Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) (11 page)

There were no words of comfort. In silence she curved her
hand around his where it lay clenched against his thigh. He didn’t jerk away.
Instead he curled his fingers around hers and pressed her palm securely against
his plaid.

The woodland birds’ haunting melodies vibrated in the air,
drifted on the breeze. Leaves rustled, Drun sighed. And Connor continued
holding her hand.

Eternal moments shimmered with every magnified beat of her
heart. His hand imprisoned her and beneath her fingers, even through the
thickness of his plaid, she could feel the coiled strength of hard muscle. Yet
she knew if she so much as gave the slightest murmur of dissent, he would
release her instantly.

She remained silent. And still.

And waited.

Finally he stirred, but instead of untangling their fingers
his grip tightened.

“We were married for barely a year and a half.” He looked at
her and his smile tore her heart. “All she ever wanted was a child.”

“Then you gave her what her heart most desired.”

His smile slipped and a frown etched his brow. “I did what?”
He sounded as though he thought she mocked him, yet he didn’t loosen his grip
on her.

Could he really not see? “Connor, she wanted your babe more
than anything. And you gave her that joy. How happy she must have been, knowing
your child grew within her.”

He stared at her as if she spoke in riddles. “I killed her,
Aila. I wasn’t even there to offer comfort at the end.”

“No.” She leaped to her feet, unmindful of her circlet, and
grasped his free hand. “God, Connor. Is that what you think?” How could he have
thought that? “It was no more your fault than it was hers. It wasn’t fair, but
life isn’t about fair. It just is. And at least for nine months your wife was,
I’m sure, the happiest woman alive.”

He stared at her as though her words made no sense. “I would
rather her have been barren than to have suffered such agony on my account.”

Fragile barriers collapsed and ancient anger, repressed
regret and a bleak, bottomless despair streamed through her blood.
Barren
.
The word that had haunted her brief marriage to Onuist, despite his laughing
assurances they had all the time in the world to make babies.

“Connor, I don’t doubt your wife would have suffered any
agony on your account. But don’t dismiss women so easily. We are more than
capable of suffering childbirth entirely for our own purposes.” Not that she
would know. But she had spent many hours imagining such things. “Men suppose we
live only to give them the heirs they so desire. But we have equal desires
also.”

His frown intensified. “Aila, I did not mean to offend by my
comments.” He sounded as confused as he looked. He clearly had no idea where
her outburst had come from and even less as to how he had caused it.

What had she just done? Horrified by her behavior she broke
eye contact and focused on their entwined hands. Oh dear God. They were holding
hands. And she had just verbally attacked him. After he had confessed in a
clumsy, masculine manner how much he had loved his wife.

It wasn’t Connor’s fault that she had been unable to
conceive Onuist’s child. It wasn’t Connor’s fault Onuist had died. And he
certainly did not deserve her anger over the long-ago events that had shaped
her life.

Mortification at her lack of manners collided with shame at
how she had lost control. She hadn’t allowed her deepest, most fragile of
secrets to surface for years. Somehow she’d lulled herself into believing she
no longer cared about it.

Such tragic self-delusion. Only now could she see that by
burying it, far from healing, the wound had continued to fester.

And she had flung the bitter recrimination in Connor’s face.

Dear God. Please let the earth swallow her.

Connor watched the blood ebb from Aila’s flushed cheeks and
alarm spiked. She looked on the point of fainting and he stood, still clasping
her hands.

“Aila, sit down.” He tried to maneuver her around but
despite her diminutive figure and brittle appearance, she resisted his gentle
efforts to have her sit. “Forgive me.” Obviously his thoughtless words had
distressed her. What had possessed him to speak of such things? “I should never
have spoken so freely.” He should not have spoken at all. He rarely mentioned
Fearchara. And never before had he admitted aloud the acidic guilt that ate
through his conscience at the manner of her death.

So why had he broken his golden rule?

Probably because, since meeting Aila, he was breaking every
rule he’d ever made?

“No.” Her voice was unnaturally high and she pulled her
hands free and clutched the edges of her shawl. “It’s I who—truly, I’m ashamed
of my callous words. I’m not usually so… unguarded.”

He stood before her, hands at his sides, and didn’t have the
first idea what he should do.

He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to kiss away
her tortured words. But although only inches separated them, it was a gulf so
vast he feared a wrong step would cause Aila to slip from his grasp forever.

The thought made no sense. Aila wasn’t his to lose. Yet
still he couldn’t reach out to her. Still he couldn’t find the words to comfort
her.

