Sins of the Highlander

by Connie Mason

  She smelled bread. Hot and yeasty and comforting, it filled her nostrils and made her mouth water.

  The wisewoman propped Elspeth’s knee up. Rob grasped her ankle. Hepzibah tied a rope around her upper thigh so tight, Elspeth knew it should hurt, but instead she fought the urge to giggle. Then she stopped fighting. Her laughter danced through the air in flashes of light, borne up on grains of dust, sparkling in the sun.

  Why had she never noticed how miraculous the world was? How filled with the fire of God? Everything swirled into everything else, all connected, all the same, all different, ever changing, and never changing. She could See back to the beginning and forward to the future at the selfsame time. And all the millions of moments, from deep in the past to those yet to come, stretching forever into the mist of tomorrow, converged in a single beat of her heart.

  Angus clamped his beefy paws on either side of her head…to keep it from floating away, she supposed.

  “Forgive me, leannán,” someone said. It might have been Rob. Or maybe it was the dog again.

  And suddenly she was cast into hell.

  ***

  Rob stumbled out of Hepzibah Black’s house and down to the loch. Blood was smeared all over his chest and arms. Who knew she still had so much in her? If he didn’t wash it off, he feared he’d go mad, finally and completely.

  If Elspeth died, he was sure he would.

  By rights, that bolt should have found him in the dark. Instead, it had ripped through Elspeth’s sweet flesh. He’d have given his mortal soul, and gladly, for the chance to trade places with her.

  Why did God make others pay for his sins?

  He knelt by the loch and washed himself, praying after a fashion as he did so. God knew he was not the contemplative sort by nature, so he didn’t try to dress up his requests with religious-sounding words.

  Christ, they say ye be merciful. If ye would prove it, let her wake.

  Elspeth Stewart was not a screamer. She’d faced a wolf pack with grim silence, but she had screeched like she was being murdered while he and Hepzibah worked as quickly as they could to push the bolt on through her thigh. Rob had thought it a kindness when she slipped into oblivion. Now that her wound was packed with healing herbs and dressed with bandages soaked in the last of Angus’s execrable wine, his gut was all jumbled up because her eyes remained closed.

  Let her walk again.

  Hepzibah assured him the damage would have been greater had they drawn the bolt out, but it seemed to him that now both sides of her leg were equally offended by the cold iron. Elspeth was young. She should be dancing and skipping, not leaning on a cane like a crone. Or worse.

  Let her live.

  He could bear anything if that prayer was answered. But she was so pale, her skin practically translucent.

  He looked down at his wavering reflection in the water. There was one more request swirling in his brain, but he hesitated to lift it to God. It almost seemed like too much to ask.

  Let her forgive me.

  He rose and trudged back to the cottage. Only Elspeth Stewart could answer that last prayer.

  ***

  Elspeth burned with fever for the next three days on Hepzibah Black’s straw tick mattress. When her eyelids fluttered open, she didn’t seem to see a thing. There was no recognition in her blank stare. When she did speak, she answered Rob’s questions in a babbling language no one knew.

  “Except the angels,” Hepzibah had said.

  Or the demons.

  Rob still blamed the old woman’s poisons for Elspeth’s state.

  “No,” Hepzibah assured him. “The concoction I gave the lass before we worked on her has done its work and already passed. If that was going to harm her, it already would have.”

  “Then why are ye trying to give her more?” he demanded. Each time Elspeth showed the least responsiveness, Hepzibah forced more fluid down her. Despite her protests to the contrary, Rob wouldn’t swear the old woman wasn’t a witch.

  “This is no’ the same mixture as before,” Hepzibah said. “’Tis, but sweet basil and blavers.”

  “Blue cornflowers?”

  “Aye, pressed down and steeped twice. They’ll strengthen her will to return to us,” Hepzibah said. “Her spirit wanders now.”

  Whatever the cause—the witch’s brews, the blood loss, or the raging fever—it was obvious that Elspeth teetered on the cusp of life and death, and Rob feared she leaned too close to the edge. He barely left her side.

