Seducing a Scottish Bride

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  Gelis paused and took a deep breath. She also lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. Better to feign bravura than give Arabella the satisfaction of sensing her unease. So she glanced about as unobtrusively as she could, trying to dispel the day’s oddness.

  But the morn was odd.

  And unnaturally still.

  No sounds reached them from the nearby stables. No birdsong rose from the rowan trees beside the chapel, and not a one of their father’s dogs darted underfoot as they were wont to do, eager as they were for scraps of food or simply a quick scratch behind the ears. Even Loch Duich lay silent, with nary a whisper of lapping water coming from the other side of the isle-girt castle’s stout walling.

  The water in the scrying bowl glimmered, its silvery surface beckoning, restoring Gelis’s faith as she knelt to peer into its depths.

  “See? There is nothing there,” Arabella announced, dropping down beside her. “No future husbands’ faces and not even a ripple from the wind,” she added, poking a finger into the bowl and stirring the surface.

  “No-o-o!” Gelis swatted at her sister’s hand. “We mustn’t touch the water!” she cried, horror washing over her. “Doing so will spoil the magic.”

  “There wasn’t any magic,” Arabella scoffed, drying her fingers on a fold of her skirts. “You saw yourself that the bowl showed nothing.”

  “It was glowing silver,” Gelis insisted, frustration beating through her. “ ’Twas the light of the full moon, caught there and waiting for us.”

  Arabella pushed to her feet. “The only thing waiting for us is the stitchery work Mother wishes us to do this morn.”

  “The embroidery she wishes you to help her with,” Gelis snipped, tipping the moon-infused water onto the cobbles. “I ply my needle with clumsier fingers than Mother, as well she knows.”

  “She will be expecting you all the same.”

  Gelis clutched the empty scrying bowl to her breast, holding fast as if it still shimmered with magic. The face of her one true love, a man she just knew would be as much a legend as her father.

  Bold, hot-eyed, and passionate.

  Arrogant and proud.

  And above all, he’d be hers and no one else’s.

  “Let us be gone,” Arabella prodded. “We mustn’t keep Mother waiting.”

  Gelis splayed her fingers across the bottom of the bowl. It felt warm to the touch. “You go. She won’t miss me. Nor would she want me ruining her pillow coverings,” she said, distracted. Faith, she could almost feel her gallant’s presence. A need and yearning that matched her own. “I’ll help her with some other task. Later.”

  Arabella narrowed her eyes on the bowl. “If you persist in meddling with such foolery, she will be very annoyed.”

  “Mother is never annoyed.” Gelis pinned the older girl’s back with a peeved stare as she left Gelis to stride purposefully across the cobbles, making for the keep and hours of stitching drudgery.

  “Nor will I be meddling in anything,” she added, blinking against the heat pricking her eyes when the bowl went cold and slipped from her fingers. “The magic is gone.”

  But the day was still bright, the light of the sun and the sweetness of the air too inviting for her to give in to the constriction in her throat. Across the loch, the wooded folds of Kintail’s great hills burned red with bracken, their fiery beauty quickening her pulse and soothing her.

  She loved those ancient hills with their immense stands of Caledonian pine, rolling moors, and dark, weathered rocks. Even if she wouldn’t venture that far, preferring to remain on Eilean Creag’s castle island, she could still slip through the postern gate and walk along the shore.

  And if her eyes misted with unshed tears, the wind off the loch would dry them. Not that she’d let any spill to begin with. O-o-oh, no. She was, after all, a MacKenzie, and would be until her last breath. No matter whom she married.

  And she would marry.

  Even if the notion put a sour taste in her father’s mouth.

  Swallowing against the persistent heat in her own throat, she glanced over her shoulder, assured that no one was watching, then let herself out the gate.

  It was colder on the lochside of the curtain walls, the wind stronger than she’d realized. Indeed, she’d gone but a few paces before the gusts tore her hair from its pins and whipped long, curling strands of it across her face. Wild, unruly strands as fiery red as the bracken dressing her beloved hills, and every bit as unmanageable — unlike Arabella’s sleek midnight tresses, which ever remained in place.

