Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) (27 page)

Almost… almost…

Lael nearly had the box in hand. She stretched her arm as far as it would go, and then her fingers, willing them to grow.

“Sweet Mother of Winter,” she whispered.

The room was darker now, full of shadows—likely full of ghouls and
brollachans
as well. Her fingers swept through webs that stubbornly stuck to her flesh and she tried in vain to brush them away beneath the bed. She cursed softly beneath her breath, but at least her head was somewhat less muddled from the mead.

The box was naught but a black spot in the far corner, but she knew it was there even if she could scarce see it anymore. It almost certainly had to have been placed here by a child—someone small enough to fit beneath the old warped bed—perhaps even Lìli’s son?

She knew Lìli had once been mistress here and this room beside the laird’s chamber would have been ideal for a small child—modest but nearby a mother’s ear with barred windows to protect him from a fall—not to mention the bed itself was scarce big enough to comfortably fit a grown woman. After Stuart MacLaren died, it was fairly certain Rogan would have displaced Lìli from the laird’s chamber and she may have ended here in this room herself. But that thought gave her a horrid little quiver, for she hadn’t considered the possibility that Lìli too had borne the oppression of this bower prison.

The bed rails pressed her down, and her bottom prevented her from going any further. Her ivory dress blackened with dirt from the floor as she tried to shimmy further beneath the bed to little avail. She’d already attempted to move the bed. It was small enough, but for some reason it was nailed to the floor, as though someone had intended to keep it precisely where it stood.

At last, she felt the wooden box at the tip of her fingers, but the door to her room flew open wide and she spent a terrifying instant beneath the bed, wondering who it could be.

The room behind her remained silent as a crypt.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Relieved by the sound of Jaime’s voice, Lael’s ire nevertheless returned.

She didn’t
want
to tell him what she was doing! In fact, she refused. Whatever it was that lay inside that box she wanted to be the first one to see it—alone. Why she couldn’t precisely fathom, but there was little left that she could call her own. This must be her little secret. And anyway, what if there were something in that box she could use to help her escape—a key to some forgotten door? If there was one hidden portal at Keppenach, there could well be another.

Much to her dismay, she didn’t want to think of
him
as
Jaime
either—nor in truth feel relieved to hear his voice.

She waited a moment to answer, irritated by her thoughts. “I’m hiding from my
butcher
husband!” she snapped. “What else d’ ye think?”

That spurred him into motion. He marched across the room, hurling words from his mouth that she did not readily comprehend, and then he placed his hands about her ankles and began to drag her out from under the bed.

“Ye midden-fingered clod-headed nippit! Ye canna lay your hands upon me without my leave!” Lael shouted, struggling in vain to keep her place beneath the bed. Cobwebs clutched at her nose as he tugged her out and then without much effort tossed her over his shoulder like a piteous sack of meal.

“If you behave like a child, tis precisely the way I’ll treat you,” he said.

Lael shrieked in outrage as he bore her out of the room and into the laird’s chamber, and if in fact the laird’s bower hadn’t made her catch her breath, she would have continued shrieking until she made his ears bleed. Or at least she liked to think she would. With a huff of disgust, she wiped the offending webs away from her face as he kicked the door closed and bore her over to the bed, tossing her within it without ceremony.

“As my wife and mistress of this keep, you will sleep
here
.” He pointed to the bed and then turned away from her, and Lael would have leapt for the door, except that she didn’t feel threatened by him. Surprise over that fact and curiosity kept her planted squarely upon the bed.

The laird’s chamber was like naught she had ever seen.

The bed itself was a massive thing, draped with pale green silks. The bath was here again—she cast a glance at her husband, thinking he must surely suffer an obsession with cleanliness for she had never seen so much soap in all her years.

The brazier was lit, filling the room with toasty air that made her at once forget the winter cold. And the window… she had never spied such a thing as this, with lovely painted glass.

