Let Me Be Your Hero (19 page)

He gave a quick glance in Claire’s direction before he leaned over the side of the boat and rinsed the knife in the water. He wiped the blade against his breeches as he said, “Just so ye know. This is not a game we are playing. And my patience does have its limits.”

She was numbed by what she had witnessed. Aye, she had seen death before, but never had she seen someone brutally murdered before her eyes.

“Well, have ye nothing to say, Countess?”

No, she thought, how could I? She was horror-struck. The viciousness of what she had witnessed continued to play over and over in her mind. In response, Claire was unable to do more than slowly shake her head.

With his thin lips pressed tightly together, he watched her through narrowed eyes, the knife still held at his side, as if it was his way of reminding her that he could just as easily slit her throat.

The role of an angry god suited him, and he played
it well, for there was little doubt in her mind that her life was in the balance and subject to his whim. She could picture him sitting on Mount Olympus, playing a game with the lives of humans.

“Shall we kill her? Or shall we let her live?”

“Let her live, so that we might amuse ourselves with her.”

“An excellent idea. Toy with the minx.”

“As long as she pleases us.”

Claire remained silent, although a churlish reply waited on the tip of her tongue. The urge to hurl defiance was strong, but it was also premature. She had not yet assessed her circumstances. She had nothing, save her words, with which to defend herself and barter for her freedom. Words were the weapons of captives. To respond now would be flagrantly stupid, for anything she could say would be as superfluous as lighting a candle in the sun.

For the time being, she must look upon him as a formidable foe; one who controlled her life and held her future in the palm of his hand. She would do well to be miserly with her words, as the frugal man is with his money. She would be sparing, and use each word wisely, as long as she was confident; they would buy her time and her eventual freedom.

For the time being, at least, she yielded to his dominance, for clearly he was in the controlling position in this situation.

Apparently, he waited for her rebuttal. When one was not forthcoming, Lord Walter turned sharply and walked away. The danger, for now at least, had passed, but his seething hostility was still evident, riding just below the short supply of patience.

Then must you speak

Of one that lov’d not wisely, but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought
,

Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand
,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616),

English poet and playwright.

Othello
(1602-1604), act 5, scene 2

T
he morning sun rose golden and dazzling, touching the deep blue of the rising swells with the faint blush of rubies. Claire did not move but focused her gaze on the sunrise, now nothing more than a pale pink tint on the horizon, and her thoughts on something more pleasant than her present circumstances. She found if she concentrated her thoughts on the years she and Fraser were together, it made things bearable.

Soon the memory of another sunrise slipped into her unconsciousness as she remembered a night when she and Fraser were returning from a dance at a neighbor’s
house across the loch and, on their way home, Fraser made love to her in the boat.

She could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, and she heard the way he breathed the words into her hair. “Claire, to think that ye are mine pleasures me, but to know that I shall grow old with ye…it fills my heart fair to burstin’. I watched ye dancin’ tonight, and a fire burned inside me. I wanted ye all evening, and I kept thinking how soft ye were, and how warm, and how wet ye are when I touch ye. I will never get enough of ye, Claire Lennox.”

There was something about his kiss that night that she never forgot—a combination of fiery passion, urgent need, and yet a soulful tenderness that wrenched her heart. If she ever doubted his love for her, that kiss would have removed all doubt. She never knew she could react so strongly to a kiss, and the next thing she knew, he shifted their position and turned her to lie beneath him, without breaking the kiss. She recalled the way he groaned, and she closed her eyes. She could feel it now—Fraser pressing himself against her softness, and her feeling his penis grow strong and hard in response. She dug her hands into his hair, and pulled the leather thong to set it free. She went crazy that night, and she had to hold on to him tightly to keep from crying out when he drove her past herself.

When he drew back, she clutched at him. “Dinna go,” she whispered. “I need ye, Fraser. I need ye.”

“Aye, and ye shall have me, as soon as I get my breeks opened.”

She whimpered in frustration, and sighed when she felt his weight against her again; his hand going under her skirts. Her arms hugged him close as she opened
her legs to him, and when his hand found what it searched for, she felt like a flower opening.

Her hands slipped down to the smooth skin of his buttocks, so she could hold him against her and feel the power of his thrusting loins. She loved him so much, even this beautiful mating did not seem enough. She wanted to be consumed by him, to be joined in a way that could never be separate from him. “I love ye, Fraser,” she whimpered, her breath coming in short pants.

She pushed his shirt back and kissed his nipples until they were hard, and he crushed her against his chest.

“By the legs of St. Andrew,” he said, and she felt the surge of his warmth.

They made no move to sit up, content to lie in each other’s arms, rocked by the ripples in the loch, him with his arm around her, and her lying in the cove of his arm with her head on his shoulder.

“Were ye embarrassed to make love in a boat, under the stars?” he asked.

“Aye, I was at first, but then, after ye came into me, it was like we were moving as one with the boat.”

“I ken it added another element that heightened our pleasure.”

“If it was any higher, I think my heart would have stopped beating.”

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I go to heaven with ye in my arms.”

“What about the rest of it?” she whispered in his ear, and bit the lobe. “How do ye feel then, Fraser Graham?”

“When I touch ye where ye are all warm and slippery,
and ease myself into the cleft between yer legs, I go crazy with wanting ye, and the insanity builds and builds until I think I will die from it. When I think I can bear it no more, all the pent-up love I feel for ye washes inside ye, and I ken I am a part of ye, as ye are a part o’ me. I would die for ye, Claire, and I vowed the first time I made love to ye that I wouldna ever break yer heart. I will love ye and protect ye until the moment my maker lays his hands upon me.” He rose up on one elbow, and she remembered the exact play of the moonlight on the handsome planes of his face. “Dinna hurt me, Claire. I love ye too much to bear it.”

