Read Highland Moonlight Online
Authors: Teresa J Reasor
settle. “Are we to end our first night together here on a note of anger then?”
Mary’s silence had him turning to confront her. She lay curled on her
side, her hands tucked beneath her cheek. Her breasts rose and fell with
the slow, steady rhythm of a deep exhausted sleep.
As he leaned over her, a humph of self-deprecating irritation escaped
Alexander. With a murmured oath, he rolled onto his back and closed his
eyes.
Mary rushed down the wide passageway to the landing above the
great hall. For the third time in as many days, she was late for the morning
meal. It had once again taken longer than she had expected to bathe the
men’s wounds and see them fed. She hesitated at the top of the stairs to
draw a deep calming breath in preparation of joining the company of men
filling the tables below. Brushing back the wisps of hair that had escaped
her braid, she descended the stairs.
“So brother, the bairn has served as a bridge between you as I
suggested,” Duncan said as she approached the table. She paused, her
attention arrested. The realization that Alexander had sought his brother’s
advice on a private matter between them hit her like a slap.
“Aye,” Alexander agreed. “A womanly breast did prove most
comfortable to rest my head on whilst my hurts healed as well.”
“Having your
coileapach
near to spark a bit of competition will do no
harm either,” Duncan said. “Women, though they would not admit it, are as
territorial as the rest of us. I will wager you will reap rewards from that, if you
have not already.”
“And what sort of rewards would you be speaking of, Duncan?” Mary
asked, unable to hold her silence any longer.
The men stiffened then turned to look over their shoulders at her. Their
identical expressions of guilt did nothing to sooth the hollow ache in the pit
of her stomach.
Her gaze focused on Alexander and she searched for some form of
reassurance in his expression that would ease the outrage and hurt
bubbling inside her. He had tricked her to get his way. Shaking her head,
she backed away toward the stairs from which she had just come.
Alexander rose, alarm in his expression. “Mary__”
Mary spied the aumry against the wall close to the stairs, its shelves
stacked with wooden platters, bowls, and brass tankards and pitchers.
She armed herself with a wooden platter as rage rose up overtaking
her pain. “Knave!” She spun the wooden disk.
Alexander ducked beneath the edge of the table at which he and
Duncan sat. It struck the wooden planks of the top, bounced upward, and
struck the stone wall behind them with a dull thud.
Clansmen at neighboring tables looked up at the disturbance then
dove for cover as a large wooden bowl spun wildly across the room out of
control.
“Judas!” Mary yelled, her pain and outrage affecting her tone. She
threw another platter in Alexander’s direction, but it sailed off harmlessly to
turn on its face then slide across the floor.
“Deceitful, swine!” A platter that took her both hands to heave, crashed
into the midst of a wooden bowl of eel porridge. It splattered across the
table sending a large glob across the side of Duncan’s face from his ear to
his nose. His laughter nipped at her raw feelings and spurred her on.
She saw Alexander punch Duncan in the stomach, driving the breath
from him, cutting off his sounds of mirth. “Damn you, Duncan for the advice
you offered me! And damn you for speaking of it!” His voice carried to her.
“I was not to know Mary was behind us,” he wheezed as he held his
middle.
“Ham-handed, rogue!” She spun another platter in Alexander’s
direction. His quick jerk to the side saved him from being hit in the head.
“‘Tis your bairn you’ve been using agin me for your own purposes,”
Mary cried, her voice beginning to shake as tears rose up clog her throat.
She threw a tankard with better aim and nicked his ear before he could
duck.
Unable to catch her breath and shout at the same time, she ceased
calling him names and took closer aim instead. A brass pitcher made a
hollow clanging sound as it stuck the edge of the table close to his head
and ricocheted striking his shoulder giving her only a momentary
satisfaction.
Tears broke forth, blurring her vision and she threw the next wooden
disk with only a half-hearted aim. The platter spun in a graceful wobbling
curve landing flat on the table.
Silence settled over the great hall. When nothing else followed,
Alexander eased upward to see what Mary was about. His stomach
plummeted with anxiety. She was gone.
Heads appeared from other areas about the large chamber. The men
rose from their places of cover like so many phoenixes rising from the
ashes of the mid-morning meal. A servant ran forth to right a pitcher and
blot up the milk that had pooled beneath the table.
Duncan accepted a damp cloth and wiped the remnants of porridge
from his face.
“‘Twould seem you have done something to displease the mistress of
the house, Alexander,” Tobias, one of the older men commented, as he
picked up a wooden platter from the floor. ‘Tis grateful you should be no true
weapon was at hand.”
“Aye, I am. Her aim is as good as yours with a bow and quiver,
Tobias,” Alexander quipped with greater levity than he felt and brushed past
him. He had to find Mary. His heart beat in a sickening rhythm.
He took the stairs to their chamber two at a time. The room stood
empty though a young chambermaid swept the corridor outside. “Have you
seen Lady Mary, lass?” he demanded.
“Aye. She took her cloak and ran back down the stairs, m’lord,” she
answered.
With every overheard word racing through his mind, Alexander bound
down the steps. He cursed Duncan’s loose tongue again. She would never
understand what had driven him to trick her, nor would she forgive it. But he
had to find her and try to explain.
He ran across the courtyard to the stable built against the east wall
and saw the head groom shoveling up a clump of manure. “Cory have you
seen, Lady Mary?” he asked the head groom.
