He cocked his head again. “Am
I mistaken then? Is there another Egyptian lass here and I’ve
gotten you two confused?”
Aziza woke up. “I am not
an ‘Egyptian lass.’ I was betrothed to the grand vizier
Ayyubid Saladin. I was a member of the royal –“
“You are
haraam
.
And I am your laird and master. Jamie MacDunna,” he corrected
with a bow.
Aziza sputtered. She seized as
her heart commenced to beat its way from her chest. Her speech. Her
litany of how much she hated him and why. Between the fright and
anger and yet the strange sensual attraction, she could not remember
a single word. Every day for a year or more. She said it out loud
so often that probably even some of the clans people could recite it.
How did it go?
She didn’t know
what she found more offensive, to be called
haraam
, that he
said it perfectly or the fact that it was true. Though she had never
been with a man and she had not yet been schooled, as the second or
third or 43rd wife of a sultan wasn’t royalty, she was a
concubine. A harem girl.
As Aziza lazily contemplated
Laird MacDunna and his sudden irksome appearance, something in the
way he moved struck her and she realized who he was. He had been the
stranger overseeing the ritual. He held his brother’s bride
still so his brother could take her. Her eyes flew open as wide they
possibly could. This man was wicked.
“I’ll ask you again.
Have you been somewhere?” He asked her more like he was
trying to get an answer he already had.
“I’m somewhere now,”
she replied, checking her temper in light of her realization.
Haraam. To hear him say the
lascivious word in her tongue was intoxicating. It compounded his
allure enough to almost make her abandon her resentment towards him
entirely. This was the man she was waiting for? She had to remind
herself he was an unnatural demon. That he held a woman down while
another man brutalized her. But while he was standing before her, it
was hard to remember anything. She forgot that it burned her that so
much time had passed. That she had to endure all the terrible
circumstances of being given shelter by the vicious hosts he
appointed.
No, all she could think of was he
was magnificent and he was hers. The likeness of a fierce Viking
warrior with his grand height, mighty arms and legs and long golden
hair burnished with just a hint of red twining down his muscled back.
A beard of contrasting brownish red that framed his powerful jaw.
This was her man. His eyes were clear green orbs that didn’t
seem to miss a single trick. He made her nervous. In a most
delicious way. After the pleasured elixir of the passionate night
before and the prospect of what stood before her, Aziza was almost
elated.
But slowly anger over the
suffering, the waiting for him, revived. Haraam indeed. He was
obviously taking his time coming home because he was playing with
other women. He ruined her life and she had been completely
unimportant to him. She hated him all over again. If she could only
remember that blasted speech.
“You’re somewhere
now? An obvious answer I wouldn’t need to look for, now would
I? You have a strange look on your face. Have you been practicing
your art while I’ve been away?”
“Pardon me?” He
could have slapped her. Aziza was livid. He asked her if she was
sleeping around while she had been waiting. No. And it would be a
cold day as she heard the Scotsmen say, before she would sleep with
him.
“Well I know that haraam
are like confections offered to the kin of those they belong to.”
“So you know how the
arrangement works,” Aziza said bitingly.
“I do,” Jamie
responded with an almost drunken grin.
“That’s probably why
you say the word so well. Was it a requirement to say it perfectly
before they let you have any?”
“What?” he dared
her.
“Confection?”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed,
obviously conscious of the insult. But then he cooled. His face
relaxed and he smiled. “I ate with very little preliminaries.
Extremely open, sharing, accommodating. But may I remind you, the
word means secret.”
“It means forbidden
meaning you really aren’t supposed to have it,” she
corrected, “and I’m hardly a secret.” Aziza looked
at her skin. “It’s not as though I am not the most
obvious person here.”
“And here I thought that
would be me.”
“Most conspicuous by your
absence maybe. The only time I am hidden is among the trees.”
His face took on a strange scold
as he hovered closer. “So is that why you’re here, lass?
Playing in the forest? Do you feel it’s where you should be?”
Aziza shivered. His face was
close enough to kiss and their conversation was taking a more
intimate character. Like they were familiar with each other already.
It sounded as though he knew about her escapade of the night before.
Her disobedience of his order to not go near the woods had to be
obvious. He just found her face down on the forest floor. The order
Aziza knew had nothing to do with avoiding bandit or vicious
creatures. “I find peace here,” she said evasively.
“So long as you’re
not finding something else here,” he winked.
“I found you here, haven’t
I?” Aziza’s voice was lead.
“As you should,” he
bowed. “Certainly it was explained that you were intended for
me and no one else. The consequences of infidelity and disloyalty
are dire. I hope that is clear.”
“Very, as are many things,
laird,” Aziza said dubiously. Her heightening rage thickened
the Arab on her tongue.
Jamie smiled. “That is
quite the brogue you have.”
“I say the same to you,”
Aziza threw her jaw out proudly.
“I meant that your native
tongue mixed with mine. It’s becoming.” He gently took
hold her hands and uncrossed her arms, taking stock of her. She lit
with fierce embarrassment.
Disheveled by the night’s
mayhem, her breasts were not properly contained by her dress and she
was practically naked in front of him. He didn’t seem to react
to it. He traced the remnants of a beating she had taken in her
face. She was punished all the time by the horrible people he had
entrusted her to.
Aziza had been delivered to the
clan like a satchel and Andrew Gregor and his wife had been assigned
to house her until Jamie made his way home. Seems that it was not
made clear to Andrew Gregor Aziza was not to be shared. He never got
much more than a taste but not for lack of trying. Both Gregors
backhanded her for what they took as insolence or any other reason
they could come up with.
