“You cannot be serious.”
Cristiana confronted him the moment he walked into his chamber late that night.
He’d told her hours ago that she would be going home and then he’d departed to help the villagers clean up the mess of the fire.
He hadn’t really expected to see her here. Since they never had exchanged their vows and she had been uneasy about sharing a chamber anyway, he assumed she would take advantage of this time to visit with her sister or sit watch over Leah.
But even though he’d worked long past dark to clear the burned huts with his retainers and his tenants, Cristiana was wide awake when he stepped into the chamber.
“Whatever you’re talking about, I’m sure I was very serious.” He dropped his boots beside the door and laid his sword near the bed, wondering if she had any intention of sleeping here tonight. With him.
She’d been so angry with him about the way he’d taken Domhnaill that he wasn’t sure what to expect from her anymore.
“Domhnaill.” She followed him to the bed and began stripping off his cloak with surprising force. “You cannot wish to send me back there.”
The topic interested him a great deal, even though he’d been trying to forget all day that he’d said such a thing.
Covering her busy hands with his, he slowed her efforts on the laces of his tunic, unsure why she wished to undress him.
Normally, he would not have minded. “I’m trying to be noble here, Cristiana. Would you leave the undressing to me?”
She frowned, her forehead crinkling in confusion.
“You will want to bathe. I already called for a tub when I heard your feet on the steps.”
Male interest stirred, but he kept her hands prisoner while he spoke his peace.
“I will not keep you here when you believe yourself trapped into marriage.” He had tried too hard to make things right between them to have this gulf of hurt always present. “I talked my way into your home, into marriage, into Domhnaill. And frankly, I will not give them up because your father cannot manage those lands. He not only endangers your people, he endangers all the Scots if he cannot secure the coast—”
“I know.” Cristiana placed a hand on his lips. “I understand why you did it.”
“But you do not appreciate my methods and you view it as a lack of trust.”
“So you send me back to my father?” She scowled at him as she tossed his cape and the pin that had held it in place onto the floor. “Did I not have the right to be upset about that? But I might have understood if you’d explained it. At least, I like to think I would have. You never gave me that chance.”
He did not move, thinking about her words as she lifted her fingers to his tunic laces again.
“At first, I could not afford to have you bar the gate to me and my men. Later, I came to care about you and—perhaps—I simply did not want to lose you.” He took heart from the fact that she continued to undress him.
What if she was willing to forge ahead in spite of everything? Hope sparked faster than dry tinder.
“You complain that I think the worst of you, but how can I not think the worst when you will not tell me the truth?”
He understood. And while he did not necessarily like it, he had to believe she wanted to try again. Why else would she pull the linen of his tunic from the depths of his braies, sliding the fabric slowly across the places that called out for her touch?
Again, he had to halt her hands.
“The breaking of our betrothal cost me dearly. At
first, I told myself I only resented you because you robbed me of Domhnaill and a chance to unite our resources. I thought I could lose myself in war or with other women. But nothing eased the loss until I came back here to claim you. And I think that’s because it was not the loss of Domhnaill I resented so much as the loss of you.” It was the biggest truth he’d kept from her. The one thing she still did not know. “I have not told you because it seemed like too much power for a woman to have over me. But it is true, Cristiana. From that very first kiss by the wishing well all those years ago, you touched something within me. Something unlike anything else I had ever experienced.”
She blinked, her eyes filling with what he hoped were happy tears.
“You truly do have a gift with words, Duncan the Brave.” Her voice broke as a tear slipped free. “I love you dearly—then and now—even if I was too blinded by fears and uncertainty to be the woman you deserve. Also, the only way I could stay mad at you was to hold on to Edwina’s hurt and make it my own. That’s no excuse, though, for not fighting harder for you.”
She shook her head helplessly. His heart lifted like a few thousand stone had been rolled off it. He’d been so determined to have her in his bed, as his wife, but he hadn’t dared hope he would also win her heart in the process.
“It is in the past.” Duncan kissed the tears on her
cheeks, hardly daring to believe he and Cristiana might have put the ugliness of long, dark years behind them. “Edwina is like a woman born anew around Cullen. Have you seen how she lights up?”
