He gave a short, sharp whistle and a few moments later, Ares and Lockie appeared through the short ridge of trees. Sorcha got up on wobbly feet, gaping at the horses.
“How—” she started to say.
“Ares,” Brandt answered, taking his horse by the traces and rubbing his nose. “He can always find me.”
And he’d brought Lockie along on the hunt, she figured, smiling with no small amount of relief as she stepped out from under the outcropping and reached for her mount’s intact saddlebags. Inside she found one of several tins and glass vials, all of which contained salves and ointments, herbs and tinctures. Exclaiming her delight, she pulled a thin tube from the satchel.
Brandt eyed her. “What is that?”
“It’s a salve my mother made. She’s a healer. I’ve picked up a few of her skills here and there, though I’m no means as good as she is. This liniment will accelerate the healing.”
Gathering more supplies, she sat on the ledge and drew a deep breath. She tucked the hem of her shirt high, exposing a pale swatch of her torso. She didn’t miss the way Brandt’s gaze scoured the display of skin before he angled his head away. Blushing, she stifled the burst of modesty. She was careful not to raise the hem too high, to keep the grotesque web of scars above it hidden from view. She’d sooner die than let anyone, much less him, see her ugliest secret.
Gingerly, she unwrapped the dirty bandage, recoiling at the sting as the dried, hardened linen tore at her exposed flesh. It was not a bad cut, but she knew more than anyone how injuries could fester if not properly cared for; one speck of dirt left in a wound could undo everything. The reason the ones on her face hadn’t succumbed to infection and left ugly, puckered scarring was because of this very balm. The ones on her body, sadly, had become septic, and though the salve had been applied, the mangled skin, even after the stitches had been removed, had left behind a grisly patchwork.
Brandt watched her as she poured some clear liquid from another bottle onto a cloth and gently dabbed at the incision. She bit her lip hard and tasted blood. It stung, but pain now meant less of it later.
“Let me,” Brandt said, crouching and taking the cloth from her.
She didn’t protest, but as before when he’d first cleaned the wound, she gripped her forearms tightly over her breasts. He skimmed softly along the cut, and she winced again. He bent to blow gently on it, his breath feathering against her skin. The unexpected combination of his warm exhalation and the icy sting of the liquid made her gasp. But it was when he gripped her right hip to steady her that a different kind of sensation radiated through her veins—a crude, frantic sort of sensation that both thrilled and terrified.
Sweet Saint Andrew.
The press of his fingers left a scorching imprint upon her flesh, burning through her clothes and making infernal urges take flight as desire spun into a storm inside of her. She’d never been more acutely aware of a man in her life…his big hand clutching her, his mouth gusting on her exposed stomach. Every feminine part of her throbbed.
Sorcha nearly levered her body upward, if only to make contact with the parted lips that hung inches away from her skin, expelling that stream of cool air. She wanted him to press his lips to her skin. To kiss her everywhere, scars and fears be damned. The span of his hot palm together with the sight of his head bent over her torso caused her inner muscles to clench almost violently. Christ, if he did put his lips on her, she might very well faint from the pleasure.
Her body alternated between acute pain and intense arousal as he ministered to her wound, and by the time he was finished, Sorcha was strung as tightly as a bow. Brandt lifted his palm, and she could swear that the shape of his hand remained imprinted on her hip. Blushing fiercely, she reached for the salve but was too slow.
“Do I just swipe it on like this?” he asked, smearing some ointment onto the pad of his finger. His voice was husky, his eyes heavy-lidded, which made her feel like she had not been the only one affected.
Incapable of speech, she nodded.
And nearly died when his hot fingertip grazed her skin. Gooseflesh erupted everywhere. On her ribs, her torso, her breasts. With infinite care, he rubbed in the balm while Sorcha clung to reason by a slim thread, unraveling by the second, as every greedy inch of her burned and begged for more. One more stroke and she would splinter into a thousand pieces right there and then. God. It was torture. Exquisite, hideous, excruciating torture.
