by Connie Mason
“How did ye know—?”
Mad Rob clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back against his chest. “Not a word if ye wish to keep breathing.” His whisper tickled her ear.
She stood perfectly still, inhaling the scent of leather from his gloved hand. She heard his soft breathing and the stallion’s trappings creaking as the horse shifted its weight. Then in the distance, she made out the tattoo of hoofbeats and muffled shouts as the men who were pursuing them overran their hiding place.
Then those sounds faded, and all she could hear was the pounding of her blood coursing through her veins. The heartbeat of the man standing behind her thudded against her spine. He relaxed his hold and removed his hand from her mouth.
She turned to face him and shouted out: “I’m here! Hel—”
His mouth descended upon hers and swallowed up her cry.
She’d been kissed sweetly before, stylized expressions of courtship during some of the dances favored by Queen Mary’s court.
This kiss bore no resemblance to those. This was a ravishment, a demanding plunder of her mouth.
He stole her breath, but she was so surprised by the sudden invasion, she didn’t think to pull away. She froze like a coney confronted by a fox.
He filled her with breath from his own body, warming her to her toes.
I should be revolted. I should be screaming to get away.
But then his mouth went suddenly soft and beguiling on hers. Elspeth had never imagined the like.
How strange, this shared breath, this mingling of souls.
Without conscious thought, her fingers curled around his collar. She received a flash of Sight. Not exactly a vision. More like a deep Knowing.
Rob MacLaren had a hole in his heart, a void nothing could fill.
He no longer seemed mad to her. Just empty. Her chest constricted in empathy.
An image forced itself into Elspeth’s consciousness, creeping in softly but with determination. The willowy form of a woman with long coppery hair took shape in her mind, distant and hazy. Elspeth couldn’t see her face. The woman turned and fled into the mist.
She sensed deep sadness in MacLaren, an ache that wouldn’t be stilled. A loss for which there was no comfort.
He’d abducted her from the altar, but she couldn’t feel anything for him but pity.
As the Sight faded, pain seared through her brain. It always did when she was touched by her gift, but it paled in comparison to the nameless hurt he bore. Elspeth reached up a tentative hand to comfort him, palming the cheek that wasn’t covered with woad.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer. Her lips parted. His tongue swept in. Her belly clenched, and a warm glow settled between her legs.
He left her lips and began kissing her chin, her cheeks, her neck. “Ach! Ye’re sweet, lass.”
Pity dissipated like morning mist. Instead, little wisps of pleasure followed his mouth’s path. The stubble of his beard grazed the tops of her breasts, and her nipples tightened almost painfully. She sucked her breath over her teeth to keep from crying out in pleasure and surprise when his palm covered her breast, the pressure sweet even through the stiff boning of her pink silk bodice.
She’d been sickened by the thought of submitting to Lachlan Drummond’s intimate caress. Now her whole body thrummed with life. She tingled with awareness as Rob touched her.
She’d never understood how a maiden could allow herself to be ruined before. Unruly, unwelcome urges seared through her. The sensations were so unlike her, she wondered if they were somehow part of what she’d Seen of the copper-haired woman.
To her amazement, she ached to lie down beside this man. To feel his body cover hers. To give to him what Lachlan would have taken.
This was madness, but she couldn’t bring herself to end it. With each kiss, his sadness lessened and her pleasure increased. She’d never dreamed she’d experience such astonishing delight.
Only a little longer, she told herself as bliss sparked across her skin. His kiss was like a draught of heady wine. The discomfort that usually accompanied the Sight was leaving, but her head still felt fuzzy. Was it clouding her judgment?
One kiss more. Then I’ll stop.
She splayed her fingers across his chest. His muscles were like a brazen shield beneath his shirt and plaid. He growled with satisfaction. She smoothed her palms up to his shoulders and down his arms.
And encountered sticky wetness on the left side.
“You’re bleeding,” she whispered. One of the crossbow bolts must have found its mark.
He dipped his head and mumbled into the well between her breasts. “’Tis nothing.”
It was enough to recall her to sanity. To serve Queen Mary, she must be either a pure maid or the wife of a nobleman. If she couldn’t remain the first, she’d never be the last. She pulled away from him.
“Truly, ’tis naught but a scratch. Come, lass.”
He folded her into his arms again and delivered a string of kisses along the curve of her jaw.
“No!” she said
When he tried to kiss her again, she delivered a ringing slap to his cheek. Reason flooded her mind again. Perhaps he was called “Mad Rob” because he could entice others to insanity. She jerked herself out of his arms.
“Now keep away from me,” she ordered.
He chuckled mirthlessly. “Lass, I’ve killed dozens of men. Do ye really think ye can stop me from whatever I may decide to do with you?”
He took a step toward her, his eyes glittering fiercely in the dark.
Chapter 2
Rob advanced steadily, steeling himself to ignore the way her brows drew together in fear.
“A man doesna name a horse he might have to eat come winter,” he said, his voice silky with menace. “And he doesna befriend one he’s taken hostage.”
“Then why did ye kiss me?” she asked, scuttling backward over the cave floor.
