Ram didn’t ungrit his teeth to answer. He just growled between them. “At least?”
“From the looks they’ve been giving her, it appears that Michael and Graham would be potential grooms as well as David and I,” Hugh said.
Affirmative grunts from both MacKenzie lads did nothing to soothe Ram’s disposition. “One of my betrotheds could find a new groom, perhaps,” Ram said. “David, would you and Hugh stand for Flora as well?”
Dair hadn’t spoke. He’d been standing and vibrating with rage but now he swallowed enough of his ire to speak, albeit, he still didn’t release the handle of his sword his right hand gripped. “My bairn’s hand is for me to give.” Thumping his chest with his free fist, Dair continued, “Of all my possessions, there’s none I value as much and I consented to your request for it. Ere ye now refusing to abide by our agreement, dishonoring your word, and casting my daughter aside?”
A deep silence fell during which both women stiffened. Ram felt Rose’s intention to speak so he opened his mouth without the faintest idea of what to say. Salvation came from an unlikely source.
The tragic trio–Dingwall, Gormal and Grannd–commenced trotting through the silent throng, bellowing, “Dinner. Dinner. To table. To table.”
‘Twas so out of character as to make the obvious gambit strategically brilliant. It prompted a shared smile between Dair and Ram, which allowed the rest of the group to let out the breaths they’d been holding.
Ram inclined his head towards the tables. “Ladies, shall we?”
The two women exchanged glances, each seeing in the other the things she most envied. Rose looked at Flora and saw a petite lady with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes. Rose envied Flora’s hair, for such a color bespoke a strong woman willing to defy tradition to get what she wanted. Most of all, Rose envied Flora her family–the devoted father and brothers who so clearly adored her.
Flora envied Rose’s mix of traditional beauty highlighted with a most untraditional flare–her golden blonde hair and the matching gold dust in her green eyes. But most of all–oh, very, very much most of all–Flora envied the way Ram responded to Rose. The man Flora had wanted for most of her life didn’t respond to the blonde woman a’tall like a brother. Ram’s male response to Rose as a desirable woman couldn’t have been more evident.
Flora followed the lead of the gentle hand in the small of her back, but naturally enough, Rose balked and stepped away. “Laird Sutherland,” Rose said, “You’ve not seen Lady Flora of late and this meal should give you time to visit with her. ‘Twould be best for me to dine at another spot and leave you to visit in peace.”
Ram whirled away from Flora and stalked back to Rose. “What did you call me?”
She tilted her chin up and to the side in a stubborn gesture and called his bluff. “Laird Sutherland, is there another name I should use? “
Faerie dust sparkled in his chocolate eyes as he grabbed her chin, turning her face towards his. It sparkled in his voice as he gave a husky response in an intimate tone that just missed being a whisper. “Don’t tempt me, sweets. I’m nae an English weakling. You’ve no notion of my response to your insolence.”
Because of her brother’s instability and mercurial moods, Rose had a lot of practice assessing men–albeit, mainly of rating their weaknesses. Ram could be every bit as mercurial, but his was a scale of strength and will. Even if she lacked practice weighing that, Rose was too smart to call him on what might not be a bluff. She was also too curious by nature to swallow the question.
“You wouldn’t really. Not with your future father-by-law watching. Would you?” Rose asked.
Forgetting the gaping onlookers, his powerful potential future in-laws, and his possible bride-to-be, Ram lowered his face enough that his world shrank to the space of gold-dusted green eyes and a pair of slightly parted lips. He traced those full lips with his eyes as he asked, “Wouldn’t I?”
Ram would never know for certain whether he would or wouldn’t have because the cook commenced banging a dinner gong Ram wasn’t aware his household still owned. A group of local musicians emerged on the small stage area to the front, right of the room. The piper, fiddler and drummer played a march driven more by volume than style.
The others headed for the tables as even the MacKenzie laird assumed Ram would do the same. Instead, Ram stood, holding her chin, with his face far too close to hers and repeated his question. “What did you call me, sweets?”
“They’re all watching,” Rose said, “and I think Lady Flora left.”
