Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses

by Ceci Giltenan et al.

  Only when she could see his eyes, the color of a frosty blue moon, did she halt. "Is there nothing you won’t stoop to? Is your thirst for revenge so great that you must harm innocent people? My mother and Brother Archibald had nothing—"

  “Brother Archibald?”

  “Ye—you heard me! How many must suffer at your bloody hands?"

  "If you wish to protest, appear in the Justice Hall on the morrow."

  "My mother can’t wait until the morrow. She is ill! Can’t you see, you simpleton!”

  The sharp intake of breaths warned her she had overstepped her boundaries. Still, she would not back down. She would not show weakness. "For all your education," she said, enunciating each word distinctly, “you are little more than an ignorant heathen. You represent well the idea that Highlanders are barbarians!"

  Veins stood out in his temples like pulley chains on the portcullis. Both apprehension and anticipation strained the silence of the room. "Jamie. Take her to the donjon.”

  Jamie stepped forward. Regret mingled with reproof in his countenance. She jerked her arm from his clasp. "I won’t go without seeing my mother is tended to.”

  "Milady," Jamie murmured, "do as—”

  “Jamie.” The single word rent the air. Ranald merely raised one brow, but the glowering gaze was not misspent. Like a steel-tipped arrow, it pierced her. "Mistress Enya has obviously lost all reasoning and caution. I do not wish her running amok in the dark of night. She might hurt herself. See that she is clapped in chains.”

  She would have flown at him, screeching, and scratched his eyes from their sockets had not Jamie’s grip manacled her. “Ye forget your Bond of Maintenance!" she cried out over her shoulder.

  Jamie dragged her with him. "Hush, milady. Dinna you see that you are only making things worse? Ranald is in a foul mood."

  “Willna make a difference. If you kicked the man in his heart, you’d break a toe."

  “He lost Nob today."

  “What? The princely troll?” She almost tripped over the first step of the stairwell. It twisted downward into a dark hell. A cold hell.

  “Aye." Jamie’s handsome face wore a haunted expression. "Took an arrow through the back.”

  The rickety staircase spiraling down to the buttery was lit only by intermittent sconces whose candles sputtered. "One of the other hunters?"

  He shook his head. “None of the arrows in their quivers matched the one that killed Nob. Nob was riding with Ranald at the time. He thinks the arrows may have been meant for him."

  Cobwebs brushed her face. “He canna believe my mother or Brother Archibald had anything to do with it! My mother doesn’t have the strength to bend a bow, and Brother Archibald’s never hefted one in his life."

  Jamie’s expression was skeptical; however, he said, "Your mother and the priest—if that is what he is—have been in the confidence of Simon Murdock."

  Hope quickened in her. "He’s nearby?"

  "Not near enough. Another few days and even Hannibal and his elephants willna make it up that pass."

  He led her past a twisted heap of barrel staves and cooper’s bands, past the buttery, and let her into a room littered with trunks, cast-off furniture, water casks, dilapidated saddles, and rusting firearms. The room smelled dank.

  "Here we are. Watch your step. Sorry to have to do this, my lady."

  Nineteen steps she counted until the doorway at the bottom was reached. Then before she could react, he clamped handcuffs on her. Her anger, dissipated by the story of Nob, was resurrected instantly. "Ye canna do this, Jamie. I am not a slave! I am not a dog or bear to be chained!”

  He looped the cuff’s chain through a link waist-high on a wall that had not seen a scouring brush since the glaciers scoured the glens. "You are lucky to be getting off with confinement, Enya. Ranald could have made it much worse for you.”

  She shivered so badly her chain rattled. "How am I to undress? To feed myself?"

  “If ye remember, I’ve fed ye before," Ranald said from the doorway. “I imagine I can do so again."

  Her head snapped around. “I spit on you and your Highlanders!"

  “Now who is the barbarian? Jamie, arrange for Nob’s burial.”

  Jamie eyed him inquiringly as he brushed past the larger man on his way out.

  Ranald strode in and, stepping over a rust-eaten washtub, seated himself on an upside- down churning bucket. She half expected his weight to splinter it. He stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. "Your mother is indeed ill."

