The Clan MacDougall Series (127 page)

Reflexively, driven by instinct, she had squeezed those new muscles she had discovered and it was now Wee William’s turn to beg her to stop. She took marvelous pleasure in hearing his heavy panting breaths, the growling in his throat, and the beads of sweat that had begun to form on his forehead.

“Nora, I’ll come undone if ye do no’ stop!” he hissed into her ear.

“It would serve you right,” she murmured in return. “You have undone me five times now!” She wiggled and squeezed again. “It hardly seems fair and I insist you should match me undone for undone.”

The low growl in his throat turned to a chuckle and he tried to explain that
that
was not possible, but then she was twisting in pleasure, digging her fingers into his shoulders and holding on for dear life. “Make that six undones!” she said moments later through ragged breaths and clenched teeth.

Never in a thousand years, would Wee William have believed it was possible to feel this way when joined with a woman. It was worth the black eye, the swollen lip, and the scratch marks he was sure she had left on his back. Just as he was beginning to wonder if it were wrong or sinful to take such pride in what he was doing to his wife, his own release arrived.

He could no longer hold back. His wife’s machinations of his
tree
root
as she had begun to refer to it, along with her rapid, strained breaths, the way she called out his name, over and over again, was all too much. Stars exploded in front of his eyes as warmth enveloped him clear to his toes. For a moment, he thought his soul had left his body and floated high above the earth all the while his blood rushed in his ears, and his heart was either beating too fast to feel or it had stopped altogether, he wasn’t sure.

He wondered if he had lost his mind altogether.

Nora lay with her head resting on Wee Williams chest and one leg thrown over his. They had slept through dawn breaking over the horizon, in one another’s arms, clinging to each other as if they were afraid to let go.

Wee William listened to his wife’s steady breathing as she lay peacefully in his arms. She had warned him the night before that she often suffered nightmares and had gone so far as to apologize to him beforehand. As near as he could tell, the nightmares had been kept at bay and he took a good deal of satisfaction in believing it was him—and his loving of her—that had kept the bad dreams away.

He liked how she felt curled up next to him. She slept peacefully and did not stir when he gently placed his hand on hers. With a feather light caress, he ran his thumb over her wrist, thinking how wonderful it was going to be to wake up like this every morning for the rest of his days.

Lost in his rumination he continued his gentle caress of her wrist, listening to her breathing, taking great delight in reliving the loving they had shared just hours ago. Several long moments had passed before he realized something was wrong with Nora’s wrist. It felt odd. Carefully, he opened his eyes to examine it more closely.

Scars. Thick scars surrounded her wrist. He felt his stomach tighten as his mind raced for an explanation. He had been too busy last night with taking pleasure in loving her to notice any imperfections, big or small, that her body may have held. In Wee William’s mind, Nora
was
perfection.

But these scars? They bothered him, tugged at his soul. He knew from experience that the scars had been made by a rope tied too tightly or from struggling to be free of it. He knew without a doubt who the sorry excuse for a human being was that had bound the rope. Horace.

Wee William’s heart bled with regret, anger, fury and sorrow. Suddenly he felt guilty that he hadn’t been there for Nora. Had he not gone on the journey with Rowan last fall, he would have gone to retrieve Aishlinn’s treasures before winter had set in. He would have rescued Nora sooner and thereby cut in half all the hell she had gone through.

He had been lost in his own thoughts, thoughts of retribution should he ever learn the fate of Horace Crawford, and had not noticed that his wife had awakened.

Nora gasped, pulled her arm away from her husband. Certain she was that William would never see her unclothed, for her first husband never had, she had hoped William would never see the scars on her wrists or the ones on her legs.

She pulled away, rolled over and buried her head in her pillow. Shame, humiliation, and embarrassment engulfed her heart. She did not want to have to explain to him how she came to be scarred. Tears burned her eyes so she closed them tightly, hoping to keep them away.

“Nora,” Wee William whispered as he rolled to his side and propped himself up on one elbow.

Her voice was stuck in her throat, along with her heart. She did not want to speak about this with him.

“Nora,” he repeated softly. He rested a hand on her hip. “Please, do no turn away.” It tore at his heart to have her turn away from him.

“Please, do no’ be ashamed of yer scars, lass. I’ve a few of me own, ye ken.”

Nora shook her head slightly. “But yours were earned on the battlefield,” she choked out.
Not by heavy hands. Not as a punishment.

“I think ye earned yers in battle as well, wife.” He ran his hand along her hip, attempting to offer what comfort he could.

“Ha!” Nora disagreed. “I’m no warrior, William. I did not earn these fighting on the fields of battle like you.”

A soft smile formed on his lips. “Aye, but ye did.”

Nora’s brows drew together in complete confusion. “You are daft,” she told him.

Ever so gently, he encouraged her to roll over to face him. His heart broke when he saw the tears streaming down her face, her eyes closed to him as if she were afraid to look at him.

“Were ye no’ fightin’ fer yer own freedom lass? Were ye no’ fightin’ fer the freedom of John and Elise?”

She opened her eyes and looked confused.

Wee William smiled warmly and brushed away the tears with his thumb.

“I wager ye a kiss that I can prove to ye that ye are as fierce as any Highland warrior,” he told her.

“You have lost your mind! I am not fierce. I’m not a warrior. I’m just an addle headed woman who could not keep her family safe.” Nora shook her head in disbelief.

“Nay!” he said gruffly. “Ye
are
fierce! Ye did everythin’ ye could to get John and Elise away from Firth, did ye no’?”

“But I failed every time,” she told him with another shake of her head.

