by Paula Quinn
Shona wanted to make sure Ewan understood. “My mother died birthing me. They say Da took me up in the tower with him the day I was born.”
He brought her hand to his lips, his eyes full of sorrow. She could happily drown in those brown depths.
Kendric continued. “As ye nay doot ken, the tower was added by the first MacCarron to take possession o’ the castle after the Mackinlochs abandoned it.”
Jeannie huffed again. “Saints preserve us from old men and their ramblings.”
“I’m nay old,” he retorted.
“Mayhap I should tell the rest, Uncle,” Shona suggested, dismayed at the antagonistic turn the conversation had taken.
“Forgive me, laddie,” Kendric told Ewan. “’Tisna my intention to alienate ye. Habits of a lifetime.”
Ewan nodded. “Old hatreds die hard,” he agreed.
Seemingly at the end of her patience, Jeannie approached the bed. “Weel, they’d best die here and now. The threat is from within, not from the Mackinlochs.” She turned to Ewan. “As Kendric has rightly told ye, my brother Beathan went up to the tower every evening when he was home. For many a year he took his little girl with him.”
Shona swallowed the lump in her throat. “He used to tell me about Ma,” she explained. “He seemed to feel close to her up there. Mayhap if I’d gone with him the night he died…”
Her auntie cupped her chin in both hands. “Ye canna blame yerself. Beathan became moody and cantankerous as he got older.” She cast her wonky eye in Kendric’s direction. “Runs in the family.”
Her brother bristled. “He just preferred the solitude. ’Tis the reason we thought he’d jumped off the tower when we found his broken body in the courtyard below.”
Indignation flooded Shona. “I never believed that for a moment. An accident aye, though it was hard to fathom how such a thing could happen. The parapet wall is too high.”
Ewan squeezed her hand. “And now we ken what likely happened.”
“He was pushed off,” Jeannie murmured.
*
For a man to embrace his betrothed in public wasn’t acceptable behavior, but Ewan threw caution to the winds and pulled Shona into his arms, consumed by a hunger to warm her shivering body, to kiss away the tears and fill the void in her heart. “I swear to ye I’ll avenge his death,” he whispered, nibbling her earlobe.
He lifted her when she swooned against him. “This lass needs sleep,” he told the others. “She’s had a long ordeal.”
Jeannie headed for the door, Shona’s maid a few steps behind. “Follow me. Moira will help ye get her to bed.”
“Just so we’re clear,” he said to Kendric. “I dinna intend to leave her alone this night. She’s mine to protect. On the morrow we begin the hunt.”
The older man sighed, exhaustion etched on his face. “Aye, laddie. Ye must do as ye see fit.”
Fynn opened the door. “What do ye expect o’ me and David, my laird?”
Ewan smiled at the one-handed warrior’s knowing wink. “Go to the stables and inform Walter Gilbertson of what’s transpired here. Put yerselves at his disposal. Tell him to post guards at every entry and exit. The Morleys are to be arrested on sight if they show their faces. I want to speak to the castle folk in the hall on the morrow an hour after dawn.”
Satisfied he’d done all he could for the present, he followed Jeannie and carried Shona to her chamber, where he left her with Moira. “Go to yer apartment, my lady,” he told Jeannie. “No harm will come to her as long as I draw breath.”
She stood on tiptoe and pecked a kiss on his cheek. “Thank goodness ye came to us, Ewan Mackinloch. Shona’s a lucky lass.”
He smiled. “And, unless I miss my guess, ye are fond o’ my kinsman. He’s a Macintyre, by the way.”
She giggled like a young maiden as a blush spread across her cheeks. “Aye. He confided as much. Who would have thought such a thing possible at my age?”
“Fynn is a good man,” he reassured her as he opened the door and looked left and right. “I’ll watch until ye’re safely inside.”
She hurried to her own apartment and waved before entering. He closed Shona’s door and stood with his back to it, arms folded across his chest. Decorum dictated he leave. It was inappropriate to see his betrothed in her night attire, but he couldn’t help himself.
