The rest of the group quickly dropped to the floor, obediently kneeling behind their leader.
Ramsay stood and placed his fist to his chest. “I’m honored by Clan Ross’s presence. Join us in Clan MacTavish’s feast.” Judging by the age of Clan Ross’s elderly chief, the man had probably known Athair when he was in his prime. Ramsay wanted to put the Ross at ease. Have him regale them with stories of their history.
The Ross men remained on their knees and bowed their heads even lower, but their chief lifted his troubled gaze. He visibly flinched when his attention settled on Katie. With a sad shake of his head, he bowed again.
“Forgive me, m’chieftain,” the old man muttered loud enough for Ramsay to hear. “Forgive me,” he repeated, then turned and held out a hand to the double doors that were still wide open. “This matter must be seen to first. Enter and speak yer claim,” he called out in a deep voice that belied his years.
A woman, short and slight in frame and form except for her more than generous bustline, rushed in through the doors and trotted through the assembly to take her place beside Clan Ross’s chieftain. She came to a stop, lifted her chin, and smoothed down her faded dress. With a smile that left no delusions as to her intent, she snugged both hands up against her tightly cinched bodice and arched her back, effectively presenting her large breasts for all to admire.
Her greasy blond hair was streaked with gray and her poor attempt at a bun on the back of her head had the wispy strands falling down about her neck and shoulders. She had a round face with reddened cheeks that glowed even brighter as she beamed up at Ramsay. With an exaggerated swing of her hips, she sashayed closer to the dais, curtsied in front of Ramsay, then bowed low, giggling as she tucked an escaped nipple back inside the low neckline of her léine.
“Wow,” Katie murmured in a low voice meant for Ramsay only. “All she needs is music and a pole.”
A pole? Before he could comment, the woman rose and held out a hand to the impressive young man included in the ranks of Clan Ross’s kneeling men. The lad remained on bended knee with his head bowed. “M’fair chieftain…nay, my wondrous lover of years past, I present t’ye—yer son.”
“My what?” Ramsay distinctly felt his heart stutter a series of beats and nearly choked on the gulp of air lodged in his gullet.
The woman tucked her chin low in a coy pose, folded her hands in front of her middle, and plumped her bustline even higher with a subtle inward squeeze of her arms. “Yer son, m’chieftain,” she replied in a voice coated with saccharin sweetness.
The young man rose, moving at such a reluctant speed ’twas obvious he’d rather be disappearing into the floor. He took his place beside his mother, keeping his head bowed, and eyes averted.
The woman grabbed hold of the boy’s arm and yanked him forward. “The fruit of our tryst seventeen years ago, m’chieftain.” She smacked the boy’s shoulder and her teasing nymph of a smile twisted into an ugly scowl. “Hold yer head up, Brant. ’Tis high time yer protector blood did us some good.”
“Enough, woman!” The Ross chieftain stamped his staff on the floor and shoved his way back in front of her. “Forgive us, m’chieftain, we didna wish t’bring this shame upon ye. Clan Ross took in this ungrateful woman, ye ken? Fed her. Kept her safe from the horde. All because she claimed her child was fathered by a divine protector.” The old man cast a disgusted glance back in the woman’s direction. “She disgraces us with her behavior. Forgive me, m’chieftain, I admit this woman is nothin’ more than a connivin’ whore…but she bore the mark. Bears it still.”
The woman pushed the old man aside, nearly knocking him off balance. Defiance emanated from her every move as she widened her stance and stabbed the air with her finger, aiming it at Ramsay. “Divine blood flows through m’son’s veins—the blood of him, the mighty high chief what sired him.”
“Divine blood, my ass,” Katie murmured under her breath. She shifted in her seat and cut a look over at Ramsay, a look that tightened his arse and made him swallow hard. “You slept with her?” she asked with a subtle jerk of her head toward the woman.
Sarcasm laced with dangerously simmering rage dripped from Katie’s words, but the look in her eyes concerned him even more. What little wine he had consumed soured in his gut and churned.
