A Highlander's Christmas Kiss

by Paula Quinn

  His next blow nearly dislocated the merc’s jaw.

  Watching them, Patrick yawned.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Temperance opened her eyes to the glare of the winter sun lighting her room and Marion sitting beside her bed, wringing her hands through her skirts.

  “What is it?” She sat up, her heart battering against her chest so hard she thought she should lie back down before she passed out. Was it Cailean? Gram? Will?

  “Marion?” She reached out, trying to offer Marion some sort of support. The poor gel was as white as Gram’s purest wool. “Has something happened? Tell me, please. Is it Cailean?”

  “’Tis Duncan,” Will’s beloved told her, trading wringing her skirts for squeezing Temperance’s hand. “Cailean trounced him last eve in the lists. Severely. Duncan suffers a broken nose, two broken ribs, and he lost a tooth. His eye looks quite bad too. I fear the socket may be broken. Cutty told Lord Murdoch that he never saw a man fight the way Cailean had. He said ’twas as if Cailean was possessed by the devil. He said while Duncan lay bleeding and broken on the ground, Cailean went after him next and nearly broke Cutty’s jaw.”

  Temperance’s face drained of color. What in blazes did Cailean think he was doing? He’d warned her not to harm the lord’s son and then he’d gone and broken Duncan’s bones in the lists before the day’s challenge. Why?

  “The lord is furious,” Marion continued, “but strangely enough he’s most angry with his son. I heard him shouting at Duncan that his son spent too much time rutting whores and not enough time practicing.”

  Och, thank God he didn’t order Cailean’s death, Temperance comforted herself. She left the bed the instant her legs felt strong enough to hold her up.

  Fool! Why in blazes would he take such a chance when she had poison?

  “Oh, but there’s more, Temp,” Marion told her in a shaky voice, holding back her tears. “Edward still wants Cailean punished for fighting his son in the dead of night.”

  “What? What is his punishment to be?” Temperance asked on a withered breath.

  “You are to tend his son.”

  Temperance reached for her gown and let out a sigh of relief that Lord Murdoch hadn’t hanged Cailean. She shouldn’t care, but she did. She didn’t want Cailean to die because of her, but an instant later her blood boiled. “How is he punishing Cailean by making me tend his son?” She felt ill. She didn’t want to tend him! “I won’t do it!”

  “Oh, but you must,” Marion insisted. “Edward has ordered it.”

  Temperance didn’t care what the lord had ordered. Damn Cailean for doing this. She rubbed her head. She wanted to scream. She’d intended to kill Duncan quietly and now she was expected to nurse him back to health!

  “Edward asked Cailean why he did it,” Marion went on, watching Temperance pick up her gown and step into it. “Cailean told him that he’d discovered who had shot Patrick on their way back from Kenmore that fateful day. He said ’twas Duncan.”

  Temperance thought about it while she stepped into her gown. It made sense. Duncan was clever enough to—She stopped thinking when Marion began to sob into her hands. “Is there more, then?” Temperance went to her friend’s chair and knelt beside it. “What are you not telling me?”

  “I don’t think ’twas Duncan. I think ’twas Will who started this.”

  “Will?” Temperance echoed, not understanding. What the hell did William have to do with any of it?

  “He always told me that if the Black Riders hurt me, he would shoot them in the heart with his arrow. I… I think ’twas Will who shot Patrick. I think he shot him. I was here that day—and so was Duncan. He never left the castle. He was here, Temperance,” Marion wept, her pretty green eyes shimmering with tears. “I know your father would never have shot at any of Murdoch’s men. The consequences were too great and…”

  “My father was with me,” Temperance said in a low, hollow whisper. William. She remembered no one had seen him that day. He’d returned later for the celebration. He hadn’t told them where he’d been. Was it possible that he…? He knew her father had been killed because one of Duncan’s men had been shot. He knew and he’d never said a word.

  Nay. She shook her head but tears were already forming over the rims of her eyes. How could this be happening? How could she have been duped and lied to by the two men she loved?

