Where was it? He knew the sounds of attack, and a dagger thunking into something solid was one of them. He quickly backed up to the door, opened it, and stepped over the threshold. That’s when he saw the dagger—Maggie’s dagger—embedded in the wood on the inside of the door. And when he heard her shriek, he spun to her, charged forward, thinking the attackers were within the cottage—with Maggie—and came to an abrupt halt.
Oh dear heaven.
His wife-to-be stood wet and naked on a mat in the middle of the room, her wild red hair falling over her bare shoulders, and her breasts, high and plump, jutting out at him. Her nipples had hardened into tight nubs, and he couldn’t take his eyes from them. He wanted to roll his tongue around them, suckle them until they stood bright red against her soft, cream-colored skin. He’d known she was well endowed, had felt the mounds pressed against his body and even squeezed his palm over them when they were younger, but he’d never seen them before. Now he knew how they would flow over his hands when he cupped them, lifted them to his mouth as he tupped her.
Her body was lean and lithe with a tucked-in waist and a small patch of wet, red curls guarding her womanhood, where he’d nearly stroked her just hours ago. She’d jerked her hips against him then, wanted his fingers on her, all over her. Aye, she’d wanted him.
He took a step forward, his body like a rock, cock hard and straining toward her. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. He wanted to put his cock in there too. When he took another step, she jumped.
“Turn around!” she yelled.
He came back to himself with a jolt and quickly scanned the room, seeing she was truly alone. Which meant he’d broken his promise.
He spun to the door, breathing hard, but for a different reason now. Interestingly, she hadn’t told him to get out or tried to cover herself. Nay, she’d liked him looking at her.
His eyes landed on her knife. “I heard a dagger,” he said by way of explanation.
“Aye, ’twas my dagger.”
“I thought you were under attack.”
“Nay, I was closing the door. The wind had blown it open.”
“So you threw your dagger at it?”
“My feet were wet. I didn’t want to walk across the dirty floor.”
“Why didn’t you just call me? I was right outside. I would have closed the door.”
“I didn’t want to chance you coming in.”
“God’s blood, Maggie! I gave you my word I would not.”
“Then why are you standing right in front of me?”
“Because. I. Heard. A. Dagger!”
He huffed out a frustrated breath and dragged his hand down his face. She would be the death of him, surely—either from unrelieved need or from his head exploding during one of their arguments. He needed her under him, soon, where he knew she would submit, all her fight draining away as her body turned compliant and agreeable with her own need.
As it should. She may not want to admit it, but she knew as much as he did they were meant to be together. He’d seen it in her eyes, heard it in the hitch of her breath whenever he touched her.
But he needed her to ask him for that final embrace. It didn’t have to be in words, but he had to be sure she wouldn’t regret it. She had to be certain. Until then…
He set his jaw and sheathed his sword before marching toward her. This time he kept his gaze locked with hers. She still hadn’t covered up, her chaotic thoughts and emotions careening across her expressive face.
“All in good time, love,” he said brusquely upon reaching her. Then he picked up her shift from a nearby chair and pulled it over her head and body. She swayed into him, a soft sob breaking from her lips. His body twitched in response, like a stallion anticipating his mare, wanting to alleviate her need, soothe her uncertainty, and take her under his control.
He grasped her head in his hands and pressed his lips to her forehead, resisting the urge to kiss down her face to her mouth. He could; it was open and waiting for him, her breath puffing erratically against his throat.
Releasing her, he walked to the bed that filled the nook in the corner of the small, bare cottage. It looked like it had been recently restuffed.
He pulled the sheet off the bed, shook out the dust, and refitted it over the mattress, then he shook out and plumped up the pillow. He turned to find Maggie, her plaid wrapped loosely around her body, tossing the water from her basin out the door. They hadn’t lit the fire in the stone hearth, but the shutters had been left open enough to let in the light and air, and her hair gleamed in the midmorning sun.
