Page 14 of Claiming His Highland Bride (A Highland Feuding #4)

I t was not what she had planned to do at all.

And certainly not with the one man who could discover her secrets. The one whose word had declared her dead. The worst man in the entire world for her and the secrets she held.

When she woke from her faint, on his legs, in his arms, Sorcha had planned to stand up and move away from him. To return to Clara’s and avoid him now that she knew his part in her charade. It was too dangerous to be around him.

That was what she would tell herself later. But now, when he shifted beneath her and she held on to his strong shoulders, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to forget the woman she’d been and be a different woman with him.

He wanted it, too. She could tell by the way he eased closer and bent his head down. He stared at her mouth as though hungry for a last meal. Though she’d never been this close to a man before, she kenned what she felt as he moved his legs underneath her. He wanted her in the way a man wants a woman.

Her breasts swelled and the tips became hard inside her gown. Whatever chill she’d felt from the cool, damp rain disappeared as that strange heat filled her. When Alan tilted his head a bit closer, she lifted hers and took the kiss she’d been wanting.

That momentary delay was the last bit of control she had over the situation, for that kiss quickly grew into something she had not planned and did not ken how to stop. Not that she wanted it to stop. Nay, she did not want to stop once she touched his lips with hers.

His hands moved down to encircle her waist and pull her closer even as his mouth took possession of hers. His tongue teased her lips and when she parted them, he swept inside, tasting her and allowing her a taste of him. Startled at this intimate caress, she opened her eyes and found him staring at her.

‘Open your mouth, lass,’ he whispered against her. ‘Let me in.’

A thrill rushed through her body, making places she’d not noticed ache and throb as she followed his instruction. When she relaxed her lips, he pressed closer and began to suckle her tongue. Drawing on it, he pulled it into his mouth and swirled his against hers until she did the same thing. Every pull of his mouth sent shivers of pleasure to those deep places until her whole body felt alive and awake. She heard a noise and did not realise she’d made it until he spoke against her mouth again.

‘Sigh for me, Saraid,’ he whispered before he dipped his tongue in and tasted her again.

He slid one hand up and tangled it in her wet hair, cupping the back of her head. She relaxed into his hold and he brought her even closer. Sorcha melted against him—his hand, his mouth, his body. And rather than fighting it, she gave him what he’d asked for. The breathy sigh she released turned into something deeper and more needful when his other hand slid up and covered her breast. Her body arched into his hand, aching and wanting more. When his thumb rubbed across the tip of it, she was lost in the unexpected and absolute pleasure from such a caress.

Sorcha covered his hand with hers, both urging him on and trying to stop such a thing. As heat gathered within her belly and lower, she knew this could not continue. She must stop him and stop him now. But, pulling away from his mouth and his touch were not within her power just then. He laughed against her lips as though sensing her struggle.

‘Easy, sweetling,’ he whispered, as he moved both hands into her hair and plundered her mouth, deeper and hotter than before.

Her own fingers clutched once more at his shoulders as she resisted the urge to slide them down over his bared skin again. Over and over, he slanted his lips over hers and plunged his tongue within her. Breathless and overwhelmed, Sorcha finally pulled back and stared into his now stormy eyes.

Did her own eyes reveal the astonishment she felt at the way her body responded to his kisses? Did her innocence and inexperience show in the way her chest struggled and shuddered to draw in breaths? Did he realise she’d never been kissed by anyone before? And especially in this intimate manner?

He searched her face for something, puzzlement clear now in his gaze, before lifting her off his legs and holding her steady. Neither spoke a word then—she knew not what to say and he did not seem inclined to speak. The shiver that raced through her then had little to do with the cold and more to do with the heat pouring off his body.

‘I should get you back to Clara’s, so you can get out of these wet garments and not catch a chill,’ he said, softly.

He did not move or release her from his hold for several long moments. She took a step back as he stood, bringing them into closer contact than they had been for that moment. Forced to look up at him, she was unprepared when he leaned down and kissed her once more. It was a quick touch of their lips and done before she could do anything. She mourned the loss of him as soon as he moved away from her, tugging his plaid loose from around her shoulders and tossing it over his.

‘The rain has eased,’ he said. Sorcha looked out and noticed it had faded in intensity, back to a thick mist from its recent deluge. She nodded.

