Nay, much more vigor!
Her pointless wish expended, she dug her fingers deeper into the woolen folds of her gathered skirts and longed to make a few blaring noises of her own. A peppered word or two, muttered loudly, or at the very least an indignant, windy huff.
But any such outburst might incite him to wheel about to face her, and, saints be praised, so far he’d kept his word.
As he’d promised, he held a fair distance, and gave not the slightest indication of turning around… or even sneaking a glance over his shoulder.
Nor did he rush her.
But he could surely hear her.
And that knowledge blasted heat straight up the back of Madeline’s neck. She bit down on her lower lip, a hot tide of sharp-edged embarrassment coursing through her, making her task all the more difficult.
He appeared perfectly at ease with their rather delicate undertaking.
Not ten feet away, he waited beside his quietly grazing garron. Nary a muscle on the whole tall length of him moved, his entire body arrow-straight and so rigid he might as well be carved of solid, living stone.
He stood with his long, well-hewn legs braced slightly apart, and even his hands bespoke his masterful self-possession, clasped simply and ever-so-casually behind his back.
Madeline eyed him, quite certain he’d becharmed her—for how else could he have haunted her dreams for weeks? Make her look on him in favor, moon-eyed and swooning o’er his bonnie muscles, now, when caught in the throes of such an awkward moment?
Faith, his braw proximity rendered anything but gawking at him a feat of near impossibility.
So she resigned herself and used their unique positioning to send her appreciative gaze sliding over every darkly handsome inch of him.
The brisk evening breeze riffled his unbound hair, an unseen caress along its sleek raven spill. Insistent, curling warmth began to pulse low in Madeline’s belly. As so often since he’d abandoned his pilgrim’s garb, a fierce urge to touch his hair seized her, spiraling through her with ever-increasing intensity until each one of her fingertips tingled with an eager, raging need.
She stared at him, stunned by her overpowering compulsion to feel great silky handfuls of the glossy blue-black strands pouring, cool and smooth, over her palms and sifting through her greedy fingers.
A pleasure she burned to experience… if only just once.
And soon, while she still had time for such feminine frivols.
Blowing out an irritable breath, she glanced aside, looked out across endless heather-clad braes to the silent waters of a distant loch, its mirrorlike surface a deep steely blue in the approaching twilight.
So familiar a landscape, so new and bewildering the feelings her shadow man awakened in her.
So frighteningly irresistible.
She looked back at him, and still more shivers spilled down her spine, but delicious tingles this time, each delicious thread spooling together to join the decidedly intimate pulsings already stirring low in her belly.
Scarce recognizing herself, she tightened her grasp on her skirts, her breath catching at her fierce reaction to him. She squeezed shut her eyes, half-wishing the tantalizing sensations spinning inside her, the piercing ache for what couldn’t be, would cease when she reopened them.
But they didn’t.
If anything, they increased.
The instant she opened her eyes, the sweet throbbing so close to the very center of her femininity sent echoing ripples to every corner of her body.
Even her toes grew warm and tingly.
The intimacy of holding her skirts hitched about her hips with him so near, stirred her, too—regardless of the reason she did so.
She released a quivering sigh, and felt more the wanton than the Abercairn kitchen maids she’d occasionally spied slipping into dark corners with bonnie squires.
Saints, but her Master of the Highlands thrilled her, and in ways no decent woman ought allow.
She drew deeply of the chill evening air, fortifying herself on its comforting earthiness, a bracing blend of damp heather, gorse, and quartz-shot stone, until the prickly tingles ceased whirling through her.
Until she could once again concentrate on what she needed to do.
Or at least focus on one of Iain MacLean’s less-distracting attributes.
Such as what a patient man he seemed.
Thoughtful, too, for he’d urged his mount off the road the moment she’d voiced her need, indulging her modesty without complaint and striking ever farther up the sloping moorside despite the rough going.
