by Suz deMello
“Nay, boy. I did startle her a little.”
“I imagine ye did.” Dugald took Alice from Gareth and laid her on the bed before covering her with quilts against the winter cold. “I’m surprised to see ye here. Did ye not intend to lead a war party against the Gwynns?”
Gareth looked glum. “Young Kieran forbade me.”
“I didnae ken.”
“You’ve been distracted, but for good reason.” He sighed mightily. “Apparently Laird Hamish had naught to do with the dastardly attack on us. ‘Twas purely the plan of those treacherous, traitorous MacReivers.”
“There’s naught wrong with the MacReivers. Laird Edgar—“
“Oh, he’s a fine lad, none better. Nay, I mean the three evildoers who never accepted our alliance.”
“Well, they’re gone noo.”
“Not quite.” The auld man cackled again.
Dugald eyed him. “What have ye done?”
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” He leaned toward Dugald and whispered, “But on Hogmanay eve I replenished my larder with a fine, fat MacReiver!” He exploded into gales of laughter.
“Och, aye.” Dugald shrugged. He didna feel even a shred of pity for the imprisoned MacReiver, for the attackers had slain three Kilburns and injured ten more. Worse, he, Kier and Alice could have died. No, the villain deserved whatever tortures Sir Gareth could devise.
Besides, the auld fellow needed fresh blood. Fresh human blood, which none of the Kilburns were inclined to provide.
“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” Sir Gareth leaned against the stone wall, apparently oblivious to its chill.
“What?”
“Your lady’s increasing.”
Sudden dread weakening his limbs, Dugald slumped onto the bed beside Alice and lay his hand on her belly. “Are ye sure? She’s still so slender—“
“Slender but strong. She’ll not have trouble bearing your babe.”
“But Elsbeth—“
Gareth cackled, the chuckle rising to an ungodly croak. “Elsbeth was strong, but the strongest woman can step on an adder. But who is the serpent?”
Dugald stared, puzzled. Was Sir Gareth slipping from lucidity into madness once again? “Sir, I—“
“Best marry her soon. Handfasting isn’t enough for a woman like she.”
He sighed, his mind flooded with worries. “I’ve nae doubt you’re right.”
“I always am,” Sir Gareth said airily. He pulled aside a tapestry, revealing an arrow slit, before turning his body sideways to jump out.
Dugald went to the slit to see Sir Gareth spread his cloak like wings. He caught the breeze and alighted on the frozen moat, a dark streak floating across the ice toward the cliff. He leaped, and the black-winged figure disappeared from Dugald’s sight. He presumed that Gareth was visiting his prisoner, but who could know?
Adders and serpents…what had Sir Gareth meant? Was the statement the insane maunderings of a madman or had Elsbeth met with foul play?
Nonsense. ‘Twasn’t possible! She’d had died in childbed. Perfectly, terrifyingly straightforward.
And entirely his fault.
His glance swept the slumbering Alice, and fear again clutched his heart.
* * * * *
When Alice came to she was abed. How had she got there? Had she dreamed the old man? Who was he? Had she met the famous—or infamous—auld gentleman, also called “Himself”, the fabled Sir Gareth?
He knew Dugald, so ‘twas likely Dugald knew him, Alice reasoned.
Resemblances between the two of them troubled her. She’d seen Dugald and other Kilburns with blood around their mouths. Dugald himself liked to bite her, to suckle at her breast, to make love to her when she was enduring her courses, and she had to admit that the experience was pleasant, oft relieving the cramps that had tortured her monthly.
She sighed. She was glad she was increasing, but would miss the wild lovemaking. Her climaxes seemed to be stronger when she was bleeding, as were his.
Dugald entered the room and she eyed him. “Tell me more about Sir Gareth.”
He sat on the bed next to her. “And what would ye like to know of the auld gentleman?”
“How old is he?”
Dugald hesitated, black brows scrunching together. “I’m nae sure.”
She glared. “He told me he’d watched over this clan and castle for a hundred years.”
“’Tis true.”
“How can that be?”
