Highlander in Her Bed (6 page)

Eager to see her new home, Mara scanned the crescent-shaped promenade, searched the bustling throng for Malcolm, the driver Percival Combe had assured would meet her. A young man she'd supposedly recognize not only for his great height and fiery red hair, but also for his engaging smile.

A meaner feat than she would have believed, for Oban seemed filled with tall, reddish-haired men. And each one her gaze happened to fall upon grinned back at her! There were the two standing outside a fish-and-chip shop, happily munching their lunch, and the really cute one who'd winked at her before disappearing into a butcher's shop.

Even Oban Bay, with its stunning views of the Inner Hebridean skyline, teemed with them, for she spied a red-haired fisherman industriously working on his boat, and others stood at the rail of the large Caledonian MacBrayne ferry just maneuvering into place at the pier.

Her heart beginning to flutter with nerves and a mounting sense of hilarity, Mara blew her own coppery red bangs off her brow. How, in a maze of smiling, redheaded men, was she supposed to find just one?

Half afraid they might all be Malcolms as well, she tightened her grip on Ben's leash and started down the pavement. But before she could decide where to search for her Malcolm, someone plucked her carry-on bag off her shoulder.

"Hey!" She swung around, ready to give chase, but stopped short when she saw the culprit.

He stood not a pace away, six foot four inches of beaming exuberance, not a day past twenty, and with a shock of the brightest red hair she'd ever seen.

Her Malcolm.

Mara smiled, extended her hand. "You must be—"

"Malcolm." His smile deepened to reveal a dimple in his left cheek. "That's myself, true as I'm here."

He reached to take her hand, but before he could, Ben shuffled forward and thrust his head between them to nose the young man's pockets.

"Ben! Sto—"

"Ach, never you mind, Mara McDougall." Malcolm laughed and reached down to scratch behind the collie's ears. "He'll only be a-smelling the mackerel I had in the car boot," he explained in a butter-smooth burr. "Had 'em in just this morning and brought 'em along for selling at one or two of the hotels."

"Mackerel?" Mara blinked, not sure she'd heard him correctly.

But apparently she had, for his dimpled smile spread into a full-fledged grin. "Fetched a fine price, they did," he told her, glowing with satisfaction. "My mum's fresh-made butter, too."

Mara looked at him in amazement, his soft, musical voice reminding her of
another
deep Scottish accent she'd heard not so long ago. One that, unlike this young man's, had not flowed with friendly Highland sibilancy but thrummed with barely restrained animosity.

But mackerel and fresh-made butter?

Mara glanced aside, at the busy little bay with its sun shadows and silver-flecked water, the young man's words and his gently lilting voice painting funny images in her head and, oddly enough, making her heart do silly little flip-flops.

For one crazy moment she imagined a small white croft house, low and thatched, with a plume of peat smoke rising from its single squat chimney. A rosy-cheeked woman sitting beside the hearth, a butter churn gripped between her knees as she furiously worked the plunger up and down.

Scenes from another world, her father would have enthused with a dreamy smile. A forgotten simplicity sadly set aside in favor of today's hectic lifestyle.

Celtic whimsy, she called it, catching herself before she, too, succumbed to Brigadoon fever.

"How did you know who I am?" She sought neutral ground, a safe place far from such foolish notions and how they could set a vulnerable heart to thinking.

Dreaming.

"I could have been anyone," she persisted, nodding at a young woman leaning against the harbor rail not far from where they stood, an overstuffed rucksack at her feet. "Her, for instance."

Malcolm's eyes lit with merriment. "Not a chance, Mara McDougall." He dismissed the possibility with a toss of his bright head. "That one doesn't have the look, see you?"

"The look?" Mara swallowed. "I don't think I know what you mean."

"Och, nay?" Malcolm peered at her, his expression saying so much more than the two oh-so-Scottish-sounding words. "I mean the look I saw on you when you gazed out over the pier, out toward the isles."

Mara's face heated. "So?"

"So?" Malcolm the Red lifted a brow. "You belong here, Mara McDougall," he said simply, his wonderful burr daring her to claim otherwise.

