Once Upon A Highland Christmas (3 page)

It made him damned uncomfortable.

And it gave him a tiny flicker of hope.

So he took a deep breath and spoke true. “Lady Breena, there was more than duty in our kiss. More than persuading Archie the spirit of the season and naught else was why he found us kissing beneath the mistletoe.

“Truth is”—he hoped he wouldn’t regret his honesty—“the kiss was right pleasurable.”

“I see.” She glanced aside, clearly not understanding.

It also wasn’t what he’d meant to say.

He’d thought to tell her he’d kissed her because he couldn’t resist doing so. That no maid had ever before affected him so strongly. She made him feel as if she’d turned him inside out and upside down, scattering his wits to the winds, and leaving him more excited, even giddier, than he would’ve ever believed a man could feel.

He was a warrior, more used to battle fury than the heady rush that swept him in her presence.

For sure he wasn’t a man of silvered words. Telling her the kiss was pleasurable was the highest compliment that came to his clumsy tongue.

Regrettably, the disappointment on her face warned he shouldn’t have said anything.

“I know well that men enjoy kissing, and more.” She turned back to him, her gaze locking with his. “It is the way of all men.”

“Nae, lass…” Grim started toward her, then stopped when she lifted a hand, creating an unseen but impassable barrier between them.

Something inside him shifted, breaking open to release a hot tide of rage like he’d never known. How could he have forgotten how she’d come to be at Duncreag? That she’d been kidnapped by Ralla and his band, their harsh treatment of her surely making her wary of a man’s intentions.

Though she didn’t speak of it, he suspected she’d suffered more than rope burns and cruel words.

Seeing her now, having held and kissed her, Grim knew he’d lay down his own life if only for a heartbeat he could make her forget.

If only for a moment, she would look at him with all the love in the world in her eyes.

A fool notion if ever there was one, as well he knew.

“You’re thinking.” She was suddenly right before him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. “Can it be you have a better idea?”

“What?” Grim blinked, nearly jumping out of his skin. He hadn’t heard her approach. For truth, she not only looked like an angel, she moved with the silent grace of a winged and sparkling faery queen.

Frowning, he looked down at her, feeling more like an overgrown ox than ever before. “I didnae hear you o’er the wind, lass. What did you mean?”

“Archie, of course.” She stepped back and glanced about the hall, her gaze drifting over the empty trestle tables and then lifting to the handful of mistletoe balls hanging here and there. When she looked again at Grim, her expression was bleak. “Repeatedly replenishing the decorations will serve naught. He’ll never relent about Yule. I fear there’s nothing we can do.”

“Dinnae be so sure.” Grim now knew he was destined for Niflheim, the cold and dark hell of Norse legend. He barged on all the same. “There might indeed be a Yuletide celebration at Duncreag, and one Archie cannae refuse.”

“He’s against any festivities.”

“That doesnae matter.”

“I don’t understand.” Breena’s brow pleated.

Grim smiled. “If all works out as I hope, Duncreag will have a Yule feast that the bards will sing of for all time coming.”

Breena’s eyes rounded. “Oh, that would be such a blessing. But how?”

Grim flicked a glance over his shoulder to be sure they were alone. “I have a plan.”

“You do?”

“Aye.” Grim nodded, silently wondering how the denizens of Niflheim would like the clacking of his beard rings. He was going there for sure if he spoke his next words. “There’s only one hitch,” he took the risk.

He was prepared to challenge the devil.

So he set his hands on Breena’s shoulders and sealed his fate. “If I am to succeed, you must accompany me on a journey.”

“Wait, please.” Breena dug in her heels when Grim turned an unexpected corner in the passageway leading from the great hall. She’d been at Duncreag long enough to know he was taking her to the stronghold’s dankest, most crumbling tower. Known as the Winter Tower, it was the oldest part of the castle and stayed cold even in summer. No one dared to tread there and many believed it was haunted. If not by ghosts, then she was sure mice and cobwebs waited in the darkness of the tower’s winding turnpike stair.

Breena glanced at Grim, her heart beating a little faster.

Surely this wasn’t the journey he’d mentioned?

