‘I deserved it,’ he said gently.
‘Will you return to your own chamber now?’
‘Why?’ he breathed, unable to believe the passion she contained, or the violence of his body’s craving for her, as he felt a flame racing uncontrollably through his veins and he began to respond to her once more. ‘The damage is done now, my love. Nothing can change it, so let us enjoy what is left of the night and allow me to savour the delights within my grasp. I have much to teach you, and I am sure you will prove to be an avid pupil.’
When he pulled her beneath him, Lorne’s breath left her in a sudden gasp. She was aware once more of his naked chest and the hard feel of his lean, muscular body pressed to hers, while he was aware of her lithe form, of the warmth and the softness of her, as he inhaled the fragrant scent of her body and her rumpled hair that spilled across the pillows. There was no resistance in Lorne. She would soon be gone from Norwood, tomorrow or the next day, and then Iain’s need of her would cease to exist. For a few hours more he belonged to her. Their time together was to be savoured, and all she could do was memorise it, remember it, so she could live on it for the rest of her life, for if she had thought to come out of this with her heart intact it was impossible now. It was already lost.
They stared at each other for a moment of suspended time, and then slowly Iain lowered his mouth to hers, smothering her soft moan with lips both dominant and tender.
‘What is this?’ she whispered in a trembling breath when his lips left hers and traced a line to her breasts, unable to suppress a breathless moan when his mouth caressed a hard, pink crest, his tongue branding her with its fiery touch. ‘Is it some mindless torture you’ve concocted for me to endure as your prisoner, my lord?’
‘Nay, this is not torture, but love, my sweet. Don’t be afraid,’ he murmured huskily against her throat. ‘This time I will be the most tender of lovers—and though tender I may be, denied I will not.’
Later, nestled in his arms, Lorne gloried in her lover’s prowess as she breathed deeply the warm manly scent of him. She loved the quiet authority and strength in his firm features and his lazy smile. By nature he was a self-assured, dominant male, and she ought to resent him for kidnapping her and confining her to his castle. But after what they had done, lying in his arms sated and warm, her body still pulsating from his lovemaking, she felt protected and cherished, not afraid or threatened as a prisoner should.
Surprised at the discovery of a sensual appetite within herself that had been hiding for most of her life, with a deep sigh of contentment she closed her eyes. Iain’s love making—along with Flora’s herbal tea—was beginning to work. She was tired and went to sleep with Iain’s arms around her.
But when the dawn light in the east tinged the sky a pale pink, when she awoke with a pleasant feeling of well being and contentment, he was gone. Only the familiar scent of his body lingered on the sheets, drugging her senses.
Blinking the lingering slumber out of her eyes and raising herself on to an elbow, she was about to climb out of bed when she suddenly realised that she was naked beneath the sheets. She flushed as memories of the night past came rushing back. A host of conflicting emotions warred within her. To say that she was aghast at what she had done was an understatement. It seemed impossible to her now that not only had she allowed Iain to make love to her but that she had practically encouraged him to do so. She had thrown away her virtue without a thought. She was amazed at her abandon with her father’s enemy—which should make him her enemy. But she could not see Iain Monroe in any other light than that of the man she loved.
A rosy hue crept into her cheeks when she remembered the incredibly wanton things they had done. Her body still tingled with their lovemaking. There wasn’t an inch of her that he hadn’t touched or tasted as he had aroused her body with such skilful tenderness and shattered every barrier of her reserve. Her breasts were swollen and sensitive, and between her thighs was tender from his ministrations.
