Captured by a Laird (8 page)

It was a long moment before she noticed the two others who came into the room behind him. Instead of the dangerous-looking warriors she expected, all she saw was a pair of lads.

“These are my brothers, Robert and William,” Wedderburn said.

Neither bore a strong resemblance to him, though the older lad had something of Wedderburn’s fierceness in his eyes and stance. The younger one was still a child and had warm brown eyes.

“Robbie is fourteen, and Will is ten,” Wedderburn said, pointing at each in turn.

“Ye look like a fairy queen,” Will said, and gave her an open smile that was hard to resist. “I told Robbie you’d be pretty.”

Before she could respond, Robbie jabbed an elbow into his side.

“But she is!” Will said.

“Enough.” Wedderburn’s voice caused both boys to snap their attention to him.

Evidently he ruled his young brothers with an iron hand. Alison prayed that if she married him, he would ignore her daughters as their father had.

If she married him?

She was startled to realize she had begun to believe it might actually happen. Unless help arrived quickly, she would, indeed, become the fearsome Beast of Wedderburn’s wife.

Alison could not find her voice to introduce her daughters, who had scrambled to her side and were gawking at the boys. Robbie took a step back, as if the girls’ blatant interest made him uneasy.

“These wee lassies are Beatrix and Margaret,” Wedderburn said, and gave the girls a smile, not the cold one she had seen before, but a flash of warmth that she could almost swear held a trace of affection.

Was it possible that this warrior who broke down doors and threatened to dishonor her had a soft spot for her daughters? In that brief moment when the smile reached his eyes, he was not so frightening, and she was able to see that he was a remarkably handsome man.

When the girls made pretty curtsies, the older boy looked over his shoulder toward the door, evidently wishing to escape.

“I brought you girls a gift,” the younger boy said as he lifted the leather bag off his shoulder and dropped to one knee.

Wedderburn cast a questioning look at Robbie, who made a face and shrugged. When Will reached inside the bag, Beatrix and Margaret crowded around him, blocking Alison’s view. A moment later, their squeals and shrieks pierced her ears. Before she could move, Wedderburn had picked up both girls and stood with one dangling from each arm.

“’Tis only a puppy, David,” the boy said, looking up at Wedderburn. “I promise he won’t hurt them.”

From this, Alison drew two startling conclusions. Wedderburn must have believed the girls screamed out of fear and acted instinctively to protect them.

And his name was David. She tried it on her tongue.
David
. A strong name, but not one that suited a harsh man.

“Mind your hands,” he commanded the girls. “A pup’s teeth are razor sharp.”

As soon as he set the girls on their feet, they began petting and cooing over the wiggling bundle of black and white fur in Will’s arms.

“I know ye lost your da,” Will said, “so I brought Jasper here to cheer ye up.”

Alison bit her lip. What a thoughtful boy.

“Take them all outside,” Wedderburn told Robbie, who gave him a pained expression.

“We can’t go,” Margaret said, her bottom lip coming out. “Mama says it’s not safe for us.”

Beatrix glared at her sister.

“Your mother needn’t worry,” Wedderburn said, placing his large hands on top of her daughters’ heads. “Remember what I told ye?”

“That we’re your responsibility now,” Beatrix said, smiling up at him, “and you’ll protect us.”

“Aye,” he said, shifting his gaze to Alison, “as will my brothers and every one of my men.”

Questions swirled in Alison’s head. How in heaven’s name had he won over Beatrix? Could she trust his word? Could he ensure her daughters would be safe with his men?

She drew in a sharp breath as Wedderburn stepped next to her.

“Do ye believe,” he said next to her ear, “that the women of this castle would have been left untouched if I had not ordered it?”

Her hand went to her throat as she considered what could have happened—what she, in fact, had expected to happen—when the castle fell. As a highborn lady, she would have been spared violent rape by the common men, but the serving women surely would have suffered that harsh fate if Wedderburn had not commanded his men not to harm them.

“May we go?” Beatrix pleaded.