And, heaven help her, but her mouth suddenly felt way too dry, her tongue too clumsy, for her to form even the weakest denial.

Not as foolish as she felt standing on the pavement looking at him with a dumbstruck stare.

Ben suffered no such inhibitions. Still snuffling around the Highlander's legs, the dog used a tongue-lolling grin and a few energetic tail swipes to convey his enthusiasm.

Malcolm smiled, too, and produced something edible from a pocket, much to Ben's tail-thumping delight.

"Aye, it's
the pull
that came o'er you when you looked at the Hebrides just now," he told her, something in his eyes as he said the words making her almost believe it. "No true Scot, no matter where he was born, can come here and not feel it."

And she did feel it.

Or felt
something
.

Something indefinable and just a tiny bit… daunting.

An uncomfortable awareness that things she'd cringed at in her father's plaid-hung, thistle-bordered house, like the doorbell playing "Scotland the Brave," didn't seem so outlandish here in this little Highland town with its scores of soft-voiced, red-haired men and the surrounding hills rising so clear against a blue summer sky.

The young Highlander was watching her again, and closely, but before she could open her mouth to speak, he flashed another of his full-of-charm smiles and picked up her suitcase, hefting it easily under his arm.

"Come, I'm after getting you out to Ravenscraig. They'll have a nice fire waiting on you, and tea," he promised, already heading for a small car parked a distance down the curb.

"There's something you should know," he announced a short while later as they turned north onto the coastal road. "The good folk at Ravenscraig might seem a bit—"

"A bit what?" Mara snapped to attention, shot him a quick, wary glance.

She'd been staring out the window at the ghostly wisps of mist drifting down the sides of the hills and thinking about sitting in a comfortable wingback chair before a crackling fire in the hall, sipping a good lager or stout, Ben curled on a rug at her feet.

Maybe even a tartan rug.

But the thought failed to bring the chuckle it would have any other time, for something about the young Highlander's tone gave her the distinct impression that he'd been about to say the people at Ravenscraig were…
odd
.

Suppressing a shiver, she gave him her most encouraging smile, but the moment had passed and he didn't seem willing to divulge more, his concentration now focused on the winding thread of road and the numerous lambs and their mothers who seemed determined to stray onto the asphalt.

Mara resisted the urge to question him, choosing instead to smooth the wrinkles in her skirt. Feeling better already, she pushed her hair back over her shoulder and returned her attention to the mist-hung hills.

As anyone from Philadelphia would know, there was much to be said for curbing one's curiosity.

Suicidal sheep and a castle staff that were a bit
something
, indeed.

Besides, whatever oddities might await her at Ravenscraig, she had the feeling she'd soon discover them.

Whether she wanted to or not.

Ravenscraig Castle.

Alex ground his teeth on the name, half surprised his glowers didn't singe the bloody walls. Truth be told, he found himself with a fearsome urge to do more than scorch the wretched castle's stonework. Much more, as his rising gorge and the tightened muscles in his jaw indicated.

He began pacing, his hands curled into hard fists. That his bed should find its way to the very lair of his enemies was more than even his benighted soul should have to bear.

His bed landing in a chamber assigned to
her
, a fouler fate than he deserved.

Dangerous, too, because just the thought of her, of how his gaze had traveled over her sleeping nakedness, delving her every fragrant secret and, saints preserve him, finding himself
bestirred
by her, was enough to curdle his wits.

Besides, he'd suffered trials enough when the bed had rested, dismantled and forgotten, in a dank room in one of Edinburgh's stinking tenements. Saints, he'd lost count of the centuries he'd spent in that hellhole.

Just remembering sent a shiver through him.

And what blessed relief it'd been to awaken and find himself in airier surrounds not too long ago.

Even if Dimbleby's had been on English soil.

At least the occasional shaft of sunlight had seeped in through the grimed windows. And the visitors who'd sometimes ooh and aah over his bed had proved far more agreeable time passers than the gutter rats and damp he'd shared his days with in Edinburgh.

But
this
—he seized a fistful of one of the silk wall tapestries and shook it—landing here, was insult enough to vex a saint.

