Trapped with the Devil of the Highlands (Falling for Highland Villains #3)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

What am I doin’?

Clarity clattered into Paisley’s mind like a spooked horse, wild-eyed and stomping.

She swiped at his hand, jumping away from his prohibited touch. “I told ye nae to do that,” she gasped, unable to steady her voice as fresh pain shot up her injured leg. “Ye must have left yer brain in the forest if ye think I’d agree to be near ye for longer than I have to.”

Him picking her up in the woods and carrying her to his horse—riding on his horse with her—had been one thing. She could just about excuse that as a necessity, but she would not be touched without warning, at his whim. A woman like her, in her position, could not trust a man like him.

“Did ye miss the part where I have to return to the convent to take me vows as a nun?” she continued, the backs of her thighs bumping into the rim of the wooden tub.

Steam coiled up, but it would be a while yet before it was ready to cleanse her of the night’s troubles and soak up the tension from her very bones.

Camden walked backward with his hands up, a smirk on his lips. “It was me understandin’ that the very point of ye runnin’ like a wildlin’ through the forest was to nae return to the convent. I can take ye back there before evenin’ if that’s what ye want.” He gestured to the door. “We can leave right now, actually.”

“Nay!” Her hands flew up—her own gesture of surrender. “I mean, aye, I need to go back. I need to take me vows, but… nae yet. I wasnae fleein’ to escape becomin’ a nun, I was just… It’s hard to explain. Ye wouldnae understand it. All ye need to ken is that I must reach Clan Morris, and then I will go back to pledge meself to the Lord.”

A hasty figure bustled into the bedchamber, two buckets hanging down from a yoke over her shoulders. She halted at the sight of Paisley and Camden, quite obviously in the middle of a disagreement.

“Put those down where ye are,” Camden said with a wave of his hand. “Dinnae return unless ye’re sent for.”

The young woman hurried to comply, miraculously not spilling a drop of water as she lowered the buckets to the floor. She unhooked the ropes and darted back out, closing the door behind her.

A tremor rippled across Paisley’s chest and down into her stomach. Ungodly butterflies flapped riotously. If there was a mirror in that room, she did not doubt that she would’ve glimpsed the flush on her face.

“What are ye doin’?” she rasped. “Ye cannae be alone in here with me! It’s unseemly! I’m nae supposed to be near any man that isnae of the cloth. Even then, it’s only the abbot who is allowed to tread in the women’s wing of the convent.”

“Is that so?” Camden grinned. “Tell me, sweetlin’, how does one become an abbot?”

She shot him what she hoped was a withering glare. “Ye’d probably burst into flame if ye set foot on hallowed ground.”

“There—right there!” He took a step toward her, pointing his finger while a flare of triumph brightened the black pools of his eyes.

Feeling very exposed, Paisley covered herself with her hands, recoiling from that victorious finger. Did she have something other than a forest’s worth of muck and mulch on her face? Had one of her small cuts reopened? Was it an insect?

She shivered from head to toe, her skin prickling at the thought of a stray spider scuttling somewhere beneath her dress.

“What?” she murmured.

Camden moved closer again. “Ye’ve too much fire in ye to be a nun, me sweetlin’.”

“Stop callin’ me that! I’m nae yer anythin’, so stop it!”

But he seemed incapable of stopping once he had started, his wry smile unwavering, though he did pause his approach. Now standing a more polite distance away, his eyes roamed over her figure, his tongue moistening his lips as if he were about to enjoy a delicious feast.

“If ye were so determined to bind yerself to Him ”—he tilted his head up to the ceiling—“ye wouldnae have left at all. So, tell me the truth—what compelled ye? One last jaunt in the real world before ye lock that pretty face away forever? Maybe a first jaunt to have a taste of what ye’ll be missin’ out on when ye take yer vows? Somethin’ to nourish ye in the dreary years of silence and celibacy to come? I could aid ye with that. I’d worship ye if ye but ask.”

Paisley began to feel much too warm, and it had nothing to do with the steam rising from the tub or the buckets, fogging the windows. It was anger and exasperation and… the way Camden looked at her when he said such impertinent, improper things.

At the convent, she spent so much of her day with her head bowed—it was discourteous to look a Sister in the eye. Somewhere across that eternal decade behind cloistered walls, she supposed she had forgotten the power of a gaze.

“I left for reasons that are me own,” she said quietly, refusing to bite. “It was supposed to be a temporary venture. That hasnae changed, and ye shouldnae speak of worshippin’ unless ye’re in a church, ye heretic.”

He laughed and wandered to the buckets, hoisting them up like they weighed nothing at all. “Ye mistake me, lass. I’m a surprisingly godly man. I’ve caused many ladies to call out for the Good Lord.”

“I have made nay mistake,” she muttered, enthralled by the strength of his arms. Pure muscle bulged against the seams of his pale yellow léine, the cords in his neck standing out.

He went to the tub and poured the steaming water into it. “I pray daily in gratitude for the Lord’s work,” he told her. “In every beautiful woman, I commend His artistry.”

She scoffed, skirting away from the tub so she would not get splashed. “I suppose ye trick plenty of ladies with that sort of thing, but there’s assuredly nothin’ holy about ye.”

“Have ye nae read the parable of the Good Samaritan?”

Her mouth fell open, but she recovered quickly. “Aye, but I dinnae remember the part where he killed a man first.”

She hugged herself at the memory. Camden had heard her call out for him to stop—she knew that keenly—so why had he not? She would have asked him what the man had done to deserve such a final punishment, but part of her did not want to know. It was not a nun’s business.

