Untamed (9 page)

If she was his captive, she was a willing one.

A great shout went up from the people as they understood that this spring they would sow crops for the living rather than dig graves for the dead;
and in their joy it was Meg's name the people called, not that of their new lord
.

As the waves of jubilation broke over Dominic, he knew why John had never disavowed the girl who was not his daughter.

T
HE FEAST SPREAD IN THE BAILEY
before the vassals of Blackthorne Keep was a luxury beyond their imagining. Scents both familiar and exotic filled the cool air. Potent ale and even more potent mead waited in barrels that had just been broached. There was fish both fresh and salted, fowl both fresh and smoked, pigs roasted whole and doves lying on beds of fresh greens, breads both traditional and flavored with imported spices so costly they had never before been tasted by the keep's servants. It was a feast fit for nobles, and it was being given to the commoners of Blackthorne Keep.

As they approached the laden trestle tables, a shallow bowl was given to each person. In the bottom of the bowl was a silver coin and a piece of candied citrus. Cries of wonder and pleasure rippled through the crowd. No one could say which was more pleasing, the money or the sweet. Most common people lived and died without holding either in their palm.

Grimly Duncan watched as Dominic and Meg strolled among the people of the keep, accepting their good wishes. For each vassal Meg had a ques
tion or a compliment. With Dominic the people were reserved and respectful; with Meg they were both reverent and joyous.

Whatever hope the Scots Hammer might have had of the vassals refusing to serve their new lord died as Duncan watched Dominic bask in the reflected glow of the people's love for Meg. Yet even as Duncan watched, he could not help but admire both the intelligence of Blackthorne Keep's new lord and the ruthlessness Dominic kept as carefully sheathed as his sword; but like his sword, able to be drawn and used in an instant.

“Saying fare thee well to your ambitions?” a voice asked sardonically.

Duncan didn't have to turn to see who was digging spurs into his pride. Simon hadn't been more than a hand's reach—or a knife's—from Duncan since the beginning of the wedding ceremony.

“Your brother is a clever man,” Duncan said evenly. “He did the one thing that might win Blackthorne's people to his side.”

“Spared John's life?”

Duncan shook his head. “No.”

“The feast?”

Smiling slightly, Duncan still shook his head. “It was shrewd, but not enough.”

“The money?”

“Nay.”

“What, then?”

“Somehow your brother convinced Meg that he was the only way to peace for her people. When did she come to you with John's plans? Last night?”

Simon gave Duncan an odd look. “Lady Margaret didn't come to us.”

“God's blood, I'm not an entire fool! When did Meggie betray us?”

“You knew it as soon as we did,” Simon retorted.
“As for betrayal, the only treachery today was on the part of John. And you, of course.”

“I am a Scots thane,” Duncan said coldly. “I bend the knee to none but my own king. Henry is not that king!”

“Aren't you grateful that your life was spared?”

“It was spared for Lord Dominic's purposes, not mine.”

Simon shrugged. “Of course. He made a present of your life to Lady Margaret. I hope he doesn't rue his generosity.”

For a moment Duncan measured the brother of the man who had defeated him so handily. Duncan had seen men such as Simon and Dominic in the Holy Land, knights who had little to bring to life but their own wit and brawn.

Duncan was himself such a man.

Next time use the wit rather than the brawn
, Duncan advised himself sardonically.
Dominic did, and see what it got him—Meggie's hand and all of Blackthorne Keep for his domain
.

“Am I permitted to see Lord John?” Duncan asked.

“Dominic wouldn't keep a son from seeing his dying father.”

Duncan shot him a glance through narrowed eyes. “Do you listen much to scullery gossip?”

“A great deal,” Simon assured him cheerfully. “It makes for less nasty surprises that way. You should be grateful that Dominic listens, too.”

“Why?” Duncan asked curtly. “It lost me Blackthorne Keep.”

“Nay. Dominic had laid his plans for the wedding before we ever rode up to the keep.”

Duncan's eyes widened in a shock he didn't trouble to hide. “How did he know?”

