The Highlander's Harlot (Sword and Thistle Book 1) (7 page)

But Davy wasn’t having it. “
You
warn the laird. Take his woman to him before they come back for her. And get yourself a healer.” Then to me, Davy said, “We’ll go after your sister and find out what they’re planning.”

With that, Davy all but threw me up onto Ian’s saddle like a sack of grain. With help, Ian mounted behind me, and before I could question my father, he rode off with me again in a cloud of dust.

~~~

“Are you hurt, Heather?” the laird demanded, marching down the stone stairs into the castle courtyard to grab me in his arms. Seeing the blood on my gown, he went white, half-torn between rage and worry. “Have you come to harm?”

“Not much,” I said with a tiny sob, grateful for his embrace. More grateful for it than anything I could remember. Though my jaw ached intolerably and I could still taste my own blood in my mouth, I couldn’t think of myself. “But Ian…and my sister…”

“Ian’s wound isn’t deep,” the laird reassured me. “The physicker says he’ll complain and brood about it, but it won’t kill him. And as for your sister…” John Macrae took a deep breath, and gently pushed the hair from my eyes. “She’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone. Even if Davy and Malcolm can’t stop the Donalds in time, they’ll only have a bit of sport with her and let her go.”

They’d rape her, he meant. And though I knew he meant his words to comfort me, they didn’t. Especially since he’d said,
she’s just a crofter’s girl of no value to anyone…

Words I knew the truth of, all too well.

But the laird treated me that night as if I
were
of great value to him. He took me to his chambers and sat next to me, holding against my cheek a cool pouch from the ice house while Brenna washed the blood from my face and arms. “The dress can’t be saved,” the maid murmured, with a sigh. “This blood can’t be washed out.”

“I’ll buy her another,” the laird snapped. “Just take it away. I don’t want her looking at the bloodstains all night.”

With that, he dismissed her, so we were again alone in his chambers. Me still trembling and in my shift, but not because I was afraid of him. “What’s going to happen now?”

“The Donalds are going to try and throw themselves at this castle and find themselves drowning in the sea, as always happens,” he said, confident, his shoulders squared.

“To my father, I mean. Please know that he hates the Donalds. Always has. He wouldn’t have sheltered them willingly. They had my sister hostage—”

“Lass,” he said, to stop me from my rambling panic. “Set your mind at ease on that score. I’m just pleased to learn your wretch of a father has a care for at least one of his daughters.”

I nearly swooned as the pain slowly spread from my jaw up into my head. “I’m feeling a bit dizzy from the blow.”

“You should rest,” he said, rising at once to scoop me out of my chair. Though I was sure I could’ve walked there myself—mostly sure, anyway—he lifted me up into his arms as if I weighed not more than a feather, then carried me to the big bed where we had kissed all those nights ago.
 

Then he laid me down upon his pillow as gently as a mother might put a bairn into cradle. “You don’t mind me in your bed?” I asked, softly. “I could go back down to the chambers you gave over to me before, if it would please you.”

“It wouldn’t please me,” he said, smoothing my hair. “I want you here tonight, where I can watch over you.”

I made room in the bed for him and he crawled atop it. He took my hand in his and I felt cherished. Cared for, in a way I’d never been in my whole life. So I kissed him, hoping it would crowd out my worries for my sister and the man who lay bleeding below stairs for my sake.

He groaned at the kiss, but returned it, with as much gentleness as he seemed able. He pressed the length of his body against me, and I felt a familiar and delicious thrill of his skin to mine. I loved the feel of him, the scent of him, the way it seemed as if he were some dangerous beast upon a tether that might snap any moment. But he held those impulses back, tracing his fingers down my bodice, reaching up beneath my skirts and hoisting one leg over his hip. Whatever he was going to do, I wanted badly, and I hissed when his hand softly stroked between my legs. “Ah, does that feel good, Heather?”

A little sob of overwrought pleasure was his answer. I’d never thought to feel someone touch me there—at least not known that it would feel so exquisitely warm and pleasurable. His strong fingers probed me delicately, finding a spot that caused me to cry out. Oh,
yes
. I wanted him to touch me there again, and when he did, I made fists of the bed covering, thrashing my head at the wicked delight. A moment more, and I was rocking against his hand, desperate, for something…for something…and then it happened. The searing climax that forced the air from my lungs, and left me clutching him, crying his name.

“My laird!” I cried, shuddering still in pleasure. “I didn’t know I could feel such a thing.”

That made him laugh a little. “Didn’t you? Aye, you’re more innocent than I ever guessed.”

Perspiring and dizzier than before, I moaned a bit, squeezing his hand between my thighs as the lingering tremors shook me. Meanwhile, he looked enormously satisfied with himself. But I couldn’t be content. My heart thumped wildly and I knew he was aching with desire, because his erection made a tent of his kilt. And his eyes, oh, they smoldered.

 
