Highland Jewel (Highland Brides) Read online

  “Eat,” Leith ordered, fists on hips. “And sleep.”

  “But what of you?” Rose asked.

  For a moment Leith’s heart threatened a violent escape from his chest. Never had he considered that taking her far from her homeland and flinging her into a strange culture might make her long for the relative security of his presence. God bless Scotland and its foreign ways!

  “I will eat below,” he said, sternly subduing his suddenly buoyant mood. He was laird here. He had no time for romance, and yet, just seeing her in his chambers seemed to lighten his heart. “I have much to discuss with me people,” he explained brusquely.

  “Oh.” She looked lost and helpless and for a moment he was tempted to order the serving girls from the room and take the auburn-haired lass to bed. Never had he wanted a woman so much. “Will you … be gone long?” she asked hesitantly, her small face pale.

  Her brow wrinkled slightly when she was worried, and she sucked her lip seductively between her small, even teeth. “Na so long, lass,” he said, wanting to stroke her hair, to scoop his hand behind her velvet-soft neck and pull her into his arms. “Though …” He dropped his voice, allowing no one else to hear his words. “… it will seem so.”

  He left a moment later. Rose eyed the huge amount of food and wondered whether Glen Creag had a small army that might be in need of her meal.

  After a moment and a few questions spoken in a language Rose failed to understand, the women left too. With the closing of the door, Rose felt the raw ambush of loneliness, and the heavy need for sleep.

  Regardless of her fatigue, however, she was determined to take a few bites.

  The bread was made of coarsely ground wheat and freshly baked. The cheese was sharp and tangy, and the soup a wonderful blend of broth, barley, and onions that soon sated her hunger.

  With a full stomach, she saw no reason to deny her fatigue, and so she pushed the table aside and rose to her feet.

  A knock sounded at the door again, a quick, woodpecker rap before Mabel’s voice chirped through the portal. “Might I come in, lass?”

  A moment later the plump woman stood in the middle of the large chamber, clasping her hands and smothering a nervous giggle.

  “Ye see, the situation is this,” began Mabel in a rather apologetic tone, her hands already fluttering about. “Leith has never been wed before. And we are ever so glad to have ye here.”

  “But…” Rose found her voice with some difficulty. “We are only handfasted. And as the tradition was explained to me, my laird and I shall part ways if there is no child—”

  “Hush. Hush now,” said Mabel. “Of course there shall be a bairn. What with Leith being such a strong laird and ye so lovely.” She giggled, then covered her mouth with her hands. “I have wished for children in the hall for so long. And so…” Her hands found each other again. “When young Harlow gave us the news that Leith had returned with ye, well…” She lost the grip on her fingers and they sped apart. “I fear I took the liberty of ordering some gowns begun.” She waved to a woman who apparently waited in the hall and suddenly the entire room was filled with a troop of milling seamstresses. “Ye see,” she explained, her voice still apologetic, “I bought a wee bit of fabric through the years, but I have na great need for rich gowns and thus…” She motioned to the bed where a dozen half-finished garments were already being laid out.

  Rose’s jaw dropped. “For… for me?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Aye.” Mabel bobbed her head, setting her chins to jiggling. “I do hope ye don’t mind. This will na take long. Only a few hours to try them and make adjustments, and then ye can sleep.”

  Chapter 16

  Images of years past drifted gently through Rose’s sleep-fogged mind. Sunlit days. Laughter. Pleasant jaunts with Silken by her side. The low nickers of the draft horses as they waited for their barley.

  These were the things of her childhood—the simple experiences that had made life worth living.

  Memories of the abbey slipped in. Prayer. Cold feet. The unrelenting but unspoken questioning of her purpose there. Her mother’s final words.

  Loneliness. Rose felt it like a draft of cold air.

  Then the images changed, shifting mistily till finally a deep, gravelly voice came, low and husky. Dark hair with narrow braids beside a strong jaw. Long fingers, calloused but gentle, playing softly against her skin. A reluctant smile that lifted only one corner of a seductive mouth. And then the fingers again, warm and languid, brushing her skin like golden rays of sunlight.

