His Judas Bride (3 page)

“But Lord Ewen swore. He swore to my father he would meet me here, and together…”

“Well, he couldn’t. I think you’ll find Lord Ewen has more important matters than meet you here or anywhere.”

By which he probably meant drinking and wenching. She shut her mouth with a snap. Was it so bad if Lord Ewen cared less about the wedding than she did herself? It might even be he had no interest in bedding her. For that she should be grateful because it seemed her sisters’ reactions were the right ones. But if this man wasn’t Lord Ewen…

“And here was me laboring under the misapprehension my fame was legendary, Princess.”

Legendary? She jerked her head up, dragging herself from her contemplation. One only had to look to know why Kendrick had tried so hard to get her attention earlier. However much was said of Ewen McDunnagh, whatever affront he desired to offer her, his plaid wouldn’t look as if it cleaned Lochalpin glen and every other one in the vicinity on a daily basis. He wouldn’t be surrounded by this bunch of bandits. Or have that hellhound with him. Or bead his stallion’s mane with animal skulls.

But there was one man who would. Oh, how terrible was this?

She lowered her eyelashes. “A pity the same can’t be said of your modesty.”

“I hardly see you’re in much of a position to go talking of such maidenly virtues.”

“And you’re not one to talk, sir. Period.” Despite feeling a blush spread to the roots of her hair, she endeavored to retort. “Ogling what you can’t ever have. Isn’t there a word for that?”

“Hell, now let me think.” He creased his lips, creating ridiculous dimples on his cheeks. “Nice?”

“Sir, you should have made yourself—”

“And miss what you showed me?”

Just the same. Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf. Lochalpin’s famous guardian. Why, his hair wasn’t even black. And he didn’t look anything like the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty monster who’d sold his soul to the devil.

To think so was particularly stupid of her. When she’d looked at herself in the dark well in her father’s castle, after doing the very same, she’d still seen a woman.

How could she be so stupid? The Black Wolf? The man who didn’t let the rain into Lochalpin Glen on a wet day. The Black Wolf who… She swallowed the perishing thought that she had been meant to marry him, courtesy of her father, five years ago.

If she went on, she’d need to be more careful. Whether man or monster, intelligence said the Black Wolf could not be bought, bargained with, cajoled, or duped. Indeed, it was said he’d cut the throat in five seconds flat of anyone he suspected of the merest hint of duplicity.

So now he’d disposed of her retinue, she needed to start praying to the god she’d abandoned that he better not find out the real truth of why she was here. And why her father had ordered Morven’s murder.

Chapter Two

Her name was Morven, and she was his wife?

The damned bitch never said that there were five of them that day, taking turns of Morven in every way.

She never said he’d loved her.

“Jeez, Callm, just slow down will ye, for Christ’s sake, man?”

As Callm urged his mount, Satan, up the snowbank, Snosh spurred his gray alongside.

“Aye, Callm.” Wee Murdie’s mare cantered up behind. “Anyone would think you had the appointment with Father Andrew. No’ her and Monsieur Turd.”

Callm couldn’t even force a grin at the nickname. What the hell was there to grin at after all? He dug his heels in harder and shifted his weight to give Satan his head. The stallion was a powerful leader cresting the rise without any urging from him. But he just…didn’t care.

He should hate Lady Kara. Damned McGurkie that she was. Seeing her in that dress and thinking of her in the hands of the turd was his worst nightmare in months. It should have been a dream come true. How the hell could he forget how his life had changed in the blink of a spring afternoon?

He’d noticed, of course. He’d have had to be blind not to. The hordes of McGurkies had swept in from the sea. On their way from Ireland, they said. Had they also said to set up house on the McDunnaghs’ doorstep—no damned intention of getting off it either—maybe his father would have done something then. Although even then the McDunnaghs didn’t have the numbers to fight back. And despite Ewen’s antics, they still didn’t.

It had been hard when raiding parties started ravaging the Dunalpin meadows. Until that afternoon, he’d still thought the life of a chief’s older son would be his one day though, despite the fact Lochalpin, where deer roamed and linnets soared, was a jewel worth plundering. All it had taken was one afternoon.

