Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel (Highland Warriors Book 2)

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  “Grrrr.” He grabbed a linen towel someone had thoughtfully left folded beside the ewer’s basin and scrubbed his face, slowly coming back to life.

  Unfortunately, the door knocking didn’t cease.

  “Odin’s swinging knackers!” Scowling, he thrust the linen before his groin – just in case the pest was Isobel – and stomped across the room.

  He yanked open the door. “Can a man not sleep in this foul place?”

  Emptiness answered him.

  The shadow-filled passage was deserted.

  But the knocking rang even louder here. Hollow and hellishly annoying, it echoed in the corridor, filling his ears and maddening him.

  “A good morrow, sir,” a small lad’s voice came from the dimness to his left.

  Whipping that way, Kendrew saw a thin-shouldered boy on the landing. Barely eight summers, perhaps younger, the lad clutched a wicker creel of tallow candles and was clearly a kitchen helper.

  He couldn’t possibly be responsible for the din.

  “Thon knocking” - Kendrew eyed the lad, trying hard not to scowl – “is that something done here every morning, what? Mayhap your chief’s way of getting his men up and stirring from their beds?”

  “Oh, no, sir.” The boy shook his head. “‘Tis the new memorial cairn, it is.”

  “The cairn?” Kendrew blinked, wondering if he was still dreaming.

  But the lad nodded. “Aye, sir. It be the cairn, right enough.”

  Shifting the candle-creel against his hip, the boy swelled his chest. Apparently it wasn’t often he had the chance to be a tiding-giver.

  “The storm last night blew the top right off the cairn. Stones were spread everywhere this morn, they were.” He came closer, lowering his voice. “There be some folk in the kitchens who say one of your dreagans did it.”

  “Pah.” Kendrew made a dismissive gesture, realizing too late that he’d used the hand that held the toweling before him. Jamming the linen back in place, he gave the lad his best reassuring smile. “The only beasties hereabouts are your master, James Cameron, and his web-toed, brine-drinking friend, Alasdair MacDonald.

  “That I promise you.” He winked at the lad.

  “I dunno…” The boy didn’t look convinced.

  “Well, I do.” Kendrew spoke with authority. “There were Nought stones in the top layer of the cairn.” Leaning down, he chose words he hoped would ease the lad’s fears. “No dreagan would dare to touch them once they were put in place.”

  The boy looked much relieved. “You think so, sir?”

  “I know so.” Kendrew reached out with his towel-free hand and tousled the lad’s hair. “Dinnae fash yourself about dreagans. ‘Tis right fond o’ wee laddies they are. And in a good way, ne’er you worry.”

  He winked again, remembering when he, too, was so young and trusted in dreagans. “They’d like you fine, they would.”

  The boy’s eyes lit. “Then I should like to see one someday.”

  “And so you might.” Kendrew kept his smile in place.

  But it was hard with his head splitting and his eyes still on fire.

  “Tell me, though” – he gripped the boy’s arm when the child started to move away – “what is the knocking?”

  “Oh! I thought I said.” The boy’s cheeks turned a bit pink. “My laird sent some men to rebuild the memorial. They’ve been at it for an hour or so, gathering the fallen stones and setting ‘em back on the top of the cairn. That’s making the knocking, sir.”

  “I see.” Kendrew nodded, and then patted the boy’s shoulder before the lad hurried off down the passage.

  It wasn’t until the boy rounded a corner at the end of the corridor that Kendrew went back inside his room, closing the door behind him.

  When he did, he sank down on the edge of the bed and wished he had more cold water to dump over his head.

  He needed his wits about him.

  He knew what had happened to the fool memorial cairn.

  And it wasn’t wind or dreagans.

  It was the gods.

  More specifically, it was Thor, Odin, and every other Nordic deity feasting and drinking in Asgard. Unlike dreagans, gods could do anything.

  Norse gods were stronger than most.

  And they knew he’d brought sacred Nought stones to Haven. They knew that he’d lost his heart to Isobel Cameron. Most damning of all, they’d also seen that thanks to Grim’s meddling, the lady now wore a fine silver battle ring on her betrothal finger.

