His Bonnie Bride

by Hannah Howell

  Unthinkingly, his hand went to the amulet he wore constantly beneath his tunic. The moment he felt it, he could recall all too clearly how Storm had looked when he had let her leave with her father with no word. In that one moment of silence he had belittled everything that had gone between them. The hurt he had inflicted had been plain to read on her face even though she had quickly subdued it.

  That thought started him growing angry again. If she had been hurt, if she had loved him as the leaving of her amulet suggested and she had claimed, then where was she? She should realize that a man had his pride to consider, that he could not go chasing after her. It was not too much to ask that she understand that it had been an inopportune time for him to consider her and him together. They had just fought a battle, her father had saved Caraidland even if it was mostly because Storm was inside its walls, and they were not allies. He could hardly have told the man then that he had been bedding his daughter and was rather loathe to see her leave. She should have explained matters to the man and then returned.

  A saner part of him told him that he was being ridiculous, but Tavis was in no mood to listen to reason. To listen to reason meant that he had to admit that he had made a mistake, had been fool enough to let go of something he could never replace. No man could comfortably admit such uncomfortable things. It was easier to blame Storm for his pain, for his unending ache, his sense of being adrift and his long, far too empty nights.

  It was time he started to do something about the nights. Celibacy was not healthy for a man, he assured himself as Katerine pressed against him, her fingers caressing his neck. Katerine was plainly willing, and she would ease some of his torment.

  "Ye look troubled, Tavis," purred Katerine, recognizing the considering light in his eyes.

  "Aye, and I ken ye have a cure," he murmured, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

  Katerine smiled, seeing success coming closer. "Aye, one that's worked oft in the past."

  Tavis waited for his senses to stir when Katerine's capable hand slid over his thigh. He decided the ale had dulled his passions. Katerine would have her work cut out for her. Sprawling back in his seat, he pulled her toward him and kissed her. With determination, he forced away the image that came to mind, forced his mouth to accept the taste of Katerine instead of the one he craved. When they finally parted for air he was beginning to foresee success. Anticipation was cut short when a knife skewered the chair between their faces. Katerine screamed, fainted and slid ungracefully to the floor.

  "I think 'tis time ye got a new mistress, Tavis MacLagan. That one is a bit cow-hearted."

  The voice was painfully familiar and, in confusion Tavis looked at the small knot of monks near the door of the hall, thinking that his liquor-soddened mind was playing tricks on him. "Storm?" he whispered.

  "Shocking behavior before men of the cloth," drawled one of the tall monks as the group moved to the table, nearly double their number in Tavis's men hovering behind them.

  "Is no one going to pick up the lady?" asked a high, girlish voice.

  "What lady?" drawled the monk that Tavis was sure was Storm. "I see none."

  Just when Tavis felt inclined to succinctly demand who his visitors were they pushed their hoods back. There was no mistaking Storm and Phelan. Tavis knew the ale had fogged his mind when he realized that he had not noticed the distinct lack of height of several of the monks.

  "What? No greeting? All wenched out, are ye?" Storm gave into impulse and kicked at the unconscious Katerine.

  Storm was in an icy fury. She had not really expected him to have remained celibate. Nevertheless, it was not a theory she had wanted to see verified before her eyes. She reached forward and yanked her knife out of the chair. The look in her eyes as well as the way she held that knife told Tavis how tempted she was to use it on him.

  "I believe ye know my companions, though the years may have changed them a bit and ye took little note of some of them the day they helped rout Hugh."

  Keeping an eye on the knife she held on him with a false air of casualness, Tavis looked at the others. It was a moment before he could see past the seven years of growing to the children once held for ransom by the MacLagans. The boys were all growing into very fine young men, strong, tall and handsome. Little Matilda could be only about eleven, yet she showed promise of being a very attractive woman. Storm evidently still led the group of friends and kin.

  Colin entered, but was halted in his advance by his youngest son. "What the devil is going on here?"

  " 'Tis a private matter atween Storm and Tavis. Dinnae fash yourself, she willnae kill him."

