Even the air around him seemed to come alive, almost crackling with his energy. Equally startling, the dazzling blue sky now appeared gray, the kirkyard filled with thick, shifting mist.
Madeline shivered. Gooseflesh rose on her skin and her nape prickled. Yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from him.
“There is a man with the might to bend others to his will,” Nella whispered beside her as she placed a steadying hand on the small of Madeline’s back. “I vow he would move mountains if they stood in his way.”
“So indeed.” Madeline reached for her friend, latched cold fingers around the warmth of Nella’s wrist. She held tight, for a chill wind shrieked into the kirkyard, its frigid breath lashing at her skirts and even tossing the great yews.
Their rusting branches made an infernal din, a sound unholy enough to curl her toes and convince her all the more that her shadow man – whoever he truly was – was working some ancient pagan spell designed to isolate them in time.
A strange magic to plunge them into a harsher age and place than their own. She shivered again, easily seeing him in a world where none would dare challenge him.
But just when she feared the howling wind and darkening sky would dash every shred of courage she possessed, a flash of sadness slid across her heart.
His sorrow, she knew. The familiar ache wound through her, laced as always with loss and despair. But then he drew near and the sensation vanished. The darkness lightened, and so swiftly, she suspected only she had perceived the storm.
Still chilled from the icy wind, she glanced at Nella. Her friend looked far from unsettled or frightened.
Nor did Gavin MacFie appear concerned.
He was also crossing the grass. But his gaze was on Nella, a smile spreading across his open, bearded face.
Only Iain bore remnants of the tempest she’d seen, for the edges of his plaid curled as if still lifted by a fierce, whipping wind. His hair tossed as if caught up in a dance with the elements.
Then he was almost upon her, his dark gaze claiming hers. And Madeline Drummond, unlikely candidate for nunhood and not particularly fond of sacrists, had to struggle with a near-overwhelming urge to cross herself.
He stopped before her, reaching her quickly. She brushed at her skirts, strove to regain her calm. Mercy, but he towered over her. And she was a well-grown woman, taller than most.
“Sir…” She paused, her heart pounding. Wild-edged emotions whirled inside her, sensations that were hers alone and no one else’s.
“You are much changed.” She looked him up and down. “I hardly recognize you.”
He made a slight bow. “I understand, my lady. The confusion was no’ intentional.”
“I am sure it wasn’t.” Madeline held his gaze. But if her accursed gift sought to absorb whatever thoughts hovered behind his peat brown eyes, her Master of the Highlands had thrown up impenetrable shields, leaving her no choice but to guess his purpose.
The reason for his disguise – and why he’d now abandoned it.
Madeline lifted her hand to the enameled cairngorm brooch she’d borrowed from his cloak. She pressed her fingertips against the amber-colored stone, wondered if he could hear the racing of her pulse.
She could, and the loud drumming made it hard for her to speak.
Even so, she had to try…
Drawing a breath, she hoped her voice wouldn’t hitch. “I believe, sir, that there is much more to you than visiting cathedrals dressed as a pilgrim and rescuing maidens from certain death.”
His smile flashed. “You have seen the worst of me, and the best.”
“And what am I seeing now?’
“A man, fair one. That is all.”
Madeline lifted a brow. “There is more.”
“Indeed.” His chest swelled, his shoulders straightening. “I am a Highlander.”
“As am I,” Madeline asserted, feeling a surge of pride.
“Then we are well matched.”
“Are we?” Madeline’s brow creased. “That is a strange thing to say.”
“For the now, lass, we stand together.” He glanced at the hills, then back to her. “I am glad our paths crossed when they did.”
“I would not be here, otherwise.”
“That is so.” He didn’t argue.
“It would not have been a pleasant passing.” Madeline dug her fingers into her cloak, clasping its warmth against her as if she could draw comfort and strength from the old, travel-worn cloth.
“You shall have my gratitude all my days,” she said, chilled to recall the horror she’d been spared. “You are a true hero.”
