by Terry Spear
***
By the time Gavan escorted her to meet his parents at the evening meal, Marsali had imagined the worst, and despite his solid presence beside her, her hands shook. As they approached the high table, she couldn’t take her eyes off the older couple seated there, flanked by what she could only suppose were Gavan’s brothers, sister, and her betrothed. What would they think of her? Would the laird demand she immediately return home? She expected to be embarrassed at best, excoriated at worst, in front of the entire MacNabb clan for riding out alone and risking herself and her hound. If Gavan hadn’t been delayed and been nearby… Nay, now was no time to dwell on what might have happened.
“Meet Marsali Murray,” Gavan said, simply. “My mother and father, Lady and Laird MacNabb.”
“I’m pleased to meet ye.” Marsali imbued her voice with all the confidence she could muster, which seemed a great deal less than she needed.
Gavan’s mother put a hand on her husband’s arm, then leaned forward. “My son tells me ye taught the little ones a song this afternoon.” After a glance at Gavan, his mother smiled. “I hope ye’ll sing with them later.”
The dregs of Marsali’s appetite, already in tatters at this public encounter, deserted her. She could barely speak. Lady MacNabb wanted her to sing? Marsali cut Gavan a glance that promised retribution, then nodded. What else could she do? “Of course, milady.”
But that worried her less than the lady’s hand on the laird’s arm. Was she reminding her husband to be polite to their guest, when he’d just as soon throw her in the dungeon?
“Welcome to MacNabb,” Gavan’s father said, his tone as amiable as the twinkle that appeared in his eye.
Relief flooded her. He wasn’t ordering her home in the morning. “Thank ye. I’m grateful for yer care.”
“Let’s find a seat,” Gavan urged, with a nod to his parents. “Ye can meet the rest, later.”
Marsali was only too happy to agree. After the ups and downs of terror and relief she’d experienced meeting his parents, her knees wouldn’t support her much longer. But on their way, they passed Fenella at a crowded table. She grabbed Gavan’s hand. “Gavan, sit with me,” she simpered. “I’ll make room.”
Marsali eyed the bench Fenella occupied with several others. Unless someone gave up their seat, there was no chance a man of Gavan’s size would fit. And where would that leave her?
“I canna,” he told Fenella, after a glance at the high table. “Marsali doesna ken anyone here, so I’ll stay with her for now.”
For now? Suddenly Marsali’s nerves disappeared, replaced by a hole in the middle of her chest where her heart used to be. Gavan stayed with her only because he felt responsible for her? He must think Fenella meant to take him back, despite their argument when he arrived and the confusion of her relationship with his brother.
Why should she care? She told herself she had no reason to be jealous as Gavan led her to a table with two open seats together. Neither Gavan nor his clan was hers. Like his parents, he was being a good host, nothing more. Perhaps a guest was all she would ever be to him.
“Who have ye here?” a handsome lad asked once Gavan and Marsali settled across from him. Gavan made the introductions, then Harvey clutched his shirt over his heart. “I dinna believe I’ve ever seen a lovelier lass. Where do ye hail from, pretty lady, and what are ye doing with this reprobate?”
“Clan Murray,” Marsali answered with a smile. He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be, but his antics amused her.
“Surely ye have no’ joined hands with such as Gavan,” said Stewart, the lad next to him. “But if ye have had the misfortune to be with this lout, I must beg ye to tell me if ye have any sisters or cousins at home as lovely as ye? ’Tis a pleasure to see such a pretty new face.”
“Enough, lads,” Gavan growled.
“Nay,” Marsali demurred. “Never enough.”
Harvey and Stewart roared with laughter.
Were they teasing Gavan? Or her? She wasn’t sure how to tell, since Murray lads hadn’t paid her much attention in years. But the puppy-dog eyes Harvey directed at her led her to believe his interest, at least, was genuine. She smiled at him and was rewarded by seeing Stewart clutch his chest and fall back.
“Ach, ye wound me, to choose Harvey over me!” Stewart complained.
“I havena chosen anyone,” Marsali told him. That earned her a quick glance from Gavan, who shifted in his seat. His long thigh suddenly pressed against hers, then shifted away again. Really? He cared? What else could his reaction mean save he was jealous?
