Teresa Medeiros (48 page)

Morgan looked wary now, fearful of another trick, another twist of her canny logic.

She rested her hands on her hips. “Why do ye think he saved me, lad? Out o’ Christian charity? Pity for a homely clubfoot lass? Out o’ the goodness of his wee black heart? Ha!” Eve grabbed him by the front of his plaid. “He saved me because I was carryin’ in me belly the future chieftain o’ Clan MacDonnell.”

Sabrina bit back a gasp. Her heart ached for Morgan. She had never seen him so vulnerable, his face a raw palate of doubts and contradictions. “But you were only …”

“Twelve years old,” she finished for him, her words steely with remembered pain.

Sabrina swallowed a knot of sickened pity. A pity
she knew Eve would disdain. Morgan’s head dropped. “If you hated him so, why did you stay all those years?”

“Don’t ye know, lad?” Eve whispered. “I stayed to be near ye. I knew he’d never let ye go. He’d hunt me to the ends of the earth if I dared take ye. He hid me away till ye were born. He dinna want anyone to know I was yer mother. A pathetic, twisted creature such as I?” Sabrina flinched to hear her own fears echoed so bluntly. “He feared the clan would say yer blood was tainted. That they’d demand one of Angus’s cousins or brothers for chieftain. He wouldna let me tell ye, and by the time he was gone, ’twas too late. Ye were already wed to the Cameron wench.”

Sabrina could not help but feel Eve’s pain, realizing that the woman’s own scheming had thwarted her at every turn. By murdering Angus, she had unwittingly forced Morgan into a Cameron’s bed. By causing Sabrina’s accident, she had earned her son’s undying hatred.

Morgan still stood with head bowed as if trying to absorb a flurry of blows. Sabrina held her breath as in a gesture of foreign tenderness, Eve reached up to brush the hair from his eyes. But her patience was her undoing. The faint sounds of panicked shouts and the hungry crackling of flames finally reached the hall.

Sabrina began to fight her way to her feet, clawing her way up the balusters of the gallery railing with the raw fingers of one hand. Splinters tore at her flesh.

Morgan lifted his head, his dazed eyes slowly clearing. “Dear God, woman. What have you done now?”

He started for the door. In a motion that reminded Sabrina eerily of Morgan, Eve stepped into his path and drew a pistol from her plaid. She leveled it at his chest.

The note of steel was back in her voice. “Don’t. I’ll see ye dead before I’ll see ye owned by them. Everythin’ I did, all the years I held me silence, were all for Clan MacDonnell. The Camerons’ll die screamin’
and beggin’ for mercy like the cowards they are. I’ll let no one interfere. Not even ye.”

Morgan warily raised his hands, inching the right one toward the gap in his plaid. Sabrina knew what he kept there over his heart. She also knew that heart well enough to be certain he would waver before shooting the mother he’d never known he had. And to know that that instant of hesitation would cost him his life.

She caught the railing and dragged herself the rest of the way to her feet. From somewhere outside came the sound of glass shattering and she drew strength from fresh hope. “How did you get back to Cameron so quickly?” Morgan asked, obviously trying to distract Eve.

Sabrina released the railing and stepped away from it, knees locked to keep her from swaying.

“I left London hours before ye. I saw the lass come to yer street. When she saw her father had purchased yer favors, I knew she’d run here to hide behind her mother’s skirts.”

With agonizing effort Sabrina lifted the massive blade of the claymore off the floor an inch at a time, her muscles strained to the snapping point.

Eve’s laugh was ugly. “A spineless chit like her ain’t got the guts to fight for a man like ye.”

Sabrina threw back her head, tossing her tangled hair out of her eyes. “You’ve made many a mistake, Eve MacDonnell,” she called out from the top of the stairs. “But that may have been your costliest one yet.”

