The old gown he’d borrowed from his sister was a shade small and clung to her breasts and hips, emphasizing the seductive curves of her body. Her long blond hair tumbled in loose waves around her shoulders, catching the sun in a golden halo of light. Freshly scrubbed cheeks revealed the translucence of her pale skin, a luminous contrast to sea blue eyes framed in thick dark lashes and to her bold red lips.
It was her mouth that was driving him mad. Filling his mind with dark, erotic images. Her lips were soft and wide with a deep, sensual curve, highlighted by a tiny naughty dimple on one cheek. He thought of how close he’d been to kissing her and regretted the forbearance that had only increased his hunger. He wasn’t a patient man by nature, especially when he wanted something. And he wanted Flora MacLeod. With a force that sent a surge of heat rushing through his veins.
Tearing his gaze from her mouth, he realized she was waiting for his response. Though she’d spoken derisively, Lachlan heard the underlying challenge in her question. What did marriage have to offer her? Stretching his legs out in front of him, he leaned back in his chair and took a long draught of ale. “Obviously you have no need of connections or additional wealth.” He wished he could say the same.
She lifted a finely arched brow, surprised that he was taking her question seriously. “Obviously.”
“Hmm…” He paused, considering. “May I presume that love is too trite a reason?” Although in his experience, young women—his sisters included—thought of nothing else.
“It’s as good as any, I suppose. Though perhaps not a practical one. One may wait a lifetime for such an occurrence—if it happens at all.”
Her answer surprised him. He would have thought her pragmatic like him. Romantic love had no part in his decision to marry, simply because he would never allow emotion to influence his decisions. Love was for other people. His devotion and loyalty belonged to his clan and to his family. No one woman would ever change that. And certainly not this one. He was too old to confuse lust with love.
She would bring him much. But love wasn’t part of the bargain.
But Flora was not wholly without illusions of romantic love. He filed the knowledge away for later, when it might be helpful. First he needed to understand the way she thought, before he decided how best to approach her with his offer. He hadn’t told her of his intentions from the first, because he knew she would be too angry to see reason. And he’d been warned of her contrariness. But he would do whatever it took to secure her agreement to marry. When he played, he played to win. He hadn’t survived the years of attack by shirking from doing what was necessary.
He held her gaze. “Then what of passion as a reason to marry?”
He thought a tinge of pink appeared upon her cheeks, but if she was embarrassed, her response gave no hint of the fact. “I do not believe one is a prerequisite for the other.”
The flash of anger hit him swift and hard. Had she and that popinjay…? The mere thought filled him with rage and a feeling of incomprehensible possessiveness. Why the lass’s innocence was important to him, he didn’t know. Simply that it was.
“What do you mean?” He held his voice even, though his knuckles turned white as he gripped his goblet.
She shrugged. “I do not believe passion is confined to the marriage bed. In fact, from what I can tell, the marriage bed rarely holds much passion at all.”
He didn’t like the cynicism of her answer—even if he happened to agree with it. Lack of passion in the marriage bed was one of the many reasons he’d delayed taking a wife. That and the fact that he’d been too busy defending his land from attack and his people from starvation.
“Yet the marriage bed is the only respectable place for a woman of your position to find it.”
She bristled. “I do not need to be lectured on respectability by you. A man who abducts women is hardly in a position to be casting stones.”
He didn’t miss that she hadn’t answered him. He leaned closer and looked her straight in the eye. “And are you respectable, Flora?”
Her eyes sparked with anger. “How dare you! It’s none of your damn business.”
God, she provoked him. This woman possessed an uncanny ability to rile his anger. He wanted to grab her arm and shake the truth out of her, but instead he took another drink of his ale and allowed his blood to cool. It was his business, although she didn’t know it yet.
But she would.