  “She would look perfectly coiffed in a snowstorm,” Gelis muttered, drawing her cloak tighter as she marched across the shingle.

  Marching was good.

  She wasn’t of a mood to amble. And she certainly didn’t feel like gliding along gracefully, as was her sister’s style. Truth be told, if her frustration didn’t soon disappear, she might even do some stomping. Great sloshing steps straight through the shallows of the loch, heedless of sea wrack and rocks, needing only to put her disappointment behind her.

  It scarce mattered if she looked a fool.

  No one could see her.

  Only the lone raven circling high above her.

  A magnificent creature, his blue-black wings glistening in the sun as he rode the wind currents, sovereign in his lofty domain, impervious to her woes. Or, she decided, after observing him for a few moments, perhaps not so unaffected after all, for unless she was mistaken, he’d spotted her.

  She could feel his sharp stare.

  Even sense a slight angling of his head as he swooped lower, coming ever closer, keen interest in each powerful wing beat. Challenge and conquest in his deep, throaty cries as, suddenly, he dove straight at her, his great wings folded, his piercing eyes fixed unerringly on hers.

  Gelis screamed and ducked, shielding her head with her arms, but to no avail. Flying low and fast, the raven was already upon her. His harsh cry rang in her ears as his wings opened to enfold her, their midnight span blotting the sky and stealing the sun, plunging her into darkness.

  “Mercy!” She fell to her knees, the swirling blackness so complete she feared she’d gone blind.

  “Ach, dia!” she cried, the bird’s calls now a loud roaring in her ears. The icy wetness of the rock- strewn shore seeped into her skirts, dampening them, the slippery-smooth stones shifting beneath her.

  Nae, the whole world was shifting, tilting and spinning around her as the raven embraced her, holding tight, his silken, feathery warmth a strange intimacy in the madness that had seized her.

  Gelis shivered, her entire body trembling, her breath coming in quick, shallow gasps. Mother of mercy, the raven’s wings were squeezing her, his fierce grip and the pressing darkness cutting off her air, making her dizzy.

  But then his grasp loosened, his great wings releasing her so swiftly she nearly choked on the first icy gulp of air to rush back into her lungs. She tried to push to her feet, but her legs shook too badly and her chill-numbed fingers slid helplessly across the slick, seaweed-draped stones.

  Worse, she still couldn’t see!

  Impenetrable blackness surrounded her.

  That, and the unnatural stillness she’d noted earlier in the bailey.

  It crept over her now, icing her skin and raising gooseflesh, silencing everything but the thunder of her own blood in her ears, the wild hammering of her heart.

  Her well-loved hills were vanished, Loch Duich but a distant memory, the hard, wet coldness of its narrow shore barely discernible against the all-consuming darkness. The raven was gone, too, though his breath-stealing magnificence still gripped her.

  She hadn’t even seen him speed away.

  Couldn’t see . . . anything.

  Terror pounding through her, she bit her lip, biting down until the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Then, her legs still too wobbly to sustain the effort, she tried to rise again.

  “Please,” she begged, the nightmare of blindness a white-hot clamp around her heart.
“I don’t want —”

  She broke off, losing her balance as she lurched to her feet, her gaze latching on to a dim lightening of the shadows, a slim band of shimmering silver opening ever so slowly to reveal the towering silhouette of a plaid-draped, sword-hung man, his sleek, blue-black hair just brushing his shoulders, a golden, runic-carved torque about his neck. A powerfully built stranger with a striking air of familiarity, for even without seeing him clearly, Gelis knew he was watching her with the same intensity as the raven.

  An unblinking, penetrating stare that went right through her, lancing all resistance.

  Claiming her soul.

  “You!” she gasped, her voice a hoarse rasp. Someone else’s, not hers. She pressed her hands to her breasts, staring back at him, her eyes widening as she sank once more to the ground. “You are the raven.”

