"Wanton," the laird panted. "Which makes her even more beautiful. There is no sweeter music than when she screams in pleasure, which we will make her do again this night."

And they did.

Ian had surprisingly clever fingers; he knew how to rub at my nipples and the swollen pearl between my nether lips, to bring me to climax again. And the laird tugged at my hair and took me again in the a.r.s.e, as if he had decided it was his favorite way to take me.

It would be a lie to say that I did not desire Ian Macrae.

Like fire to ice, his softer touch was the balm to my laird's rougher ways. And something came about between the three of us, that seemed to connect us beyond the body. Perhaps it was if all the ways of the world were suspended for the moment, here, in the laird's bed, where neither man had to hide from one another the l.u.s.ts of his heart. Where neither man bothered to stifle a cry or show any concern for skin against skin.

I came again and again, with both men, until I lost count. Until just the sight of either man's softening c.o.c.k became a challenge to rouse it again. Until both men were sated and drained and wearier than I was.

Chapter Seven.

When I came to awareness again from whatever blackness had taken my mind, my head was resting upon Ian's outstretched arm, and I heard the deep breath of his sleep behind me on the pillow. My own arm was stretched across the laird's broad chest, fingers lightly tangled in the short hairs there.

I thought that he, too, must be asleep. But I'd spent enough nights in his bed to know the laird's habits; he was too still for sleep, his breathing too shallow.

My laird had told me that sharing me with Ian would ease his mind and take a burden from him; that he would rest easier if I did it.

So why was he still awake and restless?

"Laird?" I whispered into the dark.

His finger pressed softly to my lips to quiet me. That's when I realized that he was not only awake, but staring at me. He'd been watching me in the moonlight all this while, and I wished I could see his features better. What would I see in his eyes? As I wondered, he took my face in his hands and brought me closer to him. So close that our foreheads touched, making a little s.p.a.ce between us that admitted nothing and no one else.

His warm breath caressing my face, he whispered two words very softly in Gaelic. So softly I was sure that I'd misheard him. Then he said them again, with more intensity than before. "Mo chridhe," he whispered. My heart. That's what he was saying to me. I startled at this tender term of endearment. Truly I did. Especially when he followed it with, "I have never loved a woman before. Never let myself love a woman. Never wished to love. But, oh, how I love you..."

No. He couldn't mean it; especially not now. Not when another man's sweat and seed were cooling on my body. Not when another man's skin was still naked against mine! Perhaps that is why I so breathlessly said, "What?"

"Shhh," the laird whispered, pressing his mouth to my ear. "Don't wake Ian. I would wait to say it until he had gone, but my heart will burst if I wait." He took my fingers and held them against his heart, which throbbed hard and strong beneath my touch. "You have stolen this heart la.s.s, little by little, each night since I met you. But tonight you claimed it completely. I cannot deny it to you, or to G.o.d or to anyone. Now you are my heart. Mo chridhe."

Sudden tears of joy wet my lashes as I was overcome with emotion. I had his heart? Not only his protection, his kindness and his body, but his heart. It seemed to change everything. Such a thing seemed a miracle to me. A blessing beyond comprehension. I started to say as much. To tell the laird that I loved him, too.

When suddenly, the laird's hand clamped over my mouth to hush me.

For a moment, I thought it love play. But then I realized that he wasn't tensing for action; he was listening. Listening with all his senses. And so I listened too. I heard the faint sound of a sc.r.a.pe, like a shoe across the floor. A breath that wouldn't have been discernible if I hadn't been holding my own.

There was someone else in the room.

Someone other than Ian, who had also gone silent and breathless.

Things happened very swiftly after that.

I heard the whoosh of something slice through the air just before the laird twisted and threw me off the bed, onto the floor. The fierce fighting began while I was still p.r.o.ne, gasping from the shock of landing so hard on my hands and knees. Shouts erupted from the bed where I caught glimpses in the dark of my laird wrestling some shadowy figure.

Goods Blood, was it Ian? Had he treacherously used this moment to- But no.

It was Ian Macrae who delivered a kick that sent an attacker flying, before managing to find his sword in the dark. The clang of metal against metal filled the air, and I began to shriek, realizing that there was a second attacker. The enemy had somehow gotten over the wall-snuck into the castle-and would slaughter us all.

I screamed, hopelessly vulnerable in my nakedness, but searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon. A dressing table went over in the close-fighting of the men and with it a candlestick-and I used my bare hands to stamp out the flame before the room caught fire.

We're all going to be murdered, I thought. But I knew my laird would fight to the bitter end, and so would I. I grabbed up the candlestick and wielded it, bashing it into the leg of the man my laird grappled with.

