A Protector in the Highlands

by Heather McCollum

  “But ye’ve changed,” he said.

  Scarlet sliced the air again with the blade before lowering it to look at him. “The world changes a person.” She set it back against the wall and walked toward him, turning as if she planned to throw her dagger again. “I would think that someone as serious-minded as you would know that. Or were you born bad tempered?” She glanced over her shoulder at him.

  He met her stare for several heartbeats. “Who made ye want to slice a man in two, Scarlet?”

  She didn’t say anything, but her smile faded, leaving a haunted look in her eyes. He took a step closer. “Who hurt ye before Finlay?” He searched her face, the cheeks that looked soft that may have once showed bruises, her curved bottom lashes that may have held teardrops. “Who betrayed ye, Scarlet?”

  Chapter Nine

  Me! I betrayed me by being so foolish, by believing the flattery and false promises of a deceiver. The words beat inside her, and with each exhale they threatened to tumble from her lips. Her stomach twisted with the need to bleed out the words, words she’d never spoken, even to her sister.

  She looked deeply into Aiden’s blue eyes, serious and sharp, as if he were asking for names so he could hunt them down to slaughter. She opened her mouth, but the words wrapped around her tongue.

  She wet her lips. “Do you have nightmares?” she asked.

  His brows drew closer, and he blinked as if trying to figure out what type of answer she was giving him. “Everyone does, though some more than others.”

  “Perhaps of the fire,” she said. “Slicing along your back, flaying you open.”

  His jaw tensed. “Aye.”

  “Yet you must deal with fire every day without flinching.”

  “Because I control the fire,” he said.

  “Exactly,” she answered. “I must learn to control.” Men, but also herself, so she would never be fooled again by passion. “I must be around men every day, yet I am not in control of them. If one of them strikes again, I must take control of the situation to protect myself. Training in the ways of war teaches control and is helping me replace fear with courage.”

  Aiden watched her, weighing her words. “So your nightmares will cease?”

  “Yes,” she answered and swallowed at the sudden tightness in her throat. “The ones that badger me while I sleep.” She looked down at the dagger, balancing it on her fingers as she stepped into position. “As well as the ones that stalk me while I’m awake.”

  Whump. The blade quivered with force exactly where she’d aimed it to hit in the middle of the upright tick.

  Before she could move, Aiden stepped past her to retrieve the blade. He flipped it in the air, catching the blade between his pinched fingers to hand it back to her, handle first. “Ye can’t trust any man?” he asked. “Like ye said in class. Any man can attack at any time?”

  She took the blade, exhaling long. “Not all men. I trust some. Like Nathaniel and James, our driver and friend from Hollings.”

  “But the Scots here?” he asked, prodding. He kept his distance, but his words felt close. “Like me?” He waited, watching her. Trying to decipher her stillness, any telling twitches or change in expression.

  Aiden Campbell, the most offensive Highlander in Killin. That’s what she’d called him before. Before the night at Castle Menzies. Before the night in his cabin where he let her sleep and then bathe. Before his help in training her students and supporting her ideas about the trousers. Did she still despise him?

  Scarlet’s frown relaxed. “I think…I think you are a trustworthy man.” She inhaled, happy to be off the topic of who she wanted to slice in two. She nodded, feeling quite certain that she was safe with Aiden. “You wouldn’t touch me even if you wanted to.”

  Aiden watched her, his one brow rising only slightly. He was close to her, close enough to pull her into him. What would it feel like to have a man so wild and powerful wrap his arms around her, hold her with true affection? Not judging her as a valuable pawn to use.

  Scarlet’s heartbeat picked up, thudding behind her breast. It wasn’t the rhythm of panic but something else entirely. “Do you want to touch me?” she asked, her voice soft, almost a whisper.

  She watched the strong lines of his face. So handsome, even with two days’ growth of beard along his jaw, his short hair ruffled by wind and dampness. Finally, his lips turned up slightly. “If I say aye, ye may split me in two for being a rogue. If I say nay, ye may split me in two for being…a liar.”

