Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  She knew Lìli had once been mistress here and this room beside the laird’s chamber would have been ideal for a small child—modest but nearby a mother’s ear with barred windows to protect him from a fall—not to mention the bed itself was scarce big enough to comfortably fit a grown woman. After Stuart MacLaren died, it was fairly certain Rogan would have displaced Lìli from the laird’s chamber and she may have ended here in this room herself. But that thought gave her a horrid little quiver, for she hadn’t considered the possibility that Lìli too had borne the oppression of this bower prison.

  The bed rails pressed her down, and her bottom prevented her from going any further. Her ivory dress blackened with dirt from the floor as she tried to shimmy further beneath the bed to little avail. She’d already attempted to move the bed. It was small enough, but for some reason it was nailed to the floor, as though someone had intended to keep it precisely where it stood.

  At last, she felt the wooden box at the tip of her fingers, but the door to her room flew open wide and she spent a terrifying instant beneath the bed, wondering who it could be.

  The room behind her remained silent as a crypt.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Relieved by the sound of Jaime’s voice, Lael’s ire nevertheless returned.

  She didn’t want to tell him what she was doing! In fact, she refused. Whatever it was that lay inside that box she wanted to be the first one to see it—alone. Why she couldn’t precisely fathom, but there was little left that she could call her own. This must be her little secret. And anyway, what if there were something in that box she could use to help her escape—a key to some forgotten door? If there was one hidden portal at Keppenach, there could well be another.

  Much to her dismay, she didn’t want to think of him as Jaime either—nor in truth feel relieved to hear his voice.

  She waited a moment to answer, irritated by her thoughts. “I’m hiding from my butcher husband!” she snapped. “What else d’ ye think?”

  That spurred him into motion. He marched across the room, hurling words from his mouth that she did not readily comprehend, and then he placed his hands about her ankles and began to drag her out from under the bed.

  “Ye midden-fingered clod-headed nippit! Ye canna lay your hands upon me without my leave!” Lael shouted, struggling in vain to keep her place beneath the bed. Cobwebs clutched at her nose as he tugged her out and then without much effort tossed her over his shoulder like a piteous sack of meal.

  “If you behave like a child, tis precisely the way I’ll treat you,” he said.

  Lael shrieked in outrage as he bore her out of the room and into the laird’s chamber, and if in fact the laird’s bower hadn’t made her catch her breath, she would have continued shrieking until she made his ears bleed. Or at least she liked to think she would. With a huff of disgust, she wiped the offending webs away from her face as he kicked the door closed and bore her over to the bed, tossing her within it without ceremony.

  “As my wife and mistress of this keep, you will sleep here.” He pointed to the bed and then turned away from her, and Lael would have leapt for the door, except that she didn’t feel threatened by him. Surprise over that fact and curiosity kept her planted squarely upon the bed.

  The laird’s chamber was like naught she had ever seen.

  The bed itself was a massive thing, draped with pale green silks. The bath was here again—she cast a glance at her husband, thinking he must surely suffer an obsession with cleanliness for she had never seen so much soap in all her years.

  The brazier was lit, filling the room with toasty air that made her at once forget the winter cold. And the window… she had never spied such a thing as this, with lovely painted glass.

  Scowling, her husband ignored her as he yanked off his tunic, dragging it over his head. And if Lael had been momentarily lulled by the beauty of the room, the room was forgotten now at the sight of her husband’s bared flesh. The firelight cast shadows over his body as he unlaced his trews and shrugged out of them in silence. He was completely unashamed, standing nearly bared to his bones, and Lael held her breath as she watched him stride across the room, the sculpted muscles in his buttocks flexing as he went. He took a flagon of what she supposed was mead from the table and poured a bit into one of two cups. Without a word, he gulped it down, tossing his head back to quaff the contents of the cup and Lael drank in the sight of him, despite that he was her enemy.

  Nay, my husband.

