Book 5 > Highlander Vows
1360
Isle of Skye, Scotland
Lena MacLeod had never felt more alone in her life. Considering the abuse she’d suffered in her past, the realization weighed upon her, making it hard to take a breath. She swept her gaze around the great hall. Her family and members of their clan filled the room, yet she may as well have been back in the pit her late husband had confined her to when she had displeased him. Hopelessness pressed upon her, heavy and confining. She was finally free physically, but her mind was still chained to the past. Even among the lively pipers, happy chatter, raucous dancing, and clanking tankards toasting the marriage of her youngest brother, Cameron, to Sorcha Stewart, Lena fought to quell the urge to scream.
Her throat ached from the effort. Everyone around her appeared cheerful, so she forced a smile to her lips. She’d caused enough trouble since returning to the fold of her family almost two years prior. She could at least feign joy for their benefit.
She clutched the tankard of wine that her eldest brother and laird of the MacLeod clan, Iain, had thrust at her, and she compelled her legs to weave her through the crowd. She needed to find a corner where she could linger discreetly, just in case someone sought her out to dance. She wasn’t such a clot-heid to think it very likely that anyone would approach her, yet the fear of it even possibly occurring made her nerves tingle. Since she had been back at Dunvegan Castle, she had not been what most men—nor most women, for that matter—considered friendly or approachable. The looks of pity surreptitiously cast her way when people thought she was not looking had not escaped her notice. Such glances made her skin crawl—potent reminders that most of the clan knew what had happened to her. The shame seared her from within even on the coldest days of winter when her teeth ached from the bitter chill.
She sidestepped a dancing couple and was five paces from the perfect corner in which to conceal herself when someone grabbed her arm from behind. Pinpricks swept over her scalp as memories of being restrained jangled in their iron cages. Her heartbeat exploded into a gallop, despite knowing well that she was safe in the great hall of her family home. She turned to meet the guileless green eyes of Iain’s wife, Marion.
She offered a radiant smile tinged with an almost imperceptible curve of mischievousness. “Don’t be vexed,” Marion began, her English accent assaulting Lena’s ears. Truthfully, it was much less pronounced than when Lena had first met Marion. And from what Iain had told her, his wife’s “Sassenach accent,” as he called it, used to be so strong it had made him cringe. While Marion was half-Scottish, she had been born and raised in England. Iain certainly didn’t cringe anymore, though. He stared adoringly at her whenever she was near or even mentioned. Lena suspected he got the same dreamy look on his face when something or someone merely reminded him of the wife he so obviously worshipped.
“And don’t make a fuss,” Marion warned in the same tone she used when reprimanding her and Iain’s curly-headed toddler, Royce.
Lena frowned. She knew Marion didn’t mean anything unkind by talking to Lena as she did her son; Marion didn’t have a cruel bone in her body. Lena suspected that Marion—and most everyone here—felt they had to treat her as they would a child who had a tendency to slip into fits. It made Lena cringe to realize she was looked upon as an unpredictable child, yet she knew that she’d given them cause to see her that way. Even knowing this, she could not seem to help her actions. Though she was trying desperately to cease such outbursts.
Lena swept her gaze around the room, seeing nothing but the same swarming crowd of merry wedding revelers. Then she spotted a flash of thick, wavy, brown hair with golden and russet strands woven through it. She knew without glimpsing his face yet that the luxurious hair belonged to Alex MacLean. He turned and his features came into perfect view. Even with the disgruntled expression he was wearing, Alex made Lena’s stomach clench. It was not the first time, nor did she suspect it would be the last. As laird of one of the most powerful clans in Scotland since he was fifteen summers, he possessed a commanding presence.
She studied him from under her lashes, trying to discern why he was scowling. A smile pulled at her lips as she realized his unrelentingly determined younger sister, Bridgette, who was married to Lena’s older brother Lachlan, had Alex’s hand clutched in hers and was leading him somewhere. Alex was not the sort of man to be led; he was the warrior who others followed. Still, he had a soft spot for his sister, as well as a ferocious protectiveness of her that had grown ever greater since his sister had been forced to wed a Campbell and had herself endured abuse before Lachlan had rescued her and killed Bridgette’s husband in a fight to save her. The fact that Alex was a leader who others clearly admired and his obvious adoration for his sister were but two of the reasons Lena knew he was a good man.
