To Tame a Highland Warrior (14 page)

“So? Look what it has brought you. Most men would trade their souls to be a Berserker.”

“That would be a damned foolish bargain. And there’s a lot you doona know that is part and parcel of the curse.”

“It’s proved quite a boon for you. You’re virtually invincible. Why, I remember down at Killarnie—”

“I doona wish to talk about Killarnie—”

“You killed half the damned—”

“Haud yer wheesht!” Grimm’s head whipped around. “I doona wish to talk about killing. It seems that’s the only thing I’m good for. For all that I’m this ridiculous legend of control, there’s still a part of me I can’t control, de Moncreiffe. I have no control over the rage. I never have,” he admitted roughly. “When it happens, I lose memory. I lose time. I have no idea what I’m doing when I’m doing it, and when it’s over, I have to be told what I’ve done. You know that. You’ve had to tell me a time or two.”

“What are you saying, Grimm?”

“That you must wed her, no matter what I might feel, because I can never be anything to Jillian St. Clair. I knew it then, and I know it now. I will never marry. Nothing has changed.
I
haven’t been able to change.”

“You
do
feel for her.” Quinn sat up on the hay mound, searching Grimm’s face intently. “Deeply. And that’s why you try to make her hate you.”

Grimm turned back to his horse. “I never told you how my mother died, did I, de Moncreiffe?”

Quinn rose and dusted hay from his kilt. “I thought she was killed in the massacre at Tuluth.”

Grimm leaned his head against Occam’s velvety cheek and breathed deeply of the soothing scent of horse and leather. “No. Jolyn McIllioch died much earlier that morning, before the McKane even arrived.” He delivered the words in a cool monotone. “My da murdered her in a fit of rage. Not only did I sink to such foolishness as summoning a Berserker that day, I suffer an inherited madness.”

“I don’t I believe that, Grimm,” Quinn said flatly. “You’re one of the most logical, rational men I know.”

Grimm made a gesture of impatience. “Da told me so himself the night I left Tuluth. Even if I gave myself latitude, even if I managed to convince myself I didn’t suffer an inherited weakness of mind, I’m still a Berserker. Doona you realize, Quinn, that according to ancient law we ‘pagan worshipers of Odin’ are to be banished? Ostracized, outcast, and murdered, if at all possible. Half the country knows Berserkers exist and seek to employ us; the other half refuses to admit we do while they attempt to destroy us. Gibraltar must have been out of his mind when he summoned me—he couldn’t possibly seriously consider me for his daughter’s hand! Even if I wanted with all my heart to take Jillian to wife, what could I offer her? A life such as this? That’s assuming I’m not addled by birthright, to boot.”

“You’re not addled. I don’t know how you got the ridiculous idea that because your da killed your mother there’s something wrong with
you
. And no one knows who you really are except for me, Gibraltar, and Elizabeth,” Quinn protested.

“And Hatchard,” Grimm reminded. And Hawk and Adrienne, he recalled.

“So four of us know. None of us would ever betray you. As far as the world is concerned you’re Grimm Roderick, the King’s legendary bodyguard. All that aside, I don’t see how it would be a problem for you to admit who you really are. A lot of things have changed since the massacre at Tuluth. And although some people do still fear Berserkers, the majority revere them. You’re some of the mightiest warriors Alba has ever produced, and you know how we Scots worship our legends. The Circle Elders say only the purest, most honorable blood in Scotland can actually call the Berserker.”

“The McKane still hunt us,” Grimm said through his teeth.

“The McKane have always hunted any man they suspected was Berserk. They’re jealous. They spend every waking moment training to be warriors and can never match up to a Berserker. So defeat them, and lay it to rest. You’re not fourteen anymore. I’ve seen you in action. Rouse up an army. Hell, I’d fight for you! I know scores of men who would. Go home and claim your birthright—”

“My gift of inherited madness?”

“The chieftainship, you idiot!”

