“Aye. I’m not familiar with Gleanngalla,” he said evenly. “I can find my way by the stars, by natural signs, but in this snow . . .”
She felt desperation well. “I’m sure in a moment we’ll stumble across a path, or see the lights of the castle.”
“I’d settle for anyplace safe and dry right now,” he said.
So would I, Meggie thought. Her ankle hurt, and she was chilled to the bone. She glanced up at him in the dark, so strong and calm and sure.
“We need a cott,” she said.
“Or a barn,” he suggested.
“Or an inn, or a stable with a manger?” She remembered too late that he knew she was no virgin, but he didn’t point it out—at least not aloud.
“Och, Tapadh Dia,” he said. “It looks like there’s a shieling ahead.”
The ramshackle wee hut was half buried in the snow. It was as dismal and sorry as a place could be, and Meggie was as glad as if it were home . . . well, almost. MacAulay called out and waited for a response, but it was clear enough the place was empty.
“When I get back to Abercorry, my first order will be to build sheilings all across my lands, just for times like these,” he murmured.
He kicked the door open and carried her inside. It was too dark to see very much, but at least it was dry.
“Will this do? It will be until morning.”
“Your virtue is quite safe with me, Laird MacAulay,” she replied tartly.
He ignored the comment and set her down on a rickety wee stool beside the cold hearth, being careful of her foot.
She looked around the single small room. There was a pair of stools, a mound of straw for a bed, and a pile of kindling and firewood beside the stone hearth, ready for travelers.
Meggie had wished herself anywhere but Gleanngalla, and her wish had come true, she thought bitterly. She hoped Seanmhair wouldn’t worry, but whatever else MacAulay made her feel, it wasn’t unsafe.
He took a flint from the pouch on his belt and knelt to start a fire.
Soon sparks glowed, and he fed them until they grew to a yellow flame. The light illuminated his profile and the unruly curls around his face, which sparkled with snow that was beginning to melt. The fire sculpted his profile in light and shadow, showed the lines of his mouth to best advantage.
The mouth that had kissed hers . . . for a wager.
He’d tasted of wind. She’d have kissed him longer, but warning bells, not fairy bells, rang in her head. It was drums she heard now, the pounding of her own heart.
Meggie wrapped her arms around her body. The room was tiny and intimate, and he filled the space, took up the air, displaced her peace of mind. There was nowhere at all where she wasn’t within arm’s length of him.
“It’ll be warmer soon,” he promised, mistaking her discomfort.
When the fire was sure of itself, devouring small sticks with growing confidence and looking for something hardier to feed on, he turned to her. He hesitated, looked at the floor, or perhaps the hem of her skirt. “I’d like to look at your ankle, if ye’ll allow it.”
She lifted her chin. “I can tend it myself.”
He didn’t argue. “Of course.”
There was a small pot near the fire, and he picked it up. “I’ll go and get some snow to melt.”
When he was gone, she unwrapped her ankle. The swollen joint filled her stocking. She probed the joint through the wool, hissed at the pain.
She took a deep breath and tried to tug her stocking off.
It wouldn’t budge. She was wearing trews under her skirt, and those would need to be removed first to reach her garter. She rose to her feet, and tried to lift her skirt and petticoats and find the ties to the trews, but she lost her balance, nearly fell. He opened the door.
“I can’t get my stocking off.”
He glanced at her foot.
“It’s under my trews.”
His brows rose. “Trews?”
“They’re under my gown and petticoat, for warmth. There’s so many layers—it’s too bulky to manage, even if I’m sitting.”
He set the pot down. “There are several solutions. I could use my dirk and cut your stocking off. Or I could help ye remove the trews.” He glanced at her. “Can ye do that without removing the whole gown?”
She felt her cheeks grow warm, hoped her blush was hidden by the red light of the fire. “I’ll hold your shoulders. If you, um, reach under my skirt, you can undo the ties on the trews and pull them. They’re men’s trews, so they’re the same as your own.” She refrained from looking down the length of his body to the place his own trews were no doubt tied, under his kilt.
