Seduced by a Highlander (15 page)

Isobel shook her head. “I cannot do that.”

“He also said not to quarrel with him over it.” Tamas grinned, obviously enjoying the turning of the tables.

Setting down her dressings, she gave her youngest brother a level stare. “Did he?” When he nodded gleefully, she stood up from her chair. “And where is he now?”

“Outdoors, tending to the chickens.”

She went to the window and, peering down at the barn, called out to Patrick. She listened for his reply, and when it came she leaned out further. “If I tie his wounded arm to the bed, his shoulder will not heal properly and we will send the Devil MacGregor’s son home lame. D’ye think that is wise?” She waited, breath held, for his answer. She knew Patrick would give his life to keep them safe, but would he spare a MacGregor life for the same reason? Best to know now so she could be better prepared to argue with him later if she needed to.

“Verra well,” he finally shouted back; “bind only one wrist then.”

Isobel turned to offer Tamas a triumphant smile, but he was busy pointing at Tristan.

“He awakens!”

She tried to stop him, almost tumbling over her chair in her effort to snatch the bowl of bloody water from Tamas’s hands. But it came down hard on Tristan’s head, and she finally had to accept the fact that a MacGregor might not make it out of her home alive.

• • •

Isobel remained with Tristan while he slept, mainly to keep him safe from any more objects being smashed over his head. She watched his steady breathing beneath his plaid and wondered again what he was doing here.

It had taken her over a pair of fortnights to get him and the feel of his mouth on hers out of her head completely. How carefully he had seduced her, and in only a few days! He frightened her with his ability to sweep her so effortlessly off her feet. She had thought, had hoped, that she was rid of him. Now here he was, back to haunt her dreams all over again, this time with the vision of his bare male physique sprawled across her brother’s bed like a captive angel. He was taller than Alex, his ankles hovering over the edge of the bed. She let her eyes drift over him slowly, her gaze lingering on his shapely legs—one of which she’d had to shave in order to clean his wound properly. Her fingers tingled at the memory of his warm skin beneath her palm, the length of hard sinew running up his calf to his darkly dusted thigh. Growing more breathless, her gaze rose to the plaid draped low across his hips. He was naked beneath. She felt her cheeks go all hot. How many women had smiled at him while he stripped out of his garments, hard and ready to take them? She swiped the back of her palm across her brow and cursed under her breath. Andrew Kennedy had never had this effect on her. No man had! Then again, she’d never met any with such raw animal appeal in the mere slant of his mouth, or the…

No, they were sworn enemies, with no place for attraction between them. Besides, she was betrothed! At least until she found a way to get out of it. She had to stay focused on the truth. There were only two possibilities for why Tristan had come here. Either he wanted information
from her about his uncle’s death, or he had been sent here by his father to murder her family. She should have left him to die in her garden. He’d already killed her butterbur, after all. But his life wasn’t worth the lives of her brothers. She had no choice but to save him, to tend to him despite their hatred for each other.

The door opened and she looked up at Patrick, entering the room for the first time that day. He stood at the entrance, silently taking in the sight of the unconscious man in his brother’s bed. When his gaze settled on the bandages she’d wrapped around Tristan’s forehead, he hooked his mouth into a slight smile that made Isobel look away.

“Where is his sword?”

She shrugged her weary shoulders. “Cam took it.”

“I assume he knows how to use it?”

Isobel remembered how expertly he had wielded it against Alex and nodded. “Quite well.”

Patrick crossed the room and stood at her side, staring down at the bed. “I understand from the lads that ye first met him at Whitehall?”

“Aye.” She nodded. She should have told him. She did now. She told him everything, only leaving out Alex’s foolishness and her and Tristan’s kiss. There was no reason Patrick should know about that. It meant nothing.

“So, he protected Alex from his father,” Patrick mulled thoughtfully, “and ye from John Douglas.”

“Aye, he told John Douglas that ye hacked the lips off the last man who handled me without liberty to do so.”

Patrick’s smile was wider this time, but faded all too quickly. “And why did he do those things?”

“I do not know,” she answered quietly, staring at Tristan, as well. “Fer a name, mayhap.”

Her brother knew what she meant and drew out a long exhalation of breath. “Fetch me when he awakens,” he said, turning to leave the room. “And remember, he is a Highlander. Keep him tied up and his sword carefully hidden. If yer suspicions are correct about why he came here, it will be easier to end this if I do not have to fight him.”

Isobel stared at the door after he left. Well, at least Patrick had more sense in his head than Alex. In truth, he had more sense than all of them did—save when it came to her marrying Andrew. But what could Patrick possibly do against all the MacGregors in Skye if he harmed Tristan? Oh, why had she gone to England? It would have been better for her family to have the king angry with them than to spark the MacGregors’ blood-lust once again.

Tristan moaned her name in his sleep, startling her from her thoughts. She leaned over him, some basic, nurturing instinct taking over. “Ssh,” she whispered, “the worst is over… fer now.” He tossed his head back and forth, as if fighting something in his dreams. Alarmed that he might cause more damage to his already wounded skull, she pressed her hand to his crown and stilled him with a gentle touch. “Sleep, and then be gone from here, Tristan MacGregor—if ye know what is good fer ye.” She smiled to herself, thinking of her unruly siblings. Despite what they had done to him, they meant well. “We may not be an army, but as ye have no doubt discovered, we can protect ourselves.”

She didn’t realize right away that she was stroking her fingers over his silky waves, and when she did, she did not stop. She could not deny that a part of her was painfully attracted to him. He was so perfectly crafted he
seemed unreal, and she touched him to convince herself that he was merely a man.

