Kate took a backward step. "No—not that." She edged toward the door, then slipped a hand behind her to grasp the handle.
With one step, Alec was there, too, wedging his foot against the door to keep it shut. He pressed his right hand against the wood above her head, the chains dangling from his left.
"I cannot bear to be shackled again," she said.
He leaned toward her. "I have no other assurance that you will stay here tonight."
"I'd rather stay with you than be caught by Grant's men." She watched him boldly, and Alec saw a spark there, felt his body answer, like a top spinning, surging. "Trust me."
He nearly laughed, but shook his head. "I am not so easily beguiled as you might hope." He was leaning close enough to kiss her, he knew. The awareness plunged through him.
Her eyes narrowed, their color pale and bright, irises clear gray, lanternlight reflected there. "If you leave off the chains, I will stay," she said. Her glance did not waver, but her fingers closed on the door handle, white-knuckled. "I give my word."
His breath stirred her hair. She tilted her head, closed her eves. Breathed, he saw. and waited. So did he.
Her natural allure was potent just then, so that he felt pulled toward her power, like a gentle but compelling stream, or a spinning vortex. She just stood there watching him, without wiles, coquettish glances, or suggestive words—yet she exuded a wild and natural magic. He felt wholly susceptible, although he had tried his damnedest, all along, to withstand it.
"I'll need a way to ... secure your promise," he murmured. His heart slammed, his body clenched rhythmically, anticipating. Bending toward her, he let his nose brush against hers. God, he wanted to kiss her.
Her head tipped back, her eyes fluttered shut and open again. "How ... can I prove my word?"
He knew what he craved of her. But she had insisted that she was no wanton, and he believed her. He inclined his face near hers. His heart thundered. Kate tilted her face a little, just enough, and he kissed her.
Her lips were so tender beneath his, sweet, almost poignant. At first her lips were soft and still under his, tentative but permissive. He sensed a longing, a vulnerability in her that matched what he felt within himself.
She needed this as much as he did. Wanted this.
The realization tore through him, and he sucked in a breath, cupped her shoulder, felt her sag against the door and surrender to him. The kiss renewed itself between them naturally, hungrily. A melting touch of lips, a slow drawing away. With a new rush of breath and urgent need, he kissed her yet again, and lost himself utterly, completely, in that moment, as her hands lifted to take him round the back, and she curved her body aeainst his.
Chapter 14
S
he moaned under his mouth, her fingers clutched at his shirt, his waistcoat. She returned the kiss with a wildness that drove him on, that matched the fire stoking within him.
Stop, he told himself, and yet he pressed her against the door, his palm flat on the wood, his other hand sliding from her shoulder down her arm. His thumb grazed the side of her bodice, and she sighed. Her hands slid up and sifted through his hair. She moaned again, low and needful, and the sound plunged through him. Her hips pushed against his, and he grew hard and urgent against her where their bodies arched, pressed.
Madness, this was madness, he told himself, his
heart slamming, his breath quickening. She pulled at his shirt, her fingers gliding over him as if to savor the feel of his shoulders, his neck, his jaw. Alec had never felt like this, ever, as if a vein of lightning crashed through him without warning, white-hot and wild.
He pulsed all through for her, burned for her, lost his reason further with every hungry kiss. She pulled at his shirt now, straining the buttons of his waistcoat, as her mouth opened beneath his. Her tongue was cool and moist and divine, sending a keen flare of passion through him so that his body filled and hardened further, until he thought he might burst.
His long fingers cupped over her bodice, shaping the upper curve of her breasts. Her heartbeat was strong, her breath as fast as his own, and he traced kisses downward over her cheek, the arch of her throat and graceful curve of her collarbone, until he kissed the tops of her breasts. She did not protest, only mewled a little and leaned her head back. His fingers worked the lacings of her green gown quickly, and the front bodice pieces loosened, exposing her plain chemise, then the sweet fullness of her breasts. Somehow he managed this, driven mad by her fingers, gentle and deft where they ran through his hair, traced along his jaw, tugged at the buttons of his shirt.
