The Maclean Groom (28 page)

Her stormy blue eyes snapping, she faced him squarely. “You and your brothers hunted down the wrong man, MacLean, and the Macdonalds are not likely to forget it.”

Exasperated at her stubbornness, Rory strode across the rug to stand before a tall window, bracing one hand on its heavy wooden shutter. Outdoors, a spring mist covered Archnacarry Glen, bringing its soft moisture to the white heather that bloomed on the hillsides.

He took a deep, calming breath, determined not to lose his temper and shout at his wee bonny wife. The memory of their passionate coupling had intruded on his thoughts all morning. He'd never spent more than a moment or two thinking about a night's dalliance with a woman before. To
be so enraptured by Joanna's naïve yet eager manner in bed was a new experience—one he thoroughly enjoyed. He was looking forward to this evening, when they'd be alone in the privacy of the bedchamber and ensconced in their warm, soft bed.

“The feuding between the clans must stop,” he said in an even tone, “or it will destroy Scotland as a nation. With our marriage, lass, we have a chance to end the bitter fighting that has been tearing the Highlands apart.”

“Don't place all the blame on the Macdonalds,” she retorted. “There was no rebellion until James Stewart's father decided to usurp Donald Macdonald and make himself Lord of the Isles.”

Rory turned from the window and returned to stand before her once more. “By bringing the Glencoe Macdonalds under the authority of the Crown, we—you and I, Joanna—can forestall the threat of another rebellion. We can save hundreds of lives and give our children something we've never had: a lifetime without war in the Highlands.”

As the force of his words struck her, Joanna sank back down on the bench and absently picked up the elf-bolt. Head bent, she traced the uneven edge of the triangular stone with her thumbnail. “I don't wish to see the warfare continue,” she said in a subdued voice, “and I harbor no ill-will for this family. Their deaths wouldn't bring Grandpapa back from the grave.”

“I'm relieved to hear you say that,” he replied. “More deaths would only compound the tragedy.”

Her fine-boned features drawn and tight, she looked up at him warily. “I realize now why you and Gideon's family were so convinced he was guilty. You made a horrible mistake, Rory, but I do understand your reasoning. I could forgive you, I think, if only you'd admit you were wrong.”

Rory felt as though he'd just been savagely kicked in the stomach. He dropped to his haunches in front of his bride and enclosed her slender hips between his hands. “'Twas no mistake, lass. I would do it all over again, if I had to.”

She slowly lifted her head to meet his gaze and teardrops
clung to the tips of her lashes. Her obstinate refusal to recognize her grandfather's guilt could be seen in the set of her jaw and the intractable cast of her delicate features.

“I must return to the kitchen,” she said stiffly. “I left Lady Nina with the pies half made.”

He longed to hold Joanna in his embrace, to rock her in his arms until the pain went away. Her pain and his. But he knew she needed time to accept the harsh truth. “Very well,” he said quietly as he regained his feet.

Joanna rose from the settle and moved to the door, her spine rigid and unyielding. She left the room without looking back.

 

After his wife had gone, Rory stood gazing at the portrait of Gideon Cameron. The laird had earned the respect and admiration of all who knew him. Rory couldn't remember his own father; he'd been too young when the warrior had been killed in battle. Most of what he'd learned about the human race had come from his wise foster father.

Gideon had encouraged Rory to strive for high ideals, to fulfill his duties with honor and valor, and to place the good of his country over his own aggrandizement. Yet it had also been Gideon, the astute scholar of history and geography, who'd encouraged Rory to build a ship and seek his fortune on the seas.

Rory knew that his part in Somerled's death on the gallows stretched like a vast ocean between him and his wife. He couldn't change the past, nor would he want to. But until he convinced Joanna that the Macdonald chieftain had been guilty of murder, she'd always blame him for her grandfather's execution. Rather than being the chivalrous knight she'd envisioned marrying, Rory would forever play, in her mind, the role of wrongful avenger.

He leaned both hands on the granite mantelpiece and stared down at the cold hearth with unseeing eyes. Rory wanted Joanna to be as infatuated with him as his mother had been with his father. So infatuated that she'd willingly forgo her blind loyalty to her traitorous clan and cleave to
her kinsmen's mortal enemy. 'Twas the reason he'd striven to make her wedding day perfect. He longed for his wife to see him through a smitten lassie's eyes, filled with idealistic wonder.

With a rueful shake of his head, Rory finally admitted his unconscious wish. While he and Joanna had been so intimately joined, he'd wanted Joanna to tell him she loved him.

