The Highlander's Redemption

‘Why not?’ Calumn sprawled in the seat, but he was looking at her with unnerving penetration.

She twisted her hands together, suddenly nervous, and moved to the large chair opposite him. ‘I should have told you before. I’m not what you think I am. In fact, I am Guillaume’s betrothed,’ she confessed baldly.

Calumn looked remarkably unperturbed. ‘I guessed it must be something like that, even though you did your best to lead me into believing you were just his mistress.’

‘You guessed!’

‘You’re not a very good liar. That vagueness about your family, and when I saw you with Jeannie—it was obvious you were gently bred,’ Calumn explained matter of factly. ‘Then there was the fact that as de Guise’s discarded mistress you can’t have had much to gain in coming looking for him, whereas if you were his affianced bride—it had to be something like that to make you run away, which is what I presume you’ve done?’

Madeleine stared at him in astonishment. ‘Yes, but.’

‘And why should you tell me the truth, after all?’ Calumn continued in a musing tone. ‘You’re in a foreign country, you’ve been attacked by three drunken soldiers and we have known each other less than twenty-four hours. Frankly, I’m impressed that you’ve had the gumption to get this far without a fit of the vapours.’

Madeleine smiled weakly at this. ‘Thank you.’ She fell to pleating the starched apron Jeannie had lent her. ‘I won’t go home. You won’t make me go home, will you? You know what it’s like, don’t you, the needing to know what happened? You know what it’s like to have to wait and wait and wait, and all the time everyone is telling you that you’re wrong?’ Her big green eyes had a sheen of tears. ‘You do understand that, don’t you, Calumn?’

For the second time that day, her words evoked memories he spent most of his waking hours suppressing and much of the night time reliving. The months of waiting, the guilt of the survivor gnawing away at his guts, adding to the agony of the betrayal he had been forced into and the lingering pain of his slow-to-heal scar. He did not want to remember. Calumn ran his fingers through his hair. ‘We’re talking about you, not me. What family have you back in France?’

‘There’s just Papa and me. I’m an only child—my mother died last year.’

‘Just Papa. Who will no doubt be insane with worry. Did you say you left no word of where you were going?’

‘No,’ Madeleine whispered, shrinking from the thought of the upset her disappearance must have caused, ‘but he will guess where I am.’

‘You left his care without telling him and you left it alone. He will be imagining all sorts, any father would be,’ Calumn said sternly. ‘You must write to him, put his mind at rest, as soon as you have word from the castle. What possessed you to do something like this after so much time has passed?’

‘Guillaume’s cousin has started legal proceedings to have him declared dead. If he succeeds, all Guillaume’s lands will pass to him—a man who has spent all his life in Burgundy,’ Madeleine said contemptuously. ‘Guillaume loves La Roche, it would break his heart to lose it. Papa would not listen to me, he said I should forget Guillaume, that coming here to look for him would be too painful, but I couldn’t stand by and let La Roche fall into a stranger’s hands.’

‘Ah. So it’s about land.’

The sudden change in Calumn’s tone made Madeleine wary. ‘And Guillaume.’

‘An arranged match, I assume?’

‘We were betrothed when I was five years old, and certainly it is the dearest wish of my papa to see me settled so close, for our estates share a border and a son of mine would be able to inherit where I cannot, but—’

‘Very touching, but it’s still an arranged match.’

‘Guillaume is my best friend. I know him as well as I know myself. He is like the son my father never had, and—I don’t need to justify my marriage to you. Yes, it is an arranged match, but I am very happy with it. It will make me happy.’

‘How does it make you happy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘De Guise gets you and, through your son, your father’s lands. Your father gets to keep his estate in the family and his daughter next door. But what about you, what do you get out of it?’

‘Get out of it?’ He did not sound angry, but there was a tightness about his voice she could not understand. ‘You make it sound like a business transaction. It is what I want.’

‘Really? ‘Tis not my experience that fulfilling the expectations of others leads to happiness. You’d have done better to stay at home. At least that way you’ll avoid being shackled to a man you are marrying only to please your father.’

‘You know nothing of the situation,’ Madeleine said indignantly. ‘Of course I want to do this for Papa, but I am not just doing it for him, and I am certainly not being forced into doing something I dislike. In any case, what is wrong with wanting to do what I know will make others happy?’

‘Nothing at all, unless it makes you unhappy.’

‘Why should doing what I know is the dearest wish of those nearest to me make me unhappy?’ Madeleine asked in bewilderment.

‘You subscribe to the view that duty is its own reward, do you? Aye, well you’re right in one way. In my experience duty is always rewarded handsomely. By misery. You’re fooling yourself, Madeleine. You’re not in love with Guillaume de Guise.’

‘Guillaume is the dearest person in the world to me since Maman died.’

‘Like a brother, maybe, but are you in love with him?’

‘I’ve known him since we were children, of course I love him.’

‘Love, not in love. That’s not the same thing at all.’

