Highland Hunger

by Hannah Howell

  “I believe I also hanker.”

  He could be reading her mind. Again. And what she’d been envisioning sent a rush of mortification all the way through her, rooting her in place.

  “You needn’t flush so, lass. I’m well acquainted with the vagaries of a woman’s desires.”

  Tira gasped. Sputtered. “Of . . . all the licentious—Bold. Unbelievably crude—”

  He interrupted her as much with his words as how he reached for her hands still held close to her bosom. It wasn’t possible to not be shocked.

  “So young. Untried. Naïve.”

  “Naïve? You continue to bring up my age, Your Grace. Very well. I admit it. I’ll have you know I may not be in the first flush, but I’m well versed in social proprieties. And you are offending all them.”

  “Who wants that?”

  “Everyone wants proper behavior.”

  “Na’ that, lass. This first-flush thing. Only an untried youth values such.”

  Tira’s jaw gapped. She lost her words and her breath. She almost lost her balance.

  “And I’m well past that.”

  “H-how did you get here?”

  “Back door.”

  “Why is no one else noting it?”

  “All establishments have back doors.”

  “Not that. Why isn’t anyone noting you?”

  “Should they?”

  “Of course. You’re a man. A-a-a Scotsman. And you’re very large. Immensely so. Impossible to overlook. Especially in a ladies’ dress shop surrounded by females.”

  “You wish others noting us? Listening?”

  Heaven forbid. “No. I just wonder at how anyone could miss such a thing.”

  “It’s fain easy.”

  “Really?”

  She was whispering. He wasn’t. As if he wanted everyone to not only notice that she was meeting with him, but overhear what they said as well.

  “All I needed was to locate you.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “Your sister has a large voice.”

  True. Ophelia did have a loud way of speaking. And had said a lot of words. As did he. None of them her answer.

  “The better question is more the why of my locating you.”

  “All right. I forfeit. Why were you . . . locating me?”

  Tira lifted her head and damned the solid pump of her heart as her eyes connected with the obsidian of his. Silently. She couldn’t do a thing about alien lurch of her frame. Nor could she prevent his sure knowledge of it as his lips quirked and then went to a grin, showing a glint of teeth. It highlighted his handsomeness. Totally unnecessarily.

  “Did your da na’ tell you?”

  “Who?”

  “Your da. Father.”

  “Father was to tell me something? What?”

  “That’s for his lips to speak, lass. He should have done so well afore last eve. Was he there?”

  “He’s bedridden.”

  “Truly?”

  “Has been for years.”

  “Good.”

  “G-g-good?” Tira gasped and her eyes went wide. Her tongue wasn’t working, either. She’d worry about her pronounced stammer later, when she wasn’t being assailed with the view and smell and impact of this particular man.

  “Forgive me. That sounded . . .”

  “Brutish?”

  “Nae, lass. Honest.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t have the same effect.

  “I-I think you’d best leave. N-n-now.”

  “I meant nae disrespect to His Lordship. ’Tis well and good he has reason for his lack of guardianship. Leaving you open to interlopers such as Graves. When he kens the consequences of laxness. Fully.”

  And like that, his joviality vanished, replaced by such intensity Tira stepped back a step. And then another. But one blink of her eyes had him right before her, as if there hadn’t been a solid structure between them loaded with bolts of fabric.

  “I dinna’ mean to frighten you.”

  “I’m not . . . frightened.” It was a lie. She was disturbed. Angered. Shocked. And frightened.

  “You’ll forgive me?”

  Tira tipped her head.

  “Please?”

  “I—”

  Tira’s voice stopped. She found her hand plucked from her bodice and held in one of his, gently, as if it was the most fragile thing. He was cold. Again. Still. Chill sent trembling through her and she knew he felt it. He had to. His head bent forward and he pulled her closer at the same time—on feet that moved despite any order of the contrary. It was pure insanity to be drawn to a man in such a short time. Especially one of mercurial temperament. That didn’t stop it. It was too intriguing.

