Historical Hearts Romance Collection

by Sophia Wilson

  As they slowly separated, with Ewan still nipping at Iona’s upturned mouth with his lips, they gazed into one another’s eyes.

  “Perhaps there was something more I could do for you after all,” Ewan said in a gentle voice. He had one eyebrow cocked and the corner of his mouth lifted flirtatiously.

  “I’m still angry with you,” Iona said, smiling and embarrassed at having let herself become so undone by him.

  “As you should be,” he agreed. “But I will make it right. I will find a way to get you safely released. It will take time to convince my advisors. But you will be released,” Ewan promised.

  “And what of your betrothed? I can’t imagine she will be too comfortable with your kissing and releasing a prisoner,” Iona taunted, still trying desperately to hold to some of her bitterness that had been a defense against her longing.

  “My betrothed is a wild woman. You are a wild woman of a different sort. You do not pine; you do not bend and break. You are a woman the likes of which I have never seen or tasted,” he replied, running his fingers through her hair and grasping her shoulders. Ewan found he was unable to let go of Iona, unable to remove his hands from her soft, lean body. His eyes traveled from her head to her feet and back again as though they could not see enough of her.

  Iona’s eyes remained fixed on the straight nose and deeply set eyes of Ewan. His lips were swollen with kissing and his jaw was something artfully crafted for her eyes. She finally allowed herself to take in the beauty of his face and found she could not release her eyes.

  Ewan grasped one of her hands in his, and he placed it over his heart. She felt it beat beneath the muscle.

  “It is a drum for my wild woman to dance to,” he said, interlocking his fingers over hers to hold her there.

  Iona smiled again, not wanting the moment to end.

  As the evening wore on, the two sat on the pile of dresses and ate together. Ewan fed grapes, one by one, into Iona’s mouth. They spoke and laughed and reminisced about their lives. They discussed books and learning. Hours passed before Ewan knew his time had come to leave her for the night.

  “I will be back tomorrow. Do not forget me, my love,” he begged.

  “Never,” she replied.

  With a final, sweet kiss, Ewan left Iona in the tower with the promise that she would not be there for long.

  Chapter Three

  Janet sat comfortably in her favorite chair in her room. She held a book in her hands but had long since ceased pretending to read. She stared into the fire with venom in her eyes.

  Earlier in the day, her maid asked about the beautiful dresses that had been made for her. Suspicions aroused, Janet inquired further until she discovered with certainty that the dresses had been sent to the prisoner.

  She smoothed her pitch dark hair and kept focused on the flames. She could not let her lover, betrothed since she was seven, reject her for the frail thing he had promised to execute. The willowy child deserved to die, deserved to have been abducted, deserved to pay for what her family did those many years before.

  No, she would not lose Ewan. He was hers.

  “More wine,” she demanded hotly of her maid. The young woman refilled the wooden cup for Janet. She took repeated dainty sips, trying to appear gentle but desperate for the sweetness of a drunken state.

  After an hour of drinking and staring into the fire, her tongue began to loosen, and the maid was held as a captive audience to all of Janet’s thoughts and questions.

  “Could he really have fallen for her? Could he? What could he see in the heir of his family’s murder that he misses in me? And the dresses? No. No, no, no. I am his betrothed. I have been most of our lives. It must be an error. Don’t you think?”

  The frightened maid stood frozen in the corner, her hand resting on the handle of the pitcher of wine. Without knowing how to respond, she simply began to refill the cup.

  “Here you are, my lady.”

  “Ah, yes, thank you. As I was saying, I don’t think any of it could be true. He loves me. I am beautiful, and he knows it. That little wench could never be for him what I have been,” she insisted between hiccups.

  “Most assuredly, my lady,” the maid readily agreed.

  Janet finally began to doze and the maid helped her into bed. She mumbled something about coming up with a plan in the morning or maybe just beheading the captive herself.

  When morning came, Janet recalled very little of the night before.

  ***

  The book held Iona’s attention for the majority of the day. She found that one of the benefits of open discussion with Ewan was that he was now providing her with ample reading material and she was not so reliant on her hair for constant entertainment.

  She began to read of the tales of ancient kings and fictional heroes. Ewan had told her the book was one of his favorites, songs of a bard from centuries before. Each story riveted her and held her attention. She had almost forgotten that she was being kept prisoner in a tower.

  Upon having lunch slid underneath her door, she took a small break in her reading to eat the feast Ewan had had prepared for her that day. She had not yet seen him but hoped that he would come soon.

  Her feelings still unnerved her. Iona knew that she was a prisoner, that Ewan had killed her guards and captured her. She knew that her brother was unable to reach her and that this was all part of some clan feud from centuries ago that had culminated in the death of Ewan’s family. It left her feeling broken that she had fallen for a man who was seeking vengeance on her family, who had been seeking her very life before they began to fall into their romantic tryst.

  It was surely just a tryst, a passing fancy. Ewan had loved Janet; it made no sense for him to fall so utterly devoted to his prisoner. He could not possibly be feeling it truly.

  Iona tried to settle her nerves, but the thoughts continued to come at her from all sides. She feared and worried what was to come.

