Highland Fire (Guardians of the Stone) (20 page)

Lìli laughed, horrified, for she had never once in her entire life been naked under the sun—and never in the presence of so much nudity. All shapes and sizes, these women were completely devoid of modesty, it seemed.

Aveline looked at her aghast, stepping back from the edge of the pool as though she feared they might drag her in the crystal clear waters. The look on her face made Lìli giggle all the more. “I will if you will,” she challenged Aveline.

Poor Aveline shook her head vehemently, and Lìli could hardly believe she had suggested it anyway. She waffled, suddenly self-conscious about her pale complexion, for these women all had sun-kissed skin. These people clearly enjoyed their lives and did not worry overmuch about keeping their skin unstained by the sun.

From the pool, Glenna shouted up at them. “Ach! Ye havena a thing we all dinna have, ladies! Come and get yourselves clean!”

“Aidan will thank ye later!” someone shouted and laughed, the sound bawdy.

The women giggled, and Cailin splashed water at the bank toward Lìli.

“What if someone should come?” Aveline fretted.

The womenfolk squealed with laughter, frolicking in the water. Lìli peered up along the rise of the hill to see if any of the men were watching, but they were alone here by the pool. What could it hurt? In truth, they had all the same parts, and why should she be so modest when they were not? She removed her shoes and tentatively set them aside.

Aveline, who must have sensed her thoughts, appeared horrified. “God will abandon you!” she warned. “The devil will find you!”

“Ach, ’tis but water,” Lìli argued, still not quite convinced she wanted to go in. But everyone was having so much fun. In all her life, she had never been in the vicinity of so much laughter, and she envied these people their ease with one another.

“Come in!” Sorcha demanded.

Lìli found herself grinning, though she still couldn’t move her feet. She laughed, shaking her head, nibbling her lip, terribly tempted, but years of modesty kept her toes rooted in the grass. The cool damp blades felt sinfully good beneath her feet.

Mindless of the wee chill in the air, Glenna and another woman Lìli knew as Birgit both came flying naked out of the pool, their nipples puckered and their lady hairs dripping wet. They began to undress her, giving her no choice in the matter, lest she pitch a fit and refuse.

“Oh, my!” Aveline exclaimed, and her hand flew to her mouth.

Lìli shivered.

“’Tis far warmer in the water,” Sorcha promised.

In less than two minutes, Lìli was bare as the day she was begot, standing under the bright afternoon sun. She had a sudden attack of conscience, but to her dismay, her clothes went back into the loch with Glenna and Birgit, and unless she wished to don her wedding gown, or someone else’s clothing, there was no way to avoid this.

Giggling nervously, she took a running leap toward the pool and plunged within, flopping on her belly, and shrieking over the skin-numbing cold. The entire entourage laughed aloud, and so did Lìli as she came back up, spitting icy water from her lips. At once, she sank to her neck, and peered up at Aveline, who sat shivering alone upon the bank.

The raucous sound of laughter floated up over the hillside.

Aidan knew instinctively that the women were up to mischief. The rest of the men knew it as well and they immediately abandoned the cabers in the grass and started down toward the loch.

“Nay!” Aidan threw up a hand, halting them at once. He had no bloody clue why he should give a damn, but he did. Wearing a scowl the size of the ben itself, he barred their paths and waved them all back to the cabers. “Ye’ll no’ be hounding the lasses—no’ today!” he apprised them one and all. The thought of even a one of them seeing his bride unclothed left his belly sour—never mind that many of their own wives were down there as well. Aidan would have none of it, tempers be damned. If they thought they would set eyes upon his woman even before he had a chance to do so himself they were sorely mistaken.

“Awww, Aidan!” whined Keane.

Aidan pierced his brother with a warning glare.

“’Tis certain Meara is with them as well!” his brother complained.

Auld Fergus came forward and smacked Keane in the back of the head with the butt of his palm. “Ye ha'e no idea what to do with my daughter anyhoo, whelp! ’Tis nay your laird tells ye and nay it is!”

Aidan was grateful for the old warrior’s backing, for he knew good and well that he could give no plausible reason that would suit the lot of them, for his reaction was simply not rational. They were not a modest folk, and on a sunny, warm day they might all be bathing together in the loch, men and women and children alike. There was no cause for him to be up in arms. “Go on back to the cabers,” he commanded them.

With gloomy expressions—all of them—his men all returned to their games, casting Aidan disgruntled glances all the while the women’s laughter continued to taunt them from a distance.

For his part, Aidan could not shut out the sound. It beckoned to his curiosity and tempted him beyond reason. It surprised him that his bride seemed to have infiltrated his clan so thoroughly in such a short time. It either boded very well, or not at all.

Throughout the day, he kept an eye on their Scots
guests
. At the moment, they were huddled together, watching the competition with bored expressions. So he used that as his excuse for not allowing the men to celebrate with the womenfolk, ordering them to keep an eye to their backs.

Lachlann was with Duncan now. Thank God Turi and the rest were still in their positions up on the hillside. Until he sent new guards to replace them, he could rest assured that they, at least, would not lose their wits for wont of
uisge
or women.

But Aidan was distracted enough that he did not see Keane slip away. Nor did he notice the Scots’ numbers were reduced by one.

