by Lecia Cornwall, Sabrina York, Anna Harrington, May McGoldrick
He’d signed it and sealed it, and he’d send it west toward Iolair with a Munro clansman who was journeying that way to visit his married daughter. From there, the letter would be passed to someone else, and so on, until it finally reached Iolair.
If it ever did.
And what if there was no reply? What would he do with her then? Seduction . . . He pushed the thought out of his mind. As the sky paled from black to gray, and the morning star rose over the western lip of the glen, Alex sat down at his desk and set about comparing the brides’ dowries and settlements, listing all the ways each woman could benefit his clan. That was how he’d determine which lass to marry, but try as he might, the memory of Cait MacLeod, her eyes heavy lidded as he kissed her kept invading his thoughts.
Chapter Seven
Four weeks until Midsummer’s Eve
“I see no reason why she shouldn’t be allowed to take her meals in the hall with everyone else,” Flora said as Coll escorted Cait into the room for the evening repast. Cait was wearing another charming gown, this one in shades of green and gold, every bit as flattering and elegant as the thistle-and-heather-trimmed dress she’d worn when he kissed her . . . Alex shut his eyes.
He’d been doing his best not to think about that kiss. In fact, he’d been avoiding her for a week, unsure of what to say. He had been busy, building new cotts. But just looking at her now made his mouth water to kiss her again.
“Do ye like her gown? It’s an old bed curtain, made over,” Flora marveled. “She’s clever with her needle.”
Flora—and everyone else—seemed to have forgotten that Cait MacLeod was a prisoner, a hated enemy. Of course, she’d hardly behaved like a prisoner in the week she’d been at Culmore. She’d charmed Coll and Flora and a host of other folk. They had nothing but good things to say about her kindness, her willingness to help out, and her beauty. And now that the scratches and bruises had faded, she was indeed beautiful. All Alex had to do was look at her across his crowded hall and the memory of how she tasted came flooding back. He remembered exactly how she’d felt in his arms, just the right height for a tall man, just the right shape and size to fit against his heart.
He’d come to supper to consider his potential brides once more. But he was aware of no one but Cait MacLeod. She helped a tired mother feed a cranky child. She made old folk smile and young ones giggle. Coll stood behind her with his back as straight as his old bones would allow, trying to hide his own smile. He’d given up trying to find another man to take over guarding the prisoner. It was now his pleasure to follow Cait as she went about life at Culmore.
Had she no flaws at all?
If she was a spy for the Sutherlands, she was a charming one, and clever. Alex envied Baird Sutherland. And that made Alex angry—a foolish jealousy, a pointless interest—He refused to call it desire, though it certainly was more than mere interest in a lass who might or might not be honest, or truly the daughter of the Fearsome MacLeod. Was she truly as kind and sweet and innocent as she appeared?
He watched as she made Aggie laugh, and Alex found himself hiding a smile at the joy on the homeless widow’s careworn face. He remembered the kettle Cait had saved and how small a thing it was, and yet how important. He forced himself to turn away, to consider his brides. Fiona McKay, or Sorcha Fraser, or Nessa MacCulloch, or Coira Ross? Perhaps he should kiss each lass. Surely one of them could kiss as well as Cait MacLeod. And in four short weeks, one of this select group would be his wedded wife, the only woman he’d ever kiss from that moment on. And Cait MacLeod would be . . . his eyes crept to her again, to her lush, smiling mouth.
Cait MacLeod would be the kiss he’d never forget.
* * *
Cait was quite used to the kind of a stir that occurred whenever she and her sisters entered a room together. But she was all by herself as she walked into the hall at Culmore, and conversation stopped. Did the Munros still fear her, suspect her? She wanted to back out of the room and flee. She stopped walking. “Go on, lass,” Coll said gently. “Mistress Flora said ye were to have your meals in the hall with everyone else from now on.” She looked at the head table, and Flora offered her a bright smile. Alex’s expression was unreadable. He’d forgotten about her, left her in Flora’s care, guarded by Coll. It had been a week since she arrived, a week and a day since he’d promised to write to her father, and since he’d kissed her. No doubt he’d forgotten that, too. Cait felt hot blood fill her cheeks, and she pasted on a bright smile as she moved between the tables to an empty place.
