The Viper Read online

  Boyd looked at him slyly over the flames of the fire. “You never did say what happened back in Peebles.”

  Lachlan quirked a brow lazily, poking the blunted iron nail in the hole. “I didn’t think I needed to explain. I was taken by surprise.”

  “Hmm,” Boyd said, studying him with a considered expression on his face. “I can’t remember the last time you were taken by surprise.”

  Boyd was fishing, damn him. The arse had bloody well guessed what had happened, but Lachlan gave no indication he knew what Boyd was talking about. “It’s been known to happen once or twice,” Lachlan said dryly. “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

  Suddenly, Boyd sat back in shock, staring at him as if he’d just glimpsed the Holy Grail. “My God, you like her!” He shook his head with disbelief. “I never thought I’d see the day, but you really like her.”

  Lachlan shot him a warning glare. “Of course I like her. How could I not? After what she’s been through? She’s a damned hero, didn’t you know?”

  That was part of the problem. She was a hero and he was a notorious, bastard mercenary who had more men hunting him than he could count. Her safety depended on anonymity; with him she would always be in danger.

  “So does this mean you’ve reconsidered?”

  Lachlan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Boyd shrugged. “With you and Lady Isabella … I thought you might be thinking of sticking around a little longer.”

  Lachlan stilled. For a moment he wondered …

  Nay, it was impossible. Anger rose inside him. Damn Boyd for trying to confuse him! He didn’t need this shite.

  “Just because I want to fuck her doesn’t mean I’m going to forget what I’ve worked for for three years. When the king holds his council, I’ll have my reward. Why the hell would I stay?”

  Ten years ago he’d had everything ripped away from him. Now he had his chance to get some of it back. He’d have a home, a place to call his own, and be truly independent for the first time in his life. Answering to no one. Being responsible for no one. With no ties and debts left to pay. That was the only freedom for which he’d fought.

  “You’re a real arse, Viper. The lady deserves better.” On that they could agree. “But you know what I think? I think she’s gotten to you. Though hell if I know what she could possibly see in you.”

  She didn’t see anything in him. There was nothing to see. “God’s blood, Raider, when did you start sounding like my cousin?”

  If any more of the Highland Guard fell “in love”—whatever the hell that meant—Lachlan wouldn’t need to leave; he’d swipe a dirk across his own throat just to not have to listen any longer to the blathering virtues of having a wife. Someone to take care of.

  Someone to take care of him.

  Someone who cared about whether he lived or died.

  He felt a strange tightening in his chest, then pushed it harshly away. Who in the hell would want that?

  Suddenly, he turned at the sound of the door opening. Bella marched through, a determined glint in her eye.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing anything?”

  He and Boyd exchanged guilty glances, both of them wondering how long she’d been there. From her too-blank expression, he suspected longer than he wanted.

  “Nay, nothing, my lady,” Boyd said. “Is there something you needed?”

  She lifted her chin. If it quivered a little, Lachlan told himself it was the flickering firelight. But it didn’t stop the suffocating press of conscience against his chest or the ridiculous urge to pull her in his arms and tell her he didn’t mean what he’d just said.

  He did mean it, damn it. Maybe he wished he hadn’t said it so crudely, but it was the truth. He wanted her, but a woman wasn’t going to distract him. Not this time.

  “I have some salve.” She came over to Lachlan. “To tend your wounds.”

  He glanced up at her, surprised and discomfited by her thoughtfulness. He wasn’t used to having anyone worry about him. It would be easy to …

  Damn it, she was making him soft. He didn’t need anyone. He waved her off. “I’m fine.”

  She looked down at him, her mouth pulled in a tight line of frustration, exasperation, and maybe even a little hurt. “Nails to the cross, Lachlan! Would it kill you to let someone take care of you for once?”

  He arched a brow. Nails to the cross? She’d been around him long enough to pick up something better than that. Before he could reply that it might, she set down the armful of items she’d brought with her and turned to him with her hands on her hips. Shapely hips that were revealed all too well in those torturous breeches.

