Highlander Avenged (9 page)

And then he slid his hand all the way up her thigh, and his thumb skimmed over that most private, moist place and she knew.

Instinct took over as she pressed herself against his hand, pressed her aching breasts against his naked chest and rained kisses over his high cheekbones. She kissed his strong jaw, following it to the hollow behind his ear. He groaned as she squirmed against him and he slipped his thumb deeper into her cleft, rubbing a spot that had her dropping her head back and gasping.

“So wet,” he whispered, and he shifted, giving his hand room between them to slip even deeper between those lips and with a surprised moan from her he slid a finger into her depths, his thumb still pressing and rubbing, driving her up to the edge of a chasm that begged to be leapt.

Thunder pealed all around them, but Jeanette didn’t care. Nothing mattered but Malcolm and what he was doing to her body, drawing needs and sensations from her she’d never before known, driving her mad with want. She heard herself whispering “More” into his ear and “Do not stop, please, God, do not stop.”

Her hips moved of their own volition, undulating against him as he thrust his finger into her and slid it out again, over and over, never stopping with the pressure of his thumb until she did not think she could bear such sweet torture anymore. Her breath rasped from her lungs, she pressed her thighs as wide as she could. She needed . . . she needed.

And then the world exploded around her. All the tension that had tightened and tightened within her shattered at once and she flew, she soared, she experienced what heaven must be like.

Slowly she became aware of her body once more, the burning need now transformed to a satisfied languor. She knew she was no longer the same person she had been this morning but she didn’t care. This was a better person, a better place to be.

Malcolm slipped his hand free of her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight against him. She lay against his chest, her arms around him, listening to his heartbeat as her breathing calmed and her body slowly ceased its twitching.

“ ’Tis raining, angel,” Malcolm said a few minutes later, pushing her wet hair away from her face.

Jeanette lifted her head, surprised to find it true. She turned her face up to the fat drops of cold water falling upon them from the leaves above and felt more alive in this moment, with this man, than she had felt . . . ever. She was a true dafty to have thought she could ignore him this day. She was doubly daft to have wanted to. She vowed she would not make that mistake again.

And from out of nowhere, all the joy she once had held within her bubbled up and she laughed.

J
EANETTE
’
S LAUGHTER WAS
like honey—sweet and golden—
and
Malcolm let it wrap about and settle into him. She smiled, her lips quirked up as if she had just learned something about herself and she was very satisfied with the lesson. Her sky-blue eyes were bright and, for the moment at least, free of worry and grief as she smoothed her hand over his cheek, watching its movement like a bairn’s first discovery of a butterfly.

“I had no idea,” she said, laying a sweet kiss upon his jaw. “I had no idea.”

Malcolm could not help but grin as his angel kept running her soft hand over his face, tracing the path of a raindrop down his bare shoulder, and over his arm, then back, retracing her path with trailing fingers, so lightly laid upon his skin, they almost tickled.

She was glorious, sensual, unrestrained, and it had taken every fiber in Malcolm’s being not to move his clothing out from between them and join their bodies as he wanted. But honor would not let him indulge either of them in such a way.

And yet, he wanted her, more than he should, when he had known her but a few days, and not just her body, though that was enough to captivate his attention. But there was so much more to his angel. Her laughter was magical; like a rare gem, it sparkled and delighted. Her intensity, whether tending his arm, seeing to the care of her clan, or giving herself up to passion, intrigued him, drew him.

But his destiny was elsewhere, and he realized that he would miss her when he left. Having her in his arms, hearing her sighs and moans of pleasure . . . that would make leaving her all the more difficult, but he could not regret what they had shared.

He kissed Jeanette once more, but neither of them held the desperation of a few minutes ago. This kiss was sweet, though not chaste. Arousing, but not to a state of frenzy, and this too he would miss when he left.

“We are getting very wet, angel,” he said when she seemed to be losing herself in the kiss. He dared not let it go so far again, or else any thoughts of honor would not be enough to safe keep her virtue.

She sighed and leaned back, looking out at the rain hitting the heather, making the plants dance and shiver. She turned her face to the sky once more, closing her eyes and letting the raindrops splatter over her skin.

“I feel new,” she said, still letting the rain fall upon her face. “Does that make any sense?”

“Aye,” Malcolm said, realizing that he felt the same way, as if they had walked through a door into a new life, though he knew not what this life held for them any more than the last, but he did not care.

She looked at him then, her eyes wide. “Is it always this way between a man and a woman?”

