Highlander’s Lost Pearl: Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance Read online

  She gasped as his fingers found their way inside her, and her body seemed to want to get away and get more from Hendry at the same time. She had never been touched like that before. The sensations built up like a wave crashing over her, pulling her down with it.

  She could hear Hendry curse quietly next to her ear, and it sounded to her as though he was in awe, though she could hardly believe that it was because of her. When her gaze met Hendry’s, she could see that he was looking at her with a raw, open expression, with as much awe as his tone suggested. His lips, slightly parted, were tinted red with her bruising kisses, and his eyes were wide, as though he could not believe that he was there with her either.

  When Hendry pulled his hand away, Peigi all but whined, a high, drowned out sound. She wanted him inside her again, she wanted to be one with him, but she did not know how to ask for such a thing.

  She didn’t have to ask, it turned out. Soon, Hendry’s hands were on her buttocks, pulling her closer to him, and he slipped inside her in one slow thrust. Peigi’s breath came out in a gasp, her hands gripping onto Hendry’s shoulder so tightly that her nails dug into his skin, leaving crescent-shaped marks behind. His only reply was a groan as he entered her, followed by a soft, barely audible whisper of her name,

  Peigi grabbed and pulled at Hendry, her desire the only thing that mattered at that moment. She wanted more, she wanted everything and anything that Hendry could give her, and she wanted it right then.

  She could see the drops of sweat gathering on Hendry’s forehead as he thrust inside her again and again, every movement of his hips, drawing a breathless moan from her and stirring something deep inside her. Hendry had never looked more handsome before, she thought, his mop of red hair falling over his face in curls, his mouth hanging slightly open in an endless, silent scream of pleasure.

  Peigi could feel her own pleasure growing with every thrust of Hendry’s hips. It was exquisite torture, her sensitive flesh, making her feel as though she was on fire, every nerve ending in her body begging for release.

  Then, as though out of nowhere, her release finally came. She held tightly onto Hendry, her entire body quivering with the force of her climax as her lips met his in a bruising kiss. Every thought disappeared from her head, leaving her floating in warm, pulsating darkness, and the only thing that she could acknowledge was Hendry’s own climax as he throbbed inside her.

  It took only moments for him to collapse on top of her, and even though he was heavy on top of her, it was a comforting weight, one that she welcomed. Her arms wrapped around him lazily, and he responded by nuzzling into the crook of her neck, the two of them staying silent.

  Peigi feared that if she spoke, she would end up ruining everything.

  “I love ye, Peigi,” Hendry said, so simply, as though it was an easy thing to say.

  “I love ye, too.”

  It was the truth, of course. Peigi loved him; she adored him more than anyone. Still, it brought tears to her eyes, thinking about everything that she was hiding from him, all the lies and the deception that came with being her father’s daughter.

  Thankfully, Hendry was already well on his way to deep sleep, and he did not see her cry. They were still intertwined, their limbs tangled up together, as Peigi closed her eyes and tried to sleep, too.

  It had been too good; their romance, their union, everything about them had been too good to last, and as much as Peigi wanted it to end differently, she knew what she would have to do in the morning, which ended up coming too soon.

  Peigi must have had only an hour or two of sleep, she thought. She had spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep no matter how much she tried. She spent the night thinking about the same thing, over and over, and then not thinking about anything, and simply trying to memorize Hendry’s face instead. She studied him carefully, taking everything in, his red locks, the scruff on his chin that said he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, the angles of his jaw, and the lines of his nose. There was so much she loved about him, so much that she would miss once he woke up, and she told him the truth.

  Hendry blinked awake when the sun began to shine in the room, early in the morning. Peigi was looking at him once again, and that seemed to take him by surprise, perhaps because he was expecting her to be asleep.

  “Peigi . . . is everything alright?” he asked, and the concern in his voice almost broke her.

  “Aye,” she assured him, even though it was a lie, and even though he, too, would know that nothing was alright soon enough.

  Before she could say anything else, Hendry leaned closer and kissed her, and Peigi allowed it; no, she encouraged it, moving closer to him, and pressing her naked body against his as they kissed.

  Hendry seemed more than happy with that, other parts of his body awakening too, but before Peigi could get ahead of herself, he pulled back and jumped out of bed.

  “Trust me, I want nothing more than to do that again,” he assured her as he began to hunt for his clothes. “But Glenna will be coming back soon, and the servants might already be awake. I must go for now, but Peigi . . . what I told ye last night, it’s true. I love ye.”

  Peigi smiled, but it was a sad smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She only hoped that Hendry couldn’t tell.

  “I need to talk to ye about something,” she said. “Come, sit.”

  Hendry shook his head as he dressed hastily. “Ach, I can already hear voices outside. Ye’ll tell me later today, aye? In the evening, when we can talk without any interruptions.”

  “Aye,” Peigi said. After all, what else could she say? It was better to have more time for that conversation than their current situation allowed. For all she knew, Glenna could burst in through the door at any moment. “Aye, I’ll find ye this evening.”

