Неизвестный Read online

  "And Nora is promised to another. Did you know that? She is as bound to him as your father was—"

  "Nay. Ewan won't allow her to marry another. I know it."

  He shook his head. "Don't play with their lives, Cat. I beg you. I'm doing this only because I was told to, but you know I never agreed with it. Leave them in peace."

  Cat understood his warning. He was right. In spite of her parents' love, they had been forced to live their lives apart. But it wasn't her starry eyes that had put Ewan and Nora together. It was their own actions.

  And if she could do anything to help them, she would.

  Nora came awake to find herself still lying atop of Ewan. Heat exploded across her face as she remembered what they had done in the late night hours.

  Now in the light of day, she saw their naked bodies.

  As she pulled back, Ewan jerked awake as if expecting to battle.

  He relaxed as soon as he saw her. The tender smile he gave her went a long way in alleviating her embarrassment.

  "Morning, sweeting."

  "Good morning."

  "Are you sore?" he asked.

  The heat returned to her face. "Nay, are you?"

  He laughed at that. Heavens, how she loved the sound of that deep rumble.

  "Nay, love. Not a bit."

  He sat up and the plaid slipped back, exposing his body to her. Nora couldn't stop her gaze from dropping down to see him hard again.

  "Does it do that a lot?"

  He looked down at himself, then met her gaze with a wicked grin. "Only when I look at you."

  His kiss was both light and demanding.

  At least until they heard the gypsies moving about and talking.

  Ewan pulled back. "We'd best dress before they come looking for us."

  Nora nodded.

  As she reached for her chemise, she realized her thighs were smeared in blood.

  Ewan turned at her dismayed gasp. He picked her up from the ground and carried her to the stream and helped her bathe. He was so incredibly tender.

  She saw the frown on his face as he removed all traces of what they'd done.

  "Are you sorry for what we did?" she asked.

  Ewan looked up, his gaze a cross between shock and guilt. "I'm not sorry for what we did. How could I be? I'm only afraid of what might happen to you if someone else learns of this."

  "I won't tell anyone. I promise I won't ask anything more of you."

  Ewan froze.

  Her words shinned him. He'd never known a woman so kind. He'd had countless friends forced to marry a wench because she quickly sought out her father with the tale of what they'd done.

  Instead Nora offered him immunity.

  She was truly a unique lass.

  One he wished he could spend a lifetime learning.

  He hesitated at the thought.

  Dare he chance it?

  Dare he not?

  He stood before her, unsure of what to do. Unsure of what he should do.

  But in the end, he had one truth that resonated inside him.

  Nora deserved better than him.

  After he bathed her, they dressed while he considered what he should do with her.

  They made their way back to the gypsies, who were up and cooking.

  "Where have you two been?" Viktor asked.

  For the first time, Nora was at a loss for words as she blushed and looked up at him with fear in her eyes.

  "We got up early and went for a walk," Ewan said.

  If the gypsies didn't believe it, no one said anything. They merely kept on with their various tasks, ignoring them.

  Catarina approached them with two platters of sausage and hard bread. "I figured the two of you would be a bit hungry this morning."

  She cocked her head as she looked at Nora. "Though you be looking a bit tired, my lady. Did you not sleep well?"

  "Very well, thank you," Nora said quickly, taking her platter and moving away from Catarina's inquisitive stare.

  "And you, my lord?"

  Ewan forced himself not to glance over to Nora. "Quite well, thank you."

  They didn't speak while they ate, cleaned their platters, and then packed the wagon.

  Nora found herself riding on the wagon at Ewan's insistence.

  "You don't need to be riding a horse today, my lady," he said under his breath to her. "It will only make you more sore."

  Then he had kissed her cheek quickly and set her up beside Viktor.

  Nora was warmed by his thoughtfulness, and so she spent the day chatting with Viktor as they rode north to meet the man who had paid the gypsies to abduct Ewan.