He wiped the rain from her face, ran his thumb over her kiss-bruised lips, as he considered her question, realizing that nay, he had never felt quite this way with a woman before. He looked her in the eye. “It has never been this way for me.”

“That makes me happy,” she said, looking down, suddenly shy.

He lifted her chin with his finger so he could once more look into her beautiful eyes. “Me, also. But now we must find some shelter out of the rain so we do not ruin this moment with illness.”

“Spoken like a healer,” she said, with a smile and a quiet laugh as she reluctantly rose from her place in his lap.

He took a moment, while she was settling her sopping skirts over her lovely legs, to find his discarded tunic. He thought to wring the rain from it but his right hand did not cooperate, so he donned the soaking wet tunic, not bothering to tuck it back into his plaid.

“There are huts at the summer shieling, but I fear it is too exposed for us to take shelter there,” she said, looking about her as if she was assessing exactly where they were. “If we go this way”—she pointed into the thickest part of the wood—“ ’twill offer some protection from the rain.”

Malcolm considered the two options: a dry hut at the meadow where the clan grazed their animals in the summer; or under the trees, where they would still be exposed to the rain. No question, he agreed with her choice, and though her reasons were sound, his was more pressing.

He needed the cold rain to distract him from the desire that still coursed through his veins, and from the newly disheartening thought that soon his arm would be better and he would have to return to the king’s army. He would have to leave Jeanette.

CHAPTER EIGHT

J
EANETTE ALMOST CRASHED
into Malcolm when he stopped suddenly in a small clearing and turned his face up to the sky, letting the rain cascade over him.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to get out of the rain.”

“I did, but I find I need a wee bit of cooling off.” He slanted a look at her so full of desire that he had heat rising to her cheeks and sinking to other parts of her.

Jeanette nodded slowly and joined him in the downpour.

“There’s an auld cottage over there,” he said quietly, pointing directly in front of them. “It looks like some of the roof may still be in place.”

Jeanette had to squint against the raindrops and even then she could just make out a shadowed outline of a stone structure.

“Are you cooled enough?” she asked, wringing the cold rain from her braid.

His cocky grin split his face. “For now.” He bent and gave her a quick kiss. “For now.” He took her hand in his strong one and led her to the cottage, though when they looked closer, there was little to recommend it as shelter. “That corner looks dryer than the rest.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the far corner.

There was a small section of roof left there, though it was hard to say if the original thatch remained or if it was now made only of layers of decaying leaves and pine needles, bright mosses, and assorted twigs and small branches that looked to hold everything in place against the gusty wind.

“At least the walls will stop the worst of the wind,” she said, her teeth now starting to chatter as the cold seeped into her bones.

Malcolm squeezed her icy hand in his and helped her climb over the rubble of one wall and into the cottage, such as it was. They picked their way across years of windblown bits of trees that had thickly carpeted the floor until they made it to the corner and shed their baskets. Leaves had been gathered into that corner and arranged as if some large animal had made its bed there, though by the looks of it, not too recently. Jeanette moved a little away from the most sheltered area and began squeezing the water from her arisaid, skirts, and her hair. Malcolm did the same, hooking his plaid under his right elbow, while twisting it with his left hand.

When they both were done and as dry as they could be without a fire, they settled with their backs to one wall, hip to hip, knees drawn up to keep their feet under the sheltering remnant of the roof.

“I suppose ’tis just as well we cannot make a fire in this downpour,” she said, by way of breaking what was becoming an uncomfortable silence between them.

“Why is that, angel?”

“If there are English keeping watch, the smoke would surely draw them to us. We need to take more care with the size of the cookfire back at the caves for the very same reason.” Her dream came back to her, the thought an echo from it.

“I would risk a small fire if we could,” he said, chafing her hand between his to warm it, but his skin was as icy as hers.

“I fear we’d only set our nest here afire if the rain didn’t put it out first.” She cast about for something else to talk about with this man she had already grown more than fond of, and realized she really knew very little about him. Now was her opportunity. “Tell me what I should ken about you, Malcolm.”

“You ken what is important,” he said, still intent on warming her hand. “What would you know?” he asked with a quick glance at her.

She thought about what he knew of her. “Do you have brothers? Sisters? I ken your da is alive. Is your mum?”

He laughed. “Three younger sisters. Da is alive. He is chief of Clan MacKenzie. And my mum died when my youngest sister was born many years ago.”

“So you are the next chief.”

“Aye. Though my da and I dinna see eye to eye on many things, on that we agree.”

