He lent down, to whisper in her ear again. She scrunched her shoulder against the tickle of it.
“Are you happy here, Maggie? Are you happy with your handfast?”
Happy? She looked about, at the people around them. Friendly, for the most part, even anxious to please. But they were not so simple as her own kind, dressed in their fancy clothes of the finest weave, edges lined with fur from many pelts and the jewels! Part of her wanted to reach out and touch the sparkle of a gem or the soft fabric of a gown. Instead she clung to Birk’s side.
“They’re fine people.” She acknowledged.
“Oh, aye. But so are the MacBedes.” He covered her hand with his and gazed down at her.
Was that longing in his eyes? Maggie pulled free, unsettled by the hope in that look, confused that she still had her breath, that her heart didn’t skitter with pleasure. “Aye, we are a fine people, even if our clothes are not so . . .”
He put his fingers to her lips. “You are good people, Maggie MacBede, with many a tale of strength and honor.”
It was good to be with an old friend. She squeezed his arm. “Will you be singing after the meal?
“That I will.” As he tilted his head she suddenly wondered how his skinny neck held his head upright. He really was a scrawny thing.
“I’m not scrawny enough for your tastes? Is that it? You won’t be able to rule me as you might a lesser man.”
She stepped back, as Bold’s words rippled through her. Words spoken when she challenged him for forcing the handfasting on her. Worse, the thought of him flowed with the memory filling her with all the excitement she wanted to feel for Birk.
She looked away, not wanting the comparisons, not wanting to feel the foolish reminder of infatuation, horrified to think she may have married this man.
He was a friend. That was all.
“I will see you at dinner then,” she promised and turned back to the flock of women who shadowed to her.
“I will sing of you.” He crooned.
She welcomed the women as they encircled her, moving her beyond the bard, whispering over each other.
“Who is he?” Nora asked.
Another woman slapped Nora’s arm. “That’s the Bard, you fool.”
Maggie smiled.
“Babbling Birk the Bard,” the woman tittered. “One of your puny men, aye?” Her eyes lit up, Maggie lost her smile.
These women were not so different from the ones at home.
“Where is Ealasaid?” She asked rather than feed their curiosity.
“Fretting over that girl.” Diedre complained.
“Ysenda?” But she didn’t need to ask. Of course she would be tending to Ysenda. That’s what Ealasaid did, she cared for others. Maggie frowned at Diedre’s lack of compassion, but didn’t say anything.
They had been friends of a sort. Diedre, the only woman to travel with Maggie to Glen Toric. The first of the MacKay women Maggie met. She had been full of stories of the people and place; full of advice on how to enjoy this year and a day without being trapped for the rest of her life.
Maggie had not seen much of Diedre since they returned. Even for the search for Ysenda. Diedre didn’t appear until they reached the castle. Once she heard the news, she’d not stopped berating since. “Whatever got into the girl?” She snapped. “To frighten her family, her people, like that.”
“Come now, Diedre, you know what it’s like, living way out there in the hinterlands, no young men about.” Young Ete, justified.
“But to go off with a stranger? With so many lasses going missing?” Nora MacKay shook her head, confused by the idea.
“Too easy to trust a charming man.” Una fretted as she’d been doing ever since the girl was found.
“Aye, but now we know what’s about. Who the blackguard is.” Diedre stated.
“But we don’t know,” young Ingrid whispered, lifting her head to look at Diedre.
Something passed between the two. Maggie wasn’t sure what it was but the shy girl with her long blonde hair seemed to challenge the boisterous Diedre.
“Give her time.” Diedre murmured.
Maggie shook her head against her imaginings, tired from too much of a day. She scanned the room for Talorc.
“Ach, look at you,” one woman moved forward and brushed hair away from Maggie’s forehead. “Two black eyes and a lump the size of a goose egg. Who would have thought you’d be out looking for Ysenda with the rest of us.”
Nora swatted at the woman. “Don’t be telling her about the eyes.”
