Bride for a Knight (7 page)

“Hah! Just what I meant!” Alan Mor hooted another laugh. “The man has other worries these days and that’s why I’m of a mind to help him turn his thoughts elsewhere.”

The words spoken, he thrust a hand beneath his plaid, fumbling inside its folds until he produced a small leather pouch.

“Let no one say I’m no’ letting this alliance cost me,” he announced, slapping the pouch onto the table with a flourish. “I sent clear to Inverness for these, had them fashioned by the most skilled goldsmith known to do business in that den of robbers and money-pinchers.”

The Lady Aveline turned scarlet.

Jamie eyed the small leather pouch, suspicion beating through him.

Alan Mor turned a pop-eyed stare on them both. “Well, it
would
be inauspicious to use the rings meant for Sorcha and Neill now, wouldn’t it?” Grinning, he snatched up the pouch and opened it, letting two gold and sapphire rings tumble into his hand.

Jamie stared at him, his amazement only greater when Alan Mor plunked his treasure on the table and beckoned to a man hovering in the shadows of a nearby window embrasure.

A man Jamie hadn’t noticed until now.

A dark, heavy-set man with hooded eyes and garbed in the robes of a monk.

He strode forward, his intent writ all o’er him.

“Baldric of Barevan,” he announced, inclining his head to Jamie. “I am well acquainted with your sire. He’s gifted our humble church with more than one fine stirk down the years.”

“Has he now?” Jamie folded his arms.

“Och, aye.” The monk flicked a glance at Jamie’s bride, his slitty-eyed gaze holding a shade more appreciation than suited a man of God. He returned his attention to Jamie. “Your union with the Lady Aveline will surely raise your sire’s spirits.”

“Say you?”

“Ahhh, to be sure.” Brother Baldric lifted his face heavenward, made the sign of the cross. “He knows God’s hand is in the match. Why, just the other e’en he told me how much he’s looking forward to grandsons.”

Jamie arched a brow.

The man was a bald-faced liar.

And if Barevan church in distant Moray did lay claim to a Macpherson bull, they’d paid out their noses for the privilege. Like as not double what Jamie’s da usually wheedled out of cattle buyers.

“Good sir,” he began, “everyone in these hills knows my father has gone out of his way to avoid churchmen since my mother’s unfortunate passing, claiming he’d prayed his last and lost his faith that ill-fated night.”

Baldric of Barevan shifted from one foot to the other.

He said nothing.

Jamie went on, regardless. “See you, my father would sooner walk naked through a blizzard before he’d gift a wee church clear across the Highlands with one of his prized stirks. Truth be told, before he’d make
any
church such a gift.”

This time the monk slid an uncomfortable glance at Alan Mor, but that one only shrugged. “I’ve no idea what Munro does with his cattle,” Alan Mor claimed, settling back in his laird’s chair. “I only know he agreed to this alliance.”

“Aye, that he did,” Jamie confirmed, if only for the sake of Lady Aveline.

Honor and tact forbid him to add that his father was anything but pleased about seeing the lass tied to him. ’Twas a match with one of Jamie’s many cousins he’d agreed to.

Munro Macpherson had been cozened.

Just as the smooth-tongued, hand-rubbing monk and Alan Mor were now attempting to do to him.

So he wasn’t about to argue about bulls, or his feelings about his sainted mother’s death. Not with two such obvious blackguards.

And with other serious matters bearing down on him. Namely which sensation plagued him more—the one that felt like a noose slipping over his head or that his knightly spurs seemed to be getting weightier by the moment.

Putting back his shoulders, he eyed the monk and his smug-looking host. The ever-growing circle of grinning, sword-hung Matheson henchmen crowding around them. Most especially, the Lady Aveline. Saints, the maid was tiny enough to ride a milkweed for a steed. And she had the most lustrous hair he’d ever seen.

Jamie took a deep breath, deliberately turning his mind from her beauty. At the moment he needed his wits about him.

Refusal or chivalric duty.

Those were his choices.

And if his guess about the holy man’s presence proved accurate, he’d need to decide soon.

Unfortunately, his annoyance at being duped must’ve shown because his bride-to-be’s eyes rounded as her gaze flitted between him, her da, and the monk. And unless his own eyes were failing him, she even looked a little faint, all color draining from her face.

