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“Explain the word hypnotize,” he said.
She tried to speak more calmly. “It means mesmerize, entrance, enchant! When you look at me sometimes, it is very hard to think!”
“’Tis a small gift,” he said smugly. “And a useful one.”
“What, from Merlin the Magician?”
“Ye be so distressed an’ angry, lass, an’ why? Ye wanted it an’ ye were pleased. ’Tis nay important now. Or be ye mad because I ha’ decided not t’ give over to such temptation again?”
It took her a long moment to decipher his words. “ What?“
“I want ye, Claire. Dinna doubt me. But I be sworn to protect ye.”
“Are you telling me you are not going to—” She stopped. She had been about to say make love, but if she did, he would laugh at her, she was certain.
His lashes lowered again. “Fuck ye?”
She inhaled. If a modern-day man spoke that way, it would probably be offensive. Coming from Malcolm, it only conjured up graphic and heated images of his driving his very extraordinary length into her repeatedly, with shocking power and stunning effect. If he did so now, right now, she would explode.
She swallowed. She had been certain she was going to have to hold him off. Now he was telling her he was not interested—except he was, because even now she felt him throbbing in the room. His lust was as tangible as the wine she could smell in her mug. Was he clever enough to be manipulating her? She was confused, and damn it, she was even dismayed.
“What would make you decide to be a gentleman?” she managed to say.
He looked up with a brief, self-derisive laugh. “I be nay gentle, lass, an’ we both ken.” His humor vanished. His gray eyes turned black. “I dinna wish to see ye lyin’ dead beneath me.”
Claire would have backed up if there was somewhere to go. “I don’t understand.” But the fear that had vanished during their conversation returned.
His gaze slowly moved over her, deliberately, and then it lifted to her face. “I want ye badly, very badly, but I dinna trust meself.”
“What does that mean?” she gasped.
He was blunt. “I killed a maid. I willna do so again.”
“You killed a woman?” Claire cried, backing up into the bed. The word evil went right through her mind.
“Ye be terrified,” he said softly.
“No!” Her heart shrieked at her. Malcolm was not evil. She would bet her life on it. He had not just said what she thought he had. “You said you wanted to protect me,” she breathed.
“Aye.”
Claire realized she was panting. “Please don’t tell me…!”
His face was hard. “She died in my arms, Claire. She died takin’ her pleasure from me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CLAIRE REALLY NEEDED to sit down. Malcolm’s gaze was hard, even angry, and entirely unwavering. But he was not evil—there was nothing evil about him. He could not have committed a pleasure crime.
“What happened?” she somehow said, seeing him not as he stood there, but with some woman beneath him, in the throes of her passion.
“I told ye!” He was sharp.
Claire finally sat down on the edge of the bed. “People do die during sex, I mean, normal sex. Even if it’s not a pleasure crime, sometimes a man’s heart stops. Or a woman’s. It’s from the excitement. If the woman’s heart was weak, if she’d been ill, if she was older, feeble—”
He cut her off. “She wasna old. She was younger than ye. Her heart was strong.”
This could not be happening. She did not want Malcolm to be an evil madman, but the parallels were glaring. Strangers seducing the young and the innocent. Malcolm was a stranger—and he was mesmerizing.
Had she been mesmerized in the woods?
“How well did you know her?” she asked carefully, fear uncoiling inside her.
“I dinna ken the lass.” His gray gaze glittered.
“You were strangers.”
“Aye.”
She couldn’t breathe. A challenge seemed to be in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure she could meet it. Sweat ran down her body in streams and she couldn’t help but be afraid—and sickened. But somewhere deep inside herself, she refused to believe what he was telling her. “You killed her for fun?”
His eyes went wide. He said with great care, “I dinna amuse meself with death, Claire. I dinna ken me powers. I needed the maid, badly. I dinna wish to hurt her or see her dead.”
In that instant, she saw the pain blazing in his eyes. He was in the throes of guilt. She slumped in relief, and sympathy swelled. “Malcolm, it was probably her heart.”
