This place, this rugged fortress settled high upon a violet mantle, with its single visible high window, was like a majestic suzerain reigning over the landscape.
As she watched in awe, kith and kin appeared from the thatch-roofed dwellings, and gathered anxiously along the single worn path that led to the donjon itself. With craned necks and murmured voices they awaited the cavalcade.
Malcom’s animated voice and Iain’s ensuing laughter drew Page’s attention to father and son riding beside her. His brooding countenance vanished, replaced with an expression of supreme pleasure. Father and son seemed to forget her in their moment of homecoming. Page didn’t care. Their joy was infectious.
Understanding what it was his people sought to know, Iain suddenly lifted his son from before him upon the saddle and seated him high upon his shoulders. Arms flailing, Malcom shouted to his kinfolk, a gleeful Gaelic greeting, and Page found herself smiling over his exuberant display.
Caught up within their exhilaration, Page blinked away the sting of tears. Iain’s laughter at his son’s excitement made her heart swell. What must it feel like to be so loved? Jesu! To love so much in return?
So constricted was her chest suddenly, Page could scarce take a breath. In profile, Iain MacKinnon’s smile was stunning, but when he suddenly turned to look at her and winked, she thought her heart would leap from her breast.
“What d’ ye think, lass?” he asked her.
Page swallowed, and shook her head, unable to respond with her heart so firmly entrenched within her throat.
“Och, lass,” he said, and maneuvered his mount nearer. Gripping Malcom’s legs, he leaned as far toward her as he was able with his wriggling son seated high atop his shoulders. “Dinna look so glum,” he bade her, smiling. “They’ll no’ bite, mo chridhe.”
Page wasn’t so certain. She lifted a brow, telling him so without words.
He chuckled and turned to Angus, “Stay wi’ her, Angus,” he commanded.
The two shared an indecipherable look, making Page feel as though she’d missed something of import. She tried to recall what Iain had said, and couldn’t. Auld Angus nodded, and Page watched, still contemplating their silent exchange, as Iain rode to the fore of his men.
Angus watched him as well, she noted, his expression one of astonished bemusement. “My heart, you say?” the old man said to Iain, and shook his head. He cast her a meaningful glance, his lips curving softly as he turned away.
His heart, what? Did it ail him? Page wondered.
Though she could scarce share Angus’s mirth, she couldn’t suppress her own smile at the obvious clamor father and son elicited merely with their presence. She never would have guessed by the casual ease with which they all treated each other on the journey home, nor by the way they seemed so inclined to quarrel amongst themselves. While it was apparent they respected the MacKinnon and yielded to him always, they were unafraid to voice their convictions and stand apart. Seeing the furor over his return, it was more than evident these people truly valued their laird, and she couldn’t help but consider the differences between Iain and her father.
Her father’s men walked behind him always, skulking shadows ready to snatch his mantle lest it fall to the ground. But when they thought there were no ears about to hear them, they disparaged him to one another. Page had never blamed them. So oft they voiced the very sentiments she wished she had nerve enough to express.
“Wait until you see her!” Broc said, drawing up beside her.
“Who?” Page asked with a wistful sigh, her eyes still drinking in the sight of Iain riding with his son perched high upon his shoulders. She had the deepest yearning suddenly to be at his side, to see the smile of pleasure he wore upon his face, to know what it felt like to be cherished as he seemed to be.
Jesu, but she did know. He’d given her the briefest taste of it while she was in his arms, and she wanted to be there again.
“Merry Bells,” Broc clarified, and Page blinked, trying to determine what in God’s creation he was speaking of.
“She’s a verra smart dog,” he said, and Page choked upon a giggle. She concealed her amusement with a discreet clearing of her throat. She turned and found Angus smiling to himself. Jesu, but she thought she knew precisely what brought such a devilish turn to the old man’s lips. Broc, dear God, was relentless in the telling of his dog tales! In truth, if she hadn’t begun to like the behemoth so blessed much, she might have choked him long ere now for his incessant rambling over the beast!
