by Mary Wine
He wanted his sister back. The fact that Bronwyn was only his half sibling didn’t matter to him. It never had. She was the only member of his family who cared for him.
Liam and Sodac caught up with him.
“It’s about time ye showed some courage, brother.” Liam slapped him on the shoulder and snickered. “We’ve vengeance to extract on those bastards McKorey. I’m happy to see ye in such a hurry to begin.”
Keir turned to face his siblings. The scent of whiskey was strong on both of them. With their father dead. Liam was making it clear that no one had say over his actions any longer. He drank any time and any place that he wanted to and fucked any woman that caught his eye.
“It’s Bronwyn I’m intent on finding.”
Liam looked confused for a moment. “Aye, the land. Father warned us about making sure she never breeds.”
“What land?”
Liam shrugged. “Her mother came with a dowry that is willed to Bronwyn and her offspring. It’s no McQuade property unless Bronwyn dies without issue.”
Keir spat, rage turning his vision red. It was a good thing his father was dead or he might be tempted to do the deed himself. Greed had rotted the man long before a royal pike was pushed through his heart. He had treated his daughter little better than a servant her entire life because of land. He believed it because that fit with the greed-poisoned picture he had of his sire.
Liam and Sodac watched their younger brother stride away. Sodac pulled a leather flask from his doublet and took a nip. “I forgot about Bronwyn. What are we going to do about her? Cullen McJames will fill her belly for sure.” He snickered. “I’d poke Raelin McKorey a few times before slitting her throat, too.”
Liam smirked in agreement. “Raelin deserves to suffer before we choke the life out of her.” He grabbed the flask and drank a long swallow. “But Cullen isna planning on killing Bronwyn in spite of the fact that she’s his enemy’s daughter. We’ll have to see to that ourselves.”
“Do we have to kill her?”
Liam nodded. “I don’t want to waste all my time making sure she’s no fucking in the hay. Besides, her belly might already be full with a bastard who’ll take our land.”
Sodac stared at his brother. “Ye’re laird now. Make the king give her back.”
“And then what? She just dies after being returned?” Liam raised his hand, threatening to strike his brother for not thinking of a better solution. “Besides, Jamie is smitten by the McJames. He dinna even hang Raelin McKorey for causing our father’s death. No, if we want to keep that land, we’ll have to take care of Bronwyn ourselves.”
Liam McQuade took another swig of whiskey. He was laird now. He’d think of something. It didn’t matter that Bronwyn was his half sister; every McQuade served the laird. Even if it meant their lives. He expected it of his retainers, just as his father had. He wouldn’t go soft over the fact that Bronwyn was a female.
He’d deal with the threat. Permanently.
Chapter Eleven
Dawn came too early.
Bronwyn rubbed her eyes and groaned when she sat up. The chamber was lighter, and with the bed curtains still open, the light roused her.
“I agree.”
Her husband yawned before rolling over the edge of the bed. Her gaze followed him because she just couldn’t help herself. She’d never noticed that men were attractive. Cullen was magnificent. Every ridge of hard muscle a delight for her eyes.
“Ye look like a siren sitting there tempting me back into bed.”
A blush warmed her cheeks. She stood up, enjoying the grin playing across his lips. He didn’t have to tease her, didn’t have to be kind to her.
Yet he was.
“There are not enough hours of daylight to be wasting any.”
Cullen pulled his shirt over his head. “Well now, if that’s a promise that ye’ll be welcoming to me once the sun sets, I’m content to endure the daylight.”
“Stop yer teasing.”
She walked across the room and picked up her surcoat. But Cullen hooked her around the waist and pulled her back against his body.
“Why should I do that, lass? Yer cheeks are rosy from my teasing and yer eyes shining.”
He nuzzled her neck, sending ripples of excitement down her. It was playful and sweet, drawing a soft laugh from her.
“Ye are an overgrown boy.”
“Ah, but ye enjoy the fully grown man in the dark.”
She giggled, and gasped when she heard the sound crossing her own lips. Cullen’s wide chest rumbled with a deep chuckle against her back. He nipped her ear with a teasing bite.
“Ah, it’s true, Bronwyn, ye cry out so sweetly when the man pleases ye in our bed.” He cupped one breast and turned her slightly. “Or chair.”
She slapped the arm holding her against him, but the blow lacked any real strength. “Enough.”
He hugged her tight before releasing her. His kilt was already pleated and waiting for him on the table. He leaned over it and pulled the ends of his belt around his waist. When he straightened back up it took mere moments for him to buckle the belt and pull the loose end of his plaid up and over his right shoulder. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief but also determination.
“It is no enough, no nearly enough. I plan to tease ye much more.”
“Why?” The chilly morning air made her shrug into the surcoat in spite of her distaste for the garment. She longed for a dress and that was a fact.
Cullen tugged a round Celtic bonnet down over one side of his head. He walked back toward her and she stood fast, watching him in fascination. This was not her captor and yet he was. What mesmerized her was the fact that she was enjoying being the target of his teasing.
He cupped her chin in a warm hand. “Maybe because I like the way ye laugh when I tease ye. ’Tis a sound I want to hear more of.”
