Page 20 of Highlander’s Lust

All the Proof Needed but All for Naught

Laird Brisbane patted the grass beside him, a half-pleading, rueful grin on his face. “Come now, lass, dinnae spoil a beautiful day. Come and eat something.”

Jean could still feel the anger seething inside her and was in two minds whether to sit down and make peace with her betrothed or flounce off in high dudgeon. In the end, she decided the best course was to sit down. She was hungry and thirsty, and she needed someone to help her climb back into her horse saddle. But she eyed her husband-to-be askance, hoping all the scorn she felt for his behavior and his father’s before him was reflected in her expression. After she had overheard the maids talking amongst themselves as they tidied her bedchamber this morning, she had vowed to remain aloof from chastising his lairdship’s behavior. But just now, when she had felt her body responding to the touch of his mouth on her neck, it stimulated her into reacting. How could he come back after staying out all night and then behave as though it were the most natural thing in the world?

She looked at him from under her lashes and knew why she had scolded him. It was not so much from his ungallant conduct—getting drunk and then riding away for the night—it was because his touch had almost made her lose her mind with desire. When she had felt the warmth of his mouth on her neck, it had sent tingles of delight coursing through her veins. For one moment, she had wanted to lean back into his arms and allow herself to be swept away by her impulses.

Did that make her more like his lairdship than she cared to admit? Jean did not plan on finding out until she was safely married and knew her way around the bedchamber a wee bit more.

Jean ventured to partake of some wine and bannocks. She had to commend Charlie for choosing this place to rest; it was cool under the shade of the tree. As she sipped her wine and looked around her, a swarm of tiny yellow flutterbys rose up out of the heather bushes and flew into the blue sky. Jean felt the tension she had bottled up inside her since finding out Charlie had spent the night from home, melting away, flying up toward the clouds, following the flutterbys. She leaned back against the tree trunk, closed her eyes, and sighed.

She heard a splash. When Jean opened her eyes, Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Then she heard distinct sounds of huffing and blowing, the noises made by someone when they had ducked their head under the water and then come up for air.

Her flagon of wine lay forgotten on the grass as Jean stood up and made her way over to the stream. The horses stood tethered next to the gently sloping ford. Rushes lined the edge of the stream like trees on a boulevard, and thrown carelessly onto the ground were Laird Brisbane’s plaid, boots, and shirt.

As she watched, Charlie surfaced again from underneath the water; he blew a thin trickle out of his mouth like a fountain.

She laughed. “Should I be concerned ye managed to throw off yer clothes with such haste, Laird?” she queried, an impish smile on her face.

He returned her grin. “Och, lass, if ye believe that to be hasty, then ye’ll be shocked to see how fast I throw them off on the night of our beddan!”

She blushed rosily and giggled. The sight of her betrothed standing in the stream, naked but for the water lapping around his midriff, was enough to make her cheeks warm. Jean was in two minds: whether to stay and watch him bathe or leave and wait for Laird Brisbane by the copse. She had a fair idea he could read her jumbled thoughts from the way he was looking at her with that half-teasing, half-challenging look on his face.

Jean decided to do neither. She went to the pile of clothes and took up his lairdship’s plaid.

“If ye want to ride back to the castle with dignity, laird, ye’ll have to catch me.”

She began to run across the grass with the long length of plaid trailing behind her like the tail of some mythical beast. She heard him shout and the sound of water being thrust aside followed. Her heart was in her mouth now. She could hear the sound of his running footsteps coming closer and closer. The thrill of the chase was overwhelming. There was something so exciting about the pursuit, the vague panic about what he would do when he caught her.

She felt his hands clutching at her skirt. The chase was over. He had her by the waist. The next thing Jean knew, she was pushed softly to the ground, and his lairdship was on top of her. For one moment, they stared at each other with trepidation, then they broke out laughing.

“I-I’m sorry! I couldnae resist, Laird. I hope for both our sakes no passing farmworker caught sight o’ ye. ‘Twould be enough to make the man run for the hills!”

There was something incredibly natural about the way they found themselves. Without the enforced restriction of bedchambers and critical castle servants, all the reserve Jean expected herself to feel when confronted with her betrothed naked was not immediately apparent. They were simply two young people frolicking outdoors on a hot summer day.

Laird Brisbane pulled the plaid out of her hands, saying, “Lass, if ye don’ mind, I’ll be having this off ye now.”

She yielded and let it go.

He sat up, draped a portion of the plaid around his waist, and stood up. He needed to tie it more firmly around his waist until he got the belt.

Jean inhaled her breath sharply.

Laird Brisbane turned around. “There, that’s what ye get for running over the grass like a wild nymph.” But when he saw the look on her face, his smile disappeared. “What is it, Jeannie? Ye look as if ye’ve seen a ghost.”

All the good understanding they had spent the day cultivating was hanging in the balance.

“What are those scratches on yer back?” Jean asked.

Charlie’s blood ran cold. Suddenly, the disdainful look he had seen on his manservant’s face that morning began to make sense. He had gotten roaring drunk, spent the night at Carnachscallie, and returned home with his back covered in scratches. But the lass was still young and innocent; maybe he could still come up with a plausible explanation.

He lifted his hand up tentatively, trying to feel the marks.

“What scratches? I feel naught.” Laird Brisbane hoped he could bluff his way out of this.

Jean lay on the ground, unmoving and unmoved by his attempt to laugh it off.

“There are a dozen or so deep scratches on yer back, as though someone has raked their fingernails down. No’ on the lower back.” When he lifted up his hands, trying to feel for it, she said, “On yer shoulders, ‘tween the blades and then running all the way down to yer waist.”