Risk Everything (3 page)

“Hmm, still scorning ladylike ways, are you? Mayhap another mouthful of dirt will hold your tongue.”

He forced soil aplenty between her lips before he sprang to his feet. Raising her head, she spluttered and spit. She threw her left leg backward and twisted her hips to roll onto her back. She glared and eyed the distance separating them.

’Twould do her no good, for she could not reach him with a well-aimed kick. If the churl could read her mind, he would back away from her and cup his hands to protect that part of him that had grown and hardened, fit to rival a warrior’s club.

Were her hands not tied behind her, she could rock forward and bounce up onto her feet. She seethed. Even the chain mail, twisted around her legs, held her down. Be damned if she would ask for his aid. Better she lay there until winter came, then spring, and even until the walls of Blackthorn crumbled from age. She wouldna make a gowk of herself and wallow and flounder about on the dirt floor like an upended beetle.

Meghan studied him in the faint light. Her gaze started from his feet and traveled up the menacing body standing there.

Black. He gave the impression of being as one with moon-less midnight. His boots that enclosed firm calves, his breeches, a loose-fitting shirt tied at the neck with thongs—

all black. No armor covered him. Was he so sure of his prowess he needed no protection? He wore a sword, though, belted about his waist. Mayhap not entirely assured, after all.

Slung about his shoulders was a loosely woven mantle of gray wool. A pewter pin shaped like the face of a beast secured it at his neck.

Her heart tripped as she blinked, then held her lids closed for a moment. It couldna be
him
. Nay. ’Twas too far from his holdings to be him. She swallowed. Forgetting about the dirt in her mouth and almost choked. She thought wryly that he had made her eat dirt for her words.

Thinking. Anything to keep from admitting who stood there and scorned her so thoroughly.

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Hair, brown and near straight. Straggling and unkept, it framed his face and ended inches below his shoulders. His chin. Not clean shaven now. Close-cropped whiskers framed his hard jaw and above his lips. A nose, proud and strong, below silver-gray eyes, the shadows dark beneath them. Proof he did not sleep well. A broad forehead rose above straight brown brows that framed the hard eyes staring at her.

’Twas no mistaking or denying him now. Her heart had cried out his name. His scent had told her his name. The MacDhaidh of Rimsdale. Rolf. The man they now called the

“Lord of Vengeance.” Far away from his own lands just outside the southeastern borders of the Morgans of Blackthorn.

How could a man change so? Before she could clamp her teeth together, a soft whimper, one she regretted with all her soul, welled up from her parched throat.

“Aye. I am not as I was, thanks be to Connor.” His lips thinned and his jaw clenched. “Come.” He spat the word.

He wanted her to rise. She attempted to sit but could not.

Her twisted mail held her on the ground. To turn onto her stomach and wriggle up on her knees was mayhap possible.

But ’twas unthinkable. She would not kneel, her back to him in such a position.

Instead, she opened her hands tied behind her so they would not grind the mail into the small of her back. Careful to keep her legs together, she stretched out and then wriggled her shoulders into a more comfortable position.

Defiant, she glared up at him. She wouldna grovel.

Her surprised squawk filled the air as her world whirled upside down as he slung her across his shoulder. Her hair dragged about her face. His arm clamped her knees tight to his chest. She strove to throw herself down. He reached beneath the mail and pinched her thigh. Hard.

He remained silent. She clamped her teeth together, grinding dirt between them. She relaxed her jaw. Dirt stuck to her teeth, coated her tongue. It tasted unpleasant, like burnt wheat.

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Taking Storm’s reins, he strode through the entrance. With each step, she bounced against his back.

“For God’s love, Rolf, dinna be a fool. ’Twill be safer if I walk.” ’Twould also be easier to dart off into the deepest bushes at the end of the path.

“Aye. If I trusted you.” He snorted. “If ? I dinna. We will be as safe if you cease flopping like a f ish and cause me no misstep.”

She wriggled a little as he ducked through the opening.

“Nettles and sharp rocks willna give you an easy ride to the bottom of this hill,” he warned.

She stilled, knowing he spoke true. No easy ride, and before a body crashed to the bottom, it would no longer matter.

