Return of the Rogue (13 page)

Artair.

She scrambled to her feet and hurried to deposit the pup in the stable with the other pups. Then she went in search of Artair.

H
onora found him working in the blacksmith hut. He was shirtless, his bare chest shimmering with sweat while he hammered away at the red hot tip of a sword laid flat on an anvil. She couldn’t help but compare him to her husband. Where Cavan was thick with muscle, Artair was lean and sinewy, defined and sculpted like a marble statue, though not cold and aloof like marble or like his brother could be at times. Artair was affable, his smile genuine, his nature pragmatic. He was a dependable and reasonable man, one easy to converse with. He had been honest about what he expected from her as a wife and made her feel as comfortable as possible with their forthcoming marriage arrangement.

When Artair saw her, he gave the sword one last hammer and then shoved the tip into the rain barrel, steam rising off the water before he deposited the weapon on a nearby worktable.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because we have barely exchanged more than salutations between us since you wed my brother.”

“My fault,” she admitted. “I cannot say it has been easy adjusting to the sudden change in my situation.”

“I am sorry for that.”

Honora smiled. “It wasn’t your fault, though I felt I lost a good husband.”

He laughed. “You’re so sure of that?”

Honora nodded firmly. “You will make a woman a fine husband one day. She will be lucky to have you.”

“And I will be lucky if she possesses half the good nature that you do. Actually, your pleasant temperament is what made the arrangement so appealing, but by now my brother must realize his good fortune in having you as a wife.”

Honora shrugged. “I’m not sure how your brother feels. I thought perhaps you could help me to understand him better.”

“I wish I could understand him better myself.” Artair shook his head. “He is different since his return. He keeps himself removed from most everyone. We don’t talk as much as we once did.”

“It sounds as if you miss your brother.”

“I do,” he said.

“Have you tried speaking with him?”

“Obviously you came to me with concern for my brother, yet you are advising me on my concerns. You are a thoughtful woman, Honora.” He winked playfully at her. “Perhaps I was foolish to let you go so easily.”

“Perhaps you should respect the fact that she is your brother’s wife.”

Honora and Artair turned to see Cavan, his hands fisted at his sides.

“Artair was only teasing,” Honora said.

“Let him find his own woman to tease,” Cavan said, his dark eyes steady on his brother.

“I meant no disrespect,” Artair apologized.

Honora was not well acquainted with men and their peculiarities, but she was certain that friction sizzled between the two. It seemed if she didn’t separate them soon, an altercation would ensue.

“Make sure you don’t,” Cavan warned unnecessarily.

Artair made a civil attempt to lighten the atmosphere. “Remember that it’s through my generosity that you have such a wonderful wife.”

Cavan took a sharp step forward, and Honora, without thinking, stepped between the two men.

“I am feeling rather tired. Would you walk me back to the keep?”

Artair’s glare remained locked with his brother’s. “I’ll be right here if you have anything else to say to me.”

Honora slipped her arm around her husband’s and gave a light tug. “Actually, I could use a hot brew. I’m feeling quite chilled.” She forced a shiver to prove her point.

“We’ll talk later,” he said to his brother.

“I’d like that,” Artair said, and turned to shove the sword he’d been working on into the fiery ambers.

Honora waited until they were a distance away
from the blacksmith hut to say, “Artair is a good man.”

“Unfortunately, you’re stuck with me as a husband, and you can thank your stepfather for that.”

“You’re right,” she said, her head cast down as they walked along the pitted path to the keep.

Cavan’s head snapped around to glare at her.

She raised her head and was quick to correct his misunderstanding. “You’re right about my stepfather being at fault, not about me being stuck with you. I don’t feel stuck with you. I am freer with you than with my stepfather. You don’t confine me, and I appreciate that.”

“False praise or gratitude will get you nowhere with me.”

Honora was stunned by his caustic accusations and his assumption. “You think I lie?”

“Manipulate,” he corrected.

“I do not,” she said, halting their tracks.

His laugh was more a sneer. “All women do.”

“I am not all women,” she said, and stepped away from him, insulted.

His laughter was cut short by a shout that had him spinning around.

