Maggie could barely stand, she was shaking so badly. That had been just a little too close for her liking. Never had she experienced such an event.
Mo chreach, what would she have done had Braden and Sin not been with her?
Truly, it didn’t bear thinking on.
Even worse was the thought of what might have happened to her had the thieves come upon her the first time she’d made this journey alone, dressed as a woman.
Her stomach shrank, and a wave of panic whipped through her. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget this terrible feeling inside her, or the uncaring look on the leader’s face when he had first stopped them.
They would have killed them all without a moment’s concern!
Maggie took a minute to thank the Lord and His saints for their mercy and to pray that she never again experienced such a thing.
“Are you all right?” Braden asked as he pried the tree limb loose from her hands, then tossed it aside.
“Thank you,” she breathed weakly. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said as he held her shaking hand in his own.
Heavens, the man was handsome. And in his hazel eyes, she saw the concern and care, and in her heart, it soothed and warmed her greatly.
Yet in those eyes she also saw a deep compelling light that looked strangely close to humor.
Surely Braden couldn’t find anything about their attack funny.
Nay, she was misreading him.
Braden cupped her cheek in his hand and lightly stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. It was all she could do not to close her eyes and sigh in pleasure. His soothing, quiet touch was pure bliss and it sent wave after wave of desire coursing through her as it melted away her fear and concerns.
Braden had protected her. Again. And she wondered if he even realized just how many times in her life he had been her champion.
“Thanks for protecting my back,” Braden said softly.
Maggie frowned. There was something hidden in his tone. And in an instant she knew what had him amused.
“You knew the man I hit was behind you the whole time, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he said with a short laugh. “But I’m glad you thought enough of me that you distracted him. And even more so that you risked your life to do so.”
Another shiver went over her, but this one had nothing to do with her panic and everything to do with the fierce warrior before her.
Glory, but the man was incredible when he smiled.
How in the world could any woman deny him anything when he looked at her like that, dimples flashing, his gaze warm, his touch hot?
He paused his tender stroking on her cheek and stared intently into her eyes. “’Twas a very brave thing you did for a scoundrel like me.”
“And you are a scoundrel,” she said, knowing it in her heart and for some reason not caring about the fact at the moment.
“Aye,” he said with a devilish grin, dipping his head toward hers. “The absolute worst.”
Without conscious thought, she opened her mouth for him, aching for another kiss.
Braden closed his eyes and started to accept her invitation until Sin cleared his throat.
“Do I have to separate the two of you again?” Sin asked. “I swear, but this is getting tedious.”
Maggie jumped in Braden’s embrace.
Braden pulled back instantly and sighed. “Remind me to thank you more properly later,” he whispered to her.
Maggie was too stunned to respond. Her senses reeling, she could do nothing more than nod.
Good heavens! What had she almost done?
You almost kissed him.
Again.
Oh, lass, where’s your head, to be letting such a man have his way with you?
Biting her lip, she looked to where he and Sin were standing together.
Why, Braden, why do you have to flit from one woman to the next? And worse, why couldn’t she hate him for it?
Because it would be like hating the wind for blowing or hating the sun for shining. It was his nature. To change it would more than likely change the man, and with the exception of that one bad habit, she liked Braden a great deal.
Nay, she didn’t want him to change. It was his carefree spirit that enticed her. She would just have to guard herself more closely around him and not let herself suffer any more hurt by him.
“Do you think they’ll return?” Maggie asked as she rejoined Braden and Sin.
“Aye,” Sin said at the same time Braden said, “Nay.”
Sin looked drolly at his brother as he sheathed his sword. “You honestly think they’ll just be off without retaliating in some way?”
“Aye, we got the better of them. Why should they return?”
Sin’s eyes flared with such intense emotion that Maggie took an involuntary step back from it.
“Vengeance is a strong motivator, little brother,” he said flatly.
It was then she knew Sin harbored a deep hatred. Against whom she could only guess. But she pitied the poor soul who had evoked such an enemy as Sin, and in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but wonder what terrible fate Sin had heaped upon that person’s head.
She didn’t think for a minute that the person still lived. From what she had seen of Sin, he no doubt had taken the person’s life swiftly. And with relish.
Braden met his brother’s gaze with an almost imperceptible nod and some deep understanding passed between them. “You would know that better than I.”
Sin looked away. He rested his hand on his sword hilt and walked past her.
“I want my horse,” he muttered as he passed by, then headed off into the dense forest.
Braden sighed as he watched his brother stalk off. He picked his pack up from the ground and started after Sin.
Maggie followed quietly as she looked back and forth between the brothers.
Braden could be as dangerous as Sin, but there was an aura of irrepressible humor and fun about Braden that drew her into his charisma. He took nothing from anyone, and yet he gave so much to those who knew him. Everyone in the clan, when they weren’t ready to kill him over a dalliance, liked the warrior.
In truth, she’d never heard a word against him unless it involved his lust.