‘Clara will worry,’ she said. Sorcha gathered her hair back and tried to braid it quickly. A married woman, even a widow, should have her hair covered, but her kerchief was long gone in her haste to get away. The braid would have to do for now. She wondered how long it would take for Clara to realise that something had happened between her and Alan. She let out a sigh and glanced at the road that led back to the village.

‘Aye, she will. She does.’

Alan picked up his own damp shirt and tugged it over his head. Then, he held out his hand to her and she took it, allowing his strong fingers to close around hers and give her support as she took those first few shaky steps. A tenseness and heat yet coursed through her blood, one that she feared would be hard to extinguish. At least as long as he was near and looked at her with that hunger in his gaze that she saw there now.

‘She sent me to follow you, Saraid.’ Alan watched as her eyes widened a tiny bit at that disclosure. ‘Come, let us return there and ease her fears.’

Still holding her hand, he tugged a bit and drew her next to him as they walked from under the shelter, across the edge of the field and back to the road. He tried not to notice her kiss-swollen lips and the way her breasts rose and fell with each breath she took. He laboured to forget the feel of her nipple tightening under his thumb and the taste of innocence on her lips. But, mostly, he really needed his flesh to relent from its state of hard arousal so he could regain control over himself.

Innocence. Innocence? How could she taste as though untouched and new to kissing? Married and widowed, she surely had been kissed and tupped by her husband. If she had been his wife, he would have taken her to bed for days to bury himself deep within her body and show her every pleasure that could be between them. To claim her and mark her with his own scent and seed. If she were his...

He shook himself free of such a path, for she had not been his nor would she be. Her choice was in another direction completely. Alan glanced over and saw the troubled expression on her face and the way her brow tightened. Had she not welcomed his actions then? Was he guilty of trespassing in a grievous way?

So how could she retain the taste and manners of a woman untouched? Her artless kisses, no less arousing for their obvious inexperience, spoke of a woman unfamiliar with the action. But how could that be?

They walked in silence back towards the village. He glanced out the corner of his eye to make certain he was not walking too quickly for her much shorter stride. And to make certain she was well. And to watch how she touched her fingers to her lips when she thought him not looking.

Astonishment. Wonderment. Surprise. All words to describe the expression in her eyes as she’d lifted her mouth from his. Not what he would have expected from a married and widowed woman.

Even more surprising to him was that, when he questioned her about her grief, she’d never mentioned her husband’s passing. Only her mother’s.

Strange bits of insight into the enticing Saraid MacPherson that made him hunger for more. After taking the first steps across the barrier between them, Alan was determined to convince her that she had another choice in her life. That entering the convent was not her only path.

Alan kenned he should feel guilty about turning her intentions away from the service of the Almighty and to something much more human, but he did not. The only thing that would stop him would be the woman herself.

They soon reached Clara and Jamie’s cottage. Alan felt the loss of her touch when she slipped her hand from his as they followed the last curve of the road around and her cousin’s home was revealed. He could feel her warmth grow distant with each step and Alan knew he could not allow it. Not now. He took her hand once more and pulled her to stop and face him.

That was his first mistake, for the sight of her tousled, wet hair and swollen lips brought back his cockstand within moments. He would not have made his second error if she’d not stared at his mouth and touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip just then. Did she ken that he was at the limit of his control? Deciding that distance between them would lead to more measured actions, he stepped back a pace, yet still held her hand.

‘Part of me thinks I owe you an apology for my forwardness,’ he said softly. He lifted her hand to his mouth and turned it, placing several kisses along the sensitive skin there on her wrist. The whispered sigh made him smile. ‘But I cannot apologise for what I did. What we did, Saraid. And, if I have anything to do with it, those will not be the last kisses we share.’

Alan had never been a vain man and had never taken the affections of a woman for granted. And he’d certainly never considered himself a rogue who took advantage of a woman’s favours. But, when Saraid gifted him with a soft smile and slight nod to his declaration, he thought he had won the hardest-fought battle. Tempted to do more than simply kiss her, only Clara’s voice stopped him.

‘You found her!’ Clara said, rushing to them. She stopped as she reached them and stared at her cousin first before frowning at him. Clara touched Saraid’s shoulder and then gathered her in close. ‘You are soaked and cold, Saraid. Come with me.’ If she’d noticed their joined hands, she did not comment on it as she tugged Saraid along to the cottage.

