Unwilling (Highland Historical #2)

perilous
terrain of Scotland’s highland lake country, it would be easy to hide
themselves from the eyes of Rome. 
    Evelyn startled her by picking up
her hand and gently applying a gritty yellow poultice to the cuts and irritated
flesh of her wrist.  “I noticed your accent is different than what I’ve heard,”
she said conversationally.  “Mind you, I’ve only lived here and Aberdeen
besides London, but I can’t place yours,”
    Everywhere the poultice spread, the
pain instantly cooled and disappeared.  Lindsay watched her gentle
ministrations with awe.  “I hie from Glasgow, but I was educated in London for
a while where my father served as a Scottish emissary before becoming Regent.”
    “That explains it then.”  The woman
wrapped soft linen around the first wrist and moved to the next. 
    “I’m inclined to believe this is magic,” Lindsay moaned.  “The pain has vanished.”
     “My husband saved my life with
this once.  It was the day I accepted him as my mate.  His enemy slashed my
thigh with his sword and I would have bled out had he not treated me with it. 
‘Twas a miracle.”  Evelyn smiled at the memory, reaching for another clean
linen.  “Trust me, take those bandages off tonight and you’ll be good as new.”
    Lindsay sniffed it doubtfully.  “What
is in it?”  It didn’t have a detectable scent, and the texture was unlike any
she’d felt. 
    “Like I said,” Evelyn winked at
her, finishing with a gentle knot on the bandage.  “Magic.  One of the
multitude of advantages to being mated to a berserker.”
    “Indeed?”  A bolt of curiosity
snaked through her.  She hadn’t been seeing her situation as advantageous in
the least.  In fact, she’d been en route to one imposed, undesirable marriage
and found herself thrust into the path of another. 
    “Oh yes!  Magic is just part of
it.  There’s long life, for one.  You see, your life forces would be entwined
and a berserker lives maybe four or five times the length of an average person.” 
Evelyn talked as she tidied and Lindsay got the feeling she was a woman who didn’t
like to be unoccupied.  “My Roderick is very attentive and thoughtful.  He’s
blessed by a Goddess, you know, so that accompanies unnatural strength and…
stamina.”  A pretty blush tinged her flushed bosom and crept into her cheeks,
but she went on. 
    “He’s very protective, but also learned
and fascinating.  Oh, you should see the MacLauchlan libraries.  Being an
educated woman and all, I’m sure you’ll want to pass some time in there.  That
reminds me, be careful not to get those two into a political discussion upon
which they disagree, because I just commissioned a new table for the great hall
and I’m somewhat attached to the scroll work—”
    “These are all qualities of your berserker,” Lindsay interrupted the woman before she got too distracted by a
tangent.  It was easy to see Evelyn was happily matched.  She glowed with an
inner happiness and contentment that made it difficult to be in the same room
with her for too long before feeling woeful and inadequate.  And more than a
little envious.  “What about Connor?  All I know of him is that he’s a
berserker mercenary.”
    Evenlyn’s face fell while she
thought for a moment.  “Connor’s a very good man,” she stated as though she had
every confidence.  “I admit, he tends to be surly and serious and more than a
little high-handed, but he’s been Laird of the Lauchlan clan since he was
sixteen.  That came with a Baronetcy and an abundance of pressure and
responsibility.  Also, his father was a rather unpleasant sort who treated his
sons abominably and killed their Mother in a violent rage.   Roderick has told
me that Connor protected him from his father’s punishment many times when they
were boys.”
    “I see.” Lindsay studied her bandaged
wrists, trying to ignore the pity clenching at her chest.  She had to hold onto
her righteous indignation.  If she didn’t she’d have to face her part in what
they did together in that coach.  And she couldn’t.  Not yet.  “While that’s
very regrettable, I don’t think it excuses him abducting betrothed noblewomen
and forcing them into marriage.”
    A tin bowl made a loud clatter to
the table as Evelyn stopped to face her, her eyes wide with incredulity.  “He
didn’t explain it to you?”
    Lindsay shook her head, a lead
weight in her belly.
    “Oh, darling, he can’t force