Sue-Ellen Welfonder

by Master of the Highlands

  Grasping the table’s edge, he leaned forward, lowered her voice. “I have ne’er harmed, nor would I harm a woman,” he swore to her, his temples starting to throb when she didn’t take her gaze off the far corner. “Nor have I e’er… er… lavished attentions on a lass who wasn’t willing.”

  “It isn’t you, good sir.” That, a mere hush, scarce to be heard above the howling wind, the loud rattling of the window shutters behind her.

  She turned back to him. “It is I.”

  “My temper caused me to accidentally topple a standing candelabrum in my family’s chapel… I set the whole of it ablaze, everything. That chapel was the pride of my clan, and its loss is the reason for my penance, my journey to Dunkeld. To make amends and heal my temp—” He broke off when he realized what she’d said.

  “You?” His voice came thick, puzzled.

  Their gazes met and locked.

  She nodded, drew Amicia’s arisaid closer about her head and shoulders… so close he could scarce see her face for the shadows cast by the plaid’s generous folds.

  Iain poured himself another cup of heather ale, tossed it down in one gulp. “As I am no ordinary pilgrim, sweet lass,” he said, plunging onto dangerous ground but uncaring, “so, too, are you no seeker of the veil.”

  She made no response, but her silence and downcast eyes proved answer enough.

  “How do I know?” he asked, when she didn’t. He took her hand again, turned it palm upward.

  As if sensing what he was about to say, she tried to yank back her hand, but Iain held fast. He traced the tip of his forefinger first across the exposed underside of her fingers, then down the very cup of her palm.

  “Smooth and tender flesh, white and unmarred,” he said, not surprised to see her flinch at the observation. Saints, but he hated having to pry the truth from her. “These hands have ne’er seen greater toil than the plying of an embroidering needle. Or the lifting of a wee votive offering, and that, sweeting, we can discuss abovestairs.”

  She turned away, and Iain thought he caught the bright shimmer of tears in her eyes. But he had to know who she was, what she was about. And what had brought her to such a dire pass.

  Only so could he help her.

  And the saints knew he wanted to.

  He sighed, began gently massaging the whole of her hand, the base of her wrist. “True postulants fall into two categories,” he told her, “and, aye, ’tis your hands that give you away.”

  “Think you?” she asked, a slight note of rebellion in both her tone and the lift of her chin.

  And Iain was glad to see it.

  He almost smiled. “Nay, I know it,” he said instead, purposely letting a wee note of arrogance into his voice… just enough to keep the edge on her irritation.

  And hold her tears at bay.

  “What two categories are there?” she snapped, and this time Iain’s lips did twitch a bit.

  Folding his arms on the table, he held her gaze, pleased when hers didn’t waver.

  “The first,” he began, “is the gentlebred maid, matron, or widow seeking sequestered asylum for whate’er reason spurs the need. The second is the less advantaged young woman who seeks a life—any life—away from the hardships of her own.”

  One fine red-gold brow shot upward. “And why can I not be either?”

  “Because you, precious lass, are the third,” he said, and hoped to the saints his voice held no trace of triumph.

  “The third?”

  Iain nodded. “Were you the first, the gentleborn maid sent to retire behind the safety of a convent’s impenetrable walls, you would have been under heavy escort. No family of worth allows a daughter to roam the land unprotected… regardless of her destination.”

  “And the second?” she asked, refilling her ale cup.

  “The second could ne’er be you,” Iain asserted. “A lass of the commonality hoping for a better life would have roughened, work-toiled hands. Yours have broken nails and scratches, but those are merely evidence of the hardships you’ve encountered on the road.”

  She took a slow sip of ale. “Meaning?”

  “You have the hands of a lady… your skin is too soft and white for a peasant’s.”

  She didn’t deny him. “And what is this third category you would place me in?”

  “A wellborn lady fleeing difficulties,” Iain said, now quite certain of it.

  “And if I am?” She watched him over the rim of her wooden cup.

  “Then I would know why.”

  “I cannot tell you why.” Madeline squirmed on the bench. She almost wished she could tell him. But she’d already revealed far more than she should have.

