Heart of Shadows (Hearts of the Highlands Book 2), page 17
“What is she like?” she asked in her quiet, honeyed voice.
It was difficult for him to keep his thoughts from trailing off to the delectable dip of her lower lip, the alluring curve of her jaw, a sweet, soft chin that was never haughty…her spun gold tresses falling around her face—around his fingers when he held her.
“She is perfect.” He smiled at her, unable to help himself. “For the earl.
Hell, she was exquisite in the firelight…all the time, making his head spin in every direction. He stared at her purple jaw, feeling the same rage he’d felt while fighting Armstrong.
His life was broken, but he had always held himself together. Somehow. Until now. Until Braya shattered him into pieces at her feet. She had asked him to show mercy. She had no idea what it had cost him to do so. It had torn a great block of his defense asunder. Defense he needed. All he’d known his entire life was revenge. It had darkened his soul, turned him into something savage and hardhearted. It fit the life he led, not a life with her.
And yet, knowing her, caring for her, was making him want to be the kind of man worthy of her.
Hell, he should go to bed before he got into trouble.
He was a Scot. He was one of King Robert the Bruce’s commanders. Did it matter who won the race? She wouldn’t want him at the end of it, and he was sure he would never forget her.
He should have gone to bed, for they stayed awake too long, talking about their families and whom they had lost. Braya told them about Ragenald joining the English to fight at Bannockburn and never returning.
Torin told them about his brothers and the few vague memories he had of them. They were mostly bad memories, ones of terror on children’s faces and crying, memories he prayed he could forget.
One or two others weren’t so bad. He shared those. “I remember my older brother tripping me in the pigpen. My mother found us playing in the mud and tried to scold us while she laughed.” He smiled thinking of it. He hadn’t in years. “The babe of my family was only two when…” He paused as shadows passed across his eyes. Then he smiled again. “He was always on my mother’s hip, even while she read to me. I think of the three of us, she loved him the most.”
“Every mother is most reluctant to let her youngest go,” Braya’s voice soothed him from across the flames. He wanted to go to her and carry her away.
“That may be so,” he laughed softly instead. “But everyone in the village made a fuss over him. I remember me and my other brother being jealous of him.”
“What were their names?” she asked him, looking as if she were aching to go to him, too. Dammit that Adams was here.
“I do not remember their names.”
He noted the glistening tears that lit her eyes. She felt sad for him, sad that the Scots had done this to him.
He looked away. His lie was too big.
Adams told of his dear baby sister, Edith, who had been wed at fifteen to a Scottish laird and taken to the Highlands.
“I remember when she left,” Braya said quietly, staring into the flames. “’Twas the same year Raggie died.”
“Aye,” Adams murmured, then finished his apple. “’Twas difficult for all of us.”
“Let us go find her when this is all over.” Torin was sure he’d gone mad, for only a madman would make such plans with a man he would most likely have to kill. His gaze slipped to Braya. She was smiling. She liked the idea. Of course she would. He’d like for her to come as well.
“When what is all over?” Adams asked.
Braya was looking at him over the flames, waiting for his answer.
He gave it. “After the Scots have taken Carlisle.”
Her glorious blue eyes lit with fire from within, as hot as the flames between them. “We cannot let them.”
His eyes on her darkened beneath his furrowed brow. “You would prefer Bennett over a Scot after all he has done to you and your family?” Now, he waited for her answer. He hoped she didn’t hate Scots so much.
“How do we know the Scots will not be worse?” she asked earnestly. “You of all people know how cruel and savage they are.”
“As I told your family in the great hall, the Scots are not known for killing border reivers. If they know the Hetheringtons are a thousand strong and there are others who would fight at your family’s side, the Scots will leave you alone.”
“How can they be trusted?” she argued.
He couldn’t tell her the truth; that it was the English who had taken everything from him. He couldn’t defend the Scots without giving himself away. She would hate him. He wasn’t ready for that.
“Perhaps they will not use your father as a pawn to fight their battles. They might not have his daughter kidnapped and tied to a damned bed and struck as if she were not the most delicate of beings.”
She smiled, beguiling him senseless with her dimple. “I’m not so delicate.”
“You are to me,” he said quietly so that only she might hear.
When the Armstrongs had taken her, he thought he would go mad. He did not for a moment think she was dead or in danger of dying. He would have gone blind with fury if he had. He was not going to lose her, too.
Was this love that he felt for her? He had to speak to Adams alone. What would he do if it was? He wasn’t sure he wanted to leave her. Ever.
And the tragedy of it all was that he would lose her because of who he was and what it had made him.
“We should get some sleep,” he told her tenderly. He reached his hand out to touch her bruise and looked into her eyes. “I will watch over you.”
She smiled and laid waste to his heart. “And I will watch over you.”
“And I will watch over the horses,” Adams called out softly from his place against the tree.
The three of them laughed and watched the stars for a little while longer.
Torin didn’t get much sleep thinking about what he would tell Lord Rothbury when he arrived at Lismoor. The earl more than likely believed Torin was a Scot since he was fighting for Robert.
