An English Bride In Scotland (8 page)

Angus nodded, his anxious gaze sliding from her to Ross and back, and then he turned and hurried away, back to the safety of his kitchens.

“How are you going to—Yowww!” The merchant broke off and howled when Annabel undid the cloth she’d tied around his leg and quickly poured a good portion of the liquid over the open wound. The merchant also sat abruptly upright, reaching for Annabel. No doubt, wanting to throttle her for causing him such pain, but Ross caught him by the shoulders and forced him down flat again.

His wife did not even seem to notice the man’s action. She simply held the half-empty goblet out to Seonag and said, “Please soak the needle and thread in this for a few minutes.”

Seonag nodded and moved at once to do as asked while Annabel bent to inspect the wound she’d just soaked. Ross held the merchant down and watched silently as his wife carefully cleaned the wound, applied some sort of salve Seonag provided, and then sewed it closed.

The merchant passed out near the end of the ordeal. Whether from pain or blood loss Ross didn’t know. He was just glad the man was silent. He’d howled and moaned throughout the exercise. Even so, he didn’t stop holding the man until Annabel finally straightened from her chore, her hand going to the small of her back as if it pained her.

“Yer well skilled at tending the injured,” Ross complimented, and it was no more than the truth. She’d worked with care and precision and her stitches had been small and straight. He had no doubt the merchant would get away with a nice scar and a story to tell. That didn’t always happen. He could just as easily have lost the leg to infection, or could even have died from the wound in time, but Ross was pretty sure Annabel’s efforts had just prevented either outcome from occurring.

“Thank you.” Annabel stopped rubbing the center of her lower back and ducked her head to hide the blush his words had brought on. It made Ross want to kiss her.

Reminded of his plan, he turned abruptly and headed for the door to the kitchens. He stuck his head into the room just long enough to bark orders at the cook, then headed for the keep doors and stepped out to survey the people close enough to be hailed. Spying Gilly and Liam approaching, he waited patiently until they were close enough to hear without shouting, and then gave them instructions on moving the merchant before leading them inside.

Annabel and Seonag were both still by the man on the table, debating what to do with him, he realized when he got close enough to hear.

“Liam and Gilly are going to move him to a room upstairs,” he announced, interrupting their discussion. “ ’Twill make it easier fer ye to check on him. ’Sides, if Jasper caused this, ’tis the least we can do.”

“Aye,” Seonag agreed on a sigh. “It might mollify him enough that he does no’ warn all the other merchants away from us.”

“Oh, surely he would not do that?” Annabel protested and then asked worriedly, “Would he?”

“It’s been known to happen at other keeps with lesser incidents,” Ross admitted with an unhappy expression. If the man warned off the other merchants, Annabel would be forced to wear his mother’s gowns indefinitely. His gaze slid to her over-exposed chest and he frowned. He was enjoying the view, but didn’t want everyone enjoying it.

“I’ll sit with him and make a fuss over him,” Seonag said reassuringly.

Ross nodded as he watched Liam and Gilly pick up the man and start toward the stairs with him. Seonag immediately followed.

“I had better watch over him too,” Annabel decided.

She turned to leave then, but he caught her hand to stop her.

“Nay, I—” He released her and glanced around when the door to the kitchens opened. Angus was rushing toward them with a sack in hand.

“Here ye are, me laird. I put it together meself. The best of everything,” the cook assured him.

Ross nodded and murmured a “thank you” as he took the bag. Catching Annabel’s arm in his free hand, he urged her toward the keep doors. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Annabel asked.

Ross didn’t answer. He wanted to surprise her.

“
A
PICNIC,”
A
NNABEL
said with wonder as she bounced along on her mare beside her mounted husband. “I have never been on a picnic before.”

“I thought it would give you an opportunity to see some of our land,” Ross commented. “ ’Tis your home now.”

Our
land . . . and home, Annabel thought and felt her face stretch as her smile widened. She had lived at Waverly her first seven years and at the abbey these last fourteen, but if she had ever thought of Waverly as her home, she couldn’t recall. She had definitely never thought of the abbey that way. For the first few years she’d simply been waiting for her parents to come collect her again. She had been sure the abbess was wrong when she said that would not happen. And even when years passed and she’d given up that dream and acknowledged that she would never leave the abbey it had not felt a home. She had never quite fit in there, never felt like she belonged or was accepted. Annabel simply did not have the dignity to be a nun.