She seemed as intent in her passion as he was, and he lifted his head to kiss her again, pressing her back against the door, while his fingertips found her nipples, one and the other, turning them to warm pearls, flicking them gently as she moaned and sagged against the door. She beean to slide downward and Alec went with
her, sinking to his knees, holding her, kissing her as he knelt with her, dimly aware that he hovered on the brink of control.
Wrapping his arms around her, feeling her arms tighten around him, he held her tightly for a moment. That in itself felt so damned good, the bliss of comfort enhancing desire. Stop, he told himself, stop now; but he was caught in a strange, hot fog of passion that would diminish only if she put a stop to it—that alone would clear it.
She nudged at him, sought his lips for another kiss, the most luscious he had yet experienced with her. When she arched against him, her heart thudding against his own, her breath mingling with his, he could not think.
So he savored every kiss like a drunkard, freed by her returned hunger and desire. He sensed joy as he tasted her, touched her, felt the wildness of her touch, the exquisite sensation of her skin under his hands. She was lush, warm, giving. Her gown—shabby green thing that it was—came away easily, nearly tearing, and two thin petticoats and a simple set of stays came with it. She pulled at his waistcoat, his shirt, his wrapped plaid, all lost somewhere between the floor and the bed. All the while, every motion, every step forward woven in a net of kisses, caresses.
Laying her on the mattress, Alec shoved aside the coverlet to reveal the bed linens she had not preferred, and he stretched out beside her. Her chemise was fine cotton or lawn, he saw, and translucent, so that the lanternlieht elowed throueh it when she lifted an arm.
raised a knee. The curves of her body were taut and beautiful. Lowering his head, Alec rained gentle kisses over her lips and then her throat, and he slid the chemise down to touch her breasts then with his fingers, his lips.
A wild and passionate memory, half a dream, came to him then—he had loved her like this before. He remembered the wild sweetness of it, the pleasure and the sense of disbelief. Now he could savor every inch of her with his head clear, his intent clear. But it was truly madness—he should not be pursuing her like this though she allowed the chase with such willingness.
Breath heaving, he paused, then forced himself to draw away, stilling his hands, eyes closed, fighting desire and the deep attraction he felt toward her. Surrendering to that was all he wanted, and yet he could not give in to that urge.
She was in his military custody, in his protection. He could not treat her as if she meant nothing to him. Already she was coming to mean too much.
He rocked away and sat back against the wall. "I am sorry, Kate," he said in a husky voice.
Silent, she reclined on the bed and watched him, eyes wide and wary, lips lush and tinted with passion. Then she sat up, tugging at her chemise, and curled her knees high beneath it. She ducked her head on her folded arms and said nothing.
Alec remembered that she had sat like that in the prison cell, too, looking so forlorn. He touched her arm, and she jerked away, batted at him with her hands. "Leave me be." she said.
"Kate, this is just not right," he murmured.
"I know. You think I am just a harlot, and you want nothing at all to do with me," she said, head tucked, voice muffled.
> "That's not so." Shoving his fingers through his hair, he sighed. "It's not right, this. You are my responsibility."
"Oh," she said, an arm waving upward, head down, voice catching on a sob, "oh, and you must follow your duty and your orders, and resist at all costs the wicked little wanton in your keeping." She looked at him then, her eyes pink-rimmed.
"It's just not right to do this," he said helplessly. He needed to explain, but he was never one to articulate, much less filet, his emotions to reveal what lay hidden. He reached out again, and she slapped him away again. "I did not mean to hurt you, or insult you—" he began.
"Just leave me be. I'm tired. I want another room, please." She threw her feet over the edge of the bed and stood, snatching her clothing, her gown and stays, her petticoats and the plaid.