Una laughed. “She should be right proud of those eyes.”
Maggie reached up, to feel, but there was no color in the touch. “Two black eyes?”
“Aye,” someone else cooed. “You’re a grand lass.”
She was not so grand, certainly didn’t feel grand. If only they would sit at the table but where was Talorc. Voices floated past. She didn’t listen, just scanned the hall until she saw him, across the room with the lad from the courtyard.
The one who had spoken to him when Ysenda was found. Senoiad.
Only now, despite the clouding pain, she saw that Seonaid was not a lad with a lasses name. Seonaid was a willowy, windswept woman and so close to Bold the curve of her breast touched his arm.
Stunned, Maggie wondered how she figured it out for the woman’s kirtle was no kirtle at all but a tunic that ended above the knee. She wore hose, like a man and a sword hung from her hip, a dagger tucked into her belt and a knife was strapped to her ankle.
There was just enough curve of the breast and the angle of her cheek bone to make a difference.
Though easily of an age with Talorc, which gave her ten years on Maggie, there was no covering upon the woman’s head, just a thick dark braid that had fallen over one shoulder.
The woman tilted her face to laugh at something Talorc said. His smile, wide with pleasure, spoke of a familiarity rich in years.
Do ya’ think he lived there with no woman in his bed?
A dart, thrown to make her mother worry and fret and stop the handfasting. Nothing real, back then.
I am an imposter, in another woman's place. A simple lass in an extravagant home.
Talorc thought her to be a woman who inspired victory. But she was nothing other than flesh and blood, often foolish, always stubborn.
He wanted her for his clan, her clan, and the power of the two together. He wanted her for breeding stock, to bear sturdy sons with the blood from two lines of warriors.
He wanted her because of overblown tales told around a campfire.
There was no reality to his wanting. He didn't know who she, Maggie, was. But he had known who this woman was, the actuality of her. She was not an illusion. She was not a false image. She was just a woman Talorc knew well.
An imagined fear turned to piercing hurt that cramped the heart. A reality. The second one to hit that day.
Maggie glanced back at the woman, the second person that night to reveal a hint of sorrow as Bold now talked to Bruce. As if she felt Maggie’s gaze this woman, Seonaid, met it. Her eyes violet as the small flower, dark and intense.
"Don't you fret about Seonaid." Una startled Maggie by wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "The Bold never thought to marry the lass."
Lizbeth gave Una a sharp elbow to the side, adding, "It's you he watches, as though you might disappear in a waft of smoke."
She looked back, to find him watching her. But he hadn’t been earlier. She doubted he even remembered she was there.
Deidre hurried over to Maggie, as did half a dozen others.
"It doesn’t matter anyway." Deidre stroked her hand. “When the handfast is over, you will be leaving him behind.”
You’ll be leaving… He never thought to marry Seonaid, words echoed with a thousand different conclusions.
Odd perhaps, in a lad’s clothes, but the woman was beautiful and graceful, with dark black hair, and mysterious eyes.
Maggie looked down at her own self. Too much
of her own self, all hip and bosom.
"Did she have reason to think he would? Marry her that is."
"You needn't worry." Eilinor patted Maggie's shoulder.
"I wasn't." Which was true, she hadn't until now. She needed to know. "Did she have reason to think he would? Marry her that is."
They all looked to each other.
Ingrid broke the silence with a haughty flip of her own braid. “Seonaid is nothing more than a woman who thinks she’s a man.”
Again silence, then Una piped in. “Let’s play the wedding game!” She encouraged the others. “We’ll not let the Bold anywhere near you for the whole of the evening!”
A game meant for a bride, which Maggie was not, but she managed to smile, allowed the women their fun despite an aching head and an unruly heart.
As they played interference, came between her and the Bold, Maggie listed all the reasons she was happy to play. She wanted to go home. She wanted a husband more like Birk than Bold. She did not want to love the Bold.
She would not love the Bold.
She refused to love the Bold.