He sat there, scratching his head, and searching the crowd.
“There she is!” he said suddenly, spying the dog, and then decreed, “Watch this!”
Page watched as he bade her. Following his gaze, she located the black and white spotted dog standing beside a young child who was busily scratching her back. Broc gave a whistle, and the dog’s ears perked at once. And then she suddenly came flying.
“Watch this!” Broc demanded of her, turning to be sure she was watching. She gave him a smile and nod, and he turned again to watch his dog. Only, Merry Bells had been quicker than Broc had obviously anticipated. Just as he turned to await the animal, Merry Bells leapt high into the air. Behemoth and beast met face-to-face, and Page heard the sickening crack as Broc’s nose was broken by the impact of his dog’s snout against his face. She gasped in alarm as both Broc and his animal fell yelping backward.
She reined in at once to the sound of startled curses, and Angus’s great peal of laughter. Slipping from her mount, she hurried to inspect the fallen pair. Merry Bells, for her part, seemed startled but unharmed. The dog rolled at once from atop Broc and scurried away, tail between her legs. Broc, his face flush with embarrassment, and his nose bleeding, simply lay upon the ground, stupefied.
Page took pity upon him and kept her mirth bridled. Without hesitation, she lifted her gown and ripped a strip from her already tattered hem and then pressed it to Broc’s bleeding nostril. She was scarce aware of the crowd that gathered, some laughing, most suddenly too curious over her presence amongst them to do anything more than stare at the pair of them, Broc sprawled before her upon the ground, and her ministering to his wounds.
“Well, now, damn me to hell!” someone shouted. “Broc’s got himself a woman!”
“Broc’s got himself a woman?” another echoed, and the crowd suddenly began to close in about them.
“I’ll be hanged!” someone decreed, laughter in his voice. “No wonder puir Merry Bells just aboot took your nose off, ye cheatin’ whoreson! Ho! But damned if I can blame ye! She’s a damn sight bonnier than Merry Bells!”
Merry Bells sidled into the circle at that moment, shimmying under legs to reach her master. She came wagging her tail behind her, casting a black-eyed glance in Page’s direction, before scurrying over to Broc. The dog lapped his face hesitantly at first, and then eagerly, whining. Tail perking and wagging, she seemed to forget everything but her precious master in that moment.
“Looks to me like Broc’ll be sharing his bed wi’ two bitches tonight!”
Another round of bawdy laughter followed that remark, and Page’s cheeks flamed.
All of a sudden the gathering parted as Iain MacKinnon came toward her, his look dark and his stride purposeful.
Without a word, he bent low. Casting angry glances at his men, he snatched her up by the waist and tossed her unceremoniously over his shoulders. “She’ll damn well no’ be sharing Broc’s bed!” he declared to one and all, and then marched away, with Page clinging to his shoulders for dear life.
A hush fell over them all.
Openmouthed stares followed them.
Page’s cheeks burned hotter. “While I certainly am grateful for the deliverance,” she remarked rather flippantly, pounding him once on the back for emphasis, “you might have gone about this with a little more civility!”
Aye, he might have, Iain acknowledged, but he’d lost his composure watching her with Broc. Och, but it wasn’t so much that she’d tended him so solici
tously—aye, but it was! And still he might have dealt with it had the talk not turned toward bedding Broc! The image had wholly unsettled him, and he’d found himself handing Malcom into Glenna’s capable arms and marching toward them. He’d be damned if he’d let them mistake who she was.
She was his.
He wasn’t certain, precisely, at which moment he’d decided such a thing—whether it was in the instant after their loving, or after seeing her ride companionably beside Broc all afternoon, speaking low and laughing softly as would two lovers together. Never in his life had he felt such a stab of covetousness. Like some jealous beau, he’d had a difficult time keeping himself from maneuvering his mount betwixt the two, and commanding Broc away from her. Amazing, in such short time she’d managed to win Broc’s favor—the others, as well, with the exception of a few. He could tell by the way they looked upon her, and in the small ways they tried to shield her. He couldn’t believe how vehemently Broc had come to her defense.