  Tira’s lips parted, allowing each gasp passageway. The pulse was loud in her ears, overwhelming everything else, while every breath of his touched minutely on her, gaining volume and cadence with each one, matching her. Breathing as one.

  “Iain!”

  A sharp whisper stopped him, and the next moment, she was in a folded semi-crouch, held to a wall of flesh-covered iron with one arm and facing a kilt-clad man. The duke’s other hand already held his sword, blade out, while the sound of steel sliding against the scabbard echoed about them, loud and harsh and foreign sounding.

  “Come.”

  The man gestured and Iain stood, sheathing his weapon without looking while maintaining his grip on her. She had no choice but to feel the muscle-covered bulk of him moving against her, but she really should’ve held back the sigh.

  “I must go now, lass.”

  She nodded.

  “Tell your father I’ll be there this eve.”

  She’d been released to face the fabric table that looked stable and solid and real. Tira gripped it until her legs belonged to her again and her knees ceased wavering. Such a reaction wasn’t due to anything attached to His Grace, the Duke of MacAvee. She only hoped he didn’t think so.

  “He . . . does not take vi-visitors.”

  “He’ll take me.”

  “I . . . truly don’t think—”

  The slightest sound of feminine chatter started filtering through the air, surrounding them with the sense of women. Lots of women. She blinked rapidly and continually, recognizing first Ophelia, since she was the loudest, and then her maid. And then she heard his whisper.

  “Prepare yourself, my sweet.”

  Tira whipped about and faced nothing more than the maw of shadow that was the dress shop’s hall leading to the back door. It was empty.

  “Are you going to mull that purchase all morn?”

  “Wh . . . at?” Tira turned back to face Ophelia, flanked by both maids.

  “That silk. If you want to purchase it, say so. Don’t just stand there, running your hands on it, while you daydream.”

  “Day . . . dream?”

  “What else would you call it? We’ve been here nigh on a quarter hour, while I’ve had three dresses drawn up for me, and you’ve done little more than moon over that bolt. I’d say just buy it so we can leave. I’m parched.”

  “The duke . . .” It was whispered.

  “MacAvee?”

  Tira shook her head. She was confused and it would sound worse. But it felt too real for a daydream.

  “Well, don’t act as if he’s going to miraculously appear. There hasn’t been anything resembling a man near this shop all morn. Unless you count Sir Graves.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? Your beau. Sir Robert Graves. Are you feeling ill?”

  “Sir Graves . . . is here?”

  “Oddly enough, yes. He’s right outside, waiting our appearance. But I wouldn’t call him a man anymore. Not after the example we got last night.”

  The ladies twittered amusement of Ophelia’s comment while Tira watched. Like an outsider. And then she moved, ignoring the silk. If the fabric could bring about such a vivid experience, she wanted nothing to do with it. She didn’t give it another backward look.

  Chapter Three

  He
hated sailors. Especially the drunken ones.

  Iain lifted his head, pulling back his teeth at the same time and grimacing on the cheap gin odor that filled his nostrils, dimming any enjoyment. It was the same with every sailor they brought him. Sotted. With cheap gin. Or cheaper whiskey. Nothing a Scot would allow past their lips. And here Iain was, destined to consume it.

  The man at his feet shook slightly and groaned. His eyelashes quivered.

  “We need leave, Your Grace.”

  “Aye. Now.”

  The warnings were unnecessary but always given. By these Honor Guardsmen, and their fathers, and their fathers before them. Exactly as it had been for decades. With exactly the same effect: none. Iain wouldn’t leave until his prey woke. He didn’t care. He’d made the promise after the first time he’d tasted blood and felt the effect it had on his senses—acutely. And then he’d had to suffer what happened. He’d never take a human life again. Not for anything as mundane as sustenance.

  “Now!”