  And they were mightily displeased.

  Damaging the cairn was a warning.

  If such foolery continued, there was no accounting for the trouble that would visit the glen. Strange things had already been happening. He was still not wholly convinced he’d seen only mist-wraiths drifting about behind the cook-fires on at the Midsummer Eve revels.

  And if something was afoot, he didn’t need the gods angry at him.

  He’d have to put an end to any furor before something worse happened.

  So he dressed as quickly as he could – given his weakened, aching state – and went in search of James. He had a plan that he believed Isobel’s brother would heartily endorse: he would take Isobel to Nought, showing her his land’s most fearsome attributes.

  Once she’d seen them, she’d realize her folly.

  She’d beg him to return her to Haven.

  Their betrothal would end before it began.

  The only difficulty was that as Kendrew finally made his way down the tower stairs to seek out James, he found his feet stepping slower and slower. And when he reached the landing just before the great hall, he felt an inexplicable urge to lean against the wall, stare out the nearest arrow slit, and heave a great sigh.

  He did want to take Isobel to Nought.

  That wasn’t his problem.

  The trouble was that he knew she’d love every terrible inch of his land that he could show her. She’d ooh and ahh, and his heart would swell to see the wonder in her eyes. Isobel Cameron was a woman who loved wild places. Cold wind was an elixir to her. The scent of stone more dear to her than the costliest perfume.

  And if he threw his bearskin around his shoulders and drank mead from rune-carved horn, she wouldn’t call him a fool for longing for the old ways. Her eyes would shine and she’d reach for his mead horn, begging a sip.

  She’d raise her children to be no different.

  All that Kendrew knew.

  And Odin help him, the knowledge filled him with a greater joy than he’d ever felt.

  Taking Isobel to Nought wouldn’t end their betrothal.

  It would bind them forever.

  * * *

  “Have you ever breathed air so fresh and clean?”

  Isobel stood on the narrow stone ledge of the most formidable bluff in all of Nought and pressed both hands to her breast, inhaling deeply. Her face glowed and her eyes shone with rapture. Her words hung in the cold, brisk air she’d praised several times now, while the awe in her tone curdled Kendrew’s gizzard.

  He had not brought her to Dreagan Falls hoping to hear accolades.

  His reasons were just the opposite and the lady was dashing each one of them. He’d known she’d react this way, yet there’d been a slight chance he might be mistaken. She was a lady. And excepting his sister, he hadn’t met one yet who could face Nought full on and not run for her life. He owed it to Isobel to take the risk.

  If she quailed, he’d be rid of her.

  Her life would be her own. She forget him swiftly, turning her passion to man better suited for a gentlewoman of a place as tame as Haven.

  He would’ve done right by her.

  It was a gamble he’d lost.

  She was winning this battle, and he wasn’t a man who enjoyed defeat.

  So he stood a bit taller than usual, hoping to appear as harsh and daunting as the jagged peaks soaring above them. He also tried to think of something suitably off-putting to say to her. Words that would prove how dark, untamed, and desolate Nought t
ruly was.

  Inspiration came when she took another long breath, closing her eyes in appreciation.

  “The air here is often so filled with mist that you can’t see the spray from the falls, my lady.” Kendrew kept a firm grip on her arm as he spoke. “You are fortunate to be here on a bright afternoon. One wrong step” - he pulled her closer, already regretting having chosen this site to show her – “and there is nothing but a sheer drop straight down to the Dreagans’ Bath.”

  “Do they truly bathe there?” She leaned forward, peering over the ledge to the sparkling blue pool far below. “I would joy to see them if they do.”

  “Sakes!” Kendrew yanked her back from the edge. “Have a care. This is not your Haven with its pinewood and gently rolling meadows of primrose.”

  “I thought to see if a dreagan swam.” She glanced at him, her face alight with whimsy. “You didn’t answer me.”

  “I thought I heard them splashing about down there once, aye.” Kendrew set his mouth in a hard line, hoping to lend more seriousness to such folly. “I was but a boy at the time,” he added, speaking honestly.

