Samantha James (9 page)

Tiny lines had appeared between the slash of his brows, a telltale sign of his displeasure, she’d already learned. “Here are the cloths, then.” Abruptly he relented, startling her, for she’d already begun preparing her argument, feeble though it was.

With his help, she was able to sit upright. Her breath caught at the sharp, rending pain the action wrought.

The arm about her shoulder tightened ever so slightly. “Are you all right?” came the voice just above her head.

“Aye,” she said weakly, and then again, “aye,” this time with more conviction, for indeed, the pain
had faded to a dull ache that was not so very unbearable.

Wordlessly he stepped back. Meredith floundered, reluctant to lower the rough wool blanket before his hawklike scrutiny. After a moment, he turned, presenting her with the broad expanse of his back, though he still stood near enough that she might reach out and touch him.

It was difficult, but Meredith managed to unwind the cloths and bathe the wound with the water he’d warmed in a rusty black kettle over the fire. Awkwardly she coiled the linen strip about herself, tucking in the edge as he had done.

“’Tis done.” She pulled the coverlet to her naked breasts, stunned to find she was shaking.

Strong hands caught her beneath the arms, carefully considerate as they lent assistance. Meredith sagged back to the pallet. The effort had cost her strength—but salvaged her pride.

Her head turned slightly. As it did, her lips brushed the chiseled hardness of his jaw. His mouth grew ominously thin. She could clearly make out the tense line of his jaw. He was angry—or displeased, she knew not which. He straightened upright as if he’d been scalded.

Meredith couldn’t help it. She felt as if she’d done something terribly wrong. How could he be so gentle one moment, so very cold the next? If he hated her so, why had he bothered to save her? The night he’d taken her, he’d said he must force himself to suffer her presence. Why, then, had he prolonged her life? She didn’t understand it, any more than she understood the twinge of hurt that refused to be banished.

When he announced his intent to hunt for food, she gave but a cursory nod. He wasn’t gone long. The
instant she heard the whinny of his horse outside, she squeezed her eyes shut and feigned sleep.

The door creaked.

It was later that day when he approached. “Do you feel well enough to stand?”

His tone was calmly matter-of-fact. Meredith hesitated. She was about to refuse when she saw he held her tattered gown in one hand.

“Aye,” she murmured, then held out her hand.

The gown was dropped into it. He averted his head as she slipped it over her head. She couldn’t help but note that he must have washed it. The thought of him doing such an intimate—and womanly—task for her sent confusion running through her. He had fed her, nursed her, seen to her every need—and all with a care that was totally at odds with his grim, stoic visage. Why? her mind screamed. Why should he bother to see to her care and comfort?

Do not let yourself be fooled, warned a voice within. To keep you alive…to torment you simply because you are a Munro. He needs no other reason.

She sat up slowly, pushing aside the coverlet. The hands that held such fascination for her closed about her waist. He pulled her upright with effortless ease, and then she was on her feet. She swayed dizzily. She felt suddenly lightheaded and her legs were surely filled with pudding! Dismayed, she clutched at him.

“Wait!” she cried.

Powerful arms drew her close, so close she could feel the corded strength of his thighs against her own. The world tilted, then began to right itself. Dazedly it penetrated that her panic was for naught—he had not released her at all. His hands were snug about her waist. Her own dug into the firm, knotted flesh of his arms.

With a gasp she looked up into his rough, dark face. It gave her a start to see that he was staring straight at her, his eyes almost black.

His gaze lowered slowly to her mouth.

Meredith swallowed. Her heart was drumming so loudly, it sounded like thunder in her ears. A tremor went through her. She did not move, though instinct clamored she do just that—she couldn’t even if she’d wanted to! There was something different in the way he held her…

For one heart-stopping instant, she had the wildest sensation he would kiss her…

But that was absurd.

“Better?” he murmured.

In truth, it was not. For Cameron longed to trap the tempting sweetness of that tremulous pink mouth beneath his. He longed to plunder her lips with his; he wanted it with a need that vibrated in his heart and burned his very soul.

But one thing stopped him.