  "How can ye be so sure, Iain? She doesnae look to be feeling too friendly," Colin drawled. "The heirs again?"

  "Aye," Sholto answered. "I cannae think why she has risked returning. All she told me and Angus when we kenned who it was, was that she intended no harm to anyone, only a surprise for Tavis."

  "Weel, keep a close eye on her. The lass isnae a killer, but there's nay telling with a lass hurt and set aside." He nodded toward a slowly recovering Katerine. "I suspicion he was wenching as well."

  Sholto laughed softly. "Aye, and she got that dirk right atween them. A good, clean throw it was."

  "A reunion, is it?" Tavis asked quietly, trying to distract Storm, for she was holding the knife with too serious an intent and he saw with angry disgust that his family was not going to aid him.

  "Ye could say that." Storm was taking a perverse pleasure in his evident discomfort.

  Katerine dragged herself back into her seat. She saw at a glance who wielded the knife and feared for her life. Her eyes widened when she saw that Tavis's family plus a number of other important men of Caraidland stood apart, clearly not intending to do anything to aid their kinsman. For a moment she contemplated making a run for it, but then decided she was safer if she just sat quietly.

  Storm knew the woman was awake but kept her eyes on Tavis. The reminder of Katerine's presence produced the clear image of the two kissing and touching each other. At that moment she hated Tavis, hated him for showing her heaven only to hurl her into hell. She had given him her most precious gifts, her love and her virtue, only to have him toss them away. At times she feared that the memory of that wound would never pass. She often feared it was mortal, so much did it hurt.

  "It has been months, Storm," Tavis said quietly as he tried to think of a way to obliterate past hurts and a present misconception, but her cold, angry eyes did not encourage him.

  "Aye, and I can see how ye have pined for me," she snarled, and buried her knife in the chair between his strong legs and very close to the seat of his virility, that which she both hated and ached for.

  Tavis moved faster than he had ever done. He nearly flew from the chair and moved to put it between him and his angry lover. Her action had caused him to break out into a cold sweat. He watched her yank her knife free and slowly move after him. Unlike his family, he did not feel all that confident that she would not do him any real harm.

  "Ye should be more careful with that knife, Storm," he said inanely.

  "Aye. I should adjust my aim," she purred as she stalked him. "Sure 'n I am sore tempted to remove that part of ye that ye distribute so freely. That would surely curtail your drinking and wenching."

  "Isnae anyone going to do anything?" asked Katerine, unable to keep quiet any longer.

  "If that bitch says another word, ye pin her to the chair, Cousin Hadden."

  "My pleasure," drawled that young man as he drew his sword and stood next to Katerine.

  "Now, Storm, ye got no call to do that. Kate is innocent in this."

  "Kate was ne'er innocent. She was born in a bed and decided to spend all her days there in active service. I would be doing the women here a kindness an I skewered the slut here and now."

  Tavis cursed as he stumbled slightly on his back-stepping away from the stalking Storm. He was still too muddled with drink to be able to take her dagger away quickly and cleanly. He could see, almost feel
, the hurt in her, mixed in equal parts with her rage. Even so, his mind could not leave the problem of avoiding her knife long enough to think on a way to placate her. In all the dreams he had had about her return, he had never imagined it this way. He ached to take her into his arms, but in the mood that she was in he had little doubt that she would slip that knife between his ribs.

  "Do ye think we ought to put a stop to this?" Sholto asked softly.

  "Nay," said Colin. His eyes had studied Storm thoroughly and he had noticed something the others had not seen yet, so he added, "She isnae here to kill him. Let her vent her rage. She is due that much."

  "Why have ye come here, Storm? 'Tis plain ye wish naught from me," Tavis said quietly.

  "Nay, I do not want anything from ye," she lied, "but 'tis not what I want that brings me here, ye rutting bastard. If there had been a choice, I would have stayed at Hagaleah and seen to it that every sword there had your name upon it. 'Tis necessity that brings me."

  Backed against the wall, Tavis wished fervently that his head would clear more quickly. "A necessity?"

