Oh, how she’d grieved when it was over.
The memory of his leaving broke through her dazed state. Shivering with emotion, she tried to draw back.
“Shh. No need to fear, I’ve got you safe.” He drew her into his embrace. The feel of his arms was so familiar, so welcome after six long years of drought, that she shivered again. “Easy.” He stroked her back, as he’d done so often in the past, holding her as she drifted down from the heights of passion into blissful contentment.
Angered by her own weakness, she tried to twist free, but he held her fast. Clearly, whatever he’d been doing in France these six years had built up his strength, not depleted it. “You are hurting me,” she said, knowing his one weakness.
His grip eased, but he didn’t let her go. “I know I hurt you,” he said, his voice low and tight, and she knew it was not the present of which he spoke, but the past.
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“I understand, but—”
“Oh, you do?” The temper Rowena had held in check all the while she’d lived with the Gunns suddenly threatened to explode. Shaking free of his grip, she shouted, “Well, understand this, I loved you. With all my heart. When you left, you broke it. You nearly broke me. Do not,” she added, when he reached for her again.
“You have every right to be hurt and upset, but there are things I need to tell you.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear them.”
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, a sure sign he was agitated and trying to work through a problem. Good. She hoped it plagued him into the early grave he so richly deserved.
“At least listen to what I have to say,” he argued. “You owe me that much.”
“I owe you?” Rowena’s simmering fury boiled over. She buried her elbow in his rock-hard midsection, ignoring the shaft of pain that traveled up her arm. His grunt of surprise as he bent over was satisfying, but not half as much as the sharp oath she wrang from him when her knee caught him under the chin.
The earth shook as he hit the ground. “Damn.” He dragged the hair from his eyes with an angry swipe. “Where the hell did you learn such low tricks?” he gasped.
“From you. You said a lass should be able to protect herself.” Rowena stood over him, hands on her hips, wounded spirits soaring. Seeing him lying at her feet almost made up for the past. Almost. “And I could not agree more.” Dusting off her hands, she spun around to look for her horse.
But she’d forgotten how quick he’d always been to retaliate. Grabbing hold of her ankle, he jerked her down on top of him. Before she could wriggle upright, he rolled, pinning her to the soggy ground with one heavy thigh. His elbows were planted just above her shoulders, caging her, yet sparing her the brunt of his weight. Eyes bright with anger and something even more dangerous, he smiled down at her. “Even better.”
The feel of his warm, solid body pressing into hers, the scent of his skin, the quick hammer of his heart against hers were so achingly familiar that for a moment her mind emptied of everything but this. She’d thought herself dead to all emotion save her love for Paddy. ’Twas the worst irony to find that even after six years of hating him, with one touch Lion could still make her yearn and burn.
“Ah, Ro. Jesu, but I’ve missed you.” He lowered his head, his breath warm on her mouth.
Buffeted by memories, she waited, wanting his kiss, craving the taste of him. And then what? She’d been down that path before. It promised paradise, but lead to hell. “Nay!” She turned her head aside, shivering as his lips grazed her ear.
“You cannot avoid the inevitable,” he whispered, nibbling his way across her cheek.
She had to. Desperate, Rowena fought back the only way she could. When his lips grazed hers, she bit him. Hard.
“Hell!” Lion reared back, eyes shocked, blood welling from a neat set of marks in his lower lip.
Rowena was so furious with him, with herself, that she shook all over. Nay, ’twas the ground that shook. She looked up, past Lion’s shoulder, to see a troop of mounted men galloping toward them.
“Lion!” called one of them. “I thought you were rescuing the lady, not debauching her.”
Lion rose lithely. “Save your pity, Bryce. I’m the one with bruised ribs and a bloody lip. Any losses?”
“Nay, we chased the MacPhersons off before they could do more than frighten these folk. And the lady?”
“Is just fine, thank you,” Rowena said briskly. She dusted off her hands and searched the crowd of milling men, finding the Gunns knotted together in the throng. Eneas’s disappointment at finding her alive was apparent. Some of the others looked shame-faced. And well they should, riding off and leaving a lady and a lad to face a horde of—“Oh, my guardsman,” she exclaimed, starting back down the road. “He was injured.”
“I will find him,” Lion said, trotting alongside her.
Rowena turned on him. “I do not want your help.”
He had the nerve to look hurt. “Bryce,” he called over his shoulder. “Would you assist the lady Rowena in finding her man?”
Rowena marched down the muddy track, the knowledge that Lion watched her sending an odd thrill down her spine. Seeing him again after all this time was...
Terrible. Horrible.
And exciting.
Dangerously exciting.
That was what frightened her the most.
Bryce Sutherland waited till the little cavalcade, with himself and Lion at its head, had gotten underway before he broached a delicate subject. “How does it seem, seeing the lady Rowena after all this time?” he asked of his cousin.
“I am not sure,” Lion replied.
This from the man who was always confident, always knew which way to jump, no matter how perilous the situation? “’Twas a shock,” Bryce said. Ten years Lion’s senior, he was as much mentor as captain of the elite force that had fought under the Sutherland banner during their years in France.
“Aye. When I realized the lass I’d saved from the MacPherson was Rowena, I damn near fell over.” A muscle in Lion’s cheek jumped as he flexed his jaw. “She is not well pleased to see me,” he said in a low, troubled voice. “And who can blame her, for she thinks I left her without a care or a qualm.”
“Did you not explain what happened that night?”
“She would not speak of it.” Lion exhaled, his eyes bleak in the sockets of his helmet.
“Mmm. Mayhap she will when she is over the shock of the MacPhersons’ attack and her guard’s wounding.” Bryce deftly changed the subject. “Did she say what they were doing here?”
Lion shifted in the saddle, barely resisting the urge to look back at the object of his turbulent thoughts. She’d refused any further help from him. That had hurt. “I did not think to ask.”
“Aye. You were a trifle busy when we arrived.”
Lion flushed. “Appearance to the contrary, I was not trying to seduce her.” Though he’d wanted to. Still did, if the truth be known. He’d gorged himself on women when he’d learned his Rowena had wed another, but none of them had captured his heart or satisfied his soul the way she could.
“Have your