  Ewan rode off to the side of the wagon and watched Nora, his heart aching for what he couldn't have.

  "Tell me," Lysander said as he reined his horse to ride by Ewan's side. "How did you manage to tolerate her chatter without stuffing a gag into her mouth?"

  "I don't mind her chatter."

  Lysander snorted at that. "Surely you jest. How can it not make your ears ring? I'm surprised poor Viktor hasn't snapped at her."

  Ewan shrugged.

  He kicked his horse forward so that he could speak with her. "Nora?"

  She turned to face him. The breeze tugged at strands of her pale hair that had come free of her brat. Her cheeks were bright red and her lips moist.

  How he ached to taste them again. To drink the delectable sweetness of her mouth until he was drunk from it.

  "Aye?" she asked.

  Ewan felt suckerpunched as he looked up at her. "Would you care to ride with me for a bit?"

  He saw the relieved look on Viktor's face as the man passed him a grateful nod.

  "Would that be proper?" she asked.

  "Aye, it would, my lady," Viktor hastened to assure her. He stopped the wagon.

  Ewan helped her from the wagon to his saddle. He pulled her across his lap so that she sat sideways before him.

  Nora gave him a suspicious look as she adjusted her skirt. "Are you doing this because you wanted me to ride with you or to save poor Viktor's hearing?"

  "Both."

  She smiled. "So you're not concerned about your own hearing then?"

  "Better I lose my hearing than Viktor wrings your neck."

  She laughed at that. "Then I shall have to torture him more if it means I get to sit in your lap. I rather like it here."

  So did he. More than he should.

  Nora felt good in his arms and even better spread out in his lap.

  Already he could imagine her as she'd been last night. Hot and welcoming to his touch.

  "How much farther do you think we'll travel before we break to sup?" she asked.

  "Are you hungry?"

  "Nay, not at all. But I grow weary of riding. How do you stand to be in the saddle for so long? Don't you wish to be free to walk?"

  Before he could answer, she went off on her own. "I think if we could travel by foot it would be better. The horse would like it better, too, I imagine. It must be hard on your horse for both of us to ride astride him."

  "You scarce weigh enough to bother him."

  "Aye, but you weigh at least twice the amount of a normal man, I would think."

  Ewan grimaced at her reminder.

  "Did that bother you? I'm sorry, Ewan. I should think you'd be proud of the fact that you're so large. My cousin Sean often laments that he is shorter than most men. Indeed, he's a full head shorter than I am. Why would your size bother you?"

  Catarina answered for him as she rode her horse beside them. "I imagine 'tis as big a curse to be too tall as it is to be too short. I am sure Lord Ewan lives in a world where nothing fits. Chairs and beds are ever too small."

  "Aye," he agreed, "I'm forever banging my head, arms or legs into things that are designed for men half my size. I even had to have my horse specially bred to be larger, too, else my knees would be dragging the ground."

  "I like your height," Nora confided. "There is nothing about your size that I would change."

 
Ewan stared at her, amazed.

  "Catarina?" Nora called out. "Do you think we will stop where there might be fresh berries to pick?"

  Ewan rode in silence as the women talked to each other. He couldn't fathom why Nora's tireless conversation no longer bothered him.

  "Would you?"

  He realized Nora was speaking to him. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What were you asking?"

  Nora laughed and looked completely unconcerned for the fact that his thoughts had trailed off from her conversation. "Catarina wanted to know if you'd pick berries with me. Will you?"

  "I…" He frowned at the question. "Pick berries?"

  "Nora will need protection," Catarina said. "Else she might get lost or perhaps be mauled by some bear or other wild thing in the woods."

  Ewan frowned at her words and at the odd note in her voice as she spoke of bears mauling Nora.

  He hadn't picked a berry since he was a boy. But the thought of being alone with Nora…

  Well, he'd most definitely like to maul her himself.

  "I would be happy to."