Fighting for Robert.
He opened his eyes and watched Braya while she slept across from him, across the flames. He should take her to Bothwell Castle, but it was in Scotland and too far to travel to and come back in time to fight.
Besides, she should know the truth.
Tomorrow, he thought, after he penned a letter to Rothbury, he would tell her.
Lord Rothbury, Nicholas MacPherson of Lismoor, known to some as William Stone, reread the missive he received from Commander Gray of the Bruce’s army out loud.
He sat at a table in the gathering hall in the rear tower with Cain, his brother, who was visiting with his wife, Aleysia, for the birth of Nicholas’ first babe. With them also was Father Timothy and Nicholas’ close friend, Sir Richard.
“I have no idea who Gray is,” he told the others. “If he is in Robert’s service, why does he not know my true name?”
“The two that he travels with are English, my lord,” Father Timothy reminded him after hearing the letter. “He says he’s a spy of sorts, so ’tis likely they dinna know he’s a Scot, or that ye are one. If he’s workin’ fer the Bruce, best to go along with it when they get here.”
“I wish he had penned why he was coming,” Nicholas scowled. “I do not fancy the idea of strangers in my home when my wife gives birth. Worse, what if Carlisle’s guards are pursuing them?”
“Let them bring the whole English army,” his brother said in his naturally lilting, challenging voice. “I’m here.”
Nicholas nodded and smiled. He could fight, thanks to his brother teaching him, and he commanded a proper guard, but he was a more diplomatic earl. Besides, no one fought like Cain. If there might be fighting, Nicholas was glad his brother was here.
Putting thoughts of the English and his Scot’s comrades to rest for now, he folded the parchment and shoved it into his gray woolen doublet. “Let us return to the keep and my wife. Soon, I am to be a father.”
“Mayhap not too soon, Brother,” Cain laughed, coming around the table and tossing his arm over Nicholas’ shoulder. “It has only been five hours. Remember, it took almost a score and three hours fer my son to arrive.”
“I remember it as if it occurred yesterday instead of two years ago,” Nicholas told him with a frown darkening his eyes to smoky silver. They had traveled to Invergarry for the birth of Cain and Aleysia’s first babe. “Mattie remembers it as well. She’s been afraid because of it. Now she is going through it. Why can I not be there with her?”
“Aleysia and Mattie’s maids are with her,” Richard reminded him as they left the gathering hall. “They know what to do. You do not.”
Cain leaned in closer to his ear. “I went to Aleysia’s side when she was havin’ Tristan. She nearly tore oot my eyes. The things she said, I think I will never ferget.”
Nicholas moved away and stared at him in the dimly lit hall, looking less sure than he had a moment ago. Until Cain laughed again and pounded him in the chest.
Nicholas thought he preferred it when Cain had always been solemn and serious. “I think I shall go to my wife anyway.”
Father Timothy held up his hand to protest. “I dinna think ye should—”
“Do it,” whispered Cain, coming close again.
“You will distract the women,” Sir Richard said, thinking to stop him as they reached the massive doors, and then the narrow door of the tower.
Before they left, Cain pulled him in by the shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Are ye brave enough, little brother?”
Nicholas nodded. Aye, he was. He smiled when Cain smiled at him.
“Then go.” His brother gave him a shove toward the door. “And remember this is yer castle when my wife tells ye to get oot.”
Nicholas hurried out of the tower and down the stone stairs. He’d wanted to go to her since this painful task had begun, but there had been much to do. Father Timothy, the lover of celebrations, had begun planning an hour after her pains started. Since the priest didn’t live here, but in Invergarry with Cain and his family, he did not know who to go to for anything, and much of the female staff was with Mattie, so he ended up going to Nicholas.
He crossed the short walkway and moved quickly toward the keep. He wondered as he went what his life would be like as a father. He couldn’t help but smile thinking about all that had changed in the past two and a half years. He was no longer a servant but an earl, and he wasn’t going to spend his life with Julianna, as he had always dreamed, but with Mattie, a woman who loved him passionately, a woman who had taken the place of every other. She crept into his heart when he thought he would never love again and sang a new song.
He entered the keep, ready to help her start their new life together, eager and ready for it.
He didn’t waste a moment on Rauf, his steward, when Rauf demanded to know how the cook was supposed to prepare so much food in so little time.
He didn’t let his thoughts wander too much to the three people who would soon be arriving and if an army might be arriving with them.
He saw Emma, Tristan’s nurse, chasing the lad down the hall. His heart swelled with love for his family, and he hurried past Emma and called out that Cain was on his way.
When he reached the door to his bedchamber, someone—Mattie—wailed in agony. Nicholas nearly pushed the door down. He wanted to run inside but stood beneath the doorframe for a moment, paralyzed with uncertainty about what to do next.
Aleysia and the other women stared at him, startled. He expected Cain’s spirited Norman wife to shout at him, but she said nothing as he entered and hurried to his wife.
“My dove, I am here.” He stepped up onto the bed and leaned over her.
