To Desire a Highlander (10 page)

“You erred, eh?” Mungo tossed him a grin, even winking.

Gillian watched her father intently. She didn’t care for the great ceremony he made of plunking the bag on the table, untying its strings with a flourish.

She felt cold, almost light-headed. “What’s in there?”

“What we need!” Her father thrust his arm into the old leather bag, retrieving a silver-and-jewel-rimmed mead horn that he waved over his head. Gillian knew the famed drinking vessel, and it answered all of her questions. It also iced the blood in her veins.

“The Horn of Bliss,” she said unnecessarily, feeling herself blanch.

“To be sure!” Her father grinned. “A good thing I thought to bring it along.”

Gillian stared at him, at the mead horn, as the meaning of his words sank in. She still held a handful of honeyed nuts, but dropped them now, letting them fall onto her plate. Several slid into her lap, then rolled to the floor. She couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. The horn’s silvered rim gleamed in the torchlight. Its sheen taunted her, trapping her in a disaster she couldn’t believe was happening.

The Horn of Bliss changed everything.

“A fine piece.” Donell eyed it appreciatively. “Worth a king’s ransom.”

“ ’Tis priceless, aye!” Mungo nodded, looking proud and benevolent. “Old as stone, it is, or so some say. The horn has been passed down through MacGuire chieftains for o’er five hundred years, perhaps longer. A great Viking warlord gave it to one of my forebears in exchange
for his youngest and most beautiful daughter. The poor man had—”

“His own gains at heart,” Gillian cut in with her opinion of her ancestor’s motive.

She stood, scarce hearing her voice for the roaring in her ears. From somewhere distant, she thought she caught her brothers’ protestations, the mumblings of Donell’s men, and poor Skog’s barking.

She couldn’t tell for sure because the hall had dimmed before her. The walls and tables and torches blurred, swimming together as the floor tilted beneath her feet. One of her father’s men was approaching, a large jug in his hand. He stopped beside Mungo, deftly pouring rich, golden mead into the Horn of Bliss, Clan MacGuire’s most sacred heirloom. According to legend, the relic would ensure carnal bliss and many children to every man who partook from it. Drinking from it would seal a handfast. But would Donell remember such after so much time away?

MacGuire chieftains saw the Horn of Bliss as a secret weapon, believing its power guaranteed such alliances went as wished, with a wedding after the pair’s year and a day of couplings.

Gillian didn’t want to breed with Donell.

Not this night, and for sure not for such an interminable length of time.

“Wait!” She darted around the table, intending to snatch the horn. “Don’t touch it!” She lunged, reaching out. “Don’t let him give it to you.”

But she was too late.

Already, her father was presenting the relic to Donell, grinning broadly as her unsuspecting betrothed lifted the
horn to his lips, tipping back the silver rim and drinking deep of the mead within.

Gillian stared at him in horror, watching as he unwittingly sealed their handfast. Whatever followed didn’t matter. The Horn of Bliss was tradition and no MacGuire would deny its validity.

Even Gillian couldn’t.

The deed was done.

Chapter Eight

Y
ou fear your father would poison me?” Donell looked at Lady Gillian as he placed the emptied drinking horn on his new hall’s high table. He had no idea why she hadn’t wanted him to sample her father’s mead, but damned if he didn’t enjoy riling her.

He liked the color that then stained her cheeks. “I didnae think you were that fond of me.”

A smile curved his mouth. He couldn’t help it.

He shouldn’t be amused at all, not seeing her agitation. But she drove him to feel and do things he couldn’t explain, as if she’d bewitched him.

He looked away, then back to her. “I’m honored.”

“You shouldn’t be.” She glanced at the discarded horn, her breath coming fast from her sprint around the table. “You have no idea what you’ve done!” Her green eyes flashed, blazing like jewels. “Drinking from the Horn of Bliss seals my clan’s handfasting ceremony, binding a pair as surely as a priest mumbling sacred vows.”

Roag’s smile faded. “A handfast—”

“Aye, that’s what this is. My clan has ever been known for them.”

“Handfasting?” Roag stared at her.

