Highland Hunger

by Hannah Howell

  Tira stumbled to her feet, upsetting the chair onto its back while the earl started such a coughing fit, Timms looked overwhelmed. All of it because a man stood at the edge of the light, allowing glints to flicker on the silver of his outfit and the six men always shadowing him. Tira dropped her gaze to the floor between them.

  “Your Grace.”

  Little things helped with the absolute horror of reviewing what she’d just said. Etiquette. Propriety. Tira consciously followed it. Greet. Curtsy. Continue breathing. She didn’t move her eyes the entire time. It was easier.

  “You dinna’ answer my question.”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “We were announced. You failed to hear it.”

  Tira couldn’t look anywhere near him. Not until she had the embarrassment fully hidden. She’d cringe over it later. “You eavesdropped on private words.”

  “He told you, then?”

  “Private words,” Tira repeated.

  “Had I na’ arrived as I did, I’d na’ ken you found me . . . lacking.”

  There wasn’t a hole in the floor between them, regardless of how she kept looking for that very thing. He was waiting for an answer. The entire room felt like it was. Tira swallowed.

  “Lack . . . ing?”

  The word got split in two, the last half making little sound since he moved so quickly and silently; within a blink he was right before her, breathing whiffs of air all over her exposed neck and shoulders. She should’ve changed into a high-necked woolen dress for this visit. Worn a heavy shawl. A cloak. Or stayed in her room and hidden.

  “It does na’ help if you frighten her, Iain.”

  One of his men spoke, denting stillness that held only her father’s attempts to breathe and the hard pulse of her heart. The man before her pulled to his full height, sending light between their shadows on the floor. He put his hands on his hips next and inhaled, deep, heavily, and loud. “You heard her. She finds me lacking.”

  It sounded worse every time he said it. And she didn’t find him lacking. It was the circumstances. She opened her mouth to somehow put that into words but got forestalled by them speaking to each other in a foreign language of some kind.

  Chapter Four

  “She finds me lacking. You heard her. Grant, decipher this.”

  He spoke in Gaelic and was answered in kind. The man on his right stood straighter before turning his head to lock gazes. “I doona’ believe that is what she meant.”

  “You heard her. We all heard it. She finds me lacking. Me. Iain Duncan Evan James Alexander MacAvee. The fourth. Duke of MacAvee. Chieftain and laird. Me.”

  “She dinna’ truly say—”

  “How am I lacking? In what way? With what facet? There is nae equal throughout the land. And if there is, he’ll also fall once met. ’Tis my bane and what I’ve been cursed to.”

  “All true.”

  “ ’Tis also true that I’m the most landed Scot? My properties encompass a goodly portion of the Highlands. Am I na’ the largest? Strongest? Most lauded with medals and honors?”

  “Aye.”

  “And doona’ the women find me pleasing to look upon?”

  “You need ask a woman, Your Grace,” Grant replied.

  “You’ve heard complaint?”

  Iain had both hands on skean handles. The man on his left answered.

  “He means . . . as your Honor Guard . . . uh. Well. We all ken you’re the most pleasing to women. ’Tis na’ something we speak of, but we’d fight any who doubt and slander it. That is what my twin seeks to say but canna’ get his tongue to assist.”

  “Then what could the lass find lacking, Lenn? Somebody tell me.”

  “Perhaps she speaks due to ignorance. She’s na’ been around Highlanders afore. We’re forthright. Honest. Our ways are na’ as prettified and tactful as a Sassenach.”

  “This is your fault, Grant.”

  “Mine?”

  “ ’Twas your advice to wait. Stay from her. Allow her time to reach full womanhood afore claiming her. And look at the result!”

  Iain gestured to Tira and watched her start. Without reason. He clenched his teeth further, gaining a prick in the cavern of each inner lip. That made him grimace. And that had the lass stepping back into the wreckage of her chair.

  All of it unwarranted.

  “She pulls back from me. Me.”

  “My laird.”

