Книга - Highlander Claimed

Highlander Claimed
Juliette Miller


Debut author Juliette Miller introduces Clan Mackenzie–a family of fiercely loyal warriors and the women they love, staking their claim on the Scottish Highlands…Since her adoption by peasants of the Ogilvie Clan, Roses has been marked as an outsider. Her fair hair and golden complexion set her apart, as does a mysterious tattoo she keeps hidden at all costs. So when Laird Ogilvie corners her with an indecent proposal, Roses has no reason to stay, but her escape is interrupted by Wilkie Mackenzie, the wild and handsome brother of nearby Clan Mackenzie’s leader.Wilkie is honor bound to marry into the family of a valuable ally. But when Roses sweeps him off his feet—literally—settling for an arranged match is no longer an option. Torn between duty and desire, Wilkie dedicates himself to Roses’ protection, but Laird Ogilvie knows her secret and will stop at nothing to steal Roses back.Now, these star-crossed lovers find themselves in a fight to defend both their hearts…and their lives.







Debut author Juliette Miller introduces CLAN MACKENZIE, a family of fiercely loyal warriors and the women they love, staking their claim on the Scottish Highlands…

Since her adoption by peasants of the Ogilvie Clan, Roses has been marked as an outsider. Her fair hair and golden complexion set her apart, as does a mysterious tattoo she keeps hidden at all costs. So when Laird Ogilvie corners her with an indecent proposal, Roses has no ties to stop her from fleeing. Outcast and alone, her escape across the Highlands is interrupted by Wilkie Mackenzie, the wild and handsome brother of nearby Clan Mackenzie’s leader.

Wilkie is honor bound to marry into the family of a valuable ally. But when Roses sweeps him off his feet—literally—settling for an arranged match is no longer an option. Torn between duty and desire, Wilkie dedicates himself to Roses’s protection, but Laird Ogilvie knows her secret and will stop at nothing to steal Roses back. Now, these star-crossed lovers find themselves in a fight to defend both their hearts…and their lives.


“What do you want, Roses?”

It was an easy question to answer. I wanted Wilkie to come back to me, to lie with me, to kiss me again. To make me cry and fly and burn with his beautiful, insistent, stunning touches. And I wanted to pleasure him, too, as he had done to me. I knew there was much more to these touches than what he had so far given me.

I was curious. And I was willing.

My desires surprised me with their vehemence.

“I want him,” I whispered.

Aye, what I wanted was Wilkie Mackenzie. Something I knew I could never have.


Highlander Claimed

Juliette Miller




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For M,

the Highlander I claimed for myself.


Contents

Chapter One (#u97922b5e-b520-55a4-85f8-73a3429fa314)

Chapter Two (#u3c8c2dd4-6a57-5783-84e1-92b804828463)

Chapter Three (#u8860d725-83cb-5f77-abff-c6711127a24d)

Chapter Four (#u29a2d37d-cc64-5c39-a63a-b06159cdc142)

Chapter Five (#ud11e0284-a49e-5e41-800b-101641e1152d)

Chapter Six (#u80aeb3ae-80e6-5f01-8651-4851a6d37cf2)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)


Clan Mackenzie,

Book 1


CHAPTER ONE

THE BRUTE WAS UPON ME.

His clawing hand lashed only inches from the rough fabric of the men’s trews I wore. I skittered out of his reach, thankful that I’d chosen the unfashionable training garb this morning, instead of a servant’s dress, which would have been far easier to grab.

But Laird Ogilvie was quick for a large, slightly overweight, middle-age lout. Blustery determination reddened his face.

“Your mother escaped me only through death,” the laird said callously. “You’ll not be so lucky.”

Lunging again, his fingers caught the back of my shirt and yanked, causing the tunic to choke me around the neck. He took the opportunity to push me facedown into the plush furs of his expansive bed. I turned my head and gasped for breath, struggling against his hold.

“Why do you insist on wearing the clothing of men, lass? ’Tis most unbecoming. I’ll get rid of them for you, shall I?”

I had timed my visit to the laird’s chambers poorly. It was my job to tidy up his rooms each morning and return all the cups and bowls from his evening’s revelries to the kitchens. And I had carried out my duties faithfully for almost five years, always careful to avoid his presence. Yet today, he had waited for me, keeping himself hidden until he was sure we were alone, and the door was closed. Now it was too late to escape him.

“In this keep, my word is law and you’ll not forget it,” he spoke gruffly. His hands continued to push the cloth of my tunic higher up my back as he held my wrists with his other hand. “You forget the change in your status. You are no longer the daughter of a landholder, nor entitled to the privileges that accompany such a position. Your mother was equally forgetful. After your father’s death, she, too, had difficulty coming to terms with her demotion. She could have continued to live in your farmhouse. But she refused me. Stubborn, she was. Desirable, aye, but mightily stubborn.”

I struggled against the pressure of his body, bearing down on mine.

“I stripped her of her land, aye, in the hopes she would submit to me. Still, she fought me.” One of the laird’s hands held my own in his viselike grasp while the other smoothed along the bare skin of my hip, following the curve of my waist, roaming higher. “It was only when I used you as my pawn, not long before her death, that she finally gave up her futile resistance. You should be grateful to her, lass. She would agree to anything to keep me from pursuing you. Anything. But now that she is lost to us, there is nothing to stop me. I have been watching you for some time. But you already know that, do you not, Roses?”

Aye, I knew it. My mother had offered me a sad warning as she lay dying. It was one of the reasons I hid myself under loose, men’s clothing and avoided the laird at all costs.

“You’re a kitchen servant,” the laird continued, “but you could be so much more. ’Tis time for you to make yourself useful. A mistress of the laird is afforded special privileges, you realize. Private chambers, lightened duties, fine dresses, time and protection to stroll the gardens freely.”

Were these the same words of enticement he’d whispered to my mother?

“Nay.”

“Nay?”

“I’ll not agree.”

He was silent and still for a moment, then I heard his soft chuckle. “I didn’t ask for your agreement, lass. I own you, and I intend to take what is mine.”

I heard a soft whimper and realized it was I who had uttered it. The sound of it gave clarity to my choice—the choice that was nestled uncomfortably against my front pocket, in a rough leather pouch. A knife. I was allowed to use it for kitchen and garden duties but kept it with me for protection, though this was the first time I needed to use it for that reason. Knowing it was there now, digging into my hip, gave me but small comfort as the laird pulled on the waistband of my trews. His grip on my wrists slackened as he focused on his goal, pushing my shirt up to my neck where it bunched against my hair.

The laird froze. There was a note of shock in his voice when he spoke again. “What is this? This mark?”

I didn’t answer. I concentrated on making my movements as inconspicuous as I could as I grasped toward the knife with my left hand.

Ogilvie’s fingers brushed across the skin near the middle of my back, drawing a circular pattern. He seemed distracted, almost amazed, before his harsh tone returned.

“Who put this ink to you? Answer me!”

“I know not what you speak of,” I gasped.

But it was a lie.

I had spent most of my life attempting to keep the tiny tattoo between my shoulder blades hidden from sight. I bathed carefully when others were around. I wore my hair long. And I covered myself with bulky clothing. Now, I squirmed wildly, equally terrified by the exposure of this small inked mark and the rest of my body. My mind whirled to a shadowy memory that had instilled a lingering fear into the mind of a lost child.

An ancient, superstitious healer had been summoned by my parents when I’d been ill with measles as a very small child. A wizened face. A crooked finger, pointing and accusing. A shrill warning, never forgotten. “A witch’s mark! She’ll be beaten, flayed, burned at the stake! Keep this hidden! At all costs—keep this hidden.”

Laird Ogilvie continued his study, drawing across the ink with his fingertip. “It looks like a seal of some description. A seal of—”

The chambers echoed with a sudden, weighty silence. It was the type of silence Ogilvie and his officers typically employed when a servant interrupted one of their gatherings just as a critical piece of information was about to be revealed.

I didn’t know if he was considering my flaying, my burning or something else entirely. Whatever the laird had been contemplating, his renewed enthusiasm for carrying out his task was now making itself felt. He fumbled with the fastenings of his trews.

And it was then that I made my move.

The force of my strike embedded the sharp blade into the side of his abdomen. My many months of discreet sword training with the young clan warriors had left me ill-equipped to aim small. Luckily for the laird, the knife was not a large one. If he’d had a chance to consider it, Laird Ogilvie might have rejoiced at his overindulgent mealtime habits: his extra padding would most probably allow him to live.

I withdrew the knife and was able to use the laird’s shock to slide out from under him and step away. He touched his stomach and considered the blood pooling in his hand with confusion, not believing that his own servant would dare react to him as I had just done.

I took advantage of his stunned silence and, with haste, fled the room.

Surprised by my own rebellion, and the calmness with which I had carried it out, I felt a lurch of genuine panic boil in my heart. What had I just condemned myself to? Death, severe and vengeful punishment, at the very least, or the life of a clanless vagabond. I decided on the latter.

My fear gave me wings. I flew down the staircase, following the halls to the kitchen. I paused only for a moment before entering. Realizing I was still holding the bloody knife, I returned it to its pouch, quickly making sure that no blood was visible. Rearranging my clothing, I forced myself to appear as calm as I could manage. After all, the kitchen servants were used to my strange outfits and my rushed execution of tasks. In the kitchen, I hastily grabbed a large bag and stuffed several loaves of bread into it. I took a small wooden bowl. On a whim, I also took the needle and stitching thread, and a lidded cup of the healing paste I’d made for Ismay only the day before.

Ismay stood near one of the tables, organizing her herbs. My closest friend, my secret mentor in the ways of healing. She looked at me, alert now to my unusual behavior. I gave her a brief hug. It pained me greatly to realize I might not see her again. She returned the hug with some confusion, her brown eyes questioning.

Matilda, the lead cook, paused in her task of doling out instructions to her underlings. She eyed me with her usual disapproval as I passed by her, glancing at the bag I carried.

“The laird requires assistance,” I told her as I exited to the out-of-doors, before she could ask me to explain.

I ran to the stables. It was midmorning, so the men of the keep were occupied with training, hunting or tending the fields. I grabbed a bag I had hidden among the stalls, carefully filled over time with items I could use in case the need arose: a fur-lined coat, several lengths of rope, a flint and a small sword. It was this sword I used when I practiced with Ronan and Ritchie, the redheaded brothers of my own age who had found my interest in soldiers’ training amusing. They’d spent many an hour teaching me how to fight and how to ride. Skills I was blessed now to possess.

I had known all along that my destiny lay elsewhere. Most of my clan had long forgotten about my mysterious arrival as a child of three or four, accepting me as another daughter of a clanmember, and then as a servant and pair of hands. My unusual looks were occasionally commented on: hair so fair it was almost white, and light green eyes, not at all like the darker hues of my parents and friends. But there was too much work to be done to ponder excessively over the details of my foreignness. With mouths to feed, walls to build and crops to tend, there was little time left over to dwell on the origins of an outcast child.

I had not forgotten. The questions visited me daily. They resided in my dreams. And they made me less willing to accept my fate as the servant of a tyrannical laird whose intentions for me had been written in every glance in my direction since I came of age. But I’d known this was coming. I’d known it all along. I had waited for this day.

And here it was.

At the last moment, I grabbed a war helmet and stuffed it into the remaining space in my bag.

Several horses were grazing near the stables. I slipped a bridle onto a chestnut pony that I had ridden before—and draped a saddle blanket into place. I used a tree stump to mount the horse and climbed on. He could sense my frantic state, and it unsettled him. I was profoundly grateful that the stable hands were used to seeing me ride. They glanced up from their chores but didn’t dwell on what I was doing.

My immediate concern was to put as much distance between myself and my crime during this calm before the storm. The laird was, perhaps, weakened by loss of blood. He might be unconscious, not yet able to issue orders to have me followed, caught, beaten, killed. But that wouldn’t last long—I felt certain he would recover if a fever didn’t set in. I knew firsthand that Ismay was a highly talented healer. After all, she’d relied on me to gather the herbs she needed to make the healing paste, a good strong brew.

I skirted the horse around the loch, gaining speed, at full gallop by the time I reached the open gates of the keep.

I never looked back.

Riding faster than I’d ever ridden before, I pushed my horse until his coat was lathered with white sweat. I was fortunate that the ground was dry and a slight breeze stirred the air; the horse’s prints would not be deep, and the wind might erase them before they could be followed. I rode until the sky bled purple, then black.

Still I rode until the horse stumbled, almost spilling me onto the ground. Only then did I let him carry me forward at a slower pace, until we walked almost silently but for his soft-struck footfalls through the star-laden night. We neared a small brook, which cut through the wooded land like a snake of silver, illuminated by the dappled moon and a splash of bright stars.

I dismounted then, to drink and let the horse rest for a time. He found a small patch of grass, which he snatched up in greedy mouthfuls, reminding me of my own hunger. Glad for my stolen meal, I ate most of the bread I’d taken from Matilda’s kitchen. I wondered what the scene there would look like now, busy with the scandal of my crime and my desertion.

I lay on the ground for a moment, using my bag as a pillow, and wound the horse’s reins around my hand. I slept for a time, waking with a start when my horse pulled on the rope clasped tightly in my fist.

There was no sound, save the light splash of the stream nearby and the soft rhythmic chewing of the horse. No far-off shouts or thundering hoof beats. No sign that the laird’s henchmen were on my trail. But my sense of security was hardly robust. Here I was: alone, homeless, an outcast. With blood on my hands and now only one small loaf of bread in my bag. I had no shelter to seek out, no clan to rely on.

Yet I had considered where I might go if I found myself forced to flee. None of the options were entirely appealing, but I had decided I would travel to the Macduff clan, far to the north. Laird Ogilvie’s niece, Una, had been married to one of their upper-ranking clansmen, several years before. I could seek her out; she might remember me and allow me to remain with her clan, to work in their kitchens. But it would take several weeks to reach their lands.

I led my horse to a fallen tree and remounted to resume my journey. I was fairly certain I was traveling northeast. I tried to recall the maps that the laird and his men often displayed on the grand table, as they discussed skirmishes, gatherings, marriages and disputes. There had been days when I’d been cleaning the meeting room, polishing the pewter of the candlesticks, and the maps had remained in place, unrolled. The names were familiar enough, from the discussions over the tables I had served. Ogilvie. Machardie. Stuart. Macduff. Mackenzie. Buchanan. Campbell. Macsorley. Morrison. Munro. Macintosh. Macallister. What I was less familiar with was the placement of the clans’ territories.