Ram shrugged. “She’ll turn up. The sprite always does.”
“My point, Laird Sutherland, is that we’re being observed and you’re behaving most improperly,” Rose said, trying to jerk her chin out of his hand.
He tightened his grip and lowered his face a fraction closer, so close that several sun-kissed strands of his hair fell across the side of her face. They made the same noise at the same time–something between a gasp and a groan. But he still didn’t back away. In fact, he threatened to get closer. “For the last time–what did you call me, little cinnamon musk Rose?”
“Ram,” she moaned. “Don’t. That was a mistake. We must both wipe it from our memories and move on. You’re moving on with Flora and I shall move on with –“
“David or Hugh?” Ram snapped, stepping back.
“I never said-”
“Think you that I needed the words?” Ram nearly roared.
From the front came an answering roar, multiplied times all three MacKenzie men. “Leave your strumpet be!”
Rose saw her brother change from calm to furious so often that Ram’s transformation shouldn’t have touched her so. ‘Twasn’t hot rage that swept across his face, it was more like a well tended hearth–intense, but in a steady, certain fashion. She caught his arm as he turned. “Ram, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”
“I do,” he said, quietly. He roared back. “Flora isn’a with me.”
The silence that fell this time wasn’t deep. It was sharp and deadly–save for a slightly hysterical giggle from the side hall where Flora hid. Ram removed Rose’s hand, lifting it to his lips for a quick kiss as bedlam erupted in the room. In the midst of the shouts, curses and frantic piping, fiddling and drumming, Ram heard the rushing footsteps that mattered. He turned and drew his sword in a single motion to face the drawn weapons of the MacKenzies.
Rose felt herself being pushed backwards into a safe alcove. By the time she realized that David and Hugh had shoved her there, both stood beside Ram with swords drawn and ready.
“Men have died for much less than the insult ye just gave my daughter,” Dair said.
“Insult?” Ram asked. “Yet you used that very word to describe a lady who is a guest in my home and under my protection. Worst of all, you used it to demean the honor of a lady selected by my late father to be my bride. In doing that, ye’ve insulted the honor of my sire, the late and beloved laird of this clan.”
The terrible trio stomped over, shaking their fists. “Ye had no call to cast aspersions on the sacred memory of MacKay Sutherland,” Dingwall said.
“Aye,” Gormal agreed. “The gold in yer treasure chests hae blinded ye to the important treasure.”
“Does your father’s word matter more than yours, Laird Sutherland?” Dair asked.
“I would never have foresworn my father’s oath had I known of it,” Ram said. “The failure of the elders to disclose that information, and yes, my father’s failure to discuss it with me, has put me in an unusual predicament.”
Dair made a disgusted noise and waived his sword. “Honor or no, my bairn says she’ll wed ye or none other. And ye signed the papers agreeing to the match. You’re bound to my lass.”
Ram’s hand tightened on the sword until his fingers went white, but when he spoke his voice showed none of that strain. “I’m also bound to Lady Rose.”
Dair’s sword slashed down, missing Ram by inches. The Sutherland laird didn’t flinch as the MacKenzie plan
ted his sword between the floorboards. “So is it to be a feud then?”
Rose sprang forward to place a hand on Ram’s shoulder. “No. Lord, no. No feud. You can’t risk your life or the lives of your clan for me. You hardly know me.”
Despite his clan’s security lying on the hilt end of a swaying sword, Ram’s wicked grin couldn’t be suppressed. “Hardly? I must disagree, sweets.”
A petite redhead stepped from the shadows where she’d watched and hoped. She walked without fear between the men squared off against each other, placing her hand on the hilt of that swaying sword. “I agree with Lady Rose. I want no feud on my account. While I’d give much to have it otherwise, in truth I fear that Ram hardly knows me either.”
“I’ve known ye since ye were a swaddling bairn in your mother’s arms, sprite,” Ram said.
“No man knows you better, lass,” Dair said. “Considering how long you’ve trailed after Sutherland, I suspect he knows you better than your own brothers.”