“He didn't. He simply knew that if trouble were to come, the most unexpected place for it would be
in the church itself. So he asked after the priest's parents, if his brothers were John's vassals, if his sisters were married to Saxons or Normans, if Lord John had paid for his education in the Church. We quickly discovered that the priest owed far more to Saxon and Scot than to King Henry.”

Duncan turned and stared openly at Simon.

“Then,” Simon continued, enjoying himself, “we heard talk of John's bastard, a knight of courage and quick temper, a fine warrior known as the Scots Hammer, and a man who had been betrothed to John's own daughter until the king squeezed the Church into refusing the match. The Church was quite reluctant, however. 'Tis appalling what some men of God do in God's name.”

“Amen,” Duncan said.

And meant it. Some of the things he had seen done by men of God to other men of God during the Holy War would haunt him until the day he died.

“I suspect,” Simon said slowly, “that was when Dominic decided to kill John. The thought of a man marrying his bastard son to his own daughter sickened my brother. Dominic thought no better of the ambitious bastard who would marry his own half sister. Once the facts were known, King Henry would raise no objections to the hangings.”

A soft whistle came from between Duncan's teeth as he understood how close to death he still was.

“Meggie isn't my sister.”

It was Simon's turn to be surprised. And relieved. He admired the Scots Hammer's audacity and courage. Under other circumstances, they might have been friends.

“I am pleased to hear it,” Simon said simply.

“See that your brother hears it as well.”

Simon looked closely at Duncan and smiled thinly.

“You begin to understand,” Simon said, nodding. “Dominic is as savage a man in battle as I have ever seen, because he considers war to be a failure of intelligence that must be hacked through as quickly as possible. 'Tis ever so much more useful to have peace, you see.”

“No, I don't.”

“Neither do I,” Simon admitted.

The two men looked at each other and laughed.

Dominic turned at the sound of male laughter, saw Duncan and Simon, and shook his head.

“What is it?” Meg asked.

“My brother and the Scots Hammer.”

Meg looked puzzled.

“They're laughing together like friends,” Dominic explained, “yet they came within a single breath of trying to kill one another in the church.”

“Perhaps that is why they are laughing. They are alive and it is spring and a feast awaits in the great hall. What more could they require of life at this moment?”

Gray eyes focused on Meg. Slowly Dominic nodded as he considered what she had said.

“You are very wise, for a maid.”

She slanted him a green-eyed glance and said dryly, “Wiser than many a man, I assure you.”

One corner of Dominic's mouth lifted in a smile. “I shall remember that.”

Dominic and Meg continued across the bailey through the throng of vassals, making slow progress. It seemed that each tenant, cotter, freeholder, and serf must assure himself personally of Meg's well-being. Eadith waited rather impatiently at the edges of the crowd, plainly wishing access to her mistress.

“What is it, Eadith?” Meg asked finally. “Come forward.”

The vassals parted for the handmaiden's prog
ress. The light of day wasn't as kind to her clothing as it was to Meg's. Eadith's poverty—and that of the Blackthorne Keep itself—showed clearly in her mantle gone threadbare from much use.

“Lord John is feeling the strain of the day quite keenly,” Eadith said. “He wishes to give the wedding toast soon.”

Meg closed her eyes for an instant. She dreaded having to face John's wrath.

Dominic saw Meg's reluctance. He put his arm about her waist under her mantle. The warmth and resilience of her body beneath the silver fabric sent a shaft of heat through him.

“Tell John,” Dominic said, “that we will join him shortly.”

Startled, Eadith looked at Dominic. His expression told her she had better become accustomed to taking orders from him. She nodded hurriedly and pressed through the crowd. The pale orange of her dress and the shimmer of her long blond hair showed clearly against the keep's damp stone as she climbed the steps to the forebuilding.

Dominic looked down into Meg's shadowed eyes and guessed the reason for her unease.

“You are my wife. I protect what is mine. Your father's ambitions will trouble you no longer.”

Long auburn lashes swept down for a moment, concealing Meg's eyes. She wondered if Dominic would feel the same way about protecting her when he realized that he had been trapped into a union with a Glendruid girl of doubtful fertility.

“But do not try to deceive me again as you did in the mews,” he added coldly. “No trick works twice on me.”

“You startled me. I wasn't dressed to receive my future husband. In any case, my father had forbidden our introduction until the wedding itself.”

