The Highlander’s Defiant Captive: The Lairds Most Likely Book 4

by Anna Campbell

  "Oh…"

  Callum couldn't resist stealing another kiss. This one swiftly turned ardent and arousing. He had difficulty drawing back. Even with her arm in a sling, he could manage to claim her if he was careful, but he refused to tumble his bride on a rough hillside. She deserved every honor.

  Still, when he heard her disappointed sigh, temptation damn near undid all his good intentions. He framed her face between his hands. He'd never tire of looking at her. Aye, she was bonny. Bonny enough to break a man's heart. But what made him love her was that bright spirit in her eyes and the character in her features.

  Callum wanted a strong woman to stand firm at his side through all the joys and tribulations life threw at him. The miracle was he'd found one.

  "What?" she asked softly.

  He smiled in sheer delight. "I'm just thinking what a braw lady of Achnasheen you'll make."

  "As long as I'm the lady of your heart, that's enough."

  How could he resist? He kissed her again. "Och, you’re that until the day I die, lassie."

  "Mackinnon…"

  "Let me take ye home to Achnasheen. If you keep looking at me like that, ye won't come to your wedding a virgin."

  Her lashes fluttered down, and her voice emerged in an embarrassed mutter. "I…I wouldnae mind if ye want to…"

  His soft laugh was rich with love. "Och, lassie, ye merit better than that. And I havenae always been as careful with your good name as I should have been. I want everyone in Achnasheen to know you’re as pure as the lily."

  Amusement lit her eyes. "Ye were so furious when I threw that wine over ye."

  "Och, I was half mad already with wanting ye. And knowing that I'd started my wooing in the worst possible way, I was at a loss as to how I could come back from that and find favor with ye. Yet with every moment I spent with ye, I loved ye more."

  One day, perhaps he'd accept that glow in her eyes as his due, but not today.

  "Ye know, if ye hadnae seized me that day in the meadow, we'd never have met. I'd have ended up marrying John."

  "Would that have been so bad?"

  It was her turn to laugh. "Och, now you're chasing compliments, laddie?"

  "After all the dreadful things you've said to me, can ye blame me?"

  "Ye deserved most of them."

  He smiled down at her. "Ye have a point."

  Her gaze dropped to where their hands lay linked in her lap, and her voice turned serious. "Even when I hated ye, I felt something."

  "The urge to commit murder."

  Mhairi looked up. "Aye, I cannae lie. That was there. At least at first."

  "Ye certainly made your mark, my bonny. I still bear the scar of your knife, and my ears have just stopped ringing from my head’s collision with the peat bucket. I soon knew I needed to treat ye with the respect you deserve. But you were such a surprise. I'd expected a lassie who'd come round to my will without too much trouble."

  "Even then, something in me recognized that I'd met my match."

  His wayward heart missed a beat. "Yet still ye fought me."

  "Aye, but I fought myself, too."

  "I'm glad ye lost," he murmured.

  Another of those heart-stopping smiles. "I dinnae feel like I lost at all."

  "And I dinnae feel like I won."

  The words were a revelation. He'd imagined that if ever he gained Mhairi Drummond’s consent to wed him, he’d feel triumphant. But mostly what he felt was grateful. And happy.

  Absurd when they still faced so many obstacles to feel as happy as he did.

  She searched his face. "Really?"

  "Really."

  This time Mhairi kissed him. A sweet meeting of lips that promised years of joy to come.

  If her father didn’t succeed in killing him first.

  "Take me home, Callum. Take me back to Achnasheen."

  He wanted to seize her up in his arms and hug her close, but he was too aware of her injury, so he merely smiled at her with every drop of adoration brimming in his heart.

  "Aye, with pleasure, mo chridhe. We have a wedding to arrange."

  Chapter 21

  In the tower room at Achnasheen, Mhairi sat up against a pile of pillows in the huge bed. For the first time in her life, she waited for a man to come and join her. She wore a delicate white silk nightdress, and her hair tumbled unbound around her shoulders. After a glorious day, rain had set in so a fire blazed in the hearth.

