Chapter Three.

THE LAIRD.

John Macrae nearly wept with amazement at the woman in his arms. A woman so delicate, so soft, and yet so strong. Because it took strength to accept all that he did to her in bed. Not just the spankings and paddlings, but the vulgar words that spilled from his mouth. The ways in which he had humiliated her...

She'd drawn it out of him this time.

He'd known perfectly well what she was doing, taunting him about her nightclothes. Working him into a state. And he'd let her do it because he'd needed her to do it. He should have been the one to rea.s.sure her that those things he said and did in the heat of pa.s.sion were forms of love play. That they did not speak to a lack of feeling on his part, but rather, a kind of surrender of his own. She was the s.e.xually inexperienced one, and yet, she seemed to know, without needing to be taught, how to make him feel safe expressing parts of himself for which others would deem him a monster.

How was that she did such a miraculous thing?

If he ever doubted that he loved her, all doubts fled. He loved her more than anything or anyone he had ever loved. And how would he ever bear to part with her when the time came? "I will treasure this paddle, my sweet," he told her. "No one has ever given me a gift I like better. Excepting, of course, the give you gave me when you surrendered yourself to me."

"But the paddle was a gift for me too, my laird," she said, her eyelashes fluttering against his cheek. "I can never seem to tell you enough how happy it makes me to please you. But I will keep trying to tell you until you believe it. Until you really do believe it."

He was starting to, but he had to understand. "Does it make you happy because you are a good girl who likes to sacrifice for her laird, or because it feeds something in you to obey me just as it feeds something in me to command you?"

"What difference does it make?"

It made a difference to him. "What if I was not the laird?"

She startled, as if she couldn't imagine such a thing. "You will always be the laird. You cannot be afraid that the enemy will take the castle..."

He was afraid of that. Desperately afraid of that. But as the laird, he couldn't admit to such, lest he put her in fear. To his people he could only speak confidently of the walls of the castle. About the food that was stockpiled. About the allies that would come shortly to their aid. He couldn't show fear or his people would fear. He had to have courage for them to have courage. So he forced a confident laugh and said, "No, my sweet. What I want to know is would you want to sacrifice for me if I was not the Macrae but only John Alexander Ramsay Macrea."

"It isn't possible for you to be only anything," she said, with a deep well of feeling in those violet eyes that stirred in him true courage, rather than the kind he had to feign. "Even if you were not a man with a castle to defend, you're the man to whom I have pledged myself. The only man to have touched me. The only man I obey. I-I belong to you. I am yours complete. Can you not feel it even now with your scent on me and your seed warm within me?"

A flare of possessive l.u.s.t and love burned a hole in him. Oh, yes, he could feel it. He could feel it, indeed. And it made him feel like not just a laird, but a king. "Aye," he said, reverently stroking her cheek with his thumb. "I do feel it. And it's good to feel it. Especially when others are trying to steal everything else that is mine away. Know that I protect what's mine, Heather."

He didn't often use her name, and she seemed to melt to hear it, so he said it again, hoping to make her understand. "Hear me, Heather. I protect what's mine. I pledge that I will do anything and everything to protect you. With everything I am and everything I have. With my last breath, if need be."

She sighed contentedly, with heartbreaking trust.

A trust he viewed akin to sacrament.

She was a woman who trusted in him completely, which made him a man who must live up to that trust. He might not survive this siege; he might have to surrender his head to the enemy outside the castle walls who were clamoring for it. But before he did, he would make sure to secure the safety of everyone and everything that belonged to him.

Especially her.

The carca.s.s lay broken and b.l.o.o.d.y in the snow. T'was a sheep, best as the laird could tell. Or at least what remained of one after having been launched over the castle wall.

"Cover it up!" the laird barked to his men, his voice puffing steam into the cold winter day. "Don't let anyone touch it." It was a diseased animal, for certain but the enemy hoped that his people would be hungry enough to eat it.

