Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) (26 page)

Aila lowered her knife and hoped neither lady would remark
on her lack of appetite. But even the thought of eating turned her stomach.
She’d scarcely managed to finish a meal since the night she had conceived
Connor’s child.

“Aila.” Connor’s low growl in her ear quivered through her
senses. It took everything she possessed not to turn toward him. “What are you
attempting to accomplish by starving yourself?”

She looked at him then. She couldn’t help herself. He had
noticed?

“I’m simply not hungry.” She kept her voice as low as his,
as unwilling as he appeared to be for the older ladies to eavesdrop on their
conversation.

His stormy eyes ensnared her. Despite how desperately she
wished otherwise.

“You’re thinner than you were in Ce.”

He had noticed that too? For a moment words failed her. And
then her pride rescued her, as it had so often rescued her in the past.

“Indeed? Or perhaps you have merely tired of your new wife
already.” Her heart squeezed at the notion, but he would never know. Let him
think she did not care one way or the other how soon his lust for her cooled.

His lips were by her ear. She struggled, without success, to
hide the tremor of awareness that licked over her sensitized flesh.

“Rest assured, my lady wife, I have not tired of you yet.
Nor do I anticipate doing so for quite some time.”

Not forever, then. She turned her head very slightly so she
could look into his eyes and yet still feel his breath against her face.
Tragic
.

“Then in that, at least, we are in accord.” Her voice
sounded chilly. “I have yet to tire of you also.”

His breath hissed against her, dangerously erotic. Awareness
skated over her, along her throat, across her breasts, and her nipples
hardened, aching for his familiar touch.

“Aye, lady.” It was a rumbled caress that ignited her blood.
“Your ice melts when I part your thighs.”

Goddess.
The thought tumbled into her mind unbidden,
as the vision of Connor parting her thighs flooded her senses. Damp desire
licked through her pussy and trickled over her tender folds.

“Such wifely duty is not unduly onerous.” Her whisper was
scarcely audible, but she knew he heard. And he was the only one who needed to
hear.

His lips grazed her cheek. A fleeting caress that branded
her his.

“When I fuck you, duty is the last thing on your mind.” The
low words hammered into her, raw and primeval. She barely prevented herself
from squirming as arousal throbbed through her swollen clitoris.

He drew back, but only far enough so he could look into her
eyes. She knew she couldn’t hide how much she wanted him and didn’t even try.
Perverse power flooded through her when his own eyes darkened with lust, when
his breath caught in his throat, when he reached out and captured her hand in a
hard, possessive grasp.

Without care for etiquette, he stood and pulled her to her
feet.

“I beg your leave,” he said to the older ladies, not
releasing his grip on Aila’s hand. “My wife and I have matters to discuss.”

Aila barely heard the ladies’ responses. All she was aware
of was the feel of Connor’s fingers threaded through hers. The way he looked at
her as though he wanted to devour her. The urgency as he ushered her from the
chamber toward the staircase.

He palmed her bottom as she climbed the stairs and Aila
leaned into the curved wall, fearful she would lose her balance and tumble to
her death. And then his strong arm encircled her waist and his solid body
melded against her back and thighs, his hand molding her breast, teasing her
nipple.

At their chambers he kicked open the door without
relinquishing his hold on her. Floradh, mending a gown by candle and firelight
in the bedchamber, leaped to her feet.

“Leave us.” Connor’s command brooked no argument and Floradh
scooped up the kitten and hobbled from the chambers, casting Aila a troubled
glance before she closed the door behind her.

Connor finally released her and she turned to face him, not
even attempting to regulate her uneven breath. Why should she? He attempted no
such thing.

“Remove your gown.” The order was harsh.

How dare he speak to her in such a manner? She, a princess
of Ce, when he was nothing but a commoner?

“Or what?” Her words were low, taunting, no matter how she
chided herself to remain silent. “You will rip it from my body? Ruin another of
my gowns?”

“Aye.” As he spoke he tossed his length of plaid over his
shoulder, his eyes never leaving hers. “If that’s the only way to strip you for
my pleasure.”

She gasped at his arrogance, but twisted desire curled
around her clitoris and quivered through her wet sheath.

“You would have me dress in rags?” Why was she encouraging
him? All she had to do was discard her gown, open her arms and pretend they
were back in Ce. There was no place in this life for the entrancing flirting
they had enjoyed that night.

He bared his teeth in a parody of the smile that had once
captivated her foolish heart. “Madam, I can well afford to ensure you have a
dozen new gowns for every one I…ruin.”

Without thinking, she began to tug furiously at the ties of
her bodice. “So you would clothe me in the way of your Scots ladies, would
you?”

