On his words, she bit her lip and blinked, clearly struggling to keep tears from spilling down her cheeks.
And just looking at her, Jamie knew himself lost.
Knew he’d made the right choice.
Even if the lie someday found him sharing a pool o’ brimstone with Alan Mor and his shifty-eyed monk.
He narrowed his eyes on them now, not at all surprised when they squirmed. For truth, they had good reason to do so. If either of them e’er exposed him for speaking falsely, he’d forget his size and strength and give them such a pounding they’d wish they’d ne’er been born.
Unfortunately, Lady Aveline still looked doubtful.
And more than a shade unhappy.
“Is this true?” She slipped from Jamie’s grasp and turned back to her father. “He did know the ceremony was set for today? This is not one of your schemes to force him into a plight troth he doesn’t want?”
Before Alan Mor could respond, James Macpherson stepped close and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I would not be here did I not wish to bind myself to you, my lady. Dinna you think to doubt it, for I have ne’er spoken truer words,” he said, his voice soft and low, the warmth of his fingers spilling all through her.
“You don’t even know me,” Aveline couldn’t help but protest, his touch unsettling her. “And I do not know you. We have ne’er even seen each other before this day. We—”
“We both know that isn’t true,” he said, his fingers tightening ever so slightly on her shoulder. “I do want you.”
Aveline’s breath caught, his words setting her heart to fluttering for he’d dipped his head to her ear and spoken them just for her.
Equally pleasing, he kept his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring way, his touch more welcome and pleasurable than she would have believed. Especially when his thumb began moving in ever so light circles up and down the side of her neck, each tender caress soothing and melting her.
“Hah!” Alan Mor slapped the monk’s back with a resounding whack. “Will you look at that?” he cried, his mirth scarce contained. “I coulda searched miles through the rock and heather to find the best husband for my wee lassie and here’s my arch-fiend’s youngest, smitten as the day is long!”
He rocked back on his heels, his face splitting in a grin. “Suffering saints! And to think the girl doubted me!”
“There is e’er reason to doubt you,” Aveline grumbled beneath her breath, watching her da’s mummery with suspicion.
But she couldn’t deny that he appeared genuinely pleased.
And like as not, he was. Even if his reasons would be his own self-serving ones and not his professed concern for Munro Macpherson and that one’s well-doing.
To be sure, he didn’t care a jot if Laird Macpherson’s strapping son found favor with her or nay.
Even less that she thought he was the most powerfully handsome man she’d e’er set eyes upon. His great size and similarity of feature revealed his kinship to his brothers, but she was quite sure he’d top even Neill by an inch or more were they to stand side by side.
His shoulders looked wider, too. Definitely more impressively muscled. And though Neill had been a pleasure for any lass to rest her eyes upon, he’d worn his pride and station like a crown and Aveline had ne’er felt wholly at ease beneath his stern, sometimes arrogant stares.
No matter that Sorcha e’er insisted there hadn’t been a vainglorious bone in his undeniably comely body.
But this Macpherson had his clan’s far-famed looks and a good heart. That, she could already tell. It’d been especially apparent in the way his voice had softened when he’d spoken of his mother. And she’d seen it, too, in his readiness to comfort her.
She suspected he had a dimple, too. Something she’d watch for as soon as he ceased frowning at her father and Brother Baldric.
And, saints preserve her, but she was certain she’d also caught glimpses of glistening, coppery-colored chest hair at the neck opening of his tunic.
Aveline moistened her lips, the notion exciting her. Would such hairs prove as soft and glossy as they’d looked? Or would she find them wiry and crisp?
That she even wanted to know astounded her.
As did the tingling warmth that spooled through her the longer she thought about such things. Aye, she decided, watching him, he was the finest, most magnificent man she’d ever seen.
And the most valiant from what she could tell.
Proving it, he stepped forward and took the two rings from the table, lifting them in the air. “Let it be known that this betrothal ceremony is both binding and desired,” he said, raising his voice so all could hear.