  The bright silver edging him flared in affirmation, and he stepped closer, the gap in the darkness opening just enough to show her his glory. And he was glorious, a man of mythic beauty, looking as if he could stride through any number of the legends of the Gael. Dark, pure Celt, and irresistibly seductive, it almost hurt to gaze on him, so great was his effect on her. He was a Highland warrior ripped straight from her dreams, and Gelis knew he’d be terrifying in the rage of battle and insatiable in the heat of his passion.

  She also knew he wanted her.

  Or, better said, needed her.

  And in ways that went far beyond the deep sensual burning she could sense rippling all through his powerful body. His eyes made him vulnerable. Dark as the raven’s and just as compelling, they’d locked fast with hers, something inside them beseeching her, imploring her to help him.

  Letting her see the shadows blackening his soul.

  Then, just as he drew so near that Gelis thrust out a shaking hand to touch him, he vanished, disappearing as if he’d never been.

  Leaving her alone on the surf-washed little strand, the high peaks of Kintail and the shining waters of Loch Duich the only witnesses to all that had transpired.

  “ Oh- dear-saints,” Gelis breathed, lowering herself onto a damp-chilled boulder. Scarce aware of what she was doing, she dashed her tangled hair from her brow and turned her face into the stinging blast of the wind, letting its chill cool her burning cheeks, the hot tears now spilling free.

  Tears she wasn’t about to check, regardless of her proud name.

  The blood-and-iron strength of her indomitable lineage. A heritage that apparently held much more than she’d ever suspected.

  More than she or anyone in her family would ever have guessed.

  Still trembling, she tipped back her head to stare up at the brilliance of the blue autumn sky. To be sure, the raven was nowhere to be seen, and the day, nearing noontide now, stretched all around her as lovely as every other late October day in the heart of Kintail.

  But this day had turned into a day like no other.

  And she now knew two things she hadn’t known upon rising.

  Her heart full of wonder, she accepted the truth. She was a taibhsear like her mother, inheriting more than Linnet MacKenzie’s flame-colored tresses, but also her taibhsearachd.

  The gift of second sight.

  A talent that had slumbered until this startling morn, only to swoop down upon her with a vengeance, making itself known and revealing the face of her beloved.

  Her future husband and one true love.

  There could be no doubt, she decided, getting slowly to her feet and shaking out her skirts, adjusting her cloak against the still-racing wind.

  “I was wrong,” she whispered, thinking of the scrying bowl as she turned back toward Eilean Creag and the postern gate. The magic hadn’t disappeared.

  It’d only gone silent.

  Waiting to return in a most wondrous manner.

  A totally unexpected manner, she owned, slipping back into the now-bustling bailey. She possessed her mother’s gift, and knowing how accurate such magic was, she need only bide her time until her raven came to claim her.

  Then true bliss would be hers.

  Of that she was certain.

  About the same time, but in one of Eilean Creag Castle’s uppermost tower chambers, Duncan MacKenzie, the redoubtable Black Stag of Kintail, stood at an unshuttered window, hands fisted at his sides, the twitch at his left eye threatening to madden him. Scowling as only he could, he clenched his jaw so tightly he wondered he didn’t crack his teeth.

  He did feel the weight of his years. They bore down on him as ne’er before.

  Their burden and his outrage.

  His scowl deepened and he glared at the sparkling waters of Loch Duich, the fair hills of his cherished Kintail, and the eye-gouging clarity of the cloudless autumn sky. The lofty cliffs and headlands on the far side of the loch earned his especial disfavor. Too impassive was their stare, too uncaring, the soaring rock that should have been weeping.

  He wouldn’t weep either. As one of the Highlands’ fiercest and most powerful chieftains, such a weakness fell beneath his dignity.

  But he was mightily grieved.

  “Saints, Maria, and Joseph,” he swore, curling his fingers around his sword hilt, then releasing it as quickly. His trusty brand wouldn’t help him in this pass. Truth be told, he dare not even consider the like. He did allow himself another glower at the wild mountain territory he called his own, great and boundless hills that had the gall to appear at such peace, so calm and untroubled.

  He could scarce breathe for vexation.

  Never in all his days had he felt so cornered, so well and truly trapped.