“But somehow,” the abbess had said with long suffering, “I must teach you to be one.”

And she certainly had tried. She had made Annabel’s life a misery with her attempts to teach her. And Annabel had done her best to learn. Truly, she had. But no matter how hard she tried it had simply not been enough.

The thought made her consider her present situation, and her worries that she simply would not be enough here either. MacKay might not be her home for long if that were the case. Her husband might set her aside, or banish her, or . . . well, she didn’t know what he could do, but she was quite sure she wouldn’t enjoy it.

These unpleasant thoughts slid away as she noted that her husband had stopped his mount. Bringing her mare to a halt, Annabel glanced around curiously. They had crossed the treeless valley that surrounded the keep and entered the forest beyond some time ago. Now they were in a clearing beside a river—not a stream, but a full and proper river, she saw. When her husband dismounted, she released her reins and started to slide off her mare. It was as far as she got before Ross reached her side and caught her by the waist to lift her down.

Her gaze shot to his when he let her body brush against his as he lowered her. The action sent a riot of feelings through her that Annabel was unprepared for. They left her breathless, but then she seemed to be breathless around the man a lot. It was as if he had some secret spell that stole the air from her body.

“Thank you,” she murmured, ducking her head and then easing away from him once her feet were on the ground.

“Ye’re welcome.” His voice was a deep growl that seemed to say much more than the words he’d spoken. Moving back to his horse, he retrieved a fur and handed it to Annabel. “Here, lay this out where ye think we should eat while I untie the bag with our food.”

Annabel nodded and accepted the fur. She scanned the clearing, and quickly settled on a patch of grass next to the water’s edge. She laid the fur out and then glanced around just as Ross approached with the small sack the cook had given him.

“Settle yerself,” Ross said, and then waited for her to choose a spot on the fur to sit before settling down next to her. He set the sack on the fur before him and opened it to peer inside. Grunting, he pulled out a skin of wine. It was followed by a roasted chicken wrapped in cloth, bread, fruit, cheese and finally several pastries also wrapped in cloth.

Annabel found herself licking her lips as she surveyed the offerings. They all looked positively delicious. She did wonder though if the chicken had been one of many meant for that night’s supper. If so, she supposed there was time to roast another to replace it.

“ ’Tis a feast,” Annabel pronounced with a smile.

Ross smiled faintly and nodded. “Cook is obviously trying to make up fer his earlier bad behavior.”

“He
was
difficult about the whiskey, but I should not have lost my temper,” Annabel said quietly.

“That was you losing yer temper?” he asked with amusement. “Me mother would have had him whipped fer no’ obeying at once in a crisis like that.”

Annabel blinked at this news. She had expected at least a dressing-down for her behavior. Certainly, had the abbess witnessed it, she would have ordered Annabel to give herself at least a dozen lashes from the whip. Thank goodness she was no longer at the abbey, she thought. Annabel was not a great fan of pain and had detested every blow.

“Tell me about MacKay,” Annabel said as Ross removed two trenchers from the sack and they began to fill them with the chicken and other offerings.

“What do you wish to know?” he asked.

“Everything,” she admitted with a grin, and for some reason that made him chuckle. Annabel picked a piece of chicken from her trencher and ate it, but when his laughter slowed, she asked, “Have you no brothers or sisters?”

“I had a younger brother,” Ross admitted, surprising her. Lifting a chicken leg, he took a bite, chewed and swallowed and then added, “He died when we were still but boys.”

“How?” she asked with a frown, a piece of cheese forgotten in her hand.

“He was gored by a boar on his first hunt,” Ross said quietly.

“I am sorry,” Annabel said solemnly.

“ ’Twas a long time ago,” Ross said with a shrug, and then added, “I have a younger sister too and she survived our childhood.”

“Really?” she asked with interest.

“Aye. Giorsal. She is married to our neighbor, Bean.”

