The Maclean Groom (10 page)

Abby's brown eyes nearly popped from their sockets. “Lady Beatrix says I'm to assist you, milord—that is, if you really need someone to stay and help, your being a grown man and fully capable of undressing yourself, milord.” Looking down at the toes of her sturdy shoes, she crossed herself and bobbed another curtsy.

“There's no need for you to help him, too,” Joanna told the girl, her words crisp and emphatic. “I'm the laird's gillie. I'll serve him. Now go back and tell Lady Beatrix that everything's fine.”

Abby leaned closer and whispered behind her cupped
palm. “I'm not supposed to come back without you.”

“You may leave, Abby,” MacLean said, the quiet authority in his voice ending any further discussion. “And close the door behind you, girl. I don't want to suffer from a draft while I'm bathing. Tell Lady Beatrix that I'm not to be disturbed by anyone for the rest of the evening.”

The befuddled servant did as he commanded. God's truth, she had no other choice.

Joanna looked over at the tall, broad-shouldered warlord expectantly. Her limbs grew taut and tense; her belly clenched in anticipation. An inner fire heated the blood in her veins, till 'twas a wonder steam didn't flare from her nostrils. Destiny had brought them together, and no one could wrench the moment from her now.

For now she'd finally learn the truth.

Did he or did he not have a tail?

MacLean sat down on the edge of her soft feather mattress. “You can start by removing my brogues, lad.”

Startled by the unexpected command, Joanna clasped her hands tightly in front of her. “Is…is that what Arthur does?”

The laird smiled encouragingly as he untied the leather thong at the nape of his neck and the golden waves fell loose about his collar. The sparkle in his green eyes sent tingles of exhilaration shimmying through her.

“Always.”

Godsakes, she knew
that
to be an exaggeration. The man had removed his own shoes the time she'd carried in the firewood. But if he insisted on being coddled this evening, she'd humor him.

She went over to where he sat, and when he held out one foot and then the other, she pulled off his shiny black brogues with their fancy gold buckles. Then she stepped back, took a deep gulp of air, and waited.

Joanna told herself her heady anticipation came from a purely academic interest only. Once she determined the truth of the story, she'd never need to see him naked again. Or want to, for that matter.

But MacLean sat as though expecting her to do something else.

“The water will get cold, milord,” she reminded him as she glanced at the steaming tub.

“Then what are you waiting for, lad?” he replied in a patient tone. “Take off my stockings.”

A smile played about his mouth, just as it had when she'd served him the mutton pie and ale earlier that day. God's truth, he'd been a patient man then, especially when she'd spilled the ale all over the blanket. And he'd taught her how to shoot the bow and arrow with painstaking care. She wasn't sure why he'd taken such an interest in a slip of a boy, but she'd never forget his kindness.

“Do you have any younger brothers, laird?” Joanna asked as she knelt down in front of him.

The question seemed to catch MacLean off guard. He lifted his straight golden brows in bewilderment. “I have two brothers, as a matter of fact, both younger than me. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” she replied, peeling off the checkered short hose.

The sight of his bare feet and well-formed calves wasn't quite as shocking as it had been the first time, but her heart did a strange little hop-and-skip dance at the thought of what lay ahead. The memory of his scarred, hairy chest and massive shoulders sent prickles of excitement up and down her skin. Goose bumps popped out along her forearms.

“There must be some reason behind the question,” he insisted with a lazy, devastating grin. “Why did you ask if I had younger brothers?”

“Well,” she responded shyly, peeping up at him from beneath her lashes, “I thought maybe I reminded you of one of them.”

T
hunderstruck, Rory gazed down at Joanna.

She thought of him as an older brother
.

Shock and frustration warred within him.

Christ, he'd never known any female to affect him the way she did. His blood pounded in his ears, his sexual craving growing huge at the sight of her on her knees in front of him, looking up with sweet submission. He was hard and swollen and insistent with a need that couldn't be denied. He wanted to pull her onto his lap and pleasure her in a hundred different ways with his lips and teeth and tongue. To explore the feminine curves and hollows of the supple form hidden beneath those ludicrous clothes with his skilled and knowing fingers.

