Highland Jewel (Highland Heroes #1)

Chapter 4

“Ye canna pray all night," Leith said, squatting down beside the small, kneeling figure swaddled in woolen robes.

They had ridden all day, stopping only for the nooning meal before hurrying on.

Rose Gunther had not spoken or eaten, and now she knelt in the darkness, looking not at all like the enchanting bean-sith he had seen by the magical lochan, but more like a bedraggled martyr with pale face and waning spirit. Where had the bewitching little fairy princess gone? The unearthly, moon-gilded goddess who had ignited his imagination and inflamed his hope? Where was the lass who had made him believe in miracles, had made him certain she had been sent as a precious gift from the very hand of God Himself, destined to bring peace to the clan of the Forbes.

He'd been sure such a creature could not be happy in the strict confines of an abbey—had convinced himself he would do nothing but good in taking her to Scotland. But perhaps he'd misjudged her. Perhaps it had only been a vision by the lo-chan, and this woman did indeed belong within the cloistered walls of a musty abbey.

But blood stained Leith's hands. The blood of his own people and of the MacAulays. Blood that would be washed away once Laird Ian accepted the wee nun as the daughter of his own loins.

'Twas true that Ian MacAulay was a wily bastard. But he was also old and tired of the feud, tired enough to offer his only child as the wife of the Forbes, if Leith could bring her back to Scotland.

Leith tightened his jaw. He had found her—beneath an aged mound of dirt in an English graveyard. But his dreams had not died there. Nay, they had found new life in the pale, nubile form of an unclothed novice.

A strange way indeed for the Lord to answer his prayers, but Leith was not one to deny a sacred gift. Rose Gunther was that gift. He knew it, just as he knew Ian MacAulay would accept her. Just as he knew she would be the bond that once again united the tribes torn assunder by Eleanor's death.

"Come," he said, retrospect making his tone hard. "Eat before the food cools."

Her face did not lift. Her hands remained folded. "I am fasting," she said in clipped tones.

Damn it to unholy hell! Fasting! Out here in the wilderness where all the girl's feeble strength would be needed just to stay alive. Leith scowled. For a sacred gift of God she certainly was stubborn. He had no time for her martyred antics. But neither would it do him any good to take an unwilling lass to Glen Creag.

Perhaps Colin was right. Perhaps he was wont to frighten the lasses with his dour looks. Leith Forbes, however, had little time for courtship or flattery. He was a man with the heavy responsibilities of his clan on his shoulders. And just now those responsibilities weighed like a stone about his neck, for he saw the possibility of great changes for his clan. Changes that would cauterize old wounds and forge lasting bonds—if only he could charm the kneeling woman before him.

Leith took a steadying breath, remembering his promise to the chaplain, and settled back onto a hip and a palm. "Why do ye fast, wee nun?" he asked quietly.

"Atonement for my sins," she said stiltedly, her head still bowed.

"And what sins are those, wee Rose?" Leith asked, his tone as gentle as he could make it. "Surely ye are too young and frail to have transgressed too grievously,"

Silence settled into this sheltered spot in the woods. In the darkness, Leith thought he saw the girl's jaw clench and when she finally lifted her face, her eyes flashed with a less-than-godly light. To his amazement Leith found he had not imagined their size or depth. They were indeed as wide and unfathomable as the deep, dark waters of Loch Ness.

"Do you presume to know the extent of my sins then, Scotsman?" she asked finally, her small mouth pursed.

"Nay," answered Leith, his burr soft and heavy. "I but think such a wee lass as yerself canna have many."

She was quiet again, her pale hands folded reverently, but when she spoke finally her tone was sharp, her eyes bright. "You think your sins more important than mine?"

Leith shook his head, carefully quelling the grin that threatened to lift the corner of his mouth. Without a doubt she was the most interesting and contrary nun he had ever met. "Shall we move to the fire, lass, and compare sins?" he asked, his voice low.

Her mouth was a firm, puckered mound of disapproval above her peaked little chin. "I see nothing amusing about sin."

"I meself find most sins to be quite disturbing." He leaned closer, resting a broad wrist on his knee. "But yers, now, lass—they seem most... entertaining."

Her eyes, if possible, became even larger in the darkness. "Dare you speak so lightly of my sins?"

"Dare ye tell me what they are?" he challenged smoothly.

He was close. Far too close, Rose thought. And he was large, with each feature sharp and arresting. His hair was dark, like shining sable, and pulled back at the nape of his neck, which was broad with muscle and sinew. His eyes were brown, the color of rich tea. His nose was not straight or perfectly formed but bowed slightly outward in the center. His cheekbones were high, his mouth full. And at his hip he wore a sword now, a long, scroll-handled weapon that seemed almost a part of his very being.

He was not a pretty man. So why did her hands sweat when he was near? Why did her heart race like the skittering hoofbeats of deer at dawn? She was to be a nun. A nun! Pure. Unlike him—a man who would hold the object of a poor postulate to gain his own ends.