  Hendry smiled at her and approached her once more, giving her one last kiss. Then he cracked the door open just a little, taking a peek at the corridor, and once he had determined that no one was there, he disappeared.

  Peigi fell back on her bed with a sigh, her arm coming up to cover her eyes. She couldn’t stop the tears that followed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’ll ask ye once more, where did ye get this?”

  Hendry could not remember the last time that he had been so furious. He was on the verge of murdering William right then and there, his fists shaking violently as he tried to stop himself from doing just that.

  The guards had brought William to him. They had claimed that they had seen him trying to sell a necklace that could not possibly belong to him to some merchants in exchange for food, and Hendry had not believed them at first. After all, no one in his clan would ever steal, and he couldn’t think of a single person that could have a valuable item in his clan. All the valuables that were still left were in the castle, and nothing had been stolen from there.

  Hendry believed them when they brought him the evidence though. Sure enough, it was a necklace, but it was not just any necklace; it was the necklace that his mother was wearing the day that the Black Stags took her life. It was the necklace that had been ripped off her neck and stolen after she was so violently murdered.

  The rage that bubbled inside Hendry was unstoppable. He could feel the blood pumping in his veins, rushing to his head and making it difficult to think about anything other than how to take revenge. Still, he could not understand how William had even gotten his hands on the necklace.

  Surely he couldn’t be a part of the Black Stags. Even for the Sire, it sounded impossible that he would have sent one of his brigands to infiltrate the castle. Besides, William had grown up there, in the clan’s lands, and Hendry had known him ever since he was a young boy when he began to work in the stables.

  No, he couldn’t be part of the Black Stags. There was something else, something that he was missing, something that was far more sinister than that.

  “I cannae tell ye, m’lord,” William said for what seemed like the tenth time. He kept refusing to name the person who had given the necklace to him, and that only served to make Hendry angrier. “I made a promise that I wouldnae tell. But ye must believe me, I didnae ken that it was so important to ye! I dinnae think that the person who gave it to me even kens! Ye must believe me!”

  “Shut yer mouth!” one of the guards that had brought William there shouted, much to Hendry’s displeasure. He didn’t need others to be involved in his interrogation of the other man.

  “Get out,” he told the guards, repeating his order in a shout when they did not move. His yell seemed to be enough to send them scurrying out of the room though, and soon, he and William were alone.

  Hendry walked behind his desk, placing his hands on the back of his chair as he took a deep breath to calm himself. He had to think rationally, he couldn’t simply let his rage cloud his judgment.

  “Listen, William . . . I ken who had that necklace up until recently,” Hendry said. “And I ken that yer not the kind of man who would associate with such men, so I cannae have ye hanged, not with a clear conscience. But what ye had there was my mother’s necklace, do ye hear? My mother’s necklace, and it was ripped from her dead body when the Black Stags killed her. They took that necklace that day, and I hadnae seen it since, until ye brought it here. Where did ye find the necklace? Who gave it to ye?”

  The revelation that the necklace had been in the hands of the Black Stags seemed to take William by surprise. At least it confirmed Hendry’s feeling that he had nothing to do with those men, which was a relief. Still, it did not explain how he had come to possess the necklace in the first place.

  “Please,” Hendry said as he collapsed on his chair, placing his head in his hands. He was tired, so tired of all the screaming and the lies, and he only wanted it to end. “Please, William. It was m
y mother’s.”

  “M’lord . . . Peigi gave it to me,” William said. “I dinnae ken where she found it, she never told me, and I didnae ask. I thought it was hers . . . I thought that she was a noble lass because she had a lot of gold with her, m’lord. She had three bags of coins, and she used all of them to buy the food that the clan has been receiving from the merchants. Weel . . . she ran out of money, so she gave me this necklace to sell instead.”

  Hendry could hardly believe his own ears. His head was reeling with all the new information, and he wondered how any of it could be true. He knew it in his heart that William wasn’t lying though; William had always been a good man, and he had no reason to lie, nor did he have any cause to frame Peigi for something that she hadn’t done. Hendry could only believe him, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

  None of it answered why Peigi had helped the clan in the first place, and Hendry didn’t know what to think about that.

  “Why did Peigi tell ye to buy food for the clan?” Hendry asked William. “Why did she give ye all her coin? She hardly kens anyone here.”

  “I dinnae ken, m’lord,” William said. “She never told me why. She only told me that she wanted to help and that the money she had was not hers to spend. I dinnae ken what that means. I thought she had stolen it, at first, but I dinnae think she is the kind of lass who would do such a thing.”

  Hendry looked up at William once again, and he decided that there was nothing else that he could offer. He believed him, and he could hardly punish him for anything that he had said.

  “Alright . . . go,” Hendry said, and William could not get out of there fast enough, but before he reached the door, Hendry called out to him once more. “And William . . . dinnae ever go behind my back again, do ye hear?”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “Go.”

