The Lady's Protector (Highland Bodyguards #1) (14 page)

Fagan’s blue eyes narrowed on Isolda as he loomed over their table.

“And what is an Englishwoman doing in an inn not far outside Stirling?”

Ansel’s heart pounded, sending blood coursing through his veins. If he had to, he would be ready to fight.

The few patrons who had lingered in the inn’s main room were suddenly alert, their gazes fixed on the little corner table. They pushed back from their tables, their chairs squealing against the stone floor. Ansel’s gaze shot to them, but he couldn’t tell as they stood and looked on sharply if they meant to cause trouble or prevent it.

Studiously, Ansel leaned back in his chair, letting his thumb swish lazily over Isolda’s trembling hand.

“Och, ye ken how it is, I’m sure,” he said evenly, forcing one side of his mouth up into a roguish grin. He glanced between Margery and Fagan, but both still stood rigidly over their table, their brows lowered.

Ansel shrugged, letting his grin widen disarmingly. “We are no’ far from the Borderlands, after all. I…came upon Isolda here in a carriage a fortnight ago. And well…now we are headed north.”

Isolda looked at him, her eyes wide with confusion, but Margery relaxed a hair’s breadth.

“Ye’re saying ye stole her, then?”

Ansel forced a chuckle to rise in his throat. “Such things are common enough, are they no’? I had us wed no’ long ago in Edinburgh as we passed through, and…well… I havenae heard any complaints from the lass since.”

That drew a few chuckles from the patrons who looked on, but Isolda’s hand clenched into a fist underneath his palm. Her lips tightened slightly, an angry flush staining her cheeks.

Margery lifted an eyebrow at him in guarded amusement. Fagan, on the other hand, was still glowering at Isolda behind his bushy blond beard.

“Ye said ye were headed north?” Fagan asked, not taking his sharp gaze from Isolda.

“Aye, I hail from the Highlands,” Ansel replied.

Margery nodded. “I thought I detected a Highland brogue to yer voice. Where are ye from?”

Ansel’s mind raced. If he told the truth, he’d in effect be creating a trail by which anyone—Scottish or English—could follow him and Isolda. But Margery had seen them arrive last night with his Sutherland plaids wrapped around their shoulders. If he lied, she might catch him in it.

“Sutherland territory,” he said obliquely. Margery nodded again, seeming satisfied. The tension knotting Ansel’s entire body eased ever so slightly.

Fagan grunted, shifting his eyes to Ansel before returning them to Isolda. He sniffed as if she smelled foul. “I dinnae abide sheltering the English under my roof.”

“Och, it’s no’ just yer roof,” Margery said tartly, rounding on her husband. “It’s mine, too. These are
my
patrons, since ye saw fit to stay out all night drinking instead of seeing them settled.”

Even still, Margery cast a distasteful glance at Isolda. “English,” she muttered, turning back to the kitchen to clean up after the simple breakfast.

“We dinnae want any trouble,” Ansel said, keeping his voice low enough that only Fagan would hear. “We’ll be on our way in a few days’ time, and ye’ll never see us again.”

Fagan glowered down at them. “Aye,” he said at last. “No’ a bit of trouble.”

The man turned away, muttering under his breath.

Unease trickled down Ansel’s spine, but he was careful to keep his body relaxed. He stood and drew Isolda to her feet by the hand he still clasped. He made a show of strolling toward the stairs, bobbing little nods to the other patrons who still stood watching them as they passed.

At last, the remaining patrons seemed to relax and began filtering out of the inn. Some cast glances at them as they made their way upstairs.

When they reached their door, Ansel’s grip tightened on Isolda’s hand.

“Get inside,” he whispered. “And stay there for the rest of the day. Dinnae answer the door to anyone but me, ye understand?”

She stared up at him, fear rounding her eyes. “Don’t leave me here alone!” she choked out.

Ansel exhaled. He opened the door to their chamber and brought her inside, closing the door after them against any prying ears.

“It will be all right,” he said softly.

“But the way that man—”

“Isolda, listen to me.” He took her gently by the shoulders, holding her frightened eyes with his gaze. “No one will harm ye, I promise. Fagan is full of piss and vinegar, but he wouldnae dare aught, nor would any of those others.”

She nodded weakly. “I am sorry I spoke.”

“Dinnae fash yerself,” he whispered. “In truth, we have drawn suspicion since the moment we arrived. I still plan to stay another day or two to let ye rest, but we need to be more careful. As it is, I need to see to Eachann.”

“Why?” she said, fear once again pinching her voice.

