Of a deep sleep and the sweet sound of his mother’s voice sifting through his dreams.
Except that it hadn’t been a dream.
“Wake up, Patty! Get dressed. Hurry, my love.”
His mother’s voice, he realized, except that it didn’t sound like her at all. His mother was happiness and light, not anxiety and terror. He opened his eyes. Her pale face lit by a single candle appeared like an apparition floating in a sea of black.
He knew from her expression that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
A cry tore through the night from outside: “They’re coming!”
Campbells. The Campbells were coming for them.
He remembered the bitter taste of fear. And the shame. He was ten years old. Almost a man. He shouldn’t be scared. He was a warrior like his father. And like his father one day, he would be chieftain to his cousin Alasdair Roy.
He could still feel her hand cradling his face with tenderness. Could still see the green eyes that mirrored his own, gazing at him so lovingly. “I need you to be brave, my love.” She’d known—she always knew what he was feeling. “Take your brothers and run deep into the forest. Hide there until someone comes to get you when it’s safe.”
He didn’t want to go. The forest was haunted and rife with faeries.
But he hid his fear and nodded. “But what about you?”
“I’ll not leave your father. Don’t worry.” She pressed her hand on his face. “Annie and I will be safe.”
His mother was a Campbell born. Sister to the Laird of Glenorchy, the man who’d sworn to clear the MacGregors from their land.
He shook his head mulishly. “I won’t leave you.”
“You must,” she said sternly, more sternly then she’d ever spoken to him. “I need you to take care of your brothers. I’m counting on you.”
And he could not—would not—disappoint her.
In his dream he wanted to argue, wanted to beg her to come with them, but his dream wouldn’t listen. So he’d left his mother behind, taking the sword that she’d given him—a real one of steel, not of wood like he normally used—and ran, leading the seven-year-old Gregor and five-year-old Iain into the trees until he thought his lungs would burst.
He’d gone about a mile before he remembered his badge. The chieftain’s badge his father had just given him. The badge that had been passed down in his family for generations. “Guard it well, my son.” His legacy. The symbol of his clan. He wanted to throw up with shame. How could he have forgotten it? His father had trusted him; he couldn’t let him down.
It doesn’t matter! Patrick shouted to the boy in his dream. But the boy couldn’t hear him. The boy thought nothing was more important to him than the badge.
God, how wrong he was.
Patrick left his brothers with a stern warning for them not to move and turned back for his treasured badge.
He smelled the smoke first. It filled the night with a black, thick haze, burning his throat as he ran toward the keep. He was running harder now, the heavy sword etching a deep line in the dirt beside him.
Breaking through the trees, he saw the flames. They filled the night sky with flickering shards of orange along the banks of Loch Earn, engulfing everything in their wake.
His eyes blurred, stinging with smoke and disbelief. His home was … gone.
People were everywhere. Running. Screaming. Trying to escape the fire and the Campbell swordsmen who’d overrun the village.
He knew what it meant but didn’t want to believe it.
He knew his father would never let this happen … not while there was a breath left in his body.
Patrick raced toward the keep, not heeding the flames. As he drew closer, the bodies of his father’s guardsmen confronted him like angels of doom at the gates of hell.
Bile rose in his throat, but he didn’t stop running. Not until he saw the familiar plaid in a bloody pile at the foot of the stairs. “No!” He threw himself on the still body, burying his head against the powerful chest, not caring that tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Father!”
Someone tried to pull him off and he reacted, slashing his sword in an arc but connecting only with air.
The man who’d grabbed him swore, holding him by the neck in a viselike grip. Patrick thrashed wildly, trying to break free from the Campbell warrior’s hold.
“What should we do with him?” the man asked.
“Kill the whelp,” another man said. “If he’s old enough to carry a sword, he’s old enough to die by one. Besides, MacGregors are a vengeful lot. Look at his eyes. He’ll be back for us one day.”
Patrick hit the ground hard and saw the blade flashing above his head.
He wanted to stop the dream. Wanted to change the memory. He tried to thrash away, but it wouldn’t let him go.…
“No!” His mother’s voice came from out of the darkness. “Don’t hurt my …”
Patrick’s chest burned as the images assaulted him mercilessly. His mother jumping in front of him. The Campbell unable to stop the sword. Her chest splayed open instead of his.
“… son.”
The sound echoed in his head relentlessly—the gurgle of death. He would never forget that sound for as long as he lived.
“Mother!” The cry that had torn from his lungs had not been human. It had been twisted with agony and rage and helplessness. He’d gone berserk, lifting the heavy sword he’d dropped at his father’s side with strength he didn’t know he possessed. It was strength born of hatred. The strength of a boy thrust brutally into manhood.
He remembered the surprised expressions of the two dead men as he’d left them before he’d escaped into the forest. But it would never be enough to replace the parents he’d lost.
Killed by Campbell greed.
A soothing hand on his forehead eased the haunting memories. The dream faded, and he slept.
Patrick woke to the sound of an angel. Or perhaps he’d died and gone to heaven, for he seemed to be floating on clouds so soft was the surface upon which he lay.
