“And by the way,” she ranted, “you are such an unbelievable jerk to be hitting on your brother’s woman.”
His lust soured into loathing. “You’re a fool if you think our Willie will marry a girl like you.” He watched as she marched ahead, fighting the impulse to catch up to her and shove her faster along the path.
Until he looked over his shoulder, glimpsing once more the stone grave marker.
MAGGIE WALL BURNT HERE 1657 AS A WITCH.
And Jamie’s glower eased, chilling into a slow, calculated smile.
Chapter 15
Will opened his bedroom door to find Felicity in the hallway, panting, and with her fist poised to knock.
“Finally,” she exclaimed, bursting into his room. She was breathless and agitated, but it only made her look all the more radiant.
She was wearing her new gown, and the bodice molded to her body like a second skin. The light purple color set off the blonde in her hair, and the effect was like lavender flowers and sunshine.
Will scrubbed a hand over his face. What madness had him waxing so rhapsodic?
Fool. You’re naught but a fool.
“Where have you been all day?” she demanded.
“Just here,” he replied cautiously. Looking from her to the door, he added, “Where you should not be. It’s entirely inappropriate for you to be in my rooms.”
“Screw that.” She stormed back, pushing the door to. “Your brother just made a pass at me.”
“A . . .” He furrowed his brows, a cold knot settling in his belly. “What did Jamie do to you?”
“You left me alone all day, and he, you know, he tried to touch me.”
The chill in his gut froze into white fury. “I’ll kill him.”
“No,” she said, startling him. “
I’ll
kill him. Jerk. He’s a total jerk.” She stormed to the window, staring out.
“Och,” he bit out. “Felicity.” It was all he could say. He wanted to go to her. Comfort her. And then murder Jamie.
Instead, he fisted his hands at his sides. He needed to get her out of there. His brother and mother were poison. The latter had spent the better part of the afternoon interrogating him about their guest’s origins.
Will would have Felicity safe and away from prying eyes. And from roving hands especially.
“I hate how he keeps calling you Willie,” she grumbled.
Rollo’s eyes shot to her. The woman had a knack for seeing things as he saw them.
“And I am sorry.” She rounded on him. “Your mom isn’t going to win any hospitality awards either. Your poor dad. Sitting down there all by himself all the time. Jamie and your mom treat him like he’s part of the furniture.”
The chill in his heart warmed at her words. “Are you quite finished?” he asked patiently.
She gave him a rueful smile, then inhaling deeply, looked back out the window. “I had to get it off my chest. I feel better now.”
“I’m glad of it, lass, but I don’t.” He stepped closer to her. She didn’t see as he reached his hand to hover just above her shoulder. And then, hesitating, pulled it back. “Just stay away from my brother.”
“I will.” She turned, and they both tensed to realize how close he’d stepped to her. “Just don’t leave me again, all right?” Her voice was small, sweetly vulnerable.
And all Will wanted to do was take her in his arms. Nestle her close. Protect her from his bastard of a brother. From any who’d dare to even look at her wrong.
“What were you doing all day, anyway?” she asked.
“Today?” It took Rollo a second to get back in the moment. “I spent the day trying to sort the best way to get you home. We must be away to Lochaber, I’ve decided. To Cameron lands. There is one there who can help.”
“I don’t want to go.” She put her hands on her hips. “You can’t make me go.”
She stepped even closer to him, and he edged aside, bumping into the windowsill.
“You’re really not getting it, are you?”
He glanced away. It was too painful to look at her, and he gazed sightlessly out the window instead.
“Will.” She put her hand on his arm. “Look at me.”
His body grew rigid, instantly hard at her touch. At the sound of her gentle, sweet murmurings. The muscles of his bad leg began to tremble, so focused was he on keeping himself in check.
“I want to be with you, Will. I don’t know how much more plainly I can put it. Don’t you get it? I was sent back for you.”
“It’s impossible.” His voice was a tight rasp.
This is it
, she thought. This was her moment. He wanted to send her away, and she had to show him she needed to stay.
“If you don’t believe me . . .” Her touch on his arm curled into a steady grip. She waited. Willed him to look at her.
