Chapter Ten

“I fear I will not be able to move him,” Finnan told Jeannie MacWherter, nodding toward the lad who slept in her bed, “until I am certain that wound has closed. I am sorry,” he added with what he hoped was well-feigned concern. “’Tis an inconvenience for you.”

Jeannie stared at him with those wide, blue eyes. Bonny eyes they were, and no mistake. No wonder Geordie had found himself snared by them.

But Finnan was surprised by her mettle this day. She had barely protested his arrival with a wounded lad in his arms, and had assisted him with unshirking competence. Pity the woman was a deceitful lowlander, else she might be worth something.

“Come,” she told him now, “and wash up at the hearth.”

Ruefully, he looked down at himself, liberally splashed with blood on skin and clothing, most of it Danny’s and some his opponents’. He nodded.

“I will sit and watch over him, mistress,” the maid whispered.

Jeannie hesitated before nodding. What did she expect, that Danny would rise up and strangle the chit with his one hand?

“Call us, Aggie, if he stirs.”

She led Finnan from the small bedroom to the other room, which served as both kitchen and sitting room, and indicated the pan of hot water Aggie had ready by the fire.

He went to the hearth and stripped down, removed his tunic and the shirt beneath, now ruined. He heard not a sound behind him, but Jeannie supplied a wedge of soap and a rough cloth for drying, laying both on the fender. The soap smelled like a summer’s day, like lavender—like her. Ruefully, he acknowledged now he would carry her fragrance also, sure as if he had taken her in his arms and stolen her scent. To his surprise, the thought aroused him. He turned from the fire and caught her staring.

At him.

And what was that he saw in her beautiful eyes as they measured the width of his bare shoulders, his chest and arms, marking every tattoo? She had seen all that of him and more, yet she had not had her fill of looking.

He smiled to himself in satisfaction. It would be all too easy to use her desire against her, make her want him as Geordie had wanted her, and serve her in kind. For he recognized desire when he saw it, and after ten years at large in the world understood what women wanted. Aye, he knew how to bring a woman to the brink of abandon and satisfy her. He knew what made her scream and moan and come apart in his hands.

He needed to keep his eye on the goal here. The ambush and Danny’s injury had distracted him, yet he played still another game.

Moving slowly in order to let her look her fill, he dropped his shirt beside the hearth. “Ruined,” he said in lament. “I dare not put that back on.”

He heard the catch in her breath when she said, “I have nothing to lend you, I am afraid.”

“No matter.” He gave her his best smile. “You have been naught but kindness itself. I would ask no more.”

“May I offer you tea to settle your nerves? I confess, I could use some.”

Finnan asked hopefully, “Have you nothing stronger?”

“Not in the house.” She shook her head and moved past him to reach the hearth, so close her gown brushed his knees. He stood where he was, and when she straightened he had her virtually within his arms.

Her breath hitched again. He could feel the warmth of her combatting that of the fire at his back. He wondered what would happen if he kissed her, plunged his tongue into that pretty rosebud of a mouth. Would she protest? Or succumb to the want he saw brimming in her eyes?

Before he could decide, her gaze dropped; he felt her curiosity as she examined the tattoos that twined over his skin.

“Each of these has a story,” he told her softly, and gestured to himself. As did each scar, truth be known. “This one here?” He touched the picture of a blade over his heart. “I got it after surviving my first battle. “This”—a swirling pattern on his upper arm—“after I saw the magic that lies in the other world. This”—he touched the twined hound high on his shoulder—“you will recognize, for Geordie and I had them together, and it signifies our oath of loyalty to one another.”

She said nothing, and he gave her another smile, this one crooked. “But you saw all of me at the pool, did you not, mistress?”

Her eyes, blue as the sky on a day in May, came up slowly to meet his. Would she step away? Move closer? Invite him in?

“There is much talk of you, Laird MacAllister. They call you a very wicked man.”

“Who says this of me? My enemies? And would you take the word of the sort of men who could order the slaying of an unarmed lad?” He stepped still closer; now barely a breath separated them. “Or are you a woman to make up your own mind?”

Unexpectedly, wry light flashed in her eyes. “They say you have beguiled every woman in the glen. Given such powers of persuasion, I am not sure it is wise to trust my instincts.”

“I can assure you quite honestly, I ha’ not beguiled every woman in the glen.” Not yet. “And what do your instincts tell you, Jeannie MacWherter?”

