“I . . .” She looked down, and he saw that she kept her skirts gripped tight in her fists.
She was a bashful wisp of a thing. And she’d come, to see him, despite it.
“My dress.” She frowned and brushed at her clothes, still not meeting his eyes. “It isn’t my best, you know. It was hard, yesterday, explaining away the stains on my hem. I needed to wear something more . . . sturdy.”
Iain finally registered the practical brown linen she wore. “You fash yourself over your . . . your frock there?” He laughed. “Och, lass, don’t you know you’re the loveliest creature ever to set foot on this isle?”
The thought reminded him of what he held in his sporran. “Ah, but you must come, Cass. Come bide a wee, beneath the stones.” He reached out and gently took her hand.
Her features eased, and her eyes rose to meet his. It knocked the air from his lungs. Cassie’s eyes were as blue as he’d remembered. Bluer even. Vivid, like the petals of some otherworldly wildflower.
“Like some lovely fairy you are,” he whispered. “Come, Cass. I’ve a gift for you.”
“A gift? For me?” She gave him a look of such guileless surprise, he laughed from the sheer pleasure of it.
“Aye, for you and you alone.” He led her to the stones and sat beside her in the heather, pretending to adjust his plaid so as to nestle just a bit closer by her side.
He plucked the seed from his sporran and she gasped.
His eyes leapt back to her face and he studied her, trying to interpret her every aspect, every blink, every breath. “I see you ken what this is.”
“Airne Moire,” she marveled. “A Mary’s bean. My father has one. He had it set in silver.” Wide eyes met his. “How did you find it?”
“I came upon it just this morning. I walked the shore, thinking of you, of course.” He winked. “And there it lay, in the sand.”
She looked down quickly, blushing. The sight tugged a low, husky laugh from his throat.
He turned her hand over and placed the seed there. It was black and hard, like a rounded stone, and just the right size to nestle perfectly in her palm.
He couldn’t help himself. He brushed her exposed wrist, just for a moment, lightly with his thumb. It felt such an intimate thing, stroking along the fine webbing of veins that lined her delicate skin. They led to her heart, a heart he vowed then and there to make his own.
“Some folk believe they come all the way from Africa,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “They say a Mary’s bean can float for twenty years.”
“Africa?” She scoffed. “My maid says they’re fairy eggs. Uibhean sithean. You should make a charm from it.” She tried to hand the seed back to him. “’ Tis very good luck indeed.”
“No,” he said, wrapping her fingers around the seed. He hesitated, then kept her hand held in his. “’ Tis your very good luck, Cassie. It’s a gift. From me to you.”
“But I could never accept such a thing.”
“Lass, it’s truly but a trifle.” He squeezed her hand. It was so small and frail in his. His heart clenched—a heart he feared already belonged to her. “If only you knew. It’s the least of what I’d have you take from me.”
Three
Iain waited for her in their usual place. They’d been meeting in secret for weeks, always beneath the Callanish stones. He imagined the towering, gray monoliths were their sentinels, guarding them from prying eyes.
Though he knew that none would see them. Lewis folk worked, and hard. They didn’t trudge across fields in the middle of the day simply to visit the standing stones. None would stumble upon two sweethearts submerged in the late summer heather.
The wind tossed her hair as she approached. It was long and smooth, and the sun caught it, igniting it into rays of light.
“Cassie, my love,” he said, laughing and curling her to him to kiss the top of her head. “Could you not wear a bonnet? You sneak from your father’s keep like a wee spy, and yet all of Lewis must see that bonny hair of yours. You’re named for a constellation, but I’d swear you shine brighter than any star.”
Smiling, she ignored his comment and stood up on tiptoes for a proper kiss. Her lips were cool from her brisk walk, but they soon warmed at the touch of his skin.
She brought her hand to his chest, idly threading her fingers in the folds of his plaid. “I’m late.”
“You’re here.” He leaned down to steal another kiss. She was sweeter than the ripest fruit, and he could kiss her every day for the rest of his days and never get enough. “ ’ Tis all that matters.”