“The blood.”
She stared at him.
“When ye’re a pure Kilburn, blood isnae merely the red fluid that flows through your veins. Blood is life. And as long as we drink the blood, we will live.”
“How long for?”
He shrugged. “I doonae ken. A verra long time, lassie, but such a long life isnae healthy. Our bodies arenae meant to continue for so long, for our minds…our minds do not hold firm.”
Her belly churned. “Are you pure Kilburn?”
“Nay.” Dugald settled back against the headboard next to her, his bulk comforting. “Me mam was a MacLeod.”
“But you’re very like Sir Gareth. You drink blood—my blood. You bite me sometimes when we make love. You lick me when I have my courses. And your skin is cold and white as the snow. You are strong, like Sir Gareth.” She searched his face. “Will you eventually lose your mind, like Sir Gareth?”
His gaze shifted. “I hope not.”
“But you don’t know.” She absorbed the deeply unsettling thought that after she died, her husband would continue for an unimaginably long time and possibly go mad. “Tell me, when you rescued me from the Beans…what exactly did you do?”
His face was grim. “I tore them apart.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Mo dòchas, please understand. They had killed puir Malcolm. And ate him. Ate him. And they planned to kill and eat ye. I was exceeding angry.”
She breathed deeply, gathering herself, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d learned. “And the…old gentleman, as you call him, tore apart the MacReivers.”
“They deserved it!”
“Yes, that is true. They abused our hospitality.”
“They were most treacherous, the nàmhaids.”
“And…um, those creatures, the bava-sith.”
“The baobhan-sith.”
“They drink blood also. They wanted yours.” She shuddered at the memory of the green fae monster sinking its fangs into her husband’s neck.
“Aye, they crave Kilburn blood. They are…they are…I doonae ken exactly what they are, but they’re Scots, ye ken? We’re nae. We’re from another place entirely, we Kilburns.”
“So the Kilburns and the bava-sith are not related?”
“Not in the least bit. They arenae human. We are.”
“Are you? Are you really?” She stared at him, recognizing that he was much more than she’d supposed. She’d always known he was not like other men. She’d thought him more—stronger, faster, better.
Now she wasn’t so sure that his differences made him better.
And what about their children? Would she carry the babe within her to term and survive the birth?
“Alice, ye must believe me.” Eyes serious, he took her into his arms. “I’m a man like any other.”
“Do not seek to distract me.”
He played with the ties of her bodice. “Mistress, if I truly sought to distract you—”
“Stop that.” She slapped his hand away, then rolled on top of him. “I know you are not like other men. I just don’t quite understand how or why. But there’s one thing I know for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re mine.” She poked a finger into the middle of his chest.
He laughed and, grabbing her finger, took it to his mouth and sucked on it.
“Oh, so that’s what you want, hmm?” She slid down his body, flattening herself until she was sprawled on the bed. When she reached the ties of his trews, she tug
ged on them with her teeth.
His breath came short as the laces unfurled and the dark cloth opened to reveal his hard length. She took him in her mouth, well aware that this was the caress he most craved, and gave him a good hard suck.
He gasped and shoved his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer, nigh forcing her to take in more of his rod. This she did willingly until she felt his round head touch the back of her throat. She wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and squeezed with a firm hand, secure in the knowledge that he was her man and she knew what he wanted, what he needed.
She was what he desired and she gloried in the knowledge that she was wanted, needed, loved.
But she needed to hear it, too.
“Tell me!” She pinched the spot just below his cods.
He howled.
“Tell me!”
“Lassie, give me a chance!”
She squeezed his balls.
She let go only when he’d shouted, “Aye! I love ye and I’ll marry ye!”
Chapter Seventeen
On the morning of August the first, Lady Lydia told Alice that marriages within their family were few. “Indeed, the last wedding our family celebrated was between Dugald and Elsbeth. Let us pray that your union will be more successful!”