She sat beside a pretty brunette with an elaborate coiffure that didn’t suit her. Three other lasses sat near her, all of them staring at Cait.
Cait did what she always did when someone stared at her—she began to babble. “Are you all here for the laird’s wedding?” she asked. “Which lass is the laird’s bride?”
“Me,” said a blond lass.
“Nay, I am,” insisted the brunette
“I’m the bride,” said a lass with copper curls.
“It’s me,” said a lass with curly brown hair.
“All of you?” Cait asked in surprise. She resisted the urge to cast a speculative glance at Alex. Her father had married nine brides, but not all at once. There was only one space for Alex’s bride on the seanchas.
“We’re here so he can court us and choose,” the blond lass said. “I’m Sorcha Fraser. Are ye really a Sutherland?”
“I’m—” Cait began, but the red-haired lass interrupted.
“More like so we can court him,” she said tartly. “He’s done very little courting so far, and we’ve been here for a week. I’m Nessa MacCulloch. My father is the MacCulloch of Dunglas.”
“He has to wed, ye see,” Fiona MacKay said, twirling a dark-brown lock of hair around her finger. “There’s a tradition among the Munros. He has until midsummer to choose a bride and marry her—well, me.” She raised her nose in the air and gave the other lasses a sideways glance.
“But he’s too busy to go a-courtin’ like an ordinary man, so we’ve come to him,” Coira Ross said, tossing her red curls.
“They say if he doesn’t marry under the rules of the seanchas, then he’ll be dead by Samhain,” Nessa whispered. She looked at Alex. “’Twould be a sad waste of a braw, bonny man.”
Sorcha sighed. “He is a handsome lad indeed.”
Dead? Cait hadn’t heard that part of the tale. Now she understood why Flora sighed and frowned and worried as she added stitches to the tapestry, and why she had not yet begun to fill in the features of Alex’s bride. Soon, Flora would add Fiona’s curly hair, or Coira’s sharp features, or Sorcha’s impish smile, or Nessa’s freckles. Cait looked at the women, wondered if Alex had kissed any of them the way he’d kissed her. She felt something hot flare in the pit of her stomach—jealousy, perhaps, or regret, that he would not kiss her again. She concentrated on nibbling a bit of bannock.
“Och, I just have to win him,” Fiona said anxiously, still staring at the laird. “My brother has given me a choice—if I don’t win Alex Munro, I must wed Toothless Dougal Chisholm, who’s old and ugly. So I’m here, and I intend to win.”
“Are ye married?” Sorcha asked Cait.
Cait shook her head. Before Baird Sutherland, no one had asked for her hand or even courted her—and it had been lowering indeed to discover that he only wanted to marry her for connection to her father. She might have looked like the Winter Hag and he’d have taken her. She bit her lip. She wanted so much more than that. She wanted to be the only woman her man saw when he walked into the room, the only one he thought of even when she wasn’t by his side. But no man had ever noticed her in particular among her sisters, or singled her out as the one woman he could not live without.
She cast a quick look at Alex Munro. He was the handsomest man she’d ever met, and he was the first man who’d kissed her as if she were special. But perhaps he kissed every woman that way. She looked around at the hopeful lasses and wondered.
“Are ye betrothed, t
hen?” Coira asked Cait.
“I was. Almost,” she said. She raised her chin. “But I have decided I don’t wish to marry him after all.”
“Won’t your father be angry? Won’t he make ye wed? Mine will insist I marry Dougal,” Fiona said.
“My father believes it’s best to wed for love or not at all,” Cait said.
Four pairs of curious eyes gaped at her. “Truly?”
Cait nodded. “Aye. I have eleven sisters, three of whom are married. Their husbands love them, and only them. I doubt they’d have had it any other way, since they love their husbands well in return. My father would not have let them wed otherwise.”
Fiona frowned. “Love . . . what does that matter? This is my last chance. I’m nearly twenty. My youth is all but flown, and what’s left will belong to Toothless Chisholm . . .”
“I’m twenty,” Cait said. She tossed her russet braid over her shoulder.
“But you’re fair as a summer’s day,” Fiona said. “Ye must have a dozen handsome lads begging for your attention.”
