Highlander’s Broken Love by Fiona Faris

Chapter Twenty-Two

Elisabeth woke with a smile on her face. She lifted her head just slightly to take in her surroundings. In the ruins of the priory church, the sun was beginning to rise, casting the stones in a soft glow. She and Ian were still very much alone. They were lying on the altar stone with him on his back and her resting her cheek against his shoulder. One of his arms was under her body, the other was strewn across her waist, pulling her into his side. The intimacy of it made her rest her head back down again, reluctant to separate from him.

In this position, she could feel where every part of her body met his. They’d pulled the plaid up over them to sleep and bring them warmth, but still beneath it they were both bare. Her body was a little sore from what they had experienced together the night before, but she mostly still tingled at the thought.

I never knew it could be like that.

She blushed at the memory of it. Not only at the thought of what their bodies had done together in order to be nearer to each other, but the way in which she had moaned his name and pulled at his hair. There had been something so animal about it in many ways. It seemed to be a natural instinct that she hadn’t been aware of before.

She moved slightly, placing a hand on his muscular stomach. In response, he lifted his arm, and his hand rose so that he could place it over hers.

“You’re awake?” she asked and lifted her head just slightly.

“I had to keep watch over ye,” he said with a smile as their eyes met.

“You didn’t sleep at all?” she asked in amazement.

“Well, a little,” he explained just as he shifted on the stones. That’s when Elisabeth realized the full extent of their positions. She sat up fully, letting the plaid slide down to her waist as she stared down at him.

“Ian, the wounds on your back…” she pointed down at him. “You should have moved me so that you didn’t sleep on your back.” She found he didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention. His eyes had drifted down to her body instead. “Ian!” she said, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Apologies, what did ye say?” he asked, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “Ye distracted me again.” She smiled as she lifted the plaid and wrapped it around her torso, hiding her breasts from him.

“Your wounds, Ian. You shouldn’t have slept like that.”

“It is fine. I never complain about pain,” he assured her as he moved to sit as well.

“So I hear,” she said and inched around him on the altar stone, the better to see his wounds for herself. To her dismay, some of the wounds had been torn open again. It could have been from the mad ride they did to the priory church the day before, or it could have been from sleeping on the stone. “We need to clean this.”

“The pain doesnae bother me,” he said and looked over his shoulder at her. She held his eyes for a minute or so, truly trying to see the man beneath. It struck her how much he seemed to carry this philosophy with him. If he didn’t succumb to pain, then perhaps he could pretend it wasn’t there, but surely that was impossible, wasn’t it? The pain would still be present.

“You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt for me, you know,” she said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I can handle the pain,” he said smiling. “That is all. Ye daenae need to worry about me, Elisabeth.”

“I don’t think it is something I have control of,” she rushed to explain. “Of course, I worry about you.”

“Well, I worry about ye too, so I can hardly complain at that,” he smiled in return.

“Let me help you clean up the wounds,” she said, sliding down off the stone altar and hurrying to pull on her clothes. Ian followed and pulled on his trews, though he left his shirt off.

“There’s a spring of water behind the church,” he said softly as he took hold of her hand. Leaving the shirt and plaid behind them, he led her out of one of the stone arches in the ruins, around the back of the church. Between the leaves of the pine trees, there was a cairn of rocks, with a small spring of water bubbling up out of the top and trickling down the side. It was a delicate thing with just a small amount of water, but, as the water travelled down through the surrounding trees, it grew into a little stream that wove its way down the hill.

“Here, let me help you,” Elisabeth urged Ian to sit on one of the rocks beside the stream. She tore off part of the underskirt of her already ripped and ruined dress, hardly caring if she damaged it any further, then placed the linen in the water to dampen it. “Ian, last night was…” she paused as she stared into the stream, wondering how to put the sensation into words.

“I am sorry if I was too rough, sithiche.” His words made her snap her head around.