  He was, in truth, the most beautiful male she had ever known in all her life. His hair in this light was burnished copper, his flesh dark and his shoulders wide and thickly muscled. Although she had seen more than a hundred men unclothed on the shores of the loch, she instinctively turned her gaze when he revealed his manly parts.

  “Will ye rape me now?” she asked, her tone filled with as much censure as she could manage through the unexpected thickness in her throat.

  He had yet to even look at her, but answered, “Nay.”

  Lael couldn’t quite discern whether his response relieved or aggrieved her. “Why not?”

  He flicked her a glance, then filled his tankard once more, but this time he filled hers as well—at least she assumed it was hers.

  He didn’t respond to her question at once and it was only then she noticed the soft, clean shift beneath her upon the bed. Intended for her, she supposed. Another nicety, perhaps, although she didn’t want to believe the gesture was his. Perhaps Ailis, Kenna or Mairi had brought it here for her.

  Besides, he didn’t seem the least interested in her right now.

  “So then… are ye one of those men who favors other men?”

  Jaime flicked her a glance, but didn’t allow his gaze to linger, lest she test his resolve. “Nay,” he replied, certain as he was that she was goading him. She didn’t seem to ken aught else to do with him… although given the opportunity he would certainly show her a thing or two.

  “Ach, the ye must find me hideous?”

  Bracing himself for the sight of her lying upon his bed, he lifted her cup and turned, crossing the room to hand it to her, meeting her gaze directly as he answered, “Nay.”

  “Can ye say aught more than nay?” she asked peevishly.

  Jaime considered answering in kind, but instead confessed, “In truth, I have never met a more beautiful lass.”

  Silence permeated the room.

  She took the cup from Jaime’s hands and held it there before her, her brows colliding fiercely. “Why will ye no’ rape me then?”

  Jaime could scarce credit the conversation. He arched a brow at her. “Are ye asking me to do so?”

  Her tone was full of impertinence, but barely any rancor. “Ach, ye dolt! If I were asking, it wadna be rape, now would it?”

  Jaime offered her a bedeviled glance. “I have never forced a woman once and I will not begin now.”

  She peered down at her cup, but didn’t drink. “I see… so then ye think to ply me with drink so I will simply babble at the ceiling like a bampot while ye spread my thighs?”

  Jaime winced. “God’s truth, I couldn’t conceive a more distasteful thought,” he confessed.

  Her frown deepened and she seemed to reconsider him a moment, as though he were a puzzle to be deciphered. “But your king commanded ye to get me with child,” she saw fit to remind him. “How will ye do so if ye dinna rape me?”

  She was perfectly serious, Jaime realized. There was no sign of guile in her inquisitive green eyes, and he realized in that instant that whatever else his wife might be, she was not a liar. In fact he had never met a man or a woman with so much candor. He honored her frankness with his own. “Some commands are unfit to keep.”

  “Such as taking a keep that doesna belong to ye and shedding blood of innocents?”

  Jaime drank down his uisge. Damned if he wasn’t beginning to develop a taste for the heady drink. He’d saved what was left of David’s gift to share with Lael, because David said her folk enjoyed the l
ibation. But she had yet to realize what it was, and he wasn’t inclined to tell her. As with everything else, she should discover it for herself. Her lips had not yet touched the rim of her cup. She was staring at him as though she had never seen a man unclothed before, and the realization pleased him immensely.

  Savoring the lingering burn at the back of his throat, he stood enjoying the feel of the heat trickling into his veins… not all due to the drink, he realized. Some was due his lovely wife. But if she didn’t change the subject immediately from the topic of rape, and turn her gaze away, she would very quickly discern what it was he thought about bedding her. His cock stirred merely at the notion of enjoying her sweet body. “It was not I who stormed Keppenach in the dead of night,” he reminded her.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “But you would have. And you would have butchered everyone in your path—tis what is said of ye, I know.”

  His blood turned cold at her depiction. If there was aught she could have said to spoil the moment it was that. He answered her with silence, and if his cock could have shriveled to nothing it would have.

