by Paula Quinn
“I’ve crossed these ledges too many times to fear fallin’ off them. And I’m no’ afraid of the water. I just prefer my feet on solid ground.”
“To be certain, you’re a steady, unshakable man, Robert MacGregor.”
He thanked her, and then bent his mouth to her ear when she giggled. “D’ye find fault with those qualities, then, Princess?”
Over the course of their journey together, Rob’s deep, melodic voice had begun to feel as if it were coming from inside her, rather than from close behind. The touch of his body against her back, the caress of his arms coiled loosely about her waist had become familiar to her, comforting, and more profoundly intimate than even kissing him felt. She had no idea what kind of life awaited her beyond this ancient threshold that even Vikings could not penetrate, and though she was excited to begin living, she did not want the journey to end.
“Of course, I don’t find fault with you, save for if you’re going to call me Princess from now on. But I do believe you could use a little more pleasure in your life.”
“D’ye now?”
“Yes.” She turned to look up at him fully and was surprised that she could find anything more beautiful than the scenery. “I would like to help you…” His eyes were the color of the landscape, but infinitely more tender. “… find pleasure.”
“I canna’ wait.” His slow, salacious grin made her burn below her navel and she blushed, realizing too late how shameless her offer sounded.
Oh, to Hades with pretenses! She could not wait either. She wanted him to kiss her. No, she wanted more than that. She wanted to surrender all to him and trust him with the outcome. She wanted to get lost in this dream and never ever return. She closed her eyes and parted her lips, but only his warm breath touched her mouth. “Later, Davina,” he promised huskily. “I must keep my wits aboot me, else we will fall. But later…”
She opened her eyes to his and smiled. “Do I make you lose your wits, then?”
“Och, aye, lass.” He nodded, the truth of his enchantment warm in his eyes. “Ye do.”
It was a haven nestled cozily within purple hills that danced in the spring breeze and jagged mountain ranges swathed in gossamer. Davina had plenty of time to bask in the awe of Camlochlin as they raced down the ridge from the cliffs and across the heather-lined glens toward the castle carved from the black mountain behind it. Camlochlin castle was a daunting sight, with its jagged turrets and armed Highlanders patrolling the walls, but Rob lived there, so Davina knew there must be warmth inside.
Toward the north, all the way to the braes of Bla Bheinn, small cottages and woolly white sheep scampered over the rolling hills. Frothy whitecaps from Loch Scavaig rolled gently toward the bay of Camas Fhionnairigh from the west, adding soothing music to the air.
“Rob?” she said as the wind, sweet with the fragrance of heather and peat, whipped back her hair. “If Gilles tries to take me away from this place, I will kill him myself.”
“Save yer tender sentiments until ye’ve met my aunt.”
She turned and quirked her brow at him. “I thought you said she was very kind and loving… and whatever is tender about me threatening to kill Gilles?”
“Maggie MacGregor is verra kind and lovin’—to me,” Rob corrected with a grin that made her dizzy enough to swoon a little. “… and ’tis tender because ye’d kill him fer Camlochlin.”
He made her head spin, but he still didn’t make any sense. She shrugged her shoulders, giving up, and turned back toward the approaching castle. The doors were opened now and people were stepping out, tilting their heads to the guardsmen above and then back to the riders. One woman pushed her way through the thickening crowd, shielded her eyes from the sun for a moment to see if the guardsmen were correct, and then took off at a brisk pace toward them.
“Robbie?” she shouted in a commanding voice that didn’t match her small stature. When she reached them, Davina was first struck by her beauty, and then by the panic in her vivid blue eyes. “What are ye doing back here? Where is yer father, and why in blazes are ye traveling with an English soldier?”
Springing from his saddle, Rob stepped into her waiting—though impatient—embrace. “My faither is in England, safe and unharmed.”
The woman visibly relaxed. Apparently, Rob knew what answer she needed to hear first.
“I will explain everything to ye after I’ve—”
“And who might ye be?”