“There might be a small problem with that,” Grimm said bitterly. “My crazy, murdering da has the dreadful manners to still be lingering on this earth.”

“What?” Quinn was speechless. He shook his head several times and grimaced. “Christ! How can I walk around all these years thinking I know you, only to find out I don’t know a blethering thing about you? You told me your da was dead.”

It seemed all his close friends were saying the same thing lately, and he wasn’t a man given to lying. “I thought he was, for a long time.” Grimm ran an impatient hand
through his hair. “I will never go home, Quinn, and there are some things about being Berserk that you doona understand. I can’t have any degree of intimacy with a woman without her realizing that I’m not normal. So what am I supposed to do? Tell the lucky woman I am one of those savage killing beasts that have gotten such a bad reputation over the centuries? Tell her I can’t see blood without losing control of myself? Tell her that if my eyes ever start to seem like they’re getting incandescent, to run as far away from me as she can get because Berserkers have been known to turn on friend and foe indiscriminately?”

“You’ve never once turned on me!” Quinn snapped. “And I’ve been beside you when it happened many times!”

Grimm shook his head. “Marry her, Quinn. For Christ’s sake! Marry her and free me!” He cursed harshly, dropping his head against his stallion.

“Do you really think it will?” Quinn asked angrily. “Will it free any of us, Grimm?”

Jillian strolled the wall-walk, the dim passage behind the parapet, breathing deeply of the twilight. Gloaming was her favorite hour, the time when dusk blurred into absolute darkness broken only by a silvery moon and cool white stars above Caithness. She paused, resting her arms against the parapet. The scent of roses and honeysuckle carried on the breeze. She inhaled deeply. Another scent teased her senses, and she cocked her head. Dark and spicy; leather and soap and man.

Grimm
.

She turned slowly and he was there, standing behind her on the roof, deep in the shadows of the abutting walls watching her, his gaze unfathomable. She hadn’t heard a
sound as he’d approached, not a whisper of cloth, not one scuffle of his boots on the stones. It was as if he were fashioned of night air and had sailed the wind to her solitary perch.

“Will you marry?” he asked without preface.

Jillian sucked in a breath. Shadows couched his features but for a bar of moonlight illuminating his intense eyes. How long had he been there? Was there a “me,” unspoken, at the end of his sentence? “What are you asking?” she said breathlessly.

His smooth voice was bland. “Quinn would make a fine husband for you.”

“Quinn?” she echoed.

“Aye. He’s golden as you, lass. He’s kind, gentle, and wealthy. His family would cherish you.”

“And what about yours?” She couldn’t believe she dared ask.

“What about mine, what?”

Would your family cherish me?
“What is your family like?”

His gaze was icy. “I have no family.”

“None?” Jillian frowned. Surely he had some relatives, somewhere.

“You know nothing about me, lass,” he reminded her in a low voice.

“Well, since you keep butting your nose into my life, I think I have the right to ask a few questions.” Jillian peered intently at him, but it was too dark to see him clearly. How could he seem such a part of the night?

“I’ll quit butting my nose. And the only time I butt my nose in is when it looks like you’re about to get in trouble.”

“I do
not
get into trouble all the time, Grimm.”

“So”—he gestured impatiently—“when will you marry him?”

“Who?” She seethed, plucking at the folds of her gown. Clouds passed over the moon, momentarily obscuring him from her view.

His eerily disembodied voice was mildly reproaching. “Try to follow the conversation, lass. Quinn.”

“By Odin’s shaft—”

“Spear,” he corrected with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“I am not marrying Quinn!” she informed the dark corner furiously.

“Certainly not Ramsey?” His voice deepened dangerously. “Or was he such a good kisser that he’s already persuaded you?”

Jillian drew a deep breath. She released it and closed her eyes, praying for temperance.

“Lass, you have to wed one of them. Your da demands it,” he said quietly.

