Surrender To Me (17 page)

MacFadden lifted his gaze and gave a hard nod to his men.

Griffin was released. He vaulted to his feet, arm lashing out in a blur. His fist cracked the jaw of the man whose boot had pinned him by the neck. The fellow fell to the ground with a thud, hand cupping his injured jaw.

Several clansmen lunged forward, no doubt ready to retaliate for the attack, however earned, but the laird’s voice froze them all.

“Leave him.”

With his bare chest heaving as if he had run a great distance, Griffin eyed the older man, venom a cold, dull luster in his blue eyes. Grunting, Griffin pointed an unyielding finger at the man with his arm locked around Astrid. “Unhand her.”

The man complied. Freed, she lifted her skirts and stumbled to Griffin’s side, pausing to snatch his clothes off the ground and hand them to him.

He took them and redressed, a dozen Highlanders watching his every move as if he were some oddity at carnival. “You’re my grandson,” the laird announced.

“I know,” Griffin returned, his tone matter-of-fact as he pulled his jacket over his unbuttoned vest.

“You know?”
Wild bewilderment rushed through Astrid as she looked back and forth between the two men.

“Your mother. What was her name?” MacFadden pressed.

“Iona.”

The laird nodded, a dour set to his mouth. “I thought as much. You’ve my mark. All the MacFadden men bear it.” He motioned to Griffin’s person. “But you’ve her eyes. They bewitched your father.” His lip curled in a sneer. “And every other man in these parts.”

“Fascinating.” Griffin shrugged back into his jacket, his tone droll. Taking Astrid’s arm, he guided her back to her mount and lifted her into her saddle.

“It proves you’re my—”

“I don’t give a damn what it
proves
.” Swinging up onto his mount, Griffin glowered across the distance at his grandfather, their resemblance unmistakable. She could see it now.

Staring at MacFadden, she could well imagine how Griffin would look in forty years. Still handsome. Still imposing. Virile enough to twist her heart or any other woman’s. Only in forty years he would have a wife. Of course, Astrid wouldn’t be with him then. Some other woman would have that privilege. She would be long gone. A memory at best.

“Had you asked,” Griffin ground out, “I would have shown you the damn birthmark. At any rate, thank you. Your methods confirmed that I made a long journey for nothing. I have no family here. None I wish to claim.”

I made a long journey for nothing
. His words resounded in her ears. In her heart. Wrongly. His feelings right now had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his grandfather. So he regretted coming to Scotland. She should not make it about her. About them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his grandfather blustered.

“Home. Texas. Where I should have stayed.”

More words to gouge her soul. To swipe a bloody trail through a heart that she had permitted to feel. For the first time in her life.

Absurd, she knew. She had known they would part ways. In Edinburgh, he would be free to go wherever he wished. Be it America or Balfurin.

Griffin nudged his mount around. Astrid followed. They took only a few paces before a wall of Scotsmen gathered before them, blocking their path.

Laird MacFadden’s voice carried across the glen. “I waited years for my son to return home.”

“Your son is dead,” Griffin called over his shoulder.

“Aye, but you’re not. You’re here. A part of
him
. A part of me. You’re not walking away. At least not until I give you leave to do so.”

Griffin swung his mount around, angry eyes clashing with his grandfather’s.

Astrid blew out a heavy breath. At this rate, she might never make it home…but the thought did not alarm her. Not as it should have.
Blast
.

She bit her bottom lip. While the prospect of more time with Griffin tantalized her, common sense bade she put an end to it—to them—now. As she had tried to do at Cragmuir.

She snuck another look at Griffin.

Jaw knotting with tension, he stared straight ahead, eyes drilling into his grandfather. His blue eyes glinted with grim intensity—a determination to go his own way, to leave Scotland. To leave
her
.

A deep ache beneath her breastbone left her strangely breathless. She needed to free herself from him as quickly as he sought to be free of his grandfather.

Before he came to mean too much to her. Before…

Dismay filled her in that moment. Because she knew the truth then. It was too late. Her stomach heaved.

It didn’t matter how soon she freed herself from him, it was too late.

She had fallen in love with Griffin Shaw.

F
ury radiated through Griffin as he stared at the man he had crossed an ocean to find. His grandfather rode ahead of him, his back broad and straight in his saddle. Disheartening as far as reunions went. Not that he had expected a warm homecoming full of happy tears and embraces. He had just not expected to be thrown to the ground with all the courtesy given an enemy captive.