“Aye, m’lord, but I can not be sure which direction she took from here.”
The gray haired man pointed upward. His gaze shifted to the ladder leading
to the loft.
Alexander nodded as relief steadied his racing pulse. At least she
hadn’t had time to escape. “I shall look about,” he said, his tone loud.
****
and folded her arms against her waist. Her anger simmered as pain at
Alexander’s deception rushed in to squeeze her heart. She turned at the
sound of someone climbing the ladder.
“You’re causing your own pain by believing the worst of me, Mary,”
Alexander said as soon as he reached the top. He squatted down blocking
her only escape route from the loft.
She raised her gaze to his face though it was hard to do so without
crying. She searched his expression seeking reassurance, even as she
damned herself for a fool. Her voice shook when she spoke. “I do not know
what has been truth and what has been trickery. Am I to believe in anything
that has passed between us, Alexander?”
He rose in one slow graceful movement. “‘Twas not for the purpose of
tricking you that I favored the injury to my leg. I but acted a wee bit more
helpless than I was, so you would not be so wary of me. That was all.”
Mary probed his expression for several moments. Her anger and
distrust began to drain from her when he continued to meet her gaze
unflinchingly. Then Tira came to mind and her anger surged again.
“What gains did you hope for by parading your
coileapach
before me?
Did you mean for me to compete against her for your attentions?”
Alexander’s features stiffened, anger and impatience easy to read in
his expression as he stalked toward her. Catching her about the waist and
bringing her against him, he grasped her hand and guided it beneath his
kilt. “Does this not feel as though I have made my choice between you,
Mary?” he demanded, his amber eyes pale gold with heat.
Mary jerked, shocked by the feel of his warm distended flesh. She
might have pulled her hand away had his not held it.
“I have done all I can to earn your trust and end this damnable wait! I
can do no more! ‘Tis you who will have to make a choice, or live with the
consequences!” His mouth descended on hers, anger and desire making
the pressure of his lips hard and his tongue swept her mouth with
possessive thoroughness.
The raging heat of the kiss stole the strength from Mary’s limbs and
blazed a path of sensation down her body to the center of her being. He
released her so suddenly she staggered and had to brace an arm against
the rough wooden wall of the stable to retain her balance. Her legs felt as
wobbly as spun yarn.
Alexander’s angry strides took him to the ladder. With one final glare in
her direction, he descended the ladder.
****
Alexander strode to the table and took a seat next to his brother.
“You do not mean to be harsh with the lass?” Duncan asked as
Alexander reached for a boiled egg.
Alexander bit back an impatient retort.
“‘Twas my fault Mary believed herself wronged, Alexander.”
He glared at Duncan in mute warning.
“You said ‘twas my words that caused her anger.”
“I will not allow my wife to challenge my authority, Duncan. She is mine
to do with as I see fit. You’ll be offering me no more advice about how she is
to be treated.”
Conversation among the men momentarily lulled alerting him to
Mary’s entrance. He followed her progress across the hall his thoughts
dwelling on how her hand had felt wrapped around him. He grew hard as
stone. As she gained the stairs, she glanced in his direction. Alexander
knew some of his feelings were evident on his face when her cheeks
blossomed with color. She quickly lowered her eyes and continued up the
stairs in the direction of their chamber.
“She is my sister. ‘Tis my duty to see to her well-being as well as I
would see to yours,” Duncan argued.
Jealousy and frustrated desire rekindled Alexander’s anger. “I have
never known you to be so protective of a woman, Duncan.” He searched his
brother’s features. “You have been my brother for a good many years.
‘Twould grieve me sorely should I have to split your skull over this one.”
Duncan’s gray eyes turned the color of lead, his features hardening.
“Do not let the fact that I am your brother keep you from trying,” he retorted,
his voice flat and his gray gaze steady. He rose to his feet. “Mayhap Mary is
wise to be wary of such a fool.” He stalked out of the great hall.
Swearing beneath his breath, Alexander set aside the boiled egg. He
could no longer allow Mary to bewitch him so. When with her, his body
craved the taste and feel of hers as surely as it craved food and drink. He
could not sleep for wanting her. He could not be apart from her without
wondering what she was about. The time had come for her to face her
responsibilities and serve him as a wife.
His hastily spoken words rose up to plague him for they taunted him
with a threat he had not intended. He had no intension of seeking out
another. No other woman could fill her place.
His absence over the past two months had left too many clan
problems unsolved. Now they demanded his attention. He weighed the
possibility that she might take advantage of his distraction and attempt to
leave him, as she had a want to do in the past. He motioned to a servant
and sent word to Grace, Mary’s maidservant, to join him in his
antechamber.
Once he had given his instructions to the maid, he felt more certain he
had the situation in hand. Mary would not be pleased with being confined to
her room, but his concerns were temporarily eased that she would not
leave the castle.
****
chamber. Her anger over being ordered to stay in her room had long since
cooled. The punishment was less harsh than she could have expected.
She had embarrassed Alexander before his men and it was within his
rights to choose a more severe reprisal.
As she opened the door, her maid, Grace, bobbed up from the chair
where she sat just outside the portal. “Would you be needing something,
Lady Mary?” The girl, little more than a child, shifted nervously from foot to
foot. Her light brown hair, hanging in stringy strands on either side of her
small face, swayed back and forth with the movement. The smattering of