In the Laird's Bed Page 7

  “I offer to relieve you of a potential burden and retain the most skilled mead maker in the land.” Rory’s gaze narrowed. “But I would not propose it if I found the prospect of having her unappealing.”

  His temple pounded harder now.

  “She does not wish to wed.” He recalled her declaration vividly. She’d been so adamantly opposed to her father’s suggestion that she had walked out of his chamber at the mere mention of such a union.

  As if she could yet make some lofty marriage when she was not even a maid.

  “She is a noblewoman of an important family. She has no choice.”

  The knight’s tone was so reasonable that some of Duncan’s anger ebbed. For all that he did not appreciate another man thinking about Cristiana in a wifely manner, he could respect the practicality of Rory’s strategy.

  He made a good point about her becoming a threat if she wed someone with an eye to claim Domhnaill.

  “Her father wants me to take her to wife.” He had gone over and over that conversation in his mind, recalling with disturbing clarity the jolt that had gone through him at the suggestion.

  “That makes the most sense. But if you do not desire her—”

  “I do.” The words echoed with fierce truth. “I did not recall how much until we returned to her lands.”

  He had been young when she’d broken their betrothal. He had regretted it, but he’d found other women to console himself with. The fact that she’d found another man had been a visceral blow he would never have expected.

  Could he trust her now? Could he trust himself to raise another man’s child with a merciful heart? He was unsure. But the desire for her— Ah, that had never been an issue. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman.

  “Then you have more to recommend this union than most men.” Rory sheathed his sword, perhaps recognizing when to concede. “Do not allow your pride—or hers—to dissuade you from the best course for Domhnaill. A prize such as this is worth great sacrifice.”

  As Rory’s boots crunched through the hard snow on his way back to the keep, Duncan’s gaze swept the landscape. It was a magnificent keep, with a thriving village. It had been home to his ancestors, as well as Cristiana’s, given that the lands were once united under one banner.

  He would claim the Domhnaill lands along with its heiress. She would be safest with him. And while she might not be the same innocent lass he’d kissed in the gardens five years ago, she was a woman whose passions would warm him on the cold winter nights.

  But just as he would do no harm to the lands and her people when he claimed them, he would not push Cristiana to wed until she came to him of her own will.

  He’d been so close to having her three nights ago, back when he’d been playing fair where she was concerned. Now, the stakes were higher. He could not afford to give her occasion to reason and rethink and demur when hot desire surfaced.

  Next time, he would answer her hunger in full measure. He would drive them both to the brink before it ever occurred to her he might be playing for keeps.

  Chapter Six

  “M other, come play.”

  Cristiana looked up from the letter she labored over to see Leah stacking a pile of flat stones in the corner of her solar. The sweet endearment of “Mother” had not been discouraged, the honorary designation one of Leah’s choosing at an early age. If the servants thought if peculiar she shared such a bond with an orphaned noble child they said naught.

  Now a day had passed since Cristiana’s world had been rocked to the core by the revelation of a takeover approved by the king. In the course of an afternoon, she’d not only lost her standing as mistress of Domhnaill, but she’d also managed to break an oath to her sister. By failing to find a new laird to take her father’s place sooner, she’d allowed the keep to appear ripe for the taking.

  “I must finish a letter to your aunt,” she began, but as she stared at the parchment with scarcely a mark upon it, she had to admit she was accomplishing little. “Though, perhaps I could take a short break.”

  Rising from her seat at a writing table that accounted for the chamber’s only furnishing aside from two chairs, Cristiana joined Leah on the floor near the hearth. Edwina’s daughter—actually, Cristiana’s daughter in the ways that counted—had recovered quickly from her fever earlier in the week. Still, she’d kept the girl close to watch over her personally.

  She was so proud of Leah. A fierce heart lurked inside the child’s delicate form. She’d come into the world shrieking and waving tiny fists, and in four years’ time she’d learned much about bending the world to her will. Cristiana tried not to indulge her overmuch, but it was difficult not to smile privately over the child’s quick mind and talent for winning her own way. Even the older children admired her and followed where she led.

  “What are we playing?” Cristiana asked, grateful for the diversion from dark thoughts that had chased around her brain all night and day.

  She had no idea how she would face her guests on what would be the last night at Domhnaill for most. How could she sit beside Duncan while he announced his rule? Then again, perhaps she would not even have the option of sitting at the high table now. She might arrive in the great hall to find the silk curtains behind the laird’s seat had been replaced with Dun can’s banner.

  “We are defending our fortress,” Leah told her solemnly, her green eyes fixed on the pile of stones on the floor surrounded by intermittent rocks in a ring around it. She held a stick in her hand and seemed to be breaking off pieces to set between the rocks.

  “The twigs are my men and they defend the walls. I am king and you can be my squire.”

  Leah handed her the stick, her long auburn curls covering her shoulders. She took after Cristiana more than Edwina, both in her hair color and the shape of her face. They even shared the same mannerisms. Cristiana still found it unnerving to watch Leah stir her small cauldron of mead in the brew house on the days she was allowed to work beside her. The child stirred three times clockwise and three times counter clockwise, just as she did.

