Elaine Coffman - [Mackinnons 06] (15 page)

Fletcher rolled off her. “I’d like to crush some sense into
that head of yours. That’s what I’d like to do. Don’t you have any sense,
Cathleen? What if we are caught? How will you explain your involvement? Why did
you follow me here?”

“I didn’t follow you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Since I was here first, I’d say it was you who followed
me.”

“Don’t be clever. You don’t have a reason on God’s green
earth for being here.”

“And you don’t have a reason for swearing.”

“All right. I won’t swear and you won’t lie. What are you
doing here?”

“Shhhh! Don’t talk so loud. I came to help you,” she
whispered softly.

“I don’t want your help,” he almost shouted.

“Well, you don’t have to get spiteful about it,” she said,
feeling a bit persecuted. After all, she was only trying to help. Was he too
beef-witted to comprehend that?

He sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I would never forgive
myself if anything happened to you. This isn’t your fight. I don’t want you
suffering the consequences of what I’m about.”

“I don’t know how you can say it isn’t
my
fight,” she
whispered hotly. “Not after all the help my grandfather and I have given you.
We are involved in this up to our ears. We have helped you and given you a
place to stay. If that isn’t help, I don’t know what is. Now, are we going to
sit here like two fallen acorns, or are we going to look for what we came for?”

Fletcher looked around, then rose to his feet, taking
Cathleen’s hands and pulling her up to stand beside him. “You’re right. We’ll
have to hurry. It will be dark soon…too dark to read the inscriptions.”

She took a step, tripped, and fell.

He dropped down in a crouch beside her. “Are you all right,
Cathleen?”

“Aye.”

“Well, that makes two falls. Perhaps you should just stay
down and wait for me here. I’ll search the graves and then come back for you.”

“‘
A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again
,’”
she said, taking his hand and rising to her feet. “Proverbs.”

He grunted, then turned away and began walking in front of
the scattered gravestones. “Try to stay down,” he said, “but not
all
the
way down.”

“Aye,” she replied, looking at two more gravestones. Then it
suddenly occurred to her to ask, “What are we looking for?”

“Hell’s bells! You mean you came all the way over here,
endangering your life, and you don’t even know why you’re here?”

She stopped, clamping her hands on her hips, looking
remarkably like a sugar bowl. “Well, I couldn’t very well ask you
before
I came, now could I?”

He looked heavenward and mumbled something about the
children of Israel getting manna, and look what he got. He looked around him,
then said, “Bride.”

She hit the ground, lying flat behind a gravestone. She
could hear someone approaching. She closed her eyes and prayed.

“What are you doing?”

At the sound of Fletcher’s voice, she opened her eyes.
Looking up at the vicinity of the Voice, she said simply, “I am hiding.”

He peered over the top of the gravestone. “Would it be too
much to ask why?”

She noticed he was standing up, in full view, so she
scrambled to her feet. “Because you told me to,” she said, dusting dirt and
bits of twigs from her skirts.

“I did not tell you to hide.”

“Yes, you did. I heard you. You said, “Hide.”

He sighed. “I said
Bride
. It’s the name we are
looking for. Bride,” he repeated, “as in Bride Ramsay.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t say anything more, but he mumbled under his breath
again as he turned around and began reading gravestones.

Without speaking to him, Cathleen turned in the opposite
direction and began reading the inscriptions on her side, having mentally
divided the cemetery in half. When she had finished all the gravestones on her
side, she turned to him. “Find anything?”

“No. Nothing.”

Just at that moment, she heard voices.

Fletcher must have heard them too, for he said, “Damn!”

She gave him a chastening look, then whispered, “Do you
think they’ve seen us?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t intend to wait around and find
out. Come on!” He grabbed her by the arm and they ran toward the small stone
chapel.

Finding the side door unlocked, he pushed it open and shoved
her inside. He followed her in and pulled the door shut behind them.

The interior was quite dark, with only a few weak beams of
diffused light penetrating the darkness through two tall, narrow windows.

