Page 72 of Bride takes a Scot
“Good, because that privilege belongs to me.” Declan reached the keep and entered. Anse followed him inside. He found his family sitting at the table in the great hall as if nothing had happened. Isabella, Noah, Marian, Rhona, Claude, and Friar Faelan were enjoying a lavish supper. He didn’t know how to react. Relief didn’t come close to the emotions that swarmed him in seeing his wife safe.
“Isabella.”
She jumped up when she spotted him, then ran to him. Once she reached him, she pressed her arms around him. He settled his hands on her hips and set his head next to hers. “God, how relieved I am to see ye.”
“Och, aye? I was never in danger, Declan. All is well. Your enemy is in the pit behind the garrison, or at least that is what Anse told me. I thought you would like to question him before…”
“Before what, Wife?” He wondered if she’d realized she’d begun spouting Scots a bit. It endeared her to him all the more. Maybe he’d be able to get her to say more, later, when in the throes of passion. He blinked and forced himself to focus on her words. How he loved her…
“I don’t imagine you will allow him to live since he confessed to murdering Laird Campbell and that he accused you… He said many things before I got him to drink the tincture,” she said, unaware of his thoughts and intentions. But all that was about to change, here and now, in front of his clan and everyone who mattered to him.
“My bonny clever wife. Have I told ye how pleased I am that I married ye?”
“Not recently,” she said and giggled. She blinked up at him with her beautiful eyes and her pretty pink lips curved into a smile. “Come, Laird, have some supper.”
He shook his head with reluctance. How much he wanted to put his cares aside and focus on her instead of matters of the clan. But her calling him “Laird” like that had reminded him… “There are things I must see to before I can enjoy my supper.”
She waved her hand as if brushing his concerns aside. “Robbie is doing well. He was awake for most of the afternoon, but I gave him some more pain medicinal. He will be asleep until morning. I suppose then he will want to talk to you.”
“I will wait then to see him until the morrow. Is there anything else, Wife?” Declan grinned. His sweet wife had everything in order, and she didn’t appear to have suffered the slightest difficulty.
She pressed her finger to her chin in thought. Then she shook her head. “Nay, Husband. There is nothing else.”
He pulled her against him and kissed her hard. “Oh, there is much else, I’m sure ye know,” he said in a lowered voice. “I will find my way to our bed this night. Ye can be sure of that.”
“I’ll take that as a promise.” She released him then, and sashayed back to the table in an enticing way that he would find hard to forget. Perhaps that was her intent for Declan found himself smiling as he left the keep.
His men looked at him oddly, but they didn’t know that his bonny bride pleased him more than he’d realized she could. Still, it wasn’t befitting a laird to be so lovestruck, so he tried to replace his joyful mien with a harsher manner. It didn’t take him long to remember that Dermot Murray had invaded his home and might have done in his wife.
That made him fume with ire. Declan motioned to his men to bring up his foe.
Murray reached the surface and was dragged a few feet from the hole. He didn’t stand but lay on the ground, still half unconscious from whatever Isabella had drugged him with and waiting for his death.
“Get up, ye miscreant piece of cosh,” Declan muttered. He kicked him and commanded him to rise again. “Ye will look me in the eye and tell me to my face that ye planned to do away with me. I want to hear it from your mouth.”
Murray groaned and refused to move so Declan grabbed him and forced him to a standing position, but he staggered on his feet. “Why? I considered ye to be my comrade.”
“Vengeance is mine,” Murray said.
“I did nothing to ye to cause ye to seek vengeance. None of my clansmen affronted ye. Your villainous deeds were misplaced, Dermot.”
“Your mother did. She ruined my life.”
Declan shoved him back. “My mother?”
“Aye, your harlot of a mother lured my da into a sordid affair. She ruined my family. My mother suffered and killed herself when she learned that my da was with your ma. The guilt of murdering your mother was too much and my mother took her life. For this, you’ll all pay.”
Declan’s stomach tensed. He had heard of such a rumor and the fact that alluded to such an affair, but he wasn’t aware that it was between his mother and Dermot’s father. That his mother was killed by Dermot’s caused him to tighten his grip on the hilt of his sword. Yet he supposed Dermot’s mother sought retaliation and couldn’t hold the contempt of it. “Ye speak possible truths, but none of that has anything to do with me or Campbell. If indeed my mother was involved with your da, we should not bear the consequences of that.”
“Aye, she was. Ask your gran. Ask the elders. There was a time when my clan would have nothing to do with yours because of it. Och, I tried not to hold hatred for the MacKendricks. Alas, I cannot do that now that I know the truth. I hope ye all rot in hell.”
Declan’s arm shot out and he struck Murray square in the face. His foe fell back but he quickly regained his feet. “Ye are the one going to hell. Even if our parents met and had relations that had nothing to do with me or you. Ye allowed what they did to sully our friendship,” his voice beheld a low timbre. Though he wanted to shout and release his ire at the situation, he was more crestfallen that their friendship meant nothing to the man.
“Friendship, bah. There was no comradery betwixt us, perhaps only in your mind,” Dermot scoffed. “Ye fell for my ruse. Aye, I befriended ye all to bring ye low.” He spread his arms and taunted him, motioning with his fingers for Declan to advance. “I was making progress until ye went and married that woman. If the king had not called ye for the marriage, ye would have perished in that dungeon, or they would have hanged ye.”
Declan’s face heated with his anger brimming to his eyes. Heat crept around his neck and he fisted his hands. “What then? Once I was killed, what then?” He’d get his answers and would see to the vengeance that had long plagued him.
“Then I would have thwarted the Campbells and used them to overtake your clan. I could not allow Robbie to live. He would have sought revenge for the murder of his father.”