Lord of the Black Isle (6 page)

When the early evening began to settle around them, she broke the silence. “I hate to sound unappreciative for your kindness in rescuing me, but I am hungry… or to be more accurate, I am starving and my stomach thinks my throat has been cut.”

He didn't say anything, and she would have to say she was disappointed that he kept on riding. After a while, she began to feel a bit sleepy, so she closed her eyes, vaguely aware that her head flopped backwards. Her only thought was that he could shove it away if he liked… and that was her last thought as she drifted off to sleep.

She had no way of knowing how long she dozed, for when she opened her eyes, they were no longer moving, and it was not yet completely dark. She was staring up at a handsome face, uncomfortably close due to his having shifted her so she was nestled in the crook of his arm. She wondered just how long he had been sitting there on his horse and staring down at her face.

For a moment, she was completely incapacitated by the intimacy of being held in his arms like this with her face just inches from his. The way he never took his gaze from her face made her feel spellbound, and it left her hopelessly adrift in the fathomless blue-violet sea of his eyes. She felt powerless and unable to move or turn her head, and she wondered if he was a cohort of the Black Douglas and she was under a spell, for everything about him was mesmerizing.

She wanted to ask him to help her down, but if she had learned anything in the time she had been here, it was that a woman was more effective when it came to men if she employed diplomacy, and if one tossed in a dash of helplessness, even better. However, helplessness was not in her vocabulary, and looking at him, she didn't think diplomacy would serve her any better than trying to wrestle herself out of his grip. In the end, she tried the practical approach.

“My backbone will be permanently fused to this saddle if you don't release me and put me down.”

“What is this word ‘fused'?”

“It means to bring two things together so they are physically united.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to grab them back, but she would have settled for him to simply have missed the obvious innuendo, or at least be gentleman enough to ignore it.

One look at him with the raised brows and the laughter dancing in his eyes told her she struck out on both. She wished she could simply stick her head in the sand.
Elisabeth, you are an idiot, pure and simple, and no one would ever accuse you of engaging your brain before your mouth.

Thankfully, he did not add a verbal jab to the visual one he had already given her. Instead, he said, “Mayhap I will take that under serious consideration, once I have answered a question that has been plaguing me since I saw ye spying on me in the river.”

She gasped, ready to declare her innocence about spying, but decided instead to swallow the words that crowded at the back of her throat, for she needed to be careful about how she handled things with him, and that included how much information she provided him. For a moment she couldn't decide which of those she was going to respond to: the accusation that she was spying, or what it was that had been plaguing him. She opted for the latter, not grasping the fact that she had compromised herself, when she asked, “And what question would that be?”

The words no more than left her mouth when she noticed the way he was looking at her, and she stood there like a charmed snake while he lowered his head and when she gazed into his eyes she understood her mistake, for she was unable to look away.

Her heart began to pound. She could have shoved him away. She should have turned her head. She could have said she didn't kiss on the first date. She could have said or done any of a dozen things, but she simply stared like a trapped rabbit, mesmerized as she gazed into his eyes. She humiliated herself further when she allowed a faint little groan to escape, just as his head lowered and his mouth took hers, and truthfully, she was not sure if the groan was born of desire or of feeling like an ensnared varmint about to be skinned. Not that it mattered, for her eyes drifted closed of their own accord. He kissed her lightly, then he pulled back.

It did not occur to her until later that he had kissed her lightly as an inquiry that she could reject by turning her head away or accept by doing exactly as she did, and this time, when he lowered his head, he kissed her in the fullest sense of the word. She remembered a fleeting thought that there were kisses and there were kisses and this was definitely a kiss… one that sent her world wobbling off kilter, so unexpected it was. And yet, it wasn't so different from kisses she had experienced before, which had to mean it was the kisser and not the kiss, per se, that she found exciting. And even more unexpected and surprising was how very much she enjoyed it, for her body was responding big time.

