His Judas Bride

by Shehanne Moore

Was this not a bedroom? Was this not a bed? And had he not threatened her to spend the night with him if she didn’t hurry up? Had she done so, and was this even a castle, never mind McDunnagh Castle? No.

  Would he lean over her like this so she could feel through the separating layers of wool and leather—soaking, welded wool and leather—well, she squirmed to think what she felt. No. What if he’d brought her here to wreak revenge for Morven? It would be no surprise. Oh, she should never have argued with him like that. But really, how could she help it, when she hadn’t known?

  What was more, he’d picked her up and set her over his sloping shoulder as if she were a feather, not a woman of twenty-two, whose gown and cloak were so encrusted with snow she could hardly stand. Hadn’t broken stride, didn’t even struggle for breath, for all that water dripped from his clothes, his hair, and nose all the way across the candlelit flagstones.

  What would he be? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? When he married Morven ten years ago, Kara had been too young to be considered a suitor for him then.

  Then, of course, in the past five years, when he’d transformed himself into the fiercest warrior in two glens—the kind of man not just to put your throat on a platter and serve it up to you for supper, but to make you eat it too—Kara had been imprisoned, the world, well, at least this bit of it, believing she was in Edinburgh. Dances. Parties. Suitors. A fine life for an Irish tinker chief’s daughter.

  But whatever age this man was, his rangy body was treacherously honed and muscled in all the right places. His soft, cold scent smelled nothing like his grimy clothes suggested. And his sensuous mouth was so close, it…it…and hers…

  “Och, Callm! What the—”

  The sharp slap, ringing inches from Kara’s ear, jerked her chin up.

  “Get away from her now. For God’s sake, let her breathe, will ye?”

  A woman. Dear God, there was a woman. And not just any woman, by the looks of the way he ducked. But the kind Kara needed right now that her chest heaved and her breath tore in her throat and she couldn’t stop the wild shivering racing through her limbs.

  She struggled up. A woman here meant she was safe. Although what flared in her blood was so unwelcome there was no harm making doubly sure. She wouldn’t want this woman, or any other, thinking she had somehow invited him onto the bed with her, would she? To sprawl, in that unseemly fashion, on top of her too.

  “I—I’m Lady Kara McGurkie.” Grabbing the woman’s hand, she peered through her plastered strands of hair. “Yes. And I—I was on my w-way to marry Lord Ewen w-w-when that…that m-man there—”

  “Don’t you even go there, Princess.”

  He might have retreated to the doorway, but he wasn’t any tamer. In fact his eyes stood out like ice in the dim smoky light. Polished silver as they held hers, and so indignantly, coldly furious, a chill swept down Kara’s spine.

  “I wouldn’t long-pole you to save my life.”

  That was so very definite. What on earth was she worrying about? The breath sharpened in her lungs, rushing through her nostrils. That he wouldn’t to save his life. Why, the damned bastard should be so fortunate.

  “Callm!”

  She wasn’t going to tear the face from him either. But the exclamation brought her up short.

  “Dinnae stand there glaring like that! If you cannae make yourself useful, go and see to the bairn.”

  Bairn? The Black Wolf had a child?

  “The wee so-and-so’s been trouble all day again. The words she comes out with. Cursing and swearing. I told her to wait till her daddy got home.”

  “Really?” Kara didn’t just curse herself for speaking, she cursed it was in a high-pitched, shocked way. It was just that child meant woman.

  He was the Black Wolf. So obviously he had women. Probably for breakfast. With her auburn hair spilling about her velvet-clad shoulders and her eyes like emerald jewels as she knelt peeling off Kara’s glove, this one was beautiful enough to have for supper too.

  A man like him? The surprise would be if he didn’t.

  It was just, no one had—she quashed the word said. Mistaking him for Ewen McDunnagh, virtually accusing him of rape before his woman, never mind showing him the dress that now clung to her in sodden strips—she wasn’t doing very well was she? But so long as she did better when she reached McDunnagh Castle, it would be all right.

