by Gayle Callen
He cared for the children he rescued, had been appalled that anyone would kidnap innocents. He loved his sisters, and lived in fear that his exploits would bring harm to them. But none of that compared to this all-encompassing obsession with Catriona.
It was well after supper when a guard returned with news of a party approaching. Duncan strode toward the cave entrance.
“Laird Carlyle,” Maeve called, “ye should wait to be certain ’tis our men.”
Though she was right, he couldn’t wait. He went out into the cool night, the sky pink and purple above the absent sun. With his arms across his chest, he waited until Torcall, the advance rider, came through the trees.
Duncan caught the horse’s harness to keep him still, then confronted the panting man. “Is Mistress Catherine with the riders?” he demanded.
Torcall nodded. “She is, your lairdship.”
Duncan told himself his relief was only so great because Catriona was his responsibility. By ones and twos his men came through the overgrowth which hid the entrance to the cave. Near the end was Ivor, with Catriona and Finn beside him. He expected Catriona to look embarrassed, but instead it was Finn who met his gaze briefly, uneasily, before looking away.
Catriona dismounted with the grace of a born horsewoman, rushed toward him, her smile exuberant, before coming up short.
“Duncan, the most wonderful thing happened,” she cried, then briefly covered her mouth before lowering her voice. “We rescued three children and have already returned them to their families.”
He felt a chill, imagining what might have happened if she were recognized.
“I didn’t get to see the reunion myself,” she said, her expression growing shadowed as if a cloud had crossed it—and as if she’d read his mind. “Ivor insisted I remain well away. I was very safe,” she added. Eyeing him, she hurried on. “It wasn’t a whisky shipment, of course. Ivor told me he’d never take me to where they store the casks, even if I was curious.” She finally broke off.
“Are ye done babbling?” he asked coolly.
She swallowed, then looked around and realized that they were almost totally alone. He could still hear the men at the paddock, and the last of them took the mare’s reins right from Catriona’s hand and headed toward the path.
“I can take care of him,” she called.
“Nay, ye cannot,” Duncan said. “Ye’ll be speaking with me for a good long while.”
Instead of getting abashed or defensive, she linked her hands together and regarded him calmly. “Would ye like a report from me, rather than Ivor?”
Again, he noticed the Scottish creeping back into her speech, and imagined two days with his men had contributed to that. Two days alone with a group of rough men. He could have shaken her.
Of course, she’d spent two weeks in a cave with a group of rough men. But he’d been there to watch over and protect her. But he hadn’t protected her from himself.
“Nay, I’ll leave the report to Ivor,” he said. “’Tis words of explanation I need to hear from ye.”
At last she lowered her lashes. “In my excitement at the success of the rescue, I forgot . . . the circumstances.”
“Aye, the circumstances. What could possibly have made you and a boy follow my men on such a dangerous mission?”
He didn’t even realize he was towering over her, his voice rising, until she was looking up at him, lips pressed tightly together.
She raised both hands. “’Twas wrong, I know.”
“Ye’ll only concede ‘wrong’?”
Those golden eyes gleamed in the last of the day’s light, and seemed to beseech him. He didn’t want to fall under their spell. Right now he was her chief.
“Yer lairdship, ’twas all me fault.”
Duncan and Catriona both turned to see Finn emerging from the shadowy path that led to the paddock. The boy’s features were stark with apprehension and fear. Though Duncan hated to inspire such a thing in a child, it was sometimes necessary to keep them safe.
“Finn,” Catriona began.
“Nay, mistress, ye cannot protect me. ’Twas I who needed to help others like me, my laird. Mistress Catherine tried to stop me, but I would not listen to her. She came along to protect me in my foolishness.”
Catriona frowned at the boy, but did not contradict him.
“Ye did not consider that you could endanger my clansmen?” Duncan said. He was no longer quite so angry, but he couldn’t let them see that.
Finn swallowed audibly, then shook his head. “Nay, I wanted to help. I remembered how afraid I was of yer men and what they meant to do to me. I thought I could ease their fears.”
“And did ye?”
The boy’s chin came up a bit. “I did, my laird.”
“Then go off and see to Mistress Catherine’s horse, as well as your own, and think on how ye could have handled your wish better.”
Looking abashed, the boy led his mare away.
Duncan turned back to Catriona. The rising moon touched her with a glow, altering her homespun clothing. She looked remote and beautiful, and it took everything in him not to draw her into his arms, to kiss her with passion, with regret, with confusion. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with her now, and couldn’t face how that made him feel. So he focused on keeping her safe. “And how should ye have handled yourself better?”
Taking a deep breath, she boldly said, “I don’t know what I could have done differently. If it had been whisky, Ivor assured me he wouldn’t have taken me along. He said I’m not to know such things, that it would be dangerous. He says the Earl of Aberfoyle is involved, that it’s his whisky we steal, because of what he’s helped to do to the stolen children.”
The moment she’d mentioned her father’s name, Duncan had drawn a deep breath, waiting for her to say that the name had triggered her memory. Had he not made it clear to Ivor that she was to know nothing? But she still looked at him with earnestness, no revelation of awareness about her identity. Her father’s title meant nothing to her, and the constricting feeling of dread slowly loosened its hold on him.
