His Wicked Highland Ways

by Laura Strickland

  “Aye,” Danny echoed softly.

  “So what is a wee bit of a fight here in our own glen? We fight on our land, now. No success to them!”

  No response. Jeannie stole a look to see the lad appeared to have fallen unconscious.

  “At last,” Finnan breathed. “Lass, hold him still.”

  She was certainly no lass, but as this scarcely seemed time to argue it, she obeyed and watched while he tied off the thread. The angry blood lessened to mere seepage amid the stitches.

  “Will that hold?” she asked.

  For answer, he held out his arms, the tattoos on which were liberally interspersed with white scars. “It always has. More water.”

  Jeannie released the patient even as Finnan turned to the wounded stump. Her stomach flipped over. “Aggie?”

  “Here. Give me the basin.” Steadier now, Aggie took the reddened bowl and languished a glance on Danny in the doing.

  Jeannie experienced a flash of disquiet. She had supposed Aggie interested in the groom at Avrie House. This lad, with his redoubtable master, would not make a suitable substitute.

  She turned her gaze back to Finnan. He appeared calmer now, but the anger still simmered in his eyes.

  She blew out a breath. “Will he survive?”

  “Oh, aye, no thanks to those who attacked us.”

  “Avrie’s men.” She had to ascertain it.

  “Aye, so.” He shot her a searching look. “You must ha’ heard enough about the situation to know those of Avrie blood do not want me here. But this glen is mine. And, Mistress MacWherter, I always protect what belongs to me.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I fear I will not be able to move him,” Finnan told Jeannie MacWherter, nodding toward the lad who slept in her bed, “until I am certain that wound has closed. I am sorry,” he added with what he hoped was well-feigned concern. “’Tis an inconvenience for you.”

  Jeannie stared at him with those wide, blue eyes. Bonny eyes they were, and no mistake. No wonder Geordie had found himself snared by them.

  But Finnan was surprised by her mettle this day. She had barely protested his arrival with a wounded lad in his arms, and had assisted him with unshirking competence. Pity the woman was a deceitful lowlander, else she might be worth something.

  “Come,” she told him now, “and wash up at the hearth.”

  Ruefully, he looked down at himself, liberally splashed with blood on skin and clothing, most of it Danny’s and some his opponents’. He nodded.

  “I will sit and watch over him, mistress,” the maid whispered.

  Jeannie hesitated before nodding. What did she expect, that Danny would rise up and strangle the chit with his one hand?

  “Call us, Aggie, if he stirs.”

  She led Finnan from the small bedroom to the other room, which served as both kitchen and sitting room, and indicated the pan of hot water Aggie had ready by the fire.

  He went to the hearth and stripped down, removed his tunic and the shirt beneath, now ruined. He heard not a sound behind him, but Jeannie supplied a wedge of soap and a rough cloth for drying, laying both on the fender. The soap smelled like a summer’s day, like lavender—like her. Ruefully, he acknowledged now he would carry her fragrance also, sure as if he had taken her in his arms and stolen her scent. To his surprise, the thought aroused him. He turned from the fire and caught her staring.

  At him.

  And what was that he saw in her beautiful eyes as they measured the width of his bare shoulders, his chest and arms, marking every tattoo? She had seen all that of him and more, yet she had not had her fill of looking.

  He smiled to himself in satisfaction. It would be all too easy to use her desire against her, make her want him as Geordie had wanted her, and serve her in kind. For he recognized desire when he saw it, and after ten years at large in the world understood what women wanted. Aye, he knew how to bring a woman to the brink of abandon and satisfy her. He knew what made her scream and moan and come apart in his hands.

  He needed to keep his eye on the goal here. The ambush and Danny’s injury had distracted him, yet he played still another game.

  Moving slowly in order to let her look her fill, he dropped his shirt beside the hearth. “Ruined,” he said in lament. “I dare not put that back on.”

  He heard the catch in her breath when she said, “I have nothing to lend you, I am afraid.”