  The word was hissed and Iain moved, leaping from a crouch at the back of the alley into a second-floor window opening with little effort and less sound. It was the six guardsmen shadowing him that made noise, moving in differing directions down uncountable alleys, while the seaman sputtered and then shouted. And then stumbled to his feet to yell some more.

  Iain had needed this last one. Not for sustenance . . . more for endurance. For what he got to do this very evening with the woman fated as his mate, destined, birthed into this world just for him. Forever. She was his. He’d known it twenty-one years ago and he knew it now. With every moment that passed. He little cared that she’d been born into a Sassenach family with only a hint of Scot roots and even less claim of honor. She was his mate and he knew it. The moment she’d existed he’d felt it. Every leaf in his orchard and every animal in his stables had reacted. Or Iain’s senses had been reborn again, with even more height and breadth and scope.

  Three hundred lonely years he’d waited and now she was here, within reach. As succulent as a ripe peach, as deep as a windswept moor, and as beautiful as every moonrise he’d watched. More so. This Tira was all woman, every bit of her. Finely built. Curved in all the proper places. Tall. And she was his. Or soon would be. Fully. Iain wiped his hands on his kilt band, wondering at the damp feel of his palms.

  The man in the alley stumbled, growling and cursing and then staggering into a wall. Iain watched it unfold exactly as the last one they’d brought, not a half hour earlier. Both men would wake with a headache and a sore neck, and bruises they couldn’t explain from a fight they couldn’t remember. Suffering a hangover from a drunk they couldn’t recall. And then they’d brush themselves off, enter the nearest tavern, and start all over again.

  Hell. He hated seagoing men.

  Tira wasn’t allowed in to see Lord Coombs until late, after pretending a headache and watching Ophelia and Aunt Adelaide leave for the recital. The day was already interminable. What with Ophelia fussing which dress was eye-catching in the event the mysterious Duke McAvee attended, Tira’s emotions rarely felt so stretched. Taut. Elevated.

  Excited.

  She was on her third visit to her father’s chamber before his manservant, Timms, allowed her in, for a few moments only, if she spoke softly and didn’t upset the earl.

  “Father?”

  He looked to have shrunk more since yestermorn when she’d visited. Legs, long useless and withered, made little impression in the coverlet, while his face had never looked so drawn and pale. And old.

  “Father?”

  “You’ve come about MacAvee.”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Come. Sit.”

  “What does he want, Father?”

  “He didn’t say?”

  “He told me to hear it from your lips.”

  Her father took a heavy breath that didn’t make much change in his covering, and then made a rattling deep in his chest as he exhaled.

  “Of course. And it should.”

  This wasn’t good. The earl’s reply meant the visit in the dress salon hadn’t been dreamed. And it hadn’t been imagined. And that meant it was impossible.

  “I met MacAvee almost twenty-one years ago. No. That’s wrong. I met his father, the late duke.”

  “Twenty-one years?”

  Her father nodded. “He arrived at Coombs Castle with a retinue of servants and outriders to make a man’s jaw drop. All of it in exchange for what I had.”

  “And that was . . . ?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” Tira launched into the room outside the reach of the candles. It hid the instant reaction and her inability to curb it.

  “As wife for his son and heir.”

  “You went behind Mother’s back?”

  Her father coughed hard enough to bring Timms to his side, a glass of brandy in one hand and a cloth to catch blood specks in the other. Tira watched them from her position at a bureau, resting her head on the wood for the support and to mute the sounds of labored breathing. Then the liquor started to work, granting her father time to talk and the strength to do so.

  The earl was always this way before the brandy worked, and just before he’d get morose and depressed over the carriage accident that took his wife’s life and made him an invalid. It hadn’t been his fault, but that didn’t change it. His wife was still dead and he was still half a man . . . or less.

  She’d be asked to leave before the next stage. But that was counterproductive to why she’d forced this meeting. Tira straightened her back, bringing her head level with the furniture piece, and waited.

  “Your mother . . . was in full agreement. Her signature is on the document.”

  “There’s a document? In this day and age?”

  “His Grace insisted upon it.”