Cristiana smiled. “I understand the feeling well. Although if she marries him, who will I threaten to wed the next time I’m mad at you?”
He chuckled softly, so very grateful to have this clever, talented woman to bring joy and laughter to his days.
“That will not be a problem, since we will speak our vows in front of the priest the same day that Edwina and Cullen do. By the time Cullen returns from Malcolm’s court, we will all ride to Domhnaill to meet him there and celebrate our good fortune with your father.” He could not wait to make it official. “I admire how you took care of Domhnaill on your own even as the old laird’s mind faded. You are a woman of rare talent and strength, and I want that by my side forever. I have loved you for as long as I’ve known you.”
She wriggled her hands free of his and wrapped her arms about his neck.
“Truly?”
Her scent surrounded him, the sweet, welcoming fragrance of cloves and honey, clover and spring. He’d never forgotten it no matter how far he’d travelled from his homeland.
“Truly.” He snaked his arms about her waist
and picked her up so that her body pressed fully against his.
“That is a very good thing. Although I have to confess that I will not reveal the location of your treasure until you marry me like a proper husband.”
Surprise smacked him in the chest so hard he nearly dropped her.
“You’ve known where it was all this time?” He shook his head in disbelief and more than a little joy. “And you accuse me of keeping secrets?”
“No.” She laughed and planted a kiss on his cheek. “The location came to me when I was a wreck about Leah. I was so scared and upset that I couldn’t find my way to the children’s chamber. And somehow, trying to force myself to remember the directions made me think about all the passages and stairwells at Domhnaill. When you think about it, the layouts of the keep are rather similar.”
Puzzling through her words, he couldn’t imagine how any of this had helped her find the treasure.
“I can see that.” He picked her back up and brought her over to his bed, hoping the water bearers would not bring a tub anytime soon.
“I think that’s why I got confused. The passages are so similar that I think the first lord of Culcanon designed his keep purposely like Domhnaill.” She did not protest as he settled her across his lap, her skirts draping to the floor as he worked a slipper off her foot.
“Very likely.” It amused him to think he’d been so concerned about finding that treasure once, but right now, the only riches he cared about were under his roof.
“Except some of the secret passages at Culcanon do not exist at Domhnaill. Yet that tangle of corridors around the children’s chamber matches up well with the shape of your medallion—”
“By the rood, you are brilliant.” He could see immediately what she meant, just by glancing down at the medallion on his chest. “He left the treasure in the keep in one of those old passages and then walled it up.”
She grinned. “If we ride now, we could reach Domhnaill before the next nightfall. Edwina could watch over Leah for a few days. By this time tomorrow, we could hold dazzling riches in our hands.”
“We already do,” he reminded her. “And I have much better plans for this night.”
He trailed his hand meaningfully up her leg.
“You do?” She settled against him more fully, her hip edging between his thighs.
“I love how distractible you are,” he whispered in her ear, smoothing aside her hair to kiss the soft white column of her neck.
“Enough talking for one day,” she chastised him, moving his hand to the ties up one side of her gown. “You need to show me your love.”
Pulling her down to his chest, Duncan vowed to do his very best.
Four months later
“P
apa, what about this one?” Leah held up a heavy necklace of gold and milky purple stones from the treasure they had discovered three days prior.
They all sat in the laird’s solar at Domhnaill. Cristiana’s father had cleared out his things and moved to a smaller chamber closer to the great hall. He swore it would be no trouble, even though Cristiana insisted they would not be in residence year-round. But some times he still came to the door, thinking his things were within his old chamber.
Today, her father was clear headed, however, and she savored every moment beside him. They had all gathered in Duncan’s outer chamber to catalog the
treasure unearthed at Domhnaill. Even Cullen and Edwina joined them.
“Those are amethysts,” Duncan told Leah, dropping a kiss on the child’s head as she tried on the necklace. “They might have come from Egypt, along with some of these coins.”