She looked away, unsure of what to feel. He hooked her around her waist and pulled her against his body. He threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled gently to raise her eyes back to his.
“I plan to give ye more reasons to be happy, Bronwyn.”
She was tempted to believe in his words. So tempted.
“Ye have had what ye want of me.”
“And ye think I’m callous enough to believe that is the extent of what we should hope for from our marriage?”
“It is what most couples are content with.”
He placed a soft kiss on her lips but didn’t linger. “Ah well, it isn’t enough for me.”
He released her and turned, walking toward the door. He stopped when he reached it, looking back at her.
“Ye puzzle me, Cullen McJames.”
“No more than ye did by folding my plaid last night. My McJames plaid.” He winked at her and pulled the door wide. “But we’ll have to wait until later to discover what our hearts are trying to tell us both.”
She scoffed at him, but he left the room instead of taking issue with her.
What her heart was trying to say?
Nonsense.
Insanity.
The man had stolen her.
But from what?
Her life at Red Stone was not so nice. She saw the difference now. Her pride was still sore, making it impossible to simply let her feelings bleed away. But she was confused this morning. She didn’t feel like a captive anymore. Somewhere in the dark hours as she’d enjoyed being held against him, the struggle that kept them from relaxing had vanished. Maybe it was her father’s death. Feuds did sometimes go to the grave with the laird.
Their future was suddenly full of possibilities.
Sybil arrived with two girls in tow, saving her from her thoughts. They bustled about the chamber while Sybil insisted on braiding her hair once again.
“I’m so glad ye dinna try to run away last night, Mistress Bronwyn.”
The two maids paused in their straightening of the bed. They were taking the sheets and replacing them with fresh ones.
Sybil continued, raising he
r voice enough so that the maids could not mistake her words.
“Now there will be no more talk about whether or no ye are trustworthy.”
“I should think every person that was awoken from their rest will have far worse things to think of me now.”
Sybil slid a final hairpin into her hair and smiled. “Och now, where do ye think ye are, England? A bit of determination in a woman is a fine thing. If ye gave that husband of yers too much obedience, he’d walk across ye like a carpet. Just where would that place the rest of us, I ask ye? Every McJames man would be expecting the same meek behavior.”
One of the maids laughed while the other grinned. Sybil shrugged. “There are some things that women and men dinna understand about each other.”
It was a peace offering from a McJames woman who hadn’t had any more choice on what land she was born on than Bronwyn had. The tension was missing from yesterday and it was a welcome relief.
“I am learning that, Sybil. Thank ye for braiding my hair. We should go before we are late to break our fast.”
A soft expression of approval shone on Sybil’s face. It was a fragile truce but one that made it much easier to walk toward the hall. The walls didn’t seem so cold today in spite of the ice edging the windows.
Cullen sat at the table with his brother and family. Alarik McKorey looked as though his head ached, while Bonnie frowned at him from where she sat beside her sister. But what captured her attention was the way her husband watched her. His eyes were glued to her, with a playful grin on his lips, like the one he’d shown her the day they first met. She suddenly felt the warmth of that afternoon and the chill of winter couldn’t melt it.
Perhaps affection was not as horrible as Shakespeare wrote it to be.
But then again, maybe her mind was simply broken.
Bronwyn’s shoulders ached by the end of the day. But her cloth was rolled neatly into a length that would be cut and sewn into a dress on the morrow. Sybil and the other maids had worked diligently plying their needles on her behalf to produce undergarments. A pair of soft drawers restored some of her modesty. They came none too soon as her monthly courses arrived.
She would not share Cullen’s bed tonight…
The thought should have filled her with delight. Instead her heart became heavy with disappointment. The supper bells rang and she sighed.
Her mind must truly be broken. There was no other explanation for her melancholy mood. It should have delighted her to discover that she did not carry a babe that would further cement her union.
Instead she dreaded sleeping alone.
Which was absurd since she had so newly begun sampling what it was like to share a bed. She was too quiet over her meal and more than one person at the high table considered her from under lowered eyebrows. She tried to shake her mood but it stuck to her as she felt the night looming over her like an empty cavern.
With a sigh she departed, leaving Sybil to inform her laird that he would be sleeping alone. It was a common thing for the maid to convey such information, but Bronwyn still felt her cheek color slightly. Her body had always been her own and it was unnerving to have her personal details discussed with others.
It was harder still to enter the chamber she shared with Cullen. But she didn’t know where else to go. Would he sleep elsewhere? Or would he send her away until she was clean again? Her mother had never shared a chamber with her father. Erik McQuade had sent his man to inquire from her maid if she was clean any time he was of the mind to mount her. Bronwyn had always known when her father came to her mother’s bed because she was sent away with a maid to sleep in the kitchen.
The door opened and she turned to face it, her face set against exposing her lament.
“Och now, dinna frown so. I swear I’ve seen kinder faces across the battlefield.” Cullen held the door wide for Sybil, who was grasping a tray. She set it down on the table and curtsied.
“Good night, Mistress Bronwyn.”
Cullen chuckled as soon as the door was closed. “I see Sybil found a way around ye asking her to no call ye mistress.”
