Choking and coughing, Iain dragged his son from atop him and turned to slap a hand over the wench’s mouth, trying to save her from herself. Christ, he could have sworn she smiled at his attempt to hush her. Preoccupied with strangling as he was, his muzzle stopped her all of two seconds and then she began the verse yet another time, though this time the words were muffled through his fingers.
“Bluidy hell, doesna she know another song, at least?” Dougal asked.
Iain might have asked the very same thing, were he not struggling for his next breath. Damn the vexsome wench! Still choking, he sat, dragging her with him as he leaned to hawk the bug from his mouth. Nothing came, and he was mightily afraid he’d swallowed the creature. Damn!
She sang louder, and Iain peered at her from the corner of his eyes, considering thrusting the whole of his arm down her throat. “Stubborn,” he rasped, and choked again, giving in to another coughing fit. “Stubborn, fashious wench,” he finished when he could.
“Da... will ye leave her to sing,” Malcom whispered.
Shocked by the request, Iain stared down at his son through the shadows, thinking that surely the bug had addled his brains, or he must have imagined the soft plea. Malcom had never favored coddling. Ever. He’d been a wee man from the first day he could walk and talk.
“I dinna want her to stop,” his son said somewhat desperately.
Though nothing else had managed to accomplish the feat, Malcom’s uncertain request hushed the lass abruptly.
The glade turned silent, his men mute.
“’Tis a verra pretty song,” Malcom said. “Will ye sing me another, Page?”
Shocked by his son’s entreaty, Iain felt her swallow and he dropped his hand to allow her to reply, his heart twisting at the innocent request. The glade seemed to become quieter still as everyone awaited her reply.
For a long instant, she didn’t answer, and Iain held his breath as his son added, a little aggrievedly, “My mammy never sung to me. She went to be wi’ God when I was born. Will ye sing to me, please?”
Iain’s heart twisted and his eyes burned with tears he’d never shed for a wife who had never loved him. “Malcom,” he began, anticipating her refusal.
“Iain, ye heartless cur!” Angus’s gruff voice interjected. “Let the lass—” The old man’s voice broke with emotion, and Iain knew that his eyes stung, as did his own. “Let the lass sing to the wee laddie, will ye?” he finished, his voice sounding more tender than the old coot would surely have liked.
“Aye,” added Dougal. “Let her sing to the wee lad! Malcom never had him someone to sing him a lullai bye.”
Iain swallowed his grief for his son and felt a leaden weight in his heart. “’Tis a fickle lot, ye are,” he groused.
“Can she, da?” Malcom begged. “Can she sing to me?”
“Will she?” Iain amended, frowning. Bloody hell, but he couldn’t make the lass sing if she didn’t wish to—no more than he could have made her stop when she would not.
“Aye,” she answered abruptly, surprising him. Iain’s gaze tried to reach her through the shadows, but she was staring down at his son. “I’ll sing,” she said softly, and there were murmurs of approval from his men.
“What is it you wish me to sing?” she asked Malcom after a moment.
“Och, ye can sing anythin’!” his son declared excitedly, and then crawled over Iain to lie between them, as though it were a perfectly natural thing for him to do.
Iain sat speechless.
For an instant there was no movement from her side of the breacan, and then she lay down next to his son, jerking Iain’s arm out from under him and tugging him down to lie beside them. Iain thought she might have done it on purpose—her way of letting him know that while she’d given in to the son’s request, she didn’t like the father any better for it. He would have grinned over her pique, save that he was too stunned by the turn of events even to think clearly.
“D’ ye know anythin’ Scots?” Malcom asked hopefully, facing her.
“I know one,” she answered, “but not the words.”
“Oh,” Malcom answered, sounding a little disappointed. As he watched the two of them together, Iain’s heart ached for all the things Mairi had deprived him of. Six years old and his son still craved a gentle voice to lull him to sleep. He couldn’t help but wonder what else Malcom craved.
