Seducing a Scottish Bride (25 page)

“And a wee dog fox,” another guardsman put in. “Strange creature, that. Creeping through a thick patch o’ bracken, he was.
Then, soon as he saw us, he hopped up onto an old holly stump and raised a paw as we rode past, almost as if he were saluting
our progress.”

“Weird eyes, he had,” another added, edging his horse near. “Deep orange, and . . . knowing.”

Sorley snorted. “ Shrewd-eyed foxes!” he scoffed. “I saw no such a creature or a bull!”

“The fox
was
a weird one,” a third voice chimed, “though I missed the bull for sure.”

Gelis eyed the men with interest, her cloak clutched tight against her breasts.

Ronan dismissed the comments with a deft flick of his hand.

“Good men of Dare, hear me.” He glanced round, his deep voice strong, lifting. “It scarce matters whether you spied a strange-eyed
fox or the bull. Only that we quit this place anon and see my lady wife safely returned to the keep.”

If any present felt a need to lift a brow upon hearing him refer to Gelis as his
lady wife
, they were too well-trained to show it.

Only the lady herself dared a reaction, her eyes flying wide.

But she caught herself as quickly, her glance turning artful.

“Might I hope that you intend to make me thus?” She leaned close, her voice pitched for his ears alone. “Could that be the
reason you desire such haste?”

“I desire haste because I would know you away from this place,” Ronan flashed back at her, his voice equally low.

“We shall see.” Her lips curved in a smile that was pure female triumph.

Off to the side, several guardsmen coughed.

One cleared his throat.

Ronan frowned.

Like it or nae, the temptation of her words was sliding through him. Warm and honey-sweet, they slipped ever lower to curl
around his vitals, squeezing and rousing.

A tight, pulling hunger, hot and urgent, that only served to blacken his scowl.

And, saints preserve him, made him consider doing just what she suggested!

Feeling like a great gowk, for he was sure the notion stood emblazoned on his forehead, he allowed himself a hearty bit of
his own coughing and throat clearing.

Let his men crane their necks and gawp at him. Doing so would serve them naught.

Making sure of it, he put back his shoulders and stood tall.

“You, Tam,” he called, pointing at the youngest guardsman, “ride hot-foot back to Dare and see that Hugh MacHugh sends a hot
bath to my chamber — and readies another in the kitchens for Buckie!”

The young man jerked a nod, then yanked his mount around and was gone, cantering away across the heather.

Satisfied, Ronan turned to the next-youngest guardsmen, a pox-marked valiant whose spotted face would not have been so notable
if he wasn’t cursed to have a missing front tooth as well.

His visage, quite passing until he smiled, didn’t at all match his by-name, Dragon.

But he was proud — and particularly good with animals.

“You, lad!” Ronan couldn’t bring himself to call out the ludicrous name. “Take yon onion creel and fasten it to my saddle’s
cantle, then heft Buckie into the thing and stand watch o’er him until I am ready to ride.”

Dragon bobbed his head. “As you will,” he acquiesced, already dismounting and hastening toward Buckie’s empty carrier basket.

“The rest of you” — he ignored the attar of roses wafting past his nose and made a great sweeping gesture, taking in the lot
of the remaining guardsmen — “gather up Lady Gelis’s
shelter
with all speed. As soon as you have, we ride.”

“And yon toppled feasting goods?” Sorley dismounted, his gaze snapping to the tipped-over trestle table.

The fine viands scattered across the grass — up to and including the spit-roasted side of beef, the aroma of which had so
tempted Ronan but a short while before.

It, too, lay ruined.

The perfectly done beef knocked clean off its spit and trampled into the ground.

Ronan eyed the chaos, his mind already elsewhere.

“Leave the food.” He spoke the order crisply and reached to swing Gelis into her saddle. “If yon bull returns, he’s welcome
to it all. Perhaps with a full belly, he’ll be less inclined to sink his horns where they don’t belong!”

