Snow Raven (31 page)

Garlands of ivy and winter moss soon covered the little cradle, and Merry added a gilt ribbon to the backboard. One of the little girls came shyly forward to place the cloth Baby Jesus there, and, with heads bowed, the new Lady Lindsay led those gathered in prayer. Auchmull had a small family chapel, but there had never been a resident priest and the great hall was necessary to accommodate everyone. With the great Yule log merrily blazing and the wassail toasts running round the room, the old keep took on a homey atmosphere. Merry only wished Ran might be present to witness the magical transformation of his home.

Soon the hour grew late, and most drifted off to their own hearths, however humble they might be by comparison. Merry dispensed four pennies Scots to each of the departing children, earning fierce hugs and sticky kisses, and smiles from their doting mothers. She took one more satisfied look around the softly glowing, colorful hall before she retired, and then Hertha accompanied her upstairs.

Before Hertha readied her mistress for bed, there came a loud pounding at the bedchamber door. Hertha jumped. She reached for the heavy iron ring that served as a doorknob, but before the woman’s hand could close home, the door flew back against the wall with a mighty crash. With a squeak, Hertha fled into the shadows as a familiar figure burst in on them.

Merry whirled around, surprised to see Ran. His face was mottled with anger and his dark hair disheveled from the wind. Her gaze took in his muddy boots and the limp gilt ribbon clutched in one hand. He had returned from an obviously trying excursion, and appeared ready to dish out a very unpleasant lesson in turn.

His voice was like a whip crack in the room. “Leave us, Hertha.”

Glancing worriedly at Merry, Hertha nodded and left the bedchamber, and Ran slammed it shut behind the woman with a negligent bang. A pulse visibly throbbed in his temple, just above his left eye. His lips compressed as he took in Merry’s wary posture.

“I take it the hunt was unsuccessful?”

“You assume correctly. The villains are canny. However, I would wager even they are not as cruel as some I might know.”

“Cruel?” Merry’s voice quavered as she glimpsed the pain behind the anger in his eyes. Sweet Jesu, what had she done?

“You know perfectly well what I mean, madam.” He crumpled the ribbon in his big fist, hurled it at her. It glanced off her skirts and she gazed at it helplessly a moment. “Don’t look so innocent, m’dear. Or is there ample reason to feign ignorance?”

“Please, do not do this,” Merry whispered, bending to pick up the crushed ribbon. No matter what she did, she could not smooth the tattered edges. The parallel struck her with the force of a slap. Never had she been more aware of her vulnerability as a woman. Ran was not unusually large for a man, but more than strong enough to beat her if he chose. She fought the urge to cringe, sensing somehow that would only provoke a worse scene.

“I can explain—” she began.

He interrupted her with a head shake. “It never occurred to me you would stoop to something like this,” he said, his glance falling on the ribbon clutched in her white fingers. Then his gaze rose to accusingly pin Merry’s. “Where the devil did you find that thing?” he asked bluntly.

She knew he meant the cradle. Stumbling over the words, she told him the truth and her reasoning behind its use. He clearly didn’t care to hear it. His fists clutched at his sides, his knuckles were white.

“And covering Blair’s portrait, as well? I suppose it amused you, to think of my pain? Some small recompense for what happened to you, no doubt.”

His hoarse remark startled her. Merry looked into those blazing dark eyes, saw the intense suffering written there. Her insides twisted, she felt sick.

“Nay, I never intended—” she stammered.

“Jesu, madam, what a cold-blooded
Sassenach
bitch you are! My first Christmas, without Blair … the bairn we would have had by now …” Furiously Ranald came at her in sudden long strides, driving Merry flush up against the wall. She was trapped. His hand flew up, and he encircled her throat with his long fingers.

“The way I feel right now, I could cheerfully strangle you,” he muttered, and she saw the suspicious glitter of tears in his eyes just before his mouth came down, hard, with perfect accuracy, against her lips. He never released his grip on her neck, even tightened it slightly when he felt her begin to struggle. Gasping for air, Merry opened her mouth against his and felt his tongue immediately thrust home, claiming a brash victory as it fenced her own aside.

Traitorous tingles raced up and down her body, and her hands clutched Ran’s damp breccan as he leaned fully into her, letting her feel the hard edge of his arousal even through the layers of her skirts. His other hand slowly slid down the curve of her right cheek, continuing on until she felt his warm fingers slipping into the low bodice of her gown.