  She moaned in her sleep, arching slightly toward those imaginary fingers. Life had been so cold and lonely with no promise of warmth or friendship. But now, deep within the comfort of this dream, she found heat forged with an intense interest in life. Here she felt alive and needed. If only she could sleep forever.

  The fingers slipped like silk over her lips, then curved downward, cresting her chin and falling water-soft down her throat. She shivered as they caressed the tops of her breasts. But it was the press of a warm kiss to the base of her neck that urged her arms to move heavily, as if searching for her misty dream-lover.

  Instead of feeling air, however, her sensitive fingers touched warm flesh. Rose’s senses reeled, fighting to find the safe folds of sleep again. But now the scent of him filled her head. That masculine scent of horse and leather. That scent of…

  Her eyes opened.

  “Leith!” she whispered breathlessly, and found she was staring directly into the warm, honeyed depths of his eyes.

  “Aye, lass,” he murmured, raising his brows at her surprise. “Did ye think there might be another dallying here?”

  He wore no shirt, she realized with bedazzled wonder, and noted too that her humble little cross lay with shameless carelessness against his left nipple.

  That fact bombarded Rose’s already trembling senses like a broadside to a sea-tossed ship. She let her lips part slightly as she frantically sought something intelligent to say.

  “Ye didna answer me, lass,” Leith murmured, his fingers taking up their momentarily abandoned course along her collarbone. “Who were ye expecting?”

  Who indeed? she wondered dizzily. For all she knew, there might not be another man in the world, for she had never met one who made her body ache for release and her palms sweat.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “Methinks ye are avoiding me question,” scolded Leith, his fingers blazing a new trail down a naked …

  Naked!

  The truth of her nudity hit Rose like cold water in the face, causing her hands to fumble for a sheet to cover herself.

  “A … oh … please!” She pushed his hand aside with an elbow. “Where are my clothes?” That last and singularly coherent sentence was delivered with narrow-eyed suspicion, but met with nothing more than Leith’s devastating grin.

  “I was wondering the same, lassie,” admitted Leith lazily. “Has some scoundrel been here afore me?”

  Her jaw dropped, her brows rose, and her pert pink mouth formed a silly oval of amazement. “No.” She shook her head so that each strand of firelight hair tossed with the movement. “You’re the only one.”

  He could only assume she meant he was a scoundrel, but took some solace in the fact that he was, at least, the only scoundrel in her bedchamber. “It seems ye survived the day well enough without me,” he observed. His fingertips trailed smoothly down her arm again, which was bent now to pull the sheet tightly to her chin.

  She shivered when he reached the sharp bend in her arm, and he canted his head, wondering at her reaction.

  “Day… without you?” she said witlessly, gripping the sheet even harder and trying to do the same with her scattered senses.

  “Aye,” he said, but his attention was diverted now as he grasped her wrist in a gentle attempt to pry her hand from the sheet.

  She held on like a terrier to a rat.

  “Truly, lass,” he cajoled, his tone deep with amusement, “ye are so tense. Ye must relax.�
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  “I’m not tense.” She said the words through gritted teeth, and he laughed aloud, finally succeeding in wrenching her hand from the linen.

  “There now.” He held her arm in one hand while massaging it gently with the other. “Tell me of yer day, and I will ease the ache from yer muscles.”

  “My muscles do not ache,” she said stubbornly, but winced slightly as his clever fingers found a particularly sore spot.

  “They dunna?”

  “No,” she lied, but he was working his way gently up her forearm, causing her entire body to begin to go limp and forcing her eyes to fall momentarily closed. “I’ve never felt better.”

  ‘Truly?” he asked, noticing how her other hand’s grip on the sheet had already slackened a wee bit. “Ye are indeed the strong one, then, for in truth…” He leaned closer, letting his kneading fingers slide sensuously up her arm. “I ache.”

  Some area of Rose’s numbed brain noticed that he did not mention what part of his anatomy was aching, and against her will her gaze fell lower.

