Isabel glared at him. “Men in London court would crawl on their hands and knees to kiss my hand, let alone have me come to them like this. You have no idea who it is you are turning away.”
Ian shrugged. “It doesna matter. I know the woman I want.”
Isabel shook her head. “You’re as ridiculous as she is. Perhaps you two deserve one another. You can chase after her while she’s chasing after her revenge, and not a one of you will end up happy. But know this … ” She stabbed a finger at him. “You will never mean as much to her as those she intends to kill. Never.”
Isabel spun on her heel and stomped from the room, the tendrils of her filmy garment jerking and knotting on the floor as it trailed behind her. Before she could reach the door, she turned to face him once more. “My cousin is King James, you daft fool. You could have had royalty riding you.”
She wrenched the door open and let it slam shut behind her.
He stared at the closed door and gave a long exhale of relief. Cousin to the king. He chuckled and shook his head. All the more reason to not have lain with her.
And probably a good thing she left so abruptly rather than give him time to voice his opinion.
Were Sylvi any other woman, he wouldn’t have cared. In fact, before Sylvi, he would have readily taken Isabel up on her offer. A couple of times in fact. Better to be loved for the night than to be alone.
But Sylvi was like a wild horse in a stable of mares. She was power and beauty and strength where the others were meekly compliant. Unbroken horses were dangerous, and yet it was part of their appeal. To tame one created a bond unlike any other, if it didn’t kill you first.
Sylvi.
She would kill him for certain if she knew he’d just compared her to a horse in his mind.
Thinking of her ferocity made him crave her again.
He’d noticed her slight smiles when he spoke that evening. She was starting to warm toward him, even if she didn’t realize it.
He was edging his way in, earning trust with a woman who did not give it easily. It was part of her challenge, part of her charm, all the things that drove him delightfully mad.
He strode to the door, intent on going to see Sylvi—eager to wipe clean Isabel’s bawdy attempt at seduction and the ugliness of her bitter words.
•••
Sylvi slammed her body onto the bed. Her blood pounded through her veins hard enough to leave her cheeks burning with heat.
Isabel was in Ian’s room.
This was what Sylvi had wanted. He would be distracted with his new conquest and would leave her the hell alone.
An unbidden image flashed in her mind of him locked in an embrace with Isabel, his gaze devouring her beautiful face and lush body.
Sylvi’s heart wrenched and energy swelled through her.
She wanted to fight someone, to swing her blade with all the anger raging through her and feel something break beneath the force of her blows. Ian had been so charming. He’d paid her such attention—she should have known his affections were false.
She was not an attractive woman. Not like the sensual softness of Isabel or the quiet mystery of Liv—and nowhere near the infallible beauty of Percy. She was battle scarred and irreparably broken.
What man would need her for anything more than her skilled blade?
With Ian, she had been available. She filled a basic need. She had been the one to initiate the first of their lovemaking. No—not lovemaking. Rutting. They did not make love, and now she was glad for it.
She jerked her body over to lay on her side. His angel, indeed. What a fool she would be to have believed him.
And after all, isn’t this what she had wanted? For him to leave her alone, to turn his attention to someone more willing to return it.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the wall she faced and tried to wrestle sleep into taking her. A quiet knock sounded from her door. Her eyes flew open, and damn him if her first thought wasn’t of Ian.
Renewed anger blazed through her at the ridiculous hope.
Of course it wasn’t him on the other side of the door. He would be busy still with Isabel.
But perhaps it was Percy. The rage faded to a simmer. Percy would not bother her sleep unless it was of great import, and the woman had been extraordinarily upset over the death of Gregor.
The knock sounded again, just as soft but more insistent.
Sylvi pulled herself from the bed and opened her door.
Ian stood there with a smear of red over his mouth.
His presence hit her like a gut punch, and the emotions poured through her with more speed than she could stop.
Excitement.
Horror.
Outrage.
He nodded as if confirming something to himself. “As I thought. Ye were too busy to come to my room.”
“Did you want me to join you and Isabel?” she asked in an icy tone.
At the very mention of the other woman’s name, the spicy foreign scent of Isabel coiled around her like a serpent.
Ian’s jaw flexed. “How did ye know?”
“I saw her enter your room, as I see the color of her lips smeared on your face and smell her perfume on your skin.” She pushed her door to close it.
He shoved his palm against the wood, stopping her. With his free hand, he dragged his fingers over his mouth, looked down at the brilliant red wax, and cursed.
“It isna what ye think,” he said.
“So she wasn’t in your room?” Sylvi lifted a brow in invitation for him to continue. Her grip, however, remained on the door in the event of a ready need to slam it in his face.
Ian sighed and shook his head. “Nay, ye’re right. She was in my room. I dinna open the door—she came in and … ” He tapered off.
“Offered herself to you.”
He nodded.
She eyed the red wax smeared on his face and hand. “She was not enough and so now you need more?”
His eyes widened. “Ye canna think I would abandon my angel so easily.”
“Can’t I?” She pushed at the door, but he caught it in his hands and held it in place.