The night had held a thousand unexceptionable and unexpected pleasures for them both, but she could not allow it to happen again. Iain had known full well what he was doing to her and that he was capable of annihilating her will, her mind and her soul, and now she would hunger for ever for that same devastating ecstasy. But she would not allow herself to become caught up in a romantic dream. Her emotions were torn asunder and she could find no solace in the depths of her thoughts. He had told her he would not marry her—not that she expected him to. Marriage between them would be unacceptable to either side, but she would have it no other way. Resolve about what she must do instilled itself in her heart.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she draped her robe about her and paced the room as if looking for a way of escape. For the sake of sanity she had to get away from Castle Norwood—from him, she decided desperately, even though it would break her heart to do so. It was no good idly waiting for fate to take a hand. Fate had never been an ally of hers, she thought bitterly. It was fate that she had been born a girl and it was fate that had taken her back to Drumgow where she had first met Iain. And it was fate that had taken a hand on the night she had left the inn and placed her in his hands.
The idea of going to Drumgow held no appeal. It loomed on the horizon of her mind like a terrifying spectre, waiting to devour her completely. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with bitterness and frustration because so many men had control over her life. Halting her pacing, she clenched her hands and raised her head high, staunchly deciding at that moment that it was time she took charge of her own life and started thinking for herself. Iain had made his intentions painfully clear. He would rid himself of her as soon as her father had been captured. She was to be callously discarded—used and shamed and sent back to her kin.
She had no alternative other than to go to Drumgow, but there she would do everything in her power to return to her grandmother. Only at Astley Priory would she be able to take up the threads of her broken life.
Turning her head towards the door when someone knocked lightly, she eyed Flora’s breezy entrance uneasily.
‘Good morning, Lorne. You’re up early…’ The smile died on her lips and her face turned ghost white when her eyes were drawn and became fixed on the dark bloodstain on the sheet—the damning proof of Lorne’s indiscretion. The wind could be heard buffeting the walls of the great stronghold and a wagon rattling over the cobblestones in the yard below, and from the interior came domestic sounds of the castle stirring to life. Flora was hardly aware of any of it. She looked as if someone had bludgeoned her. Appalled by what had happened, inch by inch her eyes moved from the bed to Lorne’s face and she stared, unable to speak because her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.
At length she got out, ‘Iain must have been mad. What could he have been thinking of? I thought he would have had the common decency not to seduce his captive. You do understand that nothing can come of it?’
Flora’s words stung Lorne, but she gave no sign. She threw back her head and looked at the older woman with fire in her eyes and a challenge to the world. ‘Yes, I do. There is too much against us for that to happen. But you don’t understand. What happened has helped me decide something very important. I now have control over my own destiny. I no longer have to marry Duncan Galbraith, feeling crushed and beaten because I have no alternative—not that he will want me now that I am no longer chaste. I am no meek and helpless woman to be shunted around by circumstance, to feed the ambitions of my brothers and a man I loathe, and nor will I play the part of a victim in this house. I will not cower in corners while men manipulate my life. Now I can fight—and fight I will—until I am returned to England.’
‘Have you any notion of what will happen should your brothers and Duncan Galbraith discover you have lain with Iain while his hostage?’
‘Of course I have—but never fear. I won’t disclose what has happened unless I am forced to do so. What I feel for Iain goes deeper than he will ever know, and I would like to think that som
ehow, someday, we could be together. But I am not a fool. I know he doesn’t want me.’ Her lips twisted bitterly. ‘Don’t think me remiss, Flora, for I know his mind on the matter. He has told me. He wanted only what any woman could give him. Although to be fair, he thought my virtue already lost, and I misled him into believing it was true.’
‘I see.’
Lorne’s look became sad. ‘No, you don’t, Flora. The irony of it is that I love Iain. More, I think, than I thought possible. I believe I always shall. I cannot fight it, you see. Feelings are not things to command. But I am proud—shamefully so—and I will not be content to live with him as his mistress. It is not to be considered.’
Flora was about to deliver a harsh rebuff until she caught sight of Lorne’s face. It had softened, lowered its defenses, so that her underlip trembled and there was a misty glow in her eyes and a mute longing in her whole attitude. She sighed and moved closer to the younger woman.
‘What you and Iain have done will not change anything. When your father is captured, Iain will send you to Drumgow and Duncan Galbraith as promised.’
