Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] (30 page)

Iain watched them go, his mind on his own journey. The one he just ended, for of a sudden, he knew with all his heart that he not only wanted to make Madeline Drummond his bride in truth rather than just the Bane of his heart, he also wanted a family.
One of his own.
And mayhap one, too, in which a fragile old man could be nurtured back to good health. Too much love bonded his lady and her father for Iain e’er to consider taking her elsewhere.
If she would have him.
He turned back to her, determined to resolve that matter forthwith, but a surprisingly firm grip on his forearm stayed his tongue.
“Iain MacLean!” Sir John Drummond’s reedy voice held a distinct challenge. “My daughter tells me you have reason to make an honest woman of her,” he said, peering at Iain from earnest gray eyes.
Iain’s brows shot upward, but he caught Madeline’s tearful wink and played along.
“Aye, sir, that may be true,” he admitted, struggling to keep a serious face.
“I thought so,” the old man said, and Iain suspected he caught a wee twinkle in John Drummond’s eye. “Young man, am I going to have to challenge you to up hold my daughter’s honor or will you do the noble thing and marry the lass?”
Iain glanced away for a moment, stared at a single shaft of morning sunlight breaking through the clouds to shine on Abercairn’s massive curtain wall.
Saints, but he needed to swallow . . . and to blink a few times, too.
But when at last he turned back around, he was smiling.
The most dazzling smile Madeline Drummond had ever seen.
“Aye, I will marry her, good sir,” Iain said, lifting his voice so all within Abercairn’s bailey and mayhap outwith, too, could hear him.
“I wish to have your daughter as my wife and at my side,” he vowed, placing a firm hand on each of their shoulders. “Aye, I want her badly, Laird Drummond. For all the days of my life.”
Epilogue
Dunkeld Cathedral, The Highlands Two Months Later . . .
Y
OU AND YOUR NEW LADY wife have all our good wishes and felicitations.” The good Bishop of Dunkeld reached yet again to pump Iain’s hand. “’Tis rare to see a lovelier bride than the Lady Madeline.”
Madeline nodded her thanks . . . again.
Iain kept his dazzling smile in place and didn’t show a single sign of agitation.
Even though the rotund Bishop had kept them standing on the cathedral steps for nearly an hour already.
Indeed, if the gregarious church man didn’t soon cease pressing his abbatial hospitality on them, dusk would soon settle and the great wedding feast awaiting them at Abercairn would begin without the bride and groom!
Sliding an eloquent glance at her new husband, Madeline tried to catch his eye, but the Bishop looked her way
instead, rewarding her with yet another of his warm and jolly smiles.
Only Madeline’s father didn’t seem to mind the wait. Much improved in health in recent months, Sir John Drummond strolled about the tree-shaded grounds, enjoying the tail-wagging affections of the Bishop’s young hound. The black-and-tan whelp jumped and cavorted about the Drummond laird’s legs, and Madeline’s heart swelled as she caught her da’s laughter at the dog’s playful antics.
Such was a joy she’d ne’er tire of, just as she enjoyed seeing Silver Leg’s two greyhounds trail her father’s every step through Abercairn, adoration in their great round eyes . . . and her da’s, too.
John Drummond had always loved dogs, but ne’er been able to keep one, and now it seemed every canine in the realm found its way to Abercairn’s door.
Much to the old laird’s delight.
None of Abercairn’s leeches could explain why dogs no longer made the laird sneeze, but Madeline and Iain suspected it had something to do with Iain’s sacred relic having been secured in Sir John’s bedchamber for safe keeping in the weeks before Iain was able to deliver the reliquary casket and his other gifts to the cathedral.
“Ahhh . . . here comes Brother Jerome at last,” the rosy-cheeked Bishop intoned, his eyes twinkling. “So sorry to have kept you, but the gillie who delivered your gift a sennight ago claimed he’d been told it was of the greatest importance that you receive it on your wedding day.”
Iain’s brows lifted when Brother Jerome joined them on the Cathedral steps and offered him a large sheepskin wrapped package. “Here, my sweet,” he said, handing it to Madeline. “Today is your day, too.”
But the Bishop placed a beringed hand on Iain’s arm. “Nay, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “We were instructed
you
are to open the gift.”
Puzzled, but determined not to let even a puzzled frown mar his brow on his wedding day, Iain took back the package, opened it, and withdrew the most beautifully worked leather sword belt he’d e’er seen.
Of finest leather and exquisitely worked, it was clear the belt was priceless in value. But it wasn’t the belt’s value in coin that made it so dear to him.
Nay, the gift’s worth went far deeper.
Hot pricklings jabbing at the backs of his eyes, Iain blinked several times in an attempt to clear his fool vision enough to admire the belt’s craftsmanship.
But most of all to gaze in wonder and awe at the two large Highland quartz crystals set into the belt’s clasp. They shone with a magnificent inner light that rivaled the afternoon’s bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine.
Indeed, the two stones shone with an almost other worldly glow. A stunningly beautiful inner fire that seemed to have a life of its own.
And Iain recognized the stones.
They were old Devorgilla’s Fairy Fire Stones.
The very ones the
cailleach
had tried to foist on him long months ago, claiming that they’d help him find his MacLean Bane.
His one true love.
Devorgilla had insisted the stones would catch fire and burn with an inner light that would ne’er extinguish . . . the instant Iain and his Bane found each other.
And now that they had, Devorgilla’s glittering High land quartz shone with a light brighter than a thousand suns.
“Oh!” Madeline peered at the belt, its priceless stones. “How beautiful!” Seizing it, she fastened the belt low around Iain’s hips.
Stepping back to admire the belt on him, she smiled. “Now you truly
do
look like the Master of the High lands.”
Iain blinked, glanced aside.
He had to swallow again, too, damn his fool throat!
But when he found his voice once more, he placed two silencing fingers over her lips. “I do not care much about being styled Master of the Highlands, sweet lass,” he said.
“No?” Confusion clouded her lovely green-gold eyes. “I thought you liked the title?”
“Och, but I do, never fear,” Iain admitted, and dropped a kiss on her brow. “It just matters more to me to be the Master of Your Heart.”