  “No matter.” He gave her his best smile. “You have been naught but kindness itself. I would ask no more.”

  “May I offer you tea to settle your nerves? I confess, I could use some.”

  Finnan asked hopefully, “Have you nothing stronger?”

  “Not in the house.” She shook her head and moved past him to reach the hearth, so close her gown brushed his knees. He stood where he was, and when she straightened he had her virtually within his arms.

  Her breath hitched again. He could feel the warmth of her combatting that of the fire at his back. He wondered what would happen if he kissed her, plunged his tongue into that pretty rosebud of a mouth. Would she protest? Or succumb to the want he saw brimming in her eyes?

  Before he could decide, her gaze dropped; he felt her curiosity as she examined the tattoos that twined over his skin.

  “Each of these has a story,” he told her softly, and gestured to himself. As did each scar, truth be known. “This one here?” He touched the picture of a blade over his heart. “I got it after surviving my first battle. “This”—a swirling pattern on his upper arm—“after I saw the magic that lies in the other world. This”—he touched the twined hound high on his shoulder—“you will recognize, for Geordie and I had them together, and it signifies our oath of loyalty to one another.”

  She said nothing, and he gave her another smile, this one crooked. “But you saw all of me at the pool, did you not, mistress?”

  Her eyes, blue as the sky on a day in May, came up slowly to meet his. Would she step away? Move closer? Invite him in?

  “There is much talk of you, Laird MacAllister. They call you a very wicked man.”

  “Who says this of me? My enemies? And would you take the word of the sort of men who could order the slaying of an unarmed lad?” He stepped still closer; now barely a breath separated them. “Or are you a woman to make up your own mind?”

  Unexpectedly, wry light flashed in her eyes. “They say you have beguiled every woman in the glen. Given such powers of persuasion, I am not sure it is wise to trust my instincts.”

  “I can assure you quite honestly, I ha’ not beguiled every woman in the glen.” Not yet. “And what do your instincts tell you, Jeannie MacWherter?”

  “That you are as dangerous as standing on a precipice over rushing waters.” Yet she did not move away, and he saw the fabric of her bodice quicken with her heartbeat. Aye, there would be passion in her—searing hot—when he at last stripped her naked and took her, even as she desired.

  He raised a hand slowly toward her hair. Gentleness, he knew, often accomplished what demand could not, especially when a woman had not yet made up her mind.

  But he was not prepared for the sensation when his fingers met the softness of those yellow curls. This made the first time he had touched her, and the sweetness of it pierced him, speared through him with power that rocked him back on his heels.

  It felt like sticking his hand in a fire and then wanting to keep it there.

  And oh, but her hair, soft as thistledown, invited his fingers in deeper. He wanted to comb them through those yellow tresses, loosen the curls one by one to fall about her shoulders. He might, aye, be a wicked man, but Jeannie MacWherter posed a rampant danger to him.

  Her hand came up and captured his, still in her hair. For an instant they stood so, fingers and gazes linked, while Finnan found himself suddenly fighting for breath. Then she drew his hand from her hair and stepped away.

  He felt the loss of contact like a physical blow, like an icy blast at the coming of winter. It hit him so hard he could not spea
k.

  And Jeannie? She stood for a moment with her back to him before she spoke in a strained voice. “How long will it be, Laird MacAllister, before you can move Danny?”

  “Overnight, at least.” He struggled to gather his thoughts, to keep his mind focused on his objective. “I apologize again, mistress, for the inconvenience to you.”

  She turned and faced him once more. “And how are Aggie and I to keep him safe from these enemies you insist abound here in the glen?”

  “Well, mistress, I shall just have to stay here the night to guard him—and you.”

  ****

  Jeannie fought determinedly to calm her emotions and her mind. She considered herself first and foremost a practical woman. Even her marriage to Geordie MacWherter had been a purely practical matter. She usually did her best to keep her affairs and her life in order. But there was that about this man that knocked the very breath from her body and chased all power to reason from her head.

