For the Highlander's Pleasure (4 page)

And if she protested?

He could always use a volunteer to test his latest potion… .

Chapter Four

Finn watched from the shelter of a thicket while Violet stepped out of a tiny woodland hut and into the rain. She’d been inside for almost an hour. While the windows were opaque, Finn had gathered that she visited an old crone who grew herbs and perhaps treated illness. The hut had pots of unusual plants on steps and ledges. Vines grew up over the roof, all but hiding it from view. Fragrant smoke wafted from the hearth fire, as if the sage who lived within had tossed some fresh herbs onto the fruitwood.

Was Violet truly ill to make the nighttime visit to a wise woman who lived outside the village? Finn had not been pleased to witness her nocturnal wanderings. Now he watched as she pulled up the hood of her cloak, covering her dark hair until she blended with the shadows for the journey home.

A journey she wouldn’t be making just yet.

He reached for her, clamping a hand over her mouth to ensure her silence.

Hauling her against him, he tucked her under his cape, the top of her head fitting neatly below his chin just the way he remembered. He could tell, just from holding her in the dark and driving rain, the exact moment she recognized him. Her body relaxed against him, the tension leaking from her shoulders as she turned to peer up at him. Sliding his hand from her mouth, he relaxed his hold.

“Finn?” Raindrops clung to her lashes as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “What are you doing out here?”

Now that he knew she was safe again—under his protection—some of his earlier anger returned.

“Protecting you. The one thing your father asked of me above all others.” Before the drink had set in at sup, the Lowland earl had made it clear that Violet was his highest priority. And although Finn wanted to avenge his brother more than anything, he could appreciate the need to watch over the wayward lass.

“Did he honestly say that? He wanted to protect me?” She blinked in surprise and it occurred to him what an unusual woman she was to stand there, heedless of the fierce storm and danger rising all around, to seek some hint of caring from the wasting shell of a man who ruled her keep.

Even as he wanted to shake her for taking foolhardy risks, he felt an overwhelming urge to safeguard the vulnerability he saw in her eyes just then.

“Aye.” He only wished the old earl had thought to protect her long before now—before she’d grown comfortable eluding the keep’s watch guards to run headlong into treacherous forests alone. “Because in case you failed to notice, there is a predator lurking in the woods.”

He’d almost stopped her from leaving the keep altogether when he discovered her sneaking from her chamber at midnight. But after she’d lied to him so blatantly on their first meeting—denying knowledge of the Caladan earl—he feared she might hide something that could lead him to find his brother’s killer. She was strangely comfortable in a woodland area that frightened grown men.

A clap of thunder made her jump and he steered her away from the wise woman’s hut, back toward the main path leading to the keep as the downpour picked up volume.

Sheltering her under his arm, he deflected the worst of the rain, but the sound of it drowned out her words when she turned to say something to him.

“What?” He lifted his voice, certain no one could track them in weather like this.

Pausing, she rose on her toes as if to get closer to his ear. Before she said anything, however, the sky lit up like noontime a moment before a crack of thunder shook the ground.

“Come on!” she shouted loud enough for him to hear, tugging his arm in the opposite direction of the keep.

He followed where she led, scarcely able to see in front of him except for those moments when bursts of lightning illuminated the trees. The air hummed with the force of the storm as their feet kicked up mud. If they didn’t find shelter soon, he would insist they return to the wise woman’s hut to wait out the storm. At least there they would be dry.

But moments later, a shadow rose from the high-flowing creek—the same waterway where they’d met earlier that day. Except here, downriver from where he’d first seen her, a hulking shadow rose at the water’s edge. A squat stone structure of some sort.

She darted toward the building—an abandoned mill, he thought. But he hauled her back, keeping her behind him and his hand on his sword. What if the killer hid here, in the mill? At very least, any manner of thieves could take shelter here.

He found the rotted wooden door and shoved it open. A startled bird flew out, but all remained quiet inside otherwise.

“I have never seen such rain!” Violet exclaimed, pushing the hood from her hair as she stepped in behind him. Water poured off them both, pooling to mud on the dirt floor.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted, and he turned in a full circle to take in the surroundings. Holes in the roof allowed water in on one end of the building, but the stone tower close that must have held a water wheel remained dry.

Violet hung her cape to dry on an iron ring in the wall that must have held torches at one time. She had obviously been here before.

“It will be dry upstairs.” She gestured toward the winding staircase at the base of the tower. “I keep some things up there for when I want to escape.”

Finn removed his cloak and hung it on another iron ring at the opposite side of the doorway.

“Escape?” He pulled Violet away from the staircase and tucked her behind him once again. Apparently, she was unaccustomed to being protected.

“From the keep.” She lowered her voice and he sensed an unease on her part. “My father can be unreasonable when his wound pains him.” Winding around the tower stairs, Finn reached another floor that must have been used to access the water wheel. Here, an arrow slit allowed in the occasional flash of lightning that showed him the lay of the chamber easily enough. They were alone. No one hid in the upper chamber. Yet the space was not a crumbling ruin. Far from it.

“You did this?” he asked, peering around from the top stair.