  Scarlet swallowed, her pulse flying faster as they stared at one another. Only the occasional whistle of the wind outside broke the silence surrounding them. She slowly raised her arm out straight to the side, the dagger tip pointed down. Fanning open her fingers, one at a time, the blade slipped down to hit the floor, clattering. The noise jarred a blink out of her. “I am… unarmed.”

  He took a step closer but stopped, as if waiting for her to surrender the small distance to bring them together. The pull was mountainous, a yearning like none other she’d felt. Almost fearful, Scarlet met Aiden in the middle of the room. His hands came up slowly, as if she were a shy horse. They cupped her cheeks, thumbs grazing her skin. She closed her eyes at the sensation, her lips parting.

  “Look at me,” Aiden whispered, and she blinked open. “See who I am,” he said, his eyes kind and clear. “A man ye can trust not to take anything from ye that ye don’t want to give, Scarlet.” He leaned in, his lips meeting hers. They were soft and warm.

  As if the touch had the power to break a mighty dam, Scarlet pressed into Aiden, lifting her arms to capture his shoulders. His arms wrapped around her to slide down her back, pulling her into the curve of his hard body. He slanted across her mouth, and she tipped her face to deepen the kiss.

  Her heart fluttered like she’d felt before, but instead of teetering on unease, she just wanted more. More of this powerful, wild, honest man. He played no games with her. She felt it in his heavy breathing. Laying her hand on his chest, she felt the deep thud of his heart and knew it to be real. Her fingers pulled at his shirt, untucking it from his kilt so she could slide them up the taut muscles of his stomach to his chest. A fine sprinkling of hair graced the perfect form of strength and restrained power.

  Aiden slid a hand up to cup the back of her head, a low growl coming from his throat. His mouth moved along her jaw to her ear. “Och, lass, I cannot stop devouring ye.”

  “Don’t stop,” she said, her damp lips missing the taste of him. She guided him back to her mouth with one hand, while her other fingers grasped his waist to reel him tighter into her. She could feel his thick rod upright between them and remembered the massiveness of it from the night she’d seen him naked. But it didn’t bring panic, only a heaviness in her abdomen.

  His hands trailed down over her backside, and in the thin wool of the trousers, she could feel every stroke. She moaned into his mouth and sucked in a quick inhale as he lifted under her thighs. Her legs wrapped around his waist, fitting her intimately against his hardness, where he began to rock her.

  “Oh God, yes,” she murmured against him as they found a rhythm. Heat flooded her body, coursing like strong whisky with every thump of her racing heart. She ached. She wanted. She needed. “Aiden—”

  Crash! “Demon!” a woman shrieked.

  Scarlet sucked in a silent gasp. Before she could finish a blink, Aiden turned them, lowering her to press her behind his back. Scarlet’s fingers curled into Aiden’s untucked shirt as she leaned around him, her breath coming from her kiss-dampened lips.

  “You’re sucking the soul right out of her,” Molly yelled from the doorway, a tea tray on the floor at her feet.

  Scarlet stepped to Aiden’s side. “All is well, Molly,” she called. Glancing down, she was relieved to see that her breasts weren’t hanging out. A few moments later and they very well could have been. She followed Molly’s wide eyes down the front of Aiden, where the man’s kilt pitched forward with his arousal.

  “Good God,” Moll
y said, hand to her mouth. “All is certainly not well.”

  Scarlet dodged in front of Aiden. She heard him snort softly. Molly’s hands went to her thin hips as she squinted her eyes to glare at Aiden. “What exactly were ye doing to Lady Scarlet, then?”

  He cleared his throat. “I—”

  “I was sucking his soul out,” Scarlet said, interrupting. “Poor man.” She shook her head then bent to pick up her dagger, which laid on the floor near her feet. The movement made her backside brush against Aiden, and a rush of longing reignited. But with a maid in the room, wide-eyed with shock, there was no help for it.

  She turned to look at him and fought to keep her composure. His hair stood on end where she’d raked it with her fingers. His tunic was out from his kilt and untied at the neck. He looked…ravished. She couldn’t help a small grin. “You should learn to carry a mattucashlass to fend off the lasses, else they each steal a bit of your soul. Greedy ones might not leave anything behind.”