  When she convulsed with chills, he climbed into the bed with her and warmed her with his body. Fingal would have joined them, but Rob threatened to tie him outside if Angus couldn’t keep the hound away.

  “Dinna be so surly, Rob,” his friend had muttered as he stomped outside with his dog. “Ye’re not the only one who suffers on the lass’s account, ye know.”

  Maybe not. But Rob was the one responsible for the lass’s injuries. If he hadn’t stolen her away, she’d be safe now. But she’d be Lachlan Drummond’s wife.

  He decided a body could learn to live with guilt.

  ***

  The water was delightfully warm. Elspeth let the liquid sluice down her bare body to the cloth she’d spread on the plank floor. She was back in Angus Fletcher’s homely bedchamber, thankful to have peeled out of her road-weary clothes.

  A creak on the steps made her turn.

  Rob was standing there, just looking at her. The hunger in his cobalt eyes made them go even darker.

  Her belly clenched and her nipples drew tight as his gaze traveled over her.

  “Let me,” he said.

  Or maybe he only thought it, for his lips didn’t move. His voice resounded in her head just the same.

  She held the cloth and jar of soap out to him.

  He was suddenly beside her without having walked across the room. And she felt his hands on her, smoothing his palms over her. The calluses at the base of his fingers nicked her skin and set it to dancing.

  He scooped out a dollop of soap, and his touch glided over her, across her shoulders and neck, around and under her breasts. She draped her arms over his shoulders. He toyed with her nipples, circling them with his thumbs. He made her ache. Then he rolled the needy flesh between his thumb and forefinger, giving a slight tug.

  The core of her being throbbed.

  He kissed her, and their souls mingled, all tangled up in their shared breath. Rob made love to her mouth with his lips, teeth, and tongue while his hands continued to wash her.

  He soaped her ribs, her navel, the mound of her belly. He reached around to stroke the length of her spine.

  “Spread your legs.”

  Again, she couldn’t be sure if he’d only thought the command, but she was powerless to disobey. She wanted him to touch her. She ached for it.

  He invaded her softly, spreading her gently. The whole world went liquid and warm. He pressed the wet cloth to her and squeezed till the water ran down her legs and puddled under her feet.

  She was a river. A loch. A place of deep secrets and hidden magic, but he knew them all. She ached for him to dive into her so she could keep him forever, like the water horse keeps its mate. Greedily, hungrily, because need has no sense of right or wrong.

  It just is.

  He cast a spell with his fingers, stroking and teasing, working the convoluted charm on her flesh. Marking her as his with each caress. Her insides twisted back on themselves, coiling tighter.

  He dropped to his knees before her and found her secret spot. Joy raced in her veins beside the anguish of longing. Bliss called to her, washed over her, bearing her up on its gentle waves, rushing her toward the fall.

  Then he stroked harder. Her limbs jerked.

  Elspeth’s eyes flew open. Her heart pounded between her legs in unrelieved wanting. H
er thigh screamed at her, and her body’s deep need receded in the face of agony.

  She welcomed the pain. Pain meant she was alive. Biting her lip to hold back a groan, she ran a hand under the coverlet and found a thick bandage on her leg. The bolt was gone, but she couldn’t remember anything about how that happened.

  She poked about for a memory but couldn’t even find the dark hole that time had fallen into.

  Dawn was creeping in through thin places in the thatch overhead. The blanket covering her was worn and much patched, but someone had tried to keep her warm and comfortable.

  She didn’t recognize whose bedchamber she was in, but she knew the man lying beside her with his head on her pillow. And his hand resting on her breast. She couldn’t find it in her to be offended by the simple, possessive gesture.

  Rob’s mouth gaped with the relaxation of sleep, but there were dark circles beneath his eyes.

  She felt as if she’d journeyed a long time. Wherever she’d been, he’d obviously stayed with her. A warm knot of tenderness tangled itself in her chest. She smoothed his hair with one hand.

