by Karen Ranney
“Pleasure, please,” she said, the words honeyed and languid.
She flattened her hands on his chest, pushing him back onto the ground. Harlot or wife, temptress or wallflower, it simply didn’t matter. He was Alisdair and she was Iseabal, man and woman.
He was driving deep inside her, so fast and so full that she nearly screamed with the pleasure of it.
If her heart beat, it was incidental. If her blood ceased flowing, she would not have known, because every every sense was centered on him and this blessedly swift possession.
She rose slowly, then down again, savoring each pulsing beat of sensation. His hand bracketed her waist, his hips arched beneath her, but she refused to hurry, trapped in a feeling so perfect that it seemed as crystal as a raindrop, as fiercely bright as a rainbow.
Her head arched back, she crossed her hands over her naked breasts and clutched her shoulders, so intent was she in the pure selfishness of this moment, adrift in pleasure so acute that it skirted the edge of pain.
He stilled beneath her, the harshness of his breathing the only indication that he was as needy as she. No words passed between them, and the only place they touched was where he was buried inside her, intrusive and hard.
She rocked on her knees, the sudden spurt of delight almost too much to hold inside. Reaching down, she gripped his hands, placing them on her breasts. His fingers were cooler than her skin, and the feeling of his palms brushing back and forth against her nipples was a soothing relief.
Unexpectedly, he moved, toppling her in such a gracefully executed turn that she wondered if he was much practiced at it. One of his hands cradled the back of her head, the other her shoulder, so that she was protected from the ground.
She dug her fingers into the earth, pushing herself toward him. Gripping his back with nails grown sharp for the task, Iseabal suddenly felt that she was no longer simply a woman, but another type of beast, female and ferocious.
Her hips arched upward, her internal muscles clenching him tight. She had marked him as hers, and now she wanted everything. All of what he’d given her before, and more.
There were no shattering stars behind her lids, no rainbow hues on the ceiling of the cave. For a moment there was nothing at all, as if the entire world had collapsed around her. All she could feel were waves of pleasure so strong that she seemed to undulate with them.
Her body felt as if it did not belong to her in that instant, a strange metamorphosis accomplished as her hips arched and her shoulders drew back. Her lips fell open, preparing for a scream, but there was no sound of delight or satisfaction, only an openmouthed welcome to this new and different person she had become.
He lay stunned, his mind reeling from what had just happened. Loving Iseabal had not simply been an act of lust or seduction, but a passion so intense that Alisdair felt as if his body had been turned inside out.
Iseabal’s head rested on his arm, her hand flattened against his chest beneath his shirt. He, in turn, held her tightly against him, closing his eyes with a sudden feeling of tenderness. If she moved, it would be with his permission, and if he wanted to rise, she would be the one to allow it.
Possession.
His eyes blinked open and he stared at the tips of the trees pointing the way to this bald patch of earth. That was what their loving had been, he realized. They’d each claimed the other. Not in gentleness or tenderness, but with a fevered passion that left his body thrumming.
Her fingers idly smoothed against his chest, making him suddenly wish that he had a half-dozen hands. One to guide her fingers to his erection, one to hold her face steady for his lips, another to feel the whole of her body. The core of her would require at least two hands to explore hidden hollows and welcoming secret places. But people waited, even as he wished they didn’t, and duty summoned him, even though he would willingly relinquish it.
Alisdair helped her dress, each garment she donned rewarded with a kiss. Iseabal was breathless by the time her petticoat was tied at her waist, her blood heating once more as he helped her slowly fasten her jacket.
He had donned his clothes with greater speed than she, but then, he was able to do so without assistance.
“You dressed too quickly,” she said absently, her fingers stroking the front of his coat. How strange that she should want to touch him all the time. A pat on his arm, a clasp of his hand, tiny gestures that reassured her in some odd way.
