by Lucy Monroe
“You assume I had some way of doing so. I did not, but even if I had, I would not have. You had already told me you would consider my child someone else’s by-blow.”
“I did not mean it. You had to know that. You were untouched the first time we shared our bodies.”
“I did not know it. You said it after rejecting me; why would I believe you would want me even if you knew of the babe?”
“I am not a man who would abandon my child.”
“Tell yourself whatever you like, but you already had.”
He stared at her, his expression clearly showing how foreign he found the concept of her words, but then great sadness came over his features. “You are right.”
She knew she was. So, why did seeing his grief hurt her as it did?
He turned and moved as if to leave the bed.
Her hand moved out to touch him before she could snatch it back. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the hall.” His massive shoulders hunched. “I have no place in your bed.”
“You are already in my bed.”
He merely shrugged, but he did not stand.
“I do not want you to go.”
“That cannot be true.”
“It is.”
His head turned so he looked at her over his shoulder. “Because of my wolf. Because we are mates.”
“Maybe. I would like to think so. It paints me a stronger woman, but all I know of a certainty is that when I am with you, I have peace I have not had these past six years.”
“Even with all the anger you have toward me?” he asked with disbelief.
His reaction was understandable. She found her own desires and behavior very confusing indeed. “Prove yourself trustworthy to me.”
“How?”
“Begin by not leaving my bed now that you have gotten what you wanted from me.”
“You think one moment of passion is all I want from you?” he asked, this time the disbelief huge in his tone and demeanor. “I have gone six years without you. We could spend until the next new moon in this bed and I would not have gotten all I wanted of your body.”
And suddenly, the desire was rolling off him again in hot waves that reached out and covered her. Inexplicably, but not surprisingly, her own rose to match it.
This time, their coupling was no less hungry than the last. In fact, his body moved against hers with greater urgency, though he still refused to enter her. And a part of her was grateful for it.
She did not want another pregnancy outside the bonds of matrimony. The last had cost her dearly.
Though as he’d pushed her to admit to him, she would never truly regret it.
When their passions had been spent, Caelis lowered himself to lie by her side. “Tell me about Percival wanting to make you his lehman.”
“The disgusting degenerate. He’s not content to tup half the serving wenches and his own poor wife, but he wanted to make me his official mistress, thereby making my children by his father at risk for being considered natural, rather than legitimate.”
“Is that the way it works in England then?”
“In England it is no more common, or acceptable, for a man to take his father’s wife as his lehman than in the Highlands.”
“But he would have done it regardless?”
“He’s too arrogant to care if others approve of his behavior.” She worried her lower lip, deciding if she wanted to tell Caelis everything. “You are committed to claiming Eadan?”
“Aye, and Marjory too.”
Could she trust him to be father to both her children? Again, only time would tell, but Shona had to take the first step forward. Whether she liked it or not. Trusted him, or didn’t.
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Percival tried to kill Eadan, on more than one occasion. He always denied his intentions, but the accidents were no accidents at all. Percival wanted no competitor for his father’s barony.”
“But as the eldest, he was the acknowledged heir.” Caelis sounded confused.
“Yes, but if Percival could not provide offspring—and thus far he has not, though his marriage is older than mine to his father—the king would naturally name Eadan’s eldest son the heir to the title. Percival’s pride would not allow it.”
“He would rather there be no heir to the barony?”
“Oh, yes. In that case, the king would appoint an heir who would likely come from the monarch’s own extended relations.”
“Percival sounds like a very vain, manipulative man.”
“He is, and cunning and determined.”
“You think he would come after you here?”
“I do not know.”
“If he comes, I will kill him.”
“He is an English baron; it would be considered an act of war.” Not that she would miss the man’s existence on this earth.
“If England’s king is foolish enough to go to war over such a worm, then he deserves the losses he will suffer at our hands.”
Shona shook her head. “Stubborn man.”
“We are well matched then.”
* * *
Audrey quietly pushed open the door to Shona’s bedchamber, disturbed to find it not barred from the inside. Thus far, the Sinclairs had shown themselves hospitable and unlikely to harm, but they were still a clan of strangers.
Except that man who wore different colors and was so obviously Eadan’s father. There was no doubt that Shona had known that man very well at some point in the past. And though perhaps it should not, that fact had quite shocked Audrey.
She had always known the baron wasn’t blood relative to her dear friend’s first child, but she’d never guessed the father was a Highland warrior.
It was testament to Audrey’s agitated thinking that the scents of the Highland Chrechte and that of unmistakable passion did not become apparent to her until Audrey’s gaze fell on the bed occupied by one more person than it should have been.
The wolf was awake, staring at her with dark, unfathomable eyes, his hold on Audrey’s dearest friend too proprietary to be mistaken. The air of protection was no less certain.
“How? What?” she stuttered out, her shock so complete, she nearly lost her breath.
