Fiona.
In the hall below, Fiona found the high board cleared, but her two aged servants were nowhere in sight. She suspected they had already climbed to their attic and gone to bed. Folding back the wooden shutters on a sleeping space set in the wall near the fireplace, she hauled a feather bed from a storage chest and placed it in the space, adding a pillow and a coverlet. 'When yer ready to sleep, my lord, ye'll find the sleeping space comfortable,' she told the laird.
'Have ye slept in it, then?' he teased her.
'Aye,' she said shortly. 'Whenever our father wanted to use our mam, he sent us to the hall to sleep. Good night, my lord.' Fiona hurried back up the stairs to her chamber.
Watching her go, he contemplated what a strange female she was. Saucy and bold she was without a doubt, yet loyal and protective of those she loved. She seemed to have little use for Dugald Hay, her sire, but then few had ever had use for the Hay of the Ben. He had not been a well-liked man, particularly after his rape of and forced marriage to Muire Hay, who had been betrothed to Angus Gordon's father, Robert. Dugald had kept to himself after that, siring child after child upon his unfortunate wife in his desperate attempt to gain his father-in-law's lands, for those lands would only be his if he sired a son on Muire. What had he been like in the years after Muire's death? How had it affected his daughters, particularly the fierce Fiona?
He smiled. She was really quite lovely. He would enjoy initiating her into the amatory arts. Even though he had earlier questioned her virtue, he knew without asking that she was absolutely ignorant about what transpired between a man and a woman. She had been too young for such things when her mother had died, and it was unlikely Dugald Hay had enlightened his daughter.
Tomorrow night they would be safe at Brae Castle. Tomorrow night she would be his. Why did the thought excite him so? He had just met the lass. He hardly knew her. Yet he wanted to possess her, wanted to taste that ripe mouth, wanted to caress that fair white flesh, wanted to feel her lithe body beneath his. The laird of Loch Brae climbed into his bed space and, not without some difficulty, finally fell into a restless sleep.
He awakened slowly, realizing that it was still dark, although the skies outside the tower's window were graying. He heard soft sounds in the hall, saw shadows moving about. He reached for his sword and waited to see who the intruders were and what they could possibly want from this poor place. Then suddenly he heard a giggle, followed by an authoritative 'shush,' and he realized that there were no intruders. It was the Hay sisters.
He watched from his bed space as they struggled to maneuver a large oaken tub from its storage nook at the end of the hall, pushing and pulling it down the length of the room, setting it before the fire. The door to the hall was flung open then, allowing him to observe the girls as they carried bucket after bucket of water from the well outside, heating it in an iron cauldron over the fire, and pouring it into the tub until finally it was filled to Fiona's satisfaction. Two of the girls dragged a screen from another cranny, fitting it about the tub area.
'Elsbeth and Margery first,' he heard Fiona say. There followed much whispering and giggling from behind the screen as each sister took her turn in the oaken tub.
Angus Gordon lay quietly, enjoying the sounds, his bed space quite cozy with the freshly built fire blazing away. He, too, came from a large family. Besides his youngest brother, Jamie, he had another brother, Robert, who was two years his junior, and two sisters, Janet and Meggie. His mother had been Margaret Leslie, the daughter of the laird of Glenkirk. She had borne her children over an eight-year period, dying as Muire Hay had in childbirth. How strange, he thought, that both he and Fiona Hay were the eldest of their siblings, and had each lost mothers when they were but eight years of age. At least his father had lived until he was grown, Angus thought gratefully. He had been a good man who grieved hard the wife he had loved and lost, as well as the lovely Muire Hay, whom he had also loved-and lost in an equally cruel manner.
'Upstairs, all of ye,' he heard Fiona ordering her sisters. 'I'll be with ye in a few moments' time. Flora, good, yer up! Is the bread baked yet? Give the lasses a loaf, some butter,
'Oh Fi! Honey? This really is a grand day,' the laird heard Jean say enthusiastically to her sister.
The hall grew silent. He could hear the sounds of splashing behind the screen. He could hear Fiona humming softly. Sliding from the bed space, he pulled on his boots and wrapped his kilt about his lean frame. He needed to pee, but first he would bid his hostess a good morning. It was simply too irresistible. Striding the hall, he moved around the screen.