“You sonofabitch!” Lachlan yelled. “How dare you disrespect Father!”

Lachlan launched himself at Cavan, and fists flew and their bodies staggered before tumbling to the ground in an all out altercation. Honora stood staring speechless at the two warring brothers, then
recovered enough to run to get help from Artair. Not that it did any good. Artair arrived to stand with arms crossed, watching his brothers battle it out. Her pleas to make them stop fighting were cut short when he informed her, “They need this. Let them be.”

People gathered to cheer the brothers on. Blood began to spew from both combatants’ mouths, and that was enough for Honora, who turned to leave.

Artair grabbed her arm. “You should remain and show support for your husband.”

“I will not watch them battle each other senseless.”

He laughed. “I suspect they will battle sense into each other.”

“Then let them. I have no stomach for such idiocy.” She stomped off and went straight to the sewing room, wanting nothing more than to forget the two fools fighting like children on the ground.

After discarding her cloak haphazardly on a chair, she paced in front of the fireplace. She didn’t understand men and didn’t know if she wanted to. She would much prefer to find a solitary spot in the woods, erect a cottage, and live there contentedly.

Her heartbeat quickened and she stopped pacing, but then wrung her hands together with nervous concern. The thought of being separated from her husband had jolted her. She unwittingly found herself attracted to him, caring about him, considering a good life with him. She wouldn’t want to lose that. Perhaps that was why the fight disturbed her. She didn’t want to see her husband hurt, in pain, or
for a rift occur between brothers that could not be mended, and she felt helpless as to how she might prevent any of it.

She finally plopped into one of the chairs before the fireplace, too distraught to even consider her needlework. Being a wife was much more difficult than she’d imagined it would be. Or was it because she’d begun to have feelings for her husband? If she had simply regarded her marriage as an arranged one, with nothing to expect from it, she would not be disappointed. But she did expect things from her marriage, she thought, and should say as much to her husband.

Honora yawned and blamed the walk on the moors for her sudden tiredness, though her worries might have had something to do with her exhaustion. Either way, her eyes drifted shut and she was soon sound asleep.

Cavan and Lachlan supported each other as they stumbled into the great hall, Artair arriving before them to overflow their tankards with ale. Both brothers suffered similar minor bruises and cuts, nothing serious, but then, they were brothers. Never would they have badly hurt each other.

“To the Sinclare brothers,” Artair toasted, his tankard raised.

Cavan and Lachlan cheered the toast and downed the ale.

Cavan reached for a fourth tankard, its brim overflowing, and Artair stopped him. “That’s for Ronan. He is with us though he is not here…yet!”

Cavan refilled the tankards and this time it was he who made the toast. “To Ronan.”

The brothers downed more ale and scrambled over the benches to sit at the table in front of the hearth.

“We
will find Ronan,” Lachlan said, taking his turn to refill the tankards.

“Just like we did when we were young,” Artair reminded. “Ronan would get himself lost and—”

“One of us would find him,” Lachlan finished with a slap to Cavan’s back. “One of us, not only you. We each took our turn getting him out of someplace he shouldn’t have been.”

“That’s what big brothers do,” Cavan said.

His two brothers agreed with a nod and a snort.

“Food, my pretty lassie,” Lachlan called out with a smile to a passing servant girl.

She giggled, nodded, and hurried off to do his bidding.

“One day you’re going to come up against a woman who won’t jump to your charming commands,” Artair warned with a laugh.

“It will serve him right,” Cavan said.

“That it will,” Artair agreed, refilling empty tankards.

Out of the corner of his eye Cavan caught his father entering the hall along with his mother. Guilt punched him in the gut and he stood and called out, “Father, come join us.”

His mother’s relieved smile sent another guilty punch to his stomach, and he knew he owed his
father an apology. He should never have spoken to him the way he had; his father didn’t deserve it.

Artair and Lachlan remained silent, though both hid satisfied grins behind the tankards resting at their lips.

