Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors)

by Phillips, Christina

  “It is precious.” Aila’s voice penetrated his thoughts. She traced one finger over the cross then looked over at him. “It was crafted with a matching casket. The cross fits into the lid. It’s a kind of key—lift out the cross and twist the mechanism beneath to open the casket.”

  “It sounds ingenious.” More than precious. Priceless. “A treasured keepsake.” From a husband who had clearly loved his bride. Would such a love have transcended the physical? He was beginning to doubt his earlier assumptions. Just because men of the church in Dal Riada followed orders of chastity from Rome didn’t necessarily mean the Picts did.

  “Yes.” Her hand dropped to her lap. “I would have treasured it forever. Not because of its heritage. But because Onuist gave it to me.” She hesitated. “But the Vikings stole it nine years ago.”

  The same time they had murdered her husband. He ached to take her hand in his. To offer comfort. And yet despite how close he sat to her she remained aloof, strangely untouchable, as if his acknowledgement of her deeply held grief would somehow diminish her.

  “The Vikings,” he said, “have a lot to answer for.”

  She shot him a glance and in the second their eyes met, he saw surprise and gratitude merge. It was clear she had steeled herself for his pity and his lack warmed her.

  But she didn’t answer straightaway, as if allowing the memories to fade. The silence soaked into him, oddly companionable, as though they had known each other for a long time and words were not needed to shatter a pause.

  Finally she stirred. And he realized he had been staring at her as she gazed into the woods; staring and not realizing because to look at her was as necessary to him as breathing.

  “You know many of my secrets now.” She offered him a smile that told him there were many other secrets she kept and had no intention of ever revealing. “Yet I know nothing of you, save you’re a savage Scots warrior.”

  “What else is there to know?” Did she really still think his race savage? “I serve my king. There’s nothing else.”

  “Nothing?”

  A sad reflection on his life, yet nonetheless true. “What do you want to know?” Perhaps he could persuade her Scots were as refined as her Picts. Even if their monasteries didn’t hold as many books, or their people weren’t given a choice in the god they worshipped.

  A small smile tugged at her lips. “Are you married, Connor?”

  Dull pain twisted his heart. It was his own fault. He should have known her question would be personal because she was a woman, and personal was what women did.

  With anyone else, woman or otherwise, he’d turn the subject. He didn’t like talking about that time in his past.

  But Aila was different. She had told him so much. How could he dishonor her by refusing to share his pain when she had shared hers?

  Aila saw the way Connor stiffened at her question. She’d obviously touched a raw nerve, something he never spoke of. And although it made no difference whether he possessed a wife or not, she knew that it did.

  It made all the difference.

  She rubbed her thumb over the sapphires on her circlet. So few members of the aristocracy married for love. She and Onuist had been an exception and she would rather have cut her own throat than been unfaithful to him.

  But that wasn’t the norm for most of society. Both husband and wife thought little of taking lovers. Discretion was expected, the occasional bastard was accepted. Marriage was for strengthening allegiances. Love was for pleasure.

  Were the Scots any different?

  “I was married.” There was a strained note in his voice and her fingers tightened on her circlet as his words penetrated. Was. Dear God. She hadn’t meant to cause him pain by her question, but it was obvious she had. “She died four years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” She struggled against the urge to reach out to him. Offer him comfort. Instead she stared at her fingers as they gripped her circlet, the gold cutting into her flesh.

  “I was at war. As always.” Bitterness tinged the last two words, or was that her imagination? Warriors thrived on battle. It was their life. “While I fought Vikings and secured a trophy envied by all, Fearchara fought for survival. But she perished in childbirth.”

  He had a child.

  Her heart wrenched, a physical pain that obliterated the empathy she’d felt for the loss of his wife. Because…

  He had a child.

  What wouldn’t she have done to own the right to say she had a child? A living reminder of Onuist. A manifestation of the young, carefree love they had shared. Before the ugly darkness had descended.

  Foolishly she thought she’d resigned herself to the fact she would never know the joy of feeling a babe growing within her womb. Never hold her own child in her arms. But the anguish was as raw as ever. The resentment in her heart as fierce.

  Yet another reason why she had turned from Bride, the goddess she had adored as a young girl. The goddess who, on so many occasions during those early years, had teased her with fleeting glimpses of children Bride knew Aila would never have.

  “Connor.” Her voice was husky, a combination of sorrow for his loss and sorrow for something that could never be hers. “At least you have your child. That’s more than some are blessed with.”

  He looked at her. Stormy-gray eyes glazed with pain-filled memories. For one incomprehensible moment she wondered if he resented the child, could not bear to look upon it because it was the reason for his wife’s death. And rejected it, for how could he think such a thing? How could he not rejoice that, even in the midst of death, he had been given the most precious of gifts?

  “No.” The word was hollow and a shiver trickled along Aila’s spine as her certainties suddenly shifted. “They tried to save him but he was already dead before they sliced open her womb.”

  Chapter Ten

  There were no words of comfort. In silence she curved her hand around his where it lay clenched against his thigh. He didn’t jerk away. Instead he curled his fingers around hers and pressed her palm securely against his plaid.

