Unwanted (16 page)

“
Intimately
so,” Lindsay persisted.

Rhona
felt the blood drain from her face.
 
Was it that obvious?
 
How could she tell these ladies that she’d never laid eyes on him until the night before?
 
What if they knew she had coin awaiting her on her hearth because of what she’d allowed him to do to her body?
 

In truth, she’d done the same to him.
 
And enjoyed every illicit, wicked act.
 

Rhona
found she wasn’t ashamed of the lust that she and Finn had shared.
 
He’d showed her more tenderness in one night than she’d felt in the entirety of her life.
 
He’d given more pleasure than he’d taken from her.
 
 

And she’d give everything to have him again.
 

Regardless of all that, she needed the trust of these women if she was to survive.
 
She still counted on Evelyn’s hiring her as a nurse.
 

She cleared her throat and focused very intently on the holly sprig in her lap.
 
“Like I said, he brought me the boy to nurse last night.
 
Finn merely… employed me.”

“Oh, aye?”
 
Lindsay’s voice was bright with amusement.
 
“How many times?”

Rhona
stared, horrified as the two MacLauchlan women dissolved into peals of laughter.
 
She hadn’t forgotten that Jamie, the surly Highlander, still lurked somewhere behind her chair and her cheeks burned with a flame hotter than their impressive blaze.
 

“You’re too wicked, Lindsay, you’ve dismayed poor
Rhona
.”
 
Evelyn cast
her an
apologetic glance.

“Do forgive me.”
 
Lindsay wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of her eye.
 
“You’ll find we hold very little sacred here.
 
And don’t let Evelyn’s sweet manner fool you, she’s just as wicked as I.
 
Ask her how long she knew Roderick before she jumped into his bed.”

“I didn’t jump.”
 
Evelyn picked up a bobbin with her free hand and chucked it at her sister-in-law.
 
“You’d have been ravaged just as quickly if you weren’t such a stubborn shrew.”

Their giggles echoed merrily off the stones of the great hall.

Rhona
let her tense shoulders drop and her mouth relax into a self-conscious smile.
 
A pang of envy for the affectionate companionship these women shared pierced her relief.
 
They obviously held no judgment against her and she found herself more than passing curious as to how they became the wives of the two handsome, forbidding MacLauchlan brothers.
 

Iain wriggled and squawked and Evelyn gave him a few conciliatory bounces.
 
His movements became more unsettled and his cries increasingly demanding.
 

Rhona
gasped as her milk rushed forward.
 

“Pardon, but is there anywhere I can go to feed him?”

Evelyn sobered.
 
“Of course.
 
Of course.”
 
She wriggled to the edge of the chaise and
Rhona
rushed to help the woman stand and gathered Iain back into her arms.
 
“Follow me, I’ll show you to your chamber.
 
I’ve been sitting all day and would like to walk a bit.”
 

Rhona
curtsied to Lindsay, who smiled and went back to concentrating on her holly project.
 
She hurried after Evelyn who moved swiftly and efficiently for such a short and pregnant woman.

Jamie followed at a distance, ever watchful of his mistress.
 

“I’m sorry, did you say
my
chamber?”
Rhona
asked as they entered a hallway that stretched toward a spiral staircase.

“Well, you certainly can’t walk back home, it’s trying to storm again.”
 
Evelyn motioned to the cold draft that caused the torch flames to dance.
 
“Unless we’re keeping you from celebrating the Solstice with someone?”

Rhona
thought of her empty, forlorn room at the stable house and shivered.
 
Before Finn arrived, she’d planned on using the last of her wood for a Solstice fire.
 
She’d contemplated slaughtering one of her chickens to roast, but then decided against the luxury.
 
Until the stable master’s rooster decided to fertilize a few of her eggs, she couldn’t risk the loss.
 

Shaking her head at Evelyn, she held Iain closer to her.
 
Where was Finn now?
 
If he truly was a brother to the
MacLauchlans
, did that mean he would stay in
StrathLachlan
?
 
Even if he did, it wouldn’t at all mean that he would want her as a part of his life.
 

Why would he?
 
Berserkers were some kind of preternatural warrior blessed by an ancient Goddess.
 
They married women like Lindsay and
Evelyn,
sparkling jewels alight with laughter and happiness.
 
 
 

 
She followed Evelyn up the winding stairs, choking on her own insecurity.
 

“I’ll have a hot bath drawn for you before the staff is dismissed to take their holiday meal in the great hall.”
 
Evelyn was saying.
 
“It seems they’ll have such a festive night, but we all decided we wanted something a little
more cozy
for our first year together as a family.
 
