Teresa Medeiros (12 page)

“Would you join hands? Please?” the minister added, a cajoling note creeping into his tone.

Morgan had spent half his life holding this girl at arm’s length. Her unbound hair hid her expression as he lifted her hands in his own. A chaplet of autumn roses crowned her brow. Their haunting fragrance stirred far more than just Morgan’s senses.

As the minister rambled on above them, Morgan studied Sabrina’s hands. They were cool and smooth in his callused embrace, so delicate he feared he might break them out of sheer clumsiness. An image rose unbidden to his mind—those same hands stroking, gliding, dancing like velvet wings against his heated flesh.

She recited her vows, her voice prim and passionless. As her generous lips compressed to a thin line,
Morgan felt a twinge of regret. If at their first meeting he had scooped her up, dried her baby tears, and accepted her extended hand of friendship, this day might be a day of celebration for both Cameron and MacDonnell. Instead, he had chosen to make her hate him. And judging by her grim expression, he had met with rousing success.

But perhaps it wasn’t too late to woo her, he thought. Wouldn’t tenderness be his most effective weapon, since it was the last thing she would expect from him? He was already congratulating himself on his shrewdness, when the minister asked him to recite his vows.

Morgan stumbled over the unfamiliar words, then chilled in fresh horror when he was asked to bind their oaths with a ring. He had no ring to give.

“Here you are, lad,” Dougal whispered, pressing the Cameron betrothal ring into his hand. “It belongs to you now.”

The heavy gold weighted Morgan’s palm. He stared down at it, the symbol of everything he hated. It was gaudy, ostentatious, and valuable enough to feed his entire clan for a year. The ruby gleamed like a fat drop of blood. MacDonnell blood shed over the centuries by the Camerons. His first impulse was to throw it right back in Dougal’s smug face.

But Sabrina was already holding out her slender finger. A fierce surge of possessiveness seized him. Tenderly or not, tonight it would be Cameron blood shed as he gave her something more binding than any oath or lump of gold. He shoved the ring on her waiting finger more roughly than he intended.

They stood, and the minister gave him leave to kiss his bride.

Morgan was tempted to laugh. Sabrina had squinched her eyes shut and wrinkled her face in such dread that it was obvious she expected a punishing assault to brand her as MacDonnell booty before her family and God.

’Twould be as good a time as any to test the keenness of his weapons, Morgan decided. Ignoring her
brothers’ baleful glares, he framed Sabrina’s face in his hands and gently laid his lips on hers. Caught off guard, they parted at his coaxing. He flicked his tongue against hers in a subtle promise of pleasures to come. As he drew back, the misty wonder reflected on her face made him feel as if he’d just transformed from ogre to prince before her very eyes.

Like
La Belle au Bois Dormante
stirred by her first kiss in one of her mother’s favorite nursery tales, Sabrina awoke from the numbing spell of her father’s betrayal to find herself wed to a towering heathen who smelled of sunlight and pine. She stared dumbly at the bone bodkin that secured his plaid.

“What is it, lass?” he bent to whisper. “Have you never seen a bodkin before?”

“Is that a human bone?” She ran her fingertip across it.

Morgan’s lips touched her hair, snuggling deep to find her ear. His burr deepened. “Aye. Belonged to me first wife, it did. Terribly curious, the lass was. Always pokin’ her wee fingers where they didna belong.”

Sabrina snatched her hand back, curling it into a protective fist before she realized Morgan’s eyes were twinkling with suppressed laughter. The unfamiliar weight of the Cameron betrothal ring cut into her flesh.

Then they were torn apart, Sabrina to endure her mother’s tearful embrace and Morgan to accept the grudging congratulations of Alex and Brian. Dougal stood back, beaming in paternal pride.

Ranald took advantage of the chaos to bend Enid over his arm and kiss her wildly. Morgan suspected the poor girl was near swooning, for she didn’t seem to be struggling at all. He snatched a handful of his cousin’s kilt and heaved him toward the door, leaving the dazed blond gasping for air.

“Eh! What’s the bloody rush? I haven’t kissed the bride yet!” Ranald protested.

“Nor will you,” Morgan snapped. “Not in my lifetime.” He hastened after Ranald, believing there might still be a chance of escaping this barbaric ritual with a scrap of his pride intact.

