The Maclean Groom (24 page)

“You could help by putting your arms around me,” she whispered against his lips.

“Like this?” he asked softly.

“Like that.”

Joanna resumed the kiss, delving into his mouth, as her fingers slid across the emerald earring and into his golden hair. Wondering frantically if he could feel her heart stammering and her body trembling in nervous agitation, she
resolved to elicit some response from her dispassionate husband before breaking the kiss.

She slipped her arms around his neck and rubbed her breasts against his chest, for no other reason than it simply seemed like the best way to get his full and undivided co-operation. To her surprise, her breasts seemed to have grown fuller and heavier beneath her clothing. They shimmered with sensations as their peaks tightened and contracted.

The feel of Joanna's sweet, luscious curves moving against his hard body proved Rory's undoing. With a warning growl of male sexual intent, he pulled her slim form atop the full length of him, his hard-won control evaporating in the space of a moment. Cupping her buttocks, he rocked her slowly, lingeringly against his engorged sex, as he continued the searing kiss.

Panting, Joanna braced her hands on his shoulders and drew back, her innocent eyes enormous. “I-I should go,” she insisted breathlessly. But in spite of her words, she lowered her head and kissed him once again.

Desire tightened every fiber in Rory's body. He rolled Joanna beneath him, careful to brace his weight on his forearms. He traced his open mouth along the curve of her jaw and down her neck, his heart leaping at the soft sound of her sigh. He kissed her silken breasts above the low, square neckline, then loosened the ties of her bodice and camisole and slid them downward. Heated blood raged through his veins as his gaze moved over her creamy perfection.

“My God, you're exquisite,” he murmured. “I'm going to explore every delectable inch of you.”

Her fingers trembling, Joanna removed the bodkin that pinned the corner of Rory's plaid to his shirt. She fumbled with the cords at his neck, then pulled the shirttails out from beneath his belt and slid her hands under the saffron material and across his bare chest. His muscles tightened and clenched at the feel of her graceful fingers skimming over his ravenous body.

“Take off your shirt,” she implored, her voice husky with sexual arousal.

Rory yanked the garment over his head and tossed it aside. He smothered a groan as she buried her fingertips in the thick wiry hair on his chest, grazing his taut nipples, then leaned forward to place gentle kisses on his fevered flesh.

“Ah, lass,” he murmured. Graphic images of what he intended to do with his innocent bride sent a spear of white-hot desire through his groin. The holy medal around his neck dangled between them as he bent his head and suckled her. She whimpered in pleasure, and he moved to lave the other rosy peak, breathing in deep, intoxicating drafts of her elusive scent.

His heart about to explode from the mind-numbing tension enforced on his body by his iron will, Rory drew the hem of her gown up to her gartered knees, then pressed one leg between her satiny thighs. She moved against him spontaneously, a low sob catching in her throat.

“Rory,” she gasped. The husky, breathless sound of his name and the near-surrender it implied sent a thrill coursing through him. Beneath the thick wool of his plaid, his swollen manhood pulsed with need for her. Only her.

“Yield to me, Joanna,” he whispered in her ear, tracing the delicate folds with his tongue. “I'll make it so good for you, lass.”

Joanna squirmed and writhed beneath MacLean's weight, searching for something she didn't understand. An irresistible longing to press ever nearer made her open her legs wider and thrust up against him. She wanted him to caress her as he had before. She wanted to experience that convulsion of unbelievable pleasure. Clutching his massive shoulders, she looked up into his eyes, and the naked, undeniable hunger in his gaze lit a conflagration within her.

“Oh, Rory, I want…I need…”

A smile of unutterable tenderness curved his lips as he reached down to touch her—and stopped abruptly.

Joanna's heart skidded to a painful halt. She made a muf
fled sound of disappointment deep in her throat, then was silent as he pressed one fingertip to her lips in warning.

