by Mary Wine
And then Marcus MacPherson, War Chief of the clan, nodded once before falling into step beside Helen to walk in shame on their way to be reprimanded.
* * *
“Twelve lashes,” Morton said with a hint of admiration in his tone. “I expected ye to fold much sooner.”
Brenda flinched and chided herself for showing any reaction, but damned if she couldn’t still hear the snap of the leather before it bit into her back. Morton moved further into the chamber, grinning at her. He stopped and looked at the bed. The sheets were stained with blood that had come from the welts on her back. She still felt a great deal of satisfaction in seeing it, because she’d proven herself strong enough to endure.
At least in some part she had been, but there was only so much pain anybody could endure before the will to survive overrode everything else. She could have taken more lashes, but she had been forced to face the truth of her own limited strength. So she’d agreed to do Morton’s bidding, and Gunn had made good use of her weakness.
It was a lesson she focused on, letting it feed her hatred of men.
“Perhaps ye understand now who yer master is?” Morton asked softly.
Brenda remained still, looking straight at him, her chin level. Her silence earned her a soft tsk. “In that case,” he muttered, “ye can be sure there will be further demonstrations of me power over ye.”
Morton had walked toward her, stopping when he was close enough to tap her on her cheek with a fingertip. “Ye are a damned handsome woman. With a body that matches yer face. Ye shall fuck when I tell ye. No one will care if yer back is scarred or the soles of yer feet burned.”
He left her to his men. The only mercy afforded her was that he ordered them to keep their hands off her. She was a treat only to be enjoyed by those he decided to gift her to. His retainers grumbled as they took her to the chambers that served as her cell.
It was more of a haven than the earl ever would have guessed. With the door closed, she was free to indulge in the tears she’d kept locked inside during the night.
But she wiped them away, angry with herself for giving Gunn or Morton any part of herself. It was a lesson she’d learned with her husband and would do well to recall. Men were not worthy.
Oh, perhaps men such as Bhaic and Marcus were, but at court, there were only ambitious, self-centered males, and it would seem she was to keep company with them. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Her entire life had been one of service to the ambitions of the males who surrounded her. Her current circumstances were nothing new.
So she would not cry.
Ever again.
And as for scars…Brenda pulled her chemise off and turned to look at her back in a mirror. She would wear each one with pride. Morton would learn something from her as well.
She was a Highlander too.
* * *
“Helen?” Ailis poked her head into the small cell.
“Aye, I am here.”
Ailis opened the door wide, or at least as wide as it could be opened. The small chamber was used as a sewing room. Three steps down from the narrow doorway was a single cot and a wardrobe that could be locked to safeguard the lengths of linen kept inside it. Fabric was very expensive and sometimes impossible to find. There were also fine shears, carefully sharpened lest a burr catch any of the costly fabric while it was being cut. Needles and pins were also stored there, along with thread and buttons. A ring of keys lay on the table where Helen had placed it after opening the wardrobe.
“I have been lectured on the duties of a wife and the need my immortal soul has to perform them,” Helen explained as she pulled a needle up from the piece of linen she was working with. “And that making me husband”—she sighed on the word—“a shirt, as a devoted wife should, is the penance I owe for me behavior this afternoon.”
Helen jabbed the needle back into the cloth with a soft snarl.
Ailis smothered a chuckle. “Ye were…quite angry.”
Helen lifted her head while pulling the thread tight. “I was bloody well ready to clock that bastard on the side of the head again. Ye witnessed what he did, right enough.”
“Aye, I did,” Ailis confirmed. “A poor attempt at courting. However, given that we are talking about Marcus, I believe he did rather well.”
Helen offered her a snort in response. “That man acts more like a stallion, doing his best to run off any competition.”
Ailis turned red, and Helen rolled her eyes as her mistress burst out laughing. She kept at it until tears ran down her cheeks.
“Oh, Helen, I am sorry, and yet I am not truly repentant. Perhaps I need to make ye a chemise.”
“According to the good Father, this task”—Helen stabbed the needle down again—“will help me settle in.”
“Marcus would be disappointed if ye did,” Ailis remarked. She’d come closer and leaned over to peer intently at what Helen was stitching. “Helen, are those—?”
Helen looked up with a wicked smile on her lips. She pulled the needle up, allowing Ailis to see the color of the thread she was using. It was pink. Helen looked back down, using the needle carefully as she worked the pink thread into the outline of a posy.
“Ye are putting flowers on Marcus’s collar.” Ailis began choking on her mirth again.
Helen offered her a pleased little smirk as she pulled the needle up into the air once more. “Father Peter will not fault me for shorting him on the amount of attention I give to the task he’s set me, and Marcus will no’ be refusing to wear the shirt Father Peter insisted I make for him.”
“Nay,” Ailis agreed, tears glittering in her eyes. “Ye are certainly…toiling…devotedly… Marcus will, of course, have to wear what ye made…as penance.” She collapsed into another fit of giggles, ending up on the small cot in the cell.
