He hadn’t seen the other men since Callum’s wedding, and he brimmed with joy at their presence, but still his gaze sought Deirdre. He took her in, trying to read everything in her demeanor, her composure, and that mercurial smile of hers—sometimes bashful, sometimes gleeful, sometimes just a wee bit wicked.
She sat between Gregor and Darach, with Callum the next seat over. Gavin sighed with relief. They would take care of her—would sense her shyness and her goodness—and know what she meant to him.
His knees wobbled alarmingly, and he almost dropped his arse onto the stairs. As it was, he had to lean his shoulder against the wall to stay upright.
What she means to me.
Kerr had seen it. And his other brothers and Gregor were sure to see it too. Kerr’s words from the night before rang in his head: Start thinking about how to get rid of Lewis.
He didn’t know how in God’s name he could manage it, but he would. He would wait years if he had to. Deirdre wasn’t going anywhere as long as Ewan was in the keep, and he hoped she wouldn’t want to leave even if Ewan wasn’t here. Perhaps they could petition for an annulment—it would be easy enough to cite adultery as the cause on Lewis’s behalf if they could prove he had another lover.
Church law moved slowly, and the cost to see the annulment through the courts would be high, but he had plenty of gold, and Gregor had plenty of influence. And if Lewis needed money—if he was taking the coin from his father that was intended for the keep—then maybe more money from Gavin would expedite matters.
Aye, one way or another, they could make it work. They didn’t have a choice if they…if they loved each other.
This time he did sit on the stairs. Heavily.
Christ almighty, I’m in love with Deirdre.
He rubbed the heel of his hand over his heart, assuaging the ache that had started there. Was she in love with him too? He had no idea. He’d thought Cristel had loved him—and look how wrong he’d been.
Deirdre is not Cristel.
But how could she love him after the way he’d treated her? She’d saved his son, saved him, and he’d almost sent her away for it. He thought back to that moment when he’d believed she’d jumped from the cliff, and he shuddered.
Aye, she may not have any interest in him after that.
Except…she’d crawled into his bed. She’d held his hand while they slept. He still couldn’t get over that. Morpheus had claimed him for over twelve hours. It didn’t come near to making up for the hundreds of hours he’d missed in the last few years, of course.
He glanced over again at his family, and his heart swelled. For them all, not just Deirdre this time. Kerr and Isobel sat at the far end of the table with Lachlan, and a laughing Ewan sat between Gregor and Kerr.
They had all supported him since Ewan had gone missing, believing him when he’d insisted his son was alive—with little more than a feeling to go on. And they hadn’t abandoned him when he’d changed, become hardened and cruel, imbibed too much and raged at the world.
He owed them all a debt of gratitude, this perfectly imperfect family of his.
He rose and stared down at them, filled with love and happiness. Then he roared, “Who let the dogs into my keep?”
Gavin continued down the steps and toward them as everyone looked up. Then the men began to bark and howl like dogs. Ewan laughed excitedly and began to jump around on his seat, pretending at being a dog too. Gavin saw Deirdre and Isobel look at each other and roll their eyes in tandem, making him laugh. Aye, he liked that his sister and his…and his…his wife-to-be—aye, that sounded right—had become such good friends.
His knees weakened again, and he grabbed on to a passing soldier to steady himself.
“Laird?” the man asked.
Gavin patted the fellow’s shoulder where he’d grabbed on. “’Tis naught, lad. Just pleased to see you.” He threw his arms wide and laughed. “Pleased to see all of you.”
Deirdre glanced over and he caught her gaze. Held it. A blush stole up her cheeks, and he was reminded of her flushed cheeks last night before she fell asleep.
“Da, you’re up!” Ewan yelled and ran around the table to reach him. Gavin caught his son under his arms and threw him high into the air. The world was a bright, beautiful place when you weren’t weighed down by grief, fury, and fatigue.
He tucked Ewan against his side and faced his family, his smile wide and filled with joy. “Have you all met my son—again?”
