The Sinner

by Margaret Mallory

  Her insides turned to liquid, and her head spun. The things other women said about kissing were true after all. That was her last clear thought.

  His hands were moving under her cloak, gripping her hip, sliding up the sides of her breasts. When she felt his hard shaft against her belly, a groan escaped her throat. She tangled her fingers in his hair, urging him closer still.

  Suddenly, Alex broke the kiss. He was breathing hard, and he still had her pressed against the wall so that she felt every inch of his heat through her clothes.

  He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes. She blinked, trying to take in what had just happened to her and what it meant.

  “Do ye think we convinced the guards,” he asked, running his thumb across her cheek, “or should I kiss ye again to be sure?”

  She was mortified. It was all a joke to him.

  * * *

  How had he lost control like that? God help him, he’d wanted to lift Glynis’s skirts and take her right there against the castle wall with the guards walking by.

  Alex thought he could rely upon Glynis’s good sense. Ha! She melted in his arms from the first touch of their lips—and he’d lost his mind.

  How would he ever manage to make it all the way to Edinburgh?

  This was Teàrlag’s fault. He should have tied Glynis up instead of following the seer’s admonition to help the women who called on him. And if he fulfilled his deep desires with this one, she was sure to bring him danger. Bedding an unmarried chieftain’s daughter was a grave offense that justified the harshest possible punishment—death or marriage.

  Alex ignored the guards’ jibes about getting sand in their hair—and various private places—as the men let them out the gate. Glynis tried to tug her hand away, but he ignored that, too. Holding her tightly, he led her down to the shore.

  “Over here,” Duncan called.

  Alex followed Duncan’s voice until his friend’s outline emerged from the darkness.

  “I ‘borrowed’ this skiff from the Macleans for ye,” Duncan said. “It’s old, but it should get ye across to the mainland.”

  “You’re a good man,” Alex said. “You’d best be off as well.”

  Their men and galley were ready and waiting for Duncan in the next cove. Despite Glynis, all had gone well so far. But at any moment, someone in the hall could wake and notice that all the MacDonalds of Sleat were missing.

  Duncan’s gaze shifted from him to Glynis and back again, asking for an explanation.

  “Ye never saw her,” Alex said. “This was her plan, not mine. She wants me to take her to her relatives in Edinburgh.”

  “Mistress Glynis,” Duncan said, “are ye certain ye want to do this?”

  “I can take ye back to the keep, and no one would be the wiser.” Alex held his breath, waiting for her answer.

  “I’m going,” Glynis said, and climbed into the boat.

  It appeared Alex was in for an adventure. Teàrlag said three women would require his help, and he hoped to hell the old seer had miscounted.

  “We aren’t the only ones leaving in the dark tonight,” Duncan said to Alex, after they had stepped away to speak in private. “I saw another boat go out a couple of hours ago.”

  Alex waited, sensing Duncan had something more to say to him.

  “Glynis is a good woman,” Duncan said at last.

  “I know she is,” Alex said. “I don’t intend to take advantage of the situation.”

  “Good luck,” Duncan said, squeezing Alex’s shoulder. “I suspect ye will need it.”

  * * *

  The moon shone between the fast-moving night clouds, revealing the occasional rock poking above the sea. Alex maneuvered the boat around them easily. He did not know the waters around the Mull as well as he did those around the islands to the north and the west. But the Viking blood was strong in him, and gave him a sixth sense on the water.

  The only sound was the soft splash of his oars. The water was flat and silent, and neither he nor Glynis had spoken a word in the hour since they left the shore.

  “Ye didn’t have to kiss me,” Glynis said.

  He smiled to himself. Obviously, Glynis had been dwelling on those kisses, too.

  “Ye could have pretended,” she said. “It was too dark for the guards to tell the difference.”

  “And why would I want to do that?” he asked.

  Glynis cleared her throat. “I fear I didn’t make myself clear. When I asked ye to take me with ye—”

  “Forced me, ye mean,” Alex said.

