My Cursed Highlander (8 page)

Viviana's limp fingers sat in the palm of Laird Kraig's hot hand while Bishop Sion di Paxiti warbled through the opening litany. This twenty-sixth day of August marked the third time she'd heard the familiar Latin words in less than four years.

A hush fell over the assembly. Viviana knelt and eagerly inhaled the potent scent of myrrh, thankful to have any odor to replace the smell of licorice burning her nostrils. She knew with the utmost certainty Laird Kraig had spent the remainder of his bachelor days at the bordello. Mayhap Madame Bianca entertained him before the ceremony as well, and Viviana wouldn't have to suffer the wedding bed. She wondered only briefly if the whores in Scotland were free of disease like Madame Bianca's girls.

Bishop Sion's voice came close, as did the whisk of his garments across the steps of the altar. The press of his hand atop her head came before the cool water he crossed on her forehead. Moments later, the dome filled with a chorus of minstrels, lutes, and viols. Laird Kraig stood and drew her up beside him, tugging just a little to pull her closer than was considered proper in a house of God.

Her hip pressed against his outer thigh. He truly was Goliath—a giant of a man and a trained warrior. She bowed her head doubting Alberto's instructions could protect her should he ever lash out.

He leaned into her ear. "Ye could at the verra least feign happiness."

Viviana lowered her lashes. She stared at the pitch inside her head and swallowed the sadness forming a salty knot in her throat. When the assembly rose to receive the blessing, she cocked her head and spoke from the side of her mouth. "Why did you come?"

"'Twould not be much of a wedding without a groom," Laird Kraig said, no doubt trying to humor her, then tucked a tendril behind her ear and caressed her jaw with the side of his finger. "Please smile, Viviana."

A tear rushed over her cheek and her entire being shook. She wouldn't be fooled by his tenderness. "I have naught to smile about. You stole my eyes and keep them tucked inside your doublet like a bauble beside your coin. You are taking me away from my home, away from Angelo. And I hate you." The last of her words were delivered with such venom, even she felt the need to shiver. Luciano would have punished her for such disrespect and Laird Kraig might very well do the same, but not here.

He released her hand and inhaled, then came the sound of grinding teeth.

The remainder of the ceremony hummed on like a drone of bees until Laird Kraig began to recite his vows. "I, Laird Taveon Kraig, accept ye, Viviana Gorini de' Medici Martinus da Vincenza as my wife. I vow to be a faithful husband—"

Viviana's snort snagged his flow, but he managed to deliver the remainder of his pledge without missing a beat. The words meant nothing to her. The same as they had meant nothing to Radolfo and Luciano. Wedding vows were empty words, empty promises her first two husbands recited in order to wallow in the wealth Lorenzo had provided them.

Her vows were delivered with the same lack of enthusiasm, as was the exchange of rings. Bishop Sion continued the ceremony, and Viviana felt certain there had been sacraments added just to torture her. Perspiration dampened her skin beneath the layers of silk her maid had garbed her in. Her head hollowed the longer she stood, and her mouth felt as if she'd swallowed a spoonful of ground marble.

While Bishop Sion blessed the tabernacle holding the Eucharist, Laird Kraig leaned once again into her side. "Do ye think ye will hate me forever?"

"Without a doubt," she answered without pause or sensitivity, wishing the events in her life had not left her so bitter.

The moment Bishop Sion announced them as husband and wife, her unsteady legs wobbled, and she prayed she possessed the strength to carry her gown back down the aisle.

"You may kiss your bride," Bishop Sion finally said, prompting Viviana to turn toward her third husband. She locked her knees and tilted her face upright, waiting for the slide of Laird Kraig's hand at her nape.

"Thank ye, Bishop Sion, but I think I'll pass." Laird Kraig shifted in front of her, forcing her to move, lest she topple over. The rattle of coin and fading footfalls set her ears afire.

He
left
her
at the altar.

Bells pealed and boomed from Giotto's bell tower, but didn't drown out the whispers hissing throughout the dome. She raised her heavy skirt and took the tiniest of steps, but her feet collided with the material of her train.

