Harlequin Historical July 2020 - Box Set 1 of 2

by Virginia Heath

  But this didn’t feel like revenge.

  It felt like nothing ever had and she wanted to bask in it. In him.

  All while her soul trembled with fear over what might become of Mary and her child.

  ‘When my mother died,’ she said, speaking slowly, ‘I wept. I cried from the very depths of my soul. Each sob was painful, because they came from somewhere so impossibly deep. My father hated the sound of my grief. He said not to cry because she was in heaven and if I did that I was a heathen with no hope. But I missed my mother. I missed her. And I couldn’t stop crying. In his anger he took me to my room and he locked the door. Locked me inside. I couldn’t come out until I learned how to lock away every last one of my tears. I know about death. It still isn’t fair.’

  Her throat went thick, her eyes filling with tears. Shameful tears. Tears that she was supposed to be able to keep inside. But she was so tired. She was so afraid. And weary with the lack of justice in the world.

  She wasn’t alone.

  She could talk and someone was here to listen. And maybe…maybe she could cry. Just maybe.

  A tear slipped down her cheek and she shuddered. Shivered.

  ‘Lachlan,’ she whispered. ‘Kiss me.’

  Because anything was better than feeling this. Anything was better than surrendering to this. And she found herself being lifted out of the water by her strong, wonderful Highlander, and he held her against his chest as he kissed her and kissed her. As he took her deeper into the carnal, sensual world that he had created inside her. One that existed apart from that place where she locked her feelings away.

  Because this was theirs. She wasn’t alone here.

  But it wasn’t about power, not this time.

  Not about skill.

  This was about being in that room with someone else. Crying and having a person there who would listen.

  He laid her out on the bed, looking down at her as if she was a sumptuous feast.

  And she shuddered. Shivered.

  He slowly divested himself of his clothes, revealing his beautiful body to her. She would never tire of him.

  There was something in the moment that felt like a surrender. There was something in the look on his face, in the tender paths his hands had just traced over her body, that made her feel safe in the surrender.

  It didn’t make her feel weak.

  Rather, it made her feel brave. Strong.

  She could surrender. She could choose to surrender, she didn’t have to hide. She didn’t have to push her feelings down deep. She didn’t have to lock them away.

  Because she was not a child.

  And she had not been put in a wooden box with her mother that day. No matter that the room had felt like a coffin, it wasn’t. Because she was alive, no part of her dead. Yet she had let part of herself be buried because of fear. A need to protect herself. A need to make sure she was never alone with her pain the way she had been that day.

  But she wasn’t alone here. She was with Lachlan. And so she wept as he trailed kisses over her naked skin. As his head moved down between her thighs and made a feast of her, creating a helpless, swirling sensation inside her that she didn’t turn away from. No. She embraced it. Embraced him. Let his tongue and mouth push her higher, further, than she had ever imagined she could go.

  It was like flying.

  You helped me save the bird.

  That injured bird. The injured bird with the crippled wing who had been grounded, his injuries preventing him from soaring high. But he had been restored.

  And now, so was she.

  Like a bird who had found flight once again.

  It was magic.

  They were magic.

  He licked her until she shattered and in the pieces of herself she found beauty. Brilliant, sparkling glory in that shattering.

  And when he thrust into her body, she gasped. It wasn’t an invasion this time, though, and it wasn’t a power play. It was a joining. A coming together in answer to the hollowness inside her.

  And all it had taken was for her protection to be down. For her walls to have cracked and crumbled.

  Then she could feel it. Could feel him.

  Each glorious inch of him reaching places inside her that transcended reason.

  And where those walls had once stood he rebuilt something different.

  The woman she might have been.

  Not just a woman who had escaped from her father, not just a woman who had learned how to survive.

  But a woman untouched.

  A woman who didn’t have to fear laughter or tears.

  A woman who had gone so far past the concept of innocence and ruin.

  A woman who feared no pleasure or pain as long as her warrior was with her.

  And it wasn’t only his strength, but the strength he had found in her.

  All through showing care. For it was the softness in his battle-battered hands that had created this.

  The tenderness in his touch, in his voice, that had allowed her to open up.

  * * *

  When it was over, he lay with her, tracing shapes over her bare skin.

  ‘If I had known that your father locked you in your room that way… I would’ve killed him before I took you.’

  ‘No one needs to die,’ she said softly. ‘I survived.’

  ‘A person can survive many things,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mean they should have to.’

  ‘Neglect can’t kill you,’ she said softly.

  ‘No, lass. It can. I know you’ve heard how my father used his fists on his mistresses. About how he killed one. It’s true. He did. He never raised a fist against my mother. He never did, because she was the Laird’s daughter. But his neglect, his transgressions against the clan, they contributed to her despair. That despair caused her death.’