Saying the words before his good sense kicked in and sent him hastening from the hall to seek a bride not burdened by a sire he knew to be more slippery than an eel.
Instead, he cleared his throat and concentrated only on her beautiful sapphire eyes, the scent of summer violets.
“I, James of the Heather, take you, Aveline of Fairmaiden, as my betrothed bride,” he said, a burst of boisterous approval rising in the hall as he slid the smaller of the two gold-and-sapphire rings onto her finger.
Not surprising, so soon as the ruckus died down, Brother Baldric began rattling off his assets. And one quick glance at Alan Mor’s beaming countenance told him where the monk had gleaned such knowledge.
But before he could comment, the second ring was gleaming on his own finger, his Sithe maid’s soft voice accepting his plight troth and offering her own.
And then the deed was done.
The faery was his bride.
About the same time but across a few mist-draped hills and the wild torrent of water known as the Garbh Uisge, Munro Macpherson tossed in his curtained bed, trying to decide between the perils of falling asleep and risking another fearing dream or staying awake and listening for the heavy breathing that always heralded the arrival of his sons’ ghosts.
“Ach—for guidsakes!” Scowling fiercely, he punched down his pillows for what had to be the hundredth time since chasing Morag and her fool meal tray from the room. “Beset by bogles and bowls of gruel in my own bedchamber!”
Flipping onto his stomach, he squeezed shut his eyes and resisted the temptation to jam his fingers into his ears. Whether or not anyone could see him, sequestered as he was behind his tightly drawn bed curtains, scarce mattered.
He was still a man of power and consequence and should maintain at least a semblance of lairdly dignity.
And to that effect, fearing dreams seemed less treacherous than staring into the gloom of his enclosed bed, his ears peeled for any sound he shouldn’t be hearing.
Not comfortably ensconced in his own well-shuttered and barricaded privy chamber.
Pursing his lips, he reached to part the bed curtains just a wee bit. Only to make certain that fox Alan Mor’s strongboxes of stones were still piled against the bolted door. Blessedly, they were. And they provided sound proof against further intrusions from his long-nosed she-bat of a seneschal and any lackeys she might send abovestairs to pester and annoy him.
He almost snorted. That was something they all seemed ever good at, bedeviling him.
Alan Mor, by thinking him so simpleminded he’d be fooled by a thin layer o’ coin spread oe’r a coffer filled with rocks.
Morag and his kinsmen, by repeatedly sneaking into his bedchamber when he slept to throw open the shutters, nigh blinding him. Or expecting him to eat pig’s swill they called gruel and believe such a sorry excuse for victuals would replenish his strength.
His strength, a goat’s arse!
He hooted his scorn, sending a last glance at the iron-bound coffers. Saints, he would’ve smiled were he not so concerned about bogles.
But he was, so he let the bed curtains fall shut again and frowned into his pillow.
Truth was, a whole teetering tower of strongboxes wouldn’t keep out a ghost. But the three heavy chests he’d managed to pile on top of each other at the door did prove he hadn’t lost his m
uscle.
That he knew the coffers’ contents without peeking inside showed his wits were still with him as well.
If Alan—fox-brained—Mor possessed even half his own cunning, the lout would know the Fairmaiden grazing ground was more than enough to satisfy him.
That, and the flap-tongued fool’s precious wee lassie.
And thinking about her brought a smile to his tired, angst-fraught heart, so he snuggled more deeply into his bedcovers, certain that, for once, his sleep would prove untroubled.
Regrettably, instead of dreaming about sitting before the fire, his feet up and a bouncing, red-cheeked grandson on his lap, it was the sound of water that invaded his sleep.
Swift, swirling water plunging wildly over tumbled rocks. A churning cauldron of froth and spume, its thunderous roar echoed inside the confines of Munro’s curtained bed.
A refuge no longer framed by the dark oak of his great bed’s canopy but the wind-tossed branches of the skeletal birches rimming the Rough Waters.
The dread Garbh Uisge.
The cataract-filled gorge where his sons had lost their lives.
