Authors: Dawn Halliday

Highland Surrender (7 page)

She was changing her clothes. She stripped off her torn petticoat and shimmied out of her shift. Her body glowed in the moonlight as she bent over to splash water over her face and chest. Large, high breasts, narrow waist, flared hips. She reminded him of a ripe fruit, of a plump, juicy pear. Surely she’d be just as sweet. His mouth watered, and long-denied lust surged through him.

And she called
him
the angel? The absurdity of it nearly made him laugh out loud.

She pulled a clean shift over her head and wrapped a cloak around that luscious, rounded figure. Cam’s heavy eyelids drooped as she returned to his side, reached under the blankets, and laced her fingers with his. Why did she hold his hand? How could she know how much the simple touch soothed him?

“Don’t let go,” he murmured. “It feels . . . safe.”

“Delirious fool,” she muttered, but she squeezed his fingers tighter.

She sounded like Mary. He chuckled and then allowed sweet oblivion to claim him again.

He awoke to sharp pain in his shoulder. His eyes snapped open to utter blackness, but he heard her. Ceana MacNab’s breaths came in long, deep draws. Hair tickled his lips, and with effort, Cam turned his heavy head. She sat on a tattered wicker chair beside the bed. She’d crossed her arms on the bed and rested her head on them. Her untamed mop of hair tumbled across the blankets. With a pang in his chest, Cam realized she lived in a one-room cottage, and he’d taken her only bed.

With his good arm, he reached up to touch her hand, brushing away a soft strand of hair. Her fingers were icy. Gritting his teeth against the pain moving wrought on his shoulder, he managed to push two of the warm plaids off his body and tug them over her without waking her.

She turned her face into the single stream of moonlight coming in from the cloudy window, and he stared at her glowing silver-streaked skin for a long while. Such lush lips—he’d never seen anything like them. Plump and gently rounded, the top one curved into a perfect bow. Ever so gently, he swept a finger over them. Her lips parted, and a warm breath whispered over his fingertip.

Satisfied, he drifted off again. This time he dreamed of those lips moving over his body, down his chest, over the tip of his straining cock, and swallowing him deep into her mouth. Her fingers wrapped around him along with her lips, squeezing tight, and together they created a rhythm that shot sparks of pleasure through his body.

God, he was close. He drew away, staring down at her—his angel—as she gazed up at him from her kneeling position, her lips shiny from sucking him.

Her pink tongue flicked out, licking around her lips as if he were the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

“Why did you pull away?” she asked.

“I don’t want it to end. Not now.” He wanted it to go on and on, this feeling of pleasure, of contentment, of wholeness. He didn’t want to rush his release, because if he did so, it would mean he must release
her
.

He would hang on to her, to it, until he had no choice but to let go.

Maybe not, though. Maybe if he showed her how he felt she’d understand. Maybe she wouldn’t leave him. More than anything in his life, right now he needed an angel at his side. Someone to help him, to guide him when he began to go astray.

She still looked up at him, those gray-blue eyes questioning him, searching for a reason for his withdrawal and for his hesitation.

“I want you,” he said simply.

She rose to her feet, her garments vanishing from her body as she did so, leaving her bare.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

She opened her arms, welcoming. “I want you, too.”

He knew then, without a doubt, that he was dreaming. No one he’d wanted so much had ever wanted him in return.

Dream or not, he’d take it.

He stepped into her arms, pressed his body against her soft flesh, gently lifted her, and slid into her warm, willing body.

Rob stepped into the fresh air and turned his face toward the sky.

He should be angry after all that had happened today. He should be grief-stricken that his lover had rejected his proposal of marriage, and he should be annoyed at the behavior of the haughty English lass he’d met on the road. He should be with the other men in the barracks, drowning his woes in ale.

Yet he was none of those things. Instead, he was oddly reflective.

He stared up at the moon, an arcing slice of silver surrounded by a thick wash of stars.

Ceana was right: They had shared little beyond their flesh. He’d never felt compelled to tell her anything about his true feelings or about his past, and she seemingly felt the same.

Marriages had been built on less, he knew. Yet there was more to it than that, something she didn’t seem to recognize. He held himself back with her. In bed, he showed her a slice of his nature, but he kept the rest of himself hidden. Like the moon, part of him glowed and part lay buried in shadow. He’d never met a woman he could reveal himself to, and long ago he’d resigned himself to living half hidden from the world.

He still hoped Ceana could be that woman. He hoped he could somehow prove himself to her, show her that they could work together, build a life together. Though he once might have sneered at what had become of his life, he was content with his position as stable master at Camdonn Castle. It was a quiet existence, on the land that was part of his spirit and soul. He’d rather live in a more secluded, private place, but his flat in the stables would do for now.

It was a lonely life, though. His apartments were too big, too quiet. Someday he would like to share them with someone. Have a family, infuse the idea in his children that they belonged and they were loved—all the elements lacking in his own childhood.

Someday.

From the beginning, it had discomfited him to think that he was using Ceana like a whore, and today he had proposed to her on impulse, half out of genuine affection and half in an attempt to create something honorable from their affair.

Now, though, as he stared up at the crescent moon, it dawned on him that she might be using him too.

To his surprise, that revelation didn’t anger him. Instead he felt relieved, like the weight of an enormous responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders.

