Page 8 of Lyon’s Gift (The Highland Brides #2)

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

“ Y ou can force me to stand at the altar, you know, but you cannot make me say the vows.”

Lyon merely smiled. “We shall see.”

“Never,” she swore again.

That was what they all said: Never.

Only Lyon knew better. He hadn’t met a woman yet he couldn’t woo with pretty words and a few stolen kisses. Women were fickle creatures with pudding hearts and insatiable vanities; they said never all the while their hands reached out to draw his lips to their lovely, greedy mouths.

That was his experience.

Not even his mother had been so different: all the while she’d claimed her independence of men, she’d been a slave to her excessive pride. And she was, in truth, a beautiful woman—even now in her later years. At two score and two years, his mother still commanded her choice of men. They gave her jewels and fine cloth and anything her heart desired... until she grew tired of them and discarded them for another. They even mourned her when she was gone. Lyon could easily count upon his two hands—and then some—the men whose hearts his mother had collected.

And yet his mother was not hard-hearted. She was kind and generous and good-natured to a fault. And if she never returned her lovers’ affections, she treated them well enough. Nay, his mother was simply... free and easy.

Or rather, her price was extravagant and she was quite discriminating, but she lived her life without concern for anything but the present. Lyon admired her for that. It was something of a mystery to him that most people either remained so entrenched within the past, or lived entirely for the morrow, that so few remembered to live for the moment.

And he was as guilty as any.

Well, not today... not this moment. He was following his greatest impulse just now, and damn the consequences. It had been much too long since he’d followed his blood knowledge.

His mother had cosseted him in his early years, encouraging him to follow his heart’s desires. She’d sacrificed to see him well educated. She’d made compromises for his sake when she would never have-done the same for herself. Lyon’s greatest regret was that he had forsaken his own institutions. He’d relied all of his life upon his size and brawn to survive amongst peers who’d viewed him as little more than a castoff, a poor relation. Though never acknowledged by his father, he’d grown up amidst the elite of Henry’s court. And it hadn’t been long before he’d discovered that might and sword brought respect in his cast-off world. And with little hope of ever earning his own fief or pursuing his own life, he’d resigned himself much too early to a mercenary way.

He’d compromised his convictions.

And for what? A fistful of jewels and a bloody name.

And an even bloodier sword.

Women had come and gone from his life during that time, but he’d regarded them as little more than passing fancies—a mutual perception, he was well aware—for he’d had nothing to offer them, nothing to give of himself. From the time he’d been a lad, he’d known he was destined to be alone. As a boy he’d stood apart from his peers, an observer, his hours spent in learning with the clergy. When he became a man, others trod lightly in his presence. It was the most he could have expected. Respect. Even if they didn’t quite see him as an equal, they’d respected him at least.

And that had been enough.

“What do you wish to be when you grow up?” David of Scotia had once asked him in gratitude for Lyon’s loyal defense of him.

Piers had thought about it an instant and had shrugged and answered simply, “It matters not as long as I am happy.” And had truly meant it.

“That’s all you want?” David had asked in surprise, cocking his head and staring at Piers as though he were a two-headed calf. “Well,” he’d announced importantly, “I wish to be king. And when I am king,” he’d promised, “I shall give all my friends whatever they wish for. If you wish for happiness, Piers of Montgomerie, I shall find it for you and then wrap it up in golden fleece and hand it to you upon a silver plate. What do you think about that?”

Piers had thought it a generous if pompous gesture, but decided he had best find happiness for himself, as the eighth son of a king—any king—was like never to sit upon any throne at all, but the one in his own garderobe. He hadn’t said so, however. He’d simply smiled his appreciation at his friend.

Well, David of Scotia had won his throne, after all, and he’d given Lyon the next best thing. He’d favored Lyon with land: good rich Scot’s soil, upon which he could build his own legacy. And suddenly, he was free to dream and plan.

The woman sitting before him was a new beginning.

An alliance with her brothers would bear him roots upon this land.

He wanted that.

He wanted her.

It wasn’t merely that she was beautiful, though she was. Wildly so—with her luscious red hair and cool green eyes, a man could lose himself in those eyes. Aye, but she was more... she was the first brick in his foundation.

“You are quiet,” he said at her back.

