Lyon's Gift (28 page)

With the morning sun upon her face, Meghan
lay wholly afraid to open her eyes.

The very thought of what she had done... of
what she had allowed... heated her cheeks. And sweet Jesu, it
warmed her body as well!

Last night, though she’d been sated and
drugged besides, she had lain there, unable to sleep. And even now,
this morning, the memory of their wicked embrace made her belly
stir with desire she hardly could deny.

But she could scarcely sleep forever, no
matter that the drogue kept her weary enough to do so.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes to the
bright light of morning.

Lyon Montgomerie’s face was the first thing
she saw.

He was kneeling by the bed, watching her.
Meghan started, blinking in surprise.

“
I mean to steal your
heart, Meghan Brodie,” he said, and Meghan’s heart
leapt.

She feared, somehow, he already had.

Her heart quickened its beat. “H-have you
been watching me all morn?” she asked hesitantly, feeling both
flattered and distressed all at once.

She had dreamt of him, his lips upon her
flesh, his hand upon her breast. And in her dream... she had
awakened to find his head cradled between her thighs... as he had
been last eve. In her dream, he’d peered up at her, grinning
wickedly, his eyes flashing with an unmistakable gleam as he’d slid
his hand along her belly to her naked breast, whispering, “It’s
only me.”

Meghan shuddered at the memory.

“
Time to get up!” he said,
avoiding the question. “I have something to show you.”

Meghan gave him an exasperated glance. “You
are a despotic mon!” she said, taking comfort in her pique. “Do you
never tire of ordering people about?”

“
Never.” He grinned
roguishly at her, his look much too boyish to be anything but
engaging. It spoiled her ill humor.

Meghan grimaced as she tried to rise. He
moved to help her.

“
I can do it myself!” she
exclaimed. “Stop being so bluidy nice. I dinna wish to like you!”
she said honestly. “Don’t you realize?”

He chuckled at that. “And yet you do?”

Meghan gave him a withering glance. “I didna
say such a thing!”

“
But you are thinking
it?”

“
Och, but you are
arrogant, too.”

Lyon merely shrugged at that.

“
Then I shall resolve to
be less so,” he vowed, and inhaled a breath at the sight of
her.

He could scarcely keep himself from
staring.

Damn, but he couldn’t seem to get enough of
her.

He’d fallen asleep with his body hard as
stone, and nevertheless with a smile upon his face. And this
morning he’d felt himself scarcely able to leave her, though he’d
had matters to attend to. He’d left her only long enough to see
them well in hand, and then had rushed back to her side.

What the devil was wrong with him?

He felt as reckless as the boy he’d once
been, eagerly chasing every skirt that passed him by, starved for
the sight of creamy flesh and greedy for the female scent.

Only he no longer wanted the rest.

He wanted this one.

He couldn’t stop smiling.

“
I have told you, Lyon
Montgomerie, I dinna want you to be so accommodating! Move out of
my way,” she demanded, ripping the tattered bedsheets off and
sliding her legs over the side of the bed.

Lyon sucked in a breath as her movement
placed him kneeling before her once more.

She seemed to realize this belatedly and her
brows lifted in surprise. Her gaze flew to his and her cheeks
pinkened.

He merely smiled at her, wholly satisfied
with her reaction. He wanted her to remember, wanted her never to
forget. He wanted her to be his, body and soul; he knew very well
that her heart would come if he mastered her body. He understood
women only too well, and knew how to please them. He damned well
wasn’t going to waste his God-given talents when he wanted this
more than he wanted to breathe.

He lifted a brow. “Are you asking for
more?”

“
Och!” She gasped in
outrage. “You
are
a wicked rotten knave! I’ve changed my mind! I do know you
well enough to make such a judgment! You are wicked!”

“
Aye,” he murmured, and he
bent to plant a swift, but chaste kiss upon the bridge of her
nose.

Her hand flew to her face at once, her
fingers touching her nose where he had kissed her. “Why did you do
that?” she asked, seeming confused by the innocence of the
gesture.

