Iain MacKinnon.
Even his name made gooseflesh erupt.
“I demand you stop this instant!” she insisted of him.
He lifted a brow, and his sensuous lips curved with humor at her expense. “D’ you now?” he asked her. “And what is it precisely you wish me to stop, lass?” When Malcom, too, peered up at her, a little anxiously, he placed a hand gently to his son’s shoulder, reassuring him. Page tried not to note the simple fatherly gesture, and chose instead to focus upon her anger.
She chafed over his arrogant tone of voice. “I mean halt!” she said, indicating the cavalcade with an impatient wave of her hand. She eyed his son prudently, imagining the boy must think her a madwoman. She could scarce blame him; certainly she felt like one. God’s truth, she’d felt discomposed from the instant he had first set eyes upon her. Befogged. And then her gaze returned to the MacKinnon’s glittering amber eyes, and she suddenly couldn’t think at all.
Her heart leapt at what she saw in the depths of his gaze.
Desire.
No mistaking it.
Like golden flames flickering at her, his eyes sent molten heat through her body, making her skin prickle in a way that was both agonizing and breathtakingly sweet.
Those eyes mesmerized her, invited her to bask in their warmth.
An unwanted shiver coursed down her spine.
She tried to ignore it, and failed miserably. The assault upon her senses was too keen. Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and she stared, unable to look away.
“What is it ye would be wantin’ me to stop, lass?” he asked, his voice husky and low.
Her heart did a little somersault as she met his gaze.
He blinked, waiting, and Page swallowed. “I need to rest,” she clarified, slightly dazed, and more than a little breathless. The thickened sound of her voice embarrassed her.
He seemed to realize the effect his gaze had upon her, for his lips curved a fraction more, and she stammered, “W-we’ve b-been...”
He smiled suddenly, a devastating smile, and the breath left her completely. Her stomach floated, and her heart took wing, like the wind before a storm, flying into her throat—like dry leaves swept helplessly upward by a merciless gust only to choke within the gnarled limbs of trees.
“R-riding all the morn,” she finished lamely, swallowing.
He said nothing, merely deepened the smile, and Page felt suddenly like a wretched waif whose tongue had been cut out for merely stealing a taste of forbidden fruit. She felt suddenly so meritless beneath his scrutiny. Jesu, but he was beautiful... everything about him. Everything. From the curve of his lips, to the contours of his face, the long lean length of his body, and the muscled strength in his mostly bare limbs.
And she... she was so... plain.
He couldn’t possibly desire her for anything but revenge.
Truly, he must have been toying with her, playing some cruel, cruel game, for a man such as he could never want a woman such as she.
Not even for the space of a heartbeat.
His kindness only served to confuse her. It made her heart wrench painfully.
The lilting brogue and the soft tone of his voice tormented her, for it made her wish for things that could never be... a lover’s embrace... a whisper at her ear... his breath upon her lips.
All the things she’d heard whispered about in the dark corners of her father’s home.
“What is it, lass?” he asked softly.
Page turned abruptly away, unsettled by the wicked turn of her thoughts. She felt the flush creep into her face. “W-we’ve ridden all day without the least chance to rest,” she complained. “Nor to—” She gazed at him quickly, and then her glance skittered away. She was both annoyed and disconcerted that she should have to broach such a tender subject—hurt and disappointed, though she had no right to be, that he would play such games with her tattered soul. “You know...”
How could he? she asked herself.
He couldn’t know that the shreds of her heart were welded so delicately together. That a single whisper from his beautiful lips could melt her piteous heart like the first tender snowflakes upon the sun-blistered ground.
Nay, as far as the MacKinnon was concerned, she was her father’s beloved daughter. And she... She was his vengeance against the man who had stolen his precious son.
She started suddenly when he bellowed a command to his men in his Scots tongue. At the fierce sound, Page startled where she sat. Anger was her first thought—he was angry with her— and she shuddered.
What had she done?
God’s truth, she couldn’t even remember what she’d said!
His men at once changed course, away from the valley they’d been following, up the rise of a gently rolling hill. The MacKinnon spoke to his son briefly, the boy nodded, and he then bellowed for his cousin Lagan to come and attend him. He handed his son to Lagan, sparing a quick glance toward Page, and then snapped an indecipherable command to his cousin. He reached the distance between them suddenly, seizing her reins, and then veered onto a path that led into a sparse woodland, away from the party.
“Where are we going?”
“To gi’ ye the privacy ye need,” Iain snapped, angry with himself, not so much for neglecting her needs, but for what he spied in the depths of her eyes. His men didn’t stand on ceremony where bodily demands were concerned, they simply did what they must. He’d forgotten to consider hers, and was irritated by the fact, but what angered him most was that goddamned wounded look she’d given him.
Damn her father for an uncaring ass!
Though her bearing was proud and unbroken still, her eyes revealed everything. He’d recognized the attraction at once, in the impassioned depths of her dewy-eyed gaze, and his body had reacted tenfold. As if he were a beardless youth, the sweat from his palms had begun to salt the leather reins he held. And God, his arousal had been immediate and painful. He’d sat there, listening to her ramblings, and had been hard put to keep his thoughts on any single word she spoke.