After several steps, she raised her head to see if Storm was uneasy without the comfort of her hand. She need not have worried. The horse acted as if he sought to reassure her, for he nuzzled her with his great head.

Rolf ’s right heel slipped on loose stones. His knee bent and his body leaned toward the sheer drop. His hold around her legs loosened.

When his shoulders swayed sickeningly, Meghan couldna squelch a startled cry.

“Rolf, dinna!”

He chuckled, the sound evil amusement. The churl. He had not slipped on the stones. He had done it apurpose!

Helpless atop his shoulder, her pride seethed.

Bile surged to her throat. Not from fear of heights. Far from it, for she took delight in sitting high atop a tree to enjoy the unblocked breezes and scenery. This was another matter.

She had lost control. Above all, she hated not to have mastery over a situation.

“By all that is holy,” Meghan shouted, “ye will pay for this someday.”

“Dinna count on it,” Rolf warned. “ ’Tis you who will do the paying if you dinna obey me.”

Chapter 3

Rolf smothered the urge to sigh with relief when they reached the end of the dangerous path. To let Meghan of Blackthorn know he had been uneasy would be akin to plac-ing a knife in her hand.

He couldna wait to dump her onto the ground. To put distance between them. When his friend Alpin suggested he steal Meghan away, he had not reckoned with the raging feelings she would wrench from him.

While he had lurked in the forest to learn her habits, he had been too far distant to see her clearly. He had thought she was as before. How wrong he was! The years had transformed her into a woman who would quicken even a blind man’s desire.

On entering the shallow cave, before she realized he was not her beloved brother, her sea-green eyes had blazed with delight as she laughed up at him. How many times in the past had he seen her thus? The scent of heather floated about her.

His body responded as if he were yet a callow youth. His pulse raced and darted blood to his tarse, lengthening and hardening him, causing his sac to grow heavy with need.

Meghan’s tempting, generous lips lifted at the corners, inviting a man to kiss them. A small cut, still seeping blood, marred her broad forehead. Well-defined brown brows arched over eyes no longer lit with welcome but darkened with rage, once she had spied who he was. Chestnut-brown hair, with twigs and leaves strewn through it, spilled in wild disarray about her face. Did she know she looked like a woman fresh from loving a man on the forest floor?

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Had it been so long since he had a woman that she could stir his blood so? Though wearing strange clothing, covered from head to toe in dirt, she still made his tarse as hard as the shaft on Beast, his battle axe. Anger built that it was so. His jaw hardened as he crushed any feeling for her, as surely as her brother Connor had stomped his life into the dust.

’Twould be better if he tossed her over the side onto the rocks below and have done with it. Unthinking, he stopped and faced the cliffs. When Meghan’s body tensed like a drawn bow ready to speed its arrow, he realized he overlooked the craggy rocks below where gorse shrubs clung. Their bright yellow flowers sent their sweet scent up to him. He drew a deep, startled breath. His body shuddered at his thoughts.

Blessed Christ’s blood! Could he do such a thing?

“If ye are thinkin’ to kill me, be done with it afore I spew all I have eaten this day,” Meghan gasped the words out. A breath later, she emptied her stomach on the tail end of his cloak.

“By all that is holy, do that again and I will see your face rubbed in it,” Rolf shouted. Afeared he would cave in to his urge to dump her into the open void, he turned and shot forward like a startled deer, not slowing until he reached firm ground.

Three footsteps later, he felt a sharp pinch on his arse. The woman must be an eejit to bite a man through his clothing, much less someone holding her life by a thread.

“Lucifer’s tarse! Cease, or ye’ll feel the flat of my hand,”

he shouted as his long strides carried him to level ground and to his tethered horse. Startled, the steed snorted and sidled.

Rolf leaned forward to remove Meghan from his shoulder. She bit him again. He jerked forward and dumped her onto the ground. The tail of his soiled cloak followed her up from his back and over his head.

“What in . . . by God’s . . .” he sputtered.

