The Highlander's Welsh Bride: Book 5 in the Hardy Heroines series

by Cathy MacRae

  She stole a look at Birk. I’d had my fill of court intrigue and betrayal in Gwynedd. Enough political posturing to last me beyond my lifetime. She sighed softly. And I find myself bound to a Scottish laird. ’Tis clear he needs not only a mother for his girls, but an heir as well. And mayhap an advisor, one familiar with the deceits of men who thirst for power.

  His left hand clasped her right forearm, turning her palm up. His ceremonial blade, hilt encrusted with red and green stones, nicked her wrist just above the faint scar marking her binding to Terwyn.

  Birk placed his own slight wound against hers and the priest bound them together with a narrow strip of cloth.

  “I, Birk Alexander MacLean, take ye, Carys Wen, filia Pedr, as my wife. In the presence of God and before these witnesses I promise to be a loving, faithful, and loyal husband to ye, for as long as we both shall live.”

  His gaze as he urged her to reply bore into her, yet he remained utterly still. As if a weight had lifted from her shoulders, Carys found the words came easily to her lips.

  “I, Carys Wen, filia Pedr, take you, Birk Alexander MacLean, as my husband. In the presence of God and before these witnesses, I promise to be a loving . . ..”

  Birk’s lips twitched. Carys stared at him. His brows lifted slightly, rounding his eyes into mock innocence.

  “. . . faithful, and loyal wife, for as long as we both shall live. I will respect you, your beliefs, your ways, and your people. Mi gerddaf gyda thi dros lwybrau maith.”

  He tilted his head, question in his eyes. Shyness crept over Carys.

  “I will walk with you over many paths,” she translated.

  Birk placed his free hand over their bound ones, approval in his eyes. “And I will walk with ye, respect ye, and learn yer ways.”

  His profession startled a small smile to Carys’s lips. Perhaps he wasn’t as unreasonable as he seemed. And it was as good a starting place for their marriage as she could ask for—under the circumstances. Marriage to a Scottish laird surrounded by barbarous Vikings to the north, marauding pirates to the west, and the evil bastard Edward to the south. Had she jumped from the boiling pot into the fire?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  There was no wedding feast, giving rise to more questions in Carys’s head.

  Was feasting not traditional in a clan this small? Or did he seek to draw as little attention to their union as possible?

  Supper was a small affair in a private dining room only a few feet away from the laird’s study. Two lasses, craning their necks in an attempt to get a look at their chief’s new bride, served the platters of venison, vegetables, and bread, then left the room.

  The few present at the ceremony seated themselves at the table amid silver candelabra and snowy linens. No more than the requisite witnesses needed to legitimize their union. A wide margin—a different world—separated this wedding from her first. She’d gritted her teeth against tears as she pledged her life to Laird MacLean, trying not to think of her dead husband, her father, and her brother who’d always championed her. She now felt . . . empty, as if she were bereft of any identifiable emotion. A welcome relief after the tumult of the past hours.

  Carys’s step slowed as she surveyed the rich accoutrements. Trenchers of bread sat inside fine china bowls embellished with gold trim. Mugs of pewter set with semi-precious stones clustered about the base of a matching pitcher, beaded with droplets of water. Delicate eating knives with ivory handles graced each place setting, and heavily embroidered cloths lay next to each bowl. The MacLeans were a wealthy clan to afford such finery. She’d not seen such since Llywelyn’s court.

  Birk sent her a questioning look as she came to a near-halt, and she covered her awkward lapse by urging the girls to their seats.

  “But we want to sit with ye in yer chair!” Eislyn argued as Carys pointed to two chairs at the head of the table.

  “I do not wish to muss the gown Lady Elspeth so graciously allowed me to borrow,” Carys said, noting the frowns of disappointment as the girls climbed into their seats. Touching the back of her chair, she saw a flicker of impatience in Birk’s eyes. He drew her next to him and faced the assembled group.

  “I thank ye for your attendance at my wedding. I present Lady Carys, now Lady MacLean.”

