At The Laird's Command Part 12

"And I told you that you weren't only anything," I smiled, cupping his cheek. "My laird, the clan needs you. None of them, not even Ian, is as strong as you are. What you did, it pained me, as a lover. The lover in you did wrong. But the laird did not. You were willing to sacrifice everything for your clan's safety and honor. Everything."

"Yes," he said.

"That is the sort of man the clan needs, and I will proudly love that man and be his harlot all my days..."

The laird winced. "Not my harlot. Never again. Not my mistress, either. But my lady. And my wife, some day, if I can make it so without causing a b.l.o.o.d.y feud. This I vow to you, Heather. As true as a husband to you. I swear it."

Tears of happiness coursed down my cheeks as I kissed him, savoring the taste so long denied me. I wanted him so badly, in spite of the wounds and everything else. "Never your harlot?" I let the faintest trace of disappointment tinge my words. "Not even when I'm in your bed, pleading with you to take me in every way it is possible to take a woman?"

The consternation on his face as he struggled with his love and his l.u.s.t might have been comical were it not for the fact I earnestly feared his answer. "I'm trying to speak to you of my heart, woman!"

Laying my hand upon his chest, where his heart beat, I felt the heat pa.s.s between his skin and mine. "So am I."

He was cracking, I could tell. And as he stared down at my fingers as if hoping desperately for them to trail a path lower, he rumbled, "Well, maybe in bedroom play you can be my harlot. If it would please you..."

"T'would please me," I said, boldly, imitating his thicker brogue. "I'm a woman for rough wooing, ye ken. You said once that being with you was painful, but pleasurable for the right la.s.s. Well, I'm the right la.s.s, John Alexander Ramsay Macrae."

A slow and sheepish smile crossed his face. "Aye, you are. The right la.s.s for me. The only la.s.s for me. I will never be sated of you. Not my whole life long. With or without a churching."

Chapter Twelve.

JOHN.

The wedding was celebrated in fine fashion in the Great Hall, with music and feasting. Heather wasn't quite recovered of her wound enough for dancing, which was a shame, because the laird loved to watch her long coltish legs. Best that she take it easy, though, given that her belly was round with child.

His child, he was sure.

He would never admit to any other possibility. And it mattered not at all, because Heather had told him the way of it between her and Ian. Which meant that the child was conceived in the laird's bed one way or another. Which was nothing short of a miracle. A blessing he scarcely deserved. It felt like divine forgiveness, which made him, in turn, feel more forgiving against those who had wronged him.

Not the Donalds and MacDonalds. Never them. But Heather's father he forgave, inviting the man to return from the countryside with his bairns in tow for the wedding. Alas, Heather and Arabella's father was a stubborn old goat. Seeing his younger daughter honorably wed to Davy of Clan Macrae wasn't enough to lure him back to his laird's hall.

And so it was left to the laird to give young Arabella away in marriage.

For Heather's sake, he felt already as an older brother to the la.s.s. For Davy's sake, he would never utter another word against the girl. Not even when she danced as often with Malcolm as with the groom, and with as much fondness.

"You have my congratulations," the laird told Davy, slapping him on the back. "You seem a very happy groom."

With a sunny smile and a kiss to the top of his bride's head, the red-headed, freckled warrior said, "Oh, aye. T'was worth the frostbite on every one of my fingers on the night I stole away from the castle under cover of dark, and worth all the shivering, laying flat in a skiff that might've been seen by the enemy at any moment, nearly drowning in the loch when some enormous fish b.u.mped the boat!"

Arabella laughed. "T'was likely a seal, not a fish!"

"T'was a fish," Davy insisted, grinning ear to ear.

The laird would never be able to properly thank Davy for his heroics. And likely no other warrior in his command could have lived on winter berries and bugs, without even a horse or blanket, until he found MacLennan lands.

"You have my grat.i.tude, Davy," John said, earnestly. "And my blessing." Raising a gla.s.s, the laird proposed a toast. "To wedded bliss."

Davy drank. Arabella drank. And Malcolm also drank, as if he were a second groom. As curious as that was, the laird promised himself never to inquire more about it. If the three of them were happy, he would not question it.

For he had his own unorthodox arrangement. But his contentment with this arrangement came upon its first new challenge when, after they'd all sat down at the high table to dine, Lady Fiona looked askance at her chair, so near to Heather's.

"Isn't it time you took a wife of your own, laird?" his aunt Fiona asked.

John had been waiting for this moment. He only hoped that it wouldn't come so soon. And that it would not happen in front of the woman he loved. Nevertheless, he was prepared for it. "I will have Heather or no wife at all."