He twisted his head to the right to free it and glowered down at her. Clenched between her teeth was the wool of his cloak. He grabbed the material and shook it. Her head whipped back and forth, reminding him of a foolish, stubborn

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hound holding tight to a stolen boot. He gripped her jaw and squeezed her cheeks. Her gaze sparked defiance at him.

“Devil take it, woman. Open yer mouth,” he muttered.

She refused to heed him and tried to jerk her head away.

His fingers bit into her jaw until it opened. He relaxed his grip, only to have her nip hard on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Before he could stop the reflex, he slapped her cheek but winced when her head jerked aside.

“Have ye taken to beatin’ women, MacDhaidh?” Meghan turned her face back to study him.

Meghan’s gaze showered scorn over him. When had he come to this? Never before had he done such to a gentlewoman, but then never had a woman so challenged his patience. Gentle? Never would anyone call Meghan of Blackthorn a
gentle
woman.

She was a match for most men. But not him. Ten years past she had learned he was more than her equal. Today she would do well to remember it.

He sprang to his feet, putting distance between them to calm himself. Stalking over to her horse, he checked the bridle and saddle to secure them for riding.

The faintest of sounds drifted to his ears. He glanced over his shoulder to see she had rolled to her stomach and had drawn her knees up beneath her in an attempt to rise.

The mail pulled to each side of her legs, as it would for riding. The cloth of her breeches tightened across a slender arse.

It revealed more than it hid from his eyes. She had been prudent not to attempt to rise in the cave when she knew he watched her. If she knew he spied her now, she would no doubt flatten herself onto the grass.

His blood thickened. As she wriggled her knees ever forward, his hands twitched with the urgent need to mold them against her firm flesh. Taking care not to alert her, he padded close. At last, her shoulders lifted off the ground. She knelt there.

“Going somewhere, Meghan?” He grasped her. Her shoulders jumped beneath his fingers. “Hmm, ’tis a shame

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to rise. Meghan of Blackthorn on her knees is much more to my likin’.”

He nudged her forward, one hand on her shoulder, the other at her waist as if he would press her face back to the earth, her bottom upended to him.

“Nay, dinna!” Her head jerked back as the panicked words gasped from her throat.

Rolf snaked his arm around her body to lift her to her feet, her back to him. Grasping her waist with both hands, he swung her onto Storm’s saddle.

“I canna ride with my hands tied behind me,” she protested.

“Ha.” After he grasped Storm’s reins, he shoved her feet in the stirrups. “Do you think me so daft? After I watched you streak through the forest, bow and arrow in hand to bring down a deer?” He snorted rudely.

Rolf, one hand on the pommel of his saddle, leapt astride his own steed. He turned to where Simple waited on a bush, whistled to her, and signaled his horse into a canter.

Meghan’s legs held tight to Storm as she cursed Rolf all the while.

“You pig’s arse. What ransom will they pay for a broken pile of bones? I canna balance with my hands behind me,” she shouted at him.

“You had best learn to.” He did not deign to look back at her.

Drat the bastard. She wobbled a bit until she found her balance. No doubt, before they had gone a fraction of a league she would adjust. Huh! Why make things hard for herself ?

“If ye hear a crash, ’twill be me. No doubt I will crush my head against a rock,” she grumbled.

Two paces farther, she gasped. “Oh!” Through lowered lashes, she watched him glance back at her as she lurched in the saddle.

The men of her family would have laughed at her performance. All at Blackthorn knew Meghan was as skillful on horseback as the most agile Welshman, for a Welshman had

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taught her tricks neither Connor nor Damron could duplicate.

Even as their breaths merged in the crisp morning air, rider and mount were as one, so attuned to each other Meghan needed but a subtle movement for him to respond. ’Twas as if Storm anticipated her very thoughts and wishes.

She had a plan. With her hands in front of her, she would have a fair chance to break away from him.

“Umpf!” she cried out. To appear convincing, she slid her arse half off the saddle.

Rolf swiveled around and tugged Storm’s reins to fetch him closer.

Good. He believed her. Had he not, she had planned to dangle over the side of Storm to convince him.

“A mere woman after all, Meghan?”

The sneer in his voice rankled her, but she clamped her lips together. One day he would find she could do anything short of standing on one finger atop Storm’s back.