“
Because you are
adorable,” he answered simply. “Come, let us go.” He rose, drawing
her up with him by her good arm, though gently, lest he hurt her.
“There is something I wish to show you this morn, and I hope it
pleases you.”

He insisted she close her eyes as he led her
along behind him, taking her to some unknown place.

Meghan had no choice but to follow, as her
curiosity was too great to deny.

When he bade her open her eyes at last, they
were in the meadow, with no one else in sight. The bright sunlight,
after being secluded so long within his chamber, made her squint.
She had difficulty focusing enough to see anything at all, and
then, she only saw Lyon standing there before her, gazing at her
expectantly, as though he were awaiting her response.

Her brow furrowed. “I thought you wished to
show me something. I see naught.”

He was grinning at her.

She tilted a glance at him. “Why are you
looking at me so?”

He lifted his brows, and his eyes shone with
a boyish gleam that snuck its way into her heart. “Because,” he
said playfully, “’tis not oft one beholds both the sun and the moon
together, Meghan Brodie!”

Meghan tried not to roll her eyes at his
exalted praise, and was thankful for his shameless cajolery as it
helped her to keep him at bay. Accustomed as she was to men’s empty
flattery, it no longer stirred her heart to hear it.

Except when Lyon Montgomerie spoke it, it
seemed.

Her heart quickened.

“
You are both the fiery
brilliance of sunlight, Meghan, and the bewitching serenity of
moonlight!” His ardent tone managed to seep into the cracks of the
wall surrounding her heart—despite that Meghan sat behind it,
casting mortar at every fracture.

“
And you, I fear, have
missed your calling, Lyon Montgomerie. You should have been a
troubadour begging entrance at every manor.” She eyed him sharply.
“You are a shameless flatterer! And I have told you I am unmoved by
pretty words, and still you persist—why?” she demanded.

He stood there, looking entirely too
beauteous for Meghan’s peace of mind—his smile too radiant, and his
words entirely too blithe—and she wanted to loathe him for making
her yearn for more.

“
Because you’ve turned me
into a besotted lad,” he answered unrelentingly, “who would
do
anything
for
merely the favor of a smile from his darling.”

Meghan frowned at him. “I am not your
darling, lest you forget!”

She eyed him circumspectly. He wore a
deep-blue tunic that brought out the vivid color of his eyes, with
a strip of green and blue plaid about his waist and black braies
that hugged his long lean legs. He stood tall before her, with his
long hair stirring like silk in the breeze. It shimmered like spun
gold beneath the mid-morning sun.

She could scarcely forget the way it had
felt clutched between her trembling fingers, the way it had gleamed
last eve by candlelight as he’d played her body so masterfully.

Och, but if ever a man could be called
beautiful, Lyon Montgomerie was fiercely so!

And yet there was naught about him that made
one doubt his masculinity. He was as hard and as beauteous as the
hills that surrounded them.

And it didn’t help much to see that he
seemed at ease here upon the land she loved so passionately. It was
as though he’d been carved from the very stone, in fact, as those
ancient cairns that bedecked this soil of her birth.

Despite her claims to the contrary, he was
stealing her heart—curse his rotten soul!

His pretty words confused her—made her sigh
for more.

But how?

When she knew better.

Was she so feckless that she would abandon
her convictions so easily?

Were all her principles naught more than
chatter?

Her condemnation for those who would not
search beyond a face nothing more than hypocrisy?

Meghan only knew that his words of adulation
made her heart beat faster and her knees melt like wax beneath a
flame.

And och! She was as guilty as any man with
covetous eyes, for she stood wholly entranced by the mere sight of
him. When she looked into his gleaming sapphire eyes... her breath
caught at what she saw there within their beautiful depths. And
when she lowered her gaze to his mouth, which smiled at her with
such sensual promise, she wanted to open her arms and beg him come
to her once more.

As he had last night.

It seemed she was naught but a bloody
impostor, and she didn’t know herself anymore!