She pushed back from her chair and started to stand up. “If you have run out of reasons—”
“Protection.” He took her wrist, holding her in her seat. His fingers wrapped around bare skin. Incredibly soft, bare skin. Though tall for a woman and well curved, she had slim, delicate bones. Suggesting a fragility otherwise obscured by the outward strength of her character. “An unmarried woman, especially one with wealth and lands, is vulnerable without a husband to protect her.”
“I don’t need—” She stopped, realizing that her very presence in his keep was proof to the contrary. She lifted her chin. “My mother protected me.”
“But your mother is gone.” He stated it simply, as a fact, but she flinched as if he’d struck her.
She turned to him with such a look of despair in her eyes, it cut him to the quick. “I’m well aware of that,” she said softly.
He felt a strong urge to comfort her but held it back. Feeling sorry for her would only complicate matters. He couldn’t allow compassion to interfere. But he didn’t miss the flash of loneliness.
“And yet for all your protesting to the contrary, you’ve implicitly acknowledged that there is some benefit to marriage.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you forget your betrothed already?”
Her cheeks fired. “Of course not.”
But it was clear she had. “So was it protection or love, Flora?” he asked quietly. The answer was somehow important. He wouldn’t consider the other possibility—passion.
She looked away. “Lord Murray was my choice.”
She’d said as much before. He was beginning to understand what might have caused her to elope. “Rory would not force you to wed.” Which was the very reason he was in this predicament. He needed her agreement.
A wry smile turned her lips. “You know him so well?”
“Well enough. He’s spoken of you.”
It surprised her. “He has?”
She tried to hide her eagerness by shifting her gaze to her plate, but not before Lachlan had glimpsed the yearning. Did she think her family had forgotten her?
“Of course. You are his sister.” He saw the disappointment in her face, and before he could stop himself he added, “He cares about you.”
Her eyes brightened, and he felt a sharp tug in his chest. This urge to please her was dangerous, and one that he would need to keep a tight rein on.
“Even so,” she countered, “my cousin might.”
The Earl of Argyll. Lachlan masked his reaction, understanding too well why she would fear her cousin’s interference. Her fear was warranted. Although Rory controlled her marriage, he—like Lachlan—had entered into a bond of manrent with Argyll. That alone gave Argyll plenty of influence in the decision.
“Your cousin has a habit of interfering where he does not belong.”
“And I’ve seen too often the misery that type of interference can bring. When I marry, if I marry, it will be my decision and no one else’s. Not my brothers’, not my cousin’s, but mine.”
She spoke with such passion, he knew that this was the crux of understanding her. Her elopement was not simply the actions of a spoiled, headstrong girl, as he’d first thought. There was a far deeper reason. A real fear behind her actions. It wasn’t marriage itself she feared, but being forced into it.
He tested his theory. “But it isn’t a woman’s right to make such decisions. Like it or not, the choice of your husband doesn’t belong to you.”
She looked at him as if he’d struck her. The irony, of course, was that she had more power t
han she realized. But perhaps it was better for his purposes if she remained unsure.
“So it’s a woman’s lot to be bartered to the highest bidder?”
It was rather crude when put that way, but accurate nonetheless. “It is.”
“Well, it’s a lot I do not accept.” A glint of steel appeared in her eyes. “Headstrong” was putting it mildly. He would need to tread carefully, but time was a constant weapon.
He suspected the source of her discontent. He knew something of Janet Campbell. Like her daughter, Janet had been one of the most sought-after heiresses of her day. Married to four powerful Highland chiefs. Unhappily, it was said. “Your mother was wrong to put such ideas in your head.”
“You presume too much. You don’t know anything about my mother.” Her hand went to a large pendant she wore around her neck.
Suddenly, his entire body froze. He nearly ripped it out of her hand. “Where did you get that?” It wasn’t a pendant, as he’d first thought, but a brooch hanging from a chain with a large stone set in the center.
She paled and tried to slip it down the bodice of her gown. “It belonged to my mother.”