He stopped. It was a fair question, and he had no answer. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He’d thought that part of him dead. Oh, he still woke with a cock-stand, and occasionally the thing rose of its own accord when he caught sight of a well-turned ankle or the swell of a breast, but he always tamped down the urge. He’d not truly desired any woman since Fiona.
Then he found this Elspeth Stewart in his arms, and all he wanted to do was rut her blind.
He curled his lip in a snarl. He didn’t want to feel those things for anyone but his wife. Certainly not for Lachlan Drummond’s woman.
When he first conceived this plan, in the blackest part of his mind he’d thought to wound Drummond by ravishing his bride. But when it came down to the actual doing of the deed, he didn’t know if it was in him. Even if he was able to raise his cock long enough to take her maidenhead.
He’d done his share of lying and thieving and killing.
He’d never taken a woman unwilling.
But Elspeth Stewart hadn’t seemed particularly unwilling. At least, not at first. And he’d already proved his body was up to the task if he should decide upon ravishing her.
Rob smiled because it seemed to unnerve her when he did. “I kissed ye because it seemed the best way to shut ye up at the time. Though I didna expect ye’d like it so well.”
Her eyes narrowed at that. “I didna like it.”
“Liars go to hell, ye know.”
“So do men who steal brides from the altar,” she snapped back, still retreating, bunching the train of her velvet skirt in one hand to keep from tripping on it. Then she reached the rear of the cave and could flee no farther.
“Oh, rest easy on that score, lass. I was bound for hell long before this morning’s work.” Rob closed the gap between them and laid his hand at the base of her throat.
She didn’t f
ight him, which showed intelligence. He might hurt her unintentionally if she struggled. Her pulse raced like a hummingbird’s wings.
Plenty of men would kill her now, he knew. He’d certainly travel easier without her. Hidden in this remote cave, her body would likely never be found. He could claim she ran away from him and must have perished in the cold with no shelter from the elements. If their places were reversed, Drummond would certainly kill his hostage and get away clean.
Rob tightened his grip experimentally. It would be easy enough, with a little neck like hers. One good twist would do the trick. She’d feel little pain. The symmetry of the idea appealed to him.
Even the good Lord said “an eye for an eye.”
But that would mean punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty. And Rob wasn’t quite mad enough to see justice in that.
She swallowed hard beneath his hand. He loosened his grip but didn’t release her.
He’d seen men sniveling in the dirt over less threat to their persons, yet she didn’t plead. He slanted a gaze of grudging respect toward her.
“Will ye no’ beg for your life, Elspeth Stewart? Aye, lass,” he said with a nod when her eyes went wider, “I ken who ye are.”
“No, I’ll never beg.” She stood straighter and met his gaze squarely. “Why should I give ye what ye want?”
The lass has spirit. Rob liked that.
Fiona’d had spirit too.
But Fiona wouldn’t be pleased with what he was doing now, he was certain. A half-heard sibilance curled round the cave. He released Elspeth and cocked his head, straining to listen, willing the small voice to come again. Was that Fiona trying to speak to him?
So often, while lying on his lonely bed, he thought he heard his wife singing to him just on the edge of sound. If only he could listen hard enough, if only he could follow the song to wherever she was, heaven or hell or that slice of a moment between sleep and wakefulness, it mattered not—
“Let me tend your wound,” the flesh-and-blood woman before him whispered. “You’re bleeding badly.”
Elspeth Stewart’s voice brought him back.
Now that she mentioned it, his arm did sting a bit. He’d thought the steady drip on the cave floor was water pattering from the stone vault overhead. It turned out to be blood trickling from the fingers of his left hand.
“Let’s get you into the sunlight where I can see what’s needed,” she said, taking his good arm.
“Clever, lass, but no,” he said. “We’ll no’ need to leave the cave just yet. Yer bridegroom might turn back this way. Come with me.”
***
Elspeth drew a deep breath and followed her captor back along the cave’s main corridor. At least he no longer seemed disposed to harm her.
Madmen were changeable as weathercocks. One moment he was making love to her mouth and the next he threatened to squeeze the life out of her. She’d have to tread warily to avoid setting him off again.
He turned sharply down a narrow passage she’d missed when she was backing away from him.
“The outside entrance is hidden by rock, and inside, the cave hides its secret room the same way,” he explained. After a tight turn, the cave expanded into a high-ceilinged second chamber.
A shaft of golden sunlight poured from an opening high overhead, illuminating a small pool of water bubbling in the center of the vaulted space. Moss clung to the rock walls, creating a natural underground hothouse. The air was several notches warmer here than in the other chamber of the cave.
Elspeth halted midstep. She’d never dreamed once about her wedding with Lachlan Drummond, but she’d been in this very room shrouded in the mists of the Sight more times than she could count. She’d never Seen why she was in this cavern, but the fact that she recognized her surroundings gave her confidence it was Meant. The realization steadied her.
“I know this—” She stopped herself.
How would a madman respond to claims of foreknowledge? He might demand she look into the future for him, and that was not how her gift worked. She could not summon it at will. The Sight came when it would, in hazy impressions or blinding flashes, and showed her what it pleased, not what she asked. Elspeth rarely shared that part of herself with anyone since doing so marked her as different, maybe even fearsome. She decided not to chance telling him of it.
