Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Why, you clumsy oaf! Look what you’ve gone and done now!”

Morgan’s gaze automatically dropped to his hands. A jagged shard of glass protruded from his palm. Warm blood trickled down his wrist and forearm to puddle on one of Elizabeth Cameron’s precious rugs. Before he could quench it, the old shame flared. Shame for being a MacDonnell. Shame for being such a crude ox. Just as quickly on its heels followed rage—the crushing rage that shielded his tattered pride from every blow. But before he could unleash it on the hapless girl, she dropped the sword and rushed to his side.

Tossing the splintered remains of the rose away, she cradled his hand in hers and dabbed at the wound with a wad of her nightdress. Her hand was warm, soft, and silky-smooth beneath his own.

“You really should take more care,” she chided him. “Had you struck your wrist, you might have bled to death.”

Morgan was too dumbfounded to point out her illogic. Had she cut off his head, he most certainly would have bled to death. Still scowling over his hand, she dragged him toward the pale arc of light at the window.

“Be very still,” she commanded. “I’m going to fish out this piece of glass. It’s bound to be painful. You may scream if you like. I shan’t think any less of you.”

Since she’d never thought much of him to begin with, Morgan wasn’t concerned. He didn’t even flinch when she pressed his palm with her thumb and snagged the sliver of glass between the polished crescents of her fingernails.

Thoroughly bemused, Morgan studied her in the moonlight. The top of her head barely came to his breastbone. The spiral curls he used to yank with such relish now tumbled down her back in inky waves. Her skin was fair except for the faintest hint of color, as if God had brushed rose petals across her cheeks and lips. A fringe of ebony silk shuttered her eyes.

Her scent filled his nostrils. He was shocked to feel his throat tighten with a primal hunger. She smelled like her mother, but fresher, sweeter somehow. Some primitive male instinct warned him this was a bloom still on the vine, fragrant and tender and ripe. He scowled. She might be nectar to another man, but to a MacDonnell, Dougal Cameron’s daughter would be more deadly than nightshade.

Her teeth cut into her lower lip as if to bite back a cry of her own as she drew forth the shard of glass and staunched the bleeding with another wad of her nightdress. Morgan feared there might soon be more of it twined around his arm than around her body. But an intriguing glimpse of a slender calf silenced his protest.

Grimacing, she laid the bloody splinter on the windowsill before glancing up at him. His hand was in moonlight, but shadows still hid his face. “A rather ignoble end to the Belmont Rose, wasn’t it? Perhaps when King James gave it to my English grandfather for his loyal service, he intended it as a weapon, not a trinket. If he’d have realized it would end up in a Highlander’s hands, I’m sure he would have tipped the thorns with poison rather than gold.”

Sabrina Cameron’s baby fat might have melted and realigned in a very enticing manner, but one thing hadn’t changed. She still loved to chatter.

A low chuckle rumbled from his throat.

Sabrina frowned. The sound was unfamiliar to her—rich and deep, a mere octave above a growl. Yet if she were a cat, every hair on her head would have bristled in warning.

At that moment he cocked his head to the side, giving her an unobstructed view of his face. Moonlight melted over its harsh planes and angles, etching its alien virility in ruthless lines. He was a stranger, yet so hauntingly familiar she couldn’t stop her hand from lifting, her fingertips from brushing the stubborn jut of his jaw. His eyes were guarded like the forest at dusk.

“Hello, brat,” he said.

Sabrina felt that old familiar kick in her stomach and realized she was standing face-to-face in the moonlit tower with Morgan MacDonnell, his boyish promise of masculine beauty come to devastating fruition.

Mortified by her boldness, she snatched back her hand, remembering the first time she had touched him in tenderness and been rebuked in anger.

A wry grin quirked his lips. “I suppose if you’d have known it was me, you’d have let me bleed to death.”

Terrified that she was going to revert to a stammering six-year-old, she snapped, “I’d say not. You were dripping all over Mama’s Flemish rug.”

To hide her consternation, she lowered her gaze back to his hand. Another mistake. She could not help staring, fascinated by the blunt size of his fingers, the warmth of his roughened skin, the rhythmic throb of his pulse beneath her thumb. She had the absurd thought that it must take a mighty heart indeed to fuel such a man.

