Ann Lethbridge

by Her Highland Protector

‘They were angry. Complaining about not being paid until the job was complete.’

  ‘Paid by whom?’ Niall asked.

  ‘They did not speak his name.’

  ‘What else?’ Jenna asked.

  ‘They spoke of Tearny’s widow being far enough out of town. Of a lad to deliver a note.’ He glanced at Niall. ‘So I followed them. Not close. But close enough to guess where they were going when they took the boat.’

  ‘I’m grateful for it,’ Jenna said.

  ‘I am, too,’ Niall said. ‘I just don’t understand why you didn’t take us back to the castle.’

  The gypsy shrugged.

  Impatience ripped through Niall at his apparent indifference. ‘Tomorrow we go to Carrick.’

  ‘Then you go on foot,’ Sean said.

  ‘If necessary.’ Niall narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps I’ll help myself to your horse.’

  The knife was back, still this time, balanced on the tips of strong fingers. ‘You can try.’

  ‘Will you kill me for it?’ Niall let his lip curl.

  ‘No. Feel free. Try to lead her one foot from where she stands.’

  He should have guessed the man would train his animal to follow only one master.

  ‘So then we must walk.’

  ‘You must. The Lady Jenna comes with me.’

  Jenna looked at Niall, then at the gypsy. ‘It was wrong of you to mislead us, Sean. If Mr Gilvry says we must return to Carrick, that is what we must do.’

  ‘It is not safe for her in the castle,’ Sean said.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Niall said bitterly. ‘You saw it in a dream.’

  The gypsy’s face split in a grin and the knife disappeared. ‘You learn fast, gadjo.’

  ‘Not fast enough, I am thinking.’

  ‘Mr Hughes is expecting you,’ Sean said as if it would clinch the argument.

  ‘Ah, another of the Lady Jenna’s suitors.’

  ‘Sean,’ Jenna said, shaking her head at him. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands. ‘Whatever Mr Gilvry decides is what we will do. He has my best interests at heart.’

  Longing filled her voice, but she had signified her trust in him. And didn’t he feel like a fraud. He’d done nothing but endanger her life. By being stubborn about not going to Braemuir, he might be risking it further, if there really was danger at Carrick. If there was. He just did not trust this man who owed no one allegiance but his band.

  ‘How soon can we leave?’ he asked Sean.

  ‘When the moon comes up. The tracks are hard to follow in full dark.’

  ‘What tracks?’ Niall said, looking around.

  ‘Ancient pathways only the fowki can see.’ He rose nimbly to his feet and went to the cart. He returned with a fiddle. ‘While we wait, we will have some music.’

  He sat cross-legged before the fire and began to play a haunting tune that filled the air with sadness. It made Niall think of Drew and his mother’s mourning. Jenna sighed and by the light of the fire, he could see she was also thinking sad thoughts.

  All at once, he felt a dreadful foreboding—as if what he had decided was wrong. What the hell was wrong with him? ‘This is dreary.’

  Jenna felt Niall’s restlessness, his impatience. He was right. The music was too mournful. It made her long to go home with painful intensity. As the last notes died away, she clapped. ‘How about something more cheerful, Sean?’

  He bowed his head over his bow and began a merry tune that started her toes tapping and her hands clapping time.

  Niall looked into her face and smiled. ‘Would you care to dance with me, Lady Jenna?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  He stood up and helped her to her feet. He looked over at Sean. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve a waltz in your repertoire, do you?’

  The music changed instantly to the strains of the popular dance. Niall took her in his arms. He smelled like smoke and night-time as he waltzed her around the fire. His arms were strong and she had no fear of falling despite the rough ground.

  ‘I had no idea you were so accomplished, Mr Gilvry,’ she said, laughing up at him, the stars spinning above her head, the firelight glinting in his eyes. ‘You dance delightfully.’

  ‘You are too kind, Lady Jenna. You dance like a wee wicked faery.’

  Wicked. Her breath caught in her throat. Yes, it was wicked to be held in his arms while they danced in firelight. But tonight she wasn’t Lady Jenna, she was just a wild gypsy girl without a care in the world. Tomorrow she would return to her duties and responsibilities.

