The Fraser Bride (20 page)

Anora held her breath. “Why?”

Meara stopped. “Why do you not tell me?”

A hundred potent memories stormed through her mind. “Because he has naught to do with this matter.”

“Naught to do? Do you forget where your loyalties lie?”

“Nay, I do not. But neither do I trust a stranger to right my troubles.”

“So that’s what he is to you, lass? Naught but a stranger?” The old woman’s eyes were as bright as river pebbles.

Anora nearly squirmed under her gaze, like a small girl caught with her embroidery not done. “We traveled together, nothing more.”

“You allowed a man to travel with you?”

“I had little choice.”

“One always has a choice, lassie, and ‘tis foolish of you to pretend otherwise. Why did you ride with him?”

Anora said nothing.

“Tell me, lass. Was he kind? Is he cunning?”

“He—”

“Are you fond of him?”

“Nay!” Anora hissed. “He is a man.”

The room went silent.

“So you have noticed,” Meara said quietly. “And not only a man, but a MacGowan. Powerful, wealthy, and by the looks of him …” She almost grinned. “Fit and willing to come to your aid. Surely you have considered what this means.”

“Aye.” Something twisted in her stomach. “I considered it. In truth, at first I thought ‘twas the answer to my prayers. I planned to return here with a score of trained warriors at my beck and call. But ‘twas not to be. We became separated from the others, and he …” She scowled, remembering the tremble of his hand after the warrior’s retreat. Had he really worried for her?

“He what, lassie?” Meara’s gaze was as sharp as a well-stropped dirk.

Anora lowered her eyes to where her hand gripped Isobel’s. “He is only one man. Hardly enough to fight the strength of the Munros.”

“Who is speaking of fighting? I only—”

“Nay!” Anora’s heart bumped hard in her chest. “He will not become involved.”

“So you care more for him than for your own, lass?”

“Surely you know me better than that.”

“Do I?”

“Aye,” she whispered. ” ‘Tis not in me to care for a man.”

The room was silent; then, ” ‘Tis good, lassie,” Meara said, her voice a rough whisper in the quiet. “For you know what you must do.”

Every word she’d ever uttered was a lie.

Ramsay sat very still, letting his mind burn while keeping his face absolutely impassive.

She was not named Mary. She was not the lady of Levenlair, and she was not free to marry where she would. She was betrothed! Ramsay stared across the wooden trestle table at the laird of the Munros. Big as a bull, he swallowed a hunk of cold pork, quaffed beer, then wiped his mouth with the back side of an enormous hairy-knuckled hand. Loathing rose in Ramsay’s gut, but he stamped it down. She deserved the hulking clod. And he her.

Munro raised a horn to his thick lips once again. They sat in Evermyst’s great hall, surrounded by a dozen Munro warriors. Beyond them, servants hovered nervously. Only one maid, heavy with child, dared to come close, her mouth open as she watched in slumped awe.

Ramsay lowered his gaze to his drink again. Thus far not a word had been spoken, and he would just as soon it continued that way. He was a peaceable man by nature, with little use for the kind of emotions that made fools of men.

“So, laddie …”

But if that hulking piece of horse shit called him laddie one more time, he’d shove the word down his cavern-sized throat.

“You’ve spent some time with me betrothed, huh?” Beer foam was already stuck to Munro’s beard, but he took another swig and licked his lips. The foam remained with annoying tenacity.

Ramsay said nothing.

“Saved her, did you? Carried her to your keep?”

Christ, his damned jaw was as wide a mule’s ass.

“Or was it one of your brothers who carried her?”

Funny thing, he just didn’t feel like conversing with the jawbone of an ass just now.

“The MacGowan rogues.” The huge man nodded as if unconcerned with his companion’s laconic nature. “I have heard tales of your way with women, and I wonder if they be true.”

Ramsay took a drink from his horn and silently considered its golden contents.

“Damn it!” The table reverberated beneath the Munro’s gargantuan fist.

Ramsay glanced up, careful to look just short of bored.

“I asked you a question, laddie!” The words were growled into a room that had gone absolutely silent.

Behind the Munro, the pregnant woman cackled an eerie laugh.

“Aye. You did that.” Ramsay held his gaze. The man was as big as a tower wall and looked twice as solid, but damned if it wouldn’t feel fine to get off one clean punch. Of course, he would probably die then, which would be something of a drawback.