  His eyes opened, and he blinked at her with a sleepy, puzzled expression.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked.

  “If ye are, I’m having the same dream.”

  He sat up suddenly. A smile, the first genuine smile she’d ever seen on him, lit his face. “Ye’re awake! And in your right mind.”

  “In my right mind?” she repeated. “That’s high praise from a madman.”

  “Ye canna ken a madman unless ye’re a bit daft yourself, they say.” He pulled her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. “That’s two answers, in any case. Ye’re going to live. Ye’re awake. D’ye think ye can stand?”

  “I dinna know,” she said as he leaped and ran around the bed to offer her his hands. “It looks as if I’m about to find out.”

  He pulled back the blankets, and she didn’t recognize the shift she was wearing. She ran her fingers over the thin linen and looked askance at him.

  “That belongs to Hepzibah Black.”

  She tossed him a puzzled frown.

  “Never mind. Ye dinna remember some things. She said ye might have a hole or two in your memory, but that’s a small matter. You’re awake now, and it all may come back to ye, though it might be a mercy if some of it did no’, she said.”

  “Who said…what?”

  “Dinna fret. It matters no’ a bit.” Very gently, he lifted her legs and set her feet on the floor beside the bed. Pain streaked up her leg, but she fought back the wince.

  “Here, take my hands.” He didn’t give her a choice and fairly lifted her to her feet. “Aye, ye can stand! Ye’ll be walking again afore ye know it.”

  “D’ye mind if I wait a little longer?” she said as she plopped back down. The pain made her slightly dizzy.

  “Oh, aye, I’m a dunderhead.” He dropped to one knee before her. “It’s just I’m so glad to see ye awake and to see the light shining out of your face.”

  “And I to see your face.” She cupped his cheek. His beard had grown long enough to be a soft pelt.

  He covered her hand with his. “I’ve got to ask ye now before your mind returns to ye entire.”

  “When ye set yourself to be charming, Rob MacLaren, ye do go all out.” She snorted. Evidently he thought her mind faulty, but baring a few gaps in her memory, she felt clearer about everything than ever in her life. “Ask me what ye will.”

  His smile faded. “I did ye a grave harm, Elspeth Stewart, when I stole ye from your wedding. I put ye in danger and brought this injury upon ye. Do ye think ye can ever forgive me?”

  All that he’d told her about his wife and Lachlan Drummond bubbled to the surface of her mind. She should probably wait to hear her betrothed’s side of the story, but Rob’s was pretty convincing.

  And Rob wasn’t the one who shot her with a crossbow. That she remembered very clearly.

  “Aye, Rob, I forgive ye. But…” She gnawed her lower lip.

  “But what?”

  “Even if I pardon ye, I dinna think ye’ll have any peace until ye forgive the one who’s wronged ye.”

  A wall slid down behind his eyes. “Forgive Drummond, ye mean?”

  “Aye. There are two sides to every tale, and—”

  “This is naught but the poison talking. Hepzibah filled ye with evil humors afore she did her work,” he said. “She claims she isna a witch, but I wouldna swear to it. Your mind is no’ yet clear.”

  “No, I’ve never been so clear.” She reached out and caught one of his hands. “It’s a truth written in the rocks and trees and the beating of our hearts. Forgive.”

  “No.” He shook off her hand. “Ye canna ask it of me. He took so much…”

  Elspeth’s heart ached at the enormity of Rob’s loss, but she feared for him as well. For his soul.

  “Aye, he did.”

  “And his offense wasna only against me.” Rob was pacing now, agitation showing in every muscle and line of his body. “’Twas against Fiona. Tell me ye would forgive one who drove someone ye loved to their death.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose I could.”

  “Then ye’re either a saint or a liar.” He glared at her.

  “At least ye must forgive yourself,” she said. “Fiona’s death was no’ your fault.”

  Rob wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Bitterness is like death. I see it growing in your heart, Rob, wild as a cankerwort and as hard to root out. Forgive yourself while ye can.”