Even the sound of her voice seduced him.
Lulled him.
Husky and breathless.
The way she might sound after being thoroughly loved.
The thought set his heart to pounding.
And then just as quickly as her passion had unfolded, it had vanished, and was replaced with that same wounded gaze he now recognized from the first time he’d set eyes upon her—the look of a woman scorned.
Christ, man, didn’t she realize what her presence did to him? Had he not made it clear enough last eve? He had half a notion to find the most secluded spot here in these woods, yank her down from that mount, and show her just how much he was affected by her.
Bloody hell, how could she not know?
“What of the rest?” she asked a little anxiously. “Where do they go?”
Iain’s jaw remained taut, though he tried to rid himself of his anger. For her sake. “To find a place to settle for the eve.”
“Without us?” She sounded distressed, and a little breathless, and Iain turned to appraise her. She was staring again, those beautiful soulful eyes wide and fraught with anxiety. She nibbled at her lip nervously, and he lapped at his own gone dry.
Afeared to be alone with him, was she?
Somehow, the thought both tormented and pleased him immensely.
“We’ll catch them,” he assured, turning away. “As soon as we’re through.”
“Where will they go?”
“Just beyond the rise. ‘Tis a secluded enough place, we’ll not be troubled.”
“I see,” she said, but didn’t sound so very reassured.
“There lies a loch, as well,” Iain added. “I thought perchance ye would wish to refresh yourself.” He peered over at her, watching her expression as she rode, gauging her mood, and then added, “Suisan.” Christ forgive him, he hadn’t meant to test the name so soon, hadn’t even thought about what to call her, but the name came to his lips even so, and he thought
it suited her perfectly.
Delicate and beautiful, like the lily she was, but sturdy, too, coming back each spring after weathering the bitterest of snows.
Her gaze flew to his, and she blinked, then turned abruptly away. “I am no beast to be named at your pleasure!” she hissed.
Iain didn’t know what to say. It was true. Leading the rest of the way in silence, he drew her into the thickest part of the forest, and then reined in and dismounted.
“No, you’re no’,” he acknowledged finally.
Page remained stiff in the saddle. Iain went to her side, intending to help her dismount, but he made the mistake of peering up at her in that instant.
There were tears in her eyes.
He could see them though she wouldn’t meet his gaze, and his heart wrenched. Had he acted wrongly? he wondered, and then knew he had, for when she turned to look down at him again, there was anger in her eyes, an anger so filled with pain that Iain’s heart bled at the sight of it.
Damn, but why should he care what she felt? He didn’t know this woman. Didn’t owe her a bloody damned thing! Hadn’t wanted to bring her...
And yet he had.
It occurred to him suddenly that if he truly hadn’t wished to bring her, he simply wouldn’t have. He cared what she felt, because she’d reached some part of his soul that had lain untouched for too many years. Somehow, she’d pierced that shadowy realm with that first heart-stirring glance.
Mounted before him, towering above him as she did, her long plait unraveling down her back, her dark eyes flashing and luminous, and her stance proud, she seemed almost a wild thing in that instant. Wild and unapproachable, like the deer of the forests, those wide brown eyes both forbidding and heedful at once.
For an instant Iain was wholly mesmerized by those fathomless dark pools, some part of him yearning to leap into their misty depths, discover the hidden mysteries... and pleasures.
He knew she thought he pitied her, that much was apparent. He could spy it in her eyes, but God... it was so far from the truth. If anything, he admired her. Not many men could have taken the abuse he sensed she’d received at her father’s hands, and still come through unscathed as she had.
Though wounded she might be, she was far from conquered.
He envied her, too, he realized. Envied her for the freedom she was unafraid to embrace.
He thought about the moment he’d first spied her, soaked from a midnight swim no true lady would have dared even fancy. Her eyes had flashed with defiance, though she’d been cast at his feet.
Christ, he wanted, in that moment, not to conquer, but to join her.
Too many years he’d lived in this dark room that was his life—always doing what was right, what was just, never pursuing the candlelight that beckoned just beyond his chamber threshold.
He’d been his father’s only son, and for all intents and purposes had been born into the world a man. His father, though Iain was certain had loved him well, had never truly been a father at all, but a teacher, instead, always fearful that his only heir would somehow depart this life before him and that his sovereign bloodline would end. He had both protected Iain interminably and trained him fiercely so that he might fend for himself and his clan when at last the old laird closed his eyes. And Christ, he’d closed them all too soon, his final time during Iain’s seventeenth winter.
His father would have been proud of him, he thought, for he had given everything to his clan. Every moment of every waking hour of his life.
He’d spared them naught.
And still some part of him was not his own to give, for it eluded even him.
And then he’d been alone.
He’d never known his mother, had never ceased to mourn that fact. Though sometimes... sometimes... he thought he spied her kindly face shrouded amidst his deeper memories.
Nothing more than fancy, he knew, for she’d never even held him within her arms. He’d never had the chance to look into soothing eyes— didn’t even know what color they were, though he had the vaguest impression of blue—to suckle as a babe at her breast, to spy her watching him as he played with other children.
