To Love a Highlander

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  Or that he’d been in the company of a similarly guised man who’d lurched into the narrow lane that ran through the village of St. Mary’s Abbey, a supposed leper who’d grabbed her guard’s leg, babbling incoherently. She’d seen more chaos in the village, and had witnessed a stew-and-ale hawker suddenly yank a sword from his cart as she and her party had left the abbey’s ruined burial ground.

  Her father’s man had slewed his horse around, blocking her view and then galloping with her and Maili from the strange scene. But they’d heard the shouts and clashing of steel as they’d thundered away. It’d been a fierce, nightmarish affray that shouldn’t have involved two penniless beggars, unless they hadn’t been what they seemed.

  Her eyes, and her imagination, could’ve tricked her.

  Still…

  “Has the chapel’s cold frozen your tongue, my lady?” He leaned toward her, his breath grazing her cheek. “Shall I warm you?”

  “I am fine,” Mirabelle lied. “The cold never bothers me. I much prefer it to being hot.”

  “Indeed?” For a beat, he looked amused.

  “Yes. I mean—” She broke off, realizing her gaffe.

  “I know what you meant.” His levity gone, he looked at her with such a fierce expression that her stomach quivered. “Even so, I would no’ be responsible for you catching a chill. I regret keeping you.”

  “You didn’t.” Mirabelle straightened, hoping to look more confident than she felt.

  It wasn’t easy.

  Rarely had she found herself in such a state, excited, nervous, and terrified.

  “I just arrived.” She kept her gaze steady on his, half sure that the heat in his eyes would soon ignite flames to sweep the length of her.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t come?” He arched a brow, clearly aware she’d spoken an untruth. “You needn’t have doubted. I gave you my word.”

  “You might’ve been delayed, rendered unable to meet me.” She watched him carefully, suspicious. “Much can happen—”

  “Nothing would have stopped me from keeping a promise to you.” He lifted a hand, smoothed his thumb over her lower lip.

  Mirabelle’s entire body warmed as he let his gaze drift down her, from the top of her head to the tips of her rain-damped slippers. There was something in his expression that made her feel as if he wasn’t just looking at her, but removing her clothes. As if he knew very well what he’d see if he’d done so.

  She lifted her chin, not wanting him to guess how powerfully he affected her, that her heart raced from her daring move in meeting him here. She’d crossed a line in doing so.

  Now there could be no retreat.

  “You promised me nothing.” She spoke as calmly as she could. She had to give him the chance to back away. “You weren’t obliged.”

  “I aye keep my word, lass.” He held her gaze, his dark eyes like polished jet in the candlelight. “There were too many years when my word was all I had to be proud of. Ne’er do I misuse or break it. Most especially when it is given to a beautiful lady.”

  Mirabelle swallowed, unable to help herself. “You are a charmer.”

  A slow smile curved his lips. A darkly seductive smile, as unsettling as how he’d let his gaze slide oh-so-suggestively up and down her body. Yet his boldness made her pulse leap. It also warmed her in indecent places. She touched a hand to her breast, feeling both hot and dizzy despite the chill dampness of the chapel.

  He stepped closer, giving her the distinct impression he’d pounce if she so much as blinked. “I am fond of women, aye.”

  “So I have heard.” She kept her head raised, resisted the urge to wipe her palms against her cloak.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “I am relieved.” She spoke true, just not admitting she was indeed jittery. Her emotions were running higher than ever before.

  She was also sharply aware of every ruggedly alluring inch of him, including the oh-so-virile bulge she could see through the edges of his cloak. The glow of a wall sconce slanted right there, proving that he wasn’t just a tall, strapping man, powerfully built and good-looking.

  He was also just as well-lusted as the court ladies claimed.

  Sorley the Hawk wanted her.

  And he was already prepared to do exactly what she’d asked of him.

  She pretended not to have noticed.

  “A lady in my position cannot afford the luxury of nerves.”

  “You are a brave lass.” He considered her, his voice so low, so intimate that her heart beat faster. “I’m impressed by your courage.”