He pointed to the heavy silver pieces with strange markings, part of a vast range of loot that had been walled up in Domhnaill’s secret passages, unbeknownst to its in habitants for two hundred years.
“With what these are worth, you should be able to replace all those missing torch rings at Culcanon,” Cullen remarked drily, his sense of humor sly and quiet and always sure to make his new wife laugh.
Edwina sat on his lap on the floor, where the two of them studied the coins. She had bloomed since she’d been back home. Her past seemed well behind her, although now and then she offered up some interesting bit of political intrigue from her days in King William’s court. She was still reed-thin, but she had confided to Cristiana just that morning that she expected a child.
They had agreed to move into Culcanon for the half of the year that Duncan and Cristiana stayed at Domhnaill. For one thing, Edwina had been insistent that as Leah’s “aunt,” she wanted to see the child from time to time. And, inspired by Cristiana’s advances in mead making, Edwina had taken quite an interest in the growing trade. She looked forward to working
in the new mead house that Cristiana had convinced Duncan to build on Culcanon land.
“Perhaps.” Duncan held up a hanging bowl inlaid with glass, white shell and elaborate filigree, a beautiful treasure in its own right. “Although with all the extravagant herbs my wife wishes to grow for her mead, I may need every cent of this to fund her brewing efforts.”
Cristiana tugged his sleeve in smiling rebuke, knowing too well that Duncan was proud of her unique talent.
“Well, you cannot part with this piece,” Edwina announced, holding up a gold-and-silver gilt chalice covered with rich etchings of maternal figures holding hands. The rounded bellies and full breasts of the characters marked the work as a pagan piece, but it held all the more significance to the Domhnaill sisters, since they were both expectant mothers.
“Do not show me,” Cristiana teased, covering her own belly with her hand. “I cannot believe I will grow so round.”
She was so thrilled to experience every moment of motherhood that she’d missed with Leah. Though she had watched Edwina’s previous pregnancy, she had missed out on the joy of it as they had both been frightened over uncertain futures. Now, it seemed like divine providence that they could share the glad blessing of being new brides at the same time.
Although Cristiana was not only one moon along,
but over
four.
Duncan liked to tell her she must have conceived the moment he first touched her.
“Do not be foolish, my daughter,” the old laird chastised, shaking a weathered finger in her direction. “Your mother was never more beautiful than when she expected our children.”
His eyes misted a bit as if he was seeing his wife and not anyone else in the chamber. Cristiana and Edwina shared happy glances while Leah hopped off Duncan’s lap and went over to her grandfather.
“This one should be your treasure,” she told him, laying a heavy sword across his legs. “It has a boar on it for strength. Did you ever fight like a boar, Grandfather?”
While Cristiana’s father launched into a tale from his warrior days, holding the sword aloft to act out the best parts, Duncan leaned close to Cristiana and whispered.
“You realize this is where she inherited her fierceness and her love of battle?” He pointed to the old laird and Leah curled on his lap, listening intently and following every twitch of the ancient blade with wide eyes.
Cristiana set aside his quill and ink and squeezed her hand between his, grateful for the moment of semi-privacy in the room full of family.
“Perhaps, but you hardly discourage her warrior ways with your toy swords and fighting lessons.” She had debated calling Leah indoors on the warm
spring mornings that Duncan had let the child play in the practice yard, but Leah seemed to be recovering so well from her scare with Donegal that she could not find it in her heart to dissuade the interest in swordplay.
“I must raise her to be as strong as her mother,” Duncan whispered back, leaning close to kiss her cheek. “That is no easy task.”
Her heart swelled with love as her eyes filled with tears. But then, she’d been quick to cry lately, her happiness surprising her at unexpected moments. She’d never been so happy. So loved.
“You are a wonderful father, Duncan the Brave.” She cupped his face in her hand, falling under the spell of his deep green gaze.
“And you are a wife worth waiting five years for, Cristiana.” He returned her kiss, his mouth awakening a fire inside her despite all the people around them. “Having you is every bit as sweet as I imagined.”
Tilting her head to his, she reveled in one of life’s perfect moments.