And finally, he did.
His eyes sought hers, and they were tender, and pained, and needful, and the sight plucked a twinge in her heart. The light from the window set his hair to a thousand shades of brown, and she wondered how it was Will didn’t realize he was the handsomest, the most desirable, the best of all men.
“If you don’t believe me,” she said again, “I’ll just have to show you.”
She reached her hand up to his cheek. He was tall, she thought distantly, taller than she’d realized. The barest scruff of whiskers rasped against her palm. It was such a masculine thing, his nascent beard, and the sensation pushed her over the edge.
“Kiss me,” she told him in the barest whisper.
And, finally, this time he did.
His mouth came to hers. For the merest moment he was tentative, but with a moan in his throat, he quickly deepened the kiss. He grew demanding, claiming her, opening her to him.
He was more than she’d even imagined he could be. Hard with just the right moments of gentle, tender but sure.
Finally.
Finally, she was kissing her Viking. The thought thrilled through her. She felt herself open to him at once, was flooded with the need for him. Ached to have him near her, in her.
Though one hand twined in her hair, his other remained clenched at his side. As if the moment might somehow shatter, him barely holding on, bracing for some inevitable fall.
Urging him to touch her, Felicity wrapped her arms around him. Pulling him close, raking her fingers through his hair, along his back, under his waistcoat.
Touch me.
She was frantic for him to let himself go. There was such passion in his kiss, but still she felt the wall he was struggling to keep between them.
Touch me touch me touch me.
Finally, she simply ran her hand down his arm. She realized he held tight to the handle of his cane. Felicity grasped his hand in hers, stroked her thumb along his wrist, and the cane clattered to the floor.
She pulled his hand up, brought it to her breast. And the groan he sounded came from deep in his soul as William Rollo finally let himself free.
His hands roved her, kneading her breasts, rubbing along her collarbone, her throat, the nape of her neck, and back down to her breast. He pinched her, rubbed the flat of his palm against her, and she thought it impossible to want a man more.
She pulled her mouth from his. “Kiss me,” she gasped.
Rollo put his forehead to hers. His eyes were dark and unfocused.
“Och, woman.” The husky burr in his voice brought a fresh surge of damp between her thighs. “I am kissing you.”
“No, Will.” She arched her back. “I mean . . .” How much more could she put her breasts in his face, she wondered distantly. “Kiss me.”
He growled then, an animal sound, tight with lust and need and other dark things. Slipping his hand beneath her neckline, he freed a breast from her bodice. She felt his moan on her sensitive skin as he sucked her into his mouth.
Her nipples beaded tight, her want for him excruciating. She arched nearer to him. Threaded her fingers into his hair, pulling him tighter, closer.
There was a distant sound, and she felt him grow still. Her breast slipped from his mouth, bobbing to rest on the shelf of her loosened bodice.
Will moved his head up slowly. Reluctantly. “This is not the place for . . . us.” He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead. Tucked her back in her dress, silently, reverently.
“You’ll be the death of me, woman.” He gently wiped the glisten of moisture from her lips, wet and swollen from his kiss. “But I die for you a happy man.”
“Oh, Will.” She tenderly cupped his cheek.
“No, Felicity. Hear me. You are a gift. A wonder. And if I die tomorrow, I die complete.”
“Please,” she said, making a breathy sound that was barely a laugh. “Don’t die tomorrow, now that you’ve finally kissed me.”
“Och, love . . .”
Love.
They caught it at the same time. The word had come lightly from his lips, but the sound of it locked their gazes, and intensity held their eyes connected. A thrill crackled through her chest, warming Felicity through.
And Rollo gave her a smile then. A full, open smile, and it was as though he’d never truly smiled before that moment.
Jamie stepped away from the door in disgust. To deny him, and then offer herself to the cripple?
It was unimaginable.
Willie may have won the battle, but it’d be Jamie who’d win the war.
And he knew just the battlefield.
Chapter 16
Witchcraft was a foolish notion. But quite efficient when it came to dispatching unruly women.
