“I’m telling you the truth, love. You’d best accept it now.”
That was the problem. She wanted to. She wanted to believe he could be a part of her forever.
Foolish, foolish woman. With her hand on his chest, she pushed him gently away.
To her surprise, he let her. Apparently, he believed he’d made enough of an impact with his possession and his words.
He could have been right—except she knew he wasn’t her husband.
As he withdrew from her, she eased herself into a sitting position.
He steadied her with his palm under her elbow. “Slowly. We have all the time in the world.”
She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see him, proudly naked and too pleased of himself to be borne. So she pushed back her hair with a trembling hand and looked around. The sunshine floated down and filled the little valley to the brim with warmth and color. The air had grown sharper and more flavorful, drenched with the scent of peaches from the orchard. Beneath her, the gray rock bristled like a pincushion. On a branch in the orchard, a lark sang in a gala celebration. This was what MacLean did to her; he made her blood pump through her veins, made her see and breathe and think as she had never done before, made every sense revel in the celebration of life.
She should hate him, but she didn’t.
She should have resisted, but she hadn’t. She had been tired of longing for Kiernan MacLean’s touch . . . tired of loving him with her heart when her mind knew she shouldn’t.
Love. Him. MacLean.
In a flurry of horror and disbelief, she leaped from him and scrambled to her feet.
“What’s wrong?” He caught her before she could run.
Nonsense. She couldn’t love him. He wasn’t her husband.
“Enid? Did I hurt you?”
“No . . . no.” She should have been self-conscious about her nudity. Instead she could only stagger under the weight of her thoughts. “I’m fine. I’m just . . . dazed.”
“Did I frighten you?” He stepped close. “You needed to understand how it is between us.”
“How you decreed it should be.” Blood in your veins, the marrow in your bones, we are forever. Did he frighten her? Yes, but not nearly as much as her own musings.
Love Kiernan MacLean.
Some—Mrs. Brown, for instance—might tell Enid that she did love him, and that that was why she kissed him with such desperate longing, why she laughed at his jokes and hurt at his contempt. Love . . . oh, that would be an easy explanation as to why she couldn’t resist him. She was besotted.
But she wasn’t.
She couldn’t be. She’d traveled that road before.
The trouble was, she had sensed a different sort of man in Kiernan MacLean, even when he was unconscious. A man made of steel, honor and fortitude. She had fought for him, made herself a part of him, demanded life for him. Even while she’d caviled at his unyielding character, she had admired it and his bull-headed determination.
If she loved him, she would suffer more than a simple infatuation. If she loved Kiernan MacLean, that love would be real.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” MacLean swept a lock of her hair off her shoulder. Slid his hand down to the narrow of her back. Marked her with his touch.
She hadn’t realized she was staring. Staring at the broad shoulders, the strong hips, the thighs that bulged with muscle. Examining his broad face, his strong features, his scarred complexion.
Love always ended in pain.
But while that was true, she didn’t love MacLean. She wouldn’t allow herself to love MacLean.
So what difference would it make . . . if they made love tonight?
“I just . . . I like the way you look.” She wanted to love him again. She needed closeness to chase away the sadness, the realization that soon they would part. She longed for the passion and the forgetfulness he could bring her. Making love to this man would mean nothing. Nothing.
So she would do it, over and over again.
“Come to the pool.” With a smile composed in equal parts of seduction, uncertainty and passion, she said, “The water is almost warm and most . . . refreshing.”
Chapter 19
Just before sunset, Enid crouched behind a coil of rope on the lonely, sea-soaked pier and stared at MacLean in horror. “We’re going to steal that boat?”
“The fishermen have gone home for the day.” He kept his voice down as he transferred all their belongings into a single sack. Rope, blankets . . . no food. Nothing since the morning, when they’d left the hut after eating the last of the hardtack. “They’re all eating their supper right now.”
Her stomach growled. “But it’s stealing.”
“Steal is a strong word. We’re going to borrow the boat.”
“Specious.”
“I’ll get the boat back to its rightful owner with a bit of a reward for his trouble.” MacLean slipped the extra knife into his sleeve. “Do you have a better idea? Our pursuers know our ultimate destination. I would wager they’re watching the ferry, and I’ve not come this far to be killed on my own front door.”
“No.” She couldn’t bear that.
“Anyway, the ferry only goes out once a week.”
Her heart gave a flutter. “How do you know that?”
Somberly, he looked up at her. “I remembered.”
She shrank back, her hand at her throat. “Everything?”
“Not everything. Not yet. But it’s coming.”
It’s coming. The words echoed in her mind. She didn’t need to watch the slapping waves to feel queasy. The moment she had hoped for, the moment she had dreaded was upon her. Before too long, he would know the truth. “Good,” she said.
He returned to packing the sack. “I started remembering at Granny Aileen’s—”
“Granny Aileen’s?”
Again he looked at her, but this time he grinned. “At the cottage in the dale.”
She couldn’t think of that hut without remembering how the afternoon of glorious passion in the sunshine had slipped into an evening of slow, soft loving, which had gone on to a night full of warm embraces, of whispered demands, of loving.
