Teresa Medeiros (27 page)

Alwyn could have been Helen of Troy and Morgan would still have been blinded by the impish twinkle in his wife’s eye. He scrambled wildly for an appropriate answer, clearing his throat, coughing, and finally
settling for a grunt of approval. To his shock, Alwyn blushed. He wouldn’t have thought her capable of it.

She bobbed a clumsy curtsy. “I’d best be gettin’ along, me lady. I promised Mr. Fergus I’d dine with him tonight.” Her toothy grin erased years from her age. “Thank ye for the bonny ribbon. Thank ye indeed.” She scampered past Morgan, hugging the door frame to keep from brushing against him.

He stepped warily into the chamber, shutting the door behind him. “ ’Twas kind of you to befriend the lass. She can learn much from you.”

“On the contrary. Your Alwyn has much to teach me.”

He scowled. “She’s not
my
Alwyn. Never was. And I’m not sure I want you learnin’ what she knows.”

Sabrina’s innocent blink made his blood heat. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so hasty.”

With those teasing words, she hooked her hand beneath his belt and drew him past the waiting chess board to the bed, the mocking slant of her smile softened by the tenderness in her eyes.

If Sabrina ruled MacDonnell by day, then Morgan was master of the night. Never had a Cameron been so tenderly enslaved. He held her in bonds of pleasure forged stronger each time she shattered beneath the artful dominion of his body.

He proved every sly whisper she’d heard about the MacDonnells to be true. He was relentless in pushing her to the brink of ecstasy and beyond, unyielding in his demand of her satisfaction, merciless in extracting cries of surrender until she was begging for what he was only too willing to give her.

Only in the wee hours of dawn, when she lay with her head pillowed on his naked chest, her body still limp from its most recent sating, did she dare to wonder about the morrow. Although Morgan seemed to take perverse delight in wringing her own tender confessions from her lips, he had never once so much as whispered the three words she had hungered so long to hear. Never completely lost that rigid control imposed upon him by a lifetime of care and responsibility. He
gave of his body with lavish generosity but kept his heart armored and intact, just beyond her reach.

Time, she promised herself. In time she would lay siege to his heart until he trusted her enough to lay it at her feet. For now, the thundering song of its rhythm beneath her ear would have to be pledge enough.

Morgan emerged from the forest late one afternoon, his muscles aching with the pleasant exhaustion of a job well done. He and his men had done the work of a full clan in the past fortnight. The last of the cattle had been branded that day and left to forage among the rich bracken of the forest floor.

A blast of northern wind struck him as he climbed the hill toward the castle, sending the shards of snow beneath his feet into a whirling dance. Let the winter come! he thought with savage satisfaction.

In the past he’d always hated to see the bleached bones of her fingers come creeping over the mountains. The taunting whisper of her snow-choked voice had brought the MacDonnells nothing but hunger and desolation. But this year promised to be different. He had fresh meat to feed his clan. He would fill out their pinched cheeks and wipe the dull film of despair from their eyes.

The chickens had been cooped, the sheep penned, and the Cameron claymore hung over the hearth in Sabrina’s chamber. There remained only one task left unfinished in his dealings with the Camerons, and Morgan suspected the velvety darkness of the long winter nights would be ideal for its completion. Perhaps by spring Sabrina would bear his brand as well, marked clearly as his by the gentle swelling of the babe in her belly.

Morgan secretly wished for a girl child, not caring to contemplate being forced to honor his hasty and foolish promise to send Sabrina home if she gave him a son. If he had his way, God would bless him with a dozen daughters. He grinned to envision the miniature
dark-haired, blue-eyed beauties hanging all over his plaid.

He topped a rise in the hill to discover why most of his men had deserted him earlier. Sabrina was wrapped in her pelisse and perched on a musty hay bale in the open courtyard, strumming the clarsach and surrounded by his clansmen. Fergus stomped out a jolly fling while Ranald kept time on a wheezy set of pipes. As he blew out a sour note, his audience hooted and jeered. Enid, her cheeks blistered pink from the cold, blew him a consoling kiss.

Morgan leaned against the scarred trunk of a Caledonian pine to enjoy Sabrina’s triumph over his clan. He could have ordered their sullen respect from her first day at MacDonnell, but he knew that would have been a hollow victory at best. Harsh experience had taught him that a victory earned was a victory savored.