He put his hands under his arms and hesitated. “My hands are cold,” he said when she raised her brows. He shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. “I wouldn’t presume to reach under a lady’s skirts with cold hands, though I doubt they’d be cold for very long.” She stared at him and he shut his mouth with a click. “Forgive me. I babble when I’m—”
“So you said.”
He knelt before her. “Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said. She did, surprised again at the width of them, given the leanness of his body. He kept his eyes low, didn’t look at her.
“It’s almost as if you’re shy, Laird. I promise I won’t kiss you again, and I don’t bite. Well, not unless I’m asked to.” He looked at her in surprise, and she bit her lip. “Forgive me. I tend to babble myself when I’m nervous. Or upset, or—”
He was raising her skirts, and she heard the rustle of her petticoats, felt his hands sliding up her knees over the trews, then along her thighs. He stopped at her hips, brushed his hand across her belly. She felt hot blood rising in her cheeks at the careful intimacy of his touch.
She held her breath. No one had touched her since Magnus. She’d shunned such contact, hadn’t wanted it. But now she remembered kissing MacAulay, and felt her body tingle traitorously as he searched for the laces.
He looked up at her in panic. “There are a dozen strings! What if I pull the wrong one?”
She couldn’t help it. She began to laugh. She’d forgotten the other ties. She imagined her petticoats dropping to her ankles by mistake, or the pockets that were tied around her waist, or her trews.
He held still, his hands hovering under her skirts. “It’s hardly funny, Meggie. I don’t wish to do something that will offend ye.”
She looked down at him, read his discomfort in his eyes. He wasn’t teasing or titillated, he wasn’t caressing her or grinning lasciviously. He was trying to help. He respected her privacy, her person, and her modesty. She felt a moment of surprise at his solicitude. Perhaps he didn’t find her attractive . . . but he’d kissed her back, pulled her into his arms. She felt a lump in her throat. “One set of strings holds my pockets around my waist—they match up with the side slits in my gown. Another set holds my petticoats, and the third holds up the trews.”
“What’s under the petticoats?” he asked, then shook his head. “Nay, don’t answer that.”
“My shift, Laird MacAulay,” she said tartly. She took a breath. “Choose a string and pull. Nothing dreadful will happen if it’s the wrong one.”
He scanned her face, held her eyes. “All right, here we go.” He fumbled and pulled. He caught her pockets in his hand, drew them out and held them up.
“Try again,” she said.
“If it’s your petticoat, I’ll have to retie it, and I know little about dressing a woman.”
“Have you no sweetheart?” she bit her lip. “Nay, don’t answer that,” she parroted.
He looked up at her frankly. “The lasses I know seem to wear far fewer clothes than you do.”
He fumbled for another string, and she felt butterflies fill her belly, float south. She held her breath, squeezed his shoulders. She felt the trews sag.
He grinned at her, a sweet, boyish smile, full of joy. Her mouth watered to kiss him again.
“Sit down and I’ll draw them off.”
This time she felt his hands on
her bare skin, sliding down her thighs to her knees, finding her garters and hesitating, deciding, before he pressed on. She lifted her good foot, then leaned heavily on him as he carefully pulled the garment off her injured limb. He set the trews aside with delicacy.
“Now sit down and I’ll remove your stocking,” he said. He knelt before her and slid his hand up along her calf and found the ribbon ties of her garter. His hands were warm now, his fingers gentle but clumsy. She resisted the urge to giggle, but a bubble of sound escaped.
“Am I hurting ye?” he asked, pausing.
“Tickling,” she said. “I can do this part,” she said, and folded her skirt back. She paused. “Perhaps ye should turn around.”
“Aye, perhaps I should, but I already have a very good idea of what I’d see, just by touching ye. Seeing can’t be worse than—” He closed his mouth again and turned away. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
She untied the garter and slipped the woolen stocking off. Her foot was naked at last. It somehow made all of her feel naked. She’d run through her father’s glen barefoot countless times, with her skirts kilted. She’d swam with her sisters in naught but her shift. But she’d never felt as naked as she did in this moment, with her gown raised barely halfway to her knee. She gasped at the sight of her ankle, swollen and purple. “I’m ready.”