“Just enjoy it, lass,” he said, softly, when I tried to reach for him.

“But I want to touch you,” I whispered, my hands sliding down his body. “I want…I want…I want to give you as much pleasure as you just gave me.”

“You did,” he said, simply.

But I couldn’t imagine how.

Then I wondered if this is what he’d been trying to say to me all along. That he couldn’t take pleasure as a normal man or woman might, not with gentle kisses and stroking and touching. That he needed something more. That he needed the nakedness of a woman’s shame. And I was willing to give him mine. “What is it that you need from me? I would do it, if I knew.”

“But I wouldn’t take it from you,” he said, softly. “I’ve already taken enough. Because you’re a vexing woman—one who surprises me anew every single day.”

“What can you mean?”

“I believed you to be a good, gentle, obedient girl. A simple girl who would acclimate to her circumstances and accept her fate. But in the time I’ve known you, you’ve not only changed from a meek and shrinking girl to a saucy wench, but into a hellcat besides.” He twined his fingers with mine. “Ian told me you waded into the fray with the Donalds without even a dagger. What the devil did you think you could do to those men with these beautiful little hands?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I wasn’t thinking of anything but saving my sister.”

He gave a shake of his head, kissing me softly where a bruise was surely rising on my jawline. “How can such a delicate thing have the heart of a warrior? Too bad you weren’t born a lad—you’d have made a fine fighter for the clan.”

Feeling the pull of attraction between us, I dared to ask. “After what you just did to me, can you really wish I’d been born a lad?”

“T’would have made you less vulnerable to men. Men like me.” Staring hard into my eyes, he clenched his teeth. “I should’ve never let you go.”

“No,” I agreed. “You shouldn’t have. I wanted to stay with you.”

He grimaced. “I meant that I should never have risked your coming to harm.”

“You couldn’t have known the Donalds would be there.”

“No. But it’ll haunt me that I wasn’t the one who fought them off. That it was Ian’s sword that defended you, not mine.”

“His sword is your sword, my laird,” I said softly. “He’s yours and I’m yours. Everything and everyone in this castle is yours. If only you would
accept
it. I’d happily be whatever it is you need me to be.”

“My whore?” he asked, a touch of anger in his voice. Defiance, even. “My harlot? Because that’s how I’d treat you. That’s what I’d want you to be. When I give myself over to the carnal act, I’m not the man you know. I’m not a good man, then.”

“I don’t care,” I said, bravely. Recklessly.

“You should care!”

“But I don’t. Not as long as you’re the same man after. Because you’re a good man. A good laird. And I want you desperately.”

He looked stricken. “You haven’t the first
idea
what you’re saying, lass. Maybe someday, when you have a bit of experience with men, if you still think—”

“I don’t want to live in shame and ruin for anyone else’s lusts but yours. If you won’t take my maidenhead, I won’t be giving it or selling it to anyone else. I—I’ll join a nunnery.”

He scowled. “Which is exactly where you should be. You’d be safe in a nunnery.”

“But no one will ever touch me there, or make me feel like you did just now,” I whispered, inching closer to him, capturing his strong leg between mine. Squeezing it. “Tell me why it excites you to strike a lass with your belt.” Though he was so much bigger and stronger than me, he recoiled as if in retreat before an army. I had to hold him with all my strength. “Please tell me?”

Swallowing, he said, “It’s play. I like to see the red stripes on a pretty bottom. Like to know a lass feels low and subservient to me. Like to hear her cry out, knowing she’ll wear my mark for days and know that she’s mine every time she sits down.”

“But you do no real harm to her?”

He scowled. “Are you asking if I’d take pleasure in beating a woman with my fist and leaving a bruise on her face like the one you’re sporting, the answer is
no
. But I’ve slapped a woman who asked me to do it, and she enjoyed my doing so.”

My eyes widened. “So there are women who enjoy it.”

His nostrils flared. “Of course! But not women like you.”

“How do you know if you won’t try me? And plainly, you want to try me. Your member is straining for the want of it, my laird, and it can’t be healthy to deny yourself as you have been. I am offering relief.”

He seemed stunned. Both by my frank discussion of his sexual need, and by the insistent, shameless offer. “You’re a
madwoman
if you think I’d add to your pain today, after what you suffered.”

Though he wouldn’t be convinced, still I smiled softly. “Tomorrow, then.”

“You’re the relentless, lass!” He laughed, then stroked my jawline softly where it ached. “I’ll tell you what you can do to please me tomorrow.”

“What’s that?”

“You can prove to me that you really can make the best pie of any woman in the clan. If we’re lucky, you can serve it to your sister in welcome when my warriors recover her. If we’re unlucky, well, the baking of it will take your mind off your troubles.”

