Highlander in Her Bed (30 page)

She only saw the joy spreading across his face, his arms extending in welcome, and how utterly real and
uninjured
he looked.

The beaming fool standing next to him was mistaken.

Nothing ailed Hottie Scottie.

And the effort of appearing whole and hearty was killing him.

But the triumph of having made it back at all and now seeing her racing at him, her hair streaming out behind her and her eyes sparkling, was a glory far stronger than any searing lightning bolt pain.

Even so, the instant she reached him and flung herself into his arms, it was all he could do to keep from wincing. Instead, he smiled all the broader and dragged her into his embrace, crushing her against him.

"Sweet lass," he soothed, for she was gasping for breath, clinging to him with all her strength, flushed and wide-eyed. "Did I no tell you I'd return?"

"But—"

"No buts. I am here now." He tightened his arms around her, burying his face against her shoulder. Giddy relief sluiced through him that the feel of her pressing her pliant body to his, melting against him, didn't send him spinning back into the darkness.

"Y-you were gone so long," she cried, her voice breaking. She thrust her fingers into his hair, holding him close. "I missed you so, and I feared—"

"My heart was with you the whole time I was away," he told her true, lifting his head and seizing her face in his hands for a deep, devouring kiss.

A kiss he broke all too soon, but his need for her was ferocious and growing more fevered with every hot beat of his heart.

"Wait till I get you alone," he vowed, sweeping his hands over her trembling body, running them up and down her back. "This is no the place with kith and kin—"

"Nay, it is not, my friend," a deep voice warned in the same moment a steely hand clamped down on his shoulder. "You would be wise to show your affection in a more private place. Perhaps One Cairn Village, as it stands deserted just now."

Sir Marmaduke.

Alex frowned, recognizing the scar-faced Sassunach's smooth, low-pitched voice. And the absurdity of the man's prudish warning.

His prudish,
uncharacteristic
warning.

Champion sworder or no, if ever a soppy-headed, romantically inclined knave walked the hills, it was Sir Marmaduke Strongbow. As Alex knew him, he'd be the last man to object to a passionate embrace and a few scorching kisses.

No matter how many onlookers milled about.

Blowing out an irritated breath, Alex made to wheel about and tell him so, but he couldn't move, for his friends had surrounded him, the whole fool lot of them pressing close and buzzing round like wet hornets gone mad.

Even e'er-grinning Hardwick, only he wasn't grinning now.

None of them were.

Some even looked infinitely sad. Defeated.

Others, the younger lads mostly, were dashing about the field waving and shaking their swords, causing a general stir and drawing all eyes.

A glance at his lady showed him why.

He was still holding her face, his hands cradling her jaw and cheeks, her lovely flushed skin clearly visible beneath all ten of his fingers.

He was fading.

And no matter how long his friends meant to dance and cavort around him, hiding the fact from the still-cheering spectators, Alex strongly suspected there wasn't much he could do to keep it secret much longer.

He'd wagered his all and was losing.

Fury welled up inside him, and he clenched his fists, throwing back his head to glare up at the cloudless blue sky, staring at its brilliance until his eyes stopped burning and the hot lump in his throat receded.

Raging at his fate would avail nothing.

But
thinking
might.

To do so he needed a clear head and an iron will. Two things he'd had almost seven hundred years to cultivate.

The good saints be praised.

Chapter 13

Alex paced behind the whins and bracken edging One Cairn Village. The worst possible place for a reunion tryst with his lady, but apparently the only corner of the entire Ravenscraig demesne currently emptied of long-nosed, gog-eyed gawkers.

Everyone else still rimmed the training ground, watching raptly as his sizeable company of Highlanders, ghostly and otherwise, continued to entertain, their flashing, weaving steel holding the crowd in thrall.

All save the wee bit of an ancient female called Innes.

Oblivious to the furor, the tiny white-haired woman bustled about inside one of the craft shops, arranging and rearranging her candles and soaps. But not so diligently that she hadn't hurried outside so soon as she'd caught a glimpse of Alex and Mara arriving at the near-completed village.

Sharp-eyed if dotty, she'd cocked her head and peered at them, twittering on about how well and fit Alex looked.

How dashing in his plaid.

Then she'd ruined it by calling him Lord Basil and declaring she'd never seen him look younger.

A corner of Alex's mouth twitched. If the poor biddie knew he was almost seven hundred years young, she would not have been content to hobble back into her cozy little craft shop. She would have scuttled herself clear to Oban.

So fast as her birdlike legs would carry her.

Alex flinched. The last thing he wanted was to frighten hapless old women.

Especially feeble-minded ones.

Frowning, he cast a look at the back of the low, whitewashed cottage that was the soap-and-candle craft and workshop. Just visible through the gorse bushes and with a curl of blue peat smoke rising from its chimney, the thick-walled cottage was definitely still firmly in the old bird's possession.

