by Joanne Rock
Chapter 2
Could he see her tremble?
Isolda could not imagine her shame if he refused her. Yet she had pursued him as far as she dared. Every maidenly instinct screamed in protest at her boldness. But she was not the pampered daughter of a rich overlord any longer. Life in the forest had taught her self-reliance and daring, strengths she’d never known she possessed until she’d needed to hunt her own food. Build her own shelter.
She’d sacrificed her pride, her refined manners and many worldly possessions already. Surely she could part with this one last remnant of her old self—her innocence—for the sake of her dreams? Her family legacy should not die with her.
Cormac’s eyes darkened from tawny gold to rich amber, his gaze moving over her body with a thoroughness that both thrilled and frightened her.
What have I done?
She had never felt so vulnerable. Even in the dead of winter, she had not once been so exposed. Thinking she’d given her scheme long enough to work, she was about to retrieve her surcoat when he reached for her.
His hands clamped about her sides, holding her steady as his mouth descended upon hers. She had no time to react, her lips parting with surprise. But any startled sound she might have made was lost in his kiss.
She knew this was not the kind of kiss a lady would receive. An unbetrothed woman of her once lofty station would never have been so thoroughly handled. He used his hands to draw her close, pressing her to him in sudden, aggressive contact.
Her whole body caught fire. Whatever had been simmering slowly before now leapt into full flame at the contact of his hard, masculine form against her soft curves. His tongue stroked hers with a knowing skill that left her breathless and wanting. His kisses were deep and thorough. She clenched the front of his tunic in helpless surrender—or was the grip a desperate plea? She wasn’t even sure herself.
But Cormac knew.
Her bold act of partial disrobing had sent his noble intentions packing, leaving in their wake a man with more base—and exciting—desires. His thigh slid between her legs, anchoring her body against the tree behind her and awakening her most secret places to a delicious new thrill.
She told herself she was simply excited that her plan to conceive was working. But the sweet arousal swirling through her senses owed more to the man than to achieving a goal. Apparently, Cormac knew how to make coupling something more than just functional. He could make it so deliciously exciting she thought she might faint.
“Tell me you deserve better,” he muttered against her lips between kisses, his voice rough and demanding. His thigh pressed harder between her legs and she couldn’t suppress a shudder of pleasure. “Tell me to go.”
He seemed to want her to refuse him, and she had no idea why. He’d claimed to love no other. What else would stop a man from what she so freely offered? Aye, what she was growing frantic to offer? The delicious pressure between her legs made her weak with desire, her whole body melting into his as her fingernails scraped lightly down his chest and then up underneath his tunic.
He was hot and hard everywhere, his whole body fiery and fierce. She had never imagined she could feel so wanton with a man she did not know—would never see again. But the hunter was different. Special.
“We cannot do this.” He made a rough sound and jerked away from her, leaving her swaying on her feet. If not for the tree at her back she might not have stayed standing. They stared at one another in potent silence, each of them breathing hard with frustrated passion.
“I do not understand.” She shook her head in confusion and hurt, her whole body aching with unfulfilled need.
He swung toward her, his gaze as dark as ever, his nostrils flaring.
“I will have you, Isolda.” His words rang through the quiet woods with the finality of a vow sworn on a knightly sword. “But first you will promise to wed me.”
The idea was so ludicrous she could not hold back a startled laugh.
“What hunter passing through his overlord’s forest wishes to wed the lowly maid he finds there? This is no royal court, sir, and I am no titled daughter.”
“Are you not?” The cool challenge in his voice took her by surprise.
But no more than the aloof, assessing gaze.
At that moment, she saw something more in the hunter’s eyes than his gentle respect for the land and his easy skill with a bow. She spied the warrior within.
This was no simple tradesman. Underneath that quiet, steadfast demeanor beat the heart of a proud and arrogant knight of the realm.
“You knew.” Her skin chilled with the realization that this man had hunted her as surely as he’d flushed out other reluctant creatures. She reached for her surcoat and hastily slid it over her head. “This whole time, you knew me?”
Her heart pounded as furiously with this mortifying betrayal as it had earlier with attraction. She could not believe the gravity of her mistake. What if she’d unwittingly conceived a child by some man who purposely sought to control her family legacy through the babe?
“I have sought you since the spring—”
“All those hunting trips have been—” she could scarcely speak around the sting of his falseness and her foolishness “—ruses to make me trust you?”
His brow furrowed. “Nay. I have merely hunted after spending long hours searching for you. It seems you have known of my presence longer than I have known of yours.”
He appeared vexed by the idea, while she still reeled with the revelation. Her hands fisted at her sides.
“And who are you, truly?” she prodded, determined to know all at once. “You do not dress like a Norman, but are you one of my enemies in disguise? Or perhaps you are some ambitious Scot who wishes to use my unfortunate circumstances to gain a hint of legitimacy to retake Iness.”
She could already picture the betrayer dragging her and her babe to the Scots king to plead for her lands—lands he would control as the father to her child.