Scowling, her husband ignored her as he yanked off his tunic, dragging it over his head. And if Lael had been momentarily lulled by the beauty of the room, the room was forgotten now at the sight of her husband’s bared flesh. The firelight cast shadows over his body as he unlaced his trews and shrugged out of them in silence. He was completely unashamed, standing nearly bared to his bones, and Lael held her breath as she watched him stride across the room, the sculpted muscles in his buttocks flexing as he went. He took a flagon of what she supposed was mead from the table and poured a bit into one of two cups. Without a word, he gulped it down, tossing his head back to quaff the contents of the cup and Lael drank in the sight of him, despite that he was her enemy.

Nay, my husband.

He was, in truth, the most beautiful male she had ever known in all her life. His hair in this light was burnished copper, his flesh dark and his shoulders wide and thickly muscled. Although she had seen more than a hundred men unclothed on the shores of the loch, she instinctively turned her gaze when he revealed his manly parts.

“Will ye rape me now?” she asked, her tone filled with as much censure as she could manage through the unexpected thickness in her throat.

He had yet to even look at her, but answered, “Nay.”

Lael couldn’t quite discern whether his response relieved or aggrieved her. “Why not?”

He flicked her a glance, then filled his tankard once more, but this time he filled hers as well—at least she assumed it was hers.

He didn’t respond to her question at once and it was only then she noticed the soft, clean shift beneath her upon the bed. Intended for her, she supposed. Another nicety, perhaps, although she didn’t want to believe the gesture was his. Perhaps Ailis, Kenna or Mairi had brought it here for her.

Besides, he didn’t seem the least interested in her right now.

“So then… are ye one of those men who favors other men?”

Jaime flicked her a glance, but didn’t allow his gaze to linger, lest she test his resolve. “Nay,” he replied, certain as he was that she was goading him. She didn’t seem to ken aught else to do with him… although given the opportunity he would certainly show her a thing or two.

“Ach, the ye must find me hideous?”

Bracing himself for the sight of her lying upon his bed, he lifted her cup and turned, crossing the room to hand it to her, meeting her gaze directly as he answered, “Nay.”

“Can ye say aught more than nay?” she asked peevishly.

Jaime considered answering in kind, but instead confessed, “In truth, I have never met a more beautiful lass.”

Silence permeated the room.

She took the cup from Jaime’s hands and held it there before her, her brows colliding fiercely. “Why will ye no’ rape me then?”

Jaime could scarce credit the conversation. He arched a brow at her. “Are ye asking me to do so?”

Her tone was full of impertinence, but barely any rancor. “Ach, ye dolt! If I were asking, it wadna be rape, now would it?”

Jaime offered her a bedeviled glance. “I have
never
forced a woman once and I will
not
begin now.”

She peered down at her cup, but didn’t drink. “I see… so then ye think to ply me with drink so I will simply babble at the ceiling like a bampot while ye spread my thighs?”

Jaime winced. “God’s truth, I couldn’t conceive a more distasteful thought,” he confessed.

Her frown deepened and she seemed to reconsider him a moment, as though he were a puzzle to be deciphered. “But your king commanded ye to get me with child,” she saw fit to remind him. “How will ye do so if ye dinna rape me?”

She was perfectly serious, Jaime realized. There was no sign of guile in her inquisitive green eyes, and he realized in that instant that whatever else his wife might be, she was not a liar. In fact he had never met a man or a woman with so much candor. He honored her frankness with his own. “Some commands are unfit to keep.”

“Such as taking a keep that doesna belong to ye and shedding blood of innocents?”

Jaime drank down his
uisge
. Damned if he wasn’t beginning to develop a taste for the heady drink. He’d saved what was left of David’s gift to share with Lael, because David said her folk enjoyed the libation. But she had yet to realize what it was, and he wasn’t inclined to tell her. As with everything else, she should discover it for herself. Her lips had not yet touched the rim of her cup. She was staring at him as though she had never seen a man unclothed before, and the realization pleased him immensely.