  Until then, it was vital she disabuse herself of the notion that what anyone said mattered. About him in particular, especially now she was here alone like this. Especially when there was no denying she should not have mistaken him. And the only reason she could have mistaken him was because some abhorrent part of her, that part her father had tried so hard to crush, wanted to.

  “Oh, ye have to threaten them with something, my lady, as you’ll soon learn.”

  Was the woman spelling certain things out? Had Lachlan lugged in a complete stranger to deposit on the bed, after all…except there hadn’t been a bed exactly. In the world ordained by her father, Lachlan had been a slave.

  This man now was elemental as the undraped stone, the pools of water on the flagstones, the burning candle sconces. As silently sullen as a towering crag. He may have retreated to the door, but he didn’t look the kind to bend his knee to anyone. Not even the king himself. On the contrary, that glower said he was the kind to lock the king up and force him to bend his knee to him.

  “Won’t she, Callm, when she has one of her own?”

  What a horrible thought. She had hoped to do this without opening her legs, although now, because of his damned interference…

  “Fine.” The gritting of his voice came from the very back of his throat. “Why don’t I deal with it?”

  Horrible thought? That was a paralyzing one. No wonder Kara’s hands held what they never did. A tremble.

  “Thank you, Callm. That would be nice.”

  Ignoring the slam of the door as Callm left, nearly taking it with him, the woman set Kara’s gloves to the side. “I’m Meg, by the way. Now he’s gone, what do you say to me getting you out of these wet things and warmed up?”

  Kara edged her gaze sideways. Actually, mistaking the Black Wolf for Ewen McDunnagh wasn’t her first error recently. First was allowing her father to dress her like a trollop. Second was mistaking the Wolf. Third was when the Wolf furiously ordered the baggage horse on ahead to McDunnagh Castle with all her clothes, because—fourth—she lagged behind. Fifth was when she fell off the horse. Sixth was when he stuck her on his shoulder like a sack of oats. Seventh was accusing him of rape. Need she think what eighth was?

  Did she want this Meg seeing the dress and ripping her Jezebel eyes out?

  Because eighth wasn’t really the dress. Eighth was the way the Wolf’s brows had lowered for a second when he’d looked at her in front of Meg. As if, when it came to certain things, like Ewen and Kara having a child of her own…

  “Actually, I don’t need any help.” She grabbed her cloak shut, not caring her voice sounded strangled. “I can look after myself.”

  She could, couldn’t she? And if she couldn’t the devil would. He always did his own. So her ma always said, regarding Kara’s father anyway. Ma had said not to look at the stars too. To be careful what you wished for. Didn’t I wish for your father? And the bloody nightmare that’s turned out to be.

  Kara needed to think of that, the nightmare this was so far proving, because it wasn’t just the dress, was it? She could not accept any kindness offered here.

  Murder under trust, whether she spied so others could wield the knife, or she led an army to a wedding feast, was still murder under trust. The one thing no Highlander did to another.

  It wasn’t just Ewen McDunnagh her father planned on annihilating. No. He didn’t want a useless alliance through a worthless daughter, to the lord of a glen that barred its gates to the world. He never had.

  He wanted to demonstrate a man without sons, a man humiliatingly forced to sue for peace against a smaller clan, an upstart Irish robber other
clan chiefs looked down their noble noses at, was as deserving of a place at their table, by taking what none of them could. Lochalpin.

  So food, drink, hospitality, these were things she could and would refuse when the promises she had made Arland, and to a lesser extent Kertyn and Ardene, shackled her as effectively as the iron manacles she’d been obliged to wear for five years. Although these two should have known the old bastard wouldn’t have spent years spoiling them for nothing. What he’d done earlier today only increased her determination though.

  She just didn’t understand one thing. The ferocity with which the Wolf’s stare had said he didn’t want Ewen McDunnagh planting a seed in her womb.

  Especially if this Meg was his woman.

  * * *

  “Mother of God, Callm. No.”

  In so far as something could stop him in his tracks, Meg’s forward rush did that.

  “You are no’ putting that thing at her door?”