“I am Cormac of Glenmore.” His jaw tightened in irritation. Perhaps he did not care for the depiction of himself as a manipulative opportunist. “And I have no need of your name to retake Iness.”
“Nay?” She knew of Glenmore. Remembered the holding was not half so grand as her family seat had been before the Normans arrived.
“Nay. It is already done. I drove the Normans from Iness last spring. The lands are mine, as is the restored keep.” He spoke clearly enough, yet to her, the claim could have been in a foreign tongue.
It made no sense. It was not possible.
“The Normans left many retainers on the walls….” She shivered at the hurtful old memories. “I remained close to the land long enough to see there would be no easy return. The Normans entrenched themselves at Iness and I thought—my family had thought—they would use Iness as a base for further Scots conquests.”
Her father had warned her of such a possibility. Her mother had been ready to run away before the first riders even arrived at the gates. Isolda had heard rumors from the keep that her mother had wed one of the invaders in the aftermath. If those tales proved true, her mother had sailed to Normandy many moons ago. Isolda had left the grounds closest to Iness only when all hope of return seemed lost.
“The Normans have fled and will not come back again.” He gripped her arms, as if to impress his words more fully upon her. “Iness is mine, but I would share it with you if you will come back and bind our fates in marriage.”
She shivered beneath his touch, remembering how ready she’d been to give herself to him earlier, when she thought they would never meet for a second time. Now she knew he had planned the encounter long ago, seeking her out for her political importance. Surely he wanted his babe in her belly as much as she had earlier this day. But he wanted the legitimacy his offspring could give his rule, and nothing more.
“I cannot wed you.” Her plans had come to naught. Her fertility potion was wasted on a day that would bring no seed to her womb. “I chose you because I found your way
s appealing, while you sought me merely for my name and title. A marriage between us will only remind me how I’ve failed my family by selling my name and birthright far too cheaply.”
Hurt and saddened, she turned to retreat into the forest, certain she could elude him and fade back into the woods forever.
“We have not finished our business here,” he warned, his warrior voice so commanding and certain she wondered how she had ever mistaken him for a simpler man.
“I have spoken my piece, Cormac of Glenmore.” She did not hurry, but her eyes looked ahead to find a break in the hawthorn hedges that would help guide her back home. “I will never accept your proposal.”
She could stay in the forest indefinitely. One day, she would find someone else to give her the child she craved….
The very idea made her wince. She had not realized how much she’d come to idealize her hunter, a man who did not even exist.
“I’m sorry, Isolda.” He was suddenly right behind her, his words warm against her ear as he dragged her back and held her fast. “But I cannot allow you to slip away again.”
Cormac had never experienced such teeth-grinding torment as he knew now.
Isolda squirmed against him in a futile attempt to free herself, and every shift and movement of her delectable form tempted him to take what she’d so freely offered earlier.
Before he’d informed her they would wed.
He would get to the bottom of her behavior later, since her kisses had been passionate, but obviously innocent. Right now, he just needed to bring her home. Preferably before he forgot all about the need for restraint and reminded her exactly how fast he could coax a sweeter response from her.
“You have no right.” Isolda finally stilled, though she glared at him over her shoulder as if her gaze alone could cast him into the fiery depths of hell itself.
“Not only do I have a right, I have a moral obligation to ensure a noblewoman is not struggling to survive on my lands when I could provide for her. You are my responsibility now.” He whistled to the horse he’d left grazing in a meadow nearby.
“Who struggles?” Her raised voice let loose her frustration with a directness most gently-bred women would not indulge in. “I am free in the forest and I am happy to be so. The days do not present hardship, but the joys of a simpler life.”
This was no furious ranting of an angered woman. Certainly, she seemed to believe she would fare well alone in the forest.
“You are an uncommon woman, Isolda of Iness.” He couldn’t deny a new respect for her. “One day, you will tell me all about how you carved out a hidden existence in the woodlands right under Norman noses, but for now I need to get you back to the keep.”
His horse arrived—a fleet-footed mare with enough strength and speed to cover the many leagues before nightfall.
“I am not leaving,” she protested, her wide eyes and wrinkled nose telling him how repugnant she found the very idea. “I will never go back to Iness until my family’s banner flies over the keep.”
“That is where you are wrong.” He did not give her any warning before he swept her off her feet and deposited her on the mare’s back.
She gasped and nearly shrieked, but she was a wise enough horsewoman to know better than to frighten the animal.
“You are mad,” she accused, firing off the words like her own stock of arrows. “I escaped Iness once and I will only do so again.”
Hoisting himself up into the saddle behind her, Cormac found he was once again subjected to the sweet torment of her fragrant form pressed tight to his chest.
“Then I will have to keep my eye on you night and day to be sure that doesn’t happen.” The idea of such close proximity sent a surge of pure longing through him.
He smiled when she met his words with cold silence. Kicking the animal into motion, he leaned into his new captive, gladly reminding her of the heat that flared between them when they touched.