  “Oh, I should not have told you!” Marion cried harder seeing Temperance’s tears. “Mayhap I am wrong! But… but he loves me and he is rash at times.”

  Aye, he was. “Why would he not have told me?” She wasn’t expecting an answer from Marion, and her friend had no answer to give her.

  Temperance wiped her eyes. She was good and tired of excuses. Her father was dead because of William and Cailean. She hated them all. She laughed, but the sound was void of mirth and filled with only rage.

  “Oh, Temperance, what are you going to do?” Marion leaped from her chair when Temperance headed for the door.

  “I’m going to tend Duncan and feed him poison slowly. Him and the others, and then I’m going to fetch my grandmother and get her the hell out of Linavar.”

  She didn’t wait to hear Marion’s opinion on the matter but snatched up her sachet of herbs and left the room, her heart pounding and her fingers clenched at her sides.

  She wouldn’t weep. She was done with all that. She’d also never allow herself to be deceived again by any man!

  She entered Duncan Murdoch’s room a few moments later with a smile on her face and a small pouch of deadly herbs in her hand.

  She didn’t let her smile fade when he demanded to know where she’d been all morning.

  “I’m here now, Duncan,” she sang, entering the room and going to his sickbed.

  She gave him a quick looking-over. “My, but you look frighteningly bad. What happened?”

  He glared at her through one eye. The other eye was sealed shut. The flesh around both eyes was purple and a tad blue, most likely due to his broken nose. The same unsightly color stained two places on his jaw. There were two or three gashes on his shoulder and upper arm, delivered, she guessed, by Cailean’s sword. After a quick examination, she discovered that Marion was correct: his ribs were broken as well.

  A swell of pride and satisfaction coursed through her that Cailean had done this to him. She did her very best not to smile.

  “I had a run-in with a demon,” he told her. “Cailean Grant.”

  “Whatever did you do to cause him to beat you so mercilessly?”

  He shrugged his rather dainty shoulders and then grimaced with the pain of moving. “I’m guessing it had something to do with your father. He doesn’t understand what it means to be in a position of power and to have a man like Seth Menzie defy your every command.”

  Temperance found the strength not to punch him in his broken nose. “My father,” she said with more calmness than she felt, “did not defy you. But I don’t understand why Mr. Grant would fight you over it. It was his demand for revenge that brought the Black Riders to Linavar, was it not?”

  “It was, indeed,” he verified. “But after it was done, he was angry. He didn’t think your father was the one who shot his cousin—”

  “He wasn’t.”

  Duncan ignored her interruption. “He’d promised to fight me and last night he made good on it.”

  So Cailean had been angry that Duncan had had her father killed. She would think about what it meant later.

  “He cares for you, Temperance.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Duncan.”

  He grinned at her, though it was more like a hideous snarl she wanted to scratch off his face.

  “And you care for him,” he drawled. “A Black Rider. You betray your father.”

  She felt sick. He was correct and she hated herself for it.

  “I could never care for a Black Rider.”

  “You could if you hadn’t known he was one.” He laughed, but only for a moment before he went pale at the pain from h
is ribs. “You didn’t know, did you? He never told you.”

  “I don’t care for him, Duncan. I hope he rots in hell with you at his side. But tell me before I see to your wounds, why did he attack Cutty after he did this to you?” She had to know the truth, and Duncan seemed to be enjoying telling her. “Was it Cutty who slashed my father’s throat?”

  “You’re a perceptive little wench.” He smiled again. “That one enjoys his work.”

  Temperance would enjoy hers as well.

  She let him talk, though he said nothing else about her father or that fateful night. He wasn’t sorry. In fact, he’d taken pleasure in ridding himself of her father. He would pay for it. She’d make sure of it. She’d kill his father as well, and Linavar would finally be free of the tyrant Murdochs.

  She didn’t listen to him while she rewrapped the bandages around his waist, a bit tighter than necessary.

  “It’s hard to breathe,” he complained.

  Good. She hoped he’d suffocate before she left the room.

