Highland Obsession

by Dawn Halliday

He wanted her, but he could not take an unwilling woman. His code of honor wasn't quite as rigid as hers, but it did know certain limits. Though those limits begged to be redefined at this moment.

  "You want me." It came out as a near growl.

  She shook her head. "No! No, I do not."

  With his free hand, he reached behind him, gently slipping one finger between the silken lips of her sex. He found her slippery, open, ready for him. She jerked under his touch and let out a squeal of dismay.

  He removed his hand and held his finger up before her, showing her the glistening proof of her arousal. "But you do."

  She stilled beneath him and stared up at him with hard, deter-mined jade-colored eyes. Only her fingers moved—curling and releasing relentlessly above her head where he pinned her wrists.

  She spoke quietly. "My body remembers you, Cam. It remembers this place, this bed, the nights we spent here."

  He nodded in understanding. His body remembered too.

  "The flesh doesn't know right from wrong. It doesn't understand honor. It has no conscience. But my soul does, Cam. My heart does. To take your pleasure with me now will destroy all the memories I have of you, all the affection I've held for you over time. Please." A single tear escaped her eye and traveled down the side of her face, but she didn't blink.

  "You want me, Sorcha. You love me, and it is me you desire, not Alan MacDonald."

  "I beg you. Please don't do this. Don't force me to do something that will make me hate you forever. Please don't destroy me. I haven't the strength to resist you, but if you do this now, know that my heart and soul will never succumb. Is that what you want?" Struck dumb, he merely stared at her. What did he want from her? First and foremost, he wanted her body. But he wanted more. He wasn't the kind of man who'd accept anything less than the whole, especially from a woman he cared for so deeply, who occupied his thoughts night and day.

  He was a bloody fool to have waited until her wedding day. If only he'd understood his feelings before he'd seen her with Alan tonight.

  Nevertheless, she'd given herself to him freely once, and she would do so again. Alan came to slowly, the throbbing in his head and body guiding him through a haze of pain back into reality. He lay on his stomach, and his shirt was gone. He crawled onto his knees, gripped his head in both hands, and took stock of his surroundings. He was at home, and there were people all about. Sorcha's family— her father and brothers and sister. A fresh, cheerful fire crackled in the hearth, and the smell of peat smoke wafted pleasantly through the air.

  Someone smacked him on the shoulder. "Aye, we can see that yer awake, but Stewart willna release me to me bed till I've stitched ye up nice and tight." He turned to stare at the woman who'd spoken. As shrunken and wrinkled as a dried-up apple, Mary MacNab gazed at him with cruel, ice blue eyes, small pinpricks of light nestled in the tanned-leather skin of her face.

  Alan winced as his head pounded harder. Mary MacNab. What in God's name was she doing here? She was the town healer, well-known for her poor bedside manner toward men. It was rumored a man had wronged her once, and she held a grudge against his sex ever since. While she was ever kind and gentle with women, she seemed to relish a man's pain.

  He rubbed his temples, and the memory of the night's events slammed into him. Sorcha. His hand in hers as the priest married them. Her dark, silky hair. Her parted, panting lips as he'd thrust inside her. Spilling his seed over her belly. Holding her afterward, loving the feel of her slight, warm body pressed against his as she'd snuggled into him. The sweet smell of her.

  And then... Cam. Attacking him, grabbing Sorcha. The encounter with MacLean and the later, hopeless battle against Cam's men.

  It took Alan several moments to reach the conclusion that it was not some bizarre dream. Mary MacNab waved a large, menacing needle at him. "Unless ye wish me to sew up that gaping mouth o' yers, ye'd best lie down."

  He scanned the occupants of the room in rising panic. She wasn't here. The bastard still had her.

  "Sorcha!"

  He made to scramble off the bed, but a strong hand closed over his shoulder. "Nay, lad. You'd best let Mary sew you up. Then we'll worry ourselves over my wee daughter." He looked into the hard face of William Stewart, Sorcha's father. Stewart was a strong, stalwart man, always fair, who doted on his four surviving children. He'd lost the youngest—and his wife—in childbirth. Sorcha's brothers, James and Charles, and her sister, Moira, stood behind Stewart, staring at Alan with varying shades of blue and green eyes. They all looked alike though. Their close familial ties to Sorcha were unmistakable.