Shona woke in that moment, her eyes widening at the sight of Audrey and then in horror as realization of her circumstances dawned. “Audrey! I…It’s…”
Audrey shook her head. “Come, we will bathe before the rest of the keep is up and sniffing around.”
Whatever explanations Shona wished to make, she could do so later. When she was no longer embroiled in an undeniably and hopelessly compromising position.
Audrey’s heart ached for her friend even as her brain spun with ways to help the baroness.
Shona nodded her head vigorously while the wolf frowned his displeasure.
Though Audrey had hoped the Faol warrior would wait to make his claim, she was not entirely surprised he had moved to establish his place in Shona’s life so quickly.
According to Audrey’s dear departed mother, the mating bond for a Chrechte was so strong as to be undeniable. Otherwise her mum had said, she would never would have allowed herself to become a married man’s lehman.
Her position as such had gone against the teaching of their race, or so Audrey’s mother had insisted. She’d shared little enough of them with her children. Both Audrey and Thomas were almost wholly ignorant of their people’s ways.
Audrey’s current stupefaction lay in the fact Shona had welcomed this man…any man, really…into her bed. A human, she was not driven by the instincts of an animal sharing her nature toward their mate.
At least, that was what Audrey had always believed. She’d never noted her father being particularly weak with longing toward her mother or abundant in caring toward the children the English Chrechte had born him.
“Water can be brought to your chamber,” Caelis said grumpily to Shona, ignoring Audrey altogether.
“Nay,” Audrey immediately denied, refusing to be
intimidated by the huge Chrechte. She would protect Shona’s reputation even if the baroness was not currently up to the task herself. “My mistress will have a bath in the loch.”
Shona could wash off the scent of this man’s seed at the very least. Though it was unlikely she would be able to remove it entirely.
The humans would be unaware of Shona’s nighttime visitor, but the wolves would know Caelis had staked some sort of claim.
Audrey smiled at Shona, trying to give the other woman a message of her own unwavering support. “Lady Abigail told me of one nearby that is used by the clanswomen.”
She was not worried about finding the loch. Her wolf’s senses would lead Audrey to the water easily enough.
“You aren’t bathing outside these walls with naught but this Englishwoman to guard you,” Caelis pronounced.
Though the wolf had not left his mark on Shona’s neck, his air of possession was as strong as if he had.
Shona shrugged, doing her best to hide her discomfort at climbing from the bed as naked as the day she’d come into this world, but climb from it she did and Audrey could have cheered. “Then you may accompany us as our protector.”
Audrey frowned. She was not sure that was a good idea at all.
The warrior opened his mouth to argue and then shut it again without uttering a word. Maybe he realized what an easy victory he had just won from the stubborn Shona.
Audrey was not so sanguine. “We traveled all the way from England without need of your guard. Your presence is hardly needed for our morning constitutional in the Sinclair’s loch.”
“You would risk your lady’s safety?” he asked, addressing Audrey for the first time.
“There is no risk.”
“You are naïve if you believe that.”
She’d been accused of such more than once. It never made her smile. “I am not so naïve as to believe you have her best interests at heart.”
“That is not your judgment to make.”
“You think not?”
“Enough.” Shona had pulled on her shift and a wrapper, the one Lady Abigail had offered the day before.
Audrey had been surprised Shona had decided to dress the night before instead of using it. Though maybe she had not seen it?
“I have already told Caelis he can accompany us as guard, Audrey. I will expect Thomas to as well. You know that had I a choice these past sennights, I would not have left my children’s protection to our small band.”
Audrey could not deny it and guilt assailed her. “I know it.”
Caelis waved at Audrey imperiously. “Wait in the hall for us to join you.”
“I will not.” He may have compromised the other woman’s virtue beyond redemption, but no further damage would be done to Shona’s reputation or innocence this morn.
“Do not speak to her that way,” Shona said sharply before either Audrey or Caelis could talk further. “She is my friend, not my servant and if you expect to be in our company you will treat Audrey with the respect due her.”
Shock upon shock, the grouchy warrior inclined his head toward Audrey. “Pardon my offense. Will you please wait in the hall?”
“No.”
He glared.
She crossed her arms and frowned right back.
“I am not going to ravish her…again.” The devilment in his eyes said more was coming. “At least, not at this moment.”
The loud sound of a hard smack against flesh came only a second before his wince of pain. He looked over his shoulder at Shona. “What was that for?”
Her dear sweet Shona, who had not a violent bone in her delicate human body, or so Audrey had always thought—her one dire threat to the dead baron aside—hauled back and punched Caelis right in the jaw. “I am no doxy to be spoken about thus. If your words were true last night, then I am something of far greater import to you. Don’t you ever make light of the privileges I’ve given you against my better judgment. You’ve done that once and near destroyed my life and that of our son in the bargain. I’ll not stand for it again. Do you hear me?”
“I believe Sir Percival has heard you clear back in England,” Thomas said from the doorway, Marjory and Eadan standing by his side watching the exchange with wide-eyed startlement.
