by Karen Ranney
He bent and kissed her lightly.
“Have you always acted with scrupulous care and decency, Mary?” he asked, setting aside caution. “Is there nothing you’ve done which shames you?”
She looked at him and smiled. A dangerous woman, one of grace, charm, and infinite allure, someone who made him wish that he could alter his past. “Of course I have. I’m no saint. These days should have taught you that much.”
“Have you ever committed an act that sickens you?”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. But he noticed that she didn’t recoil from the question. He shouldn’t test her. He’d asked her to stay because he’d wanted the comfort of her body. Yet now he discovered he wanted the absolution of her spirit, or at least for her to understand why he’d acted the way he had.
He’d known that it was unlikely that anyone would ever truly comprehend what he’d done. Perhaps that’s why he’d taken himself off from other people, isolating himself like a leper. In a sense, he felt diseased. How he craved three simple words: You are forgiven.
Absolution might never come to him.
“We should eat,” he said, drawing back, turning to pull out a chair for her.
“It looks delicious,” she said, glancing at him curiously but not questioning his sudden foul mood.
“It will do,” he responded, hearing the curtness of his own reply and not ameliorating it. Anger suddenly suffused him, an emotion of protection. Over the past months, he’d grown increasingly self-reliant, a creature that lived within its habitat and needed only itself to survive. But he discovered that he needed her, and that realization didn’t sit well at all.
She said nothing, watching his face with a curiously guarded expression. As if she knew that his anger wasn’t directed inward, as it should have been, but at her. He was enraged by every decent individual he knew, even the members of his family. His brothers would have died rather than do what he did in the desert. Each of them would have clung to his principles, his honor, and his decency.
Instead, Hamish had chosen life, trading any hope of his peace of mind or a clear conscience for it. He’d wanted to breathe, to feel his heart beat, to know that years stretched out before him in some quasi-guaranteed span. He’d wanted to plan for his future, to father a child, feel himself age. He had wanted to see the faces of those beloved to him, to count the sunsets, to hunt once again, simple wishes that had kept him going even when it would have been easier to quit. Too many times he’d wanted to simply lie down in the sand and let the sun scorch him to death. But he’d carried on, one plodding foot after another.
With all the memories still left to him, and even with this enduring legacy of guilt, he knew he’d make the same choice again.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to eat or talk. He wanted forgetfulness, the kind he could find only in the pleasure of Mary’s abandon. His conscience would be silenced only when he was kissing her. He reached for her without apology, needing her in a way that was suddenly desperate and selfish.
She came, hands outstretched, resting on his shoulders, her smile understanding and so softly serene that it was almost his undoing.
He nearly told her then, his face pressed against the swell of her bodice, his eyes closed, and his hand against her back to keep her there, pinioned against him. He almost confessed as he had not to Brendan or to any of those who’d treated him, burned and incoherent from exposure. Only God knew, and He was not speaking, either to Hamish or to the world. The secret was, unbearably, his and his alone.
He sat and abruptly pulled her to him, reaching up beneath her skirt. A instant later, an eternity, he freed his erection and buried himself in her. He closed his eyes as she sank down on him, as her soft, sweet lips pressed against his throat and she murmured something in his ear.
Only then did he realize that she wasn’t quite ready for him. “Forgive me,” he said roughly. “Forgive me.” He pulled out of her, gritting his teeth and summoning the will from some far off place where he’d stored it.
“Did I hurt you?” he whispered, placing soft kisses across the edge of her jaw. “Please, tell me if I hurt you.”
He was nearly desperate with desire. Now panic blurred it, the confusion of his mind transferring to his body. His hand fumbled at her laces as he wondered when he’d lost sensation in his fingertips, or when they’d become so clumsy. Once again he cursed the fact that his left arm was useless. Suddenly, it enraged him that he couldn’t be articulate and whole, instead of suffused with guilt and teetering on the edge of frenzy.
He wanted, suddenly, to offer her Hamish MacRae as he’d been before India, whole and confident. He was not quite ready, for all his surface acceptance, to embrace the man he was. This man was too scarred, had too many sins, had too many regrets, and was beset by too many demons.
He unfastened her bodice, finally, wanting to touch her skin with a feverishness he had never before felt. Even at his most frantic, he’d never felt this clawing need. He’d always felt that with her he could find peace, a respite from the voices, faint but insistent, of his conscience. Now, however, she was the source of his desperation.
“Forgive me.” He cupped a breast in his hand and kissed it gently. “Forgive me,” he murmured again, his lips on her collarbone, trailing a penitent’s path between her breasts.
She placed both her hands on either side of his face, kissed his lips, then his cheeks, his chin. “It’s all right, Hamish.” Soft words that didn’t free him from his regret.
He slowed himself, taking deep breaths and inhaling the scent of her. Something that smelled of camphor and the laundry soap she’d used earlier. Not provocative scents as much as ordinary ones. She was the one who’d altered them, changing them until they swirled around her in a bouquet of heady smells.
