Highland Warrior (18 page)

Ewan started to make his way back to where they had left their horses. “Tis time to find out all we can about our enemy. Since his sister Mary sounds a good woman, one has to wonder if the rot runs as deeply as we thought or if all these years ’tis mostly Hugh we have been fighting. I ken that his father was angered by the loss of Scarglas, but I dinnae recall that there was verra much fighting between us and the Grays in those early years.”

“Ye may be right. Best ye talk to our father. All I ken is that the trouble with the Grays has been deadly and almost unrelenting since Hugh began to lead them. I was still a beardless youth when that happened. I hear a few rumors here and there, but nay much else. Thinking on it now, though, that slaughter which took place years ago, the one that killed so many of their women and all, happened after Hugh became the laird. The mon stirs up deeper hatreds and anger than our father e’er could, I think.”

“He has certainly stirred such inside of me,” Ewan said. “We have fought him mostly in defense of our lives and lands. Now, I want to destroy him. The first step is to try and find out all we can about the Grays.”

“Agreed. And what do ye do about your son? Ye have promised him he will be brought to Scarglas.”

“And I will keep that promise, but I need time. This isnae an easy thing to tell a wife. I have to do it right, if only for the boy’s sake. When I bring him to Scarglas, I want him welcomed, I want Fiona to want him there, to become his mother. I feel that she would accept him, yet once the tale is told..” He shrugged, his thoughts too confused to put into words.

“I think ye worry o’er naught, but aye, ’tis still a thing that must be gently and carefully done. Old Robbie and Kate will treat him weel and kindly. And I think ye must always approach that cottage carefully. A trap may yet await ye.”

Ewan nodded as they reached their horses, and quickly mounted. “This must remain a secret for now. Just ye and I, aye?”

“Aye,” agreed Gregor as he mounted and they started to ride back to Scarglas. “It certainly wouldnae help your cause if Fiona heard about the lad ere ye could tell her.
Dinnae wait too long, Ewan. That cottage isnae that close to the keep, but word could easily slip out from there and reach our gates.”

That possibility was still troubling Ewan by the time he joined Fiona in their bedchamber that night. Since his return from the cottage, he had avoided her, struggling to sort out his thoughts and feelings as well as come up with a plan. He suspected she had sensed his odd mood, his distraction, for she watched him closely.

And she was not the only one, he thought, and inwardly grimaced. His cousin Sigimor had begun to watch him closely as well. The man was uncomfortably keen of wit and sharp of eye. It also proved that he was not very good at hiding secrets, especially ones as troubling as this, Ewan mused. He would have to come up with a plan soon.

When Fiona unbraided her hair, he moved to take over the chore of brushing it out. She had become so important to him, so great a part of his life and all of his future. There was a part of him that wanted simply to ask her what she felt for him, but he was a coward. If she did not say the words he wanted to hear, it would strike him to the heart and he shied away from the promise of such pain. Yet not knowing made the problem now confronting him an even knottier one. He simply could not be sure how she would take the news of his son, or if she felt deeply enough for him that it would not be sufficient cause to push her away.

“Is there some trouble brewing, Ewan?” Fiona asked as he set her brush aside and began to lead her toward their bed. “Ye seem deeply lost in your thoughts.”

“There have been so many changes around here, lass, that I find myself lost in my thoughts a great deal.”

“Good changes,” she said as she climbed into bed, quickly slipping into his embrace when he got in beside her. “A lot has been gained.”

“A lot and all of it welcome. My father also seems to be changing for the better. I realized there is now a chance for some of my brothers to do better for themselves than stay here as little more than men-at-arms.” He began to kiss her throat, enjoying her soft murmur of pleasure. “Tis simply that it is a lot to accept. We have gone from being all alone, to having allies. That was something I have wished for for so long that I hesitate to believe I have finally gained my wish.”

He tilted her face up to his and kissed her. The way she so readily accepted his kiss, his touch, quickly fired his own passion. This was what he feared to lose, he realized. Here was where he feared the chill of anger or hurt could seep in. The mere thought of such a thing happening made him feel desperate and his lovemaking grew fierce.

