by Mariah Stone
Her lips met his with a soft, warm delight, a thousand times more delicious than Christmas pastry and as intoxicating as a cask of uisge. He pressed his lips to hers, softly at first, gently. And when that caused a burst of small lightning bolts to run through his senses, he knew he was lost. He kissed her again, stronger, hungrier, then licked that sweet lower lip and gently dipped his tongue into her mouth, meeting hers.
Stop, ye simpleton. Ye are betrothed to another.
God Almighty, she was like a succulent, forbidden fruit he didn’t have the strength to stop tasting. He brushed her tongue with his, drinking her in. Her warm, slim body was pressed against him, and he wanted to undress her, and dissolve with her, and make her his.
But coldness rushed over him as she suddenly broke the kiss and leaned back, staring at him with horror.
Chapter 10
“Oh, no, no, no!” Rogene whispered. “What the hell did I just do?”
“Nothing we both didna want to, sweet,” Angus said.
Oh, shoot, why did he need to be such a great kisser? A gorgeous Highland god—tall, with arms like columns, handsome and responsible and kind and so, so hot…
And now a good kisser.
Well, not so responsible, she realized. He did have a fiancée, and he was kissing her with no remorse, seemingly, whatsoever.
But she! Kissing a guy from history, goddamn it. Yes, she liked him… More than that. She was clearly developing a crush on him, but he was getting married and would soon produce an important heir. What was she thinking? Could she not get a hold of herself?
Her body warm and fuzzy from the kiss, she realized she was still in his arms. His naked torso was as hard against her as a rock, and as hot as furnace despite the chilly evening air. And God help her if she allowed herself another glance at his hard abs and broad chest covered in soft, dark hair. Before she could allow her self-control to fall apart and get back to kissing him, she pushed herself away and out of his embrace, then jumped to her feet.
“It’s not right,” she said. “You’re about to get married. You cannot run around kissing girls. You have a duty.”
A duty to history, she meant. A duty to Scotland, not just to his clan. A duty the meaning of which he couldn’t even imagine.
His eyes darkened and his shoulders slumped, as though she’d kicked him where it hurt the most. And Rogene felt a stab of guilt.
“Dinna ye berate me about duty,” he spat. “And I dinna run around kissing lasses.” He picked up his wet clothes. “One lass. Ye.”
With that he walked past her, leaving a whiff of lake water and something woody, and earthy, and so masculine her insides began sizzling and begging for him to stay.
She forced herself to turn back towards the water, not watching as he walked away. The best thing for her to do now would be to go down into the basement and just get the hell out. David must be going crazy back in her own time, and she was clearly stirring up things here that she wasn’t supposed to.
But her dissertation… She had to prove her mother’s theory right. She missed her mom so much, and if she could prove that the Bruce had almost given himself up to the enemies, she’d be able to defend her dissertation and publish her results—and show everyone that Mom had been right. If she could find something that would help her prove her hypothesis, she’d leave right away. She just needed to dig a bit more. She should ask around…and see if she could sneak into the lord’s hall when it was empty.
Then she’d leave this time, where she wasn’t supposed to be, anyway.
She just needed to become more proactive, see if she could find some records or letters.
And avoid Angus like the plague, because, clearly, her self-control took a vacation anytime he was near. And if she wasn’t careful, he would not just steal her breath.
He would also steal her heart.
When the door to his bedchamber closed with a low thump behind Angus, he knew he wasn’t alone. With the fireplace dead, his bedchamber was dark. The sun had set, and little light came from the slit window. A shadow moved to his right, and he sensed a sweet breath. His hand shot to his belt only to brush against empty air.
Something sharp and cold pierced into the flesh under his chin. A knife.
“Dinna move, Lord Angus,” a woman said.
Euphemia.
“Kindly remove yer blade from my neck, Lady Euphemia,” he said through gritted teeth.
She didn’t. Still holding it to his throat, she moved to stand before him. She was gray in the dim twilight, her hair ashen, her skin silver. She stared at him with her eyes narrowed, like she wanted to dig under his skin and find what made his heart beat faster.
