The Highlander Series 7-Book Bundle

by Karen Marie Moning

  Bah. He was a perfectly respectable Christian. He just happened to be a Druid too, but he suffered no conflicts of faith. God was in everything. As He’d granted His beauty to mighty oaks and crystal lochs, He’d also brushed the stones and the stars with it. Absorbed in the simple perfection of an equation, Drustan’s faith deepened, not weakened. Recently, he’d begun regularly attending mass again, intrigued with the intelligent young priest who’d taken over the services at the castle. Endowed with a gentle manner, a quick wit, an addled mother for whom he couldn’t be blamed, and an open-mindedness rare in men of the Kirk, Nevin Alexander didn’t condemn the MacKeltars for being different. He saw past the rumors to the honorable men within. Mayhap in part because his own mother practiced a few pagan rites.

  Drustan was pleased the young priest would be performing the wedding ceremony. Work restoring the lovely chapel in the castle had been accelerated, to have all in readiness.

  In anticipation of his future wife’s arrival at Castle Keltar, he’d taken precautions. Not only had he warned Silvan and Dageus about unusual displays of talent and mind-boggling conversations, but he’d had the “heretical” tomes removed from the library and toted up for secure storage in Silvan’s tower chamber. God willing, she’d be so busy with her aunts and maids who were to accompany her that she wouldn’t notice anything odd about any of them. He would not make the same mistakes with Anya Elliott as he’d made with his first three betrotheds. Surely his family could present their best boots forward for only a fortnight!

  He would not fail this time, he vowed optimistically.

  Unfortunately, no one else in the castle seemed optimistic this morn.

  Upon awakening, hungry, and unable to a find a single kitchen lass about, he’d wandered down the corridor to the kitchens, calling for Nell, until she’d finally poked her head out of the buttery to see what he wanted.

  What did any man want in the morning, he’d teased, besides an energetic tussle between the sheets? Food.

  She hadn’t smiled and teased back. Casting him sidewise and oddly scathing glances, Nell had complied, following him back to the Greathall and slapping down crusty, week-old bread, flat ale, and a pork pie that he’d begun to suspect contained parts of a pig he’d prefer not to think about.

  Where were his treasured kippers and tatties, fried crispy golden? Since when had he, Nell’s favorite, rated such meager fare in the morning? On occasion Dageus had been treated in such a poor fashion—usually when he’d done something Nell hadn’t appreciated, involving a lass—but not Drustan.

  So now he sat alone, wishing someone, anyone, even young Tristan, the bright lad they were training in basic Druidry, might saunter in with a hullo or a smile. He was not a man given to dark moods, yet this morning his entire world felt off-balance, and he couldn’t shake a niggling sense of foreboding that it was about to get worse.

  “So?” Silvan said, popping his head into the Greathall, skewering him with his intense gaze. “Where were you last night?” The rest of him followed at a more leisurely pace. Drustan smiled faintly. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never get used to his father’s gait. Headfirst, the rest of him trailing behind, as if he tolerated his body only because it was necessary to tote his head about from place to place.

  He took a swill of flat ale and said dryly, “Good morning to you too, Da.” Was everyone out of sorts this morn? Silvan hadn’t even bothered with a greeting. Just a question that had sounded much like an accusation and had made him feel like a lad again, caught slipping back in from a nocturnal dalliance with a serving wench.

  The elderly Keltar paused inside the doorway, leaned back against the stone column, and folded his arms across his chest. Too busy pondering the mysteries of the universe and scribbling in his journals to indulge in training or swordplay, Silvan was nearly as tall as Drustan, but much narrower of frame.

  Drustan forced himself to swallow a mouthful of what he was becoming convinced was pig-tail pie. Crunch-crunch. By Amergin, what had Nell put in the thing? he wondered, trying not to look at the filling overmuch. Did she bake horrid things in advance to ply upon whomever upset her in some fashion?

  “I said, where were you?” Silvan repeated.

  Drustan frowned. Aye, Silvan was definitely out of sorts. “Sleeping. And you?”

