Highland Magic (9 page)

Branwenn sat forward, sure that that handsome
devil of a son of Aunt Maggie’s had opened his big gob and told the
lady that she, the brazen Branwenn, had invaded his manly sanctuary
the night before and gotten in bed with him. She now tried
valiantly to explain. “I only wanted to see how he fared, Aunt
Maggie,” she said in a rush. “He was quite ill when I left him in
the tower chamber. ‘Tis only that I got weary from leaning over him
as I cooled his skin with the damp cloth, that’s why I rested
beside him on the bed. I swear.” Branwenn didn’t realize it, but
she thrust her lower lip out a bit when she continued in a mumble,
“And anyway, that old Physician did naught but sleep the whole time
I was there.”

A cold chill crept up the back of her neck,
making her scalp tingle as she at last noticed the stunned
expressions on the faces of the two women who sat before her.
Damnation, Callum MacGregor, I hate your lily-livered,
toad-eyed, bird-beaked, simple-minded self! You are the
bane—the
bane
of my existence!
Branwenn couldn’t help
it, she squirmed. “
Ahem
...umm... Well, ‘tis good that he
recovered so quickly, do you not agree, Grandmother Maclean?”

The two ladies flashed a quick glance at each
other, but thankfully must have decided to allow the change in
topic, for Lady Maclean answered lightly. “Aye, lass. And God be
praised ‘twas not a poisoning plot of Laird Gordon’s, as Callum
first thought.”

Branwenn’s brows arched. “Truly? But who did
the deed then?”

Maggie chuckled and Lady Maclean joined in.
“‘Twas the doing of a wee lad—one of the new pages in Laird
Gordon’s household—his nephew, in fact,” Maggie told her.

“Why on earth would the lad have done such a
horribly vile thing?”

“No, you misunderstand, Branwenn. ‘Twas
naught more than a wee—very, very wee—bit of pig offal”—

Branwenn slapped her hand over her mouth and
laughed so hard she snorted.

—“that got stirred in Callum’s wine which
laid him so low.”

Feeling much better now that she knew her
nemesis had had such a fine blow to his overweening
pride—especially after the way he’d manhandled her, slapped her on
her bottom as he carried her here earlier, and
never thanked
her
for the services rendered—she settled back with a sigh and
calmly began a new set of stitches in the tapestry she was helping
Grandmother Maclean to make.

* * *

Callum’s shoulder was hurting with a deep,
burning ache now as he paced the floor of his bedchamber. He might
have made it back here without re-injuring the thing, had that
smart-tongued lass not provoked his temper so thoroughly with her
gibes and insults to his manhood that he’d actually forgotten the
state of his shoulder and given her lovely
derrière
the much
needed ‘
whack
’ it deserved.

He’d not spoken with his stepfather yet, but
he knew that Bao would need to be sent word of his foster sister’s
arrival forthwith. Why on earth was she here? That question had
continued to plague him since he’d first recalled that ‘twas her
lovely black-lashed, violet cat-eyes that he’d awakened to this
morn past. And her gentle hands that had cooled his fevered brow.
And her wide mouth, with those fleshy pink lips, that had felt like
warm silk stroking and encasing him as it took him to heaven.... He
forcibly turned his mind from that arousing memory, but his
thoughts remained on the complicated puzzle of her.

Lord, but she was such a tangled mix of
vixen, virgin, and vexation. The treble V’s. He had no doubt that
she should be branded thus, to warn any unsuspecting man before he
attempted to woo her and got castrated by the sharp edge of her
tongue. Her tongue.... Callum shook the image clear.

Blood of Christ! He’d gone for so many moons
without the touch of a feminine hand, and had managed quite well to
keep his mind clear of such thoughts as he slowly, diligently,
rebuilt his favorable repute amongst his clansmen. But now, after
that incredible interlude, he couldn’t seem to stay focused on the
task at hand: to get the lass to her foster brother’s keep as
quickly as possible. Because his mind—his body—screamed for more of
her. More of her mouth on him, but also, this time, more of his
mouth, his hands, on her.

God, what would she taste like? Her skin was
soft, he’d noticed that already. And there was a faint smell of
roses in her cropped hair. The pleasant scent had drifted to him as
he’d hauled her over his shoulder back at the cave. Aye, the flower
of her womanhood no doubt had the heady scent of roses
and...
woman
....

