Chapter 10

Astrid awoke to Marcán's arms wrapped around her. His face so close, his gentle breath teased at her hair. She sighed her contentment and snuggled closer.

"Mmm, I have been waiting on ye. An eternity now!" Marcán's low voice vibrated through her.

"An eternity? Oh my!"

He picked his head up, rising on an elbow to gaze down at her. A single finger traced along her face. "I wanted to see those beautiful eyes looking at me with love."

She smiled, barely able to contain her joy. "And d'ye see that? For that is how I feel about ye."

"I've loved ye forever while ye barely noticed me. I do not expect ye to return my love, Astrid. Not yet."

Astrid scoffed. "Then why is it I am here? Naked in yer arms?"

His gaze dropped lower, a smile blooming. "I do not ask why when I have received a wonderful…" He kissed the tip of her nose. "…never expected…" He kissed her cheek. "…longed for gift."

With the gentlest motion, he caressed her lips with his own, gliding over them.

"I do love ye. Mo chroí go deo thú," he spoke the words between slow kisses. "Make no mistake on that. Ye are the fairest woman I've ever laid eyes on, with a spirit to match."

She opened her eyes, brimming with tears, when he looked down at her. "Ye believe I have spirit?"

"I know ye have spirit, lass."

Her lips quivered. "Having spirit would give me great pleasure."

"As it should."

"Diarmuid sees me as a nuisance more often than not. My mother always finds me lacking, never speaking any words of encouragement to me."

His eyes rounded. "This is a new beginning. Ye will no longer receive harsh words or belittling."

"I know ye would never speak to me thus."

Marcán tilted his head. "And ye will receive no harsh words or belittling from anyone."

When she took a breath to argue, he set a finger against her lips. "My wife will not be treated with less respect than she deserves. Not ever. Not by anyone."

"But I—"

"As yer husband…" A smile spread across his face, as bright as the sunshine. "I do so like the sound of that!" He kissed her, a deep, passionate kiss, before continuing. "I will not allow such treatment of ye."

She nodded, not quite sure how he would be able to change the way people treated her, but it was beyond endearing that he wished to try. "How could I not love ye, Marcán?"

With a steady gaze, he searched her face.

"Everything I sought from any man, I received from ye. Ye always listened to me when I spoke, considering my words. Ye were always kind and thoughtful. That I did not believe ye would ever feel that way about me—"

He held up a hand. "So ye had set me aside as someone who would not be interested in ye?"

"Ye did always seem more interested in Diarmuid."

"Astrid, I am a bit older than ye. I did not wish to scare ye away with how much I wanted ye as my wife. I needed to wait until ye were ready to receive my attention."

She giggled. "It did please me when ye gave Diarmuid a talking to every time he belittled me."

"I was merely biding my time." His bright eyes clouded. "I did not expect ye to start showing interest in every other man save me. Even as a lass full grown, ye still didn't see me standing right beside ye. It near killed me."

She cupped his cheek. "And yer patience is commendable. Mayhap I lumped ye together with Diarmuid. I realize now ye were never the same."

"Never!"

"Ye always watched over me as if I was yers, protecting me."

"And ye fought me every step of the way until I knew—I thought," he corrected himself, "—ye would never be mine. And here ye are!"

"Where I belong."

"And I will never give ye up."

With delicious abandon, he took her mouth and her heart sang. The soreness nigh gone, they made love slowly. Enjoying each other. He worshipped every bit of her, as if to ensure her of the great worth she had in his eyes. And she loved him back in every way she could until they fell exhausted in each other's arms.

The cock crowed in the distance, and she became overcome with sadness.

"I have no desire to leave this place. I want to stay with ye."

"And I want ye to stay. I do not like the idea of going back to the way 'twas. We should approach Diarmuid this very day."

Her heart quickened.

"Ye do not agree? What would ye have us do?"

She hadn't realized she was so easy to read. She would need to work on that, but she did appreciate him seeking her input. "I know ye have duties to see to."

"That is true. No doubt, I have been missed."

She snorted. "And they'll assume ye are with some woman."

"Ah, they will not know I am with my betrothed!"

"But I am not under yer protection as of yet."

His hand stilled where it had been caressing her arm. "Ye have always been under my protection. Diarmuid expects it."

"I mean… if Pádraig comes back."

Marcán sat up to look at her, his heart hammering in his chest, but this time it was not from desire. "What is it he did to ye? I will see ye avenged."

"I did not heed ye, Marcán."

Marcán could not agree more, but when he took her into his arms, she shuddered. "What has he done to ye, grádh, that ye tremble at the memory?"