Smoke billowing from one of the tower chimneys blotted the bottom tip of the moon, and he lowered his gaze to the tower. The highest room was brightly lit, and through the arrow slits, he could see a figure pacing inside.

He knew the room. He knew who occupied it. Once, long ago, the last countess had occupied that tower chamber. Cam’s mother. Of course Cam would choose to put his betrothed there.

Rob gazed up at the tower and watched the shadow move back and forth past the arrow slit. He had never met anyone like Lady Elizabeth. Such a haughty, sneering woman. And yet he sensed a deep-seated vulnerability in her. He’d felt it resonate beneath her skin during that long silence as the horse had plodded down the mountain. He’d seen it in the mottled red flush that crept up her neck. He’d heard it in the choppy sound of her uneven breathing. And her seemingly “perfect” responses to her uncle conflicted with every one of her behaviors until that moment.

Who was she, really? Why did she hide? Why did she fascinate him so?

Was she like him?

She passed the arrow slit again, her white shift flowing in her wake, and, unbidden, a vision came to him. Her beautiful body undulating beneath his. Her perfect pale flesh crisscrossed with the red marks of his lash. Her lips parted in ecstasy as she knelt at his feet and begged him for more.

He tried to push away the fantasy. It was dangerous. Reckless.
Impossible
.

His cock hardened and pressed against the wool of his plaid as she passed the window once more.

In his debauched fantasy, he drew out his dirk and sliced her shift open, from the top of her neckline straight down to the bottom of the skirt, revealing more of her creamy skin with each inch of fabric he cut. The tip of the dagger pricked at her flesh, making her gasp, but he did not draw blood.

“More,” she whispered. “More.”

She didn’t fight him. She wanted more. She asked him to expose himself. She begged him to emerge from behind the shadows, to give her what she knew he was capable of giving.

Rob blinked hard. His dissolute mind conjured this fantasy, but from what? From the minutes she’d spent pressed against him on the saddle of a horse? He knew nothing about her. She was a spoiled Englishwoman, and it was likely she’d never spare him another glance.

And she was betrothed to the Earl of Camdonn. She was untouchable.

Elizabeth paced the tiny castle bedchamber, her stockings sliding over the slick, worn wood planks of the floor. The afternoon and evening had passed in a flurry. Fortunately, Cam’s housekeeper, Janet MacAdam, had remained with her and her lady’s maid, Bitsy, for most of the night, and Elizabeth hadn’t had a moment alone with Uncle Walter. Thank the Lord, for she’d caught his narrow, pale blue gaze assessing her more than once.

Mrs. MacAdam had given her a tiny room high up in the tower. Elizabeth might have scoffed at it, but its other qualities more than made up for its small size. First off, arrow slits lined each of its four walls, a most excellent way to discreetly view the happenings on the castle grounds. Secondly, Mrs. MacAdam, with a conspiratorial smile on her wrinkled face, had moved aside an ugly, faded tapestry depicting some awful battle, and had revealed a door.

“A secret staircase to the ground floor,” she’d confided with a twinkle in her round eyes. “Once, this was the countess’s bedchamber, and legend says her lover took this passage to her bed every night.”

Elizabeth had shuddered and pasted an appropriately appalled expression on her face. “How despicable,” she’d murmured, but inside she squealed with joy. She’d known every means of entrance and exit to her uncle’s Hampshire estate, Purefoy Abbey, but none was as mysterious or exciting as this one. When her maid finally left her, Elizabeth’s first order of business had been to grab a candle, slip behind the tapestry, and venture down the dusty, spiraling stone stairs. She encountered nothing, living or dead, along the way, and at the bottom, she’d pressed her ear to the rotting slats of a wooden door. It must lead to a room where people gathered, because she heard a low-toned conversation between several people. Unfortunately, it was in Gaelic and she couldn’t understand a word.

She returned to her chamber, and for the remainder of the night she kept watch on the activities in the courtyard below, growing more and more frustrated. Nobody bothered to keep her apprised of anything. Would they search for and arrest those awful highwaymen? She didn’t know whether they’d found Cam, whether he was alive . . . How in heaven’s name could they expect her to sleep?

Her shoulders tight with frustration, she drifted to one of the windows to look out over the night. This arrow slit faced the building she’d learned was the stable that housed Cam’s fine collection of horseflesh.

A figure stood beneath the eaves. A striking Highlander wearing a blue tartan plaid, his face tilted up. Strong jaw, straight nose, lips parted to reveal clenched white teeth, he stared at the tower. She spun away from the arrow slit and leaned weakly against the cool stone wall, her heart pounding.

For the briefest of seconds, Robert MacLean’s hungry gaze had locked onto hers, held her prisoner.

Blood rushed through her veins, and her quim tingled in reaction.

Perhaps he didn’t hate her as much as she’d thought.

Or perhaps he did hate her.

But one thing was abundantly clear: He wanted her.

Ceana opened her eyes to dim light permeating her cottage through the tiny pane of her window. She raised her head from her arms to see the earl’s fingers entwined with her own. His hand was long-fingered, paler than hers, smoother. Aristocratic. If nothing else, that ought to serve as a reminder: He was from a different world than she.

She straightened, feeling a weight on her shoulders. He’d covered her with blankets, and she was still holding his hand.

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