“I’ll help him,” Harry said. “I’ve seen it done lots of times.” He scrambled out of Elsbeth’s lap.
“I’ll help, too.” Dougal rose, pulling Judith with him, and scooped up the saddlebag.
“All right, then,” Conall said. He still didn’t like it, but perhaps he was being overly cautious. After all, their work was completed, and they deserved some entertainment. And Geoffrey Symon had not shown his face since that day in the wood. Conall dismissed his uneasiness. “Just have a care, do you hear?” He’d heard tales of black powder being used in warfare, but thought it best not to mention it.
Both scouts nodded, then followed a jubilant Kip onto one of the brightly lit piers. Conall helped Rob to his feet, and watched as Dora led him, weaving, toward the steaming trenchers of roasted pork Walter busily assembled on the beach.
When Conall turned ‘round, Mairi was gone. “The little vixen,” he breathed.
Five minutes later, he was seated beside her again on the darkened lake house pier.
“I didna say ye could join me,” she said.
He felt her bristling in the dark beside him. “Nay, but here I am, all the same.”
“Hmph.”
He suppressed a laugh.
“Do ye always get your way?” she said.
“Do you?”
She snorted, and he grinned at her in the dark. “You’re a headstrong woman, Mairi Dunbar. I see well why no man has tamed you.”
“No man ever shall.”
“Nay, ’twould be a sin,” he whispered, and inched closer to her. To his surprise, she didn’t move away.
Conall looked heavenward and breathed in the starry night. ’Twas chill and untouchable, like Mairi Dunbar would have him believe of her. He knew better.
A whistle cut the air as the first of the fire sticks shot into the black sky over the water. He could hear Kip’s whoops of joy as the missile burst into a thousand shards of light, a green firefall bathing the night in its eerie glow.
He glanced at Mairi and was startled to find her looking not at the display, but at him. A dance of starlight, green lightning, reflected in the dark pools of her eyes.
Slowly—so achingly slow he had time to count his heartbeats and feel her warm breath on his face—he leaned over and kissed her.
She let him, and as her arms slipped ‘round his neck, he knew for certain ’twas a night when anything might happen.
Chapter Nine
She planned all along to stop him.
But now that the moment was finally here…“Relax,” he breathed, and brushed his lips against hers. One more kiss and she’d end it.
Mairi closed her eyes and brilliant fire falls of red and green flashed across her eyelids. Her lips parted to receive his questing tongue—hot glass darting, probing, melding with her own. She moaned involuntarily, and he groaned in response.
Fire sticks crackling in the sky overhead, their acrid odor, applause from the beach, Kip’s laughter drifting across the water—all faded to nothingness as she gave herself up to him.
His hands were everywhere, caressing her, fondling her. His mouth was hot, his scent intoxicating. She felt wild, free, as if nothing could stop them. He bore her back on the rough timbers of the pier, one arm supporting the small of her back, and moved atop her.
She panicked.
Her eyes flew open.
“Get off!” she cried. He ignored her and kissed her again. She pressed her hands against his chest but could not budge him for his weight and his insistence. “Conall—” He kissed her again.
“You like it,” he breathed, continuing to trail small kisses over her face. “I can tell.” She struggled against him, but he would not relent. In one swift move, he pinioned her arms above her head and held them there with one hand. “Say that you like it,” he whispered against her lips.
“Nay, I don’t. Stop it!” Her heart beat so madly she was certain he could feel it.
“Aye, you do.”
He kissed her again, gently this time. Her lips parted against her will, her tongue mated with his as if it had a mind of its own. And in that moment of submission, her fear waned and her desire surged. She kissed him back with a ferocity that shocked her.
Sparks rained down on them, silver and serpentine and steely red. Like lightning, he spread her legs with powerful thighs and thrust against her.
“Nay!” She struggled against him, and he lifted his weight from her. “Let me go!”
His grip tightened around her wrists. “I dinna wish to.”