  “I’m doing this even if I have to get Robbie to hold you down.” She eyed the hulking warrior. “He certainly looks strong enough to do the job.”

  “Plenty strong, my lady,” Boyd chimed in with a wink.

  Bastard. Lachlan didn’t need to look at him to know he was enjoying this. There were few men who would dare make that claim, but as Boyd was one of them, Lachlan decided not to put it to the test.

  He put down the lock he had in his hand and smiled mockingly. “As you please, my lady.”

  She mumbled something under her breath that sounded remarkably like “why I bother.”

  Tilting his head toward the light, she inspected the gash on his temple. Her touch was soft and gentle. It felt good. A little too good. He jerked away.

  She gave him an impatient scowl and pulled him right back. “You bathed,” she said.

  Lachlan heard a snicker coming from the opposite side of the fire. He shot Boyd a sidelong glare, but his dark head was down, pretending to be focused on his task. “I don’t like being dirty.”

  He blamed the defensiveness in his tone on Boyd.

  “I remember,” she said softly, so Boyd couldn’t hear. “It’s nice. It was one of the first things I noticed about you. You smelled too clean for a brigand.”

  She’d bathed, too. He was trying not to notice how good she smelled, but she was standing too bloody close to him. His body heated with awareness. If Boyd weren’t sitting there, he knew he’d be tempted to pull her onto his lap and take another stab at what they’d barely begun two nights ago.

  “It’s good,” she added, running her fingers through his hair by his temple. “You managed to wash away most of the dirt and blood from the wound.”

  She reached down to pick up a swathe of linen and a clay pot.

  He smothered a groan. Those damned lad’s clothes were going to kill him. When she’d bent over in front of him, the gap in the linen beneath the tie at the neck opened, giving him an eyeful of one generously curved, softly rounded breast.

  He was a man; he couldn’t help himself. His eyes fastened on the place in the linen where her nipples jutted against the thin fabric. Jesus. His mouth watered, seeing the outline of delectable, hard, puckering flesh.

  Kiss her all over. A promise he’d made to himself that he’d broken when Comyn’s men had discovered them. But he was remembering it now. He wanted to strip her naked. Fill his hands with all that creamy flesh, bring it to his mouth, and suck each delicate pink nipple until it was berry red and throbbing tautly against his tongue.

  He shifted, feeling a not-so-slow thickening in his braies. She was bent over him, her body achingly close, torturing him with her gentle touch. Her fingers smoothed the ointment over his wound, drawing small, caressing circles that only increased his ache.

  Finally, when he didn’t think he could bear her closeness, her touch, the warm fresh scent of her another minute, she wrapped a clean cloth around his head and stepped back.

  He nearly sighed with relief.

  Her flushed cheeks told him he was not the only one affected. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “Nay—”

  “He has a cut on his arm and some nasty-looking bruises on his stomach,” Boyd volunteered.

  Lachlan shot him a death glare. He was going to kill Boyd for this. The bloody bastard knew exactly wha
t kind of pain Lachlan was in right now.

  Bella pursed her mouth. He couldn’t tell whether it was in anger or reluctance. “Let me see.”

  He lifted his shirt to reveal the numerous blue, black, and red mottled bruises that had turned to one big, angry mass covering his entire right side.

  She gasped, and then gave him a fierce scowl. “Why didn’t you say something? It looks as if you’ve broken some ribs. I could have wrapped them for you.”

  He shrugged, trying not to wince. They were broken, all right. “There wasn’t time.”

  She reached out, gently skimming her fingers over the tender flesh. He flinched when her hand dipped low on his stomach.

  Her voice softened. “I’m sorry, did that hurt?”

  Aye, but not in the way she meant. His cock was pressing against the ties of his braies, doing its damnedest to inch closer and closer to her hand. “A little,” he said gruffly.

  She gave him a puzzled look. “I didn’t think I touched you that hard.” Hard. He groaned. Don’t say hard. The throbbing increased. “I’ll try to be more careful.” She paused, hesitating. “If you take off your shirt, I can see to the cut on your arm and bind your ribs.”

