Chapter Thirteen
Lyall fumed for miles as they trailed around the edge of the loch. He gripped Giselle hard around her waist, constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure they were not being followed. She was all questions, much to his annoyance.
‘Who was that man? Did you know him?’
‘No,’ he snarled, turning his horse into the trees.
‘But he knows your sister?’
‘It would appear so, and when I get back to Beharra, she will have some explaining to do. And next time you decide to speak, Giselle, could it please not be in the cause of letting everyone around know that you are English.’
‘Why should I hide the fact that you are dragging me north, as your prisoner?’
‘Because I just told you to hold your tongue, that’s why. As for being my prisoner, you weren’t putting up much resistance just now.’
She gasped. ‘That is unfair, and it is cruel, too.’ She hung her head down. ‘You started it,’ she said quietly.
Why was he calling her a whore? She was right. It was all his fault, not hers. He wasn’t even angry at her, so why wound her? Whoever that Will fellow was, they’d had a lucky escape. Those men could have killed him and then done what they wanted with Giselle. He should never have put her safety at risk like that. He should never have put her virginity at risk with his lust, either. He definitely should not have put his hands on her, because, now that he had, he could not stop thinking about it and longing to do it again.
‘Giselle, forgive my anger. It is with myself, not you, and also with that man for the way he spoke about my sister.’
‘He has some affection for your sister, it would seem.’
‘Affection you call it. Well, I call it something else entirely. Whatever it was, it was strong enough for the brute to spare us, on Morna’s account. That, in itself, gives me cause for alarm. William O’Neill better not come anywhere near Beharra or my sister if he knows what’s good for him.’
‘No, because you wouldn’t want a man to treat your sister as you just treated me, would you?’ said Giselle.
Lyall pulled the horse to an abrupt halt before a rocky outcrop and dismounted, pulling Giselle roughly off its back. She leapt away from him as if she had been stung, so he went to secure the horse. The thunder sounded directly overhead, and the light was failing.
‘Follow me,’ he said, ‘we have to push through the bushes.’
It was easy to miss if you did not know it was there, but Lyall had ridden these paths many times. He thrashed about in the undergrowth and found the gaping hole in the rock face, overhung by a jutting rock.
‘A cave?’ she exclaimed. ‘You can’t mean us to sleep there. It is nought but a filthy hole, and what about bears and wolves and such?’
‘If there are any, they’ll have to clear out, for I want to sleep dry and safe tonight.’
Rain started to pelt down harder, a few fat drops at first, but worsening.
‘Look, Giselle, no tracks in and out means no animals. Get undercover, and I will get some wood to make a fire to scare away any wee beasties that might prey on us.’
Once Lyall had gone, Giselle sat at the mouth of the cave hugging her arms around her and listening to the rain plopping down onto the leaves, turning the forest to a wet mist. Thank goodness it was a warm day because she felt a chill every time Lyall opened his mouth since their kiss and all the other things he had done, things she should have put a stop to. Oh, the shame of it.
That big, rough Scot had put his hands on all the secret places of her body, which no man had ever seen before, let alone touched. At the thought of his long fingers all over her she gasped, and reddened. She knew that men and women cleaved together and that they could enjoy and want that strange coupling.
Some years ago, Giselle had blundered across a servant girl giving herself to a groom in the stables. How scandalised she had been, and how puzzled as to what strange need compelled them to rut like that, amongst the horses and pigs. It had seemed so base. The man had his hand at the girls throat, his breeches round his knees, and she has been spread under him in the hay, so wide and helpless. But as he rocked inside her, she had been calling his name and gasping that she loved him. Surely what he was doing could not have been enjoyable? It had looked so much like violence. But instinctively Giselle knew it was not, and she had hurried away with a burning face and a strange throb between her legs, which shamed her for days afterwards. In a way, she had envied that servant her strange ecstasy.
Now Giselle understood it, and what a terrifying thing it was. Did that make her a whore? What would Lyall Buchanan think of her now? Had she fallen in his eyes? It had been frightening when he had taken hold of her, what with his size and the evidence of recent violence all over his bruised face. She knew what Lyall could do with his fists and so she had been still, and let him do what he would, in the hope that he would stop and have mercy on her innocence. But it hadn’t taken long for her fear to turn into something else entirely, and for her to want him to continue. Lyall’s kiss had been delicious. It had aroused and thrilled. Where would it have ended, if he had not pulled away?
The rustle of bushes announced Lyall’s return, with an armful of sticks and dry moss. Giselle could not meet his eye, and by the time the fire was smouldering, the wind had picked up and was lashing the trees from side to side.
Inside the cave, all was musty and dark. It was barely large enough to stand up fully and did not seem to stretch very far back, though Giselle had no desire to explore it. Nor did she want to stay at the entrance, close to Lyall, who hunched silent and grave, tending the fire and looking out at the rain. She wished to flee from him, but she was trapped between the storm raging outside, and the one raging between them.
Lyall may be angry with her, and he may be a little frightening, but he stirred something in her breast, which was infinitely more exciting than her girlish dreams of chivalrous knights and courtly love. It was because he was a full-grown man of flesh and blood, and she could reach out and touch him, run her fingers over his warm skin, taste his lips. That thing between his legs, oh my, it had been hard to tear her eyes away from it.
When Lyall came to hand her some food, he regarded her in a steady, puzzled sort of way, with a furrowed brow. Could this be what Agnes meant? Did she have some power over him? If she did, Giselle had no idea how to wield it.
‘I hope the horse is still there in the morning, or else we will be walking to Beharra,’ he said, eventually, breaking the silence and making her jump. He began to spread blankets out on the ground behind the fire, out of reach of the rain gusting in. ‘Tis a good days’ ride from here, and I had hoped to get further before the storm set in. Now it looks like we’ll have to stay here tonight, but tomorrow you will spend a more pleasant night than this, with good food and a softer bed.’