He carried her up the tower stairs and set her down inside the little room at the top. John Erly stood by the bed. “Shall I fetch Father Alphonse?” Angus asked.
Dair was caught in the grip of another nightmare, a dark labyrinth he had no way to escape. What could the priest do? “No,” she said, and went to kneel by the bed. Dair thrashed, turning his head toward her.
“Jeannie?” he muttered.
“Fia,” she whispered back, and put her hand in his. He grabbed it like a lifeline, held tight. His body was shaking so hard his teeth chattered.
“I’ll drown,” he said. “Burn in hell.”
Angus Mor crossed himself. John stood silently behind her. Fia swallowed, remembered her vision at the spring.
“No you won’t,” she whispered. He flinched when she touched his forehead. “’Tis all right. I’m checking for fever. There isn’t any.”
She let go of his hand and moved the sheet to check his leg. The bandages were gone. She followed the long jagged scar that marred his flesh from his knee into the shadow of his groin The rawness of it made her belly clench, and she resisted the urge to smooth the ruined flesh.
“Have I done wrong? He wanted the bandages off,” Angus said uneasily. “He said they itched, and the bone is set as well as it ever will be.”
She shook her head, the lump in her throat making it impossible to speak, and drew the sheet over him once more. His head tossed on the pillow, and he began to mutter again, about the sea, and swimming, and the danger of the tide and sharp rocks hidden under the water.
“All is well,” she whispered in his ear. He turned suddenly, and the stubble on his jaw brushed over her lips, made them tingle. His mouth was inches from her own, and she stared at it, wondered what it would be like to kiss him. The urge was powerful, flowed through her limbs like hot whisky. His breathing was harsh, uneven, as if he was running, or fighting for his life.
“Sing, Mistress Fia,” Angus said. “Like last time.”
She closed her eyes and began to sing. Not a lullaby this time—a song about a lass who goes out walking with a lad who wants to steal a kiss.
His body relaxed, the tense muscles softening, his fierce grip on her hand easing. She felt the soft exhale of his breath on her cheek as the nightmare left him. She ended the verse and opened her eyes.
He was staring at her, his eyes heavy lidded, his expression unreadable. He wasn’t looking at some invisible shade or dreaming with his eyes open.
He was looking at her. Her breath caught in her throat, and she could not look away.
He didn’t speak. He squeezed her fingers, moved his thumb over her skin in a slow caress. He scanned her face and paused when his gaze reached her mouth. She saw his throat bob as he swallowed, felt desire flow between them. Even she recognized it, felt it flood through her body, heat her, chill her.
“Och, ’tis another miracle!” Angus said, wiping away a tear, breaking the spell.
Dair withdrew his hand from hers, turned away, rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “I’m all right now. Go back to your bed, lass,” he said softly. “John?”
“Here, Dair.”
“Please escort Mistress MacLeod back to her chamber.”
Fia did not get up at once. She hesitated, looking down at Dair, waiting for him to speak again, to say something about what had passed between them, but he remained silent. Doubt formed a hard knot in her chest. Had she imagined it? There was nothing left but to go. She rose, wiped her shaking hands along her skirt.
“Good night to you, Angus Mor,” she said softly.
She didn’t want John to carry her down the stairs. She didn’t want any man to touch her, save Alasdair Og. Fortunately John did not speak, and he set her down at the foot of the stairs and clasped his hands behind his back as he walked along the corridor beside her.
“He’s much improved,” he said. “I thought when Moire left—well, I suppose there are many kinds of healing.”
Fia swallowed. “Did he love her? Jeannie, I mean.”
He frowned. “As a cousin at least. Was he in love with her? That I don’t know. Perhaps ask Padraig if you wish to know.”
She swallowed and nodded, knew she wouldn’t.
“Lass, are you falling in love with him?”
Her eyes flew to his face.
“Don’t,” he said. “Dair Sinclair is a hard man. Not for beginners.”
Dair Sinclair was the handsomest, most dangerous man she’d ever met. He made her feel hot and chilled, alive, for the first time.
And he was going to marry Meggie.
She raised her chin, met John’s eye, and lied. “Of course I’m not!”
