Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  "You're insolent. And as of this moment, you're unemployed."

  "You're afraid," the smithy marveled.

  "Afraid?" The Hawk echoed incredulously. This fool smithy dared stand on his land and tell him that he, the legendary Hawk, was afraid? "I fear nothing. Certainly not you."

  "Yes you do. You saw how your wife looked at me. You're afraid you won't be able to keep her hands off me."

  A bitter, mocking smile curved Hawk's lip. He was not a man given to self-deception. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to keep his wife away from the smithy. It galled him, incensed him, and yet the smithy was also right about his underlying decency. Decency that demanded, as Grimm had suspected, that he not deprive a man of his livelihood because of his own insecurity about his wife. The Hawk suffered the rare handicap of being noble, straight to the core. "Who are you, really?"

  "A simple smithy."

  Hawk studied him in the moonlight that dappled through the rowans. Nothing simple here. Something tugged at his mind, drifting on a scent of memory, but he couldn't pin it down. "I know you, don't I?"

  "You do now. And soon, she will know me as well."

  "Why do you provoke me?"

  "You provoked me first when you pleased my queen." The words were spat as the smithy turned away sharply.

  Hawk searched his memory for a queen he had pleased. No names came to mind; but they usually didn't. Still, the man had made his game clear. Somewhere, sometime, Hawk had turned a woman's head from this man. And the man was now to play the same game with him. With his wife. A part of him tried not to care, but from the moment he'd laid eyes on Mad Janet this day he'd known he was in trouble for the first time in his life. Deep, over his head, for had her flashing silver eyes coaxed him into quicksand, he would willingly have gone.

  What do you say to a man whose woman you've taken? There was nothing to say to the smithy. "I had no intention to give offense," Hawk offered at last.

  Adam spun around and his smile gleamed much too brightly. "Offense to defense, all's fair in lust. Do you still seek to send me hence?"

  Hawk met his gaze for long moments. The smithy was right. Something in him cried out for justice. Fair battles fought on equal footing. If he couldn't hold a lass, if he lost her to another man… His pride blazed hot. If his wife left him, whether he had wanted her to begin with or not, and for a smithy at that, well, the legend of the Hawk would be sung to a vastly different rune.

  But worse even than that, if he dismissed the smithy tonight, he would never know for certain if his wife would have chosen him over Adam Black. And it mattered. The doubt would torment him eternally. The image of her as she'd stood today, leaning against a tree, staring at the smithy—ah! That would give him nightmares even in Adam's absence.

  He would allow the smithy to stay. And tonight the Hawk would seduce his wife. When he was completely convinced where her affections rested, well, maybe then he might dismiss the bastard.

  Hawk waved a hand dispassionately. "As you will. I will not command your absence."

  "As I will. I like that," Adam Black replied smugly.

  * * * * *

  Hawk walked through the courtyard slowly, rubbing his head that still ached from a bout of drunkenness three nights past. The troth King James had commanded was satisfied. Hawk had wed the Comyn's daughter and thus fulfilled James's final decree. Dalkeith was safe once again.

  The Hawk had high hopes that out of sight was truly out of mind, and that King James would forget about Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea. All those years he'd done James's twisted bidding to the letter, only to have the king demand more of him, until by royal decree James had taken from the Hawk his last claim to freedom.

  Why had it surprised him? For fifteen years the king had delighted in taking his choices away, whittling them down to the single choice of obeying his king or dying, along with his entire clan.

  He recalled the day James had summoned him, only three days before his service was to end.

  Hawk had presented himself, his curiosity piqued by the air of tense anticipation that pervaded the spacious throne room. Attributing it to yet another of James's schemes—and hoping it had naught to do with him or Dalkeith—Hawk approached the dais and knelt.

  "We have arranged a marriage for you," James had announced when the room quieted.

  Hawk stiffened. He could feel the eyes of the courtiers resting on him heavily; with amusement, with mockery and a touch of…pity?

  "We have selected a most suitable"—James paused and laughed spitefully—"wife to grace the rest of your days at Dalkeith."