Finally he cleared his throat. “Nor am I.” His voice was
gruff. “It was inconsiderate of me to burden you with such things.” And again
he could scarcely believe he had. He didn’t even speak of Fearchara to Maeve
and the two women had been good friends. And it certainly wasn’t something he
would ever discuss with Ewan.

So why Aila?

“Please don’t.” Her hand fluttered as if to reinforce her
denial. “I only wished to ease your distress. Truly I didn’t mean to suggest
you were insensible to your wife’s innermost feelings.”

Was that what she had done? If so, he’d been insensible to
that
.

“Such a thought never crossed my mind.”

She looked at him and he imagined he could see tension
seeping from her. As though his words reassured. He clawed through his mind for
other such words.

“It would never occur to me,” he said, “that you would ever
intentionally cause distress by word or action.”

“I certainly would never wish to cause you any distress,
Connor.” And then she smiled, a small, tentative smile as though unsure of his
reaction.

His chest tightened, the pain jagged yet not wholly
unpleasant. Strange. And as he focused on the slight tremble of her lower lip,
raw protectiveness seared through him, a primitive urge to pull her close and
claim her as his own to the world.

Unnerved by the power of the image, the suddenness of its
overwhelming demand, his first reaction was to recoil. But instead he remained
rooted to the spot, unable to tear his gaze from her, unable to sever the
tenuous connection that shimmered, beyond mortal sight, in the air between
them.

The fanciful notion shattered the moment of paralysis, but
not the sense of protectiveness that, if anything, gathered momentum by the
second. And although a distant sliver of sanity urged caution, he held out his
hand.

With only a moment’s hesitation Aila placed her hand in his,
and he curled his fingers around her. Such a small gesture. Yet somehow,
incomprehensibly, significant.

He picked up her abandoned circlet and they began the long
walk back to Ce-eviot.

* * * * *

Aila sat on the bench next to her grandmother in the
secluded garden and watched as Finella played with three young kittens at the
base of the ancient sundial. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. A riot of
purples and pinks and white spring flowers bloomed. Had the grass always been
this vivid emerald hue? Had she ever before been able to smell so acutely the
sharp tang of the sea in the breeze?

“…of great changes.”

Her grandmother paused and stared at her in a pointed
manner. Aila stifled a sigh and attempted to concentrate. But since that
afternoon with Connor four days ago, when they had both opened locked sections
of their souls, she had found it progressively harder to concentrate on
anything that didn’t involve a certain black-haired Scot.

“Great changes always occur at this time of year,” Aila
said. It was safe to assume her grandmother was speaking of some imagined sign
from a goddess. Spring was Bride’s season, but Aila had no use for any message
she might deign to deliver.

“Hm.” Her grandmother did not sound impressed by her
deduction. “Since you clearly haven’t heard a word I’ve said then allow me to
change the subject.”

Aila smiled indulgently. Shortly she would leave and meet
Connor. As they had met every afternoon this week. It was hard to recall what
she had once done with her afternoons before his arrival.

“Very well,” she said, watching Finella yet not seeing her
at all.

She still hadn’t told Connor who she really was. Somehow the
moment never seemed right. It wasn’t the sort of information she could casually
throw into the conversation and yet the longer she knew him, the harder such
confession became.

Ah, why was she concerning herself with such a detail? She’d
tell him soon enough and he wouldn’t care for her heritage.

“Although,” her grandmother said, “you won’t like it.”

That finally got her attention. “What won’t I like?”

Her grandmother smiled. On anyone else Aila would have
considered it a smirk. “I’ve watched you this last week, my love, and you can
deny it all you wish but the truth is plain. The goddess has returned and
reentered your heart.”

A week ago had her grandmother suggested such a thing, Aila
would have bristled with affront. But today she had to stifle the urge to
laugh.

She didn’t quite succeed and coughed to cover her indiscretion.

“I can assure you she hasn’t.” Only one thing had changed
during the last week and that was her meeting with Connor. The goddess, such as
she existed, certainly had nothing to do with that.

“I believe,” her grandmother continued, as if Aila hadn’t replied,
“that young Scot warrior who leads the savages has more on his mind than battle
maneuvers.”

Aila’s amusement faltered. The only ones who knew of her
assignations with Connor were Elise and Floradh. Because of course she had to
confide in her dearest friend, otherwise she would have burst from contained
excitement. And Floradh, her faithful servant, had soon guessed the reason for
Aila’s change in habits.

