The Chieftain's Feud (5 page)

Had loved?

Did he still love Eve after the way she had treated him … abandoned him? Fool that he had been then, he hadn’t realised it would hurt so much a second time.

Stripped naked, he decided to take Iseabel’s advice. Whatever folk might say of him, he couldnae simply sit around waiting while his bairn died before it was even born.

My bairn.
For a moment a hailstorm of doubts battered him.

He crushed them with urgency to do right by his bairn, now wasnae the time…

Strangely, at this moment it mattered naught what anyone else might think of him, he wasnae in danger frae anything other than a second broken heart and
that
, he had learned to his dismay, that wouldnae kill him. The fates must be really laughing up their sleeves at his impudence. His imagining for one moment that he could actually turn the tide and save Eve.

Worse, to his way of thinking, would be to not even make the attempt.

He slid under the covers beside her. The shiver of awareness was his body’s reaction to her closeness, he told himself, and steeled his mind to resist.

God help me, what am I to do?

Her eyes were closed, gold-dusted lashes casting a dark shadow that contrasted with the paleness of her skin—so pale she might already be dead. Was she breathing? He leaned o’er her, his cheek almost grazing her lips to test the truth of the matter.

He felt naught.

Naught but alarm, fear that he was already too late. It was an emotion that sent his hand sliding o’er her breasts seeking a heartbeat. He found one, weak and almost indecipherable. It fluttered beneath her full, round globes, so cauld they might have been filled with ice. He filled his cupped hands with them. Warm as his palms were, her skin drained the warmth from them. He had set himself nae easy task.

The granite walls were soaking up most of the fire’s heat. He’d a notion it would take an inferno to counter the freezing winter, but he could start by piling up more logs, though there was danger in overloading the wide hearth. It would mean building the pile of logs carefully to avoid any tumbling onto the floor then setting fire to the rushes. Sliding from under the covers, he knelt in his nakedness afore the hearth—awkwardly, since the few moments of contact with Eve had turned the lax bundle of male flesh in his groin into a weapon, a prick that strained long and hard betwixt his thighs. He had almost forgotten the needy sensation. It appeared naught had changed except that for the first time since summer he was with his hand-fasted wife.

Hand-fasted wife,
he had used the phrase more often today than he had in the months since it finally dawned on him she wasnae going to return to him. It had seemed impossible to ask for more—for marriage—when their families were bitter enemies. Eve had agreed swiftly, saying, “Aye” with a small, terse nod of her chin that revealed she was well aware of the problems ahead of them—myriad difficulties that they had been too deeply in love to imagine couldnae be conquered … by Eve more than him. That’s why from the first he had admired her courage and optimism.

With the flames licking up the chimney, he went back o’er to the side of the bed.

Who would have guessed that the shining bright lass he had met at King Malcolm’s palace would one day look like this? Look as if her light had been dimmed. His heart began a slow painful thud in the middle of his chest. Guilt? Had
he
turned the bonnie lass he had met in the soft fresh days of late spring into this small pale shadow?

At his last visit to King Malcolm’s court, he had simply kept an eye on Buchan, curious about the man his father hated with no apparent rhyme or reason, none that he deigned to share with his only son. It had taken Iseabel until a wee while ago to tell him the truth.

The longer he had looked at Buchan, the more fascinated he had become—not about his father’s adversary, nae. Beyond the man’s bulk, behind the dark, courtly garb Buchan wore, he had glimpsed Eve.

All his instincts had sprung to the fore yelling,
Beware!

He had wanted to listen, to obey.

Eve had no such qualms. Nae matter how much he tried to avoid her company, to ignore her presence, she was always popping up where she wasnae wanted. With her red hair and petite size, she reminded him of a wee robin, determined to gobble every last crumb that came its way. The worrying part of that was the belief that it was Jamie Ruthven she wanted to eat up, boots, hose, skean dhu and all.

Until the day his efforts had come to naught.

