Page 11 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

10

Falkirk, January 1746

O n December 20, Charles Edward Stuart crossed the River Esk and led his army back into Scotland. Men of every rank fell on their knees after they forded the icy waters, giving thanks to their God, their king, and their prince for bringing them safely home.

With the English no more than a day's march behind them, the prince divided his ragtag troops into two divisions. He led one across the high, mountainous route to Glasgow, while his commanding general, Lord George Murray, led the second and was forced to take the longer, slower route by way of the low roads, for they also hauled munitions wagons and what few captured cannon they had not spiked and left on the other side of the river.

Fully half the Stuart army was barefoot, their clothes reduced to rags, their bellies sunk against their spines. Still, they were the stuff of legends. Five thousand poorly provisioned, ill-equipped Highlanders had outwitted and outmaneuvered the combined forces of Generals Wade, Ligonier, and Cumberland and marched within a hundred and fifty miles of London.

Conservative estimates put the government forces at close to thirty thousand, converging from three different directions and heading north into Scotland to avenge the insult to their king and country. Some days the plumes of smoke from the advance campfires of Wade's army could be seen by the retreating vanguard of the prince's troops.

Two things slowed the progress of the Elector's troops, then halted it altogether. A hellish storm struck just after the Jacobites crossed the river, pelting the English with snow and sleet, raising the level of the already turbulent waters higher than even the most foolhardy commander would dare attempt to ford. Secondly, the Duke of Cumberland received an urgent dispatch from London, warning him of a massive fleet of French ships bound for the northeast coast. Cumberland removed himself from the chase at once and ordered Ligonier to the old fortress city of York, knowing all too well that if the French were ever allowed to gain a toehold on English soil, it could extend the war by months.

The “urgent message” had in fact come from the pen of a gray-haired old fox who had drifted off to sleep twice while composing it, and the only French ship that landed did so well north of where Cumberland anxiously watched the coastline. While the battered old frigate did carry troops, they amounted to fewer than three hundred who served in the personal guard of Lord John Drummond. Of more pressing value to the Jacobites gathering at Aberdeen were the guns and ammunition in her holds, along with the four chests of gold Drummond had managed, at long last, to prise from the French king's coffers.

Jamie Farquharson arrived in Aberdeen while the ship was still offloading its cargo. Upon reading the documents he carried and realizing the significance of the Dutch treaty, Lord Drummond immediately removed his blockade runner's garb and declared himself the official representative of King Louis in Scotland. As such, he sent formal notice to the commander of the six thousand Dutch veterans serving under the Duke of Cumberland, advising him to return home with his troops at once lest he violate the terms of the new treaty.

Cumberland was understandably furious as he watched nearly three quarters of his veteran troops march out of camp. Moreover, at the end of a futile three-week vigil, with nary a French sail in sight, he was forced to acknowledge that he had been duped. This time, when the enraged duke turned his eyes and army north to Scotland, he did so with a vow to carry his royal cousin's head back to London and leave it spiked on the gates of his father's palace until the flesh rotted and fell off the bone.

Colin Mor heard sounds in the glen long before he ventured out of doors to identify them. Hearing what started as a low, distant rumble, he had initially closed the shutters against an approaching storm. But when the disturbance grew louder and closer, it started breaking into patterns that were distinctly man-made; the rolling of wheels on the rutted earth, the shuffle of many footsteps, the creak of saddle leather and the muted jingle of harness traces.

Colin stood outside his clachan, the door open and tilted on its rope hinges. Dusk had come early on this January evening, and there was just enough ambient light to turn the heavy mist into a gray, soupy miasma. Cold and wet, the fog had settled into the bowl of the glen earlier and rendered anything beyond the reach of a child's throw opaque. It was certainly not the kind of night that would inspire travel, nor was Colin's tiny glen anywhere near a main thoroughfare. His small sheep farm was, as his wife often lamented, in the middle of nowhere with high craggy peaks to the north, dense tracts of fir trees to the east and west, and a swampy elbow of the River Dee at their backs. The closest kirk was Kildrummy, with the city of Aberdeen another thirty miles down the river.

His wife, Rosie, was standing behind him now, a bairn on her hip, two more clinging to her skirts.

