The beautiful lass in the throes of passion. Her golden tresses lashing his ribs. Her skin glowing. Her eyes shimmering like sparks.
But then he remembered their last conversation. Her eyes blazing in rage. Her mouth twisting in mockery. Her arms tense with fury. Her voice hoarse with hurt and anger.
Warring emotions bombarded him as well. Love and regret. Lust and shame. Temptation and forbiddance. Desire and duty.
Before he could work out how he felt about her and how he should respond, she let herself into the chamber.
In the flesh, Jenefer was even more compelling and disturbing than he’d remembered. He’d been racked with guilt for comparing the spirited, vibrant lass to his muted, lackluster wife. But seeing them together, he couldn’t deny the contrast.
Jenefer’s demeanor this morn, however, was formal. Stiff. Cool. Polite.
“I thought Lady Alicia might wish to see her son.”
She ducked through the door with Miles in her arms. Morgan imagined it couldn’t have been easy for her.
“Who is this?” Alicia’s voice was terse, guarded. He supposed it was only natural that she would be defensive, considering what she’d endured.
But how should he answer her?
He couldn’t very well say Jenefer was his lover.
Nor could he confess that he’d let a hostage care for their bairn.
To her credit and his relief, Jenefer had a quick answer. “I’m the babe’s nurse, m’lady.”
She swept forward, and Morgan closed the door behind her.
“No doubt you’re eager to see your son,” she said.
But as Jenefer carried him toward her, Alicia appeared to shrink into the mattress. Her eyes grew round, and her fingers tensed in the bedlinens.
“I… I… I don’t think I have the strength to…” She sank onto the pillow, turning her back to them. “Perhaps later.”
Jenefer exchanged a look of bafflement with Morgan.
He didn’t understand Alicia’s reaction either. It seemed like she would want to see their son. He’d hoped that holding the bairn might distract her from her tribulations and make her whole again.
But maybe the shock was too much. Maybe she needed time to adjust to being a mother. Maybe bonding with him would help.
“I’ve named him Allison,” he told her. “After you.”
“I’d like to rest now,” Alicia murmured over her shoulder.
Morgan was crestfallen. He’d expected that Alicia’s return from the dead would change everything. That she would be so grateful to see him, she would embrace him and their child with all the love she’d held close to her chest before.
He was wrong.
He’d forgotten how Alicia could withdraw like a snail into its shell. How, with a word, she could cut off all conversation and retreat into solitude. How she could leave him with his mouth hanging open and no one to hear his thoughts.
In the ensuing awkward pause in the room, the bairn naturally chose to begin whimpering.
Jenefer looked expectantly at Morgan.
He swallowed, unsure of what to do or say.
She raised her brows in silent communication.
He frowned.
She indicated Alicia with a sharp nod of her head. Then she lifted the bairn as if she intended to leave him beside her in the bed.
He shook his head.
She compressed her lips in frustration.
He mouthed the word, “Nay.”
She narrowed her eyes with smoking fury.
Alicia groaned from the bed. “Please take him away.”
Jenefer’s jaw dropped.
“She’s goin’, m’lady,” he whispered, catching Jenefer by the shoulder and wheeling her around toward the door.
He should have known she’d resist. Her brows collided in disapproval, and she wrenched out of his grip. Of course, her violent movements upset the bairn, who began to wail in earnest.
Alicia flounced in the bed, biting out, “What kind of nurse can’t keep a babe quiet?”
“What kind of mother—”
Morgan clapped a hand over Jenefer’s mouth just in time. “Go on, now, please. Lady Alicia needs her rest. There will be time later to—” He sucked a sharp breath between his teeth as she clamped down on the tender flesh of his palm.
Forced to release her, he was grateful at least that she didn’t finish what she’d started to say. Not that she needed to. Her expression said everything.
Jenefer was disgusted with Alicia. Disappointed in him. She might go along with his deception for now. But she wasn’t going to play nursemaid forever.
Sucking at his injured flesh, he gave her a nod of understanding.
Then she exited with a final jab meant to bruise. “Come along, lad. We’re not wanted here.”