The faint light illuminated his eyes, sparkling like the water on the loch, and his smile, endearingly crooked. A lock of hair had fallen down over his brow and she pushed it back with tender fingers, thinking that he had never looked as handsome or as young as at this moment.
“Must we leave?”
“Shall we make our home here, Iseabal?” he asked. “Build a tiny cabin upon this knoll?”
“Yes, please,” she said, smiling up at him. “We’ll make a bower of this place, Alisdair. You’ll hunt for our food and I’ll cook it here.”
His response was to grin at her.
One part of her, protected by caution all these years, watched with wariness, suspicious of this feeling. But the childish and impulsive and impossibly reckless Iseabal, gloried in loving Alisdair.
Happiness was enervating, making her feel as buoyant as a cloud, almost hollow inside, as if every despairing thought, any worry, any emotion less than delight, had no place there.
Laying her cheek against his chest, Iseabal knew that if memory should ever be stripped from her, she would forever be able to recall this day, and this particular moment, standing on a sunny hill with Alisdair.
“Iseabal,” he said gently, and then seemed to falter for words much in the same way she did around him.
Instead of speaking further, he turned with her in his arms, surveying the vista in front of them. There was Gilmuir sparkling in the sunlight, and beyond, the glittering waters of Loch Euliss.
Feeling him stiffen, she glanced at his face. He was staring at the western horizon with a frown.
“What is it, Alisdair?” she asked.
He glanced down at her and then back to the rolling hills. “A fire,” he said simply.
Iseabal studied the hills to the right. The sky above them was growing darker, thick black smoke curling into the air like a giant puff from a celestial pipe.
“Lightning often causes a fire,” she said, feeling a curious sense of dread.
“There is no sign of recent rain,” he replied, his hands sliding to her wrists. Iseabal stood so close that she could feel him breathe against her back.
“Someone might be a poor cook,” she said faintly.
Alisdair squeezed her hands in wordless acknowledgment of her attempt at humor.
He came to stand in front of her, bending to kiss her lightly. “Will you wait for me here?” he asked.
“What are you going to do, Alisdair?” She held her palms against his chest, by will alone refraining from voicing her sudden worry.
Men do not like a complaining wife, a lesson she had learned well enough in her childhood. Men went off to defend their land, or to visit Inverness or Edinburgh, and, before her birth, to war itself. On such occasions as this, a wife knew well enough not to badger or cajole or even attempt to convince a man not to do his duty. Instead, a woman was supposed to stand, wait, and watch, just as Alisdair had asked of her.
“Must you go?” she asked, unable to forestall that one question.
“It’s MacRae land,” he said, folding his hand over hers. “Will you stay?” he asked again, and she nodded reluctantly, determined not to show her sudden and disconcerting fear.
Daniel was consulting his log when he was abruptly lifted off his feet from behind. In that instant of disorientation, a host of possibilities came to mind. Thieves or sailors impressing him into the British navy, or simply wharf rats about their mischief. He began to struggle, his legs flailing, when the sound of laughter halted him in mid-kick.
“If you’re a MacRae,” he said, his irritation swift an
d strong, “then you’d better put me down.”
“You’re an easy target for mischief, Daniel, when you’re too intent on your lists,” Hamish said, releasing him.
Daniel turned to face the four of them, every single one of the MacRae brothers smiling. He’d been the brunt of their jokes before, but he’d rarely been as annoyed as now. Because of the interruption, he would have to begin counting the barrels of rice flour again.
“Where’s Alisdair?” Hamish asked.
“Where’s the Fortitude?”
“What are you doing here on this floating jetsam?”
Question upon question was hurled at him and he refused to answer, choosing to frown at them instead. One by one, they seemed to notice his irritation, falling blessedly silent.
Before he answered their questions, he asked one of his own. “How did you find me?” The merchantman was one of several hundred vessels in London’s port.
“We inquired of the harbormasters,” James said. “Strangely enough, not one of them knew when the Fortitude departed for Nova Scotia, but the mention of the MacRae name brought about a very curious reaction.”
