Ravished By The Iron Highlander (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Read online

  “So, you worship in churches—”

  “And riverside, mountain tops, and in fields,” Duncan added. “But me Clan worships only in churches.”

  “That’s…comforting,” Isabella mused.

  The peaceful silence of the wintery forest surrounding them was only broken by the rustling of critters below in the spindly bushes and the raucous cawing of birds above in the treetops. They rode off in calm silence but then stopped in the middle of a path covered with dead red-brown leaves. Isabella twisted to look at him and saw his head cocking to the side and his brows knitted in the middle.

  She was about to ask when he turned away from the path and into the thicket of the forest. She kept her silence, knowing that he would not turn away if it was not for something important. Quickly, she realized why, a stream was there, not much more than a rivulet, but it was enough to have them drinking. He came off first and helped her off then led the horse to the water.

  Sitting on the bank, above the horse, she cupped some and drank before asking, “How did you know it was here?”

  Crouching, Duncan’s hand was swirling the water, his expression was slightly wistful, “Me Faither would take me out into the wild to let me get used to the land around me, after a while ye get to hear the different sounds of the forest. Ye know where a rabbit’s warren is, the sound of a bird feeding her chicks, and the undeniable sound of water. The last one is more self-survival than anything. Ye can live on water for a while even if ye cannae find food.”

  “Hm,” Isabella mused. “My take on survival is different.”

  His brow quirked, “And what is that?”

  “I can handle a blade as any man,” Isabella said and felt pride when she saw his jaw drop. “Want me to show you?”

  12

  The lass can fight?

  “Aye,” Duncan said as he rose from his crouch, his attention had been grabbed by her words and his expectation was very high. “I’d love to see that.”

  Crossing to the tree line, he snapped some branches and ripped the leaves off them. He gave one to Isabella and stepped away a few paces. She did away with her cloak and his eyes widened when he saw her shift her feet into the proper stance.

  She held the stick a foot above the ground and watched him with eyes sharper than an eagle’s. He quickly lashed out with his and she met his blow with a light tap. Crossing his feet over the other he watched as she did the same then lunged again. This time, she met him with a tap, spun around and struck out at him, a blow he easily parried.

  He stuck out again, aiming for her feet and she nimbly jumped over it. When she came at him again, Isabella did not move with her makeshift sword, she danced with it and her body was bowing and bending like a lithesome sapling in the wind as she parried his blows. Delight and liveliness were making her face shine as they mock sparred.

  “So, that's how yer so light on yer feet,” he said delightedly as he deflected another strike. “I always wondered how ye could walk with so little sound. Ye was trained!”

  “Yes,” she said while circling him. “I was, something I am sure no English woman would ever lower themselves to do. To put on a pair of breeches and tussle in the dirt for the basic skill to save their lives. But I knew that one day my Father was going to pass and that I needed a way to protect myself when he was gone.”

  Duncan met her for another pretend blow but she slid in closer to lock their sticks into a deadlock and to his amused eyes whispered. “I can throw daggers too.”

  Throwing his stick away, he pulled her into a warm, sensuous kiss. God, I’ve found a woman of me own heart. His teeth nipped and tugged at her lower lip for her to open to him. When she let him in, his tongue plunged in, tangling with hers, her body went lax in his arms as his hands dropped to her hips. His strong hands roamed her body, curving over her side and the dip of her spine, feeling desire grow inside him.

  But he stopped the feeling from taking over all his senses. Pulling away he felt pleased seeing her unfocused eyes. He brushed his lips under her eyes, loving the warm honey tone he was met with. A flash of cold green eyes darted to the forefront of his mind but he pushed it away. Caitrin has nothing to do here.

  Kissing her cheek, he pulled away and his voice dropped to awe, “What else is there to ye?”

  “Keep me around for a long while and you’ll see,” Isabella teased. “I think we should be on our way, now, don’t you think?”

  “Aye,” he said as he parted from her and went to get the horse from the waterside.

  Grasping her hips, he lifted her up to the saddle. She was so light he wondered if she ate thistledown for meals. She felt lovely in his hands though and even more, he loved her resting on his chest as they rode. To him, the lowlands were rugged, marshy, drab, and bland. There was nothing much to see but flat farmland and remains of old Roman structures. The air was always wavering between cool, wet, and windy.

  Isabella, however, was twisting looking left and right, peering at things that completely disinterested him. His thigh was getting stiff but he would take care of that later, probably when Isabella was massaging the salve in. He loved her touch.

  “You said it might take up to eight days to get to your home?” Isabella asked.

  “Aye,” Duncan confirmed. “We have some mountains to climb over or go around and about five lochs to pass through. Me home is very secluded but we hold our own up there. The clans near us are our allies as are up that high in the country, and are between as mountains separate us, we few have to bind together.”

  “Is that a part of why you did not get married already?” Isabella asked.

