Highland Hope by Julie Johnstone

Thirteen

Eve stared up at MacNeil looming over her, and she screamed all her rage to the heavens. She’d fled one monster only to land in the hands of another. Hot tears pricked her eyes, infuriating her more as she tugged uselessly at her bound wrists, the tight rope cutting deeper into her skin.

“Ye’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, lass,” MacNeil said, lowering himself over her, his thighs spread to settle himself on her pelvis. His heavy weight on her and the stench of the sweat rolling off him made her stomach lurch and her heart leap with fear. She bucked but didn’t move him a bit.

The unfairness of it all, the horror, raced through her body and burst out in an animalistic sound she barely recognized as her voice. MacNeil slapped a sweaty palm over her already split lip. She tried to part her lips to possibly bite him, but he simply pressed down harder making the tender flesh throb. The heat of desperation flooded her body as her pulse spiked even further. Her roiling stomach sent burning bile up her throat, and she bucked again, this time managing to dislodge his hand just a smidge.

“I’m going to be ill,” she rushed out.

It was no ploy. He scrambled from her, the relief of his weight coming off her so great that she gasped. She rolled over and crawled upon her hands and knees through the cold, wet grass to the edge of the cliff they had brought her to earlier after catching her. She gulped in breaths of air, but her stomach would not settle. She got one glimpse of the clear night sky with its bright, twinkling stars, and as she leaned over the ledge, she heaved the contents of her stomach, a single thought floating through her head.

How could something so ugly be happening to me on such a beautiful night?

That thought was followed by a second.

Would Royce even come looking for her? Would he find her dead? Defiled? He didn’t even know her first name to say a proper prayer for burial. She shuddered and heaved again, then finally quieted. Just as she swiped a trembling hand across her mouth, MacNeil seized her from behind, his arm coming around her stomach to jerk her upright. A desperate desire to prevent what was about to occur resurfaced once more and gave her a burst of renewed energy. She brought her knee up in an attempt to injure his manhood, but her heavy skirts prevented swift enough movement.

“Ye’re a wee feisty lass,” he said with a chuckle. “I like that.”

His words made her rage burst into flames, and she balled her hand into a fist, as one of the stable lads at her childhood home had long ago taught her. Shaking, she punched MacNeil, aiming for his nose but meeting his hard jaw. Fiery pain shot through her hand, and she cried out as his open palm met her face once again, splitting her lip open again and sending a sharp ache through her jaw. Bright specks of light danced across her vision.

“Ye’ll learn soon enough not to anger me,” MacNeil spat. “Come here now, and show me what ye know of pleasing a man.”

She didn’t know what made her do it, but she scrambled backward toward the edge of the cliff that gave way to eternal darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest. It was oddly pleasing to see MacNeil’s eyes get wide and his jaw go slack as she stepped toward the dark abyss.

“I’d rather jump to my death than join with you,” she lied. She wasn’t ready to die, but God above, she did not want that man’s hands on her. He took a step toward her, and she instinctively lurched backward, her heel sliding over the rocky edge. Her entire body tingled, and her breath caught in her lungs. She’d never been with a man in the intimate sense, and the fact that this repugnant one might be the only touch she ever knew made her want to scream and cry at the same time.

“Come now, lass.” MacNeil motioned to her with his hand to move back toward him. “Ye know ye do nae want to jump.”

She knew it, but he didn’t. She was desperate. Desperate for time. Desperate for someone to care enough about her to come for her.

There’s no one.The hot tears that had pricked her eyes before leaked from their confines as her fear fought to overcome her control.

“There’s nae anyone here now but me, lass,” MacNeil said, having sent his men away and leaving just the two of them here. “I’ll punish ye quick for this if ye come to me now.”

The words so mimicked something Frederick had said to her on their wedding night that a moan was ripped from her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, swaying. When she opened them once more, she could have sworn a dark shadow was rising against the pale moonlight directly behind MacNeil. Fear danced across her skin once more, pricks of ice that made her shiver, and then, as if materializing from the heavens themselves like an immortal god with the power to decimate his enemies with a single stroke, Royce appeared behind MacNeil, sword held high above his head. The shadows themselves seemed to split, and moonlight streamed around the Highlander, bathing him in a glow that made Eve’s knees go weak and her heart swell painfully.

