Master of the Highlands

Page 18

The corners of his eyes wrinkled as Ewen regarded her.
“Otherwise, ” he added with quiet compassion, “it’s all for naught, lass. Otherwise, you’re alone with naught but the ground at your feet and the stars in the sky for to guide you. And that ’s not any way to live, Lil’. I don’t care what your century. ”
Lily was speechless, and the moment suspended in time, feeling utterly extraordinary, searing her to the quick. Ewen had laid bare all that had felt empty in her life, a wanting that she herself hadn’t realized until that moment. She had loved Gram, more than anything. But in Lily’s world, family could be an afterthought, and now her biggest regret was that she ’d let herself drift apart from her grandmother in those last years.
Lily scrubbed her hands over her face. She was exhausted, and the potent whisky was working its way through her veins, blunting her thoughts, numbing the agonizing throb in her foot, and sending a dull heat to unspool the muscles in her neck and back.
She would come up with an insightful rejoinder to Ewen ’s polemic against modern life. First, though, she would just shut her eyes and mull it over for a little while.
The next thing Lily knew, she was being gently lifted and settled into their improvised shelter. She tried to help the process, but gravity pulled down on her body and made her feel like a bag of wet sand. Utter exhaustion fogged her brain, and she gave up trying to open her eyes. She felt Ewen ’s light touch as he brushed the hair out of her eyes then, inexplicably, combed his fingers once through her thick curls.
Feeling safer than she had since her arrival, Lily stretched out on the tartan, savoring the scratch of wool against her skin. She became aware of the moisture in the fabric. Rather than chilling her, though, the effect was of a humid warmth enveloping her, reaching the cold in her bones. One last shiver shuddered through Lily as her body finally relaxed, and the purity of physical sensation pushed away all thought, diminishing logic into a meaningless hum at the back of her brain.
Lily welcomed the heat with a pure physical bliss that she hadn’t felt in years.
Ewen pulled the tartan around them tightly, offering her body his warmth. She had injured her foot badly, and was likely suffering from exhaustion as well. The lass would need a good warm rest or he would have a real problem on his hands. She had been through quite an ordeal in the last few days. He still couldn ’t wrap his mind around the fact that she wasn’t of his time. But the same held true for
Robert, and some things you just needed to accept on faith. He had never seen such a strong-willed lass. To fire a pistol in that way took real courage—not to mention strength. He had felt a flush of pride for her in that moment. He didn’t want to tell her that he could have easily dispatched the men on his own—a few drunken redcoats are no match for a Cameron—but he enjoyed the thrill of the fight with her. Felt a camaraderie that he had shared with but a few men, and those were of his clan.
It made him wonder about this mysterious lass who was so alone in her life, without meaningful relatives, much less a clan to buttress her. It saddened him, and angered him too, that Lily had nobody to rely on. What kind of world does it become, where family is for naught?
And why could she possibly have been sent to him?
Ewen had taken her under his protection and was glad of it. His mind told him not to trust her, and yet there was something about Lily that made him feel as if he knew her. That he recognized her somehow. That there was a rightness to her appearance in his life. For the time being, he chose not to disagree with whatever forces in the universe had placed her just there.
He lay awake for a long time, savoring what was his favorite part of the day. The woods—his Highland woods—offered a never-ending symphony of sounds. That he never noticed it by day always made him especially keen to savor it when the moon was high. The constant quiet settling of leaves. The occasional creak of a faraway branch. And, if he really strained, the faint lapping of the loch in the distance.
The stars lit the sky like a thousand candles shimmering overhead. He became intensely aware of how tiny a presence he was in the world and let the sensation wash over him. Some sought power, but Ewen always felt reassured when reminded of his own insignificance. It made it all easier to bear somehow. The responsibilities, the decisions, and the fighting most of all.
Night was so tranquil, and his days were usually filled with such …noise. A cacophony of physical and mental trials. He wasn ’t sure what he enjoyed most about such days—challenge itself or the utter calm that followed.
Today, though. Today was different somehow. He was unable to find the total peace that normally followed such physical exhaustion. He didn’t know why he had divulged so much to the strange lass. With the exc eption of his uncle Donald, he confessed his thoughts to no man. To no woman, especially. He had allowed a momentary chink in his armor and had felt a glimmer of understanding between himself and Lily. Accepting the mantle of Lochiel, he had been forced to isolate himself at a very young age as someone apart from the rest. But there had been a flickering moment this day, a moment when he had felt he could confide in this strange woman, when he could savor the luxurious illusion that he was not so very alone .