She wished that were true. “Aye, dozens,” she murmured. She kept herself from looking at Alex. Just one would do . . .
“Ooh—do ye make them fight over ye? Perform chivalrous deeds for your favor?” Sorcha asked with a sigh.
Cait smiled. “Nay. I’ll know the right man when he comes along.”
“How?” Nessa asked.
Fairy bells. Or so her father said. She’d hear them ring, and know . . . “The right man will notice only me, even if I am standing next to my prettiest sisters or any other woman. He’ll see me and never look away again. That’s how I’ll know.”
Sorcha Fraser sighed. “Aye. Only me.” They all turned and looked longingly at the laird’s table. Cait saw Alex Munro look at each lass in turn. He frowned slightly, then nodded politely and forced a smile that looked more like a grimace of pain than love or the hope of it. He looked at her last of all, his eyes lingering, but Hector Munro caught his sleeve, and he turned away.
“He’s a busy man,” Nessa said. “He almost never comes to supper. I’ve hardly had time to flirt with him or charm him.”
“As long as he comes to bed after the wedding,” Coira said slyly, and the others giggled and blushed. Cait thought of the great bed in Alex’s chamber, pictured him in it, naked, and blushed as hotly as the other lasses.
“Your gown is very lovely,” Fiona said. “Yet they say you’re the laird’s prisoner, that you arrived in naught but rags.”
Cait didn’t take offense, since it was true enough. “It’s a borrowed gown. I’m handy with a needle and thread, so I added a few details to it. My sisters and I love pretty gowns, yet not one of us is willing to be seen in a gown that another has already worn. So we make our dresses over with new ribbons and bits of other gowns until they look brand new.”
“Truly? How very clever. Could you help me embellish my gowns?” Coira asked.
“And me?” Nessa asked.
“Perhaps a few ribbons and bows in the right places might help me catch the laird’s eye,” Fiona said, indicating her slim figure. “And I’ll need something suitable for my wedding, of course.”
Cait looked at the eager lasses and smiled. “Of course. We’ll ask Mistress Flora for needles and thread and start today.”
Chapter Eight
Two weeks until Midsummer’s Eve
Baird Sutherland paced the hall of Rosecairn Castle. His clansmen had returned from another search, and yet again there was no sign of Cait MacLeod.
Her kin had warned him that she had no sense of direction, that she got lost easily, but he hadn’t taken it seriously. His pretty cousin seemed smarter than that, but perhaps he’d been wrong about her. It hardly mattered. He simply needed a MacLeod bride, and any one of Donal MacLeod’s daughters would have done.
Baird was an ambitious man. One day he intended to be as powerful as the Fearsome MacLeod of Iolair—or greater still. Forging a strong bond through marriage to the MacLeods was the first step. When Baird had proposed, Donal had sent his daughter along smartly, just as Baird hoped, eager to renew the connection with his dead wife’s kin.
He remembered his cousin as a weedy girl, awkward and shy. It had been great fun to make her cry, since it had been a challenge to reduce her to such a state. She was brave and stubborn even then.
Now, days before midsummer, his intended wedding day, his bride was nowhere to be found. It was a serious impediment to his plans.
Damn her. He needed this alliance. Everything else had gone according to his plan—He’d spent months raiding Culmore and making Alex Munro look like an incompetent fool. Now the Munros of Culmore lived in fear, knew their laird couldn’t protect them, and believed the clan’s luck had died with old Hugh. They needed someone to restore their good fortune—oh, yes, Baird knew the ancient legend of the Munros, their seanchas was told even beyond the borders of Culmore. The Munros had lived by their belief in fairy magic for hundreds of years, and by all appearances, it had served them well. Their lands were rich, their clan successful. But it also made them smug and weak, easy prey for a more powerful clan. Added to his own territory, Culmore would make Baird rich, with lands and prestige to rival Donal MacLeods, or even surpass it. Aye, that’s what he wanted . . .