He turned and lifted his mug of wine, draining it. “I didna stop when it was time to stop. I couldna think.” He turned his heated silver eyes to her. “Like in the forest. Fer a moment, I couldna think o’ anything but the pleasure I was takin’ from ye.”
She trembled, swept abruptly back to a vivid recollection of that stunning orgasm. She had stopped thinking in the woods, too. It had been impossible to be rational while in the throes of such desire. But now, she was uncertain. Clearly he regretted what had happened, deeply. As clearly, he was haunted by guilt. But he spoke as if he had killed the woman out of brute strength. And that sounded like rape.
His gaze was direct. “I didna rape her, or any woman. She wanted me.”
Claire believed him. What woman wouldn’t want the medieval stud facing her? And that only made it harder for her to understand what had happened. It had to have been the woman’s heart, she thought. It could not be anything else. A madman did not feel guilt.
“Now ye ken why I willna bed ye,” he said firmly.
She shivered. They were having a terrible conversation about a ghastly sexual death and she was having grave reservations about this man, but she still couldn’t escape his sexuality. It seethed in the room and his words conjured up the image of her in his embrace, passionately entwined. “That’s fine,” she said through dry lips. “I don’t want to share your bed. Not now, not ever.”
He gave her a disbelieving look.
Claire flushed. Her body no longer obeyed her will, but she did have a will. “When I sleep with a man, it is because he has my heart,” she said slowly, and she felt her color increase.
His eyes widened. “Surely, ye be in jest.”
Claire was mute. She wished she hadn’t revealed herself that way.
He choked, but she realized he wanted to laugh. His face straight, he said, “An’ ye have loved men, lass, aye?”
She became affronted and sought refuge there. “If you want to know how many men I have made love to, I am not telling you!”
“I begin t’ ken, aye, I do.” He smiled endearingly. “It be fine, lass, really. ’Tis a shame, though, to have only had a dozen or so men in yer life.”
“There were two!” she cried.
He smiled at her.
Claire could not believe this medieval hunk had the wit to trap her into the truth. She stared, outraged and even insulted. At least he would never know the details of her love life. Her college lover had been gorgeous and smart, even if he had cheated on her. Her second lover, James, had been great to brainstorm with and debate, but rather lacking in the performance department. This man, of course, did not even know the definition of the word faithful, but he wouldn’t have any performance problems, either. And she would never, ever reveal that it had been three years since she’d last had sex.
He was smiling as he turned away to refill his mug. Claire didn’t like his knowing smile, either, except that it made him shockingly handsome. Maybe the real battle wasn’t with him, but herself.
And Claire thought about the terrible battle in the forest. “We need to talk, but not about sharing a bed.”
He set the mug down, facing her. His expression was stunningly serious. “Aye. Ye defended me fer a terrible crime an’ ye defended me in the wood. We be strangers, Claire, not kin. Why?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know why.”
Silence fell. His gaze slipped to her throat and she realized he was staring at the pendant she wore. “My father had a stone like that, lass. He wore it till the day he died.”
Claire was immediately interested. Of course his father was dead, otherwise Malcolm would not be laird. She wanted all the information she could get now. She wanted to know everything about the man standing before her. She told herself it would help her survive this ordeal. “How did he die?”
“He died at the Red Harlaw, lass, a huge and bloody battle.”
Claire went still. “Your father was Brogan Mor.”
His gaze narrowed. “I didna tell ye his name.”
Her heart was thundering in her chest. What kind of coincidence was this? “Do you want to hear something ironic?” She wet her lips, not waiting for his response. She didn’t have to, for his regard was intensely riveted to her now. “I was on my way to Scotland when you came to my store. I was leaving the following night. And while I was arriving in Edinburgh, my plan was to drive directly to Mull and stay at Malcolm’s Point, so I could visit Dunroch.”
His temples throbbed. He did not say a word, but from his expression, he did not seem terribly surprised.
“Your father is in the history books. I read he died in 1411 at the Red Harlaw, but of course, I had no idea I’d be meeting his son shortly thereafter.” She sat back down, shaken. Maybe, given the dates, she should have realized that Malcolm was Brogan Mor’s son. “There’s nothing on your line, Malcolm, after the death of your father.”
