Let Me Be Your Hero (16 page)

“Aye.”

“It doesna seem like a tussle would do something like this.”

“Mayhap it was more like a fight, then.”

“A fight with yer brothers. Ye should be ashamed.”

“ ’Twas a welcome-home fight.”

“And all o’ them partook?”

“Aye, ye dinna think one o’ them would consider being left oot of a good fight, do ye?”

This playful banter was something she missed so much, and being with him like this now brought back the warm affection they felt for each other, which kept them close between the moments of deep love and intense passion. “Which one o’ ye looks the worsted?”

Fraser burst out laughing. “’Tis true,” he said, “’tis the Earl o’ Monleigh himself.”

She was laughing now. “I should love to see them.

The music from the tent died away, and she knew it would be time to lounge in the garden while the dinner was laid out. It would not do for Lord Walter, Isobel or even Giles to see her here with Fraser.

When she saw the first couple stroll into the garden she sprang to her feet and said, “It was good to see ye, Fraser Graham, and I wish ye the best of good fortune with yer legal practice in Edinburgh.”

Fraser came around the bench and stood close to her, blocking her way. His gaze rested on her mouth, then lower to look her over. “’Tis good to see ye, Claire, and to see ye look well.”

She thought of what it would be like to feel those arms around her again, to know the lips that teased hers once more, softly, gently, until the intense yearning to mate with him became unbearable.

“I am glad we were able to converse with each other in a respectful manner,” she said. “Now I willna wrestle with so many devils the next time I come to Edinburgh, for fear I might see ye.”

“You should know me well enough to understand I would never treat you with disrespect.”

“That was then, Fraser. Times change. People change. I thought the worst o’ ye. I accused you o’ terrible deeds. I hurt ye, and for that I have always been verra sorry. Not that any of that matters at the present time, you ken, for even if we had stayed together, we probably would have grown distrustful of each other by now.”

“Ye are too hard with yerself, lass. The important thing is ye recognize yer mistakes and learn from them.”

“But I always seem to make the same mistakes over and over. Why can’t I learn it the first time?”

His smile brought a gleam to settle in the depths of his eyes. “Repetition teaches the donkey.”

She turned away and swallowed back the tears that rode in on a flood of memories. She had forgotten how charming he was, and how he always had the gilded gift of humor. She wished she had not come here tonight, for it seemed to undo all the work that masked the pain she felt inside. Now she was as raw inside as if the wound was brand-new.

It would do no good to dwell on the past or what might have been. Her obligation to her clan and family came before her own personal happiness, or lack of it. This was a dangerous time for her and she needed to keep her mind focused and her eyes and ears observant. She was walking on the thin and narrow edge of a bottomless pit. One false move, one step taken without paying attention would mean her end.

She was not fool enough to think Isobel and Lord Walter would wait forever. Even now, she knew they planned some sort of wickedness. To know, and not know, kept her in torment. Her spirit was burdened, yet both heart and mind were determined to stand firm and staunch against whatever devious or deceptive action they might take to gain control of her.

She had nowhere to turn. If she accused them she had no proof, therefore no one would believe her. Part of her cried out to confide in Fraser, for she yearned for someone with whom she could share her burden. She needed a man experienced in such, a man to confer with, to seek advice from, and partake of his wisdom.

“Ye have grown quiet. Did I say something to offend ye?”

Ye could never do that, Fraser.
She shook her head. “No.”

“What bothers ye, Claire? A trouble shared is a trouble halved.”

“Humph!” She made a hopeless sound of doubt. “There are riddles that make no sense, and questions that have no answer, and my woes have no solution, save time.”

“Much has changed between us, but I would like to think one quality still remains. Surely ye know I would help ye, if ye had a need. I am no longer yer husband, but I am still someone ye can trust. Ye canna go through life with all yer hopes dashed.”

“Thank ye, Fraser. ’Tis nice to know.” Claire knew it was impossible to go through life without trust. The problem lay with the fact that she was afraid to reach for it. Was it real? Or was it a rose that hid the poison?

There were times when she truly hated being a woman, hobbled and shackled to the old ways. Within her, the chords of rebellion trembled and her very soul shook with vibrations of resistance. God had given her the fighting spirit of a man, and the body of a woman. It was her nature not to acquiesce or tremble and quake, but to resist and fight back with all she possessed, but instead of a Highlander’s broadsword, she was handed a paper dirk.