  Lachlan swore he could hear Boyd smirking. “Are you going to sharpen that blade all night?” he bit out angrily. “Aren’t you supposed to be finding us a boat?”

  Boyd didn’t bother hiding his amusement. He got to his feet slowly, sliding his sword back in the baldric at his back. “Aye, I’m going. It might take me a while,” he pointed out unnecessarily.

  Lachlan was already painfully aware that he’d made a mistake. Boyd’s amusement was a hell of a lot safer than being alone with her. Before he could think of a way to call him back, the other man was gone.

  Steeling himself for what was to come, Lachlan pulled his tunic over his head. The quicker this was over, the better.

  She didn’t make a sound but went perfectly still. Jaw clenched, he kept his eyes straight ahead. Horror. Disgust. Pity. He didn’t want to see any of them. If she thought this was bad, she should see his back. But as it was, she stood in front of him and could see only the smattering of battle scars that crossed his chest and arms.

  Growing impatient and wanting this torture to be over, he ventured a glance in her direction. It was a mistake. It wasn’t the scars, the cuts, or the bruises that had made her hesitate.

  She was …

  Hell, she was staring at his chest as if she were starving, and he was a platter of marzipan.

  He swelled harder. He couldn’t take this. “Is something wrong?” he snapped.

  She blushed and quickly averted her gaze. Picking up the salve, she began to tend the cut on his arm. It was a deep sword slice across his forearm from the Battle at Brander a couple of months ago, which had reopened at the hands, fists, and feet of Comyn’s men.

  Having her hands on him was no easier the second time around. His nerve endings snapped and fired with every touch. He felt as if he were jumping out of his damned skin. Especially when her finger started a slow trace of the mark on his arm.

  A few days ago he would have taken care to hide it. The lion rampant, the symbol of Scotland’s crown, set in a shield and encircled with the torquelike band of a spiderweb. It was the mark borne by all members of the Highland Guard. As many of the Guard had done, he’d personalized his, with two swords crossed behind the shield and a viper coiled in the web. She might not know it was the mark of the Guard, but the symbolism was clear.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

  He met her accusing stare. “I took an oath. Besides, it was—is—too dangerous.”

  “You pretended to be nothing more than a hired sword, and instead I find out you are part of the most revered fighting force in Scotland? A member of the king’s closest retinue. I thought you had no loyalty. I thought you’d betrayed me. And now I find out this? If you’d told me—”

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “It would have for me. I might not have spent two years hating you for something you did not do.” Suddenly, her eyes widened with realization. “Robert and Sir Alex? William and Magnus? The two men at the convent?”

  “Stop!” he said, grabbing her wrist to pull her hand away from his arm. Fear made his heart pound. She knew too much. “Don’t ask, don’t even think about any of it. Don’t you understand how dangerous knowledge is? Do you know what those men would have done to you if they thought you could tell them anything?” She paled. “Forget you heard anything they said.”

  He should have known better than to try to scare her. “Haven’t I earned the right to know the truth?”

  He clenched his jaw. “Not if it puts you in danger. Damn it, Bella, don’t you understand? My former brother-in-law found out that I was a part of the guard, and now I have a price on my head to rival Bruce’s. They will do anything to find out the names of the other men. Anything. It isn’t just the other men at risk—their families will be in danger.”

  She lifted her chin, not backing down one inch. “I wouldn’t say anything.”

  He nearly laughed. “Spoken like someone who has never been tortured.”

  “And you have?”

  “Aye,” he said bluntly. He hadn’t broken, because at the time he hadn’t cared about anything. He didn’t have a weak spot. Then. “Care to see a sampling?”

  He turned his back.

  This time she gasped. Her eyes widened. He saw the horror that he feared, but also something else. Something unexpected. Something like admiration.

  “My God, Lachlan.” Her fingers ran over the jagged lines where the steel hooks had pierced and ripped his flesh, nearly to the bone. “To survive this …” Their eyes met. “What happened?”

