Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] by Master of The Highland (html) Page B

on his face.
His honor, tarnished though it might be, forbade even one such as he to flaunt carnal lust in the presence of priests and the pious.
And his pride, sore-battered or nay, cringed at the lustful urges inspired by the lamentably unattractive lass.
He hadn’t been that long without a woman.
Then she whirled his way, her snatched treasure clutched in a fisted hand pressed against fine, high-set breasts, and Iain’s heart swelled to bursting. Truth to tell, it slammed so hard against his ribs, the shock near felled him.
He’d erred greatly in assuming her plain.
Light green eyes, huge and panic-filled, locked with his, for a split second widening even more, their gold-flecked depths mirroring something uncannily like recognition—as if she, too, reeled from the crackling attraction sizzling between them.
A single curling strand of glossy copper-gold hair slipped from beneath the cowl of her cloak, tumbling over her left eye before coming to rest against the sweet curve of her cheek. Looking more like a startled doe than a brazen-hearted relic thief, she blinked, moistening lips he would have claimed in a heartbeat if only he’d glimpsed them when his honor had been intact . . . his life his own and unsullied.
She drew a deep breath, and her breasts, well-rounded and full, rose beneath her cloak, its travel-worn folds emphasizing rather than disguising their lushness.
Though he would ne’er have owned it possible, Iain’s body tightened even more. His throat closed at once, his mouth going so dry he couldn’t even give himself the paltry relief of wetting his lips.
Bitter regret swept through him, washing away his lust and replacing it with an emptiness so all-consuming its bite hurt worse than the cutting edges of a dozen wickedly honed blades.
In another eerie echo of his own shackled longing, a look of deepest anguish flashed across her beautifully expressive face, then she was gone—bolting through a sudden break in the throng, and taking the whole of his heart with her.
His MacLean heart.
The selfsame one he’d thought had withered and died but now knew had only ne’er been truly wakened.
Not by his late wife, Lileas, the saints bless her sweet-natured soul, and not by any other lass e’er to cross his path or share his bed.
Adrift in a roiling sea of disbelief and a glaring truth he could no longer deny, Iain squeezed shut his eyes and, lifting a none-too-steady hand, kneaded the back of his hot, aching neck. Several long moments later, when he reopened his eyes, they looked out on a different place.
A new world, and one through which he’d have to tread across very rough ground, for one of his staunchest beliefs had just been soundly toppled.
He, Iain MacLean, younger son of the great House of MacLean, master of nothing, and sometimes dubbed Iain the Doubter, could ne’er again scoff at the notion of MacLean men being fated to love, truly love, only one woman.
The legend wasn’t just a sennachie’s tale to be told round the peat fires of long and dark winter nights.
The legend was true.
He now knew it with a certainty that resonated with every thudding beat of his heart, every ragged breath he drew, for his one woman —a votive thief and a postulant—had just looked him full square in the eye.
And the repercussions of having to admit it ripped him to pieces.

A few scant hours later, but far removed from the splendor of Glasgow Cathedral, a darker, more ancient kind of magic than saintly relics and plainsong brought a smile to old Devorgilla’s lips.
Cozily ensconced within the thick, whitewashed walls of her thatched cottage, Doon’s resident crone hummed a merry, if slightly off-key, tune as she peered closely at her precious assortment of Fairy Fire Stones.
A sizable collection, the charmed stones nearly filled a large wooden bowl she kept on the little oaken table near her hearth. And although all the stones possessed their own immeasurable value, only two held her rapt attention.
His stone—Iain