“You were not too rough,” she said quickly and moved toward him and knelt in front of him. His dark eyes were staring at her, searching her face. “I was trying to tell you…” she hesitated, hunting for the right words again.

“What?” he urged her on with a gentle tone.

“How much it meant to me,” she said, searching his eyes. “I loved every part of what we shared last night.”

He moved toward her quickly. His lips found hers in a sweet and gentle kiss. Just the brush of his lips against hers made Elisabeth’s body tingle with the memory of what they had shared. She longed to do it again.

“I loved every part of it too,” he said, leaning back from her just a little. “But daenae keep lookin’ at me like that, or I will want to do it again.”

“Would that be so bad?” she teased.

“Daenae tempt me,” he said, smiling back at her. “There are soldiers huntin’ for us.”

“I suppose I should be serious now,” she stood straight and walked around him, moving to his back in order to clean his wounds. “First, let me help you.” Slowly and with complete care, she cleaned his wounds. He made no sound at all, clearly trying not to feel any pain, but despite his assurance that he did not, he flinched a couple of times. It showed that he did feel it after all. He just chose to suffer it in silence. As she neared the end of her task, she spoke again. “What do we do now, then? Where do we go today?”

“Today, we concentrate on survivin’,” Ian said with decisiveness as he looked down at the stream. She was slowly coming to the end of her task and walked round him, taking the linen to the stream to wet it and remove the traces of blood from Ian’s back. “We wait for Alex to find us. Then we will go back with him to the clan. We just have to avoid the English to stay alive today.”

“Ian,” she turned back to look at him, nervous of asking her next question.

“Aye?” he asked, lifting his gaze to meet hers.

“Do you think—” she paused and breathed deeply, finding the courage to ask her next words. “Do you think we can find a way to stay together?” She wanted it. She didn’t want to leave him.

He hung his head, almost instantly. His eyes leaving hers made her heart sink. She looked down at the stream, gutted.

“I suppose not then,” she sighed.

“Elisabeth, listen to me,” Ian moved. The sound of his boots in the undergrowth made her snap her head up to find him walking toward her. He crouched down by her side so that they were both on their knees beside the stream. “I adore ye.” The strength of his words matched the earnestness of his unblinking, dark eyes. Elisabeth couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face at his words, warmed by them. “I want to see ye happy, that is the most important thing to me. I have to accept that to make ye happy may well mean returnin’ ye to yer faither.”

“You do not know that,” she said quickly, reaching out toward him. He took her hands in his and brought them both to his face, kissing the palms of each one at a time. “I want to stay with you, Ian,” she whispered the words, a little frightened to utter them too loudly.

“What life could I offer ye?” Ian said, shaking his head as he looked down at her hands. “One on the run from the English? From yer own kin? I couldnae do that to ye. For now, I have nay choice. To see ye happy and safe, I have to send ye home.”

“Don’t give up on me yet,” she shuffled forward on her knees, bringing her body close to his. He entwined their hands together and hung them down either side of their bodies as she brought her face near his. “There may be a way to stop all this violence. To stop the English from ever hurting the Scottish again.”

“Do ye have some magical power ye have been keepin’ hidden?” he said with a lopsided smile. “Nothin’ short of magic could do that.”

“No magic,” she said, shaking her head, “but a lot can be done by talking.”

“In me experience, fightin’ does a lot more than talkin’.”

“It is not always the way,” she urged. “I only wish I knew now where the English soldiers were.”

“Why?” he asked, frowning a little.

“If they were nearby, I could go to them,” Elisabeth said as a plan formulated in her mind. “Maybe I could explain to them that you are not to blame. All I’d have to do is show them I’m Elisabeth Rolfe, who they are searching for, then all would be over –”

“What did ye just say?”

* * *

Ian froze with his hands in Elisabeth’s, stunned and praying he had heard her wrong.

“What?” Elisabeth said, looking back to him with those innocent, wide, blue eyes.

“Say that all again,” Ian pleaded.

