Bride of the Beast (28 page)

“in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," Sir Marmaduke said, slipping his signet ring successively onto the thumb, fore, and middle finger of his bride's left hand.

Awed by the raw emotion surging through him, he drew a ragged breath, holding it for the sheerest moment—an eternity to let his demons rage and howl—but not a one of them raised their ugly heads. Nothing stirred inside him save the fierce pounding of his heart.

For once, his devils showed mercy and gave him peace.

Then, on the cold and windy porch of the little stone church and before they could change their minds, he released his relief on the breath he'd been holding and uttered the words that made Caterine Keith his wife.

"With this ring I thee wed," he said, and eased the ruby heirloom onto her finger.

Surprised at the thickness in her new husband's voice, Caterine held the too-large ring in place with her thumb, and wondered at the unexpected rush of emotion closing her own throat.

Something fine and sweet burst to splendid flowering deep inside her, and she stood perfectly still, savoring it, as he reached for her head veil. The look on his face as he did
so,
his smoldering intensity, filled her with unexpected contentment ... and routed all other concerns.

Silenced the raucous cheering behind them.

The wet, sniffing noises so close they could only come from Rhona, and even the droning voice of Father Tomas speaking the homily she'd heard so many times before.

Everything faded save the tenderness and pride on her champion's face ... and the exhilarating knowledge that he was about to kiss her.

Now, while James yet recited all she brought to the union as her dowry.

Her heart thundering, she raised her chin as he smoothed back the shimmering silk of her borrowed veil, freely offering her lips in a gesture meant to publicly honor his gallantry.

And to speed the kiss she burned to receive.

A kiss the onlookers apparently wanted, too, for the din in the churchyard rose to a fevered pitch. Caterine blinked, fierce yearning scorching a path of twisting, breathless anticipation clear to her toes.

"I am going to kiss you," he said, beguiling her with six simple words.

And once I have, I shall never let you go.

Those words hovered between them, alive and pulsing, elusive as the frosty puffs of their breath. Truly spoken or heard with her heart, she'd never know because they'd no sooner touched her ear before he lifted his hand to her face.

Claimed her with one touch.

"My wife," he said, the depth of emotion in the two huskily spoken words pricking the back of her eyes. "May God have mercy on any who try to take you from me."

He wrapped his arms around her in a crushing embrace. A claiming so possessive, so demanding, the steel links of "^ hauberk pressed into her, branding her.

Never let you go.
The words came again, lighter than a sigh this time, sweeter than a caress, and pouring a floodtide of light and warmth into her heart.

For one interminably long moment, he looked deep into her eyes, that compelling intensity of his saying more than any ethereal words she may or may not have heard.

Cradling the back of her head with one firm hand, he splayed the other around her hip, urging her closer still, molding her to his strength.

She leaned into him, sliding her hands along the broad reach of his shoulders, staunchly ignoring the niggling whispers of doubt warning that with the giving of her kiss, she'd also lose her heart.

That danger paling beside the headiness of his embrace, she looped her arms around his neck and met his descending lips halfway, her boldness amply rewarded by the mastery of his kiss.

The seizing not just of her lips, but of her very essence. Wholly inappropriate for their sanctified surroundings, but so bone-meltingly right, its sheer glory stole her breath.

She swayed a bit and his arms tightened around her, drawing her higher, more
intimately,
against him. "You are mine," he affirmed, pulling back just enough to sear the claim against the satiny warmth of her lips.

"Now and henceforth," he breathed, slanting his mouth over hers for one last taking of her sweetness.

A gift she gave freely, parting her lips beneath his, boldly inviting the full sweep of his tongue and matching it with the heated glide of her own.

A sensual frenzy, a lascivious tangling far too rousing to indulge in on the church steps, before the final blessing, and in full view of all who'd braved the day's bluster to see them wed.

At last he tore his mouth from hers, but didn't ease completely away until he'd sealed their vows with a softer, gentler kiss.

The merest hush of his lips over hers, the slightest parting touch of his tongue to the very tip of hers. Whispersweet, but powerful enough to wrest a groan from the very bottom of his soul when he finally set her from him,

A groan so glaringly loud in the utter silence surrounding them, he couldn't even muster his field-of-battle stone-face. Not even the muted thunder of de la Hogue's furious departure from the distant hillock helped abscure his wits.

His heart thumping, he shoved a hand through his hair, the crushing quiet whirling around him, drawing all focus on his passion, his total loss of control.

Even the wind seemed to have held its howling breath to spy on his lusting.

The unaccustomed heat of a full-blown blush crept up his neck and he turned his back on the gaping throng, more shaken than he cared to admit. Braving the wide-eyed shock of the priest, he grabbed his wife's hand and pulled her inside the church for the nuptial mass before the crowd's jaunting could begin anew.

His men weren't so easily thwarted. "Lord God, did you ever see the like?" Sir Gowan roared, his deep voice cutting the stillness. "Would that Duncan were here to witness the Sassunach's capitulation to a kiss!" The Highlander's mirth unleashed a clamor of such unbridled jubilation, even the hushed solemnity of the fusty-aired nave couldn't hinder its intrusion.

Blessedly, his men held their tongues once inside the holy place, their knavery contained to impatient shuffling, a few elbow jabs, and a smattering of over-exaggerated eye rolls.

Determined to ignore them, Marmaduke held fast to Caterine's hand as they knelt for Father Tomas's final blessing.
 
And if it came with more of a quaver than there would have been had he not just helped himself to a wild-slaking
kiss
from his bride's tempting lips, he pretended not to notice.