For he could not forget who she was—who
he
was. He told himself this cursed desire should not be…it
could
not be. And so he forced his mind away from this forbidden yearning and steeled himself against her.

She nodded. Her gaze bounced away. Thankfully the dizziness had passed, and her legs were no longer so wobbly.

A turn about the tiny hut and she was exhausted. She would have collapsed were it not for his arm hard about her back.

“I’m sorry. I am weak. Weak in spirit…and in body!” She made the outcry before she’d thought better of it. Never had she felt so feeble and impotent. To her horror, she was precariously near tears.

“It will be easier the next time—and the next after that.”

His reassurance was unexpected—but most assuredly welcomed. And he was right, thank heaven. The next few days saw a gradual return of her strength. He rarely left her alone, abandoning her only to hunt for food and gather wood for the fire. She sensed the role of caregiver was an unfamiliar one to him. At times he appeared rather restless—he paced outside the hut, for she could hear him. Was it because he was anxious to return to his home?

Meredith, too, chafed. She was used to toil from dawn till sunset, and the hours of inactivity gnawed at her nerves. Yet she dreaded what would come next. When she was well enough, they would leave this place—leave for his home.

And then what would happen?

Her dreams spun adrift one night. She dreamed of Papa’s laughing blue eyes, the hearty gusto of Uncle Robert’s laughter. Then all at once everything changed. Light became dark, an impenetrable void where the vast depths of gloom lurked all around like the very pits of hell. Warmth became cold. Images swarmed through her mind. She was seized in the dark of night. Hands snatched at her. Fingers plucked at her nipples, pinching them painfully. There was a face above hers, hot breath in her mouth. Greedy hands pried the softness of her thighs apart, spreading them wide…

Her eyelids snapped open. She woke with a start, her lungs heaving. Sweat lay like a morning mist heavy upon her brow.

Reality staked its claim. She was with Cameron in the shepherd’s hut—she could feel him beside her. Terror still iced her veins, yet she forced herself to
breathe slowly. Never had the night been so dark and thick, the air so very, very cold! Beneath the wool blanket, her arms crept around her body. She hugged herself fiercely.

It was her shivering that woke the man who slumbered so deeply beside her.

An oath rent the air. “God’s blood, what ails you? Are you ill?”

“Nay,” she said shakily. She sought desperately to quell her shivering. Yet her efforts proved futile…

For there was nothing so cold as a chill that came from within.

He raised himself on an elbow to glare at her. “What, then?”

She felt his gaze like a thistle beneath her skin. “’Tis nothing,” she denied. “I am merely cold.”

Another oath stung the air. She felt him shift, and then she was caught up against him. Meredith couldn’t withhold a little cry; she wasn’t prepared for his unexpected movement.

“Be still!” he hissed. “I do naught but share my warmth with you.”

Strong arms encircled her, holding her snugly against the length of his side. Meredith’s heart leaped. Angel of mercy, was he naked? It would seem so, for her cheek was wedged against the smooth, supple skin of his shoulder. Somehow her hand had landed squarely atop the center of his chest—a forest of dense, wiry hairs tickled her palm.

Yet she couldn’t deny the heat emanating from his body. Time marched by. Neither of them moved. He was impossibly warm—and she was no longer so abominably cold. Little by little her anxious dread began to depart.

Her fate could have been far worse, a voice in her
head reminded her. He might have used her for his own pleasure, yet he had not. Nor, it seemed, would he.

Her thoughts grew all amuddle. It made no sense that he should be the one to warm her, for he was the very one who returned her to this path…Yet her body yielded of its own accord, seeking and finding the heat offered by his. His body drove away the chill of the night…

But not the remembrance buried deep in her soul.

They left several days later. By this time her wound had healed sufficiently—the relentless pain had dulled to an occasional ache. When Cameron had stated his intention to leave soon, he’d boldly announced that it would be only after he’d pronounced her well enough to travel. Though Meredith had no urge to hasten the journey, neither did she wish to remain in these cramped quarters with him. Quickly she assured him the wound had healed nicely. To her shock, he insisted on judging—and seeing!—for himself. Meredith argued; he stood firm. Her ire mounted, but there was no dissuading him. In the end, her face surely the color of scarlet, she held a blanket to her chest and allowed a fleeting glimpse.