He wanted her naked, but there was no time. He cupped a breast and held it for his lips, his tongue teasing the tip of it before drawing it into his mouth and sucking. Her hand caressed his cheek, a sensuous and artless invitation to continue. Her other hand rested at the nape of his neck, her fingers trailing up and down softly.
She seemed so calm while he was delirious inside. Where was all his restraint now? Gone in the magic of Mary. He nuzzled at her other breast, all the while murmuring words that might have weakened him at another moment.
He must make her see that she was the last person in the world he would willingly harm. But he had, and he must make it up to her, even though she didn’t speak a word of condemnation. As he reached up to pull her head down for a spiraling kiss, he prayed that she was as lost in the moment as he.
His fingers dug beneath layers of fabric that separated them, found her and teased her with his thumb.
He wanted her now, yet all the finesse that he’d once possessed as a lover deserted him. He was an untried youth once again, his fingers trembling on a woman’s flesh. But he’d never before felt as he did it this moment.
He’d wept only a few times—as a boy. Impossibly, incredibly, horribly, Hamish felt as if he would weep now.
“Help me,” he said, breathing against her throat.
Suddenly, her fingers were on him, and he was almost inarticulate with need.
“No, please,” he said, and her fingers halted at the tip of his erection, yet he could feel fingers and thumb gently resting there as if to stroke him to bliss in the next second. He would erupt in her hands, the knife edge of pleasure so close now that it was not unlike pain.
She didn’t move, and he was infinitely grateful. As if she read his mind, or divined his chaotic thoughts, she rose up, pressing her bare breasts against his face as she guided him into her.
A sound escaped him, a muted hosanna of gratitude as his eyes closed. A spearing bliss surged through him as Mary moved again, and he wanted to be over her, thrusting into her with the power of two arms supporting him.
He would hold himself at the entrance to her soft, heated sheath, poised there just for a moment until her head flung from side to side and she ple
aded with him to continue. Only then would he enter her again. The man of that vision had more control and finesse.
Desire had become a maelstrom, the sensation centered where she enveloped him and drew him in and then lifted herself before plunging down. He had begun as the seducer and was now the beguiled. She led the pace and he only followed, grateful and humbled.
She stiffened in his arms, and once again, he wanted to say a prayer to the Almighty who made such things possible. Her release hadn’t been due to any of his skill this time. It was a result of her wishes and his almost desperate wants. Because this was such an enchanted moment, created from fervent prayers, he followed an instant later, feeling such pleasure that he drew her head down for another kiss.
She laid her head on his shoulder, sighing against his throat, and he closed his eyes in muted wonder and thankfulness.
Elspeth knelt at her window, elbows on the sill, watching as the night lengthened. The moon was bright, casting bluish shadows on the buildings and the landscape. Her second-floor room looked out over Inverness, with a view of the river bridge in the distance. The water looked black and sparkling. The River Ness flowed out to the sea, where ships and sailors disappeared.
Not that far away was a town at the end of the promontory. Cormech, it was called, where oceangoing vessels berthed and huge cargoes were offloaded. She’d visited it once, years ago, with her parents and four of her six sisters in tow. The reason slipped her mind now, but it must have been something for her father’s business, the only justification that could budge her father from Inverness.
She loved her home, never thinking that she might leave it. There were, after all, enough men in Inverness that she wouldn’t have to go shopping for a husband. Her father’s wealth guaranteed that she wouldn’t be ignored.
Until this month, there had been only a few men who interested her. Though none of them had made her heart beat loudly or the breath falter in her chest. Nor had she acted the fool with them as she so easily did with Captain MacRae. Brendan.
For the first time, she began to understand Mary’s craving for adventure. Yet she knew something that Mary had never discussed. It wasn’t a change of scenery she wanted as much as the company of one man.
Was that why Mary remained at a lonely castle?
She’d not told her parents what she suspected, nor did she and Brendan discuss it again, but she often thought of Mary and her shocking behavior. Yet now, on this moonlit night, with Inverness sleeping outside her bedroom window, Elspeth could understand her friend only too well.
Every day she woke to wonder if this was the day she’d no longer see Brendan. Every day, when he appeared on their doorstep, she felt her whole body sigh in relief. Every morning, she dreaded hearing him say that he’d be leaving. Not yet, but soon.
What would she do then? How would she bear it?
“Please don’t let him leave,” she said, addressing the moon. The moon was silent, as was the world around her.
Sighing, she stood and went back to her bed, knowing that when she slept it would be to dream of Brendan.
Chapter 16
M ary was retrieving her medicine case from the chamber two floors below, and would join him shortly. Hamish propped open the door so that he’d know when she was on the staircase. He liked to stand on the landing as she came up the steps. He’d always engage her in conversation so that she’d forget about the height, directing her attention toward him and not the distance below her. Yet for all her fear, she didn’t hesitate in joining him at the top of the tower.
More than three weeks had passed, and they’d existed in a timeless, shielded world of no interruptions. The only voices they heard belonged to the two of them, the only wishes they followed were theirs. Sometimes, he wondered if it was wise to be alone with Mary this long, to be immersed in her character. He grew to know her with each passing day, to note the habit she had of tapping her foot on the floor as she massaged his arm, as if she were keeping time to an inaudible tune. Sometimes, she surprised him with the wit of her response, or the knowledge she had of the world, for all that she’d never left Inverness.