He seemed to agree, as he said with a shrug, “Ye fled the convent for yer own reasons, I had to kill that man for mine.” He set the buckets down and leaned against the side of the tub. “But ye have mistaken me.”

“Ye just asked a nun—a soon-to-be-nun—to be yers for a month! Please, do tell me what I have misjudged about ye.”

Paisley could not bring herself to repeat the rest—the constant flirtations, the sordid sentiments that slipped so easily from his full lips, the sultry gleam in his eyes, in addition to the fact that he thought it was perfectly acceptable to be alone with her in a room. Any room. She would turn purple with embarrassment if she mentioned any of that.

Camden folded his arms across his broad chest. “Ah, well, there’s yer first misunderstanding. I just want ye to pretend to be mine. Then, when all is done, I’ll take ye back to that convent so ye can deny the world yer fair beauty forever. A tragedy if ye ask me, but I wouldnae dare tell ye how to live.”

Pretend?

A warrior so handsome as him could have had any woman he desired, and his words suggested that he had. Why did he need her to pretend to be his? Indeed, why her of all women?

“Why would ye want that?” she had no choice but to ask outright.

He smiled slyly. “Why are ye goin’ to Clan Morris?”

Paisley narrowed her eyes at him, dizzy with the back and forth… and likely the hunger in her belly and the throbbing pain in her leg.

Ye need his help. Ye cannae pretend otherwise. Ye dinnae even ken where ye are, much less how to reach Morris lands.

It was a sobering realization. She had hoped he would blindly assist her, asking no questions about the wheres and the whys except when necessary. But if she was going to reach Clan Morris with the one person who seemed happy enough to help, despite his ridiculous price, she had to be more honest. A little bit more honest, at least.

“To find me parents,” she said softly.

Camden raised an eyebrow. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.”

“It is… of vital importance that I reach them, for it may be the last time I’d ever see them.”

To lie was a grave sin, but as it was not a true lie, only an omission of the greater truth, she figured that the Lord would forgive her. After all, when she took her vows, she would not see her parents again. The convent was a closed order.

Camden sighed. “And I’d love to help ye see them, lass, but I need yer help for a very good reason too.” He leaned down, trailing his fingertips across the surface of the steaming water, testing the heat. “Me council is pressurin’ me to wed, eager as starvin’ wolves to see a Lady at me side, but I dinnae want to marry.”

A sudden tension weaved into his voice, all humor and teasing gone in an instant. Looking at his profile, Paisley noticed his furrowed brow and the grim set of his mouth, as serious as she had ever seen him—and she had seen him cut a man down.

Wait… he has a council? His wife would be a Lady?

She balked, acutely aware that she might not be standing in a bedchamber with just any common warrior.

“Lady of… what?” she asked hesitantly.

He turned, a flicker of his former amusement on his face. “Why, are ye suddenly interested in the position?”

“Certainly nae!”

“Ye dinnae take a jest well, do ye?” A soft laugh rumbled in the back of his throat. “I told ye me name was Camden. What I might nae have mentioned is that I’m also Laird Cairn. That bein’ said, I told the innkeeper—I assumed ye’d heard.”

Sinking onto a three-legged stool that rocked unsteadily under her weight, Paisley racked her brain for distant memories of clans and lairds and who was allied to whom. As a child, she had been forced to spend hours studying the names and ancestry of Scotland’s clans, but those hours belonged to a different life. Most of what she had once studied intently had been replaced with a nun’s education.

“Dinnae get any notions of being Lady Cairn,” Camden warned in a lightly mocking tone. “It’ll only be pretense.”

She shot him a disapproving glare. “With respect, Laird Cairn, can ye nae just tell yer council ye dinnae want to wed? Is it nae up to ye what ye do and do nae?”

It dawned on her that she had not been using the appropriate honorifics and sought to remedy that mistake at once. She adjusted her demeanor slightly too, for though his behavior did not warrant much courtesy, his station did. And she was nothing if not deferential to her superiors.

Goodness, the things I have said to him! It would be like me tellin’ the abbot that I dinnae appreciate him dronin’ on every mornin’ and evenin’.

Cecilia had whispered a similar sentiment once, only to be overheard by Mother Superior. She had been sentenced to a week’s isolation for her impertinence, though upon her return, she had declared it a most refreshing respite from the drudgery of the convent.

I dread to think what ye would do, dearest friend, if ye were in this room, in me place…

“How long have ye been behind those convent walls, lass?” Camden asked.

Paisley sat up straighter as if Mother Superior had tapped her mid-back and scolded her about her posture. “Eleven years, two months and… six days.”

“Well, lass, maybe in the convent, the adage of ‘ask and ye shall receive’ is true, but some things arenae that easy in the outside world.”

He crossed his arms, grasped two handfuls of his pale yellow léine, and tugged the rough fabric free of his kilt’s belt. But he did not stop there, pulling the garment up and over his head in one breathtakingly fluid motion, revealing a torso that could have been chiseled from alabaster.

Her jaw dropped.

That broad chest was a seamless sculpture of pure muscle, a deep line running from just below the notch at the base of his throat to beneath his navel. At his abdomen, that defined line branched off into a rippling mountain range of even more muscle, carved into somehow pleasing squares. And rising just above his belt, two profound diagonal lines marked his hips.

His arms and broad shoulders were things of unparalleled artistry, making Paisley flush with heat just thinking of how they had been wrapped around her.

As he turned away from her, showing the true definition of the back she had admired through his soaked shirt in the woods, all of her eleven years, two months, and six days of discipline kicked in at once.

What are ye doin’?

Her hand flew to her eyes as she asked the same question out loud. “M’Laird, what do ye think ye’re doin’?!”