His Judas Bride (34 page)

When this, Arland,
was what she’d always wanted, what did she need to stare after the retreating back of some man who—fleetingly the thought of his biting closeness echoed in her blood, making her feel very hot all of a sudden, standing there in the bitter cold. Some man who called him Shortshanks.

She lifted her head and was astonished by the forlorn understanding that filled her. Of course he did. Of course he would. It was his way when threatened to behave in a wholly impertinent manner. She had seen it before.

Men respected him. Women admired him. And all the time he hid the astonishing fact of how terrified he was of caring. It didn’t matter how it stunned her to disbelieve it. What if he thought, now she had gotten back Arland, she’d no further use of him? That she had seduced him only to get her son? A man of his reputation would be a safe bet, and she had never told him the truth of that night when she seduced him.

There was another consideration, she thought, staring at the proud tilt of his head, as he ambled there among his men. What if he didn’t want to feel second best? Any more than she did with Morven?

She grasped Arland’s hand.

And yet, dear God, what was she thinking about? She had a position to maintain as the new queen of the McGurkies. And as such she could not allow it to be on everyone’s lips in both glens tomorrow, how she chased the Black Wolf of Lochalpin down the glen, dragging the son she’d seduced him to get. Particularly not when he had made it blindingly obvious to everyone present he didn’t want her. What if he truly found who she was too hard to take? Her too hard to take? It would not be surprising would it?

“Kara?”

How was it that Meg’s eyes always seemed to witness everything? And now there she stood, witnessing this, the awful distress that held Kara rigid.

“Is there something wrong?”

While she tried to prevent it a tiny moan escaped her. “No. I really, it’s…it’s nothing. Thank you. I just…”

“Oh, give me him. Right now.”

Her heart nearly stopped as Meg’s hand shot out and grasped Arland’s wrist.

“Arland, you come with me. Come right this minute with Auntie Meg. There’s a wee lass here dying to meet you.”

Kara’s grip intensified. “You don’t understand. It’s not him. It’s…me.”

Because it was, wasn’t it? Really and truly. How could she come up this rise thinking it was all right that he didn’t find out how she’d thought herself betrayed on the Isle of the Saints?

What had she done here too? Standing like an iced statue. He deserved so much better.

Maybe after all, some barricades were made not to be broken. Ever. And maybe it was better to let him go. Maybe she’d come to Lochalpin in pursuit of her son, but only a fool could fail to see who she really needed to find here wasn’t Arland. It was herself.

“I understand you’ll not get another chance with that one. Once he’s gone, he’s gone. I can’t make you. It’s up to you of course. But if it were me, I’d not be letting him. Arland, come. Give your mother a moment. Now, Fallon swears mind you, so don’t you be letting her teach you anything bad.”

Dazed and shaking, Kara stood clenching and unclenching her empty fist.

If she did this, then the battle she must fight was with herself. If she knew anything at all, it was that he wouldn’t have risked everything to bring back her son, if he didn’t love her.

If she didn’t, if she let him go and she went back to her people, it would be safer. Barricades were what she understood. The hand-fasting would be just rumors. He would be safer somehow. Safer from her. From having, in all likelihood, to defend her reputation. From all her nonsense.

The thought stole in that Calm McDunnagh didn’t just echo in her blood, wasn’t just in her blood, he was her blood.

Was she going to let that go, when one step, one step was all it took? She steeled herself to step forward, something deep inside her seeming to crack. One step. Then another. She forced her lips apart.

“Serenne—you see, Serenne’s a lot like me, sir.”

It had been a very long time since she had spoken quite like that. Bold. Uncaring about the way everyone stared, from Kertyn to Ewen McDunnagh, with their mouths wide open. But although it was a shock to her, at least the Wolf froze, so it was a shock she didn’t mind experiencing.

“A most terrible liar. Yes. You see, the thing is we all did it. So you shouldn’t believe a word—certain words anyway—we say.”

He tilted his head in that way she’d come to love, and she felt her throat hot with tears.