  “I didn’t mean it as an invitation to… to…”

  Alex couldn’t help himself. “To make love to ye morning, noon, and night, all the way to Edinburgh?”

  “Alex!”

  Glynis sounded so scandalized that he laughed.

  “Don’t jump overboard—I know ye were only looking for an escort, not a bedmate.” Under his breath, he added, “A shame, that.”

  A damn shame. This was going to be one hell of a long trip.

  “What do ye know of your mother’s family?” he asked to divert himself.

  “I’ve never met them, but I understand they are a wealthy and respected merchant family,” she said. “One of my uncles is a priest.”

  Alex would make sure that her mother’s family were good people before he left her with them. If they weren’t, heaven help him, for he didn’t know what he’d do with her then.

  “Why do ye travel to Edinburgh?” Glynis asked.

  “I have business for my chieftain,” Alex said. “And some of my own as well.”

  He should have kept his mouth shut about his own business. Before she could ask about that, he said, “’Tis a dangerous world, Glynis. Like it or no, ye need a husband to protect ye.”

  His own words caused an annoying sensation in his gut.

  “Like my last husband protected me? No thank ye,” Glynis said. “My mother’s family will look after me. Besides, Edinburgh sounds like a tame place.”

  Alex didn’t like the idea of her alone with only a family of Lowlanders and priests to protect her. “Ye should find yourself a strong Highland man.”

  “Hmmph. I’ve had one of those,” she said

  A heavy fog had rolled in. Alex heard a faint mewling sound in the distance and lifted his oars to listen.

  “What is that?” Glynis asked in a hushed voice. “It sounds like a cat caught in a tree.”

  That was no cat. Alex rowed the boat toward the sound through the billowing fog.

  CHAPTER 11

  Help! Someone help me!” The cry came through the dense fog.

  “It’s a woman,” Glynis said, leaning forward and grabbing Alex’s knee.

  “Aye.” He had known it was a female from the start. The question was, what kind?

  Alex wasn’t a superstitious man—for a Highlander—but every story he’d ever heard about selkies came back to him as he rowed closer. A selkie was a sea creature who was known to take the form of a beautiful woman and lure sailors to their deaths. In nearly all the stories, selkies appeared to men when a dense fog lay over the water.

  “Help me!”

  In front of him, the black shape of a rock emerged out of the mist.

  “I can see her!” Glynis stood in the boat, pointing. “She’s clinging to that rock.”

  Alex saw the outline of the upper half of a figure with long flowing hair above the water line. Her legs—or tail—were beneath the water.

  “Hold on,” he called out. “We’re coming for ye.”

  “She’s just there!” Glynis said.

  “Get in the back of the boat.” Knowing Glynis was not the sort to follow orders without an explanation, he added, “I need ye to keep the boat steady while I pull her in.”

  But if Alex saw a tail, he was dropping this creature back into the sea.

  He brought the boat up next to the rock. When he leaned out to lift her, she kept her arms wrapped around the rock. Ach, this was no selkie. The poor thing was shaki
ng like a newborn lamb.

  “Ye can let go now,” he said, using the same soft tone he would use with a riled horse. “I’ve got ye.”

  Only two feet of the rock remained above water, and the tide was still coming in. Another hour or two, and she’d have nothing left to hold on to. How long had she been here, clinging to it as the water rose around her? No wonder she was afraid to let go.

  “Don’t worry, lass,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

  “Alex?” the woman asked in a hoarse voice. “Is that you?”

  God in Heaven, the woman clinging to the rock was Catherine Campbell.

  “Aye, it’s me,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck. I promise I won’t drop ye.”

  Catherine’s skirts were heavy with water as he lifted her into the boat. Moving quickly, he loosened his plaid and wrapped it around them both, then he set to rubbing her back and limbs to get her blood moving. She was so cold her teeth were chattering.