With bold, unerring accuracy, he found a nipple and teased it to button hardness, absorbing Merry’s whimper with his fierce kiss, letting her feel the full measure of his passion and pain. Finally, he tore his mouth from hers and buried it against the hollow of her neck, painting her flesh with a feverish intensity which left her gasping for air. She feared she would die either way; if he dared continued, or if he dared stop.

Ran shuddered against her, his hand slipping from her throat. “Damme you, Merry. You’ve bewitched me,” he whispered raggedly, staring at her as if demanding an explanation.

“’Twasn’t intentional, I assure you.”

Ran ignored her shaky reply. “I’ve marked you,” he mused quietly, leaning back to study the marks left by his fingers. “Your skin is so damn fair.” Then he lowered his head and gently kissed the rosy imprints, one by one.

Merry gasped and arched, her head lolling back, cushioned by the velvety tapestry covering the stone wall.

“Nay,” she said, vainly pushing against his chest.

“Aye,” he countered fiercely. “Aye!”

In a sudden fury of agony, he tore at the fastenings of Merry’s gown, peeling back the burgundy velvet bodice to expose a richly patterned red silk lining, and the creamy expanse of her breasts. He shoved the wide sleeves halfway down her arms, effectively imprisoning her for further exquisite torture at his leisure. He captured a rosy nipple between his teeth. It puckered proudly, and Merry cried out softly as Ran’s mouth wrought forbidden pleasure from her body.

He nipped, then soothed the throbbing peak, tracing delicate spirals and fanciful designs with his tongue. A moment later, she felt him nuzzling her other breast, and his dark, silky hair tumbled over her skin as he worried the second nipple to a turgid, aching peak of passion. Then she felt his hand slip between her legs, pressing the velvet folds of her gown hard against her woman’s point.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” he whispered in her ear, gently and harshly, all at the same time. Merry sobbed once, unable to deny it. She pushed up hard against his hand, a silent plea of sorts, and in that precise moment his hand yanked free. She bit back the urge to scream a furious denial. Ran, on the other hand, seemed to regain control quickly. She soon realized with a crushing blow, he had never lost it. He looked at her so closely she saw golden motes sparkling in his dark eyes.

“God’s teeth,” he said, stepping back to observe her flushed and trembling figure trapped against the wall. “You’re even willing to act like a court strumpet when you think it will avert the consequences of your actions.”

Merry yanked up the sleeves of her gown, trembling with anger and hurt. Her mind still whirled with the aftereffects of his angry lovemaking, and her fingers shook violently as she struggled to refasten the clasps. Impatiently Ran batted her hands aside and finished the job.

“Don’t spare a single tear on me, milady wife,” he said, glancing into her damp eyes. “’Twon’t work, and furthermore it lessens what little respect for you I have left. I will not deny my body wants you as much as ever, but ’twill be easily enough restrained. You made a conscious choice to disrespect Blair and our child, and now you’ll live up to the consequences, like it or nay.”

Flustered and feeling humiliated, Merry turned away to finish securing her bodice and smooth her skirts. She could feel Ran’s gaze boring into her back. She sought for the right words, but nothing came. When she finally worked up the courage to speak at all, it was just in time to hear his footsteps striding briskly from the room.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“FEARFUL ANGRY HE WAS, lass. I canna ever recall seein’ Lord Ran like that before.”

Merry, curled up in a window seat with a copy of Sir David Lindsay’s
The Dreme
balanced across her knees, merely nodded at her maid’s words. Hertha had been babbling about the incident for most of the day. She was still too upset herself to either concentrate upon the poetic visions of Ran’s ancestor or continue any converse upon the matter of the man himself.

“’Tis sorry I am I didna stay, lass. Why, he looked somethin’ right fierce, he did, like one of the old Pict warriors! I was terrible a’feared for ye. What could I do?”

What, indeed? Merry wondered. Would anything have stopped Ran short of a claymore? She smiled at the thought, imagining the look on his face if she had whipped a wicked-looking blade from behind her skirts. That was what her feisty sister Kat surely would have done in similar straits. She could fence on a par with men, and Merry had always envied her twin such skill and cool aplomb.