  The tempo of the music increased and the dance became a wild whirling romp. Quite shocking and dangerous, until they were both laughing so hard, they had to beg Sean to stop.

  ‘You dance like true gypsies,’ Sean said, grinning at them, but he slowed the tempo to a gentle crawl.

  A gypsy. If only she was. It would be wonderful to lead a life without obligations, with the freedom to wander the hills. She clung to Niall’s hand, closing her eyes, letting the music drift over and through her, carrying her along on a gentle river of sweet-flowing sound. After a very long time, she realised the music had stopped and she was swaying in Niall’s embrace to the rhythm of his heart, their feet barely moving, their breaths mingling, their bodies touching. A waltz no hostess would ever approve of.

  And she didn’t care. She leaned her cheek on his chest and felt his chin drop to the top of her head, and both of his hands come to rest on her back, stroking and caressing.

  Her limbs felt liquid. Her blood hot. She tipped her face up for his kiss and his mouth took hers, his tongue stroking hers and plunging deep, and inside her was a great deep tremble of longing and desire.

  She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the hard planes of his cheekbones, the strong set of his jaw. ‘Niall,’ she breathed at long last.

  He raised his head, glancing to the place by the fire. ‘It seems we are alone.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Jenna...’ He shook his head. ‘We—’

  She touched a finger to his lips, felt the warmth of his skin, of his whisper of breath. ‘Don’t say it. Tonight I am just me, Jenna, a gypsy woman, and her lover carried away by wild music beneath the stars. With no tomorrow to worry about.’

  He groaned. ‘You are sure about this?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her into the cart, somehow manoeuvring around the baskets and boxes to lay her down on the mattress where the lantern cast the tiny space with its jewel-tone cushions in warm light. She gazed up at his face and saw the strain and the desire and she smiled up at him and held out her hand, catching his to bring him down beside her.

  Slowly, he took her mouth, feeling the warmth and the velvet softness and tasting salt from her tears. She parted her lips, opening to his tongue, offering her mouth like a gift from the gods. And he took the gift and slid his tongue along hers, silken, slippery heat. His heart banged against his ribs, blood roared in his ears and gentleness was forgotten as she wrapped her arms around his neck and arched into him, pressing against his length. Even through the thickness of their clothes he could feel the soft swells of her body crushed against his, and the jab of pain from his ribs was nothing compared to the pleasure of holding her as she plundered his mouth with her tongue, taking what she wanted with wild abandon.

  As they kissed, he unlaced her bodice and loosened the ribbon at the neck of her blouse, hoping she would tell him no, praying she would not. She did not. He lifted himself on his arms to look down on her. He had seen her naked at the stream, like a wood nymph, shy and wary. Now she lay abandoned on the cushions, her limbs relaxed, her green eyes heavy lidded and her mouth red and ripe and sultry with passion.

  No woman had ever looked so tempting. His gaze took in her shape beneath the cotton blouse and shift. She was lovely. A small woman, beautifully formed with swells and dips in all the right places.

  Slowly he ran a finger along the edge of the cotton garme
nt, dipping it into the valley of her breasts and his body tightened as her breath hitched and her small white teeth caught her full bottom lip. What wouldn’t he give to feel that mouth on him.

  His shaft hardened and strained against the fabric of his trousers.

  He cupped one hand to her breast, felt the swell of it in his palm and felt her arch against him. His Jenna. His? No, and nor could he take what could never be his. But there was one gift he could give her. He cursed his weakness and broke the kiss, intending to stop this before things went too far.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she said with a pout of rosy lips. ‘You make me feel warm, from the inside out.’

  And he was lost. ‘I am yours to command, my lady.’

  This was not about him. Could not be.

  He raised his gaze from her small high bosom to her face and saw she was smiling nervously, licking her lips with anticipation and fear. But it was courage he saw shining in her eyes, amid the desire. She put him to shame.

  He took a deep breath. ‘I cannot be the ruin of you Jenna, but...’ he swallowed ‘...it would be my honour to bring you great pleasure.’

