Possession of a Highlander Page 14

  She had researched pregnancy. Extensively.

  Her studies indicated a man’s seed grew potent through abstinence. Scholars recommended a week or two of chastity prior to copulation for the highest chance of conceiving.

  She and Colin had not gone a day without relations. Her cheeks heated, and the telltale rush of moisture warmed between her thighs.

  Granted, the frequent coupling was done through desire more than her intended prevention, but the end result was still the same. His seed would remain weak and her womb empty.

  Magda’s hand curled around Brianna’s and pulled her away from musings that would otherwise lead to an interruption in Colin’s work. “My lady, you will be a wonderful mother. The kind of mother yours would have been were she allowed.”

  Guilt robbed Brianna’s words of strength, and her voice came out in a weak whisper. “Thank you, Magda.”

  Perhaps Colin would not subject their offspring to the same unhappiness of her own childhood. Thus far, nothing in their marriage had been the same as her parents’ union.

  But an innocent child was not something she was willing to risk.

  So long as she could keep Colin’s interest at night, such a curiosity would never be realized. And that was for the best.

  • • •

  The movements of the servants throughout the castle had long since ceased, yet still Brianna lay awake in bed. Awake and alone.

  Had the mattress always been so large when she’d slept in it by herself? Had the room always been so disturbingly quiet?

  She shifted for the countless time, the warmth of her arousal long since cooled with her unease. Colin had missed supper with no word to her of his absence.

  Bitterness rose in the back of her throat, and the heavy meat pie eaten earlier roiled in her stomach.

  Something kept her husband from their bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Colin settled in beside Brianna’s sleeping form, his movements slow lest he wake her. The silver light of the moon shone through partially open shutters and lit her porcelain skin.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms and let the warmth of her sleeping body ease the late-night chill from his flesh. But he dared not, not when he reeked of Marie’s perfume. She always wore more than necessary no matter how many times he had chastised her for it. The French and their heavy scents.

  He lay stiffly beside his wife and smiled into the darkness. Marie was still as he remembered. Vivacious. Young. Impetuous.

  Her tinkling laugh had filled the room upon her arrival, and her flashing blue eyes sparkled like sapphires.

  Several years had passed since he’d last seen her, and most of the night was spent making up for lost time. When he finally mentioned the letters, he knew Brianna would be well asleep. Surely the additional hour or two would cause no harm. Seeing his wife asleep beside him confirmed his assumption.

  The smile faded from his lips at the thought of those letters.

  Code. The whole damn set was written in some kind of code.

  Together, he and Marie had pieced together half of the first page. A love letter of some sort. Certainly nothing that would assist Colin in his cause to thwart Lindsay’s investigation.

  Brianna shifted in her sleep and rolled toward him. She nuzzled the pillow, and her soft sigh whispered across his shoulder.

  Guilt fell heavy over Colin. He should have been in the room to see her to bed as he had every night before. At the very least, he could have sent word to let her know he would be late.

  Tomorrow he would make a concerted effort to send Marie away earlier, to ensure he was home with Brianna before she drifted off to sleep.

  • • •

  Brianna nibbled the inside of her lower lip and stared at several bolts of brightly colored fabric. Jonathan stood protectively between her and Magda in the shade of the luckenbooth, hand poised over the hilt of the blade at his side.

  The merchant leaned across the smooth counter of his opened booth, and his voice rose above the bustle of the marketplace. “The lady would look lovely in this shade of pale pink.” His creamy white fingers trailed over the layers of fabric in front of her.

  “Ah, or perhaps this.” He lifted a bundle of shimmering russet silk. Several bolts of fabric toppled into its empty slot. “This would complement the lovely golds in your hair, Lady MacKinnon.”

  Lady MacKinnon.

  The source of her discontent. The reason for her frivolous purchase.

  A fortnight had passed since her husband had ceased to love her to sleep, since he had bothered to come to bed with her, since he sought to woo her as he once had.

  Jonathan’s eyes flicked across the crowd. He was tense. She could feel his unease as surely as she could see it lining his eyes. He did not wish to be here and did not like her lingering so long, only he was too respectful to state such.

  “I’ll take the red,” she decided.

  The merchant’s eyes lit up, proof she had indeed spent a tidy sum.

  The coin was hers from the start, earned through a life beneath the earl’s fist. She may spend it how she pleased, and presently its weight fell heavy in the purse at her side.

  Magda collected the bundled fabric in preparation to leave, but still Jonathan’s stiff posture did not ease.

  Brianna placed several coins on the wooden counter and thanked the merchant before turning away from the building. Her metal pattens clanked against the dirt-spattered cobblestones, and her mind drifted toward Colin once more.

  He did not come to their bed as she went to sleep each night, nor was he there when she awoke the next day, but proof existed that he slept beside her. The way the rumpled blanket was pulled back, the dent against his pillow.

  Perhaps she had been similarly distracted when she ran Edzell. Was it possible she could so easily forget?

  But she was no longer in charge of Edzell. She had relinquished her freedom for honeyed words that melted away all too quickly. And why wouldn’t they? Colin had what he wanted.