Snatches of her reedy voice engaged in a monologue about the surprising appeal of
Lord Basil
in full Highland regalia proved it. As did the occasional flutter of the window curtains.

The wee biddie was spying on them.

Not that he cared.

He'd gladly shout his love for his lady from the summit of Ben Nevis and even smother her with kisses in front of a whole score of age-bent, tongue-clacking women.

So long as he was here to do so, he'd be grateful.

And so long as Innes lingered in the craft shop, he had good reason to avoid One Cairn Village's newly cobbled square and the kick-in-the-shins annoyance of having to stroll past the recently finished memorial cairn.

The whole place made his hackles rise, and the cairn was a botheration he was determined to ignore.

What he couldn't ignore was the horror of seeing his transparent fingers cradling his lady's face.

Or his burning need for her.

Fighting back a ferocious frown, he wheeled about and went long-strided to where she stood beside a patch of springy heather. He seized her hard against him, bracing himself not to wince. No easy feat, for the more fiercely he clutched her to him, the more wickedly his wounds stabbed him with sharp, searing heat.

Even worse pain than had shot through him when she'd flung herself into his arms on the training ground.

But at least this time his hands were splayed across her back, well hidden from view.

Not that hiding them meant he didn't have to warn her.

"Lass, sweet lass," he began, his heart twisting when she slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. "Ne'er have I lied to you and I willna do so now. It would seem the fates—"

"The fates have been kind," she gushed, hugging him tightly. "I thought I'd never see you again. Even thought you'd sent a female friend to scare me away. But you came back and now everything is—"

"
A female friend
?" Alex set her from him, looked down at her in surprise. "I have not had female associations since…" He trailed off, jerked a glance at the tall Celtic cross rising from the top of the memorial cairn.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. All that failed was the white-on-blue Scottish saltire flapping proudly against the afternoon sky.

Blessedly, that insult was spared him.

"You haven't had female associations since?" his lady prodded.

"Since before I was sent to wed your ancestress, Isobel," he finished with a shudder. "Even if I had, I would ne'er have sent a ghostie maid to frighten you."

He looked at her, hoped she could see the sincerity of his words.

Apparently she did, because she drew a trembling breath and blinked furiously against tears she couldn't stop from spilling down her cheeks.

Forgetting himself, Alex reached to brush away the dampness with his thumbs, felt a surge of relief when his hands appeared solid against her flesh.

"You are a gift beyond measure, and I would move heaven and earth to keep you," he vowed, undone by the love in her eyes. He stroked the hair back from her face, slanted a kiss across her lips. "You ought know that by now."

She colored. "I do," she admitted, her voice quivering despite the lift of her chin. "But at the time, I didn't know what to think. I saw her just after you…
er
… vanished."

This time Alex flushed.

He knew the exact moment he'd been swept out of her arms. A moment of wondrous, shattering joy and a triumph he'd dare not risk again lest whatever forces controlling such things separate them for good.

"I am sorry you were frightened." He smoothed his hands down her back to cup her buttocks, allowing himself the pleasure of kneading the plump rounds. "But I canna imagine who may have appeared to you. Perhaps—"

"I think I know who she was. I researched her, just like—"

"Just like you buried your nose in those dusty tomes in the MacDougall library and discovered lies about me?"

She blinked. "I didn't mean it that way," she said, tightening her arms around him. "I no longer care what the books say. You should know that."

Pushing up on her toes, she rained adoration across his face, lighting her sweet, lush lips everywhere she could reach, each soft kiss squeezing his heart and stirring his loins.

Making it next to impossible to tell her what he must.

Alex groaned, set her from him again. "Then who was this woman you saw?" he asked, seizing the reprieve she was offering like a drowning man grabbing at a tossed plank of wood. "Did she appear in the bedchamber?"

Mara shook her head, remembering. "I saw her on the little strand beneath the wall walk. I went out onto the battlements after… after you left. She was green and glowing, all transparent and very beautiful. I am sure she looked at me, wanting to tell me something, but then she was gone."

Shivering at the memory, she looked aside, noticing at once that Ben had joined them. The old dog busied himself on a scrub-grown knoll a few yards away, moving in and out of the heather, his nose to ground as he snuffled after whatever enticements intrigued him. From the looks of it, a cluster of large, lichen-blotched stones.

Another rush of chills sweeping her, Mara turned back to her beloved Highlander. "You don't think he'll stumble across an adder?"

"Animals are far more wise than people," he answered her, a flicker of something indefinable in his eyes as he looked over at the dog. "Had an adder chosen yon boulders for a sunbath, he would have slithered away well before Ben disturbed him. But like as not, Ben wouldn't have neared the rocks anyway had a snake been coiled there."