She was doubly cursed by the title and lairdship she inherited, and the fact that she was born a woman. She had neither a man’s authority, power or strength, nor his sword arm. Being born a woman came with its long list of restrictions. Even a queen’s power was diminished
by the men who surrounded her and fought to be the strength behind the power of her title. A man might be born a king, but a queen had to prove herself. It was the men who wore the patriarchal robes.

For once, she would like to state her views and put forth her ideas without having them immediately discounted because she was a female. It was unfortunate that authority, power and recognition required testicles.

Aye, she was a powerful woman who was respected and looked up to as the chief, but that was not given to her along with her title, but by her will, dedication and hard work. The ground she walked upon was uneasy. Her walk was a lonely one, filled with fear, uncertainty and dread, where she kept both her mind and her gaze focused on what lay ahead, because she was too afraid to look behind her to see the fiend that followed so close behind.

After waiting a few moments, he said, “I will walk you back inside.”

“No, it is best if ye do not. I cannot be seen with ye, Fraser. Lord Walter…” Her voice broke. “I am sorry,” she said, “for everything.” She could not finish, and before she made a fool of herself, she turned and hurried back into the house.

Once inside, she decided to go back to her room. She knew Isobel and Lord Walter would be angry, but she had dealt with their anger before. Facing them at their worst was nothing compared to being so close to, and yet so far away from, Fraser.

Once she was back in her room, she exchanged her clothes for a gown and climbed into bed. She closed her eyes and saw the bonny banks of Loch Lomond
and Inchmurrin Island, and on the southernmost tip of the island, Lennox Castle, sitting as it had for centuries. She imagined riding in the Vale of the Leven, and crossing the burn Leven that slipped quietly into the loch. She wanted to wake up and see old Ben Lomond poking his head into the clouds, and walk through the fine woods and fields with her sisters, her dogs and Dermot MacFarlane at her side, where wild-flowers and ferns grew, where she could sit on the stone fence, overrun with wild roses and honeysuckle.

It was there that she felt closest to her father and her brothers buried just beyond the castle. It was there that she found her strength and her courage. She imagined how it would look now, in the darkness, with Ben Lomond’s vast height only a black silhouette, while beneath the smooth surface of the loch, the waters slept, still and dark, and deep.

She tried to sleep, but thoughts of Fraser superseded everything else. Seeing him tonight made her realize she needed someone she could confide in, someone she could rely on: a man with courage and strength. Not some legendary knight out of an epic to slay all her dragons, but a real man of integrity she could believe in—a man with wisdom born of experience, who possessed strength of mind and body, a man of honor, without fear. A man like the man she had once married—married and chased away.

She rolled to her side and buried her face in the pillow. “Oh, Fraser, why are ye so far away from me now when I need ye to stand beside me?”

The answer she knew was twisted still the sinews of her heart: he was yours and you turned him away.

Aye, he had been hers, and she knew that losing
him was her entire fault. She should have had more faith, she thought. “I should have trusted ye,” she said. “I realize that now, but will it change anything? Are ye as lost to me as yesterday?”

A stabbing pain shot through her head. The draperies at the window billowed from a puff of whispered breath, and she could swear she heard a whisper…words, dry and thin, carried like leaves driven by the wind…

We will see…

Tell me not here, it needs not saying
,

What tune the enchantress plays

In aftermaths of soft September

Or under blanching mays
,

For she and I were long acquainted

And I knew all her ways.

E. Housman (1859-1936),

British poet and scholar

O
ver the next few months, Fraser prided himself on the way he was able to overcome the effect of seeing Claire and the impact their meeting had upon him.

When he had caught his first glimpse of her he felt himself sinking beneath the shock of it, and the subsequent flood of old memories and desire. He had not planned to say more than hello, and how have you been, but when he sat down beside her, the curtain that separated them drew back. That he would enjoy talking with her was another surprise, along with the thoughts of her that remained with him, long after that night was past.

As time progressed, he put things back in their
proper perspective by allowing the reasons why they divorced to supersede the reasons why he fell in love with and married her. It was all there—the accusations, the pain of her distrust, the wounds left by the ease with which she turned him away—tucked neatly away where he could return to it when he pleased, and out of the way so he did not trip over it in the day-today management of his life.

Fraser was in his room, packing the last of the belongings he would take to Edinburgh, when Jamie entered and handed him a packet of papers.

“Are ye certain you want to leave today?” he asked. “’Tis quite a storm out there—lightning that leaps from peak to peak, and thunder so strong it rattles the crags.”

