He looked down, and when he saw the two big blue eyes staring up at him, the heart that had been in his throat jammed. She was about twenty feet below him, clinging to a small tree that wasn’t much more than a sapling about halfway down the steep embankment. The steep, unstable embankment.
Damn. From the visible roots and large chunks of missing dirt, he could see that part of the hillside had already come away.
He followed what must have been the path she’d taken down the hill with his gaze. With the wet rock, mud, and dried leaves, she would have been sliding fast. That thin twig of a tree was likely the only thing that had stopped her from sliding all the way down to the rocky bottom. And it was the only thing preventing her from continuing.
She could be lying in a twisted, bloody pool . . . God, he thought he might be sick.
He did a quick scan of her person, and aside from a few scratches, dirt, a missing veil that he could see about ten feet down the slope, and a mussed plait, she didn’t appear to be seriously injured.
But he didn’t like the look of that tree. Not wanting to alarm her, he forced a lightness to his voice that he did not feel. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, her eyes getting a little wider. “I slipped.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “I can see that.”
“I tried to pull myself up, but I didn’t want to let go.”
“Don’t!” he said, unable to completely mask his alarm. Then more calmly, he added, “I’m going to come down to get you.”
“But shouldn’t you get a rope first?”
Aye, but he didn’t think he had time. The roots of that tree were not very deep and the rain coupled with her weight had loosened the grip it had on the hillside. He could already see the dirt lifting around the base.
“I’ll be careful,” he assured her, starting down.
With very little to grab on to that was sturdy enough to support his weight, he half-scrambled, half-slid down the embankment, keeping his body as parallel to the ground as he could, using his right hand for leverage and left for support. With one eye on her and the other on the base of that damned tree, he made his way toward her with precision and speed born not so much of skill but of determination. There was no way in hell he was going to fall—not when she needed him.
By the time he reached her, he knew they would never be able to climb back up. They would have to go down. It had only been a handful of minutes since he started looking for her, and he knew it would be awhile before Joanna sent someone after them.
He’d devised a plan, but it was going to take a leap of faith on her part.
He could see the pale terror mixed with panic on her face as he approached, and it tore at him. The urge to comfort—to protect—her overwhelmed him.
He stopped a few feet away, not wanting to get too close lest she reach for him or he put strain on that tree. The whole patch of ground looked in peril of breaking away.
“Hi,” he said, smiling as if they were meeting on a stroll through the forest.
“Hi,” she replied softly. Her eyes sparkled with the edge of tears. “You found me. I didn’t think anyone would come in time.”
“Joanna sent me. She was worried when you didn’t return.”
“I was on my way back but then I saw a baby hare. I thought it had been injured in a trap and tried to follow it. But I guess it didn’t want to be followed, as it led me over this embankment.”
“I guess not,” he agreed. He paused and thought for a moment. “How do you know which rabbit is the oldest?”
It only took her a moment to catch on before she smiled. “I don’t know.”
He grinned. “Look for the gray hare.”
She giggled, and then scrunched her nose. God, he loved it when she did that. He always had.
“That isn’t a very good one.”
“And yet you laughed,” he pointed out. “But if you think you can do better, be my guest.”
“You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
One side of her mouth curved up. “A little.”
“I need you to try to concentrate now—and I need you to trust me.”
“All right.” She agreed without hesitation, and it made his already compressed chest squeeze a little tighter.
There was a tree at the bottom of the ravine with sturdy branches that overhung just a few feet from where they were on the hill. He told her what he wanted her to do, and her eyes went perfectly round.
“I can’t jump!”
“Yes, you can. It’s only a few feet, and I’ll help you. We’ll do it together. I’m going to come toward you, you let go of the tree, grab on to me, and I’ll do the rest.”
“What happens if it breaks?”
“It’s too thick to snap, but if it bends we’ll ride it all the way down to the bottom. All right?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him mutely as if he’d lost his mind.
“El? I need you to do this. The ground is too slick with too many rocks. It’s too risky to try to slide down.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “And jumping on a tree limb isn’t risky?”
His mouth twisted. “Less risky.”
He’d kept an eye on the tree she was holding and saw it move another inch. She must have felt it, too, because her face suddenly drained again, and she nodded. “We better do it quickly.”
He looked into her eyes. “Don’t think, just look at me.” He held her gaze. “We go on three. Ready? One . . . two . . . three.”
He moved, she let go, latched on, and together they leapt. He needed both hands to grab the upper branch, but as soon as he felt the lower under his feet, he let go one hand and drew her in tight against him, until both the branch they were standing on and the one he was holding on to for support steadied. But the wild fluttering of her heart beating against his took a little longer.
Her eyes held his the whole time, and the knot in his chest grew and grew.
He knew she was still scared, but a small smile had started to work its way up the corners of her mouth. “I seem to recall being in a similar position once before, except at the time you weren’t quite so tall.”
He feigned a struggle to hold her. “And you weren’t quite so heavy.”
