“Aye,” Callum said. “He wants to grow his power farther north, which includes our home. He’s been attacking us since I was but ten summers.”
“The king is crafty, aye?”
“Aye,” Callum agreed. “He kept the MacDonald from getting too powerful, but he also did nae oblige himself to aid us. When he was older, the king told my father that he had too many other battles to fight and that if my father lost the castle, he did nae deserve it.”
“Is this why yer father changed his allegiance to the Steward?”
“One of the reasons,” Callum replied.
Their conversation continued for hours, past the nooning meal and into the evening as the sky turned purple and blue. She learned that he had one brother and that Callum was not particularly close to his parents. She discovered that he was a great hawker, and he promised to teach her the art someday.
As the hour approached supper, Marsaili’s nerves grew; she had to tell him about the earl. She would not be missed in the great hall, as her father had instructed her not to come once the earl had departed, but Callum would need to make an appearance. She forced herself to swallow her fear.
“Callum,” she began, “I want to wed ye, but ye need to ken that my father wishes to make me the Earl of Ulster’s mistress, and when the man’s wife dies, my father intends to wed me to him.”
Callum’s jaw tensed visibly, and his thick, corded arms tightened around her. “What gain is there for yer father?”
She told him quickly of the earl’s brother possibly being named king of Scotland. When she finished, silence stretched between them, and the sickening feeling that he had decided she was too much trouble swept through her entire body.
He pressed his lips to her forehead and then said, “Dunnae fash yerself. My mother and father are cunning. More so than I have ever cared for, but in this, it may serve well. Surely, some sort of alliance between our two clans can be formed.”
“Nae unless yer father has something of great value to offer my father,” she said bitterly. “I fear if ye wish to marry me, we may need to do so without my father’s consent, and ye must accept that it may well bring his ire to yer clan’s doorstep.”
“I accept it,” Callum vowed. “I will see what can be done and return to ye as quickly as I am able. Whether I take ye away in the dark of night or by the light of day remains to be seen, but ye will depart here with me. This I vow.”
The tenderness of his gaze released her of all fear. “Callum,” she said, her voice husky with love and desire. “I wish to consummate our commitment.”
Possession flared in his gaze. “Are ye certain?”
“Aye,” she said. “Nae ever have I been more certain of anything in my life.”
His hands slid up her arms, bringing her closer, and he whispered his love for her in her ear. His hot breath sent gooseflesh racing across her sensitive skin. He lifted her on top of him so she was straddling his thighs, and then, ever so gently, he explored her stomach, her back, her breasts, making them instantly heavy and tight. They both shed their clothes, all the while touching and kissing. Her heart raced with eager anticipation, and at one point, he pressed her palm to his own racing heart.
He laid her back on his plaid, spread her hair around her, and worshipped her in a way she had not believed was possible. With strokes of his tongue and his fingers, he made her cry in pleasure and pain, and then beg for him to enter her and make her his. She could see the effort prolonging his own pleasure was requiring. His jaw was locked, his brow damp, and the corded muscles of his arms strained. He slid into her slowly to make them one.
He paused for a moment and looked in her eyes questioningly. “Are ye hurt?”
She smiled at his concern, his kindness, and his tendre for her. There was a small pinch of pain, but it was easing already. “Please, Callum. Truly make me yers.”
He began to move within her, and the pain was replaced by a slow-building pressure that grew until she felt she would be undone at the seams. She screamed out her pleasure, clinging to him, and his entire body tensed atop her as he cried out with his own release, his warm seed filling her.
They were bound by this night, this act, and their love. Nothing would part them now.
One
1361
Scotland
Three years later…
The dagger in Marsaili’s hand felt like freedom. Pressing it to her evil stepmother’s fleshy neck filled her with a sense of empowerment. Marsaili shifted her weight forward onto the balls of her feet so she’d be harder to throw off balance if Jean decided to fight back. Never again would she be the dog for her father and Jean to abuse. Marsaili was the fox—sly, wily, and impossible to catch. Or at least she hoped so since her father’s men hunted her and her MacLeod half brother, Iain, had sent a man after her, as well.