This canna be true. He looked at the woman closely, trying his best t’place her. Her face seemed a mite familiar but barely so. Surely, if he’d lain with her, even as a sixteen-year-old lad, he wouldha remembered. He leaned over and took hold of Katie’s hand, spitting out the words in a strained whisper, “I dinna know that damn woman. I swear it.”
Katie jerked her hand away, gave him a go to hell look, and knotted her fists in her lap. Keeping her voice low, she proudly lifted her chin and spoke while still staring straight ahead. “She sure claims to have known you—in the biblical sense of the word.”
Hell’s fire…Ramsay straightened in the seat then addressed Clan Ross’s chieftain. “Show me the proof.” He knew the clans. They’d take in widows and orphans, ensure all were fed, but they’d ne’er accept the claim that a child had been fathered by a protector at face value alone. They would’ve expected proof and the old chief had mentioned the mark.
“Here’s yer proof!” The woman rushed forward as she yanked up her sleeve and bared her left forearm. On the inside of her wrist, in the exact same location as the protector’s mark on Katie’s right forearm was a somewhat similar tattoo. It was badly faded and broken in spots, but the mark was there. Plain for all t’see.
This canna be so.
“You married her?” Katie didn’t bother to whisper this time. “Are you fucking kidding me? How many wives do you have?”
The entire hall shuddered with rumbling whispers. Even the servants were buzzing at this latest turn of events. Ramsay scrubbed both hands across his face. This could no’ be happening. Not when he’d finally found where he belonged and discovered his heart’s desire in the process. He stood so quickly that his heavy chair tipped backward and hit the floor. He turned to Katie, but she refused to look at him. She sat staring straight ahead. Unblinking. Jaw clenched.
For a long gut-wrenching moment, Ramsay lost himself in the helpless feeling of total damnation in this situation. Fighting away the suffocating chaos, he bent and slid his hand to the back of Katie’s neck and kissed her. Hard and long. Not for the strange woman. Not for the clans. Not even for Katie. He kissed her for himself alone. The taste of her brought him strength. Healed him. She was a drug that he couldna live without. The strangling tension of the last few moments eased considerably when he realized that his beloved Katie had laced her fingers in his hair and was kissing him back.
Pulling back, he whispered, “We will talk this out—later, aye? Swear it.”
Katie gave him the barest dip of her chin. She still wasn’t smiling but her cold, hard look of total contempt had softened considerably.
Ramsay gave her a thankful nod then straightened and faced all in the great room. Every gaze was locked on him. Watching. Waiting.
Hell’s fire and demon bollocks. He shored up his frustration as best he could, studying the preening woman standing beside her son. He strode around the table and made his way down the steps to her, trying his damnedest to peel back the layers of time and visualize how she might’ve looked seventeen years ago. Nothing came to mind but perhaps that was because time had no’ treated her well. Still, for the life of him, he couldna place her.
“Yer name?” he finally asked.
“Gerta.” She stood closer to the young man and hooked her arm through his as though she feared her proof would run away. “Yer son’s name is Brant. His name means sword—as in Scota’s sword.”
Ramsay grabbed hold of the woman’s arm and examined the mark closer. Seemed real enough. At least, at one time it had been legitimate. He turned to the boy—the young man of a little more than sixtee
n summers if his mother was telling the truth.
“Look at me, boy.” Ramsay stood toe to toe with the young man.
Brant finally lifted his head and looked Ramsay in the eye.
Humiliation. Shame. The wish t’be anywhere but here. Ramsay read all those things in Brant’s eyes. Slowly, Ramsay walked a circle around the lad. Brant’s body shape and size reminded him of Ross’s more muscular build and height but that theory didna hold true since Ross had been but fourteen years old when they were yanked from this century. A fourteen-year-old could father children but Ramsay clearly remembered Ross being more interested in hunting and swordplay at that age. He’d ne’er had time for the lasses then. Unfortunately, Ramsay had found the time for a dalliance here and there but not so many that he couldna remember the sweet lasses who’d so eagerly offered him their comforts. Grant had been besotted with the meek Leannan. That left Alec and himself. Maybe he belongs t’Alec.
