Enchanted by the Highlander

by Cornwall, Lecia

  “How does your tune go?” she asked.

  He played her a sweet melody, as haunting as a caress, as full of passion as his kisses. It brought tears to her eyes. “I like yours best,” she said when the last note died away. “It reminds me of—”

  “Don’t say it,” he said, his voice rough. “You’ve become quite famous. Will your husband appreciate that? He’s sure to hear the tales.”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about Sir Douglas. I came to talk to you. I would have done so sooner, but there’s been no chance.”

  “You’ve been holding court,” he said with dry amusement. “At least after wedding your husband can deal with your admirers for you. Has he strong clansmen to drive them away, or a tall tower for you to hide in?”

  Douglas MacKinnon stood like a shade between them. John was looking at anything but her—the starry sky, the dark loch, the fringed branches of the fir trees. She raised her chin. “I’m not sure that’s going to happen, John.”

  He turned at that, but it was too dark to read his expression. “What? The man won’t defend your honor? I’m sure your father would never have allowed you to accept him if he wasn’t a good man, strong and brave and handsome as the devil. Perhaps I should write a song about him.”

  “I don’t love him.”

  He stayed still, didn’t reply, and the breeze rushed across the water, raising wavelets on the surface and riffling his hair.

  “I-I love you.”

  He groaned softly. “No,” he said. “Oh God, no, Gilly, you don’t. You might think you do because I was the first, but it was fear that night—a kind of battle lust, perhaps, the shock of what happened—” He stopped. “It isn’t love.”

  Gillian felt a hot wave of annoyance fill her breast. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Do you think you would have been the first if I didn’t have feelings for you? You’re a daft man, John Erly.”

  “Then why me, Gillian? Is it because I was forbidden, because you were warned to stay away from me? Did you think you could have an adventure before you were married, an affair with a rogue who had no heart to break?”

  Surprise coursed through her. “I broke your heart?”

  He hesitated a second too long. “Nay, of course not. It was only an example.”

  She paused. “All my life people have told me what to do. Because I’m quiet and shy, they imagine I’m dull and stupid and I cannot think for myself. Well, I can. I am perfectly capable of knowing what I want and choosing my own destiny, my own—”

  “Your own way to go to the devil?” he asked. He spread his arms. “Look at me, Gillian. This is all I am, all I have—a sword and a flute and the clothes on my back. I am an outsider, a rogue. What would your father say, or your sisters? God, If I’d known it was you behind that mask, I would have steered clear, saved us both the heartache. I wish I had. I have rules about that. I know better.”

  She took a step toward him. “Rules. I am sick of living by other people’s rules. I knew who you were when I kissed you, what people said about you. I also know it isn’t true, John. I knew then. I saw . . . Even if you hadn’t told me about your past, I saw for myself that your are a good man, an honest one, kind and true. Did you tell me about your past to drive me away? It didn’t work. I love you because of the things you’ve endured, because you are more than you let people see. You are everything to me.”

  He swore, stepped closer. “Am I? I like women. I like the kind who don’t care, who want the pleasure of a brief hour or two in my bed, who don’t want to know what I think, or how I feel. It’s neat and tidy and easy. There are no complications. That’s who I am, Gillian, not some fairy-tale prince you’ve made up for yourself.” He gripped her arms. “Do you understand?”

  She pressed her hand to his heart. “Liar.” She said it again. “I know you love me. No man touches a woman like that, to her very soul, if he does not love her.”

  “How do you know? With all your years of experience? You know only what I taught you. I know how to kiss a woman, how to pleasure her so she believes—”

  She stood on her toes, put her mouth against his. For a moment he resisted, then his arms slid around her, pulled her close, and he kissed her with desperation and passion. She felt his arousal and her own, her body restless with desire, the points of her breasts and the place between her legs aching for him.

  But he pushed her away, bent forward with his hands on his knees, panting. “Not here, not now, Gilly. Not with a hundred clansmen so close. Not ever again.”

  “No, you’d never risk harming me. You’d never hurt anyone.”