He turned around, sat on the other stool and cupped his hand around her calf. He lifted the injured limb onto his lap again, and touched it gently. When she gasped, he winced and apologized. At last he let out a long breath. “It’s not broken, only sprained. Ye’ll be fine in a few days. Until then, ye’ll have to find a strong clansman like the one who carries your grandmother. One of your MacLeod warriors.” He looked up at her. “I daresay those lads are beside themselves just now, wondering where ye are—and your grandmother as well.”
“We told the steward where we went, remember?”
“And if they decide to look for ye? I would.”
She held his eyes. “I’m safe with you.”
He took the strip of blanket and dipped it into the half-melted pot of snow. He bound the icy cloth tightly around her ankle, and she gasped at both the cold and the pain, though he was gentle, his big hands careful. He propped her foot on the other stool and rose to his feet. “Would ye like some of Charlie’s whisky? It might ease the pain. Otherwise, I have a wee bit of bannock and dried beef, but there’s naught else.”
She smiled. It was the kind of fare every Highlander carried, just in case the weather turned bad, or they were delayed by a flash flood or a clan war. “It sounds like a feast.”
They ate on their laps, hungry from the cold, and sipped the whisky.
“What would ye be doing now if ye were home at Glen Iolair?” he asked when they’d finished, lying on his side by the fire with his head propped on his hand.
She considered. “Making ready for Yule, I suppose. We’d be doing what we did here yesterday. My sisters and I take gifts of food and candles and warm clothing to our clansmen, visit those who are ill or have lost someone dear since the last Yule. We invite everyone to come to the hall on Christmas Eve for the feast.”
“You’re very close to your kin.”
“Aye. They’re family. Do you not see your own clan that way? Is it so different at Abercorry?”
“I haven’t much family to speak of,” he said. “My mother died at my birth. My father was the laird’s third son, and he died when I was a lad, shortly after my grandfather. I was raised to be a warrior, not a laird. But when my uncles died, my wee cousin Sandy and I were the only ones left—” He paused. “He’s my family. He’s a fine lad, and I’ll see that he’s raised to be a good laird. I’ll rule only until he’s old enough.”
“And what will you do then?” she asked.
“What I’ve always done, I suppose,” he said cryptically, and offered no further explanation.
Meggie scanned his face. “Sandy’s the one you’re carving the piper for.”
He nodded. “My toys were swords and bows. I want him to have a few playthings before he learns to fight.”
“Will there be someone to take him out to find a Cailleach Nollaigh and bring in the greens to decorate the hall?” she asked.
“Och, there’s none of that at Abercorry. There was in my mother’s time, I’ve heard, but not since.”
She saw the wistful regret on his face and reached across to catch his hand in hers, to offer comfort. His grip tightened.
“Why is it you’re at Gleanngalla?” she asked.
He looked into the fire. “My clan faces an uncertain future. The recent past is not a happy tale either. We need coin and friends, and the one way to get both is for me to marry a lass who will bring them to Abercorry.”
“Catriona.”
He nodded. “Aye. Catriona.” He withdrew his hand from hers and added another stick to the fire, watched for a moment as it caught and crackled. “I haven’t asked yet. I was set to when you arrived.”
“That was almost three days ago.”
He shrugged. “Aye. I’ve been busy with the storm, and—”
“The wager.”
He glanced at her briefly. “Aye,” he said again, his voice lower.
“What was the prize? What would—will—you win as the first one to steal a kiss from me?”
He looked ashamed. “ A sword and Charlie’s fine ruby brooch.”
She swallowed. “I see.”
“The winner would also have the right to . . .” He swallowed, met her eyes. “To go to your father and ask for your hand.”
She blinked at him, felt her chest buzz. “And would you—will you—go and see my father?”