Ewan pulled off her night shift and pushed her onto her back. He ignored her blushes as he looked her over thoroughly. The beauty of her made his breath catch in his throat, and the fearful part of him wondered how much longer he would be blessed to enjoy it. The threat of losing her freely given passion made him want to leave some mark on her, a fierce memory of heat and hunger, one that might make it impossible for her to cool to his touch.

As he kissed her, he gently captured her wrists in his hands and pinned them to the bed. Before the night was through, Ewan intended to smother her in his passion, to leave her so sated she could not even twitch a toe. The passion they shared was the only thing he was sure of, and he intended to use it to its fullest.

Fiona gasped as he moved his kisses to her breasts, stroking her nipples with his
tongue and encircling them with light kisses until she was squirming beneath him. There was something slightly different in his lovemaking tonight, a touch of determination, even desperation. When he finally gave her what she ached for and drew her aching nipple deep into his mouth to suckle her with a tantalizing rhythm, she decided she would worry about his mood later. Whatever was tumbling about in his head and heart, the pleasure he was giving her was too delicious to interrupt with questions and concerns about why.

“Ah, lass, ye taste like the sweetest of honeys,” he murmured as he kissed his way down to her silken stomach. “A mon could get drunk upon ye.”

“Let me touch ye, Ewan,” she pleaded.

“Nay, not this time. Ye touch me and what little control I have vanishes beneath those wee, soft hands.”

Her eyes widened when he kissed the curls between her thighs. She tried to clamp her legs together, but his broad shoulders stopped her retreat. Shock held her very still for a moment, but with each stroke of his tongue, it faded. Passion forced it aside as he made love to her with his mouth and tongue. With a soft cry of acceptance and desire, she opened herself up to this new intimacy.

“Ewan,” she cried out as she felt her release tightening her insides.

“Nay, hush, lass, give me this.”

With a harsh cry, she did. She was still gasping from the wonder of it when he began to kiss his way back up her body. The first touch of his lips against her breasts renewed her desire, much to her astonishment. She wrapped her limbs around him as he eased their bodies together. For a little while, he moved within her almost tenderly, but then their need for each other grew too strong for such gentleness. Her last clear thought as he took them both to the heights they sought was that, for someone who claimed he had little experience, Ewan was proving to be a lover who could easily kill her with passion.

Weakly, Fiona stroked Ewan’s back as he lay sprawled in her arms. She decided it might take days to recover from his lovemaking, then smiled to herself. After a little rest, she knew she would be more than ready for him to try and drive her mad with desire if he felt inclined.

She was glad he was not looking at her, though. It was going to take her a little while to quell the embarrassment she felt at the memory of what he had done, the deep intimacy of that kiss. Fiona knew it was a little foolish to suffer such an attack of modesty. She felt none when she loved him with her mouth and he certainly did not blush or hide his face afterward. There was no question that she had found pleasure in it, and if he did as well, then she would learn not to suffer even that fleeting resistance that had afflicted her, nor would she trouble him with the need to soothe her delicate sensibilities after the loving ended.

A little smile touched her lips as she realized he had gone to sleep. She found herself wondering yet again about the strange mood he had been in since returning from his ride with Gregor. Something was troubling him; she was certain of it. Fiona wished he would share it with her, let her help him solve whatever problem he was fretting over, but he would not do so. It hurt, but she told herself not to take it to heart. Ewan had dealt with problems and responsibilities all on his own for too long to suddenly begin openly sharing them with his still very new wife. She would just watch and wait, keeping her
eyes open for some chance to help him. Touching a kiss to the top of his head, she swore she would be patient. She decided it might not hurt to pray that whatever the problem was, it could be solved without bloodshed.

Ewan laced up his doublet as he stood at the end of his bed and watched Fiona sleep. She looked exhausted, and he felt both guilty and pleased about that. For the last three nights, he had done his best to love her into a stupor. He was still a little surprised by how he had finally learned some control over his passion for her and by his ingenuity. If Fiona’s cries of pleasure were any indication, he was becoming an accomplished lover, at least in her eyes, and that was all that mattered. Ewan just wished that part of his reason for such efforts and success was not because he had a secret he wanted to hide until he could feel more certain of her.

