Chapter Four
Lillianna was immensely relieved that Angus was stalking ahead of her. The mere act of walking nearly brought her to tears. Her inner thighs burned fiercely, making her certain the skin there looked much like the raw, bleeding skin of her hands. She had to get a moment of privacy to look without him knowing she might be injured there, as well. It would be mortifying.
He made quick work of securing their mounts, and then he motioned toward the thick brush. “There’s water that way.”
“How do you know?” she asked, looking in the direction he’d indicated. She saw only huge, ancient, moss-covered trees with large trunks and naked limbs. Winter had taken the bright-green leaves of summer, but this forest was so crowded with trees, vines, and shrubs that it was still impossible to see very far, even with so many bare tree limbs.
“I heard it,” he replied without stopping. He shoved a branch to the side, the underbrush crunching beneath his feet, and then he paused. “Are ye coming?”
She stilled to try to hear it. “I don’t hear anything,” she answered.
He turned to her, a resigned expression on his face, as if he was used to needing to further explain himself. Mayhap his sisters often asked for clarification from him? She had never been part of real family, so she could only muse that this was what family loyalty and love looked like; doing things you didn’t necessarily want to. Her mother had loved her and had been loyal, as best she could, but they had not lived together and never had a chance to truly become acquainted.
“Are you close to your sister?” she asked.
“I protect them.” His answer was evasive as he motioned for her to keep following him.
“You have two sisters?”
“Aye.”
“What I meant,” she said, trying again, “is, do you care for them?”
“Aye,” he said, stalking ahead. “What do ye think I mean by protecting them?”
“How am I to know,” she grumbled. “Protection can be given out of duty and no love at all.”
“Love is nae a word warriors use, lass. That’s a woman’s word.” He held a branch back for her as he walked.
His responses were gruff, but his actions were honorable. She bit her lip, wanting to ask him more, and then decided she simply would. “Do you have other siblings?”
“Do ye always talk this much?” he demanded, his exasperation clear in his terse tone.
“With my cousin,” she said. She did not want to reveal that she’d had no one else to ever talk to. Her father had made certain she was isolated.
“Besides my two sisters I have two brothers. Now, move faster. We kinnae linger here.”
He picked up the pace, clearly not considering that she might not obey his dictate, so she stopped and allowed him to walk away, wondering how long it would take him to realize she was not lapping at his heels like a puppy. It took three steps.
When he faced her again, a warning cloud had settled on his features. “Are ye always this uncompliant?”
“No,” she answered honestly. He need not know she’d previously feared not obeying orders.
“Ah, so yer behavior is just for me?” He rucked up his eyebrows and glared at her.
“Well,” she said, “yes and no.” When his eyes narrowed dangerously, she knew she had to explain herself. Otherwise, she feared he’d lose his patience and simply throw her over his shoulder and take her to the stream. Her mother had said Scottish men were a hotheaded lot, who got what they desired one way or another. “I was always obedient before.”
Please, please let him leave it at that.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, almost as if he were fighting against himself to continue the conversation. “And?” he finally spit out.
“And as you are neither my father nor my uncle, I don’t feel compelled to obey you,” she said, purposely not mentioning that she did not fear him as she had them.
“Nay, I’m nae yer relation. But I am yer protector. We’ve been through this. It’s my duty to deliver ye safely to yer mother’s clan, and I mean for ye to be alive when I do it. Now come along.”
“I will. I simply want to know—”
“Now,” he ordered.
She bit her tongue on calling him a few choice foul names. “I’m not a dog to be ordered about. Do you hear me?” she demanded, surprised at the anger she felt. She pointed her finger at him. “Men think to order women always, and we must obey for fear of punishment. I tell you, I refuse to be fearful anymore.” She ended with a huff.
The anger on his face slipped away, and a somber expression replaced it. “Were ye fearful, then? Before? That’s why ye were obedient?”
She’d not meant to reveal so much, but now that she had, she could not take it back. “Yes.”