  ‘I had to live,’ she said softly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But something in me always believed… When I took care of the animals that I found, I believe that I was making enough of a difference. I know that it was a small thing, a silly thing, but it felt as though it mattered. It made me feel as though I mattered. And when you would walk with me, when I spoke to you, I felt real.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I grieved when you left. As though you were dead. I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried since I was five years old. Not until today.’

  He pulled her into his arms, held her against his chest. And she listened to the ragged beat of his heart beneath her ear. ‘I will tell you this,’ he said. ‘You were the only person who spoke to me like an equal for those years. And perhaps that’s the real reason I came for you. You felt as though you might be mine.’

  She said nothing to that. Exhaustion began to take hold and she found her eyes fluttering closed.

  But the last thought on her mind was that he felt an awful lot like he might be hers.

  Sealed with tenderness, kisses and tears.

  She had dreamed of a different life. In a stately, civilised manner home with a man who put propriety above all else.

  Lachlan rarely seemed to have a concept of propriety.

  But he had a fierce, deep sense of protecting what was his.

  And right then, she was very glad to be counted as his.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lachlan had expected to hear of the bairn’s death by morning. But it lived.

  As did the girl.

  He didn’t care for the worry that it put on Penny’s face. Not in the least.

  His wife was too soft. Too hopeful in the face of something Lachlan had seen all too many times.

  The babe was… It was far too small.

  And he knew full well that good intentions would not keep a child alive. Nor hopes or prayers or dreams. For if they could, his mother would have kept all of her children, and perhaps she would hav
e lived.

  If she would’ve but had more to live for.

  She’d had one son and that son had failed her.

  And he had tried…

  He saw that soft, cherubic face in his mind again.

  Not one of his brothers or sisters.

  The bairn that he’d found near a battlefield while in the army, badly injured near his dead mother, a peasant girl, from the look of things, who had been brutalised by French soldiers.

  He had tried.

  And Lachlan had profited from saving a peer, but he had to ask God, had to ask whoever might listen, with a quiet rage in his heart, why a dissolute, titled man might survive grave injuries, but an innocent child hadn’t been able to overcome them. He could still remember the little boy’s whole body being bright with heat. When he had been certain the injuries would not take him, and the fever had.

  He had been at war for six years by then. And he had seen atrocities that left scars on his soul.

  But he understood why Penny had saved all those small creatures at her estate.

  Because sometimes it was those small things that made you hope. They made the world feel bearable. That little boy…

  Saving him had become the most important thing in the world to Lachlan.

  And he had failed.

  That failure stayed with him. And it also taught him better than to hope when there was little to hope in.

  The world didn’t care.

  Perhaps God was too busy to trouble himself with the very small, even when they were innocent.

  But this morning in the castle, the bairn lived.

  Still, he knew better than to trust in it.

  He could understand why it was a necessity for the girl and child to stay here. They could not be moved. Not in their state.

  ‘Her father will kill her,’ Penny said when they took breakfast.

  ‘I will not allow it,’ Lachlan said.

  ‘I thought you could not control what a man did in his own home.’

  She brought his own words back to him and they shamed him. Her blue eyes were level and unyielding. He had known his wife was strong, but she’d demonstrated that strength in new ways every day. She was becoming Scottish. Part of the clan.

  ‘I will not allow harm to come to them,’ he repeated.

  * * *

  The days passed and the babe continued to live. Mary grew in strength.

  It was time to decide what to do about them.

  But along with Mary’s healing, his wife had changed.

  She was quiet more often. Sometimes she simply sat near him. She would touch him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his thigh.

  He did not know what to make of the change. Neither did he dislike it.

  She was doing a great deal of caring for the babe. It seemed to him the mother only took him for feedings, otherwise Penny had taken to carrying the child around.

  Yes, it was time to discuss finding a permanent home for the girl and her child.

  He understood that she couldn’t go home—the issue of Dugan McLaren was one he was going to have to solve. But first Mary needed to be cared for.

  She would be protected in the castle, that was true. But perhaps he could find placement for her in another clan, though the matter of her attacker troubled him.

  She had said she didn’t know him, which made him suspect it had been someone from a different clan.

  He believed that to be the case, right up until she was beginning to move about the castle and she passed into the great hall while his men were present.

  Her eyes locked with Callum’s and he saw fear there. Utter terror. Her face went white and she stumbled back.

  Then she collected herself and walked quickly back towards the stairs that would take her to her bedroom.

  Lachlan said nothing. But he watched the face of the man for a good while, trying to read it. Trying to see evidence of what he suspected written there. Guilt. Fear. Something.

  The man remained blank. That began to arouse suspicion in Lachlan above all else.

  For what man would pretend the woman had not fled from him in fear?

  One who did not want it noticed.

  One who wanted to be able to deny that he was the reason why.

  * * *

  When Lachlan saw Penny later, he approached the subject directly.

  ‘Has she said to you who her attacker might be? Or has she stuck with the story that it was a stranger?’

