Chapter Twenty-One
Evelyn stared at the rugged, wild Highlander before her, and the hunger that she’d been battling all night roared up within her. Their words before Finlarig’s new massive iron gate had reminded her of their impasse.
She’d spent the first part of the night trying to figure out a way around it. Would Grey consider letting her teach in his castle if she gave it back to him? But it wasn’t hers to give. Nathaniel had bought the property and had let her live in it only to try to save herself from an unwanted marriage. Would she sacrifice her school for a man’s honor? For he could still rule his clan from the fourth floor of the Highland Roses School. At least he’d been honest about the injury to his pride.
She’d been around and around about all of this until she’d forced her thoughts away. But then her mind had turned to Grey’s kiss and the feel of his hands stroking her skin, the strength of his muscled arms, and the fiery tempest he easily stoked in her. Three times, Evelyn walked to the door separating their rooms. Poised to knock, her body making demands that her own pride and mind tried to subdue. But now, as he stood in the darkness before her, the warmth of the hearth fire a mere glimmer compared to the heat building within, her body ruled.
Knock. Knock. His knuckles repeated as he stared into her gaze.
Her parted lips came together. “Come in,” she whispered.
She stepped forward at the same time he did, their hands reaching for each other’s faces. Her fingers slid into his hair as he held her cheeks, his palms warm against them. Their mouths met in an open, hungry kiss. Evelyn welcomed the wild heat flaring up through her, a heat that fed the ache she’d tried to tamp down all night.
Grey’s fingers loosened her hair, and the pins began to plink against the stone floor. Her long waves fell down past her shoulders, and he stroked her back, pulling her closer.
A moan funneled upward from Evelyn’s throat, and she rubbed her body against Grey, feeling his hardness between them. When the tip of her tongue slid into his mouth, Grey groaned and wrapped her up, kissing her fiercely, until Evelyn felt awash in sensation. Giving in to it all, she might float away in the flood of their passion and not care one wit. The only thing that mattered was Grey and the wildness between them.
Her fingers walked a path up his shirt, feeling his muscles beneath the fabric. At the top, she plucked open the ties. Swiftly, he threw off the shirt, leaving his chest bare, and she rubbed her palms down his corded abs to the low edge of his kilt.
“I would see ye, Evelyn,” he said, his voice thick. The sound of it, so full of desire, loosed another wave of molten passion through her body.
She pulled the ribbon at the top of her smock, and the knot slipped away. “These?” she asked, a hint of play in her breathless voice. With her cool hands, she scooped up under each breast, bringing them up to lay open to his view above her cinched bodice. Her nipples were already hard, pearls born from the war between chill and the waging fire within her.
“Dia math,” he breathed, and the awe in his voice pressed her boldness to the surface.
She plumped her breast with one hand while the fingers of her other hand rucked up her full skirt and smock. God, how she wanted him to touch her like the night before.
He stepped in to her, his rock-hard staff jutting against the confines of his kilt, and bent to kiss her, his hands sliding up under her skirts. He murmured against her ear in rough, raw Gaelic, the tone causing gooseflesh to spread down her neck. Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath as he touched her. “Ye are so hot, lass,” he whispered against her ear, and Evelyn threw her head back, giving him access to kiss her throat down to her breasts.
Feeling the high table at her back, Evelyn shifted, turning away from him so he was at her back. He kept his hands under her skirts, cupping her backside with one hand while his other worked up his kilt. She glanced back over one shoulder, and the sight of him made her insides melt and tense like an undulating wave. “Tha thu cho teth, lass,” he breathed against her ear. He pressed his hard body against her from behind as he stroked her.
Evelyn had never before felt so willing to surrender herself to another being. She was flying, her body poised on the edge of heaven, and she knew that when she swooped over, falling in sensation, Grey would catch her. His body curved around her, and she felt him close, so close. He brushed her hair to one side, kissing the back of her neck, moving forward to her throat and ear. She reared back as he brushed and teased her while his other hand cupped a breast, tweaking her until a moan escaped her throat. Evelyn reached forward to hold the back edge of the table, her fingers curling over the wood.
“Aye, lass,” he said, his voice as rough as a raging river. “Hold on with your fingers.” His lips teased her ear. “And surrender everything else to the fire.”