  “All Highland women are strong.” Hoping to appear worldly, she let the hood of her cloak fall back, aware the many candles would shine flatteringly on her hair. She’d left her hair unbound and shook it back now, letting the freshly washed curls tumble to her hips. She knew it was foolish, but she couldn’t shake the urge to distract him as much as his overpoweringly virile presence rattled her. She could hardly breathe, standing so close to him.

  “You should understand my feelings.” She prayed only she heard the tremor in her voice. “I did not make my request lightly. After all I’ve told you, my predicament should be clear.”

  “So it is.” He placed a hand against the small of her back, steering her deeper into the chapel, away from the door. “I sympathize. No matter how highly regarded he is at court, Sir John is a suitor no maid should accept. Even so, I am surprised to find you here.

  “What you have proposed will see you rid of more than an unwanted admirer.” He stopped before a knight’s tomb, releasing her to lean back against the stone gallant’s recumbent form. Resting his palms on the tomb’s edge, he crossed his ankles. The casual pose made him look as if they were discussing the rain drumming on the chapel roof rather than something as monumental as the loss of her maidenhead. “Given the seriousness, the finality of such an act, some lasses might’ve reconsidered.”

  “I am not ‘some lass.’ ” Mirabelle put back her shoulders, trying to ignore how good he looked in the soft glow of the candles.

  “I am a MacLaren, Highland born and bred.” She pretended not to see how his lips twitched as he fought to hide a smile. “There is little I will not do when pressed to a wall. I am not as mild-mannered or kindly-natured as my sire. I do not allow myself to be cornered.

  “And”—she spoke with pride—“there is nothing I fear.”

  “Except Sir John.”

  “I revile him. There is a difference.”

  “Many who have tried to thwart Sinclair are no more, my lady. You may trust that some of those poor souls have been women.”

  “Is there no one brave enough to challenge him?” Mirabelle couldn’t believe there wasn’t.

  She was also sure the one man who could was before her.

  Proving it, Sorley’s gaze chilled. “He knows a sword blade hovers a breath from the back of his neck, that a dirk can be easily slid between a man’s ribs when he sleeps. He is aware he’s watched, my lady.

  “I cannae say more.” His voice was cold, the tightness at his jaw hinting at a man very different from the masterful lover who set court ladies’ hearts to fluttering. “All you need to know is that I understand why you wish to repel his attentions. He is no man for you to marry.”

  “That is why I came to you.” Mirabelle glanced over her shoulder at the door, sure she’d heard something.

  But it was only a mouse scuttling about on the cold stone floor.

  When she turned back to Sorley, he was still leaning against the tomb. His hands remained where they’d been, palms flat on the curved edge of the tomb, his feet crossed at the ankles, as casually as before. But his dark eyes were hooded now, his face shuttered. His mood had changed, turning so guarded the air felt different, seeming to crackle with tension.

  “Is that your only reason, my lady?” His gaze pierced her. “Because you know Sinclair is capable of anything? Because my reputation—”

  “To be sure, I am aware of his villainies.” Mirabelle tried to igno
re the rushing in her ears, the terrible sense that everything was now ruined. “Your reputation is also—”

  “Wicked enough to attract your attention?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Let us speak plainly, Lady Mirabelle.” He stood, his sword clanking against the tomb. “You wish me to defile you so that Sir John, my sworn enemy, will lose interest in you. Odious as he is, he is known to be fastidious in all things. He will not follow where I have been. I believe you know where I mean?” He had the audacity to flick his gaze to the exact part of her that he meant, as if he could see right through her clothes. “Or do you, in your maidenly innocence, need me to explain?”

  Mirabelle bristled, her temper rising.

  Knowing her face flamed, she aimed her own gaze at the sword at his hip. “Perhaps I’d rather hear if you always enter holy places wearing arms?”