A cheer went up, and the men gathered around to pull him into bear hug after bear hug, with much backslapping and ribbing.
He looked over at Deirdre again and saw she was smiling at them, her eyes awash with emotion. He couldn’t take his gaze off her.
The lads and Gregor sat back down at the table. He followed them. “Shove down,” he said to Darach, wanting to sit next to Deirdre.
Darach didn’t move. “Say please, ye wee ablach.”
“Shove down please, ye wee ablach.”
Deirdre got a pinched look on her face, like she wanted to reprimand him, but Darach grinned and slid around the corner. He took his trencher of food with him, bumping Callum farther down the bench. Gavin sat next to Deirdre, close enough that he could rest the length of his leg against hers. Ewan was still in his arms and he leaned across to kiss his mother on the cheek, who kissed him back.
Gavin wanted to do the same thing and was contemplating precisely where he would kiss her when Kerr said, “Gavin, I assume you’ve thought long and hard about what to do since our discussion last night. Do you have a plan?”
He glanced at Kerr, who stared back at him from the end of the table, his eyes narrowed. “Aye. It may take a while to implement, but I have one.”
“A plan for what?” Isobel asked. Deirdre looked at him curiously too.
“A plan to keep Deirdre here, of course.” He slipped an arm around her shoulder, deciding that kiss could come later when they were alone, and pulled her even closer. “Has Kerr told you all that Deirdre is Ewan’s mother and she will be living here from now on?”
“Of course I did,” Kerr said. “And that she’s my cousin as well. In case anyone forgot about that.” He looked sternly at Gavin. “Anyone.”
Gavin grinned. “Did he also tell you that she’s an angel? She saved Ewan and she saved me. And she’s staying here from now on.”
“Aye, lad. You just said that,” Gregor said. “No one’s arguing with you. We’ll support whatever the two of you decide to do, as long as no innocents are hurt. But keep in mind it may not be as simple as you think.”
“It is simple. Deirdre stays here.”
“What is this big plan you’re all talking about?” Isobel huffed in exasperation. “And doona tell me it’s just about keeping Deirdre here because…ohhhhhh.” The frustration cleared from her face, and she looked from Gavin to Deirdre, then back again.
Deirdre’s brow puckered. “Because…what? What am I missing?”
Isobel’s cheeks flushed pink, and Gavin sighed inwardly. Why couldn’t Kerr have waited to speak to him until they were alone? He and Deirdre needed more time together. More time to talk and laugh together. More hand-holding and stolen kisses. He needed time to make her fall in love with him.
And now it looked like Isobel was going to spill the beans about Gavin’s plans to marry her.
“I canna believe I’ve been here for almost a quarter hour, and no one has said anything about me sleeping past noon.” That should change the subject right quick. He braced himself for an onslaught of jests. When nothing came, he raised a brow at them all.
“Da, you missed breakfast and the midday meal!” Ewan thought this was very funny. “You must be so hungry!”
“Aye, so hungry I’ll have to eat your meal.” He reached toward Ewan’s trencher, filled with food the lad had barely touched, grabbed a bannock, and pretended to eat it.
> Ewan laughingly fought Gavin for it, who conveniently lost the fight just as one of the servers came by with a full trencher for his laird. Ewan hopped down with his food and ran back to his original spot between Gregor and Kerr.
“So that’s it? My son is the only one with an opinion on the matter?”
“What matter?” Lachlan asked. “If you mean that you slept late, well, I think everyone here is happy about it. If it turns you into an agreeable idiot rather than a miserable bastard, crushing the spirits of nymphs and fairies everywhere, you can bloody well sleep late every day.”
“What fairies?” Ewan asked, his smile drooping. “Da stomped on the wee folk?”
“Nay, Ewan,” Lachlan continued without missing a beat. “These were big fairies, bigger than any giant I’ve ever seen. And they had fangs.” He put his fingers to his mouth and made a scary face, then jumped his hand across the table to Ewan, who screamed and then laughed when Lachlan tickled him.