  Paying him little heed, she applied ointment to his eye and wrapped that as well. When she was done, she mixed him a drink of her herbs, not too much. She wanted him to die slowly.

  “Drink it,” she commanded. “’Twill ease some of your pain.”

  “Is it poison, my pet?” he asked, leering at her.

  She rolled her eyes and took a sip of the drink herself to prove it wasn’t. A tiny amount wouldn’t hurt her.

  She gave him a stoic nod when he accepted her offering. He drank it and settled farther into his bed.

  “I will return in an hour to see how you’re doing.”

  He nodded and squeezed her hand. She smiled as she left the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Cailean entered the great hall and spotted Temperance sitting at a table with Marion, Patrick, Cutty, and John Gunns. They were all drinking. His blood went cold.

  What the hell was she doing with Cutty? Did she know about him, then? Surely Patrick wouldn’t have let her poison the mercenary’s drink. What about Duncan? Was he already dead? He should go check on him, but he really didn’t care if the bastard was cold in his bed. Let the lord blame Cailean if he was. Mayhap he would reply if charged that the dainty bastard hadn’t been able to survive a beating. The lord should be grateful that Cailean had helped rid Lyon’s Ridge of him.

  But killing the other Black Riders would surely get Temperance killed.

  He made his way toward the table, pausing when Temperance saw him and rose from her chair. He didn’t stop her or speak a word to her when she left the table with Marion hot on her heels.

  “Should I get ready to block another blow?” Cutty asked him as Cailean took a seat at the table.

  “Only if ye come at me again fer Murdoch’s sake,” Cailean promised, then glanced Temperance’s way and relaxed a bit when she sat at a table with some of Maeve’s girls. He looked away just as she smiled at the madam. He missed the way she’d smiled at him. Would he ever see it again?

  “I think you came close to breaking my jaw, you bastard.”

  “Ye’ll live,” Cailean replied benignly. It was more than he could say for Seth Menzie. Ignoring his cousin’s dimpled grin beside him, he raised his hand to a server and called for a cup of ale.

  “She’s an interesting lass, that one.”

  Cailean’s gaze shifted to Gunns. “Who?”

  “Miss Menzie,” John answered. “She has every reason to hate us, and yet she just sat here and shared a few humorous tales about her grandmother with us.”

  “Did she?” Cailean put to him. “Did ye all share a laugh that Cutty killed her faither?”

  “Hell,” Cutty murmured. “You’re not still going on about him, are you?”

  Cailean smiled, though it was difficult for him to keep himself from finishing what he’d started last night in the lists. “Destroyin’ families irritates me, Cutty. What are ye drinkin’?

  “Ale,” the mercenary told him.

  Cailean looked at the cup in Cutty’s big hand. Had Temperance served him? He glanced at Patrick, but no help came.

  The server returned with a cup for him and a wink when he met her gaze. He offered her the briefest of smiles, but it was enough to make her fall into his lap.

  “Can I get you something else?” she purred, settling in.

  His eyes found Temperance again in time to see her watching, her lips tight with anger.

  Was she jealous? Mayhap it wasn’t too late. It gave him the barest trace of hope and made his heart feel lighter than it had in days.

  “Nae.” He gave the server a slight push off. She fell into Patrick’s waiting arms and laughed when the handsome Highlander’s lips fell to her throat.

  Paying them no heed, Cailean raised his cup to his lips, then paused and looked toward Temperance once again. Was all the ale poisoned? She had said she wanted to kill all the Black Riders. Would she try to kill him too?

  He guzzled the drink, keeping his gaze steady on hers while the ale went down. If he was dead in the morning then he deserved it.

  Hell, he was a wretched fool. How could he have let himself destroy her? If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never forget her words to him. He wanted to get up, toss his chair out of the way, and run to her. He wanted to gather her up in his arms and kiss her just one more time—and then hand her his dagger and command that she ram it into his heart. If it would have brought her father back from the dead he would have done it in an instant.

  His legs ached to go to her. When she rose from her seat and left the hall, he couldn’t sit another instant.

  “I’m goin’ to take a walk,” he told the others, leaving his chair as well.

