CAPTURED BY A LAIRD (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY)

by Mallory, Margaret

  “Ye can stick a blade in my heart,” she said, “but I will not say vows to you.”

  “Ah, lass, I fear stabbing ye would thwart my goal.”

  “Nothing less will persuade me to wed ye,” she said.

  David sighed inwardly. Why did the lass have to be so damned stubborn?

  “I don’t need a marriage contract to take ye to bed,” he said, hating himself. “’Tis up to you which we do first.”

  “What?” She whirled in his arms. “Are ye threatening to degrade me?”

  Despite the fury in her eyes, her closeness made it difficult for him to concentrate. She smelled like heaven, and her breasts were touching his chest.

  “What I intend is to make ye my wife.” He made himself say the rest. “If ye don’t agree to it now, ye will once ye carry my babe.”

  “Once I…once I…” She made an ineffectual attempt to shove him away. “Oh, you are a vile, vile man!”

  “I am,” he agreed. “And one way or another, you shall be this vile man’s wife.”

  ***

  David pondered his next move as he stomped up and down the courtyard, waiting for his brothers’ arrival. Threatening his future wife yesterday had not been his wisest decision. All it had accomplished was to make her more obstinate and make him feel like shite.

  What in the hell was holding his brothers up? He wanted to get this wedding over with. He was not as confident as he led Lady Alison to believe that the Douglases would not arrive in force. Her brothers could have sent a false message for him to intercept in the hope of surprising him. And if the Blackadders learned he was here, they would come with every fighting man in their clan to try to thwart his plan.

  Once the contract was signed and the marriage consummated, there was not a damned thing the Douglases or the Blackadders could do about it.

  Except kill him.

  He could not wait another day to bind the lady to him. The risk was too great. But how was he to accomplish it without holding a blade to the stubborn lass’s throat? He was at ease leading men, confident in his skills and judgment. As for women, they’d always come to him with little effort on his part. When one became troublesome, he moved on to another.

  None of his experience helped him know how to persuade a lass to become his wife when she did not want to. He’d given the lady a day to calm down, so perhaps she had thought it through and was prepared to accept him. Whether she was or not, the marriage would take place today.

  As he paced across the courtyard again, his attention was diverted by a charred patch of earth. Odd, how it burned in the shape of a rectangle. He was about to ask someone what had caused it when the guards shouted that his brothers were nearing the castle.

  A short time later, the gate creaked open, and David was relieved to see Robbie and Will ride in with a guard of twenty Hume warriors. He always felt better having his brothers close by where he could watch over them—and he wanted to get this wedding over and done with.

  “I’m marrying Blackadder’s widow today,” David told his brothers as soon as they dismounted. “Come, ye shall meet the lady and her daughters before ye change for the wedding.”

  His brothers stood in place with their mouths gaping open like baby birds.

  “Ye brought your best clothes, as I ordered?” he asked.

  “You’re marrying her?” Robbie asked, his eyebrows almost reaching his hairline. “Why?”

  “’Tis all part of the plan,” David said, and waved for them to follow him.

  “But isn’t she old?” Robbie asked as the two boys trotted beside him across the courtyard. “Ach, I’ll wager she’s ugly as well.”

  “If David wants to wed her,” Will said, “she must be verra pretty—and kind, too.”

  She must be kind? Where in the hell did Will get these notions?

  “You’re to be courteous to Lady Alison and her daughters,” he warned his brothers as he charged up the steps. “Don’t behave like ill-bred heathens.”

  “We’re not ill-bred heathens,” Robbie said.

  “Just pretend your mother is watching,” he said, “and act accordingly.”

  David was going to follow his own advice and be goddamned pleasant.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I hate stitching,” Beatrix said. “Why can’t we leave our chamber?”

  “Needlework is an important skill,” Alison said, doing her best to hide her anxiety behind a smile. “And I’ve already told ye that I cannot allow ye to run loose with all the strange men in the castle.”

  She was finding it increasingly difficult to divert the girls, and it did not help that she was exhausted after lying awake all night trying to think of a way to escape the castle—and Wedderburn. By dawn, she had come to the conclusion that her only hope was to delay the marriage long enough to be rescued.

  “How much longer will the strange men be here?” Beatrix asked, resting a plump cheek on the heel of her hand.

  “I don’t know, sweetling,” Alison said. “Not long, I hope.”

  Panic closed her throat when she considered just long it could take Archie to settle his dispute with the queen. She forced herself to push the thought aside. She must hold out hope.

  At the sound of a knock on the door, she bolted to her feet, sending her needlework tumbling to the floor.

  “My brothers have arrived,” Wedderburn’s deep voice came through the door. “I’ve brought them to meet ye.”

  Her heart raced as she imagined being encircled by half a dozen warriors in Wedderburn’s image. If she did not unbar the door, which had just been repaired, he would only break it down again. At least he had made a pretense of knocking this time.

  After drawing a deep breath, she shoved the bar back and opened the door. She barely had time to step aside before Wedderburn strode into the room.

  His physical presence overwhelmed her. Though he was a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, he exuded an air of authority that made him seem even larger than he was. And he was a big man, a foot taller than she was, muscular, and broad-shouldered.

