Historical Hearts Romance Collection

by Sophia Wilson

  But he would never accept a woman like her. The one he wanted, and who wanted him as well, was nothing like these women his mother wanted to shackle him with at the altar. Annabel was strong-willed and a little wild. She loved her family enough to sacrifice for them, and to not regret that sacrifice. She knew Blane was a laird’s son and would inherit the title but she only cared for Blane the man.

  And how the man in him wanted her...

  On the moors, he had kept his passions in check although it had been difficult. Except for the night creatures and the bright moonlight, they had been completely alone.

  Their first kiss had been chaste, almost innocent, like the experiment of children. Then it had quickly become something else. A well-tended fire.

  Annabel had been warm and passionate in his arms, her mouth soft and eager to taste his. The first kiss had given way to a second, then a third, the desire growing steadily between them and leaving them panting into each other's mouths on top of that dizzyingly high tower of rocks. There had been no thoughts of falling off the stone, only gladness that she was as greedy for the kisses as he was.

  And then, she'd touched his chest with her warm hand, boldly stroking his skin, over the muscled plane of flesh, his nipples, his shoulders, up his neck and into the thick fall of his hair. Her touches had had the innocence of youthful exploration and curiosity, but Blane’s reaction to them had been anything innocent. God, he’d burned.

  In the bed, Blane groaned her name and rolled over to press his aching body into the sheets with hard and desperate movements.

  Annabel had been bold with him. But she was young, a woman sheltered before now, though eager for life. Despite the desire rampaging through his blood, Blane had pulled back, pressed his hands on top of hers against the rocks and begged her to have mercy on him.

  Annabel.

  God, Annabel.

  It was a very long time before he fell asleep.

  Chapter 5

  Blane knew he’d slept too late when he woke up to sunlight falling across his face.

  Damn it.

  He knuckled the still clinging sleep from his eyes and blinked up at the ceiling. It was very, very late. His father was probably already out for his usual morning ride but on his own instead of with Blane like they'd planned.

  Alastair was naturally an early riser, but getting up with the first cock crow was something Blane had had to teach himself. When he was younger, he'd stayed out until near sunrise with his mates, other noble friends his age he'd managed to make over the years. One by one, his friends had had to cut back their carousing and whoring, getting married and seeing to the lands they'd inherited from their fathers. Blane was the last one of them left.

  But he was far from ready to take over as Laird.

  Blane groaned as he rose from the bed. Thank God his father was nowhere near ready to give up the Lairdship, whether through illness or being tired of his duties. Blane had much to learn and had years yet until he was adequately prepared to assume such awesome responsibilities and power that came with being the Laird of Edinburgh.

  In the small room just off his chamber, he splashed cold water on his face and over his head to force himself more awake. Soon enough, he was dressed, his short sword on his hip, and his boots on. He rushed out the door in hopes of finding his father not too far away from the stables.

  Although he was still tired and part of him wanted very much to crawl back into bed and dream of Annabel, he was determined to do his duty. Being with his father on these early mornings wasn’t all obligation, however. He very much enjoyed these long rides and impromptu lessons with the Laird.

  Still buckling his sword belt, Blane thundered down the stairs and out into the courtyard, greeting servants and maids as he went. At the stables, though, he found that his father's horse was gone.

  "When did Laird Alastair leave?" he asked the stable boy, although he suspected it was at least an hour past, maybe even two.

  "Nearly two hours before now, my lord."

  Blane cursed. Although he didn't regret a moment of how he'd spent yesternight, if he'd been a responsible man like his father, he would've still been able to rise before the sun and tend to his duties. He had much to learn.

  "Saddle my horse, if you will. I will ride out to meet him."

  Once his gray stallion was ready, he leapt on the back of the giant beast and headed to the pasture his father was scheduled to ride today. He bounced in the saddle, riding at a steady and quick pace across the rolling green hills. He hoped Laird Alastair would understand and forgive his inattentiveness. His father never faulted him as much as he faulted himself for his small lapses, signs aplenty though, that Blane was not yet ready to assume the Lairdship.