He came forward. “He was a great man, lass, a great warrior, a great laird. Did yer books say so?”
“I’m sorry. They only mentioned the date of his death and that he led the Macleans in the battle.”
“Not all of them,” Malcolm said. “The Maclean of north Mull, Tiree and Morvern sits at Duart.”
“Black Royce is not laird of his clan?”
“Nay. His lands were granted by a royal charter long ago. He be earl of Morvern, but vassal to me. He be a southern Maclean, lass.”
Claire couldn’t imagine Royce being subservient to Malcolm. He hadn’t acted so, she thought. “Who became laird of your clan when Brogan died, Malcolm? You were obviously too young to do so.”
“I was nine years old when Brogan died an’ I became laird. Royce helped me, spending much of his time at Dunroch, until I turned fifteen. That day I needed no one beside me to rule.”
Before Claire could assimilate that he had become a clan chief at nine years old, and the actual leader at fifteen, his gaze moved back to the stone she wore. “Tell me about the stone.”
He kept going back to the pendant. “It was my mother’s. Why?”
“Brogan lost his stone at Harlaw,” Malcolm said, staring at her pendant. “’Twas black, not white, like ye have, but it be the same. ’Tis charmed with powers of healing. There are other lairds an’ even clerics who wear a charm stone. But ye ken.”
“This is a piece of moonstone set in gold,” Claire cried nervously. “It isn’t magical!”
“How did yer mother get it? It belonged to a Highlander, lass.”
Claire went still. “I don’t know. I never thought to ask. I was a child when she died. But she never took it off. The truth is, I always thought—no, I always sensed—it had something to do with my father.”
His eyes widened. “If yer father gave it to yer mother,” he began.
“She could have bought it in a pawnshop! Or my father could have bought it there, if it was even his.” Oddly, she felt panic. Had her father been a Scot?
“Ye be distressed. Why?”
Claire shook her head, turning away, hugging his brat to her body. “I didn’t know him and he never knew about me. I was a mistake, the result of a single night of passion.” She whirled. “You’re almost making me think that my father is a Highlander—a contemporary one, of course.”
“Ye dinna look like any Highland lass, but I be thinkin’ ye be connected t’ me, somehow.”
She sputtered, “I am connected to you because you ripped me from my time and brought me back here with you!”
He smiled grudgingly. “Aye.”
“How? How do you travel through time?” This was the single most important question of all, if she was ever going to get back to the twenty-first century.
“I will it.”
Claire stared and he stared steadily back. “Some wizard or monk, some shaman, must have found a black hole and figured out accidentally how to use it,” she finally said. “And the knowledge was carefully passed along.” It crossed her mind that if a medieval man could travel through time, surely peers of hers were secretly doing the same thing.
“Nay. ’Tis a gift from the Ancients.”
She could not look away. “The ancient shamans?” Was he telling her that time travel dated back to pre-Christian times?
“The old gods, Claire,” he said softly. “The gods most of Alba have forsaken.”
She felt chills. Her theory had to be correct. Someone, perhaps in medieval times, perhaps much earlier, had stumbled upon time travel. Such knowledge would be carefully guarded and carefully passed on. Of course he believed that his ability was given by the gods. His culture was a primitive one. Throughout time, mankind sought explanations for events and phenomena they did not understand in religion.
But he was treading in dangerous waters with such beliefs. “Which old gods?” she asked, fear arising.
He just looked at her.
“If you believe you have powers from a god, any god, even Jesus, that’s heresy.”
His mouth hardened. “I be Catholic, Claire.”
Claire shuddered. No Catholic believed as he did. Her mind raced. Heresy was a serious crime in the Middle Ages. In Europe, the Church had actively and aggressively prosecuted heretical movements, using the notorious court of the Inquisition to do so. Heretics were usually excommunicated and outlawed, not executed. On the other hand, a member of the Lollard movement had been burned for heresy by the Church, right there in Scotland. The date was unforgettable, because the great wave of prosecutions had come a century later.
“Have you ever heard of John Resby?”
His eyes widened. “Aye.”