  He straightened and glared at her. “You’re a child, Gillian. You aren’t a brave heroine—you’re a coward. You stole a kiss I would never have given freely while you hid behind a mask.”

  “My mask is gone.” She kissed him again, a simple brush of her lips against his, and stepped back. “I hope before it’s too late, you’ll unmask as well, though I know who you are, what you are. That man, the naked, imperfect, arrogant, honorable, gentle one, is the man I want, the man I love.”

  She turned to walk away, her heart jagged in her breast.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he called after her.

  “It means I love you, John Erly.”

  * * *

  The woman was daft, John decided, crazy, without a shred of sense. She’d left him standing beside the loch, in the dark, alone.

  Did she expect him to go after her? Perhaps she thought he’d take her away, elope, or carry her to the nearest patch of heather and make love to her again.

  It was impossible—all of it—love, seduction, and everything else. He ran his hand through his hair and paced. He’d have her army of Highlanders to deal with if he so much as touched her hand. They’d hang, draw, and quarter him—and then they’d kick what was left of his carcass back over the English border. Or the Fearsome MacLeod would hunt him down, castrate him, and wear his balls as a sporran. And there was Gillian’s betrothed—no doubt a man who’d not take kindly to any man poaching his bonny wife-to-be. He wouldn’t, if it were him.

  She was indeed daft—mad as a hare, crazy.

  And she loved him.

  He was the luckiest bastard on earth—or the most unfortunate.

  He leaned back against the trunk of a tree and considered that. He wasn’t afraid of anyone’s disapproval—just his own. If he’d been halfway worthy of her, and he knew which window she’d climbed out of, he’d climb in after her. But he hadn’t a clue, and it was better that way.

  She’d forget him in time, when she was in her husband’s arms. Oh, how he hated that idea.

  He stood on the shore of the loch and watched the moonlight glitter on the surface. Wedding jitters, he decided. She was shy, perhaps anxious about all those people watching her wed or about her wedding night.

  But she hadn’t been shy with him. He frowned.

  She loved him.

  And she was right—he loved her.

  He ran his hand through his hair. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

  Not honorably.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Edinburgh

  Gillian fell into her sister’s arms when she arrived at Lindsay House, Laire’s elegant home, on the morning of the day before her wedding.

  She sent a note to Sir Douglas, asking him to call upon her at his earliest convenience.

  But when the elderly housekeeper announced the arrival of a visitor that afternoon, it was Sir Douglas’s son, Kyle MacKinnon, who waited for her in her sister’s drawing room.

  Kyle was a younger version of his handsome father, and Gillian imagined that Sir Douglas must have looked much like his son thirty years ago, tall, with dark hair and eyes as blue as a summer sky. Kyle MacKinnon was a barrister and nearly ten years older than she was, but when she married Sir Douglas, she’d be his stepmother. She felt herself blush, both at the idea of that and the inconvenient fact that her betrothed had not come
himself.

  Kyle looked appreciatively at the luxurious furnishings and paintings as he entered. He bowed over her hand, holding it to his lips a second too long with a roguish look in his eyes that reminded her of John at his most flirtatious. But there was no playfulness, no charm in Kyle’s cool blue eyes—just lust. She withdrew her hand from his and sat on the settee.

  Kyle took a seat beside her, smiling at her, as charming as a man could be. “You wished to see my father. I hope I’ll do. He believes it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. How can I be of service?” He sat so close that his knee brushed the skirt of her gown.

  She shifted away. “I wished to speak to Sir Douglas in person. Privately.” He leaned closer, his face coming toward hers. She leaped to her feet. “I’ll ring for tea.”

  Kyle’s brow furrowed as he rose as well. “You could write a note if it is some detail about the ceremony. Is it?”

  “No,” she said. “Well, yes, actually.” Frustration welled. If only her groom come himself instead of sending Kyle.

  Kyle came closer, towered over her, and leaned one elbow against the mantel of the fireplace beside her shoulder. “My father is a lucky man,” he said, looking down at her. “You’re even lovelier than he described.”

