by Paula Quinn
“The woman in my bed,” he told her, his gaze falling to her hands wringing her already wrinkled skirts, “will be my wife, one to whom I pledged much, includin’ my body.”
“I can assure you, you’ve no need to pledge your body to me.”
“And yet”—he stretched out his arms and smiled at her—“’tis yers now.”
She looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. She said nothing, and lifting her skirts, she hurried away.
He didn’t speak to her again until she arrived at their marriage chamber a short while later, looking as if the last of her strength had abandoned her and being gently urged along by some of his female relatives. They deposited her in front of him and his dog, Goliath, and hurried off.
She bit her lip, squeezed her eyes shut, and began praying.
He frowned, listening to her plead to God to deliver her from this savage. One thing Adam wasn’t was a savage. He didn’t like that she saw him as one. He might be rebellious to the life he’d been trained for, but he wasn’t uncivilized. He could be gentle with her, make her first night in his bed a pleasurable one. In fact, he looked forward to undressing her, kissing her prayers from her succulent, pouty lips, and proving himself worthy of her most heated, secret desires.
He pulled off his léine and felt a wave of disappointment at her strangled gasp. Proving anything to her was going to be difficult. He cursed the queen for doing this to them. “I willna force myself upon ye.”
He got into bed, turned his back on her, and closed his eyes. He felt her climb in a few moments later and poke him in the arm. He opened his eyes and turned to look at her.
“I love someone else,” she declared as if somehow it would be enough to toss her out of his bed and out of Camlochlin.
“Thank ye fer tellin’ me,” he said and then closed his eyes again.
He lay awake for hours, lamenting while she slept. He didn’t want a wife as much as he didn’t want to be chief. There were enough married men in Camlochlin for him to know what would now be expected of him: giving in to her every whim, picking flowers for her, making certain she was happy. What would he get in return in a loveless marriage? He groaned thinking how terrible life would be. How could he make her happy if she was pining over another man? He felt a pang of something…jealousy because she was his wife? Or hopelessness for the same reason?
After another hour of restlessness and regret, he rose from bed, pulled on his boots, and grabbed his cloak. He called softly to Goliath, and left the chamber.
Chapter Two
Sina opened her eyes when she heard the click of the door closing. He was gone, thankfully taking his hellhound with him.
She hadn’t dared move for the last four hours, terrified that the beast or the barbarian would turn on her in the dark. She’d prayed for courage and strength while the Highlander tossed and turned beside her. Every time he moved, she thought he would touch her. He hadn’t. How would she ever fight him off? He was bigger and broader than any man she knew. But he hadn’t touched her. He’d left her alone.
When he’d removed his léine, the sculpted cut of his arms, his chest, and his hard belly snatched her breath from her body—for more reasons than she’d admit.
Highlanders certainly did wear less clothes than the men in London.
She’d listened, still and silent, to his soft, anguished groans and sighs for four long hours, wishing he would sleep so she could weep without drawing his attention. But he hadn’t slept, just as she hadn’t. He didn’t want this either. He didn’t want her.
Oh, how could the queen sentence her to a life empty of everything Sina wanted? She was Anne’s companion, and they’d spoken of it many times. Sina wanted a man who loved her, who would live or die for her. She wanted William. Anne had claimed to understand the fancies of a romantic heart, for she had loved her dearest George.
How could she do this to her? What were her motives behind it? Why did she care so much about some faraway warriors that she would use Sina to ensure binding them to the future throne? Who were they?
The MacGregor chief had claimed they were Anne’s friends and that her father had been involved in the arrangement. MacGregor warriors were loyal and mighty. This union guaranteed their allegiance to her father while securing their safety against the laws of proscription.
Sina didn’t believe any of it. Her father would not sell her for a handful of Highland fighters, no matter how skilled they claimed to be. Nor would he give her up to help a clan of outlaws. Would he? He had given her up once before to be raised by her relatives. Was this his way of getting rid of his bastard once and for all?