  "How did 1 get here?"

  "Duncan MacDougall and some of Lord Camdonn's men brought you home and put you to bed. Then they sent a messenger to say that you were injured, so we came straightaway. You were soaked in blood, lad. Mary just arrived to sew you up."

  "How long?"

  James, younger than Sorcha by five years, took a step closer, peering at him through narrowed green eyes. He was a handsome, dark-haired youth, but tonight his anger showed through in his stormy expression.

  "You've been home a good two hours," the boy gritted out.

  "Hell," Alan muttered. He covered his face with his hands. Behind his palms, he closed his stinging eyes. Surely it was too late by now. He'd failed her. God, they hadn't even been married a full day, and he'd failed her.

  "Lie down, lad. You'll be no good to Sorcha if the wound festers." He wished people would stop telling him he'd be no good to Sorcha if. He was no damned good to Sorcha as it was. He pushed a frustrated hand through his tangled hair. James nodded curtly, agreeing with his father's wisdom. "That's one hell of a gash, Alan. You'd best have Mary see to it."

  Stewart flashed a quelling look at his son for his language, and then turned back to Alan, his face grave. "Aye, it's a deep cut indeed."

  At the time, it had stung, but he'd thought it little more than a scratch. Now it was hot and flowing fresh blood, and it hurt like hell.

  "You'll not be fit to join Lord Mar in Perth, then," James muttered. "We were hoping to march south next week."

  Despite his men's enthusiasm, Alan wasn't convinced joining the Jacobites right now would be the best course of action for his people. If King James landed in Scotland with a French army at his back, that would be a different matter altogether. But the king had given no indication that he'd be arriving anytime soon, which left the Earl of Mar to lead his cause.

  Alan had known the Earl of Mar briefly in England, and he'd found him to be a self-serving sort whose loyalties swayed toward those who offered him the most compensation. He was not the kind of man who inspired Alan's trust, and Alan hesitated to risk his own men to the whims of such a commander.

  Stewart frowned at his son, and James turned away in disgust, fists balled. Alan sighed. The lad was too eager for battle. Then again, so were most of the MacDonalds. Stewart turned away from James and lowered himself into the chair nearest Alan's bed.

  "You'll be scarred for life, I'll wager." For a long moment, he simply stared at Alan as his three children bustled about, heating water and gathering cloths to clean Alan's wound while Mary MacNab snapped instructions at them.

  "Lie down now." Stewart's voice was firmer this time, and Alan obeyed. He was in no mood to argue with his father-in-law, and his back burned like fire.

  "This'll hurt like you've fallen into the rivers of hell," Mary MacNab pronounced gleefully.

  "It already does," Alan grumbled.

  If he managed to survive her brutal ministrations, at least it was likely the wound wouldn't fester. Despite her cruelty, the villagers

  believed Mary MacNab's magic could ward off all manner of infection. For that reason only, he'd suffer through whatever torture Mary MacNab had planned for him. He needed his health in order to res-cue his wife.

  Mary snorted. "Like all the sniveling members of yer sex, ye have no understanding of true pain."

  He turned his head to the side to see her sneering at him.

 
"Is that so?" he mused aloud, wondering if the agony of watching your wife being dragged away by your closest friend qualified as true pain. He'd never experienced anything so brutal. The thought of a witch like Mary MacNab stabbing a needle into his flesh suddenly didn't seem so daunting.

  "Indeed. You men weep like babes at the merest twitch." He sighed. "Just get it over with."

  Mary glanced across the room at Sorcha's sister, who was busy near the fire. "Moira, lass. Ye wanted to learn more about stitching deep wounds. So watch. And you, boy"—she pointed a crooked finger at Charles, the youngest of the Stewarts—"get to boiling that butter as I directed ye."

  Charles retrieved a pot and hurried to the hearth, and Moira, Stewart's second'eldest child after Sorcha, nodded and came to stand beside Mary. Moira was a cheerful, freckled splash of sunlight with long, dark auburn hair. She watched in fascination as Mary began to scrub away the blood with a coarse cloth. Alan gritted his teeth against the pain. At the first jab of the needle into his skin, Alan stiffened and closed his eyes. He would not think on the agony of it. Instead he'd think about Sorcha dancing at their wedding earlier tonight, her green eyes sparkling, her skirts lifted up past her ankles. Just looking at her had made his heart soar to new heights.

