The search was frustrating and slow, an irritation to his frazzled patience.
As with the stream, he heard the women before he actually saw them. At first he detected only a vaguely out-of-place rumble that blended with the gurgle of crisp water trickling over rocks. The rumble magnified as he drew closer to it. Became louder, more distinct.
Soon the sound was recognizable as the hushed murmur of voices. Female voices.
A surge of relief washed through Connor. While he was still too far away to understand their words, their tones were reassuringly calm, suggesting both women were unharmed. His relief was short-lived. It soon melted away to a hot burst of fury when he thought of how very lucky the two were to make it so far unscathed.
Guiding the stallion to a nearby birch tree, he slipped down from the saddle and with an expert flick of his wrist tethered the reins to a low-hanging branch. He crept along the stream bank, his booted feet making nary a whisper of sound as he trod carefully over wet leaves and grass...
* * *
Ella paced in front of the stream bank while she and Gabrielle took turns inventing and discarding various plans to rescue Mairghread.
Gabrielle, ruminating on Ella's latest and most extravagant scheme, found her attention abruptly drawn elsewhere. Was it her imagination or had the damp night air suddenly become unnaturally cold? Why, she wondered, did the flesh at the nape of her neck feel so incredibly hot? The dark curls there prickled with sudden awareness.
Her gaze had been on Ella; it now jerked elsewhere. She scanned the stream, the bank, the dense patch of trees that sheltered both. Squinting, her gaze pierced the murky shadows where the scant moonlight could only partially invade.
Gabrielle spotted him in a heartbeat.
He was standing beside a birch tree, one padded, leather-encased shoulder leaning casually against the thick, scratchy trunk. His booted ankles were crossed.
The stance was very casual, blatantly male; it made his hips slant at a cocky angle, drawing her attention unwittingly down to the hem of the kilt, and the place where it grazed his sinewy thighs. The waistband hugged the flat, hard plane of his stomach.
He stood close. Oh so close. Only a few short yards of wet ground separated them.
Swallowing hard, Gabrielle's gaze lifted, tracing the wide breadth of his chest and shoulders, the thick trunk of his neck, the hard-set line of his jaw. Higher.
Was it the fury emanating from The Black Douglas's eyes that made her mouth and throat feel abnormally parched? Surely it was that and not his physical closeness, or the way she thought she could already feel the heat of his body radiating through her masculine attire, caressing the soft skin beneath.
The strength in her knees seeped abruptly away. Standing became a study in concentration; she managed the feat through sheer force of willpower alone. Her heart raced, slamming an erratic beat against her rib cage. The crisp night air soughed in and out of her lungs; it was rich with the fragrance of fresh rain, pine, leather... and the enticingly unique, masculine scent that was Connor Douglas.
Connor's gaze never left Gabrielle, although his words were meant for his cousin. His voice—the tone deep and rich with barely suppressed fury—was pushed through tightly gritted teeth. "Get on yer nag, Ella, and ride back to Bracklenaer."
"Connor?" Ella spun around, her blue eyes wide with surprise as her attention jerked to Connor. Hugging her arms around her slender waist, she regrouped quickly. "Cousin, 'tis dark!"
"Aye, and 'tis sure I am that ye noticed that fact when ye stole the horses and rode from Bracklenaer. Ye managed to get this far with only a sliver of moonlight to guide ye, ye can make yer way back with the same. Och! Ella, dinny try to look so defenseless, for I'm not so foolish as to believe it for a second. Ye ken this countryside almost as well as I do, ye'll not get lost."
"Nay, Connor, don't. 'Tis not safe!" Gabrielle cried. "What if she gets lost or, worse, what if the Maxwells are still skulking about?"
"Ver good questions, lass. Howe'er, should ye not have considered the answers to them afore leaving Bracklenaer? Dinny fash yeself aboot me cousin. Ella can use the sword hanging at her side." His hand brushed at his shoulder, and he thought of the small, hairline scar that marred the skin there, a scar that was the direct result of that same sword tip grazing him years ago, when his cousin's temper was particularly foul. "Aye, she can use the weapons well. I taught her meself. She'll come to nae harm. And if she does... Och! for what she's done this night, I'm of a mind that she deserves whate'er fate awaits her." His attention shifted to Ella, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "What are ye waiting for? Be off with ye!"