His thumb grazed the linen gathered beneath her forearm covering the underside of her breast, and she stifled a shriek. A desperate sound born of longing and a healthy fear of discovery.
“That’s enough,” she gasped, rising and tugging her shirt down.
Putting a few healthy steps between them, she drew a ragged breath at the sting from the balm and fetched some more strips of linen from her bags. Without looking at him, she deftly wrapped the bandage and tucked the shirt into her trousers before rewrapping her plaid. His eyes met her, smoldered across the space, and Sorcha resisted the urge to strip herself bare and leap at him.
Gulping a lungful of air, she backed farther away and added another thing to her list of dislikes. She hated feeling trapped. She hated crying. And she bloody well hated this brain-melting, wit-consuming, goddamned wanting. It had even somehow been powerful enough to steal away the sensation of pain. Surely, that wasn’t natural.
“We should go,” Brandt said, his voice huskier than normal. “Put some space between us and Malvern’s men.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
A hell-for-leather, bracing ride on Lockie wouldn’t be unwelcome, either, to put herself to rights. She was truly shameless. Her brother could be dead, and all she could think about was dragging the man standing two feet away to the ground and having her wicked way with him.
Sorcha hesitated, guilt returning in force as she thought of Ronan. Brandt eyed her, correctly interpreting her expression. “Your brother’s only wish was for your safety, Sorcha. Even before you met me, he planned to get you away. Don’t let whatever you hope to do by going back there get in the way of what he wanted.” His words flowed over her like the salve on her skin. Calming. Soothing. “Ronan will find you.”
If he isn’t dead.
“He’s not, Sorcha,” Brandt said, reading her. “He would move mountains to see you safe. Death is a paltry enemy for a warrior like him.”
Huffing a shallow breath, Sorcha stared at the stranger she had married, at the conviction on his face. No man, outside of her father and brothers, had ever been so mindful. He had no reason to be here but for a promise made to her brother to see her safe. He’d already won Lockie. There was nothing in it for him to comfort her, though he did it anyway.
Once more, the slightest intuition of danger settled over her, as if she were standing in the shallows of a loch and about to step into precariously deep waters. It wasn’t because of Coxley or Ronan. It wasn’t because they were alone in the woods on the run from a mad marquess. Or because she’d sustained an injury.
It was because of this man.
Brandt was more dangerous to her than any of them combined.
Chapter Ten
Brandt scanned the surroundings as their horses carefully picked their way along the rough gravel path of the mountain pass. They had ridden through the night, stopping to sleep for a scant hour before heading deeper into the hills once dawn crested. The pass was far too dangerous to ride by night, and a challenge even during daylight.
Sorcha rode ahead of him, and he could see her also alertly looking around, every so often throwing a glance over her shoulder to him. He liked their unspoken communication—a nod here and there to make sure each of them was faring well as they covered more and more ground. Sorcha was leading the way given her familiarity with the terrain, although the gentleman in him did not like the idea of her being so open to any oncoming attacks.
She had scoffed, of course, at his concern. Brandt smiled at the memory of her indignant expression, as if he had called her very
honor into question by suggesting she ride behind him.
“I’m a Highlander,” she’d said, affronted. “How do you think ’twould appear if anyone were to see me riding behind a Sassenach? I’d never hear the end of it.”
Brandt had resorted to logic. “How would anyone know who you are?”
She jabbed at her face with a finger. “Don’t forget, everyone knows of the Beast of Maclaren, even old Coxley back there.”
“I don’t like that name.”
Sorcha had stared at him then. “Why?”
“It’s cruel, it’s untrue, and it’s no name for someone like you.”
Her eyes had sparked with affront. “Someone like me?”
“A lady.”
She had clamped her lips together as if to stop herself from saying something she would regret before turning her back and galloping off. It was true. She was the furthest thing from a beast, and Brandt disliked the cruel moniker. He couldn’t imagine her without her scars…her beauty and strength were interwoven with them. But even so, she was still the daughter of a duke, and a highborn lady.