“You suggested once before that I don’t play enough games.” His hand spanned her ribs just beneath her breast, his thumb close enough to touch that plump swell if the horse should hit the ground with a bit of extra force. “But perhaps I just needed one that I found enjoyable.”
“Holding a woman against her will is no game,” she said stiffly, keeping herself as still as possible as they moved together in rhythm with the animal’s cantering pace.
“Then I will make sure I only hold you when you want me to.” It would be no small hardship, since he suspected she would never again come to him as easily as she had that morning.
“That will never happen.” The heat in her tone when she said it gave him hope.
Where there was smoke, surely fire would follow. As he guided the mare to the east, where Iness awaited, Cormac knew he only needed to fan the flames.
Chapter 3
She was home, and yet not home at all.
Isolda walked as a ghost through the corridors and staircases of the keep where she’d grown up, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the stone steps leading out of the courtyard.
Cormac had been by her side every moment since they’d arrived, but she felt utterly alone in this place that had once been so familiar to her. The words he exchanged with his servants and retainers were a dull drone she hardly heard. Her ears were attuned to the sound of a squeaking lift used to raise water from the well and the soft ring of the chapel bell to signal Mass. Her heart ached with the memories of the life she’d lost when the Normans came.
“It has grown desolate under your care,” she accused softly as she followed him up the staircase leading to the private chambers.
Iness had a circular keep, with a courtyard in the center and the great hall, smaller hall and sleeping quarters ringing that open area. Brilliant tapestries and hanging lanterns had brightened the way up this passage just one year ago. Now the spring sun did not touch the covered steps where so many trespassers had trod.
“A man lives simply when he has no family.” Cormac shoved aside the broken door at the top of the steps, the bent hinges hinting at the violence that had torn through the keep. “But I would think you would rejoice that the Normans have been driven back. The destruction of Iness was complete before I set foot on the drawbridge.”
She nodded vaguely as they passed her mother’s former chambers. “You would not use violence without cause. I believe that much about you at least.”
Reaching the laird’s chamber, he held the door open for her. When her feet halted, their eyes met in the same sort of challenge that had volleyed between them all day. Now she was too tired to argue a battle she knew she would lose.
She needed to recover her strength if she hoped to escape him and his absurd notion of marriage.
“If I did not know you plan to run away at the first opportunity, I would not insist you share my chamber.” He reached toward her as if to usher her inside the room.
Unwilling to test her reaction to his touch again after spending most of the day aboard his lap, Isolda ducked inside and found the same echoing emptiness in the antechamber. Beautiful wooden furnishings had vanished, though a few scant remains of broken pieces lay near the hearth. How sad that the lazy barbarians had destroyed the fine workmanship on those pieces rather than haul their own firewood. She could not see into the bedchamber with the door partially closed, but she guessed the room would be equally somber.
“I do not fear your proximity.” She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, needing to make sure he understood why she accepted his arrangement so meekly. “I am untouched and still marriageable. Since I know you will not resort to force to take me, I believe you will guard my innocence until you can barter me away to some loyal supporter of yours and strengthen his allegiance.”
He shook his head as he closed the door behind them, sealing them inside his private quarters for the night. A hearth fire blazed at her feet, but it was not enough to ward off the shiver that overtook her when he approached.
“A more politic man migh
t choose that route,” he agreed, moving right past her toward the door to the bedchamber. “But don’t forget I have already tasted your kisses and your passion. I will not part with such a prize.”
He held the bedchamber door for her now and seemed to expect her to enter the intimate sanctuary willingly.
“You will not experience that privilege again.” She trembled at the thought. Or did she tremble at the dark look in his eyes, the same one that had precipitated his kisses before?
The day had all been too much for her.
“I will. And soon.” He did not wait for her, but snaked a hand about her waist and nudged her closer. Not to him, but to the bedchamber entrance. “Until then, do you care to tell me why you were so insistent on seduction in the woods this morn?”
Her skin heated in the place he had touched her, even though she’d hastened forward immediately to free herself from him. It was as if her body remembered the feel of his hands upon her and now simmered with anticipation each time his fingers neared her. In one short day, Cormac of Glenmore had imprinted himself upon her.
“No.” She searched the laird’s bedchamber as she stepped inside, finding it warmly appointed if not exactly furnished. The massive bed frame had disappeared, but in its place a high pallet covered in heavy furs rested close to the hearth. Another fur hung behind it where a tapestry used to be. Aye, the hunter had put his skill to admirable use here.
What would it be like to take refuge in that soft retreat beside this hard and unyielding man? The image that blazed across her mind only grew more vivid when she shut her eyes to block it out.
“Isolda.” He took a seat at the foot of the bed as he toed off his boots. The act was simple and unthreatening, yet it underscored a marital intimacy she had no intention of sharing. “Come sit beside me.”
Her gaze went from his powerful shoulders to his broad palm, which was gently stroking the rich brown fur near him on the pallet. She had sat astride his thighs for many leagues this day, and before that, she had flung off her surcoat and pressed her half-naked body tightly to his. Yet committing to this seat alongside him on the laird’s bed seemed a line she dared not cross.