She rose from the bed shaking and went to one of the surrounding windows. She stretched her solemn gaze beyond the moonlit, heather-lined vale, to the cliffs in the distance. Everywhere else she looked was mountains and water. Were they at the edge of the world? Her heart sank deeper. She’d traveled for days, six perhaps, in a closed carriage. She knew they’d gone north, but how far north?
She prayed she was wrong about her father and that he would come.
Still, hopelessness covered her. Whatever would she do here? What would she wear? Oh, her gowns. She would never forgive Anne for not giving her time to take her gowns. Who would she talk to every day? What would they talk about? Cattle? And poor William. He could have done better than agreeing to marry the bastard child of the prince elector. She loved him for it. William was refined and courtly. She—
She blinked at the mist settling over the landscape as light from the sun in the east spread a soft, golden haze before her…and on a lone man draped in a gray hooded mantle. Or mayhap it was a wolf she saw perched at the crest of a mountain. The black hound at his heels proved it was Adam MacGregor. What was he doing out there alone? Contemplating running, as she was? At least he knew which way to go.
She hoped he ran—very, very far away and never returned. Perhaps then she’d be sent back.
She watched him climb sure-footedly down the steep braes and walk toward the shore of a small beach. He moved with natural strength and grace, like something mythical come to life.
Why in blazes did he have to be so alluring? So…civilized? It would be easier to hate him despite his appearance if he behaved more like a barbarian. Even while she’d wept over their marriage and just barely gave her consent, he hadn’t been harsh with her.
She thought of all the weeping ladies in the chapel. He was no doubt a rake, careless of the hearts he broke. None of them seemed to mind that so many others were crying, which only proved that he was a snake beneath all that beauty. He’d bewitched them all, but whatever these people considered charm wouldn’t work on her.
She sprang back from the window when he turned and looked up. Had he seen her? Her heart thumped in her head, making it pound. He was coming back inside!
She leaped for the bed and tried to remember in which position she’d been pretending to sleep.
She didn’t have to wait long before he pushed open the door and then closed it softly. She peeped her eyes open and watched him from beneath her lashes. His back was turned to her.
He swept his cloak from his broad, bare shoulders. His loose hair fell like a dark cloud around him.
She wanted to close her eyes and not see the beauty of this Highlander and, heaven forbid, ever desire him. But she kept looking, drawn by the corded flare of his back tapering to his bare hips. She was certain none of the men at court were crafted so masterfully beneath their coats and garters and hose, or Poppy and Eloise would have told her. She swallowed, thankful he hadn’t removed his pants earlier.
Still, the top half of him was enough to stall her breath, addle her good judgment for a moment, and tempt her to look.
He began to turn toward her. She snapped her eyes shut.
A low, guttural growl coming from behind her turned her blood cold. The hellhound! Why was the beast growling? Her pulse raced, and try as she might, she could not keep her eyes closed another instant waiting for the hound’s fang
s to sink into her back.
Her eyes settled on the half-naked stranger watching her. She had no time to be afraid of both him and his beast—or to admire him in the soft wash of dawn streaming in through the windows.
She felt something settle on the mattress behind her back.
With a cry of terror, she leaped up and hurled herself at the hound’s master.
He caught her in his arms, against his hard chest.
“Goliath!” he admonished the beast while Sina buried her face in the folds of his silky hair at his neck.
The hound whimpered, emboldening Sina to look up—and to become aware of her body pressed so intimately to this man who was now her husband, held in the strength of his arms.
He smelled like the fresh mist outside. His eyes, up close, were like turbulent seas, roiling from someplace deep and hidden.
He tried to move her off him. She closed her arms tighter around his neck and cast a worried look over her shoulder.
“What is that thing?”
“’Tis a dog.” His voice was like the low rumble of thunder across her ear.
“’Tisn’t a dog,” she insisted. “’Tis something born of nightmares.”
