Highland Crown Read online

  Sadness darkened Isabella’s features, and lines formed on her forehead. Cinaed recalled Hudson taunting her about the death of her husband on a day of strikes in Edinburgh.

  “That’s the day that I’ll go after John Gordon.”

  Her cheeks grew ashen. Whatever joy the news of her family had given her, it was gone now.

  “Are you planning to sneak into Fort George?”

  “I don’t need to. Gordon and others accused of crimes against the Crown are being moved south. We’ll take them on the coach road.”

  “Do you have help?”

  “I have plenty. Between the riders outside and the men Searc will loan me, we’ll outnumber the escort soldiers two to one.”

  She picked up a bottle of ointment from the table and immediately put it back down. She rubbed her arm and began to pace the room. Table to window, window to door, steering wide of where Cinaed stood near the bed.

  “You’re not well enough,” she said, darting a quick look at him. “You still have two bullet holes in your body that have not healed.”

  He reached out to take her arm and stop her, but she shook off his touch.

  “I’ll not sew you up again.” She put up two hands like a wall. “I refuse.”

  “You won’t need to sew me up. I promise to come back to you unharmed.”

  “That’s an empty promise. It’s not your choice.” She let out a frustrated breath and glared at Cinaed, her eyes blazing. “There is only so much damage a body can withstand. This time you’ll die.”

  They’d talked about this. She knew he would eventually go after John Gordon. She was present when he’d promised Jean. She hadn’t objected then. But now, he studied the passionately irate woman before him and realized what had changed. She cared. She cared for him. Whatever sentiment she’d had for him before, it was all different now.

  “Don’t worry yourself, Isabella. I’ll come back in one piece.” He took a step toward her, but she walked away.

  “You can send someone else.”

  “I can’t.” Aboard ship, he would never put a man in harm’s way unless he was willing to do the job himself. Every man’s life mattered as much as his own. She was too worked up at the moment, however, for him to explain his position on honor or leadership.

  She waved a hand toward the window. “Those Highlanders already know who John Gordon is. They don’t need you there.”

  “Searc’s men won’t take orders from some riders down from the hills.”

  “The one group should be enough.”

  Cinaed shook his head at his bonnie strategist. This time he was quicker. He reached out and caught Isabella’s hand, pulling her to him. She didn’t have a chance to get away.

  She didn’t want to, however, and came willingly. Her arms wrapped around him like bands of iron. She buried her face against his chest.

  “I don’t want to lose you. Don’t you see?”

  “You won’t lose me.” He kissed the top of her head.

  He was touched deeply by her words, and her worry made his heart ache. Cinaed’s fingers delved into her hair. Pins fell to the floor, and her soft tresses tumbled down over her shoulders. He held her so close he could feel the beat of her heart.

  He knew what passion was, but he’d never been schooled in love.

  The possibility of finding the one person he could not live without, the one whose presence filled him up and brought him joy, whose absence left him incomplete, had to be a miracle. Cinaed was no romantic, but to feel this harmony of heart and mind was to tread on the edges of all in life that was holy.

  He ran his hands over her back, gathering her even closer. They’d known each other for only a short time, but life was short, with no guarantees of tomorrow. He wanted her in his life, traveling alongside him on whatever road lay ahead, no matter how long they had. What he’d proposed to her in Searc’s clan room wasn’t to justify the fulfillment of their passion. He’d meant it. They were already husband and wife, if she’d accept him. He wanted to do away with the pretense and move forward.

  “Will you have me?” he whispered. “Will you take me as your husband?”

  Her hold on him eased, and as she raised her face from his chest, Isabella clutched his coat.

  He looked down into her eyes and was troubled to see the tears. “I know I’m not worthy of you. I—”

  She placed her fingers against his lips, silencing him. “It’s not you. My life is no gift to any husband. What future do I bring to him? What will become of me is a mystery. But aside from that, my decisions are not solely mine to make. I have two other people who rely on me to set them on their paths.”

  “I’ll take them, as well, and I promise to—”

  “I can’t give you an answer right now.” She shook her head. Her voice trembled. She stabbed away a tear.

  He was a man who’d walked through life without the love of a family. He’d lived independent of the security of his clan. Isabella cared for him. He could see it as clear as the morning sun rising from the sea. But he also recognized commitment when he saw it.

  “I’ll ask you again next week, once you’re reunited with your family. And I’ll ask you again when we sail out of this harbor for Halifax. And I’ll ask you again when we arrive there. And I’ll ask you time and again until you either accept me or tell me to disappear from your life.”

  She stabbed away another tear.

  “What do you say to that proposal?” he asked, brushing his thumb across her cheek and smoothing away another glistening pearl.

  She retreated from his arms and turned her back to him.

  He was disappointed, but he understood her hesitation. He also knew that, as it stood now, he had nothing beyond promises to offer her. Nothing real that would secure her future, or the future of those she was responsible for.

  “Can we at least continue with the pretense of husband and wife … for the good of everyone involved?”

  She half turned toward him and nodded. The candlelight illuminated her profile and the dampness on her cheek. He stood for a long moment, fighting the urge to go to her and pull her into his arms.

