His Judas Bride

Chapter 10

Go now? Well, thank Christ, especially if it meant seeing the back of this troublesome piece. Excuse him for thinking. but wasn't he the one who gave orders around here though?

Cursing, he strode to the door to call Fallon inside. She shook her head and went on plodding back and forwards in the snow. He clenched his fist on the jamb. Was anyone prepared to do a damn thing he told them this morning?

He cursed even more foully. The thing was he couldn't have got past Dug. But there she'd stood cool as a mountain stream as if she'd no idea what she'd done. An animal that had seen the heat of battle, chased and savaged McGurkie stravaigers, torn the throats and jaws of horse and dog alike, had been terrified out of its coat by her.

A damned wisp who didn't even reach his shoulder. What had she been up to exactly? Snooping? Spying? Runningafter that damned army he'd sent packing?

Well, within half an hour they would be underway. Yes. He would see how eager she was then, how long it took before she ran the same screaming mile all Ewen's women did. The Brotherhood would make wagers on it. His? Five seconds. If that.

Her cloak looked as if she'd slept in it, for all she'd stood there coolly defying him. He knew because he frequently did such things himself. That was if she'd slept at all.

So, for all her talk about things being fine and the contained way she'd glided past him into the chamber, her face set, her chin so high, the miracle was she didn't strike her forehead on the lintel, she was up to something. The disconnect between what she said and what she did was screaming.These eyes of hers were dead.

Half an hour?

He'd got to this morning, hadn't he. Last night he hadn't thought he would.

She would bed Ewen if he had to damn well hold her legs apart himself. And nothing she could do or say would stop him.

And to make doubly sure, he was setting one of his men on her chamber door and staying put here in the hall till the half hour was up.

* * *

"The half hour is up."

As her voice pealed across the hall with the clarity of a bell, Callm shoved a spoonful of steaming porridge into his mouth.

Damn, but did she have any idea what it was like eating breakfast in such congenial surroundings? A fire roaring in the hearth. Half a dozen or so Brotherhood men, those who had joined him this morning, and those who had been here last night, dotted around the table. Fallon dotting about with plates of oat bannocks. Dug at his feet. Meg and the serving girls pottering in the background.

Dinner? Who knew what that would be? Or where it would be eaten. Tea? A joke usually. Supper? Aye right.

Only there she stood, in the doorway, the topaz eyes like shards beneath the incongruous black brows. The ones that gave her that questioning, furtive look. Her face pale as a statue's.And the laughter at the long trestle table ceased, as if Wee Murdie, Snosh, and the others sitting there, had all just died,a terrible death at that.

His mother, Lady Breanne, had taught him it was rude to talk with his mouth full. He shoveled in another spoonful of porridge—a large one—and chewed it around. If the chit couldn't make out a word he said, so much the better. "What of it?"

"You said half an hour."

She could tell the time. Well? Wasn't that good? So she could also understand this, standing there contained as she liked, he wasn't for budging. He frowned.

"Are you in some kind of a hurry?"

Because hell, the half hour couldn't be up. Could it? Not even five minutes of it. And even if it was, what was another ten minutes? Another fifteen for that matter? Meg's porridge wasn't just the best, the thickest, honeyed by the bees she let loose on Dunalpin meadow, it was the sweetest, the most delicious, which was why—he reached across the table for the ladle—he was having himself some more.

"On the contrary."

"Well then …"

"What I mean is unless I am mistaken, sir, you told me, quite clearly, to be ready in half an hour—"

"That was then, this is now. Can't a man eat in peace with his friends?" He sprawled back in the carved wooden chair. Even that was good to sit in when he thought about spending the rest of the day in the saddle his fingers bitten by frost. "Me and the lads here, are just having ourselves—"

"—forty-five minutes ago. So, let's go, shall we?"

Callm concentrated on ignoring the self-satisfied way her eyes glinted, for the way Wee Murdie's bulged out their sockets and Snosh sprayed oatmeal globules down his tunic.

When it came to who was in charge here, he refused to be undermined by the dazzling challenge that radiated from the tips of her prettily disordered hair, to the toes of her soft leather boots, peeking out beneath the hem of her midnight blue cloak.

She was going to marry the turd. Now that she was, his body responding as it did was one thing. As had been clearly demonstrated—twenty-five minutes ago, when her insistence they leave now had quite rattled his assurance about who was in charge—he wanted no further dents in his armor. Although he didn't like women who cowered in fear of him, he refused to be spoken to like this before his men by any woman. He especially refused to be spoken to like this by some Edinburgh educated tinker piece who had somehow imprisoned Dug.

"What are you?" Deliberately he worked a lump of porridge off his teeth with his tongue. "A speaking clock?"

"I hardly think so, because then I should have come in here fifteen minutes ag—"

"Isn't that good? Lads, the princess can count." He reached for the ale jug. Yes, he would win this battle. "Just wait till she gets there. Then what she'll be is down on those pretty knees of hers begging me to bring her back here. Oh please, I'd sooner die untouched."