When a Laird Loves a Lady (Highlander Vows: Entangled Hearts Book 1) (6 page)

“I assure you I do not faint,” she
said, sounding irritated, yet the fingers she had lifted to her temple
trembled. “Neil.” Her voice had taken on the soft tone that Iain recognized at
once as one of persuasion. “It seems a bit much, almost evil, to take his
tongue. Is there not another way to get your retribution?”

Neil tilted his head in thought and
then finally said, “I suppose.”

As Neil bent down, Rory Mac
approached and gave Iain a questioning look, which Iain answered with a shrug.
Suddenly, Neil plunged Iain’s dagger deep into Froste’s favored fighting arm.
Froste flinched and howled, and Iain silenced him with a quick punch to the
face. Froste fell silent once again, and Marion gasped,
turning
quickly away. When Neil stood, the three men exchanged a look of understanding
and spit as one at Froste’s feet. The man was without honor, and now he was
defenseless, at least temporarily.

Silently, Marion
turned
,
took the spirits from Rory Mac, and cleaned Neil’s wounds. He hissed and moaned
until the dressing was wrapped around his head. Then he slumped against Rory
Mac.

Iain caught Rory Mac’s eye. “I need
a minute.”

Rory Mac nodded and led Neil a
short distance away. Uncertainty glimmered in Marion’s eyes as he moved close
to her so they could speak privately. Immediately, her feminine freesia scent
surrounded him. He forced himself to keep his attention on his task.

“How did ye end up here?” he asked,
though he’d meant to wait until they were away to have this discussion.

She wrapped her arms tightly around
herself, looking so vulnerable that he suddenly yearned to enfold her in his
embrace. She notched her chin up as if to tell him she was not sad, or maybe
not afraid. “My father is a blackhearted devil who thought to marry me to
Froste for the man’s allied knights. To avoid the marriage, I feigned my death
and then made my way here. Neil already told you of our meeting.” Her gaze grew
flinty. “But you, sir, will be stunned if you think my father will be happy
that we are to be married.”

Iain nodded, relieved there could
be truth between them. “I ken he’ll nae be happy. Marion, yer king suspects yer
father of plotting to overthrow him.”

“What?” she gasped. “Did King
Edward tell you this himself?”

“Aye. He suspects that Froste and
your father are allying to attempt to take the crown. He wants me to marry ye
in hopes Froste will abandon their plot if he cannot have land presently.”

“And what is the benefit to you?”
she asked, her tone wounded.

“Edward will talk with the Scots to
discuss David’s release.”

Her gaze burned into him. “Marriage
to a woman you do not love is a steep price.”

“Aye,” he agreed, his voice gentle
as he could make it. “It is, but David is my friend and he needs me.”

She sighed, a long, tired sound. “I
was coming to you,” she said. “Isn’t that odd?” Her voice had taken on a
brittle, almost shaky quality. He suspected she was on the verge of unraveling
under the strain of the day.

“Why were ye coming to me? I
thought ye sought a place in yer uncle’s clan.” There was no need to tell her
that her uncle would turn her away and bind her in marriage to Iain anyway so
that Iain would be bound to the MacDonalds.

“Angus,
my
friend, asked me
to join your clan. He was certain you’d allow it, and might even find me a
husband.” She laughed, the gentle rumble tinged with the high notes of
hysteria. “I suppose there is no need for you to find me a husband now.” Marion
tilted her head back so that her thick pale hair fell over her delicate
shoulders.

Long-dormant desire sparked within
him, and he had the urge to brush her hair off her neck and let his fingers
graze her skin to see if it was as smooth as it appeared. He knew it was not
wrong to hunger for a woman who was to be his wife. It did not wipe away his
past. Simple lust never could replace what he’d felt for Catriona, yet guilt
filled his belly. “So ye’ve decided nae to defy yer king and marry me?”

She scowled at him. “I do not have
a choice! If I stay here, my father will simply force me to marry Froste, and
then I would be the wife of an evil, cruel man who is also intent to overthrow
the king!” She looked at him dubiously, as if judging how much to say. “I do
not think our marriage will stop them.”