“Giant fairies with fangs?” Ewan asked. “I fighted a giant yesterday when I was on Horsey.”
“You fought a giant yesterday?” Deirdre asked, correcting Ewan’s grammar in the nicest possible way.
“Aye! But then…but then…it turned into a giant Fairy Giant and tried to bite Horsey.”
Kerr made a disgruntled sound. “That bloody horse pony.”
“What’s a horse pony?” Callum asked.
“Not a horse pony. A pony named Horsey. You’re going to be a father soon,” Gavin said. “You have to learn these things.”
Callum pulled a piece of parchment from his sporran and pretended to write on it. “A pony named Horsey. Got it.”
“But then…” Ewan continued.
“There’s more?” Darach asked.
“Aye. Horsey turned into a dragon. Just like Mama.”
Everyone at the table burst into laughter, including Deirdre.
“What did the dragon do next?” Deirdre asked.
Ewan looked at her, then at Gavin, then back to her. “She married my da.”
Fifteen
Deirdre sat beside Isobel on the hay bale near the stables and watched Ewan running around with a long twig for a sword, pretending he was fighting the giant Fairy Giant with fangs. If he had nightmares tonight, Deirdre was waking up Lachlan to sit with him.
Her cheeks still felt hot from the multitude of embarrassing moments she’d experienced during the meal with Gavin’s family, culminating in Ewan’s comment about Deirdre the Dragon marrying his da. She’d wanted to become the mythical dragon right then, spreading her wings and flying far, far away.
Everyone had fallen silent and then Gavin had pulled her even closer, kissed the top of her head, and said, “I doona think a dragon can marry a human. ’Twill work better if your da is a dragon too, so the two dragons can fly together and have lots more dragon bairns.”
To which Ewan had said, “Oh,” then had a bite of his bannock.
Beside her on the hay bale, Isobel sighed. “I can see you’re still thinking about it. Your cheeks keep turning red, then white, then red again. Truthfully, ’tis verra pretty. Reminds me of my favorite pastry cook makes during Yuletide, with all the dried red berries in it. I may have to eat you.”
Deirdre huffed out a laugh and lightly smacked her friend with the back of her hand. “Might I remind you that I’m the dragon here? If there’s any eating going on, it’ll be me gulping you down in one bite.”
“I’m afraid I doona taste good. Verra bland.” She pressed her blond hair against her skin. “See? All the same color.”
Deirdre snorted. “Doona make me laugh. I’m not done wallowing in my mortification.”
“You have naught to be mortified about. ’Twas Ewan who said it, not you. And I thought Gavin handled it quite well with talk of making him a dragon too.”
“And having dragon bairns!” she added, her cheeks flushing all over again.
Isobel linked their arms together and squeezed. “Isn’t that something you’d like? To have another one? I know I’ve been thinking about bairns more and more since Ewan returned.”
Deirdre paused, closing her eyes for a moment to calm the grief, frustration, and desire that had exploded within her at Isobel’s words—and at the pain that accompanied them. “I doona know how that would be possible when my husband isn’t here,” she said carefully.
Isobel glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “But you can have bairn? I wondered because I know you’ve been married for many years.”
“I doona know for sure. Only God can truly know,” she said evasively, hating that her cheeks had flushed again.
“Well…I just think it’s unfair that the woman is always to blame when it comes to being barren. Why canna it be him instead? Look at your father-in-law. How many wives has he had over the years as he tried for another son?”
“Four wives and two children, including Lewis. And for all we know, the children may not be his. I know Lewis is nothing like him, and I’ve heard his sister is a sweet girl. And Laird MacIntyre’s wives have not fared well.”
“Aye, I’ve heard he’s a cruel man. You were lucky not to have much to do with him.”
She nodded, hoping Isobel would drop the subject, but her friend had more to say.
“It would be good to be intimate with a man again, though, wouldnae it? I mean, the way I hear it from the maids and from some of the warriors—conversations they certainly didn’t know I was privy to—lovemaking can be highly pleasurable. If it wasn’t, we wouldnae end up having bairn.”
