Authors: Susan Sizemore
“We Scots are good at holding grudges,” she said. “Maybe all humans are. When does it stop? When do we let go? What’s the point? Even in my time people divide themselves into us and them and fight each other over quarrels started hundreds of years before. Why?”
“Revenge,” Rowan said promptly. “Honor. Duty to the dead.”
“I don’t think we owe any duty to the dead,” she snapped out. “At least not to someone who died a hundred years ago. We’re alive, our ancestors aren’t. Let’s just get on with living, okay? Let the dead bury the dead—I think that’s in a gospel and I also think it’s pretty good advice. The living ought to have peace and get married and have babies and not fight with each other just because their grandparents couldn’t get 153
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along.” She lifted her head to look Rowan in the eye. “You hear what I’m saying, Murray?”
Rowan frowned deeply, but said, “I’m listening.”
“You have an opportunity here to make peace,” she went on. “Don’t let it pass you by. Please. Those two are determined to have each other. I think Micaela tried hard to put the clan before her own feelings for as long as she could but she can’t take it anymore. Give her your blessing because it’s going to happen anyway.”
“It? It? By
it
you mean that she and Burke are bound to have each other no matter what I say?”
She nodded. “No matter what you say. No matter what Allen says. Don’t make it into a breach with your sister. Don’t toss her out of the Murray clan or make her life miserable because of an old quarrel. Don’t make it into another excuse to fight the Harboths. Just forget their last names and let them live together in peace.”
“Do you think that’s possible?” His voice was soft but very cold.
Maddie worried that she might as well be trying to convince a slab of granite to change into a flesh and blood man but she persisted. “Please, Rowan. Swallow your stiff-necked pride and take the opportunity to make peace. There,” she added as she slipped out of his embrace, “I’ve had my say.”
She stood up. Without the touch of Rowan’s body to keep her warm, Maddie felt the chill of the night air. Or maybe the shiver that ran through her was from the cold look she saw in her husband’s eyes. She was almost grateful when he looked beyond her to Micaela. Maddie wondered if he’d listened to a word she’d said. Not that it had been all that eloquent a speech, she didn’t suppose. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. Maybe he was a piece of unfeeling granite. Maddie gave up trying to persuade him any further. She walked away to get her cloak, to sit next to Micaela by the fire and try to get warm, to hopefully give him time alone to think.
For all that she left him to think, she couldn’t keep her gaze off the spot in the darkness where he sat. Even though she was many feet from Rowan, she felt as if she could hear him breathe, imagined she could make out his face though it was concealed by the distance and the dark. She felt as if she were with him, as though he were in her blood or something. She could feel his anguish, his indecision, his groping for answers, though she told herself the connection was all in her imagination. She tried to be rational but her soul told her that she was part of Rowan, that his pain and pleasure was as important to her as her own. Maybe more important. She didn’t know why. She didn’t want to admit that she’d fallen in love with him.
Maybe she didn’t want to admit it but her heart began to pound and her blood race when Rowan walked from the darkness into the firelight. Maddie jumped to her feet, barely able to restrain herself from running forward to throw her arms around him. She felt as if she’d been deprived of his presence for days, when she knew that it had been less than an hour since she’d left him alone to think.
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Rowan didn’t even look at her. He didn’t look at anyone, though everyone’s attention focused intently on him. He strode past the people gathered round the largest fire and walked to the smaller fire, a second camp Allen had set up nearby but separate from the Murrays.
“We have meat and mead,” were the first things Rowan said when Allen and Burke stepped toward him. “We fought together today. There’s no reason we should fight each other tomorrow.”
Maddie heard the reluctance of the words as Rowan spoke them and gaped along with every other Murray at their peaceful import. She gaped for a moment and then began to grin. Growing pride filled her. She couldn’t take her eyes off her husband.
Allen Harboth looked suspicious but not angry. “What are you saying, Murray?”
“He’s saying we’re invited to dinner,” Burke said, and hurried to the Murray side of the camp before his brother could stop him. He took Micaela’s outstretched hands and said, “I love you. Let’s eat.”