  That, and some more things. “That’s a part of it,” Duncan said, hoping his tone would dissuade her from asking more. He knew Isabella was intuitive enough to pick on the smallest clues and he had dropped his voice to show his reluctance. When she did not pry anymore, he sighed in relief.

  “Duncan…” she said, “will you tell me what happened? Why had someone hurt you?”

  He dropped his head to kiss her neck, and whisper into her ear, “One day, I promise.”

  They traveled until sundown and Duncan found them another clearing to stay in. While making up her bed, Isabella asked, “Duncan, do you know where we are?”

  He paused and looked around, “I believe we're somewhere between Dumfries and Lochmaben, the place where the war was fought. ‘Tis going to take us a while to get to Kilmarnock but we’ll get there…if we dinnae get trapped by the seasonal rains, o’course. From there, we go to Kilpatrick and past Loch Lamond. And that is only half of our journey.”

  He seemed to be taken aback by his own words but Isabella turned to him with a commiserating look. “I look forward to it.”

  “‘Tis a long way, lass,” he said. “But ye will nay be sorry for it. Ye’ll get to see and touch the old Roman wall the so-called conquerors had put up.” His head tilted up. “See this sky as it grows dark and the stars peek out? They are so dim here. At home, it seems as if ye can reach up and pluck one out of the sky. They shine brighter too and sometimes they shoot across the sky.”

  “I bet,” Isabella rejoined. “Ye did say ye lived at the top of the world.”

  He tugged her into his side and nosed at her hair, just above her left ear, “I never said that and second, again, me accent is nay for ye.” He felt her shiver and smiled when her words were calm but shuddery.

  “I’ll master it one day and then you’ll not remember my old one,” she said. Duncan dared to place a hand in the middle of her shoulder blades and push her to rest on him.

  Her hand rested in the middle of his chest and there he saw the calluses on the tips of her hands. That was curious, the rest of her hands were smoother than buttermilk. He plucked her hand from his chest and examined it. Her nails were chipped, uneven, and bitten. He used his thumb to close her fist and kissed her knuckles. “May I ask, how did you keep your palms soft after all those years of handling a sword?”

  “Olive oil and sugar,” she replied. “And
sometimes I’d sleep with them wrapped with strips of cloth and the concoction underneath it. Fooled a lot of people but not my brother. He knew.”

  “Do ye want him dead?” Duncan asked. “Seems like that would change a lot of yer problems.”

  She shifted to press closer to him. “It’s tempting but…no. He might be a selfish man, and for his betrayal, he might deserve death, but I don’t want his blood on my hands.”

  Might not have to be yers.

  Not voicing his thoughts, Duncan just slowly ran his hand up and down her spine. “One day, I’ll put a real sword in yer hands, see what ye can really do.”

  “And a bow and arrow too,” Isabella murmured sleepily. “Don’t forget about that.”

  That took the seasoned warrior by surprise. She can both sword fight and shoot too? God’s mercies; only hellions did those. Tilting his head to look at her peacefully sleeping face, Duncan shook his head slowly. Isabella was no hellion. She had only done what was prudent to save her life.

  He tucked her cloak tighter around her to stave off the chills she might get as the night deepened. A sharp spasm in his thigh had him wincing but while he dropped his hand to rub the pain and stiffness away, he did not shift so she would be uncomfortable.

  Isabella’s soft breath skittered over the skin of his neck; the soft intangible touch made gooseflesh rise. It also made his arousal spike, stirring like a slowly bubbling pot. Her head slipped to the side, exposing her arching cheekbone and the smooth length of her neck.

  Her skin is so soft, love marks would be as red as a blood-moon on her skin…I want that.

  Though he was never a philanderer, he had not shied away from seeing women that sparked his lust and used them to their mutual satisfaction. Back then it was nothing else beyond lust, and lust was easily sated. But Caitrin—

  She was the main reason why he wasn’t that much interested in the meaningless dalliance he used to seek out, and that his naive self had thought was best for him. I should call her Delilah, not Caitrin, because that name means pure, she was the farthest thing from pure.

  His nostrils flared as the knife she had stabbed him in the back with felt like it had being jammed back inside his tender flesh again. His jaw tightened so hard that his muscles began to ache. He forced himself to breathe his anger out. She is nae here…she is nae Isabella…

  Forcing himself to calm, he tried to slip into his old self, the one that would stay and watch through the night but his body was still weak and he found himself slipping off. He was able to get enough rest for the day ahead but when he tried to lift his leg, his limb felt heavy. Shifting Isabella to his side, he slowly pulled his knee up. The scar pulled and stiff pain jolted up his leg.

  His attempt to stifle the pained grunt was a misfire as Isabella was up and looking at him with concern. He pressed his palm on his thigh while through the corner of his eye, he saw her grabbing for her sack of clothes. Quickly, she had the tub of salve out and his pant leg rolled up to where she could slather the wound.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” she chided while massaging the tense limb. “You don’t have to suffer in silence, you know.”

  “I didn’t want to wake ye,” he sighed. “Ye needed yer rest.”

