idiosyncrasy, she was sure her cheeks were tinged a permanent pink.
The raven-haired man had an intricate, dark tattoo circling his left bicep. She had heard there were tribes in the Highlands that practiced the barbaric custom of permanently marking their skin with blue ink, but it had never occurred to her that the Sinclairs might be one of them. The dark swirls moved as the warriors muscles bunched when he swung down from his horse.
She experienced the most perplexing desire to follow those lines of dark ink with her fingertips. The urge shocked her to her very core. Abigail was far more innocent than her younger sister, Jolenta, who had spent several months every year for the last four at Court. Jolenta had boasted of flirting with numerous men in attendance.
She had told Abigail that she had gone so far as to allow a few of those men to kiss her. When Abigail had expressed dismay at such wanton behavior, Jolenta had merely laughed.
Since her sister was rarely willing to spend time in Abigails company, she did not plague Jolenta about it further. Only she had wondered if her sisters forward ways had been the reason Jolenta had returned early this year from Court.
Unlike her wayward, if courageous sister, Abigail rarely spoke to the opposite sex. She had never touched a man or even wanted to. She had been touched for the first time in memory by a male when her stepfather carried her to her chambers after her mother beat her.
The truth was she hardly ever made physical contact with anyone .
To want to reach out and caress someone was a feeling so new and disturbing it benumbed her thoughts as well as her person for several seconds.
As she grappled with this unexpected sensation, the raven-haired man turned so she could see his face. Abigails breath seized in her chest. A days growth of beard outlined a strong jaw and firmly set lips on the most handsome face she had ever seen.
And the most frightening.
Because she knew with inexplicable certainty that this was the man she was to marry. Power surrounded him like a mist that would never dissipate. No one but he could be leader of the Sinclairs.
He turned his head, and she would have sworn he looked directly at her, if it were possible. It was as if he knew she was watching him, but that could not be. The urge to duck fully behind the curtain was strong, but she was still feeling the paralyzing effects of her desire to touch him. And surely he could not see her in the dark of the cottage?
Was that cruelty or strength in his glittering eyes? There was knowledge. Logic notwithstanding, he knew she was there. But how?
Unlike him, she did not stand in a clearing with no hindrance to the revelations of bright moonlight. She was hidden almost completely by the window covering, and what wasnt hidden should not have been distinguishable in the dim light, made darker by the shadow of the cottages roof.
If circumstances were not odd enough, the pale-haired giant warrior turned his attention on her as well, though she had seen nothing to indicate the other man had apprised him of her presence. This warriors eyes were dark, though she did not think they were brown. He was maybe even bigger than the dark-haired man, but she did not assume that made him laird.
While might would be important in determining leadership among the war-bent clans in the north, size was not the only determining factor in strength. The blond giant looked strong enough, but he did not look toward her with quite the intensity of the other man.
He did not have a tattoo on his arm either, and she was guessing that was significant. His left cheek was marred by a battle scar; even so, he was almost as handsome as the other man.
Abigail felt an instant rapport with the marked soldier. It was too easy for others to judge a persons worth on a physical affliction. This warrior could do no more about his scar than she could her deafness.
The raven-haired man came toward her with purposeful strides. The other giant warrior followed him, a strange half smile on his face. The puckered flesh gave him a sinister look that the amusement in his eyes belied.
At that moment, Abigail definitely should have ducked behind the window covering. She couldnt. The tattooed warrior held her attention as firmly as she held on to the hope of seeing her sister again one day.
His silent command to stay still was unmistakable.
Even if the command was only in her imagination, it would not let her go. Her body felt strangely heavy, but her head felt light. Fear and exhilaration coursed through her as her fingers curled around the window covering in a stranglehold.
As he came closer, the pace of
to me.
Never?
Never.
Talorc nodded and then frowned again before pushing the loose neck of her sleeping gown aside. There is another bruise. This one uglier.
The word broke her trance as nothing else could have. No, Abigail could not claim beauty. She could not claim anything that would make her the right wife for this powerful laird.