Magdalene saw anger flit across his face—a truly fine-looking face, she couldn’t deny it—the set of his jaw hardening again.
He looked every inch the fearsome warrior with his black woolen tunic covered by thickly padded leather armor to his waist, oiled leather boots, and a belt slung around his hips that sheathed a massive sword. The carved hilt glinted ominously in the sunlight, making her take a step closer to the wall.
At once Magdalene thought of her beautiful older sister, Debora, and how she must have felt to face her brute of a husband alone for the first time.
Her marriage a political alliance forged by their father, Donal MacDougall, that had sent poor Debora to her grave within six months.
Yet more horror was to come. Debora’s untimely death drove their sweet mother, Elspeth, to madness, her mind shattered by grief.
Fearing that she might suffer a similar fate as Debora, Magdalene had imitated their mother’s lunacy so well that Donal had sent her away to the convent. She’d guessed long ago that his guilt over her sister’s fate had caused him to leave her in peace and not marry her off, but he was gone now, too, succumbing to a fever seven months past. She should have known Seoras would one day use her as a pawn—oh, no, the brute who’d wed her was coming closer!
Trembling uncontrollably, Magdalene jumped backward and hit the wall, wincing as Gabriel reached out to her. She shook her head wildly and closed her eyes, but not before she saw a look of resignation on his face where anger had been only a moment before.
“Magdalene, I swear that I’m not going tae hurt you. I dinna know if you can understand me, but I didna want this marriage, either. If I could leave you here, I would, you’d be much safer, but your brother has ordered that you reside with me at MacLachlan Castle. Now come. You need tae dress and we must go. Take my hand, I’ll help you.”
His voice low and coaxing, Magdalene nonetheless shook her head fiercely and kept her eyes tightly closed.
Safer? What had he meant? Och, what did it matter?
She wanted no part of this marriage and the sooner Gabriel MacLachlan regretted taking her away with him, the sooner she’d find herself blessedly back at the convent and in her room—alone!
Inhaling a great breath, she let out such a piercing screech that she was certain the window might shatter and shoved him with all her strength—to her surprise, knocking him flat on his arse.
She heard his startled curse but nothing else as she shrieked again and dodged past him to fling open the door and lunge into the hallway…straight into the arms of Sister Hestia and Sister Tabitha.
“We’ve got her, Laird, we’ve got her!”
Chapter 3
Gabriel jumped to his feet, incredulous and disgruntled by turns that his wild-eyed slip of a bride had knocked him down, even as he felt the strangest urge to laugh.
By God, no one had so bested him since his youth when he would wrestle with Cameron and Conall, the brothers’ combined effort needed to drop him to his knees. And then he had soundly trounced both of them until they had howled for mercy, their faces shoved into the mud, though moments later, they all were laughing and slapping each other on the back.
Grinning at the memory, Gabriel nonetheless sobered at the sight of the two nuns struggling so mightily to prevent Magdalene, naked again, from breaking free.
Sister Agnes, meanwhile, stood off to one side, wringing her hands and crossing herself by turns. He swept up his breacan discarded upon the floor and within two strides, grabbed his shrieking bride around the waist and hauled her into the air.
“Enough, wife! If you wish tae ride bare-arsed all the way tae Argyllshire for the world tae see, then so be it!”
With that, Gabriel pitched her over his shoulder and gave her a sound whack on her sweetly rounded bottom, which made the nuns gasp and Sister Agnes’s mouth to drop open.
He heard Magdalene gasp, too, no longer shrieking but gulping air as if she fully understood what he had just threatened. She went limp upon him, the hand that had grabbed a fistful of his hair to wrench it from his scalp, instantly loosening its grip.
Relieved to note that she wasn’t entirely without reason, Gabriel waited a few moments to make sure she didn’t start struggling again…and then lifted her from his shoulder and set her down on the floor. He kept a grip on one slim arm, though, while Magdalene hung her head and stared with little visible emotion at her bare feet.
Bare feet that were soon shod with leather slippers, a delicate white shift and deep blue gown pulled down over her head by the two nuns who fluttered anxiously around her. Meanwhile, Sister Agnes stood in the doorway and watched the proceedings, though Gabriel could see that the woman’s lips moved furtively in silent prayer.
He should send up a prayer or two as well, he thought grimly, the vision of his life stretching before him with a lunatic as his bride a bleak one.
She hadn’t always been this way, the poor lass. His memory stirred from looking at her, he recalled her as a girl when he’d first entered Donal MacDougall’s service six years ago and stood guard with other young warriors in the great hall or out in the bailey. Magdalene had flitted here and there like a golden-haired ray of sunshine, always giggling and smiling, though Gabriel had paid her little heed.
It had been her older sister, Debora, who had mesmerized all of the men with her beauty and grace—och, she’d died not long after her ill-fated wedding and everything with the MacDougalls had changed.
Earl Donal turned reclusive and ill-tempered, and Lady Elspeth so grief-stricken she went mad. Their only son, Seoras, had taken three dozen men, including Gabriel, and left to fight on various campaigns for the last four years, the man making no secret of wishing his father dead so he would become earl of the MacDougalls.
Seoras had spoken only once of Magdalene in all that time, that she’d gone mad, too, and then hadn’t mentioned her name again until he had foisted her upon Gabriel.
As if all the fight had gone out of her—for the moment anyway, he had no doubt—she didn’t utter a whisper or make a move to lift her head during the nuns’ ministrations, which only heightened the pity he felt for her.
