Laird of the Black Isle

by Paula Quinn

  How was he supposed to resist her? She was bold and braw, unafraid of what she’d called him. Beast. She was enjoying trying to tame him, but he felt more feral than ever before. “I’m glad ye enjoyed it as much as I did,” he murmured on a low growl.

  Her lips widened into a grin. Her blush faded. “I did.”

  He wanted to pick her up and carry her to his room, his bed. He stepped away and tugged on her hand instead. He knew, leaving the study, that it was no use trying to be away from her. Her scent covered him, followed him, beckoned him. They reached the stairs and he turned to her, letting go of her hand. He needed to be away from her before he bound her to him forever.

  “Well…ehm…good night, then.”

  “Mailie?”

  Lachlan looked up the stairs at Lily on her way down with Ettarre beside her.

  Stepping away from Mailie, Lachlan moved forward. He wasn’t angry over the interruption. He was concerned. “She doesna eat and she barely sleeps. How much longer can she be so deprived?”

  Mailie kept pace beside him. They both reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for Lily to reach them.

  “Her world has been ripped oot from beneath her,” Mailie soothed. “Once she settles in and begins to feel more at home, the better she’ll get.”

  Settles in and feels at home? That sounded permanent to Lachlan. Hell, did he not get a say in his future? Mailie’s scent still covered him and seeped into his nostrils. Was it already too late for that?

  “I had another bad dream, Mailie,” the wee lass said, wiping her eyes.

  Bad dreams. They kept him up most nights as well. He felt his heart stir for her. He understood how things could haunt a person. He wanted to help her break free of it.

  He sat on the second step and waited for her to reach them. When she did, she fell into Mailie’s arms.

  “I was lookin’ fer ye,” Lily told her, pressed to Mailie’s heart.

  He knew what was happening between them. He could see it on Mailie’s already glorious face. Love was forming between them and he felt privileged to watch. Mailie would take her when she returned to Skye. She would take Will. He would miss them, he thought miserably. His heart would break over missing them.

  “And then ye woke up and here I am,” Mailie said, kissing Lily’s head. She opened her eyes and looked into his, already on her. She smiled, thrilling his pitiful heart senseless.

  When he lifted his arms to the lass, Mailie set her in them without quarrel.

  He set Lily down on the step beside him and then rested his elbows on his knees. “I have bad dreams too.”

  “Ye do?” Lily sniffed.

  “Aye. They keep me up most nights when I’d rather be sleeping and dreaming of good things.”

  “Aye,” she whispered in agreement.

  Mailie sat on the other side of her, listening.

  “They put me in a foul mood,” he continued. “They harden my heart to keep them from affecting me further, but it only keeps them locked away until I sleep. They need to be vanquished, and I think I’m learning how to vanquish mine.”

  “How?” Lily asked, giving him her full attention.

  “Some philosophers believe these types of night terrors are born of our fear.”

  Her eyes opened wider on him. “Will says ye’re no’ afraid of anything.”

  He shook his head. “In truth, I’m afraid of many things. I spent all my days running from them. But someone recently told me that I needed to stop doing that, and she was correct.” He looked at Mailie and winked at her, then returned his attention to Lily.

  “Is there something ye’re afraid of?” he asked her.

  Her lips pursed and she furrowed her brow. “I’m no’ afraid of nothin’.”

  Aye, she did seem rather fearless at times. But she was a wee child who had just lost her mother. Where were her tears? “Ye saw death and it didna frighten ye?”

  He glanced at Mailie when Lily’s defenses began to crumble. He didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but she was just a babe.

  “It frightened me. Will had gone oot to look fer ye and I…I wasna supposed to come oot to the main room where Mummy was, but I…I did and I saw her.” She fell into Mailie’s arms and wept.

  Lachlan felt like hell for doing it. He hoped the philosophers were correct about emotions.