Her sweet soprano launched them into melody:

“Rider! Rider comin’ from Cameron way!” The hoarse cry shattered their merriment as a boy raced into the courtyard, stumbling and gasping for breath. “Cameron comin’!”

Morgan’s clansmen reacted to a lifetime of training by drawing their weapons and diving for shelter. The powdery snow flew as Ranald tackled Enid, rolling her to safety and leaving Sabrina standing puzzled and alone before the hay bale. Where before there had been dancing and laughter, there was only tension and the thud of rapidly approaching hoofbeats.

Morgan bit off an oath. He tempered his first savage impulse to rush into the courtyard and throw himself over Sabrina, knowing that MacDonnells were notorious for firing first and making their heartfelt apologies later. He didn’t even dare risk startling them by calling out a command. Swearing steadily beneath his breath, he forced himself to walk slowly and evenly down the hill.

A lone rider cantered into the courtyard to find himself sighted down the barrels and blades of fifty weapons. Even from his distance Morgan could see he
was a green lad, only a few years older than the boy who had warned them of his approach.

In the thick silence that followed his halt, pistols cocked, hands primed bows, swords cleared their sheaths, and eyes that had sparkled with mirth only seconds before narrowed in deadly intent.

Morgan saw Sabrina frantically searching the faces of his clansmen for some clue to their strange behavior. He already knew what she would find. He’d seen it often enough in their faces and in his own—the steely promise of death, as crude and irrevocable as the metallic stench of blood soaking into the thirsty soil.

She pasted on a shaky smile and gathered her skirts. As Morgan realized what she meant to do, his oath shifted to a single wordless prayer.

The stark image of her lying crumpled in the snow, her breast pierced by an arrow or pistol ball, almost staggered him. But he forced himself to keep moving, to keep closing the distance between them. Only a few more yards and he could put his hands on her.

He flexed them without realizing it as Sabrina darted forward, throwing herself into the path of every weapon trained on the Cameron rider.

Forced gaiety brightened her voice. “Why, look, everyone! It’s Caden Cameron ridden all the way from home! Fergus? Ranald? Come out and meet my cousin Caden. He’s the second son of my third cousin twice removed. We’ve been friends since we were only children, haven’t we, Caden? Have you brought a letter or just come to visit?”

The reins jingled in the boy’s unsteady hands. His face had gone milk-white beneath his mop of dark hair, and despite the chill, sweat sheened his fair skin. His raw voice cracked. “I’ve b-b-brought a letter, Miss Sabrina. Er, I don’t believe I’ve the t-t-t-time for a visit.”

Morgan’s hand closed around Sabrina’s forearm. He’d never felt anything so welcome as the warm resilience of her flesh beneath her sleeve. He squeezed it harshly as if to assure himself of its reality.

“You bloody wee fool,” he bit off beneath his breath. “Haven’t you an ounce of common—”

“—decency? Sense?” she hissed back at him. “It would not speak well of your hospitality to send this poor lad back to Cameron draped over his saddle and riddled with holes.”

“Your da might have taken an even dimmer view of you bein’ returned in like manner.” Shaking his head in a promise of later retribution, he thrust her behind the shelter of his body. Her faint tremor betrayed the cost of her boldness.

The messenger swayed in his saddle at the sight of the towering Highlander.

“Hop down, lad,” Morgan ordered. “ ’Tis too late to return to Cameron tonight. That road is dangerous by day and deadly in the dark. You’ll sup with us tonight and ride back on the morrow.”

Caden shook his head, obviously fearing his chances of surviving a night with the MacDonnells were less than negotiating the treacherous road. “No, thank you. I’m not very hungry, sir.”

From the violent green tinging his complexion, Morgan suspected the lad was in danger of losing his midday meal as well as his supper.

Morgan leveled a sweeping glare around the courtyard that saw every weapon sheepishly uncocked, lowered, and sheathed. Then he turned that same stern scowl on the rider, daring the lad to defy him. “My wife and I must insist you stay.” He lifted an ominous eyebrow. “You wouldn’t wish to displease my lady, would you?”

“Oh, no, sir. Not at all.” The boy slid from his horse with such haste that he almost lost his footing. Morgan steadied him. Remembering his errand, Caden fished in his leather pouch for a cream-colored sheet of vellum sealed with the Cameron crest. “It’s from your father, Miss Sabrina.”