Lorne lifted her chin as if to oppose any that would question her new-found courage, and Flora saw she was in full possession of herself and the light of battle was gleaming in her eyes. ‘Maybe, but I will not marry him. The die is cast, Flora,’ Lorne reminded her forcibly, her voice steady and cold, ‘and there are certain things one cannot undo.’
‘Aye—more’s the pity—like what happened to Iain’s brother that day in Kinlochalen all those years ago.’
‘Iain blames me for that, too,’ Lorne said quietly. ‘Perhaps one day he will discover the truth of that dreadful day.’
‘Loss of a loved one is common to all of us, and we have been given the means of overcoming it. But Iain can neither forgive nor forget the manner of his brother’s death, and when he brought him home, it was as if he entombed a major portion of his heart with him.’
‘I know that, Flora.’ Drawing herself up, Lorne took a deep breath. Resolutely she met Flora’s gaze directly. ‘Now I must think about what happens next. No one here wants me in this house. They make it plain. Nor do I wish to reside here any longer. This is no time for senseless reflections. I must leave now while Iain is away from the castle. You have to help me, Flora.’
Flora nodded. ‘Yes, after what has transpired I can see you must go. I will speak to John immediately. But I’m sorry, Lorne. How I wish things could have been different. You and Iain were meant to be together. I shudder to think how he will react when he finds you are no longer here.’
Flora accosted John as he was about to leave the dining hall. Taking one look at her face, he frowned and allowed her to take him aside. In lowered tones she quickly told him what had transpired between Lorne and Iain, confirming his fears. John became tight lipped, his face set. Iain’s stupidity angered him beyond all understanding. The wench must leave here without delay, before Iain returned. John had seen the way he looked at her—and now, after what that foolish man had done, he might not want to let her go. A union between a Monroe and a McBryde was anathema to John, a travesty. Keeping her at Norwood would serve no purpose.
Chapter Eight
Mounted on a sturdy, short-legged, shaggy Highland garron—essential for the route they were to take, for they were admirable for travelling over distance and rough ground, but not so fast—Lorne looked at the silent John standing beside his wife, who was watching her, her eyes deep and still and more than a little sad. John nodded her on her way, understanding and accepting why she must leave Norwood—which was more than Iain would do when he returned and found her gone. Preoccupied and with nothing more to say, Lorne rode towards Duncan and they turned their mounts north-west for the Highlands.
Edgar McBryde had been captured by government soldiers garrisoned at Fort William and was being taken to Inveraray—the only town in the Western Highlands, stronghold of the Campbells and the seat of the Crown’s authority.
This information Iain gleaned from a party of redcoats he met when he was five miles from Stirling. Immediately he and his escort turned to make their way back to Norwood. He was reluctant to tell Lorne his reason for returning so soon, and yet eager to be with her once more.
As he rode he mused on the night past. He was amazed to think so mystical a woman could be made up of such simple, soft and warm human flesh. He regretted that his days with her were numbered and that when she’d gone his own future would ebb to nothing. Before he had bedded her he had made up his mind that she could never belong to him, and he accepted the fact as a permanent condition, but last night she had cast a lethal spell over his life that could never be broken. Just a few more days to hold her the way he had last night, to watch her, to hear her voice, but having been as close as it is possible for a man and woman to be, he only wanted more.
The closer he got to Norwood, the more he fought an inner battle with himself. The full reality of what he had done took over and his conscience chose that moment to reassert itself. He told himself that he’d been a fool in taking her to bed. He had been unfair to them both, and it was his own brand of cruel jealousy that could not bear to let her go to Galbraith.
She had told him Galbraith wouldn’t want her now she was no longer virtuous, but he didn’t believe that. Galbraith would marry her and make her life a living hell. Iain knew the McBryde brothers and Galbraith—he knew what violence they were capable of. Lorne would not be strong enough to withstand their collective wrath. They would break her down and, distraught, she would say more than she ought.
