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Chapter Fifteen – Colin

I rounded the passageway to the bedchambers and when Freya made to turn to the right, toward her bedchamber and away from mine, I sighed, knowing my next words would make her even more skittish than she already was. I grasped her as gently as I could by the elbow to still her retreat. She flinched, turning toward me and jerking her arm out of my hold.

“Why did ye grab my arm?” she demanded, her chest heaving with likely fear.

“Ye need to sleep in my—our—bedchamber.”

“What?” The word was a squeak. “Nay! I—”

“Listen to me lass,” I said, trying to gentle my tone. “We did nae give the clan the public bedding, but if we do nae even sleep in the same chamber, they’ll talk and doubt my leadership if I can nae even get my wife to sleep in my chamber. I ken I’m asking a great deal, but we do nae even have to sleep in the same bed. I’ll take the floor.”

She stared at me a long moment, eyes wide, and wringing her hands. “Ye vow it?”

“Aye.”

“Fine,” she said.

We walked in silence to the bedchamber, and when I opened the door, I was pleased to see chamber lasses had laid out gowns for Freya as I’d instructed them to do. For a moment, looking at the gowns on my bed and seeing such feminine trinkets beside them like the hair comb and small gloves, reminded me of Magy and sent an ache through me.

“What’s wrong?” Freya asked.

I blinked the memory away. “Beg pardon?” I asked.

“Ye grunted as if ye had an ache.”

“It was nae anything.”

She snorted audibly then trudged across the creaky floorboards in our bedchamber, slippers echoing like judgments, until she got to the fire. It was crackling low in the hearth, the way it did in the mornings when the cold had crept in, and the dampness sat heavy over everything like a wet cloth. She whirled then in a motion that sent the skirt of her gown flaring out and pinned me with a look that was the sort of look that’d start a rockslide. Her lips were pursed like a quiver drawn too tight, and her chin jutted up with a stubbornness that was as old as time.

Those looks boded trouble. I knew from past experiences with my sister and Magy. I’d been pitted against them both in arguments enough to know these looks meant they would not bend unless by force, and I was not a man to use force against a woman. Any man who said women were weak was a fool or a liar. When a woman set her mind to something or got something stuck in her head, she was a more formidable foe than the best trained warrior in the world.

“Are those ye’re last wife’s gowns?” she demanded, motioning toward the frocks on the bed.

“Nay,” I said, my jaw twitching. I didn’t want to talk of Magy. I had, in fact, purposely exited the Great Hall for the bedchambers abruptly in hopes to end any further questions about her. I could see now that had been futile. To ease the lass standing before me I suspected I would have to offer some details. Knots formed in my shoulders with the thought of it. “Magy was much taller than ye.” Each word felt ripped from me. I didn’t speak of Magy, because it brought back the guilt of having failed her.

A hopeful look came to Freya’s face. “Will ye tell me about her?”

“Nay,” I bit out. I didn’t mean to be harsh, but talking of Magy was like opening up my chest with a serrated dagger, so someone could dig around, find my heart, and rip it out.

A dark look settled upon her face. “I do nae ken ye! Ye made me wed ye, and I do nae ken ye at all! I did nae even ken ye had been wed before.”

I slid my teeth back and forth thinking. She was right. I knew she was, but I would nae speak of Magy. By the gods, I could not. “Ye may ask me one personal question, but—”

“Oh, laird,” she said, rushing to me and dropping to her knees as if she were groveling at my feet. “Ye are so kind, so kind,” she said in an exaggerated tone of fawning. When she glanced up, she had a smirk on her face. Her merriment warmed me, and I had to fight the desire to throw back my head and laugh. She was astonishingly lovely when she was happy. The thought bothered me, because it meant she had affected me, and I wanted no part of that. I reached down to tug her up, but her eyes went wide, and she scrambled back and against the bed like a cornered animal.

Anger rushed through me at what she’d endured. I immediately dropped to my haunches, setting my forearms on my legs to let my hands dangle before me, so she understood I had no intension of striking her. “I only meant to tug ye up, so we could talk. I told ye, I will nae ever lay a hand on ye to hurt ye.”