Ramsay studied Brant closer. Those damned eyes. Dead giveaway. Deep set. Intense. There was a way to find out for sure. “Bring me m’spear,” he said without breaking his scrutiny of Brant. He held out his hand and waited.
The hall was silent as a graveyard except for the hurried scuffling of bootsteps. Gordon pressed the spear into his hand.
Brant’s eyes widened, and the ever-increasing ruddiness of his cheeks was a dead giveaway that he held his breath.
Gritting his teeth, Ramsay touched the tip of the spear to the boy’s forehead. His gut tightened and sent up a surge of bile as though he’d just been punched. There it was. The proof. The goddesses’ tattoo, similar to Ramsay’s but not nearly as impressive, appeared on Brant’s cheek. As soon as Ramsay took away the spear, the mark disappeared. Since the boy was no’ a protector, the mark could only be made to appear as proof of his ancestry.
Without a doubt, MacDara blood flowed in the boy’s veins. Ramsay returned to the chieftain’s table, shaking his head against what couldna possibly be true. He turned to the room, one hand holding his spear and the other on the back of Katie’s chair. He nodded down at Gerta and Brant. “These two are welcomed here as members of Clan Ross—but that is all.”
He held up a hand to silence the instantaneous murmuring resulting from his announcement. “I do not accept this young man as my son until I have sought both my wife’s and the goddesses’ counsel.”
Then he lifted his tankard to the room. “Now, feast. I command it.”
Chapter 17
Katie stomped her way into the bedchamber and slammed the door behind her. Great. Just fucking great. Just when she’d improved this little jaunt through the Scottish twilight zone with an epically mind-blowing afternoon of the best sex she’d ever had, everything had to go straight to hell in a handbasket with the arrival of Ramsay’s…whatever the fuck Gerta was…and his damn son. And with the die bitch looks Gerta had repeatedly fired in her direction all through the feast, the woman was locked and loaded for a fight.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck had now become the official word of the day.
The door hinges squeaked a warning of another entry into the room.
“I can undress myself, Flora. Out!” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the door without looking up from her bodice full of knotted laces that she was doing her damnedest to loosen. “If you value your life…you’ll leave. Now.”
She’d managed a show of solidarity down in the great hall—more for her own sake than Ramsay’s. She’d be damned if she gave these Highland women an excuse to whisper and shake their heads over their chieftain’s poor jilted wife.
She yanked on the laces again, only succeeding in cinching them tighter. Ramsay’s mine. The inner mantra rumbled through her with a strength that had her hands shaking. “I hate these fucking laces!”
All mine. She picked at the knotted ties and forced herself to calm down a level. Not only was Ramsay hers but she needed him as a way back to the twenty-first century. No bitch on earth was going to steal her one-way ticket back to hot showers, deodorant, and minty fresh toothpaste. Maybe she’d roughed it just fine on digs. That was expected, and the duration of the self-imposed depravation was a known factor. But this, she sure as hell hadn’t expected this and who knew how long it could last? She was more than ready to end this unexpected visit to the tenth century and its lack of conveniences that made life so much easier.
“I could make sure that Gerta woman and her son drown in the cesspit, ye ken? I have many brothers. They’d take care of it.” Flora pattered closer, wringing her hands together as she spoke in a soft conspiratorial tone. “Nary a soul would e’er find them,” she added. The look on her face assured Katie that she was quite serious.
“None a that, Flora.” Ramsay’s deep voice made Katie turn toward the far corner of the room.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” She’d clearly told him not to follow her.
Katie turned on Flora. “Did I not tell you I wanted to be alone? Alone means just me. Not you.” Katie jerked her head in Ramsay’s direction. “And definitely not him.”