  And yet, in the midst of her nausea and anguish, she felt an irrational calm. The peace of having finally given way to her feelings and attraction toward Ewan was overwhelming. She knew that her feelings made as little sense as his, but she felt them nonetheless.

  Ewan was a cascading presence in her mind. What had once fluttered above her as an annoying wonder was now an all-consuming avalanche of thought and need. She missed him when he was not with her in the tower, and she spent her days aching for evening to come that she might be with him. As the first week of their confession passed, she found the gnawing of her feelings growing ever more fierce.

  Iona became frustrated by the distraction of Ewan on her mind and tried to get lost once more in the book.

  O’ lover of mine,

  As an enemy defined,

  Yet awaking my soul,

  As no man may control.

  O’ lover of mine,

  How pure, how refined,

  I am a warrior of men,

  But it is you that I defend.

  O’ enemy of mine,

  As my family once defined,

  Yet awaking my soul,

  I am by you controlled.

  O’ enemy of mine,

  How pure, how refined,

  I am a warrior of men,

  Yet I may no longer pretend.

  O’ lover of mine,

  I cannot deny,

  You awaken my soul,

  In weakness, sweetened whole.

  The words resounded in Iona’s mind. Two enemies feuding long since past, and they being lovers despite. She found herself longing for a kiss from Ewan’s lips once more and agonized that it would be hours yet before he would come to her. The songs and poems and stories of the bard would have to do to keep her busy in the meantime, yet she couldn’t help but pine.

  Iona fluffed the gown she wore and settled into a new position on the bedding that had been brought to her so she could be more comfortable. She couldn’t help but smile at the recollection of finally confessing to Ewan that the gowns had been a fortune for her achin
g back as she slept at night. His face shone with the pride of her approval before he insisted that he would get her a proper bed that she might be more comfortable while stuck in the tower.

  She waited and hoped each day that he would come to tell her that he had a plan for her release, but as each day wore on, she became discouraged.

  Questions still remained and even in this, they fought for her mind’s attention. Could it be that Ewan was still planning something? Would revenge be sweeter if she loved him first? Or was he afraid that in letting her go he would lose her so he decided, instead, to keep her prisoner as his secret love affair?

  Iona chose to silence the questions by again reading the poem.

  ***

  “Still nothing?” asked Aiden McDonough, one of Ewan’s advisors and a friend since childhood. “You still cannae tell us when you plan to behead the girl?”

  “I can’t, Aiden. There is much to be worked through yet,” Ewan replied.

  “What is there to work through? You know it wasn’t just your family that was murdered that night. I lost my mum and brother. Gregor lost his pa and brother. You know these things and yet you make excuses. You must either have some truly grand plan or you’ve decided not to do it. She has been your prisoner well past a month now,” Aiden reasoned.

  “Yes, I know this.”

  “The clan is demanding her head, my Laird. They want to see her dead as you promised them you would do. She is a blight to us all as long as she is alive. I know you sense it, I know Janet wishes her dead as well. We cannot allow a woman like this to hone in on our clan and remain alive. She must pay for the sins of her family. She must cause her brother to suffer as we sundered when they took our families from us,” he said with passion.

  “I know this. All of it. And I am indeed working on a plan. I just don’t know how to go about it yet. But, truth be told, it no longer involves her beheading,” Ewan confessed with a look of shame.

  Aiden sat very still and eyed Ewan with suspicion.

  “The rumors are true, then.”

  “Rumors?” Ewan inquired.

  “Are you going to see her? As a lover?” he asked.

  Ewan sighed. “Not as a lover. I mean, not in the way that you are asking. I do go to see her, though. It is true that we talk, that we are…fond of one another. I have not been with her as a man and wife, but I would find it very hard to lose her now.”

  “And what of your advisors? What of Janet?” Aiden questioned harshly.

  “There is nothing to be said as of yet. I do not wish for her to be beheaded, but one can hardly blame me for that. And as for Janet, I truly cannot say. She is embittered by a great many things and this does nothing for her joy.” Ewan sighed once more. “I cannot speak to Janet as I can speak to Iona. Both are beautiful, though Iona is fairer and more gentle. Yet it is not her beauty that astounds me, but her mind. Her strength. She is a woman the likes of which you cannot imagine,” he said with a smile, gazing into the air around him.

  “Aye, well I think you are a madman for letting this all be so. You are losing Janet; you are disregarding your family. Do these things mean nothing to you?” Aiden demanded.

  “They mean a great deal to me, Aiden. And yet, she means so much more. She has softened my heart, overwhelmed me by her gracefulness and elegance and demeanor. She is a great many things and none of them are to be unnoticed.”

  “Well then, I hope you and the Cameron whore are very happy together,” Aiden growled. He stood and stormed off, leaving Ewan to his solace.

  The Laird thought back to that which had left him so bitter and angry before. The betrayal of the Clan Cameron and the vengeance that had been so ingrained upon him, these things melted with his desire for Iona and her deep golden-red hair.

  He needed her more than he wanted her. His desire to touch her porcelain skin and kiss the rose of her mouth was overwhelming. He needed to feel her in his arms.