Her smiled waned as she remembered Ran’s expression when he had glimpsed the cradle. He thought she deliberately sought to hurt him, and nothing she said would mend the chasm yawning between them now. Merry realized Hertha was watching her when the maid soberly remarked, “Ochone, lass, I do hate to see yer sweet spirits so low.”

“’Tis all right, Hertha,” Merry said wearily. “’Tis over now, and ’twould appear I’m none the worse for wear.”

Except inside, Merry added silently. She would never forget the terrifying, yet thrilling proximity of Ran as he’d leaned into her, pinning her between his hard body and an even harder wall. How had Blair truly felt about the dangerously handsome Wolf of Badanloch? Had she quivered and whimpered at his touch, like Merry did? Had her stomach clenched into hard little knots whenever she felt his lips playing over her skin, his calloused hands caressing her body?

Sweet Jesu
, Merry thought with a mental groan, tossing her book aside on a table.
I’ve got to stop going round and round in my mind. Ran doesn’t love me, his heart died with Blair. Marriage with Wickham would have been purely practical, why could this not work comfortably as well?

Because I love him
. The realization, so simple and yet so poignant, caused her throat to tighten with emotion.
Why do you feel this way about him?
her conscience argued.
You know he’s the enemy. You know nothing can come of it. You know you want to go back home.

Home. England. The frivolous gaiety of Court, Christmas revelries at Nonsuch. Merry longed for the carefree days when she dangled her heart on her sleeve for the courtiers to vie over, and laughingly watched them compete for her favors. Harmless flirtations a man like Ranald Lindsay would never understand, nor forgive. Whilst he did not question his previous wife’s appearance at Braidwood, he was quick to condemn Merry for the lifestyle she had led. She was still thinking about this, considerably sobered, when Hertha answered a summons at the door.

Hertha returned, looking concerned. “’Tis Himself summoning again,” she whispered to her mistress. “Shall I tell him yer abed?”

Merry shook her head and quickly rose from her indolent position, smoothing out her sapphire-blue silk gown. She wore dark colors still in respect for Duncan and the melancholy side of the holiday, but she had no intention of standing there meekly and taking any more insults, if that was what Ran intended. Merry unconsciously tidied her hair as she moved toward the door. Ran himself was not there. It was a young lad who regarded her with twinkling eyes before his gaze respectfully lowered.

“Follow me, milady,” he murmured, turning and leading her down the hall to the chamber comprising Ran’s study. Merry waited tensely while the boy scratched at the door, then opened it and stepped aside for her to enter. It was immediately closed behind her. She faced her husband from the other side of a massive mahogany desk.

Ran glanced up at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Sit down, Merry,” he ordered.

She sat. Her hands clenched in her lap as she glanced around Ran’s study. The room was lit only by a single lamp, placed well out of reach across the wide expanse of the chamber. It was evening outside, and therefore the narrow, leaded windows offered little light. Though the room was poorly lit, she could make out Ran easily enough. He was frowning as if preoccupied. She swallowed, wondering how she might have offended him yet again while she had kept to her bedchamber all day. It was the most dour, loneliest Christmas she could recall, and even the tender goose and spiced apple tart Hertha brought her had not lifted her spirits.

“I suppose you wonder why I summoned you here at this hour. Suffice it to say, a missive has arrived from London.”

Merry looked at Ran quizzically, waiting.

“’Tis a dispatch from your English kin. Gord was kind enough to forward it to me, as the messenger was apparently waylaid at the Border.” He unfolded several limp, travel-worn papers from a packet on his desk. He tossed them negligently at her. Merry caught the papers and he nodded she should read them, as he obviously already had.

Ran added the weather had delayed the messenger both ways, but it was obvious enough from the outset that Uncle Kit had received word of her marriage from Cecil at Court.

“
Dear little flame
,” Sir Christopher Tanner had written in his fine hand, dated over a fortnight ago,

How we rejoiced to hear you were safe, after long days and nights of worry. Your sister especially was inconsolable, and I dispatched word to Falcon’s Lair as soon as I heard the news. We all feared her distress might injure her health and that of the future heir of Falcon’s Lair. I, too, must confess shock and no little concern over this turn of events, though certainly a title like Lindsay’s is nothing to shrug aside. Your father aspired to make a good match with your permission and the queen’s aid, and this came about with Wickham’s offer earlier in the year.