“I never knew I could rise to the occasion so many times, but you’ve needed care ever since I’ve met you, and I wanted to make you happy. Did I make you happy?” Standing, MacLean touched her cheek. “Enid?”
“Yes.” She tried to smile at him, but her lips kept wobbling. “I’ll always treasure what we had there.”
After he had taken her the first time—after she’d broken her vow and lain with him—she had tossed ethics and good sense to the winds and helped him bathe. That had led to an episode in the grass, with him on the bottom this time because she was already scraped from the stone.
He got a rash.
They’d washed each other again. He’d brought a blanket out into the sunshine, and they’d drowsed there, soaking up the warmth.
They’d both acquired a bit of a burn and quite a few midge bites.
When the sun had disappeared behind the mountain and the chill had made her shiver, they’d gone into the hut. He’d lit the fire and brought out the cold pie he’d bought the night before. The crofter’s wife wasn’t much of a baker; half the crust was burned. But they’d eaten every bite, and when they had satisfied their hunger, they’d made the bed and explored another hunger. And in the night, she’d come awake to find him taking her again on an erotic journey such as she’d never imagined.
She should have been shocked at their dissipation.
She’d wished only that it could have lasted longer.
She didn’t mind about the scrapes on her back or the sunburn that extended along the left side of her body. She cared only that she had memories laid by. Memories of a magic time, brief, glorious, and set apart from reality. She knew she had abandoned her morals. She knew the truth would lash her soon. But nothing that could happen would make her forget those brief hours at Granny Aileen’s hut. They were hers
. She would treasure them—for memory was returning to MacLean.
Now he slipped his hand around her waist. “It’s a good day for the passage across the firth. A fair wind, a cloudy sky, and the surf is calm.”
She looked out at the choppy bay and hoped never to see a stormy surf.
“I should be able to row it in five hours or so.”
“You can’t row for five hours straight. You just left your sickbed!”
He didn’t laugh at her silly objection. He took it as seriously as any man can who has walked the breadth of Scotland. “I’ll take a rest now and again.”
“We don’t have five hours before nightfall!”
“I can find the island in the dark.” He bussed her on the lips. “I’ll get the boat untied, then you come and jump in and push off. Can you do that?”
Stung, she said, “Of course I can.”
“Good lass.” He flung the bag over his shoulder and kissed her lips lightly, swiftly. “I can always depend on you.” Coming to his feet, he leaped over the barrels and nets and jumped lightly onto the fifteen-foot boat. It rocked, but like a man used to the sea, MacLean stood with his legs astraddle. He loosened the moorings and gestured to her.
Her heart pounded as she rose, but she sauntered down the dock.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Hurry!”
She stopped by the boat and extended her hand. “If I have to steal a boat, I will do it in a ladylike manner.”
Taking her hand, he helped her down into the bow. “You’re absolutely balmy, do you know that?”
“No balmier than a man who won’t go to the minister of the Kirk and ask for help getting to his island.”
They’d already had this fight.
“I’m going to get home on my own.” He fit the oars in their collars.
She used an extra oar to shove away from the pier. “Then I am going to observe the proprieties while thieving.”
“You are balmy.” He laughed, a great burst of merriment. “Absolutely mad. How am I going to bear a lifetime with you?”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.” She seated herself, facing him, as he bent his back to the oars.
The smell of fish permeated the wood. Water slapped against the sides. As they left the bay at Oban, the firth showed its true nature and tossed them from side to side. The afternoon slipped away, monotonous, frightening. The sun slipped below the horizon, gleaming pink and purple against the ever darkening ocean.
Gripping the sides of the boat, Enid scrutinized the horizon. “It’s getting dark. Are you sure we can’t miss the island?”
He was very, very firm. “I’ll find it in the darkest night. I’m like a salmon going home to spawn. I don’t need a map, I just know where it is.”
Exactly what she feared.
“Relax, dearling, and rest your feet.” He grinned at her. “Are they better for their massage?”
This morning, before they’d left the hut and over her very vocal objections, he’d insisted on massaging her feet. At first it had tickled. Then, as she’d relaxed into it, his fingers had taken on a magic of their own. She had moaned and twisted, and by the time he had finished the massage they were out of their clothes and into each other.
“Much better,” she said primly, as if she didn’t know what he was thinking about.
He just grinned more.
She watched the waves, the sky, then, when he was working the oars as hard as he could, she watched MacLean. These were her last hours with him. Once he remembered—and he was well on his way to remembering—she would be sent off in ignominy. So she hoarded memories of him: the way he grimaced as he pushed the oars through the water, the ripple of muscles beneath his shirt, the scruffy, week-old beard, the scarred cheek, his auburn hair ruffling in the breeze.
The wind rose as the sky turned dark purple, then to the blackest night. Her rear ached. She shivered with cold. She could see nothing, not the light of the stars, not the place where the land met the sea. The boat pitched through the waves, carrying her to a place where she had no sense of direction, no light to guide her. As dread closed her throat, she could scarcely give a shuddering sigh. She didn’t want to arrive.