He’d picked a tedious path, urging his surefooted garron, a Highland beast well used to harsh terrain, across mud-slicked ground and through thickest heather, carefully skirting bog holes and outcroppings of large, lichen-covered boulders until they’d found a thicket dense enough to suit her.
And now that they’d found one, a myriad of difficulties assailed her… in particular her dangerously flaring attraction to him. A passion she couldn’t allow to flourish even if his heart wasn’t hung on another.
Madeline frowned, her palms beginning to dampen. She blew a dangling curl from her eye and shifted her position to avoid the tickling brush of a tall-growing clump of deer grass.
“We still have a good score of miles to ride.” His deep voice rose above her shame and ire—blessedly giving her just the cover she needed to complete her task.
“Can you not be quicker about your… er… business?” he added, his usually mellifluous voice sounding more than a little strained.
Mortification fired Madeline’s cheeks. “I am almost finished,” she shot back, quite certain her face would soon glow bright enough to illuminate the coming night for miles.
“I am glad to hear it, for I am no wilted dotard, I assure you,” came his terse reply, and even she, uninitiated in the baser needs of men, didn’t mishear the taut-sounding urgency behind his words… or misread the reason for it. “I pray you, lass, have done so we—”
“We two do not make a ‘we,’” she snapped, tight-voiced and all too aware of… everything.
All too aware of him.
He merely arched a cynical brow.
She didn’t need to see it to know… it was quite noticeable in the stiffening of his wide-set shoulders and the visible tensing of his hands.
Eyeing him sourly, her vexation at the whole of her plight flared like embers caught in the teeth of a fine and gusty draught. Almost wishing he’d proven podgy-handed and cross-eyed rather than so appealing she could scarce draw breath around him, she kept her gaze fastened on his back—willing him to stay put—and made swift use of the dried clump of absorbent sphagnum moss he’d given her to ease her task.
“I am finished,” she announced, relief sluicing off her. She pushed to her feet, smoothed her skirts. “T-thank you for the… the sphagnum.”
He turned around, gave her a tight nod. “You will appreciate it even more after I’ve attended your rope burns this eve.” His dark gaze flickered to her ankles, her wrists, lit briefly on her hips… or somewhere there-abouts. “Sphagnum moss also works wonders on the soreness plaguing a certain part of you, my lady.”
The ground dipped beneath Madeline’s feet. He meant her buttocks! “I am not sore.”
“Och, nay?” He cocked another brow… one she saw this time. “Then why are you standing bent at the waist and with a hand pressed hard against your hip?”
Madeline straightened at once, and so quickly, she couldn’t stop a pained wince from slipping past her lips.
His curved in a knowing smile.
Or rather the left corner of his mouth lifted in that odd quirking that seemed to pass for his smile.
She blinked, took a step backward.
He peered hard at her, his expression a curious mix of looking bemused and infuriated. Several long minutes passed before he spoke. “Whether it pleases you or nay, lass, we are and shall give ourselves as a ‘we’ so long as our paths run together,” he said, striding forward, h
is gait smooth and fluid, his voice almost a growl.
A predator’s growl.
He towered over her, looming so close she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “As for your soreness… and I ken you’ll be hurting… so long as you bide in my care, I see myself responsible for attending to your comfort as well as your safekeeping.”
“I am fine,” Madeline blurted, denying the fiery pain biting deep into her buttocks.
And wishing she could deny how thrilling some vixen hiding inside her found the thought of his hands smoothing salve onto her bared flesh.
Any part of her bared flesh, even there where such pounding hurt throbbed and burned she doubted she’d be able to sit comfortably for a sennight.
“A sphagnum tincture soothed onto your… er… hurts will ease the discomfort and help you sleep.” Looking uncomfortably deep into her eyes, he smoothed his knuckles down her cheek. “You needn’t look so stricken. I’ll simply prepare the sphagnum for you. I didn’t say I would apply it.”
“Oh.” Madeline swallowed her disappointment, hoped he wouldn’t see any lingering trace of it on her face.
