As High as the Heavens (5 page)

"I don't care if Duncan Mackenzie spares me a look
or not," she muttered. "I haven't come here to please his
eye or win his heart. I wish but to teach him what he
needs to know and then be rid of him."

"Yet why not use all yer fine attributes, be they of the
mind or body, to yer advantage?" Beth persisted, opening
Heather's bedchamber door and stepping aside to allow
her to enter. "I'd say, men being men and Highlanders
being more men than some, the day might well be won
more because ye're a lovely piece of woman flesh than because of some appeal to his fine sense of justice or
love of learning."

"Would ye now?"

Heather flounced over to the blazing hearth fire and
bent to warm her hands. By mountain and sea, she
thought with a shiver, but it was even colder in the Highlands than in the Grampians. Was there nothing about
this frosty, gray land to recommend it?

"When one wishes to win, one uses every weapon at
one's command." Beth shut the door and walked over to
her. "Isn't this but a battle of sorts, before the final skirmish against the walls of Lochleven? And isn't the price
worth it, if it results in the rescue of Queen Mary?"

"Aye."

Heather's shoulders slumped, and she flung herself
into a tall, oak chair. She leaned back, gripped the wellworn arms, and expelled a frustrated breath.

"I just don't like being the bait used to lure this man to
a fate he has no way of fully choosing. I'd much prefer to
face him in all honesty and fairness, and ..." Her voice
faded. "Och, I don't know what I really want to do," she
finally cried. "I just don't feel right about this!"

"Yet there's no other way, is there, lassie?" Beth supplied softly, moving to stand beside her. "Not and be true
to yer father and his cause?"

"Nay, no other way." Heather sighed. "And I must be
strong in this, for he depends-"

A knock sounded. The two women exchanged glances,
then Beth walked to the door and opened it. Robert
Gordon stood there, a frown on his face.

"Come, come, lass." He motioned for Heather to join him. "The man we've ridden all this way to meet has arrived. Naught will be served with ye hiding in yer room.
Ye must greet him sooner or later and, to my mind, the
sooner the better."

Heather rose, smoothed the wrinkles from her blue,
high-necked, and pearl-studded satin gown, straightened
the long rope of pearls encircling her neck, and made
her way to him. Forcing a bright smile onto her face,
she followed her father out the door and back down the
corridor.

"I but thought to give the man a time to rest and refresh himself, before forcing my company on him. Oftentimes, to appear overeager isn't the best strategy."

"True enough," her father admitted. "But while ye
linger in yer room, Angus's daughter has lost no time welcoming the Highlander and seeing to his needs. Before
he squanders all his time and attention on her, I want to
dangle the true prize before him." Robert Gordon smiled
down at his daughter. "It'll sweeten the pot, so to speak,
when I present our plan to him."

Unaccountably, resentment swelled in Heather. Need
her father be so blatant in his use of her physical charms
to manipulate and tempt Duncan Mackenzie? Maiden
though she was, she wasn't unaware of the power of
women over men. She was also aware that many men
found her attractive. Physical beauty, however, was
frequently more a detriment than an advantage if one
wished ever to be respected and valued for one's mind.

But her father, Heather also knew, didn't desire yet
another philosophical discourse, leastwise not at a time
such as this. He wanted action and results. In the end, it was probably also the best course with the likes of a
man such as Duncan Mackenzie, and well her father
knew it.

Subtlety and the finer points of the philosophers would
make little impression on the Highlander. He was, after
all, little more than a savage. An attractive woman would
have a much more immediate and forceful impact. Yet
Heather also wondered how she'd deal with the consequences of such a game, especially once her father was
gone and she was forced into frequent and close contact
with this simple, primal man.

Thankfully, she had at least the safety of her uncle's
intimidating presence and the formidable shelter of his
tower house to protect her. After all, Angus was this Duncan Mackenzie's laird. Surely that, if nothing else, would
compel him to maintain some semblance of manners.