  “There are many sacred places, lady, and”—he swept back his rich blue cloak to reveal his sword in all its gleaming magnificence—“as long as there are men who’d sully the sanctity of such sites, I will keep Dragon-Breath—”

  “Dragon-Breath?” Mirabelle seized on the odd name, for he was coming toward her, his steps slow and purposeful.

  “Aye, so my sword is called.” He stopped, setting his hand on the hilt, his expression still hard. “She is named for the knight who gave her to me. He was overly fond of onions. He was also the first man of noble blood to believe in me and”—his face turned even darker—“he should no’ now lie beneath the tainted, weed-choked earth of a ruined abbey’s burial ground. He was cut down fighting the English who defiled the site. His death is a reason I keep my sword at my side where’er I go.

  “I do so whether entering the King’s own chapel or even a Druid’s wood, for such places, to my mind, are possessed of an even greater holiness than anything built by man.” He gave her a slow, measured smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Does that answer your question?”

  “Not all of them.” Mirabelle felt unjustifiably shamed, his words weighing heavy on her heart.

  But she wasn’t about to let him see her vulnerability.

  She also had a terrible suspicion that when he’d spoken of his slain benefactor, he’d meant the neglected burial ground at St. Mary’s Abbey. She knew it well, visiting every time she was in Stirling. She placed flowers on the graves of MacLaren kinsmen who rested there.

  “What else would you like to know?” Sorley smiled again. This time a touch of warmth did reach his eyes, but in a devilish gleam that sent her heart plunging straight to her toes. He sauntered toward her again, the look on his face making her mouth go dry. “Perhaps you wish to hear my answer to your proposal?”

  Annoyed that she was so susceptible to him, she stood her ground, refusing to back away when he stopped right before her, so near that she could feel the dark, masculine heat pouring off him. She was also forced to breathe in his rousing sandalwood scent. Its exoticness, and a subtle, irresistible hint of pure, hot-blooded male, affected her so powerfully that she forgot all reason.

  Lifting her chin, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and gave him a piercing look of her own. “With surety, I want to hear your decision. But first”—she challenged him in the strongest voice she could muster—“I’d like to know why you spent the morning garbed as a penniless beggar.”

  About the same time, but unknown to Mirabelle and Sorley, a woman hovered beside one of the arcade pillars and blessed the chill wet mist blowing across the castle courtyard. Lovely and thick, the shimmering mist hid her well, sparing her pity if anyone happened to notice her.

  She’d never been a vain woman. Her path in life, such as it’d been, hadn’t given her cause for any such posturing or illusions. She’d always known her limitations and accepted them as her due.

  After all, there was more to be said for what dwelled within.

  The good of one’s soul and how caring one’s heart.

  Beauty and its attendant frivol was fleeting. But a heart that loved true, loyalties that never wavered, stayed with a body forever.

  She knew that well.

  Still…

  She didn’t wish to be mistaken for a beggar, and she’d flinched on hearing the word, the fair maid’s voice carrying on the night wind, bringing just that wee snippet of her discourse with the bold, strapping young man who’d joined her in the chapel. She’d watched the arrival of them both, her usual boredom causing her to look on with interest when first the dazzling flame-haired lass crossed the bailey to enter the empty chapel.

  A romantic at heart, despite everything, she’d really taken note when the braw, dashingly clad gallant appeared out of the mist, striding purposefully toward the holy site as if he couldn’t wait to seize his lady to him, perhaps lifting her in the air and swinging her in a circle before pulling her into his arms for a deep, much-anticipated kiss. Or so she imagined as she’d watched them close the chapel door, shutting themselves inside their candlelit trysting place.

  They surely weren’t aware of the barely visible cracks in the chapel’s ancient window glass.

  But she knew.

  One such as her had much time to drift about, mostly unseen or disregarded by passersby, while noticing so many things herself.

  So she’d allowed herself to slip a wee bit closer to the chapel, driven by curiosity and a yearning for what once was and could never be again.

  Hearing the girl accuse the lad of being a penniless beggar surprised and saddened her.

  He’d looked nothing the like to her.