Snosh’s gray lurched forward, plowing through the heavy layer of snow, the movements clumsy as Satan’s were smooth. “Big Tam’ll no’ run away with the deer.”

The last of his worries.

“Aye.” Wee Murdie gathered his reins in one hand and tried sweeping a strand of sodden hair back from his mouth. “It’ll soon be on the spit.”

Although it was almost impossible to hear in the wind barreling across the rise, carrying the sound of man and animal away with it, Callm could still make out Snosh’s chuckle. “Aye. And so will she.”

Cursing, Callm reined Satan’s pace.
All right. It was like this. The thing, the damnable thing, was that Morven had been a virgin on their wedding night and so ignorant it had been a cruelty to persist. So, naturally, when he thought of brides, how the hell couldn’t he help but imagine virgins, cowering in terror, in dresses buttoned up to their chins.

He certainly didn’t think of women in daringly cut gowns of ruby red silk, with pretty golden curls whipping down their backs, offering themselves to him, bold as a brass chimney-plate, asking to be stoked.

What the hell was a woman so beautiful doing dressed like a tuppeny whore? Did she think it that necessary to entice Ewen? That damned turd would shag a tree. The bastard would shag the whole damn forest.

But maybe that was the whole idea?

Edinburgh. It was where she’d been for the last God knew how many years, learning—plainly how to argue with him like that.
So keen to get into Lochalpin she practically shoved her tits in his face. Then, when he finally decided to let her, digging her fancy heels in.

He dragged a long frosted breath in a bid to cool the sweat that lathered him. He would like to say that was just like a woman. Edinburgh manners? Edinburgh dresses? Or what? But that damned army she had with her? No. No woman had ever put her hand in her cloak and nearly drawn on him either.

He glowered over his shoulder through the spinning snowflakes. It was the first time he’d done so since they’d set off and he wished he hadn’t. That damned dress and what he wouldn’t mind doing to her in it.

That damned dress
or
the thought of what he’d like to do to her in it, when she wasn’t even showing the damned dress—not a scrap, not a ribbon of it, when he hadn’t had a thought like that for five damned years—that made instinct scream, she was up to something.

Now she lagged behind, so he could barely pick her out through the curtain of snow, the dipping boughs, it was tempting to think he had at least demonstrated his mastery of the situation to her.

He just knew he’d be a whole glen happier if he could have flung her out on her stylishly appointed rump. But he was in no position to refuse her entry when the wedding had been arranged by proxy. Have her tinker chief father here complaining? Over the affront to
her
?

Over something worthwhile, then maybe he would listen.

“Not exactly alacritous, is she?” Wee Murdie pulled alongside. “I’ve seen faster slugs.”

“Who can blame her? She gets up afore the turd in that frock, she’ll be lucky to walk for a week. Not one to unwrap a woman’s body like it’s a gift now, is he?”

Snosh was right. It would be a great kindness to find somewhere to stop, let her exchange the damned thing for something a little less frivolous. Something preferably with a high neck, thick and serviceable.

But damn her. The world was fast turning ghostly. Remove the blasts of wind and the silence of snow would stretch all the way down the long road of the pass. The stars would be out soon. They would never reach the castle at this rate.

With Big Murdie—at six foot six, three inches taller than his brother—riding at the rear and Dug skulking in the trees, she wasn’t exactly going to get far if she tried bolting.

Who would have guessed it would take this long though? Certainly not himself, or he’d have whipped that damned pony of hers along. He didn’t want to get stuck somewhere with her.

He yanked Satan to a halt. “Go tell Shug to take the baggage horse on ahead to the castle, will you? That should move Goldie-locks along.”

Wee Murdie wheeled his horse around. “Callm, that’s—”

“Just do it. A woman and her trousseau.” Though he had forgotten so much, he was certainly glad he remembered that. “Easy seeing you haven’t ever been married. You just watch her break into a trot, if not a sweat. We’ll be home for supper, boys.”

The cheer was music to his ears.

Though Snosh did yell, “Hey, mind and ask her first if she’s got any more dresses like that one she’s wearing.”

More? Christ.

What was in the bags and boxes anyway? Soft lace shifts to match her creamy skin, little French shoes, totally impractical for glen walking, but meant for beguiling a man in, at a wedding dance. Dresses…
Christ, dresses.