Damn, but mayhap it was simply in watching her ride with his son that he came to the decision. He’d watched her smooth the hair back from Malcom’s face as she listened to him speak... like a mother with her beloved child, and his heart had thundered within his breast to see it. In that instant he’d wanted to snatch her up into his arms and love her madly.
Damned if he understood why he felt so.
He only knew that he wanted her.
And this moment, he wanted her badly enough not to care what anyone thought of his manners. Damn propriety! Damn everyone!
Malcom was home. Aye, and it was his son they wished to see this moment, not him. He knew Glenna would watch him well; she loved Malcom as though he were her own. And Glenna was the closest thing to a grandparent Malcom would ever know. They needed time to reacquaint themselves. He, on the other hand, needed something else entirely.
Something only Page could give him.
Ignoring her protests and her threats, he bore her without a word into his home, and up the stairwell to his chamber.
“Put me down!” she demanded. “I am perfectly capable of making my way upon my own two feet, thank you!”
“Of a certainty, ye can, lass.”
But he didn’t stop, and she shrieked in outrage. “Put me down!” she demanded. “Everyone is watching!”
“Are they really?” he asked with little concern.
She actually growled at that, and Iain had to suppress a hearty chuckle at her fierce expression of frustration.
“Put me down, I tell you! Now! You overbearing brute!”
“Of a certainty, I shall,” Iain said amenably, though he continued to carry her up the steps, disregarding her request until he was within his chamber, and managed to kick the door closed. Only then did he put her down and release her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The instant her feet touched the wooden floor, Page scurried across the room, too outraged to care that she might stumble over some misplaced object within the gloomy confines of the room. She went as far as she dared, and then whirled upon him, her hands going to her hips as she glared at him through the shadows. She tried to focus upon his imposing form standing so forbiddingly before the only door.
“Sweet Jesu!” she exclaimed, when she still could not see him clearly enough. “Have you no tapers?”
Lord, but she couldn’t recall when she’d been so humiliated! And then at once she reconsidered. Of course she could! No other moment in her life would ever pain her more than the instant she’d discovered her father’s treachery. Be that as it may, Iain MacKinnon’s rude conduct came mightily close!
“We dinna keep servants to anticipate our every whim,” he answered calmly. “We do for ourselves, lass. If the room is dark and cold, I beg your pardon.”
Page had to clamp her lips together to keep from lashing out a response to his unjust insinuation—that she would have had servants to coddle her. Indeed! If her father could scarce trouble himself to name her, he certainly hadn’t been any more inclined to see to her comforts!
On the contrary, he’d worked her tirelessly, and the common coarseness of her hands bespoke as much. She clenched her fists at her sides, and gritted her teeth in renewed anger at the reminder of her father and his heartless disowning.
“No servants?” she answered flippantly. “What a pity. Ah, well, I shall find myself quite at home anyway,” she answered truthfully.
“I shall see to it,” he promised, his words a seething whisper.
There was a moment of taut silence as he pushed away from the door and moved through the shadows. Page followed him with her eyes.
When at last her vision adjusted to the gloom, she watched as he finally lit a taper. Its flame thrust immediately upward and remained steady and true, brightening the chamber. It was a large room by most any standard—large enough to make it appear utterly barren despite the massive bed that occupied its space. The bed itself was strewn with furs, but the rest of the room was completely devoid of anything that would give it warmth. Nothing upon the walls, nothing upon the floors.
In the center of the room stood a small brazier, its pith blackened and unused. It, along with the bed, remained the only evidence the room was in use at all, for the chamber was impeccable and uncluttered—appeared abandoned even. A hasty glance about revealed a single window at her back, curiously barred. Through the rashly placed wooden slats, thin rays of sunlight sluiced into the musty confines of the stone-walled chamber.