She bit her lip as color flooded her cheeks, making her even lovelier. There was a vulnerability showing that made me ache for her. “Ye were nae supposed to touch me without asking. Remember?”

“I forgot,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ve nae ever had such a request.”

“Well,” she replied pushing herself up to sit on the bed. “I suppose ye have nae ever been with a lass who endured what I have.”

The desire to know was so strong, I could not hold in my question. “What did yer husbands do to ye?”

She arched her eyebrows at me. “What happened to yer wife?”

I felt my nostrils flare. She was a pushy lass. It was both annoying and good to know she had backbone. “Ye’re one personal question can be about anything but Magy.” I hadn’t meant to say her name, but it had slipped out. The guilt, as always was sharp.

She nodded. “Fine. And yer one personal question for me can be about anything but my past marriages.”

If I didn’t agree, I’d move one step away from getting Freya to relax around me and accept me as her husband. I needed to move one step closer, so I nodded. “Fine. May I sit?”

The wary look on her face at such a simple request made me angry for her. It took her a long moment, but finally, she nodded.

I closed the distance between us, but made sure when I sat on the bed that there was enough space between us that I would not touch her. “What do ye want to ask me?”

She tilted her head and crinkled her nose. I found myself wondering, as I waited for her question, if these were gestures she often used when contemplating something.

“Oh!” She gave an excited bounce on the bed which made me smile. “How did ye come to be such a good dancer? ”

Of all the questions she could have asked me she had managed to hit on one that instantly reminded me of Magy, and why I had lost her—Freya’s father. Here I sat in conversation with my enemy’s daughter. About Magy. It was not acceptable. “A lass taught me.”

She twisted her lips in obvious frustration. “That’s a verra short answer.”

“’Tis all that’s required,” I growled, thinking upon how I was sitting here with the daughter of the man that was responsible for my wife’s death.

“Are ye always so cranky?” she asked, rising and going to the table where the serving wenches had set out wine goblets and a pitcher.

“Aye,” I replied, irritated that I felt a twinge of guilt for my rudeness. I was trying to loosen her to make her willing to bed me. Simple. We did nae need long discussions where we learned each other. As she extended the glass to me, I stared at her hands. So small. So dainty. Fingers long and slim. Lash scars crisscrossing the back of her hands. I swallowed the knot of rage that had formed in my throat. “Did one of yer former husbands do that?”

She followed my gaze to her hands, and a blush stained her cheeks. “Aye. My laird did nae like the future I foresaw, but he liked my face and did nae want to scar it.”

It was said as if she were explaining how to bake a loaf of bread. No emotion. Just facts. There was enough emotion raging through me for both of us. “Which husband—”

“Ah, ah, ah.” She waggled her finger in my face. “Ye can nae ask me about my former husbands unless I can ask ye about Magy.”

I weighed my options for a moment, then suggested, “A question for a question? ”

“That seems fair.”

“I’m glad I’ve finally hit upon something ye deem fair,” I teased to which she allowed the smallest of smiles. I would count it as a step toward victory. I had to take my wins where they presented themselves. I knew the laird who had hurt her was dead, but I would have his name and never make an alliance with his clan. They were, from this moment forward, my enemies. His counsel, his clansmen, should have stopped him from hurting Freya.

“Which husband?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“Laird Matheson.”

I didn’t know I was going to rise until I did so.

“Where are ye going?” she asked, her voice pitched upward.

“To attack Laird Matheson’s home.” My jaw twitched and flexed under the pressure of my clenched teeth, and my hand now gripped the hilt of my sheathed sword.

“Ye’d attack his stronghold for me?” she asked, astonishment in her voice. “For what he did to me?”

I nodded.

“But he’s dead!” she gasped.

“Aye, but the men that stood by and watched him ill use ye should pay as well.”

She narrowed her eyes upon me. “Are ye trying to win my favor to make me willing?”

“Nay.” And that was the truth, currently. “’Tis an injustice that needs to be righted.”

She quirked her mouth in a funny half smile and half frown. “And ye’re the righter of all injustices.”

“Nay. But the ones levied at ye, I am.”

“Because?” Her eyebrow arched higher.