And all the while her mind fought to control her very wishes she found her heart could not play the game.
CHAPTER 4 – CHANGES
A groaning wind rattled the shutters. The banked fire hissed and spit its meager glow. Shadows thick as tar danced, eerie movements illuminating demons upon the walls.
Maggie jumped with every rattle, shivered with each hiss of fire and cursed the man who brought her here to sleep alone, in a huge, ominous room away from her own clan.
The MacBede’s knew of Maggie’s night fears. They would not have left her alone, even if there was room for that. A single lass was never left to sleep in a room on her own. There were advantages to living in a small keep.
But she was not in a small keep. She was in a strange and cavernous room with any number of hidden tunnels in and out of it.
Eyes wide she fought to breathe . . . to steady herself . . .
A great snuffle, a snort, ricocheted down her spine, to freeze with a scratch of claws on stone floor. Never, even in her most frightening experiences, had the night been this bad.
"God preserve me." She whimpered.
Terror kicked up the patter of her heart, pulsed hammer blows to her head. To scream would shatter her bones.
This was the Bold's fault. He forced her to be alone . . . in this strange place . . . with strange noises . . . unexplored shadows . . . and sounds of great, huge, ravenous rats.
Rigid, Maggie strained against the gloom, to see what hid in a place too full of hiding places. Another snort and scrape of talons shot down her spine and a cold wet nose pressed against her face. Terror erupted in a shriek, racketing pain throughout her head.
A monster of a beast scrabbled to get on the bed, two massive paws already there, as another mangy head rose from the foot of it. Sound choked in her throat. She would have sobbed but could do no more than flap her jaw.
The beast grumbled, "Wha. . . Hu . . . Wa"
She heard nothing other than the prayers she mumbled under her breath, her eyes squeezed tight against the frightful image. Desperately she pulled the covers up over her head.
A heavy weight landed beside her.
"You bloody, bloody, cruel man to leave me here," she cried to herself. "Talorc, where are you when I need you?"
Something tugged at the covers. With fists and teeth she held tight, her body shuddering in fear.
"Maggie, Maggie," the struggle stopped, "I'm here Maggie," Talorc's voice penetrated her shelter, settled on her, as the comfort of his hands cupped her shoulders through the thickness of covers. "I'm right here, Maggie mine. You've nothing to fear. I'd not leave you alone when you've been so ill."
She lowered the barrier to her nose. One eye opened, then another.
"You great brute." Through the blanket, she punched his shoulder. "You left me alone in this miserable place, and I don't take kindly to it."
"Never, Maggie, I was here."
"Not quick enough."
"Right there," he turned her to face him, pointed to the foot of the bed, where the devil’s head had popped up.
"With a beast?"
"Aye," he reached over to pat the head of an enormous dog. Maggie put her interpretation of the animal down to shock. Talorc continued as if there were not a problem in the whole of the world. "Brutus was here as well to watch over you and make sure no one could harm you."
She eyed the animal, and wondered who would protect her from it. He looked big and mean enough to eat her. And it wasn't a dog she wanted, but Ian or at the least another person, someone to explain away the ominous shadows.
A shift of focus and she froze, to stare at the fabric in Talorc's lap. A scrunched up ball of plaid. This, his only concession to modesty, barely covered his privates, trailed over his thigh, a train in his wake.
She couldn't help but stare. This was the body that taunted and teased, that made her feel ways she had never felt. She touched his thigh with a light finger, found it muscled, hairy.
Her gaze rose but only as far as his chest. That's where it took a turn, along the path just perused.
Fascination washed away embarrassment and fear. She forgot her anger. She, who had grown-up surrounded by men, could not take her eyes away from the arrow of hair that mirrored the arrow of his body. So broad and muscled at the top, to taper down . . . lower down, into the soft folds of fabric that exposed so much, yet hid . . . all by itself, the cloth shifted as though a live thing were hidden underneath it. Her eyes snapped up. His glistened with laughter.