Yet—shouldn’t they have got there by now? Had they overshot the island? Wrapping her arms around her knees, she huddled in her cloak at the bottom of the boat.
“Pull on my greatcoat.” MacLean’s deep voice came out of the darkness like a command from Poseidon.
She hesitated. “You’re not cold?”
He laughed, a hard, dangerous laugh. A different sort of a laugh than she ever heard from him before. “Pull on my greatcoat and sit up. Watch for lights. We’re getting close.”
She heard the sound of waves crashing on the shore . . . or perhaps against rocks that would sink them. Light would mean a harbor. She scanned the horizon in every direction, desperate for any sign of land.
Then there it was. Feeble flickers of illumination. “Look.” She pointed. “There!”
The splash of the oars stopped. “The harbor,” he said with satisfaction. The oars started again, stronger.
“Is it dangerous?” she asked.
“I know the way.” His voice sounded different, more commanding, absolutely confident.
Ah, the boat might not sink, but her heart certainly did.
The crash of the waves grew louder. The lights separated and grew square. Windows. Houses.
Suddenly the boat swerved away.
“You’ve missed it,” she cried.
“We’ll land to the west. It’s closer to the castle.”
She closed her eyes. That wasn’t Poseidon speaking, or any other god. It was Kiernan, laird of the MacLeans.
The boat scraped on the sand, then pitched as he set the oars and leaped out into the surf. He dragged the boat onto the beach. His hand grasped her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, lass. Come forward and step onto the gracious ground of the Isle of Mull.”
In the dark, she stumbled across the nets and the seats.
With an impatient growl, he lifted her out and carried her onto the land. Setting her down, he said, “Stay where I put you.”
As if she could leave. She still couldn’t see, although he seemed to be doing well enough. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer. He was already gone.
She wondered if this was some cruel jest; he would walk away and leave her standing here in the pitch dark until morning. Perhaps she stood in a tidal basin and would be swept out to sea, and he would laugh cruelly as he sauntered home to his family. Perhaps—
He spoke right at her side. “The clouds are blowing away. The moon will be rising soon. We’ll sit here until we can travel to the castle.”
She clutched her chest and hoped she hadn’t really made that stifled sound of terror. She wasn’t so stupid as to think he really wanted to sit. He wanted to talk, and any admission of fear put her at a disadvantage. “So sit.” She stayed stubbornly erect.
He, too, remained standing beside her, and when he spoke, that stern, resonant timbre sounded in his voice. “As I stand here, I feel the breeze off the ocean. I smell the smells of my home. In my mind’s eye, I can see the way the road winds through the fences and over the hill to the other coast where Castle MacLean sits. I was born here. I was raised here, and I wonder how I could ever have forgotten any of it.”
“Big bump on the head,” she mumbled.
His tone changed, became a lash of fury. “I’m not Stephen MacLean, and you’re not my wife!”
She took a deep breath. She’d been dreading this confrontation, but now that it was on her, she almost felt relief. Relief, because the worst had happened. He was angry and blamed her, and she could bolster her anger and shout back at him—and not dwell on the loneliness that would follow her into exile. “You’re not, and I’m not.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“You’re Kiernan MacLean.”
“You’re right about that. Of course,
you’ve got that right.” If only that fire he was breathing would light the night. “How do you propose to explain your part in this damnable deception?”
He’d had a shock, so she tried to be patient. “Once I discovered the truth, I did tell you. I told you I was not your wife.”
“After two months of living together. After a night of the best bloody fooking I’ve ever had!”
Shocked by his crudeness, she sputtered, “You . . . you are a barbarian!”
“I could call you worse. Are you asking me to believe you didn’t recognize your own husband?”
Patient? She had thought she could be patient? Not with that tone of voice coming from him. “It had been nine years since I’d seen Stephen, and when I got to Blythe Hall, you had a scraggly beard, bandages over half your face, and once we got rid of them, scars over that same half.”
“I’ve been healed this last month.”
“I don’t know what you looked like before, but I imagine your family is going to be taken aback at the change in you.” She shivered in the breeze. “As I was in Stephen!”
“We scarcely looked alike.” He knelt.
She heard him rummaging about . . . in the sack, she supposed. “Alike enough. The eyes were the same, and for weeks, seeing you open your beautiful eyes was all that mattered. By the time you woke up, I was used to you, and I didn’t think . . . well, I told you as soon as I thought it prudent.”
“You told me we weren’t married after we’d been attacked on that train!” He tossed a blanket over her shoulders. “It was a bit bloody late for confession.”
She huddled into the woolen cloth. “Don’t swear.”
“Swear!” His voice rose. “You’d better ask me not to strangle you and leave your body on the sand.”
About that she didn’t worry. “I suppose this lets out the blood in my veins and marrow in my bones avowal.”
“Damn it, woman, you are not my wife!”
She raised her voice, too. “I didn’t know that until after the fire!”
The waves lapped at the shore, a cricket sang in the night, and MacLean said nothing.
She hoped that meant he was thinking.
Lost in Your Arms Page 19