“Blood. Of. Christ! No more!” Callum yelled,
lifting his good arm and scrubbing his hand across his eyes and
face.

* * *

Branwenn’s eyelids drooped and her chin
dropped to her chest. “
What?
” she cried out, instantly
waking when she nearly teetered forward and fell flat on her
face.

“Lass, ‘tis time and past for you to take a
rest. We are not such a staunch lot that we would have you
sacrifice your health to keep the appearance of piety,” the young
priest said.

“But, Father, I must finish my prayers
first.”

With a gentle smile and a dip of his head, he
moved away from the altar where she knelt.

“
Oh, Lord, just one more thing. Please do
not allow my aunt and her husband to tell any of my brothers that I
am alive, Lord. ‘Tis not truly such a terrible lie, Lord, is it?
Not if it could save their lives?”
No response. Well, she
wasn’t exactly expecting one, but still. It would have been nice to
know for sure that He was on her side in this matter. With a long
sigh, she stood up and did a quick genuflection before scurrying
from the MacGregor chapel.

She took her time going back into the keep,
for her thoughts had not settled, as she’d hoped they would, by
doing a bit of praying for forgiveness for her less-than-ladylike
behavior this day. And she wasn’t speaking of her arguments with
that auburn-haired, too-handsome to look upon for long, devil-man,
either—‘twas the other thing that happened between them that now
weighed so heavily on her conscience.

For, she’d not gone to the chapel originally
to request aid from the Lord Almighty with her dilemma regarding
her family. Nay, she’d gone there, contrite and filled with horror
that she’d been so...so...well, so
brazen
with
Callum—feelings that only recently took hold of her when she’d been
obliged to sit beside the man at table and he’d remained so quiet,
so indifferent toward her, that she had begun to suspect he was now
disgusted by her. But she was not yet ready to reveal such a thing
to the priest in order to do penance for it, so she’d decided upon
a heart-felt prayer of forgiveness instead.

A momentary flash of sense memory involving
Callum—and the feel of his invitingly bare nether regions against
her palm—invaded her thoughts just then, but she forcefully closed
her mind to it. What was it about that man that—she begrudgingly
admitted to herself now—appealed to her so? Her heart had actually
skipped a beat when he had walked into the great hall to break his
fast a bit ago. And why did she have to start feeling guilty
now
for making him so mad that he hurt his shoulder again
when he spanked her bottom? Why should she care if he was now
unable to hold his wee motherless daughter?

But she did care. A lot.

* * *

“She’s such a lovely, wee thing, Grandmother
Maclean,” Branwenn said softly the next day as she turned from side
to side with Laire cradled and cooing quietly in her arms. “Aren’t
you, my wee apple blossom?”

Laire cackled, her arms and legs flailing
wildly as her bright blue eyes twinkled up at Branwenn with
delight.

“Aye, she’s got her mother’s look, but
blessed be, not her temperament.”

“Hmm. Even with all I know of Lara’s behavior
last
Hogmanay
at the Maclean holding, still I cannot believe
that she actually
ran
from Callum—ran from this precious
babe—‘tis unpardonable in my estimation.”

Lady Maclean sighed. “Aye, she was not a good
match for our Callum, and would not have been a good mother to our
Laire. Even so, ‘twas a tragic end to her, which I would not have
wished on her in any event.”

“Mmm.”

A glob of slobber trailed down the side of
Laire’s cheek, but Branwenn managed to catch it with the edge of
the swaddling cloth she held in her hand before it made its way
onto the sleeve of the borrowed—and rather cavernous—gown she wore.
She brushed a kiss across the babe’s warm brow and rested her lips
there a moment as she breathed in the sweet babe-smell of the
lass’s skin. After a moment, she turned her head and said to Lady
Maclean, “Must we swaddle her again? Surely, her limbs are not so
fragile now that we must keep them bound to prevent deformity.” She
turned her eye back to the babe in her arms. “Just look,
Grandmother, how happy Laire is to be free of those
restraints!”

“Aye, but ‘tis not my decision to make—‘tis
her father’s. And my grandson is so careful with his daughter,
making sure he follows every rule regarding the proper care of a
babe, that I doubt he’ll allow us to unswaddle her until she’s
another moon or more older.”