  The man went to a knee, his sword held out by the hilt and his head bowed, offering his neck for his punishment, in a Sassenach lord’s bedchamber. As if that were normal and accepted in this country and this time. Iain swallowed and reached out a hand.

  “Rise, Grant. She already thinks us barbaric and crude. Taking your life for such a thing is centuries overdue your forbear. Trust me. Now, cease this foolishness and assist me with this. All of you.”

  “Perhaps the woman is simply startled?”

  Iain turned to Grant’s twin. “Of what?”

  “You. Us. Our appearance. So bold. Swift. Without warning.”

  Iain swore, and then howled words to the ornately plastered ceiling above his head. “Then help me with this! She near faints with the fright at me.”

  “Reacting so is na’ assisting.”

  “What should I do then?”

  “Na’ what you wish to.”

  Iain speared his smallest man, Rory, with a glare. “And that is . . . ?”

  The man pulled his sword, planted it into the parquet floor beneath him, his actions causing a gasp of sound from the English, obliterating any other sound. Rory winked.

  “Haul her over your shoulder and take her. There’d be little fight, and should there be, we’d engage it.”

  Iain took a step in her direction, coiled his fingers into fists at his sides, and then staunched the emotion. Not more than a century ago and with any other woman, he wouldn’t hesitate. But not now. Not this one. Tira was special. She was fated to be his. Forever.

  He sucked in unneeded breath, watched as Tira’s eyes widened, watching him, and then he eased the air out slowly, deflating his chest back to normal width, while she watched, unblinkingly.

  “Rory is na’ helpful, Iain. The lass needs civility.”

  “Civili . . . what?”

  “Civility. She’s na’ used to our ways. She needs words spoken to her. Na’ more show of power and threat of harm. Words.”

  “Words?”

  Grant gained his feet and sheathed his sword before finishing. “Aye, words. Softly spoken. With loverlike tones.”

  “Softly spoken?”

  “With loverlike tones.”

  “And what, pray heaven, does that sound like?”

  “You wish a demonstration?” Grant’s tone deepened, filling the chamber with baritone. Iain shoved an arm out to stop the man’s advance on Tira, should that be his next move.

  “Tira is mine, Grant. Mine.”

  “Then go. Speak to her. Use their ways to sway and then claim her.”

  “I canna’ do this.”

  “Try.”

  Iain sucked in both cheeks, lowered his head, and regarded his second-in-command. “This is what happens when I trust a Sassenach, putting my fate in their hands. Regardless of the gold placed in those same hands, nothing is gained save betrayal and deceit.”

  “None betray you, my laird.”

  “My own tongue is about to,” he replied.

  He approached where Tira stood, her hands clenched so tightly her fingers looked white. She had beautiful green-shaded eyes, the color of Loch Nyven’s deepest pools. He’d been drawn into them from the moment of meeting. Right now they looked the same shade of black as his. Beside her, the near corpse of her father watched, his mouth opening and closing like a salmon fresh-pulled from a burn, and at the other side of the bed, the manservant stood, the shaking shadow he cast giving him away.

  “You’ve naught to fear from me, leannan.”

  She shook her head and moved back another step, making the tipped chair
slide with it and losing a bit of the candle’s light on her features.

  “You ken?”

  “I . . . don’t understand,” she whispered.

  At least, that’s what he thought she said. It was difficult to hear over the sound of her increased pulse toying at his ear, the perfect smell of her nearness filling his nostrils, and the essence of her surrounding him like a lover’s embrace.

  Iain gulped. “I’d never harm you, leannan. Uh . . . sweet. Ever.” He reached for her hand, but she flinched and stopped him in place.

  “English, Your Grace.”

  Iain straightened back up and looked over his shoulder at his men. “What?”

  “I doona’ believe the lass kens our Gaelic.”

  “Was naught done correct and to my order?”

  The lass backed farther, stopped when a wall met her back, and then looked to cling there. Iain moved his gaze from her face to the floor and then to his outstretched palms, glimmering with dampness he was forced to swipe on his kilt. Damp palms? At his age? He tried again, softening his tone.