The longer it took her to gather the courage to tell him, the more his trepidation grew. The harder it became to take a breath.

"He… he demanded I give him release, and he was angry when I refused."

His chest tightened with rage, but he continued to hold her, wanting her to finish her tale.

"I was sore afraid he would rape me. He… he said I was nothing but a tease."

She paused, still trembling in his arms. He stroked her hair.

"'Tis what a man says to put questions in a lass's mind when she tells him no," he said.

When she sat back, she averted her gaze.

"Pádraig assured me we would speak to Diarmuid about our joining—"

"What?" Marcán fought the urge to jump to his feet, to demand explanations. Instead, he sat perfectly still. "What joining?"

"I thought… I thought our clans joining, his and ours. I thought it would be agreeable. I… I wanted so badly to be married…"

Marcán remained silent, but he was unable to keep the anger from his expression. When she glanced at him, she immediately looked away.

"That was why I wanted to speak to him. When ye… interrupted us—"

"No, Astrid, I did not interrupt ye speaking to the man. I interrupted yer being raped by the four of them." Marcán blew a breath, hoping to calm his frustration at her innocence. Even now, her wide-eyed expression showed her lack of understanding. "Ye could have spoken to him in the visiting hall, where everyone could see ye."

"I know that now. I should have heeded yer warning." Her small voice spoke of her shame. "I did not believe he would behave so badly, that he would not listen to me, but he didn't hear anything I said. He just wanted to…"

"Have at ye." Marcán met her gaze when she finally looked at him again. "That was what the man wanted from ye."

"I know that now." She repeated herself in the same quiet voice. "And when he told me we would need to speak to Diarmuid to make plans, I realized he still intended…"

"To take ye!" Marcán struggled against the chords of betrayal her words struck in him. He had loved her for so very long, but she hadn't known. He must remember that. She was not betraying him or his love. "Did ye really want to marry such a man as that?"

Her inability to even voice the words reminded him again that she was innocent.

"I did not know him. He did not seem so bad until we were alone together."

Marcán wanted to remind her that she had been warned but held his tongue. She had not believed his warning. She'd thought he was being overprotective for Diarmuid's sake.

Astrid took a deep breath. "I am of an age to marry, but my father is dead and made no such agreements for me. I have a brother who still sees me as a child…"

He shook his head. Clearly she was no child.

"…and refused to make any moves toward that end."

His spirited lass had thought to see to her own betrothal! So she'd sought out Pádraig Meic Murchadha's attention? Not the choice he would have gone with. She deserved so much better. Of course, a better-behaved lass would not have wandered off in the middle of the night. She would have stayed with her mother. But a better-behaved lass was not what Marcán wanted. He wanted this lass.

He should have voiced his own desire to take her to wife long ago. Then this never would have happened.

"My mother said the Meic Murchadha—"

"Yer mother?" Marcán was instantly alert. "'Twas yer mother who put the idea of marrying Pádraig in yer head?"

And her mother knew of Marcán's feelings toward her. Everything seemed to fall into place.

"Well, she mentioned him a few times…"

And he knew his lovely lady. That would be all her active imagination needed before she started taking matters into her own hands.

"…and the advantages of an alliance with her clan."

"Her clan?"

"My mother is from the Meic Murchadha clan."

"Did she mention any of these ‘advantages'?" He did not want to frighten her with his intent gaze, so he swiped an imaginary hair from her shoulder. And lovely shoulders they were. They could easily be her best asset now that he had seen her naked, but no, those lovely breasts called to him.

Glancing at her face, he licked his lips.

"Did ye hear me?" she asked.

"She mentioned nothing specific," he echoed her words.

Lowering his head, he sucked in one rosy peak and it tightened on his tongue. Met with her gentle sigh, he accepted her invitation. She pulled him closer to her, arching toward him.

"Ye have the loveliest breasts." Thoroughly aroused now, his voice was low. Seductive. He cupped both breasts, their bounty overflowing his hands, and nuzzled into her neck. "I would like to take ye again, but ye've yet to tell me what I asked ye."

"No. I… I believe I did."

"Did the man lay his hands on ye?" He licked her ear with a quick flick of his tongue over her lobe. "Tell me now, Astrid."

"He groped me… everywhere… and would have done more, but Faolán heard my call to stop."

Anger ripped through him at the thought of the man touching her. His gut tightened with the need to learn more. To get specifics. Her reluctance to discuss it told him it would not be an easy task.

No offense against a woman went unpunished.

It was her father's own code, one that Diarmuid also followed. The need for revenge cut deep, but he was determined not to show it. Not now.