“They all nearly spit when talking about you, Daniel,” Douglas contributed, to the obvious annoyance of his older brothers.
“What have you done,” James asked, “to merit such a reputation?”
“Refused to pay the prices some of these thieves fetch,” Daniel said curtly.
All four of the brothers smiled.
“I’m wise with my money, not cheap.”
“Parsimonious,” James contributed, always the peacemaker.
“I think you made them mad with all your superstitions,” Douglas said, his attention on kicking his shoe against the deck. “The harbor must not face in the proper direction.”
“Not enough cats,” Hamish said, without a hint of a smile on his face.
“Or too many,” Brendan said. “All that meowing and such.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “You’d be better off keeping such comments to yourselves if you’ll be wanting answers to your questions.”
Once again they fell silent, but not for long.
“Why would you be buying this stuff?” Hamish asked, kicking at one of the barrels. If he overturned it, Daniel vowed, he would make Hamish sweep every last particle from the deck. With his tongue.
“And where is Alisdair?” Brendan asked.
“You mean the Earl of Sherbourne?” Daniel said, giving in to an imp of mischief as wicked as any MacRae’s.
For a moment Daniel simply savored the look of stunned surprise on the brothers’ faces before adding to it. “He’s married, you know.”
A rare day, indeed, Daniel gloated, to best the MacRae brothers.
The ground rose gradually from Gilmuir’s land bridge to a steep point far beyond the hill where Iseabal waited. To shorten the journey, Alisdair kept to the high ground, avoiding the forest. Even so, it took him nearly an hour to reach the place still marked by a plume of smoke.
Iseabal could be right, Alisdair thought. The fire could have been started by a stroke of lightning, an accident, or any number of ways. Or it could have been caused by something less innocuous, a suspicion borne out by the sight before him.
Nestled against shale and rocks, on the opposite side of the hill from Gilmuir, was a clachan overlooking an inlet of Loch Euliss. The fields beyond looked to have once promised a plentiful harvest. A sturdy little village, with a series of small boats tied at the shoreline and nets draped among the square stone cottages.
Now, however, the homes were ablaze, the nets among them ladders of fire. The fields had been trampled, the animals slaughtered.
The air was foul with smoke and mixed with the stench of burning thatch and charred bricks. But none of the huddled villagers moved to extinguish the blaze.
Children stood beside their mothers, clutching the women’s petticoats for support, while older people clenched their hands together and stared with repugnance at the five mounted men who’d fired their homes. The able-bodied men were rounded up and held at gunpoint when they would have moved to save their homes or offer comfort to their wives.
What cottages hadn’t been put to the torch were being searched by two other men. Anything deemed worth saving was immediately pocketed or thrown over an invader’s shoulder. The rest was set afire.
Alisdair strode forward, enraged that a Scot should do this to his countrymen. The identity of the attackers wasn’t hard to ascertain, for each wore clothing he’d seen before at Fernleigh. Drummond’s men.
An old man was suddenly being whipped, pushed closer to the fire by one of the riders as if his cruelty were a game. He fell heavily to his knees in the dirt, his white beard trailing in the ground as he begged for his life. His tormentor simply continued to whip him.
Alisdair began to run, reaching the two of them. Jerking the whip from his grasp, he threw it to the ground before hooking his hand in the man’s gun belt and pulling him from the horse. Drummond fell with a thud to the ground but immediately sprang to his hands and knees. Alisdair didn’t wait, but kicked out with his boot, his heel connecting with a pointed chin.
“Strike someone who can fight back, not a man twice your age.”
Unexpectedly, a woman emerged from the doorway of one small stone cottage, her apron aflame. He rushed to aid her, and with the help of the other villagers, pushed her down to the ground and rolled her in the dirt until the flames were extinguished.
“A good Samaritan,” a voice said.
Alisdair turned, looking up slowly. Another Drummond attacker easily controlled the reins of his horse with one hand while he leveled a pistol at Alisdair with the other.
