From Chapter Four....
Catherine fought against his steely grip. She squirmed and twisted, kicked his shin with her heel, but to no avail. He was like a brick wall behind her, all rigid muscle and incredible brawn.
“It’s your fault I’m cursed,” he snarled, “and after getting shackled and dragged off to prison, I’m not taking any more chances with ye. You’ll not trick me this time.”
She felt the sharp point of the knife at the base of her throat, and clutched at his muscled forearm. “My cousin was right. You are a brute.”
“I’m only trying to survive.” His breath was hot and moist in her ear. “Now stop squirming, promise you won’t scream, and I’ll let you go.”
“I promise.”
With that, he released her. Catherine swung around to face him in the eerie candlelight. Rubbing a hand over her neck, she fought to catch her breath and calm the frantic beating of her heart.
“That was unnecessary,” she said. “And why on earth did you come back here? If my cousin sees you, he will shoot you dead on the spot.”
The Highlander sheathed his knife in his belt. “I’ve been hunting ye down for three years, Raonaid. I’ll not give up now.”
“You are still certain that I am her.”
“Aye. Whether or not you’re telling the truth about your lost memories, I doona know, but one way or another, you’re going to remember the night ye cursed me. I’ll find a way to make it so.”
She swallowed uneasily. “How do you plan to do that? The doctor has been thoroughly unsuccessful in helping me to remember.”
“Your doctor doesn’t know how to apply pressure like I do.”
She mulled over his meaning, and spoke with seething hostility. “You’re going to threaten me again with ravishment, and try to frighten the truth out of me. Is that it?”
“Whatever it takes.”
She wanted to know the truth herself, desperately so, but she would not stand for abuse.
Taking a closer look at his black eye and the blood seeping through the front of his shirt, she asked, “How did you escape the prison coach?”
He put his finger to his lips again, as if he’d heard something. With light, swift movements, he crossed the library and peered out into the corridor. Reassuring himself that no one was about, he answered the question. “They tried to kill me on the way to the village.”
“Who did?”
“The magistrate and his thugs. He said they were to make it look like they were just doing their jobs, so they let me out of the coach, loaded their pistols, and told me to run.”
“And that’s what you did?”
“Nay, I didn’t run,” he practically spat. “I kicked the guns out of their hands and used my fists.”
She glanced down at his big hands and saw that his knuckles were nicked and bloody. “But there were four of them,” she said with disbelief, not wanting to admit to herself – or to him - that she was impressed by such a feat.
“Aye,” he said. “Although there might not be quite so many of them now.” He peered out the door again to make sure no one was coming. “I might have killed one or two. Inadvertently.”
She pointed at the wound on his stomach. “What happened there?”
He glanced down and seemed to notice for the first time that his shirt was soaked with blood. “Ah, ballocks. One of them knifed me, but it’s just a scratch. I’ll live.”
They stood for a moment, staring at each other in the tense, heart-pounding silence, until he cocked his head at her, shrewdly.
“If you’re thinking about screaming and turning me in,” he warned, “ye ought to think again. Something’s not right here, witch. I believe they’re using you as much as you are using them.”
His eyes dipped lower, and he seemed to take in all the swells and curves of her body, awarding special attention to her neckline and breasts.
For a shaky moment, she didn’t hear a single word he said, for she was growing weak in the knees under the stormy heat of his gaze. Everything about him was darkly sexual, burning with angry need, and she couldn’t deny that although he frightened her and made her fear for her safety, on some basic level, he fascinated her…
Catherine shook herself out of that treacherous fog, and worked to sort out what he was trying to say to her.
“I told you before,” she replied, “I am not using them.” She paused and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and recalled her constant suspicion that her grandmother was hiding something from her. “But what makes you think that?”
“You’re worth a lot of money, are ye not? Or at least, Catherine was. Everyone in Scotland knows she’s about to receive a considerable inheritance, and from what I’ve heard, if she’s not alive to collect it, it will be forfeited to the Jacobite cause.”
She nodded her head. “Yes, but I am alive, and it’s my money. At least it will be in six weeks time, when I turn five-and-twenty. You think they are using me to gain access to it? To keep it from landing in the hands of the Jacobites?”
