The Chieftain's Feud by Frances Housden

he carried there. It pleased Jamie that she had absolved him of blame, however his conscience wasnae so easy swayed. His only defence was that before he met Eve, he hadnae seduced a virgin the way Brodwyn had him.
    Now she was here with him, it was hard to remember he’d had doubts, qualms that he’d ne’er rid himself of the picture in his mind, the one of Eve walking away frae him escorted by her father and Hadron.
    The act of leaving was easy; he had firsthand knowledge and all the regrets that accompanied the action. Staying was harder. Did she have the gumption to see it through? “I have but one question for ye Eve. Do ye still love me?”
    Her big green eyes widened as she stared at him, made more limpid by the tears forming above her lower lid; disbelief drowned in her expression. The pink fullness of her bottom lip quivered and her breasts rose, grazing his chest. “I came all this way to find ye. I almost died.” Her tongue slipped between her teeth to dampen her lip as she sucked in a breath to add the clincher when he didnae respond, “I’m having yer bairn.”
    Not quite the answer he had expected. How hard was it to say, ‘I love you? ’ “I never questioned yer word, or hinted that it wasnae my bairn acquit me of that.”
    “Seems to me there is more accusations in this bed than there is love, Jamie Ruthven. However, I might ask the same question of the father of my bairn. Do ye love me?” Eve finished with a lift of her finely arched brows.
    He should have expected that the clever little lamb would hit him with his own demand. “I should think ye could tell that without asking.” He flexed his hips till the head of his prick nudged her belly. “It’s not something I can hide nor intend to, I want you Eve … all the time.” Sliding his hand betwixt her arm and her breast, he brushed the tip of her breast with his thumb. Her response was immediate, her nipple tightened, hard as the bead of pink quartz it resembled.
    “I ken ye want me as much as I crave the feel of ye inside me.” She reached betwixt them to touch him, a contact that contained as much pain as it did pleasure.
    “Are ye sure of that Eve?” The way his larynx ground up the words as if in the pain wasnae imagined. “For I can assure ye, Eve, if I get started, wild horses willnae be able to part us.”

Chapter 6
    Eve released a wee sigh, feeling slightly safer than she had a moment ago. It mattered naught that he was acting cagey, substituting the word want for love. She kenned what men were like, she’d lived with three of them all her life, and if anybody was sweered to admit what they actually felt, it was a man. Sweet words of love and prose were the coin of minstrels. Real men showed their emotions with the slide of a steel blade, the way his friend Rob had. Jamie had told her all about that night—the night he had cut his ties with the woman who had bewitched him.
    She slid her fingers down the hard length of his shaft, enjoying the heat against her palm. After falling frae Mirabelle’s back into the snow, she had discovered what it was like to feel her life’s blood freeze in her veins. Gradually, the air in her lungs appeared to solidify, making it hard to breathe, while all her warmth had shifted lower to concentrate in her womb, saving her bairn.
    Aye, her journey had been rash, wild even, but it was all done to save her bairn and her bairn’s father frae the Buchans. She hadnae told Jamie all, frightened that if she did, he would feel the same disgust with her as she did with her family’s plans. For heaven’s sake it was Yuletide, a time for clan celebrations, not slaughter.
    All she had intended was to reach Jamie and Cragenlaw afore her father and brothers. Her uncle Hadron despised Jamie, had told her so o’er and o’er while she listened, with her hand pressed against her belly. Hiding both under her plaid, she sought comfort frae the part of Jamie that lived inside her womb, counteracting his neglect