Always Mine (25 page)

Oh, my God. The fresh scent of spring rain filled the air,

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chasing off the cold, antiseptic smell of the hospital. Heaven help him; he was hallucinating. Why else would he see strangely dressed people hovering over his patient? They were arguing. He could see their wills clashing, but he couldn’t hear their words. With his barbaric face and cape, the man looked like a ruler from some ancient time. She looked to have come from bed. Beautiful. Her disheveled hair fell to her waist. She was blending with the woman on the bed! The man was commanding her to stay with him.

Shrill alarms beeped. Christian’s gaze jerked back to his patient. Shock pierced him. Startled, lucent eyes stared back at him.

Recognition flashed. Rocked him. Near stunned him. He knew her. An overwhelming urge to grasp her in his arms pulled at him. His soul screamed in his mind. Willed him to remember.

He gripped the bed rails and took a deep breath. Of course he knew her. He’d tended her unceasingly since the wind during the freak storm had thrown her down, and she’d hit her head. But now, more than that, he knew her heart and soul as well as he knew his own. But how could he? He shook his head and rubbed his face hard. Surely his imagination ran rampant from lack of sleep?

The strange, cloaked vision reached out to her. At his touch, she tore her gaze from Christian. The strange man was reassuring her. She turned back to study Christian, smiled sweetly and squeezed his hand.

“Don’t,” he choked out. The harsh plea for her not to leave tore from his tight throat. She squeezed his hand harder, comforting him. In a split second, she detached from his patient on the bed and joined with the man. Both looked back, smiled and disappeared. The medical instruments returned to their quiet rhythm. His heart sinking, Christian’s gaze searched the woman’s still face. The antiseptic smell again filled the air.

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The essence of his patient had again left, though now her face was peaceful. A sweet smile curved her lips.

“For God’s love, Connor,” Damron’s shout rose above the din of the storm. He rose, clutching Brianna in his arms. “See to Bleddyn. Someone hold this crazed wolf.”

Meghan raced to grasp Guardian’s ruff. Damron shoved past the people on the stairway, shouting for them to get the hell out of his way. Connor and Malcolm lifted Bleddyn in their arms. His head dangled, and his hand still clutched the talisman. Their knees near buckled under his weight.

In their chambers, Damron stripped Brianna of her wet clothing and snuggled her under warm covers in but a few moments. Connor and Malcolm pulled off the mystic’s cloak and leather shoes, but when they started to remove the strange, floor-length tunic, Bleddyn’s steely fingers grasped their wrists. His eyes opened, he took a deep, rasping breath and rose. His fingertips rested on Brianna’s forehead.

“Awaken now,
mo fear cridhe,
my little heart. All is as it should be.” Bleddyn’s scarred face softened with tenderness.

Brianna opened her eyes. She looked up at Damron. Her feelings flashed across her face as swiftly as the lightning had struck.

Puzzlement. Recognition. Understanding. She stared at Bleddyn, then buried her face in the pillow. As Bleddyn’s gentle hand smoothed over her head, her shoulders quaked with silent sobs.

“Ye great ox.” Meghan cuffed Damron on the head.

“Canna ye see yer wife needs comforting?”

Damron shot Meghan a quelling look and stripped off his wet clothing. She grinned, undaunted by his nakedness. He shrugged on his robe, then wrapped Brianna’s shuddering body in the sheet and gathered her tight against him. Bleddyn nodded and ushered everyone from the room.

Tears seeped from the corners of Brianna’s eyes, soaking

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her cheeks. She stiffened when Damron settled down in the chair with her and started kissing them away.

“Don’t dare kiss me after you have been with your leman.”

She shuddered and tried to pull from him. “I told you. You can’t have us both.”

“I have not been to Asceline. I vowed I would not come to yer bed after I had been with my leman, and I have not.”

“Fool! I heard you.” Brianna slapped his cheek. Hard.

He stilled, his face rigid with fury. “Never do that again, or yer back will feel the stings from my belt. And dinna ever name me fool nor doubt my word. What were ye doin’ atop the keep in such weather?”

“I went to watch the storm come in over Tongue Bay.”

“Nay, wife. Ye lie. Guardian howled with fright and raced to find me. Bleddyn knew somethin’ was amiss.”

“Nothing was amiss. I felt closed in when I awoke. Not much air came through our window opening, and I wanted to feel the wind on my face.”