  Maybe it was the way he looked at her with those intent, russet-colored eyes. That look said he knew things about her—it made her pulse speed up, caused her blood to race, made her suspect he knew even the thoughts in her mind.

  By heaven, she hoped not, for they were scandalous, and they shocked her to her soul.

  And when he had touched her hair, but the lightest brush of his fingers, she had felt it right through her like the blow from a weapon.

  Oh, no, she could not deny Finnan MacAllister was a most dangerous and quite wicked man. And now he threatened—promised—to stay beneath her roof the night. By all that was holy, could she survive?

  She had never been the sort of woman to succumb to a man’s charms. In fact, she had always told herself a man’s character mattered far more than his appearance. She’d kept her heart carefully unentangled till Geordie came along, and she had not fallen for him.

  Now, terrifyingly, she could feel herself falling, precisely as if the ground beneath her feet had turned to water. What to do about it? She could not demand he leave, with his young groom hurt near to death.

  That Finnan MacAllister cared about the lad she could not doubt. What a strength it must be to have such a man care to such an extent.

  She took another deliberate step away from him, turned toward the cupboard, and pretended to search for the makings of a supper. It did not help; she could still feel him standing there beside the fire, gazing at her.

  “You should be safe this night,” he told her softly, the words bathed in that highland lilt that sounded so like a song. “The Avries will not bring violence to your door. You are on good terms with them, are you not?”

  “Fair terms. I have met the Dowager Avrie, and Aggie is friendly with her servants.” She resisted the desire to look at him again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. “We did hear a rumor her grandsons had returned. Also that you killed their father.” She hoped she was not going to be caught amid some bloody, highland feud. “Was this attack today about revenge?”

  He made a face and gestured with those beautiful hands. “Life is mostly about revenge, is it not, mistress?”

  “Not in my experience.” Wryly she added, “It is mostly about survival.”

  He moved at last to sit on the three-legged stool beside the hearth, affording Jeannie the enjoyment of watching his muscles flex again. “Revenge is survival.”

  “Perhaps, in your world.” Jeannie reflected briefly on it. “I suppose if you murder a man’s father you can then expect him to come looking for you.”

  “I thought the sons had taken flight like two carrion crows and were in hiding for fear of their own lives. I will be better prepared the next time I meet them.”

  She swung to face him and crossed her arms across her breasts. “And if you kill them also, Laird MacAllister? Will that not merely extend the violence on and on?”

  “’Twill do more than that, Mistress MacWherter.” He leaned toward her and his eyes glowed. “’Twill rid the world of a scourge of vermin. And, you ken, such vile pests must be eliminated wherever they are found.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jeannie stirred uneasily on the narrow straw pallet and reached for sleep that would not come. Aggie had insisted on giving Jeannie her bed in the loft and now slept in a nest of blankets on the floor alongside, but neither Jeannie’s mind nor emotions would still.

  Might as well try to sleep while a wolf prowled below; Finnan MacAllister remained at large in the cottage, watching over his servant and supposedly guarding the place.

  She could hear every step he took, soft padding very much like the wolf she envisioned. He had added fuel to the fire and been in and out of her bedroom, tending Danny. Outside, the world lay still, the hush of the summer night seemingly complete. She counted Aggie’s quiet breaths; she caught the murmur of Finnan’s voice, if not his words, every time he spoke to the lad.

  Was Danny awake, then? Better? Worse? How long could she lie here wondering? How long till dawn?

  She knew she should stay where she was, difficult as that might be. She needed to keep well away from Finnan MacAllister and the danger he represented to her peace of mind. But lying there staring at the beams of the loft by the dim firelight that sifted up the ladder, she acknowledged keeping away served very little purpose. He already occupied a place in her head, and she could virtually see him moving about, those tattoos writhing above the muscles of his chest and arms, hair hanging down his back like the mane on a wild pony.

  How might it feel to run her fingers through that hair, tangle them in the rough tresses? How might it feel to press herself against his hard body? To taste him?

