Must Love Kilts (22 page)

She craved him with a longing she wouldn’t have dreamed possible.

The hunger in his eyes said he wanted her as badly.

But she needed to hear the words. She couldn’t guess how much time she might have in his world, so she wanted to see the burn of desire darkening his eyes, hear his liquid-seduction voice deepen and turn rough like skeins of smooth, raw silk rolling all over her.

“Now you are speaking untruths.” His tone was low and gruff now. “You know fine what you do to me.” He held her gaze, circling his thumb over the sensitive skin of her wrist before he released her. “This night, if you will let me, I’ll prove it to you.” Margo nearly swooned.

A swirl of emotions rose inside her, elation, giddy excitement, and a tiny sliver of fear. If he meant what she thought and they made love, and she then lost him, she’d never get over the pain.

For now, her blood rushed and tingles danced across her nerves. The very idea of actually sleeping with him—and on a plaid!—had her knees knocking and her heart hammering like a drum. Then one of the men on his ship shouted and waved at him. He turned away from her toward the
Sea-Raven
—once again all medieval warlord.

“Come, lass, we must be off.” He took her hand, leading her into the surf. “Orosius will have ordered the men to stretch an extra sailcloth over the stern.

You’ll be sheltered there, with plenty of plaids and furs to keep you warm. I’ll be close by, on the steering platform.”

Margo froze, the icy water foaming about her knees.

“I’m not worried about keeping warm.” All thoughts of lovemaking had fled her mind. “It’s the possibility of drowning that scares me.”

“Bah!
Sea-Raven
surrenders no one to the briny depths.” Magnus reached for her, scooping her into his arms and holding her tight against him as he plunged into the surf. He strode through the tossing waves, heading away from the shore and right up to his beast-headed dragon ship.

“No ill will come to you, I promise.” He leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“There’s always a first time.” The wind caught her words, snatching them away before he could hear.

“Aye, there is.” He flashed a grin at her, proving that he had heard. “And I’ll make this one so good you’ll beg me to sail on
Sea-Raven
, knowing the bliss that awaits you at the journey’s end.”

His vow sent delicious shivers racing through her, making her feel hot and tingly even as cold, choppy water swirled around them, drenching them to the waist.

But then the
Sea-Raven
’s high-prowed sides loomed before them and Magnus was holding her above his head, shouting for someone named Ewan to help her board. A strapping young lad with a broad, freckled face appeared at once, leaning down and plucking her over the ship’s side as if she weighed no more than a sack of goose down.

“My lady.” He grinned and set her gently on her feet near an empty rowing bench. “Ewan, at your service,” he offered, helping her onto the oar bank. Leaning close to her ear, he lowered his voice. “Thon buffoons aren’t as grim as they look. They’ll come around.

Ne’er you worry.”

Then he was gone, hurrying away to join Orosius near the big steering oar.

And now that he’d left and she had a clear view down the center aisle of the ship, she immediately saw why he’d given her a warning.

The men lining the oar banks were turning their gazes aside, avoiding her eyes. One shuddered and several others made signs against evil. A small, wiry man who looked hard and strong despite his size, even appeared to be muttering a silent prayer.

Margo blinked.

I don’t bite,
she started to say, until the genuine fear on their faces made her hold her tongue. In their world, she knew, they had good cause to think she was a witch. Even so, such a reception wasn’t a very propitious beginning.

But before their rejection could sting too badly, Magnus swung over the rail, landing lightly beside her.

“Come, you’ll have more comfort at the stern.” Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet, sliding his arm around her waist to steady her as he led her down the narrow aisle to the makeshift shelter he’d arranged for her.

When she was settled, he reached to adjust the bearskin cloak about her shoulders. That done, he threw open a kist and withdrew a fresh plaid, slinging it expertly across his own shoulders. Then he shut the chest and straightened, bracing his hands on his hips as he peered down at her.

It was a look that made her breath catch in her throat. Could he be any more handsome with his plaid highlighting his broad shoulders and the wind molding highlighting his broad shoulders and the wind molding his kilt to his powerful thighs? Was there anything sexier than watching his long raven hair streaming in the blowing sea air?