“But your work,” she protested. “You need to do your work. I hate the thought that you were here waiting, without me, yet you’ll need to leave just as soon. I wish we had more time.”
“I went to the fields early. I’ll return late,” he said dismissively. “It matters not.”
He pulled her into the shelter of the stones. They were tall and grave, casting long shadows along the heather that grew thick at their feet.
Iain threaded his fingers with hers and rained hungry kisses at her neck and cheek and mouth as he eased them down. “All that matters is that you’re here now.”
His knee touched the ground and he froze. There was ever so slight a reserve in the way she kissed him back, and he sensed it at once. “Cassie, love, is there something the matter?”
He pulled away and saw the desolation in her eyes. “Och, I’m a brute,” he said, tenderly smoothing the sleeves of her dress. He guided her down to sit side by side in the heather. “I’m like a lad with his first kiss. I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve missed you so—”
“Iain,” she sighed with a smile. “I love your kisses. It’s not that, ’tis . . .”
“What then?” He traced the hair from her face. “What has your lovely eyes in such a muddle?”
“It’s my father.”
“Your father,” he repeated flatly. He’d known this day would come. Cass had lived a sheltered life. It was only a matter of time before she glimpsed the true heart of the MacLeod.
“My father . . . he’s gone too far. I’m afraid, Iain.”
Iain had known that the concerns of a daughter anxious of her strict father would someday crystallize into fear. Still, he wasn’t prepared for the heartbreak he heard in her sweet voice.
“I know you are,” he said gently. “But can you tell me . . . what happened, Cass?”
“I . . . he . . .” She drew a deep breath in, settling herself. “I’d snuck out into the kale garden, to come to you.” A smile ghosted across her face and then was gone. “But the cook was out there. And so I hid. She was talking to the other women. I heard them, heard her tell it . . . My father has a . . . a natural child.” She’d whispered the last of it. “The mother lives in the village. They said she was . . . unwilling.”
His face fell. Such a thing would shock dear Cassie. And pain her. She was so sheltered from the world.
And yet he sensed she longed for more. She yearned for experience, for a life rich with family and friends. He imagined it was what had drawn her so far from home on the day they first met. She sought more freedom, more knowledge. But he wondered if she were ready for what she’d find.
He didn’t know why the MacLeod sequestered her from the world. Iain suspected the man wanted to keep her pure in thought and deed, an unsullied treasure whose ultimate value would be measured, not by a father, but by a laird seeking advantage.
Iain shuddered.
“I know,” he told her quietly.
He suspected the MacLeod had even more bastard children, though Iain wouldn’t share that now. Cassie’s mother had died giving birth, and the laird wasn’t one to moderate his needs. Iain would spare Cassie this one bit of knowledge, this Pandora’s box of secrets that’d been kept from her.
“You know? What do you know? What have you heard?”
“Och, love . . .” He paused. How to say it? He had his suspicions, but there was one child whom he knew without a doubt. “ ’ Tis wee Jane
t.”
“Jan?” Confusion wrinkled her eyes. “Your aunt’s child? But your uncle—”
“Died a full year before she was born.”
He was silent then, letting the truth sink in. Letting the picture form in her mind. His Aunt Morna’s lone blonde girl in a cottage full of black-haired sons.
“Oh,” she said simply.
“Ease your mind, love.” He stroked her back lightly. “There’s naught to fear. But you must never speak of it again. Never speak of it with him.”
“I already did. ’Tis why I’m late.” She worried her skirts in her hands. “I had to know what it means. For me.” She shut her eyes then, marveling. “A sister . . .”
Some noxious thing spiked through his veins, his body on instant alert. “You mentioned this to the MacLeod?”
Opening her eyes, she nodded wordlessly, and fear for her gripped his chest. The laird had fathered only one legitimate child, his treasured Cassiopeia, whom he jealously concealed from the world. He wouldn’t take her sudden knowledge well.
