The MacGowan Betrothal

by Lois Greiman

  The quiet stretched, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

  “Well…” She cleared her throat and chanced a glance in MacGowan’s direction. His hair was damp, slicked away from his face, allowing a glimpse of the bruise above his left ear. Other than that, he looked amazingly strong and hale, considering the ordeal they’d been through. But then, she couldn’t see his lower body from where she stood. Not that she cared to. She scurried for something with which to fill the silence. “I suspect you can finish the job yourself.”

  His brows rose. It was amazing, but even after the nightmarish events of the past few days, his features seemed unchanged from their usual conviviality. He raised his arms from the water, casting them casually over the rim of the tub. They were golden in hue, sculpted with power and heavy with strength. For a pretty boy he had an unusual amount of muscle. Not that she thought he was pretty But his chest was broad and firm, rising in smooth hillocks of power above the water’s surface. Naked as he was, he had a certain primeval appeal. Not that she found him primitively appeal—

  “What job is that, Bel?” he asked.

  “What?” She jerked her gaze from his chest.

  He grinned. The tendons in her knees went lax and she realized abruptly that she hadn’t gotten nearly enough rest. Surely she was exhausted, thus the weakness in her legs.

  “What job can I finish by meself?”

  “Bathing.”

  “Oh.” His grin widened. Always and forever he had reminded her of a satyr. Irritating, irresist—irreverent.

  “Of course,” she added and pursed her lips.

  “Still,” he said, ” ‘twas good of her to offer.”

  A boatload of words almost spilled from Isobel’s mouth, but she held them back with an effort.

  “After all…” He winced as he slipped a hand from the tub’s rim and cradled his injured arm against his chest. “I have been badly wounded.”

  A boyish satyr, he was, with eyes the color of a cloudless sky and hands like—she stopped the thought, straightening her back and her frame of mind in one quick gesture.

  “I did not ask you to follow me, MacGowan.”

  “So you have said. Still, I did and…” He sighed dramatically. “In the process of saving you, I fear I—”

  “Saving me! ‘Twas I who saved you!”

  He shrugged. A bead of water slid languidly around the curve of his shoulder then found a wayward course across his chest.

  Isobel licked her lips.

  “You are right, of course,” he said. “Mayhap ‘tis I who should be bathing you.” He canted his head and lifted a palm toward his bath. “Would you care to join me?”

  Her knees buckled again. She firmed them with a snap. “MacGowan,” she said. “Polly is gone.”

  He gave her a quizzical glance.

  “I am not so easily enamored.”

  “Ahhh,” he said. “A challenge.”

  “Is that what I am? A challenge to you, yet another of the hundreds of maids to fall under your charms?”

  “Hundreds?” A dimple etched itself into his cheek. “And just a short while ago it was mere scores of maids who adored me.”

  She shrugged and paced toward the bed, needing something to do to keep her mind from melting like bacon fat. “I am certain you’ve been busy since I saw you last.”

  He laughed. The sound filled the room like the essence of magic. “I am wounded, lass. Surely that would slow down even a rogue like meself.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I am flattered.”

  “I meant it as an insult.”

  “What a pity. You never answered me question.”

  “I’m certain that is because it was foolish.”

  “On the contrary, I asked if you would like to share me bath.”

  “You’re not a man for subtleties are you, MacGowan?”

  ” ‘Tis not true.” He could smile with nothing more than his eyes, but at times his entire being joined in the assault. It was then that she must be most careful. “I can be quite subtle. Would you like a wee example?”

  “Nay.”

  “I don’t know why you continue to insist that you are not attracted to me.”

  “Have you ever considered the possibility that I am not?”

  “Nay, I have not.”

  “In truth, MacGowan, I am surprised Polly went unmolested as long as she did.”

  “Are you impressed?”

  “Not in the least.”

  He loosed his grin, threatening to turn her joints to pig jelly. “Then mayhap you did not see me in the altogether, as our Polly put it.”