She stiffened before him, and her reaction made him smile. She might not particularly like him, but she certainly wasn’t indifferent toward him, and that knowledge pleased him. Love and hate were not so disparate emotions that one could not be manipulated into the other. They, at least, were extremes of emotion, while indifference was another matter altogether; it was the lack.

“And how would you have me sit before you?” she snapped, not bothering to peer back at him. “You’re a contemptible Sassenach who’s taking me against my will.”

Nay, he thought, she definitely wasn’t indifferent toward him, and that pleased him immensely.

Challenged him, even.

Her animosity was like a gauntlet tossed at his feet. He couldn’t walk away. Nor did he wish to, as he sensed the prize was unparalleled.

Nor had he lost a match as yet, and that knowledge gave him satisfaction as it never had before. He didn’t fight unfairly, but neither did he give any mercy. He fought to win.

If it was the last thing he accomplished, he was going to tame the little harridan sitting before him. He’d once been told his tongue wove words of gold. No woman was immune to praise. But his tongue had other talents that women never protested.

He gently lifted a strand of her hair in his hand. She didn’t seem to feel it... or perhaps she simply allowed it.

Soft.

His fingers reveled in the texture, silky and thick. He brought the strand to his nostrils and inhaled its scent. He knit his brows. “Lovely,” he told her. “Quite lovely. But the scent eludes me.”

She didn’t thank him for the compliment, nor did she seem to take the bait.

“I like it,” he continued.

“I noticed,” she answered, quite flippantly. “I can tell by the way you’ve buried your nose in it like a mindless hound, Sassenach. Enjoying yourself?”

Lyon couldn’t help but chuckle. Smart-arsed wench. He moved closer, drawn to the softness of her tresses like a lodestone to metal. “Mmmmm,” he murmured, “it rather seems I am.”

She shrugged away from him. “Do you mind not doing that?” she asked, sounding vexed now. “If you must know ’tis a rinse made from marrow. That’s what you smell. I use it ofttimes after washing my hair, else I cannot comb it. It’s one of my grandmother’s recipes. And it seems to have that same effect upon all animals—dogs in particular.”

He had to crush the urge to laugh. Was she calling him a dog? Certainly an animal, at the very least.

“Does it now?”

“Aye,” she declared, turning and jerking her hair from his grasp. “It does!” She turned her back to him once more, leaning away from him, so as not to touch him.

Lyon grinned. She was not going to be an easy victory, that was plain to see. But then... something worth having was certainly worth fighting for.

He’d raised his sword enough times for lesser things.

And he was certainly going to enjoy this particular battle. It thrilled him as nothing had in a very long time.

Perhaps she would appreciate a more direct approach? “I beg to differ, wench,” he said softly at her nape. “’Tis you who has that effect upon me, not your hair rinse.”

He felt her shiver, and was satisfied.

Amazing how her simple reaction to his words could warm his loins and heat his blood, when it had begun to take so much to stir him at all in the past years. It elated him.

He’d become rather jaded in his tastes. But she was different somehow. Even her barbs seemed to enchant him.

He bent nearer, savoring the sweet scent of her flesh. “Tell me, wench... shall I simply call you ‘wench’? Or do you have a name of preference?”

She turned and glowered at him. “Of course I’ve a name, Sassenach, but you can call me wench if it pleases you.”

“So you’ll not tell me?” He gave her his most wounded look.

She merely smirked, unmoved. “Seems not.”

He lifted his brows. “I could ask your grammie,” he proposed, certain she wouldn’t carry on the charade any longer as it was a lost cause. He planned to have her, will she nill she.

“Go on, then,” she answered, mocking him in return. “She’ll not tell you, unless I give her leave to, Sassenach, and I shall not give her leave to.”

Stubborn Scot.

“Somehow,” Lyon replied sardonically, “I guessed not.”

“That’s because Fia,” she told him quite pointedly, “respects the wishes of others. Unlike some people I’ve encountered.”

Lyon ignored the barb, determined to woo and win her. “Pity you won’t say...”

“Isn’t it?”

“Aye... a beautiful woman could only bear a beautiful name.”

She turned to cast him a wicked glare. “I should warn you, Sassenach, I’m not some empty-headed wench that flattery will fill my head so easily. You’ll not sway me with pretty words.”