  Mailie offered him no scowl or judgment but whispered words of comfort to Lily in her arms. But when the child was done crying, Mailie lifted her gaze to his. “What is it that ye fear, my lord?”

  How does one explain that they fear love and attachment? Loss? Not just loss of a loved one but also loss of oneself? He’d never let himself hope for anything else after the fire. Why would he when everything could be taken in a moment?

  “I fear pain,” he admitted, holding her gaze. He wanted her to know why he hadn’t kissed her longer, swept her off her feet, and carried her to his bed. “I fear facing it, feeling it again.”

  He watched her lips part on an exhalation of breath he wanted to snatch from the air and hold on to forever. She blinked and when she opened her eyes, they gleamed like emeralds beneath a summer stream. She smiled at him and wiped her tears before Lily saw them.

  “Lily,” he said, returning his attention to her before he declared his love and his life to them. He needed to finish this and go to bed. Alone. “’Tis all right to be afraid of some things. ’Tis even all right to pretend ye’re not when ye’re around other people, but ye can trust us to guard the things of yer heart.” He patted her hand and stood up.

  “Aye,” Mailie agreed. “We willna let any harm come near ye.”

  “Mailie—” he tried to interrupt. She couldn’t make that promise. She shouldn’t make it. He’d promised to protect his family, and he hadn’t been able to do it. This, he wouldn’t agree to.

  “Ye protected us from that bad man today,” Lily reminded him, looking up at him with wide, thankful eyes.

  “Aye.” He nodded. “But I canna—”

  “He’s verra strong,” Mailie butted in, ignoring him when he glared at her. “Clever, too.”

  “’Tis not that—” he tried again.

  “Ye and Mailie will take care of us, aye?”

  How? What was he about to promise her? What if he wasn’t here to protect her one day? What if he returned too late and found…No. He wouldn’t promise. Especially when his list of enemies was about to grow. But Lily didn’t need him to figure everything out. She needed to feel safe and loved. Her and Will hadn’t had much to begin with, and now they had nothing. Nothing but Mailie…and him.

  He looked at her and then at Mailie. The thought of giving them up to anyone made his jaw, along with his muscles, tighten. He’d think about Sinclair and the MacGregors later. Tonight, he’d think of better things, like Lily feeling safe enough to sleep through the night.

  “Aye, lass.” He scooped her up and carried her back to bed. “We will take care of ye. Dinna fear.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mailie lay in bed with her arms closed around Lily’s small body, her nose in Lily’s hair. Beside her, William lay sprawled out with Ettarre’s head on his hip. His breath was slow and deep, same as Lily’s. Mailie hoped they were having pleasant dreams.

  She didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to think in the silence, when her head was clear. He was afraid to love again, afraid of the pain loving had caused. She was thankful that he had a strong will to resist something he didn’t truly want. Something that would have meant everything to her. Going to Lachlan’s bed would have had consequences. She didn’t want to go home with three children instead of two. She was ashamed to admit that she lusted after her captor. How could she not after the way he’d kissed her? If she lived to be sixty, she would never forget a moment of it. The way his body covered her, consuming her in his size and strength, his chest and belly, like armor beneath her fingers, his broad hands clutching her to him, his mouth so warm and masterful. He could have undressed her and had
his way with her right there on his chair, and she doubted she would have stopped him. She never wanted him to stop.

  But he had taken her for Sinclair, and he still hadn’t agreed to change his mind. He wouldn’t give up his child for her, and she didn’t want him to. The thought of it sickened her especially after his patience and tenderness with Lily. He was a good father. Annabel deserved him.

  He’d fight her kin if he had to, and he would likely have to. Besides all that, there were children to consider. Will adored Lachlan. He’d never settle into Camlochlin if her kin hurt or killed his laird. What if the children wanted to stay with him? She’d have to leave them.

  She knew all these things. Her head told her to stay away from him, but the problem was not in her head. It was in her heart.

