CHAPTER THREE #3
Irritated by that fact, Galen spared a quick glance at his bride.
Over the course of the hours’ long banquet, Laoghaire had not so much as uttered a word, barely touching the food on her golden plate.
Despite her air of utter disinterest—he would even go so far as to call it outright disdain—Galen sensed the barely contained fury that seethed from her.
That the redheaded beauty hated him, there was little doubt.
But then, her likes and dislikes matter naught to me.
All that he required from his bride was fulfillment of the marriage duty.
As Laoghaire MacKinnon’s new lord and master, it was his duty to get her with child.
And, in turn, it was her duty to bear him a son, preferably more than one.
Although he wasn’t averse to having a daughter or two; female progeny could always be used to make advantageous alliances.
As his thoughts continued to wander, Galen suddenly recalled the warm smile that earlier lit up Laoghaire’s face when she’d thanked Aveline for the bouquet of forget-me-nots. In that memorable moment, it was as though his bride had been magically transformed.
Will she ever smile at me in such a winsome manner?
God’s teeth! What need have I of the wench’s smile? he fumed in the next instant, annoyed that he would even entertain so foolish a thought.
Reaching for his wine goblet, Galen watched as the evening’s final subtlety was carried to the high table by his young squire, Piers Burnett.
At a glance, he could see that the magnificent confection had been fashioned in the shape of a rampant lion.
As an added extravagance, it had even been dyed a vivid shade of red.
“Voila! La pièce de résistance est arrive!” Galen announced, only because it was expected of him to show a measure of interest.
While everyone in the great hall expressed glowing admiration for the masterful creation, Laoghaire stared at it, stone-faced.
Vexed with her reaction, Galen turned to his bride and said, “This feast has been planned for your enjoyment, yet throughout the whole of it, you have appeared displeased.”
“Aye, I am displeased,” Laoghaire answered, finally deigning to speak. “I came here to wed one man, yet find myself married to another.”
“You cannot mean to say that you would have preferred to wed my uncle?” Galen retorted, taking exception to her remark.
“The man was three score and six, with thinning hair, a wrinkled visage, and flaccid appendages. Any other woman would be delighted to discover that instead of bedding an ancient relic, she was to have a strong, potent man between her thighs.”
Rather than reply, Laoghaire glared at him, her blue eyes narrowing with a blistering rage.
“Does being made a countess mean so little to you?” he goaded. “I hail from an old and noble family. You should be honored to—”
“Ye hail from an old Norman family,” Laoghaire said over the top of his voice, spitting out the word “Norman” as though it were a mouthful of sour milk.
“Yer family and those like ye connived to seize control of the Lowlands, so that ye could then rule the whole of Scotland. Even now, after being here for nearly two centuries, ye still speak in the French tongue.”
“Why should we not speak French? It is our heritage.”
“Do ye not know the meaning of the word Scotland?” Without giving him a chance to reply, Laoghaire continued and said, “It means the land of the Scots. Not the land of the Normans. It makes me think that ye are only Scottish when it suits ye.”
“God’s blood, but you’re a joyless scold,” Galen muttered under his breath, regretting his attempt to converse with her.
As his squire deferentially backed away from the high table—Piers having been privy to the acid exchange—the young man appeared visibly flustered.
Clearly, the squire was intimidated by the castle’s new mistress.
Not only did Galen’s statuesque bride tower over a good many of the guests, Piers included, but she possessed a fearsome, wild beauty.
Given her great height and luxurious red mane of hair, Laoghaire MacKinnon clearly descended from the Vikings, that fierce race of Norsemen who conquered the Western Isles of Scotland long centuries ago.
God willing, my redheaded Valkyrie will give me strong sons and beautiful daughters.
Yet even as he thought it, Galen was guiltily aware that he was supposed to have wed another woman, and that it was she who should rightfully be sitting beside him.
Craning his head slightly, Galen peered at Melisande Jardin.
The widow of a baron who’d been killed at Earnside, she’d arrived at Castle Airlie nearly a year ago, seeking sanctuary after her manor house at Doune had been razed to the ground by Edward I’s marauding English troops.
Her mother, Dame Winifred, was a marital relation of Hugh de Ogilvy’s third wife, and had taken over the running of the castle when the previous countess had been confined to childbed.
