Lyon's Gift Read online

  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 ninth 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 Minnie,” 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 Minnie 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 Minnie! 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 Minnie 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.

  CHAPTER 8

  The woman was incorrigible.

  She was enjoying herself, Lyon was certain.

  And she’d managed to pique his curiosity despite the fact that he knew she was baiting him. “What curse?” he asked once more.

  She peered coyly back at him. “Och, now! Surely you do not believe in curses, Sassenach? Not the almighty Lyon!”

  Vixen.

  He could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that she was mocking him. And quite well, besides.

  Well, two could play at this game.

  “You are correct, of course,” he relented. “Never mind, wench, I’ve no longer any desire to know.”

  She went still before him, quiet too for an instant, and Lyon smiled.

  “You don’t? Well truly ’tis naught more than silly babble at any rate,” she said after another moment’s contemplative silence.

  “I’m certain.” He suppressed a grin.

  They came from the forest into the bright afternoon sun. Lyon could make out the pounding of hammers and the clamor of voices in the distance, and the sound made him feel a sense of pride unlike any he’d ever experienced. This was his land, his home: his men were at work rebuilding, and there was something incredibly rousing about bringing this particular woman into his domain. Something about the occasion made him sit straighter in the saddle... compelled him to suck in a breath.

  The scent of wild heather permeated the air... laced now with a more elusive and intriguing scent. His gaze returned to the woman sitting before him, and his loins tightened familiarly. Aye, something about her inspired him in a way he hadn’t been inspired in much too long.

  She made him feel alive.

  Bloody hell, who was he fooling?

  She made him feel.

  All of his senses were heightened.

  He leaned closer, unable to keep himself from it, compelled to move nearer, inhaling the sweet scent of her beautiful hair once more. Marrow, was it? The mere thought made him smile. Saucy wench. Nay... what he scented was the faintest trace of rosemary... and sunshine.

  There was nothing ostentatious about the woman sitting before him, nothing embellished. She was earthy and honest, and while there was nothing naive about her, she had an air of innocence that was decidedly refreshing. Unlike the women he’d known in his life, her eyes did not speak of seduction all the while her lashes fluttered with affected innocence.

  But she seduced him nevertheless.

  She sighed audibly and Lyon felt the breath leave his own lungs. How was it that she affected him so keenly?

  What was it about her that made him so attuned to every breath she took and every word she uttered?

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she lamented.

  On the contrary, he thought, he relished hearing her voice. Somehow it was the embodiment of both woman and child at once—her tone both sweet and provocative. It bewitched him, made him yearn both to coddle and to devour her all at once.

  She sighed again, and he smiled to himself, knowing it was torturing her not to be able to elaborate, and decided to put her out of her misery once and for all. “Though now that you have,” he prompted, smiling, “you’ll expound?”

  “Well!” She relented at once. “If you insist!”

  Lyon’s grin widened.

  “Och, but if I tell you, you must not believe it!” she instructed quite firmly. “Swear it!”

  “How can I promise such a thing, wench, when I’ve no idea how your disclosure will strike me? Tell me your tale and I shall tell you quite frankly whether I believe it or nay.”

  She seemed to consider that an instant. “Fair enough,” she replied. “’Tis wholly untrue, of course, and unfairly said, but they claim we Brodie women are cursed.”

  He sensed where she was leading with this, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing. “How so, wench?”

  “Well,” she continued, “’tis rumored that madness runs in Brodie blood—but it isn’t true!”

  Lyon had no doubt.

  “And quite unkind to say! Don’t you think?”

  “I’ve never heard such a thing,” he said. He wondered if she could possibly be speaking the truth, and decided not, as she was clearly enjoying this far too much.

  “You haven’t?” She sounded so bloody disappointed that he had to reconsider. “Oh,” she said.

  Christ, but she
was a bloody good liar. Lyon tried not to laugh, though his shoulders shook with mirth. He couldn’t answer at once, and was relieved when she continued of her own accord.

  “The truth is that my mother was hardly mad,” she went on, “merely a bit... emotional. And my Minnie... she was only eccentric.”

  Lyon’s brows lifted. “Was?” he asked her, catching her slip of the tongue, and unable to keep himself from baiting her in return. “She was eccentric? And what is she now?”

  She peered back at him, her brows drawn together into a frown. She didn’t seem to catch his meaning for an instant, and then: “Is!” she amended at once. “Is, of course!”

  This time he couldn’t contain his chuckle. “’Tis good to know as I wouldn’t wish to bring a madwoman into my home.”

  “Oh?” she answered, and managed to instill a note of hope in the single word.

  Lyon waited for her to suddenly spout some confession of her own madness, but he waited for naught. She was much too shrewd for that.

  ‘I wonder what is keeping them!” She truly sounded worriedly.

  Stubborn wench.

  He couldn’t believe she would persist in this absurd charade. He supposed she was hoping he would change his mind, but she was hoping in vain, because the longer he considered it, the more convinced he was that he was doing the right thing. It truly was the perfect solution for all concerned.

  She turned to search the path behind him, and Lyon was at once intrigued by the flush high upon her cheeks. Not only was he going to wed her, he vowed, but he was going to wed her of her own accord.

  Arrogant though it might be, he was perfectly confident in his... powers of persuasion.

  And he was feeling quite merciless just now, quite the Lyon circling his prey.

  She brought out something primordial in him—something more than mere lust. The need to possess was overwhelming.

  “They’ll be along,” he assured her, and had to restrain himself from leaning forward and brushing his mouth across the warmth of her cheek. He imagined the feel of it against his lips... of his tongue against her burning skin... and it sent a jolt of pure sensation through him.

  Christ, but she seemed to have little notion of the tempest that raged within him. If only she realized, he was certain she’d be kicking and screaming just now, instead of employing such sophistry against him. He swallowed with some difficulty as his mouth was becoming quite dry, and said, “’Tis more than likely Baldwin may have—”