  “I am the squire?” Cristiana accepted the thin branch that rustled with a handful of stubborn, disintegrating leaves still attached.

  “Yes.” Leah folded her arms and stuck out her bottom lip, appearing every inch the petulant monarch. “You must do my bidding.”

  Cristiana studied her child, so very serious in her role. With her circlet askew and her one veil slipping down her shoulder, Leah had the look of a girl at play. But her tilted chin and clear-eyed certainty about the roles in this game made Cristiana all the more fearful of the situation she had put them both in.

  By keeping faith with Edwina—fighting against Duncan’s rule—Cristiana could take pride in her loyalty to family. But would it be at Leah’s expense? Why should Leah lose what tenuous standing she had as an illegitimate child of the nobility to become just another fatherless little girl? Leah’s future was tied to the decisions Cristiana made now.

  “I will do my best, sire,” she played along, taking the branch and snapping off more pieces to serve as men-at-arms on the make-believe castle walls. “But the forces below are swelling. I do not know if we can hold them off.”

  Her voice caught on the words, her heart heavy with the weight of responsibility. Her love for Leah—her duty to raise her well—stirred something fiercely maternal within her breast.

  “Domhnaill is the strongest keep in the east!” she cried, the defiant set to her jaw reminding Cristiana of her father. “We will not know defeat.”

  Her hands paused on the branch, her fingers slowing in their work.

  “How are you so sure, my sweet?” She set aside the long stick, savoring the feel of the hearth fire on her back and the chance to be with Leah. For two weeks, she’d been avoiding her own daughter in a need to make everything appear as normal as possible. The less anyone noticed Leah, the less chance anyone questioned her identity.

  Or remarked on the striking resemblance between her soft g
reen eyes and the mossy hue that belonged to all the Culcanons.

  “We throw fire at them,” Leah whispered as she bent over her game, her cinnamon curls spilling on the floor and blanketing the pretend keep. “And dump chamber pots on their heads. Cook says she can boil water to scald a whole band of beetle-brained thievin’ invaders.”

  Cristiana knew Leah occasionally spent time in the kitchens with the other children, eating an extra meal early in the day to fill their smaller bellies. Clearly the conversation had caught Leah’s imagination.

  Still, how was it the child had gone from cooing babe to battle strategist overnight?

  “I remember.” Cristiana had been little more than a child. The skirmish had been one of the reasons her father wished to unite the family with Duncan’s—their combined forces would have been formidable. “I was very frightened when that happened.”

  The memory reminded her that Duncan’s bloodless takeover—while devastating in its own way—at least spared her people the gut-churning fear of death and ruin at the hands of barbarous invading forces.

  “You were scared?” Leah straightened, staring at Cristiana in disbelief. “I would not have been scared. I would take the laird’s sword and ram it through anyone who scaled the walls!”

  She acted out the motion with the authenticity of a child who’d watched the knights practice often enough.

  “Well, you are much braver than me,” she told her, unsettled at her daughter’s pledge of vigorous defense, even though Leah was far too young to understand they’d already lost Domhnaill to another kind of invader.

  The faithless, lying kind.

  “Domhnaill is home,” Leah explained simply, brushing her long hair from her eyes impatiently. “We brave much to protect it.”

  With that, Leah snuggled closer to her, peering up at Cristiana with the kind of adoring, trusting smile that could pierce a mother’s heart. Content that all was right with her world, the child picked up the branch again to continue populating the pretend keep with armed guards.

  Leah expected her family to fight for their home at any cost. And while the view might be childish and naive considering the circumstances, it was one many others shared. Cristiana had overheard unrest and discontent among her highest-ranking advisers ever since Duncan had arrived.

  “You’re right, sweeting.” She stroked Leah’s hair while the child struggled to break a stubborn piece of the branch, her movements slowing as she grew tired. “We would all be very brave if we had to protect our family legacy.”

  In that moment, she knew boiling water to scald the new laird was not an option. There was far more at stake here than a keep. Something more important than lands and men. And Cristiana planned to fight as hard to protect her daughter as Leah battled her imaginary war.

  She only hoped Edwina would forgive her for the sacrifice she would have to make to see Leah safely installed at Domhnaill forever.

  “You want to marry who?” Keane and her father stared at her in equal disbelief, their expressions mirrored images of one another.

  Cristiana sat across from them in her brew house before sup. Keane insisted on providing the laird with fresh air and exercise every day, escorting him about the grounds when the activity in the keep was at a minimum. They had entered the brew house merely for a cup of mead, but Cristiana hoped she could win them over prior to an announcement that Duncan would become laird. She knew he planned to claim the keep as his before her holiday guests departed, effectively spreading his fame far and wide as the visiting nobles rode back to their far-flung lands.

  If her plan to protect Leah and secure her within Domhnaill’s walls forever was to work, Cristiana needed to counteract Duncan’s announcement immediately.

  “Sir Cullen of Blackstone.” She took pride in the fact that she said the name without hesitation. Cullen was a guest in residence and could easily be named laird of Domhnaill instead of Duncan.

