by Joanne Rock
“Excellent.” His teeth shone white in the dim light as he drew her deeper into the woods. “Then we can begin our game of satisfying one another’s curiosity. Ladies first.”
“Very well.” She stepped gingerly over a gnarled root he pointed out, the long skirt of her walking costume more suited to the wide lanes of a city park than the treacherous paths of a Highland forest. “Can you explain why you feel a claim on Invergale when it was given to my husband’s family almost one hundred years ago?”
He stiffened slightly beside her. But he continued to guide her unerringly through the gloom. The scent of the earth and dry leaves wafted up as they walked.
“Invergale was wrongfully taken from my…family.” He reached to lift a low-hanging branch for her. “That was over a year after Culloden, in the summer of 1747.”
She knew that many Highland clans had supported Charles Stuart’s long-ago claim to the throne in the Jacobite uprising. She’d also heard the rebels were put down harshly after their plans failed. They were stripped of their lands as punishment.
“So the viscount’s ancestors received the lands by order of the king.” Ahead, she could see an area where the trees thinned out and the moonlight filtered through.
“I recognize no king,” he said mildly. “And it is my turn to ask a question.”
His voice took on that musical quality, the lilting accent that made all of his words appealing. She stepped into the glade and a shaft of moonlight fell on her like a stage lamp at the Savoy Theatre.
“By all means.” She joined him in the silvery glow of the clearing. “Ask away.”
He stepped closer, his expression serious. The scent of pine and clean, warm male made her heart race. This was the giddy feeling other debutantes whispered about during the Season before Lily’s marriage. For a moment, she thought Iain might kiss her again, an event that would surely bring her closer to that most delicate of favors she needed to ask.
But then, he cupped her chin and tilted her face this way and that, studying her.
“Lily,” he said finally. “In this place sacred to your ancestors, you are bound to speak only the truth. Tell me now, are you an immortal Sidhe?”
Chapter Four
The moonlight played tricks on her.
She shook her head to clear it, Iain’s words incomprehensible even as she stood a hand’s span away.
“Excuse me?” Dazed and not quite sure why, she felt an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them, to somehow step into the warmth that seemed to pulse from all around him.
The light was different here, the colors of the glade richer than mere shades of gray. The scent of the green and growing things was all wrong for this time of year when the harvest had past. She had heard tales of magic within the Caledonia Forest, but had given those stories no credence until now.
“Are you a Sidhe? Do you aid the Sidhe to torment me?” His gaze tracked over her features. “You are beautiful enough to be an Otherworldly fae.”
“A She?” Lily repeated, confused. She peered up at the strong angle of his jaw and wished to trace her fingers along the planes of his face. “Is that a family name? Your enemy?”
“The Sidhe are my immortal enemies. A race of fae folk who doomed me to walk through time and seek souls to draw into their world of infernal magic.” His expression grew impatient, his whole body tense. “Tell the truth. Do you have Sidhe blood? Do you aid them? Is that why you can see me?”
Stunned by his rapid questions, Lily shook her head. “What madness is this?”
“I demand an answer,” he urged, his voice utterly serious.
“No!” She stepped back, away from whatever madness gripped him. Away from the urge she still felt to touch him. “I am not your enemy. I do not understand what you are suggesting.”
Light seemed to stream all around them, the sounds of a river rushing nearby filled her senses. It was all wrong how bright it was in this forest. Like she’d stepped into a dream.
“A woman,” Iain said softly. He laid a warm hand on her upper arm and she could almost feel the tension ease from him as if a great weight had been lifted. “You are a mere mortal woman. Yet here you are.”
His touch felt real enough. It grounded her when nothing else made sense.
“You are a ghost, aren’t you?” She knew it wasn’t a rational explanation. But what else would account for him in his Highlander plaid and his warrior’s form? “You are a ghost and I can only see you because I’m going mad.”
“I am no ghost.”
“I wanted to ask you a favor, only you cannot possibly—” She cut herself off, refusing to give her ludicrous plan any more thought. “That is, why would you think I could be anything but a mortal woman?”
“Mortals do not usually see me. At least, not for long stretches of time the way you can.” He led her deeper into the forest, toward a leafy bower someone must have built for reading or picnicking.
“Mortals. You say that as if-” She shook her head, confused.
“I am not like you, Lily. I was cursed to walk through time forever after I crossed into Sidhe lands to search for my sister who was taken from my family.” He held aside a low-hanging vine. “I have been alone these last hundred years. Doomed to live without the comforts of a wife or the rewards of children.”
She could not think of a way to reply, especially as she genuinely liked Iain. “I may be young, sir, but I am not naive. Nor given to flights of fancy.”
Her fears that he was a ghost aside.
“I do not suggest that you are.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw with rough impatience. “You want to know why others cannot see me, it is because of the curse. I have become more like a Sidhe than a man over time. In fact, I carry the light of my hated enemy within me at all times.”
She’d wanted answers. She’d never expected…this.
“You expect me to believe that you have lived one hundred years?” She could not reconcile his tale to any logic she knew. Although, even as she thought as much, her gaze roamed over his garb. His warrior demeanor. They reminded her of another place and time.