Fortunately, Clan Macrae wasn't that desperate. Not yet. The laird had carefully stockpiled supplies enough to feed his warriors for a year. Unfortunately, the castle now housed more than just warriors. The villagers in the countryside had fled to him, and he took them in because he couldn't bear to leave them to the mercy of the enemy. He could last longer if he put them out of the castle and let them be terrorized, but what would the point of having a castle if it wasn't to protect people?

In any event, it meant every morsel of food needed to be carefully rationed; a thing the enemy knew as well. And they flung this diseased animal into his curtain wall to taunt him. Well, the laird could play that game too. "Rodric, mount it up to fling back at them."

Rodric nodded. The laird didn't need to say why it was Rodric who would be doing this work, for the hapless young guardsman had fallen asleep at his post not two nights before, and was late to sound an alarm at the approach of boats near the sea gate. It was justice and it was fairness to make Rodric risk touching the diseased animal now.

It was a decision that no one would question.

The laird's next decision, however, was sure to raise protests. "Oh, but first, fetch a nicely cured pork shoulder from the larder and launch that back at them too."

The men stared at him.

It was his kinsman, Ian Macrae, who was the first to speak. "Our rations are more vital now than ever and you want to throw a ham at the enemy?"

The laird knew it would be Ian who would question his authority; it was always Ian. They'd been playmates growing up. Closer than brothers. But when it became clear that John would be his father's only heir-some in the clan preferred that the leadership pa.s.s to Ian.

They'd been rivals ever since.

Ian had pledged his fealty and John had accepted it, but the laird was quite certain that at a time like this Ian was sure he'd do better in command. And that frustration was building up in his kinsman now-enough for Ian to question his chief in front of the others. "T'is b.l.o.o.d.y hubris is what it is, laird."

"Aye," John admitted. His men were used to open warfare. Sword against sword. Strength against strength. Ian was a good warrior too and had taken many wounds on behalf of the clan. But what the laird knew was that the siege of a castle wasn't a test of muscle, blood and sinew.

It was a matter of mental fort.i.tude.

It was a game won only by outwitting and outlasting the enemy.

And morale was everything.

If the people in the castle believed they could afford to toss a ham, then they would stay calm and sure of purpose. "Let the ham be an answer to them. They think we're so hungry that we'll dine upon diseased meat? We'll let them know we're well stocked to wait them out; we can afford to lose a ham."

It was the fiery-haired and freckled Davy who picked up on the laird's train of thought, and laughed a bit at the notion. "A tasty gift for the enemy. They're camped out there in the snow, freezing off fingers and toes while we're warm and toasty inside the castle. We can afford to be generous...and it ought to scare the p.i.s.s out of them."

Ian scowled and crossed his arms, but said no more against the plan. Meanwhile, the laird pulled his fur cloak round his shoulders and motioned to Davy to follow him inside, out of the light snow that began to fall. "I want you to give Malcolm command of guarding the larder," John said. "Not a thing to come in or out without his say so."

Davy grinned but scratched at the back of his head. "Malcolm makes a surlier watch-dog than I do, but we must suspect there's a traitor inside the walls. If not, the enemy would never have dared a winter a.s.sault. The Donalds and MacDonalds must be waiting for the right time to strike at our food supply. Poison, or spoil, or steal it."

"And you suspect Malcolm?" The laird narrowed his eyes in surprise, disbelieving. The dark, scarred, unsmiling Malcolm was his best swordsman and loyal as a hound. And if Malcolm ever was to turn against his oath to the laird, he'd come at him with a blade, not poison.

"Och, no I don't suspect him," Davy said, eyes wide as if mortally offended by the suggestion. "Malcolm's loyal as a hound. A mean, surly, hound. He's not the sort for tricks, and that's why I make a better warden for the larder, because he's not the kind to suspect tricks either."

"But you are," the laird said, remembering that as a boy, Davy had once talked himself out of losing a hand for thieving. Davy was as slippery and clever a warrior as the laird had under his command. Which is why he needed him for something else. "Malcolm will have to keep the larder stocked and well-guarded down to the last onion skin, because I've a different mission for you..."

When the laird had finished explaining himself, Davy broke into a sunny grin. "The situation must be desperate, I see. Otherwise, you'd never give me such blanket permission to get up to mischief."