  Today she and Callum had plighted their troth before the castle's minister and what looked like every member of the Mackinnon clan. When she stepped into the airy granite chapel with its high, clear windows, she’d expected hostility to tinge the atmosphere. But something had changed since Callum had claimed her as his lady, and especially since he'd ridden back into Achnasheen three days ago to announce that she'd agreed to marry him.

  Perhaps it was the news that Sheena had connived at her death, or that Mhairi had freely chosen to take the laird as her husband.

  She didn't fool herself that the people here yet gave her the same loyalty and affection that they gave Callum. Perhaps they never would. But the congratulations she'd received after the ceremony had sounded sincere. The celebrations at the wedding feast had been riotous. And during her short betrothal, she'd received nothing but smiles as, for the first time, she'd wandered freely about the castle, awed at the magnificence of this place that would become her home.

  Bruard was a rich man's house, but nothing in the Drummond stronghold could compare with the luxury here. A wealth of tapestries, carpets, glass, and paintings left her dazzled. Silver and gold abounded. Opulent furnishings. All chosen for their beauty.

  Beauty wasn't the primary consideration at Bruard.

  Constantly at her side was the tall, handsome, wonderful laddie she'd pledged herself to marry. Through their earlier conflicts, she'd caught fleeting glimpses of the real man behind the jailer. The Callum who sought her company these last few, elated days was kind and clever, funny and perceptive. The moment she agreed to stay at Achnasheen, she'd known she made the right choice. Every moment since had only confirmed that decision.

  Today, there had been flowers everywhere, in the chapel, the courtyard, the hall. Now rose petals from the secret walled garden were scattered across the rich counterpane she drew up to her waist as she waited for her bridegroom.

  Waited in an agony of nerves and anticipation.

  It was all very well being sure of her choice to wed the Laird of Achnasheen, but she'd never given her body to a man. While she was aware of the mechanics, her heart raced with uncertainty at what exactly would happen when Callum took her in his arms. So when the door opened and an exuberant party of her husband’s kinsmen propelled him inside, her stomach knotted into tangles of trepidation and her mouth went as dry as a desert.

  Accompanying the merriment, a deafening skirl of bagpipes and recorders rebounded off the walls. Mhairi saw a few drunken Mackinnons banging on tabors. Others hit pots and pans with wooden spoons. There were a couple of women among the revelers, although a dozen of the castle's ladies had already been and gone, preparing her to greet her bridegroom.

  For the sake of modesty, Mhairi tugged the brocade cover up around her shoulders. The jubilant hubbub faded to nothing, ending on a last discordant squirt from the bagpipes. As all eyes focused on Mhairi, heat rose in her cheeks.

  "Och, Mackinnon, you've caught yourself a fairy," Duff said. "Nae mortal lassie could be so bonny."

  It should have sounded like a joke. It didn't.

  The crowd parted, and she found herself looking straight at the Mackinnon. He was still in the black velvet coat and formal kilt he'd worn for their wedding. A lace stock frothed at his strong throat and more lace peeped out from beneath his heavy cuffs with their elaborate silver buttons. When she'd first seen him standing in the chapel, her heart had performed a dizzying somersault at the prospect of such a superb man promising himself to her alone.

  In this bedchamber, the effect was no less powerful. S
tronger. Soon he’d reveal the body beneath all that spectacular finery. Gulping with a return of nerves, she hoped she didn't look like a frightened rabbit. She didn’t want her audience thinking she was anything but willing on the night she gave herself to the Mackinnon chieftain.

  "Aye, she's beautiful inside and out," Callum said, his deep voice resonant with love. "I'm proud to call Bonny Mhairi my bride."

  Trembling, she said a silent prayer that she proved worthy of him. His words left her moved and thick-tongued, so it was difficult to summon a response. But twenty pairs of expectant eyes turned in her direction so she made herself speak. "And I'm proud to be Mhairi Mackinnon, wife to the Laird of Achnasheen and the new lady of this clan."

  There was a pause, then an enthusiastic cheer broke out. One niggling worry among the hundred others, large and small, vanished. She and Callum still had so much to negotiate, first of all her father's reaction to this marriage. But her fears of living in this castle as a loathed interloper proved unfounded. When she'd pledged her loyalty to the Mackinnons by marrying their laird, it seemed the clan had taken her for one of their own.