  “Polly talks too much!” The words surprised Isobel herself. Her hands fidgeted and she found, when she glanced at them, that she still held the soap. “Here!” As she dropped it into the water, he reached out to snag her wrist.

  “You would not leave me here alone, would you, Bel?”

  “Aye.” She leveled her gaze on his and lied to save her sinking soul. “Gladly.”

  “What if I grow faint and drown?”

  “Mayhap you should summon one of those hundreds of adoring maids to assist you.”

  “Tell me, lass…” His fingers were gentle but firm. “Do you believe every word you hear?”

  She could feel her pulse beating in her wrist, thrumming a tattoo against the hard pads of his fingers. “Are you saying there have not been hundreds?”

  Tilting his head back slightly, he laughed. His throat was broad, corded with finely hewn muscle. “Aye,” he said. “That is what I am saying.”

  She should pull away. Should leave. Immediately. “How many?” she asked.

  He stared at her, and she met his gaze as evenly as she could, pretending that her heart wasn’t galloping like a destrier in training, pretending that she always breathed like an overexerted bellows.

  “Isobel…” he crooned and gently caressed the underside of her wrist with his thumb. “Are you asking how many lovers I’ve had?”

  Her knees, damn them to hell, threatened to tilt her face first into his bath. But she straightened them with a jolt and a shrug even as she tried to pull her hand from his grip. She failed and scowled. “In truth, MacGowan, I wouldn’t care a whit if you spend your nights with three sheep and a doxy.”

  “Truly?” he asked and skimmed his thumb across her wrist again. “Then whyever did you ask?”

  Dear heavens, his lashes were ungodly long, like a wee lad’s. But there was nothing immature about the body that disappeared beneath the warmth of his bath water.

  She gave him a shrug and hoped to God she looked neither as panicked nor as needy as she felt “I spent some months in the village of Callander,” she said.

  He waited for her to continue, seeming to feel no need to hurry her from the spot, even though she had but to tilt her head to the right to see to the bottom of the tub.

  “Upon the hillock lived the laird of Unther.”

  Still he waited as his thumb played across the shivering tendons of her arm, but she studiously turned her mind away from the sensations.

  “He had himself a son named William. At times the lad would journey down to the village to buy ralstons from the baker. He loved—”

  Loosening his grip slightly, Gilmour stroked a circle into the center of her palm.

  “Ralstons?” he asked.

  “What?” Her tone seemed oddly breathy to her own ears.

  “William… he loved ralstons?” MacGowan guessed.

  “Oh. Aye. Certainly. Ralstons.” She took a deep breath and found her stride with some difficulty. “One day the village was all agog at how many ralstons he had consumed.”

  He grinned ever so slightly as he watched her. “And?”

  “And I was curious then, too, as to the number.”

  “Ahh,” he said. “So you are saying ‘tis only because of idle curiosity that you ask.”

  “Exactly.”

  ” ‘Twas an ungodly long story for so simple a moral. Perhaps…” he began and li
fting her arm ever so gently, kissed her wrist.

  Something akin to lightning bolted from her wrist to her belly in sizzling heat.

  His grin widened, lifting the right side of his mouth and deepening one dimple to lethal depths. “Perhaps,” he repeated, “you were looking for an excuse to stay.”

  “I was doing no—”

  He kissed her again, halfway up her arm.

  She found to her numbed dismay that she could not move.

  “I would gladly bathe you” he murmured, “if you would but ask.”

  Images bloomed like hotbed flowers in her head, steaming through her mind and dizzying her thoughts.

  “Isobel?” he murmured, pulling her closer.

  “Nay!” she said and jerked her hand from his grip.

  He gave her a wounded expression, but his grin never slipped. “I would be very gentle.”

  “Don’t…” she took a few fortifying breaths.“That’s ridiculous.”

  “Surely you need to bathe from time to time.”

  “I already bathed.”