  Obviously he was. He didn’t see anyone else, did he? It was just such a pity Meg hated Dug as much as Dug hated her. It was why even the possibility of a bed by the blazing fire made the recalcitrant bitch dig holes in the flagstones, the damned dead weight she could be when the mood took her.

  “What?”

  Meg widened her eyes. “You promised me. You swore there would be none of this.”

  A tight knot formed in Callm’s gut. When they had agreed not around Fallon he hoped Meg hadn’t meant the whiskey. The neat slug. All right, the quarter jug-full actually, he’d just downed. Not his first choice the way he felt right now. But the first…hell, not exactly an option, was it?

  Not only was the troublesome piece his brother’s piece. She was a McGurkie piece. Did he want to start another war? Over her?

  He shrugged. At all costs he needed to hide his thoughts from Meg. She got wind of it and he’d never get the tail end of it. “None of what?”

  “This. I don’t understand. What is this about?”

  “Hell. You know something?” Keeping his voice low, he tightened his grip on Dug’s shaggy neck. The cur was half Irish wolfhound and half awkward. “I’ve no damned idea. But I’m bringing Dug in anyway.”

  “Callm.”

  “What?”

  He cursed the fact he sounded so exasperated when Meg took care of everything for him. The house he didn’t live in. The daughter the years had ticked by with him absent. Fallon was five. Would he be hunting down cattle thieves and raiders, paying lightning visits to her when she was ten? Fifteen? When she had a man, children of her own? It looked that way, which was why he wished he could tamp his annoyance with the only other person in the world who mattered to him.

  “Look, you don’t actually think I did anything to her, do you, Sis?”

  “You looked.”

  “There’s no damned law against that in this glen, so far as I know. The turd now will do more than—”

  “So did she.”

  He cursed the abrupt way his spine straightened so he trod on Dug’s tail. “Jesus, Dug, will you just get your damned tail out of there if you don’t want me standing on it? Get over there. Go on.”

  He bent his head. He doubted she’d looked at him. Unless it was with smoldering contempt. Oh, those eyes of hers, those topaz blue shards, probably best explained her appeal. Dead as the damned deer he’d wagered Wee Murdie for—the one he’d now no chance of eating, when he was hungry enough to eat the herd—but when they sparked, they smoldered.

  Imagine breaking her restraint, even for a night though. The coupling would scorch sheets. Actually, if she wasn’t a virgin, so much the better.

  “Well, just suppose she did. Aren’t you forgetting one teeny, tiny thing?”

  “Morven?”

  He slanted her an irritated glance. As if he wanted to remember. He’d come upon the gray gelding first, standing motionless in the glade behind the summer shielings. It was, he remembered thinking, the exact spot he’d first set eyes on Morven five years previously. Then he’d come upon her. He’d hoped, what he was looking at…

  “Morven was five years ago, Callm.”

  His gut tightened further. So it was. Not as if he’d exactly forgotten. What that day had done to him. How, until this one, until he clapped eyes on that damned baggage…

  “I don’t like blondes.”

  It wasn’t a lie. But even before he yanked this particular one out the snow she’d tumbled into and set her over his shoulder and the vagrant fire became an inferno, he knew he was making the mistake of his life.

  Crushed rose petals. That was what she smelled of. Very pretty. Swimming all the way into his senses. It didn’t help that beneath it, something beautifully warm and musky lingered. Or she was so cat-like slender, despite those curves he’d glimpsed earlier.

  But the worst of it was the way his body tightened so he’d struggled to keep walking. It was the first time he’d held a woman in five years and found no ghost of Morven haunting his arms as she’d last been there. When he’d held her and told her it would be all right. Knowing damn fine it wouldn’t.

  His gut twisted so hard he could barely breathe at the thought. That after what the McGurkies had done to Morven, all they had done to her, he should be the one to damn well affront her memory like this.

  Meg let her hand linger on his shoulder. “Well, just sometimes snow is white.”

  “This is one time when it’s black.”