“And in precisely the same way,” Flora said. She held out her hand. “Lady Rose?”
David stepped aside so Rose could pass but Ram extended his arm. “Not until the MacKenzies either back off or Dair gives his word that you’ll nae be harmed.”
“I’ll be fine,” Rose said. “Would Lady Flora summon me if she believed I’d be harmed?”
“Don’t let her pretty little face fool you,” Ram said, “The sprite has a mean streak.”
Both ladies winced at his words. They showed Rose that the exotic beauty of the petite, green-eyed redhead hadn’t escaped Ram’s notice. They showed Flora that Ram still saw her as the child who trailed him everywhere with stars in her eyes. The difference between the two women was that Rose bit her lip. Flora, a Highlander to the bone, wouldn’t back down from a committee comprised of God, Satan and the King.
Flora’s eyes narrowed. Ram looked more than a little worried when she gestured her still-extended hand. “Rose?”
Rose looked in the other ladies’ green eyes for a long moment before she stepped over, extended her hand and said, “Flora.”
After the two shook hands, all the men started talking at once. The women ignored them and eyed each other, warily, with a certain amount of fear and respect–like horses side-by-side at the starting gate.
“He knows me well,” Flora said. “Ram knows my many flaws, my few virtues and loves me despite all of it. But he loves me the way he still sees me–as a child.”
“I’ve the opposite issue,” Rose said. “He knows me not a’tall, but he-“
“Wipe off that blush,” Flora said, gesturing, and wanting to like the woman she’d hated sight unseen since she’d heard of her. “He wants you enough that he’s presently unable to hide it. That must terrify him and he’s Highlander enough and laird enough to find that intolerable. ‘Twould be amusing were I not so personally involved.”
Rose shrugged. “Desire is a fire that’s quite warm when first lit. You feel that heat when you’re close but it leaves as you move away from the hearth. It takes love to light the fire that travels with you. Ram doesn’t love me. How could he? He doesn’t know me.” She wished her heart didn’t feel like it was breaking as she said, “You’ve said that he loves you.”
“He loves me as a child,” Flora said, clutching what was left of the pieces of the hope and belief she’d held for so long. “He’s never seen me as a woman, so in that way, he knows me not a’tall.”
A loud thud jolted the ladies’ attention to the men whose shouting voices had gone quiet as Flora’s brothers dropped their swords. Rose swore she heard one of the MacKenzie’s growl as Ram picked her up and deposited her behind him, shouting to Ned to “keep her the hell in the corner.”
“For the love of Scotland, Ram,” Hugh muttered as he lifted Flora, barely depositing her to safety before Graham and Michael charged.
“I’d have -” Ram managed before he ducked a blow from Graham’s fist, “gotten her next.” Then Ram grunted as Michael’s fists pounded his stomach.
From his position as guard Ned shouted cheers for his laird, David, Hugh and all the other warriors who got embroiled in the general melee. The color blanched from Rose’s face as she reached out a shaking hand to grab Flora’s arm. The Scottish lass cheered for her family with ruddy cheeks and gestures aplenty.
“Hush,” Rose said, squeezing Flora’s forearm, “before those maniacs you’re related to manage to kill Ram. How can you cheer for them? Don’t you know that Ram could be hurt?”
“This?” Flora gestured. “They’ve dropped their weapons. This is just fun.”
Fun? FUN?
Rose’s nails dug into Flora’s arm. “What shall we do? We must come up with a solution. This fun won’t solve anything.”
That suggestion tore Flora’s attention away from the battle–briefly, very briefly. “Us? We’re only women. We can’t solve anything important.”
Duckness, Rose thought. However everything else went, she definitely needed to have a few words with the other woman on that score–but not now. She thought quickly, recalling events, relationships and their earlier conversation. Using the deductive reasoning and process of elimination she used as a healer, Rose found a solution–not a great one, but a workable one.
“We allow Ram time to get to know us,” Rose said.
“The Highland games are starting soon,” Flora said. “Everyone travels to Lochearnhead for days of games and music and dancing. The winners get bragging rights for a whole year–and clan pride is worth quite a lot here. Yes, that would give Ram time to spend with each of us.”