He ran a soothing hand down one of her arms. “It isn’t aught to worry about. But I’d like to see to him myself to ensure that he is in good form. I may even need to get him re-shod.”

She swallowed but held his gaze. “Because we may need to flee, is that it?”

He exhaled slowly once more. “Aye.” He let his hands drop and turned toward the door. “Remember what I said. Dinnae open the door unless it’s me.”

“Ansel,” she breathed, halting him.

“Aye?”

“How could you say that you had stolen me from England and wed me?”

He pinned her with his gaze. Normally the haughty tilt of her chin and the lowering of her delicately curved brows would have sparked his ire—or at least encouraged him to ruffle those uppity feathers of hers. But at the moment, he took her indignation as a good sign. It meant that her fear had ebbed enough to make room for exasperation.

“As I said belowstairs, it is common enough for Scotsmen to kidnap their brides. If nothing else, that explanation is more believable than the truth—that ye are being targeted by King Edward II and that yer former lover, the Earl of Lancaster, hired a Scot to protect ye and yer illegitimate son.”

Isolda sputtered in an attempt to respond, but before she could form words, he slipped out the door. As he closed her inside their chamber, he flashed her a reassuring smile.

“Welcome to Scotland.”

Isolda brought the precious bar of soap she’d tucked into her satchel up to her nose. She inhaled the luxurious scent of lemon and lavender, letting it fill her lungs.

Gingerly, she threw a leg over the high-sided wooden tub Margery had brought to her chamber not long ago. The water inside steamed blissfully.

She eased herself into the water an inch at a time, for Margery had made it exceptionally hot. Once she was halfway in, she unplaited her hair with her fingers.

Isolda had spent the day alone in the dim, cramped chamber, too afraid to even open the shutters. She’d paced restlessly for a while, but she was still sore from all those hours in the saddle, so she’d stretched out on the little bed she’d shared with Ansel the night before.

That hadn’t been particularly restful, though, since the bedding still held his earthy, masculine scent.

When Margery had knocked sometime in the early evening, she’d nigh leapt from her skin with fright, so tightly was she wound.

Though Ansel had told her not to open the door to anyone, Margery had already lugged the deep tub up the stairs by herself. Isolda feared that if she refused to admit her, it would only cause more trouble and suspicion, so she’d let Margery inside.

After several trips up the stairs for Margery, a bucket of water weighing her down, Isolda was left alone with her bath.

She had truly grown soft in the last six years.

Nay, that wasn’t entirely true, for the first few years after John had been born were challenging, even with her new title of Lady. She, Mary, Bertram, and John had lived in little more than a hovel before construction started on Dunstanburgh Castle nigh two years ago. It was no worse than she’d grown up with, but she was used to being surrounded by her cheery, hardworking family. The isolation at Dunstanburgh had almost been enough to break her.

But as the physical comforts of life at Dunstanburgh had increased and Lancaster had plied her with money for her silence and invisibility, she’d grown into the role of Lady that had at first been such an act.

She had become unused to hard conditions and had begun to take simple pleasures like soaking in a hot bath with her beloved, fragrant soap for granted.

Never again, she promised herself as she sank all the way into the steaming water. She doubted if a bath had ever felt as good as it did in that moment.

She worked the soap between her hands, then began lathering her hair. There had been so little time to gather her thoughts of late, so little time to slow down and relax. Though the dark looks Fagan had given her this morning still haunted her, at least for the moment she was alone and could undo some of the knots of fear and exhaustion that had taken root since—

Since Ansel had arrived in her life. Even the thought of him sent a tight warmth low into her belly. Though danger had swirled at every turn, she felt impossibly safe in his presence. Safe—and desirous of his gaze, his touch, his kiss.

But she was no silly girl nurturing her first infatuation. She should know better than to let passion rule her—she’d already learned the hard way what could happen when she let her lust have free rein. It was an indulgence she could not afford again.

Her heart twisted painfully, stilling her hands in her hair.
Never again
, she whispered to herself once more. Never again would she succumb to her cursed desire, no matter how much she longed to.

So lost in thought was she that too late, she registered the sound of boot-falls outside the door.

“Isolda, I asked Margery to bring us supper up here again, for—”

A cry of warning turned into a shriek of surprise as the door flew open. Ansel stood stunned in the doorway, a lit candle in his hand and his eyes locking on her.

She clapped her hands over her chest, barring her breasts from view. Ansel’s gaze dropped at her motion, and his lips parted on a hissing exhale.

Seeming to regain a shred of his wits, he stepped into their chamber and swiftly closed the door behind him.

“What are ye doing?” he rasped, his eyes still fixed on her.

“What does it look like?” she squeaked.

