Seducing a Scottish Bride (35 page)

“To be sure, and you saved them.” Gelis stood. “You were only a boy and needed your memories —”

He made a choked sound, its bitterness spearing her.

“Memories, aye, but I also kept them as a warning.” He put the quilted armor and the helm back in the chest and lowered the
lid. “I wanted a reminder to keep me from e’er again thinking ill of another soul.”

He looked at her then, his eyes dark. “Especially a soul I dearly loved.”

Gelis dropped back into her chair. “I don’t understand.”

“Nae?” He arched a brow. “Then perhaps you will if I tell you that the day my father rode out hunting and plunged o’er a cliff
when a swift black fog descended was a day we’d had a terrible argument. I’d —”

Gelis gasped. “Dinna tell me you —”

“Aye, I did.” He took a ewer from the table and splashed a measure of ale into a cup, gulping it down before he went on. “We’d
been at odds for some time. I wanted to join his squires at their swording practice and he forbade me, saying I must wait
another year. The morning he went hunting, I took an extra sword from his solar and joined the squires anyway, telling them
he’d given his permission.”

“But he hadn’t,” Gelis guessed.

Her throat tightened and her heart wrenched for the boy he’d been, the darkness he’d carried so long.

“Nae, he knew naught of it — until he returned unexpectedly, having forgotten to strap on his sword, of all things.” He poured
another cup of ale, this time bringing it to her and thrusting it into her hands. “Needless to say, he found me in the midst
of his sword-practicing squires, swinging a blade nearly as long as I was tall.”

He paused, motioned for her to drink.

As soon as she took a sip, he went on. “Ne’er had I seen him so furious. He flung himself from his horse and flew across the
bailey to grab me by the collar and drag me into the keep in front of all and sundry. I was shamed and — at the time — vowed
that I hated him. When at last he rode out again, I wished he would ne’er return.”

“And he didn’t.” Gelis finished for him.

He nodded. “No one e’er saw him again. Not alive anyway.”

“Ach, Ronan.” She sprang to her feet and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. “You canna — absolutely canna — think
it was your fault. ’Tis tragic, aye, but —”

“It was but the beginning, sweetness.” He disentangled himself from her arms. “You know of Matilda. My second wife, the lady
Cecilia —”

“I know of her, too!” She hastened after him when he paced away. “Anice told me —” She broke off at once and clapped a hand
to her lips.

But it was enough.

She knew.

Ronan released a breath. “Anice spoke true, I am sure,” he said, seeing no point in lying. “Lady Cecilia was ill content here.
She loathed the glen and she hated me. And” — he went back to the opened window, once again needing air — “she ne’er missed
a chance to remind me of her unhappiness.”

“But why?” His new lady bristled. “How could she not have been glad-hearted to be yours? You —”

“You do me proud, lass.” He looked at her, her indignation warming a cold place inside him. “But Lady Cecilia was no’ wholly
to blame. She was a city lass, a sea merchant’s daughter from Aberdeen on the distant North Sea coast. Our dark hills and
the quiet of the glen frightened her. Nor did she understand our ways.”

“Then why did she wed you?”

“For the same reason you did. She had a father whose debt placed her in my arms, only his debt was not one of honor.” He glanced
at the fire, remembering. “The man had lost two shiploads of cargo at sea and when a storm claimed his third and last ship,
he found himself facing ruination.”

Gelis’s brows lowered. “Unless he sold his daughter for a high bride-price.”

Ronan nodded. “I . . . needed a son. It’d been years since Matilda’s death and Dare deserved hope.” He leaned back against
the window arch, his hands gripping the cold ledge. “Some traveling Highlander had made his way to Aberdeen and somehow crossed
paths with Lady Cecilia’s father. The man was told of a well-pursed Highland clan unable to find a bride for its heir.”

“You.” She slid a hot glance at him.

“Aye, me.” Ronan watched her pace, some detached and surely debauched part of him not missing how his plaid gaped a bit each
time she finished her stalk across the room and whirled around again.