“You may stand alone with that opinion,” he said. “But I am glad you think so.”
“My friend would say the same.” Glancing at Nella, Madeline saw that she sat with the auburn-haired Islesman on the kirkyard’s drystone wall. The two seemed oblivious to anything but themselves.
Madeline’s brow knitted.
The Master of the Highlands smiled – if the wee uplift at the left corner of his mouth could qualify as a smile.
“Fair maid,” he said, following her gaze. “It would seem our companions are becoming rather friendly.”
“I am surprised.” Madeline released her grip on her cloak. “Nella doesn’t often warm to strangers, especially men. Gavin MacFie must be an extraordinary soul to win her trust so quickly.”
“He is that – leastways, my brother would tell you so.” Iain look back at her. “I am relieved they get on.”
“Relieved?”
“Aye, why no’?”
“That is an odd way to put it.” Madeline studied him, tried to see behind the dark of his eyes. His words stirred her curiosity, while his mention of a brother intrigued her.
Before she could question him, a change in his expression stole her breath. Something in the way he looked at her, a light or flicker in his eyes, an indefinable interest that quickened her blood and made her heart flutter.
“I would that we, too, understand each other,” he said, and a little thrill of excitement tripped through her.
“How so?” Madeline held his gaze, flutters now in her belly as well. “What are you saying?”
“We should no’ be strangers.” He stepped closer, his dark hair gleaming in the last of the day’s light. “Shall we begin with my apologies for withholding my full identity?” he suggested, lifting a brow. “I am-”
“You are my shadow man.” Madeline clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Your what?”
“Nothing.” Madeline waved a hand, trying to dismiss her claim. “I meant…” She paused, searching for words. “I saw you in the dimness of the cathedral, near the shrine. And earlier, you were walking in the procession with the pilgrims.”
“As were you, fair one.” His lips quirked. “You are also a poor liar.”
Madeline’s chin came up. “We did meet in the cathedral.”
“Aye.” His smile spread, reaching his eyes. “Though I am thinking that was no’ the first time?”
She blinked. “I have never set eyes on you before this day.”
“That may be.” He touched her face, skimmed his knuckles down her cheek. “Yet there is something…”
“I do not know what you mean.” Madeline gave him the only answer she could.
Now she knew he’d bewitched her. Mercy, she’d almost blurted the intimacies they’d shared. His claiming of her emotions, his nightly appearances in her dreams and his own heart’s deepest secrets.
Everything her accursed gift had shown her.
He was watching her closely, one brow raised. Something bold, ravenous, and knowing glimmered in his eyes as he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. His gaze still locked on hers, he placed a light but searing kiss against her fingers.
A kiss she felt to her toes.
A kiss like no man had ever given her. Truth to tell, she’d never been kissed at all.
Not properly.
“So, lass, you should know my name.” He
straightened, releasing her hand. “I am Iain MacLean.”
“Iain MacLean…” Madeline tested his name, for a moment aware of nothing else. “It is a good name.”
“Aye, well.” Iain nodded, almost saying he alone wasn’t worthy of his clan’s high standing.
He did draw a deep breath, but immediately regretted it, for in doing so, he’d inhaled her lovely scent…
Delicate and fresh, its heathery lightness held the faintest note of musk and just enough promise of ‘woman’ to spin headiest magic all around him. She befuddled his senses, and – almost – made him forget she thought him gallant.
At the moment, he didn’t feel particularly noble. Far from it, he burned to give her a smile steeped with all the heart-stealing charm he’d once been capable of summoning when facing a beautiful, bewitching woman. Sadly, the best he could offer was his usual half smile – one he suspected lacked the dazzle to enchant even the most easily impressed lasses.
So he simply squared his shoulders and hoped she’d not ever have cause to think poorly of him.
All things considered, he could ask for little more.
“MacLean?” she repeated his name, again seeming to consider its feel on her tongue.