Male voices drifted up from below. A party of hunters, who'd left early that morning, had returned and were stabling their mounts. The hunt must have been a success, for the men called to one another in high spirits. She recognized Fearchar's deep, booming bass shouting a jest.

Before Joanna had time to react, MacLean deftly replaced her bodice and rearranged her gown. Pushing away from her, he reached for his shirt.

“You stay here,” he whispered as he pulled the garment over his head and refastened the plaid across his shoulder. “I'll get the men out of the building and into the drill yard as quickly as possible. Once they're gone, you can leave with no one the wiser.” His green eyes brilliant with an unmitigated joy, he removed a wisp of hay from her tangled curls. Then he smiled and gave her a slow, thorough kiss. “Come evening, we'll take up where we left off, Lady MacLean. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing a wee, red-haired Pan dance around the great hall in her toga.”

Stunned and speechless, Joanna watched MacLean disappear down the ladder. The men below seemed to pay no heed to his sudden appearance, and in a matter of minutes the stable grew quiet once again.

Her befuddled gaze drifted over the loft. In another pile of hay, Tabby calmly lay nursing her brood, unmoved by her mistress's near-total capitulation to her fierce warrior husband.

Joanna clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle an agonized moan. God above, she'd almost coupled with him of her own free will.

The Sea Dragon.

Her clan's mortal enemy.

The King's Avenger, who'd been responsible for the death of her grandfather. Who'd labeled her father a devil and her mother a witch.

Dear Lord, what had she been thinking!

She dropped back into the hay and covered her eyes with her forearm. God's truth, she hadn't been thinking at all. Even now, her traitorous body ached for his touch.

It no longer mattered if she moved her things to a separate chamber or if she slept in the same bed with him. What just happened here in the loft proved that MacLean could take her wherever and whenever he chose, and she would be his willing partner.

Ewen had been right. She was no match for the diabolical and cunning Highland warlord. She had to leave Kinlochleven tonight, or there'd never be a chance for an annulment.

Joanna scampered down the ladder and out of the stable in search of Clan Macdonald's commander. The scheme Ewen had proposed for her escape would have to put into effect tonight. She and Andrew could use the secret staircase and no one would be the wiser—until MacLean retired to his bedchamber that evening and, finding it empty, started a search for her.

 

The pageant of classical antiquity was received with thunderous approval by the Scottish court. King James and his courtiers joined in, playing the roles of Greek citizens in procession to the temple of Athena. Every bedsheet and tablecloth in the castle had been called into service to provide their costumes. Lachlan graciously agreed to be Zeus and Keir enacted the sky god's brother, Poseidon, while Lady Emma portrayed a stunning Aphrodite and Lady Beatrix was Hera.

To everyone's delight, Idoine made a convincing, if petulant, Persephone. And though Seumas, as Hades, couldn't carry the plump goddess off without help—Fearchar having refused unequivocally even to try—Kinlochleven's steward certainly looked the part in the pasteboard crown and scepter painted black.

The center of attention, however, was the wily Pan, who played a pipe and led the cavalcade through the keep, out to the upper bailey, and back to the great hall. Violet-blue
eyes twinkling, the mischievous imp insisted on draping her husband with garlands of spring flowers for the role of Narcissus.

“'Tis your own fault,” she whispered, tucking a sprig of bluebells behind one of his ears, “for refusing to wear the toga I sent you.”

Rory watched the frolicsome mummery with growing anticipation, which he was unable to conceal from his two sharp-eyed brothers. Since no one except the bride and groom knew the truth about their wedding night, however, there was no more than the usual number of ribald jests among the men that evening. A new husband's second night with his wife, after all, did call for some comment.

When at last the entertainment was over and he could make his excuses and go upstairs, Joanna was nowhere in sight. He wondered if she'd discovered that her things had been returned to their chamber.

