The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(53)

Pushed to the end of his rope, he leaned even closer. He admitted he took too much pleasure in the little hitch of breath and widening of her eyes. She might hate him, but she still was aware of him. He reached out his hand, when suddenly the door behind them opened.

Bella was grateful for the interruption when it came. Being alone with Lachlan MacRuairi had never been easy, and what he’d just told her had left her feeling as if she’d just taken her first steps on land after being at sea for years.

She’d never thought to see him again. She’d put him behind her. Hardly thought of him at all. She bit her lip. At least not as much as she used to. The sharp twinge in her chest had dulled to a pang. He’d become one more regret of an unpleasant past she had no wish to remember.

But part of her had always wondered what she would do if she ever saw him again. Would she stick a dagger in his back as he’d done to her? Curse him to the devil who spawned him? Hit him? Cry? Fall to her knees and beg him to tell her why?

She hadn’t expected the hurt, the knife of pain that stabbed through her chest at the first sight of him, or the rush of churning emotions that swirled inside her, making her feel as if she were going to be ill.

Then, for one treacherous heartbeat, she’d felt something else. She’d looked into the face that had only grown harder, meaner, and even more sinfully handsome over the years, and felt a tug of longing so strong it stole her breath.

He’d cut his hair, she realized, but everything else was painfully familiar. She’d gazed upon that strong jaw, those eerily bright green eyes, the dangerously sensual mouth, and remembered exactly how it had felt on hers. How he could make her weak with pleasure and desperate for more.

She hated him for reminding her. For confusing her. For making her want to believe him. In her weaker moments, part of her had wondered if she’d been wrong. Maybe he hadn’t betrayed her. Robert’s ring seemed some proof that he might be telling the truth.

Why did he have to come now? For two years she’d prayed for someone to release her from her cruel prison. But even if she believed his story, even if she would dare to risk putting her life in his hands once more, she couldn’t go. Not while there was a threat to her daughter.

Shame coursed through her as tears welled in her eyes. She’d be damned if she’d let him see her cry. Damned if she’d let him see her torment and know how desperately she longed for escape. She wouldn’t let him see how close she was to falling apart.

Struggling for composure, Bella was relieved when the door opened and Margaret entered the room. It gave her the moment she needed to collect herself.

She forced a deep breath through her lungs, exhaling slowly to calm the emotions fluttering too close to the surface. For a moment she’d actually thought he meant to kiss her. But she’d never been much good at reading him, and after two years’ separation he was a virtual stranger to her.

Except he wasn’t.

The guard stood behind Margaret as her cousin entered the room. “Are you finished?”

Lachlan answered before she could. “Almost. Just a few more minutes.”

Bella felt the ridiculous urge to laugh at his affected tone. Was that supposed to be priestly? He didn’t have a pious bone in his body. Even with the hood thrown back over his head, and his attempt to slouch and appear unthreatening, Lachlan MacRuairi looked every inch the battle-hard brute. A man of undeniable and daunting physicality. Perversely, it was one of the things that had attracted her.

Margaret stopped in her tracks. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to interrupt. I can wait—”

“Nay!” Bella said, not giving Lachlan the opportunity to agree. She didn’t want to be alone with him. “As the good father said, we are almost done.”

Margaret looked back and forth between her and the “priest,” a puzzled frown wrinkling her brow. “All right.”

Bella feared the guard had noticed her jumpiness. He gave her a hard look. She forced a serene expression and met his gaze unflinchingly until he closed the door.

Lachlan tossed his hood back angrily. “What the hell do you think—”

Margaret’s gasp stopped him.

He cursed under his breath, shooting Bella a glare as if it were somehow her fault he’d forgotten, and then turned to her cousin. “Lady Margaret,” he whispered with a short nod. “I’m sorry to startle you. I’ve come to get your cousin out of here, only it seems she’s refusing to go.”

Margaret turned her surprise to Bella. “What’s this, Bella? Of course you must go. If there is a chance to be free—”

Bella shook her head. “I can’t.”

Margaret looked to Lachlan as if she hadn’t spoken. Bella owed her cousin so much. For two years she’d stood by her side, braving the horrible castle every day to attend her, keep her company, and bring her what news she could of the outside world. But Margaret’s ready alliance with Lachlan—in the face of everything he’d done to them, or they thought he’d done to them—felt like a betrayal. “What is your plan?” Margaret asked him. “How can you sneak her out of the tower?”

“Not the tower,” he said. “Tomorrow, on the road. You will be traveling with the countess?”

Margaret nodded, and Bella didn’t bother to correct him about her title.

“Good,” he said. “My men and I will attack your carriage, in the forest on the outskirts of town. I need you to be ready. Do not come out until it is over. I don’t want either of you to be harmed.”