An unaccustomed sense of power rolled through her like fog rolling down a mountainside, weighty, yet ephemeral. She was going to enjoy her time here. And if Gavan thought Fenella was a better match for him than she, well, let him. Instead of him, one of these two lads, or one she had yet to meet, might be her true love. The possibilities seemed endless. Finding out was going to be fun.
***
Gavan wasn’t sure how he could sit by and watch Marsali come alive under the gentle teasing of his cousins. He loved the sparkle in her eyes, and the wit she displayed in deflecting first Harvey, then Stewart, setting them at each other’s throats in their verbal sparring for her attention. But for her affection? The idea made him squirm, which had brought his thigh in contact with Marsali’s for one long, warm, pulse-pounding moment, until he’d come to his senses and shifted away again.
Could he be jealous?
Suddenly, he understood why Fenella watched him from her seat a few tables away. Keenan sat at the high table, his gaze on Fenella. She was trying to make his brother jealous. Groa thought Fenella showed Keenan more than sisterly affection and concern due him from his brother’s intended. Perhaps Keenan had yet to respond in a way that satisfied her. Gavan couldn’t stop the twitch of his lips, a smirk at the thought that after their talk, Fenella was free to do much more, and apparently, had begun her campaign.
He nodded, acknowledging her attention, then turned back to Marsali, Harvey, and Stewart.
“Nay, Corrie is one of many deerhounds we have,” Marsali was saying.
That certainly interested him. He’d been a fool not to think of that the first time he saw Marsali’s hound at the stones. Corrie’s intelligence was obvious. And the MacNabb pack needed freshening. Perhaps his side trip to Murray would have value to MacNabb, after all.
“Would ye be willing to stay long enough to breed her here?” Stewart asked, as if reading Gavan’s mind.
“Ah...I dinna ken. Gavan, or yer laird, may be eager to be rid of me.”
“Nay!” Harvey exclaimed, turning a fierce face in Gavan’s direction. “She must stay. She’s more interesting than any of our lasses.”
Gavan held up a hand, shaking his head as he did so. “The lass has just arrived, lads. Let’s no’ be deciding her future quite so quickly, aye?”
Though the thought of her staying did appeal to him. Very much.
“Thank ye, Gavan, but I’m quite capable of deciding that for myself.”
“Oh ho!” Stewart laughed. “Ye’ve a braw lass here, ye have.”
Marsali’s frown told Gavan the conversation was rapidly getting out of hand.
“Eat yer dinner, Stewart. Ye, too, Harvey. Leave Marsali be. Neither one of us has the patience for yer twattle.”
“Neither one of us, eh?” Harvey teased. “Ye are together, then.”
Gavan narrowed his eyes at his cousin while he reached for a suitable response.
Marsali beat him to it. “Nay. We simply traveled together, and Gavan is enough of a gentleman to see me properly cared for until I meet more of ye MacNabbs.”
“Properly cared for…” Stewart snickered.
Marsali stiffened.
Gavan bristled at Stewart’s crude implication. “Haud yer wheesht,” he warned him. “Ye’ll no’ be rude to my guest without consequences.” Gavan knew that would shut Stewart up. Gavan had pounded him into the ground every time they’d fought, and Gavan was even stronger now. His wor
ds had the desired effect.
Marsali uncoiled beside him.
“Sorry, lass,” he told her.
“Aye,” Harvey added, jabbing his elbow into Stewart’s side. “We’re sorry, too. We got carried away with our jest.”
“Aye, lass, we meant nothing by it,” Stewart added.
“Apology accepted,” Marsali told them. “We can be friends.”
Both cousins’ faces lit up at that. “Friends, aye.”
“Friends, aye,” Gavan agreed, with a warning glance at the two. But he noticed Marsali’s shoulders slump, just a bit, at his words. She did hope for more. Did he? He glanced at Fenella. She now gazed at Keenan, to Gavan’s relief.