“At the conclusion of these games, he can announce which betrothal he’ll honor,” Rose suggested and Flora nodded.
A clansman grabbed their guard, Ned, for help battling a trio of MacKenzies. Rose and Flora surged out into the general battlefield, ducking just in time to avoid a hurled tankard. Flora caught Ram’s hand, squealing that they had a solution, but Ram was caught in the heat of his brawl with Michael, and he shook off her hand.
Rose grabbed the hand Ram had just jerked away. She gave it a little squeeze and was just saying his name when he turned, catching a blow in the side for his distraction. Michael’s punch sent Ram staggering into Rose, but despite the rather cheap shot, at the contact with Rose tenderness chased the fury out of the laird so fast that it gave all the MacKenzies pause.
Ram wrapped his free arm around Rose’s waist and walked her backwards into the corner while he railed at her for foolhardiness. She could have been hurt or killed or both, and he was going to punish Ned for leaving his assignment, and Rose should have more of a care for her safety, and – An offending clansman, reeling from a blow, staggered over, heading for a fall that would’ve struck Rose on her free side. Ram gave a vicious kick, sending the man tumbling in another direction. Ram released Rose’s waist to spread himself flush against her, propping his hands in the corners and covering her from head to foot.
Ram hadn’t noticed what clansman he kicked so hard that the man slid half the distance of the room, banged into the side wall, careened off and hit his head against the table. The rest of the room stilled as Brian, the MacKenzie’s second, extended a hand to help Fergus, Ram’s second, rise on unsteady feet.
Then Brian and Fergus joined the rest of the room in watching their laird tumble deeper into a mess likely to end up wounding and killing many brave warriors from both their clans.
CHAPTER SIX
Privately, both Dair and Ram considered the plan hatched by the ladies barmy. Regardless, ‘twas put into effect the next day. Neither man had a better idea–which Rose rolled her eyes and pointed out when Flora rambled on about how “understanding and tolerant” the men were being of the lasses.
Ram gave in gracefully to Dair’s insistence that “Flora have the first turn.” That pacified Dair and allowed Ram another day to work on his problem–identifying the madness that seized him in Rose’s presence. Until he could identify it, he couldn’t hope to control it. If he didn
’t control it, Ram’s fearchas would pick his bride by pounding its way into Rose’s duille until he was buried so deep inside her that he lost himself there.
He felt half lost anyway–when Rose wasn’t with him.
The afternoon outing with the sprite was pleasant–mostly. He couldn’t think of her as Flora no matter how often she insisted, pouted, or threw a tantrum. A couple of those marred the picnic with Flora. But when she’d been herself and they’d been laughing and recalling some of her pranks that so often backfired–then they’d been laughing and easy.
The sprite pouted for quite a while after Ram’s one, wee display of temper. Okay, it hadn’t been quite so wee but, damn it, David deserved the split lip. The bastard shouldn’t be taking Rose on a cozy little walk and he should never have had his hand at her waist while she laughed up at him. Ram had been sprawled on a blanket, handing Flora a chicken leg at the time. He didn’t even recall standing. He didn’t recall much outside the pleasure of feeling his fist connect with David’s mouth.
He also remembered Rose slapping his face, calling him a “bastard,” and turning on her heels. Then his memory got very clear–right at the point when he grinned from seeing that Rose headed back for the castle. David called him a much worse name before sprinting after Rose.
Ram was the one laughing as he went back to the sprite, who looked quite vexed as she picked a chicken leg from her lap and dabbed at a greasy stain on her dress. He could draw only one conclusion. “Did I throw the chicken leg at you, sprite?”
Flora hopped to her feet, tossing food back into the basket, saying that the picnic was over. Ram walked her back to the castle, where they entered through the kitchen and left the picnic remains for the cook. Then he walked Flora up to her room so she could change. There was an awkward moment at her door when Flora tilted her face up, lips pursed, for a kiss. He took a deep breath and brushed a peck that landed somewhere near the corner of her mouth.
Romancing the Rose Page 7