Her brows shot up in outrage. “Heavy! I may have put on a few extra pounds the past couple of years”—she sent him a glare—“but you would, too, if you lived with Joanna and all her sweets. I swear, every time I turn around there’s a new cake that I ‘must try.’ ”
He was trying not to laugh, which only served to further infuriate her. The lass was ridiculous. The only “heavy” places on her body were in exactly the right places. Two in particular were temptingly crushed to his chest. If he looked down . . .
He didn’t look down.
She gave him a little huff, and probably would have peered down her nose if she hadn’t been plastered to his side. “Obviously you aren’t as strong as all those muscles make you look.”
There was something admiring in her voice that heated his blood and sent all jests to the wayside. She liked his body.
She must have felt the change in him, because the gaze that was turned to his grew suddenly soft. Aroused. Hot.
Had he not been perched in a tree, with her wrapped around him, he might have kissed her. He would have kissed her. Nothing could have stopped him.
Instead he shuffled her around so that she was on the inside closest to the trunk. From there he loosened his hold around her so that she could grab the branch.
“Do you think you can get down the rest of the way from here?” he asked.
She peered at the grid of limbs below here feet. She only needed to climb down a handful, and she would be close enough to the ground to drop.
“I think so.”
“I’ll go first and guide you down.”
She nodded. They were on familiar ground, and it didn’t take long before they were on solid ground as well.
&nbs
p; He caught her to him and let her go. Or rather, he intended to let her go, but she kept holding him.
He didn’t know who moved first, but one minute he was staring into her eyes, and the next his mouth was on hers. All the heat, all the passion, all the desire that had been simmering in the air between them since that night in the kitchens boiled over.
He pushed her back against the tree they’d just climbed down, cupping her head with one hand to protect it from the bark, and lacing his other under her leg to wrap around his hip.
It was as close to heaven as he could imagine. Their tongues sparred, circled, and stroked, harder and faster. Deeper. It was as if they were starved for one another and were now feasting, devouring, consuming.
He couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t care. She tasted so warm and sweet, all he wanted was her.
And she wanted him.
He could feel it in the fervor of her response, in the stroke of her tongue, in the way her hands gripped the muscles of his arms and back, her leg tightened around his hip, bringing his cock into that sweet little juncture, and her hips moved against him.
Aye, he could definitely feel that. It made him groan and throb, and pulse in anticipation. For an innocent, she sure as hell knew how to drive him wild. Instinct was a powerful weapon, and she wielded it with the skilled precision to bring him to his knees.
He was out of control. His mouth was on her neck, his hand was cupping her breast, squeezing, rubbing his thumb over the taut peak. The erotic sounds of her gasps and breathy moans egged him on.
Too fast . . . not fast enough.
He had to touch her, had to feel all that heat and dampness on his fingertips. He slid his hand under her skirts and groaned with pure molten pleasure. She was so warm and silky, and ready for him. He wanted to make her come. He wanted to be inside her.
Honor? Nobility? He didn’t care about either right now. All that he cared about was making the girl he’d wanted his forever.
A cry stopped him. Not her cry, but her brother’s. “Elizabeth!”
He heard his own name, too. He thought it was MacLeod’s voice.
He swore and pulled away. He wished he could say the shock was like a bucket of ice water poured over his senses, but his body was still on fire, desire still fisted like a ball at the base of his spine, and his head still roared with the primitive call to mate.
“Down here,” he managed to respond tightly, moving out from the canopy of tree branches that he hoped had been enough to shield them from view.
From Jamie’s expression, it appeared they had been. He looked more concerned and suspicious than ready to kill. “Where’s Ella? Is she all right?”
Elizabeth stepped out beside him. “Right here, and I’m fine.”
One glance at her ravaged appearance and now Jamie’s expression was ready to kill. “What the hell are you doing down there?”
“I fell, Jamie,” she said angrily, guessing what he’d been thinking. “Thommy saved me from cracking my head open on these rocks.” He didn’t miss the “For goodness’ sake!” added under her breath.
“Get a rope,” Thom said, conscious of MacLeod’s presence. He didn’t want him to think he hadn’t heeded his warning—which he hadn’t, damn it. “I will fill you in on all the details once Elizabeth has been seen to.”
14
I’M FINE,” ELIZABETH SAID, brushing off her brother’s concern. After being pulled up the hill with the help of the rope, Jamie had ordered a tent to be quickly set up for her to be checked over. “’Tis my pride that is bruised more than anything else. I can’t believe I was so careless.”
“You could have been killed,” Jamie said. As it was wont to happen once the threat of danger was over, some of his concern gave way to anger. “Damn it, Ella, you know better than to wander off on your own like that.”
Joanna hurried to her defense as she usually did when Jamie lost his temper with her. Putting herself between the stubborn siblings who often butted heads was something she’d been doing since they’d first met. “It was an accident, James. Elizabeth didn’t mean to slip. And she didn’t wander off, she was looking for privacy, which everyone needs a few times a day.”
