Bitter Truths
Kendric patted the bed. “Sit here, lass,” he said to Shona. “I’ll tell the tale.”
It was a relief not to have to recount the mysterious circumstances of her father’s death, but she reached for Ewan’s hand as she sat, needing his support.
She took comfort in the light touch of her uncle’s finger twirled in a lock of her hair. The telling wouldn’t be easy for him.
“My brother loved this castle,” Kendric began.
Ewan grunted.
Her uncle bristled. “I ken the Mackinlochs have always claimed it belonged to them, but as far as we’re concerned…”
Jeannie huffed impatiently. “For pity’s sake, this isna the time to rekindle the feud.”
Her brother growled, carefully shifting his position in the bed. “Weel, anyway, after his wife died, Beathan took to going up into the tower every night.”
Shona wanted to make sure Ewan understood. “My mother died birthing me. They say Da took me up in the tower with him the day I was born.”
He brought her hand to his lips, his eyes full of sorrow. She could happily drown in those brown depths.
Kendric continued. “As ye nay doot ken, the tower was added by the first MacCarron to take possession o’ the castle after the Mackinlochs abandoned it.”
Jeannie huffed again. “Saints preserve us from old men and their ramblings.”
“I’m nay old,” he retorted.
“Mayhap I should tell the rest, Uncle,” Shona suggested, dismayed at the antagonistic turn the conversation had taken.
“Forgive me, laddie,” Kendric told Ewan. “’Tisna my intention to alienate ye. Habits of a lifetime.”
Ewan nodded. “Old hatreds die hard,” he agreed.
Seemingly at the end of her patience, Jeannie approached the bed. “Weel, they’d best die here and now. The threat is from within, not from the Mackinlochs.” She turned to Ewan. “As Kendric has rightly told ye, my brother Beathan went up to the tower every evening when he was home. For many a year he took his little girl with him.”
Shona swallowed the lump in her throat. “He used to tell me about Ma,” she explained. “He seemed to feel close to her up there. Mayhap if I’d gone with him the night he died…”
Her auntie cupped her chin in both hands. “Ye canna blame yerself. Beathan became moody and cantankerous as he got older.” She cast her wonky eye in Kendric’s direction. “Runs in the family.”
Her brother bristled. “He just preferred the solitude. ’Tis the reason we thought he’d jumped off the tower when we found his broken body in the courtyard below.”
Indignation flooded Shona. “I never believed that for a moment. An accident aye, though it was hard to fathom how such a thing could happen. The parapet wall is too high.”
Ewan squeezed her hand. “And now we ken what likely happened.”
“He was pushed off,” Jeannie murmured.
*
For a man to embrace his betrothed in public wasn’t acceptable behavior, but Ewan threw caution to the winds and pulled Shona into his arms, consumed by a hunger to warm her shivering body, to kiss away the tears and fill the void in her heart. “I swear to ye I’ll avenge his death,” he whispered, nibbling her earlobe.
He lifted her when she swooned against him. “This lass needs sleep,” he told the others. “She’s had a long ordeal.”
Jeannie headed for the door, Shona’s maid a few steps behind. “Follow me. Moira will help ye get her to bed.”
“Just so we’re clear,” he said to Kendric. “I dinna intend to leave her alone this night. She’s mine to protect. On the morrow we begin the hunt.”
The older man sighed, exhaustion etched on his face. “Aye, laddie. Ye must do as ye see fit.”
Fynn opened the door. “What do ye expect o’ me and David, my laird?”
Ewan smiled at the one-handed warrior’s knowing wink. “Go to the stables and inform Walter Gilbertson of what’s transpired here. Put yerselves at his disposal. Tell him to post guards at every entry and exit. The Morleys are to be arrested on sight if they show their faces. I want to speak to the castle folk in the hall on the morrow an hour after dawn.”
Satisfied he’d done all he could for the present, he followed Jeannie and carried Shona to her chamber, where he left her with Moira. “Go to yer apartment, my lady,” he told Jeannie. “No harm will come to her as long as I draw breath.”
She stood on tiptoe and pecked a kiss on his cheek. “Thank goodness ye came to us, Ewan Mackinloch. Shona’s a lucky lass.”
He smiled. “And, unless I miss my guess, ye are fond o’ my kinsman. He’s a Macintyre, by the way.”
She giggled like a young maiden as a blush spread across her cheeks. “Aye. He confided as much. Who would have thought such a thing possible at my age?”
“Fynn is a good man,” he reassured her as he opened the door and looked left and right. “I’ll watch until ye’re safely inside.”
