She was grateful he let her ride the horse this time, instead of being slung on top like an extra blanket. The sun set behind the estate as they were the last to leave the clearing. Elizabeth’s head drifted to thoughts of Henry returning to a raided house and a missing wife, but she knew that a raided house would fetch her a night from hell so she may as well be with this handsome stranger.
Chapter Five
After about an hour of riding under the cover of darkness, William and Elizabeth could see a small wood and stone house hidden in a grove of trees.
“There we go,” he murmured softly.
She rode behind him with her arms around his waist tightly and her cheek pressed against his back. He felt strong and solid and smelled of the woods. She tried not to think of the heat that threatened to blossom in her body, knowing that they would soon be alone in that house.
The trees had been removed from the immediate area surrounding the house, and provided a nice amount of open space which was occupied with a vegetable garden and a small hen house. It almost looked like a miniature version of Henry’s estate, without the stables and field workers’ huts.
William dismounted first and tied King to a nearby tree before lifting Elizabeth off. His hands fit easily around her entire waist and as he set her down, she found herself sliding her hands from his shoulders down his broad chest slowly.
He looked down at her with a quizzical look and stepped away quickly.
“Is this yours?” she asked quietly, as they entered through the small wooden door.
“Basically. I’ve been using it for a while, and no one has ever complained. But I try not to get too comfortable, in case I have to leave quickly and permanently.”
“It is very nice,” she offered politely.
“It will do. It seems to be more comfortable than sleeping on the ground at least.”
The house was indeed small, only one real room. The wood burning stove sat on one corner and a bed in the other. There was also a homemade table and two chairs off to one side. Several wooden boxes lined the remaining wall, some had padlocks on them and some were just open.
Elizabeth’s corset was starting to bind at her waist and she perched on one of the locked boxes to rest. William strolled around the room to check everything before stepping back outside to gather a few pieces of wood for the stove.
“Are you still hungry?” he offered as he started the fire to warm the room.
“No, I’m okay for now.”
Elizabeth looked around the room and started to get nervous at the implications of just one bed.
“Would you like to get more comfortable?”
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth stared at him wide-eyed.
“I just meant, in one of these boxes, you might find a dress that is less, ahem, constructing.”
“Oh, okay.”
She stood up and started digging through the unlocked boxes. She found a simple grey housedress in one of them and held it up to herself. It was going to be loose, but it had to be more comfortable than the corset that was currently digging into her ribcage.
Elizabeth looked around the room and realized that there was no privacy for her to change clothes. She looked back at William and he grinned.
“No, I have no intention of watching you like a hawk. I’ll step outside while you take care of that.”
She smiled weakly. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
He shut the door behind him and her breath escaped her lips in a whoosh. She started to fiddle with the strings and ties and realized that she had never undressed herself without at least a little assistance. She was mortified to ask William for help, but could not stay in her constricting clothing one more minute.
She knocked on the inside of the door and he opened it slowly.
“I…I’m afraid I need some help. With the bindings.”
He laughed. “You sure about that?”
“Yes, I can’t reach the ones in the back.”
He stepped back into the house and turned her around by the shoulders. As he carefully unlaced each string, his eyes wandered over her creamy pale skin as it crept into view inch by inch. He felt a familiar stirring in his groin as he reached her narrow waist, with her entire back exposed.
His callused fingers were gentler than she expected and she tried to hold in her breath to allow for the easiest untying. When he was finished, she clasped the dress to her bosom and crooked her head to one side.
“I think I can get it from here,” she whispered.
He bit his lower lip and left the house without saying a word.
She slid the layers down until she was standing in nothing but her twisted hairdo and slid the grey dress down over her body. It fit loosely and was surprisingly soft against her skin. Before she called for him to come back in, she carefully removed all of the pins from her hair, and let the blonde curls tumble over her shoulders and almost down to her slender waist.
She finally went back to the door and opened it for William. He had his hands full of items from the vegetable garden as well as eggs from the henhouse. He nearly dropped everything at the sight of Elizabeth standing there in her new dress with her silky blonde hair cascading over her.
“Oh, um, I see you are finished,” he stuttered.
“I see you brought dinner,” she replied with a soft smile.
She held the door open for him and he walked inside to set everything down on the table. She perused the vegetables and eggs, and decided that if there was a pot large enough, she could make some soup. She searched through the unlocked boxes again, and came up with a dull kitchen knife and a large metal pot. A quick trip to the barrel outside and she was on her way to dinner. Once the soup was prepared and on the stove, she dropped the eggs in whole to boil them. It was certainly not a fancy meal, but it was sufficient and made the house smell like home.