“I brought your wedding gift, Laird MacLean,” Raine said, and he turned in surprise to find her standing at his elbow. She'd moved across the rug with such noiseless grace, he hadn't heard her join him in front of her father's portrait.

The tall, thin lassie held out a padded square of linen embroidered with roses in pink and scarlet threads. “There's rosemary stitched inside,” she told him.

“Ah, rosemary for remembrance,” he said softly as he took it. “Thank you, lass. Lady MacLean will be pleased.”

Raine fluttered her hand in warning. “Oh, you mustn't show this to your wife.”

“Why not?”

Her raven eyes regarded him solemnly for a moment, then she smiled entrancingly. “'Tis a love charm,” she confessed. “You must hide this beneath her pillow while she's sleeping. 'Twill make her love you.”

He smiled at her fanciful imagination. “Now I know you've been spending too much time with Aunt Isabel. And do you intend to give Lady MacLean a secret love charm for me?” he teased.

Twisting one long braid through her fingers, Raine shook her head. “There is no need, milord. You are already deeply and irrevocably in love with your wife.”

He scowled at the preposterous notion. “I don't believe in such foolishness,” he said, more gruffly than he'd meant to.

Raine laughed, the sound tinkling like merry bells as she raced to the doorway. “Your mind doesn't believe in love,
Laird MacLean,” she said from the open portal. “But your heart and soul have already surrendered.”

Rory glared down at the damnfool token. God Almighty! What made the elusive and mysterious lassie think he was in love with Joanna?

About to toss the embroidered linen square on the bench, he paused. If Raine returned to the music room and found it lying there, her feelings would be hurt. With a soft snort of disgust, he dropped the cockamamie love charm in his sporran.

R
ory had learned in his years of warfare that timing wasn't merely important—it was absolutely crucial. The day chosen for the commencement of a siege, the signal to retreat from a lost battle, the knowledge of when to leave port to avoid the icy storms of winter, or the decision to begin boarding a pirate vessel, were all too chancy to be left to blind fate.

As he mounted the stairs that evening to find his bed, he reviewed the day's events with a newly married man's smile of anticipation.

Just as he'd hoped, Joanna hadn't been able to hang on to her anger for long. She didn't meet life's problems by remaining alone in her room to nurse her vexation and sense of ill treatment. No doubt she'd seen her cousin Idoine's limited repertoire of sulking and pouting and had taken a healthy dislike to such childish affectations.

His wife was too decent by nature to take her ire out on the sweet-tempered widow or the blameless young lassie; and Alex was shown the good manners reserved for one's host, be he enemy or friend. A truce had been established between Isabel and Joanna that proved easy to keep when the eccentric lady retired to her private apartments to fuss over her herbal concoctions and magical incantations. Joanna reserved for Rory alone the impersonal disdain one would give something green and slimy crawling on the underside of a leaf.

She'd joined the family for the midday meal, her demeanor chilly, though polite. The afternoon was spent in the music room, and little by little, her icy reserve toward the Camerons had thawed.

With Raine on the virginal and Nina playing the harp, Joanna picked up a lute, tuned the strings, and joined them. To Rory's amazement and the Camerons' delight, she played and sang by rote the ballad Fergus MacQuisten had warbled at their wedding banquet. She might not have rendered it perfectly—Rory wouldn't know—but when Nina exclaimed over the beauty of the piece, Joanna told them her husband had composed the music and lyrics in honor of his bride.

Rory had scowled, uncomfortable beneath Nina and Raine's effusive praise. He met Alex's canny eyes and knew the other laird, familiar with both Rory and Lachlan, had immediately guessed the truth. The reminder of how he'd made such a damn idiot of himself trying to please his imaginative young wife stung Rory's pride. To hell with her starry-eyed fantasies. He intended to be exactly who he was: a hardened, cynical chief of a formerly landless clan.

If Joanna thought her frosty treatment of her husband would dampen his ardor, however, she'd been mistaken. Seated beside her on the settle, Rory had enjoyed the sweet proximity of his wife to the fullest. While she plucked the strings of the lute, he'd toyed with her long burnished curls. His arm resting across the bench's high back, he caressed the base of her throat, running his fingertips lightly across the satiny skin above her collarbone. The Camerons, bless them, pretended not to notice anything amiss between the newly wedded pair.

After supper, Joanna had excused herself to retire early for the night. Engaged in backgammon with Alex, Rory looked up and politely wished her pleasant dreams. He'd finished the game shortly after that and leisurely followed her upstairs.

Rory paused for a moment outside the bedchamber, then swung the door open and went inside. He could hear the
splash of water and his wife's soft hum of pleasure coming from behind the screen that had been placed in front of the fireplace by one of the servants. His calculations had been perfect. He'd caught Joanna just stepping into her bath.