And she'd asked if she reminded him of a younger brother
.

What in the whole breadth and depth of Scotland could have given her such a preposterous idea?

“Do I, milord?” Joanna persisted with a winsome smile.

“My brothers are nothing like you, Joey,” he answered brusquely. “Lachlan and Keir are fighting men like me.”

She blinked in amazement. “Are they as big as you, too?”

“Nearly.” He clenched his jaw, fighting a sense of acute and bitter disappointment.

Damn! That's what came from being so understanding and patient. From allowing her to keep up her audacious
pretense instead of exposing her immediately and punishing her for her willfulness—an unparalleled and headstrong willfulness that kept her here in his bedchamber, alone with him and perfectly willing to see him up close and bare-arsed in order to continue her outrageous deception.

Hellfire and damnation!

He'd never experienced anything so erotic as the thought of her dainty fingers removing every stitch of clothing from his big, aroused body. By the time she'd undressed him, she'd no longer see him in quite the same brotherly light.

“The bath is waiting, laird,” Joanna reminded him as she bounced to her stocking feet.

Rory rose to stand in front of her, and the top of her shabby knit cap barely reached the middle of his chest. “Unfasten my plaid, Joey,” he ordered quietly.

Her eyes grew enormous in her small, heart-shaped face. She glanced at the closed door, wondering, no doubt, if she should make a hasty retreat as she had on the evening she'd brought the firewood.

If she tried to run, he'd stop her.

Joanna wasn't going to leave this time.

Not if their lives depended on it.

But the diminutive lass surprised him. Violet-blue eyes darting sparks of rebellion, she clamped her lips shut as though squelching a defiant reply. With graceful hands, she reached up and unfastened the pin that held the green and black tartan folds draped across his shoulder. She stood so close he could feel her lithe body brush against his clothing as she placed the bodkin on the small table by the bed. Every fiber in Rory's being ached to move closer still.

Joanna's face glowed with curious expectation as he pushed the corner of his plaid over his shoulder and let it fall down his back. Only the wide leather belt about his waist held the rest of his plaid in place around his hips and thighs.

“Now my shirt, lad.”

Her smooth brow furrowed in a dubious frown. “I don't remember seeing Arthur do that,” she complained.

Rory lifted one eyebrow sardonically, and his low words were edged with sarcasm. “How many times did you watch my gillie attend me when I was bathing?”

“Only once,” Joanna admitted. She lowered her head, and her long russet lashes fluttered against her smooth cheeks as she ran the pink tip of her tongue over her lips in agitation.

Her delicate femininity rocked him. His lungs constricted, and his breath grew short. She'd made a frail, unmanly boy-child, but as a seventeen-year-old lassie, her slim figure and graceful movements were enchanting.

“Remove the shirt before the water gets cold, Joey,” he said, his voice amazingly calm despite the way his eager body was reacting to her nearness.

Her dainty fingers trembled as she fumbled with the laces that tied the ruffled collar of his billowing shirt. Then she pulled the long saffron tails out from under the black belt, her lashes still lowered to conceal her thoughts.

Rory drew the linen garment up over his head and dropped it on the comforter behind him. He could hear Joanna's quick in-drawn breath at the sight of his bare chest so close in front of her. Clad only in the belted plaid that reached nearly to his knees, he looked down on the top of her frayed blue and white cap and willed himself not to move.

He'd been certain that Joanna would never go through with the task of disrobing him, but she remained where she stood, not budging an inch. When she slowly lifted her gaze to meet his, her eyes sparkled with a mixture of wariness and determination. Beneath the layer of dirt, the color had drained from her cheeks. He could count every freckle on that delightful soot-covered face.