“You’ve grown,” she blurted out accusingly.

“So have you.”

His low, amused tone warned her. She looked up to find his gaze taking a leisurely jaunt up her body, finally coming to rest with bold regard on her face. A splinter of anger twisted in her heart. She had yearned for so long that he might look at her with affection. Why did he have to choose now, when she sensed his admiration might be even more lethal than his enmity?

Hardly aware of her actions, she tore a strip of priceless Chinese silk from her mother’s drapes and wrapped it around his palm. “So what were you doing up here? Plotting a massacre? Trying to find a way to lower the harpsichord out the window? Searching for a mouse to stuff into my bed?”

Lucky mouse, Morgan thought, but wisely refrained from saying so. “If you must know, lass, I was searchin’ for a moment’s peace.”

“Ha!” She knotted the bandage with a crisp jerk that finally drew a flinch from him. “Peace and the MacDonnells hardly go hand in hand.”

“Noble sentiments from a lass who just burst in here, threatenin’ to carry my head to her papa on a platter.”

Sabrina could hardly argue with that.

He nodded toward the door. “Why aren’t you down there with the rest of your kin, lordin’ your noble gestures over the peasants?”

Morgan’s size might have changed, but he still had the uncanny knack of making her feel ashamed of who she was. She snorted daintily. “Peasants indeed. Barefoot savages, the lot of them. Mama would have been better off serving them at a trough.”

Morgan’s voice was quiet, its very lack of emotion a rebuke. “If their table manners aren’t to your likin’, it might be because most of them won’t see that much food again in their lifetimes. And their feet are bare because they’re savin’ the rotted soles of their boots for the cold winter months. They don’t lose as many toes that way.”

Shame buffeted Sabrina. Morgan had always brought out the worst in her. She dropped her gaze, then wished she hadn’t as it fell on the stark lines of Morgan’s bare feet. Golden hair dusted his muscular calves. His soles must be as tough as leather to bear the stony soil of the mountain without protection. Her own toes curled sheepishly into the plush cashmere of her stockings.

“If you must know, I begged Mama to let me join the festivities,” she confessed.

“Why didn’t you appeal to your dotin’ papa? Are your pouts failin’ you? As I recall, he never could resist a flutter of those ridiculously long lashes of yours.”

Sabrina’s gaze shot to his face. Morgan had never given her any indication that he’d noticed her lashes, or anything else about her. “Even Papa was adamant this time.” A soft chuckle escaped her. “It seems your reputations for lechery preceded you. He was terrified one of you might hit me over the head and drag me off by my hair.”

Morgan was silent for so long that she feared she’d offended him again. Then he reached down and lifted a skein of her hair into his uninjured hand, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. A dreamy languor stole across his features. The cadence of Sabrina’s heartbeat shifted in warning.

He let the stolen tendril ripple through his fingers in a cascade of midnight silk before turning the dusky heat of his gaze on her. “I can’t say I blame him, lass. If you were mine, I’d probably lock you away too.”

If you were mine…

The words hung suspended between them, far more awkward than the silence. In a breath of utter lunacy Sabrina wondered how it would feel to belong to a man like him, dared to ponder what came after being dragged off by her hair.

Caught in the same spell of moonlight and solitude, Morgan’s gaze dropped to her parted lips. His starving senses reeled, intoxicated by the scent of roses that flared his nostrils and the cling of her hair against his callused knuckles. He’d long ago resigned himself to the harsh life of a Highland warrior. But this girl’s softness awakened old hungers and weakened his resolve. He hadn’t touched a drop of wine, yet he felt drunk, reckless. What harm could it do to steal one taste of that tender rosebud of a mouth? Resisting the temptation to plunge his tongue between her unwitting lips, he leaned down and touched his mouth to hers.

At the press of Morgan’s lips against her own, Sabrina’s eyes fluttered shut. His kiss was brief, dry, almost tentative, yet a melting sweetness unfolded deep within her. She felt the leashed power in his touch. Such gentleness in a man his size wove a spell all its own. Only in the last brief second of contact did he allow himself the wicked luxury of dragging his lips across hers, molding her beneath him in perfect harmony.

