Lyon's Gift (9 page)

Meghan winced at the very notion. She could
scarcely imagine her brothers being so conciliatory. “They would
dine upon your eyes and feast upon your tongue!” she apprised with
absolute certainty. “Even were I to agree to such a thing, my
brothers would never concede.”

“
We shall see,” he said,
and then instructed Baldwin to retrieve his mount. Baldwin did as
he was told without another word. “And don’t forget Minnie,”
Montgomerie called after him.

Baldwin gave him a harried glance, but
turned and went after the lamb. If Meghan hadn’t been so
distressed, she might have had to laugh at Baldwin, clad in his
shiny silver mail, chasing after a bald little lamb.

“
You cannot simply
take
me!” she protested,
when it seemed he was serious. “Not without giving me the chance to
speak to my brothers! They will never agree to this!”

“
Then we shall find a way
to convince them,” he told her, and spurred his mount, drawing her
firmly against him.

“
Never!” Meghan vowed, and
shoved away from him. “Never!”

CHAPTER 7

“
You can force me to stand at the
altar, you know, but you cannot make me say the vows!”

Lyon merely smiled. “We shall see.”

“
Never,” she swore
again.

That was what they all said: Never.

Only Lyon knew better. He hadn’t met a woman yet he
couldn’t woo with pretty words and a few stolen kisses. Women were
fickle creatures with pudding hearts and insatiable vanities; they
said
never
all the while their hands reached out to draw his
lips to their lovely, greedy mouths.

That was his experience.

Not even his mother had been so different: all the
while she’d claimed her independence of men, she’d been a slave to
her excessive pride. And she was, in truth, a beautiful woman—even
now in her later years. At two score and two years, his mother
still commanded her choice of men. They gave her jewels and fine
cloth and anything her heart desired... until she grew tired of
them and discarded them for another. They even mourned her when she
was gone. Lyon could easily count upon his two hands—and then
some—the men whose hearts his mother had collected.

And yet his mother was not hard-hearted. She was
kind and generous and good-natured to a fault. And if she never
returned her lovers’ affections, she treated them well enough. Nay,
his mother was simply... free and easy.

Or rather, her price was extravagant and she was
quite discriminating, but she lived her life without concern for
anything but the present. Lyon admired her for that. It was
something of a mystery to him that most people either remained so
entrenched within the past, or lived entirely for the morrow, that
so few remembered to live for the moment.

And he was as guilty as any.

Well, not today... not this moment. He was following
his greatest impulse just now, and damn the consequences! It had
been much too long since he’d followed his blood knowledge.

His mother had cosseted him in his early years,
encouraging him to follow his heart’s desires. She’d sacrificed to
see him well educated. She’d made compromises for his sake when she
would never have-done the same for herself. Lyon’s greatest regret
was that he had forsaken his own institutions. He’d relied all of
his life upon his size and brawn to survive amongst peers who’d
viewed him as little more than a castoff, a poor relation. Though
never acknowledged by his father, he’d grown up amidst the elite of
Henry’s court. And it hadn’t been long before he’d discovered that
might and sword brought respect in his cast-off world. And with
little hope of ever earning his own fief or pursuing his own life,
he’d resigned himself much too early to a mercenary way.

He’d compromised his convictions.

And for what? A fistful of jewels and a bloody
name.

And an even bloodier sword.

Women had come and gone from his life during that
time, but he’d regarded them as little more than passing fancies—a
mutual perception, he was well aware—for he’d had nothing to offer
them, nothing to give of himself. From the time he’d been a lad,
he’d known he was destined to be alone. As a boy he’d stood apart
from his peers, an observer, his hours spent in learning with the
clergy. When he became a man, others trod lightly in his presence.
It was the most he could have expected. Respect. Even if they
didn’t quite see him as an equal, they’d respected him at
least.

And that had been enough.

“
What do you wish to be when you
grow up?” David of Scotia had once asked him in gratitude for
Lyon’s loyal defense of him.