Her pale blonde hair was damp with sweat. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was pale. She barely had time to smile at him before another wave of pain gripped her.
He tried to comfort her, but failed. Still, in the end, he was thankful he had gone to her. Thankful he was there to hold her while she left him and his baby son alone on the earth.
Chapter Nineteen
Torin crouched at the edge of a small cliff and looked down at the River Coquet and Braya bathing in it. He knew he should turn away, but the sight of her caught him by surprise when he was searching for berries for breakfast and mesmerized him.
It didn’t matter that she wasn’t facing him. Her long, creamy back, draped in waves of light, shimmering gold, and the alluring curve of her waist, set his blood to racing and made his muscles tighten. Part of him wanted to continue gazing at her, making him wish he could paint or put to words what he thought of her and how he saw her, like a living flower, perfectly crafted by God.
The other part of him wanted to tear off his clothes and dive down to her…hold her and kiss her, take her deeper into the waves and make love to her. But first—
She turned and looked up suddenly, as if she’d sensed his gaze.
Instinctively, he backed away and then fled.
Hell! He shook his head as he scurried away like the coward he was. Why was he running away? Why did the thought of facing her now make him want to keep on running? He should go back. No. He already looked foolish. He would not avoid her though. The thought of not being with her riled him and worried him at the same time. He was going to have to get used to not being with her soon enough. He didn’t want to rush the inevitable along if he didn’t have to.
He made his way down the steep hill and around to the riverbank. He would find her, apologize, and then meet her back at the campsite.
She was out of the water and dressed in her chemise when he arrived. The thin linen clung to her wet body.
Torin swallowed and commanded his eyes to look away. They refused.
“I did not mean to—” Hell, he could barely think and finally turned away when she reached for her léine. “I was searching for berries and I came upon—forgive me for staring, but you are like sunshine finally breaking through the clouds.”
“Torin.” Her voice rolled across his ears like the current of a rippling brook.
He turned to her just as she reached him. She closed her arms around his neck and fit herself perfectly against his body. Could she feel his heart beating against her?
“Torin, there is something I must tell you,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I…I am in love with you.”
Nothing in his life could have ever prepared him for this. He hadn’t loved or been loved in twenty years. He was afraid of it. In fact, it was the only thing he feared. No. He feared losing it, losing her. He wanted to believe he was in love with her. Better that than going out of his mind and ending up on the road, begging for mercy when he’d never granted any. Until recently.
“Braya.” He dipped his head to her and breathed across her lips. “I—”
“No,” she pleaded. “Let us say no more.”
He closed his arms around her slim waist and pulled her in close. She felt right in his arms. He felt restored in hers.
She opened her mouth to his and clutched his mantle in both hands as he pressed her to him. He swept his tongue inside her, gently brushing it over hers in a dance that freed his soul and captured him whole at the same time.
His slid his hands down her elegant back and rested them on the soft mounds of her bum. His muscles tightened. His kiss grew deeper. All he had to do was lift her up, free himself from his breeches, and have her right here. Right now.
But he was no brute. Not with women. He smiled against her teeth. Even women who would try to slay him.
“What is amusing about this?” She laughed and pulled away from him with a playful smile tilting her rosy, swollen lips. Swollen from him.
He growled from deep in his throat and closed his eyes, and then laughed when she poked him in the guts and traipsed away toward the water.
He untied his mantle, pulled off his léine, and kicked off his boots. She wagged her finger at him, telling him not to follow. Of course he would, as soon as he got out of his belt. He laughed and shook his head at himself that she could make him so pitiful he would forget how to remove his damned belt!
Finally! He flung it aside and gave chase. When he got close, she squeaked and kicked water at him. He bent and splashed her back until she screamed and ran again. He chased her through the shallow bank, over pebbles and other stones, feeling better than he ever had in his life.
He stopped suddenly and stared down at the water. Something swam across his legs. His smile faded and he lifted his arms in the air.
Braya stopped and watched him. “What are you doing?”
He swept his damp curls away from his eyes and cast her a worried look. “I felt something brush across my legs.”
“’Twas just a fish,” she said. He could hear the humor in her voice and almost admired how hard she worked at keeping it away. “Why do you look so alarmed?”
“I do not like what I cannot see.”
“Can you see this?” she asked, scooping handfuls of water and tossing them at him.
When he leaped after her, she screamed and laughed and fell into his arms.
He kissed her with exquisite care, delighting in how she touched his bare shoulders. Her fingers tracing the angles in his arms made him ache for more than kisses.
“Remember the race, my lord,” she said with a teasing smile. “Will you let me beat you to the castle, or take me as your wife?”
“I will take you as my wife,” he murmured, bending to capture her and her mouth once again.
But…he couldn’t take her with so much between them, and he couldn’t reach the castle first while he had so many secrets.
“But Braya, hear me. I…I…live with a great…shame.” He released her and ran his hand down his face. “It plagues me every day.”
“What are you ashamed of, my love?” she asked, concern filling her gaze while she ran her fingers over his jaw.
He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to admit it, hear it coming from his lips.