  When Alan was eight years old, his father had died. By the time he was nine, his mother had decided to return to her childhood home in England. Alan had grown up there, raised by his mother and his

  English grandfather, but he had always known one day he'd return to the Highlands, where he'd acknowledge his birthright as laird of the MacDonalds of the Glen. He'd gone to school, suffered the taunts of the English boys, and then he'd met Cam....

  "That's it, lass."

  Moira's needle gently burrowed into his flesh. Somehow the idea of her wielding the nasty-looking implement was more comforting than the thought of Mary MacNab with it. Cam and he had made quite a pair of dissolute bachelors in Oxford. They'd indulged in all manner of debauchery and enjoyed every second of it. They had drunkenly dragged each other out of brothels more times than either of them could count. They'd shared women, passed women back and forth, fucked one woman together.... And then Cam's father had died in January, and Cam returned here to assume his duties as the new earl. After Cam left London, Alan heard from his uncle, who'd taken on the duties of laird while Alan remained in England. While his uncle hadn't said anything outright, Alan had read between the lines. His uncle was aging, and his duties growing too heavy to bear. The quickly escalating political tension was simply too much for him to manage.

  Alan's return was long overdue. He was no longer a dissolute young buck of London; he was a man with a legacy and the responsibility that came with it. That meant going home, leading his clan, marrying, and producing heirs.

  Alan had first traveled north from London to finish some business at his grandfather's estate. In August, his uncle succumbed to a fever and in September Alan finally came to claim his birthright.

  "Good, now tug the thread tighter—it's necessary to close the wound as tightly as ye can so it doesna fester."

  Moira pulled hard on the thread, and a gasp leaked from Alan's throat before he could stop it.

  "Oh no!" she exclaimed. He raised his lids to see her looking down at him, her brow furrowed. "I'm so sorry, Alan."

  "It's all right, lass," he said from between his teeth. Mary MacNab snorted. "Don't allow their whining to stop ye from what ye must do, Moira. For if you do, ye'll be ineffective, and they'll rot from the inside out." She yanked on the thread, but Alan was prepared and merely released a harsh breath. He squeezed his eyes shut again and saw Sorcha, with her piercing eyes and black hair, in his mind's eye. She was small and lithe, dark-haired and pale-skinned, with those wicked, beautiful, cat-shaped green eyes. The first time he'd seen her, she was leaving her father's house with her sister as he was dismounting at the gate, planning to visit her father, his own father's old friend. He'd stared after her in awe, scarcely able to breathe. Later, when Stewart had mentioned that he was searching for a husband for her, Alan leaped at what seemed like a perfect opportunity. She was six years younger than him, at twenty-two, with the proper background and Highland pedigree—her mother was a daughter of the MacDonald of Keppoch, and her father descended from the MacLeods. And the way her eyes flashed when she looked at him— perfect. Her family loved her unconditionally, that much was clear. Alan didn't know her well, but beyond her beauty she did not seem a vapid creature like so many of the young ladies he'd known in England.

  "Now tie off the end like this," Mary said. The women had worked all the way across his back, down from his right shoulder at a steep angle. His muscles spasmed as Mary tugged and pulled brutally at his flesh. At Mary's command, Moira used her light touch to smear warm, melted butter along the entire length of the wound. Then Mary smacked him on the arse. "All right, MacDonald. The worst of it is done." Alan groaned softly and rolled to his side, watching as Mary opened a pouch full of smooth pebbles, which she and Moira silently placed in a circle round his bed. When he raised an eyebrow in question, she snapped, "Dinna give me that superior English look, lad. These are en' chanted stones, soaked in silvered water. They'll be warding off the evil wee beasties that wish to kill ye through the wound."

