Seduced by a Highlander (30 page)

“Sit in the dining room,” Isobel said, heading for the kitchen. “I will bring ye some supper.”

Was she truly afraid he’d gone home? Did she want him to stay, then?

“Open that long parcel, John,” he said, taking a seat at the table. Someday he wanted a table just like this one to sit at with Isobel and their bairns. His eyes settled on her instantly when she returned carrying a bowl in one hand and a cup in the other.

“Och, hell, woman, but ye can cook,” he sighed with a mouthful of food, and then smiled at John and Lachlan’s excitement over their gifts.

“Our verra own swords!”

“Aye, we canna’ keep practicin’ with only three and ye’re both ready to have yer own.”

“There’s one fer Tamas, too.” Lachlan gave his youngest brother a skeptical look.

“That’s fer Cam,” Tristan told them, then shoveled another spoonful of stew into his mouth and winked at Isobel. “This is fer Tamas.” He pulled a brand-new leather sling from his pocket and tossed it to the boy. “Ye earned it before I left. I’m trustin’ ye no’ to use it on me.”

“What else is in the sack?” John asked, hefting it to the table and barely pulling Tristan’s attention from Isobel.

Still gazing at her, he dipped his hand inside the leather bag and produced another, smaller satchel and slid it to Patrick. “New chess pieces, carved, I was promised,
in oak by a master carpenter.” Patrick thanked him and Tristan smiled at him briefly before turning back to Isobel. He pulled out a jar of ointment and offered it to her. “To protect yer fine hands from calluses, and this”—he gave her a skein of yellow silk next—“is fer a bonnie dress ye’ll wear on a special day.”

When the flush of her cheeks deepened, he had the urge to leap from his chair and snatch her up into his arms and tell her, oh, tell her that she was bonnier to him than a thousand sunsets. More glorious—he feasted his eyes on her long, burnished hair—than the sun itself. He’d been certain nothing could make him want her more than when she was rejecting him. But he was wrong. Winning her was much better. She had fought hard, and with good reason, and had made him want to be the man he used to dream of being. He wanted her to be his wife and would let nothing come in the way of that. If he never returned to Camlochlin, so be it. For her, he would give up anything. He wanted to tell her.

But it would have to wait. For now, her brothers demanded his attention, and he was happy to give it.

“We have missed yer stories,” Lachlan said as they made their way to the sitting room after Tristan finished his supper. “Tell us one now.”

“I shall do even better,” Tristan announced, pulling one last item from his bag. “I will read to ye.” He held up the book he’d searched four marketplaces to find and paid too much for. “The first and second book of Sir Tristan of Lyones.”

“Is it a book about ye, then?” John asked, taking his place at Tristan’s side.

“I’ve asked myself that same question recently,” Tristan admitted, sitting down and opening the book. “It seems
my mother knew the darker side of chivalry would be my path.” He held his finger to his lips when John would have more answers, and began to read. He had forgotten most of the tale, and speaking it aloud in the Fergussons’ sitting room with the hearth fire crackling against his voice brought him back to his youth and his uncle Robert reading the tale to him. Home. Ah, God, he was home.

“But if Sir Tristan had honor, why did he betray King Mark by taking his wife?” Cam asked an hour into the tale.

“Some authors would have us believe ’twas a love potion that made Tristan fall in love with the king’s wife,” Tristan explained, “but I think ’tis more likely that he truly lost his heart to the lady and was helpless against it.” He glanced at Isobel sipping mead in her chair. “Sir Tristan,” he said, returning his attention to the lads sitting around him, “was not faultless as were Percival and Galahad. ’Twas his shame and guilt over his love for Iseult that made his struggle for honor more believable. My uncle used to ask what lessons can be taught when there is no effort taken to learn them.”

“He was wise,” Cameron said, nodding in agreement.

The room was quiet while they all pondered their own separate thoughts on the matter, then Isobel stood up from her chair and informed them that it was time for bed. The boys went without argument, while Patrick and Cam set up the new chess pieces Tristan had brought back and started a new game.

Isobel excused herself and left the sitting room with a quiet glance over her shoulder at Tristan. He remained in his chair for a few more moments, tapping his boot on the floor, until Patrick looked up from the board and asked him politely to leave.

He nearly bolted from his chair.

He followed her up the stairs, watching her, his heart beating a mad litany in his chest as she ascended into the shadows of the second landing.

“I dreamed of yer face,” he whispered in the darkness as he reached the top step, “and now ye would hide it from me.”

Her fingers touched his and he held them before she moved off. She leaped the rest of the way into his arms, surprising him enough to make him sway backward on his feet with her attached. He laughed as his mouth descended on hers, then swept her up with more purpose, crushing her against him, pushing her deeper into the shadows. God in all His mercy, help him. No woman had ever made him feel like this. His thoughts, his body, his heart were no longer his own, but hers. He licked the inside of her mouth, feasting on the scent of her, the flavor of her. She answered his ardor with equal fervor, stringing his muscles as taut as bowstrings. Everything he wanted to tell her fled his thoughts, leaving room only for the passion boiling his insides. Slipping his fingers down the silk of her loose tresses, he cupped her buttocks and drew her hips hard against his rigid erection. She gasped and broke away from their kiss, but he hauled her back. This time, though, he did not try to kiss her again but simply held her close to him.

He thought he was content to breathe her in, to know that she accepted him, wanted his affection. That was enough for now. “I would hold ye in my arms and never want another thing.” When she moved against him, he knew he was lying. He stroked her hair and smiled against her forehead when her soft voice reached his ears.

“Ye would not be happy here with this quiet life.”

“I would be happy wherever I was if I could but look at yer face each day.”