He gazed down at her with so much sincerity, her heart swelled with effect. “If I wanted her, I would have had her,” he said. “And I wouldna be here.”
Her pushing faltered. Perhaps he meant it, that he truly wanted her. The relaxed hold on the door worked to Ian’s advantage, and he pressed it open several inches wider.
“Is it so hard to believe I want ye, Sylvi?”
Yes.
The word lodged in her throat, and the fight bled out of her. She dropped her hands and stepped back. He could take it as an invitation if he wished. She no longer cared to fight.
He stepped in and left a smear of red on the door where he held it before letting it gently close behind him. He dragged his hands over his mouth in a continuous sweeping motion, rubbing at the red lip wax.
Sylvi watched him carefully, not yet eager to welcome him into her room despite his presence.
“Isabel is beautiful,” she said.
“I’m going to assume yer girls are not whores to let out.”
He might well have slapped her. Sylvi sucked in a breath. “Of course not.”
He shrugged. “I know what ye expected of me. I’d prefer to be flattered that ye know they’d find me attractive rather than offended ye dinna trust me well enough not to pull my cock from my kilt for every bonny lass I see.”
“That isn’t what I thought. I—” Except it was what she thought. Shame burned at her cheeks.
“Aye,” he said. “Isabel is bonny.”
She slid her gaze slowly toward him.
“And a bit odd if I’m being honest.” His dark brows rose, and he grinned at her from beneath his well-trimmed beard. “But she isna Sylvi.”
He stepped closer to her, and all the air in the room sucked away, leaving her breathless. She looked up at him. She wanted to be
lieve him. “And what is it about me that draws you?”
He gave her a lopsided smile, which lodged its way into her heart. “Yers is a trust worth winning, ye’re fierce and beautiful in your power, and—” He paused. “Ye’re my angel.”
The word that had once rankled her nerves now tickled relief through the tension of her uncertainty. “You know I hate it when you call me that.” She couldn’t help but smile as she spoke.
“Ye know that’s why I do it.” He winked at her, his golden eyes dancing with mischief. “It’s part of my charm.”
His arms came around her, warm and wonderfully masculine. She didn’t pull away or push at him. No, she melted into the embrace with a sigh locked in her soul, and rested her head against his large chest. His heartbeat steady and sure beneath her ear, a rhythmic thumping she wanted to fall asleep to.
“I want to love ye, Sylvi.” His whisper washed warm over the skin of her neck and left gooseflesh prickling her flesh. He increased his grip on her, and she closed her eyes to savor the wave of euphoria.
She was the last woman who needed protection, but damn he made her feel safe in a way even her dagger never could.
Ian nuzzled his nose against her neck, and the warmth of his tongue flicked against her earlobe. “I thought I was going to lose ye when I saw that bastard aiming his crossbow at ye.”
A little shiver of anticipation wound through her.
His teeth nipped where he had so teasingly licked. “I couldna lose ye. We’ve no’ had enough time yet. We have no’ yet killed Reginald, we have no’ spent an entire week lost in a haze of lovemaking. We have no’ had an evening under a moonlit glen.”
She laughed and leaned back to look at him. Mirth twinkled in his eyes. “An evening under a moonlit glen?”
He shrugged. “It sounds verra romantic, dinna ye think? I’d like to experience it with ye.”
“I’m not much of a romantic, and anyway, it’s too cold.”
He slid her a sly glance. “We’ll keep each other warm. And I did save yer life.” He looked away in a show of innocent helplessness.
She laughed again and pushed at him. “You don’t fight fair.”
“I’ll take it that’s an aye, then?” He grinned, his teeth brilliant white against the darkness of his beard.
“Is there even a glen nearby?”
“If there is, I’ll find it.” His hands slid around her waist, and his gaze darkened with a desire she knew so deliciously well. “And I’ll make love to ye there beneath the moon tomorrow.” Then his mouth opened over hers, and he was kissing away her protest to his silly request.
Right then, with her body pulsing with want and his strong hands caressing her skin, she found it impossible to say no to Ian Campbell.
Chapter 11
The search through the neighboring towns near Kindrochit had not revealed Reginald or his men. The sun was still high enough for Ian to make out Sylvi’s stern expression beside him. Disappointment blanketed her in a shroud.
Were he a typical man and she a typical woman, he would have asked after how she fared. But he was not the kind of man who broached such topics any more than she was the type of woman to share. Especially when he knew well enough what lay heaviest on her heart.
“We could scout the outlaying area of town.” Ian scanned through the surrounding forest. The trees had thickened around them—the perfect location for Reginald to set up a camp. “The men stayed on the outskirts.”
“Wouldn’t they have taken their drink and whoring within?” she asked.
A valid point.
Sylvi turned in her saddle to regard him. “How is it you know the men and their habits so well? You never explained exactly why they want to kill you.”
He kept his gaze fixed on her rather than let his stare slide away, a sure sign he was keeping something from her. And he had been. She’d asked several times and he’d evaded her questions. He should tell her, he knew.
He should.
“And ye never told me how much they paid ye.” He tried a smile, but it was not returned. Humor would most certainly not work in this case.
