Kiss of the Highlander (36 page)

She’d fed him slices of roast pig, then given him small drinks of wine from her own lips. And when he’d whispered to her the same base, primitive words back that she’d said to him their first night together in the stones, untamed lust had consumed them both.

They’d rolled across the bed and tumbled to the floor, knocking over tables and candles and setting fire to the lambskin rug. They’d laughed and Drustan had doused it with the cooling bathwater.

And when she finally slept—spooned, her back to his front—with Drustan’s arms around her, her last thought was
heaven
. She’d found heaven in the Highlands of Scotland.

         
24
         
 

“Mmm.”
Gwen sighed contentedly. She’d been
having a marvelous dream in which Drustan was waking her by making love to her. Dimly, the realization penetrated—at the same moment he did—that it was no dream.

She gasped as, still spooned, he slipped into her from behind.

“Oh, God,” she breathed as he increased the tempo. Deeper, harder, faster. He thrust into her, his arms wrapped tightly around her, and nipped the skin at the base of her neck. When he rolled her nipples between his fingers, she arched back against him, meeting his every thrust until they peaked in perfect harmony.

“Gwen, my love,” he whispered.

When, later, he’d gone to fetch breakfast, intent on serving her in bed, she lay back, a silly smile plastered on her face.

Life was
so
good.

Whistling a cheery tune, Drustan balanced a tray laden with kippers and plump sausages, tatties and clootie dumplings, peaches and porridge, on his arm as he fumbled with the door. All had been prepared by Nell herself, all tasted by Robert.

Despite the fact that the threat loomed some distance yet in the future, he was taking no chances with his wife.

“Sustenance is here, and you’re going to need it, love,” he announced, pushing the door open.

The velvet bedcurtains were tied back, revealing a tangle of coverlets and linens, but the bed was empty. He glanced about the room, puzzled. He’d been gone a scant half hour, gathering food. Where had she gone? A quick visit to the garderobe? He had a delicious morning planned: a leisurely breakfast, a leisurely bath for his wife, who must be aching from so much bed play. More lovemaking only if she was able, if not, he would massage scented oils into her skin and gently minister to her tender limbs.

A chill of foreboding kissed his spine as he eyed the empty bed. Dropping the tray on a table near the door, he walked swiftly through the boudoir and into the Silver Chamber.

She wasn’t there.

He pivoted and stalked back to his chamber.

Only then did he see the parchment propped on the table near the fire. His hands shook as he snatched it up and read it.

Come to the clearing by the wee loch if ye value her life. Alone, or the lass dies.

“Nay!” he roared, crushing the parchment in his fist.
’Tis too soon
, his mind protested. He wasn’t supposed to be enchanted for nearly a fortnight! He hadn’t even given the guards instructions to triple the watches and scour the countryside!

“By Amergin,” he whispered hoarsely, “we’ve changed things somehow.” By preventing Dageus’s death, they must have altered the way subsequent events would unfold. His mind raced furiously. Who was behind it all? It made no sense to him. And what might the enemy want with Gwen?

“To get to
me
,” he muttered grimly. They hadn’t drugged him this time. Rather—because Gwen was there—she’d been used as bait.

Frantically, he crammed his feet into his boots and grabbed his leather bands, strapping them on. In the Greathall, he stuffed blade after blade into the slits as he raced to the garrison.

Alone, my arse,
he thought.

I’ll walk in alone, while my men sneak up behind them and destroy every last one of the bastards who took my woman.

Besseta cowered behind the lofty oak, watching the gypsies prepare to work the spell she’d commissioned. They’d painted a large crimson circle upon the ground. Runes she did not recognize marked the perimeter—dark gypsy magic, she thought, shivering.

The moment Nevin had departed for his morning stroll to the castle, she’d hastened from the cottage and crept through the forest. She was determined to see the deed done with her own eyes. Only then would she believe her son safe.

She narrowed her eyes, peering at her enemy—Drustan’s betrothed, who’d been plucked straight from his bed, she was fair certain, for the lass wore naught but a sheer nightrail. Soon the laird himself would arrive, the gypsies would enchant him and take him far away, to be interred underground, and her worries would be over. The gypsies had demanded extra coin to enchant the woman as well, forcing Besseta to pilfer from Nevin’s charity box. But no transgression was too great to save her son.

A few yards away Nevin watched his mother with a heavy heart. For some time, she’d been worsening, her moods growing increasingly erratic, her eyes too bright. She watched him ceaselessly as if she feared a bolt of lightning might strike him at any moment. He’d done all he could to allay her fears that Drustan MacKeltar might harm him, but to no avail. She was lost in terrible imaginings.

He murmured a soft prayer of thanks to God for guiding him. He’d awakened with a niggling foreboding, and rather than immediately striking out for the castle, he’d lingered behind the cottage. Sure enough, moments later, his mother had slipped out, wild-eyed, her hair mussed, half-dressed, pulling her cloak tightly about her.

When she’d scurried off, he’d followed at a distance. She’d crept to the edge of the forest, where it opened into a circular clearing at the edge of the small loch. Now he watched, deeply uneasy. What was his mother doing? What involvement had she in gypsy affairs, and what strange designs were etched upon the sod?

He scanned the clearing, stiffening when a small group of gypsies moved apart and one broke away from the rest, carrying a bound woman toward the crimson circle. It was the wee blond lass Nevin had seen about the castle of late. When the gypsy briefly glanced in his direction, Nevin ducked deeper into the brush, deeper into the shadows of the forest.

What ominous events transpired? Why did his mother lurk here, and why was a woman from the castle bound? What terrible things had Besseta gotten herself ensnared in?

Smoothing his robes, he reminded himself that he was a man of God, and as such had a duty to work in His name despite his slight stature and mild nature. Whatever was about to happen, it was clear no good might come of it. It was his responsibility to put a stop to it before someone was harmed. He began to step forth from his hidden vantage, but no sooner did he stand than Drustan MacKeltar, mounted on a snorting black stallion, burst into the clearing. He vaulted from his horse and, unsheathing his sword, stalked toward the gypsy carrying the lass.

“Release her,” Drustan roared savagely in a voice that sounded like a thousand voices. His silvery eyes blazed incandescently. ’Twas no normal voice, Nevin realized, but a voice of power.

Nevin ducked back again, blinking.

The gypsy carrying the blond lass dropped her as if burned and backed away toward the loch. The lass tumbled and rolled across the rocky sod, stopping a few yards from where Nevin stood.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

Besseta keened low and long as chaos erupted in the clearing. She wiped clammy palms on her skirt and watched in horror as mounted guards burst from the forest.

The gypsies, hemmed in by the loch at their back and guards on all sides, reached for their weapons.

Wrong, wrong, it was all going wrong!

She inched from the cover of the forest, creeping unnoticed in the tumult, toward the wagon that had been brought to cart off the laird’s slumbering body.