Chapter Thirty

“Deirdre? Here?” Finnan spoke the words and swayed where he stood. Jeannie wanted to reach for him again, for she saw the color drain from his face. She nodded and wondered why he took the news so hard.

“How do you know?”

“I saw her today at Avrie House. Here, come and sit down.”

She drew him in beside the hearth even as Aggie seized a shawl and pushed past them out the door. In truth, Jeannie barely saw her maid go, focused as she was on the great well of pain that had opened in Finnan’s eyes.

She shoved him down onto the bench. He leaned forward and forced his hands through his hair, looking like a man who had received a blow.

“I believed her dead. Truly, I did not know, but I told myself she must be. Perhaps I even prayed so.” He looked up, and his gaze scoured Jeannie’s. “Are you certain? How did you know ’twas she?”

Jeannie crouched beside him and laid her hand on his knee. “She has the look of you. And the Dowager Avrie referred to her as her grandson’s wife.”

Finnan shuddered. “Did she say which of those vile blackguards wed her?”

“She is wife to Stuart, so the Dowager said.”

“I will kill him. So I swear upon all that is sacred to me.”

Dismay flooded over Jeannie. “Finnan, I did not tell you this to intensify your hatred or so you would spill more blood. I thought it would do you good to learn what happened to her. All these years of wondering…”

He gave her a wild stare.

Jeannie went on, desperate to soothe him. “She did not look unwell or particularly ill-used.” Grave and unhappy, perhaps, but strong for all that.

Bitterly, Finnan said, “They took her against her will, and Gregor Avrie wed her to his son in order to legitimize any claim they might have here. Once I am dead—”

He stopped speaking abruptly. Alarm flared in Jeannie’s heart. It made a valid reason, beyond highland spite, for the Avries to see him slaughtered.

“I must get word to her that I stand ready to help her,” he said. “Let her know rescue is at hand.”

“But, Finnan, how are you to rescue her, and you hunted like a hart these many days?” Jeannie knew this man by now, understood the depth of loyalty that possessed his heart—for this place, for Danny, for Geordie. How could she expect him to withhold it from his sister? Yet the prospect of him endangering himself terrified her.

She knew then that among all the things she had given Finnan MacAllister—her virtue, her concern, her peace of mind—foremost she had given him her heart. She loved this man desperately and completely, and the truth of that frightened her more than anything, for she had no evidence that he would ever love her in return.

“I ha’ just killed two men,” he told her harshly, “and I can slay as many more as need be. I will take them one by one in the dark, if I have to, and so free her.”

“A valiant enough plan,” Jeannie said ruefully, “but impractical, I fear. You are exhausted and badly injured.”

“And armed with my anger. I need only deal with them one at a time.”

“Well, it will not be tonight. Give it some time and catch your breath. Stay here the rest of the night.”

His gaze seared her face before he looked to the door. “Danny—”

“I suspect Aggie has gone to him. Do you truly wish to interrupt them? Let them have their time, Finnan, for it is precious for them as well as us.”

He continued to gaze at her as if trying to see inside her, and Jeannie hid nothing from him. If they were to have only this moment—only this night—she would give him all she had, including her honesty.

After a moment a new emotion flared in his eyes. What was it? Gladness? Relief? Passion? The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile, and he raised a hand to cup her cheek.

“Jeannie,” he said—only that, but coupled with the brush of his fingers it set her heart into a new rhythm, double time.

“Finnan.” She turned her face into his touch and kissed his palm, still splashed with blood.

He sucked in a great breath. “’Tis madness for me to stay here tonight.”

“Surely not. The Avries have posted their guards. They will suspect nothing.”

“And should they come searching and discover the fate of those guards? Or if new men come to relieve them?”

Jeannie got to her feet. “Then I had best get that arm of yours tended quickly and see you rest as best you may.” Before he went from her again, as he must. Jeannie’s heart twisted in her breast. He might be the wrong man for her to love, yet she was his this night and for all time.

****

“Tell me of your sister,” Jeannie urged as she soothed Finnan’s arm with cloths soaked in witch hazel. “Tell me what happened that night you left the glen.”

Finnan sipped the willow tea she had brewed for him and looked again at the door. He did not want to speak of that; he barely wished to remember that night. Yet Deirdre was here in the glen. Duty beyond even what he owed Geordie called to him.

Best to finish with Jeannie MacWherter here tonight, and be done. He had seen what lay in her eyes, knew he held her in thrall. As with a defeated opponent in battle, he had only to lay the final stroke.

Yet he felt less than sure he wanted to do that, when it came to it. He no longer knew how he felt about this woman—warm, vital, and so bonny it hurt him to look at her. She possessed grit and courage as well as beauty. But he had made a vow, and the man he was would not let him shrink from it.

Anyway, he thought now, even had she been the bonny angel she appeared, there was no future in it. Aye, best to break it with her now, before she saw him lying in his own blood beneath an Avrie sword.

For he could not be certain he would survive this battle.

He said nothing at all, and she smoothed the ends of his bandage with those careful fingers and rose from the floor where she knelt.

“Come,” she urged. “Rest until Aggie returns.”

“I cannot rest. I must remain vigilant.”

She tugged at his hand and drew him into the bedroom where they had been before. Immediately a score of memories flooded his mind—the heat of her welcome, the scent of her, and the taste on his tongue. And aye, if he were to break her heart this night, should he not take her body first?

He stood unmoving, his heart at war while she began to remove his clothing and then her own. The only light came from the other room, yet he could see her—oh, aye—when she unfastened her bodice and shed her skirt. Naked, she stepped into his arms and pressed herself, trembling, against him.

“Please,” she beseeched. “I must have you this night.”