Since their unplanned tryst in the stables that afternoon, Rory hadn't been able to snatch a moment alone with her. She'd blushed delightfully every time she'd turned her head to find his gaze on her during supper, but she hadn't added more than a few words to the conversation at the head table. Her shy reticence was unexpected, after she'd all but surrendered in his arms.

Rory smiled as he mounted the stairs, confident Joanna would be eagerly awaiting him in their large canopied bed. When he entered the room, the low chest sat in its usual place, and Joanna's trifles were scattered across the press cupboard and bed table—but his chamber stood deserted. His jaw clenched at her intransigent Macdonald stubbornness.

He left the bedchamber and strode along the third-floor passageway, opening and slamming doors as he went. His temper soared with each empty room he found.

At the end of the hallway, he entered the chamber in which Tam and Murdoch had discovered Joanna's possessions. The coverlet lay smooth and undisturbed on the bed—and there wasn't a trace of his missing bride.

Rory strode to the window and jerked opened the casement to search the grounds below. The sound of activity caught his attention. Five Observantine friars, their hoods pulled up to ward off the chill, guided their horses across the lower bailey to the barbican. A single Poor Clare rode in their midst, her head bowed and her veil concealing her face from the torchlight. The guards at the open gate spoke congenially to the group and then waved the party through.

The monks hadn't far to go; the Priory of St. Findoca lay close by. The chapel's square bell tower could be seen rising above the moonlit loch from the window where Rory stood. Still, it seemed strange that they hadn't waited until daylight.

As iron-shod hooves drummed on the planks of the drawbridge and faded into the night, a chilling comprehension explained the presence of the solitary nun. Dashing from the room, Rory hurried down the passageway to the top of the stairwell.

“Fearchar,” he bellowed, then returned to his own bedchamber.

After the pounding he'd given Andrew the previous night, Rory hadn't even considered the possibility that the lad might be reckless enough to interfere a second time.

Given what he knew of the two young Macdonalds, he'd bet a chest of guineas that Joanna was the one who had engineered the entire scheme. She must have talked the downy-cheeked adolescent into helping her once again.

Hell and damnation. If Rory had immediately demanded his marital rights, instead of gallantly trying to coax Joanna into his bed, none of this would have happened. He sure as hell wasn't going to let it happen again.

Fearchar came racing through the door. “What's wrong?”

“Find Lachlan and Keir,” Rory gritted. “Tell them to meet me in the stables at once.”

Fearchar gave a quick nod. “Anything else?”

“I'm leaving you in charge of Kinlochleven,” Rory told him, as he buckled on his sword belt and jammed his broad
sword into its sheath. “See that every MacLean is armed and at his post immediately. Be prepared for a possible attempt by Ewen Macdonald to take over the castle.”

“With the king in residence, that'd be high treason,” Fearchar said with a scowl.

Rory snorted in disgust. “I wouldn't put any treachery past the Macdonalds.” He checked his eighteen-inch dirk and adjusted the small knife concealed below his armpit. “Once I and my brothers have left, alert His Majesty and let him know what's happened.”

Fearchar's gaze roved over the empty bedchamber. “Er…exactly what did happen?”

Rory grabbed his gloves and started for the door. “Unless I miss my guess,” he said with cold fury, “my wife has just eloped with her idiot cousin.”

T
hey found the friars near Rannoch Mill. Their bodies lay scattered across the grassy riverbank, where they'd stopped to water their horses. Fear gripping his entrails, Rory dismounted. He scanned the sprawled, dark lumps in the moonlight, counting frantically.

Four.

None of them, thank God, the Poor Clare.

He drew in a bracing draft of the night air and realized he'd stopped breathing. Christ Almighty, how many corpses had he alone been responsible for in ten years of warfare on land and sea? The sight of dead men had never twisted his guts into a knot before. He looked down at his shaking hands, encased in the fine leather gauntlets, and cursed softly.

Joanna had to be alive and well. He'd find her, and she'd be as impudent and saucy and exasperating as ever.

That's all that mattered.