Savoring the lingering burn at the back of his throat, he stood enjoying the feel of the heat trickling into his veins… not all due to the drink, he realized. Some was due his lovely wife. But if she didn’t change the subject immediately from the topic of rape, and turn her gaze away, she would very quickly discern what it was he thought about bedding her. His cock stirred merely at the notion of enjoying her sweet body. “It was not I who stormed Keppenach in the dead of night,” he reminded her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “But you would have. And you would have butchered everyone in your path—tis what is said of ye, I know.”

His blood turned cold at her depiction. If there was aught she could have said to spoil the moment it was
that
. He answered her with silence, and if his cock could have shriveled to nothing it would have.

At least there was no longer any danger of him betraying his oath, and for that he must be grateful. He took one last sip of the
uisge
, hoping to sedate himself to get him through the night because there was only one thing he could imagine worse than laying beside a woman he did not want; it was laying next to a woman he could not have.

She had yet to drink and he bloody well wished she would. And for the space of an instant he wished to god he were a different man, because if there was one time in all his life that he wished he could put his cock in a woman’s mouth simply to shut her up, that time was now. He turned his back to her as she opened her mouth to speak.

“So … if ye dinna get me with child, will ye still keep your word and set me free?”

Jaime tensed over the thought, but his answer would be the same regardless. “A man’s word is all he has,” he told her as he slammed his cup upon the table. “The price of breaking even once is the trust of his men.”

He heard her choke—probably on her whisky—and then at long last, she fell silent. Hoping that she had enough answers to put her gently to rest, he blew out the candles, one by one, stoked the brazier one last time, then made his way to the bed, his mood lifting only after he spied her face.

She had no guile—no guile at all.

Rather than be annoyed by the fact that she bolted across the bed as he neared it, Jaime hid a knowing smile.

Still cradling her cup, Lael leapt off the bed at her husband’s approach.

She had yet to drink, but now she gulped down the entirety of her cup, grateful to find it wasn’t mead.

In the meantime, her husband plucked up the delicate shift and tossed it to her side of the bed, then slid beneath the covers and turned his back to her. His bare shoulders were caressed by golden light, and his dark hair burnished a deep copper. It fell upon his pillow like a lion’s mane, rich and rufous in this light. After but a moment, his breathing eased and she thought mayhap he had fallen asleep.

So easily?

Scarce able to believe it, she made her way to the table near the door, and still he didn’t move—not to stop her, nor to ask where she was going.

The door remained closed, though not locked. She could easily open it and leave, but her prison room was cold and barren, and it didn’t appear as though she was in danger of being abused by her peculiar husband.

She set the cup down gently upon the table and turned to find his eyes were closed, and she stood, transfixed, staring at the man in the bed.

My bed.

My husband.

With his face in a relaxed pose, she could barely spy the fine white line of his jagged scar above his brow. His skin was swarthy, not pale—much like her brother’s. In fact, there was much about him that brought to mind the traits of her kinsmen. Some said they were akin to Vikings, but they were not. Aye, there were some who’d wed with Northmen, who’d lent their fine, pale hair and blue eyes to their lineage, but by far the most prevalent traits were the dark hair, bright green eyes and tawny skin.

Her husband’s eyes were not blue, but the color of steel. No matter that they were closed now she could never shut out the intensity of his gaze.

He never stirred.

To her utter amazement he
had
fallen asleep.

And despite that it was their first night, he hadn’t laid a single finger on her, nor had he locked the door to prevent her escape, still she found she didn’t wish to go—not to sleep in that cold room next door.

Giving the door, one last glance, she cautiously moved toward the other side of the bed and took her shift in hand, inspecting it. It was hardly usual for her to wear such a garment to bed, lovely though it was. But he had thought to give her the means to hide her nakedness from him if she so pleased. That was
not
something her brain comprehended, given all she knew of the man, but she was beginning to wonder how much of it was true. He slept as peacefully as a babe.

Nevertheless, she didn’t plan to undress here in front of him and have him leap from the bed, pretending to be asleep only to catch her in such a vulnerable state. Nay, she would sleep fully dressed tonight. Tossing the shift aside, she climbed into the bed, lamenting Aveline’s ruined wedding dress. And then it nettled her, in truth.