  "Who?" Hawk allowed himself only the one word. To say more would have betrayed the angry denial simmering in his veins. He couldn't trust himself to speak when every ounce of him screamed defiance.

  James smiled and motioned Red Comyn to approach the throne, and Hawk nearly roared with rage. Surely not the notorious Mad Janet! James wouldn't force him to wed the mad spinster Red Comyn kept in his far tower!

  The corner of James's lip twisted upward in a crooked smile. "We have chosen Janet Comyn to be your bride, Hawk Douglas."

  Soft laughter ripped through the court. James rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  "No!" The word escaped Hawk in a burst of air; too late, he tried to suck it back in.

  "No?" James echoed, his smile chilled instantly. "Did We just hear you refuse Our command?"

  Hawk trained his eyes on the floor. He took a deep breath. "Nay, my king. I fear I did not express myself clearly." Hawk paused and swallowed hard. "What I meant was 'no, you've been too good to me already.' " The lie burned his lips and left the taste of charred pride on his tongue. But it kept Dalkeith safe.

  James chuckled, grandly amused by the Hawk's quick capitulation as he enjoyed anything that showcased the extent of his kingly powers. The Hawk reflected bitterly that once again James held all the cards.

  When James spoke again, his voice dripped venom. "Fail to wed the Comyn's daughter, Hawk Douglas, and We will wipe all trace of Douglas from Scotia. Not one drop of your bloodline will survive unless you do this thing."

  It was the same threat James had always used to control Hawk Douglas, and the only one that could have been so ruthlessly effective, over and over again.

  Hawk bowed his head to hide his anger.

  He'd wanted to choose his own wife. Was that so much to ask? During his fifteen years of service the thought of choosing a woman of his own, of returning to Dalkeith and raising a family far from the corruption of James's court, had kept his dreams alive despite the king's efforts to sully and destroy them, one by one. Although the Hawk was no longer a man who believed in love, he did believe in family and clan, and the thought of spending the rest of his days with a fine woman, surrounded by children, appealed to him immensely.

  He wanted to stroll the seaside and tell stories to his sons. He wanted lovely daughters and grandchildren. He wanted to fill the nursery at Dalkeith. Och, the nursery, the thought stung him; this new realization more bitter and painful than anything the king had ever done to him. I can never fill the nursery now—not if my wife bears seeds of madness!

  There would be no wee ones—at least not legitimate ones—for the Hawk. How could he bear never holding a child of his own?

  Hawk had never spoken of his desire for a family; he'd known that if James found out, he'd eradicate any hope of it. Well, somehow James had either found out or had decided that since he hadn't been able to have the wife he wanted, neither could the Hawk.

  "Raise your head and look at Us, Hawk," James commanded.

  Hawk raised his head slowly and fixed the king with lightless eyes.

  James studied him then turned his brilliant gaze on Red Comyn and appended a final threat to ensure cooperation, "We will destroy the Comyn, too, should this decree be defied. Hear you what We say, Red Comyn? Don't fail Us."

  Laird Comyn appeared oddly disturbed by James's command.

  Kneeling before James's court, the Hawk subdued the last of his rebe
llious thoughts. He acknowledged the pitying stares of the soldiers with whom he'd served; the sympathy of Grimm's gaze; the complacent hatred and smug mockery of lesser lords who'd long resented the Hawk's success with women, and accepted the fact that he would marry Janet Comyn even if she was a toothless, ancient, deranged old crone. Hawk Douglas would always do whatever it took to keep Dalkeith and all her people safe.

  The gossip mill had churned out endless stories of Janet Comyn, a crazed spinster, imprisoned because she was incurably mad.

  As Hawk trod the cobbled walkway to the entrance of Dalkeith, he laughed aloud at the false image he'd created in his mind of Mad Janet. He realized that James had obviously known no more about her than anyone else, because James never would have bound the Hawk to such a woman had he known what she was truly like. She was too beautiful, too fiery. James had intended Hawk to suffer, and the only way a man would suffer around this woman was if he couldn't get his hands on her, if he couldn't taste her kisses and enjoy her sensual promise.