“Over here!” Keir called from a patch of bracken fern. “This one's still alive.” He crouched on the ground and lifted the friar's head in the crook of his arm.

Rory hurried over and dropped to one knee. Just as he'd expected, the injured man was no tonsured monk, but a Macdonald. “Where's Lady MacLean?” he demanded, his voice hoarse in his urgency.

The clansman stared at Rory through the glazed, sunken eyes of the mortally wounded. He'd been stabbed several
times. Blood soaked the front of the priestly habit he wore and trickled from the corner of his mouth. He'd die eventually. But death wouldn't be quick, and it wouldn't be easy. His lids drifted shut as he started to slip into unconsciousness.

Rory grasped a handful of the thick wool at his throat and jerked him up roughly. “Goddammit, you bastard, where's my wife?”

The dying man's eyelids flickered, and for a brief second he seemed to recognize Rory. “They took Lady Joanna and Andrew,” he said on a shallow breath, then coughed up more blood.

Rory shook him, refusing to allow the wretch to black out before he'd answered his questions. “Who? Who took them?”

“Brigands,” the Macdonald answered on a gurgle of blood. “Caught us unawares. A dozen, maybe more.”

After rolling the other three bodies over with the toe of his brogue and reaching down to feel for a pulse, Lachlan joined Rory and Keir. He shook his head, indicating the soldier before them was the only one left alive.

Rory released his hold on the robe and rose to his feet. “Put him out of his misery,” he said.

Keir quickly and efficiently slit the fellow's throat, wiped his dirk on the coarse black wool, and returned it to its sheath.

“She's alive,” Lachlan assured his older brother, compassion softening his perceptive gaze. “Those bodies are still warm. They can't be far away.”

Taut with rage, Rory swung up into the saddle. He gathered the reins, calming Fraoch with a steadying pat, as he waited impatiently for Keir and Lachlan to mount.

“We'll follow the loch,” he said. “Hopefully they've camped in the woods, not knowing we're close on their heels. In the moonlight, we might be able to spot their smoke above the trees.”

The three brothers cantered their steeds across the new May grass, moving westward along the north bank of Loch
Leven, with the thick stands of birch and oak on the hillsides to their right.

 

Still dressed in the brown habit of a Poor Clare, Joanna sat with her back braced against an ancient oak, bound, gagged, and tied to the tree with a fat rope. Similarly trussed, Andrew watched her from across the campfire, his eyes stark with terror above the strip of linen that covered his mouth. He wore the black robe of an Observantine monk. Its hood had fallen back to reveal his shock of thick brown hair, disheveled and falling over his wide forehead.

Thirteen men lay about the campsite sleeping; two more stood guard along its periphery. They were broken men, with no clan of their own. Desperate brigands, who gave their allegiance to none but their fellow outcasts.

When they'd taken Joanna and Andrew prisoner, their leader, a thickset man with the posture and build of a soldier, had assured her they'd not be harmed. The religious disguises hadn't fooled him. He knew their identity, for he'd called them each by name. She assumed they were to be held until Ewen paid for their release with bags of gold from Kinlochleven's coffers.

In answer to Joanna's heartfelt prayers to every saint she could remember, not one of the men tried to molest her. Aside from binding her tightly to prevent her escape, they'd treated her with polite deference.

She leaned her head against the trunk's rough bark and closed her eyes. Her wrists and ankles ached from the snug cords; her body felt stiff and sore from being anchored to the tree. To make matters worse, the itchy wool robe had raised welts on her shoulders and arms, and the linen wimple chafed her neck and chin.

Tears trickled from beneath her lowered lids. The past two nights should have been the most wonderful nights in her life. The kind of nights every young maiden dreamed of and longed for with such hopeful anticipation. The tales of Tristram and Isolde, of Fraoch and Mai, of Launcelot and Guinevere had entranced her as a child. She'd envi
sioned a romantic bower, a breathless meeting of two souls destined to love each other for eternity, and nights of courtly, tender passion.