  Once he’d told her to ask him anything. He had no secrets. He didn’t care. His past was behind him.

  But something had changed. Her care, her concern, her questions had opened old wounds.

  And he feared it would reveal too much to a woman who had already gotten too close.

  Bella knew he didn’t want to tell her. He was pulling away from her, just as he’d been doing for the past two days. The closer they drew to safety, the farther away he seemed.

  If she thought the way he’d avoided her and acted as if nothing had happened between them had hurt, it was nothing compared to the pain she’d experienced on hearing his crude disavowal to Robbie Boyd. Not until that moment did she realize just how much she’d come to care for him.

  “Just because I want to fuck her …”

  If he’d pointed an arrow at her heart it couldn’t have been aimed more perfectly. Her chest squeezed and burned. To be an object of lust and nothing more. Dear God, would a man ever want her for something more?

  She’d thought Lachlan was different. She’d thought …

  What, that because it had felt special to her, it was to him? Had prison left her so desperate for a connection that she’d felt one where there wasn’t?

  No. She couldn’t believe that was all it had been to him. He didn’t mean it. He’d probably just been trying to stop Boyd’s probing. Probably. But she couldn’t be sure.

  Perhaps his past would give her a clue. She wanted to know the truth, not what people said about him. She wanted to know everything about him.

  “Tell me,” she asked again. Knowing he hated being challenged, she added, “I thought you had nothing to hide?”

  He knew what she was doing but answered her with a shrug. “There isn’t much to tell. My wife was very young, very beautiful, and very spoiled. I was infatuated with her.” Though he said it without emotion, Bella’s heart pinched. It seemed so unlike him. “Within a few months, Juliana’s ardor waned, and she regretted her impulsivity in marrying a bastard without much land to his name—even if he was a chieftain to a clan.”

  Bella paled. “You were chieftain?”

  He smiled tightly. “Aye, for a while I did ‘my duty,’ as you call it. I was completely unaware of my wife’s disconte
nt, too blinded by lust to see what was happening right before my face. She devised a way to get rid of me—quite an ingenious little plan, actually—telling her brother that I intended to betray him. Unfortunately, Lorn believed her.

  “At the time, King Edward was acting overlord of Scotland, and he was furious at Lorn and the rest of the MacDougalls for a recent spate of attacks on English soldiers. My brother-in-law decided this was a good opportunity to get back in the king’s good graces. He needed someone to blame, and I was convenient. He sent me and my men on what was supposed to be a raid, but instead it was a slaughter—our slaughter. I alone survived. Forty-four men who’d followed me into battle never went home to their families.”

  She put her hand on his arm. God, no wonder he’d turned from his clan! He blamed himself for the deaths of all those men. “Oh, Lachlan, I’m—”

  He ripped it away as if her comfort scalded him. “I’m not done. You wanted to know; now you’ll hear all of it.”

  The mask of detachment had slipped. The fury of emotion revealed itself in the angry sneer of his mouth. “I should have died along with them.” He pointed to a two-inch-wide circular scar on his shoulder. “Unconscious, with a spear pinned through my shoulder, the English left me for dead. Which I would have been in a few hours, had I not been found by my kinsmen—and enemies—the MacDonalds. I ‘recovered’ in a MacDonald prison for a few months, before my cousin, Angus Og, for reasons of his own, decided to help me escape. He was the one who asked me to join the Bruce,” he said as an aside. “He tried to warn me about my wife, but I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t realize the truth until I returned to Dunstaffnage Castle, to find Juliana betrothed to another man—a much more rich and powerful man.”

  The lack of bitterness and emotion in his voice made her heart go out to him all the more. She wanted to touch him but knew that he wouldn’t accept her comfort. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

  “Juliana pretended to be glad to see me, right up to the point that her brother threw me in his pit prison and gave me these,” he pointed to his back, “while trying to get me to confess my alleged betrayal.” He laughed. “I think even he started to have doubts about my guilt after a while.”