  He plucked an unidentifiable from his plate and offered it to one of the hounds beneath the table. Curling its lip, the animal growled and backed away. Drustan frowned dubiously at the pie before glancing back at his father. Silvan looked his age this morning, and that depressed and irritated Drustan.

  Depressed him because Silvan was his age, all of three score and two. Irritated him because recently his father had taken to wearing his hair loose around his shoulders, which, in Drustan’s opinion, made him look even older, and he didn’t like to be reminded of his father’s mortality. He wanted his children to have their grandfather around for a very long time. Silvan’s hair was no longer the thick black of his prime, but shoulder length, snowy white, and possessed of a personality of its own. Coupled with the flowing blue robe he favored, he projected an unkempt, mad-philosopher look.

  Tugging the leather thong from his hair, he tossed it at his father and was relieved to see his da was still spry enough to catch it with a hand above his head.

  “What?” Silvan asked peevishly, glancing at it. “What would I be wanting with this?”

  “Tie it back. Your hair is making me mad.”

  Silvan arched a white brow. “I like it this way. For your information, the priest’s mother quite likes my hair. She told me so just last week.”

  “Da, stay away from Nevin’s mother,” Drustan said, making no attempt to conceal his distaste. “I vow, that woman tries to read my fortune every time I see her. Ever creeping about, spouting gloom and doom. She’s daft, Besseta is. Even Nevin thinks so.” He shook his head and popped a crust of bread in his mouth, then washed it down with a swig of ale. The pork pie had defeated him. He shoved the platter away, refusing to look at it.

  “Speaking of women, son, what have you to tell me about the wee one that appeared here last eve?”

  Drustan lowered his mug to the table with a thump, in no mood for one of his father’s cryptic conversations. He slid the pork pie down the table toward his father. “Care for some pie, Da?” he offered. Silvan probably wouldn’t even notice anything wrong with it. To him, food was food, necessary to keep the body toting the head around. “And I doona know what lass you’re talking about.”

  “The one who collapsed on our steps yestreen, wearing naught but her skin and your plaid,” Silvan said, ignoring the pie. “The chieftain’s plaid, the only one that’s woven with silver threads.”

  Drustan stopped brooding over his measly breakfast, his attention fully engaged. “Collapsed? Indeed?”

  “Indeed. An English lass.”

  “I’ve seen no English lass this morning. Nor last eve.” Mayhap the lass Silvan was going on about was the reason he’d gotten the offensive pork pie. Nell had a soft heart, and he’d bet one of his prized Damascus daggers that if an abused lass had appeared on the doorstep, she was the one dining on golden kippers and tatties and soft poached eggs. Mayhap even Clootie dumplings, oatcakes, and orange marmalade. On more than one occasion women from other clans had sought refuge at the castle, seeking employment or the chance to start life anew with people who didn’t know them. Nell herself had found such refuge there.

  “What does the lass say happened to her?” Drustan asked.

  “She was in no condition to answer questions when she appeared, and Nell says she hasn’t yet awakened.”

  Drustan eyed his father a moment, his eyes narrowing. “Are you insinuating that I’m responsible for her presence?” When Silvan made no move to deny it, Drustan snorted. “Och, Da, she may have found one of my old plaids anywhere. It was like as not threadbare and had been tossed in the stables to be cut up into birthing rags for the sheep.”

  Silvan sighed. “I helped carry
her to her chamber, son. She had the blood of her maidenhead on her thighs. And she was naked, and she had your plaid wrapped around her. A crisp new one, not an old one. Can you see how I might be perplexed?”

  “So that’s why Nell served me week-old fare.” Drustan pushed back his chair and rose, bristling with indignation. “Surely you doona believe I had aught to do with it, do you?”

  Silvan rubbed his jaw wearily. “I’m merely trying to understand, son. She said your name before she swooned. And last week Besseta said—”

  “Doona even think of telling me what some twig-reading fortune-teller—”

  “That there is a darkness around you that worries her—”

  “Such a fortuitous choice of words. A darkness. Which, conveniently, could be anything that comes to pass. A bad stomach from a pork pie, a wee cut in a sword fight. Doona you see how vague that is? You should be ashamed of yourself, a man of learning, the senior Keltar no less.”