  She couldn’t divulge more.

  Not when two of Silver Leg’s men whiled in a dark corner, speculating about her identity, their whispered slurs and suspicions louder in her ears than the clapping of the loosely-latched shutters behind her.

  The men’s unspoken glee at finding her—and what they hoped to do to her—pierced her courage more thoroughly than the night’s chill damp knifed beneath every loose fold of her borrowed arisaid, every rip and tear in the shamefully torn clothes hidden beneath.

  “Then—for now—my sweet, at least tell me your name,” her braw gallant compelled. He looked at her with such honest concern in his dark eyes that hers almost grew moist again.

  Almost, for Drummonds didn’t cry.

  “Come you,” he urged, taking her hand again, squeezing it. “Your name is all I ask.”

  Madeline sat up straighter, expelled her resistance on a great, quivering sigh. “I am…” She trailed off, the letch coming at her in waves from the far corner shredding her nerve, and making it difficult to voice her name even in a whisper.

  Iain stood then, coming around the table to join her on the bench. He drew her to him before she could catch breath to object.

  Not that she really wanted to… the saints knew she’d ached for him, needed him, for weeks.

  “Your name, lass,” he encouraged, fingering one of her curls. The brush of his warm, callused fingers against her cheek nearly undid her. “Tell me so I can help you.”

  “I am… I am M-Madeline Drummond of Abercairn.” The truth came out in a rush… even as they concluded the same. She knew because their triumph squeezed her rib cage and filled her with dread.

  “Abercairn near Dunkeld?” Iain MacLean was asking her, but she scarce heard him. The two men were looking their way, one of them even pushing to his feet.

  Madeline gave a jerky nod. “Aye, from thereabouts, but Abercairn is no more,” she said, too flooded with panic to mind her secrets. “I—It’s been taken, my father slain, and I—I… I want you to kiss me.”

  “Kiss you?”

  Rather than oblige her, Iain MacLean pulled away. He stared at her so slack-jawed, his expression so totally flummoxed, she would have laughed outright had she not been so very miserable, were not Silver Leg’s minions heading her way.

  “Aye, kiss me. Now!” She threw her arms around his neck, and pressed against him, crushing her lips to his in her first ever kiss.

  A wild and desperate tangling of lips, tongues, mingled breaths… and fear.

  Fear of the rank vileness coming at her from the corner, and fear of Iain MacLean, for he’d abandoned his startled resistance and was obliging her with a mastery that melted her and made her ache for more.

  Sweet golden heat and delicious, prickling tingles spooled through her until she almost forgot to breathe.

  His kiss filled her with a divine sweetness so intense she nearly, but not quite, forgot her troubles.

  And the other pressing matter that plagued her.

  An issue that had just taken on direst urgency.

  The irrevocably damning knowledge that Iain MacLean belonged to another.

  Chapter Ten

  THE FOLLY OF HER ACTIONS STRUCK Madeline the instant the cold-spinning exaltation of Silver Leg’s henchmen swung into something else entirely… blessedly not aimed at her, but
unsettling all the same. A sharp-edged and twisting lust so lewd in its intensity her skin prickled and her stomach clenched with revulsion.

  Her heart began thumping hard against her ribs and her mouth went full dry. She pressed closer to Iain MacLean, winding her arms tighter about his broad shoulders, stretching her fingers ever deeper into the heavy silk of his hair.

  She moistened her lips, holding fast to him as if his strength and warmth could shelter her not just from the storm raging outwith the alehouse walls but also from the turmoil whirling inside her.

  But heedless of her clinging, gusty winds kept rattling the shutters, and heavy rain continued to pelt the window’s stone ledge. Cold damp seeped through the shutter slats, chilling her to the bone.

  And each new crack of thunder made it easier to believe the ominous rumbles were God’s own voice scolding her.

  Chiding her for imagining the floor had tilted beneath her feet the moment her shadow man’s lips had touched hers.

  For truth, she’d melted, a luxurious warmth settling over her the instant he’d cradled the back of her head with a firm, steady hand and begun raining soft kisses across her forehead, her cheeks, and even the tip of her nose.

