Page 14 of A Promise of Love

She landed on her back, momentarily winded.

She stared up at the furious face of the MacLeod and realized that modesty was going to demand a price.

She crept up on her hands and knees, brushed her hair back from her face with one wet hand, never shifting her gaze from him.

She watched him warily as he rubbed that portion of his anatomy which had been the softest and most accessible to her teeth.

When he came after her, she was prepared.

She leapt to her feet, looked to the left, but darted to the right .

They raced towards the castle and Judith knew that she was going to pay for her impulsive gesture but not, she vowed, in view of a hundred people.

She gathered the skirts of her new dress in her fists and, without a thought to the modesty she had protected only moments earlier, lifted the folds of material above her pistoning knees and sprinted for her life .

The storm was full upon them now, but Judith didn’t notice the pelting rain, her only thought was to escape the retribution she would receive at the MacLeod’s hands. The path she’d taken only moments earlier became as slippery as a stream bed, but still she ran .

If he caught her, he was going to kill her, Alisdair decided. One less English woman was not going to be a loss to the world. Especially, this one. But, damn, the woman could run. The rain was icy upon his bare chest, but he was immune to such petty discomfort .

Alisdair caught her just inside the bronze doors. He swept her up in his arms despite her struggles. The crowd cheered as he disappeared from sight with his sodden English wife momentarily tamed. Well, if nothing else, Alisdair thought, she had been an entertaining diversion .

He swayed against the stone steps that led to the living quarters.

She had not stopped fighting him, but he lacked the energy to throw her over his shoulder again.

He’d been working in the fields since dawn while she, no doubt, had been saving her strength for their encounter.

He scowled at her, a gesture that would have given a sane person a reason to cease their shouts and blows.

No, his English wife was as stubborn as she was athletic .

"Shut up, woman!" he finally shouted, and the sound bounced off the stone walls and seemed to echo down the long corridors .

"Let me go!" she yelled in response. She had nothing to lose; she knew what punishment awaited her in the room atop the stairs. If she could only delay it, she would forestall the pain , also .

Alisdair wondered exactly who Judith was, that she could hate as deeply as a Scot, and tremble with fear at the same moment. For all she wished to hide herself, he’d read those emotions well enough .

Rain had plastered her hair down, sheened her face.

Her lashes were long, spiky, her lips were full and wet.

Alisdair wanted to tell her that a mouth could be used to better pursuits, a voice to softer demands.

Instead, he only stopped and stared at her, wondering why the rhythm of her heart would be so audible to him, why his own breath, raspy and winded, would echo hers so exactly .

The staircase had no railing, no banister. Those were frivolous notions for manor houses and estates. This staircase had been built with defense in mind, steep downward sloping steps that were difficult to mount if one were tired, or sick, or like Sophie, aged and frail .

At this moment, Alisdair felt all four .

Despite the trembling in his arms, he held his temporary English wife out over the sheer drop .

"Now?" he hissed .

She felt the tremors in his arms, and held onto his bare chest. He grimaced at the discomfort of her nails digging into his skin .

"Now?" he repeated .

"No," she said softly, defeated .

"Are you sure? It would be no trouble at all." He could feel his own heart pounding so loudly that surely she could hear it. He was tempted to throw her over, anyway .

She shook her head, frantically, and he stepped back and wearily leaned against the wall.

He lowered her legs and allowed her to stand, but kept a firm hold on her upper arm.

He pulled her inside Ian’s room, and swung her around as if she weighed no more than a feather.

Her skirts slapped around her, wet, muddy.

The beautiful blue sprigged dress - the prettiest dress she’d ever worn - was ruined .

Alisdair stood, hands on hips, and watched his newest burden as she scrambled up on the sagging mattress. She remained on her knees, her eyes flashing fire. Such temper was still a welcome change from the vacuity they displayed so often .

He smiled, a particularly infuriating grin which prodded her to words more prudently left unsaid. Yet, if she was going to be punished, then let it be for something, not simply the innocence of self .

"Is it that you wish me to fawn over your bastard, MacLeod? Your prowess as a male applauded and saluted? Very well, I applaud and salute you. You have fathered a child. Congratulations ."

"I am not Douglas's father ."

"And I am the King of England, MacLeod. Believe either if you will, they are both lies ."

"Do you call me a liar then?" His scowl was too fierce. Her heart beat strongly, urging her to caution .

"No," she said, scooting away from him .

"I am sick unto death of you slithering away from me," he ground out between thinned lips, his voice low and intense.

“I am not a monster, nor am I a lovesick fool.

You have nothing to fear from me." Because he was irritated and not a little confused by the emotion he’d felt in the stairwell, he frowned fiercely at her, determined not to allow compassion to soften his words, or lead him into dangerous thoughts .

“If your husbands craved you with carnal lust, then it's because they had not seen another woman in months!

" His conscience cringed at his cruelty, his manhood relished the open battle at last. "You are not Helen of Troy, nor are you an ethereal vision of loveliness.

You are in a word, my English wife, a scrawny, sour tongued hag ! "

He left the room in a whirl of motion and rage, leaving Judith staring after him .

Her eyes felt as though they had been dusted with pepper, tiny pinpricks of hurt .

It was only the rain in her eyes .