“That you are as dangerous as standing on a precipice over rushing waters.” Yet she did not move away, and he saw the fabric of her bodice quicken with her heartbeat. Aye, there would be passion in her—searing hot—when he at last stripped her naked and took her, even as she desired.

He raised a hand slowly toward her hair. Gentleness, he knew, often accomplished what demand could not, especially when a woman had not yet made up her mind.

But he was not prepared for the sensation when his fingers met the softness of those yellow curls. This made the first time he had touched her, and the sweetness of it pierced him, speared through him with power that rocked him back on his heels.

It felt like sticking his hand in a fire and then wanting to keep it there.

And oh, but her hair, soft as thistledown, invited his fingers in deeper. He wanted to comb them through those yellow tresses, loosen the curls one by one to fall about her shoulders. He might, aye, be a wicked man, but Jeannie MacWherter posed a rampant danger to him.

Her hand came up and captured his, still in her hair. For an instant they stood so, fingers and gazes linked, while Finnan found himself suddenly fighting for breath. Then she drew his hand from her hair and stepped away.

He felt the loss of contact like a physical blow, like an icy blast at the coming of winter. It hit him so hard he could not speak.

And Jeannie? She stood for a moment with her back to him before she spoke in a strained voice. “How long will it be, Laird MacAllister, before you can move Danny?”

“Overnight, at least.” He struggled to gather his thoughts, to keep his mind focused on his objective. “I apologize again, mistress, for the inconvenience to you.”

She turned and faced him once more. “And how are Aggie and I to keep him safe from these enemies you insist abound here in the glen?”

“Well, mistress, I shall just have to stay here the night to guard him—and you.”

****

Jeannie fought determinedly to calm her emotions and her mind. She considered herself first and foremost a practical woman. Even her marriage to Geordie MacWherter had been a purely practical matter. She usually did her best to keep her affairs and her life in order. But there was that about this man that knocked the very breath from her body and chased all power to reason from her head.

Maybe it was the way he looked at her with those intent, russet-colored eyes. That look said he knew things about her—it made her pulse speed up, caused her blood to race, made her suspect he knew even the thoughts in her mind.

By heaven, she hoped not, for they were scandalous, and they shocked her to her soul.

And when he had touched her hair, but the lightest brush of his fingers, she had felt it right through her like the blow from a weapon.

Oh, no, she could not deny Finnan MacAllister was a most dangerous and quite wicked man. And now he threatened—promised—to stay beneath her roof the night. By all that was holy, could she survive?

She had never been the sort of woman to succumb to a man’s charms. In fact, she had always told herself a man’s character mattered far more than his appearance. She’d kept her heart carefully unentangled till Geordie came along, and she had not fallen for him.

Now, terrifyingly, she could feel herself falling, precisely as if the ground beneath her feet had turned to water. What to do about it? She could not demand he leave, with his young groom hurt near to death.

That Finnan MacAllister cared about the lad she could not doubt. What a strength it must be to have such a man care to such an extent.

She took another deliberate step away from him, turned toward the cupboard, and pretended to search for the makings of a supper. It did not help; she could still feel him standing there beside the fire, gazing at her.

“You should be safe this night,” he told her softly, the words bathed in that highland lilt that sounded so like a song. “The Avries will not bring violence to your door. You are on good terms with them, are you not?”

“Fair terms. I have met the Dowager Avrie, and Aggie is friendly with her servants.” She resisted the desire to look at him again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. “We did hear a rumor her grandsons had returned. Also that you killed their father.” She hoped she was not going to be caught amid some bloody, highland feud. “Was this attack today about revenge?”

He made a face and gestured with those beautiful hands. “Life is mostly about revenge, is it not, mistress?”

“Not in my experience.” Wryly she added, “It is mostly about survival.”

He moved at last to sit on the three-legged stool beside the hearth, affording Jeannie the enjoyment of watching his muscles flex again. “Revenge is survival.”

“Perhaps, in your world.” Jeannie reflected briefly on it. “I suppose if you murder a man’s father you can then expect him to come looking for you.”

“I thought the sons had taken flight like two carrion crows and were in hiding for fear of their own lives. I will be better prepared the next time I meet them.”

She swung to face him and crossed her arms across her breasts. “And if you kill them also, Laird MacAllister? Will that not merely extend the violence on and on?”

“’Twill do more than that, Mistress MacWherter.” He leaned toward her and his eyes glowed. “’Twill rid the world of a scourge of vermin. And, you ken, such vile pests must be eliminated wherever they are found.”