Despite her distress, he noticed the lightning decision she made, choosing Jean's red gown over her own shabby dress. He nearly smiled, finding the feminine gesture disarming. Had he been snatching up garments in a hurry, he would not have noticed, or cared, what he grabbed.
She pulled the fresh chemise on over her own, yanked the newer stays on over that, while he watched with a sort of bemused fascination, seeing how easily she managed the laces at the front—he would have thoueht thev beloneed at the back—and how auicklv
she figured out the red gown, whose design puzzled him, split wide at skirt and bodice, yet meeting snug in the middle, like an hourglass. She pulled it on like a coat, overlapped it somehow at the waist and fastened it, so that the chemise and petticoats showed. He watched, his body surging of its own accord at the sight.
When she stomped to the door, he stood and stepped forward rapidly, though she grabbed the door handle to turn it. "I'll need to borrow a few coins to pay for another room."
He took her wrist. "You will stay here, Kate."
She yanked. "And we'll forget about what just happened?"
"I did not intend that. I apologize." He leaned a shoulder against the door, fingers around her wrist.
This was where it began, he recalled, not long ago, and his body still throbbed with need. Be careful, he told himself.
"I do not think of you as a wanton, and I apologize, again, if I implied it. But you must remain in my keeping."
She jerked her hand away, but he held on. "For how long?"
Forever, a voice murmured inside of him. "Until I turn you over to the Court of Justiciary."
She tried to wrench away. "I'm leaving," she said.
"Then again, I'm sorry." He dragged her away from the door, sat her firmly on the bed, and held her there with one hand. With the other, he snatched up the iron bracelet, foreotten in the madness of moments earlier.
and clapped it around her slim wrist. Holding that, he then turned the key. "Truly sorry, Kate."
"No," she whispered, almost a cry.
He snapped the other metal cuff around his own wrist, as before, and locked that shut, too, dropping the key into his sporran. "It's better this way. Safer."
"For whom?" Her voice had a smoky warmth, sweet and earthy.
"For me. You're far too much of a challenge for me, Miss Marie Katherine What-you-will." The words were wry, but he gazed at her somberly.
She stared at him, wild and disheveled, eyes pink and nose sniffly hair in a tangle. So vulnerable and lovely, and deliriously desirable, he thought. She was not a goddess, a siren, a fairy queen—she was a simple girl who fitted to him, heart and mind and body. And he needed her, felt the urge rise up and grab him fast by the heartstrings.
Her breath caught, a remnant of a sob that wrenched his heart, and she gazed up at him.
"Do not look at me like that," he said. "Please. Lie down, if you will. We both need some rest." He gave her an encouraging push. "Stretch out by the wall. I'll lie on the outside."
"So you'll know if I try to get away."
"Exactly." He gestured for her to move. She scuttled backward and settled on her side, her back to the wall. Alec sat and took a moment to turn down the lantern wick. Smoke twirled upward in the darkness.
He stretched his legs out on the bed, mattress sag-eine beneath him as he shifted. Kate curled on her side.
forcing Alec to extend his left arm because of the short length of chain.
He rested against the single flat pillow, feeling awkward. Thin moonlight through the window illuminated the girl's form beside him. "If you would come closer and sleep on your back, we'd both be more comfortable."
"I like sleeping on my side. I rest that way at home."
"And where is that?" he murmured.
"Besides," she continued over his words, "I do not want to lie near you. It's just not right, remember."
"Kate." He sighed. "Just get comfortable."
"I think I should leave. Who knows what will happen here in the dark, with you."
"Will you accept my apology and let this go?" he asked irritably. He folded his hands, chain pulling. "We have to lie close, since the chain is short. And you're a prisoner of the crown, unless you've forgotten."
"You forgot it," she snapped, though the bite was not sharp.
"I'm remembering it now. You're a very valuable prisoner."
"Valuable to whom?"