  After the circle was in place, she intoned a brief charm, and finally nodded in satisfaction. As Moira collected the stones and stored them in the pouch, Stewart led Mary outside, no doubt to discuss an exchange for her services. Alan rubbed at the bristle on his jaw. He'd take care of Mary's payment later, in a way so as not to embarrass Stewart. Though they held a high status in Glenfinnan, Sorcha's fam-ily possessed little real money, whereas Alan's inheritance from his grandfather had made him rich—by Highland standards, that was. Though certainly not nearly as rich as the Earl of Camdonn. Stewart sent the boys to escort Mary home and came back inside. Moira placed warm bowls of barley broth before them, and though it seemed odd to Alan to eat at this hour, Moira insisted it would help him heal. He had to admit, the tasty, fragrant soup warmed him.

  The sun would rise in another hour. What was Sorcha doing now? The thought made his gut ache with misery.

  Her father sat across the table from Alan, eating silently. When he finished, he set his spoon in his bowl and pushed it away. Then he clasped his hands on the tabletop and met Alan's gaze.

  "What happened tonight, son?"

  Alan clenched his fists beneath the table. God, to make this admission, to admit to his incompetence at keeping her safe, nearly killed him. Stewart would surely hate him for failing to protect his daughter.

  This was his penance, he supposed. He must admit to his failure, then remedy it. Shame coursed through him, but he couldn't let Stewart see it. Alan would get her back. No matter what horror Sorcha suffered at the earl's hands, Alan vowed to never cast her off. A violent shudder ripped down Alan's spine at the thought of Cam defiling his young, pure wife.

  Moira had seen his body quake. "Are you still cold?" She reached to remove his bowl, offering him a sympathetic smile. "There's more broth."

  "No thank you, lass." He tried to return her smile but failed. He glanced back at the older man. "Sorcha and I had—" He cut a glance at Stewart's daughter and shook his head.

  "We were—uh—about to go to sleep, when Cam—his lordship—crashed in, flung her over his shoulder, and rode away, leaving one of his henchmen. I fought him, then pursued the earl a few minutes later."

  Stewart dropped his silver-topped head in his hands. "I should have known."

  "Should have known what, sir?"

  He looked up at Alan with a bleak expression. "That was why I left the earl's service. I am getting old, and I suffer from aches and pains. It was a valid enough excuse to leave my position at Camdonn Castle. There was also the problem that the earl's political beliefs don't particularly align with my own. But the true reason was that I didn't like what I could see developing between him and my daughter."

  Moira paused in her step as she walked past t
he table. Stewart glanced sharply up at her. She returned his stare, eyes wide, her guilty expression speaking volumes. She knew something. A secret had just been revealed.

  And suddenly, in the unspoken conversation between Moira and her father, it became crystal clear.

  "What are you doing, Cam?" Sorcha had cried as Cam tossed her over his shoulder. She had addressed him as Cam. She knew him well enough to speak to him informally, which meant she knew him very well indeed.

  She'd been so deliciously wanton in Alan's bed, and although there was a shyness to her, she possessed none of the timidity he might imagine from a virgin. He hadn't known what to expect, really, never having taken a virgin before, but he hadn't felt any resistance from her maidenhead. He hadn't seen any blood ...

  Alan's gut twisted. Goddammit. She'd played him false. She was no innocent. He needn't worry about Cam defiling his wife. The bastard already had. After an hour spent in his study drinking whisky, Cam hesitated at his chamber door, clutching at the door handle as his body swayed unsteadily. He'd left Sorcha earlier, needing to straighten his twisted thoughts before doing something to her he knew he'd later regret.

  He would sleep elsewhere tonight; sleeping beside her would present a temptation he was powerless to resist. But he wished to check in on her once more, perhaps watch her in slumber as he had in the past. Her sweet red lips parted as she breathed deeply, her body relaxed, her dark hair cascading over the snow-white pillow.

  Slowly, so as not to wake her, he unlocked the door and pushed the handle. Well oiled, it swung open silently.

  He stepped inside. Saw his bed, with the curtains still open. Her back to him, Sorcha lay curled in a ball on top of the green and black silk counterpane. He stopped in his tracks. Had she made a noise? And then he saw her shoulders shaking as sobs racked her small body.

  He'd never seen her cry like this. She'd let a tear escape earlier, but that was one single tear trailing down the side of her face, and that had nearly broken him. Now she cried with her whole body—great, wrenching, heaving sobs that made his blood run cold. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her. How could he, though, when he was the source of her grief? He remained rooted to the spot, his hands fisted at his sides, frozen with indecision.