“That’s for the best.” He bowed low, a courtly gesture, and walked away. She stood outside her door and listened until his footsteps faded to silence. In the dark, all the weight of all the stones of Carraig Brigh settled around her, hard and heavy and unforgiving. She shivered as she fumbled for the latch.
In the darkness of her chamber, she unlaced her gown, tossed it over a chair, and dove under the covers to press herself against the safe, familiar warmth of Meggie’s back.
She closed her eyes, but all she could see was Alasdair Sinclair, staring at her mouth in the candlelight, looking for all the world as if he was about to kiss her. She put her fingers to her lips, wondered what it would have felt like.
She didn’t know. He hadn’t kissed her—and he never would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“He scratched me!”
Dair glanced across the bailey at Niall Sinclair, who stood staring in horror at the crosshatch of bloody scratches on his arm.
“I thought we were friends, cat!” Niall said. “I brought ye half my oatcake.” Beelzebub stood unrepentant, growling low in his throat, his back arched, his fur standing on end. The oatcake lay in the dust, rejected.
Jock put down his hammer and strode over from the forge. “Ye canna make a deal with the devil. He’s bound to up the stakes.”
“But Ina’s oatcakes—” Niall shook his finger at the cat. “You’ll not find better anywhere, cat!”
Beelzebub grumbled something rude and dangerous, and glared at the oatcake disdainfully, his ears flat.
“Perhaps we should fetch Fia. Are ye feeling poorly, puss?” Ruari cooed. Beelzebub fixed him with an evil-tempered glare. “Haud yer wheesht, I’m only askin’.” He looked at Niall’s scratches and winced. “You’ll have to see Fia, get some salve for that.”
“Lucky lad,” Jock said.
Niall grinned. “Aye.”
Jock sighed. “She’ll smile and tell ye to sit by her, and she’ll pick up your hand in hers—”
“Such lovely wee hands she’s got,” Ruari said.
“She’ll get out that ointment o’ hers, and lay out a cloth,” Jock went on. “And she’ll lean in so close ye can smell the sweet scent of her hair.”
“Roses,” Ruari murmured.
Niall frowned. “Nay, it’s honey. She smells like honey.”
“’Tis heather,” Jock said. “She makes soap from it. She says the finest heather in all the land grows at Glen Iolair.”
Ruari squinted at him. “You asked her?”
Jock shrugged. “I hit my finger with an axe. It bled so much I was sure I was going to die. I may have said some things while she was stitching me up, certain they were my last words on this earth.”
Niall frowned. “What did ye say?”
“I canna remember exactly. The pain was terrible.”
The cat let out a low, anguished yowl, and all three warriors jumped to attention and looked at the creature. Beelzebub prowled in a circle, then flopped over onto his side.
“He’s dying,” Jock whispered.
The cat gave an exasperated sigh and shut his eyes.
Dair regarded Fia’s pet. “He wants a lass, a female cat,” he said. The three men turned to him. “I’ve seen men on long sea voyages look just like that.”
Everyone looked at the cat. Beelzebub rai
sed his head and looked back at them.
“Well, a man does require more than oatcakes,” Ruari added, his thumbs in his belt. “There’s plenty of cats in the village—one of them would do.”
“Now, wait a minute. Perhaps he likes a particular type of lass. Not too fat, not too thin . . . ,” Jock said. He turned to look at Dair, as if he might have some expertise to offer on the matter. Dair considered how long it had been since he’d had a woman in his bed. Months. No wonder his body reacted to the sight of Fia MacLeod every time she so much as walked past him. He held his tongue. There were plenty of other lasses at Carraig Brigh—Beitris Murray was free with her favors, and Tearlag Sinclair was a sweet lass. But he didn’t want to bed them. There was only one woman he wanted.
He looked at the cat again, at the bored expression, the edgy swish of his tail, the tense, restless muscles, and knew just how the beast felt.
A call came from outside the gates, and the men on guard duty swung them open. There was jaunty flute music as a veritable parade of Sinclair lads and lasses entered, singing, laughing, and skipping with joy. Dair and the men in the bailey gaped.