“Sometimes it was the only way to survive. By lying.”

He turned his head and lowered his eyelids. But no more. Oh God, instead of being carried away by her confession, instead of making things easier for her, he insisted on standing looking vaguely discomfited.

She was not going to have to announce before the whole glen she seduced him, was she?

“But that night…
that
night…” Heavens. Was she that desperate for him to turn around and face her, though, her feet now seemed to spring the distance between them? Yes, because she didn’t like the way he stiffened. “I wasn’t lying.”

If ever she had cause to doubt his speedy ability to pounce, this wasn’t it. Why did he just stand with his head bent like that? As if what he meant was unmistakable, for her to go away again.

“I wanted to be with you. Yes. I did. Truly. And then—”

“Hell, can you please just stop a minute? What night are you meaning?”

Kara refused to sink to the ground, although the thought was very tempting.

“Sir, I am sure you know perfectly well”—if only her voice were not so faint, but her throat had dried so there was no hope of making it stronger—“what night I am referring to. But in case there is doubt, it was the first one, all right? When I may have seemed to have acted in a way that was rash. When I may have acted in a way you might possibly have construed as being a lie. Not knowing my own true feelings…those of my heart…”

Adding
her soul
might be a little strong, although she understood—another test—she wasn’t going to add these words if the way he strode forward and took her by the elbow was anything to go by. This test wasn’t going quite as well as she’d hoped.

He huffed out a breath. “Do you think this is the place to do this?”

Test three was trying to keep her feet on the ground as he propelled her across spaces made lumpy by frozen bracken clumps.

“My wife.”

One didn’t want people looking but they were anyway, very much as if she were an idiot who needed to be locked in a darkened room for her own safety and everyone else’s.

Satan’s back came into view, and although she had a horrible prescience that this time she wasn’t going on it, she prayed she was.

“I told you, didn’t I, dearest? So how about you don’t do this with all these people watching?”

Her heart darkened, a shadow falling across it. She managed to tug her arm free, although she was not the least bit certain it helped in the matter of keeping her voice even, her breath from tearing. “
If
I’m your wife, which I am.”

What were they to her after all? This man was who she wanted. Even if he did stand glaring down at her like this, as if he considered this a huge nuisance.

“Hell. Not another tiresome discussion about dues. Because if it is, dues are difficult. We’ve been through this. Not ten minutes ago. So how about you remember you’re going to have to lead your people when this is done?”

“No, you don’t understand—”

“Listen to me, Kara.”

She honestly did not know what was worse. The irritation that roiled off him in waves or that he should touch her face like this. His gaze caressed, if only for a second. For old times’ sake, what else could it be? But worse. As if she were a child in need of comforting.

“I know all this is new to you. I know you’re frightened. And I know you think you have things to explain. But you don’t. You did what you had to do. But now, if you don’t mind, I do have a divorce to arrange.”

“I did it to get my boy. That’s what you think, isn’t it? The Black Wolf of Lochalpin. Big man that he is. Can’t let himself be seen to be taken in by a woman. So he thinks he can’t possibly be in her blood. In her heart. That heaven forbid, she might want him, in her bed, in her life,
because she does
.”

The intense way he stared said she went to places angels wouldn’t darken. Yet she could not forget he had wanted her. He did want her. Even through her pounding disappointment, the song that sung in her veins, was all of that and that only. And she wanted him. And it wasn’t just lust, that feeling she had striven so hard to fight, thinking empires could not be destroyed by this. It was him. Every bit of him.

So why, when she tried so hard to find herself here, to find him—yes, even to the extent of making a god-awful fool of herself, when her eyes smarted—why did he glower like that and set his jaw?

“Just you keep telling yourself that, Princess. Over and over. Because even if these good people there weren’t your destiny—which they are by the way—”

“My destiny? I wasn’t their destiny all the years I rotted in that cell.”

“Would you like to tell me how you see this working? Go on. You and me.”

