Highland Captive

by Alyson McLayne

  He wrapped his hand over hers, the heat and strength of it engulfing hers, and helped her tug. The ribbon came loose, and the cloth fell away over her skirts, revealing a metal tin, as she’d suspected.

  She lifted it up, and something slid around inside. Her eyes rose to his.

  “Open it,” he encouraged. She could see he was excited to give it to her—something he’d chosen that he’d thought she would like. That he wanted her to like.

  And that was the gift he was giving her. It didn’t matter what was inside. Despite his conflicted feelings about her relationship with Ewan when they first met, this man, who had already given her the greatest gift possible, had looked for and bought something for her. Only for her.

  Something to please her.

  She didn’t think. She just leaned forward, cupped his cheek with her hand, and pressed her lips to his.

  It didn’t last long, just a moment or two. But when she pulled back, she could still feel the warmth and softness of him pressed against her mouth, his smooth skin against her palm and fingertips.

  A puff of air escaped from his lungs and blew across her face as she retreated.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, her eyes glued to his face.

  “You haven’t opened it yet.” His voice croaked as if he was having a hard time speaking.

  “It doesn’t matter. Whatever is inside, I love it.”

  He took the tin box from her, lifted the lid, and held it out. “Look,” he whispered.

  She slowly lowered her eyes, almost not wanting to see what was there, not wanting this gift of his to be diminished in any way. Her gaze fell on the mostly wooden objects inside, and at first, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Then she gasped and reached for them, lifting out pieces of the geometry set: several sizes of rulers, a compass for drawing perfect circles, and a right-angled triangle.

  “Oh, Gavin,” she breathed. “They’re perfect. Thank you.” Once she received the information about the cathedral, these would help her work on the problem.

  “You’re welcome. They belonged to my old tutor, who lives in the village. He also asked me to give you this—a gift from him.” He handed a book to her. She held it almost reverently, her eyes wide. “He’s hoping you’ll come visit him. Perhaps read to him. His eyesight is failing.”

  “I’d be happy to.” She glanced through the book, scanning the handwritten text and hand-drawn images inside. “Gavin, this is all so much. It must have cost a fortune.”

  “’Tis naught.” He put the book and the geometry set aside and squeezed her hands. “Deirdre, how could you ne’er have received a gift before today? Surely your husband at least gifted you something on your wedding day. Or during Yuletide?”

  Shame welled within her, that awful reminder of how separate she had been from her family. How forgotten by her husband.

  Unwanted.

  “My family was not like yours. I was found…wanting…from a young age. I never fit in with my siblings or my parents, and I was happiest with my nursemaids and my tutor. Time spent with my family was…trying. I doona have any happy memories with them. Certainly, none of the kind that I’ve strived to give Ewan.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, much more chastely than her kiss. “And your husband?” he asked. “You have affection for him. ’Tis customary to give one’s bride a gift when you are married.”

  “He may have given me a gift. I was young, Gavin, only fifteen, and very frightened. I remember so little of my wedding or…afterward. But Lewis was kind to me, and his keep was free from strife. We played a lot of chess together when he was home. I was happier there than I ever was at my clan. Especially after Ewan arrived.” She stroked her hand through her sleeping son’s hair and smiled at him. “He opened up everyone’s hearts.”

  “Aye. A child’s love can do that.”

  “He isn’t just a gift, Gavin. He’s a blessing. He taught me I was worthy of love and that I had value. I will cherish him for the rest of my days.”

  “As your family should have cherished you, Deirdre. Being treated poorly by your family wasn’t your failing, love. It was theirs. Ask Kerr about it someday. He killed his father after his father tried to kill him. And then he took on his uncles and cousins and won. He wasn’t at fault. They were.”

  She nodded, unable to talk as a flood of pain and realization overtook her. It wasn’t my failing. It was her mother’s and father’s fault. Her siblings’ fault. Gavin didn’t find anything wrong with her, nothing to ridicule or criticize. And neither did Kerr or Isobel. Nor Ewan. Nay. They just accepted her.

  And if they did bring up her failings, it was said with love and humor. They teased her in a different way than her siblings had teased her. Never to hurt. Nay, they teased her in a way that made her feel a part of them, like over her inability to keep her feet in the stirrups.

  Her throat tightened. Her mouth trembled, jerking down uncontrollably at the corners, and she raised a hand to cover it.

  She belonged.

  Gavin said something under his breath, then he rose, took the gifts from her hands, and put them up on a shelf where Ewan couldn’t reach. He returned to her and grasped her hand.

  “Come on. I have another gift for you.”

  * * *

  Gavin held tightly to Deirdre’s hand as he led her higher and higher up the circular stone staircase, heading up to the highest turret on his castle, to a place he’d often retreated when Ewan was missing.

  He liked the feel of her hand in his. Smaller and warm, but also somehow familiar, like he’d been holding it his entire life. He hesitated, then laced their fingers, clasping their palms intimately together.

  Aye. Much better.

  In his other hand he held a candle, so they could see, although the light didn’t reach far. “Almost there,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. Her breath was labored, and he slowed.