  His eyes roamed over her again, from her hair to the hem of her gown and back again, stopping to break his journey at her fashionably low bodice. He picked up a lock of hair that lay against her skin and curled it around his finger. When she tried to pull away, he held on, teased her with a smile, and stepped closer still. It was not how a man should look at his father’s wife or his stepmother. She could feel his breath on her hair.

  She looked down at her hands, at a small scar from her encounter with the outlaws, a crescent-shaped scratch from the tip of a dirk that curled around the base of her thumb. It reminded her that she was brave, and capable, and strong.

  She wished she had her dirk, but she was in her sister’s drawing room, and the weapon was upstairs.

  She plucked her hair out of Kyle’s fingers, met his eyes, and stepped around him, heading for the door, which she opened. “I shall not keep you. Please let Sir Douglas know I wish to see him before the wedding.”

  Her sister’s housekeeper appeared. “You rang, mistress?”

  Gillian raised her chin. “I’m sorry, Morag, I thought we’d want tea, but I was mistaken. Mr. MacKinnon is leaving.”

  The barrister frowned, but there was little he could do but bow and go.

  Gillian sank back onto the settee and wondered if he’d give Sir Douglas her message after all.

  * * *

  John wasn’t staying for the wedding. He couldn’t. It would be like having his heart torn out to give Gillian away to another man. He’d ask Callum MacLeod to do it, her kinsman, her childhood friend.

  He wasn’t so much of a coward he wouldn’t tell her himself and wish her all the best in her marriage. He’d practiced saying the right words in the right tone with the right look on his face in front of the glass at his lodgings until he could almost do it without his lips twisting bitterly.

  He strode along the streets that led to Lindsay House and wondered if he should purchase a wedding gift for the happy couple. A silver cup or a pair of matched throwing dirks, perhaps, suitably engraved. But he’d almost reached her sister’s house on King James’s Square, and it was too late to stop for a gift. His garron was waiting for him in the stable at his own lodgings, and his belongings were packed. He was ready to go just as soon as he’d taken his brief and final leave of Gillian MacLeod.

  He turned into the elegant square and identified Lindsay House by the crest carved above the door.

  John stopped in his tracks as the door opened. A tall gentleman emerged, well-dressed, elegant, wearing a fine wig and a blue velvet coat with a plaid waistcoat beneath. He carried a gold-topped walking stick, the kind that held a hidden blade inside.

  John’s heart stopped in his chest. The man was, no doubt, Gillian’s betrothed. He was a fine man indeed, and he was, John supposed, a handsome one. Gillian may not love him now, but she would come to, surely. He’d make her happy, give her children, a fine home.

  He stopped and watched as the man strode away.

  And what was he by comparison? He looked at his scuffed boots, bearing the bloodstains and scars of his encounter with the outlaws. There was still a bruise on his forehead. His hands were the callused hands of a swordsman for hire. His hair was too long, tied with a scrap of leather, and he had no fortune, no plaid, no kin, no home.

  She deserved better. She deserved the gentleman in the blue coat.

  John turned and left the square.

  * * *

  Callum laughed at him. “Fia will never forgive ye if ye go now,” he said when John told him he was leaving and asked him to give Gillian away. “I suspect Gilly won’t either. She seems fond of ye.”

  If you only knew how fond, John thought.

  The big Highlander gave him a friendly buffet on the shoulder that would have toppled a smaller man. He refilled John’s cup and leaned across the scarred table in the taproom of the inn where they were both staying. “Come on, lad, cheer up. It won’t be as dull as ye fear. Sir Douglas MacKinnon is a wealthy man. The wedding will be grand, with lots to eat and drink. Some of the lairds have even decided to stay—Davy MacKenzie, and Cormag Robertson, and Padraig Grant. It will be a fine party.”

  “Perhaps one of them would be more suitable to give the bride away,” John said, but Callum shook his head.

  “They’re strangers. Ye know how shy she is. Fia wouldn’t have asked ye if she didn’t want ye to do it. And if ye don’t—” He crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. “I’ll not be the one to face Fia’s fury. A Scot’s word is his bond—are ye saying it’s different with Sassenachs?”

