“I am Lady McGurkie. And I demand the treatment due a betrothed bride. Not some doxy you’d plow for a merk. Now get your hands off—”
She was going to say me. Really she was. Spit it if necessary. But suddenly his hands were off her, yanked back by the Wolf, who even now stood between her and Lord Ewen, his hand gripping her forearm. Behind her first stunned thought thundered another. For certain now she was going to die. For certain she was and would never see Arland.
“What do we say to a little respect here? Hmm?”
Kara said a lot. It was difficult, of course, the taut, the furious way the Wolf gritted, to be collected enough to get the words out. Especially when the Wolf towered, his breath rushing through his nostrils, eyes glittering—that yes, if Ewen desired to paw her, she wasn’t going to raise any objections. She could be very respectful that way. Nice. Very amenable too.
Why was her beloved’s tunic bunched in a lump just below his windpipe though? His eyes glazed, as if with terror?
Her own gaze widened.
Who was she kidding? The Wolf didn’t want respect from her. Dear God, no. She tightened her palms, her breath drawing like a noose across her ribcage. She knew it by the icy fury that roiled off him in waves for all he hadn’t shouted. By the stone cold glint in the sea-green eyes. What she could see of them anyway. But when she remembered being seventeen, pregnant, alone, when she had learned to fight her own battles, or thought about the dress she’d fought to close as she did this one…
If she allowed him to do this for her, how could she do what she came to do? And not doing what she came to do was not an option. She couldn’t be broken. Not like this. Not here. Not now. How could she? Empires could not be cast aside.
This business with Morven—that was why he did this. No more. No less. She passed her tongue over her lips to moisten them. Anyway, how mad was he? Did he have the least idea of the consequences she would face the second she was alone with Ewen McDunnagh if she did not find her voice and mend this?
“I’m very sorry, my lord, to have displeased you so soon.”
What it cost her to say that when she was anything but, was of an exorbitance she was unaccustomed to spending. But when she considered the alternative, and not just that, the prickling thought that the Wolf protected her, it was one she would bear. Not only that but she would tug herself free too.
“I’m not meaning you, Princess.”
Oh God, she wished he were. That he would not grip her arm so firmly, would not grip it at all. And would not stare at Ewen with such unwavering intensity either. Would not make her feel, consider, think, a man who did this, was perhaps one she might trust.
“Do you want me to send her home again?”
Home? What a horrible thought. Especially if he came with her. Defend himself then? No. She must speak, glare. Must jerk herself free, if she could not. But he kept hold of her arm even as she did. Twice. A dog with a bone. So she’d to set her teeth and tug it again. He glared at her too.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Callm.”
Before Kara could commandeer her tongue, Ewen made a gesture of dismissal. “So, the new lady of Lochalpin’s got spirit.” He swaggered to the table, spraying spittle down his unshaven chin. “Ye think I give a shite, she’s no respect?”
For all they may have been unsteady several moments ago, his hands were perfectly controlled as he sloshed more whiskey into the goblet.
On a purely subjective level, it made her heart pound. Her stomach clench. Had she or had she not wondered why people hated Ewen McDunnagh? Even his own brother? If nothing else that question had been answered.
“Respect can always be learned. Aye.”
He raised a brow, stared for a long deliberate moment at her, the gaze raising such prickles on her flesh, she marveled she didn’t lower her own. But let this man know he did that to her? She wouldn’t, even if her fingers trembled on the edge of the cloak that she tried to keep shut, a task made difficult when the Wolf wouldn’t release her.
“Ye know Callm, it will be mah pleasure to teach her.”
When so much now hinged on the sheer necessity of getting into bed with him—and she was going to have to get into bed with him—that wasn’t heartening to know.
Because she did know, she knew exactly what a man of his strength and brutality would do to a woman like her. And she knew just how much his smacking lips wanted her to know that. The precise way he was going to savor her.
Of course she also knew who to blame for that. And it wasn’t herself.
“Ulla.”
So she hoped now the Wolf opened his big mouth again, and she stood here trying to feed droplets of air into her starved lungs, it wasn’t with another bright idea.
