They had never been like this. Never this close while standing upright. He felt so much bigger like this. Taller. Stronger. More intimidating.
He spoke against her mouth, his warm breath fanning her suddenly trembling lips. “I thought I told you tae call me Hunt.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly his lips were there. His teeth clanged with hers as his tongue slid inside her parted lips, tasting, seeking.
This was plunder.
She froze, her thoughts sluggishly attempting to form under this assault.
He doesn’t want me. I’m merely a problem.
But his mouth was so hot. So thorough. So persuasive. Her limbs melted. His hands slid around her waist and down to her bottom. He grabbed her backside and squeezed. Just like that, liquid heat shot to her core.
She moaned against his mouth.
And then he was gone.
He stepped back abruptly. She staggered forward a step, off balance and seeking, hungry for the loss of him, her hands grasping air.
“There,” he pronounced, looking quite satisfied. “I think I made my point.”
“Er . . .” She stared at him blankly, her senses still muddled from arousal.
“We can both agree you would beg for it. Again.”
Suddenly she was glad she had slapped him.
Smiling almost cruelly, he pulled open the door and stormed out. The door shut just shy of a slam behind him.
Her legs were unable to support her weight. She sank down to the edge of the bed and brought trembling fingers to her lips, suddenly wondering if she had not misjudged him entirely.
She had underestimated his commitment to the validity of the curse. She knew that now. Because the man who had just left her showed no signs of yielding.
He had no tenderness in him at all.
She’d lied to him. Hunt stormed down the stairs of the inn and out into the yard. He walked through the village, ignoring people that called to him, including Graham. The last thing he wanted was to talk to him. His friend knew well of his family curse. Everyone did. Graham had looked at him like he was a madman to take Clara to wife. He did not want to face him now knowing he’d made such a colossal mistake.
He couldn’t bear it just yet.
It was cold out and he realized he had left his thicker jacket back at the inn, but he wasn’t ready to return for it just yet.
He left the village behind and strode into the trees. His breath puffed out before him in a cloud of white. With a growl, he stopped and flattened both hands against a tree, bowing his head, letting the rough bark scratch his palms and remind him that he was alive.
Alive was good.
His wife, unfortunately, could put an end to that if he let her—if he let her in. No woman was worth dying for. He had a sudden memory of her crying out his name as she dragged nails down his back. He gave his head a hard shake. It had been incredible with her. Unlike anything he ever experienced.
But not worth dying for.
He had to remember that. His mother had told him that plenty of times over the years.
He’d never been tempted before to do anything that put himself at risk. Until now. Until that lass back at the inn with her soulful eyes.
He lifted his head and looked to the sky, to the canopy of trees overhead.
Now that he’d had a taste of her, it would be doubly difficult to avoid her—to keep his hands off her.
Unless she hated him. Unless he made himself the most disagreeable man in Christendom and then she would never let him near her.
He stood back from the tree, newly resolved. Dragging his hands through his hair, he turned back for the village, a plan in place.
It was time to go home.
Chapter 15
They arrived at MacLarin Keep later that day.
It was a castle, but this one looked older than her brother’s home, as though it had been here long before the Romans ever set foot on this island. The stone was dark where ivy didn’t cover it. The ramparts loomed tall but not as tall as the anchoring towers stretching into the sky. She lost sight of the towers as they rolled over the bridge and beneath the portcullis, passing into the courtyard.
Their carriage pulled to a gradual stop, the wheels clattering loudly and announcing their arrival. As she and Marian descended, she searched for a glimpse of her husband, but he was nowhere in sight. Husband? No. That felt wrong—it felt untrue. He’d ridden ahead of them. She’d last seen him outside their window an hour ago.
There was only an old woman, waiting in the great threshold of the double front doors. Clearly, Clara was expected. A result, she could only assume, of Hunt’s earlier arrival. He’d alerted the staff. Perhaps this was the housekeeper.
The woman studied Clara with a narrowed rheumy gaze.
“So ye be the one,” she declared in a cracking voice, her brogue perhaps the thickest Clara had heard yet since arriving in Scotland.
Lifting her skirts, Clara ascended the steps and exchanged an uncertain look with Marian before facing the old woman again. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ye be the one.”
Clara shook her head in bewilderment. “The one . . . who, ma’am?”
“The one tae murder my grandson.”
Clara was shown to her bedchamber by Hunt’s grandmother. The woman did not even attempt to hide her dislike. She pressed her lips together until they resembled the dried-up skin of a date.
“This be yer room. Mind ye, ’tis no’ the master chamber. Ye will no’ be sharing a bed wi’ my grandson.” Those rheumy eyes snapped in challenge. As though Clara was intent on molesting her grandson. She had to bite back a hysterical giggle at the image of herself creeping into Hunt’s bed and attacking him unawares.
“Ye understand, lass?” the woman persisted.
Clara’s face heated, but she nodded. She had no idea how to respond. No idea what Hunt had told his grandmother about her.
The old woman had been mercenary in her speech and manner since that first greeting in the doorway. The entire trip to Marian’s room, she had muttered in a mixture of English and Gaelic about the damnable English.
