Chapter 17
She had to find out if a man was able to tell if a woman was intact or not because Meria knew she had left her blood on the fur cloak on the ground in the cavern on the mountaintop.
Perhaps she would be able to prick herself in such a way that MacTavish would believe the stain to be her maidenhead?
Surely she would not have changed that much down there for a man to notice?
It was her heart that had changed. It was a frozen lump of ice now, more suited to a life on the mountains as a stone than the pulsing, beating organ it had been when she had lain in Callum’s arms at the cavern.
They had not said a single word to one another after joining their bodies together.
It had been an act beyond words or description.
It was an act of love. And then…her wretched life and future had got in the way.
If the window in the bedchamber had been wide enough for her body to fit through, Meria would have cast herself out of it.
Callum had left a trail of breadcrumbs for her all the way here, and she, like a dumb chicken, had pecked up every last one of them without question.
Now it was too late; her worst nightmare was about to come true: MacTavish was ugly and cruel and might murder her if she could not pass herself off as a maiden, and Callum had led her right to his doorstep.
Flinging herself onto the bed, Meria let her misery take over her body.
She wanted to scream with anguish when she remembered how it felt to have Callum’s hard body thrusting inside her, how he had looked when she opened her eyes to see him gazing down at her with love shining in his eyes.
How could anyone be that good of an actor?
He had shown his love for her many times in succession, and each time Meria’s body had touched paradise more intensely, more sweetly. And then the next day…naught.
It was cold, barren, empty. Meria wanted to die when she thought about having to replace Callum thrusting between her legs with old Hamish. She bit her knuckles, remembering what Callum had said to her while their bodies had been joined.
“No matter what happens to us in the future, no one can ever take this away from us.” Fine words coming from a fickle heart. All he had cared about was breaking his promise.
I almost hope auld Hamish does smell a rat when he mounts me at the beddan because it might be easier to die than live with this sinking sensation in me stomach every time I remember Callum’s cold rejection of me.
That dead head on the spike at the gates had made Meria green with nausea and fear. They must have carried her up to this dirty old bedchamber to recover because she could not remember walking there. Meria looked around the room with bleary eyes. One way or another, this would soon be all over.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Meria did not bother answering or calling for the person to come in. She had a feeling they would enter regardless of whether she wished it or not. It was old Hamish.
“Och, so ye’re recovered. Good. I have no use for wishy-washy women in me life. If ye cannae take the sight of a moldy auld head on a spike, how the blasted hell are ye to birth me good strong sons?”
Meria desperately wanted to turn her back on him but felt too listless to move.
“Be that as it may, the only way I can get me hands on yer faither’s estate without a council o’ lairds being called to debate over it is for me to marry ye.” In a conversational way, Hamish ambled over to the window slit and looked down at the courtyard with one jaundiced eye.
Meria sat up in bed like an automated marionette. “What? What d’ye mean get yer hands on Faither’s estate?”
She watched the old man’s face break into a crafty smile. He moved away from the window to the foot of the bed, rubbing his hands together as if he smelled a delicious meal being prepared and was hungry.
“I hear yer faither has plans to marry again? Laird Calvin must die before he can do that. What would happen to our bairns if he had an heir? Nay. Me lands lie in ruin about me. I trusted too much in war an’ put no faith in harvesting crops.
I always bought whatever I needed, ye see, and when war and commerce failed me, I had to make a plan. Ye are part o’ that plan, me dear.”
Meria placed her feet on the ground, looking down to see the floor was covered with black thresh that had not been replenished for years. It made the room smell rank and mildewed, but she hardly noticed.
“Ye cannae do that. Ye signed a bond with Faither: me hand in marriage, and in return, ye were to send him soldiers to protect the Calvin estate…”
Hamish popped his lips together. “Tush tush! Don’ make me laugh.
I have nae even got enough soldiers to protect me own lands, nor enough gold to pay for more.