“Take her ladyship upstairs.”
It was.
Did she imagine it, or was there now going to be a set-to between the two men? Over her, of all people? Ewen thumped his fist on the tabletop, sending cups and plates flying. Oh God, why hadn’t she just let him paw her? And been all the things she was here to be?
“Confound and damn ye to hell, Callm. Ye will not tell me in mah own damned castle, what to do with mah own damned disrespectful bitch of a bride. Mah serving lassies neither.”
“Is that so? Ulla?”
Kara’s stomach knotted. That the Wolf should do this, when he could not stand guard at the bridal bed. And not just that, when every second that he did, made her even more aware of him, not just as a man—that was bad enough—but someone who would do this for her. Sickeningly she felt, not just because of Morven but because that was the essence of him. Because he hadn’t leered had he, or shown any sign that he wanted to, when her dress gaped. She must drag herself free or walk out this castle and admit she had failed, as everyone knew she would.
Making a supreme effort, she advanced on the table. “But, of course it is not his place, my lord. I am sure whatever you wish to teach me, you will find me an apt pupil.”
“An apt pupil?”
Why did everyone think it was beyond her to be such a thing? Even a toad she had been acquainted with for barely five minutes? A five minutes that were fraught with difficulty, she was the first to admit, which was why she smiled now.
Although how she smiled now she had no idea, especially when she had to clutch her dress shut, and there was nothing so bad as having to do so thinking what she’d probably displayed and her hands shook worse than if she’d seen a ghost.
Perhaps because she had so much to protect here and she so needed her energies for that and parts of her felt limp as the flag hanging on that pole there, while others at the same time were brittle as the wooden pole that held it.
“Once…once the wedding ceremony has taken place, that is. Might…might you be so kind as to inform me when that will be? An expectant bride likes to know such things. So they also know how much time they have to prepare themselves to put right what they are doing wrong.”
“Wrang?”
“I—” She lowered her gaze. Waited. Waited. Silence, brittle and burning, stretching beneath the cavernous roof. Oh, she was, wasn’t she? She was all wrong. And now… Now when she most needed the courage to do this, to bed this man…
“The-isday.”
Her gaze skittered sideways. “Thursday?”
“Is that not what Ah said, madam?”
To be truthful, she wasn’t sure what he’d said. Thursday was five days away, which was why she didn’t want to jerk up her chin, to hope for too much.
“Aye. Thursday should be time enough for ye to make yourself at home here in mah humble abode. Then…then on the subject of marital treatment, Ah’ll be having my rights as a husband.”
Her gaze edged the floor. Five days. She swallowed. She had won a reprieve.
There was no doubt about that.
But when she considered how it had probably been won, who, in all likelihood, was responsible, she didn’t know if she could go on with this.
* * *
Love-making was a
pastime Callm enjoyed. He liked women. Their soft laughs and lips. Warm skin and shapely bodies. Even the little secrets they sometimes kept. Fen’s inn stood about three miles up the glen.
She wasn’t a whore as such, being a little more sophisticated than that, although she did offer her customers more than the odd drink of cheap whiskey. By the time he was at the end of his third glass, it was exactly as he hoped after leaving the castle. In a dudgeon, he must be honest with himself.
The hell of it was he even wound up upstairs in Fen’s bed. At least, he must be honest with himself there too, he ended up on it. The night was yet young to be anywhere else yet.
“Callm, hold on a minute, will ye?” Beneath him Fen wriggled. “Just let me…let me loosen your belt…and then, then—”
“All right.”
Under no circumstances would he describe Fen as the woman of his choice. She was so drunk, she’d fallen on her way up the stairs. Now his hands edged down her body, the curves, the planes, the part where her breast curved and her kirtle didn’t quite cover it, he didn’t care.
The circumstances did not exist on the face of this earth in which Callm had planned to defend Miss Stubborn MacHigh-and-Mighty. Not the way she trod in hobnailed cloppers where angels wouldn’t dream of wandering within a ten-mile radius of.
Christ, it wasn’t even as if, it wasn’t her fault when her tits fell out her dress like that. Or the way it was wrapped around her navel.