Though she looked tired and pale when she emerged long minutes later, his cock saluted her beauty. Shrouded from neck to toe in a heavy linen nightrail with long sleeves, she was nevertheless the most alluring female he’d ever set eyes on. Moira had combed the tangles out of her hair and it caressed her shoulders like a shining cloak, reminding him of the hairpin hidden in his gambeson.
The necessity to discuss the circumstances in which he’d found the ornament sat like a lead weight on his chest. He would never cast blame on her for what might have happened, but didn’t want to spend his life wondering. He needed the truth.
“Leave us, Moira,” he said when Shona was tucked in bed.
The maid glanced at her mistress sitting propped up by the bolster.
“Ye can go,” Shona whispered.
Moira hesitated only a moment before bobbing a curtsey and exiting. Ewan barred the door behind her.
“Should I be afraid?”
He perched on the edge of the mattress and took his betrothed’s elegant hand, willing his hungry tarse to behave itself. “Ye need never fear me,” he promised, slowly retrieving the hairpin, “and I ken ye’re tired, but it’s important I hear from yer lips everything that happened while ye were in Mungo’s clutches.”
*
Shona stared at the treasured butterfly lying on the bedspread, afraid to look Ewan in the eye. “It belonged to my mother. Where did ye find it?” she asked.
“Ruadh found it,” he replied. “In yon cave at Conger’s Rock.”
A snake wriggled in her belly. She’d done nothing wrong, but would he believe her?
“Mungo made me sleep next to him—by the fire. I must have lost it then.”
Even to her own ears it sounded as if the worst had happened.
Ewan got to his feet and moved to the foot of the bed. He pressed his fisted hands into the mattress and leaned forward, ready to pounce. “Then?”
She inhaled to steady her breathing. “He put his arm across my hips.”
She worried Ewan might break his teeth if he kept on grinding them together. “When I tried to move away, he wouldna let me.”
Realizing he was close to losing control completely, she tried desperately to recall Mungo’s exact words and the way he’d uttered them. “He told me, I’m nay likely to have my way with ye in a cave wi’ my men looking on.”
Ewan’s jaw fell open. To her surprise he burst out laughing. “Ye sound just like the brainless twit.”
Relief blossomed and she continued her impersonation. “I think he feared Ailig was watching him. He explained the arm was Just in case ye get a silly notion to run off.”
She found herself standing beside the bed in Ewan’s arms before she even realized he had moved. He rained kisses along her neck, nibbled her earlobe, cupped her bottom in his big hands and lifted her to his hard body. “The mon must be a eunuch if he slept alongside ye all night and didna have his way wi’ ye.”
She held her breath for a moment, worried his remark meant he didn’t believe her, but his kisses and the thrusting of his hips carried on, igniting delicious feelings of yearning in private places as his manhood pressed against her body.
Holding her tight, he fell backwards onto the bed and turned her so they lay facing each other. He stroked her hair and trailed his fingers down her neck. Breasts swelled in anticipation, nipples tingled to be touched. She pouted, wantonly disappointed when he stopped.
“I want ye badly, Shona MacCarron,” he rasped, “but when our bodies join ’twill be in our marriage bed as befits the daughter of a laird.”
She nodded, awed by the reverence in his voice and the daunting promise of a physical union wi
th him. “I’ll try to be a good wife,” she whispered, “but I had no mother to counsel me, and Jeannie…well…she suffered at Ailig’s hands and would never speak of it. I confess I ken naught about pleasing a man.”
He trailed his fingers gently over a breast. “Jesu, Shona, just touching ye pleases me.”
Though his caress was featherlight, desire curled into her womb. She arched her back and cried out her need when he cupped her breast and brushed his thumb over her nipple. He smothered her cries with his mouth, coaxing her lips open with his tongue. She sucked on him like a babe at the teat, letting him breathe for her as he squeezed her nipple. He draped his leg over her thigh, drawing her closer to his body, then took her hand and pressed it against his manhood.
The notion of being abed with a man had always filled her with a dread of powerlessness. Instead, she relished the strength of Ewan’s leg pinning her in place and surrendered willingly to the sensations caused by the rhythmic squeezing of her nipple. She responded in kind to the thrusts of his hips, delighting in the hard warmth of his manhood as it pulsed beneath her hand. She grew dizzy on the intoxicating taste and aroma of a powerful male.