His aunt's dragon features sharpened and she put her hands on the table, readying to bare her claws. She gauged him, as if preparing for war. Then, with a tilt of her head, she asked, "What's stopping you then?"

"From what?"

His aunt's smile went flat. "From taking Heather as your bride."

John glanced at Heather, whose beautiful, sensual, mouth had fallen slightly agape. Then at the rest of the people at the table, who had gone suddenly, and completely silent. "You know perfectly well what's stopping me," the laird snapped. "I won't take her for my wife only to have a thousand harpies clawing at her back, gossiping about her past."

"They wouldn't dare," Lady Fiona said. "I am the chief harpie in this castle and if I say she has a blameless past, who is to contradict me?"

John stared at his aunt, wondering what she could possibly be up to.

She was a wily woman. Ambitious too. Though the laird was sure Ian was innocent of any conspiracy against him, he had never been as sure about Fiona. It often struck him as strange that a maidservant should take on a plot of treason by herself...

The laird put down his wine, which had gone entirely sour in his mouth. He didn't want to argue during a wedding. He didn't want to spoil their happy time. But his aunt had stirred up this hornet's nest. "Heather is an unmarried woman big with child."

"Don't be vulgar," Lady Fiona said, with a tap of her fan. "Our pretty Heather is merely pleasingly plump. Now that the siege is over, we're all happy to eat our fill. You cannot blame her for indulging in a few extra pastries. That's the only reason her belly is swollen."

It was a blatant lie. There was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child in Heather's belly. Everyone knew it. John scowled. "I suppose you will say that you've never heard rumor of why I brought Heather here to the castle in the first place."

With an exaggerated bat of her lashes, Lady Fiona replied, "She had information about the Donalds hiding at her father's farm. A good thing, too, or we wouldn't have had advanced warning of the siege. I'm quite certain that my nephew, the Macrae, wouldn't have dishonored himself by bringing such a sweet crofter's girl to his chambers and stripping her in front of his men just to shame her father."

That's exactly what he had done, and so he fell silent.

Lady Fiona turned in her chair. "Let's ask our groom. Davy of Clan Macrae, have you ever seen the laird's lady in any improper way?"

Davy crimsoned from the tips of his freckled ears to his toes, studiously avoiding the eyes of his new wife, who quite possibly did not know that he'd seen her older sister in a state of undress. It took him only a moment to consider his options before he glanced at the laird and uttered the lie. "Never. Pure as the driven snow, is the laird's lady."

John's heart began to thump at the show of loyalty. But it was too easy...

"What about our best swordsmen?" Lady Fiona asked, turning to Malcolm. "Have you ever seen the laird's lady in any improper state?"

Malcolm sat stonily, staring into his wine as he considered his answer. Then someone-likely Arabella-seemed to have kicked him under the table, because he gave a jolt, and sat straighter.

"Never," was Malcolm's answer.

Lady Fiona finally turned to Ian who sat so stiffly he looked as if he might shatter with a touch. "And my son?"

That's when John knew what Fiona was up to. She wanted to give Ian the clean break he so desperately sought. She wished to wipe the past away so that he might start again fresh. But to do it, he would have to renounce Heather. Renounce ever having loved her. Renounced having touched her. Renounce any child she might ever have...

The torment of it played out across Ian's face, such that Heather whispered, "Stop it. Leave him be."

Fiona smiled at Heather with something almost like warmth. "Don't you want to know your standing in the clan, my dear? It should be spotless...and my son's honor can vouch for yours."

The whole table full of guests seemed to hold its breath in the tension. Ian's chest rose and fell, his eyes lifting to the wooden beams overhead as if he were praying to G.o.d to deliver him.

It was too much. It was too much to ask of him. "Enough Fiona," the laird snapped.

But the d.a.m.nable woman was relentless. "It's a simple question for my son. Ian, if the laird were to take Heather for his bride, and someone were to say that she had bedded with you, how would you reply?"

Ian's eyes met John's. It was a moment of agony. Slowly, Ian made a fist of his hand on the table. He looked ready to sweep away every dish and goblet upon the table. But in the end, his croaked, "I would say it was a d.a.m.nable lie. And I would cut the heart out of any man who repeated it."

The laird knew what it cost his kinsman to say this. It was an act of loyalty beyond that which any other man had ever shown him. And John's heart, which he had once been so convinced didn't exist, now swelled to the bursting point, and tears filled his eyes.

"It's settled then," Lady Fiona chirped. "It's unwise and short-sighted and recklessly sentimental for a laird to wed a common crofter's girl without a coin to her name. But you're the laird and if you say she's innocent, then she is. And if we say she's a girl of good reputation, what could possibly stop you from marrying her? Quickly, of course, to prevent anyone from counting back should a child be born prematurely..."