  Finally, he found the strength to step away. “Good night, Isabella.”

  He was at the door when she called his name.

  “Stay, Cinaed. Stay with me.”

  They met in the center of the room. She raised her face to him and Cinaed kissed her, tenderly at first, and then with all the passion in his heart. When their lips parted, she took his hand and pulled him toward the bed.

  “Isabella, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman in my life, but—”

  “Take me,” she said, stopping him. “Make love to me.”

  However honorable his intentions had been, they were gone. What he’d been about to say to her was forgotten. She pushed his coat off his shoulders, and suddenly he was as exuberant and clumsy as a lad making love for the first time. Excitement and impatience pounded in Cinaed’s veins. His hands were blocks of stone as he struggled to remove her dress. A boot accidentally flew across the room. Their heads bumped as she pulled his shirt off his shoulders. He stole kisses from her lips as she tried to be mindful of his wounds. The laces on a blasted undergarment nearly ruined him, but the shift underneath dropped away nicely.

  And then it was done. Isabella stood before him as gloriously naked as a goddess.

  Her breasts fit his palms perfectly. He squeezed the tips, and a soft moan escaped her. She backed onto the edge of the bed, and he followed, moving in closer and spreading her knees. She reached for him, her hands impatiently unfastening his fall. He groaned as her soft fingers wrapped around him, but he somehow rid himself of his trousers.

  She lay back and her strong leg slipped around his waist, urging him on. Cinaed wanted nothing more than to bury himself deep inside her and take what she offered. But his gaze moved along the soft curve of her hips past the perfection of her breasts. Her face was flushed, her lips parted. She was experienced with the marriage bed, and yet
her expression was one of a woman making love for the first time. His pleasure would have to wait.

  He leaned forward and ran his hand along her cheek and across her lips, sliding a finger into her mouth. He let it trail downward over her chin and throat. When he reached her breasts, he took the time to circle each nipple and watched them rise to his touch.

  Her eyes darkened. She watched his every move. Her hips began to stir restlessly.

  “Now, Cinaed.”

  Instead, he smiled and moved ever so slowly downward until he knelt beside the bed.

  “We’ll get to that soon,” he said, and lowered his mouth onto her.

  * * *

  For more than half a decade she’d been married, but the excitement of Cinaed’s play beforehand, the ever-increasing passion, and the wild waves of shared release was a gift that Isabella had never known could exist.

  Their lovemaking was intense. Cinaed was like some winged god of carnal pleasure who had traveled from Olympus to breathe life into her and her alone. She was a physician, but what he taught her of physical love could not be found in any text. He knew where to touch her, how to love her, when to tease her. He made her body quiver, shudder, and sing.

  She’d lived as a married woman, and yet she’d been in a slumber. Now, she was awakened.

  Supremely satisfied, Isabella lay sprawled across Cinaed’s body, her face near the stitches she’d used to close his chest. Within her line of vision, the bullet hole in his arm looked to be healing well. Her fingers inched toward the wounds that had almost taken his precious life.

  He caught her hand and rolled her on the bed until she lay on her back, trapping her with his leg across her belly. “Didn’t I exhaust you enough? No thinking of scars or bruises, no worrying about tomorrow or next week. You should rest now and enjoy this moment’s peace.”

  Isabella traced the line of his jaw and realized he was asking for the impossible. She worried about him. She couldn’t tell him, but Cinaed held her heart in his hands. She loved him. His proposal had been the most beautiful offer, and if she were a free woman, she would accept it … joyfully. But she couldn’t. Not the way her life was shaped now.

  “Can we at least discuss your rescue plan?”

  “Nay. You have your training. I have mine. I respect your expertise. You respect mine.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she recognized there was no deterring him.

  He let his gaze trail down her naked body. “Give me a few more minutes, and I’ll have recovered enough to work harder on distracting you.”

  Distracting, he was also an expert at. And she looked forward to his “recovery,” as he’d called it. Isabella reached down and pulled a blanket over her body. Lying naked in a man’s arms was not something she was accustomed to.

  He tugged the blanket down below her breasts. She pulled it up. He pulled it down again. She let him win.

  “Distractions. Very well.” She rolled against him. “Tell me about this wife of yours.”

  “At the moment, I have only one. But she tells me she’s not the one, so my plan is to woo her and charm her and make love to her—”

  “Stop.” She smiled. “Here, you proved my point. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “But I do,” he said, wearing a mischievous smirk. “I know your belly is quite ticklish. You moan with every stroke. And you have a mole here under your right breast.”

  “You’re incorrigible.” She drove her fingers into his hair and forced him to look above her chin and not below. “I’m asking about me. By the way, how old are you?”

  “I thought we were talking about you.”

  “Answer me before I hurt you. And as a physician, I do know how pain is inflicted.”

  “I’d like you to try, Doctor.”

  “Cinaed.”

  “Thirty, at my next … or last … birthday. And you?”

  She let go of his hair and stared at the candle. She’d guessed it. She was so much older.