A burst of light illuminated his face for the barest moment. He was smiling, the lout! He kissed her temple, then her ear. She turned her face away, and her anger melted to fear as his mouth moved lower.
“What are ye doing?” she asked between short, shallow breaths, but knew very well what he was doing. He was going to take her, right here on the darkened pier.
“You’re a fine woman, Mairi Dunbar,” he said between kisses. “Strong, independent—” He paused and slid his free hand to her breast. She stifled a gasp. “Experienced,” he breathed.
He toyed with her nipple through her heavy gown, and she felt it harden beneath his fingers. She was suddenly overwarm, perspiring. She fought to control her breathing, to stay focused, to think of some way to stop him.
God help her, but she didn’t want to stop him.
Her face flushed hot with the knowledge of her desire.
“You are experienced, are you not?” he said. “After all, you’re a mother.”
“A-aye.” His hand closed over her breast, and she fought for control.
“You’ve been a long time without a man. I can tell.” He kissed her again and kneaded her breast.
Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Why was he doing this? And why did she allow it? Her kinsmen and his were but a hundred yards away. They could not see her in the dark, but if she cried out they would come.
Why didn’t she?
“The boy’s not yours,” he whispered.
She fixed her glassy gaze on his. “Kip? He is most certain.”
“Aye, perhaps he’s the son of your heart, but he’s not of your flesh.” She started to protest, but he stilled her with a kiss. “You’re a maid, Mairi Dunbar. Why did you let me think you were not?”
She didn’t answer, and worked to control her turbulent emotions.
“Admit it,” he breathed, and kneaded her breast again.
She struggled against him, but he held her fast. Damn him! Why did he do this?
“Admit it, and I’ll stop. No man’s touched you. Not even Symon.” He trailed his fingers lower, ever so slowly, across each rib and over the soft rise of her abdomen. “Not like this.”
Fear and desire fused bright and visceral, an alchemist’s creation in the crucible of her heart.
“Admit it, Mairi. Admit it and I’ll stop.”
A small cry escaped her throat. “Aye, aye ’tis true. I am virgin. No man has ever touched me.” He released her, and she lay there beside him, breathless, trembling. “No man save you.”
A starburst of color lit the blackness above them, and in that brief moment she read the triumph in his eyes. Out of nowhere and everywhere, rage boiled up inside her. She rolled away from him and scrambled to her feet, rubbing her wrists where he’d held her in his death grip. “Ye are lower than a dog! How dare ye treat me so!”
He had the nerve to smile. She kicked at him, but her foot flailed out in the darkness as he dodged the blow. He shot to his feet, rocking the whole pier, and she pushed past him, shoving him as hard as she could.
“Mairi—” He recovered his footing, much to her disappointment, and followed her toward the lake house. “I meant no dishonor. I only—”
She whirled on him. “Dishonor? Is that what ye call it? Ye would use love to belittle and humiliate me? Ye’re more like my father than I had—”
“I’d ne’er do that, and ’twas not meant to belittle.”
She breathed a deep draft of night air t
inged with the odor of sulfur, and worked to get a grip on her emotions.
“Besides,” he said, staring at her in the dark. “’Twas not love…’twas just…”
She fisted her hands until she felt her nails dig into her palms. “Sport,” she said flatly.
His silence confirmed her answer.
She turned her back on him and ran to the lake house, slamming the heavy door behind her. His footfalls sounded along the pier, but to her astonishment they grew louder, and she could feel his weight on the water as he approached the door. She bolted it, then threw herself onto her pallet and pulled the furs up around her ears. Whatever pleas he made on the other side of the door, she could not hear them, didn’t want to hear them.
He’d reveled in her admission. She’d only felt shame, as if he’d conquered her and stripped her bare. What did it matter to him that she was a maid? It mattered not to her one way or another. Save that it weakened her position in his eyes. She’d read it in his face, felt it in the power of his embrace and in the cruel authority of his kisses.
She traced a finger along the line of her lips. Her face was hot to the touch, more so where the stubble of his beard had raked her. She closed her eyes and recalled the taste of him.