Sons he could see now, their broken bodies shooting over the rapids, their death cries carried on the wind. Some of them already bobbed lifelessly in deeper, more quiet pools near the gorge’s end.
But others still suffered, their battered bodies crashing against the rocks, their flailing arms splashing him with icy, deadly water.
Munro groaned in his sleep, his fingers digging into the bedcovers as his heart began to race. Sweat beaded his forehead, damping his pillow.
The tangled sheets and plaiding of his bed.
Mist and spray surrounded him, its chill wetness making him shiver and quake. And then the rushing water surged across him, carrying him ever closer to his sons’ reaching arms. The facedown, floating bodies of the ones already claimed by their watery fates.
“No-o-o!” Munro cried, his eyes snapping open.
He pulled in a great gulp of air, noticing at once the pool of water he’d been wallowing in.
How wet he was.
And that someone had ripped open the bed curtains.
“Of a mercy!” He sat up, dashing his streaming wet hair from his eyes.
He swiped a hand across his water-speckled beard, peering into the gloom and shadows. Sodden or nay, he wasn’t about to throw off the covers. Only a spirit could’ve brought the Garbh Uisge into his room and experience warned him he’d soon see that ghost.
And he did, recognizing Neill despite the dripping wet cloak he wore, the dark cowl pulled low over his white, hollow-eyed face.
An accusing face, filled with recrimination.
“You did this,” his eldest son decried, pointing at him. “You and your insatiable greed.”
Munro scrabbled backward on the bed. “Begone, I beg you!” he wailed, his teeth chattering. “I had naught to do with—”
“Aye, you did naught. But you could have repaired the bridge.” Neill backed into the shadows, his tall form already beginning to waver and fade. “Now it is too late.”
And then the shadows closed around him just as the rushing waters of Munro’s fearing dream had swirled around and over him, pulling him ever deeper into the horrors he couldn’t flee even in sleep.
Trembling uncontrollably, he somehow crawled from his bed and tapped his way across the chamber, making for his chair. Hard-backed and sturdy as befitted a Highland laird’s dignity, the chair was anything but comfortable.
But with a dry plaid draped around him and another spread over his knees, it would suffice as a resting place until his bedding dried.
Loud as he’d roared at Morag the last time she’d poked her grizzled head around his door, she wouldn’t be coming abovestairs to see to his comforts for a while. A good long while, like as not. And his pride kept him from calling out for her.
So he dropped down onto his chair, tucked himself into his plaids as best he could, and frowned, in especial at the pile of Alan Mor’s strongboxes blocking his door. Weak-kneed as he was at the moment, he doubted he could move them even if he did wish to go seeking a sympathetic ear.
Truth be told, there was only one soul he knew whose strength could push open his barricaded door. Munro’s brows snapped together. Och, aye, unnerved as he was just now, he might even be glad to see his youngest son.
Infuriated by the notion, he sat back and turned his face toward the fire.
Then he did his lairdly best to pretend such a fool thought had ne’er entered his mind.
Chapter Four
Jamie stood before the arched windows of Alan Mor’s hall, for all intents and purposes legally bound to the Fairmaiden laird’s faery-like daughter and about to perform his first act as her personal champion.
Once the jostling buffoons crowding around her drew her away from the high table, he’d have words with Alan Mor. Words that needn’t reach her gentle ears.
Some things were best kept between men.
A muscle twitched in Jamie’s jaw and he flexed his fingers, waiting.
Her composure regained, his new lady accepted her father’s men’s well wishes with perfect poise. She joined in their laughter and met their cheers and jesting with a dazzling smile, her sapphire eyes alight and glittering in the glow of the torches.
And the longer Jamie watched her, the more she pleased him.
Her voice carried to him, its low-pitch beguiling, its smoothness flowing over him like honeyed wine. Saints, but he wanted to touch her. Indeed, just looking at her was almost like a physical touching and he burned to cross swiftly to her and pull her into his arms, holding her close and letting her spill soft, sweet words all over him until he fair drowned in them.