…
“Someone has been playing with tarts,” Molly said as she whisked into the great hall.
Evelyn nearly spit her tea back into the small tea bowl in her hands. She sat opposite Scarlet and Alana. The morning was well underway, and they expected students after midday.
“Are they all eaten?” Alana asked, alarm in her voice as she stood to show Ceò where a blanket, for her and her pups, lay before the hearth.
“Nearly,” Molly said, “and there were crumbs everywhere, and streaks of bilberries across the table, like someone was grappling with them.”
Blast. Grey promised he’d clean the kitchen when he sent her to wash the berry juice off herself before the others woke.
Scarlet shivered and glanced under the table. “Rats perhaps?”
Molly set a plate down with the four tarts that Evelyn and Grey had left untouched in their wild, passionate play in the kitchen before dawn. “Only if the rats were battling with them instead of eating them.”
Evelyn breathed slowly, keeping a cool expression as she reached for one pastry. “Perhaps Isabel got into them and left a mess. I will talk to her about it.” Of course, she wouldn’t, but now no one else would. She took a bite, and the sweet juice instantly brought back the taste of Grey. Heat spread from her cheeks down her neck.
“We will need to bake some more if we are to feed the girls who come for training today,” Molly said with a huff.
“I will help.” Evelyn rose, turning toward the kitchen. Although she wasn’t quite sure how she’d get through baking all morning without losing herself in her memories. She was liable to be flushed and aching the whole time.
“Evie?” Scarlet pointed at her. “You have a purple stain on the back of your skirt.”
Evelyn yanked her skirt around, twisting to stare down over her shoulder. A smear of purple bilberry juice stretched across her backside. “I must have soiled it while baking last,” she said. “Aprons should wrap completely around me. I’m so untidy in the kitchen.”
Scarlet quirked her lips to the side. “If you are untidy, then I am a filthy boor.”
“Has anyone seen Izzy this morn?” Alana asked. “She wasn’t in her chamber when I stopped by with the dogs before coming down.”
“See,” Evelyn said. “She probably ate a bunch of tarts before running outside.” No one answered her. “I will talk to her. No one should chastise her or question her for eating the tarts.”
Scarlet stared at her sister, a crease in her brow. “You’ve already said that.” Damn. Scarlet always knew when she was lying.
Evelyn waved her hand in dismissal. “I will be in the kitchen.” She took two steps forward and stopped as the front doors banged in the entryway.
“He’s taken Izzy,” Cat said, her voice filling the rafters as she ran inside. She leaned forward over the table, fists set to brace herself, her chest rising and falling in a need for air. Ceò leaped up at the intrusion, her puppies yipping around her.
“Who has?” Evelyn yelled to be heard over the dogs as she rushed toward Cat.
Cat’s eyes narrowed, the worry hardening into sharp hatred. “Cross’s man, Burdock.”
Evelyn’s stomach clenched. “Oh no,” she said on a breath. “Did he…harm her?” Was the man so evil as to push his way onto a child?
Cat shook her head. “Not in the way your face says ye are thinking, though I wouldn’t put it past him. He was there for me, but I have a hiding place up in the trees. Izzy didn’t know that and tried to scare him off by throwing stones at him.”
Evelyn’s mind raced. “Good God.”
“He caught her as she ran off,” Cat said. “I’d left my bow below or the bastard would be dead cold by now and buried so no one could find him.”
“You didn’t yell for him to leave her?” Scarlet asked, her voice neutral.
Cat rounded on her. “If I had, neither of us would be here to tell Grey what the bloody English have done.”
“She’s right,” Evelyn said, her mind skipping forward to Grey riding headfirst into a line of muskets, his beautiful body being pocked with iron shot. “But we can’t tell Grey.”
“What?” Cat yelled. “Where is he?”
Evelyn came up to her. “They will kill him before he’s even had a chance to talk to Cross. He’ll ride in there brandishing his sword, and they’ll open fire.” She looked around the hall and grabbed her shawl. “I will go to Captain Cross. Tell him one of my students is missing and ask for his help.”
“Grey won’t be happy with that,” Alana said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t think any woman should go to the English stronghold.”
“Even a Sassenach?” Evelyn asked, her mouth tight.
“Well, you aren’t going alone,” Scarlet said, crossing her arms under her breasts.
