Highland Surrender (5 page)

Fiona lay motionless, stunned. Confused. Was that it? She felt suddenly bereft and uneasy, as if she’d been struggling to remember something that was very nearly there, but then dashed away again. Myles had set her body afloat, tingling in the most delectable manner. But then he’d speared her with his manhood, crushed her with his bulk, and shouted in her ear.

She couldn’t breathe. He was too heavy. The hair on his chest and legs, which only moments before had been so enticing, suddenly chafed against her skin. Their legs were tangled, his hands twisted in her hair, pulling even now.

But worse than that, he’d made her forget herself. He’d made her wanton. He’d made her a Campbell.

She shoved against him.

“Get off me,” she croaked, for want of air in her lungs.

He lifted his torso, grinning down at her like an idiot.

Dear Lord, they
had
married her to a simpleton. She filled her grateful lungs with air and then pushed at him again, kicking at the back of his legs with her feet. “Get off me, you hulking brute.”

His smile faded, and he let her extricate herself from the jumble of their bodies and the bedding. Once free, she scuttled to the farthest edge of the bed.

“Fiona? Did I hurt you?”

Tears popped from her eyes, and she swiped them away. “Of course you did. You are Cedric Campbell’s son. Your very existence hurts me. God, how I despise you.”

His expression traversed from confusion to anger, the angle of his jaw hardening, his eyes going black in the dim room.

“You have no right to be angry, woman. I took care with you. If you weren’t ready, you should not have spurred me on so.”

“Spurred you on?” she spat. “I did no such thing, you conceited boar. I just wanted it over with.” She pulled the covers around her. “Give me my shift. I can’t reach it.”

He glared at her for another moment, and she thought he might refuse. But at last, he reached down and plucked it from the floor, tossing it at her face.

“Women!” he said, and then flopped over on his other side, done with her.

Fiona stared at the thick muscles of his back and fought her tears. He hadn’t hurt her, in truth. It was her own traitorous nature that caused her pain. How could she have found delight in his kisses? What type of woman was she, to fall over on her back for the fiercest enemy she’d ever known? She could not betray her parents in such a way. It was one thing to submit to one’s husband, but quite another to relish his caress. Self-loathing overwhelmed her.

Myles’s breathing steadied. When it was rhythmic and deep, she gathered a blanket and went to make a bed down by the fire. She’d not rest next to him if she had an ounce of will to resist it. She laid her head upon the cold floor, certain sleep would never come.

But come it must have, for after a while, she felt herself being lifted up in strong arms and tucked into a soft, warm place. A gentle voice whispered in her ear, “Come sleep in the bed, you silly girl. You’re safe from me.”

“Fiona is none the wiser, and the better off for her ignorance, John,” Simon whispered as they sat in the hall, long after the last of the guests had fallen asleep. “She would betray us without even realizing.”

John rubbed a tiny scar along his jaw. “Do you think he’ll kill her when they learn what we’re about?”

Simon drained his goblet of wine. “Perhaps. But she’ll not last a fortnight if she doesn’t keep civil that tongue of hers. He may silence her for that alone.”

John’s brows pinched together. “How easily you jest about our sister’s destiny.”

Simon sighed with impatience. “Yes, I jest, John. Would you have me keen and wail like the women? We must behave as though we have accepted this. If the Campbells smell deceit, we are done for. We need time, and we need their trust.”

“Still, if Fiona knew her days with them were temporary, she could steel herself and not lose hope.”

Simon shook his head. “We cannot risk it. It will take months to band together the Highland chiefs and prepare for an assault. As distasteful as it is, it’s better for Fiona to believe we have given her over to them.” He took another draught of the wine, spilling some on his tunic in his haste. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth and handed the glass to John. “Drink, brother. Today we have cut in half the number of our enemies.”

John took the wine. “Until we double them again by attacking the king.”

CHAPTER 5

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Fiona rode away from the only home she’d ever known.