Cold fury lit his eyes and twisted his mouth. “Did yer father hit ye? Yer uncle, too?”
“No… Well, not often.” The look on his face changed from furious to deadly. She suspected if her father or her uncle had been standing in front of Angus right now, they would have had to deal with his wrath.
“There is nae ever a reason for a man to hit a woman,” he growled.
There it was again—the fierce, honorable protector hiding behind his gruff exterior. That was the sort of man a woman could develop a tendre for, if she was so inclined. Of course, Lillianna was not. How different she might be if her father had been a good man. He was not, though, so there was no point in dwelling on it. He had not hit her often, but whenever she had displeased him, he had hurt her mother, so Lillianna did all in her power not to anger him.
“There are other ways to hurt people,” she said, surprising herself. She’d not intended to utter her thoughts out loud.
“And what ways might yer da have used?”
She could not see the harm in revealing a few things to a man she would soon part from, one who did not appear to believe in the legend. “He hurt my mother when I displeased him. I learned very early on to never challenge him, never disobey, and always do as he asked.”
“I’m of a mind to visit yer da after I see you settled at the MacLeod castle,” he said, his voice like ice.
His words startled her. No man had ever offered to be her champion, not even the ones who had tried to win her affection over the last year. Angus’s selflessness and courage filled her with awe, but also fear for him. “I appreciate it. I really do, but don’t ever do such a thing. You must vow it.”
“I’ll nae vow such a thing. Yer da deserves a lesson.”
“He does, I agree. But his castle is well fortified and his men well trained.” Angus scowled at her. She’d offended him! She rushed to clarify. “I’m not at all saying you could not fight him and win, Angus. It’s just, avenging his wrongs against me is not worth your life.”
“I’m nae in danger of losing my life, lass,” he said, winking at her. “I’m fairly handy with a sword.”
“Oh, I’m certain you are,” she replied, her gaze drawn to his powerful shoulders and then his battle-honed arms. She imagined he was fearsome in a fight. When he cleared his throat, she realized that she’d once again been caught staring at him. This man was a danger to her, and he wasn’t even trying to be. She needed to break the moment and the hold he seemed to have over her. “Should we not make haste?”
“Aye.” He agreed so readily that she sensed he was uncomfortable, and no wonder! He must have been fawned over quite a bit and rather tired of it. And she’d likely been staring at him with her mouth agape!
He turned once more and started walking so fast she had to run to keep up with him, which made her grit her teeth against the pain in her thighs she was trying to ignore. In no time, they broke through a patch of thick brush, and the bank of a river was before them. He faced her, a smile hovering at his lips. “Do ye ken why ye did nae hear the water earlier?”
“No,” she replied, forcing herself to ignore the pain.
“Because there is listening and then there is hearing.”
“What the difference?” she asked, intrigued by the way he thought.
“I’ll show ye,” he said, and then he stood very still and quiet, so she did to. She thought it would be but a second, but when it became apparent that he meant for them to stand there for a few minutes, she tried to really hear everything around her. After a bit of time, he said, “what did ye hear?”
“Water rushing, the leaves blowing, an owl hooting in the distance,” she said, rather proud of the last one.
He shook his head. “Ye listened, but ye did not hear. Hearing involves making yerself one with yer environment.”
“All right,” she said. “What did you hear?”
“Crickets chirping, a small animal hunting for food near us. Wood crunching under their feet.”
That startled her. “How do you know it’s not someone coming to pursue us?”
“People have heavy footfalls. ’Tis a much different sound than that of an animal. Come, ye can practice hearing while I clean yer wound.”
The thought of him holding her hand to clean her wound started a flutter in her belly. “I can clean my own wound,” she assured him.
“Nae as good as me, ye kinnae,” he replied. “Now either come willingly to the river’s edge or I’ll toss ye over my shoulder and—”
“I’ll go willingly,” she interrupted. If he tossed her over his shoulder, her chest would be pressed against his skin and her bottom in his face. That seemed a decidedly intimate position, and she had no intention of becoming intimate with Angus.
