It took Hugh a long time to fall asleep, though he knew he’d successfully convinced Riona otherwise. Her lithe body had barely dented the mattress, but he felt the fight finally go out of her as she slipped into sleep, and some of his own tension eased. Listening to her even breathing, he imagined the future, when the worst of this marriage battle was behind him. Would he feel at peace when he lawfully lay beside her? Would he ever find a way to convince her that he would make an honorable husband? Or would his past come between them in the end?
It had been strange to discuss the things he’d done in his youth with another person, especially the one who would be his wife. He’d kept some of it to himself, which could be a mistake, considering what she might hear from his clansmen. But he didn’t want to scare her off any more than he already had.
But somehow he must have slept—and slept deeply, a rarity for him—because he came awake to the sensation of soft warmth along his side and the silkiness of bare, feminine legs entwined with his. Without moving, he opened his eyes to see that somehow in the night, Riona had pressed herself along his side, pillowed her head on his shoulder. Her hair was like another blanket along his chest and arm, and she must have unconsciously felt the same heat, for the bedclothes were lowered around both of their waists.
He hadn’t been able to get much of a glimpse of her nightshift, not with the way her gaze had been shooting daggers at him. He’d spent the evening avoiding looking below her neck; her face was captivating enough.
But now he could look his fill, at least of her breasts, so, being but a man, he did. He could feel the soft roundness of them against his own chest, the gentle pressure as her breathing deepened and then let out. The nightshift was caught beneath her, pulling the fabric tight so that he could see the vague outline of her nipple. He ached to touch and caress and give her the pleasure that he knew would make her see that they would have a good marriage.
But she wouldn’t see such an intrusion that way. So he fisted one hand in the counterpane to control his urges. He lay still, listening to the sounds of the birds beginning to awaken before dawn, then dozed briefly, more content and relaxed than he’d been in a long, long time.
He felt her stir before he heard her. She arched slowly against him, and he squeezed his eyes shut to keep from pulling her beneath him, from settling between her legs where he wanted to be. Those legs moved against his, bare skin on bare skin, her thigh creeping up along his. Her soft, sleepy moan made him regret the months that had passed since he’d last known a woman’s bed.
And then she went all stiff with awareness. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep, although it was difficult to lie still when he could feel her breathing increase with agitation, and that only made her breasts seem as if to caress him.
She raised herself up slowly on one elbow, her hair sliding against him like the fan of a flirtatious woman. He regretted the loss of her touch acutely, but she didn’t move completely away. What was she doing?
And at last he opened his eyes and saw that she studied him with suspicion, even as her eyes slowly widened.
“Ye can’t get enough of me, lass?” he asked with satisfaction, knowing it would be the wrong thing to say, but unable to help himself.
With a groan she tried to push away from him. “How dare you! Let me go! I shall scream!”
He caught her flailing arms. “Enough. I did not do this. I seem to remember sleeping apart from ye. Surely it was your body that betrayed ye.”
When she groaned, he let her go, then swung his legs over the side and stood up. He arched and stretched, feeling well-rested for the first time in days. Glancing over his shoulder, he found her once again with the counterpane pulled to her chin, glaring at him.
“I need some privacy,” she insisted.
“And when Samuel arrives, I’ll give ye some. Until then, be patient.”
He opened the door, found a pile of cleaned clothing, and brought it inside to dress. Just as he finished, someone knocked, and he called entrance.
“McCallum!” Riona cried, outraged, even as she yanked the counterpane to her nose.
He ignored her.
Samuel stepped inside, and his eyes went wide at the pretty image Riona made in bed. “Uh . . . good morning. Breakfast will be brought up soon.”
“Good,” Hugh said. “Can ye remain outside the door while I see to our departure and Riona dresses?”
“Of course.”
Samuel seemed eager to be away from them, and Hugh shook his head. When he stepped into the corridor himself, he heard something hit the door behind him.
Samuel eyed him. “Did ye bed her?”
“Nay, but I wasn’t about to sleep on the floor. I slept well, and I think she did, too, which is part of the reason she’s upset.”
“I saw a tub . . .”
“I turned my back while she bathed, like a gentleman. And when it was my turn, ’twas refreshing.”
“I bet that went well.”
“’Twas . . . enlightening.”
GETTING back into the coach was as dreadful as Riona knew it would be. Her bruises from the rough ride seemed magnified, and would only get worse, because the roads certainly were, even here in the Lowlands. The innkeeper had kindly given her a frame, cloth, and thread for needlework, but it was often too bumpy for her to sew. McCallum had opened her window more, so at least she could see the countryside. For several days, they followed a river valley and on either side, hills rolled in the distance, some of them brown and bare of trees along the summit. At night the men slept on bedrolls by a fire, and she slept within the coach, uncomfortable, but dry.