Rory traced a fingertip down the narrow bridge of her nose. “You're the one who needs a bath, Joey,” he murmured. “Why don't you use the tub when I'm through bathing? The water will still be warm and soapy. You can scrub some of that grime off while I'm getting dressed.”

A vision of lathering her slender white body and rinsing
the satiny skin with his bare hands sent a lance of desire spearing through him. Vivid thoughts of their wedding night and what he planned to do to his naughty bride nearly stole his breath away.

At his offhand suggestion, sheer terror glittered in her eyes. “I don't like baths, milord,” she announced in a tone of unqualified rebellion. “'Tis much too dangerous. You can catch a chill and die.”

“Not on a warm spring evening like this,” he said with a low chuckle.

“Any evening's too dangerous,” Joanna replied. “My da took a bath one fine summer night, went to bed, and never woke up.”

“I thought your father died on the battlefield.”

She didn't even blink. “That was my real father. My stepfather died of a chill after bathing, just like I said.”

“Come on, lad.” Rory goaded, “where's your gumption? You were the one who asked if you could learn to fight with a dirk.”

“Fighting's one thing,” she declared. “Bathing's another.”

He drew a line down the middle of her smudged cheek, then rubbed the dirt between his thumb and forefinger. “A little soap and water never hurt anyone.”

“Holy hosanna,” she grumbled. “By the time you get in the bath, the water will have already turned cold. I'm not washing in a tub of ice.”

Rory braced his hands on his hips to keep from seizing Joanna and lifting her up to eye level. He wanted to cover her mouth with his, to whip off that absurd cap and bury his fingers in her coppery hair. He wanted to bury himself in her soft warmth.

At the thought of tasting her sweetness, of caressing her bare skin, of pinning her slender form beneath him and gazing into her expressive eyes while she felt him swollen and turgid inside her, the blood raged in his veins.

“Then unbuckle my belt,” he said softly, “and slip it off.”

This time Joanna would surely try to break for the door. If she made a move to leave, he'd stop her. He'd sweep her up in his arms and lay her on the bed behind him, where he'd worship her delicate femininity with his hard male body. He'd teach her the pleasures of the marriage bed and listen with satisfaction to her breathless cries of surrender.

There'd be no wrong in seducing her that evening; they were betrothed. Many couples shared a bed before their wedding day with no shame involved.

Joanna reached toward the large gold buckle. He tensed as her fingers fumbled with the clasp, fighting the primitive urges that gripped him.

Over the top of Joanna's head, Rory's gaze lit on the fanciful tapestry. He hadn't noticed before, but the resplendent knight seemed to be smirking. That arrogant pup appeared certain the lady would tumble off the balcony and land at his feet, overwhelmed by his courtly manner, his handful of blossoms, and his mawkish love song.

With a low groan of frustration, Rory grasped Joanna's slender wrists and brought her hands upward, where he held them imprisoned against his naked chest. She looked up in surprise, innocence glowing in her marvelous eyes. He realized with demoralizing certainty that if he attempted to seduce her tonight, he'd become the villain in her preposterous make-believe tale.

He needed to win her affection. Though he didn't believe in romantic love, a bride should display some tender esteem for her groom. Hell, his mother had been so entranced with his father, she'd run away with him regardless of the consequences.

Rory suspected that all young lassies harbored maudlin fantasies—the kind of fatuous, sentimental myths that bards sang about. He didn't want to shatter Joanna's childhood dreams and leave her disillusioned and regretful.

On the contrary, Rory wanted Joanna to think of
him
as her protector. He wanted to see that look of enchantment on her radiant face when she gazed at him—the same damn
dreamy-eyed look he'd seen when she gazed at that untried whelp hanging on the wall.

How ironic that a man who'd always scoffed at the idea of romantic love desperately wanted a lass to romanticize about him. To see him as some mythic warrior who'd come to rescue her from a fire-breathing dragon. Devil take it, what was happening to his pragmatism? His forthright common sense?

But he refused to play the role of the monster.

She waited, looking up at him in bemusement. “Milord?”