It was not the wound that gave her pause—it was him.

If only she could ignore him. Riding before him as she did once they resumed their journey, it was impossible. She was awesomely aware of his size and strength. The corded steel of his thighs supported her own. His arms were ever present around her, his hands before her, big and tanned and lean, and far eclipsing her own…

There was no escaping him. Not in the light of day, nor in the dead of night.

Their journey took them ever farther to the north. Deeper into the Highlands they climbed, higher and higher. The landscape grew ever more barren. The forests thinned, but for the places where straggly pines sought a tenuous hold in the rocky soil. The heather, not yet in bloom, looked almost black on the hillsides—as if it had been poured in shadow.

A meandering brook splashed between two huge boulders. It was there he stopped to water Fortune. He lifted her down, then walked to stand near Fortune, who already guzzled noisily from the brook.

Her gaze trekked over the taut, spare lines of his shoulders. It was she who broke the silence. Fervently she spoke, from the center of her heart. “’Tis not too late to release me.”

Slowly he turned to face her. There lurked on his face the blustery squall she’d prayed would not result—yet had fully expected. He was dangerously silent.

She’d promised herself she would not beg or plead, but she was sorely tempted. Hands at her sides, she faced him, ignoring the quiver in her belly.

She moistened her lips. “Let me go,” she said again. “You could tell the others—Egan and Finn—that I escaped. That you turned your back and I ran—”

“Nay. It would be a lie. Can you, a woman of God, ask me to lie?”

He mocked her most cruelly. Bitterly she said, “I am not a woman of God, and I
have
lied. I also held a knife to your breast and thought of killing.”

He did not like the reminder. She could see it in the sudden tautness of his jaw.

“I can only pray that God will forgive me. That I made up for it in some small way by saving your life. You owe me a debt, Cameron MacKay.” Bravely she raised her chin. “You owe me your life.”

His gaze pinned her own. “Do I? I could have stopped him. There was no need for you to be so foolish. And do we speak of debts, need I remind you of your own?” His voice was hard. “I saved your life. Twice, to be precise. Or do
you
forget so soon? ‘Do not let me die,’” he quoted.

The memory was dim, but it was there nonetheless, and she hated that he reminded her. She had no wish to be beholden to him, yet she was…

For her very life.

Doggedly she faced him. “Why?” she said bitterly. “Why did you save me? That day in the river. And with Monty?”

“I could not let you die, nor could I let you suffer. You took the blade meant for me.”

“You said you had no wish to hurt me, but it does hurt me, knowing that you hurt my father…that even now he believes me dead!” Cameron could not know the pain the knowledge wrought…Ah, but she’d forgotten. No doubt that was his purpose, to deal a dual blow to both father and daughter!

At the thought of Papa benumbed by sorrow, her soul began to bleed afresh. She ached, there near the center of her breast, near the gash so recently healed. A pain of the flesh, or a pain of the heart? she wondered starkly. One had mended…

But would the other?

His jaw clenched. “’Tis done, and I cannot change it.”

The breath she drew was deep and ragged. “You
are the fool, for I am naught but a reminder of all you should forget—”

He’d been about to turn away. His body turned to stone, his words to ice.

“Forget! Would you have me forget my brothers? My beloved father? They were all that I am and now they are no more! That is something I must live with all the days of my life. And you would have me forget? I think not, for I cannot!”

Too late Meredith recognized the tempest, the seething rage, that brewed within him. Yet when she would have stepped back, he snared her by the waist.

With clenched fists raised high, she sought to push herself away. “Let me go!”

He caught them in one hand, snatching her close with the other. So close she could see the pale flecks of crystalline gray in his eyes, the bronzed plane of his cheek, the harsh twisting of his lips.

“Nay,” he said fiercely. “You will listen, and you will hear what I should have told you earlier. Aye, ’tis time you heard the truth about the Red Angus. You will hear of his butchery…of his vile, treacherous nature!