“Oh, do hush,” Helen scolded her. “At least until I finish. I want to make sure the beast has to wear it. That’s little enough payback for him kissing me before one and all.”
Ailis was turning purple as she clamped her lips shut and smothered her laughter behind her hand. When she at last drew breath, there were tears sparkling in her eyes. “Oh, Helen, forgive me, but I do think ye are that man’s match after all.”
“Naught to forgive. I agree.”
Ailis sat up, albeit slowly because her belly was rounded. “Ye do?”
Helen smiled and looked back at the posy she was stitching. “Marcus is going to discover that I will be having my way in this and getting my annulment.”
For the first time, that idea didn’t give her the burst of satisfaction it had before. Helen contemplated why. An annulment was what she craved, so why was she not happily basking in the glow of contentment? It made little sense, which was true about many of her feelings concerning Marcus. That was solid, irrefutable reasoning for why she had to go through with her plan to end their union before she did something irreversible.
Such as consummating it.
* * *
“Helen.”
Shamus called out to her the moment she entered the great hall. Truthfully, Helen was impressed with the man’s eyesight. His hair was gray and his skin more wrinkled than an apple in May, but he spotted her trying to fill a bowl with stew at the far side of the hall.
“Ye’ll join me.”
It was an order she could not disobey. He was the master of the castle, even if age had made it so that his sons shouldered most of the duties he’d once performed.
One of the serving women reached out and took the bowl right out of her hands. Helen lowered herself before making her way down the aisle. Conversation hushed, the men watching her approach the high ground and lower herself again before she climbed the six steps to the dais that raised the laird’s table above the others in the hall. Finley was there, pulling a chair out for her and pushing it back in once she’d sat down.
Shamus
nodded approvingly. “I look forward to having grandchildren to bounce on me knee now that both me sons have taken wives.”
There was a cheer from his men. Women began serving again as conversation picked up. Marcus and Bhaic arrived at last, tugging on the corners of their bonnets before they sat down. Marcus angled his head and considered her for a long moment before he ripped a loaf of bread apart and offered a section to her.
Helen reached for it and felt her hand shaking. She dropped the bread onto her plate as every bit of composure deserted her. Everyone was staring at her. The scrutiny made her feel as if her jaw was too stiff to open when she tried to put a piece of the bread into her mouth. Every motion of chewing sounded too loud and obnoxious, so she swallowed too soon and ended up drinking to wash the lump of half-chewed bread down her throat. It left her feeling as if she had stretched the inside of her neck.
And the staring continued.
The conversation was stilling again. Those who had watched them march off to the church hoped to be entertained further. Helen picked up her eating knife, but it clattered out of her fingers onto her plate. Unlike the lower tables, the laird’s was set with silver plates. Hers made a horrific sound as the knife hit it. Marcus finally drew in a deep breath and cupped her elbow.
“We managed to share a bed last night without ye shaking, woman. Can ye no’ settle down and enjoy supper without making it appear to one and all that ye fully expect me to ravish ye right here upon the table because I have no restraint?”
“What are ye accusing me of now?” Helen demanded as quietly as she could manage. She’d missed half of what Marcus had said because she was so focused on those watching her. “I have never sat at a high table in me life, much less been served by others. I’ll tell ye truthfully, I hardly notice ye are beside me.”
Her voice was rising with every word. Shamus turned and caught the last thing she uttered. He flashed a huge grin at them. “I see ye’ve no’ yet proven yerself to the lass, Marcus. She’s still skittish.”
The table went quiet, his captains ending their conversations to listen intently to what their chief was saying. Shamus contemplated Helen as he chewed and swallowed. He washed the food down before pointing his eating knife at her. “A female like that needs a man who can satisfy her passions.”
Her cheeks heated, but more with temper than anything else. She was out of patience with everyone’s interest in her maidenhead. “All I long for is a man who is no’ completely convinced that his cock will solve all of the troubles in the world.”
There was silence at the table. Two of the captains had stopped in mid-chew as her comment was being repeated below them, and the hall became still.
Shamus wasn’t shocked into silence as she’d first suspected. No, he waited a full three seconds before letting out a whoop of amusement and tossing his head back with a roar. His eyes glittered when he looked back at her and slapped the tabletop.
“Ye mistake me, lass,” he said through a huge smile. “’Tis yer husband who has nae proven himself by putting his face between yer thighs and showing ye he can move ye to ecstasy so ye’ll know he’s worthy of yer maidenhead.”
It took only a second for his captains to absorb what he’d said. In the next, hysteria ensued. Cups were overturned, and one man actually fell out of his chair because he was doubled over laughing so hard.
“Marcus, ye lazy dog!” Shamus bellowed. “Only a fool would no’ make time for a treat such as yer wife.”
There was a harsh grating sound as Marcus pushed his chair back. A second later, he was dragging hers away from the table.
“Marcus—” Helen only got out his name before he reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her right over his shoulder.
The hall grew louder, if such a thing were possible, while Marcus carried her out dangling over his shoulder.