Jamie watched from the door and Alan could read nothing from his stance or his stare. From the shuttered expression earlier, his friend knew something more than he was sharing about Clara’s cousin. The question was whether or not the man would reveal it to him if it meant taking sides across the divide of kith and kin. As Jamie opened the door wider to allow the women to enter, he shrugged and shook his head. Alan was on his own in his pursuit of Saraid.

It was neither a new thing for him nor one he feared. Indeed, his spirits rose as he considered his next move in his strategy to claim the Widow MacPherson. Should he discuss the matter with Brodie? If he did succeed, Alan had no doubt that his uncle would make his life miserable and seek to ruin any chance at happiness he had. Arabella’s husband had always promised Alan a place here or anywhere on his lands where Alan wished to live and now, it would seem, Alan might need exactly that.

* * *

Her mother had taught her to sew in wonderfully small and accurate stitches. And how to add and subtract numbers and keep records. And how to speak and read in their language and that of the court and church. With patience and guidance and by example, her mother had taught her about the virtues and about loyalty and honour and courage. If Sorcha could demonstrate even half of what her mother had taught her, it would be a fitting tribute to the woman that Erca MacPherson MacNeill was.

As Sorcha unlaced her gown with chilled and trembling fingers, she realised that the dangerous gap in her education was not one her mother would have or could have foreseen or prepared her to face. It involved men.

Actually, it involved one man—Alan Cameron.

Her mother’s plan had been clean and clear, for she would go from her father’s house to God’s and therefore men were not a matter for consternation. But the situation just now had shown Sorcha just how unprepared she was to face life outside her protected existence as Sorcha MacMillan. And it had made it clear to her that she would find life in a convent difficult at best.

Lady Arabella’s words about her lack of choice once she entered the convent had unnerved her. Alan Cameron’s touch and kisses made her question her resolve very quickly and with a thoroughness that would have made her mother blush. Had that kind of passion and excitement ever existed for Erca MacNeill? Sorcha found it impossible to believe that her father would be so gentle towards any woman, especially not his wife.

Was that why her mother had never spoken of matters of the flesh between a man and woman? Because her own experience had been a poor and failing one and she’d never dreamt her daughter would be tempted by such a thing? Surely, Sorcha never had.

Oh, she’d heard and seen things, private things between men and women at her father’s keep. A glimpse here, a word or expression there. The harlot who lived in the village made no secret of her profession or her lures. But not once had Sorcha ever felt a moment of attraction or arousal as she had when Alan touched her hand. Or kissed her. Or, even more so, when his hand slid up and covered her breast.

A sigh escaped her as she remembered the pleasure of his caress and her body reacted, too, heating and throbbing in memory.

‘You do not look chilled to the bone,’ Clara said quietly from the doorway of the smaller chamber. With the bairns being seen to by their father, Sorcha had use of the room to change out of her wet garments. ‘That blush speaks of heat and more.’

Sorcha touched her cheeks then and found them hot. She turned to face Clara, still fumbling with the laces.

‘Here, let me see to those,’ Clara said.

With sure and steady actions, the laces were loosened and untied and with a little more assistance, Sorcha found herself in a clean and blessedly dry shift and gown. A thick blanket tossed over her shoulders drove the cold from her bones and skin. From Clara’s lingering, Sorcha knew she has something to say.

‘Is he what has distracted you all day?’

‘Aye,’ she answered truthfully. ‘Him and more.’

‘The bairns are at Margaret’s and Jamie waits without. Come, we should speak plainly about this.’

There was no condemnation in her tone of voice in the invitation to talk about what had happened. What was happening. And Sorcha would welcome plain counsel over the final steps she must plan and take. Desire had caused some change within her as it woke. Desire for him brought with it a myriad of problems and impossibilities.

‘And Alan?’ she asked for the first time. Speaking his name aloud made her voice tremble and her body react once more. ‘Is he working with Jamie?’ Sorcha both wanted to see him and feared her ever-weakening will when he was close.

‘Nay. He left when you returned. Headed to the keep from his direction.’ Clara walked past her to find the comb on the table. ‘Let me comb out your hair while you warm up. Then we can speak with Jamie and sort out the rest.’