Two years ago, when she’d seen him for the first time since she’d been taken from her home as a child, her reaction to him had shocked her to the core and then rapidly caused fear to course through her. She was drawn to him, and that was a very frightening thing, given she could not tolerate a man even touching her, other than her brothers placing a brief hand to her elbow to guide her or giving her a swift hug. She had not expected to ever feel the pull of desire for a man after enduring marriage to her late husband, but she’d heard enough chattering from her brothers’ wives to suspect that this tug low in her belly and heat that infused her chest was desire. The truth was that men frightened her, but something about Alex scared her less, which was ironic given every inch of his body seemed to be hardened by hours of grueling training and many more hours of actual combat.
She drew in a sharp breath as he came closer, and his glistening bronze eyes locked on her. She felt a fleeting sense of hope when she was around him, as if she might not always be this bird with the irreparable wing, who would never know the joy of soaring into the wind. Part of her wanted to soar, but there was another part of her that had been beaten down by her now-dead husband’s cruelty and wanted to burrow under the dirt and hide.
She bit her lip as she glanced at Marion. A blush stole from Marion’s chest to her cheeks, flushing them crimson, and she had a sudden decidedly guilty look on her face. A suspicion niggled at Lena, and she gave a quick look back to Bridgette to confirm her theory. The russet-haired woman’s eyes sparkled with intent, and her chin was tilted up in determination. Intuition told Lena that her well-meaning sisters-in-law had conspired to push her out of her nest this night in an effort to make her fly. But she wasn’t ready; she might never be.
“What have ye done?” Lena hissed under her breath.
Marion thrust back her shoulders. “All we have done is ensure that you will not stand in your favorite corner all night holding up the wall, as usual. Life is passing you by.”
“Did it nae occur to ye or Bridgette that I stand in this corner because I dunnae like to dance?” Lena muttered.
Marion waved a hand. “Don’t be silly. Iain told me how you used to love to dance. He said that when ordered to bed with the rest of the children, you would beg your parents to let you remain in the great hall to dance with your elders.”
“Marion,” Lena said on a fearful gasp, “I kinnae dance with a man. Nae even Alex,” she rushed out in a tortured whisper.
The color drained from Marion’s face as her lips parted in understanding, but it was too late. Alex and Bridgette were before them.
As Bridgette released her hold on her brother, she took Lena by the arm and propelled her toward Alex with a chuckle. “Lena, Alex wishes to dance with ye,” Bridgette announced.
A shiver of panic swept through Lena, and she stumbled into Alex’s unyielding body. When she looked up to apologize and put distance between him, the words caught in her throat, her hand frozen on his chest. His heart was racing beneath her palm, as if he was just as bothered by the prospect of a dance with her as she was with him. Behind her, feet shuffled and skirts swished as Marion and Bridgette moved away. Lena stood there gaping at Alex. As he stared back, it seemed as though a cloak had lifted from his eyes, and the tenderness in their depths sucked the air from her lungs.
“I ken ye dunnae wish to dance,” he said in a voice as deep as an endless loch.
For a moment, the masculine beauty of his face stole her ability to speak. Mahogany hair surrounded his sculpted features and curled below his ears and against his neck. Dark stubble covered his square jaw and above his full lips. His eyes, framed by thick, sinfully long lashes, narrowed slightly, and the veil she normally saw there fell firmly back in place, snapping her out of her daze.
She pulled back her hand as he held both of his up, palms facing her. “Lass,” he said slowly, the single word sounding seductive as it rumbled from him, “I appreciate why ye would nae wish to dance with a man.”
Heat scalded her cheeks. Of course, he knew of her past—almost everyone did—but no one ever spoke to her about it directly, save for the few times her sisters-in-law brought it up in an effort to help her. But neither of them had ever comprehended that a man’s touch sent a chill of black fright through Lena. So how could Alex know?