  “And I missed it—such a pity. But I suspect I had best simply see to me own cleansing if I ever hope to win your…” he began, but when he reached for a cloth, he winced.

  She took an involuntary step toward the tub. “What is it?”

  “Oh, ‘tis naught,” he said and took the cloth from the tub’s rim.

  She scowled. “Is it your arm?”

  “Nay, nay, lass. Worry not. Me arm will mend,” he said, but when he lifted the rag to his chest, she saw the darkened bruise that spread across his lower ribs.

  “Do they hurt?”

  He lifted his gaze to her. His grin was sheepish now and entrancingly boyish. “I would tell you truth, lass, but I have found, through arduous study, that women are rarely impressed by a man’s weaknesses.”

  “Liddie was to ease your pain.”

  “I am certain she did me naught but good.”

  Isobel scowled. “You are not to strain yourself.”

  “I do not think bathing can be considered a strain, lass,” he said and lifted the cloth to his shoulder. Water streamed in warm rivulets down his arm and chest.

  She followed its descent with her gaze and remembered to breathe. “Mayhap I should assist you for a spell.”

  “I did not mean to cause you guilt,” he said.

  She took a step closer. Tiny bubbles covered the surface of the water, obscuring all that was beneath. “Didn’t you?”

  “Well…” His grin lifted, showing teeth that were slightly crooked but ungodly white. “Mayhap I thought a bit of guilt would do no harm.”

  “Give me the cloth,” she said, and though every ounce of good sense screamed in protest, she sunk to her knees beside the tub.

  He handed over the rag then retrieved the soap from the depths. She reached for it. Their fingers brushed. Lightning sizzled from tip to tip, but she refused to feel it.

  “Your forehead is dirty.”

  “Is it?”

  “Aye,” she said and wringing out the cloth, washed away the grime.

  “Better?”

  She nodded jerkily. “Your hair needs washing.”

  ” ‘Twould not surprise me.”

  “There’s…” She reached out to touch his wound, but drew carefully back in an instant. “Dried blood.”

  “They were not nice fellows, those men you traveled with.”

  She turned her mind away from the memories, away from the idea that she may well be dead now if he had not appeared. “I would have to remove your feather.” She kept her tone firm, but found it oddly difficult to meet his gaze. “Why do you wear it?”

  “Do you not know?” he asked. ” ‘Tis to keep me safe from drowning. But you may have had a hand in that, as well,” he said and grinned.

  Isobel swallowed hard but kept her mind on her task. A narrow strip of leather held the feather in place, and in a moment she realized that a hole had been made in the plume’s narrow shaft. She untied it and laid it aside before setting unsteady fingers to his braid. Her hand brushed the curl of his ear, the hard slope of his jaw, and still he watched her. His nostrils, she noticed, were slightly flared, and he was no longer smiling. In fact, there seemed to be a decided lack of air in the room.

  She fumbled with his hair for a moment then loosened the braid before smoothing it beside its straighter fellows, along his cheek and onto the corded strength of his throat.

  He dropped his head back against the towel behind him, but she found, when she dared a glance, that he still watched her. Even under his gaze, it seemed impossible to keep from skimming her fingers along one taut tendon and onto his collarbone. A smudge of dirt was nestled in the dell beside it, and she lifted the cloth to wipe away the soil. It was only natural, then, to slip the rag lower over the swell of muscle that was his chest. His nipple was dark and small, erect and firm. She eased the rag over it, continued to breathe, and washed the other side.

  It seemed only right that she wash the cloth down his shoulder, carefully cleansing his wound before moving downward. Veins, raised beneath the sun-darkened skin of his forearms, ran rampant at his wrist. She felt the pulse beneath her fingertips and silently marveled at the strength that was him. His hand lay palm up in hers, relaxed and open, and the sight of it brought back a warm flood of memories—of his kiss against her palm, her wrist, her…

  She brought her mind sternly back to the task at hand, and bringing forth the scented soap, lathered him from nails to wrist. Then, abandoning the soap, she smoothed her thumbs from the hollow of his palm outward. It was fascinating somehow to see the soap spread away from the pressure, and when she turned his hand over, there was no doubt that every finger needed her ministrations. She washed each one with mind numbing dedication, fascinated by every joint, every turn; every movement until he grasped her hand in his own.