  ‘She’s never mentioned it again.’

  ‘I suspect Callum.’

  ‘But Callum is… He’s your cousin.’

  ‘He is. And one of my detractors. Certainly no supporter of yours. The way his eyes follow women around the room troubled me. And I find I’ve a concern about what he’s done to Mary.’

  ‘Lachlan…’

  ‘I will not allow it.’

  ‘Perhaps we should help her escape.’

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘He will face justice. If it is true, then he will face justice.’

  Accompanied by Penny, he went into the bedroom that Mary and the babe occupied. She was holding the child, her expression blank.

  ‘The man,’ Lachlan said without preamble. ‘The one who got you with child. Was it Callum MacKenzie?’

  ‘I told you,’ she said, looking away, ‘I didn’t know him.’

  ‘The fear on your face when that man was in the great hall says otherwise, lass.’

  Mary’s face went mulish. ‘It is best for myself and the bairn if it’s a secret.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I do not have to explain to you how it is for a woman,’ she said, looking every inch a child and not a woman at all. ‘There is no help for me. My own father would kill me. My mother blames my own actions.’

  ‘And I do not,’ Lachlan said. ‘You and the bairn are under my protection. And I do not allow rape to happen within my clan.’

  ‘He’s too powerful…’

  ‘I am The MacKenzie,’ Lachlan said. ‘There is none more powerful than I. Was my cousin, Callum MacKenzie, the man?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘He was,’ Lachlan said.

  ‘He will kill me,’ she said, her voice hushed. ‘And the baby.’

  ‘He will not,’ Lachlan said. ‘For dead men can do nothing.’

  There was no justice in the world, none but that which Lachlan would bring about himself. There was a snake in the midst of his men and he would not allow that to continue. He would not allow it to go on. He would allow for none of this.

  He was Laird. And he would see justice done.

  * * *

  Penny was frozen with terror for all the hours that Lachlan was away.

  She had no idea what her husband intended to do. But she feared, not only for his safety, but for his soul.

  When he returned, a great shout was heard out in the courtyard.

  All of his men were assembled and he had Callum MacKenzie walking in front of him.

  Penny ran outside. ‘Lachlan,’ she said. ‘What is it you intend to do?’

  ‘I will make an example of this man,’ Lachlan said.

  It was then she realised that half the village had trailed into the courtyard.

  ‘This man,’ he said, pointing at Callum with his broadsword. ‘This man used his strength against a woman. A child. He forced himself on her. I will not allow this to continue. This will not be tolerated. Not while I am The MacKenzie. For this is not the reign of Angus Bain. Your pleasure is not your master. I am your master.’

  ‘You cannot do this,’ Callum said.

  ‘My word is law,’ Lachlan said. ‘I can do what I please.’

  ‘A trial…’ Graham said.

  ‘It is not necessary. Especially among my men, among the gentry, I will discip
line as I see fit.’

  ‘You bastard,’ Callum spat. ‘You prize the life of some bitch over a man who shares your own blood?’

  ‘I prize justice.’

  ‘This isn’t justice,’ Paden said. ‘It is an execution.’

  ‘Laird, surely…’ Even William, the boy Lachlan had brought back with him from war, looked at Lachlan with uncertainty.

  That seemed to spur Lachlan on. ‘Surely an example will be set and you will all know—I do not grant mercy. Not in these matters. If a woman or child is harmed here, the man responsible will be held accountable.’

  ‘Lachlan,’ Penny said, rushing forward. ‘What do you intend to do?’

  ‘Listen to your Sassenach. Even she doesn’t want you to do this,’ Callum said. ‘This is not the way of things.’

  ‘The way of things is wrong,’ Lachlan said. ‘At least under the hand of my father.’

  ‘Lachlan,’ Penny said.

  He turned to her, his expression fierce. And he lowered his voice. ‘You would have him live? He would do the same to you as soon as look at you, all men like him would. You would have this dog continue to use women as he sees fit?’

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘But surely…’

  ‘We keep him in the dungeon for the rest of his life?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But your soul…’

  Something flashed in his eyes. Shock. ‘No one has ever paid a care for my soul, Penny. I was a soldier for ten years, there is more blood on my hands and blackness in my heart than you could fathom. It is too late for me.’

  ‘Someone else…’

  ‘This is my clan. Why would I pass the spilling of blood on to another man? You would have me put this on someone else’s head?’ Penny stood back, her heart hammering.

  She knew she couldn’t stop him.

  Callum had raped Mary. Got her with child. The girl had nearly died. And even now she had nowhere to go because of what he’d done. But it pained her, this heavy weight that her husband must carry.

  And she didn’t want it. Not for him.

  She wanted to spare him.

  That horrible look in his eye, dead and determined, all emotion gone… It was much like the way she had trained herself to be before she had found a way to open herself up. Before she had found a way to weep.