He’d come for her.

He’d come for her, though he barely knew her. And just as that hope rose, MacNeil sprung toward her, snatching her by the arm with one hand and raising the other to hit her. She screamed, but before the sound had completely left her, Royce moved like a blur toward MacNeil, sending the hilt of his sword down hard upon the man’s head. MacNeil let out a grunt, his hand falling from her arm, and then he lurched forward unexpectedly, running into her and sending her straight over the edge of the cliff.

Abigail’s scream ripped through Royce, and he lunged as she fell. He collided with MacNeil’s crumbling body but shoved the man out of his way and dropped to his knees, reaching blindly over the ledge to the blackness. Her icy hands were the first thing he touched, and never had he felt such sweet relief. It rushed through him like a raging river. Then one hand slipped away, and her scream ripped through the night again as she dangled over the ledge tethered to life by his one hand clasping her.

Royce slid to his belly to catch her forearm with his other hand. “I’ve got ye,” he assured her, unable to see her but he could feel her. Life beat madly in the vein in her wrist, and his chest squeezed.

“Don’t let go!” she cried out.

He was already working to brace himself as best he could, feet digging into the wet grass to find the dirt, sweat from the hurried trek up the mountain making his hands slick and causing his grip to slip. “I vow to ye to nae ever let go,” he promised her, pulling her toward him as he did. The muscles of his right arm burned with the effort of holding her dangling body, but he pulled again and again, moving from his belly to his knees and giving a great pull, then another. Finally, there she was, the top of her head appearing at the ledge just as the moonlight seemed to shift to shine down upon her. Her flaxen hair seemed to nearly match its color. Then her forehead came into view and her eyes, wide with fright. Their gazes met and locked, and when she smiled with such gratitude, something opened within him. He’d forgotten how a woman’s smile could make a man feel. Unconquerable, that’s how. As if his only task in life was to see to her well-being, her happiness.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said, swaying toward him, clearly trying to gain her balance as he helped her all the way up to stand. He pulled her into his arms, her soft curves pressed against his hard body, and he blinked in surprise at the unexpected, ill-timed lust he felt as she buried her head against his chest and sobbed. To his right, MacNeil lay unmoving, thanks to the well-aimed blow Royce had given to the man’s thick skull, and to his left, Magnus and Thor appeared, having fallen well behind him as they’d climbed. Something urgent had driven Royce up the mountain, slashing his hands on the sharp rock as he went. It had been a desperate need to get to Abigail and save her.

Magnus and Thor started toward them, then stopped in their tracks, glancing toward each other, then back at Royce. He knew what they had to be thinking: what the devil was he doing? He didn’t know, but his hand had moved of its own volition to stroke ever so gently down the silken curve of her head, and he was making soothing sounds as if they were lovers or husband and wife. He should stop, and yet, he couldn’t quite make himself pull away. In fact, when she sobbed harder, he held her closer and tighter with one aim pounding through his head: to absorb her fear into himself and make her feel safe, cared for, and not alone.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, still crying and clinging to him. Her slender fingers clutched at his biceps, even as she offered her apologies. He didn’t mind at all, which was surprising since he’d not welcomed any touch from a woman since Lara’s death that he didn’t initiate, and even then on the rarest circumstances and, lately, not at all.

She suddenly jerked her head up. “The girls!” she gasped. “I urged the girls to flee. We must find them! MacNeil sent his two men after them again!”

“The girls made it to Dunvegan safely,” he said.

“I’m so sorry!” Abigail said, breaking into a fresh sob.

“Shh,” he countered, as if it was perfectly natural for him to be holding this woman.

Magnus gaped at him, reminding him it was not, and yet, he held her still. It was his duty, he decided, to soothe her, since it was his fault she’d been in such danger in the first place. “Do ye know what a caim is?” he asked her in an effort to ease the racking sobs that ripped through her.