“What happened
here?” Jamie asked, skimming the bruise on her face. She could
not evade him. His touch was both healing, magical; sensual and
erotic. She felt herself curling into it as would a cat. Besides the
tremulous ecstasy watching the ritual, his touch was the best
experience she had since her arrival. Still she had to deny herself.
Thinking of all the beatings she took from the filthy people he stuck
her with while he was so ignorant re-infuriated her. She seethed to
the point of almost throwing up but she did all she could to hide it.
Aziza struggled to remember the words she had prepared for their
first encountered but could not remember a one. It was if the sight
of him, the feel of him wiped from her memory. He moved her to more
direct light and held his face in his hands. “Have you been
bad?”
“Not at the moment,”
she tried to pull away but he didn’t let her.
He laughed. “Not at the
moment, you’re not bad?”
“I am hardly bad.”
“Yes you are,” he
chuckled. And studied her.
“What is it you’re
looking at exactly?” she asked uncomfortably.
“A mark on your face,”
he answered bluntly.
Aziza was sure his examination
of her was search for proof she had been sharing her ‘confections.’
She wanted to spit in his face, she hated him that much. She didn’t
care how incredibly beautiful he was. How wise his voice sounded
though his words were foolish. She retorted sarcastically, “I
must have tripped over my harem pants. I am so clumsy.”
He eyed her almost skeptically.
“Well we’ll go collect your things.”
“Collect my vast array of
things?” Aziza laughed.
“Do you find something
amusing, mistress?”
“Not since I’ve been
here, laird.”
Not since I was made to sleep with barn
animals to avoid sleeping with pigs you have housed me,
she
wanted to say.
Not since I was beaten every single day while you
were rolling around on the bellies of Arab girls.
“Come with me. I will
have words with your hosts.”
“Such sweet people, the
Gregors,” Aziza lied. “I have to thank you for letting
them care for me while we waited for you.”
Jamie’s inquiry was not
phased. “I have known Billy Gregor since we were kids.”
“
Andrew Gregor,”
Aziza countered.
“
Billy,” Jamie
insisted. “I ordered you to live with his wife and kids and
him. I thought you could help with the children and enjoy them as
well.”
Aziza stepped back. He had
actually put some thought into who housed her? He cared enough to put
her with a friend? She staggered. “All this time-“ She
stared at him trying to put it all together.
“
All this time what?”
He asked.
“
Laird MacDunna, I’ve
been living with the wrong people.”
Jamie honed in on her. “Was
there something wrong with the people you stayed with?”
Aziza felt sick. All the
punishment she endured since she arrived and all because no one
bothered to notice she was with the wrong people. He hadn’t
bothered to make sure his instructions had been carried out. The
rage coursing through her body was now a sharp pain in her heart.
Aziza glared. “How
thoughtful. No one noticed the huge mistake. No matter. I have a
special relationship with the Gregors.”
“
Is that so?” he
asked incredulously.
“Yes. Quite.” Aziza
felt the bile rise in her throat at saying kind things about the
Gregors. She wished a fat sow would crush them both.
Jamie raised his eyebrows in
concession. “Well that does please me.”
“And that pleases me.
Still,” Aziza lingered.
“Yes dear?”
“I can’t help but
wonder how the mistake went unnoticed?”
“I will look into it, I
promise though I am glad you have your special relationship. Come
with me.”
“If you will, laird, by
‘come with’ you, you mean I am to go to your house?”
“Yes.”
At once, Aziza was struck with
the horrifying realization her moment with the demon laird was
imminent and that she could soon be with him in a ceremony the way
the bride and his brother had been the night before. She was not
mating with any bloodsucking Scotsman if she could help it and
certainly not before a crowd. No one was going to bite her. She had
to think fast.
“
We have only just met. I
don’t even know you. I may be haraam, but I am a green haraam.
Well, a black haraam,” she said self-deprecatingly. “Allow
me to stay with the Gregors until I know you better?” Aziza
batted her eyelashes and gave him her most demure look.
Jamie’s face was dark.
“You’re requesting to stay with your host rather than
rightfully come with me? Now why would that be, exactly? You aren’t
smitten with Andrew Gregor?”
Aziza blinked. She
wanted to say y
ou really do have no idea what is going on, you
utter moron?
“Not at all,” she laughed. “If I
am to be your queen-“
“Queen?” Now Jamie
laughed.
“That’s not what I
meant to say. I was thinking of the old country for a moment,”
Aziza was lit with furious humiliation. “But I was promised to
you and you aren’t married. And in my country the first wife
is the – is the-“
“Lairdess?” he
mocked. Now Aziza wished the laird would join the Gregors under the
imaginary sow. How dare he make her feel foolish! “No in this
country, in my world, you will be exactly what you were before you
came here. I am not looking to be married any time soon. Come.”
He took her shoulder gently.
She shirked away. “No,”
she said regally.
“Pardon me, mistress?”
His tone was deep and ominous. “You will come with me. I
don’t know these people.”
If she went home with Jamie he
would sleep with her for sure and Aziza would rather suffer the
company of the Gregors than to let him enjoy her. She affected the
greatest humility she could muster when all she really wanted to do
was snap a twig off the nearest shrub and jam it into his eye. “I
would like a chance to tell my new family goodbye, if I may and
adjust to your return, pleasant surprise as it is,” she bowed.
As Aziza regarded his feet, she wished she had a cold with which to
ruin them, if she could only get away with it.
She lingered, lurched in her bow
thinking
I was forced to travel, sometimes with my hands and feet
bound like a slave, like a criminal, like a cow in putrid holding
cells, traveled without rest to here and then I had to live with the
dullest clod ever born, apparently in error though no one bothered to
confirm, who strikes me because he said I was arrogant and he makes
me sleep in the barn with the animals to learn humility he said.
When the real source of his ire is that he wants to mate with me.”