Alison nodded her assent, and her daughters ran down the stairs, laughter and barks echoing behind them.

In the end, it was not Wedderburn’s words that persuaded her to entrust her daughters’ safety to their captor as much as his instinctive act to protect them when they screamed. Her daughters would suffer no harm while Wedderburn held the castle.

The same could not be said for her. She remembered his threat well.
One way or another, you shall be this vile man’s wife.

***

“We must talk seriously now about this marriage.” Wedderburn signaled for her to sit on the bench beneath the window. When she hesitated, he said, “Would ye prefer the bed?”

She dropped onto the bench and folded her hands in her lap. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

He settled next to her, crowding her, and stretched out his long legs. Though the servants had lit no fire and the room was chilly, his body radiated heat, warming her side from shoulder to thigh.

“Ye need a husband who is strong enough to protect you and your daughters,” he said.

“And who will protect us from you?”

“Why fight this?” he said, ignoring her question. “Few women of your station can choose who they marry.”

“Aye, but their families—people who care about their well-being—choose for them.”

“And your family cared so much about ye that they wed ye to Blackadder?” He folded his arms across his chest. “God save me from such a
caring
family.”

He had a point. Though her grandfather was in his grave, she had yet to forgive him for marrying her to Blackadder.

“My circumstances are different now,” she said. “As a widow, the choice of whom to marry, or whether to marry at all, is mine.”

“Ye believe your brothers would allow ye to remain unwed?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “Ye can’t be that naïve.”

Archie’s parting words came back to her with like a slap across the face.
I’ll find ye a husband.

“Believe me, your brother the earl has no intention of leaving ye unwed for long,” he said. “He’ll want this castle in the hands of a strong ally who can defend it.”

“Then he’ll not take kindly to your stealing it.”

“Once we’re wed, your brother will see the wisdom of the match,” Wedderburn said with a shrug. “I am feared and respected in these parts. He’ll come to view me as an asset.”

“An asset?” she said, her voice rising. “After ye laid siege to my castle and forced me to wed ye?”

“Aye, I’m certain of it.”

With all her heart, she wanted to believe that her brothers would respond to the wrong done to her and her daughters with fury, not cold calculation. They did care for her. And yet she would not be in this predicament if they had put her interests above their ambitions.

Now that Archie was the chieftain and earl, would he use his family members as pawns in his power games just as their grandfather had? She pushed the question aside, determined to maintain her composure and argue for her future.

“You’ve told me why ye believe this marriage would be to my advantage,” she said. “But I fail to see what benefit it holds for you.”

His eyes darkened. “Several come to mind.”

Oh my
. She licked her dry lips and did not ask him to elaborate.

“Ye already hold the castle, so ye don’t need us,” she said. “Why not let me and my daughters go?”

“The cost of keeping Blackadder Castle—and I will keep it—will be far less if I’m perceived to have the
right
to hold it,” he said, giving her a smile that did not thaw the ice in his eyes. “Our marriage will save much bloodshed.”

Alison felt as if the ground were shifting under her.

“Some of the blood ye save will be Douglas blood,” Wedderburn continued. “If I am your husband, ’tis unlikely your brothers will attempt to remove me from Blackadder Castle by force.”

He was trapping her with his words, each one another link in the chain he was tightening around her. And the hard lines of his handsome face told her he would never relinquish the castle without spilling blood.

“Most of the other lairds will see that they’ve missed their chance,” he continued, “so I’ll not have to fight them either.”

“Missed their chance?”

“I am not the only man who wants to gain control of these lands and castle, just the first to act,” he said. “If it were not me, lass, it would be someone else.”

Alison leaned her head against the stone wall behind her and stared at the ceiling. It had been a foolish dream to believe she could have her freedom. Why had she not seen it? She was the granddaughter of chieftains, the sister-in-law to the queen, the widow of Blackadder and the mother of his heirs. A woman with her blood connections was valuable property. Wedderburn was right. If it were not him forcing her into marriage, it would be someone else—if her brother did not barter her away first.