The kiss was slow, lingering, and thorough… very thorough, to be exact. He traced her lips and drew her lower lip into his mouth, and the sensuality of it made her dig her hands into his tunic to keep her balance in a world that had suddenly gone off track. It must have struck him as humorous, for he pulled back just enough to brush his lips across hers lightly, and as he did, she sighed, thinking she was so very happy to find she enjoyed kissing him as much as she did.

But, she had to admit, that wasn't your average kiss, and he definitely wasn't just your run-of-the-mill Highlander. He was obviously an educated man of good breeding who had all the trappings of a bona fide catch, so she couldn't fault him one iota. And the thought of their parting ways was not a pleasant thought, for there was some really powerful chemistry going on here.

She wasn't a child, and not one to mourn over someone for the rest of her life. She had loved Ronan, but he was wed to another now, and she knew he would have fulfilled his obligations as a husband, whether he wanted to or not. There would always be a place in her heart for him, but now there was room enough for another, and this knight seemed to fill the bill.

She knew the best way for her to pick up the pieces and start anew was to go on with her life, and if that meant kissing this stranger, then so be it. She knew that as a knight, he followed a code of honor and that meant she would not be harmed, nor would he force himself upon her. So, what was wrong with a little harmless kissing, especially when it was for such a good cause… well, she needed to see if she had really dealt with losing Ronan and moved on, didn't she?

Elisabeth, just who do you think you are fooling?

She had never been the shy type, but she seemed to have all the characteristics of it now, for she felt… well,
tremulous.
Yes, definitely the symptoms were there, for she was a trembling, quivering, dry-mouthed lump of timid reserve that made her feel completely witless. While she sat there, looking up at him like she was searching for her brain, he lifted his hand to her cheek and gently stroked it with the back of his fingers, and that opened Pandora's box, while a flurry of butterflies seemed to be loose in her stomach.

She stopped breathing when his hand skimmed lightly over the skin of her throat. Her eyes fluttered and then closed when his index finger came out to follow the curve of her bodice, lightly skimming over the swell of her breasts. And it stopped there long enough for his mouth to capture hers, while his hand cupped her breast, finding and caressing the point that sent waves of sensation coursing through her. The sensation was so powerful she groaned, for her body seemed to be flooded with liquid warmth.

Just when the kiss seemed to go on forever, it ended and reality began to settle around her. Embarrassed now, her eyes flew open and she saw him watching her, knowing he had touched her in a throat-catching way that made her natural instincts take over. She was breathing heavily. Her throat was dry. There wasn't an intelligent thought in her brain… well, other than the thought that she wanted him to kiss her again.

He must have been thinking along those same lines, for he was having feelings he thought long dormant, while a gentle wave of emotion filled his battle-hardened body and seemed to glow like a hot coal inside him. He was acutely aware of everything around him, for the sun seemed brighter, the air fresher, the birds noisier, the trees fuller leafed and a darker shade of green, and the heat of desire within him greater and more powerful than he had, heretofore, experienced.

It was as if every part of his body had joined forces in order to make him more acutely aware of her—the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the softness of her breast, the slender curves of her body, the ripple of ribs. His mind jerked back to awareness when she grabbed his hand and said, “That will do, Lancelot.”

He dismounted and hauled her out of the saddle. She made the mistake of looking up at him and saw he was studying her face intently, looking for clues… of what? The last vestiges of her aching desire for him? And he must have seen how she was not yet recovered from the intimacy they shared. Did he know how difficult it was for her to end it, or how intensely she wanted to make love to him? Was he aware of his hand that was mere inches away from having the proof of her desire when she stopped him?

Or, were his thoughts returning to normal and his sharp eyes searching hers for a hint of her truthfulness? Her deceit? Her moral values?

She, meanwhile, was still stuck on how she reacted to him, how she melted when he touched her, and how a little part of her wished he would simply ride off into the sunset and take her with him.

Still holding her in his arms, he looked down at her and asked, “What are ye hiding? And dinna think aboot lying. I will have the truth.”

Back
to
that, are we? Just when I thought both of us were happily diverted.
“I hide nothing. I have answered your questions honestly.”
Well, maybe not the one about my accent.