Iain nodded. “I dunnae think so,
either.”

Her mouth parted at his admission.
“So what then? Will King Edward require more of you if my father and Froste
continue with their plot?”

“Aye. Edward will require my men to
fight to bring down yer father if it comes to that.”

She sucked her bottom lip between
her teeth. “I was afraid of something like that.” He expected her to weep at
the unfairness of it all; instead, she drew herself up and unwrapped her arms
from around her waist. “I’ll marry you on one condition.”

He refrained from pointing out that
she was in no position to have conditions. It was kinder to let her state them.
“What is it?” he asked, motioning for her to follow him. He led her to Rory Mac
and Neil, and the men fell into step behind him as the four of them moved down
the street toward the horses.

“We must rescue Angus from my
father,” she finally said.

“I would never leave a man of mine
behind, Marion,” he said, irritated that she’d think he might.

She set her hands on her hips.
“What about a woman of yours?”

“It depends on the woman,” he
replied, just to see what Marion looked like when outraged. And he wasn’t
disappointed. Her eyes glittered in the moonlit night, and her full lips parted
as she huffed in a breath that made her chest rise enticingly. Suddenly, all he
could think of was what she might be like to join with. Guilt shoved at him,
but he shoved back. Lust was not love.

Marion pursed her lips. “Angus is a
good man.”

“Of course he is. He’s a MacLeod,”
Iain boasted, “and I’ll nae leave him to the likes of yer father. I went to yer
home to get ye, and yer father was set to beat him for accidentally starting a
fire.”

“What?” she gasped and grabbed
Iain’s hand. “We must make haste! When my father gets in a temper, he can
become excessive with his violence.”

Iain had a sudden sneaking suspicion.
“Did he ever do that with ye?” he asked casually.

“Sometimes,” she said with a shrug
that belied the hurt that crossed her face. She lowered her head as they rushed
on, and fierce anger burned a hole in Iain’s gut. Death was too good for a man
who would beat his daughter. But Iain would not kill de Lacy unless to defend
himself or Marion. The king had commanded as much, and Iain would not risk
hindering David’s release.

After he secured the weapons onto
his horse and then untethered Olaf, Iain helped Marion onto his mount. He swung
into the saddle behind her and pulled her between his thighs and against his
chest to protect her. She started to wiggle her very soft bottom, but he put a
staying hand on her hip. “Dunnae do that,” he demanded through clenched teeth.
Lust had taken hold of him, and riding would be painful if he did not gain
control.

She stilled immediately. “Please
hurry. I must save Angus.”

He was glad the Sassenach was
facing forward and could not see him gaping at her.
She must save Angus?
Her loyalty to Angus pleased him, as did her courage, but God’s truth such courage
concerned him, as well. If she was too courageous, she was more likely to do
something foolish and get herself killed.

“I’ll rescue Angus and ye’ll remain
with Rory Mac and Neil,” Iain said, clicking his tongue to get Olaf to go once
Rory Mac and Neil had settled on Rory Mac’s horse. They moved down the street
toward the gate that would lead them out of Newcastle and back to Marion’s
home.

As they rode toward the same gate
through which they’d entered earlier, Iain turned to Neil to ask him of Angus,
but Neil was slumped forward in the saddle with Rory Mac holding the man around
his waist to keep him upright. Iain had a vague memory of hearing something
about Angus, but the recollections were not clear.

He stared at Marion for a moment
before speaking. “Why did Angus come to England to work for yer father?”

She turned her head slightly,
presenting him with her perfect profile. Her nose wrinkled and then smoothed.
“He came with my mother when she was forced to marry my father. Angus felt he
owed her a debt. He was to come to Scotland soon after I departed, yet he had
to wait a short while to avoid my father becoming suspicious.”

He glanced at Rory Mac to see if he
knew of Angus’s past, but Rory Mac shook his head. “I dunnae ken much about
Angus MacLeod. Neil never speaks of him, but I do remember my father talking
years ago about his friend Angus leaving Scotland for England.”

They rode in silence for a few
minutes, but when the iron gates of Newcastle came into view, Marion spoke.
“When we get to my father’s home, you must let me go into the castle to save
Angus. I am afraid Father will try to kill you and make it seem an accident.
He’ll not want me dead, at least not until he has his knights.”

