Teresa Medeiros (15 page)

Her papa stood on his tiptoes to kiss her. At the
last second she turned her face away. His lips collided with her cheek, lingering there for an instant before he stepped back, accepting her rejection as his due with a grace that nearly shattered her. As she straightened in the saddle, Morgan’s arm tightened, its unyielding strength all that kept her from breaking into a thousand pieces.

He gathered the reins. Dougal stepped forward and grasped his bare calf. His dark blue eyes snapped with challenge. “Take care of her, man. Or you’ll answer to me.”

Morgan neither acknowledged nor disputed her father’s threat. He simply urged the horse into a walk. Sabrina dared one look back before they passed through the manor gates. Her parents clung to one another, so entangled that it was impossible to tell who was supporting who. She knew they would recover in time. They had each other. It was she who must go on alone, robbed forever of her girlish yearning for a love such as theirs. Her father had destroyed that dream with a ruthlessness that belied everything she had ever believed about him.

As they left the shelter of the manor walls, a blast of icy wind snatched her breath away. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek to splash like a molten diamond against Morgan’s hand.

His voice against her ear was both soft and bitter. “You’ll cry for him, but not for me. Damn you.”

But even as Morgan cursed her, he reached around with a corner of his plaid and gently dried her tears.

Sabrina was thankful for the shelter of her hood. If she dared a glance to the left, she saw Angus’s mummy bumping along, tied to his saddle in macabre imitation of a rider. If she twisted right, she was subjected to the leers and chuckles of Morgan’s bolder clansmen. So she stared straight ahead, keeping her eyes fixed on the narrow road twining up toward MacDonnell lands and clutching the slumbering Pugsley like a talisman against the unrelenting gloom and Morgan’s stony silence.

Bone-chilling tendrils of mist seeped from the forest floor, coiling like serpents poised to strike around her ankles. She stole a nervous look at Angus, thankful they were riding upwind from him. Despite his small stature, he had once seemed larger than life itself. Now his plaid-shrouded form looked tiny and withered. Sabrina recognized the gaunt, hooded figure who led his horse as the servant who had tended him at the ill-fated banquet.

As if sensing her curiosity, he swiveled in his saddle,
piercing her with a hostility she could sense even beneath the shadowed folds of his plaid. Her gaze shot back to Morgan’s big-boned hands wrapped around the reins.

Desperate to break a silence disturbed only by the nervous cackling of the crated chickens and the mournful lowing of the livestock, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “My father would have granted him a proper burial if you had but asked.”

“I won’t have him buried on Cameron lands,” Morgan replied.

“I doubt he would have noticed. Do you miss him?” she dared, her own papa’s stricken face fresh in her memory.

Once again came that implacable shrug. “If the Camerons hadn’t got him, the whisky would’ve.”

Knowing she was badly outnumbered, Sabrina swallowed a defense of her family. “Is that why you don’t drink spirits?”

“Whisky makes me surly.”

“ ’Twould be a pity to temper your gregarious nature,” she muttered beneath her breath. If Morgan grew any surlier, it would be like holding conversation with a rock.

A MacDonnell who sat his mangy horse like a squat bull took their terse exchange as an invitation. “Ye’re lookin’ a trifle bit pale, Morgan. Rough night?”

“Aye, but his bride looks rosy eno’,” another chimed in. “What ails ye, lad? Did the wee she-devil suck all the blood out o’ ye?”

“With a mouth like that, I’ll wager ’twas not his blood she was—”

Morgan’s look was threat enough to stifle the man in midsentence. He and his companion nudged their horses out of their chieftain’s reach, still muttering among themselves. Their words carried clearly to Sabrina’s ears.

“I suppose ’tis fitting revenge for Angus’s death, but the lad’s a bloody fool if ye ask me. Why, I’d as soon bugger lame ol’ Eve as bed a Cameron!”

Sabrina ducked as a shadow went flying past her
and into the tart-tongued MacDonnell. A murderous cry tore from its throat. Pookah half reared, but Morgan controlled the horse with only a shift of his thighs, bringing him to a shuddering halt. Sabrina gaped to discover Angus’s grim escort straddling the hapless Scot.

