“Good.” His father touched his cup to Patrick’s. “Blackadder Castle, Lady Alison, and those wee heiresses will be ours verra soon.”
“Until the day Alison’s daughters are wed to men in our family, they pose a threat to our claim to Blackadder Castle,” Patrick said. “Given how long before they are of age to marry, keeping them alive creates an unnecessary risk.”
“They’re our kin and innocent bairns,” his father said. “Once we have them in our hands, they’ll be no threat.”
How dare his father speak to him in that insufferable self-righteous tone, when they both knew the other, darker reason his father wanted those two lassies alive.
As soon as his father left him, Patrick sent for Walter, the former captain of the guard at Blackadder Castle.
He looked the big black-haired warrior up and down. Walter was utterly ruthless and had been spouting venom against Wedderburn since he arrived. He was the perfect choice for the task.
“Walter,” Patrick said, leaning back in his chair, “how would ye like to wreak some vengeance on the Humes?”
CHAPTER 27
Alison was astonished by how quickly and unexpectedly her life had changed. Every meal with Blackadder had been a misery, fraught with opportunities for him to criticize her before the household. But sitting between David and her daughters at supper now, she felt giddy.
Dare she trust this happiness?
David squeezed her thigh beneath the table. When their eyes met, the heat in his made it hard to breathe. She never would have guessed a man could give her such intense physical pleasure.
“I thought this meal would never end,” he said in her ear, and brought her hand to his lap to feel his erection. “I’m dying to get ye upstairs.”
“Beatrix, Margaret, time for bed,” she said, and sprang to her feet. “Come, Flora and I will take ye upstairs.”
David caught Alison’s arm and said, “I’ll join ye shortly.”
She felt her cheeks turn pink with a mix of pleasure and embarrassment. For an astute man, David seemed oblivious to the fact that the conversation in the hall dropped to a low hum as every person in the room paused to watch their laird. She was well aware that his men were amused by their early retirement each night and frequent disappearances at odd times during the day.
As she entered the stairwell, she looked over her shoulder and caught David watching her. She smiled to herself, assured that he would follow soon.
Still, she was grateful to have a little time alone after bidding her daughters goodnight and leaving them in Flora’s care. She looked at the bed and imagined David lying on it, unselfconscious of his nakedness, his powerful body and hard features reminiscent of the ancient warriors of legend.
Sometimes when he made love to her, he was all need and passion. Other times he was so tender that she could almost believe he cared for her. But the feeling never lasted. Most of the time outside of bed, he was that other man—the hard, relentless laird.
The physical pleasure they shared was a gift. She should be satisfied with that. Instead, the strong feelings he evoked when they made love only seemed to make her long for something more.
She did not want to love her new husband.
But she feared that, whether he wanted it or not, David would steal her heart.
***
Alison awoke at dawn with a sense of foreboding, and her hand went to the pendant at her throat. Whether the black stone was magical or no, it reminded her of her mother and gave her comfort.
“I saw ye send Brian off yesterday,” she said when she saw that David was awake. “Has something happened?”
She had waited to ask, hoping David would tell her on his own. Brian was David’s most trusted man, so the errand must be important. Still, she did not care where or why he’d sent Brian so much as she cared that David share it with her.
“Nothing to trouble yourself about,” David said, and kissed the tender spot below her ear.
“I know your responsibilities weigh on ye,” she said. “My mother always said that sharing your troubles makes them lighter.”
He leaned down and circled her nipple with his tongue. If he was trying to distract her, he succeeded.
“Tell me the tale behind this,” he said, running his finger over the smooth black stone that lay between her breasts.
Though she was disappointed he would not tell her about Brian’s errand, at least he was showing an interest in her beyond her breasts.
“How do ye know there’s a tale?” she asked.
“The stone is unusual and ye always wear it.” He paused. “Was it Blackadder who gave it to ye?”
“Nay.” Ach, she wanted to gag at the thought. She wished she could burn everything of hers that Blackadder had ever touched.
“Who gave it to ye, then?” He raised an eyebrow. “One of your admirers?”
“I was far too young before I wed to have admirers.”
“Beautiful women have admirers,” he said, “married or no.”
He'd managed to give her a compliment and an insult all at once.
“My mother gave the pendant to me,” she said. “She had one made for me and each of my sisters from a single stone that she believed had protective powers.”
“So there is a tale,” David said.
“Aye, one of royal politics, love, and murder.”
“Ach, the best kind,” he said with a glint in his eye.
This was the unexpected, playful side of David that made her defenses melt like butter in a hot pan.
“When our late king was a young man, everyone knew that he must marry a foreign princess to make an alliance for Scotland,” she began. “The only question was whether the princess would be French or English.”
***
David should get an early start on the day. And yet he found himself entranced by Alison's melodic voice and the faraway look in her eyes as she recited what he guessed was an oft-told story in her family.