  As if he did not know what color the snow was here. He just didn’t want Meg knowing the real reason there had been no woman for five years. How he’d given up on it, when before Morven died, before he knew her even, it had been physically impossible for him to do without a woman for five hours, let alone five years. He didn’t want anyone knowing.

  He shrugged. “I’ve been against this damned marriage from the start. Have you any idea the slap in the face it is?”

  “I know the tinker chief sued you for peace.”

  “I’d have sooner kept fighting. All the Brotherhood men would.”

  “Well, of course, you formed them. But Fallon needs you here. Not—look, Lochalpin needs the peace this marriage will bring.”

  “Peace?”

  “Hopefully. In time anyway.”

  “Peace? Don’t bank on it. That damned baggage through there would start a war all of her own.”

  Meg arched her eyebrows. “And that’s why you’ve brought that thing in here?”

  He walked to the wooden table in the middle of the hall. What they’d agreed about the drink didn’t matter. He was having a slug of whiskey and he was having it now.

  “I don’t trust her.”

  Peace? She had drawn blood with that accusation. Him?

  “Callm.”

  “She’s dressed like a tuppenny whore under that cloak.” He hated the indignant way his voice burst from him. Just so long as Meg thought it was simply him being awkward, that was fine.

  “Looking were you?”

  He fingered the edge of the silver quaich, then he sloshed another nip of whiskey into it. “No. I wasn’t looking.”

  “Well?”

  “What’s she damn well dressed like that for?”

  “Be honest. Is it the dress that worries you? Or its affect on yourself?”

  If someone had told him a few hours ago that it would, he’d have laughed. He knew exactly what was required of him in this instance. But five years was a hell of a long time to be without a woman. And he cursed his damned turd of a brother for not meeting her himself.

  Maybe he didn’t trust her. He trusted himself less. But he wasn’t telling Meg. All he had to do was get through one night here.

  And that was why, purely and simply, he was setting Dug outside her door.

  Not to keep Miss High-and-Mighty in her chamber.

  To keep himself out.

  * * *

  Kara crossed the stone floor and grasped the iron door handle. Even though she wilted with hunger and exhaustion and had sat in a chair all night—how could she lie on h
is bed, after all?—she set her chin.

  Despite what had happened the previous day, and she was the first to concede it was quite a lot, today was simply a case of putting her best foot forward. Of going into the world and doing what she had come here to do. Life was a series of steps to a particular destination. She would begin proceeding toward hers today by yanking this door open.

  A long, low snarl issued from behind it, and in a panic Kara leaped sideways, snatching her skirt with her. Proceeding on her journey was going to take a bit of doing with what was on the other side of the door.

  For a frozen second she stared at the floor. The damn man wasted not a moment, did he, in keeping her in about? Had that thing been there all night? Her heart thudded. Who would have thought? Obviously she hadn’t, or she’d have been more careful. It was not difficult to think how she had incurred his suspicions. But so long as she did not now incur his wrath, it would be all right.

  She clenched the handle. Well, she would not do so. She would close the door and sit down again. Wait for him or one of the serving girls to take the fangy-breathed brute away. Arland was more important.

  When what she wanted was so important though, why should she? She had had her fill of dogs at her door, keeping her pinioned like a falcon on a leash. Wasn’t she meant to be a free woman? And these dark gray stone walls, lit only by the faintest slivers of light, was it any wonder her breath rushed through her nostrils and her heart constricted?

  Not just for herself did she want that breath of fresh air, the knowledge she could step out of here. Serenne and Jess and the other women in her father’s dungeons, they were who she wanted it for.

  She had never seen Serenne, except for once. But that once… Kara slipped off her link belt. If she couldn’t deal with a dog at her door, how was she going to proceed and do all the things she had sworn to? Carefully she let out a breath. If she was caught, unlike Serenne, who was dragged kicking and screaming back to her cell, Kara was an Edinburgh lady, wasn’t she? If that explained her lack of propriety this far, so much the better.

  She jingled her belt over its head. “Here…nice…” She moistened her lips. Well? What was it exactly? She still wasn’t that sure but she dangled the belt anyway. “Doggie. Here boy. Nice…”