  "Aye, there is something that ye have that I require, Tavis MacLagan."

  "What is that?" It was hard for him to see her so cold toward him.

  "Your name." Storm refused to see the sadness in his bewitching eyes.

  The fumes of too much drink faded a bit from his mind, but he remained confused. "What?"

  "We will be married today. If ye have nay a priest, ye best send for one. I will not settle for handfast. 'Tis a union sanctified by the church that I seek."

  "But why? Ye hate me. 'Tis there to see in your eyes."

  The touch of desolation in his voice plucked at her, but she hardened herself against it. "Am I not a woman of rank? Was I not a virgin when ye bedded me? Aye, I did not fight ye, but neither did I invite ye. By all the rules of chivalry ye must wed me, replace the honor ye stole."

  "We discussed this before, Storm. Ye are pretty, young and rich. There will be many a man who will care for ye, care not that ye are no longer a maid. Aye, and those who will understand."

  "I know that, MacLagan, for proof I have had these last few months." She wondered by what right he had to look jealous. "Aye, and a fair number willing to show me that a Scotsman is only good for rutting like a boar, that 'tis an Englishman who knows the fine art of loving." She met his glare with an icy calm, purposely leaving him to wonder if she had tested the veracity of those claims.

  "So ye dinnae need me. Get yourself a braw Sassanach husband," he snarled.

  "She kens just how to goad him," mused Colin with laughter in his voice, a laughter that was echoed in the eyes of a number of men around him.

  "He is right, though, so why does she want to wed him?"

  "Ye'll soon see why, Malcolm," Colin replied softly, sorry that the pair continued to be kept at odds by Mistress Fate, but enjoying the confrontation, for they were evenly matched.

  "Well, it seems there is a limit to their tolerance," she drawled as she signaled to Robin and Andrew who, along with Haig, moved to keep Tavis at sword-point. "That ye took my innocence they could understand, and too, the fact that I may not have put up much of a fight, but"—she began to remove her monk's robe—"there is something ye left that they cannot overlook. Nay, nor do they want anything to do with it." She let the robe slide to the floor.

  There was an indrawing of breath from the Scots. Katerine cursed violently but softly. All the color drained from Tavis's face as his gaze fixed upon her altered figure. There was no mistaking the swell beneath her gown. Only Colin remained unsurprised, for he had seen through the camouflage of her monk's robe to the child-swollen figure beneath. It was plain that Tavis's seed had taken root early in their affair and the fruit was nearly ready to drop.

  Tavis could not understand how he had not noticed. She had to have been several months gone with child when she had left.

  For all the time they had been together he had never been denied her favors due to the arrival of her monthly time. Despite his experience, he had never noticed the lack of it. If she had suffered any of the sickness of a pregnant woman, she had hidden it well. When he realized his seed had been growing within her when Sir Hugh had nearly beaten her to death and perhaps even when Janet had tried to end her life he shuddered even as he felt a surge of wondrous pride over the strength of both his seed and the vessel that carried it.

  "A bairn?" he croaked stupidly as he touched her swollen belly with a shaky hand.

  "Obviously," she drawled. "Ye should not be so surprised. Ye worked hard enough for it."

  Katerine forgot the sword still held on her. All she saw was that Storm had accomplished what she herself had failed to, that her plans to be Tavis's wife were still doomed to failure. Her jealousy and rage boiled up inside her. She leapt to her feet, startling Hadden, and rushed to where Tavis stood, his hand still resting upon Storm and the swords still aimed at him. She stood on the outside of that circle.

  "She's out to trick ye, Tavis, to make ye give your name to some other man's bastard. Can ye nay see what she is up to?" she wailed, knowing her accusations were false even as she made them. "She's naught but a Sassanach slut."

  A strong backhand sent Katerine sprawling to the floor. Andrew was only fourteen, but he was a tall, strong lad, and his blow had been as good as any full-grown man's. So, too, did his beardless face hold the cold, hard fury of an adult as he looked at the woman weeping on the floor.