Coaches were few and far between now; they often had to pull aside for a string of laden packhorses being led south toward the markets in England, and once a herd of shaggy black cattle meandered on the path, reluctant to move.
When McCallum rode inside the coach with her, he tried to arouse her interest about the countryside, telling her of the heated, healing waters at Moffat, or the Roman ruins at Abington. And though part of her was interested in learning about her own country, she concentrated hard on seeming indifferent. She was still so appalled at how she’d relaxed in her sleep, cozied right up against McCallum as if he wasn’t her kidnapper. Her body had betrayed her, and she was so afraid it would happen again that she didn’t even ask to find an inn, though it rained on and off, and the men took turns getting damp as they drove her ever northward.
She found herself so bored that she kept flashing back to memories of that intimate night together, his bare legs against hers, how safe she’d felt in his arms when she’d first awoken and couldn’t remember everything. Safe? Someone was supposed to be keeping her safe from the likes of him. But no one was rescuing her—she’d given up hope for that. She could only rely on herself now, and her powers of persuasion. Somehow she would make him believe the truth.
They reached Glasgow, a port burgh that McCallum reminded her proudly had had a university as far back at the fifteenth century. It was now a hub of trade with the American colonies and the rest of Europe. There were more people here—foreigners and Sassenachs—but McCallum was no fool, and did not allow her to spend a night there.
“Ye’d have worked your wiles on those poor men,” McCallum told her as she stared out the window sadly at the dwindling buildings behind them.
At least they’d stopped for provisions, although he would not allow the time for clothes to be laundered. She could see he was growing more and more alert as he looked to the north, toward home.
It should be her home, too. Their clan lands bordered each other. But her parents had made sure it was not home, and she couldn’t overcome that feeling of . . . intruder, outlander, Sassenach.
They took a drovers’ road northeast of Glasgow toward Stirling, where the land seemed bare yet captivating, miles of rolling farmlands giving way to higher bare ground of moors and bogs, bleak and brown, but full of a strange beauty that intrigued Riona. This was the land of her people, and she’d always been told how wild and savage it was—wild, yes, but magnificent in its own way. McCallum once again talked of the history, of the second wall built nearby by the Romans, just like the one on the English border, only this was to keep the men of the Highlands out. More than once she saw the ruin of a castle on distant hills. The poor horses strained to pull the coach ever higher, and the going was slow until they reached the low summit, with the valley spread out below toward Stirling. And then she was forced to listen to McCallum’s pride in the burgh.
“Armies of old aimed to hold Stirling if they wanted to encroach the Highlands. One of the royal castles of the kings of Scotland is there. And ’tis where I keep a private stable.”
That jolted her from her dazed stare out the window. “What?”
“We’ll be able to go no farther in the coach, so I house it there.”
His home was so remote a coach couldn’t travel there. She groaned and closed her eyes, feeling as if she were going to the end of the world.
“I had a letter from a friend in Inverness,” McCallum continued in a wry voice. “The first chaise made it there only last year. He said the whole town came out to see it.”
Riona could only stare at him in horror. What kind of place was this?
As they approached the town, Stirling Castle rose high above the surrounding valley, up on a rocky promontory, and Riona saw McCallum’s expression cloud. She knew enough of her history to know that the Jacobite forces had tried to take the castle during the Rising, and had been unsuccessful. Had he been there, too, trying to take back the Scottish castle of his king from the English? But all she could focus on was what lay beyond Stirling, the daunting line of mountains to the northwest, where they were headed.
There was no inn that night, much as she might have wished it. McCallum kept a room above his stables roughly furnished with beds and trunks and a table. Samuel shared the room with them, though he seemed embarrassed by it. Riona almost didn’t care by that point. She was exhausted in both mind and body. No wonder her parents had never brought her to the Highlands.
To her surprise, McCallum remained in Stirling a second night, so that he could purchase supplies for the journey. Samuel was with her constantly, though she spent much of the day dozing on her bed. McCallum seemed concerned about her that night, and she insisted she wasn’t sick, simply appreciative that the furniture wasn’t rocking furiously under her. More than once in the coach, she’d been thrown to the floor.
Then at dawn, she found herself riding a mare across the valley floor, toward the bleak mountain range that rose up as if in warning. The drovers’ road was barely a path, overgrown with heather and gorse, with only the occasional beech or pine trees in the lower foothills. The two men positioned her horse between theirs, leading a packhorse behind. She had no choice but to follow Samuel along the narrow dirt path that wound its way ever deeper into the Highlands. Why did it feel so permanent, like she’d never leave again?