His leather belt skidded across the floor. “No.” He began to
unwind the plaid around his waist. “Your ladies would continue to clothe you in
the manner of a Pictish princess.”

Glaring at him, she pulled her gown over her shoulders. “At
least sewing gowns will keep me occupied during my endless days of
incarceration.”

He froze, as though her taunt had struck a nerve. She
couldn’t imagine why. What did he think she would do with herself for hours on
end? She might not be especially talented with a needle but it would surely be
better than enforced idleness.

With one last shove, her gown dropped to her feet. Connor’s
gaze licked over her, as hot as branding irons, as his plaid also dropped to
the floor.

“Come here.” He appeared determined to exert his rights as a
husband this night. But she’d be damned if she’d behave like an obedient wife.
She remained where she was.

“Remove your shirt.”

The firelight distorted his features, because it appeared he
smiled at her demand. A genuine smile, one that reminded her so forcefully of
those he had given her in Ce that a dull ache gripped her chest.

“As you wish.” His deep voice sank into her, threatening to
vanquish the fragile shields she had tried so hard to erect around her heart.
She clenched her teeth. She couldn’t let her guard down. She had to remember
what his people—his kin— had done.

His shirt landed on the edge of the bed and her breath
rushed from her in a soundless sigh. His black hair tumbled around his powerful
shoulders and in the flickering light his burnished skin and taut muscles
glowed with an unearthly beauty.

Inevitably her gaze dropped to his magnificent cock and as
her mouth dried and reason scattered, wet heat throbbed between her thighs.

“Aila.” His rough voice wrapped around her senses as his
strong arms wrapped around her shoulders. It would be so easy to rest her head
on his shoulder, wind her arms around his waist and let the ache in her soul
spill free.

Instead she pressed her hands against his chest and levered
him toward the bed. He laughed and sorrow stabbed through her. She longed to
laugh with him. To laugh and then weep and allow him to reassure her that
everything would be all right.

He didn’t protest as she shoved him back onto the furs.
Instead he lay there, one knee raised, hands clasped behind his head, grinning
as if—she could not quite fathom why he grinned at her so. But within the last
few moments, his attitude had changed, so drastically she could scarcely
comprehend why.

She didn’t need to understand. Didn’t want to. Because when
he behaved like this, she found it all but impossible to remember the reasons
why she could not simply offer him her heart.

Feverishly she climbed onto the bed, straddled his waist,
plunged her fingers through his hair. Shadows obscured the color of his eyes
but they were dark with lust.

“Do you enjoy having a fearless warrior at your mercy, my
lady?”

Words trembled on her tongue. She pressed her lips together,
kept them forever locked inside. She could love him with her body and he could
imagine all they shared was mutual lust. But if she allowed him to glimpse that
she loved him with all her heart and soul—her pride would wither. And her pride
was all she had to keep herself from drowning.

She slid down his hard body until the head of his cock
nudged her swollen pussy lips. He groaned, thrust his hips toward her, his gaze
locked with hers.

“Your methods of torture slay me.”

Why did he keep speaking to her? She did not want him to
speak. It reminded her of how easily she had offered him her trust. And how
brutally that trust in his people had been betrayed.

She tilted her hips and teased her clitoris against his
cock. Back and forth, her fingers gripping his shoulders for balance. His
guttural moan of sensual pleasure quivered through her and slowly she lowered
herself onto him.

He filled her tender flesh so wholly and completely. She
expanded around him, accepting and worshipping his unyielding invasion, and a
strangled sigh escaped when his hands cupped her breasts.

They were sensitive and yet she loved him to cradle her
breasts and rub his thumbs over her hard nipples. She tightened her muscles
around him and his grip became painful.

“Sorry, my love.” His erotic whisper threaded through her
mind and she realized she had winced. He had noticed and drew her toward him
and dragged his tongue over her ripe nipples.

She closed her eyes and relished the sensation of his mouth
suckling her. His teeth grazing her. His cock inside her.

Need spiraled. She increased the tempo of her thrusts and he
released her breast to allow her unhindered leverage. Tonight she would have
him. Tonight he would take her as he had taken her that night in Ce. When want
and need and desire had claimed him so completely she had known all he had
thought of was her.

Her fingernails gouged his flesh. Their hot, erratic breaths
mingled. Their gazes meshed. The world narrowed until all that existed was
Connor MacKenzie, this bed, this moment in time.
Tonight
.

Desire shattered and a choked cry tore from her throat as
convulsions rippled through her core. Beyond the frenzied beat of her heart,
she felt Connor’s hands grip her hips, wrench her from him, toss her aside.