Searching the memory, I tried to picture the map and the configuration of the boundary lines across the landscape in my mind. I’d tried to read the maps, to decipher the shapes of the letters, to match them to the names of the clans I knew. But it had been too difficult. My mother had begun to teach me to read as a child, but there had been little time to practice it, so my knowledge was limited. Instead, my education had consisted of garden work, household chores, cooking and cleaning. Once my father died, the most important skills required of my fallen status were to remain meek, mild and appropriately subservient at all times. I’d never mastered any of those arts, I’d be the first to admit.

It was much easier to recall the stories Laird Ogilvie and his ranks told about the clans and the strengths and weaknesses of their lairds. They’d discussed these things often, and I, pouring their ale, refilling the quickly emptying platters, attending to their requests, artfully dodging the grasp of their hands, had been privy to a wealth of information.

From their stories I knew that the Mackenzie clan lands were due north of Ogilvie’s, spreading widely to the east. Laird Ogilvie had said the Mackenzies presided over a large territory—larger than Ogilvie’s—of rolling fields, craggy terraces and richly stocked forests. Their lands would be closest to where I found myself now, I guessed.

Mackenzie.

The name made me uneasy.

I recalled one session where Laird Ogilvie and his highest-ranking officers had spoken of the Mackenzie men in particular. The hour had been late and the conversation loose.

“’Twas last year, in the skirmish at Ossian Lochs, over the coveted king’s lands,” one of Ogilvie’s men had said. “Absolutely deadly, that Laird Mackenzie. He watched his father die at the end of an enemy’s sword. And in response, he cut a line through Campbell’s troops that ran my blood cold. Mad, he is. Wickedly lethal.”

“Aye,” agreed another. “He’s huge, and that wild black hair does nothing to tone down the menace of him.”

Laird Ogilvie had agreed. “Knox Mackenzie is dangerous, guarded and altogether sour. It might be true that his clanspeople are gifted in the ways of the land. Their fields and orchards are rich with crops, aye, and their harvests are bountiful enough to feed not only their entire clan but also to trade with other clans for valuable commodities. But he’s gruff and entirely lacking in the diplomacy of his father.”

“And what’s the next brother’s name? Wilkie, is it? If you ask me, his swordsmanship skills are overstated.”

“But the women surely do fall at his feet. They flock around him like birds. He’d be easy to defeat—he’s too distracted.” This had inspired laughter.

“Aye, and the youngest brother, Kade—a savage. Always armed to the teeth and eyein’ a man up like he’d as soon kill him as pass the time of day.”

“The sisters, however,” one of the men had slurred, “are quite pleasing to the eye.” More familiarly lecherous laughter.

Laird Ogilvie had continued, “I’m sorely tempted to overrun their keep and take a bit o’ that food for myself.”

“Aye. And I’ll grab the sisters while we’re at it.”

The thought of running into one of the Mackenzie brothers as I passed by their keep was less than appealing. But one key detail stuck fervently in my mind. Their fields and orchards are rich with crops.

My empty stomach rumbled at the thought. No matter how intimidating the Mackenzie brothers may have been, the plan that was playing out in my head didn’t involve meeting them or in any way alerting them to my presence. But it did involve their bounty. Such was my hunger, I decided I would head in the direction of the Mackenzie keep. If I could pilfer some resources from their crops, I could sustain myself for the coming days and weeks of travel to the north. It was risky, aye, but I had little choice; there was no other food to be found on the windswept Highlands. Now, I sorely regretted not asking Ritchie and Ronan to teach me archery. At least then I could have hunted along the way. As it was, I had no choice but to avail myself to the Mackenzie gardens, if I could find them.

This is what I had become, I reflected bitterly—an aspiring thief, a vagrant, a homeless wretch. All because I couldn’t stomach the advances of Laird Ogilvie. Was I completely foolish to choose the fate of a wanderer over the fate of a mistress? Very likely so. I had considered this question many times since I began to suspect the laird’s intentions toward me. And I’d unconsciously made the decision: in my bones and my soul, I just couldn’t make myself submit.

There was no point wallowing in my predicament. After all, I’d seen it coming. I’d surprised myself at my speedy, well-crafted and—as yet—successful getaway. Neither self-pity nor self-loathing would better my situation. What I needed was to reach the outskirts of the Mackenzie keep, to fashion a ladder or find a tree to climb to scale the walls, and to wait for the cover of night.

Before I could do any of these things, I heard the unmistakable rhythmic beat of galloping horses, coming from the south, the same direction I had traveled.

A group of Ogilvie’s men, no doubt, and hot on my trail.

I kicked my horse into a faster pace, through a lane of sparsely dotted pine trees. One side opened out to vast fields of scrubby purple heather. On the left was a sharp incline rising up to rocky cliffs. It was too steep for a horse. But there was no way I could ride across the open fields; I would be easily seen. If I rode straight ahead, I knew I would be overtaken—my pursuers’ steeds would be larger and faster. Warriors’ horses, not a field horse, like mine.

Without warning, my horse neighed loudly and reared, throwing me to the ground. I landed on the hard, painful edges of my pack. But I jumped up quickly, too frightened to dwell on bumps or bruises.

I heard men’s voices getting closer. “Spread out!” one of them shouted.

I reached for the reins of my unsettled horse and slid my saddle blanket off the horse’s back. I waved it at him. The horse immediately galloped off, in the direction of the approaching search party. I took the opportunity to run and began to climb the incline of the lower cliffs.

“The horse!” a man yelled, too far into the distance, I hoped, to yet see me.

But there was another pursuer who was closer, galloping straight toward me. And I was not hidden enough. The shrubby trees were too sparse.

It was only seconds before the warrior reached me. I armed myself with my small sword and turned to face him. I knew resistance was futile, once he called out to the rest of the search party. I would be surrounded, beaten, taken back to Ogilvie to be punished.

But the warrior did not reach for his sword. Instead, he removed his helmet, revealing disheveled, very-red hair. “Roses. ’Tis me, Ritchie.”

Ritchie. My friend and my trainer. The one who had taught me how to fight and how to hold a sword correctly, as I was doing now.

“Nice technique.” He smiled briefly, a quick flash of mirth. Then his face grew serious. “I’ll not reveal you, Roses. But you must be quick. Do whatever you can to escape, and don’t come back. I know nothing about what you did to anger Laird Ogilvie, but he’s hell-bent on getting you back. He has dispatched search parties in all directions. He wants you found.” He turned to look behind him at the approaching soldiers. “Go! Before the others catch up.”

“Ritchie,” I said, gasping for breath, with relief and gratitude.

“Go!” he said, more forcefully. “Be safe, Roses.”

The furtive warning in Ritchie’s voice charged me, and I turned from him. I looked back only once to see his horse vanishing into a glade, wishing I could thank him, but he was already gone.

I climbed as fast as I could up the craggy terraced cliffs, farther and higher for what felt like a long time, until I reached a sheltered grassy cove. My lungs and legs burned with my exertions, and I sat for a moment to catch my breath. I could see that I was high above the vast rolling grasslands now. So high that I was afforded a magnificent view, across the heather fields.

My heart skipped a beat as I looked over the rise of a nearby hill to see the grand central stone castle of the Mackenzie keep—Kinloch, if I remembered correctly.

Within the confines of the keep, I could see tiny people milling about. Spaced cozily across the castle’s grounds were smaller stone and wooden buildings, and acres of farmland, striped with green and gold crops, artfully decorated with fruit trees, vines and gardens. The landscape was richly colorful, dotted with the tiny orange, red, green and yellow shapes of the laden orchards and gardens that looked on the verge of harvest. It was far more lush and skillfully tended than the Ogilvie keep. And it looked wildly inviting, especially considering the emptiness of my stomach, which twisted and growled at the sight of such plenty.

The stone wall that circled the central area of the keep’s castle and gardens looked as tall as two men, at least. If I used a ladder—which I hoped I might be able to build with some wood and the rope I had brought—I might be able to scale it.

I would use the daylight hours to scout for a place to find a shelter to sleep tonight, after I returned from my raid. To my intense relief, I found one easily. The hillside was steep and gouged with small caves, shielded from the wind by massive boulders and packed tree glades. I found one that was not too cramped, extending deep into the smooth rock. At the back of the cave, a slit extended up to a thin crack of daylight, giving warmth and soft light to the cozy space.

Delighted by my find and feeling hopeful at the prospect of food, I went in search of wood for my ladder. What I found first, farther around the western back of the hillside, was a picturesque waterfall splashing into a clear pool. I took a long drink. I washed my hands and my face before continuing to gather lengths of sturdy, thin branches.

I returned to the cave and wound the lengths of rope I had brought around the rungs of my makeshift ladder, fashioning what I hoped was my portal into the Mackenzie gardens.

The only thing left to do was wait until darkness veiled then settled thickly around the landscape of my new—and quite comfortable—temporary home. I prepared my bag, checked my ladder once more for weight-bearing consistency.

I strapped my belt, strung with my knife and sword, around my waist. Figuring that a disguise would be the best course of action, I wound my hair into a loose braid, coiled at the back of my neck, then fastened the war helmet onto to my head and set off on my way.

The stone wall of the keep was farther away than I’d estimated. It may have been as much as an hour before I reached it, and by then, my lack of sleep and lack of food was beginning to take its toll. Attempting to ignore both, I positioned my ladder, waiting atop the wall, listening for sounds of stirring in the near vicinity. My eyes had adjusted by then to the spare light offered by a sliver moon and some cloud-veiled stars. I could see no one. I adjusted my weight on the thick surface of the wall and pulled the ladder over, placing it against the inside wall so I could make my escape. I climbed down to the ground and found myself on the far side of a small loch from the looming castle and within sight of the silver-edged silhouettes of garden hedges and gnarled, fruit-heavy trees. I sneaked around the water’s edge toward my goal. I fingered the first pear of my harvest, taking several bites before I could continue. Its sweetness was indescribable. I picked as many fruits as I could carry.

As I walked past the edge of the smooth expanse of the loch toward the wall, I was surprised to notice that the yellow hue of morning had just begun to creep above the horizon. I’d taken too much time. Soon, people would begin their day’s chores. And I was still inside the wall. Taking quick steps now, I secured my helmet and approached my ladder. Just as I started to climb, a sound drew my attention.

A splash.

I turned to see a man walking out of the loch.

A very big, muscular, naked man. Very naked.

And he was looking right at me.

We were both stunned into frozen silence. But then he tensed and moved in my direction, jolting me into action. I clambered up the ladder as fast as I could, pulling it up behind me and jumping heavily down to the ground on the far side, my bag of fruits and vegetables secured to my back. I left the ladder where it lay and ran for my very life. I didn’t look back, but I knew he was coming.

I ran and ran until my legs threatened to buckle under me. My back had gone numb with the weight of my load as I struggled farther and farther up the hill.

I could hear him gaining on me.

“Halt!” he yelled, and his voice reached into my body and grabbed my heart, such was the fear I felt. It wasn’t just the strength of the command but the closeness of it.

And I did halt.

On the other side of the sharp jutting rock was my shelter. I dropped my bag and turned to face him. I pulled my sword from its belt.

And he was there, not ten feet from where I stood, fully clothed now and holding his own—much bigger—sword.

As far as I could see, he was alone. Would he have told others about his chase?

The first thing that struck me about him—aside from his size, which I already knew about, in every regard—was his captivating looks. His black hair, still barely wet, hung to his shoulders, and he wore a small braid stitched back from each temple, as was customary for clansmen. Despite the small distance between us, I could see that his eyes were a vivid shade of blue. His face was fierce not only in expression but also in countenance: fierce in beauty. I was dizzied by my fear and by my reaction to his dazzling presence.

“Who are you?” he asked, his broad chest heaving as he breathed heavily from the chase. It was a command, that I supply him this information.

I did not speak. I had no intention of giving up my identity. He might return me to Laird Ogilvie.

He held up his sword and asked the question again, this time more quietly but no less commanding. “I said, to whom am I speaking?”

I held up my own small weapon. It was far less impressive than his own, but I knew how to use it. I’d been training with men for months and had learned how a quick jab could be just as effective as a long swing.

“You want to fight me, aye?” he asked. There was a note of jeering confidence in his question. I allowed him this. My call to arms was clearly foolhardy. I did not want to die here on this hilltop, at the hands of this beautiful warrior, but I had no other option than to fight.

“Show your face,” he said.

I did not.

“Please leave me,” I said, attempting to deepen my voice.

A slight crease appeared between his eyebrows, as if he was having trouble making sense of the situation and my request. He almost smiled. “I’ll not go until you reveal yourself,” he said, and his tone sounded patient, if I was placing it correctly.

“I cannot.”

“Then we shall have to fight. You’ve been caught stealing from our lands. ’Tis punishable by death, thievery. If there’s a reason for your actions, give it.”

“I was hungry,” came my falsely stern, muffled reply.

To this he smiled, clear confusion written across his heartbreaking face. “That’s a fair reason, then. Reveal yourself and you can keep your bounty. If you agree never to return to thieve from us again. Show your face.”

“I cannot.”

His mild amusement irked me. “You cannot,” he repeated. “Why is this?”

My fear, and something else, was causing my control to weaken, to slide. I willed myself to hold it together. “Leave me! Here, take your food! I’ll go, and not bother you again.”

His smile faded, and I realized that I’d forgotten to disguise my voice. He said slowly, as though to make sure I understood, “I’m afraid I’ll not be leaving. Not until I know who I’m dealing with.”

We stood, swords raised, at an impasse of sorts.

Would he show me mercy? Would he force me to return to Ogilvie? Or would he kill me?

As if in partial answer, he stepped closer, clearly not intimidated by me. He lifted the tip of his sword to my chin, as though to use it to tip my helmet backward.

I struck his sword with my own.

He was surprised by my hit, and he lashed back with his weapon, so quickly I barely had time to react. And we were close now, so close that his returning strike sliced across my arm, ricocheting pain throughout my body. My sword, as I fell to the ground, slid across the muscle of his side. He growled and struck my weapon with such power that it sent a jolt of fire through my already bloodied arm. My sword went flying, so I could hear the wo wo wo of its spinning flight before it landed with a clang far out of my reach.

