Page 28 of Highlander’s Lesser Evil

“More kisses.”

“There will be time for that.” Chuckling, he led her to the bed and helped her undo the buttons of her dress. It slipped from her shoulders, pooling by her feet. “Do ye want yer nightdress?” he asked as he started undoing the buttons on her shift.

Her chest heaved, and her breasts rose. Theo groaned and resisted slipping his fingers beneath the fabric to feel her and hear her moan.

“It would probably be safer,” she managed.

The buttons were undone, and he slipped the shift over her head. Aching, he almost asked her to undo her undergarments so he could see her naked just once, but he stepped back. As it was, she was already a vision, and he knew that waiting to see her naked tantalized him. After a moment, she hurried to her chest to gather her nightdress, and then turned her back to slip it over her head.

When she slipped her underthings off from beneath, his mouth went dry. She was coming to bed in only that flimsy fabric.

Not meeting his gaze, she slipped under the blanket on the bed and froze. Undressing, he joined her.

“You are naked,” she breathed.

“Aye, I sleep naked, but ye doonae have to worry. I just mean to hold ye and sleep.” However, it might very well kill him.

“Theo,” she whispered as she turned and put her hands on his chest. Her voice was still a little heavy from the wine, but he could sense that she was about to tell him something difficult. There was pain in her eyes, hurt that he wished he could ease. “My parents were cold and unfeeling. They cared only for money and status. I am nothing like them.”

“Aye, ye are a passionate one.”

“They both had lovers, and they both hated the other for it. Even still, when I was young, I accidentally walked in on my father, and I remember thinking that what I saw was not about affection but power. I shied away from you when I realized how easily you could control me through your touch.”

“Gemma.” Leaning over, he kissed her gently and rested his hand on her hip above the covers. “I have no wish to control ye. Simply to see ye safe.”

“I know, although I am still aggravated when you give me orders. The point is that I believe you. We do not have to be like our parents.”

He knew what she was saying. She wanted to assure him that he wouldn’t be like his father, just like she wasn’t like her parents. He desperately wished it could be true, but he couldn’t agree. She didn’t know the temper that could assail him or the damage he could do in a haze of anger. It was something he struggled with every day. Hamish was nothing like their father, but he hadn’t grown up with him. And Gemma, well, she was just like her name. A gem. He would never be so beautiful, inside or outside. He was a lump of clay, and feared his father had done too much to try to mold him.

“Go to sleep, Gemma,” he whispered. Soon, they would have to return to the keep, and maybe then, she would realize just what awaited them at home. She would see why he felt the say he did.

And then, with his father so close and the fearful MacDougals waiting to greet her, she might see the same monster that they saw.

12

The next morning, at the river, there were baskets of laundry; clothes covered in grime and filth. Gemma, along with the other women, had volunteered to do laundry for the guards, so there was nearly twice as much to do. The younger women helped dump out and refill the tubs with clean water while Gemma and the others used the scrubbing boards.

Gemma hated laundry day.

When Fletcher had dumped her here, she had no maid or cook. Since she grew up in a wealthy household, she had no experience with cleaning up after herself, or cooking. Some of the other families helped take care of her, and Gemma, in a fog, had assumed that soon she would be in a keep with servants. But when she got the first inkling that Fletcher had no desire to wed her immediately, she began to plot.

The others helped her learn to take care of herself, and she’d had every intention to run until she’d heard that Fletcher MacSeaver had wed another.

It had been exhilarating living on her own. All her life, she had been groomed to be married with no real skills.

It hadn’t occurred to her parents that she might wed in the harsh Highlands, where there was little class distinction. It thrilled her to watch people eat what she’d prepared, and to keep a home for herself, but laundry was backbreaking business. She did it out of obligation, but also because she loved to gossip with the women.

Next to her, Jillian, who’d insisted on helping, rinsed the clothes and hung them to dry. It had been easy enough to find accommodations for her since many of the cottages were empty. There had been too many lives lost in the battles for Loch Moran. Her neighbors remembered her kindness and were eager to help look after her.

This would be a good place for Jillian to settle. This was a community to help people, and she would bloom. She might even decide to marry, although Jillian didn’t talk much about her previous marriage; only that it was brief.

“Did you sleep well?”

“It might have been the first restful night of sleep I have gotten in months,” the widow admitted. “‘Tis so quiet here. No one was shouting outside my window, harassing me.”

Anger rose inside of Gemma. There were always people who enjoyed tormenting those they thought were weaker than them.

“There will be none of that here,” Gemma assured her.