“Aye, I heard the wind roaring all night. It is still early yet, and I am hoping the rain will empty her clouds and allow the sun to come out. Rain before seven…”

“Dry before eleven,” Jamie finished. “But what if it doesna stop?”

“Then I shall arrive with a nasty disposition, cursing the slow pace of my horse, the stiff joints, our ancestors’ decision to build Monleigh Castle so far from Edinburgh, and the celestial oversight that I was not born a king.”

Jamie walked over to the bed and picked up a small miniature of Claire Lennox. He held it out to Fraser. “Are ye going to pack this?”

“No…I was, but I decided it best to leave it here.”

“Why?”

Fraser fixed his gaze on the miniature, but instead of seeing it, he saw images of Claire—in her bath, in
her bonnet for kirk, working in her study, on the loch in her boat, lying naked in their bed, her body damp and glowing in the aftermath of their lovemaking. He looked quickly away. “I am not sure. ’Tis either resisting temptation, or having no temptation to resist. Take your pick.”

“Why did ye have it out if you didna plan to take it?”

“It was a weak moment, nothing more.”

Jamie studied the miniature. “It is probably just as well. She was much younger in this painting, and while she was a beauty even then, maturity has given her a more womanly quality that make a man’s thoughts gallop bedward. It’s a face few men could forget.”

“I have managed to forget it,” Fraser said. When he saw the dubious way his brother was looking at him, he added, “Most o’ the time.”

Jamie laughed and handed the miniature back to Fraser, who set it aside. “Are ye saying it did nothing to ye when ye saw her at Lord Wick’s party?”

“Drop it, Jamie. I am over her.”

“Eh, are ye now? I ken that is easier said than believed. Ye spent a wee too much time with her in the garden for her to be nothing more than a stranger to ye.”

“It was completely benign, believe me. We talked as two educated, well-bred and civil human beings.”

“Och laddie, you are waxing philosophical, and a bit too lavishly. If ye want to be believed, Fraser, ye had better eschew painting it with such brilliant colors. It would sound better to say ye felt a twinge or two of the old attraction, or that you despised her still, but perhaps with less venom.”

Fraser was about to put the trews he folded into the portmanteau he was packing, but he paused midway and asked, “Why should I say something like that?”

“Plausibility, brother. Plausibility… Most people know the truth, anyway, or they think they do. All they want to hear is something reasonable enough to believe. In other words, who is going to take one look at Claire and believe there breathes a man who could feel not a dram of emotion.”

“All right, I was not completely unaffected by her, but I have no desire to waltz back into her life, ye ken.”

“And how does she feel?”

Fraser threw the trews into the portmanteau and slammed down the lid. “I do not know how she feels. And I didna ask her. If ye want to know, why don’t ye ask her yerself?”

Jamie was laughing. “Hout! I probably will, when I see her again.”

Fraser drew his eyebrows together in a menacing look meant to warn his brother away from the dangerous territory he was venturing toward. “ ’Tis none o’ yer affair, Jamie. Leave it be. There can never be anything between Claire and me.”

Jamie nodded. “I apologize if I have put ye out of sorts.”

Fraser sighed as he gave Jamie a half-apologetic look. “I was already a wee bit cranky. Arabella said I woke up that way.”

“Maybe you need to get drunk.”

“Humph! I have considered it a time or two already.”

“If the rain doesna stop, come doon and have a drink with me.”

“Aye, if the rain doesna stop, I will,” Fraser said, “although it will clear off by midday and I will be on my way to Edinburgh.”

It rained all day.

Jamie and Fraser were drunk by ten o’clock—not incoherently drunk, but at the midpoint.

Arabella came into the room and found Fraser and Jamie totally inebriated. “Too much liquor will kill ye, slowly, but for certain.”

“That is all right,” Jamie said, while closing one eye in order to focus the other. “We are not in a hurry, lass.”

“Tch-tch…Jamie, just look at ye, and ye, Fraser Graham, planning to leave for Edinburgh, and here ye are, neither of ye able to get those silly grins off yer faces, and obviously drunk. Sophie will have a few words to say aboot that, I ken.”

“A man can drink withoot being drunk,” Fraser said.

“Och, that is true, sure enough, but it is not verra true of the two of ye, sitting there at the height of idiotic innocence, reeking o’ too much ale,” she said. “Now, off with ye to sleep it off afore ye are too drunk to climb the stairs.”

