by Tessa Murran
A crowd gathered around them, shouting encouragement, growing louder and louder. She could not weaken, or this harpy might tear out her throat. She was fighting for Buchanan honour as well as Will’s, and a Buchanan never gave up, never backed down from a fight.
Morna caught sight of Waldrick pushing through the edge of the crowd, bare-chested, with his braies hanging off his backside. The momentary distraction allowed Edana to get her hands around Morna’s throat and pin her down on her back. She started to squeeze, her nails digging in painfully.
Morna tried pulling her hands off, but the woman was devilishly strong. She could feel herself weakening, her lungs fit to burst. With the last ounce of strength she had left, she heaved upwards and rolled Edana sideways and over onto her belly. Morna wriggled on top of her, and pushed on the back of Edana’s head, forcing her face into the mud.
The woman squirmed and clawed, but she could not get free. Gurgling sounds came from the mud as it filled Edana’s mouth and nose.
How Morna hated Edana, then, in a way she had never hated anyone in her life. To speak of Will being hurt, so casually, so carelessly, as if he were dirt to walk upon. How could she do it, have so little care for him after everything he had been through in his life? How could she condemn him to death like that?
A strong hand on her arm tore her away and onto her feet. Waldrick had hold of her with one hand and was holding up his braies with the other.
‘What are you about, you witches. Stop this at once, you she-devils,’ he yelled.
Morna struggled to free herself, and he grabbed her with both hands. In doing so, he let go of his braies, which fell down, treating Morna and the onlookers to the sight of his flaccid pink manhood. The crowd almost burst with laughing and, as Waldrick did a terrible job of securing himself, he rounded on Morna.
‘What are you about woman, brawling in the mud like a common doxy. You cannot be doing this to Cranstoun’s woman. Your husband will have you whipped, and if her man gets hold of you, he will stretch your neck.’
Morna lost patience with the wretched man.
‘He can try. And where were you while she was strangling me, eh? I saw you watching from the sidelines. You are supposed to be protecting me.’
‘Aye, well, I know that one there,’ he said, gesturing to Edana, who was rising unsteadily to her feet spitting out muck. ‘You cross her at your peril, and besides, I was, erm… busy’
Aye, busy with your braies round your ankles servicing that whore.’
‘She has finer manners than you.’
‘And I have bigger balls than you, coward!’
The crowd started laughing again at her words but suddenly hushed as Will appeared and elbowed people aside. He stood before them and, on his face, was a look of such anger as to make Morna’s blood run cold.
‘Someone had better explain to me why my wife is as filthy as a pig in a wallow, and my clansman stands before her with his backside hanging out, for all of Barra to see,’ he bellowed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Will could feel Morna quivering with anger where he held on to her arm. She was barely recognisable through all the mud dripping off her. He glared at Waldrick, and the man blanched.
‘T’was these bitches as started it, Will. Like two she-devils, they were. It was all I could do to separate them, and she’s a fine temper on her, your wife,’ said Waldrick.
‘I left you in charge of her,’ snarled Will.
‘Aye, and I was minding her, but then I…’
‘He went off with that slattern over there,’ spat Morna, pointing to the redhead, who smiled back at Will in an insolent way.
‘Your whore almost killed me,’ sputtered Edana, just as Wymon Cranstoun pushed through the crowd. ‘She tried to suffocate me, Wymon,’ she whined, pointing at Morna.
Wymon stomped over to Edana and grabbed hold of her arm. ‘What are you talking about woman?’ he snarled, shaking her.
Edana spat out her lies. It was all Morna’s fault, she was completely innocent in the matter. Morna had attacked her for no reason and almost killed her. The woman squealed out her accusations in the tone of a martyr nailed to the cross and started to sniff away lying tears.
Will did nothing to stop the flow of bile coming from Edana’s mouth, and then Cranstoun turned to him.
‘This is an insult to my Clan.’