  The woodland birds’ haunting melodies vibrated in the air, drifted on the breeze. Leaves rustled, Drun sighed. And Connor continued holding her hand.

  Eternal moments shimmered with every magnified beat of her heart. His hand imprisoned her and beneath her fingers, even through the thickness of his plaid, she could feel the coiled strength of hard muscle. Yet she knew if she so much as gave the slightest murmur of dissent, he would release her instantly.

  She remained silent. And still.

  And waited.

  Finally he stirred, but instead of untangling their fingers his grip tightened.

  “We were married for barely a year and a half.” He looked at her and his smile tore her heart. “All she ever wanted was a child.”

  “Then you gave her what her heart most desired.”

  His smile slipped and a frown etched his brow. “I did what?” He sounded as though he thought she mocked him, yet he didn’t loosen his grip on her.

  Could he really not see? “Connor, she wanted your babe more than anything. And you gave her that joy. How happy she must have been, knowing your child grew within her.”

  He stared at her as if she spoke in riddles. “I killed her, Aila. I wasn’t even there to offer comfort at the end.”

  “No.” She leaped to her feet, unmindful of her circlet, and grasped his free hand. “God, Connor. Is that what you think?” How could he have thought that? “It was no more your fault than it was hers. It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t about fair. It just is. And at least for nine months your wife was, I’m sure, the happiest woman alive.”

  He stared at her as though her words made no sense. “I would rather her have been barren than to have suffered such agony on my account.”

  Fragile barriers collapsed and ancient anger, repressed regret and a bleak, bottomless despair streamed through her blood. Barren. The word that had haunted her brief marriage to Onuist, despite his laughing assurances th
ey had all the time in the world to make babies.

  “Connor, I don’t doubt your wife would have suffered any agony on your account. But don’t dismiss women so easily. We are more than capable of suffering childbirth entirely for our own purposes.” Not that she would know. But she had spent many hours imagining such things. “Men suppose we live only to give them the heirs they so desire. But we have equal desires also.”

  His frown intensified. “Aila, I did not mean to offend by my comments.” He sounded as confused as he looked. He clearly had no idea where her outburst had come from and even less as to how he had caused it.

  What had she just done? Horrified by her behavior she broke eye contact and focused on their entwined hands. Oh dear God. They were holding hands. And she had just verbally attacked him. After he had confessed in a clumsy, masculine manner how much he had loved his wife.

  It wasn’t Connor’s fault that she had been unable to conceive Onuist’s child. It wasn’t Connor’s fault Onuist had died. And he certainly did not deserve her anger over the long-ago events that had shaped her life.

  Mortification at her lack of manners collided with shame at how she had lost control. She hadn’t allowed her deepest, most fragile of secrets to surface for years. Somehow she’d lulled herself into believing she no longer cared about it.

  Such tragic self-delusion. Only now could she see that by burying it, far from healing, the wound had continued to fester.

  And she had flung the bitter recrimination in Connor’s face.

  Dear God. Please let the earth swallow her.

  Connor watched the blood ebb from Aila’s flushed cheeks and alarm spiked. She looked on the point of fainting and he stood, still clasping her hands.

  “Aila, sit down.” He tried to maneuver her around but despite her diminutive figure and brittle appearance, she resisted his gentle efforts to have her sit. “Forgive me.” Obviously his thoughtless words had distressed her. What had possessed him to speak of such things? “I should never have spoken so freely.” He should not have spoken at all. He rarely mentioned Fearchara. And never before had he admitted aloud the acidic guilt that ate through his conscience at the manner of her death.

  So why had he broken his golden rule?

  Probably because, since meeting Aila, he was breaking every rule he’d ever made?

  “No.” Her voice was unnaturally high and she pulled her hands free and clutched the edges of her shawl. “It’s I who—truly, I’m ashamed of my callous words. I’m not usually so… unguarded.”

  He stood before her, hands at his sides, and didn’t have the first idea what he should do.

  He wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to kiss away her tortured words. But although only inches separated them, it was a gulf so vast he feared a wrong step would cause Aila to slip from his grasp forever.

  The thought made no sense. Aila wasn’t his to lose. Yet still he couldn’t reach out to her. Still he couldn’t find the words to comfort her.

  Finally he cleared his throat. “Nor am I.” His voice was gruff. “It was inconsiderate of me to burden you with such things.” And again he could scarcely believe he had. He didn’t even speak of Fearchara to Maeve and the two women had been good friends. And it certainly wasn’t something he would ever discuss with Ewan.

  So why Aila?

  “Please don’t.” Her hand fluttered as if to reinforce her denial. “I only wished to ease your distress. Truly I didn’t mean to suggest you were insensible to your wife’s innermost feelings.”

  Was that what she had done? If so, he’d been insensible to that.

  “Such a thought never crossed my mind.”

  She looked at him and he imagined he could see tension seeping from her. As though his words reassured. He clawed through his mind for other such words.

  “It would never occur to me,” he said, “that you would ever intentionally cause distress by word or action.”