  “And you need to stop acting like you can do it all,” she added with narrowed eyes. “No one can carry the world on their shoulders, Duncan. I don’t have an issue helping you…” her head tilted with a contemplating look, “or is it that you are not used to having people help you?”

  Soothing relief flooded his stiff limb as the salve was being worked in. “I’ve…grown to be suspicious of people who offer help out of the blue.” he admitted.

  “It’s because of the woman who hurt you, isn’t it?” she asked while going for another bit of salve.

  “Aye,” he breathed, “it’s a long story lass.”

  Isabella did not reply and guilt turned Duncan’s stomach sour. He felt he owed her clarity but the hurt— almost two years old—still felt so raw. Perhaps it was him. If he had been a louse and not invested so much time, effort, and care with Caitrin, the pain of her betrayal would never have sunk so deep.

  “Lass,” he groaned, “I—”

  She flashed him an understanding and contrite smile, “I understand, Duncan. Some pain is not easy to speak about.”

  He still felt small, and childish but even when he tried, the words would not come. Perhaps it would come sometime in a dark night, when he was pain-free because she had erased the agony in his heart. He tried to frame the words but again nothing came. In the stifled pause, Isabella seemed happy to move off from the tense moment and he was more than happy to oblige.

  As she moved off, he snagged her hand and pulled her in. “Thank ye, Isabella.” He spotted some smudges of dust on her cheek and made a mental note to find a spring so they could bathe. “Trust doesnae come to me easily anymore, and aye, it has come from the pain I suffered, but can ye change it for me?”

  His question was loaded and he knew it was a challenge anyone would readily accept. When he expected her to refuse him flat out, or even hesitate, nibble her lip, look away or even say no, she looked directly at him with no hesitation in her eyes and said, “I’d like nothing more, because you can do the same for me.”

  “Isabella, I asked ye for a hard thing,” he said. “Are ye sure? It’s two years of pain ye will have to undo.”

  “You will have fourteen years of mistrust to undo,” she parried with a twitching lip. “I have more than you but I think we can come to a compromise.”

  “Sounds like a business deal, eh?” he grinned. “What terms do ye propose?”

  Her nose wrinkled in distaste, “My brother wanted to trade me off for a business deal. Nothing about us will be for business.”

  “My apologies,” he said repentantly. “What would ye want?”

  “Make me laugh,” she said with glittering eyes. “Let us make each other happy. We can start from there.”

  Pulling her in for a sweet, tender kiss he nodded with a rakish grin. “T’will be me pleasure but fair warning, lass, expect the unexpected.”

  13

  The spring Duncan had found for them to bathe and for the horse to water, was chilly. The earthy scent of pine, moss, and dying leaves of the forest around them, a bird cooing overhead and the sound of water flowing over rocks up ahead were soothing to her senses. There was no soap so she just had to do with the rag and the water.

  She looked to the bank where Duncan sat with his back turned to her and she smiled. After almost two days on the road, her skin had itched and so did her scalp. Her hair, combed in a long braid, had needed a wash. When she had unbraided it at the riverside, letting the long locks free, Duncan had run his hand through it from root to tip mumbling something in Gaelic that she did not understand. His tone sounded complimentary though.

  Now, it was washed out and twisted around her head. She finished washing her body and waded out of the stream to the bank where her towel rested. Drying off, she slipped her dress on while her eyes were still stuck on Duncan who had already washed off.

  Sitting, his knees were drawn up to his chest, his shirt was off and the span of his muscled back was flexing under the pale sun. It was the part of his body that did not sport bruises from the war. His dark hair was feathered over his shoulder blades and she was drawn to it.

  Kneeling behind him, she rested her hands on his shoulders and felt him tense a little before twisting to look at her. There was a hint of mischief in his eyes and she had barely gotten to sink her fingers into his hair before he grabbed her and she was on the grassy ground with his fingers digging into her side.

  Howling in laughter, she tried to dislodge him from her squirming person but he kept on tickling her, “D-Duncan, get off me. Y-You’re r-ruining my dress.”

  “When we get to me home, ye’ll have much more to pick and choose from,” he grinned.

  She swatted him while laughing, “I have to bathe…bathe again! I’m all dirty!”
br />   “Dinnea care,” he laughed then, with a twist she was sitting on his thighs while he was laying on the grass. His expression was so boyish and his grin so crooked she felt her heart contract. His hands framed her hips while her dress was rucked up to her knees. “Made ye laugh, dinnae I?”

  “At the expense of my ruined dress,” she tried to pout but it did not fool him for a moment.

  Leaning over him, she braced herself on her elbows and kissed him softly. “Sorry, I know I was not supposed to as—”

  Then, he was kissing her with his tongue slowly and sensually meeting hers in a long, drugging kiss. The intensity that sank into her was deep, and sent smoldering heat through her body. His hand was on the back of her neck and on her hip and she felt her nipples begin to pebble.