"What exactly do ye wish of me, Father?" Heather
forced herself to ask.

"Whatever ye think proper, lass. I don't want ye compromising yerself. That was never my intent. But I also
know how susceptible I was as a young man to the influence of a beautiful woman, and I wager this young
Highlander will be the same." Robert Gordon halted
before a door near the winding stone turnpike stairway
that pierced the southwest corner of the big, L-shaped
tower house. "Just go in and offer Janet yer assistance.
Yer presence and pretense of hospitable concern, if I'm
not too far off the mark, will be all that's needed."

"As ye wish, Father."

She knocked on the door. A male voice, muffled by the
thick wood and stone walls, answered, beckoning her in. For an instant, Heather almost imagined the voice had
an urgent, pleading quality to it, then decided she was
mistaken. She pulled down on the door handle, paused
to shoot her father a determined smile, then opened the
door and walked in.

The sight that greeted her as she turned from closing the door behind her took her breath away. A tall,
mud-spattered man, nearly naked save for his knee-high
leather cuarans and the sodden plaid he fought to hold
to him, stood in the middle of the bedchamber beside
a steaming, wooden tub of water. Before him, her back
turned to Heather, was Janet, pulling on the other end
of the plaid just as determinedly as the man strove to
retain it. Off to one side by a kettle of water simmering
over a roaring hearth fire was a young maidservant, a
grin on her face and an avid look in her eyes.

At Heather's soft gasp, Duncan Mackenzie jerked his
glaring gaze from Janet. A pair of striking green eyes,
topped by straight, dark brows, locked with hers. Janet's
earlier description of Duncan Mackenzie as the "finest
piece of man flesh," Heather decided as her glance swung
from his head to toe and back up again, was the most
inapt and imprecise use of the language that ever was.

As well-built and attractive as his brother Colin had
been, this Highlander, in many subtle and not so subtle
ways, put his sibling to shame. His proud, strong forehead was crowned with a lush, wild mane of damp, deep
chestnut brown hair. Though a day or two's growth of
dark beard shadowed his ruggedly arrogant, chiseled
jaw and the line above his firm, sensually molded lips,
the fine, high-bred features nonetheless all but shouted out his breeding. His face was unmarred, perfect in a
manly sort of way, save for his nose, which was straight
but for a slight lump over the bridge, and a short, ragged
scar beneath his left eye that curved down onto his high
cheekbone.

It was his eyes, though, that pulled Heather back again
and again. Somehow, they seemed greener, sharper, and
more assessing than Colin's had ever been. They held
hers captive with a virile, unflinching directness she
found disconcerting. This wasn't a man easily led or
intimidated, Heather realized with a tiny, foreboding
shudder. And not a man easily swayed from whatever
prize he sought, either.

After what seemed an interminable length of time, but
was likely no more than a few seconds, Heather broke
eye contact, finding surcease from his intensely personal
perusal by moving her glance down his body. As compelling as his face was, the muscled swell of his neck and
shoulders effortlessly drew Heather's gaze downward,
past a generous tangle of dark, dense chest hair and bulging pectorals to a most impressive set of lightly furred,
rippling belly muscles that quickly disappeared beneath
two strong, long-fingered hands clenching a generous
wad of plaid.

Heather forced her gaze upward, back to his.

There, in the gleaming jade green depths, she easily
discerned his recognition of what, at least to him, must
appear an unseemly feminine interest. At the realization,
coupled with his almost feral, masculine regard, Heather
flushed. This wasn't quite the scenario or reaction she'd had in mind, not from him, and most definitely not from
herself.

"Er, Janet," she forced out the words past a strangely
dry throat, "my father thought ye might be needing a
bit of help with yer guest. Is there aught I can do to assist ye?"