In London, he’d encountered his share of well-bred English society ladies. A vision of Sorcha’s savage expression as she stood like an avenging warrior goddess upon her horse in that thicket came to him. She was so much more viscerally appealing than any of those women. Now, Brandt could see why none of them had ever caught his fancy. It was like comparing a gentle sun-shower to a lightning storm.
“We’ll stop soon,” she called over her shoulder. “There’s a valley around this bend where we might find water and a cool place to rest. From what I recall, it’s below this rise, and there’s a village nearby.” She squinted. “We should be entering Dunwoody lands. We’re not feuding with them.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Ares is tiring.”
The horse wasn’t really tired. He was bred of sturdy Arabian stock and could go on for miles, but every so often, Brandt noticed the drooping slope of Sorcha’s shoulders and the rigid tension in her left side. Her wound had to be paining her, and yet she soldiered on. The rocky ground did not make it easier, and even with his full physical strength, Brandt found it difficult to keep his balance at the brutal pace they were maintaining.
The vegetation—and cover—was sparse, unlike the rest of the Highlands they’d traveled through with Ronan. At the thought of the Maclaren heir, he sobered. He’d said what he had to in order to convince Sorcha to stay the path and not go back. Though he had seen and heard enough of Ronan’s skill to know that he was more than capable in a fight, in a one-on-one match against Coxley, it would likely take a miracle to bring him down.
Brandt shook his head furiously. Malvern was bad enough, but thinking of Sorcha anywhere in the same space with someone like Coxley made his stomach sour. If the man ever got his hands on her, she would not make it back to Maclaren unviolated. His tone when he’d called her the Beast suggested his intentions as such. No, no one, especially not Coxley, would put their filthy hands on her. Not while Brandt drew an ounce of breath.
His anger returning in smoldering force, Brandt gritted his teeth as he followed Sorcha down the hill. Ares whinnied, as if sensing his master’s ire, and Brandt gave his mount’s sweaty flank a reassuring pat, forcing himself to calm. Ares had always been aware of his moods.
There was a reason he didn’t want anyone to touch Sorcha. Envy, he was beginning to realize, was a terrible companion. He was even envious of Lockie, and how Sorcha’s slender thighs were wrapped so lovingly around the horse’s sides. Her body rocked rhythmically in the saddle, the provocative flare of her hips the precursor to a punishing erection on his part. It couldn’t possibly be healthy to remain in such an engorged state for hours on end.
Jesus.
Brandt swore under his breath. Fury and fear, tangled with unrelieved sexual frustration, tended to make a man slightly insane. He wanted her with a desire that made him breathless. She wanted him, too. He remembered her excited breaths as he’d soothed her wound in the cave.
It had taken all of his control to not press his lips to her dewy skin, to push those trousers down and seek out the delectable heaven he knew the taste of her would be. He’d been hard as Scottish steel the entire time. Brandt had felt her thighs quiver, seen the seam of her legs press together, and only the sobering sight of her torn flesh had saved him from tearing her clothes off and thrusting into her.
Brandt expelled a sigh. This journey would be the sodding death of him.
He dragged his eyes away from Sorcha’s delicious rump and focused on the sheep dotting the rolling hills in the distance. In his childhood, he used to count them to put himself to sleep. Perhaps now he could count them to deflate the brute in his pants.
Some two hundred sheep later, the gravel turned to grass beneath Ares’s hooves as they left the path, and sprigs of purple heather brightened the landscape. They rode past more sheep grazing in the lush meadows, but Brandt had no more need of them, at least for the moment.
Now that there was more space, Sorcha slowed her mount to ride beside him. The hills were open enough to see if anyone was in pursuit, and the slackened pace gave the horses a chance to cool down after the grueling trek in the mountains.
“How’s your wound?” he asked her.
“The dressing needs to be changed, but it’s bearable.” From her wan face, he could see that she was minimizing the pain. “There’s a farmhouse over yonder that may spare us some food and water for the horses.”
“Fine.”
She eyed him sideways, her expression hidden behind a bland but clearly false facade. “Why did you say you didn’t like that name? The Beast of Maclaren?”
