“Are ye coming in?” Duncan asked.
Well, she had come all the way here, and she was curious about where he lived. Besides, she was not done with this conversation.
Duncan stepped to the side to let her in and then shut the door behind them. Sàr, who must have come into the cottage during the confusion, was lying in front of the hearth and taking up half the room. He raised his scraggly brows at her and wagged his tail.
“Outside,” Duncan said, and the wolfhound slunk past her with a guilty look.
Moira perched on the edge of one of the two chairs and took in the room, which was small but clean and pleasant. She drummed her fingertips on her knee and waited to speak again until Duncan sat as well.
“Why Rhona?” Moira asked.
“I’m sorry if she upset ye,” Duncan said, which was no answer.
“She’s an angry woman,” Moira said. “And she was wrong. I would have stayed with ye forever if ye hadn’t left for France.”
She was not speaking to Rhona’s accusation that she would not stay with him now. If Moira had any sense, she would be running down the hill.
“Ye weren’t here,” Duncan said.
“What?” Moira asked.
“That is the reason I was with Rhona,” Duncan said, meeting her eyes with his direct gaze. “You are the only woman who ever mattered to me. Rhona knows it. Everyone does.”
“O shluagh.” Just when she was ready to storm off, he said something like that to her. Worse, Duncan thought he believed it.
And for the next few hours, Moira was going to let herself believe it, too.
She picked up the harp from where it rested beside her chair and handed it to him. “Play that song for me,” she said. “The one about the black-haired lass.”
Duncan strummed the strings a few times as he tuned it. Then he looked at her with his warm hazel eyes, and his rich voice filled the small cottage with the song of love and longing.
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
Her lips are like some roses fair
She has the sweetest smile and the gentlest hands
And I love the ground whereon she stands
I love my love and well she knows
I love the ground whereon she goes
I hope the day it soon will come
When she and I will be as one
* * *
Duncan should not have sung that song to her again and bared his soul to her so utterly. Yet there was no point in attempting to hide his feelings. Moira knew he had lost his heart to her seven years ago, and he was not a man whose feelings changed.
Seeing her here in his humble home made the situation clear to him. Yet when Moira stood in front of his chair and looked down at him with violet eyes as soft as her velvet gown, Duncan knew he would give his life to keep her.
She took his harp from him, set it on the floor, and held out her hands to him. “Take me to bed.”
Chapter 22
I’m glad ye came.” Duncan framed her face in his hands and gave her a long, lingering kiss.
When he picked her up and carried her into the other room, Moira laughed because he had to turn sideways and duck his head to get through the low doorway. A simple, wood-framed bed covered with thick blankets filled most of his bedchamber, which Moira guessed had been converted from what was usually the cow’s half of a cottage.
Behind the bed, the single window was tightly shuttered against the winter winds. Moira imagined that when it was open on a fine day, Duncan could lie in bed and have a grand view of the sea and mountains.
Without exchanging a word, they undressed quickly in the small space beside the bed. As they crawled under the heavy blankets, the ropes holding the mattress creaked beneath their weight. The bedchamber was so small and the bed so cozy that Moira felt as if she were locked away with Duncan in a warm cocoon.
She put her arms around his neck and gazed into his face. His features were all hard angles and his expression was serious, but his gold-flecked hazel eyes were warm. When he slid his hand over the curve of her hip, she sighed.
With the MacCrimmons, Duncan had been patient with her, giving her time to trust his touch. Under his gentle ministrations, her body had come alive again. And now that she had seen herself in the mirror, she knew that it was not just her beauty that made him want her.
You are the only woman who ever mattered to me. Rhona knows it. Everyone does.
The cottage, the creaking bed, and Duncan’s strong, warrior’s body all made her feel protected. And after Sean, she needed to feel safe and wanted for herself before she could share her body fully.
Was she ready? She ran her hands over Duncan’s chest, enjoying the feel of the taut muscles and rough hair beneath her palms. When he splayed his hand against her back and drew her into a deep kiss, she closed her eyes and melted into him. Aye, she was ready.
Moira moved against him like a cat to feel the friction of his chest on her sensitive breasts. He groaned and pulled her more tightly to him. Their kisses grew more fevered, and the hardness of his shaft poking against her belly aroused a deep need in her. She held him tightly, needing to be closer still, as their tongues moved together in a rhythm as old as time.
When he rolled her on her back, she wrapped her legs around his waist, instinctively urging him forward. Aye, this was what she wanted. No more waiting. Flashes from that long-ago summer came back to her—of Duncan deep inside her, crying out his love for her when he could not say it any other time. How she wanted him like that again.
She moaned aloud when the tip of his shaft touched her center. For a long, long moment, Duncan held still above her, the muscles of his shoulders straining beneath her fingers. As the tension between them became unbearable, she dug her fingers into his shoulders and lifted her hips.
“Please, Duncan.”
Instead of doing as she urged, he covered her breasts with his callused hands and moved down her body. He teased her nipples between his fingers and thumbs while he kissed her throat and ran his tongue down her breastbone. Liquid heat pooled deep in her belly as he moved lower and lower with his warm lips and tongue.
