Iain’s face darkened. “Married who?”
“Elizabeth Macgillivray.”
A sharp laugh burst from his lips. “Nay. I sent her back home with Gilchrist.”
Joy shot through her and she watched Iain’s eyes as he read her every thought, her innermost feelings, the truths she could no longer conceal. Still, she worked to restrain herself. “Oh, it must have been disappointing for her.”
He laughed again. “Well, she didna appear overly distraught.” He leaned down to kiss her and she parted her lips for him, tasting the salty slickness of his tongue as it played at the edges of her mouth.
She drew back suddenly. “Iain, there is much I must tell you. Reynold and I—”
He gripped her shoulders and his expression sobered. “He didna harm ye?” His gaze roved over her, inspecting her for signs of damage.
She shook her head and cupped his face in her hands. “Nay, nay, he did not.”
His indigo gaze bore into hers and she beat back the memory of Reynold’s manhandling, fearful Iain would read the truth in her eyes. He leaned in for another kiss.
“You came for me,” she whispered.
“Did ye think I wouldna?”
“I—”
Hamish burst through the trees and rode past them, a satisfied grin contrasting sharply against the sweat and dried blood that caked his ruddy face. He nodded once at Iain and kept moving, urging his gray gelding deeper into the forest.
“Come, love,” Iain said, taking up his stallion’s reins. “We must away. ’Tis no’ safe here.”
She stilled his hand. “Iain, I told Reynold nothing. I—I wanted you to think I had, but—”
He dropped the reins and embraced her, silencing her with a gentle kiss. “Hush, now. I know ye didna.”
“I would never—”
He stilled her with another kiss, then pressed his lips to her ear. “Later.”
He took up the reins and she repositioned herself in front of him, astride the roan.
Will came up behind them and reached for Destiny’s reins. He smiled at her as he urged his mount forward, the black trailing behind looking remarkably refreshed after the short rest.
“’Tis a fine animal,” Iain said.
“Destiny, you mean?”
Iain studied her. In his eyes she read not only love, but remnants of the fear and anguish she’d seen as she thundered toward him, racing for her life. And his.
“Aye, Destiny,” he whispered, and enfolded her in his arms as the roan bore them deep into the wood.
After dark they stopped at a small crofter’s cottage, nestled deep in the Highland forest that ran along the border of Grant and Mackintosh land. The croft was unoccupied but Alena could tell from its cleanliness and the stores of food near the hearth its owners must not be far.
“Someone lives here.” She knelt and lit a fire in the hearth. The dry twigs and peat caught at once. Flames crackled into life.
“Aye, one of my kinsmen,” Iain said, closing the door behind them. “He is likely gone to Findhorn Castle to join up with Alistair and the rest of our warriors. We are safe enough here, for tonight.”
She peeked out the small window. Iain’s men busily made camp outside in the clearing surrounding the cottage. She smiled, noticing Will had already started a fire and had a few wild hares spitted and roasting across the coals. She unfurled the deerskin window covering and the cottage took on a warm glow, the radiance of the small hearth fire lending a comforting charm to the spartan surroundings.
Iain sat heavily on the pallet in the corner and tugged off his worn muddy boots. He watched her as he removed the silver clan badge securing his plaid to his shoulder, and pushed the woolen fabric to his waist. His face was drawn, etched with the burden of responsibility, but his eyes were warm and danced in the firelight.
“Come here,” he said, and opened his arms to her.
She moved across the hard dirt floor and into his embrace. He gathered her into his lap and held her tightly, nuzzling against her breast. Ah, he felt good! She ran her hands through his thick chestnut hair and clutched him to her.
“Why did ye no’ tell me the truth?” he whispered. “Christ, ’tis a wonder ye werena killed.” His arms tightened around her. “I could no’ have forgiven myself if…”
He looked at her with shimmering eyes and she cupped his face in her hands. “I love you, Iain.”
“And I you,” he murmured, his voice husky with emotion. He bore her back on the bed and claimed her mouth in a relishing kiss.