He reached out to stop her, taking the amulet in his hand. He couldn’t believe it. Excitement coursed through him as he examined the faded etchings of axes and thistle in silver that surrounded a large center stone of cairngorm—the yellowish brown stone of the Highlands. Axes and thistle were the emblems of the Macleans. He turned it over to read the inscription on the back: To my beloved husband, on the day of our marriage.
He couldn’t believe it.
The irony could have made him laugh. Marrying Flora MacLeod would be a boon in more ways than one. Their marriage would be a powerful symbol. An end to a curse. A curse that he didn’t believe in, but that didn’t matter, his people believed in it. They blamed the curse for the misfortune that had haunted their clan for the last eighty years.
Still holding the amulet, he looked deep into her eyes. “It’s you. You’re the Campbell lass.”
Flora cursed herself for her stupidity. She should have kept the amulet well hidden. But how could she have guessed that he would recognize it so easily?
He was a Maclean; of course he knew the legend. The chief who had chained poor Elizabeth Campbell to the rock had been his ancestor—his grandfather’s father’s father, if she wasn’t mistaken. But she wouldn’t have expected him to give it much credence. Not in this day and age.
But how could she have forgotten that putting an end to the curse was one of the reasons her mother had been forced to marry her first husband?
“You can’t believe in that old tale,” she said dismissively.
“No.”
Her relief was short-lived.
“Although many in these parts do,” he finished.
“It’s ridiculous. My mother’s marriage to Hector’s father should have put all those old superstitions to rest.”
“Instead it strengthened them.”
He was right. For a few years, with her mother’s marriage to Hector’s father, the Maclean of Duart, the bad luck that seemed to follow the Macleans had temporarily ended. Until his death, when the misfortune returned. The small lapse had only fueled the superstition.
What had she done? Had Coll reconsidered his intention not to marry her? She couldn’t let that happen. “It doesn’t matter. The amulet belongs to me, and I will never willingly bestow it.” On you, she left unsaid. Most believed that the curse would end when the amulet was bestowed willingly on a Maclean—something her mother had never done.
Something sparked in his eyes. He’d taken her words as a challenge. He leaned closer, invading the safe buffer of space between them, engulfing her senses. He was big and strong and thoroughly overwhelming. And he smelled amazing. Warm and spicy, with just a hint of myrtle and soap. Awareness surrounded her. She became achingly conscious of his mouth only inches from hers. Of fine stubble along his jaw. His lashes were so long and feather soft, a sharp contrast to the hard angles of his face.
He reached out, and she froze, thinking he meant to touch her, to kiss her. Instead, he untangled a strand of hair that had caught in her lashes and tucked it gently behind her ear. Her stomach clenched as she breathed in the scent of him. Of myrtle, soap, and man. The sensation of his fingers on her skin made her shiver.
How did he do this to her? Turn her into a quivering mess in a matter of seconds.
He held her gaze, letting her feel the power of the tension sizzling between them. His thumb strayed for just a moment across her cheek in a soft caress. “Can you be so sure?”
“I…I…yes.” She couldn’t think.
And the arrogant brute knew it. He chuckled and released her. “We’ll see.”
Outrage fired her cheeks. “Do I need protection from you, my laird?”
He gave her a long bold look, one that was blatantly sensual. “You might.”
“You promised.”
He seemed unabashedly unconcerned. “So I did.”
“You have no honor.”
He quirked a brow, infuriatingly amused. “Obviously, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“A prisoner,” she said forlornly.
“Whether you are prisoner or guest is up to you.” His gaze narrowed. “Do not defy me and your stay here will be pleasant.”
She stiffened, her deep-seated resentment of being told what to do flared. “And what am I supposed to do while I’m your guest?” she asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
“Whatever it is that women do to keep themselves busy. Do what you like, as long as you do not try to leave the walls of the keep.”
She spun around to hide the smile on her face, her mind swarming with all kinds of ideas. She would keep herself occupied all right.
