Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Sabrina had married a madman. The tip of the claymore trembled. Morgan swayed dangerously. She pressed herself into the pillows, leaning away from the cold blade, and wondered if the church would recognize murder as grounds for annulment.

“You treacherous witch,” he repeated, growling under his breath. “How dare you sit there and blink at me so innocently! Have you nothin’ at all to say for yourself?” He squinted as if having difficulty bringing her into focus. A glassy sheen dulled his eyes.

Sabrina’s mind raced. She had seen Morgan drink only water with his supper. Had he gone off later and gotten drunk with his men? “Perhaps you’d best decide in which order you’d like to rape and murder me,” she said evenly. “If you don’t remove your sword from my throat, you’re going to impale me.”

“’Twould be my pleasure, lass. Sword or no.”

She took the blade gingerly between two fingers and pushed it away. The simple movement unbalanced Morgan. He stumbled back, flailing the claymore before steadying himself on the bedpost. His bronze skin had gone ashen. His other arm was wrapped around his stomach as if to hold it in place.

Perhaps your Morgan will find his taste for revenge more bitter than he expected .

The memory of Enid’s cryptic words and her cousin’s sudden craving to cook mushrooms suddenly spawned a terrible suspicion in Sabrina’s mind.

Morgan straightened with visible effort. “Tell me, princess, did your papa use you only to bait the trap or did your own delicate hands mix the poison?”

She wanted to recoil from the accusation he spat out. But when he swayed, she climbed to her knees and reached for him.

He jerked away from her outstretched hand. “Stay away from me, you bonny she-devil! If you won’t give me any answers, I’ll wring them from your father’s bloody neck.”

He lunged for the door, but in the brief respite, the claymore had grown too heavy for his arm. He dragged it behind him, gouging plugs in the polished wood. Sabrina flung herself from the bed, tripping on the quilts, and caught the nearest part of him she could reach—his leg.

“Morgan, don’t! You mustn’t!”

He dragged her a few steps, but she hung on with all her strength. “Listen to me, Morgan! My father had naught to do with your poisoning!”

Morgan rubbed his brow as if he could massage the words into his foggy brain. His gaze slowly lowered to meet her own. His eyes focused with an icy clarity that froze her soul. Sabrina swallowed. She’d had no time to prepare for this moment. Her nightdress had ridden up. The flat side of Morgan’s blade rested against the inner curve of her calf. The iron muscles of his thigh convulsed beneath her grip.

The hair at her nape stood erect as he said softly, “You?”

Sabrina bowed her head. How could she let her timid cousin brave this man’s wrath? Enid wouldn’t survive even one scorching blast from his temper. Aside from that, Enid had acted only in a misguided attempt to protect her.

“Believe what you will, Morgan MacDonnell,” she said softly. “You always have.”

Morgan’s gaze bore into the back of her neck. A curtain of curls sheltered her burning cheeks as she awaited the bite of his blade. She opened her mouth to plead for his mercy but found the words would not come. She had bitten them back too many times before.

“I knew you hated me. But never this much,” Morgan whispered. He sank against the door as if her unspoken confession had robbed him of the last of his strength.

The sword clattered to the floor. He slid to a sitting position, his long legs sprawled around her own.

Sabrina gathered the skirt of her nightdress to rise, thankful for any excuse to escape his bleak gaze. “I shall summon my father’s physician.”

His hand shot out to grasp her wrist. “No! I’ll not give those Cameron butchers the chance to finish me off.” His fingers tightened as another spasm of pain racked his features. “Just tell me one thing. Am I going to die?”

Remembering the time Brian had inadvertently fed Alex a similar mash of toadstools, she grimaced. “No. But you may wish you had.”

He groaned. “I already do.” His face had gone from gray to green. Sweat beaded his brow. “Oh, God.” He tottered to his feet, holding the wall for support. Panic touched his gaze. When he swayed forward and would have fallen, Sabrina threw herself against him, bracing her shoulder against his chest.

He staggered away from her. “Get out!” he bellowed. “Leave me be!”

She hesitated.

He took a menacing step toward her. “I’m warnin’ you, lass. I’ll not give you the satisfaction of gloatin’ over your handiwork!” His threat was spoiled as he tripped over the claymore and crashed headlong to the floor. His big hand curled into a helpless fist. “Please,” he whispered. “Go.”

Torn by the sight of the fallen giant, Sabrina slipped out and shut the door behind her. She leaned against it, flinching as another deep groan rended the silence. Pugsley’s tongue snaked out to lick her toes. She crouched down, burying her fingers in the dog’s brindle coat.

Once she might have laughed at Morgan’s predicament. Now she ached with misery that he believed her cruel enough to poison him.

The tortured sounds finally stopped. Sabrina touched the doorknob with hesitant fingers. She knew her father too well to believe in the privacy he had afforded them. It would not do for Alex or Brian to wander past and find her cowering outside her own wedding chamber. A more terrible thought entered her mind. What if the hapless Enid had fed Morgan a fatal dose of toadstools? Perhaps even now he lay stiffening upon the cold floor, his lush green eyes fixed forever in an accusing glare.

She threw open the door. Morgan lay slumped in the floor where she had left him, his wheaten hair dampened with sweat. She knelt beside him, daring to part the folds of his plaid and flatten her palm against the smooth, sculpted muscles of his chest. Its shallow rise and fall wrung a ragged sigh from her. She dropped her cheek to the rigid warmth of his breastbone, trembling with relief.

