Master of the Highlands

Page 8

Who was she, and why did she have to land herself under the care of the Cameron clan?
Robert had spoken of a labyrinth, and, though years had passed since the lad’s arrival, Ewen remained dreadfully uneasy about what this mysterious maze was. How it would choose a person. Or why.
And now this new stranger. The one, he suspected, whom Gormshuil had prophesied.
Ewen was a man grounded in the realm of reason. His was a world of power gained and asserted through tradition and physical prowess. He had no use for witchery, and no use for tales of years past or years to come.
Chapter 6
The first thing to pierce Lily’s consciousness was the sound of another person breathing. A slow, deliberate inhaling and exhaling that spoke of one accustomed to keeping their body measured and mind in check.
She opened her eyes, and the most formidable man she had ever seen filled her vision. He sat as still as the rock of
Ben Nevis itself. Shoulder-length black hair framed a face carved from stone, the sharp edges of cheeks, nose, and chin softened only by faint black stubble. He was in full traditional Highland regalia, with a crisp linen tunic tucked into red and green tartan. Laced loosely at the neck, the shirt revealed a small triangle of smooth, muscled chest. She caught a glimpse of a dagger peeking out from the top of one of his leather boots.
Lily stretched, savoring her body’s reaction to such a man. Spending time in the rugged Scottish countryside must’ve conjured such a traditional Highland warrior in her sleeping mind. His dangerously pure and potent maleness called to some well -buried ultrafeminine aspect of herself. Her dream had painted him with such vivid detail too, all the way down to the sgian dubh in his boot. She didn’t recall the last time she had an erotic fantasy, and this was a welcome one. Lily opened herself to that familiar warm loosening of muscles, the rhythmic pumping of blood through her veins, the sensation of her body unfurling, with mouth and legs parting to take what he would give her. A sensual smile curved the corners of her drowsy lips as she imagined nipping the salty stubble of his chin just before taking his mouth to hers.
His brow furrowed and intense blue eyes bored into her own as if he were able to take the measure of her soul with just one look. That steady gaze was met with a shriek from Lily, suddenly jolted back into reality. Waking reality. This was no dream man. He was a flesh and blood stranger sitting but an arm ’s length from her. She sat up faster than she knew her stomach muscles could take her, causing the thick fur cover to fall to her waist. Lily gasped as the cold air hit her body and she realized she was barely clothed in a nightgown made only of thin ivory linen, trimmed with delicate lacework around the neck and cap sleeves. She prayed that he wasn’t the one who had stripped and changed her into something suitable for an antique doll.
Lily steadied herself and tried to meet this stranger eye to eye. She felt a bit like a bird that ’s discovered it’s been unwittingly stalked by a silent—and very hungry—cat.
She took in his every detail while her heart pounded, unsure if her reaction was from the thrill of being face -to -face with a Scotsman who looked as if he had dropped right out of an old legend, a little ripple of leftover desire, or simply from pure fear. Studying the pattern of his red and green tartan, it dawned on Lily that this must be the man who’d checked on her as she slept. She was thankful that she hadn’t seen him this clearly at the time or her sleep would have been fraught with nightmares.
The size of him alone was alarming enough. Lily estimated that he was well over six feet, all broad shoulders, heavily muscled arms, and powerful legs. It was his face, though, which Lily found the most unsettling of all. It wasn’t his features as such that provoked fear. Looked at individually, every part of his face was actually quite handsome. Strong, square jaw; aquiline nose; broad, high cheekbones; a firmly set mouth that you couldn ’t quite call full; and indigo blue eyes that glittered dangerously as he looked Lily up and down in her bed. She unconsciously pulled the covers more tightly around her neck and thought that it was the sum of those stark, strong features that made this man so intense. She couldn’t figure out if he was the handsomest creature she had ever seen, or the fiercest.
“What … ? ” That single word alone sent a shooting pain through the right side of her skull.
Lily gave a start at the sound of a cleared throat from across the room. She turned to discover a somewhat foppish man seated in the corner. He didn’t look at ease with himself; the slight tilt to his chin, arrow-straight posture, and delicately crossed legs gave him an appearance that Lily could only describe as pretty. He had a full head of soft curls, lit gently by the sun that shone through the thick glass windows and made his hair glimmer in shades of yellow and gold.
The blond saw that she was paralyzed with fear, and Lily imagined he bit back a small smile to watch the hulking black-haired Highlander take advantage of her stillness to fully size her up. Her unease was rapidly becoming all- out fear, and she looked back and forth between the two as silence choked the room. These men clearly had saved her life, but just who were they and what were their intentions now?
