She tilted her face, looking up, wanting …
His lips touched hers, grazing slowly, tentatively across her mouth—a kiss … yet not a kiss at all.
A fire blazed to life in her heart, a hunger she hadn’t known existed. She wanted nothing more than for him to press his mouth against hers, for him to claim her in that way. She wanted to disappear into his touch, his body … his kiss. She wanted to forget everything else. She could not breathe for wanting it so badly.
But he let out a long, uneven breath, and pulled back.
“And I am sorry for that,” he said, still holding her, one hand splayed at her back, the other gripping her hip. “I should not have kissed you. ’Twas wrong for me to do so, like this, when you are afraid.” His voiced lowered. “In truth, it makes me no better than him.”
One hand came up to touch her hair. Her face. And then he released her, pulling his arms back through to his side of the bars.
She swayed, set free.
“That’s not true,” she answered, hating that he likened himself to Hugh in any way, for no two men could be any more different.
“I wanted you to kiss me,” she confessed softly, her hands coming up to grasp the bars.
And she still did—but no, she couldn’t be so bold as to say it.
He stared at her, his gaze darkening to smoldering.
“Oh, I intend to kiss you again,” he replied, his voice low and smoky. “Once I get you out of here. When you are a free woman, free to choose.”
Her cheeks flushed darker, hearing the promise in his words.
“What if I get my own self out of here?”
“I’ll kiss ye then too.” A momentary smile touched his lips, before falling away. “Because in truth, you may be the only one who can get yourself out of that tower.”
Her heartbeat jumped. “Tell me how, and I will do it.”
*
God, she was sweet—and strong.
And every time he saw her, she seemed to grow even more beautiful. She looked back at him, with the lamplight at her back, her red hair gleaming like a halo around her pale, lovely face.
Aye, he was besotted, as he’d never been before in his life. It took all his willpower to keep his hands and his mouth on this side of the bars. But she didn’t belong to him.
She didn’t belong to Hugh either, and he’d make sure that didn’t change.
But for now, there were words to be said. “Tonight in the gathering hall, I was so … displeased at being forced to do stand by and do nothing, that I left the gathering hall, but with a purpose.”
It made him furious, just to remember everything he saw, how Hugh had touched her so roughly.
“I saw you go,” she whispered.
He wondered if she’d felt abandoned.
“What did he say to you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
She leaned forward again, her hands wrapping around two bars and peered at him in between. “That I humiliated him by running away. That I don’t want to make an enemy of him. And some other vile things that I won’t repeat.”
The sheen of tears returned to her eyes.
He nodded, and lifted a hand, grazed his knuckles against hers.
“I thought as much. So I went to Gilroy’s room.”
“Gilroy’s room.” Her eyes widened, underneath her slender brows. “Why?”
“To see if I could find the key to this window,” he answered. “To get you out of here. Tonight.”
“You didn’t find it though,” she answered. “I know you didn’t, or you’d have told me already.”
“I didn’t. But I found something else.”
“Something else?”
Touching his hands to his belt, he tugged open the leather pouch. With care, he removed the necklace, allowing it to fall its full length from his fingers, and swing free. The rubies and pearls shone in the lamplight.
She gasped. “Oh, Magnus.”
“Your mother’s necklace?”
“Yes,” she exclaimed, reaching.
For the first time, he saw her smile. Truly smile. His mind went dizzy from the beauty of it. His soul, happy and warm. How could he not smile too?
He reached through the window, and lowered the necklace over her head. “I repaired the clasp as best I could.”
She touched the necklace where it lay on the alluring swell of her breast, and peered down at the glittering chain through damp eyes. She moved suddenly, then, pressing herself to the bars, reaching for him with her empty hand, pulling him by the tunic, closer.
He allowed it, his blood thumping heavily in his veins.
“Thank you,” she whispered. And with her hand at his neck, she pulled him down. Her eyes closed, and she kissed him full and hard on the mouth.