Several Murrays grumbled but room was made for Micaela and Burke by the fire.
Rowan filled Maddie’s awareness. She barely paid attention to anything else going on around her.
She nearly burst with joy when Rowan said, “It’s time we talked about my sister’s dowry, Allen.”
Allen Harboth stiffened. For a moment it looked as if he might draw his dagger.
Rowan didn’t make any aggressive moves, he didn’t flinch. He waited. He’d swallowed his pride and thrown away tradition. He didn’t know what he was feeling but he’d made the offer. He did know he could feel Maddie’s gaze on him. When he glanced her way, he saw the open caring on her face, the deep glow of emotion in her eyes. It was a look of love that was for him. It made his blood and heart sing.
He did know that this was not the moment to listen to the song rising in his soul.
He forced his attention on Allen Harboth.
After what seemed like an endless moment, the laird of the Harboths gave a short, breathy laugh. “You’re offering a dowry, eh?” He shrugged. “Well, why not?”
Every Murray by the fire let out a tense sigh. Some began to grumble but no one openly protested. Maybe they were more tired of feuding than they wanted to admit.
Maddie sighed too but not from relief of tension. Her sigh was one of pure romantic response. As he made the effort to make peace, she thought Rowan Murray was the bravest, handsomest, most wonderful man in the world. She couldn’t have been more in love if she’d tried.
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“You work too hard, lass.”
“I know,” Maddie agreed as Rowan’s hands kneaded the stiff muscles of her shoulders. He had very gifted fingers as she’d learned very well. She smiled and very nearly purred, not just at what he was doing to her now but at memories of all the sensual, sexual encounters she’d shared with Rowan in the last few weeks. Trouble was, those sensual encounters were circumscribed by a set time and place. He was only this way with her when they were alone. That made this time precious but it was also disturbing. She tried not to worry about it now though.
“You’re turning me to butter,” she told him.
“You don’t sound as if you mind.”
“Not a bit,” she answered around a yawn. It was hard to sound sexy around a yawn but his answering chuckle told her she’d managed.
She had slept well but not enough and woken up just about as tired as when she went to sleep. This had a lot to do with what Rowan and she had done in bed before settling down for the rest of the night. While Rowan wasn’t much of a talker, she reveled in the discovery that he could communicate very well without words when he wanted to. Or maybe communication and sex had nothing to do with each other, she didn’t know. What Maddie knew was that when they were alone in the dark together with their bodies entwined and driven by mutual desire she was happy, whole, complete. In the dark, he gave her the confidence to believe that she was a woman who a man could love. In the dark, she believed they were made to be together forever. It was when they got out of bed that things got complicated. Or at least they got a heck of a lot quieter.
They’d been lovers since the night spent at the White Lady’s. Maddie knew she was in love with him since the night he’d shown the strength to make peace with the Harboths. Though they didn’t talk about it, they’d created their own little world in the darkness of the laird’s private chamber. Outside this room, in the daylight, Rowan acted as if she didn’t exist.
Apparently she couldn’t keep from thinking about it. Maddie told herself her last thought was an exaggeration. She just felt as if he acted as though she didn’t exist.
Sometimes feelings were more important than facts, even if they weren’t very logical.
Sometimes, even though she was surrounded by people and certainly wasn’t sleeping alone, Maddie felt as lonely as she used to on her long walks by the ocean. There was a new part of her that wanted to burst out and be in the open all the time but was circumscribed to live by rules Rowan hadn’t bothered to explain to her.
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She tried not to feel lonely now, this instant, or to think about problems that were possibly all in her insecure head. Except that she no longer felt all that insecure. Right now, she was sitting on the edge of the bed with Rowan kneeling behind her giving her a back rub, neither lonely or insecure. She just wished it could be that way all the time.
“You have a gift,” she told him as he kneaded her muscles. “A real gift.”
“Aye.”
“And you’re modest too.”