Obeying a growing urge to escape the daily round of backstabbing gossip that their life at court had degenerated into, Jamie strode away from the palace seeking a place to sit and think without interruption. It wasnae simply that he wanted to leave his father behind and seek out friends who let their swords do the cutting, not the edge of their tongues. If it hadnae been for Buchan, he would have been gone long syne, but it irked him nae end the way the air shimmered in the hall if his father and Buchan were in attendance on the king at the same time. How could he leave Ruthven there when the king appeared to be somewhat amused by the situation—and, Jamie was sure, those closest to his royal personage speculated on which man would be first to lose his armour-prop.

He didnae include the queen in that. Such scurrilous talk was beneath her, and Jamie was sure she discussed such disturbing matters with her God when she retreated to meditate in her cave at the heart of the beautiful grounds.

If only Jamie had believed her God capable of mending the feud that tore at the heart of both clans. If only his father had told him why the hostility had started. Though truth be told, the resolving of the feud would have made nae difference to his avoidance of Buchan’s daughter. He had sworn never to leave his heart open to hurt again. It hadnae taken more than a few glimpses of Evangeline Buchan with her winning smile and teasing eyes to ken the lass might be the one to make him break his vow to never love again.

That’s why, while he sat under a tree thinking of a solution to his problems, his eyelids had grown heavy—the result of a night passed dreaming of Eve and the pleasures he could bring them both should he give into the lust she wrought in him. It had become so bad, his cock instinctively hardened the instant she flicked her teasing gaze over him.

Spine resting on the rough bark of the tree trunk, he had fallen asleep under a shady canopy of wide-spreading branches, with the music of the Lynn in his ears as it tumbled from the heights into the Ferm burn below and feeling he too might be heading for a fall, well aware of the dire consequences that following the predisposition both nature and Brodwyn had engendered in him.

He had awoken to Eve’s teasing gaze, the way it lingered on his lips even as she lightly jested, “What think ye, Jamie Ruthven, are ye man enough to take a bite of this wee apple?” Robbed of the leaf that had disturbed his slumber, the fruit twisted in her slim fingers, green, hard, inedible.

Her lips on the other hand were soft, luscious and, without giving any thought to the danger, like Adam he took a bite.

It was but a moment’s work to pull her down against him, to capture her mouth with his own with nae time for thoughts of regret or time to reflect what her willing surrender might mean to their future. Nae notion that come next Yuletide, Jamie and his two lifelong friends would come across the lass freezing to death in the snow.

He dragged the covers o’er both bodies and wrapped her up in his arms, his chest aligned with her spine, his hard cock nestled in the crease of her buttocks. Spreading his hands across a round bulge that once had been the wee curve of her belly, Jamie determined to warm her body with his.

Was it instinct that made her press closer to him or simply the need for warmth?

“Christ’s blood,” he cursed, taken unawares by a kick frae inside Eve’s belly.

Life grew in there, life that he and Eve had created betwixt them, a bairn …
his
bairn. If aught had been needed to put more steel in his resolve, he had found it—found his true purpose for living. He had a family now, and naebody, neither Buchan or Ruthven, had better attempt to part them again.

Down in the hall Nhaimeth listened to the men talk, though he remained on the edges of the discussion, with nae contribution expected. Unlike Rob, who was a Chieftain in the making, his lack of stature was associated with a lack of brainpower. As usual he shrugged off what some might see as an insult. O’er the years he had discovered that his diminutive size had gained him more information than those around him might suspect—a useful talent, a much better one than playing the Fool.

His father may have denied him and his rightful claim to be head of the Comlyn clan, yet for all his size and bullheadedness, Erik the Bear had more nous than many a so-called wise man. That had been Nhaimeth’s inheritance.

For all the seasonal jollity that the lasses and bairns brought to the hall, Nhaimeth felt restless, as if something stirred in the air that had naught to do with Yule. One elbow balanced on the board where the remains of their supper waited to be cleared away, he turned to Rob. “I wonder what’s keeping Jamie. I ken he came up frae the stable, for I saw him talking to Iseabel, then she led the way upstairs. That was afore the meal, and now she is down here with the other women weaving kissing boughs, yet there’s still nae sign of Jamie.”

“I thought he was simply haunting the stables again,” Rob brushed off Jamie’s non-appearance with a wink. “I remember at Dun Bhuird he was ne’er away frae the place, though it was a waste of time grooming Faraday. That gelding ne’er looked any better for all his attention.”

