Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] (13 page)

And when he did, his heart plummeted, for it was indeed disappointment he found.
Biting back his own, Iain steeled himself to cross the kirkyard to her side. But before he went, he turned his back on the sweet vision she made and stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky, blinking a time or two until his frustration ceased poking hot needles into the backs of his eyes.
And wondering, too, why the saints, good fortune and fate, and mayhap the devil himself, had chosen such a bonnie, sun-filled afternoon to steal away his slowly burgeoning happiness and make him feel like a Master of Nothing once more.
Chapter Seven
M
ADELINE DRUMMOND, once known as Lady of Abercairn Castle, dutiful and grieving daughter, flame-haired avenger of the weak, mostly fearless, cursed with a witchy gift she loathed and hopelessly attracted to a man who loved another, stared across the stony ground of St. Thenew’s kirkyard at the object of her affections and wondered if perchance her Master of the Highlands was also an accomplished practitioner of the darker arts.
The old ways revered by their Celtic ancestors.
Tall, dark, and brooding as a storm-chased night, he’d turned his broad back to her, and her mouth went dry at the sight.
For truth, she near forgot to breathe.
His unbound hair, sleek and blue-black, spilled unhindered to his waist and powerful muscles in his neck and shoulders bunched and rippled as he threw back his head to stare at the heavens, his strong profile revealing how tightly he’d clenched his jaw, how grim-set his handsome features.
The proud way he wore his plaid and his wide-legged stance marking him as a man well accustomed to getting his way.
For one heart-stopping moment, the very air seemed to come alive. It crackled and snapped around her, the brilliant blue of the sky suddenly appearing slate gray, and boiled with thick, shifting mist.
Madeline shivered, chills racing up and down her spine, raising gooseflesh and lifting the fine hair on her skin, but she couldn’t for the life of her tear her gaze from him.
Ne’er had she seen a more beautiful man.
Nor a more intensely powerful one.
“There is a man with the might and vigor to bend others to his will,” Nella whispered beside her, instinctively or nay, placing a steadying hand on the small of Madeline’s back.
Madeline nodded in awed agreement. Reaching for her friend, she latched cold fingers around the warmth of Nella’s wrist and held tight, for a chill wind had shrieked into the kirkyard, its frigid breath lashing at her skirts and even tossing the great yews.
Their rustling leaves and creaking branches made an infernal din, a hellish din unholy enough to curl her toes and convince her all the more that her shadow man— whoe’er he truly was—was working some ancient pagan spell designed to isolate them in time.
A queer magic to plunge them into a harsher age and place than their own . . . a world where none would dare challenge the whim and wishes of one such as he.
But just when she feared the howling wind and night-dark sky would plunder every shred of courage she possessed, a quicksilver flash of melancholy slid across her heart.
His,
she knew, for the familiar sadness wound through her, following its usual path and laced as always with loss and despair. But then he lowered his head and the impression—and accompanying darkness—was gone.
Vanished as swiftly as it’d come . . . and so thoroughly, she suspected no eyes and ears but her own had perceived the storm.
Her flesh still chilled from the biting wind, she glanced at Nella only to find the older woman looking awed, but far from unsettled or frightened.
Faith, she didn’t even look ruffled.
Not in the least.
Nor did her shadow man’s friend appear troubled or concerned.
Indeed, the man called Gavin MacFie was already crossing the grass, heading long-strided for Nella, a quite ordinary smile spreading across his open, bearded face.
Only
he
bore remnants of what she’d seen, for the edges of his plaid curled as if still lifted by a fierce, whipping wind, and his magnificent hair tossed and rippled as if caught up in a wild and spirited dance with the elements.
Then he swung round, his dark gaze claiming hers as he strode forward, and Madeline Drummond, unlikely candidate for nunhood and not particularly fond of sacrists, had to struggle with a near-overwhelming urge to cross herself.
He closed the distance between them with astonishing speed, reaching her before she could catch her breath much less recover her wits. She moistened her lips, strove to regain her calm. Mercy, but he towered over her . . . and she was a well-grown woman, taller than most.
She angled her chin to look up at him, her heart pounding a frantic beat, the wild-edged emotions whirling inside her, hers alone and no one else’s.
