Kissing the Countess (7 page)

Easing himself out of the blanket, wincing at stiff muscles, he went outside to attend to necessities and noted a sheet of ice nearly everywhere, and sleet pelted the ground and the roof of the hut. Inside, he shut the door as tightly as he could and went back to the fireside. Time for his turn on the floor while the girl took the warmed plaid. He crouched beside her and saw how cold she was even in sleep, arms crossed, legs curled.

He touched her shoulder. "Miss MacConn."

She started. "Aye," she whispered, voice hoarse. If nothing else, that forlorn little voice decided him.

"Are you familiar with the old custom of bundling?" he murmured.

"Aye. It is still practiced here in the Highlands."

"Is it? You've bundled with your own young man?"

She sat up. "No one has courted me."

He blinked. "I find that hard to believe."

She shrugged. "I am the plain girl."

"The what? You're not plain at all."

She laughed, a soft, delightful sound. In the firelight, a dimple appeared, vanished. "It is another custom in some parts of the Highlands. I am the youngest of my siblings, and so I am called the Plain Girl. The one who stays at home as her parents age to run their household. Plain girls do not usually marry."

"You agreed to this?"

"It was always assumed that it was my place in the family. My mother passed away years ago, my older sisters married and moved away from the glen, and one of my brothers has left Scotland to seek his fortune. I remained at Glenachan to care for my father and my brother Finlay." She looked at him, and he saw a little spark of defiance. He suddenly wondered how completely she had accepted that fate. "I have never been courted, never bundled with a suitor. Besides, there are not many young men left to court anyone in the glen now."

"Because of the clearings?"

"Aye, and the greed of Earl of Kildonan."

He let out a long breath. "I see. So Plain Girls never wed?"

She fed a chunk of peat into the fire. He saw it smoke and not quite catch. "Sometimes, after their parents are gone. Usually by then it's too late for them. Mostly they become old spinsters, set in their ways, no husband, no children."

"I would think you will have suitors no matter how long they have to wait for you."

She glanced at him. "Thank you. But it's true I'm plain. I'm... well, I am called Catriona Mhor."

He knew some Gaelic from boyhood. "Big Catriona?"

"Aye, and I'm taller than my father and my sisters and brothers but for Finlay. Strong as an ox, my father says of me. My aunt says I am built for hard work like a man."

He did not much like the aunt or the father, he decided. He watched the hearth's glow give her hair the color of flame. "You are tall, but not so big. My sister is nearly as tall as you are, and no one calls her big. Nor are you plain. I would call you... Catriona Bhan," he murmured, drawing out the whispery "v" sound of the Gaelic word. "Fair Catriona."

She half smiled. "That's very kind."

"And I would be honored to bundle with you. It will keep us from freezing, after all."

She regarded him warily, and looked with longing at the abandoned blanket. "Very well."

He sat by the blanket and she followed. Deftly she folded the blanket neatly around them and lay back, as he did. The material wrapped over him and under her, with its end tucked between them.

"Interesting." He folded his arms over the cloth.

"Keep your arms inside," she said in the darkness.

He slid his arms under the material. "I promise to behave myself. But you had better, also."

"I will." He heard a laugh in her voice.

"Are you comfortable?"

He heard the chatter of her teeth. "Almost." He saw a puff of frosted air as she spoke.

Lying beside her, he felt his body arouse and tighten. He had not slept beside a woman for a long while, and his body reacted to her nearness. As warmth collected in the space between them, he felt a distinct throbbing, a surge, gathering desire. But he had no intention of acting on that compelling need to take her into his arms. He willed himself to stillness again.

Soon he realized that she slept. Glad of the trust implicit in that, he tried to follow suit, tried to keep his thoughts away from her lush shape, sultry voice, gentleness—and irresistible nearness.

Just a few hours more in this bitterly cold little house and this chaste, barely warm little nest, and soon they would awaken to morning sun and melting ice and snow. Then they could make their way to the glen, and home.

He envied Catriona MacConn, in a way. She had a home and a hearth and a family who waited for her. Evan had none of that here. Kildonan Castle was his now, and was the home he had loved in childhood. But now he felt unwelcome, unwanted in the glen. He had dreamed of belonging here again, but in truth he was not.

He sighed, yearning for the comforts of home, where love, and family, and smiles waited. But that dream was elusive, and always would be for him.

* * *

Rising carefully from the bundled blanket in the middle of the night, Catriona tiptoed to the door and cracked it open slightly. She peered out at a world gone white. Snow flew sideways with the force of the wind, and sleet pelted the walls of the house. Chilled by the icy wind in her face, she rubbed her hands, in mittens, along her arms.

Poor weather or none, she had certain needs, and she and Mr. Mackenzie would need more drinking water as well. Besides, she had awoken feeling thirsty. Fetching the wooden bowl quietly, she then stepped outside, into a bitter blast of wind. She hurried to the far end of the building, seeking the shelter of an abandoned byre that sagged behind the shieling hut. After quickly tending to her needs, shivering all the while, she straightened her clothing, then headed for the burn at the base of a little hill nearby.

Sleet fell fast and needle sharp, and the wind shoved at her. Bowing her head, she half slid down the incline, ice-crusted grass slippery beneath her feet. She fell to her knees, dipped the bowl into the stream, wetting her mittens inadvertently. Clambering back up the hill toward the shieling hut, she stumbled, then righted herself, then slid again.

