A Warrior's Soul (Highland Heartbeats Book 8)

by Aileen Adams

  “Aye, indeed.”

  “None of them… bothered you in any way? Interfered with you?”

  Her cheeks burned hot, though she managed to maintain eye contact so that he might not think her dishonest. “They did not. They were gentlemen.”

  He snorted. “Scottish gentlemen? I’ve yet to meet one.”

  “Now that you mention them,” she ventured, thinking quickly, “might they not spend their evening here, within the walls of the keep? I understand you were to offer them arrangements in the stable.”

  “And it’s far better than they would receive at any other estate in the country,” Edward assured her, sounding bored rather than angry. “They’re fortunate I’m even giving them space inside the castle walls.”

  She bit back a stinging retort, reminding herself that they were strangers. The man’s hands did not appear as though he’d ever done a day’s hard work with them, but that did not mean he was unable to hurt her.

  “At any rate, they were kind to me,” she assured him.

  He waved a dismissive hand. “And you are intact? I was led to believe so by your father.”

  The fact that the two men had discussed something so intimate turned her stomach, but that was the way of the world. She wondered what would have happened if she’d answered in the negative, if she told him she’d been compromised by a man along the route to the castle or even years earlier, outside the awareness of her terrible father.

  What would he have done?

  “I am intact,” she whispered, lowering her eyes. It was all unbearable. One indignity after another.

  “I’m glad to hear of it. That was one of the conditions of my agreeing to wed.”

  Alana was unsure whether she wanted to know what the other conditions were, but felt compelled to ask—after all, she reasoned, it was her life at stake.

  “What were the other conditions?” she asked.

  “I want a wife who will bear me children,” he explained, his tone clipped. “I need viscounts to carry on the family line. The Remington name is a good one, an old one, but I am the only living son. My brothers all either died in infancy or on the field of battle.”

  “I am sorry to hear of it,” she murmured.

  “I am the last hope of the bloodline, you understand,” he continued, ignoring her or simply not sharing her feelings. “And the fact that you are half-English makes you a very attractive mother to my children. Your mother’s family name was a good one in this part of the world, until the family fell into ruin. Hence marrying her off to a Highland clan leader.” The man’s nose wrinkled as though he smelled something rotten.

  Self-righteous anger rose in her chest. How dare he? She bore no love for Douglas Stewart, nor for the clan he led, but it was clear the man’s distaste was for Scotsmen on the whole—and Highlanders in particular.

  She would have enjoyed watching Brice put the man in the velvet cape in his rightful place.

  “You’ve no other living relatives?” Edward asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Good. No family coming to call, then. I have several sisters who occasionally bring their brats here for holidays. I’ve little time for such matters, but that will be your affair to manage.”

  “I see.” She did not see at all, and the fact that he referred to his nieces and nephews as brats told her all she needed to know of his feelings toward children.

  “Of course, I plan to have you with child within one or two moons, but you will be up and about before your interment comes. You will find every possible need has already been attended to.”

  He would have nothing to do with the raising of the children, naturally, taking credit for their excellence while heaping blame upon her whenever they fell short. He would likely ignore the girls, marrying them off to strategically sound young men while focusing his attention on the boys.

  The poor babes. She felt terribly sorry for them, though they had not yet been born.

  The steward returned with a tray laden with wine, bread, cheese, meat and dried fruit. Edward took everything in with a practiced eye. “The kitchen is currently being put to use for tonight’s feast and the wedding preparations, too. I hope this is acceptable to you.”

  It was a veritable feast on its own, better than almost anything she’d enjoyed since leaving home. “It looks quite fine, thank ye.”

  “You,” he murmured, pouring wine into a chalice.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You. You keep saying, ‘ye,’ as some Scottish peasant. You are to be a countess. You must use proper English.”

  “I will do my best,” she said, speaking carefully even when there was nothing she wanted more than to claw his eyes from his head. The way he spat out his words when he spoke of the Scottish…

  He handed her a chalice before pouring wine for himself. “I expect you to share my bed at my command. When I am not in need of you, you will sleep in your chambers. Your ladies in waiting have small chambers of their own just beside yours and will be at your command. I care little what you do with them. I also care little for what anyone thinks of what I do with my time—or who I choose to share my bed with when I am not with my wife.”

  Her hand shook, causing the wine to spill over the top of the chalice and stain her kirtle. “I do not understand.”

  He leaned forward, speaking slowly as though he were addressing a child. “I will have whichever woman I choose. I might grow fond of one of your maids, or of a friend, or of a harlot. It is not your concern.”

  She swallowed.

  “Say it,” he whispered. “It is not your concern.”

  “It is not my concern,” she whispered.

  “Of course,” he continued with a satisfied sneer, “you will behave as a countess is expected to. You will be where I want you to be, when I want you to be there, whether it is my bed or the dining table or the hunt or a banquet or at my side as the farmers bring gifts on holy days. You will be chaste, obedient, and you will keep your sharp-tongued opinions to yourself. Your father warned me about your temper and your inability to keep a thought in your head without speaking it aloud.” He sat back, shaking his head as he did. “I cannot have that, and I will not.”