Lily looked back to the young man in the corner, stunned by his bizarre clothing. Unlike his companion, the blond was dressed in some sort of period court costume. Wherever he found his getup, it must’ve cost him a fortune. He was wearing a short, fitted jacket in a mustard-colored silk or satin. Lily had never been good at fashion and could barely tell one fabric from another but she could see that these threads were the best. His sleeves were puffed out at the upper arm and patterned with rich, navy blue brocade. His perfectly matching outfit was completed by navy blue satiny silk pants, puffed and gathered at the knee, with deep vertical slashes of mustard peeking through pleats in the fabric.
Perhaps it was catching sight of the preposterous mustard- colored tights that hugged the blond’s calves, but Lily managed to gulp down her panic and let her temper take over the situation. “Don’t just stare at me! Where am I?”
“Sssh, hush now lass, we don ’t have much time. ” The man at her side spoke, his voice an almost sultry Scots burr that made goose bumps ripple across Lily’s arms.
The black-haired Scot shifted slightly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. Though in a position that suggested relaxation, Lily felt his physical energy as if he were a leopard ready to pounce. His feet were planted on the floor with knees spread apart, and Lily couldn ’t help but trace her eyes up his boots and along his knee into the darkness of his kilt. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks when she realized where she had been looking. The creak of his leather chair was the only sound in the room.
His eyes never left Lily’s face. She began to feel physically uncomfortable with the sensation that those eyes were boring clean through her.
She tightened her grip on the fur blanket and backed as far as she could against the bed’s black oak headboard. “Who are you anyway? Why am I dressed this way? Where are my clothes?” Each question was more urgent, and louder, than the last.
It was the blond who broke the silence. “Tell us, mistress, what century is it?”
“Look, I don’t have amnesia or anything. Please just give me my things and I ’ll be on my way. ”
Lily silently tried to calm herself with reassurances that, certainly by the end of the day, and with a glass of particularly strong single malt in hand, she would be able to chalk this up to some grand Scottish adventure. And so she filled the unsettling silence with an answer to his question. Anything to get dressed and get out of there.
“The twenty -first. ” She cursed herself the moment she said it, wishing it had sounded more like a proclamation than a question. She was still flustered, though, from the black-haired man’s unwavering stare.
A distant look washed over the blond ’s face. If Lily didn’t know any better, she would’ve sworn that it was awe. “ So, I haven ’t been asleep for a hundred years like Rip Van Winkle, have I?” she croaked, trying to break the tension with a weak joke.
Neither of the men in the room got the humor. The black-haired one finally spoke. “No, lass, I don’t know any Winkle. Stop nattering and listen. Were you at the labyrinth?”
“I, well, yes I was. At least that ’s what I think it was. Some sort of old-fashioned garden maze. The walls were high and covered with vines with black berries.” Lily force d her mouth to curl into a weak smile. “Like some sort of grim Halloween version of a holly bush. ” She hoped a dose of feeble humor would normalize the situation. As if she always sat around in a nightie chatting about the local scenery with some menacing warrior and his costumed pal. “Vines with black berries? Aye, lass, it wasn’t holly, ’twas the devil ’s cherries. Those who study such things know it as deadly nightshade. It’s quite rare in Scotland. Any there is would’ve been cultivated by the witches who claim the fruit ground into a paste helps them to fly come Samhain. ” His tone was scientific, and though it was clear he himself didn ’t fancy such notions, it struck Lily as more than a little peculiar that someone could discuss such things with a straight face. “Villagers say it’s the devil himself who goes about tending it in his leisure. ”
Preposterous subject matter aside, Lily was mesmerized by the sound of the man’s voice. If she weren’t so taken aback by his fearsome presence, she imagined she would find it sexy. It was deep, resonant, and she found she listened more to the rhythm of his brogue than to the actual words he was saying.
It took her a moment to register their conversation. Lily responded, “Yes, I think…that’s all very interesting, now if you ’d just help me with my things, I will …”
The blond disregarded her entirely and insisted to the man in the corner, “Be it three hundred years or thirty, Ewen, this makes no sense.”
Ewen raked his hand through his black hair and mused, “Och, it wouldn’t be so easy as that to puzzle through now would it? The stone chart must be part of the key. ”
“Of course!” the blond exclaimed. “It’s to do with planetary alignment, with the stone chart at the heart of the maze representing some specific configuration of the constellations. ”