What had he missed? And had he done things right? No one had been there to tell him otherwise, and he’d just done what he could—what he knew to do. What if he’d not been a good father to Malcom all these years?
He coughed lightly, telling himself it was the bug that still scratched his throat, and not grief that strangled him.
“I-I can hum it,” the lass said, and began, a little hesitantly.
For an instant Iain was too benumbed to make out the voice, and less the melody. And then it became clearer, and the ballad penetrated the fog of his brain.
His heartbeat quickened.
From where did he know that song?
Hauntingly familiar, and yet so strange coming from the lass’s English lips, he couldn’t make it out, though he tried.
As she continued to hum, the memory tried to surface from the blackness of his mind, achingly dulcet, and yet so hazy and indistinct, he couldn’t bring it fully to light; a woman’s voice... so familiar and soothing...
Not Mairi’s voice, for he’d never heard her sing a note in her life.
Not Glenna either.
Whose voice?
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, as the words of a forgotten verse came to him.
Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie... when you’re a man, ye shall follow your daddy...
He felt the jolt physically, as though his body had been stricken by an invisible bolt of lightning.
Bewildered, Iain laid his head down upon the breacan and stared into the darkness, at the almost indistinguishable silhouette of the two lying beside him, trying to remember.
Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie, when ye’re a man, ye shall follow your daddy...
“Lift me a coo, and a goat and a wether,” he murmured, trying desperately to recall the words. He joined her hum without realizing. “Bring them home to your minnie together...”
Christ, he couldn’t recall the rest. His chest hammered. Whose voice was it he recalled?
His mother’s?
Nay. He shook his head, for it couldn’t be. His mother had died giving him birth. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be remembering a woman who’d taken her last breath the very instant he’d sucked in his first. ’Twas said that she had never even heard his first wail.
Whose voice, then?
His heart beat frantically, and his palms began to sweat. “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee laddie,” he sang softly, puzzling over the memory, unaware that he sang off tune and out of place—or that his men all were listening to him croon like a half-wit and a fool.
“Lammie,” auld Angus broke in suddenly, sounding weary and unusually heavy hearted.
Iain blinked, and asked, “What did ye say?”
“My bonny wee lammie. The next verse is lammie,” Angus revealed, and then sang, “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee lammie; Plenty o’ guid things ye shall bring to your mammy...”
Auld Angus waited until the lass reached the proper place in the ballad and then joined her hum with his rich baritone. “Hush ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee lammie; Plenty o’ guid things ye shall bring to your mammy...”
Some of the other men were humming now, and Iain couldn’t stifle his grin over the lass’s plan gone awry. He was suddenly aware that Dougal had taken to his reed and was playing the tune, as well.
The haunting strains floated upon the night with his memory...
“... Hare from the meadow, and deer from the mountain, Grouse from the muir’lan, and trout from the fountain.”
In unison his men all began to hum, and in his mind, the woman’s soft voice continued...
“Hu
sh ye, my bairnie, my bonny wee dearie,” auld Angus crooned. “Sleep, come and close eyes so heavy and weary; Closed are ye eyes, an’ rest ye are takin’; Sound be your sleepin’, and bright be your waking.”
By the time they finished the last verse, Malcom’s little body was curled so close to the lass that Iain could scarce make out who was who. His son’s soft snore revealed he’d fallen asleep. Iain lay there a long moment, enjoying the haunting beauty of the reed’s song, wondering of the woman’s voice from his memory.
“However did ye come by the tune, lass?” he asked after a moment, hoping she wasn’t asleep as yet.
Chapter Eleven
“Cora,” Page answered softly.
“Cora?”
She sighed, uncertain how to explain about Cora. Certainly she wasn’t going to reveal to this stranger that her father kept a leman. Her face flamed at the very thought. “She’s... my... friend.”
