King's Knight [Highland Menage 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Reece Butler

  “I’ll have to be extra careful when I see Lady Isabel rolling pastry,” replied Hamish. That made Jenny laugh again. He’d not heard many children laughing. It did something to his heart.

  “Best I carry ye back, Jenny. Mayhaps Hamish can lead the way for us.”

  He was staggering by the time they got to Calltuin House. Shaw had bullied the others so he was the last to get food. Rarely was there much left. The daily workouts had added muscle, but the lack of sleep and food hit hard. He’d taken most of the night watches. If he hadn’t they would have kicked him even harder whenever they changed watch. He had to complete the training course to be allowed to leave Meggernie Castle permanently. He would put up with whatever was necessary for that.

  Sir Tearlach met them in the yard. He took one look and ordered him into the stables. He didn’t know why, or if he was to be beaten, but at that point he didn’t care. It was over. Too tired to see or lift his feet he tripped over the sill and landed in the straw. He waited for the curses of being clumsy.

  “When was the last time ye ate well or slept through the night?” demanded Sir Tearlach.

  Hamish, flat on his back, blinked up at him. “What?”

  “Jesu, ye are as bad as my wife with Somerled.” A deep sigh filled the stable. “Curl up and rest, Hamish. I’ll be back in a wee while with some food and ale for ye.” He hesitated. “Thank ye for saving our wee Jenny. Clan MacDougal owes ye, and we always pay our debts.”

  He was too tired to do more than sink into the straw. A blanket was draped over him. He was fighting sleep when a deep purr approached. Tommy curled up at his back, loud and protective. The world went black.

  Chapter 18

  “Ye put me to shame, lad.”

  Tearlach had waited to break his fast until Hamish was clean, fed, and dressed in new clothes before he’d had the lad come to him. Rory had ripped him apart over his treatment of Hamish. It was nothing compared to Isabel. Janet had curled her lip at him. Tommy sneered as only a cat could before flicking his tail in disgust and stomping out.

  Sir Parlan Murray and Rory were with the five other lads, waiting for their escorts to take them back to Stirling Castle. Shaw was gagged, ankles and wrists bound, in the far cellar. He’d be lucky if Murray allowed him to ride rather than be tied onto his saddle like a sack of oatmeal. In any case he was no long Tearlach’s problem.

  “Sir?” Hamish cocked his head, turning his good ear and eye toward him.

  Tearlach had finally smartened up enough to ask Herald Murray the story of the lad. No wonder he hadn’t complained at the treatment. He’d been beaten and abused by his brothers, cousins, and father all his life. The only one who cared for him, his sister almost a decade older, had been sold off in marriage to a vicious old man. She’d survived that only to be sent home, there to be insulted as she worked as their housekeeper.

  Murray said the king was marrying her off to a penniless minor laird who wouldn’t harm her further. She’d reluctantly agreed as it was better than the marriage her brothers had planned, to another wicked old goat. She’d insisted Hamish be taken from Meggernie Castle as he’d be abused with her gone. The Earl of Argyll had agreed, so Hamish was offered this opportunity. Tearlach had cursed even harder when told the lad believed he’d be sent back to hell if he failed.

  He was stalling. Time to speak some hard truths.

  “I have a brother,” said Tearlach. “Torquil is one year younger. He was out hunting, looking for food for the sixteen of us when a pair of rogue Campbells found him. They whipped him, and would have killed him if we hadn’t found him and stopped them.”

  “Did he live?” The voice was quiet. Resigned.

  “Aye, he is alive but has scars inside as well as out.” Tearlach paused to take a breath. “I helped kill those men for harming a lad who’d done nothing but bear a name they hated. Yet I judged ye, merely for yer name. That makes me little better than they. I am sorry for that. Aye, and ashamed.”

  “Ye ken naught of me, Sir Tearlach.”

  “Aye, and I’m ashamed of that as well. A leader must ken his men. I wilna make this mistake again.” He waited, wishing to see if the lad would speak up. It took a while.

  “What will happen to me, sir?”

  “Dinna worry that ye’ll be returned to the loving bosom of yer family,” he said with loads of sarcasm. “I’d not do that to ye.”

  The boy sagged. “Thank ye,” he whispered.

  “Herald Murray willna tell me who yer sister, Margaret, is it?” He waited for the nod. “Who Margaret is to marry. I’ve asked him to see if her new husband will allow ye to dwell there, if ye wish to.”

  “I willna go if ’twill cause her heartache,” he said. “Her last husband…” He ducked his head.

  Tearlach winced. “He beat her?”

  “Aye, but we’re used to that.” Hamish blushed. “I dinna ken all what happens in a marriage bed, but methinks what he did to her was far worse than beatings.”

  “God’s breath!” Tearlach shoved his chair back, needing to pace. “I dinna ken why beasts must harm women and bairns!” He looked out the window, into the yard. Jenny, wearing six ribbons in her hair, played with Mary’s wee ones. Their sweet laughter eased his heart. “Do ye have goodhearted brothers or cousins that need to get out of Meggernie Castle?”