  Callum pushed his way through the crowd to stand beside the bed. His hand rested on her shoulder. Once she'd have loathed such a possessive gesture. Tonight the warmth of that strong hand seeped down into her bones and settled the anxious flutter of her heart.

  "Well said, mo chridhe."

  This time, emotion weighted the shiver that rippled through her. Every time he called her his heart, she felt like she dissolved into a puddle of melted sugar.

  "Och, this is all too solemn for a wedding," one of the men called out. He raised a frypan and began to bang on it with a wooden spoon. "Let's frighten away the imps and sprites, so good fortune smiles on our laird and his lady!"

  "Good health to the Mackinnon and Bonny Mhairi!"

  "Good health, long life, much happiness!"

  As the chaos broke out again, Callum smiled down at her, his eyes glowing. "I couldnae keep them out. I imagined a gentler beginning to our wedding night."

  She lifted her hand to cover his. "They're so happy for ye, let them show it."

  "Aye, they're happy because they can see I'm happy."

  Duff and a couple of the other men hauled Callum away from her. "Och, Mackinnon, you're wearing too many clothes for the work ye plan on doing tonight. You'll get nowhere with the lassie, wrapped up in all that folderol."

  While most of his kinsmen kept up the ragged serenade, eager hands tugged at the Mackinnon's velvet coat and white stock. His shining black hair had been tied back for the wedding, but it soon hung loose around his sculpted features. The short ceremonial sword and jeweled dagger clattered down on top of a carved oak chest. His sporran soon joined the weapons.

  When Duff tugged at the wide black belt that held up Callum’s red and black kilt, he raised his hands and stepped back. "Enough!" he said, laughing. "I can take things from here."

  "Och, we're sure ye can," a sly feminine voice called out.

  Renewed cacophony greeted the remark. It would be generous to call it music.

  "We wish ye much joy, Mackinnon," a man shouted.

  "Aye, and many braw bairns!" another man said.

  Over the heads of his joyous kinsmen, Mhairi met Callum's bright black gaze, and her blush rose once again. Tonight they'd start on creating a family. They’d lie together in this bed. Callum’s strong graceful body would rise over her, and he'd push inside her. The images rocketing through her mind were alluring and terrifying in equal measure.

  His smile told her he was thinking of exactly the same thing, although there was no trepidation in his gaze, just eagerness. He turned to face the crowd.

  "It’s high time ye left me to get on with what I need to," he said. "Or else my bride might decide she's waited long enough."

  "Och, you're worth waiting for, Callum Dubh!" a woman shouted.

  "I've got ale and a barrel of whisky down in the hall for ye, not to mention a supper fit for a king."

  "And a queen!" another woman shouted, banging two pots together like cymbals.

  "I've paid the musicians to play all night."

  "Och, are ye saying we’re no’ musicians enough?" a man asked, making the crowd guffaw and respond with another deafening clamor.

  "You'll be too busy dancing to play, Bobby," Callum said over the riot.

  It took a few more minutes to usher the boisterous revelers from the room. By the time they'd gone, Mhairi's ears rang with the torrent of good wishes and the clash of wood on metal.

  Finally Callum, impatient with the tardy departure, physically pushed out the last of his kinsmen with laughing insistence. A few of the more intoxicated laddies shoved back into the room. Callum's whisky had already been flowing downstairs, and they’d clearly taken advantage of the laird’s largesse.

  More laughing insistence and ruthless handling from Callum until they were gone. He slammed the heavy door shut and slammed the iron bolt across for good measure.

  As the noise faded with the crowd hurrying down the steps to the hall, he turned to face Mhairi. He leaned his back against the door and his velvety brown gaze settled unwavering on where she sat in the bed.

  "Well, my love?"

  Chapter 22

  Two deep blue eyes focused on him, sparked a blazing fire in his loins. Callum wanted Mhairi more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. Yet something about her expression in the shadows made him hesitate to seize her in his arms and set her on the path to paradise.