Another bloodcurdling scream split the night as Ian's sword punched through a man's guts. I saw the attacker's figure slump against the wardrobe and fall to the floor just before my laird came down hard upon his own attacker, wrestling for a dirk.

Pounding footsteps could be heard on the stairs-our men, or the enemy, I couldn't know. I somehow scrambled to my feet just as the door was flung open and the room flooded with torchlight. I screamed again, for this light revealed the exact moment that the laird shoved a blade into the skull of the man atop him.

Then the dark, grim, unsmiling Malcolm appeared in the doorway, sword drawn, and I'd never been so glad to see him before. Our men. Thank G.o.d.

"Laird!" Malcolm cried, as he pushed into the room.

"Are there more?" the laird snapped, shoving the corpse off him.

"No," Malcolm replied, after a quick search of the room.

The laird wasn't taking any chances though. He found his plaid and was arming himself in an instant. Meanwhile, I backed up against the wall, naked and horrified by the b.l.o.o.d.y carnage of the scene.

Ian was a vision from h.e.l.l, naked and covered in red blood from neck to toe. The bed itself was a destroyed ma.s.s of feathers and straw, an axe stuck in the mattress just where I'd been before the laird threw me to the floor.

And my laird-oh, he was a rampaging figure of rage, slamming the door shut to let no one else in, then shouting every curse word I'd ever heard in English or Gaelic.

I realized how lucky we were. These men had come to kill the laird. They had decided to kill him in his sleep, when he would be defenseless and alone but for his harlot. They'd obviously feared him enough to send two a.s.sa.s.sins instead of one. But they hadn't counted on finding another swordsmen in the laird's bed.

And if Ian hadn't been there...

I shuddered to think. The laird would be dead.

We both would be.

THE LAIRD.

That he'd been attacked in his own castle-in his own bed-was a matter of such profound disgrace that John couldn't bear for the rest of the castle to look on. Turning to wrap Heather in a blanket, John snapped, "Let no one else in the door."

Meanwhile, Heather dropped something at his feet. A bloodied candlestick, he saw. Had she used it? "Are you hurt, la.s.s?"

She shivered, but bravely said, "Not at all."

That wasn't true, though. The blood on the candlestick, he realized, was from her hands, which appeared to have been burned a bit. Or maybe, along with her knees, they'd been sc.r.a.ped when he'd thrown her to the floor.

And he'd done it because of these wicked fiends.

"Do you know these invaders?" the laird asked his men.

Ian and Malcolm were already inspecting the bodies. "This one's a Donald," Malcolm grimly concluded.

"How do you know?" Ian asked, holding his forearm, which seemed to have been cut in the fighting.

Malcolm's eyes never left the dead man's face when he answered. "I killed a man who looked just like him in a clearing not long ago. I don't forget the faces of men I kill. Especially not those fixing to rape a la.s.s. This one is maybe a twin or a kinsman of the one I killed."

Donalds, in his castle. The laird seethed with fury. And yet, according to Malcolm, none of the entrances had been breached. Which lead the laird to conclude, "So they came over the wall..."

Malcolm shook his head. "I don't think so. Not tonight. The men were alert-even young Rodric. There's a full moon and a snapping vicious wind. Men crossing the loch in little boats would have been spotted if not sent down into the deep. T'would be suicidal for them to have made the attempt."

Ian continued to hold his bloodied arm. "So they were more likely here all along disguised amongst the villagers, or someone let them inside."

Once, I might've suspected that someone was you, the laird thought. But no more. Whether the cause was love, loyalty, or instinct, the plain fact remained that Ian Macrae had saved the laird's life. Not just his, but Heather's too.

And not for the first time.

It was a thing obviously not lost on the la.s.s, either, who stood trembling now, clinging to her blanket, staring at the corpses on the floor. Thank goodness it had been Malcolm to come running at the sound of her scream. Any other man in the castle might have something to say about finding the laird, his woman, and one of his warriors in a state of undress together in the wee hours of the night.

Thankfully, Malcolm was so taciturn that not only wouldn't take any interest in what he saw, but would never say a word about it.

Even so, they had better get their stories straight lest the castle be thrown into paranoid turmoil. John would have liked to deny the incident completely, but that wasn't possible, so a story would have to be concocted. "There was a lone attacker," the laird said, slowly. "Ian was standing guard outside my door-the a.s.sa.s.sin grappled with him. Knocking Ian momentarily senseless, the attacker burst into the room; fortunately, the noise alerted me before the ax came down on the bed."

Heather blinked, but, fortunately, John's men knew what he was about. "One attacker instead of two," Malcolm said, with a nod. It would be the official story...one that would leave any conspirators confused and worried. Perhaps enough to accidentally reveal themselves.

"What do we do with the extra body?" Ian asked.