If Joanna had always been the loyal defender, then Izzie had always been the clever diplomat. She turned the conversation away from Elizabeth’s part in the day’s events. “You are so fortunate Thom found you when he did,” Izzie said. “I can’t imagine having to jump like that. You must have been terrified.”
She had been—at first. But the moment Thom had his arm around her, she’d felt secure. A calmness had descended over her, which given the situation was preposterous. “I was,” she said. “But I knew Thom wouldn’t let me fall.”
There was a moment of silence as her brother, sister-in-law, and cousin stared at her with varying degrees of interest, from Izzie’s curiosity, to Joanna’s “I knew it!” to Jamie’s eagle-eyed suspicion.
Self-conscious under their scrutiny, Elizabeth added, “I just meant that he is so good at climbing there is no one I would rather have with me in that situation.”
“He has done it before,” Joanna pointed out with a smile.
“He has?” Izzie said. “You never told me,” she said to Elizabeth accusingly.
Joanna proceeded to rectify the matter, recounting the tale of their refusal to be left out of the boys’ game and the dangerous aftermath.
Unfortunately, the story had not distracted her brother. “Did anything else happen, Ella?”
The image of her plastered against Thom’s big, hard body, her leg wrapped tightly around his waist as he pressed his manhood against her shuddering body, his hand touching her as their mouths devoured and tongues lashed . . .
“Elizabeth?”
She startled at her brother’s voice and blinked incredulously. Good God, she couldn’t think about that! She should never think about that. What could she have been thinking to kiss him again?
No matter how incredible it felt.
She forced a calmness she did not feel to her expression and hoped the guilt was not plain on her face. “What are you implying, Jamie?”
He gave her a hard look. “You know exactly what I’m implying.”
Joanna intervened again. “It is really none of your business, James.”
“Damn right, it’s my business! She’s my sister and my responsibility. And she’s marrying Randolph.”
“Nothing has been decided,” Joanna said.
“Yes, it has,” Elizabeth insisted. “We’re going to Edinburgh to meet my betrothed, and my sliding down a hill has not changed that. But Thom is my friend, Jamie, and nothing will change that either.”
Except it had changed. Elizabeth was beginning to realize that first kiss—and the one that had followed—had changed everything. What she didn’t know was how to change it back.
Despite the late start, once he was assured Elizabeth was uninjured, rather than spend another night on the road, Jamie decided to press on to Edinburgh. It was only a handful of miles, and with a break in the rain, he hoped they would reach Holyrood Abbey—where the king had set up his temporary court—by vespers. Elizabeth suspected a big part of his decision was to prevent her and Thom from any more “chance” encounters on the road—with or without Joanna’s intervention.
Elizabeth couldn’t fault his reasoning—or the need. As much as she’d loved spending time with Thom, and a return to some vestige of their former friendship, she knew it was probably best to put temptation out of temptation’s reach.
And he was temptation personified.
Why had he kissed her, blast it? Why had he made her feel . . . she didn’t know what she felt, but whatever it was she didn’t like it. It made her anxious. Unsettled. Confused. It made her heart jump whenever she caught sight of him. It made her ache to finish what they’d started.
What was wrong with her? She’d narrowly avoided disaster twice, and she was looking for another opportunity? She must be out of her mind.
From
her bench in the carriage, Elizabeth stared out one of the small openings. The rain had stopped, and despite the cold, she’d pulled back the leather flap to feel the air on her face. The bumping and tossing of the carriage over the rough terrain were making her slightly nauseous.
Fortunately, Joanna, whose stomach didn’t need any additional cause for nausea, had fallen asleep—as had the others—on some of the pillows and cushions that had been piled on the benches and floor of the carriage to make it more comfortable, which given the constant jerking and jostling was definitely relative.
Elizabeth sighed, watching the darkening countryside roll by in a bumpy panoply. Every now and then she could make out snippets of conversation coming from the men who rode ahead and behind, but the clatter of the carriage prevented her eavesdropping and relieving some of the boredom.
She would rather be riding, but having accepted an offer to ride in the carriage, they felt obliged to keep Lady Mary company for the duration of the journey.
Thank goodness they would be arriving in Edinburgh soon. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She’d been counting the days to be back in a big city, far from the monotony of the countryside. She’d been eager to begin preparations for the wedding that she’d been so excited about.
A wedding she had barely thought about since she’d left Blackhouse Tower.
There had been so many other things to think about, she told herself. Archie, for one. She was sure all the excitement would come back to her once they arrived, and she and Randolph came to their understanding.
Her stomach lurched, which she attributed to the jostle of the carriage. The lurching of her heart, however, could only be explained by the man who’d just ridden past. Her chest squeezed at the sight of the familiar frame, the broad shoulders ensconced in dark leather and strapped down with a multitude of weaponry, the inch of wavy dark hair visible beneath the steel edge of the helm, the powerful legs gripping the horse tightly—perhaps too tightly, she thought with a smile. Would he ever be comfortable on a horse?
He was so achingly familiar and yet so different. The village boy who’d been her closest companion was a powerful warrior now, and he looked it. The change was difficult to grow accustomed to.