A low, virulent voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Shall lame ol’ Eve bugger ye a new windpipe, Fergus, me man?”

Fergus’s beady eyes crossed as he perused the rusty dirk pressed to his throat. “I’d rather she didna, if ye please.”

The blade twisted; a trickle of blood skated across the man’s bulging Adam’s apple. “Perhaps ye’d rather go bugger yerself.”

His voice cracked. “If ye like.”

The figure rose and threw back its hood, shaking down a coarse silver braid. Sabrina recoiled to find herself staring into a striking pair of gray-green eyes. A woman’s eyes. Even more shocking was the unguarded hatred poisoning their depths. It rendered poor Fergus a foolish nuisance while impaling Sabrina with malice. The woman stabbed the dirk back into her belt and lurched back to her horse, her awkward gait betraying her limp.

“And who might she be?” Sabrina whispered.

“My guardian angel.” A wry note of pride tinged Morgan’s voice. “Eve was my da’s servant. She’d been with him for as long as I can remember. The MacDonnells won’t stomach any show of weakness. They’ve no tolerance for cripples. When Eve was only a lass, the clan voted to cast her out. Before they could stone her, my da championed her. She’s been wild with grief ever since he died.”

Sabrina swallowed. “So it appears.” If she’d have been any wilder, Fergus would have been choking on his own blood instead of sheepishly climbing to his feet.

Sabrina could not help staring as Eve dragged herself back on her mount. She was unlike any woman Sabrina had ever known. A cumbersome set of pipes was strapped to the back of her saddle, reminding
Sabrina of the beautiful dirge that had haunted the final night of Morgan’s imprisonment. Perhaps Eve’s flinty shell only shielded a woman’s heart.

Catching Sabrina’s perplexed stare, Eve spat on the ground, then drew the back of her hand across her mouth in a gesture of pure contempt. She kicked her horse into a canter. She and her grisly companion disappeared around a bend, riding far ahead of the motley party. Sabrina’s spirits sank further. There went one more MacDonnell who blamed her for their chieftain’s death.

She was beginning to wonder if she would survive to see the morrow. Tonight there would be no one to care if she screamed.

No one but Enid. As Morgan nudged Pookah into motion, a shrill giggle reminded her that Enid was faring far better than she. Her cousin was perched on a rickety wagon bench beside Ranald. With each rock of the wagon up the rutted trail, their shoulders collided, eliciting a fresh trill of giggles. Enid’s wan cheeks colored prettily as the dashing Gypsy-Highlander popped a sweetmeat pilfered from the Cameron kitchen into her mouth.

Sabrina discovered Pugsley was awake and worrying Morgan’s hand with his tooth. “Bad doggie,” she scolded, prying Morgan’s finger out of his mouth.

“Leave him be.” Morgan stroked the loose folds of skin beneath the dog’s chin. “I’ve found animals to be better company than most people.”

She averted her eyes as Fergus, now roaring a Highland ditty, adjusted his plaid to relieve himself without bothering to dismount. “Considering the company you keep …” She trailed off, cringing to realize she sounded as sanctimonious as her mother.

As if to complement her flagging spirits, the sky unfurled a sodden gray curtain of rain to slow their journey up the treacherous mountainside. The wind drove icy needles of water into her face. The damp wasted no time in penetrating the fashionable thinness of her pelisse. Shivering, she huddled against Morgan,
grateful to be wedged between the warm cradle of his thighs.

“Lean up,” he snapped.

Sabrina shot to attention, mortified to have been caught relaxing her guard against him for even an instant. But instead of scolding her, he unwound a voluminous length of plaid from his shoulders and draped it over their heads, forming a cozy tent to shield them from the rain. Pugsley snuffled his approval.

Morgan urged her back and she found herself snuggled against his bare chest. Helpless to resist, she turned her cheek to its warmth. Both her father’s and brothers’ chests were sprinkled with hair. But Morgan’s was smooth, his skin heated satin stretched taut over granite. The horse swayed beneath them and Sabrina felt herself succumbing against her will to the rhythmic lullaby of Morgan’s heartbeat against her ear.