Without the slightest regret in his heart, the laird said, "Dump it in the loch."

His men would have to arrange it when no one was about; but the laird could trust them. For that matter, he trusted Heather, too. This carnage and cloak-n-dagger business wasn't for simple crofter's girls or the faint of heart. But he understood a strength in her that no one else knew. "Heather, we tell no one what actually happened here tonight. Not your sister. Not anyone."

Heather's lower lip wobbled. But she nodded. "I understand."

"Malcolm, take her to get cleaned up and tended," the laird commanded.

Heather didn't want to go. "I'm no more wounded than you. It's Ian who-"

"I'm well enough," Ian protested, to Heather. "But tending to you will keep the staff occupied."

Heather's violet eyes shifted to meet the laird's a question in them, which he answered with a nod. "I'll come find you soon, la.s.s. Go."

She went, with only one backward glance at the bed where John had shared her with another man-and where an ax nearly chopped her in half. And her bleak expression would haunt the laird, he was sure, for what remained of his life.

He'd made his admission of love to her in the quiet of the night, just before these devils had attacked them. It had been an emotional moment, exquisite and perfectly vulnerable. Destroyed now. He was almost as bitter about that as the fact they'd been sent to kill him.

With Malcolm and Heather gone, Ian kicked one of the corpses and spit a curse. "So the story is to be that I was outside your door...I should've been, laird."

John decided to ignore the possible double-meaning in his kinsman's words. He'd shared Heather with Ian to bring them closer together; it would ruin everything if Ian would now regret the experience. "There was no cause for you to be outside my door. You're not a bodyguard. You're my second-in-command."

Ian gave a frustrated shake of his head. "Someone should have been outside your door. You must have guards now at all times."

"We can't spare them from the walls."

"You need someone if only for the show of the thing!"

The laird shrugged. "Post Rodric there, then, if you must."

"The young fool who fell asleep at his post?"

"That was weeks ago," the laird replied. "It won't happen again. The lad will be wanting to redeem himself."

"You won't risk the castle, just yourself?" Ian asked.

"What's the point of being a laird if not to do just that?"

Still holding a bleeding forearm, Ian paced. "If I hadn't been here tonight..."

John's pride nearly compelled him to argue that he could've taken on both a.s.sa.s.sins by himself in the dark. But that was unlikely and Heather would've come to harm. So he conceded the point. "If you hadn't been here tonight, then I'd be dead now and you'd be the laird of this clan."

Ian slanted him a glance. "Why was I here tonight?"

The laird noticed Ian's his hooded, carefully guarded eyes, and thought it was not merely the fact they were having this talk over two dead bodies that accounted for the tension in Ian's shoulders. "Because I invited you."

Ian's eyes slid away. "And yet, it felt as if you were testing my loyalty and that I failed in every particular."

Now that was curious. "I should say you succeeded in the ultimate test of loyalty, Ian. Do you need thanks for fighting for me-"

"I don't need thanks for doing what I've sworn to do," Ian snapped. "But you won't thank me for touching your woman, will you? You dangled her before me. And I failed to refuse the offer."

Ah. So that's what this was about. John tried to set his kinsman's mind at ease on that score. "What did you think, Ian? That I would bid a woman to kneel and take you between her lips, then expect you to pull away? I wouldn't have offered to share her if I didn't wish it."

Ian's eyes narrowed. "No man could want to share a woman like her."

Ian's voice actually cracked on the last word, betraying that what he felt for Heather was not merely l.u.s.t. And a mixture of emotions flooded the laird's heart. First, came the jealousy. Oh, he'd known Ian l.u.s.ted for his violet-eyed beauty. But to harbor emotions for her...that was exactly the kind of attachment he'd hoped to inspire in his kinsman. And yet, it was like a knife to the heart.

Still, John would have to endure it for Heather's sake. She took pain for him every night. Took it gladly. Took it with courage and devotion. He could do no less for her. What he should feel was relief that Ian cared for Heather-had perhaps cared for her all along, and been too loyal to show it.

Meanwhile, Ian was saying, "I wasn't about to let you toy with me. I decided to take you at your word because I am not a man for games. I wanted what we shared in that bed tonight, and no matter the sin-"

"Jesus, Joseph and Mary!" The laird shouted, feeling a vein in his forehead begin to pulse. "Sometimes you're as priggish as a churchman. Until we were nearly murdered, we had a most enjoyable evening. Most. Enjoyable. And if you deny it, I'll know you for a liar and a hypocrite."

Ian crossed his arms over himself. "I won't deny it."

"Good. Then I don't want to hear another word from you about the sin of it. Especially not to the la.s.s. She's been through enough."

Ian's jaw clenched at that, as if he agreed.