And what had he just done? At the expense of himself too. What the hell had he done that for? Buying her time?
Well. While not a patch on the baggage, Fen was willing and whimpering, soft and warm. As he found her mouth in the darkness of the chamber, he foresaw only joy. Five years. Oh yes.
She kissed like a dream, and he was so ravenous, his pulse bucked. When he didn’t have time for the courtship of women, as their fathers expected. To be a husband to any of the ones whose fathers didn’t, whose fathers were desperate. Because they were ruined, or blind, like Maire, the fiddler’s daughter, over at Analpin, he’d warned Ewen off earlier this year. Fen was more than that. She was ideal.
He backed off the bed. Kicked the door shut with his heel. Because, of course there was Morven. Probably it was Morven, more than anything else. The glen. These women. What he was. What people expected. At the time he’d wanted to kill—not everyone—but a lot of people. What was more, he had. He had loved her, she was his life—although none of what he’d done made him proud.
If only she hadn’t been raped.
Because that, that was why he just…couldn’t. And if that ever got out, he’d be finished.
He was damned glad he’d stopped off here for that drink though. The noise from down below was raucous. And Miss MacHigh-and-Mighty made him randy. Impossible damned baggage that she was, disdaining his help. He tore off his sword belt. Oh yes, needed taming all right.
“Hold on.” His plaid was tangled in his actual belt but he tore it loose, unwinding himself from it. “I just need to get this off.”
Five years. Who needed soft light and whatever the hell else he’d imagined with Miss MacHigh? With any other woman come to that. The ones he’d found it simpler to play the grief-stricken card with. He was grief-stricken.
Now that his plaid lay in a heap on the floor, he just wanted to tear off his boots, undo his breeches, and get on with it.
The boot landed with a satisfying thump. He leaped onto the bed. Found her mouth. It was just a pity that while she didn’t taste bad, Fen didn’t taste half as good as she kissed. Her breath carried more than the sour tang of whiskey. But she was certainly soft enough in all the right places. She was like him too. Lonely since her man died. On the right side of hard working. Made a home for her brothers and sisters.
He grunted. Though luscious and eager, she didn’t smell very good either. That was all right because she’d thrust her hand down the back of his breeches looking for the place where his tunic ended. Not just looking. Not just…
Christ almighty, it was unpardonable enough he’d got himself involved with Fen over a drink and just wanted to shag her, now she clasped his buttock, he let himself consider what flitted into his head. Rose petals. So treacherously inviting, he strove not to sniff.
He cursed beneath his breath. Would she just get the hell out his head so he could shag Fen? How dare she? Occupying his space like this. When his breath was coming in a rush and Fen’s fingers tore now at the fastenings of his breeches. Imagining her. Imagining her fingers and that gown of hers open, so he could kiss from her soft white breast to…that wasn’t conducive to this.
Christ. How the hell could he have put Morven out of his head, for her to walk right in? But it was still… He shifted his elbow. How the hell had he never noticed when he’d drunk with Fen before, she stunk? Merciful Mary. She stunk to high heaven. All right, it was no crime. A little sweat. A little grime. A little stew fat. But when he held his breath fit to choke, he didn’t want any thought about the way Miss MacHigh’s eyes had sparked when she faced down the turd. Not when desire raged, what he wanted was to do this and Morven wasn’t anywhere in his head for once. Probably because her ghost cowered in a corner in shame. Well, he would do it.
“Callm!” The door rattled. A sharp rat-tat. “Callm, you in there, man?”
Jesus. Talking of heads, his smacked the sloping roof as he jerked upright. He wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere. “What the—”
“Callm!” Now the door shook. “Callm! I’m sorry, man.”
He could ignore it. When he’d come in here he was so eager, so desperately fired, the supporting slat had fallen off at one end when he flung the door open. Now that Wee Murdie hammered on the other side of it, he felt like he could have kissed him, not Fen. How the hell was that?
“Shh!” What was more, he somehow leaped off the bed, as if it were on fire, and yanked his plaid from the floor. “Hold on. I’m just—sorry about this, sweetheart.”