  “Though…” He looked off into the distance, beyond the soaring peaks. “Some of our clan graybeards insist the beasts come here still, just as they did in the days before this earth was weaned. On such days, when the mist was too thick to see your hand before your face, our storytellers do claim one can hear the creatures bathing here.”

  He slanted a glance at Isobel.

  If he hoped to scare her, he failed.

  Instead, she smiled. “The pool is a perfect place for them. I should like to bathe there myself.”

  “You’d freeze.” He frowned at her, trying to close his ears to her wonder.

  Regrettably, his heart betrayed him, beating harder on each word of her praise.

  No gentle-bred lady should admire a place of such treacherous beauty.

  Made of rock and mist and the roar of the falls, this was a calamitous spot – one that many believed cursed. Even stags avoided Dreagan Falls, and the barren pinnacles rising all around the falls were so bleak even eagles went elsewhere to make their eyries. And the narrow footpath that led through a crevice in the cliffs, the only entrance to the ledge where they now stood, was so tight in places that a man could only pass by squeezing in his gut and going sideways.

  Isobel hadn’t blinked when they’d pressed through the constricting space.

  She’d cried out in delight as they’d stepped through onto the bluff.

  “I have never seen anywhere more magnificent.” She repeated the same words she’d said moments ago.

  “Men have plunged to their death here, my lady.” It was true. “Most living creatures shun this place.”

  “Then they do not know how to look at the world through their hearts, do they?” She made it sound so simple.

  “And” – she tossed back her hair, turning to look at him – “I doubt the men who fell were Mackintoshes. That is so, is it not?”

  Kendrew tightened his jaw, defeat inching ever closer.

  Could she read him so easily?

  He inhaled deeply, feeling more trapped than he had inside the bone-squeezing cliff passage. “Nae, they were not Mackintoshes. Nought men ne’er fall off mountains. We are bold and sure-footed, always. I would no’ have brought you here otherwise.”

  “I know why you brought me here.” She glanced down into the rock-walled ravine, even thrust out a hand, wriggling her fingers in the shimmering clouds of spray.

  When she looked back at him, Kendrew knew she’d overheard his words to James that morning. The challenge sparking in hers was telling.

  “You thought to frighten me with Nought’s boulders and fissures, the rough and rocky heights.” Her words proved it, shaming him.

  He had hoped to scare her away.

  But with good, sound reason.

  Dangers lurked in wind and mist. Rocks could crush a man if he had the misfortune to stand in their hurtling, downward path. In winter, Nought held snow-shadows that no fire could warm. Autumn brought more than bright, golden leaves. Cold wind and rains swept the land then, hinting at the deeper chill to come. The long, dark nights that never ended. And in spring, rather than flowers blooming, gales blew and the spates turned torrential.

  Summer passed too swiftly to bear mention.

  Knowing he was about to treat her in a way that would reinforce every slur folk hurled at him, Kendrew gave her a look he hoped was feral. A piercing glance sharp enough to chase the wonder off her face.

  “See here, lass.” He lifted her hand, turning her fingers so that Grim’s warrior ring caught the sunlight. “You should be wearing a fine ruby or sapphire ring. A grand lady’s jewel set in purest gold.”

  He released her hand, gripping her shoulders. “Your husband-to-be should be escorting you through glittering halls thronged with nobles and other ladies of gentle birth.” He held her gaze, each word ripping his heart. “You belong in an elegant place where the greatest danger is having a musician’s inept string-plucking offend your delicate ears. Nought is no place for…”

  He couldn’t finish, sure that the rock-face behind them heard and was scowling.

  The truth was Nought needed Isobel.

  He certainly did.

  “Did you never think, Kendrew” – she spoke his name for the first time, breaking his gaze to look thoughtfully at the falls’ leaping spray – “that greater jewels are to found here than in any courtier’s sparkling hall?”

  Kendrew stopped breathing, her words wrapping round his heart, squeezing.

  He didn’t speak.

  The last thing he wanted was to splutter like a fool. Or worse, let her guess that the sudden sheen in his eye was caused by something other than the wind.

  “I see you haven’t considered the matter.” She didn’t look at him, her gaze still on the clouds of shimmering spume from the waterfall.