“My father and my brothers and I were on our way back from Inverness. We had just taken our wool to market there. We skirted Munro lands, for we wished no trouble. We were well back into MacKay lands—but two days from home—when we were attacked at the crack of dawn. While my brother Oswald stood guard, his throat was slit—praise God his end was mercifully swift!

“It was the Munro battle cry that woke me, my father, and the rest of my brothers. There was scarce time to rouse from our beds than they were upon us. From a distance I saw the Red Angus—there is no
mistaking the flame of his hair. My father leaped to his feet, searching for his sword. It had been stolen from his side in the night, along with the rest of our weapons. Before he could move, he was slain where he stood.”

Meredith could not help it. She shrank back from the brutal anger that blazed across his features.

“I was the next to be struck down—a blow to the head, a sword to the back. Though I tried, I could not move. My youngest brother Thomas was next, but a wee lad of ten! He knew not how to handle a sword, nor did he want to, for he fancied the church! He lay next to me. He stretched out his hand…Never will I forget the way he looked—so pleading, so confused! He died reaching out to me! Crying out to me. But I could not save him.
I could not save him
!”

Meredith’s stomach lurched sickeningly. She longed to clamp her hands over her ears to shut out the terrible sound of his voice. She’d sworn she would not plead, but God above, she did.

She gave a tiny shake of her head. “Please! Say no more—”

“But there
is
more, Meredith, much more! I had four brothers left, remember? Though I could not move, I saw all, as if I peered through the sheerness of a veil—my brothers’ lives stolen from them. Niall, the eldest. Burke, but a year younger. Kenneth was moaning. Remember I told you of a sword to the belly…the most painful of all? I know. I listened to Kenneth scream, a bloodcurdling sound that will haunt me throughout my days. I tried to crawl to him, but I possessed not the strength. Oswald was the only one I did not see die…

“Your clansmen thought I was dead. When I woke, I was in the cottage of a crofter who had come upon
the massacre. ’Twas he who nursed me and buried my father and brothers—he who told me how in the next village your clansmen boasted how they waited the night through, how well pleased their chieftain was at their triumph—the slaughter of Ronald MacKay and his sons. They sought to render us helpless by stealing our swords—such valiant warriors,” he sneered. “They so feared us that they could only face us unarmed! But that was not enough for him, nay, not for the Red Angus. When I made my way home, I discovered what the crofter had spared me.

“The heads of my father, and Niall, his firstborn son, had been delivered to the keep. Niall’s wife, Glenda, was the first to see them. She was heavy with child, due at summer’s end. The shock of seeing my brother’s head sent her into childbed early. Niall’s son died, too small to survive—yet another death laid at the feet of the Red Angus! So do not tell me to forget, for I will never forget!”

Meredith felt her belly heave. She was sick, sick to the marrow of her bones. Wrenching away, she fell to her knees and retched.

When her stomach was empty, she leaned back on her haunches. Shaking and weak, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. There was scarcely time to recover, even to think, to say a word before he was there, pulling her upright. Her head came up and for one agonizing moment, she met his regard. With the slash of his eyes he scorned her, his gaze fired with a blaze that scorched her very soul. A peremptory hand at her waist, he marched her toward his mount.

Quiet and subdued, she sat before him. She could not deny what he had seen, what he had endured. That her clansmen could be so deliberately cruel…For an instant she faltered. Nearly two years had passed since
she had seen her father. Could he have changed so very much? He was capable of anger, yes!—for who was not? But atrocities such as Cameron had relayed? She could not fathom her father meting out such brutality, even to a MacKay. She could not doubt his innocence in this. She could not even think of such, for surely he could not have changed so very much!

They traveled throughout the remainder of the day, halting only once. Raising a hand, he pointed toward sprawling fortress that seemed to spring from the mountain behind it.

“There is Dunthorpe,” he said.

For a heartbeat, breath was lost to her. An unseen hand seemed to close about her heart. This, then, was to be her prison. He had saved her, only to condemn her.