  "I suggest ye leave, madam, ere ye say anything else and I forget ye are a woman," he said icily, and watched as Katerine hastily withdrew in honest fear for her life.

  "Do ye doubt 'tis yours?" Storm quietly asked Tavis, wishing she could remove his hand but afraid of what that might tell him.

  Tavis felt his child move within her and found it hard to speak around the emotion choking him. "Nay, lass. I ken not what ye have done since leaving here, but no man's seed could have grown so in so short a time. I was the only man to touch ye here and none had touched ye ere I did. Nay, 'tis mine and I will give the bairn my name an it is what ye want."

  "Aye. I'll not have my child labeled bastard and hear his mother labeled whore."

  "Ye were ne'er that, little one," he said softly, and sighed when she jerked away. "An it is a son, he will have all his heritage gives him right to. I will ne'er deny him."

  "And if 'tis a girl child?"

  "I will see that she ne'er wants for anything and is given a fine dowry."

  Storm nodded. She had all she had come for, yet she felt like weeping. "Do ye have a priest?"

  Colin strode over. "Sholto will fetch one, lass. Malcolm will show ye all to rooms so ye can wash up and rest if ye have a mind to. Ye shouldnae have set on a horse," he admonished softly.

  "My child will be no bastard," she reiterated quietly.

  "I understand, child." He gently touched her braided hair before urging her toward Malcolm.

  "But," Tavis protested, only to stand watching Storm and the others leave, his father's grip firm upon his arm. "I have to talk to her."

  "The time for talking was long past," Colin said, not unkindly. "Ye maun go soft and slow right now. I will go and have a word with the lass. She wants naught but your name for the bairn now." He shook his head sadly when he read the pain in his son's eyes. "Go clean up and clear the ale from your head. Ye may yet mend things."

  Awakening from a nap several hours later, Storm found Colin sitting by her bed. "The priest, m'lord?"

  "He has just arrived, lassie. How do ye feel?"

  "Fine, but could ye give me a hand? I have found it very hard to rise of late."

  Laughing softly, Colin helped her to sit up. "What do ye plan to do after ye have wed my son?"

  "Go back to Hagaleah. 'Tis only his name I have come to collect. There is naught else here for me."

  "How can ye be sure?" he asked. "Ye gave him nay a chance to talk to ye."

  "He had a chance to speak when I first left. He has naught to say now that I want to he
ar." She checked her hair in the mirror. "In truth, I do not e'en want to talk about him."

  Colin sighed. "Then ye willnae have much o' a marriage, lass." He watched as her hand clenched upon the brush until her knuckles whitened. "Ye will be neither wife nor widow nor maid."

  " 'Tis better than staying here and watching him wench," she snapped as she opened the door. "Shall we go? I must not lose any more time or my father may well come home and guess where I have gone."

  Shaking his head and commenting on the trials of fatherhood, Colin followed her, catching her up to take her by the arm. "Should ye be so hasty? Can ye nay give it a chance?"

  "Nay," she said softly. "I only just survived his last rejection. Do not ask me to chance another."

  Squeezing her arm gently in understanding, Colin said no more. She had told him what he wanted to know. A woman did not fear hurt if she was without feeling. If Tavis wanted her, he had a chance, but it would take a fight. As they entered the hall, one look at Tavis told Colin that his son would fight. The problem was going to be the vast amount of pride each of them had.

  Tavis tried to speak to Storm, but it was the wrong time to try to break through the icy shield she had erected. There were too many people hovering around and speaking to them. Even the priest thwarted Tavis, for the man was anxious to have the service over with. Sholto had dragged the man away from other important business, allowing for no refusals.

  Things looked no better after the vows had been spoken, for there was a sudden commotion at the door. A large group of armed men surged into the hall. The people of Caraidland had been so intent on the hasty wedding that the keep had been breached with only a few heads knocked together. Over the sound of swords being drawn by the Scotsmen gathered in the hall, Storm's surprised cry was barely heard. It was enough to cause a hesitation, however.