“Grim…” She gripped his arm and he stopped, looking down at her in a way that sent a shiver through her. “You can’t mean for us to enter this tower? Archie’s late wife, Lady Rosalie, used the topmost room as a solar. No one ever goes there, not even Archie.”

“That I know.” Grim nodded, his eyes glinting in the light of an iron-bracketed wall torch. “That’s why we’re heading there, to Lady Rosalie’s chamber. It’s the last place Archie would follow us.

“We can be assured of privacy in the Winter Tower.” Easing from her grasp, he took a small rush-light off a stone ledge and lit it in the flame of the wall torch. This done, he turned back to her, giving her an easy smile. “Only the mice and spiders will hear us.”

Breena blinked, wondering if he could read minds.

He stepped closer and touched her cheek, his big hand warm against her chilled skin. “I’ll no’ let either of them bother you. There’s naught to fear, no’ even the darkness, for we have our own torch.”

He held up the rush-light, which—to her mind—already looked in danger of fizzing out.

Even so, she put back her shoulders and stood a bit straighter. “I am not afraid.”

But the excitement that had filled her when he’d suggested traveling together was fading. She’d let him lead her from the hall with such grand expectations. She’d even thought he might kiss her again.

In truth, she’d hoped so.

Never would she have guessed he meant to take her into a musty tower known to strike terror into the hearts of even the stoutest garrison men. She’d seen some of them make the sign against evil upon passing the Winter Tower’s heavy oaken door. What concerned her wasn’t the threat of the tower’s unholy cold or dark spirits.

It was how dashing Grim looked in the dim light of the passage. How his nearness felt so shockingly intimate after their kiss.

A remarkable kiss she’d relive again and again all her days.

Just thinking about it made her breath quicken and caused a flurry of delicious sensation deep in the lowest part of her belly.

She couldn’t imagine being alone with him in the confines of a secluded tower chamber.

The very air might catch flame.

She touched a hand to her breast, hoped her voice wouldn’t betray her feelings. “The Winter Tower is eerie.” She gave him the best excuse she could think of. “Surely we can speak somewhere else?”

“Nae, we cannae.” Grim shook his head, the clacking of his beard rings loud in the stillness. “The only thing wrong with this tower is that its lady no longer stands at the windows of her chamber, enjoying the views, as she was wont to do every day. Or so I’ve been told.

“Her loss is a sad thing. It could well be that the walls of her favorite hideaway mourn her. If they do…” He let the words trail off, smoothed a stray curl off her face. “Well then”—he tucked the strands gently behind her ear—“I would say such sentiment speaks highly for the tower. Even stone can have souls, and feelings, didn’t you know?”

“I suppose.” She hadn’t thought of it that way.

“Perhaps the Winter Tower will appreciate a bit of company?” He cupped her chin, tipping her face upward. “We both agree Archie needs some. And where better to make our plans to help him than here?”

“You truly think we can?” Breena blinked. His touch made it difficult to think. How could she when such prickling awareness raced along her skin?

“Aye, I do.” He stepped around her to open the door, releasing a rush of cold, stone-scented air. “Come now, Lady Breena,” he encouraged her, urging her over the threshold and up the curving, age-smoothed steps. “I’ll make you a promise. If you aren’t at ease in Lady Rosalie’s chamber, I’ll escort you back down.

“Fair enough?” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Yes.” She suspected she’d be sorry for agreeing.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He flashed a crooked smile that went straight to her heart. When he reached behind to seize her hand and give her fingers a light, reassuring squeeze, she was amazed she didn’t melt there and then on the cold stone of the ancient steps.

She also felt a twinge of guilt because he’d again called her lady.

She was no such thing.

As a mere village lass, the only daughter of a woodworker who supplied the countryside with wooden plates, bowls, mugs, and tankards, she’d toiled alongside her mother daily, just as her eight brothers helped her father or plowed the fields. Life hadn’t been easy. She’d been an extra mouth to feed, resented for not being another son.

She had about as much in common with a lady as a sparrow with a peacock.

Even so, she had her pride.

