Page 20 of Beyond Dreams

Duncan’s mouth thinned in rage and Holly thought she might have gone too far. Hastily, she stumbled through a feeble apology. “Not you. I’m not saying you’re the nightmare, not you specifically, but...just everything.”

He remained unappeased, asking with ill-concealed contempt, “Everything? But nae me.”

Realizing she was only making it worse, Holly covered her face with her hands for a moment, attempting to gather her thoughts. When she lowered her hands and faced him again, he appeared as savage and ill-tempered as before, but she’d managed to reel in her anxiety. Her predicament was not caused by him. He was—whether he would ever know it or not—a victim as much as she was.

“I apologize,” she said, her tone neutral now. Absently, she raked her hair back off her forehead and her shoulders. “I’m...I’m just not myself right now. A lot has happened over the last few days. Can I...do I have a bedroom here? I think I need to lie down.”

In response to this, her new husband looked at first as if he would deny her this simple request. His scowl deepened while he literally appeared to chew on his answer, his cheek and jaw moving rigidly.

At this point, Holly had had just about enough of fourteenth century brutes. Moreover, she had some idea with this man, she should attempt to showsomebackbone and not only cave into the absolute weakness she felt, which he’d already accused her of feeling; she didn’t want to be walked all over as she had been for the last two days.

“It’s a simple request,” she told him. “I just need a little time to...acclimate.”

So, he wasn’t completely an insensitive, unfeeling brute. He nodded tightly and summoned a hovering maid, giving instructions in Gaelic to the wide-eyed young woman.

Holly spared a weary glance around the hall then, noting its few occupants, all with eyes on the MacQuillan and his new wife. The hall was possibly twice the size of the great hall at Hewgill House, its ceiling two stories high and lined with gleaming hardwood. At one end was the high table on the raised platform, curiously situated out from the wall as there was four different doors or archways beyond it. A huge fireplace was built into the wall opposite the door and was flanked on the left and right with tables and benches, pushed out of the way, leaving most of the cavernous room bare.

Feeling her husband’s dark gaze upon her, Holly returned her attention to him.

He said nothing but directed her with hand gestures toward the waiting maid and Holly was compelled to follow the teenager toward the stairs. Thinking she should express her appreciation to her husband for the respite, Holly turned, meaning to say thank you. Duncan MacQuillan had already put her from his mind, it seemed. She saw only his broad back as he strode away from her.

***

Despite his best efforts, Duncan was not so easily able to put Ceri MacHeth from his mind. Having removed himself from the hall and keep, he found Graeme in the stables. Stripes of gray daylight splintered through rails, shining upon the straw Graeme was raking from the stall of his horse.

Glancing around to make sure their conversation would not be interrupted or overheard, and noticing the stable master and his stablehand, Awlay and Gilbert, in the far corner near the tack room, Duncan said to his captain in English, “Does she seem right to you?”

Graeme snorted out a chuckle, either at Duncan’s brusque opening or the ruthlessness of the question.

“I dinna ken you’re speaking of this here lady,” Graeme said with some affection about his courser in the stall. “Sure and something is nae right, as ye say. Can nae put my finger on it, though. And nae just her, but the whole affair, being so poorly welcomed and the wedding nae feasted.” He stopped moving the rake, laying both hands over the top of it while he slanted a crooked grin at Duncan. “She, on the other hand—odd noises from her mouth aside—only seems wrong for how she differs from her foul kin.Jesu, Dunc, but you canna grumble about Ceri MacHeth, nae when she looks as she does—and nae only for how shockingly bonny she is, but for how...Jesu, how innocent and fretful she appeared, as if she dinna ken what was happening or why. So aye, something was afoot, but dinna blame your new bride for whatever plots Black Hugh might be devising. That lass is ignorant, I’ll nae ever believe otherwise.”

Duncan nodded, contemplating this. Admittedly, he might have come to the same conclusion. Ceri might have only been caught up in her brother’s schemes, but damn if she didn’t look as if she were hidingsomethingfrom him.

Graeme’s grin increased, drawing Duncan’s attention and a growing frown.

“Might want to make it real, the marriage,” Graeme suggested. “And quickly. Dinna give her an out or Hugh any weapon to use against you. Dinna leave to chance any part of the contract. Consummate the marriage. That, at least, should be nae hardship.”

No, he didn’t suppose it would prove difficult on his end. Finding a bit of dark humor himself, mostly because this was not at all how he’d ever envisioned his marriage, so lacking in pomp and formality, and with a bride who’d just referred to him as part of a nightmare, Duncan smirked, “Aye, I’ll do my best.”

Graeme resumed his raking and said, “I still ken we should keep the watches posted in those two locations.”

Duncan nodded. “I agree. I dinna trust MacHeth anymore today than I did yesterday. If a call comes from Wallace, and we suspect MacHeth yet of treachery in these parts, we’ll be forced to leave behind a full unit or more.”

Graeme harrumphed. “Aye, but none of those will be any of these MacHeths we’ve just taken on.”

“Jesunae,” Duncan concurred. “I’ll nae leave the wolves guarding our sheep.”

“Go on then, mate,” Graeme urged, his smirk returning, “get to your bride and make the union guid. Sure and a grim deed to be had, but I’ve faith in your ability to see it done.”

Duncan ignored this, turning away from Graeme and departing the stables. He did not seek out his bride straight away but saw first to several other matters of business, meaning to have his work done and his mind cleared before he approached his bride. Thus it wasn’t until darkness had fallen that he sought out the second floor of Thallane and Ceri MacHeth, now MacQuillan.

Though he’d never been one to be so readily plagued by apprehension, he’d also never wed before, and had never strode forward with the intent of claiming his marital rights from a bride who’d likened him and her marriage to a nightmare. Nevertheless, he did know that he needed to make the union official, so that neither his bride nor her kin could claim the marriage was not real because if hadn’t been consummated.

All his plans to be decisive, to be firm but not threatening—he did have to live with the woman for the rest of his life or hers—fell by the wayside when he entered the chamber she’d been assigned and found her sleeping as had been her wish earlier, many hours ago by now.

Duncan paused just inside the door, having rapped lightly to no response. At his directive, Ceri had been put in one of the chambers that overlooked the bailey, he having considered that the ones that faced the sea, such as his own bedchamber did, might be too drafty and too cold during the winter season.

He was, once again, rather arrested by the sight of her, even as there was no expression on her face save for peacefulness. No lines crinkled her forehead or bent her brows. Those wildly expressive brown eyes were shuttered to his gaze. Soft color painted her sweet, generously carved lips but they were still, plump and unmoving under the hand curled beneath her chin.

---