He glanced at Astrid. She rode beside him, her face paler than usual as they were led through dense foliage. Her liquid dark eyes stared straight ahead.

If anything good could be said of the situation, it was that he did not have to give her up just yet. He grimaced, knowing she would not share the sentiment. No doubt she bemoaned yet another delay. More time with him. A rough frontiersman without connections. Without grace or social standing.

Still, he owed it to Astrid to get her out of this mess. From the stiffness in which she sat her mount and the way she carefully steered her gaze clear of him, she likely agreed.

As promised, he would see her to Edinburgh. He had promised her that much. Even if it meant saying good-bye.

He had a life waiting for him. A life that didn’t include her. He could not imagine her in Texas. The heat alone would likely give her a seizure…

No, she was destined for elegant drawing rooms, for taking tea from delicate bone china.

As a widow she was free to remarry. To find some lord that would keep her outfitted as a lady of her station ought to be. A man that would see she never suffered from neglect or hunger. A man that would take his pleasure of her, ease himself into her snug heat as Griffin had…

Sucking in a breath, he veered his thoughts sharply away from that prospect, fists clenching around his reins. Suddenly this entire journey seemed a colossal mistake. Even more than when, moments ago, he first stared into his grandfather’s eyes.

If he had simply forgotten his mother’s words and stayed home, none of this would be happening.

What had he wanted? A fresh start? A reunion with family members that did not look at him as his father had, through a tainted veil of war, disappointment rife in their expressions.

He would never have met Astrid. And while an uncomfortable tightness seized his heart at that thought, he knew he wouldn’t have missed what he never knew. He could have lived his life blithely unaware of a woman who existed a continent away, a woman who was a captivating mixture of ice and fire.

Gradually, his attention was pulled away from thoughts of Astrid. To the slow, steady pounding swelling on the air, shaking the earth. Wondering what calamity was about to befall them now, he brought his horse closer to Astrid, meeting her wide-eyed gaze.

He tensed, one hand diving for her reins as more riders burst through the trees.

His grandfather’s men met the onslaught of riders with warrior cries, drawing pistols and swords.

He caught a glimpse of Lachlan’s face, bruised and battered in the melee, as well as the Laird Gallagher himself, large and daunting atop his horse.

“MacFadden,” Gallagher shouted. His gaze halted on Griffin and Astrid, face reddening at the sight of them. “Thieving bastard!” He pointed a gnarled finger in their direction. “They’re mine.”

“Like hell,” MacFadden thundered. “You’ve stolen all you’re going to steal from me. You’ll not take the last of my blood now.”

“I’ve
stolen?” Gallagher jerked his monstrous mount closer to the other laird, his bushy brows pulling together like furry caterpillars. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black!”

“Your precious Iona deprived me of my son with her witch’s spell. I’ll not be having you steal Conall’s child from me, too.” MacFadden’s eyes bulged at this declaration, his knuckles whitening about the dagger he clutched in his wiry fist.

Griffin suppressed a groan and closed his eyes in a pained blink, understanding at once. These two braying mules were
both
his grandfathers. He dragged a hand over his face, suddenly weary. Now he knew what his parents had been fleeing—two crotchety old men that bickered worse than women.

“Conall’s child?” Gallagher whispered, looking around as if he expected to see a toddler tumble from the trees. “You mean my Iona and Conall…”

“Aye! They had a child.” MacFadden waved in Griffin’s direction, swinging down from his mount. “And I’ll not have you making off with him like you do with my sheep.”

For once Gallagher ignored MacFadden, staring only at Griffin. “Iona?” he choked.

“She died,” Griffin answered, understanding what was being asked, “long ago. On a ship to America.”

The burly Scot’s skin turned ghostly white around his beard. He dragged a massive hand over his face, clearly overcome.

Despite himself, Griffin felt the stirrings of sympathy. At least one of his grandfathers took a moment to grieve the death of his child.

“What happened to her?”

“A fever took the ship. Many died. My parents included. Another couple took me in and raised me.”

“My son gave you to strangers rather than send you back to me?” MacFadden demanded. “I don’t believe—”

“Aye, I believe it. You made life so impossible for them, they had to run away together. They’re dead because of you.” Gallagher swung down to stand nose to nose with his foe.

Griffin winced at that stinging accusation, sharp as an arrow hitting its mark.

MacFadden’s face reddened, a vein throbbing dangerously in the center of his forehead. “Likely he and Iona didn’t want to risk you getting your hands on their child.”