But he couldn’t stop thinking of the danger she’d been in, following his men, maybe not even alerting them of her presence immediately.
“You seem upset,” she said, her voice pleading. “Finn needed me. He wanted to be of use, to help children like himself, aye, but he also wanted to repay ye for all ye’ve done for him.”
“Try not to make me feel so bad for wanting to keep you both safe,” Duncan said dryly.
She came closer in the darkness, and put her delicate hand in the middle of his chest. He willed his heart not to beat faster—he didn’t want her to know how easily she affected him, but he might as well have asked an eagle not to soar.
“I care about him, Duncan, and I know how he feels. Finn and I just want to be . . . a part of something, to know we matter, that we can help rather than just sit uselessly in the cave, sheltered and fragile.”
“Ye’ve hardly been useless,” he said gruffly. “Ye’re our guest, yet ye’ve been working harder than many a man.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now ye’re teasing me.”
He wanted her to say his Christian name again. Hearing it on her lips, in her sweet feminine voice, fooled him into thinking he was just a man, alone with a woman in the night, two people with possibilities and a future that might arise between them.
Damn, but he was a fool.
“Ye’re scowling so,” she whispered.
When she reached up and touched his forehead, he inhaled and couldn’t seem to breathe again.
“I wish I just could soothe these lines—”
He shuddered as she skimmed her fingers on his suddenly hot flesh.
“—soothe your soul from tormenting you.”
He closed his eyes, unable to bear looking at the beauty shining from within her like a beacon that called him home.
But such a light should warn him away, as if he were a frigate heading toward the shoals of dis
aster. She’d grown to mean too much to him. His thoughts of her were wild and dangerous, of the life they could have together if her memory never returned. It was a fantasy, impossible, but now that there was no more need to punish her father—Duncan had to trust in God’s justice now—could he focus on clearing his name?
But even that wouldn’t allow him to be with a woman who wasn’t his, whose family would never accept a marriage between them after what he’d done to her.
Catriona now cupped his face with both warm hands. He’d been cold and dead inside until she’d come to him, confused him, made him want things he shouldn’t have.
He gripped her wrists in both his hands, intending to remove her touch. But she dropped her hands to his shoulders, slid them along the width, then down across his chest. He held her wrists helplessly, unable to stop what she was doing to him.
He hadn’t been touched with gentleness, with innocent curiosity, in a long, long time. Her touch tormented him, aroused him, then inflamed him with a need that suddenly felt overpowering. He hated himself for craving it—he wanted to hate her for inspiring it. He should frighten her away.
He gripped her wrists harder, forcing them behind her back. This arched her against him, hip to hip. He pulled her closer, so that her breasts tormented his chest. He needed her to keep away from him, because he was no longer certain he trusted himself.
Instead, she looked at him boldly in the near darkness. “Ye want me to be afraid, but I’m not,” she whispered.
He gave her a little shake, leaning down into her face. “Ye should be. I am no tame suitor.”
“I would be disappointed if ye were.”
“Your brazen talk will bring ye trouble someday.”
“Not from you. Ye’ve been nothing but good to me.”
Good, he thought bitterly. “This isn’t ‘good,’ how I hold ye now, how I’ve kissed ye, how I want ye.”
“I want ye, too, but I know I cannot give ye anything, not with my past an impenetrable darkness. I am a risk to hurt ye.”
He let her go, disgusted with himself. Instead of retreating, she slid her arms about his waist and clung to him.
“But oh, Duncan, ye make me feel such wondrous things. My body feels like a candle flaring to life only when ye’re near.”
He closed his eyes, struggling hard for control, when her breasts, round and soft, pressed into him, her warm breath fanned his neck. He felt her gentle hands beneath his coat, exploring his back.
And then he crushed her to him, kissing her hard and open-mouthed, her head pressed into his shoulder. He kissed her as if he could devour her, bring back hope and peace, all the things he’d denied himself. He touched her body as if it were his, created only for him. A possessive urgency made him pull her away from the entrance and into the cover of the trees. She moaned as their legs entwined together. He cupped her ass and held her against him.
“That,” she whispered, “what I feel beneath your plaid. Is that what I do to ye?”
“Do ye remember being with a man?” he asked, thinking he’d heard no word of a husband, but suddenly uncertain.
“Nay, but I’m not blind to what animals do.”
Squeezing the globes of her ass, he leaned down and gave a gentle bite where her neck met her shoulder. “I feel like an animal,” he said hoarsely.
She laugh softly. “I make ye feel wild, now do I?”
He kissed her lips again, let his hands roam from her hips around her torso and up to cup her breasts through her stays. “Aye, wild.”
She gave a little gasp and then a groan. “I am so shameless. I wish my clothes could be gone so ye could touch me there.”
“Nay, I’ll no wish for that. I’m a weak man where ye’re concerned, lass, and ye mustn’t forget it. But . . .” He let the word trail off, even as he reached down and began to bunch up her skirts in his hands.
