Meghan: A Sweet Scottish Medieval Romance Read online

  And with that decided, she lifted her skirts and ran the rest of the way home, not wanting to be discovered, not even by her father, lest he forbid her to do what she knew she must. For once in her life she was doing something that mattered, and Alison didn’t care what the risks were.

  Meghan needed her.

  The fact that she could make a difference so exhilarated her that she wanted naught more than to run home and share the news with her father. She wanted to run and tell Leith what she’d done and what she planned, but she didn’t dare, lest the two of them, in their silly male pride, forbid her to help and insist upon saving Meghan themselves. Nay, she wasn’t about to tell them. Male pride had gotten them thus far, and it was time to use their wits, not might.

  Foolish men.

  * * *

  With the morning sun upon her face, Meghan lay wholly afraid to open her eyes.

  The very thought of Lyon’s arms around her heated her cheeks.

  Last night, though she’d been content and drugged besides, she had lain there, unable to sleep. And even now, this morning, the memory of their embrace made her belly stir with feelings she hardly could deny.

  But she could scarcely sleep forever, no matter that the drogue kept her weary enough to do so.

  Cautiously, she opened her eyes to the bright light of morning.

  Lyon Montgomerie’s face was the first thing she saw.

  He was kneeling by the bed, watching her. Meghan started, blinking in surprise.

  “I mean to steal your heart, Meghan Brodie,” he said, and Meghan’s heart leapt.

  She feared, somehow, he already had.

  Her heart quickened its beat. “H-have you been watching me all morn?” she asked hesitantly, feeling both flattered and distressed all at once.

  She had dreamt of him, his lips upon hers… And in her dream... she had awakened to find his head cradled in her lap….her fingers running through his hair. In her dream, he’d peered up at her, grinning lovingly, his eyes flashing with an unmistakable gleam as he’d taken her hand, whispering, “It’s only me.”

  Meghan shuddered at the memory.

  “Time to get up,” he said, avoiding the question. “I have something to show you.”

  Meghan gave him an exasperated glance. “You are a despotic mon,” she said, taking comfort in her pique. “Do you never tire of ordering people about?”

  “Never.” He grinned roguishly at her, his look much too boyish to be anything but engaging. It spoiled her ill humor.

  Meghan grimaced as she tried to rise. He moved to help her.

  “I can do it myself,” she exclaimed. “Stop being so nice. I dinna wish to like you,” she said honestly. “Don’t you realize?”

  He chuckled at that. “And yet you do?”

  Meghan gave him a withering glance. “I didna say such a thing.”

  “But you are thinking it?”

  “Och, but you are arrogant, too.”

  Lyon merely shrugged at that.

  “Then I shall resolve to be less so,” he vowed, and inhaled a breath at the sight of her.

  He could scarcely keep himself from staring.

  He couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

  He’d fallen asleep with a smile upon his face. And this morning he’d felt himself scarcely able to leave her, though he’d had matters to attend to. He’d left her only long enough to see them well in hand, and then had rushed back to her side.

  What was wrong with him?

  He felt as reckless as the boy he’d once been, eagerly chasing every skirt that passed him by.

  Only he no longer wanted the rest.

  He wanted this one.

  He couldn’t stop smiling.

  “I have told you, Lyon Montgomerie, I dinna want you to be so accommodating. Move out of my way,” she demanded, ripping the tattered bedsheets off and sliding her legs over the side of the bed.

  Lyon sucked in a breath as her movement placed him kneeling before her once more.

  She seemed to realize this belatedly and her brows lifted in surprise. Her gaze flew to his and her cheeks flushed.

  He merely smiled at her, wholly satisfied with her reaction. He understood women only too well, and knew how to please them. He certainly wasn’t going to waste his God-given talents when he wanted this more than he wanted to breathe.

  He lifted a brow. “Are you asking for a kiss?”