“I said, all I’d have to do is show them I’m Elisabeth Rolfe, then all would be over. I could tell them you are not to blame, that Laird Grier was the one who gave orders to take me away –”

Ian dropped her hands and jumped to his feet. The action was so sudden that Elisabeth looked shocked, still sitting on the ground and staring up at him, puzzled.

“Ian? What is wrong?” she asked.

Elisabeth Rolfe…her name is Rolfe.

The thought was unbearable. Ian felt his heartbeat thudding faster in his chest. The faster it got, the louder it seemed to become too, until it was echoing in his ears.

Of all the names to hear, he never thought she would say that name.

He backed away, heading toward the priory church.

“Ian? Is something wrong?” Elisabeth was calling to him as she scrambled to her feet. He ignored her and refused to answer, concentrating instead on just getting into the church. As he arrived back by the altar stone, he threw on the shirt, waistcoat and the plaid, trying to distract himself from the awful realization.

Och, she is General Arthur Rolfe’s daughter!

He knew she was the daughter of an English military man, and a General, too, but he’d never actually asked her surname. He’d never needed to know about her family. Yet this revelation changed everything.

“Ian? What’s happened?” Elisabeth was at his side. He walked away from her, trying to put the altar stone between them, then his eyes flicked down to it, reminding him of just what he had shared the night before, with General Rolfe’s daughter. “Ian?” she begged again. He looked away from the pained expression on her face, unable to bear it.

She couldn’t possibly be that monster’s daughter. It just didn’t make sense. Where she was delicate and sweet, he was a man who tortured and killed.

There was a sound nearby at the far end of the church.

Ian tried to ignore the frantic turning of his mind and snatched up his belt and weapons from the floor. He reached for the sword and pulled it free, walking in front of Elisabeth and turning to the archway where he had heard the sound.

A beat later, two faces appeared through the stone.

“Well, it isnae easy to find this place, is it?” Alex asked as he stepped through first. Behind him, Kenny followed. Ian sighed with relief and lowered the sword again.

“Ye found us,” Ian said, walking toward Alex who took his hand to shake.

“Of course, I did,” Alex smiled. “I remember ye tellin’ me of this place well enough. Are ye two all right?”

“Aye, we’re fine,” Ian answered quickly, though he did not look back to Elisabeth. He was not sure he could look at her again now. Not now he knew who she was.

She is the daughter of the man who attacked the Buchanan Clan. He is the man who turned me faither’s people’s lives upside down. He ruined their home.

It was worse than he could have possibly imagined. He’d met General Rolfe a handful of times. The General was the one who had ran the prison in which Ian had been kept. The General had ordered his torture and demanded information Ian had refused to give. It was General Rolfe who had stood there smiling while Ian was flogged.

“Ye look like ye have had a shock,” Alex said quietly.

“It doesnae matter,” Ian said strongly, still refusing to look back at Elisabeth. “Where are the people?”

“They’re in Abbey St Bathans, just as we planned,” Alex assured him.

“After you two ran, the soldiers dispersed,” Kenny said, stepping forward. “We were able to stop most from following you, but some others fled. There are only injuries. Your people are alive.”

“Thank the wee man for that,” Ian cast a glance to the heavens above.

“So, let’s get ye to the town too,” Alex said, beckoning Elisabeth forward. “Once ye two are safe there, we can discuss Elisabeth’s return.”

“Change of plan,” Ian found the words came without much thought. In front of him, Alex, Kenny, and Elisabeth all turned to look at him. “Do ye ken where the English soldiers are now?”

“Aye,” Alex nodded. “They have stationed a temporary camp nae far from here. At Duns Castle.”

Ian didn’t look at Elisabeth as he said the next words. All he knew was that he had to get as far away from her as possible. Last night had been a mistake; everything he thought he knew about her had been a mistake. She couldn’t be the woman he’d thought her to be. No, not if she was General Rolfe’s daughter.

“Kenny can escort Elisabeth to them now.”