Heaven and the Heather (18 page)

She dug her fingers into the hard ridges of muscle. She ran her fingertips down, down to the top of the blanket about his waist. She shuddered and stepped away from him to the fire. He had to go! He had to stay!

She touched the plaid spread on the floor with her bare foot. The garment was still very damp. She bent down and lifted it from the floor. She gathered yard after yard of the fabric into her arms. The weight of it caused a small grunt to rise from her throat. A scent of the earth wafted up from the wool as she rubbed a corner of the fabric between thumb and forefinger. It was surprisingly soft. Slowly, she draped the plaid over the back of an ornately carved chair next to her gown.

“If we’re not going to take the kiss further”—Niall came to her side—“what d’ye suggest we do? Play chess?”

Sabine spied her the paper, on the chair’s seat, nestled in the folds of her gown. A few pieces of charcoal she had scavenged rested on the small table beside the bed. “
Non.
I have another idea.”

She whirled around, her tunic swirling about her legs. “I know something better than ches—” The words she was about to say evacuated her mouth on a whoosh of breath. She made the mistake of looking at Niall just then.

“So, do I.” He was resting on the floor, back to her. He faced the hearth, head propped on one arm in casual aplomb. A corner of the blanket barely covered his lean hips.

Gathering her breath, Sabine blindly groped behind her for the paper. She grabbed it up and clasped it against her belly. Then she reached to the table and took a charcoal stick in her right hand.

“I can tell ye’re looking at me,” he said. “Come ’round before the fire, so I can see ye.

Containing her eagerness to rush over to him, she strolled the few steps to the hearth. Slowly, she eased down to the warm hearth stones and tucked her legs beneath her tunic. A sliver of her garment touched the edge of Niall’s blanket. Finally, she raised her eyes and met his gaze.

“Why are ye looking at me like that?” he asked. “Like ye’re forgetting to breathe.”

She let out a sigh. She did not speak. Instead, she chose to study him in silence, just for a moment. She traced her eyes down through the soft whorls of paprika-color hair on his muscled chest, to the powerful length of his thighs, to the solid knees and calves. He crossed his ankles as if he did not have a care in the world. From the tense lines in his neck, Sabine knew that was far from true.

“Show me your truth,” she whispered to herself, unfolding the paper and smoothing it on a dry corner of the plaid.

“What?” he asked.

“Please, do not move or speak,” she said. “I want to look at you as you are now.”

She rose to her feet and padded across the floor. She took the candle in a spiral iron holder from the table beside the bed. She cupped her hand before the flame and eased back down to her place at the hearth. The fire warmed her back. The sight of Niall warmed every other part of her. Carefully, she placed the candle beside her.

Brows knitted, Niall eyed her with suspicion. She took up the charcoal stick and paper.

“What’re ye doing?” he asked.

“I want to sketch you. Indulge me, please.” She smoothed the paper over her lap. The candle flame illuminated it in flickering shadows.

Niall raised one brow. “Oh, aye? Instead of
chess
? I do know some interesting and challenging moves.” He patted the blanket.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve no doubt your Highland repertoire is as varied as it is shocking.”

She looked down at the blank side of the paper. With the charcoal poised firmly in her twisted fingers, she looked at him.

“May I?”

“Och, be my guest,” he said with a shrug. “If this is the only way I can bide my time, then, aye, do yer art if it makes ye happy.”

Sabine put the charcoal to paper, not concealing the smile growing on her face. The stick fit well in her gnarled fingers. Niall had not noticed that she used her twisted hand to sketch. Or was he just ignoring it?

“Aye, now that’s what I want to see, a lovely smile,” he said. “That makes me happy. There’s nowt much that makes me happy in this world.”

“What?” Sabine asked absently. Her gaze shifted constantly up and down, from Niall to the paper. She could not stop sketching for any reason—

“Ye’ve quite a lovely smile. I havenae seen ye smile much, but when ye do…”

Sabine sighed and looked up from the paper.

Niall continued, “…When ye remember to smile ’tis a—”

She laid a finger on his lips. “Shh. I should have told you that the subject should remain still and silent. That’s what makes me smile the most.” She gave Niall a large smile, just to make them both happy.

She had never sketched in front of anyone, or from anyone since
le maître
. But she had to tuck that memory away or she could not continue. Sabine glanced at Niall. She said a silent prayer to Saint Giles to help her complete this glorious task. Yet this time, she did not need him. Her heart was enough.

N
iall took her smile and held it close. He would play this odd French game for a little while. Only a very little while, then he would have to leave this glorious respite and tend to the matters of his clan.

There were some advantages to being in this unfamiliar state, posing for Sabine and her art. Niall could think of two. The first was he could spend a few moments in quiet company with the most beautiful and spirited woman he had ever met. The second was he could plot what he had to do after these precious moments ended.

Campbell was somewhere beyond that locked door, safe in his bed at so late an hour, unaware that a MacGregor was so near. Surprise would be Niall’s greatest weapon. It had worked with Sabine. She had not tossed him back out the way he had come.

He stared at her, savored her. Her eyes dragged over his body, aye, and her hand moved in swift strokes across her paper, but she was not here.

She was herself this night. The rich gown she usually wore lay draped over a chair, his plaid and tunic beside her silk brocade. Her lean, lithe body was modestly clad in a long white tunic of fine linen. The firelight turned the soft edges of the pale linen transparent. Soft, perfect curves of her body silhouetted before him, his own private view. She did not know of his advantage. He allowed his gaze to linger a second longer, lest his secret be revealed, and gazed up at her hair loosened about her shoulders. It framed her face in soft waves of black, like the night waters of Loch Katrine.