Truly, Lady Melisande doth delight the eye, he thought admiringly.
Unlike many of the female guests, Melisande was adorned, not in a gaudy, brightly colored gown, but in a demure shade of dove gray, the sleeves of which were trimmed in white coney.
The gown clung softly to her delicate form, her breasts thrust against the silk fabric like two rounded nuts.
Her crowning feature, her golden blonde hair, was covered by a sheer white wimple and a pearl-studded crispinette.
Admittedly, Galen would have preferred that she not have worn the latter, finding the rounded bulges that protruded from either side of her head a distraction.
But what do I know of fashion?
Lovely to behold, Melisande was, even more impressively, a docile woman, possessed of a serene nature; one that was in stark contrast to her mother, who enjoyed lording her position over others.
Gentle of manner and even of temper, Melisande knew her place in the world and would not think to question it.
She would never charge across a battlement and hurl a lance at me.
Despite the fact that they had already plighted their troth when his uncle unexpectedly died in his sleep, Melisande dutifully accepted the king’s marital decree regarding the House of Ogilvy and Clan MacKinnon.
And for that Galen was grateful. Feeling a responsibility for the lady, he was determined to find her a suitable husband to marry.
Until then, she would remain at Castle Airlie.
These were dangerous times and a lone woman was particularly vulnerable.
“While the old earl was known for his hospitality, our new lord is setting an enviable standard,” Dame Winifred suddenly remarked in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone at the high table.
As with many, if not most of the guests, copious amounts of wine and ale had loosened her tongue considerably.
“Lord Angus is the very model of chivalry, is he not?”
The question met with a hearty consensus, with more than a few guests clanking a tankard against the table.
“Lady Angus, I am most curious about something,” the matron said, as she leaned her torso forward in order to peer down the table at Laoghaire. “I have never met a woman with so unusual a forename. Is it a common one in the Highlands?”
Several moments passed in awkward silence before Laoghaire finally said, “’Tis not so common a name.”
“True enough. But what my cousin failed to mention is that it isn’t a woman’s name at all,” Diarmid MacKinnon chimed in.
Ruddy-cheeked, the young Scot appeared to be quite sodden, the wine flagon having come his way with great frequency.
“She was named after Laoghaire Odhar Fiosaiche; or as you Lowlanders would have called him, ‘Somber Laoghaire of the Prophecies.’ He was gifted with the Second Sight, and came to Skye from Ireland when—”
“Do you mean to say that Laoghaire is a man’s name?” Galen interjected, stunned by the disclosure.
“Aye, it is,” Diarmid confirmed with a vigorous nod of the head.
“The laird’s wife, who’d unexpectedly gone into childbirth whilst walking on a hillside, was so grateful to Laoghaire Odhar Fiosaiche for coming to her aid that she named her newborn daughter after him.
It is even rumored that he was the last of the Druid priests.
” The addendum was uttered with a heightened air, as though the young Scot were imparting a deep, dark secret.
“You were named for a sorcerer?” Father Giroldus inquired of Laoghaire, the priest’s jaw having slackened with shock.
“He was not a sorcerer,” Laoghaire was quick to clarify, her cheeks flushed with heated color. “He was a seer.”
“There is a difference?” someone at the table inquired.
“Leave be!” Galen commanded, able to see that the conversation was not to Laoghaire’s liking. “Lest my lady wife cast a spell upon you,” he could not help but add, the jest garnering more than a few amused chuckles.
Just then, one of the minstrels began to sing about yet another lovelorn knight.
Having listened to enough tripe for one night, Galen forcefully banged his fist on the top of the table. “The time has finally arrived,” he stated abruptly, rising to his feet.
The announcement met with an expectant silence, as everyone in the hall suddenly swiveled their head toward the high table.
“The time for what?” Laoghaire asked, clearly unnerved to be the focus of so much avid attention.
Galen did not immediately reply. Instead he stared at his new bride, his gaze drawn to the tresses that curled over her full bosom.
In the flickering candlelight, her unbound locks appeared like waves of molten copper.
Unbidden, he conjured an image of Laoghaire in his mind’s eye—naked, adorned in nothing save for the golden torc—straddling his equally naked body as she slithered down his torso, before taking him into her mouth.
Feeling his manhood swell with pent-up desire, Galen said at last, “It is time to bed you, lady wife.”