“What is it, Colla?” she asked in a terrified whisper.

He shook his head, tilting it to one side as if that would help him hear more clearly. The fog was distorting the sound and the direction, making it nearly impossible to tell if there were ten men or a hundred, or if they were a hundred paces away or ten. He did not have to work half so hard to hear Rosie's fearful breaths puffing into the mist; she was superstitious and had seen a raven with a bloody beak fly over the cottage earlier in the day. It was a clear harbinger, so she had declared, that death would be coming to their door.

“Fetch the bairns back inside,” he ordered quietly. “Tell ma sister tae ready the trapdoor.”

“Holy mither, ye dinna think it's the English sojers, do ye?”

The thought had occurred to him, but he dismissed it almost as fast. Nearby Inverurie Castle was a Jacobite stronghold and the Sassenachs had not proven to be stupid enough to wander too deeply into the thickly wooded glens thereabout. Moreover, with news of Wade and Cumberland's forced delay, most of the government troops had been withdrawn to Edinburgh.

“Just get inside an' be ready tae stow away in the hidey-hole if need be.”

He waited until she had gone, then edged closer to the corner of the low-slung roof of his clachan. His firelock was hidden beneath the thatch, an arm's reach away, as was his taugh - cath , an ax forged in the hills of Lochaber. The musket was kept loaded, but it had rained earlier in the day and the powder would be damp. Or it might be just dry enough to misfire and take out his eye, then how well would he be able to protect his wife and family? Only last week he had heard of a good woman raped by the English and left naked for her husband to find when he came home from the fields. And just last month he'd had to bury a brace of Sassenachs in a nearby bog after they had offered his sister a penny to spread her legs for them. The slut had been willing and the penny would have been welcomed, but he reasoned their purses would yield more if they were dead.

This sounded like far too many for the bog to hold.

Perhaps whoever it was would ride past. His sod clachan was built into the hillside and was difficult to see even in bright sunlight. Perhaps there was no one out there at all; no one in human form, at any rate….

As if the druids had read his mind, the enormous rumbling slowed, then stopped altogether.

Something detached itself from the main body and plodded slowly forward. The gray of the mist took on the sickly yellow tinge of a torch that throbbed and bloomed into a larger circle, pushing great swirls of mist forward, bathing Colin's face with the wet stink of pitch.

His hand inched upward toward the thatch roofing.

“Is this the home of Colin Mor?”

The sound of a woman's voice froze his hand, froze his mind.

“Colin Mor of Dalziel?”

His lips parted, but no sound came forth as a huge black-eyed monster began to emerge from the banks of gray swirling mist. He held his breath as the beast took on the shape and substance of a huge mottled gelding and his eyes widened almost beyond their limits when he saw the woman perched high upon its back. She wore tartan trews and a green velvet short-coat trimmed with gold lace. Her hair was red as hellfire, braided into a long tail that snaked over one shoulder, and on her head a bonnet with an eagle feather pinned on the crest. At her waist she wore a brace of claw-butted dags and, slung across her lap, glinted the metal barrel of a Brown Bess.

Colin's jaw dropped farther.

Word had spread throughout the bens and glens that Lady Anne MacKintosh had taken it upon herself to raise her clan to fight for Prince Charles. No sooner had her husband departed for Edinburgh to fight for the English than she was riding about the countryside, carrying her petition to every laird within the confederation of Clan Chattan.

His gaze flicked to the pulsating orange and yellow glow behind her. There were three more riders, two of whom held torches aloft, the flames causing the suspended droplets of mist to sizzle and hiss. Colin looked at the two bearded faces, identical in almost every way, and surmised they must be the infamous lady's cousins from Monaltrie. The third man, the great blond giant who halted his steed alongside Lady Anne's, needed no introduction, and Colin felt a ripple of raw excitement flare through his loins.

“Colin Mor?”

“Aye,” he rasped. “Aye, that I be.”

“Ye know who I am?”

Awe rendered his answer all but inaudible. "Aye."

“We have been riding since dawn, Colin Mor,” Anne said. “And we would be grateful for your hospitality if we could camp in your pasture for the night.”