"Aye, it is," the laird admitted. On account of Davy's strange capacity to laugh in the midst of a sword-fight, he was often dismissed by others, but the laird saw in him a great potential, and now was his time to prove it. "Can you do it?"

Davy's eyes danced a bit in defiance of the danger the laird was setting him up for. "Well, it's foolhardy. Which is my speciality. I s'pose that if I can't do it, no one can and we'll all be dead men anyway."

The laird clapped him on the back, letting the gesture convey not only his grat.i.tude, but his pride. "Good man."

Davy slanted him a glance. "Of course, now is probably the time to ask a boon of you, isn't it?"

John stopped, let out a long breath, and eyed the red-haired warrior. What did he want? Land grants? Gold? "I s'pose it is."

"I want your permission to marry," the warrior said.

"The enemy is flinging dead animals over our walls and you're thinking of the la.s.ses!" The rage came upon the laird at once, but what a hypocrite he was. Still, he couldn't help but be shocked by the request. And coming from Davy, no less-a great wh.o.r.emonger who had never before shown the least desire to take a wife.

But Davy seemed unchastened by his laird's outburst. "Seems to me that a siege is exactly the time that a man can't help but think of the women that are important to him and the life he'd like to lead if he lives through it."

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, the laird thought. If that wasn't the truth of it. The war, the danger, it all made one long for the comforts of love and peace. No wonder he hadn't been able to keep Heather from his own mind. Perhaps he ought not be so hard on Davy. "Well, then, who is the la.s.s you want to take to wed?"

Davy squared his shoulders, and steeled himself, which gave the laird a peculiar sense that he wasn't going to like the answer. "Her name is Arabella; she's-"

"I know who she is," the laird groused, agitated. Arabella was Heather's little sister-a trouble-making, gossip-inspiring little coquette who liked to wear men's clothes and possibly dabbled in witchcraft. Arabella had worked his men into such a fever of desire for her, that the laird would have put her out of the castle entirely if he hadn't known it would break Heather's heart. Instead, he'd had to hide Arabella away by offering her work in the physicker's laboratory.

Clearly he hadn't hidden her well enough.

The laird cleared his throat. "You want to marry her? But she's a..."

The laird was going to say wh.o.r.e, but the look of warning in the russet-haired warrior's eyes spoke of trouble he didn't need. Besides, John didn't like to disparage the younger sister of the woman he adored. So he tried for a more diplomatic approach. "Davy, you must know that you won't be the first man to have Arabella."

Davy smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I took her maidenhead, my laird." Well. That changed everything, of course. Still, the laird fumbled, trying to decide if he should be angry or congratulatory about this revelation. Davy must have sensed his confusion, because he added, "She offered it, willingly, of course."

But that is no sort of woman to take to wed, John thought. Or at least that is what he'd always been taught. A wife guarded her virtue until a union was sanctioned. A wife was meant to bring a dowry and provide bairns for a man's hearth.

The laird scratched the back of his neck. "What can Arabella give you in marriage that you can't have from her already?"

"Love and commitment for all her days," Davy replied, then, perhaps sensing he sounded altogether too sentimental for a man at war, he added, "I'm not an ambitious man, laird. You must give thought to things like alliances and the like. You must worry for your wife's reputation, for her holdings, and so on. I realize that even as we speak, you may be thinking of taking a bride from a rival clan in order to negotiate your way out of this siege. But I'm not the clan chieftain. I can marry for love. It's the advantage of being one of the little people."

It was one of the advantages, and it irritated the laird as it had never irritated him before. "You can marry if and when I say you can marry, Davy of Clan Macrae."

Davy smiled wryly. "Which is why I'm asking."

There was a part of the laird that wondered why he was arguing. What was it to him if one of his warriors wed an unsuitable girl? But John felt as if a battle raged inside him that depended somehow upon his answer. "Davy, it will reflect poorly upon your honor if you marry her. Those who do not think young Arabella is a witch believe she's a harlot."

"She's neither," Davy insisted.