  During their three days of betrothal, she'd become more rather than less mysterious to him. Right now, he wouldn't wager a groat on guessing what she was thinking.

  He rushed into speech. He'd never felt so uncertain with a lassie. Not even with his first girl, sweet, laughing Morag MacNab who had led a fifteen-year-old lad to a grassy hollow and shown him the joy two bodies could create together.

  "I hope they didnae frighten ye too much. It's an old tradition at Achnasheen to celebrate a wedding with revelry in the bedchamber."

  Callum didn't tell her that not too many years ago, the revelers would have undressed the bride and groom until they were naked and rumor had it, stay to observe the bedding. He might like to uphold the old ways, but he wasn't such a traditionalist as that. His intentions for the rest of the night were strictly private, by God.

  When she slid the covers down from her neck, he licked dry lips and the fire inside him flared up like flames in a draft of air. Two embroidered ribbons over her slender shoulders held up a drift of white nightdress. It dipped low over the bonny swell of her bosom. Candlelight gleamed on the creamy skin of her arms and throat and chest. Streaked that extravagant tumble of auburn hair with highlights of ruby and gold.

  His eye caught on the angry red line across her upper arm where Sheena had cut her. The wound was healing well, but he’d never forget how close he’d come to losing her.

  "I wasnae frightened." Her soft voice held no fear, so he believed her.

  "They're so pleased for us."

  "Aye." Mhairi didn't say it, but he knew she was recalling the unfriendly reception she’d received when she arrived at the keep. "It's lovely. I felt embraced today, as if your people mean to welcome me as their lady."

  That was one of the reasons he'd let the hullabaloo continue as long as it had. He wanted his clan to think of his wife as a Mackinnon, not a hated Drummond.

  "I'm glad."

  He'd made it clear that anyone who resented serving a Drummond mistress could pack their belongings and leave. But during the last three days, he'd noticed that his people had started to like Mhairi for her own sake, not just because their livelihood was at stake if they didn't accept her.

  A shadow darkened her expression, and she plucked at the covers. "I feared my role in Sheena's death might rouse some anger."

  He shook his head. "My kinsmen are ashamed of what happened. Ye were a guest in my house, and you nearly came to grief."

  That familiar humor tugged
at her lips. "No’ precisely a guest."

  He shrugged. "Ye still should have been safe in my custody. Sheena's treachery reflects badly on all of us."

  A silence fell. He guessed that Mhairi too thought of the sad procession that bore Sheena's broken body back to the castle. Yesterday, they’d held a funeral service for her, but the only person who seemed struck down with grief was Sel the Red. A pity that the girl’s spite and ambition stopped her finding a genuine home at Achnasheen.

  Callum had spent the last few days in a whirl of happiness, but when he’d slept alone in the west tower, he'd suffered a nightmare or two. Dreams where he arrived at the Mare's Tail a second too late and watched Mhairi, not Sheena, fall to her death.

  If he ever doubted how much he'd come to love the exquisite woman he'd wed today, he just had to recall his black despair upon waking.

  "I forgive ye," Mhairi said, still in that soft voice.

  "I'm sorry I let Sheena take ye."

  Sorry? He'd been ready to cut his throat, half-mad with remorse that his reckless actions had brought his darling so close to dying.

  Another faint smile. "I mean for everything."

  He studied her across the room. "Do ye really?"

  "Of course." She moved one hand in an eloquent gesture that swept away the bitterness of the past. "Dinnae fash yourself, Mackinnon. I'm no’ nursing a heart full of unspoken resentment beneath my smiles."

  Callum released a brief laugh, although razor-sharp emotion sliced at his heart. He remained painfully conscious that while he'd told Mhairi over and over that he loved her, she hadn't yet said the words to him.

  That was another change, and one that shone an unflattering light on his treatment of his former amours. Lassies galore had declared their love – with, he was cynically aware, varying degrees of sincerity – but he hadn’t felt the slightest urge to respond in kind.

  "Och, mo chridhe, your resentment has never been unspoken."

  She didn't smile. "I want us to be happy. A grudge will poison our life together."