To Desire a Highlander (33 page)

“No man has ever kissed me,” she told him true, pride ringing in her voice. She would not count Donell’s betrothal kiss, mere peck that it was, and loathsome at that. “You were the first. But I recognized with a woman’s kenning that your kisses seared me.”

“Indeed?” His smile returned, wicked this time.

“That is so,” she admitted, now certain she was indeed a wanton.

“Then perhaps we should kiss some more?”

“I’m not sure that’s wise.”

He laughed, surprising her. “To be sure, it isnae.”

“Then we shouldn’t.” Gillian glanced at the bathing tub, still empty of water, but draped with linen in readiness. “My bath—”

“Dinnae you worry.” He lifted a curl of her hair, began twining the strands around his fingers. “Perhaps I shall kiss you as you bathe?”

Gillian stepped back, breaking free. “You wouldn’t!”

He grinned again, looking entirely too appealing. “Sweet lass, do you no’ yet ken that there is no’ much I willnae do?”

“For King and country, I have seen what you’re willing to do,
Donell
,” she said, trying to lead their converse in another direction, away from the one that sent a floodtide of tingling heat racing across her most secret places. She glanced aside, hoping he couldn’t tell. “No one would deny that you will go to any length needed for Scotland.”

“I would go even further for you, lass.”

She snapped her gaze back to his. “Then take me to Glasgow.”

“I willnae do that, nae.” He shook his head, his smile fading, the denial unmistakable.

Nothing would persuade him to bend to her wish. And the one thing she desired even more, to remain with him, here or wherever he might take her, was an impossibility as great as if she’d attempt to reach up and pull the stars from the heavens.

He’d made clear that once his duties were done, they’d part ways.

And she knew he was a man of his word.

He’d be rid of her, whether or not he enjoyed kissing her.

“More than once have I offered to see you safely returned to your father’s home, my lady.” He caught her chin when she tried to look away again, turned her face back up to his. “I can tell fine that you belong here, in these isles and nowhere else.”

“All men who know the Hebrides desire to stay here,” she argued. “Those of us born and bred here are only half ourselves if we are torn away. The ache that then consumes us eats the soul and squeezes the lifeblood from the heart, reducing us to nothingness. An empty shell is all that remains,” she finished, unable to stop the shudder that rippled through her. “I have seen it happen and know that it is a suffering worse than death.”

He released her to pace, whirling back around when he reached the table with her untouched repast. “Yet you persist in wanting passage to Glasgow,” he said, frowning darkly. “I have told you, lass, thon city is nae place for you.

“No city or town is. No’ even a midsized village, I’m thinking.” He strode back over to her, gripping her arms. “It’s the wild places that stir you, lady. And if it is the last thing I do, I will make certain that you are ne’er banished from these isles.”

Gillian swallowed, her throat suddenly too thick for words. Nor could she push a response past the hot lump swelling there if she’d tried. In truth, she could hardly even see him, for her vision was blurring again, tears stinging her eyes.

He knew her soul, had seen into the deepest, truest part of her.

She would die if she left the Hebrides.

But returning to Sway was out of the question. And much as she’d come to care for Laddie’s Isle, even with all her spirit and strength, she couldn’t remain here alone when Roag and his men sailed away.

Doing so would see her meeting the same fate as the poor ghost laddie who walked the isle.

She pressed a hand to her lips, furious that they quivered. It galled her to admit such a weakness, but she was not ready to leave this world.

She wanted to live, and love…

She yearned for…

She wasn’t sure, but Roag’s image swept her mind. His dark eyes and his bold, rugged face blotted all else until her only thoughts were of him and how much she wished he loved her. Her hope that he’d do so fiercely enough to never let her go.

Instead, he was scowling down at her, his expression hard and unreadable. The strong hands still gripping her arms felt angry, not loving. Fury and not passion fueled his firm hold on her.

“I can see, lass, that you are in sore need of a soak,” he said, releasing her at last.

Going to the fire, he picked up a length of rough woolen cloth and folded it several times, using its thickness to protect his hands as he unhooked the brimming kettle from its chain. Carefully, he then tipped the steaming water into the linen-lined bathing tub.

“I will fetch a few pails of cool rainwater to temper the heat, and for you to rinse with,” he said, already
making for the door opening in the wall. “See that you are unclothed and wrapped in a toweling cloth before I return. I will stay on the roof long enough for you to prepare yourself.

“I ken, too, that you have a pot of lavender soap somewhere,” he added, pausing at the stairwell. “I have smelled the scent on you and appreciated its pleasantness.”

“My soap is in my chests.” It was all she could manage to say, her gaze flashing to the two crates from Sway—both of them on the far side of the room.

“I will need a few moments to retrieve my soap, and to undress.” She was already heading across the chamber, half certain that, shaken as she was, she wouldn’t manage to find the little earthen pot of soap. “I will call you when I am ready.”

“Do that, my lady.” His voice was deep, his tone as unemotional as if he’d ordered his squire to help him remove his armor.

Yet Roag the Bear wasn’t a man who relied on servants. Hadn’t he prepared her bath himself? And didn’t he treat every man in his party as an equal?

He did, and those were all things that she admired about him. They were reasons she’d found herself softening toward him. Why, she suspected, she’d come to feel so strongly about him.

She wasn’t just wildly attracted to him, she respected him. And she couldn’t bear the thought that he could kiss her, that he could
want
to hold and ravish her, and yet rather than keeping her at his side, he wished to deliver her elsewhere.

It was a truth that broke her heart.

Half tempted to say so, for she was still bold deep
inside, she stopped rummaging in her chests for her soap and glanced over her shoulder, ready to challenge him.

