The Highlander (22 page)

Perhaps she could go to Italy, or America.

Whatever she did she knew she could not confide in Jamie, although she was beginning to think he would not care. He had been terribly distant toward her since their arrival. The only bright spot she could recall was a letter from Tavish, which was so jovial and pleasant she found herself wishing he was here. She had written him back almost immediately, for she had long wanted to thank him for saving her life.

As for Jamie, she had not seen him since early afternoon, and that was from her bedroom window as she watched him ride into the courtyard with a group of men, his plaid flying behind him as he brought Corrie to a sliding stop.

He had thrown one leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground, and she wondered as to the cause of his rush.

Gillian, probably...

Sophie left the Great Hall and, as she glanced through a window she saw it was not snowing. She decided to take the shortcut to her bedroom wing, which meant she would go up the stairs and cross over the battlements to the opposite wing, then down the stairs to the floor her room was on.

She lifted her hood to cover her hair and pulled the cape closely about her as she neared the top of the stairs, for the cold air was penetrating. Once she climbed the last of the stairs, she pushed the heavy door open and stepped outside.

Inside the Great Hall, Vilain Rogeaux leaned against the stone wall beneath a tapestry of Robert the Bruce, depicting the fight against the English. He observed Gillian as she watched Jamie leave the hall through the same door Sophie had taken only minutes earlier.

He did not miss the way Gillian's eyes closed to narrow slits, dark and seething like the eyes of a sorceress, and he wondered if it was born of ordinary female jealousy, or if there was something between Jamie and Sophie that gave her cause and fueled her hatred.

He thought about the interesting conversation he'd had with Mirren MacDougal, and the letter he had dispatched earlier that day to King Louis. Still, he would make no decisions on any of it until he heard back from the king.

In his mind, he had been presented with a golden opportunity and he would use it to his full advantage.

His mind conjured up the lovely image of Sophie, with her angel's face and lovely eyes. He had to admit she had a certain
je ne sais quoi,
that mysterious, indefinable quality that makes a woman more desirable. Even before he discovered she was a cousin to the King of France, he thought the little
mademoiselle
was in possession of possibly the loveliest face he had ever gazed upon.

One only had to take a glance at the mottled skin of Gillian's angry face to see the truth of those words.

With an amused smile, he pushed away from the wall and walked toward Gillian, who knocked over her wine, and then slipped into a jealous rage.

It was a beautiful evening with a huge, humpbacked moon, and stillness all around. Overhead the clouds were riding on the wind and racing beneath the stars. Sophie put her hands on the wall above the portals and looked out over the North Sea. She loved the smell of the sea and she inhaled deeply, listening, as she did, to the thunderous sound of the waves hurling themselves against the rocks below.

She hoped the fresh air would stop the headache that was beginning to pound at her temples. She turned her face into the wind, and felt inside as wild as the elements.

A vision of Jamie rose up before her, and she saw him the way he had looked to her the last time they made love at Danegaeld, when she sat upon the bed and watched him walk tpward her. He had stopped close enough that she could reach out and touch him, but instead, she watched him remove his shirt. He was about to drop his kilt, but paused when he saw the way she was looking at him.

She purposefully let her gaze drop. Will you satisfy a woman's curiosity, sir? Is anything worn beneath that kilt?

No, it's all brand-new, lass.

She laughed. I love knowing there is nothing but you underneath that kilt, she said, and began to slide her hands up his powerful thighs until she came to the place where he was long and hard and so ready for her that he closed his eyes and gasped when she took him in her hand.

She should not remember such as this, for she felt a corresponding need for him that shot straight to her womb, and she was overcome with the desire to have his child—not for the selfish reasons she considered earlier, but because his child would be a part of him she would always have.

Even so she felt the loss of joy, for she realized if she were with child, she could never tell him of it, for she knew the kind of man he was— a man who would want his son or daughter in

I
life, to love, to nurture and to see into adulthood. If he had any inkling she carried his child he would never let her leave, and she would ^>end the rest of her life loving him yet at the same time, be an outcast, forced to endure the knowledge that it would never be her that he came home to each night.

Do not be so foolish as to think he cares, she thought. He may want to make love to you, but that does not mean he wants you to bear his children. He has chosen another for that purpose.

She felt the splash of a tear upon her hand, and then another, and another. She chided herself and wiped her face, turning her face to the wind again, and inhaling deeply, three times.

Sophie, you must not cry, she admonished. If someone should see you...well, they would begin to wonder, and a wondering mind can formulate all sorts of wrong ideas.

She realized it had started to snow again and she watched, mesmerized, as the fat flakes did a slow, graceful dance upon their descent. She put out her cupped palms to catch them, but they melted away the moment they touched her hand.

"How sad that something so beautiful cannot last as long as the ripple of an oar upon the water," she said, not caring she spoke audibly until she heard the click of the door. She turned quickly, and saw Jamie himself standing a few feet away.

"Some things were never meant to last, and sometimes we are too foolish to hold on to the things that were," he said. "It doesna have to be that way, lass."

