Rory opened the door of their chamber to find Joanna sitting up in the high four-poster, waiting for him. The blue damask bed curtains had been drawn back, framing her against the plump white pillows and the carved oak headboard.
He paused for a moment in the doorway, gazing at her with a feeling very close to awe. She looked so damn fragile in the middle of the massive bedstead. His throat grew constricted and his heart pounded as wildly as any anxious bridegroom’s ever had.
Candles on the side table, on the press cupboard, and on the mantel filled the room with a lambent glow. Their flickering light played across the bed, bathing its still occupant in a rich golden hue. A cozy fire burned on the grate, creating a warm and beckoning welcome.
His gaze fixed on his enchanting wife, Rory stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind him
Joanna wore a voluminous ivory nightshift, its narrow yellow ribbons already loosened at the throat for her husband’s pleasure. The age-old tradition of untying the love-knots on a bride’s clothing was still practiced in the Highlands, and her women had seen that not a pin remained in her locks or a ribbon on her shift left untied.
Her hair, brushed to a glorious sheen, fell loose about her slim shoulders and spilled over the embroidered ruffles across her breasts and onto the bedclothes in lustrous curls. Joanna’s dark blue eyes appeared enormous in her small, heart-shaped face as she watched him enter in silence.
The need for her pulsed through his veins. A familiar tightening in his groin reminded Rory that he’d waited impatiently for this moment since the night he’d found her sleeping in front of the kitchen hearth, the firelight revealing the delicacy of her freshly scrubbed features.
Now the waiting was over.
“You look lovely,” he said, then berated himself for the paltry understatement.
The armored knight in the tapestry on the far wall surveyed Rory with a conceited smirk, as though to say he surely could do better than that.
Joanna’s bottom lip trembled, and Rory recognized her acute tension. She attempted a smile and, failing, gave a quick nod in acknowledgment of his inadequate praise.
Part of him felt a surge of relief. She looked far more nervous than he. Even if he stumbled a bit in his attempt to be gallant, she’d probably never notice. Still, he’d have to put her at ease, both physically and emotionally, or their wedding night would degenerate into a very awkward procedure for both of them.
Rory released a long, controlled breath, schooling himself for a painstakingly slow seduction. He’d try to make light conversation—though, God knew, frivolous discourse had never been his long suit, and tonight of all nights, the latest blather of the court was the last thing on his mind.
Nevertheless, he’d give Joanna all the time she needed to get used to the idea that she was alone in her private chamber with a man who was about to disrobe and climb into bed with her.
“I’ll pour us some wine,” he said with a heartening smile.
When Joanna opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Once again she nodded.
Rory moved to the tall cupboard, where a decanter and two engraved wineglasses had been set out for the bridal pair. He recognized the interlaced Celtic design on the crystal goblets, gifts from Keir. His mother must have brought them up earlier that afternoon. He’d have to remember to thank her in the morning.
His back to the bed, Rory poured the dark ruby claret, mentally rehearsing the poem Lachlan had written.
My bride, my love, my shining star,
Your beauty glimmers like moonbeams from afar.
He’d recite the words after they’d both had a little wine—when she wasn’t quite so tense, but before the heaviness in his loins made him forget the lines completely.
My bride, my love, my shining star…
The brief recitation shouldn’t be too hard—if he didn’t trip over his own tongue in the process.
Rory grinned to himself. Who’d have believed he’d be spouting romantical gibberish to please a lady? Certainly no one who’d ever known him on the battlefield—or in the boudoir either, for that matter.
Holding a glass in each hand, he turned…
…to stare at the wrong end of a loaded crossbow aimed straight at his gut.
His bashful wee bride held the cocked and lethal weapon in her two shaking hands.
Christ! He’d heard of virginal trepidation, but this was carrying maidenly modesty a bit too far.
“Put it down, Joanna,” he ordered softly, his fingers tightening around the goblets’ fragile stems.
“Not…until…you answer…my questions,” she replied, pure venom in her stilted words. Standing rigid and straight beside the bed, her shoulders thrown back, her chin lifted stubbornly, she glared at him.
Too late, he realized that Joanna hadn’t been overcome by a bride’s nervous qualms. For some unfathomable reason, she was so angry she could hardly speak.
She stood no more than five paces away. Too close to miss, even if she could barely see him through her tears. And too far away to reach before she could release the triggering device.
He spoke in a voice that had commanded men three times her size in the heat of battle. “Put the goddamn thing down, Joanna, before it goes off.”