The thought of what had actually happened made her half-sick.

After she'd threatened him with the crossbow, MacLean had stormed from their bedchamber, leaving her to cry herself to sleep in heartbroken misery. Who'd ever heard of a bridegroom leaving his bride alone in their bed on their wedding night?

In all the tales of knights and ladies she'd ever read, all the stories of Celtic heroes and heroines she'd ever been told, Joanna had never heard of such a spiteful, ill-mannered, contemptible thing. God's truth, she'd never forgive him.

And that very afternoon, he'd nearly succeeded in seducing her in the hayloft like a foolish, pea-brained dairymaid. Even now, her cheeks burned with humiliation.

Tied to the oak for the last three hours, she'd had more than enough time to review the events of the past two days. Her only excuse for accepting the kisses and fondling of that depraved fiend was that she'd suffered from a transient bout of lunacy. How else could she explain her willingness, eagerness even, to have him touch her so intimately? Godsakes, she hated him!

She had to hate him.

He was a MacLean, and she was a Macdonald.

She had no choice but to hate him.

And to seek an annulment.

When the permission came from Rome, she'd follow her clan's wishes and marry Andrew.

That consoling thought should have fortified Joanna's resolve. It should have made her eager to escape from the brigands' clutches. Yet some strange, pathetic voice inside her beleaguered brain reasoned that, during the time she was being held for ransom, neither the annulment of her vows nor the marriage to her handsome cousin could take
place. And for some strange, pathetic reason, that fact held more consolation than her inevitable rescue.

A rustle of movement stirred in the trees near Joanna, disrupting her unhappy musings. She opened her eyes, expecting to see some small forest creature skulking about the edge of the encampment.

What she saw brought her thundering heart to a standstill.

Not ten paces away, one of the sentries crumpled slowly and noiselessly to the ground. She caught the flash of a blade in the moonlight as the shadowy figure that lowered the inert body to the grass withdrew his dirk from just below the dead man's rib cage. She knew the man was dead. Nothing but a corpse would lie that still.

Not a second later, the sentinel on the far side of the camp gave a strangled grunt and fell at Andrew's feet, his throat slashed by another intruder. Blood spattered across the lad's dusty brogues and checkered short hose. In the firelight, Andrew's eyes widened in shock, then turned to seek Joanna's steadying gaze. There was nothing either of them could do but watch the carnage that followed.

With broadsword in his right hand and dirk in his left, Rory nudged the man sleeping closest to Joanna. The heavy-set brigand scrambled to his feet with a shout of alarm, and Rory buried his sword in the man's thick chest.

Lachlan scattered the brigands' horses, sending them galloping through the surrounding woods. Then he joined his two brothers in the fray, slashing at his adversaries with blades in both hands.

Rory caught the next bandit, rushing at him from behind, sword upraised, with a downward thrust of his dirk. Pivoting to meet his third attacker, he sliced across the burly fellow's solid torso in a vicious upward blow.

Rory glanced around the clearing. Lachlan and Keir had dispatched two brigands each. In less than four minutes, the brothers had killed nine men, including the sentries. Not one of his wife's abductors would remain alive.

So terrified she could scarcely breathe, Joanna watched
her rescuers slay the remaining outlaws—who'd been trapped in the center of the camp—in a merciless display of close-quarter fighting that made her blood run cold.

With an almost casual elegance, Rory, Lachlan, and Keir each brought down two men at a time, one foe with the broadsword, the other with the dirk. In seconds there was no one left to kill. Keir and Lachlan paused, bloodied weapons in their lowered hands, and looked at one another with expressions of exhilaration.

Godsakes, they'd enjoyed it!

“Maybe we should have let one of the bastards live long enough to answer some questions,” Lachlan said jovially, his breathing smooth and regular. His black bonnet, with the two chief's feathers, hadn't even been dislodged from his reddish-brown hair.