  Up ahead, the entire of the moors were brilliant with fertile green. Although he'd never known any place else besides his family's extensive and breathtaking lands, Blane knew they were beyond compare. Enough men had come back from far off lands with gratitude in their faces to be back in Scotland and in the Highlands in particular.

  "Never leave this place," they sometimes told him. "The world beyond this is ugly and weak.” Blane had no intention of leaving this part of Scotland, at least not for good. His family was here, his home, and now Annabel.

  A smile shaped his lips as he thought of her. The woman who had stormed into his bedchamber and into his life, changing both for the better. A lifetime with her in this place would be paradise indeed, he thought.

  The sound of pounding hooves from afar drew his attention back to his ride and surroundings.

  He squinted. A few hundred yards away, a horse thundered toward him at breakneck speed. Alarmed, Blane stood up in the stirrups. The horse looked disturbingly familiar.

  Alastair.

  He steadied the reins in his hands and spurred his horse to meet the oncoming steed, approaching the horse at an angle so as not to startle it any further. The closer he rode to the horse, the more worried he became until his heart was galloping in his chest as madly as the horse was toward him. Close to the steed, the horse looked maddened, its eyes rolling in its head, reins loose and its rider slumped over in the saddle and barely hanging on.

  Coming closer, the horse stopped, and the truth he had been trying not to see leapt before his eyes.

  "Father!”

  He jumped from his own horse and approached the runaway steed with calming motions, clicking his tongue to get its attention interspersed with soft commands even though he longed to jump toward the horse and grab his father from the saddle to see what was wrong. But he didn't need to get kicked in the head while trying to help.

  Soon, the horse calmed enough for him to get closer and pull his father, who had lashed himself into the saddle somehow, off the horse and to the ground. Frantic with worry, he searched for a cut, an arrow, anything that would explain why his father was near death when he had been so vital and alive the night before.

  "My laird!" His father's face was pale, his body deathly still. "Father!" Desperately, Blane checked him again for wounds. But there was no blood, no bruising that told a story of an injury. Then his father stirred, groaning, a weak sound that kicked Blane in the chest.

  He needed to get him to the doctor immediately. He was no physic, and chances were that his amateur fumblings had only made things worse. He cursed himself.

  "Hold on!"

  Blane wrestled them both onto his horse, tied his father's steed to his own by the reins and raced toward the castle.

  "I need the doctor!" he roared as they galloped toward the rising gates of the castle. The lookout on the highest turrets had seen him. Through the haze of panic and fear, he noticed the glint of the lookout's spy glass and before he'd even begun to cross the moat, the gates had begun to rise to let him in.

  Within the castle gates, he jumped from his horse just as the castle physician who his father insisted live at the castle, came running out with his medical bag.

  The doctor’s thin, gray hair fluttered wildly around his head.
"What happened?"

  "I dinnae ken," Blane gasped, his chest rise and falling swiftly. "I went out to find him and saw his horse flying toward me. He was just like this. I saw no wounds, no blood."

  Before he finished talking, the doctor was already on his knees beside Alastair, bag open and fingers flying to rip off his shirt. A crowd was beginning to gather. There were shocked gasps and sharp feminine cries that registered in Blane's consciousness, but he barely paid them any attention.

  "You are right. I see no obvious cause for him to be like this," the doctor said. "But we must get him inside for a more thorough look." Just as he finished speaking, his assistant and another slim young man ran into the courtyard with a bed chair between them.

  "Take the laird to the main sick room." The doctor urgently gestured toward the young men. "Carefully."

  As if she were waiting for that very signal, a young woman rushed forward carrying a smaller version of the doctor's bag in her hands. "It may be poison, mayhap from a cut or dart." She stood back while they bundled Alastair into the bed chair.