Nearly three years earlier, she’d discovered that Jean was not her true mother, and Helena and her brothers had been her half siblings. Never had she been more relieved about it than at this moment. She detested Jean, and she had detested her sister and Campbell brothers until the day they had all met their makers. She detested her father, as well, but unfortunately, he still lived—and his blood flowed in her veins—whether she liked it or not.
Her father, no doubt, wanted to find her so he could finally fulfill the plot he’d concocted three years prior to marry her to the Earl of Ulster. She’d managed to evade her father’s clutches for a long period by taking shelter and refuge with the MacLeod clan, whose laird she recently discovered was her half brother Iain. But her father had lured her out of that protection carefully and methodically by revealing to her that the child she’d borne from one night of passion with Callum Grant was not dead as her father had claimed. The child had survived the delivery, and her father had merely sent him from her.
Pain briefly gripped her heart as she thought of her bairn. Rage quickly followed for how she had been deceived by her father, and her anger at Callum, the deceiver, flared, as well. He had made vows to her that he had broken, and the result was that he had never known she was with child. That child, her child—not Callum’s, hers—had garnered her a year’s reprieve from being sent off to become the earl’s mistress. Well, that and the fact that the earl’s wife had not died as quickly as the earl had hoped, and she had refused to leave his side. Yet, Marsaili had known that her reprieve would come to an end at some time, so she had plotted to escape once her son was born.
“Marsaili,” Jean hissed, startling Marsaili back to the task at hand. “We can make a bargain.”
“I dunnae make bargains with devils,” Marsaili growled. Her mind raced, considering all her options and all who hunted her. Broch MacLeod, one of Iain’s fiercest warriors, was the warrior also tracking her. She would have turned to him for aid when she realized he was trailing her, but she was uncertain if she’d find a friend or foe. He had been a friend for two years, as had her four MacLeod half brothers. The only person she was certain remained her friend was her half sister, Lena MacLeod, now Lena MacLean. Before Marsaili had ever learned that she was half-MacLeod she had known Lena, as she had been married to Marsaili’s brother Findlay. Lena was loyal, even though Marsaili had been forced to betray the MacLeod clan. She was uncertain if her other siblings—and most importantly, Iain—would be so understanding. She had betrayed King David, who was not only Iain’s friend but a man to whom Iain had sworn political allegiance. Marsaili knew that Lena had written to Iain on her behalf to explain the situation, but Marsaili had no doubt Iain intended to drag her back to the MacLeod stronghold to take responsibility for her actions. But she could not go back to Dunvegan yet.
She tightened her grip on her father’s prized dagger, which he displayed in his bedchamber but never used. More the fool was he. Having taken it renewed her courage. It had faltered when she’d returned to Innis Chonnell Castle under cover of darkness. She had lived nearly her entire life in her father’s home, and it had been sheer torment. This was the last place she�
��d ever thought to willingly come back to, but here she was. It was by choice, but only because she’d not seen another option.
“Yer father will have yer head for taking his most prized possession,” Jean snapped.
She attempted to back away, and Marsaili nudged the dagger a bit deeper, pricking Jean’s skin and eliciting a hiss from her stepmother. “We both ken that’s nae true,” Marsaili replied with a snort. “He needs my head on my body. I doubt the earl is so obsessed with me”—as the man was obsessed, which was surely goaded on by her father—“that he would be willing to wed me headless.”
“Ye, ungrateful wench! Ye—”
“Shut yer trap, Jean,” Marsaili commanded, unable and unwilling to stop the grin that pulled at her lips. She’d wanted to say that to Jean for years, but she hadn’t dared before, for fear of retribution. There was no fear now. It had been replaced by a hatred so strong that her throat burned with it.
“Where is my son?” she demanded, the words hollowing her gut. Her son. Joy bubbled in her belly, but a swift tide of fear, loss, and regret stopped the warm feeling. She still could not believe that the child she’d birthed was actually alive. Her heart pounded so hard that her fingertips pulsed where she pressed them against her father’s weapon.