God help her, she’d wanted him to do it, to take her right there on the pier. How could she have been so foolish? Had she submitted, he would have used it against her in some way. Of that she was certain.
Men were like that. Her father had dominated her mother much as a man would a beast, and in turn her mother had cowed to his every whim.
She would never be like that. Never.
No man owned her, least of all Conall Mackintosh.
She peeked over the edge of the covers. ’Twas quiet now outside her door. He’d gone. Good riddance. In less than a fortnight he’d be gone for good and she could get on with her life.
Mairi settled in to sleep, but could not. After a while, the shouts and laughter of the revelers died down. She heard women’s voices moving toward the village, and men’s toward the house on the hill. No doubt Kip had exhausted his supply of fireworks, and the Chattan warriors her father’s ale.
She drifted a bit, at the edge of consciousness. Against the midnight backdrop of her eyelids, bursts of color shot forth in a brilliant storm.
From far away she saw her mother on the beach, screaming, but Mairi couldn’t make out her words. She watched as two warriors grabbed her and dragged her, kicking and clawing, toward their boat. Mairi must get to her, was desperate to help her but couldn’t. Someone held her back, and no matter how hard she struggled she couldn’t free herself. She just watched, a wave of nausea crashing over her, as one of the warriors drew his sword and ran her mother through, right there, on the beach, her blood drifting away on the foaming water. Mairi looked up, tears glassing her eyes, into the stony face of her father. He said not a word, merely took her by the hand and led her back into the house.
Mairi pulled the furs tight around her and rolled onto her stomach, exhausted. She must sleep now. That’s what she needed. Sleep. Tomorrow she would check the new piers again, and the docks, and the sheds they’d built to house the—
A deafening boom jolted her from her half sleep.
“What in God’s name—?”
Men’s screams pierced the air. She shot from her pallet to the window and ripped the deerskin cover clean away.
“Mother of God!”
Another boom sent shock waves across the water, as one side of her father’s house exploded into a fireball, raining thatch and timbers and plaster over the entire village.
“Conall,” she breathed, and scrambled toward the door.
He was nearly on his feet, broadsword in hand, when the door yanked open behind him. He fell backward across the threshold as Mairi flew from the lake house, and they both went down, cursing.
“Conall!” She tried to right herself, but her gown was caught by the tip of his sword. He jerked it free. “What are ye doing here? I thought ye were…I thought…” Her voice caught.
“I fell asleep, I…”
Together they gawked at Alwin Dunbar’s house on the hill. Part of the thatched roof was afire, and over the din he heard Rob calling for water.
“Good God.” Conall grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he said, and they raced down the pier toward the beach.
By the time they reached the village, men and women had already begun to run buckets of water up the hill from the loch. Light from the fire cast an orange glow upon the sweaty, blackened faces of those men who’d been inside the house when it went up. Conall wrinkled his nose against the acrid odor of sulfur, thick on the night air.
“Oh, God, where’s Kip?” Mairi cried, and yanked her hand from his. She ran toward Dora’s cottage, where all six bairns gaped wide-eyed from the window. “Michael, where’s Kip?” She jerked the biggest of Dora’s children across the sill and set him on his feet in front of the cottage. “Where is he?”
“Dunno,” the boy said.
She whirled and fixed her eyes on the inferno above them. “He’s no’ here! Where is he?”
Conall suddenly remembered. “Oh, Christ,” he breathed.
“What? What is it?”
“Kip.” His stomach did a slow roll. “I…I told him he could sleep in the house from now on, in the hall with the other men.”
Her eyes widened in horror. Conall looked up through the trees at the burning house where Rob now directed a small army of water carriers.
In seconds they scaled the hill. The open doorway belched smoke. Men were still coming out. Conall grabbed her before she could bolt past them into the hall.
“Let me go! I must find him!”
“Nay!” He held her fast, and scanned the throng of clansmen for a warrior to take her.
