Highland Savage

by Hannah Howell

  He placed his hand over her stomach and she kissed his shoulder. “I hope ye arenae wanting twins,” she said.

  “I am nay sure I can tolerate my brother besting me.”

  “He will let ye ken it all the time, will he?”

  “Without hesitation.”

  “Poor laddie.”

  Lucas laughed and kissed her throat. He did not think he would ever get enough of her, of the feel of her soft skin and the taste of her mouth. All she had to do was walk into a room and he wanted her.

  “Are ye tired, Kat?” he asked even as he stroked her slender back.

  “Nay that tired,” she murmured and grinned when he chuckled against her throat.

  He made love to her slowly and she realized that was exactly what she needed at the moment and wondered how he knew. She sighed out her pleasure as he heated her skin with his warm kisses. Even the slow, gentle strokes of his lightly calloused hands made her shiver with need for him. Every kiss he gave her held only tenderness, so much so that she could almost believe he felt a lot more for her than desire.

  A soft cry that was a mixture of shock and desire escaped her when he kissed his way down her body and she felt the heated stroke of his tongue against her most intimate place. He loved her with his mouth until she was crying out for him, needing him to fill her. Katerina gasped when he rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him, but she quickly took control of the lovemaking. She rode him slowly for a while, stroking her hands over his broad chest and bending down to give him deep, leisurely kisses. He had such a fine strong body that she felt a need to just savor it for a while, enjoying that time when her desire was climbing but was not yet clamoring for release.

  Lucas rose up enough to take the tip of her breast into his mouth and suckled her. At first he was almost lazy in his attentions but then he grew more aggressive, more demanding and Katerina felt her body respond swiftly to that. Heat flared inside her and her movements became more demanding as well. Lucas grasped her by her hips and urged her on to even greater speed and soon they were both almost frenzied in their movements as they sought the heights their bodies craved together.

  Katerina collapsed into Lucas’s arms, her body still trembling from the force of her release. She could feel a faint tremor rippling through Lucas as well and felt quite pleased with herself. Now that their need for each other had been satisfied, she could again simply enjoy the feel of his warmth and strength. The idle caress of his hands on her hips was almost relaxing.

  Smothering a large yawn, she slowly moved away from him and lay curled up close by his side. For a moment or two she continued to miss the feel of him inside her, but it passed finally and she returned to simply enjoying all his different textures, from his hard smooth chest to his hair-roughened thigh. She could understand what made Artan want to get home as soon as possible. Katerina doubted she would ever be able to sleep in an empty bed again. Even the scent of Lucas had become necessary to her comfort at night

  “Sleep, Kat. It has been a busy few days and ye dinnae want to get too tired,” Lucas murmured.

  “Not good for the bairn,” she murmured, more asleep than awake.

  “Nay, it isnae and from what Artan told me, as the bairn grows ye will find sleep difficult at times.”

  “That seems most unfair.”

  Lucas laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Mayhap it is practice for when the bairn comes for he said one doesnae get much sleep then, either.”

  “Then I best get as much as I can now.”

  Katerina pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to the comforting beat of his heart as she allowed sleep to creep over her. She ached to tell him everything that rested in her heart but she was terrified at the same time. If he did not return her words of love she was certain it would crush her and there would be no taking back the moment Somehow she was going to have to find the strength and courage to grasp what she so desperately needed—Lucas’s love. There had to be a way for her to find a firm place in his heart.

  Lucas idly ran his fingers over her thick hair, tempted to undo her neat braid. He could not complain about their lovemaking or the many pleasures they found together in their bed, but he wanted more. He wanted that woman who had looked at him with such joy, as if the fact that he had survived Ranald’s attempt to kill him was the answer to all her prayers. At times he felt he was being unduly punished for his error in judgment concerning her guilt, but he knew he would have behaved much worse if she had done the same thing to him.