  Carys managed not to wince at the title. She may not have found the obscurity she desired in her new home, but she would not cause dissent. At least she was well-prepared for this role, whether Laird MacLean knew it or not. He likely thought it a compliment to name her lady. Little did he know it was beneath her. He wasn’t the only one with secrets.

  She managed to eat despite the growing knot in her stomach. As she’d told Birk, she’d been through a wedding night before, and knew what was to come. But she and Terwyn had known each other, attended gatherings and banquets together. He hadn’t been her equal in rank—few were—but he’d been of noble blood. They’d spent time getting to know each other better other during the days after their betrothal had been announced. His teasing, forbidden kisses had tempted her to more.

  There was nothing forbidden about Birk MacLean. Forbidding would better describe him.

  His rough approach to life told her he got whatever he wanted, most likely without regard to how it affected those around him. It was now clear he was liked as laird, judging from the way his men responded to him the night of the pirate attack, and from the easy manner the five men in the room displayed, jesting with one another as they ate. His daughters and the other women in the room showed no fear of him. Perhaps a bit of awe from the serving lasses, and it might be as well to see they served elsewhere in the future, not at the side of the man they unabashedly ogled. Carys noted he seemed oblivious of their fascination.

  The tension in the room was because of her. She noticed the sidelong glances, the brief hesitations as they caught her gaze. It had been a long time since she’d been on display. No one here knew her, and they plainly wondered why their laird chose to wed a woman he’d claimed from the gallows.

  She wondered the same.

  “Ye cannae have my pasty!” Eislyn shouted as she lunged forward in her seat.

  Carys whipped around in time to see Eislyn snatch the last pie from the platter, beating her sister to the treat. Abria slumped in her chair, lower lip pushed forward in a pout.

  “Girls.” Carys’s low voice carried her warning to their small ears.

  “Margaret, ’tis time the lasses bid good-night,” Birk announced meaningfully. He dipped his head in the girls’ direction, a slight frown on his face.

  “I’m sorry, Da,” Eislyn said rather unconvincingly. “Abria wanted my pasty.”

  “And what is a better way to tell her nae?”

  Eislyn poked the pie. “Take it before she finishes hers?”

  “That is one way. What is a better way to speak to yer sister?” Birk asked, one brow raised.

  “Sorry, Abria,” Eislyn piped in a cheerful voice. “That one’s mine.”

  Carys stared at Birk, uncomprehending his calm correction. It was a strategy her mam had used when she and Hywel were children, but such was at complete odds with the man who had repeatedly lost his patience with her during the past two days.

  Birk nodded. “That is fine. Have Margaret stop by the kitchen and wrap a pasty for each of ye to eat later in honor of yer new ma.” He tilted his head at Carys. “She willnae be joining yer mischief this day.”

  Something rippled in Carys’s belly. It wasn’t revulsion, for she found the man—as infuriating as he was—compelling. Thoughts of Terwyn had filled her with warmth, a sweetly eager anticipation. This burned like banked embers rousing to a breeze, twisting her insides into complicated knots, demanding and urgent as fear, though she had no desire to flee. It was impossible to understand. Having spent the last two years of her life relying on her gut instinct for survival, Carys found this new sensation disturbing.

  The girls wiggled down from their chairs and at their da’s prompt, stood beside Carys’s chair. Holding hands,
they both executed wobbly curtsies before bursting into giggles and fleeing the room, Margaret on their heels.

  There was a scuffle of chairs on the stone floor as the remaining guests rose. Late afternoon sunlight angled low through the window and the knot in Carys’s stomach tightened. Dropped lower. Tingled. Throbbed.

  “Good e’en, m’lady, Laird,” they said, curiously eager to leave rather than stay and harass the newly married couple.

  “You must not hurry away,” Carys said, anxious not to be left alone in Birk’s company.

  Birk stood, his feet braced as though expecting an onslaught. The wedding party filed past, short bows for the laird, curtsies and sidelong glances for Carys.

  Brody clapped Birk’s shoulder. Birk winced. “God’s blessing on ye both. That and a wee bit of warm buttermilk with some salt and pepper to cure yer hangover.” He sent Carys a broad grin and confided, “His sour attitude isnae about his bonnie bride.”