He balled a hand to a fist, then unclenched it as quickly.

The whipping of her hips and the flashes of her smooth, shapely thighs were making it increasingly difficult to concentrate.

He cleared his throat, trying anyway. “Lady Cecilia’s father sent word to Valdar, claiming his daughter was eager for the
match. We were told the fumes of the sea and the city made her ill and she looked forward to coming here. Unfortunately, that
was not so.”

“Then why didn’t she return to Aberdeen?” Gelis wheeled about again, this time giving him a quick glimpse of the bright, red-gold
curls topping her thighs.

“Och, saints!” The curse slipped out before he could stop it.

She shot him an odd look, but he rushed on before she could question him.

“She couldn’t return because she had nowhere in Aberdeen to go,” he explained, half of him wishing she’d stop her pacing while
the other half willed her to step even more quickly so he’d be treated to such an eyeful again and again.

He bit back a groan, the pull at his loins almost unbearable.

“What do you mean ‘she had nowhere to go’?” She spun around and the plaid dipped, revealing a tightly ruched nipple. “Was
her father not there?”

Ronan ran a hand down over his chin, caught between bad memories and the worst rutting-lust he’d ever known.

His heart began to pound as hotly as the heat flooding his groin. “Her father took the coin from her bride-price and rather
than repaying his debtors, he caught the next ship to France.”

The words seemed to hang in the air, someone else’s explanation, while his own voice silently shouted his need, his thoughts
centering on
her
.

The comely, sparkling creature eyeing him so heatedly, all bouncing bosom and riotous dishevelment.

She jammed her hands on her hips. “Lady Cecilia blamed you.”

“Aye, she did. For that and many other things.” He could scarce speak. Blood was beginning to roar in his ears. “Her last
words were that ‘now she’d be free of me and I’d be rid of her.’ ”

“And you silently agreed.”

“I did.” The memory rushed him, guilt damping his lust and cutting off his air. “And it was after we buried her that I vowed
to ne’er wed again.”

“But you did and I am . . . other!” She flung herself at him again, this time locking her arms tight around him and pressing
close.

Her warmth and all her soft, pliant womanliness chased all else from his mind and his need returned, the force of it tilting
his world. He whipped his arms around her, pulling her even harder against him, almost drowning in the wonder of her.

The way she made him feel.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, needing her scent, the essence of her, to cleanse him. A great weight began sliding
off his shoulders, but when he looked at her again, it was the brightness in her eyes that undid him.

“Sakes, lass, ’tis naught to cry o’er,” he blurted, his voice gruff.

“I am not crying.” She pulled back, blinking furiously. “But I might if you don’t stop telling me such sad tales and — and
admit that you need me!”

“I do need you. More than I would have believed.” The admission fell with surprising ease from his lips.

Even more startling, it made him feel good.

Almost giddy enough to shout with the joy of it.

He did tighten his arms around her, but when an unblinking canine stare from the direction of the hearth fire caught and latched
onto him, he let go of her.

“Stay here.” He put a hand to the small of her back and guided her into the shelter of the window embrasure. “I’ll be back
in a wink.”

Then, he spun around and crossed the room before his wits left him. He cracked the door just enough to peer into the darkened
passage beyond.

“Guard!” he called, knowing one would be lurking somewhere.

Sure enough, the Dragon soon appeared. “Aye, sir?” The young man stood erect, the light of a handheld rush torch illuminating
his pockmarked face.

Ronan stepped closer to the door, making sure he blocked the guard’s view into the room. Then he leaned forward to whisper
into the Dragon’s ear.

“As you wish, sir.” The guard couldn’t quite hide his surprise. “I’ll be back with it anon.”

Ronan kept his back to the room as he waited. Primed as he was, even one quick over-the-shoulder glance at the temptation
behind him was too great a risk.

It’d been too long since he’d lain in lust with a woman.

And — he now knew — he’d never before lain in love with one.