“Longer if you count my mortal life before I changed to…” He shook his head. “Whatever I am now. I live to protect others from my fate, as do my brothers who share this curse. We have vowed to ensure no one passes through the doorway at Invergale into the Sidhe world, from which their souls may never return. The doorway in your chamber, in fact. Which is why I must not allow you to stay there.”
“The passageway you showed me?” Her breath came fast as a whole host of new fears battled within her. Were her servants safe from whatever threat Iain suggested? Was she safe with a man who might be…mad?
“My family angered the Sidhe, and this is how they wreak their vengeance. I must ask you to leave Invergale for your own safety.”
“And you think tales of immortal enemies will make me leave?” She thought more of Iain. Had even hoped to request the most delicate of favors from him this eve. But how could she when he played this sort of game?
“You do not believe me.”
“What you suggest is beyond belief.”
He leaned closer, his shoulders blocking out the moon as his face neared hers. Even knowing that he was trying to trick her did not prevent the rush of awareness through her body. “Try to keep your eyes on me, Lily.”
Before she could ask what he meant, he stepped away from her. Smiled.
And vanished.
A scream tore along her throat, but it died when he reappeared a few feet away.
“I can move faster than even you can see, and you see me better than most.” He stalked closer to her again and she blinked.
He waved her toward the bower they’d spotted earlier.
“Are we at risk from this enemy now?” She peered around her. “There is a magic in the air even in this place.” A shiver danced over her skin.
“We are safe from dark magic here. I’ve known these woods since I was a lad.” As they neared the
bower, the vines hung thicker, a curtain of green draping the bench with a high, arched back of bent branches. “I am more interested in what favor you would ask of me?”
Words eluded her. She should not tell him. And yet, with his hand on her arm, leading her to sit within the verdant undergrowth, she found herself speaking.
“I understand you don’t want me to remain here, so you may not be inclined to help me.” She settled into the deep bench seat of dried grasses. “But Invergale represents a retreat from my family who have not always treated me well.”
Briefly, she recounted her father’s cruelty. Her husband’s investment in her for financial reasons. Her impending return to the marriage market. Iain listened carefully and cursed most of the men in her story, which made her smile in spite of herself.
“And so,” she continued, “it would help me to maintain the small freedoms that widowhood allows if…I were no longer a maid.” She knew she should feel horrified with that admission, but as she sat beside him in this place full of magic, she could not stir a sense of regret. “I fear is it not enough to tell people the marriage was consummated. You guessed the truth very quickly.” Her cheeks burned. “If my father suspects as much—”
She did not wish to contemplate the kind of marriage he would make for her next. Or the scandal it would cause to have him announcing her virginity to every potential suitor.
“I am sorry for how your father has treated you, fair Lily.” Iain brushed a kiss along her forehead with a tenderness that turned her inside out. “But I cannot take this gift you wish to give me, not when I cannot claim you as mine.”
“But from the way you kissed me, I thought that you would not be opposed to…that gift. Besides, what if my father arranges a match with another ancient old toad and I am deprived the pleasure of knowing what it feels like to be touched in that way?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I cannot believe I said that.”
“This is a place where truths must be told.” Iain’s expression was grave. He sat beside her, his shoulders reclining against the interwoven branches that created a sense of privacy from wandering red deer. The moonlight remained where they sat, the place as enchanted as Iain promised.
A peculiar feeling shimmered along her skin, an extra sense that seemed to tell her something important was about to happen. The night felt full of anticipation.
“What about you? Must you tell the truth in this place?” Lily’s gaze wandered over him, this stranger who felt more real to her than her husband ever had.
Iain Darroch had been kinder to her than her own relations had ever been, even when he thought her his enemy.
“Aye.” His bare knee brushed hers through her heavy walking skirt. The fabric did not mask the heat of him.
Sensation rushed through her, radiating out from the point of contact. The intimacy of it made her breath catch and her heartbeat falter a moment.
“Then I must know. Why do you think I see you when others do not? What reason could there be?” She had a hundred questions. They leaped into her brain, demanding a turn to be asked. “And why do I feel so strangely in this place?”
“I don’t understand why you can see me.” His green gaze held hers. “At first, I thought you were one of them—a lovely fae woman who would woo me to possess Invergale and the doorway to the Sidhe world. But I no longer believe that. And as for your other question, you feel strangely here because time tends to stand still in this forest.”
“It is more than that.” It took a physical effort to withhold her touch from where it wanted to land. On Iain Darroch. She wanted his kiss upon her mouth, her lips so hungry they were dry with want.
“How do you feel?” He reached to her forehead to brush a stray tendril from her temple and the touch left a firestorm in its wake.
“Aching,” she answered honestly, remembering the magic of the place. “As though there is a slow burn beneath skin that is too tight. As though I cannot quite catch my breath. And although my corset is not overly tight—” She could not keep a hand from tugging at the bodice of her dress. “—I feel ready to suffocate in my clothing.”