But he was already gone.

The door opening to the roof stair was empty, nothing peering back at her but darkness.

In that moment, her fingers closed over the soap jar, so she pulled it from the crate and stood. She knew he would stay out of sight until she was undressed and then properly covered again, draped in a towel.

For a beat, she considered calling for him when she was yet naked.

But if she did so and he rejected her, the shame would gut her.

No, that wasn’t true.

She was already gutted. And it wasn’t humiliation or embarrassment that hurt her.

It was the love in her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I
f ever he was a bastard, he was the greatest one now.

Roag stood in the window embrasure on the far side of the laird’s chamber from the hearth and Lady Gillian in her bath. Trying not to think about where she was and what she was doing, he braced his arms against the cold damp stone of the window arch, his heart and mind in turmoil.

Behind him, he could hear the warm, scented water lapping against the rim of her bathing tub. Soft splashing also reached his ear, the sound torturing him, setting him like granite. No red-blooded man should remain in a bedchamber when a lady bathed. Yet, much as he knew he should, he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

He had sworn to keep his back to her.

So far he’d done so.

But staring out the window brought torment of another kind. This high up in the tower, no noise from the hall could be heard. Beyond the tall, ancient window with its crooked, weather-warped shutters, a great silence
had descended, deeper than any he’d ever known. To his astonishment, he found that the immensity of the stillness filled him with a surge of freedom and wonder.

At Stirling Castle, there was no escape into quiet.

Never, not even in the smallest hours.

Loud and raucous, or muted, the din of many people and the running of the stronghold was a ceaseless accompaniment to daily life.

Nothingness such as this was new and unknown. He embraced it gladly, the night’s peace sliding round him like a sweet, soothing balm.

And as he looked out at the open sea, dark now save the silvered path of the moon, he’d swear he hadn’t just sailed to a wee Hebridean isle, but had entered a different world. At last he understood Gillian’s fierce attachment to her home. Why she could claim that more shimmered beneath the rush of wind or the wash of waves on the rocky shores. From somewhere in the night came the cries of seals, a poignant, almost human wailing that she’d surely ascribe to merfolk, a belief he’d no longer call nonsense.

He finally understood her affection for the isle and its sad, age-worn tower.

Indeed, he was beginning to feel the same.

Perhaps he already did.

Here, atop a soaring black cliff and with the whole of the night-sheened sea beneath him, it was easy to accept that there was more in the running tide than one could see with mere eyes. That perhaps a tower’s stones truly did absorb all they’d seen of past lives, the comings and goings of men.

Who was to say that with the passage of countless centuries, stones didn’t begin to think for themselves?

Roag drew a deep breath of the chill and briny air, no longer scoffing at the possibility. Gillian believed that the tower held memories and might welcome a caring hand.

And if that were so…

He’d like that hand to be his.

Gillian’s touch would be even better.

Yet he’d already offered her all he could. His life wasn’t his own for him to be able to give her more. She was a lady, a chieftain’s daughter, who deserved all the courtesies of her station. He was a fighting man and adventurer with no wealth or property to speak of.

Court bastards had little to give ladies.

But he could make certain that he left her content and at peace when they parted.

Determined to do so, he turned from the window to cross the room to the bathing tub, taking care to keep his gaze on her face.

Unfortunately, he failed.

“My apologies, lass, but we must speak.” His gaze drifted lower, gliding slowly over her and setting her cheeks to flame.

“Speak or stare at me?” Clearly flustered, she grabbed a washcloth and clutched it to her breasts.

“A bit of both it would seem. I’ll no’ lie.”

“You promised to stay across the room,” she accused, her brows snapping together.

“So I did,” he agreed, glad that the washing tub was deep enough, its water dark.

Try as he might—and he was looking—he could see no more of her nakedness than her bare and glistening shoulders.

Lifting his gaze at last, he gave her a lopsided smile. “I have warned you that I am an earthy, rough-mannered lout, for all that Stirling is my home.”

“Is that why you interrupted my bath?” She looked at him, her green eyes sparkling in the firelight. “To remind me who you are?”

“What I am, lady.”

“I already know—I have done since you first arrived.” She angled her head, the motion giving him an all too tempting view of the soft, creamy skin of her throat, the sweet curve of one shoulder.

His damnable cock twitched then and he scowled, wishing he’d stayed in the embrasure.

But it was too late. All restraint and good sense had long fled. He wanted her, and he did so badly.

Yet there were things he needed to know.

Thereafter…

He swatted at the folds of his plaid, hoped they’d shield his baser thoughts from her.

Apparently that was so, because she was still peering up at him, her face chilly with annoyance. “Well?”

“I would hear why you dinnae want to return to Sway,” he said, his tone more brusque than he’d have wished. “Only if you speak plainly can I help you.”

“I do not require aid unless you’re prepared to take me to Glasgow. If you’re still unwilling, you would serve me better now by returning to thon window.” She glanced across the room to the embrasure he’d vacated. “I am finished bathing and the water is turning cold.”

Roag folded his arms, not budging. “Answer me and I shall go.”

“It is none of your concern.” She glared at him.

“I am making it so.”

“You have no right.”

Roag arched a brow. “I am laird of the isle, for the now, anyway. You are the handfasted bride of Laddie’s Isle’s keeper. I am that man, whether it pleases you or nae.”

“We are not bound in truth.” She let go of the washing cloth and snatched a length of drying linen from the stool beside the bathing tub, throwing it swiftly around her as she surged to her feet. “Why I do not wish to return to Sway has nothing to do with you,” she added, climbing from the tub.