He did not answer, but bent his head. She felt the brush of his lips against her hair.
” ‘Tis because you are kind,” she breathed.
He stroked her hair again. Dizzy with wonder and speechless hope, she tilted her face upward. She felt safe suddenly, safe and protected in his arms. His fingers slipped beneath her hair, cradling her neck, and slowly, ever so slowly, he kissed her.
Warmth sparked through her as their lips gently met. She trembled with feeling and relief.
“Lass. Me wee, small lass.” He breathed the words against her mouth. “I feared I was too late, too foolish.”
He had come. Had risked his life. Had found her. She pressed closer, needing to feel his strength. Their mouths joined again. He moaned against the breathy caress and curled his sword arm around her back.
Anora’s mind churned. He was cunning and he was kind and he was powerful. Could it be that the prophecy was true? Had he been sent to save her? To save Evermyst?
His arms tightened around her. His kiss hardened. Against her belly she felt his desire burgeon, and with it came fear. But no! He had saved her. He was kind. He was cunning. He was …
She pushed against his chest, for the very strength that had soothed her frightening her now.
“Let me go! Let me—” But she was already free, stumbling backward until she found her balance.
“What is it, lass?” His voice was very low, almost hoarse as he stepped forward.
She retreated another pace, trying to still her panic. “I must go.”
“Aye.” He took a step forward.
A branch crackled behind her. She twisted about only to see his steed step from the woods. It stopped abruptly at her sharp motion, causing its loosed reins to jerk wildly.
“We shall return to camp,” Ramsay said. “To await the others’ arrival.”
“Nay.” She stumbled back a step, her breath still painful in her chest. “I cannot.”
“Cannot?”
“It will be the first place he looks.”
“He?” Ramsay paused, but she said nothing. “The warrior. Who was it, lass? Why does he wish you harm?”
She shook her head, breathless and confused and frightened. “I do not know.”
” ‘Twas the warrior who attacked you before, was it not?”
“I do not know.”
“A Munro, surely.”
“Munro?” She felt dizzy and disoriented, torn in two by gnawing uncertainty. In her hazy dream, Munro loomed, and before him knelt … Isobel!
“Nay.” Anora’s breath rattled with her inhalation. “Leave her be!”
“What?” he asked.
She shot her gaze to his. “I must return home.”
“At first light—”
“No time. I must leave. Now!”
“Lass,” he said and grabbed her arm. She tried to break free, but he held her tight and pulled her closer. “Explain yourself. Tell me of your pact with the Munro.”
“I know no Munro.”
“You lie.”
“You are not kind,” she hissed, and grabbing her right hand with her left, twisted sharply upward. His grip broke. Suddenly she was free and running.
‘Twas only a few strides to the horse, but MacGowan was right behind her. She knew it as she launched herself toward the saddle, felt the scrape of his fingers on her back as her own caught mane and leather.
The bay pivoted away. Anora held on with desperation, swinging her leg high, but even as she did so, Ramsay snatched her toward the earth. She fell atop him with a shriek and heard the breath fly from his lungs as he struck the turf.
Still, his fingers did not loosen in the back of her gown. “Let me go!” she ordered, terror erupting as she scrambled to be free.
He snatched her back against him, causing his breath to explode from his lungs again, but still he held on. “What frightens you so?”
“Frightens me!” She almost laughed. “Would you not be frightened if someone tried to kill you?”
“Someone did try to kill me,” he growled, grabbing her wrist and loosing her gown. “Tell me why.”
“You think I know?”
“Aye,” he said. “I do.”
“Well, you are wrong. All I know is this.” She caught him with her gaze, her heart pounding hard in her chest. “I’ve no time to spare. No time to retrace the miles just trod. I must return home before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“For my s … For me.”
He scowled. “For—”
“My life is in danger,” she said. “And if I die … ‘twill be on your head.”
For a moment not a sound broke the silence, and then he swore. “Get on my horse,” he said. “We’ve a long ride ahead of us.”
The night wore on like a mournful dirge.