“Wise choice.” He turned and made his way to the steep river bank, then started to reach for her waist, likely to aid her down the incline.
“I can make my own way down, thank you.” she said, not wishing to seem helpless.
“As ye wish,” he replied, turned on his heel, and with graceful agility, snaked his way down the embankment in the time it took for her to inhale and exhale. She was determined to descend the bank with as much dexterity as he had shown, but when she stepped into the brush, her slipper landed on something squishy. She glanced down and saw a slithering snake underfoot. Screaming, she jerked away from the reptile, lost her balance, and went flying face forward down the embankment, only to be caught at the bottom by Angus. Her legs, where they rubbed together, and her hands, where she tried to catch herself, screamed in pain.
Her body collided with his, knocking the breath from her in a whoosh, and then his arms, warm and well-formed with muscle, encircled her in his protective embrace. He clutched her to his chest for but a brief second, but in that moment, she felt the thundering of his heart.
“Are ye all right?” he asked as he set her on her feet upon the flat, sandy bank.
“Were you worried?” she asked, her words coming out snappish due to her embarrassment.
He frowned. “It’s polite to ask, aye? At least yer scowl showed me ye’d nae injured anything. Ye did nae hear the snake, I take it.”
She gasped. “You knew that snake was there!”
“Aye,” he replied, surprising her when he lightly took her elbow to lead her to the water. “Because I heard it,” he said, his lips curling into the briefest of smiles.
She was intrigued by his ability to hear things she could not, but first… “Why did you not warn me?” she asked, starting to kneel as he had done by the water’s edge, but he stopped her, and without a word, he stripped off his plaid, folded it up, and placed it on the ground beside him. He turned his face to the water so that she could not see it.
“For yer knees,” he said, his tone hinting at his discomfort. “There are pebbles.” He motioned to the sand. “My sisters always whine that the little things dig into their skin, and I’d rather nae hear ye whine.”
She knew she was gaping again when the cool air hit her teeth, and she quickly clamped her jaw shut. No one had ever done such a thing for her before. It was a simple gesture, a thoughtful one, and it moved her to her core. She studied the back of his head for a moment, aware he was likely waiting for her to respond. His thick black hair hung just over his shoulder in waves. The muscles of his back strained against the tan skin. She allowed her gaze to wander downward, stopping on a long scar of about eight inches that ran from below his shoulder blade to the lower part of his ribs. She kneeled, not realizing how close she was, until her shoulder brushed his as she came to her knees. He turned his face to hers and his smoldering gaze snatched her breath. But when he blinked, it was as if ice-cold water had put out the flame that burned within him.
“Thank you for your plaid.”
He nodded, his gaze assessing her. “Ye may wear it. It will get bitter cold when the sun goes down, and my sisters always whine when they’re cold. And as I’d rather not hear ye whine—”
She pressed her lips together on the wish to laugh at his obvious attempt not to seem overly thoughtful to her. Why he wanted her to think he was simply being kind out of a desire not to hear her whine like his sisters, she did not know, nor was it her place to prod. She understood what it was to want to keep one’s secrets.
She glanced to the sun. He was right about the impending chill. Winter was upon them. In fact, the new year was close. How near, she could not recall. “How many days until Hogmanay?”
“Ye ken Hogmanay?” His surprise was evident in his voice and upon his face.
“Of course,” she replied.
“It’s tomorrow,” he said, his tone full of wistfulness. “Give me yer hand.”
“Tomorrow? I had no idea,” she murmured, not realizing she’d even offered her hand until his warm fingers closed gently around her bones.
“I’m nae shocked since ye were locked in a dungeon.” His earlier anger surfaced in the vibration of his words. “This will sting a bit, but it’s necessary.”