She would never be allowed to remain unwed or to choose her husband, never have the chance of finding true love. Not that she believed in true love, though she had once, a very long time ago. Her girlish hope for love had disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the wind when she married.

“I know this is not fair,” Wedderburn said, “but let’s make this arrangement as agreeable as we can.”

Wedderburn startled her by laying his hand over hers. His was so large that only the tips of her fingers showed beneath it. She did not jerk her hand away because she did not want to chase away the unexpected kindness she saw in his eyes.

A tiny light of hope began to burn in her chest. But then the kindness left his eyes like a door slamming shut, and the light of hope flickered out.

***

David cursed himself for his momentary lapse. Lady Alison’s soft and sweet femininity brought out a dangerous longing in him for something he should not want, and most definitely could not have. He could never permit himself to be weakened by a woman the way his father had. Never.

Men spoke of his father as a great leader, but his mother had been harder, colder, more determined. David took after her.

He reminded himself that he was not marrying Lady Alison because he wanted to or because she was breathtakingly beautiful or because she needed protection, though he could give her that. And it did not make one damned bit of difference what she wanted or how she felt about becoming his wife.

He was marrying her for the sake of his brothers and clan and to carry out his promise of vengeance. She was a means to an end, and that was all she could be to him.

“I hope we can have a cooperative union and be useful to each other,” he told her.

“A practical arrangement, then?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“I’ll ask the servants to prepare a bedchamber for ye,” she said, and stood as if to dismiss him.

“You’ll ask them to prepare
our
bedchamber.”

She arched her eyebrows. “That is beyond the practical arrangement ye suggested.”

“’Tis exceedingly practical,” he said. “I am the chief of the Humes, and I need heirs.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor, and her shoulders drooped on a slow exhale.

“There are benefits to marriage that we shall both enjoy.” He brushed his knuckles against the softness of her cheek and brought her eyes back up to his. “I’m looking forward to them verra, verra much.”

“Well, I am not,” she said with a flash of anger in her eyes. “This is far too soon. Ye must respect that I am newly widowed and grant me time.”

Her rejection stung more than he wanted to admit.

“What I
must
do,” he said, “is wed and bed ye before anyone attempts to thwart me.”

“How dare ye be so indelicate as to speak of bedding me,” she said.

“I dare do more than speak of it.” He let a slow smile curl the corners of his mouth. “And while no lass has ever accused me of being delicate, I’ll try to be gentle,
if
that’s how ye like it…”

She slapped his face. While she did not have the strength to hurt him, the lass did put all she had into it.

He grabbed her wrist to prevent her from slapping him a second time and leaned down until they were nose to nose. “We shall be husband and wife before the sun sets.”

“I shall not do it,” she said, holding his gaze.

“Did ye hear me say ye had a choice?” he asked. “Be in the hall in one hour.”

“Or what?” she asked, tossing her head.

“Or I shall carry ye down.”

CHAPTER 10

David stomped down the stairs. Why did every conversation he had with Lady Alison leave him feeling like a brute?

Taking the castle was a simple matter compared to taking his bride. While he could not afford to become attached to her, he did not wish to make her miserable either. He wanted her content—and in his bed, where he’d make her more content.

Leave it to Will to think of bringing a gift. At ten, his brother had the wisdom to win females over with honey, rather than threats. Of course, Will had not brought the pup for that purpose, but because he had lost his father and thought the lassies must be grieving too. Will was probably right about that. Though Blackadder was a foul man who deserved a worse death than he got, he had been their father.

Damn it, David should have brought a wedding gift for his bride. He’d had more important matters on his mind. Besides, what in the hell would he give her?

He had informed the servants about the wedding, and they were scurrying about the hall when he entered, cleaning and such. He collared one of the men and pulled him aside.

“I want my bedchamber prepared for the wedding night,” he told him. When the servant gaped at him as if he did not understand, David waved his hand. “Flowers, whatever a bride expects.”