The furious determination in Connor's tone, the granite-hard square of his jaw, the dark shimmer of fury in his eyes... all combined to convince Ella that the wisest course of action would be to heed her cousin's grittily uttered instructions, and heed them posthaste.
After casting a quick, sympathetic glance at Gabrielle, she turned and approached her mount. The mare must have sensed Connor's temper, for the horse needed calming before she would allow Ella to mount her. The surge of sympathy she felt for the Sassenach lingered, disturbing her greatly as, ducking low-hanging branches, she guided her mount into the forest. It grated to feel anything, especially compassion, for a blood kin of the Maxwell. Yet how could she not? The poor lass was about to find out that, when it came to The Black Douglas's temper, the Border ballads had not exaggerated, they'd understated how deep it ran.
Gabrielle watched Ella go, and a strange sensation wadded in her stomach. She wanted to call Ella back, but didn't. Couldn't. She'd have needed breath with which to speak the words, and at the moment the feel of Connor's glare on her trapped the air in her lungs until they burned.
The adventurous spirit she'd felt tingle through her blood earlier had pinnacled with the idea of rescuing Mairghread; it now plummeted like a rock being tossed into the stream at her back as she watched Ella guide her mare toward the dense, shadowy line of trees. The girl's slender back was rigid and proud, the thick plait of red hair swinging saucily against her waist. Long after she'd disappeared from sight, Gabrielle thought she could still hear the soft, rhythmic thump of hooves treading over rain-soaked earth and leaves.
Then again... perhaps that was the sound of her heart throbbing in her ears? Nay, it couldn't be. The tempo of her heart was much swifter and irregular.
Sucking in a deep breath, she turned her attention back to The Black Douglas. In the thick play of darkness and scant moonlight, and in his current sour mood, the nickname seemed forebodingly accurate. Thick raven hair, harshly sculpted cheekbones, forehead, and jaw, gray eyes that gleamed out of the murky shadows, and a gaze that arrowed straight through her very soul...
Perhaps it was a trick of the night, a deception of moonlight and shadow, that made it seem like the rest of her surroundings blurred and drained of color, until Connor Douglas's piercing gray eyes were the only spots of color left in an otherwise pitch-black night.
He was staring at her, and staring at her hard.
Despite Gabrielle's resolve not to let him see how greatly his presence disturbed her, she couldn't hold back the shiver that iced down her spine like a drop of melting snow. His expression was expectant, as though he waited for her to say or do... something. Gabrielle shook her head, not knowing what that something could be. Shouldn't he be the one to make the first overture? After all, it was he who'd hunted her down and waylaid her plans. For that, the man owed her an apology if nothing else.
She waited for one.
It didn't come.
Instead, Connor crossed his arms over his firm, flat belly and asked tightly, "Are all Sassenach women as stupid as ye, lass?"
His tone was low and gritty, as harsh as the gaze boring into her. Gabrielle bristled. "You think it stupid to try to help someone who helped you? How strange. I think it natural."
He took a step toward her. Not a large one, yet it felt huge to Gabrielle. The night seemed to close in around her.
"'Tis maun stupid indeed," he growled, "when the helping in question could get ye killed."
Gabrielle retreated another step, even as he took another, more confident stride forward. He was closing the distance between them with alarming quickness. In another step she would be able to smell his musky scent, feel the heat of him seeping through the jack and trews and tunic, caressing the sensitive flesh beneath...
"There was never a chance of that," she countered, hoping her tone rang with indignation, knowing that her too soft, too breathless timbre didn't convey that at all.
"Nay?"
"Nay!"
"And what if ye and Ella had ridden upon a few stray Maxwells, or mayhap some that weren't so stray? What then? How would ye have defended yerself, Gabrielle Carelton? Could ye have defended yerself?"
"I'm not so helpless as you seem to think, nor is court life so sheltered. I've learned my share of tricks to keep myself safe. The Maxwell would not have hurt me."