“Well, I’m not going to do it. If he wants
her bound up like a shank of mutton, then ‘twill be he who can do
the deed.”

Callum, who’d been silently watching the
exchange regarding the swaddlings from the opened doorway, his arms
crossed over his chest and his good shoulder leaning against the
jam, straightened and took a few steps into the chamber, saying,
“Hand her to me.”

Branwenn nearly jumped out of her skin.
Whirling, she faced him, but held the babe tightly to her chest.
“Not if you’re going to do what I think you are going to do.”

“And, what, pray, do you believe I’m going to
do to the lass?”

“Roll her in this”—she waved the swaddling
cloth in the air—“like some silkworm’s casing.”

“And, by what right do you take this stance
with me—the babe’s
father
?”

Her chin tilted high, she responded dryly,
“By the right of all women, for ‘tis well-known that we are born
with the instincts for mothering.”

“You call yourself ‘woman’? Why, you’re
merely a lass. You know naught of the ways of tending bairns.”
Callum had no desire to swaddle his wee one again either, but the
lass didn’t have to know that, did she? “As I said, hand her to
me.”

Hot color washed over Branwenn’s cheeks. He
believed her callow, ‘twas clear. Callow, but too brazen by far.
Traits not highly regarded when looking for potential mates. “I am
not, and I do, too,” she mumbled, momentarily confounded for more
cutting words to throw at him. In the next instant, the decision of
the swaddlings was taken from her when the babe turned her head in
Callum’s direction and, clearly recognizing him, gave him a gummy,
wet grin and squealed, “
Da!
”

A stunned, euphoric expression moved over
Callum’s countenance and, in a hitch-stepped rush, he strode up and
took the babe from Branwenn’s numb arms.

“
Callum!
Your shoulder!” Lady Maclean
exclaimed, taking a step forward with her arms out as if to catch
the babe should he drop her.

“Worry not, Grandmother, the shoulder’s
better this day.”

Lady Maclean nodded and said, a bit
doubtfully, “Aye, well be careful.”

Callum nodded and turned his eye back to his
grinning daughter. “‘Tis the first time she’s called me that,” he
said softly, a matching wide-mouthed grin moving across his own
countenance. Until this very instant, he’d only understood in the
vaguest sense how deep the emotion must have gone for his cousin,
Bao, to have done all that he’d done to keep Branwenn safe all
those years as he’d raised her. But now as he gazed down at Laire,
he fully perceived the depth of that feeling; the reason why there
had truly been no other choice for his cousin but to do as he’d
done.

“’Tis more likely just wee babe sounds, as
she’s yet too young to speak in truth,” Lady Maclean advised. When
Callum only continued to grin down at his daughter, she continued,
“Well, ‘tis call for a feast in any case!” Her own smile beaming so
brightly, it could have lit the darkest chamber, she said, “We must
tell your mother and stepfather; they shall be thrilled.”

Branwenn could not take her eyes from Callum.
He was, without any doubt, the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.
And what woman could resist a man who loved his bairn so much? She
was in deep, deep, deep trouble. Is this what Bao feels for
Jesslyn? What Daniel, her other foster brother, feels for Maryn,
his wife? She was beginning to believe it was. God’s Blood! ‘Twas
true! She
loved
the charming, green-eyed devil! And he, it
had become clear to her these past two days—at least, since the
morning meal this day past—wanted naught more to do with her. Ever
again.

* * *

Over the next sennight, Branwenn managed to
keep her distance from Callum, for her bruised heart could not take
the coldness, the angry silence, of him. And not one of Branwenn’s
brothers had arrived, a thing she was exceedingly grateful for.
Evidently, Grandmother Maclean had prevailed upon Laird and Lady
MacGregor to give her a bit more time before her location was
revealed to any of them.

Taking a nice, juicy
chomp
out of one
of the apples she carried in her arm basket, she walked toward the
training field. She was on a mission; one that, if she could have
avoided it, she would rather have perished than do. But, ‘twas
Grandmother Maclean who had asked this of her and, after all that
that fine lady had done for her these past moons, she could not say
her ‘nay’.

So, here she was, at the mouth of the lion’s
den—the training field where Callum now practiced—about to beard
the lion.