“A royal mistress, however, could bring lucrative posts and other favors to her family,” she continued. “So all the Scottish nobles paraded their bonny daughters before the young royal in the hope that one of their own would catch his eye.”
No doubt David’s family had played in that game, though the thought disgusted him.
“The Drummond sisters, my mother included, were renowned beauties,” she said. “The king fell deeply in love with my mother's sister Margaret and made her his mistress. That in itself did not endanger her.”
Something nagged at David's memory about a tragedy in the Drummond family.
“The king installed my aunt in Stirling Castle and lived openly with her as if she were his queen,” she said. “Rumors began to fly that the king wished to make her his wife.”
David did not need to be told that this would have upset every powerful faction in Scotland, not to mention the kings of France and England.
“What did your grandfather Drummond do to protect his daughter?” David asked.
“Protect her?” Alison gave a short, humorless laugh. “He imagined his grandchild with a crown his head and persuaded our besotted young monarch that a king could do as he pleased.”
“What happened to your Aunt Margaret?” he asked, knowing it could not have ended well.
“The four Drummond sisters were all visiting their father at Drummond Castle when the tragedy occurred,” she said. “Though it could never be proven, we believe my mother’s sisters were poisoned at breakfast. In any event, all three fell ill and were dead by supper.”
“Ach, I'm sorry, lass.” He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead.
“My mother took a walk by the river that morning instead of joining the household at breakfast,” Alison said. “She found a large black quartz beside the river. When she picked it up, an old woman appeared through the mist and told her the stone held magical powers.”
David raised an eyebrow. This sounded like fanciful imaginings to him. No one ever seemed to meet these myste
rious folk on a clear day.
“The old woman told my mother that she would bear four daughters and instructed her to give each daughter a piece of the stone,” Alison continued. “She said that there would be a time when each of us would be in dire need of whatever luck and protection the stone could bring us.”
“I suppose the old woman disappeared into the mist?”
“Aye,” she said in a hushed voice. “When my mother looked again, the woman was gone.”
“Hmmph.”
“She feared the old woman could be a fairy in disguise bent on causing mischief, as they so often do,” Alison said. “But when she saw the fate that befell her poor sisters, she knew that she had narrowly escaped the same death and that the stone held good magic.”
Alison's piece of the “magical” stone had not brought her much luck—first Blackadder, and now him.
“I lost it the day I wed Blackadder,” Alison said, absently rubbing her finger over the opaque black stone. “I only found it again after I had the bed taken out.”
David lay back and stared at the ceiling, thinking of that burned bed again and what a damned shame it was that Blackadder died before he had a chance to kill him.
“Why did your father choose Blackadder for your husband?” he asked, though he should not blame her father for showing such poor judgment, when his own father and uncle had not seen that Blackadder was a snake.
“My grandfather was chieftain of the Douglases for fifty years, and he was the one who deemed a marriage alliance with Blackadder would be of value,” she said. “My father agreed to it because he and my mother preferred Blackadder to the alternative my grandfather proposed.”
“There was someone else he wished ye to marry?”
“Not marry,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance. “My sisters and I bear some resemblance to our aunt, the king's great love. Our grandfather hoped that would lead the king to make one of us his mistress.”
“He was willing to put you in that kind of danger after your aunts had been murdered?” The thought infuriated David.
“The king was wed to Margaret Tudor by then, so there was no danger—or hope—that the king would want to marry one of us,” she said. “It was the fervent wish of both my Douglas and Drummond grandfathers, however, that the king would take one of us into his bed long enough to bear a royal bastard.”
Did they care nothing for the lasses? Making their granddaughter the king's whore was not even the worst of it. While a royal bastard did bring a great many advantages to both the child and his family, the royal blood that ran in the child's veins could also endanger them due to the threat the child posed to the king's legitimate heirs.
“My grandfathers decided their best hope was my sister Maggie,” Alison said. “And I was married off to Blackadder.”
David pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. What a miserable family she had, on both the Drummond and Douglas sides. He wished he could have protected her from all of it.
“Ye see why my mother wanted to give us a bit of magical protection?” She held the pendant up and smiled.
Ach, it did something to his heart to see her hold the pendant as if all she had against the evils of this world was a wee bit of stone.
“Ye have my sword, and my life if need be, to protect you,” he said, holding her chin and looking into her eyes. “I'll allow no harm to come to you or your daughters.”
He ran his gaze over her ivory skin, red lips, and violet-blue eyes framed by sooty black lashes. After barely leaving their bed for a week, he still could not get enough of her. He longed to taste her skin again, to hear her sighs, to feel her legs locked around him as they moved together.
He should have gone with Brian to Hume Castle to see how their clansmen in that area were faring. Brian was more than happy to go, as he was courting a lass in one of the villages there, and David had plenty to keep him busy here. But the real reason he did not go was that he did not want to miss a night with Alison.
For the first time, he had a glimmer of understanding of how his father could be so foolish over his second wife. He recognized the danger and saw how easily it could happen. But he had learned from his father’s mistake that vulnerability in a laird endangered the entire clan.