Mairi, too, had been his duty to his clan.
He’d wanted so much from her, so much—mayhap too much. He was willing to take that much responsibility for her death. Hell, he’d taken it all—as ever was his duty. Her rejection of him, and the infernal ends to which she had gone to escape him, had finally extinguished the lone guttering taper he had tended so zealously all of his life. In the space of a heartbeat, in the wake of her flight from his high tower window, the candle had flickered and died.
The woman sitting so proudly before him was like that light shining just beyond his threshold, beckoning him out from the darkness he knew so well.
God... and he wanted to follow it.
Those brief moments of reflection were Iain’s undoing, for she seemed to recover herself from the stupor they had shared, and reacted suddenly with all the vengeance her eyes foreboded.
Too late, he seized the reins from her hands. She spurred Ranald’s mount furiously. The horse reared, surging forward. Iain lost hold of the reins with all but one finger, and with that tentative hold, he tried to force her to stop.
Ranald’s mount, addled now, seemed to hesitate, and Iain at once tried to regain his hold upon the reins, but she spurred the horse again, more furiously this time, and he was flung forward. The leather sliced the flesh of his hand, searing it with the force of its pull. His arm twisted within the rein, and he was dragged with her.
He howled in pain, trying to find a foothold, but the horse tore away too swiftly. Realizing in that moment that she was bloody well going to kill him, that she wasn’t going to stop, that he would need pursue her with his own mount, he tried to free himself at once. He succeeded, though not before managing to drag himself under the horse’s hooves. His answering curse was a cry of pain.
His arm untangled and he was flung to the ground.
His head impacted with a crack that reverberated clear into his unconscious mind.
It took Page an instant too long to free herself from the angry fog that had enveloped her. Realizing suddenly what she’d done, she whirled her mount about, and sat, horseflesh rippling impatiently beneath her as she stared at the body lying so still upon the ground.
Sweet Mary, what had she done to him?
Some part of her wanted to go to him.
Her heart twisted painfully.
She turned to stare in horror and panic at the path that led to freedom, and for an instant was anguished and torn.
There would never be a greater opportunity for escape.
And some part of her wanted to go—to her father—some part of her truly did, but the greater part of her could not leave with him lying there as he was.
So still.
Her father’s enemy, she reminded herself.
A liar and a faithless cheat.
The man who had treated her with nothing less than kindness. The man whose worst crime against her had been to give her a name her father had never stirred himself to bestow.
Suisan.
Her heart wrenched. She wondered what it meant.
The sound of it upon his lips, like a lover’s whisper, had made her heart leap, had filled her eyes with tears she’d never dared to shed.
Aye, and she’d dared in that moment to love him, this fierce stranger, whom she dared not even like.
Her heart hammered as she stared at the body lying so still before her.
The realization that he pitied her had turned her heart to stone, her thoughts to fury.
She came aware of tears streaming down her cheeks.
Sobs rang in her ears—her own?
Jesu, but why should she weep for this man?
How could she not go? She’d waited all her life for her father to want her, and now that he did, she must go to him! She must!
Jesu, but this man had betrayed him, had broken faith. Why should she care tha
t he lay there?
Possibly dying.
Possibly dead.
Her stomach twisted.
He didn’t so much as move as she watched. He lay there upon the forest floor, his big body crushing the bracken beneath. She gauged the light frantically through the sparse-limbed trees; it was fast growing dark.
What if they couldn’t find him before the sun made its final descent? She recalled what Broc had told her about Ranald—in what condition his body had been found—and fear squeezed her heart.
Sweet Jesu, she couldn’t bear for that fate to be Iain MacKinnon’s, no matter that she wanted to loathe him still.
She couldn’t go, God help her, but she couldn’t!
Spurring her mount back, she reined in beside him, dismounting quickly, kneeling at once at his side.
He lay so still, so still that Page’s heart thumped and fear deluged her.
Desperate to hear his breath, some evidence that he yet lived, she placed her cheek against his lips, warm still with the sweet elixir of life. Her eyes closed with relief when she felt his breath, so light and airy against her face.
Thank God!
She couldn’t have borne it.
Thank God, thank God, thank God!
For the longest instant she couldn’t move, so benumbed was she with giddy relief.
Of a sudden, a hand caught her at her nape, and then his eyes flew open. She felt his lashes flutter against her cheek but couldn’t move for the clasp he had upon her neck. She filled her lungs with a gulping breath as his grip held her more firmly against him. His nostrils flared, as though scenting her, and then he groaned and clenched his jaw.
Her heart began to hammer fiercely. It pounded erratically, the sound of it echoing like savage drums in her ears. She tried to draw away, alarmed by the currents that jolted through her at the intimate position of their bodies.
“Nay,” he rasped.
The single word was a plea, a tormented whisper that bore more desperation, even, than did the depths of her very soul. And God help her, that more than the force of his grip held her quiescent against him.
For an instant, neither of them spoke; he simply held her to his face, his lips pressed against her cheek, with a desperation that Page had thought only she knew.
The MacKinnon's Bride Page 14