“Though some might tell you otherwise, you needn’t fear me,” he said, and touched one knuckle to the tip of her nose. Stepping back, he held out his hands, palms outward. “I shall look after you as best I can until the hour I deliver you to where’er it is you were heading before our paths crossed.”
I was heading to hell, sirrah, but I fear I’ve already arrived.
Hastening there by the day and dreaming of you by night, she almost blurted.
Instead she lifted her chin. “I do not fear you, sirrah. Nor do I care what others might say of you,” she vowed, then added the words she must. “You may leave me at the gate of the nearest convent. It matters not which one.”
He angled his head to the side, studied her. “I say you it should, lass.”
A sudden shift in the wind wrapped his scent around her, enveloping her in its clean, spicy maleness, and beguiling her senses so thoroughly she swayed a bit. He reached for her at once, grasping her firmly just above her elbows, the warmth of his strong fingers seeping through the layers of her clothes to become fine, tingling currents racing up and down her arms.
“I am loath to disillusion you,” he said, clearly unaware of his effect on her, “but vice and debauchery in nunneries has been on the rise for years. Some establishments are little better than joy houses these days.”
“Then I shall give care not to enter a tainted one.”
Iain shook his head. “Nay, lass, I shall give that care.”
Assuring they made a wide bypath around any and all ecclesiastical refuges known to be of sordid repute was the least he could do for her. And for his own sorely dented pride, now that he didn’t possess a single remaining fleck of untarnished honor.
He cleared his throat. “If you have no preference, I shall see you to the Bishopric of Dunkeld,” he proposed, purposely choosing the last stop on his journey of penance.
If he couldn’t keep her… he might as well enjoy having her near for as long as circumstances allowed.
Long enough to learn her secrets and mayhap steal a kiss or two.
Such a wee sin couldn’t add much more black to his soul.
“Dunkeld?” she fair squeaked the word.
He inclined his head.
“Dunkeld is an ancient and worthy establishment,” he declared, warming to the idea. “My clan has ties to the bishopric, so I can leave you there with good conscience.”
“Dunkeld Cathedral?” she echoed again.
“Is there any other?” Iain looked sharply at her, not missing the slight furrowing of her brow.
Nor the widening of her lovely green-gold eyes, the quicksilver flash of distress momentarily discoloring their beauty.
She knew Dunkeld and didn’t want to go there.
Iain was certain of it.
“Dunkeld is as good as any,” she acquiesced, with a too-carefree shrug.
The sensitive skin on the back of Iain’s neck began to tingle, the fine hairs of his nape lifting. His every nerve end snapped to rapt attention.
He recognized that shrug.
It was the same kind Amicia affected when something mattered greatly to her but she meant to hide its importance.
Certain he’d stumbled onto his first clue to her true identity, Iain rubbed his chin with equally feigned disinterest. He glanced casually at rain clouds banking in the distance. “It will do us no hurt to examine other nunneries along the way,” he tossed out, testing her.
He looked back at her, watching her closely.
And she didn’t disappoint him.
He could almost see her ears perking.
She pounced on his bait with astonishing speed, nodding so energetically the red-gold curls framing her face bobbed as if they’d taken on a life of their own. “That would please me,” she said, a telltale breathiness in her voice. “I am eager to take the veil, good sir.”
A lie if e’er he’d heard one.
But she was eager to be about something.
Of that he was certain.
Iain sighed. “My route of travel will take us past St. Fillan’s and its Healing Pond, for one,” he suggested, choosing this possibility because of its nearness. “Mayhap you will find more favor there?”
“Oh, aye,” she agreed without the slightest hesitation, her enthusiasm scarce contained. “I have heard of the pond’s healing qualities.”
Iain fought to keep from calling her on her lies.
As he’d suspected, she received the suggestion of St. Fillan with visible relief, even turning aside to hide it from him. But when she swung back, her own gaze probed, a shadow that could have passed for regret stealing some of the warmth out of her eyes.
Definitely damping her excitement.