Her soft whisper seemed to compress Rory's heart into a tight, leaden lump.

If he felt Joanna's inexperienced and openly curious gaze move over his buck-naked body, he'd never be able to keep himself under control. The thought of her seeing him like that, reading in her eloquent eyes the startled realization of how massively aroused he'd become, struck him with incredible force.

His mouth suddenly bone-dry, Rory concentrated on breathing in a slow, rhythmic pace. He clenched his jaw and ignored the heated blood steaming in his veins. As he struggled to conquer the primal beast inside, raw, unequivocal lust wrapped itself around his entrails and squeezed painfully. It was fortunate his plaid had been fashioned from over seven yards of wool. At the moment, his manhood stood erect, huge and heavy with need for the engaging, high-spirited lassie before him.

“Leave,” he said hoarsely. “I'll finish disrobing by myself.”

Joanna's heart stumbled as MacLean released her hands and pushed her gently away.

She'd told herself that only dispassionate curiosity had kept her there for so long.

She knew better now—now that he'd ordered her to go.

So close she could breathe in the masculine scent of him, Joanna gazed, enthralled, at MacLean's broad shoulders and deep chest. The three-headed dragon's long, slinky
body wrapped itself around the bulging muscles of his upper arm in a permanent, barbaric display. The jagged scar of his old wound lay white beneath the crisp golden-brown hairs. The golden holy medal hanging between his flat nipples honored St. Columba, one of Scotland's most revered religious heroes.

She longed to see the bronzed warlord's magnificent figure completely unclothed. And it wasn't simply because she hoped to discover if he had a dragon's tail. Joanna yearned to rake her fingertips through the thick mat of hair on his chest. To press her lips against his sun-gilded flesh and inhale the tangy scent of the forest.

The sight of Tam and Mary in the stable flashed before her. She wondered what it would be like to be held in MacLean's powerful arms, to have his mouth exploring the sensitive tips of her breasts, to have his huge body pressing against hers as she sank down, down into the soft feather mattress of her canopied bed—just as Tam had pressed Mary down into the loose straw.

Would she whimper and plead for the rugged, virile man to continue as the dairymaid had done?

A thrill of excitation twanged through Joanna.

Godsakes, she couldn't leave.

Not now
.

Joanna slowly raised her eyes to meet his, but MacLean stood perfectly still, looking over the top of her head at the wall behind. Her lips trembled as she offered an ingratiating smile. “I don't mind helping with your garments, milord. Not if that's what Arthur usually does. I won't be fully trained as a gillie unless I do.”

“Go!” he commanded, and a shudder went through his large frame.

“Are you ill?” she asked in genuine concern.

MacLean braced one palm on the post of the canopy bed, his head lowered, his gaze fixed on the rug at his bare feet. “Joey,” he said, his deep baritone terse and threatening, “if you don't get the hell out of here, I'm going to dump
you in that tub of quickly chilling bathwater. Do you understand?”

She didn't wait for him to repeat the threat. She hurried to the door and swung it open, startling Beatrix, who had one ear pressed to the heavy oak panel. Maude and Abby stood behind her in the corridor.

Joanna quickly shut the door and held her finger to her lips to signal for silence.

“How
could
you?” Lady Beatrix hissed. Her features contorted in outrage, she planted her hands on her hips and leaned closer to Joanna. “How could you stay in there alone with that fiend? You're daft taking such foolish chances. What if he'd found you out? What then?”

“Are you all right, child?” Maude questioned in a whisper.

Joanna tried to hide her vexation at being ordered from the room. “I'm fine,” she said with a defensive tilt of her chin.

Abby wrung the corner of her apron in her plump hands, her pretty brown eyes filled with tears. “What did he do to ye, milady?”

“Nothing, dammit,” Joanna replied. “And I wasn't taking any chances. MacLean thinks of me as his little brother.”

The serving lass clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified at her mistress's bad language and incredulous at her reply. “
His little brother?
”