At the sound of Heather's voice the girl gave a strangled squawk, relinquished her hold on the Highlander's
plaid, and wheeled to face her. "I-I don't think so," she
stammered, her glance darting nervously about as if she
were a child who had been caught with her hand in the
honey pot. "I was just helping Duncan with his plaid
before he stepped into his bath. He was filthy, soaked to
the skin, and shivering so badly his teeth clacked when
he arrived. I thought it best immediately to get him into
a hot bath."

She turned back to Duncan and held out her hand.
"Now, give me yer plaid like a good lad, and step into
the bath before ye catch yer death."

Duncan's gaze swung from Janet's to Heather's. The
merest hint of a smile touched his mouth.

"Nay, lass. Even a Highlander has his modesty."

"Och, Duncan," Janet tittered shrilly, "ye're a bold one,
and no mistake. But ye don't fool me with yer saucy
words, and ye'll not sway a fine lady such as my cousin,
either. She's a noblewoman, born and bred, and isn't impressed with an uncouth Highlander such as yerself."

"Indeed?" He cocked a dark brow. "A fine lady, is she
now? Well, I may be uncouth, but I well know what that
gleam in her eye, as she ran her gaze down my body, meant. And I'd wager what she was thinking was as
uncouth as any man's."

At his shocking audacity, Heather's eyes narrowed
in anger. Before she could open her mouth to deliver a
stinging retort, however, Janet clucked her tongue.

"For shame, Duncan," she chided. "Ye're a brazen
one-though with good reason, seeing how all the lasses
sigh after ye-but this is the Lady Heather Gordon of
Dunscroft Castle, daughter of Lord Robert Gordon and
my dear, departed aunt Margery Mackenzie, who was my
father's sister. Ye must offer yer apologies, and quickly
now, or risk offending my cousin."

"Must I now, even for speaking the truth of it?"

"Aye, ye must."

His even, white teeth flashed in a lazy grin. Then with
an elegant bow and sweep of the hand not still holding
his plaid in place, Duncan bowed.

"If I mistook the situation, my lady, I beg yer forgiveness. And if I didn't . . ." He straightened, lifting his
massive shoulders in a mocking shrug.

Disgusting, rutting stag, Heather thought. Well, he'd
not unsettle her, even if his apology had hardly been any
apology at all.

"Yer guest is correct in supposing neither of us wishes
to view his manly attributes. Come, Janet. Grant him
his privacy. The promises men make are usually far, far
grander than what they ever are in reality."

Duncan threw back his head and gave a shout of laughter. "Aye, get on wi' ye, Janet. It's as the Lady Gordon
says, leastwise in all cases but mine. Indeed, she must know, to speak so knowledgeably. And ye've been raised
to respect yer elders."

Janet glanced uncertainly from Heather to Duncan.
"Aye, that I have," she mumbled. "But, at nineteen, she
really isn't all that older than me, Duncan. And she isn't
wed, so I can't fathom why ye'd think she's-"

"Enough, Janet." Heather held out her hand to her
cousin, who quickly joined her. "It doesn't matter what
he does or doesn't think. Time enough to talk with him
later. In the meanwhile, yer maid can see to his needs."
She shot Duncan a final, scathing look before turning
and leading Janet away. "Not that any amount of soap,
water, and clean clothes will make him more than he
ever was.

"And what is that, sweet lass?" came a deep voice behind her, rumbling with barely contained laughter.

"What else?" Heather retorted, at the end of her patience. "An oafish clod with naught more than whey for
brains!"

Heather had never been so angry in her life. The unmitigated gall, the presumption of the man to speak as he
did to me! she raged as she strode with Janet down the
broad turnpike stairs leading to the first floor library
and main Hall. She had suspected Duncan Mackenzie
would be rough about the edges, perhaps even noticeably lacking in proper manners, but never that he'd act
so arrogantly toward his betters. And though in truth
he was her equal, he didn't know that. His rudeness, in
light of the current situation, was inexcusable-even
for a Highlander!

Her father must be informed immediately. It would
most likely change everything. It was one thing to tolerate the presence of an ignorant, simply raised man. It
was quite another to endure such a bold, ill-mannered
one.