Page 1 of The Outlaw's Bride
Chapter One
Betrothed
Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Early autumn, 1346 AD
“SO DELICATE AND fair … I shall enjoy taking yer innocence.”
Aonghus Budge’s words brought a cold sweat to Adaira MacLeod’s skin. He spoke as if they were alone and used a lover’s voice. Fear clawed its way up Adaira’s throat. She’d barely been able to eat a mouthful of the meal before her anyway. Now, it would be impossible.
“What’s wrong?” Chieftain Budge crooned, leaning in closer. “Have yer sisters not told ye what happens between a man and a woman?”
It was shortly after dawn. Adaira sat with her kin and their guest upon the dais in the Great Hall of Dunvegan keep. It was just a day after Adaira’s father had announced that Chieftain Budge would wed his youngest daughter.
Adaira was still reeling from the shock of it. She felt utterly betrayed by her father.
The Great Hall was a lofty space dominated by a huge hearth at each end and rows of tables where her father’s men now attacked plates of fresh bannocks, spreading them with butter and honey.
The rumble of male voices, interspersed with laughter, echoed through the hall, masking her betrothed’s words from the others at the chieftain’s table.
Adaira swallowed and reached for a cup of milk, anything to distract her from Budge’s love-talk. Raising the cup to her lips, she took a tentative sip—a mistake, for her belly now roiled. Across the table she caught her sister Rhona’s eye.
Statuesque, with a mane of thick auburn hair, Rhona sat next to her husband, Taran MacKinnon. They’d only recently wed, but Adaira had never seen Rhona so happy. She swore her sister grew more beautiful with each passing day. Taran, whose scarred face made him forbidding to look upon, had indeed won Rhona’s heart.
Rhona put down the wedge of bannock she’d been buttering and fixed Adaira with a look she knew well. Even though Rhona had been unable to discern the words that Aonghus Budge of Islay was murmuring to her, she’d guessed their meaning. There was concern in her sister’s eyes.
Adaira had never been good at hiding her feelings. Her father had always said she wore them on her face for the whole world to witness.
“Demure, I see.” There was amusement in Budge’s voice now. “I like that in a woman … less cause for me to give ye a beating … although I’d enjoy that too.”
Adaira made the mistake of looking at him then.
The Budge chief was a portly man with florid cheeks and greying brown hair. He was around her father’s age—in his mid-forties. There was something about the warrior that had always frightened Adaira, for Aonghus Budge had been a regular visitor to Dunvegan over the years. She wasn’t sure if it was the slack expression he often wore or his mean pale-blue eyes that frightened her. His thick lips reminded her of two fat slugs, and he had coarse, blunt-tipped fingers. Her heart quailed at the thought of those hands on her body.
The chieftain grinned, revealing yellowing teeth of which a few were missing. “But with a little fire in yer belly … that’ll make ye fun to bed.”
Bile rose in Adaira’s throat, burning like vinegar.
She tore her gaze from his and stared down at the uneaten piece of bannock before her. Fear pulsed through her; she was starting to feel light-headed from it.
To distract herself, she glanced right to where her eldest sister, Caitrin, sat. Dressed in a black kirtle, a veil covering her pale-blonde hair, Caitrin was the moon to Rhona’s sun. Her beauty was cool and untouchable, even more so this morning for she wore a shuttered expression.
Caitrin was in mourning for her husband, Baltair, the chieftain of the MacDonalds of Duntulm. He’d fallen in battle two days earlier during a confrontation with the Frasers. But despite Caitrin’s somber clothing, Adaira knew her sister did not truly mourn Baltair MacDonald. He’d been a cruel, brutal husband. Adaira was relieved her sister was free of him, although she wondered what the future would hold for Caitrin. It wouldn’t be long before their father would start looking for another husband for her.
No wonder Caitrin was planning to leave this morning and head north to the MacDonald stronghold of Duntulm. There, she’d be free from her father’s scheming for a while at least.
Adaira looked to the head of the table then, to where Malcolm MacLeod himself sat. As usual, her father had the appetite of ten men; a mountain of fresh bannocks sat before him, and he feasted upon them as if he’d not eaten for days. A comely man in his youth, her father’s muscular frame now ran to fat. Rhona had inherited his auburn hair and storm-grey eyes—and his fiery temperament.
The MacLeod clan-chief was not a man lightly crossed, as Morgan Fraser had recently discovered. The two clans had feuded for the last few years, ever since the Fraser chief’s wife, Una, had run off with Malcolm MacLeod. As always, Una sat silently next to her husband. Dark-haired with sharp blue eyes, Una was a woman who saw much but said little. Adaira had never trusted her.
“There’s no point looking to yer father,” Budge’s voice cut in. “His mind is made up, lass. The stronger ye protest, the more he’ll dig his heels in.”
Adaira swung her gaze back to her betrothed. “Rhona told me yer wife didn’t fall down the tower steps,” she gasped out the words before her courage failed. “She said ye pushed her.”
Chieftain Budge went still. His pale eyes narrowed, and those thick lips stretched into an unpleasant smile. “Folk love to gossip,” he murmured, casting Rhona a dark look. “Ye shouldn’t listen to them.”
Adaira raised her chin as she’d seen Rhona do countless times when confronting men. The gesture made her feel a little braver. “So ye deny it?”