Morgan stared at the door long after she was gone. When his gaze returned to his wife, who had now shifted under the coverlet to commandeer the entire bed, he couldn’t help wonder if the same could be said of him.
Chapter 45
“Something’s not right with that woman,” Jenefer declared as soon as she returned to the nursery.
Feiyan creased her brows. “She wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful?”
“I didn’t notice.”
That was a lie. Jenefer had noticed. Beneath the cuts and bruises, Morgan’s wife was lovely. She had cream-pale skin and coal-dark hair, enormous black eyes, and a delicate chin that made her look fey and frail. Next to her, Jenefer had felt like a sun-baked giant.
“So what’s wrong with her?” Feiyan asked.
“She acted as if…” Even though she knew Miles wouldn’t understand her words, it felt wrong speaking in front of him. She tucked the drowsy lad tenderly into his cradle. Then she whispered to Feiyan, “She acted as if she didn’t want Miles.”
“Are you sure ’tisn’t just wishful thinking on your part?”
Jenefer’s eyes went flat. “Nay.” Then she shook her head in wonder. “She wouldn’t even look at him—her own babe.”
Feiyan’s brows popped up. “Truly?”
“’Tis three months now. What mother wouldn’t want to see her child after all that time?”
“Maybe she’s just tired?” Feiyan shrugged. “The Highlander said she’d been treated badly by her captor.”
“Maybe.” But Jenefer thought it was more than that. The woman had seemed almost fearful of the lad.
“I’ve been thinking, Jen,” Feiyan said in low tones, sitting on the edge of the bed. “The return of Lady Alicia may be a good thing.”
“How?” She sat beside her cousin.
“Think about it,” Feiyan confided. “The English lord who took her—he can’t live very far from here, aye?”
She shrugged. “Aye.”
Feiyan lifted a slim brow. “Would you want to live so close to the man who’d abducted you?”
Jenefer carefully considered the question before responding, “Absolutely.”
“What?” It wasn’t the answer Feiyan expected. “Why?”
Jenefer thought that was fairly obvious. “How else could I exact revenge?”
“Ah, of course.” Then she leaned toward Jenefer to confide, “But you saw the lady. Did she look like the sort of woman to exact revenge?”
Jenefer scoffed. “She’s half my size. Wispy. Weak. Trembling. Fearful.”
“Not a warrior maid.”
“Hardly. If an English lord had raised a hand like that to one of us, he wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale.”
“Exactly. So the last place this poor, abused lass will want to live is within easy reach of her abuser.”
“True, though I doubt her abuser will live long. Not if Morgan Mor mac Giric has anything to say about it.”
Feiyan held up a finger. “Ah, but the king may have sent Morgan here to secure the border and keep the peace. The Highlander wouldn’t dare start a war.”
Feiyan had a point.
But Jenefer scarcely had time to mull it over before Bethac
and Cicilia entered the nursery.
Cicilia had brought cups of ale for them. Seeing that Miles was asleep, she quietly stirred the fire.
Bethac shooed them off the bed and began straightening the bedlinens.
Feiyan took a long swallow of ale and casually asked Bethac, “Now that Lady Alicia has been found, will your clan return to the Highlands?”
Jenefer held her breath.
“Nay,” Bethac said, quashing her hopes. “Laird Morgan is the rightful heir to Creagor.” The maidservant’s gaze landed and lingered an extra moment on Jenefer, as if to challenge her claim to the keep. Then she lowered her eyes and resumed smoothing the sheets. “Besides, Lady Alicia will not wish to return.”
“She won’t?” Feiyan said.
Jenefer blinked. “Why not?”
Bethac opened her mouth, but didn’t answer her at first. “Cicilia, take the bairn’s soiled linens down to the laundress, will ye?”
“Aye.” Satisfied that Miles was sleeping quietly, Cicilia left with the pail of laundry.
When she was gone, Jenefer repeated the question. “Why would Lady Alicia not wish to return?”