But they would tell no one. So how then did her grandmother
suspect anything?

“Does he?” She decided to play ignorance. “I wouldn’t know.”

She knew this strange, magical week could not last. Knew
that sooner or later Connor would return to Dal Riada and the chance of them
ever meeting again was remote.

Knew also that her kin would violently disapprove if they
knew of her clandestine meetings with him. Even if the meetings were chaste in
action—if certainly not thought.

“And I,” her grandmother said, “obviously know a great deal
more than you give me credit for.”

Was her grandmother telling her that not only did she know
Aila was meeting Connor, but she believed the Scot responsible for the changes
in Aila this week? She felt the blood heating her cheeks, saw her grandmother’s
self-satisfied smile and couldn’t reconcile the facts in her head.

If her grandmother knew about her secret rendezvous, then
why would she smile? And what on earth did any of that have to do with her
assertion that the goddess had returned?

She turned toward her, curiosity burning. But before the
question could form, her mamma entered the royal garden with her small
entourage.

“Good news.” She beckoned Finella over before taking her
place on the bench beside her mother. “The messenger has returned. Your father,
brother and our nobles will arrive first thing in the morning.” She wrapped her
arm around Finella’s shoulders and shot Aila a triumphant smile. “And then
those cursed Scots can be on their way.”

Connor frowned into his tankard of mead as beside him Ewan
extolled the virtues of his latest conquest. The tavern was small, dark and
noisy and, far from the off-duty activity relaxing his mind, it only succeeded
in tightening the tension pounding through his brain.

Ewan slammed his tankard onto the timber table, clearly
irked by Connor’s lack of interest in his exploits. “Do you ever intend to fuck
this elusive Lady Aila or not?”

Connor’s frown slid into a glower. “Watch your mouth.” Aila
wasn’t a woman about whom he would talk in taverns.

Ewan leaned back against the stone wall and eyed him. “So
that’s how it is.”

Connor drained his mead but it didn’t help the throbbing
pain inside his skull. “No.” Thinking of Aila wasn’t like anything he’d
experienced before and he was damn sure it was nothing like Ewan had. So how
could his friend say that was how it was when neither of them knew what the
fuck
it
was?

“No?” Ewan sounded caustic. “Then let me enlighten you.
First, you refuse to introduce this lady to me. I can only assume it’s because
you fear my natural charm will blind her to yours.”

Connor snorted. Ewan ignored him.

“Second, you swear me to silence. God, man. I could have
discovered her entire history by now. These ladies love nothing more than to
gossip about their fellow nobles.”

“I know her history.” They had spoken of many things over
the last few days. She had told him of her younger brother and sister. In turn,
he’d shared a few anecdotes about his childhood with Fergus. And while he
didn’t know the precise details of her kin he knew her father was away with the
king, and her mother was close to the queen. Within the royal circle, had been
her exact words.

“Third,” Ewan said, pushing off from the wall and resting
his forearm along the table. “And most interestingly if you ask me, not only
have you yet to bed the lady but you refuse to fuck any other in the meantime.”

Connor glared into his tankard, but it was empty. Unlike his
balls. Ewan had presented him with ample opportunity to slake his lust over the
last few nights and while all the ladies had been enchanting in their own ways,
they hadn’t been Aila.

Aila was the one he wanted. And the one woman in Ce, it
would appear, who had no intention of taking a Scot as her lover.

“Any other,” he growled, wondering if the tankard connecting
to Ewan’s thick skull would manage to shut his friend’s mouth, “would fail to
satisfy me.”

“And there’s your problem.”

With difficulty Connor unclenched his fingers from the
tankard’s handle. Smashing it against Ewan’s head might give him temporary
satisfaction but wouldn’t touch the root cause of his current frustration.

He gave his friend another dark glower. “The problem is I’m
a Scot and she’s a Pict.”

To his intense irritation, Ewan smirked. Perhaps he’d use
the tankard after all.

“Trust me, Connor. There’s no problem at all between a Scot
and a Pict in the bedchamber.”

“That,” Connor said, “is not the problem.”

The silence hung between them, heavy with meaning. Finally
Ewan frowned.

“Do you want to take her back to Dal Riada as your
mistress?” He sounded torn between astonishment and disbelief. “A woman you
haven’t even tasted?”

Hell, aye. But reason blocked his want. A hard, relentless
reason wrapped in the fragile figure of Aila herself. “She would never leave
Ce.”

“How do you know? Have you asked her?”