“I didna let him in—he used the chieftain’s passages.” Flora huffed her way over, swept Katie’s hands away from the dress’s bodice, and untied the stubborn laces with a few quick tugs. She stepped back and gave Katie a hurt look. “There. That’s done. I’ll leave ye now, m’lady. I’ll be in m’wee room just off yer chambers if ye have need of the least thing.” She paused at the door and dramatically sniffed. “Call me for yer slightest need—aye? I assure ye, my dedication is true.”
Frustration building, Katie watched Flora leave then turned on Ramsay. “See what you made me do?” She jabbed a finger toward the door that had just closed behind Flora. “Yelling at her is like kicking a puppy!”
Ramsay didn’t spare the door a sideways glance, just marched across the room and took hold of both of Katie’s hands. “I dinna know that woman, Katie. I swear it.”
“Well the boy looks like he fell right out of the MacDara family tree and if that’s not convincing enough, he’s got that disappearing tattoo.” She yanked off the cloying yardage of the ornate overdress and threw it across the trunk at the foot of the bed. She turned back to Ramsay and lifted her right wrist, jabbing her fist in the air. “And that woman has the same mark. It’s on her left arm instead of the right but it’s the same mark. Explain how the hell she got that if you didn’t marry her.”
“The goddesses wouldha marked her t’protect the boy whilst he was in her womb. They marked her to ensure she was taken in. Did ye no’ see how faded and broken the colorations were? And if ye had looked closer, ye wouldha noticed that her mark is different from yers. Her mark is no’ that of a wife or mate. Her mark merely signified she carried a child of a protector and it shouldha faded away as soon as the lad was born. I’d bet m’best dagger that she’s had it inked over t’keep her status with Clan Ross.”
“The drama around you just keeps getting better.” Katie carefully removed the diadem from her forehead and bitterly hefted it in one hand. “What the hell else are you going to spring on me since you put such a great spin on life?” A hollow sense of victory filled her when Ramsay’s shoulders sagged, and his gaze dropped to the floor.
She shook the diadem back at him as she walked over to the dressing table. “You said she’s got the mark of someone who’s lain with a protector. That narrows down the playing field—at least as far as who fathered that kid is concerned. Plain and simple, were you the MacDara son who fucked her? Or did you have sex with so many women back then that you just can’t remember them all?”
She knew Ramsay hadn’t been a virgin—would’ve been shocked if he had been. But damn—shit got real when one of his past lovers turned up with a son. And that woman? Really? Granted, seventeen years of struggling to survive would change a person’s personality as well as their looks but damn.
Silence filled the room, growing into a dark malevolen
t thing that threatened to add fuel to the already serious situation.
You better hurry up and answer me, the singsong voice in her head silently warned Ramsay. If he stalled too long, that meant he was probably having to work up a pretty good lie.
With a reverent touch, she managed to unfasten the necklace around her throat. Carefully, she placed both the diadem and the necklace in the box on the dressing table and closed it. Even as pissed as she was, she’d never treat those items with disrespect. Turning back to Ramsay, she held up both hands and shrugged. “Well? What’s the matter? Don’t have any good lies left?”
“I have not lied to ye.” Ramsay shifted from whipped-dog look to insulted silverback-gorilla stance. “I have no other words for ye except that I swear I dinna remember that woman—I dinna believe I e’er laid with her.”
“But you’re not sure?” she fired back.
Ramsay didn’t answer.
She was too damned tired to figure out if he was lying or not. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her temples and wished like hell she’d never turned off the interstate back at Brady, North Carolina.
It was painfully obvious that this conversation wasn’t getting them anywhere. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, she felt like shit and needed to be left the hell alone to recharge and sort this out. Heading for the window across the room, she pulled the chemise away from her body and peeled the damp material off her chest. It was hotter than a brick oven in here and her current frame of mind wasn’t helping the temperature. She freed her elaborately braided hair, fluffed it out, and scrubbed at her scalp that had grown tender and sore from Flora’s handiwork. She knotted the mess of curls on top of her head and held them there, trying to catch some cool air on the back of her neck.
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