Highlander Unchained (6 page)

It was her worst nightmare. Banished to the Highlands and forced to marry an uncouth savage. Now would be the best time to escape, while he was weakened. Slowly, she started moving back.

His head snapped around, and she froze.

“Flora.” His voice was hard and steady. “Take one more step and you’ll regret it.”

Not weakened at all. The man was inhuman.

Another night had passed by the time they climbed up the sea-gate stairs to Drimnin Castle. Lachlan’s side ached, and his head felt as if it had been split in two with Allan’s battle-ax. The bleeding had stopped, but if he didn’t get some rest soon, he knew fever would set in. If it hadn’t already.

He led them across the yard and up the timber forestairs to the entry of the keep. As was common with most tower house castles, the only entry was from the first floor. If any attackers made it through the gate, the stairs could easily be removed or burned.

It was more of a relief than he would admit when they entered the warmth of the keep.

Flora looked around the entry, obviously unimpressed, and spun on him immediately, eyes flashing. “Where is he? I demand that you take me to your laird, now.”

“Demand?” His temper flared. He was in no mood for her sharp tongue. “Have care, little one. Remember your status here.”

“How could I forget? I’m a prisoner. Abducted by a band of Highland barbarians.”

His hand whipped out to grip her arm, and he peered down into that beautiful mutinous face. “I do not like that word.” His voice cut like steel. “Do not use it again.”

He saw the spark in her eyes, delighting in the knowledge that she’d gotten to him. “The truth too painful?”

His gaze slid down the length of her body. A barbarian would know exactly how to shut her up. “Would you like it to be?”

“How dare you—”

“There’s not much I wouldn’t dare, and you’d do best to remember it.” He nodded, and his men and the servants retreated, leaving them alone.

She didn’t miss the silent command. “Just who do you think you are?”

He smiled, but it was without humor. “Who do you think? Your host.”

Her eyes widened. “You couldn’t be.”

Her disbelief shouldn’t bother him, but it did. He was the Laird of Coll, and she’d damn well better believe it.

“But…” Her voice dropped off.

He could tell by her expression what she was thinking. That he wasn’t refined enough and had none of the courtly graces of a laird. Damn right. He was too damn busy fighting her brother. Too damn busy protecting his clan from years of floods and famine. And war. What learning he’d had was forged on the battlefield.

“Why have you brought me here?” she asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“I’ll never marry you.”

The certainty in her voice infuriated him. “I don’t recall asking,” he said coldly.

“A man like you wouldn’t ask. He’d take.”

He took a step closer to her. She didn’t know when to stop. By God, she would learn. “And what kind of man am I?” he asked in a dangerous tone.

She lifted her chin and met him square in the eye, refusing to cower before his intimidation. “The kind who abducts a lady with no care for the plans he’s upset and forcibly brings her to his keep.”

“You would have been miserable with him.”

“He was
my
choice.”

He didn’t understand her. She didn’t deny that her marriage would have been a mistake, but she was still angry that he’d interrupted her elopement. There wasn’t enough time in the day to decipher the mind of a lass.

She gave him a sidelong look from under her long lashes. “So you do not intend to force me to marry you?”

“No,” he answered truthfully.

Her nose wrinkled, as if she weren’t sure whether to believe him. “Then it’s my brother Hector. You intend to use me to get to him.”

It hadn’t taken her long to figure it out. Part of it, anyway. The lass did not have just a sharp tongue and beauty, she had wits as well. He gave her a long appraising glance. He would have to be careful. If she learned what he was about, it could make his task difficult.

She had a smug expression on her face. “Well, you are in for a disappointment if you think to use me to bargain with Hector. I barely know him.”

“But I do.”

Too well. Lachlan and Hector had been at each other’s throats for years, since the day of Lachlan’s father’s funeral, when Lachlan was not yet ten and Hector had used the burial as an opportunity to take over Coll. Lachlan’s uncle Neil Mor had thwarted the brash invasion, cutting off the heads of the Duart Macleans and tossing them into the stream now known as
Struthan nan Ceann
, the Stream of Heads.