If a worse fate than suffering his men's antics and testing Father Tomas's sensibilities did not befall him before the dawn, he would deem himself a well-blessed man.

His head still bowed, he slid a glance at his new wife. Thick-fringed lashes, surprisingly black for one so fair, rested on her cheeks, and the golden coils of her braids gleamed in the candlelight.

Her lips moved in silent prayer... promptly recalling the sharp visceral thrill that had shot through him when they'd moved so sweetly beneath his in their first shared kiss.

The first of many, and all manner of them.

At the thought, elation swept through him.

A joy so tempestuous even his devils didn't dare question his right to revel in it.

Returning his gaze to the stone-flagged floor, he fought back a smile and finished the prayer.

He was indeed a well-blessed man.

**

Not long thereafter, in the hushed gloaming of a near-perfect day, the returning wedding party neared the rising bulk of Dunlaidir's gatehouse. Torches blazing just inside its tunnel-like entrance beckoned refuge, but the low-hanging clouds, the same pewter-gray as the sea, pleased Marmaduke more.

Their roiling masses almost touched the churning waters, blurring the horizon and blending with the fog to promise a fine, moonless night.

A blessing, if the small raiding party he would lead later that night wished to traverse the sleeping moorland, swiftly and unseen.

But the persistent throbbing in his temples had naught to do with blessings. His gaze trained ahead, he expelled a sigh of relief when the slow-moving column of revelers began passing beneath the raised portcullis.

He scanned the arched entrance for movement that s houldn't be there, but the sputtering torchlight revealed nothing more ominous than wildly dancing shadows. Naught gave cause for undue alarm save the sharp-edged uneasiness flitting around his every nerve ending like a swarm of whirling midges.

An odd prickling in his nape that kept his hand not far from his sword-hilt.

His gaze, alert and wary.

Sir Ross fell in beside him, edging his shaggy-felled garron closer to Marmaduke's larger steed. "I mislike this more than if a horde of screaming Infidels poured from yon gatehouse," he bit out. "At least then we'd ken where to aim our blows."

"Think you we cannot—" Marmaduke broke off at a sudden commotion in the scrubby trees to their right.

Kneeing his horse in front of his wife's, he whipped out his blade with an ear-piercing
zing
just as an arrow whistled past his shoulder, missing him by inches before it cracked into a nearby boulder.

"Christ's disciples!" he roared, reining round to scan the little copse of stunted ash and bramble.

Swords drawn, his men spurred forward to form a protective cordon around Caterine and Rhona, and the metallic scrape of countless other weapons being wrenched free filled the air as burghers all along the cliff road took up fighting stances, fully prepared to test their new arms on any and all comers.

But none came.

Nothing else marred the stillness save the frantic baying of dogs somewhere in the distance and the frenzied clashing of arms coming from the copse of trees.

Cold fury washing over him, Marmaduke threw a quick look at his lady. Assured of her safety, he kicked spurs into his horse's flanks and tore off toward the skirmish.

A second arrow sped past him as he neared the copse, this from a different direction. This arrow flew into the trees, a dull
thwack
and a sharply cut-off invective signalino it'd found a mark.

But only one ... for the thrashing and cursing continued.

Urging his mount to greater speed, he pulled up before the trees just as a wild-eyed, hard-panting, bear of a man crashed out of the underbrush, a reddened battle-ax in his hand, a dead man slung over his shoulder.

A dead man with an arrow shaft protruding from his back.

The giant carrying the body lumbered forward, swaying a bit under the dead man's weight. Marmaduke recognized him as Black Dugie, Dunlaidir's newly returned smith.

A man he'd deemed trustworthy... if a mite simple-witted.

Leaping down, Marmaduke closed the distance between them with long strides. "Patron saints! What devil's work goes on here?"

The blacksmith dropped the felled man onto the ground and... spat on him. "I spotted him creeping through the trees and followed him," Black Dugie panted, glaring at the corpse.

He nudged the quiver of arrows at the man's belt with a worn-toed boot. "When he drew an arrow, I hurried to stop him but..." He trailed off when James and Sir
John
thundered up, their faces as dark as the fast-descending night.

They reined in so violently, their steeds reared high, the beasts' powerful forelegs flailing in midair before pounding back to earth mere inches from the slain man's body.

His temper clearly strained, James stilled his mount with surprising mastery.
"But what?”
he prompted the long-errant smithy. He leaned forward to eye the big man with rampant mistrust.

Black Dugie thrust out his bearded jaw. "But I wasn't fast enough to get to the Sassunach bastard on time, is what."

Marmaduke grabbed the man's arm. "He was English?'

The smithy nodded. "I heard him speak. He cursed me to hell and back when I ruined his second shot. He was aiming for you again, or maybe Lady Caterine. I dunno, but I jumped hi—"

"How do we know you didn't loose the arrow that nearly struck Sir Marmaduke?" Sir
John
grated, suspicion blazing in his eyes.

Keeping his mount, he glanced from the body to the bloodied battle-ax still in Black Dugie's hand. "Mayhap you axed that poor soul so you could blame him for your own dark deed?"

Black Dugie flung down the ax and clenched meaty fists. "I'll own I hacked at him a few times but not so good as to kill him."

He turned to Marmaduke. "Word was not to kill anyone because you'd want to question any troublemakers," he said, somewhat calmer. "The second arrow did him in, not my ax."

"An arrow you could have shot." That from James. "Nay, he couldn't have," Marmaduke said, grimacing at the implication. "The arrow came from yon woods."

Pushing up in his stirrups, he pointed his sword at a wooded knoll some distance away. "It exited from there."