Somehow, by a miracle of will, he held himself back. “I thought you wished to hear a dire tale.”

“I do, if you will tell me. Come, lie with me.”

They lay entwined atop the blankets, she close to his side, her lips just a breath from his ear.

“Tell me,” she urged once more. “I may be able to help you reach Deirdre, woman to woman.”

He laid one hand on the soft flesh beneath her breasts, narrowed his eyes, and thought back to the night in question.

“I was asleep,” he began like a man in a dream. “My mother woke me, calling my name and weeping—she, who never wept easily. Her tears fell all the while she told me what they had done, Gregor Avrie and his two young sons. They had walked into my da’s library where he sat reading, wounded him mortally, and then hauled him out onto the stones of the courtyard to finish him. She saw it all and hid herself. When Gregor sent men to search the house, she knew what they were after. She reached me first and implored me to flee. I wanted to take Deirdre with me, but we could not find her, and the wolves were on the hunt.

“By then, our household guard had roused and engaged Avrie’s men. ’Twas the distraction we needed. My ma and I crept to the courtyard, where I took my da’s torc still with his blood upon it, and his sword. My ma sent me away by a route known to no one but the family and promised to send Deirdre after.”

Jeannie’s hand crept to his chest, a gesture of comfort. But comfort lay well beyond his reach. “I made my way out and waited for Deirdre at the head of the glen. She never came, and I had vowed to my mother I would go. I know now the Avries must have seized Deirdre even before coming after me. Clever of them, really, for they knew with me dead she represented the best claim on the land.

“I still remember how my mother looked when I parted from her, weeping and begging me to go, that I might come back some day and regain what was rightfully ours. I did not know ’twould be the last time I ever saw her.”

“What happened to her?” Jeannie whispered.

“For years I did not know. I only learned later from a family friend in Fort William that she had died.” He paused and swallowed painfully. “I have had plenty of time to wonder about it since, and to be certain I never should have left that night. I should have stayed and battled to protect her—to protect both of them—and the glen.”

“You were but a lad.”

“Old enough. I could ha’ taken up leadership of the household guard, fought the Avries and their hirelings back. I might at least have saved Deirdre.”

“How, if they had already seized her?”

He shook his head. “I swear I did suppose her dead all this while—oh, perhaps not that night, but long since. All these years, for her to live so. I should be slain for permitting it.”

“You did the only thing you could,” Jeannie comforted, “came back when you were able, and regained the glen.”

Finnan turned his face to her. “Did I? Then why am I on the run? And they hold her still.”

“She must know you are here, must have heard them speak of you. She will know you have come for her.”

“She will scarcely be able to imagine the man I have become,” Finnan said bitterly. Sometimes he barely recognized himself. “And I am sure I will not know her.”

“You will. She has the look of you. She appeared steady, and strong.”

“And has Stuart fathered his brats on her?” he wondered aloud.

“Aggie has never spoken of seeing children in the house, not in any of her visits.”

“’Tis a blessing.” Possibly the only one.

“Anything I can do for you,” Jeannie vowed, “you need only ask.” She followed the words with a kiss upon the corner of his mouth and then another square upon his lips. He felt her devotion pour into him and knew to his soul this was what he had awaited. He could—should—break her now, consider Geordie well avenged, walk away and never look back.

Or he could love her first.

His hand slid from her belly upward to cup one naked breast. He knew the depth and intensity of the fire that burned within her, knew exactly what it took to fan it. He brushed his thumb across her nipple, and she caught her breath.

She whispered into his mouth, “I would do anything you ask, Finnan. You know that.”

“I do, Jeannie.”

“Let me show you.” Her body glided over his, silken skin making a delicious friction, even as she began to worship him with her mouth. Hot kisses, followed by the ministrations of her tongue, trailed downward. Finnan knew he must remain in control, but his desire rose as helplessly and unpreventably as his manhood. Aye, and he must savor this—every motion—as justice, when he laid his final blow.

No sword needed for this—his only weapons lay between his legs and in his cruelty.

This will be the last time, he told himself even as she took him into her mouth, as he threw her on her back and suckled her deeply, as he entered her with a rush of hunger that set them both afire.

And after—after, when she lay still quivering in his arms, when her fingers that just could not seem to get enough whispered over him, when he knew he owned her body and soul, he said, “And so, Jeannie, do you regret giving yourself to me?”

“Regret?” she repeated, as if she knew not the meaning of the word. She reached up and kissed him softly, with such tenderness Finnan’s heart nearly quailed within him. “How can I regret anything that has happened between us? You must know how I feel for you.”

He dragged his fingers through her hair and drew her head back so he could gaze into her eyes in the dim light; he needed to witness her pain. “And how do you feel for me, Jeannie?”

Her lips quivered, as if she could barely find the words, before she spoke. “I love you, Finnan. My heart is yours.”

“Is it so? Have you given it to me? Do I hold it in my hands?”

“You do.”

He caused his voice to harden. “And how does it feel, Jeannie?”

“What?”

His fingers tensed. “How does it feel to present your heart and everything you are—all your hopes and needs—to someone on a plate, only to learn he does not care?”

“I—” He felt shock spear through her, felt pain replace it as the barb went deep into her most tender flesh. “I do not understand.”

“Och, I think you do—I believe that, at last, you understand completely. For I do not want you, Jeannie. I do not love you. I ha’ been using you all this while. And now you know how Geordie felt—you feel what he felt—when you refused the gift of his heart.”

He could not look into her eyes after all. He moved swiftly, violently, and got out of the bed while still she lay there unmoving like a woman struck to death. He donned his clothing, and she did not speak, did not stir. And she never called him back when he went out into the night.