  Nor had the lass struck her as the shallow sort, despite her vibrant good looks.

  Disappointed, the woman drew her rose-colored cloak tighter against the night’s chill. Not that she minded the cold or even the light, mizzling rain. Where she now dwelled, such dreary grayness was commonplace. She’d even learned to embrace the bleakness, sometimes feeling an odd kinship with the racing wind and swirling mists. The bone-deep cold that froze one’s marrow even on the rare days when the sun shone brightly enough to pick out the worn threads and patches that marred her once-lustrous rose mantle.

  Not that she minded the cloak’s sad state.

  All things considered, she was ever so glad she hadn’t lost it when…

  She closed her mind, not wanting to remember what had happened to her. How she’d come to be what she now was. Very much a wraith, she spent her days flitting about with only the sorrow that lived in her heart. Memories were too painful to allow.

  Yet…

  Now and then a glimmer of hope reached her, something that ofttimes seemed too miraculous to be true. Then a tiny part of her, a wee sliver of the happy woman she’d once been, would flare to life and she’d do something reckless like coming here this night.

  And almost every time, the great effort it cost her to appear would be for naught.

  This e’en was no different.

  She’d thought to catch a spark of young love and excitement. Not to spy on the pair. She’d never have stooped so low. She’d only wanted to bask a bit in the glow and warmth of their happiness.

  It would’ve been good for her to have done so.

  As things stood…

  She huddled deeper into her cloak and sighed, knowing that if anyone heard, they’d mistake the sound for the soughing of the night wind.

  It was a night for suchlike.

  Cold, wet, and full of mist, just like the place in which she dwelled. Great dark clouds even raced across the moon. She felt right at home, though she knew well the path back there was forever barred to her.

  So she went where she could, gliding into the chill darkness, embracing the thick wall of mist that soon closed around her.

  Once she’d been someone’s much-loved wife.

  Now she accepted her existence as a wraith.

  There was little else she could do.

  Chapter Seven

  A penniless beggar?”

  Sorley let a trace of humor lace his voice. For good measure, he also met L
ady Mirabelle’s pointed gaze with wide, disbelieving eyes. He was well able to feign astonishment when situations demanded.

  If any saints lingering in the chapel objected to his deception, so be it. As the King dutifully kept candles lit and incense burning, Sorley doubted any such vaunted beings would mind. There was even a precious phial of St. Mungo’s holy blood hidden away in a gold-and-jewel-encrusted box in a secret wall aumbry.

  All that, the King did to honor his God.

  Surely the saints wouldn’t take umbrage to a wee falsehood to protect men who guarded the King?

  Sorley was certain that was so.

  Either way…

  Dealing with Lady Mirabelle called for caution.

  To his horror, she was just as observant as he’d suspected. In his experience, women who were both intelligent and delectable were nothing but trouble. Already, she stood before him like an avenging Valkyrie. Or perhaps a firebrand, her flame-colored hair tumbling to her hips, the unruly curls gleaming in the candlelight. She held herself as straight as if she’d swallowed a spear shaft. Her lovely lavender-blue eyes blazed. The rapid pulse beat at the base of her throat warned she was mightily vexed.

  So was he.

  But he was annoyed with himself, not her.

  The Fenris generally kept their baser urges tethered around females who could endanger the secret engagements of their carefully-guarded order. A woman too clever or inquisitive was passed by for one who wasn’t. Prickly women were to be avoided at all costs. Every man walking knew that once such a female’s temper ignited, she could be trusted to do anything.

  Mirabelle was more than a little prickly.

  Secretly, Sorley admired how glorious she looked in her agitation.

  A true vixen, she’d be insatiable once her passion was wakened.

  Unable to help himself, he allowed his gaze to skim over her breasts. They were full and round, lush curves thrusting beneath her cloak. He was sure her nipples would be pert, well-tightened with the cold and her irritation. How he’d love to feel them harden even more, responding to his questing fingers. Better yet, his lips, as he teased and tasted her.

  Her nipples would only whet his appetite.