Sabrina’s eyes drifted open to find herself clutching a handful of Morgan’s plaid as if to keep from sinking to her knees at his feet. She could feel the warmth of his skin beneath the worn tartan, the dizzying thud of his heart against her palm. But too soon the smoky mist fled his eyes, banished by a predatory glint she recognized only too well.

“What now, princess?” he asked, the endearment a mockery on his tongue. “Shall you behead me yourself or demand your father toss me in the dungeon for my boldness?”

She awkwardly untangled her fingers from his plaid. “Don’t be ridiculous. ’Twas only a kiss. I’ve been kissed before,” she lied.

A shock raced through her as he brushed his fingertips against her lower lip. It felt swollen, ripe beneath his touch. “I don’t think you have. But with lips like these, I can promise you’ll be kissed again.”

Afraid he was going to do just that, and even more afraid he wasn’t, Sabrina tossed back her head in defiance. “I won’t tell my father you kissed me. I’m not a baby anymore. I swore you’d never make me tattle.”

He caught her chin in the broad cup of his palm. “And that I’d never make you cry.” Even he seemed taken aback when the husky words came out more promise than taunt.

Surprised that he even remembered her childish oath, Sabrina stepped away from him, desperate to escape the moonlight, the crisp musk of pine wafting from his skin, the strange intimacy of having his blood stain her nightdress.

Sensing her retreat, Morgan folded his arms over his chest. “Would you be callin’ an end to our truce, then?”

She tilted her nose in the air. “I am.”

“Verra well. Take up your battle stance.”

Sabrina eyed him suspiciously. What was the rogue up to now?

Humor flickered through his eyes, as irresistible as sunlight through a summer glade. “Go on with you,” he commanded. “As pleasant as it might be, I haven’t all night to dally in your company. As I recall, you were standin’ over there. By the door.”

Puzzled yet captivated by this more playful Morgan, she marched to the door. He nodded. “Now take up your weapon.”

Morgan watched, lips twitching, as she struggled to heft the massive sword, muttering something about “almost never getting the cursed thing off the wall.” After three tries she still hadn’t lifted the blade more than a few inches off the floor. She’d have better luck cutting off his feet than his head, he thought. Panting with exertion, she finally faced him, the blade trembling in her hands.

He allowed the smile he’d been swallowing to shine on her full force. “Aye, that’ll do it. You were there, threatenin’ to behead me, and I was just about to do this.”

Reaching into his plaid, he drew forth a pistol and leveled it at her comely bosom.

The tip of the blade clunked to the floor. “You dirty cheat! You swore to lay down your arms. Have you no common—”

“—decency? Sense?” He shrugged. “I’m a MacDonnell, lass. You didn’t expect me to play fair, did you?”

Her eyes darkened for an elusive instant with old hurts, old resentments, and Morgan knew a brief tug of regret that he hadn’t allowed her this small triumph.

“No,” she said softly. “You never have, have you?”

Forced into surrender, she propped the claymore against the wall and stood aside to let him pass. He slid the pistol back into his plaid.

“Morgan?”

“Mmm?” He paused in the doorway. Their bodies brushed in the near darkness.

She held out her hand. “The pistol, please.”

He was almost as startled as she was by the peals of laughter that rumbled up from his chest. Always a man to admit when he’d been bested, he laid the weapon across her palm and folded her fingers around it like the creamy petals of an orchid.

He bent to press his lips to her ear and whispered, “I don’t trust just any lass with my gun. Be gentle with it, won’t you?”

As Morgan descended the stairs, his step much lighter than when he’d ascended, he wondered if perhaps the time hadn’t long passed to call a permanent truce between one bullheaded MacDonnell and one luscious Cameron princess.

Sabrina slumped against the door frame, dazed. She finally looked down to find Morgan’s pistol cradled tenderly against her breast. She jerked it away, dangling it between two fingers.

Be gentle with it indeed! She should have shot the wretch. It would have served him right to be done in by his own pistol.

She stared down at her nightdress. She felt branded, marked with Morgan’s blood like some sort of primitive trophy. Lord, she thought, what sort of hysterics would Enid pitch if she woke to find her beloved cousin spattered with blood and cosseting a loaded pistol? At least Sabrina assumed it was loaded. Morgan didn’t seem the sort to go around waving an empty pistol. Pointing the flared muzzle at her face, she closed one eye and peered into it, but saw nothing but darkness.