Bethac’s lips were taut as she replied, “The lass never cared for the Highlands.” She swatted at the coverlet, brushing away lint. “She was always pinin’ for her home.” She continued, aggressively fluffing the pillows. “Complainin’ o’ the cold. Weepin’ that she was weary o’ bein’ kept among…” Her lips thinned. “Among savages.”
Jenefer grimaced. Though she knew better now, that was the very word she’d once used for Highlanders.
Bethac pulled the linens as tight as her lips. “Morgan was too kind, sayin’ her condition made her weepy. He said she was like a tender rose, too frail for the Highlands. But I think…” She stopped herself.
“What?” Jenefer asked. Her heart was pounding. “What do you think?”
Bethac wiped her hands on her skirts. “’Tisn’t my place to say.”
“Oh, go on,” Feiyan urged. “We won’t tell a soul.”
Bethac glanced at them both, as if measuring whether she could trust them. Her desire to confess apparently outweighed her need to keep the secret. “I don’t think she’s half as frail as she claims to be.”
“Why?” Jenefer asked.
Bethac skewered them again with her gaze. Then she beckoned them near and confided, “Lady Alicia may have skin like silk. But she’s got a spine o’ steel when it comes to gettin’ her way. And she’s got the laird on a tight lead.” She clucked her tongue. “Morgan, bless his soul, is blind to it.” Then her voice took on a tart edge. “O’ course, now the lady’s got what she wants. She’s in a warmer clime and among civilized folk.”
Feiyan lifted a brow. “Things couldn’t have turned out better for her if she’d planned it.”
Bethac didn’t answer. But her eyes were hooded when she looked at Feiyan, and she said no more, returning to tidying the chamber.
Jenefer blinked. Planned it? That wild idea fired into her brain like a swift and impactful arrow.
Was it possible? Could Lady Alicia have traveled to England of her own free will? Had she had a hand in her abduction? Had there even been an abduction?
The idea was staggering.
“Are you suggesting,” Jenefer asked, “she may have deceived Morgan, made him believe she was dead, and feigned her own kidnapping, abandoning her newborn child?”
“I’m suggestin’ nothin’,” Bethac declared. “’Tisn’t my place. And ye’d best keep such notions to yourself.”
With those elusive words of warning, Bethac left the nursery.
But just because Bethac hadn’t suggested it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
Still, the whole thing seemed unfathomable.
“What kind of woman could walk away from a wee, helpless infant?” she wondered aloud. Silently, she added, or from such a magnificent warrior of a husband.
Feiyan gave her a sly glance. “No doubt the same kind of woman who’s not so grateful to be reacquainted with him.”
Jenefer nodded. This put a coil in things.
She had to reconsider the entire notion of returning Miles to his birth mother. How could Jenefer hand an innocent babe over to the woman who had heartlessly abandoned him? How could she surrender Morgan to a wife who had ruthlessly betrayed him?
“I can’t give him back now.” Even she wasn’t sure if she meant Miles or Morgan or both.
“’Tis decided then.”
Jenefer lifted a brow in askance.
Feiyan closed her eyes to scheming slits. “This is war.”
Chapter 46
Alicia didn’t like the lass who’d come in this morn. Something about her was galling. The tawny wench was oversized and overbold. Too pretty for a servant. And she had a kind of fatal sensuality that only men and clever wives like Alicia could smell.
“I don’t like that woman,” she muttered, pouting.
“What woman?” Morgan asked.
Still claiming weakness from her ordeal, Alicia half-reclined against a bolster on Morgan’s bed. He was hand-feeding her bites of trout pottage.
“That nurse.”
“Bethac?”
“Not Bethac.” To be honest, Alicia wasn’t too fond of Bethac either. The old maidservant was always sticking her nose into Morgan’s affairs. But that wasn’t who she meant. “The other one.” She picked at the corner of the coverlet. “The one who was trying to force the infant upon me this morn.”
Morgan frowned. “I’m sure she meant well.”
“I don’t trust her.”
Alicia was almost certain she was the same woman she’d overheard challenging Morgan in the nursery. There was something disturbing about her. She looked as fierce and forceful as her bellowing. But she was also beautiful in a wild and intrepid way.