  What he needed to do was just what his brother had told him to. Tell her everything even if it made him look like a complete idiot. It was galling to think that Artan may have found the solution to what was wrong with his marriage. His only comfort was that Artan had not done so well in the beginning of his marriage, either. Lucas felt he ought to be able to do better than Artan. All he had to do was open his mouth and utter the words that had been lodged in his heart almost from the moment he had met her.

  He almost laughed, but did not want to wake Katerina. It was ironic that the one thing that might fix the problems in his marriage was the very thing that had caused the problems in the first place. If he had not loved Katerina, he might not have been so devastated by what he thought was her betrayal and might not have tried so hard to keep her out of his heart and mind. It had all ensured that he had done his best never to think on the beating, or consider what might have been real and what a lie.

  On the morrow he would gird his loins and do his best to mend matters. They would talk about that horrible time and he would make her understand how it had been for him, physically and emotionally. Katerina was a compassionate woman. If he was honest, she would understand.

  Praying he was right about that, Lucas decided he needed his rest, too. Revealing what an idiot he could be was not going to be an easy task. He would just force himself to recall something else Artan had said—the rewards are well worth it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Katerina handed Artan the gifts she wished him to give to his wife and children. Although she knew his leaving was probably for the best at this time, she was sorry to see him go. He was a rough man, quick with his fists and blunt of speech, but she liked him. She was eager to meet the woman who had married him, too.

  Thank ye for these, lass.” He bent to kiss her cheek and said quietly, “Dinnae keep the fool dancing on hot stones for too long. He has been an idiot and he kens it”

  “He hasnae told me so,” she said in an equally soft voice.

  There are a lot of things a mon finds hard to say, lass. I am an idiot is but one of them.” He winked at her and then turned to slap Lucas on the back.

  Lucas staggered, regained his balance, and then glared at Artan. “What were the two of ye whispering about?”

  “We werenae whispering,” said Artan as he put the gifts Katerina had given him into his saddle-packs. “I was just speaking softly because I was speaking so close to her ears. I feared my strong, monly voice might hurt those wee, bonnie ears, is all.”

  Katerina laughed, threw a grinning Artan a kiss, and hurried back inside the keep before the rain weighting the air began to fall. Artan was definitely a bit odd, but still a likable fellow. She knew that his family and whatever one she and Lucas might build together would be close. In fact, the thought of that was enough to give her the courage to confront Lucas as soon as she was sure she could find him alone. She just prayed that the results of the coming confrontation would be a firm start on that family they would build together.

  “She is a good lass, Lucas,” said Artan as he mounted his horse, the two men riding with him waiting in silence a few feet away. “Clear away what stands between ye.”

  “I will although it willnae be easy,” Lucas said.

  “It ne’er is when it comes to dealing with women. I thought o’er the matter a wee bit more ere I fell asleep in my cold, lonely bed.” He ignored Lucas’s mocking sound of sympathy. “One thing I have learned is that ye dinnae need
pretty words. Ye just need to speak from the heart, painful as that is. Aye, and if the lass truly cares for ye, as I believe yours does, it doesnae e’en matter if sometimes ye sound like a complete idiot as long as ye are an honest one.”

  Lucas grinned. “Sounds like advice our mother once gave us.”

  “It probably is. Be weel, brother.”

  “Godspeed, Artan.”

  After watching Artan until he was out of sight, Lucas made his way back into the keep. There was a lot of work for him to do, but he intended to see it done as quickly as possible. Artan and he were much alike and if his brother had succeeded in making a firm, loving marriage despite all the mistakes he had made in the beginning, then Lucas felt he could do the same. It was going to be hard, might even be painful, but he could wait no longer to talk about the beating and how he could possibly have believed, even for one brief moment, that Katerina had had any part in it. By the time they crawled into bed tonight, he intended to have the whole painful mess set firmly in the past.