  When she found her voice, she whispered, “Why did you agree to the marriage, then? If he told you about my temper and my opinions?”

  He smiled almost charmingly then. “It is easy to correct such ill-mannered behavior, my dear. I’ve corrected it in many a woman. But none of those women were the type a man in my position weds or employs in the bearing of his children. You are. That is all that separates you from them, Alana Stewart.”

  He studied her reaction, perhaps expecting to find her shaken by his words. He knew nothing of her, naturally, or else he would have known how little the threats of a man affected her.

  Douglas Stewart had raged and shouted and sworn at her throughout her life. She knew how to control herself when the time came to do so.

  “I’m certain you will find me a pleasant man, so long as my needs are attended to and my wishes not circumvented,” he assured her, his mood brightening. “I’m quite agreeable, even good company. So long as I get my way and the woman at my side is agreeable, as well.”

  “I shall do my best to be agreeable, then,” she murmured.

  He broke off a piece of bread, dipped it into his wine and licked his fingers once he’d eaten. “Please. Help yourself. You will need your strength for what is to come—the greeting of my guests, the feast this evening.”

  She willed her hand into steadiness as she broke off a piece of bread, a chunk of cheese. While she had no appetite whatsoever, something the earl had said rang true for her.

  She would need all of her strength, for there was no way she would stay in his castle through the night.

  23

  Never in her life had Alana felt more out of place.

  She had suffered through great banquets at Douglas Stewart’s table, the men half-drunk before the meal even began and only growing worse
as the night went on. She had even borne witness to celebrations which lasted three or four days.

  She’d also witnessed the backbreaking work of cleaning up after such an event.

  Those banquets and such had meant nothing but discomfort for her. Discomfort over being stared at by men who enjoyed laughing together over what they’d like to do to her. Discomfort over being the only woman in the immediate area. She had never much enjoyed the sight or sound or stench of a very drunken man, but she had learned to manage her disgust.

  Sitting at Edward Remington’s right hand while he held a banquet was an entirely different matter.

  For one, she had never so much in her life felt like the center of attention, and she loathed it. Even during clan banquets when the men had leered at her and shouted untoward comments, she’d been able to shrug her shoulders and blame their behavior on their rough upbringing and the lack of proper teaching in their youth.

  What was the excuse, then, for a few dozen nobles who’d like as not received a fine education in all of the social arts and graces? Why did they not bother to hide their obscene interest in her?

  They commented on her hair, her skin, her eyes, her height, her figure—right in front of her! To her face! It stretched the bounds of belief in her mind. Were these wretched, overdressed men and women never taught how terribly ungracious it was to stare and speak of a person as though they could not hear the conversation?

  It was as though she weren’t really there.

  Or as if they weren’t aware of her ability to speak English. As though they might voice their opinions with impunity because she could understand nothing they said.

  Was that what they believed? Could it be possible?

  “For a wild Scottish thing, she makes a good showing,” one of the women commented, fingering a jeweled brooch at her breast as though to draw attention to it. Or to her breast, half-revealed as it was in a low-cut gown.

  “Yes, I suppose. Her mother was one of us, after all. I assume her English blood tamed the wild Scottish side of her,” her companion noted. She, like her friend, wore richly embroidered silk and jewels in her lustrous hair.

  Much like all of the women present.

  They were beautiful on the outside—stunningly so, really—but ugly within.

  Would she become ugly, too, after spending enough time among them?

  If her intended was aware of any of this, he gave no indication. He was far too busy holding conversations with the men, reliving their success during the morning’s hunt. They spoke of their dogs, the falcons their falconers had raised, other such tedious topics.

  She sat in the middle of all of this, not belonging on either side. It was doubtful that the women would ever accept her, mean cats that they were. She would always be an outsider, an “other” unfit to be in their company no matter how many Remingtons she bore.

  Why did Edward not turn to one of his kind for marriage?

  Perhaps none of them would have him, she thought to herself, eyeing him from beneath lowered lashes. He was perhaps forty or fifty years of age—ancient in her opinion, but still reasonable for a man who never spent a day engaged in hard labor. He seemed capable of making pleasant conversation. He even sounded as though he’d been well-educated.

  One glance around the castle was enough to prove his wealth. Alana could scarcely believe the sumptuous feast laid out before them—and this was not even the wedding feast, which promised to be much more lavish! Roast duck, sizzling pork, roast beef, four long tables in all loaded to the point where they seemed ready to collapse from the strain of tray after tray.

  And the wine flowed as though there was a stream of it running past the castle. Endless amounts. She witnessed one rather portly man who she’d heard others address as “Lord” drink no fewer than eight cups and still call for more once that was through.

  If Edward was truly wealthy enough to afford such a feast, why had he not found a bride before now?

  Why would he debase himself with someone as low as herself? Not that she saw herself as being any lower than he—on the contrary, she considered him to be fairly vile—but he certainly felt that she was beneath him.

