Captured by a Laird (9 page)

“The laird’s bedchamber?” the servant asked, unease pinching his face.

“Aye,
my
bedchamber,” David said, glaring at him. “And move Lady Alison’s things into it at once.”

Best she know from the start how it would be. Her former husband may have been content to let her sleep in a chamber with her daughters, but he would not.

A useless wave of fury seized him at the thought of Blackadder bedding Alison first and for all those years. He added that injury to the list of the dead man’s crimes.

Had their marriage been a close one? Had she slept with her daughters while Blackadder was alive, or did she move there after his death because she could not bear to sleep in their marriage bed without him?

God help him, he was insanely jealous of a dead man. This was not like him, but then, he had never had a wife before.

“Perhaps you’ll want to see the laird’s chamber first?” the servant asked, interrupting his black thoughts.

“Aye,” he said. “I’ll have a bath and dress there for the ceremony.”

He followed the servant back up the stairs to the floor just above the hall.

“Here it is,” the servant said in a cracked voice. He pushed open the door and stepped back quickly.

David’s boots echoed as he entered the room. Rich tapestries covered the walls, and the furniture included a chest, a small round table with two chairs, a bench, and a narrow table with a pitcher and bowl on it. David stood in the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle where the bed should have been.

“Where is it?”

The servant had gone pale and sweat glistened on his forehead. “The lady burned it.”

“She did what?”

The man sidestepped to the arrow-slit window, keeping his eyes on David, and pointed. “There.”

David joined him at the window and looked down into the courtyard. The fellow appeared to be pointing at the charred rectangle David had wondered about earlier. When he realized what it was, he burst out laughing. Apparently, Alison shared his low opinion of her former husband.

“The lass has spirit, aye?” he said, slapping the man on the back. “Shame Blackadder wasn’t in it at the time.”

He was still chuckling to himself after he shooed away the servants who prepared his bath.

But as he soaked in the steaming tub in his bed-less bedchamber, his amusement faded. What had Blackadder done to make Alison so angry that she would burn his bed? Such strong emotion suggested a fiery passion gone bad.

***

Pride made Alison put on her best gown, a midnight-blue velvet that matched her eyes and showed off her fair skin. Beatrix knelt on the bed behind her to fasten the hooks in the back, a task that had become too difficult for Flora due to her failing eyesight and painfully swollen knuckles. Despite Flora’s shortcomings, Alison had not allowed any other servant to help her dress since the first year of her marriage.

When she first arrived as a new bride of thirteen, the servants tested their new mistress and took advantage of her inexperience. Blackadder turned a deaf ear to her complaints, and once the servants saw how little power she held, their lack of respect grew more blatant.

Alison was never sure which of them terrorized her with pranks and worse, safe in the knowledge that her husband would blame her for the loose hem that caused her to trip, the ring from her father that went missing, and the poor dead cat she found beneath her favorite gown in the chest. After that first terrible year, Alison was harder to frighten, and the malicious pranks were replaced by a lazy disregard.

Without a competent maid, an elaborate coif and headdress were a challenge, and Alison did not have enough time in any case. She decided to wear her hair simply, in a single braid with a silver ribbon woven through it. Blackadder had laughed at the makeshift headdress she had made from a piece of the leftover blue velvet and embroidered with silver thread, but it would have to do. She held it in place with a silver circlet.

“Ye look lovely,” Flora said, blinking her filmy eyes.

Not very reassuring, coming from a nearly blind woman. But why should she care? She did not want this marriage, and Wedderburn would wed her if she looked like old Flora.

“Why did ye change your gown and fix your hair?” Beatrix asked.

Alison sat on the bench and patted the smooth wood surface on either side of her. When the girls clambered up beside her, she put her arms around them. If she wanted to tell them before Wedderburn came pounding on the door, she must do it now.

“Unless your uncles arrive quite soon,” she said, glancing at the door, “I’ll be marrying the Laird of Wedderburn today.”