And she’d correct Grim’s error as soon as they reached Lady Rosalie’s chamber.

If he thought less of her, so be it.

She’d lived this long without an admirer, though she had given him her heart and a kiss beneath the mistletoe. That a man kissed a woman didn’t mean he cared for her. No matter that he’d called their kiss “right pleasurable.” Plundering a woman’s lips meant little to most men, leastways in a romantic sense.

That she knew.

She shivered, remembering the things her captor, Ralla, and his men had done to her. They’d stolen her kisses, her innocence, and, at times, threatened her life. They’d also taught her to appreciate men like Grim.

She knew in her heart he was good.

Unfortunately, she was also aware that most men of his standing only dallied with lasses of humble backgrounds. When they wanted a wife, they offered for the hands of fine ladies. Daughters of gentle breeding who came with land, a title, and a generous dowry purse.

She could offer Grim nothing like that.

So as they climbed higher and higher up the Winter Tower’s tight spiral stair, she planned her explanation carefully. When they reached the top and the door that would lead into the late Lady Rosalie’s sanctuary, she’d be poised and ready.

Or so she thought until they were finally there and Grim opened the door, letting her step past him into the night-cloaked chamber.

Except the room wasn’t dark at all.

It was bright and beautiful, more wondrous than Breena would’ve believed possible.

Broad beams of moonlight fell through two of the window arches to gleam back off the bare stone walls and floor so that the room appeared to be made of polished silver. And rather than the musty smell of the turnpike stair, the little chamber was filled with clean cold air. Better yet, the night wind whistling past the windows carried the heady scent of the nearby pine wood.

“Oh, my!” Breena stopped just inside the threshold, her jaw slipping.

“I knew you’d approve.” Beside her, Grim inhaled deeply, his face relaxing.

She couldn’t know for sure, as she wasn’t looking at him. But she’d felt the transformation in the warmth of his tone. And in how slowly he released his breath, as if he appreciated this place.

He thrust the rush-light in an iron ring on the wall and then strode deeper into the room. “A great shame it’s no’ used, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes!” Breena glanced about the perfectly round room, words failing her. She pressed a hand to her breast, awe filling her as she took in more of the chamber’s magnificence.

Empty of furnishings and adornment, the moon-silvered stone truly did appear smooth as a looking glass. Before Duncreag, she’d never been in a castle or even a lesser chieftain’s tower hall, but she knew that the room’s stones bore the noble gloss of great age. Only long centuries of loving use could create such a patina, and that awareness humbled her.

Heart thumping, the night’s chill not bothering her at all, she breathed deep of the crisp, pine-scented air and imagined the fine ladies who’d sat on the stone benches of the chamber’s six window embrasures. Cut deep into the thickness of the tower, the alcoves circled the room, two of them flanking a small fireplace with a cone-shaped hood, the stone of which was carved with soaring birds.

“I have never seen anything so lovely.” She went to stand beside Grim, lightly touched his arm. “It is like stepping into the realm of a faery queen.”

“So it is.” Grim’s voice held a husky note that made her senses spin. Equally disquieting, the same moonlight that silvered the room also shone on his mail shirt and glinted off his beard rings, letting him look not just big, bold, and roguish, but almost mythical.

So easily, he could pass for a legendary hero come to life, straight from a bard’s fable.

Breena knew her eyes were widening in wonder, so she glanced aside, biting her lower lip.

To her surprise, Grim leaned down and pressed a kiss to her brow. “This room should be well tended and enjoyed, by all. That is certain.

“And you have no’ yet seen its finest feature.” He caught her wrist, led her into the nearest embrasure. “It is said one can see all of Scotland from up here. Though”—he slid his arm about her waist, drawing her near as they approached the tall window arch—“I’ll own that’s stretching the truth a bit. Even so, the views are splendid.”

“I have no words.” Breena set her hands on the cold stone of the ledge, stunned by the snowy expanse before her. The soaring peaks that surrounded Duncreag, cutting off the stronghold from the rest of the world, glistened with the sheen of ice crystals. In the distance, other hills, moorland, and glens stretched blue-white in every direction, each ripple of the land sparkling, the whole of the Highlands kissed by a light haze of frosty mist.

