Highland Surrender (16 page)

Authors: Dawn Halliday

BOOK: Highland Surrender

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She stared at his hand for a long moment, then reached forward tentatively.
This
—this clear vulnerability in her actions—contradicted her haughty demeanor and tugged at something deep within him.

He pulled her to her feet, then led her around the bush to pause at the cliff ’s edge, where the hawthorn’s height still blocked them from the view of the guardhouse.

“I’ll go first, and you follow.” Releasing her, Rob crouched down and then dropped over the edge, finding his footing on one of the rock outcroppings.

She knelt at the edge of the cliff, peering down at him. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll show you.”

Tentatively, she adjusted herself to a sitting position, allowing her legs to dangle into black nothingness. Her skirt bunched up over her thighs, revealing the fact that she had removed her stockings and wore her slippers over bare feet.

“Very good,” he murmured, trying not to let the sight of her legs affect him. “Hop off and I’ll catch you.”

She stared down at him, haloed by the moonlight, biting her lip as if she were considering whether to obey.

“I trust you,” she murmured finally. Closing her eyes, she pushed herself off. He caught her around the waist and gently lowered her until her slippered feet rested on solid stone.

She gazed into Rob’s face, her expression darkened by shadows. They touched from head to toe. Shudders rolled through her.

Gathering himself, he pulled away and glanced down. “The stones here create natural steps, but you must be careful. Follow me.”

They progressed slowly down the cliff wall. It wasn’t far to the bottom, but the trail was steep and the narrow stone steps only a gray glimmer in the starry night, and he made certain she placed every foot firmly so she wouldn’t slip.

Soon they descended onto a small, muddy beach. Here, lilies grew at the water’s edge, and a small boat bobbed just offshore. A rope led from the boat to a stone mooring on the beach. A few steps from the water’s edge, the cliff collapsed inward as if the hand of a giant had punched a hole in it to form the beginnings of a cave. Just inside the shallow impression lay two flat stones that looked like low chairs and had probably been placed there for that purpose. Rob sat on one of the stones and gestured to the other. Elizabeth adjusted the skirts of her shift and robe and settled onto the rock.

“No chance of anyone finding you here,” he said.

She nodded, her expression sober. “It is a much better hiding place.”

“What do you hide from?” he asked softly.

She paused, then licked her lips. “Everything.”

A long silence followed her admission. Rob watched the small, dark ripples lap against the shore.

He understood. Not so long ago, he’d wanted to hide from everything too. He glanced at her. She stared at the water, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. He didn’t think she would have admitted that to just anyone.

“When I was a lad, I’d escape from Glasgow and disappear into the countryside,” he said. “Sometimes for days on end. I’d seek out stables, horses, other animals. I felt safer with them.”

“Safe from what?” she breathed.

“From my da.” She stared at him, and his lips twisted. “He was a drunkard . . . and he wasn’t overly fond of me.”

He’d never told anyone about his father, but in Elizabeth’s presence he felt comfortable. He wanted to tell her. It was more than a compulsion to share his past with her; it was a desire to draw her out as well. To explore and put a name to that feeling that they shared something, some deeper bond. She was so familiar to him—too familiar, given their outward differences—and he wanted to understand why.

“I’m sorry.” She blinked, revealing a deep sadness in the depths of her blue eyes. “My father . . . He wasn’t like that.”

“When did he die?”

“I was . . . six years old. He died of smallpox on the same night as my mother. And my younger brother—he died soon after.”

Rob nodded. “Did you contract the pox?”

She turned to stare out over the water again. “Yes. I brought it home to my family. I survived, with only one small scar to prove I had it. They did not.”

Her words emerged tight and emotionless, and Rob’s chest tightened as she pulled her hair back and gestured at a spot high on her forehead. “There it is. The reminder of what I did.”

He couldn’t see the scar, but he nodded, and she dropped her hair. “I miss my mother. I miss both of them.”

“I never knew my mother,” Rob said. “She died at my birth. It’s part of why my da punished me for the remainder of his life.”

“Only part?” Elizabeth asked.

“Aye.”

“Why else did he punish you?”

Rob paused. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “My mother . . . She had strayed. I was my da’s son only in name.”

“Not in blood?”

Staring out over the loch, Rob said, “No. Not in blood.”

Soon she would have to leave him. Sighing, Ceana lowered her hands into the basin and scooped clean water over her face. She’d remained at Camdonn Castle a full week. A healthy scab covered Cam’s wound, and he had resumed most of his regular duties.

There had been no further hint of his attraction to her. This brought forth in her a confounding mixture of regret and relief. She should only be relieved, but much to her disgust, she yearned for the earl’s attentions.

To make matters worse, she’d spent time with his betrothed and she liked her. Ceana wasn’t the kind of woman to steal away another woman’s man, and yet some demon within her commanded she grab Cam and cling to him for all she was worth.
To hell with the Sassenach
, it said.
To hell with the damnable curse.

She was a fool. She splashed another handful of water over her face and thanked God for Elizabeth. Because if the English lady didn’t exist, Ceana would have tumbled Cam the very first day she knew him, and if that had happened, she’d be far worse off than she was now.

A knock at her door had her looking up in surprise. She grabbed a towel and swiped it over her face. She was wearing only her petticoat, so she quickly threw a plaid over her shoulders. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Cam, dressed in buckskin breeches, tall black boots, and a white shirt with a ruffled collar that made him look like a pirate.