“Our son seems to like her,” he said.
Morgan was clearly trying to placate her. He lifted a spoonful of pottage to her lips. She wanted to spit it onto the floor. Instead, she gave him a coy smile.
“Infants always like the one who feeds them,” she said, accepting the pottage and dutifully swallowing. But she didn’t intend to be distracted. “Nay, I fear the woman doesn’t know her place. She’s bold and abrasive. Far too free with her words. And there’s a conceit about her that…”
She glanced abruptly at Morgan. Was that a smile glimmering in his eyes? Her breath caught. By the devil, her suspicions were correct. “You,” she breathed, narrowing her eyes perceptively, “you like her.”
Morgan was quick to reply, “O’ course I like her. I wouldn’t let her tend to our son if I didn’t.”
Alicia wasn’t fooled for an instant. There was more to it than that. The circumstances felt all too familiar. The tryst between Godit and Edward was still fresh in her mind.
Maybe things hadn’t progressed that far between Morgan and this maidservant. But too much was at stake for her now. He couldn’t be trusted. No man could be. She’d be damned if she’d let a man betray her again.
Rage bubbled inside her veins. But she dared not let Morgan see it. Gentle persuasion always worked best with him.
She lowered her head until her chin rested on her chest, hiding the livid glimmer in her eyes. When she spoke, it was in a trembling voice, one she hoped he’d mistake for fear, not fury. “Don’t be angry with me, Morgan, but…well…’tis only that she makes a mockery of your command. She defies your orders and doesn’t treat you with the proper respect.” She slid her gaze up slightly to gauge his reaction. “I think, for your own good…and the good of the clan…you should dismiss her.”
His brow clouded at once and his mouth turned down. “I fear that won’t be possible.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
“’Tis…complicated.”
Her jaw tightened. Complicated. What did that mean? “Unfortunately,” he explained, “she’s the only one who can keep the bairn from wailin’ all night long.”
His answer surprised her. “Does he?
Wail all night long?”
“Aye. He probably misses his mother,” Morgan said, clearly trying to cajole her into a maternal role.
She refused to take the bait. “Can’t Bethac make him quiet?”
He shook his head. “Nay. Only Jenefer seems to have the gift.”
Alicia clenched her teeth. So the nurse had a name, did she? Jenefer. Alicia preferred to think of her as a nameless, disposable servant, easily replaced.
“But she’ll be gone soon, aye?” she asked. “After all, he won’t be a sniveling infant forever.”
She saw Morgan flinch at her words, and she made a quick correction, giving her head a little shake and resting a hand lightly on his sleeve.
“Forgive me, Morgan. I’m not myself. I’m testy and ill-at-ease. To be honest, I fear my faith has been shaken. Having been away from you for so long, I find myself uncertain of your affections.”
She thought she detected a telling hesitation in his reply.
“Ye’re my wife, Alicia. O’ course ye have my affections.”
“But I fear that…” She stopped herself, then lowered her gaze, murmuring, “Nay, you’ll think me a fool.”
“Never.”
“Just a silly lass.”
“Nay. Just tell me. What is it?”
“I fear…” She bit her lip. “I fear that nurse has designs on you. The way she looks at you…”
“Looks at me?” He seemed sincerely surprised.
“Not that I can blame her. Who wouldn’t wish to be with a man like you?” Before he could respond to her flattery, she tempered it with a pointed remark. “Especially a man with a title and a magnificent holding?”
Just as she’d predicted, doubt slowly formed a furrow in his brow.
“I’m sure ye’re wrong about that,” he said. His eyes, however, betrayed uncertainty.
“And she’s already earned the trust of your infant.” Watering the seeds of his misgiving with the elixir of shame, she amended, “Our infant.”
She allowed herself a secret smile. She was in control again. She had Morgan back under her thumb. Penitent and malleable. Riddled with guilt.
Her blood cooled to a low simmer as she took another bite of the trout pottage. She might not be able to get rid of the troublemaking lass. But knowing Morgan, she could get him to do it himself.
Bride of Fire Page 20