Iain gaped at Marion and noticed
Rory Mac was doing the same thing. Rory Mac shook his head, a bewildered
expression on his face. Iain scowled at the top of Marion’s head. She needed to
understand a few things. “Ye offend me by implying I kinnae keep myself and ye
safe.” He slid an arm around her stomach and tightened his hold as they neared
the gate. If there was to be trouble, he wanted to have a firm grip on her if
he needed to gallop away.

She stiffened under his touch. “You
implied I couldn’t defend myself by commanding me to remain behind when we get
to my father’s!”

He frowned. “Ye’re a woman.” No
more explanation was needed. “I dunnae ken how it was before, but now, ye’ll
let me keep ye from danger. Ye will do as I say.”

“Are you always this arrogant?” she
demanded, trying to scoot forward on the horse.

Iain pulled her back to him and
grinned. “Aye. It’s good of ye to praise me so.”

“That was not praise,” she
grumbled. “I fear we will not fare well at all.”

He chuckled. “As long as ye obey me
we’ll fare nicely.”

He didn’t hear her response, having
shifted his attention to the guards, but whatever she was saying, her tone was
sullen and it made him want to laugh again. Taming the Sassenach was going to
be fun, and it had been a long time since he’d had any fun.

As they came to the guards of the gate out of
Newcastle, the Scot pressed his lips close to Marion’s ear, sending an odd
tingle through her body.

“Dunnae speak,” he commanded.

Normally, she would have protested
his command, but she decided it would not do to create any trouble when they
were in a hurry.

“We need to depart Newcastle,” Iain
told the approaching guard.

The man looked up at Marion and
Iain. “When you came in, you said you were leaving England. The letter you
bring from King Edward grants you permission to leave, not enter.” The guard withdrew
his sword and braced his legs. Marion stiffened in alarm, but behind her Iain
didn’t move.

“That’s true enough,” Iain replied
with an exaggerated sigh. “But King Edward also bade me to marry Lady Marion de
Lacy, who ye see sitting in front of me. When I went to her home, her father,
Baron de Lacy, was very distraught because she was missing. It seems the lass
did nae want to marry an ugly Scot such as myself, so she ran off. I found her
here and must now, by orders of your king, take her back to her father to marry
her.”

The lie was so smooth that Marion’s
stress lessened, and she exhaled a breath she hadn’t even known she was
holding.

The knight laughed at Iain’s
explanation, but then he seemed to sober. “How do I know King Edward ordered
you to marry Baron de Lacy’s daughter?”

Behind her, Iain moved around for a
minute and then leaned down and held out King Edward’s written order. “Ye’ll
see the decree is signed and sealed by yer king,” Iain said with
ease
.

As the knight read, Marion considered
what was about to occur. She was going to marry a man she did not know, and
certainly did not love. It was exactly the sort of marriage she had not wanted,
one born not of love but necessity. She didn’t even know Iain well enough to
decide if she thought he was a man she could possibly love in time, yet she had
no choice but to marry the stranger pressed hot and hard against her back. The blue-eyed,
black-haired
chief apparently had no need for a wife with an opinion or a
backbone. She turned to eye Iain MacLeod, laird of the MacLeod clan, and he
didn’t even shift his gaze toward her, simply kept it unmoving and steely on
the guard.

She studied him for a moment. He
was not handsome in the style of a traditional Englishman. His dark hair grazed
his shoulders and a shadow of stubble covered his square jaw. He did not look a
bit refined, but rather tough and sinewy, as if he could kill a man with one
blow. And his looks were not deceiving: he was a warrior, as she’d seen with
her own two eyes.

Angus was the tallest man she’d
ever known, but Iain was taller—and certainly
leaner
.
Angus liked his ale, and as he was an expert brewer, he drank plenty of it and
had a bit of a gut. By the feel of Iain’s hard stomach against her back, he
must not drink much ale. She faced forward once more. God’s truth, leaning
against Iain was like leaning against a boulder. The thickly corded arm wrapped
around her middle made her feel alternately safe and trapped. And his large
hands… She stole a glance as he spoke to the guards. His hand was spread flat
on her belly, which suddenly fluttered as her cheeks heated. It was indecent
the way he was holding her, yet she did think he might have been trying to
protect her; however, if they were going to be married, she’d have to make him
understand she could protect herself. Angus had taught her to, after all.