There was no need to ask. He already knew. “And her status
is such that she would never consider becoming any man’s mistress.”

“Fuck.” Ewan sounded shaken. “Are you saying you wish to wed
the lady?”

Was that what he was saying? Was that what he wanted?
Marriage?

He dragged a hand through his hair, gripped the nape of his
neck and leaned back against the wall. Since Fearchara’s death, he’d never
seriously considered the thought of taking another wife. A welcoming mistress
for whenever he required a woman’s soft touch had been enough.

But the thought of Aila becoming his mistress didn’t, for an
obscure reason he couldn’t fathom, entirely appeal. Yet what did it matter? She
would never leave her beloved Highlands.

And his place was with his king, in Dal Riada.

He heaved himself upright as Cameron MacNeil headed toward
their table. Since talking to the younger man the other day, MacNeil had buried
his loathing of the Picts and curbed his tendency to respond to taunts with his
fists instead of his wit. But he still gave the impression of tethered fury.

Today, that fury looked somewhat appeased.

He pulled out a stool and sat. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?” Ewan said.

“The Pictish king returns in the morn.” Satisfaction gleamed
in Cam’s eyes. “Then we can leave this heathen place and return to
civilization.”

“There’s still the small matter of negotiations.” Ewan
flicked his forefinger against the side of his tankard. “I confess I’ll miss
the sweet comfort of these Pictish ladies.”

Cam made a sound of disgust in his throat. Ewan shot him a
glance.

“Come on, Cam,” Ewan said. “Don’t try telling us none of
them have caught your eye. When you’re not scowling, you’re not so very ugly.
I’ve seen the way some of the Pictish ladies bat their lashes at you.”

Connor knew their time in Ce had always been short. But now
the end was in sight. And instead of thinking with pleasure of returning to his
home, all he could think was he might never see Aila again.

“I’d rather go blind,” Cameron MacNeil said between gritted
teeth, “than fuck a Pictish whore.”

Connor reared to his feet, pushed Cam from his path and
shoved his way through the crowded tavern. He needed air. And to get away from
MacNeil before he slammed his fist in his face.

He didn’t want to leave Aila behind when he returned to Dal
Riada. Would she consider leaving Ce for him? He knew how much she loved her
homeland. But if he gave her the choice—would she choose to stay?

Or would she choose to embrace a new life?

As his wife?

Connor was waiting for her by the stream, as he had been
waiting for her every afternoon. Her heart lurched in her breast, a painful
reminder that soon he would no longer be here waiting for her.

Because soon he would return to Dal Riada. And she, once
again, would embrace her solitary existence, despite how the love of her kin
encircled her.

He took her hands, as he always took her hands, but this
time he pulled her close. The heat of his body sank into her soul, his
masculine scent tantalized her senses. He rested his forehead against hers and
his uneven breath drifted across her face.

Her lips parted to ease her breathing. He had never held her
so before. Had he heard of her father’s return? Did he feel, as she did, that
this might be the last time they ever met this way?

Tomorrow she would have to tell him who she truly was. And
while it would change nothing between them, in the end that didn’t even matter.
Because once Connor’s business with her father was concluded, he would leave
Ce-eviot.

“Each afternoon,” he said, and his words whispered against
her lips, “I fear you may not come to me.”

“I promised I would.” Their lips were so close. Did she dare
steal a kiss? “I never break my word, Connor.”

“I cherish your loyalty, Aila.”

He had so much more than her loyalty. In the silence of the
night, during the quiet moments of the day and whenever she was with him, she
faced the truth of her feelings. He filled her heart with joy, her soul with
sunshine. She no longer woke each morning with a sense of resignation. Instead
she couldn’t wait to arise, couldn’t wait for her students’ lessons to finish.
Couldn’t wait until the moment when it was time to meet by the stream.

She lifted her head and Connor’s lips brushed hers. A
fleeting, tantalizing touch. A touch that seared her core with a wild, reckless
longing.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first moment I saw you.”

His ragged whisper scorched her parted lips. She hadn’t been
mistaken. “I thought you far from interested that first day. You surely didn’t
give any indication of your thoughts.”

He moved closer. The breadth of his shoulders blocked out
the rest of the world, his white linen shirt sculpted his impressive chest. And
the weave of his plaid branded her through the softness of her gown.

“How could I? You were an aloof Pictish lady and I a mere
savage Scot.”

She leaned into him, soaking up the hard ridges of his
chest, the fresh scent of his hair, the faint sweetness of mead on his breath.
“So what has changed?”