Stunned, pained, grasping to maintain consciousness, I lay still on the ground as he stood over me. Blood was flowing freely from the wound on his torso. He kneeled and removed my helmet. My hair had loosened and spilled onto the ground as he freed it.

When he saw my face, his jaw dropped. He stared for many moments, surveying me with his eyes. He fingered a lock of my hair, rubbing it gently between two fingers for several seconds, as though fascinated by the feel of it, or the color.

“You’re a lass,” he finally said.

“Aye.”

His expression colored with a strange sort of awe that reached to touch me in places I had never before been touched. Inexplicably, I felt a part of myself open to him, like a flower when it first sees the sun. I craved more of this connection. My senses wanted to touch, to feel, to drink in the scent and the sight of his magnificence. His face was too beautiful, too glorious. I was blinded and dazed. And he, as well, looked momentarily overcome.

A long moment passed before he continued, clear notes of disbelief rasping his words. “You’re an angel.”

“Nay, not that.”

“An angel so lovely she stuns my mind. Wearing the clothing of men.”

He sat down next to me, somewhat heavily. The cloth at the front of his tunic was now saturated with blood.

“Why did you strike me?” I asked. “Now I’ve injured you.” In the aftermath of our battle, I felt appalled that it was my own hand, my own sword, that had damaged this unearthly creature.

“I wouldn’t have,” he countered. “If you’d heeded my command.”

My eyelids felt unusually heavy. “Aye,” I admitted. “’Tis a weakness of mine. I’m not very good at heeding commands.”

His hands were on my arm, where my wound was dripping a crimson puddle onto the dirt. “You’re injured, too.”

“Not so badly as you, I think.”

He would need stitching, that was clear enough. Had I brought the stitching thread and the needle? I couldn’t recall. My memory seemed fuzzy at its edges.

“The cave,” I said.

He eyed me skeptically, that hint of amusement still lingering in his eyes, despite our circumstance. “Which cave is this, lass?”

I motioned toward the cave, and he moved to help me sit up. The scent and heat of him seemed to swirl all around me and inside me. The heat of his solid thigh burned through the layers of our clothing as he supported me. Feebly, I led him toward the cave, and he, too, for all his size and ferocity, swooned slightly as we walked.

“There,” I said, not at all sure I wouldn’t black out and crumple helplessly to the ground at a moment’s notice.

I crouched onto my hands and knees at the entrance of the cave and crawled into its interior, sliding onto the welcome warmth of the bed I’d laid. The bloodied warrior crawled in after me, lying down beside me. We held each other’s gaze, and the blue of his eyes seemed to pour into me; it fed me a comfort the likes of which I had not known for a very long time, or maybe ever. I was profoundly grateful, if death was upon me, that I could at least die in the glowing presence of this glorious warrior.

“I’m Wilkie Mackenzie,” he said.

So this was Laird Mackenzie’s notorious brother. I could now understand why it was said that women fell at his feet.

Emboldened by his confession, I told him my name. “I’m Roses.” I had been an Ogilvie for most of my life, but now, I had severed myself from that clan irrevocably. I was on my own.

“Roses,” he said, as though wholly satisfied by my introduction. He did not prod me for more. “An unusual name.” His eyes glimmered in the half-light. “The pleasure is mine, Roses.”

“You exaggerate, warrior,” I whispered. “I’ve hardly given you pleasure.”

“If we live,” he said, his eyes drowsy now from his blood loss, “that is something we will have to remedy.”

“Aye,” I heard myself reply. “It is.”

And darkness overcame me.


CHAPTER TWO

WHEN I AWOKE, it took me several seconds to figure out where I found myself. My body felt trapped under a heavy weight, and my arm throbbed with a dull searing ache.

I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the dim interior.

The cave.

Vivid light seeped through the narrow door opening. Late afternoon light. I had been asleep for several hours.

The warrior lay next to me, so close I could see the stubble on his now-peaceful face, framed by the long strands of his dark hair. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to touch the thick silk of it, smoothing it back from his strong brow, fingering the braids that knotted back from his temples. His features were bold and striking, hardened by work, war and sun, softened only slightly now in this dark haven. Or tomb. Time would tell.

His arm was slung over me, pinning me against the bulk of his huge heated body. I tried to move, but he grasped me tighter, causing him to grimace and groan even in his unconscious state. I tried again but could not budge him.

Should I attempt to sneak away from him, to take my bag of food and flee northward?

I dismissed the option almost instantly. I was too weak. I had no idea as to the extent of my injury. Or his. And I had no intention of leaving him to die. I remembered the look on his face when he’d removed my helmet. The direct fascination in his eyes, the impact of his blue gaze. The new, tingling awareness of my own heat and my own skin, and more than that: my own life.

I would take my chances.

“Warrior,” I said, trying to rouse him.

No response.

“Wilkie,” I attempted. “You must let me go, so I can tend to your wound, and my own. I’ll fetch water for you to drink.”

His eyes opened, blue even in the semidarkness.

“Roses,” he mumbled.

“Aye. ’Tis me. Release your grip on me, warrior.”

“Kiss me, angel. Before this life leaves me.”

His eyes seemed to gain focus, and I thought I detected a brief glimmer in their sapphire depths. I was wary, mainly because of his size and his obvious strength, but he was a temptation to me in ways I did not understand. I wanted to disengage from his grip and at the same time settle yet closer to him.

“Then will you release me?”

A hint of a smile lingered in his eyes but did not touch his lips, which parted only slightly. “Aye,” he whispered.

I brushed my lips softly against his mouth. I meant it to be brief, a means to the critical end of attending to our injuries. But the feel of his mouth against mine, the warmth of his breath on my face, held me there. I let my lips touch to his for a moment longer, savoring the soft contact. Then he kissed me back, sweetly, his mouth just open, so I could feel the wetness on his lips. I pulled away, shocked by the feel of it.

“Let me go, warrior.”

He obeyed my request, drawing his arm away from me. But the action pained him greatly, and he groaned and closed his eyes as he lay back on our makeshift bed. I could see then that his injury was indeed severe. The front of his shirt was near-saturated with his blood. He faded from consciousness again, although his sleep seemed fitful and agitated.

I jumped up, ignoring the burning ache in my left arm. Using my knife, I cut away Wilkie’s tunic, revealing the gaping wound inflicted by my own hand. It was longer but less deep than I had feared, running in a diagonal line below his rib cage along his right side. I was relieved to see that the edges were cleanly sliced, so they would be relatively easy to sew back together. Ismay had allowed me to assist her with wound care and stitching, even though Laird Ogilvie had once forbade it. She saw no harm in it, she’d said, and was only too pleased to have a willing, eager student.

Infinitely grateful that I’d happened to grab the needle and thread and the healing paste in the midst of my hasty departure, I intended to put them to good use now. But first I needed to clean his wound. Looking around the cave for a vessel to carry water, I spied the bowl.

I ran down to the pool and filled it.

Wilkie remained unconscious, and I used his stillness to my advantage. Washing away the blood from his torso took several more trips to the pool. Then I carefully sewed his wound, taking care to pull the edges neatly together before smoothing the area with healing salve. I found the process strangely taxing and was heated and exhausted by the time I’d finished but pleased with my efforts. I cut a clean strip off of his tunic to keep the wound covered, but when I tried to lift him, he wouldn’t budge. The man was possibly twice my own weight, and my strength had been decidedly tapped. So I tucked the strip around him for now; I could tie it when he awoke.

I took a moment to admire the graceful lines of his chest, so powerfully built, the muscles curved and sculpted. His chest and arms carried many battle scars, lines of paleness against the brown of his sunned skin. I traced several of them lightly with my finger, imagining the battles he had fought over land, honor, women. I clearly wasn’t the first to wield a sword against this seasoned warrior.

It was then that I was reminded of my own battle scar. I had been so immersed in my task of healing the warrior that I’d temporarily forgotten my own injury. But now the pain flared as if in protest. My body felt unusually warm, almost tingly in places.

I went back to the water’s edge. Quickly, I removed my tunic. Before I did, I unclasped the glass-jeweled pin that adorned it, a small piece that had belonged to my mother, given to her by my father on their wedding day. It was the only belonging of theirs that remained in my possession, and I wore it each day, as a tribute to their memory. I stopped briefly to look at it, to run my fingers over the smooth rounded surface of its face. A daisy, with curved metallic petals; at its center was an amber-colored glass jewel that gleamed now, in the sun. My mother’s name had been Daisy. The sweetest, prettiest flower, my father used to say. My Daisy, my Roses. I have my very own flower garden, right here, in our house. My lovely girls.

I placed the pin on a small rock to the side of the pool and scrubbed my tunic to remove the blood, the memory of my parents surrounding me peacefully. Their kindness and generosity. Lost to me now. I hung the tunic on a near branch to dry in the breeze.

I washed the sweat and tears from my face. I cupped my hands and drank. Carefully, I washed my wound, removing the dried blood there and surveying the damage. The burning sting of the raw, exposed flesh made my eyes water. But the sword had sliced across the skin, rather than cutting deep, so the injury would likely not require sewing. I could douse it with healing salve and bandage it, and leave it to heal on its own. And I would forevermore carry the scar inflicted by Wilkie Mackenzie. Like a seal.

A seal.

It looks like a seal of some description.

I pushed the unpleasant memory out of my mind, concentrating instead on drying myself, and quickly. The warrior might wake at any time. Or his clansmen might have found his trail, or mine. They’d have noticed his disappearance by now, for certain. It was hours since he’d spied me at the wall, as he’d emerged from his own pool. I let that memory linger. I had beheld his magnificence, even amid the panic of the moment. I had never seen a man so beautiful and so...naked. And not a shred of modesty. Just confidence.

I wore my thin sleeveless shift—which I had shortened to a length I could accommodate with men’s riding clothing—leaving my tunic off, for now. I didn’t want to aggravate my wound with the thicker fabric yet, as it was bleeding freely again since I’d removed the layer of dried blood. I carried my tunic and the bowl, now filled with fresh water.

The warrior still slept. This worried me slightly.

I applied healing salve to own wound, which stung frightfully, bringing tears to my eyes. Once the pain had eased, I wrapped a second strip of cloth from the warrior’s tunic around it several times to apply pressure. It was the only cloth I had access to, aside from my own clothing, and it was in such a state of disrepair already, it couldn’t be salvaged.

After my bandage was in place, I sat next to the warrior and placed my hand on his forehead. No fever, yet.

He needed an experienced healer, one with knowledge, teas and tinctures. Would he wake soon? Would he be able to make the trek back down the mountain? He should drink.

I lifted his head gently into my lap.

“Warrior,” I whispered in his ear. “You must drink. Wake now. I have fresh water.”

He groaned softly, and his eyes blinked open. I held the bowl to his lips.

“Drink this. ’Tis cold and will quell your thirst.”

He gulped it thirstily, drinking most of it. This relieved me. I put the bowl aside and smoothed his hair back from his face. He turned his head to gaze up at me, the expression in his eyes unfathomable. There was fierceness there, and something more. Was he still vengeful? If I healed him and comforted him, he might forgive me my crime. I dared to imagine he’d let me go and trade food for duties I could perform for him, such as sewing or preparing healing paste, or...gardening, even. It was a lofty hope, though, I knew; he’d be unlikely to trust me inside his clan’s walls. And what of this warrior and his kinsmen—could I trust them? I knew of the ways and intentions of tyrannical lairds and their ranks, and I was wary.

The warrior winced briefly at his own movement as he reached to touch the long off-white end strands of my hair. I hadn’t yet braided and bound it after it had come loose during our chase and our battle, so it hung down around my shoulders to graze his arm. He wound his fingers through it and held it to his cheek where he rubbed it softly against his skin.

“You left me,” he accused, somewhat sulkily.

“Only for a moment,” I said. “I went to bathe my wound.”

His gaze traveled to my bandaged arm, as though he’d forgotten.

“I cut you.”

“Aye, but I’ll live. And I cut you. Now I must heal you.”

His head turned just slightly, so that his cheek barely touched the pillowy curve of my breast. I blushed at the contact, as the thinness of the cloth of my shift would have, in different circumstances, been fairly scandalous. I had not yet put on my tunic. The warrior’s breathing became heavier then, so I could feel the hot strikes of his breath through the very light layer of my clothing. Where his heat warmed me, sensation gathered and pooled, spreading across my skin and deeper, to the lower depths of my stomach. Against my will, my body responded. My nipples, so close to his mouth, budded into tight peaks, almost painfully.

And he noticed. The black pupils of his eyes grew, swallowing all but the outer blue edge of his irises. This sudden darkening made him appear all the more dangerous.

I was unsettled enough to consider how I could carefully lower his head back to the furs, to remove myself from his hold, but his hand remained coiled around my hair.

“Your hair is so fair,” he said. “As wheat. As honey. As gold.”

And I didn’t want to run from him. His touch was too delicious. I knew it was sinful to gain pleasure from such things, but it was hardly a most pressing concern. Here I was, a traitor and a thief. In the past few days, I’d stabbed two men, stolen as much food as I could carry and now found myself trapped with a fearsome warrior who might just as well kill me as save me. My list of crimes grew longer by the hour. Kissing a handsome stranger was the very least of my wrongdoings. Surprised by my own urges, I leaned ever so slightly forward, allowing his mouth just the tiniest bit closer...

The thoughts evaporated as his mouth closed over my breast. Even through the thin veil of my shift, the pressure was exquisite as he pulled my nipple farther into the hot flame of his mouth, licking his tongue against the underside of the tip, biting gently with his teeth. The scraping, scalding pressure funneled into my body, between my legs, where I grew moist and swollen, tingling with expectation.

A small moan escaped me, and him, too, as he moved to reach for my other breast. He held the full weight with his large hand, rousing sparking pleasure in my body with the pinching, circling pressure of his fingers.

It startled me, my reaction to him, the need he summoned in me. But I offered no protest when he lifted the front of my shift to gain access to my bare breasts. He gasped a savage, deep sound, touching me with the most careful placement of his fingers, rubbing me gently and pulling me to his mouth. With no barriers between my skin and the slippery play of his tongue, the craving that had begun the very first time I’d looked into his eyes grew in its power. The pulsing heavy ache in my nipples as he teased me with his teeth and his mouth swelled and compounded to touch my heart, my core, my soul, overwhelming me entirely. I held his head, stroking his hair, offering myself to him.