Cunning vixen, but he didn’t believe it. All women loved adulation.

“Idiocy,” she assured him, “does not course through Brodie blood.”

“But madness does?”

Meghan opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again, uncertain how to reply to that particular remark.

He was baiting her, she realized by the tone of his voice. It was quite clear he did not believe her little tale. But all was not lost.

It had been said that madness cursed Brodie blood.

It wasn’t true, of course. It was just that no one understood her mother or her grandmother. The truth was that her mother had simply been aggrieved by lost love, while old Fia had been a bit eccentric... and yet the rumor had been spread... and Meghan could possibly use it now to her benefit. But she must be careful in answering... if she truly wished Montgomerie to believe her little fabrication. And she certainly did.

Surely he would let her go if he truly thought her insane? No man could willingly wed a woman who was mad.

Could he?

How now to plant the seed without being so obvious in her intentions?

And suddenly it came to her.

No need to sweeten her tone, as it would merely stir his suspicion. “Do you always believe everything you hear?” she asked, her tone as snappish as she could manage. Ire was as good a defense as any against the sound of his voice. God help her, the tone of it sent shivers down her spine... The feel of his breath against her nape sent gooseflesh racing across her skin.

He was silent an instant, and then answered, “What precisely is it I am to have heard?”

Meghan smiled to herself, pleased he should fall so easily into her snare. “Well no matter, it isn’t true.”

“What isn’t true?” His confusion was manifest in his tone.

“They’ve no idea of what they are speaking,” Meghan assured him, well aware that she was confusing him all the more and thinking she was enjoying this entirely too much. Och! Since when had she enjoyed telling a lie so much? What devil had gotten into her? And why did this suddenly seem more a challenge of wits than a clever machination to save herself from an unwanted marriage?

“You’re confusing me, wench,” he announced quite frankly.

Meghan tried to sound perfectly innocent. “I am?”

“You are.” He sounded too distracted to be precisely angry. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

“There is no curse on Brodie blood,” she swore. “ ‘Tis all a bluidy rotten lie!”

“I never said there was, wench.” He truly sounded befuddled now.

“Oh!” Meghan exclaimed, and hushed again, waiting.

He said nothing more, and she pretended an interest in the woodlands as they passed through them.

It had been a long time since she’d ventured this way. The MacLeans had owned this adjoining land and she and Alison had explored it all at some point or another. She and her grammie had as well, though old man MacLean had never taken quite so kindly to Fia’s foraging. Meghan vividly remembered the verbal warfare the two frequently engaged in—MacLean calling her a crazy old hag, and Fia calling him a mean, selfish, fat old arse.

The memory made her smile.

Lord, how she missed her sweet grammie. Fia had never cowered before anyone in her life—most certainly not to Meghan’s brothers, nor to old man MacLean. Not Leith, not Colin, or Gavin had ever understood their grandmother in the least.

Meghan secretly wished she could be her.

“What curse?” Lyon asked suddenly.

Meghan bit the inside of her lip. “Oh... never mind,” she answered evasively. She peered back to gauge his expression, then pretended an interest in Baldwin’s whereabouts. She bit her lip with feigned concern. “I wonder if my grammie will fare well enough with that daft mon of yours. ”

“I’m certain she’ll be just fine.”

“She has terrible gout,” Meghan elaborated.

“Does she?” he asked tersely. He sounded quite skeptical.

“Oh, aye,” Meghan exclaimed. “It pains her terribly.”

“Does it?”

“Aye.”

“I have to wonder,” he said, “just why it is you would lead your grandmother about with a rope.”

Meghan thought about that an instant before replying. “She’s half-blind, of course.”

“So she has the gout and she is blind, as well... Anything else?”

Meghan bit the inside of her lip, trying not to smile at their ridiculous discourse. “Well, she’s a little bit deaf sometimes, too, so you have to scream, or she may not answer.”

“You don’t say. Anything else?”

“Let me think,” she said. And then, “Nay... nay... I think not.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, I think so,” Meghan said, and smiled to herself. “Unless you consider chin hairs an affliction?”

“Chin hairs?”

Meghan could hear the incredulity in his tone. She sincerely hoped she was driving him as mad as she hoped he thought she was.

“Aye,” she said. “Fia certainly thinks they are.”