Her father. He didn’t deserve to even be thought of as such, but her blasted mind continued to do so. He was the Devil’s spawn, that’s what he was. Any man who would lie to his daughter and tell her that her son had died simply because he wanted to be able to use her in marriage was despicable. She ground her teeth against her wandering thoughts. The lack of sleep over the last sennight was weighing upon her, making it hard to keep her mind on task, yet she had to do so. She knew she didn’t have much time before her father’s men overtook her. She was mayhap a day’s ride ahead of them, but if they found her, she’d never escape.
Time was passing quickly. “If ye dunnae tell me where ye and Father sent my son, I’ll slit yer throat,” Marsaili rasped.
“Ye dunnae have the stomach for murder,” Jean snarled.
Marsaili answered with a flick of her wrist that sent the sharp blade sliding across her stepmother’s neck lightning-quick. Jean gasped and her hands flew to the surface cut, but Marsaili swiveled the blade to dig the point back into Jean’s flesh.
“That was a warning,” she growled, swallowing down a wave of bitter disgust that filled her mouth when Jean’s warm blood trickled onto her fingertips. “Ye are wrong about me, Jean,” Marsaili said, meaning it. “I may nae have had the stomach for killing before I fled here, but I have the will to kill ye now. And nae just ye, do ye ken me? I’ll strike down anyone who stands in the way of me getting back the son ye stole from me. Now, where…is…my…son?”
The desperation and anger in her own voice sent gooseflesh up her back and prickled her neck. She didn’t want to be this person. She didn’t want to be violent. She didn’t want to be a woman who betrayed her honorable brothers, men who had come to mean so much to her, but her father had left her little choice.
Jean shook her head. “I dunnae—”
Marsaili pressed the dagger deeper. “Dunnae spew yer lies to me.”
Jean gasped. “I’m nae lying. The Ceàrdannan had been traveling near the castle when ye gave birth, and yer father sent the bairn with them. Told them it was a castle castoff from a kitchen wench.”
Despair made Marsaili’s knees weak. She hadn’t thought she could hate her father more than she already did, but she had been wrong. The black rage she felt toward him in this moment frightened her. Her father had sent her newly born child with the Summer Walkers. They were a people without a clan, without any allegiance but to themselves and their leaders. They did not believe in possessions; therefore, they had no homes and traveled constantly. How would she ever find her son?
Tears clogged her throat and shot an ache to her thumping heart. She had no one to turn to for help, least of all Callum. He was the child’s father, but he had betrayed her in the worst way. He’d stolen her heart and she’d given him her body, and in return, he’d given her a bairn. Unbeknownst to him, of course, which was entirely the Devil’s doing. She’d learned she was with child after he had left with a vow to return for her as soon as he spoke to his parents. She had not known, however, that he had been promised to another since childhood. In the two fortnights they had spent together, he had never once mentioned it, not even when she had told him of her father’s plot to marry her to the earl.
She pushed thoughts of him away as an anxious feeling stirred deep in her gut. She’d learned not to ignore those feelings. She glanced quickly at the window. She’d made a critical error in determining how much time she had before daybreak. It had been dark when she’d slipped into the castle, but the sky was already lightening, and once the inhabitants of the castle stirred, it would be near impossible to escape unseen. A tremor of fear coursed through her.
Her father would be crazed to capture her. King David still did not have a legitimate heir, and the earl’s brother, John of Gaunt, might still be named heir presumptive to the Scottish throne if David were to die without one.
Even as her father continued to secretly support the Steward, he still wished to forge an allegiance with the earl and, subsequently, his brother. She could not imagine why the earl still wanted her. Perhaps he had created a fantasy of her in his twisted mind. “Ye can tell my father that even if he hauls me back here, I will inform the earl I am nae an innocent. Father will nae ever use me.”
Jean smirked for a long, silent moment. “Simple, foolish girl. The earl kens ye had a bairn and have lain with a man.” Marsaili hissed in a breath of surprise, which made Jean’s smirk grow. “He had yer chambermaid reporting to him about ye, and the blasted, loose-tongued clot-heid wrote that yer belly had swollen with child.”