Rowan bent forward to kiss the side of Maddie’s throat. She smelled good and the soft springiness of her hair against his cheek was delightful. After he kissed her, he ran his thumb over the light line of scarring on the back of her neck. The mark was fading evidence of the fair folk’s perverse interference in his lady’s existence. He was grateful they’d brought her to him but furious that it had nearly cost her life.
As for the necklace, to show his respect for the fair folk he’d put it in a finely embroidered silk pouch that had belonged to his mother. Then he had sent the pouch to the people under the hill. He hoped that the necklace was what they sought, not the woman who’d worn it as it was drawn back through time.
His messenger was Aidan, who had the gift for traveling in both the daylight and moonlit worlds, as his messenger. Rowan had told him not to linger. He hoped the boy did not lose track of time on the magical journey. It had been a month since Rowan had sent the lad on his errand. With luck, Aidan would be home in time for their sister’s wedding tonight. Then again, it might be years before the lad put in an appearance at Cape Wrath as unchanged as the day he’d left. Rowan didn’t think that would happen but it was a faint possibility. One he didn’t mention to Maddie. He hadn’t discussed magic with his wife since their night together at the White Lady’s. He sensed she was more comfortable that way and if truth be told, so was he.
He was also far too comfortable with Maddie. He felt the danger and fought it every time he looked at or touched his wife. He almost wished he hadn’t given in to the temptation to touch and taste and be with this woman at all. He recalled that he had initially thought he could slake his lust with this handfasted woman but feel nothing for her on any but a physical level. He should have known he was too much like his father, too full of romantic notions to be satisfied with simple carnal pleasure.
Sex should be enough for any man or so he had firmly made himself believe for years. With Maddie he wanted to comfort and cozen her, to discuss all her wonderful plans, to be by her side every moment of the day, to make her laugh, to let her coax him to laugh, to cry with her pain or better yet, to keep her from any kind of pain. That he found himself wanting to take care of this woman, to spend his days as well as his nights with her, terrified him.
He
would not
let himself become a besotted fool. He
would not
abandon his responsibilities for the sake of his own gratification. He did not blame Maddie because he was so very tempted. She was not the cause of this weakness he felt when he was with her. She was indeed the savior of his people, he was certain of that. He was the 157
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weak link. For her sake and the sake of the entire Murray clan, he vowed not to let that weakness show.
So when she leaned back against him and tilted her head so that she was practically looking at him upside down, and said, “I don’t suppose we could take the day off, do you?” Rowan did not respond as he wished.
Instead he got up off the bed, away from her warmth, and said, “It’s past dawn already.”
Maddie took Rowan’s withdrawal, both physically and emotionally, to mean that she’d said the wrong thing. He didn’t want to spend time with her when they weren’t having sex. She wished she’d kept her mouth shut. A few minutes ago, she’d only suspected that all he wanted was to get laid. Now as she studied his shuttered face in the frail light of one candle and the room’s one small window, she was certain that all he wanted her for was her body. Oh he wanted her for her mind too, at least to use her mind for his blasted clan.
He just didn’t want anything to do with her soul. He didn’t want
her
.
She didn’t know why.
She did know that she wasn’t going to put up with it. Or so she told herself now.
She also knew that when he touched her again, she wouldn’t have any resolve to say no. She loved the way she felt when he touched her. She loved touching him.
She loved him.
She just wasn’t sure why.
Rather than asking him or herself, she got up, got dressed and went to work.
Rowan, who’d been so eager to be up and doing, was still standing half dressed in the middle of the room when she silently walked out past him. She felt his gaze on her back but had no idea what he was thinking.
“Probably something to do with sheep or cattle,” she muttered on her way to the hall. “Because that man certainly doesn’t think about me.”
* * * * *
“Do you know what you remind me of?” Rosemary asked. She thumped Rowan on the shoulder to get his attention when he didn’t immediately look her way.
Rowan turned a deep frown on his cousin. “I’m busy,” he told her. He was seated in the hall, a parchment and tally sticks spread out on the table before him. “What do you want?”