Morgan stared at the ghost at the top of the stairs, wondering if he was going mad. He blinked, but she was still there: Sabrina, her white nightdress spattered with blood, her dark hair tumbling down her back in shimmering disarray. Sabrina standing straight and tall, gripping the hilt of the massive claymore like a glorious angel of vengeance.

A pang of sweet longing pierced him, and he was not surprised to learn her blade had never truly left him, not since that moonlit night in the solar when she had laid his heart bare with no more than a kiss.

Eve turned, crying out at the apparition. It was all the distraction Morgan needed. Catching Eve’s forearm, he swung her back around. He cupped her cheek in his palm, shaking his head with regret as a misty joy claimed her eyes at his tender gesture.

“Forgive me, Mother,” he muttered. His fist connected sharply with her jaw. She slumped in his arms.

Dougal, Elizabeth, their sons, and a handful of servants burst through the splintered remains of the main door, their garments singed and their faces black with soot. Elizabeth cried out and clapped a hand over her mouth at the sight of her daughter standing at the top of the stairs. Brian rushed forward, but Dougal threw out an arm to stop him.

The tip of the claymore clanked to the gallery. Sabrina leaned on its hilt for support. “What will you do with her?” she asked.

Morgan searched the familiar, rawboned planes of his mother’s face. Angus had driven her half mad with his twisted ambitions, but all Morgan could think of were the years they’d been robbed of each other’s comfort. All the years he’d yearned for the tenderness of a mother’s touch while Eve, held in thrall by Angus’s selfish will, went childless and unloved.

He lowered her gently to the floor. “I’ll take care of her.” He moved to stand at the foot of the stairs. A clear message flickered in his eyes as he looked up at Sabrina. “We MacDonnells always take care of our own.”

Sabrina felt all the burdens of the past hanging in the air between them—his stubbornness, her fear, his pride, her pride. Gazing deep into his eyes, she recognized the worth of what he was offering her if she only had the courage to take it. His heart, through good times and bad, tears and laughter, sunshine and rain.

Sabrina dropped the claymore and stood swaying on the top step. Brian clutched Alex’s shoulder without realizing it. Dougal sucked in a shuddering breath. Tears streaked through the soot on Elizabeth’s cheeks. Morgan raced halfway up the steps, then stopped. He nodded, favoring Sabrina with one of those rare and fierce smiles.

In that smile she saw all of his cruelties in London for what they had truly been—kindnesses. The same kindness her mother had shown when she’d denied her her selfish way as a child. A kindness that had refused
to bend to a will that had been twisted and reforged by her terrible fall.

“Come, lass,” he whispered. “I’m right here. I won’t let you fall.”

Drawing in a deep breath, she lowered her foot, carefully feeling for the stair beneath her. She shifted her weight, took one step toward Morgan, then another, her brimming eyes locked on his face. Risking her shaky balance, risking everything, she slowly stretched out her arms toward him.

This time Morgan caught her, wrapping her trembling body in his loving embrace. His strong arms enfolded her, drawing her so close that she could hear the thundering of his mighty heart beneath his plaid. She had finally cracked the giant’s stony façade. Something salty and wet struck her cheek and ran into her mouth.

“Aye, lass,” he whispered against her hair. “I give you my word. I’ll never let you fall again.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Morgan MacDonnell,” she scolded through a veil of joyful tears. “I don’t mind falling as long as you’re there to catch me.”

He smoothed her hair back and stared deep into her eyes. “I always will be, lass. That’s one promise I can keep.”

Sunlight poured into the ceilingless kirk. The charred stones of three walls jutted stark against the azure sky, but the interior of the kirk had been swept clean of soot by a bevy of joyful servants. Clouds drifted overhead like fat, fluffy sheep content to graze on the sunlight of a perfect summer morning.

The small kirk was packed to overflowing with both Camerons and MacDonnells. The collapsed western wall afforded the villagers thronging the hillside a fine view. They’d been robbed of witnessing their laird’s daughter’s first nuptials, and they had no intention of being excluded again.