  He blew out an angry breath and shoved a hand through his hair. That such a day should taunt him with its beauty only tossed fat onto the fire. The afternoon ought to be hung with shadows, a chill wind gusting round the curve of the tower, rattling shutters and bringing the stinging bite of rain. Or, better yet, the relentless pelting of icy-needled sleet.

  Och, aye, such weather would suit him better.

  Instead, the sun shone with a brightness that rivaled the finest summer day and fired his frustration to a nigh unbearable pitch. Wheeling around, he ignored the rolled parchment lying so brazenly on a magnificently carved oaken table, the missive’s broken wax seals as damning as the words inked within, and fixed his wrath on the one person who should have warned him.

  “You!” he fumed, his tone peremptory despite his great respect for his lovely lady wife, a woman as desirable now as she had been the day he first glimpsed her, but also the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and, as such, blessed — or cursed — with the second sight.

  She should have seen this coming.

  “Why did you say nothing of this?” he demanded, striding across the chamber and snatching up the dread parchment. He waved the thing at her, his displeasure rolling off him to fill the tapestry-lined solar. “I willna believe you didna know. Not something of this import.”

  To his wife’s credit, she didn’t retreat in the face of his anger. As always, his beloved Linnet simply remained where she stood, her hands clasped before her, her gaze steady and unwavering, her chin lifted with just the wee shiver of stubbornness he secretly admired.

  “You of all souls ought know that I cannot control what my taibhsearachd wishes me to see,” she said, stepping forward to take the parchment from his hand and return it to the table. “Had I known, I would have told you. As is” — she paused to push her heavy, flame-colored braid over her shoulder — “I cannot understand the force of your reaction. There have been many other offers, and you’ve ne’er been pleased, but you’ve always brushed them aside. Ne’er have I seen you take to your solar in such a ferment.”

  “A ferment?” Turning to the table, Duncan poured himself a hefty portion of good and strong uisge beatha, tossing down the fiery Highland spirits in one throat-burning swig. “Fermenting doesn’t begin to describe it,” he avowed, slamming down the cup, then dragging his sleeve across his mouth. “Not in a thousand lifetimes.”

  To his horror,
his wife’s eyes filled with pity. Clearly misunderstanding the reason for his ire, she quickly took on her Saint Linnet demeanor, clucking and cooing as she reached to adjust his plaid and smooth his shoulder- length, wind-tangled hair.

  Sleek, gleaming black hair shot through with only a few streaks of silver, a matter of great satisfaction to him. Not that he’d e’er admit his pleasure in retaining his youthful good looks. Or his tall, well-muscled form, his undisputed prowess and continued ability to best any and all comers, regardless of age, boasts, or strength. His pride in still turning female heads, at times even earning a few oohs and ahhs at his feats in the lists.

  Och, nae, he wouldn’t admit that such things pleased him.

  Far from it, he set his jaw and folded his arms against his wife’s coddling.

  “If you find the thought of Gelis’s marrying so unpalatable, why not offer Arabella?” Linnet smiled encouragingly. “She is the eldest, after all.”

  Duncan snorted. “You read the missive. ’Tis Gelis they want, and no other. Word of her high-spiritedness clearly reached them and” — he closed his eyes for a moment — “they’ll know, too, of Arabella’s calm. Seemly or no, it must be Gelis. Her fiery blood has blazed like a beacon and caught the devil’s own eye!”

  Drawing a tight breath, he glared at her. “And now I am to lose one daughter and offend the other!”

  “Arabella will understand. And you must stop tying yourself in knots.” She fussed at his plaid again, the damnable sympathy in her eyes worsening the twitch in his.

  “For the love of Saint Columba, let it be,” he growled. “I willna have your pity.”

  “You have my love,” she returned, deftly unfolding his arms and entwining her fingers in his. “And my constant adoration. Though we have two daughters grown and well of an age to marry, my desire for you has ne’er lessened and shall ne’er lessen.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek, the heathery scent of her hair swirling around him, almost letting him forget his turmoil. Then she stepped back and angled her head, the measuring look in her eyes breaking the spell. “Your age will not increase simply because Gelis becomes some man’s wife. She will still be your daughter and you shall e’er be —”