  Hamish shook his head. “Nay. Margaret and I, we take after the weak side of the family. The others are big.” He held out his skinny arms. “As ye see, there’s not much of me.”

  “Lad, ye havena had a chance to eat or sleep enough to grow. We’ll see how big ye are by the end of the summer.”

  Hamish’s jaw dropped. “End of the summer?”

  “If ye dinna mind stayin’, we could use ye here. Herald Murray says yer sister will have a better idea of her marriage and husband by Michaelmas. If all goes well, ye’ll be given a choice of living with her, or staying here.”

  “Choice?”

  Tearlach gave a wry grin. “Aye, lad. Ye’ll have to get used to making those. Ye have a major one to make in a few minutes.”

  The boy turned white. Tearlach ran his hands down his face, silently cursing.

  “’Twas a joke, lad. The choice will be whether to have one strawberry tart, or two.” He grimaced. “My lady wife says she made two for each of us and ye can have four as I should give ye both of mine.” He eyed the lad as he would Jenny, with a false fierceness. “I’ll accept ye takin’ one of mine, but I suggest ye dinna eat both.”

  The look of hope on Hamish’s face, just a suggestion of the possibility of a better future, seized Tearlach’s heart like a fist.

  “Begone with ye, lad. Jenny’s down below. She’ll wish to show ye her new ribbands.”

  He sagged into the stool when the lad bolted. He and his brothers had a hard life, but they’d had one another. They’d starved and shivered together. This boy had been beaten and abused by his own family.

  Somerled needed to learn of this. The thought of telling the story brought bile to Tearlach’s gut. It would be humiliating to admit what he’d done to the lad. Yet Somerled must see that not all Campbells were out to harm every MacDougal. And that one MacDougal had harmed a Campbell by judging him by his name.

  “Maybe ’twould be best if I offer the lad both my tarts. Then my sweet wife might let me sleep in our bed.”

  * * * *

  Isabel drew circles on her husband’s chest. It was easy as her head lay on it as well. What was not easy was getting her oaf of a husband to listen to what was in his own heart. It had been a fortnight since Hamish rescued Jenny and Tearlach was still pouting, or whatever it was that men do. Rory wasn’t in bed yet, so she had time to speak to him alone.

  “Speak up, lass,” said Tearlach. “Yer brain is fair buzzing and ’tis keeping me awake.”

  “I dinna wish to say I told ye so.”

  “Then go to sleep.”

  She sighed. So much for easing into it. She slammed her fist on his chest. “I dinna mean it like that!”
>
  Tearlach raised his head, one eyebrow quirked up. “And how did ye mean it?”

  “I wish to say how it makes my heart smile to see how ye are with Hamish.”

  “I judged him on naught but air. I now ken he’s a good lad.”

  He’d avoided answering her again. “Nay, ’tis not what I meant. Ye are helping him learn to look another in the eye and think he is worthy.”

  Tearlach leaned back and closed his eyes. He wasn’t necessarily closing her out, but he didn’t take compliments or criticism well.

  “I hurt him,” he said quietly.

  She pounded his chest again. He jerked his head up, eyes blazing.

  “What did ye do that for, wife?”

  “I did that so ye’d stop thinking badly of yerself. Ye are a king’s knight, Sir Tearlach MacDougal, so act like one!”

  “Ye dinna ken—”

  “Aye, ye judged him wrong.” She lowered her voice. “But then ye put that aside and opened yer eyes. And after that ye opened yer heart to him. Ye are the older brother and uncle, and maybe father, that he never had.”

  “Tch, lass, Hamish is a good lad. ’Tisn’t hard.”

  She rolled her eyes in the dark. She’d try a different direction. “Why did Shaw wish to harm wee Jenny?”

  Tearlach’s hand started circles on her back the way she’d drawn them on his chest. “He’s a bully, so ’twasn’t hard to get him to twist things. His grandfather is Menzies of Weem.”

  “How nice for him,” she said sarcastically. Tearlach glowered at her. She closed her eyes to stop him from seeing her roll them. “Tearlach, husband,” she said patiently. “I dinna ken why ’tis important who his grandda is.”

  “Ah.” He drew more circles. “My first good-sister was born Fiona Menzies. Her father lied about her all his life, saying she were his bastard off a maid. He had her trained as a page and not a lady. She turned her back on him after he would have left her to a very nasty death, and married Angus and Gillis. She discovered she wasna a bastard and that Laird Fraser was her uncle. Though naught is spoken of it, all ken how Menzies lied to her, then happily abandoned her to be,” he cleared his throat. “To be tossed aside when she was no longer of use to him.”

  Isabel had a good idea what would have happened to Fiona before death took away her pain.

  “The more I hear of the world the more I ken how good a life I had here in Calltuin with Janet.”

  “Ye have a better life now, lass. As do we.”

  She kissed Tearlach’s chest as a reward for speaking of his feelings. “So, what does Menzies have to do with Shaw?”