  She saw that he wore, blessedly, his usual tartan to cover his abject nakedness, but his chuckle made her realize rather belatedly that her relief did little to prevent him from relishing her line of thought.

  Immediately her face flamed with embarrassment. She did her honest best to wrestle her arm from his grasp, but he held on with gentle strength until she ceased her struggles.

  “Nay, lass,” he crooned softly, and bending, placed light kisses on her wrist. “Dunna be ashamed of yer curiosity. For in truth I find it to be quite… uplifting.”

  Again she did her level best to jerk away before her face burned to ashes, but he would not let go.

  “Tell me about yer day, lass,” he urged again. “Try to distract me.” He stared at her in silence before adding with a grin, ” ‘Twould be the godly thing to do.”

  This time he kissed her midway between wrist and elbow. Rose jerked at the spark of pleasure.

  “My day,” she said quickly, trying to ignore the thrilling shiver his touch sent through her. “It was fine.” His kisses were continuing, as was his heavenly massage of her arm.

  “Your aunt…” She tried to conduct a normal conversation, but now his lips touched the crease of her elbow and she jerked involuntarily.

  “Ye have the most sensitive arm, lass,” he murmured, remaining bent over that trembling limb. “I wonder how receptive the rest of yer bonny person might be.”

  “Please!” She could not bear such sweet torture. “Please…”

  “Ye were telling me of yer day,” he reminded her.

  “Oh!” She wasn’t sure what prompted the strange sound that came from her throat. But perhaps it was the fact that both his hands and his mouth had moved to her fingers. Who would have thought the simple massage of them would feel so luscious?

  “Yer day,” he reminded her again, glancing up at her wide violet eyes as he turned her palm upward. “Ye can remember, can ye na?”

  “Of course I can,” she said, and though she had intended to snap the words at him, she found the sentence came out on a breathy moan of pleasure, for he was now rotating his thumb in the center of her palm. He made her feel like melting ice, like a frozen pond in the midst of a spring thaw. Her head tilted back as she opened her eyes just in time to see him touch his tongue to that same tender spot on her palm.

  There was no use trying to pull away now, though Rose supposed it would be good to try.

  But she had never been very good at being good.

  “Mayhap ye could begin by telling me who took yer clothes,” urged Leith as he nibbled his way down her quivering pinky and gently sucked the tip.

  She sighed, forgetting to feel guilty.

  “Clothes,” he reminded her, moving on to her next ringer.

  “Clothes … yes,” she echoed. “Pray tell, what has happened…” She gasped as he sucked her middle finger into his mouth, but failed yet again to try to pull away. “What has happened to your clothes?”

  He drew her hand nearer so that her palm finally rested against the tight slope of his bare chest, just beside the dangling cross. His bandage was gone now, exposing the reddened, healing wound near his shoulder. “‘Tis good of ye to notice that I am na fully dressed.”

  Oh, God, yes. She had noticed. Beneath her hand he felt as taut and rugged as a hunting animal, and when she raised her eyes to his, she found they reflected that same predatory sharpness.

  She slipped her hand sideways so that her fingers brushed across his smooth nipple. They moaned in unison.

  “Me sweet lass,” he crooned, drawing nearer so that her hand slid along the slant of his lean ribs to his back. “I could remove me plaid also that I wouldna have ye at a disadvantage.”

  Disadvantage? The truth was, she was hopelessly disadvantaged for she ached to feel him stretched against her skin, naked and hot and hard. But she was supposed to be the strong one, to hold him at bay, to fast and to pray.

  While in truth—they’d all be lucky if she didn’t eat him alive.

  His lips found hers and suddenly she was pressed up against him like butter on bread. Through the sheet and his plaid she could feel the hot length of his manhood, and knew that if she but slipped her hand lower she could reach beneath his simple garment and grasp the length of his throbbing need.

  The thought should have shocked her, she was certain. In fact, she tried to be shocked, but all she could manage was breathless anticipation. It seemed she was beyond embarrassment now and all she knew was her own ravishing desire.