“It was after I left home,” he said finally. “I met them at a tavern.” He waved a hand dismissively. “They looked like they were having fun.”
“Fun?” Her stare hardened.
“It’d been a while since I’d had fun.” He couldn’t keep the cynicism from his voice any more than he could stop the memory of Simon and his father from flashing through his mind. Faces bloated and blue, eyes bulging. The creak of Ian’s saddle suddenly reminiscent of the long, low groan of a swinging rope burdened with a corpse.
“Raping women and killing children is fun?” The anger in Sylvi’s tone scraped into Ian’s awareness.
“I prefer my women willing,” he countered. When the tension in her shoulders didn’t ease, he tried again. “Ye know I dinna do such things, Sylvi.”
She shook her head. “That’s the thing, Ian—I don’t.”
She turned away from him, her gaze once more fixed on the trail. An abrupt command erupted from her lips, and the black steed beneath her raced forward into a thundering gallop, propelling her away from him.
Ian snapped his reins and bellowed at his horse. Like hell he would let her run from him. The lass was fast. He’d give her that. She’d put quite a bit of space between them, but he managed to get closer to her. He hugged his body to his steed to gain additional speed.
It worked. He pushed forward far enough to be able to spin his horse to a stop in front of hers on the narrow forest trail and force her to stop.
She jerked the reins of her horse and stared at him. Her chest heaved with her effort, her breasts round and high and deliciously evident in her bodice. She looked every bit the part of the lower born noble she played, her blue gown and wide black cloak plain but of sufficient quality. Several ribbons fluttered in her pale blonde hair, tousled free by the recklessness of her ride.
She glared. “Move.”
“I dinna think ye’d ever be one to run from anything.”
“I wasn’t—” She clenched her jaw.
He was right and they both knew it.
He pushed off his horse. A risky move, perhaps. She could easily bolt again, and it’d be all the more difficult to catch her. He made his way to her horse and stood beside it. If he offered to help her down, he knew she’d refuse. And if he didn’t approach her, she might not feel inclined to join him on the forest path.
His angel always was a game carefully played.
Now she knew what he wanted, and she would make her own decision.
She slid from her saddle and landed softly beside him.
The subtle rustles of forest life came from deep within the surrounding trees. He let the quiet sound fill the gap between them for a moment before he reached for her hand. She let him take it, but did not step closer to him. Her palm was hot and damp.
“Ye want to know why they want me dead?” he asked. “They sought to take a woman who wasna willing and I stopped them.”
The skin around her eyes tightened.
“They dinna much care for me interfering,” he continued. “They tried to kill me. Luckily, I’m too good to be killed by only a few men.”
He did grin at this, and Sylvi’s wary expression eased. His charm was working once more.
“Ye say ye dinna know if I would kill children or rape women. But ye do, dinna ye?” He met her eyes and the hardness there softened.
“You wouldn’t.” There was a conviction to her tone that stroked his wounded pride. “I … ” She shook her head. “I had this fear you’d worked alongside them, lived with them, I don’t know—been part of them.”
A cold ball knotted itself in Ian’s stomach. He had worked alongside them. For only about four months. Enough time to take several mercenary positions, fighting for coin, gleaning information when necessary. It was something to fill in the gap leaving his family had made—the wide, gap
ing hole he hadn’t expected. Leaving Dunstaffnage Castle was supposed to shove it all away, the same as his light jests did.
Roaming with those men only exacerbated the hollowness in his chest.
Sylvi, with her resolve and fortitude, had given him a sense of purpose again—a fight for vengeance, something noble, something honest. A way to make some right to all the wrong he’d done.
He should tell her of his true involvement with them. Crack the trust she’d given him now rather than render it shattered later. Cracks could at least be mended in time.
“You are a good man, Ian Campbell.” She stepped toward him and pressed a kiss to his lips, sweet and delicate with a shyness he would never expect from Sylvi.
The kind of kiss one gives when they care too much and it leaves them frightened with uncertainty.
Warmth glowed to life in his chest and quickly cooled. He was not a good man. Or at least he hadn’t been. And even now he was not opening his mouth to speak the truth.
Tell her.
She kissed him again with more confidence. “Nothing to say? Have I finally brushed past your charming arrogance?” She gave a soft laugh, a husky, throaty sound.
Tell her.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Not a confession, not a thought, not even a mindless jest fired on reflex rather than consideration.
He knew then, as he stared deep into the warming depths of her cool blue eyes, he could not tell her. And he knew himself to be a miserable coward for it. He had run from his home, he had run from Reginald’s men, and he was still running.
He couldn’t do it now, but he would.
Later.
When they went to the moonlit glen, after she had softened from their lovemaking, when they were fully and completely alone. It would be then he would be honest with her.
“So, ye think I’m charming?” The quip came out flat to his own ears, but her broadening smile told him she didn’t notice.
“Are you ignoring that I called you arrogant too?”
He cocked his head. “Did ye say something?”
“Apparently not.” She turned from him, but not before he caught the good-natured eye roll.
Regret twisted around him and held him in place where he stood. The smile on his face was tight and near cracking, as if it was made of plaster.
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