Her diminutive figure quivered with rage. “First…MacLean…you’ll answer…my questions,” she retorted. “Did you…call my father…a devil?”
Rory’s jaw clenched as he swallowed back a vile oath.
Who the hell had told her?
When he finished whaling on her little butt, he’d strangle the bloody bastard and then flay him alive.
The crossbow had to be cocked by means of a stirrup at the end of the crosspiece. Placing the weapon in a vertical position, the archer engaged the stirrup with his foot and shoved down with his heel to cock the bow, which was caught and held by a trigger mechanism.
There was no way in hell his indignant little wife could have accomplished the feat.
“Who loaded the bow, Joanna?” he asked quietly, gazing straight into her furious eyes.
She stared blindly at Rory, as though unable to understand his question. He could see she was close to hysteria. Though some man—and Rory had a pretty good notion who that man was—had to have cocked the weapon for her, all she need do now was squeeze the lever under the stock.
With a range up to four hundred yards, the crossbow’s square-headed missile would strike him with such force he’d be impaled on the wooden cupboard behind him.
Tears streamed down Joanna’s cheeks. Her husky contralto caught on a sob with each word she uttered. “Did you…accuse my mother…of being a witch…you…perverted satyr?”
Damnit to hell, he’d personally break the loudmouthed bastard on the rack, after first disemboweling the cur and severing every body part he owned.
“Who loaded the bow for you, Joanna?” Rory asked pleasantly. He took a cautious step toward her. “I know you couldn’t have done it yourself, lass. Now tell me who gave you that weapon, and I promise not to get angry.”
She took a frantic step back, her agitation increasing tenfold. Apparently his calm demeanor wasn’t what she’d expected. Christ, did she think he’d fall down on his knees and grovel at her feet, begging for mercy?
“Did…did you say it?” she continued insistently. “Answer me, you…you half-human freak of nature. And I want the truth, damn you! Did you call…my father…a devil…and my mother…a witch?”
The only thing more unpredictable than a frightened man was a hysterical woman. And her crazed words left no doubt Joanna was hysterical.
With a crooked smile, Rory lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. Then he hurled the goblet in his right hand against the stone wall, where it exploded in a shower of crimson drops and crystal shards.
At the sudden crash, Joanna jerked reflexively and spun around, releasing the trigger. The quarrel struck the chamber’s heavy wooden door with a chilling thunk. Rory closed the distance between them in four quick strides.
As he yanked the spent crossbow from her lax hands and smashed it against the low chest at the foot of the bed, the door flew open and Andrew rushed in. The adolescent’s dark brown eyes revealed his confusion. He’d expected to find the cowed bridegroom pleading for his life.
“I should have known,” Rory growled. Flinging the disabled weapon aside, he caught the startled lad by the throat and shoved him against the wall. “You worthless, puling runt,” he said, banging the boy’s head viciously against the whitewashed plaster with every word. “I ought to kill you, you miserable worm.”
Dazed, Andrew wobbled on limp legs and his arms went slack. His terrified eyes could barely focus on his infuriated attacker.
In his rage, Rory held the harebrained youth up and pounded his thick skull a few more times for good measure. The knowledge that Joanna preferred the conceited whelp to her husband made Rory want to bash his flawless, bonny features into a bloody pulp.
But the idiot was only sixteen and infatuated with a maid so alluring that even Rory, a hard-bitten warrior, had been temporarily blinded to her true nature.
With an oath, he spun the lad around and shoved him toward the open door. “Get the hell out of here,” he snarled as he administered a swift kick to the boy’s backside.
Andrew landed on all fours, scrambled clumsily to his feet, and staggered down the dark passageway.
Joanna took Rory’s guttural command to heart. Eyes averted, she tried to scurry past him and out of the room.
“Not you.” He grabbed hold of the high frilled collar of her nightshift, dragged her back inside, and slammed the door. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Even in his wrath, he glanced down to make certain she wasn’t wading through slivers of broken glass and splintered wood in her bare feet. He felt a stab of relief that her toes weren’t cut and bleeding, and his unwarranted concern for her incensed him all the more.
“Let me go,” she said, panting for breath and squirming like an eel. “Don’t you…dare touch me…you…monstrous aberration. Not after what you said…about my mother and father.”
He caught a handful of hair at the nape of her neck and brought her head back so he could look into those deceitful blue eyes. Their indigo depths were wild with anger and sparkling with tears. The long lashes clumped together in wet auburn spikes tipped with shimmering drops.
