Page 87 of My Scot, My Surrender
Pain flicked over her face. “Ido. I’ve brought this on everyone. My family, your family.” She broke off with a pained gasp, her eyes falling away. “Watching all those children learning to fight today gutted me. They shouldn’t have to defend their lives because of what I’ve brought upon them.” A sob shook her frame. “They don’t even know the truth—that the Maclarens forced you into marriage.”
“Actually, I did it for a horse.” He tapped her hip. “A very valuable horse. Which I still have to collect, by the way. Not that I’m complaining about the other very pleasurable benefits to marriage thus far.”
She scowled up at him. “Brandt, they’re fighting for alie.”
“Sorcha,” he said gently, grasping her chin. “Look at me.” Damp, agonized eyes met his, and Brandt drew his thumb across one tear-tracked cheek. “I love you.”
Her pupils sharpened, her lips parting on a silent gasp. “Youloveme?”
“More than life. Regardless of where we started, we are here together. I’m here because I want to be. Withyou. I’ve found my family because of you. I was able to save my mother, my brothers, and my sister from a tyrant because ofyou.” He kissed her softly. “If you won’t hear me in English, I’ll say it in Gaelic until I’m blue in the face.”
A watery smile tugged at her lips. “All that?”
“Well, maybe not all,” he said, gathering the love of his life close. “Maybe just I love you, then—tha gaol agam ort.”
Sorcha’s eyes pooled with tears again, but her grin was luminous. “Well done, though your pronunciation needs some work. Your tongue needs to roll the vowels.” She reached up to cup his jaw, her tongue darting wickedly into his mouth. “Like so.”
Brandt pursed his lips, thoughtfully. “I may be in need of more lessons.”
“Happy to oblige,” his wife replied saucily. And as he scooped her into his arms, the last thing Brandt was thinking about when her sweet tongue took his to task was Gaelic.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Everyone had been wrong as to when Malvern would arrive.
Feagan sounded the horns as dawn broke across the skies. They did not have an extra day to prepare. They did not even have the morning. Malvern’s army was spotted crossing Buchanan lands to the south, at least a thousand men, most of them Scots. Sorcha cursed her countrymen but understood their betrayal in the same breath. Many of their families were starving, banished from land and home, and Malvern would have offered them more coin than they knew what to do with. The scouts had reported that the army flew the marquess’s colors, but Malvern himself had not been spotted.
Dressing quickly, Sorcha wondered whether he would even show his face. He was not known for braving the front lines with any of his infantry during a battle. No, he stayed in the rear, in relative safety like the gutless coward he was. Brandt hurried back into the room, his face tight. He wore the Montgomery kilt again and looked every inch the laird of his clan. His eyes snapped to hers, opening in surprise. She had worn Montgomery colors, too, a sash made from his plaid draped over her shirt and belted over her breeches.
He drew her into a swift kiss. “You’ll need to stay here with the women and children. They will need you to defend them.” Brandt’s eyes met hers, his heart in them. “You’re the only one I trust with my mother and Aisla.”
Sorcha nodded. She wanted to be on the front lines with him at his side, but she understood his fear—he had only just found his family. She grabbed her husband’s shirt by the fistfuls and dragged him to her for another hard kiss. “Don’t die.”
He shot her a wicked grin as they descended the staircase. “I won’t. I plan on thoroughly seducing my Gaelic teacher. I’ve a feeling she finds me bonny.”
Which would explain why she was smiling when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Her amusement faded quickly. The great hall was filled with pale-faced women and children. Aisla and Catriona were at the middle of it, giving instructions and calming those who were crying. There were a lot of tears, and for good reason. Montgomery was about to be under attack, and just days after it had been freed from the bleak rule of a madman. Sorcha hurried to where Aisla was waiting and stopped, stock-still, as the girl turned to face her.
She was dressed in a blue shirt, men’s breeches—Callan’s, Sorcha presumed—and boots. But that wasn’t what shocked the words from Sorcha’s mouth and made her heart constrict painfully. Three lines of green pigment slashed one half of her face from brow to cheek, much like Sorcha’s own scars.
“Ye’re the bravest lass I know,” Aisla said. “I wanted some of yer courage.”
Sorcha was struck speechless. All she could do was take Aisla’s shoulders in her hands and squeeze, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. It was unimaginable that another person would look upon her scars as a symbol of bravery, and yet here this lass stood, her war paint mimicking the scars Sorcha had always been made to feel ashamed of.
Never again.
“We’ll take courage from each other,” she told Aisla, and meeting Catriona’s gaze, then several other women standing around them, she added, “We are not helpless women. We stand together, protecting the wee ones and fighting as warriorshere, should any of Malvern’s men make it through. We are Montgomerys, and we defend what is ours!”
Heads nodded, grim but resolute expressions transforming many of the panicked faces she saw. Sorcha felt her husband’s hand on her waist, and she turned to him, sinking into his embrace. She breathed in his scent, the one her body had already memorized, and ran her palms over his broad shoulders. It was tempting to hold on to him, to cling to him and command that he come through the battle unscathed. But the other women were watching her, and as their lady and laird’s wife, she had to display the same courage she’d just demanded of them. She had to be worthy of the painted scars on Aisla’s cheek and brow.
“Say it again,” she whispered.
Brandt’s lips moved against her forehead. “Say what?”
“That you love me,” she answered. He’d said the words a handful of times before, and they’d caressed her body and soul as well as any part of his body could. She needed to hear them again, and in the privacy of her own mind, she admitted why: because it might be the last time.
“I love you, Sorcha,” he said, kissing her temple, then her brow. “And I’ll tell you as much every day for the rest of our lives. Our very long lives, in case you were thinking any different.”
She smiled, not surprised in the least that he’d read her mind.