'Good morrow, Mistress Hay,' he said cheerily.
The emerald-green eyes looked up, slightly startled, but she made no great outcry. 'Good morrow, my lord. I imagine we awakened ye, but ‘twas time,' she said calmly. Then she washed her face. Little else of her was available to his eyes but her shoulders and upper chest, for the tub was deep and well filled.
The most incredible urge overcame him. He wanted to lift her dripping from the tub, and kiss her cherry-red lips! He wanted to pull the pins that secured her black hair atop her head, and let it fall over her wet shoulders, where he might bury his face in the soft, fragrant mass of her tresses. Then he wanted to carry her to the dark security of the bed space he had only recently vacated, and make love to her until she cried with the pleasure he would give her.
Instead he bowed politely to her, saying, 'Ye were a verra courteous hostess, Mistress Hay, and I thank ye for yer hospitality. I hope ye will not be offended, but I wanted to repay that hospitality. I sent my brother back to Brae for two whole sheep to be roasted and some casks of wine. By the time ye run out,' he told her with a smile, 'the Forbeses and the Inneses will be verra drunk, and fortunate to find their way back down the ben to their own lands.'
' 'Tis most generous of ye, my lord,' Fiona acknowledged as she vigorously scrubbed her neck. 'I'll serve yer wine first, for it's certain to be better than the poor stuff my father had in his cellar. Would ye hand me my towel, please?' she requested sweetly.
Why the little vixen, he thought, half-amused, as he complied. He had sought to tease her, but she was giving him back as good as he had given her. Would she really arise from the dirty water in the tub while he was still with her? He decided to wait and find out.
Positioning the towel carefully before her so that he could view nothing of her charms, Fiona stood and wrapped the cloth tightly around her body. Then with the grace and dignity of a young queen she descended the narrow little steps from the tub to the hall floor. 'Thank ye for yer help, my lord,' she gently mocked him, turning and running up the stairs on slender white legs to the chamber she shared with her sisters. As she gained the landing, she looked down and stuck out her tongue at him.
The laird of Loch Brae burst out laughing. 'Ye’ll pay for that insult, Mistress Hay,' he vowed, shaking his fist at her. He went out into the clearing before the tower house, where he found his men preparing themselves for the wedding.
James had obviously returned. Two shallow pits had been dug in the earth, and the sheep were already roasting slowly upon their spits over the hot fires. Angus Gordon walked into the woods near the tower and relieved himself, but even emptied of his waters, his manhood was still swollen and sensitive. He cursed softly beneath his breath. How could she be affecting him so strongly when he scarcely knew her? He had never known his lust to be so quickly engaged as it was now. He would have to slake that lust immediately, or she would drive him mad. He thanked God that she was too young and innocent to understand the effect she was having upon him.
By midmorning the priest had arrived from Glenkirk Abbey. His first order of business was to baptize Morag Hay. Then he went into the Hay burying ground and prayed over the graves of Muire and Dugald Hay. The skirl of pipes was heard coming up the ben from first one side, then the other. Elsbeth and Margery were almost sick with excitement. Which of the clans would reach the crest of the ben first? The Forbeses or the Inneses? A clan feud was averted, however, when by prearrangement the two families marched into the clearing before Hay Tower together. The Forbeses, in their blue-and-green tartan with its single white stripe, had come up one side of the ben. The Inneses, their tartan a more complicated plaid of red, black, and green with narrow stripes of yellow, white, and blue, had come up the other side. Each had a single piper with them and together with the Gordon piper brought back by James, the ben rang with wild and savage music such as it had never heard.
Fiona Hay, dressed in a fine green velvet skirt and white linen blouse, the red-and-green Hay tartan across her bosom, a small flat green velvet cap with an eagle's feather upon her dark head, stepped from the house. She wore the clan badge of a Hay chieftain on her shoulder, and her family's plant badge, a sprig of mistletoe, was pinned to her cap. 'I bid those who are to become my kinsmen welcome,' she said. 'Have ye come in peace?'