He tried to open his eyes, but they resisted; his lids seemed to be weighted down with lead. He attempted to lift his head, but when the tiny movement caused an ax to split through his skull, he thought better of it. Content to float on the cloud a little longer, enfolded in soft linen and warm furs, his cheek pressed against a pillow of feather, the subtle scent of lavender filling his nose, and the angel’s song lulling him back to sleep.
His eye cracked open. Cloud? Pillow? Angel? What in Hades …? He wasn’t floating in the heavens, but lying in a bed. It had been so long since he’d slept on anything other than dirt and brush, he almost didn’t recognize it.
Where am I?
He tried to remember, but his brain wouldn’t work properly. Everything was disjointed … fuzzy.
Until the bedclothes were pulled back and a velvety soft hand skidded along his bare chest. The gentle touch was like a firebrand, startling him awake—fully awake. His eyes snapped open and he grabbed a delicate wrist, looking into the crystal-clear blue eyes of his angel, Elizabeth Campbell. A very shocked Elizabeth Campbell.
She gasped and the heavenly song came to a sudden stop. “You’re awake!”
“Where am I?” he demanded, his voice as dark as his head, hating this feeling of confusion. He was lying in a strange bed half-naked, his head splitting apart, more thirsty than he’d ever been in his life.
What had she done to him? Had she discovered who he was? Had he been imprisoned?
For the first time, he looked around the room. If this was a prison, it was the most luxurious one he’d ever seen. The room was enormous, perhaps twenty feet square, with an unusual vaulted stone ceiling and plastered walls painted a soothing yellow. Two large leaded-glass windows enabled an abundance of sunlight to spill across the polished wooden floors. There was a large stone fireplace at the opposite end, and fine furniture scattered across the room. In addition to oil lamps, he counted two silver candelabra. Above his head, he
saw a canopy of heavy silk curtains between intricately carved wooden bedposts. The bed, the decoration, the furnishings … all were rich enough to house a king.
He squeezed her wrist a little more tightly and repeated roughly, “Where am I?”
“I heard you the first time you bellowed at me,” she reprimanded him with a sharp glance, not perturbed in the least by his burst of anger. Anger that had cowed many men. Hell, he must be getting soft. “You are in the tower of Castle Campbell,” she explained. “In my cousin’s bedchamber, actually.”
Fit for a king all right: King Campbell. He—an outlawed MacGregor—was sleeping in the Earl of Argyll’s bed. The world must have come to an end. He swallowed the irony and looked around again, trying to remember. “How did I get here?”
Carefully, she pried his fingers from her wrist and stepped away from the bed. Standing with her back to the sunlight like that, her hair caught in a golden halo of light, and her skin as delicate as alabaster …
The air shot from his lungs as if he’d just been socked in the gut.
She didn’t just sing like an angel, she looked like one. My angel.
Her delicate brows gathered together across her nose. “You don’t remember anything?”
He shook his head, the small movement making him wince with pain.
She was at his side again, touching him. Her hand on his forehead. “Are you all right?”
She sounded … concerned, as if she were worried about him. “As long as I don’t move my head.”
“Then I suggest you lie still,” she said with a teasing smile. She poured a glass of water from a pitcher at the table beside the bed and handed it to him. “Drink this. You must be thirsty.” He drained it quickly, the cool liquid sliding down his parched throat like ambrosia.
Handing the empty glass back to her, he asked, “Now tell me how I happen to find myself asleep in the Earl of Argyll’s bed.”
A pretty pink blush crept up her pale cheeks, and once again she stepped away from him. “You were very ill, and the healer said you needed to be kept warm.” She motioned to the fireplace. “As this is the only private chamber with its own fireplace until the new tower and range is completed, it made sense.”
He frowned. “Ill?”
“Your men found you in the barmkin unconscious from the wound you received in your side.” She gave him a long look. “A day and a half ago.”
Damn. Apparently his injury had finally caught up to him. Normally the sign of weakness would annoy him, but not this time. If he’d known blacking out would get him half-naked in a bedchamber alone with her he might have tried it sooner. And from the way her eyes were avoiding his chest, he sensed that she was no longer thinking of him as a patient.
“You’d lost so much blood, we thought you’d died,” she added. “How could you say nothing of your injury?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was that serious.”
Her expression changed from concerned to irritated—angry, even. “Not serious? How can you say that? You were walking around with an open gash in your side about a foot long. Surely you must have felt it? Surely it must have pained you?”
Her anger—and the hint of sarcasm—momentarily took him aback. “A bit,” he admitted reluctantly, not quite sure what to make of this side of Elizabeth Campbell. His delicate little kitten, it seemed, had claws. “But it feels much better now.” A little sore, but he felt better than he had in weeks.
“Of all the stubborn … foolish …”
Her eyes flashed, and he thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The ferocity hinted at the strong, passionate woman burning behind the paragon of duty and virtue.
God, he wanted her. As he’d never wanted anything before in his life. With an intensity that should have alarmed him, if he hadn’t been so consumed with other matters. Like covering her with his body and lifting her hands above her head so that she was stretched out beneath him as he eased himself slowly inside her.
“You could have died,” she seethed. “Would have died were it not for the healer’s help.”