It was a merry sight that Carraig Brigh hadn’t seen in a very long time. “We’re getting ready for midsummer,” John called to Dair. Dair stood back and stared. The lasses were decked in flowers, their skirts kilted up, their pretty ankles showing, their feet bare and dusty. The warriors—for they were still his father’s warriors despite the wreaths of flowers crowning their heads—were dancing like fauns in a French tapestry. Eyes met, smiles flashed. Hands touched, caressed. Lust filled the warm midsummer air.
Then Fia MacLeod rode in on a garron, and Dair’s mouth dried. Her skirts were lifted too, revealing the fetching sight of her calves and knees, white, bare, and shapely. Her dirk must must be hidden somewhere else on her slender frame, though he couldn’t guess where. Her simple linen gown clung to her curves with the heat of the day. Her hair was coming loose from her braid in long red tendrils, and her face was flushed with laughter. She wore a circlet of wildflowers on her head and a necklace of daisies. The garron’s panniers were overflowing with more flowers, and the poor beast was even wearing some in his mane. Fia laughed with her head thrown back, her face carefree and happy, like a fairy queen, fey and lovely. Desire coursed through Dair’s body, hot, thick, and instant. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut, had the air driven out of his lungs. He wanted to pull her off the damned horse, drag her into his arms, and kiss her senseless.
Lust. It was simple lust, a case of being without a bedmate for too long.
Just like the cat.
He glanced at the beast. Beelzebub was sitting up proudly, staring at Fia with sweet eyes, his belly rising and falling with the force of his purr.
Dair’s body purred too, hummed with need. He remembered how Fia had looked in the night when he’d woken from the nightmare to find her there, her sweet mouth inches from his, her eyes golden in the candlelight. He’d wanted her fiercely then too, with a hunger he’d never felt. There’d been desire in her eyes as well . . .
John Erly tucked his cursed flute into his belt and spanned Fia’s waist with his hands, grinning at her as he lifted her off the horse. She smiled sweetly, her white hands butterflies on John’s dark sleeves, her eyes on his. And John smiled back, damn him, held her an instant too long and far too close in Dair’s opinion. He wanted to shove John’s hands off of her, punch the grin off his face, crush him into the dust.
Then Fia’s head turned, and her eyes locked with Dair’s. Her sudden blush stole the breath from his body. He was transfixed, trapped like a fly in honey, as randy and restless as the cat.
She stepped away from John, untucked her skirts from her belt, and walked toward him, and he watched her come, his body buzzing with desire. He fought to keep his hands at his sides. “There’s something I wanted to ask you, Alasdair Og,” she said, and bit her lip. He watched her teeth sink into the plump pink flesh and stifled a groan. “It’s Midsummer’s Eve tomorrow, and we—Meggie and I—would like to have a bonfire the way we do at Glen Iolair. It seems some of your folk would like to join us. As acting chief, will you allow it?”
He would give her anything in this moment, he thought, the way she looked, standing before him, her eyes on his, her hair adorned with flowers, her gown clinging to her slender curves. Sweat trickled down his back. The heat of the day made her glow, shimmer, made his mouth water. She tilted her head and smiled at him, sweet and beguiling, and waited for a reply.
“I’d say the party has already started, Mistress MacLeod.”
It wasn’t an answer, but Fia reached out and touched his arm in her delight, a light squeeze that sent tingles through his veins and made his desire for her rise higher still, ready and eager. Such a small touch, but it rendered him witless as well as speechless.
“Tapadh leibh,” she said. “Thank you.” Then she turned and was gone, leaving the scent of flowers in her wake.
“Roses,” Ruari said beside him, sniffing the air. “It will be fun, don’t ye think, to have a bonfire in the old way?”
“That’s not what Father Alphonse will say,” Jock grunted.
“What does it matter what he says? Och, I’ll do extra penance the next morning if I must,” Niall said, and hurried forward to join the merriment.
Dair frowned. She hadn’t waited for him to say aye or nay. Nor had she asked him if he would attend.
He most certainly would not. Not even to see Fia MacLeod by moonlight, with flowers in her hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Your summons sounded quite serious,” John said as he entered the library.
Dair set his quill down and closed the book in front of him. “Yes. It’s about Fia MacLeod.”
