The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  “Well, reiver, what have you to say for yourself?”

  The boy didn’t move.

  Duncan sighed. So that was the way it was going to be. He didn’t relish the notion of threatening a child, but he would do what he must to find out who was responsible for the recent raids on his territory resulting in the loss of a dozen cattle and twice that many sheep. His men were getting restless and angry and would soon begin to take out their frustrations in raids of their own.

  He strode over to the lad and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up with one hand until the boy’s feet dangled several inches from the floor. It was far easier than it ought to have been, even for a man of Duncan’s unusual height and strength. He grimaced, wondering when the child had last eaten, for he weighed little more than a wet cat.

  Notwithstanding his sympathy for the boy’s plight, Duncan gave him a none-too-gentle shake. “Answer me, lad, or you ken I’ll have no choice but to hang you on the morrow.”

  Still, the boy ignored him. Duncan had to give him credit – he was brave and loyal, if not bright.

  “Come on, boy, you can’t be more than fourteen. Do you want to die before you’ve even swived your first wench?”

  That brought the boy’s head up. In the light of the torch, his eyes glittered black with malice. He drew back his head and spat in Duncan’s face.

  Under any other circumstances, such an action would have brought a swift and violent reaction. But, at the precise moment the spittle hit his chin, Duncan realized his mistake. His gaunt-faced, dirty-cheeked prisoner was no lad, but a girl.

  He was so startled by the revelation that he nearly dropped her. Christ in heaven, what manner of raiding party would permit a girl to ride with them? Bad enough to think they’d impress a child, but a female? The very idea bespoke an unthinkable brand of madness and desperation.

  Filled with remorse at having treated her so roughly, he set her gently on her feet, half-fearing she’d crumple back to the floor in a heap. To his relief, she held her ground, staring up at him defiantly with wide, thick-lashed eyes that might be either dark brown or deep blue. Although her cheek and jaw bones were far too prominent, no doubt a consequence of poor nutrition, her heart-shaped face and bowed lips were unmistakably feminine. His men must have been blind to mistake her for a boy.

  But then, to be fair, they had come upon the raiders at night and had brought her directly back to the dungeon, which was hardly well-lit. The possibility that their captive might be female would never have crossed their minds, as it hadn’t his until he’d got a good look at her face. If she had kept her head down, he might not have recognized the truth, either. Christ, he might have kept her in the dungeon for weeks on end without ever realizing what a treasure he had been handed.

  For however mad and desperate her clan must be to bring her along on a raid, they would be ever madder and more desperate to ransom her back. And he would gladly stretch the necks of the men responsible for reiving his livestock in payment for her safe return.

  “Let’s begin again, shall we? I am Duncan Maxwell, laird of Lochmorton Castle, and you are …?”

  Silence.

  He tried another tack. “I’m sure your family is very concerned for your safety. Would you not like to get word to them that you’re well and in no danger?”

  More silence. She had the fortitude of a stone, he had to give her that.

  But then something happened which betrayed her. A long, low gurgle issued from the region of her belly.

  “Your first name, then, in exchange for your breakfast.”

  At that, he could almost see her salivate. She was terribly hungry, almost starved. Duncan wished he didn’t have to use her privation against her, but this was no time for an attack of conscience. Especially when she was the thief, and he was not responsible for her condition.

  She raised her head and thrust her chin out. “You already have my name, Duncan Maxwell, laird of Lochmorton Castle.”

  His brow furrowed. He most surely did not know her name.

  “You said it when you first came in,” she clarified.

  Duncan thought back. What had he said when he’d entered the cell? Well, reiver, what have you to say for yourself? Cheeky, that’s what she was.

  “Reiver is not your name, and we both know it.”

  “Aye, well, it’s the only one you’re going to get,” she said with a shrug. The gesture drew attention to the thin, pitiful shoulders beneath the oversized linen shirt she wore. He found his gaze drawn lower, involuntarily seeking the outline of her breasts. She must have bound them, he decided. Either that or she was exceptionally small-bosomed.

  For some peculiar reason, the image of breasts so tiny he could encompass their entirety in his mouth flashed through his brain, bringing with it an immediate flare of lust.

  Duncan shook himself, puzzled by his response. Small breasts did not appeal to him. He preferred his women full and curvaceous … not to mention welcoming. Odd that his body didn’t seem to agree with this assessment. Even filthy and scrawny as she was, he couldn’t dismiss his awareness that she was young and female and utterly in his power.

  If he chose to take her to his bed, no one would say him nay. No one but her, and her only defences – an excess of bravado and a sharp tongue – would be easy enough to overcome. Duncan wasn’t a vain man, but he was well aware of his effect on females of the species, and he doubted this slip of a woman would be any exception. And once she’d sweetened up under his assault, she’d likely tell him not only her name, but anything and everything else he wanted to know.

  The scheme built itself before he was even fully aware he had conceived it. She was cold, hungry, and alone. Her clansmen had turned tail and deserted her, undoubtedly believing she would swing by morning for their collective crime. Any person subjected to the kind of privation she’d obviously suffered would likely be more easily seduced by kindness than by cruelty. You caught more fish by baiting hooks than throwing rocks, after all.