The sudden groaning of the
Newcastle gates as they opened jerked her thoughts back to the present. As soon
as they passed through and were far enough away from the guards, Rory Mac
startled her when he moved his horse up beside her and Iain, and addressed her.
“How does a privileged baron’s daughter ken anything about the healing arts?”

The question didn’t anger her, even
if it was a little offensive that the Scot thought her pampered and spoiled.
She could see why it would seem odd to him, though. “My mother knew the art of
healing and taught me a small bit before she died. The rest I learned from an
older woman who lives just outside my golden castle walls.” She couldn’t help
but add the last part.

Behind her, she could hear Iain’s
low laugh, which filled her with gladness. So her future husband had a sense of
humor. That was a good start. Encouraged, she continued. “When I got weary of
being pampered by my loving father, I decided to help others he loved to pamper
with regular beatings.” She raised her eyebrows at Rory Mac, certain she had
made herself clear and daring him to ask her more.

“Ye’re bold for a Sassenach.” His
tone carried just a hint of surprise.

“Well, I am half-Scottish, so maybe
my boldness comes from that bloodline,” she offered as a sort of olive branch
of friendship.

“Aye.” He beamed. “I’m sure ye’re
correct.” With that, Rory Mac moved the horse carrying Neil and him ahead of
her and Iain.

Iain’s hand moved against her belly,
his fingers brushing perilously close to the underside of her breasts. Her body
shuddered. “Ye did good, Marion.”

Heat consumed her chest and belly
and made her shift as it spread through her. Was the need for his respect
making her feel so strange? “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Ye’re welcome. Now, quit yer
wiggling,” he demanded, his warm breath fanning her earlobe.

The pleasure of seconds ago
disappeared. He barked orders much as her father always had. “Then loosen your
hold,” she snapped.

“Why?” he teased gently. “Does my
touch light a fire of want within ye?”

“A fire?” she asked, her voice
shaking. ’Twas true that the way the man went from cold to hot in his tone made
her thoughts tumble over one another. And his fingers… They brushed back and
forth over her ribs, making her heart pound so fast she was having trouble
controlling her breathing.
Suddenly
,
his fingers stilled and pressed into her flesh once again.

“Desire.”
His words came out low and husky.

She stilled. How had he known? How
had she not?

His body shook with suppressed
laughter. “Ye’ve never experienced desire, have ye?” he asked as they left the
road they were on, taking them out of the sight of the guards. She glanced
behind her, catching a smug look in Iain’s icy blue eyes. She stiffened her
spine and glared at him. “I’d rather not talk about it right now,” she
murmured, hot mortification singeing her cheeks.

He nodded his agreement. “Likely
best. We need to make haste.” And then, without another word, he clicked his
tongue and his destrier took off in a gallop. Up ahead, Rory Mac’s horse did
the same. She supposed the beast could sense the shift of pace of the other
animal.

The wind whipped her hair in her
face and sliced through her gown. She shivered but was soon shaking and
clenching her teeth in an effort to control it. They approached the end of the
path, coming close to her father’s castle. She was about to tell Iain when he
pulled up on the reins and slowed his horse to a stop. Ahead of them, Rory Mac
slowed his horse and turned back to look at them. Without a sound, Iain raised
a hand and motioned Rory Mac around. The man immediately obeyed without
question. Marion’s teeth chattered in the
silence
as she pondered this. Would Iain expect the same blind obedience from her as he
apparently got from his men?

Before she could think on it
further, he spoke. “Ye’re freezing,” he said, shifting behind her. His arm
released her, and then both hands encircled her as he drew her so close to him
that she could feel the beat of his heart through the thin
material
of her gown. In the next instant, a heavy fabric was laid over her legs and
tucked behind her back and under her chin. She glanced down to see the plaid
he’d been wearing, and her eyes flew open wide as she craned her neck to look
at him.