“You must never speak of it with him again. You mustn’t think of her as a sister.”
“But he’s my father, and—”
“He’s the laird before he’s your father,” Iain said sharply. “He wakes in the morning, and it’s the MacLeod who dons his plaid. ’Tis the MacLeod you see at the hearth. Don’t be fooled, love. When he makes a decision for you, it’s the MacLeod deciding. Not a father.”
Iain grew cold, remembering her original words. “What did he do to make you afraid?”
“He raged,” she whispered. “ ’ Twas as though I’d never truly seen him. He grabbed me. Shut me in my room.”
Iain’s fists flexed. No man would touch her in anger. Not the MacLeod, not any man, if he could help it.
He registered what must’ve happened next, and his eyes grew wide with disbelief. “And you snuck out?”
“I did. But I’m afraid of what will happen when I return.”
“We must go back at once.” His mind raced. Mindlessly, he stroked her hair, thinking of a plan. “We’ll fetch a cloak to cover this bright, bonny hair. We send you in as you went out, through the kitchen gardens, and pray folk will think they’ve seen a scullion.”
“Not yet,” she said quickly, and the plea in her voice took him aback. “My father’s gone to see some lord about his cattle. He won’t be home ’til nightfall. Please, Iain.”
It was the sound of his name on her lips that swayed him. “As you wish it, love.”
They sat in silence for a while. Cassie lay in the heather, resting her head in his lap. Iain stroked her hair, stroked down her back, willing her nervous heart to calm.
He loved her so. He’d never known such contentment. He didn’t want it ever to end. He would make himself worthy of the beautiful girl lying near him in the heather. And then he’d take her away, far away from this man whom she feared.
He’d always dreamt of having more, of being more. And now that he’d met Cassie, he’d been working day and night. She said she loved him as he was, but he’d not make a formal proposal of marriage until he could stand before the MacLeod and ask for her hand like a proper gentleman.
“There’s a parcel of land,” he began tentatively, “near Stornoway. The earl there fought with my father, for Charles, in the wars. The king rewarded him with lands. I’ve been in contact, and he tells me he’d let me buy a parcel. I’d be more than merely his tenant. He tells me I could act as his factor, like.”
He paused, hesitant. Her breath had stilled. Would she want this life that he imagined for them? Cassie was accustomed to a castle. She was queen of his heart, but in choosing him, her kingdom would be a mere cottage. “I’d build a fine home. ’Twould be small, but it would do for two. Or more,” he added with a wistful smile, “if they were small.”
She was silent for a time, and he didn’t press her. He simply continued to stroke her hair, memorizing her every curve and shadow as she lay in the heather. What did she think of his plan? Would she see herself in it?
“My father . . .” She hesitated, worry knitting her brow.
“Your father is my concern now, lass. If it kills me, I’ll not abide you living in fear of any man.” His hand stilled on her back. “I’ll work night and day. I’ll do whatever it takes to deserve you, to have you. Even if it means I must steal you away in the night.”
Slowly she turned. Her head still resting in his lap, she looked up at him, and the adoration in her eyes made his heart soar.
“You ease my soul, Iain Gillespie MacNab.”
He leaned to kiss her, and she stopped him with a gentle finger to his lips. Gravely, she said, “But you must make me a promise. Here, by the standing stones. Promise me. Whatever happens, promise always to meet me, just here. As long as you live, promise to come to me, just here, come what may.”
“I promise you,” he said quickly, earnestly. He took her hand tightly in his. The air around them felt charged, fraught with the intensity, the solemnity of the moment. Even the stones themselves seemed larger, colder, more ominous. “I promise you, Cassie, my only love. As long as I live, I will be here for you. Come what may, you shall call me husband. I swear it.”
He looked up at the slabs of granite, hovering like silent monks tall above them. “And may the stones themselves seal my vow.”
Four
“You’re a wee Diana.”
“Diana?” Cassie turned her face up to him. Bright and bonny, she was a slip of sunlight nestled on his arm.