Stone walls jutted skyward, gaunt and forbidding. A mist curled around the tower. She could almost feel its cold and dampness. Beyond the castle loomed the granite face of the mountain, its sheer walls seemingly untouched by the shadow of time.

Time, she thought with a throb in her breast. Time eternal. How long would she be here? An oppressive burden seemed to settle on her shoulders.

Her future, such as it was, was solely in his hands.

Those hands drew her gaze endlessly. She stared at them, looped on the reins with careless ease. But one thought leaped high aloft: He had no need of a sword to slay her. It could be done with but the power of his hands, lean and dark and strong. A blow to the head. The squeezing grasp of his fingers…

“What will you do with me?” She sounded as weary as she suddenly felt.

His gaze resided briefly on her profile. “I’ve not yet decided.”

“What?” She twisted around, that she might see him. All at once she couldn’t restrain her bitterness—or the retort that sprang to the fore. “These many days, and you’ve not yet decided?”

His expression tautened.

Suddenly the rage burned not in him but in her. She resented him as she had never resented another—resented his power over her fate. And she cared not if he punished her, or even how.

Her gaze stabbed into his, afire with indignant outrage. “You took me to assure your revenge,” she flung at him. “I am naught but a prize…a prize of vengeance!”

“Aye. And I’ve decided I shall keep my prize. If it will ease your saintly conscience, consider it a pilgrimage.”

His arrogant rejoinder only spurred her own. “A pilgrimage to hell, with the devil himself! For you are a bastard,” she said feelingly, “a bloody, imperious bastard, and I have naught but contempt for you.”

His smile was a travesty. “The saintly maid deigns to curse! Come, now, lass. Does it not feel immensely satisfying to sin?”

Lass
. That one word could sound so very different…! Something twisted inside her. The gentleness he had shown her in the hut was gone. His reassurance was no more. The jeer was back.

Meredith choked back the tears that burned her throat, her very soul. She had the awful feeling that whatever the fate he contemplated…

It would now begin in earnest.

With every mile that took them closer to his keep, the sky darkened. Black, ominous clouds smothered the sunset. Soon the rain began to fall in leaden sheets from the sky. Her sodden hair streamed down her
back. An empty hollow filled her chest. The rain lashed clear to her soul.

A watchman in the drum tower spied the horse that climbed upward from the tiny burn below. A jubilant shout went up as they approached the wooden palisade.

“He’s back!” cried the watchman atop the massive south tower. “Cameron returns!”

With every step that took them through the outer ward and toward the gatehouse, Meredith longed to plummet beneath the depths of the earth. A leaden ball of dread lay heavy in her belly.

The iron gate was raised high as they passed into the gloom beneath the towering arch. A guard emerged from the guardroom and stood in the doorway.

He grinned, eyes glinting as they passed by. “We’ve a place in the pit prison for ye, lady!”

They’d passed into the inner ward. By now a crowd had begun to close around them.

There came a shout nearby. “’Tis her, daughter of the Red Angus!”

For one never-ending moment, a deathly pall hung in the air. Then it began—the shouts and taunting.

“She be bonnie fair, eh? That is, for a Munro!”

“Bonnie fair!” snorted another. “Nay! She resembles the Red Angus, to the color of her hair!”

Someone spied the broken, puffy skin at her temple. “Ho, but I wish I’d been there when he clubbed her!”

Meredith’s face burned painfully. She felt as if an icy wind had blown across her heart. Would Cameron tell them the truth, that not he, but another, had struck her?

It would seem not, the rogue! Behind her, he called out a greeting.

The heckling continued. “Och, but he’ll throw her in the pit prison to be sure!” One man gleefully rubbed his hands and grinned.

“Aye!” chimed in a woman with a cackling laugh. “She won’t be so bonnie fair then, now, will she?”

Her heart surely rent in that instant. Darkness stole through her. Her fear and despair and desperation had known no bounds in the days before she’d gone to live at Connyridge. It was there she’d found sanctuary, a haven from the shadows that plagued her. Now she had entered the world anew—only to be thrust into the midst of a clan who hated her and all her kin…