Chapter Six
One day lead into the next, and the pair seemed to have settled into a routine. William was often gone during the days, as Henry had been, but Elizabeth tried to keep herself busy with organizing the small space and re-sorting the boxes that she had access to. She wondered what was in the locked ones, but was too nervous to ask. The meals were simple and based on what was readily available from the garden and the henhouse. One of the boxes seemed to function as a pantry of sorts, and she would occasionally add some of the smoked ham or dried beef to the soups for a different flavor.
William was polite enough to allow her to sleep in the bed, while he stretched out on the lids of the boxes with several blankets underneath him for comfort. They usually left the stove fire burning to keep the drafty little house warm.
One evening Elizabeth realized that it had been days since she had bathed and it was starting to bother her. William never seemed to take a bath so she was not certain how it worked in their given situation.
She felt surprisingly comfortable around him, playing house, but she knew it was all for show. She could have actually escaped given how much he was gone, but the thought only fleeted through her mind briefly.
One evening, as they finished supper, she could no longer wait for a good chance to ask him the awkward question.
“W-W-William?” she started, tentatively.
“Yes? What is it?”
“How does one bathe here?”
He laughed. “I don’t know, the question never came up before.”
“Oh, all right.”
“You can probably use the soup pot and take a standing bath, if you’d like.”
She shivered at the thought, “It might be too cold for that.”
“Well, I would suggest heating the water first, but that’s just me.”
She giggled. “Yes, of course. But the room is so cold.”
“Well, I can’t help that. I think that might be your best option.”
The next day, when William had left for whatever errands he did while the sun was up, she filled the soup pot from the barrel outside and started a large fire in the stove to hea
t it up. In one of the boxes, she had lucked upon a bar of soap and she tore a corner off one of the blankets to make a rag.
Once the water was warm, she checked outside to make sure no one was in the vicinity, and she carefully laid her garments on the bed to stand naked in front of the stove. It was surprisingly warm with the fire raging and she started to dab and bathe herself.
After she was finished, she walked back over to her clothing. But as she picked up her slip, the door swung open and William strode in purposefully. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the naked blonde woman bending over the bed. Elizabeth squealed and tried to snatch up her dress but not before William caught an eyeful of absolutely everything.
He stuttered some sort of words but could not look away as she pressed her dress up against her damp skin, causing it to outline every swell and curve of her body. Her full breasts heaved as she gasped for breath.
He walked up to her and she gasped at the thoughts that raced through her mind. He silently picked up the blanket from the bed and held it up in the air level with his own chest so that she was hidden behind it. She yanked the slip and the dress down over her head and turned away to hide her pink cheeks.
“I-I-I thought… I didn’t know what…you…” She was breathing hard through her nervous words.
He looked at her carefully, now that she was clothed again. He rested his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. She could smell his fresh woodsy scent and the solidness of his chest pressed against her.
He whispered in her ear, his warm breath tickling against her skin.
“I have no intention of taking anything from you. But mark my words, some day you will ask me to share the bed with you. And I won’t tell you no.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, her shyness outweighing any indignant response and counteracting any attraction she felt towards this bear of a man.
That night, as she curled up on the bed and listened to him snore on the boxes, she could not help but wonder what this heat was that she felt growing inside her body. Henry had been her only companion in the bedroom, and he never once caused these stirrings.
Chapter Seven
When the sun peeked through the window the next day, Elizabeth struggled to remember why she had felt uneasy as she fell asleep. Then, like the fog over a lake, it rolled back through her conscious thoughts. William had walked in on her while she was changing, and although she had been aghast at first, she had not really minded.
And the fact that she did not mind worried her.
She wrapped herself in an old coat she found hidden at the bottom of one of the boxes, and went to fetch eggs for breakfast. By the time she returned, William was awake and had started the fire in the stove. They looked at each other awkwardly, but neither could find the words to express anything so they went about their morning motions in silence.
William left the house, still in silence, and Elizabeth wrapped her hands around a warm metal mug of hot tea while she contemplated the changes in her life over the last week. She had grown up privileged and had married thusly, never really having to worry about being taken care of. She certainly did not mind picking the vegetables or gathering the eggs, but she was not sure if it was a long term lifestyle she could enjoy.
She enjoyed her fine clothes and her hearty food, not to mention having servants and attendants to take care of all of those things. She was worldly enough to know that life outside of the estate was hard and fraught with perils she had never imagined. First and foremost, she had been lucky in her capture that William turned out to be a gentleman instead of a true highlander raider. There was no telling what fate would have befallen her had another group taken her.
She tidied up from breakfast, and made the bed. She also carefully folded the blankets that William had been using to pad the boxes. In the tiny cottage, there was not much housekeeping to be done.