“Ye stood with yer arms entreatin’ the clouds to lift ye, as ye did on our journey.” His jaw set, and he fixed her with a level stare and waited.

She shrugged, uneasy. “The wind felt so good, so fresh. I wanted to feel it over all of me.”

He frowned and his eyes narrowed as he studied her, then he blurted, “Ye dinna dabble in the black arts, do ye?”

“Of course not.” Her eyes closed, but not before he spied the fear lurking there.

Hearing Laird Douglas’s agitated shouts, Bleddyn went to reassure him. Connor and Meghan followed.

“Why was wee Brianna about in the storm, Bleddyn?”

Laird Douglas asked. “And why did Damron not keep her in their bed?”

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“Because he canna keep his shaft from leadin’ him to that French bitch in heat,” Meghan hissed through her teeth. “He would lie with both. Ye great eejits that call yerselves men. Ye follow yer prick wherever it points, and no’ yer minds. His vulgar grunts must have caused her to wake afrighted. Dinna gaup, Connor. Ye will catch flies.”

“’Tis nothing from what you will catch if you dinna seek your room. How know you of such things?”

“How? Do ye not remember the grateful looks ye and Damron got from the maids of a morn? Their gazes went not to yer eyes but to those bulges betwixt yer legs.”

“Meghan, lass, you are wrong,” Bleddyn said. “Damron was not with Asceline. He was coming from the stairwell off the great hall when I came upon him.”

Meghan’s brows arched in surprise. Her grandfather beckoned, and she went to him. His expression was stern, but his eyes were alight with amusement.

“I am sorry, Granda,” she said, kissing his furry cheek. “I dinna mean to shock ye, do ye ken?”

“I ken, lassie. Morn approaches, and ye need yer sleep.” He patted her cheek, then waited until she left the room. He turned toward Bleddyn. “Having a leman is proper, but a man must not flaunt her afore his lady wife.” Anger hardened his voice.

“Brianna will not take it lightly if Damron shares himself with another. He will lose her.” Bleddyn responded.

“’Tis not his heart she would be sharin’,” Douglas chuckled. “I ken, Bleddyn, I should not make light of it.”

“Brianna insists on fidelity from him as much as he demands it from her. Should he be unfaithful, she will not stay.”

“Where would the lass go? Nowhere from the top of Scotland to the toes of bloody England could he not find her.”

“The heart that is Brianna would slip away, and only the shell of her would stay, never to be the same sweet woman

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you are learning to love.” If Brianna did not win this battle for Damron’s heart, he could not deny her pleas for help. She knew now that he, combined with his talisman and the storm’s power, was her way back to her future life. Seeing the old man’s tired face, Bleddyn took his leave and went to roam the battlements.

Bleddyn’s gaze searched the darkness in the great field between the fortifications and the forests, and he took deep breaths of the fresh night air. Connor came to stand with him.

Neither man spoke. Cloud Dancer screeched, then circled lower. In the softening of the night before matins at dawn, horsemen emerged from the wall of trees.

Their leader, a giant of a man, rode a brown destrier as huge and powerful as Angel, or Thunder, Bleddyn’s own steed. The man’s hair was light, neither brown nor golden, and it flowed around his face and shoulders. His bearing was that of a knight, but he bore none of the trappings to name him such. Furs were thrown around his shoulders, held with a huge brooch, and leather armbands circled his wrists. He wore a Morgan tartan belted about his waist as he straddled his horse’s bare back.

“Come,” Connor said, “let us welcome home Damron’s half brother, Mereck. No doubt, ye have heard of him as the warrior Baresark.”

While Connor introduced him, Mereck’s face was impassive as he studied Bleddyn standing with Cloud Dancer clasped on his wrist. Mereck nodded, then turned his gaze to Connor. “Where is Damron? ’Tis unlike him not to know I am near.”

Connor sketched the night’s happenings as they entered the

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keep. Mereck solemnly dipped his head to Bleddyn, clasped Connor’s shoulder, then took the steps two at a time.

He halted afore Damron’s door and scratched lightly. After Damron’s soft “Come,” he entered the room. Damron sat on a chair in the dark, his wife on his lap. After studying the lady to see if her eyes were closed, Mereck squatted and coaxed the peat fire to new life, then raised his plaid high and turned his cold buttocks to the hearth. His face took on a look of utter comfort. His head fell back. His eyes closed.