Margo didn’t think so.

Unless it was pure male hunger blazing in his eyes as he kept his dark gaze locked with hers.

“Dinnae make me regret believing you.” He leaned close, bracing one hand on the side of the stern platform, caging her, as his gaze slid into her, intimate and deep. “I ne’er give my trust lightly.”

“You can trust me.” Margo hoped fervently he could.

As the least techy, scientific person in the world—she so
wasn’t
a physicist—she couldn’t be sure she might not evaporate any minute, disappearing in front of his eyes as Donata had vanished before her.

It was a possibility she didn’t want to consider.

She especially didn’t care to think about it when just breathing in the same air was making her weak-kneed with wanting him.

“Raise!”
A male voice Margo recognized as Ewan’s roared the sudden command, and even before she could blink, twenty-four oars shot upward, sparkling water flying from the poised wooden blades.

“Dear God! ” She jumped, terror sweeping her.

“What are they doing?”

“Naught they shouldn’t be. We’re leaving.” Leaning in again, he reached one hand around her neck, forcing her to look at him and not the rowers. “You’ve no reason to be afraid,
mo ghaoil
.” The Gaelic sounded rich and beautiful on his tongue, making her forget her fear.

He’d used the Gaelic term for “my dear.” Margo knew the word from her failed attempt to learn the language.

But before she could consider the implications of Magnus calling her his dear, Ewan shouted again.

“Lower and strike!”

The oar blades whipped downward, biting into the sea as the
Sea-Raven
surged forward in a burst of spray and cheers from the men. They were flying, shooting across the waves at incredible speed. Cold, white water shrieked along the hull and seabirds screamed above them as the oars flashed, bringing the
Sea-Raven
to life.

“Holy moly!” Margo was going to die.

“Hush, you.” Magnus’s warm breath touched her cheek. His fingers slipped from her nape into her hair, twining there, caressing. Delicious chills rippled down her spine and all through her, soothing and tantalizing her.

“O-o-oh . . .” His touch was magic.

“Shhh, I said.” He was massaging the back of her head now, letting her hair spill over his hand.

And then he kissed her, soft and sweet. A slow, barely there brushing of his lips back and forth over hers, and so scintillatingly intimate that she forgot all about the men on the rowing benches and what they were doing with the oars.

She didn’t even care that she was on a boat.

A medieval warship to boot.

Magnus was kissing her and nothing else mattered.

Nothing at all.

Something that would’ve mattered to her if she’d known was the icy chill pouring off a petite, raven-haired woman who sat on a stool in a tiny, dank cell many heather miles from Loch Gairloch and the
Sea-Raven
. St. Eithne’s by name, the nunnery could easily have been called hell. Good, holy women did live quietly there, praying, stitching, and offering viands to any beggars who called at their gates. But the nuns of St. Eithne took their piety seriously, shunning all comforts and graces for themselves and any females unfortunate enough to find themselves in the sisters’ care.

Donata Greer was one such unwilling guest.

And if another timid, uncooperative servant brought her a wooden bowl of gruel instead of the cold, sliced capon breast and roasted meats she demanded, she’d rake the miserable creature’s face with her poison-tipped nails, ensuring she wouldn’t be bothered again.

She’d sooner eat dust off the floor and drink raindrops from the window ledge than suffer the unpleasantness of slime-coated oats and soured ale.

The good sisters of St. Eithne’s clearly weren’t aware of her importance. She should have been afforded some status as the sister of the late Godred Greer, the mightiest chieftain to walk the land until Magnus MacBride had slain him. She was also the lover of Bjorn Bone-Grinder, a powerful Viking raider, whose amassed riches and growing number of followers would soon make him a formidable warlord, feared the length and breadth of Scotland’s west coast and far beyond.

Above all, she was a highly skilled witch.

A sorceress who planned to take her dark magic to never-before-reached heights.

If she could extract herself from St. Eithne’s infernal clutches.

Seething, Donata rose and kicked the rusty brazier that held an ashy lump of peat no larger than a newt’s eyeball. She’d do better to strip herself naked and burn her clothes, maybe even her fine silver and jet jewelry.