“What for?” MacLean asked. He wiped both blades on the clothing of one of his victims and then sheathed his sword. Stepping lithely over the littered corpses, he moved in Joanna's direction.

“We already knew they were guilty,” Keir said with a grin as he methodically cleaned his weapons. “Why waste our time or theirs?”

Her mouth dry with fear, Joanna watched her husband advance, dirk in hand. Unlike his two brothers, MacLean wasn't smiling. The sharp swing of his plaid as he strode across the bloodstained grass gave clear warning that he wasn't very pleased with his bride at the moment.

The unmitigated fury blazing in his eyes now made his past anger seem like mere disgruntlement, and the ferocity emanating from his large frame reminded her of all the reasons he'd become known throughout Scotland as the King's Avenger.

He'd just killed seven men in as many minutes, and from the squared set of his jaw, he looked ready to murder her. He would become an exceedingly wealthy widower if he did, with only his two bloodthirsty siblings as witnesses to the truth. How capable was he of resisting such temptation?

She pressed back against the solid trunk, trying to widen
the distance, if only infinitesimally, between her and her furious husband.

“Mmph,” she warned him through her gag.

He didn't bother to answer. He severed the thick rope that bound her to the tree with his dirk and then cut the bonds at her ankles. Grabbing the cord that tied her wrists, he looped the doubled length of the rope through it and yanked her to her feet.

The Poor Clare habit had belonged to a much taller woman, and Joanna tripped over its sagging hem.

“Tamph omph thh gah,” she pleaded, stumbling awkwardly against him. She clutched the brown wool garment in her tied hands and lifted it scant inches off the ground.

MacLean ignored her. Holding the rope in one hand, he led her like a haltered cow on its way to market toward the three horses that Lachlan had brought into the small clearing. In the meantime, Keir had released Andrew and removed his bonds.

The lad immediately tore the cloth from his mouth. “Th-they came up fr-from be-behind us,” he stuttered, looking wildly from one brother to the other. “W-we didn't have a ch-chance.”

The trio of grim-faced warriors towered over him. They were liberally splattered with blood—none of which was their own. Next to the tall lairds—all three in their twenties, and all three with magnificent physiques—the spoiled adolescent's immaturity became painfully apparent, even to himself.

Keir's scornful gaze skewered the frightened lad, and he shook his head in disgust. “You wouldn't have had a chance, you jelly-footed gowk, if the Angel Gabriel had blown his trumpet to announce their arrival.”

Joanna tried to bring her hands up to her mouth to pull away the gag, but MacLean refused to allow it. By the simple expedient of holding on to the rope, he kept her arms securely anchored below her waist.

“Lemph mph goph!” she said, trying to jerk free.

He didn't bother to look around.

“What shall we do with the laddie?” Lachlan asked his older brother in a bored tone. His green-eyed gaze paused for a moment on Joanna, and she could have sworn he was choking back laughter.

“I say we geld him here and now,” Keir suggested with a corsair's grin. “'Twill be the last time he tries to steal another man's wife.”

Andrew's face turned as white as curds. Clearly nauseated by the conversation, he clamped one hand over his mouth. He looked at his cousin beseechingly. “J-Joanna,” he gasped through his cupped fingers. “T-tell th-them it-it wasn't m-my idea!”

“Doph hmph hiph!” she pleaded.

Her husband's icy gaze flicked over her, his tacit warning more effective than the gag. She didn't say another word.

“Take the boy to Mingarry Castle,” MacLean told Lachlan. “Keir can ride back to Kinlochleven and tell his father what's happened. We'll leave it to Ewen to talk his son's way back into the king's good graces. Maybe he can save the damnfool idiot from hanging for treason.”

Keir held the point of his dirk to Andrew's smooth cheek. “Why don't I carve up these fine, fair features a wee bit?” he offered gleefully. “Just enough to keep the lassies from drooling all over him.”