“Angel,” he said, almost panting. “You’re a dream, yet I feel you. I’ve never felt so much. Do you feel me?”

“I feel you, warrior. I feel all of you. Everywhere.”

“How can you be here, like this, burning me so? You can’t be real. Who knew death would be so enchanting and so achingly beautiful?”

His words slurred at the end, and it occurred to me then that he might have been somewhat delirious and that his heavy breaths and his moans were double-edged. He needed to be careful not to rip his stitches, and the way his arm had looped itself around my waist was endangering his recovery. I suspected that the severity of his injury was the only reason I was able to extricate myself from his grip, to place his head gently on the furs and lie next to him.

“You must rest, warrior. I’ll stay here with you.” My fingers smoothed his unruly hair.

“Roses,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving my face.

“Aye. I’m here.”

“Where have you come from?” he asked. “Why are you alone?”

Only hours ago I had fought against him to avoid a very similar question. But now, softly touching his chest, with his hand cupping my face and his blue eyes vivid and sublime, I wanted to give him whatever he asked of me. I wanted to satisfy his curiosity, and more.

“Clan Ogilvie.”

“Ogilvie?” He contemplated me thoughtfully, as though surprised by this information. “You don’t look like an Ogilvie.”

“I wasn’t born an Ogilvie. I was adopted as a child of three or four.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know, warrior. My origins are a mystery.” A wretched mystery that had left me with a small inked tattoo and a restless spirit. “And now I work at the Ogilvie keep as a kitchen servant. Or at least I did. Until yesterday.”

His thumb brushed across my bottom lip. He studied my face as I studied his. I could feel his aching beauty down to the pit of my stomach.

“I have many questions to ask you, mysterious angel,” he said, “but first I need you to kiss me again. Your lips are too sweet. If I’m to die, let it be with your taste in my mouth. Kiss me, angel. I’ll die a happy man.”

“You’ll not die, warrior.” The thought jarred me. I needed to seek out help for him. I felt his forehead. Too warm.

He murmured a husked word that might have been please.

I leaned over him, running my fingers along the rough surface of his jaw. His dark-lit blue eyes were dreamlike, his lips beckoning me. I touched my lips to his, as I had once before. His hand reached to grip the nape of my neck with raw strength, even in his weakened state. He held me in place as he returned the kiss. I felt his tongue lick my top lip, then slide gently between them. As soon as my lips parted, his tongue delved farther. He tasted of desire and of sweet hunger. I opened to him, wanting everything about this connection to continue. I had never felt anything like the sensation this warrior delivered with the touch of his tongue to mine.

He seemed to forget himself then, and he moved as if to rise over me, to hold me closer. But the effort clearly speared him with pain. He fell back, releasing his hold.

“Warrior?” I whispered, but he was gone to me.

I could stay here and watch over him and do my best to help him. But I was not an expert healer. Ismay had taught me well in our many stolen moments, and she’d often commented on my natural abilities, but there was much I felt I still didn’t know.

I had to seek out his family, and quickly. They would take him home to his comfortable, lush chambers, to their team of healers and their stores of medicines, cooks offering hearty broths and ale, to the best care a man could be given.

I laid my riding blanket over him, up to the middle of his chest. And I adjusted my own clothing, pulling my shift back down into place. I replenished the bowl of water and left it within his reach. Then I found the bag of loot I’d stolen from his clan’s gardens. I put an arrangement of fruit next to the bowl of water.

“I must get help for you, warrior. I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.”

I took a moment to loosely stitch together the gaping rip in my tunic, at the shoulder, where Wilkie had sliced through it, making a small attempt to improve my ragged appearance. Then I eased it over my head and fitted it into place, taking care not to dislodge my bandage. I went to hunt for my sword, which, after some searching, I was able to find. I strapped it to my belt, grabbed three apples for myself, and began walking down the mountain toward the Mackenzie keep.


CHAPTER THREE

AS I APPROACHED THE guarded gates of the keep, I could take some comfort from the assumption that they were unlikely to turn me away. Not when I was the one who could lead them to their missing clansman. And not just any clansman: the laird’s powerful brother. Once he was returned to them, I hoped they would let me go, peacefully.

When Wilkie Mackenzie recovered—if he recovered—would he awaken in anger? I thought again of his kiss. Of his mouth on me. The fresh memory of it brought warmth to my body, and it infused me with an unrestful anticipation. But still, I was the one responsible for his injury. And if he died, it was possible that the blame would be placed on me. I might be punished or killed in retribution.

There was much activity in the vicinity of the Mackenzie keep. Search parties on horseback were taking leave, it appeared. Wilkie’s absence had made itself known.

Two guards watched my approach with puzzled expressions. I stood before them. “I would request to speak with Laird Mackenzie,” I said. “I have news of Wilkie Mackenzie’s whereabouts.”

The two guards looked at each other, skeptical, but they took my words seriously, and they didn’t waste time. “Follow me,” one of them instructed, and began walking toward the stone castle. Several young boys were playing in the gardens, and the guard called to them. They scampered over, eyeing me, my clothing.

“Run to the yards to see if the laird can be found there. He is needed in the hall urgently. Hurry to it!” he commanded them. The boys ran off, gleeful with their assignment.

I was led at a brisk pace along a wide path to the looming stone castle. I was struck again by the beauty and orderliness of the landscape. Workers paused in their tasks and stared at me as I walked alongside the guard. I envied these workers their teamwork and camaraderie, their clan and sense of belonging. I wished I, too, had a clan I could feel a part of and that I could be allowed to contribute to in a meaningful way. I had felt as if I’d belonged to the Ogilvie clan for a time, until the death of my father and my mother’s quickly following decline. Since then, I’d felt less like kin and more like a servant and outsider who didn’t quite fit either my role or my surroundings. My spirit had been well and truly stomped upon, my wings insistently clipped. In my heart, I felt my destiny lay elsewhere.

The guard escorted me through the giant wooden doors of the castle, into a grand entrance hall. Tapestries adorned the stone walls, and fine, wooden furniture decorated the room’s interior. The details and upkeep of the castle were clearly more refined and prosperous than those found in the Ogilvie keep.

I wondered, as I sat in a chair and waited for the guard to return, whether Wilkie had woken. I knew he would call out to me if he found me gone. I felt an undeniable longing to go back to him, to heal him with my own hands. But it was best this way. The fever was upon him, and his chances of survival were far greater under the care of his clan. And I badly wanted him to live.

Commotion and loud footsteps approached from the interior of the castle. And into the room strode a small crowd of people, led by an enormous man who could only have been Wilkie’s brother, Laird Mackenzie. His resemblance to Wilkie was striking, his hair equally as black, but he was even larger, his look more imposing. Rather than a vivid blue, his eyes were a distinct shade of light gray. To his right stood another brother. Kade, if I remembered correctly. This brother was similar in size but slighter, almost lanky, his hair a dark shade of brown, his eyes blue, like Wilkie’s, but lighter in hue. The look in his eyes suggested less restraint than his brothers, an innate recklessness that was, at a first impression, somewhat unsettling. This effect was further emphasized by the veritable arsenal he wore: several belts strung with a number of knives and swords, as well as a leather strap across his chest fitted with pouches and pockets where more small knives and other sharp objects were cached.

I stood.

They stared at me as though I had two heads, and I realized I must have looked strange to them. I’d been so distracted with Wilkie’s care, and the emotions inspired by his kisses, that I’d forgotten to braid my hair, which hung long and loose down my back. Still dressed in now-ragged men’s clothing, which I’d taken care to rid of bloodstains, but hadn’t been entirely successful with the task, and with a sword strung in my belt, I must have looked a right savage.

But there was little I could do about it now.

Before my study could wander further, the laird spoke.

“I am Laird Knox Mackenzie and this is my brother Kade Mackenzie. To whom do I speak?”

“My name is Roses.”

I was glad he didn’t ask me about my clan. There were more pressing questions on his mind. “You have news of Wilkie,” he said, with brusque impatience.

“Aye,” I said. “He is injured. I know where he lies, up the mountain to the west. I have stitched his wound, but I fear the fever is ailing him.”

The laird reacted instantly, barking orders at the assembly. “Fergus, prepare the horses and—”

“He’ll need a litter,” I said. “He can’t walk, and carrying him would injure him further.”

The laird’s head snapped in my direction, his face registering mild outrage. Kade looked almost amused.

All was briefly silent in the wake of my interruption.

“You and I will have a long talk upon our return,” the laird said to me, his glare blazingly direct. “First we find Wilkie.” He turned to his brother. “The lass can ride with you.”

“I can ride,” I offered, but my request was ignored. It seemed I was not to be trusted. Gratitude was not their foremost reaction to my sudden appearance, I reflected with some annoyance.

The group was quick to assemble, and I was led outside and hoisted upon a colossal horse, in front of Kade. “You’ll show me the path to Wilkie,” he said.

He wrapped massive arms around me and spurred his horse into a full gallop, followed closely by the others. I feared getting poked or speared with one of his many weapons, but I had no choice but to cling to him.

We made quick time of the flatlands and soon were traversing the steep slope of the hillside. It was so steeply inclined in places I feared our horses would flip from the weight of us, but the men were undeterred. I pointed out the path, and we reached the entrance of the cave just as dusk had given way to darkness.

“Here,” I said. Kade leaped from his horse, making no move to assist me, and he walked toward the cave with ground-eating strides, followed closely by the laird and several others. Kade’s horse was so large I had difficulty jumping down from the great height I found myself at. I swung my leg over and tried to lower myself to the ground but ended up falling into a painful heap. Brushing myself off, I walked over to the entrance of the cave, and crouched just inside, near where the men were circled, kneeling around Wilkie. The dying light cast a subtle glow into the small space.

“Brother,” said the laird, touching his hand to Wilkie’s forehead. “We’re taking you home.” Rigid concern lent a stern severity to the laird’s bold features as he exchanged looks with Kade. “He’s burning.”

Kade lifted the blanket I’d placed over Wilkie’s chest, pulling it down to reveal the lightly bandaged wound. He peeled this back, and each of them drew a quick intake of breath.

“You sewed this, lass?” the laird asked me.

“Aye.”

“Not a bad job of it,” Kade commented.

Wilkie stirred, his head rolling from side to side. “Roses,” he said, quite clearly, though his eyes were still closed.

“He’s delirious,” said the laird. “Let’s move him to the litter.”

“Roses,” Wilkie called out, louder this time.

Kade watched his brother, then his gaze slid to me. “What did you say your name was?”

“Roses,” I said quietly.

Kade nodded his head toward Wilkie in a curt, commanding gesture: I was being granted permission—or being ordered, perhaps—to go to him. I crawled over to Wilkie. I whispered in his ear, not caring if I was overheard, “I’m here, warrior.”

He settled instantly. His eyes opened, and he blinked several times as though struggling to keep them open. He reached up to lace his hand under my hair, around the back of my head. “Ah, lass. Such a beautiful dream, you are. Kiss me again.”

The laird looked less than pleased by the exchange, but he was studying his brother’s reaction with interest, obviously relieved to find him alive.

“’Tis time for you to go home,” I said softly. “Your brothers have come for you.”

“Stay with me, Roses,” he said drowsily, and it wasn’t a question.

I glanced at the laird, whose attention was directed at me. Would he allow it? His eyes followed Wilkie’s hand as it stroked through my hair, then fell at his side.

“Aye,” said Laird Mackenzie. “You’ll come. Let’s go.”


CHAPTER FOUR

I WAS NOT ONLY ALLOWED but also expected to remain at Wilkie’s side, as he was taken to his chambers and treated by the healer.

His chambers were large and, as expected, luxurious. Heavy furs hung at the windows to protect against the night breeze, which was becoming more biting with each passing day. A fire had been laid in a grand stone fireplace and crackled pleasantly, casting orange light. Wilkie’s bed was supported by four vertical carved wooden beams that reached to the ceiling and were hung with thick embroidered curtains, pulled back now, so the healer could attend to his injury.

I took my place in a chair by the fire as Wilkie’s attendants inspected and cleaned his wound. I was so exhausted, I could have slept in the hard wooden seat. My eyelids felt heavy, and I struggled to keep myself from drifting.

Kade and the laird hung back, watching the healer attend to their brother. In a flurry of commotion, two younger women rushed through the door, frantic with the news of Wilkie’s return. His sisters, it was easy to see, with their dark hair and blue eyes.

“Wilkie,” one of them gasped, pressing her hand to his brow. “He’s fevered,” she said.

“He’s alive, and home,” said the other sister, “and strong as an ox. He’ll be fine.” She adjusted his furs with extreme care, fussing over him.

I envied him, his family close around him, wrenching concern etched onto their faces.

The slightly taller sister, whose hair was as black as Wilkie’s, addressed the healer. “Effie, how severe are his injuries?”

“Quite severe,” replied Effie. “Who stitched this?” she asked the laird.

“’Twas the lass here,” the laird said. “Roses.” All eyes moved to me, but I was too tired to take much notice of their scrutiny, which soon shifted back to Wilkie.

Effie gave a noise that suggested she was mildly impressed. “It can remain in place. The wound itself has begun to heal. In fact, the quick stitching probably saved his life. ’Tis a nasty wound indeed.” She cleaned and bound Wilkie’s torso, then she prescribed a drink of cooled willowbark tea, which she scooped from a pot with a wooden goblet.

But when the women tried to hold his head to make him drink, he swiped the goblet away, sending it flying across the room where it struck the stone wall.

“You must take the drink, Wilkie,” Effie instructed him in a loud voice, as though he was deaf rather than fevered. But when they tried again, his reaction was even more violent, and his body began to thrash in agitation as he groaned with the pain of his own unrest.

“Roses,” the laird said, signaling for me to go to Wilkie. “You try.”

Uneasy under the room’s collective gaze, I walked to Wilkie’s bed. He lay in the middle of the expanse, so I had to climb up to sit next to him. I put my face close to his. “Warrior, you must drink. Let me hold the cup for you. It will cool your throat.”

He turned his face toward me but didn’t open his eyes. “Ach,” he barely whispered, a slow smile touching his mouth. “My angel has come to me.”