Worse, she’d begun to tremble.

But she surprised him by leaping to her feet and wheeling on her father. “You swore he knew the betrothal ceremony was this noon!” she accused him. “You’ve made a fool of me—letting me dress in my best gown and braid silver ribbons into my hair! You looked on when Sorcha left the hall, telling her you understood why she couldn’t bear to be a witness, reminded of the day she pledged herself to Neill.”

“Now, lass.” Her father raised a hand. “You ken I ne’er do aught without good reason.”

Ignoring him, Aveline jammed her hands on her hips and aimed an equally livid glare on Brother Baldric. Likewise the rough-looking clansmen who’d crowded onto the dais.

“All of you knew!” she railed, her blue eyes snapping. “Everyone knew save the most important soul beneath this roof. James of the Heather!”

She glanced at him then, both sympathy and agitation pouring off her.

“He wasn’t told. Just look at him. ’Tis plain to see he knew naught of this.” She pressed a hand to her breast, drew a great breath. “I will not be party to such a deception! I—”

“You are beset by the womanly fears that seize every bride on such a day,” Jamie declared, her distress making his decision for him.

That, and the endlessly heavy weight of his spurs.

Feeling that weight pressing on him, he stepped closer to her, using the width of his back and shoulders to shield her from curious stares. If there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate it was seeing a woman mistreated or shamed. Blessedly, in this instance, he had the means to salve her embarrassment.

He straightened his back, steeling himself to lie for the second time since entering Fairmaiden’s hall.

“For truth, I swear to you I knew about the betrothed ceremony,” he vowed, certain a lightning bolt would strike him dead on his ride back to Baldreagan. “My da told me of it when I arrived yestereve.”

She looked at him, disbelief clouding her eyes.

Jamie slid a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face toward his. “Think, lass. Why else would I have brought you a fine mirror and comb as betrothal gifts?”

On his words, she bit her lip and blinked, clearly struggling to keep tears from spilling down her cheeks.

And just looking at her, Jamie knew himself lost.

Knew he’d made the right choice.

Even if the lie someday found him sharing a pool o’ brimstone with Alan Mor and his shifty-eyed monk.

He narrowed his eyes on them now, not at all surprised when they squirmed. For truth, they had good reason to do so. If either of them e’er exposed him for speaking falsely, he’d forget his size and strength and give them such a pounding they’d wish they’d ne’er been born.

Unfortunately, Lady Aveline still looked doubtful.

And more than a shade unhappy.

“Is this true?” She slipped from Jamie’s grasp and turned back to her father. “He did know the ceremony was set for today? This is not one of your schemes to force him into a plight troth he doesn’t want?”

Before Alan Mor could respond, James Macpherson stepped close and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I would not be here did I not wish to bind myself to you, my lady. Dinna you think to doubt it, for I have ne’er spoken truer words,” he said, his voice soft and low, the warmth of his fingers spilling all through her.

“You don’t even know me,” Aveline couldn’t help but protest, his touch unsettling her. “And I do not know you. We have ne’er even seen each other before this day. We—”

“We both know that isn’t true,” he said, his fingers tightening ever so slightly on her shoulder. “I
do
want you.”

Aveline’s breath caught, his words setting her heart to fluttering for he’d dipped his head to her ear and spoken them just for her.

Equally pleasing, he kept his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring way, his touch more welcome and pleasurable than she would have believed. Especially when his thumb began moving in ever so light circles up and down the side of her neck, each tender caress soothing and melting her.

“Hah!” Alan Mor slapped the monk’s back with a resounding whack. “Will you look at that?” he cried, his mirth scarce contained. “I coulda searched miles through the rock and heather to find the best husband for my wee lassie and here’s my arch-fiend’s youngest, smitten as the day is long!”

He rocked back on his heels, his face splitting in a grin. “Suffering saints! And to think the girl doubted me!”

“There is e’er reason to doubt you,” Aveline grumbled beneath her breath, watching her da’s mummery with suspicion.

But she couldn’t deny that he appeared genuinely pleased.

And like as not, he was. Even if his reasons would be his own self-serving ones and not his professed concern for Munro Macpherson and that one’s well-doing.