Her body stilled, and her crying became hiccups of gasping breath. She looked up at him, large eyes shimmering in the moonlight like twin lochs of blue water. She shook her head. “No. What is a caim?” she asked, her voice breaking and trembling with the tears she was trying to hold back.

“A sanctuary,” he told her. “’Tis an invisible circle. I make it now around ye.” He circled his left hand around her, and her eyes tracked him.

“What does it do?” she whispered.

“It keeps ye safe, lass. I’ll keep ye safe. If ye are in danger, I will always come. Know this in yer heart.”

She tilted her head up to look at him. Her lashes were unaccountably long and curled, and her nose tipped up ever so slightly. He wanted to run his finger down the slope of it. Instead, he moved his gaze lower, away from the temptation, only to be met with more in the form of her lips. His body hardened as he stared at those dusty-pink lips, a bow in the upper one. He wanted to kiss her. No, he wanted to plunder her mouth. God’s teeth, this woman had a strange effect on him.

“You make this vow to all members of your clan?”

Her question jerked him from his lustful staring, but before he could respond, Magnus spoke. “Nay,” he said from Royce’s left. “He does nae make that vow to all members of his clan. Take me, for instance.” Magnus moved toward them at a fast-clipped pace. The man’s grin was wider than the opening of the loch into the ocean.

There’d be the devil to pay from Magnus and Thor when they were alone. The men would likely think Royce liked the lass when he was simply trying to soothe her frayed nerves—and was lusting after her.

Magnus stopped by Royce and clapped him on the arm, grinning. “He’s nae ever made such a vow to me, and I’ve known him all my life.”

Royce would be certain to throttle Magnus later, but now he shoved the man’s hand off his arm. “She’s a lass; ye’re a man. Now cease blabbering and deal with MacNeil before he rouses from his sleep.”

Magnus looked down at MacNeil. “I suppose by ‘deal with him,’ ye mean take him to his land and deposit him there?”

“Aye, I do, but nae before I do this.” Royce withdrew his dagger while bending down in front of the man.

“You’re not intending to kill him, are you?” came Abigail’s voice from behind.

He wasn’t, but he was curious why she asked, and why she sounded so concerned about the man who had been about to defile her. Royce glanced behind him. “Nay, just teach him a lesson.”

“Oh, good,” she said, her relief evident in her tone.

Her concern for a man who had tried to ravage her made him smile. She had a tender heart. “I do nae make it a practice of killing men in cold blood, Abigail, though if he’d defiled ye, I would have thought little of ending his life. Just so ye understand my ways.”

Why had he said that? It didn’t matter if she approved of him and his clan’s ways, of his code of honor, and yet he found himself staring at her, waiting for her response as if it did matter.

“Oh, I’d kill him myself if he defiled me, if I had the strength and the means, but I don’t own a weapon and I don’t know how to fight. I only asked because he’s been felled so he’s harmless at the moment. I don’t think God would look on you with a forgiving eye if you killed a man who was defenseless against you.”

He felt his lips part at that, even as he released a chuckle, which took him off guard. Not only did the lass inspire his lust but she drew out his humor. That had basically been dormant since Lara had betrayed him. By the gaping look Magnus gave him, he knew the man was as surprised as Royce was by his behavior. He shifted his stance as he rubbed the back of his neck. “But ye think if he was awake and able to fight me, God would nae mind as much?”

She nodded, and he grinned. “I happen to agree, lass, so dunnae fash yerself.”

“Fash myself?” she asked, the Scot word clumsy from her lips and yet oddly appealing with the way her formal English accent made it sound.

“Worry yerself,” he said, bending down and raising his dagger to MacNeil’s chest. He lightly ran the sharp, gleaming point of the blade over the man’s skin and drew the sign of the cross with two lines crisscrossed through the symbol.

Suddenly, she was hunched beside him, her hair brushing his shoulder as she leaned down and sending a swirl of her lemon and lavender scent around him and increasing his already too keen awareness of her. He tried to ignore her as he finished, but it was no use. He could feel her curious gaze on him.