No matter how hard she protested to absolve him from blame, they wouldn’t believe her. They would go hard on her, and by the time they were done her humiliation and disgrace would be complete. To have her virtue questioned by her insensitive and unfeeling brothers and Galbraith would be damning. Her position would be irredeemable.
Iain’s jaw set in a hard line. He couldn’t let her weather that alone. She hadn’t been to Drumgow in seven years. There would be no one to befriend her and she would be branded an outcast—a slut. She couldn’t endure the slights and slurs.
And so, deciding to ask her to remain with him despite being who she was, and wanting her whole existence to be dedicated to his need, his comfort, when he returned to Norwood and John told him she had gone, it was like a dagger thrust to his heart.
Rage exploded in a red mist before his eyes, and in that moment he was absolutely convinced that Lorne McBryde had committed the ultimate betrayal. Iain knew a fury such as no other he had felt before—fury about her deception and that she had left him, fury at his own gullibility, and fury at John for letting her go. After all John’s efforts to hold her captive, Iain could not believe he could have done such a thing. John scathingly told Iain that he knew the wench had spent the night in his bed, and because of this he believed he’d had good reason to send her packing with Galbraith.
Over the days that followed he was in torment whenever he thought of her. He was coolly polite to those around him, wishing he could find a scapegoat to crush to ease the intensity of the fury and pain that refused to abate, that became like a deepening void that made each hour without her more unbearable than the last.
How well he had come to know her. He could still feel the fragile warmth of her body in his arms, in his senses, recall the delicate fragrance of her flesh, the taste of her on his lips, and see the luminous green eyes that had gazed into his with such soft, trusting candour. The memory was both a lifeline and a curse and he wished he’d never laid eyes on Lorne McBryde.
Without delay and with a large contingent of ferocious-looking Highlanders, Lorne and Duncan took the most direct available route to the Highlands, skirting lochs and following treacherous tracks through bogs and outlaw-infested woods. Tormented by weariness and cramped limbs, Lorne welcomed her discomfort, for it prevented her dwelling on thoughts of Iain, whom she loved with all her naïve and trusting heart. His loss was as fresh to her as the void inside her, that was as mortal as only
death can be. She had no outlet for her emotions and the emptiness inside her was so total that it eclipsed everything. With that thought she slammed a door on his image, for she knew otherwise it would never let her rest again.
Entering the southern Highlands, they met up with her brothers at a commodious inn at the quiet village of Arrochar, situated at the head of Loch Long. The meeting was a medley of pain and remembrance, and for a moment Lorne was again that wild young girl at Drumgow. James and Robert, tall and robust, were happy to be reunited with their sister, but they were adamant that she would wed Duncan Galbraith. It was their father’s wish. Despite Lorne’s resolution to stand against them, she was helpless beneath the collective might of her family.
News came to them that a company of Argyll’s dragoons had captured their father on Rannoch Moor. He was locked in the Tollbooth at Inveraray, and had been condemned to death. Refusing to abandon him to his fate, his rescue was a challenge not to be met with a force of Highlanders, but with cunning. It was Robert who suggested Lorne could be their accomplice in their ruse to free him.
Their father had been captured by a Captain Kilpatrick—a tough professional and soldier par excellence. Because of Edgar McBryde’s notoriety and the possibility that those chieftains still willing to fight for him might stage a rescue, when reports of his capture filtered through to the glens, it was decided that Kilpatrick would remain in charge until after the execution.
Kilpatrick was one of the most notorious rake-hells ever to come out of the Lowlands. He was a heavy drinker and knew only one kind of behaviour with women. He had an eye for a pretty face, a weakness that could prove useful. Lorne, who would be known as Molly Blair, was to play the temptress, to use her body and eyes to beguile and ensnare him. His nights were spent in the Tollbooth guarding his prisoner, so it would be relatively easy for her to wheedle her way inside and ply him with drink, into which she would slip a strong narcotic, which would enable the brothers McBryde to free their father.
Traitor Or Temptress Page 16