“Sir, if you’re meaning my father—”

Now his jaw didn’t just set, his lips firmed. He let go of her face. “Hang it all, isn’t that just something else? Your father is the least of it. That
other
night. Not the one you’re talking about. Do you think I’m in any way proud of that?”

“But you…you were only pretending. You came back for me. You said you just wanted to be with me.”

Her throat clenched. Oh God, he set his boot in the stirrup now and pulled himself up, sliding his long leg over Satan’s back.

“Before I knew exactly who you were.”

No. No.

Just wait.

She would wait. Because if she didn’t, then she had learned nothing, nor would she ever.

He’d just gone somewhere she didn’t know how to get him back from. But she would. She must.

If it was so hard for her to shed her shell, why should it be any easier for him, when their shells were so thick as to be armor-plated?

They were like warriors, and underneath they slugged it out against themselves.

“Before I knew everything you must have been through. I’m sorry, Kara. I can’t do it. Not wondering how you could possibly be in my bed at all. And I don’t want you thinking you owe me for your son.”

Despite her determination not to be that woman again, the one who found it impossible to trust, what surged and filled her veins made it impossible for her to argue.

* * *

Of course, he could. He could do it. Who was he kidding? Callm tied Satan up in the big cave at the far end of the beach, where the men kept the horses. Her action had thrown him completely when a second before that, she hadn’t been able to look at him and he’d wished and wished, standing there, inhaling her provocative, soft essence, that she would. Just once.

The hardest thing he’d done in his life was to stick his foot in the stirrup and then pull himself up into the saddle. But, when it came to feet, he still sweated to think how badly he’d stuck his in places he should never have trodden.

He needed to believe the try was nice. That she only pretended to feel something for him. That when she stepped back from it all, she’d see the last thing either of them honestly needed was her misguidedly thinking she needed him, because he’d brought back her son.

Cursing beneath his breath, he scrunched across the deserted shingle, Dug following at his heels.

Believing it was taking a bit of doing though, wasn’t it? When Morven died, the fear of being hurt ever again consumed him. But love was taking that risk, taking it every day, even if you knew you might be facing an empty life without that person. It wasn’t about worrying you’d look stupid because you might crumble, if that happened. About covering yourself in such armor you became this other person.

He thought that as he scrambled back into the cave, because, like the beach the place was empty. Horribly so. And so was he. He may have learned that much. The pity was he’d not damn well learned it sooner. Then he wouldn’t have acted in that unforgivable way. What a damn fool he was. Ruthless? Too much so for words.

Actually, he didn’t even know why the hell he’d come back here. She was right about this place. It was awful. There wouldn’t be the same need for him or his men now. Tomorrow he’d go home. He just couldn’t face it tonight. Not knowing she might still be there.

* * *

Kara squeezed around, taking care not to graze herself against the rough stone wall. Below her the water lapped quietly. He was usually more alert than this, but she supposed now there was peace, there wasn’t the same need to be on guard—his men certainly weren’t, singing and dancing back at Meg’s as well as outside, on the beach itself. Not one of them had seen her slip in here.

Big Murdie may have helped her by distracting them, but it wasn’t all down to him. She could be very quiet when she chose to.

Slowly she let out her breath and narrowed her eyes to accustom them to the gloom. She picked the Wolf out on the bed. He was sprawled there, still fully dressed, flicking through a pile of papers, watching the last five years of his life going up in the nearby flames in all probability. A little idly. A little as if it didn’t matter now, one way or the other, what came next.

The firelight bronzed the muddy-blond streaks in his hair, and her heart skipped the tiniest fraction of a beat. Even as she stood here, her instincts screamed he might again deny her. Perfectly reasonable fear tightened every muscle. Even her fingers ached from clenching her hands. She wished they would not. It was, she fully admitted, a terrible thing to love a man like this. Which was why she could not countenance losing this.

Surely, here where they had shared so much though, he would be more inclined to listen? Already she had determined, in coming here, not to take no for an answer, although she could see, the mistake this might prove.