She opened her eyes. Praise the saints, the clouds had blown by and she could once again discern the outline of his form. There was a flesh-and-blood man in those shadows, not some mythical beast. “You’re one of the men my da brought here for me, so I guess that means I could choose you, doesn’t it?”

He shook his head, a blur of movement in the gloom. “Never do that, Jillian. I have nothing to offer you but a lifetime of hell.”

“Maybe you think that, but maybe you’re wrong. Maybe, if you quit feeling sorry for yourself, you’d see things differently.”

“I doona feel sorry for myself—”

“Ha! You’re drowning in it, Roderick. Only occasionally does a smile manage to steal over your handsome face, and as soon as you catch it you swallow it. You know what your problem is?”

“No. But I have the feeling you’re going to tell me, peahen.”

“Clever, Roderick. That’s supposed to make me feel stupid enough to shut up. Well, it won’t work, because I feel stupid around you all the time anyway, so I may as well act stupid too. I suspect your problem is that you’re afraid.”

Grimm leaned indolently back against the stones of the wall, looking every inch a man who’d never contemplated the word
fear
long enough for it to gain entrance into his vocabulary.

“Do you know what you’re afraid of?” she pushed bravely on.

“Considering that I didn’t know I was afraid, I’m afraid you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage,” he mocked.

“You’re afraid you might have a feeling,” she announced triumphantly.

“Oh, I’m not afraid of feelings, lass,” he said, dark, sensual knowledge dripping from his voice. “It just depends on the kind of feeling—”

Jillian shivered. “Don’t try to change the subject—”

“And if the feeling’s below my waist—”

“By segueing into a discussion about your debauched—”

“Then I’m perfectly comfortable with it.”

“And perverse male needs—”

“Perverse male needs?” he echoed, suppressed laughter lacing his words.

Jillian bit her lip. She always ended up saying too much around him, because he had the bad habit of talking over her, and she lost her head time and again.

“The issue at hand is feelings—as in emotions,” she reminded stiffly.

“And you think they’re mutually exclusive?” Grimm prodded.

Had she said that?
she wondered. By the saints, the man turned her brain into mush.
“What
are you talking about?”

“Feelings and
feelings
, Jillian. Do you think they’re mutually exclusive?”

Jillian pondered his question a few moments. “I haven’t had a lot of experience in that area, but I would guess they are more often for a man than a woman,” she replied at length.

“Not all men, Jillian.” He paused, then added smoothly, “Exactly how much experience have you had?”

“What was my point?” she asked irritably, refusing to acknowledge his question.

He laughed. By the saints, he laughed! It was a genuine uninhibited laugh—deeply resonant, rich, and warm. She shuddered, because the flash of white teeth in his shadowed face made him so handsome she wanted to cry at the unfairness of his miserly dispensation of such beauty.

“I was hoping you’d tell me that anytime now, Jillian.”

“Roderick, conversations with you never go where I think they’re going.”

“At least you’re never bored. That must count for something.”

Jillian blew out a frustrated breath. That was true. She was elated, exhilarated, sensually awakened—but never, never bored.

“So are they mutually exclusive for you?” she dared.

“What?” he asked blandly.

“Feelings and
feelings
.”

Grimm tugged restlessly at his dark hair. “I suppose I
haven’t met the woman who could make me feel while I was feeling her.”

I could, I know I could!
she almost shouted. “But you have those other kind of feelings quite frequently, don’t you?” she snipped.

“As often as I can.”

“There you go with your hair, again. What is it with you and your hair?” When he didn’t reply she said childishly, “I hate you, Roderick.” She could have kicked herself the moment she said it. She prided herself on being an intelligent woman, yet around Grimm she regressed into a petty child. She was going to have to dredge up something more effective than the same puerile response if she intended to spar with him.

“No you doona, lass.” He uttered a harsh curse and stepped forward, doffing the shadows impatiently. “That’s the third time you’ve said that to me, and I’m getting bloody sick of hearing it.”