What the devil had he been thinking? He should never have agreed to her demands. He should have gone to their camp posthaste and waited for his brothers and the others to accompany them north. Or better yet, he should have insisted on returning to the safety of Dun Ard. Or … well, there were any number of fine choices he should have made. But what he shouldn’t have done was leave his clansmen to go traipsing about into unknown dangers.
Sometime after midnight it began to rain. Softly at first, then harder, biting his face and soaking his doublet. Seated before him on the saddle, bereft of all but her borrowed oversized gown, the girl shivered, but he didn’t care. Oh, aye, at the outset he had been terrified that she would be hurt by the mysterious warrior. He had stormed through the night after her, praying with every breath that he would not be too late. But it had been merely reflex that had made him follow her. It certainly was not because he cared for her, but only because she was small and helpless and so innocent …
He almost snorted aloud. Innocent, indeed! As he had warned his brothers, she was a liar and probably much worse. All he was certain of was that her name was not Mary. Notmary, he thought, and chuckled briefly. But he’d become somewhat light-headed, so perhaps his sense of humor left a bit to be desired.
She shivered again. He ignored her, though he couldn’t help but notice how one bold droplet slid past her proud little chin and beneath the square neckline of her borrowed gown. There it was hidden between her …
He snapped his gaze forward, felt her tremble, and reached without thought toward the leather bags secured to his high cantle. In a moment he’d pulled forth his woolen cape.
“Here.” He nudged her arm with it. She glanced his way, half reached for it, then drew her hand back and shook her head.
“Nay. ‘Tis yours.”
He counted patiently to himself in Latin, but still, the thought of throttling her seemed enormously pleasant. “Wear it,” he said.
She shook her head again.
He swore, managed to wrestle the thing around his own shoulders, then yanked the edge around her body. His arm brushed her breasts. They were firm and round, with nipples as hard as precious stones, but damned if he cared. She was a liar and a manipulator, a woman who used men for her own ends. Of that he was certain.
Still, she had seemed, for a moment, to be very concerned for him. On her fairy bright lips, his name had sounded like a prayer or a song or …
Sweet Almighty, he was an idiot. And it was raining harder still, so that Gryfon laid his ears straight back and tucked his muzzle toward his chest in a hopeless attempt to avoid the pounding rain.
“We’ll have to stop,” he said into the slanting onslaught. He half expected her to argue, but she remained huddled inside his cape until finally, after what seemed like a drowning eternity, he found a sheltered spot.
It wasn’t much, only a stand of rowan which grew in the lea of a hill, but inside the woods the stillness seemed like heaven. Up against a rocky ridge, old leaves were piled in profuse disarray beneath a few sheltering boughs. After turning Gryfon loose in a sheltered area Ramsay finally sank upon his haunches.
“Are you certain your steed won’t run off?” Notmary asked from the far side of the rowans.
“Aye.”
Even from some distance away, he could sense her raising her chin. “Why?”
“The devil if I know: I’ve been trying to be rid of him for years.”
“Is he so loy—”
Ramsay swore, interrupting the question. “Do you wish to reach Levenlair or not?” he asked.
“Aye,” she said simply.
“Alive?”
” ‘Tis my preference.”
“Then I’d suggest you share me bed.”
She stiffened like an offended dowager, and despite the improbability of finding any humor in this horrendous situation, Ramsay felt a chuckle rise up inside him. Perhaps he was losing his mind. “Come,” he said, but she shook her head. “Come,” he repeated. “Mayhap the rowan will keep you safe even from me.”
“The rowan may keep me dry, but naught else.”
He squinted at her, trying to read her expression. “You do not believe they bring good luck?”
“No more than wearing one’s clothes outside in or the color red or Mondays.”
“No faith in any of that time-tested wisdom?” he asked.
“It seems to me that old wives’ tales do more harm than good. Thus I have little faith in them and—”
“Men?”
“What?”
“You do not trust men.”
“I trust men, if they deserve to be trusted.”
“Then come hither.”
She didn’t move, and he swore out loud. “I am wounded, soaked to the skin, and far beyond exhausted. If you believe me unable to resist your nearness, you either think me a hell of a man or yourself an extraordinary woman.”
She said nothing.
He sighed. “Come here,” he said. “I’ll not touch you.”
