Seducing a Scottish Bride (14 page)

Gelis felt her lips quirk.

“You needn’t glower so,” she said, allowing the quirk to flash into her brightest smile.

If anything, his mien darkened.

“I am not wroth with you. Even if I am not accustomed to discovering my evening repast has been tossed out the window.” She
gave a light shrug, willing her smile to blaze. “Truth be told, I am quite content.”

The Raven humphed.

“That, sweet lass, I find hard to believe.” He looked at her, his brows arcing. “ ’Tis impossible for you to be at ease. Here,
in this place” — he planted his fists on his hips — “and with me.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Nae, especially with you,” she declared, her breath catching.

Her heart leaped, some wild devil inside her making her close the distance between them and poke a finger into his proud,
plaid-draped chest.

“Truth is, I welcome challenges,” she announced, jabbing her finger harder on each word. “I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter
if I didn’t. So-o-o” — she lifted a fold of his tartan, ran her thumb over its soft warmth — “I’ll start by asking where you
were going?”

“There are
challenges
here that would daunt even your redoubtable sire.” He narrowed his eyes at her, deftly ignoring her question. “Were the window
shutters bolted or opened when Anice brought you up here?”

“They were flung wide, the wet wind gusting into the room.”

“And you shut them?”

“I did.”

From the door, his dog shifted and resettled his bulk with a grunt.

The Raven shot him an irritated look. “The shutters,” he continued when the beast stopped his scuffling, “did you notice anything
unusual when you closed them?”

“You mean besides the whirling mist, denser than any I’ve ever seen, and my smashed feasting goods spread across the cobbles?”

“I mean . . .
anything
.”

“Perhaps the staves of what appeared to be a broken bathing tub?”

“The bathing tub as well?” His brows lowered. “You are certain?”

Rather than answer him, Gelis lifted her chin and fixed him with her best so-you’ d-doubt-me stare. A look that she’d learned
at her father’s knee and that would have made a man of lesser mettle tremble in his boots.

The Raven remained unperturbed.

“You have peat ash on your face,” he said, reaching to brush his thumb across her cheek.

A grave mistake, for as soon as he touched her, her attar of roses scent wafted up to befuddle him. He swallowed hard, tried
not to breathe until he’d wiped away the smudge.

But the scent was too seductive.

He bit back a groan, the heady fragrance thrusting him right back into his dreams until he could feel her melting against
him, lush, warm, and pliant. As if they still kissed, he could feel her lips parting beneath his and the hot silken glide
of her tongue over and around his.

The scorching heat that had whipped through him, burning away his defenses until all that mattered was the wild frenzy of
their passion.

As in the dream, he could hear the soft lapping of the wavelets on the shingled strand and feel the afternoon breeze lifting
his hair. The sweet warmth of spring sunshine, and a blaze of desire such as he’d never known.

Not even with his long-dead first wife, Matilda.

Horrified, he jerked his hand from Gelis’s cheek and wheeled away from her. His gaze fell at once on the great four-poster
bed across the room, his anguish complete when he spied the piles of his folded clothes mounded on the bed’s luxuriant furred
coverings.

His grand black cloak and his opened, half-packed leather travel bag.

Rose attar perfume and lusty dreams forgotten, he spun back around, not at all surprised to find his bride standing with her
hands braced against her hips, her amber eyes alight with challenge.

“Your money purse and wine skin are there.” She flicked a hand toward the shadows behind the door.

Glancing that way, he saw more of his gear gathered in a neat little pile. His hauberk had been laid carefully over a chair,
the mail shirt’s silvery links gleaming softly in the candlelight, while his extra sword and sword belt rested on the floor,
half-hidden in deeper shadow.

He refused to goggle.

And under no circumstance would he acknowledge the cold, hard knot beginning to pulse between his shoulders.

He did clench his hands.

With the exception of the wispy more-an-annoyance-than-a-threat mist wraiths that were wont to slither across window ledges
and sometimes probe into the great hall, slinking along the tops of the trestle tables, none of the unholiness associated
with Maldred the Dire’s curse had ever dared to actually penetrate Castle Dare’s walls.

Until now, he owned, the certainty of it tightening his chest.