Sabrina awoke several hours later to find herself being borne by another beast whose long strides carried her irrevocably toward his den.

Her empty hands batted at the air. “Pugsley?” she mumbled without opening her eyes, fearing she had dropped him somewhere along the road.

Morgan’s voice rumbled in her ear. “Your dog is fine. One of my men is findin’ the wee rascal somethin’ to eat.”

She screwed her brow into a puckish frown and muttered something under her breath.

Morgan chuckled. “No, lass. I won’t let him eat your dog. We MacDonnells eat only people.”

“I’m relieved,” she said, rooting against his shoulder like a sleepy piglet.

Morgan knew if she could have seen the hungry look on his face at that moment, her silly smile would have vanished. His arms tightened around her, savoring her damp weight against his chest. He slowed his strides, knowing the sooner they reached their destination, the sooner she would awaken and he would be forced to relinquish her trust.

But as they passed beneath the shadow of a broken arch, her eyes fluttered open. Morgan braced himself, waiting for her to turn up her prim little Cameron nose at his home.

Sabrina’s drowsy gaze traveled up. And up. And up. Finally, it stilled on the crumbling ramparts of Castle MacDonnell.

An ethereal smile broke over her face. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “ ’Tis magnificent.”

“Don’t mock me,” he growled. “I may be unschooled, but I’m not stupid.”

She blinked at him as if she had awakened to discover an ogre mauling her, then returned her gaze to the castle. “Not stupid perhaps, but blind indeed.”

Morgan would have thought it impossible to be jealous of a chunk of stone, but he was. He already knew what would happen to him if she dared look at him with such longing. And what would happen to her. He glared at the forbidding edifice, wanting desperately to see what was putting the stars in the sapphire sky of her eyes.

Darkness had fallen and the rain had melted to a fine mist, blurring the harsh edges of the castle’s silhouette.

Sabrina had simply been caught off guard by mist and exhaustion, he decided, just as she had been caught off guard by a mysterious stranger in the moonlight of her mother’s solar. By day she would see the ivy sinking its talons into the crumbling mortar, the collapsed ceilings, the gaping holes torn by cannonballs fired by her own Cameron ancestors. By day she would see what he had always seen—a gaunt ruin poisoned by centuries of warfare and neglect.

Then she would laugh at her own romantic folly and realize the castle, like its master, possessed too many chinks in its armor to ever survive redemption.

Sabrina’s hand curled around his nape, winding lazily in his damp hair. “I’m so sleepy. Will you take me to bed, Morgan?”

He gazed down at her, unprepared for the rush of thunder through his loins, and damned Dougal
Cameron anew for making him feel like a rapacious thief for wanting his own wife. His lips took on a mercenary twist that would have done Angus proud. Would it truly be possible to get her into his bed, disrobed, and under him before she realized the consequences of her innocent request? She had vowed never to give him a moment’s pleasure, but if he could catch her off guard as he had done that morning, he might coax her to break her vow with artful tenderness instead of force.

His da’s naughty chortle rolled through his mind.
MacDonnell blood will out, me son. Ye canna fight it forever
. Surely he and his bride deserved one night when they were neither Cameron nor MacDonnell, but simply man and woman seeking the pleasures the darkness could give.

“Aye, lass,” Morgan whispered. “I’ll take you to bed. If that’s what you desire.”

“Thank you,” she murmured primly, resting her cheek against his chest.

“Save it for the morn,” he answered, touching his lips to her brow. “Then perhaps we’ll know if I’m deservin’ of your thanks.”

With his bride in his arms, Morgan strode through the darkened corridors of Castle MacDonnell. He might have run if he hadn’t feared jostling Sabrina into both wakefulness and sanity. Despite the inky blackness, his steps never faltered. He knew precisely where to duck beneath a splintered lintel, when to step over a pile of battered stone when another man might have stumbled and fallen.