Breathing deep, she met his gaze, but if her accursed gift sought to absorb whatever thoughts lurked behind the determined glint in his peaty brown eyes, her Master of the Highlands had thrown up impenetrable shields, leaving her no choice but to guess his purpose.
And that alone was all she could discern—that he had a purpose . . . and wouldn’t be swayed from it.
Uncomfortable beneath his intent scrutiny, Madeline lifted her hand to the enameled cairngorm brooch she’d borrowed from his cloak, pressed her fingertips against its smooth coolness.
She dug the fingers of her other hand into the cloak itself, clasping its warmth tight against her waist as if she could draw a portion of his strength and bravura from the worn and travel-stained cloth.
Strength and courage she needed, for her own seemed to be cowering behind her.
She sneaked another glance at Nella, who sat atop the drystone wall some paces away, deeply immersed in conversation with the auburn-haired Islesman, the two seemingly oblivious to aught but themselves.
Madeline’s brow knitted.
The Master of the Highlands smiled . . . if the wee upward lift at the left corner of his lips could qualify as a smile.
“Fair maid,” he addressed her, the richness of his molten gold voice weakening her knees. “It would seem our companions are becoming rather . . .
friendly.
”
Madeline cleared her throat, half-afraid her own voice would fail her. “Nella does not usually warm to strangers, most especially men. Gavin MacFie must be an exemplary man to win her trust so quickly.”
“My brother would heartily agree,” her shadow man ventured, and threw a quick glance at the couple. “I am relieved they get on.”
Relieved?
Madeline blew a curl off her cheek and studied him, tried to see behind the dark of his eyes. He’d made that sound as if it were of great import that Nella and his friend understood each other.
His mention of a brother caught her interest, too.
But before she could question him, a slight change in his expression, something in the way he was looking at her, stole her breath.
Her heart responded, knocked wildly against her ribs.
“I would that we, too, understand each other,” he said, and a little thrill of excitement tripped through her. Again, his mellifluous voice flowed into and all around her, its smooth deepness charming her as easily as he’d bespelled the blue of the sky.
Madeline wet her lips. “Understand each other?” she echoed, her own voice an embarrassing squeak by comparison.
He inclined his dark head. “Shall we begin with my apologies for withholding my full identity?” he suggested, making her a small bow. “I am—”
“You are my shadow man,” Madeline clapped a hand o’er her mouth.
Now she knew he’d bewitched her. Dear saints, she’d almost blurted the intimacies they’d already shared . . . his nightly appearances in her dreams and his own heart’s deepest secrets.
Everything her accursed gift had shown her.
He was watching her closely, one dark brow casually lifted, something bold, unsettlingly ravenous, and oddly knowing glimmering in the bottomless depths of his rich brown eyes.
Catching her hand, he brought it to his lips and placed a gentle but searing kiss against her knuckles.
A kiss she felt clear to her toes.
A kiss like no man had e’er bestowed on her.
Truth to tell, she’d ne’er been kissed at all.
Not properly.
“Allow me to correct my earlier omission,” he began again, releasing her hand. “I am Iain MacLean, my lady.” The words tumbled from his lips in a startling rush.
Surprising, too, because a hint of nervousness discolored the burnished gold of his beautiful voice.
“Not simply Iain,” he added, almost as if he needed to convince himself. “My name is Iain MacLean.”
The easiest part of his task now behind him, Iain drew a great shuddering breath but immediately regretted it, for in doing so, he’d filled his lungs with the wildly distracting essence of her.
And he already knew her scent could be his undoing.
Delicate and fresh, its heathery lightness held the faintest note of musk, just enough promise of woman to spin headiest magic all around him, befuddle his senses, and—almost—make him forget she’d called him gallant.
A myriad of emotions flickered across her lovely face, some disconcerting, yet others so inviting he ached to flash her a seductive smile steeped with all the heart-winning charm he’d once been capable of summoning in the blink of an eye. But as he’d known would befall him, the best he could muster was his usual half smile . . . one he suspected lacked the dazzle to enchant even the most easily impressed of lasses.
So he simply squared his shoulders and hoped she’d not change her mind about his valor and gallantry now that he’d forced himself to stride across the kirkyard, dredge up more courage than he’d need in a good sword fight, and confess his name to her.
And in especial that she’d not blanch—or seek to scratch out his eyes—when he revealed the rest.
“MacLean?” she echoed his name, seeming to test its feel on her tongue.