  Catarina nodded. "There you go then, Nora. We'll have fresh berries for dinner."

  The women talked until they stopped to eat. It was a little after noon. Ewan and the other men tended the horses while the ladies made a light meal of cold meat and cheese.

  But it wasn't food Ewan hungered for. It was the dainty woman who sat with her back straight and whose manners were as perfect as a queen's.

  Whose laughter rang out while she talked to the men and Catarina.

  As soon as they finished eating, Catarina handed Nora a small basket. "You fetch your berries while I clean up."

  The men started to protest, but the vicious scowl Catarina directed toward them stopped them instantly.

  "Take your time," Viktor said.

  "We won't be overly long," Nora assured them.

  That's what she thought.

  If Ewan had his way, they would be gone for a while, at least.

  They walked deep into the woods, until he could no longer hear the others and the gypsies could no longer hear them.

  Ewan watched her stoop for the berries. His gaze was fastened on her bottom as she bent over.

  He hardened instantly as he imagined lifting her skirt and burying himself deep inside her again.

  "Have you ever made your own tarts?" Nora asked, then stopped herself. "Nay, I guess not. You being a man and all. You probably never even picked berries, did you?"

  "I did."

  She straightened to look at him. "Truly?"

  "Aye. My mother used to take me and my brothers into the woods to pick berries for her pies and jams." He smiled wistfully at the memory. "But we usually ate so many of them that she would shoo us away shortly after we begun."

  "Who ate most of them?" Nora asked as she led him through the foliage in search of her fare. "You or one of your brothers?"

  "Kieran. He was always hungry."

  "And you weren't?"

  "Nay, not really."

  Nora started to climb over a fallen log.

  Ewan picked her up easily and swung her over it.

  "Thank you."

  He inclined his head and jumped over it with little effort.

  Nora watched him in the dappled sunlight. His black hair was curling becomingly around his shoulders. He was such a handsome man.

  Before she could think better of it, she took his hand in hers. She half expected him to let go. He didn't. Instead he squeezed her hand in his and offered her that hesitant smile that was such a part of him. It was one where the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly, and if one wasn't paying attention, one might not realize it was a smile at all.

  But she knew it.

  Just as she was beginning to know the man who gifted her with it.

  Then he led her hand to his mouth and placed a tender kiss on her knuckles.

  Nora shivered as she recognized the fire in his crystal blue eyes.

  "I've been wanting to kiss you for hours," he said, his voice deep and hoarse.

  Nora smiled as she cupped his face in her hands. She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Her brat fell from her head, down to her shoulders as he pulled her up to reach his mouth.

  Her head swam at his taste.

  She felt him reach around her and lift her skirt up.

  Ewan knew he shouldn't be doing this. One of the gypsies could stumble across them at any moment.

  But he couldn't pull back from her.

  She was irresistible to him.

  Nora gasped as he set her up on top of a tree branch and leaned her back against the tree trunk. Before she could ask him what he intended, he shoved her skirt back and spread her legs.

  She trembled at the sight of him staring at the center of her body. His eyes were dark and hooded as he slid his fingers down her cleft and gently into her.

  Then he dipped his head and took her gently into his mouth.

  She bit back a cry of pleasure as she reached up to hold on to the branch above her.

  Ewan was like a wild animal as he tasted her, and his caresses made her breathless and weak.

  He pulled back, his eyes blazing as he loosened his trewes, baring his swollen shaft to her eager sight. He kissed her lips a moment before he slid himself deep inside her.

  This time Nora did groan out loud.

  "Oh Ewan," she choked.

  His lips seared her as he thrust against her. Her body spiraled out of control, and when she came it was so intense that she couldn't keep herself from crying out.

  With three deep, sharp thrusts, Ewan joined her.

  Nora held him close as he breathed raggedly in her ear.

  "What have you done to me, lass?" he asked roughly. "God help me, I can't seem to keep myself away from you."