To be sure, he didn’t care a jot if Laird Macpherson’s strapping son found favor with her or nay.

Even less that she thought he was the most powerfully handsome man she’d e’er set eyes upon. His great size and similarity of feature revealed his kinship to his brothers, but she was quite sure he’d top even Neill by an inch or more were they to stand side by side.

His shoulders looked wider, too. Definitely more impressively muscled. And though Neill had been a pleasure for any lass to rest her eyes upon, he’d worn his pride and station like a crown and Aveline had ne’er felt wholly at ease beneath his stern, sometimes arrogant stares.

No matter that Sorcha e’er insisted there hadn’t been a vainglorious bone in his undeniably comely body.

But
this
Macpherson had his clan’s far-famed looks and a good heart. That, she could already tell. It’d been especially apparent in the way his voice had softened when he’d spoken of his mother. And she’d seen it, too, in his readiness to comfort her.

She suspected he had a dimple, too. Something she’d watch for as soon as he ceased frowning at her father and Brother Baldric.

And, saints preserve her, but she was certain she’d also caught glimpses of glistening, coppery-colored chest hair at the neck opening of his tunic.

Aveline moistened her lips, the notion exciting her. Would such hairs prove as soft and glossy as they’d looked? Or would she find them wiry and crisp?

That she even wanted to know astounded her.

As did the tingling warmth that spooled through her the longer she thought about such things. Aye, she decided, watching him, he was the finest, most magnificent man she’d ever seen.

And the most valiant from what she could tell.

Proving it, he stepped forward and took the two rings from the table, lifting them in the air. “Let it be known that this betrothal ceremony is both binding and desired,” he said, raising his voice so all could hear.

Saying the words before his good sense kicked in and sent him hastening from the hall to seek a bride not burdened by a sire he knew to be more slippery than an eel.

Instead, he cleared his throat and concentrated only on her beautiful sapphire eyes, the scent of summer violets.

“I, James of the Heather, take you, Aveline of Fairmaiden, as my betrothed bride,” he said, a burst of boisterous approval rising in the hall as he slid the smaller of the two gold-and-sapphire rings onto her finger.

Not surprising, so soon as the ruckus died down, Brother Baldric began rattling off his assets. And one quick glance at Alan Mor’s beaming countenance told him where the monk had gleaned such knowledge.

But before he could comment, the second ring was gleaming on his own finger, his
Sithe
maid’s soft voice accepting his plight troth and offering her own.

And then the deed was done.

The faery was his bride.

About the same time but across a few mist-draped hills and the wild torrent of water known as the Garbh Uisge, Munro Macpherson tossed in his curtained bed, trying to decide between the perils of falling asleep and risking another fearing dream or staying awake and listening for the heavy breathing that always heralded the arrival of his sons’ ghosts.

“Ach—for guidsakes!” Scowling fiercely, he punched down his pillows for what had to be the hundredth time since chasing Morag and her fool meal tray from the room. “Beset by bogles and bowls of gruel in my own bedchamber!”

Flipping onto his stomach, he squeezed shut his eyes and resisted the temptation to jam his fingers into his ears. Whether or not anyone could see him, sequestered as he was behind his tightly drawn bed curtains, scarce mattered.

He was still a man of power and consequence and should maintain at least a semblance of lairdly dignity.

And to that effect, fearing dreams seemed less treacherous than staring into the gloom of his enclosed bed, his ears peeled for any sound he shouldn’t be hearing.

Not comfortably ensconced in his own well-shuttered and barricaded privy chamber.

Pursing his lips, he reached to part the bed curtains just a wee bit. Only to make certain that fox Alan Mor’s strongboxes of stones were still piled against the bolted door. Blessedly, they were. And they provided sound proof against further intrusions from his long-nosed she-bat of a seneschal and any lackeys she might send abovestairs to pester and annoy him.

He almost snorted. That was something they all seemed ever good at, bedeviling him.

Alan Mor, by thinking him so simpleminded he’d be fooled by a thin layer o’ coin spread oe’r a coffer filled with rocks.

Morag and his kinsmen, by repeatedly sneaking into his bedchamber when he slept to throw open the shutters, nigh blinding him. Or expecting him to eat pig’s swill they called gruel and believe such a sorry excuse for victuals would replenish his strength.