Highlander Mine (8 page)

Again he paused and I found myself disconcertingly drawn to him, for his patient diplomacy, his princely beauty, his sharp perceptiveness. If I hadn’t had cause to reasonably avoid all involvement with him for both our sakes, I might have described this surge of emotion in stronger terms. I might have admitted that I was in fact
besotted
with Knox Mackenzie already. Or at least the
idea
of him. Of this heady combination of his glaring beauty, his righteous protection and the true north of his moral compass.

“One honest word is all I ask,” he continued. “Can you give me that much?” His voice was ridiculously soothing, penetrative somehow, as though he had the power to peel back my defenses with just the velvety tones of a well-placed request.

“Aye,” I said. I could give him that much. I could at least
try
to give him that much.

His steely voice matched his eyes. “Do these bandits truly exist? Were you truthfully attacked by masked murderers less than a day’s ride from my clan and family’s keep?”

I was watching Knox Mackenzie’s mouth as he spoke, mesmerized by the perfection of it. And I had never wanted anything so much as I wanted to touch those lips at that moment. To taste him. To somehow connect with him in not only a physical way but a meaningful one.

“Nay,” I whispered, transfixed.

And there it was. To my surprise, the contemplative pout of his lips curled into the very beginnings of a subdued smile. It faded almost instantly into a look of chiding approval. “See?” he said. “That wasn’t so very difficult, now, was it?”

I didn’t respond, looking down once again at my clenched hands. If I was glad I had, as he’d so eloquently pointed out, spared his men and his clan some undue danger and worry, the feeling quickly faded as the realization of my failure shone through. He’d tricked me
again!
With his beguiling, captivating charm, I was like putty in his hands! This simply wouldn’t do. I needed to focus on my task, and
not
turn feeble and love struck at the first blink of his ridiculously long, dark lashes or the expression of fascination on his exalted face. Or the way his teeth bit gently into his sensual bottom lip as he waited for my answer. He’d combined these lures with a generous dose of well-timed and stealthily administered ale. And his tricks had worked!

Now I’d ruined our carefully constructed story. I’d doomed us even further. Hamish would be summoned before I could speak to him alone. Our stories wouldn’t match. We’d be thrown out, to make our way on foot to the next tavern or the next town to find work, if we could, or to steal or gamble or starve. Once again we’d be on the run and unprotected from the wily and deadly men who were at this very moment—I had no doubt—scouring every inch of Edinburgh for our trail.

Damn this
Laird
Knox Mackenzie. He was clever indeed. He’d outwitted me with his crafty sincerity, finding my weaknesses with barely any effort at all. I would need to be smarter than this if I was going to keep my nephew out of harm’s way. It was true that I didn’t want to lie to Knox Mackenzie. But I remembered why I
must
lie to him.

And so I backtracked. I sat up straight and looked him in the eye defiantly. “What I
meant
to say, Laird Mackenzie, is that I don’t know. I couldn’t see clearly. It was Hamish who saw them enough to describe them. I was overcome, you see, and I wouldn’t want to retell the events unless I was absolutely certain of all the finer details.”

“My guard informed me that you were somewhat elaborate in your description about your ordeal to him. In a tavern not far from here.”

Damn that Lachlan! He’d recounted every minuscule crumb of our encounter with the Mackenzies in that blasted tavern.

I was flustered. I wanted to stand up, to gain distance from Knox Mackenzie. His closeness softened something in me. I wanted to go to the open window, to get some fresh air and to clear my head. As I stood, my shawl, which I had not fastened, slipped off my shoulders and onto the floor.