A broom of twigs rested in one corner, tied roughly with a strip that looked like tree vine. And it had been used recently, the plank floor swept clear of debris. A trunk rested in one corner, a rough wool blanket rolled and tied upon it. A bare pallet lay in the opposite corner. The ledge overlooking the water wheel mechanism contained a row of pots filled with plants of various sizes. Some trailed greenery to the floor of the chamber while others were little more than seedlings newly sprouted.

While he looked around, she opened the trunk and withdrew a taper and a piece of flint. A clean rag followed.

“Here.” She placed the worn scrap of linen in his hand. “You can dry off.”

He watched as she struck the flint expertly. With any other woman, he would have taken the task from her and lit the small cluster of twigs on a makeshift stone hearth that she’d assembled near the open ledge. But with Violet, he found it impossible to disrupt this display of skill. Did her father have any idea that his daughter maintained a rudimentary retreat? She must have been allowed to run wild.

“It’s a miracle you have not been molested by some passing thief out here.” He shook his head, confused by her at every turn. Was she the wanton he’d met earlier? The eager-to-please daughter who’d made an appearance at sup? Or the self-sufficient maid he’d seen after midnight? “What woman takes such risks with her person?”

She coaxed a spark to warm the twigs in the circle of stones, then huffed on the pile until a small fire crackled brightly. Fragrant smoke told him the wood was from a fruit tree of some sort.

“I began the rumors that the woods were haunted in order to keep people away. The stories of ghosts and beasties help discourage travelers, and we’ve had fewer thieves and outlaws since we began the tales.” Sitting back on her heels, she tugged off the neck cloth that she hadn’t been able to keep in place in the great hall. “I am not convinced there is a killer in our woods, despite the body. I think people were simply more prone to believe that because of the tales I’d begun. I had the help of the local wise woman. She’s like a mother to me.”

He draped the damp linen over the stones near the fire and did not bother hiding his surprise.

“That’s where you went tonight.” He’d peered in through a window while Violet had been inside the hut. “To see the wise woman.”

“Yes.” Violet gathered her long hair and squeezed the excess water from it. The water hissed as it fell on the makeshift hearthstones. “I wanted to warn her about you. That you might try to drive everyone from the woods in an attempt to find a killer that may not exist.”

“You think I cannot tell the difference between a cold-blooded backstabber and a harmless old woman?”

“That is what Morag said.” Violet eased off her boots, presumably to dry them. “Although, you will recall the body showed now wounds. Perhaps the man was a victim of disease.”

Yet the action—strangely intimate no matter how necessary—reminded him they would be in close proximity for as long as the rain lasted. Did she know what it would do to a man to watch her remove her shoes?

He recalled the way she’d kissed him and thought it possible she had every intention of seducing him. He’d never met such a sensuous maid.

“Morag knows me well, it seems.” His throat cracked on a dry note as he watched the play of her hem over her stocking-clad foot.

The delicate turn of her ankle.

“She believes you were destined to come here.” Violet shrugged. “She fancies herself a Seer, but I think she is merely a woman of strong opinions. I told her you were from the Highlands and she assumed good things of you, since her grandparents are of that stock.”

Finn tore his gaze from her legs, the shape of which he could discern beneath the heavy, damp folds of her skirts. His own clothes seemed to dry quickly, his body heating them from the inside. He would not make it out of this shelter without touching her. Tasting her. He knew it as well as his own name. Had the Seer informed Violet of those intentions?

“Destined? Perhaps I was.” He leaned back to pull the woolen blanket from its place on the trunk. Unrolling it, he moved to wrap the warmth around her, but she shook her head.

“I am warm enough. Despite the rain and cold, I am still feverish from before.” Her cheeks flushed with color as she spoke, and he realized that heat probably accounted for her removing the shoes and the other clothes.

“Did Morag give you anything for it?” He reached for her, touching her cheek to test the skin.

“It is her fault that I am…unwell.” She frowned, but Finn could see her pulse fire rapidly at her neck.

The warmth of her flesh enhanced the clean scent of her, the rain-washed skin still carrying a hint of roses. She swallowed hard. Licked her lips. Signs of awareness? Or more signals of this curious ailment? His attention went back to her ankle, where it would be easy enough to skim a hand up her bare leg and under the heavy skirts of her kirtle and surcoat.

“How so?” He swiped aside a damp curl where it clung to her throat, his body taut. Tense.

Ready for her.

“She gave me a potion earlier. It was foolish of me to ask her for it.” She tilted her chin to one side when he touched her neck, as if to offer all the more of herself to his questing fingers. He ought to warn her away. Instead, he eased closer.

“What would you need a potion for, Violet?” He smoothed her hair from her face and blew a gentle stream of air along her hairline to cool her.

“I wanted something to make me amenable to the marriage my father hoped to arrange.”

His blood chilled. Everything inside him protested.

“Marriage?” He cupped her chin in his hands and tipped her head to face him. He would kill the bastard who tried to take her away from him now.

He’d touched her. Tasted her. He didn’t realize it until this moment, but she belonged to him. And no contract that her father arranged would change that.

“My father said he would wed me to anyone who would be his champion, anyone who ended the horrible things that are rumored to happen in these woods.”