Colin's chest swelled with pride. “ God's truth, the honor would be mine, Colonel Anne. I've nae much tae offer, but there's stew left frae supper—hot an' hearty—an' a cask o' ale, fresh brewed.”

“Our men have food enough,” Anne said, smiling her thanks. “But if ye could spare a seat by your fire until the tents are raised, I would not refuse the warmth.”

The crofter shed his timorousness upon the instant and hastened forward, wiping his palms dry before he took hold of the gelding's bridle. “Ye'll nae sleep in any paucy tent this night, ma lady. No' while I've a roof an' a bed tae offer. Aye, an' there's room on the floor f'ae the rest o' yer men, sure.”

The MacGillivray swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted. He strode toward Colin, his hand outstretched, and the clansmen felt his fingers crush together, his knuckles crack with the heartiness of the greeting.

“Ye've room for six hundred men on yer floor?” he asked with a leonine grin.

“Six …?”

MacGillivray laughed at the crofter's stunned expression and turned long enough to bark an order to make camp. The order was relayed mouth to mouth, traveling back like an unending echo.

Colin Mor could count no higher than the twenty-three sheep he penned each night, and even that required using some imaginative appendages for keeping track, but he thought, by the sound of it, he might have to crack open two kegs of ale.

MacGillivray reached up to assist Anne out of the saddle. Though she would have torn her tongue out by the root before admitting it, her rump felt like lead and her thighs ached so badly she prayed she did not humiliate herself by walking with permanently bowed legs. They had been on the road for two days, battling every element nature could throw at them: high winds and bitter cold in the mountain passes, rain and mud on the moorlands. The mist had started closing in an hour ago, and for the past mile or so, they had been riding blind, guided only by sheep tracks leading through the glen.

Through it all, the men sang and laughed and joked amongst themselves. At each crossroad, each cairn they passed marking the miles from Inverness, there were more men waiting to join them, all eager and spoiling for the long-awaited chance to fight for Scotland's honor.

With MacGillivray by her side, Anne had carried her petition to every laird within Clan Chattan. A few were understandably reluctant to openly defy their chief, but in the end, she had come away with ninety-seven signatures, shy of the requisite hundred by only three. Scores of tents and campfires had littered the open fields around Dunmaglass, for MacGillivray's stronghold had become their headquarters and gathering place. Out of necessity, Anne had left Drummuir House and taken up residence at Dunmaglass, surrounded and protected by a personal guard that included John, Gilles MacBean, at least two of her three cousins and never any fewer than twenty clansmen bristling with weaponry. The third cousin, usually Eneas since the twins did not like to be separated for long, rode back and forth to Aberdeen conveying messages to and from Fearchar.

The wound in MacGillivray's shoulder had healed remarkably swiftly, with no apparent lingering stiffness. If anything, she marveled daily at his strength, watching him practice in mock battles with his men in the mornings, slashing the great steel blade of his to and fro until his face ran with sweat. Afternoons were spent going farm to farm assuring the other lairds he was more than capable of assuming a battlefield command. Evenings he supervised the small armory that had taken over the main room of Dunmaglass. Guns, targes, and swords filled every inch of empty space, with men hunched over long trestle tables day and night working with lead molds to make shot, others with casks of black powder to measure and fill paper cartridges.

Most men had come into the glen with swords and pikes, some with muskets and Lochaber axes, but there were those who came with just their hearts and their pride, and to supply these men, Anne had emptied the strongbox at Moy Hall. MacGillivray had put each coin to good use, and when there were no more guns or casks of powder to be purchased through his fellow smugglers, he had slipped away in the dead of night with a dozen of his best men, returning from Inverness before morning with wagons filled with kegs and crates stamped with the seal of the British army quartermaster.

He never seemed to sleep, never even looked tired. If anything, he appeared to be more relaxed, as if the weight of the responsibilities he carried now was not half so oppressing as the weight of being able to do nothing at all.