She felt as if she were melting into him, losing herself beneath his comforting weight.
He pulled back a bit to look at her, and frowned. “I’ve got blood on your bonny face.” He licked his thumb and wiped it across her cheek. After surveying his stained, muddied garments and dirty hands, he stood up. “I’m no’ fit to touch ye.”
“I’m not much better, myself,” she said, examining the sorry state of her gown and the dirt caked under her fingernails.
Spying a bucket on the floor next to the food stores, she scrambled from the pallet and lifted it onto the table in front of the hearth. She sniffed at it cautiously, then tasted a drop from her fingertip. “’Tis water.” She smiled, satisfied.
She rummaged through the cottage for a few minutes until she found what she sought: a pile of clean linen, which she set on the table next to the bucket of water. She turned to Iain, beckoning. “Come, I shall wash you.”
His eyes sparkled—dark gemstones in the firelight. A slow smile spread across his face. She watched, her heart fluttering, as he rose from the pallet and pulled off his shirt.
He moved toward her and she let her gaze rove over the taut, burnished muscles of his chest and arms, the dark ringlets of hair glistening with perspiration. Her cheeks flushed hot. ’Twas silly. She’d seen him unclothed before. All the same, a warmth spread through her as he inched closer, so close she could feel his breath on her upturned face.
She ripped a square of linen from the stack on the table and dipped it into the cool water. Turning to Iain, she hesitated, unsure of where to begin. He smiled at her, his eyes warm and filled with love, assuaging her mild embarrassment.
Gently, she sponged the dirt and dried blood from his face. He watched her for a while, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back as she moved the cloth lower over his neck and shoulders. She remoistened the square of linen and drew it in a circular motion over the hard muscles of his chest.
He reached out blindly and grasped her waist, pulling her closer as she continued the slow, deliberate strokes. He rolled his head forward and, through slitted eyes, fixed his gaze on her. She inched the cloth lower over the taut muscles of his abdomen.
“Ye set me afire with your touch,” he whispered huskily.
Her hands began to tremble as she moved closer and wrapped her arms around him, sponging the muscles of his back. His scent aroused her and she unconsciously let her lips wander over his softly furred chest, breathing in his maleness, tasting the saltiness of his skin. His body was an inferno stoking her own rapidly growing desire.
She wanted him, needed him to possess her so she might forget, for a time, the impossibility of their situation.
He moaned and pulled her tight against him, his mouth desperately searching out hers and claiming her lips once more. She sagged against him, letting him bear her weight in his strong embrace. Parting her lips, she welcomed his tongue into her mouth. His hands moved to her braid. He untied the ribbon securing it and ran his fingers through the plait, freeing her hair.
He broke the kiss abruptly and held her away from him, his eyes dark, glazed with desire. “Now you,” he whispered, and worked loose the laces at the back of her gown.
She closed her eyes as he tugged the gown from her shoulders and pushed it down over her hips. It slipped to the floor, a pool of dusky rose at her feet. Iain took her hands and she stepped away from it.
He loosened the ribbon tie of her thin shift. The sensation of h
is rough fingers on her warming skin sent sparks to her breasts. His gaze was fixed on the dusky peaks straining against the fabric.
He remoistened the cloth and handed it back to her, then tore a strip of linen for himself and dipped it into the bucket. Jesu, he meant them to bathe each other! He pressed the wet cloth to her collarbone, and rivulets of cool water snaked down her body under the shift, shocking her.
Her breath caught and her eyes grew wide, meeting his smoldering gaze. “Iain,” she breathed, and moved her own square of linen to his chest.
With one hand he fumbled with the wide leather belt that bound his kilt, unbuckled it, and cast it away. The plaid slipped to the floor and he kicked it behind him, standing naked before her.
She allowed her gaze to roam over him, drinking in his long, well-muscled legs, narrow hips and flat belly. Her eyes were drawn lower and her cheeks flushed hot with the memory of their last lovemaking.