Not that he believed it.

What he suspected was that he could search the width and breadth of the land and would ne’er see the benighted creature again.

Praise all the saints.

About the same time, but back at Dare Castle, a tall, cloaked figure hovered outside the gatehouse. He clutched his robes
tighter against the biting wind, resentful that Maldred the Dire’s ancient warding spells still held such power. The strength
of it pulsed and vibrated everywhere. Like bile, it rose all around him, poisoning the air and even rippling beneath his feet,
creeping up from the ground to seep through the soles of his boots.

The figure’s brows drew together in a frown.

As a Holder — and one vested with more skill than most of his kind — he should stand above his foe’s craft.

Yet the foulness of the place was nigh suffocating him.

Indeed, it was all he could do to keep his back erect and his shoulders straight. The sooner he put distance between himself
and the stronghold’s proud, spell-soaked walls, the better.

But he’d be damned — again — if he’d lower himself by hastening away.

Not after such a splendid victory.

So he remained where he was, a few painful paces outside the worst of Maldred’s influence, and watched the castle guards close
the massive double gates.

They, too, had been so easily fooled.

The figure’s lips twitched and he had to struggle against the urge to rub his hands together in satisfaction.

It wouldn’t do if such a gesture was seen.

But he’d never dreamed it would be so easy.

Best of all, the old chieftain had proved to be an even greater buffoon than his witless garrison. They’d at least challenged
him upon his arrival. Valdar, however, had welcomed him to his table, gustily offering meat and libations, the warmth of his
fire. Not once doubting the tale his visitor spun so cleverly.

Never guessing that he was seeing what he
expected
to see and not a carefully spun guise.

The figure relaxed his grip on his cloak, pride warming him more.

Then, at last, the gatehouse’s heavy portcullis creaked downward, clanking loudly into place.

The figure released a relieved breath and turned away.

Gaining strength with each step that carried him farther from those dreaded, hated walls, he shoved back his hood. Now, finally,
he could revel in the chill wind tugging at his robes and whipping his long white hair and beard against his ancient face.

Now, the cold no longer touched him.

Not as it would have many lifetimes ago.

Better yet, the darkness of the wood was just ahead. Wispy fingers of mist swirled there, almost luminous in the fast descent
of the gloaming. A few more steps and the shadows would engulf him, erasing his presence until he chose to show himself again.

Much as the purpose of that next meeting galled him.

Not that it mattered.

He had no choice, after all.

And whether the Raven acted on his warning or nae, the outcome would remain the same.

Entirely in his favor.

Pleased — if such a one as he could ever truly be so — the figure stepped into the trees.

And as soon as he did, night began to fall on Dare.

R
onan held back a curse as his little cavalcade jingled through the scudding mist. He stared into the gloom, his jaw locked
and his entire body wound tight as a bowstring. He shifted in his saddle, so stiff he might have been hewn of graven stone.

Had he truly praised the saints not so long ago?

Well earned as such paeans might have been, he was now of an entirely different mind.

Several hours and many cold and drizzly miles after the bull attack, he felt more like challenging than praising long-dead
holy men. Truth be told, at the moment, he was more than capable of calling out anyone.

Friend, foe, and, aye, even those of otherworldly nature.

A black wind was whistling past his ears, each icy, indrawn breath burned his lungs, and his fingers felt frozen on the reins.
Squaring his shoulders, he sat up straighter, refusing to grimace.

That small victory he would claim, difficult as it was.

Every inch of him flamed with pain, especially his ribs, though the day’s bitter chill had taken care of his throbbing toes.

Blessedly, he could no longer feel them.

Would that the rest of him wasn’t proving so susceptible to every jarring, jolting bit of the long journey home.

Even his head throbbed, the annoying pounding in odd rhythm with his garron’s endless, clip-clopping hoofbeats.