Her green cloak dulled the wind’s fierce bite, but did nothing to ease the cold piercing from the inside out, like icy waves breaking on the shores of Moray Firth. Her good-bye with Margaret had been cut brutally short by Cedric’s declaration that they must depart after the morning meal. But perhaps, after all, that was best. She sought to show only a brave face to her little sister, but the effort had drained Fiona like a bloodletting.

The brevity of her farewell to Simon and John troubled her less. Their inquisitive, falsely sympathetic gazes stirred no forgiveness within her, nor did it bring moisture to her eyes. She did not weep when her brothers and the Campbell chief examined the bedsheets, seeking evidence of her lost virginity. But now, outside the village walls, away from her people, she let the tears flow, hot and bitter, scalding away her Sinclair identity. She was a Campbell now, wedded and bedded, and all but banished from her homeland by her brothers’ shortsighted cowardice.

How long would this truce hold? A week? A month? A year, perhaps? Simon and John were gullible as sheep if they thought peace would spread as easily as her thighs. How long before
Cedric’s lust for twisting his blade into a Sinclair heart surfaced and the feuding erupted once more? In the end, she would have been sacrificed for nothing.

The wind spun again, sending up the musky scent of horses on the move. The steady clip-clop of their hooves mixed with the chatter of the traveling party. Both man and beast seemed glad to be heading homeward. Of course they were. They left satisfied, having obtained what they came for. She left as nothing more than spoils to the victor. The gray-speckled palfrey she rode upon held more worth than she in these men’s eyes.

She rubbed away those tears at last and stared ahead, for there was no looking back now. She was a fallen leaf, adrift upon a sea of Campbells. At the front of the procession, Myles and his father rode side by side, their equally broad shoulders swaying in unison with the tide of their men. When father turned to son, their profiles were so physically alike her gut gave a violent churn. That face—Cedric Campbell’s face, so much like her own husband’s—was the last vision her mother had ever beheld.

Yet last night, Fiona had lain beneath Myles, timid as a field mouse when she should have roared like a lion. The memory of her acquiescence—nay, her encouragement—scorched in the light of the day. A true warrior would’ve faced the morning with a bloodied lip and blackened eye, for if she’d fought as a Sinclair should, surely he would’ve struck her and she could parade her injuries, bold and proud, before her brothers. But she had not fought back.

No, far worse than that. She’d quivered and sighed like one of his paid whores, and today, shame burned her at its stake.

“I’ve little fondness for riding, miss. You tell that graceless brute to find me a cart.” Bess rode up beside her, on a nag so old and rheumy they nearly looked related, both swaybacked and toothy.

“You should not have pleaded so to come, Bess. You sacrifice too much. You were supposed to stay and care for Marg,” Fiona said to her old nurse. “And what good will come of it? You think you can protect me with those scrawny arms of yours?”

Bess held out one arm to examine it. “No, but I can bear witness to all I see. And they know that.” She nodded, triumphant at her faulty wisdom.

“You’ll see nothing but the inside of a pit if you cross them.”

The woman’s well-intentioned meddling had gone too far. This morning, the sweet, old ninny had knelt at the foot of the Campbell himself and asked if she might come along to see to her mistress. She’d nearly tripped him with her eagerness.

“Don’t be peevish, girl. ’Twas your welfare I was thinking of. Margaret will be fine. She’s stronger than you give her credit.”

“She’s a child.”

“But she’s not your child. You’ve coddled her too much since your mother died, and it’s no wonder. But soon you’ll have a babe of your own to care for, and you’ll realize Marg can fend for herself.”

A child of her own? Her senses reeled, nearly toppling her from the saddle, and for the second time in as many days, she fought to keep her breakfast. With a fist pressed hard against her belly, she sent up a silent prayer to the God who had forsaken her, begging for a barren womb.

A Campbell babe inside her? How could she not despise it? Just one more thing tying her to Myles. And to Cedric Campbell.