Anticipation sang through her body as he lifted her leg over his shoulder and kissed the inside of her thigh. A high moan came from the back of her throat when he finally ran his tongue over the sensitive spot between her legs. As he worked his magic with his lips and tongue, she gripped the bedclothes in her hands and bit her lip.
She came in waves of white light.
It was wonderful, but this time it was not enough.
* * *
When Duncan moved to lie beside her, Moira pulled him down on top of her.
“I want to feel ye inside me,” she said, still breathing hard.
Oh, Jesu. Did she mean it?
“Are ye certain?” Duncan forced out the question. “We don’t have to do this yet.”
“I want us to be as one,” she said, echoing the words of the song he had sung to her. “And I don’t want to wait another moment.”
This time, when she tightened her legs around him, urging him forward, Duncan did not resist her. They both gasped as he thrust deep inside her in one stroke. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he forced himself to take long, deep breaths and hold still. His body was so hungry for her, and for release, that the urge to pound into her again and again until he exploded was nearly irresistible.
And Moira was not making it any easier for him. She was hot and wet and squirming beneath him.
Slowly, slowly, he pulled out almost all the way. When he slid back inside her, the rush of pleasure almost blinded him. He held her face between his hands and stared into her midnight-blue eyes as he moved in and out with excruciating slowness.
“Is this good?” he asked, though he could tell that it was.
“Aye,” she said and gasped as he thrust deep into her again. “And for you?”
He almost laughed. “Nothing has ever felt this good.”
As he increased his
pace, she made those high-pitched sounds that drove him wild. She raised her hips to meet him as he thrust into her faster and harder. He could hold back no longer. He had wanted her forever. Through the blood pounding in his ears, he heard Moira cry his name as her body clenched around him.
At long last, Moira was his again. He let go, exploding inside her.
Duncan wanted her again.
He had been deprived of Moira for so long that he was like a starving animal. When he ran his finger up the silky skin of her inner thigh to ask the question, her breath hitched. Then she rolled on top of him, giving him precisely the answer he wanted.
Miraculously, Moira seemed almost as hungry for him as he was for her. They made love all afternoon until they were too sore and weak to do it again.
But afterward, while she dozed in his arms, Rhona’s words echoed round and round in Duncan’s head.
Did the little princess let ye pleasure her in bed like she used to? That’s all she thinks you’re good for…Moira forgot ye like that, and she’ll do it again.
Duncan had thought if she gave her body fully to him, she would give him her heart as well. But he’d had her love once, if briefly, and he knew the difference.
He looked about his tiny bedchamber, barely large enough for his bed. How long would Moira want to sneak out of the castle to seek pleasure with him here? Their clan needed allies, and Connor would surely pressure her to make a new marriage to benefit the clan. And Connor had a way of getting what he wanted. Eventually, Moira would agree to wed one of the men Connor invited to visit, a chieftain who could give her all the things she was accustomed to.
Duncan had not sung the last verse of the song to her, the sad one. But he heard it in his head now.
I go down to the sea, and I mourn and weep
For satisfied, she’ll never be
So I write a song to her, just a few short lines
And suffer death a thousand times
Duncan was not sure he could survive being parted from her a second time. He was willing to suffer the thousand deaths to be with her now.
But damn it, that was not enough. As he lay watching the only woman he would ever love sleep on his chest, Duncan made up his mind. He was not giving her up. This time, he would find a way to give Moira all the things she needed.
This time, he would find a way to keep her.
* * *
When Moira opened her eyes, she found Duncan standing beside the bed fully dressed and smelling of the outdoors. In his hand, he held a cup with a clump of heather in it. He kissed her forehead and leaned across the bed to set the heather on the windowsill.
“I didn’t know the heather was blooming already.” She sat up and put her nose in it to breathe in the scent.
“Ye just need to know where to look,” Duncan said and sat on the edge of the bed.
Moira felt her defenses crumbling. After making love to her until she was senseless, Duncan was showing her this gentle side of him that squeezed her heart. When he was like this, she could almost trust him. Almost.
Moira felt a twinge of guilt for not telling him about Ragnall. She knew that the longer she waited to tell him that Ragnall was his son, the harder it would be.
But despite his passionate lovemaking and kind gestures, a part of her still did not believe he deserved to know. She had not forgotten that Duncan had left her or all that she had suffered because of it—the years of living in fear and having her body used by a man she loathed. And how she’d had to fight in a thousand subtle ways against Sean’s influence over her son. She had won the battle for her son’s soul, and she had done it all on her own.
Duncan took a strand of her hair between his finger and thumb and twirled it. “You’re even more lovely than ye used to be.”
She snorted. “I’ve seen myself in a looking glass.”
“I think ye know I would want ye no matter what ye looked like,” Duncan said, making Moira feel all soft inside again.
While Moira could not forget the past, neither did she want to let bitterness ruin her happiness of the moment. And, miraculously, she was happy.