If only she could understand what it was about men, and Braden in particular, that drove them from bed to bed. Was it ever possible for a single woman to satisfy a man? Even Anghus, as much as he had loved his wife, had slept with another woman while he was away in Ireland.
Over and over, she tried to think of one man who had never cheated on his woman. And to her dismay, she couldn’t think of any.
Surely there must be one, somewhere?
As she pondered possible men, they walked on in silence. After a time, Sin started mumbling beneath his breath.
“What was that?” Braden asked.
“What?” Sin asked, turning his head to look back at his brother.
“What did you just say?”
“I was again cursing your ill-bred Scotsmen and wishing myself home.”
Braden shook his head. “I swear, you grumble more than an old woman. Tell me, do you complain so around Henry?”
“Nay, I don’t have to. No one in England is stupid enough to try my patience.”
Braden laughed softly, then spoke to Maggie. “I wonder how many Englishmen are lying in their graves because they dared to look askance at him.”
Maggie agreed. “Your brother is a strange man.”
Braden laughed louder.
“What?” she asked, wondering what he found so amusing.
“I was just thinking how each of us has our own role in life. Lochlan is the sensible one. Ewan the serious one. Kieren was the passionate one. Sin the dangerous one, and I…I am the wicked one.”
His summation was perfect. “And you relish your role, don’t you?”
Those greenish brown eyes sparkled. “No doubt I will one day burn for it, but aye. Life is too short to spe
nd it moping about. Look at Sin.”
She did. With his handsome brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, Sin looked as if he were ready to kill the next person who annoyed him.
Braden continued talking. “Sin is one of the wealthiest men in all of England, with holdings stretching from Canterbury to Scotland to the Holy Land. He is one of the few men alive who can call Henry by name to the king’s face, and yet he is brooding at best, angry at worst. He spends his entire life completely alone and isolated from everyone.”
Braden shook his head. “I couldn’t stand to live that way. Any more than I could follow Ewan into the mountains and live like a hermit.”
Maggie understood why Ewan was withdrawn after what had happened with Isobail. But then, he had always been a shy man who preferred isolation to company.
Sin, she didn’t remember all that well. She had scarcely been more than a babe when he had been taken by the English. The only real memory she had of him was when he had chased Davis off for calling her names.
“Tell me,” she said softly. “Given how Sin was taken away against his will, why is it he now prefers to dress and act English?”
Braden took a deep breath. He turned his head to look at her and she saw the trouble in his eyes. And the pain.
“When Sin turned four-and-ten, Henry was crowned king of England, and as part of the king’s coronation celebration, Henry allowed the Scottish hostages Stephen had taken to return to their families.”
Maggie frowned. She had never heard that. Nor did it make sense. If Sin could return, why hadn’t he? “Why would Sin choose not to come home?”
A tic started in Braden’s jaw. “He wanted to, but my father refused. He sent word to King Henry that he could keep Sin, as he had no use for a Sassenach son.”
Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t imagine such cruelty. Dear saints, the pain Sin must have felt when he had learned of his father’s response.
Suddenly her own father’s criticism of her didn’t seem so terrible.
“Why would your father do such a thing?” she asked. “What did your mother have to say over it?”
Braden looked away and she saw the torment in his eyes. And a strange guilt she couldn’t fathom.
“My mother was the reason Sin didn’t return,” he said, his voice strained. “My mother refused to have him in the same house with her.”
“Why?” Maggie asked.
What could make Aisleen not want her son to return to her?
Braden sighed. “Sin’s mother was an English lady my father trysted with the one time he’d gone to London. Sin was conceived just a few short months before Lochlan.”
Maggie flinched at his words. So that was it.
Clenching her teeth, she shook her head in disbelief. Men and their unfaithfulness. How could Braden continue to carry on with women like he did after seeing the consequences of infidelity so close at hand?
Poor Sin, to be cast out because Aisleen didn’t want to see the evidence of her husband’s actions.
Her heart heavy, she felt for both of them.
“What of Sin’s mother?” she asked.
Braden curled his lip in disgust. “She had no use for him. That was why she sent him to live with my father in the first place. She’d decided years ago that Sin was an embarrassment to her.”
“So, he was discarded by both his parents?”
“Aye. He is a bitter man, but ’tis well understandable.”
Maggie agreed. Now she understood the hostile look Sin had directed at Aisleen when she had appeared in the kirk yard.
He must hate her passionately.
She couldn’t imagine the way he must have felt when both his parents turned him out. It was more than any soul should have to bear.
Looking at Braden, and the pain in his eyes, she wondered what he truly thought of his parents. And in her heart, she knew it must sting him too.
Braden walked in silence as he remembered when Sin had been forced from his home.
To this day, he couldn’t quite forgive his mother for her deplorable actions. How any woman could turn a child, even one not her own, over to a mortal enemy was beyond him.
It had been on that very day that he had decided never to marry.