Later that evening, as Marsali and the children repeated their song for the clan, he watched Keenan smile for the first time since Gavan had been home. Possibly for the first time in the months since his wife died giving him his daughter. It came to Gavan then that MacNabb needed Marsali. And so did he.
Chapter 5
The next day, shouting intruded suddenly into the conversation Marsali was having with the master of hounds.
“What is it?” Marsali asked, knowing the man had no more idea than she did, but she hoped the sound of her voice would calm some of the tension in the dogs’ stances. Corrie answered her with a low woof and went to guard the door while the master of hounds returned a puppy to its kennel.
The voices had moved away, but now she became aware of a commotion farther out in the bailey. Opening the shutter over the window, she peered out into the morning mist. The MacNabb bailey looked like a disturbed anthill, with people hurrying to and fro. Among them, she spotted Keenan and Gavan climbing a ladder to the battlements. Once there, they peered over the side.
Marsali’s fingers tightened on the latch. What was happening?
Then Gavan turned and pointed toward her chamber window, and she knew.
Her father had arrived. Too soon! She could not leave, yet. She touched her lips, imagining Gavan’s kiss, remembering the comfort of his arms around her, his body pressing against hers, all sensations she’d hoped to feel again in his arms. She had not had time to resolve anything with him.
After a few words from Keenan, Gavan descended to the bailey.
Marsali cringed, closed the shutter, and nodding to the master of hounds, grabbed her cloak. “Come, Corrie,” she said. “Our adventure is about to come to an end.” In moments, she intercepted Gavan. “My father is out there.” She didn’t bother to make that a question.
“Aye. Accusing MacNabb of stealing ye, threatening to tear down our walls, stone by stone. He brought a lot of men with him.” He lifted an eyebrow. “And ye said he didna care about ye.”
She pressed her lips together, then sighed. “I didna think he did, not to this extent.”
“Well, ye’d best come speak to him before things get out of hand.”
With a nod, Marsali followed him back across the bailey.
“From the battlements?” she asked as Gavan led her to the ladder.
“Aye, at first. Up ye go,” Gavan told her. “Until we determine ’tis safe to allow him and his men inside our gates.”
“Oh…” With one hand, she hiked her skirt enough to put a foot on the lowest rung, then turned. “Corrie, stay.” She didn’t need a frantic Corrie trying to follow her, falling and hurting herself, or barking and adding to the tension.
The hound shook herself. Marsali took that for assent until she started up the ladder and heard Corrie whine.
“Stay, Corrie,” Gavan commanded. “She willna be up there long.”
Corrie sat at the foot of the ladder without further complaint as Marsali climbed the rest of the way, Gavan right behind her, after telling her, “I willna let ye fall.”
Keenan gave her a brief nod as he handed her onto the parapet. “I believe yer father would like to speak with ye.” Despite the potential gravity of the situation, he quirked an eyebrow and gave her a quick grin.
In that moment, Marsali liked him even more than she yet had. With a nod, she moved to the crenellation and showed herself.
“Good morrow, Father.”
“Marsali! Lass, are ye well? Did the bastard harm ye?”
“I’m fine, Father, truly.” Or I was until ye arrived.
“When we couldna find ye—or yer hound—we looked for ye near Murray.” He pointed over her shoulder with a narrow-eyed glare. “Then we realized that traveler, MacNabb, took ye,” he accused.
Gavan moved up to stand at her back. She resisted the impulse to lean back into his arms. “He didna take me. I’m a guest here.”
“A guest? What do ye mean, a guest?”
She spread her hands. “I can leave whenever I wish.”
“Then tell them to open the gate. Let’s get ye home, daughter.”
She heard Keenan and Gavan conferring quietly behind her, then another, deeper voice. The MacNabb had joined his sons. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face the laird, hoping this confrontation would not make him decide to toss her out. “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused ye,” she told him. “Will ye let my father and his men inside?”
To her relief, MacNabb nodded.
“Aye, so long as they pledge to behave themselves until ye can clear up this misunderstanding.” He moved to the wall and peered down. “Murray, I am MacNabb. Be welcome so long as yer blades stay in their sheaths. Yer daughter would like a closer word with ye.”