  Glynis found a blanket and draped it around Catherine’s shoulders.

  “What happened, Catherine?” Alex asked. “How did ye get out here?”

  “Sh-sh-aggy did it.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “He-he brought me out here and left me.”

  “Are ye saying Shaggy meant for ye to drown?”

  She nodded against his chest.

  The saints have mercy! Alex had seen a good deal of violence in his life, and he knew of instances when men murdered wives or lovers in a rage. But the cold ruthlessness of this shocked him. Shaggy had wanted his wife to watch the water rise for hours, knowing all the while that she would drown in the end.

  “We’ve got to go to shore and get a fire going for her,” he said to Glynis. “Then we’ll need to get her to her family.”

  “What do ye want me to do?” Glynis asked. “I can row.”

  Thank God Glynis wasn’t the sort of woman to lose her head in a crisis.

  “I’ll row,” he said. “Just keep her as warm as ye can.”

  A second woman had asked for his help.

  * * *

  Glynis tried to lift Catherine Campbell to the back of the boat as Alex took up the oars, but the woman slid from her arms like an eel. When Glynis tried again, Catherine wrapped her arms around Alex’s waist from behind and clung to him, just as she had to the rock.

  “It’s all right. Just tuck my plaid around her,” Alex said. “My body will give off plenty of heat while I row.”

  As he rowed, Alex calmed Lady Catherine with a steady, low murmur, as if he were soothing a babe in his arms. Glynis felt useless.

  She bit her lip against her own disappointment. After what Lady Catherine had suffered, it was small of her to think about how her own plans were ruined. Alex would insist upon seeing Catherine safely to her brother’s castle, as well he should, and Glynis would never make it to Edinburgh.

  The Campbell chieftain would send word to Glynis’s father. And she would go home in worse shame than before.

  “The fog is lifting, and the wind is picking up,” Alex said to Glynis after a while. “We can put the sail up now, and we’ll be on the Campbell side of the loch in no time.”

  After Glynis helped him raise the boat’s small sail, Alex gathered Lady Catherine in his lap and sat with one arm around her and one guiding the boat.

  “Catherine, if ye feel well enough to talk,” Alex said, “can ye tell us why Shaggy left ye on that rock?”

  “He wanted to be rid of me without earning the wrath of my brothers,” she said. “He wanted me dead, without blood on his hands.”

  “Who else was involved?” Alex asked.

  “Shaggy rowed me out to the rock himself—he didn’t want to risk any loose tongues,” Catherine said, anger strengthening her voice. “While he had me trussed like a pig for roasting, he took considerable pleasure in telling me how the water would creep up until I’d have no rock to hold on to.”

  Glynis thought Lady Catherine sounded sufficiently recovered to sit on her own. Catherine did not, however, remove herself from Alex’s lap.

  “Shame I didn’t succeed in poisoning him,” Catherine said. “I tried twice, but Shaggy is a tough old bird.”

  Glynis exchanged glances with Alex, but he showed no surprise at this remarkable confession.

  “The poison did no more than make him ill for a day or two,” Catherine said. “I tell ye, it was verra disappointing.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “I take it he planned to inform your brothers that ye met with an accident.”

  “Aye, and he’d have a few hundred men to say he was fighting the MacIains at Mingary Castle the day I disappeared,” Catherine said, her voice hard with bitterness. “Shaggy will pay for this. My brothers will see to it.”

  They were finally drawing near the far shore, where several fishermen were at the water’s edge readying their boats for the morning’s fishing.

  “They should be Campbells,” Alex said. “You two stay in the boat while I talk with them.”

  Glynis took one of the oars and held it against the bottom of the loch to steady the boat while Alex climbed out. As he and the fisherman spoke in murmured voices, Glynis felt the eyes of the men on her and Lady Catherine.

  “Catherine, these fishermen are your clansmen,” Alex said when he returned to them. “We can rest here at their camp before starting the journey to Inveraray Castle.”