Despite the circumstances, however, she would return to the abbey with the little cross in its rightful place about her neck. She had made a vow, and she would keep it, regardless of Satan's temptations.

Oh, yes. He had been sent by Satan. She had no doubt, for no man had ever stirred her desires as he had. All day, she'd refused to allow her gaze to stray to him, for the sight of him was too disturbing. And yet many times during the journey she had admired him—sitting straight and tall on his white stallion, looking for all the world like a romantic statue carved of stone.

Now, in the darkness, she admitted that he did not look like stone, but like warm flesh. She watched him silently, feeling breathless. She'd always been a strong girl, and though small, she'd assisted her father in his work better than many a young man. But this Scot... Her eyes fell to his hand. It was sun-browned and strong, and his wrist, resting on his knee, was broad and flat. Her gaze slipped downward, over the thick, lean muscle of his lower leg, shown to perfection through his dark-colored hose.

"Like what ye see, wee nun?" he asked softly.

Rose gasped, both at his words and at the realization that she'd been staring at him quite boldly, and with more than chaste interest.

"What would cause ye to believe yerself destined to waste yer life in a convent?" he asked softly.

"You dare call the holy life a waste?"

"Na for some." He shrugged lazily. "But a woman like yerself needs sommat more."

"What do you know of my needs?" she asked raggedly, her breath coming hard now as a blush heated her cheeks.

"I know only what I saw at the lochan," he admitted finally.

Rose felt the blood drain from her face in a cold rush. God's toenails! He had been there. "What did you see?" she whispered weakly, nearly unable to voice the question, but surely unable to remain unknowing.

"I found sommat ye'd lost," he hedged softly. "And I asked meself, how did the wee nun's possession come to be here in this quiet place outside the walls of the nunnery."

Rose blinked once, a slim ray of hope finding its way into her being. It seemed he had not witnessed her shameful disrobing after all, for surely he would boast of seeing such an act. Hardly was he gentlemanly enough to keep such knowledge to himself. But did he have the cross?

"And what is it you found?" she asked, her voice unsteady as she remained on her knees, facing him.

He watched her in silence, his expression curious. "Ye dunna ken?" His tone was nonchalant.

He was toying with her! "No!" she snapped angrily, then steadied the tremble of her hands and smoothed her voice into something that very faintly resembled the Lady Abbess'. He was merely a temptation sent by Satan to test her, she reminded herself. "I do not know," she murmured, lowering her eyes.

"Then why, I ask meself, did ye come?" queried Leith.

"Because there was need," Rose answered stiffly, her mouth pursed again.

"And what is yer need, wee one?" he asked huskily.

"Not mine!" she countered irritably. Did this man know nothing of pious martyrdom? she wondered, then smoothed away her angry expression and clasped her hands more firmly together. "I have no need but to serve my Lord."

"Are ye certain?" Leith asked casually, canting his head a fraction of an inch so that the moonlight flickered across his dusky features.

For a moment Rose was transfixed by the look of him—his arrogance, his massiveness, the sheer force of his presence. When the Lord sent a temptation, He didn't do it in small measures. "Of course I'm certain," she said finally, pulling her eyes from him with a righteous effort.

He nodded, and, bending forward slightly, dipped his hand to his pocket. "Then..." he said with a shrug. "Ye dunna care to have..." His hand appeared, and from his fingertips dangled her humble wooden cross. "... this?"

It swayed on its coarse chain—held hostage by his fingers, and her gaze followed its arcing trail, mesmerized by its haunting presence.

She did not mean to grab at it. She had every intention of retaining some dignity, but just at that moment he grinned—that devilish expression of victory that drove her relentlessly past the point of caution.

Her lunge was ill-planned, yet she nearly had it—her fingertips just grazing the rough wood.

But he swung the cross in a simple arc toward his chest and Rose toppled forward, tipped off balance by her frantic movement and falling to all fours like a begging hound.

Leith stared at her in surprise, his wicked grin broadening. "What is yer sin, wee nun, that ye would feel such a powerful need to hide it?"

Rose stared up at him from mere inches away, her eyes as wide as the moon, her composure torn asunder. Her mouth fell open. Her lips moved. God's toes! There was something about this man. Something intangible and dark, something so deep and tempting that she doubted her will to resist. But no! She would not fail the test.

Rose scrambled backward, her robes scrunching beneath her to fall straight finally as she jerked hurriedly to her feet. "I was hot," she said quickly, her hands grasping each other as he rose to his feet before her. "I but went to the lake to feel the cool breeze against my face. Is that such a dreadful sin?"

Leith watched her carefully. Her face was a flawless oval, her nose small and straight.

"I didna say it was," he answered, taking a fluid step nearer. "But I ask meself—is that yer only sin, wee nun? Discounting, of course, yer terrible temper."

