When a Warrior Woos a Lass

by Julie Johnstone

  The MacLeans were just as boisterous and noisy as the MacLeods. Lena surveyed the clan from her seat on the dais beside Alex, and she smiled. This great hall reminded her of her home with its minstrels singing, men telling bawdy jokes, and women huddling at tables gossiping. The biggest difference between Duart’s great hall and Dunvegan’s was that she was not an object of pity here, only an object of curiosity. And she didn’t mind that since most of the curiosity likely pertained to simply what sort of mistress she would make as Alex’s wife. His wife. It was still difficult to believe that she was married again.

  She stole a glance at her husband’s profile. He was turned to his left and speaking to one of his councilmen, who she thought must be telling him what had occurred at Duart in Alex’s absence. His thigh was pressed against hers, and his hand had come to rest on her leg in a protective hold. Her breath had caught in her chest when his strong fingers had first curled around her thigh, but she was more relaxed now and welcomed his reassuring touch.

  The time from their arrival early this afternoon to supper had been a bevy of activity. A rather roundish lady named Lara MacLean with gray hair that curled around her face and warm brown eyes had taken a firm hold on Lena’s elbow, after Munroe had introduced Lena and Marsaili to Lara, who was his wife. Lara had presented them both to so many MacLeod clansmen that Lena could scarcely recall half their names. That reminded her…

  She turned to Marsaili, determined to try to uncover what was ailing her. She’d hoped to talk to Marsaili onboard the ship, but her half sister had been struck with seasickness again, or so she said. Lena had a suspicion it had been a convenient excuse not to talk to her, especially since this time when Marsaili had been supposedly ill, she’d not lost her accounts once. And since they’d arrived at Alex’s home, Marsaili had been unusually quiet. Actually, now that Lena was thinking how Marsaili had acted on the birlinn, she realized she could recall her half sister being out of sorts at Dunvegan as well. In fact—Lena drummed her fingers as she concentrated—Marsaili had not been herself since receiving a letter from her wretched father, the Campbell laird, many sennights ago.

  With everything that had happened since then, Lena had forgotten she had tried to speak to Marsaili twice before about the letter, but once Marsaili had rushed off, saying she had chores to tend to. And the one other time she had attempted to broach the subject again, Iain had interrupted them.

  Lena pushed her food around her plate, thinking upon what to say. “Do ye wish ye did nae offer to come?” she asked Marsaili in hushed tones, so that Alex would not overhear. Yet, at that moment, Alex stood, his hand coming to her shoulder.

  He glanced down at her with a smile. “I’m going to speak to some of the men. Will ye be comfortable here by yerself?”

  His concern both warmed and frustrated her. She wanted him to see that she was growing stronger and that he need not worry so much over her. “I’m nae alone.” She motioned to Marsaili while noting the other men who had been sitting on the dais with them, Munroe and the council members, had all stood and left their seats on the dais.

  Alex squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll nae be far. Just at that table.” He pointed to where a group of men sat, and she nodded.

  Once he departed the dais, Marsaili looked sharply at her. “Why did ye ask me if I wished I had nae come?”

  Lena frowned. It was unlike Marsaili to be so brusque. Something was definitely bothering her. “Well,” Lena said slowly, “the journey here made ye so sick, and now ye seem—” she shrugged, unsure how to say it “—unhappy.”

  “I’m nae,” Marsaili assured her, but the misery in her voice belied her words.

  Lena took a long drink of wine from her goblet as she watched the men and women move the tables and chairs toward the walls. She assumed they were making a space to dance. She recalled the one time she and Alex had danced, and her belly fluttered.

  Forcing her concentration back to Marsaili, she said, “Ye’re nae really eating, either, and when Lara introduced us to the other clanswomen, ye barely spoke.”

  “I was pleasant,” Marsaili defended.

  Lena quirked her mouth. Marsaili had actually seemed remote, distant, and distracted, but pointing it out to her would not help anything. Besides, Lena knew how it was to feel out of place, and it occurred to her now that perhaps Marsaili had volunteered to come to Duart because she had thought Lena would need her more than she had. Guilt flared inside Lena as she thought on how little time she had actually spent with Marsaili on the ship. Proving to Alex that she was capable had consumed much of her time. Mayhap Marsaili had thought Lena and Alex would not rub well, and she had come to protect Lena. That was the sort of thing Marsaili would do.