“I’ll take James. He can drive the coach, he’s English, and he has a musket,” Evelyn said, signaling to Molly. “Go find him, please.” Molly ran out the front to the bailey murmuring something about blood and bones.
“I’m better at dealing with slimy men than you,” Scarlet said and grabbed her shawl, though Evelyn noticed that she trembled.
“Stay here, Scar,” Evelyn said. “I don’t want to worry about you.” She strode to the door with Cat and Alana right behind her, the small herd of dogs running about their skirts. Out front, James was jogging to the stables, Thomas on his heels. Minutes ticked by while they waited, and Evelyn realized they had drawn notice from the watchtower.
“Act like you are enjoying the weather,” she said.
“What?” Cat asked, hissing.
“We are being watched,” Evelyn said and waved to Hamish as if nothing was wrong.
James drove the carriage up to the steps. He wore a grim face and held his musket across his lap.
“I’m coming with ye,” Cat said, and before Evelyn could open her mouth, the woman hiked her skirt up and hoisted herself into the carriage.
“She better stay hidden, or at least her mouth shut,” Scarlet said and traipsed past Evelyn to join her in the carriage.
Evelyn forced a calm smile at Hamish as he walked over, having climbed down from the tower. “We are going for a ride to see Cat’s cottage. James has his musket, so we are perfectly safe.”
Hamish frowned, glancing at the sky. “Hurry back if a storm approaches.” He turned and jogged to the raised gate.
“What about me?” Alana asked as Evelyn set her foot on the carriage step.
“Stay here with the puppies,” Evelyn said. “And if Grey comes back, don’t tell him where we’ve gone.”
Alana wrung her hands. “I can never hide things from him. He always pulls the truth out of me.”
“Then go visit Rebecca or Kirstin,” Evelyn said, and pushed inside the cramped carriage. She cut a glare to both passengers, arranged opposite each other. “And I would forbid you two to go, but I don’t want to waste precious time wrestling you out of the carriage.”
Cat snorted. “Like ye could move me.” She crossed her arms and glared.
“The English could take you,” Evelyn said. “On some false reason.”
“Ye need someone who can throw a dirk,” Cat said, leaning into the seat, as if she were literally digging in her heels.
Evelyn settled next to Scarlet. “James has a musket.”
“Which will be useless if rain puts out the flame,” Cat said and rapped on the roof. “Let us away!”
James’s face appeared upside down in the window. “I told Thomas to stay back.”
“Wise,” Evelyn said.
“Let us away,” Cat repeated. “It’s up the main road, north. Hurry.”
Evelyn nodded to James, and his face disappeared above, as he clicked to the two horses. They rocked forward and rolled out of the gates. If all went well, they’d be back with Isabel before Grey even realized they were gone.
…
“I will be back later this evening,” Grey said to Rebecca.
“He’s doing much better now,” Rebecca said. “I keep changing out the snails and piping feverfew into him. His skin is cool again.”
He cut a last glance toward his best friend, who slept on his stomach. “Send for me if ye need anything.” Turning, he trudged out into the late morning, the tension in his chest lessened after seeing Aiden’s improvement. He stretched his arms overhead as he walked through the woods, his mind drifting to Evelyn, the sweetest tasting lass he’d ever known. He’d kissed her in the dark alcove one last time after their tryst in the kitchen.
Grey paused in his stride and ran a hand down his face. Damn, he’d forgotten to wipe up the smashed tarts. As soon as Evelyn had disappeared up the steps, Kerrick had come into the hall, and they’d walked together, discussing the new wall, and then he’d gone to check on Aiden. If the maid had come across the mess, Evelyn would flush from her tiny toes to her scalp. He’d make it up to her tonight. He smiled and began to whistle a quick little tune from Beltane.
Evelyn—a proper school matron on the outside, a carnal and passionate goddess on the inside. Her courage and determination had called to him from the moment she refused to move off his front steps, even with the point of a sword at her breast. And yet she worried that he would see her as weak for a few shed tears.
Grey walked out from the forest line and waved to Kerrick, who talked with Craig at the smithy. As he strode over, the sound of wagon wheels pulled his gaze toward the far end of the lane. Not a wagon but a carriage, and the only carriage in Killin was the one that had carried Evelyn here. His mouth tightened, cutting off his whistle.