  Honour. He was going to die of honour. Please God she said no. No, he wanted her to say yes. He wanted to be the one to have her die in his arms. To die of pleasure.

  A pulse beat wildly at the base of her throat. ‘I am not sure I take your meaning.’ Her voice shook. But not with fear. She feared nothing.

  ‘It is not something I can describe, my sweet lady, but believe me, I can bring you more pleasure than you can imagine.’

  A crease formed between her brows. ‘And I would not be ruined?’

  ‘No.’ Though it killed him to know she would afterwards belong to another.

  She swallowed. ‘I think it might be wise,’ she whispered.

  Wise? Nothing about this was wise. But nothing could stop what was about to happen. Not him. Not her. Whatever had happened tonight, out there in the dark, dancing under the stars, it was some form of gypsy magic and no mortal man could resist it.

  He kissed her mouth and once more she melted beneath his touch. When, breathless and aching, he finally pulled away, she pressed her palm to his cheek. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  He almost groaned out loud. He must be a glutton for punishment. First a cliff and then this, but he’d made a promise and he would keep it.

  Slowly he pressed a trail of kisses along her jaw, then below her ear to the music of her indrawn gasp of breath and, finally, to the rise of her breast. With quick fingers he unlaced her stays and weighed one full round breast in his hand. He drew the nipple into his mouth, suckling.

  She gasped with shock.

  He stopped, thinking he had gone too far.

  ‘No,’ she moaned. ‘Don’t stop. Not now.’

  A passionate woman, his Jenna, he thought with a smile as he paid attention to her other sweet mound of flesh, while his hand slipped up her calf to her knee, to the silken flesh of her thigh. She parted her legs as if she instinctively knew what was wanted.

  He smoothed his hand up her leg, pushing up the hem of her shift, while his tongue teased her nipple and she writhed beneath him. His shaft was so hard it hurt. He longed to free it from the confines of his trousers, to press his hard flesh into her soft wet heat. Yet he had promised he would not ruin her.

  He rose up and knelt between her knees, looking down at her loveliness, the rise of her delicious breasts, the swell of her hips, the wanton parting of her legs revealing the rosy pink flesh of her sex in its nest of auburn curls. His breath caught in his throat at the beauty of her, then he leaned forwards and trailed kisses down her belly, feeling the velvet skin beneath his lips, and with one hand lifted her softly rounded bottom.

  The sweet sweet flesh in his palm of a woman made of the bright steel of courage.

  He trailed a finger through the tight curls and gently parted the delicate folds of her flesh.

  ‘Oh, my,’ she said breathlessly. ‘That feels—’

  He kissed her, right there, tasting the honey of her desire and the heat of her need for fulfilment. He dipped his tongue between the folds and heard her cry out, teased her little nub of pleasure with his teeth and felt her body turn to liquid, and sucked.

  She shattered in a helpless series of little whimpers and cries that broke his heart, even as he was filled with a fierce kind of joy and reached inside his trousers to bring himself to release before he collapsed next to her.

  He lay there, exhausted, bliss-numbed. He was a cur. The lowest of the low, to take advantage of her innocence. Gypsy magic it was not. It was lust, pure and simple. His only comfort was that he had not gone too far. Never would he regret giving her the gift of pleasure even if he did have a sense of cold dread that he brought it at the cost of his honour.

  If he told the truth, to him it had been a thing of wonder. Too soul-shattering for regret.

  But he must not let base urges overcome him again.

  And with that in mind, since Braemuir was closer than Carrick, they would go there.

  * * *

  The next morning, Niall plodded along beside the cart, Jenna marching alongside him in her jaunty red skirts and black bodice, and he in a drab waistcoat and a bright blue neckerchief in the open neck of his shirt, looking for all the world like a family of gypsies on the move.

  Clearly taken with her part, Jenna had tied a red kerchief over her bright auburn hair. It didn’t take away from her beauty one bit. But it was apparent from the moment they awoke that they were back in the proper places. She was formal to the point of stiff whenever she spoke to him.