  Lena set down her wine goblet and patted Marsaili’s hand. “I dunnae believe I properly thanked ye for offering to come with me to Duart.”

  A startled look crossed Marsaili’s face. “Ye dunnae need to thank me,” she said, her lips pinched.

  Lena frowned. She was not making any progress with Marsaili using this tact. Being direct had always served her well, so that’s what she would do. She took a deep breath and asked, “Are ye cross with me because ye thought I would need ye more? That I might possibly fall to pieces with Alex? Or that ye would need to defend me from him, and now ye feel unneeded? I assure ye, I am verra glad of yer company in a sea of strangers.”

  Marsaili gave her a tight smile. “I’m nae cross with ye. And I’m glad that ye seem less fearful of yer new husband. The truth is—” Marsaili leaned close and whispered “—I worried for ye when Alex departed so abruptly after his harsh words with the king. I—” She shifted her gaze away from Lena to Alex and then settled her attention upon Lena once more. “I wanted to be here for ye in case he broke with the king and ye needed to return home to Dunvegan. ’Tis why Iain sent Broch, ye ken.”

  Lena felt her brows dip as she scowled. She’d suspected Iain was worried, too, since he went to the effort to send Broch, but she did not believe for a breath that her brother would truly think Alex would forsake the king and support the Steward. She had thought that Iain had sent Broch to watch over her in case she became so distraught at being wed to Alex that she tried to flee. Her cheeks heated at the concern she had likely caused, yet she did not think she could have helped it. Never would she have thought it possible that she could feel comfortable and safe in a man’s presence again, yet she did in Alex’s. She prayed she would feel the same when the time came for them to join.

  “Alex is honorable,” Lena whispered. “He will nae forsake the king whether they have disagreed or nae.” She decided not to mention that Alex was going to go see the Steward, though, as he had vowed that it was not to pledge himself to the king’s nephew. He had asked her for his trust, and she intended to give it unless he proved himself unworthy.

  And then what? a little voice asked.

  She didn’t have an answer, so she pushed the voice away. Still, she’d not give fodder to Marsaili’s suspicions.

  “Ye’re awfully contemplative,” Marsaili said, her eyes searching Lena’s face. “Did yer husband say something to ye that ye are hiding? I vow I’ll nae say a word.”

  “He said naught about pledging himself to the Steward, I vow it. Now,” she said, because she desperately wished to change the subject before she was forced to lie to Marsaili, “I’ve been wanting to speak to ye for a long while about the letter ye received from yer da.”

  “Why?” Marsaili demanded, her tone sharp and defensive.

  Lena had liked Marsaili from the first day she met her. They had both lived through abuse, and neither of them felt quite as if they had a place at Dunvegan. Marsaili had been kind and caring to Lena, but the more Lena thought upon it as they talked, the more she was sure that the change in Marsaili had come with the note from her father, or at least started with the note. “I care about ye, Marsaili, and ye have been withdrawn and angry since receiving the letter. What did it say?”

  Marsaili’s shoulders slumped, and she l
ooked rather like a sail that had lost all its wind. She reached for her wine goblet with a shaking hand, took a long drink, and then set the goblet down. “I never told ye this—I’ve never told anyone this, actually—but I once thought myself to be in love.” The scorn and anger in her voice was all Lena needed to understand that Marsaili’s feelings had not been reciprocated.

  “Tell me of him,” Lena encouraged. Her own recent experience with Alex made her realize that sometimes talking of painful things really did help.

  Marsaili plucked at a nonexistent piece of thread on her sleeve. “I was desperate to feel loved. Ye must ken this. I beg ye nae to judge me too harshly, nae now nor later.”

  “Later?”

  Marsaili bit her lip. “Now. I meant only now.” Lena nodded, and Marsaili took a deep breath. “He was, perchance he still is, beautiful. It seems foolish to say a man is beautiful, but he was.”