  “If she dies here beneath your hands, I swear I'll see you join her and Nob if it’s—’’

  Anger wrought in him a choking laugh. "Do not threaten me."

  She stared at him stonily.

  "Your mother is being treated by that old hag of yours, Elspeth. With any luck, she should improve.”

  Still, she said nothing.

  "I canna give you what you want from me!” he said suddenly.

  Her teeth ground. "I want nothing from you.”

  His sloping brows climbed. “Not even your freedom, Enya?"

  Something in her prodded her to taunt him. She wanted to make him feel her pain. "You poor deluded savage. The times have changed, and you have been left behind. The days of the laird and his clan are past.”

  His frustration erupted. "Damn it to bloody hell, woman! Do you want me to admit that I am mean and heartless and relentless? Aye, all those things I am. And more. But I canna save my people by being any other way.”

  He braced his forearms on his knees and leaned forward. "Don’t ye think I tried? We peacefully surrendered. We gave up our language and our customs, our weapons and our words.

  “Docilely as cows, we let them lead our lairds to the slaughterhouse, until we realized it wasn’t just our leaders they meant to exterminate. It was a whole way of life. They meant to vanquish a people who would not bow their head. The Romans annihilated the Celts here seventeen hundred years ago. I do not mean to let the English do it to the Scots."

  Her dimpled chin came up. "I am a Scot."

  His lips curled in a sneer. "Not anymore. You have been diluted by English ways."

  "Dinna you see," she asked softly, "you have become the very thing you hate?”

  The brackets at either side of his mouth deepened. "I canna let them go. Your mother and Archibald.”

  “Not ever?"

  "Not until I have buried Simon Murdock.”

  She couldn’t keep the pity from her voice. “There will always be another Simon Murdock. This isn’t the way, Ranald."

  Her tone caught his attention. His gaze was unyielding. “You swore to make me love you. I swear to make you hate me.”

  She didn’t believe him. Wouldn’t let herself. “Shall we see who wins?”

  He peered at her through narrowed lids. "What happens if we both succeed?”

  She cast him a sorrowful look. " Twill be tragic for you.”

  He stood, shoving back the bucket with a booted heel. “I don’t give up. I won’t lose as long as I draw a breath. Come along and amuse me."

  She watched him release the chain from the link. "What do you mean?"

  He tugged her along after him. "I am tired. You are safe enough. I told you, Enya. I find redheads unattractive."

  "So you profess.”

  He took the donjon steps two at a time, his spurs clinking against rickety wooden steps. She had to hurry to keep pace with him. "Aye,” he said, "thy skin is bloodless. Too pale and freckled. Not for me the calm, cold kiss of a virgin. Give me the wild, sweet and warm love of a brunette.”

  His words both wounded her pride and fired her indignation. She would have tackled his muddy boot had she the use of her hands. "Ranald Kincairn, you do not know how to love.”

  “Oh?" he asked over his shoulder. "And, pray tell, ye do?”

  At the landing, she caught up with him. The single sconce pooled them in an intimate light. "You are afraid of me, you are!"

  "I, afraid of a Lowland tr
aitoress, who in the bargain, I might remind you, is my captive and in chains? You jest, mistress!”

  "Then kiss me."

  The grooves at either side of his mouth quivered. "Who would have thought? A captive begging to be taken?”

  She could have gnashed her teeth. "I only said kiss me."

  He rolled his eyes, then lowered his head, as if humoring her. Suddenly she was afraid. How, with one kiss, could she bestir him to look at her in a different light?

  She closed her eyes and puckered.

  He laughed.

  Her eyes snapped open. "You mock me!”

  “Nae.” He stood, gazing down at her, his dark eyes musing. "Should I teach ye the rudiments of lovemaking, do ye still think ye could turn the tables on me and make me love ye?”

  She searched his face for a ruse. She saw only intent. Intent on making her suffer. “I will yet do it."

  “Me laird,” he prompted.

  "Ranald." She smiled.

  He jerked on the handcuff’s chain. “Come along. This has been postponed long enough."

  She yanked on her end. "A moment. My mother?”