The smile Davina wore faded from her face under the woman’s palpable scrutiny. She could only be Rob’s Aunt Maggie, the spitfire sister of the Devil MacGregor. Davina didn’t need to take notice of the woman’s petite, slightly hunched frame, for she herself was not much taller. It was her blunt candor, and the timing of it that, according to Rob when he’d told her of his family that day in Courlochcraig’s church, sometimes caught folks off guard.
“She is Davina,” Finn answered cheerfully for her as he strode toward them. “And she is a princess,” he added, kissing his aunt by marriage on her cheek, “so be pleasant to her.”
Davina went pale, but when Finn caught her eye, he flashed his boyish grin. Rob did not look pleased, but he said nothing to refute Finn’s introduction while he helped Davina dismount. Was he going to tell them all who she was? Why would he? The probability was more than a little unsettling. It was downright terrifying. The importance of keeping her identity secret had always been vital to her existence. She wasn’t sure she was ready for it to become common knowledge.
“Where is Jamie?” Rob asked his aunt while she followed Finn with a skeptical scowl over her shoulder.
Maggie cut her caustic gaze to Edward next. “He went to Torrin with Brodie fer…” She snapped her mouth shut and her guilty gaze crept back to Rob, who was waiting patiently for her to go on. “All right, fer flowers!” she practically snapped at him.
Unfazed by her slight outburst, Rob shook his head in disbelief and uttered a muffled blasphemy. “Will, show the captain inside and put him in Colin’s room fer now.” When he turned back to his aunt, he seemed to have soothed his temper. “Aunt Maggie,” he managed to say rather calmly, “yer husband shouldna’ leave the clan unprotected fer flowers.”
“But look around ye, Robbie,” she appealed, stretching out her arms at her sides. “Do ye see any orchids? Ye know they’re my favorite and when Aileen stopped through here a se’nnight ago with the MacLeods she said the orchids were blooming a deep shade of purple this year in Torrin.”
“Well, now I understand,” Rob conceded benignly. Davina couldn’t help but smile at him. “Ye’ll tell me aboot the MacLeods bein’ here after I’ve seen to the clan,” he said, back to being the formidable leader he’d trained his whole life to be. “Fer now, will ye take Davina to a room and have whatever she wants brought to her?”
“Whatever she wants?” Maggie MacGregor arched a curious black brow at him and folded her arms across her chest. This time, though, she wouldn’t argue with her brother’s son. She turned instead to Davina, appraising her once again from foot to crown. She studied Davina’s face with lingering intensity before arriving at some conclusion Davina wasn’t sure fell in her favor.
“Well, come on then, Princess.” Maggie waved her hand at her and turned for the castle.
“Go on, lass,” Rob urged when Davina paused and gave him an anxious look. “I’ll see ye shortly.”
Davina didn’t want to go inside without him. It wasn’t the foreboding castle that made her uncomfortable, but the diminutive woman in front of her who’d looked over her shoulder in time to see Rob reach for her hand and scowled darker than Rob and Colin put together.
“Are ye the reason my nephew is not in England with his father?” Maggie asked her when they were out of earshot from the others.
Davina inhaled deeply before she answered. What were they going to think of her when they found out who she was? When they realized how much danger Rob had put them all in, and how she’d gone along with it. She realized at that moment just how l
ike a princess she had behaved thus far. Rob’s family would see her as nothing more than as a spoiled, selfish bratling. “I’m afraid so,” she answered truthfully.
“Well, ye’re lovely enough to turn a few heads,” Maggie said, glancing up at her from the corner of her eye. “But a bonnie face isn’t enough to keep Robert from his duties.”
“It was never my intention to…”
“Are ye a Stuart?”
Davina nearly tripped over her feet at the unexpected question. Maggie’s arms caught her, though just barely.
“Aye, I thought as much,” the smaller woman said, reading Davina’s eyes as easily as if she were reading a Gaelic scroll. “My Jamie’s brother is married to a Stuart. I thought ye were her when I first set eyes on ye on Rob’s horse.”