She thought about that for a while. “Do you want to be chief?”

He seemed startled by the question. “It is my duty and my destiny,” he said. “I never thought about whether I wanted it or not.”

“Duty and destiny do not always work out the way you think they will, not even when you do want them,” she said, staring out at the falling rain. She could feel his gaze on her and oddly, it made what she had lost a little easier to bear. If she could not be Guardian, perhaps she could be content living out her life with a man like Malcolm. “If you could not be chief,” she said, squeezing his hand that still enveloped hers, “what would you do?”

“As long as my arm and hand return to full strength . . .” He hesitated for the shortest of moments, as if leaving her time to say they would or would not, but she did not speak. She did not know. “As long as they return to full strength, then I will return to fight in the king’s army, and when the time comes, I will be chief of the clan. There is nothing else I would want to do.”

“But if they do not?”

He swallowed and shook his head. “They must.”

She considered his hand in hers for a moment, his strong one, running her thumb over the back of it. The skin there was unusually clear of scars. For that matter, she now realized, so was the rest of his body. For a warrior, that was unheard of and bespoke a great skill on his part, and yet he’d sustained a terrible blow to his arm that could render him a warrior no more.

“You do not have many scars for a warrior,” she said to him slowly. “How is it you got that one?” She nodded at his arm.

He released her hand and began rubbing the palm of his weak one, his eyes trained on his hands. He did not speak for a long time, though he shook his head slightly and his lips flattened.

“I do not ken exactly how it happened, angel.” He sounded confused and a little angry. He kept rubbing his thumb in the palm of his weak hand and did not look at her. “My men did not follow me into the fray,” he said. “ ’Tis the only thing I know for sure. When we fight together we are seldom overcome by the enemy, but alone . . .”

“Why did they not follow you? You were their leader, aye?”

He nodded. “My second, my cousin Cameron, argued that we should retreat, hide. He knew I never withdrew from a battle before it had even been fought. He knew I was determined to take down the traitorous Scots who fought against the freedom of their own countrymen. We argued. ’Twas unusual, for Cameron had never gainsaid my leadership before.”

“Why did he argue against you?” she asked quietly.

He closed his eyes, his breath coming faster, his eyebrows drawn down over eyes clenched closed. Jeanette had the sense he was reliving that day, those moments.

“Our men were tired. Some were hurt, but that had never stopped us before. I remember yelling the MacKenzie war cry,” he said, his voice hushed. “I flew into the fray, joining the battle before I ever realized my men weren’t on my heels, as they were duty bound to be. Too late—I was engaged, cut off from Cameron and the others, surrounded by MacDougalls and English soldiers. The next thing I knew, I was dragging myself from the battlefield. I think I managed to bind my arm enough to stem, if not stop, the blood loss. And then I remember naught until a man from near where the battle was fought came upon me where I lay under thick bushes at the edge of the battlefield. He had to wait until the MacDougalls and the English had moved on before he could try to help any who could still be helped. He told me later it was two full days after the battle ended before he dared venture onto the field. His wife had died recently, so it was up to him to nurse me as best he could. I still cannot ken how he moved me to his cottage, for I was already ravaged with fever by then, and so weak from the blood loss I could barely sit, never mind stand.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to pull himself out of the unpleasant memories.

“Why did you look sad when you spoke of duty and destiny?” he asked, clearly done delving into those memories.

Though she had many more questions for him, she would not push him now when he had told her so much already. Now it was her turn. She owed him at least some of the truth, now that he had shared some of his with her. But how much to say when it was no longer her tale to tell? Well, some of it wasn’t hers to tell. Some of it clearly was; ’twas just a matter of tiptoeing through the parts she could share and those she had no right to share any longer.

“I was to be Lady of Dunlairig Castle,” she began. “I have trained for it my entire life. It was my duty, my destiny, and my greatest desire to take up that role for my clan. But it did not come to pass.”

“You were to marry Nicholas?” There was a harsh edge to his voice that she had not previously heard and his hand spasmed, the other one balled into a tight fist. She did not know if the harsh voice came first and the spasm second, or the other way round. She reached for his hand to massage it for him, but he pulled it away from her. “Were you?” he asked again.

“Nay.” She almost laughed at the idea. Her cousin would not have brooked anyone else marrying the man, and he had never had eyes for anyone but Rowan. “ ’Tis not the way of things with the MacAlpins of Dunlairig. Nicholas is not a MacAlpin. Neither was my father, Kenneth, before him.”