The voices were closer now.

He took her arm and hauled her along to the front of the
chapel, their feet scuffling over the stone floor until they ducked down behind
an ancient stone font.

The large door at the back of the chapel creaked open, and a
beam of light shot into the room, striking the medieval effigy of St. Helen.
Yellow shafts of light appeared on each side of them. Fletcher leaned over
Cathleen, pushing her down farther and making it almost impossible for her to
breathe.

“See anything?” asked a deep baritone voice.

“There is no one in here,” replied another voice, much
lighter in tone. “Are you certain you saw someone?”

“I ken I saw two people walking through the cemetery.”

“Maybe it was just shadows you saw.”

“No, I am certain it was two people.”

“Maybe it was poachers, or some of the village children
taking a shortcut home.”

“Maybe.”

The door creaked again. The light grew dim, then
disappeared.

Cathleen pushed at him. “Get up,” she whispered. “This is
getting to be a habit.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“Why? Do you see something?”

“No, but I feel something…and it feels mighty good.”

“Get up, you lecher! We’ve work to do.”

“Maybe I’ve decided I like being here, on top of you,” he
whispered, nuzzling her throat.

“If this is your idea of being romantic, I…”

“Shhhhh,” Fletcher said, clamping his hand over her mouth.

Suddenly the door creaked open and the light reappeared.

“See anything this time?” asked the baritone voice.

“No. Nothing.”

“Weel, let’s get out of here, then. This place gives me the
shudders after dark.”

The door closed, and again the chapel was left in darkness.

Fletcher made a move to get up, but now Cathleen clutched at
him. “You aren’t going to get up now, are you?” she whispered.

She knew he was grinning at her, although she could not see
it, when he said, “Are you trying to tell me that you like me here?”

“No, but they might come back.”

“They won’t be back.”

She dug her fingers into his arm. “Are you certain?”

He chuckled. “I’m certain, but if it’s a reason to keep me
on top of you that you’re looking for, you’ve only to say so. I’m an
accommodating man, Cathleen.”

She gave him a shove. He rolled off her and lay there for a
moment, chuckling softly in the darkness.

She shot to her feet, then nudged him with her foot. “Stop
gloating and get up. I want to get out of here.”

“For a lass who was raised in the church, you seem mighty
uncomfortable in one.”

“I attended church,” she said. “I didna live in one. Are you
coming or not?”

His voice was soft, lazy. “Maybe. Maybe not. Why is it that
you are so anxious to leave
with
me? You didn’t mind coming here all by
yourself.”

“That’s different.”

“What’s different about it?” He rolled to his feet.

“It wasn’t dark then,” she whispered, scooting closer to
him.

“Why, Mary Cathleen, are you afraid of the dark?”

“Only a wee bit.” But she took his hand and did not let go
of it until they were outside.

They ran until they were almost at the gates, then they
waited in the bushes until they were certain no one watched. Making a dash for
it, they ran through the gates, keeping low to avoid the pale oval of light
cast by the lamps. Once they were away from there, the night seemed to fall
into absolute darkness, only the ghostly outline of the trees visible, black
against black.

“Where is your horse?”

“Just a little way past yours.”

He drew up short. “Just a little way past mine? I thought
you said you got here before me. Cathleen, I call that lying.”

“It is not lying,” she said matter-of-factly. “I said I was
here before you. I didna say I was here before your horse.”

He grunted, as if he was trying to figure out the logic of
that. She smiled to herself. That would keep him busy for a while.

A sudden flutter of wings overhead made her jump. She
reached for him, touching his sleeve, then inching downward, until she touched
his hand. An unexpected, penetrating throb of pleasure flowed through her.

Slipping her hand firmly into his, she scooted closer, listening
to the rising wind as it whistled through the lofty spires of pine trees. They
walked on in silence until they reached the place where she had left her pony.

But Flora wasn’t there.