Munro glared, shifted, glared again, then drew slowly back. “Ahh, but now you got me wondering, lad. Are you so brave that you do not care that you’ve pissed me off?” Reaching casually toward a pewter candleholder, he drew it into his hands, then, tilting it slightly, bent it with slow but steady pressure in two. “Or could it be that you’re so daft, you do not know the consequences?”

Ramsay shifted his gaze from the candlestick to Munro’s face, then shook his head slightly as if attempting to clear it. “Me apologies,” he said. “Me mind wandered. What did you say?”

For a moment Ramsay thought the great bull might charge, and indeed, maybe deep inside his soul, Ramsay hoped he would. But the Munro reared back and laughed, throwing his bellowing glee toward the high, smoky rafters.

‘Twas the perfect opportunity for an undercut to the chin. And so damned tempting.

“I like your grit, laddie. That I do,” Munro said, settling back to stare again. “But you see, the thing is this.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Me future bride has left the escort I provided for her, gotten herself lost, and been brought home, unchaperoned and unwed, by a MacGowan rogue. Now, for meself, I am a tolerant man by nature, and I like you, but I am the Munro of the Munros and I would not have me men thinking poorly of me bride.”

“Poorly?” Ramsay asked, keeping his tone even.

“She seems the regal lady, too good for the likes of any man, huh? But sometimes I wonder, is she saint or is she whore?”

“You’ve narrowed it down to one or the other, have you, Munro?” he asked, and drank again, forcing himself to swallow. After all, ‘twas hardly his place to guard the girl’s reputation. Below the table, he carefully loosened his fist.

The Munro watched him like an eagle on a rat and leaned closer so that he all but whispered his next words. ” ‘Tis said by some that she whored for the laird of Tytherleigh nearly a decade ago.”

Ramsay held himself very still. Though he tried to shut out the memories, he could not forget the sound of her voice as she had told him her story. Could not forget the bottomless sadness in her eyes nor the sight of her restless hands. “A decade,” he said softly. “It seems to me she would have been only a child then, Munro.”

“Aye.” He leaned back a few inches and shrugged. “And all the better broke in early, huh?”

Ramsay took another swig and waited for calm to descend, but he could think of little except how it would feel to drive his fist into the other man’s belly. Maybe he could get in a few good blows before the Munro’s warriors overtook him.

“Have I surprised you, MacGowan? Mayhap you thought me the jealous sort. The kind to avenge her honor.” He laughed again and shook his giant head. “First off, Richard of Tytherleigh died some years ago, the bastard, and second, me old da taught me not to be a fool over a maid, no matter how …” He paused and shifted his gaze toward the stairway and back. “I will share a secret with you, laddie,” he said. ” ‘Tis hardly the thought of that wee scrawny thing in me bed that brings me here.” He drank and scowled. “She’s likely to break like a twig beneath me weight.”

One clean blow to his nose—that was all Ramsay asked.

“So you wonder. What stirs the Munro’s blood?”

Ramsay watched him for a prolonged moment, then glanced at the warriors who occupied the table not far away. “I would say the fellow in the green tam. The one with the bonny eyes.”

The Munro jerked, then curled a lip at the jest. “You have a clever tongue, laddie. I’d hate to cut it out.”

Ramsay raised his horn in silent agreement.

“Why, I wonder, are you in such a rush to die?” Munro mused, and sat back again, cradling his drinking horn against his barrel-like chest.

“In truth, I am in no great hurry.”

“Nay?”

“No more than the average man.”

“But ‘twas not the average man who escorted me betrothed back to her homeland. ‘Twas you,” Munro said, stabbing a blunt finger toward Ramsay’s chest. “And were you an average man, I might think you had fallen under her spell.”

Ramsay’s stomach cramped.

“There are such men,” Munro continued. “Those who grow weak at the sight of a wench. Addled at the touch of her wee fingers.” He placed a broad and filthy hand almost reverently against his chest, reminding Ramsay of seeing Anora’s hand just so not many minutes before. He scowled.

“But not you,” Ramsay said. “You are unaffected.”

“Me?” Munro barked a laugh and wrenched his hand into a fist. “Do I look like a milksop lassie to you, MacGowan?”

A dozen possible answers swooped through Ramsay’s mind. Some were quite clever; all of them were likely to get him killed. He peered into his brew. “I can honestly say, Munro, you do not look like any lassie I’ve ever seen.” It was debatable, in fact, whether he was actually human.

” ‘Tis true,” growled Munro. “Though I profess to cherish the lass, I am not so foolish as to let meself become enamored. Still, if I thought you hoped to win her hand, I’d take you apart piece by scrawny piece.”