A corner of her mouth crawled up. “Ah, a wee bit of excitement ’tis all, Lord. Ye just had a bit of that of yer own, didna ye?”
Angus’s skin chilled. By God’s blood—had she seen him kiss Lady Rogene?
What a goddamn idiot he was. Even though it had felt so good—like touching the sun—and Rogene had clearly enjoyed it, he knew he was putting her and himself in danger. Euphemia wasn’t a woman to be jesting with.
“Whatever do ye mean?” he asked, hoping it was something else.
“I mean, ’tis a shame yer fun didna include me.”
The edge of the knife dug deeper into his skin. Something was seriously wrong with this woman.
“Ye told me ye’d be faithful,” she said. “Ye told me ye’re a man of yer word.”
Aye, he had. And, although he’d fully intended to keep his word, it was so hard to do that with Rogene.
“Whatever ye saw”—he grasped her hand and pressed it harder into his throat. His skin broke under the blade and a warm drop of liquid crawled down his neck. Euphemia’s eyes widened in excitement and seemed to sparkle—“it doesna matter. It wilna be repeated.”
She arched one elegant eyebrow.
“Kill me now if ye wish,” he said, his fingers tightening around her wrist. “But I wilna betray my clan. I will stay true to my duty. I will stay true to ye.”
She raised her head, and a small, satisfied smile spread on her lips. “Oh? Prove it.”
“How?”
She removed the knife and took a step towards him, so close she pressed herself against him. Angus tensed, his stomach squeezing in revulsion. She leaned forward and licked the drop of blood from his neck. Her flowery, almost sickening scent reached him. That must be what rose water smelled like, he realized. The expensive rose water imported from the south.
“Ye ken how, Lord. Make me yers. Right now.”
He suppressed a cringe. How was it possible that he was ready to take Lady Rogene with no regard to the consequences, but couldn’t even imagine consummating the marriage with Euphemia? How would he live with her for the rest of his life?
The same way he’d endured his father, he supposed. He’d lived for his family, to protect his loved ones from a selfish, violent man. He thought of wee Ualan. Angus had to protect him and the rest of his family and clan from this woman.
He had to find some way to reason with her.
She looked at him from below, her eyes like pools of muddy blue water, peering at him dreamily and with hunger. He had to be careful. He knew he’d wounded her pride, and his father’s wrath had taught what that could do. Angus’s broken ribs that hadn’t healed well and his broken nose, which had left a permanent bump, weren’t even the worst of it.
He was pretty sure that his mother had been pregnant with another child at some point but had lost it. She had died soon after from an unknown sickness, too. Angus had always suspected she’d been weakened by internal injuries his father’s fists had inflicted on her.
Besides wounding his children physically, Kenneth Og Mackenzie had possessed an uncanny ability to wound their hearts and souls, as well. Laomann had grown into a weak man who lived by licking arses. Raghnall had grown from a strong-willed boy with his own mind into a scoundrel. Catrìona couldn’t imagine marrying at all, after seeing that a woman’s role was to b
e a dirty rug under the man of the house’s shoes. She’d found the release of her worries as a child in prayer and meditation, and now felt that her calling was to serve God—and, most definitely—not a husband.
And Angus… Angus felt that his life was not his own, and if he didn’t protect his clan, then no one would. He couldn’t imagine wee Ualan among blood and destruction. He believed love and happiness were a lie. His father had taught him that wanting something for himself was selfish. That he had to put others first no matter what.
And he could take it. He was big and strong, and others—like Catrìona and his mother and Laomann—weren’t.
He cupped Euphemia’s jaw, marveling at her beautiful mouth. Her full lips parted, waiting for him to kiss her.
But instead of her mouth, he saw Lady Rogene’s. Her upper lip slightly thin, her lower lip full. He remembered how she’d tasted—sweet, fruity, succulent.
And he just couldn’t bring himself to kiss Euphemia. Quite surprisingly, it felt that he’d be betraying Rogene if he did.