Hector had never forgotten—or forgiven—his defeat, and Lachlan had been fighting for what was his ever since.

Tensions had run high between the two branches of the clan for years, but the feuding resumed not long ago when Lachlan refused to bow to Hector as the superior branch of the clan. It was a bit of posturing by Hector to answer for his invasion of Lachlan’s lands in Morvern. Hector claimed that his actions were justified by Lachlan’s refusal to take his part in his blood feud with the MacDonalds—a duty that was owed to a chief. The kinship between the two branches of Macleans, descended long ago from brothers, was all but forgotten. As a feudal baron, Lachlan didn’t owe fealty to anyone, except perhaps the king. And with King James’s recent maneuverings, even that was debatable.

“Hector has something of mine. Now I have something of his.”

“What does he have? Your favorite dog?”

“No,” he said flatly. “My favorite castle.”

Her eyes widened appreciably. “Breacachadh, on the Isle of Coll?”

“Yes.” His fists clenched. With Hector’s ancestral seat, Duart Castle, sequestered and seized by the king’s commissioners for his treasonous dealings with Queen Elizabeth, he’d turned his sights to Lachlan’s.

“But how?”

“I was away.” While Lachlan was gone, Hector had led a force to Coll and, using trickery, captured the castle. But Hector would pay for his treachery.

“Why did you not appeal to the king?”

His jaw clenched. “I did.” He’d tried to follow the rules, but it had only made things worse. Much worse. He would never make that mistake again.

“You’ve kidnapped me for nothing. My brother has been after Coll for some time, he will not exchange it for me. A sister he barely knows.”

“You underestimate your worth, Flora.”

He knew right away that it was the wrong thing to say.

Her face went taut, and her voice grew thick with emotion. “I know exactly my worth.”

There was something significant about her words, but he didn’t have the energy to figure it out. He wouldn’t feel pity. She was a means to an end. He was finished with this conversation. Before she guessed what he intended, he lifted her in his arms and started to carry her up the stairs.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to your room.”

“W-h-h-y?”

To shut her up so he could get some sleep. And it had seemed like the most effective method at first—until he was forcefully reminded of his injury.

“You shouldn’t be carrying me. You’ll reopen the wound.”

“Since you’re the one who put it there, I’m surprised you care.”

“I didn’t mean—” She stopped. “Well, I did, but…well…Forget it. You can bleed to death for all I care.”

“Your concern is touching.”

He swung open the door; it squeaked and rattled off its hinges a little. The years of famine had taken its toll. Drimnin Castle was old and in desperate need of repair. He looked around the sparse room, knowing that it was far different from what she was used to, but until he got his castle back, it would be her home.

He dropped her on the bed.

“You can’t mean for me to sleep here?”

Her horrified tone only fueled his anger. “Is there someplace you would rather sleep?” He leaned over her, and she tried scooting back away from him, but there was not much room to maneuver on the small bed.

He moved closer, looming over her. Only a few inches separated them. “My bed, perhaps?”

Her eyes widened. “Never.”

He didn’t move. Tension crackled between them thick and heavy. God, he could smell her. Could hear the furious beat of her heart. He could almost taste the warmth of her lips beneath his. Opening. So soft and sweet. His body ached with pent-up desire.

He should take her right now. It would be over, and she would be his. And God knows he wanted her. Many men in his position would.

But not him.

He jerked away, furious, his body drumming with anger and lust. He’d never used force to get what he wanted, and he wouldn’t start now. Now matter how tempted. He’d have her. And soon. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

Flora MacLeod would be his bride. The ransom demand to Hector would give him the time to convince the lass to marry him. Like it or not, he needed her. And it couldn’t be done with force. But pandering to the contrariness of a termagant left a bitter taste in his mouth. He cursed the need for her approval, but there was no doubt about it, she would be his.