But someone had appeared with a generously heaped platter of fried apple fritters and spiced pears, the tempting delicacies drawing enough attention for Jamie to seize his chance.
The time was nigh.
Leaving the shadows of the window embrasure, he strode purposely toward the high table, his plaid thrown back to reveal the many-notched haft of his Norseman’s ax and the leather-wrapped hilt of his steel.
Upon seeing him, Alan Mor grinned and reached for the ale jug, making to pour Jamie a cup of the frothy brew. But Jamie took the cup before his good-father could fill it, setting it deliberately out of reach.
Alan Mor’s smile faded.
“Ho! What’s this?” he queried, one brow arcing. “Refusing my ale? I’d think you’d be after quenching your thirst on such a notable day?”
“Notable, aye,” Jamie allowed. “’Tis also a day for plain speaking.”
Alan Mor eyed him. “My ears are open,” he said, sliding a glance to where Aveline stood in the midst of a crush of apple-fritter-eating clansmen. “Dinna tell me you are displeased with my daughter?”
Jamie took the ale jug and poured himself a portion, not taking his gaze off the other man as he downed the ale.
“Displeased with her?” he echoed at last, returning the cup to the table. “With surety, nay. But I am mightily vexed to have been duped. See that it ne’er happens again.”
To Jamie’s surprise, his words only earned him another smile.
“I would hope to stand higher in your favor, having arranged for you to have such a prize.” Alan Mor cast another quick glance in his daughter’s direction. “She—”
“Is too great a treasure to be publicly shamed,” Jamie cut him off, his voice pitched for Alan Mor alone. “Embarrass her e’er again and be warned that you shall answer to me and there’d be no escaping.” Jamie let his fingers curl demonstrably around his sword hilt. “I would be after you in a thrice, on your heels as relentlessly as yon greyhounds curled before your hearth fire.”
Again to Jamie’s surprise, the older man’s smile deepened and he slapped the table, this time even barking a laugh. “Saints, had I known you’d take such umbrage, lad, I’d have been more subtle,” he vowed, pushing to his feet. “But I am an auld, gruff man, unused to courtly airs and fin
e ways.”
Unmoved, Jamie plucked a fine-looking morsel of roasted meat off the table and tossed the tidbit to a nearby dog. “Forget what I said about your greyhounds,” he said, wiping his hands. “Cause yon lassie a single moment of grief from this day forward and I shall be your shadow.”
“‘Grief’?” The older man grabbed Jamie’s arm, turning him toward the cluster of revelers mid-hall. “Say me she doesn’t look happier than any maid you’ve e’er seen.”
And she did.
Jamie couldn’t deny it.
“All the same,” he said, shaking off the other’s grasp, “I would that she remains that way. And I’d have a private word with her now. Somewhere away from your hall and where she may speak freely.”
Alan Mor dropped back down into his laird’s chair, then waved a casual hand. “Auld and gruff I may be, but no’ thoughtless. My privy solar has already been readied for you, and with all the comforts of my house.”
Jamie nodded, then turned on his heel. He needed but a few long strides to reach Aveline’s side. When he did, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
A privilege entirely his, but dangerous.
Just breathing in her violet scent stirred him. Feeling the softness of her skin beneath his lips proved a greater temptation than he’d expected.
Or needed.
Especially now, when he wished to speak earnest words with her.
“Come,” she said, twining her fingers with his and leading him from the hall, “I saw you exchange words with my father and understand you’ll wish to speak with me.” She looked up at him then, her sapphire eyes long-lashed and luminous. “I would speak privily with you, too. My father’s solar has been prepared and awaits us.”
And it did indeed, Jamie observed when, a short while later, she led him into the quiet chamber, closing the door soundly behind them.
Little more than a small, low-vaulted chamber just above Fairmaiden’s great hall, the room held all the comforts Alan Mor could boast. As belowstairs, the floor rushes appeared freshly strewn and sweet smelling and the walls were recently limed, their whiteness holding nary a trace of soot from the pleasant little peat fire glowing on the hearth grate.
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