Lisa didn’t dare breathe. She harbored an absurd hope that he would just leave after declaring that truth and not force her to confront the enormity of it. She did want him. Desperately. Fantasies collided in her mind, daring her to relinquish her innocence and embrace womanhood.
He moved slowly toward her and sat on the edge of her bed. She scooted back hastily, her back flush to the headboard, and hugged a pillow to her chest.
“You enjoy looking at me, doona you, Lisa?”
She enjoyed doing more than looking at him. She liked fighting him with her kisses. Tasting the salt and honey of his skin.
With deft fingers, he untied the laces of his linen shirt and shrugged it off over his head. The muscles in his abdomen rippled, the curves of his biceps flexed. “Then look,” he said, his voice rough. “Look your fill. Think you I doona recall how you gazed at me in my bath?” When his wide shoulders were revealed, she shook her head and sucked in a breath.
“St-stop that! What are you doing?” Lisa exclaimed. Lounging at the foot of her bed was six feet seven inches of dark, seductive man, with rippling muscles beneath bronzed skin; a warrior in every sense of the word. Fine black hair dusted his powerful chest and thick forearms. A finer trail of hair skittered down his abdomen and crept beneath the brilliant red and black tartan knotted at his waist. All in all, Circenn Brodie was the most desirable man Lisa had ever seen.
“Use me, Lisa,” he encouraged softly. “Take whatever you want.” When she made no reply, he said, “You have never been with a man, have you?”
Lisa smoothed the coverlet, her mouth dry. She had no intention of discussing this with him. She wet her traitorous lips and was appalled when they parted and said, “Is it so apparent?”
“To me. Perhaps not to other men. Why? You are old enough to have been with many men. You are beautiful enough that many must have tried. Did you find none to your liking?”
Lisa hugged the pillow tighter. In high school, she’d had several boyfriends, but they’d always seemed so immature to her. Catherine said it was because she was an only child, that she was more accustomed to being around adults. She’d suspected her mom was right.
“Did I take you from someone? A lover perhaps?” A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“No. There’s been no one.”
“I find that difficult—nay, impossible to believe.”
“Trust me,” Lisa said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Men were not exactly beating down my door.” If they had been, they would have fled shortly after gaining entrance and discovering her financial straits and her caretaker role.
“Ah, perhaps they were afraid of you, because you are so much woman?”
“I am not fat,” Lisa bristled. “I’m … healthy,” she supplied defensively.
Circenn smiled. “That you are, but that is not what I meant.”
“Well, I’m not too tall. A giantess wouldn’t be too tall for you.” At five feet ten, she had towered over many of the boys in her class until the last two years of high school.
“Not what I meant either.”
“Then what did you mean?” she asked, feeling wounded.
“You are smart—”
“No, I’m not,” she said. Anything but smart.
“Yes, you are. You were smart enough to realize it would be foolish to escape me at Dunnottar, and clever enough to deduce a way out of my chambers. Aye, even fearless enough to dare it. Tell me, do you read and write?”
“Yes.” Inwardly, Lisa glowed. She was smart in the fourteenth century.
“You are persistent. Tenacious. Determined. Strong. You doona need anyone, do you?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to need anyone. Everyone’s always been too busy needing me,” she muttered, then felt guilty for voicing her most secret resentment.
“Need me, Lisa.”
She searched his face. What had changed him? Why was he acting this way? It was as if he genuinely cared and sincerely desired her.
“Need me,” he repeated firmly. “Use me to explore the woman who has never been given the opportunity to live. Take from me, need from me, and satisfy all that curiosity I feel burning in you. And by Dagda, let go of that maidenhead. Do you wish to live and die, never having known passion? Never having tasted what I offer you? Be bold. Take.” He uttered the last word in a low, masculine tone.
Take. The word lingered in her mind. It was almost as if it had rolled from his tongue imbued with some kind of sorcery. What would it be like to take, as he said it—to utterly consume without guilt or fear? Take because her blood demanded it, because her body needed it. Lisa’s lips parted as she contemplated his words. His upper torso was a vast expanse of olive skin that would be velvety to the touch. Her fingers ached to trail over the hard ridges of his chest, to linger over his shoulders, to curve around his powerful neck and drag him into a kiss that would make her forget where he began and she ended. “I thought you medieval men prized virginity. Don’t you think it’s wrong for a woman to have her own desires and act on them?”
“Your virginity is a piece of skin, a membrane, Lisa. My first love was long ago and it has not changed who I am in any fashion. Mind you, I am not saying you should give the gift of lovemaking to just anyone. But an obsession with virginity is absurd and serves no purpose but to make a woman turn away from a fine part of her nature. Women and men have the same desires—at least they do until the priests have their go at the women and convince them it is shameful. What the priests should be saying is ‘choose well.’”
“How many—” she broke off quickly. What a stupid question to ask. She would sound like a childish, possessive adolescent. But she wanted to know. It said something about the man. A man who’d been with hundreds of women had a real problem, as far as she was concerned.
“Seven.” His teeth flashed white against his face.
“That’s not very many. I mean for a man, you know,” she added hastily.