  “You’ll see.”

  One last turn and they reached the small landing at the very top. He placed the candle holder in a wall sconce, released her hand, and unbarred the door that led outside. It squeaked heavily when he pushed it open and then placed a heavy stone against the wood to hold the door open. The wind, which was a constant force up here, whipped at the short strands of his hair and plaid.

  He turned to her, blocking the wind with his body. “Do you have a ribbon for your hair? That blue one, maybe, that I used to wrap your present?”

  She reached into her plaid and pulled it out.

  “Here, let me.” He didn’t want her to tie a fancy bow and have the wind blow it out at the first big gust.

  “All right.” She handed him the ribbon and turned around. “Are you planning to braid it too? Add some curl at the front so it looks pretty?”

  She teased him, and he liked it. “You doona need any curls to look pretty.”

  If he hadn’t had his hands on her shoulders, he wouldn’t have noticed her reaction—her body stilled, then she inhaled a breath of air and didn’t release it.

  He caressed her silky tresses with his fingers, the candlelight making the dark swathe gleam. “Breathe, Deirdre.”

  She let out the breath she held in a gust, and the candle flame flickered.

  “Has no one e’er told you that before either?” he asked quietly as he tied her hair back at the nape of her neck. What was wrong with her family? With Lewis? She spoke highly of Lewis in one breath, but then in the next breath she said her husband had ne’er given her a gift nor told her she was pretty. Not that those were necessary requirements for a loving union, but they were part of making someone feel loved and desired. There was more to being a husband than being kind and playing chess—a different type of intimacy that appeared to be lacking in their marriage.

  “Isobel told me. It was kind of her.”

  He spun her around to
face him, hands on her shoulders, and she gasped. She deserved to know that she was more than just a kindness to people. “I didn’t say you were beautiful to be kind, and I’m quite sure Isobel didn’t either. I said it because it’s true. Because every time I look at you, my heart stops. I see you across the room and you steal my breath. I feel your body close to mine, touch your hand, and I wish with every inch of my soul that you weren’t married. Not a kindness, Deirdre. Never that.”

  She stared up at him, her eyes wide, the light blue-gray irises now a midnight blue. Her lips had parted, and he dropped his gaze, focused on them. What had he compared them to when he’d first met her? The inner petals of a young rose. Aye. An apt description.

  He could just see the tip of her tongue through the parting of her lips, and he wanted to capture it with his own. Suck on it. Gently, at first, then with more force, his hands cupping the sides of her head and holding her in place.

  His breath rushed from his lungs in a short, jagged spurt, and he released her. Turning back to the door, he braced himself for the onslaught of the wind. Welcomed it.

  I ne’er should have said that.

  Stepping outside, he waited until she joined him, then removed the rock and let the door bang shut. Four paces, and he was across the stone floor, resting his hands on the battlements.

  The sun was setting; the sky was colored with ever-changing shades of orange, pink, and purple. In the distance, he could see the cathedral and past the sprawling MacKinnon village and the forest beyond, where the quarry was located. To his right stretched the loch, a long, blue line that snaked for miles, all the way to the Great Western Ocean.

  “It’s beautiful,” Deirdre said as she leaned on the battlements beside him, one hand pushing back a strand of black hair that the wind had plastered across her face. “But windy. I can see why you tied the ribbon so tight. I’m surprised. I didn’t think the wind had picked up so much from earlier.”

  “It didn’t. The wind blows like this up here most days. It’s what makes it so ideal.”

  “Ideal for what?” That little furrow he’d come to recognize had formed between her brows again. He wanted to smooth it with his thumb.

  He turned to face her, a wicked grin transforming his face. “For screaming.” Then he looked back out, opened his mouth, and let out a howl at the top of his lungs—long and hard enough that she took a frightened step backward, but not enough for her to run to the door.

  The scream was surprisingly more feral and filled with emotion than he thought it would be, frustration and anger shoving up from the very center of him. At Deirdre? He thought he’d let go of his anger toward her.

  Nay, it was something else—something more primitive—and he felt a twisting inside of himself like a tiger springing toward another male. A beast fighting for his female.

  For his mate.

  He finished on an angry growl. Deirdre took another step back, her eyes jumping to the door. He laid his hand over hers and stopped her from running as he caught his breath.

  “Your turn,” he said when he could speak. His voice sounded shredded, like that tiger he’d been imagining had reached up and scratched his throat.

  She stared at him, shock and alarm skittering over her face, her mouth slightly open. His eyes dropped to the lush shape, and for a moment, all he could focus on was her lips—what he wanted to do with them, how he would take her over one kiss at a time, until she was screaming to the wind just like he’d been. Screaming his name.

  Stop looking at her mouth!

  “What do you mean, it’s my turn?” she asked.

  He lifted his eyes to hers. “No one can hear you from up here, Deirdre. The stone walls and heavy door block the sound from traveling inside, and outside, the wind whips your screams away and throws them to the sky. When Ewan was gone and the days passed with no sign of him, I would come up here and rage to the wind. I hollered out all my despair, fear, and frustration at the top of my lungs. It didn’t take away the pain, because Ewan was still gone, but it lessened the ferocity of my feelings, so I could…function.”