A vile deed calling for immediate retaliation, and he knew exactly who would be the recipient of his wrath. He clutched the tapestry, the urge to wield the cutting edge of his blade on its exquisite threads nigh overwhelming him.

Indeed, he was so sorely tempted, his fingers itched!

He'd known the witch-woman lusted after his bed, but he hadn't expected her to taunt him by having it returned to the scene of his betrayal.

But she had, and just thinking about her perfidy made his ears burn and his hand reach for his dirk.

He harrumphed just as quickly, though, and thrust the jeweled blade back under his belt. Keeping his wits had seen him through many troublous times, and any knight worth his spurs knew hotheadedness was naught but a quick path to misery. So he quashed his vexation and resumed his pacing, a slow smile curving his lips.

A wicked smile, tempered with a small measure of satisfaction.

After all, the long wait for her arrival had afforded him ample time to devise numerous and delightful ways to spoil her pleasure in his bed.

Soon she would be there.

He could smell her.

She had the scent of infidel whores about her. A dark and heady musk designed to make a man believe he could feel the heat of her body even from across a room.

Not that it mattered. She could bathe in the bewitching scent for all he cared—its seductive powers would prove useless on him.

He would remain unaffected, stronger than he'd been in London. No thoughts about lush, warm curves or soft, hot breath whispering across naked skin would cross his mind.

Raising his arms above his head, Alex set his jaw and cracked his knuckles, readying himself.

Aye, her arrival was imminent.

And the moment night fell and she sought the comforts of his bed, he would treat her to an appropriate welcome.

One she'd not forget for the rest of her days.

CEUD MILE FAILTE!

"A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!" proclaimed a large banner stretched across the entrance to Ravenscraig's gatehouse. A warm-hearted Gaelic hello, fastened with a flourish to the raised portcullis, its unexpected appearance making Mara's breath catch and her heart thunder.

She stared at the sign, surprise and delight whirling inside her. A giddy blend of emotions promptly followed by a hot rush of self-consciousness when Malcolm gave her a quick, audacious wink and slowed the car to a snail's pace.

Not that she would have missed the flapping streamer.

Indeed, with its bright blue lettering, each word at least a foot tall, the thing quite caught her eye. And the closer they came to it, the huge block letters staring right at her, the more difficult she found it to breathe.

Speaking was out of the question.

"They've been in fine fettle about your arrival for days," Malcolm declared, saving her the trouble as they passed beneath the banner and through the tunnel-like interior of the gatehouse. "True as I breathe, they'll be gathered in front of the castle, waiting."

Mara swallowed, the image only increasing the fluttering in her stomach. "But how—"

"How will they ken we're almost there? Ah, well, I could say they've been waiting since daylight, but, truth is, every croft we've passed will have rung up to report our progress." He slid a glance at her. "Did you know this is the first time the lady of the castle has been at Ravenscraig in over twenty years?"

Mara's jaw slipped. "Lady Warfield didn't visit?"

Malcolm shook his head. "Never came back save once or twice after she married. Lord Warfield didn't much care for Scotland. Folk say he fussed he could ne'er get warm, and that he despised the mist."

But Mara scarce heard him, for they'd left the deepest part of the wood, and Ravenscraig Castle was coming into view through the trees.

Tall, parapeted, and more impressive than any likeness she'd ever seen, her ancestral home stood on the far side of a wide, emerald green lawn, and its appearance presupposed everything she'd ever heard about the romance of medieval Scotland.

More startling still, the castle seemed perched on the edge of the world, the lawn ending abruptly behind, with nothing beyond but a huge swath of endless blue sky.

"Oh-my-gosh," Mara gasped, staring.

Malcolm chuckled. "A bonnie sight, no?"

She glanced at him, a ridiculous sense of unreality snaking round her ribs and squeezing so tight, she wondered her heart still had room to beat. She certainly couldn't find words.

A nod was the best she could do.

Her father would have been much more eloquent, his eyes growing as round as saucers, and just imagining his eye-popping delight sent a flood of bittersweet warmth to join the constriction in her chest.