The Highlander's Defiant Captive (The Lairds Most Likely 4)

As the noise faded with the crowd hurrying down the steps to the hall, he turned to face Mhairi. He leaned his back against the door and his velvety brown gaze settled unwavering on where she sat in the bed.

"Well, my love?"

Chapter 22

Two deep blue eyes focused on him, sparked a blazing fire in his loins. Callum wanted Mhairi more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. Yet something about her expression in the shadows made him hesitate to seize her in his arms and set her on the path to paradise.

During their three days of betrothal, she'd become more rather than less mysterious to him. Right now, he wouldn't wager a groat on guessing what she was thinking.

He rushed into speech. He'd never felt so uncertain with a lassie. Not even with his first girl, sweet, laughing Morag MacNab who had led a fifteen-year-old lad to a grassy hollow and shown him the joy two bodies could create together.

"I hope they didnae frighten ye too much. It's an old tradition at Achnasheen to celebrate a wedding with revelry in the bedchamber."

Callum didn't tell her that not too many years ago, the revelers would have undressed the bride and groom until they were naked and rumor had it, stay to observe the bedding. He might like to uphold the old ways, but he wasn't such a traditionalist as that. His intentions for the rest of the night were strictly private, by God.

When she slid the covers down from her neck, he licked dry lips and the fire inside him flared up like flames in a draft of air. Two embroidered ribbons over her slender shoulders held up a drift of white nightdress. It dipped low over the bonny swell of her bosom. Candlelight gleamed on the creamy skin of her arms and throat and chest. Streaked that extravagant tumble of auburn hair with highlights of ruby and gold.

His eye caught on the angry red line across her upper arm where Sheena had cut her. The wound was healing well, but he’d never forget how close he’d come to losing her.

"I wasnae frightened." Her soft voice held no fear, so he believed her.

"They're so pleased for us."

"Aye." Mhairi didn't say it, but he knew she was recalling the unfriendly reception she’d received when she arrived at the keep. "It's lovely. I felt embraced today, as if your people mean to welcome me as their lady."

That was one of the reasons he'd let the hullabaloo continue as long as it had. He wanted his clan to think of his wife as a Mackinnon, not a hated Drummond.

"I'm glad."

He'd made it clear that anyone who resented serving a Drummond mistress could pack their belongings and leave. But during the last three days, he'd noticed that his people had started to like Mhairi for her own sake, not just because their livelihood was at stake if they didn't accept her.

A shadow darkened her expression, and she plucked at the covers. "I feared my role in Sheena's death might rouse some anger."

He shook his head. "My kinsmen are ashamed of what happened. Ye were a guest in my house, and you nearly came to grief."

That familiar humor tugged

at her lips. "No’ precisely a guest."

He shrugged. "Ye still should have been safe in my custody. Sheena's treachery reflects badly on all of us."

A silence fell. He guessed that Mhairi too thought of the sad procession that bore Sheena's broken body back to the castle. Yesterday, they’d held a funeral service for her, but the only person who seemed struck down with grief was Sel the Red. A pity that the girl’s spite and ambition stopped her finding a genuine home at Achnasheen.

Callum had spent the last few days in a whirl of happiness, but when he’d slept alone in the west tower, he'd suffered a nightmare or two. Dreams where he arrived at the Mare's Tail a second too late and watched Mhairi, not Sheena, fall to her death.

If he ever doubted how much he'd come to love the exquisite woman he'd wed today, he just had to recall his black despair upon waking.

"I forgive ye," Mhairi said, still in that soft voice.

"I'm sorry I let Sheena take ye."

Sorry? He'd been ready to cut his throat, half-mad with remorse that his reckless actions had brought his darling so close to dying.

Another faint smile. "I mean for everything."

He studied her across the room. "Do ye really?"

"Of course." She moved one hand in an eloquent gesture that swept away the bitterness of the past. "Dinnae fash yourself, Mackinnon. I'm no’ nursing a heart full of unspoken resentment beneath my smiles."