He offered the drooling creature a pitying look and her an angry one. Then, using a bit more strength, he pulled her off him and set her back in bed.
“Goliath, come on,” he ordered, moving toward the door.
Sina was hopeful they were both leaving again. She especially didn’t want to be alone with her reluctant groom after she’d clung to him like scum on a pond. Heaven help her, but his body was as hard as armor. Still, she was certain she could feel his heartbeat through it, as accelerated as hers, as if he was also affected.
He opened the door when the “dog” reached it. They both stopped and looked at each other for a moment. The hound’s eyes were large and repentant.
Sina felt a moment of guilt.
The Highlander bent and took the hound’s large head in his hands. “I canna let ye go aroond actin’ like a vicious mongrel, now can I?” He pointed to the door.
With its long, furry tail between its legs, the beast hunkered out.
Straightening to his full, glorious height, MacGregor flicked his icy gaze to her, then looked away.
“Am I to blame for its wanting to rip out my throat?” she asked on her knees from the middle of the bed, where he’d left her.
When he didn’t answer her, she left the bed. Let the hellhound back in, then. She’d rather sleep in the hall than in his bed anyway.
She passed him without a word, but when she put her hand to the door, he grasped her wrist and spun her back. She landed with her back up against the door, her wrist held above her head and his hard body pressed to hers.
“I willna have ye confusin’ my dog,” he said in a deep whisper.
“Let me go or I’ll scratch out your eyes.”
He reached down, snatched up her other wrist, and held that one over her head too.
He gave her a challenging smirk that set her heart thrashing in her chest. What was he going to do? Had she pushed him too far? She looked up into his eyes, afraid of what she would see.
What she saw surprised her. Regret, shame…just traces of it, but enough to make him let her go and walk away. He didn’t go to the bed but fell into a nearby chair, stretched his long, powerful legs out before him, and rested his entwined hands on his bare, hard belly.
Still shaken, Sina stood in her spot for a moment not knowing what to do. He’d just proven he could dominate her in an instant…and that he wouldn’t.
She tilted her chin and returned to the bed. She didn’t really want to sleep in the hall. “What are we to do about this marriage?”
“There’s nothin’ we can do aboot it,” he answered behind a cool veneer of detachment. “’Tis done. We must accept it.”
“You don’t want this.”
“Nae,” he said in a somber tone. He set his eyes toward the window as if something he loved and lost were out there. “But fate catches up with us.”
She scowled at him. “This is not my fate!”
“Apparently, ’tis,” he said, closing his eyes. “Ye’ll settle in,” he assured her quietly. “Goliath will get used to ye.”
She didn’t want to settle in! She didn’t want his hellhound to get used to her! She wanted to go home to William, and her friends Poppy and Eloise. She wanted back the plans she’d made for her life. How was she expected to let it all go? What would she do here all day? Every day? Not knowing a living soul?
Longing and loneliness overwhelmed her and she began to cry.
“Do ye want comfert, lass?” His voice came soft and deep, stirring something deeper than her anguish and settling on her like a warm blanket.
She kicked it off.
“No. I want nothing from any of you. I will not settle in.”
He ground his jaw but he didn’t open his eyes. “Verra well, then.”
A little while later she heard him snore in his chair, sprawled out like a spoiled prince. She got up and looked around the chambers for where they put the other gown she was able to grab after she’d been torn from her bed. There were several chests and wardrobes lining the walls. Was her gown in one of them? She didn’t want to have to go through his things to find hers. She found the only pair of earrings she had taken. They were her favorites, gold with three dangling pearls. A gift from William.
Her husband stirred in his chair. She would have to remain in what she was wearing. Either that or wake him in her search. What would the others whisper about her wearing the same dress for two days? She tied her long hair into a thick, gold crown atop her head and adorned her lobes with her earrings. She missed her rings, her brooches, her wardrobes…
No, cease, she admonished herself while she crept toward the door. She would have them all back again.