  She must really regret what had happened the previous night. Not him. Not one bit. He did regret the loss of what had been a burgeoning friendship. No, it was more than friendship, but that was all he would dare acknowledge, even to himself.

  Last night they had become two different people, a man and a woman under the stars, without a care in the world. Today, they were real people, not those wild footloose folk of their imaginations.

  He should never have kissed her, let alone made love to her. Even if he hadna’ taken her in the full sense of the word, he’d led her down a path to carnal knowledge no innocent should experience before her marriage.

  A vision of her in her bridegroom’s arms made his anger rise higher because, after last night, he could not get past the desire to possess her again and again and again. He wasn’t sure he would ever get her out of his blood.

  He felt sick with anger at his failure. He was supposed to be protecting her, not taking advantage of her to assuage his own desires.

  Lady Jenna stumbled over a clump of heather. Wherever this mysterious gypsy track was supposed to be, Niall could not see it. The ground was as rough at their feet as it was all around them.

  He glowered at Sean, lounging on the driver’s seat. ‘Let Lady Jenna ride beside you.’

  ‘Gypsy lasses walk. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves now, do we?’

  Niall glanced around pointedly at the empty landscape of rolling hills covered in heather and gorse. ‘All these people will notice, I suppose.’

  ‘I am quite capable of walking, Mr Gilvry,’ Jenna said with her wee faery hauteur.

  ‘You are lucky he is not making you go barefoot, which is also what most gypsy lasses do,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Gypsy men, too,’ Sean said, grinning wickedly.

  Niall caught the hint of a smile on her face, a sparkle in her eyes. He crushed the urge to grin back. It was better they kept their distance.

  They crested a hill and a wide glen opened up before them, rolling meadows in the flat plain at the bottom and stands of pines on its craggy hillsides.

  ‘Do you see it?’ Jenna said. Speaking without being spoken to for the first time that day. ‘Braemuir.’

  Nestled against one of the hillsides was a three-storey stone house. ‘It’s a grand house,’ Niall said gruffly, his gut twisting at just how grand it was, with its magnificent stone façade and formal
gardens. What had he expected? A hovel, or something in between, like the house where he was born, where he and his brothers had shared a bed? This was the house of a nobleman. It looked just as she had described.

  They started downhill and the house was lost to view behind the undulating land and the trees.

  Jenna was looking around her eagerly. ‘I used to ride these hills with my father,’ she said. She frowned. ‘But there were houses. Crofts. Tenants.’ She looked around. ‘Or perhaps I misremember.’

  ‘The crofts were in the way of the sheep,’ Sean said.

  ‘But those were my father’s people...’ She bit her lip. ‘I should never have left.’

  ‘A fourteen-year-old girl running Braemuir?’ Sean’s voice was without rancour.

  Jenna shook her head. ‘I should have been told. Your people should have been allowed to camp the way they did in my father’s time.’

  The gypsy shook his head. ‘There was no work for us. No fields of crops. We moved on as we always do.’

  ‘Did you?’ she asked, looking at him directly.

  ‘Most did,’ he said.

  Another evasion. Niall glared at the gypsy, but it didn’t do the slightest bit of good.

  Jenna subsided into silence, clearly busy with her own thoughts. Niall didn’t feel he had the right to intrude. He was her escort again, little more than a servant even though Carrick had named him guardian.

  A guardian doing his proper duty would have made their predicament known to Lieutenant Dustan. He deserved a whipping for that piece of foolishness.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ Jenna finally asked.

  ‘We go to Mr Hughes. He is expecting you.’

  ‘Is he? Oh, I am so looking forward to seeing him.’ A flush glowed on her cheeks.

  Something sharp stabbed at Niall’s chest. Jealousy. He beat it back. ‘Is there a post office in the village? We need to get word to Lord Carrick and Mrs Preston before they are driven mad with worry.’

  ‘There is a post office in the next town,’ Sean said.

  Of course it would be in the next town. ‘Then while you are renewing your acquaintance with Mr Hughes, I’ll be going there.’ No doubt on foot. A thought occurred to him. ‘I assume there is some sort of female presence at Mr Hughes’s house. A chaperon for the Lady Jenna.’