  “It dunnae seem foolish to me.” A picture of Alex lying on his back with his head resting on his arm flashed in Lena’s mind. “I think Alex is beautiful,” she said softly.

  Marsaili’s eyes grew wide. “Ye like him? Ye truly like him?”

  Lena nodded. “I kinnae explain it, but he has somehow made me feel less afraid.”

  “Oh, Lena!” Marsaili said, her voice a mixture of happiness and worry. “Guard yer heart,” she implored. “What if he truly does end up betraying the king? Surely, ye kinnae live with a man who would do such a thing? Ye would have to return to Dunvegan.”

  Lena scowled at her half sister. “I told ye, Alex would nae forsake the king.”

  “I ken ye did, but men are capable of all sorts of treachery. I ken this well.”

  “The man ye thought ye loved?” Lena asked, believing Marsaili must be referring to him.

  “Oh, aye! Him, my da, many others. The man visited our castle with his da. I’d nae ever had attention from anyone before. I’d been treated little better than a dog by my da, stepmother, and brothers. When he saw me—I mean, truly looked at me—I believe that was all it took for me to fall in love. Or at least I thought I was in love.”

  “Who is this man?”

  Marsaili shook her head. “I’ll nae say. I see that murderous gleam in yer eye, and I dunnae want ye to seek him out or ask yer husband to do so.”

  “I’d nae do that!” Lena exclaimed, though it had been the exact thought that had crossed her mind.

  Marsaili offered the semblance of a smile. “Ye are so verra fierce on behalf of those ye love.” Tears brimmed in her half sister’s eyes. “I am so lucky to have received yer loyalty for a time.”

  Lena grabbed Marsaili by the hand. “Ye will have my loyalty always.” Marsaili’s only response was to look distantly past Lena. Whatever was bothering Marsaili weighed heavily upon her.

  “Tell me what happened,” Lena urged. “Please.”

  “’Tis simple,” Marsaili said with a shrug. “He treated me with kindness, which turned to much attention in the time he was at my da’s. He told me he wished to marry me but could nae until he had the approval of his da. He promised to travel home and then return to collect me within a few sennights. I—” Marsaili paused, a deep blush stealing over her face. “I believed him, and I thought myself in love, so I, well, I—” She looked at Lena with such anguish that Lena nodded her understanding so Marsaili would not feel she had to continue.

  “Ye gave yer body to him,” Lena said gently.

  “Aye. And my heart,” she said dully. “When he did nae return within three fortnights, I feared something had happened to him. I inquired about his family one night, hoping to learn something about him without making my da suspicious. That’s when I learned he had been betrothed to another since he was but a child, and he apparently had married the lass directly after he’d returned to his home. He took my body and my heart, and gave me a child in return,” Marsaili said, a hard look crossing her face.

  “A child!” Lena exclaimed. “Ye had a bairn? Where is he or she?”

  “I dunnae,” Marsaili replied, biting her lip and looking away. “I believed the bairn died at birth.”

  Lena gasped. “What? Why would ye believe that?”

  Marsaili shook her head as she furiously wiped at the tears that slid down her face. “I kinnae say more. I must nae.”

  “But, Marsaili,” Lena began, but before she could finish her sentence, the pipers started playing loudly, and suddenly, the men and women of Alex’s clan flooded the middle of the great hall to dance.

  Lena watched Alex being dragged out to dance by Lara. He was shaking his head, but then he was laughing. If Lena had not still been so shocked at what Marsaili had told her, she would have laughed at her solidly built husband and laird of the clan being maneuvered by a slip of a woman in her yawning years. Alex was just the sort of man, though, to be so thoughtful as to attempt to please his friend’s wife.

  A tall, blond warrior she did not know approached the dais. Lena assumed he came to ask Marsaili to dance, as the men surely knew Marsaili was not attached and she was very pretty. So when his green eyes fastened on her instead of her half sister, she was stunned. Then a bolt of anxiety shot to her chest and lodged there.