AFTER a day of slow travel, occasionally following the River Teith through the rising hills, they made camp outside the village of Callandar on a cool summer night. The next day, their journey took them along Loch Lubnaig, where pine forests came almost to the water’s edge, and the bare mountaintops seemed like the uneven backs of lumpy animals. Riona thought they would climb the snow-topped heights of Ben Ledi itself, but to her relief, their path turned and edged the loch, then another river before heading west into a glen that eventually broadened into Loch Voil, another beauteous lake nestled within mountains.
It was late afternoon when Riona wanted to rest, but McCallum insisted they push forward, along the lake and past the next rising mountain. She wasn’t all that anxious to see the place where she’d live temporarily. The few villages they’d passed, thatched-roof huts with stone walls, had not gotten her hopes up. Perhaps McCallum wouldn’t allow the cow to occupy a room in the cottage, like some did.
She was just about to insist they make camp when they took a turn, and to her surprise, the first square tower rose above the trees, with guards standing watch on battlements. They rode farther, up to a low hilltop where a large castle had been built, overlooking the hills. The fortress was long and broad, with walls of stone keeping intruders out, but for a guarded gatehouse. Several square towers rose higher than the walls.
McCallum was watching her now, his expression one of amused condescension, as if he’d known the bleak cottage she’d been imagining. She lifted her chin and said nothing, but she was impressed nonetheless.
All around them on the hillsides, black, shaggy cattle roamed, and below them in the distance, small farm fields clustered around another village in the glen. But the castle, which had been hidden from below by a curve in the hillside, dominated the skyline and rivaled the mountains themselves for grandeur.
As they came closer to the gatehouse, guards dressed in black and red plaid, their legs bare, moved to take up a position to stop them. Surprised, Riona looked to McCallum, whose expression remained neutral even as he began to speak in Gaelic. She thought she heard him say his own name, which shocked her. Was he having to introduce himself to his own people? Or had he been lying to her about his identity all along?
But Samuel only waited patiently, as if he had no concerns. And true enough, the guards seemed to come to attention, doffing their bonnets and looking abashed. One led their small party through the gatehouse, and Riona looked up at the sharply pointed portcullis that would drop through the ceiling and bar the entrance from invaders. She felt like an invader right along with McCallum, but she was truly a captive of war, the war that had been going on between McCallum and Duff for centuries.
Within the courtyard, dozens of people moved with purpose from the grand towerhouse rising four stories, to the other halls and barracks built into the thick castle walls. Chickens and ducks seemed to have free rein, chased by children, who barely spared a glance for travel-stained visitors. She could see an arched opening that led into another courtyard.
The guards must have passed the word to others about McCallum’s identity, because they gathered together now within the courtyard, waiting. Some came running from the other courtyard, still carrying claymores and shields, as if they’d been at training.
She tried to ask Samuel what was going on, but he hushed her. Then a large wooden double door opened in the first floor of the towerhouse, and a man emerged, causing voices to drop to murmurs.
“The tanist, Dermot McCallum, Hugh’s cousin,” Samuel said in a low voice. “He was nominated as the man next of blood to the chief when Hugh was selected, the one who will succeed him if Hugh dies without heirs. He’s been in charge since Hugh’s father died a few months ago.”
The man came down the stairs, tall, thin, but Riona suspected his build was deceptive. Though she’d seen men wearing wigs in Scotland, his brown hair was bare and tied back. His plaid was belted meticulously about his waist and the end draped up over his shoulder, where a brooch gleamed. He approached McCallum, who still sat atop his horse, as if he ranked above all the clansmen gathered before him. And he did.
Dermot patted the horse’s neck nonchalantly, eyeing McCallum, who said something else in Gaelic, then gestured toward Riona and switched into English.
“I am home with my betrothed, come to stay and take up my rightful place within the clan. Ye’ve done well, Dermot, and I appreciate the care ye’ve given my people.”
“Our people,” Dermot said coolly. “We are all McCallums at heart, are we not?”
Someone briefly cheered, but it died away when no one joined in. Riona’s spirits rose a bit. McCallum was not the invincible chief he’d portrayed to her. Dermot obviously disapproved of a laird who’d been gone for so long. But she wouldn’t make the mistake of screaming that she’d been kidnapped. There was a long history among the clans of healing feuds with the help of an unwilling bride. If she tried to win the support of the McCallums, she’d be doing nothing but ensuring that the clan would rally around its chief.
With a little patience and persuasion, perhaps there was a way she could win her freedom, she thought, eyeing Dermot.