  He smiled, benign and beneficent in his newfound, if devious, magnanimity. “Very well, Reiver, you’ve admitted what you are if not whom. For now, I think that’s sufficient for breakfast and an improvement in your accommodation.”

  True to her brothers’ descriptions, the Maxwell of Lochmorton was huge and forbidding, a veritable beast in a tartan. Although for a beast, she had to admit he had remarkably comely features, despite the telltale scar – the Lockerbie lick – that slashed across one cheek. The warm glow of the torch flickered across the rugged terrain of his face, dominated by a prominent brow ridge and a long, hawkish nose that had obviously been broken more than once. But when he smiled … it was as if the clouds had parted to admit the sun, flooding the hard landscape in bright, beautiful light.

  Surely it was only hunger that made her sway precariously towards him. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in three days.

  He probably thought she was weak because she was female. That if he plied her with food and drink and a warm, soft bed, she would betray her family. He could not be more wrong.

  Even so, she would bide her time and play his game, pretending to be the noble hostage. But there would be no ransom. A rescue was equally out of the question. Eventually, he would realize the truth and hang her for a thief. No Scottish border laird could afford to allow a reiver to go unpunished, even a female one.

  In the meantime, however, it would be good to be well-fed, dry and comfortable, especially at the laird of Lochmorton’s expense.

  But she would give him nothing. He was a Maxwell. Her mortal enemy. And that she would never forget. Or forgive.

  Duncan always knew when Reva – as he had taken to calling her – entered the room he was in. In the two months since she’d become his “honoured guest”, he had come no closer to determining her real first name or her identity, but his nerves had become intimately acquainted with every nuance of her bearing. He recognized instantly the weight and rhythm of her footfalls, the cadence of her breath, the citrusy s
cent that was uniquely hers.

  Despite the low, buzzing din in the castle’s main hall, each and every harbinger of her arrival registered on him in ripples of awareness, like pebbles cast into a still, blue lake. It came as no surprise to him at all, therefore, when she set her trencher of blood sausage and bread in the centre of the long table and sat down to eat. As always, she studiously ignored his presence, bending her head over her food so that her auburn curls partially shielded her face from his view. Fortunately, her hair, which had been cropped in deference to her masquerade as a boy, was still too short to hide much, and so Duncan could still make out the elegant slope of her nose and the stubborn point of her chin.

  As he watched her tear off a hunk of the bread and wrap it around the sausage, he pondered what name to give her today.

  It was a game he had devised since her second day at Lochmorton. At each meal, he greeted her with a different name, hoping she might betray by some small reaction her true first name. She had, of course, never so much as flinched as he worked his way through all of the more common women’s names, both Scottish and English, and a few much more uncommon ones as well. At this point, he was fairly well out of likely options, but he wasn’t about to give up the game.

  When she opened her small, bow-shaped mouth wide to encompass the makeshift sausage roll, which bore an undeniable resemblance to a phallus, Duncan went soft and hard all in the same moment. Of course, she immediately spoiled the effect by sinking her teeth into the sausage and tearing a large bite from it, but the sheer bliss that suffused her features as she chewed was equally, if not more, erotic. Christ, he wanted to see that look on her face when she was naked and spread out beneath him. He wanted that look to be for him.

  His body’s response was an absolute puzzle to him. In any other circumstance, he would likely not have given her a second glance. Although six weeks of proper meals had eliminated the emaciated, hunted look she’d had that first morning and filled out some of her curves, she had not been binding her breasts as he had suspected. The dark green gown she wore – a cast-off from his sister, Alys – fit well enough from top to bottom and across the shoulders, but gaped at the chest despite obvious attempts at alteration.

  Duncan found himself trying to catch a peek down the bodice as she bent over her trencher. He cursed himself. Even when he couldn’t think of a single reason to be attracted to her, he couldn’t stop thinking about bedding her. It was perverse. She was nothing he thought he wanted in a woman … and everything he desired.

  And that gave him this morning’s name.

  “Good morrow, Venus.”

  He expected the same response he always got, which was, of course, none. So he was surprised when she raised her chin with a jerk and fixed him with a blistering stare. A casual observer might have called her eyes brown or perhaps hazel but, to Duncan, her eyes were the colour of the moors – a dark, mossy green flecked with rich brown and bright gold – and like the moors, they could appear at one moment soft and inviting, at another fierce and forbidding.

  At the moment, their mood was definitely the latter. “It is one thing to attempt to make me betray myself, but quite another to openly mock me, sir.”

  Duncan’s eyebrows went up. “Whatever makes you think I’m mocking you?”

  “I have looked in a mirror on more than one occasion,” she said with a snort, “and I am well aware I am no man’s ideal of feminine beauty.”

  “Perhaps you have spent your life in the company of the wrong men.”

  “And if you think you will trick me into revealing who those men are with such a transparent attempt at flattery, you are bound for disappointment.”

  Duncan blinked. Of course, he hadn’t been thinking that at all, but he should have been. After two months of good food and a warm bed, she ought to be softening by now. Any other woman would have cracked, he was sure. Yet, if anything, his reiver seemed to be digging her heels in even more. It was almost as if she wanted him to execute her.