"Och! is that the way of it?" His laughter—loud, devoid of mirth—cut through the damp night air like a knife. The husky rumble sliced a warm path down Gabrielle's spine. "Nae matter how sternly ye did it, I dinny think that correcting their manners would have stopped a reiver from aught."
Like an expertly aimed arrow, the insult hit its mark. Gabrielle winced. She reacted on one part anger, one part instinct—hand lifting, open palm swinging toward his arrogant cheek—before she even knew she was doing it.
For a big man, Connor moved fast. Frighteningly so... Gabrielle realized this only in retrospect.
Before she could blink, he countered the attack. His powerful fingers shackled her wrist, bringing her up short. Her palm was brought to a bone-jarring halt a mere fraction from blistering contact.
His grip was tight, but not painfully so.
Yet.
The glint in Connor Douglas's cold gray eyes as he glared down into Gabrielle's surprise-widened green ones said his restraint was hard won and, perhaps, temporary. His anger was tethered right now only by the utmost of self-control, a rein that could dissolve at any moment.
A muscle buried deep in the left side of his jaw ticked erratically. Like a magnet, her gaze was drawn to the stubble-dusted flesh there, inches from his sensuously carved mouth.
She sucked in a deep breath, only to find it was filled with the leather-and-spice scent that was Connor Douglas. She released the breath in a rush and watched, unnaturally fascinated, as it turn to a transparent, pale vapor that twisted and mingled with his.
The anger she'd felt only a second ago—she had been angry, hadn't she?—melted away to another, more confusing emotion. Dark and intriguing and mysterious, the sensation wove its way through her, so strong it heated the blood pumping hot and fast through her veins, and made her knees feel weak and watery.
And what, exactly, was she feeling?
It was a grand question, that. Pity she'd no answer.
Gabrielle couldn't begin to describe the sensation because she'd never in her life felt anything even remotely like it. Well, nay, that was not entirely true. She'd felt something similar the time Essex, years ago, had kissed her in the Queen's garden. The sensation then had been pale by comparison, the difference between a sapling struggling to stand next to a towering oak. Surely it was not the same... was it?
There was but one way to find out.
Gabrielle inhaled a shuddering breath, tried to ignore the enticing aroma it carried, and decided in a heartbeat trat she did not want an answer that badly. If she let herself explore this strange and wonderful new sensation too thoroughly, she might trace it to its source, then be forced to give it a name. That would never do. Some things were best left unknown, a secret even from one's self. This was one of them.
Her lashes lowered, hooding her gaze as it slid down... over the thick trunk of Connor's neck, the broad shelf of his jack-encased shoulder, the firm line of his arm. She stopped at the place where his fingers were coiled about her wrist. That place felt molten; the flesh there burned and tingled in the most enigmatically splendid way. It was almost frightening. Almost.
Connor's attention shadowed hers. The muscles in his stomach tightened into a fist.
He should have let her slap him. Touching her, even if only briefly, to thwart her angry attack, had been a mistake. He'd known it the second his fingers grazed her wrist and he'd felt the warm silk of her skin whisper against his fingertips and palm. She was not small-boned; he could not circle her wrist and have his fingertips touch. She wasn't scrawny, all sharp angles and bones, like the other women he'd known. He liked that. Too much, he liked it!
She was full-figured and vibrant. The way her hips and thighs filled the trews was enticingly indecent. The way her breasts strained against the borrowed tunic...
Och! he'd never seen anything like it, and prayed to God he never would again. The tempting sight tested his resolve in ways it had never been tested before. Worse, for the first time in his life, The Black Douglas found his resolve lacking. And what, he wondered, would the Border balladeers think of that?!
The night air, heated by closeness and nerve-shattering contact, stirred against Connor's face. A waft of Gabrielle's oh so soft, oh so sweet and feminine fragrance drifted over him like a breathy sigh.
His gaze lifted, whisked over her mouth. Her lips were alluringly full and pink; as he watched, the tip of her tongue darted out, moistening the flesh there until it glistened in the muted moonlight.