  A strong knight in his prime, Cullen was without a wife and had offered for Edwina long before her betrothal to Donegal, though Cullen’s suit had been overlooked at the time because he could not meet the bride price. But he had more lands and men now, his star having risen in the world. Surely one Domhnaill daughter was as good as the next?

  “Daughter.” Her father shook his head, his wrinkled brow making him look forlorn and confused. “You speak of a man far older than you. He was older than Edwina, and Edwina has several summers upon you.”

  Keane rummaged in a cupboard and emerged with the largest drinking horn to be found in the brew house.

  “Don’t forget, lass, this is the same man you called a dried-up weevil and far worse, back when the poor man offered for your sister.” Keane took his bandy-legged stride about the perimeter of the large, open chamber, peering into the various cauldrons contents. “Do you think he’s improved with age? And how can you think he would defend these walls with as much vigor as Duncan the Brave?”

  Ah, she’d been a fool back then, not seeing beyond the surface of Cullen. He was a nice enough man. And he’d hardly been a dried-up weevil seven summers ago.

  “You’ll want children,” her father said softly, touching her heart with the way his cloudy gaze seemed to see into a future already full of grandsons and granddaughters. “And the seed of a younger man is more vital.”

  Keane must have found a cauldron of mead that pleased him for he dunked his cup into one without a care for the fact that it was nowhere near ready to drink.

  “Aye.” Keane raised his vessel with the enthusiasm of a young knight toasting his overlord. “Here’s to vigor in the bedchamber.”

  “My lord father,” she intoned urgently, appealing to the more probable source of relenting. “I would not be forced to wed a man not of my choosing and you know there is much bad blood between our family and the Culcanons—”

  Her father nodded and tucked her under one heavy arm. The gesture reminded her of happier days when they had walked and talked together in her youth, back when her father had been the most powerful man she could imagine.

  “There is no such thing as bad blood, Crissie.” He shook a finger under his nose, his signet ring loose upon one digit now that he’d lost weight and youth. “Just look at Leah.”

  She stilled, everything inside her growing cold despite the hot fire warming the room. Had her father guessed Leah’s true parentage? Did those rheumy eyes see more than anyone knew?

  “I do not understand.”

  “The girl is an orphan of unknown origin. Yet you raise her to be as clever and sweetly mannered as you were yourself when you were a wee tot. She is not of noble blood, but we would hardly say she has bad blood, would we?”

  Cristiana studied her father in the fragrant, smoky brew house, trying to find some hint that he was telling her he knew her secret. But he merely smiled and patted her shoulder as he released her.

  “So I do not believe in bad blood. I believe in good alliances and second chances. Duncan has pleased our king, so let us not see if he can please you. Nothing would make me happier than to know you were installed as lady here for the rest of your days.”

  Panic swelled in her belly. It did not stem from the dishonor she would do to her sister. What would Duncan say when he learned that she was a maid after all? He was a smart man. He knew the season of Leah’s birth and he would guess her heritage.

  It would only be a matter of time before Donegal would arrive and take Leah away forever.

  “I can be lady of Domhnaill with Cullen at my side,” she insisted, already quaking at the thought of being separated from Leah. And again, there was a twinge of wistfulness over the passion she’d felt for Duncan. She would never know such feelings with any other man. “If you will not ask him to consider me as a bride, I will ask him myself.”

  “What?” Keane perked up from the cup of mead he had fairly lost himself in.

  But Cristiana did not remain to listen to his protests or her father’s. No matter that she would never know true passion, she neede
d to act quickly to thwart the one man who could ruin everything she’d worked so hard to safeguard.

  No one knew where Cristiana had gone.

  Duncan had asked maids and knights, squires and ladies as the day grew late and the last night of holiday merriment approached. He stalked a gallery deserted of the noble company who normally slept there, dodging the servants who loaded their overlords’ belongings into chests for the next day’s travel. Only one chamber door was closed and Duncan approached it, wishing to be sure Cristiana was not anywhere in the main keep before he started searching for her in one of the outlying buildings.

  She was probably in the brew house. Yet an uneasy feeling had been crawling up his neck ever since Rory mentioned what a valuable bride a Domhnaill daughter would make. Duncan had not thought through her future well enough, somehow assuming she would remain here in one capacity or another, since her father was here. Her people were here.

  Besides, Cristiana had vowed not to wed. But since when did noble women have the right to exercise such an option? He’d been a fool to think she would remain under his roof once he became laird.

  The longer his deceit went undetected, the more difficult it would be to untwine himself from the truth of his arrival here.

  “Cristiana,” he said her name through the heavy door, rapping on the hardwood with his knuckles. “Are you in there?”

  He was about to leave when he heard a small sound from within the chamber. A soft cry?

  Not the sweet, womanly sound of a feminine passion. Nay, the noise he’d detected was more of a muffled sob.

  “Cristiana?” He knocked upon the door with new urgency. Hearing no response, he tried the handle and discovered the barrier had been bolted from within. “Who’s in there?”

  Not waiting for a reply, he applied his shoulder to the plank boards. Perhaps he would only find an unhappy lady whose husband had gone down to sup without her. But his gut said otherwise.