Rivenloch, The Borders, Scotland
Autumn, 1155
The servants had worked hard to make a home for Morgan here. In his bedchamber, a modest peat fire already burned on the hearth. His chair sat beside it, fitted with a feather pillow embroidered with his initials. His personal things were arranged on the table against the wall—his whale bone comb, a pen and parchment, a pitcher of water with a basin, a candle, a cake of soap, a mirror of polished steel.
He picked up the mirror and winced at the bruised and battered face looking back at him. His swollen eye had a black ring around it. His lip was cut. His stubbled jaw was red and abraded. And at the top of his brow, near the hairline, swelled the lump of a bruise.
He hadn’t looked so fearsome and pathetic at the same time since he’d engaged in his first tournament melee as a youth.
He’d meant to introduce himself to his neighbors on the morrow. But that seemed unwise now. He was a mess. He didn’t relish turning up at the neighbors’ doors, looking like a wildcat that had lost a fight with a wolf.
He replaced the mirror and went to stir the fire to life. Then he lit the candle from the flames, bringing the rest of the chamber to light.
The bed was assembled and made up with linens, bolsters, an embroidered wool coverlet, and sheepskins.
But as he looked at the pair of pillows gracing the bed, he felt a sudden, sharp, unexpected pang, like a dagger stabbed in his heart.
This bed—this chamber—was meant for the laird and his lady. It was too imposing and extravagant for one man alone.
She should have been here.
Alicia should have been here.
Sleeping beside him.
Sharing his chamber. His castle. His life.
Choking down his grief, he crossed the room to place the candle in the wall sconce. As he passed by the open window, his eye caught on something outside.
The image was so fleeting, he was sure he’d imagined it.
Just past the window, he stopped in his tracks.
The candle flickered in his trembling hand.
For one terrible instant, he would have sworn he’d seen her standing beyond the fence. Alicia. His dead wife.
Emotions coursed through him as swiftly as lightning. Shock. Disbelief. Wonder. Relief. Longing. Anguish. Misgiving. Dread.
His heart pounded as he continued to stare blankly at the empty black sconce on the white plaster wall, trying to make sense of what he’d just glimpsed.
His eyes must be playing cruel tricks on him. What he’d seen couldn’t be Alicia. Alicia was dead. He’d laid her in earth himself. And only fools believed the dead returned as ghosts.
Nay, what he’d seen was likely only a sapling blowing in the wind.
Taking a steadying breath, he slowly backed to the window again and peered out.
Alarm sucked the spit from his mouth.
It wasn’t his imagination.
It wasn’t a sapling.
It was a lass.
The sight of her challenged his grasp on reality. Her veil swirled around her like a misty aura, glowing from the light of the full moon.
He’d never believed in ghosts. But he had to admit he’d never seen anything look so ghostly.
If he’d seen the figure more clearly the first time, he would have recognized at once it wasn’t Alicia. The lass might be enveloped in a filmy white shroud, but beneath the sheer veil her naked body was quite visible.
Unlike slim Alicia, this lass possessed voluptuous curves. Unlike Alicia with her tightly braided black hair, this lass had gold-burnished waves that cascaded down her shoulders. And there was no way shy Alicia, even as a ghost, would have stood naked in the middle of a field.
He narrowed his eyes and studied her.
She stared back at him, unmoving. A gust of wind teased at her veil, revealing long, shapely legs and a delicate dark patch where they joined her body.
The sight caused an unwelcome twinge in his trews.
Still she didn’t move.
He lowered a dubious brow.
Perhaps the lass was frozen solid.
Another breeze lifted the veil higher, exposing full breasts tipped by nipples as tempting as cherries. A groan caught in his throat as the twinge grew into a definite swelling.
Then guilt struck him like a blacksmith’s hammer, overriding his desire. How could he be aroused when he’d just lost his wife? How could he even look at another lass?
Self-disgust tested his temper.
He wanted the lass gone. Now.
“What do ye want?” he yelled down impatiently.
She slowly raised a straight arm to point at him and intoned in a husky moan, “Yooouuu. Muuuuust. Gooooooooooo.”
Her sinister directive would have sent chills up the spine of a lesser man. But he knew very well she was mortal. And when she delivered her message, he quickly recognized her ploy for what it was. The mischievous imp had decided to badger her new, unwelcome neighbor.
He supposed it could be worse. She could have thrown rocks at the windows or hung a dead cat on the fence.
As he continued to stare down at the beautiful, hostile lass, he almost wished she were a ghost. It was unsettling to have a naked lass cavorting beneath his window. And he didn’t much care for her issuing demands.
He crossed his arms over his chest, unwilling to bend to her beauty or her intimidation.
“I must go?” he called out in unimpressed tones. “Is that so?”
“Aaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyeeeeeee,” she wailed, making a slow and graceful turn that gave him an inviting glimpse of her tempting backside.
He didn’t want to think about it. “Who says so?”
“Iiiiiiiiii d-d-d-oooooooo.”
He could hear the shiver of the cold in her voice. He wondered if someone else had put her up to this. Perhaps a gang of local whelps had wagered on who would do the badgering, and she’d lost.
The lass must be half-frozen. Surely she couldn’t keep this up for long. Sooner or later, she’d decide pestering the new neighbor wasn’t worth the price of becoming an icicle.