  Gently caressing her nape, he brushed the lightest kiss of all against her temple. “Sweet, so sweet,” he murmured, teasing a loose curl with his breath.

  Wondrous sensations cascaded through Madeline upon his softly spoken words, but she needed affirmation he’d actually said them, for the howling wind and raucous din inside the alehouse snatched them away before she could be sure.

  She pulled back to peer at him, and his dark eyes met hers in a gaze of such startling intimacy his peat brown eyes appeared almost black. They also commanded a visceral bond between them.

  A shockingly deep connection so powerful its potency surged through her, rocking her to the core of her being.

  Even the soles of her feet tingled and grew warm beneath his bold and claiming stare.

  But then he sighed, and a shadow flitted across his brow. The fleeting sadness stripped away all but a few shreds of his crackling male confidence and laid bare a naked vulnerability so poignant that a wholly different kind of warmth swept Madeline.

  An all-consuming burn to soothe and caress him, to banish whate’er troubled him so profoundly.

  She cleared her throat, dredged up her courage. “I… we—” she began, fully intending to share her own darkest secret, tell what she knew of his heart… and how. But he stilled her with a gentle flick of his tongue across her lower lip.

  “Do not say it,” he whispered against her cheek, his golden voice tight with strain and sounding ragged.

  He kneaded her shoulders with bliss-spending fingers, his touch distracting her. “Acknowledging what is between us would bring naught but pain,” he cautioned, holding her gaze. “Let it be enough to ken your sweetness could easily undo me, fair lady.”

  Once more a flicker of sadness glimmered in his eyes. “Aye, precious lass, you could make me forget more than my tattered honor.” He traced a finger along her jaw. “Much more.”

  Honor, he’d said.

  The saints knew he’d already made her forget her own.

  Madeline almost cringed at the thought, shame spilling through her like sheets of eddying water.

  Somewhere a shutter slammed against the wall, its loud banging an almost welcome reprieve from the accusatory grumble of the rolling thunder.

  A loutish burst of laughter came from Silver Leg’s men, and Madeline shivered. Their debauchery chilled her more than the cold, moist air streaming through the rain-damp shutter slats.

  Abhorrence at herself flooded her, too, for their lechery only underscored her own breathless need.

  Trickling desire spiraled through her, and it pulsed just as urgent as the baseness firing the ruffian’s blood. ’Twas a keen awareness of him. A thrumming need, that deepened with each darting flick of Iain MacLean’s tongue against her lips.

  The intimacy of his kiss, and his surprising tenderness, bound her physical body to him as soundly as his nightly visits to her dreams had endeared him to her heart.

  She closed her eyes a moment, struggled against the urge to bury her face into his shoulder and inhale deeply. His scent intoxicated her and she drank it in greedily, reveling in its decidedly masculine blend of wet grass, old stone, and softened leather.

  Damp leather seasoned with peat smoke and an elusive but utterly irresistible hint of pure, unadulterated male.

  Sighing, Madeline combed her fingers through his hair, let the luxuriant black strands slide across the backs of her hands.

  Aye, there could be no doubt he befuddled her.

  Lulled and bespelled her.

  She trembled, the mastery of his kiss, the soft warmth of his breath—the mere nearness of him—overwhelming her senses.

  A few stolen kisses sought in a dire moment, and she’d come wholly undone.

  Lost herself.

  And her scruples.

  Abandoning them so irrevocably, she continued to cling to him, molding herself to the solid warmth of his broad chest. Her arms snagged firmly around his neck, she buried her fingers in the cool silk of his hair, even though her every instinct screamed that Silver Leg’s hirelings had strayed from their purpose.

  Her newly awakened passion banished all coherent thought as it rose to a piercing, mind-dulling degree. A weighty and heated throbbing began somewhere deep inside her, and she parted her lips, unconsciously bidding him to deepen their kiss.

  He needed her—at least in that moment—she had no doubt.

  Casting off all caution, she savored the astonishingly intense yearnings spooling through her body, willingly giving herself over to the sensations.

  Let the storm-chased night send a bolt of lightning to fetch her straight to the gates of hell, but she didn’t want him to stop kissing her.