His eyes darkened even as they remained pinned on her. “I told ye no’ to open the door to anyone.”

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor beyond their chamber.

“What is all the fuss?” Margery’s voice drifted through the door a moment before she rapped sharply. Not waiting for a reply, she opened the door, huffing from the stairs.

“It is naught,” Ansel said smoothly. “My wife…simply thought she saw a mouse, but she was mistaken.”

“Ah,” Margery said, her gaze sliding between them. “Verra well. When supper is ready I will bring it to ye, as ye asked.”

She closed the door behind her, but Ansel waited until the sound of her footsteps disappeared. He rounded on her once more.

“I thought I made myself clear,” he bit out.

“Aye, well,” she shot back, her heart still in her throat from his sudden appearance. “Margery brought the bath early, and I didn’t want to simply turn her away.”

He considered that, dropping his gaze to the floor. “I’d best leave ye, then,” he said slowly.

“Nay!” She swallowed to try to temper her voice. “If you go belowstairs now, Margery will be all the more suspicious.”

Ansel set his candle on the table next to the unlit one from the night before.

“Aye, ye’re right.” He gave her his broad back then. “Ye’d best finish before Margery returns.”

Hurriedly, she set aside her precious soap and cupped her hands to rinse the suds from her hair. As she lifted her arms to dump water over her head, she inhaled sharply at a fresh twinge of pain. Two days on horseback had introduced her to muscles she didn’t even know she had, let alone ones that could become so knotted.

“Ye’re still sore, are ye no’?” Ansel’s voice was a dark caress behind her.

Something twisted deep inside her. Silently, she cursed her traitorous body for the sudden flush of heat his voice sent through her.

“Aye, but I’ll be all right,” she breathed. As if to defy her, another twinge of pain shot through her back as she tried once more to rinse her hair.

“Let me help ye.”

Before she could respond, his warm hand brushed past her shoulder. She stiffened, but when she glanced down, she realized that the light from the candle shimmered on the surface of her bathwater, affording her a sliver of modesty.

He lifted his cupped hand and let the hot bathwater trickle down through her sudsy locks. He repeated the motion again and again until her hair streamed down around her shoulders, clean and free of soap.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice strangely thin.

Ansel grunted, but instead of standing and giving her his back once more, his fingers brushed over her shoulders and to her back.

She inhaled sharply as his hands began to knead her sore flesh.

“Ye dinnae need to be so rigid in the saddle,” he said lowly.

She started, for his mouth was close to her ear, and his warm breath sent goose bumps over her skin despite the steaming bathwater.

“I…”

“I ken that yer surcoat was responsible for some of it, but all the same, ye should have leaned back against me.”

She sucked in a breath as his fingers found a particularly tight knot in the middle of her back.

“Ye needn’t be so proper all the time. I could have eased yer discomfort earlier.”

Her head spun hazily as waves of pleasure washed over her where his hands worked. Was he talking about riding, or something else? Her fuzzy brain couldn’t parse the implication of his whisper-soft admonition.

“Aye…”

Was she agreeing with him or urging him on? She didn’t know, nor did she care at the moment, for his hands moved lower, below the waterline.

He massaged her lower back, and she arched shamelessly at his touch like an attention-starved cat.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, though the words seemed more directed at himself than at her.

His hands slid around her waist, pulling her against the side of the tub.

“What are ye doing to me, Isolda?” he breathed, his lips brushing her earlobe. His callused palms rasped against her stomach below the water, one moving upward, the other downward.

A tiny alarm bell rang in the back of her mind, but she was too far gone to heed it. All her fortitude and resolution to hold herself at bay be damned—Ansel’s arms bound her, his hands burned a path along her skin, and his mouth brushed against her ear. She was lost to the moment—lost to him.

One of his rough-padded thumbs slid along the underside of her breast. A moan escaped her lips, wordlessly urging him on. The fingers on his other hand brushed the top of the curls between her legs.

Unbidden, her knees parted slightly, beckoning him farther. He ground out a curse. Simultaneously, his thumb rasped across her nipple and one fingertip slid across the seam of her sex.

Isolda gasped, her head falling back onto the edge of the tub. The motion exposed her neck to him, which he quickly took advantage of. As he began slowly circling the thumb on her nipple, he sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck.

Sensation jolted through her like lightning. It was as if every nerve ending in her body sizzled with sparks of passion.

His finger slipped between her folds and found that spot of pure pleasure. Her knees fell completely open, sloshing water against the sides of the tub.

“Damn it all. I want ye,” he growled against her neck, his tongue flicking her sensitive skin there. “Now.”