  Glynis wondered how many days and miles they would have to walk to reach the Campbell fortress, and her spirits sank lower.

  The fishermen seemed in awe of their chieftain’s sister and took pains to make them comfortable. After providing them with food and blankets and stoking the fire, they left the three of them to rest and took their boats out to fish.

  Glynis was so tired after being awake all night on the water that she fell asleep almost before her head touched the ground. When she woke, it was near dusk, and the fishermen were back. Alex was sitting next to her, whittling a stick with his dirk. She sat up and looked around her. Lady Catherine stood several yards away surrounded by several men who had just arrived.

  “Who are they?” she asked Alex.

  “The fishermen felt their chieftain’s sister needed Campbell warriors to escort her home,” Alex said, with his eyes on the men. “They fetched these.”

  The Campbell warriors scowled at Alex when Catherine left them to sit next to him.

  “These men will see ye safely to Inveraray Castle,” Alex said. “But save your story about what Shaggy did for your brothers’ ears alone.”

  Catherine slid her hand through Alex’s arm. “I want you to take me there.”

  “Glynis and I must be on our way to Edinburgh in the morning,” Alex said.

  Relief flooded through Glynis. He would take her to her mother’s family after all.

  “Why are ye traveling with her?” Catherine glanced sideways at Glynis as if she were mud stuck on her shoes.

  “I’m taking Glynis to her mother’s relations, nothing more,” he said. “We don’t want her father to hear of it, so don’t tell the men who we are.”

  “Surely your trip can wait,” Catherine said, sounding her usual haughty self.

  “I must meet someone in Edinburgh before the end of the month.” Alex gave Catherine a smile that would melt a witch’s heart. “Come, Catherine, ye know damned well no one on Campbell lands would dare harm a hair on your pretty head.”

  Ach, the man could charm the wings off a fairy. Glynis was disgusted with them both.

  “I’ll forgive ye if ye promise to visit on your return,” Catherine said, taking his arm again.

  “I’ll do that,” Alex said.

  “My brothers will want to reward ye for saving me.” Catherine tilted her head and looked at Alex from under her dark lashes. “And I’ll want to reward ye as well.”

  * * *

  “We’ll leave as soon as the camp is quiet,” Alex said close to Glynis’s ear.

  “I thought we were leaving in the morning.”

  “I’d rath
er not be dragged off in the night to have my throat cut,” Alex said. “These men don’t follow Catherine’s orders, and they are mistrustful of strangers passing through their lands.”

  Well, that was true of all Highlanders.

  “In the meantime, I’ll encourage them to be cautious.”

  Alex stood and, taking his time, met the eyes of every man around the fire. Then he whipped his claymore out so fast it was a blur. Glynis felt the tension of the men as they exchanged glances and silently debated which of them would take on this bold stranger. She prayed Alex knew what he was doing.

  Alex swung his claymore through the fire several times, back and forth. At first he did it with both hands, and then he shifted the heavy blade from hand to hand as he sliced it through the fire in smooth, deadly arcs.

  After this display, he stood in front of Glynis and said, “No one touches her.”

  Glynis swallowed. She suddenly felt very warm. When Alex sat down next to her again, she could feel the power rolling off him.

  He turned and spoke to her in a low, commanding voice. “You’ll sleep with me.”

  CHAPTER 12

  That was not how Glynis had imagined Alex would ask her to lie with him—not that she had imagined it, of course. But if she had, it would most definitely have involved kissing her as he had against the castle wall. His mouth hungry, his hands urgent. His voice rough with desire.

  I must have ye, Glynis. I don’t want anyone but you.

  Glynis shook her head to clear it. By all the saints, what was she thinking? Alex was not the sort of man who wanted only one woman. All the same, when Alex lay down behind her and pulled her against him, she let herself pretend, just for a moment, that he was whispering in her ear, I want ye badly. Only you.

  The arm around her held a dirk.