“Those clothes and gear are my travel goods.” He looked at her, some foolishly optimistic corner of his soul hoping she’d
put his suspicions to rest, proving him wrong. “They were locked in my strongbox, my extra sword hidden beneath the bed.”

“So Anice said when we found them strewn about the room.” She held his gaze, her words taking his hope. “She also said that
only you have a key to your strongbox.”

A truth that made the matter all the more damning.

Not about to tell her so, he folded his arms. “And if I do?”

“Then you were in here before I came abovestairs,” she informed him, sliding a glance at Buckie, who now occupied the entire
threshold.

The dog’s fluting snores indicated he slept, but a single eye, cracked no more than a sliver, followed Ronan’s every move.
One somewhat tatty-looking ear was lifted as well, craftily poised to catch every word.

Ronan’s mouth twisted.

Gelis was watching him just as carefully, and he didn’t doubt her ears were equally sharp.

“So you do not deny it?” She narrowed her eyes. “You were in here.”

Ronan made a dismissive gesture, not trusting himself to speak.

He
had
been in the room earlier.

But only long enough to ensure that all her comforts were met. A fire laid, the bedding freshened, and his carefully planned
feast- for-one spread upon the table.

An insult he’d hoped would see her riding away with her father at the morrow’s first light.

A fool plan he now regretted, wishing he could simply tell her the whole fell truth. But even voicing such darkness could
be dangerous, his thoughts too easily led down paths he didn’t dare to tread.

“Well?” She raised a single red-gold brow. “At least admit that you were packing for a journey.”

“Have a care . . .” He let the warning trail off, knowing it was too late.

The j-word had been spoken.

And Buckie had heard, as a glance at the door proved. Already, the old dog’s other eye had popped open and his tail was thumping
against the floor.

Ronan ignored him.

Lady Gelis flashed the beast a smile.

“Do not encourage him.” Ronan frowned. It wouldn’t do for Buckie to become attached to her. Or look forward to excursions
he could no longer enjoy. “His hips are bad, so his days of adventure are over. His legs don’t always support him and he falls.
Buckie ne’er leaves the keep.”

“Indeed?” She gave him a look that could’ve been interpreted as implying that Buckie’s plight was his fault and had nothing
to do with the beast’s wobbly back legs.

Fighting the ridiculous urge to defend himself, Ronan wondered how everything had slid out of his control. He’d come abovestairs
to see what had happened, possibly to defend Lady Gelis against whoe’er or whate’er had ravaged the bedchamber. Instead, he’d
found her tending the hearth fire and the room already put to rights.

Worse, she asked questions he didn’t care to answer and shot him looks that made him feel like a gangling, beardless laddie
who’d just been caught with his hand down a kitchen lassie’s bodice.

As if she knew it, she smiled at him.

Not a warm, adoring kind of smile as she’d given Buckie, but a
smug
one.

“Talking about your dog and that-which-you-don’ t-wish-mentioned-in-his-presence doesn’t change that I know you were preparing
for one.” Her words explained the smugness.

Walking briskly to the bed, she picked up one of his folded tunics and placed it with a touch too much care in his opened
travel bag.

“Eilean Creag is a busy place,” she mused, reaching for another tunic. “There are comings and goings through all seasons.
Some men wish my father’s advice or to trade with him, while others plead aid or offer an alliance. The stream of visitors
never ends.”

She dropped the second tunic into the leather bag. “Do not think I am some light-minded creature unable to recognize a man’s
I-daren’ t-say-the-word kind of gear. Or” — she looked at him meaningfully — “when someone is in haste and must rush away
before a task is completed.”

Ronan’s brows snapped together. “A MacRuari ne’er leaves any task unfinished. Nor do we run from aught.”

He stepped closer to the bed — to her — a flash of pride whipping through him.

Glen Dare and his family might be blighted and cursed, but he loved both fiercely.

Nor was it for naught that each newly born MacRuari babe was fed a spoonful of clan earth as his first nourishment. As Torcaill
had sung earlier, during the feasting, the tradition sealed the child’s lifelong bond to his home glen.

Such as it was.

It remained theirs.