"To me," he said quietly. "And I cannot risk losing you." His words echoed in the space between them, took on more meaning than he wanted. Or was that just his blasted, inexplicable, undeniable yearning for this girl?
"I need to be free," she whispered. "And I do not want to be ... hurt. That is all, Alec."
Her use of his name cut through to his heart. "That's
all I would want, too, if I were you. And I could give you that, if you would give me a little information."
She half sat. "You might free me?"
He shrugged.
"If I have no guarantee, why would I tell you anything?"
"Because," he said, "I am your best chance."
She narrowed her eyes. "But you're following orders."
"If I were the sort to obey all the orders I get, you would still be in Grant's keeping."
"Oh? Were you not supposed to take me out of Fort William?"
"I have custody over you, but my method of removing you from incarceration was ... not exactly as ordered." He sent her a wry glance. "I stole you away."
"Tcha." She shifted to a seated position. The mattress bounced. "You did that because of Colonel Grant?"
"In part."
"Then I will thank you for that, at least. I suppose you will be in a kettle of trouble for this."
"That could be. It's not so important."
"Could they imprison you for it?" she asked quietly.
He regarded her through half-closed eyes. He could not tell her all that he knew, and besides, she distracted him mightily, the sight of her alluring, his yearning to touch her unsatisfied. "It's possible they could imprison me, aye."
"Anything I could tell you," she said carefully, "might be used against my kinsmen. The government would go after my family, and other Jacobites through them."
"You'll have to trust me," he murmured.
"Would you tell your superiors what I say?" Her hesitant tone told him that she considered revealing her secrets.
If she did so, he might be able to let her go. But he felt a deep twinge at the thought of losing her. "I keep things to myself when I choose. I'm not a wee tin soldier, my friend." He leaned back his head, watched her, kept his hand still beside her, the chain between them. He waited.
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I thought you were a staid Fraser who always follows orders."
"We staid ones do think before we act. Usually."
"You do too much thinking sometimes, Alasdair."
His body pulsed secretly. "Perhaps. I must ask something."
"No more questions about my name and that." She rested her head on her arm and waited.
"Who is the hermit?" he asked slowly.
She watched him. "Why do you ask?" Her voice was husky.
>
"It took me a little while, since my Gaelic is not so good anymore, but I finally realized that Ian Cameron mentioned a hermit... and something hidden away."
"I do not know who the hermit is," she admitted. "Some nonsense Ian was saying. Perhaps he would rather be a hermit than be jailed and waiting for his execution. Do you think I know some grand secret and would help you undermine the Jacobites when I will not even tell you my full name?"
"Talk to me. and nerhans the Tacobites will not be un-
dermined," he said urgently, his heart pounding. He could give up his own grand secret—he would, if he thought she would believe it and accept it of him. "You have to trust me, Kate."
"I would like to, sometimes ... but I cannot."
"So you do know something."
"I am very tired," she said suddenly, and put her head down, reclining. A fall of golden hair covered her face.
Well, they had made some progress, he told himself. Those few, fiery moments of passion had altered their relationship and changed him somehow. Perhaps it had affected her, too. He had nearly told her that he was engaged in secret Jacobite activities himself, despite being a government officer.
He was beginning to trust her that much, and it scared him.
"Good night, then," he said, thumping the feather pillow and lying on his back. The chain jangled. "I promise not to touch you." He thought it might kill him to keep that promise.
"What if I said I did not mind if you did?" she asked in the darkness.
He caught his breath. "That was not the way for your custodial officer to behave, and I apologized for it," he finally said, eyes still closed. "If it came out in court, it would not help your case, lass, believe me."
"I thought," she murmured, "that you ... did not even notice that I am a woman, after that night when we—"
"I noticed," he said gruffly. "I have always noticed you, from the first day in London." She was silent, an affirmation of sorts, for she had not vet admitted to
that. "So I suppose I am like all the rest, pandering after Katie Hell like a blethering fool." He folded his free arm behind his head.
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