“Because you’re not a beast.”
Sorcha shrugged. “I used to hate it. Cried myself to sleep when the children in the keep sang it to my face and ran away hiding. Finlay and Evan used to beat them silly on my behalf, until I learned how to defend myself.” She pursed her lips. “After that, it became like armor. Like it was a badge. People knew who I was.”
“It’s not a name for a lady,” Brandt said staunchly. “For a duke’s daughter.”
“I never wanted to be a lady.”
He sent her a look. “What we want and who we are sometimes do not coincide. Life is funny like that.” He paused, his heart giving a painful kick. “You deserve the life you were meant to lead, to marry a man of influence.”
“A man like Malvern? I’d rather drown in manure.”
Brandt shook his head. “No, not like Malvern, but a titled man. One who can offer you your rightful place in society.”
Not someone like me.
“But what if that’s not what I want?” she shot back. “I can’t fathom wearing dresses and primping and playing coy all day, having tea, singing and playing the pianoforte or any other infernal instrument. Wasn’t there something you wished to be? More? Less? Just not what you were?”
To have a mother. To know who I truly am.
“No.”
Brandt stopped his horse so suddenly that Sorcha had to pull sharply on Lockie’s reins to see what had stopped him. Her face grew alarmed when she took in the horrified expression on his. “Lady Sorcha Maclaren, did I just hear you confess that you don’t sing or play any instrument? Nor primp or flirt? And what, pray tell, do you have against tea? Sacrilege to the English.”
She compressed twitching lips. “You’re not English.”
“Honestly, what kind of pagan have I married?” She was valiantly attempting to swallow her snickers by that point. He rolled his eyes skyward, clapping a dramatic hand to his chest. “What, dear Lord, did I do to deserve such an abominable punishment?”
Laughing out loud, she punched him in the arm. “It’s Lady Pierce, I’ll have you know.”
Something inside of him warmed, but Brandt squashed it brutally. He’d jested only to turn the conversation away from his empty childhood wishes and the cruel voices she’d inadvertently awakened. The ones that clamored that he was undeserving
of her smile or any part of her. His amusement evaporated. He needed to quash this, and he needed to quash it now.
“You’re a Maclaren,” he said. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be a Pierce anyway. We’re a tedious, pissant lot.” He kept his gaze straight ahead, his tone even. “An annulment is for the best. No reason for you to be the wife of a bastard when you can be a lady with the life you were born for.”
The humor drained from her lovely blue eyes, hurt shining there for a minute before it was replaced by sparks of anger. “You’re an arse, Brandt Pierce. You and your precious name.”
“Precious as dirt.”
“I’ve changed my mind. Amadan is too good for you. Haven’t ye heard a word I’ve said? I never wanted to be a lady.”
“And I never wanted to be a bastard!”
The words slipped out from some hollow, cavernously painful space within him, and the minute he said them, he regretted it. He regretted being so vulnerable. And he hated the sudden pitying look in her eyes. His temper boiled and exploded.
“You’re not the only one who ever wanted another life. You’re not the only one who wished on every star and every ha’penny to be someone else. But we’ve all had to grow up and smell the horseshit. So stop whining about not wanting your life of privilege, when many are born to far less.”
Sorcha recoiled at the last few words, and as his rage receded, Brandt felt a pang of bitter remorse. Angry, hurt tears shone in her eyes. Once more, he’d lost control of his temper.
“I’m sorry.” He reached for her, but she flinched away. Shaking, she opened her mouth and closed it. And then kicked Lockie into a wild gallop.
Bloody hell.
Brandt stared at her disappearing shape and nudged Ares into a canter. By the time he got to a rambling cottage in the direction she’d ridden, Lockie was tied in the nearby stable, munching happily on a bucket of oats.
A small boy who looked to be no more than ten standing beside Lockie gave him a friendly wave. “Och, the lass said ye’d be along soon.” His brogue was thick as he eyed Ares. “Wha’ happened to yer horse?”
My Scot, My Surrender (Lords of Essex) Page 12