  Forbidden thoughts, wicked thoughts. It was as if she had caught them from him.

  She groaned softly and rolled over, desperate to supplant him in her mind, but other thoughts, like sleep, would not come.

  What sort of man was he? For weeks, Aggie had been bringing home whispers of him, gossip from the servants at Avrie House and others in the glen. Murderer, betrayer, mercenary. He had fought at Culloden—as had Geordie—and survived, but no one seemed sure on which side of that conflict he had raised his sword.

  Her best source of information about Finnan MacAllister was now dead. Geordie had not liked to talk about his past. Even when in his cups he threw out only a few words before falling into brooding silence.

  Indeed, Geordie MacWherter had spoken of his good friend, Finnan, seldom enough. He had mentioned him in passing, and also when telling Jeannie about the residence here in Glen Rowan his good friend had gifted him.

  “Paradise on earth,” he had claimed, his eyes hazy and distant with the drink. “A home at last, for I have never had one.”

  “Why do you not go there, then?” Jeannie had asked, nodding at the letter, covered with black script, Geordie held in his hand.

  Geordie had gazed at her with wistful eyes that retained that childlike innocence despite all he must have seen. “I would not go there alone, Jeannie Robertson. Will you marry me?”

  She had refused him then, attributing the offer to the drink, of which he obviously had a skin full, and also later when he proposed a second time. She knew to her soul he deserved better, someone who could give him her whole heart.

  But still later, after her father died and her situation worsened, Jeannie found herself in need of the protection the big, sandy-haired highlander offered. Marrying him had not been an honorable thing to do. Yet she’d been as honest with Geordie as she could. And he had taken her on her terms.

  She had not made him happy. She’d known that on some level, even if she had not been aware he had written letters to his good friend, MacAllister. Complaining of her, apparently—for the proof of what Geordie must have told Finnan lay in Finnan’s anger with her at their initial meeting.

  But now—now he claimed Geordie’s ghost had come to him and asked for his protection and forbearance on Jeannie’s behalf. Finnan would have Jeannie believe his attitude toward her had changed. Did she believe it? Lying there with her eyes st
retched wide in the darkness, she could not tell.

  She heard Finnan murmur again, then followed his soft footsteps as they went to the fire, heard the splash as he poured water. With a sigh she sat up and slid from the cot.

  She had gone to bed fully clothed, unwilling to undress with that man in the house. She seized a shawl and wound it about her shoulders before going down the ladder.

  No one in the main room. The fire burned steadily, and the kettle simmered, hot. She went to the door of her bedroom and peered in. One glance told her Danny had taken a turn for the worse. Finnan bent over the bed, on which the lad tossed and muttered words to which she heard Finnan reply.

  “There, now, lad. Try to lie quietly. You’ll tear open that wound.”

  “But they are coming for us! They will hang us for traitors. We must away!”

  “Whisht now, Danny lad, you are safe. Did I no’ promise to keep you safe?” The tenderness in Finnan MacAllister’s voice, so much at odds with anything Jeannie had heard from him, went straight to her heart. Oh, but he had a beautiful voice when he did not threaten or beguile.

  But Danny, if he heard, took no comfort. “They will put us all to death! Cut out my heart…”

  “Easy, Danny. You know I will fight to the very death for you.”

  An avenging highland angel was he, standing between this lad and all harm with a drawn sword? Cursed if Jeannie was not convinced. She stirred in the doorway, and Finnan’s senses, ever alert, detected the movement. He looked at her and straightened from the bed.

  “Mistress, I hope we did not disturb your rest.”

  Jeannie answered with another question. “What is it, is he worse?”

  “Fever has set in; he is out of his head.” Slowly, moving with that powerful grace, Finnan approached her. “It often happens with this kind of wound, but I confess I hoped for better.”

  “Of what does he speak? Whom does he fear?”

  Finnan gave a wry smile. “Whom does a man not fear when caught in a fever? I have bathed his head and done my best to reassure him, but I do no’ think he hears.”