And pump his seed into his crumpled shirt.

Gasping, she wrapped her arms around her waist as a chill
invaded where only seconds before an inferno had raged. Remnants of desire, of
untamed orgasm, thudded through her blood but tainting all else the sting of
rejection scorched her heart.

Connor had no compunction about bedding her. But he had no
desire to father her child. Why else would he pull from her at the moment of
his release? And not just once. Every time since they had wed.

Even in Ce he had been mindful of conception, concerned that
he had come inside her. In her ignorance she’d assumed he worried for her
reputation. But it had been nothing of the kind. He had simply not wanted her
to conceive.

As Connor sat on the edge of the bed she curled into herself
and dragged the sheet around her chilled body. He had no idea she already
carried his child. But at least now she knew what to expect when he eventually
discovered the truth.

The only child he wanted was the one he had fathered with
Fearchara. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed through her mouth so he
wouldn’t hear her silent tears.

He pulled back the furs, slid beneath the linen and curved
his body against her back. His lips nuzzled her behind her ear and his hand
languidly caressed her breast. Her hip. Then rested possessively over her
belly.

Over his child.

She could not bear it. Flinging back the sheet, she
dislodged his embrace and left the bed.

“Aila.” He propped himself up on his elbow and she could
hear the frown in his voice as she frantically pulled on her gown. “What’s the
matter? Is something wrong?”

“No.” Her voice was muffled. She hoped he hadn’t noticed. “I
need the garderobe.”

“But the chamber pot—”

“I would rather not.”

Blessed silence. She dared glance over her shoulder, but
Connor hadn’t lain back in the bed. Hadn’t dismissed her and fallen into
oblivion. Instead he remained upright and in the firelight his frown was
pronounced.

“Are you ill?” He sounded tense.

“No.” Perhaps she would be ill. Her stomach churned enough.
But she certainly wouldn’t reveal that to Connor. “I simply—prefer privacy.”

Incredibly his tension vanished.

“Don’t be long.” He even grinned at her. “I’ll keep the bed
warm for your return.”

Aila stirred, sighed and then realization rushed through her
like the northerly wind on a winter’s night in Fidach. Why was she in the bed?

Last night she had huddled in the freezing garderobe,
attempting to quell the foolish tears and hopeless thoughts that continued to
haunt her. Eventually, praying Connor had long since fallen asleep, she’d gone
back to the bedchamber and curled up with a fur on one of the chairs.

It had reminded her, bleakly, of her wedding night with
Fergus.

Gingerly she opened one eye, but Connor wasn’t beside her.
She remembered now. At the time she had thought it nothing more than a
fragmented dream.

But he really had scooped her up in his arms. Put her back
to bed. And not attempted to seduce her.

She covered her eyes with her arm. She still wore the gown
she had pulled on in the night. And now it was time to face another day. Face
the man whose babe she carried, the man who could not have made it clearer to
her that the thought of her bearing his child was abhorrent to him.

* * * * *

Later that afternoon Connor discovered Aila and her ladies
with his mother and Nighean in his mother’s private chamber. They were
embroidering and the sight of Aila with a needle and a pained expression on her
lovely face twisted his guts.

But she would have no further need of sewing. Not unless she
wanted to. And Aila, he knew, possessed talents that lay elsewhere.

“Ladies.” He entered the chamber and wondered if he would
ever get used to how Aila was always surrounded by her ladies. It had not been
so in Ce. He often wished they had never had to leave Ce. “I have need of my
wife.”

When nine pairs of eyes pinned him to the spot, he realized
how his words might be interpreted. And the look on Aila’s face suggested the
thought did not thrill her.

But just as any dutiful wife might, she didn’t question him.
She simply stood, placed her embroidery on her stool and excused herself.

He stared in disbelief when her ladies followed suit.

“My lady has no need for your services,” he said hastily,
which only served to earn him another look from all present. Christ, could he
be any more gauche if he tried? He glanced at Aila but she refused to meet his
eyes and so he merely allowed her to precede him before closing the door behind
him.

He heaved a sigh of relief. Relief that evaporated when he
glanced at Aila. She was staring along the stone corridor as if he wasn’t even
there.

“I want to show you something.” His voice was harsh when he
had wanted to be gentle. But he couldn’t be gentle with her when he wanted to
grab her shoulders and shout at her. Shake her even. Fuck, he’d do anything to
get a reaction out of her. To understand what he had done last night that had
caused her to once again retreat within her shell.

He’d thought finally she was thawing. She’d answered him
back, taunted him and then taken him with such mind-blowing intensity he had
almost come inside her.