  It was much worse than lusting after her captor. She was falling in love with a man whose beauty shone through his imperfections. He didn’t want children around, and yet he gave them his marriage bed, his food, and his time, his guidance. She’d seen his heart bursting forth when he spoke to Will, a heart that even Ettarre liked. He showed patience and understanding tonight with Lily and confessed his greatest fears to Mailie. He furnished and fed his tenants, despite not knowing them.

  What could be more perfect than that?

  Moonlight seeped into the room through the window across from the bed. She was glad she’d opened the curtains today to let the sun in. She looked out at the waning moon hanging low in the clouds and wondered how many times Lachlan had pondered the same view from this bed.

  She missed him and couldn’t wait for the morning to arrive so she could see him again.

  Her kin would never understand. She couldn’t understand! How had her captor, a beast still until he withdrew from his deal with Sinclair, taken possession of her heart?

  Enough thinking of this or she’d be awake all night and asleep in the morning.

  Tomorrow she would pick more heather with Lily and place the bundles in vases throughout the castle. Mayhap the children could draw pictures with some coal, and Lachlan could hang them on the walls. It certainly would brighten up the place.

  Lachlan would likely complain and bluster about, but he would do it. Even if he didn’t want to, he’d do it for her—and blazes, but she loved him for it.

  She smiled and finally fell asleep.

  Lachlan sat in his chair in the study with a cup of warm whisky. He looked out the window at the silvery clouds drifting across the dark sky. He did the like every night before he finally retired to bed. It helped him to unwind after the day, and the whisky helped him sleep.

  But tonight, an entirely new army of roiling emotions had been sent to plague him.

  Why Mailie? Why did she have to be the only way to Annabel? There had to be another way. He couldn’t hand her over to Sinclair. He longed to break the earl’s jaw for simply wanting her. The more he thought of Sinclair’s mouth, his hands touching her, the more bones he wanted to break.

  If he returned her to her father and lived, he’d come home without her, mayhap without Will and Lily, definitely without Annabel. Some other “knight” would take Mailie’s hand and raise the children. All three were beautiful by all standards, and loyal and tenderhearted. Mailie’s husband would be fortunate to have her and her two orphans. If Lachlan didn’t kill him first.

  He knew what was happening. He wasn’t a fool—save for letting it happen in the first place. He didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want them to leave. He didn’t want them to belong to anyone else. But even so, Mailie believed in fairy tales where he could never be.

  He was going to lose her eventually, lose all of them. How could he stop it from happening? He had to stop it. What was he to do?

  He wanted to keep kissing her. It was all he could think about. Her mouth, so sweetly wanton, had tasted faintly of figs and honey, and of desire. She felt small in his arms, weakened by their kiss, but instead of taming the beast, it drove him wild.

  He’d wanted her in his bed. He still did. He wanted to undress her and gaze upon her nakedness that his eyes alone would see. He wanted to bury his face in the folds of her hair and his staff deep inside her. He wanted to drink from her upturned breasts. Take her until the sun rose to its zenith and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came.

  But tomorrow was coming. Pain was coming.

  Hell, he was tired of running. He wanted more than sharing a night with her. He wanted to share his days with her, his meals, his walks with her.

  He wondered how she’d managed to gain entrance to his dry, dusty heart and what she intended to do now that she was there. She hadn’t punched and shoved her way through but crept in around the edges, using all her wiles, two adorable, loud children, and a dog that thought herself too good to fetch a stick.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her, but he had, and now he wanted to kiss her again and again.

  The second regiment of churning memories hit the hardest. He downed his whisky. He’d promised Lily he’d take care of her. What the hell had come over him? He’d vowed never to make such a promise again. If no one depended on him, he couldn’t fail them. He’d known it was a mistake to let the children stay here. He’d known his decision would haunt him. They had no one else to protect them. He imagined knowing that made it more difficult for Lily to sleep. He hoped if Annabel were alive, she had someone to protect her.