As a friend of her family’s, he’d known her all her life—or at least the early part when she had been living at Dunvegan before she had been seized by her uncle, who had been intent on hurting her father. Yet, Alex did not know her as a woman, even though she had been home almost two years. They’d barely spent any time together, except once when he had aided her brothers in hiding her from her husband, who had convinced the king to return her to him. But during that flight, they had been accompanied by three of Alex’s men, so they had never been alone, never spoken of anything other than polite topics like the weather.
He could not have known her secret, yet that veil over his eyes slipped once more, and there was no denying the understanding that shone there. “I vow to ye,” he said, the words vibrating with earnest intensity, “my only wish is to see ye smile. I will touch yer hands, and that is all I will touch, and if ye kinnae stand that, then we will dance without so much as grazing each other.”
She frowned as she darted her gaze to the merrymakers in the great hall. The men swung the women about in various stages of handholding, or with their arms about the women’s waists. She swallowed hard, a sudden desire to allow him to hold her hand for a simple, safe dance flaring bright inside her. “We would look foolish if we danced without touching,” she replied in a low voice, fearful of someone hearing, though no one was close enough to do so.
“If anyone dares to utter that ye look foolish, I’ll kill them,” he pledged, his tone teasing, though his narrowed gaze was anything but. A surprising sense of safety at his words, albeit only witty banter, filled her. He flashed a grin, displaying two enticing dimples that made him appear every bit as trustworthy as he did dangerous with his tall, powerfully built body. He held his hand out to her. “Trust me—just for a single dance. Ye must start somewhere, aye?”
She stared at the hand he had extended to her. His fingers were long, his skin tanned by the sun. A mixture of hope and fear burst in her mind, the warring emotions colliding and making her tremble. Her memories of him were pure and clear—he as a lad of ten summers, and she as a lass of seven summers. He’d helped her up once after a boy had deliberately tripped her in a race. Alex had pummeled the lad in the nose for it, too. Yearger MacLeod, if she remembered correctly. He’d been five summers older than Alex but no match for him.
Suddenly, she could feel the warmth of his hand that day, the hot tears on her face from where she had cut her knee when she had fallen, and the calluses on his fingers as he had wiped her tears away. She’d trusted him once.
With a deep breath for courage, she started to reach her trembling hand toward his, but her thoughts veered sharply to the black memories that haunted her daily. The past flashed like fearful lightning across her mind: Her husband’s cruel touch. His abuse. Her wish that he was dead and her foolish belief that when he was, she would know joy in her heart and the peace of safety in her mind. As sinful as she had known her musings to be, she’d imagined all the ways she could kill Findlay if she could just get her hands on a weapon. But alas, her husband had met his maker when another of her brothers, Graham, had killed him.
She had not been able to decide if she was grateful or angry that she had not personally been the one to do the deed. She’d likely roast for eternity in the fires of Hell for the thoughts. But presently, while she drew breath and her memories of her time with Findlay tortured her in every waking hour—and the ones when she slept—the fires of Hell didn’t frighten her. She was already there. It was simply in the here and now, and not quite as hot as it would likely be down there. She wanted out of the devil’s realm.
“Come the rest of the way, Lena,” Alex urged, and she glanced at her hand, only then realizing it was but a hairsbreadth from his. The rasp in his voice made her stomach flutter. Clenching her teeth, she laid her hand in his open palm. His fingers closed slowly and gently around hers, and complete awareness of the power he exuded coursed through her.
A moment of panic gripped her, and she tugged her hand away, exhaling sharply with relief when he released her at once. This man would not restrain her or hurt her as her husband had done. One dance. That was all he asked of her. Besides, all four of her brothers were in the great hall, too, and they would kill any man who dared to try to harm her, even one they considered a brother, as they did Alex.
“A single dance,” she said, already breathless at the prospect of it.
Triumph flashed in his eyes, but when she blinked it was gone. “Aye,” he said, the word a caress. “I vow I’m nae such a terrible dancer that ye’ll run away screaming.”
“If only that were my biggest fear,” she muttered as he turned and led her into the revelry.
