Warrior and the Wanderer (28 page)

“Aye?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck, molding herself to his naked body.

“There’s a way I can stay. It’s a remote possibility, but it’s worth a try.” He took in a deep breath. She felt the swell of his hard chest against her body. “I have to find someone like me to take my place in my time.”

There was hope! Ian could stay if he wished! She wanted to sing this out, but stopped herself. How could Ian find someone like him and who wanted to travel to the unknown, to his time? She could not tie her heart to a hope that seemed so impossible.

“Ian, there is no one like ye here,” she said.

“I’m not the man you see before you when I first came here. I was a person I am not too proud of. All I wanted was success at any cost. I was a taker not a giver. I lived in a world where those around me bent to my selfish will just because of who I was.” He paused and took in a deep breath. “I was once declared a ‘hero of music’, and I believed it. The title now embarrasses me because I had done nothing to deserve it except make lots of money and trample anyone who got in my way.”

Bess rubbed her hands over the back of his neck, burying her fingers into his thick dark hair. “Ye have used yer strange music to be a hero here, ken.”

“Blaze, I—”

“Ye have given my clan the strength of the monarchy with yer music. Aye, I would agree that is heroic.”

“I did what I could at the time,” he said. “There was no planning it.”

“Because yer good deeds came from yer heart.”

“They came from my desire to protect and help you.”

“And I have learned to accept such help,” she said. “Because of ye.”

Ian chuckled. “We’re a good team, Blaze.”

“Aye, that we are.”

“And a good team can perhaps find someone who’s like the arrogant bastard I was and willing to take my place in my time.” He held her tighter. “Bloody hell…”

“Aye…” She desperately wanted to believe what he said was possible but seemed so unlikely. He knew it too. “We have this night.”

“Aye, absolutely.”

Ian guided Bess gently to the ground, onto the plaid and blanket. He knelt beside her, brushing aside her hair, spreading her locks upon their woolen bed. He glided his fingers down the valley between her breasts over her belly, pausing just above her navel, the tips of his fingers making her flesh quiver.

She reached up brushing her palm over the dark bristles on his cheek, then pressing her fingers to his lips. He kissed her fingertips one by one. His hand had found its way between her legs. He worked his fingers down massaging the fiery flesh within, his fingertips working their eternal magic. She arched her back reaching out with both hands grasping his shoulders, her desire building upon itself a thousand-fold.

She dug her fingers into his back pulling him down to her.

He kissed her, devouring her with his passion, working her legs apart with one knee. She willingly obliged him. Ian buried his face into the side of her face, taking up great handfuls of her hair, as he thrust his hips down, deliciously filling her.

She hugged him so tight. The sinew of his back taut and damp under her grasp, confirming to her that his talent was not limited to music, when, suddenly, her most private place exploded with a crash pushing her over the brink of rapture. She fell down, down, down, writhing beneath him, her body no longer under her control, his body following her lead. Ian held her tight, his entire body tightened, as a low moan escaped from way back in his throat.

A lifetime in one night ’twas possible, but she selfishly wanted more than this one night. But her clan waited just over the next mountain. And they needed their chief.

Wrapped in Ian’s embrace, she couldn’t help but close her eyes, and give in to a dreamless and deep sleep.

* * * *

Bess awoke with a start, staring into the morning bathed in a thick mist.

Both of Ian’s arms were wrapped about her, cradling her against his body, protecting her from the chill. She smiled and a shiver raced up and down her spine at the vivid memory of the night.

She lay watching Ian sleep, brushing one finger over the bristles on his chin. He heaved a long sigh and rolled from his side to his back, releasing her.

She sat up and allowed herself an unobstructed exploration of his naked body displayed before her.

Holding her breath, Bess ran her gaze over his long, powerful legs, pausing at his manhood, a magnificent sight to behold, and the recent memory of it being so full inside her drew a shiver up her spine. She followed the line of dark hair over the ridges of his abdomen to the soft field of dark hair across his chest. She had to regretfully leave this moment and assume her duties to her clan. She allowed her gaze to linger on Ian, fearing she might never have this opportunity again.

She forced herself to her feet. Reaching down, she took up one side of the plaid and covered Ian against the slight morning chill, and gathered her clothes, leaving her claymore beside him.

She sighed, and turned away from him. She walked into the forest, past her mount quietly grazing on the tufts of dew-covered grass, toward the waterfall. A bracing dip in the water would awaken her, and prepare her for the task at hand, on the other side of the mountain.

There was no path, and the walk was a bit treacherous. She padded over slippery moss-covered stones, through thick undergrowth of fern, the water beckoning her. She stopped at the edge of the burn before the waterfall. The morning mist twirled around the silvery cascade. She shivered at the thought of standing beneath the chilling water; even the air was colder here. But she needed this. Bess dropped her clothes to the ground and stepped into the burn.

She hugged herself.

I need time to think….

Bess held her breath and jumped into the fall. The water cloaked her in icy needles. She held her head back allowing the water to flow through her hair, combing her fingers through the wavy locks. The bracing water refreshed her body and spirit, cleansing her, preparing her for this new day, and the prospect of sharing it with Ian.

After several minutes she leapt from the chilling water. Bess took up her tunic and rubbed it up her legs, over her abdomen and breasts, and down along her arms. She thought she might hunt down some breakfast and prepare it before Ian awoke, given his odd queasiness at such things.

Bess slipped the tunic over her head, fumbled with the strings, then smoothed it across her breasts and down her abdomen. She stepped into her skirt and cinched it about her waist. She slipped her bodice over her head and began tightening the laces in front when she was suddenly, violently grabbed from behind. A hand clamped over her mouth as her head was wrenched back. Bess looked up into Lachlan’s coolly indifferent stare.