“Mama, you hit the nice man. It’s not nice to hit. You said so,” Marjory censured her mother.
Another time, Audrey would have found the exchange diverting. At present, she worried for what Shona might say in response.
Shona, clearly beyond reason or caution gave such a venomous glare to the warrior, Caelis should be very glad there were no such thing as snake shifters. “He is not a nice man. He is an arrogant, tell-all, useless MacLeod soldier!”
Marjory and Eadan stared at their mother as if she had grown enough heads to become the Hydra of mythology. Audrey did not blame them. They had never seen their mother upset like this.
Not even when she was burying her father and terrified for the very life of her son.
Caelis had been slightly amused through it all, including the surprisingly well placed hit to his jaw, but when Shona called him useless, he winced, his expression turning so bleak Audrey almost pitied him.
“Mama!” Marjory remonstrated, regaining her sense and showing none of her usual timidity.
Though admittedly that side of her nature rarely ruled between Marjory and her mother, the child knowing without doubt how very much the former Scotswoman adored her.
Shona spun to face Marjory. “Why do you think he’s so nice?” she asked with undisguised bewilderment.
Marjory shrugged. She pulled away from Thomas to cross the room and stand near Caelis, who sat on the bed, the lower half of his body covered by the bedding.
The child took the big warrior’s hand with her tiny one. “I don’t know, Mama. But I know it. He’s nice. Not like Percy. You should not hit him.”
Shona’s eyes shown with wetness, but she conjured a smile for her daughter. “I am glad you find him so. Perhaps one day your mama will as well.”
“You have to, Mum.” The desperation in Eadan’s tone was hard to hear. “Or we can’t be a family.”
The hopeless expression that crossed Shona’s features said she wasn’t as certain of that fact as her son was. For her part, Audrey wasn’t either.
If Caelis pressed the matter, Shona would have little to say about it. Particularly after she had allowed him into her bed again.
Audrey shook her head at her friend’s predicament. She knew not how to fix it. “Come, we will all bathe in the loch.”
“Do we have to?” Eadan and Thomas both asked at the same time.
Audrey felt a much-welcomed laugh bubble up inside of her. Her brother was still such a youth at times.
Shona answered for her with a firm, “Yes.”
Caelis went to stand and Shona moved with speed Audrey had not known humans capable. “What are you doing?” Shona demanded.
“Coming to the lake with you.”
“You cannot rise naked from the bed in front of Audrey and the children.” Presumably Shona left Thomas off the list because modesty between warriors was nearly nonexistent.
Particularly among the Highlanders, where those of a more barbaric disposition still went into battle with nothing more than the paints of war marking their faces and bodies.
“Why not? You did,” he pointed out in a reasonable tone that Audrey did not believe for a second.
He was not daft, no matter how he might pretend.
“That is different.”
“Aye, but when I asked her to leave, you became very angry with me.”
“You didn’t ask, you ordered.”
He shrugged, showing that to him they were one and the same.
“I do not remember you being such an annoying man.”
“That is to be expected. Six years ago, you did not consider me useless, either.”
Chapter 8
Listen to your beast’s instincts. It will not lead you astray like the words
of a wily man.
—FAOL PROVERB
It was Shona’s turn to wince, though Audrey was happy to see the baroness made no apology for her earlier words.
She simply grabbed his plaid from where it had been tossed on the floor and threw it at Caelis. “Cover yourself decently.”
“Mum?”
“Yes, Eadan?” Shona responded, sounding harried.
“You do not believe Da is a nice man? Truly?”
Shona stopped her agitated picking up of clothing around the room. She’d managed to don her shift and the borrowed wrapper before the children and Thomas’s arrival, but the rest of her dress, to be donned after they bathed, was in her arms.
Shona looked at her son, clearly wishing for a way out of answering his question honestly. “There was a time I thought he was very kind.”
“But not now?” Eadan pressed.
“He has proven to be ruthless on an important occasion.”
Which was no doubt how Shona had ended up pregnant and alone in England, Audrey thought.
“Sometimes a man has to be ruthless for the sake of his family,” Eadan said, quoting his recently deceased grandfather.
Audrey knew that Shona was not overfond of that particular sentiment, though she rarely gainsaid her father on anything.
“In this case, it was for his own sake and not that of his family. We were left to fend for ourselves,” Shona said with grudging honesty.
The honesty did not surprise Audrey. Despite protecting her children from the trials of the world surrounding them as much as she was able, Shona did not make it a habit to lie to either Eadan or Marjory.
Audrey could not understand the flash of triumph in Caelis eyes until he said, “So you admit you are my family,” as he buckled the leather kirtle holding his kilt into place.
Instead of focusing on the fact that Shona so evidently did not trust him, he claimed victory in her wording. Audrey could see now that Shona would have to be most cautious in her dealings with this wily Faol.
Clearly chagrined, Shona deliberately turned away from Caelis, facing her son fully. “You’ve had many dreams about him, you said.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“And in your dreams, what kind of man was he?”