“So I said.” Iain summoned another rusty smile as hope flared in his heart. Not bold sparks, but promising enough to send sweet warmth curling along the edges of the darkness inside him.
As if she knew, her own smile brightened.
“MacLean of the Isles?”
“Nae, of Castle Baldoon on the Hebridean Isle of Doon,” he corrected, and knew a moment’s uneasiness. A ridiculous worry washed over him that perhaps his reputation or even his most recent act of sacrilege had somehow reached her.
But she merely nodded, her gaze flickering over him, the disappointment he’d noted just before crossing the kirkyard now replaced by curiosity.
“Baldoon, a stronghold…” She looked past him to where his pilgrim’s gear lay discarded on the ground. “I knew you were not a pilgrim.”
“Such a one, nae,” Iain agreed. “But I travel a similar path.”
He’d tell her the rest later. The most of it, anyway.
First he had to find suitably respectable lodgings for the night. And perhaps, too, after he’d plied her with a dollop of fine uisge beatha, a good Scotsman’s ‘water of life’ and said to be a cure-all for every ailment known to man.
Hopefully, too, for disenchantment.
“Precious lass, nae man is e’er entirely what he appears.” He stepped closer, smoothed a curl behind her ear.
Something he’d ached to do ever since she’d left from the yews, his borrowed cloak and her badly torn head veil clutched in her hands. Her red-gold tresses no longer hidden but wound in satiny-looking plaits above her ears, a few bright-gleaming curls tumbling about her face.
His heart thumped, the cool silk of that one wee curl, the creamy-smooth warmth of her cheek beneath his fingertips sending arrow bolts of desire streaking through him.
“Perhaps no woman is that either?” She regarded him with an unblinking gaze, but a hint of pink bloomed on her cheeks, and he would’ve sworn a light shiver rippled her length at his touch.
Not wanting to frighten her, he lowered his hand. He also struggled to keep his gaze from dipping to the torn bodice showing beneath her unfastened cloak.
Two brooches held the ruined gown together, her own and his, for he’d forgotten the heavily enameled cairngorm brooch on the inside of his pilgrim’s cloak, using it thus to fasten the hated mantle without calling undue attention to the piece’s worth.
He stared at his brooch now, at the remnants of the once-fine cloth it held together. His hands fisted, rage pounding through him at the reminder of what had been done to her – the worse atrocities she could have faced.
He fought back a curse, hoped the shadows cast by the nearby trees hid the tightening of his jaw. The edginess plaguing him because he had yet to offer his protection as her escort – a plan he intended to carry out under the guise of her husband.
He glanced at MacFie, thankfully catching the Islesman’s eye.
But the bland-faced loon merely shrugged, leaving Iain with the task of persuading the two women of the necessity of remaining together.
The need to agree to the farce of pretended marriages.
Feeling trapped, Iain drew a long breath before he returned his attention to Madeline.
Regrettably, when he did, a jolt of pure male appreciation shot through him. How could it not when his gaze defied his best intentions and flew again to his brooch, this time seeming determined to linger there.
What true man’s gaze wouldn’t? The scooped-neck bodice bore such a jagged tear a score of brooches would have failed to repair the damage. Worse, the sight of something of his resting so close against her skin proved almost more than he could bear.
And she thought he was a gallant.
Furious at his lack of control, he said a silent prayer of thanks for the loose-hanging folds of his plaid.
Nevertheless, if she peered as closely at his lower body as she was studying his face, she’d see just what an un-gallant he was.
So he turned away.
And hoped another glance at MacFie’s bearded face would banish the rise beneath his plaid.
Blessedly, it did. So he wheeled again to the lass, hoping to the gods that he would not do or say anything to further compromise her sense of security or her modesty.
“Iain of Baldoon…” She smiled, her beauty and innocence almost unmanning him. “Why do I think there is more you wish to tell me?”
“Because there is.” He looked at her, his heart again thundering.
“I thought so.” She reached to touch his face, lightly. “I see it in your eyes.”