John Macrae had loved his clan all his life; but for the first time, he felt this love in return. "You would do this for me and Heather?" he asked around the table, hoa.r.s.ely. "All of you?"

When they nodded solemnly, it humbled him to the breaking point.

Truly, John would have blubbered like a child were it not for Heather slipping her hand in his to give him the strength he needed. The strength she always gave him. He was supposed to be the strong one. The big warrior with the giant sword. But he wanted to wield it for her. And, if she would consent to be his bride, he always would.

HEATHER.

I was undone. They were all, all of them, willing to let the laird and I be happy together as man and wife. Even Lady Fiona. Even Ian, though having said as much, he looked now as if he couldn't bear another moment at our table.

Yes, I was undone. A glow of hope in my heart warmed me to my soul. But the laird...oh, the laird. His lower lip trembled and he dabbed at his eye with a napkin, muttering, "Pardon, there's something in my eye."

Tears, I thought. But the good kind.

Once he had them under control, my laird squeezed my hand and said, "Well then, Sweet Heather, Clan Macrae has spoken. I must call upon your father and make amends so that we may be wed. If he will consent to it, then I will do everything proper, on bended knee if I must."

"And if he will not consent?" Arabella asked while my heart fluttered madly.

The laird grinned. "Then I must steal your sister away to make her my bride."

Everyone laughed at that.

"I don't suppose you will have to steal her very far," Arabella said, with a smirk, and her grudging approval.

Then Davy cried, "Three cheers for the laird and his lady!"

The crowd in the hall applauded and knocked their cups together.

Even as Ian quietly pushed from the table, and slipped from the room.

When the hubbub died down, I leaned in to Lady Fiona. "Why take my part in this, when you knew it would pain your son so?"

"Sometimes a festering wound must be seared," the dragon said.

I didn't blame her for likening me to a festering wound. She was a protective mother. As protective as I meant to be to my own babe when it was born. "Still, you didn't have to make my path easier. Ian is soon to take a MacLennan bride. That would seem like a searing enough."

"That only solves one problem. Your marriage to John solves another," she said, fluttering her fan so that the laird and his men wouldn't overhear. "Whilst John Macrae remains unmarried, he will have brides thrust upon him by these other clans. Brides not as biddable as you. Brides with better pedigrees. Brides who might not be carrying my grandchild."

No, she couldn't be right about that. I would never admit it if she was.

But she continued, "Even if you aren't, when my legitimate grandchildren come of age to lead this clan, I prefer that their rivals were merely the children of a simple crofter's girl with no great bloodline."

I blinked, having underestimated her entirely. I no longer doubted that it was Aunt Fiona who had taught the laird to play chess upon his board, for she thought more moves ahead than any of us. "So, we're enemies, you and I?"

"Nonsense," Lady Fiona said. "Why borrow trouble from tomorrow? We're allies until it's inconvenient to be allies, and since that's a generation away and I may die before it comes to pa.s.s, there's no reason we can't learn to like each other."

Having regained his composure, the laird called to us, "What are you two womenfolk gossiping about behind your fans?"

I smiled wanly, wondering if I should tell him. Perhaps I would. But not now. Because Lady Fiona was right. I didn't want to borrow trouble from tomorrow. Tonight, I wanted only to be happy. "We are talking about alliances..."

The laird smiled. "I would like to negotiate an alliance with you, my future bride, in a place less noisy than this..."

Later, in the laird's chambers, we sighed together with more happiness than I thought possible. Happiness marred only by the laird's fading smile as he said, "I wish Ian wouldn't go."

"He must," I replied.

"I s'pose he must. If he loves you even a wee fraction of how much I love you, it must destroy him to stay."

"It isn't me he loves most," I said, tilting his face down to look at me. "I thought you found it too shameful to admit, but I think now you simply do not realize...can you really be so blind to it?"

"Blind to what?"

"That Ian loves you," I said.

"I love him, too," the laird said, gruffly. But then, upon examining my face, his eyes widened a touch. "Oh. No. You don't mean..."

"My laird, Ian loving me, touching me was as close as he could come to-"

"No, la.s.s. That's..." He searched for some word to describe it, as if it was entirely unimaginable that a man who had shared his bed might desire him. I feared he might utter the words: profane, indecent, or sinful. But instead, he settled upon, "That's not Ian."

"Why not Ian?"

The laird sputtered. "Because he's as strong and manly a warrior as ever served Clan Macrae!"

What that had to do with anything, I didn't know. But neither would I push the matter. Not yet. It vexed my laird, too much. And on this night, I did not wish to vex him.

At least, not in this way.