John chuckled. “Ah, so it is serious indeed. And I thought you were avoiding her.”
“Why would you think that?” Dair asked, though it was perfectly true.
John took the chair before the desk and crossed his legs. “Well, you didn’t come to supper last night, or breakfast this morning. You’re not hungover or ill, by the looks of you, so that’s not what kept you away. What are you doing?”
He was translating a poem. He remembered the pleasure in Fia’s eyes when she spoke of the verses in the book of Italian poetry—he couldn’t sleep for thinking of those eyes, her mouth, so here he sat, as he had all night, turning Italian into English for her. Dair could hardly admit that to John, so he changed the subject. “I want you to escort her to the midsummer fire tonight, keep an eye on her.”
John’s brows shot upward. “Me? Why don’t you do it?”
“I won’t be there. This isn’t her home. There are dangers here she isn’t familiar with.” He pictured one of his clansmen—Niall or Andrew, perhaps—grinning at her in the firelight. He’d take her hand, lead her away from the fire into the privacy of the dark.
“What dangers? You’re the most menacing thing here,” John quipped.
Was John forgetting how innocent Fia was? She had no idea what men could do, would want to do, if she looked at them the way she’d looked at him in the night, leaning over his bed . . .
“I mean dangers like the sea. The cliff is treacherous, and she is unsteady on her feet. She might fall,” he snapped.
“She might,” John said. “But she’s remarkably resourceful. Have you not noticed that?”
“It will be dark,” Dair said. “It’s my duty to ensure she’s safe, and since I won’t be at the bonfire, I’m appointing you to see to her.”
“Appointing me? You’re taking your role as chief very seriously.”
“I’m being a careful host—what would I tell her kin if something happened to her? She’s clumsy.”
“Only when she’s nervous,” John said. “Otherwise, she’s as graceful as a swan. She rides well. Moire usually doesn’t trust another living soul, but she likes Fia. So do I, which rather surprises me.”
Dair felt a hot ball of jealousy form in his belly. “You stay awa
y from her!”
“You just told me to take her in hand. Which is it?” John got to his feet. “I told you that virgins aren’t my taste. I prefer experienced lovers, and I won’t play nursemaid. Do it yourself, make merry for a change. Now, have you any further orders for today, Chief Sinclair? Shall I scrub the dunnies or muck out the stables?”
“I won’t be at the bonfire,” Dair repeated stubbornly.
“Why not? It’s not religious conviction, since I know you don’t believe in anything at all. What’s the harm in drinking a little extra ale on a warm summer night, dancing, stealing a kiss or two? Isn’t it a chief’s duty to celebrate with his clan?”
“It’s old-fashioned and pagan. The priest will hate it.” In truth he didn’t want to see the fear, the anger, the suspicion in the faces of his clan when they looked at him, remembering Jeannie and the men who had died under his charge, their sons, their brothers and fathers, while he survived, came back mad.
John grinned. “If he’ll hate it, then there’s all the more reason to do it in my opinion.”
But Dair would not go. He didn’t dare. Fia in firelight would drive even the sanest man to sin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He stood in the shadows, half hidden by the window shutter, and watched Fia MacLeod as she crossed the bailey with a basket of herbs, with her devil cat at her heels. He fingered the crucifix around his neck, whispered a prayer against evil. She had a smile and a kind word for everyone, and the Sinclairs had fallen under her spell. Warriors grinned at her, simpered, even blushed. The women were wearing their hair like Fia MacLeod. Did they not see that she combed her sin-red tresses to cover the hideous scars on the side of her face? The devil’s marks.
Worst of all, she’d made them forget. The clan should be in mourning, not making ready for a pagan rite. He tugged on the cross until the chain bit into the flesh of his neck, gasped at the rapturous sting, and uttered a plea for holy guidance.
The Sinclairs were proud—too proud. Jeannie’s death was a punishment upon them, a warning. They must atone for their greed, their wealth, their pride. Only the suffering and death of the man responsible for her torment would break that curse. But Alasdair Og refused to die, and now he was improving, growing stronger. Even his madness was receding, healed by Fia MacLeod’s unholy magic. What spell did she use, what demon answered to her?
Beauty and the Highland Beast Page 14