"You want to peek?"
She clutched covers against her own nakedness, and managed a disdainful snort. "You've nothing I've never seen before." She lied. She was quite certain he had something she had never, ever seen.
"I bet you've never seen it in this state."
She could barely breathe. "As if I would want to." She lied again, thinking of how she had felt it through layers of clothes. The curiosity to see, to touch was strong.
To hide her blush, Maggie harrumphed, and flopped over, mumbled about men with little boy humors, and gave him her back.
The bed shifted, cloth rustled. She would not, absolutely not, look. Not even one quick glimpse over her shoulder. She fought the urge by staring straight ahead. The shutter still banged, buffeted by the storm raging outside. The shadows continued to dance. None of it alarmed her. Not anymore. Not with Talorc there, to make it feel cozy and safe.
"You're all right, Maggie. Nothing will harm you at Glen Toric." He lay beside her so they faced each other. She wondered if he could read minds to answer her thoughts.
He pulled her into his arms, held her as her brothers would. Neither spoke, as he stroked her hair. She squirmed.
He did not feel like her brother. His caress did not lull her toward sleep, but made her want to stretch, like a cat so his hands would move from stroking her hair to stroking . . . She squelched another squirm. He kissed the top of her head.
How many days had it been since he had kissed her properly? Since he challenged her body? Too many. He treated her like a child. She did not feel like a child.
And she did not know how to start the battle of the senses. He had not yet taught her that much.
"Are you falling to sleep?"
She shook her head, and asked, "Are you waiting for me to? So you can sleep?"
He pulled back, brushed her hair from her face, his eyes heavy lidded. "Would you blame me if I did?"
She nestled back into his hold, rather than have him see how she felt.
Every night before this one, whenever she woke, Talorc had been there, in the chair beside her bed, ready to speak to her, to ease her fear, to place a cool cloth upon her head. Always, he was in the room, to watch over her, make her feel safe. She was better now and it was true, he needed sleep.
If she had a bedmate he could go to another chamber, and get the rest he needed. At the same time, she would not have
to face the fear of a strange place all by herself.
"It's time I share this bed."
She pulled back, looked at his hand, poised for another caress, his expressive features expressionless. She frowned.
"It's just that," the words jumbled in her head. "Perhaps things are different here, but at home maidens share their beds. It leaves more room for others. Glen Toric can't be so different. Surely, I've put someone out of their place."
He held the curve of her shoulder. His hand warm, solid. She did not want him to go just yet. She did not want him to let go.
"You're fine in this bed."
She grabbed at that. "I would be glad to share."
Talorc chuckled. "Would you now?"
"Aye."
"It's my bed you're sleeping in."
She blinked. Of course it was. She knew that. His papers, his books, his clothes were in here. “It’s not you I’m thinking of sharing with.”
He laughed. "Do you want to let me in?"
Aye, she did, but dared not tell him. Refused to let him see how desperately she wanted his mouth on her mouth, on her body. To feel the way his teeth would tease her nipple and his tongue would soothe the nip all while his hands molded her breasts. She would not demand that he push himself against her secret places, rub and buck and draw her into mindless hunger. She would not beg.
"Where's Ealasaid? I shouldna' be here alone with you."
"You're my handfasted, you're expected to be alone with me."
Maggie's snort was not much different than Brutus's. "I'd not have need of comfort if not for that. But I am doing better now. I can be moved to another bed."
"There's no need for that." He sighed. "But you needn't worry about me climbing under the covers with you. I'm more than comfortable on the floor. It's smoother than the rocky ground outside. And goodness knows I've spent enough nights on that."
"I've never slept alone, MacKay."
"You'll not be alone, Maggie. I will be right there for you."
"I've never slept alone in a bed. And I've never shared a bed with someone who was not my kin."
"I am your kin now, Maggie. Don't mistake that."
"Blood kin."
Silence, so peaceful moments before, stirred into something quite different.
Tangled (Handfasting) Page 4