She gasped as her gaze locked on
his bare legs. He wore nothing but a long léine. “You cannot ride around like
that! You’re naked.”

He grinned. “I assure ye, I’m nae.
If ye’d care to see me naked…”

He was trying to provoke her. She
shook her head. “No.”

He stared at her as if he were
trying to read her thoughts. “Ye ken ye desire me.”

“I don’t know a thing about
desire,” she snapped, though she suspected he was right and that the odd feeling
he’d been causing in her was indeed lust.

“It’s nae bad ye desire me. I
desire ye, too.” He said the last as if that fact bothered him, but he spoke
again before she could consider why. “’Tis the truth. It will make being
married more pleasant for both of us.”

“Do you want a pleasant marriage?”
If he did, at least that was something. Many men just wanted a wife to give
them babies and do their bidding.

He shrugged. “It matters little
what I want. We’re to be married by the wishes of our kings, so we will be.”

“It matters to me what you want,”
she said. “
I
don’t wish for a husband who will treat me poorly.”

“I dunnae treat anyone poorly,” he
replied, his voice gruff. “Simply do as I tell ye, stay out of my way, and we
will live peacefully.”

She ground her teeth. “So you want
a wife without an opinion who will obey your every command?”

“A wife must listen.”

His hard, unbending tone irritated
her. “You want a dog not a wife,” she grumbled.

“Ye’ve strange ideas about a
woman’s place, Marion.”

Maybe she did, but her mother used
to tell her stories every night about her sisters who had married for love and
how wonderful their lives were. Marion wanted that. She had longed for a happy
family for as long as she could remember, and she had known deep within that
the key to that was love. A husband had to love his wife, or at the very least
be capable of love, unlike her father. She stilled, fear rising in her chest.
She couldn’t even say if Iain was capable of love or not.

“Have you ever been in love?” she
blurted.

He started at her question. “Aye.”
The word throbbed with suppressed pain that made Marion instantly curious about
what had happened and completely relieved that he could feel for another with
such depth. “What happened to the woman you loved?”

“She died,” he replied, the words
catching in his throat.

Marion bit her lip at how awful it
was to lose someone you loved. She’d never been in love, but she had loved her
mother greatly and lost her. “I’m so sorry,” she offered lamely. “How did she
die?” Sometimes it helped to talk of it. At least it had helped her to talk to
Angus about the unfairness of her mother’s passing.

“She was sick,” he replied, his
voice like a blast of cold air. “Dunnae ask me of my wife again. Ken?”

“Your wife?” she gasped, unable to
control her reaction. “I didn’t know you’d been married before.”

“There was no reason ye would,” he
said, his tone still chilly as if her words had opened a wound and he was now
irritated. She struggled to find something to say to put him at ease when he
clicked his tongue again and his horse began to move.

In the distance, she could see her
father’s castle, and her thoughts shifted from Iain to Angus. She clutched
Iain’s hard thigh before she realized what she was doing. When she felt the
muscles tense under her touch, she released him, her cheeks flaming.

“We need a plot to get Angus out of
the castle,” she said, turning to the subject that most needed to be addressed.

“I already have one,” he
replied
dismissively.

She clenched her teeth and inhaled
a long steady breath. “I wish to be part of the plot.”

“It’s best ye learn now, Marion,
that ye’ll nae always get what ye wish,” Iain said, pulling his horse to a
stop
next to some large trees where Rory Mac was already helping Neil off the horse.
Iain dismounted quickly and assisted Marion down. Once her feet hit the ground,
she turned toward him, her temper flaring that he too seemed to think her
spoiled and pampered.

“I’ve learned well enough that I’ll
not always get what I want, but in this, I must demand.”

Iain shook his head, his jaw set in
obvious determination. “I’ve spoken, and that is that.”

That was that!? He’d spoken!?

She turned away from him before she
said some rather unladylike things. She learned in dealing with her
hard-hearted father that sometimes it was better to simply do what you wanted rather
than ask and be denied. And she wanted to help rescue Angus. It made perfect
sense. She knew her father’s castle and Iain did not.