The Intended (23 page)

“Undress me, I said.”

Her hands were clumsy and shaking as they
drew down his breeches and his close hose. But before she could
withdraw, he grasped her hand and pulled it to him. For a moment
she resisted slightly. Such coyness, he thought. But then, as he
held her wrist, her fingers slowly uncoiled and gently wrapped
themselves around his hardened shaft. And then the Highlander
ceased to breathe at all as he felt her running thumb and fingers
over the skin, exploring the length and the thickness of him,
feeling the texture, caressing him, teasing him.

Malcolm’s control snapped.

One moment they were standing beside the bed,
the next she was stretched across it with her legs spread apart by
his body. Malcolm pinned Jaime’s hands above her head with one hand
as he suckled her breasts with a hunger that he had never known.
Her body writhed against him, and her soft moans bespoke her own
desires. Shifting his weight slightly, he used his fingers to
stroke the folds of her womanhood, releasing in her the moist
fluids that would open her to him.

Jaime’s soft cries brought on a new, raw
passion that filled Malcolm and threatened to push him over the
edge. Every muscle in his frame taut as wire, he drew himself up
and looked into her face. As he watched, he could see her
expression change as the waves of desire poured through her. She
kept her eyes pressed shut, but her hands reached up to pull him
back down upon her.

This was more than Malcolm could take.
Sliding his hands under Jaime’s firm buttocks, he lifted her and
found the place. With one thrust he entered, burying himself deep
within her.

And then came the awful revelation, as swift
and as powerful as lightning. And Malcolm wished he were dead!

Malcolm stood with his back to the hearth,
his gaze transfixed on the open window. With the heavy curtains
drawn back, the gentle predawn breeze blew freely through the room.
The air was cool and damp, but the Highlander felt nothing. For
over an hour he had been standing thus, and the lightning gray of
the eastern sky meant nothing to him.

She had left him. Silently, her eyes averted,
she had slipped into her clothes and started for the window. And he
had watched her wordlessly. She had paused only once by the
curtains, turning her head as if to speak. But no sound had
emerged, and then, like a night bird taking flight, Jaime had gone,
disappearing into the darkness and never looking back.

A deep sigh racked his powerful frame, and
Malcolm turned his gaze toward the bed. The room was still very
dark, but the whiteness of the bedclothes stood out in the
emptiness. He could see in his mind’s eye the space where she’d
been. He could see the proof of her love, of her constancy,
staining the whiteness of the sheet, burning into his soul a black
and bloody guilt. A guilt that was his and his alone.

Malcolm looked away and squeezed his eyes
shut. For a moment he thought of going back to his bed, but he
never moved. After all, what relief could he find there? As if, he
thought bitterly, by caressing the coarse sheets he could find some
solace for his foul and tortured soul. As if he could return the
warmth that she had taken with her when she had slipped out into
the night. He covered his eyes with one hand and glared into the
darkness of his mind. How wrong he’d been to treat her so unjustly,
and how brave she’d been to endure what he’d done to her without a
single word of complaint.

She had never belonged to another. He had
been Jaime’s first. And to take her as brutally as he had... By the
Rood! To think that moments before she had told him how she loved
him. But he, blinded by his own stupidity and anger, had not
believed her. He, Malcolm MacLeod, the falsest of all men, had not
believed
her
! He, the man who had tried to marry, not for
love, but for the well-being of his bloody clan!

The Highlander raked his hand over his face,
but he knew he could not wipe away his guilt. An ugly and terrible
thought struck at him—he had become his father’s son. Like Torquil
MacLeod, his brutal and lust-driven father, Malcolm had become a
vicious defiler of trusting women, a cruel and ruthless ravager of
the defenseless.

With an anguished roar, Malcolm charged
across the chamber and tore the bed apart. Wild with grief, he
threw the bedclothes to the floor and struck the high mattress with
the palms of his hands. To think that she’d trusted him and come
here, so late in the night. She’d wanted to explain, she said. But
she had never suspected him to be capable of such evil—and how
could she suspect such foulness?