He yanked the door open, not caring his plaid hung off his shoulder and he hopped on one foot because he couldn’t get his boot on.
A sickly halo of yellow light cast Wee Murdie’s face in the same pallor. This was urgent. It had to be. Whether it was or not, even with men who had long since become his friends, he was never so easily distracted from maintaining his reputation. Not when their respect was something he couldn’t countenance losing for a second.
But the fact was his heart hammered with relief. The place was a hovel. Torn bedding. Holes in the roof. A bed the only furniture to speak of. And not much to speak of at that. So This better be good were words he knew he’d struggle to grit. Anyway, he wasn’t exactly dressed for it.
“What?” Instead he jerked the hair back from his face.
“Party’s over.” Already Wee Murdie’s boots clattered on the rickety staircase as he started making his way back down it. “No prizes for guessing how.”
Callm’s heart lurched. It would mean he felt something for the chit if he did not arrest the fall. Yet his blood boiled, hotter than it had in the castle hall. His hand smacked the doorjamb before he could stop himself. He could not deny he wasn’t going to kill Ewen for this. “Which part of ‘Stay the hell away’ does that bastard not understand? Where is she?”
Wee Murdie paused on the bend. “Who?”
“Lady McGurkie.”
“Oh, it’s not her.”
Callm swallowed his shock. If not her, then surely not—hell, the chit was fiery, he could see that, but—Ewen?
“Nah.” Wee Murdie ducked his head under the sloping roof and continued on his way. “How did you think it was?”
Well…
“But I’d hurry up just the same. Snosh’s found some bloodied rags on his watch.”
“Snosh has what?”
“The big cave at Schiealpin. Of course, it may not be anything. Just some lassie in a muckle-puck of trouble. Ewen’s or someone else’s. But the cave is near the pass. And, Callm?”
“What?”
“
We are looking the other way right now.”
Callm blinked. Did Wee Murdie mean him? “Shit. Right, hold on. Two seconds.”
When an intruder was at large in Lochalpin, relief shouldn’t flood about getting out of here. It especially shouldn’t flood when there was an intruder so close to this wedding.
Unless, of course, it was a guest. But he hadn’t allowed those. As for being caught like this, with his pants down, when his priority was to guard this glen, that wouldn’t happen again. He gathered up the rest of his garments quickly. He even pressed a quick kiss on Fen’s forehead. “Sorry, sweetheart. Some other time.”
He even tried, for the sake of propriety, to sound as if he genuinely meant it.
And not like his mind hammered Over my dead body.
Chapter Four
Five days.
Kara stood in the doorway of the cavernous hall. It was evening on the third day, and only for Arland had she stood it so long.
Lord Ewen was dancing, reeling around so fast in the smoky candlelight, a landing in the fireplace wouldn’t have been in the least surprising. One skid of the massive brogues straining against his partner’s shoes was all it would take for this to end entirely. His head against the fender.
With the devil involved though? Unlikely. Ewen McDunnagh might be thickset, but he danced like a feather. When she thought about the wedding feast that was still to come, how could she fail to see the sound of the skirling bagpipes was like a taunt from hell? This entire scene was. Why, it was even lit by blazing torches.
Not for the first time her throat clenched, her mind recoiled, that she should, in her life, have come to this sorry reduction. But, for all she had doubted her ability to do this the other day, there was no way out. Not for a woman like her.
There was only the acknowledgement that it might have been better to have done it the other day. Then she wouldn’t have had, at every turn since, to reconstruct this, to steel herself, even now to step into this lion’s den, to negotiate it, knowing every eye in the room was on her in hungry speculation. The mixture of clan royalty and Ewen’s trollops seated around trestle tables tonight in her honor. Such as that was. She would have been filled with such loathing for her husband, it would be no trouble to betray him. She would not be facing evenings like this with a mask fixed to her face, the uneasy feeling beneath, she did not belong. That really, five days, she could escape, couldn’t she? Except to do that seemed even more wrong in this sorry situation when that time had been bought, she should face Ewen. Just as much as it seemed wrong to use that time to gather what she already had.
His Judas Bride Page 7