“Brianna?” Marsaili croaked, thinking of the chambermaid who’d been found drowned the morning after Marsaili had given birth.
“Aye.” Jean averted her eyes, and Marsaili feared that her father had killed Brianna or had one of his guards do the deed. She pinched the skin between her brows, trying to sort out what Jean was telling her.
“I dunnae ken. If the earl kens I’m nae an innocent—”
“He dunnae care,” Jean snapped, looking at Marsaili once again. “He has the fever for ye and will have ye as his.”
Marsaili felt her mouth drop open. “I’ll nae marry that man, nor become his leman. Ever.”
“Ye will,” Jean said. “If ye ever wish to see yer bairn again.”
Marsaili stiffened. Even if she cooperated with her father, he wouldn’t tell her how to find the Summer Walkers—if he knew at all. Jean’s smirk grew wider. Jean knew it, too!
Marsaili wanted to scream, but she dared not for fear the guards who roamed the castle halls would hear. Instead, she flipped the dagger in her hand and used the hilt to knock her stepmother on the brow, in the very spot her father had long ago knocked Marsaili when she had displeased him. Her father’s treatment of her had taught her two valuable lessons: never stand too close to him once he had been angered, and all it took to knock a person to sleep was a hard hit right above the eye with just the right curve of the weapon after the hit.
Jean crumpled to the ground and her stepmother’s eyes fluttered shut. Marsaili gazed at Jean for a long moment before stepping over the body that was blocking her path to the door. She threw the door open and halted, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her stepmother’s personal guard, Torquol, stood there. His gaze widened in recognition and then flew past her to where Jean lay prone on the floor. Marsaili tried to dart to the right of him to escape, but his hand clamped on her arm as he easily took her dagger from her.
“Marsaili Campbell,” he said, his mead breath washing over her and making her stomach twist. “I see yer troublemaking ways have nae changed.”
Two
Callum stepped into the inner courtyard of Urquhart Castle, the Clan Grant stronghold and his home. He swept his gaze around th
e courtyard, noting the Grant flags flapping in the wind. They were tattered from three long years of sieges by the MacDonald clan, as well as the Gordon clan. The flags were not the only battered parts of his home, though. The land to the west that had once been rich and green for sheep to feed was now bare from the constant galloping of war horses. The stone walls of the towers had chinks in them from the catapults used to try to breach the castle, and the defensive walls were peppered with large dents from the battering rams. In some places, the light of day even shone through. The walls needed to be repaired, but that required coin, and he had precious little of it.
Callum rolled his shoulders in an attempt to alleviate the knots that seemed to be a permanent part of his body. The roaring din of his clansman chattering as they proceeded from the castle, woods, and courtyard to the shore of Loch Ness below was a swift reminder that these people relied upon him for protection. The task was a great one, especially given the number of good warriors they had lost in battle over the past three years. He scanned the water of the loch, which shimmered almost silver in the bright sun, and his chest tightened as his gaze settled on the incoming birlinn carrying the Earl of Ainsworth to Urquhart.
“Callum, I hope ye remember well what has happened to us because ye broke yer vow to wed Edina Gordon,” his mother said, coming up beside him with his younger brother, Brice. Callum stilled. He’d long ago accepted it as his due penance to be reminded daily that his actions had plunged his clan into war, a war that had gotten his father killed.
Beside his mother, Brice scowled and opened his mouth as if to protest. Callum discreetly shook his head, relieved when Brice clamped his jaw shut. Callum had long ago given up trying to make his younger brother understand the guilt he felt for their father’s death. That was why he endured his mother’s constant reminders, but he would not endure Brice and Mother fighting.
As if she recognized she’d won a moment to continue to speak as she desired, she waved to her companions, hovering respectfully a few feet away, indicating they should continue onward toward the steep path that led down the jagged cliff to the water. “Lady Coira will be expecting to see ye at the shore for her arrival at the tournament.”
When a Scot Gives His Heart Page 4