“And ye claimed me behavior was going to have one and all thinking ye a brute,” she admonished him when they were inside a chamber.
Marcus closed the door. He turned and looked at her. “It seemed more of a kindness to get ye out of the hall. I will fully admit I was no’ willing to stay there and suffer more of me father’s ever-so-sage advice. Me father does nae answer to Matthew Peter quite the same way ye and I do. Trust me, me father was just getting started.”
Somehow, in that moment, Marcus looked every bit as finished with being the source of everyone’s amusement as she was. Their gazes met, understanding passing between them. He offered her a genuine grin before she sent back a shy smile. Marcus reached up and rubbed his forehead.
Helen started giggling. Oh, her timing couldn’t have been worse, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Laughing at me expense?”
She shook her head. “I just realized we’re both on the same side of this issue, and, well…I am no’ used to being on even ground with ye.”
Understanding flashed through his eyes a moment before his expression softened. The man truly was handsome when he wasn’t intent on making sure she was intimidated by him. She felt a desire to see him relax more often.
“Aye, we are at that, lass,” he agreed. “No one is going to let either of us off lightly.”
She nodded, but ended up stopping when their gazes met and fused. It felt as if the world had shifted off center, her insides twisting as they had when she was a child and her father tossed her up into the air. Only this time, the sensation settled into her flesh, heating parts of her she’d never thought much about.
“I truly was nervous about sitting there,” she said softly.
The chamber was silent for a long moment.
“I recall the first time I sat at the high table.”
His words surprised her. He had never shared something personal with her.
“Me mother refused to wed me father,” Marcus continued. “Shamus had me educated and trained, but I broke bread at the lower tables until I was eighteen because her status was mine, since she would no’ take vows with me sire. He called out to me the first night after me mother’s passing. I never knew that hall was so very long. The walk felt as though it went on forever.”
“Aye, it did feel that way tonight,” she agreed.
“And I understand what ye mean by no’ being accustomed to someone serving ye. It’s bloody unsettling at first.”
“I thought me spine was going to break because I was sitting so straight,” she admitted. “I suppose when I was small, I daydreamed of being a lady of station.” She let out a little sigh. “The reality is rather more of a responsibility than I realized. How do ye eat with everyone staring at ye?”
“With care,” Marcus agreed. “I believe Father Matthew Peter was making sure ye and I know we need to be setting a proper example.” A naughty smile curved his lips. “I miss the days when I could indulge in a good tussle just for the fun of it. I think that’s why me father is enjoying himself so greatly at our expense. He’s waited nearly an entire lifetime to be above reproach. No one tells him what to do anymore.”
They both laughed at the idea.
She realized Marcus had brought her to his chambers. They were larger than hers, of course, but furnished with only the essentials. No carpets upon the stone floor or tapestries hung on the walls. There were only sturdy chairs and a table in the outer room. Through an arched doorway, she glimpsed the huge bed. Her nipples actually began to contract, making her shift her attention away from it.
She was clearly turning into a wanton.
He reached down and pulled a flask from the top of his boot. A quick twist and he had the top open. “Share a drink with me, lass, for the rest of the clan is no’ going to give us any peace until they’ve had their measure of fun at our expense. Hence, we need a nip or two or eight.”
She took the flask and tipped it up to her lips. Marcus was watching her when she lowered it. “What? Ye do nae th
ink a Grant can drink?”
He toasted her with the flask before taking a long swig of it. “I am most pleasantly surprised. But then again, ye do that rather often to me.”
His words warmed her. Sure, she might have blamed the whisky, but the truth was, it was nice to know she kept him guessing. She reached for the flask again. “Ye only encouraged them with how ye carried me off.”
Marcus waited until she’d finished drinking before answering. “I was hoping to expedite matters. Once they think we’ve made things official, they’ll leave us be.”
“It won’t be soon if yer brother has anything to say about it.” She let out a little sigh. “Ye tested his patience sorely when he brought Ailis here.”
Marcus only smirked at her and took the flask back. Helen returned his smile. “Ye really are a swine at times, Marcus MacPherson.”
“And ye, madam,” he countered through a chuckle, “are pure vixen. I’ve the bites to prove it.”
“Every one of them was richly deserved,” she informed him with a grin.
Enjoyment flickered in his eyes. It made her groan, but out of camaraderie rather than frustration. Marcus didn’t miss her reaction.
“Admit it,” he said over the top of the flask. “Ye enjoy pitting yerself against me. Ye would have no stomach for a man who quoted the holy book in his effort to put ye in yer place.” He raised a finger in the air and waved it about. “‘Woman was made to serve man…’”
She nodded, laughing softly at the idea.
There was a bump outside the chamber door and some scratching. “I’m getting to it.” Someone’s words came through in a muffled jumble. “It’s quiet. Maybe they’re finished.”
“They’ve no’ been up here long enough,” someone answered.
“So open the door and have a peek.”
Marcus sent it an annoyed look. “Seems ye may be right about Bhaic wanting to extract a full measure of vengeance.”