And Cait MacLeod was the key to fulfilling his ambition. He’d intended to ride into Culmore on Midsummer’s Eve with her by his side and the Culmore Pea in his pocket. As the Monros watched, he’d slide the wedding ring onto Cait MacLeod’s finger and claim the magic and Culmore for himself. He, not Alex Munro, would be the one to fulfill the prophecy of the seanchas. There’d be no need to kill anyone. Well, Alex Munro would have to die, but the others would simply accept Baird as their rightful laird, ordained by fairy magic.
Fairy magic. He almost laughed at the very idea of it, even now, with so much at stake. Magic indeed—having Cait as his wife meant that Donal MacLeod would be unable to interfere, to bring his might down to help the Munros.
Cait and her family connection was the key to everything.
But she was missing.
And so was the Culmore Pea.
Furious, Baird gritted his teeth and swore.
He’d been waiting for this day, for midsummer, planning this since old Hugh Munro died. He even had the ring—or he’d thought he did. The bumbling fool he’d paid to steal it had almost been caught. He’d dropped it, and now it was lost . . . Baird picked up a pitcher of ale on the table and threw it hard against the wall, where it shattered.
No one even flinched. His clansmen were used to his tantrums now, the way they’d once been used to the dull peace of his uncle’s rule. But Baird was a man of passion, of action.
He threw the cup after the pitcher, cursing Cait MacLeod. Ropes of foam slid down the stone wall. It had been nearly a fortnight since she vanished on the night of the last raid against the Munros. He was beginning to suspect they’d stolen her, but there’d been no demands for ransom. They’d expect a devil’s fortune for her, and they’d send her back raped and scarred and utterly ruined. It’s what he would do. It hardly mattered—all he needed was her hand, and a finger to slide the ring onto before the gathered Munros.
But now if he had to tell her father she was gone, possibly dead, he’d face the full wrath of the Fearsome MacLeod, and that would be like standing in the mouth of hell and facing the devil himself.
He bunched his fist and glared at the clansmen and mercenaries he’d tasked with searching for her. He stepped forward and punched the nearest man hard in the face, watching as he went down in a crumpled heap, his nose smashed and bleeding. The rest of the men stood still and stared at the wall without expression.
“Do the Munros have her?” Baird demanded.
“We haven’t seen her,” one man said blandly. “We’ve been watching Culmore for a week.”
“Well ye wouldn’t see her, would ye?” Baird snapped. “They’d have her in the dungeon, or tied to a bed somewhere.” His mouth twisted. “Did
ye ask anyone?”
The man shook his head. “We’d give our contact away if he was seen with us.”
“Then don’t let them see ye! Idiots! We have less than a fortnight left. Is there any sign of the ring?”
The man looked straight ahead again. “He says it’s lost, that the Munros are searching for it.”
Baird put his fingers to his temples. “Plan another raid and bring him here. I need information. If you have to march into the hall and drag him out in full view of every single Munro, I want him brought here, and I want to know if Cait MacLeod is at Culmore. Burn everything and leave them with nothing. Then we’ll see if they believe in fairies.”
Chapter Nine
She’d turned the whole castle upside down.
Not Flora, who was desperately directing the search for the Culmore Pea, but Cait MacLeod.
And she did it with a smile and simple kindness.
Alex stared as the brides swept into the hall. They were dressed as if this were the royal court of France. They paraded past him in elegant gowns the likes of which Culmore had never seen, dresses cut to reveal each lass’s unique charms while concealing her flaws. The lasses glowed, enjoying the admiration of every man in the room. Folk were beginning to place wagers on which lass Alex was going to choose at midsummer. There were also wagers about the prospects of the lasses he didn’t choose. Eogon Fraser was showing distinct interest in Fiona MacKay, and Ewan Ross had been seen walking and laughing with Nessa MacCulloch.
And Cait MacLeod—there wasn’t a man at Culmore who didn’t blush and turn into a gabbling idiot when she entered a room. All she had to do was smile . . . Alex frowned. “Kissing her would likely kill them,” he muttered as he watched her teaching the brides a new reel. She moved like cool water on a hot day, sweet and seductive. He licked his lips.
“What did ye say?” Flora asked him, and Hector looked at him as well.
“Nothing,” Alex replied. Cait made a misstep and laughed, and the brides laughed with her. Soon, the hall had erupted in carefree, happy joy, and everyone—the bairns, the servants, even old Coll—had joined the dance.