  “So-o-o…” Now she did turn back to him. And he knew that her perceptive dark eyes could see straight into his soul. “I ask you this: are there not rubies in autumn-red bracken? Or in the bright scarlet berries of the rowans growing out of cracks in this very bluff?

  “And you speak of sapphires…” She tipped back her head, peering up at the sky. “What of the clear deep blue above us, not marred by a single cloud? And gold?” She turned back to him again, shaking her head slowly. “Can it be you have never gazed on a Highland sunset?”

  Kendrew swallowed before the thickness in his throat could worsen. “Lady Isobel…”

  “Isobel, please.” She smiled, a dimple flashing in her cheek, melting him. “Do you not see? I love this place and I would rather be here, with you, than anywhere else in the whole of the world.”

  “You say that now.” He couldn’t believe her. He did reach to touch her face, briefly. “When winter comes and the nights are long and dark, wind howling-”

  “We will have good reason to stay abed and breed sons.” She looked at him, beaming.

  Kendrew almost choked. “You are beginning to convince me, lady.”

  “I can do more than that.” She tilted her head, her smile turning seductive. “I can prove it to you.”

  Before he could respond, she gripped her skirts, pulling up her gown so that the material bunched around her hips. Her long, shapely legs took his breath. Praise Odin she held her skirts in such a way that the sooty curls of her womanhood were hidden from view.

  Even so…

  He knew they were there.

  He’d brushed his fingers across the tantalizing softness of those curls. The intimacy still scorched his memory. Just now, merely thinking about it set him like granite.

  “Lady-… Isobel, what are you doing?” It was so hard to keep his gaze on hers.

  Everything in him demanded that he look down, drinking in the beauty of her legs until the pounding at his groin gave him no choice but to pull her into his arms and crush his mouth over hers, kissing her again and again as he claimed what he needed from h
er.

  Her spring violet scent wafted around him, urging him on.

  He bit back a curse, hoping she wouldn’t see how close she was to winning.

  “You’re not looking, Kendrew.” Her voice was teasing.

  Her words were killing him.

  “To be sure, I’m no’ looking.” He wasn’t about to do so.

  He still wasn’t sure this betrothal – a marriage between them – would work.

  And if he looked where she wanted him to, he’d be lost.

  Every shred of restraint would leave him.

  “It’s only my Thor’s hammer.” The rustle of cloth proved she’d hitched her skirts even higher. “I want you to see it. Once you do, you’ll understand why I’ve always been drawn to Nought.”

  Kendrew frowned, puzzling. “You wear a hammer amulet?”

  He’d only ever seen her amber necklace.

  To his surprise, she laughed. It was a light, wondrous sound that did him such good. Warmth began to curl around his heart, chasing his resistence.

  Almost he could believe her, trust that they could…

  He pushed the possibility from his mind. Honor kept him from letting her see how easily he was capitulating. If she was weak, yearning for a match that would surely end in sorrow, he needed strength.

  He inhaled sharply, bracing himself. “If you wear Thor’s amulet on a chain about your waist” – he’d heard of such adornments – “I dinnae wish to see it.”

  He did, fiercely.

  “Lower your skirts.” He put a thread of steel in his voice. “Your amulet chain-”

  “But I do not wear the hammer.” The dimple in her cheek flashed again. “It’s a beauty mark, low on my belly and just above-”

  “Dinnae say it.” Kendrew pressed his fingers to her lips, stopping her before she said something that would surely make him even more uncomfortable.

  He cleared his throat, his heart thumping hard. “There is a hammer mark on you?”

  “Thor’s very own.” She sounded pleased. “It’s small, but the same shape as the amulet. If you look, you’ll see.”

  And this time he lowered his gaze.

  She hadn’t lied.

  Tiny, but distinct, the perfect outline of Thor’s hammer winked at him from the left side of her lower abdomen. Wonder filled him. Never had he seen anything more beautiful. The mark was proof that she, of all women, could love Nought as no one else. That she wouldn’t just dwell here, but would thrive in this place of wild and primordial splendor that meant so much to him.