  “Laird Menzies wished to get back at all those who accepted Fiona. He canna touch Laird Fraser as he is the powerful Lord of Lovat, so attacked us instead.”

  She sat up. “It had naught to do with Laird Graham?”

  Tearlach pulled her back down, settling her the way he liked. That meant splayed so he could reach whatever he chose. She also liked him touching those spots so didn’t complain.

  “Ah, but Menzies and Graham go back a long way. They wished to harm me and Rory the worst they could, which would be for us to lose ye.” He pressed her close. His heart thudded under her ear. “As the lad was named Shaw they thought they’d get what they wanted as I’d be watching for another. ’Twas a fluke there was a Campbell in the group. And since ye were too well protected Shaw went after one we both love.”

  “Wee Jenny.”

  “Aye. I dinna ken what Shaw thought he’d do, other than blame the attack on Hamish.”

  She’d heard that Shaw swore he was about to rescue Jenny and blame her kidnapping on strangers so that he would be seen as a hero. He wasn’t believed but it couldn’t be proven either way. Murray said the lad would be watched as someone who’d do this to a lassie, could grow up to do worse.

  “Herald Murray thinks the Earl of Menteith may soon pass the Aberfoyle lairdship to Errol,” said Tearlach. “That will cut his father’s power to harm ye.”

  She thought on it for a while. “I think Hamish may one day marry wee Jenny.”

  That got her another wide-eyed look. “The lass is not yet nine, and Hamish is, what, fifteen?”

  “Aye, but in eight years they may jump a broom together.”

  “’Tis a long time, and much can happen.” He rolled her over into his favorite position. It used to be with his hand over her breast but now he liked it on her rising belly. She snuggled her arse into his groin as a hint.

  “Nay, lass,” said Tearlach. “’Tis time to sleep.”

  “Then sleep, old man, and let me take care of our wife.” Rory began dropping his clothes as soon as he shut the door behind him. “Are ye eager for my cock, my wee temptress?”

  “’Tis strange, but ever since I kenned I was carrying a bairn I’ve been eager,” she replied.

  Rory climbed in front of her. He kissed her forehead. “All’s well out there. Time to make all well in here.”

  She’d been having strange butterfly feelings for some time. Knowing the men couldn’t feel them, or understand her excitement, she’d only shared her joy with Janet, Mary, and Eunice. What struck her on the inside this time was no butterfly.

  “Jesu!” roared Tearlach. He jerked to one elbow, staring down at her in shock. “What was that?”

  “Is sommat amiss?” demanded Rory, equally worried. They both looked to her for an explanation.

  Pleased that she had the knowledge for once, she settled back, a secret smile on her lips.

  “That, my dear husbands, was likely a foot.”

  They both stared at her. Their eyes moved to her belly. “It moved,” whispered Tearlach. “Against my hand.”

  Rory elbowed him out of the way, flipped her around, and cuddled her the same way as his brother had. He set his palm on her belly.

  “All right, laddie, show yer da those strong MacDougal legs.”

  Much to her surprise, her babe did. Rory’s jaw dropped.

  “’Twill only get stronger,” she warned.

  “How do ye sleep with our babe movin’ in ye?” whispered Tearlach.

  An idea came to her. She pressed her lips together, trying to look stern. “Well, ’tis said massaging the babe will help.”

  Rory, concentrating hard, began circling her stomach with his palm. “Ye mean like this?”

  “Nay,” she said with a sexy smile. “From the inside.”

  Rory froze. He stared at her. “Is this my lady wife’s excuse for demanding pleasure?”

  “Aye, if ye think ’twill work.” She pointed at their eager cocks. “Ye each have a lance, do ye not?”

  “Aye, but I be the king’s knight,” said Tearlach.

  “So I should ride yer lance first, Sir Knight?” She drew her hand along his cock. “Oh, ye be hard and hot. Mayhaps ye wish to fit yer blade in a tight, wet scabbard?”

  “Ah, lass, I do love ye.” Tearlach chuckled, shaking his head.

  “As do I.” Rory kissed her belly gently, with tenderness and love. “And I love the wee one growin’ inside ye.”

  “I love ye both,” she whispered. “And will forever.” She sniffed back a tear. “But I want more than sweet words. I want yer—”

  “I well ken what ye want, wife.” Tearlach, with Rory’s help, lifted her high over his belly. “To ride my lance, aye?”

  “Oh, aye,” she murmured. “Ye ken what I need.” She smiled down at Tearlach and reached for Rory. “I need ye both. Forever.”

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Early jobs cleaning cages for a veterinarian, scrubbing floors in a hospital, and working as a waitress helped Reece Butler realize she was more of a thinker than a doer. An office keyboard kept her occupied for many years while her family grew. Once she discovered the romance genre it was a short step to reading erotic romance. And, since she has an active imagination and is fascinated with people, she began writing…

  She now spends most of her time writing, reading, resea
rching, editing, plotting, creating characters…and eating dark chocolate.

  For all titles by Reece Butler, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/reece-butler

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