Many hours later, Madeline knelt on a patch of heather-free ground and brushed at her rumpled skirts. She also dashed icy spring water on her face and arms. Above all, she wondered where her dignity had gone.

In truth, she didn’t know.

Her entire body ached. To her mind, reason enough to ask her shadow man to stop so she could use the water’s chill to soothe her weary bones. She needed these spring-side ablutions. But never had she washed with a man so near.

It didn’t matter that she was fully clothed. Or that he kept his back to her.

She was still too aware of him.

Nor could she fault him for remaining close. Thieves, scoundrels, and worse, did roam the land, even this pleasant area of wooded slopes and empty glens. However tranquil-seeming, the Scottish realm was presently a place of unrest and lawlessness.

Iain MacLean had reminded her of the danger by tightening his arm about her middle when just a while ago, they’d passed a ruined homestead. The cottage’s fire-scorched walls and blackened roof thatch, the terrible desolation, underscored his caution.

Deep in her soul, despite her annoyance, she was glad of his protection.

She wasn’t a fool.

“I was thinking about the cottage we passed.” She glanced at Iain’s broad, plaid-draped back. “It was still smoking.”

“Aye.”

“I know what that means.”

“Indeed.” He raised his drawn sword, tossing it high and catching the hilt as it fell. “Why do you think I’m guarding you with my steel rather than admiring the cloud shadows on the hills?”

“If the men who burned the cottage are near, one sword will not do much if they attack us.”

“Sweet lass, you surprise me.” His tone revealed he was smiling. “Have you ne’er seen a Highlander fight?”

“Not one against many.” She frowned, almost wishing he’d turn around to see. “Besides, we are in the Highlands. It follows that the cottage burners were also Highland men.”

To her annoyance, he laughed. “My pardon. I asked the wrong question.”

“Oh?”

“For sure.” His voice still held a smile. “I should have asked if you’ve e’er seen a MacLean fight.”

Despite herself, Madeline’s own lips twitched in a smile. This time she was glad he couldn’t see. But she saw him and her foolish heart fluttered.

“Can it be, sir, that you are arrogant?”

“So some say,” he admitted, his tone darkening again. “I would say pride is the least of my sins.”

“Is another tossing women over your shoulder and riding off with them?”

“I have tossed more than a few lassies o’er my shoulder, but only to carry them up a turret stair.”

“I see.” Madeline narrowed her eyes, sure the number of such conquests was huge. Perhaps innumerable. “You ravished them, I suppose?”

“Perhaps they devoured me?” He shifted then, and she was certain his shoulders shook.

The rogue was laughing at her.

“I see nothing funny about seduction.”

“Maybe you should. A bit of levity is good for the soul.” And I am trying hard to keep your mind off the danger you’re in.

Madeline heard his unspoken words with her gift, a shadow crossing over her heart as she grasped their meaning.

“You think the cottage burners are near?” She shivered, and not from the spring’s icy water.

“They could be.” He didn’t lie.

“Why didn’t you look for them when we passed the cottage? If you can cut down so many men on your own?”

“I saw their tracks.” He thrust his sword tip into the ground, leaned on its hilt. “They rode off across the hills, heading in the opposite direction. No’ that the bastards couldn’t have circled back. Truth is, they didnae concern me.

“I knew they were gone.” He paused, heaved a sigh. “I had, and have, other battles to wage.”

“You mean me.”

“I mean keeping you safe.”

Not quite the answer she’d wanted. But his words proved her plight.

At once, Silver Leg’s cold, hood-eyed face flashed through her mind and she shuddered. Shifting her position before the spring, she did her best to close her mind to the horrors he represented. She also dashed more cold water onto her face, staving off the tears she’d sworn not to shed for her father until she’d seen his death avenged.

She glanced again at her rescuer.

Master of the Highlands.

Despite his roguish claims, he waited beside his grazing horse. Nary a muscle on the whole tall length of him moved, his entire body so still he might as well be carved of stone. He stood with his legs braced apart, his hand on his sword hilt.

Madeline studied him, certain he’d becharmed her. How else could he have slipped in and out of her thoughts for weeks, even haunting her dreams? Why had they been drawn to Glasgow Cathedral at the same fate-changing moment?

Was it magic?

She wished she knew.

Never had her gift bound her so strongly to anyone. The feelings of others that she picked up now and then were fleeting, then gone.