  William scrambled out of Hendry’s study, and once he was gone, his guards came in once more, awaiting instructions.

  “Bring me Peigi,” Hendry said, and then he was left alone in the room, with silence as his only companion.

  He had been foolish. Many of his clansmen would often tell him that letting strangers in the clan was never a good idea, but he had never listened to them. He had been so careful with the merchants, and yet it had never occurred to him that he could have let an enemy inside the walls of his castle himself.

  How else would Peigi have had the necklace if she wasn’t one of the brigands? It sounded unlikely since Hendry had never heard about the Black Stags having women in their ranks, but he didn’t know what else to think. Everything he thought he knew had turned out to be a lie, and so, perhaps, it wasn’t so unlikely that Peigi was a Black Stag after all.

  The door to his study opened abruptly, and the guards brought Peigi in. She looked paler than usual, as though the blood had drained from her face. Hendry felt a pang of sympathy for her. He had to remind himself that she was not who she said she was; he had to remember that she wasn’t the woman he had loved, not really.

  “Hendry, I—”

  “Dinnae ye dare talk to me,” Hendry interrupted, and his two guards stepped forward, closing in on Peigi, whose gaze darted around the room as though she was looking for a way to escape. Once again, Hendry discarded his guards; he could handle Peigi on his own, and besides, he didn’t want the two men to hear what was about to follow.

  Once the guards were gone, Hendry stood up from his seat and approached Peigi, who didn’t move a muscle. She seemed to be frozen in place, too scared to move.

  “Ye have no shame,” he spat, words dripping with venom. “I told ye I loved ye, Peigi . . . ye told me the same! How dare ye? How dare ye say ye love me after everything that ye’ve done?”

  “Whatever I did, I did it for ye,” Peigi said, her eyes snapping up to glare at Hendry. “I did it for ye and for the clan. Had it not been for the money that I gave William, the clan would still be starving to death, and ye ken that. Yer secret benefactor? That was me. I paid for everything, Hendry. Everything that yer clansmen have been eating, all the new fabrics that they’re wearing, that all came from the money that I brought here with me.”

  “And where did ye find that money?” Hendry asked. “Where did ye find this necklace?”

  Hendry pulled the necklace out of his pocket, the big blue stone in its center shining brightly under the morning sun. Peigi gasped when she saw it, but she did not say anything.

  “This was my mother’s necklace,” Hendry continued. “It was taken when the Black Stags killed her, and noo it’s back here because of ye. Ye had the necklace, and ye had all that coin. Where did ye find it, Peigi? Who gave it to ye?”

  “No one gave it to me,” Peigi said, and she took a deep breath, her hands fidgeting with the top of her skirt. “Hendry I . . . I never meant ye or yer clan any harm, ye must believe me.”

  “I dinnae believe anything ye say.” Hendry let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “How dare ye ask me to believe ye after the lies that ye’ve told? Tell me where ye found the necklace!”

  “I took it from my father!” Peigi shouted, her tone matching Hendry’s own. “Are ye happy noo? I took it from my father, Hendry! My father, Murdo . . . or should I say the Sire? Aye, my father is the Sire of the Black Stags. I kent that all that gold and this necklace were not his, so I stole it. I stole it from him, and I came here in search of a better life because the life in his keep is no life at all. It’s worse than death, being there, and it’s worse than any punishment ye can give me. Yes, my father is the Sire, but all this money . . . I used it for good. I used it for ye.”

  Once again, the wave of information was simply too much for Hendry. He didn’t know how to process anything that came out of Peigi’s mouth. He didn’t know what to think of her anymore.

  His ears began to buzz with the sound of a hundred bees, loud and incessant, and he threw himself down on his chair once more, fearing that his legs couldn’t hold him anymore. It sounded impossible that Peigi was the Sire’s daughter, but he believed her just as much as he had believed William. There was no reason for her to lie, after all, not when she had already been caught with the necklace.

  “Hendry . . .” Peigi continued, voice laced with concern, even though they had been yelling at each other only moments prior. “I can only ask ye to forgive me, and I can only accept it if ye willnae do so. What I said . . . it’s true. I do love ye, and I hate to have caused ye so much pain. I didnae choose my parents. I didnae choose to be the Sire’s daughter, and I never had any love for him. I understand if ye dinnae trust me anymore, but I never meant to hurt ye.”

  “Ye’re right,” Hendry said. “I dinnae trust ye anymore, and I dinnae think I can. What ye did is unforgivable, Peigi. Ye lied to me. Did ye ken about everything that yer father has done?”

  “Aye,” Peigi said. “I kent that he was stealing from yer clan even before I came here. I only found out that he killed yer parents when ye told me that day when we were having supper together. I . . . I wanted to tell ye, but how could I? I feared that ye’d hate me and . . . weel, ye do.”

  Hendry neither confirmed nor denied that. As much as he would like to hate Peigi, as much as he would like to throw her in a cell and never think about her again, he doubted that he could. A part of him would always love her, no matter how much he tried to rip it out of himself.