hand.
She trembled when he feathered kisses down her bare neck.
“Tell me you want me,” he said huskily, nipping the delicate skin of her throat.
Laurien knew a flare of heat at his bold demand and ungentle kisses. “I do”
He tugged at her bodice with his teeth, pulling it lower to expose more of her skin to his kisses. “Nay, not as a shy maiden,” His voice was suddenly fierce, and he lifted his head to gaze at her intently. “Say it, my fiery demoiselle.”
The desire in his eyes warmed her even more than his touch. And when she answered it was with a passion equal to his own. “I want you.”
Keeping her pinned, he swiftly shed his own garments. Then he pulled her bodice lower, freeing her breasts. She gasped at the touch of the cold air upon her skin, quickly replaced by the warmth of his hand closing over one soft mound. He nuzzled her neck, whispering in her ear.
His Stolen Bride (Stolen Brides Series Book 0) Page 26