  “Och,” she gasped in playful outrage. “You are a wicked knave. I’ve changed my mind. I do know you well enough to make such a judgment. You are wicked.”

  “Aye,” he murmured, and he bent to plant a swift, but chaste kiss upon the bridge of her nose.

  Her hand flew to her face at once, her fingers touching her nose where he had kissed her. “Why did you do that?” she asked, seeming confused by the innocence of the gesture.

  “Because you are adorable,” he answered simply. “Come, let us go.” He rose, drawing her up with him by her good arm, though gently, lest he hurt her. “There is something I wish to show you this morn, and I hope it pleases you.”

  He insisted she close her eyes as he led her along behind him, taking her to some unknown place.

  Meghan had no choice but to follow, as her curiosity was too great to deny.

  When he bade her open her eyes at last, they were in the meadow, with no one else in sight. The bright sunlight, after being secluded so long within his chamber, made her squint. She had difficulty focusing enough to see anything at all, and then, she only saw Lyon standing there before her, gazing at her expectantly, as though he were awaiting her response.

  Her brow furrowed. “I thought you wished to show me something. I see naught.”

  He was grinning at her.

  She tilted a glance at him. “Why are you looking at me so?”

  He lifted his brows, and his eyes shone with a boyish gleam that snuck its way into her heart. “Because,” he said playfully, “’tis not oft one beholds both the sun and the moon together, Meghan Brodie.”

  Meghan tried not to roll her eyes at his exalted praise, and was thankful for his shameless cajolery as it helped her to keep him at bay. Accustomed as she was to men’s empty flattery, it no longer stirred her heart to hear it.

  Except when Lyon Montgomerie spoke it, it seemed.

  Her heart quickened.

  “You are both the fiery brilliance of sunlight, Meghan, and the bewitching serenity of moonlight.” His ardent tone managed to seep into the cracks of the wall surrounding her heart—despite that Meghan sat behind it, casting mortar at every fracture.

  “And you, I fear, have missed your calling, Lyon Montgomerie. You should have been a troubadour begging entrance at every manor.” She eyed him sharply. “You are a shameless flatterer. And I have told you I am unmoved by pretty words, and still you persist—why?” she demanded.

  He stood there, looking entirely too beauteous for Meghan’s peace of mind—his smile too radiant, and his words entirely too blithe—and she wanted to loathe him for making her yearn for more.

  “Because you’ve turned me into a besotted lad,” he answered unrelentingly, “who would do anything for merely the favor of a smile from his darling.”

  Meghan frowned at him. “I am not your darling, lest you forget.”

  She eyed him circumspectly. He wore a deep-blue tunic that brought out the vivid color of his eyes, with a strip of green and blue plaid about his waist and black braies that hugged his long lean legs. He stood tall before her, with his long hair stirring like silk in the breeze. It shimmered like spun gold beneath the mid-morning sun.

  Och, but if ever a man could be called beautiful, Lyon Montgomerie was fiercely so.

  And yet there was naught about him that made one doubt his masculinity. He was as hard and as beauteous as the hills that surrounded them.

  And it didn’t help much to see that he seemed at ease here upon the land she loved so passionately. It was as though he’d been carved from the very stone, in fact, as those ancient cairns
that bedecked this soil of her birth.

  Despite her claims to the contrary, he was stealing her heart—curse his rotten soul.

  His pretty words confused her—made her sigh for more.

  But how?

  When she knew better.

  Was she so feckless that she would abandon her convictions so easily?

  Were all her principles naught more than chatter?

  Her condemnation for those who would not search beyond a face nothing more than hypocrisy?

  Meghan only knew that his words of adulation made her heart beat faster and her knees melt like wax beneath a flame.

  And och, she was as guilty as any man with covetous eyes, for she stood wholly entranced by the mere sight of him. When she looked into his gleaming sapphire eyes... her breath caught at what she saw there within their beautiful depths. And when she lowered her gaze to his mouth, which smiled at her with such sensual promise, she wanted to open her arms and beg him come to her once more.