He’d seen the man before, on his first visit to Fernleigh. A thin face like a starving Scot’s, narrowed eyes that seemed to mirror the flames behind him, and a grin that appeared almost evil in its incomparable glee. As if, he thought with a sudden premonition, the man anticipated the exact moment of Alisdair’s death.
Only an instant had passed and already it seemed a lifetime. Speech was echoing, as if they were enclosed together in a Chinese jar. A specimen of nature. Killer and victim.
Abruptly, Alisdair heard a muffled sound, then witnessed the contained flash of spark and powder. Powerless to move quickly enough, he viewed his own death, felt the instant when the bullet struck his head. The second of consciousness left to him was filled only with regret.
Chapter 25
I seabal remained seated atop the knoll, her arms wrapped around her knees. From time to time she would stand and look toward the place they’d seen the smoke, her sense of dread increasing with each passing hour. Telling herself that Alisdair MacRae was not a man easily bested did not seem to ease her mind.
The afternoon was advancing, the sun beginning its downward journey into night. But still there was no sign of Alisdair, only the fading tendrils of smoke curling into the air.
Perhaps the journey was farther than it had seemed. Or he was aiding in extinguishing the blaze. There was no reason, after all, to feel this fear, she told herself. She’d lived in caution so much of her life that it had become a habit.
Standing, Iseabal began to circle the knoll, her feet crushing the pine needles along the edge. The horizon was growing darker, not with smoke, but with night. The longer she stared, her eyes smarting, the more concerned she became.
Even the silence seemed ominous. The birds were quiet, and no sound came from the underbrush, as if nature itself stilled in anticipation.
There, at Gilmuir, was the only sign of activity, as the horses from the Molly Brown were being led across the land bridge and into the courtyard.
He might well be there, thinking, because of the lateness of the hour, that she would have returned to Gilmuir. Or he’d sent word to her in some way and the news waited for her below.
Doubting that either had truly occurred, Iseabal nevertheless clung to both thoughts as she began the descent to Gilmuir.
Gossamer rays of
fading sunlight filtered through the trees, momentarily dancing upon the leaf-strewn ground as if to illuminate the way. But night was coming to the forest, draping the trees in swags of shadow. Saplings were no longer signs of new life, but taloned wooden fingers reaching out to snare her petticoat. Branches cracked beneath her feet with each step, the scent of decaying leaves sour and pungent.
Finally she was free of the forest, into the open air. Twilight misted the air as Iseabal followed a weed-strewn path, thinking it led to the land bridge.
Instead, she found herself in the deserted village of Gilmuir. At least ten cottages still stood, their thatched roofs damaged in the intervening years, but the stonework of the walls mostly intact. As a child, she’d come here, wondering what had happened to the MacRaes. Now she knew, and this lonely spot in the glen was a testament to the courage and tenacity of those people.
Here the ghostly whispers of voices lingered in the air just as they had at Gilmuir. But not sad ones. A sighing breeze seemed to echo the lilting laughter of long-ago friends. A leaf skittering on the ground mimicked a whisper of delight from one child to the next. If spirits lived here, they were happy ones.
Alisdair.
She could almost feel him standing beside her, smiling, his eyes wearing that look of pride when speaking of his ship or his family. He stretched out his hand to her and she wanted to take it, pull his image to her, rendering it from filmy and transparent to real.
Had something happened to Alisdair? Did his spirit bid her farewell? Gently and sweetly, with a smile that came from his soul? Pushing that thought violently away, Iseabal left the village.
The land bridge was illuminated by two blazing torches on either side. Lanterns had been set on poles around various spots in the courtyard. Scanning the area, Iseabal noted that the cook had already begun a meal. The men of the Fortitude were erecting a few small tents, and strangers, whom she took to be the crew of the Molly Brown, were stacking crates on the eastern side of the promontory. Farther away, closer to the land bridge, was a rope corral where the horses had been tethered.