“Bean?” Annabel echoed the short form uncertainly.

“ ’Tis short for Beatham,” he explained. “The MacDonald laird. They visit often. No doubt ye’ll meet them soon as she hears I’ve returned with me bride. Which ought to be by the morrow at the latest,” he added dryly.

Annabel smiled faintly and nodded as she watched him pop cheese and bread into his mouth, but his words made her think of her own sister, and wonder how she faired. She hoped Kate was happy with her stable boy and that their mother’s predictions had been wrong. Annabel had always looked up to and adored Kate.

“Giorsal and Bean have a bairn. Young Bryson,” Ross informed her and Annabel glanced to him with surprise.

“Then you are an uncle?”

He nodded. “And ye’re an aunt.”

Annabel blinked several times as she realized he was right. They were married now and his nephew was her nephew. Shaking her head, she swallowed a bit of cheese and thought how amazing it was that her life could change so much with just one action. The size of her family had increased more than twofold with one marriage vow.

“Ye had no brothers?”

Annabel glanced up at that question and then shook her head quickly. “Nay.”

“But ye have a sister.”

That comment made her suck in a breath. Annabel knew her parents had not brought up the subject of their offspring to him, hoping to pass her off as the eldest, but she supposed it was too much to hope that he would not know they had more than one child.

“Aye. I have a sister. Kathryn,” she added quietly.

“Who is the eldest?”

Annabel had bowed her head and now closed her eyes. She knew without a doubt that her mother would have advised her to lie to him and claim that she was the eldest. She also knew that telling him the truth might make him very angry, but she simply could not lie.

Her appetite suddenly gone, Annabel set her food down and stood to move to the river to wash the chicken juices from her hands. She had not donned her shoes that morning, something she had often got into trouble for at the abbey, but her husband hadn’t seemed to mind. Or perhaps he simply had not noticed it when he’d put her on her horse, she acknowledged. Running about barefoot had often gotten her into trouble with the abbess, but it came in handy now as she merely had to tug her skirts up and wade into the stream and then bend to wash her hands.

Most convenient, Annabel decided as she finished and straightened. Staring out over the water then, she took her courage in hand and admitted, “I am the younger sister. Kate was my parent’s firstborn.”

She sensed Ross approaching behind her and added quickly, “However, she was disowned and so I am now their eldest daughter.”

Annabel could feel him at her back and wondered that he’d removed his boots so quickly. When his hands settled on her shoulders, she bit her lip and simply waited.

“I already kenned that,” he admitted, his hands sliding around her waist.

Annabel instinctively tried to turn then, but his hold on her prevented it, so she merely glanced over her shoulder to ask, “You already knew what?”

“That you were not the eldest.”

She frowned. “Then why ask?”

“To see if ye would tell the truth,” he admitted.

“Oh.” Annabel turned forward again with a little sigh, glad she had opted for the truth. But then she frowned and glanced around again to ask, “How did you know?”

“People talk,” he said simply.

“Did you know when you married me?” she asked, sure he hadn’t.

But he nodded solemnly.

Annabel turned forward again, uncertain as to what she should make of that. Finally, she asked, “Then why did you marry me? Why not declare the contract broken?”

“Because I wanted ye.”

The words were simple enough, but made absolutely no sense to Annabel. He’d wanted her? Why? She was overlarge, untrained and unskilled. Why on earth would he want her to wife?

“Why?” The word slipped from her lips, sounding as bewildered as she felt. Much to her amazement the chest at her back vibrated against her with his amusement, and then his hands slid up from her waist and Annabel glanced down with shock as his large, rough hands slid over and cupped her breasts through the cloth covering them.

“Because I wanted ye,” Ross repeated by her ear as his hands began to knead the soft flesh. To add to her confusion, he also began to do something to her ear, nibbling and sucking at it in a way that was as exciting as what he was doing to her breasts. The combination of the two caused a strange fluttering in her stomach and lower.

“Husband?” Annabel said uncertainly, and then gasped when one of his hands dropped down to slide between her legs through her gown. He cupped her there and used his hold to lift her out of the water and back against him so that Annabel could feel a hardness pressing against her bottom.