  As he had last night.

  It seemed she was naught but an impostor, and she didn’t know herself anymore.

  Her cheeks heated at the turn of her thoughts, and she averted her gaze.

  He reached out suddenly, drawing her chin up with a finger. “Meghan, lass,” he whispered, much more soberly now, “why does it bother you so that I think you bonnie?”

  Ashamed of herself, Meghan withdrew her face from his touch.

  He stood there gazing at her, and she felt utterly exposed beneath his scrutiny.

  “Can it be that you do not see what I see?” he asked softly.

  She lifted her gaze to his. “I know what you see,” she assured him. “And I cannot—I am not—” She couldn’t find the words to make him understand.

  “Yours is the most lovely face I have ever set eyes upon.”

  He didn’t understand.

  Couldn’t possibly.

  She wanted to be more than a face and body, didn’t he see? She wanted to be a heart and a soul and a brain, as well.

  Leith had always appreciated her mind, respecting and needing her counsel, but out of fear that she would leave them perhaps, he had made her ashamed of the face she saw in the looking glass. To please him, as a wee lass she’d worn rags and never a ribbon in her hair. Her brother Colin boasted of her beauty, but never cared to know her deeper thoughts. And though she was closest to him of all, she didn’t recall ever once, not once, having had a meaningful conversation with him about such things as life and death and God. It was a pitiful state of affairs when she could say such a thing. And while Gavin was concerned enough with her spiritual pursuits, he discarded her philosophies entirely, and Meghan was only too aware of how he viewed those women who succumbed to their vanities.

  Meghan yearned for someone to accept her as she was—all of her, not simply in parts.

  She was terrified that behind the shell of her face and body was a woman who just could not be what everyone believed her to be. She was afraid that if they looked deep enough they would not like what they saw. She had listened to suitors enough to know that they did not see her as she was, only how they wanted her to be. They looked upon her face and made her a graven image, sang odes to her beauty and threw petals at her feet... as though she were some pagan virgin being led to her sacrificial altar. They set her upon a sacred pedestal and refused to let her down, even when she screamed and begged and yelled.

  “Meghan,” he whispered, and lifted her face once more. “Look at me.”

  Meghan did and swallowed at the intimacy with which he gazed at her.

  “I do not care if I feel a fool for speaking my heart,” he said.

  Heart? Meghan thought. Hah! Like every other man, he spoke with the fickle fire of physical attraction. Heart, indeed.

  “I have never,” he swore, “wanted anything as much as I do you.”

  “Me?” she asked, tilting her head in challenge. “Or is it my body you crave, Lyon Montgomerie?”

  He lifted a brow. “I’ll not lie to you,” he answered, and slid his hand along her cheek, cupping it gently.

  Meghan shuddered in response. And like a wanton she responded by tilting into his caress. Och, but she couldn’t help herself. He slid his hands beneath her hair, then to her nape, curling his fingers about her neck.

  For an instant, they merely stood staring at each other, while her heart beat a warning in her ears.

  Deny him now, this instant, she told herself, before you no longer can. Deep in her heart, she knew he would not force her. Last night was evidence enough if she doubted her instinct. He had pleasured her, and then had lifted her up into his arms and laid her within his bed, never appeasing his own body.

  Walk away, Meghan Brodie.

  Walk away now.

  “I want... more than anything... to love you, Meghan Brodie,” he whispered, and Meghan was lost in that instant. Her heart leapt as he drew her closer. Faltering in her step, she went to him, and he wrapped his arms about her, gently, so as not to injure her arm, and Meghan was at once defenseless within his embrace.

  His arms were too warm... his hands too reassuring... the beat of his heart much too close...

  His hand slid upward along her back, gently, though she could feel the trembling of his fingers as it joined the other hand at her nape. And then sliding them both at once to cup her face within his two hands, he lowered his face to hers.