‘This is nothing but a piece of foolishness between these two harpies. You deal with your woman, and I will deal with mine. A thrashed backside for each of them should put it to rights. Agreed?’ A muscle was going in his cheek.
Cranstoun nodded. ‘Be sure to beat yours soundly, else you’ll get no obedience. Spare the rod, and you will pay the price,’ he said, as he dragged Edana off into the crowd.
‘You are coming with me,’ said Will and, with a vice-like grip, he dragged Morna away. She pulled on his arm and twisted and turned in a temper, but he continued until they were well away from the crowd. He let go of her and took a couple of steps back out of an instinct for self- preservation, for she had a towering anger on her.
‘Could you not muster one word in my defence?’ she shouted. ‘Of course, you would take her side in this. Why should I expect anything else?’
Will bit his lip hard. ‘Calm down, Morna. Are you hurt?’
‘As if she could ever hurt me, and don’t even think of trying to punish me, Will Bain.’
‘Morna, I said, calm down, and we will talk.’
‘I will not be calm. Look at me!’ Indeed, she was a woeful sight, black with muck and stinking of it too.
‘I cannot get to the bottom of this until you are quiet,’ he said softly but with menace.
‘Of course, you accept her version of events. How dare you agree to thrash me. Why, you are as cowardly as Waldrick, Will, not standing up to a Cranstoun.’
‘Right,’ said Will. He grabbed hold of her, dragged her to a nearby horse trough and dunked her in it.
Morna sat up, coughing out water, and he pushed her down in it again and stepped back quickly.
‘Have you cooled down a bit now, wife?’
‘You...you pig,’ she screamed, climbing out and tottering sideways in her outrage.
‘It got the worst of the muck off,’ said Will, failing to suppress a smirk.
She stood before him, her breath coming in little gasps. Now that her face was cleaner, he could see the blazing anger reddening her cheeks.
‘Don’t take out your temper on me, woman. I come from a parley to find you brawling like a cat in an alley, so I think you owe me an explanation. Tell me what started this fight?’
‘Nothing.’
Will folded his arms. ‘I can stand here all day, and this wind is cold, and you are wet.’
‘I just don’t care for that bitch.’
‘Nor do I, but that is no reason to end up brawling in the muck.’
‘But she said things, Will.’
‘Oh, she pricked your pride, did she? Don’t tell me, she insulted the grand Buchanan name.’
Morna opened her mouth to spit back a retort but paused and then would not meet his eye. ‘Something like that,’ she said, looking away out to sea.
Perhaps he was imagining it, but Morna’s voice seemed ripe with unshed tears. ‘Morna whatever was said is not worth fighting over, is it? You must never show an enemy that they have wounded you.’
‘Is that what she is, Will, an enemy? She said that you wanted her beyond reason once and that you want her still, and it is obvious I don’t please you. Not that I care either way.’
Will smiled and shook his head. ‘How could you let Edana goad you like that? I thought you were cleverer than that, Morna. She wanted a fight, and you gave her one when you should have ignored her, for she hates that more than anything.’
‘You would know, I suppose,’ she replied bitterly. ‘And as you are not best pleased with me, why wouldn’t you go in search of consolation elsewhere?’
‘If I did go in search of it, then it wou
ldn’t be from that she-wolf,’ he said firmly, wanting to end the conversation before it strayed into dangerous territory. ‘And what makes you think I am not pleased with you.’
‘Everything you say and everything you do.’
‘I could say the same to you,’ he replied. Still, she would not look him in the eye. What was she hiding? Will scuffed the ground at his feet and smiled. ‘I never had two women fight over me before. I think I like it.’
Wiping water out of her eyes, Morna sighed. ‘Well enjoy it, you fool, for it will never happen again.’ She stalked away from him, but he ran in front of her.
‘Morna, the fight, did you win?’ he asked.
‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
Will’s face broke into a beaming smile as he took her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I have never been prouder. Now let us see if the monks have a barrel to clean you up in and then I will find Waldrick, and he will be getting a hard clip around the ear for neglecting his duty.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The tent was small and billowed in and out noisily in the sea breeze. Waldrick’s too hasty erection of it, in order to service his own, had left them with a noisy, and not altogether secure, shelter for the night.
Dusk was coming on, and the gathering darkness was lit by the glow of campfires all around the kirk. A woman was singing in the shadows, others joining in. It was a cheerful sound, but Morna was beset by loneliness.
She had endured a long bath in a cramped barrel full of tepid water and having her skin and hair scrubbed clean by a woman with dirty hands and sharp fingernails. She now had several scratches to add to those given her by Edana. Later, she had found a quiet spot and spent hours looking out at the flocks of sea birds circling on the headland and the waves kissing the shoreline, lost in thought as her hair dried in the wind.
Will had taken himself off somewhere, so she had sought solitude in the tent. She did not know these people from other clans, be they friend or foe, and Waldrick was keeping his distance, still in a fearful sulk at her for getting him a scolding. The other Bain men she knew only barely, and they had kept their distance. Morna suspected they knew about the fight and that she was the victor, for they had been giving her nods and winks all day. Clan pride was satisfied then, but what about her own?
The tent flap swept open, and Will strode in with a grim look on his face. He had better not be spoiling for a fight, for she was in no mood.
‘Have you got over your temper?’ he said bluntly.
Morna said nothing, so he turned and secured the tent flap.
‘You look clean at least, very bonnie in fact. Your cheeks are pink from the sun,’ he said, softening his face into a smile. How she wished he would not, as it made his face boyish and good-humoured, and when he looked like that it was hard to hate him and impossible not to want him.
‘I sat on the cliffs all afternoon, Will, alone. You were nowhere to be found, of course.’
‘I thought it best I made myself scarce after I dunked you in that trough. I think you were set to kill me for it.’
‘Did you go to find that slithering worm of a woman and whisper with her in dark places?’
‘Edana? No, I found better company. Would you be jealous if I had?’
‘If I was, I’d never own to it, for you would laugh at my folly.’
‘I most certainly would.’
‘Go to her if you want to. I will not stop you.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Because you married me for an alliance, for convenience.’
‘True, marrying you was convenient, but it was also something I dearly wanted to do.’
‘Stop it. I know I can give her all the beatings I want, but I can never compete with Edana, for she is so very beautiful.’
‘She didn’t look so good this morning,’ Will said, smirking, but as he didn’t contradict her Morna’s jealousy rose to epic proportions. He came up to her, putting his arms around her waist, but she brushed them off. His face, his mouth, was so close and this tent was too small, he seemed to fill it with his presence.
‘I don’t want to go to her, Morna, you little fool, because what I want is here.’
‘Don’t lie. You only married me as a way to gain influence, Will.’
‘There were other, much more appealing, reasons.’
‘Stop teasing me. I know that I can’t bewitch a man into loving me as she can.’
‘Can you not?’
‘No, I am not even properly a woman. I have lain with no one, but she has wiles and ways of tying a man to her. I may hate her, but I cannot deny that she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.’
His mouth was but an inch from hers, his gaze hot with lust. ‘And you think you are not?’ he said, his words gentle.
‘Not like that.’
He turned and hung his head and took a deep breath. ‘Enough now,’ he said. When he turned back, there was such ardour in his eyes that Morna took a step back. ‘I think it is time for us to speak plainly Morna, to have the truth between us.’
‘It is hard to believe anything you say, Will.’
‘Believe this,’ he said, coming at her and taking her face in his hands. His mouth took hers in a glorious, soft kiss, tender, slow and breathtaking. Morna felt as though she might faint with it, so fast was the beat of her heart, and the ache in her chest.