She retrieved her dagger, then turned back into the cottage, her eyes getting bigger when she saw him watching her. A flush crawled up her cheeks, and he knew she was mortified, either at him seeing her naked or at her failure to cover herself as soon as he’d come in.
The latter, most likely. She’d wanted him to see her, no matter how much she might deny it.
A grin burst out on his face. She scowled at him and tossed her dagger. It went wide and landed in the wall a hand’s span to his left.
A joy-filled laugh burst from his lungs, and he sauntered toward her. “What is it with you throwing daggers in the cottage, lass? Didn’t your grandmother teach you anything? If you’d wanted me to see you naked, all you had to do was ask.”
Her brow lifted. “I did not want you to see me naked.”
“Aye, you did, Maggie MacLean, or you wouldnae have thrown the dagger in the first place.”
“I explained that. And the day I become a MacLean is the day I…”
“The day you what? Make me come running in on you bathing? Tempt me to touch you? You’re a smart lass. You knew what would happen.” He stopped right in front of her, trailed his fingers lightly down her cheek and along her jaw to her lips. “Can I kiss you, Maggie?”
Her chest rose and fell quickly, and the color had risen in her cheeks. “Nay.”
“Even though you want me to?”
She scowled at him, but she’d twined her fingers into his plaid. “Count yourself fortunate I doona have any more daggers on me.”
“I do count myself fortunate, but not because you’re without your weapons. I’m fortunate to be standing here with you, lass.” He nudged a bit closer, until he could feel her heat. “Can I kiss you now, Maggie?” he whispered.
She swallowed, and her mouth parted as she inhaled. Then the tip of her tongue darted out to touch her bottom lip. His eyes narrowed on the movement, wanting to capture her tongue with his.
“The last time you kissed me, you didn’t ask my permission. Why do so now?”
“Because I want you to say yes.”
She dropped her gaze from his, fidgeted her feet on the packed-earth floor for a moment. “I’ll admit, Callum, that I’m drawn to you. The same as I was when we were younger.” She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “But ’tis not something I want to pursue. So I’ll be saying nay.”
She dropped his plaid and stepped around him, but he stopped her with a light hand on her waist. “For now, Maggie. You’ll be saying nay for now.”
Nine
Callum slumped in the chair across from where Maggie was sleeping and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. God’s blood, he was tired, but he was too wound up to sleep. And he needed to talk with Gavin about the notes Maggie had given him. And since they didn’t know how long it would be before they were forced to run, that meant doing it now.
He’d briefly glanced through the papers while he’d waited for his foster brother to join him, this time able to concentrate. The sheaf of parchments now lay in an orderly pile on the table in front of him, far different from the folded mess Maggie had first handed him when Alpin’s troops were bearing down on them.
Once he’d organized the pages into what he thought was the correct order, he’d numbered them with ink and a quill retrieved from his pack. Not that
that had helped much. The notes jumped all over the place—from names of people, to clans, to different schemes Irvin was involved in, including many of the secrets he held over peoples’ heads. Much of it was confusing and illegible. He wanted to go over it with Maggie, but she lay on the bed, under his plaid, fast asleep.
The door pushed open, and Gavin, looking as tired as Callum felt, stepped inside. Callum whistled softly to tell his foster brother to be quiet and pointed to Maggie on the bed.
Gavin nodded and moved to the basin of fresh water that Callum had filled for him after he’d had his own wash. Maggie had slept through all of it, much to Callum’s disappointment. He’d rather wanted her to feast her eyes on him the way he had on her. But he’d also been relieved. She obviously needed the rest.
Gavin finished at the basin, which sat on a stool near the cold hearth, and after stopping to retrieve a leather flagon from his bag, he walked across the packed-dirt floor and sat in a chair across the table from Callum. His short, ravaged hair and the shirt under his plaid were damp, his face a far cry from that of his youth. Dark shadows circled his eyes, lines were etched deeply into his forehead, and his cheeks looked almost concave.