It was wrong, he decided as he left the room. In a way, he was trying to enslave her and using her own desires to do so. That not only was wrong, but could well be impossible. From what he had seen over the years, women were not the ones easily enslaved by passion. Men were. Women were ruled by their hearts. Making love to Fiona until she could not walk was not the way into her heart. At least not all on its own. The problem was, he had no idea of how to make a woman love him.

He paused at the head of the stairs and considered returning to his bedchamber, waking Fiona up, and simply asking her how she felt about him. It was an idea he had considered a few times before. Then, just as before, he turned craven. He knew she had to care for him in some way in order to feel such passion, but he did not want to hear her mouth only gentle words of affection. They could cut him as deeply as if she said she had no true caring for him at all.

Shaking his head over his own cowardice and confusion, Ewan hurried down to the great hall. He would eat and then go get his son. If nothing else, he could not keep slipping over to the cottage to see the boy. It had been only three days and people were already looking at him with suspicion. Such secretiveness was so unlike him, it was hardly surprising that it had been noticed and had roused the curiosity of too many.

An hour later, having been unable to find Gregor, Ewan started on the trip to the cottage on his own. There had been no sign of the Grays in all the time he had traveled back and forth to the cottage. It appeared that Helena had done exactly what she said she had—left him his child. Nevertheless, he followed the ritual he and Gregor had established, leaving his horse at the same place as before and walking the rest of the way to the cottage.

With every step he took, he tried to think of a way to present his child to Fiona. It would have been best to prepare her for the boy, but each time he had opened his mouth to say something, no words would come out. Now he had simply run out of time. He would have to be simple and direct and hope for the best.

Old Robbie answered his rap at the door and Ewan stepped into the cottage. His heart performed a strange, painful lurch in his chest when the boy looked up from his bowl of porridge and smiled at him. That faint glint of hope shone in the boy’s eyes again and Ewan knew that, even if he had not already decided to do so, he would be taking the boy back to Scarglas today. He could not dim that hope again.

“Have ye thought of a name for me?” asked the boy as Ewan sat down opposite him.

Ewan shook his head when Kate silently offered him some porridge, but he gratefully accepted the tankard of cool cider she placed in front of him. “I have thought of several, but decided it would be best to wait until we get to Scarglas. Fiona should
have a say in it, I think.”

“Are ye sure she will like me?”

“Aye, she willnae have any trouble taking ye in. The lass has a good heart.”
She just seems reluctant to give it into the care of her husband
, he mused.

“Did ye tell her all about me?”

“Er, nay. So, dinnae be bothered if she acts surprised or the like. And she might get angry, but ’twill be with me, nay you. Remember that.”

“Mayhap ye should tell her about me first.”

“I have tried, lad. Tisnae easy and I am nay good with words, ye ken. Tis nay an easy thing to be telling a wife, and ye will understand that weel when ye get older.” Ewan grimaced, then smiled when he heard Old Robbie laugh.

Then he heard something else, a noise that made the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen. He was just getting to his feet when the door to the cottage was kicked open. Kate screamed and Old Robbie quickly wrapped his arm around her and dragged her with him into a corner by the hearth. Ewan drew his sword and put himself between the armed men near the door and his son.

It had been a trap after all. The Grays had baited it with his son and then waited with a patience they had rarely shown before. Since he was sure he and Gregor had missed nothing when they had come here that first day, the Grays must have left the boy and gone away, staying away in the hope of lulling their suspicions. It had worked. When no attack had come, when no enemy had been sighted, he and Gregor had relaxed their guard, ignoring their own advice. Now he was stuck, the only armed man between the Grays and three helpless people.

A man shoved his way through the others crowded near the door, and Ewan’s stomach tightened with fury when he heard a soft whimper escape his son. Hugh, the laird of the Grays, was a good six inches shorter than Ewan, but his body was thick with muscles. His broad face was handsome enough, Ewan supposed, but he had to wonder what Helena found so compelling. Hazel eyes, nut brown hair, and somewhat ordinary features seemed ill suited for the brute Hugh was. There was a look in the man’s eyes, however, and something in his smile that warned a person. At the moment, that smile held cold triumph and anticipation.