  Even as he spoke, asking her to accompany him to the dance floor and explaining that it was tradition for the laird’s wife to dance with the men from the laird’s guard, Lena battled with her rising panic at the thought of being touched by a strange man, of being encircled in his arms. As three other men approached, she realized with dawning horror that each of them intended to dance with her, as was custom.

  She glanced to Marsaili for aid, but one of the guards had already asked her to dance, and Marsaili was rising from the dais to follow the man. To call to her half sister now would only draw attention to her, and the rioting emotions within her would be all too discernible. Five men stood in front of her.

  Blast. Six now.

  And two more were walking toward her. She wiped her sweaty palms on the skirts of her gown as the man smiled at her and gave her an expectant look.

  She could do this. She scanned the room for Alex, but could not find him in the gathered crowd. She had to do this. Didn’t she? She judged the distance from the dais to the door that led out of the great hall. For a moment, she considered racing toward it without explanation, but that would not do. She gulped in several breaths for courage and stood on shaking legs. “One dance each?” she asked the man before her.

  “Aye,” he said with a grin. “And at the end of the dances, ye pick the best partner, and he gets the honor of being yer personal guard for the first week as our mistress.”

  She didn’t need, nor want, a personal guard. She had Alex, and he was all she needed. The thought both shocked and comforted her. She craned her neck once more looking for a single glimpse of him to give her courage, yet he was nowhere. Moving slowly down the dais, she came to stand in front of the blond man. He was almost as tall as Alex but not as big, and yet, his eyes… All the air sucked out of her lungs. His eyes were almost the exact color Findlay’s had been—a very pale blue. It did not matter that it was a common color, her mind was screaming at her, flashing images of Findlay.

  Heat washed over her body as he placed a hand on her back to lead her to the dancing area. Sharp pricks of panic jabbed her arms, legs, and scalp, and no matter how she tried to breathe in air, it would not come.

  Three steps into the progress toward the dancers, he turned to her. “My lady, I forgot to present myself. I’m Fardley.”

  Fardley, Findlay, Fardley, Findlay. The names rang in her ears and clashed together to make her heart race.

  “I cannot,” she murmured, acutely aware that she was on the verge of falling to a million shattered pieces.

  “My lady?” he asked, giving her a gentle tug toward the dancers, which served to send her panic to a deafening, thunderous roar. When a couple swung around in their dance, Lena stood immobile from fright as they came toward her. At the last second, Fardley jerked her against him, her body hitting his
with a jarring impact.

  It was to protect her. She forced the knowledge to the forefront, but the blackness that she had hoped she had banished swallowed the thought into a dark nothingness. “I kinnae dance,” she choked out and tried to shove away from him.

  Understanding dawned in his eyes, which made her sigh with relief. But then he gave her a grin, slipped an arm about her waist, and said, “Dunnae fash yerself. I’m an excellent dancer. I’ll lead ye.”

  Before she could voice her protest, he swirled her around and lifted her off her feet. That was all it took for the small bit of control she’d maintained to snap like a twig under the weight of his innocent actions.

  “Release me!” she cried out, not caring about the people who stopped dancing to gape at her, nor the embarrassment she would cause herself and Alex. She cared for naught but escape. The room was suffocating her. This man suffocated her. The fear had a hold on her that she could not shake.

  “Release me!” she demanded again, and when the man did not do so, she reared back and slapped him, just as she had once slapped Findlay, and her mind went immediately to how Findlay had retaliated.

  Nine

  “’Tis a good thing I agreed to dance with yer wife,” Alex teased Munroe, who stood unmoving in the path of dancers. He had his partner’s hand gripped in his, but both he and the lass were staring at something across the room. Alex followed their eyes, and apprehension hit him square in the chest. Fardley, a nice but sometimes foolish man, stood in front of Lena. He could see Lena’s face, sheet white and twisted with terror.

  “Dear God above,” he muttered, releasing Lara. He strode away without explanation, his clansmen and women parting without him having to say a word. His only thought and concern was for Lena. He had no doubt her fear had struck her. Mentally, he berated himself for not considering that she may be asked to dance and feel compelled to do so. He should have gone straight back to the table instead of allowing Lara to drag him to the dance floor.