  At least there was no longer any danger of him betraying his oath, and for that he must be grateful. He took one last sip of the uisge, hoping to sedate himself to get him through the night because there was only one thing he could imagine worse than laying beside a woman he did not want; it was laying next to a woman he could not have.

  She had yet to drink and he bloody well wished she would. And for the space of an instant he wished to god he were a different man, because if there was one time in all his life that he wished he could put his cock in a woman’s mouth simply to shut her up, that time was now. He turned his back to her as she opened her mouth to speak.

  “So … if ye dinna get me with child, will ye still keep your word and set me free?”

  Jaime tensed over the thought, but his answer would be the same regardless. “A man’s word is all he has,” he told her as he slammed his cup upon the table. “The price of breaking even once is the trust of his men.”

  He heard her choke—probably on her whisky—and then at long last, she fell silent. Hoping that she had enough answers to put her gently to rest, he blew out the candles, one by one, stoked the brazier one last time, then made his way to the bed, his mood lifting only after he spied her face.

  She had no guile—no guile at all.

  Rather than be annoyed by the fact that she bolted across the bed as he neared it, Jaime hid a knowing smile.

  Still cradling her cup, Lael leapt off the bed at her husband’s approach.

  She had yet to drink, but now she gulped down the entirety of her cup, grateful to find it wasn’t mead.

  In the meantime, her husband plucked up the delicate shift and tossed it to her side of the bed, then slid beneath the covers and turned his back to her. His bare shoulders were caressed by golden light, and his dark hair burnished a deep copper. It fell upon his pillow like a lion’s mane, rich and rufous in this light. After but a moment, his breathing eased and she thought mayhap he had fallen asleep.

  So easily?

  Scarce able to believe it, she made her way to the table near the door, and still he didn’t move—not to stop her, nor to ask where she was going.

  The door remained closed, though not locked. She could easily open it and leave, but her prison room was cold and barren, and it didn’t appear as though she was in danger of being abused by her peculiar husband.

  She set the cup down gently upon the table and turned to find his eyes were closed, and she stood, transfixed, staring at the man in the bed.

  My bed.

  My husband.

  With his face in a relaxed pose, she could barely spy the fine white line of his jagged scar above his brow. His skin was swarthy, not pale—much like her brother’s. In fact, there was much about him that brought to mind the traits of her kinsmen. Some said they were akin to Vikings, but they were not. Aye, there were some who’d wed with Northmen, who’d lent their fine, pale hair and blue eyes to their lineage, but by far the most prevalent traits were the dark hair, bright green eyes and tawny skin.

  Her husband’s eyes were not blue, but the color of steel. No matter that they were closed now she could never shut out the intensity of his gaze.

  He never stirred.

  To her utter amazement he had fallen asleep.

  And despite that it was their first night, he hadn’t laid a single finger on her, nor had he locked the door to prevent her escape, still she found she didn’t wish to go—not to sleep in that cold room next door.

  Giving the door, one last glance, she cautiously moved toward the other side of the bed and took her shift in hand, inspecting it. It was hardly usual for her to wear such a garment to bed, lovely though it was. But he had thought to give her the means to hide her nakedness from him if she so pleased. That was not something her brain comprehended, given all she knew of the man, but she was beginning to wonder how much of it was true. He slept as peacefully as a babe.

  Nevertheless, she didn’t plan to undress here in front of him and have him leap from the bed, pretending to be asleep only to catch her in such a vulnerable state. Nay, she would sleep fully dressed tonight. Tossing the shift aside, she climbed into the bed, lamenting Aveline’s ruined wedding dress. And then it nettled her, in truth.

  Had he truly no wish to bed her?

  She lay staring at the canopy above, listening to her husband’s smooth, easy breathing. He slept easily, like a man who hadn’t a care in the world, though she didn’t believe for an instant that his conscience could be so pure.

  And yet, his sins were not adding up while his good deeds were multiplying like rabbits.

  She lay awake for a long while, fully expecting her husband to roll over and fondle her at least—a breast perhaps—but when at long last he began to snore she was forced to cede.