  “But before you answer, I’m telling you now that I don’t care about your age. It’s what’s here and here that I care about.” He touched her temple and her heart. “And I’m also quite fond of your breasts. And your hands. And your legs are exceptional. And your bottom makes me want to—”

  “Thirty-four. Which means when you’re thirty-six, I’ll be forty.”

  “So you predict I’ll live for at least six more years.” He cheered as if she’d awarded him a prize. “Then that means there’ll be no trouble when I go for Jean’s nephew next week.”

  “Your logic may need a wee bit of polishing,” she scoffed.

  “In any event, after I free him and the lads outside take him into the mountains, I’ll come back for you. The following morning we’ll join him and your lasses at Dalmigavie. And by then, I should have a better idea about when our ship will be ready to sail.”

  He was, indeed, a master of distraction, and Isabella had to accept it. He didn’t care about her age. And he was going through with his plan of attacking an English prisoner escort regardless of what she said. He was pretending it would be as simple as fetching John Gordon from some minister’s house or meeting him at the mail coach arriving from Edinburgh.

  “Now you tell me about my wife.” He touched her chin, drawing her gaze to him. “And I’m not talking about anything as trifling as her age.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  He caressed her face, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “A physician. Not an easy job for a woman. What made you become one?”

  “Where do I begin?” she replied. “I always wanted to know about medicine. I always wanted to heal people.”

  “You’ve done a fine job of it with this old sea dog, as our Jean says. But where did it start?”

  Isabella thought for a moment. “For as long as I can remember, I followed my father about, watching him with his patients. I was always drawn to his study. The smell of the leather-bound books, pipe tobacco, and whiskey. Other smells, too, intrigued me. Chemicals and fluids that filled large glass jars containing organs and body parts and oddities of nature that I couldn’t identify. Even the dusty scrolls and anatomical diagrams on parchment filling work tables by a tall window.” She laughed. “He didn’t know what to do with me, so he allowed me to be and do as I wished. Because he didn’t discourage me, I suppose, my path was set.”

  “You went to the university as a woman?”

  “Indeed. I studied at the university in Wurzburg, where my father held a professor’s chair.”

  “Were there other women there, or were you the first?”

  “There were no other women there while I attended, but many others have taken their degrees before me. Women have been practicing medicine for centuries in many parts of the world. But the direct precedent for my education was a woman named Dorothea Erxleben. She was the first female medical doctor in Germany. Like me, Erxleben was instructed in medicine by her father from an early age.”

  “So, while other lasses were being taught to do needlework and sketch, you were studying?”

  “I would have found that quite gratifying, but I had to learn to paint and arrange flowers and play the pianoforte, as well. I was never proficient in any of those skills, but my efforts with music were particularly horrifying,” she admitted. “In fact, I believe because of me there is a music master out there who gave up his art to become a baker.”

  Cinaed laughed. “I’m very happy your sewing lessons were more successful. I’m a walking sampler of your proficiency.”

  “Thank you. And I did far better work with my father’s tutorials in basic science, Latin, and medicine.”

  Those years were filled with happiness and hard work, she thought. She never imagined that her life would take her so far from there. Or bring her here to the Highlands of Scotland, to the bed of a man who wanted to marry her.

  “And the university accepted you?”

  “Not without a fight. But we drew on Erxleben for our argument. In her time
, some sixty years before me, the point was made that since women were not allowed by law to hold public office, they also should not hold a medical degree or practice medicine.”

  “How did they get around that?”

  “Three doctors accused her of quackery and demanded she sit for an examination, expecting she would never pass. The rector of the university at Halle decided that practicing medicine was not the same as holding public office. He allowed Erxleben to take her examination. She passed the test brilliantly and was awarded her degree.”

  “As were you.”

  She nodded happily. Her father was so proud. “Even now, so many years after Erxleben, my taking of a degree was considered an amazing achievement.” She rolled onto her back and gazed up into the darkness above. “Later, I realized the hardest part of the path I’d chosen was not to earn a degree but to be allowed to practice.”

  “I imagine men could be a problem.”

  Isabella smiled at him. “And the women. For some reason, we don’t trust our own sex. If it weren’t for my father and then Archibald, I never would have been able to practice. Though I found that the poor always needed proper care.”

  “So you provided it.”

  “Willingly. And I shall always help them. But I couldn’t survive on what they could afford to pay, if they had anything at all. My inheritance was modest, and I didn’t have only myself to worry about.” She thought of her younger sister. “What do you do with a fourteen-year-old who has no dowry? Marrying Archibald was a matter of survival, for Maisie, and for me.”

  She hadn’t planned to mention her husband’s name. She had no obligation to explain anything, but the words had simply poured out.

  “How much older was he?”

  “He was fifty-four. I was eight and twenty.”

  The difference in their ages was wide and, in many ways, impassable. Suddenly, she realized how wrong it was to talk about him, to mention his age, to think about him even, as she lay in bed with another man. But she couldn’t stop herself.

  “He was a good man. A talented doctor. Dedicated and gentle. True to his ideals. He truly did me and my sister a favor when he offered…”