  Birk aimed a clout at Brody’s head, but the man laughed and ducked as he followed the others from the room. The door clicked shut.

  Silence surrounded them.

  Birk grabbed the decanter of wine and poured the blood-red liquid into two heavily embellished silver goblets, offering one to Carys.

  “Slàinte mhath.” He tipped the goblet to his lips and drank.

  Carys ran her fingers over the intricate chasing near the rim and dipped a fingertip in the liquid. “Drunk? And in front of all our guests. ’Tis a fine way to begin a marriage. This was your idea, if you’ll recall.”

  Birk set his goblet down with a thump of metal against the cloth-covered wood.

  “I dinnae wish to remarry at all. ’Tis not about ye.”

  Carys pushed her drink away, furious with his lack of courtesy. “Well, a drunkard rarely has a stiff cock,” she observed caustically. “Mayhap one of us will get a good night’s sleep. At least no one will be expecting bloody sheets on the morrow.”

  “I am nae so hung over as that,” he growled.

  “Oh, I’m certain I’m relieved to hear it,” Carys purred, heedless of the warning gleam in his eyes. Brody was likely right. Her husband’s bad mood was probably more about his sore head than his marriage—though she rather doubted he’d have gotten roaringly drunk the night before if he hadn’t been marrying her on the morrow.

  She had to admit the thought irked. A lot.

  “A woman has expectations, you know.”

  Birk’s eyes narrowed. “Expectations?”

  Carys folded her hands on the table and leaned forward, resting her breasts on the arc of her wrists, deepening the valley between them as they swelled above the gown’s modest neckline. Birk’s gaze dropped. An ironic smile twitched Carys’s lips. Men were so predictable.

  “Expectations of her wedding night,” she said, drawing her words out, voice husky. Birk’s attention wavered. Carys rose, abandoning her moderate display, and, placing the fingers of one hand on a heavily muscled shoulder, paced slowly to his other side. She drew her fingertips lightly across his back to the other shoulder and feathered them down his arm.

  He twitched.

  “I’ve been there before, as have you,” she murmured, sending an appraising look up and down his body, deliberately baiting him, not knowing how to tame the wildness rising unexpectedly inside. “Terwyn was kind and considerate.” She lifted a limpid gaze to Birk’s. “Are you?”

  Fire raged through Birk’s veins, stoking his desire. He was irritated with his bout of over-indulgence the night before and its lingering results, but he was even less pleased his wife of fewer than two hours nagged him about it. What he’d meant as a salute to their marriage, a way to break the awkward silence between them, had rolled right into a nasty supposition he would be unable to consummate their marriage.

  She must not have married much of a man before, if she believes a wee bit too much to drink will render me incapable. As blood pounded through his cock, smithies set up shop behind his eyes, reverberating agonizingly inside his skull. The meal he’d just eaten swirled uneasily in his stomach, but he manfully ignored the protest, rubbing his temples to ease the hammering.

  Carys’s touch lit his skin, sizzling across his shoulders and down one arm. He quivered with the effort to remain still, silent, wondering at the mood she’d taken. And where it would lead.

  Damn her for comparing him with her dead husband! And twice damn her for forcing him to abandon his pledge to remain calm—Dugan had insisted ’twas the only way to soothe her ruffled feathers. His hackles rose.

  Kind and considerate? In the face of her blatant challenge? His blood boiled.

  “Nae,” he growled, grabbing her arm in a vice-like grip and pulling her close. Her scent assaulted him in a delicate wave of lavender and spice. Her eyes blazed, dark and stormy. Fine blue lines pulsed in her neck and temples beneath translucent skin.

  She would be the death of him.

  He loosened his grip, knowing there would be finger marks on her arm when he peeled the gown from her body. “I willnae be compared to yer dead husband. I willnae be challenged on what I can or cannae do.”

  She did not shrink away, and once again he was reminded that this and no other woman would suit him.

  “Where ye are concerned, I dinnae know why I cannae keep my temper. I am not known to be hack-handed around women. Blunt, mayhap, but not a brute.”