There was something in his gaze that was overpowering and, because of that, a little frightening. She realized their little interlude of passion had not only cooled, but the lava was now rock hard. With a sigh, she realized she was not Alice, and this was not Wonderland. Nothing like a swift kick of reality to one's backside to change the slant of things. “You can put me down now.”

He made a grunting noise and lowered her to her feet, and she started to turn away and yelped, “
Owwwww
.” Her hand went immediately to her head, and she discovered her hair had caught in a link of his mail shirt. She yanked it loose, almost scalping herself in the process, for the mail was as rough as a Brillo pad. She wondered how it felt on bare skin, but then she remembered the thick, linen shirt knights always wore beneath the hauberk.

Rubbing her head, she looked around the clearing and heard the bubble of a burn nearby. She stretched, trying to get her mind off what had passed between them and wishing for more. Chastising herself, she decided she needed a diversion—like getting the kinks out of her mind and body. She wished she had a pair of shorts and tennis shoes so she could jog along behind him and his horse for a few miles. She wondered if she would ever be able to run again, for the terrain here was rough and the shoes quite the most cumbersome clodhoppers imaginable. She almost smiled when she thought about what he would do if she started doing a few exercises. He would probably think she was having some kind of seizure, especially in the garb of the long dress she wore, or perhaps he would think she was conjuring up some kind of charm or spell.

He stood a foot or so away, content to remain stoically silent and observant, as if he was intentionally trying to make her uncomfortable. If he was, it was working. She looked around. The sun had disappeared, and the evening was beginning to settle in, accompanied by the sounds of night creatures buzzing about. It was a dose of reality, and the howl of a wolf in the distance filled her with loneliness. She knew that would not do, so she asked, “Do you know how far it is to Soutra Aisle from here?”

His head tilted to one side and his brows went up, but he did not answer straightaway. She was about to ask the question again, when he said, “I will have ye there on the morrow.”

He said nothing more, and a lull stretched between them like an empty hammock, so she made another attempt at conversation. “Thank you for helping me. I hope I haven't put you to a great deal of trouble or taken you too far out of your way. Where were you going?”

“Does it matter to ye?”

“No, of course not. Why would I care where you go? I was only making conversation and I realize the effort was wasted, so forget what I said and I will keep my big, fat mouth shut.”

“I am on my way to Elcho Priory,” he said, his voice flat and toneless.

She laughed and saw the way his face hardened just before he asked, “Ye find something humorous aboot a priory?”

“No, of course not! I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at you, but at our situation. I am going to Soutra Aisle, where there are only friars. You are going to Elcho Priory, which is a priory of nuns. It seems it should be the other way around. I have told you why I am going to Soutra Aisle. Can you tell me why you are going to the priory?”

That guarded mask of secrecy slipped back into place, and he asked, “Is my business there important to ye?”

“Oh, for Pete's sake!” She threw up her hands. “Never mind! I don't want to know, and if you try to tell me, I swear I will stuff my fingers in my ears. I'm too tired to try and humor an ogre. I wasn't trying to pry into your personal affairs. I was trying to be polite and engage you in a civilized conversation between two educated human beings, but I can tell by your ignorance of it that civilized conversation is something that has not yet reached the part of the world you live in. So, I'm going to go wash some of the dirt from my face and hands, with hopes that you enjoy your time free of me.”

By the time she returned, he had his horse unsaddled and kindling gathered for a fire. He handed her two oatcakes and a strip of what she hopefully assumed was dried beef, for she could use a bit of protein about now. She almost smiled, imagining what he would do if she started telling him about the benefits of eating protein and how it would be good for him, in that it was a building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood, not to mention repairing tissues, or that it was a macronutrient, which meant the body needed large amounts of it. Her mind wandered off on another tangent, occupying her while she waited for him to start something that resembled a conversation. Finally, when none was forthcoming, she said, “I'm curious as to why you were bathing in the burn earlier today, instead of waiting to do it now.”