Her eyes widened slightly. “Nay?”
“Nay. Because I’m goin’ to have to marry ye.”
She reacted as if he’d stabbed her in the bottom with his sgian dubh. Jerking upright, she gaped at him with wide eyes and gasped, “What?”
“Ye heard me. We’re marryin’,” he announced arrogantly.
“But ye—I can no’ just—Me da—” she stammered, apparently unable to finish a complete thought.
Deciding to save her poor lust-addled mind the effort, he explained away any possible concern he thought she could have by saying, “While I have gone by the name Conall, or the Wolf, these last twenty-two years, I was born Bryson MacDonald. I’m yer betrothed, lass. Yer da kens it, and kens I did no’ die. And ’tis time I claimed ye to wife.” He then pressed her stunned face to his chest and ordered, “Now sleep. We’ve a ways to go ere we reach MacFarlane, and ye’ll want to be well-rested fer the wedding.”
Claray lay still against Conall’s chest for the longest time, his words echoing in her head. He was her betrothed, Bryson MacDonald. Her father knew it and also knew that he hadn’t died. And he was claiming her to wife.
Her mind was having trouble accepting that information. She saw no reason for the man to lie. It wasn’t like he was trying to run off with her and get her to marry him at some far-off keep amongst strangers. He said they were on the way to MacFarlane and her father knew who he was.
On the other hand, Claray found it hard to believe that her parents would have lied to her all these years either. They’d told her when she was . . . Well, she couldn’t recall when she’d been told that a betrothal had been contracted after she was born, but that her betrothed had died shortly afterward and she was without. However, she’d known that for as far back as she could recall, so it must have been young.
She didn’t know what to think . . . except that it would be better for her soul if he were lying. Because then her father would clear everything up and send the man on his way as the liar he was. But if he was telling the truth . . . Dear God, at this point, she would be on her knees for a month or more doing penance for the way he made her feel and what she’d let him do both by the river and just now. If she was forced to marry the man and suffer that kind of overwhelming, mind-numbing pleasure every single night . . .
Claray shivered at the thought. Part of her reaction was alarm for her poor soul. But a good portion of it had nothing to do with her soul, and everything to do with her body’s response to the man. Just the thought of his kissing and touching her every night sent tingles racing through her body that had her wishing he’d kiss and caress her again.
“I’m going to hell,” she muttered sadly.
“What’s that, lass?” Conall asked.
Claray blinked her eyes open with dismay as she realized she’d spoken the thought aloud. She was even more dismayed to see Roderick riding beside them. Dear God, she’d forgotten all about the men. Had they been able to tell what was happening between her and Conall? Roderick hadn’t been beside them then, had he? Dear God!
“Lass?” Conall nudged her with the arm at her back when she just gaped at Roderick. “What’d ye say?”
Claray finally lifted her gaze to his face, flushed with embarrassment and muttered, “Nothing,” before quickly lowering her head again. She then closed her eyes and forced herself to relax against his chest, hoping he’d think she’d fallen asleep. He apparently believed it, because he didn’t ask anything else. But it was a long time before her mind stopped wrestling with the problem that was Conall-the-Wolf-Bryson-MacDonald and the possibility that he might be her betrothed who would marry her and surely send her to hell with all the pleasure he would give her.
Eventually though she did drift off to sleep.
“She’s asleep.”
Conall glanced to Roderick with surprise at that comment, and then shifted his gaze down to Claray in the dying light of day and admitted, “I thought she’d fallen asleep ages ago.”
Roderick shook his head. “I think that’s what she wanted ye to think, but she was grimacin’ and makin’ faces fer quite a while. Must ha’e been frettin’ on something.”
Conall’s eyebrows rose slightly at that, and he said, “I do no’ ken why she’d be frettin’. I’d think her worries would be over now.”
“Oh?” Roderick asked with interest. “And why would that be? MacNaughton is still a threat.”
“No’ once I marry her, and I told her that would happen once we reach MacFarlane,” Conall admitted quietly.
Roderick’s eyebrows rose at this news. “Ye told her yer true name, then?”
“Aye.”
“And ye’ve decided to marry her now?” he asked.
Conall nodded.
“And return to MacDonald to rebuild and rule it?”
Conall nodded again, though less enthusiastically.
Roderick considered him briefly and then merely said, “’Tis about time. Hamish and the others’ll be glad to hear it.”
When Conall glanced at him sharply in question, Roderick shrugged. “They’ve battled fer ye fer many long years. Those with wives and wee ones yearn to return to MacDonald to live, and those without would build their own homes, and start their own families. The announcement that ye’re finally givin’ up mercenary work and claimin’ yer heritage and theirs’ll be a relief to them.”
The words made him frown. Conall had started to work as a mercenary the moment he’d earned his spurs at sixteen. By eighteen he’d started gathering men to fight under him and begun contracting them out for jobs himself rather than work for others. They had been small jobs at first, but as the size of the men following him had grown, so had the jobs. Most of the warriors he’d gathered around him were MacDonald men whose families had been struck hard by the loss of their laird and lady, and had been forced to move to MacKay or other lands to find shelter and protection.
Some had struggled to continue on MacDonald land, but found themselves targets of bandits or attacks from other clans who knew they had no protection. With their crops and animals constantly stolen or destroyed, the younger men and even some of those older than Conall had turned to mercenary work to survive. He’d hired on every one he got wind of and added them to his ranks, training and paying them well to work with him.
Conall had never told them that he was Bryson MacDonald, son of their murdered laird and lady, and heir to MacDonald, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most knew or at least suspected as much. Campbell’s slipping up and calling him Bryson in front of them more than a time or two had helped with that. But Conall knew he looked a lot like his father, and had noted an older soldier or two squinting at him with a certain look of recognition. No one had said anything though. At least not to him.
Aside from that though, Conall had never considered how his men felt about the life they’d all been forced to live—constantly battling for coin, spending months and sometimes longer away in battle with only very short visits with their families and loved ones between. Most of their families were sheltering with in-laws in their homes on lands other than MacDonald, he knew. But Conall’s main concern had been earning the coin needed to return MacDonald to its former glory and support everyone for a year or two until the fields were producing and would support his people.