He looked down. They were cut, bloodied, briars still embedded.
Without thought he dropped down on one knee. "Look what you've done, you daft little - "
Her knee shot up to his chin, snapping his jaw shut. He fell forward to both his knees, and saw from the corner of his eye her skirt swinging toward his face. Strange, the material was hard as rock as it crushed into his temple.
"Christ, witch!" By the time his eyes focused again, she'd abandoned the rock hidden in her skirt, run to the horse, and was in the saddle, trying to calm its rearing. Court loped forward, fell for the reins, and snatched them just as the horse was tensing to run. She had known she needed a horse.
He grabbed her by the waist, dragging her down in a froth of silk, petticoats, and flailing arms and legs. After he caught his breath and the world righted itself, he growled, "Ye wanted a bath?"
Her eyes grew wide. While she thrashed, he stalked to the closest pool, then dumped her into the frigid water. She sputtered, rose, and slipped back in repeatedly, soaking herself.
"You'll pay for this, MacCarrick!" She scraped her thick hair from her face. "Sleep with your eyes open, you bast - "
He plucked her out of the water to swing her over his shoulder. He walked like this, leading the horse, water flooding down on him from her skirts, as she screamed and writhed the entire way back to the lodge.
After he gave the reins to a perplexed Liam, Court adjusted her on his shoulder and ignored her blows to his back. Gavin, sitting back in a chair, smoking his pipe, nodded his approval. "Really the only way to travel with that lass."
In her room he set her down, more gently on her feet than she deserved. She didn't wince or cry out. He grabbed her under the arms and pulled up one foot behind her at a time as he would a horse. A single small cut on her foot. She must've smeared the blood around to make it look worse. What a calculating -
She sucked in a breath between her teeth. She'd begun shivering, her teeth chattering.
"Get out of the dress," he ordered as he set her away. When she didn't move he said, "Be changed by the time I come back," and slammed out of the room. Five minutes later, he barged in to find her shivering more forcefully, lips pale, yet still in that wet dress. "Damn it, lass, I'll strip you down if you will no' take it off yourself."
At that she reached forward to pummel his shoulder. "C-Can't! You ignorant brute!"
He whirled her around. The ties in the back were tight and intricate. She'd been stuck in this thing. With a frustrated growl, he set to work, but gained no headway. The laces were swollen from the water, and his hands were fumbling, clumsy against her slim back.
"Stay here," he barked, then stomped outside to his saddle bag for his hunting knife. When he returned with it, her eyes went wide, though she had to know what his intentions were. Was she truly afraid of him? Was the sight of him with a knife - albeit a very large knife - so frightening? When he again turned her, she resisted. "Stay still." She didn't. "If you doona I may end up cutting you." More struggling. "What is it?" he bellowed.
"I-I don't want you to s-see."
In the midst of all this, she now chose to be the prim little lady again. Where was that lady when she kneed his chin? "You're no' in a position to get what you want. You forfeited any say you had when your rock met my temple. Understand?"
"I-I can manage!"
In a low, menacing voice beside her ear, he said, "In five seconds, I'm taking this thing off even if I have to put you face down on the cot, your wrists in my hand and my knee on your arse."
She went perfectly still but for her shaking. Carefully, he rent the dress. It sagged, but she caught it up to her front. Another cut and her petticoats plunked heavily to the floor. "Step out of them."
She shook her head.
"You prefer on the bed, Annalía?"
She stepped out of the material. He peeled the sodden dress from her, leaving her in her corset, pantalettes, and shift.
All of which were wet, two to the point of transparency.
It was as though she'd hit him again. Her body was slight but strong, and she was rounded, perfectly rounded, in all the right places. Her ni**les were hard and pink, pressing against the clinging fabric. His mouth watered thinking of how he longed to lick them, now when they were wet, and he scrubbed a hand over his mouth as he took a step toward her.
She crossed her arms over her chest, hands on opposite shoulders in an X, and cried, "Not again!"
Her expression was one of complete disgust. His desire for her brought out disgust, yet she was ready to bed Pascal. Had chosen Pascal over him. He hid his anger and gave her a bored look. "I'm a man - you're a woman I want to tup. Get used to it."
When MacCarrick stormed from the room, Annalía dove for her clothes. Undressed like this! Here, with no lock on the door! She yanked one bag to the bed, casting away the bunch of bound wildflowers she'd hastily hidden behind it. One of the mercenaries had given them to her this morning, and she hadn't wanted MacCarrick to know his men had let her outside.
But MacCarrick returned not a minute later with a towel. He tossed it to her, and as she'd known he would, he glanced past her, scowling at the flowers on the floor. "You were outside with them?"
"How deductive you are!" she exclaimed, wrapping the towel around her.
"Who gave those to you?"
"I don't know." Some younger, fairly handsome redhead had. "Someone called Mac-something."
"They're all called Mac-something."
"Which is precisely why it is so difficult to differentiate, and hardly of any account anyway" - she skewered him with a look - "since you are all the same."
He looked like he'd throttle her. "Is that so?"
"Aye," she said with a sneer, hating him so much it burned inside. She'd had enough.
Before MacCarrick had returned to toss her into an icy stream and strip her by knife, his men had freed her, apparently for their entertainment. They'd towered over her, and on Liam's suggestion, they'd wanted to touch her "wee, soft hands," fondling her like the clan's new bizarre pet.
They'd wanted to hear her speak Catalan and French. A few asked to smell her hair, like animals, and the rest thought that a fine idea, but she'd peered up to the one-eyed giant helplessly, and he'd drawn the line. Literally. Over his throat to tell the others without words to behave. Enough.
"Who?" MacCarrick's huge fists were clenched, his sleeves rolled up so she could see bulging ridges in his arms.
She had to wonder if her better prospect might be letting the horde smell her hair.
"I don't know who." As the giant had shown her around, the entire scarred lot of them had come up to her and introduced themselves, and of course all the names had sounded the same. She exhaled wearily. "Mac-something."
"An entire morning with the crew?" His tone was deceptively calm and all the more terrifying for it. "They're no' a modest lot. Far from it. I bet you saw sights you'd never seen before."
She felt her face flush, which seemed to make him even angrier. It wasn't as if she'd sought to watch brawny Highlanders without their shirts, sweating and fighting in the sun. But yes, she'd continued watching, even when one tripped another to the ground and she'd discovered that at least one Scot wore nothing beneath his kilt.
She'd watched not only out of dazed curiosity - she'd also been noting where and how they hit each other. "I will concede that I saw...things a proper young lady should not."
"A proper young lady, then?" he asked as he closed in on her. "You've decided that I'm nothing but a lowly Scot and a brute, but I'm no' quite convinced what you are." He grabbed her by the waist, making her cry out in surprise, then carried her to the table in the corner. When he dropped her on the edge, the wood snagged the material of the bath linen. "Tell me, would a proper young lady kiss the first lowly Scot to come into her home?" He grasped her chin in between his thumb and forefinger. "Would she clutch his shoulders so the brute would no' stop tasting her skin?" He put his lips directly by her ear. "I doona believe she'd moan when he shoved himself between her legs and took her mouth."
She turned away, humiliated, but he laid his coarse hands on her cheeks and forced her to look up at him. At length, she said, "You are correct."
His eyes narrowed. He had the devil's own eyes. And when his face was drawn like this, the deep starburst scar below his temple whitened. When he'd first come to her home, she'd run her fingers over it. Tenderly. She was not being treated tenderly in kind.