A wild and hot wanting grew and grew in her female place until she tumbled into an abyss of bliss, vaguely wondering who was screaming so loudly.
Secret Feelings
Ewan watched dawn trickle faint pink streaks across the sky. He’d moved the chair close to the window to lessen the temptation of crawling back into bed in order to ease his insistent arousal in the most satisfying way possible.
A rustling of linens caught his attention. Propped up on her elbows, Shona watched him from the bed. “Ye’re awake,” he said, resisting the urge to rush over and sift his fingers through her disheveled hair. One day soon he’d awaken with those glorious tresses wrapped around his sated body.
She stretched her arms over her head, resurrecting the pleasurable ache at his groin. “I feel different,” she said.
Incapable of keeping his hands off her a moment longer, he walked to the bed. “That was just a wee taste,” he said with a smug chuckle, cupping her face in his hands.
There was much more he wanted to say. He’d been awed by her innocent yet seductive response to his kisses and caresses. He hadn’t touched her nether lips, yet she’d exploded like a firecracker before falling asleep in his arms.
He thirsted to taste that most intimate place; the waiting would be torture.
However, there wasn’t time for sweet words and promises. He’d a duty to inform the folk of Clan MacCarron he was their interim laird and convince them to prosecute two of their own.
He stepped away from temptation and paced. “I’ve rehearsed over and over what to say to the people who are at this very moment gathering in the hall.”
“Jeannie and I will speak in yer favor,” she assured him.
“Walter too, I hope.”
He paused when she threw off the linens and sat on the edge of the mattress with bare feet dangling. Nibbling those enticing toes would be…
He raked his hands through his hair and headed for the door. Mayhap he’d be better able to think if he wasn’t distracted by her beauty. “I’ll send Moira. Get dressed quickly. Fynn or David will come to fetch ye. Dinna open for anyone else. Ailig Morley seems to ken how to get in and out of this castle without being seen. We must be wary.”
*
Shona entered the boudoir, still daydreaming about Ewan’s kisses and the explosion of euphoric sensations he’d caused. She saw to her needs and wandered back to bed, lazily pinching nipples that suddenly seemed permanently rigid.
She startled at the sound of Moira’s voice outside the door and rearranged her nightrail, hoping the heat rising in her face wasn’t too obvious. Ewan’s touches had turned her into a harlot.
Moira let the bar fall across the stanchions after Shona let her in. She took one look at her mistress, narrowed her eyes and asked, “Ye slept weel?”
“Cheeky servant,” Shona retorted, but then her joy won out. “Do I look different?”
Moira grinned. “Ye look happy.”
It occurred to Shona as they entered the boudoir that Moira also seemed happier. “And what’s made ye so congenial this morn?” She’d never seen her maid’s face turn quite so red. “It’s David, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” Moira whispered. “He’s a canny lad. And his voice!”
They giggled and teased each other as the maid assisted her mistress to prepare for the meeting. They shared secret feelings about the men they were attracted to while Moira braided her hair.
Shona frowned at her reflection in the mirror. The linen frock seemed too simple. “Mayhap I should wear something more dignified. Folk might be angered at the notion of Ewan being made laird.”
“Nay,” her maid insisted. “They love ye, and they’ll love him.”
“Despite the fact he’s a Mackinloch?”
“Aye,” Moira replied after some hesitation.
Pledging Vengeance
Ewan vaulted onto the trestle table in the hall for the second time in as many days with a sinking feeling all might not go as well as he hoped. But then he hadn’t really expected to be warmly welcomed as the interim laird. Discontented grumbling among the folk who’d gathered indicated they’d already heard the news and weren’t happy about it.
He was glad of David’s presence beside the table, and proud of his demeanor. The youth stood resolute, legs braced, head held high, but there wasn’t a trace of fear on his face. Ewan hoped the same could be said of him.
He breathed more easily when Fynn entered with Shona and her maid. Clad in a simple linen frock, his betrothed seemed to bring a breath of fresh air into the stale heat of the hall. David’s ruddy complexion flushed when Moira sent him a little wave.