  Katerina nervously brushed down the skirts of her gown. She had seen Robbie leave the ledger room and knew Lucas was now alone. It had taken nearly the whole day to catch him without someone at his side, discussing work that needed to be done or asking his opinion or judgment on something. For a moment she had considered waiting until they sought their bed, but had pushed aside that idea. Once they got into bed she tended to forget everything except how good he could make her feel.

  She opened the door, stepped into the room, and then closed the door firmly behind her. When Lucas looked up from the papers he was studying and smiled at her she almost turned and ran. Her courage had obviously not lasted very long, she thought with disgust. Stiffening her spine she walked over to the chair facing Lucas and sat down.

  Lucas had to work to keep his welcoming smile in place once he took a good look at the expression in Katerina’s blue eyes. She was looking disturbingly serious and a little nervous. He tried to think of some new crime he might have committed but none came to mind.

  “Is there some trouble, love?” he asked quietly.

  Katerina took a deep breath and nodded. “I fear there is, Lucas, and ’tis between us.”

  He felt his heart drop down to his feet Lucas had the strong feeling that she intended to talk about the very things he had intended to discuss later and he suddenly did not feel at all prepared. Everything he had so meticulously planned to say in the vain hope that he could sound reasonable had just fled his mind.

  “What trouble would that be?” He glanced at the door wondering if there was some chore he could claim he had to attend to right now. Lucas jumped when she slapped her hand down hard on the table.

  “Dinnae e’en think of slipping away. I have spent weeks working up the courage for this and I mean to see it through to the end.”

  “This begins to sound ominous, lass. It must be something verra dire if ye have to work up the courage to speak of it.”

  “It is dire, Lucas. It concerns our marriage and our future. No need to look so grim. I am after all trying to fix things, to build a future nay end one.”

  “’Tis about my accusations, isnae it,” he said and ran a hand through his hair.

  “It is. There is a big wall between us because of what happened on the banks of the loch and it isnae going away. Nay, I think it may be getter bigger and thicker and harder to knock down.”

  “Ye truly believe there is a wall between us?”

  “Aye, I do and part of it is of my own making. Ye hurt me, Lucas. Sometimes I e’en wonder if it isnae so much that ye hurt me but when ye hurt me. I saw that ye were alive and felt so overjoyed. All I wanted to do was run into your arms and hold ye close, touch ye until I could convince myself that it wasnae just another dream and then—”

  “I knocked ye down, spit right in your eye.” Lucas moved to kneel by her feet and take her hands in his. “I ken it, love. I kenned it even as I did it and a part of me wanted to soothe that hurt the minute I saw it in your eyes. Another part of me felt ye deserved to be hurt and another part of me wanted to beg your pardon. I kept going back and forth like that until I thought I would go mad.”

  “But, why, Lucas? That is what I cannae understand. Why did ye think I had anything to do with that horrible beating? How could ye e’er think I would do such a thing, nay matter how jealous I was of Agnes. And I will confess right now that I was jealous of her. Terribly jealous each time she smiled at ye or touched your arm. I was so sure she would be able to woo ye away from me with the same ease as she had enthralled all the men who e’er came to Dunlochan. She e’en wooed my father into believing she was sweet and innocent”

  Lucas stood, pulled her out of the chair, and picked her up. He carried her over to the heavily cushioned bench in the corner and sat down leaning comfortably against its high back. Ignoring her attempts to pull away, he settled her on his lap and held her close to him.

  “A part of me ne’er really believed ye had anything to do with the beating I got. Unfortunately, I got it into my head that that was just my desire for ye talking, the part of me that wanted to believe only good of ye so that I could get back into your bed.”

  “And so ye did.” Although she understood what he was saying she did not know if it was good or bad. “Aye, I wanted ye there, but every now and then I felt ashamed of myself for being so weak that I would take a mon who thought so ill of me into my bed, my body.”

  “Ye didnae do that, my heart. I already kenned the truth ere I joined ye in your bed.”