But it was the glitter of stars that took her breath.

“The stars.” She glanced up at Grim. “They’re everywhere, more than I have ever seen.”

He nodded, looking pleased. “Indeed. And the crescent moon is allowing them their glory.”

Breena turned back to the window. “It’s almost too beautiful.”

“Lady Rosalie called this chamber her ‘room of stars.’ ” Grim’s voice was low, almost reverent. “ ’Tis easy to see why she chose the name.”

“She must’ve loved the room very much.”

“I have heard that she did.” Grim’s arm tightened about her waist, drawing her closer. “I can see you enjoying such a place. Watching the sun rise from one window and then later embroidering at another as the midday sun warmed you.” He paused, the magic he was spinning making her heart flutter. “Perhaps you’d admire the sunset from the west-facing alcove, a lover at your side. Then you could return here at midnight to drink mead and count the stars.

“Lady Breena, I can see you here so clearly.” His words flowed through her, sweeter than the honeyed mead he’d mentioned. He had the most beautiful voice, deep, smooth, and so richly burred.

Unfortunately, he’d said “lady” again. And worse, he was using his big, strong hand to trace delicate circles on her hip, a maddening distraction that sent the most delicious shivers all through her. His touch felt more searingly intimate than if she stood before him naked, a thought that excited her when such a wanton notion should shame her.

Her pulse leapt and exquisite, languorous heat swept across certain unmentionable parts of her, rousing and melting her.

Perhaps she was wicked?

In truth, she didn’t care. Not when it was Grim who made her feel that way.

But she did have other concerns.

“Grim.” She stepped away from him, speaking as resolutely as she could. “You mustn’t call me ‘Lady Breena.’ I am not a gentle-born lady and will not assume to make any such claim to the status.”

She held up a hand, stopping him when he started to object. “It makes me uncomfortable when you address me so. Simply Breena is fine, truly.”

“Aye, well, Breena.” He frowned on her name. “I am no’ a man to deny a lady her wishes. And you are a lady, whate’er you say.”

“My father was a woodcarver.” Breena’s chin came up, her sire’s hard-featured, ever-closed face rising in her mind. “He fed us by making plates, bowls, cups, and the like. He supplied rougher ware for villagers and townfolk, and finer goods for knightly households and other gentry. My brothers cut wood for him and brought him bog oak when they could find it. They also plowed fields.

“And I helped my mother with whatever chores needed doing.” She straightened her back, held his gaze. She raised her hands, palms outward so he would see her work-roughened fingers, the results of a lifetime of toil. “I can sew homespun, but have never embroidered, my lord. Suchlike is a lady’s pastime, as well you know.”

“I ken more than you allow me, lass.” He held his own hand out to her, his steady gaze commanding. “Come here, I’ve something else to show you.”

“There is nothing else in here.” Breena was sure he must hear the thundering of her heart. It roared in her ears, wild and dangerous.

“Did I say it was something in here?” He lifted a brow, looking amused as he waited.

“No…” Breena stared at his hand. Like the rest of him, it was large and strong-looking. Faint scars crisscrossed the skin, testament to his warrior background. His fingers were long and well made, and they bore calluses, showing he trained hard and wasn’t a man to shun work. Breena was sure she’d never seen a more perfect hand. Or a man she could love more deeply.

She hoped she didn’t already do so.

She feared she did.

“We should leave.” She found herself putting her hand in his, not quite sure how that happened. “It’s late and—”

“We are no’ finished here, my lady.” He squeezed her fingers and then bowed over her hand, lightly brushing his lips across her knuckles. When he straightened, his gaze was warm. “Come with me again into the embrasure.”

Giving her no choice, he tucked her hand in his arm and led her there. He took her back to the broad window ledge where she’d looked out upon the snowy Highlands with such rapture. The stars, if it were possible, seemed to have multiplied. They were even more brilliant now, twinkling so brightly she wouldn’t have been surprised if a spellcaster had enchanted them all, binding them to shine down on this beautiful land she now thought of as her home.