What would she think if she knew it was only seven in five hundred years? Thousands of times with those seven, enough to know well how to please any woman, but only seven all the same. “Each woman was a country, rich and lush as Scotland, and I loved them with the same dedication and thorough attention I give my homeland. I confess, the first few were naught but the man in me celebrating life when I was less than a score of years. But the last two were wonderful women, both friends and lovers.”
“Then why did you leave them?”
A shadow crossed his beautiful face. “They left me,” he said softly. Died. Too young, in a land too harsh.
“Why?”
“Lisa, touch me.” He moved closer, close enough that she could smell the spice of his skin. Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, mingling with the heat from hers. Close enough that his lips were a breath and a “yes” away from hers. Tempting, more compelling than her need for basic survival. Fingers extended, she reached for him, but at the last moment she dropped her hand, forming a fist in her lap.
He was silent for a long moment. “You aren’t ready yet. Very well. I can wait.” He rose in a fluid motion. As he stood, the knot on his tartan slipped and the fabric dropped lower on his hips, giving her a sinful glimpse of what she was denying herself. Her gaze fixed on the black trail of hair that fanned below his belly button, then dropped lower to the thicker hair that peeked above the tartan. The sight of it gave her a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach, an awful empty pressure. Whether he moved or the plaid slid, she didn’t know, but suddenly it dipped lower, revealing the thick base of his shaft amid silky dark hair. She couldn’t see the length of it, but that wasn’t what made her heart pound. It was the thickness of him. She would never be able to wrap her hand around it. What would it feel like to have him push that inside her? Her mouth went dry.
His eyes lit appreciatively as her gaze snagged there. “I could pick you up and wrap those lovely long legs of yours around my waist. Slip deep inside you, rock you against me and love you till y
ou lay in my arms and slept like a babe. I will spend each night stretched beside you, teaching you what you want me to teach you. I can feel that you want it from me. Yet it will be at your pace, when you choose. I will wait as long as I must.
“But know this, Lisa—when you are across the dinner table from me on the morrow, in my mind I am pushing you back on a bed. In my fantasy”—he laughed, as if at his own brashness—“you are discovering yourself with my willing body. Who knows, perhaps even laying siege to the heart that beats within this chest.” He thumped his chest with a fist and silently admitted she’d already begun to do that, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered himself. But she didn’t need to know that. He knotted the tartan slowly, never taking his eyes from hers.
“Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels.”
Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother’s nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had:
“Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.”
Wow! was all her reeling mind could come up with as he slipped from the room.
THREE DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE THEIR FIRST DINNER IN the formal dining room. That was seventy-two hours. Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes, and Lisa had felt each one of them whiz past her—gone forever.
Nine shifts of nurses had changed at home. Nine meals had been taken by her mother—bland food, she was certain. No ripe plums and apricots carefully selected from the market on her lunch hour. Illness had changed Catherine’s appetite, and she’d developed a craving for fruits.
Lisa had spent the days snooping as furtively as possible, but she had begun to suspect it was futile. She didn’t have the first idea where to look for the flask. She’d tried his chambers several times during the day, but the door was always locked. She’d even gone to the turret to the left of his chambers to see if there was a way she could manage to scale the outside wall to get there, but it was hopeless. His chambers were on the second floor of the east wing, and there were guards on the battlements above it at all times.
She’d passed the evenings indulging herself in offensively sumptuous meals. Last night, the first course had been a mixture of plums, quince, apples, and pears with rosemary, basil, and rue in a pastry tart. The second course had been a chopped meat pastry, the third an omelet with almonds, currants, honey, and saffron, the fourth roasted salmon in onion and wine sauce, the fifth artichokes stuffed with rice. By the honey-glazed chicken rolled in mustard, rosemary, and pine nuts, she’d been wallowing in guilt. By the berry pastries with whipped cream, she’d despised herself.
And each night, he’d savored his dessert with the same lazy sensuality that made her long to be a berry or a fluff of topping. She couldn’t fault his demeanor, he’d been an impeccable dinner companion and host. They’d made cautious small talk; he’d told her of the Templars and their plight, spoke of their training and extolled the strengths of his Highland fortress. She’d asked about his villagers, whom he seemed to know surprisingly little about. He’d asked about her century and she’d made him talk about his instead. When she’d asked about his family, he’d turned the tables and asked about hers. After a few moments of strained evasions, they’d mutually conceded to leave each other alone on that topic.
He seemed to be going out of his way to be gracious, patient, and accommodating. In turn, she’d been carefully reserved, finding an excuse each night to dash from the table after the final course and hole up in her room.
He permitted her escape, for the price of a tantalizing kiss each night at her door. He had not tried again to enter her chambers; she knew he was waiting for her invitation. She also knew she was perilously close to extending it. Each night it was more difficult to find a reason not to take what she so desperately desired. After all, it wasn’t as if letting him spend one night in her bed would have the same effect as Persephone eating six seeds in Hades.
Her problem was twofold: Not only was she losing precious time and getting no closer to finding the flask, but she was beginning to adapt in insidious little ways. The immediacy of her presence in fourteenth-century Scotland seemed to be sapping her resolve. She’d never had a time in her life that was so peaceful, so filled with idle time, so safe. No one was relying on her, no one’s life would fall apart if she caught a bad cold and was unable to work for a few days. No bills were pressing, no deep blanket of gloom encompassed her.