It occurred to him Fynn didn’t look pleased, but a member of a Mackinloch sept was perhaps entitled to feel uneasy in a MacCarron gathering. His attention was distracted from his kinsman when Walter strode in with several of the men who’d accompanied them on the rescue. Shona hurried over when she noticed one of them carried Ruadh.
Ewan chuckled inwardly. The lazy hound was making the most of the attention being lavished on him, but he was relieved to see the dog had survived his injuries.
The crowd turned its attention to the wounded warrior. Murmurs replaced grumbling. Taking advantage of the distraction, Ewan drew his sword and held it high. “Aonaibh Ri Chéile,” he shouted, recalling Walter’s earlier plea for unity.
If the squeal of metal hadn’t drawn attention, his war cry caused every head to swivel in his direction. A moment of stunned silence followed, so he plunged on. “Yer laird, The Camron, lies gravely injured, and canna lead the fight against a dire threat to all MacCarrons.”
He scanned the faces, deciding to appeal to those who looked puzzled rather than angry. “Aye. Give full rein to yer anger when I tell ye the accident was no such thing. His horse was deliberately spooked by someone who wanted him dead.”
“Nay!”
“Who was it?”
“Mayhap a Mackinloch.”
David moved closer to the table, but Ewan refused to acknowledge the accusation. Some of the angry faces now look puzzled. Walter had hoisted Robbie onto his shoulders. Encouraged by the lad’s smile, he searched the crowd for Shona until their eyes met. He lowered his voice and his sword. “Ye all ken I came here to wed Lady Shona MacCarron,” he said softly.
An eerie silence fell as folk strained to listen.
“I hafta admit, I didna want to wed a MacCarron lass.”
There was muttered acknowledgement. Clan rivalry and long-standing hatreds were something every clansman understood.
Ewan grinned. “Until I set eyes on her beauty. Then I couldna think of aught else but a wedding…” He risked wiggling his eyebrows… “and a bedding.”
Laughter and some cheering ensued. His gamble that all men understood lust for a beautiful woman had hit the mark.
He held out his hand t
o beckon his betrothed to his side. She came with a smile on her lovely face that gave him strength. Eager hands helped her up onto the table. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Here and now I pledge to her my undying love and fidelity.”
She turned wide eyes to him. “Ye love me?” she whispered.
He kissed her, murmuring Aye into her mouth.
The cheering increased as he lingered over the kiss, but then he schooled his features into a frown as he broke them apart. “But I also pledge to avenge the wrongs done to my bride.”
Shona tensed in his arms, but there was no time to tell her he didn’t intend to reveal she’d spent time with Mungo in dubious circumstances. “I told ye already of our suspicions about Kendric’s injuries. Let righteous anger erupt when I reveal that Beathan MacCarron was murdered, pushed from the top of the tower.”
Pandemonium broke out. Shona clung to his arm and laid a hand on his chest. “Ye didna give me a chance to reply, but I love ye too.”
Feeling like the King o’ all Scots, he smiled, brandished the sword once more and shouted over the noise. “Kendric has honored me. I am yer laird until he recovers. I pledge to do all in my power to bring the murderer to justice.”
Confused shouts resulted, but the fury wasn’t directed at Ewan. The demand was for the name of the traitor.
Walter nodded.
“Ailig Morley,” Ewan bellowed hoarsely from his dry throat.
Outrage swept through the hall; more questions were raised, but pride heated his blood. He was confident he’d successfully established himself as laird, albeit temporary, of a hostile clan and he held the woman he wanted in his arms.
A scowling Fynn beckoned him.
“What’s amiss?” he asked, bending to hear over the hubbub.
“I canna find Lady Jeannie.”
Search
Shona was whisked along the corridor to her chamber by what seemed like an army of angry men, one of them carrying Ruadh. She trembled with fear, despite Ewan’s firm grip on her hand. Ailig Morley had somehow managed to infiltrate the castle again and he’d taken her darling aunt. She didn’t want to contemplate the suffering the cruel coward might be inflicting on Jeannie—if she was still alive.