Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The man before her, if merely a man, grinned with the aid of few teeth.
As he entered, he straightened and doubled his height, his head still bowed in deference to the rafters across the ceiling.
A lump the size of a turnip protruded from the center of his throat and bobbed once.
He dropped the tree trunk he had apparently used to break in the door, and Kenna’s first thought was that the man could easily thwart his enemy.
He need only pull off his coat armored with huge links of chain and drop it on the other man.
It looked to be patched together from enough metal to protect at least four large soldiers.
Fia, stiffened beside her before crumpling into a soft pile on the floor. Of course. An army of one, then.
Kenna looked down briefly to make sure her maid was not hurt, then put her own body between the girl and the giant. How lucky Fia was to have found oblivion. Kenna unfortunately, kept her wits.
The titan stepped aside and into his wake entered the dark warrior.
Heaven help her, but his presence filled her veins with a fire she had never expected.
She almost smiled in relief but caught herself.
Again, the man looked familiar. His creased brow hovered above shimmering emerald eyes, sparkling like jewels in a dragon’s moist lair.
They fairly dripped with color and Kenna’s body reacted with a melting of its own.
His long hair was neither black nor brown, but both, resembling the multicolored pelt of an animal.
The way it laid across his shoulders like a mantle was familiar to her as well.
A week’s worth of beard nearly hid the strength of his jaw, and his nostrils flared as if he were testing the air for danger.
The war plaits at his temples brought her attention back to those eyes that now seemed darker, and she had to force herself to blink.
She would not allow him to think her intrigued by him.
She glared instead.
Tearloch glared back as he studied his prize.
She was taller than expected, and much prettier.
If family resemblance had affected her at all, he could not see it.
Perhaps in the eyes. She did have her father’s eyes, the color of ale in the bottom of a deep tankard.
Amazing that her brown eyes could so closely match red hair, as if they had been tinted in the same dye.
As was his habit, his gaze dipped low. She had fine wide hips that stretched her stomach tight and flat.
Yes, here is a lass built to bear fine braw sons.
Her waist was small, and…he smiled. The gown had not been made to fit her and ample breasts pressed against their confinement. And my sons shall not starve.
Her hair amused him, straining as it was against a thin veil that had clearly been designed for some other woman. These tresses would not be tamed so easily—nor, he imagined, would the woman if her defiant stance were any indication of her temperament.
He had expected bright orange hair and a generous sprinkling of freckles.
She had hardly a dozen. Her skin was a honeyed brown, so she had no fear of the sun.
He liked that. He also liked her mouth, its perfect plumpness, the clean sharp edges of the dent from her top lip to her nose. He wanted a closer look.
At once, the rare grip of fear wrapped its steel fingers around his stomach and the old chill began to climb toward his heart. His tongue turned to stone in his dry mouth as it always did when he was forced to speak to a woman.
Not this time! Think of her as merely a prisoner. Just a prisoner. Speak!
Damn Malcolm anyway. Why had he made this simple task so complicated?
He was to fetch Malcolm’s sister back to Lochahearn, where Malcolm would meet up with them.
A simple task. No discussion required, and indeed, little was permitted.
Tearloch was allowed neither to tell the woman she was to be his wife, nor inform her that the brother she once thought dead and buried was now sitting on the throne of Scotland.
Malcolm insisted on telling her the news himself.
Then there was the further knot of keeping his clan name from her. She would not go willingly with the very men who took her brother from her nearly twenty years before.
Briefly, he considered hooding her so he could avoid speaking to her at all. Better she should keep still and subdued until Malcolm was at her side, leaving less of a chance that Tearloch would let some secret slip off his tongue.
The woman swallowed as if the thought of hooding her had somehow been plain on his face, but she lifted her chin defiantly, and he felt something akin to pride swell his chest. He knew that look. He had seen it often enough on the king’s face.
The king. His friend. And soon to be his brother.