  Her breath left her. Her heart jolted. It occurred to her in the instant before his lips touched her mouth that he hadn’t kissed her at all last eve.

  The very thought of it... made her knees buckle beneath her. He caught her, and she cried out softly, not for the pain in the arm cradled between them, but because in that instant... his lips met her own, and it was the sweetest sensation she had ever known.

  Meghan slid her arm about his neck, but she wasn’t certain whether her reaction was meant to support herself, or to clutch him to her lest he leave her wanting.

  Closing her eyes, she savored the moment... never wanting him to stop.

  “I want you,” he murmured. “I need you, Meghan.”

  Meghan sighed softly in reply.

  Lyon heard her, felt her shudder in his arms

  Heaven help him, it felt so right.

  So good.

  And in that instant, Lyon suddenly found what he’d been looking for all his life.

  And it was a feeling unlike any he’d ever imagined.

  Soul-deep contentment.

  And to his surprise, more than anyone else’s, he’d found it in the arms of a woman, after all.

  And her name was Meghan Brodie.

  Chapter 22

  Rolling white clouds feathered the heavens above, swirling across the blue sky like furls of spun silk.

  Meghan had never imagined she could feel so free. She could scarcely believe she was lying in the middle of a meadow, in the arms of a Sassenach of all men, and relishing every moment.

  For the first time in her life, she felt no shame in herself. She lay enfolded within his embrace, feeling his heart beat against her cheek, and felt only exhilaration at the sensation of lying so uninhibited within his arms.

  He made her feel this way.

  And she couldn’t help but smile.

  She stirred, lifting her face from his chest, thinking they should head back, but he pressed a hand to her head, drawing her back to cradle her head against him.

  “Stay with me,” he urged her.

  Meghan wished in that instant that she could lay there forever, listening to the quickened beat of his heart. She wondered if her own still beat so fast.

  “How is the arm?” He sounded concerned. “Did I hurt you, Meghan?”

  “Nay,” Meghan assured him. He had done anything but that. In truth, he had been cautious to a fault. It was difficult, having been privy to his written words, because she couldn’t help but yearn for the unrestrained passion he had written about in his manuscript. He hadn’t been that way with her at all... He had been gentle
and solicitous instead.

  “Good.” He lifted her head gently from his chest. “I almost forgot,” he told her, “the reason I brought you out here, Meghan.”

  Meghan had forgotten as well.

  “Sit up,” he commanded her, and helped her to rise.

  Meghan blushed as his gaze slid once again to meet her own. He curved his lips roguishly.

  “What is it?” she asked, returning a demure smile of her own.

  “Look about,” he commanded her, turning his head from her abruptly. “Do you see naught at all?”

  Meghan did as he bade her, and saw nothing more than she had before: a meadow wide and green, resplendent with posies and heather. Colorful and bursting with life... except for a small plot of soil that had been freshly turned... a small bed of flowers replanted atop it.

  She peered up at him, her brows drawing together in bewilderment.

  “I hope you do not mind,” he said. “It was not my wish to make you sad, Meghan.”

  “I dinna understand.”

  “I buried Fia here for you.”

  Meghan blinked in surprise. “You did?” She was staggered by the gesture. She hadn’t asked about the lamb, only because she hadn’t wished to know its fate, had assumed they would use the animal for its meat. Tears sprang to her eyes, though she knew it was foolish. It was naught but a lamb, she told herself. And his gesture... She didn’t know what to make of it.

  She let go of him then and wandered as if in a daze over to the little mound.

  He stared at her, seeming to be searching her face for answers. “I... I know how much she meant to you,” he said. “So I buried her. I hope you do not mind,” he said again, more than a little hesitantly.

  Meghan shook her head, discomposed by his confession. She wasn’t certain what to think of a man who would bury a lamb, simply because she had claimed it was her grandmother, despite that he didn’t believe her.