  “Then why did your first wife leave you?”

  Her words struck with the subtlety of a stormy wave off the North Shore. No one ever dared ask him of the troubles between him and Rose. His clan had turned its head, likely believing the worst of him—and her. Carys only had to listen to the gossip certain to begin as soon as they arrived at MacLean Castle. Rose’s loose proclivities were well known in that place.

  “We dinnae suit,” he gritted out.

  “You have already stated you aren’t remiss in your husbandly duties. And that you aren’t a brute around women,” Carys replied thoughtfully. “What else would drive a woman to leave her daughters behind?”

  Birk stared at her in disbelieving silence. Her gaze showed interest, and she did not appear to taunt him. But he did not owe her an explanation. And damned if he’d show how much her question opened old wounds, scars barely covering the belief there was something within him lacking the ability to keep a wife, that he’d driven her away.

  “She was a wee slip of a thing. I likely frightened her.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “Then ’tis fortunate I am neither wee nor easily frightened,” she retorted with a huff of disbelief.

  Birk’s gaze traveled across her face, noting the dark lashes that framed her eyes like the kohl his aunt had often used. Carys’s nostrils flared slightly, a flutter that reminded him of a skittish mare. Silky black hair escaped from the braids framing her face and slid sensuously over her shoulder.

  Birk’s infirmities fled.

  “I am, howbeit, a verra large man.” He slipped a hand behind her, his fingers splaying across one green-clad buttock. His other palm cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her heavy mane.

  “With verra large appetites.” His mouth claimed hers in a kiss borne of the need to test her, to taste her, to seek some guidance of her response to him. He pulled her full length against him, curving her body into his, grinding his cock against her, groaning as the contact threatened to tear him apart.

  Carys grabbed his leine in both fists and yanked it from his belt. Sliding her hands beneath the cloth, she raked her fingernails down his back. She pressed closer to him as though to reach him better and her tongue played furiously with his. Her teeth scored his lower lip, nipped painfully. Her fingers dug into the flesh of his back.

  Caught unawares by her response, Birk shoved her backward over the table, dishes clattering as they slid across the surface. His forearms braced unsteadily on either side of her shoulders, cock nestled in the vee between her legs. He panted lightly as he struggled for some measure of control. A candle stick cras
hed sideways.

  “Are we fightin’ or lovin’? Cause I dinnae think well when my cock’s this hard.”

  Something caught between anger and laughter rumbled from Carys’s throat, and she rucked his leine up further, exposing his belly.

  “I’m not certain,” she admitted in a hoarse whisper.

  “Do ye want me to stop?”

  He ran a hand roughly over the swell of her breast, pleased with the hard peak that strained the cloth of her gown. Her skin flushed pale pink and she squirmed beneath him.

  “No.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Do ye want me to toss ye over my shoulder and carry ye to bed, or would ye rather I take ye on the table amid the supper plates?”

  Carys’s heart raced, her breathing deep and ragged, her mind slow to register the fact she lay on her back—the handle to a platter digging into her side and a spilled drink pooling beneath her ear—where anyone could interrupt them. She gathered her wits long enough to answer.

  “How far is your bedroom?”

  Birk chuckled, the sound resonating through her, fanning the passion raging through every inch of her body to new heights. He drew back and grabbed her hand, hauling her to her feet. Carys’s muscles moved with the speed of winter-chilled honey, sweet, tantalizing—and entirely too slow.

  With a grunt, he hoisted her over his shoulder and strode to the door, a hitch in his gait as he adjusted the swing of his sporran.

  “Put me down!” Carys hissed, landing a well-aimed fist on one of his ears. He yelped and dropped her to her feet, sliding her the length of his hard body. His mouth met hers as her face drew level, crushing against her lips, bending her back over his arm. She answered his powerful kiss with moans of pleasure that spurred his hands to frantic exploration.

  Her breasts tightened with an exquisite ache as she pressed them into his palms. She leaned against him, inhaling sharply as he rolled the hard peaks between his fingertips. He pushed her breasts upward, exposing their crests above the neck of her gown and bent over her, lavishing the skin with his mouth and tongue.