“You think you can move your derriere a bit faster, Princess? The weather’s worsening. But maybe you want to have to spend the night with me?”

He may have forced a grin, but it was no joke, not what grabbed his middle. And held it as if with hot pincers. Until that ring was safely on her finger, he didn’t want to see her or hear her. Or anything with her.

A night beneath the same roof as her was the last thing in the world he wanted.

* * *

A naked man and woman. The cover for a bridal bed. At least Kara thought it was. Upside down, her hair ends trailing the stone flags, fighting the urge to kick and scream, it was difficult to tell what it was. But the Black Wolf continued on with grim determination, not stopping till he stood beside the bed.

“Now. Don’t you get any more ideas in that sweet head of yours about me being your bridegroom. Just because I brought you here. Bundling’s not my thing.”

He dumped her down, and the breath left her body as she thudded into the straw mattress. Perhaps he was right and she shouldn’t have lagged quite so far behind. And she shouldn’t have caught her foot in the stirrup and plunged from her horse when she dismounted in the yard, either. But it was all secondary to the instinctive knowledge,
he lied.

Was this not a bedroom? Was this not a bed? And had he not threatened her to spend the night with him if she didn’t hurry up? Had she done so, and was this even a castle, never mind McDunnagh Castle? No.

Would he lean over her like this so she could feel through the separating layers of wool and leather—soaking, welded wool and leather—well, she squirmed to think what she felt. No. What if he’d brought her here to wreak revenge for Morven? It would be no surprise. Oh, she should never have argued with him like that. But really, how could she help it, when she hadn’t known?

What was more, he’d picked her up and set her over his sloping shoulder as if she were a feather, not a woman of twenty-two, whose gown and cloak were so encrusted with snow she could hardly stand. Hadn’t broken stride, didn’t even struggle for breath, for all that water dripped from his clothes, his hair, and nose all the way across the candlelit flagstones.

What would he be? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? When he married Morven ten years ago, Kara had been too young to be considered a suitor for him
then.

Then, of course, in the past five years, when he’d transformed himself into the fiercest warrior in two glens—the kind of man not just to put your throat on a platter and serve it up to you for supper, but to make you eat it too—Kara had been imprisoned, the world, well, at least this bit of it, believing she was in Edinburgh. Dances. Parties. Suitors. A fine life for an Irish tinker chief’s daughter.

But whatever age this man was, his rangy body was treacherously honed and muscled in all the right places. His soft, cold scent smelled nothing like his grimy clothes suggested. And his sensuous mouth was so close, it…it…and hers…

“Och, Callm! What the—”

The sharp slap, ringing inches from Kara’s ear, jerked her chin up.

“Get away from her now. For God’s sake, let her breathe, will ye?”

A woman. Dear God, there was a woman. And not just any woman, by the looks of the way he ducked. But the kind Kara needed right now that her chest heaved and her breath tore in her throat and she couldn’t stop the wild shivering racing through her limbs.

She struggled up. A woman here meant she was safe. Although what flared in her blood was so unwelcome there was no harm making doubly sure. She wouldn’t want this woman, or any other, thinking she had somehow invited him onto the bed with her, would she? To sprawl, in that unseemly fashion, on top of her too.

“I—I’m Lady Kara McGurkie.” Grabbing the woman’s hand, she peered through her plastered strands of hair. “Yes. And I—
I
was on my w-way to marry Lord Ewen w-w-when that…that m-man there—”

“Don’t you even go there, Princess.”

He might have retreated to the doorway, but he wasn’t any tamer. In fact his eyes stood out like ice in the dim smoky light. Polished silver as they held hers, and so indignantly, coldly furious, a chill swept down Kara’s spine.

“I wouldn’t long-pole you to save my life.”

That was so very definite. What on earth was she worrying about? The breath sharpened in her lungs, rushing through her nostrils.
That he wouldn’t to save his life.
Why, the damned bastard should be so fortunate.

“Callm!”

She wasn’t going to tear the face from him either. But the exclamation brought her up short.

“Dinnae stand there glaring like that! If you cannae make yourself useful, go and see to the bairn.”