With her experienced hands, it took Clara no time at all to untangle the wet strands of her hair into a proper braid. The blanket tucked around her shoulders now, Sorcha walked into the main chamber of the cottage and sat at the table where Jamie waited. She took in and released several slow breaths before speaking.

‘I think it’s time to leave Glenlui.’ Silence but several speculative glances between husband and wife met her words. She looked at one then the other. ‘It is too dangerous for me here.’

‘Well, if you speak of Alan, that might be true,’ Clara admitted as Sorcha nodded. ‘He is relentless when he fixes his sights on a task. By the looks of it, that task is you.’

Jamie did not laugh as much as smother a laugh that threatened escape. The sound was that of someone choking. Clara’s sharp and narrowing gaze prevented him from adding more sounds.

‘And his attention is too dangerous,’ Sorcha said. ‘He will discover my truth and then...’

‘Hell will break loose on earth?’ Jamie asked. He shook his head at both of them. ‘You do not ken him as I do. He is not looking for your secrets, Sorcha, he is looking for your...looking at you. As a man looks at a woman, not a hunter at its prey.’

‘I heard you two speaking of it as you worked. He was the one who declared me dead!’

‘Aye. Dead and gone now. He has relegated the Lady Sorcha MacMillan to another of those lost in his uncle’s machinations.’

Startled by those words, Sorcha wondered if she should share the rest of what she knew about his uncle’s plans with Clara and Jamie. Deciding to keep it to herself for now, she nodded.

‘What he sees is a lovely, widowed, young woman with fine manners and a gentle heart who is helping out her kin while recovering from her losses. And that, Clara’s cousin, would call to most every man.’

‘Do you not understand? He is the worst possible man to pay heed to me. He is the one who could put all the pieces together. He is the one who could expose me and make matters far worse than any of you can imagine. Alan Cameron is the one man I should stay away from. He is...’ She paused then, surprised at the vehemence of her own words. Worse, surprised by what she wanted to say and could not.

He was the one man with whom she could easily fall in love.

Clara reached out and took her hand as she wrestled with the realisation of the true nature of the danger he posed to her. For he was not the man with whom she could fall in love. Alan Cameron, the most dangerous man in Glenlui, was the man that she was falling in love with.

Thinking back, Sorcha understood now that from their first glance at their first meeting in the hall those weeks ago, the process had begun.

Then, as he wended his way into her life here with Clara and Jamie, it had strengthened and become something real. She smiled, remembering the gentle way he had with the bairns, even scooping up Wee Clara and soothing her when she’d fallen and scraped her knees.

Their earlier encounter in the field simply rushed it along.

Worse, she’d spent hours in the dark of night thinking about him and how he would be a man she could...she could love.

‘I must leave.’

That was it. She must leave and make her way to Skye now, before things got even more mucked up than they were already. And there she would spend her days praying for forgiveness for her stubbornness and lack of humility. For thinking she could outwit and outmanoeuvre her father and all his plans by lying and drawing in these innocent people.

‘I will send word to my cousin on Skye on the morrow and declare my intentions,’ she said. Neither Clara nor Jamie had said much so she looked at them now.

‘If that is what you wish to do...’ Clara began. ‘But I would urge you to give yourself more time.’

‘Alan will not push himself if you do not wish it,’ Jamie said.

Though meaning to ease her worries, it increased them. For she wanted him. She wanted Alan to follow through with his whispered promise that he was not done kissing her. And she feared he would do exactly that and chip away at any resolve she might put forward.

‘And, Sorcha, I would not break your confidence to him or to anyone. Worry not that I will share anything you have said or any knowledge I have of your identity.’ Jamie’s hand covered his wife’s and Sorcha’s then.

‘I trust you both,’ she said.

‘What about Alan?’ Jamie asked.

‘I think it best if I avoid him until I depart for Skye.’

The words were spoken with an assuredness she truly did not feel. Avoiding him was the only way to put a halt to something that could not and would not ever be possible. Better to avoid him and save her heart from nothing less than complete destruction.

* * *

The rest of the day had gone quietly by and by the next morn, Sorcha remained convinced of her decision to move on from here and to elude Alan and any attempts to spend time with her. Or to kiss her. Or...

Unfortunately, no one had informed Alan of her plans or her resolve.