The added pressure of pulling at her garb only served to abrade her already sensitized skin. Not even the cooling breeze through the pinewood trees helped.
“Then it seems I do know the cause.” His fingers drifted up her temple and into her hairline, the teasing stroke a touch she desperately needed. “I think if I answer the favor you asked of me, it will ease the ache.”
Her heart slugged hard against her chest, her fevered thoughts turning over what that meant while his thumb slid a hairpin free. And then another.
“You would ensure I am no longer a maid?” She no longer cared for modesty. Whatever she attempted to hide from him would only be undone by the magic of this enchanted place.
A long, silky wave slipped down from the knot she’d made with her hair.
“I would be very, very sure to leave no trace of the maiden behind.” Iain’s rough voice called forth a swirling pleasure deep inside her. “But you must be absolutely certain that’s what you want.”
His palm grazed her ear as he tugged more pins loose and her hair tumbled to her shoulders, tickling her bare neck just above the collar of her gown. She closed her eyes, the sight of him watching her almost too much for her overwrought senses. Pleasures seemed to multiply here until she could not count them all.
“Yes.” She wanted more of his touch. More of everything he knew and she did not. “I want you to rid me of this virginity that could annul my marriage and steal my rights as a widow.”
His fingers paused where they’d been sifting through her hair. She opened her eyes to find him studying her in earnest.
“Are those your only reasons for wanting this?” His breath whispered past her cheekbone, his hand stilled at the base of her neck just above the buttons on her dress.
“No.” The need for him had become a heated pulse between her thighs. A tingling, heavy ache in her breasts. “I hunger for the feel of you within me.”
Her answer brought his mouth crashing down upon hers with gratifying swiftness. She arched against him, sealing her breasts to his hard chest even as she kissed him. A needy moan vibrated in the back of her throat. Her hands splayed over his shoulders, absorbing his strength and heat.
Iain’s arms drew her closer, steadying her around her waist and back. Her hip pressed to his while his hands roamed her spine and unfastened the buttons he found there.
With each loop undone, she felt more of her fears slide away. The slight abrasion of his callused fingers elicited a raw pleasure along her bared skin.
A delectable freedom from her confining garb.
“Iain?” She levered herself up to see his face. “Do you truly feel as I do? The hunger?”
Perhaps it was only maidenly fear, but having recalled the unusual nature of the Caledonian forest, she would hear the truth from his lips.
“Nay.” His green eyes met hers.
The rough honesty raked over her with a brutality she had not expected. But before she could pull away from him, he cupped her bottom through her skirts, lifting her onto the hard length of his thigh.
“I feel the hunger a hundred times more. It is so fierce I do battle with it every second, but for your sake, I will keep it at bay.” The harsh note in his voice took on new meaning as she began to understand what he meant. “Not for the world would I hurt you or frighten you, but I am dying to be inside you, Lily.”
The pressure of his thigh in the most intimate of places incited new aches. A new fire within. She did not understand the level of hunger he spoke of, but with that one shift of position, she began to glimpse the possibilities of what he meant.
“I must be free of my gown,” she urged, wriggling her arms to slide them from her sleeves.
With a ragged groan, he aided her, his fingers raking the fabric down and away. As the outer garment slid off to reveal her corset, Iain’s mouth dipped to the swell of her breast just above the s
ilk. His tongue swept along her skin before he drew on her lightly, sucking and nipping. The kiss set her aflame all over, the sensation kindling an answering heat between her legs.
She rose up on her knees on their bower bench, lifting herself against his mouth, silently demanding more. Already, nimble fingers worked the hooks and fastenings, peeling away the stiff undergarment until the material dangled loose, the straps slipping down to her elbows. Soon her breasts were bared to the unnatural moonlight and Iain’s avid gaze.
“You do not need to hold back on my account,” she whispered, her fingers in his hair, tugging him toward her. “I long for more.”
He cupped her breasts in his hand. Lifting them. Cradling them. He licked along the pebbled peak of one and then the other, as if he could not choose between them. She arched closer, demanding a deeper kiss until he drew one tight bud into his mouth and suckled hard. She gasped and gripped his shoulders tighter, bolstering herself so she did not collapse against him into a boneless, quivering heap.
Carefully, she slid her arms free from the corset, discarding the silk beside their bower bed. Only her drawers remained, so she went to work on Iain’s plaid. That was easily tugged away, revealing more bronzed skin and sculpted muscle. She ran her fingers over one flat male nipple, testing the feel of him everywhere she could reach.
He released her breast to trail kisses down her belly along the smooth cotton lace of her only remaining undergarment. Lifting her at the waist, he laid her down on the bower seat, her freed hair falling off the edge to brush the pine needles below.
“I am speechless at the gift you give me,” he said softly, palming her waist, the heel of his hand moving lower. Lower.
“I am more anxious for the gift I will receive.” She didn’t know what made her so brazen with him. Perhaps it was because she had nearly missed the chance to experience this kind of union with a man.
And Iain was no ordinary man.
The male stretched over her was an impressive strong warrior. For all she knew, he was made of magic himself.