"For you, perhaps, but it is different for a woman. We have no power, no authority and no control. Fate can place us in circumstances beyond our power to change, and we are like marionettes who must move when the string is pulled."

He knew what troubled her, and it pained him to think that after what they had shared she still refused to tell him of the circumstances that brought her here. "And if I said I was an indulgent sort, that nothing can be as black as you paint it, could you trust me then?"

"Sometimes the dispensation of leniency can be a way to invoke control."

He took her in his arms. "I have never seen a lass who needed help more than ye do. Let me help you."

She looked down at her hands. "No one can help me now, I fear. I am beyond rescuing."

He caught her by the chin and lifted her face so the moonlight enabled him to see she was close to tears, for already they pooled like diamonds in her beautiful eyes. He was puzzled and he could not understand how one so young could be so deeply mired in a predicament that it could turn her into such a fatalist.

"It would help if you could talk about it," he said.

She shook her head. "No, it would not. Can you not see there is no reason to discuss it?"

"And so you will simply give up and take the coward's way out?" He knew his voice was edged with antagonism, and that it was reflected in the cold expression that settled over his face, turning his features hard. "Tell me now how you came to be in Scotland."

They had talked around the issue so many times that she was caught off guard by his direct question, and had no ready answer.

Not that it mattered, for he saw immediately in her face that she would not tell him and, if she did address his question and give him an answer, it would be a lie.

He took her face in his hands and brought it closer to his own. The moment his mouth covered hers his hands slipped beneath her cloak so he could hold her pressed tightly against him.

He kissed her deeply, showing her with his tongue what he would like to do to her with another part of his body.
He
felt the heat in her burst into flame, and he remembered how she was always like dry kindling, ready to catch fire whenever he touched her. With a groan, he pushed her back against the embrasure and dropped his hands to cup her buttocks and lift her against him.

He did not kiss to seduce. He was far beyond that now.

Mastery was what he was after and he meant to show her she belonged to him, and that any reluctance on her part would not be tolerated. He wanted to delve into the very soul of her, to place his mark there, branding her for life, and ruining her for all time for the touch of any other.

He felt her hands slide beneath his doublet and he could not help the response that made him press himself hard against her. He wanted her to the point of insanity. The thought of making love to her again drove him past all caution. He wanted her enough to take her here, on the battlements, in the middle of falling snow.

He broke the kiss but moved his mouth mere inches from hers.

Her lips were soft, wet and swollen with his kiss, and he traced the fleshy part of her lower Up with his thumb. Her breathing was heavy and labored and he saw the glazed expression of intense desire glowing like hot coals in her eyes.

His hand slipped hungrily downward until he could touch her and feel her pressing against his palm. He tugged her skirts upward until he found her leg and then followed it, going higher still, until he found the damp place he searched for, and knew so well.

"You have no idea what it is like to want you. I think of nothing else."

"Please," she whispered. "Touch me, Jamie. Touch me until I cannot bear the agony any longer, and then touch me again, and again until I shatter."

She was all warm, smooth flesh, open to him, and he was about to press on, needing no real encouragement from her, for he had enough for both of them. His hand was right where he wanted it to be, when he heard the hinges of the door rattle as if someone was about to open it.

He dropped her skirts back in place and did not realize her hands were beneath his velvet doublet until she hastily withdrew them. The sudden action dislodged the snow collected on his shoulders, and it showered down upon her.

Standing there as she was, with snowflakes on her lashes, in wide-eyed surprise, she had never looked so lovely, and his desire for her pounded against his temples with each unsteady beat of his heart.

She stepped a few feet away from him and turned her gaze to the North Sea, her breathing still bearing the telltale signs of passion, ragged and uneven. "I wonder how I survived in that cold water."

"You must have found something large enough to lay down on, because you would not have survived being submerged in the water for very long. Fortunately for you, the storm blew in with a fairly mild temperature compared to what it could have been."

' T seem to remember being in the water now, but I don't remember much after that."

He lifted his hand and followed the line of her throat with his finger. "I have not seen you wear your medallion of late. Have you lost it?"

"No, I have not felt the urge to wear it lately."

The door scraped against the snow and opened, and Gillian stepped onto the battlements, followed by Vilain.

"We came to find you, to thank you for your hospitality and to bid you good evening," Vilain said.

Sophie saw the muscle work in Jamie's jaw.

He nodded curtly, never taking his gaze from Gillian's face, as if he knew who it was that wanted to search them out and why, and it had nothing to do with thanks or bidding them goodnight.

Even before she looked at her, Sophie could feel Gillian studying every detail about her. "You have been standing out here in the cold for a long time. I am surprised to find you are not chilled to the bone. You must have found a warm place to stand," she said.

Oh, yes, I had my hands under Jamie's kilt, Sophie was tempted to say, but instead she said, ' 'It must be the fur lining my cape, for I am not cold in the least."

Sophie saw the possessive way Gillian slipped her arm through Jamie's. Take him, she thought, with my blessings. She vowed then, that if she ever had a man of her own she would
not
be possessive.