“I don’t see why not.” Standing in front of the cheval mirror in her bedroom, Alice pinned her mother’s cameo into the center of her bodice then swished the gown's elaborately embroidered, ivory silk skirt. It featured panniers, an inconvenient style that she’d previously avoided. But in this situation, she couldn’t fight milady, who had rigid ideas of propriety and fashion. And the panniers, jutting from each hip, minimized her pregnancy.
Lydia sighed. “I agree, but one can’t help being…concerned. All right, it’s time for you to set the last stitch for luck.”
“Yes, milady.” If you say so. Alice didn’t hold with superstition. “Where?”
Fenella handed her a threaded needle. “P’raps the hem?”
“I can’t bend over in these stays.” When Dugald saw the stays later in the evening, he’d spank her for certain. She shivered in delighted anticipation.
Fenella bent, lifted the hem and handed it to Alice. She shifted her mind away from bedsport and slipped the threaded needle through the hem a couple of times, then tied it off.
“Now let’s get me onto Mary without ruining this beautiful dress.” She smiled at Lydia. “Thank you, milady.”
She smiled. “’Tis little enough. We—Kier and I—are grateful to you. Not merely for saving our Dugald’s life, but for his happiness as well. And there are the children. They’ve done so well since you arrived.”
Alice grinned. “Even Isobel?”
Milady’s brows lifted. “Especially Isobel.” She led the way out of the room, down the stairs and out to the bailey.
Lùnastal, August the first, would be the clan’s last free day before the harvest began. The work of gathering and storing provender for the long, harsh Highland winter was serious, and until their harvest festival, Meán Fóghar, no one would rest. In the courtyard, busy stablehands saddled mounts while the kitchen staff loaded pack horses with food and drink. Excited children bounced around the adults’ feet, getting in the way, but nobody minded.
Especially not Alice. She’d put aside her concerns regarding handfasting for many months, sure she was not truly wed but accepting her fate. Now she would be married, with all the privileges that status implied.
As she left the Laird’s Tower, the bustle ceased and a sudden silence fell. Everyone stopped what they were doing to see the bride. She gulped, stepped over the threshold and lifted her skirts so that they’d not drag on the ground.
A guardsman breathed, “Rach air muin!”
Lydia glared, and Kieran, dressed in his customary black, cuffed the guardsman on the arm. “Show some respect, ye rascal.”
The guardsman—Duncan, Alice believed—cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “Beggin’ your pardon, ladies.” He approached and bent his head courteously. “It’s just that ye look so bonnie, mistress.”
Alice was sure her face was the color of milady’s red riding habit.
“Ye’re certainly a bonnie bride,” Kieran said. He glanced at milady. “But not the bonniest I’ve seen.” He winked.
Lydia blushed a becoming shade of pink.
Later, atop Mary, Alice glanced at her intended. Dugald had turned out in finery she hadn’t expected. His well-cut black velvet jacket covered an immaculate white shirt that looked like fine lawn, and his boots shone as if newly polished. She wondered if he’d tucked a sixpence into the left shoe as Scottish custom required—or so she’d been told.
His neatly brushed hair flowed from beneath a hat adorned with a long pheasant feather. He had reason for the hat. In contrast to the usual gloomy weather, this August day shone fine and fair, so much so that she feared ruining her beautiful dress with sweat rings beneath the armpits. She comforted herself with the thought that she’d never again marry, so the fate of the dress was of no moment.
The merry procession set forth amidst drum, bagpipe and song. Carrick, seated in front of his father, tootled away happily on a hand-whittled pipe while the two oldest children—Isobel on her own mount for once—quarrelled amicably while watched by Edgar MacReiver. Marian was tucked safely in a shawl tied into a sling around milady’s shoulders.
Glittering with sunlight, the sea gleamed to their left as they approached the massive ring of stones at the far northern border of the Kilburn lands. Even many yards away, the pale granite shone. “What are they, husband?” Alice raised her voice to be heard above the clop of horse hooves on packed ground, the jingle of harness and fourscore happy, chattering clanspeople.
“They be monuments of a sort, mistress,” he replied. “Built by our pagan ancestors to mark the passing of the seasons.”