He couldn’t think. His mind whirled, a sick feeling spreading inside him. “My original offer…” He turned to her father, letting his words trail away, hoping the fiend would enlighten him.

“As you wished, my boy, as you wished!” Mungo pulled a dirk from beneath his belt, began slicing a narrow strip from his plaid. “To be sure, I wasn’t for accepting a handfast back when you proposed it. The gel was too young.” He swelled his chest, cocky as a rooster. “Seeing as you’ve waited so long to claim her, I’m thinking you deserve her now.” He grabbed Lady Gillian’s arm, swiftly looping the tartan around her wrist, thrusting her hand in Roag’s direction. “No need to wait months for a wedding, no’ when she’s here, ready and willing to be yours.”

“Indeed.” Roag forced a grin, cursing the rascally bastard in silence and his own rashness for landing in such a position.

Refusing wasn’t an option.

Not if he wasn’t to reveal his true identity and risk the King’s mission, earning his justifiable wrath. Fenris never failed. If they did, they didn’t live long enough to regret their mistake.

“Then let us be on with it.” Seeing no choice, he grasped Lady Gillian’s hand, linking their fingers. He didn’t blink as her father bound their wrists with the plaid strip. He even ignored the urge to punch the grin off the older man’s ruddy, red-bearded face.

Roag might love his King, but he appreciated breathing more.

Life was too good, generally, to lose it because of the machinations of a wily Hebridean chief and his admittedly desirable daughter. Already the lout was reciting the ancient words, a sacred ceremony Roag had witnessed once or twice, never believing he’d fall prey to one.

“… you are entering a hallowed bond, here within this circle of kith, kin, and friends, and blessed by all the powers of the Old Ones,” Mungo’s voice rose, drowning out the scraping of bench legs on stone, the shuffle of feet as Lady Gillian’s brothers gathered around them.

Roag’s men joined in, their eyebrows nearly as high as the ceiling’s smoke-blackened rafters. Not one of them protested, no doubt knowing their own Fenris necks rested on their compliance, the damning pretense that Roag was Donell MacDonnell.

“Do you enter this union freely?” Mungo slung another band of the cloth about their wrists. “Are you prepared to stand together always, on days of fair winds as in nights of hard rains?”

Lady Gillian ignored her father, pinning Roag with a glare as sharp as emerald ice. “Aye,” she vowed, unblinking.

At the edge of the circle of men, Big Hughie Alesone began to cough. Roag sent him a look and Big Hughie turned aside, bending double as one of Roag’s other men slapped his back. The oaf was clearly laughing, and Roag made a secret vow to have harsh words with him as soon as this farce ended. There wasn’t anything amusing about his plight.

More important, he had no intention of keeping false vows.

Fenris sometimes suffered for Scotland, and he’d never been one to shun duty.

He wouldn’t start now.

So he stood straighter and put back his shoulders, giving his bride his fullest attention. He even summoned the semblance of a smile. “Aye, I will stand with Lady Gillian on fair days and in rain.”

“Will you honor and respect one another?” Mungo made another loop around their hands. “Sharing laughter and sorrow, easing each other’s pain and seeking to replace it with gladness?”

“Aye.” Lady Gillian’s agreement came cold and clipped.

Roag was sure the floor was opening beneath his feet. He could feel himself sliding into an abyss, a dark and suffocating place of no return. Somehow he nodded, even voiced his assent. “So be it, aye.”

“The bond is made!” Mungo MacGuire grinned, securing a third loop around their wrists. “As your hands are now joined, so are your bodies, hearts, and spirits from this moment onward for a year and a day. Should you then choose to part, any child bred of your union shall be honored as your legitimate heir and…”

Roag closed his ears to the old chief’s droning.

He knew the words, and their portent.

He wouldn’t be held to a bride not his own; a wife bound to a man he wasn’t.

What a shame the anger of the old gods worried him more than the disdain of a monk or priest. But their ire couldn’t be helped. He wouldn’t fash himself over something so unavoidable.

In his place, King Robert would have done the same.