  Christ, what sort of a monster did she take him for?

  The sort who plans to execute her loved ones if she reveals their identity, his conscience pointed out.

  But that was the way of the border. Reivers must be brought to account. She knew it as well as he did, which was no doubt why she guarded her secrets the way a vestal virgin guarded her virtue.

  She didn’t trust him, and she shouldn’t. But he wished, with a heavy ache in his chest, that it were otherwise.

  There was no denying it: Lochmorton Castle was a happy place. Everyone had enough to eat, warm clothes, and a solid roof over their heads. Children frolicked in the courtyard when the weather was good and in the hall when it was not. The clansfolk went about their daily tasks with great cheer, unconcerned about what the morrow would bring.

  And it was all because of him. The Maxwell.

  They could do nothing but sing his praises. Since he had become chieftain two years ago upon his father’s untimely death at Dryfe Sands, the clan’s fortunes had been utterly transformed. The livestock were plentiful, the crops meticulously tended, the larders well-stocked. His people felt safe and secure. No one dared to threaten Duncan Maxwell openly, and though the occasional raid could not be prevented – begging your pardon for mentioning it, miss – they had never in memory been so prosperous or content.

  The worst part of it was that their contentment was contagious. She had expected to be treated with disdain, or even contempt. Instead, she had received nothing but kindness. When the women had discovered that she could not sew, and so could not alter the gowns they thoughtfully provided her, they did not deride her, but rather offered to teach her if she was willing to learn.

  After a lifetime of being told that the Maxwells were the root of all evil, it was disorienting, and she had slowly found herself admiring Duncan Maxwell in spite of herself. He was everything a clan chieftain should be – wise, strong, dependable and honest. In short, everything her uncle was not.

  As her hatred had seeped out of her over the course of the past few weeks, it was replaced with something even more difficult to bear: the hopeless, soul-deep longing that he could be hers.

  Which was why, when he had called her Venus this morning at breakfast, she had reacted so sharply and uncharacteristically. She wanted more than anything for him to find her beautiful and desirable, but she knew such a wish was as foolish as it was impossible. Yet, when he’d looked at her with his sharp blue eyes and told her she must have spent her life in the company of the wrong men, her throat had thickened with the realization that it was true. Her family was nothing but wrong men, although perhaps not in precisely the way Duncan Maxwell implied.

  Still, she could not betray them. They were her flesh and blood.

  One thing was clear, however. If she stayed here at Lochmorton much longer, the Maxwell clan would become more of a family to her than her flesh and blood had ever been and pleasing Duncan Maxwell more important to her than a lifetime of loyalties.

  She had to do something drastic. And soon.

  When Reva didn’t appear at mealtime for the third morning in a row, Duncan went looking for her. Although she’d lost her gaunt, emaciated appearance, she was still too thin to stop eating. If she was fasting in the hopes he’d feel guilty and release her, she needed to be disabused of that notion immediately. And if she was ill – God forbid – he would see to her care.

  He did not find her in her chamber, which came as something of a relief, for if she could exercise her freedom to roam the castle at will, she could not be sick – or at least not terribly so. After fruitless searches of several common rooms, he located her at last on the upper floor of the tower.

  She stood in front of a tall, narrow window to the left of the stairs, her forehead pressed against the glass as she surveyed the harsh landscape that spread out below. The sky was overcast, and so the light filtering in through the wavy glass illuminated her profile in a cool, silvery glow.

  “I do hope you are not planning to jump
,” he said, hoping to inject a bit of levity.

  At the sound of his voice, she turned to look at him. Her expression was so bleak, Duncan’s heart wrenched as if it were trying to twist its way out of his chest. For a few seconds, he was terrified that she really would go so far as to throw herself to her death just to escape him. Was he really that horrible a beast for doing what any other sensible landowner would do in his position?

  A wry smile flitted across her lips. “I suppose if I did, it would rather severely damage my value as a hostage.”

  Her words cut him to the quick.

  “Do you really believe that is the only reason your death would pain me?”

  She shrugged. “What other reason could there be?”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. He shouldn’t have been insulted. But he was. Umbrage collided with pent-up lust and frustration. With three strides, he devoured the broad expanse of floor separating them, grabbed her upper arms, and yanked her against his chest.

  “What other reason? How about this?” he growled before crushing his mouth to hers in a fierce, hungry kiss.

  To his surprise, she didn’t try to pull away or resist, but instead parted her lips to accept the demanding thrust of his tongue. And then she went further, answering his strokes with small feints and parries of her own. He groaned and framed her face with his hands, angling her head to ensure the best possible access to the buttersweet territory of her mouth. She wound her arms around his neck in response, answering him measure for measure. And he found himself grinding his rising erection against the slight swell of her belly.

  She nestled against him like a tiny, delicate bird. The difference in their size and strength should have alarmed him. He had the power to crush her without even trying, and yet, he didn’t for a second fear the possibility, for like the heather she might appear small and lovely and fragile, but she was strong and enduring and utterly suited to this world, a product of its harsh, unforgiving landscape.