  “I certainly would never wish to cause you any distress, Connor.” And then she smiled, a small, tentative smile as though unsure of his reaction.

  His chest tightened, the pain jagged yet not wholly unpleasant. Strange. And as he focused on the slight tremble of her lower lip, raw protectiveness seared through him, a primitive urge to pull her close and claim her as his own to the world.

  Unnerved by the power of the image, the suddenness of its overwhelming demand, his first reaction was to recoil. But instead he remained rooted to the spot, unable to tear his gaze from her, unable to sever the tenuous connection that shimmered, beyond mortal sight, in the air between them.

  The fanciful notion shattered the moment of paralysis, but not the sense of protectiveness that, if anything, gathered momentum by the second. And although a distant sliver of sanity urged caution, he held out his hand.

  With only a moment’s hesitation Aila placed her hand in his, and he curled his fingers around her. Such a small gesture. Yet somehow, incomprehensibly, significant.

  He picked up her abandoned circlet and they began the long walk back to Ce-eviot.

  * * * * *

  Aila sat on the bench next to her grandmother in the secluded garden and watched as Finella played with three young kittens at the base of the ancient sundial. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. A riot of purples and pinks and white spring flowers bloomed. Had the grass always been this vivid emerald hue? Had she ever before been able to smell so acutely the sharp tang of the sea in the breeze?

  “…of great changes.”

  Her grandmother paused and stared at her in a pointed manner. Aila stifled a sigh and attempted to concentrate. But since that afternoon with Connor four days ago, when they had both opened locked sections of their souls, she had found it progressively harder to concentrate on anything that didn’t involve a certain black-haired Scot.

  “Great changes always occur at this time of year,” Aila said. It was safe to assume her grandmother was speaking of some imagined sign from a goddess. Spring was Bride’s season, but Aila had no use for any message she might deign to deliver.

  “Hm.” Her grandmother did not sound impressed by her deduction. “Since you clearly haven’t heard a word I’ve said then allow me to change the subject.”

  Aila smiled indulgently. Shortly she would leave and meet Connor. As they had met every afternoon this week. It was hard to recall what she had once done with her afternoons before his arrival.

  “Very well,” she said, watching Finella yet not seeing her at all.

  She still hadn’t told Connor who she really was. Somehow the moment never seemed right. It wasn’t the sort of information she could casually throw into the conversation and yet the longer she knew him, the harder such confession became.

  Ah, why was she concerning herself with such a detail? She’d tell him soon enough and he wouldn’t care for her heritage.

  “Although,” her grandmother said, “you won’t like it.”

  That finally got her attention. “What won’t I like?”

  Her grandmother smiled. On anyone else Aila would have considered it a smirk. “I’ve watched you this last week, my love, and you can deny it all you wish but the truth is plain. The goddess has returned and reentered your heart.”

  A week ago had her grandmother suggested such a thing, Aila would have bristled with affront. But today she had to stifle the urge to laugh.

  She didn’t quite succeed and coughed to cover her indiscretion.

  “I can assure you she hasn’t.” Only one thing had changed during the last week and that was her meeting with Connor. The goddess, such as she existed, certainly had nothing to do with that.

  “I believe,” her grandmother continued, as if Aila hadn’t replied, “that young Scot warrior who leads the savages has more on his mind than battle maneuvers.”

  Aila’s amusement faltered. The only ones who knew of her assignations with Connor were Elise and Floradh. Because of course she had to confide in her dearest friend, otherwise she would have burst from contained exciteme
nt. And Floradh, her faithful servant, had soon guessed the reason for Aila’s change in habits.

  But they would tell no one. So how then did her grandmother suspect anything?

  “Does he?” She decided to play ignorance. “I wouldn’t know.”

  She knew this strange, magical week could not last. Knew that sooner or later Connor would return to Dal Riada and the chance of them ever meeting again was remote.

  Knew also that her kin would violently disapprove if they knew of her clandestine meetings with him. Even if the meetings were chaste in action—if certainly not thought.

  “And I,” her grandmother said, “obviously know a great deal more than you give me credit for.”

  Was her grandmother telling her that not only did she know Aila was meeting Connor, but she believed the Scot responsible for the changes in Aila this week? She felt the blood heating her cheeks, saw her grandmother’s self-satisfied smile and couldn’t reconcile the facts in her head.

  If her grandmother knew about her secret rendezvous, then why would she smile? And what on earth did any of that have to do with her assertion that the goddess had returned?

  She turned toward her, curiosity burning. But before the question could form, her mamma entered the royal garden with her small entourage.

  “Good news.” She beckoned Finella over before taking her place on the bench beside her mother. “The messenger has returned. Your father, brother and our nobles will arrive first thing in the morning.” She wrapped her arm around Finella’s shoulders and shot Aila a triumphant smile. “And then those cursed Scots can be on their way.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Connor frowned into his tankard of mead as beside him Ewan extolled the virtues of his latest conquest. The tavern was small, dark and noisy and, far from the off-duty activity relaxing his mind, it only succeeded in tightening the tension pounding through his brain.