No, he would not fail Malcolm. He would hold his secrets, but he must find a way to loose his tongue so his future wife did not think him daft. Loosed, but controlled. It was a fine line.
Kenna was surprised when the man turned from her, so sure he had been about to reach out and touch her. Even more surprising was her disappointment.
“Weel, I see she’s an obedient woman and removed herself from harm’s way.” The warrior taunted, gesturing toward the window.
The giant laughed.
Kenna’s hackles instantly rose. He spoke around her as Agatha had. Nevermind that his voice was deeper than she expected, the brogue sweet and stirring.
When the giant’s hoarse laugh died away, she sneered. “I fear you are mistaken. Obedience has quite recently been removed from my character.”
He turned back and again looked her up and down as if only now noticing her existence. She wondered at the sudden warmth of the room and wanted to glance around to see if anyone else was affected by it, but she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze from his.
When she blinked, her eyes could move again, and she looked the length of him.
There was a spattering of red dots across his forehead and smears of blood on the right shoulder of his chain mail.
Crimson dripped from his gloved hands, and the only evidence of his exertion came when he rested the tip of his broadsword on the floor next to his muddied boots.
Red drops merged and thickened as they meandered down a path from his glove onto the sword to mingle with brown crusty smears already drying on the blade.
She could all but taste the combination of metal and blood.
Could smell it too. Or was that the warrior’s armor mixed with sweat?
There was a smell in the air—no, a taste—that made her stomach growl.
She imagined how he would react if she climbed on a small trunk and licked that smooth patch of cheek between his rough beard and his eyes.
The warrior frowned and turned away, striding quickly to the window. Had he forgotten she was there again? His fingers roamed the stone until they found the scratches where the large hook had caught, then he leaned out.
“Gowry placed too much faith in his reputation if he was foolish enough to put windows in his keep.” he growled to no one.
Kenna knew the moment when he must have spotted the chamber pot because his booming laughter spread that melting feeling to her every extremity. Dear Lord, but her body had become a caldron of churning fluids and thoughts she hadn’t known were in her, and this man seemed to be holding the ladle.
Fia shifted and Kenna shot a quelling look at both men before turning her back on them to pull her maid to her feet. She was grateful for the distraction. Most of her life had been lived beyond the sound of men’s voices, and she was unaccustomed to the deep vibrating tones.
There, that explains it. I’ve just never been around men. It has nothing to do with his face. Any man would likely affect me so.
The warrior returned from the window and faced her. “She has changed her clothes, Rabbie, but these are the clothes of a widow in mournin’.” For a moment she paused, savoring that warm rumble in his speech.
The way he watched her made it clear he waited for some response, but she hated to give him the satisfaction. Not after speaking around her again.
“Nay.” Kenna cleared her throat but wasn’t able to say anything more.
“Why would she be in Struan Gowry’s chambers if not his widow?”
The nearly forgotten giant spoke, but she did not understand a word, the sound no doubt made strange by that bulbous obstruction in his neck. His voice was much deeper than that of the warrior/god’s, but surprisingly sent vibrations only through her ears.
“Get out,” she demanded. “If I am so beneath your notice, why do you care who I am? Get out.” The last she said with a flourish of gestures toward the door. And for the longest moment, she thought they might obey her.
The warrior started toward the door, but as he passed her, he spun around to grasp her arms and held them behind her, all in a fluid movement that left her mouth agape.
She closed her eyes and waited for the pain of injury, but she felt only the gentlest of pressure around her arms and the nearness of his body as he held her a pulse away from his bloody chest. Impossible, but the man could have been made of fire considering the heat she felt through the fabric.
“Were you his widow in truth?” he asked softly, finally speaking to her, his breath brushing over her eyelids.
The past tense of the question gave her pause, but like a coward she kept her eyes shut.
“Have you killed me, then, and I cannot feel it? I’ve heard that betimes the slice of a knife can go unnoticed, especially if the blade is sharp.”
He laughed and released her but did not step back. Surely, he wouldn’t have laughed if she were dying.