“Conall!” Dougal burst across the threshold, his face and hands black, his plaid singed.
He tossed Mairi into the arms of the nearest warrior. “Dougal, what’s happened? Where’s Kip? Where’s Harry?”
“Harry’s inside. John’s been hurt. They’re carrying him out now.”
“And Kip?” Mairi jerked herself free. “Is he in there? Jesu, where is he?”
Dougal shrugged. In the glow of the fire, Conall could see all the color had drained from her face. His gut knotted. He started for the door.
“I’m here!” a small voice cried from behind them. “Here I am, Mairi!” Jupiter’s deep bark sounded from the wood below. The boy and the dog jogged, gasping, into the clearing before the house.
Conall thought Mairi would faint dead away, and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
“Oh, thank Christ!” she cried, and hugged Kip to her. The boy gawked at the fire over her shoulder.
Harry and two others stumbled out of the house, bearing the blood-black body of his kinsman, John. “He’s dead,” Harry said. Tears streamed in sooty rivulets down the scout’s cheeks. “He was lyin’ right there, by the kitchen hearth, when the whole bluidy thing exploded.” He choked back a sob. “There was nothin’ we could do.”
Stunned and speechless, Conall lifted the drummer’s body from their arms and laid it gently on a flat rock. This was his fault. He should have been here with them. Instead, he’d fallen asleep against Mairi’s door like some smitten youth.
“Thank God ye werena here,” Dougal said to him. “Ye would have been killed as well.”
“And Kip!” Mairi hugged the boy fiercely to her chest and glared at him. “He might have been in the house.”
Guilt crashed over him in dark, bitter waves.
“I was in the camp, with Jupiter,” Kip said. “We have a sleeping spot hidden away in a thicket.” He grinned. “’Tis a secret.” The smile faded from his face as he fixed his eyes on John’s blackened body.
“’Twill be all right,” Mairi whispered, and smoothed Kip’s ratty hair, her eyes filled with a love that reminded Conall of his own mother before she’d died. “From now on,” Mairi said, “ye
shall sleep with me. Go on now.” She rose and pushed Kip toward the village. “Go down to Dora’s cottage and wait there for me.”
“Take Jupiter with you,” Conall said, and gestured for the dog to follow the boy.
As soon as the duo was out of sight, Mairi fixed blazing eyes on Dougal and Harry. “What in bluidy hell happened? No’ that I care about the house. But one man dead, and by the look of it, all o’ ye hurt. What the devil caused it?”
Conall already knew. He could smell it in the air. Sulfur and burning copper. “’Twas the fireworks,” he said.
Dougal lowered his eyes, and Harry looked away into the distance, his tears still streaming.
“But ye shot them off on the dock o’er the water, like we always do,” Mairi said, and Conall could tell her mind worked to comprehend what had occurred. “We watched ye. ’Twas safe.”
For a moment no one spoke, and the crackling of the dying fire filled Conall’s head with memories of another fire, rich with death and destruction, and memories too painful to contemplate. His brother, Gilchrist, had been terribly injured in the blaze, his aunt and uncle burned to death.
“We had more. More fire sticks.” Kip’s voice carried from the wood just below them. He stepped out from behind a tree.
“I told ye to get to Dora’s!” Mairi cried. “Now go!”
“Let him speak,” Conall said.
Kip inched his way back up the hill, Jupiter trailing behind him, and looked with trepidation into Mairi’s eyes. “We only set off half. There was a whole other bag full.”
“And where did ye put the bag?” Mairi asked. “In a boat on the water, tethered to the pier, like Tang always showed ye?”
Kip looked down and didn’t answer.
“Where did you put the bag, lad?” Conall asked.
“He…he gave it to me,” Dougal said.
“And Dougal—” the waning fire reflected off the white lump in Harry’s throat as he swallowed “—Dougal gave it to me.”
Sweet Christ. Conall knew what was coming.
“And what did ye do with it, eh?” Mairi demanded, and stepped toward the scout.
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