“How did you know this was here?”
“I’ve reived a herd or two in these parts,” he admitted, speaking in a normal tone of voice now. The moss climbing the walls seemed to absorb the sound and freshened the air with the green breath of growing things. “It’s good to know where the hidey-holes are. I spent most of a week here once when Drummond’s men would have stretched my neck if they’d caught me. The water is good.”
He knelt at the edge of the spring and splashed water on his face. The blue clay he’d painted himself with ran off his skin in indigo runnels. Then he dunked his whole head and came up, shaking like a spaniel. Dark hair flying, he sprayed the space with droplets of sparkling water.
The woad swirled in blue ribbons around the spring and then disappeared under the rock shelf into an underground stream.
Now that he wasn’t painted for battle, Rob MacLaren looked younger, not so many years older than she. His jaw was firm and sported a shadow of a dark beard. His mouth slanted across his face in a sensual, cocky half smile. He was tall, well favored, and muscular. She’d have thought him handsome beyond the lot of mortals if he hadn’t abducted her from her wedding.
However, his eyes stopped her cold. They were the brilliant blue of a loch in high summer, but the soul behind them was deadened by grief. He was a man who might do anything.
No wonder folk named him “mad.”
Elspeth knelt to drink, dipping with both hands. The water tickled down her throat, bracing and sweet. The cool water steadied her. “Take off your shirt, and I’ll tend your wound.”
“After I see to my horse. He’s served me well this day. I’d be worse than a knave if I repaid him sore.”
He left her alone, diving back into the dark corridor to fetch the stallion. Elspeth walked the perimeter of the chamber. There seemed to be no other way out except the small opening far over her head. She was as good as in prison with nothing to do but watch the sunlight track across the cave’s floor.
Rob returned, leading the horse. He unsaddled his mount, but left him haltered and tied him to a narrow column of rock rising from the floor of the cave.
“Guess no one’s been here since me,” Rob said as he stooped to pick up a discarded leather bucket. “I was wondering where I’d left this.”
He filled it and gave his horse a drink. The stallion whickered his thanks and then fell to munching oats in the nose bag Rob settled over his head.
Tending the horse seemed to settle the MacLaren. Elspeth was grateful. She wasn’t sure how long she’d stay alive with a madman. Rob sounded like any other Highlander when he crooned soft endearments to his horse.
He patted the stallion’s arched neck. “Aye, Falin, eat yer fill. There’s a good lad.”
“Falin? So he has a name?” Elspeth said. “I thought a man didna name a horse he might eat come winter.”
Rob chuckled. “I’d be eating my shoes before I butcher this fine fellow. Falin’s too valuable. He’ll strengthen the MacLaren herd for generations to come.”
“So ye gave him the name of a demon?”
“Ye didna see him before he was broke. He earned the name, believe me. Even now, he’ll suffer only me to ride him.”
“He let me ride him,” Elspeth pointed out.
“Aye, well, I didna give either of ye any say in the matter.”
Rob shrugged off the blue and green MacLaren plaid draped over his shoulder and peeled out of his shirt. His brawny chest and arms were thickly muscled, and whorls of d
ark hair swirled round his brown nipples. Blood oozed from one thick bicep.
He settled next to Elspeth near the spring.
“Do your worst,” he said sourly.
“I’ll have you know I’ve doctored my father before, so I’ll have none of your sauce.” She examined the wound, which appeared to be a straight-edged gash. She couldn’t tell for certain till she cleaned it up. “Do ye have anything we might use for a bandage?”
“No.”
“What about a needle? This wants stitches. And spirits, if ye have aught.”
“That I do.” He stood and went over to rummage in his saddlebag again. “Mayhap a bit of your skirt will serve as a bandage.”
Her bridal dress had seen hard use already. But with nothing else readily available, she had little choice.
Elspeth’s mother had been particularly partial to the wine-colored velvet skirt and decided adding pink silk piping at the hem would be the perfect way to mate it with the pink bodice to make it special for the wedding. Elspeth wouldn’t be able to rip the thick velvet, but the silk was much frailer. With silent apologies to her mother, Elspeth picked at the hem until she parted a few of Morag Stewart’s fine, even stitches and ripped a length from the bottom.
When she looked up, Rob was staring down at her exposed ankles, need straining his features. She tucked her feet under the velvet, realizing there were other ways the MacLaren could harm her that would probably grieve her family more than finding her dead.
“Looks like something else will want stitching as well,” he said, his voice strangely tight.
“I’ll see to turning my hem after I tend ye. The gown’s no’ bleeding, ye ken. But should my ankles be exposed again, I need ye to avert your eyes, as a gentleman should.”
“As ye will.” He settled beside her with sewing supplies and a flask of whisky from his saddlebag. “But ye’re mistaken, mistress, if ye think me a gentleman.”
A sizzling retort danced on her tongue, but she reminded herself that baiting a madman was a fair definition of lunacy. Instead, she dipped the pink silk into the cool spring and then dabbed at his wound.