Davina looked over her shoulder for Rob, but he was gone. What should she say? How much should she tell this stranger who tore away her secrets with less effort than it took to peel an onion? She did the only thing she could without having to admit who she was to anyone else but Rob. She evaded the question. “Robert and Finn told me of Lady Claire. I am curious to meet her.”
“Aye, sweeting,” Maggie spared her a glance that was both kind and shrewd together as they entered the castle. “I’m sure ye are.”
Davina had never been inside a castle before. She’d seen many drawings of their glorious grand halls and stone stairways in her books, but walking into Camlochlin felt like stepping back through time and into a dream. She looked around, turning a full circle in order to take in the full size of everything around her, from the two-foot-thick doors riveted in wrought iron, to the cavernous corridors lit by candelabras and carved iron wall sconces. There were many people hurrying about, each one looking at her, many of them smiling.
While Maggie led her toward the stairs, issuing requests to this person or that about their guests’ needs, Davina’s eyes were fastened on the great tapestries lending warmth to the halls. She’d never seen such workmanship and felt ashamed of her own needlework skills.
“I’ll put ye in Mairi’s chambers fer now, until we get another cleaned.”
Davina barely heard Maggie, but nodded. She would sleep on the floor without complaint if there were no other chambers available. She inhaled, trying to place the oddly pleasant scent lacing the air. It smelled like the hills, only richer, smokier. Whatever it was, she loved it and everything else about Camlochlin. It was Rob, menacing and formidable, until one gained entrance into its warm, sheltering core.
She didn’t think anything could affect her more than Rob’s home, until she stepped into Mairi’s room. It wasn’t the painted walls or the rich dark furnishings that made her emotions spring up hot and heavy, but the lesser comforts, like the delicate brass comb set beside other feminine trinkets on a small table by Mairi’s bed, the dried sprigs of heather arranged in a painted clay vase on another table by the window. Even the twin swords crossed above an alcoved hearth bore testimony to something Davina never had. A father who loved and indulged her.
She swiped a tear from her eye when Maggie touched her hand. The smaller woman did not question her, but simply took her hand and patted it.
“Do ye like rabbit? To eat?” Maggie clarified when Davina blinked at her.
The question was so out of the blue that Davina blurted out the truth before she could stop herself. “N… no.” She cringed, hoping she hadn’t just insulted her host on a meal she was preparing. “What I mean is… I prefer not eating meat… but I would be happy to share anything….” Her words trailed off and she couldn’t help but smile at the woman grinning back at her.
Chapter Twenty-one
Davina didn’t see Rob again until several hours later that evening. In the meantime, she enjoyed a hot bath, a host of female visitors who brought her food, handfuls of colorful kirtles, and information about the MacGregor men of Camlochlin, and a short nap on a heavenly soft mattress.
Their laird, she learned from two of the women who prepared her bath, was fair and patient, and according to Agnes, who spilled more water onto the floor than into the basin when she spoke of him, as striking as the Cuillin ridge in winter.
When Caitlin MacKinnon brought her a tray of warm leek soup and sops, Davina giggled and gasped when the dark-haired beauty told her of the rogue, Tristan, and how he enjoyed inciting his younger siblings’ fury as much as he enjoyed ridding lasses of their virtue.
“He is cunnin’, and sometimes thoughtless,” Caitlin confided. “But ye willna’ care aboot those things once he smiles at ye. Ye’d do well to steer clear of him,” she added, looking over Davina’s long, flaxen tresses with a glint of envy in her eyes. “Will is just as handsome, and no’ half as wicked.”
Davina found that a little hard to believe after spending so much time with Will. But she liked Caitlin and suspected that the girl cared for Tristan and was trying to keep her out of his bed.
“What about Rob?” Davina asked, sipping her mead and trying to sound as indifferent as possible. She believed she already knew much about him, but she was curious to know what the women of the castle thought of him.
Caitlin followed her to the bed and sat with her as easily as if they were close friends sharing kitchen gossip. “Och, dinna’ waste yer time on that one. He has little use fer anything that willna’ benefit the clan. Besides, I think his faither wants him to wed Mary MacDonald. Mary’s faither is one of the four main chiefs on Skye and…”
Mary MacDonald? Davina’s heart sank to her feet. Rob hadn’t mentioned her—or his plans to take her as his wife. But how could she fault him for keeping secrets? How could she be angry with him for kissing her while being bound to someone else, when she had done the same thing? Still, her heart felt as if it had just been torn in two.