  “I said you fear without reason, lass. I’ll na’ harm you. Ever.”

  “I don’t fear you.”

  She looked to be ready to faint of it. Iain straightened and regarded her. She didn’t move her eyes from the area of his chin.

  “Truly?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Then give me your reason. Please.”

  “For what?”

  “You find me lacking. I wish to ken how.”

  “That . . . was not for your ears to hear.”

  She was going a rosy shade, suffusing her cheeks with darker tone. Or the candlelight lied. Iain regarded her for long moments, willing a meeting of gazes until it finally happened. And then, if he still claimed a full heart, that was what thumped, startling him with the violence of it. He watched her eyes go full wide before she dropped them to the area of his chest.

  “But . . . ? You said . . .” Iain voice’s dried up. In three centuries, he’d never had this issue. Yet now, facing this slip of a girl, he felt the start of his own flush, flustering and annoying and embarrassing him.

  “I said . . . nothing of the kind.”

  “You’ll wed with me now?”

  “No.”

  “Nae?”

  The word was ejaculated without regard to anything other than his Highland roots. Honest and forthright. And angered. She might have reacted, but it didn’t sound in her voice.

  “That should teach you to eavesdrop on private conversations. Your Grace.”

  She added his title as an afterthought, as if making certain he felt and heard the disdain. That just wasn’t right or correct. And it surely wasn’t happening to him. Iain pulled back slightly.

  “Grant?”

  “My laird?”

  The man materialized just behind Iain. On his right. Iain watched her assimilate it without one show of fear.

  “Help me with this.”

  “Miss Tira?”

  She tipped her chin up and easily met his man’s gaze, without one bit of fright or anything else. That started a wash of emotion right through Iain. Like the harshest Highland wind and just as chilling. As if he could still feel such a thing.

  “The duke—”

  “Can speak for himself. And if he wishes to continue speaking with me, he’d best start.”

  “Your Grace.”

  Grant bowed in defeat and deserted him. Iain watched it before pulling in a breath for something to do besides facing her and wondering over the prickle of gooseflesh that roamed his limbs, raising bumps and startling him. He could feel such? Now? With her? Realization and joy had to be the sensations making him light-headed and weak feeling. Like a youth with his first lass. Iain could swear his knees even trembled.

  His knees trembled?

  He swallowed, but it was more a gulp, loud in his ears. He hadn’t felt so alive and unfettered in more years than he wished to remember. It was thrill and joy and absolute bliss. And it was his. Or would be . . . once he solved this problem. He grunted and heard the rustle of weaponry from his men as they reacted to it.

  “Well?” she asked his chest.

  Loverlike words. Iain searched his mind for the right ones and got them on the first try. “Forgive me, lass.”

  “For what, this time?”

  “Eavesdropping. Startling you. Arriving without warning. And especially for my appearance.”

  “I never said anything about . . . that.”

  Iain blinked. Staunched what felt like champagne bubbles erupting in his chest. Spoke again. “Which, lass?”

  “Your appearance.”

  “You find me pleasing?”

  “I never said that, either.”

  “You dinna’?”

  “It’s this betrothal you claim. That is the issue.”

  Iain grinned. She hadn’t answered his query and that sounded like an answer, especially as she’d touched her glance minutely to him, before shying back to the vicinity of his chest. He knew when a woman found him pleasing, and this one did. She couldn’t hide it. Which meant something else caused her to demure. He tried again.

  “The MacAvee chieftain is considered a great matrimonial prize, lass. Fathers from all over the region requested a union with me. Their visits were in vain. I was already promised. By dint of a betrothal contract, signed twenty-some-odd years ago. For you. As my bride.”

  “Why . . . me?”

  Iain couldn’t explain. He didn’t even know. “And so I have come. To claim her—you. To claim you. As was agreed. And I find my bride verra pleasing in face and form. . . . Verra. Yet she has a decided aversion to me. And I canna’ ken why.”

  “I wouldn’t call it aversion.”