Without question, his King would also lift the maid’s skirts, sampling all she had to offer him. Roag felt a coil
twisting deep inside, a cold, iron band turning slowly, squeezing the very life and breath from him.

He wasn’t a marrying man.

“Donell, I accept you as my handfasted husband,” his bride spoke the ceremony’s final words, “from this day onward, so long as our union pleases us.”

Roag fumed. Little would suit him less.

“I take you as well, my lady.” He didn’t dare glance at his men. “I make you the same vows,” he added, sure he would have killed Donell MacDonnell slowly and with his bare hands if the craven wasn’t already stone cold dead.

“So they are one!” Mungo untied the tartan binding with a flourish, slinging it around Roag’s shoulders. “Hail the happy twain!”

“Hail Lord Donell and Lady Gillian!” Every man present shouted the chorus. Some thumped fists on tables, while others stamped their feet. “Long life and many bairns to them! May the gods e’er hold them in their hands!”

Roag tipped back his head and stared up at the ceiling, the age-blackened rafters and the wisps of curling blue smoke drifting everywhere. He was not a “lord.” And he damned sure didn’t care to be any woman’s husband, handfasted in the ancient pagan ways or bound by the stricter laws of church and state. More than that, he didn’t care for the last part of the ceremony.

The kiss he was obliged to give his bride.

Never had a woman looked at him so fiercely, especially when he was about to kiss her. And damn him to hell, but he didn’t like it at all.

He wasn’t an ogre.

Many women had sought his kisses… and more. This one tempted him in a worse way than any lass before
her. Already, his blood heated, his loins tightening. Her sparking eyes intrigued him. A challenge he couldn’t resist.

At the moment, he found her so appealing, he didn’t care that she was trouble.

“A kiss, a kiss!” Men kept up the cry, clapping their hands. “Have done, lad! Kiss her!”

Conn alone moved away, striding from the hall, closing its half-warped, iron-shod door behind him. Not a man to be indoors for long, he surely sought the briskness of the sea wind. Or would have on any other night, Roag knew. As things stood, Conn was showing his displeasure, well aware that Roag wouldn’t refuse his bride a kiss.

How could he?

“A kiss, a kiss!” The shouts grew louder, several of MacGuire’s men wending their way through the throng, handing out well-filled cups of ale and brimming mead horns. Plain, unadorned drinking horns, not intended to maneuver men into Roag’s pitiful quandary.

Somewhere a musician grabbed his pipes and gave a few long, high-pitched skirls before launching into a rousing tune, blowing gustily as he strutted about the hall. Near the fire, Skog sat up and started to howl, the ancient beast keeping time with the blaring pipes.

Lady Gillian ignored the ruckus, her face closed.

But her eyes glittered in the torchlight, her gaze showing her fury.

Roag stepped closer, leaning in to place his lips to her ear. “I could demand to see you naked, my lady. It’s an old custom, and my good right before this goes any further.” He kept his voice low, deliberately wicked. “When I kiss you, you’d best make me think you’re enjoying it or I’ll
peel that gown off you here and now, taking my time to look you over, to see if I want you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” She seethed, nipping his fingers when he brushed his knuckles along her jaw.

“Dinnae push me too far, lass.” Roag made no attempt at gallantry. “There isn’t much I won’t do, especially when provoked by a woman clearly in need of a man’s attentions.”

“You bastard,” she hissed, her eyes blazing.

“Perhaps I am.” He gave her a frank look, entirely too pleased by her spirit.

He wasn’t about to undress her. Seeing her bare-bottomed and in all her lush, smooth-skinned glory would set him like granite. He’d want her in ways not good for him. And he wasn’t that kind of a fool.

“A kiss, a kiss!” The men were roaring now, some leaping onto benches for a better view.

Lady Gillian stood rigid, her hands fisting at her sides.

Roag glanced at the men, the warriors crowding the hall. He saw a sea of big, bearded men in leather, mail, and tartan. They all cheered, and in the haze of drifting smoke, it was hard to tell his friends from MacGuires. He did know they’d keep up the din until he kissed the lass. Then they’d quaff ale, wine, and mead, eventually slumping across the tables or sliding onto the cold, stone floor.