“Nay,” he said firmly. “Not
every
time.”

Nora pondered his words for a moment. “But I had your help the last time. I could not have gotten them away if it weren’t for you, and Daniel and David.”

“Tell me this,” Wee William said, trying another approach. “Had we no’ appeared that night, would ye still be trying to get them away from Firth? Would ye no’ still be tryin’ to get away from Horace?”

“Aye,” she answered softly. “I would. I promised them that I would someday get them away or I’d die trying.”

The warm smile returned to Wee William’s face. “Ye see?” he said. He tapped the end of her nose with the tip of his finger. “That promise ye made is all the proof ye need that ye are a fierce woman, a warrior in her own right. Now, ye owe me a kiss.”

Nora’s brows knitted together again. “A promise? How does a promise prove such a thing?”

He ignored her question. “How did ye come to have the scars?”

Nora felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment again.

“Do no’ be afraid to tell me, lass,” Wee William said. “Remember, I be yer husband and I pledged many things to ye last night. One bein’ that I’d never judge ye harsh.”

Nora took a steadying breath, fighting back the tears and uneasy stomach that came with remembering how she had earned the scars on her wrists.

“I had run away again,” she began. “I had waited until Horace and his brothers had left. He had told me they’d be gone for a day or two. Said they were heading to Chesterfield, which is a half-day’s ride to the south of us.”

She thought back to how difficult it had been to hide her joy at the news. “Horace had beaten me so severely just two months prior for running away. It had taken weeks to completely heal from it. I foolishly believed that I had convinced him that I’d never run away again.”

Wee William felt the anger build as Nora spoke.

“So when he said that he and his brothers would be gone, it was all I could do to not scream with joy. I believed that I could make my way to Firth, steal John and Elise away, and be miles from home before he and his brothers returned. I was stupid to believe him.” She wiped away a tear and took another breath.

“I waited for nearly two hours before I grabbed my things and left. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest as I made my way down the road. I was running you see, and I did not hear him coming up behind me. I was so happy to be gone that I was not paying any attention to what was going on around me. Horace had been waiting. Somehow, he knew I’d leave again.”

Nora cleared her throat and tried in vain to keep her hands from trembling. She could not look at William while she told him what had happened next.

“He fell upon me so quickly that I did not have time to respond. He knocked the air from my lungs. All the while he was screaming at me, calling me a whore, an ungrateful whore. Before I realized what had happened, he had tied a rope around my wrists. He tied the other end to the saddle of his horse and began dragging me back home. Only, he didn’t take me directly home. He dragged me through the village first. I tried to walk, to hold my head high, but that only angered him further. He took me to the center of the village, declared me a whore, an adulteress, all manner of awful things. Then he turned around and headed back to the cottage. He was going so fast that I couldn’t keep up and he ended up dragging me on my belly and back the three miles back to the cottage.”

Wee William’s heart felt as though it had been torn in two. By rights, being drug behind a horse in such a manner should have killed her. He remained quiet, listening to his beautiful wife, all the while sending his thanks to God that she had lived.

“I was bloody from head to toe when we got back to the cottage. My wrists burned and bled, the skin torn off them. He left me laying in the yard for a time. I was not able to move for everything hurt so badly. It was worse than the beating I had received before. Worse than all the beatings. It was all I could do to breathe!

“Then he came for me, just before dark. He took me into the cottage and made me go down into the cellar and took the ladder away. He left me there for four days. If it weren’t for Nigel sneaking me water and cloths to clean my wounds with, everything would have festered. Had it not been for Nigel tossing scraps of food to me, dropping a flagon of water to drink, I would have died.”

She still could not look her husband full on. It hurt too much to remember and even more to speak aloud what had happened. But something had changed, deep within her, she realized after several long moments.

She no longer blamed herself. It wasn’t her fault that Horace had done all the things he had done. She realized that it would not have mattered in the least if she had been able to do all the things Horace had wanted her to do. He would have found fault in her, fault enough to justify his cruel and severe treatment of her. Horace had been as flawed an individual as had ever walked the earth.

“I am so very glad he is dead, William. I am so very glad you did come to the cottage that night. I am glad that Rowan killed him and his brothers. I hope the three of them rot in hell for all eternity.”

Wee William could not move, could not speak. How could he tell her now that he knew not if Horace lived or died?

Nora finally looked up at her husband only to see that he was staring off at something else, something far away that only he could see. “I owe you my life, William, and so much more. You gave me a second chance at life, you see. You gave me the freedom I had prayed for. You gave me my life back and I shall be forever in your debt.”

He turned his gaze toward her then, a most curious expression on his face. ’Twas a look that asked a thousand questions at once, the most important being
did she love him only because he had given her this second chance at a good life?

Nora managed to smile at him. “Do not worry, William. That isn’t the only reason that I love you! Aye, I’ll be forever grateful to you, for taking me away from England, from all those horrible memories. It is
you
, the man that you
are
, that I love. It is your strong sense of honor, your wicked sense of humor, and the way you care about those who are less fortunate that makes me love you. It is the way you laugh, the way you care for me, for John and Elise, that makes me love you.” A sigh escaped her, along with a few more tears.

“I dare say I don’t think there is anything about you that I do not love or admire, William.”

He smiled at her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He did not doubt the sincerity of her words or her love. She loved him for who he was as much as for what he had done.

Contentment. For the first time that he could ever recall, Wee William of Dunshire knew what that sentiment that had eluded him all these years truly felt like. ’Twas a most wondrous feeling and one he meant to hold on to.