As the traveled distance grew, so burgeoned Fiona’s nauseating fear and the certainty that destiny was hers alone to shape. Like a tiny seed, an idea germinated. As the miles passed, she nurtured it, as she would never nurture any child of the Campbell bloodline. And as they stopped in a glen next to a stream to make camp for the night, Fiona knew what she must do.

Myles stretched his back and tried to rub the tension from his neck. ’Twas near dusk when his father reined in his own mount and instructed the men to make camp. With military precision, each Campbell dismounted and went to his duties, assembling a tent, building fires, or tending to the horses. They were a troop of twenty brawny lads, each hearty and hale. Men he’d taken into both battle and brothel. Men he trusted with his life. Someday he’d be their laird, and they would serve him well, as they had the earl. He swung a leg around and climbed down from his destrier, stiff but glad to be away from Sinclair holdings. A great, gaping yawn escaped as his feet landed on the soft forest floor. His uncle Tavish cuffed him on the shoulder and laughed, the sound muffled in the depths of a thick red beard. “Not much sleep last night, aye, lad? ’Tis one disadvantage of marriage. But there are advantages aplenty.”

Myles grimaced with the memory of Fiona’s bitterness. “Advantages or disadvantages, I’ve yet to see which carries greater weight.”

Tavish laughed again, scratching his head as he nodded in Fiona’s direction. She and her maid were still perched on their ponies, looking exhausted and bewildered. “Eh, don’t worry about that one. She’ll come around, once she sees we’re not the butchers she’s been led to believe.”

Myles tilted his head to crack his neck. “Any ally of King James is an enemy of hers. I am guilty simply by association. I fear there will be no swaying her.”

His uncle spit on the ground. “That’s women’s logic for you. I suppose if I fart, she’d blame you for the stink?”

Shallow laughter came from Myles. “’Tis apparent she blames me for a great many things I had no part in.”

Tavish leaned against a tree trunk, scratching his back against the bark like a playful bear. “Aye, this business about
her mother is an unholy mess. I’ll flay from beard to bollocks any cur who says your father had a hand in her death. I’d bet my eyesight the bastard who started that wicked lie just got put in the ground.”

“You mean Fiona’s father?” Myles cracked his neck in the other direction.

“Aye, Hugh Sinclair. Bad blood between the two of them ever since their days at court.”

Myles had heard those stories often enough. When James was but a boy, Scotland was ruled by a board of regents, with the queen’s husband, Archibald Douglas, at the helm. ’Twas a time when Hugh Sinclair and the earl had shared friendship and an equal measure of power. In a show of solidarity between their clans, Myles had even been betrothed to Fiona.

But as greed and politics are often wont to do, allies became foes. Sinclair sided with Douglas in holding the boy king captive, but the Campbells sought to free him, and succeeded.

“Sinclair chose the wrong side,” Tavish said. “If he’d joined your father in helping the young king escape to claim his throne, things would now be different.”

“Not so very different,” Myles said. “I’d still be married to Fiona.” It seemed fate had cast his lot, and the ploys of men swayed little. “And if Aislinn was still murdered, we might be in this spot once more.”

Tavish plucked at his ample waistband and pulled out a flagon of wine. He took a long draw from it and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Aislinn’s murder set much askew, but as sure as I’m standing here, it wasn’t a Campbell who struck the life from her. She was a lovely thing at court. I cannot fathom who might wish her harm.”

“Father never speaks of court. Or his thoughts on Aislinn’s death. What more do you know of it?”

Tavish looked to the ground, kicking at a thick, knobby root embedded in the ground. “If you’ve questions on it, ask the man himself.” He nodded over Myles’s shoulder.

Cedric approached, his gait stiff. The ride had been arduous enough for Myles, so surely his father’s bones must be set to rattling, though anyone saying so risked finding his blade to their throat.

“Father, are you well?”