Piers had thought about it an instant and had
shrugged and answered simply, “It matters not as long as I am
happy.” And had truly meant it.

“
That’s all you want?” David had
asked in surprise, cocking his head and staring at Piers as though
he were a two-headed calf. “Well,” he’d announced importantly, “I
wish to be king! And when I am king,” he’d promised, “I shall give
all my friends whatever they wish for! If you wish for happiness,
Piers of Montgomerie, I shall find it for you and then wrap it up
in golden fleece and hand it to you upon a silver plate. What do
you think about that?”

Piers had thought it a generous if pompous gesture,
but decided he had best find happiness for himself, as the ninth
son of a king—any king—was like never to sit upon any throne at
all, but the one in his own garderobe. He hadn’t said so, however.
He’d simply smiled his appreciation at his friend.

Well, David of Scotia had won his throne, after all,
and he’d given Lyon the next best thing. He’d favored Lyon with
land: good rich Scot’s soil, upon which he could build his own
legacy. And suddenly, he was free to dream and plan.

The woman sitting before him was a new
beginning.

An alliance with her brothers would bear him roots
upon this land.

He wanted that.

He wanted her.

It wasn’t merely that she was beautiful, though she
was. Wildly so—with her luscious red hair and cool green eyes, a
man could lose himself in those eyes. Aye, but she was more... she
was the first brick in his foundation.

“
You are quiet,” he said at her
back.

She stiffened before him, and her reaction made him
smile. She might not particularly like him, but she certainly
wasn’t indifferent toward him, and that knowledge pleased him. Love
and hate were not so disparate emotions that one could not be
manipulated into the other. They, at least, were extremes of
emotion, while indifference was another matter altogether; it was
the lack.

“
And how would you have me sit
before you?” she snapped, not bothering to peer back at him.
“You’re a contemptible Sassenach who’s taking me against my
will!”

Nay, he thought, she definitely wasn’t indifferent
toward him, and that pleased him immensely.

Challenged him, even.

Her animosity was like a gauntlet tossed at his
feet. He couldn’t walk away. Nor did he wish to, as he sensed the
prize was unparalleled.

Nor had he lost a match as yet, and that knowledge
gave him satisfaction as it never had before. He didn’t fight
unfairly, but neither did he give any mercy. He fought to win.

If it was the last thing he accomplished, he was
going to tame the little harridan sitting before him. He’d once
been told his tongue wove words of gold. No woman was immune to
praise. But his tongue had other talents that women never
protested.

He gently lifted a strand of her hair in his hand.
She didn’t seem to feel it... or perhaps she simply allowed it.

Soft.

His fingers reveled in the texture, silky and thick.
He brought the strand to his nostrils and inhaled its scent. He
knit his brows. “Lovely,” he told her. “Quite lovely. But the scent
eludes me.”

She didn’t thank him for the compliment, nor did she
seem to take the bait.

“
I like it,” he
continued.

“
I noticed,” she answered, quite
flippantly. “I can tell by the way you’ve buried your nose in it
like a mindless hound, Sassenach. Enjoying yourself?”

Lyon couldn’t help but chuckle. Smart-arsed wench.
He moved closer, drawn to the softness of her tresses like a
lodestone to metal. “Mmmmm,” he murmured, “it rather seems I
am.”

She shrugged away from him. “Do you mind not doing
that?” she asked, sounding vexed now. “If you must know ’tis a
rinse made from marrow. That’s what you smell. I use it ofttimes
after washing my hair, else I cannot comb it. It’s one of my
grandmother’s recipes. And it seems to have that same effect upon
all animals—dogs in particular!”

He had to crush the urge to laugh. Was she calling
him a dog? Certainly an animal, at the very least.

“
Does it now?”

“
Aye!” she declared, turning and
jerking her hair from his grasp. “It does!” She turned her back to
him once more, leaning away from him, so as not to touch
him.