  She laid her hand against his flushed, stubbled cheek. His eyes were dark and stormy. "'Tis a madness that seems to envelop us both. For I feel the same of you. I know I shouldn't. You are everything I find distasteful in a man."

  He looked offended by that. "Thank you, my lady."

  "Well, you are, and yet there is nothing about you that I find distasteful at all. Why is that?"

  "I don't know. I should have taken you straight to my brother."

  "I'm glad you didn't."

  He kissed her. Then kissed her again and again until she was breathless and weak.

  Nora sighed at the sensation of him around her while he was still inside her.

  With a groan, he pulled back and left her with an aching void.

  "We'd best not be too long or someone will come searching for us."

  He helped her right her clothes and covered her hair again with her brat, then led her back in the direction from which they had come.

  As they walked, a lowhanging branch caught her brat and pulled it free of her hair.

  Nora hissed at the pain. The bowed branch snapped back, tearing the brat from her head and dress, and launching it up to a higher branch.

  "Oh bother!" she said, her voice rife with aggravation as she tried to jump up to reach it.

  "Here." Ewan moved her aside and tried to reach it. When he realized he couldn't, he moved to leave.

  "Nay," she said. "We can't leave it in the tree."

  "Why not?"

  " 'Tis my favorite and was a present from my mother."

  He growled at her words.

  "Please, Ewan?"

  His face softened. He handed her the basket and headed for the tree.

  Nora watched in fascinated awe as he easily climbed the branches. He effortlessly worked his way out onto the branch where her brat was snarled.

  The tree groaned in protest. Nora stepped back as a bad feeling consumed her.

  Mayhap she shouldn't have sent him up there after all.

  No sooner did he capture the wayward brat than the branch broke and sent him straight to the ground.

  Her heart stopped at the sight of him falling.

  "Ewan!" she gasped, rushin
g toward him.

  He lay on the ground unmoving.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  "Ewan, please tell me that you dinna get hurt." Frantically, Nora searched his body, looking for injuries.

  Ewan couldn't draw his breath for a full minute. The fall hadn't hurt anything much more than his dignity and had knocked the wind from him.

  But he had to admit he liked the feeling of her hands running over his body. Liked seeing the concern on her face.

  "I got your brat," he said around his aching ribs and back, handing it to her.

  "Oh, forget the silly brat. You've been hurt."

  Silly brat?

  Now the brat was silly?

  Ewan frowned at her. He wasn't really hurt, but he didn't want her to know that. She was running her hands up and down his body as if searching for injuries, and even though he should be sated after their tryst, he wasn't.

  He could take her again, right now.

  And that surprised him most of all.

  "Should I go get Lysander or Pagan?" she asked.

  "Nay," he quickly assured her. Those two would laugh and know in an instant he wasn't hurt. "I think I can manage with your help."

  "What should I do?"

  Ewan stifled a wolfish grin. He should feel guilty for taking advantage of her this way, but he didn't. He enjoyed her concern and care.

  "Ow!" he said as she touched his thigh.

  "Are you hurt there?"

  "Aye."

  She ran her hand around his leg to his inner thigh. Ewan clenched his teeth as a fiery need stabbed his groin while she rubbed his leg in an effort to alleviate his ache.

  Little did she know, she was only adding to it.

  "What about your back?" she asked. "Are you hurt there?"

  "Perhaps. It throbs so that I canna tell."

  She helped him to sit up.

  Ewan closed his eyes as she explored his back with her hands. But in truth, he'd rather she do so with her mouth.

  His groin jerked at the thought.

  When she started to move away, he groaned as if in pain. "My right shoulder."

  Nora massaged the joint. "Here?

  "Aye."

  Her hands dipped lower, and lower. Och, but the lass felt good.

  Too good. Her hands were the most blessed pain reliever he'd ever known. For this amount of her undivided attention, he'd gladly fall out of another tree.