  She glanced up, surprised from the absorption of her task.

  “Isobel.” Her name was no more than a whisper on his lips. “Join me.”

  “Nay,” she breathed, and yet she had no idea how she found even that much strength, for she realized, to her abject amazement, that there was nothing she wanted more than to do exactly what he asked.

  “Why?” he murmured.

  His thumb was strumming her wrist again, causing her blood to course faster through her veins. “Do you not know the consequences of such acts, MacGowan?”

  “Consequences?” He slipped his fingertips up her arm, and she shivered as a track of water was laid along her vein.

  “Mayhap not for you,” she said. He leaned forward, touching her cheek and inadvertently brushing the bare strength of his chest against her fingers. She swallowed. “But surely for the women who are left with your bairns.”

  “Bairns?” He moved back slightly. “Lass, surely you know how bairns are made.”

  She refused to blush, but if the truth were known, it could well be that her entire body was already flushed, for her blood felt as hot as a witch’s cauldron. “Aye, MacGowan, I know.”

  He smiled a little. “Then you are thinking of other things than I suggested, Bel, for I only asked you to join me. Surely you know that one can taste the bounty without consuming the feast.”

  She laughed softly, unable to move away.

  “Something amuses you?”

  “Aye.” Very well, she could admit the truth. He was beautiful as no man should be beautiful, and every weak fiber in her trembled with longing at the very sight of him. But when he was gone, she would still have to make her way in the world, and she was not such a fool as to make that way more difficult by the time they’d spent together. ” ‘Tis amusing that you think I would trust you to restrain yourself.”

  “Do you say that after all we have been through together, you still distrust me, Isobel?”

  “Aye.” She found the strength to nod. “That is exactly what I am saying, MacGowan.”

  He remained silent for a moment, watching her as he slipped his thumb over her lips.
“And if I give you me vow?”

  “Your vow?” Her mouth quivered over the words.

  “Not to take you.” He leaned closer, and in a moment she felt his lips touch hers. She closed her eyes and let the feelings shiver through her. “No matter how you beg.”

  It was somehow difficult to open her eyes, but she managed it. “You are vain beyond words, MacGowan,” she said and he smiled.

  “Am I, lass?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then you can withstand the temptation?” he asked.

  “There is no…” He kissed the corner of her mouth. Her hands shook, but she braced them against the rim of the tub. “Temptation. I have no desire to join the host of fools before me.”

  “A host is it, now?” he asked and kissed her throat.

  “I’ve no way of knowing the exact number, for you refuse to tell me.”

  “Then let us make a wager,” he said. “If you join me here and do not beg for me to take you, I will tell the number.”

  She laughed, but the sound was breathy. “Then either way you win, for if I beg you will oblige, and if I do not you will coerce.”

  “I will not couple with you this day,” he said, “no matter what the circumstances. This I vow.”

  Say no, her good sense insisted, and while her body thrummed the opposite response, a tiny, conniving part of her brain whispered, Why not do it? Why not do it and test his mettle? After all, if the rogue of the rogues could resist a woman naked in his arms, surely he could be trusted in other things. And she must learn the truth about his intentions, after all, before it was too late and tragedy struck where she could not bear to see it.

  His fingers skimmed beneath her hair. Her eyes fell closed.

  Say no! logic screamed.

  Say yes, her body shrieked.

  She remained as she was, torn in every direction as his fingers massaged her scalp.

  His lips touched her. Heat stroked her, searing her to her fingertips.

  Aye, that’s it, murmured her conniving mind. Test him. ‘Tis for your sister’s sake and not your own.

  You’re a fool, wailed logic.

  “Bel?” Gilmour whispered. “What say you?”