Highland Avenger (25 page)
Arianna suddenly realized that Brian was sitting up straight in his seat staring at her in a way that made her a little nervous. It was such an intense look that she found it difficult to recall the rest of what she had planned to say. Her fury was also fading and suddenly so was her courage.
“And ...” Brian demanded.
“And I want ye to give them to me. I want to be with ye, in your bed, in whate’er home ye make for us, and I want ye to try and love me as I love ye. And if ye try to send me away again, I will come right back.”
“Ye are nay going anywhere.”
He moved so fast she had no chance to elude him even if she wanted to. Arianna was astonished at how quickly he got her down on the floor. She was swiftly drowning in the heat of his kiss when she heard a slight tearing noise.
“My gown,” she began.
“I will get ye another.”
Brian did not think he had ever undressed her so fast or shed his own clothing with such speed. He needed to be skin to skin with her so badly he did not care about what ripped or where their clothes landed when he tossed them aside. If he did not have the proof of her kisses and the touch of her hands to tell him that passion had gripped her as tightly as it had him, he would be worried about how rough he was. Instead, he thought only of burying himself deep inside her.
Arianna cried out with joy when Brian joined their bodies with one hard thrust. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, reveling in the ferocity of his passion. Her own desire rose up hot and wild, her need for him a greed she doubted would ever wane. When her release crashed over her, she was faintly aware of shouting out her pleasure and her love. Then she was lost in the pleasure that swept all thought from her head as he joined her in that blissful fall, saying her name against her neck as his body shuddered from the strength of his release.
“So, ye are staying then,” he said once he regained the power of speech.
“Only if ye truly want me to,” she said, praying that she had not mistaken what had just happened, that what they had just shared meant he loved her, too, or was at least very close to loving her.
“I ne’er really wanted ye to leave.” He kissed the hollow at the base of her neck. “I just thought that it was what I should do.”
“But do I stay as just your lover or am I to be more?”
He lifted his head and kissed the tip of her nose. “Ye have always been more, Arianna. Always. If ye stay, it will be as my wife. ’Tis one reason I was insistent on making ye leave. I kenned that, if I kept ye close any longer, I would ne’er have the strength to let ye go. I thought that was wrong, even selfish, when ye could find a mon who could give ye so much more that I can.”
“Ye give me what I need, Brian. That is all that matters. I wish I could give ye a child,” she whispered.
“If ye dinnae, then ye dinnae. I shall nay be upset. I have so many kin I cannae recall half their names anyway.” He returned her quick grin. “And I like your thought of finding some wee ones who desperately need a home. I think we shall do that e’en if we are granted one of our own.”
He eased free of her body and picked her up in his arms. “And I shouldnae have my soon to be wife lying on the hard floor.” He settled her down on a small bed tucked against the wall and quickly joined her there.
“Ye have a bed in your ledger room?”
“We have wee beds where’er we can fit them and this isnae really my ledger room, but the room where anyone who has some work to do can come and do it.” He frowned as he stroked her hip. “I fear that will be the way of it for a while, Arianna. I have no home save this one.”
“This is a fine home. All we need is a bedchamber that doesnae have a few of your brothers in it.” She smiled when he laughed. “Or, if ye want, we could go and live in a wee cottage on the land the boys hold.”
“Where is that?”
“About a half day’s ride from here in the same direction as Dubheidland.”
“Jesu, that close?” He shook his head. “Weel, we can talk on all that later. I want to enjoy the first day of ye becoming part of Scarglas.”
She sighed with pleasure when he licked the hard tips of her breasts, fondling them in an almost idle manner that had her blood heating in a deliciously slow way. There was only one small shadow on her happiness. Brian had not told her he loved her. Arianna thought she could sense it in the way he made love to her, in the way he looked at her, but found that was not enough. She wanted to hear the words.
“Brian, I said I loved ye,” she began with a hesitancy she hated but could not shake free of.
“I ken it. I dinnae think I have e’er heard anything so beautiful.”
She looked down at the top of his head, enjoying the way he was kissing and licking her breasts but needing to look him in the eye as they spoke of such serious matters. Just as she reached to turn his face up to hers, however, he slid his hand between her thighs and began to caress her in a way that made thinking of serious matters almost impossible. Arianna gritted her teeth and forced her mind back to the problem of finding out whether or not the man she loved and would soon marry actually loved her.