Cathleen turned in a circle, her eyes scanning the line of
trees and searching the darkness, certain that this was the place she had left
Flora. “I left her right here.”

“Are you certain this is the place?”

“Aye. This is the branch I tied her to,” she said, pointing
at a thick, jutting branch.

“You probably didn’t tie her well enough.”

She glanced around, taking his hand again and holding it
tightly. “I think they have taken her.”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Cathleen, but you
couldn’t pay someone enough to take that horse.”

She went rigid. “Flora is a perfectly serviceable beast.”

Fletcher leaned close to her ear. “Flora is an overweight
nag.”

“She got me here.”

“Yes, but she won’t get you back. Now the question is, how
will you get home?”

“I can walk, thank you.”

“Not while I’m around,” he said, and before she could
protest, he gently lifted her into his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“You’re going to carry me?”

“Only to my horse.”

She felt a twinge of disappointment. “I can walk.”

“I know,” he whispered in her ear, “but I like it this way
and I’m bigger than you.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“No…but the truth might send you into a swoon, or at least
scampering back to your cottage—afoot.”

They reached his horse and he lowered her to her feet, but
he did not release her. Even in the darkness she could see that he stared down
at her, and there was something in his look that caused her heart to race with
breathless intensity.

It was as if he allowed his gaze to do the things to her
that he dared not. Her lips felt strangely swollen, as if they would no longer
stay closed. Parting them slightly, she felt a subtle pressure, cool and dry,
against them, but all she had time to do was gasp before it was gone.

“Cathleen,” he said softly, “my quaint little virgin. Don’t
you know I did not come here to hurt you?” Slowly, slowly, he pressed light,
lazy kisses around her face before his lips came to rest upon hers.

Feeling as if she were floating out of her body, she dug her
fingers into his arms to anchor herself to the ground. He pressed closer, and
she was trapped between him and the warm shoulder of his gelding.

“Don’t.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like being with me?”

“I like being with you,” she said in a shaky voice, “but I
don’t want to like it. I would never let you take such liberties, you know, if
I were not afraid of the dark.”

As far as answers went, that one must have surprised him,
for she heard what she could only call a delighted laugh.

Cathleen’s reaction was a strong one of guilt and
self-disgust. She had sworn to be strong enough to resist his lure, but she had
failed. It was a weakness within her, a powerlessness she tried to overcome but
couldn’t whenever they were together.

Something twisted in her chest and she found herself
regretting her past—a past that had changed the course of her life, that made
her future barren. She felt torn between the way history had formed her and the
natural urges of a woman her age, a woman with all the normal feelings for a
man to love and be loved by, to marry, to mate.

But her old fear of having a child remained. She had prayed
many times to be barren, because only then could she have what she wanted—the
love of a man, without the fear of having children. But even as she thought it,
she knew that was not the answer. A man like Fletcher deserved more than a barren
wife. He deserved a woman with gentility, the daughter of an earl or a duke. A
lady. One who would gladly bear his children. She was none of these.

Overcome with emotion, she put her arms around his neck and
buried her face in the warm cove of his shoulder, as if by hiding she could
hold back the pain and the tears that threatened.

Misunderstanding her actions, Fletcher hugged her to him and
kissed the top of her head. “That’s better,” he said.

Aye, that was better. She was in his arms, something that
should have made her happy, and it did. But it also brought an element of pain,
for she knew that the happiness now would be part of the sadness later. Fearing
she could not hold back her tears any longer, she ground her nose against his
neck and closed her eyes tightly.

“Keep that up and we might not make it home.”

Fletcher, Fletcher, you are such a charmer, such a dear.
How I wish things could have been different…

He gave her a boost onto his horse, then he mounted in front
of her.

“Hold on tight,” he said, and she put her arms around him,
laying her cheek against the powerful muscles of his back. He was formal once
more, acting as if nothing had happened between them. She squeezed her eyes
shut, a devastating loneliness growing inside of her. She had what she wanted.
He had released her. He was leaving her alone. She had come out the victor.