Though Meg wasn't looking at Dominic, she could sense him weighing her words as carefully as a miller weighed wheat to be ground into flour. Unease rippled through her. He was a very powerful man; should he choose to beat her, there was nothing she could do, no place to which she could flee. She was like her mother.

Trapped.

After a moment Meg put her hand on Dominic's arm and looked up, in control of her emotions once more. Her most important goal had been accomplished: Blackthorne Keep was safe from a ruinous war. For the remainder, she would simply take each difficulty as it came and pray that Dominic showed as much restraint in the rest of his life as he did in battle.

Together Dominic and Meg climbed the steep stone steps to the keep, then turned to acknowledge a final chorus of good wishes from the people. Once inside the forebuilding's dark interior, Meg turned hesitantly to Dominic.

“Will you go to our wedding feast in chain mail?” she asked.

“Yes.”

When Meg would have spoken again, Dominic put his thumb lightly against her lips. Startled, she stood very still, watching him with eyes that were luminous even in the half darkness of the keep's forebuilding. Her dress shimmered with light, as though mist and moonlight and stars had been woven into the fey cloth.

“Fear not, bride,” Dominic said deeply. “I won't wear hauberk and sword in the bedchamber.”

Meg's breath went out in a rush of warmth across Dominic's thumb. An odd smile changed his face, making it both handsome and compelling.

“Well, perhaps a sword,” he said huskily. “It will
be quite hard but it will have not one cutting edge. It will lie quite smoothly within your warm sheath.”

So surprised was Meg by the transformation the sensual smile made in Dominic's face that it took a few moments for the meaning of his words to register. When she understood, heat rose in her face. He saw the blush and laughed softly.

“We shall do well with one another,” Dominic said with obvious satisfaction. “I expected to do my duty by my wife, but I didn't expect to enjoy it overmuch. I see that I was wrong. Planting my seed within you will be a very pleasant duty indeed.”

“Pleasant for whom, my lord?”

“Both of us.”

“Ah, I see you want heirs.”

“Of course I want heirs,” he said. “There is no other reason to marry.”

“Land and a keep?” Meg suggested with a cool smile. “Are they not worth a marriage?”

“Without heirs, land is a demanding burden and marriage a cruel hoax,” Dominic said succinctly.

Before Meg could speak again, Simon and Duncan strode into the forebuilding. When Duncan saw Meg, he stopped abruptly. Simon looked at Dominic, who signaled his brother to go on into the keep alone. But when Duncan started to talk to Meg, Dominic spoke first.

“Before you berate my
wife
,” Dominic said icily, “know that you enjoy life only by her sufferance.”

Duncan gave the other man a long look, took a deep breath to cool his temper, and said, “Meggie had naught to do with any of our plans.”

“Except as a pawn,” she said before Dominic could speak.

The two men looked at Meg in surprise, for there had been an edge to her voice that was unusual for her. She continued talking in that same biting tone.

“My father—or is he my stepuncle, or perhaps no blood relation at all?—has spent much time planning ways to use me. Why should Duncan apologize for doing the same?”

The Scots Hammer moved uneasily. What Meg said was the truth, but it sounded quite unpleasant spoken aloud.

“Meggie,” he said in a deep voice, “I wouldn't have you hurt. Surely you know that?”

“Is that why you planned to launch a war while she stood in the center of the battlefield?” Dominic asked sardonically.

“My men had their orders,” Duncan retorted. “If one of them had so much as jostled Meggie, I would have killed him.”

“And
my
men? What were your orders to them?” Dominic asked savagely. “How were you to prevent them from hacking through a treacherous female to get at my murderer?”

Duncan paled visibly.

“Meggie,” he protested to her. “It wouldn't have happened that way. I would have protected you!”

“Why? Death would have been a blessing.”

It took a moment for Meg's bitter words to penetrate the men's anger. When they did, both men stared at her.

“What are you saying, lass?” Duncan whispered, appalled.

“John has tried to use me to make war on the Normans since I was eight,” Meg said. “If he had succeeded, I couldn't have borne knowing I was the cause of my people's suffering. I would have welcomed the blow that ended my life.”