There was a moment of silence. “Do I have your vow?”
“Aye,” he growled.
She came slowly, but when she finally made her way through the sheltering trees, turned her back, and settled in beside him, he felt his arousal rise blunt and hard between them.
Gritting his teeth, he tugged the edge of his cape across her body. Damnation, he had the stupidest wick on earth.
Dawn arrived without fanfare, seeping slowly into Ramsay’s consciousness. ‘Twas time to break the fast. Past the edge of his sleepy mind he could hear the castle awakening and—
He opened his eyes and his mind yanked him back to reality. No castle. No breakfast. Not even a dawn to speak of, just a lighter shade of murky gray, and …
He turned his attention to the woman who shared his pile of leaves. Sometime during the night, his cape had become tangled beneath her body, hugging them together. From so close, her smooth cheek looked ultimately touchable. Her lips were ripe, full, and slightly parted, and the soft hillocks of her breasts rose and fell with mesmerizing regularity when she breathed.
As he watched, she sighed gently and wriggled deeper into the warmth of his cape. Sleeping thus, she looked like a small, frail angel fallen—
He was doing it again. Despite the fact that she had the face of a saint and the form of a goddess … regardless of the way her eyes mesmerized him and her hair shone like gold even in the grimmest of weather, she was only a woman. And he had no desire to touch her. Neither body nor soul.
After all, he was no fool. Nay, he was a man who, once testing fire, had no need to feel its burn again. And though he had made a few mistakes since meeting her, he would remedy them now. He would see her safely to Levenlair and be gone, never to think of her again.
With that decision made, he tenaciously ignored the weight in his crotch and reached across her waist to tug his cape from beneath her. Her eyes snapped open instantly. From inches apart, their gazes met. Emotions, unshielded and unexplained, sparked between them. His fingers crept toward her of their own will, but even before he touched her, she was watching him with cool disdain.
He paused for a fraction of an instant, then, grasping the cape, he yanked it from beneath her.
The effort was worth the pain that accompanied it, for with his movement, she was jerked onto her back, gasping.
“What are you doing?”
“Relieving a terrible ache.” He rose jerkily to his feet, grimacing at the pain from his injured arm.
“Tell me, Notmary,” he said, standing above her. “Whence did your flirtatious ways flee?”
She bounded to her feet, as if she dared not be in so vulnerable position in his presence. When in truth, she had spent most of the night curled like a kitten …
Ramsay chopped off his errant thoughts and sharpened his control.
” ‘Twas only yestereve that you blatantly baited me brothers,” he reminded her.
Raising her chin slightly, she brushed leaves from her skirt without glancing down.
“I did no such thing.” Her voice was husky with early morning drowsiness.
“Aye,” he said, and tried to ignore how the seductive rasp of her voice thickened the blood in his loins.
“You did. Yet last night you were desperate to leave them.”
“I was desperate to save my life.”
“Mayhap,” he said.
She stared at him. Her pursed lips were impossibly red, her loosed hair littered with leaves. His wick stirred. He’d always had a weakness for loosed hair littered with leaves. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her, he told himself.
” ‘Tis time to be going,” he said, his voice a husky echo in their little den. “Unless you’ve an inclination to tell me the truth.”
She turned away immediately, as regal as visiting royalty as she made her way from the dripping copse.
They rode all that day, staying to the woods as oft as they could. Ramsay felt like a coward, slinking through the underbrush like a whipped cur, but he had little choice, for with the hours of damp inactivity, his arm felt increasingly stiff. If the Munros found them, he’d be lucky to have enough strength to battle a flea. Hiding was his only option, but the hours droned on forever, and the soggy drizzle only abated long enough to give them hope before starting up again. Notmary shivered against his chest. As for himself, he’d rather keel over in silent death than admit his own discomfort.
It was nearly dusk when they smelled the smoke. The mere tinge of woodsy aroma made his mouth ache with hunger.
“Someone’s nearby.” Her voice was very quiet.
“Aye.” He stared through the close packed tree trunks toward the origin of that heavenly aroma. “So tell me, Notmary, shall we approach them, or do you have enemies that I should know of first? The Munros, mayhap?”