  It was a long moment before she noticed the two others who came into the room behind him. Instead of the dangerous-looking warriors she expected, all she saw was a pair of lads.

  “These are my brothers, Robert and William,” Wedderburn said.

  Neither bore a strong resemblance to him, though the older lad had something of Wedderburn’s fierceness in his eyes and stance. The younger one was still a child and had warm brown eyes.

  “Robbie is fourteen, and Will is ten,” Wedderburn said, pointing at each in turn.

  “Ye look like a fairy queen,” Will said, and gave her an open smile that was hard to resist. “I told Robbie you’d be pretty.”

  Before she could respond, Robbie jabbed an elbow into his side.

  “But she is!” Will said.

  “Enough.” Wedderburn’s voice caused both boys to snap their attention to him.

  Evidently he ruled his young brothers with an iron hand. Alison prayed that if she married him, he would ignore her daughters as their father had.

  If she married him?

  She was startled to realize she had begun to believe it might actually happen. Unless help arrived quickly, she would, indeed, become the fearsome Beast of Wedderburn’s wife.

  Alison could not find her voice to introduce her daughters, who had scrambled to her side and were gawking at the boys. Robbie took a step back, as if the girls’ blatant interest made him uneasy.

  “These wee lassies are Beatrix and Margaret,” Wedderburn said, and gave the girls a smile, not the cold one she had seen before, but a flash of warmth that she could almost swear held a trace of affection.

  Was it possible that this warrior who broke down doors and threatened to dishonor her had a soft spot for her daughters? In that brief moment when the smile reached his eyes, he was not so frightening, and she was able to see that he was a remarkably handsome man.

  When the girls made pretty curtsies, the older boy looke
d over his shoulder toward the door, evidently wishing to escape.

  “I brought you girls a gift,” the younger boy said as he lifted the leather bag off his shoulder and dropped to one knee.

  Wedderburn cast a questioning look at Robbie, who made a face and shrugged. When Will reached inside the bag, Beatrix and Margaret crowded around him, blocking Alison’s view. A moment later, their squeals and shrieks pierced her ears. Before she could move, Wedderburn had picked up both girls and stood with one dangling from each arm.

  “’Tis only a puppy, David,” the boy said, looking up at Wedderburn. “I promise he won’t hurt them.”

  From this, Alison drew two startling conclusions. Wedderburn must have believed the girls screamed out of fear and acted instinctively to protect them.

  And his name was David. She tried it on her tongue. David. A strong name, but not one that suited a harsh man.

  “Mind your hands,” he commanded the girls. “A pup’s teeth are razor sharp.”

  As soon as he set the girls on their feet, they began petting and cooing over the wiggling bundle of black and white fur in Will’s arms.

  “I know ye lost your da,” Will said, “so I brought Jasper here to cheer ye up.”

  Alison bit her lip. What a thoughtful boy.

  “Take them all outside,” Wedderburn told Robbie, who gave him a pained expression.

  “We can’t go,” Margaret said, her bottom lip coming out. “Mama says it’s not safe for us.”

  Beatrix glared at her sister.

  “Your mother needn’t worry,” Wedderburn said, placing his large hands on top of her daughters’ heads. “Remember what I told ye?”

  “That we’re your responsibility now,” Beatrix said, smiling up at him, “and you’ll protect us.”

  “Aye,” he said, shifting his gaze to Alison, “as will my brothers and every one of my men.”

  Questions swirled in Alison’s head. How in heaven’s name had he won over Beatrix? Could she trust his word? Could he ensure her daughters would be safe with his men?

  She drew in a sharp breath as Wedderburn stepped next to her.

  “Do ye believe,” he said next to her ear, “that the women of this castle would have been left untouched if I had not ordered it?”

  Her hand went to her throat as she considered what could have happened—what she, in fact, had expected to happen—when the castle fell. As a highborn lady, she would have been spared violent rape by the common men, but the serving women surely would have suffered that harsh fate if Wedderburn had not commanded his men not to harm them.

  “May we go?” Beatrix pleaded.

  Alison nodded her assent, and her daughters ran down the stairs, laughter and barks echoing behind them.

  In the end, it was not Wedderburn’s words that persuaded her to entrust her daughters’ safety to their captor as much as his instinctive act to protect them when they screamed. Her daughters would suffer no harm while Wedderburn held the castle.

  The same could not be said for her. She remembered his threat well. One way or another, you shall be this vile man’s wife.

  ***

  “We must talk seriously now about this marriage.” Wedderburn signaled for her to sit on the bench beneath the window. When she hesitated, he said, “Would ye prefer the bed?”

  She dropped onto the bench and folded her hands in her lap. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

  He settled next to her, crowding her, and stretched out his long legs. Though the servants had lit no fire and the room was chilly, his body radiated heat, warming her side from shoulder to thigh.

  “Ye need a husband who is strong enough to protect you and your daughters,” he said.

  “And who will protect us from you?”

  “Why fight this?” he said, ignoring her question. “Few women of your station can choose who they marry.”

  “Aye, but their families—people who care about their well-being—choose for them.”