“I do not understand.”

She sighed. “ ’Tis a MacAlpin woman who chooses her husband, and he becomes chief.”

He stopped rubbing his hand, though the tiny movements of his fingers told her it yet hurt him. “A MacAlpin woman? But did not you say Rowan is your cousin and a MacGregor?”

“I did.”

“Then why? How?” He looked over at her, confusion thick in his eyes. “Why are you not to be the Lady of Dunlairig Castle?”

She captured her lower lip between her teeth and rubbed the heel of her hand over her aching heart until she came to a decision. ’Twas not her tale to tell, but neither had it been Rowan’s to tell Nicholas when she did. Rowan had led Nicholas to the secret of Clan MacAlpin. She could do the same.

“What do you ken of Clan MacAlpin?” she asked him.

“Other than that you are said to shield the Highlands from danger?”

She gasped, her mouth open in the shape of an O.

“Am I not supposed to ken this?” he asked, his whole attention turned to her now.

“ ’Tis supposed to be a well-guarded secret,” she said, her hand once more to her heart. “How did you learn this?”

“Angel, ’tis all anyone could speak of in the castle while I was there, though they did try not to speak of it in my presence. With the curtain wall recently damaged, the great hall and most of your stores destroyed in the fire, and the sure knowledge everyone shared openly that the English were bound for your glen to wipe you all out, there was much conversation about how that protection that had been the clan’s for centuries seemed to have vanished with the last Lady, as if she were responsible for it.” He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “There is a tale I remember from my younger days—a bard told a tale of the Highland Targe. It was said to shield this way into the Highlands, repelling invaders. Is this the protection your kin spoke of?”

The man was astute. “Obviously it does not work that way,” she said, “or we would not be hiding in caves.”

“But I do not understand what that old tale has to do with why you are not to be the Lady of Dunlairig.”

“What else did you learn from the tale?” Her desire to open herself up to this man, to share her story with him as she’d shared her body, shook her. She almost willed him to remember what the bard had recounted.

“There is a targe that has been passed down from one generation of keepers to the next—”

“Guardians,” she corrected before she could stop herself.

“Guardians?”

“Aye, one at a time.” She leaned toward him, dropping her voice, as if there were anyone else around to overhear. “Before one passes—”

“The next is chosen?”

She nodded.

“How? How is the next chosen?”

Jeanette swallowed and shrugged. She truly had no idea how Rowan had come to be chosen.

“Angel. Jeanette, Rowan was chosen?”

She nodded again, her throat suddenly clogged with anger. “She was.”

“But it was supposed to be you. You were supposed to be the Guardian after . . . It was your mother, aye? She was the Guardian before Rowan?”

“Aye.”

“Is Rowan of her line, too?”

“Nay. Rowan’s da was the brother of my da. Her mother was no kin of any of us.”

“Then why?”

She looked at him. “If I tell you, you must promise me never to speak of any of this to anyone, ever.”

“You would trust me so much?” he asked.

She trusted him with her life, and perhaps with her heart. Was there more trust she could have for him?

“Promise?” she said.

“I do. I vow upon my honor to keep all that I ken of the Highland Targe and its Guardians between us alone.”

She stared at him for long moments, trying to decide why she was telling him this secret. Was it to reassert her right to tell it? Or was it because she knew, somewhere deep inside her, that her destiny and his were inextricably entwined? If she was honest about it, it was both. She needed him. The clan needed him, and he would be of more use to them if he understood exactly what motivated the English to hunt them down.

“Each Guardian has a natural gift that is enhanced by the Targe when she becomes the Guardian,” Jeanette said quietly.

Malcolm drew breath as if he already had a question, but he did not ask it.

“Rowan has a very powerful gift, one passed down to her by her own mother, though none of us realized it until she was chosen as the Guardian.”

“Your mother chose her?” The question popped out as if he couldn’t stop it.

“Nay,” she answered. “Nay, my mum thought ’twould be me next and worked hard to make that so, as did I. Whatever power there is in the Targe chose Rowan and her gift for moving things with her . . .”—she looked at him, wondering if he would believe her—“with her mind. Whatever that force is, it took the Guardianship from my mum and forced it upon Rowan, though she fought it.”

He was quiet for long moments. She held her breath, waiting for him to claim her daft, deranged, or simply a liar.

“You do not have such a gift?”

Giddiness overtook her at the simple question so at odds with what she expected. She shook her head. “We thought my aptitude for healing was my gift, but it seems not.”