Effie handed me the goblet. I held Wilkie’s head, lifting him until his lips touched the rim. “Here it is. Take your drink, warrior,” I crooned. “That’s it, and a little more.”

He drank until the cup was empty.

“Stay with me,” he said drowsily. “Right here, where I can feel you.”

“Aye, warrior.”

I laid his head back on his pillow, more peaceful now. I made a move to slide off the bed, but Wilkie looped a large, muscular arm around my waist, pulling me against him. I tried to pry his fingers gently loose, attempting to unwrap his arm from around my hips where I lay practically on top of him. But Wilkie immediately began to protest, pulling me back to him and securing his hold around me, even more tightly. Through the haze of his fever, he murmured my name and other words of endearment that brought heat to my face, and elsewhere. The laird and Kade noticed my blush, which only worsened its effect.

I leaned up to Wilkie, whispering assurances close to his ear that I was still here, that I wouldn’t leave him. He quieted and loosened his hold, allowing me to sit. But I was still locked decisively in his ironclad grip.

“He requires rest,” announced Effie. She contemplated my placement next to Wilkie and the entwined clasp of our fingers. “The lassie looks dead on her feet. Would you like me to find a bed for her, Laird Mackenzie?”

Wilkie’s words were slurred but quite emphatic for a man infirmed. “She’ll sleep here. With me.”

At this, Kade chuckled quietly.

But the laird did not appear to be quite as amused. “She can sleep in the women’s chambers, and be brought to you on the morrow.”

This information appeared disagreeable enough to rouse Wilkie momentarily from his fugue. His eyes barely opened, and his voice was husked with illness, but he spoke clearly enough to be understood. “I need her. She keeps the darkness at bay.”

“Wilkie,” said the laird, and his voice was firm, as though he was confident he could talk some sense into his delusional brother. “Be reasonable. The lass is neither a figment of your imagination nor is she a captive. In fact we know next to nothing about who, indeed, the lass is—a mystery I aim to get to the bottom of as soon as she is rested. She’ll sleep in the extra bed in Christie’s chambers and we can all meet and discuss what’s to be done in the morning. Now—”

“Nay!” Wilkie’s voice sounded almost panicked, and his grasp grew stronger as he attempted to rise into a sitting position. “You’ll not take her. She’s mine.” But the pain in his side speared him, and he flinched, clenching my fingers all the while in a vise-grip, and fell back onto his pillows. Shocked by the agonized sound he made, I used my hands to gently hold him in place.

“Please, warrior,” I urged him, wiping away a tear from my cheek. “Sleep now. Don’t damage yourself further. The moment I’m allowed to return to you, I will.”

The lingering agony was taking its toll; Wilkie’s eyes were directed at me even as he spoke to his brother, and they were heavy-lidded as he slurred from the effects of the strong brew he’d been given. “I’ll die. The sight of her. Her touch... She heals me like no medicine could. Let her... Roses. Angel.” His voice faded as he struggled to retain consciousness. His grip on my body loosened as he succumbed to sleep.

“The man’s taken total leave of his senses, to be sure,” Kade said lightly, but he was watching Wilkie with worry.

One of the sisters spoke then. “Let me get some furs and make up the bed in Wilkie’s adjoining chambers. Please, Knox. Roses can sleep in there, in case he awakens and calls to her.” We hadn’t been formally introduced, but she’d clearly surmised my name during the proceedings. She sounded as if she’d already accepted Wilkie’s pleas and would do all she could to accommodate them.

“Aye,” said the other sister, eager excitement written into her features at the prospect of scandal. “I’ll sleep with her if you like, so she’ll be chaperoned. You must agree, Knox. There’s no need to agitate Wilkie further by removing Roses completely from his chambers when it’s clearly against his wishes. He’s obviously taken an attachment to her. And we must do everything we can to speed his recovery.”

Laird Mackenzie looked thoroughly irritated by the situation, but perhaps he was concerned enough about his brother’s obvious distress to make allowances. He glanced once at Kade, who shrugged and said, “’Tis a reasonable suggestion. We don’t want unnecessary agitation to worsen his condition. We can check in on them from time to time.”

The laird’s glance rested on me for a moment, as though attempting to read my motives. “I suppose we could.” With a heavy sigh, he said, “All right, then. Ailie, you make up the beds. Christie, you’ll sleep with Roses. Effie, you’ll see to the lass—the shoulder of her tunic is stained with fresh blood. She appears to be injured. You’ll tend to the lass’s wound. Kade, you’ll check in at regular intervals during the night.”

Once, it might have occurred to me to question or protest this blatantly inappropriate scenario of sleeping in the adjoining chambers of a man, and one I barely knew. In fact, I felt wildly relieved. I wouldn’t be cast out. And I could be near him, this warrior whose blood had mingled with my own and whose eyes and mouth and fingers had already provoked a longing in me that I could neither explain nor deny.

Effie began to gather her equipment.

One of Wilkie’s sisters went ahead, through the door of the adjoining chambers, and the other helped me extricate myself from Wilkie’s grip. She took my arm. “Come, Roses. We’ll show you to your bed.”

“First,” said Kade, “we’ll divest you of your weapons.”

The abundant weaponry slung across his body, along with his size and slightly wild-eyed look, was wholly daunting as he approached me. I did as he asked. I removed my belt, holding it out, along with my small sword and knife. Kade grabbed the lot.

I remembered Laird Ogilvie’s officers’ passing descriptions, then, of the Mackenzies. Lethal. Armed to the teeth.

Aye, Kade Mackenzie was armed to the teeth. But his blue eyes appeared more curious than cutting; he seemed mildly intrigued by this unusual turn of events and at Wilkie’s sudden desire to have me close. “Your weapons,” he said, “will remain in our care.”

“I trust your accommodation will be suitable,” said the laird, nodding once in a brief bid good-night. The gesture was polite, oddly, and somewhat foreign to me; it was the gesture of a nobleman, and one that might be delivered to a woman of his own class. Something I was most definitely not. It occurred to me then that he wasn’t aware of my lowly status. Tomorrow the truth would be told, but tonight, I would enjoy the plush chambers of the privileged few.

* * *

THE ANTECHAMBER WAS a long, narrow room with a stone-bound window seat at one end, generously adorned with fur cushions. At the opposite end of the room was a fireplace, laid with a recently lit fire. Two single beds were being draped with thick, luxurious coverings. Merely the sight of a warm fur-piled bed amplified my fatigue.

Now, in the close quarters, I could get a better look at Wilkie’s sisters. I had noticed immediately the strong family resemblance between the Mackenzie siblings. His sisters were indeed quite beautiful. Both regarded me with blatant curiosity.

“I’m Ailie, Roses. And this is Christie.”

“Roses,” said Christie, the younger sister, whose manner was open and vivacious. She took my hand. “’Tis a pleasure to meet you. However do you find yourself in Wilkie’s bed? You’ll be the envy of legions.” She was exquisitely petite, and her hair was a minky shade of dark brown, which she wore loose so it waved gently around her shoulders. Her eyes were an unusual shade of light blue and sparkled with a hint of mischief. Eager questions bubbled out of her, as though she couldn’t contain them. “You must tell us the story. What has happened? And where did you come from?”

“Stop interrogating her, Christie,” scolded Ailie. She was the taller of the two, slim and elegant in the way she held herself. Her more reserved manner suggested she was the elder sister. Her black hair was swept up in a fashionably braided twist. And her eyes were such a deep shade of blue, they might have been described as violet. “We’ll talk of all that tomorrow. Roses needs to have her injury treated, and she needs sleep. Here, Roses, lie here on this bed so Effie can look at your wound.”

I lay on the bed, so very grateful for its warmth and its softness.

Effie came to me, setting down her tray filled with teas and medicines, bandages and ointments. As she leaned over me, I looked more closely at her face for the first time. She was perhaps twice my age, short and rounded, with a busy bunch of red curls framing her kind, pink face. “Can you sit up, dear? I’ll need to remove your tunic. And the oversize trews you wear, whatever for I wouldn’t guess at. I daresay you look like you’ve been through the wars.”

I could hear Kade and the laird in Wilkie’s adjoining chambers, in quiet discussion. Then the door closed.

Effie helped me remove my outer clothing. I made sure to keep my back hidden, aware of my tattoo, as always, and careful not to reveal it. My hair still hung loose, covering me, and I lay back as Effie attended to me. She treated and bound my wound, chattering gently of its successful healing thus far, despite the blood. She described her methods as she worked, to make me feel at ease, perhaps, as Ailie and Christie watched intermittently, and attended to tidying up the room. And I was grateful for their chipper yet restful presence. Effie gave me some tea and a dose of medicine. She felt my forehead and expressed concern at the warmth, but she hoped that the medicine was administered in time, that it would override the beginnings of any danger. Then she tucked the furs to my neck and patted them.

“’Tis brief, your underclothing,” she whispered, putting her face close to mine. “But ’twill hardly be an issue, lassie.” She was smiling kindly, with only a hint of chiding curiosity. She seemed to be most entertained by the near-scandal of my presence in Wilkie’s antechamber and pleased to be privy to the drama of it. “Ailie and Christie will find clothing for you on the morrow. Something more...suitable.”

I wanted to thank her for the offer and assure all of them than it wouldn’t be necessary; I would be on my way on the morrow, if I could just get some bread. Some pears, maybe. But I was asleep before I could even get the words out.

* * *

“ROSES.”

The darkness was too thick, the sleep too deep.

“Roses.”

I sat straight up, utterly bewildered. For the briefest, panicked moment, I thought I might be in Ogilvie’s dungeon, cast forever into the fetid gloom for my brazen desertion. My mind flashed then to the cave. Was I alone? But I could see now: the pattern of the stone-laid floor near the dying embers of the fire. The shadowy outlines of the bed and the room.

“Angel, where are you?” came the muffled, husky murmur. “Come back to me.”

My awareness settled into place. I could see that Christie was asleep in her own bed; she didn’t stir. I eased myself from the warm cocoon of my furs and went to the door of Wilkie’s private chambers. It was unlocked. No one was with him, and his chambers were quiet. I entered and closed the door behind me. Wilkie lay in his bed, his eyes closed, but he was writhing slightly, murmuring. His hair was in disarray and damp from his own sweat.

I went to him and held my hand to his forehead. Still feverish.

At the touch of my hand to his skin, his eyelids fluttered but did not open. He groaned softly in a spoken word. “Roses.”

“Here I am, warrior,” I whispered to him, leaning close. Wilkie’s room was dark save the flickering light of a fire that had been loaded with wood, to keep the room warm for him. But it was too warm, I thought. He was overheated. I pulled the furs down from his chest, draping them back over his bandaged side, to his waist.

I went to Effie’s tray, which had been left on a table next to his bed, and I poured a goblet of cooled medicinal tea. When I climbed up next to him to try to revive him enough to drink some of the liquid, I was surprised to see that his eyes were open, blazing in their sudden blueness, still bright and slightly bloodshot from his fever. He drank willingly when I offered him the cup. It was only then that I realized I was clad only in my brief underclothing.

I made a move to leave him, to go and cover myself.

His hand clasped my wrist with surprising strength. “Stay,” he said, his voice deep and rasped from lack of use. Not a command, a request. The grasp of his hand loosened almost immediately, his fingers feathering the light downy hairs on my arm.

“Let me go, warrior. I’ll dress. Then I’ll return to you.”

“Stay,” he said again. “I’ll not look at you.” But his eyes were already on me, burning into me.

My thin shift did little to hide my body, but then again this warrior had already seen me, and much more than that. He had, in fact, tasted me, pulling sensuously with his hot mouth, biting with his teeth. The thought sent a hot flush to my cheeks and to my breasts as I remembered the feel of him. I hoped he couldn’t detect my heat in the dim light. Or my secret, rising desire for more of his tantalizing touches.

“I might look at you just a little,” he amended, watching as my body responded to him, as my nipples grew tighter. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were light against the dark rims of his eyelashes. He’s breathtaking, I thought.

“I’m dreaming,” he said, as though speaking to himself. “She can’t be real.”

“I’m real, warrior,” I said, drawing my finger across the back of his hand to convince him, so he could feel my touch.

“Are you?” he whispered.

“Aye.”

He paused, allowing the reality to settle. “And you’re here, in my chambers with me.” He laughed softly. “My brothers are truly good to me when I’m ill.”

“You fairly insisted on it,” I said gently.

His slow smile offered a brief dazzling flash. “Aye. I remember. I want you as close as you can be. Let me feel you, lass.”

His fingertips drew soft lines up my arm, and he reached to stroke the long strands of my hair, smoothing it carefully against my arms and my breasts, as though disbelieving the solidity of me. His touch was possessive and sure, leaving trails of warmth wherever his fingers had lingered.

“My dreams were so vivid,” he mused. “You appeared to me, a golden angel. I have never seen a beauty equal to yours. You were the sun, burning me with your golden light. Burning me as I’ve never burned. When you left me, all was dark. I followed you for days so I could feel again your voice, your warmth and your fair hair, touching me like a feathery wing.”

I knew Wilkie’s delirium remained; it was clear that he perceived me as a vision, perhaps, or an apparition. I suspected he was associating me with some kind of life force that had led him from the darkness of death and into a healing light. In his weakened state, he was seeing me as his savior.

I didn’t know if his desire to keep me close was real, or just a side effect of Wilkie’s instinct to survive. What I did know, though, was that I wanted to save him. I wanted his attachment to me to last. I knew that this desire was too intense and too quick. That I should feel such wild affection for him, when we had spent so little time together and knew so little about each other, was, perhaps, inappropriate. Yet it didn’t feel inappropriate. It felt important. It felt as if I finally had something to lose.

I leaned closer to him. “I’ll tend to you again, warrior,” I whispered. “Whatever you need.”

His lingering smile speared me with intense awareness. His hand stole back to my hair, which he wrapped around his hands, then let fall in fanning designs, as though spellbound by its texture and the play of the light. It was true I didn’t know Wilkie Mackenzie beyond a heart-pounding chase, a quick but savage fight and two astonishingly beautiful kisses. His presence, his face and the brush of his hair against my skin now felt familiar to me after brief and close-strung embraces against his bare chest. But his subdued, almost-wakeful energy was new to me and unfathomably intriguing. We were strangers whose mouths had touched intimately, yet the thoughts behind his eyes were wild and unknowable.

“You healed me,” he said.