Nhaimeth snorted, “Guid grief, Rob. He was feeling his oats not feeding them to his horse. I thought you would have worked that out by now. It wasnae Jamie grooming Faraday, it was Brodwyn grooming Jamie. Why do ye think he took it so ill out when Gavyn Farquhar banished her to Ireland?’

Rob’s jaw dropped, “I suppose you took me for a fool for not realising, but why has it taken all these years for ye to mention this?”

“None of that now. There’s only one of us ever been a Fool and that’s me, and it’s yerself and Morag I have tae thank for rescuing me.” Rob’s mouth opened to answer but afore he could deny all he and his mother had done for the dwarf, Nhaimeth butted in with, “Nae, I never brought up the subject of Jamie and Brodwyn. It didnae seem to matter since Jamie had started spending all his time in his father’s pocket. And mayhap it was cowardly of me. Ye ken as well as I do that talking of yon days we all spent at Dun Bhuird always brings Lhilidh to mind and with it the all hurts of that time.”

“Aye the memory still hurts, though not so much as it did. I was but a lad then, now I’ve a right to claim I’m a man because of what happened at Caithness. As such, I’ll ne’er regret having loved Lhilidh. She was my first love, a lad’s choice that the McArthur would ne’er have approved. However that’s a moot point now. The moment I killed Harald for her sake, I left my childhood behind.” He shook his head and stared Nhaimeth in the face, then with a grin, said, “This is becoming far too serious. It’s Yule, lets go and find out what Jamie’s been up tae this time.”

“Aye. Mayhap Iseabel can help us with that.”

Iseabel, however wasnae talking.

In all the years Jamie had lived at Cragenlaw, and with all the advice handed out, the McArthur had ne’er explained how one’s life could change in an instant. They had all been told about the McArthur and the witch, how she had changed Euan’s life with a curse. It had taken so much less to change Jamie’s. And it hadnae come with a curse or the slice of a blade, as with Gavyn. Yet, he felt the shock of transformation soaking through the pores of his skin with every kick his bairn thumped against the palms he kept curved around Eve’s protruding belly.

It was obvious she had sought him out, come looking for him. Now he was the one who was lost. He kenned it with every breath he took, every heartbeat. His mind wouldnae settle. Eve would live now; of that he was certain. Betwixt the logs he had intermittently piled on the fire and his own body heat, her skin had lost the chill he had felt when first he slid onto the bed beside her. It was he who shivered now.

He was going to be a father.

And that brought to mind his own—Ruthven. Would he ever live up to him?

The thought of his responsibilities almost overwhelmed him. What he needed was a plan, a strategy. Now
that
he had been trained to accomplish—a battle plan. Which meant his first move must be to marry Eve to legitimise his bairn’s birth in a way that the hand-fasting couldnae achieve.

Naebody had come looking for him, making him believe that for once Iseabel had held her tongue, and he thanked the Lord that she had learned discretion.

He was in nae fit state to face anybody who became o’er curious and unable to leave them alone.

At the moment, lying beside Eve was pure torture. The simple action of touching her skin made him hard, wrapping her naked body up in his hair-roughened chest and legs turned his prick into steel and like to burst out of his skin if it didn’t get inside Eve—a place he wouldnae enter without invitation, for to do other would be rape. Lying together, his arms holding her, persuaded him that there wasnae a skerrick of doubt in his heart that he would to do right by Eve. He wanted her like he had ne’er wanted another; every thought of being inside made him want, want her, want to be better for her, aye she deserved a better man than him, but it seemed he was what she had got. To that end, he would wait until she told him she felt the same.

He couldnae foresee her refusing. He prayed frae the bottom of his soul it were true. Why else had she travelled through thigh-deep snowdrifts if not to find him? He didnae question her reasons for riding through a burgeoning snowstorm with nae escort, for the obvious one lay snug beneath his palms. The second, he imagined, was her father, a truth that made the hairs at his nape curl.

If Eve had fled Buchan’s Keep to look for him, she must have heard news of them all journeying to Cragenlaw. There was but one way she could have learned of their almost political gathering—frae her father and brothers.