A flare of hope sparked in Iain’s breast. Not bold sparks but promising nonetheless . . . and hale enough to breathe warmth onto the outermost edges of the cold dark inside him.
She was peering at him, her light green eyes brimming with interest, so he summoned another rusty smile and inclined his head. “Aye, that is my name, lass, and I would that you know it.”
That, at least, I can share without shame.
“MacLean of the Isles?” she prodded, tipping her head.
“Nay, of Baldoon on the Isle of Doon in the Isles,” he corrected, and knew a moment’s uneasiness—a ridiculous tide of nerves washing o’er him that perchance his calamitous reputation or even his most recent act of sacrilege had somehow found the way to her ear.
But she merely nodded, her greenish gold gaze flickering o’er him, the disappointment he’d noted just before crossing the kirkyard now replaced by open curiosity.
She looked past him to where his pilgrim’s gear lay discarded on the stony ground. “I knew you were not a pilgrim.”
“A pilgrim, nay,” Iain agreed, “but on a similar path.”
A journey of penitence,
his conscience urged him to add, but he glanced aside instead.
He’d tell her the rest—the most of it—later.
After he’d found suitably respectable lodgings for them for the night . . . and perhaps, too, after he’d plied her with a wee dollop or two of fine and fiery
uisge beatha,
a good Scotsman’s “water of life” and thought to be a cure-all for every ailment known to man.
Hopefully, too, for averting disenchantment.
Unable to help himself, he gently tucked a loose curl behind her ear.
Something he’d burned to do ever since she’d stepped from the burial enclosure, his cloak and her badly torn head veil clutched in her hands, her red-gold tresses no longer hidden but wound in satiny-looking plaits above her ears, a riot of bright-gleaming curls tumbling sweetly about her face.
He swallowed hard, the cool silk of that one wee curl, the satiny-smooth warmth of her cheek beneath his fingertips sending arrow bolts of keenest desire streaking through him.
She regarded him with an unblinking gaze, but a faint pink tinge colored her cheeks, and he would’ve sworn a light shiver traversed her length at his touch.
Endeavoring not to disillusion or frighten her, Iain lifted away his hand, struggled to keep his gaze from dipping to the torn bodice showing beneath her unfastened cloak.
Two brooches held the ruined gown together, her own and his, for he’d forgotten he’d secreted the heavily enameled cairngorm brooch on the inside of his pilgrim’s cloak, using it thus to fasten the hated mantle without calling undue attention to the piece’s worth.
Despite himself, he stared at his brooch, at the remnants of the once-fine cloth it held together. His hands fisted, rage pounding through him at the stark reminder of what had been done to her—and at the worse villainies she could have faced.
He stifled a furious oath, hoped the long shadows cast by the nearby yews hid the muscle beginning to tic in his jaw.
Hid, too, the increasing edginess that he had yet to proffer his protection as her escort . . . and under the guise of her husband.
To his dismay, his cheeks began to prickle and burn, and he prayed to any gods who might hear him that he wasn’t blushing.
Prayed, too, that her response wouldn’t press him into forcing her acquiescence. The saints knew he’d rather march naked through the deepest, darkest glen in a storm of sleet and rain.
Forcing a woman to do aught against her will would break the one code of honor he prided himself on ne’er having breached.
The only corner of his valor he’d kept brightly polished since the very first day he noticed a difference between himself and the fairer sex.
Ill ease closing in fast, he slid a helpless look in Mac-Fie’s direction, thankfully catching the Islesman’s eye, but the bland-faced bastard merely shrugged . . . clearly content to withhold himself from Iain’s task of persuading the two women of the necessity of remaining together.
The need to submit themselves to the farce of pretended marriages.
Feeling more inept by the moment, Iain drew a long breath before he returned his attention to Madeline.
And the instant he did, a fierce jolt of pure male appreciation shot through him when his gaze defied his best intentions and flew straight to his brooch, this time seemingly determined to linger there.
And what true man’s gaze wouldn’t, for the scoopedneck bodice bore such a jagged tear a full score of brooches would have failed to repair the damage.
Worse yet—for him—the sight of something of his resting so close against her skin proved almost more than he could bear, for her attempt to recover her modesty only drew the tattered linen tighter across the full swells of her breasts, emphasizing rather than shielding their lushness.