Sweet Jesu! She wasn’t certain what she’d expected from her ploy tonight—certainly not a chorus of fool Scotsmen to sing along with her.
They’d done it for the boy, she knew. As had she. Her heart ached for the child lying so intimately within her arms. He’d called her by name. She’d been so afraid that the MacKinnon would hear it, and that she’d be shamed. But he hadn’t, and then Malcom had asked her so sweetly—how could she have refused him, when grown men could no more do so?
“Thank you,” the MacKinnon whispered at her side, and Page’s throat closed with emotion. Lying so intimately as they were, with his son nestled between them, she could no more hold on to her ire than she could have refused the boy.
“Ye didna have to do it,” he murmured, “but you’ve my gratitude, lass.”
For an instant Page couldn’t find her voice to speak, and then she dared ask, “Thankful enough to return me to my father?” She was desperate to be away from these people—desperate, because some crazy part of her wanted to hold fast to them and never let go.
All because of a simple song they’d shared together, at the request of a little boy.
Foolish, foolish heart.
For her own sake, she needed to get away. Before she might be tempted to stay. And that would never, never do because they didn’t really want her—aye, they did for revenge, but as soon as that was satisfied, she’d be worth less than nothing to them.
He hadn’t answered as yet, and some traitorous part of Page was afraid that he might agree to her request. Ludicrous, she realized, but nevertheless true. “Will you take me back?” she persisted.
His answer was a sigh and a whisper in the darkness. “Nay, lass.”
Page released the breath she’d not realized she’d held. Was that disappointment she felt? Relief? God’s truth, she didn’t know, and she didn’t argue with him, couldn’t find her voice to do so.
The reed’s music faded, the haunting strains coming softer now.
“When I heard him speak to you, and realized he was not mute, I assumed Malcom could not understand the English tongue,” she remarked with some annoyance.
“Of course he understands,” he said. “I intend to teach him Latin, as well.”
Her surprise was evident in her tone. “You speak Latin?”
“D’ ye think it only an Englishman’s right to know God’s tongue?” he asked her.
Page bit into her lip to keep from revealing the lowering fact that she’d never been taught. That he, a savage Scot, would know these things, and she not, made her feel like the wretched waif she must appear.
Then again, when had she ever felt like anything more than a poor relation?
She sensed, more than saw, him turn to face her. His movement tugged at her arm just a little, but not enough to wake Malcom, who was lying so peacefully upon it. Jesu, her arm was growing numb, but she didn’t care. There was something so sweet about having him sleep there.
Something so right... and so breathtaking about lying beside his father.
Iain. Angus had called him Iain. Page savored the name privately.
Sheer foolishness, and still she stared, trying to spy the MacKinnon’s face through the shadows, her heart tripping against her breast. “He would not speak to me in my father’s house,” she yielded.
For an instant he didn’t respond, and her breath quickened painfully as she waited to hear his voice again.
“What would you have done in his place?” he asked her, after a moment.
“If I were a child alone in the hands of strangers?” she asked softly. Her gaze shifted to the shadow of the child lying so quietly beside her. “I... I don’t know.”
“He was afeared, is all.”
“I... I might have been, too,” she admitted.
“Are ye now, lass?”
Page swallowed.
“Afeared?”
“Should I be?”
“That I might hurt you?” he answered. “Nay. Ye dinna have to fear for that.”
Something about the way that his voice fluctuated, softened to a gruff whisper, sent her heart skidding against her ribs. It mesmerized her, seduced her, drugged her senses. He might have done anything to her in that instant and she wouldn’t have been the least prepared.
“What is it I should fear?” she asked him boldly, her heart beating faster.
The silence between them was deafening as Page awaited his response.
“That I might want ye,” he whispered, his voice deep and dark and silky.
Page choked. “M-me?” she stammered. “Y- you? Nay!” she said breathlessly. “You couldn’t possibly!”