Danger forgotten, Sabrina reached around Morgan’s shoulder and snatched the missive from Caden’s hand. Her hungry expression tore at Morgan’s heart.
As she studied the cryptic scrawl on the outer fold, he saw hope birth and die in her pretty eyes.

Disappointment dulled her voice. “It’s not for me. It’s for the chieftain of Clan MacDonnell.”

She handed Morgan the letter and turned away. As Sabrina passed among them, his clansmen emerged from their hiding places, their own faces stricken with uncertainty at her retreat.

“Sabrina?” Enid said softly, plucking a piece of straw from her own braid.

“Ye forgot yer clarsach, lass,” Fergus called after her, hefting the delicate instrument in his grimy paw.

Sabrina kept walking, melting into the shadows of the buttery as if she’d never existed in their world at all. Morgan shivered as an odd chill touched his spine.

His fist crumpled around the rich vellum. Damn Dougal Cameron to hell! With a single arrogant stroke of his pen he had once again made enemies of them all.

Sabrina picked her way over a pile of rubble, traversing the deserted corridors to her chamber. She should never have left its sanctuary. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t now be haunted by the suspicion and bloodlust she had witnessed in the eyes of Morgan’s clansmen, all incited by a boy’s careless cry of “Cameron comin’!”

She swept past a shattered wall. Cold wind moaned through the crumbling stone and she shivered, chilled to the bone. She knew now how quickly the MacDonnells would turn on her to protect their own. Her foolishness and vanity shamed her. She had honestly believed she could fight centuries of hatred and distrust with nothing more than a few amusing ditties and a dash of reckless charm.

The truth battered her. No matter how hard she tried to win the MacDonnells’ stubborn affections, she would never be one of them. She would never belong. Not to their clan and not to Morgan. A fresh knot of pain curled in her heart.

How long would it be before she saw that same look of cold distrust in Morgan’s eyes? Let one of his
clansman succumb to a stomach grippe or take a drunken tumble down the stairs, and who would he suspect? It would crush her heart to see the sunlit warmth of his eyes fade to steely wrath.

She had no clan of her own now. Her father hadn’t even troubled himself to write her. She was outcast, nothing more than a political pawn in the longstanding feud between Cameron and MacDonnell and a willing slave to the sensual mastery of Morgan MacDonnell.

The hours passed with excruciating slowness as she paced her lonely chamber, waiting for Morgan to come. Well after midnight, she curled into the chair where they had once shared their good-night kisses and drifted into sleep, only to stir restlessly as the mournful wail of the bagpipes pierced her fragmented dreams.

Morgan’s fist slammed down on Dougal’s letter, cracking the seal. The wild skirl of the bagpipes drifted through the window of the crofter’s cottage, the raw notes taunting him with their beauty. Damn Eve! She was like a Greek chorus of doom, an inescapable reminder of his own father’s folly in loving a Cameron. Weren’t Angus’s last words in praise of Elizabeth’s beauty, his final gesture a toast to her fairness?

He sank into a chair and dropped his head into his hands. The wee dark hours before the dawn clustered outside the cottage. He knew that all he must do to either banish his doubts or justify them was go to Sabrina and ask her to read him the letter. It was not pride that stopped him, but fear.

Morgan was no stranger to fear. He had stared it dead in the face countless times. The moonless night he’d been ambushed by seven Chisholm men. The morning his father had forced him to amputate the gangrenous leg of a dying clansmen with nothing but a bottle of whisky to dull the man’s agony.

The first time he’d set his unworthy foot in the rose-tangled bower of the Cameron garden.

But this fear could not be mastered by a roar of
command or ignored by erecting a shield of indifference. It paralyzed him with an impending sense of loss. What if Dougal had had a change of heart? What if he’d decided a MacDonnell wasn’t worthy of his princess and was demanding her return? What if he had found her another husband—a cultured gentleman who could play chess and sing clever duets with her? To hear those damning words read to him in Sabrina’s dulcet tones would be his undoing.

Despising his ignorance, he tore open the letter and scanned the bold script, searching for any clue to its contents. If Dougal had wanted her back, wouldn’t he have sent a battalion of English redcoats instead of one lone lad shaking in his boots?