There was something distinctly different about kissing a woman—and having a woman kiss you. He liked both very much, but Tara’s innocent kiss was a pleasure such as he’d never known. He inhaled, savoring the painfully pure, sensual rush that struck through him, to his core.
Her fingers moved higher, into his hair, and her face tilted … her lips moving against his as she renewed the kiss again. He lost himself to the sensation of responding to her willing, seeking lips … soft and warm and perfect. Just as he imagined the rest of her would feel. His shoulders, his abdomen, his groin—all seized tight in response. Wanting, anticipating more. Desire grew, deep in his abdomen, until he felt consumed. All the hunger he’d felt moments before and reined in, returned, and he kissed her back with a passion that came straight from his heart.
The wolf in him cursed the bars between them. The honorable man he wished to be gave thanks for them.
She dropped her hand away, and ended the kiss, leaving him no less than stunned.
“Thank you,” she repeated breathlessly, her cheeks flushed and her lips dark in the shadows. “You don’t know what this necklace means to me. It’s the only thing I have of my mother’s, and … I was going to use it to pay for my escape from here. I felt so helpless when it was taken from me. I feel so much better now, so relieved, as if my hopes of freedom are not as futile, having it back in my possession.”
He heard her talking, but as if from the end of a long tunnel. His body remained completely aroused. Even his cheeks burned. He couldn’t recall ever reacting to a kiss like that before. He blinked and shook his head.
“It was your mother’s, and you will keep it,” he said, huskily. “You won’t need it to pay for your escape. I will see to that.”
Her eyes shone up at him filled with gratefulness, and yet he sensed that still, she doubted.
It was all right. Despite the newfound closeness between them, and the kisses, he was still very much a stranger to her. He did not take it personally, given her predicament. He’d doubt everyone and everything too. Indeed, she was smart to do so.
“But why would Gilroy have my necklace?” she asked. “Was it he who led the band of brigands against my traveling party?”
“Yes,” Magnus answered. “I just don’t know why, and I can’t make him answer for it, because he’s gone.”
He recounted what had occurred in Gilroy’s room. Their struggle, and the man’s disappearance.
“What if he returns?” she whispered, her upward turn of mood instantly muted. “You’ll be in danger if he tells anyone.”
Magnus answered. “I can only believe that he ran away, so the laird would not learn of his thieving. Perhaps he’s done it before? The laird would be furious to know he attacked and terrified Buchan’s ward. I don’t know. None of it really makes sense to me, but let me worry about him, if he comes back. It is you who are in danger if the Lady Alwyn had anything to do with this.”
Tara shook her head. “I can’t imagine that she does. She is a peculiar woman, but not a cruel or scheming one. I don’t believe she’d want to hurt or frighten me.”
“She wants you to marry Hugh,” he said, his voice edged with sarcasm.
He felt no love for the Lady Alwyn. But neither did
he feel hate. She felt the same way toward him, he knew, from years of living in the castle together.
Tara replied, “Like all mothers, she believes in her child’s goodness.”
He could not help but wonder what his mother would have thought about him. Would she have believed he could do no wrong? Would she have only seen the angel in him, and none of the devil?
The devil that was looking at Tara’s rosy lips right now. Her bare collarbone, visible between the gap in her night rail and her cloak.
“It is very late,” he said, feeling the desire to touch her, to kiss her again, all the way to his bones.
But she was vulnerable. A captive in an unhappy place, desperate to be free. To kiss her now, again, somehow felt wrong. As if he was only helping her because he expected something in return, when he did not.
“Aye,” she answered softly. “’Tis. But I’d rather stay here with you, than go back to that room alone.”
“Well, ye can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Because all I can think of is kissing you, and touching you, Tara,” he confessed, his groin tight with desire, even now. “And I’ve already vowed I won’t do that again, so truly it’s just cruel of ye to stay in my company a moment more, tempting me with your pretty mouth, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to be cruel,” she answered in a quiet voice. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, then—”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he answered, chuckling wryly.