Anne, on the other hand, came to know exactly how her grandfather felt when the burden of holding her eyelids open for one more moment became a near impossible task. Sheer necessity bade her move from Drummuir House to Dunmaglass, but it was not a house accustomed to female residents. The furnishings were spartan at best, the only bath a large wooden barrel cut in half. Skirts and a stomacher were definite hindrances and she had sent to Moy Hall for hunting clothes. To that end, she had not felt a scrap of silk against her skin, nor plied a pair of tongs to her hair since she had departed the dowager's house on Church Street. She was surrounded day and night by burly men who had taken to addressing her as Colonel Anne, and she had begun to answer without pause.

In truth, the first few days had been exhilarating. Riding out with MacGillivray and her cousins had brought back all the adventurous memories of her reckless youth. But now, a fortnight later, the days had simply become exhausting and dirty. The coarse woolen trews itched at the most inopportune times and in the most inconvenient places, and while men appeared to have no qualms about scratching whenever, wherever, she was forced to suffer in squirming silence. Similarly, she had never given much thought to Angus's reluctance to intrude on her when he was fresh from the stable smelling of horse, leather, and sweat. Now she noticed everything—the smell of unwashed wool when it was wet, the tang of sheep offal on a carelessly placed shoe, the pungent blend of body sweat, peat, and woodsmoke that clung to common clansmen who might think to bathe only once in a twelvemonth.

That was possibly why she had begun to notice MacGillivray's distinctive scent. While he was by no means as fastidious as Angus with hot water and soap, he was not hesitant to strip down after a morning of exercising with the men and dump a bucket of water over his body to rinse away the sweat. Anne had happened by a window once when he was in the process of doing just that, and it had caused her to stare so long and hard her eyes burned from the dryness. The fact there had been a dozen men stripped naked and standing in the snow tossing water at each other had hardly left an imprint on her mind. It had been the sight of John MacGillivray, sleek with muscle, his face tilted upward and his hair streaming golden and wet down his shoulders, that had warmed her cheeks and left her body tingling in all the wrong places.

It had been equally difficult not to remember how he had looked naked and sprawled out in the candlelight, or how those brawny arms had felt wrapped around her, pinning her to the bed.

It did not help her concentration either that he was rather cavalier about his dress. In the comfort of his own home, he favored little more than a long, loose fitting shirt and short breacan kilt. The former was often left unlaced, the edges parted carelessly over the reddish gold mat of hair that covered his chest. Nor was he reluctant to slip one of his large hands beneath the cambric and scratch absently at a rib or breast while he was engaged in a conversation with his men, and she suspected he was completely unaware of the effect when he raked his fingers through his hair and left the golden mane scattered and boyishly disheveled.

He smelled wonderful as well, for it was a rare occasion that found John MacGillivray without a pipe clamped between his teeth. Anne found the scent heady and at times brought back memories of sitting at her grandfather's feet while he smoked his pipe told her stories of ancient Scottish kings.

At other times the scent was uncomfortably arousing, especially if MacGillivray happened to be engaged in a debate, his chair tilted precariously back on the two hind legs, a glare on his face like that of a lion contemplating his next meal. Or when he leaned close to look at something over her shoulder and she could feel the silk of his hair on her cheek, the warmth of his breath on her skin.

“If ye'll come this way, Colonel Anne,” said Colin Mor, bowing awkwardly as he held a hand out toward the door of his cottage, “ma wife Rosie will be glad tae pour ye a dram o' hot broth tae warm yer bones.”

Anne had not realized she had been staring up at John, or that he stood with his arm around her waist while her legs steadied beneath her. He was also smiling.

The big Highlander was proving to be every bit as adept as Angus in reading her thoughts, and while it could sometimes be a wonderful thing for a husband to know when his wife was craving certain … attentions … she did not think it was particularly wise to pique MacGillivray's interest.

Her hands, she noticed, were braced with easy familiarity on John's chest and she lowered them quickly before turning to follow Colin Mor into the cottage. His wife had lit a couple of thick tallow candles and stood nervously back in the shadows, the children clinging to her legs, peeking out from behind her skirts. A second woman, a year or so younger, was standing against the wall. She bore such a strong resemblance to Colin Mor it came as no surprise when she was introduced as his sister Glenna.