"I do not have a temper!" she declared, her left eyebrow high, barely making a wrinkle above her amethyst eyes.

"Aye, lass," he breathed from close proximity. "Ye do."

"Well, hell!" she breathed, then grimaced at her horrid language and wrung her hands in abject mortification. "The likes of you would cause a saint to curse."

He chuckled, the sound coming from deep within his broad chest. "Aye. Mayhap I would, lassie," he admitted evenly. "But ye most assuredly are na a saint."

She drew her back to ramrod stiffness. Who was this heathen to find fault with her attempts at piety? To force her from her homeland with blackmail, then insult her faithfulness? "I would guess my solitary escape from the abbey is far less a sin that the ones you practice on a daily basis," she said tonelessly.

"Probably so, wee nun," he said as he advanced toward her yet again. "But I wonder now if that was yer worst transgression. Mayhap there was another. Mayhap..." She was backed against the smooth bark of a rowan tree and he lifted his hand to touch her cheek with the broad backs of his fingers. "Mayhap ye met a lover there."

She slapped his hand away. "I did no such thing!"

"Na?" He canted his head quizzically at her, as if wanting to see inside her mind—to read her thoughts.

"No! My only sin was my need to escape the confines of the abbey for a short time."

He dropped his hand, his expression thoughtful, his brows momentarily raised. “Then ye dunna consider yer actions to a be a sin?" he asked quizzically.

Rose's body felt as if it were made of coldest granite. Her eyes locked on his. "What actions?"

He did not smile, did not move but for the slight lift of his massive shoulders. "Disrobing by moonlight, lass. Ye dunna consider it a sin?"

Breath gasped between Rose's parted lips as she pressed back against the slanted trunk behind her. "You saw!" she whispered.

"Aye, lass."

Her hand rose shakily to her throat. "I thought..." she breathed, her voice dropping even lower. "I thought I sinned only before God."

"I doubt na that He saw too," Leith murmured huskily. "But I dunna think He enjoyed it as much as I."

She hit him with all of her considerable strength, striking his cheek with the solid force of her doubled fist.

The impact knocked Leith back a step, though he outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds. He stood in wordless surprise, listening to the smacking echo of her assault rumble through his senses.

"Leith!" Colin appeared in a fraction of a second, his claymore drawn, his face a solemn mask. His body was tense and slightly bent, his legs widespread. “Is all well? I heard a noise."

Rose could not help but notice the taut muscle that jerked in Leith's lean face, the anger that sparked in his deep, deadly eyes. And for a moment she wondered if it might be prudent to beg forgiveness—if not from God, at least from him.

They stood unspeaking, both watching the other in tense wariness before Leith eased his fists open.

"All is well, Colin," he said finally, his tone stiff.

Quiet pervaded the woods. Colin lowered his claymore and paced quickly forward to stand beside the two. Rose knew he was there, though she dared not draw her gaze from Leith's.

"Indeed," said Colin finally, sheathing his broad sword and placing his fists on his hips. "Ye were right, brother. The sight of her does not blister me face." His gaze rested on Rose for a tense moment. "Which makes me wonder," he said, turning to Leith in some bemusement, "what has caused the mark on yer face."

The angry muscle jumped in Leith's jaw again. "We were discussing sins," he said in a deadly even tone.

"Ah," exclaimed Colin, smiling outright. "And what sins specifically?" He turned his gaze from Leith to the girl's sparkling eyes. "Murder?"

"Fornication," Leith corrected dryly.

"One of me favorites!" Colin exclaimed happily. "And what decision did ye arrive at? Is the lass for or against?"

Leith did not remove his gaze from the lass' enraged face. "Her lips say against," he said wryly. "But her eyes say for."

"You are surely the spawn of the devil himself," declared Rose furiously.

Colin laughed. "Nay, lass. Auld Horney would na claim him. So the clan Forbes took him to its bosom."

Rose's gaze remained on Leith, her shoulders drawn sharply back and her mouth pursed. "You do not realize the sins you heap upon your soul by your hideous words to a woman of the holy order."

"And ye dunna admit yer own needs," countered Leith darkly.

"I have no needs but to serve my Lord!" breathed Rose.

Quiet filled the spot and Leith's brows rose skeptically. "We shall see," came his solemn prediction.

"My lord?" Devona Millet hurried through the undergrowth toward them. “Is all well?" She looked from Leith to Rose and back. "I feared for your well-being."

Colin watched as the woman hurried forward, one hand lifting her bright, full skirt. "Supper awaits," she reminded them when no answer was forthcoming. "My lord?" she repeated, looking worried and breathless. "Are you not hungry?"

Leith Forbes carefully extracted himself from the glittering depths of the young postulate's gaze. "Aye," he murmured finally, glancing distractedly at the dark woman beside him. “I dunna deny me own needs," he said, lifting his eyes to Rose's heated gaze once more. "Aye. I am indeed hungry.”