Confusion flickered in her eyes, as did something else. Some feminine thing. The quick jealousy that takes a woman at the mention of another.
“Aye.” Iain bent, kissed her yellow hair. “You’re not the only one versed in myth, my wee Cassiopeia. Diana, the huntress.”
She betrayed a flash of relief, then pure pleasure at the comparison.
He slung the brace of rabbit over his shoulder. Rabbit she’d trapped herself. He made as if to bend beneath its weight, and Cassie giggled.
Iain had not a care by her side. Cut peat, cruel lairds, fathers and their bastards. It all slipped away when sweet Cass was near.
The feel of her at his side was irresistible. He pulled her close. Smoothed his free hand along the swell of her hip.
Their secret meetings had continued for months now. He’d memorized her every curve, and yet he couldn’t get enough. Would never get enough.
He kissed her forehead, cool in the late-morning breeze. “When will you make me an honest man, dear Cass?” he whispered into her hair. “I’m close, love. By the end of the season, I’ll have enough to get our land. ’Twill be modest. And we won’t have help. Just you and me. But it’ll be ours, Cass.”
He was a patient man. He’d save his money, bide his time. He’d buy their land and build their cottage. And then he’d propose properly, on bended knee, as good as any gentleman farmer.
She’d say yes, how could she not? Cassie was his, just as he belonged to her. It was a thing he knew, indelible and forever, like the tides or the rising sun.
His hand ran over something thick and hard in the pocket of her skirts. “What’s this, then?”
“Bread.” She tilted her chin in ready defiance, as if he’d have a problem with a mere heel of bread.
“Bread? Are you mounting a wee feast?”
“No. Yes.” She looked away. “Well, if my father isn’t going to do right by my sister—”
“Your half sister,” he reminded her. “Your father’s by-blow.”
Cassie flinched at the term.
A familiar nagging fear eclipsed the light in his heart. She’d heard the talk and had sought out his Aunt Morna to see for herself. She’d found a cottage full of hungry souls, and it’d lit a fire beneath her, transformed her. His Cass, the bonny crusader. It was only a matter of time before she mustered courage enough to press her father directly. “’Tis a dangerous topic to be caviling on about,” he warned.
She feared the MacLeod. As she shou
ld. But hers was a daughter’s fear. She’d known only the firm hand and quick temper of a father. Cassie didn’t truly understand what it was to fear her father the laird, the man. A chief who’d not appreciate being held to task for a child born on the wrong side of the sheets.
“Fine. Half sister,” she amended in the saucy way he recognized and, Lord save him, loved so well.
She’d passed her girlhood under lock and key. And yet, in her isolation, she’d bloomed like some hothouse flower. Flourishing in unexpected ways. The laird’s sheltered daughter had developed all the piss and vinegar of a village scamp.
“Is this what the rabbit is about?”
“I must bring all I can,” she insisted. “There’s never enough food on Morna’s table, and wee Jan is growing like a weed now. She walks!”
“Aye, they’ve a habit of that,” he said darkly.
“Well, I’ve not known many children.”
Her voice was dispirited, but he had to press his point. He knew his words would sting, but he needed to make her understand. “You’re still so young yourself, in your way. I beg you to have a care. Stealing rabbit from your father’s land—”
“It’s not stolen. I’m the daughter of the MacLeod. Everything on the land is mine, or might as well be.”
“Aye, that’s as it may be, but pilfer enough from your father’s territory and someone somewhere will take note. It’s a hanging offense, Cassie.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! My father would never hang me.”
“Of course he’d not.” He sighed. How to make it clear to her? “But they’ll be wanting to blame someone.”
She ignored his words, and he shook his head in defeat.
Like a cloud blown clear of the sky, she quickly brightened, and he knew there’d be no more talk of such things that day.
And curse him, but already he felt his attention pulled back to the curve of her hip and the swell of her bosom pressed firm at his side.
“Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
“Aye,” he conceded, eyeing the rabbits. “I have wondered.”
“I found the den and set a wee trap.”
Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion Page 18