The clachan was like a thousand others that dotted the glens and nestled into the hillsides. A bare earth floor supported timber walls fortified with muck and peat. It had a steeply pitched thatch roof crisscrossed with beams from which hung strips of dried, salted meat and fish. There was the usual assortment of household trappings. A square of coarsely woven wool at one end separated the narrow sleeping pallet used by Colin's sister from the larger one he shared with his wife and children. The cooking fire was in the center of the room and on it, a tripod from which hung a black iron kettle. The Mors were better off than most, for in addition to several rag rugs, they had a table and two benches. In one corner a pen held chickens, and in another a milk goat was tethered to a post.

“A thousand pardons for disturbing your evening, goodwife,” Anne said. “We were told your glen had a sweet burn running through it that would lead us the right way to the river. Unfortunately, we could not find the burn in the mist and were afraid our wagons would find the river without any warning. We smelled the smoke from your fire, and--"

“I ken who ye are,” Rosie whispered, her initial awe over their guests replaced by the more practical emotion of fear. “An' I ken why ye're here. Ye've come tae take ma Colin awa' tae war.”

“No,” Anne said carefully. “We've not come to take him away. He is free to join us if he wishes, but we will not force any man to come with us. Each must listen to his own heart and decide the best way to serve his family, his clan, his honor.”

“Aye, well.” The girl bit her lip and glanced down at the wooden cradle. “Ye put it that way, he'll no' be able tae refuse, will he?”

She turned her back, startling the two smaller children into scrambling to reposition themselves as she leaned over to pick up the fussing baby and settle it back over her hip. “Will ye have broth, or a mug o' ale? There's rabbit stew as well. Glenna can fetch it f'ae ye, if ye're of a mind.”

“A cup of hot broth would be very welcomed, but I do not want to put you to any trouble.”

“'Tis too late f'ae that now.” Rosie glanced past Anne's shoulder as MacGillivray ducked his head beneath the low lintel and came into the cottage, followed closely by the Farquharson twins. “Ye've brung the trouble wi' ye.”

Seeing the handsome trio, Glenna Mor showed a reaction for the first time, straightening and squaring her shoulders so that her breasts pushed round and full against her bodice. There was an inordinately large amount to push, and the twins' gaze stalled there long enough for John to give them both a clout on the shoulder.

“Like I said,” the wife muttered. “Looks like ye've brung the trouble wi' ye.”

Anne had been determined to repress all memories of the incident in MacGillivray's bedroom. The kiss had meant nothing. Nor had it in any way been a conscious effort on his part to seduce her. He had still been half drunk from the previous night and hardly accountable for his actions. Yet it was difficult to ignore the effect his presence had on other women. Glenna Mor all but fell over herself to serve him his ale and ladle the choicest bits of meat into his wooden bowl. The lacings on her bodice came miraculously looser from one turn to the next so that each time she leaned forward, he had an impressive view of her breasts.

And being a hot-blooded male, he noticed. More than once, Anne caught him staring unabashedly at the succulent offerings, his one brow slightly raised in speculation, his mouth curved in a lopsided grin. Robbie was less circumspect. He practically had to keep his hands in his lap to prevent his kilt from tenting each time she brushed his shoulder or gave him a sly wink. While Anne had no right to be angered by the innocent flirtations, she felt as bristly as a hedgehog and found herself wanting to reach across the table and slap them all silly.

Had Angus been by her side, she might have been able to abide the sloe-eyed glances and smiles and swaying hips with more humor than ire. As it was, each time the girl's bodice gaped, she felt her own breasts chafing against the constraints of her cambric shirt. Each time the wench ran her fingers through her hair and flirted openly with John or the twins, Anne thought of the tremors she had felt in Angus's hands when he'd taken the brush and stroked it through her own hair, the movements slow and sensual, the effect as thrilling as the tiny crackles of static the motion produced. She thought of his body, hard and straining into hers. She remembered the heat of his skin, the warm smell of him, the way his head arched back and his eyes smoldered with pride when she shivered around him time and again and refused to let him go.