  “But…I doona have anything to scream about.”

  His brow rose. “You ne’er received a gift until today. Your family excluded you—from riding horses, if naught else—and at fifteen you were married off to a man you ne’er knew. I’d say you have a lifetime’s worth of things to scream about.”

  She looked out over the view again, splotches of red stealing up her cheeks and her eyes shining with emotions. And not happy ones. When she tucked her chin down and swung her head around in an unconscious movement, he realized she was trying to hide behind her hair, but he’d tied it back too tightly.

  She looked miserable…and ashamed.

  He moved behind her and wrapped her in his embrace. “Deirdre. You’re a mother now. You know that a good parent loves and supports their child. How they accept their child’s differences and encourage their interests, even if they’re not their own. Did your parents do this for you?”

  She shook her head.

  “And was that their failure?”

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Then why are you blaming yourself for their mistakes? You were once as small as Ewan. Imagine if he was made to feel as you did.”

  She let out a sharp, involuntary sound, like a rabbit or mouse would make if they were hurt.

  “Would you want him to take on the shame of his parents’ indifference, or would you want him to know that they were wrong? Cristel ne’er loved Ewan. She didn’t want to marry me, and she didn’t want children. Duty and greed motivated her, not love and caring. Had she still been living, Ewan might have felt the same way you did—unloved and unwanted by her.”

  He wove his fingers through hers and held her arms out to the side. “Scream, Deirdre.”

  “I canna.”

  “Aye, you can. Scream!”

  She let out a short yell.

  “That’s not good enough. Louder!” he demanded.

  She screamed again, a more powerful burst with more suffering behind it. But he knew there was so much more, that she hadn’t scraped through the sludge at the bottom of her heart that weighed her down or dredged the dark pool of pain in her guts that muddied everything she thought about herself. Getting to that would be like loosing a winter tempest.

  He wrapped his arms around her middle, pressed them into her stomach. “Scream from here!”

  With that, she let loose a heartbreaking roar that was part rage, part devastation, part fear, part anguish—and she kept going. Scream after scream, howl after howl—getting louder, fiercer, deeper; raw and visceral.

  Sobs came up, tears streamed down, her face contorting into a mask of pain.

  She hammered the battlements with her fists, kicked with her feet, scraped her fingers along the stone, breaking nails and leaving behind bloody smears. She thrashed her head side to side against his chest, then smashed it back hard enough to knock him back a step.

  “Deirdre,” he cried in alarm, his arms coming around her—soothing her, protecting her, but also restraining her from hurting herself in her anguish.

  “Hush, love. That’s enough. I’ve got you,” he crooned in her ear.

  She fought him still, flailing and yelling, disjointed words cut off by an angry shriek or teeth-clenched growl. She got a hand free and banged it into her own forehead.

  He quickly dragged her arm back down and turned her around so she rested against his chest. He pressed every inch of her into his body, trying to absorb her pain, to give her an anchor in the storm, something to hold on to.

  A place to come back to.

  “Deirdre, you’re done. Let it go, sweetling.”

  She pressed into him. Her arms circled his body, and she squeezed as tightly as she could—and she held him for so long that her muscles began to shake. When she released her grip, she inhaled a grea
t, shuddering gulp of air. And exhaled. Then another one.

  A moment passed. She sighed, her fists clenched in Gavin’s shirt, then she rose on her tiptoes and pressed her face into the exposed skin of his throat. Gavin stopped breathing. Her hands stroked upward up on either side of his spine and over his shoulders, making his heart race.

  He tried to control his breathing, tried to regulate the inhale and exhale so she wouldn’t know how affected he was. How much he wanted her.

  Then her lips opened on his collarbone, and every puff of air she released felt like a brand on his skin, marking him, scorching a trail of fire all the way down to his groin. He dropped his head into the crook of her neck and smelled her—honey, lavender, and the fresh smell of the wind.

  Her lips were on his neck now, and he felt the soft pressure of her tongue, touching him, tasting him. He didn’t know if it was intentional, but he could barely contain the groan that rumbled up from his chest.

  She bit down, teeth on either side of his Adam’s apple, and laved the sting with her tongue.

  His blood surged, hot and fast, filling his already swollen cock, and he gasped. He rocked his hips uncontrollably against her pelvis. One hand stroked over the curve of her arse and squeezed the rounded flesh.

  “Oh,” she moaned, drawing out the vibration from deep within her throat and dropping her head back.

  Ne’er in his life had he heard a more arousing sound.

  “Touch me, Gavin. Put your hands on me. All over me.”

  Until he heard that.

  Every thought fled his head—that he should stop, that she was vulnerable, that he was taking advantage of his son’s mother.

  That she was married.

  And she couldn’t ever truly be his.

  None of that mattered as he lowered his other hand to her arse and lifted her against him. “Wrap your legs around my waist, Deirdre.”

  She did as he requested, linking her ankles at the small of his back and her hands around his neck. He turned, walked them to the wall beside the door and pushed her against it.