“Such pretty words, wolf.” He felt her smile against his chin and then her giggle when he bit her earlobe.

He dipped his face and scraped his teeth down her neck. When she arched her back over the crook of his arm, he bent with her, kissing a slow, hot path over her collarbone. He wanted her more than anyone or anything he’d ever wanted before. Whatever control he thought he possessed shattered when she curled her calf around his.

That is, until he heard the hushed laughter of young male voices from the other end of the hall.

“Tamas! John!” Isobel scolded, still locked in his embrace. “To bed with ye now!”

Tristan rested his forehead against hers while they listened to the sound of the boys’ footsteps running away. He smiled when she sighed. He wasn’t angry at the interruption, for he had found his lady and he wouldn’t take her in dishonor. But hell, it was difficult.

“Ye should go,” she whispered, the desire in her voice belying her gentle command.

“Aye.” He didn’t want to. Never before had he been called to use so much restraint.

“Tristan,” she called softly when he stepped away from her. “I am happy ye returned to us… to me.”

He was almost glad she couldn’t see the raw emotion in his gaze, for it frightened him to think what he would do to anyone who tried to separate him from her. His past was gone. He’d been reborn in a suit of polished armor that wasn’t cumbersome at all.

He rushed back to her, scooped her in his arms, and kissed her good night.

S
unshine spilled into Tristan’s room, barging in on his dreams of Isobel’s bare, creamy breasts against his lips, her warm, wet niche throbbing around him. He awoke with an erection as hard as steel. He’d been with many lasses, but he’d never physically ached for one before. He wondered, lying there in Alex’s small bed, if his body was reacting to the desire of his heart. For he’d never loved any of them either. He understood now why heroes died for the ladies they loved. Why men like Sir Tristan and his own brother defied kings. He would fight a war for her, defy a king—or his father—for her. He would do whatever it took just to look upon the smile she had kept from him for so long. He ached to touch her, craved the taste of her, and hungered like a ravenous beast for more of her.

Rising from the bed, he dressed quickly, leaving his plaid still neatly folded in his saddlebag. Today, he would tell her how he felt. If she laughed in his face, he would simply try again in a few days, after he had worked the fields without his damp shirt. He’d caught her admiring
him a few times. That fire in her eyes—and in her cheeks—was difficult to miss. If he had to resort to using his sweating body to woo her, then so be it.

He hopped out of his room on one foot, fitting the other into his boot, and nearly collided with Isobel leaving her room at the same time.

“Good morn to ye, sunshine,” he said, a bit out of breath, and straightened, setting both feet on the floor. His shirt was still unlaced, and catching the direction of her gaze along his tight belly, he smiled. Mayhap he should leave it open.

“Sleep well?” she asked, stepping around him.

“In truth”—he swung around and followed her—“my slumber was fraught with dreams of a frustratin’ nature, so nae, I didna’ sleep well.”

She cut him a wry glance as they walked together down the stairs. “I could prepare ye a drink that will help ye sleep more soundly.”

His smile widened when he realized she was deliberately keeping the question she knew he was fishing for from her lips.

He let her know anyway. “But then I’d only miss ye more after I’ve awoken.”

Her smile was playful and ravishing, and Tristan almost lost his footing. “I see,” she teased. “So ye dream of me and ye find that frustrating?”

He nodded, moving closer to her and leaning into her ear. “Aye, fer I canna’ do to yer body here what I do to it in my dreams.”

That sobered her quickly enough. Tristan cursed his own mouth. “ ’Tis nothin’ ye didna’ like havin’ done,” he said, trying to mend his tactless error. He didn’t realize that she’d stopped until he had stepped down three
more stairs. He looked up to find her staring at him. For a moment she looked afraid, as if she was standing at the edge of a cliff instead of on her staircase. He climbed a step closer, wanting to promise her that she never had any reason to fear him. Her smile stole softly across her features as he reached for her. Their hands clasped as they closed the distance between them in a rush of need.

Taking her in his arms, Tristan covered her mouth with a bold caress that left her limp and weak against him. “I want to speak with ye alone. Where can we go?” he asked, kissing her again before she could answer.

“To the barn?” She curled her fingers through his hair and drew him down for more.

He angled his mouth over hers and pulled tiny breaths from her lips with a series of short, insatiable kisses. Hell, he didn’t want to tell her he loved her in a barn. Beneath the braes of a mountainside carpeted in heather would do nicely. “Ride with me later.”

She nodded, smiling against his mouth. “Am I pitiful fer not refusing ye?”

“Nae, ye’re sensible, fer I would never stop askin’.”

She laughed, and his heart swelled until he felt as if his chest could no longer contain it. “Isobel, I—”

John came barreling down the stairs, almost knocking both of them down in a race for the door. “Did ye look out yer window, Bel?” He barely looked at either of them locked in each other’s arms. “The cattle are here!”

“Cattle?” Tristan turned to watch John disappear outside.

“Aye, come see!” Isobel closed her fingers around his and pulled him down the rest of the stairs. “They arrive twice a year.”

“What do ye mean, they arrive?” Tristan queried as
she hurried for the door, dragging him with her. “Who brings them in?”

“We do not know.” She stepped outside, stopped, and pointed to the six woolly cattle grazing in the small enclosure by the barn. They were Highland Kyloe of the red variety, with long, wavy pelts and thick horns. Slung over each beast’s back was a heavy bag bursting at the seams. “Someone brings them here at night,” Isobel continued. “We do not know who, but Patrick thinks it is one of our father’s tenants who left after he died. Perhaps our cousin James Fergusson. We heard he was doing well in Aberdeen.”