She stepped back out of sheer self-preservation.

He smiled at her. “Ceana.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she blurted.

She hadn’t planned to go quite so soon, but his sinful appearance and her body’s reaction to it drove home the truth that sooner was better than later.

His eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because you are healed.”

“Not entirely healed.”

She kept her gaze steady. “You wish me to stay for reasons that have naught to do with your injury.”

“Do you think so?”

“Aye.”

He broke their eye contact first. His smile had faded, and his gaze moved over her shoulder toward the pair of long, rectangular windows on the opposite wall. “I dislike the thought of you leaving.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like the thought of you away from me.” Cam stepped fully inside the room and closed the door. He must have seen the panic flare in her eyes, because he ground out, “I have no intention of touching you.”

She released a breath. If he had intended to touch her, she could not be held responsible for her actions. Even now, her fingers twitched and a fire burned low in her belly.

“Don’t leave, Ceana.”

“I must.”

He shook his head, pushed his good hand through his hair. “I need you close.”

“You don’t need me.”

“There is so much I must do. So many amends I must make. So much time to make up for. You could help me.”

“I will not stay here on anyone’s whim, earl or not.”

“You’re a MacNab woman,” he recited, his tone dull. “You don’t heel to any man’s orders.”

“Precisely.”

She remembered Rob’s orders in bed, how quickly she’d submitted. But in life, in real life, such as this was, she had never submitted. Not even when it had mattered most. And still she had lost everything.

He took a step closer, his heat reaching out in long fingers to stroke her, sensuous and seductive. “Do you heel to your body’s orders?”

“I tread a perilous line,” she whispered. “It is best for all of us that I go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think it is easy for me? To see you with that . . .
duke
and Elizabeth?”

He made a low sound of frustration.

“What would you ask of me were I to stay? Your words and your actions make no sense at all. You ask me not to leave when you’ve already chosen the woman who will stand by your side.
She
must be the one to help you make amends to your people.”

“Elizabeth is different. She isn’t you. She doesn’t understand—”

“Are you looking to gain both a mistress and a wife? Do you think she’d honor and obey you if she were to discover your infidelities? Elizabeth is no simpleton, and neither am I.”

“No!” He spun away from her and paced the room in agitation. “No. I must never betray my wife.”

Holding her ground at the foot of the bed, she laughed bitterly. “Then what? I am to stand by your side as . . . as your
adviser
? As your
friend
? When we have this . . .” She jerked her hand back and forth between the two of them. “When we have this pull between us? How long do you think it would last before one of us succumbed to it? A week? A month? Then what would happen to your vows of fidelity to your English lady?”

Again Cam made a noise of frustration. “I don’t know! All I know is that I cannot stand the thought of you leaving.”

“As I said. It is for the best.”

He covered his face with his hands, then pushed them both through his hair, making it stick up in clumps. Ceana clenched her fists, resisting the urge to go to him and smooth his hair. To soothe the anguished look on his face with a kiss. She knew she held the power to do so.

But her kisses would leave behind another kind of anguish. One far worse than what they endured now.

“I must go,” she said quietly. “I must.”

He stared at her, his expression a heavy mix of desperation and need that nearly made her knees buckle. Then he gave a crisp nod.

“Duncan is more than capable of caring for your wound. And if you need someone to help you in any other way, go to Rob MacLean,” she said. “He is an honorable man.”

He nodded again.

“If you are ill, you may come to me.”

“Only if I am ill?”

“Aye. Only then.”

He stared at her in silence for a long moment. Then his lips thinned into a flat line. “As you wish, Ceana MacNab.”

He swiveled on his heel and left her alone, slamming the door behind him.

Ceana stood in the center of her room for long minutes as her heartbeat returned to normal. Her chest was so tight, she thought she might weep. It was an odd, unfamiliar sensation—she hadn’t wept in a very long time.

As she stood there, reeling in her emotions, her grandmother’s voice sounded in her mind.
Remember Brian, child. Remember what happened when ye fell in love with Brian . . .

Ceana spun to the shelf where she stowed her medicinals. She’d discovered a fine collection of containers and stoppers in one of the castle’s storage rooms, and the housekeeper had encouraged her to take whatever she needed. She turned her focus to remixing and filling the tiny, clean bottles with her medicines and then carefully packing the containers into her trunk.

An hour later, another knock sounded at her door. The sound of it—a rapid-fire rapping—was different from Cam’s knock, and Ceana rose. “Come in.”

A harried-looking manservant entered, followed by a stout, sandy-haired woman Ceana recognized as one of the whores from the mountain. Ceana stepped forward, frowning. “What is it?”

“It’s Gràinne,” the woman cried. “She’s been hurt. Terribly hurt.”

Gràinne was a member of the tight-knit community of the mountain whores. Ceana turned to fetch her satchel. Kneeling at her trunk, she searched for the most useful medicines and tools.

“How was she hurt?”

“Beaten.”

Ceana couldn’t repress the angry growl that emerged from her throat.

“It happened at noon. She was well enough to come tell us, but oh, she needs seeing to, Ceana.”

Groundsel and vinegar potion for the wounds. Periwinkle ointment for bruising. Foxglove salve for swelling.

Slipping the medicines she would need into her satchel, she turned back to the woman. “Let’s go.”