So you’ll join us in the private dining room.”
 

Though she was behind Evelyn,
Rhona
could hear the smile in the woman’s voice.

“I don’t want to intrude on a family gathering.”

“Nonsense, you can borrow one of my dresses for the feast.
 
I’m afraid they’re all too small for me now.
 
Even this one is beginning to bind.”
 
She tugged at the bodice.
 

Stunned and humbled by her generosity,
Rhona
offered, “I can let them out for you.
 
I’ve some skill with a needle.”

“Bless you!”
 
Evelyn huffed, reaching the top of the stairs.
 
“I’d given up on being able to breathe until after Yuletide when Mrs. McConnell is available.”

Evelyn led her down another warmly-lit hall with dark green runners and thick, high-arching chamber doors.
 
Stopping in front of one, she put her hand on latch and paused, turning back to
Rhona
.
 
Her whisky-colored gaze was gently earnest.

“All levity aside, your Berserker, Finn, did he lie with you last night?”

Rhona
studied a break in the rushes on the floor.
 
“Aye.”

“Pardon my asking, but did he kiss you?
 
On the lips, I mean.”

Why would the woman want to know that?
 
Images of everything they’d done flashed through
Rhona’s
mind.
 
Over the course of the night, Finn had explored every bit of her body.
 
With his hands and his mouth.
 

Except her lips.

She remembered his forehead against hers, their breath tangling in the stormy darkness.
 
She’d wanted him to kiss her then, but he hadn’t.
 

Why not?

“Never matter,” Evelyn chirped with false brightness.
 
“After you’re done with the lad, come and search me out in the hall and we’ll prepare for the feast.”
 
She opened the chamber door and gestured inside.
 
Though
Rhona
didn’t miss the pity in her eyes.

***

Finn leaned back from the table as the staff filled it from trays laden with smoked haddock, spit-roasted rosemary mutton, aromatic bread, honey-glazed and custard-filled pastries, and brandied bread pudding.
 
His stomach rumbled in anticipation and he searched the doorway for any sign of
Rhona
and Iain.

They hadn’t eaten since her mean breakfast, and some primitive instinct within him wanted to feed her from his hand.
 
He yearned to watch her enjoy the luxury of the succulent dishes until her every hunger was satiated.
 
He wanted to fill her gaunt cheeks with robust health and replace the shadows from beneath her eyes with lines born of laughter.
 

Though he’d spent the last few hours learning about his brothers, he needed to see her again.
 

Brothers.
 

Family.
 

He shook his head, still trying to test the tenuous, unfamiliar concept.
 

The
MacLauchlans
were obviously Highlanders first and Berserkers second.
 
Their every thought and concern was for their mates, their clan, and their land.
 
They’d told Finn of a journal in their possession belonging to a northern Berserker ancestor.
 
This man had ridden as general to William the Conqueror and taken the last hill in Ely, finally unifying the Isle of Britain under one rule.
 
The name of the Berserker was unclear due to the age of the book, but Roderick was certain it began with a “B”.
 
When William turned his eye to Scotland, subduing the clans at England’s border by means of terror and slaughter, the Berserker had defected to the Highlands, mating with a MacLauchlan chieftain’s only daughter.
 

Roderick cited many strange and improbable myths contained in the tome.
 
Tales of shape-shifting men and priestesses with untold power.
 
Night-stalking demons,
Fae
acquaintances, and a war to end all wars.
 

Finn should have been listening with rapt attention.
 
This was everything he’d wanted.
 
A history.
 
A bloodline.
 
A fucking identity.
 
But his thoughts kept wandering back to
Rhona
.
 
The desolate look on her face when she’d been led away haunted him.
 
Did she still want to see him?
 
Was there a chance she’d taken the child and gone back home?
 

“They’ll be along,” Connor regarded him from beneath dark brows; sipping the fine stout ale they’d all been nursing over the course of the afternoon.
 
“
’Tis
a woman’s prerogative to keep her man waiting.
 
Ye’ll
learn that in time.
 
They take pointless hours trying to look pleasing to us, so it behooves a man to comment on her efforts, though they
be
unnecessary.”

Roderick drank to that.

The table at which they sat was not long, but square, able to seat two large persons very comfortably on each side.
 
Finn occupied one side, an empty chair to his left.
 
Roderick sat on the side to his right and Connor across from him.
 
A fire flanked the reclining, contented Laird, casting a warm glow over his boulder-wide shoulders.
 

How could he be so relaxed?
 
Finn had discussed with him the probability of the wrath of the mighty Berserker temple wrought against his entire clan.
 
It would be a massacre.
 
An ocean of blood with no depth.