Iain continued his ministrations, gently pulling the front of her shift open and drawing the damp linen over the rise of her breasts.
She stepped closer and let her cloth slide over his hips to the small of his back, then sponged the taut muscles of his buttocks and the backs of his thighs.
He moaned with pleasure and she thrilled at the power wielded in her touch. He yanked the thin shift down over her hips, letting it drop to the floor.
Closing her eyes, she sucked in her breath and rolled her head back. She was his now. Nothing could change that. Even if he did not want her after what she had to tell him, still she would be his.
Their hands moved over each other more urgently, washing the dust and perspiration from their skin. Suddenly he dropped the cloth. He lifted her in his arms, and pulled her down on top of him onto the small pallet that would serve as their bed.
“I need ye, love,” he murmured as he ran his hands over her hips, positioning her on top of him. “I need to be inside ye.”
She could feel his heart beating in his chest and let her lips brush over the soft, dark hairs. Her mouth grazed his nipple and he groaned, his face tight with need.
He pushed her up so that she sat astride him, then positioned her hips until she felt the tip of his velvet hardness throb against her.
“Oh…” Her own desire bloomed. She was ready.
Their eyes locked. He held her fast and thrust upward, sheathing himself inside her. She gasped with pleasure and threw her head back, pushing down against him. Her breath caught again as he thrust his hips a second time. She rolled her head forward and caught his passion-filled gaze, his eyes mere slits, a wild, feral look to them.
He tightened his grip on her and began to move her slowly back and forth astride him, each time withdrawing then thrusting upward again.
She felt flushed, light-headed, and grasped his arms for support. She moved at the rhythm he set and immediately felt the deep centering again, the focus of all sensation: heat, pleasure, a complete surrendering of her body and her soul.
Her gaze was fixed upon him and he began to thrust harder, his body taut, his hands clamping down on the soft flesh of her hips. The room closed in upon her, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and their short, sharp breaths.
He pulled her closer and laved her breasts, suckling greedily on one inflamed nipple, then the other.
They blazed up together.
“Oh, Iain, please…I—”
She bucked astride him, her body white-hot, as he moved his hand between her legs, shattering all her mysteries.
His shuddering release and strangled cry pushed her higher still, as she seized her own fulfillment and became one with him in that secret place where only he could take her.
Hours later she wrapped Iain’s plaid around her and tossed another faggot onto the fire, which had burned to glowing embers. The dry larch caught immediately. Its bright flame bathed the cottage in a soft light.
Iain sat naked on the edge of the pallet they’d made their bed. “Ye look bonny in the Mackintosh tartan.”
She smiled.
“It suits ye. I would see ye always dressed so.”
Her emotions churned. Love, joy, desperation and visceral fear all roiled within her. She rose and stood with her hands outstretched toward the crackling fire.
She must tell him.
He joined her in front of the hearth, snuggling up behind her, and wrapped his arms ’round her waist. She laid her head back on his chest and felt the comfort of his chin rest lightly on her head.
“Marry me, Alena.”
She tensed in his arms. She knew he sensed it, and did not want to meet his questioning gaze when he turned her to face him. “Iain, there is something you must know.”
He tilted her chin up so she had to meet his eyes. “What, more secrets?”
Her heart, replete with love, felt as if it were breaking. More than anything she wished to be his wife. She mustered her courage. “I am not who you think I am, Iain.”
“Ah, but ye are.” He smiled, ran his hands through her hair and cupped her face. “And now that I see it, never again can I look on your bonny face and no’ remember the wee lass I once loved, and love still.”
His words stirred a bittersweet joy within her, but pain and fear burned bright at its edges like some dark halo, a portent of despair. “Nay, I do not mean that. I mean…Iain, the Todds are not my true parents.”
There. She’d said it. There was no going back.
She pulled herself from his embrace and retrieved her woolen gown from the floor. He watched her, his expression unreadable, as she drew the rolled parchments from the pocket of the gown. Her hand trembling, she thrust the documents toward him.