  He hadn’t been able to help his daughter, but mayhap it wasn’t too late. And even if it was, it didn’t mean he shouldn’t help Lily and Will. He would have preferred not making any promises though.

  The remainder of the thoughts keeping him awake centered on William.

  Lachlan remembered the first time he met the lad, when Will had bounced off him in the mist and fell on his arse. How was he to know then that the scrawny child would invade even more of his time than Mailie would, or that the boy would attach himself to Lachlan so quickly? He liked Will. In fact, his fondness for the child was growing each day. William did his best not to be any trouble and was eager to learn how to hunt, and heat and hammer metal into wall sconces. He’d given up his wish because he had what he’d wanted—to be Lachlan’s friend. How the hell was he supposed to keep his heart from going soft on the lad?

  On any of them? He was doomed. He didn’t want to care about them.

  Still, a calmness settled over him, thinking about his comfortably lit halls and the sounds of laughter filling them—and mostly by the woman who was turning his life upside down.

  And finally the beast fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mailie descended the stairs with her hair, tied only at the temples, bouncing down her back. She’d combed it extra times this morning with the comb Ruth had given her. She was thankful for it or her unruly hair would be a tangled mess. She smiled when Ettarre slipped past her and bounded down the steps. She held out both hands at her sides, stopping the two children trying to follow her dog.

  “’Tis better to mark yer arrival withoot a clamor,” she told them softly without turning to them. “We dinna want to make the laird’s head pound so early in the morning, aye?”

  “Aye,” William agreed.

  Behind her, she heard Lily whisper. “I dinna think he minds the clamor.”

  She tilted her head and smiled at the gel.

  “If he did mind,” Will added, “he wouldna say.”

  Aye, she turned to him next. He wouldn’t say.

  “I like him,” she told them.

  “I like him too,” Will replied with a smile to match hers.

  “I like him too,” Lily agreed.

  “Good, then we are in agreement. He would no’ be so terrible to live with.”

  They both nodded. She knew William would, but she hadn’t known what Lily wanted.

  “But what about his letter to Ranald Sinclair?” Will asked. “He willna bring ye to yer enemy.”

  “He canna!” Lily screeched.

  “I dinna think he will either,” Mailie agreed. “But he willna get his
wish if he keeps me from him.”

  “What’s his wish?” Lily asked.

  “She canna tell ye that, Lily,” Will corrected her. “It willna come true if ’tis spoken.”

  “Where is he?” Lily asked, losing interest in their conversation. “Look! Ettarre is scratching at the study door.”

  They descended the remainder of the stairs and approached the door.

  It opened just as they reached the last step.

  He stood on the other side, his dark hair pointing in different directions. His feet were bare, and instead of wearing his shirt, he held it in his hand. He lifted the other hand to the back of his head to scratch it and settled his dreamy gaze on her dog.

  “Ettarre?”

  He looked up then and saw her on the stair. He smiled. “Good morn.”

  “Good morn,” Mailie said, watching him slip his wrinkled léine over his head. The curtain went down over the flare of his carved shoulders, the slabs of muscle shaping his arms, and finally, his long, narrow waist and a belly that looked as if it were made of rock.

  She snapped out of her reverie when the children ran to greet him.

  “Did ye sleep in the study last night, Laird?” Will asked and scooted around him to enter the study and see for himself.

  “I was having a whisky and…” He paused to shake his head and chuckle at himself. “…didna make it to bed.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at Lily. “It seems our talk helped. Thank ye, lass.”

  Lily ran by him and into the study when Ettarre barked, leaving Mailie alone with him.

  Seeing him again was even better than she’d imagined it would be. She’d like to help him back out of his léine and tempt him to kiss her again. She wanted to save him. Save Annabel if she was still alive, her kin, her heart. She would find a way; she was a MacGregor.

  “Ye’re in good spirits today,” she said, smiling and moving off the step.

  “I slept well.” He smiled back. He looked happy and it made her heart soar. “And ’tis…ehm…’tis nice to wake up and see ye.”