Brianna sensed someone else in the room and awoke. Her gaze fell on a man’s naked loins that were as impressive as Damron’s own. The stranger met her gaze and lowered his tartan.

“Good Lord Almighty, here’s another one. Don’t bother to tell me.” Then she lowered her voice to a whisper and contradicted herself. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother? Everything about him is the same.” She flushed when she realized the part of him from which she compared the two men.

“You have shrewd eyes, my lady. Many people dinna note our likeness,” the man said wryly. “I am Mereck, Damron’s half brother, born just hours after him.”

“Hours? You’re not twins? Oh, my God. Lady Phillipa must have wanted to castrate your father,” Brianna whispered.

The men’s brows rose on hearing the strange word castrate.

“Nay, wife. Mother knew it had naught to do with her.

Mereck’s Welsh mother died birthin’ him. Mother took him to suckle at her breast while she fed me. She pleased Father with her acceptance of his second son. Mother loves Mereck dearly.”

“Nothing to do with her? You think his leman had nothing to do with his wife?” Brianna’s voice rose. “It had everything to do with her. It showed he didn’t love her enough for fidelity. I bet he’d have felt it had something to do with
him
if
she
had taken a lover.”

“Had she done so, he had the right to kill her.” Damron’s

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eyes squinted coldly at her. “At best, he would have locked her in a tower for the rest of her life. The day Father learned of him, the man would not have lived to see nightfall.”

Brianna grabbed the sheet and jumped off his lap. Mereck watched her, seeming fascinated.

“I’ll say it again.
I will not share a husband
. I will go. My body may remain, but I’ll not be within it. If you doubt my word, ask my Nathaniel. If not for him, I wouldn’t be here now.”

Damron shot to his feet. “Ye will go nowhere without my leave,” he shouted.

“Ask my Nathaniel.” She turned to walk away.

“Dinna turn yer back to me, Lady.” He grabbed her so swiftly she lost her grip on the sheet.

Mereck’s appreciative gaze swept over her slender body. “I envy you the taming of such a lass, brother. You have no need to seek comfort elsewhere when you have a bride with such fire.” He was gone afore Damron could respond.

Damron feasted on Brianna’s supple lips as he lifted her high against his chest. ’Twas easier. For him. Not her.

“Dammit, you’re hurting me, Damron. Put me down.”

He ignored her command and put a hand under her bottom to hold her more comfortably against his hard length. Too late, she marked the curse. Had he noted it? She peeked up at him.

“Six,” he murmured, then his lips tried to recapture hers.

“You can’t count it because you were pulling off my skin.”

“Nay, Lady.” He set her on her feet. “I did not grant excuses. Stop trying to entice me and don yer clothin’. I canna keep Mereck waitin’ while ye satisfy yer greedy eyes.”

She spluttered and hoisted her nose high. “I have no desire to entice you, my lord. Don’t keep your brother waiting.”

He watched while she wriggled her smock about her hips.

She noted his appraising regard and turned her back. When she looked again, he was tending his teeth with great care, naked as a babe.

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“Clothe yourself, you strutting rooster. Find Connor and Mereck so you can crow and wrestle each other in the mud.”

She grabbed his wet cloth and lathered her face with heather-scented soap. When she ignored him, he dressed and was soon gone.

“Blasted viper,” she whispered. The door reopened just wide enough for his head, and she near dropped her cloth.

“Good. Ye are learnin’ to yield to the reins, wife,” he said and ducked back out again.

When it was time for the noon meal, Brianna led the men who aided Laird Douglas down to the hall. Bleddyn’s potion had done wonders for the laird’s cough, and he wished to dine with the family. For the occasion, she had dressed in shades of gold, and her hair fell free down her back. She held her head high and trilled a tune in homage to the man being escorted. A deep baritone voice joined her with words to the melody. Her gaze flew to the singer. ’Twas Mereck. He smiled when the song was completed.

“Your voice is as beautiful as they told me, Lady. Why do you not sing the words?”

She shrugged but couldn’t tell him of her vow never to sing where his brother was present. “Where did you learn them, Mereck?”

“Galen of Ridley went each night to a watchtower north of the keep and sang into the sky. I formed the habit of meeting him there.”