  John shook his head, and Callum grinned and raised his cup. “Then ye’ll have to stay and give Gillian away as ye promised.”

  John’s belly tensed. “Do you—um, happen to know what Gillian plans to wear tomorrow?”

  Callum stared at him as if he’d invited him to drink poison. “What she’ll wear? Why does that matter? Is this a Sassenach thing? Do your folk match their coats or the fancy buckles on their shoes to the bride’s gown or some such thing?”

  John forced a grin. “Aye. Some such thing.” He drained his cup and picked up the pitcher of ale on the table and proceeded to drain that, too.

  He prayed that she would wear green to match her eyes or blue to match her MacLeod plaid—anything but pink silk lined with gold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Gillian’s wedding gown was lovely, chosen by Laire, a confection of sea-green satin lined with cream silk. She’d wear it with white roses in her hair.

  Gillian couldn’t bring herself to put it on.

  “You have to get dressed, Gilly,” Laire insisted. Gillian was sitting by the window, still hopeful that Sir Douglas would arrive. Or John . . . “Come now—it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,” Laire coaxed. “After today, you’ll have your whole life together.”

  “Just a few more minutes,” Gillian pleaded, looking out at the empty square below.

  “Won’t you tell me what this is about?” Laire asked, taking Gillian’s cold hand in hers.

  “I don’t wish to marry Sir Douglas.”

  Laire tilted her head and smiled fondly. “Och, is this about the wedding night? Are you nervous? Of course you are. You’re so timid.”

  Gillian’s face filled with hot blood. “No, I—”

  But the clock on the mantel chimed, and Laire gave a little gasp of surprise at the lateness of the hour. She tugged Gillian to her feet. “Don’t worry—many brides feel anxious. Come and dress. I’ll ring for some tea to soothe you.”

  “Were you anxious?” Gillian asked.

  Laire smiled. “Nay. I mean I was anxious, but I was anxious to marry Iain. I was wildly in love with him.” She sighed. “I still am, of course. But you do
n’t know Sir Douglas well. He seems a kind gentleman, and I’m sure you’ll be happy.”

  Laire hugged her, and Gillian felt tears in her eyes.

  “There’s someone el—” she began. But Morag entered with two maids, and the room erupted in chatter and giggling as the women descended on Gillian and began the process of dressing her, willing or not.

  The housekeeper grinned as she relieved Gillian of her dressing gown, leaving her wearing nothing but her silken shift. “Ye’ll make a beautiful bride.”

  “I don’t—” Gillian tried, but the first petticoat was dropped over her head, and she was drowned in a froth of rustling lace and silk.

  Stays followed, wrapped tight around her and laced behind, cutting off her breath.

  “I don’t want—” she started again, but a second petticoat followed the first. Then the maids whisked the sea-green gown off the bed and held it for her to step into. When she did, they pulled it up and began the process of lacing it up the back.

  Laire grinned as they stepped back at last, done.

  “Och, the lass is as red as a plum,” Morag gushed. “Nae doubt she’s thinking of the wedding night, hoping—” She held her hands out before her, her palms a foot apart. The other lasses giggled wickedly, and Laire bit her lip.

  “You know it isn’t . . . well, it isn’t like that,” she whispered. “Not usually. Sir Douglas will know what to do, and . . .”

  Gillian lowered her eyes, thought of John, of the soft fir bed, of his hands on her skin, his mouth, his body moving over hers. She knew the pleasures the maids referred to. She’d experienced them. Would they be shocked to know that? She didn’t care. She didn’t want any man but John. She blushed again, with longing and frustration, but not maidenly anxiety.

  The maids propelled her to a chair before the dressing table and set to work on her hair. They coiled it high on her head and wove flowers into it. She looked—beautiful.

  Would John think she was beautiful? She pictured him meeting her at the door of the church, taking her arm and leading her up the aisle to Sir Douglas, his face impassive, his emotions masked as he gave her away.