After she put another log into the stove fire, she crouched down to study the three locked boxes that neither of them had ever mentioned. She was curious and tried to lift the lids to peek inside. She had no luck as they were cinched tightly. She started to dig around in the other boxes to see if there happened to be a key lying around, but again no luck was on her side. She sat on one of the locked boxes and studied the inside of the cabin.
There were small chinks and gaps between the stones as well as between the walls and the wooden ceiling. She wandered over to one and realized that she could easily fit three fingers inside. Elizabeth moved from gap to gap, feeling around inside until luck finally found her. Inside one of the gaps, she located a small metal key. As she clicked it into one of the locks and started to turn it, she heard rapid hoof beats approaching the house. As quickly as she could, she ran to stick the key back into the same gap and pretended to be busy stoking the fire.
The heavy wooden door flew open and William was standing there breathless and disheveled.
“They’re close behind me,” he panted, wiping the sweat from his brow.
He grabbed the side of his arm and she noticed that he was bleeding.
“William! Are you okay? What happened?”
“We’ve got to go,” he huffed.
“Go? Go where? Who’s here?”
Elizabeth ran to the window and immediately recognized the four horsemen that pounded in their direction.
“How did they find us?” she marveled.
In a flash, William was next to her at the window and with both hands on her waist, he turned her abruptly towards him.
“I need to know, do you want to stay or do you want to go?”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“Do you want to stay with me or do you want to return home?”
“Stay,” she whispered, her heart speaking before her brain could calculate what she was saying.
Without a word, he slid his hands around to the small of her back and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply and ferociously. His tongue sought the warmth of her mouth just as the rest of his body yearned to seek her other warmth.
As the horses outside grew closer, he darted to the wall, snatched the metal key from its hiding place, and grabbed her hand as they raced out the door. He tossed her as gently but as quickly as possibly onto King’s back, and they raced off into the trees that surrounded the cabin.
Chapter Eight
King ran as quickly as he could with both of them on his back but not far from the cabin, William pulled him to an abrupt stop.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Elizabeth sputtered, still startled by the sudden flight.
“They will search the immediate area, but they did not see us flee on horseback. You and King will wait here until I return. I have to go back and keep an eye out for when they leave. Then I will come back for you.”
“You’re going to leave me alone out here? What if they find me?”
He grinned down at her frightened upturned face.
“Then you will end up back home, and no worse off than you were before.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She was certain that if she did return, Henry would blame her for letting herself be taken, and he would take out his frustration on her body in one way or another. She finally consented to being left behind with King, and William headed back to the cabin on foot. She watched as he darted from tree to tree in a crouched position and marveled at his stealth despite his large size.
She settled down on the ground near King and waited. As the time rolled on, she started to wish she had grabbed some food on the way out of the door, but there just had not been time. In the distance, she thought she could hear the sounds of fighting but she told herself she was just imagining things.
The painful waiting ordeal gave her time to finally think about how she had answered William. It had been a quick answer in the heat of the moment, but in the peaceful silence of the trees, she knew it had been the right one. If there was an option outside of Henry and his estate, then she had to take it. And it was hard to ignore the fact th
at William had displayed more breeding and manners in the few days as his captive, than Henry had showed during their entire courtship and marriage. William’s shaggy dark hair, sparkling brown eyes, and muscular shoulders certainly made a young woman take notice.
Elizabeth was not sure how long William had been gone, but suddenly he popped out from behind a tree nearby.
“Oh!” she gasped loudly, “you startled me!”
“I wouldn’t be a good criminal if I wasn’t good at sneaking around,” he laughed breathlessly. “I think we are good to go back. If you’re up to it that is.”
“S-S-Sure. Are you certain they are gone?”
“Yes, I sent them home with their tails between their legs.”
She grinned at the thought of them returning to Henry empty-handed.
William helped her off the ground and then up onto King. He mounted the large black horse after her and slid up so that he was pressed up behind her. She tried not to notice his closeness but the sheer strength and size of him was invading her every thought.
He could smell the soap in her hair and twitched his head as the stray curls tickled his nose. From his vantage point behind and above her, he had a view straight down the loose top of her dress and he bit his bottom lip at the sight of her full breasts swelling and falling with her breaths.
He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “When we get back, you’ll have to answer a question for me.”
She could feel her skin erupt in goosebumps from his warm breath on her skin and she was not naïve enough to think he did not notice. She was not unfamiliar with the male anatomy and she was almost certain that she could feel something stirring against her lower back as the horse jostled them together on the slow ride back.
It was not far, and they arrived more quickly than Elizabeth wanted. William slid to the ground and then reached up to grab her by the waist. As he lifted her off King, he held her close to himself so that she slid down the length of his torso as she approached the ground. He did not remove his hands from her waist when her fee hit the grass. Instead he left them there and held her against his body.
The Highlander's Taken Bride (Scottish Highlander Romance) Page 5