And there wasn’t a MacRuari living, dead, or yet to be born who’d deny its pull. From the clan’s dimmest beginnings, their
ties to Glen Dare were unbreakable; their love of the dark woods, bog and moor, and the steep, mist-hung hills, deep and abiding.

Sacred.

As was their honor, something that seemed to weigh more heavily on him the longer he dallied in his new bride’s fetching,
rose-scented presence.

He shut his eyes, drew a tight breath.

Then, knowing he shouldn’t, but unable not to, he seized her by the shoulders. “Hear me, lass, and I will tell you of Glen
Dare’s MacRuaris.”

“Ooh, aye?” Her voice was a purr, soft and honeyed. “Mayhap there are things I could tell you!”

Ronan blanked his emotions, more than sure that she could tell him things.

Certain, as well, that he did not wish to hear them.

He let his gaze bore into hers, willing her to understand. “Anything a MacRuari does is done with deliberation and purpose,
and always for the good of the clan.” He tightened his grip on her, hoping to strengthen the truth of his words. “You err
if you believe otherwise.”

“Say you?” Her eyes sparked. “We both know there isn’t a Highland chieftain in all these hills who wouldn’t claim the same.
I am more keen to hear why it is MacRuari custom for their men to shun their brides.”

“Nae, that is no’ the way of —” Ronan broke off, guilt sweeping him.

He was shunning her, albeit for her own good.

“ ’Tis true I stayed away of a purpose this e’en,” he admitted, frustration and remorse crowding him, making him speak as
true as he deemed wise.

“Even so” — he strove for his most persuasive tone — “I had naught to do with the shambles you found upon entering this chamber.”

Naught save having wished her gone.

A departure he’d still greet with gladness.

But a regret that made him release her as quickly as if she’d turned into a writhing, two- headed viper, eager to sink venomous
fangs into him.

He choked back a bark of bitter laughter.

He
was the carrier of poison.

He paused.

The room’s increasing cold circled up his legs and higher, snaking ever tighter around his chest until he could scarce breathe.

“I suspect,” he began, using a strength born of long practice, “that your arrival has stirred whate’er of Maldred’s malignancy
yet lingers.”

Lady Gelis waved an airy hand.

“ ’Tis common knowledge there’s a touch of darkness in every clan and glen in all broad Scotland,” she returned, leaning close
again. “The sweetest glade gives way to the blackest peat bogs and some of our bonniest lochs are said to be the haunts of
the most ferocious water horses and bulls.”

She drew a great breath, making her breasts swell. “Even my own fair Kintail is no stranger to ill-wishing and the evil eye!
Many are the tales — would you care to hear some of them?”

Ronan sidestepped her, taking up a stance beside the hearth fire.

“Glen Dare’s darkness is different, my lady.”

She swung in his direction. “Perhaps not when viewed from another angle. My father says Robert Bruce once told him that any
trap can be sprung — any ambush averted — if a man uses his wits and the land to best advantage.”

Ronan’s brows drew together.

She had him there. He wasn’t about to argue with the wisdom of Scotland’s greatest king.

Even so, he’d spoken the truth.

Leastways as much of Dare’s sad truths as he wished to share with her.

Unfortunately, she looked anything but satisfied.

She looked ready to clamp her fist around his heart and squeeze hard until he revealed all his secrets.

Her every curve beckoned and enticed. The sweet tilt of her lips, plump and reddened, begged for kisses. And one of her braids
was coming undone, leaving a welter of rippling, unruly red-gold curls to spill over her breasts, so tantalizingly displayed
above her gown’s deep-dipping bodice.

Ronan’s jaw locked and his hands clenched at his sides.

His deepest self ached for her, filling him with a need that bordered on feral. He swallowed hard, his entire body tense and
his heart thundering. Hot blood roared in his ears, blotting even the fierce howl of the wind.

Ne’er had he seen a more desirable female.

And ne’er had he wanted one less.

Even if the shunning of her would haunt him all his days.

So the lad wanted her.

There could be no denying it.

A dark-cloaked figure standing outside Dare’s walls gave a great, gusty sigh, well pleased he’d lingered long enough to enjoy
the fruits of his labor.