  Chapter Four

  Wallace sat with the advisors of Clan Cameron. They still had not come up with a plan to get his sister back that would not alert Clan Chattan. They knew the rival clan was expecting a mounted attack, they knew they would be hard pressed to sneak in. There was a sense of desperation and despair. Wallace was beginning to lose hope.

  “We know they cannae have executed her. We’d have heard by now if that had happened. I’m sure it’s the plan, but we know it can’t have happened yet,” said one of the advisors.

  “How do we know?” asked Wallace with anguish. “It has been nearly a month, and we have heard nothing. They have not sent for me, not challenged me, not done anything to fulfill the revenge that Ewan Macintosh and his clan have declared upon me. So how do we know? What reason would they have for keeping her alive? Are they torturing her? Have they made her a whore? We know nothing!” shouted Wallace, banging his fist on the table. He had been in an awful state since the day they discovered the bodies of the five guards in the forest, two days after Iona had gone missing.

  “Chief, I am sure she is alive. They would want you to know if anything else had become of her. That would be the revenge.”

  “Then why the silence? Why have they done nothing? Why has that beast of a man been so cruel as to ignore any sense of justice in merely informing me what is to become of her? Could he not have taken me instead? Was he so desperate as to destroy her?”

  “Well, sir, it was his family killed and not him. So yes, this is a far greater punishment to you than if he had chosen to kill you instead,” explained one of the men.

  “I didn’t need your answer, I needed your ears, you fool. Now go, see what you may learn. Spend time near the clan and listen. Then come back and report to me all you learn. I must know what is to become of my sister before it is too late,” Wallace ordered.

  ***

  Ewan readied himself to visit Iona for the evening. He could not escape the conversation he had had with Aiden or the discussion that came later with his advisors. While they remained unaware of his sentiments toward Iona, they devoured him with anger that he continued to put off her beheading. He felt it was all soon to unravel, and it was apparent that they understood that he had grown fond of her as a woman. He did all he could to shut off such thoughts, but the fear remained that soon the whole clan would know that he had failed them in this way.

  He bathed and changed and made himself to look his best before climbing the tower with food on the tray.

  Upon entering the room, Iona looked up at him, and he sat with her. They discussed more books, and he gripped her hand in his while they ate.

  The evening wore on and Ewan returned to his chambers, thankful for his stolen moments with Iona.

  He rested his head but found that he was unable to sleep as he had still not discovered a solution to rescuing his beloved. He tossed and turned but could not make sense of any solutions. Surely returning her to Wallace would mean never being allowed to see her again, and potentially wreaking further havoc on his own clan. Releasing her from the tower and forcing her to stay within his clan meant making his own people angry, particularly Janet.

  He could keep her in the tower. She could remain his and only his. True, it meant she would remain a prisoner, but she loved him and over time perhaps she could even forgive him for it.

  He could not make sense of his options and knew not what to do about the matter. Ewan called for wine to be brought in the hopes that it would help him sleep but it only made his mind more restless.

  By morning’s light, he had finally drifted into an anxious sleep from which he would not be roused.

  ***

  Eleidh stood behind the chair, brushing the thick black hair of her daughter. With the same pointed face as Janet, she had maintained a youthful appearance that left many wondering if the two were sisters.

  “You must keep him in your grasp, Janet. He is yours. Long before his parents passed, your father and I promised you to him. It is destined, and this creature cannot change that,” she growled.

  “I
t will not happen, Mother,” whined Janet. “You know how he dotes on me; you know how he desires me. I can keep him from going to her, you will see. I am the object of his need and want, and she cannot change that, nor ever will.”

  Mother and daughter sat in silence for a moment, each idealizing a future in which Iona was beheaded at last.

  “There is a way…” Eleidh began.

  “A way?” Janet asked, allowing her mother to continue.

  “Well, perhaps if Ewan is unwilling to take the step of having the child executed as promised, we could help him along. We could…invest, if you will. Invest our energy in the long-term benefit of the clan,” she replied vaguely with a smirk.

  “And how do you suggest we carry out this investment?” Janet inquired, smiling at the idea of her mother’s plotting on her behalf.

  “You could go to Iona. You could help her to escape,” Eleidh said.

  Janet cocked an eyebrow in question.

  “Say the guards happen to have been told that she is to be killed on sight if she should attempt such an escape. And say the guards are informed of her plan, a plan she decided on herself,” the menacing woman declared suggestively.

  Janet felt the corners of her mouth curl with vindictiveness. This could work. This could be exactly what she needed to destroy the union blossoming between captor and captive. This could be the key to her own happiness.

  “That would surely be a shame if it were to happen,” she remarked sardonically.

  “Yes, it truly would,” smirked her mother.

  The brushing ceased and Eleidh braided Janet’s hair for bed. They said no more on the subject, but neither could sleep for excitement.

  Tomorrow, Janet would try to get the guard drunk enough that he would fall asleep, or, perhaps, she would find another way.

  ***

  Wallace and his men began to finish their plan of attack. They would wait two more weeks. They felt with certainty that by then, Clan Chattan would not be expecting an attack. With no communication between them since the abduction, Clan Chattan had certainly anticipated an armed front sooner.