“This,” he said, “is how we MacLeods have taken to marking our enemies. It started some thirty years ago when my da marked a man who had dared to touch my mother when she’d gone to the man’s cottage to heal him. My da didn’t kill the man—the man was ill so Da gave him grace—but marked him thusly and let it be known far and wide that the man had no honor and if he ever crossed my da or anyone he loved again, he’d kill the man without hesitation.”

“Oh,” she breathed out. “And you marked this man thusly for me?”

He was very aware of how quiet it had become. The only sounds around them were of owls hooting and tree branches rustling in the wind. “’Tis nae of much import,” he said, rubbing at his neck, which was suddenly hot. “Ye are part of my clan now.” When a snort came from above him to his right, he glanced up and over his shoulder to glower at Magnus. “This lets MacNeil know if he ever lays hands upon ye again, I will hunt him down and kill him.” He stood abruptly, his neck even hotter. “I’d do the same for any clan member,” he said.

Another snort came from Magnus. Royce shot him another glare and said, “Tie up MacNeil and deliver him to his territory.” To Abigail, he said, “How did ye end up back here, so close to my land, as opposed to headed in the direction of MacNeil’s land?”

“I managed to slip away and they gave chase, but MacNeil overcame me.”

The dejection in her tone was understandable. The lass had spirit, and she didn’t like or want to be helpless. He could aid her in remedying that by teaching her to defend herself. He would do that for anyone in his clan.

“I’ll go with Magnus to take the MacNeil back in case Magus encounters the other two or any trouble,” Thor said from behind Royce.

Royce turned to find MacNeil slung over Magnus’s shoulder, his hands and feet bound. Both men were staring at Royce, waiting. It was the wise thing to do to send Thor with Magnus, especially since there was still no sign of the MacNeil’s men, so why was he hesitating to give the order? It was the lass. The idea of being alone with her was too pleasing. He’d control himself; it was as simple as that. It wasn’t as if the lass would welcome his attention anyway. She’d almost been ravished a breath ago.

He nodded toward Thor and Magnus. “We’ll see ye at Dunvegan tomorrow afternoon.” It would take them that long to ride to MacNeil’s land and then back to Dunvegan.

Once the men had departed, he focused on Abigail, who now had her back to him. She was staring over the cliff, down into the darkness she’d nearly lost her life to. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, making her appear small and fragile, and the urge to protect her rose in him so strongly it made him frown. He protected all those in his clan, but he recognized this urge felt different, stronger. The question he’d faced previously was in his mind again: was he willing to invite a lass in once more? He didn’t yet have the answer, and the journey home would take several hours and the night was cold.

“Abigail,” he called softly, not wanting to frighten her. She didn’t even flinch. She had to be lost in thoughts of what had occurred. “Abigail,” he said again, increasing his volume.

She turned slowly. “Your girls brought me to the Fairy Pools because they wanted to retrieve some special wine for me to drink.”

“Aye, they confessed as much.”

“Don’t be too harsh on them, please. As I said before, I felt the same way when my mother died. I wanted to keep my father from wedding so he would pay attention to me.”

“And did yer ploy work?” he asked, motioning her to follow him. They had to make their way back to his horse.

He turned toward the path, glancing back to ensure she was following and found her a hairsbreadth from his back. It occurred to him then that she was likely still frightened. “Do ye mind,” he said slowly, “if I hold yer hand down the rocks. I’ll worry for ye, that ye might fall.” He was worried, and he’d planned to simply go before her, but sensing her fear, he thought this might ease it.

She bit her lip, her gaze going to his hand. “The rocks are slippery?”

“They’re jagged and steep,” he told her. She seemed hesitant to allow him to touch her now that her crying spell had passed. Maybe he’d misread that she still needed his comfort, but then she nodded.

Her eyes met his as she breathed in deeply. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being so thoughtful.”

“I’m nae thoughtful,” he grumbled, at which she laughed. He frowned at her, but the way she was grinning made his lips tug up into a smile. “Why are ye laughing at me?” he finally asked.

“Because you find any softness in yourself to be a bad thing, and yet it is there, from what I can tell. It’s a rooted part of who you are. You’re kind, and you should accept it. Most men do not have soft hearts, truly good hearts.”