“I willna, Fraser. I belong to ye now.”

They lay in each other’s arms, neither of them aware that they had fallen asleep.

“Look, here be a lad and a lassie laid doon in the boat,” said a strange voice.

“Hoot! Ubh, ubh! Cò ris tha ’n saoghal a’ tighinn?”

What is the world coming to?

Claire was wondering the same thing, as she opened one eye just enough to see the sun was definitely up, and they were still in the boat. Ye gods, had they truly drifted in the loch all night? How would she live this embarrassment down? How thankful she was that she did recognize the voice, and she most certainly did not want to make his acquaintance. She wished the boat could have drifted right out of the loch and into the sea.

How could they have fallen asleep?

Well, never mind that, she thought. What is done is done. She closed her eye and hoped Fraser would send them on their merry way.

About that time, another voice spoke up, once again in Gaelic.

“Feumaidh Beurla a bhith air fear dhiubh.”

One of them must be English?
She was wondering who this voice belonged to, when Fraser burst forth with a hearty laugh.

“Madainn mhath dhuibh.”
Good morning, Fraser said to them in Gaelic, which she supposed would put their minds at ease about either of them being English.

Claire stole a glance and saw two old men with a few fish. They nodded at her and she nodded back, while trying to make certain her dress was fastened and her limbs covered. She did not want to think about her hair.

“Cad is ainm duit?”

Oh, they canna be asking our names, she thought. Surely, Fraser willna give them our names.

“Fraser Graham, and this is my wife, Claire Lennox.”

The men were looking at her and Claire gave them a weak smile.

“The Countess?”

“Aye, one in the same. I take it ye are no’ Clan Lennox.”

“MacGregor’s.”

“Aye, weel good men all o’ ye.”

Claire slid down into the boat and gave Fraser a sharp jab with her elbow, but the three of them went on talking.

The sun climbed higher in the sky. She was getting hot. Her arms were starting to blush pink.

Just then, she caught part of something Fraser said…“dipping in the loch.” Was he daft? She nudged him again, harder this time.

“Aye, a pennywecht o’ love is worth a pound o’ law,” Fraser said, and she wanted to choke him. And he said women were overly fond of blithering?

She was about to poke him again when the men finally said goodbye and left.

She looked up and saw Fraser grinning down at her.

Claire sat up and looked around. “Lord love the loch! We are almost up to Ben Lomond. I canna believe we drifted this far.”

“I ken we helped it along a bit with all that rocking motion.”

She picked up the oars and shoved them toward him. “Since ye are so full o’ vinegar, ye can row us home.”

He did, and he sang two verses of “The Twa Magi-cans” all the way back.

When they were almost back to Lennox Castle, Claire, growing weary of hearing the same two verses repeated, finally asked, “Are two verses all you know?”

“Aye.”

“Good,” she said.

The look on his face was made for laughing, and
she could not pretend she was angry when mirth danced throughout. Their gazes locked and they fell upon each other weak from laughter.

She was haunted by memories, for that was all she had to cling to. Claire looked toward the shoreline and felt herself suspended in time; somewhere between the past and the present. She usually never allowed herself to think back upon the year she and Fraser were married, but there were times when she could not hold the memories at bay.

She was glad today was one of those times, and that she had the warm memory of a happier time to keep her company. It had been so very long since she had laughed, and the sound of Fraser’s wonderful laugh that day…it still echoed through the chambers of her heart.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him, and yet she carried precious little hope that she would ever walk away from her present circumstances alive. She would never give in to Lord Walter’s demands, and he would not accept anything less.

Things seemed to be coming to her in twos today, for there were two things she wished she could be granted before her life ended:

She wanted to tell her sisters goodbye.

She wished she could see Fraser one last time, to tell him she was sorry. Not because she thought it would change anything and make him love her again. She knew it was too late for that. She simply wanted to empty her heart and clear the torment of remorse away.

Claire did not realize she was crying until she felt
a tear splash on her hand. Why does one do and say things they will live to regret? she wondered. Why did she turn away from Fraser during the troubled times when she needed him beside her—when she knew in her heart she loved him still? She was sorry for so many things, but none wounded her as deeply as knowing she’d hurt him. Losing him, as much as she loved him, did not hurt her as much as the thought that she had caused him pain.

The sleek keel of the sailboat sliced through the water toward the bold promontory of jutting rock that rose majestically out of the depths of what had to be the North Sea. Below the promontory, where the land-mass met the sea, huge boulders looked as if they had been violently ripped away and thrown into the sea.

It was a peninsular neck of land, joined to the mainland by a narrow stretch of land that appeared to be around three hundred feet in length with a deep ditch called a fosse, or goe, that ran behind the castle all the way to the isthmus. She thought she was looking at the coast of Scotland, but she had no way of knowing. It could be Ireland, or even the land of the Norsemen, for it was a place she had never before seen.

“Where are we?”

“Kalder Castle… Caithness.”

“Kalder…” Claire had heard of it, of course, for it had a long history of unfortunate events attached to it. Even the name Kalder—an old Icelandic word—meant “deadly cold.”

Deadly
…not exactly the word she was longing to be reminded of, but she was, at least, relieved to know they were still in Scotland.

She was suddenly reminded that she might not ever leave Kalder Castle, that it was very likely she would end her days locked in the dungeon and abandoned to die of starvation.

She studied the main block of the castle, which rose five floors. The boat drew closer to the pend, and the porticullis was raised, which allowed them to drop sail and glide under the arch beneath the castle that would soon be her prison.

Never had she felt so alone, or more bereft. She would never have the chance to tell Fraser how sorry she was, or that there had never been a day since he left that she had not regretted what she had done.