As for his ribs, he’d known they were cracked not long after leaving Creag na Gaoith, when he’d halted to shrug off his travel
cloak, twist around, and sling the mantle’s voluminous warmth over Buckie’s onion creel.

The
twisting round
left no doubt, that one simple movement sending a white-hot fire-vise to clamp around his chest. Fierce and scalding, the
pain stabbed him, stopping his heart and cutting off his breath.

Only his pride — and his lady riding beside him — kept him from crying out.

Just as pride and her presence wouldn’t let him show his disappointment now on noting how dismal Dare looked silhouetted against
the bleakness of what promised to be a particularly black wet night.

Thick, billowy mist poured down the braes, and the deep green tops of the pines near the curtain walls were already sinking
from view. High above, an early moon broke through the clouds, silvering the rolling spread of the moors and the long slopes
of rock and heather.

But then the moon vanished, slipping from sight and leaving Dare’s gatehouse to loom before them.

Night-darkened and formidable, the machicolated walls stood out against the blackness of the trees, the double towers’ gloomy
face making the brief autumn sun of Creag na Gaoith seem a distant memory.

A muscle began to twitch in his jaw.

This was Dare at its worst.

But the gates creaked open at their approach, dutiful as always. And the heavy iron-tipped portcullis rattled noisily upward
as the little party cantered near.

Ready as ever to greet any guests, Dare beckoned with bright lanterns and torches lighting the way through the long, tunnel-like
entrance. Still more brands smoked and sputtered in niches set into the bailey’s walling. But rather than seeming welcoming,
the hissing flames only threw eerie orange haloes into the darkening twilight.

Wild flickering circles of mist-hazed light that looked too much like staring, piercing eyes of red.

Ronan shuddered and then ducked as one of the flaring pitch-pine torches popped as he rode past, the wretched thing sending
a spray of sparks and ash right at him.

He bit back a curse.

Then he allowed himself the scowl he’d been trying so hard to squelch.

A frown he surely deserved, for his head pounded and his patience had long since flown. Even more vexing, despite his ills,
he couldn’t banish the image of Gelis’s fingers sliding up and down the sheath of her thigh-dagger.

Or the sweet triangle of lush red-gold curls he’d glimpsed so briefly when she’d whipped up her skirts to show him the
sgian dubh.

He slid a glance at her, not at all surprised to see that the day’s turn in weather scarce affected her.

She sat her steed as if she’d been born on the beast’s own back. A true daughter of a thousand chieftains, she held herself
erect and kept her shoulders straight, her chin proudly lifted. Indeed, she rode along as easily as if the summer sun shone
bright above them and the blue roll of the hills weren’t blurred by mist and the fast-encroaching darkness.

Even so, the day’s cold and wind had touched her. Her cloak and skirts were damp, the woolen folds clinging to every lush
curve and swell of her voluptuous body. Even more telling of her nature, Ronan was sure, her braid had come undone, again.
Wholly loosened, her flame-bright hair tumbled in a welter of riotous curls over her shoulders to her hips.

Eyeing those curls now, he swallowed, certain he’d ne’er seen a more fetching sight.

Every line and curve of her stirred him, her very dishevelment taking his breath, and in ways that pained him far worse than
any cracked rib or crushed toes.

But now wasn’t the time to heed such an ache.

Already they were riding into Dare’s thronged bailey and mist swirled everywhere. Snaking tendrils curled rapidly over the
damp, wet-gleaming cobbles, and great, billowing sheets of it blew across the open spaces.

The tower stood dark and silent, its narrow slit-windows and arrow loops showing scant light while its massive bulk proved
nearly obscured beneath the fuzzy-white drifts rolling in off the moors.

A quick glance showed that Maldred’s hoary crest glared down on the bailey from its place of honor above the keep’s oaken,
iron-studded door. But, surprisingly, the ancient stone looked more like an ordinary clump of hill-granite than Ronan had
ever seen it.