Closing the door quietly, he walked around the movable partition to find his wife up to her waist in hot, soapy water, the creamy globes of her breasts with their velvety tips tilting impudently upward. In the midst of lathering a bathing cloth, she watched in frozen surprise as he unfastened his sword belt and dropped the weapon on the rug at his feet.

Someone had added acorns to the crackling blaze on the hearth and lit scented candles on the mantel. The room smelled of summer roses, winter holly, and pine trees drenched by the rain. Steam wafted around her, scented by the bubbles in the tub.

Joanna stared at him as he lifted the bowl of fragrant soaps and the white toweling from the three-legged stool, placed them on the Persian carpet, and sat down.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

He smiled complacently while he feasted on the sight of her. The glorious abundance of auburn hair had been piled on top of her head and fastened with four ivory combs. Save for a wispy fringe of tendrils too stubborn to be tamed, her slender nape and the dusting of freckles across her shoulders lay exposed to her husband's gaze. Steam warmed her cheeks to a rosy glow, making her violet-blue eyes almost purple in her vivid face.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” he questioned with a sardonic lift of his brow. “I'm waiting for my turn to bathe.”

“You…you can't stay here!” she sputtered. “This isn't your bedchamber.” She jabbed her finger in the direction of the closed door. “Your room is down the passageway to your left. Didn't Lady Nina explain to you?”

“Oh, she explained all right,” he replied, casually removing his stockings and brogues. “And then I explained to Nina that I sleep where my wife sleeps.” He looked up
from his task to shake his head in mock reprimand. “If you didn't like the chamber we were in, Joanna, you should have told me. Did the fireplace smoke or was there a draft I hadn't noticed, while we were getting better acquainted this morning?”

She brought the sopping cloth to the valley between her breasts and glared at him. “Godsakes, do you intend to wait here until I get out?”

He unfastened the bodkin that pinned his plaid to his shirt, tossed the corner of the black and green tartan wool over his shoulder, and pulled his long shirttails out from beneath his belt. “I'm not sure we'd both fit in that tub, lass, though I'm willing to try. On second thought, you're such a wee bit of a thing, it might work at that.”

Her gaze swept over him in outrage as she shrank back against the side of the oak vat. “Ask the servants to fetch your
own
bath in your
own
bedchamber.”

“This is my bedchamber.” He dragged the shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. “And why waste a perfectly fine tub of hot water? We'd only make more work for Nina's staff.”

Tipping her chin upward in tight-lipped indignation, Joanna rubbed the lathered cloth over her shoulder and arm, then moved to her chest and stopped abruptly. “I can't wash myself while you're watching,” she exclaimed. “'Tisn't decent.”

Rory unfastened his buckle. “I'll be happy to do it for you,” he offered as he slid off his belt and dirk.

Joanna heaved an exasperated sigh. “Very well, MacLean, you win. I'll get out.” She reached over the edge of the wooden vat and snatched up the linen towel. Snapping it open, she held it modestly in front of her as she emerged from the water.

Rory regained his feet at the same moment, allowing his plaid to fall away from his naked form. He offered his arm in a gallant gesture, ready to help her step out of the bathtub. Her eyes promising fire and brimstone, Joanna reached
down, scooped the soapy cloth out of the water, and flung it at him.

The sopping linen hit Rory smack in the face. Her startled gurgle of laughter as she stepped across the opposite side of the tub told him she hadn't sighted her target, but was definitely pleased with the results of her reckless aim.

“Why, Joanna,” he said softly as he peeled the soggy material off his nose. “You should have told me you wanted to play.”

Her eyes widened in alarm at his grin, and she clutched the toweling to her bosom, which rose and fell delightfully in her agitation. She stood in front of the blazing fire, the oaken vat of water steaming between them. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth and her eyes twinkled with naughtiness. She took a tiny step back.

“Pray, pardon me, milord husband,” she said, poised as gracefully as a hind about to take flight from the hunter. “I was merely trying to assist you with your bath.”

He replied with all the silky assurance of a very large man. “First, I'll help you with yours.”

He reached for her, and Joanna sprinted away. She dashed around the screen, leaving Rory holding the damp towel in his grasp.

At the success of her ploy, her laughter rang out. “That's a thoroughly indecent suggestion, MacLean. Your mother should have taught you better morals.”

Rory didn't follow her around the lightweight partition as she'd expected. Instead he purposely knocked it over, and the stool along with it, as he moved between his wife and the door, cutting off her route of escape.