“I suppose so,” Deirdre agreed.
“You suppose so? You doona know? Well…maybe Lewis wasn’t very good at it, then. I heard Kerr and Gavin talking once about Cristel. They were discussing…you know. Gavin was upset, otherwise I’m sure he wouldnae have been so indiscreet, and he said Cristel did not want to participate in the marital act.”
Deirdre gasped and her eyes flew to Isobel’s. “Why not? How could she not have liked it? He’s so strong, he can just lift you up and put you down anywhere, and he’s big all over, yet his hands were so gentle, and then they weren’t, and—”
She stopped abruptly at the crafty smile on Isobel’s face, and she realized what she’d said. And just how much she’d given away.
“I knew it,” Isobel said. “You and Gavin.”
“There is no me and Gavin. ’Twas one time, that’s all, and we didn’t do what you think we did.”
“Well, what did you do, then?”
“I canna tell you!”
“Aye, you can.”
Deirdre faced front, crossed her arms over her chest, and set her mouth mulishly. Ewan ran past them, still swinging his twig.
As soon as he was far enough away, Isobel said, “I doona doubt he had his hands all over you.” She looked at Deirdre’s chest. “Does it feel better because they’re bigger?”
“I doona know,” she said, exasperated, dropping her arms so her breasts weren’t pushed up and out so much. “I have naught to compare it to. Why doona you ask Kerr to touch you and discover how it feels? I’ve seen how you look at him when you think no one’s watching. He’s a big, braw man. I’m sure you’ve thought about how his body would feel on top of yours. Or with your legs wrapped around his waist as he pushes you against a wall.” Her voice grew weak at the end as she described what Gavin had done to her, but Isobel was too busy blushing this time to notice.
“Deirdre!”
“What? You started this conversation.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because neither of us will be finding out anytime soon. At least you have Ewan.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve chosen Ewan over your husband, so you willna be able to have any more children or to experience the pleasure of coupling with a man unless you choose to do so outside of wedlock. And the only man I can
choose is Kerr, because every other man is afraid to even glance my way and anger him. And I doona want to marry Kerr. So I’ll also ne’er know a man’s touch and end up childless.”
Deirdre’s heart sank. She hadn’t thought of Kerr’s interest in Isobel that way, but it was true—Isobel wouldn’t be allowed to choose another, despite her mother’s dying wish.
She grasped her friend’s hands. “You have my support in this, Isobel. I will speak to my cousin and to Gavin about it. ’Tis your choice, and yours alone. You willna be forced to marry Kerr for any reason… But I am curious, why doona you want to marry him? He’s strong, smart, protective, and braw. He’ll treat you well, and he’s verra amusing. And he’d be a wonderful father.” Her brow furrowed in bemusement. “When you’re together, ’tis like someone puts a candle to kindling and the flames blaze.”
Isobel sighed noisily. “Because.”
“That’s no answer.”
She ticked off on her fingers. “He’s annoying, he deliberately baits me, he likes to tell me what to do, he doesn’t listen to what I say, he’s here too often, he chases off any man that might be interested in me, he scares me sometimes, he—”
“He scares you?”
“When he goes quiet. Usually, he’s nattering in my ear or being noisy and boisterous like he is with Ewan. But then something might happen—something serious—and suddenly he’s like a poised snake ready to strike. It’s scary. You should have seen him when Gavin took you to meet Lewis. One minute we’re having a lovely time with Ewan at the beach, the next, his focus is pinpointed on one thing—Gavin and what he’s doing. I swear, if my brother hadn’t come back with you, Kerr might have killed him.”
Deirdre’s eyes widened with shock. “I doona believe it. Besides, they did fight, and Kerr told me Gavin broke his nose.”
Isobel huffed. “Well, it would have come close. My point is—”
“You have a point?”
“My point is that it’s not fair that men can tup outside of wedlock but women canna. Did you even think twice about Lewis having a bastard when he brought Ewan home to you?”
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