Should any child ever show up claiming to be his, Braden would welcome it with open arms. He would have no wife to hate it. No woman to badger him into an unforgivable act.
Worse was the unrelenting guilt in his soul that Sin had been the one his father gave up that day. For in his heart he knew that, as the youngest son, he should have been the one to leave, and Sin, as the eldest, should have been the one to stay in Scotland.
But Braden’s mother had saved him from the English.
Over the years, Braden had often wondered if all women would have done as his mother, or if it had merely been a flaw in her character alone.
“Tell me,” Braden said to Maggie before he thought better of it. “Had you been my mother, what would you have done?”
Indecision played across her face as she thought it over. “I don’t know.”
“So, you would have sent him away as well?”
She looked up at him, her amber eyes pensive. “I honestly don’t know. On the one hand, I would hate to say that I could ever turn a child out, but it would be hard to have proof of my husband’s infidelity so close at hand. I can’t imagine what your poor mother must have felt every time Sin came near her. Still, children are innocent of such things, as none of us ever ask for the gift of life.” She sighed. “I suppose ’tis not for me to judge her actions or to say for certain what I would have done unless I’m faced with a similar choice.”
Braden felt his jaw tic at her words. If he lived an eternity, he would never understand how his mother had done what she had. And though he loved his mother, he found her actions that day selfish and cruel.
Maggie adjusted the pack on her shoulder. “You and Sin are terribly close, aren’t you?”
Braden nodded. “In spite of the years we lived apart, we are. Over the last eight years, I’ve traveled to England several times to see him.”
“Is that how you got your English lands?”
Braden grinned. “In part. Henry also wanted a way to assure himself of Highland loyalty should he have need of it. Having me swear fealty for English lands seemed like a good way to make an ally of a powerful clan.”
She smiled gently. The sunlight caught against her freckled face and the softness in her eyes was truly something to behold. “You’re a good man, Braden MacAllister.”
“Am I?” he asked, amazed she would say such. For some reason, he had the impression she had spent far more time condemning him than praising him.
She looked at him askance. “Now, don’t be thinking anything of that.”
He laughed at the outraged tone of her voice. It was plain she thought he would use her praise to seduce her and that she wouldn’t welcome such a thing. “You don’t think very much of me, do you?”
She furrowed her brow in thought. “I do, and I don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
She stopped walking and turned to look at him. “I know there’s goodness in you, but there’s an equal part of the devil too. If you weren’t so very fickle, you’d make some woman a fine husband.”
Her choice of words amused him. People had called his activities any number of choice things over the years, but no one had ever used the term “fickle” before. “Fickle?”
“Aye, fickle. Do you not think I know how many women you’ve been with? Why, I doubt there’s more than three women in all of Kilgarigon between the ages of ten and five and two score years you haven’t had.”
“Och, now, Maggie, you wound me.” And she did too. He hadn’t been with that many women. He wasn’t some randy rooster just out to tup every woman who crossed his path. In fact, he had turned down more offers than he had ever accepted.
“The truth is often painful,” she said, her voice and eyes sincere.
> His humor died as she passed a sharp, judgmental look over him. One that ruffled him more than just a wee bit.
Now, this was getting out of hand. He wasn’t the only one to blame here. True, he’d been with a lot of women, but he had never forced any of them. In fact, he usually wasn’t even the one doing the pursuing.
“Tell me, Maggie, have you ever asked yourself why it is I might be such?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re a man.”
He snorted at her response. She made it sound as if his being a man explained all the questions of the universe. “In part, but have you failed to notice how many women come after me?”
Her jaw dropped and she raked him with a scathing, repugnant look. “And that’s your excuse? They come after you and so it frees your conscience up to just take what it is they offer? Consequences be damned? You’re disgusting.”
“Nay, I’m not disgusting,” he said quickly. “You say I am inconstant. Well, what of your fine feminine friends? I can hardly be inconstant alone.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m not the only one to blame here. As you said yourself, I’m a man and it’s hard to resist a woman when she’s crawling naked into your bed begging for your favor, or pressing her body up against yours while she whispers in your ear all the things she wants to do to you.”
She looked aghast. “Are you trying to tell me that all the women are seducing you? That you are just a humble little lord walking about, minding your own business, when some evil woman sneaks up upon you and forces you to take her?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Of course I don’t believe you. It wasn’t me doing the seducing last night, Braden MacAllister. It was you breathing in my ear and making free with your hands on my body.”
“That was different.”
“How so?”
He didn’t honestly want to think about it. But in his heart, he knew it was different.
Seeking to change the subject before she made him say something they would both regret, he said, “Did it never occur to you that if I could ever find a woman who was completely loyal to me, then I would certainly be loyal back? I would love to find one woman on this earth who would be concerned for me, and never ask me to do unconscionable things to please her. To have a woman who wouldn’t stray from my bed to the next man who turned her head.”
Claiming the Highlander Page 12