  Couldn’t bear for him to stop.

  Too sweet, too unaccustomed and rare, were the ripples of pleasure spreading through her with each gentle brush of his lips across her own, each velvety sweep of his tongue against hers.

  Faith, she’d ne’er dreamed a man could kiss so softly. Or that the mere feel of his mouth lighting over hers could infuse the lowest part of her belly with such a deliciously heavy warmth.

  A fine, pulsating heat she suspected no true lady ought feel, much less enjoy.

  And gentle birth be damned, she didn’t care.

  But she did care that Iain MacLean was not free.

  That undeniable truth weighed heavily on her shoulders and cooled her burgeoning ardor as swiftly as if someone had emptied a bucket of icy water o’er her besotted head.

  Her eyes flew wide, the reason she’d hurled herself at him once again foremost in her mind. Pulling away, she broke the kiss and slid a sidelong glance at the two miscreants whose raging letch filled her throat with choking, vile-tasting bile.

  She followed their stares, her eyes straining to peer through the haze of bluish peat smoke hanging thickly above the crowded trestle tables.

  Her pulse skittered, running hot and fast when her gaze lit on the focus of the men’s lust. Worldly-wise, and tolerant, as she thought herself, Madeline gasped in astonishment.

  A buxom joy woman lounged in the shadowy entrance to the darkened sleeping dormitory, her heavy-lidded expression and slow toying at the folds of her skirts just where her thighs met, a clear invitation for any man eager to partake of her proffered charms.

  Large-boned and coarse, but with an extraordinarily lustrous wealth of rich-gleaming auburn curls tumbling to her waist, the bawd’s generous breasts near burst from the lowest-cut gown Madeline had e’er seen.

  The top halves of the whore’s nipples, rouged and tightly ruched, peeped provocatively above the edge of her plunging bodice. Madeline swallowed hard, uncomfortably aware of the hardened peaks of her own overly full breasts.

  And how exposed they’d be without the borrowed plaid draped about her shoulders.

&n
bsp; Aware of an audience, the bawd arched her back. The deliberately sensual stretch caused both her nipples to spring free and their thrusting tips popped into full view for any who cared to admire them.

  And many did.

  Hoots, hearty shouts of masculine glee, and a few poorly veiled sniggers rose above the general din.

  Heat inched up the back of Madeline’s neck, and she tightened her grip on Iain’s shoulders.

  She risked a glance at him.

  He, too, stared, but unlike the thick cloud of miasmic lust she could almost see swirling around Silver Leg’s slack-jawed henchmen, her shadow man’s granite-set features revealed naught but cold indifference.

  Your breasts are more fetching by far, she thought she heard him murmur, but the words were smothered beneath a burst of tawdriest ribaldry as every man present and not too deep in his cups to notice praised the joy woman’s bountiful wares.

  A largish man at the next table leaned forward, his eyes near bugging from his ale-flushed face. “’Fore God, if those teats wouldn’t harden a dead man’s lance!”

  “Mine already is hard,” another declared, his proclamation eliciting a chorus of guffaws.

  “And I mean to wrap those curling tresses all around my hardness,” one of Silver Leg’s men cried, making for the whore.

  Madeline stared in horrified fascination. Almost forgetting to breathe, she was only vaguely aware of Iain MacLean’s pulling her close again. He eased her head to his shoulder, holding her there, the flat of his hand pressed firmly over her ear.

  The beat of his heart pounded hard and steady beneath her cheek, and she didn’t need her gift to sense his rising anger… the mounting fury inside him.

  ’Twas a simmering displeasure he strove hard to master.

  A vexation that warmed her despite its ferocity, for her feminine instincts told her the reason for his ire was seeing her exposed to such a rife display of sordid carnality.

  But depraved or nay, she couldn’t tear away her gaze.

  As if cast of stone, she looked on as the second of Silver Leg’s men, the older one, hitched his loose-fitting trews to accommodate the tentlike protrusion of his arousal.

  “You can have that hair,” he called to his friend’s back, starting after him. “’Tis her other hair I’m a-wanting to see. Her lower hair.”