A Runaway Bride For The Highlander. Elisabeth Hobbes

It should be high and girlish, not the creamy purr that stroked down his belly and made him want to roll over like his deerhound before the fire and submit to whatever attentions she bestowed upon him. Caught out, he blinked and answered more honestly than he intended.

      ‘I was looking at your clothes.’

      ‘Oh!’

      She drew in on herself. Her hands disappeared inside the capacious sleeves as she crossed them over her chest and her breasts were pushed flat and upwards. The high-necked chemise that filled the gap between the top of her bodice and her neck concealed them, but the silk was fine and translucent enough that it bunched and dipped. Ewan suspected they would be full and firm when liberated from their bonds. He was consumed by a sudden and highly unacceptable urge to ease the gown from her shoulders and find out if he was right.

      ‘The style is very strange,’ he explained. Imagining that he was about to undress her did nothing to dispel the guilt that crept up on him, but she did not seem to have noticed his unease.

      ‘Is that how you knew I was French?’ She tilted her head to the right and gave him another of the sweet smiles that made his stomach rise and fall. Her mouth was wide and slightly uneven. It rose a little more to the right as she smiled. Perhaps she had developed the habit of tilting her head to the side so the smile appeared straight. Ewan found himself wanting alternately to smile back or run his fingers over the slight indentation that appeared in her cheek.

      ‘Aye, it was,’ he lied, not wanting to admit he had asked Angus about her. ‘I’m no expert, but I could tell you aren’t Scottish. You wouldn’t be English, not here at this time. You’re not fair enough to be Dutch or dark enough to be Spanish.’

      She looked at him seriously, then gave a rippling laugh. It was high and girlish and was more akin to the voice he expected her to have.

      ‘How ingenious of you!’

      He might have taken it as a compliment if she had not sounded so surprised. She had made it clear the previous night that she thought the Scottish were savages. His irritation flooded back and he intended to end the conversation then.

      ‘Did you wish to speak to me for a reason?’ he asked brusquely. If she thought him uncouth, why be anything other?

      ‘I know I should not speak to you when we have not been introduced, but I wanted to apologise.’ She reached out her hand as she had the previous night, but held it steady between them, regarding him with entreaty in her eyes. ‘I did not intend to cause any offence last night when I spoke of the wildness I saw. I am sorry.’

      ‘You didn’t cause any offence, at least not to me.’ It was a lie, but now she was beside him he had no wish to spoil it.

      She looked relieved, but managed to ruin the thawing tension by continuing with a sigh, ‘I find it strange. That is all. I do not think the men of my country would behave so if they were nursing wounds after a defeat in battle.’

      Ewan rolled his eyes and folded his arms. ‘A little more tact might be advisable.’

      Her lips twisted down and she pressed them together to stop them from trembling. Ewan felt as though he had slapped a kitten.

      ‘Tell me where you had been yesterday evening,’ he asked impulsively.

      She did touch him now, clutching at his wrist with urgency while her eyes darted from side to side. Once again Ewan stiffened. The chill of her fingers on his skin was enough to make him quicken, his blood sparking to life like a flint catching in straw.

      ‘Don’t speak so loudly!’

      He hadn’t been and her consternation told him he had touched on something secret. He clasped her hand briefly before removing it from his wrist with fingers close to trembling, not daring to risk touching any longer. He glanced around. Duncan McCrieff was deep in conversation with Queen Margaret and was unaware his bride was elsewhere. Ewan privately thought that if this delicate little lass with large, innocent eyes were his woman he would not leave her alone in a room full of lecherous Scots to fend for herself.

      ‘No one will hear over the music, but I shan’t if you tell me,’ he said, grinning to cover the bewildering surge of emotions that her fleeting touch had awoken in him.

      She cast him a look of pure indignation.

      ‘I shall not, for it is no business of yours!’

      Her hands moved to her breast and she began to fiddle with a heavy pendant that hung from a long gold chain, her thumb rubbing in small circles over the etched patterns. The gesture looked like a long-formed habit and Ewan wondered if she was even aware she was doing it. He watched her fingers moving over the polished gold. They were long and slender with nails shaped like almonds and he could not tear his eyes from them as they moved deftly.

      He narrowed his eyes. ‘I would have said you were meeting your lover, but I know McCrieff was in the hall before you.’

      ‘He is not my lover!’ She blinked rapidly, which made her thick, dark eyelashes flutter in a manner that caused Ewan’s heart to do similar. ‘I have no lover. If you slander me in such a way, I shall have to tell Duncan.’

      ‘You’ll inform him that I saw you slipping in furtively from somewhere you should not have been?’

      She pouted, dropping her head.

      ‘I simply wanted to be alone.’ Her voice was filled with melancholy that spoke to the misery in Ewan’s chest in a language that needed no words. Had her necklace been a gift from whomever she was mourning? It was all Ewan could do to stop himself from drawing her into his arms in an attempt to comfort them both, but from the corner of his eye he saw Duncan McCrieff was now winding his way through the groups, heading in their direction. He wore his customary surly expression. Ewan thought about leaving the girl alone, but McCrieff had already seen them standing together and had increased the speed at which he jostled his way towards them. To depart now would be more suspicious than to stay. The girl had noticed his approach, too, and Ewan didn’t like the way her pale cheeks grew even paler.

      Ewan lowered his voice and inclined his head a little. ‘It is probably not my place to say, but in a strange country with an unfamiliar husband I would try to win as many friends as I could.’

      ‘Yes. I do need friends,’ she whispered.

      Her eyes grew wide and gleamed. She looked as if she was about to cry and Ewan felt a stab of remorse that he had contributed to her unease. He wondered if she was aware that she had edged closer to him as her bridegroom approached so that her skirt was brushing his leg. He could say nothing because Duncan was upon them.

       Chapter Five

      Duncan’s smile exuded warmth that Ewan believed was entirely false. He lifted his bride’s hand to his lips, then nodded curtly at Ewan, all warmth frozen over.

      ‘Lochmore.’

      ‘McCrieff.’

      The girl was looking at them, surprised by the openly hostile tones they spoke in.

      ‘I hope you are not assaulting my bride again.’ McCrieff held up his hands in a parody of submissiveness. ‘Wait. I jest! I jest!’

      Ewan eyed him coldly, wishing he had a sword to hand. ‘I merely stopped to speak with her to confirm she had not been injured last night,’ he said.

      Duncan looked suspiciously between Ewan and his bride. She spoke rapidly in French, too quickly for Ewan to follow every word, but he understood she was confirming what he had said. It gave him a curious pleasure that she was joining him in the lie.

      If Ewan had to gamble on anyone betraying Scotland, he’d bet every piece of silver plate in Castle Lochmore it would be a McCrieff. He tried to curb his prejudice, reminding himself that he had no evidence and the only reason for this was the longstanding enmity between the clans.

      Duncan