Thankfully, Maggie pushed through the door before Caitlin could tell her anything else she couldn’t bear to hear.
When Rob’s aunt saw Caitlin, she gave her the kind of look one might aim at a cellar rat that had wandered into the kitchen. Seeing her, Caitlin swept off the bed and hurried out of the room without another word or look in Maggie’s direction.
“What has that trollop been telling ye that brings such gloom to yer face?” Maggie asked, shuffling toward the bed to primp Davina’s pillows. “Hell, ye look worse than when ye got here.”
Davina sighed quietly and handed Maggie the cup of mead when she held her hand out for it. She didn’t bother lying, since she was so poor at it and Maggie had already proven that she could see right through her anyway. And so far, the woman hadn’t regarded her like she had the plague. Davina wanted to keep it that way.
“She told me of Rob’s betrothal.”
“His what?” Maggie gave the pillow a soft punch and motioned for Davina to lie down. “To who?”
“Mary MacDonald.”
“What nonsense,” Maggie huffed. “Mary is a mouse who hides behind her father’s rather large arse every time my Robbie looks at her. He does not even like her.”
Davina looked up into Maggie’s huge blue eyes and had the urge to throw her arms around her neck. She might have done it too if Maggie wasn’t tucking her in like a mother.
“Do ye like flowers?”
Smiling, Davina nodded, already growing accustomed to the way Maggie veered from one topic to another.
“Good, because my Jamie has returned from Torrin with a cartload of orchids. I’ll have Agnes bring ye some after yer nap. They are lovely. I swear the man has a gift fer picking out the bonniest ones. Not a one of them is wilted.”
When Rob’s aunt asked her next question, Davina suspected the purpose behind her quirky diversions was to catch folks completely off guard.
“So then, ye have tender feelings fer Robert?”
“Yes,” Davina admitted, unable to conceal the answer already softening her features. “I think he is one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
“Do ye, now?” Maggie asked curiously and sat on the bed beside her. “He can be quite intimidating when he wan
ts to be. Ye’re not afraid of him then?”
“Oh, heavens, no,” Davina smiled and closed her eyes. She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was, or how badly she missed lying in a bed until her head hit the pillow. “He saved me, you know. He rode straight through the Abbey doors and saved me from the flames.”
She barely heard Maggie leaving the room a short time later. She was asleep in minutes and already dreaming of her champion.
Rob entered the Great Hall with Will and Asher, and Finn close behind. He looked around for Davina and spotted his aunt instead. She crooked her finger at him when he reached her chair and kissed him on the cheek when he bent to her.
“What was that fer?”
“’Twas fer being so much like yer father.”
As was often the case, Rob had no idea why Maggie would bring that up now at supper. He hadn’t seen her all day, having returned just a few moments ago from seeing to the villagers. Rather than ask her to enlighten him, he chuckled softly, pulling out his chair to sit. There was only one person his aunt loved as much as him and his uncle—and it was his father. If Maggie saw similarities between them and wished to blurt it out when the notion struck her, ’twas fine with Rob.
“She’ll be along anytime now,” Maggie said knowingly when he lifted his gaze to the entrance of the Great Hall. “She woke from her nap a wee bit ago. I sent Alice and Agnes to help her prepare fer supper. Did ye know that she doesn’t like to eat meat?”
Rob glanced once again at the entrance and smiled. So, it wasn’t just men who fell helpless to Davina’s natural enchantment. “I did notice that she ate a good amount of nuts and berries on our way here,” he said, knowing how much his aunt despised the practice of eating flesh. Davina had won her over easily. “Ye have my thanks fer seein’ to her comfort.” When Maggie’s gaze softened on him as if she could see his heart right there in his eyes, he looked away, turning his attention to her husband.
“What were the MacLeods doin’ here?”