Page 405 of Wicked Highland Heroes

The old man grunted. “Aye, she knows. Sally is no fool. But I expect Phillip has no chance of escaping her anyway.”

Iain sent a questioning look at the man.

The man shrugged. “Only the good Lord knows what makes a woman decide she wants a man, but heaven help the fool if he tries to flee once she has.”

The shouting grew louder and the crowd began making bets on the winner. Iain turned to leave the domestic fight to its own end when a firm hand on his back sent him sprawling into the mud hole. Cool, thick mud enveloped him. A collective gasp went up, then the sound was drowned out by a heavy weight rolling over him. Iain reared up out of the mud, sending the two women on top of him flying backward.

He shook the mud from his hands, then wiped his eyes and began scanning the crowd with an intensity that nearly gave him a headache. The throng had grown quiet, the eyes staring back at him frozen with palpable fear. There wasn’t a soul he could place that would have dared take such action against him. Then it struck him that the one person who should have been outraged wasn’t in sight. He climbed out of the mud, parting the crowd, and spotted Victoria in the back of the throng.

“My lord.” She circled him, a look of horror on her face. “What in Hades has happened? Did you slip?” She tilted her head, looking up at him with wide-eyed innocence.

“Nay,” he answered.

Victoria glanced at the women who, though they had ceased fighting, hadn’t ventured from the mud.

“Was something amiss?”

“Nothing of consequence,” Iain replied.

Her mouth dipped. “Then why jump into that mess? Have you nothing better to do?” “Nay,” he answered once more.

Her frown took on an accusing quality. “What sort of game are you about, my lord?”

“’Twould seem a very dangerous one, my lass.”

* * *

Iain looked down at Victoria. She sat on the grass, eyes closed, face turned up toward the setting sun. He dropped his gaze to the slow rise and fall of her breast as she breathed deep of the fresh autumn air. He privately congratulated himself on insisting they stop in the meadow on the way back to Fauldun Castle. She had put up a small argument, but the feeble excuse that the hour grew late didn’t disguise the fact she feared being alone with him.

“Do you regret having married me?” he asked.

Her eyes flew open, and Iain couldn’t help a mental laugh at the obvious quandary in her eyes. On the one hand, she would just as soon consign him to the devil, but on the other hand—and he thanked God for that other hand—the bruised heart longed to answer the stirrings of her body. He lowered himself to the ground and pulled her onto his lap.

“Perhaps, sweet, I should remind you of at least one of my more redeeming qualities. I thought perhaps to do that earlier, but my little…mishap—” Iain was sure he felt a quiver in her body “—forestalled that moment.”

Pushing back the hair that tumbled down her shoulders, he nuzzled her neck with velvet like caresses. Despite the subtle stiffening in her body, the embers that had burned since waking that morning flared to life in him. Iain ignored the vision of her rising to her knees and bringing her supple body down onto his erection. He shifted her off his lap, pulled her into the crook of his arm as he stretched out on the cool grass, and laid her hand over his heart.

She began tracing tiny circles on the clean white shirt he had changed into after a quick bath at the village. Warmth wound through him and he closed his eyes. Memory drifted back to Montrose Abbey, to the fire in her hair, the gentle sway of her hips…and the startled look in her eyes when he bore down upon her.

He had taken her by force, then compounded the folly by making her choose between him and the other man she had fled. He had trapped her—and she knew it. His chest tightened. Could she forgive him…love him, or would she remember only the brute who had torn her from refuge?

“What happens when you cease wanting me?” she’d asked, but what if she had never wanted him?

Sun blurred his vision as he propelled back in time to a soft voice that warned against unseen shackles, forced marriages, and the withholding of the thing dearest to any man or woman: freedom.