By God’s blood, what was wrong with him?
Euphemia was still waiting, her eyes growing cold and angry the longer he stood still. Finally, he planted a kiss on her forehead. With a sigh, he let go of her and went to his bed. He removed his shoes and lay down, gazing up at the canopy attached to the ceiling above him. The curtains hanging from the bed’s four corners almost blocked Euphemia from view.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m exhausted and dinna think I can perform.”
All true. He couldn’t perform with her.
He stared at the dark wooden paneling of the canopy and saw the raven hair and dark eyes of the woman he really wanted to be with.
He heard quiet footsteps approach, and the mattress sank a little as Euphemia sat on the edge of the bed. She lit a tallow candle that stood on the chest by the bed, and golden-orange light illuminated her stone-cold face. The scent of burning fat reached his nostrils.
“If ye want to rest, Lord, let me tell ye a story to help ye go to sleep.”
He briefly closed his eyes. He really, really didn’t want to go to sleep next to a woman who would hide in the darkness and threaten him with a knife. He put his hands behind his head, willing his tight muscles to soften, but his senses were on edge.
“Please,” he said through gritted teeth.
Fire from the candle played against her face, casting dark shadows from her nose and lips, and making her look devilish, evil.
She smiled. “A long time ago,” she said in a singsong voice, as though telling a good-night story to a child, “there was a young lass so beautiful that all the lads in the village wanted to marry her. One day, a king was passing by the village and stopped to give his horses a rest. He came to her house, wanting a jug of milk to satisfy his thirst. But once he saw her, he was stricken by her beauty. The king was good, and handsome, and brave, and strong, and a great warrior. His people loved him, his neighbor kings feared him, and all was well in his life…until he met the beautiful lass.”
She paused and angled her head to look at him. He kept silent, waiting for her to continue.
“Dinna ye want to ken why he got in trouble, Lord?” she asked.
Angus really didn’t want to know. Her voice was too soft, too soothing. “Why did he get in trouble?” he asked.
“Because he had a wife, see,” she said as though she were explaining how to build with wooden blocks to a child. “A queen.”
Angus didn’t like where this was going, didn’t like it at all.
“Aye, I see,” he said.
“But the king fell in love with the village lass, and she fell in love with him. So, all he could offer her was to become his mistress. But she was so in love that she rejected all her suitors and went with him, like a whore, and lived in his castle. Do ye see a problem here?”
Angus released a long sigh. “Lady Euphemia, I get yer meaning, and I already assured ye, I wilna have mistresses.”
“Oh, aye, ye did. But there are many bonnie lasses out there in the villages, and one is right under yer nose. So, let me finish to tell ye how the story ended.”
Angus rubbed his eyes. “Please, do.”
“So.” Euphemia leaned over the candle and circled the small flame with her index finger several times, her eyes thoughtful. “So, of course, his queen noticed things. He stopped making love to her, stopped being playful with her, even stopped looking into her eyes.” Her eyes watered and her tears glistened in the light of the candle. “And so the queen knew. She loved him, see. She really loved him.” Her voice shook as she said the word “loved.”
Angus ignored a cold knot that was forming in the pit of his stomach.
She continued, “And it hurt her so much, that he betrayed her, that she—” She broke off and pressed a fist to her mouth.
A tear fell down her cheek, and she wiped it away.
“That her heart cracked and broke,” she said. “And even though she’d guarded it before, now that she’d opened up to the king, and knew happiness, she felt betrayed. She knew that had the king not met the bonnie lass, he’d still love the queen. And she was the queen, oh, aye.”
Her eyes blazed with the fire from the candle. “She could make her go away. And so, she did. The bonnie lass, as beautiful and innocent and kind as she was, hankered after another woman’s man. And she had to be punished.” She smiled a wild, mad smile that brought a chill to Angus from head to toe. “And so, one dark night, guards came to her bedchamber. The queen watched as they dragged her screaming and kicking, then as the hangman stripped her and whipped her in front of the whole castle. And finally, when the king came to see what the uproar was, the queen watched the reflection in his eyes of the beautiful head rolling away from the lass’s flayed body.”