Fraser made it up the stairs in fine fashion and opened the door to his room by himself. He even remembered to close the door and take his clothes off. After that, everything got a bit fuzzy and he fell into bed, naked as a Highlander’s bum, and fell asleep.

He stirred in his sleep and came against the warm flesh of Claire sleeping beside him. The sound of his heartbeat pounded in his ears, and sent the blood pumping wildly to his head and further south.
Claire…sweet…love…

He was drowning in the sweet, musky scent of her. He kissed her face and she turned her mouth to his, open, wet and welcoming. His hand began to wander, over the firm braes of her breasts. She was open to him…willing…warm…wet…waiting…and all his.

Oh, God, Claire…

He moved over her and positioned himself, but before he could enter her, Claire’s hands came around him to cup his arse as she pulled him closer and he slipped within the warm cove between her legs.

I love ye….

Fraser was fondling Claire when Calum came into his room to wake him the next morning.

“ ’Tis not like ye to oversleep,” Calum said. “Did ye pass a bad night after consuming too much ale?” When Fraser did not reply, Calum went on. “Ye dinna look so weel, Fraser. Are ye certain ye feel like leaving for Edinburgh today?”

Fraser sat up and looked at the place in the bed beside him, not rumpled and not slept in, either. He ran his hands through his hair. Losh! It was only a dream. Too real, he thought. It was too real to be a dream.

“Ye are not going back to sleep?” Calum asked.

Fraser let out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “No, I willna.”

“I will see ye below stairs, then.”

“Aye, as soon as I have dressed.”

Fraser leaned back. He wasn’t ready to get up just yet. He had passed many nights filled with dreams of Claire since their divorce, but never one that was as vivid or as powerful as last night. Even now he felt groggy, not from the ale but from the unbalanced feeling…
He was caught in that gray area between a dream and wakefulness, and no longer felt a part of either.

He tried to remember the details—each part of making love to her—the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the warm haven of her mouth, but he could not recapture the feel of emptying himself, or the way she tightened around him when she cried out his name. He knew it happened; he remembered that much, yet the exactness, the duplication of the feel of it escaped him. It was like staring at a shadow and trying to envision a real person.

They were connected, but they would never be the same.

The dream left him feeling as if only a part of himself existed, as if the only way he could become whole again, was to experience that which he only had a shadowy recollection of…. He wanted to…no, he knew he had to make love to her again.

Claire. Always and forever, Claire.

She was the beginning and ending of all things for him. She was in the scent of heather in the air he breathed; the blue in the skies overhead; the kiss of sun upon his skin. His life began when he met her, and it ended when she turned him away. She was his first love, and his last.

There would never be anyone for him but her.

Calum paused at the door. “It isna just the ale, is it? It’s Claire. Ye canna let her go. I worry for ye, Fraser. We all do. It has been long enough. Why don’t ye let her go?”

“Because I canna.”

“Then go to her and try to reconcile things between
ye. She seemed receptive enough to ye in Edinburgh. Perhaps she feels differently now. It is worth a try. God knows, anything is worth a try. Why dinna ye go to Inchmurrin and talk with her?”

“I canna. I canna forget her, and I canna go back. There is an immunity that comes with grief. It is like the measles. Once you have had it, you canna have it again.”

“After watching you go through this, I hope to God I never fall in love.”

Fraser gave his brother a smile that hovered somewhere between teasing and sadness. “Therein lies the crux. To live withoot a lass in yer life is no life, and if ye fall in love yer happiness is set upon the cast of dice.”

Calum puffed out his chest in an exaggerated way. “I ken I will be the one to break hearts instead.”

Fraser laughed. “Even then, there is no guarantee that some lass willna come along and turn yer life tapselteerie.”

“I think I will go below stairs and drown my disappointment in breaking my fast. Are ye going to join us?”

“Aye, as soon as I get my breeks on.”

After Calum left, Fraser tossed back the covers and stretched. He dropped his feet over the side of the bed, where he remained, naked as a tree in winter. The sun was warming a square of the floor with the promise of a beautiful day, and he stretched his feet out and plopped them in the middle of the warm spot. He wiggled his toes.

Aye, Claire was gone….

And yet he lived….

He had much to be thankful for, and he was a man who counted his blessings. He had a large, loving family and a rich heritage. His health was excellent. He was financially secure. He was moving to Edinburgh and would open his law office.

He was happy and life was good.