  Stepping away from him was like stretching a bowstring between them. At any moment she might snap right back into his arms. Molly’s worried gaze was the only thing pulling her away. Tucking her blade into the scabbard she’d belted around her waist, she met Molly at the door. “Let’s gather this up and see about that glue you made. Maybe we can make some repairs.”

  “So sorry, milady,” Molly said, tears in her voice. “I really thought—”

  “We will make another pot of tea, and you can tell me where you’ve seen someone’s soul sucked from them.” With one quick glance at the tall, broad Highlander standing speechless, she lifted the tray filled with broken pottery and left with Molly.

  …

  “It’s bloody winter,” Hamish yelled down from the roof of the keep. “Ye’ll freeze your ballocks off.”

  Aiden ignored the man and threw more snow over himself where he stood outside the back wall of the castle. He’d stripped down to only his boots, bent on freezing the heat out of his blood. But as he washed his body with snow, his thoughts still churned with raging heat when he thought of Scarlet.

  Scarlet, her strong legs wrapped around his waist. Scarlet, running her fingers up the skin of his chest. Scarlet, clawing at his hair, rocking the V of her body against his hardness. His blasted cod was still standing tall. He stroked snow over it, but all he could think about was how warm it would be against Scarlet’s skin, in her hands, in her rocking body.

  “Mo chreach,” he cursed. The woman was a witch. Sucking the soul right out of him? Bloody hell! Maybe she was. But if pressing her to him, loving her with all the passion he’d felt igniting between them, would render him soulless, then he’d gladly give it to her. Even if she wore the devil’s horns.

  He paused, his eyes catching the last of the winter sun’s rays as it slipped down below the tree line. Would he gladly give his soul to a Sassenach who spoke with the devil’s tongue? Just like his fool of a father?

  “Fok,” he said, wiping the snow from his limbs. But Scarlet wasn’t a typical Englishwoman. She was fierce and brave, hardy and not afraid to live in the Highlands. She didn’t simper around and complain of the dirt and cold, blaming those around her for her discomfort. She worked hard and now fought to recover her courage.

  Anger prickled inside his skin. Those bastards, Finlay and someone down in England, stole away the bright light he’d seen radiate from Scarlet when she was riding her horse, when she’d sunk her mattucashlass into the hay-filled tick, when she relaxed in the safety of the keep with one of her cups of cream tea.

  Over these weeks, he’d come to realize that her smiles were mostly masks. He could pick out her injured spirit by looking in her eyes. Just now, when he’d kissed her, he’d only seen the fire of her desire in her eyes. No fear, and no remorse when Molly had found them. Och, what would have happened if the maid had decided to bake instead of bringing tea?

  Aiden grabbed his shirt, throwing it over his head, and wrapped his kilt loosely around himself. A snowball flew past his head, and he glanced up to find Hamish grinning down at him from above. He glared back and trudged along the wall to enter the hidden door where Kerrick stood watch inside.

  “A snow bath?” Kerrick asked, his brows high.

  Aiden didn’t feel the need to answer the obvious and continued toward the keep.

  Kerrick followed him. “What did ye find out at Balloch about Finlay Menzies?”

  The great hall stood empty, though people would likely gather soon for the late day meal. Would Scarlet wear her trousers? He hoped Kerrick would go home before that. Aiden strode to the dying fire and fed it some dry peat squares.

  “Seems Finlay will be ousted as chief, though I don’t know yet who will take the reins,” Aiden said and leaned forward to blow.

  You deal with fire every day without flinching.

  Because I control it.

  The heat from the growing flames prickled against the skin of his face as Kerrick spoke behind him. Aye, fire was needed, welcome for the warmth it gave. Desired even, when it wasn’t deadly. Was he fire in Scarlet’s mind? Desired but possibly deadly if she lost control? The thoughts percolated through him.

  “So, Cici must be asked,” Kerrick said, his pause bringing Aiden around.

  “Asked?” Aiden said.

  “Aye, if she wishes to stay here,” Kerrick said. “Without Finlay being able to pay her tuition, she’ll have to work to pay her way. A lass raised as a chief’s daughter may not wish to work.”

  Aiden frowned. “Where would she go then, if Finlay’s been thrown out of their home? The new chief isn’t likely to take her in.”