Silence hung between them as her meaning spread through the room like darkness. He wasn’t afraid of Euphemia—not for himself, anyway.
But if she did hurt Rogene, it would be his fault. Who was he marrying? he wondered. Was his wife any better than his father had been?
God Almighty, if she was as self-absorbed and evil as his father, there’d be no way he could get a grip on her. He could reason with a normal woman. Even if he didn’t love her or want her, he could still live in peace with her and take care of her. Have children. This was the way of things.
But why did he have a feeling he was about to marry a viper? And if he was, he needed to show the viper his own fangs.
He leaned towards her on his elbow and met her eyes. “Lady Euphemia, I understand ye were hurt in the past, but I wilna let ye behead or kill innocent people because of yer suspicions. I dinna ken what kind of husbands ye had in the past, but ye will be my wife and ye will obey yer husband. Me. And if ye do any kind of injustice or evil deed, it wilna go unpunished as it did in the past.”
He noted with satisfaction that her eyes widened and she blinked in surprise. Her lips parted, her cheeks reddened, and her pupils dilated… Her chest rose and fell quickly. Had she just become aroused?
She stood up and hid the knife in the folds of her dress. “I hear ye, Lord,” she said. “I will be only too happy to obey my husband. I thought I was marrying a handsome giant, a stallion. But I’m marrying a man who is so much more—a lion.” She walked to the door, and Angus sighed with relief, but she paused and looked back at him, her eyes glimmering white in the darkness. “And trust me when I say that ye just became the best man I’ve even kent.”
When the door closed behind her, and Angus was left alone, he thought that instead of making this situation better, he’d just caused her to dig her claws even deeper into him.
And if he ever wanted to break things off with her, she wouldn’t let him go without spilling blood.
Chapter 11
The next day…
“May I ask ye, what do ye think of Lady Euphemia?” Catrìona said to Rogene.
Sitting at the table in the middle of the lord’s hall, Rogene stopped writing and looked up at Catrìona,
surprised. Besides the two of them, the only other person in the great hall was a male servant who was cleaning out coals from the fireplace. He didn’t give any sign that he’d heard them. Catrìona pulled the handle of the warp-weighted loom and created a new layer of white woolen fabric. Rogene was practicing writing. She’d told Catrìona, who couldn’t read or write, that she was preparing the contract. It was a lie. Rogene had to practice her calligraphy or she’d not only risk being exposed as an impostor, but she would also create a potentially unreadable document for the people of today and generations to come.
As a historian, she just couldn’t have that.
Rogene studied Catrìona’s pretty face. Unlike her brothers, she was blond, and Rogene wondered if the young woman resembled her father or her mother more. Her wavy hair was the color of wheat, her eyelashes and eyebrows a bit darker. She was a beautiful young woman, and Rogene wondered how she’d look in colors that would suit her and a more fitted style, not this baggy, dirty-brown dress. Catrìona was preparing to go into the monastery, Rogene knew, and she should do what she wanted to do, but somehow, Rogene just couldn’t see her being a nun. She sensed the girl had way too much passion and character to be an obedient nun. She’d seen her stick out her chin stubbornly if her brothers told her to do something she didn’t want to do.
Catrìona was a wonderful roommate and very considerate. Rogene didn’t mind sharing the bed with her, and through their conversations, Rogene had learned some fascinating details about everyday life, beliefs, and customs of the Middle Ages.
Rogene thought about Catrìona’s question. “What do I think of Lady Euphemia?” she said slowly. “I’m not the person you should be asking that.”
Wood crackled cheerfully as a servant added more logs to the fire.
What else could she say? Euphemia would be the mother of Angus’s child, no matter how much Rogene wished Angus wouldn’t marry her. The kiss yesterday hadn’t helped. Actually, it had made her crave more. Even thinking of Angus’s hard body pressed against hers made her head spin and caused a thin layer of sweat to break through her skin.