Slowly pulling away, he offered her his sweetest smile. "Now that was not so difficult, was it?" He kept his tone steady, wanting to soothe her, but his need to avenge her had cooled his ardor. Slightly. Her eyes rounded suddenly, and he was overcome by the intensity of her gaze.

"Being with ye now. Here. I had no thought that this is what it could be like." She palmed his face, her hand warm against his cheek. "To be with someone so caring. I did not know…"

"Shh," Marcán said, pulling her face to his bare shoulder, only to feel her tears sliding down his naked chest. "Now is all that matters."

Astrid nodded against him.

"I care for ye now just as I have wanted to care for ye for so long." He withdrew to watch her expression when he spoke the next words. "No one will take ye from me. No one! Ye are mine, and I will see to ye in all ways. Ye have nothing to worry about from him." He could not bear to say the man's name.

She kissed him.

"Ye are well worth the wait, a ghráidh."

"Astrid!" someone called outside.

Astrid gasped, a look of fear washing over her face, and started to jump up as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. He stilled her, waiting for her gaze to focus again on him. Then he took her hand and they slowly rose together, his eyes never leaving her face.

"We have done nothing wrong, Astrid. If someone comes? So be it. This was a private moment for us, but our love was never intended to be a secret."

Visibly strengthened by his words, she took a deep, cleansing breath. He looked for their clothing, helping her to dress first.

"Remember my words." He pulled her silky hair out from beneath the material. "No matter what happens."

He smoothed the long tresses down her back, then stood before her. "D'ye wish to go with me when I approach Diarmuid?"

"Now?"

"Of course now."

Astrid nibbled at her lip, glancing away, a deep furrow on her lovely face. "He has much to see to now… with Aednat not well."

He turned her face back to his, smiled, and said, "Ye will allow me to decide when? I cannot promise I will set aside our own pleasure for another's despair. I have wanted ye as my wife for a very long time."

Her eyes rounded, the hint of a smile on her lips. "Well, ye must be kind, Marcán. Diarmuid is overwrought now."

"So ye would have me wait? And I must sleep without ye by my side?"

She nodded. "Out of consideration for them and what they are going through."

He kissed her then. The sweetness of her lips and the passion with which she kissed him back were a boon that he hoped would see him through until she was less concerned for Aednat and Diarmuid.

"Astrid!" It sounded like Astrid's new slave.

Astrid tensed in his arms.

"Remember what I said," he told her.

Stepping away from him, she again nodded. He was filled with an overwhelming urge to pull her back. To keep her at his side always. To protect her from others. To not allow anyone to touch what they had shared. He shoved the feeling down, this sense of dread, and stayed his hands.

"I will go first," she said.

Her hand went to the latch, but he stilled the movement. He did not speak until she raised her gaze to him.

"We do not need to go out separately!"

Right before his eyes, the lovely flower he'd seen blossoming into its full beauty seemed to close up.

"My mother…"

Resentment swelled inside him—that woman would be the death of him—but he stepped away from the door. "I love ye, Astrid."

Opening the door, she smiled back at him and was gone. He closed the door and stood there, his forehead pressed against the rough wood, feeling like all the light had just gone out of his life.

"There ye are." It was Merewyn.

"I told ye to stay with Joan…"

The voices faded as they walked away. Marcán shook out his léine and drew it over his head. The urgency came back, even more powerful this time. It became so overwhelming, he jerked the door open. She disappeared beside the roundhouse, Merewyn close behind. Too far for him to call her back.

Turning back into the room, the memory of their lovemaking came back in full force. The sound of her voice confessing her love, and his own assurances of her worth. It would take a hundred more such affirmations to counter the damage her mother had done to her. That Beibhinn cared only for herself had never been more apparent. It had galled Marcán these many years. A dangerous woman. And the damage she'd done to her children was not limited to Fergus. Marcán decided to stay closer still, hoping to ward off her poor treatment of Astrid.

That the woman hated him was obvious. Beibhinn hated him with an unimaginable passion. Unable to keep Diarmuid away from him, she'd taunted him since he was very young, even putting a hex on him. Unheard of from someone who claimed herself to be such a God-fearing woman.

Her claim that all Seers were from the devil was something no one disputed. It was commonly believed they were in the same league as witches. But did not God alone decide what color a person's eyes would be?

He must have been ten and five, just back from his first battle and feeling quite full of his own importance, when he'd first overheard her speaking of his eye color. It was right after Maeve had been accepted into the clan as their healer. Intrigued, he had stopped to listen, hiding behind the open door of the roundhouse. When Beibhinn had loudly proclaimed that anyone with two different-colored eyes was a Seer, Marcán had become so incensed he'd shoved the door shut and stepped into the room.