Cavan watched his mother kiss his father and hurry off with a smile. The genuine affection between his parents had been a constant in his life. It was a common sight to see the clan leader kiss his wife, hold her hand, laugh along with her, hug her. Cavan had wanted, hoped, ached, to share that binding love with a special woman one day. At first he had not thought that possible with the mousy Honora, but of late he’d come to admire the wife who was forced upon him by his father.

He watched his father approach, tall and powerfully built, a man of compassion and strength and honor; a leader to be proud of and a father he loved.

Cavan didn’t wait for his father to reach him, he went to him. “Forgive me. I am a fool.”

His father smiled and placed a strong hand on his son’s shoulder. “You are much like me and do me proud.”

Cavan shook his head. “I don’t know how a foolish son can do you proud.”

“It takes a foolish heart to be courageous.”

He thought of a similar remark he had made to Honora. Perhaps he was like his father, thought like his father, and saw in people the courage they didn’t see in themselves.

Cavan threw strong arms around his father and pounded his back, displaying his love the only way he knew how. “Come share in our toasts,” he declared, and the father responded by joining his sons.

The men drank and ate away hours. They laughed, joked, argued, and renewed family bonds.

“What did my wife have to say to you?” Cavan asked Artair while Lachlan and Tavish were locked in a debate.

Artair laughed. “Ask your wife.”

“You have a good wife,” Lachlan said, raising his tankard. “She saved my life. She is a good woman. You are a lucky man.”

Cavan didn’t respond. He was too busy realizing his brothers admired and respected his wife, and he felt proud.

“I agree,” his father said. “Honora is a good woman, a caring woman. She will make a good mother.”

“It’s been near two months and we’ve heard no news of a babe,” Lachlan teased.

“Give them time,” his father urged with a grin. “They are new to this.”

Artair and Lachlan roared with laughter and Cavan cracked a smile. For the first time since his return home he felt he was part of his family, he felt he had finally come home.

“You need lessons, brother?” Lachlan laughed.

Cavan scratched his head. “Who was it who came to me when he didn’t know what to do with a woman?”

“The hell you say,” Lachlan said on a laugh.

“I remember that,” Artair said, slapping Cavan’s back.

Their father joined in the teasing. “You should have come to me, son.”

“I needed no advice then or now. The women love me,” Lachlan assured all.

The men joked and teased and drank the night away.

Cavan stumbled to his bedchamber well after dark to find it empty. It didn’t take him long to realize where his wife was. He climbed the stairs to the sewing room to find her asleep before the hearth. He hunched down in front of Honora and gazed at her.

He had not thought much of her when years ago her stepfather approached Tavish concerning marriage. Honora had none of the qualities he’d wanted in a wife. He smiled, recalling how he hadn’t liked her straight dark hair. What he hadn’t known was how silky soft it was or how sweet smelling. He loved when lessons required closeness and he could rub his cheek against her hair and sniff its sweet scent.

He rose to brace his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over his sleeping wife, burying his nose softly in her hair. He didn’t want to wake her; he simply wanted to breathe in her familiar scent.

Its sweet richness was more intoxicating than all the tankards of ale he had drunk. He reluctantly moved away, but then returned to hunch down in front of her. He rarely got the opportu
nity to just drink in his wife’s beauty, or perhaps he had finally discovered her beauty, or was it that she had simply crept into his heart before he could stop her?

He fought his attraction to her, didn’t know where it came from and didn’t care. He liked the tug he felt toward her. It seemed natural, as if they belonged together.

How could he feel so strongly about a woman he barely had kissed? Barely knew? Yet he felt as if he had known her forever.

Cavan ran a gentle hand over her dark hair and placed a tender kiss to her cheek, whispering, “I could fall in love with you.”

His utterance disturbed him, though not unpleasantly, and he smiled. He wouldn’t mind falling in love with his wife.

Honora yawned, stretched, and sighed mournfully before settling once again into the uncomfortable chair.

She belonged in his bed, and he thought to join her, but not yet; he wasn’t ready, wasn’t prepared to share such intimacy with her. He needed to know more, feel more, and understand more about her.

Leaning over her, Cavan brushed his lips over hers, pressed his cheek to hers, then lifted her gently into his arms. She stirred, snuggled against him and wrapped her arms around his neck.