At once her gaze was drawn back toward the soft flicker of the taper within Iain’s hands. Its glow illuminated his hard masculine features fully, and she shuddered at the way his gold- flecked eyes watched her so intently.
Was he awaiting her reaction to this place he’d brought her? Did he intend to imprison her here? Jesu, but why should he? She had no place to run to, she thought morosely.
“What is this place?” she asked him.
“My chamber.”
“You sleep here?” Page asked with no small measure of surprise. Mentally she compared the sparse room to her father’s lavish bedchamber—his so filled with richly colored tapestries and manifold extravagances.
“Aye.”
Page cast another glance about, her eyes trying to perceive the room in a different light, but there was nothing present to give her even the slightest clue of him. “It... appears so... very... desolate,” she remarked, frowning.
“It serves its purpose well enough,” Iain said. “What need have I for finery when my eyes willna see it whilst I sleep?”
Page’s own bedchamber had been as chaste as a monk’s cell, but not by choice. To make it appear less so, she had usurped forsaken baubles from her father’s home, stealing them into her own chamber in order to enliven it. Her frown deepened at the piteous thought.
Iain hadn’t moved from where he stood, holding the burning taper. He was watching her curiously while she studied the room, waiting, it seemed, for some response from her. Curse him, too, for it seemed he was always watching! Scrutinizing. Waiting.
The very sight of him elicited such conflicting emotions, for while he was the one person in her life who’d made her feel cherished, he was also the one person who compelled her to see herself as she was.
And she didn’t like what she saw... save when she looked into his eyes.
And even then, she recalled all of which she’d been deprived.
He gazed at her as though she were precious... and therein lay the heart of the matter, for she knew herself as unworthy.
All those years she’d pretended she didn’t care... he’d made them all a terrible lie. Aye, for she cared with every fiber of her being—hurt with every last drop of blood that was wrung from her heart.
And it was Iain MacKinnon’s fault, because before him, she had been blissfully numb.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Tell me,” she said irascibly, “did your mother never teach you better than to fling unwilling women over your shoulder?”
His brows collided, and his
jaw went taut. He peered away. Good, let him suffer it, if he would! She might have slapped him, in truth, for she was still blenching over the looks his people were giving her as he’d carried her into his home. How dare he treat her so commonly!
And then he turned to face her, and though he deserved considerably more than her anger for treating her so coarsely, Page regretted her outburst the instant she saw the look upon his face. It was obvious she’d managed to wound him, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it was that made his eyes seem so melancholy of a sudden.
“Och, lass,” he answered, his expression sober, if not entirely contrite, “the burden o’ my manners doesna fall to my minnie at all.” He cast a glance at the floor, and then met her gaze once more, his golden eyes shadowed. “I knew her not, y’ see.” The candlelight glinted upon his eyes. The glimmer mesmerized her as much as his admission moved her.
“Oh,” Page said softly. She felt a keen stab of guilt.
“She died giving me birth.”
Their gazes held, locked.
Embraced.
“I... I did not know.” More than she had, she sensed he’d suffered the loss of his mother. It was wholly discomposing the way his simple revelation affected her. With nary more than a few words, he’d managed not only to defuse her anger, but to make her long to cast herself into his arms and share his misery.
“Dinna fash yourself o’er it,” he said softly, nodding, his eyes fixed upon her still. “How could ye have known?”
“I never would have—”
“Hush, lass,” he broke in, carrying a finger to his lips. “I’m no wee bairn to need suckling at her breast. ‘Tis all right.” His eyes narrowed then, slitted, lowered from her eyes, to her mouth, and then to her breast, lingering there.
She knew at once what he was thinking, and her heart skipped its normal beat. Her breath caught as she followed his gaze to find that her body had somehow betrayed her. A guilty flush crept into her cheeks, through her body, warming her.
“Nay?” she asked, gulping in a breath as she lifted her face to meet his heavy-lidded gaze once more. He was still staring at her bosom. And then suddenly realizing what it must sound as though she were asking, she said much more firmly, “Nay! Oh, nay, you are not!”
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