I leaned down to retrieve it, but he was quicker. He reached to pick it up with his hand. Then he rose toward me. We were both half-crouched, our faces close. Leaning forward as I was, without any covering but my low-cut dress, my breasts were very nearly escaping the confines of my too-tight bodice. My lush, creamy curves were in fact quite close to...his mouth. His sinfully beautiful, scornful mouth. His full lips were parted and he was so close I could feel the warm puffs of his breath on my skin. These light, sultry gusts were hypnotizingly rife with influence. His exhaling impressions seemed to seep into me like small, liquid darts of sensation. Where his air touched me, I became warm and somehow assuaged. My breasts became heavy and tender, their tips tightening into taut, wishful buds.
He could so easily release me, touch me, take my nipples into that surly, decadent mouth.
The thought only inflamed me more. Crouched as I was, with my knees slightly apart, the place between my legs became alarmingly responsive. I had never, ever felt anything like this. Some hidden craving within me was waking up: that’s how it felt. An untamed, fledgling sprout of my womanliness had just taken root.
Right there.
We were frozen in place and his eyes were sparked with...something. Some simmering emotion I could not name. Something volatile and outrageously alluring.

What was happening to me?

I felt my pulse in that hidden place, and a quickening, damp heat that ruffled my composure enough to break the trance he held me in. Grasping for the tiniest thread of sanity, I rose in one quick movement and turned away from him. I faced the window and took a deep intake of the fresh breeze, and felt the tiniest bit better for it.

He was behind me. He draped the shawl around my shoulders. I clutched it together in the front in a vain attempt to shield and contain my blossoming desire. I needed to rein myself in, to nip this covetous yearning for Knox Mackenzie in the bud. He was not only a laird, noble to his bones and powerful beyond belief, but possibly at least ten years older than me. Maybe more.

I was a poor, indebted troublemaker who was more at home on the seedy city backstreets than in these fine, rich environs of the privileged. I assured myself that
that
was the reason I was having lustful thoughts of Laird Mackenzie: his wealth and the security he offered. It was impulsive, this desire, not rational. I was responding to his position and his lifestyle.

And his total, upright, virile glory. Damn him!

I couldn’t even turn to him. I didn’t want to see his face or the solid, sculpted outline of his shoulders. If I did, I feared I would do something wildly inappropriate. Like reach for those strong warrior’s hands. Or beg him to put that pouting mouth on my...
on me. On that secret, flowering place.

Oh, God.

I thought he might be angry, for my unhelpful reply and my muddled vagueness. But his reply was not angry. It was lenient and textured, as though he was reading my barely concealed turbulent response and attempting to calm it. “I can help you,” he said.

I let that lofty, useless offer have its way with me. For a moment, I pretended it was true. I imagined him storming into Edinburgh with his army of honorable muscle-bound heroes, rescuing my sister, spearing Fawkes and his thugs and riding off into the sunset, but not before he swooped me into his arms, snuck me into a quiet stable and kissed me everywhere.

Nay. Do not think it. Do not act on it. Be calm and quiet and proper.

Neither of us spoke for a time.

I was glad of this, veering my concentration to the sweet song of a bird and the rosy glow of a distant apple. Then, to my intense surprise, Knox Mackenzie remarked softly, “Your hair is very...unusual. Colorful and wild. It suits you.”

This did nothing to help me in my attempts to remain guarded and serene.

He might have been insulting me in a roundabout way. My hair was unruly, it was true. The golden-red curls could never quite be coerced into any real semblance of order. But his comment didn’t sound like an insult. It sounded like...something else.

I turned to him. Rapt, even though I made an effort not to be, I looked up at his face.

Oh, bloody hell.
He was staggering me again with that manly spark and that proud, brooding pout.

“And yours suits you,” I found myself whispering. “I—I like it.” It was an inane reply, possibly. But it was, at least, the truth. I did like his hair. I liked the way it fell in different lengths to frame his face in a wholly masculine mane. I liked the slight curl to it and the deepest, darkest blackness of it. I liked how he wore it somewhat shorter than the other warriors I’d met, still longer than the men’s styles I was used to. I liked the small braid that was somehow exotic, fastened as it was with a small golden band. I liked how his hair was shiny and caught the sunlight in tints of blue. There was much
too
much to like, in fact, about Knox Mackenzie’s hair. And everything else about him.

I noticed then that his gold chain hung partially outside his shirt, displaced when he’d leaned to pick up my shawl. I could see that a gold ring hung from it. In an unthinking, curious move, I touched the ring, gently pulling the chain out so it was fully revealed. He made no move to stop me, but he went very still.

