Huddled beside her on the bed, Christina stroked her sister’s head as she cried into her shoulder. Only when the shock faded into numbness did she reply. “What he asks. What other choice do we have?”
Her stomach turned and bile rose in the back of her throat at the thought of what she had to do. Every instinct in her body rejected the idea of doing something so dishonorable. The man had saved her, and this was how she would repay his gallantry?
“He’s gone mad with his hatred,” Beatrix said. “Forcing a man into marriage this way, it’s wrong. Such a marriage would be doomed.”
Beatrix was right. The MacLeod chief would despise her—and rightly so. If the idea of sneaking into his bedchamber wasn’t terrifying enough, she also had to fear his reaction. But there would be no lasting harm. It would not come to marriage.
Christina shook her head. “I will do what father asks tonight, but we will leave the day after tomorrow as planned.” The worst the MacLeod chief would suffer would be a day’s delay in his travel. But he wouldn’t be forced into marriage. That must give her courage.
Tor tossed off the fur coverlet, swung his legs out of bed, and followed the sliver of moonlight peeking through the wood shutters to the sideboard. The slap of cool evening air on his naked skin was a welcome reprieve. He was hot. And restless.
He felt like he was jumping out of his damned skin.
Not for the first time, he regretted refusing MacDonald’s offer of a lass to share his bed this evening. What the hell had he been thinking?
His jaw hardened, knowing the answer.One woman was as good as another, he reminded himself.
Reaching for the jug ofuisge-beatha, he said a silent thanks to MacDonald for his prescient hospitality and took a long drink, not bothering to pour it into a cup. The potent whisky burned a trail down his throat and chest, and after a moment spread through his limbs like a warm blanket, dulling the blade of edginess.
When the jug was considerably lighter, he looped his finger through the small handle at the neck and carried it over to the side table. Dropping back onto the bed, he raked his hair back from his face, disgusted with himself.
God’s blood, what was the matter with him?
He liked his whisky—as any Islander did—but he did not usually use it to dull his senses. But the wall that he’d erected in his mind was proving to be confoundingly weak.
He’d been damned close to kissing the lass earlier and knew it. For a man who prided himself on control, the lapse was unfathomable.
Heshouldbe focusing all his thoughts on Nicolson. Tor had learned from MacDonald that Nicolson was not heeding the summons to Finlaggan. Nicolson had sent his regrets, but pressing matters required his attention.
Aye, Tor thought, pressing matters like mounting an attack against the MacLeods.
MacDonald had sent another messenger to Nicolson, demanding his immediate presence, but Tor dared not wait. He needed to return to Skye immediately to begin preparations for war.
But it was not the prospect of war that invaded his thoughts, stiffened his cock, and made him feel like a lion penned in a very small cage.
He was distracted. By a woman, of all things.
He shook his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the company of women. But other than light conversation at mealtimes, he related to them best in bed. In that he understood them well. But in truth he’d never given any one in particular much thought. He hadn’t had the time or attention to spare. Since his parents’ death when he was a lad of ten, he’d been focused on one goal—restoring his clan to prosperity. The better part of the last twenty years he’d spent on the battlefield, returning to Skye when he could.
He’d known his wife, Flora, the daughter of an Irish king, for only a few days when he’d married her, and thinking back, had probably spent less than a few months with her the entire time they were married. Long enough to give him two fine sons, but little else. He attended his duties and she hers. The marriage suited him perfectly.
He frowned, wondering whether the situation had suited her as well as it did him.
Attributing the odd thought to the whisky he’d consumed, he put aside the jug, lay back on the cool sheets, and closed his eyes, allowing the darkness and the drink to soothe the tension from his coiled muscles.
But the drink hadn’t helped. The images burned in his mind were not so easily dislodged. As soon as he closed his eyes it all came back to him. Her lovely face. Her exotically tilted eyes. Her sinful mouth inches from his.
And her bare breast.
He groaned, his cock jerking hard as the image came to him full force. A generous mound of creamy, untouched ivory skin topped off by a tight pink nipple the size of a pearl. It was the most spectacular breast he’d ever seen, designed for a man’s pleasure. A perfect blend of innocent and erotic at the same time—much like the lass herself.
He was hard as a smith’s hammer. Knowing he wasn’t going to get any sleep like this, he wrapped his hand around himself and gave over to the images—her breast, her face, that wide harlot’s mouth sucking—and released his frustration into a drying cloth. A warrior’s practical solution, if not a particularly satisfying one.
At last he fell into a fitful sleep. But the morning couldn’t come soon enough.
Christina couldn’t stop shaking, shivering uncontrollably not from cold but from fear. She trudged down the corridor and up the stairs one halting step after the other, as if her father had her at the point of his sword.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this. The only thing that kept her feet moving forward was the thought of her father’s rage and the knowledge of what would happen to both her and Beatrix if she didn’t do as he ordered. The more she thought about it, the more her father’s plan seemed fraught with possibilities to go wrong, but what could she do?