“Where is the Worthington coach going?” he asked Kerrick as he walked up.
Craig chuckled. “With some luck, back to England.”
They watched it disappear around a bend farther up. “Nay,” Kerrick said. “They head north.”
“She’d have no reason to seek out Donald at Balloch Castle or the Menzies clan,” Craig said, his voice dropping. His eyes narrowed under his bushy brows. “She’s going to the English compound, to Cross.”
“For what purpose?” Kerrick asked, turning toward Craig, his face hard with annoyance.
“To complain about us,” Craig said, gesturing toward Grey. “Trying to get ye out of Finlarig for good.”
The old man had no idea how ridiculous his accusation was, and Grey wasn’t about to waste time trying to turn his poor opinion. Not when Evelyn might be riding into the devil’s den. Without another word, he turned on his heel and jogged off toward Finlarig. He heard Kerrick following. His friend lengthened his stride to run alongside.
They reached the open gate. “Ho,” Hamish yelled down, his arm raised.
“Was Evelyn in the carriage that left?” Grey yelled up.
Hamish turned to climb down the ladder, taking his damn time to walk over. Grey nearly abandoned the man to run to the stable for Adhar, but Hamish picked up his pace. “They were taking Cat back to her cottage, Lady Evelyn and Lady Scarlet.”
“Cat doesn’t live north of Killin,” Kerrick said, frowning at Grey. “Her cottage is due west and hidden in the forest. A carriage wouldn’t even be able to get back there.”
Hamish rubbed his beard. “North, ye say? Aye, ye’re right. Perhaps they were just going for a ride first. Cat’s probably never been inside a coach before.”
“Evelyn should be teaching class this afternoon,” Grey said, his voice low.
“Aye,” Hamish said, frowning. “Two lasses walked inside.”
Grey’s hands fisted. “Alana wasn’t with Evelyn?”
“Nay, just their man, James, and the three ladies.”
Grey strode forward, taking the steps up to the keep in two large leaps. His palm cupped the pommel of his sword, his warrior’s instincts alert, making his blood pump faster. “Alana,” he called as he walked into the great hall, but it was empty. He passed the table where half-empty bowls of tea sat and took the steps two at a time up to the second floor.
Inside the library, Alana was handing primer books to the girls. “Where did Evelyn go?” he asked. “And her sister and Cat?”
Alana stared at him, and tried to frown at his interruption, but the uncertainty in her eyes made her look nervous. “Cat’s house.”
Anger hardened his features as he stared at his sister. “They are riding north. Cat lives west.”
The two girls from the village looked back and forth between them. Alana squared her shoulders. “I don’t know, then. They said they were going for a ride and would see Cat home. I was to stay here to help Fiona and Martha with their letters.” As if sensing her unease, Ceò came to stand next to her. No matter that Grey made sure the dog, her puppies, and her mate were fed, the dog’s loyalty remained with Alana.
Kerrick came inside from the corridor. “What was Cat even doing here? She made it plain that she wasn’t interested in learning from a Sassenach.”
Alana’s mouth opened and closed, and then she shrugged. “She came to see if Izzy was about.” Her lips clamped shut. Grey knew what his sister’s anxiety looked like, and it almost always stemmed from the English.
“They are going to Cross,” Grey said. “To the English stronghold.”
“I didn’t say that,” Alana said, her face falling.
“Why?” Grey asked, stepping closer to her. “’Tis dangerous there.”
Alana grabbed his arm, her nails digging through the sleeve of his shirt. “Don’t go running after them with your sword drawn,” she said, her voice high. “Evelyn says they will shoot ye.”
“Bloody hell,” Kerrick said. “Why the hell would they go to Cross?”
“Promise me,” Alana said, meeting Grey’s gaze. “Don’t go running in there. Cross will use any excuse to kill ye.”
Grey pierced his sister’s gaze. After Evelyn’s confrontation with Burdock and then Cross’s cold reception, he knew she wouldn’t ride into their lair without a good reason. “What does the bastard have that Evelyn is going to get back?” But as the question came from his mouth, the pieces fell together. Cat climbing into an Englishwoman’s carriage. Evelyn racing north. Grey hadn’t seen Izzy all morning.
He dropped Alana’s arms and turned toward the door. “Cross has Izzy.”