“I sewed up a wound that was inflicted by my own hand,” I reminded him softly.

“And what of your wound, inflicted by my own hand?” He helped himself to an inspection of my bandage.

“’Tis nearly healed already,” I said.

His hand continued its lazy exploration of my body as his eyes held mine.

“Come closer, Roses,” he said. “Breathe on me. Breathe on my mouth. I want to feel your breath on me.”

I wanted to comfort him, to do as he asked of me. And I wanted to grant him his wishes. His wishes felt as if they were my own wishes, as if they were one and the same. I leaned over him. My breasts pressed against his bare chest through the thin fabric of my night clothing. I blew softly onto his lips as he parted them to inhale the air of my lungs. He breathed deeply.

“Ahhh,” he exhaled. “You heal me well, lass. I intend to take of you all your remedies.”

“Which remedies?” I began to sit up. “I can fetch—”

He pulled me back to him, quite forcibly, so I was pressed up against him once more. His body was remarkably hard against my softness. “This remedy,” he said, and he fit his hand around the base of my skull, to pull my face to his as he lifted his head. “A kiss, Roses. Kiss me like you kissed me in my dreams.”

* * *

“AYE, WARRIOR. I’LL KISS YOU. Now be still. You’ll overtax yourself.”

He obeyed, and his body relaxed. I touched my hands to his shoulders, to relax him further. I ran my fingers along his jaw. I touched his hair and smoothed its thick silk layers. I traced one finger across his lips. His breath was hot against my fingers. I leaned farther over him, breathing his breath, and when my hair brushed against his chest, he made a sound, like a soft sigh. I touched my lips to his mouth. That flavor of him, as I’d tasted twice before, was wickedly alluring. Wanting more of it, I licked his top lip, pushing tiny licks into his mouth, as he’d taught me, sucking gently on his lips and the tip of his tongue as I kissed him, savoring the all-tempting essence of him.

“Warrior?” I whispered.

“Aye.”

“Is this kiss remedying you?”

“Nay, lass.”

I stopped. “Nay?”

“My fever is far more acute than it ever was.”

I touched my hand to his forehead again. He smiled at my confusion.

“My innocent Roses. Stay close to me. My fever burns for you and can only be calmed by your body. And I can soothe you, too, sweet Roses. You must let me.”

I wanted to let him. But there was a small reticence in me. “What should I do?” My inexperience was fairly embarrassing at my age. I’d been too preoccupied with work duties to wonder beyond them. Until now. And I was beginning to understand the new fever he spoke of. This warmth, this feeling of heat. Of tingling need. His dark blue eyes were lust-drowsed and hungry for more of my kisses, I could sense this.

“You’re getting better, lass.”

“Better at what?”

“Better at heeding my commands.”

I smiled. “Aye. I get into trouble when I don’t heed your commands.”

“You and I both. Now you’ll do as I tell you.”

I was nervous at what he might command me to do, yet in my heart and my very bones, everything about this close company of Wilkie Mackenzie felt right. To look at him, to touch him, to be touched by him: these were the things that felt most important to me at that moment.

“Roses, my sun, my golden light. I must be careful with you. I’ll not hurt you, nor take you. Not yet.” His words had a strange, thawing effect on me; my skin felt dewy and hypersensitive. “You’ll do as I say.”

The beauty of his face, artfully shadowed and lit from the fading firelight, it fairly stunned me.

“Aye, warrior,” I whispered.

He wrapped his hand around the nape of my neck, pulling my face closer to his. “Kiss me again.”

I did, kissing him gently, exploring his lips with my tongue, pushing just inside his mouth. He returned the kiss, fitting his mouth to mine, tasting, delving into me more insistently, feeding me with his taste and his fire, which seemed to ignite my body with a pleasurable flush.

I felt his hand on the back of my thigh, over the light cloth of my underclothing. He pulled me harder against him, so I was slightly straddling his leg, still clad in the rough leather of his trews. He held me with surprising gentleness, introducing a lazy rhythm as he rubbed me against him, still playing my tongue with the luring pulls of his mouth. Shockingly, the rolling clench of his hand on the barely shielded skin of my backside fed a spiky warmth to the sensitive place between my legs. He took his time, ever so slightly increasing the pressure and the pace. His strength gave him total control, and he continued to work my body with his hands, squeezing and caressing in undulating grasps. I didn’t know what he was doing. Or how he could be doing it. But the building sensation was so needy, so sweet, with its promising, blinding forward momentum, I felt myself rocking ever so slightly against him, melting under his touch. The fever of my body grew in its power until it overwhelmed me, coursing with a compounding swell to surge through my very core, spasming in delightful, nearly unendurable bursts. I coiled and moaned with an almost painful pleasure, unable to quiet myself as the sweet fire pulsed through me.

The waves calmed, and I slumped against him, weakly kissing his lips. My body felt heavy and honey-soaked.

“Warrior.”

“Hush now.”

He drew the furs over us, and I barely registered the warning footsteps, the click and creak of the door opening. I knew I should have hidden myself or fled. To be caught like this, scantily clad in Wilkie’s bed and locked in an inappropriately intimate embrace: the entire scenario should have been mortifying. My reputation—if I even possessed one now—would be even more tattered than it already was. But I was too entranced by him, by what he’d just done to my body. I couldn’t quite summon the shame or even the energy to remove myself from him, not from within this hazed stupor that radiated from my deepest depths. I was floating as though in a wondrous dream where reputations mattered little and the only consideration was the nearness of my warrior.

“Availing yourself to healing remedies, I see, brother.” I recognized Kade Mackenzie’s low voice but had no compunction to open my eyes; they felt as heavy and sated as the rest of me. “Just checking to see that you’re still alive.”

“Aye,” Wilkie said, and the sound of his voice, so deep and comforting, as I lay against his chest, as close as I could be. “Still alive.”

The footsteps retreated as Kade took his leave. He was clearly not as incensed by the possibility of scandal as Laird Mackenzie had been. He paused at the door and asked, “What’s wrong with the lass?” Amusement rang in his words.

“Nothing’s wrong with the lass,” I heard Wilkie’s voice say lazily, his hand still warm and intimately placed. “She’s fine.”

I thought I heard a note of Kade’s soft laughter as the door closed behind him.

I lay with Wilkie for a long time, flitting in and out of a replete half sleep, until I was awakened by his moans and his uneven breaths, from warring dreams or from the pain of his injury I couldn’t be sure. I stroked his hair to ease his unquieted sleep. I ran my fingers along the stubble of his days-old beard, savoring the scratchy feel of it, mesmerized by the rugged beauty of his features. His arm wrapped more tightly around my waist, and the strength of him seemed to buffer me from the uncertainty of my predicament, softening my own unease.

I was becoming accustomed to the insistent embraces of Wilkie Mackenzie. Despite the newness of our familiarity, every aspect of his touch consoled me. It may have been foolish to find such a degree of contentment in a connection that might soon be broken. I knew Wilkie Mackenzie was likely to be a brief, temporary fixture in my life. But he was such a magnificent presence, so unexpected and so very, very beautiful. I wanted only to savor the pleasure of him while I could. I knew that when he finally let me go, I would miss the warmth of him. And the anticipation of his lips touching mine just once more.

When Wilkie’s breathing evened, and the black of night gave way to a purple-hued dawn, I kissed him once more with the lightest touch of my lips to his. Then I slipped from his bed and returned to the antechamber, where Christie lay undisturbed. I crawled back into my bed.

And in the wake of Wilkie’s enlightening caresses, I could not bring myself to fret about the uncertainties that the day would surely introduce. I still felt an echo of a pulse in the core of my body. It was an exquisite feeling, of fruitfulness and warm promise, as though my body had become a quivering vessel. Despite injury, fatigue, soreness, I felt more alive than I had ever been. I slept, thinking only of him.


CHAPTER FIVE

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, I was summoned by Kade to meet with Laird Mackenzie in the grand hall.

There was a loud knock on the door, which roused both Christie and myself. Christie rose and opened the door to him. He did not enter but stood in the door frame, filling up the space.

He was generous enough to give me several minutes to adjust to my surroundings before he began doling out orders.

“After you dress,” he said to me, “I will take you down to the hall to discuss what has happened and what will happen. The laird is expecting us immediately.” He made no move to leave, to allow me to rise and dress. He seemed temporarily overcome by curiosity.

“What of Wilkie?” asked Christie.

“He sleeps,” he answered, still staring at me.

Whatever leniency I had detected in Kade Mackenzie last night had receded almost entirely; he was as formidable as I had yet seen him. His weapons gleamed brightly in the subdued sunlight that streamed through the small window and brought attention to the glint of the many blades that hung from him, as though they’d been sharpened and polished with care to face the day. I was glad for Christie’s presence then, as she rose and pushed him out the door, so she could make a move to close it, taking no notice of his ferocity. “You don’t expect her to dress while you’re standing there intimidating her with all your swords and knives, now, do you, brother? Wait outside.”

“I wasn’t intending to intimidate anyone,” he said.

“You intimidate everyone, fierce warrior, and you know it. Why else would you carry no less than three swords? Are you expecting to be attacked here in our chambers? You’ve already stripped Roses of her weapons, and I—” she held out her arms as though to prove it to him “—have nothing on me, I swear it.”

Watching the ease of them in each other’s presence, I felt a small pang of emptiness that might have been jealousy. With no siblings, nor family at all, to call my own, I felt fascinated by their playful banter, their natural camaraderie. She was so entirely unruffled by his presence, as only a sister could be. To me, he appeared frighteningly intense. Yet she treated him with all the gentleness of a child, ushering him out the door insistently and taking care to avoid any of his sharper edges.

Once Kade had retreated, I rose, putting on my battered tunic and my oversize trews.

“My dear Roses,” said Christie, surveying my outfit with a critical eye. “We must do something about your clothing. Ailie, you should know, is a talented seamstress. While you’re meeting with Knox and Kade, we’ll make it our quest to find you a more flattering outfit. And when you’re returned to Wilkie, he’ll not believe his eyes.” Her eyes glimmered at the thought. So welcoming, she was, and kind. It was clear from her openhearted manner that Christie had already accepted my placement here, perhaps not at Wilkie’s side, but at least somewhere near it. She appeared excited by the prospect of planning our day together, primping me for her brother’s approval. And as appealing as her intentions sounded, I felt wary of my own secrets: my tattoo and the horrified reaction to it that shadowed my memories. I would have to take every care to make sure it was kept covered.

But I knew there was no guarantee that I would see out the day at Kinloch, nor even the hour.

I wished I could go to Wilkie. I wanted to see him and to touch him before I faced his brothers, in case they cast me out. I felt disconcerted by this separation from him and most of all by the thought that I might not be allowed to see him again, even to bid him farewell.

“What is it, Roses?” Christie asked. “Why do you weep?” She placed a hand on my shoulder.

I wiped the tear away. “’Tis nothing. I’m fine.”

“I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at you,” she said quietly. “I’ve never heard that kind of longing in his voice, not once.” She spoke with an almost reverential tone, as if the connection she’d witnessed with her own eyes carried weight and power. “Don’t let Knox and Kade frighten you. They have Wilkie’s best interests at heart, always. They will do anything to speed his full recovery. Clearly you will play a part in that recovery. Take heart.”

And I did. Her words calmed me. “I thank you for your kindness, Christie,” I said.

“And I thank you for having the courage to save Wilkie, and to summon help for him. Now go. They’ll not want to be kept waiting.”

She opened the door for me, and Kade motioned for me to follow him, which I did. He led me out of Wilkie’s antechamber, down a hall lit with candles that sat in grooves carved into the stone walls, down a wide, curving set of wooden stairs, to the grand hallway. Having only a hazy memory of the castle’s interior from the night of my arrival, I was agog at the splendor of it. The Mackenzie castle was not, as I’d guessed at my first impression, wildly more prosperous than the Ogilvie manor. Rather, I realized, it was merely much more beautifully maintained. Careful attention had gone into each and every detail of both the land and the manor, administered by a clan who clearly cherished their space and were talented at enhancing all it had to offer. I valued this sentiment and felt even more drawn to this clan by the discovery.

We entered the grand hallway, with its richly colored hanging tapestries, its fine furniture, its highly polished pewter candelabras. I could appreciate that someone had taken special care with these candelabras; I had polished many similar pieces in my time but had never achieved such a rich gleam. Not that I had tried especially diligently, but still. It was admirable.

Laird Mackenzie was pacing in front of the large fireplace. He was the only one in attendance, and the look on his face as we approached him suggested he was tired of waiting, and had other pressing matters to attend to.

He took in, again, my disheveled men’s garb and stared at me coldly. “Sit,” he commanded, signaling to one of several chairs placed near the fire. I obeyed him, and took my place.

Kade sat in another chair, but the laird continued to stand, and his eyes did not waver in their scrutiny. I felt wildly out of place under the laird’s direct gaze. I tried to smooth my long hair, aware that I hadn’t brushed it in quite some time.

“I expect you to answer all of my questions truthfully,” the laird said. “Are you willing to speak to me?”

I was hungry, and sore. I felt chilled and at the same overheated. I wanted to eat and bathe, to sleep and, most of all, to visit Wilkie. But all those things would have to wait. I knew I owed the laird his explanation. “Aye, Laird Mackenzie. I am at your service.” I sat up straight and waited for the inquiry to begin.

“Firstly,” the laird said. “I will thank you for summoning us. For not leaving Wilkie to die.”

This surprised me. I wasn’t used to receiving thanks from anyone, especially a man of Laird Mackenzie’s station. But my small satisfaction at the redress was short-lived. I knew that as soon as he learned that I had been the one to injure Wilkie, the laird’s gratitude would most certainly give way to anger and hostility.

“I could not have left him to die. Not when it was my fault—”

“We’ll get to that in a moment,” the laird said. “Tell me first, where do you hail from?”

“Clan Ogilvie.”

“Ogilvie? You’ve traveled far, alone. We can arrange for you to be returned to your clan.” He paused. “Once our brother has healed.”

“I cannot return to Ogilvie,” I said.

The two men exchanged glances.

“What reason do you have for running from your clan?” asked the laird. “’Tis a dangerous course of action, leaving yourself alone and unprotected.”

They awaited my response.