  “But why, Father? Why?”

  She didn’t feel anger, resentment, or resignation. And it definitely wasn’t repulsion. It wasn’t even shock. It was something worse and with much more power, something akin to excitement.

  “I don’t understand the issue. MacAvee chieftains are well known for power, and presence, and vast holdings . . . and other things that women whisper of.”

  “I don’t care what he owns and what his titles are.”

  “What of the man? You care little for that, as well?”

  “I . . . hadn’t noticed.” And she was terrible at lying about it. Timms barely caught a chuckle, while her father moved something on his upper body as if to join in.

  “I’ve heard he . . . favors his sire. Even my sister, Adelaide, spoke of it.”

  “She knows?”

  “No. She visited me this morn. Asking that I proffer an invite to MacAvee . . . for her sake. And Ophelia.”

  “Aunt Adelaide? Ophelia?” Tira wasn’t jealous. She told herself the instant flash wasn’t jealousy. It was better labeled anger.

  “You need to come closer, Miss Tira. He can’t shout.”

  Timms gestured her to the chair set at her father’s bedside for any visitors he might entertain. Everyone knew only Tira sat there. Tira settled onto the brocade and wound a ribbon tie from her gown about her index finger.

  “According to your aunt, marriage to this MacAvee would be a pleasant thing.”

  “She said that?”

  “And more.”

  Tira didn’t answer. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat tight, and her cheeks burned. She found the thought of her marriage to MacAvee very pleasant . . . especially the idea of intimacy and what that might mean. But that wasn’t the issue. She spoke the next to her ribbon-wrapped hand.

  “You still should’ve told me, Father. Or at least warned me.”

  The earl sputtered, Timms dabbed at his lip, and then both men turned toward her. “That was your mother’s duty. Along with . . . all the other things a mother tells her daughter on the . . . day of marriage.”

  “The . . . day?” Tira’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected that.

  He nodded. “Your twenty-first bir
thday. Today.”

  Tira sucked in a breath. “Even if I agree to this outlandish arrangement, I can’t possibly be expected to wed with so little time. Notice needs to be given to the papers, invitations need to be organized and sent out, and I don’t even have a gown.”

  Her father snorted. The cloth in Timms’s hands caught the smattering of blood spots. He held it there as the earl shuddered through another coughing spell. It didn’t sound like his usual, however. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was laughing. Then he calmed, gulped another swig of brandy, and looked back at her.

  “You’ve little . . . choice, Tira. And little reason. He favors his sire. To the minute. In everything. And that includes . . . his impatience.”

  “I can say no, Father. This is not the Dark Ages where daughters were treated as chattel and wed accordingly. I run your estates. I’m well versed in it. I don’t have to wed at all. At least give me some time.”

  He sighed. “Twenty-one years is a powerful amount of time, Tira. It feels like an eternity when you’re just starting out. Some days it felt like forever.”

  “Is that why you agreed?”

  He rolled his head back and forth on the pillow. “I never expected my brother to pass on, and as the sixth Earl of Coxton-Combs, I’ve responsibilities. It takes gold . . . to maintain. Lots of it. I didn’t know where to turn. I had a worm-eaten estate and little more than debt. The east wing was roofless. The Norman wall collapsed. There were accounts to settle, pensions to pay out, and farmland to either work or lay fallow, letting everyone starve. And no one could overlook your grandfather’s debts of honor.”

  “How much did he pay?”

  “It was your hand or debtor’s prison. For the lot of us.”

  “How much, Father?”

  “Everything. The man set up a fund to cover everything. All we have was paid with MacAvee gold. Your clothing, the food and wines we consume, the horses we ride. All for your hand.”

  “I can’t wed a man I’ve just met!”

  “It shouldn’t be too great . . . a hardship. Just look about you. He’s wealthy, powerful, and according to Adelaide . . . very manly.”

  “It takes more than that for me, Father.” The blush was back, and with it a flurry of shiver.

  “How much more, lass?”