She felt their eyes on her. Heat streaked through her cheeks, and she could do little more than stand there and breathe.

Viviana!

She whirled around, hearing her name behind her. A female voice—a familiar voice.

Hide, Vivi, hide!

"Fioretta?" Viviana shook her head and cupped her ears. Not now.

Do not let them see you. Crawl beneath the pew
. Fioretta's panicked voice echoed throughout Viviana's mind like a reoccurring nightmare. The same as it did ever time she entered the Duomo.

Viviana felt a cold pass of air sweep through her. The familiar scent of soap and caustic soda burned her nostrils. She stumbled. She was going to faint.

"Take my hand, Mistress Viviana. I will guide you." Angelo's soft, caring words tore at her heart. She accepted his hand and leaned heavily against him. The ells of material moved away from her feet.

"It is clear, mistress."

She put one foot in front of the other and choked on her tears as she walked down the aisle and out of Santa Reparata. With the aid of an attendant, she climbed into a carriage and waited for the click of the door.

Once alone, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

* * *

"Ye gods and little fishes! Ye are wowf, if'n ye are going to leave your new wife at the altar." Remi jogged beside Taveon to keep up with his furious strides while Monroe followed with indifference.

She hated him, did she? What woman tells a man she hates him during their wedding? His new wife was a spoiled, bitter woman. Taveon ripped a hand through his hair. He was so filled with anger he no longer felt the tenderness around his ribs or the pinch in his jaw. He stomped through a foul smelling alleyway behind the kirk and sulked in his mood.

Hellion! Hizzie!
Why was he letting her under his skin?

"Does this mean we willnae be celebrating your nuptials?" Monroe chimed in from behind in tune to the bells clanging overhead.

"Fear not, my friend." Taveon did a little skip and spun around to look Monroe in his good eye. Taveon splayed his arms wide and plastered on a broad grin, continuing to walk backward. "We will be celebrating in rare form this eve. At the bawdy house."

The scar running down Monroe's face dissected the corner of his smile, but it was a smile just the same. "Mayhap Madame Bianca can bring in a few more drabs."

"The more, the merrier." Taveon pivoted, blood racing, heart pounding. He felt as if he would burst into flames. He now understood why Viviana was a widow. Her first two husbands had most likely combusted.

Remi spurred in front of him. "M'laird, ye cannae be making merry with the drabs on your wedding night."

Taveon saw red, and it wasn't the color of Remi's hair. He squared his footing, formed an iron fist, and swung at Remi.

The lanky bastard ducked.

"I am three summers shy of thirty. I have already lived half my life. If I choose to make merry with the drabs on my wedding night, then that is what I intend to do. I'm the laird of Clan Kraig. Your laird. Dinnae tell me what I can and cannae do."

Remi shook his head. "Meghan would not be pleased with ye, nor would Cora-Rose."

"Ouish!" As if he needed guilt to add to his spiraling emotions. Taveon pulled a dirk from his waistband.

Remi blinked at the weapon. "Ye gods! Ye intend to cut me down? I leave my wife and bairns for ye. Fight at your side to save a land not worth saving, and this is how ye repay my loyalty?"

"Damn-it-to-Hell!" Viviana had him lashing out at his closest friend. Taveon sheathed his dirk. "Forgive me, Remi. There is not another as loyal as ye."

"Christalmighty! I'm standing right here." Monroe looked downright frightening when he scowled. He scratched his head of short cropped brown hair then crossed thick arms over his massive chest. Few Scotsmen matched Taveon's size, but Monroe was one of them. While hard-pressed to admit it, Monroe might even be a wee bit brawnier. Taveon knew they felt indebted to him for saving their arses in Berwickshire; nonetheless, he was grateful to have not only their friendship, but their loyalty.

He couldn't ask for finer kinsmen. "Ye are loyal, too, Monroe." Taveon clamped a hand behind his neck and attempted to rub the tension from his strained muscles. At the mouth of the alleyway came an outpouring of courtiers, no doubt the same ones who'd just witnessed that farce of a wedding. He thought of Viviana in that outrageous gown and the sad, almost frightful expression she'd worn throughout the entire ceremony. Did she truly hate him so much? "Think ye I should go back to the kirk?"