Her eyes, cast down on her paper, cast up, looked him over, then cast down again. The damaged hand that held the charcoal was in constant motion. How odd that she used that hand, in particular, to make her drawing. He suddenly wanted, more than anything else at that moment, to know her.

“Tell me, Sabine,” he whispered, “why are ye here?”

“Hmmm?” she looked up from her paper, her hand stilled.

“Why did ye leave France to come to a country ye so obviously despise?”

“I had no choice in the matter,” she said curtly.

“We all have a choice, Sabine. Ye chose to attend Her Majesty. Why?”

She put the paper on the floor, and began to rise to her feet. Niall grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside him.

“And I asked ye, ‘why’?”

Sabine sighed. “I did not choose royal servitude.” Her warm breath washed over his face. “My father made me leave Chamonix. It is a small village in the shadow of Mont Blanc. My father had built the largest
château
in all of the Alpines. That was where I spent most of my life.”

She laid much weight on her words as if a memory she did not wish to meet again had arisen in her mind.

“Why are ye in service to the queen?”

Sabine’s eyes flashed. Aye, he had exposed a nerve, but bloody hell if he was going to let it ruin this time they had together.

“Truth is difficult to face, Sabine.” He was so close. His lips brushed hers. Their breaths mingled to one.

“’Tis difficult,” she echoed.

He swallowed and wove his fingers through her hair. Her evocative scent, a fragrance that was entirely her own, curled around him. He sighed, eyes closed. When he opened them Sabine was once again looking at his body.

“Through an artist’s eyes?” he asked. “Is that how ye see me?”

She averted her eyes from being caught looking at him. “
Oui.
”

His smile widened. Dear God, he did enjoy being with her. If only the moment would last.

“Well, if ye must draw me, go ahead. I’m your servant.”

He tore off the blanket. Let her see all of his charms.

S
abine, startled at what Niall had done, allowed curiosity to tear at her. She kept her gaze firm on his azure stare. He dared her with his eyes, dared her to look at what he had just revealed. She wanted to very much, without her artist’s eyes, but she would not reveal that to him.

“
Cretin
,” she breathed.

“
Certainment
,” he replied.

This would not be the first time she had seen a man undressed. She flexed her twisted fingers, ignored the pain.

It would be her second. And so deliriously different from the first time.

She took a deep breath and continued her sketch, haltingly so.

A distraction was in order. She could not bear to have him staring at her, so very smugly, waiting for her to weaken, to forsake her sketch. She would have to contain the curiosity that beat at her to look at this man with anything other than the eyes of an artist. She would just have to suffer his stare and his dare for the sake of her art.

“Tell me, Niall MacGregor, how do you know French?” she asked, hoping it would distract him from trying to shock her.

His smirk suddenly faded.

“My brother and I learned French in Edinburgh from tutors. Are ye listening to me?”

She shunted her gaze from her sketch back to Niall’s eyes. “
Oui
, I am listening.”

“Our father sold quite a few cattle to pay for our education…” Niall stopped. “Sabine?” Her gaze and sketching scurried back to his navel, and over to the angle of bone and sinew of his hip, the hard line angling down to a thick nest of dark auburn hair….

He suddenly took her right hand in his. She dropped the charcoal stick.

“Am I boring ye?” he asked.

“
N-non
,” she stammered.

“’Tis alright, Sabine, I was boring myself as well,” he whispered.

He held her hand close to his lips, his breath warming her fingertips like dozens of butterfly wings brushing her flesh. “I didnae mind learning the French,” he said. “It smoothed my burr a bit.”

She smiled.

“I liked you burr.”

Gently, he kissed each of her fingertips. His lips barely touched her skin, but it was enough to send a thousand sparks crackling through her. She closed her eyes and waited until the last spark vanished.

“I am glad that you learned the French,” she breathed.

“Why?” he asked. He teased her with one final kiss on the back of her hand.

She could barely speak. “It has brought us together, has it not?”

He grinned, sending another flurry of sensation through her. “As I remember, it was a chicken that brought us together.”

He cupped the back of her neck and drew her closer. His other hand fell gently to her breast. Sabine let out a small breath, one of yearning. Niall obeyed her and pressed the linen of her tunic to the heated flesh beneath.

Sabine allowed her hand to wander down Niall’s chest, over the ridges of muscle, through the soft chest hair. His warmth radiated against her palm.

He kissed her neck, caressing it with his lips sending bolt upon bolt of lightning sensation through her. Her breath beat the same time as her runaway heart until she thought she would burst. He moved his kisses down to the lacings on her tunic and pulled them open with his teeth.

Sabine told herself that Niall was here because her common sense had taken a respite and let him stay. She would treasure that moment until reality knocked again.

Yet, reality was a dream away. There was nothing between them but the building heat as Niall freed her breasts from behind the linen and took a nipple in his mouth. Sabine fell farther away from the reasons why she should tell him to leave. He tugged gently at the bud of engorged flesh with his teeth. Sabine arched her back. He caught her in one strong arm and eased her to the hearth. She never felt so emboldened and so wicked at the same time. To find such raw temptation in this wild Highlander was a heavenly gift, one she knew was worth cherishing.

Her desire heightened upon itself, building, compelling her to seek that hardened part of him pressing into her thigh. He would not disappoint her. He must have wanted her to venture there as badly as she wanted to go. The tips of her fingers tingled as her hand traveled down to grasp him. Only inches, and she would be there. So tempting, so wicked, so desirous—

The door latch rattled, and broke the spell.

As if buried under a sudden avalanche, Sabine could not catch her breath.

But Niall was far more accustomed to such a swift change of situation. Perchance it was the Highlander way of things, to live one’s life always ready for trouble. He leapt to his feet. In one movement, he swept his garments from the chair and tossed them over one shoulder as he took his great blade in hand.