Connor trapped a groan in his tight, parched throat. His tongue stroked the back of his tightly gritted teeth; Lord, how he ached to trace the gesture, to sip and savor what he knew without a doubt would be a thoroughly unique, thoroughly delicious taste of those sweet, sweet lips.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, did the woman have any idea how desirable she was? E'en for a court-pampered Sassenach!
He frowned. Judging by the way she blushed to the roots of her silky black hair and, in a coyness he'd rarely seen displayed so openly in a woman, lowered her gaze to the scant sliver of wet ground separating them, he thought that perhaps she didn't. Incredible. But indeed mayhap true.
"I did not mean to worry you, m'lord," Gabrielle said finally, the words coming out in a soft and raspy rush, "or make you to ride out after us. Ella and I thought to accomplish our mission and return to the Bracklenaer before daybreak. We never thought we'd be missed. Please, I beg of you, m'lord, try to understand that we wished only to rescue Mairghread from the Maxwell."
Connor felt his anger chipping away. He tried to retain it—anger was a safe emotion; maun safer than the stronger one that threatened to override it. His tone softened a wee bit. "Yer motives are alien to me, lass, yet I do believe ye."
Gabrielle nodded. Her voice, she was pleased to find, didn't shake nearly as violently as her knees. "The old woman showed me great kindness by nursing me through my sickness. It wasn't necessary, but she did it anyway. I sought only to repay her generosity by seeing her safely back at Bracklenaer. If I could. It seemed the least I could do."
Connor's grip on her wrist had loosened at some point. He didn't know when or why. His thumb now traced small, rhythmic circles against the pulse throbbing in the base of her wrist. He realized this fact only when he felt her quiver beneath his fingertips. Her reaction was not caused by the cold, and well he knew it. Nor did the reciprocal shudder that coursed through him have roots in the weather.
His gaze lingered on her mouth. Her lips looked warm and moist and inviting. Would she taste as good as he thought she might? More importantly, since she was soon going to be his wife, was there a reason in the world to stop him from finding out?
None that he could think of!
Still, Connor hesitated. Very little space separated them. He'd only to lean forward, bend his knees a bit to accommodate the d
ifferences in their height, angle his head slightly to the side...
Like a piece of driftwood being swept away on a forceful current, Gabrielle swayed forward. The tips of her breasts grazed the rock-solid wall of Connor's chest even as her fingers wrapped around his sinewy upper arms in an attempt to regain her balance.
She gasped at the contact.
The sound was swallowed by Connor's mouth crashing down upon hers.
Her fingers tightened around his arms, her palms pressed against the coiled bands of muscle playing beneath the sleeves of his jack and tunic. Because of the padding it was impossible to feel his body heat against her hands... yet Gabrielle could have sworn she felt it anyway. And, oh, but it felt wonderful! Hot and enticing, his warmth seeped through the thick fabric separating flesh from flesh, into her palm, into her very being.
Her gasp melted into a low, throaty groan as she clung to him and went up on tiptoe. Her breathing had been shaky and shallow; it now took a deep, ragged turn... when she was able to suck in a breath at all.
The movement of his mouth on hers had started off gently, coaxing. Her shift in position pressed her lips more firmly to his, encouraging from Connor a lusty moan and a more hearty response.
One arm slid around her waist, and he shivered with desire as he hauled her to him. Och! but she was hot and soft, the generous curves of her body complementing to perfection the hard planes and angles of his. He could not remember any woman feeling this good in his arms.
The fingers of his free hand opened, raked through her dark hair. The strands felt like silk as they slid against his fingertips. He cupped the back of her head, tilted it to the side as his tongue skated hungrily over her lips. She opened for him with delicious readiness, and he wasted no time in plundering her mouth with his tongue.
She tasted good. Och! nay, she tasted far, far better than good. The best whisky in Scotland paled in comparison to the intoxicating flavor of Gabrielle Carelton's mouth. Connor felt drunk with a sudden, overpowering need that stunned him. The hand cradling her waist slipped downward. He cupped her bottom, his strong fingers gently kneading her through the trews. The snug trews which hid nothing from his exploring hand.
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