“Brian, I love ye.”
“Aye, and I will ne’er tire of hearing ye say it.”
She frowned. There was a teasing note in his voice. The man was teasing her about something so very important to her? She rapped her knuckles on top of his head and scowled when he lifted his head and grinned at her.
“Ye can tease me about it all ye like later. Right now I am feeling as if I am at a disadvantage here,” she said, not surprised that her voice did not hold the tone of prim reprimand she wanted for he was still stroking her, sliding his fingers in and out of her in a way that had her beginning to pant.
Brian kept his hand busy right where it was but slid up her body far enough to brush a kiss over her mouth. “I love ye, Arianna. I have for a long time but I kenned it for certain when Amiel took ye from me. I loved ye enough to let ye go because I thought it was what ye needed.”
Arianna rapidly blinked, not wanting to cry when she was actually so happy she felt choked with it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, trying to imbue the kiss with all the love that filled her. When he slowly entered her, she sighed with pleasure, stroking his back as he stroked her with his body. Release came slowly to them both, whispered words of love adding to its beauty. Arianna knew she was crying while she held him close as they both trembled from the force of their release.
“I dinnae ken how ye would have e’er thought of being without this,” she whispered against his cheek.
“Weel, mayhap ye were right to call me an idiot.” He lifted his head and grinned at her when she laughed. “Ah, lass, I still think ye are too good for me but ye are stuck with me now.”
“Good. ’Tis the only place I wish to be.”
“We should get off this wee bed and get dressed before someone tries to get in. I dinnae want any of my kin seeing all this bonnie flesh. ’Tis mine and mine alone.”
“Are ye mine and mine alone, too?”
“Aye, lass. I should have said so. I ken my family isnae one to inspire belief in the faithfulness of a MacFingal but—”
She stopped his words with a brief kiss. “Your word is enough. Now, let us get dressed before—”
“Am I to unpack or pack the horses?” yelled Callum from outside the closed door.
Brian had to bite back a grin at how deeply Arianna blushed and how swiftly she leapt from the bed to start getting dressed. He sprawled on his back and watched her, enjoying the way she moved. She loved him. He felt like a king and could not seem to stop grinning.
“Weel? Have ye gone deaf in there or has my wee cousin killed ye and she is now weeping o’er your rotting corpse?”
“’Tis too soon for my corpse to be rotting,” Brian yelled back as he got up and began to dress, biting back a grin when he saw a flustered Arianna struggling to disguise the tear in her gown.
“So are we staying? Am I invited to a wedding?”
“Callum, go away!” yelled Arianna.
“That was what I was going to do but since ye two have been in there together for so long and I didnae hear any screams of pain, I thought there might have been a change of plans.”
Brian was glad he knew how to dress quickly for Arianna rushed to the door, flung it open, and glared at her cousin. “Have ye been out there the whole time?”
“Weel, nay the whole time,” Callum said, and then winked. “Just long enough to ken that we probably willnae be leaving.”
Brian caught up to Arianna just in time to catch her little fist as it swung toward Callum’s nose. “Tell my fither that we need a feast so that I can announce that I am about to get married.”
Arianna heard a round of cheers and finally looked beyond Callum. There had to be two dozen MacFingals standing around in the hall outside the door of the little ledger room. Right outside the door of the room where she had been yelling at Brian and then yelling in pleasure. She groaned, turned around, and hid her face against his chest.
“Tell them to go away before I die of embarrassment,” she told Brian.
Callum patted her on the back. “Congratulations, cousin. Best ye find time soon to write to your family. Come on,” he said to the gathered MacFingals. “We need to prepare for a celebration. Your brother is nay longer an idiot.”
Brian put his fingers under Arianna’s chin and tilted her face up to his. “Welcome to the MacFingal family, my love.”
“I think I need to warn ye about my family now.”
“Nay, I have a good idea of what faces me after meeting your cousins.”
“Callum,” she snapped, and glared in the direction her cousin had gone, “needs to have a care. I think he insulted me. Ye had best go and avenge me now.”
“Och, aye, I love avenging ye.” He picked her up in his arms and started up the stairs.
“Callum went the other way,” she said between giggles.
“I’ll see to him after I do some avenging.”
She was still laughing about that when he dropped her on the bed they had shared once. She held out her arms and welcomed him into them when he joined her on the bed. This was what she had been searching for. Laughter, love, family, and passion. For the first time in five long years Arianna knew she was home.