Now, as they stood in the center of what was to be Clara’s room, the woman dealt her a cold survey. She missed nothing, inspecting Clara from head to toe. “Ye are no’ much tae look at. I canna see wot prompted Hunt tae forget himself and wed ye.”
Clara lifted her chin defiantly. “You refer to the curse.”
“Aye,” the woman said slowly, nodding. “The curse.”
“Perhaps he married me because deep down he knows it’s rubbish.”
The old woman’s eyes flared wide. Shaking, she stepped closer slowly, as though her old bones could not move any faster. She lifted a hand, pointing a trembling, gnarled finger at Clara. “Is that wot ye told him?”
Clara felt a stab of fear that Hunt’s nana might drop dead in front of her. That would not go over well. Clara nodded once, feeling suddenly uncertain beneath the woman’s wrathful gaze.
“Well, stop it,” Nana bit out. “Dinna speak such things tae him, do ye understand me, lass? Dinna fill his head wi’ such lies and rot.”
The woman was shaking even more now. Clara reached for her arm in concern. “Would you care to sit down?”
She yanked her bony arm free and started clomping toward the bedchamber door. “Nay! I’m no’ feeble in body or mind, thank ye verra much, but ye may be if ye treat me as an invalid.”
Clara pulled back, wondering if that was a threat or just the ramblings of a distraught old woman.
The elderly woman stopped at the door and turned to focus her cloudy gaze on Clara once again. “I buried my husband and son. I’ll no’ live tae put my grandson in the earth as well. Ye hear me? I’d just as soon it be ye in the ground.”
Well, then. Definitely a threat.
“I understand you perfectly,” Clara answered. It would be difficult not to. “And you have nothing to worry about. Hunt and I will not be living as a true husban
d and wife.” He had made that abundantly clear.
“Humph.” She didn’t look convinced.
Clara spread her arms wide. “Do you see your grandson here? He’s nowhere near me because he regrets marrying me.”
“But he married ye,” she announced as if that was threat enough.
This was madness and this was Clara’s life right now. For the time being at least. Until she found a way out of this mess.
“Did he lie wi’ ye?”
Clara gasped. Her face caught fire and she sputtered, “That’s none of your—”
Nana shook her head. “Aye, of course he did, foolish lad.” She swept another withering examination over Clara. “Time will soon reveal if he’s gone and killed himself.”
“He did not kill himself,” Clara snapped. “You will see, madam.”
“Aye.” She nodded. “That we will.”
Apparently satisfied their conversation had come to an end, Nana turned for the door.
Before she departed the chamber, Clara could not resist calling out, “Where is he? Where is Hunt?”
His grandmother stepped out into the corridor and peered back inside the room. “Far from ye. He’s gone far from ye, lass.” She stabbed a damning finger at Clara. “If he’s wise, when he comes back he’ll send ye away where ye will do him no harm.” That said, she shut the door, leaving Clara alone.
Blessedly alone. Wretchedly alone.
Alone in her chamber, Clara wondered if Nana’s cruel words weren’t perhaps the best solution. Perhaps she should leave.
Of course she knew staying here would do Hunt no harm. No more harm than a monster under the bed would do.
No, she feared the harm it would do to her if she remained here.
There was dying without actually dying. Being a wife to him and treated like a pariah . . . that would be one manner of death, and Clara had no intention of dying any time soon.
Hunt stayed away a fortnight before he accepted that he had to return. He had taken up residence at a hunting lodge that once served as a retreat for previous generations of MacLarin men. All of whom had died prematurely, of course, after siring their one son. He wondered how closely, if at all, he was following in their footsteps in seeking refuge there.
Had they, too, sought solace at the lodge? Whatever the case, Hunt knew it had not saved them. They’d married. They had begot sons. They had died. And all before their sons took their first breaths.
It was a dismal thought to think he was repeating their mistakes. He had thought himself smarter, more informed from the past and above lustful urges.
But he could not hide away forever. He had property to attend, as well as the needs of his clan. A late freeze had arrived whilst he was gone. He could no longer ignore his duties.
He could not simply disappear indefinitely. Although his grandmother might disagree. She had been furious with him. Growing up, she had not harped on him as his mother had. She’d been much too practical for that. Only his mother had wallowed and bemoaned her fate to all and sundry, prostrating herself, unable to move more than a few feet a day due to her overwhelming grief. In his earliest memory as a young boy, he remembered burrowing under the covers as he heard her wails echo through the castle, convinced it was a ghost haunting the place and come to get him.
Nana had gone about living. She’d been more mother to Hunt. When he arrived ahead of Clara and informed her of his nuptials, she had been direct with him.
Ye damn fool. What have ye done?
She never had been one to mince words. When he suggested he leave for a respite, she had wholeheartedly agreed. Mayhap time away from this lass who has bewitched ye will do ye some good.
He’d experienced a touch of desperation knowing that Clara was close behind. He wasn’t proud of the emotion. He felt like prey in a trap, the urgent need to run pressing on him like a great weight. However much he mocked her, insisting that she couldn’t resist him, it was the other way around. He feared he could not resist her.