Then she had disappeared to the garderobe. And stayed there
so long he’d become alarmed and had gone to see if she was all right.

But he didn’t get the chance to ask her. He had heard the
stifled sobs, the muffled sniffles, the heartrending agony of a woman who
wanted no one to hear how she suffered.

So he had gone back to bed. And faced the bleak fact that,
no matter how eager Aila was in the marriage bed, she still didn’t trust him
enough to open her heart.

In silence he led her toward his private chambers. He’d
spent the morning clearing out and rearranging the antechamber, but now the
moment had arrived to show Aila, he realized the odd sensation in the pit of
his stomach was nerves.

He glowered at the door as she waited with entire
indifference by his side. She clearly had no interest in why he’d summoned her
from her needlework or taken her to a part of the dwelling where no woman had
any reason to be.

Over the last nine years, he had faced down Viking,
Northumbrian and Pictish warriors. But none of them had managed to cause him
such trepidation as the anticipated reaction of this one fragile female when he
opened this damned door.

With a silent curse, he pushed it open and indicated for her
to precede him. A part of him knew he was setting himself up for yet more
heartache. But even if she turned up her nose, even if she merely inclined her
head with regal thanks, he wouldn’t regret it.

And there was always the chance that this would finally
break through her icy reserve.

He heard her sharp gasp as she stepped into the small
chamber. He glanced at his handiwork, hoped he hadn’t inadvertently damaged
anything. But he’d wanted to leave her in no doubt that, while in Dunbrae, she
could consider this her own private domain.

Almost private.

“My illuminations.” She sounded stunned. Then she looked at
him and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “You have unpacked my
illuminations.”

“Aye.” It came out as a growl. He wasn’t sure what to do
with his hands so he folded his arms across his chest. “This chamber is for
your use while we remain in Dunbrae. I thought you would prefer spending your
time working on your people’s history rather than embroidering gowns.”

Her bottom lip trembled and she hastily turned from him,
walking toward the table he had dragged to the small window. She fingered the
various implements he had placed on it as if reassuring herself they were real.

“Why?” Her voice was low, choked, and he stared at her,
unsure how to respond. He hadn’t expected her to ask why.

“Because…” He hesitated, unable to find the words to tell
her that he had done this because he wanted to see her smile again. Wanted to
prove to her not all Scots were treacherous bastards. That, in truth, he would
do anything for her.

He couldn’t tell her. He didn’t know how.

“Because I thought it would please you.”

“Oh.” A small word. Filled with tears. He shifted
uncomfortably and wrestled the need to go to her, to embrace her. It was
obvious she didn’t want him to do any such thing.

After all, it was not night. They were not in their
bedchamber. Yet the urge to comfort her gnawed through his soul.

As the silence lengthened and she didn’t move, he chanced
taking a couple of steps toward her. “Does it please you?”

She straightened her shoulders and turned to him, holding a
length of vellum in one hand. “Yes. Thank you, Connor. You don’t know how much
this means to me.”

He did now. But she would never know how much her calling
him Connor meant to him. Since their marriage, she had avoided calling him by
his first name, unless she also affixed his second.

“I know you were,” he swallowed, struggled to continue,
“forced into this union, Aila. But the last thing I want is for you to be
unhappy.” His king had murdered her father. How could she not be unhappy?

But that wasn’t what he meant. Yet how could explain what he
meant?

Her gaze dropped and fixed upon her vellum. “Do you…,” She
hesitated and he watched her bite her lip. Then she appeared to reach a
decision and looked at him. “Do you truly believe in this alliance between our
people?”

Despite everything that had happened, he did still believe.
He couldn’t see how Aila could, but he wouldn’t lie to her.

“Aye.” He saw her pain, her loss, in her beautiful eyes, but
she didn’t look away. Didn’t condemn him for his answer. “We need a strong
alliance if we want to defeat the Vikings. But I would never have wished this
on you or your people. There had to have been another way.”

His words were tantamount to treason. But his faith in his
king was shaken and Aila was his wife. And he had promised himself she deserved
an apology, even if an apology could ultimately do nothing.

Yet until this moment, the words had always paralyzed his
throat. He took another step toward her, cradled her hands. “I’m sorry. You
were right. I only discovered the truth afterward. Your people were betrayed by
mine.”

She didn’t move. For an endless moment he stared into her
eyes but had the eeriest sensation she couldn’t see him at all. Then she
shuddered, but didn’t pull away from him.

“You admit…your king betrayed mine?” She sounded as though
she could not quite believe his confession. That she’d expected him to take
such knowledge with him to the grave.