Will pulled away slowly and looked deep into her eyes. ‘I want you, Morna, because you are strong, courageous and lovely. I want you because you cared enough not to let your brother kill me and my clansmen. I want you because I have dreamed of you many times these past years and, even though there is an ocean of wealth and family name and clan loyalty separating us, I could never forget you. I didn’t hand you over to your brother because I could not bear to see you ride away from me.’
He kissed her again.
‘But you still want her, don’t you?’ said Morna. ‘The look on your face when you saw her, and she is so…’
‘Beautiful, yes, but she never touched my heart. She may be lovely to look upon, but her charms end there. The witch wanted me to kill Fearchar to be with her, but I refused, though you know me capable of it. Do you know why? Because I did not want her enough. I hated her husband, but I would not kill him to be with her, Morna, and yet I would make a thousand corpses to get to you.’
Morna tried to make sense of his words. ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’
‘Aye, time you learned how to take one.’
‘But I do not know how to keep a man, how to hold on to him, how to please a man and…
‘Well, Morna, you are about to find out.’
He pulled her tight to him and put his forehead to hers. ‘I care for you, woman and I am proud to call you my wife. Let us be done with your virginity. Give yourself to me, and there will be no other come between us, I swear.’
‘You say that now, but once you have had me…’
His grip tightened. ‘It is not a matter of having you, it is a matter of caring for you. Let me show you with my body how much you have come to mean to me, what you do to me, what you take from me.’
‘Take from you?’
‘Aye, you are like hemlock, slowing the senses, so that a man loses his grip on who he is and gives up that which is most dear to him.’
‘And what, pray, is that?’
‘His pride, for why else would I stand here spilling my tender words like the biggest fool. I want you, and I hope you want me back for I have a fierce need in me. It won’t be denied. I intend to have you this night and bind you to me forever.’ Will placed soft kisses along her neck and up to her ear. ‘What say you, Morna? Will you take a chance on a thief and a pirate and a liar?’
‘I would be a fool to do it,’ she said, leaning back her head as little shoots of pleasure raised goose-bumps all over her skin.
‘Fool it is then,’ he whispered as his hands found her belt and unbuckled it. He threw it asid
e and bunched her dress in his fists, pulling it up and over her head in a flash.
Her hair fell down around them in a dark river as their bodies and mouths crashed together as one, in a frenzy of lust.
Morna found her courage and reached for his belt. Her fingers were clumsy and shaking as she unbuckled it and Will impatiently tore his tunic off and flung it aside. Grabbing her kirtle, he pulled it off, and she heard the cloth rip in his haste to remove it.
Will lowered her down onto a fur-covered pallet on the ground. His weight was crushing at first, but then he raised himself a little to undo his braies, and there was just the slip and slide of her back against the fur as he moved against her and gently spread her legs. His manhood slipped between her thighs, iron-hard, thrilling, coaxing a hunger in her that spread like a fire through her belly. One hand took a fistful of her hair while the other moved over her face and down her chest, rough and hot until it reached her breast and cupped it firmly. As he kissed her, hard, his thumb stroked her nipple to a fever pitch of pleasure, building and building, until she gasped into his mouth and wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in close.
Fingers of sea breeze whined in through the tent flap, the chill warring with the smooth heat of Will’s skin pressed to hers. Soon, the singing faded away, and her whole world was Will’s fingers, his tongue, his hands roaming over her, exploring every inch of her body.
Morna trailed her fingers along Will’s back, a smooth curve of taut muscle, and down to the swell of his buttocks, feeling them clench and strain as he moved against her. It was too much, she could bear the anticipation no longer.
She spread her legs wider. ‘Do it, Will, please, I want you so much,’ she breathed.
‘And I will,’ he said between kisses, ‘but you are a virgin, so I must be patient and do this right.’
‘I don’t to be one any more, I just want you, now.’
‘Patience my love, I am the only man you will ever have so I must make a good account of myself.’ He smiled into his kiss.