“Couldnae resist the boy, could ye?” Hugh said.

Ewan shrugged. “He is mine.”

“Aye, any fool can see he is a filthy MacFingal.”

“I am curious as to why ye kept him so long if he troubled ye so.”

“Thought the little bastard might come in useful someday and he has, hasnae he.”

The thing that upset Ewan the most was that, unless some wondrous miracle happened, he was not going to have the chance to kill this man. “This has been a most pleasant visit,” he drawled, “but I really must be on my way now.”

“Och, dinnae spoil my fun. If ye take one step toward this wee door, I will have to have ye killed—quickly—and that wasnae my plan at all. Now, why dinnae ye just put down your sword.”

“And just why should I do that?” He cursed when one of Hugh’s men moved to hold a sword at Kate’s throat. “Ye would kill an old woman who has ne’er done ye any harm?”

“Aye.”

Ewan knew he had no choice. If he kept arguing, Hugh would kill Kate and Old Robbie. The man might even turn his brutal attention upon the boy. There was no guarantee that he would not kill them all anyway, but Ewan could not ignore the chance that his sacrifice might keep them alive. He tossed his sword at Hugh’s feet.

Hugh chuckled and signaled two of his men to grab Ewan. As he was dragged outside, Ewan found some comfort in the fact that Hugh seemed to forget about the old couple and the boy. Even his men just turned their backs on them and left them alone in the cottage. He hoped there was some way they could take advantage of that and slip away. Once out in the clearing before the small cottage, Ewan looked toward a tall, stout post that had been erected. Standing next to it, and smiling sweetly, was Helena.

Sigimor cursed as he watched Ewan being stripped of his clothes and tied to the post, his arms stretched wide and lashed to the crosspiece nailed to the top of the post. He had been watching his cousin for three days and had decided the man was acting strangely. Due to the somewhat licentious nature of his newfound cousins, Sigimor had wondered if the man had a mistress. That being an insult to Fiona he could not tolerate, he had followed Ewan. At the moment, he rather wished it had been a woman.

The sound of someone behind him made him tense and he rested his hand on his sword. Then he heard a soft curse in a voice he recognized. When Gregor started to hurry by him, Sigimor lashed out with one arm, catching the younger man in the chest and knocking him to the ground. He stood over Gregor until the man caught his breath enough to glare up at him.

“What did ye do that for?” demanded Gregor as he rubbed his chest.

“I thought ye might wish to pause a moment and come up with a plan ere ye rushed off to face odds of ten to one.”

Gregor cursed as he stumbled to his feet. “I cannae leave Ewan in the hands of that bastard Hugh.” He paled slightly as he looked toward the clearing. “The mon is going to make him bleed.”

“Aye.” Sigimor frowned as he caught sight of movement at the rear of the cottage. “Ye cannae fight all those men by yourself. Even if I lend ye my awe-inspiring skill, the odds are still too great. We need to hie ourselves back to Scarglas and get some help.”

“Then let us be on our way.”

“In a moment. I want to see who is escaping from the cottage.”

“Jesu, ’tis Old Robbie, his wife, and the boy.”

“The boy?”

Gregor hastily explained. “We thought it might be a trap, but then days passed and naught happened.”

Sigimor nodded. “They waited for ye to grow comfortable, to feel as safe as one can about this place. The first day, mayhap e’en the second, there probably was no one about. From what I have heard of the Grays, ’tis a remarkably clever plan for them to devise.”

“Aye,” agreed Gregor. “We should have suspected that they might actually get clever at some time over the years. That bitch Helena is down there, I see. She is as bad as Hugh.”

“She will soon be as dead as Hugh. Come, those people are about to slip into the wood to our left. We will get them and take them with us.”

“I hate leaving Ewan to suffer at Hugh’s hands.”

“Suffering is better than dead.”

“He has a mistress.”