  "Aye, let us see." The doctor squeezed the young woman's hand.

  The young men bundled Alastair into the bed chair and whisked him away into the castle and toward the doctor's sick room he kept on the lower floor of the castle not far from the chapel. As they took him away, a flurry of bright skirts burst into the main hall, delicate feminine hands flying up to stop the men with the bed chair. Blane grabbed his mother's shoulders and drew her back from the men to allow them to do their urgent work. She wailed and tried to twist away from him.

  "Mother!" he snapped at her. "Calm yourself!"

  "Alastair!" she cried out, still twisting within Blane's arms to get to her husband. "What happened? Tell me!"

  "We dinnae ken," Blane said, willing his breath back under control. "I was supposed to meet him for our usual ride this morning, but..." Shame swamped him. "But I was asleep too long and went out late to meet him. When I found him, he was tied to his maddened horse." Blane clenched his teeth, again damning himself for his carelessness.

  "What?" His mother's face paled even more. "I didn't...I..." She wailed and pressed her hands to her face. In a frenzy, she clawed at her own cheeks. "Merciful Lord, help me. No! No! Not this. Not Alastair! No!"

  She was getting more and more frenzied, scratching and clawing at herself in a way that Blane didn’t understand. But he didn’t have time to calm her. His body felt freezing cold even while his heart raced wild and afraid in his chest.

  Numb, he signaled to his mother’s maid who had suddenly appeared, the older woman who’d been with Davina since Blane was a child wrung her hands and looked nearly as distraught, her faded blue eyes darting with panic and fear.

  “Take care of her,” he said, grasping his mother’s shoulders and tenderly pushing her toward the maid. Then he turned to quickly follow the doctor and his father’s limp form.

  In the sick room, everything was organized chaos. After Alastair had been stripped naked, the doctor moved around the bed, looking at him this way and that while the young woman, his other assistant who usually dealt with matters of childbirth and women's ailments, rattled bottles and potions from a nearby corner. She was obviously looking for something. No one seemed to care that she was in the room with a sick and very naked man. Blane dismissed that concern almost immediately.

  His father lay breathing, if only very faintly and with his eyes closed, while the doctor fussed and prodded and poked. His normally relaxed hands were clenched into tight claws, frozen as if he’d tried to fight an enemy, held on to them and his spirit had left his body before he realized his prey had escaped. It all made Blane uneasy. Worried.

  Usually at a moment like this, his father would be growling and shoving away at the doctor and the assistants, telling them he was fine and just wanted to get back to what he'd been doing before. And he'd always been able to simply get back on the horse or throw himself back into the fight, whatever it was that had landed him in the physic's sick bed in the first place.

  But not now.

  "There has to be something..." The doctor muttered to himself while another assistant took a wet cloth, water dripping from it and smelling of mint, and wiped every inch of Alastair's body. Or at least every inch the doctor wasn't hovering over.

  "Was this wound there before?" The doctor pointed at a long and still bleeding gash on his father's arm.

  Blane's mind flashed to the hour before. "From a rock when I pulled him from his horse."

  The doctor nodded and went back to inspecting the Laird. He asked the same questions many times, pointing to new wounds in obvious places while the girl looked on, her eyes narrowed in concentration when he pointed.

  "What did these wounds matter?!" Blane shouted, finally giving voice to the panic inside him. "Mayhap it was his heart." He pounded a fist over his own chest.

  The woman gave him a scornful look and went back to rattling her glass bottles. Blane snarled. He wanted to leave this place and escape to someplace where he could howl at the unfairness of it all. Just a few hours ago, he had everything. And now, he was in danger of losing a big part of his life. He stomped toward the door.

  "What about this one, my lord?" the doctor pointed to a prick on his father's bare buttocks.

  "Enough! This is undignified with this woman here. My father would not stand for this." Blane knew he was being irrational, but what else could he do now when it seemed he would lose his father?