She hurried to her own apartment and waved before entering. He closed Shona’s door and stood with his back to it, arms folded across his chest. Decorum dictated he leave. It was inappropriate to see his betrothed in her night attire, but he couldn’t help himself.
Though she looked tired and pale when she emerged long minutes later, his cock saluted her beauty. Shrouded from neck to toe in a heavy linen nightrail with long sleeves, she was nevertheless the most alluring female he’d ever set eyes on. Moira had combed the tangles out of her hair and it caressed her shoulders like a shining cloak, reminding him of the hairpin hidden in his gambeson.
The necessity to discuss the circumstances in which he’d found the ornament sat like a lead weight on his chest. He would never cast blame on her for what might have happened, but didn’t want to spend his life wondering. He needed the truth.
“Leave us, Moira,” he said when Shona was tucked in bed.
The maid glanced at her mistress sitting propped up by the bolster.
“Ye can go,” Shona whispered.
Moira hesitated only a moment before bobbing a curtsey and exiting. Ewan barred the door behind her.
“Should I be afraid?”
He perched on the edge of the mattress and took his betrothed’s elegant hand, willing his hungry tarse to behave itself. “Ye need never fear me,” he promised, slowly retrieving the hairpin, “and I ken ye’re tired, but it’s important I hear from yer lips everything that happened while ye were in Mungo’s clutches.”
*
Shona stared at the treasured butterfly lying on the bedspread, afraid to look Ewan in the eye. “It belonged to my mother. Where did ye find it?” she asked.
“Ruadh found it,” he replied. “In yon cave at Conger’s Rock.”
A snake wriggled in her belly. She’d done nothing wrong, but would he believe her?
“Mungo made me sleep next to him—by the fire. I must have lost it then.”
Even to her own ears it sounded as if the worst had happened.
Ewan got to his feet and moved to the foot of the bed. He pressed his fisted hands into the mattress and leaned forward, ready to pounce. “Then?”
She inhaled to steady her breathing. “He put his arm across my hips.”
She worried Ewan might break his teeth if he kept on grinding them together. “When I tried to move away, he wouldna let me.”
Realizing he was close to losing control completely, she tried desperately to recall Mungo’s exact words and the way he’d uttered them. “He told me, I’m nay likely to have my way with ye in a cave wi’ my men looking on.”
Ewan’s jaw fell open. To her surprise he burst out laughing. “Ye sound just like the brainless twit.”
Relief blossomed and she continued her impersonation. “I think he feared Ailig was watching him. He explained the arm was Just in case ye get a silly notion to run off.”
She found herself standing beside the bed in Ewan’s arms before she even realized he had moved. He rained kisses along her neck, nibbled her earlobe, cupped her bottom in his big hands and lifted her to his hard body. “The mon must be a eunuch if he slept alongside ye all night and didna have his way wi’ ye.”
She held her breath for a moment, worried his remark meant he didn’t believe her, but his kisses and the thrusting of his hips carried on, igniting delicious feelings of yearning in private places as his manhood pressed against her body.
Holding her tight, he fell backwards onto the bed and turned her so they lay facing each other. He stroked her hair and trailed his fingers down her neck. Breasts swelled in anticipation, nipples tingled to be touched. She pouted, wantonly disappointed when he stopped.
“I want ye badly, Shona MacCarron,” he rasped, “but when our bodies join ’twill be in our marriage bed as befits the daughter of a laird.”
She nodded, awed by the reverence in his voice and the daunting promise of a physical union with him. “I’ll try to be a good wife,” she whispered, “but I had no mother to counsel me, and Jeannie…well…she suffered at Ailig’s hands and would never speak of it. I confess I ken naught about pleasing a man.”
He trailed his fingers gently over a breast. “Jesu, Shona, just touching ye pleases me.”
Though his caress was featherlight, desire curled into her womb. She arched her back and cried out her need when he cupped her breast and brushed his thumb over her nipple. He smothered her cries with his mouth, coaxing her lips open with his tongue. She sucked on him like a babe at the teat, letting him breathe for her as he squeezed her nipple. He draped his leg over her thigh, drawing her closer to his body, then took her hand and pressed it against his manhood.
The notion of being abed with a man had always filled her with a dread of powerlessness. Instead, she relished the strength of Ewan’s leg pinning her in place and surrendered willingly to the sensations caused by the rhythmic squeezing of her nipple. She responded in kind to the thrusts of his hips, delighting in the hard warmth of his manhood as it pulsed beneath her hand. She grew dizzy on the intoxicating taste and aroma of a powerful male.
A wild and hot wanting grew and grew in her female place until she tumbled into an abyss of bliss, vaguely wondering who was screaming so loudly.