  Hawk had expected nothing like the shimmering, silken creature of passionate temperament he'd found at the forge. He'd sent Grimm on the last day to wed the lass by proxy, fully intending to ignore her when she arrived. He'd made it clear that no one was to welcome her. Life would go on at Dalkeith as if nothing had changed. He'd decided that if she was half as mad as the gossips claimed, she probably wouldn't even be able to understand that she was married. He'd concluded he could surely find some way to deal with her, even if it meant confining her somewhere, far from Dalkeith. James had ordered him to wed, he had said nothing about sharing living quarters.

  Then, he'd laid eyes upon "Mad" Janet Comyn. Like an impassioned goddess she'd flayed him with her words, evidencing wit handfasted to unearthly beauty. No las he could recall had stirred in him the tight, clenching hunger he'd suffered when he'd caressed her with his eyes. While she'd been caressing that damned smithy with hers.

  The gossips couldn't have been more wrong. Had the Hawk been left to choose a woman for himself, the qualities Janet possessed—independence, a quick mind, a luscious body, and a strong heart—were all qualities he would have sought.

  Perhaps, Hawk mused, life might just take a turn for the better after all.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 7

  adrienne knew she was dreaming. she was hopelessly in the same horrible nightmare she'd been having for months; the one in which she fled down dark, deserted New Orleans alleys trying to outrun death.

  No matter how hard she tried to control the dream, she never made it to safety. Inevitably, Eberhard cornered her in the abandoned warehouse on Blue Magnolia Lane. Only one thing differed significantly from the reality Adrienne had lived through—in her nightmare she didn't make it to the gun in time.

  She awoke shaking and pale, with little beads of sweat dappling her face.

  And there was the Hawk; sitting on the end of her bed, silently watching her.

  Adrienne stared wide-eyed at him. In her sleepy confusion the Hawk's darkly beautiful face seemed to bear traces of Eberhard's diabolic beauty, making her wonder what difference there was between the two men—if any. After a nightmare about one attractive deadly man, waking up to find another in such close proximity was just too much for her frazzled nerves. Although she still had virtually no memory of how she'd come to be in the sixteenth century, her other memories were regrettably intact. Adrienne de Simone remembered one thing with excruciating clarity—she did not trust and did not like beautiful men.

  "You screamed," the Hawk informed her in his mellifluous voice.

  Adrienne rolled her eyes. Could he do something besides purr every time he opened his perfect mouth? That voice could sweet-talk a blind nun out of her chastity. "Go away," she mumbled.

  He smiled. "I came but to see that you weren't the victim of another murder attempt."

  "I told you it wasn't me they were after." He sat carefully, seemingly caught in a mighty internal struggle. Her mind spun with unchecked remnants of her nightmare as a soft breeze wafted in the open window and kissed her skin. Ye gods, her skin! She plucked the silk sheet to her nearly bare breasts in a fit of pique. The dratted gown she'd found neatly placed on her bed—by someone who obviously had fewer inhibitions about clothing than she—scarcely qualified as sleepwear. The tiny sleeves had slipped down over her shoulders while the skirt of the gown had bunched up; yards of transparent fabric pooled in a filmy froth around her waist, barely covering her hips—and that only if she didn't move at all. Adrienne tugged firmly at the gown, trying to rearrange it without relinquishing her grip on the sheet.

  Hawk groaned, and the husky sound made her every nerve dance on end. She forced herself to meet his heated gaze levelly.

  "Janet, I know we didn't exactly start this marriage under the best of circumstances."

  "Adrienne. And one could definitely say that."

  "No, my name is Sidheach. My brother is Adrian. But most call me Hawk."

  "I meant me. Call me Adrienne." At his questioning look she added, "My middle name is Adrienne, and it's the one I prefer." A simple, tiny lie. She couldn't hope to keep answering to Janet, she was bound to slip eventually.

  "Adrienne," he purred, putting the inflection on it as Adry-EN. "As I was saying"—he slid along the bed with such grace that she only realized he'd moved when he was much too close—"I fear we didn't get the best start, and I intend to remedy that."