  The doctor ignored his tantrum and asked Blane the question again. Blane squinted at the small wound the doctor had found, said he'd never seen it before since he wasn't in the habit of looking at his father's naked backside, and turned away from the bed.

  There had to be something he could do. Something.

  He practically ran from the room and the sick smell of medicines and mint, and his father's worryingly limp body. Out in the hallway, the sound of wailing reached him. His mother. In all that time, she kept screaming. Blane heard his father's name. Heard her crying out for mercy, for strength.

  He could not face her. He felt too weak, and his own knees trembled with the need to fall down and pray for some strength of his own.

  Out in the courtyard, someone had already taken away his father's ripped and discarded shirt. They’d also taken away Blane's horse that he had abandoned to see to his father, had taken away his father's horse as well. In a daze, he wandered to the stables.

  What happened out there to his father?

  And would it have happened if Blane had been out there like he'd planned?

  He growled his frustration.

  "My lord." A soft voice whispered behind him.

  Annabel stood in the doorway of the stables, recalling him back to his surroundings. The stables. The smell of hay and horse manure, the sound of horses whinnying and snorting at each other, the scraping of the rake through the hay as a stable boy tended to a horse nearby.

  "Blane..." Annabel stepped closer, and he noticed then that she was slightly breathless.

  The sleeves of her faded dress were wet, her apron damp and tendrils of her hair loose around her flushed face. It looked like she had just run from somewhere.

  "Can I do anything for you?" She twisted her hands together, watching him with worry in her eyes.

  Blane opened his mouth to tell her no, that there was nothing she could do, and he was strong enough to handle anything the morning threw at him. But even across the distance that separated them, Annabel smelled good, like comfort. He opened his arms to her.

  She stepped into them with a soft sound, and although she was much smaller than he was, it was she who offered comfort to him. Slowly, they backed deeper into the stables and sank together into the fragrant hay. Blane dropped his head onto her bosom and she held him tight, threading her fingers through his hair.

  "I'm not ready to lose him." Her fragrant bosom muffled his words and made it a little harder to breathe, but he didn’t want to move. "He's too young to die."

/>   Annabel hummed pieces of her song for him while she stroked his hair.

  "Whatever happens, Blane, it will be all right. You will be all right."

  Blane knew nothing would be all right again. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he lay in her arms and allowed himself to be weak, just for a moment. Then another moment more.

  Chapter 6

  Blane didn't know how long he stayed in Annabel's arms, but when he finally roused himself, he felt calmer. He and Annabel were lying in one of the empty stalls together, cuddled on top of a bed of clean-smelling hay. His head rested on her chest, her hand still moved in even and soothing movements through his hair.

  She breathed softly above him, her chest rising and falling gently beneath his cheek. He propped himself, arms braced in the hay, to look into her tender face. Worry poured over him from those dreamy eyes of hers.

  "Thank you," he said.

  He touched her soft cheek. It was wet with tears, for him. He swallowed the throb of sadness in his throat and gently kissed her forehead. "You didn't need to do this."

  "What, care for my man?"

  My man. He swallowed again, for an entirely different reason. "You are so much more than I deserve," he said softly.

  "And you are everything I do," she said, her eyes glowing with tenderness and gentle teasing.

  He huffed a breath of laughter, and then stood up, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet. "There is work I must do," he said.

  "I know." She stretched to her toe tips and kissed him briefly on the mouth. “Just remember, whatever you need that I can give, you have it."

  Her palms pressed into his chest, and he felt the warmth of her seep all through him. This time, it was Blane who reached to her for a kiss. It was one of need and desperation, with an unexpected bite of passion. Annabel gave herself over to it with a soft moan and dug her fingers into his chest, sending bursts of sensation deep into his belly and below. Her mouth was sweet healing itself. Soft and as fresh as the water from the waterfall he hadn't been to since he was a child. They pulled back from each other at the same time.