She nodded and steeled herself against the pain as he tilted the wine skin she hadn’t seen him take out. As he poured the liquid over the cut of her left hand, she clenched her teeth against the need to scream, but she could not stop the tears from filling her eyes. She held her eyes open wide, refusing to allow a single tear to escape.
“Ye’re a braw lass,” he said, releasing her hand and startling her by taking the edge of her skirt in his fist.
“What are you…” Before she finished the sentence, she understood his purpose and allowed her words to trail off. He ripped the material of her skirt quickly, took the long strip, and wound it around her left hand.
“To protect the wound from dirt and allow it to heal,” he explained.
She nodded, her hand throbbing so severely now that waves of dizziness washed over her. When he reached for her right hand, she instinctually jerked away from him and brought her hand protectively to her chest.
Sympathy filled his eyes, which stunned her; she’d assumed he’d be irritated at her show of cowardliness. His gentle, understanding gaze rested on her and took the sharp edge off her fear, but not to the extent that she planned to willingly offer up her other hand for torture. She feared if she had to endure any more pain, she’d simply pass out. “I’m detaining us,” she said as an excuse. “The wound on my other hand is not as terrible, and we should depart.” She expected him to argue, but his eyes held hers, a look upon his face as if he was waiting for something. She had no notion what.
She licked her lips, her mind conjuring a thousand possible reasons. “If we linger too long and someone is following us, they’ll catch up to us.”
“Aye,” he said, his voice as steady as his gaze.
“Let us ride, then. I’ll hold the reins with one hand.” The moment the words were out of her mouth she heard how ridiculous they were, and a dismaying thought struck her. “I’m being the burden I swore I’d not be.”
“Aye.” That hint of a smile pulled up his lips once more before he pressed them together, as if he had no time for smiling or the emotions that came with it. “Are ye ready to continue proving that ye can be braw?”
“Yes,” she croaked, not at all sure she was, but she was not about to crumble on their first day together. “Distract me, please,” she said as she held her other hand out to him.
He nodded, took her hand, and immediately moved his thumb gently back and forth over her wrist so that she concentrated on those small motions and the way they made her feel. Her stomach tightened and gooseflesh swept her arm, and then his voice rolled over her like a hot wave. “Pain is a state of mind. Tell yerself ye feel nothing, and ye will nae.”
“Is that what you do?” she asked. Their eyes met, and a tingling sensation commenced in the pit of her stomach.
“Aye. Every time ye start to feel anything, simply tell yerself ye dunnae.”
She nodded, unsure it would work.
Slowly, he released her hand and reached once more for his wine skin. “How do ye ken about Hogmanay?” he asked, bringing the wine skin to hover over her hand but not tilting it yet. She tensed all over.
I will feel nothing. I will feel nothing. I will feel nothing.
“Hogmanay?” he prodded, interrupting the litany in her head.
“My mother was a MacLeod, as you know. She told me of it. I’ve not ever participated in it, though. How do you celebrate it?”
“Oh, ’tis grand,” he said, his happy memories and enthusiasm obvious. “We’ve the Saining of the Castle.”
“The Saining?”
“The blessing,” he said. “Now dunnae talk. Just listen and continue to chant in yer head that ye feel nothing.”
She nodded and commenced the chant.
“We get water from the stream, and the priest, Father Dunlap, blesses it. Then he sprinkles the water around the castle and on our livestock. The whole clan is gathered, ye ken. Then my sisters, Greer and Mari, and some other womenfolk whose fathers or brothers sit on the MacLorh council with me and my brothers carry burning juniper branches around the castle to purify the rooms with smoke.”
It sounded to her like his clan believed in a bit of magic, just as her mother’s clan had. If he believed in magic, then why did he not believe in the legend surrounding her? She frowned. It didn’t matter why he did not believe the legend; it was simply fortunate that he did not.
“Once the castle is good and smoky, we throw open the windows, and that’s when the real celebration begins,” he went on.