She sighed. “I feel like I’m a different person here. One I don’t really know anymore. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
Which was exactly why he couldn’t kiss her again. Not until she was free of Hugh. Free to decide if she wanted him to kiss her. To claim her. To make love to her.
He suspected she’d flee Burnbryde the moment she had the chance, and never look back, which was why he best not allow himself to care too deeply.
“You’re all good, Tara.” He dared to take her hand in his own again.
How strange that he liked the feel of her slender hand, held in his, almost as much as the kissing.
“That’s plain and clear to me, and never doubt it. Don’t let this place change you.” He dropped his hand away, too tempted still. “Ye’ll not be chiseling your way out of the tower tonight. Now take your necklace, and your lantern, and your knife, and go to bed. And when it is safe, look wherever ye can for a key stamped with a crescent moon. If Gilroy doesn’t have it, then I can only believe the lady does. If ye don’t find it, don’t fear, we’ll make something else work. Go now, Tara. I’ll watch until you’re gone.”
She took up the knife, and backed away from the window. Taking up the lantern, she went to the stairs, but turned back to peer at him through the darkness.
“But you’ll come back here, to the window, again, won’t you, Magnus?”
“Aye, Tara. I will.”
*
“Good morning, mistress,” said a female voice in the darkness. Tara opened her eyes to find Anna standing over her. “I have come to dress you for morning prayers.”
Her heart started. Magnus. The necklace.
She touched the front of her night rail, between her breasts, and felt the hard outline of the jeweled chain, which proved their time together had not been a dream.
Oh, but it felt like a dream, in so many ways. Would another man’s kisses ever make her feel like that? She couldn’t imagine so.
He had returned her necklace to her, and in doing so, returned a degree of power to her hands. She could bribe her way out of Burnbryde, if that became necessary. She must only find the key to the locked tower window. Most importantly, she had Magnus’s vow that he would help her—and she believed that he would try.
For the first time in days, she felt some small bit of hope.
She pushed up, and she touched her feet to the floor, her mind filled with the image of his face—his arresting blue eyes. His kiss. The strong warrior arms that had held her so close, against his muscular warrior’s body. Just remembering sent a surge of warmth through her, all the way to her toes. Though he was not here with her, in her chamber, it felt as if he protected her still.
But … certainly he had ambitions of his own. No doubt he wished to become more powerful within his clan.
What did he expect in exchange for helping her?
Was it truly that he only welcomed the opportunity to undermine Hugh, his hateful younger half-brother, in something? Anything? Perhaps at the start. But now … was it wrong to believe he cared for her in some way? Was it possible that he wanted her for himself? Did she want him too?
Or did she, in her innocence, make too much of it all? Had she allowed herself to become too impressed by him?
Be careful, her heart warned. She could not be the only young woman he had ever held. Ever consoled. Ever kissed.
It mattered not what had occurred between them, she told herself. Not the words, not the kisses. He did not belong to her, and she did not belong to him. She would be wise to guard her heart, and next time they spoke, in the darkened shadow of her tower window, not be so free with her kisses and embraces.
After all, if they were successful, she would leave here, and she would never see him again. It wasn’t as if he would run away with her. He was an Alwyn, and even though he might despise his half-brother, blood and duty bound him here.
That truth troubled her more deeply than she wished to admit.
Although Anna had lit a fire, the room was still cold—because the door had been left open, and a draft carried through. The girl knelt, placing slippers on her feet—and as she did so, Tara removed the necklace, concealing it in her hand. A moment later, she discreetly secured the jeweled chain in her wooden chest. Soon she was dressed, and sitting in the chair, as the maid braided and pinned her hair.
“You have such pretty hair,” Anna said softly. Shyly. “So different than your sister’s.”
“Tapadh leat,” Tara answered. “My sister took after my mother, and I was always told I look very much like my father’s grandmother. Anna, may I ask you something in confidence?”