She whirled at the thud of the falling barrier and stopped in her tracks, caught near the bed, trying to reach her nightshift. Too late, she realized he'd trapped her.

“I don't want to get my hair wet,” she admonished, merriment sparkling in her eyes. “'Twill take too long to dry.”

“You should have thought of that before.”

Dripping all over the thick carpet, Joanna edged slowly
back toward the outside wall. She was splendidly naked, the water and soap bubbles glistening on her ivory skin. When she realized his gaze had locked on the single drop trickling off one rosy nipple, she sucked in her breath. “Stay back,” she warned.

He moved leisurely toward her. “You're not afraid of a little wetting, are you, milady wife?”

She bumped her bare rear into a bed table and, glancing back, discovered a bowl of apples. He read her intention before she'd fully realized it herself.

“Don't do it, Joanna,” he goaded.

As she reached for the first projectile, he jerked a round silver tray from the press cupboard behind him and warded off the fruit she lobbed at his head. High, low, in between, Rory met the flight of each missile with the flat of his makeshift shield.

“Come out from behind there, you coward,” she taunted as he moved steadily forward beneath the barrage.

He'd nearly reached her when the apples ran out. With an ecstatic crow of discovery, she seized a basket filled with walnuts and hurled the entire contents at him. Showered with three dozen brown pellets, he held his defensive weapon above his head. The nuts peppered him like stone shot, bouncing against the engraved silver platter and rolling across the floor.

Bringing the targe down, he found she'd already picked up her shoes and, with a screech of exhilaration, scrambled across the wide bed, where she hurled them at him one by one. Four bolster pillows followed the shoes. Once again, he blocked them with his trusty shield.

Joanna waited with the ponderous canopied bedstead between them, panting and laughing at the same time. A comb had fallen from her hair, and several long locks dangled around her bare arm.

“I'm going to catch a chill,” she complained. Her bottom lip jutted out adorably. “If I die of consumption, 'twill be all your fault.” Indigo eyes shimmering in the candle
light, she jerked at the quilted comforter spread across the mattress.

He grabbed the other edge and whipped it out of her grasp. “I'll keep you warm,” he promised. “Right after I scrub you down.” He flung the green bedcover to the floor.

A second comb fell from her hair as she glanced over her shoulder. Until that moment, she hadn't noticed the compote of oranges on the massive court cupboard, which took up the entire wall behind her.

“Now, Joanna…” he cautioned, purposely egging her on.

Her eyes bright with mischief, she started hurling the precious fruit. Impervious to the cost of the imported luxuries, she tossed the bright orbs at him with abandon. She followed up with balls of brightly colored yarn from a wicker basket on the floor next to the bed.

Her aim was improving. She was, however, attacking a man trained in the arts of war. Dodging swords and dirks had given Rory ample practice in thrusting, feinting, and rushing his adversary. He could have captured her after the first apple launched, but her sparkling eyes and musical laughter made the game much too enjoyable to end it so soon.

He worked his way to the foot of the bed, boxing her into a corner. When all the oranges and balls of yarn had been lobbed, he tossed the silver tray down.

“You're going to have some explaining to do, come morning,” he said mildly. “Nina will think you went berserk.”

A third comb floated to the floor, and the lustrous hair tumbled about her shoulders and drifted to her waist. “She'll blame you,” Joanna retorted on a ripple of laughter. “Everyone knows all MacLeans are slavering beasts.”

He paused to admire her nude body, every delicate hill and valley glistening with moisture. His gaze roved lingeringly over the head of glorious coppery locks; cinnamon brows, lashes, and freckles; indigo eyes; rosy cheeks; cherry lips and pink nipples; and the auburn puff of curls
at the juncture of her creamy thighs. Hell, she'd turn any man into a slavering beast.

“And what does that make you, Lady MacLean?” he inquired with a confident grin. He propped his hands on his hipbones, and her eyes followed the movement. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of his jutting male member.

“I told you not to call me that,” Joanna admonished, color flooding her cheeks. “Now you'll be sorry.” She waited for him to get three steps closer, then lifted the fat blue pitcher at her elbow and splashed the water into his face.

Like everything else she'd flung, he'd been expecting it. He anticipated her next move as well. As Joanna scrambled across the mattress once more, shrieking with feminine laughter, he met her on the other side, a vase of spring flowers from the cupboard in his hand.

Leaving the bed abruptly, she skidded on the walnuts concealed beneath the jade quilt. Rory caught her by the waist, held her upright, and calmly upended the urn over her head. Ox-eye daisies, yellow cowslips, lavender bluebells, and cold water cascaded over her gorgeous hair, taking with them the last ivory comb.