Dropping his head into his hands, Malcolm
began to pray. For forgiveness. For
her
forgiveness!

The sun would be well above the mist-covered
fields before he would raise his head, determined, defiant, his way
finally clear.

Jaime coiled up beneath the bedclothes, her
knees drawn tightly to her stomach. Lying still, she listened
intently to the rhythmic sounds of her cousin’s deep and peaceful
sleep.

She had been so fortunate that Mary had not
been awakened when she’d entered a few moments earlier. It would
have been extremely difficult explaining the condition of her
clothes. Moving quietly, almost mechanically, about the bedchamber
they shared, Jaime had taken off her torn dress, folding the
garment carefully and hiding it deep in the cavernous spaces of her
great traveling chest.

As she had prepared herself for bed—washing
herself, pulling the soft, cotton shift over her head, drawing back
the bedclothes—Jaime had found herself performing each action as if
in a dream. Unable to shake the feeling, she was glad that she’d
had to answer none of Mary’s usual questions. What had taken place
tonight, Jaime had no desire to discuss with anyone.

Lying there in the secure confines of her
bed, thinking of what she had done, Jaime suddenly found herself
crying. The tears began without warning, trickling from the corners
of her eyes, over the bridge of her nose, silently disappearing
into the soft sheets. She only realized she’d been crying when her
breaths began to shorten into sobs that wracked her body. The
thought of awakening Mary, the thought of discovery jolted Jaime
into awareness, and she buried her face into the billows of the
mattress, only then allowing all of her raw emotions to spring
forth and give muffled voice to her wretchedness.

Some time later, as her tears spent
themselves, she thought back wearily over the events of this night.
She had always considered herself a woman able to care for herself.
In many ways independent, even. But since becoming an adult, she’d
never acted with unrestrained freedom before—not before tonight.
But it wasn’t the price of this independence that hurt her so—the
loss of her innocence, her maidenhead—it was Malcolm! She wrapped
her arms even more tightly about her knees and pressed her forehead
into them. Though making love to him had not been what she’d
expected it to be, the truth was that she’d never really known what
to expect.

What bothered her most was the confusion that
she could see in his face, in his eyes—the fact that she’d not been
able to reach him, to make him know the truth. The truth about
her—the truth about the two of them. He had been so angry when she
arrived, and she’d not known how to ease his hurt other than being
amenable to his wishes. Though that had cut roughly against her
nature, it hadn’t been the worst. Nay, it was the determination
that he could give her up that hurt her most. For she had seen the
fire of desire in his eyes, felt the overwhelming power of his
passion. With the exception of the instant when he’d driven his
shaft into her—that devastating moment that had made her scream
inwardly at the shock as much as the pain—she knew she’d been as
crazed with desire as he.

But then, suddenly, everything had changed.
She realized now that this change only added to her misery. The
change in him had been as clear and distinct as the coming of
night, as sudden as the passing of a summer storm in the Highlands.
After his wild and powerful lunge, Malcolm had simply stopped as if
struck dead.

Jaime had not moved. As she waited for him to
stir, to continue, to do anything, the tearing pain had suddenly
disappeared into the vagueness of a kind of stunned memory. The
moment had hung in time like a dewdrop on a leaf. As if life itself
were holding its breath, the air around them, the fire in the
hearth, the lamplight, the very stars themselves, Jaime remembered
thinking, had stopped, awaiting his next act. Then, with a low,
anguished moan, Malcolm had withdrawn from her. Silently, with
excruciating slowness—certainly with no hint of joy—he had lifted
himself from her and moved carefully onto the bed beside her.

Manners, she remembered thinking. So it is
manners that reward the act of loving. And extreme gentleness in
manners, at that! Kindness, solace, and the utmost care in the
handling of the woman. But no passion. Gone in a single thrust.
Gone in a moment. Gone with a single low and anguished moan.
Gone.