“I’m the adopted daughter of an Ogilvie clan landholder, Oliver Ogilvie. I was skilled in horticulture, and was training as an apprentice healer. I was valued as a gatherer, gardener and provider of medicinal herbs. For a time. Upon my parents’ deaths, I was relegated to kitchen duties. I carried them out dutifully for the most part. But, more recently—”

“Why were you reassigned?” interrupted Laird Mackenzie. He knew, as I did, that it was unusual for a clanmember to change positions in the household; usually a demotion was the result of misbehavior of one sort or another.

“I—” This was somewhat difficult to answer. “I believe he reassigned me because I refused certain...proposals. See, the laird intended...other duties. Which I wasn’t willing to perform. I didn’t set out to, but—” I faltered.

It was true that I might have possibly been putting myself at risk admitting the details of my story to these powerful brothers. But I was no longer acting purely in the interest of self-preservation. I wanted to see Wilkie again, soon. And from the little I did know about the Mackenzies, I suspected they valued integrity and honor. And so did I. I had committed crimes, aye, but not out of spite or malice. Only because I had been provoked by a bully who had carried out unspeakable wrongs against my family. I could lie to these brothers or tell them half-truths. But I knew them, so far, to be curious, forceful and very thorough. They also had every power over the decision of my fate and whether or not I would be allowed to return to Wilkie. And that, above all else—to be hereafter denied his presence—terrified me.

“But what?” Kade prodded.

“I—I retaliated.”

“Retaliated?” asked Kade, highly interested. “In what way?”

“With a small kitchen knife.” I touched my stomach to approximate the area where I’d wounded Laird Ogilvie. “There.”

They considered this briefly.

“Laird Ogilvie forced himself upon you while you were under his care and protection,” the laird repeated, as though to make sure he understood.

“He attempted to, aye. I wasn’t amenable to his suggestions.”

The two men continued to stare at me with a mixture of confusion, amusement and disbelief. Kade, especially, seemed entertained by my tale. “So you fled, making your way alone across great distances, to find shelter for yourself in a cave on top of a mountain.”

“Aye.”

“A courageous undertaking,” Kade commented.

“A desperate undertaking,” I clarified.

Kade studied me, rubbing his hand along his jaw, as though in concentration. “Aye, it appears you were desperate. Even so, the choices you made took a certain element of courage, I daresay. And to present yourself here, to us, in this way, without knowing what our reaction to you might be—also a daring endeavor.”

Laird Mackenzie seemed less interested in my personality traits and more concerned about the details of my backstory that would explain not only what had brought about my arrival at their keep, but also what had led to Wilkie’s injuries. There was impatience in his tone and his manner when he said, “And we can be grateful for the lass’s audacious nerve. If she wasn’t bold enough to present herself, Wilkie may not have survived the night.” He returned to his line of questioning. “You say you were adopted by an Ogilvie landholder. Who are your parents, by birth?”

“I have no knowledge of that. An Ogilvie farmer—my father—found me, wandering as a child.”

Kade rose, and the noise of his weaponry jangled from his movement. He stood with his legs apart and his hard-muscled arms folded across his chest: a man’s stance and one that commanded attention. I met his gaze and detected in the slight narrowing of his light blue eyes and the lifted tilt of his chin that he admired my intrepid retaliation against Laird Ogilvie. I could read in his expression a small but unmistakable hint of respect. This detail not only gave me heart, but it also made me feel less afraid. And I was grateful to him for that.

“Roses, the wanderer,” said Kade.

“That was many years ago,” I said. “I was but a child of three years.”

“And still you wander,” he commented.

“I would prefer not to wander. I was given no choice.”

The laird drew his hand through his dark hair. At that moment his resemblance to his infirmed brother, whose presence I missed so fervently it felt like a physical ache, was remarkable. It occurred to me then that I’d never looked like anyone I knew in the entirety of my life. “Was it you who injured Wilkie?”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to anger them, and I knew this information would. But there was no way around it. “I stole some fruit from your orchards, and was taking my leave with it, using a ladder I had made. Wilkie was... Wilkie saw me and chased after me.”

“She’s not only brave but also industrious,” commented Kade.

The laird ignored this, waiting for me to continue.

“He chased me to the cave,” I said. “I refused to reveal myself to him. He attempted to remove the helmet I wore, with his sword. I struck at it. He struck back, and I reacted.”

“By nearly gutting him,” Kade pointed out, not without anger. Despite it all, I found that I wanted their respect and their approval. I had a fleeting thought that in different circumstances altogether, I might like these brothers. The men continued their quest to intimidate me, seemingly having difficulty believing that the person they stared at now was one and the same as the attacker who’d struck down their mighty warrior of a brother. The same brother who had held me firmly locked in his grasp, for comfort, unfathomably. It occurred to me then that Wilkie, in his unconscious mind, had fought to hold me close until he was possessing of his strength once again and could exact his revenge. But I remembered his eyes, and his mouth on my lips and my body as he kissed me, and I felt reassured that this was not his reason for wanting me near.

After several long seconds, the laird continued his line of questioning, “And Ogilvie has no idea where it is you’ve fled to?”

“Nay. If he knew where I was, he’d come for me. He’ll seek revenge upon me, I’m certain of it.”

“So you ask us for protection,” the laird interpreted curtly. Here was the incense I’d known to expect. But his words, even if blanketed in anger, surprised me. In fact it hadn’t occurred to me to ask them for protection. It had been a long time since I’d relied on anyone other than myself for defense of my person. Ogilvie’s gated walls had provided little sense of safety for me in the past. I would admit, as I considered it, that the Mackenzies’ walls afforded an entirely different sensibility.

“Even after you caused our brother grievous harm with the small sword you carry,” followed Kade, less amused now. “Another courageous undertaking, I daresay, considering the size of you.”

“He struck me first.”

“I find that highly difficult to believe,” Kade retorted. “Wilkie would never strike a woman.”

“He believed me to be a man,” I explained, fearful of Kade’s quietly ferocious tone. “I wore a war helmet. I refused to show my face to him. Until after we were both injured. He removed my helmet.”

“How severe is your wound?” asked the laird.

I proceeded to roll up the left sleeve of my tunic, where the new dressing was seeped through with blood. I unwound the bandage.

“Clearly he had no intention of harming you seriously,” Kade commented.

It was a slice off the top layer of muscle of my upper arm that pained me more than I was willing to admit. Now that Kade mentioned it, I was certain he was right: if Wilkie had intended to injure me fatally, he very likely would have.

“How long had you been traveling, when Wilkie found you?” the laird asked.

“Two days,” I said. “I lost my horse when I was caught by a member of Ogilvie’s search party. He allowed me to escape.”

“He allowed you to escape, even after Ogilvie had ordered you to be returned?” Laird Mackenzie sounded highly irked by the thought of a soldier disobeying the orders of his laird.

“He is known to me,” I explained. “He taught me how to fight.”

Kade folded his arms across his chest. “And why, pray tell, would a lass have the inclination to learn swordsmanship?”

“To protect myself.”

“From?” the laird prodded.

“From Laird Ogilvie, as I explained. I suspected his intentions some time ago. I was afraid of him. And so I asked Ritchie to teach me some skills. In case I needed them.”

“Where were you intending to go?” Kade asked.

“I meant to travel to the Macduff lands,” I said. “Una Macduff was first of the Ogilvie clan. It was years ago when she married, but I had hoped, if I went to her, she might show me mercy, and allow me to stay. I passed by your keep, and I saw your fields from afar. I had no food for my journey.”

“So you decided to thieve from us,” said the laird.

“I’ll repay you, Laird Mackenzie. I’m not a thief.” I corrected myself. “I wasn’t a thief. Until yesterday. I offer you my services,” I said. “If you have need of a kitchen servant, or I’m skilled in the gardens. I can assist Effie. Ismay, the Ogilvie healer, continued to teach me in quieter moments. I can sew, as well. I’ll work until my debt is done.”

Laird Mackenzie paced across the stonework in front of the crackling fire. “You really have no idea about your bloodline?” An almost pitying note clung to his question, as though he felt for me in this regard and considered it a great loss.

His mild empathy touched me. And in the aftermath of this intense interrogation, I appreciated their patience and their acceptance of all I had revealed. I had a sudden and wild longing to belong to a family like theirs, and to know the kind of affection they so clearly shared for one another. For a very brief moment, I grappled with a desire to show them my tattoo and to reveal my deepest, darkest secret. I wished this horrible mystery could once and for all be solved, whatever the consequences. I imagined sharing it with them might bring me one step closer to them, that they might see that I trusted them, and they might be more inclined to trust me, in return.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Such a revelation would likely see me cast out in due haste and with disgust. I would never see Wilkie again, not even to bid him farewell.

So I decided against it. “Nay,” I said, thoroughly drained.

The laird stopped pacing. He spoke softly, yet there was a steely authority to his words. “You will remain here, for now, to comfort my brother. It seems you have a calming effect on him, which may help him to heal more quickly. It will be up to him to decide how you’ll be employed.”

I fell silent, and he continued.

“You will stay in his antechamber, under chaperone, to serve his requests for your company. Your reputation, at this point, is hardly an issue, but if you wish it, your presence in his chambers will remain secretive, aside from myself, Kade, Effie and our sisters, who will assist you with clothing. You will be fed, and you will be under our protection until our brother is fit enough to decide your fate. Our clanspeople, if they ask, will be told that you are an apprentice healer to Effie, hailing from a distant clan...Macduff, perhaps. And you will assist her as she tends to Wilkie’s injury.” His light gray eyes were unsettlingly cool. “Do you agree to these terms?”

Did I have a choice in the matter? I could return to the cave, to Ogilvie, or travel for weeks across the windswept Highlands without food in the hopes that a long-ago acquaintance might take pity on me.

“Aye.”

“’Tis settled, then,” said the laird. “Until Wilkie revives.”

* * *

ONCE THE MEETING HAD concluded, I was taken by Christie and Ailie back to Wilkie’s antechamber, where a bath was being prepared for me. Wilkie’s sisters—now that they had been informed of the ongoing arrangements of my stay—were determined to clean me up.

A large bathing tub, filled and steaming, had been placed next to the fireplace, where flames danced invitingly. An embroidered privacy screen had been placed next to the tub, and several luxurious-looking garments had been laid on one of the beds.

Ailie led me to the bath. “Here, Roses. A hot bath will ease you.”

I hoped she was right. I could admit that I still was not feeling myself at all.

The scent of soap perfumed the humid warmth of the room. Ailie and Christie laid out a robe and a drying cloth. I did not yet begin to remove my clothing, although it might have been expected of me. Christie touched my hair, stroking it lightly. “Such unusual hair you have, Roses. ’Tis lovely. So long and so fair.” I felt out of place being served and attended to; I had always before been the one doing the serving.

Christie remained welcoming and verbose, buoyed by the intrigue of my arrival and my presence. Ailie was quieter, and I suspected she wondered at my ongoing placement in her brother’s chambers and what it might mean to him, to her, to all of us. I guessed from her manner and her curious eyes that she could feel it, and so had I, and strongly: an unusualness to the intensity of my connection to Wilkie, and his to me. She seemed to possess an extraordinary perceptiveness, and I found, rather than feeling wary of her study, I felt drawn to her.

The sisters began to help me undress, and I was hesitant, conscious as ever of revealing my tattoo. But the heavy mass of my long hair covered me and I made a point of moving carefully so as not to displace it. I eased my sore body into to the tub.

The hot water was divine and seemed to wash away many of my aches and my fears for the moment. I washed my body and hair with a scented soap, rinsing several times.

“We brought several dresses for you to choose from, Roses,” said Christie, easing me immeasurably with the happy, easy sound of her chatter. “I thought the green, to go with your eyes. Aside from your golden-white hair, it was the first thing I noticed about you. The light green of your eyes. But then Ailie thought the pale yellow, to offset the tones of your hair.”

“Either one of them will be perfect,” I said.

“Do you have a favorite color, Roses? You know I guessed it to be pink, I don’t know why. So we brought a pink one, as well.”

“It is pink,” I told her. Not that I had ever had the opportunity to wear a pink dress, or a green one, or a pale yellow one. Course calico fabrics woven from wool by Ogilvie seamstresses were generally varying shades of beige or brown.

“Ailie orders the fabrics from Edinburgh. Occasionally we even make the trip ourselves, with escorts, of course. Kade came with us last time. And Knox the time before that. ’Tis so sophisticated, Edinburgh. I simply love the activity of the place, and the shops. Have you ever been to Edinburgh, Roses?”

“Nay, never.” In fact, before this adventure, I had never been away from the Ogilvie keep before, or at least not that I could remember.

The steam of the bath did odd things to my thoughts, hazing them in subtle incoherence, as if I was not wholly aware of this place. I felt almost alarmingly dazed and distant, and I missed Wilkie. My fingertips yearned to feather themselves over the scar-roughened textures of his skin. My mouth watered at the thought of his taste, the exploration of his tongue.

As though in answer, I heard Wilkie’s voice, calling to me from his chambers. My name.

“I should go to him,” I heard myself say.

I rose from my bath, feeling wildly unsteady, looking for a drying cloth.

“Nay, Roses,” urged Ailie, gently easing me back into the bath. “You cannot possibly go to him like this. Finish your bath, then we’ll take you to him.”

But there was a crashing noise coming from Wilkie’s chambers, as if he was up and bumping into things. He was looking for me, calling to me.

“I must,” I said, stepping from the bath, barely noticing my nakedness and the drip of the bathwater onto the floor, such was the muddled and needy state of my mind. “He needs me.”

More banging noises could be heard from Wilkie’s chambers.

“What’s he doing in there?” asked Christie, to no one in particular. I heard another crash and a groan. My name.

I was becoming frantic, making my way toward Wilkie’s door as Ailie acquiesced, wrapping a dressing gown around me, not bothering to dry me first. “Here, then, Roses. Wait. Let me tie it.” She pulled the tie tight around my waist just as I was able to open the door.

And Wilkie was there, reaching the door at the same time. When he saw me, his eyes widened. He was flushed, his blue eyes blazing. Behind him, several chairs were overturned, and the furs of his bed were disheveled; some of them had fallen to the floor. He was dressed only in his underclothes. His wound was rebloodied from his exertions, and a small line of dark red had bled through the bandages.