But in the meantime, she would try to find something to eat before the second worst day of her life began.
She padded down the hall, fitting her feet into her silk slippers as she approached the stairs.
A set of doors opened to her right, and a man whom she’d heard about many times at the foot of the queen’s bed stepped into the hall.
He stopped when he saw her, and a streak of panic flashed across his sea-green eyes before he remembered she had nowhere to go. She wasn’t trying to escape.
“Good morn.” He offered her a wide, pleasant smile. “You’re awake early.”
“General Marlow,” she greeted. “Is this where all friends of the queen end up?”
His smile didn’t falter at the sting toward the queen in her voice. “’Tis not such a bad place to end up.”
What could ever tempt a man of his renown to spend his life away from everything he knew?
As if in response to her question, the general’s wife appeared at the doors next and stepped into the hall with their three children at her full plaid skirts.
Abigail MacGregor was the most beautiful woman Sina had ever met. Firelight infused her hair with shades of gold and strands of pearly silver. She wore it braided intricately at the temples, like the warriors of the old north, and the rest cascading down the shawl draping her shoulders. She smiled at her husband and then at Sina.
“Did ye sleep at all?” she asked Sina, moving to her side and reaching for her hand.
Sina took a step out of reach. Adam’s sister seemed nice enough, and had been a bit brutally honest about her brother yesterday on their walk to the great hall, but Sina didn’t want to get close to any of them. She wasn’t staying, and letting any of them in felt as though she was giving up. She wasn’t. She couldn’t. Somehow, she would get home.
“No, I didn’t sleep. I decided to start the day and get it over with.”
“I understand.”
No one understood, Sina thought as she turned for the stairs. She wanted to ask if Abigail would have slept her first night torn from her family and dumped into the bed of a stranger. But she curbed her tongue, not w
anting to incite anger. She had to live here for a while.
She would have preferred to eat alone, but she didn’t know where in blazes to go for food.
The general and his family led her below stairs to a large dining hall paneled in rich warm walnut and hand-sewn tapestries. A grand hearth carved in stone provided heat and light, along with tall candle stands and beams of sunlight breaking through the windows.
A long, polished table sat in the center with sixteen ornately carved chairs set around it and place settings before each one. Painted clay vases were set about, bursting with pink and purple heather. It was rather cozy despite it being so big, though smaller than the great hall.
“Ye can have a seat opposite Daniel, there.” Abigail pointed to a chair close to the head, next to a chair where Adam would have sat if he were not asleep.
“I think I’ll just take my plate back to—”
“Och, please stay,” Adam’s sister begged. “Ye’re kin now. Ye’ll have an important place here.”
Sina didn’t want a place here, important or otherwise. She knew Abigail was being kind and she was thankful for it, but it wouldn’t help her.
A few moments later, with the noisy arrival of Adam’s brothers and the chief and his wife, the hope of eating alone grew bleak. With another gray hound and the main hellhound itself entering and standing guard at the exit, it went dark.
She took her seat and dipped her chin to her chest, not knowing what to do or say to the strangers around her.
“Good morn to ye, Melusina,” his father greeted politely, waiting for his wife to take her seat on his left.
Sina was still angry with the chief for obeying the queen. She could understand General Marlow pushing her toward her groom, but the MacGregors were outlaws. Since when did they do as they were told?
Robert MacGregor was an imposing man, bigger than any man at court, with shoulders as wide as a sunrise. He could snap her in two or order someone else to do it and they would obey him.
Sina cast him a dark look just the same when he turned to her.
“Where’s Adam?”
“He’s sleeping,” she told him, keeping her voice soft and neutral, a talent she’d learned while growing up. She wasn’t one for outbursts. They were unladylike and unseemly. She was ashamed for crying out and making such a commotion in church, but she believed God understood. She didn’t care if others thought her meek; she didn’t have to shout to let her feelings be known. “He was awake most of the night, aggrieved, as I was. As I still am.”