And if she tried to stand in his way…

There would be no mercy.

Chapter 3

Three days later, Flora was ready to leap from her tower prison.

The first time she’d tried to leave, about five minutes after he’d left her, her path had been blocked by two imposing guardsmen.
Two
men were entirely unnecessary, as it took only
one
to completely fill the doorway. If there was a man in this keep under six feet tall, she’d yet to see him.

A pleasant-looking man of about forty years escorted her—gently but firmly—back into the room. “The laird wishes for you to enjoy his hospitality in your room for now, my lady.”

“So I’m to be a prisoner?” she asked, employing her most haughty voice.

“Aw, now, lass, don’t think of it that way.”

“How else do you suggest I think of it?”

“As a brief respite. When the laird is ready, he will send for you.”

She pursed her mouth. It galled her no end to be at
his
beck and call. “And when, pray tell, will that be?”

The guardsman’s face shadowed. “Soon, lass. The laird is a very busy man.”

“I’m sure he is,” she said sweetly. “Abducting any more helpless lassies this week?”

“Helpless?” He chuckled. “Ah, lass, you have a fine sense of humor,” he chortled, closing the door behind her.

Busy
. More like he enjoyed torturing her. The Laird of Coll. She still couldn’t believe that the handsome kidnapper with enough raw masculinity to entice a nun was Lachlan Maclean. Why had she never seen him at court? She would have remembered him. He was a difficult man to forget.

Even days later, the memory of his presence filled the room. For a moment, with his body leaning over her and a glint in his hard blue gaze that made her feel warm and syrupy, she’d thought…

She’d thought he was going to kiss her.

And she’d frozen like a silly fool, caught up in the powerful magnetism that seemed to surround him. Irresistibly drawn to him like Icarus to the sun. For a moment, she’d wanted him to kiss her. To feel his mouth on hers. To melt against his heat. Her cheeks burned with the knowledge of how badly her body had betrayed her.

At least her initial fears had proved unfounded—he did not intend to force her into marriage. But discovering that he meant to use her as a bargaining chip against her brother to exchange her for his castle wasn’t much better. A man who made no bones about using her for his own ends was exactly the type of man she wished to avoid.

Up to a point.

For the next two days, she waited for his summons. Patiently. Or about as patiently as anyone could be expected to wait, when there was nothing to do but stare out the window for hours on end at the churning seas and the undulating dipping and soaring of the gulls.

Her sole sources of conversation were the hourly exchanges with the guardsmen every time she tried to leave her room, the occasional appearance of a very taciturn serving woman named Morag, and the two lads who’d brought up the wooden tub for her bath.

But on the morning of her third day in captivity, her patience was exhausted. The fir-planked walls of the room were closing in on her. She knew every inch of the small space.

Fortunately, the chamber wasn’t as horrible as she’d initially thought. Though rustic and sparse, it was clean. Upon first seeing the threadbare linens and rushes on the wooden floors, she’d feared fleas and mice. But the bed linens—although a far cry from the rich silk taffeta hangings she was used to—smelled of lavender; and the old-fashioned rushes were still green and strewn with fresh herbs. Her pillow was stuffed not with feathers, but with surprisingly comfortable bog cotton.

A small fireplace and wooden bench took up one wall, the bed another, and a rickety wooden table with a pitcher for washing occupied the place beneath the sole window opposite the door. Though small, the window was paned with glass and had a wooden shutter for added protection from the wind and cold. Other than the door, which was well guarded, it was her only means of escape. But even if she could manage to squeeze through the small opening, there was nowhere to go. Situated on a level summit overlooking the Sound of Mull, Drimnin keep was a simple rectangular tower house with a single external stair turret on the east side of the southern wall. The laird had placed her in the uppermost chamber of the tower in a small garret. To escape, she’d have to climb down about forty feet of sheer stone.