Lifting the flagon to his lips, Gavin took several swallows, then passed the rich mead to Callum. “Does it say anything about Ewan in there?”
“Nay. I’m sorry, Brother. At least, nothing I could decipher. We’ll ask Maggie when she wakes up.”
Gavin nodded, his mouth pulling down at the corners, before he reached for the pages. “Let’s have a look.”
Several hours later, they’d made copious notes on the parchments, fitting pieces together from what was written but also from what they already knew and what they had guessed. Callum felt sick from reading about some of Maggie’s clansmen’s and clanswomen’s secrets. And not only them, but people from other clans as well—even a laird he knew. Some of the secrets were serious, but most of them were just sad and unimportant in the overall arc of one’s life. Callum felt like he’d been subject to too much harmful gossip, like he’d showered in filth.
It was unfortunate that so much damage had been done out of fear and deception. A secret should stay a secret as long as was necessary—but not at the expense of other people’s lives.
Letters needed to be written and lairds informed when the treachery involved their clans. Irvin had various men and women spying for him in more than just the MacLean clan. The rot needed to be dug out.
More worrying, though, was the sense both he and Gavin had that something more was going on than just Irvin’s desire to take over Maggie’s clan. Too many clans had been mentioned, and too many secrets intertwined. It almost felt as if Irvin was just one of many arrows in the quiver rather than the archer himself.
Once this was over, Callum would question Irvin and then punish him for the crimes he’d committed, especially now that Callum knew the horrors he intended for Maggie.
He hadn’t realized he was staring at his betrothed’s sleeping form, nor how tightly he was clenching his fist, his eyebrows drawn together, teeth gritted, until the quill he was holding snapped in two.
“Are you mad at her, then?” Gavin asked dryly.
Callum looked over at him, surprised. “Of course not. Why would you ask such a question?”
Gavin counted down on his fingers. “She says she doesn’t want to marry you, she didn’t tell you about the caves straight away, she keeps trying to escape on her own, and she’s thrown how many daggers at your head now? That’s four reasons. Do you want me to go on?”
Callum scowled, but at his foster brother this time. “I should ne’er have told you about the second dagger. If she really didn’t want to marry me, she wouldnae have missed.”
“Or she didn’t want to murder you.”
Callum grunted dismissively and returned to perusing the parchments, but he couldn’t focus on the task at hand. After a moment, he said, “I was thinking about Irvin and what he had in store for her. How he’d planned to abuse my wife.”
“Nay, not your wife, Callum. You canna think like that. Maggie’s a smart, capable lass, and she’s stubborn. You say that Isobel likes being in opposition to Kerr and me—and will therefore ne’er consent to marrying Kerr, no matter how much I might want the match for my sister—but I could say the same about Maggie. She’s dug her heels in. You may not win this one.”
“How can you talk about me losing when the game’s barely started?”
“’Tis not a game,” Gavin said. “If you make a poor choice like I did, your wife can make your life a misery. Even in death, Cristel had the power to drag me down to hell with her. She didn’t care that she hurt me. That she hurt Ewan.”
“You canna compare Maggie to Cristel. She would ne’er treat anyone so callously.”
“Nay, but I can compare her to Isobel, and you’d be wise to heed your own words.”
Callum drummed his fingers on the table, not wanting to fight with Gavin, but he couldn’t let it go.
“So you think I should just ride away? Ne’er see her again?”
“I didn’t say that. I think you should be together—and I told Maggie that.”
“Then what exactly are you saying?”
They’d been speaking in hushed voices, so as not to wake Maggie, but still, it was heated.
“I said that she’s not your wife, which she isn’t. And from everything she’s said, she doesn’t want to marry you, which she—”
“—does,” Callum finished for him. He knew it wasn’t what Gavin was going to say, but Gavin didn’t know Maggie, didn’t understand the pull that existed between them. He’d never experienced it with Cristel—not with anyone, as far as Callum knew. The closest he could relate to it was the bond he had with his son.