“That’s of no help at all,” she muttered.

Refusing to attribute the languid weight of her limbs to the lingering effects of Morgan’s kiss, she stuffed her father’s sword under the settee and tucked the pistol behind a Venetian mirror. She cast a wistful look back at the moonlit solar before pulling the door shut. In the harsh light of morning she knew their encounter would seem to be only a dream.

Hugging the shadows, Sabrina slipped around the gallery, fully intending to bundle both Enid and herself off to bed before anyone else discovered their flummery. But a burst of laughter—rich, deep, and compelling—stopped her in her tracks.

She drifted to the railing and sank to her knees, lured by the unfamiliar sound and the ripple of gold as Morgan tossed back his head at one of Brian’s jests. A boyish smile transformed his face, erasing its weary lines and crinkling the taut skin around his eyes. Sun, wind, and responsibility had aged him far past his years. Some men would always be boys, but Sabrina sensed that Morgan MacDonnell had been born a man.

The intensity of his raw masculine beauty struck her anew; her heart spasmed as if someone had reached through her chest and squeezed it. Her hands clenched on the balusters.

On Morgan’s other side, Alex filled his own goblet with fresh wine and lifted it in a toast. Morgan’s gaze flicked to the gallery, catching Sabrina unawares. A more intimate smile teased his lips as he lifted his mug of water in a silent tribute that made all the noise and chaos between them fade to a meaningless hum. Brian slapped him on the back and Morgan lowered his gaze and his mug, taking care not to alert the others to her hiding place.

A fragile happiness welled in Sabrina’s heart. Fearful of betraying an emotion so new and precious, she forced her gaze away from him. As she watched, the dark-haired MacDonnell rose and slipped out the main door, clutching his stomach. A burst of night wind fluttered the banners.

Probably ill from too much venison, Sabrina thought, grinning.

Their animosity softened by wine and camaraderie, Angus and her father seemed to be faring as well as their sons. The hooded servant who had hovered behind Angus had disappeared, probably to curl up in some forgotten nook of the manor. Sabrina’s glassy-eyed mother looked as if she would like to do the same.

From the corner of her eye Sabrina saw the tapestry behind them ripple. She glanced toward the door, expecting to see the hoggish MacDonnell stumble back in, mopping his mouth with the back of his hand. The door remained closed.

Sabrina frowned. Almost without realizing it, she rose to her feet, beset by a terrible premonition that something was wrong. She leaned over the rail, staring hard at the tapestry. Was that a flicker of movement she saw, or just a trick of the guttering candles? Of their own volition, her feet dragged her toward the stairs, drawn as if magnetized to the source of her unease.

“Sabrina! What in heaven’s name are you doing out of bed at this hour?”

Her mother’s cry jerked her out of her reverie. She realized she was standing at the foot of the stairs. A rush of half-formed impressions buffeted her. Her father’s worried frown. The open leers of the MacDonnell men as they nudged each other under the tables. Morgan’s black scowl.

Brian’s words carried through the hall. “Good God, Alex, is that blood all over her gown?”

Sabrina had forgotten about the condition of her nightdress. Feeling naked and exposed before them all, she opened her mouth to explain, but before she could speak, Angus rose to his feet, weaving dangerously.

“Ah, this must be the bonny Sabrina! Word o’ yer beauty has spread to the farthest reaches o’ the Highlands.” Even in his drunken state he managed to leer at her mother and wink at his men at the same time. “If me Beth had been blessed with better taste in husbands, ye might have been me own daughter.”

His men burst into lusty laughter. Sabrina’s father nodded, his good-natured smile strained. She felt a painful blush creep up her throat. Scowling even more fiercely, Morgan began to tug at the bodkin holding his plaid pinned as if he had every intention of whipping it off his own naked form and wrapping it around her.

“To Sabrina!” Angus bellowed. “The tenderest bud of my fair Beth!”

The men cheered wildly as their chieftain hefted his goblet in a mighty toast before pitching forward dead in his plate, the jeweled hilt of a dagger protruding from between his bony shoulder blades.