The memory of his brother suckling at Felicity like some ravenous calf made Jamie’s chest tight with rage.
Unruly
indeed.
He’d taken a brief detour, wanting to pass the grave marker before he got to Saint Serf’s. Jamie contemplated the stone cross, the crudely painted words. Maggie Wall burnt here
.
Always
his brother got what he wanted.
Always ever.
And it would stop. Willie would pay, once and for all.
And Jamie would let the fine minister of Dunning do the dirty work for him.
The church struck him as a crumbling old thing, but he knew this minister would have naught but pride, and so Jamie mustered an enthusiasm he didn’t feel.
He found the pathetic man strolling the gardens like some king surveying his holdings.
“Robertson.” Jamie forced a genial smile. “And so I find you.”
“Ah, my friend!” Alexander Robertson strolled over, greeting him with a gratified smile. “So happy you’ve come. ’Tis an enlightened man indeed, who chooses to acquaint himself with the pearls of his community.”
Vain, self-regarding ass.
“Aye, ’twould be a grave error to visit Dunning and miss the sight of your glorious parish.”
Or of you in action, witch-hunter.
“Truer words, my friend.” Robertson nodded somberly. “Truer words.”
The minister brightened, spreading his hands wide to gesture to the church behind him. “But I am being remiss. Would you like a tour? Our steeple tower is impressively ancient. Norman, in fact, and quite the commanding presence in our humble valley. Though”—R obertson put his hand to his forehead in exaggerated dismay—“ you are from a fine tradition of Lords Rollo, you would know this already, of course.”
“But of course.” Jamie wrenched his smirk into something approximating glowing admiration. “From our mother’s breast, we heard of the glory of your fine place of worship, and of the men who minister here.”
His smile grew genuine as he realized he was enjoying himself. He only wished he weren’t so impatient . . . he imagined he’d find great pleasure in toying with this man over the long term.
“Sadly, church business is not what’s brought me here today,” Jamie said, shaking his head in affected distress. “Or, rather, what I have to share is of the
utmost
concern for your fine parish.”
Robertson stilled, and Jamie felt the early flushes of triumph. He’d known the man would crave drama like a fishwife her husband’s ear.
“Pray,” Robertson said gravely. “Pray tell of the news you bear.”
“I met the woman you claim to love.”
“You . . .” The minister canted his head, the strange turn to the conversation throwing him. “You’ve met her? My goddess?”
“Aye. Her indeed. One Felicity Wallace. And, my friend”—he rested his hand amiably on Robertson’s shoulder—“I think you dodged a grim fate.”
“Truly? But why?”
“Well, it’s . . .” Jamie mimed hesitation. He needed to hide his smile now. This was becoming quite the lark.
Be somber.
Till the soil.
“I’m certain it’s nothing really. It’s just that there’s something . . . peculiar about her.”
“Aye?” Robertson’s voice was a tight whisper.
“Aye.”
The seeds of doubt.
“I saw her plucking strange herbs from the woods around Duncrub. She moved with such purpose. As if . . .”
“As if?”
“As if . . . well, it was as if she were concocting a brew.”
“No! A brew?”
“Aye.”
I sow.
“And then there was her talisman.”
“Lord protect us,” Robertson hissed, raising and kissing the cross that hung from his pocket. “A talisman, you say?”
“Indeed.” Jamie struggled not to laugh. The talisman was quite the stroke of last-minute brilliance.
“Is it”—Robertson lowered his voice to a frantic whisper—“witchcraft?”
“Oh no,” Jamie replied quickly. “Certainly not in your fine and God-fearing parish. Though . . .”
“Though?”
“Though it is odd . . .” Jamie let his voice trail off.
“Odd?” Robertson stepped closer, an eager coconspirator.
“Well, it’s only that . . .” Jamie made as if he were conceding. “I didn’t see her at vespers on Sunday.”
Robertson gasped. “Quite right. You are quite right, my lord. She was
not
at vespers. I know I would have seen her.”
“Then perhaps we should be on our guard, Minister Robertson. Well pleased I am to have such a vigilant leader of the church among us. Well pleased indeed.”