Angus had lied for her. He had not exposed her part in the theft to Forbes or Loudoun or Worsham, but what did that mean? What exactly did that mean? If he cared for her enough to put himself in such a precarious position for surely, he would have been arrested and treated to the same prison hospitality as Anne had they caught him in the lie—why had he made it sound, when he was speaking to Forbes and the others, as if she was merely an inconvenience to be tolerated? If he had seen the curtain move in the library, why had he not swept it aside and exposed her then and there? And why... why had he lied about not committing the men of the clan to fight for the English?

“Ye look as if ye've fought a battle already, lass.” MacGillivray's quiet voice came over her shoulder, startling Anne into looking up from the fire. She had moved there when Robbie had started laying pats and pinches on Glenna Mor's bottom and the girl's incessant giggles had begun to shred Anne's last nerve. She was not sure how long she had been staring at the low ripple of flames, but there were snores coming from the family pallet, and more than one figure lay bundled in plaid on the dirt floor.

She was seated on a three-legged stool, and without waiting for an invitation, MacGillivray lowered himself onto the floor beside her, sitting cross-legged, cradling a cup of whisky in his hands.

“'Twas a long day. We started out before dawn, did we not?”

“Aye, that we did, lass. An' we'll start out before dawn on the morrow, too, so ye shouldna be squanderin' what little time ye have to rest by thinkin' on things that have no answer.”

She studied his firelit profile for a moment before frowning. “Ye cannot possibly know what I am thinking, John MacGillivray.”

“No? Then I'll gladly apologize if I'm wrong, but ye've the look of a wife worryin' after her husband.”

She continued to frown until he looked up and grinned gently. “Tis a look we've both seen often enough these past weeks--each time a man kisses his wife an' bairns an' promises he'll be back after we've driven the Sassenachs back to England.”

“Even so, I will accept your apology,” she said archly, turning her gaze back to the fire, “for you are wrong; I was not thinking of Angus at all. He made his choice, I made mine, and we both knew we would have to live with the consequences. In truth, I was thinking my toes and fingers have not been this warm since we left Dunmaglass.”

She was aware that his smile lingered, but since she did not feel like compounding her foolishness by having her bluff called, she did not look his way again.

In the end, he sighed affably and stretched his hands toward the heat. “A worthy pleasure,” he agreed. “For the rest of the body as well.”

She watched his hands as he turned them this way and that, noting the width of the callused palms, the length of the strong, blunt-tipped fingers. Angus's hands were smoother, far more elegant than they were powerful, more comfortable holding a quill than a clai' mór . They were gentle and tentative when they reached for her, and she could not imagine for a moment Angus Moy lifting her against a wall at a public fairground and threatening to take her there and then before God's eyes if she did not give him a kiss.

“Jesus God and all the saints,” she whispered, bowing her head with a small shake, wondering what it would take to rid her mind of such unwanted images.

“Ye have need of a special prayer?” MacGillivray asked.

Unaware she had invoked the heavenly powers aloud, she felt all the more foolish for it and smiled wearily. “An exorcism, perhaps. But ye were right. I should make my bed while I have the chance.”

She started to shift forward, to push herself off the stool, but her legs had become locked in the folded position and refused to budge.

John's grin came back, tempered by a cluck of his tongue. “Did ye not use the unguent I gave ye, lass? It will ease the stiffness out o' yer muscles each night an' let ye ride in comfort in the mornin'.”

“It smells dreadful, like camphor and turpentine and something else I cannot fathom.”

“A virgin's piss gathered fresh in the mornin'.” He laughed when he saw her startled expression, and sprang to his feet so easily she wanted to kick him. Reaching down, he grasped her around the waist, bringing her up slowly, letting her legs straighten with a minimum of pain. It took a full minute or more to ease the cramps, with Anne's hands resting on his chest all the while, her fingers splayed over the solid bulk of muscle beneath. His head was bent forward, bringing the musky scent of smoke and whisky closer than was probably wise at that precise moment, but his next suggestion nearly sent her toppling backward.

“Drop yer trews for me, lass: I'll ease what ails ye in no time.”

Her eyes, blue and huge, locked with his long enough for the smile to fade from his face and his complexion to grow ruddy.

“I meant the salve,” he murmured. “Ye need to rub it in hard for it to work best.”

“I can manage it on my own.”