  Kerrick nodded. “Ladies raised watching others do work for them don’t respond well—”

  “Aye,” Aiden said, interrupting. “I’m well aware that some high-born ladies do not like to dirty their hands, Kerrick. But there are others who do not mind, like Scarlet and Evelyn.”

  Kerrick stared at him, nodding slowly as his eyes narrowed. “Ye have something good to say about the Sassenach sisters? I think your snow bath froze your brain.” He smiled.

  Aiden crossed his arms over his chest. “Do ye think they will decide to leave Scotland? Go back to England and their estate in Lincolnshire, or to court in London?”

  “Evelyn married Grey, so—”

  “That means nothing,” Aiden said with a slice of his hand.

  “Well…” Kerrick drew out as if annoyed at being cut off again. “She seems to want nothing to do with her former home and is passionate about her school and Grey. So, I don’t think the chief has anything to worry over.”

  “What of Scarlet?” Aiden asked. “Do ye think she will grow bored of the country, irritated by the cold and wind until she despises everything here?”

  Kerrick made a foolish face and shrugged. “Who can predict the ways of an unattached lass? She does seem more likely to tire of life here than her sister, and she is always cold.”

  Except when her legs are wrapped around my waist.

  “Gentle-born ladies don’t like to be cold,” Kerrick said.

  Aiden turned to face the fire when the heat penetrated his shirt, stinging the still-sensitive skin on his back. Bloody hell, he was playing a dangerous game. He’d lived the devastation of such weakness. Maybe he should thank the maid, Molly, for stopping him from making a mistake. For Aiden was certain, one real taste of Scarlet Worthington, and he’d risk his soul to play her game.

  Chapter Ten

  Scarlet’s legs twitched under the blankets of her bed, and she slid them up as she turned on her side to stare at the dying fire in her small hearth. Between the fiery ache in her belly, pooling between her legs, and the feel of Aiden’s mouth branded on her lips, she couldn’t calm her churning thoughts enough to sleep.

  She huffed and flopped over onto her stomach, no longer worried about disturbing her lamb, since Snowball was snuggled with its mother in the new corral. Her gaze fastened on the shadowed door. Was Aiden having as much difficulty falling asleep?

  She hu
ffed. During the evening meal, the man had hardly looked at her, instead talking mostly with Cici about her horrid brother. He’d done a fine job making the pretty woman feel welcome at the school, even though she would likely have to work within to pay her fees. Although, as Scarlet had pointed out, all the students worked in the school, even if they did pay fees.

  Hard work is good for the soul. The only time Aiden had made eye contact with her was when she’d declared that to the room. She’d remained after dinner, embroidering a rose on her black trousers with the ladies who resided at the school: Alana, Izzy, Cici, and, apparently, now Cat, who had been very reluctant before. The extra chickens tripping people in the bailey must be hers, along with the peahens.

  Aiden had left the keep, saying that he might stay with his sister overnight. Hopefully he’d ask Rebecca to come to the school. Or had he just used his sister as an escape from the castle?

  Scarlet had been raised by her manipulative mother to read the subtle glances, grins, and glares of a man. It was this knowledge that told Scarlet that Aiden had nothing really important to say to his sister. Whether he ended up sleeping there or with some loose girl in the village, she couldn’t say.

  After poking her finger a dozen times with the embroidery needle, she’d retired to her bedchamber, where she now stared at the stout walls surrounding her. Had she misread the passion in Aiden’s earlier kiss, his touch, the groan that had come from deep within him? Had he ignored her at supper so Molly wouldn’t say anything? Or did he avoid Kerrick’s jealousy?

  “Gah,” she said, pushing up in the bed. Asking herself the same unanswerable questions over and over would lead her nowhere except to an exhausted day tomorrow when she had a full set of classes to teach. If the man were here, she’d just knock on his door and ask her questions. But he wasn’t.

  Scarlet slipped out of bed and donned her warm robe and slippers. With a glance toward Aiden’s empty bedroom, she stepped down the drafty stairwell, skimming her hand along the rough stone wall to help guide her around and around past the sconces that had burned low. She hesitated on the second floor, thinking she saw candle glow coming from the library. She blinked, and the light was gone. Maybe she’d imagined it.