And strange she was indeed. He had never met a woman that strong before. His wife, Mairi, had strength, yes, but of a different sort. Mairi had found power in her arrogance, her vanity. Lily, however, was a singular creature. He had stood alongside many men in battle and always secretly knew who would fall for him and who would think of themselves at that last crucial moment. He ’d looked into her eyes during the fight and saw that she would have traded her life for his. Her honor and courage were etched clearly on her face. Hiding nothing, sparing nothing, she fought with him. Then afterward, she was so guileless in her questions of him. Demanding the truth from him. In another woman, he would think her frank interrogation an impropriety, but with Lily it was something else entirely. He speculated that she offered nothing short of truthfulness and naively demanded the same of those around her.
He shut his eyes in an effort to quiet his mind, and concentrated on the feel of the brisk night air on his skin. He had enough concerns without overly contemplating some lass. Inhaling deeply, he took in the scent of the forest. The lush aroma of damp wood and grass. The faint tinge of heather on the air. He thought the colder the night, the clearer the scents became.
Her smell filled his senses. Ewen couldn ’t help but relish it. It had been so long since he had lain by a woman, and many of those had worn cloying perfumes that mostly just made his head ache. Lily was different, though. She had a warm salty smell, but at its essence was the scent of her womanhood, sweet and rich. Ewen edged ever so slightly closer and found he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling her abundant hair. He imagined most people would deem her locks unruly. That they should be pulled back or up or powdered or whatever it was women did. But he was enchanted by the riot of white -blonde curls, thick rings that he could wind around his fingers. He gently took one of the long ringlets in his hand and, rubbing it to his lips, savored the faint smell of the sea.
He shut his eyes and fell asleep, hand still tangled in Lily ’s pale mane.
Chapter 10
Lily slowly roused herself from a dreamless sleep. She wondered for a moment where she was then, feeling Ewen ’s hot breath on her neck, remembered everything. He had tucked them both tightly in his tartan for the night. Struggling to release an arm from their cocoon, she felt a momentary flash of anger at his close proximity. How dare he take advantage like that? They were tangled up quite snugly in what must have been yards and yards of wool. Seeing the white fog of her breath in the dawn, though, Lily realized that it was exactly this intimacy that had meant a full—and toasty—night’s sleep for her. She finally worked her arm free and confirmed her suspicions: there was a brisk chill in the air. Enjoying the contrast between the cold morning and their warm nest, Lily lay there, idly toying with a fallen leaf, running through the previous day’s events in her mind.
The day had been so chaotic and she so exhausted, her rational mind had not played much a part in things. And then there was that flicker of attraction she’d felt for Ewen. She had been ready to open herself to him. If he had tried … well, thank God he hadn ’t. She only hoped that he hadn’t noticed all that schoolgirl sighing and blushing. What had she been thinking? No, that ’s just it, she hadn’t been thinking. There was a ready intellectual explanation for what she had felt. The intensity of the day ’s events had heightened her physical senses. She ’d read about posttraumatic stress disorder—surely she was undergoing some similar phenomenon. Ergo her brief attraction to Ewen. It was that simple.
Images of his smooth chest in the moonlight and the tender strength of his hands flashed through her mind. Lily just as quickly smothered those thoughts. The crisp Highland air must be getting to her.
His gruff early-morning whisper startled Lily out of her reverie. “Time for us to move on, lass. If we leave now, we ’ll be back safe in the keep by midday. ” She had to admit, there was something remarkably masculine about his voice.
She pushed the thought out of her mind and rallied her tired muscles. Though she ’d had a good night ’s sleep, resting on hard Highland ground wasn’t exactly the way to combat stiffness. She slowly pried herself out of the layers of wool and assessed the damage. Her fingertips felt raw, as if she had taken sandpaper to them. She was thankful that the greatest concern with her hands was that a few of the fingernails had turned a foul yellowish brown color, like she had smoked about a thousand cigarettes the night before. The pain in her foot also no longer alarmed her. Although she still didn ’t dare put her full weight on it, the agony had reduced to a dull throb.
She quickly surmised that her outer appearance left a lot more to be desired. She tried to work her fingers through her matted hair, but she might as well have tried combing a bird’s nest. Managing to pluck out a good number of brambles, she wondered what seventeenth -century fashion would say to a nice set of dreadlocks.
A glance down at her skirts had her hoping that there was some sort of back door to the castle that they could sneak in through. She hated wearing linen in the modern days of dry cleaning and pressing—she always felt like a magnet for every wrinkle and speck of dirt. Her current state, though, was beyond any magic that could be wrought by modern technology. Sleeping in a slightly damp skirt, tangled with a Scottish warrior, had rendered her a rumpled mess. She could even feel the indentations on her leg where the extensive web of wrinkles had pressed into her skin all night. As she smoothed her hands over her clothes, it was clear the crumpled fabric was the least of her worries. The hem of her skirt was black with silt where