“All right, then. I am not Gowry’s widow. You have rudely interrupted the ceremony, sir.”
Kenna opened her eyes and inhaled slowly, but the air solidified in her lungs, and she could not get it out. She had no idea he was so tall, towering easily a head above her.
A very large head above her.
But when he’d stood next to the giant, he’d seemed so average. And now he stared at her lips…
He reached up and dragged the mafors from her head, making her gasp. Her wayward hair sprang free and he smiled.
She exhaled finally, dragging her now bloody hair covering out of his grasp. “Struan Gowry was not yet my husband, but I’ll be thankin’ you to leave the rest of us alive to bury our dead.”
The warrior closed his eyes and took a deep breath himself, those nostrils flaring yet again. He had the most intriguing nose. It was noticeably long, but apt for his face, and the form of its tip combined with those nostrils resembled the point of an arrow.
Perfection.
He pulled off a glove and reached for her hand, turning it over, searching her wrist, she supposed, for any signs of handfasting. When he saw none, he looked her in the eyes while he slowly slid his fingertips to the end of hers.
“Did ye wish to marry him?” His question was intimate in tone, as if they were all alone in the bedchamber.
It was a strange question as well, under the circumstances, but she welcomed anything that might encourage him to speak.
Was it his brogue or the timbre of his voice that was so stirring?
She wanted to hold her hand against his neck and ask him to speak again.
What was his question? Had I wished to marry Gowry? Absurd.
“Nay. I wished only to spare the Carlisle Clan from his wrath,” she said, dropping her gaze from his throat, then casually checking one hand for blood. There was none. She tried to examine the other, but he was not finished holding it.
“A noble sacrifice my lady, and now unnecessary.” He was looking at her lips again.
“Thank you for freeing me, then,” she said, a little too breathlessly. If she acted any more the fainting damsel, she’d get sick herself.
His gaze lifted to hers for a moment, then he said, “Ye needn’t thank me, because ye’ve not been freed.
Ye’re mine…my charge, for the now.” He held up a hand to stay her protest then added, “Ye’ve been declared a ward of the king.
And ‘tis my duty to take ye to my home where King Malcolm will meet us and reveal his plans for ye. We leave now. Ye and yer maid may take one sack. No trunks. Ye can sit a horse?” He dropped her hand.
“Nay!” Kenna reached out and clutched his forearm. He stared at her bold hand, and she immediately snatched it back.
He looked disgusted, but he was back to not speaking.
“Aye, I can sit a horse fair to middlin’. But, nay, she is not my maid. I will come willingly, but ye must let her go.”
“Done.” He gestured toward Kenna while looking at the giant before turning to leave.
“Wait!”
He turned back to her, impatience now plain on his face.
He stepped forward though, and took her hand, giving her the strangest impression that he was unable to speak to her directly unless he was touching her in some way.
When she had laid her hand on his arm, had it been trembling?
It trembled still. Perhaps his arm was just fatigued from the fighting.
She had seen horses quivering in a like manner after being ridden for hours.
“Who are you that I should know you?”
“I am the king’s man.”
“And your name?”
“Why?”
“Why do you suppose?” She smiled sweetly. “So I can curse you properly, of course.”
His frown melted into a smile, and he paused for a long moment, leading her to wonder if now he had forgotten the question.
“Ye may call me Laird and Master.” He dropped her hand and turned away.
“To the devil with ye then, Laird and Master.”
By the time he had spun back around, she was already in a deep curtsy before him, but she could not resist glaring up at him.
She looked again at the sword in his hand and swallowed.
Before she could rise, though, he was gone.
The rumble of his hearty laughter preceded him down the hallway, and she smiled at the sound before she could help it.
The giant, however, remained. He stepped up to Kenna and held out his arm. With his eyes he told her she could be led from the room or carried.
She didn’t take his offered limb, but hurried toward the door, then paused to look back at her maid. “Be well, Fia. Do not forget your promise.”