Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 15

It was only then that Adrienne saw the arrow still quivering in the tree that she had been, moments before, standing directly in front of, soundly berating her new husband. Her eyes widened as she gazed up at the Hawk questioningly. This was all too weird.
“Whom have you offended?” Her husband shook her smartly. “Who seeks to kill you?”
“How do you know it wasn’t you they were after, that it wasn’t just a bad shot?”
“Nobody wants to kill me, lass.”
“From what I hear your last lover tried to do just that,” she retorted nastily.
He paled ever so slightly beneath the flawless bronze of his skin.
The blacksmith laughed.
Her neck was getting sore from peering up at him. “Get off me,” she growled at her husband.
She wasn’t prepared when the Hawk’s eyes darkened and he rolled over and pushed her from him.
“Though you persist in rejecting me, wife, I think you may need me,” Hawk said softly.
“I don’t think so,” she retorted fiercely.
“I’ll be here, should you reconsider.”
“I’ll take my chances. No one shot anything in my direction until you showed up. That makes two attempts that I know of on you, and none on me.” She stood up, brushing her gown off. Dirt and nettles stuck to the heavy fabric. She tugged a few leaves from her hair and dusted off her rump until she became aware of an uncomfortable sensation. Slowly she raised her eyes from her clothing to find both men watching her with the intensity of wolves. Large, hungry wolves.
“What?” she snapped.
The blacksmith laughed again. The sound was deep, dark, and mysterious. “Methinks the lady doth not see how sweetly cruel beckons such beauty.”
“Spare me,” she said tiredly.
“Fair the dawn of yon lass’s blush, rich and ripe and deeply lush.” Her husband was not about to be outdone.
Adrienne stamped a foot and glared at them both. Where was her Shakespeare when she needed it? “For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright/, who art as black as hell, as dark as night,” she muttered.
The smithy threw his head back and roared with laughter. Her husband’s lips curved in an appreciative smile at her wit.
Hawk stood then and extended his hand. “Cry peace with me, lass.”
Cry. The man could make an angel weep. But she was hungry. Thirsty. Tired. She took his hand, vowing fiercely to take nothing more. Ever.
As her husband guided her from the clearing the smithy’s voice followed on a jasmine-scented breeze, and she was surprised that her husband didn’t react. Either he was not a possessive man, or he simply hadn’t heard. For clearly she heard the smithy say, “Woman who renders all men as weak kittens to cream, I can take you places you’ve known only in your dreams.”
“Nightmares,” she grumbled, and heard him laugh softly behind her.
Her husband glanced at her curiously. “What?”
She sighed heavily. “Night’s mare rides hard upon my heels. I must sleep soon.”
He nodded. “And then we talk.”
Sure. If I’m still in this godforsaken place when I wake up.
Sidheach James Lyon Douglas worried his unshaven jaw with a callused hand. Anger? Perhaps. Disbelief, surely. Possessiveness. Where the hell did that come from?
Fury. Aye, that was it. Cold, dark fury was eating him from the inside out and the spirited Scotch was only aiding the ache.
He had stood and watched his new wife with starvation in his eyes. He had seen her suffer raw and primal hunger for a man—and it was not him. Unbelievable.
“Keep drinking like that and we’ll never make Uster on the morrow,” Grimm warned.
“I’m not going to Uster on the morrow. My wife could be with babe by the time I got back.”
Grimm grinned. “She’s in a full fury with you, you know.”
“She’s in a fury with me?”
“You were too drunk to wed her, much less bed her, and now you’re in a tizzy because she looked on Adam agreeably.”
“Agreeably? Give the lass a trencher and she would have slid it under him, licking her lips as she dined!”
“So?”
“She’s my wife.”
“Och, this one’s getting too deep for me. You said you didn’t care what became of her once the deed was done. You swore to honor the pact and you have. So why this foolish ire, Hawk?”
“My wife will not make a cuckold of me.”
“I believe a husband can only be a cuckold if he cares. You don’t care.”