Her feet went out from under her, and she slid over the frosted grass and splashed into the burn, its banks edged with icy-coated grasses. The shocking sensations of wet and cold penetrated her layered clothing, and she gasped, floundering.

Sunk inches deep in a trench of fast-flowing, icy water, she fell to her hands and knees in the water. She floundered, slipped again—in the water too long, she knew, struggling, frightened. Finally she was able to scramble to her feet, grabbed her saturated skirts, and half ran, half fell up the incline to hurtle toward the house.

Bursting inside, she saw Evan Mackenzie sit up in the darkness, then get to his feet. Catriona ran to the hearth and fell to her knees beside its heat. Tearing off her wet mittens with her teeth, she fumbled at the lacings of her leather brogans with trembling fingers.

Mackenzie came toward her. "What happened?"

"I fell in the stream—through the ice. I wanted to get some water for us—
ach!
" she exclaimed in dismay, as she drew off one wet leather shoe to reveal her saturated woolen stocking.

Her fingers were trembling and red with cold, and the chill in her limbs felt like knives. Her skirt and petticoats were wet through to her chemise and knickers. Thin slivers of ice clung to the hem of her skirt as she tried to unlace the other shoe.

"Here, let me help," Mackenzie said, kneeling beside her. He took her foot and undid the lacing deftly, pulling the shoe off to set it by the fire.

"Your stockings," he said. "Take them off."

Mutely, she reached under her wet skirt modestly and carefully unfastened the ribbon garters around her upper thighs, rolling each knitted stocking down her leg and stripping them off, leaning to set them beside the hearth. Catriona folded her bare legs and feet under her skirt, seeking warmth, but her skirts and petticoats were cold and wet.

"Ach Dhia,"
she said, teeth chattering. When Mackenzie turned to whip the blanket off the floor, she lifted a hand. "No, we cannot risk getting our only blanket wet."

"Take my jacket, then," he said, tugging it off to drape it over her shoulders. Then he took her hands in his and rubbed them between his palms, his touch so divinely warm that Catriona gasped at the sheer relief of it. "Let me rub your feet, if you will, Miss," he said, bending.

"It can wait," she said, but wanting the warming so much that she nearly stuck her foot in his open, offering hand.

"We must warm you quickly or you'll catch an illness."

"I'm s-s-strong." Her teeth chattered. "I am never sick."

"You could get frostbite on those toes." He slipped his hand under the dripping hem of her skirt, finding her foot with a delicious shock of heat. She shifted to allow his touch.

As his firm caresses brought the blood flow back to her toes, she winced. "It stings," she admitted.

He rubbed more gently, his fingers sliding over her ankles and up under the wet hems of her cotton knickers to warm her lower legs. The feeling was intimate, delicious, dangerous. She gasped as the heat spread through her limbs.

Teeth still chattering, she sat quietly. No man had ever touched her like this, so freely, but she had to accept it—

Wanted it, she realized, feeling as if some hidden wellspring within her was being tapped. Warmth and a curious thrill flowed through her. She wanted to feel his hands all over her body—had wondered what his embrace would feel like, had wondered what caresses, kisses, more, would be like with him.

Gentle, like this, she thought. Tender and deep and then heightening to passion.

She had known only inept fumblings in a dark loft with a young man, a friend of her brother. Those brief, immature fondlings had hinted that magnificent feelings, secrets, existed in touch, in tenderness, in closeness. In love.

But such things were not for her—not for the plain girl.

Watching the glossy dark crown of Evan Mackenzie's hair, she wanted to caress that silkiness, touch him and let him touch her in turn anywhere.
Anywhere,
she thought, sighing, closing her eyes.

Opening them again to see his gaze on her.

She sat straight, pulled her foot away. "Thank you," she said, teeth still chattering. "That's enough." It was not.

"Your clothing is soaked."

"They'll dry if I sit here by the fire."

"Those wee embers will not dry anything." He set a hand on her arm, looking at her earnestly. "Listen now. If you stay in those garments all night, you'll take a chill."

"It will be fine," she insisted.

He shook his head. "Get those wet things off now, Miss MacConn."

Chapter 5

"No, I—" Catriona pulled away from him as if alarmed.

"Modesty is admirable, but do not jeopardize your health or your life. It is not necessary."

"M-my l-life?" She was shuddering now, her cheeks pale, lips a shadowy blue. He could literally hear her teeth rattling together. The girl was cold, so cold, and he wanted to take her in his arms, warm her, kiss her—kiss her. What had put that in his mind at such a time as this, an immediate dilemma?

"Aye, your breath could slow, your body temperature could drop. If you fall asleep like that, you might never wake up. It feels almost warm, that sort of chill, almost comfortable. You fall asleep, and then—well, you could die."

"You sound as if you know what that's like."

"I do. Far too well. Now consider removing your things—just until you are warmer."

"Were you... exposed to such cold while c-c-climbing in the Alps?" she asked, shivering.

He bent to take her feet again to cup and warm them. "We were well prepared and were able to keep warm and dry there. No, I learned the dangers of real cold underwater." He glanced at her. "I'm a master undersea diver. We risk severe chill each time we go down the deep."

"D-diving! How inter-interesting," she said, shivering almost violently. "I've seen p-pictures in books. Is it so cold down in the ocean, Mr. Mac-mac-kenzie?"