His hopes died as the minister stepped into his path and shoved a quill pen into his hand. He was steered toward the leather-bound register lying open on the altar.

“There you go, lad. Sign your name and ’twill all be official.”

Sabrina wiggled out of her mother’s hug to find Morgan standing motionless before the altar, a pen gripped like the haft of an ax in his fist. A dull flush suffused his throat.

She had seen that flush before. One rainy summer afternoon when Brian had thrust
The Iliad
at him and insisted it was his turn to read. She had quickly piped up, protesting that her brother had skipped her. But the damage had been done. Morgan had knocked the book away before striding from the solar, never to return except to skulk in the shadows, where he believed no one could see him. But Sabrina had seen. And remembered.

Shoving the startled minister out of her path, she rushed to her husband’s side and bestowed an impish grin on him. “It’s too late to change your mind now. You’re stuck with me.”

Beneath the guise of patting his hand, she rearranged his fingers around the pen, dipped it in the ink, and guided his fist in the motion of writing his name. Then she pried the pen from his stiff fingers and signed her name below his with a flourish.

Still scowling, Morgan bent to examine the clumsy loops and elegant spirals that encompassed their names. Sabrina scattered a handful of sand across the signatures before his nose could collide with the fresh ink. Her chaplet of roses tilted, sliding over one eye.

Morgan slowly straightened. Acutely aware of the curious stares of the others, Sabrina kept her smile bright and braced herself for the damning rejection that had always greeted her shy attempts to befriend him.

He cocked his head to the side, studying her from beneath his sandy lashes before reaching down and gently righting the chaplet of flowers. A stray petal
caught on his fingertip. The severe line of his lips never wavered, but one brilliant green eye closed and then opened in silent regard, sending Sabrina’s mind reeling.

God in heaven, help her! she prayed. Morgan MacDonnell had winked at her.

Morgan’s wink was only the beginning of Sabrina’s torment.

She lay flat on her back in the strange bed, the thick quilts drawn up to her chin. The canopy vibrated in time with her shivers as she awaited the arrival of her bridegroom. Outside the closed door, Pugsley whined a mournful refrain. Undoubtedly horrified at the prospect of her daughter’s virginal bed being defiled by Morgan’s overwhelming maleness, her mother had tucked them at the far end of the east wing. Morgan had made his earlier boast in vain. From there, no one would hear her scream.

All his boyhood cruelties had paled in comparison to the diabolical kindness he had shown her that night. Her first bittersweet taste of perdition had come when he had pulled out her chair at the supper table. She had sat slowly, fully expecting to go tumbling when he whisked it away at the last second. Instead, he had smoothed her napkin over her lap and polished her silverware on his plaid before pronouncing it fit for her bonny lips.

He pilfered choice morsels of mutton and grouse from her brothers’ plates for her. He dabbed imaginary droplets of wine from her chin. He was even polite to Enid, coaxing a wan smile from her by praising the stewed mushrooms she shyly pressed on him.

Finally, when he had leaned over and innocently inquired if she might care for a lick of his sausage, Sabrina’s frayed nerves had snapped. Overturning the goblet he had so graciously refilled, she had jumped up and fled the table, ignoring his cry of concern.

He had even given her ample time to prepare for his arrival in their bedchamber. But Sabrina knew she could prepare for a lifetime and never be truly ready
for the big, dangerous stranger who was now her husband. The minutes ticked away, measured by the hollow thump of her heart. Her toes twitched beneath the blankets. When Morgan came, she would calmly and coolly suggest they discuss the terms of this marriage, a marriage they had both agreed would be devoid of the pleasures and intimacies usually shared by wedded couples. She frowned. He had agreed, hadn’t he?

Against her will her mind dwelled on the things her mother had spoken of earlier. She could hardly believe that a minister of god had given Morgan the right to work those dark and mysterious acts on her body. Images flitted past. Brazen. Masterful. Shocking. But even more disturbing was the tender magic her mother had suggested she cast on Morgan. Spells to soften his temper, to bend him to her will. Charms she might weave around that big, intractable body of his with her hands, her legs … her mouth. Sabrina fanned herself with the blankets, then jumped from the bed as if her shameful thoughts had ignited it.