  They glared at each other.

  “Stubborn, ungrateful, and bad-tempered,” Silvan snapped.

  “Conniving, interfering, and bristly-haired,” Drustan shot back.

  “Disrespectful and impotent,” Silvan thrust neatly.

  “I am not! I am perfectly virile—”

  “Well, you certainly couldn’t prove that by your seed, which—if it’s being scattered—isn’t taking root.”

  “I take precautionary measures,” Drustan thundered.

  “Well, stop. You’ve a score and ten, and I’ve double that. Think you I’ll be livin’ forever? At this point, I’d welcome a bastard. And you can rest assured that should the lass turn out to be pregnant, I’ll be calling the bairn MacKeltar.”

  They scowled at each other, then Silvan suddenly flushed, his gaze fixed on a distant point beyond Drustan’s shoulder.

  Drustan froze, as he felt a new presence in the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

  He spun around slowly, and time seemed to stop when he saw her. His breath slammed to a halt in his chest, and he positively sizzled beneath the heat of her stare.

  Christ, Drustan thought, staring into eyes that were stormy and lovely as the fierce Scottish sea, she’s wee, and vulnerable-looking, and utterly beautiful. No wonder she’s got Da and Nell in such a fankle.

  She was a walking siren song, humming with mating heat. One hand was on the elegant marble banister of the stair, the other hand pressed to her abdomen, as if pondering the possibility that she might be pregnant.

  Would that he had taken her maidenhead, but he hadn’t—he’d not taken any woman’s maidenhead—and furthermore he would never have left her wandering about outside afterward.

  Nay, he thought, staring at her, he would have kept this woman tucked securely in his bed, in his arms, warm and slippery from his loving. And loving. And more loving. She did some witchy thing to his blood.

  Silver-blond hair fell in a straight sheen past her shoulders and halfway down her back. She had strange, fringed lenths of hair over her forehead that she puffed from her eyes with a soft exhalation of breath, which made her lower lip look even poutier. Small of stature, but with curves that could make a grown man weak at the knees—and indeed his had turned to water—she was wearing a gown of his favorite color that did lovely things to her breasts. It was sheer enough to reveal her nipples, cut low enough to frame her curves in timeless temptation. Her cheekbones were high, her nose straight, her eyebrows winged upward at the outer edges, and her eyes…

  Christ, the way she was staring at him was enough to make his skin steam.

  She was staring as if she knew him intimately. He doubted he’d ever seen such an intense and unashamed look of desire in a woman’s eyes.

  And, of course, his ever-astute father didn’t miss it.

  “Now, tell me again you doona know her, lad,” Silvan said wryly. “For of a certain she seems to know you.”

  Drustan shook his head, bewildered. He felt a fool, standing and staring, but try as he might he could not drag his gaze away from hers. Her eyes turned gently imploring, as if she was hoping for something from him or trying to communicate a silent message. Where had such a wee beauty come from? And why was she having such a profound effect upon him? Granted, she was lovely, but he’d known many lovely women. His betrotheds had been some of the most beautiful women in the Highlands.

  Yet none had ever made him feel quite so virile and hungry and intensely possessive.

  Such stirrings did not bode well for his plans of impending marital bliss.

  After an interminable silence, he spread his hands, confused. “I vow, I’ve never seen her before in my life, Da.”

  Silvan crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at Drustan. “Then why is she staring at you like that? And if you didn’t bed her last night, how do you explain the condition she arrived in?”

  “Oh, my,” the lass sputtered then. “You think he—oh. I hadn’t considered that.” She heaved a huge sigh and pinched her lower lip, staring at them.

  About time she spoke up to clear his name, he thought, waiting.

  “Well?” Silvan encouraged. “Did he tup you last eve?”

  She hesitated a moment, glancing between the two men, then gave an uncertain wobble of the head, which Drustan promptly interpreted as a “no.”