He chuckled and reached out unerringly to seize her hand, drawing it toward him. It seemed to Page that her blood roared through her ears as he tugged her gently toward him, to place her hand upon his tunic, over that most private part of him. She was shocked unto death to find him full and hard, and in her astonishment, forgot to wrench her hand away. She couldn’t speak, so stunned was she.
“Dinna seem so surprised, lass,” he murmured softly, leaning closer.
Page’s body convulsed secretly as she felt his presence move toward her in the darkness, closing the space between them, until his son’s body was all that kept them separated.
Unreasonably, in that instant Page wished his son were not sleeping so peacefully between them, for she craved his father’s arms more than she’d ever craved anything in her life. “I—” She stammered and forgot what it was she’d meant to say.
“Aye, lass,” he swore, and his body pulsed beneath her hand, giving evidence to his words. “If my son wasna lying between us... you’d have much to fear.”
Page’s breath caught.
Sweet Jesu! Had he read her mind? Had she spoken aloud? The blood quickened through her veins, but she was too shocked by his bold words to be afraid. She felt his gaze pierce her through the darkness, and dared to ask, her heart hammering fiercely, “What... what is it... you would do?”
“’Tis a dangerous question ye ask.”
Page’s heart lurched. “You... you swore you would not hurt me,” she reminded him.
“Aye, lass, but I might be tempted to show you.”
He pressed her hand more fully against him, and Page felt him pulse again beneath her palm. She blinked, as though coming aware suddenly of where her hand lay, and then jerked it away, flushing with embarrassment. How could she possibly have been so brazen?
He chuckled softly, and she lay back upon the breacan to stare with mortification into the feathery darkness, her breathing labored and her blush high—thank God for the shadows that concealed it!
“G’nite, lass,” he whispered, a smile in his voice.
Page couldn’t find her own voice to respond. She lay there, trying to determine what in creation had happened—how things had gone so awry.
She’d gone into this night expecting to goad the MacKinnon into anger, to make him sorely regret her presence, and had ended trying to goad him into taking her into his arms.
What else could she have intended by asking him questi
ons of such a nature?
She’d also intended that his men should be so weary after a night of her relentless singing that they could scarce ride on the morrow. As it turned out, Page could hardly close her eyes. Every moment, she was acutely aware of the man and child lying beside her—of the ties at her wrist that kept her bound to him. She might have attempted to reposition Malcom’s head and work the bindings free, but she couldn’t bear to move the boy from where he lay. And then, when the MacKinnon turned abruptly in his sleep and drew her into an embrace that encompassed the three of them, she couldn’t bear to end the sweet sense of belonging. She closed her eyes, and vowed to savor every last second of this euphoria in her heart. Shielding herself from the cold, she dared to nestle deeper within the embrace.
Tomorrow she could devote herself to escape.
Tonight she needed this more than she did her next breath—if only for the night, she could pretend. Only sometime, deep in the night, sleep cruelly deprived her, and she slept.
Chapter Twelve
Somehow morning dawned colder than the night before.
Page awoke, shivering. Her sense of emptiness returned. Misty sunlight shone into the glade, but that meager light was not enough to warm her stiff bones, and the overcast day promised a freezing rain that was certain to make the stiffness eternal.
She had to find a way to escape today.
There must be some way to evade them... somehow...
The MacKinnon had risen. So, too, had his son, leaving her to sleep alone upon the breacan.
Well, she berated herself. What had she expected? A morning kiss from the mighty MacKinnon? A waking hug from his son? Hardly! They weren’t her family, she reminded herself. They were her gaolers, naught more—no matter that they’d shared a sweet moment the night before. It meant naught. Less than naught.
Save to her, it seemed.
Jesu, but it had filled her with a sense of belonging so keen and so beautiful that this morning she could only mourn its loss.
She closed her eyes and shielded her face from the morning light with an arm thrown across her eyes. If she willed herself back... she could still feel the tendrils of warmth and affection squeezing at her heart.
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