  Too long had she been untouched.

  Somehow the sheet fell away and his arms encircled her. She felt the hard press of his chest against her bosom and arched, pressing herself more firmly to him.

  “Sweet lass,” he rasped again, feeling such an aching need that he found it hard to speak. “Let me be rid of these—”

  A quick knock sounded upon the door. “Yer bath, me laird.”

  On the bed the two froze together like ragged miscreants caught in a crime. Leith’s heated body screamed for justice, for some ease from the fever in his loins. All he need do was send the woman away, his reason declared, but one glance at the violet eyes below him said otherwise.

  Cold, hard, good sense had flooded back to Rose’s expression, and in her eyes he saw she realized what they had almost done.

  “Get up!” she ordered.

  “Lass, I—” he began.

  “I’ll scream,” she warned. “I swear I will.”

  His first thought was Scream away, lass. After all, who was there to stop him? He was laird here, for Jesu’s sake. But common decency and an inherent sense of fairness prevailed, making him release her with gritted teeth.

  When he stood, Rose could not help but notice that his plaid stuck out at a strange angle near his hip. His eyes followed hers before he turned his back with a scowl.

  “Come in,” he called, and in a moment the door cracked open.

  “Me laird?” questioned Hannah timidly, making Leith realize he had barked the words. “Shall I return later?”

  Later? Leith scowled. Later would be no better. The girl could wait with his bathwater till hell froze over, but Rose Gunther would not see it in her heart to be less difficult. “Nay.” He did his best to temper his tone. “Bring it now.”

  Two young men carried the wooden vat that served as a bathing tub, and it was with renewed embarrassment that Rose recognized one of them as the lad who had seized her clothes during her bath by the river.

  His eyes flicked over her and though it was but a momentary glance, it was enough to send rage flaring through Leith’s overheated body.

  “Harlow!” he bellowed. Every person in the room jerked at the sound.

  The lad halted mid-stride, his posture tense. “Aye, me laird?”

  “I will see ye and yer two cohorts by the north wall.”

  “Aye.” The lad’s back was as straight as a lance, though his face was pale.

  “Now!”
growled Leith and the lad flinched before hurrying from the room.

  Leith’s gaze shifted to Rose’s lowered face. “Ye may bathe first,” he said, forgetting to smooth his gruff tone before he exited behind the boy.

  Striding down the hall, Leith felt the lingering effects of his rampant desire. He’d created himself a hell on earth.

  The lass was his. Yet she was not truly his.

  She shared his bed. Yet she did not share his bed.

  She was Fiona MacAulay. Yet she was not.

  His hands curled and he wished with the logic of pure frustration, that he could hit something hard and solid. She tempted him with her every move. Sweet Jesu, she tempted with her very presence. It took no more than the sight of her face in slumber to stoke his desire to raging proportions. And as if that were not enough, now it seemed he needed to deal with the desires of every half-grown whelp with the first growth of moss fuzz upon his jaw.

  He should have left her in England. He should have taken one look at her innocent doe eyes and run like hell.

  Or he should have ravaged her then married her in earnest. For God’s sake, she wanted him! She ached for him. He knew it. He could feel the hot excitement in her each time he touched her velvet skin, her silken hair. And yet she would not admit it. She had not admitted to a weakness of any kind.

  She was driving him mad, constantly occupying his thoughts, causing him to forgot all the things he had kept sacred his entire life—all the things he had sworn to protect when he took his vows as laird of the Forbes.

  When he’d entered his chamber he’d had no thought of ravishing her. In fact, his body had ached with fatigue and he’d thought only of a warm bath and some rest.

  But there she’d been, naked but for a single linen sheet, and his primal instincts had taken control. They’d been so close to consummating their relationship. And he’d never even gotten past her arm, Holy Jesu! What if he got a chance to actually touch her knee? What if he was able to lay a hand on the steep curve of her waist or feel her heart beat like a running steed’s beneath his cheek?

  Dear God. He must find his wits, he thought, striding through the bustling hall and outside.