  "You can remedy it by removing yourself from my sight this instant. Now. Shoo." She clutched the sheet in a careful fist and waved her other hand dismissively. He watched it with fascination. When he didn't move, she tried to dismiss him again, but he snared her hand mid-wave.

  "Beautiful hands," he murmured, turning it palm up and planting a lingering kiss in the sensitive center. "I feared Mad Janet was a most uncomely shrew. Now I know why the Comyn kept you hidden in his tower all those years. You are the true silver and gold in the Comyn treasure trove. His wealth has been depleted in full measure by the loss of you."

  "Oh, get off it," she snapped, and he blinked in surprise. "Listen Sidhawk or Hawk or whoever you are, I'm not impressed. If we're going to be forced to suffer the same roof above our heads we need to get a few things straight. First"—she held up a hand, ticking off the fingers as she went—"I don't like you. Get used to that. Second, I didn't want to marry you, but I had no alternative—"

  "You desire another." The purr deepened into a rumble of displeasure.

  "Third," she continued without bothering to respond, "I don't find your manly wiles even remotely intriguing. You're not my type…"

  "But Adam certainly is, eh?" His jaw clenched and his ebony eyes flashed.

  "More so than you," she lied, thinking that if she could convince him she meant it, he might leave her alone.

  "You won't have him. You are my wife, whether you like it or not. I will not be made a cuckold—"

  "You have to care to be made a cuckold."

  "Perhaps I could." Perhaps he already did and he didn't have the first inkling why.

  "Well, I can't."

  "Am I so displeasing then?"

  "Yes."

  He stared. Gazed about the room. Studied the rafters. No mysterious answer was hovering anywhere to be found.

  "The lasses have always found me most comely," he said finally.

  "Maybe that's part of your problem."

  "Pardon?"

  "I don't like your attitude."

  "My attitude?" he echoed dumbly.

  "Right. So get thee from my bed and from my sight and speak no more to me this night."

  "You're the damnedest lass I've ever met."

  "And you're the most shallow, incorrigible knave of a man I've ever had the displeasure of meeting."

  "Where do you get all these ideas of me?" he wondered.

  "We could start with you being too drunk to show up at your own wedding."

  "Grimm told you? Grimm wouldn't have told you that!"

  "A pox on male bonding."
Adrienne rolled her eyes. "All he would tell me was that you were tending to an uprising. Of your stomach, I hadn't guessed. The maid who showed me to this room earlier had a fine time telling me. Went on and on about how you and three casks of wine and three women spent the week before our wedding trying to… you know"—Adrienne muttered an unintelligible word—"your brains out."

  "To what my brains out?"

  "You know." Adrienne rolled her eyes.

  "I'm afraid I don't. What was that word again?"

  Adrienne looked at him sharply. Was he teasing her? Were his eyes alight with mischief? That half-smile curving his beautiful mouth could absolutely melt the sheet she was clutching, not to mention her will. "Apparently one of them succeeded, because if you had any brains left you'd get out of my sight now," she snapped.

  "It wasn't three." Hawk swallowed a laugh. "No?"

  "It was five."

  Adrienne's jaw clenched. She held her fingers up again. "Fourth—this will be a marriage in name only. Period."

  "Casks of wine, I meant."

  "You are not funny."

  His laughter rolled dangerous and heavy. "Enough. Now we're going to count the Hawk's rules." He held up his hand and began ticking fingers off. "First, you're my wife, thusly you'll obey me in all things. If I must command you to my bed, then so be it. Second"—his other hand rose and she flinched, half expecting to be hit, but he cupped her face firmly and glared into her eyes—"you will stay away from Adam. Third, you'll give all pretense of being delighted to be married to me—both publicly and privately. Fourth, fifth, and sixth, you'll stay away from Adam. Seventh"—he yanked her from the bed and to her feet in one swift motion—"you'll explain precisely what you find so displeasing about me, after I make love to you, and eighth, we're going to have children. Many. Perhaps dozens. Perhaps I'll simply keep you fat with child from this moment forth."