  As did everyone present, based on their stares and whispers and the occasional ill-concealed laughter.

  It was her mother’s blood and the fine family she’d been attached to. Alana had never learned the name. Douglas had never once spoken it aloud.

  Evidently, it was enough to make up for her lack of finery, though Edward had provided a gown and one of her maids—no, ladies in waiting—had dressed her hair in an intricate mass of braids and curls. He’d seemed pleased with her appearance upon visiting her chambers earlier, commenting on the fullness of her figure and complimenting the smoothness of her skin.

  To her horror, she had merely nodded and thanked him for saying so.

  It was as if she had become a different person, which horrified her, no matter the reason. Even if it was merely a matter of surviving until she could feasibly escape, she betrayed herself every time she allowed one of his ill-mannered, unfeeling, overly-intimate comments to go by unchallenged.

  What would happen to her if she stayed? Would she simply cease to exist? Would everything that had ever made her the person she was no longer be?

  All the more reason to get out while she had the chance.

  Edward raised his chalice then, encouraging the others to do the same. “I would like to make a toast to my good fortune in finding such a lovely bride. I am certain my Alana will make a good wife and bear me many fine children.”

  The toast left her feeling cold. It was all about him, his good fortune, his luck. His children.

  “To the happy couple!” one of the noblemen shouted—a bit too eager, but he was well past drunk by that point—and the rest of the room echoed the sentiment.

  She wished she could speak. Just a single word to show them that no, she was not simple. She spoke English and understood every word they said.

  Would that embarrass them? Force them to be a bit more polite to her?

  It mattered not, for she was never granted the chance to speak in the smoke-filled room, the hearth and candles making it nearly impossible for her to see the wall opposite the one to her back.

  She would have to wait until the recitation of her vows the following day, she supposed.

  The night dragged endlessly on. Musicians entered once the food had been cleared away and began playing on the flute, the lyre, the tambourine. Some of the men and women around the room began to dance, others to clap in time with the music.

  Wine flowed heavier than ever, and the more the men drank, the greater their appetites for things other than food. Several of them pinched the backsides of women other than their wives or attempted to steal kisses. Much laughter rose up at this behavior, while Alana would have loved nothing more than the cuff the men about the head for behaving no better than children.

  One glance at her betrothed told her he was no better. It wasn’t as though he’d lied to her—he had made it plain that he enjoyed the company of women and expected freedom to do as he liked with whomever he liked. He eyed up one of the servant girls tasked with pouring wine, staring pointedly at her breasts whenever she bent over her work.

  When he caught Alana’s eye and knew she had witnessed his behavior, he merely smiled.

  “What?” he challenged. “Is there something you wish to say to me?”

  She bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, then smiled in return. “Not at all. I’m glad you are enjoying your feast.”

  At this, his smile widened. Became more genuine and less taunting. “You see? I told you how agreeable I can be once it’s understood that I will have my way.” He leaned in, reeking of wine and sweat. “And I will have my way with you by tomorrow at this time. You had better hope I find you intact, as you claim to be.”

  She was certain she would vomit—not from any fear, for she was truthful in regard to her lack of experience—but from his utter indifference. His col
dness. His callous attitude.

  Would it hurt when the time came? She thought it would.

  “I must retire now,” she said, not caring whether her abruptness in changing the subject would be construed as evasiveness. She only knew she had to get away from him. Immediately.

  He eyed her up, weighing her words. “Fine, then. You’ll need all the rest you can get, for tomorrow will be a very important day.”

  Yes. It would.

  Though not for the reason he believed.

  She would be long gone by the time to exchange their vows arrived.

  24

  The sounds of revelry reached their ears as they sat outside the stable, just inside the gates set inside the stone walls. The keep rose in front of them, candlelight blazing from the windows, shouts and laughter and music coming from inside.

  “They’re having a grand time of it,” Quinn observed, drinking heartily of the mead which had been provided them. It was the least Remington could do, seeing as how he did not find them fit to sleep beneath his roof.

  “Aye. Though I highly doubt she is,” Brice muttered, spitting on the ground for lack of anything more purposeful to do. There was no way to adequately express his sorrow, his fear for her, the disappointment he felt toward himself. How had he been daft enough to allow the lass into his affections?

  “Ye never know,” Rodric observed, gnawing the last of the meat from a bone before tossing it to the dogs which roamed everywhere. It seemed every guest of the earl had brought at least one hairy, slobbering beast along with them.

  “You’ve never been the optimist,” Brice reminded him.

  “Aye, but there is something to be said for allowing the lass to find out for herself whether or not she’ll be happy in this new life of hers. Remington might not be a bad sort, at that.”

  “He’s forcing us to sleep out in the stables,” Fergus reminded him.

  “Does that surprise ye, knowing he’s English and we are certainly not?” Rodric countered. “I expected no better, and neither did any of ye. We’ve all developed soft feelings for the lass, is all. We’re all too quick to wish to protect those in need of protecting. She is no longer in need of that protection, and we must remember that.”