  A woman swept from one of the luckenbooths across the street, the brilliant red of her gown a startling contrast to the milky white of her skin. Her blonde hair hung in silken waves down her back and shimmered like rays of sunshine.

  Her head lifted with an air of entitlement and peasants scuttled out of her path, their wide eyes feasting upon her ethereal beauty.

  She was a Venus among mortals. The kind of beauty who made women with plain brown hair and muddy-colored eyes slip into the background.

  The kind of beauty who wore the same costly russet silk with more finesse than would ever be possible for someone like Brianna.

  “Who is that?” Brianna asked, her gaze never leaving the exquisite woman who made her way down the street.

  Jonathan cleared his throat, obviously not unaffected himself. “Marie D’Aubigne.”

  “I’ve not seen her before,” Brianna murmured. There was a sway to the woman’s hips that bordered on vulgar. Certainly not the gait of a lady. “How is it I have not yet met her?”

  Jonathan shifted from one foot to the other. “She has only recently arrived.”

  Brianna turned to face him. His flushed cheeks and averted gaze told her more than he was saying. Her stomach curled into a hard knot.

  “How did she come to arrive?” she asked. Her mouth was so dry it was a wonder any words came out at all.

  Jonathan’s throat bobbed. He looked across the street, in the opposite direction of the woman. “At your husband’s insistence, my lady.”

  The breath sucked from her lungs and left her wounded heart at the mercy of her next question. “And when did she arrive?”

  Time dragged in slow painful seconds that lasted lifetimes. Poor Jonathan pulled in a steadying breath. “A fortnight ago, my lady.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brianna’s face smeared in a distorted reflection within the Venetian looking glass. Her hands braced against either side of her washbasin table. Finally she was alone.

&nbs
p; Tears stung her eyes, and her stomach wavered with a nausea that threatened to spill from her lips. If she possessed the energy to walk three steps, she would throw her body upon the mattress and sink into its comforting embrace.

  All her power had been spent in her forced stroll from the marketplace. Supper had been torture, a brutal charade where the food turned to dust on her tongue and the flavors soured in her belly.

  Colin knew something vexed her, she could see evidence of such in his wary gaze. Her nails dug into the smooth washbasin until her knuckles stretched taut over bone.

  Did he compare her to that woman on the street?

  A ragged gasp tore from Brianna’s throat.

  She could never compete with such beauty. What a pathetic fool she had been to have thought to keep her husband’s affection. To fall for his sugared lies.

  If only this were a figment of mischief summoned by Morgan le Fay, like when Sir Gawain had encountered his deal with the Greene Knight. But Brianna’s wayward husband did not bear a green silk girdle of shame as Gawain had in the Greene Knight—instead his shame scorched her cheeks and scalded her poor heart.

  The low groan of her door opening shot through her frazzled control, and her tense muscles jerked her body forward. The ewer clattered against the basin, betraying the awkward reaction.

  “Brianna?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Not him. Anyone but him.

  The air froze in her chest. She refused to breathe. To do so would inadvertently take in the scent of him and summon forth memories scarred upon her soul. Marks of her humiliation, denoting the time she had fallen prey to pretty words like some silly courtier. She had never been a silly courtier. She had always been clever. Intelligent. Educated.

  Her eyes opened to the looking glass, and disgust lashed at her withering pride. The elegant hairstyle Magda had fashioned that morning fell in limp strands around her flushed face.

  A movement in the glass caught her attention, and a wave of trapped panic surged through her.

  He moved closer.

  “Brianna?”

  She did not want him here in her room. His presence burned a hole in the shield of her privacy and lay bare an intimate part of her life she no longer wished to share.

  Her heart slammed in her chest, preparing for a battle she did not know how to fight.

  She spun around to face him, but the bitter words she’d intended wilted on the tip of her tongue.

  Was he always so tall? So imposing?

  He took a slow step toward her, his face unreadable. Her face, she knew, was an open display of emotion.

  Another disadvantage.

  He lowered his head, his eyes intent on hers, as if seeking a connection.

  She severed any chance of that by wrenching her gaze away to stare out the window, into the graying light of dusk.

  His hands caught her icy fingers. The same hands that had once stroked her flesh into submission. The same hands that caressed his blonde whore. Fury and humiliation flared to life.

  Brianna snatched her fingers from his and shot him a look that left her hatred and anger unveiled.

  He regarded her for a moment, his eyes devoid of emotion as he searched her face. Was he glad for her distance? Relieved?

  “Ye’re no happy with me.”

  Not happy didn’t properly encompass the rage smoldering within her, the splintering disgrace in her heart.

  Brianna crossed her arms tightly over her chest, ensuring he could not grab her hands again, hoping he would go away.

  Instead, he pulled the chair from beside the washbasin and slowly sat down.

  “I have been gone often,” he said softly. “My absence has upset ye. I wanted to tell ye—”

  “I already know.” Brianna’s muscles tightened once more.

  Surprise lifted his brows and his lips parted. Lips she had once thought sensual. Delicious.