“Would you e’er give up on finding Ewan?” he asked.
Gavin stiffened. “’Tis not the same. Ewan was just a baby. He had no control of the situation. Cristel and I were meant to protect him. We failed him. I failed him.”
“What I meant was that in your heart, you know that someday you’ll find him. That you canna give up on him, because he is meant to walk this earth by your side—father and son.”
Gavin swallowed before answering. “Aye. That I believe.”
“’Tis how I feel about Maggie.”
Gavin leaned over the table and clasped his forearm. “Are you sure, Callum? Or is it just…habit? How old were you when you and Maggie were betrothed?”
“Sixteen. She was only nine. But I didn’t feel that bond with her as a man does with a woman until we were much older. I’d always liked her. I felt protective of her.”
“I remember. She’d seemed so fierce yet…lost. You calmed her when we visited.”
“She needed to know I was there for her.” He looked across the room at her sleeping form, her hair bright against the blanket. “Maggie’s mine, Gavin. And I’m hers. It’s in her eyes every time she looks at me, every time she leans against me. Her body remembers our connection even if her mind refuses to. She’s hurt, and she has every right to be. She’s scared that I’ll leave her, like her mother did when she died, like her brothers have abandoned her.”
Gavin sighed, scratched his fingers over his bristly beard. “Aye. I would find it hard to trust a woman after what Cristel did. Especially a lovely lass. That’s all Cristel cared about—people being enamored with her face, her body. I told her not to take Ewan to the festival, that there had been rumors of plague. I explained the danger. She said she wouldn’t and then she did it anyway. I’ve ne’er hated anyone the way I hate her. It fills every inch of me. I’m glad she’s dead.”
Callum’s heart grew heavy, filled with pain over Gavin’s transformation from the lad who had the loudest laugh and brightest spirit to a man ravaged by hate and loss. “You canna blacken all lasses with Cristel’s failings. Look at Amber and Caitlin, even my Maggie. Lovely l
asses, all of them, and all of them protective and caring for those they love. If Ewan is alive—and I believe you when you say he is—we’ll find him.”
Gavin nodded, then leaned closer to Callum. “All right then. What’s your plan for wooing her? If, as you say, her body recognizes the bond between you, canna you just make love to her? Then she’ll be your wife. Surely she wouldnae refuse you then.”
“I’ve thought about that, but as you say, she’s stubborn. She wouldnae think twice about riding away to Edinburgh, no matter if she were my wife or not. And she’s not afraid to leave on her own. She’s as capable as any man when it comes to defending herself—even better than some. She needs to choose me. Like Amber had to choose Lachlan. ’Twas not a decision that could be forced upon her—or on Maggie either. Nor would I want it to be.”
“So, you need to make her fall in love with you. If she did, she would ne’er leave, aye?”
“I would hope not. I can ne’er imagine Caitlin leaving Darach, or Amber leaving Lachlan.”
“Well, then…do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make her fall in love with you!”
Callum shook his head, and he slumped in his chair. “Have you lost your mind? ’Tis not such an easy task.”
“Pick her some flowers. Write her some sweet words.”
“Do you really think that will work on a lass like Maggie? She would slice off the tops of the flowers with her dagger and use my poems for target practice.”
Gavin grinned. “Aye, she would. And she’d best every single one of us. Well, maybe not Gill, although he was mightily impressed that she made the shot from the castle wall in the dark. I think he’s halfway in love with her on that basis alone.”
Anger erupted in Callum. He leaned over the table, a scowl on his face. “You tell him to keep away from Maggie.”
Gavin tched and rolled his eyes. “I guess that answers my next question, then.”
“Which is what?”
“Are you in love with her?”
Callum’s heart began to pound, and he slowly straightened. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Highland Betrayal Page 10