"Marcán." The woman had had the decency to look ashamed.

"And who is this handsome young man?" Maeve had smiled, showing no indication she'd noticed his eye coloring.

"I am called Marcán." Livid, he had kept his eyes on Beibhinn, nostrils flaring. "And this may be the wife of the ri túaithe, but she is wrong in what she is telling ye."

Beibhinn's face had turned beet red. The feeling of gratification had been heady. When he'd noticed the look of fear Maeve gave Beibhinn, he'd added. "As ye can see, I have two different-colored eyes and I am a warrior, not a Seer."

Maeve had shifted. "I have heard yer name mentioned, as well as yer ability in battle."

"And this woman should have something more to do than gossip," Marcán had said. "'Twas just this week the priest spoke against such devil's work as that."

Later that day, it had occurred to Marcán that his ri túaithe might not have appreciated such treatment of his wife. Much to his surprise, Diarmuid's father had actually laughed at the tale—but he had also issued a warning about his wife's vindictive nature. He had heard plenty of tales since, many of them from Diarmuid himself, that had proven the man right.

Now Marcán hoped to wed Beibhinn's daughter. She would fight him every step of the way, but it wasn't up to her. It would be up to Diarmuid to accept their union, and Marcán had no doubt his friend would. He stepped into the sunshine. Faolán and Philip passed him on their way to the roundhouse.

"Marcán." Faolán tipped his head but stopped a few feet away. "Go o-on, Philip. I-I will be there a-anon."

Faolán came over to him. The man who had stopped Pádraig's advances on Astrid. Apparently, he had perfect timing.

"Faolán."

Marcán wondered if Faolán knew what he had saved Astrid from. There was some discoloring on his jaw, a cut above his eyes, but there was no telling how he'd sustained the bruises.

"Were ye in a fight whilst we were away?"

"H-horseplay. No more."

Asking him flat out would indicate Marcán was in Astrid's confidence, which he was not yet ready to reveal.

"W-we missed ye a-at the celebration last night," Faolán said. "Though 'twas a quiet celebration out of respect for o-our king and his w-wife, w-we looked for ye to tell us o-of the battle."

Marcán sensed the accusation in his voice, so he countered it with his own. "I would prefer to wait until Aednat can also join us." He blocked the door when Faolán attempted to peer inside. It would be important to tread lightly with this. At least until his betrothal to Astrid was announced.

"Did y-ye sleep in here l-last night? A-alone?"

Again, something in his tone did not sit well with Marcán.

"D'ye not have duties to see to, Faolán?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "I-I take my duties very seriously, a-as well ye know."

The duties he didn't mind doing. Diarmuid did not entirely trust this man, and while Marcán was grateful for Faolán's role in protecting Astrid, Marcán had to agree. "Then ye best see to them."

"O-one o-of those duties i-is protecting our w-women. That includes A-Astrid."

"Is there something ye wish to tell me?"

"Tell ye? No." Determination covered the man's face. "A-a special lass, that o-one."

Damn!

Marcán refused to flinch. "We all feel that way about the sister of our ri túaithe," he said.

Faolán's jaw visibly tightened, his animosity toward Marcán all but pouring out of him.

"I-is that the w-way ye feel a-about her, M-Marcán?"

Marcán gazed out toward the field, crossing his arms about his chest, ignoring Faolán's unrelenting gaze. While Marcán had no problem telling this man or any other how he truly felt about Astrid, she had asked him to wait. As difficult as it was, he wished to honor that.

"I feel just fine about her." Marcán pointed toward the far side of the field. The raised dirt wall protecting the animals was more prominent from this angle. Faolán's job was to secure the palisades atop the banks as needed. "And I see some damaged stakes that require repair. Come find me when ye're done with that."

Disappointment at the order was quickly replaced with anger. "But I-I a-am to relieve Diarmui—"

"Rest assured. I will see to Diarmuid. Ye do as I command."

Marcán went back within, shutting the door as the man huffed away. Back in the enclosed space, he breathed in the scent of Astrid that still lingered. Nothing about her should have surprised him after all these years of knowing her, of desiring her, but her passion was even more intense than he had guessed. It near overwhelmed him until he was struck with how well matched they were, how satisfying it was to be with a lass who always demanded more.

Taking the dry cloth from the side of the bath, he headed down the road to the stone longhouse, built in the style of the Norsemen, where Diarmuid sat with his wife. Marcán prayed he was wrong about Aednat's condition and that she would recover quickly. The man was smitten with her and the realization was hitting him hard. If the situation were less dire, Marcán would have laughed. Diarmuid finally understood how it felt, being helplessly in love with a woman who was his entire world.