  He emitted an exasperated grunt. "What about her?”

  "She must recover her health first."

  He cocked his head and gave her a quizzical stare. "Do ye understand that you are my captive?”

  "Of course!"

  "Do ye understand all that that implies?”

  "Do ye understand that I will yet make you love me?” She stood on tiptoe and kissed that hard mouth.

  He did not respond, only waited for her to withdraw her lips.

  Her ego bruised, she moved back a step, as far as the chain would allow. She stared at him with an unnamed fear. Had she, indeed, been trapped in a dungeon, a sun-flooded dungeon of love? “‘Tis your blood that runs cold.”

  "Then heat it. Tonight. I tire of empty promises.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Enya dropped the cap and snood atop Ranald’s desk. Her hair pins she scattered across the open Bible with its marked verse: Praise the Lord from the earth, sea monsters and all deep.

  She furrowed her fingers through her hair, and its fiery waves plunged over her fair shoulders to swish against the small of her back. If submit she must, then let it be on her own terms.

  Ranald’s eyes darkened. Lust, disgust—or delight in the opportunity to degrade her— might have been the emotion playing across his chiseled countenance. But not love. Not yet.

  Without taking his eyes from her, he propped his musket against the fireplace and slid the leather thong holding his powder horn over his head. He dropped the powder horn on the hearth. "Take off your apron.”

  She reached behind her back and pulled on the bow’s strings. It fell to her feet.

  He unbuckled his dirk’s scabbard and dropped it beside the powder horn. “Now your jacket.”

  Button by button she loosed the short serge jacket. Her cambric shift barely contained her breasts. She watched to see if passion flared in his eyes. They were shuttered.

  “Now your skirt, mistress.” His heavy leather tunic was tossed on a chair, so that only his tight knee breeches clad his lower torso. That, and his white woolen stockings. He settled himself in the Turkish chair and, unbuckling his knee bands, rolled down the stockings.

  With his attention diverted from her, it was easy enough to divest herself of her bodice and skirts. It was not so easy to tear her gaze from that wide expanse of bared chest. The same dark hair that was sprinkled across his lower arms matted his chest and converged in an arrow tip traveling down the plated muscles of his stomach.

  Entranced, she watched him rise, unbutton the knee breeches, and drop them. The arrow shaft aimed past his navel to that other shaft, much thicker. Even as she stared, it seemed to take on a life of its own . . . arousing from its present dormancy to harden. It lifted, thrust outward and upward.

  She swallowed. Her gaze locked with his amused one. "Your shift, mistress."

  Her cleft chin tilted upward. "No. I am your bondwoman, not your slave."

  His smile was most pleasant. "Ye heard me. Your shift.”

  All those years of trying to be compliant and cooperative, to behave as a lady, as dictated by polite society, rather than as a female, resisted further pressure. “And you heard me. No.”

  With three purposeful steps he bridged the plaid carpet to halt within a hand’s span of her. His gaze was hotter than any forge. “As I expected, a Lowlander canna keep his word.”

  “Her word.” Her fingers fumbled at drawing off her shift. "And I keep it.” Nervous, she could not make her fingers function. Strands of her hair looped over a small pearl button. At the sharp tug on her scalp, she gasped. "Drat!"

  In one fluid move, he grasped the front of her shift and ripped downward, loosening her snarled hair. Nevertheless, the renting of the garment and the crackling of the fire were the sounds of a battlefield.

  His reckless gaze journeyed over her exposed breasts, belly, and hairless mound. “Good. I see that ye have kept yourself shaven."

  A wild woman in her emerged. Not a woman out of control, but one who had reintegrated with her natural life. In that single instant, she shed the burden of domestication and rediscovered that track of her wildness. She sprang at her captor. Claws bared, she knocked him to the floor. Straddled him.

  Shock widened his eyes. “Ye witch!" It was more an exclamation of admiration than condemnation.

  Then he grasped her upper arms to restrain her swiping hands. They rolled together, limbs entwined, as each strove for supremacy. Her ancient female instincts boldly reclaimed their wildest nature. From her subconscious boiled a ghostly memory of Celtic kinship with the wild woman outlawed by a controlling male society. A wild woman living a life natural to her, one now bound and constrained and imprisoned. A captured witch.