He shook his head. “Nay. There’s another part to the wager. The man who wins that will also win coin, a hunting bird, and a cask of whisky—that, and the right to face the Fearsome MacLeod to tell him . . .”
She drew a sharp breath, knew at once—the man who won must be able to tell her father that he’d bedded her, and leave him no choice but to let the winner marry her.
It left her no choice but shame.
“You’re bastards, all of you, no better than Magnus.” She folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin. “My father would do one of two things. Either he’d insist on an immediate wedding—especially if the lucky winner managed to get a child on me—or he’d cut the presumptuous bastard’s head off with his claymore. Maybe even both. Have you heard of my father’s claymore? It’s why he’s known as Fearsome. Every MacLeod laird who’s ever wielded that blade has been called Fearsome, but no man has ever deserved it more than Donal MacLeod.”
He nodded soberly. “I ken it. I can only assure you once again that you are safe with me. On my honor.”
“Then what will you forfeit as the loser? A brooch of your own, coin?”
“I’ve nothing so grand. A cask of whisky—and I agreed to wed Catriona,” he said.
Meggie frowned. “But—”
“It seemed the best way to ensure that I’d get what I came for, what I needed, if not what I wanted,” he said.
“And what was it you wanted?” she asked.
He smiled ruefully. “You.”
Chapter Eight
Catriona slept for a few hours by the fire, but the old man’s snores woke both her and Charlie in the depth of the night. She joined Charlie on the wee bench before the fire.
“It looks like the snow has stopped for now. There are clouds, but I see a few stars as well. If the weather holds for a few more hours, Parlan should manage the journey to Gleanngalla well enough,” Charlie said.
Instead of rolling her eyes, Catriona smiled.
He stared at her mouth for a moment. “Och, Cat, you’ve got a bonny smile.” She felt hot blood filling her cheeks. “Cat got your tongue, cat-fiadhaich, wild cat?”
She stuck her tongue out at him, but playfully, feeling no spite. How had she not noticed how handsome he was?
“Och, I can think of a better use for that tongue than that.�
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She looked at him boldly. “Then show me.”
He leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers, so sweetly, so gently. She hadn’t expected that, and it made her breath catch in her throat. She put her hand up to touch his cheek, felt the rough stubble on his jaw, so at odds with the softness of his mouth. She opened to him, felt his tongue slip inside. He tasted of whisky.
She pulled back. “Are ye drunk?”
“Only on your kisses,” he quipped.
She shot to her feet. She found the empty flask on the table.
“Is that why ye kissed me? Why I’m bonny to ye now, when I’ve never been before?”
He got to his feet more slowly. “Parlan drank all but one sip, which he insisted we share. Why d’ye think he’s fast asleep and snoring like a stoat?”
She scanned his face. “I don’t believe you.”
He put his hands on his hips—lean hips, long legs, wide shoulders. Oh, why did she have to notice that now?
“Of course ye don’t. Ye see what ye want, don’t ye, Cat? Ye can’t have everything just as ye want it. Sometimes things—people . . . me—aren’t perfect. But if ye look beyond your own fears, ye’ll see I’m not so bad. And ye were a different lass today—brave, strong, gentle. A woman instead of a brat. Are we back to that, Cat?”
She felt tears threaten. “Why did you bother to come today?”
“Because ye needed my help.”
“Not Meggie?”
He frowned. “Nay—ye. I wanted to show ye, to prove to ye, that I’m good enough for ye or any woman. I’m a good man and a good leader to my clan.”
She shook her head. “How would I know?”
He shrugged. “Ye have to trust your heart, take a chance.”
She wondered if she could, if she dared. “I won’t go from being miserable in my brother’s home to being miserable in yours.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Magnus wants us to marry, but if ye recall, I haven’t asked ye. He can’t force me to it. Why would I when I know ye don’t want me? What chance of happiness does that give us?”
She sniffed. “Perhaps I’ll marry the MacAulay.”
He looked at her sharply. “Will ye now?”
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