“Stop it,” Griffin ground out, wanting nothing more than to knock the two old fools’ heads together. “The Shaws took me because my parents asked them. They claimed you would rip me in half with your squabbling.” At the time, he had not understood what his mother meant when she relayed that particular bit of information, but now he did.

His grandfathers looked very old in that moment. Old and tired. A quiet fell over the gathering of men, the occasional horse’s snort or jangle of harness the only sound.

“I won’t stay here to be fought over,” he continued. “My parents ran away for a reason, I see that now. If you have any desire to know me, to have a place in my life, you’ll end this thing between you two. Now.”

His grandfathers looked from him to each other, their expressions tight and pinched, as if they tasted something sour. They assessed one another for several moments, clearly attempting to gauge the other’s willingness. God forbid one of them bend before the other.

At last, they nodded, mumbled something incoherent beneath their breath, and moved back to their mounts. Heads bowed, shoulders hunkered, they resembled whipped dogs as they remounted their horses.

“Good,” Griffin declared. “If we’re in accord, then we shall
all
go to Balfurin.”

“Balfurin! I can’t go there,” Gallagher growled.

“If you truly mean to bury the ax, then you should have no issue.” Griffin angled his head, feeling like a mother mediating between two bickering children.

Gallagher’s lips clamped shut.

Griffin arched a brow at MacFadden. “And I expect you to be obliging.”

“Aye,” he grunted, giving a single, quick nod. As if everyone understood they had reached some level of harmony, they began to move out, Gallagher and MacFadden’s men riding side by side. Griffin wondered the last time such an event had taken place. If ever.

“And who is this skinny lass with you?” MacFadden asked after several minutes had passed. He looked around Griffin to Astrid. “Someone I should know? A daughter-in-law?”

“No,” Astrid quickly supplied.

“You’re not married, then?” Gallagher asked with a shake of his head. “But you said—”

“No, we’re not.” She held Griffin’s gaze, clearly daring him to object.

Deciding her virtue faced no threat from either one of his grandfathers, he agreed, “No, we are not.”

“I see,” MacFadden murmured, his gaze turning decidedly lascivious as it roamed over Astrid. And Griffin could imagine what it was he saw. Too late, he realized that by telling the truth he had permitted his grandfather to form a decidedly vulgar opinion of her.

Color swept over Astrid’s cheeks, anger lighting the centers of her dark eyes. He suppressed a wave of protectiveness, reminding himself that she had opted for the truth and brought this on herself. Yet again.

“We’ve plenty of hardy lasses you can wed at Balfurin.”

“And Cragmuir,” Gallagher quickly chimed.

“Perhaps a young widow,” MacFadden suggested with a withering look for the other laird, indicating what he thought of Griffin wedding a girl from Cragmuir. “One that has proven herself a good breeder.”

Gallagher nodded. “Aye, we’ll be needing sons from you.”

Astrid made a disgusted sound between her teeth. “Yes,” she mocked, “best find a
proven
breeder.”

Griffin shot her a warning look. “Don’t encourage them.”

Mumbling under her breath, her gaze dropped, appearing to find the earth below of vast interest.

“Aye.” MacFadden tossed her an approving look. “Listen to the wench. She has the right of it. Face it. There are women you wed, and women you bed.” He chuckled at his quip, his look turning faintly leering. It was clear into which category he thought Astrid fell.

Griffin slid her a dark glare. They should have continued their pretense. Instead his little duchess would have to bide her time at Balfurin with everyone thinking her little better than a whore.

“Griffin.” His name fell from her lips in a harsh plea. Those dark eyes pulled him in, compelling as ever.

“Perhaps you could impose on”—her gaze darted to his grandfathers—“one of these gentlemen to see me escorted to Edinburgh?”

Anger sizzled through him. She would ask him to let her go now? To release her? As simple as that?

“No.” His answer fell heavily between them.

She pulled back slightly in her saddle. “No?” she echoed, her voice as tremulous as a feather on the wind.

“No,” he repeated, shooting a hard glance to the openly curious men riding alongside them, disliking that they should witness the exchange. He lowered his voice. “I made a promise I intend to keep.”

She held his gaze, her dark brows drawn tightly over her dark eyes in a puzzled expression.

He looked away, training his gaze ahead of them. “Do not ask me again.” He nudged his heels and sent Waya ahead, wondering at the real reason he would not release her, for he had no reason to keep her with him anymore.