  “Tha thu rùn-dìomhair, mo duine.” she whispered.

  You are a mystery, my husband.

  Chapter Twenty

  Anxious and ill-tempered, Maddog quit the hall before the trestle tables were dismantled, and now that they were down and the pallets were being returned for the long night, he grew more disgruntled with his position.

  “Come now, Kenna. No one will know,” he pleaded.

  Ignoring him, the girl hurried away from the storehouse after listening only for a moment to what he needed her to do—simply ask auld Bowyn to take the meal sack with him when he left Keppenach in the morning. Bowyn could never refuse Kenna aught, and if he would but take the sack containing the blacksmith’s child, Maddog could far more easily deal with the blacksmith himself once the body was discovered. In the meantime, Bowyn would never put Kenna at risk. Maddog was certain the old codger fancied the lass.

  “Please, Kenna!”

  Her dark hair shining under the moonlight, she stubbornly shook her head as she hurried through the garden. “I tol’ ye last time, Maddog, I wadna help ye e’er again! I’ll no’ be party to your sins!”

  “Ach, lass, would ye refuse a mon who once saved ye from certain death?”

  She placed her hands to her ears. “I’ll no’ be hearin’ this again,” she said. “’Twas my father who saved me that day. Ye were but the lucky mon who brought me home—and truth be told, ye were like to be the one Donnal trusted least. If he sent ye away from Dunloppe, he did so only because ye were his kin so dinna speak to me about favors or duty.”

  “You wound me,” Maddog said, rushing after her. “And Donnal MacLaren was no more your blood than I am.”

  That got her attention. She stopped abruptly and spun to face him. “What say ye?”

  “Auld MacLaren wasna your father,” Maddog revealed, and when her expression remained doubtful, he added, “Devil take my soul if I dinna tell ye true, sweet lass.”

  “I dinna ken ye’ve one left to take,” she countered, but then she simply stared at him, looking bewildered. He knew she’d heard the rumors corroborating what he was telling her, but there was no o
ne alive who knew the truth, save he. That he’d brought home a strange child auld Donnal supposedly sired was never in itself questioned, but neither was Kenna ever embraced. Fearing any sibling rivalry—even from a baseborn lass less than half his age—Donnal’s son Dougal had never accepted Kenna, leaving her to wander like a beggar amidst their kin. And both of Dougal’s sons, Stuart and Rogan, treated her just the same—neither good, nor bad, but indifferent nonetheless.

  “Ye dinna have an ounce of MacLaren blood in your veins,” he maintained, though somewhat more gently, despite that she was bound to hold little affection for any of the MacLaren brood. “Though I know whose kin ye be, and I will tell ye if ye but help me with this one unfortunate task. It was an accident, Kenna.”

  Her eyes were liquid. She appeared wounded, but he sensed her resignation. “Why would ye keep something like this from me so long, Maddog?”

  Maddog pursed his lips. “What could it possibly have changed?”

  “Quite a lot if my minny and da yet live.”

  “Alas, but they dinna, child.” That much was not a lie, but he needn’t offer the entire truth as yet—that she had a brother who might be interested to know his sister did not burn when auld MacLaren said she did.

  One hand went to her hips and he held back a grin at the sight of it, for he knew he’d won. It was a conciliatory gesture, but the girl said naught, she simply stared at Maddog with those steel-blue eyes, looking far too much like the Butcher for Maddog’s peace of mind.

  It was only a matter of time before someone suspected the truth.

  “It was an accident, Kenna,” he pleaded desperately. “The boy pounced on me whilst I was cleaning my sword—in the dark! With all that’s happened of late, I thought he was one of theirs come to do me in. I dinna trust the Butcher, nor should ye, dear girl. What if he were to discover who I am? He may believe me a threat. I thrust out my sword before I realized who it was. Alas, it was only poor Afric’s son.”

  “Your temper will be your downfall some day,” Kenna scolded. “If ye live by the sword, Maddog, ye’re bound to die by it as well.”