The laird believed otherwise and it gave him no joy to be the one to say so. "She was betrothed to another man a mere month ago. Since then, I heard from the squeaky little maid that she's been seen with her skirts up around her waist and a man swiving her in the hallway. She was seen being carried up the stairs by a lover for a tryst. And beyond these indiscretions, I'm told she's lain with Malcolm, too. Malcolm, your own bosom companion."

Davy's wry smile didn't leave his face, but a tightness at his eyes showed he was annoyed. Very annoyed. "And to think, laird, some people say you're a cold and unfeeling man! Little do they know how you take such an interest in the small lives of your people. Why, even though you've a whole castle to defend against a siege, you take the time to listen to the gossip of squeaky little maids so that you know exactly which of your men is dallying with which crofter's la.s.s!"

The laird felt these words like a cold bucket of water to the face.

Davy's words shamed him as a meddling fishwife, as they were meant to. And so John was forced to retreat behind reasons he could defend. "Marriage isn't a decision to be entered into lightly. Wed in haste, repent in leisure."

"Aye but a man likes to have something to fight for. And if the worse should happen, I would like to give the woman I love the protection of my name if nothing else."

G.o.ds blood. Something about those words crashed into the laird, conquering his will and demanding his surrender. "Fine, then. You have my permission," the laird began, but before Davy could grin, he added, "But the wedding itself won't happen until you've complete the task I've set for you. As you said, a man needs something to fight for, Davy of Clan Macrae."

"A hard bargain," Davy said, grudgingly. "But I s'pose I've never been one to have my affairs be too settled before I do something reckless. Still, if I don't succeed, laird..."

If he died in the attempt, he meant.

The laird promised, "If there's still breath in my body, I'll see to it that your Arabella is cared for. You have my word on that."

"Not good enough. For I need to know that she'll be cared for even if we're both dead."

The laird nodded, his mind already turning that way. "I'll do my best to think of a way."

Then the two men shook hands, then the laird stalked away, cursing himself all the while. Because he couldn't get Davy's words out of his head.

And if the worse should happen, I would like to give the woman I love the protection of my name if nothing else...

There was a potential for negotiating a truce with the enemy if the laird was willing to take a Donald or MacDonald bride. This was the way of the Highlands. Marriage alliances brought estates together. But even if he were to defy that great tradition in some grand gesture of devotion to the woman he loved-he still couldn't marry Heather because he'd flaunted her about the castle as a plaything. He'd even once stripped her down in front of his men.

He'd allowed his kinsman to witness the taking of her virginity.

No, his men would never respect such a marriage.

They'd have his head on a pike faster than the enemy.

So he could not marry Heather; he'd seen to that.

She'd be safer as a harlot in truth.

But he'd kept her to himself. She was his. His alone. His mistress. And that was the crime of it. If the worst should come to pa.s.s, the enemy would treat all harlots the same. But a mistress? They would feel free to take out their vengeance upon a the laird's woman. Knowing they had a woman who belonged to him-and only him-the moment he was dead, they would do unspeakable things to her.

How had it come to this? Heather had promised to be his in exchange for her father's life. She promised to give herself over to him for his use, until he was sated of her. And the laird accepted her offer both because he was fascinated by the temptation-and more importantly, because it allowed him to show mercy to one of his crofters. For reasons that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time...he decided he would punish the man by ruining his daughter. He'd been relieved. He wouldn't have to hang a man and he wouldn't actually touch the girl, he had promised himself.

Just ruin her reputation.

Instead, he'd ruined himself. Not simply because it was monstrous of him to let a la.s.s take on such shame for the deeds of her father. Nor even because he had-in spite of his promises to himself-touched the girl. But also because he shouldn't have shown mercy to her father in the first place.

Men who would steal from their laird were as like to turn traitor as not. Given that the laird was constable of a castle now under siege, with men bleeding in the infirmary below, he saw where softness and mercy had gotten him. His moments of softness and weakness had endangered his clan.

Worse, they endangered the woman he loved.

He couldn't afford to be soft or weak. Not even with himself.

Chapter Four.