Lyon grinned. She was not going to be an easy
victory, that was plain to see. But then... something worth having
was certainly worth fighting for.

He’d raised his sword enough times for lesser
things.

And he was certainly going to enjoy this particular
battle. It thrilled him as nothing had in a very long time.

Perhaps she would appreciate a more direct approach?
“I beg to differ, wench,” he said softly at her nape. “’Tis you who
has that effect upon me, not your hair rinse.”

He felt her shiver, and was satisfied.

Amazing how her simple reaction to his words could
warm his loins and heat his blood, when it had begun to take so
much to stir him at all in the past years. It elated him.

He’d become rather jaded in his tastes. But she was
different somehow. Even her barbs seemed to enchant him.

He bent nearer, savoring the sweet scent of her
flesh. “Tell me, wench... shall I simply call you ‘wench’? Or do
you have a name of preference?”

She turned and glowered at him. “Of course I’ve a
name, Sassenach, but you can call me wench if it pleases you.”

“
So you’ll not tell me?” He gave
her his most wounded look.

She merely smirked, unmoved. “Seems not.”

He lifted his brows. “I could ask your Minnie,” he
proposed, certain she wouldn’t carry on the charade any longer as
it was a lost cause. He planned to have her, will she nill she.

“
Go on, then,” she answered,
mocking him in return. “She’ll not tell you, unless I give her
leave to, Sassenach, and I shall not give her leave to.”

Stubborn Scot.

“
Somehow,” Lyon replied
sardonically, “I guessed not.”

“
That’s because Fia,” she told him
quite pointedly, “respects the wishes of others. Unlike some people
I’ve encountered.”

Lyon ignored the barb, determined to woo and win
her. “Pity you won’t say...”

“
Isn’t it?”

“
Aye... a beautiful woman could
only bear a beautiful name.”

She turned to cast him a wicked glare. “I should
warn you, Sassenach, I’m not some empty-headed wench that flattery
will fill my head so easily. You’ll not sway me with pretty
words!”

Cunning vixen, but he didn’t believe it. All women
loved adulation.

“
Idiocy,” she assured him, “does
not course through Brodie blood!”

“
But madness does?”

Meghan opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it
again, uncertain how to reply to that particular remark.

He was baiting her, she realized by the tone of his
voice. It was quite clear he did not believe her little tale. But
all was not lost.

It had been said that madness cursed Brodie
blood.

It wasn’t true, of course. It was just that no one
understood her mother or her grandmother. The truth was that her
mother had simply been aggrieved by lost love, while old Fia had
been a bit eccentric... and yet the rumor had been spread... and
Meghan could possibly use it now to her benefit. But she must be
careful in answering... if she truly wished Montgomerie to believe
her little fabrication. And she certainly did.

Surely he would let her go if he truly thought her
insane? No man could willingly wed a woman who was mad.

Could he?

How now to plant the seed without being so obvious
in her intentions?

And suddenly it came to her.

No need to sweeten her tone, as it would merely stir
his suspicion. “Do you always believe everything you hear?” she
asked, her tone as snappish as she could manage. Ire was as good a
defense as any against the sound of his voice. God help her, the
tone of it sent shivers down her spine... The feel of his breath
against her nape sent gooseflesh racing across her skin.

He was silent an instant, and then answered, “What
precisely is it I am to have heard?”

Meghan smiled to herself, pleased he should fall so
easily into her snare. “Well no matter, it isn’t true!”

“
What isn’t true?” His confusion
was manifest in his tone.

“
They’ve no idea of what they are
speaking!” Meghan assured him, well aware that she was confusing
him all the more and thinking she was enjoying this entirely too
much. Och! Since when had she enjoyed telling a lie so much? What
devil had gotten into her? And why did this suddenly seem more a
challenge of wits than a clever machination to save herself from an
unwanted marriage?

“
You’re confusing me, wench,” he
announced quite frankly.