Page 28 of My Scot, My Surrender
Chapter Eight
Brandt’s body woke like clockwork as dawn was breaking across a pinkening sky, just visible from beyond the seam of the tent. It’d been late when he’d finally joined Sorcha the night before, and she had already been fast asleep. As he had planned.
It was still dark, but he never failed to wake at the same time each morning. Not surprisingly, his entire body ached, though it was not just from being in the saddle for hours on end. His limbs felt restless and coiled with tension. Tight. His body was painfully erect. He adjusted himself on the hard ground and then registered the delectably warm female body beside him. Sometime during the night, she had tucked herself into the crook of his arm and shoulder.
He froze, mid-motion. Now he understood his body’s stiff, frustrated condition. The soft press of breasts against his ribs and legs twined with his would tempt a monk. He’d never been a man led by physical impulses. No woman had ever driven him to such an ungoverned state. And yet, she seemed to do so without any effort whatsoever.
She was the most dangerous female he’d ever encountered, and he’d met a few.
Sorcha shifted against him in sleep, one long arm reaching out over the expanse of his chest. Brandt’s breath seized. The smell of lavender and heather from her wash in the river would forever be imprinted on his brain, as would the sinuous outline of her body he’d glimpsed under her damp shift.
If it were even possible, he grew harder, his mind gripped by coarse thoughts of burying himself to the hilt into her slick, wet depths. Brandt groaned. He was so sodding hard it was painful. In the privacy and solitude of his own home, he would have found no shame in a few quick strokes to relieve his engorged discomfort, but here, the very thought seemed vulgar. Barbaric.
Hell.
Swiftly, he shifted out of her half embrace and rolled into a crouch. The sooner he put some distance between them, the better. He started to pack up his belongings. Though his body was lost to lust, his mind was clear, reminding him of what women like her were capable of—highborn women who took what they wanted when they wanted. As she had done in that Selkirk square.
Granted, he’d gotten something out of the deal, but even the prize of Lockie couldn’t erase the fact that he had been manipulated from the start. Perhaps he was unfairly holding on to ancient hurts, but he could never completely trust a woman, not even one who seemed as guileless as Sorcha.
Shewasn’tguileless, he reminded himself harshly. No woman was. A man could be made a fool only if he allowed himself to be one. And while Brandt could accept that Sorcha had had desperate intentions with her kiss, trust was something he guarded fiercely.
It had started with his mother, he knew.
In all his life, he had trusted only two people: Monty and Archer. And only Archer remained alive and well. Even with the two of them, Brandt had never opened himself fully. He had never let them see his true heart or the self-doubt he kept at bay on a daily basis. The fact that he belonged nowhere.
Brandt had given up on the idea of ever finding his mother. A jeweler in London had told him that the ring he possessed appeared to be the colors of one of several possible Scottish Highland clans, but given the faded crest of the ring, it had been impossible to narrow it down further. He could not summon the enthusiasm to travel to the Highlands in search of family that hadn’t wanted him in the first place. After Monty died and he became the head stable master at Worthington Abbey, life had taken on a pleasant and consistent turn. He’d been content, his existence peaceful and predictable.
Until that kiss.
And now his own body conspired against him. Sorcha made him feel things that he did not want to feel…made him have thoughts that awakened the voices within him that clamored he was nothing, could never offer anything of worth to anyone.
For that reason alone, he was glad this whole marriage was a ruse.
Only at times like these, it didn’t feel like one.
His gaze swept his wife, who had awakened and followed his lead to stand in silence, wrapping herself in a Maclaren plaid. Sorcha did not meet his eyes, her face inscrutable. The glimpse of vulnerability he’d seen the night before was gone. Now, the warrior stood in her place. When she left the tent to see to her needs after a guarded look at him, Brandt expelled a pained breath. Though part of him recognized her innocence, he had never been able to tell with women.
The courtesans in London he’d encountered with Archer in their wilder years had been masters in the art of seduction and manipulation. He’d even fancied himself in love with one who had convinced him of her undying devotion. That devotion had disintegrated the moment she’d learned he wasn’t a titled lord like his friend, the Duke of Bradburne. She—a glorified prostitute for all intents and purposes—had laughed at his true vocation.
It had only compounded the little he knew of women. That they weren’t to be trusted. Ever since, he’d barricaded his unwanted heart and relieved himself from time to time with women of a lower persuasion. Not like Sorcha…the daughter of a duke.
He was a bastard with nothing to offer her. If their marriage were real, the scandal it would cause in drawing rooms across Scotland and London combined would be unavoidable. The daughter of a duke marrying a lowborn man of uncertain origins? She’d be shunned from society. Even Malvern was a better choice than him…at least she would have been a marchioness.
“Marrying her was a sodding mistake,” he growled.
Brandt swore coarsely and heard a gasp from behind him. He turned to see Sorcha had returned. Her eyes were wide. Agonized. Hurt swam in them, before a practiced expressionless look consumed her features. He opened his mouth, but then shut it. Better for her to think the worst of him than to glorify a few kisses and a shameless bid to win a horse into something more than it could ever be.
A shout from outside had them both pushing past the tent flaps. Ronan’s men were gathering their belongings in haste as they broke camp. Brandt searched for the big man, but he was nowhere in sight. His gaze landed on Duncan who was directing two of the younger men.
“Where is Ronan?” he asked. “What’s happening?”
“Malvern,” Duncan growled, his mouth a hard line. “His trackers followed us from Doncaster, even when we rode through the river fer four miles and cut through the hills. Ronan knows these lands like the back of his hand. It should have been impossible to find us so quickly.”
Brandt frowned as something occurred to him, but Sorcha beat him to it. “Who was it? The traitor?”
“Ye brother’s questioning the lad now.”
“Was he a Maclaren?” Sorcha snarled.