“Ah, well.” He couldn’t say more. Her caress, however fleeting, and the softness of her voice set his damned vitals to twitching. Her Highland lilt proved a sweet balm he’d not tire of hearing if he lived a thousand years.
In truth, though…
It was her.
His sister and every other woman of the hills spoke as softly. Yet not a one of them had a voice that struck him as sweet as hers. Indeed, his greedy soul burned to just sit and ask her to sing to him – to please him with her song until he grew so old his ears could hear no more.
He did know one thing…
She was turning him into a poet.
“Sweet lass,” he said, proving his weakness. “There are matters we must discuss.”
She didn’t even blink, trusting him. “Aye?”
Interest flitted across her face. No coyness or condemnation. Just a look of honest inquiry.
Iain’s heart twisted. How long had it been since a lass had eyed him with anything but accusation or pity?
Even before, with the exception of Lileas, it’d been the glint of MacLean gold and silver that lit every bonnie female face to turn his way.
That, or the titillating thrill of bedding a laird’s brother. The closest many an ambitious lass would ever come to such a prize.
He’d never much cared – until now.
Straightening his shoulders, he clasped his hands behind his back. He stood before her feeling almost naked. He did watch her carefully, hoping that he’d not catch a gleam of calculation anywhere in the depths of her beautiful, thick-lashed eyes.
“I know what you must tell me,” she said at last, her green-gold gaze on his.
“Aye?” Iain arched a brow, waited.
“You are laird,” she said, and Iain’s heart sank.
“Nae, I am no’ laird,” he told her true. “I am but the laird’s brother.”
To his amazement, she shrugged.
“I see,” she said, her gaze earnest. “Then your brother is one of the most fortunate lairds in the land.”
Iain blinked. Surely he’d misheard her.
He had to be dreaming.
“Aye, he is blessed.” Her words proving him awake, she again touched his cheek. “
I should like to know more of you,” she added, and a shadow passed over her face. “Indeed, I truly wish I could.”
Iain stared at her, his face tingling where she’d touched him. Warmth like he’d never known spilled through him, its sweetness at odds with the glimmer of regret in her eyes. The trace of sadness in her last words.
Her other words sped straight to his heart and made him want to throw off every chain of guilt, yank her into his arms, and claim her lips in a bold, never-ending kiss.
A deep, soul-slaking kiss to make up for all their lost yesterdays and to lend promise to the many tomorrows before them.
A bliss that would never unfold.
Iain suppressed a frown and almost succeeded in closing his mind to a past he couldn’t flee.
Indeed, a gruff-sounding harrumph at his elbow reminded him of the impossibility of escape.
“I thought Amicia’s arisaid would suit our purpose better than a torn and soiled postulant’s robe,” Gavin declared, Amicia’s exquisitely woven shawl dangling from his outstretched hand.
“Purpose?” Madeline’s gaze flew to her friend, then to Iain’s sister’s arisaid – the same one he’d used to wrap around a few of the most precious pieces of MacLean treasure.
Irreplaceable goods stashed in the bottom of his travel bag.
A snarl rose in Iain’s throat, his fingers itching to curl around MacFie’s neck. Clearly grasping his slip, the Islesman spluttered, his face beginning to color.
He looked at Iain. “You haven’t told her.”
“Told me what?” Madeline whirled to Iain, looking anything but pleased. “Why do I think I will not like this?”
“Because you willnae.” Iain wouldn’t lie. “I regret that more than you can know.”
“You should have explained straightaway.”
Iain glowered at him. “Your tongue flaps like an old woman’s.”
“What are you keeping from me?” Madeline’s chin came up. “Who is Amicia?”
Her friend went to stand beside her. “She is his sister,” she said, indicating Iain.
Then, before anyone else could speak, she plucked the arisaid from Gavin’s hand and thrust it into Madeline’s arms. As quickly, she snatched Iain’s pilgrim cloak and handed it to him.
Love Conquers All: Historical Romance Boxed Set Page 64