Malcolm had spoken no words to her, but he
had gathered her into his arms like a bairn whom he’d just
trampled. And she, confused with the suddenness of it all—the pain,
the hurt of not knowing the reason for the change, for the obvious
disappointment that she’d wrought in him—had simply waited for a
few moments, and then had slipped quietly from his bed. Without a
word from him, she had gone out the way she had come. He hadn’t
stopped her from going. He hadn’t called after her. He hadn’t even
spoken her name.

The tears began to flow freely once again,
and she lay back on the mattress, staring up into the black
nothingness above her.

He didn’t care for her. He didn’t love her.
How wrong she had been!

The duke of Norfolk threw the partially
completed letter facedown on the table as his page announced Edward
into the chamber. Rapping his gnarled knuckles on the table,
Norfolk motioned to his clerk to go out and wait, and then turned
to acknowledge his second son. Something had to be done about the
situation, he decided, but those very close to the king were being
unusually tight-lipped, and it was difficult to make decisions
without accurate information.

“Your Grace,” Edward said as he stepped into
the richly appointed chamber.

Beyond the open door, the duke caught sight
of the two guards who had accompanied Edward to his chamber. He
ordered his page to close the door and leave them be. As the door
clicked quietly shut, Norfolk turned his scowling face on the young
man.

“What have you done, Edward?” The duke’s tone
was harsh as he leaned forward on his arms and rapped the table
again. “What?”

“By the devil, I’ve done nothing,
Father.”

“Nothing!” Norfolk spat disgustedly. “Save
that for the king’s torturers. Of course you’ve done something—many
things! But what have you done that has reached the ears of the
king?”

“Father, I...”

“Who are our enemies, Edward?” the duke
rolled on. “What are they using against us?”

Getting nothing but silence for an answer,
Norfolk banged the wood surface hard. He had been in this game too
long to let down his guard, but none of the family’s enemies were
in any position at present to hurt him.

“It has to be something. Something strong
enough to change the king’s attitude toward you so drastically. Now
think of whom you have wronged. Of whom you have angered to the
point of risking their own position in besmirching you.”

Edward looked back blankly at the older
man.

“Edward, think!” he snapped. “What have you
done?”

“Nothing, Father.” he answered. “I’ve been
accused wrongly and unjustly...”

“Oh, by the saints!”

“...And if I could just find out the identity
of the blackguard who has dared to muck about with my honor...”

“Honor!” The duke threw up his hands.

“...In the king’s company, I vow on my
grandfather’s sword I will tear the bastard’s throat out with my
teeth!”

Norfolk paused and studied his son’s face.
There was nothing there that told him whether Edward was keeping
anything back. He hoped to God his son would not be so foolish.

“We are fortunate that mucking about is all
that has been accomplished so far,” the duke warned as he sank back
in his chair. “But unless we do something to correct this situation
now, an accusation is certain to follow. That’s the way the court
works...rumor becomes insinuation, and if insinuation appears to
meet with a favorable response by His Majesty, then insinuation
quickly becomes accusation!”

“I’ve already been accused! And convicted!”
Edward, quite rattled by this new turn of events, banged his flat
palms on the table. “I am followed wherever I go! There are guards
posted at my own chamber door. I have no privacy. I am a caged
animal, tormented with each breath I take.”

“Don’t complain, Edward. This could be much
worse.”

“I cannot see how! One moment I am called to
court. I am welcomed in the king’s company. I am heralded as a hero
of the realm. Defender of His Majesty’s seas. And now, in the next
moment, I am guarded like a thief. Commissions that should have
been given to me are being pissed away to white-livered wolves who
have never stepped foot on the bloody deck of a surrendering gold
ship.”

“Edward, it’s no use.”

“I heard today that the Lord Great
Chamberlain is sending for my crew...for questioning! About me!”
Edward was now pacing the room, his hands balled into fists at his
sides, his face crimson with rage. He stopped and looked directly
at his father. “How could it be worse than this, Your Grace? How
could they do more damage to me than they’ve already done?”