“She is a fine maid.” Bronwyn fingered the wool of her surcoat. “Do ye want me to sleep in the kitchens?”
“Ye sleep here with me.” There was nothing teasing about his tone now. It was edged with hard authority.
“Did Sybil tell ye…”
He tossed his bonnet onto a hook set into the wall. “Aye, she did.” His tone softened a bit. But his eyes flickered with the hard determination she’d seen in her captor. “I keep what I steal near.”
“Is that so?” Her temper rose along with her chin.
But Cullen flashed her a smile. “Well now, ye are the first thing I’ve ever stolen so I think that be the way of it.”
He was toying with her. She glared at him, frustrated and amused at the same time.
“Did yer father send yer mother to the kitchen?”
“He did not share a chamber with my mother. He only came when he was of a mind to…” Her voice trailed off as she realized how much information she was spilling to a man her sire called his enemy. A few days ago, she would have been horrified. Tonight she was simply weary of the need for walls. Where did their clans stop and each of them begin?
“Whenever he wanted to use her?”
Her cheeks colored slightly at the bluntness of the words. “Aye.”
Cullen frowned. “I’ll hold my tongue since the man has departed this world.”
“Ye sound as if it is commonplace for couples to share a chamber.”
He shrugged and pulled one of the X chairs around next to the table. “My parents did as my brother and Anne do now.” A glimmer of playfulness returned to his face. “They seem to be very happy with the arrangement.”
“I see.” She didn’t, but the tension knotting her shoulders suddenly released its grip on her.
“Sit down, wife. Alarik brought us a wedding gift.”
Cullen reached for a pottery bottle sitting on the tray. He removed the costly cork stopper in it and poured a measure of whatever was inside it into a small drinking cup.
“Honey mead to celebrate our marriage.”
A smile lifted her lips. She couldn’t help it. Honey mead was the traditional drink given by the friends of the bride and groom. You knew if you were popular if the entire first month of yer marriage ye had enough honey mead to drink. It was a sweet drink that made ye think of spring even in the dead of winter.
“That was kind of him.” Sniffing the cup, Bronwyn took a sip and grinned. Sweet as May Day.
“More likely he’s trying to soothe yer ruffled feathers for helping to steal ye.”
“That is no a topic to jest about.” She glared at Cullen while he poured himself a measure of the honey mead.
“Now dinna be trying to tell me that McQuade men are so different from McJames men in that they don’t tease about stealing brides.” He opened his hands wide. “Admit it.”
Her eyes narrowed but she couldn’t remain vexed. He was correct. “Men jest about it, but nae women.”
“Ah, but I am a man.”
“I have noticed that.”
His face brightened with victory. It went into his eyes and they glittered with male satisfaction. “’Tis glad I am to hear it. ’Course I’ll be happy to remind ye as often as necessary.”
He reached onto the tray and produced a set of dice. Challenge flickered in his eyes as he rolled them in the palm of his hand.
“What do ye plan to do with those?”
One golden eyebrow rose arrogantly. “I was thinking to get to know ye better, Bronwyn McQuade.”
She laughed at him, but the way he rolled the dice intrigued her. “With dice?”
“Aye, ye and I thrive on challenge. So we’ll play for the right of one honest answer for each win.”
Her breath froze in her lungs as she contemplated his offer. It was a challenge and one that came with plenty of risk. The risk of laying out her most intimate secrets if the dice favored him
instead of her. But the chance to discover what sort of man he was with her own questions was hard to resist.
He grinned at her, arrogant and mischievous at the same time. “Unless yer too timid to try me at a few rounds of chance.”
She pulled the other chair closer to his and slapped the table with her hand. “Hardly. Ye dinna frighten me.”
And she realized that he never had. That was truly surprising because she should have been scared of him. But something had always kept her from fearing him. It was rooted deep inside her, in that place where you didn’t decide what you felt; the emotion was simply there like a living breathing thing. There was no decision making, only feeling it when it rose up to engulf you.
“I am not afraid of ye.”
His face went serious. “Ye had every reason to be.”
“But I wasn’t.”
She was suddenly conscious of how open she was being with him. His keen stare missed nothing. Her eyelashes fluttered, veiling her feelings.
“I believe I am tired.”
His eyebrows rose in mocking judgment but he laid the dice down. “I suppose that’s true.”
She stood up and hung her coat up. Sybil had found her several chemises to wear, so at least she did not have to suffer with wearing a soiled one day in and out. The undergarment was loose enough to allow them to be worn without fitting issues making her uncomfortable.
The bed was warm and welcoming. Cullen blew out the candle that was burning in its holder on the table before he joined her. The mattress rocked as he climbed up onto it, the bed ropes creaking a tiny bit.
A startled gasp escaped her when he pulled her against his body. Her head cracked against his chin and she heard him growl. His arms tightened instantly, the hard strength in his larger body trapping her. But he controlled it expertly, never really hurting her. He adjusted her against him before easing his embrace.
“Cullen…”
“Enough talking, Bronwyn.”
“But…”
He rolled over, pushing her onto her side. His arms held her in place as his warm body pressed up against her from the top of her head to her toes.