“Aye.” Did he dare confess his traitorous thought? “I don’t
know what I could have done if I’d been in Dunadd, Aila, but hell. I would’ve
tried to stop the massacre somehow.”

“What?” The word was barely audible. And even though she
hadn’t moved, he felt her retreat within herself.

“It was your brother, Prince Talargan, who insisted we
return that night. He felt something was—amiss.” In truth, Talargan had
insisted they continue onward to Dunadd because he was convinced his sister was
in danger. And, shit tactics or not, that had been the deciding factor in
Connor’s decision to back Talargan’s demand.

“Talargan?” She sounded confused.

“There was nothing we could do, Aila. It was over by the
time we returned. Your brother was taken hostage, but…” Hell, why stop now? He
had already told her enough to get himself hanged should MacAlpin ever hear of
his words. “None of us who had fought by his side in Northumbria assisted.”

She looked at him as though he spoke the barbaric tongue of
the Norsemen. Except, since she was Aila, he wouldn’t be surprised if she could
understand that language as well as she could his own.

He took her hand and pulled her toward the door to his inner
sanctum. “When we arrive in Duncadha, you’ll have your own chamber for your
illuminations.” He couldn’t promise her she could work in the monastery. The
monks would likely refuse to even consider the thought of a woman, even a
princess, doing such sacred work within their hallowed halls. “But while we’re
here I fear you’ll have to suffer my presence in the adjoining chamber.”

It would be no hardship for him. And to hell with those who
would be scandalized by the fact he’d installed his wife in his antechamber. A
foreign wife who instead of spending her days with her needle spent them with vellum
and paints.

A Dal Riadan wife had no business entering her husband’s
inner sanctum. But Aila was no ordinary wife. And there was something he wanted
her to see. Something that would, perhaps, prove to her he was worthy of her
hand despite his lack of royal blood.

He’d show her Thorstein Olafsson’s broadsword. Tell her how
he had beaten the Viking four years ago and claimed the warrior’s most prized
possession. She would appreciate that. She would be sure to know how
inextricably a Viking’s pride and sword were entwined.

He would omit the fact that, in that fleeting second when
the Viking had stumbled and Connor had claimed his sword, mutual respect had
flared between them. Connor knew, as well as Olafsson, that if the battle
hadn’t ended at that precise moment they would have continued their fight until
one of them had slain the other.

But the battle had ended. The battle that he survived yet
had claimed the lives of his and Ewan’s fathers.

He pushed open the door.

Aila followed, her fingers clasped in Connor’s, her gaze
fixed on his face but she was no longer in this antechamber. She was back in
the bedchamber at Dunadd when the image of Connor had soothed her agitated
soul.

In the hall that night, she had struggled against the
compunction to open the main doors. If she had, would she have witnessed
Connor’s return? Known, from the start, he had not been in the hill fort when
the massacre had occurred?

She could ignore the implications. Close her mind to the
truth and her eyes to the inevitable. But that time had passed.

She had tried to turn her back on her heritage. Bury the old
ways when they had no longer suited her purpose. But Bride had never left her.
Bride had not forsaken her.

When she had needed proof, Bride had spoken. And Aila had
ignored her.

As she had ignored her for so many years.

She had blamed Connor, irrationally, for not preventing the
murder of her father. He might have been coerced into this marriage. He might
not want her to bear his child. But he had not compromised his honor nor tarnished
his integrity by failing to save her kin.

Connor was a Scot, but she would no longer condemn his blood
for the actions of his barbarous king.

Bittersweet relief flooded her senses and she tightened her
grip on his fingers as he led her into the chamber. He might not love her, but
now she knew the full truth of that bloodied night she allowed herself to
accept he cared.

It was obvious in the way he’d protected her from the
jeering at their wedding feast. His consideration in setting the leisurely pace
of their journey from Dunadd to Dunbrae. His thoughtfulness in rescuing her
from attending yet another feast after arriving at his home.

The way he had given her his own antechamber so she could
continue with her beloved illuminations.

Tenderly she pressed her knuckles against her belly. In time
surely he would come to love their child. Now she could love him, without
hating herself for loving her enemy, she would do everything in her power to
rekindle the relationship they had barely begun in Ce.

He was speaking to her, but the words flowed over her,
inconsequential. Tonight, after she had made love to him the way she had made
love to him before he knew who she was, she would tell him of their babe.

Bride would not have brought her so far to have Connor fail
them now.

Connor turned to her, still speaking, and she smiled up at
him. For a moment he faltered. “Is that an agreement?” He sounded unsure.

“Agreement to what?” She would agree to anything. The
knowledge made her smile even more.