Before I could even react to him, I was surrounded in an all-encompassing clinch against his big, fiery body. He buried his face in the damp strands of my hair, weaving his fingers through it almost painfully, inhaling deeply, holding me close as though trying to pull me into himself. “God in heaven, deliver me,” he murmured, clearly overcome by delirium. “I need you, angel.”

He was unsteady on his feet and leaned us against the wall, swaying slightly as though he might fall.

“Wilkie!” cried his sisters.

I tried to pull away from him, to lead him back to his bed. But he wouldn’t budge. He was thoroughly unconcerned by my robe, my wetness, the inappropriateness of our coiled embrace, and his own aggravated injury. He held on to me tightly, blindly pressing his face into my neck, breathing heavily of my scent.

“’Tis dark indeed without your sunlight, Roses,” he rasped gruffly, quietly, into my ear. “Come back to me.”

“I’m here, warrior,” I said, unsettled both because I wanted to calm him and also because the worried faces and hands of his two sisters were pulling me away from him. They were leading Wilkie back to his bed and me along with him, as he would not loosen his hold on me. They were wiping at his wound and calling for Effie. I felt disengaged from them, focused only on Wilkie and his clear delirium, and also my own, and his strong refusal to follow any request unless I was within his grasp. I held on to his hand as he was eased back into his bed. All was hazy, as though I was channeling Wilkie’s fever, following him into it, deeper and deeper, to lead him once again back into the light.

I was aware only that I was holding his hand. Abstractly, I noticed that Christie was settling me into a cushiony chair next to his bed, draping me with furs, giving me a sip of tea, as Effie arrived and once again attended to Wilkie. My focus was entirely on the hold of his hand, the heat and strength of it, the rough texture of his fingers. As my consciousness drifted from me, I grasped his hand as tightly as he was clutching mine. It took effort, maintaining my grip even as darkness overtook me. If I could just hold on to that hand. I would be strong and safe. Warmed by the sun. Alive. And I would not be alone. If I could just hold on...


CHAPTER SIX

AND WHEN I AWOKE, I was locked in Wilkie’s embrace, still clutching his hand so tightly that my fingers felt numb and sore. I was lying across his chest, and our legs were entwined under a layer of furs. We were alone, and Wilkie slept.

The curtains had been opened, spilling in full-day sunlight. A basin of water had been filled and was lightly steaming, as though it had been sitting there for some time. Food had been laid on the table by the window, along with the now-familiar pot of cooled willowbark tea. I realized I hadn’t eaten since I’d wolfed down the stolen fruit. I remembered the three green apples I’d had as I’d walked down the mountain toward Kinloch. It seemed many days ago, and perhaps it was. Time seemed stringy, and I had no idea how much of it had passed as Wilkie and I had slept, flitting in and out of consciousness.

The peaceful scene made me wonder if we were being allowed our private slumber, if I’d been accepted as a fixture in Wilkie’s bed, for now, and one that was easier to leave in place.

I tried to rouse Wilkie. He was drowsy, but when I kissed his lips and whispered to him to let me go, he seemed to hear me, and he released his hold.

Food had never tasted so good. I ate a bowl of cold meat stew, scooping it with chunks of crusty bread. I drank a cup of broth, then some tea.

I still wore the robe Wilkie’s sisters had draped around me, which was cinched at the waist with a belt.

I combed the tangles from my hair. I braided and coiled it neatly around my head, gathering it at the back. I fingered a light yellow velvet gown, but before I could remove my robe to dress, I heard Wilkie’s voice behind me.

I hadn’t realized he’d awoken.

“Come to me, lass. Let me bask in your glow.”

He watched me approach him, his blue eyes clear now, with no traces of his earlier haze.

I felt his forehead, and he was cool to the touch. I couldn’t resist letting my hand skim the line of his face and his bristled jaw. The roughness of his texture was so unfathomably fascinating to me. I felt changed by this warrior. That first moment I’d looked into his eyes, something inside me had shifted. As if I could suddenly see color, whereas before him all had been muted and dull. But I was unsure whether his feelings were as intense now as my own, so I tread carefully. “You’re feeling better now, warrior.”

“Aye,” he said, and I was relieved to see that the look in his eyes was one of raw affection and a returned fascination. “Your healing powers are potent indeed.”

“I haven’t healed you enough,” I said. “Let me feed you. Are you hungry?”

“Starved.” He sat up slightly and was able to move without causing himself to wince.

I brought him some food, and I fed it to him. He ate well. I held the tea to his lips as he drank. His eyes never left my face.

“Your face, Roses. Your lips. The color of your hair. Why is your hair so fair?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “I don’t know. The sun, perhaps. I spend much of my time out-of-doors. More than I should.”

He reached up to finger the bound braid of my hair. “You’ve a halo, angel.”

I fed him another bite of bread. “Yours is a fierce appetite, warrior. ’Tis a good sign. Your health is returning to you.”

“I feel as though I haven’t eaten for days. How many days, I wonder. How long has it been?”

“Since...?” I knew what he meant; I was fumbling over which part to refer to.

“Since we fought, and fell,” he clarified, entirely unperturbed by the recollection.

Now, the very thought of how close he had come to death—and all because I had wounded him—was enough to flood me with an ocean of regret. “I’m sorry I wounded you.”

He watched me for a moment, and I could not read his expression. “’Twas my own fault, for letting my guard down. I was unusually distracted. Practically blinded, in fact.” His mouth quirked at the memory of his own reaction. “’Tis understandable, under the circumstances. Would you not agree?”

He took another bite of bread and waited for my reply, which I did not give. I wasn’t sure what answer he was expecting. Instead, I returned his light smile and offered him some tea, which he drank, watching me all the while.

“So,” he began. “Let’s start at the beginning, and where we left off in the cave, where I believe you made a promise to me, which you have barely begun to uphold.” Again, I was unsure of his meaning, yet I didn’t interrupt him. I was, briefly, mesmerized by the shape of his lips as he sipped his drink, and the memory of the gentle brush of them against my own. “Tell me, then,” he said. “Why did you flee your Ogilvie clan?”

There was never any doubt I would be wholly honest with Wilkie. But I stumbled over my words nonetheless. “I had to. I—I struck the laird with a kitchen knife. I would have been killed, I think, or banished to the dungeons. I’ve never been to the dungeons, but I’ve heard it said that hell itself is preferable.”

“Very likely so,” he agreed. “You make a habit of wielding blades at hapless men?” His question was calm yet chiding, and I found myself mildly hurt by it. I hadn’t set out to injure Laird Ogilvie, or Wilkie; nor had I wanted to.

“Of course not. ’Twas the first time I’d ever struck out at anyone. I only did what I had to do to escape him.”

“I’m sure you had good reason to attack the laird of your keep—certainly a crime punishable by death, or worse. You were wise to run.” I wasn’t entirely pleased with the direction this conversation had taken. And I couldn’t decipher the layers of his emotion. Was there anger there or merely curiosity? He continued, “You knifed him intentionally?”

“Aye,” I confirmed quietly.

“Why is that?”

I paused. I didn’t want him to think badly of me, but he was entitled to the truth. Every truth. I knew it and he knew it. We were bonded already, in a meaningful way. I didn’t understand it, but already it was the surest thing about me. I would answer any and all of his questions. My warrior, I was learning, was protective, possessive and extremely direct.

At my brief silence, his eyes visibly darkened as he watched me. He may have guessed at the answer I hesitated to give.

“He wanted to add me to his collection of mistresses,” I finally said. “As is probably clear enough by my desertion. I had long thought about attempting to flee from him. But I had nowhere to go. In the end, I decided exile was preferable to servitude of that kind. Work is one thing, captivity quite another.”

Wilkie’s fist constricted, and the muscles of his arm grew taut and strained. I wanted to ease his reaction, but I thought at this moment it was better to leave him be. In the end, I didn’t touch him, leaving my own hands clasped in my lap.

It was some time before he asked his question.

“Were you able to fight him off?” His fist remained clenched. He looked so quietly furious that I almost feared him at that moment.

“Aye,” I assured him, but my whispered affirmation was barely audible.

“You succeeded in escaping before he was able to—”

“Aye, warrior. He didn’t know I was armed. I surprised him with my attack, and I fled immediately.”

He lowered his gaze and considered this for a minute or more. Then he raised his eyes to me and I could see there an anxious, tentative question. “So you never...agreed?”

I understood what he was asking. “Nay, warrior. Not once. Not to anyone.”

His relief was palpable, and his tender smile was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen on this earth. It touched my heart and stole my breath. “You...are the only one,” I told him, meaning to continue, but stopping once the words were spoken. They summed up everything I needed to say. And even as I said them, I felt the now-familiar honey-sweet ache low in my stomach. His hand reached for mine, enveloping both of my own, clasped tightly in my lap. He loosened my grip and held one hand, stroking his thumb lightly across my palm, as though sensing my shame and attempting to soothe it all away.

“You did what you had to do,” he said. “It took courage to do what needed doing. I’m not angry with you, lass. How could I be? You’re an angel, after all, ’tis it not so?”

In fact I didn’t know what I was, or even who I was. Or where I had come from. I had a raging urge to show Wilkie my tattoo, to reveal all the dark mystery of my past, to see if this uncommonly intense and sudden bond was stronger than my fear. But I couldn’t do it. I was too afraid he would be repulsed by me, that he would no longer want me, that he would cast me back into the bleak darkness of my former life. “Nay. I’m not an angel.”

“You’re my angel,” he said, insistent. His expression was affectionate, and his dark-lit blue eyes searched mine for signs that I might be reassured. “You’re never to fear me. All right? I just want to learn you.”

“All right.”

“So, hungry, exiled and alone, you raided our orchard for food.”

“Aye,” I said. “I’m sorry about that, too.”

“Not I.” His half smile touched my secret places, warming me yet further. “If you hadn’t stolen from us, I wouldn’t have followed you. I was intrigued, aye. I thought you an easy conquest, or I wouldn’t have chased you alone. And when you spoke, with your voice undisguised, I had a feeling you were not what you first appeared to be. You looked so...”

I waited for him to finish, and when he didn’t immediately reply, my curiosity got the better of me. “So what?”

“So small. So slender. I wasn’t expecting you to be quite so fierce.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, willing myself not to weep at the thought of my ferocity and its outcome.

“Not I,” he repeated. “If you hadn’t struck me, I wouldn’t have struck you, then I wouldn’t have removed your helmet and laid eyes on the most beautiful creature in this life, or any other. At that moment, our fates entwined, Roses. I know not why, but I know it to be true—I am bound to you forevermore. There is nothing to regret.”

My heart fairly sang at his words. My warrior wanted me here. I could stay with him, at least for a time. You will be fed, and you will be under our protection until our brother is fit enough to decide your fate.

“You did surprise me at the loch, aye,” he said softly.

I blushed again, remembering when and how I had surprised him. I’d wanted to look away from him, but he was too alluring, in my memory and even more so here and now.

“Would you like me to change your dressing, warrior? And wash you?” The heat that flushed my cheeks only burned even more fervently as I realized what my offer might have suggested.

“I would like you to do anything to me that you would like to do.”

“I’ll wash your hair for you, if you’d like,” I said.

“My hair isn’t the only thing that’s dirty,” he teased, but I was too shy to indulge him.

“I’ve assisted the Ogilvie healer,” I said. “I’ve tended many wounds.” If the pretence was that I was Effie’s assistant, then I might as well make myself useful. And there was nothing I would rather have been doing in this moment in time—or any other—than tending to Wilkie Mackenzie’s needs.

“You sewed me up like an expert,” he said. “Effie said she couldn’t have done it better herself. And that’s saying something—she doesn’t give praise lightly, especially when it comes to the healing skills of others.”

I began to peel back his bandage, making sure not to open the wound.

“Did you train to be a healer?” he asked.

I told him some of the details of my history and my family, as I had explained to his brothers. He seemed shocked by my admission that not only I but also my mother had been recruited to be Ogilvie’s mistress, and that our status had been lowered because of her refusals.

I looked up at him to find him watching me with an inscrutable expression. “You are surprisingly stoic considering the oppression you’ve endured,” he said. “I’m sure I would be more bitter had my family been treated thusly.”

I considered this. “I harbor bitterness toward only one person. And he is not here, nor do I hope to ever meet with him again. I know that my parents would be pleased that I had avenged my mother’s plight in a small way, and escaped his clutches. I can make peace with that, and do my best to find a life for myself elsewhere.”

Wilkie continued to watch me, and I detected in him, as I had in Kade, a sense that he respected not only my honesty, but also my point of view. It occurred to me that I had surprised these brothers, that they might not have expected me to admit to my bold and traitorous reactions to Ogilvie; I also got the sense that they felt my actions entirely justified. I didn’t feel as though I needed this assurance, but I was grateful for it nonetheless.

Wilkie followed a line of thought, speaking it aloud. “’Tis true that Ogilvie is well known for his fondness for keeping numerous mistresses. So much so that he’s never taken a wife. Not a particularly stout plan for the future of the Ogilvie clan, if he produces no legitimate heirs.”

“Nay,” I agreed, hoping to change the subject away from the man who had been all but my nemesis for several years. “Your wound is healing well, warrior.”

It was. The edges of the cut were already beginning to knit together. I walked over to the basin and filled a bowl with the still-warm water. I used a clean cloth to wash the area around the wound, taking care to be gentle with him.

“Your potent healing paste recipe may have saved my life, according to Effie,” Wilkie said. “That, along with your sewing skills.”

“I could share the recipe with her if she’d like. I’ve made it often for Ismay.”

“Write it down and she can add it to her book.”

“I— Well, I don’t know how to write. But I can dictate it to her.”

“Is that so?” he asked, and there was astonishment in his voice, and maybe a thread of pity. “Were you never taught to write, lass?”

“Nay,” I said quietly.

“Can you read?”

“My mother started teaching me once, but there was too much other work to be done. We never had enough time for the lessons.”

He touched a fingertip to my chin and tipped my face up to him. “Well, that, sweet Roses, is something we could remedy.”

I couldn’t help smiling at him. “You’re going to teach me to read, warrior?”

“Aye,” he said smugly, as though he’d found a new mission in life. “That I am.”

I felt overjoyed at the thought of Wilkie teaching me, making an effort for me, and spending his time with me in any capacity at all. If his intention was to teach me to read: that would require time. My future, at least for the short term, might not be daunting and unknowable; it could be charmed, if Wilkie was near. “I would very much like that.”





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