“Ye do?” he asked. “And just who do ye think ye are?”
“A ghooooooooooooost.”
As she lifted her arms, a gust of wind plastered the veil to her body, outlining the seductive curve of her waist.
Desire made him lose his words for a moment. Finally he managed to shout back, “Nobody warned me Creagor was haunted.”
“Ohhhh, aaaayyyeee,” she cried, waving one arm toward the forest. “Byyyyyyyyyy maaaaaaaaaany ghooooooosts.”
If he weren’t so tired…and battered…and inappropriately aroused, he might have found her performance amusing.
She lowered an accusing finger at him again. “Yooouuu. Muuuuust. Go-”
“I heard ye the first time,” he bellowed back, closing one of the shutters. “Well then, carry on! Just see ye don’t freeze to death. I don’t want to wake in the mornin’ to the sight o’—”
A wail interrupted him.
This time it wasn’t the lass.
It was his bairn.
For some unfathomable reason, the nursemaids had decided to keep his son in the chamber adjoining his.
He grimaced. No doubt his shouting and the lass’s moans had awakened the child.
He muttered a curse under his breath. Then he opened the shutter again and snarled at the lass, “See what ye’ve done, ye whelp? Off with ye now! Go!” He shooed her with a gesture.
She didn’t shoo. Instead, she planted her hands on her hips and shouted back at him in a decidedly unghostly voice.
“Me? You’re the horse’s arse bellowing out the window!”
Her insult added fuel to the fire of his ire. How dared she call him names? And in his own home?
“Och, that’s a bonnie thing!” he yelled. “Cursin’ in front of a bairn!”
“Is that what that wailing is?” she challenged, flipping the veil back to reveal her lovely, smirking face…and her infuriatingly breathtaking naked body. “I thought ‘twas one of your soldiers, crying for his ma.”
It took a moment for the slight to sink in, so distracted was he by the lass’s unabashed beauty.
But when her words registered, accentuated by the heightened screaming of his son next door, such fury boiled up in him that he swore steam hissed from his ears.
He wasn’t worried about the bairn. Bethac would see to his needs.
But someone had to put that wicked-tongued lass in her place.
He slammed the shutters, snatched up his claymore, and headed for the door.
With any luck, she’d be gone by the time he got downstairs.
If she was foolish enough to stand her ground, she’d flee once she caught sight of Morgan Mor mac Giric charging toward her with his sword. There was a reason for the “Mor” title. Aside from the golden giant Colban, no one in the clan matched Morgan for height, might, and muscle.
One glimpse of him, and she’d scurry off like a frightened coney.
#
“Shite,” Jenefer bit out as the Highlander slammed the shutters and disappeared from the window.
Now she’d done it. The brute was coming downstairs. Which would have been fine if she were closer to her longbow.
But she’d left it in the trees. After all, what ghost carried a bow and arrows? Now it would take her too long to fetch.
Damn her cousins! She never should have listened to them. She’d always said this should be a battle of arms, not of wits. The Highlander hadn’t been convinced for one moment that she was a ghost.
What she wouldn’t give to have her bow—nocked and primed—in her hands right now.
Of course, bow or not, she wasn’t about to run. Only cowards ran away from a fight. So she tossed off the veil, which would only get in the way. Then she blew into her icy hands and bounced up and down on her toes, hoping to warm up her blood enough to put up a good fight.
The babe upstairs was still carrying on. Its wails of woe sailed on the wind, almost as piercing as the cold. She wondered why its mother wasn’t seeing to it. Then again, knowing the barbaric Highlanders, they probably toughened up their babes by letting them cry.
Sooner than she expected—had the Highlander flown down the stairs?—the timber gates burst open. What emerged was the biggest warrior she’d ever seen.
The breath deserted her lungs. Her eyes went wide. Every instinct told her to flee.
But she swallowed down her fear and braced her knees for impact, even though the fists she made seemed suddenly puny in the face of the beast coming toward her.
He was a good fifty yards away. But his long strides were swallowing up the ground at a rapid pace.
In a flash, all the gruesome rumors she’d heard about Highlanders streamed through her brain.
They ate live mice.
They slept in the snow.
They fought wolves barehanded.
They drank the blood of their enemies.
Twenty yards away.
Like a thunderhead, he boiled toward her with savage intent and the dark threat of violence.
A dozen yards.
Icy sweat covered her now. She was badly mismatched. But she refused to surrender. Better that she should die bravely on her two feet than cower in fear.
Six yards.
This close, she could see his face contorted with murderous rage and hear his feral growl of warning.
Her heart pounded. But she challenged him with an unwavering scowl.
Three yards.
He swept his claymore up in one massive arm, as if he planned to lop off her head then and there.
Still she held her ground and stared death in the eyes.
A yard away, really too close to strike, he finally stopped before her.
She held her breath.
His blade hung over her head. But his furious face was now marked by puzzlement. It was also marked by signs of a recent fight.
He could have killed her. But he hadn’t. And that meant he wouldn’t.
For an extended moment, they only stared at each other, like fire and ice, at an impasse.
Then he suddenly snarled, towering over her and shaking his blade in an attempt to scare her.
All she had left was the element of surprise. While he held his sword aloft, she drove her fist forward, punching him in the nose as hard as she could.
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