Lachlan Maclean had abducted the wrong woman. And she was going to make him sorry for it. Very sorry indeed.
Chapter 4
“I don’t know, Flora. Are you sure he won’t be angry?”
I certainly hope he will be. Flora looked back and forth between the two girls. She’d caught the laird’s young sisters lurking in the shadows and watching her with unabashed curiosity a few days ago and had pretended to ignore them—which, of course, had the opposite effect of increasing their curiosity. Finally, they’d ventured out of the shadows to ask her what she was doing. When she’d told them, they’d offered to help, thereby becoming her unwitting accomplices.
Which only served him right, since the poor darlings were bored to tears. Buried in this barren wilderness with nothing to do. And no female companionship to speak of.
Mary, the elder at seven and ten, was a feminine version of her brother, possessing the same striking coloring—dark brown hair and light blue eyes. Her features were a tad too strong for true beauty, but her sweet disposition more than compensated. Gillian was two years younger and by far the more adventuresome of the two. She couldn’t look more different from her elder siblings. Red-haired and green-eyed, with the palest pink skin, she would be a true beauty in a few years. Gillian was also a kindred spirit, as Flora had discovered within minutes of meeting her. Mary, on the other hand, tended to need a wee bit of encouragement. Like now.
“I’m simply keeping myself busy, just as your brother instructed,” Flora answered. “What else is there to do? He’s barred me from the kitchens and the aleroom.”
“With good reason,” Mary said gently.
Flora shrugged. “I was only trying to help.”
Gilly wasn’t fooled. Her eyes lit with mischief. “By salting the food and sweetening the ale?”
Flora smiled at the memory. Salting the food had been the first test. Despite her bold vow to torment him, she’d been a little worried—he was rather fierce and imposing and clearly not a man to be trifled with. So the day following their exchange, she’d visited the kitchens. Heart pounding, she’d watched nervously as he’d raised his spoon and filled his mouth with her special gruel, and then smiled when he’d nearly spat it right back out. His
piercing eyes narrowed on her with understanding, and she could see him struggle to bite back the tongue-lashing he’d clearly wanted to give her. He was controlling himself. Flora didn’t know why, but it didn’t matter—he was.
“It didn’t look to be too much going in,” Flora protested. And in this case, it might even have been an improvement. “I haven’t had much experience in the kitchens before.” At least not since her cousin Argyll had run her out of the kitchens at Inveraray for doing the same thing.
“And don’t forget you are also barred from helping with the laundry and the mending,” Mary said.
Flora pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. “It’s quite unfair. I thought his shirts smelled lovely.”
“Oh, they did,” Gilly said, amusement bubbling in her voice. “As lovely as any lass.”
Fitting, since Flora had dipped them in rosewater. “I thought it matched well with the embroidery,” she explained. She’d sewn large pink flowers all over his best linen shirt.
“Which might have been fine had you not sewed the arm closed,” Gilly said.
“And hemmed his trews too short,” Mary added.
Not to mention the nettles that she’d aired his plaid on. It had been worth every hour of drudgery removing the prickly leaves, simply to hear the bellow.
Ah yes, she’d been busy. But he was being infuriatingly calm about everything. No matter what she did, he demonstrated extreme patience. And steely control. Almost as if he were humoring her. Which only made her more determined to rattle him.
She hadn’t had this much fun in years. Though admittedly she’d had lots of practice. Even as a girl, Flora had understood her place in life and rebelled—with her mother’s encouragement—against the future that seemed to be predetermined. But by the time she’d arrived at court, what had started as a way to avoid her mother’s sad fate, by discouraging suitors with harmless misdeeds, had escalated beyond her control. She didn’t need to look for trouble, it seemed to find her easily enough. Unfortunately, her reputation for mischief didn’t discourage her bevy of suitors one whit. With her fortune and connections, they’d want her even if she had horns on her head.