Nay. Those soldiers I am sending to yer faither’s estate in exchange for ye to become me bonded bride will start off protecting it, of course, but once we have a bairn, me men will shift yer dear faither aside so that we can move over there an’ start a new clan.
That is, if he does nae go an’ do something stupid like getting married.
I hear from me spies that yer meadows are lush, yer fields yield plentiful crops, an’ yer kine are fat. ”
All Meria heard was the word “spies.” “What spies?” she demanded to know.
Laird Hamish’s eyes narrowed. “Some o’ the merchants who gather the Calvin harvest and take it to market are good enough to share a few details here an’ there with me.
Why d’ye ask? Were ye thinkin’ the soldier I sent to escort ye here had managed to spy out yer land?
Nae such luck. He’s gone off to the apothecary, anyway.
The captain tells me the lily-footed glaikit scoundrel went and got an infection in his heel after walkin’ so far an’ fast downhill and dale to bring ye here. ”
Meria could tell he was watching her carefully to see what her reaction would be. “Och aye…” she said in a careless tone. “I thought he was limpin’ a bit, but the man is so tall an’ ungainly, I believed it to be part of his natural gait.”
The crafty smile grew a bit wider. “Aye,” Laird Hamish said.
“The big galumph was so morose from the pain, he couldnae even tell me anything about yer faither’s halls—his eyes were so waterin’ and red.
” Laird Hamish burst out laughing. “It’s a good thing I have nae paid him for his services yet because I have nay use for soft men in the army I plan to build up with yer faither’s gold. ”
Meria experienced the strangest sensation. No man was that good an actor to fake tears over a blister. So what had upset Callum so much?
“Ye ken, laird,” she said, putting on her most inviting smile, “it could be that me faither might be amenable to ye taking over at the estate without a wedding. He has no son, after all. If ye send me back there as yer envoy, perhaps I could negotiate a deal?”
The man walked up to her and calmly smacked her around the face. It was a slap designed to humiliate, not mark her. Meria gave a gasp of pain, but she was used to punishment from her father.
“The ceremony is set for tomorrow. The soldier tells me ye lost yer bridal robes on the mountaintop. Too bad. What ye have on will have to do.” He waddled out and closed the door behind him. She heard the bolt slide into place.
With her cheek still smarting from the slap, Meria returned to lie down on the bed, but her thoughts were not in so much turmoil. A faint glow of hope burned in her heart. Did Callum regret his cruel actions?
She allowed her memory to turn back the hours to their time together in the mountains.
He had managed to change her anger and resentment toward him into love with just one touch.
Callum’s tolerant kindness had felt like waves breaking on a deserted beach after years and years of Meria putting up with her father’s distant forbearance.
No one had ever loved her or cared for her since Lady Calvin, her mother, had died.
Meria could remember how her mother would berate herself if her daughter’s hands got cold in the winter weather, how she made sure Meria had enough food to eat if the little girl was being punished and told to go upstairs to the nursery and stay there for the rest of the week.
Loving care or caring love, no one had worried that much about her since Lady Calvin’s passing.
And then Callum had ridden into her life like a hero out of the old tales, with not many words to say but plenty to do and much on his mind.
She was certain he had not lied for a laird who had only employed him for a few days; it made no sense.
There was some other reason he had moved from the castle where he had grown up and worked for a laird who had been like a second father to him to become a rogue warrior at a castle that had no affiliation for him and for a man whom he seemed to loathe. And a fake name…
The warrior’s face had caused MacTavish to shift uneasily. Maybe the ghost of a memory of a parent with similar features haunted Laird Hamish? What else but the hope of vengeance would make a man harden his heart and leave her to her fate?
If he was here for revenge, then why had he made himself scarce when they rode into the castle together? He had a sword, and there did not seem to be that many soldiers around. Yet he had skulked away like a mangy dog, going to the stables to tend to Frankl instead.
The answer came to her. Callum had not come here to kill her betrothed husband… He must have come here to kill someone else.