Now, with this man…

She felt her resistance crumbling. Even the disturbing undercurrents of their conversation, the threat of possible danger, slipped from her thoughts. She did think of him, her gaze sliding over him, admiring his dark good looks…

The evening breeze riffled his hair, an unseen caress along the sleek raven strands. Warmth curled low in her belly, tingly and pleasurable. A fierce urge to touch him assailed her, the same wish she’d felt so often since he’d abandoned his pilgrim’s garb. Especially strong now, the sensation spiraled through her with such intensity her fingertips itched with eager, lustful need.

Desire, she knew.

A woman’s passionate yearning to run her hands over the bare, well-hewn flesh of a bonnie man. She’d never experienced such a longing, but she did now.

She had no business wanting to touch him. No right to imagine his glossy blue-black hair spilling over her palms, through her greedy, welcoming fingers.

A forbidden delight she burned to experience if only once. And soon, while she still had time for such indulgences.

When she reached the nunnery, took the veil…

She glanced aside, looked out across endless heather-clad hills to a distant loch, its shining surface a deep steely blue in the gloaming. So familiar a landscape, so new and bewildering the feelings this man awakened in her.

She wasn’t a wanton.

She was a lady, born and bred. Nor should she be falling for any man, regardless of station.

Yet…

She wanted this one.

Scarce recognizing herself, she tightened her grasp on her bunched skirts, her breath catching at her reaction to him. She closed her eyes, hoping the heady sensations, the ache for what couldn’t be, would stop when she reopened her eyes.

But they didn’t.

If anything, they increased.

A sweet throbbing close to the very center of her femininity sent ripples to every corner of her body. Even her toes grew warm and tingly. The intimacy of holding her skirts hitched about her hips with him so near, stirred her, too – regardless of the reason she did so.

She released a sigh, and felt more brazen than the Abercairn laundresses she’d occasionally seen slipping into dark corners with well-muscled, hot-eyed warriors.

But she wasn’t a serving lass and did not have such freedom.

She had duties.

So she inhaled deeply of the chill evening air, taking strength from its comforting earthiness, a bracing blend of damp heather, gorse, and quartz-shot stone, until the tingles stopped.

Only so could she concentrate on what she needed to do. Or at least focus on one of Iain MacLean’s less distracting qualities.

Such as what a patient man he seemed.

Thoughtful, too, for he’d urged his horse off the track the moment she’d voiced her wish to bathe. He’d indulged her without complaint, striking ever farther up the sloping hillside despite the rough terrain. He’d picked a tedious path, urging his garron, a surefooted Highland beast, across slick patches of peaty ground and through thickest heather. They’d even skirted bogs and outcroppings of large, lichen-covered boulders until they’d found a thicket blessed with a spring.

And now that they’d found one, other problems arose. In particular, her knowledge that his heart belonged to another.

Guilt pinched her as she shifted her feet in the burn’s rushing water. If only the spring’s cold would soothe more than her travel-weary legs – such as chill her attraction to Iain MacLean. Perhaps ice her heart so it wouldn’t pound so rapidly. Freeze her thoughts so she wouldn’t dwell on what might have been if they’d met earlier, before he’d given his love to another. As well, a time before she’d set off on her own path of destruction.

But they were where they were.

And so…

She drew a long breath, did her best to ignore hurtful things she couldn’t change.

“We still have a good score of miles to ride, lass. You’ve been bathing a while.” Iain’s deep voice came to her from where he stood at the thicket’s edge. His tone no longer holding a smile, he sounded tense. “Can you no’ be quicker?”

“I am almost finished.” Madeline scooped up more of the icy water, splashing her face. “I just need to wash-” she stopped before she could say her breasts. For sure, she wouldn’t declare that she’d just washed her womanly bits. “A moment, please,” she called to him. “I only need to dry off.”

“Good, then, for I am no’ wilted dotard,” came his reply, and even she, innocent as she was, didn’t mishear the strain behind his words – or misread the likely reason.

“Make haste,” he added. “Have done so we can be away.”

“We two do not make a ‘we.’” She pushed to her feet, all too aware of her foolish denial. “Nothing binds us except an unfortunate incident.”

“Is that so?”

“You know it is.” She eyed him sourly, almost wishing him podgy and cross-eyed rather than so appealing. She willed him to stay put as she tossed aside the clump of sphagnum moss he’d given her to use as a washing cloth.