“Then you can rest easy.” Though Ramsay raised his mug to his lips, he was unable to swallow. “The maid’s hand holds no interest for me.”

The Munro lunged from his chair, snatching Ramsay’s tunic just below his cat-eyed brooch. “What the devil do you mean by that?”

Ramsay glanced up, and though his nostrils flared and his oh-so-tolerant disposition threatened to burn a hole clean through his chest, he remained unmoving. “It only means that I have no interest in the lass at all.”

“Damn you!” Munro snarled, and shoved against Ramsay’s chest so that he threatened to topple over backward. ” ‘Tis the Myst you’ve got your eye on, then.”

Ramsay attempted to locate some sort of logic in the other’s words, but try as he might, he could find none.

“Tell me, MacGowan, did your sire send you here? And what of your brothers and clansmen? Might they be hidden in the forest roundabout? Is that why you be so smug?”

Ramsay’s mind spun.

“Well, you needn’t be so sure, me young cockerel, for I’ll tell you now: Evermyst has never been taken, and won’t be by the likes of you.”

Finally Munro’s logic dawned on Ramsay. ” ‘Tis the castle you covet.”

Munro scowled. “What else?”

The image of Anora’s firelit figure shone in Ramsay’s memory. Her hair was gilded, her eyes alight, and through the gossamer fabric of her night rail he could see every heavenly curve of her body. “You jest,” he said, momentarily forgetting himself, but he could see no sign of humor in the Munro’s low-browed expression. Indeed, he watched Ramsay as if trying to read his very thoughts.

“Could it be that you
are
enamored with her? A MacGowan!” he said, as if the idea was ludicrous.

Was he joking? Was he insane? It was impossible to guess.

“I’ve no wish to insult your lady,” Ramsay said, his tone carefully casual.

“Speak your mind before I stick you to the wall for sport,” Munro growled.

Ramsay practiced his Latin. Unus, duo, tres … “The old woman seemed to think that unwise,” Ramsay said, finding his patience.

“I am no more concerned with the crone than with the shade,” Munro grunted, but even as he said it his eyes shifted toward the stairs.

“Shade?” Ramsay asked, but Munro ignored him.

“Answer me question, MacGowan, for I fear I am losing me wondrous good humor.”

“And the question again …”

“Are you enamored with her?” he growled.

“In truth,” Ramsay held the Minotaur’s gaze with his own, “I, too, favor more robust women.”

Munro’s palm slammed against the table top. “Evermyst is mine!”

It seemed there was no way to make this man happy.

“Mayhap I escorted the lady simply because she needed me assistance,” Ramsay suggested.

“So you do not care that from this very stronghold, you can see for ten leagues in every direction. All but impenetrable it is, but you have no interest in Evermyst. Is that it, laddie?”

“You plan to take the maid’s home for your fortress?”

” ‘Tis
not
hers!” Munro snarled. ” ‘Tis mine! Won for me by me sire.”

“Old Ironfist,” Ramsay mused, and a dozen half-forgotten stories rose in his memories.

“Aye.” Munro drank again. “Strong as a stallion, he was. ‘Twas more than once that he tossed me into the moat, arse and armor and all.”

“Aye.” Ramsay nodded, remembering the tales. ” ‘Tis clear he was a fine father to you.”

Munro narrowed his eyes. “He was a bastard by all accounts, but he knew the play of war.” His horn was apparently empty, for he lifted it imperiously and the maid scrambled up from behind to refill it. For a moment her hand lingered on his, causing him to glower at her in some surprise until she cowered away. He raised the horn again, sloshing beer over the rim. “Aye, a bastard he was. Yet even he could not take this place—though he thought he had won the day. Came in peace, he did, or so he said. But once inside the gates …” He made a slicing motion across his own throat and drank again. “Just the guards. Not the old laird, of course, though he was a sniveling cur if the truth be told. ‘Twas the old woman who had the grit.” He glanced toward the stairs again and scowled. “She all but spat fire. Railed at him, she did, and with his own dirk tried to cut his throat as she laid curses on him.” He snorted. “Ironfist thought it all foolishness. Threw her and the old laird out in the stable while he claimed their chambers and barred the door behind him.” He glanced covertly about the hall as if searching the shadowy corners. “Still, on the morn he spoke of seeing a wee maid all in white in his room. A maid come to find a real man, he said. And then, as though he’d been stuck through the heart with a pig pole, he fell face forward onto his trencher. ‘Twas the last breath he took. And yet there was not a mark on him, but for the nick on his neck from his own blade.” He scowled. “What have you to say of that, MacGowan?”