Her cheeks heated at the turn of her
thoughts, and she averted her gaze.

He reached out suddenly, drawing her chin up
with a finger. “Meghan, lass,” he whispered, much more soberly now,
“why does it bother you so that I think you bonnie?”

Ashamed of herself, Meghan withdrew her face
from his touch.

He stood there gazing at her, and she felt
utterly exposed beneath his scrutiny.

“
Can it be that you do not
see what I see?” he asked softly.

She lifted her gaze to his. “I know what you
see!” she assured him. “And I cannot—I am not—” She couldn’t find
the words to make him understand.

“
Yours is the most lovely
face I have ever set eyes upon!”

He didn’t understand!

Couldn’t possibly.

She wanted to be
more
than a face and
body, didn’t he see? She wanted to be a heart and a soul and a
brain, as well!

Leith had always appreciated her mind,
respecting and needing her counsel, but out of fear that she would
leave them perhaps, he had made her ashamed of the face she saw in
the looking glass. To please him, as a wee lass she’d worn rags and
never a ribbon in her hair. Her brother Colin boasted of her
beauty, but never cared to know her deeper thoughts. And though she
was closest to him of all, she didn’t recall ever once, not once,
having had a meaningful conversation with him about such things as
life and death and God. It was a pitiful state of affairs when she
could say such a thing! And while Gavin was concerned enough with
her spiritual pursuits, he discarded her philosophies entirely, and
Meghan was only too aware of how he viewed those women who
succumbed to their vanities.

Meghan yearned for someone to accept her as
she was—all of her, not simply in parts!

She was terrified that behind the shell of
her face and body was a woman who just could not be what everyone
believed her to be. She was afraid that if they looked deep enough
they would not like what they saw. She had listened to suitors
enough to know that they did not see her as she was, only how they
wanted her to be. They looked upon her face and made her a graven
image, sang odes to her beauty and threw petals at her feet... as
though she were some pagan virgin being led to her sacrificial
altar! They set her upon a sacred pedestal and refused to let her
down, even when she screamed and begged and yelled.

“
Meghan,” he whispered,
and lifted her face once more. “Look at me.”

Meghan did and swallowed at the intimacy
with which he gazed at her.

“
I do not care if I feel a
fool for speaking my heart,” he said.

Heart? Meghan thought. Hah! Like every other
man, he spoke with the fickle fire of his loins. Heart, indeed!

“
I have never,” he swore,
“wanted anything as much as I do you.”

“
Me?” she asked, tilting
her head in challenge. “Or is it my body you crave, Lyon
Montgomerie?”

He lifted a brow. “I’ll not lie to you,” he
answered, and slid his hand along her cheek, cupping it gently.

Meghan shuddered in response. And like a
wanton she responded by tilting into his caress. Och, but she
couldn’t help herself! He slid his hands beneath her hair, then to
her nape, curling his fingers about her neck.

For an instant, they merely stood staring at
each other, while her heart beat a warning in her ears.

Deny him now, this instant! she told
herself, before you no longer can. Deep in her heart, she knew he
would not force her. Last night was evidence enough if she doubted
her instinct. He had pleasured her, and then had lifted her up into
his arms and laid her within his bed, never appeasing his own
body.

Walk away, Meghan Brodie.

Walk away now!

“
I want... more than
anything... to make love to you, Meghan Brodie,” he whispered, and
Meghan was lost in that instant. Her heart leapt as he drew her
closer. Faltering in her step, she went to him, and he wrapped his
arms about her, gently, so as not to injure her arm, and Meghan was
at once defenseless within his embrace.

His arms were too warm... his hands too
reassuring... the beat of his heart much too close...

His hand slid upward along her back, gently,
though she could feel his hunger in the trembling of his fingers as
it joined the other hand at her nape. And then sliding them both at
once to cup her face within his two hands, he lowered his face to
hers.

Her breath left her. Her heart jolted. It
occurred to her in the instant before his lips touched her mouth
that he hadn’t kissed her at all last eve.