“Why?” Beatrix asked.

“’Tis a bit hard to explain.” She did not want to tell her daughters how little choice a woman had in this world and hoped Beatrix would not press her for a better answer.

“Does that mean Will and Robbie will be our brothers?” Margaret asked. “I’d like to have brothers.”

“No, sweetling.” Alison was about to add that they would share a household, until she realized she did not know if the two lads had come only for the wedding or if they would live at Blackadder Castle.

“Will our new laird make ye cry like Father did?” Beatrix asked, her sweet face clouded with worry.

Alison had tried to hide her misery from her daughters, but Beatrix was an observant child.

“I’m certain he will not,” she lied, and kissed Beatrix’s forehead before her smile faltered.

“Where will he sleep?” Beatrix persisted.

Beatrix must have been awake some of those nights when she returned from Blackadder’s bedchamber and cried herself to sleep. Alison should have been more careful.

“For now, you two and Flora will move to the Tower Room,” Alison said, combing her fingers through her daughter’s hair.

Wedderburn apparently had discovered that the laird’s chamber lacked a bed because he had sent a man to inform her that he would make this his bedchamber until it could be replaced.

“I’ll sleep here with Wedderburn tonight,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm, “for at least a little while before I join ye in the Tower Room.”

Her body tensed with the urge to grab her daughters’ hands and blindly run as fast and far as she could. But with the castle filled with Hume warriors, they would not even reach the gate. They would not escape today, and tomorrow would be too late for her.

“I’m scared to sleep in the Tower Room without ye,” Margaret said, and leaned against her.

“Would ye feel less afraid if I let the puppy sleep with ye tonight?”

Her daughters jumped off the bench and shouted with joy.

If only it was so easy to resolve her own fears of the coming night.

Alison got to her feet and smoothed her gown with sweaty palms. The hour Wedderburn had given her was gone, and she intended to avoid being carried into the hall over his shoulder like a prize hog. That would only frighten her daughters and humiliate her, and it would not save her from this marriage.

She touched the black quartz pendant her mother had given her, though the only luck it had brought her so far was bad luck, and went to meet her fate.

***

Patrick Blackadder’s anger was cold and hard like a piece of ice lodged in his chest.

“I told ye it was a mistake to order half our men to desert Lady Alison and leave the castle vulnerable,” he said to his father. “Now Wedderburn has taken what belongs to us.”

This was just the latest in a series of miscalculations that jeopardized Patrick, their family, and their clan. His father should step aside before he ruined them all.

“I meant for her brother to see that she and the castle needed our protection,” his father said. “I expected him to agree to a quick marriage.”

“David Hume took her without the Douglas chieftain’s permission,” Patrick said.

Wedderburn had taken a calculated risk, wagering that Archibald Douglas would not divert his attention from his fight to gain control of the royal heir. Patrick would have done the same as Wedderburn if he sat in the laird’s chair instead of his father.

“He humiliated us,” Patrick said between his teeth. “Good God, Father, he released our warriors as if he had nothing to fear by letting them go.”

The Blackadder men had straggled in without their boots or weapons, and each one spoke in awe of the Hume laird’s skill with a sword. Patrick had been tempted to cut them all down.

“Damn that young Wedderburn,” his father said. “Who would have guessed he’d dare affront both the Douglases and us, and so soon after his father and uncle were executed?”

“I warned ye about him.”

The Humes were known for their fierceness and opportunism, and Patrick had seen David Hume fight at Flodden. The heir to Wedderburn had fought at the front on the Hume vanguard with impressive ferocity and a foolish lack of concern for his own safety. Against the odds, the Hume vanguard had succeeded in their part in the battle while others failed.

When the two Hume lairds saw that the battle was lost, they ordered their men to quickly collect supply wagons and what valuables they could from the dead, English and Scots both, and abandon the field. They were only robbing the English victors of a portion of their spoils, but that was not how most of the defeated Scots saw it.