“And yours,” he said, holding her gaze intently. The idea of her caring for him … he liked it.
She dropped her eyes. “I did very little.”
She lied. It had been her soothing his dreams with her songs and gentle hands.
Avoiding his gaze, she approached the bed, once again the dutiful lady of the keep. “I’ve come to check on your wound,” she said briskly. “I can come back if you’d rather do it later.”
“Nay.” The idea of her hands on him … “Now is fine,” he said, his voice unmistakably husky.
She hesitated, her gaze sweeping over his bare chest to the bedcoverings slung low across his stomach. Apparently he was feeling much better, because he stiffened like an untried lad under the weight of her gaze.
He sensed her nervousness but made no effort to cover himself. He liked her skittish, liked that she was aware of him.
“Very well.”
He lay back on the pillow and watched her as she worked. She leaned over him to examine the bandage, and her delicate scent hit him. Damn, she smelled good. Fresh and flowery. Like the lavender that scented his pillow. She wore a simple brown wool kirtle and fitted jacket that hugged the gentle curves of her breasts. Lush, round breasts that he was painfully aware were only inches from his mouth. He could lift his head and bury his face in their softness.
A lock of her hair fell forward on his chest. The feathery brush of flaxen silk on his skin nearly made him groan.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, quickly tucking the errant lock behind her ear. Still bent over him, she lifted her eyes to his. “I have to pull the bandage back to check beneath. It might hurt a bit.”
He was in pain all right, but not from his wound.
His cock felt as if it might explode. She was so close. He couldn’t breathe; every inch of his body was honed to a razor’s edge. Somehow he managed a strangled, “Fine.”
Gently she pulled back the bandage, and he could see the carefully stitched wound. It looked good. Surprisingly good. Annie would have nothing to complain about—not that it would stop her from trying.
Elizabeth took a damp cloth from the basin and gently wiped away the dried blood. He closed his eyes, his skin flaming when she touched him. Her hands on his body were maddening. Torturous. An exercise in restraint for a man who had none.
Take her.
His pulse raced, his breath jagged, his patience run out.
Her fingers skimmed over his ribs to his stomach, to the waist of his breeches.
Too damn close. But not close enough. He was hard as a rock, primed for her touch, and all he could think of were those velvety hands closing around him.
Lizzie’s heart pounded in her chest. Her hands were shaking as she ministered to the wound, as she’d done for two nights and a day.
But this time was different.
This time he wasn’t unconscious, but fully awake. The skin that she touched was warm and pulsing with life. Tension crackled in the sultry air between them. She could feel the weight of his eyes on her, watching her intently as she ministered to his wound. There was something wickedly satisfying about the knowledge that her touch affected him. It made her feel … desirable.
She dabbed the damp cloth along the bottom of the cut near his stomach, trying not to notice how hard it was. How defined the muscles were. The problem was that she was noticing and her hands weren’t following direction. She accidentally brushed the edge of the bedsheet slung low over his hips, coming into contact with his manhood. His very prominent manhood. For just an instant, her gaze lingered on the bulge underneath the sheet.
Mother Mary.
His hand whipped out to clasp her wrist. “Enough!”
His voice was ragged and raw with pain. Her gaze shot to his face, despair plummeting through her chest. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
His eyes locked on hers—the brilliant green so dark, it appeared almost black
. She could see the tension coiled in him, the strain, in the slight flare of his nostrils and the tiny white lines etched around his mouth. “Not in the way you think,” he said roughly. “You’d best leave. Send someone else to finish.”
Lizzie sucked in her breath as the wallop of hurt hit her hard across the chest. Her eyes widened in horror. She’d thought he was attracted to her. God, what a fool she was. Despite what had happened with John, she was far from experienced. She tried to look away, but there was nowhere to hide. He was holding her so close, the hand wrapped around her wrist as rigid as a band of steel. “Of c-course.”
Stammering. Her humiliation was now complete. With a choked sob, she tried to jerk away, but he pulled her against him with a harsh curse. The hand she instinctively braced against his chest to break her fall was the only thing preventing her from collapsing on top of him.
She gasped, the breath knocked out of her—not from the harshness of the movement, but from the force of the awareness that crashed over her at being held so close to him. So close that her breasts grazed his chest and only inches separated their mouths. The warmth of his breath swept over her lips. She could taste the hint of spice on her tongue, and all she could think about was pressing her mouth against his.
What would it feel like to kiss him? Were his lips as impossibly soft and velvety as they looked? Would he be gentle or hard? Entreating or demanding?
The temptation was torturous. His dark, masculine scent filled her senses. And he was so warm, his skin almost hot to the touch. Her body felt flush and prickly, engulfed by his heat. She could hear the pounding of his heart—or maybe it was hers.
She gazed at him, wide-eyed, trying to read the thoughts behind the implacable façade. His expression was tight, unyielding. His eyes were dark and hard. He looked as though the last thing on his mind was kissing.
She was a fool, allowing herself to get caught up like this. Hadn’t he just made very clear that he wanted nothing to do with her?
“Don’t,” he said harshly. “What you are thinking is wrong.”
The Campbell Trilogy Page 43