An old man squatted in a circle of children. “Aye,
some say there’s only one thing can tame a beastie as wild and fierce as a MacDonnell.”

“Oh, what is it? Do tell!” begged a freckled little girl.

“A kiss from a bonny lassie!”

Cackling with glee, the old man screwed his eyes shut and puckered his withered lips. All he got for his trouble were trills of giggles from the girls and moans of disgust from the boys. When he opened his eyes, the freckled lass was gone. He saw her a few feet away, smiling shyly up at a barefoot blond boy who had appeared at dawn with the other MacDonnells.

Inside the kirk, Dougal escorted William Belmont to his seat. He clapped his brother-in-law on the shoulder. “Aye, I thought she was going to let us burn to death before breaking one of those damnable German windows. We were all done for until Pugsley started to wheeze. Then she picked up one of her precious candlesticks and tossed it through the window like a caber!”

Uncle Willie brayed with laughter. “You should have seen her when she was ten years old and I accidentally sat on her …”

Honora and Stefan huddled together, both politely trying not to stare at the MacDonnell scratching his crotch on the pew beside them.

Brian and Alex rushed to what had formerly been the back wall of the kirk to break up another fracas between the Camerons and the MacDonnells, who had been sizing each other up since early that morning. Their shoving match was punctuated by petulant cries of “The savage pushed me first!” and “But he trod upon me bloody toe!”

The combatants stopped shoving as the minister appeared to usher the two grooms to their respective places at the charred altar.

Ranald beamed beneath his luxuriant bagwig as Enid appeared at the back of the kirk. The women aahed with delight as she traversed the scarlet runner to the altar. They took great pains to avoid staring at her
enormous belly. Elizabeth reached behind her and gave Honora’s hand a comforting squeeze.

“Take off yer bonnet,” Fergus MacDonnell bellowed, slapping one of his clansman. “Ain’t ye got no respect for a lady?” Alwyn cuddled beneath his arm, soothing his temper with a kiss.

An awed hush fell over Cameron and MacDonnell alike as Sabrina appeared, garbed like an angel in white, her arms draped with a profusion of wild roses cut fresh from the meadows. If anyone noticed her pronounced limp as she marched down the aisle, they did not dare to comment upon it. Not with a towering giant of a MacDonnell scowling fiercely at them from the altar.

Sabrina concentrated on each step as if it would be her last, determined not to stumble. Each time she faltered, she simply lifted her head and searched the face of the man who awaited her at the end of her long trek.

The fierce pride in his eyes infused her with strength. Her heart swelled with love until she thought it would surely burst from her chest.

As she stepped up to face him, clutching the roses for courage, she stumbled over a bump in the runner. A single thorn pricked her thumb and a small cry escaped her. A drop of blood spattered on her gown.

Morgan steadied her, then brought her thumb to his mouth and gently sucked away another welling drop.

“Oh, no,” she wailed softly, rubbing the stain on her bodice. “I wanted everything to be perfect this time.”

He chucked her chin up with one of his big, warm fingers and winked at her. “Nonsense, lass. Remember the MacDonnell motto. You’ve got to shed a little blood in any fight worth winning.”

Sabrina’s lips twitched, then broke into a smile. Her smile spread to an impish grin. Ignoring the reproving gaze of the minister, Morgan threw back his head and roared with laughter.

Their lips met in sweet and tender accord as they
fell together, crushing the roses between them, releasing their fragrance in a whisper, a shout, and a joyous song as sweet and eternal as their love.

Taking the MacDonnell motto to heart, Fergus threw the first punch.

New York Times
bestselling author TERESA MEDEIROS was recently chosen one of the Top Ten Favorite Romance Authors by
Affaire de Coeur
magazine and won the
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Historical Love and Laughter. A former Army brat and registered nurse, she wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since gone on to win the hearts of critics and readers alike. The author of thirteen novels, Teresa makes her home in Kentucky with her husband and two cats. Readers can visit her website at
www.teresamedeiros.com
.