“Someone ordered me dead today,” he said, “because I know who ye are. I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you, lass. Not before you lift that curse.”
“But I can’t lift it,” she insisted.
He stalked forward and caught her by the arm. His scorching gaze dropped to her parted lips. His face was only inches away; she could feel his breath beating against her cheeks. She sucked in a quivering breath.
“You’re lying.”
This time she did not argue. She could not even speak.
“I’ll use force if I have to,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “One way or another, you’re going to give me what I want.”
Her flesh sizzled where he touched her. She understood that it was part fear, part irrational excitement. He was stunningly handsome, bold and robust, and when she thought of how he had fought off all those armed guards, single-handedly, her body went weak all over again.
God, why did he have to be so potent and alive? She didn’t want to feel any of the things she was feeling, but something about him awakened her spirit, and she was beginning to feel that he was the key to her past - that he would awaken her memories as well. Make them positively explode out of that tight, locked box.
“I told you,” she replied nevertheless, lifting her chin and breathing in his musky scent, while reminding herself not to become too swept up in his vigor, for he might be handsome, but he was also dangerous and volatile. “I don’t know how to help you.”
The sheer force of his silence held her captive, as his eyes burned into hers. Then suddenly, he began to wrench up her skirts and wrestle with his kilt.
“What are you doing?” she asked in horror, fighting to twist out of his hold.
“We’ll do it your way then,” he growled. “If you won’t lift the curse, you’ll have to share it with me. Maybe then you’ll be more accommodating, when you’re the one who’s staring death in the eye.”
He crowded up against her, until the backs of her knees collided with the sofa, and she landed with a gasp on the plush cushions. He stood over her, gazing down with raging eyes, and was about to push her legs apart and descend upon her, when she held up her hands and cried, “All right! All right! I’ll lift it! I promise!”
With one knee braced upon the sofa cushion, he halted. His chest heaved wildly.
“Do it then,” he commanded. “Do it now.”
Anxiety spurted through her. Part of her wanted to cry out for help, but who would hear her at this hour, in this deserted section of the house? And if someone did come, her cousin would most assuredly kill this man, and she would never know the truth about her life.
What if he was right? What if these people were using her to gain access to the inheritance? What if they had done something to her, to make her forget her life and cause her unwittingly play the part of their missing heiress?
“Take me to Angus,” she demanded in a rush of desperation, needing to see the man who had allegedly been such an important part of her life. The man who was once her lover. “I promise that by seeing him again, I will be able to lift the curse. I just need to remember…” She fought to consider the more detailed logistics of such an arrangement, and quickly added, “I won’t do anything for you until you deliver me to him. Safely.”
The corner of the Highlander’s mouth twitched.
“I need to know who I am,” she continued to explain. “I cannot go on living like this. Only then will I be able to help you.”
They glared at each other like two cats, waiting for the other to pounce, then he pulled her swiftly to her feet.
“How do I know I can trust you?” he asked.
“How do I know I can trust you? Especially when you are always looking at me as if...” She paused and gestured toward his big, rampant body. “As if you want to eat me.”
He gave her a threatening glare. “I do want to eat ye, lass. And I canna guarantee I won’t try to steal a taste of ye along the way. It’s been miserable three-year famine, ye see, and I’m verra hungry.”
She could see that quite clearly for herself.
Nevertheless, she stood her ground. “No, that will not do. I’m going to need your word of honor that you will not touch me. If you give me that, I will leave this house with you quietly, without a fight. I promise.”
But would she be able to lift the curse when she met her former lover again? She wasn’t sure, and she knew this was a dangerous game to play.
The air sparked and crackled between them, while the Highlander considered her proposition.
At last he gave her the answer she wanted. “All right, lass. I’ll take ye with me.”
Catherine exhaled sharply with relief - a feeling that was quickly extinguished when he moved forward and spoke low in her ear.
“But know this,” he whispered with sinister intent, “if you break your word to me and do not lift that curse when we reach Kinloch, I swear on my life that I will take great pleasure in killing you with it.”
He took hold of her hand and led her out, while she prayed to God that she would get her memories back before then.
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The Highlander Trilogy Book Three