She studied the genuine, and rather large, smile on his face. If she mentioned her thoughts to him, she was certain that smile would disappear, as it did not match the hard-hearted Scot he seemed determined to claim as his true self. A sudden longing pierced her heart, wishing to experience the celebration with him and his family, and feel just a bit of that happiness, that closeness, that love. She wanted to ask him what he meant by the “real celebration,” but he’d told her to listen, so she waited, hopeful he’d tell her.
“We have reviving drinks, ye see, so wine flows freely. My sisters, brothers, and I—well, everyone—dance and sing and act foolish, but none judge. Then I tell a tale around the fire in the great hall to end the celebration. It’s the best night of the year. The wine especially,” he said with a chuckle. “It is the most special of wines, and we only drink it on that one day. It slides down yer throat gentle-like to warm yer belly.”
She could feel it going down her throat as he spoke, and then she realized with a gasp that he’d poured the wine over her free wrist. Suddenly, he took her fingers in his, his eyes impaling her. “Ye feel nothing.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered, caught in the moment of his tale, the image he’d created of him, his family, and his clan dancing, singing, gathered together for his story. “I feel envy. You seem so close to your family. I’ve never had that. And I never will.” She bit her lip as he frowned. She’d revealed too much. Slowly, she pulled her hand out of his, and he once again took up a corner of her skirt, tore it, and wound the material around her hand.
He took hold of her waist then, and guided her to standing with him, and then he looked down at her, something intense flaring in his eyes. “Ye will have that. I will make certain ye reach yer mother’s clan, and ye will meet a man.” He stopped suddenly, swallowed audibly, and continued. “Ye will meet a man, marry, have bairns, and create the family ye did nae have with the one God gave ye.”
He was so wrong, yet she could not say so without him questioning her, so she simply nodded and then looked away. “We should make haste,” she said to fill the silence.
“Aye. We’ve lingered too long,” he agreed. He released her, reached down, grabbed his plaid, and then handed it to her. “Wrap this around ye.”
“Will you not be cold?”
“Nay,” he said, winking, his moment of playfulness surprising her and making her wonder if he was carefree like this with his family, when his guard was lowered. “I’m a Scot.” He paused for a moment, as if considering if it was safe to say more, and then she could practically see him decide that it was. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. She suspected it was meant only for him and that he was unaware he’d actually physically nodded. “My mother used to shoo my siblings and me out of the castle as wee lads and lassies in nothing more than our bare skin. She said we had to learn to embrace the cold. She’d wait for a good heavy snow and send us out. The first one to venture back in would be sent to bed without supper, but the rest of us got a feast, a warm fire, and stories from my ma into the wee hours of the night. So the chill of a winter’s night air in the winter ’tis nae a thing to me after a good five years of romping bare-arsed in the snow.”
She smiled at the picture of him and his siblings out in the snow, bare as the day they were born. “Your mother sounds like she was a most unusual woman,” she said as she fashioned the plaid around her body. She had no notion how to do it correctly, and she knew she’d mucked it up when Angus shook his head at her, undid the knot she had just done, and rewrapped her snugly in his plaid with deft, speedy hands. In a few breaths, he nodded with obvious satisfaction and motioned for her to follow him. He turned on his heel and started back toward the embankment, and her eyes were drawn to the scar on his back once again.
“How did you get that scar?” she asked.
Silently, he turned, encircled her waist, and before she could protest, he fairly lifted her onto the side of the ridge. “Grab hold of the vines and pull,” he told her instead of answering her question. Apparently, he had decided he no longer wanted to speak of personal matters. It was probably for the best.
She did as he instructed and quickly made her way to the top of the mound. Once, there she set her hands on the cool, damp forest floor and pushed herself up and over the ledge, glancing behind her to see that he was starting the climb. She rose to her feet, looked up, and screamed.
There stood Donovan, one of her uncle’s guards, with his sword at the ready. “Hello, Lady Lillianna,” he said, his voice as chilling as his cold gaze.