“If Wedderburn took the castle yesterday,” his father said, shaking his head, “then ye can be sure he’s already wedded and bedded Lady Alison.”

Patrick’s control nearly snapped. At the thought of another man touching her, his hands shook with the need to sink a blade into his enemy’s heart.

Alison was meant to be his.

He had wanted her since he was sixteen and saw her for first time at her wedding to his kinsman. In the years since, his desire for her had grown to a fever. He had suffered every time he saw her with his Blackadder cousin, an old warrior who was past his time like Patrick’s father.

His only comfort was that Alison suffered too. Every time she looked at her husband, Patrick saw the distaste on her face. If she’d been happy with the old goat, he could not have borne it.

When she was finally his, they would make up for those lost years.

“Wedderburn believes he’s won, but he’s underestimated us, just as his father and uncle did,” his father said with a self-satisfied smile. “’Tis not the end of this.”

That was the one thing Patrick and his father agreed on.

CHAPTER 11

The hall was utterly silent as three hundred Humes waited for their chieftain’s bride to appear. David’s temper was rising by the moment.
Where was she
?

He felt like smashing furniture, but a strong leader controlled his emotions, so he remained still. As time crawled by, his men cast uneasy glances his way when they thought he was not looking. The only Hume who appeared at ease was Will, who was staring at the ceiling as if he could see the stars through the roof. Sometimes David found it difficult to believe they shared any blood at all.

He was steeling himself for the odious task of hauling his screaming and wailing bride down the stairs when a low rumble traveled across the crowded hall like a wave. His men parted, and there she was, standing under the arched doorway like an angel descended from the heavens.

Alison was breathtaking in a rich blue velvet gown that clung to her lithe curves. Instead one of those fussy headdresses he hated, she wore a simple, elegant one that framed her face like a portrait.

He was relieved she had come to the hall on her own, but she remained frozen in the doorway like a frightened doe ready to spring away at any sudden movement. With slow, deliberate steps, David crossed the room to her.

“I appreciate your coming down,” he said to her in a low voice, and grasped her hand before she could take flight.

He tucked it firmly into his arm and led her back across the room to the small table where the marriage contract was laid out. As she glided on light steps beside him, he took in his bride’s delicate profile and the dark braid laced with silver that fell enticingly to the small of her back.

As soon as they reached the table, he scrawled his signature at the bottom of the marriage contract. He held out the quill to her and hoped to hell he would not have to grasp her hand and force her to sign. When she reached for it, he let out the breath he was holding. Her fingers brushed his and sent a jolt of desire through him.

How long must he wait before he could take his bride to bed? The vows and the wedding feast were all that stood between him and what he wanted.

As Alison leaned over the table to sign her name, her braid fell over her shoulder. His gaze followed its path along the ivory skin above her bodice and over the curve of her breast. He imagined loosening the silky strands of the braid with his fingers and kissing the side of her neck as he unfastened her gown…

He was so caught up imagining the coming night that he forgot where he was, what he doing and why. It all came back to him with a start when Alison set down the quill and turned to him with all the color drained from her face. She had decided to accept this marriage with dignity because she could not avoid it, but the prospect of having him as her husband obviously horrified her.

She flinched when he took her wrist, and David told himself it did not matter that she detested him. The marriage was necessary to serve his goals.

When he placed their hands together palm to palm in preparation for the vows, the significance of how this marriage would change his life struck him like a thunderclap. He chose her out of duty, as chief of the Humes, but he would live with her as a man.

He had been so focused on his goals of protecting his family and punishing the Blackadders that he had not considered he would be sharing his table, his hearth, and his hall with this woman. Since laying eyes on her, he had, of course, devoted a great deal of thought to bedding her for the first time. But this black-haired lass with an angel’s face would share his bed for years to come, bear his children, and, if they both survived, grow old with him.