  “Ye mean ye had finally come to believe me?”

  The look on her face made him want to lie to her, to tell her that was exactly what had happened, but that would only put a new wall in the place of the one they were trying to topple down now. “Nay, it wasnae that, although I wish to God I could say it was.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “What happened when ye were injured was that I became utterly determined to find the truth. I couldnae tolerate the warring sides of me, the side that believed and the side that was afraid to believe. So I went into Dunlochan exploring the many passages here and came upon one that went right by Agnes’s solar. There is e’en a wee hole in the wall to look through.”

  “So William said.”

  “Agnes and Ranald were talking. He had come to tell her that ye were alive. It was during dial talk and all their plots and plans to kill ye and me that they spoke of the beating, how they planned it, and how they used ye. It wasnae your jealousy that got me beaten so badly and nearly killed, it was hers. She couldnae abide the fact that I wasnae interested in her, that I was interested in ye. E’en worse than that insult was that she kenned that if I wished to marry ye die council would approve of me.”

  “So ye had to die.”

  “And so did ye because she was die sort of woman who couldnae abide a rival.”

  It hurt to think that Lucas had never come to believe her side of the story but had had to hear the very ones who wanted him dead confess to it before he believed in her innocence. She tried to be sensible about it. If she had thought he had betrayed her she probably would not heed him saying he was the one telling the truth. The very fact that she felt him guilty ensured that she would do her best to doubt his word and keep on doubting it. He had also gone seeking the truth and she should not ignore that.

  Katerina sighed. “So once ye kenned the truth ye felt it was safe to indulge your desire for me.”

  “Once I learned the truth I felt like the greatest of idiots.”

  “That seems fair,” she murmured, and almost smiled when she felt him give her braid a light punitive tug. “So ye were upset that ye had made such a mistake and then what?”

  “Upset? Kat, I was devastated. It was as if the clouds had cleared from the skies and I could suddenly see clearly again. Aye, hearing the truth from them made me see the truth but it wasnae that simple. It was if hearing them tell me what truly happened freed the truth inside of me. It was if their words turned the key to the cell I had locked t
he truth away in. I didnae just learn the truth, I learned that I had always kenned the truth but had shut it away deep inside of me and refused to look at it. What I couldnae understand was why I would do such a thing.”

  Katerina stroked his hair. He sounded so upset even now, weeks after this revelation had taken place, she knew he was far more than remorseful over having accused her of such a thing. “Do ye ken why ye did that?”

  “Aye, I think I do although it makes me sound like a madmon.” He grimaced. “It all has to do with what was done to me. I am a strong mon and a good fighter.”

  “Ye certainly are.”

  He smiled faintly at her instinctive support. “Yet I was helpless that night. All my skills couldnae save me from being beaten nearly to death, my bones broken, my—” He looked at her when she placed shaking fingers over his mouth.

  “I was there and I saw it all. I have only just begun to banish the nightmares those images gave me.”

  He took her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm before placing her hand over his heart. “When Ranald cut my face he bent low and told me that ye had ordered it done so that I wouldnae be so bonnie any more and wouldnae break any more lassies’ hearts or some such nonsense. Sad to say that was one of the things that stayed in my mind when so much else was lost, my memory of the whole painful time very broken. That and the image of ye standing there watching it all with no expression on your face.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I cursed Him for deserting me a few times ere I recovered enough to give up such nonsense. When they threw me into the loch—I think I hit the rocks first and then the water—I played dead for a wee while but was always inching my way along through the water to try and get to the shore, whichever one was nearest and yet away from them. I swam when I felt I was far enough away that they wouldnae see me. I ne’er saw them throw ye in. And my trials had only just begun. I crawled as far away from the shore as I could and then tended my own wounds as best I could. Then I tried to get home. ’Tis a great mystery to me for the most part There was help along the way and I recall some of them. Then Artan arrived to get me and take me back to Donncoill.”