“Sir, I have it.” The Dragon’s voice came through the crack in the door.

Ronan thrust a hand into the shadows, seizing the meat-bone. “I thank you — now see that my lady and I are no’ disturbed.”

Before the guard could respond, he shut and bolted the door. Then he drew a great breath, put back his shoulders, and marched
over to the hearth fire.

“For you,” he announced, giving Buckie the bone. “Consider it a bribe.”

“A bribe?”
She
stepped out of the window alcove. “For Buckie?”

“ O-o-oh, aye, something to keep him occupied.” He started forward, pulling off his shirt as he went. “I’ll no’ have him watching
what I’m about to do to you.”

A
nd what is that?
”

The sweet huskiness of his lady’s voice slid through Ronan like honeyed wine. He stepped closer to her, letting his gaze rake
her up and down.

He almost envied his plaid.

Its soft woolen folds clung seductively to her lush, curvaceous body, the tartan — his very own — molding the generous swells
of her breasts and the ripe sweep of her well-rounded hips in ways that were dangerous for a man.

Especially a Highlander.

“ So-o-o?” She tossed back her hair. “What are you going to do to me?”

Ronan didn’t trust himself to speak.

Not that she needed his answer anyway. The flash in her eyes and the way she bit her lower lip revealed that she already knew.

She stood before him glowing and unafraid, her plaid-wrapped body gilded by firelight. His heart caught and the air around
him ignited, his need to have her beneath him almost bringing him to his knees.

“I do have an idea.” She pressed him, this time moistening her lips, letting him catch a quick look at the tip of her sweet,
pink tongue. “Can it be what I hope?”

Her eagerness pushed him over the edge and he tossed his shirt to the rushes, closing the space between them with three long
strides.

Reaching for the plaid, he hooked his fingers into its warmth and stared down at her, his blood alive and his heart thundering.
His entire body burned and he craved every sweet inch of her, ached to run his hands all over her naked skin, kissing and
licking her everywhere.

“Well?” She wet her lips again.

“Ach, lass,” he almost snarled, “I’m more of a mind to show than tell you.”

With one swift flick of his wrists, he jerked the tartan off her and tossed it aside. “Do you know what it’s done to me, watching
you prance about the room, naked in my colors?”

“So it’s my own good self in your plaid that brought you around?” She twirled in a deliciously bare circle, her eyes lighting
with delight. “And here I thought it would be my golden hip-belt and siren bauble that would sway you.”

“You swayed me! And if you think otherwise, then you know naught of a Highlander’s passion!” He grabbed her by the shoulders,
yanking her close for a hot, demanding kiss.

“I burn for you,” he vowed, speaking the words against her cheek. “I have done since that first day I saw you — in mist on
a slender sickle of shingled strand!”

“Ronan . . .” She spoke his name like a benediction, her soul breaking on his need for her.

She was falling into him, spiraling ever deeper into her love for him, losing herself while gaining so much. Her heart trembled
and sweet belonging rippled through her, sealing their bond.

“Lass.” The endearment made her shiver.

He thrust his hands into her hair and kissed her again, deeper this time, all the desire in him plundering and devouring her
lips. She cried out and opened her mouth beneath his, her tongue tangling wildly with his. Leaning into him, she melted with
her sighs, let him drink his fill of her breath and intoxicate himself on the taste of her.

“You have no need of adornments,” he panted, breaking away to drop to his knees before her on the discarded plaid. “Leave
such gee-gaws for a man unable to appreciate a woman’s sleek, hot flesh and all her lively allures. It is you, lass, and you
alone, who stirs me.”

He slid his hands around her hips, digging his fingers into her curves and drawing her close. “Your siren bauble is fine,”
he assured her, rubbing his face against the softness of her belly, “but it is this I couldn’t resist!” He looked up at her,
his gaze smoldering as he pressed his lips to her naked skin then dragged his mouth lower, raining kisses across her fragrant
female curls.