“Get off me.”

Sabrina lifted her head, paralyzed by the contempt in his hoarse command.

“I have a wee bit of pride left. Even we MacDonnells aren’t lecherous enough to want a wench who’d rather murder than bed us.”

His body was coiled with tension, but he made no move to shove her away. What would he do if she chose to practice her mother’s lessons now? Would it soften his temper if she dared to nibble the generous satin of his lower lip? Would it melt his anger to feel the teasing swirl of her tongue against his throat? Or would he consider it a mockery? An affront to that dangerous pride he held between them like a shield.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered, her question more heartfelt than he would ever know.

“The sword.”

His blunt words snapped her back to reality. To Morgan, this was a battle and she was the enemy. Hoping she wouldn’t lose her head for her obedience, she dragged the weapon over to him, not realizing until she’d folded his fingers around the hilt that it was her father’s ceremonial claymore.

His voice, musing and bitter, mirrored her thoughts. “Not my sword. Nor my betrothal ring. Not even my bloody wife.”

Grunting with the effort, he scooted his back against the door.

“You can’t spend the night on the cold floor,” Sabrina protested. “You’ve been ill. You should be in bed.”

“With you?” His bark of laughter rendered the very suggestion profane. “No, thank you. I’d rather live to see the dawn.” He arranged the massive blade across his knees.

Sabrina didn’t know if he intended the claymore to defend him from ambush or from her. After several tense minutes during which he showed no sign of relaxing his vigil, she curled into a miserable knot on the edge of the bed, blinking back tears. She’d sworn never to cry for him, and she wasn’t about to start now. Her last image before drifting into restless slumber was of Morgan glaring at her from beneath his thunderous brows. A dark mutter that would be forgotten by the morrow pierced her troubled dreams.

“If I can’t have you, princess, then, by God, neither can they.”

The next morning found Morgan gazing down at the sweet assassin curled on the bed. He was reluctant to believe that her father had no hand in his poisoning. Robbed of the leadership of their chieftain, the MacDonnells would have quickly dispersed, leaving the Camerons, Grants, and Chisholms free to tear apart the mountain like a flock of hungry vultures. But why would Dougal have gone through with the pretense of a wedding, when he could have murdered him outright or left him to rot in the Cameron dungeon?

Morgan sighed, forced to accept that Sabrina had probably acted alone. He had believed himself well armored against Cameron betrayal, but the realization grated like salt over the fresh wound of his father’s death. He could only imagine what might have happened had she dared such a betrayal while surrounded by his clansmen. They might have killed her while he was still too weak to protect her. It pained him to imagine the roses in her cheeks fading to ashen gray.

Her dark hair swirled across the pillow in striking contrast to the cream and pink of her skin. She’d slept with no blankets, and a dawn chill had permeated the fireless chamber. His gaze drifted downward. The bodice of the nightdress clung to the puckered tips of her breasts. Her skirts had ridden up to her thighs. It was only too easy for Morgan to envision one of his callused fingers stroking her pert nipple, another slipping into the warm, inviting cleft between her legs.

He swung away from the bed, swallowing an oath. She was his wife, yet like his ring, his claymore, and his very life, she belonged to him only by the grace of Dougal Cameron. And no MacDonnell had ever settled for charity. Especially not the charity of his enemy.

But he had a more immediate problem than the wild and needy throb of his groin. Did he dare give Sabrina the chance to tell them all that their marriage had not been consummated? Was casting aspersions on his manhood yet another of her and her papa’s clever ploys? One of a chieftain’s most important duties was providing an heir for his clan. His face darkened as he imagined her glibly blurting out the shameful details of their wedding night.

He could see them tearing her from his arms, casting him back down into the dank hole beneath the tower, or, worse yet, tossing him out on his ear to face the scorn of his clansmen.

Morgan swung back around, his hands clenched into fists. She was his bride. He must deflower her. ’Twas more than his right; ’twas his duty. Once he’d consummated their marriage, not Dougal Cameron, the king of England, or almighty God himself would dare take her away from him. The peaceful future of his clan would be assured.

Sabrina stirred, curling her fist against her parted lips. She looked so small, so helpless and trusting in sleep. He knew he could have his hand over her mouth and her thighs spread to accommodate him before she could draw breath to scream. But unlike some of his clansmen, Morgan had little stomach for rape.

His eyes narrowed. He mustn’t think of it as rape. He must think of it as duty. He would remain cool and detached, as if he were simply carrying out a painful but necessary procedure as he’d done for his clansmen hundreds of times. Like cauterizing a wound or digging a pistol ball from a festering shoulder.

Or ravishing his wife’s tender, unsuspecting body, driving himself deep into her silky sheath until she writhed and moaned beneath him.

His mouth went dry and his shaking hands felt less than detached as he sank down on the bed beside her. He stroked his fingers across the silken temptation of her hair, weaving it around his hands as he’d dreamed of doing all those chill, lonely nights in the dungeon.

Morgan might have recovered from Sabrina’s eyes fluttering open to catch him at his folly. But he stiffened as if from a mortal wound at the shattering tenderness of the smile that followed in the wake of their discovery.