“I am done.” She smoothed her skirts. “Thank you for the sphagnum.”

“A pleasure.” He turned, the crooked corner of his mouth hinting at a smile that would prove dangerous if it spread. “You’ll appreciate it even more when I tend your rope burns tonight.” His gaze flicked to her ankles, her wrists, and then lit briefly on her hips or somewhere thereabouts. “Sphagnum moss works wonders on the soreness plaguing a certain part of you.”

The ground dipped beneath Madeline’s feet. He meant her buttocks. “I am not sore,” she denied. “Not at all.”

“Och, nae?” He cocked a brow. “Then why are you standing bent at the waist and with a hand pressed against your hip?”

“Oh!” Madeline straightened so quickly she couldn’t stop a wince.

“Indeed.” The corner of his mouth lifted a bit more. “I admire your spirit. Many ladies would have crumpled long before now, given what you’ve been through. That is good as we still have a long road ahead.”

Madeline took a step backward. “No, we do not. I told you-”

“Whether it pleases you or nae, lass, we shall give ourselves as a ‘we’ so long as our paths run together,” he said, striding forward, proving as she already knew that he wasn’t a man to cross.

He towered over her, looming so near she had to tilt her head to peer up at him. “As for your soreness – and I ken you’ll be hurting – so long as you are in my care, I see myself responsible for your comfort as well as your safety.”

“I am fine,” Madeline blurted, denying the fiery pain biting into the insides of her thighs, her buttocks. In truth, every inch of her ached and burned.

She could suffer the pain – others dear to her had borne worse.

She just wished she could ignore how thrilling some vixen inside her found the thought of his hands smoothing salve onto her bared flesh. Any part of her, even her bottom where she hurt so much she doubted she’d be able to sit comfortably for ages.

“A sphagnum tincture soothed onto your – er – hurts will ease the discomfort and help you sleep.” He smiled. “You needn’t look so stricken. I’ll prepare the salve for you. I didnae say I would apply it.”

“Oh.” Madeline blinked. “I didn’t think … I didn’t mean-”

“Nae?” He touched one knuckle to her nose. “See here, lass. Some may tell you otherwise, but I am no’ an ogre. Do you see a tail? Horns?” Stepping back, he held out his arms, turned in a slow circle. “I shall look after you as best I can until the hour I deliver you to where’er it is you were heading before our paths crossed.”

“I do not care what others say of you.” She stood straighter, bracing to add the words she must. “You may leave me at the nearest convent. It matters not which one.”

“It should.” He angled his head, studying her. “Greatly so.”

“You are not a real pilgrim. What do you know of nunneries?”

“More than you, I suspect.”

“I find that hard to believe.” She wanted to say more but it was difficult to think with him so close. “Nunneries are for women.”

“So they are.” He gave her another of his crooked smiles. “That is reason enough for every man in the land to know what goes on behind cloistered walls. What matters is why a man desires such knowledge.”

He leaned in, the smile gone. “Some will have sisters or other family there and will wish to know them safe. Others have interests of a different nature.”

“I do believe you wish to frighten me.”

“No’ at all.” He held her gaze. “My only wish is to protect you.”

“Why?”

“Because I cannae bear to see harm come to any woman.”

The wind shifted then, wrapping his scent around her. Whether his soap or just him, the resulting clean and earthy spiciness teased her senses. Her belly fluttered and she swayed a bit, perhaps from the sharpening wind. Either way, he reached for her, grasping her just above her elbows. The warmth of his hands slipped through her clothes to become fine, tingling currents that raced up and down her arms.

“I dinnae want to alarm you,” he said, clearly unaware of his effect on her. “But vice and debauchery in nunneries has been on the rise for years. Some establishments are little better than the most unsavory joy houses.”

“Then I will take care not to enter a tainted one.”

Iain shook his head. “Nae, I shall take that care.”

It was the least he could do for her. And for his own dented pride, now that he no longer possessed a single fleck of untarnished honor.

“See here…” He softened his tone. “If you have no preference, I shall escort you to Duncairn,” he proposed, choosing the last stop on his journey.

If he couldn’t keep her, he might as well enjoy having her near for as long as circumstances allowed.

“Aye, lass, Duncairn is a good choice.”

“Duncairn?” Her eyes rounded.

“Aye. ‘Tis an ancient and worthy establishment.” He smiled, warming to the idea. “My clan has ties to the bishopric, so I can leave you there with good conscience.”