He took them but, to her surprise, made no move to unfurl them. He cradled them in his hands, weighing them it seemed, as if to determine their value.
She drew a breath and exhaled slowly. “Iain, my mother was not some lady’s maid, but Beatrix of Angoulême.”
His expression did not change, and for a moment she was certain he had not heard her. Or perhaps he knew nothing of French nobility. Why would he? She hadn’t. Then his face softened. “I know, love.”
“You know?”
“Aye. Alistair told me, not an hour before I rode for Glenmore Castle.”
“But how did Alistair—” Her words died on her lips as she recalled the day in her chamber when Margaret Davidson had come to see her. Her instincts had been right. The lady had known her.
“The priest told him. On their journey to Braedûn Lodge.”
“Father Ambrose!” The priest had remembered her. “But how on earth did he find out?”
“The day he carried news of you to the Todds, he overheard them talking about your tie to Angoulême.”
“And yet he revealed nothing whilst at Braedûn. Why? He owes no loyalty to me or mine.”
“Aye, but he owes much to Alistair. And my uncle can be a verra persuasive man. He bade Ambrose keep the secret until he could decide what to do.”
“And had I not left, what would he have done? What would you have done, had you known then?”
Iain smiled. “I know not. It doesna matter now, love.”
But it did matter. Her body grew suddenly cold. “You knew before you came for me,” she whispered, barely hearing her own voice, “that Beatrix of Angoulême was my mother.”
“I did. What of it?” He moved to embrace her but she stepped back and pulled the plaid tighter across her chest. The light went out of his eyes and they seemed cool now, almost hard, in the flickering firelight. “Ye have powerful allies, now, should ye wish them,” he said evenly.
“What do you mean?”
He looked away from her into the fire. “King John, of course. Of England.”
He was making no sense. “I don’t understand.”
He snorted and tossed his head, a gesture of impatience she knew well. He grasped her by the shoulders, crushing the parchments in his hand. “Lass, his wife, the child bride John took not three years ago. Isabella.”
&nbs
p; She shook her head, now completely puzzled. This meant nothing to her. She knew naught of the dealings of English kings.
“Isabella of Angoulême—your mother’s youngest sister—your aunt.”
A sudden wave of nausea gripped her. “But, my moth—I mean, Madeleine Todd, she told me naught of this.”
“Perhaps she didna know. The lass was born after your mother’s death at childbed.”
She felt light-headed all of a sudden and swayed in Iain’s arms. He tightened his grip on her. “This Isabella, she would be almost of an age with me?”
“It seems she would, though I dinna know for certain.”
“And you knew all of this,” she said, pushing back from him. “Before you came for me. Before you sent Elizabeth Macgillivray away.”
He tried to pull her back into his embrace but she resisted. “I did, but—”
“I see. That is why you wish to wed me. ’Twould mean a great alliance for you. Not only with France, but with England, as well.”
She turned to the hearth, gripping the rough stones for support. Tears stung her eyes and she could not bear to look at him. “My God, what would you be worth to our own King William should you bring him such a prize?”
“Alena.” His hands lit on her shoulders.
“Nay! Do not touch me!” She tried to pull away but he held her fast.
In their struggle the plaid slipped from her body and he caught her up, naked, in his arms. She beat against him, pleading with him to let her go, her tears flowing unbidden, her emotions unchecked.
He shook her, his face twisting in what she sensed was pain. “Bluidy hell, woman! Think ye I care a whit about alliances with England or France?”
He was shaking. She brushed her tears away and looked into his eyes. They were soft now, darkest blue in the firelight. Her breathing steadied, as did his, and they stood there for a moment studying each other, the silence like a great distance between them.
“Don’t you?” she whispered. “Wish such an alliance, I mean.”
“Don’t you?” He abruptly let her go and stared into the fire, fisting his hands at his sides. She watched as his knuckles went white, as if there were some great struggle going on inside him.
The Mackintosh Bride Page 22