A
fter the brisk swim, Lìli felt refreshed by the waters of the loch, her dark hair clean, wavy and free. In so many ways, the day’s festivities reminded her of a Beltane celebration, for the womenfolk blessed her as they dressed her, singing in the old tongue:

Bless thee true and bountiful,

Thee, thy spouse and bairns.

Bless all those within thy keeping:

All that was missing was a maypole, although Lìli might as well be one herself, for she was surrounded by flailing arms, hands and song:

Satisfy thy soul and shield thy loved ones,

Protect thee in truth and honor,

Bless thy land and all the vale for thy people.

They sang with abandon, while their daughters hung bits of ribbons on the hem of Lìli’s gown. For the space of the day, she could almost forget how she had come to be with these folk, for it seemed as though they had forgotten as well.

“’Tis lovely ye are,” Glenna offered.

Lìli recognized the sincerity in her tone, softened tenfold since the moment of their meeting. It gave her a pang of regret for what was yet to come.

Her dress, far less lavish than the purple velvet gown David had gifted her with, was soft and worn with age. According to Cailin, the robin’s egg-blue dress had been worn by the brides of seven chieftains, and then each time put away to be worn by the next lady of Dubhtolargg. That they had allowed Lìli to wear it, made her throat thick with emotion. Not even her own mother had shown such joy for her first wedding to Stuart, and in fact, her parents had very nearly ushered her out the door. With a sack for her dowry, they’d bid her good riddance. Unlike her father, her mother had not been unkind, but she had never dared gainsay her father, and Padruig Caimbeul had blamed Lìli for the demise of his good fortune from the instant he’d heard about the curse from a wandering minstrel. As far as Lìli was concerned, the simple fact that her father believed it had created a self-fulfilling prophecy, for though she had made it her life’s mission to study the old ways, she had found no proof that curses existed. From her studies she had gleaned merely a knowledge of herbs, and by it she had become a skilled healer. Although, admittedly, she did every so oft include some earthy ritual, just in case. What could it possibly hurt? Some things could not quite be explained away. Like the feeling she’d had upon riding into this glen. Or the way she now felt after having bathed in the loch—in a sense reborn. Or even the connection she felt to things unseen whenever she allowed faith into her healing. Or for that matter even the intense
knowing
she felt when she peered into the veil that fell over the eyes of the ill—aye, for she often knew when they were destined to pass from this world to the next. But these were all things she kept to herself. Nay, she was not a witch, but neither did she deny the possibility that magic existed, for what else was faith but a form of magic? And yet to accept that fact, also filled her with a sense of gloom, for how could one accept the possibility of magic, and not accept the fact that she might, in truth, be cursed? It
could
be true that Stuart had died because of her... and it
might
also be true that Aidan would die as well. If so, it would make her task here go all the simpler, but she hoped it wasn’t so. And yet… that made no sense at all, for one way or another, she would be responsible for Aidan’s death. But somehow, it seemed far worse to consider that her betrayal would come only after he gave her his love.

Dinna worry about that,
she reassured herself. Aidan dún Scoti would never give her his heart. She was simply a pawn in a game of politics, no more—a way to control her father and David, though the jest was on Aidan dún Scoti, for no one valued her, and in truth, they had already guaranteed her death should Aidan discover her ruse—that, or her son’s should she fail.

But she would not fail.

Up on the hill, they could hear the men playing at their games, though surprisingly, not a one showed their faces by the loch... save for young Keane, who spied on them now from some place up high on the bluff.

Glenna’s cousin Meara had spied him first—mayhap because she had been searching for him—and the two were making sheep’s eyes across the way. So long as it was just him, the women did not seem to mind and simply ignored the lad, continuing to prepare Lìli for the ceremony. Each of them pinned ribbons to her dress, a symbolic gesture to show they embraced her as the chieftain’s bride. But with every ribbon, her sense of guilt increased tenfold. And whenever she considered taking joy in their traditions, the sight of Aveline, with her pinched face, only served to remind her that none of this was real.

Aveline’s brows were set in thin lines of disapproval while she watched Meara preen naked in the pool. “Do ye not worry they will be tempted?” she ventured to ask.

Meara was the last to leave the water, while practically everyone else was already dressed. Aveline, on the other hand, was the only one who had refused to bathe, and her greasy hair lay heavily around her face, defying even the gentle breeze.

“Ach, but nay!” Glenna said. “Where there is a will there is a way for young folk. Worrying over it never made a wee bit o’ difference. Anyhoo, ’tis Meara’s right to choose. If Keane gets a babe of the lass, he will do what is right.”

“Those two have been flirting since the day they were born,” Cailin added, and rolled her eyes.

“But he is just a child himself,” Aveline argued. “’Tis not meet to allow the young to do as they please.”

“Keane?” Glenna shook her head. “Ach, nay. Keane is no’ so much a boy,” she disagreed. “Aidan himself led this clan when he was but a year younger than he.”

Lìli considered that. So Aidan must have been Sorcha’s age when his father died, which meant that he could be no more than six and twenty now, for Lìli had been nine when Padruig took his campaign into the Highlands, and then eleven when she’d learned about her curse. At the age of twenty-two, she felt as though she’d lived two lifetimes already.

Her gaze sought Sorcha. The girl was three and ten, she believed, so her father was dead the year before her birth... was she conceived before his death? Or was she another man's babe? The girl looked very little like her siblings.