“Oh, why have ye come here? Why d’ye haunt my dreams and call my name in yers? What is it ye want from me?”

He slept, giving her no answers. She knew somehow that getting them from him, even when he awoke, would be impossible.

T
ristan was dreaming about the day that Brigid MacPherson’s father caught them together and shot him in the thigh, when an aroma, finer than anything he had ever smelled before, pulled him toward consciousness. He did not drift blissfully into his final state of awareness, but was catapulted into the white-hot wakening of excruciating pain—the worst, from his head.

Panic engulfed him when he couldn’t recall what had happened to him. He tried to sit up but was immediately hurled back by the blistering agony in his skull, and the ties that bound his wrist to the bedpost behind him.

Isobel. His quest.

He’d been shot with an arrow. Twice. So far, things were not going according to plan. Then again, he didn’t have a plan. He usually didn’t, and he saw the foolishness of this now more than ever. He looked at his other arm, bandaged and secured to his bare chest. Someone had removed the arrows and dressed his wounds. But what the hell had happened to his head? He tugged at the
leather laces that held him captive and then quit when pain lanced through his shoulder.

Helpless, he tried to keep his wits about him and consider his situation. It was troublesome indeed. His sword, along with his breeches, was nowhere in sight. He had two holes in him, had an agonizing headache, and was tied to a bed in the house of his kinsmen’s worst enemy. To make matters worse, he was hungry, and whatever was cooking beyond the door made his mouth water and his stomach rumble. Would the Fergussons feed him before they killed him? Then again, if they were going to kill him, wouldn’t they have done so already?

He heard voices behind the door and closed his eyes as it opened and the ambrosial fragrance of cooked rabbit wafted through his nostrils.

“He still sleeps.”

“Good. Come, before Isobel discovers us.” The floor creaked and Tristan’s pulse accelerated as the two boys crossed the room. “She will skin our hides if she finds out what we are up to, Lachlan. The way she has been looking after him, ye would think she fancies him.”

“He is a MacGregor, Tamas. Ye know how she feels about them.”

“Aye,” the other agreed. “Besides, it is not like we are trying to kill him. We were stung by hornets and we are no worse fer it.”

“Aye, but it hurt like bloody hell.”

Tristan opened one eye and watched the lads hovering by the open window. He remembered the taller of the two pulling back his bowstring and shooting him in the shoulder. The other wee scoundrel had fired something else at him, and with deadly accuracy. A stone? Aye, he remembered now.

“Spread the honey around, Lachlan,” the smaller one ordered cheerfully. “And when we are done, we will put a bit in his bed. It will draw the hornets directly to him.”

Och, so it was to be like that, was it? Tristan opened his eyes and hooked his mouth into a rueful smirk.

“ ’Tis a clever scheme against me, lads,” he said, startling the poor runts nearly out of their boots. “But I should warn ye, ye’ll pay fer it tenfold.”

His threat sparked a challenging glint in the younger one’s eyes. “Is that so?” the lad mused, reaching for the leather sling at his side. “Where should I hit him this time, Lachlan? He seems to have a rather thick skull.”

Tristan pulled on his bonds while the boy plucked a stone from his pocket. “Dinna’ do it,” he warned, cursing his hasty threat, impotent as he was at present. “I swear,” he began, nervously watching the lad drop the stone into the pouch, “If ye—” The bratling twirled the sling over his head. Son of a…!

“Isobel!” Tristan roared, unable to do anything else.

Immediately, the boy dropped his sling and fixed him with a vengeful stare. Tristan matched it with a dangerous glare of his own. He would take care of the runt later.

The door burst open a moment later and a pale-faced Isobel Fergusson rushed into the room. Behind her, filling the doorframe, stood a man whose size and scowl rivaled that of any of Camlochlin’s fiercest warriors. Tristan knew that caution, mayhap more than at any other time until now, must be liberally exercised. But he could not keep his eyes from slipping to the red-haired goddess coming toward him. Or from meeting the fire in her gaze when she reached him. Hell, he’d missed her.

“If ye are still in possession of yer wits,” she muttered,
bending to examine the bandage around his head, “ye’d best call upon them now.”

“First,” he whispered close enough to her ear to keep the others from hearing, “let us be clear on this one thing.”

She looked down at him, their breath mixing together while his eyes fell to the swell of her bosoms.

“I dinna’ like bein’ tied down.” His dimple flashed as his gaze found hers again. “Unless ’tis by my own suggestion.”

“MacGregor.” The giant at the door halted any further words between them. Tristan looked at him, his smile cooling. “I am Patrick Fergusson, but then, guessing by the name ye called out, ye already know where ye are.”

“Aye.” Tristan attempted a nod, then closed his eyes as pain lanced through his head. “I know where I am.”

“Is this where ye meant to find yerself?” Isobel’s brother continued without mercy. “Or did ye take a wrong turn?”

Tristan opened his eyes slowly. “In truth,” he admitted, knowing the sharp, contemplative eyes staring back at him would see through any meager deception. “I am no’ lost.”

Patrick’s gaze cut to Isobel for an instant while he took a step forward, finally entering the room. “Ye seem well enough to answer a few of my questions, MacGregor. So let us begin. Why did ye take a liberty not granted to ye and use my sister’s Christian name?”

Without the slightest alteration in his breath, Tristan slanted a look to the lads still standing by the window. “Because ’tisn’t
yer
name they’re afraid of.”