“My darling,” he said. “Such a relief that ye’re alive.”

Chapter Sixteen: Edge of the Entire World

B
ess’s life was over. She looked out from her high window in Duart Castle and felt as if she stood on the edge her entire world. From her vantage she could see the cliffs that dropped to the Firth of Lorn and little else. A thick mist blotted out the mainland beyond that calm, slate-like water.

She wanted to slap herself purple for letting down her guard. It was her fault for being here. She knew Lachlan must have been on a rampage to find her, and had burnt the abbey in his wake. The wee piece of shite, Spittal, must have gotten word to Lachlan that she was alive.

Bess wrapped her arms around her body while staring out into the mist.

Ian had to know where she was. He had to have awakened to find her gone, and then his next thought could have been Lachlan had taken her. What else was there for him to think? Unless….

“He thinks I forsook him for the good of my clan. He could think that I left him before he left me.”

She stared into the mist that thickened with each passing moment. She could no longer see the cliffs. Silently, she prayed that a dark figure would breech those cliffs, one in a fine leather doublet and well-cobbled boots.

Ian, she thought, ye must ken where I am.

She stopped. What was she doing? Asking for a man to save her? That should not be the thought of a Highland Chief, the protector of many.

She could very well save herself.

Bess reached deep into her skirts to her purse. It was not there! The
sqian dhu
and, most importantly, the annulment was no longer in her possession.

“Oh, Dear God!” she gasped. Lachlan must have stolen it when her clothes lay by the waterfall, while he watched her bathe. An icy path raked up her spine at the thought.

She turned from the window and regarded her prison. The room contained nothing more than a humble rope bed with a moldering plaid cover, and a wee hearth with a few smoldering peat bricks. Why was Lachlan keeping her here? He had wanted her dead one time, in what seemed like long ago. Why hadn’t he just killed her as soon as he found her?

The door burst open making her jump. Two large men in stinking plaid and muddy brogues entered.

Without a word they stalked up to her, clamped their filthy hands about her arms and dragged her from the chamber and down the narrow winding stair. They pulled and tugged her like a bloody wishbone.

She refused to cry out or show more than stiff resistance, as any good Highland Chief would do.

They shoved her into Duart’s great hall, releasing her arms and shoving her forward. Bess stumbled forward to the cold wood floor, skidding in the soiled rushes. She quickly stood upright, brushing bits of rush, crumbs, and dirt from her clothes.

“A wee bit unkempt for a Highland Chief,” Lachlan said from one end of the large room. His legion of warriors stood about, all eyes on her, and laughing at their chief’s daft joke.

She looked directly forward into the deadest eyes ever set on this earth. She tipped her chin up and stood stiffly before her once husband, her once murderer.

“Aye,” she said. “I have taken on that mantle after ye murdered my brother in Edinburgh.”

“Of that ye havenae proof,
wife
.”

“Oh, aye, I have proof. ’Tis witnesses there and ’tis the knowing that ye are a murderer since ye tried to kill me.”

“If I really wished to kill ye, I would have done so,” Lachlan said shifting in the large chair he kept at the end of the great hall like a throne. He took a sip from a pewter cup. She guessed it was whisky. Lachlan loved his whisky. He had his own distillery in the bowels of this castle.

“The only thing ye’re good at is making whisky,” she sneered, taking a step forward. “’Tis the finest spirit I’ve tasted. Unfortunate the maker is a vile bastard.”

She took another step forward until she was within arm’s distance from Lachlan. She held one hand out to him. “I would like some as well.”

Lachlan cocked one dark brow at her. His hair was so black it changed to indigo in the torchlight. His brows were two very straight dashes over hooded emerald eyes. She took the cup from his hand. A thin scar that ran from the bottom of his nose to the middle of his upper lip marred his mouth. His determined chin held a small, shallow cleft. Surely, this was what the devil looked like.

He observed her though one lock of dark hair that had fallen over one eye.

“Dear wife, ye stare at me as if I were a selkie come to take ye out to sea,” Lachlan said.

“Selkie,” she repeated. That was what she had thought Ian was the first moment she saw him. She was not looking at a selkie. She was staring at evil.

“Wife?” Lachlan asked. “Are ye well?”

Bess blinked hard. “Dinnae presume to call me wife!” She threw the cup across the floor.

Lachlan chuckled. The same sound he made the day he chained her to that bloody rock in the Firth of Lorn. Slowly, dramatically, he raised her purse before her angry eyes.

“Give it back!” she cried. She snatched her hand forward but was rewarded with nothing but air.

Lachlan held the purse from her reach and placed his hand inside. He pulled out the annulment with a dramatic flourish.

“The reformers should storm up from the south and burn every abbey and sacrifice every priest on their bloody crucifixes for this blasphemy!”

“Ye have already done half of their work! Torching the abbey at Cambuskenneth. Ye will rot in Hell for what ye’ve done!”

Lachlan leapt to his feet. He faced her, eye to eye. She did not have to look up to him and she had with Ian.

Bess stared back at him.

Lachlan dropped her purse, but he still held the annulment. And in several swift and blinding motions he tore the paper into tiny fragments and threw them into the air.

They fluttered around Bess like snow.

She stared through the brief blizzard at Lachlan.

“In God’s eyes and the eyes of the church we arenae married. We never were!”

“That will change,
wife!
”

He grabbed her by her wrist and dragged her back up the same stairs in which she had been brought to the great hall. She struggled and cried out, but no one heeded her screams. No one would dare go against the lord of the castle. He crashed open the door of her garret and threw her inside.