“Aye, of course ye can.” He lifted one of her arms above her head and snorted when she did not have the strength to hold it there without wincing. “Now get on over to the blanket, drop yer breeks, an' cover whatever ye dinna want me to see.”

Anne glanced around the room to see if anyone was paying attention, but they had kept their voices low enough not to disturb the sleeping forms. She went over to her pallet of blankets and gingerly unfastened the waist of her trews, pushing them down past her hips and sliding them, with difficulty, to her ankles. She was wearing one of Jamie's cambric shirts, the hem of which fell almost to her knees and could be tucked between her legs to spare her more tender parts the worst of the chafing.

MacGillivray scarcely seemed to notice as he fetched the jar of liniment from his saddle pouch and rounded the fire. When she was lying facedown on the blankets, he smeared a healthy dollop in his palms and rubbed them together, warming the oily mess first before he knelt beside her.

His first strokes were gentle, smoothing the slippery concoction into her skin and working it into her thighs and calves. He added more, warming it each time, and just when Anne was on the verge of suspecting the intimate contact had been a bad mistake, he began to knead the muscles with the vigor of a biscuit maker. The rough massaging of his hands combined with the heat of the camphor removed any thoughts of an personal nature and made her curl her hands into the blanket to keep from screaming.

“Ye've not said much about Elizabeth,” Anne said through clenched teeth.

“Ye've not said much about Angus,” he countered.

“You are going to marry her, are ye not?”

MacGillivray's sigh was extravagant. “We have talked about it, aye.”

“Just… talked about it?”

“Aye. I'm a great talker, have ye not noticed?”

Whether she would have pursued the topic or not was cut short on a bitten cry as he lifted the hem of the shirt higher and sent his oily hands sliding all the way up to her shoulders. Her teeth clamped down over her lower lip as the rough kneading searched out every knot and cramp and any protests she made only inspired him to work his fingers and palms harder.

MacGillivray felt her shock when his hands slid up her back, but it was the only way he could think to end the conversation. He did not want to talk about Elizabeth of Clunas, or of his impending marriage, not while his hands were doing what they had ached to do for so many years. The pleasure of feeling her skin all sleek and warm and bared to his touch was so intense, it stirred sensations that had no right to be stirred, aroused needs that had no right to be aroused.

He might well have been half sotted the last time their lips had met, but he remembered all too well how she had tasted, how she had felt, how she made those tiny sounds deep in her throat when he had kissed her. God's truth, he had dreamt of them lying together so many times, he imagined he knew exactly where and how to caress her until she was trembling with the madness of wanting his flesh inside her. And once there … once there, by God, he knew she would be as insatiable as a nymph, rising against him, engulfing him so completely with her own orgasms he would scarcely have need to worry about his own. But he would. He would feel her fl esh sliding over his, feel it squeezing him, working him like little fists, and the climax would be cataclysmic.

Wild Rhuad Annie. How many times had he regretted not taking her that day in the fairground? She had been willing. She had been more than ready. She had kissed him as if her soul had been in her mouth, his for the taking. But he had stopped himself, had slapped himself down, not wanting to risk tarnishing her reputation until they were well and properly married. He had known about the betrothal arrangement pledging her to Angus Moy, but when her fiancé had become the vaunted chief of Clan Chattan and it seemed only logical that the agreement would be nullified, he had felt confident Fearchar would accept him, John Alexander MacGillivray, as a worthy alternative. The day—the very bloody day—before he had decided he could wait no longer to offer for her hand, he was told the wedding to The MacKintosh was to proceed as planned.

The day of Annie's marriage, he had gotten so drunk, it had become necessary for Gilles to tie him down to keep him from tearing Dunmaglass apart plank by plank. He had stayed drunk for a month and sought to ease himself on every whore within ten miles of Inverness.

After four years, the ache was still a living thing in his belly. It could still send tremors through his arms, down his legs; it could send rivers of heated blood flowing into his groin, swelling him to almost unbearable lengths.

He was helping Anne with her aches and pains, but who would help him? Who, for that matter, would stop him if he turned her on her back and plunged himself between her thighs? He could take her and damn them both to hell without a qualm. He had seen her watching him surreptitiously from a window at Dunmaglass, and he had lost count of the number of embarrassed little glances he caught her sending his way ever since. A kiss would silence her. She was vulnerable, aching with a need Angus was not here to satisfy and had been too foolish to see how precious a thing it was.