“What’s this ring?” I asked.

It was a moment before he spoke and there was a raw, rough edge to his voice when he said, “It was my wife’s ring.”

His wife. The words were heavy, as though edged in sadness. The steeped, somber tone of this single sentence left no doubt as to what had happened to her. She had somehow been taken from him, wrenchingly, leaving a black hole in her wake.

I held the ring between two fingers. It was a beautiful ring, solid and thick, artfully rounded. It felt warm. Knox’s eyes were cast down, not focused on anything, clouded by memories and regret.

“This is her wedding ring,” I said softly.

“Aye.” I was taken aback by the edge of anger, not directed at me but at some unknowable force that had stolen her. “She died in childbirth with our son. I lost them both.”

Such a simple explanation, yet one that echoed with profound, devastating loss. And there was that pronounced thread of vulnerability in him.
This
was the pain that cut him deep and shone through even the hard shell of his war-fired demeanor.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It was several years ago. More than two years ago,” he said, and I was struck by his quiet openness. “I can’t bring them back, so I must move forward, according to my brothers. ’Tis time to move on.”

“Nay,” I responded gently. “You won’t ever truly move on. We can’t move on from losing the people we love. They stay with us forevermore. They become a part of who we are.”

He watched my face. He might have thought I was speaking of my parents and I was. But I was also thinking of my sister, whose fate I did not know. I prayed for her safety and I felt a burrowing connection with Knox Mackenzie. “Aye,” was all he said.

“Your brothers,” I said. “They are here at Kinloch? In your army?”

“Nay, no longer. They have both married and taken up lairdships of their own. Just recently, in fact.”

Here was another stratum of sadness in him: he missed them.

It was a lot to carry around, I thought. Heartbreak, loss, separate and deep layers of loneliness. He was a formidable laird and nobleman. He was king of his kingdom, and what a kingdom it was. But there were large holes in the happiness such a position might have provided.

The urge was remarkably strong: I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to ease those aches and, oddly, I had the distinct feeling that I could.

It might have been the ale that obliterated my good sense and my propriety—neither of which, it had to be said, were overly developed in my character. Or it might have been his influence in all its complex subtleties: the outlandish draw, the vulnerable edges. I was still grasping his chain in my hand. I curled my fingers around it and pulled very, very lightly, drawing him closer to me. He followed my lead, his eyes a striking contrast of light and darkness, until his face was close to mine. His close presence trickled into my body from where his breath touched my face, leaching through me in a red-hot stain of fervor.

In a daring move that I could not have held back even if I’d wanted to, I reached up to finger a longer strand of his black hair. It felt thick and satiny to the touch, like coarse silk. This was a man who had been blessed in all manner of physical flawlessness, aye, and not only that. He was privileged, rich beyond belief, well bred and practically glowing with power. But he was scarred. And it was that fissure of vulnerability in him that drew me to him more than anything else.
That
was the part of him I could relate to.

It was the part of him I could touch.

In every other regard, he was so loftily endowed I’ll admit it was somewhat intimidating—and I wasn’t a person easily intimidated. But this secret sensitivity in him seemed to put us on suddenly level ground.

He was watching my face—my mouth—with a look of complete absorption. My closeness had somehow peeled away the layers of his utter authority to reveal a demeanor that was no less beautiful and no less dominating, but vastly more
approachable.

I wanted to do much more than approach Knox Mackenzie. I wanted to immerse myself in him. To drink him in. I loved this
choice
I was being given, the freedom of it. There was no force involved, nor imbalance. The equality of our unexpected, tumultuous attraction was irresistibly empowering.

And he was getting closer. It wasn’t just the light pulling pressure of my grip on his chain that drew him to me. He was leaning in. His lips were close to mine. And he was waiting for me. I could see the light challenge in his eyes. The beguiled, confrontational glimmer. He was daring me to kiss him. Daring me to make this outlandish move that we both knew was miles out of my depths, and possibly his. I returned the challenge, daring
him.
Let
him
be the one to fall, to succumb.