About the Author

SUE-ELLEN WELFONDER is a dedicated medievalist of Scottish descent who spent fifteen years living abroad, and still makes annual research trips to Great Britain. She is an active member of the Romance Writers of America and her own clan, the MacFie Society of North America. Her first novel,
Devil in a Kilt
, was one of
Romantic Times
’s Top Picks. It won
RT
’s Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Historical Romance of 2001. Sue-Ellen Welfonder is married and lives with her husband, Manfred, and their Jack Russell Terrier, Em, in Florida.

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WEDDING FOR A KNIGHT

available soon

from Warner Forever.

Dupplin Moor
August of 1332
A
T SUNRISE ON A HOT SUMMER’S day on the banks of the River Earn near Perth, Scotland’s new Guardian, Donald, Earl of Mar, and a large army of the Realm’s finest men, engaged in a fierce and bloody battle that would last but a few short hours.
By noon, the whistling cloth-yards of the English enemy had decimated the proud Scottish schiltrons . . . sadly no match for the expert aim of English archers and their constant rain of deadly arrows.
The Guardian, two Scottish earls, a handful of nobles, sixty knights, and several thousand brave spearmen lay dead upon the field. The English aggressors and the Scottish turncoats fighting with them and known as the Disinheriteds lost but thirty men.
Those few Scots who were wounded or simply pinned beneath the towering pile of their fallen countrymen, wished they, too, had died.
Of a certainty, they did not consider themselves fortunate.
And along with the endless rivers of blood soaking the ground that illfated day, each and every Scotsman to walk away from Dupplin Moor left his heart behind as well.
Magnus MacKinnon was amongst the survivors.
But he left more behind than most.
For along with his heart, he lost the fortune he’d worked three years to amass. Monies he’d won in tourneys and hoped to use to restore his clan’s destroyed fleet of galleys.
And mayhap a bit of his family’s pride.
But even losing such riches wasn’t the worst to befall him.
Nay, the most bitter blow of all was the crushing of his soul.
Chapter One
Baldoon Castle, The Isle of Doon, One month later
A
PROXY WEDDING?
”
Amicia MacLean shot from her seat at the high table, her high good humor of moments before forgotten. The pleasure she’d taken at having both her brothers beneath the same roof again for the first time in well over a year was soundly replaced by wave after wave of stunned disbelief.
“To Magnus MacKinnon?” Her heart so firmly lodged in her throat she could scarce push words past it, she stared at her brother, Donall the Bold, proud laird of Clan MacLean and bearer of the most startling news she’d heard in longer than she could remember.
Wondrous news.
And joyous beyond belief . . . not that she was about to voice any such admission.
Too great were the disappointments of past promises of a suitable match, too numerous the empty promises
and hopes of e’er having a family—a home—of her own.
A husband to love her.
“You needn’t speak his name as if he’s unworthy, lass.” Clearly mistaking the reason for her wide-eyed astonishment, Donall MacLean raised his hand for quiet when others in the smoke-hazed great hall sought to voice their opinions. “The MacKinnons may be in sore need of your dowry, but Magnus is a valiant and influential knight. You could do worse.”
She could do no better,
Amicia’s heart sang, long-cherished images of the bonnie Magnus racing past her mind’s eye, each fleeting memory dazzling her with its sweetness.
Just recalling his dimpled smile and twinkling eyes weakened her knees.