He could enjoy his bride, but he must never allow Alison to become his weakness.
***
“I can’t remember the last time I was on a picnic.” Alison leaned against David and smiled up at him. “’Twas kind of ye to remember your promise to Beatrix.”
“As if the wee devil would let me forget it,” he said, squeezing her shoulders.
Alison snuggled closer as she watched the girls and Will, who were throwing rocks in the burn and arguing over who had thrown their stone the farthest or made it skip the most times. After years of suffering Blackadder’s constant criticism and mistreatment, her spirit felt light.
A bond was surely growing between her and David, and hope blossomed in her heart that he was coming to truly care for her.
“I’d like to make love to ye in this bonny spot,” he said in her ear, “with the birds singing and the sunlight on your bare skin.”
“Can we can return without the children and the guards?” she asked.
“Those rain clouds are headed this way,” he said, frowning at the horizon. Then he turned back to her and winked. “We’ll have to make do with our bed. But if we leave soon, we’ll have time before supper.”
“I’ll fetch the children,” she said, and grinned at him.
As she got to her feet, Margaret emerged from the brush that grew along the burn.
“Where are Beatrix and Will?” Alison asked.
“That way,” Margaret said, pointing upstream.
Alison lifted her skirts and made her way through the scrub brush. She heard the two children before she saw them.
“I don’t like being told what to do,” Beatrix said.
Alison chuckled to herself. That was certainly true. Curious, she took a few steps closer until she could see them through the branches.
“I’d let ye do whatever ye want. I wouldn’t care,” Will said, and tossed a stick into the burn. “But I expect you and Robbie will have rows that shake the roof.”
“I don’t want to marry him,” Beatrix said. “I don’t want to marry at all.”
Unease tightened Alison’s stomach. What had the children overheard that inspired this talk of marriage?
“I like Margaret nearly as much as I like Jasper,” Will said, and patted the pup’s head, “but I don’t want to marry her either.”
“Then we won’t do it,” Beatrix said, crossing her arms.
“David told Robbie that we must do it for the good of the clan,” Will said. “And when David says something must be done for the clan, ’tis a waste of breath to argue.”
Alison was so upset she was shaking. She told herself not to panic, that she must give David a chance to explain. Surely he would not plan her daughters’ marriages without consulting her. Whatever the children had heard, they must have misunderstood.
***
David felt a rare contentment as he lay back and watched the passing clouds while wee Margaret sat beside him playing with the wooden pig he’d carved for her. He could not recall ever whiling away the afternoon like this. His mother would have beat him for it. A laird’s heir has too much to learn to waste time on frivolity. His stepmother often took his brothers on outings like this, but he was too old by then to be included.
His breath caught as Alison appeared through the trees, looking as beguiling as a wood nymph. Would he ever become accustomed to the effect she had on him? While he had enjoyed spending time with Will and the girls, all he wanted now was to have his wife alone and naked in their bedchamber.
With his mind on that, he did not notice at first that Alison was unusually quiet on the short ride back. He took a closer look. Her back was stiff, and she was clutching the reins.
“What’s wrong?”
“It can keep until we’re alone,” she said, then she spurred her horse and trotted ahead.
He let her go and fell back to ride beside Will. “Do ye know what this is about?”
“I think she overheard me and Bea talking about the betrothals.”
“By the saints, Will, why could ye not keep it a secret?”
“Bea is my friend.” Will shrugged. “It felt wrong not to tell her.”
David cursed under his breath. Alison was right about Will having a mind of his own. How could David rule his clan with authority when his wife and young brothers challenged his commands?
“Why didn’t ye tell Alison?” Will asked.
David felt a twinge of guilt. He had intended to inform her, but the time was not right yet.
“It was my decision to make,” he said. “My wife ought to be grateful I’ve done well by her daughters by arranging for their future.”
Will gave him a long sideways glance. “Ye don’t understand lasses much, do ye?”
CHAPTER 28
David told himself that Alison was a reasonable lass who would accept his decision, as she ought, and even see the wisdom of it in time. All the same, he drew in a deep breath before he opened their bedchamber door. Alison stood waiting for him with her arms folded and a strained expression.
“Ye haven’t taken it upon yourself to arrange my daughters’ marriages, have ye?” she asked with a brittle smile.
He thought women were supposed to confuse a man with subtlety. Her direct question caught him off guard, and he hesitated too long.
“Then it’s true,” she said, her voice rising.
“As their stepfather, ’tis my responsibility to secure their future,” he said, attempting to sidestep the question.
“What precisely have ye done?” she said, looking at him as if he were the devil’s serpent.
“I’ve betrothed them to my brothers.”
“Ye did this without a word to me?” she said with fire in her eyes. “Ye know my daughters are everything to me. Everything!”
“Their welfare is my responsibility,” he said.
CAPTURED BY A LAIRD (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY) Page 17