Epilogue
One year later
“What is taking so long?” Brian shouted at the ceiling.
The sudden silence in the previously noisy great hall of Scarglas caught Brian’s attention and he looked around at all the MacFingals, Camerons, and Murrays gathered there. They were all staring at him as if they feared he was going to need to be chained down. Brian feared they might have to soon as this waiting was driving him mad.
Sigimor was the first to make a sound. The man started laughing so hard he was in danger of falling out of his chair. A moment later, just as Brian decided he needed to go over and kick his cousin, all the rest of the crowd started to laugh as well.
“Och, weel, ’tis verra glad I am that I can provide ye all with such amusement,” he grumbled, and flung himself into a seat next to Harcourt. “I doubt any of ye who have been through this were verra calm and sensible.”
Harcourt grinned. “None in my clan.”
“Sigimor wasnae, either,” said Fergus, earning a slap on the back of his head from his laird and brother.
“Ye have been through this often enough,” said his father. “Dinnae ken what ye are fretting about.”
“It was ne’er
my
wife or
my
child,” snapped Brian, and he quickly poured himself a tankard of ale, hoping the drink would ease the knot of fear in his chest.
my
wife or
my
child,” snapped Brian, and he quickly poured himself a tankard of ale, hoping the drink would ease the knot of fear in his chest.
“Wheesht, if ye had just told me that the fool lass thought she was barren, I could have settled her mind about it.”
“What do ye mean?”
“I could have told her she wasnae.”
“And just how would ye have kenned whether she was or wasnae?”
“Nay sure how I ken it, I just do. Always did. Ken when a lass is a fertile wee thing and when she isnae. My Mab can tell when a lass has quickened. We make a fine pair.”
“If ye can tell when a lass is fertile or nay, then why did ye keep breeding them?”
“Weel, didnae seem to trouble me much when the fire was burning, did it?”
Brian was not surprised when Sigimor started laughing again. He was torn between joining his cousin and knocking his father right out of his chair. The fact that the man could tell if a woman was fertile was not nearly as startling as the fact that he had gleefully bedded them anyway. After the first half-dozen bastard children he had, one would have thought the man would have taken more care.
Before he could give his opinion on that idiocy, a scream from up the stairs cut through the air. Brian leapt to his feet only to have his father and Harcourt yank him back down. Despite all his efforts and several minutes of wrestling in a vain attempt to break free of their hold, they held him in his seat. He knew that he would not get free unless he wanted to get into a brawl. He glared at both men. It would not be easy to knock them both down but he was in the mood to try, especially when another scream rent the air.
“I need to go up there,” he snapped. “Arianna just screamed. Twice. She screamed twice.”
“Suspicion ye would scream, too, if ye were pushing one of those out of your body,” Odo said, and then stuffed an oatcake into his mouth, shrugging when everyone stared at him.
Ewan cleared his throat. “Verra true but, mayhap, nay something one should say, young Odo. Weel, at least nay without making verra sure there are no ladies or bairns about.” Ewan nodded toward Adelar and Michel, who stared at Odo with wide eyes and worried frowns.
Adelar looked at Brian. “Anna will be fine, will she nay?”
“Aye, she will be,” Brian said, and then slouched in his chair to drink his ale, wishing he were as confident of that as he sounded.
The others worked to reassure Adelar and Michel while Brian returned to staring up at the ceiling. He had spent the last few months, from the moment winter eased enough to allow travel, making sure that the house he and Arianna would share was readied for their family and the land Claud had left his sons prepared for planting. He had done the same with the property Arianna had brought to their marriage.
He had also done a great deal of strutting about as if he had accomplished some rare and wondrous deed by putting a bairn into his wife’s belly. The larger she had grown, the more he had coddled her, and the more he had strutted. He did not feel much like strutting now. Somehow he had blissfully forgotten all the danger and pain of childbed right up until Arianna had been taken to hers.
Once Arianna no longer feared miscarrying their child, her happiness had helped to blind him to those dangers. Even when ill every morning or suffering an aching back as her belly grew rounder, she had been happy. It was not until a fortnight ago when Jolene had arrived to help with the birth—followed quickly by Arianna’s cousins, Fiona’s sister-in-law Gillyanne, and Liam’s wife, Keira—that a hint of fear occasionally shadowed her eyes. Brian knew it was not caused by the possible dangers to herself that came with childbirth or the pain, however. Arianna worried about the health of the child she carried. Nothing he had said had fully banished the fear that, even though she had carried their child to full term, she might still lose it.