“Duncairn Cathedral?” she echoed.

“Is there any other?” Iain studied her, noting the furrowing of her brow.

She knew Duncairn and didn’t want to go there.

“Duncairn is as good as any,” she said with a too-carefree shrug.

Feigning disinterest, Iain glanced at the rain clouds in the distance. “We can consider other nunneries along the way,” he said, testing her.

“Splendid.” She pounced. “That would please me. I am eager to take the veil.”

A lie if he’d ever heard one.

But she was eager about something.

“Ah, well.” Iain’s mind raced. “My journey will take us past St. Fillan’s and its healing pond,” he suggested, choosing this possibility for its nearness. “Perhaps you will be happier there?”

“Oh, aye,” she agreed, even smiling. “I have heard of the pond’s restorative qualities.”

Iain tamped down the urge to argue.

As he’d suspected, she jumped on the suggestion of St. Fillan’s, even turning aside to hide her relief. But when she swung back, her own gaze probed and a shadow that could have passed for regret stole some of the warmth out of her eyes.

Sure enough, she frowned.

“So you are on a pilgrimage?”

“Of sorts, aye,” he admitted. He’d rather say he was simply traveling the land. Tell her he was attending clan business for his brother, the laird.

But he wouldn’t lie.

“I am doing a penance,” he said, his gut twisting on the admission.

“Why?” No accusation in her tone, only interest.

“I did something terrible.” He went to his horse, using the breadth of his plaid-slung back to shield how deeply her lack of scorn touched him.

“But dinnae you worry – I am no’ a thief or murderer,” he added. “You will be safe riding with me.”

Turning, he gestured her to him. “I will tell you the reason for my journey after we’ve paused for the night. The light is fading and we must hurry to reach adequate lodgings. It is a lengthy ride to the next township.”

She blinked, but came forward. Hesitantly. “A town?”

“Would you rather camp the night in the roofless shell of another burned cottage?” Iain glanced at the darkening sky. Even the wind now held the fresh smell of rain. “A storm brews. I would have us sheltered and dry before it breaks.”

Rubbing her arms, she recalled the cottage’s scorched remains. “Nella and I have slept in less welcoming places.”

“Well, you shall not this night,” Iain decided for her.

Reaching for her, he seized her by the waist and lifted her onto his horse’s back. Quickly, before she could object – or tear off through the heather, costing them an unnecessary sprint across the rough, uneven ground.

A fool’s errand that would only end with his catching her. And maybe demanding a kiss as payment for his trouble. After all, she appealed to him greatly – so much that he was wont to kiss her now.

Her brow pleated, as if she’d read his thoughts. “I do not want to stay in a town.”

“A shame, then.” Iain vaulted up behind her, pulled her back against his chest. “You have nae choice,” he said as he kneed the horse into motion.

And neither do you, his MacLean heart taunted him.

Not in wanting her.

Nor that, even now, he was already contemplating ways to win a kiss from her.

Frowning as darkly as the fast-approaching rain clouds, he urged his horse to greater speed and ignored the damning truth…

He was an unchivalrous arse.

He proved it when a good hour later, he spied a monastery where they would surely have found refuge. Instead, he dug in his knees, urging his horse onward. He even possessed the gall to be glad the lass slept and couldn’t notice.

He knew, but he rode on, keeping to the northern path until the rugged moorland gave way to even higher ground. The hills were now heavily forested and cut through with long, deep glens, but eventually sloped down to just the type of settlement he’d hoped to find.

Not quite a township, but a sleepy cluster of low-browed, thatch-topped cottages built around a small, gray-walled kirk. A long-ruined fortalice stood on its mound some distance away, and cattle grazed on the rolling pastureland.

Any visitors to such a forgotten hamlet would have no choice but to spend the night at the local inn.

Such as it would prove to be…

A humble establishment offering pallets of straw on the common room floor, a flea-ridden bed shared by many in a room that hadn’t known a breath of fresh air in centuries – or private quarters, tiny but clean, if the innkeeper was shown a handful of coin.

And Iain had coin a-plenty.

So he cantered toward the village and what he hoped would be the first pleasant night he’d spent in ages. Accepting, too, that his less-than-noble ambitions marked him for the kind of lout he could no longer deny he’d become…

A self-serving blackguard.

And a greater one than his clan or any who knew him would ever believe.