He realized one morning that he’d been lured into her spell, and then smiled at himself. Witches, he suspected, were an invention of man to excuse his weakness around women.
She was bringing a sense of normalcy to his life, something that had been missing for too long. One day, as they were walking across the courtyard, she’d turned and glanced at him over her shoulder. He couldn’t remember what she’d said, or why she was laughing, but he’d recall the sight of her until the moment he died. The sun was behind her, making a crown of gold light around her dark hair and bathing her face in shadow. Her lips were curved in a smile, her eyes sparkling with happiness.
Hamish realized that he’d be proud to introduce her to his brothers, knowing that she could be assimilated into his growing family without a ripple of discord. Her laughter would echo with those of his sisters-in-law, and he could almost envision standing with his brothers and watching the women, each of the MacRaes feeling a masculine pride.
Sometimes, when he awoke in the middle of the night, he wanted to wake her, to talk to her about his dream, or listen to her voice. Sometimes he’d be content simply to watch her sleep, feeling a warm protectiveness as he covered her in the blanket and worried about the chill.
During the day, if they chanced to be in different corners of the castle, he’d find excuses to share things with her. He’d show her the bird’s nest that he’d seen balancing on the curtain wall or the sketch he’d made of a new hull design for a ship still in his mind. Once, they’d even shot at the pines with the cannon, Mary so excited when she’d actually hit something that she planted both hands on either side of his face and bussed him soundly. That response had led to other, equally effusive rewards.
He’d begun to listen to the sound of her voice. Not only her words, but also the resonance of her speech. When she spoke of Gordon, which was infrequently, her voice took on a sadness. When discussing her friends, he could almost hear her laughter, and when she teased him, seducing him with words, her voice sounded low and melodious.
Why, then, did he feel the stirrings of warning around her? Perhaps it was because she made him want to laugh. Too often in her company he found himself wishing to confide in her, to tell her of things he’d vowed never to speak aloud. Somehow, she’d burrowed past the barrier of his will with a gentle touch, a soft rejoinder, or the barest curve of her lips into a sweet and gentle smile.
He placed his hands on his cheeks, feeling the scars on either side of his face. Sometimes, his face twitched in remembered agony or his jaw ached from where the nails had been driven into the bone. Mary hadn’t flinched from touching him, but had put her hands gently on his face, her thumbs brushing over the blackened marks.
She’d smiled when doing so, not in derision but in gentle comfort, as if she’d empathized or felt the pain. Even now, his face seemed to tingle where her fingers had rested. His back didn’t ache as much, and even the tattoos on his body seemed oddly faded. But that could have been no more than wishful thinking. He would go to his grave with Shiva.
Yet he was beginning to sleep without nightmares. More than a few times, he’d awakened in the morning, blinking open his eyes to see Mary sleeping beside him, and realizing that she’d featured prominently in his dreams.
Gradually, he’d begun to anticipate the mornings, where once he’d craved the darkness because it so closely mirrored his state of mind. One day, perhaps, his mood might even replicate the daylight, and he’d be jocular and sunny.
Now he heard her footsteps on the stairs and went to the landing.
“You would think,” she said, smiling up at him, “for as many times as I’ve made this journey, that I would become more comfortable with it.”
“It hardly seems fair that you must tend to a hermit in a tower,” he teased. “But this chamber is more pleasant than the others.”
“And has a window
to view the loch, and a cannon,” she said, tapping the barrel of the weapon as she passed it on the landing.
“How are you?” he asked, even though it had been only an hour or so since he’d left her. He followed her into the room and closed the door behind them.
“Well. And you?” Her eyes scanned him as if to attest to his health. He’d left the window open and stood now in full sunlight.
“As well as when you saw me last.” Better than he’d ever thought himself to be, but that was a comment he kept to himself.
“It’s time to massage your arm.”
“Again?”
“You promised. It’s the only way you’ll ever regain the use of it.”
“You’re very strict, Mary.”
She smiled at him, but ignored his words. She placed both hands on either side of his arm, her fingers stroking softly up and down. “Have you felt anything here?”
“Not yet, but my healer tells me that it’s only a matter of time.”
“She might be a bit optimistic.”
“No doubt,” he agreed. “But I have a tendency to believe her, nonetheless.”
A flush suddenly appeared on her face. “Perhaps you’re the one who trusts too easily, Hamish.”
“Do you lie, Mary?”
“No, but I might hold out too much hope. As I recall, you warned me of doing that as well.”
“I never expected a cure,” he said, to ease her. “Will you think me less a man with one good arm?”
She looked surprised at the question, which was answer enough.
He reached out and drew her closer. Slowly, so that she could pull away if she wished. But she never did.
“Stay with me,” he said abruptly, bluntly. “Don’t go back to Inverness.”
She looked shocked at his words. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t mean it, of course, that he’d only been teasing. The end to this idyll must come sometime. He’d known that as well as she. But those were more words that didn’t seem to be able to make it past his lips.