He heard her gasp in a breath and not release it, as anticipation built between them. At the first touch of her bare thighs, it was his turn to release a shuddering breath. He let his hands span the roundness of her ass, his fingers meeting at the cleft, and she gave a choked whimper. He slowly moved forward around her waist, until his thumbs met at her navel. She was trembling.
“Should I stop?” he said against her hair.
“Nay, oh, no, please don’t.”
In the darkness, her features were indistinct, but he kissed her nose, her lips, her chin, even as he let his thumbs travel a slow journey down into the curling hair between her thighs.
Her breath came faster, mixed with these little sounds of pleasure that were almost his undoing. He wanted to lift his plaid and bury himself within her. Instead, he moved his thumbs deeper, where it was warmer, slicker, until he found what he was looking for and stroked.
She cried out into his shoulder, then whispered, “God, I want, I want—what do I want?”
“This,” he said with certainty, turning his hand so that he could caress her with his fingers.
She clutched his plaid to hold herself up, shuddering with each stroke. He tipped her head back and took her mouth deeply, using his tongue to mimic what he truly wanted. Sweet girl, she spread her trembling legs wider, and he moved deeper, caressed her but didn’t force his entrance. He wouldn’t risk her maidenhead.
Her little cries grew higher, gasping now, and he held her with his free arm as she shuddered through her climax.
At last she sagged in his arms, her head tipping back to rest on his shoulder, and he knew she was staring up at him as if to read him in the darkness. With great reluctance, he removed his hand and let her skirts drop like a veil between them.
“That was,” she began, but didn’t go farther, because he was kissing her gently, upper lip, lower. Her tongue touched his with sweet exploration, before she at last pulled back. “That is . . . how it is between men and women?”
“Some of it.” His voice was husky with restraint.
“Can I touch ye as ye touched me?”
“Nay,” he said quickly.
“It doesn’t feel good?”
To his surprise, a chuckle escaped him. When was the last time he’d laughed? “The pleasure ye just felt, so would I feel. But I cannot risk it, lass.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d take your virginity.”
“Or take what is my husband’s by right—if I have one,” she added sadly.
“Ye don’t.”
“What?” she demanded, stiffening.
“I felt the evidence of your virginity. Do not torment yourself with guilt, Catherine. ’Tis not yours to bear.”
“I’m not married.” Her voice was full of tentative relief. “And yet I could be betrothed.”
They stood entwined for a long moment, as his guilt seemed a live thing, hovering about his legs like a fog about to rise and swallow him whole.
“Duncan, ye made me feel great pleasure. Can I not do the same for ye?”
The thought of her touching him that intimately—
“Ye’re not breathing,” she said with doubt.
“Because I’m trying not to imagine ye naked, letting my mouth taste your body as I wish.”
“Ye would . . . taste me?”
“Everywhere.”
Hesitantly, she said, “I would like to do the same.”
And without warning, she put her hand on his plaid and boldly touched him through it. He quickly pulled her hand away and held it to his chest.
“Can I not give ye the pleasure ye gave me?” she asked.
“I beg ye don’t ask again, or I might not be able to resist. Ye’re not my wife, Catherine, and ’tisn’t right for me to pretend otherwise.”
“We’re not hurting anyone.”
“Ye’re a sly wench.” Her words weren’t true. He was hurting her, though she didn’t know it. The more intimate he allowed their connection to be, the more she’d hate him someday.
If she got her memory back. It was beneath him to wish she wouldn’t, to imagine some kind
of normal life they might share. He could never have that. But he found himself asking, “If ye knew who ye were—”
“I’d stay here with ye,” she said with quiet certainty.
Any response was knocked clear from his mouth by a feeling of unworthiness.
“Go back to the cave,” he said harshly.
She turned away, then looked back at him. “Are ye afraid of me, Duncan Carlyle?”
He said nothing.
“I know your secrets now, and I intend to be a part of it all.”
He turned his back on her, resting a hand against the tree, head bent as he tried to control himself. His secrets—she didn’t know the worst of them. And yet he kept tying her closer to him, with his mission, his good people, his selfish need. There was a foolish part of him that wanted to believe that things between them would somehow sort themselves out, and they could be together.
Though she was exhausted, Catherine had a difficult time sleeping that night. She’d been thrilled to be away from the cave, to see if being on the road made her remember something. It hadn’t, but after little time to be disappointed about it, she’d faced Duncan and his wrath.
But oh, the way his wrath had changed . . .
He’d been afraid for her. Following Finn had been a reckless thing to do, but the little boy had been so determined, so endearing—and correct in his worries about the kidnapped children. Those children had been in terror when they’d been rescued, and it hadn’t helped when Ivor was forced to kill one of the villains, and had seemed quite frightening himself. The presence of a woman and another child had done much to calm the children, to convince them they were now safe. Catherine had been excited by the adventure, relieved it had gone well, yet hesitant to confront Duncan. And she’d been right.
But beneath his bluster and scowls and remoteness was a man who’d been injured by life, who was only protecting himself from being hurt again. Yet he still cared about stolen children, even with a price on his head.
And he cared about her—cared about giving her pleasure anyway, she tried to remind herself.