The tension in John's body became as palpable as the heartbeat thundering within his chest. His hands skimmed downward, slowing when they smoothed around her ribs. His fingertips brushed against the pillowed curve of her breasts and he bowed his head, cursing his own damning weakness.

Angus Moy was his friend as well as his laird. Not only that, but he had come to Dunmaglass the day before he left for Edinburgh and asked John to look out for Anne while he was gone. He had said he knew his wife was too stubborn to stay at home with her needlework, and if she managed to get herself thrown in gaol for spitting on the Lord President, would John mind blowing up the courthouse to break her out?

The irony had almost choked him then, for had her husband come an hour earlier, he could have seen Anne standing there brazen as brass announcing she was going to call out the clan and march to war.

It choked him now when he thought that if he had gone to Fearchar a day earlier, if he had, indeed, stolen more than a kiss that day at the fair, if he had not been so damned arrogant in thinking she was too wild and spirited for anyone else to want to try to tame …what might have happened?

“Ye'll be the sorry death o' me, lass,” he whispered. “Ye ken that, do ye not?”

When there was no answer, he leaned forward and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She was fast asleep and he did not know whether he should feel relieved or disappointed.

He straightened her shirt and drew a bundle of blankets up over her shoulders, tucking her in as gently as he would a child. At the last, he could not resist bending over and pressing a kiss into the gleaming red crown of her hair, for he knew it would be the last time he could risk doing such a thing. He loved her far too much to see her hurting any more than she was now, and to put the horns to her husband would surely tear her apart.

He stoppered the jar of unguent and pushed to his feet, glaring balefully down at the enormous bulge in the front of his kilt. There was little likelihood of his being able to sleep himself this night, he thought grimly, not with his body as tense as a cocked pistol and his mind full of what-ifs and why-nots.

He fished his pipe out of his sporran and tapped a pinch of tobacco into the bowl. While he was lighting it with a taper, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced sharply at the darkened corner where Glenna Mor made her bed. She was there, sitting back on her heels, her eyes large and round and dark in a face framed by a tousle of curls. How long she had been watching them, John did not know, but as he stared at her now, she tipped her head and raised her hands to her bodice, peeling the cheap wool aside to show him that her breasts were ripe and lush, her nipples hard as beads.

Her hands moved again, sliding down into the juncture between her thighs. She seemed to purr and stretch with the sensation and this time, when she tilted her head, she did so in the direction of the door.

John narrowed his eyes against the flare of the taper. Through a thin blue cloud of smoke he watched the girl snatch up her cloak and move toward the door.

Once there, she paused and looked back over her shoulder, smiling an invitation before she slipped outside. With wisps of smoke trailing behind him like a Medusa, John stalked after her, but no sooner had he closed the door behind him when another short, stocky shadow loomed up out of the mist.

“I were just comin' tae fetch ye,” said Gilles MacBean. “We found a camp down by the river. Forty Sassenachs wi' three wagons saggin' wi' what looks like barrels o' grain an' casks o' ale. The men were thinkin' we might have more need o' such things than Thomas Lobster.”

MacGillivray cast around. There were enough campfires blazing to provide a weak, watery kind of light through the fog, and he could see the girl's silhouette paused by a patch of soft green grass a discreet distance from the house.

“Aye,” he said. “Bring the horses. We could use a little diversion.”

Gilles followed his glance and saw the waiting shadow. “I could take the men out maself if ye've more pressin' needs tae tend tae.”

John stuck his pipe in his mouth and clapped a hand around the shorter man's shoulder. “Ye're a good friend, Gilles, but ye've likely just saved me from a fine case o' the pox.”

Gilles grinned. “Dinna tell Robbie that. She wrung him out in the haystack no' an hour ago. He's lyin' there still, drained tae the bone, as weak an' limbless as a bairn, declarin' undyin' love."

“Love,” John snorted. “Almost as bad as the bloody pox. Let's away. It'll be dawn in a few hours, an' ye've given me a taste for fresh bannocks.”