Mab handed Fiona a linen square to wipe her tears and returned to making some lavender sachets for the linen chests. “Now why should ye think Ewan would have a mistress?”

Fiona frowned at her friend as she blew her nose. There was a distinct lack of sympathy in Mab’s voice. “For the last three days he has gone somewhere and no one kens where.”

“Weel, if no one kens where, then how can ye be sure ’tis a woman he goes to see?”

“Why else would he be slipping away without the guard he has always had?”

“To get away from the guard?”

“Possibly,” Fiona conceded, then shook her head. “Nay, ’tis more than that, more than stealing a wee bit of freedom for himself. He is being secretive.”

Mab leaned against her worktable, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked at Fiona. “That is odd, and many people have noticed it. Ye are the only one who has decided it is a woman, however.”

“Tis usually why a mon starts tiptoeing about, keeping secrets, and disappearing for hours with no one kenning where they are.”

“Not here. The MacFingals make no secret of their, er, lustiness.”

“Most of them arenae married.”

“Fiona, I really dinnae think Ewan is being unfaithful. I cannae think why ye would wonder on it. Has he been less than enthusiastic in the bedchamber lately?” Mab’s eyebrows rose when Fiona blushed bright red. “I gather not.”

“I am sure he is keeping a secret, Mab. There is something troubling him, something making his mood turn somewhat odd. And, weel, he has become
verra
, er, enthusiastic.”

“I would think that, if he is servicing a lass for hours during the day, his enthusiasm would wane a little at night. E’en a MacFingal needs a rest now and again.”

Although it surprised Fiona a little that she could do so when she was so upset, she giggled. “He did tell me he would be faithful when we got married.”

“Then he isnae visiting some lass. Ewan is a mon of his word. I think ye are just being a wee bit sensitive, prone to frets and fears. Tis the bairn, mayhap. It can do that.”

Fiona slowly nodded. It was possible that she was just succumbing to a surfeit of emotion, imagining problems where there were none. The fact that she was desperately in love with her husband and still had no hint of his feelings was certainly not helping her stay calm.

“I tried to speak to Gregor about it, but he is verra good at slipping away and staying out of sight.”

“Why would Gregor ken anything no one else does?”

“Because he is the one who slips away with Ewan.”

Mab rolled her eyes. “Listen to yourself, child. Gregor goes with Ewan. Do ye really think a mon would take his brother with him when he went to visit his leman?”

“I am being silly,” Fiona whispered after a moment of thought. “Tis just that I am
so in love with him yet cannae seem to get him to feel as I do. Tis making me witless and afraid.”

“That and carrying a bairn. Why dinnae ye just tell him how ye feel, lass?”

“Pride, I suppose. I think on it, then think on how I would feel if I bared all and he couldnae say the same. Jesu, but that would hurt. And what if kenning how I feel when he cannae return the feelings makes him so uncomfortable he starts to pull away from me? Not that he can pull away much further than he has already. Oh, I am nay making any sense.”

“Aye, ye are,” Mab said. “I wish there was some advice I could give ye, some clever wifely thing ye could do to make it all right for ye, but I ken nothing. All I can keep saying is that he is a good mon and ye must be patient. Just keep reminding yourself of all ye do have. He is faithful, he is passionate, he will see all your needs met, he will protect ye, and he will give ye children. They dinnae sound warm and loving, save for the passion, but they are verra important things.”

Fiona smiled faintly. “I ken it. I was just suffering a weakness. It is just that I ken he is troubled, but he willnae tell me what it is, then he disappears for a wee while every day, and from there I managed to start imagining him rolling about in the heather with some lusty, buxom maid.”

“The lusty ones are always buxom, I fear.” Mab laughed along with Fiona, then shook her head. “Trust him, Fiona. Just trust him and love him and ’twill all come right in the end.”

As she left the herb shed and started back to the keep, Fiona promised herself that she would repeat Mab’s words several times a day. Gillyanne had not been able to win Connor’s heart very quickly, either, she told herself. She suspected her brother’s heart had been placed in his wife’s hands long before he had actually admitted it. If he had not been faced with the very real chance of losing her, Connor might have held silent for far longer than he did.