Royce stopped at the rocks, and she came to his side, her head just above his left shoulder. He looked down at her and swallowed at how lovely she was surrounded by the light of the moon with her hair tumbling wildly over her shoulders. Her words played back to him at that moment, and he frowned again. “I’m nae soft,” he growled. “But I do care for others. ’Tis my responsibility as laird of this clan.”

“That’s not true.” She turned fully toward him. He could see in the light that she had sucked in a bit of her lip between her teeth. She was nervous to say what she was thinking, yet she was pushing forward. The lass was brave.

“Are ye calling me a liar?” he said, half teasing and half joking.

“I, well…” She shifted from foot to foot. “I suppose I am. I’m sorry, but you are lying to yourself. Just being a leader, the one responsible for the well-being of so many others, does not make a man care for them. My father is responsible for many, and he doesn’t truly care at all about any of us, just what riches we can bring him, what we can aid him in getting, what power we can help him obtain, and that we obey his every command. And he’s not the only one! My—” She stopped abruptly and bit her lower lip again, her eyes going very wide.

Her words replayed in Royce’s mind, and he frowned. “I thought ye said ye did nae have any family.”

She released her lower lip and stared at him, mouth parted, and she took a long, slow breath. “I…I don’t,” she said, her voice soft and her head tilting down.

“Did yer da die, then?” But she’d been speaking as if her father was alive now.

She shook her head, still not looking up.

Something was not right. Abigail was keeping something from him, hiding something. His instinct was to demand answers, but he knew from experience that doing so would not get him the truth. His other instinct was to assume she was simply deceptive by nature. That would not have been a conclusion he’d come to about another before Lara’s betrayal, and he knew that, so he fought against it and decided to question her more, dig deeper, before he passed judgment.

“Abigail,” he said, trying to be patient, despite the fact that he had little tolerance for lies after what Lara had done to him. “How can ye say ye do nae have family if yer father is still alive?”

“He betrayed me,” she said, her voice becoming even quieter with the weight of her sorrow. And it was a great weight indeed. Royce could hear it in the three words, and his chest squeezed.

“I know a thing or two of betrayal,” he said. He thought again of Lara and how he’d felt he no longer had a wife, though he had, after he’d discovered how she’d cuckolded him. He’d never felt so alone, even when surrounded by his entire clan. Abigail did not have a clan so he could imagine how she would feel as if she had no family.

“Can ye explain further?” He reached over to her and took her small hand in his. He slid his fingers across the inside of her palm, frowning at the raised edges he felt on what should have been smooth skin. “Were ye injured?” he asked, taking her other hand and simultaneously turning both up so he could see her palms. In the bright moonlight, he saw no blood.

“No,” she said, her voice suddenly oddly tense. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held tight and brought her palms closer to his gaze before running one thumb, then the other, over the inside of her hands. Yes, there were definitely scars there.

“What happened to yer hands?”

“It’s of no importance,” she said, trying and failing again to get him to release her.

But he wouldn’t, and the blood in his veins began to heat once more. “If it was nae a thing,” he said, sliding his thumbs back and forth over the scars, “then ye’d nae protest so much.” A memory tugged of his aunt Bridgette and a scar she’d sustained from a lash when she’d been taken captive as a young woman. Her skin was raised where she’d been struck, and it felt just like this.

“Who lashed ye?” he demanded, hearing the coldness of his own tone. Abigail jerked back, and he hurried to add, “I’ll hunt them down for ye, Abigail, and teach them what happens to a man who dares to hurt a lass such as ye.” He supposed it could have been a woman, but women were not usually so barbaric.

“My father and stepmother,” she whispered. The sorrow and shame in her voice made him want to find them and do to them exactly what they’d done to her.

“Tell me of it,” he said. “Tell me of it so if I should ever chance to meet them, I’ll know the justice to mete out to them.”

Her head came up, and her gaze met his. “You offer to mete out justice in my name, but you don’t even know if I deserve it.”