She drew open the window; a rush of cool wind soothed her burning brow. Autumn was fast fleeing, shoved aside by the relentless hand of winter. The MacDonnells were reveling again. From this side of the manor she had to strain to hear their merriment, but then the wind shifted, carrying on its wings a drunken voice braying in song—

Sabrina slammed the window and raced for the bed, once again chilled to the marrow. She jerked the blanket over her head in a vain attempt to drown out the deafening thud of the footsteps approaching the door. After several minutes she realized it was only her heart pounding in her ears.

She peeked out from beneath the blanket. Even Pugsley had ceased his vigil. The rumble of his untroubled
snores drifted through the door. She collapsed against the pillows, exhaustion seeping through her body like a drug. As her lids drifted down, one last thought pierced her consciousness.

Perhaps Morgan wasn’t coming.

Perhaps he was out making merry with his clansmen, toasting his final cruel jest at Sabrina Cameron’s expense. She knew she should be relieved, but instead she hugged herself, hoping sleep would dull the peculiar ache in her heart. Her chin had just nudged her chest, when the door crashed open.

Her husband filled the width and breadth of its frame.

He slammed the door in Pugsley’s puzzled face and lurched across the chamber. His arm came up in one fluid motion. Before Sabrina even saw the claymore in his hand, its lethal point was pressed against the hollow of her throat.

“Disrobe, you treacherous witch,” he snarled. “I’m goin’ to make you my wife tonight or bloody well die in the tryin’.”

Sabrina had married a madman. The tip of the claymore trembled. Morgan swayed dangerously. She pressed herself into the pillows, leaning away from the cold blade, and wondered if the church would recognize murder as grounds for annulment.

“You treacherous witch,” he repeated, growling under his breath. “How dare you sit there and blink at me so innocently! Have you nothin’ at all to say for yourself?” He squinted as if having difficulty bringing her into focus. A glassy sheen dulled his eyes.

Sabrina’s mind raced. She had seen Morgan drink only water with his supper. Had he gone off later and gotten drunk with his men? “Perhaps you’d best decide in which order you’d like to rape and murder me,” she said evenly. “If you don’t remove your sword from my throat, you’re going to impale me.”

“ ’Twould be my pleasure, lass. Sword or no.”

She took the blade gingerly between two fingers and pushed it away. The simple movement unbalanced Morgan. He stumbled back, flailing the claymore before steadying himself on the bedpost. His bronze skin had gone ashen. His other arm was wrapped around his stomach as if to hold it in place.

Perhaps your Morgan will find his taste for revenge more bitter than he expected
.

The memory of Enid’s cryptic words and her cousin’s sudden craving to cook mushrooms suddenly spawned a terrible suspicion in Sabrina’s mind.

Morgan straightened with visible effort. “Tell me, princess, did your papa use you only to bait the trap or did your own delicate hands mix the poison?”

She wanted to recoil from the accusation he spat out. But when he swayed, she climbed to her knees and reached for him.

He jerked away from her outstretched hand. “Stay away from me, you bonny she-devil! If you won’t give me any answers, I’ll wring them from your father’s bloody neck.”

He lunged for the door, but in the brief respite, the claymore had grown too heavy for his arm. He dragged it behind him, gouging plugs in the polished wood. Sabrina flung herself from the bed, tripping on the quilts, and caught the nearest part of him she could reach—his leg.

“Morgan, don’t! You mustn’t!”

He dragged her a few steps, but she hung on with all her strength. “Listen to me, Morgan! My father had naught to do with your poisoning!”

Morgan rubbed his brow as if he could massage the words into his foggy brain. His gaze slowly lowered to meet her own. His eyes focused with an icy clarity that froze her soul. Sabrina swallowed. She’d had no time to prepare for this moment. Her nightdress had ridden up. The flat side of Morgan’s blade rested against the inner curve of her calf. The iron muscles of his thigh convulsed beneath her grip.

The hair at her nape stood erect as he said softly, “You?”

Sabrina bowed her head. How could she let her timid cousin brave this man’s wrath? Enid wouldn’t survive even one scorching blast from his temper. Aside from that, Enid had acted only in a misguided attempt to protect her.

“Believe what you will, Morgan MacDonnell,” she said softly. “You always have.”