She felt like such a traitor.
Bills were pressing; someone was relying on her. And she was helpless to do a damn thing about it until she found that flask.
She sighed, wishing fervently that she had something to do. Work would be cathartic; immersing herself in physical duties was the only way she’d ever managed to keep her demons at bay. Perhaps she could help a few of the maids, insinuate herself into their confidence and learn more about the laird and his customs, like which were his favorite rooms, where he stored his treasures.
Leaping from her perch in the window seat in the study, she went off, determined to track down a job for herself.
* * *
“Gillendria, wait!” Lisa called as the maid hurried down the corridor.
“Milady?” Gillendria paused and turned, her arms heaped with bed linens.
“Where are you going?” Lisa asked, catching up. She extended her hands to relieve a portion of Gillendria’s burden. “Here, let me help you carry some of those.”
The maid’s face was half hidden behind the mountain of linens, but what Lisa could see of it was quickly transformed by an expression of horror: her blue eyes widened, her dark brows flew up, and her mouth parted in a gasp. “Milady! These are soiled,” Gillendria exclaimed.
“That’s all right. You’re doing wash today. I can help,” she said cheerfully.
Gillendria skittered back. “Nay! The laird would banish me!” She turned and scurried down the hall as quickly as she could beneath the towering pile of linens.
Heavens, Lisa thought, I was only trying to help.
* * *
After searching for half an hour, Lisa found the kitchen. It was as splendid as the rest of the castle, spotless, efficiently designed, and currently occupied by a dozen servants preparing the afternoon meal. Buzzing with conversation, warmed by melodic laughter, the kitchen was made even cozier by a brightly leaping fire over which sauces simmered and meats roasted. The flames hissed and flickered as basting juices drizzled onto the logs.
She smiled and called a cheery hello.
All hands stilled: knives stopped dicing in midslice, brushes stopped basting, fingers stopped kneading dough, even the dog curled on the floor near the hearth dropped his head on his paws and whimpered. As one, the servants sank low in deference to her station. “Milady,” they murmured nervously.
Lisa studied the frozen tableau for a moment, struck by the absurdity of the situation. Why hadn’t she anticipated this? She knew her history. No one in the castle would permit her to labor: not the kitchen staff, not the laundress, not even the maids dusting the tapestries. She was a lady—and a lady was to be kept, not to keep.
But she didn’t know how to be kept. Depressed, she mumbled a courteous good-bye and fled the kitchen.
* * *
Lisa sank into a chair by the hearth in the Greathall and indulged herself in a serious brood. She had two things with which to occupy her mind: her mother and Circenn—both were dangerous, although for vastly different reasons. She was considering cleaning out the hearth and scrubbing the stones when Circenn entered.
He glanced at her. “Lass,” he greeted her. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes,” she replied with a dejected sigh.
“What’s amiss?” he asked. “I mean other than the usual—that which is always amiss with you. Perhaps I shall preface each conversation we have by assuring you that I still cannot return you. Now, what has you looking glum so early on a fine Highland morn?”
“Sarcasm doe
s not become you,” Lisa muttered.
He bared his teeth in a smile, and although she kept her face inscrutable, inwardly she sighed with pleasure. Tall, powerful, and utterly gorgeous, he was a vision a woman could get used to seeing first thing in the morning. He was wearing his tartan and a white linen shirt. His sporran was buckled around him, accentuating his trim waist and long muscled legs. He’d just shaved, and a bit of water glistened on his jaw. And he was huge—she liked that, a mountain of masculinity.
“What do you expect me to do with myself, Circenn Brodie?” she asked irritably.
He was very still. “What did you call me?”
Lisa hesitated, wondering if the arrogant man could really expect her to call him “milord,” even after he’d offered himself to her a few nights ago. Fine. It would keep things impersonal. She rose and bowed sweepingly. “My lord,” she purred.
“Sarcasm does not become you. That is the first time I’ve heard my name on your lips. As we are to be wed, you must use it henceforth. You may call me Cin.”
Lisa blinked at him from her servile position. Sin. That he was. And that was the bulk of her problem. If he were not so irresistible, she wouldn’t feel so alive around him, ergo she wouldn’t constantly feel so guilty about her mom. Had he been an unattractive, spineless, stupid man, she would have felt miserable every minute of the day—and that would have been acceptable. She should be miserable. She had abandoned her own mother, for heaven’s sake. Her back stiffened and she stood up straight. “Perhaps I should preface each of our conversations as well, by reminding you that I won’t be marrying you. My lord.”
A corner of his mouth quirked. “You are truly possessed of a streak of defiance, aren’t you? What did the men in your time make of it?”
Before she could answer, Duncan came bounding into the hall, followed by Galan. “Morning all, and a fine day it is, eh?” Duncan said brightly.
Lisa snorted. Couldn’t the handsome Highlander be pessimistic just once?
“Circenn, Galan was down in the village early this morning, hearing some of the disputes that have backed up in the manor courts—”
The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 76