  “I’ll no’ forgive Lachlan Drummond. And I’ll no’ forgive myself for letting it happen. Never!” Rob strode toward the door. “I’d rather roast in hell.”

  Chapter 19

  Drummond watched his guest shove food around his trencher without eating a bite. After he reported Elspeth had been shot in the failed attempt to recover her on the loch, Drummond convinced Alistair Stewart there was nothing to be gained by following Mad Rob any longer. Once they returned to his stronghold with the sad news, Elspeth’s mother had collapsed, too weak with grief to travel home.

  “If I call in my men now,” Stewart said as he chased a bit of root vegetable with a crust of barley bread across his trencher, “I can have three hundred ready to march on Caisteal Dubh by month’s end. How many will ye bring?”

  Drummond set down his empty drinking horn. “Ye expect to lay a siege with winter on the wind?”

  “We canna arrive at the MacLaren’s seat without a show of force at our backs. The only thing a coward like him understands is strength. There’s no point in going to him with a handful of fingers.”

  Lachlan didn’t think there was much point in going to Caisteal Dubh at all. Elspeth was probably dead. Mad Rob had likely already consigned her body to the loch.

  “What would you have us do if he refuses to give her back? The Dark Castle has never been taken from without,” Drummond said. “There have been rumors of a secret way in, but no one has ever found it. All we’ll do is shame ourselves before our own men when we must go home empty-handed, or freeze to death camping outside the walls.”

  “What other choice do we have? Would ye have us do nothing?”

  “Ye could send word to the queen.” Lachlan leaned toward his ally. “After all, she is your cousin, is she no’? I dinna think she’ll approve of one of her ladies-in-waiting being abducted from the altar. The right word in her counselor’s ear, and she might well divide MacLaren’s land between us to settle the matter.”

  “No amount of land will settle this.”

  “Sometimes a man must take the best of a bad bargain,” Drummond said, signaling for his servant to top off Lord Stewart’s ale. Old Normina toddled forward, but Alistair covered the rim of his horn with his hand and waved her away.

 
Alistair buried his head in his hands. “Why would the MacLaren shoot Elspeth?”

  “I dinna think ’twas his intention. It makes no sense for him to,” Drummond said. Stewart had accepted without question his lie about who released the fateful bolt. Lachlan could afford to put a charitable face on the incident. “It was dark, ye ken, but I believe he was aiming at us on the raft, and your daughter put herself in his way.”

  “Then he must still mean to return her. He said ye could collect her at month’s end.”

  “Since when can the word of a madman be trusted?”

  “If he willna give her up, we have no choice but a siege.” Stewart pounded his fist on the table in frustration. “Besides, her mother wishes it. She willna give me peace until I do something to bring Elspeth home.”

  Drummond bit off a hunk of venison and chewed. The haunch was gamey and sorely in need of salt, but his larder was strained by the extended stay of Stewart and his household. And since the marriage ceremony wasn’t completed and the union unconsummated, none of the promised dowry had been forthcoming. Yet by virtue of his troth, Lachlan was still obligated to help Stewart retrieve his daughter. Mad Rob probably timed his interruption of the ceremony with that outcome in mind.

  “D’ye hear yourself, man?” Lachlan shook his head. “Ye know full well the girl may already be—”

  “Dinna say it.” Stewart’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his meat knife. “Elspeth’s yet alive. I ken it in my heart. D’ye no’ think a father would sense it if his daughter were no more?”

  Stewart wouldn’t be so certain if he’d seen Elspeth go down. Even if a crossbow wound didn’t kill outright, Drummond knew it could still take a life. A bolt left a gaping hole. It had been too dark to see exactly where Elspeth was struck, but removing a bolt ofttimes did more damage than the initial hit. If loss of blood didn’t do for her, then putrefaction almost certainly would.

  “No, I’ll no’ believe she’s dead until I see her body with my own eyes,” Stewart said, his gaze fixed unseeing at his trencher.