~~~

“A
pie
,” I said, bitterly. “The laird is drilling his men in the courtyard preparing for a possible siege, and he wants me to bake him a
pie
.”

Brenna seemed horrified—but not for the reason I was. “The cook will throw fits to have a woman of your ilk in her kitchen!”

“Well I can’t very well bake a pie in my chambers, can I? You’ll just have to tell the cook that it’s the laird’s command.”

Brenna bit her lower lip. “You don’t understand. The only person more powerful in a castle than the laird is the cook. All the men know that if you anger her, everything will be over salted for a week. I made her furious once and got a dead mouse in my rations the next day. You don’t want to anger the cook!”

Hm. It sounded very much as if I
didn’t
want to anger the cook. “What if—what if she doesn’t know who I am?”

Brenna sighed. “Everyone in the castle knows who you are.”

“By reputation. But if I wore a maid’s dress and apron…”

Brenna’s eyes lit up. “Oh, aye. But if I tell her you’re a new girl, she’ll have you scrubbing pots. There’s only one way to get you into the kitchens without a fuss, and that’s if she wants to prove to you that she’s a better cook.”

And so Brenna carried the rumor back to the kitchen that I’d boasted I could bake a better pie and by afternoon, the huffy cook was ready to meet my challenge. Side by side we chopped root vegetables and stew meat and spices; I marveled at how many spices the kitchen had in its pantry that I didn’t have at my father’s cottage and began to worry my boast was in vain. But my secret ingredient wasn’t a spice, but a splash of milk and flour that made the gravy creamy inside the pastry. And I knew now to make a crust with lard that would flake tenderly off the fork.

I kneaded dough. I crimped it. I brushed it with egg-white. I stood sentinel at the hearth to watch the dough rise. And just as mine turned golden—perfectly puffed, and I pulled it out of the oven, we heard news from a herald in the courtyard.
 

“It’s your sister!” Brenna breathed.

“She’s here?” I asked, hastily wiping flour onto my apron.

“No, but they have her. Davy and Malcom captured her back. They’re holed up somewhere until the danger is passed, but they sent back a lad to let us know that she’s safe.”

Arabella is safe
, I thought, nearly wilting at the knees. Not that I trusted Davy or Malcolm to treat her with anything like respect, but they wouldn’t let her come to real harm. Of that much, I was sure.

The laird burst into the kitchen, and servants scattered in surprise and fear. All but the cook, who stood there by her pie, hands on her hips. “My laird.”

His eyes were only for me. “You’ve heard the news?”

“Oh, aye!” I said, wanting to throw my arms about his neck, but not sure if I could. He relieved me of the need to do so by wrapping his arms around my waist, and kissing me full on the mouth as if I were his woman. As if I were more than that…

The cook cleared her throat.

The laird looked up, spotted both pies cooling on the rack, and gave a feral smile. “Ah, now which one is Heather’s?”

“No, you don’t,” groused the cook, with astonishing insolence. Brenna must have been right about her power here in the castle. “You can taste ‘em both and then tell us which one you like best. Then we’ll see that it’s mine you have a taste for.”

The laird took a fork, prodded the shell of the cook’s pie, and made an approving noise. Then, digging into it, he brought a piping hot bite to his mouth. “Tasty,” he said, closing his eyes with pleasure. And I began to worry he’d prefer hers to mine. “Very very tasty.”