“Because ye are now my wife.”

Now her eyebrows dropped, and her gaze narrowed. “ Therefore, I am yer property?”

I heard the irritation in her voice. Understandable. I’d want to be no one’s property by law. Only by choice. “By law, aye. But to me, ye are my responsibility to keep safe.” Thoughts of Magy filled my head and put a catch in my throat.

“I see,” she said, slowly, as if she were turning over a possibility in her head. “Did ye fail to keep Magy safe?”

The lass had an infuriating ability to get right to the heart of matters I did not wish to discuss. “Aye,” I forced myself to say. When she opened her mouth as if to ask more, I said, “And that is the last question I will answer about her. I must get up early in the morning and train, so I need sleep.” That was as good of a reason to give to end this conversation as any.

“’Tis fine by me,” she said, but I did not miss the fear that sparked in her eyes.

I sighed. How many times would I need to assure her? I rose and made my way to lie in front of the fire. “I’ll be here. On this hard floor. Nay touching ye as I vowed until ye ask.”

The floor was hard.

Much harder than I’d thought it would be. I tossed and turned, my muscles tired from all the training and the swim in the loch to rescue the lass. I lay on my right, but sleep did not come. With a grunt, I turned to my left. It was no more comfortable than my right. I flipped back to my right with another grunt. That’s how it went until the fire died out. I flipped and grunted, flipped and grunted.

“By the gods!” Freya bellowed. “Ye are keeping me awake!”

“If ye care to take the floor,” I growled, “I’m more than happy to trade. ”

A long silence stretched in which I was certain she did not care to take the floor. Not a surprise. But then she said, “I’ll trade ye the bed for the floor if ye’ll answer any one question I wish to ask.”

I thought about that for a moment. I was certain she’d ask of Magy, but this ground was hard, and I had a question of my own. I could answer one question. “Fine. One question,” I said, sitting up only to realize Freya was sitting up as well. In the moonlight that streamed in from the window, I could see her profile. She had a long slender neck, and an image popped into my head of my kissing my way down it. Then unwanted, inconvenient lust hardened me. Of all the women to awaken the desire I’d thought dead, I could not comprehend why it would be the daughter of my enemy. I swallowed, trying to ignore the throb of yearning that had started. “Then I get a question as well.”

“Fine,” she said, scrambling to her knees. The coverlet fell to reveal that she’d been too fearful to even strip to her underclothes beneath her gown. Somehow, that made me not only desire her in this moment but feel protective of her. I gritted my teeth against all the new disturbing feelings. “Where did ye meet yer wife?” she asked.

Instantly, I had a mental picture of Magy as a child. All thin limbs and long blonde hair. And freckles everywhere, unlike Freya with her perfect skin. Mag. Both women were beautiful in their own different way. The thought made me blink. “I knew her as long as I could recall,” I replied. “She was the daughter of the clan vessel builder.”

“Ye chose her?” she said carefully. Purposely. “Aye? And she chose ye.”

“Clever,” I said. She’d had a reason for her question. The lass was smart.

“Thank ye,” she replied, not denying she’d been strategic .

“’Tis my turn,” I said.

“I suppose it is,” she replied.

“Did any of yer other husbands besides Matheson and Donald hurt ye?”

“Aye,” she said, the one word stiff. “But they did nae beat me as ye might be thinking.”

“I was nae,” I replied, thinking upon Magy and how she’d been ill abused. “There are worse things in this world than a beating.”

“Aye,” Freya replied, “there are.” The heaviness of her words confirmed what I’d thought. Her experience with the marriage bed had not been good.

“Stay in the bed,” I said, as I heard the squeak of it with her making to rise. There was no room in war for softness, and I was in a war with her father. And yet, a softness for her, for what she’d endured had appeared. Aye, I would use her for her gift, but I would never abuse her or cause her pain. “I will keep the floor.”

“That’s the least ye can do after snatching me and forcing me to wed ye,” she snapped.

I was glad for the darkness and the cover it provided for the smile her irritated reply had caused to come to me. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and I certainly didn’t want her to see it, and think I would be weak with her. I could not be. I had to wield her, if it came to that, like the weapon she was.