She looked at him long and piercingly. “So you are on a pilgrimage?”
Iain shoved a hand through his hair, wished again he could flash her a brilliant smile, mayhap even laugh, and then assure her that, nay, he was merely making a foray across the land.
Attending clan business for his brother, the laird.
But if he hoped to hold even a smidgen of her esteem, he could not and wouldn’t lie to her.
So he squared his shoulders, gave her one of his twisted smiles, and spoke the truth. “A pilgrimage of sorts, aye,” he admitted, before his fear of tainting her view of him could rise in spirited protest. “I am doing a penance, lass.”
“A penance?” No accusation, simply keen interest.
“So I have said, and one I deserve, I must say you.” He moved to his garron, using the breadth of his plaid-slung back to shield how deeply her lack of shock or scorn touched him.
“But be of sure heart, that I am not a marauder or murderer,” he told her anyway. “Worse could befall you than riding with me.”
Turning, he gestured her to him. “I shall tell you the reason for my journey after we’ve paused for the night, but now we must make haste to reach adequate lodgings. It is a lengthy ride to the next township.”
She blinked, but came forward. Hesitantly. “Township?”
“Would you camp the night in the roofless shell of yon cot-house?” He looked up at the darkening sky. Even the wind now held the damp smell of coming rain. “A storm brews, lass, and I would see us dry before it breaks.”
Taking her lower lip between her teeth, she slid a sidelong glance in the direction of the cot-house’s lamentable remains, a speculative glint sparking in her gold-cast eyes. “Nella and I have slept in less welcoming places than a burned-out crofter’s cottage.”
“Well, you shall not this night,” Iain decided for her.
Without warning, he seized her by the waist and lifted her onto the garron’s back. Quickly, before she could object.
Or tear off through the heather, costing them both an unnecessary and time-wasting sprint across the rough, uneven ground.
A fool’s errand she ought have known would only
end with his catching her.
And maybe demanding a kiss as recompense for his trouble.
“I do not want to overnight in a township,” she objected, her full lips pursing in such a tempting fashion he was wont to kiss her right then.
Breathing a silent oath, he vaulted up behind her, pulled her securely against his chest. “You have no choice, sweeting,” he whispered against her hair as he kneed the horse into motion.
And neither do you, his MacLean heart taunted him.
Not in wanting her.
Nor that, even now, before they’d put the steeply sloping brae behind them and returned to the road, he was already contemplating ways to sneak a kiss from her.
Or that with every passing hour spent with her, he was proving himself less and less worthy of the style she’d bestowed on him.
Frowning as darkly as the fast-approaching rain clouds, Iain spurred the garron to greater speed and chose to ignore the title his conscience tossed at him.
Unchivalrous blackguard.
A heartless scoundrel out to take advantage of an unescorted and helpless lass.
A maid, he was certain.
His scowl returned, settling even darker across his brow when a good hour later he spied a monastery where they would surely have found refuge and succor in a welcoming hospice… yet he dug in his knees, urging his mount onward, even possessing the gall to be glad-hearted the lass had fallen asleep and couldn’t notice.
Instead, he rode on, keeping to the northern road until the rugged moorland gave way to even higher ground, the hills heavily forested and cut through with long, deep glens… but eventually sloping down to just the type of village he’d been hoping to find.
Not quite a township, but an unwalled and sleepy cluster of low-browed, thatch-topped cottages built ’round a small, gray-walled kirk. A long-ruined fortalice tower stood dark on its mound some distance away, and a scattering of sheep and cattle grazed on the common pastureland.
Iain felt a twinge of guilt but quickly tamped it down.
Any weary travelers seeking lodgings in such a forgotten hamlet would have no recourse but to spend the night in the local inn.
Such as it would prove to be.
The kind offering pallets of straw on the common room floor, a flea-ridden bed shared by many in a room that hadn’t known a gust of fresh air in centuries… or a private room, tiny but clean, if the innkeeper was shown a handful of coin.
Sue-Ellen Welfonder Page 12