“Nothing.” His fingers tightened around hers and his eyes
enslaved her. “Yet everything.”

His words curled through her heart, shimmered in her blood.
Nothing. Yet everything. The chance of them having a future together was
remote. And yet she had been given this time with him. Moments to savor, to
cherish. To remember for the rest of her life.

She would not hold back through fear of ridicule or the
possibility he did not feel as strongly as she.

“I never imagined,” she whispered, superstitiously afraid
her words might be overheard by a vengeful goddess, “I would ever feel this way
again, Connor. You’ve shown me the way back into the world I once knew.”

He swallowed, as if words lodged in his throat. But that was
all right. She hadn’t expected him to feel the same. It was enough to know her
words affected him sufficiently for such a reaction at all.

“Aila.” His voice rasped and his grip on her fingers became painful.
“God, there’s something I—”

Drun, lying at their feet, lifted his head and growled
softly. Connor hesitated and at the same moment, she became aware of movement
on the ridge.

Instinctively she pulled back and Connor didn’t attempt to
restrain her. Turning, she saw another Scot bearing down upon them and
stiffened at the cold glance he shot her way.

“Connor.” After that one look, he behaved as if she wasn’t
even there.

“What is it, Cam?” Connor sounded as though he was
struggling not to throttle the other man. Aila wrapped her arm around Drun’s
neck. Fighting was second nature among men, especially warriors, and rarely
meant anything. But she hoped they would settle whatever differences they had
without resorting to fists or swords. Violence tarnished and she didn’t want
anything to tarnish this moment.

“Devorgilla, Queen Brilicie of Ce, commands your presence.”
There was unmistakable derision in his tone and Aila bristled in affront. How
dare he speak her mother’s name in such a manner?

Connor looked on the point of declining. Then he exhaled an
impatient breath. “I’ll come directly.” But he didn’t move a muscle. Neither
did the other Scot. Connor glared. “Thank you for delivering the message,
MacNeil.”

MacNeil jerked his head at Connor and without so much as a
glance in Aila’s direction marched back up the ridge.

“Your queen,” Connor said and there was a trace of the same
derision in his tone as the other Scot had used when speaking of her mother,
“has excellent timing.”

“I love my queen.” She traced her fingertips over the corded
muscle of his chest, imagined no linen lay between them. Naked. How strange
that, since meeting Connor, no fevered dreams had enslaved her nights. He
covered her fingers with his, pressing her hand against his heart. She dragged
her mind back to the present, but only partly succeeded as she realized how
much she missed those heated encounters. Especially when now she could imagine
her shadowy lover possessed Connor’s face. “You can’t blame her for not
trusting the Scots.”

He smiled and shook his head. “It’s not your queen I care
about.” He hesitated. “I haven’t pressed you before, Aila, but I would like to
know. Is it the eldest Princess Devorgilla who prevents you from attending the
nighttime feasts?”

Her heart, already galloping at the way he’d so casually
intimated that he cared about her, slammed against her ribs. Now was, perhaps,
the perfect time to tell him of her true identity. But the faintest whisper of
an idea, an outrageous, scandalous idea, flickered on the edges of her
consciousness.

An idea that depended on her concealing her true heritage
for just one more night.

“Yes.” The word was breathless. And it was the truth. She
hoped he wouldn’t press further.

“I should like to have words with this elusive princess.” He
sounded irritated and she had to smother a nervous giggle.

“I’m sure you’ll be given the opportunity to tell her
exactly what you think of her.”

“I’m sure I will.” He raised her hand and brushed his lips
across her knuckles. His eyes never left hers. “But I doubt I’ll waste my
breath.”

Illicit excitement surged. She now knew exactly when she was
going to tell him her true name, and if all went well he would not possess the
breath to speak, let alone condemn her for her mild subterfuge.

“I believe I may cancel my lessons in the morning.” He had
no idea how rarely she canceled lessons, but that wasn’t important. Tomorrow
might be the last time they would ever see each other. “I believe I may spend
the entire day here, by the stream.”

Even though her father was returning in the morning, it
would be hours before he was ready to greet his daughters. And he certainly
wouldn’t grant an audience with the Scots straightaway.

Connor smiled. It was a smile that reached deep into her
heart, warming her, reassuring her that her half-formed plans of intrigue for
tonight would be more than welcomed.

“I believe so shall I.” His smoky whisper stoked her senses,
igniting a slow burn that curled deliciously between her thighs.