  “Then what is so displeasing?” Iain lowered his head to make certain he heard the reply but was stopped as the door to the chamber opened behind him somewhere, letting in light and sound and interruption. A slight blond wench and an older woman entered the chamber, followed by manservants and fuss just when he’d been about to hear what he needed to. Iain barely caught the snarl as he whirled about.

  “They tell me we’ve visitors! At this time of night. And in your bedchamber? Father? What is the meaning of this?”

  “Your Grace.”

  Both ladies said it in unison as they reached him, curtsying and filling his nose with sneeze-inducing lilac scent. Iain folded his arms and regarded them. The earl saved him in a weak, quavering, ill voice that sounded loud as a trumpeter.

  “The duke . . . has come to finalize . . . a betrothal, Ophelia. Adelaide.”

  “He wishes a union? Oh, Father.”

  The blond clasped her hands to her bosom and smiled up at Iain. He watched the vein pulsing in her throat with interest and then, from behind him, he heard his answer, coming clear and sweet from his Tira’s lips. Exactly as he wanted and without having to mouth one more loverlike word to her.

  “The duke is offering for me, Ophelia.”

  “You? But—”

  “We’re betrothed. Isn’t that right, Iain?”

  The lass actually said his name with pride. It enveloped him with a heady sensation. He had no choice but to hide it, along with everything else.

  “Ul . . . rich?” The name came out louder than Iain wanted with a higher octave on the first of it.

  “My laird?” The requested clansman was before him, ready.

  “You may begin.”

  “Exactly what do you think you’re doing, Iain James MacAvee?”

  His soon-to-be wife didn’t sound elated. Her voice had a disciplinarian edge Iain hadn’t heard in more years than he could remember. He cleared his throat.

  “Wedding with you,” he replied. “Exactly as you specified. Just now.”

  “I said betrothed. There’s a lot to do before wedding. Invitations must be sent, an announcement to the papers. A-a-and . . . we need to get better acquainted.”

  “Acquainted?” His eyebrow rose. If he still claimed feelings, he�
��d swear his breath caught at the little stutter she’d made.

  “We’ve yet . . . to even be . . . seen together.”

  “You’ll see more, lass. Just get the words said and I’ll show all to you. ’Twill na’ be of issue.”

  Her eyes went wide, showing their green color. Iain swallowed to squelch instant need and want and absolute, pure lust.

  “That is not what I meant. We should . . . ride in the park. You could call on me. Perhaps attend to a ball or fest together. In the proper attire.”

  “Proper attire?”

  “Without weapons and battle gear. You know . . . proper.”

  “How long?”

  It was harshly said. Both women at his side reacted. His Tira merely looked up at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

  “A month.”

  “Nae.” His voice was rising. Despite the hold he put on it.

  “A fortnight then.”

  “I will na’ give you even a sennight, leannan.”

  Her eyes regarded him for long moments. And then she tipped her head to one side, blinked. “Five days,” she replied.

  She bargained? With him? Iain pulled a deep breath again, not for need but to expand his chest. He watched her gaze drop there before returning.

  “Four.”

  A smile touched her lips, making them look fuller. Ripe. Made for his kisses. Needful of them . . .

  “Done,” she replied.

  Chapter Five

  “Another bouquet. How odd.”

  Tira looked over at Ophelia, fussing at the enormous flower arrangement that was Iain’s excuse for not attending to anything he’d agreed. Her sister’s sarcasm wasn’t disguised. And it hurt. Somewhere beneath the bodice of her high-necked day gown, where Tira would never admit.

  “Well . . . he is a lot of man. Almost more than a woman should be required to handle.”

  “Is there a note with them?” Tira ignored Aunt Adelaide’s pointed words. Nothing could be gained by defending the duke. And she didn’t want yet another discourse on his manly attributes. Especially not from a woman old enough to be his mother.

  “You expect one?”

  “Just checking,” Tira replied without one inflection that could be labeled hope. She given it up and would be mortified if it still showed. Unlike the first three days when every arrival at the front door had started her heart to thumping and her palms to going damp.