  Ranald’s stronger body gained the ascendency, his powerful legs anchoring hers motionless. Their bodies entwined, his hands pinned her wrists to the carpet. “You weigh more than a draft horse!" she ground out.

  He laughed lowly.

  She arched and snarled. He ducked her thrashing head and nibbled her earlobe. She stiffened. Her fingers curled, her feet arched.

  "On nights like this, witches come to the clearings in the moonlight to prance and howl,” he growled at her ear. His beard-shadowed jaw rasped her delicate skin.

  She howled her anger. Howled and moaned, grumbled or purred, according to where and how Ranald touched her naked body.

  His jaw caressed the hair at her temple. "Ye are the Greek goddess Artemis,” he whispered now at her parted lips, "the soul of the wild who roams through the forests and guides the moon across the sky.”

  She bit his lip, drawing blood. "And when the wild woman finds her wild man?"

  His big fingers dipped into the wet, warm folds between her legs. "When that at last happens the wild woman wants to be touched, cajoled, ravished," he murmured, his lips journeying the valley between her breasts. "Night is her time. My wild woman craves the moon and the stars and wood fires."

  “And her wild man craves her,” she said. Her fingers did not quite encircle the rigid, enormous organ pressed atop her groin. She guided it between her thighs, already moist with her wild woman’s lust. "Create a place for it," she told him, her voice thick with wanting.

  He paused, lifted his head, scanned her face. She felt at once young with innocence and ancient with wisdom, both wild and magical. She raised her own head; her tongue stole out to lick his bottom lip as an encouragement.

  In acknowledgment, he thrust his tongue inside her mouth at the same moment his shaft thrust inside her. She bucked at the unexpected pain and cried out her anger. Her teeth nipped at his muscle-striated neck.

  He drove into her again. She screamed out. His mouth silenced her. His persistently pumping hips desensitized the pain in her cradling flesh. His arrow shaft became a wand that healed. No, more than that: It imparted a throbbing pleasure that demanded assuagement.

>   Suddenly he groaned out and collapsed like a wounded beast atop her. For a moment, she lay paralyzed, listening to his grasping breath, feeling the burning heat of his body and its incredible weight. Then she realized what had happened.

  Furious, she pushed him from her and rolled to her knees to crouch over him. "You’ll not take your pleasure without giving me mine!”

  He stared up at her in real astonishment. “What? What did ye say?"

  She really wasn’t sure just what she meant. But recollections from a mist of time assured her she had drawn near a feeling that was akin to a spiritual ecstasy. A bliss that was hers if she but risked the courage to claim it. “I want you to make me feel what you felt!"

  A slow smile added to the grooves at either side of his mouth. He nodded at the wilted wand. “The laddie there will have to be persuaded.”

  Comprehension dawned on her. She grasped the limp organ. With awe, her fingers investigated its length, the network of pulsating veins, the mushroom cap-like tip; the change of color from light pink at the root to dark purple at the head; how velvet-smooth the skin was, yet steely hard beneath.

  With fascination, he watched her exploration. Lightly, she stroked him as she would the soft, velvety nose of a skittish stallion. She peered up at him through the thicket of her lashes. "You are wondrously made.”

  His low moan elicited her own slow smile. She watched him grow in length and thickness. Then she guided him into that part of her that she deemed her wilderness. Astride him, she began to move her hips in rhythmic oscillation, like that of a grandfather clock. Time’s pendulum swung her faster. Her sweat-damp hair lashed back and forth with her thrashing head.

  Gone was all thought of her determination to seduce her captor. She was consumed with the desire to be the woman she now knew she was meant to be. The wild woman for which her body was meant, the wilderness vessel for the wild man watching her. She was experiencing a dissolution into the joy of the present moment.

  Every muscle, every ounce of flesh cried out for release from the tension building in her. Suddenly something inexplicable happened. Her body trembled throughout in violent spasms. Time-s pendulum vanquished time for her. She laughed, she wept, she exulted.