Each word she spoke was underlain with disbelief and gratitude that sent an ache straight into his chest. No one had ever offered to protect her. His every instinct told him so. He was reaching for her, sliding his hands into her silken tresses and running them over the delicate curve of her skull and to either cheek before he realized what he’d done and what he was going to do. Her lips parted on a soft exhalation that sounded like a mixture of surprise and pleasure. His own lips parted, too as he soaked in the exquisite feel of her cool, smooth skin under his fingertips. He traced the prominent curve of her cheekbones, committing the way she was formed to memory.

This woman… This woman was like his own personal temptress, and in this moment, he didn’t want to fight the spell she’d cast upon him. The mere act of touching her shot a current through him, and it was that overwhelming feeling that stopped him. What power would she yield over him if he gave in to the feelings she inspired?

Slowly, he brushed a finger to the cut on her cheek instead of kissing her the way every instinct he possessed screamed at him to do. “Ye’ve a cut on yer cheek.” His voice was rough with his desire, and the fiery need to kiss her that was gnawing at him. He forced himself to release her, even as it caused a pain deep in his chest.

Her hand fluttered to her cheek, the movement reminding him of a delicate bird. “It must have been one of the branches,” she whispered.

He stood there, face-to-face with her, his body aching to kiss her but his head warning him from it. And yet, even with the warnings, he could not quite make himself turn from her or pull up the barriers he’d intended to keep in place. Every piece of information he learned about her made him want to know more. She was brave, big-hearted, and selfless. “Did yer husband hurt ye, as well?”

The sigh she released was long, and her gaze left his eyes for his chest. “Yes,” she said, barely above a whisper.

He wanted to question her more. The need to know exactly what her husband had done to her nearly singed his tongue, but if he asked those questions, if he learned what had molded Abigail into the extraordinary woman she seemed to be, would there be any turning back? Did he want to mingle their worlds? What was it he was feeling for her? Simply lust? No, he knew it a lie the instant he asked the question. It was something more, something deeper, but if he allowed it, he then freely gave her power over him. The power to bring joy, but with that came the power to bring pain. He had said he had no fear since becoming laird, but he recognized in this moment the lie he’d told himself. He had fear. He feared giving a woman the ability to hurt him once more. And even if he could open himself up, could she? She had a complicated, pain filled past herself. That much was obvious.

So instead of inquiring further about her past or touching her or kissing her, he allowed his control to descend inch by painful inch, and he said the one thing he knew for certain, “Ye deserve justice, Abigail. Do nae doubt it.” When her brow wrinkled, he added. “Ye are worthy. Ye’re a braw, determined lass with a good, true heart.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she whispered.

“Then ye lived with a bunch of fools.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling slowly, “I did.”

They started down the rocks side by side, Royce doing his best to ignore how aware he was of the woman by his side, but he found himself counting her breaths and felt his own fall into the same pattern. When she spoke, he wasn’t surprised based on the change in her breathing. He frowned that he should be so in tune with her.

“My father never paid me attention before my mother died, nor after,” she said. “I was a possession he simply wanted to use for gain.”

“Yer first marriage was one of gain for yer father, then?” Royce asked, thinking of his own sister and the betrothals she had broken because the men had turned out to be unworthy to her in some way. The last was certainly not worthy even to be in Elena’s presence. Royce had not known, but he likely hadn’t spent enough time in any of the men’s company to whom he’d made marriage contracts for Elena. Guilt rose in him. He’d considered the clan’s needs over his sister’s, and though he’d supported her after each broken betrothal, she would not have had to endure such pain if he’d taken more care initially. He vowed then and there to allow Elena to choose her next husband, whether the man brought any gain to the MacLeod clan or not.

“Yes,” she said, her voice small.

“Did ye run because ye were afraid of the sort of man yer next husband would be?”

She nodded. “Yes. I was very afraid. I came here hoping to make a new life and leave my past behind.” A desolate look settled on her face. “You can never truly leave your past behind, though. The ghost of it follows you, no matter how far you go.”

That was true, but maybe, he thought frowning, the trick was to learn to live with the ghosts and to take the lessons from the past and build a brighter future.