“I ought to turn you over my knee and give you a sound thrashing,” he gritted.
“I should have shot you!” she cried.
With a pithy expletive, Rory lifted Joanna up in his arms and in two long strides moved to the bed, where he dumped her onto the quilted comforter.
Before she had a chance to scramble back up, he pinned her hands on either side of her head and leaned over her.
“You want to know if I called your father a devil and your mother a witch?” he thundered. “Of course I did! What Scotsman in his right mind would willingly choose to marry a traitorous Macdonald?”
“You married me fast enough when you learned the size of my fortune,” Joanna responded, a sneer curling her soft pink lips. “Pray, pardon me, Laird MacLean, if I’m not feeling flattered.”
In her anger, her vibrant coloring was breathtaking, the scattered reddish-gold locks vivid against the pale nightshift and sheets. Her fine complexion shone translucent in the candlelight, the blue veins on her temple visible beneath the delicate skin. Her brilliant eyes were almost black in her rage.
The enticing perfume of roses drifted up from the rumpled bedclothes, and lust—unadulterated male lust—roared up inside him with the urgency of stone shot loosed from a catapult.
She must have read the gut-wrenching need in his gaze, for fear replaced the anger in her eyes. “Let me up,” she said, her voice tight and quavering.
The air left his lungs in a whoosh. Rory took a deep breath through flared nostrils, struggling to maintain some semblance of sanity in this irrational turn of events. What had happened to the romantic wedding night he’d so carefully planned?
God Almighty, if any female could drive a man stark, raving mad, this tiny bit of willful baggage could do it.
“Meek and mild in bed and at board,” he grated. “Don’t Macdonalds ever keep their promises?”
“Not with vile miscreants who libel their parents,” she taunted. “No one would expect them to.”
“Goddammit, you little vixen, who else but a half-Sassenach, half-Macdonald harpy would try to murder her own husband on their wedding night?”
The shock in her eyes told him he’d struck a telling blow. “I hate you!” she cried, teardrops glistening on her white cheeks. “I’ll always hate you!”
Sick at heart, Rory looked down at her and silently cursed the ignorant, interfering fool who’d destroyed all the warmth and tenderness between them.
A feeling of emptiness squeezed his chest like a breastplate of cold, hard steel. Though he had every right before God and man, he couldn’t take Joanna now. Not with the blood roaring angry in his veins and rage tightening every muscle. Not with Joanna rigid with fear and hatred.
If he tried to claim his marital privileges, she’d fight him. And with her stubborn courage, Joanna wouldn’t quit fighting him until he’d completely subdued her. The thought that he might accidentally injure her in the process or break her magnificent spirit filled him with horror.
Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?
He was worried about hurting her after she’d just tried to nail him to the wall with a crossbow quarrel at four paces. A jumble of contradictory and warring emotions roared within him.
Rage.
Lust.
Tenderness.
And above all, a sharp, caustic disillusionment.
Rory released her hands and straightened, more furious at himself than Joanna or her sniveling, interfering milksop of a cousin. With a snarl of self-contempt, he strode to the side table, snatched up a flask from among his personal effects, and moved to the door, where he paused to glance back at the bed.
Joanna had rolled over on her stomach, buried her head in her arms, and was now sobbing as though her heart would break.
His sweet, innocent bride was probably devastated because she hadn’t succeeded in killing him.
Without another word, he stepped into the passageway and slammed the door, leaving his treacherous Macdonald wife to nurse her disappointment with her salty tears.
The cool evening air and the warm aqua vitae acted like a soothing tonic on Rory’s raging temper. Holding the silver flask in one hand, he rested the other on the parapet and looked up at the sky. A full moon hung just above the mountaintops, bathing the peaceful landscape in its silvery glow.
He hadn’t wanted to return to the hall, where people were still celebrating his nuptials. A bridegroom rejoining the wedding festivities after spending such a short time with his bride would raise eyebrows and start tongues clacking.
So he’d taken the inner stairs to the keep’s battlement two at a time and kept his own sorry counsel with the fiery Scotch brew and the dispassionate moon. In the solace of the whisky and the star-studded night, the irony of the situation occurred to him. While he’d been practicing the lines of his brother’s addlebrained poetry, his wife had been conspiring to kill him.
God above. What a glorious ass he’d made of himself.