  “I dinna understand. How did ye find out?” His eyes narrowed. “Did someone tell ye?”

  “No one needed to tell me.” Her words quivered and she hated her weakness. “I saw her.”

  “Her?” His brow furrowed for the briefest of moments. “Ye mean Marie?” A wide grin split his face.

  A grin!

  She lunged forward and thrust her finger to his chest. “You offend me with her presence, but do not insult me with your mirth.”

  He tilted his head and gave her a boyish smile. The one that used to make her melt. “Brianna, I dinna mean it like that. Ye dinna understand—”

  “No,” she hissed. “I understand just fine.” Each word was punctuated with another jab into his granite hard chest. Was every part of him so impenetrable?

  “I didn’t want this marriage,” she ground out. “I did it to save you.” Her vision clouded with traitorous tears, and her hand fell away from his body. “I can’t do this any longer. In the morning, I will travel to the Commissary Court in Edinburgh to petition for a divorce.”

  The obnoxious grin on his face wavered. “Divorce?” He unfolded his large body from the chair and once again towered over her. “Ye dinna understand. If ye would let me explain—”

  “No!” The word flew from her mouth like a whip. “You don’t understand. You don’t know the effects of infidelity like I do, nor how the children suffer. I was a bastard, Colin. I know. My father believed my mother was unfaithful and discounted me as illegitimate.”

  Colin’s eyebrows flinched, his face displaying an expression she had seen too many times on others before. Pity.

  She should stop talking, cease her tale before it was too late to rescind. But the painful truth fell from her lips with abandon. “He never loved me as his daughter because he never believed I was his daughter.” Her words grew thick. “And he never let me forget.”

  “Is that why ye kept his death a secret?” Colin asked quietly.

  Brianna turned away, unable to look at him any longer. “Because a bastard cannot inherit the property of an earl. Yes, that is exactly why I kept his death a secret.” She forced the knot of emotion down with a hard swallow.

  Colin stepped closer to her. “Ye canna divorce me, lass.”

  She jerked her chin up, fire once more kindling in the hole of her despair. “I certainly can.”

  “Ye certainly canna. I have four reasons why this isna possible.” He tugged his right thumb with his left hand. “First, if what ye told me is true, ye hold no power and so ye have no choice but to stay with me.” He waggled his eyebrows, and ire sizzled in Brianna’s blood.

  His forefinger joined the thumb thrust in the air. “Second, if ye dinna have my nobility tied to ye, Edzell would end up in yer uncle’s hands.”

  He grabbed her hand before she could dart away. She tried to tug herself free, but he held her too tightly.

  “You force me to stay with you through politics?” One hard wrench and she would be free of his burning touch.

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, close to the heat of his body.

  A poisoned blade to the heart would be more comforting.

  “The third reason ye canna divorce me,” his voice was husky in her ear, a sound that made her body react with an effect she wished to ignore. “Marie and I are no lovers. We have never been and will never be, aye?”

  Hope flickered to life, but she snuffed it out. She would not lose her heart to mere words again.

  “And fourth.” He leaned back and grinned down at her. Her heart skipped a beat, and the pleasant warmth of anticipation shot through her before she could stop it.

  How did he do that to her? She gritted her teeth against her all too familiar response.

  “The fourth is what I like to think of as the main reason ye willna divorce me,” he said.

  Curiosity drove the words from her mouth. “And what is the fourth reason, pray tell?”

  The heat of his hands slid down her back the way he used to, the way that left her knees weak and her breath heavy.

  His emerald gaze met hers
. “Ye stay with me because ye want to. Because ye like me.” A twinkle showed in his eye. “Because my kisses make ye do that noise in yer throat that makes my cock stand hard.”

  Brianna gasped at his audacity and found a smile breaking through her hurt.

  “Ja swiss dessolay,” he said, his expression earnest.

  She paused, unsure if she had heard correctly. “If that was French, your pronunciation is, well, it’s not good.”

  His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “That’s what Marie says as well. She is a friend from when I was a lad. I asked her to come so she could teach me French.”

  Brianna frowned. “I could have taught you French.”

  His grin turned sheepish. “I was learning it to impress ye. I thought it might be verra romantic.”

  “That was sweet of you.” She slid closer into his arms.

  He let her relax against him and cradled the sweet lavender warmth of her body against him. Getting her to believe the partial lie was far easier than he had expected. He wanted to tell her the true reason he’d been meeting up with Marie in the middle of the night, the hours they’d spent poring over those love letters from the French marquis to Brianna’s mother.

  Now that he realized how truly important the contents of those missives might be to Brianna, he could not allow her to know of their existence. Not until all had been decoded and translated. Not when the letters were written with such florid confessions of love and adoration. Reading them would only serve to cause her hurt.

  He stroked her delicate cheek, hating her tears against his fingertips. “I would do anything for ye, wife.” Truer words were never spoken. He would do anything for her, even keep the truth hidden from her lest it cause injury.

  She rested her chin against his chest and looked up at him. “I’m beginning to understand that, husband.” Something shone in her eyes, something hard and shrewd.

  She did not believe him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six