Bone-Grinder would shower treasures on her when she escaped this miserable pit.

But she didn’t want to annoy the good sisters overmuch.

Shocking them with her unclothed beauty might inspire them to whip her loveliness from her. Such punishments weren’t unknown and she’d seen the birch switches in a corner of the abbess’s quarters.

She also didn’t want them to deny her the gruel, much as she detested the pap.

She needed her strength.

Finding the perfect woman to crush Magnus MacBride had cost her much. She’d spent weeks bent over her runes, casting and studying them, always seeking. Until—at last—the very curtain of time had rolled back for her, revealing the female she’d sought so diligently.

Transporting herself into Margo Menlove’s world to fetch her had nearly broken her, draining all her energy and leaving her almost powerless.

But she was resilient.

She’d recovered swiftly.

And even if her plans hadn’t gone quite as she’d hoped, bringing the end of Magnus MacBride, she now had a much higher goal.

It was an ambition that would wipe Magnus and his soon-to-be lover off the face of the earth.

She’d be done with them, and anyone else who dared to cross her.

She and Bone-Grinder could even rule the world.

If her energies hadn’t dwindled, preventing her from accompanying Margo into Magnus’s presence, she would have snatched the Cursing Stone then and there. But she’d
seen
the stone, and its power.

That was enough.

She would find a way to escape.

Then . . .

Donata pressed her hands against the small of her back and stretched, preening like a cat.

Unfortunately, the horrid clanging from St. Eithne’s bell tower signaled that the dinner hour was nigh.

Soon, light footsteps would patter up to her locked cell and then the small hatch in the door would slide open, a thin, pale face appearing to announce the arrival of her nightly gruel.

As always, Donata would assume a humble mien and accept the slop they gave her.

And when she’d suffered its taste, she’d return to her stool and her spellings. She’d work long into the small hours, plying her darkest magic. As the good sisters of St. Eithne’s slept, she’d spin her plans.

Soon, she’d be triumphant.

It was only a matter of time.

Chapter 13

Magnus’s men knew that he had kissed her.

Margo was sure of it.

No one said anything. Nor did any of them openly show disrespect. Even so, as she braced herself against the edge of the
Sea-Raven
’s steering platform, trying to keep her balance, she could feel their displeasure rippling the air. With one or two exceptions, they were horrified that their leader had succumbed to the wiles of a woman they believed to be a witch.

Just now the
Sea-Raven
rowed steadily through Loch Gairloch. But when they’d first surged away from shore and Magnus led her down the ship’s narrow center aisle to the bow platform so she could better watch the
Sea-Raven
’s high-beaked prow slicing through the waves, more than one oarsman had pointedly leaned away from her as they’d passed.

The slights were infinitesimal.

Magnus hadn’t noticed.

Margo, whose heart had ever only beat for Scotland, wished the men didn’t find it so difficult to accept her. They didn’t need to
like
her, though that would be nice. A good start would’ve been for them to recognize that she wasn’t going to pull a tall black hat from behind her back and call out the flying monkeys.

Even if she wouldn’t mind the wicked little creatures buzzing overhead, keeping the
Sea-Raven
afloat.

Suspecting even flying monkeys would have trouble finding her here, not to mention a dragon ship with a crew of fierce-eyed, big-bearded men in mail, she drew a deep breath of the cold, salt air as they beat past Gairloch’s waterfront.

Had she really been there in her own time, just a short while ago?

It seemed impossible.

Inconceivable that Wee Hughie and everyone on the Heritage Tour could still be at the Old Harbour Inn, enjoying the Highland Night ceilidh. Even now, as the
Sea-Raven
sped her right by them. So close, but worlds and centuries apart, an impassable chasm yawning between.

Yet she’d made it. . . .

She glanced at Magnus, standing at the steering oar with Ewan and an older, kindly man introduced to her as Calum, Ewan’s grandfather.

“Do you need aught?” As Magnus met her gaze, the innocent contact shivered through her, making her face heat because she was sure he knew he just needed to look at her and she melted.