“Yes,” she answered softly, but an expression of doubt crossed her face, as if she knew she should not agree.
“Did my sister love someone?” Given the open door, she asked the question quietly. “Not Hugh. Someone else?”
The girl’s gaze lowered.
“Please,” urged Tara, reaching up to squeeze the girl’s hand. “She was my sister. I deserve to know.”
Anna nodded jerkily. “I knew … almost from the start, but I swear, I did not tell Lady Alwyn.” Her gaze shifted to the door. “I liked your sister very much. She was very sweet natured, but also … sad.”
Tara’s heart constricted, hearing the word. “Sad? Oh, please tell me what you mean. I had not seen her in years. I had only letters, as a glimpse into her life, but she never mentioned anyone.”
Anna nodded. “I do believe when she arrived here, she was suffering from a broken heart.”
Tara exhaled, and pressed a curled fist against her lips. “Because … because she’d been separated from the man she loved, and sent here to marry Hugh.”
“At least that’s what I believed.”
“Who was he?” Tara looked up into Anna’s eyes. “Did she ever say?”
She paused, holding a comb aloft. “No, mistress. But … I believe the answer is there.” She lifted her chin toward the jewelry chest on the table beside them.
Her heart pounding in anticipation, Tara lifted the chest, and placed it onto her lap. Looking inside, she lifted a ring and examined it, then—
“The brooch,” whispered Anna. “Don’t you see, it’s fashioned in the shape of a heart. She spent a lot of time looking at it, and would often pin it to her léine, where it would not be seen.”
Tara held the brooch to the light. Fashioned of gold, the filigreed badge was indeed shaped like a heart, though that was not so apparent at first glance. A narrow sword divided its
center. Turning it over, she saw that the back of the piece had been inscribed. She squinted. “Love never dies.”
“Is that what it says?” said Anna, with interest. “I wondered, but I can’t read.”
Tara nodded. “It is Latin. Amor numquam moritur. There’s also letters. An A for Arabel … and … I can’t tell what the other one is. A P … or an R?” The flourishes were simply too hard to read. She sighed in disappointment. She needed no mysteries now. Only answers to her questions. “Most certainly though, it is not an H.”
“No, it wouldn’t be,” Anna murmured beneath her breath, glancing toward the open door. “Your sister had no fondness for the laird’s son. I don’t see how you would, either.”
“I do not,” Tara whispered, returning the brooch to the box.
Her stomach spasmed at the thought of seeing Hugh again, especially after the time she had spent with Magnus the night before. What twist of fate made one man kind and caring, and another one cruel? No matter what legal document or agreement declared her to belong to Hugh, her heart did not agree.
When Anna was finished, and had secured a veil over her hair, she left her room, her cloak over her shoulders because of the cold that permeated everything. As in previous days, Lady Alwyn awaited her in the common room. This time, rather than standing, she held a needle, and threaded it through a large square of linen, stretched on a wooden frame.
“There you are.” Lady Alwyn said, glancing up from her work, her expression fretful, her eyes damp with tears. “Good. Let us go downstairs to the chapel. I have much to pray about.”
Tara’s replied with genuine concern. “Is everything well, my lady?”
“No, it is not. Everything is very wrong.” She lifted her hands into the air. “Gilroy, it appears, is gone. Truly gone. Perhaps forever.”
“Your steward?” Tara answered, now forced to feign ignorance. “What do you mean, he is gone?”
Tara felt nothing but relief. If Gilroy was still gone, then she had no need to fear him, and Magnus’s presence in the steward’s room would continue to go unmentioned—and most importantly, unquestioned.
“I do not know.” The lady sighed heavily. “As you know, he disappeared from last night’s meal, which is not like him at all, and worse, he has not returned. I am very aggrieved! He has always been very loyal. Who will do my bidding now, with such care as he?”
The Rebel of Clan Kincaid Page 15