“I expect to be gone for a few days on an errand for Connor,” Duncan said.
“Must ye go?” she asked and ran her hand up his chest.
“Aye,” he said and brushed her hair back from her face. “Before I go, I need to tell ye that I lo—”
Moira put her fingers over his lips. “Don’t say it.”
Meaningless words, that’s all they were. She did not want him to ruin what was between them with words of love that amounted to false promises. All those years ago, she had believed those words meant that he would stay with her, that he would always be there, that he would not fail her.
“Let’s make the most of this while it lasts,” she said.
“While it lasts?” Duncan asked, with an edge to his voice.
“Aye.” That’s all anyone could count on. Expecting more just led to disappointment.
“And how long do ye think that will be?” Duncan said between his teeth.
“I don’t know.” He was growing angry, but she was not going to lie. Until she had her son back, she did not want to think about the future any more than the past. She rubbed her hand up Duncan’s thigh. “All I do know is that I am happy with ye now.”
“Ye like sharing a bed with me.”
“I do.” She could not help the grin spreading across her face, despite the forbidding look Duncan was giving her. “I want to stay here at the cottage with ye until ye go. Perhaps I’ll stay here while you’re gone as well. Can ye help me bring some of my things up?”
* * *
“Ye can’t stay here,” Duncan said, his voice rising, despite his effort to be calm. “And ye can’t be living in my cottage while I’m gone.”
The woman would drive him mad. No matter what else she said, her plan to stay in his cottage had to mean she intended to marry him. Since she did not care to hear his words of love, he could only assume he pleased her in bed even more than he thought.
“Why can’t I stay here?” she asked.
“For one thing, ’tis safer in the castle. For another, it would be improper. And for a third, Connor would have my head on a platter.”
“Improper?” Moira asked, sounding outraged. “I’m no unmarried lass of seventeen.”
She leaned over the side of the bed and started gathering her clothes from the floor.
“Come, Moira, ye know ye can’t stay here without us being married.”
Duncan had formed a plan, but he did not want to discuss marriage with her until he was certain his plan would succeed—and until he had Connor’s permission. That was the only honorable way to do this.
“I know nothing of the kind,” Moira said as she jerked her shift over her head. “No one—not you, not my brother, not anyone—is going to tell me what I can and cannot do.”
“We can’t have everyone believing you’re giving yourself to me without us being wed.”
“But I am giving myself to ye without being wed.” She squeezed past him with the rest of her clothes in her hands.
“That is no the point,” Duncan said, following her into the other room. “Have ye no concern for your reputation?”
“No,” she said, turning to look straight at him. “I don’t.”
She stepped into her gown and, leaving it unfastened in the back, threw her cloak over it.
“If you’re going to act foolishly with no regard for the consequences,” Duncan said, shaking his finger in her face, “then ye can expect those who care for ye—and who have a good deal more sense—to tell ye what to do.”
“You’re a pigheaded arse, Duncan MacDonald!” Moira shouted. “For the last seven years, I’ve been under a man’s thumb, my every move watched and censored, and I shall never let that happen again.”
“I’m not like Sean,” Duncan objected, spreading his arms out. “But I won’t have all our clansmen thinking ill of ye because of what you’re doing with me.”
“I thought this is what ye wanted,” she snapped. “Ye certainly seemed to like it—repeatedly—a short time ago.”
“I do want ye,” he said. “Ye know damned well I do.”
She ignored him and headed for the door. “I doubt I’ll have any trouble,” she said over her shoulder as she opened it, “finding a man who appreciates an improper lass like me.”
“Ye let another man appreciate ye, and I’ll kill him.”
The door slammed behind her.
Chapter 23
Erik stood waiting on the rocky shore below Trotternish Castle on the appointed night until he saw the outline of Hugh’s boat hovering offshore.
“Here,” Erik called, after glancing behind him again to make certain no one had followed him. “Leave your men on the boat.”
He heard a splash and saw Hugh’s dark shape coming toward him.
“Where’s the boy?” Hugh asked when he reached Erik.
“I didn’t bring him,” Erik said.
“Ye told me he would be here. We had an agreement.” Hugh sounded outraged—as if he had never altered a deal.
“I can’t give him to ye yet,” Erik said.
“Then when?” Hugh demanded.
“When ye give me information that makes it worth my while,” Erik said.
“I thought ye wanted to be rid of the lad as much as I did.”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” Erik lied. “But my chieftain will be displeased if something unfortunate happens to the lad. I need a very good reason to take the risk. I need information.”
“Losing Trotternish is like a festering wound to my nephew,” Hugh said. “I know he is planning to take it back.”
“And maybe I’m planning to fook the faery queen,” Erik said. “If ye want the MacQuillan lad, you’ll have to tell me more than what your nephew is dreaming about.”
“Connor will attempt to take the castle,” Hugh said. “When he decides to make the attack, I’ll hear of it.”
He sounded confident, but Erik did not trust Hugh any more than Hugh trusted him.
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