Murray glanced aside at his men, then nodded. “We will abide by yer wishes. Open the gates.”
MacNabb signaled. The gates swung open, first the inner one, then the outer.
In moments, Murray and his men rode inside.
Her father eyed Corrie at the foot of the ladder, then glanced up. He frowned at Gavan, then met her gaze before he dismounted. She smiled and quickly climbed down to greet him. She had the presence of mind to note the MacNabbs remained on the ramparts and the gates remained open. No doubt sending the message she—and the Murrays—were free to come and go as they saw fit.
“Father,” she told him, “I didna think ye cared.”
“What? No daughter of mine can go missing without all of Murray turning out to find her,” he proclaimed stiffly.
Marsali hugged him, but recoiled when he failed to return her embrace. “I’m sorry, Father. Corrie kept running after Gavan, so I decided to go for a ride to tire her out. We went farther than I’d planned. He didna steal me. I came on my own.”
“Ye’re trying to protect him.” His hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword as he glanced up at Gavan, again. “He’s ruined ye.”
Marsali kept her gaze on her father, but the rumble of voices from the rampart told her his comment had been heard—and not appreciated. Or was his father asking Gavan the same pointed questions? She hated the idea she’d gotten him in trouble with his laird. Then again, she’d done nothing but cause him trouble since they’d met.
“Nay, he hasna touched me,” she insisted, more loudly. She dreaded revealing the extent of the trouble she had gotten into, but perhaps she could help him with his father, even if nothing could help her with hers. “He had nay choice. His horse was too lame to return to Murray. MacNabb was closer. After the bandits, I was safer going with him.”
“Bandits?”
Her father’s roar nearly deafened her. She’d only wanted to make him see Gavan as a hero, not a molester. “Aye, Gavan saved me from bandits.” She held her breath, waiting for the next eruption. She knew this was not the time to mention them, but she also knew he’d find out and be even more furious later.
“Ye were safest staying home.” He shook his head, his jaw tight. “I should lock ye in a dungeon until I get ye married off—if that is still possible.”
Marsali blanched at his words, her chest tightening. “Ye wouldna.”
“Ye’ve tried my patience long enough. Get yer things. Let’s ride.”
She glanced around and realized they’d attracted a large audience. Not just the watchmen
, the MacNabb, Keenan, and Gavan above, but others of the clan had gathered near enough to hear them. “Please, Da, will ye come with me to my chamber? I wish to speak to ye someplace less public.”
She thought he’d refuse, but he raised an eyebrow at the people nearby and gave a curt nod. Likely, he wanted to see for himself she indeed had her own chamber, and not one she shared with a man. She breathed a sigh of relief, turned to smile up at the MacNabb men, then signaled Corrie to follow her.
When they reached her small chamber, he gave a cursory glance around as he closed the door behind them. “Verra well, what sort of trouble have ye gotten into?”
“None, Father.” She shook her head. “None. But I dinna wish to leave. I’m welcome here. In the space of a few days, I’ve made a place for myself.”
“Yer place is at Murray until I say it is nay longer.”
“Ye canna make me a prisoner.”
“I can make ye a wife, if ye are no’ one already. But be warned, I willna pay a dowry for a stolen bride. If he wanted ye so urgently, he’ll keep ye as ye are.”
“He didna steal me, and I am no’ married, Da. I’ve told ye, I can leave whenever I wish, but I dinna wish to.” The more she said the words, the more she realized they were true. She didn’t want to return to Murray, not yet. Corrie had been right all along. She wanted to stay at MacNabb with Gavan for as long as she could, until he promised her forever.
***
A knock at the door interrupted her stand-off with her father. Gavan and Keenan stood in the hall, Keenan’s expression as polite as befitted an heir about to face an unhappy rival laird. Gavan’s lips were compressed into a tight line. A muscle in his jaw flexed.
“Dinna blame the lass,” Gavan said to her father before Keenan could open his mouth. “She’s untouched. She only wanted to see beyond Murray’s horizon.”
“Murray’s horizon is good enough for the rest of the clan. It is for Marsali, as well,” her father responded, puffing out his chest and crossing his arms.