Closer, she dismounted and walked into the center of the ring, sitting on a wide, flat stone that seemed like an altar. Dugald sat beside her and pointed upward. “See, kylyrra, the noonday sun sits exactly atop that tall pillar, there.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “They—the builders—intended that?”
“Aye, surely, for on other occasions the sun or the moon shed their rays exactly above one stone or another. Their placement seems to have been carefully planned.”
She rubbed a gloved finger over the pale, silvery rock. “I have never seen stone like this around Kilburn lands. The castle isn’t built of it.”
He nodded. “’Tis true. We doonae ken how these stones got here. ‘Tis a mystery.” He took her hand, one finger sliding over her wrist. “Your heart beats so fast. Are you ready for this? For me?”
She cupped her belly, enjoying its round fullness. “I must be, mustn’t I?” She smiled at him.
He squeezed her fingers. Even through her glove, his hand felt clammy. “Marry me for me,” he said, solemn. “Not for the bairn, though I would care for him or her all my days regardless. But marry me for me.”
She met his gaze, saw that he was utterly serious and said, “You must know how much I love you.”
“I ken, but I also ken that ye Sassenachs are powerful believers in propriety and correctness, while we Scots tend to be a mite more casual.”
Around them, Fenella and her staff bustled, unpacking hampers, spreading quilts on the ground and setting out food.
Kieran approached. “Are ye ready?”
Alice smiled, rose and shook out her skirts. “That seems to be today’s big question, milaird, but I think that all three of us are quite ready.” She caressed her belly with one hand and Dugald’s shoulder with the other. “More than ready.”
Black eyes twinkling, Kieran stood with them in the center of the stone ring, with close family clustered roundabout. The rest of the clan stood respectfully around the circle’s rim, though children, oblivious to the gravity of the event, ran, jumped and played among the stones during the ceremony. Alice liked that—the children’s exuberance m
atched her bounding heart.
As she looked around the circle of smiling faces, she saw one of the guards, Owain, standing with his arm around Ruth, deceased Malcolm’s mother. If ‘twere possible, Alice’s heart bounced even higher. Nearby, Lady Lydia wore a fond smile. Was there the slight sheen of tears in milady’s eyes? If so, Alice hoped they were happy tears.
As Kieran began to intone the ritual phrases, she sucked in a deep breath. Her enlarged breasts pressed against her stays, and the aromas of roasted meats and fresh bannocks filled her nostrils. Within her, her babe stirred restlessly. “Just a mo’,” she whispered. “Then we’ll get you something to eat.”
Milaird finished, then took out a small dirk. At the sight of the shining blade, she involuntarily flinched before steeling herself. He’d never hurt us, she told herself.
He pricked their thumbs, then used a length of Kilburn tartan to bind their hands together, their thumbs touching, Dugald’s thick, dark blood blending with hers.
A lightness, a tingling, started from her hand then spread up her arm and throughout her body. She gasped and looked at Dugald. “Aye,” he said. “You’re properly one of us now.”
Dugald took his wife into his arms, feeling that at last his dreams might finally be fulfilled. But when he kissed her and held her tight, her gravid belly intervened. Dread seized his heart with its cruel claws.
Drawing away from him, Alice clutched her stomach and staggered. Moisture drenched the front of the beautiful gown’s skirt. He grabbed her forearms to keep her from falling and held her tight, fighting the overwhelming fear and the terrible memories of what had happened to Elsbeth.
Why hadn’t he married Alice before? They could have done the deed at Eostar or on Midsummer Night. Or at any time! Why hadn’t he insisted on marriage sooner? Now he might never make love to Alice as his wife. She deserved better.
Mairen rushed over. “I knew ‘twas her time,” she told Dugald. “But did anyone listen? No!”
“Wh-what can I do?” Dugald managed to ask.
Mairen’s lips twitched. “Take deep breaths and hold on to your wife until we can get her settled.” She turned to Fenella. “Please bring clean water and cloths, a quilt for Mistress Alice to lie on and a wee blanket or quilt to wrap the bairn in. Where is Grizel? She can help me.”