And he’d been but a strapping young lad when she’d last seen him, years before at a game of champions held on the neighboring isle of Islay. He’d won every archery competition, each trial of strength, and turned the heads of all the lasses with his easy charm and fine, quick wit.
Magnus
the man
would no doubt steal her breath.
Of that, she was certain.
“’Tis said he is of arresting looks, ardent, and a warrior of great renown,” Donall’s wife, the lady Isolde, chimed in from the head of the high table, her words only confirming what Amicia already suspected.
Her pulse thundering ever louder in her ears, Amicia scanned the faces of her kinfolk, stood silent for a few agonizingly long moments, using each precious one to steel her backbone and make certain naught but cool aloofness touched her brow.
Could it be true?
Dear saints, dared she hope?
If this offer, too, proved fruitless, she would die. Wither away inside and plead the saints to have done with her and make her demise swift and painless.
She narrowed her eyes at Donall, moistened annoyingly dry lips. “Be this a true offer?” she asked, hugging herself against an answer she’d rather not hear. “Has Magnus MacKinnon declared himself or is this another of your well-meant but doomed-to-fail attempts to see me wed?”
Her other brother, Iain, set down his ale cup and swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Sakes, lass, think you Donall or I can do aught about the troubles plaguing our land in recent years? You ken why it’s been difficult to court viable suitors for you.”
Amicia squared her shoulders. “I am well aware of the myriad reasons we’ve been given for each broken offer,” she said, her gaze fixed on the inky shadows of a deep window embrasure across the hall. “What I wish to hear is whether Magnus MacKinnon himself seeks this union?”
The words
proxy wedding
and
sore need of her dowry
jellied her knees.
The glaring silence spreading across the dais end of the cavernous great hall answered her question. She glanced up at the high, vaulted ceiling, blew out a nervous breath.
Faith, the quiet loomed so deafening she could hear every hiss and crackle of the pitchpine torches lighting the hall, the low-rumbling snores of Donall’s hounds sleeping near the hearth fire, and even the wash of the night sea against the rocks far below Baldoon’s massive curtain walls.
Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head and looked back at her brothers, not surprised to detect faint flickers of guilt flitting across both their handsome faces.
“I dislike being cozened,” she said with all the serene dignity she could muster. Taking her seat, she helped her self to a blessedly welcome sip of finest Gascon wine. “Nor will I allow it. Not so long as I have a single breath in my body.”
“God’s mercy, lass, it ill becomes you to play so stubborn.” Donall dropped back into his laird’s chair, a great oaken monstrosity, its back and arms carved with mythical sea beasts. He raked a hand through his raven hair, the same blue-black shade as Amicia’s own.
“Nay, Magnus knows naught of the union,” he admitted, meeting her gaze. “But he will hear of it upon his arrival on MacKinnons’ Isle. He’s been gone some years, competing in tourneys, as you likely ken, but he is expected home within a fortnight and his father is certain he will welcome the match.”
Amicia stifled a most un-ladylike snort.
She
did
rake her brothers and everyone else at the table with a challenging stare. “Old Laird MacKinnon will be desirous of the filled coffers you’ll send along as my dowry. All ken he burns to rebuild the galley fleet they lost to a storm a year or so ago.”
“That is as may be, but he also loves his son and would see him well-matched and at peace,” Donall countered. “And I would be glad of the marriage, too. Our late father and old MacKinnon were once good friends. Wedding you to Magnus would seal our truce with the MacKinnons once and for all time.”