Lumbering around the great hall’s floor with his bride, when everyone knew he couldn’t dance any better than a trained bear.
Giving Joanna time to change into a lovely gown before proceeding with the wedding Mass, even though she’d tried to deceive him by pretending to be a stable boy for the past week.
Luring her into the library for a brief interlude of gentle seduction, where, like a wayward schoolboy, he’d felt compelled to admit that he’d slept with another woman. He was twenty-eight and had taken no vows of chastity. Did she think he’d lived like a priest before he met her?
Hell and damnation, he was through trying to act like someone he wasn’t. Joanna would have to set aside her fanciful dreams of knights in shining armor and accept the harsh reality of life with the chief of Clan MacLean. At seventeen, ’twas well past time she grew up. Many girls were wed by fourteen, and mothers by fifteen.
Lady MacLean would have to learn she was married to a man who placed practical considerations foremost—first, last, and always. He didn’t believe in romantic love, and he sure as hell didn’t intend to act as if he did. She’d have to settle for a husband who could administer their estates, secure their castle from marauders, and protect her and their children from harm.
Christ, what more could an intelligent wife expect?
Rory tipped the flask and took another slow, appreciative sip. Leaning against the parapet, he looked down at Kinlochleven’s upper and lower baileys, at the thick curtain walls, the barbican and gatehouse, where repairs had already been started. He gazed across the battlements to the night-shrouded forest beyond and the still waters of the loch, reflecting a wide swath of moonlight.
He held everything he’d ever hoped for in the palm of his hand. A mighty fortress, far-flung lands, and incredible wealth. And a young, healthy wife to give him bairns.
But the taste of ashes remained, despite the scalding effects of the raw spirits he’d imbibed.
His bride saw him as some kind of inhuman monster.
Rory bitterly rued the day he’d let his temper get out of control and shouted the epithets about her parents. He could understand Joanna’s indignation. Had any man ever been foolish enough to accuse Lady Emma of being a witch, he’d be rotting in his grave.
Back at Stalcaire Castle, Rory had made a grievous error. But it was surely a mistake that could be mended, given time. Although most marriages usually began under more auspicious circumstances, many couples started their life together as near strangers. Perhaps if he told Joanna he was sorry that he’d labeled her mother and father so harshly, she’d be willing to begin again, as polite acquaintances who’d only just met.
Taking a last swallow of whisky, Rory slipped the half-empty flask into his sporran. He’d given his unhappy bride enough time to cry herself to sleep. When she awoke to his presence in their large, soft bed, he’d apologize for what he’d said about her parents. Then he’d salvage what was left of his wedding night. And perhaps, if he were very fortunate, he’d sire an heir.
When Rory entered his bedchamber for the second time that evening, the candles were smoking stubs. The fire on the grate had died down to a few glowing embers. Only the shaft of moonlight coming in through the tall window illuminated the silent room.
The broken glass and spilled wine remained on the floor, along with the remnants of the crossbow. Its quarrel was still embedded in the door.
Joanna lay facedown atop the comforter just as he’d left her. Whether she’d fallen asleep or was only pretending, he’d soon discover. Avoiding the scattered debris, Rory crossed the rug to stand beside his bed. His bride didn’t stir.
He moved closer to her motionless form and touched her shoulder. “Joanna,” he said softly, “I’m sorry for what I said about your mother and father.”
She remained still, and he smiled knowingly—now she was going to dish up a taste of the silent treatment.
Women were so damn predictable.
“Joanna,” he repeated with quiet gravity. He wasn’t going to let her goad him into nearly losing control again.
When she continued to ignore him, Rory eased her onto her back and stared down at her tearstained face. She was fast asleep. With a long, resigned exhalation of air, he pushed the covers aside and slipped her slender form beneath them.
He watched Joanna turn on her side and snuggle into the warmth of the bedclothes. Bending, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
Then he slipped off his clothing, crossed to the far side of the bed, and sank down on the mattress. Propped on several pillows, Rory stacked his hands beneath his head and stared at the silken canopy above him.
He could wake up Lady MacLean, of course, though he knew from previous experience that she slept like the dead.
He could then insist on his rights as her husband and laird.
But he wanted the spirited lass to come to him eagerly. He wanted to see the need that pulsed within him mirrored in her eyes.
Damn—’twould be a long, uncomfortable night. But tomorrow he’d launch a seduction that would prove irresistible. And his bonny bride would discover, with his guidance, the delights that awaited her in their marriage bed.