  “And your family cared so much about ye that they wed ye to Blackadder?” He folded his arms across his chest. “God save me from such a caring family.”

  He had a point. Though her grandfather was in his grave, she had yet to forgive him for marrying her to Blackadder.

  “My circumstances are different now,” she said. “As a widow, the choice of whom to marry, or whether to marry at all, is mine.”

  “Ye believe your brothers would allow ye to remain unwed?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “Ye can’t be that naïve.”

  Archie’s parting words came back to her with like a slap across the face. I’ll find ye a husband.

  “Believe me, your brother the earl has no intention of leaving ye unwed for long,” he said. “He’ll want this castle in the hands of a strong ally who can defend it.”

  “Then he’ll not take kindly to your stealing it.”

  “Once we’re wed, your brother will see the wisdom of the match,” Wedderburn said with a shrug. “I am feared and respected in these parts. He’ll come to view me as an asset.”

  “An asset?” she said, her voice rising. “After ye laid siege to my castle and forced me to wed ye?”

  “Aye, I’m certain of it.”

  With all her heart, she wanted to believe that her brothers would respond to the wrong done to her and her daughters with fury, not cold calculation. They did care for her. And yet she would not be in this predicament if they had put her interests above their ambitions.

  Now that Archie was the chieftain and earl, would he use his family members as pawns in his power games just as their grandfather had? She pushed the question aside, determined to maintain her composure and argue for her future.

  “You’ve told me why ye believe this marriage would be to my advantage,” she said. “But I fail to see what benefit it holds for you.”

  His eyes darkened. “Several come to mind.”

  Oh my. She licked her dry lips and did not ask him to elaborate.

  “Ye already hold the castle, so ye don’t need us,” she said. “Why not let me and my daughters go?”

  “The cost of keeping Blackadder Castle—and I will keep it—will be far less if I’m perceived to have the right to hold it,” he said, giving her a smile that did not thaw the ice in his eyes. “Our marriage will save much bloodshed.”

  Alison felt as if the ground were shifting under her.

  “Some of the blood ye save will be Douglas blood,” Wedderburn continued. “If I am your husband, ’tis unlikely your brothers will attempt to remove me from Blackadder Castle by force.”

  He was trapping her with his words, each one another link in the chain he was tightening around her. And the hard lines of his handsome face told her he would never relinquish the castle without spilling blood.

  “Most of the other lairds will see that they’ve missed their chance,” he continued, “so I’ll not have to fight them either.”

  “Missed their chance?”

  “I am not the only man who wants to gain control of these lands and castle, just the first to act,” he said. “If it were not me, lass, it would be someone else.”

  Alison leaned her head against the stone wall behind her and stared at the ceiling. It had been a foolish dream to believe she could have her freedom. Why had she not seen it? She was the granddaughter of chieftains, the sister-in-law to the queen, the widow of Blackadder and the mother of his heirs. A woman with her blood connections was valuable property. Wedderburn was right. If it were not him forcing her into marriage, it would be someone else—if her brother did not barter her away first.

  She would never be allowed to remain unwed or to choose her husband, never have the chance of finding true love. Not that she believed in true love, though she had once, a very long time ago. Her girlish hope for love had disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the wind when she married.

  “I know this is not fair,” Wedderburn said, “but let’s make this arrangement as agreeable as we can.”

  Wedderburn startled her by laying
his hand over hers. His was so large that only the tips of her fingers showed beneath it. She did not jerk her hand away because she did not want to chase away the unexpected kindness she saw in his eyes.

  A tiny light of hope began to burn in her chest. But then the kindness left his eyes like a door slamming shut, and the light of hope flickered out.

  ***

  David cursed himself for his momentary lapse. Lady Alison’s soft and sweet femininity brought out a dangerous longing in him for something he should not want, and most definitely could not have. He could never permit himself to be weakened by a woman the way his father had. Never.

  Men spoke of his father as a great leader, but his mother had been harder, colder, more determined. David took after her.

  He reminded himself that he was not marrying Lady Alison because he wanted to or because she was breathtakingly beautiful or because she needed protection, though he could give her that. And it did not make one damned bit of difference what she wanted or how she felt about becoming his wife.

  He was marrying her for the sake of his brothers and clan and to carry out his promise of vengeance. She was a means to an end, and that was all she could be to him.

  “I hope we can have a cooperative union and be useful to each other,” he told her.

  “A practical arrangement, then?” she asked.

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll ask the servants to prepare a bedchamber for ye,” she said, and stood as if to dismiss him.

  “You’ll ask them to prepare our bedchamber.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “That is beyond the practical arrangement ye suggested.”

  “’Tis exceedingly practical,” he said. “I am the chief of the Humes, and I need heirs.”

  She dropped her gaze to the floor, and her shoulders drooped on a slow exhale.

  “There are benefits to marriage that we shall both enjoy.” He brushed his knuckles against the softness of her cheek and brought her eyes back up to his. “I’m looking forward to them verra, verra much.”

  “Well, I am not,” she said with a flash of anger in her eyes. “This is far too soon. Ye must respect that I am newly widowed and grant me time.”