All Brian could do was pray that Arianna would soon hold a living child in her arms. He would grieve if they lost the child, but his deepest fears concerned what such a loss would do to Arianna. The prayers he constantly whispered in his mind were mostly for the life of the child. He prayed for Arianna, too, but he was doing his best not to allow his thoughts to linger too long on all the dangers a woman faced when bearing a child. That way led to bone-chilling terror.
“Brian?”
He blinked and looked to find Fiona standing by his chair. “Is Arianna weel?”
“Arianna is just fine. The bairns are fine, too. Ye can go up and see her now.”
Brian was just stepping through the door when what Fiona had said finally settled into his mind. He slowly turned around to see her sitting on Ewan’s lap and grinning at him. Everyone else watched him, too, every last one of them grinning at him.
“Did ye say
bairns
? As in more than one?” he asked.
bairns
? As in more than one?” he asked.
“Aye, I did,” she replied. “Ye have two bairns, Brian. One lass. One lad.”
His legs were suddenly too weak to hold him upright and Brian braced himself against the door. He refused to swoon like some terrified maiden in front of all these grinning fools. Two bairns. Arianna had given him twins.
“Both bairns are weel?” he asked, pleased to hear how calm he sounded.
“Aye. A goodly size, hearty cries, have all the right parts. Go and see for yourself.”
Steadying himself, Brian started to do just that. As he strode through the door, he heard Odo say, “Wheesht! She was carrying two bairns in that belly? They must have been fair crowded in there.”
That boy was going to be trouble, Brian thought as, once out of sight of the great hall, he started running. He did not slow down until he reached the door to their bedchamber. Brian paused to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down and then entered the room. Mab rose from her seat by the bed and walked over to him. He briefly hugged her when she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“She is just fine, lad,” Mab said. “The lass can toss aside all her fears. She was made for this, for giving ye lots of plump, healthy bairns.”
“I heard her scream,” he whispered, his fears for Arianna not easily assuaged. “Twice.”
“Ye would scream too if ye were pushing that out of your body. Twice.”
He frowned at Mab. “Have ye been talking to Odo?”
Mab just laughed as she left, quietly shutting the door behind her. Brian moved to where his children were settled in the huge cradle his father had made. Swaddled and asleep, it was impossible to tell which was which. One had a surprisingly thick head of black hair and the other had bright red spikes of hair.
“The one with the black hair is the lass. The one with the red is the laddie.”
Brian hurried over to the bed to find Arianna smiling at him. She had obviously been thoroughly cleaned up after the birth and only looked very tired. He sat down on the edge of the bed and gently kissed her.
“Thank ye, my love,” he whispered. “Ye are weel?”
“Verra weel. And thank ye, Sir Brian. Ye have given me such a wondrous gift. Two of them.”
He cleared his throat in a vain attempt to hide the emotion choking him, and said, “Weel, I had planned on only giving ye the one.”
“We shouldnae be surprised that there are two.” She winked at him. “Ye are a true MacFingal, after all. Verra potent.”
He laughed as he settled himself on the bed beside her, one arm around her shoulders to hold her close to him. “Did ye finally decide on a name? Ye need two now.”
“She will be called Reine and he will be called Crispin, if that pleases ye.”
“I like both the names, love. Are ye certain ye are weel?”
Arianna smiled at him. This man loved her, accepted Michel and Adelar without hesitation, and had given her two beautiful bairns. She doubted he would ever fully understand just how much he meant to her, how deep and fierce her love for him was. Then again, it never hurt to keep a man guessing just a little, she thought, grinning.
“I am verra weel indeed, husband. ’Tis hard to believe any woman could be better than I at this moment. I have my bairns, my laddies with me, a home, a family, and ye to love.”
Brian held her close and rubbed his cheek against her hair and recalled the advice Sigimor had given him not long ago. “Always.”
She closed her eyes and sighed with complete satisfaction. “Always.”
Sigimor was right again, curse his eyes, Brian thought as he held his wife close and gazed at his children.
Always
was a very good word indeed.
Always
was a very good word indeed.
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