  “See? I told you so, Da,” Drustan said, relieved that she’d finally looked away from him. Righteous indignation flooded him. “I doona have to seduce maidens, not with so many experienced lasses vying for the pleasure of my bed.” Women might not want to wed him, but that certainly didn’t prevent them from crawling into his bed at every opportunity. Ofttimes he suspected the very rumors about him that drove them from the altar were the same lure that enticed them to seek his bed. Fickle like that, lasses were. Attracted to danger for a night or two, but of no mind to live with it.

  When the tiny lass glared at him, he flashed her a puzzled look. Why would she be offended by his prowess with the wenches?

  “Forgive my indelicate question, lass,” Silvan said, “but who removed your…er, maidenhead? Was it one of our people?”

  Typical that his father couldn’t let it go. It hadn’t been him, and that was all Drustan needed to hear. Under normal circumstances he would have scoured the estate for the erstwhile suitor who’d deflowered and callously abandoned her, and seen to it she was granted whatever recompense she wished, were it one of their own, but his da had thought he had taken her maidenhead, and that offended him.

  Dismissing her from his thoughts—in large part to prove to himself that he could—he turned away to find Nell, clear this matter up with her, and procure an edible breakfast, but froze in his tracks when she spoke again.

  “He did,” she said, sounding both petulant and irritated.

  Drustan pivoted slowly. She looked nearly as shocked by her own words as was he.

  She wilted beneath the stress of his regard, then mumbled, “But I wanted him to.”

  Drustan was incensed. How dare she accuse him falsely? What if his betrothed heard tell of it? If Anya’s father heard of this wee woman claiming he’d callously deflowered her, then renounced her, he might call off the nuptials!

  Whoever she was—she was not going to wreak havoc on his unborn children.

  Growling, he crossed the space between them in three swift strides, scooped her up with one arm, and tossed her over his shoulder, a controlling hand splayed on her rump.

  A controlling hand that didn’t fail to appreciate that rump, which made him angrier still.

  Ignoring his father’s protests, he stalked to the door, jerked it open, and tossed the lying wench out, headfirst, into a prickly bush.

  Feeling simultaneously vindicated and like the sorriest rogue in all of Alba, he slammed the door shut, slid the bolt, backed himself against it, and folded his arms over his chest, as if he’d barred the door against something far more dangerous than a simple lying lass. As if Chaos herself was currently wedged in his hedges, clad in irresistible lavende
r and mating heat.

  “And that’s the end of that,” he told Silvan firmly. But it didn’t come out sounding quite as firm as he’d intended. In truth, his voice rose slightly at the end, and his assertion bore a questioning inflection. He scowled to more properly punctuate it, while Silvan gaped at him, speechless.

  Had he ever seen his father speechless before? he wondered uneasily.

  Somehow, he had a feeling that dumping the lying lass out into the prickly bush hadn’t put an end to anything.

  Indeed, he suspected that whatever was going on, it had only begun. Were he a more superstitious man, he might have fancied he heard the creaking wheels of destiny as they turned.

  14

  Gwen sputtered indignantly as she backed out of the bush, plucking prickly leaves from her hair. There she was, less than twelve hours later, on her hands and knees on the confounded doorstep again.

  Incensed, she threw her head back and yelled, “Let me in!”

  The door remained firmly shut.

  She sat back on her heels and pounded a fist on the door. The argument that had erupted inside the castle was so loud that she knew they’d never hear her over such a racket.

  She took a deep breath and reflected upon what she’d just done, thinking that a cigarette would go a long way toward clearing her mind, and a cup of strong coffee might just restore her sanity.

  Okay, she admitted, that was abjectly stupid. She’d said singularly the worst thing she could have said, guaranteed to piss him off.

  But she’d been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours, and logic hadn’t exactly been the ruling planet in her little universe when Drustan turned his back on her. Emotion, that great big unexplored planet, had been exerting an irresistible pull on her wits. She didn’t have enough practice with emotions to handle them with finesse, and by God, the man made her feel so many that it was simply bewildering.