Anger welled up in him. How could it be that only the night before he’d felt such pleasure, such—dare he say it—joy?
Now there was only disappointment keener than any he’d felt before, and since disappointment was a way of life for him, he knew a great deal about the feeling. Enough to know that he despised it.
She’d done this. She’d brought him to this state. Another reason to resent her. To get away from her . . .
Aye, keep away from the lass. Or better yet send her away. Ye may still have a chance then.
He stopped his mount in thick woods, on a rise that looked down at his keep. Branches creaked all around him, burdened with newly formed ice.
His heart swelled, lightened to be back even if it meant facing his wife.
He loved this place. It was his heart. Other men built families. He built this place, this community. It was his purpose. He kept it going, thriving.
The castle was bordered on one side by a small village and white-frosted fields on the other. It was prosperous. Despite the personal hardships to befall the MacLarin men, the lands and people always managed to flourish. Even during the worst of times, during the battle against British tyranny at Culloden. His great-grandfather had died shortly before the battle, as a result of the curse, keeping them from getting embroiled in tensions with the English, and thereby saving their lands from being confiscated. It was probably the only time in the history of the MacLarins that the curse served to do anything good.
He thought of his grandmother’s suggestion to send Clara away and shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He did not care for the notion. They had taken vows . . . and he had promised her brother he would see to her care. Sending her away ran counter to that. Honor demanded he keep her here as his wife and not run her off like some wretched shame that must be expunged from his life.
And yet he had also decided to avoid her.
When that was impossible, he would keep his manner cool and give her no reason to like him. Shouldn’t be too difficult. He was unaccustomed to charming women. Repelling this one shouldn’t prove a challenge.
He spurred his horse ahead for home, an anxious buzz traveling along his nerves. He told himself it was because he must face the wrath of his grandmother again and not because he would soon see Clara.
Nana was equally respected and feared in these parts, considered a witch by many, but he had never feared her. She was kin. She could make a nuisance of herself to be certain, but fear did not enter into it for him.
Nay, he could not lie to himself. It was the prospect of facing Clara again. Despite their ugly words that day at the inn, his most resounding memory of her was how she had felt in his arms. How very different . . . how very right. He never knew it could be like that. The tups in his adolescence had been just that. Meaningless tups. Catriona had been nice. Comfortable.
Being with Clara had been like diving off a cliff. Exhilarating. Decidedly not comfortable. Not meaningless, if his inability to stop thinking about her was any indication.
Clara was the first woman he chose, he realized with some start. That made all the difference.
He’d been attracted to her. He desired her. He pursued her and won her.
Now he knew what it could be like. How good it could be. Being with someone he chose eclipsed every other encounter in his life.
Nana was right. The lass was dangerous indeed.
A stable lad rushed to greet him in the courtyard. Hunt tossed his horse’s reins to him.
He approached the main doors, but paused before entering, hovering at the edge of the arched porch. Inside was his wife. It was still the strangest thought.
The door opened. As though Nana had sensed his arrival and been summoned, she stood there, assessing him critically.
She crossed her arms over her thin chest. “Wot are ye doing here?”
“And good day tae you, madam. I live here. Remember?”
“Humph.” She rocked back on her heels. “I thought ye were going tae stay away.”<
br />
“I could no’ do that now, could I? I’m the laird.”
Her head bobbed like a pecking bird. “Aye, ye be the laird, which is why I thought ye would have more sense tae go and marry that lass. Well, I’ve given it some thought and there is one obvious solution tae this.”
“There is?”
“Aye.” She nodded, the motion not ruffling a single silver hair within the tightly coiled plaits atop her head.
He stared at her, hope drumming through him at the possibility of a solution. He knew Nana well enough to know she would not say such a thing lightly. She’d always been the one to make things right in his life. When his mother would vent her spleen in a drunken rage, tossing and breaking items, Nana would take him off somewhere so that he would not have to witness it. She’d take him for a ride or a walk or fishing in the loch.
“Well?” he pressed. “What is it?”
“Get her wi’ child.”
The hope deflated in his chest. He snorted, certain old age had finally addled his grandmother’s head. “Ye ken that is the heart of the matter. I canno’—”
“Nay. I’m no’ speaking of ye. Some other man. Graham, mayhap? Or another of our clansmen. Any of yer men would do it fer ye if they thought it would spare yer life.”
He stared aghast at his grandmother.
The notion of handing Clara, his wife, over to another man, enraged him. For a long moment he could not even find his voice.
At last, he responded. “Of course any one of my men would do it if I asked them,” he growled. “What man would turn down the offer tae bed a beautiful woman? It would be no hardship.” He scoffed, his hands clenching at his sides. His grandmother was daft if she thought he would allow another man to touch Clara.
She was his.
“Och. Wot be the difference? Ye married her thinking another man had already done the deed by her so why—”
“That was before I met her. It was in the past.” It was different now. Colossally different.
Nana lifted her bony shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “It should no’ matter.”
“It matters,” he insisted, a shudder racking him at the image of Clara in another man’s bed. He couldn’t stop his imagination from running wild, envisioning Graham kissing her, his friend’s hands caressing Clara, touching her where Hunt had touched her.
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