  He followed her, not too close, turning corners a moment or two after her. She was heading to Duncan’s chamber. He watched her, longing to sweep her up in his arms and pledge his life to her. When she disappeared into the room, he waited outside the door. He hated that she was tending the lord’s son. For that too he had only himself to blame.

  Had he turned Temperance into what he had been? Was she feeding poison to Duncan inside? Hell, she was going to get them all killed. He leaned his ear to the cool wood but heard nothing. If she screamed he’d kick open the door and save her and to hell with the consequences. He thought about doing it anyway. He could snatch her up and bring her to Camlochlin before she did anything she’d regret. She’d be safe on the misty isle of Skye. He’d fight to win her heart, to mend the pieces he’d broken, and promise never to hurt her again.

  Twice he hid in the shadows when he heard footsteps in the hall. He knew he was risking much, constantly seeking her out, but presently he didn’t give a damn.

  His fingers itched to pen her words of his love, to paint her, touch her, laugh with her again. She had every right to hate him, but the thought of it made him want to fall to his knees and tear out his hair.

  When the door finally opened a half hour later, he stood with his back pressed to the wall, opposite her as she stepped out into the hall.

  He smiled. He couldn’t help himself, she was everything he’d ever desired and he couldn’t let her go.

  “Does he still live?” he asked her as lightly as he could manage.

  “For now.” She wiped her hands on a small cloth she toted, but instead of running from him, she stared at him. Something in her gaze softened for just a moment, renewing his hope yet again.

  “He told me you were angry with him that night.”

  “I was,” he said on a suspended breath.

  “You didn’t want him to kill my father.”

  He shook his head. “I did no’ want it, Temperance.”

  “You were the one who shouted for Cutty to wait.”

  Then she knew it had been Cutty. “Aye, and when yer faither fell, yer cries tore me from the darkness.”

  “And plunged me into them instead.”

  Hell, he’d never shed a tear before. He’d held back his emotions when Sage died, and again later when he lost Alison
. But now his throat burned and his vision blurred.

  What could he say? Could he ever make it right between them again?

  “’Tis clear to me now why you always clamped up when I spoke of my father to you. How did you look at me all those moments we spent together? How could you have kissed me, touched me?”

  He had been able to because he loved her. But it wasn’t enough.

  “I call you a fool,” she continued, “but no one was a bigger fool than I.”

  “Nae, lass,” he said in a low despondent voice, lifting his eyes.

  “How could you?” she asked him, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

  He moved closer, hovered over her, his gaze dark and anguished, his voice deep and desperate.

  “Och, m’ dearest Temperance, I would have ye know that I claim full responsibility fer takin’ yer faither from ye. There is no way to tell ye how I regret my decisions of that night. There are no’ sufficient words to tell ye how sorry I am—how sorry I’ve been. But please, lass, allow me to try.”

  She shook her head. “Nay, I—”

  “Men do monstrous things because of fear,” he told her quickly. He had to fight for her. He had to bare his heart to her. “I am one of them. I had forgotten who I was. M’ life had become a meaningless endeavor to fill a void I had created. Nothin’ I touched was dark enough. I left all that I loved and allowed a monster to take hold of me. I didna recognize him until I watched yer faither die in yer arms.

  “I dinna tell ye this fer absolution. I’m fully aware that I deserve yer contempt. I would give m’ life to bring yer faither back to ye. Fer ye I would give up m’ last breath.”

  He hadn’t thought he could ever feel like a worse monster than he already did, but when she began to weep and covered her face in his hands, he knew he had been wrong. He didn’t care if she stabbed him or poisoned him later for it, he had to hold her.

  “M’ dearest beloved,” he whispered close to her ear when he took her into his embrace. “I thought I was beyond repair, but ye found me, lass. Ye put me back together, mendin’ me with yer smiles, yer fire, and selfishly I let ye do it. Instead of tellin’ ye the truth, I took the coward’s way oot because every moment I spent with ye was like bein’ reborn, and I was afraid of dyin’ again. Fergive me. Fergive me.”