"I fear ye have already plucked the goose. 'Tis impossible to put the feathers back now," Remi's metaphor lifted Taveon's lips. "Mayhap, we should go back to the bawdy house and gather our things, aye?"

"Aye," Taveon agreed. "We leave for Scotland on the morrow after I collect the amulet from Lorenzo."

"Think ye will be collecting your new wife as weel?" The lift returned to Remi's gait.

"Oh, aye. She's going." Taveon pointed at his eye still speckled with yellow and purple bruising. "Lorenzo has given me little choice in the matter." He clapped Remi on the back and stepped onto a street bustling with vendors. "The morrow will be better. With any luck she will cool, else I fear she will be a thistle in my arse the entire way back to Ravenhurst," Taveon raised his voice to be heard over the peddlers heckling at Market Vecchio.

"Aye that, m'laird." Remi agreed with a nervous chuckle as a curvy woman selling scarves danced a full circle around them. The bells sewn into her garment jingled with the sashay of her hips. Remi ignored her efforts and stopped in front of a merchant selling jewelry.

He fingered a shelled bracelet and received a slap from the vendor. "You touch, you buy."

"How much for five?" Remi asked.

"Five bracelets. Five florin."

"Ye gods," Remi grumbled.

Taveon crossed his arms and considered buying Viviana a bauble, but doubted he could give her anything more valuable than she already had.

Remi barter with the haggard auld woman until she agreed to a lower price. Why the man needed five bracelets, Taveon didn't know. Remi's bairns were all boys.

"Think ye Meaghan needs five bracelets?"

"They are not all for Meaghan." Remi scrunched his red face together. "One's for Cora-Rose, two are for Makayla and her friend, Lily, and one's for Lady Craig. I need no thistles in my arse, and I intend to worm my way into her good graces early on."

Taveon snorted. "I do hope the woman has a few good graces for you to worm your way into." He started to walk away, but the vendor grabbed his hand.

"One denari, I will reveal your future," she offered with a thick accent.

"Unhand me auld woman." Taveon broke free of her crippled fingers with little effort, but not before an image flashed through his mind—a woman's lifeless body lay in a freshly dug grave. Pale hair, blue lips, hands clasped around the amulet.

A shiver shook the beggar's feeble body. Her eyes flashed green—a pale green reminding him of Noreen.

"Evil awaits you in the mountains." A look of horror smoothed the wrinkles in her face. She backed away from him.

An eerie chill curled around Taveon's spine. 'Twas the same chill that had terrified him as a child. The spine-tingling, unexplained sensation he'd always felt when he'd been near the burial ground at Ravenhurst.

"Your curse will steal away your woman, lest you are brave enough to love her."

He froze and pressed a hand against the pocket holding Makayla's gift.
Love is the reward for bravery.

Love had been his enemy the whole of his life; stealing away those dear to him. 'Twas an emotion he'd shielded himself from until Makayla.

"Come, m'laird. If the auld beggar could tell fortunes, she wouldnae be selling cheap bracelets in the street." Remi gave Taveon a shove, but his words offered little comfort.

Chapter 6

"You will be greatly missed." Alberto kissed Viviana's forehead below the rim of her crespine.

"I will remember everything you taught me." Viviana swallowed and released the guard's hand with heartfelt sorrow. He'd taught her how to fight back. Without Alberto's help, she would never have survived her marriage to Luciano.

Alberto bent low to pet Miocchi. "You protect her and be her eyes." He grated his boot tip across the pebbled ground and departed.

"Yap."
Miocchi's tail beat against her skirt as she waited beside the carriage for the servants to bring the last of her coffers.

A morning sun warmed her cheeks and the smell of dew cooled the anguish thickening in her throat. The snort of horses and jingle of harness blended with the shuffle of attendants preparing for her departure. She'd exchanged few words with Lorenzo earlier as he escorted her to the hall to bid her nephew adieu. She had never been close to Giulio and did not feign sadness when the boy gave her a cold hug and skipped out of the hall.