She stared at him wordlessly, feeling out of her depth. She could not read his face. He did not seem angry, but he had a look in his eye she did not trust, a tightness about the mouth she was wary of. He was watching her too closely. His coat hung open, the full skirts trailing on either side almost to the floor. He crossed one long leg negligently over the other, so casually, yet there was something about him that was most definitely not casual. He was baiting her. Setting a trap for her, if only she knew what it was.

‘Answer the question, Madeleine.’

Unexpectedly perturbed by the turn the conversation had taken, Madeleine got restlessly to her feet, tugging Jeannie’s cotton cap off her head. Several long strands of her hair unfurled, curling over her cheeks and down her neck. ‘Love, in love, it’s the same thing,’ she said with a certainty she was by no means feeling. ‘I love Guillaume as my friend. When we are married I will love him as my husband. I will love him because he is my husband, and because in making him my husband I know I am making both him and my family happy.’ She said the words like a catechism, as if by articulating her feelings in this way they would acquire more heft. Tugging impatiently at the bow which held her apron in place, she managed to pull it into a tangle.

‘Come here.’ Calumn sat up. ‘Let me do that.’

She stood with her back to him. His knees brushed the sides of her petticoat. His fingers pulled at the bow. ‘Closer, it’s worked itself into a knot,’ he said, tugging her nearer, so that if she leaned back just the tiniest fraction their bodies would be touching. He bent his head and it brushed against her back.

‘There,’ Calumn said and the strings of Jeannie’s apron unravelled.

He turned her round, putting his hands on her waist. Then he stood up, still holding her, giving her a look that could be mistaken for a smile, a curl of his mouth that seemed to reach up inside her like long fingers, squeezing her, slowly squeezing the breath out of her in the most curious way. Her lips were level with his throat. If he kissed her again, she would have to stand on her tiptoes. Not that she was going to kiss him. Or allow him to kiss her. What on earth was she thinking?

Calumn’s voice, softer now, interrupted her thoughts, which seemed to have strayed far beyond the bounds of what was decent. ‘Being in love is a different matter entirely from feeling affection for someone. The fact you don’t understand that tells me you’re not. And just to prove it, Mademoiselle Lafayette, I’m going to kiss you again.’ He tilted up her chin.

‘No,’ Madeleine whispered.

He put his arms around her.

‘No.’ Her heart raced, as if she had been running. Calumn leaned towards her, and a long lock of hair, bright as new-minted gold, fell over his cheek. She gazed into his eyes as he lowered his lips to hers, knowing she should move away, but something contrary and stronger in her kept her there, because she wanted to know what it would be like to be kissed by him. Properly. Just so she would understand what he meant.

She couldn’t move. She gazed at him like one mesmerised, her lips parting just the tiniest fraction, the movement so small she was not even aware of it.

Calumn hesitated. She should not be here. He should not be doing this. Not even to prove her wrong.

But her mouth was made for kissing. He hadn’t thought of much else since that tantalising taste of her earlier in the day. She felt as if she were made for him, though who would have guessed it to look at her, so fragile compared to his own solid bulk. His hand tightened on her waist. He should not, but how could he resist when she was looking at him, unblinking, with her bewitching eyes, as if she saw into his soul? As if she was luring him towards her, exactly as mermaids do to sailors. She wanted him to kiss her. And it was for her own good, was it not? He could not resist. He simply could not. So he kissed her.

He kissed her and Madeleine sighed, the sound of the dying wind playfully ruffling a sail at sunset. Calumn’s mouth was warm as before. Soft as before. Gentle as before. It fitted over hers perfectly, his lips moulding themselves to hers, sipping on hers, as if tasting, encouraging her to do the same. She twined her fingers into his hair, relishing its springy softness, and pressed her lips against his, relishing the different softness and now the taste of him. She felt her blood heat. He kissed her and she kissed him back, liking the way his breath came just a bit faster, the way his fingers clenched just a bit tighter on her waist, the way his excitement fuelled her own. His tongue touched hers, turning warm into scalding hot. His fingers tangled in her hair. His tongue on hers again, a flash of heat that made her insides quiver and an answering surge in him, for she could feel the hardening of his arousal nudging against her.

She sighed and this time it sounded like a moan. She thirsted for more. His kiss became less gentle and she liked that, too. She pressed, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, flesh to muscle, her softness against his hardness. His hand slipped up from her waist to cup her breast. No one had ever kissed her like this. No one had ever touched her so intimately. No one. Not even—what was she doing!

Madeleine wrenched her mouth away. ‘Non!’ She wriggled free of his embrace. Heat turned to cold in seconds, as if her blood had been flushed with ice, though her lips were burning. She tried to cool them against the back of her hand. She forced herself to meet Calumn’s gaze. His eyes were glazed, his hair in wild disorder. A dark flush suffused his cheek bones. His breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. Shamed, she realised she probably looked the same.