His Bonnie Bride by Hannah Howell (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📕

that every sword there had your name upon it. 'Tis necessity that brings me."

Backed against the wall, Tavis wished fervently that his head would clear more quickly. "A necessity?"

"Aye, there is something that ye have that I require, Tavis MacLagan."

"What is that?" It was hard for him to see her so cold toward him.

"Your name." Storm refused to see the sadness in his bewitching eyes.

The fumes of too much drink faded a bit from his mind, but he remained confused. "What?"

"We will be married today. If ye have nay a priest, ye best send for one. I will not settle for handfast. 'Tis a union sanctified by the church that I seek."

"But why? Ye hate me. 'Tis there to see in your eyes."

The touch of desolation in his voice plucked at her, but she hardened herself against it. "Am I not a woman of rank? Was I not a virgin when ye bedded me? Aye, I did not fight ye, but neither did I invite ye. By all the rules of chivalry ye must wed me, replace the honor ye stole."

"We discussed this before, Storm. Ye are pretty, young and rich. There will be many a man who will care for ye, care not that ye are no longer a maid. Aye, and those who will understand."

"I know that, MacLagan, for proof I have had these last few months." She wondered by what right he had to look jealous. "Aye, and a fair number willing to show me that a Scotsman is only good for rutting like a boar, that 'tis an Englishman who knows the fine art of loving." She met his glare with an icy calm, purposely leaving him to wonder if she had tested the veracity of those claims.

"So ye dinnae need me. Get yourself a braw Sassanach husband," he snarled.

"She kens just how to goad him," mused Colin with laughter in his voice, a laughter that was echoed in the eyes of a number of men around him.

"He is right, though, so why does she want to wed him?"

"Ye'll soon see why, Malcolm," Colin replied softly, sorry that the pair continued to be kept at odds by Mistress Fate, but enjoying the confrontation, for they were evenly matched.

"Well, it seems there is a limit to their tolerance," she drawled as she signaled to Robin and Andrew who, along with Haig, moved to keep Tavis at sword-point. "That ye took my innocence they could understand, and too, the fact that I may not have put up much of a fight, but"—she began to remove her monk's robe—"there is something ye left that they cannot overlook. Nay, nor do they want anything to do with it." She let the robe slide to the floor.

There was an indrawing of breath from the Scots. Katerine cursed violently but softly. All the color drained from Tavis's face as his gaze fixed upon her altered figure. There was no mistaking the swell beneath her gown. Only Colin remained unsurprised, for he had seen through the camouflage of her monk's robe to the child-swollen figure beneath. It was plain that Tavis's seed had taken root early in their affair and the fruit was nearly ready to drop.

Tavis could not understand how he had not noticed. She had to have been several months gone with child when she had left.

For all the time they had been together he had never been denied her favors due to the arrival of her monthly time. Despite his experience, he had never noticed the lack of it. If she had suffered any of the sickness of a pregnant woman, she had hidden it well. When he realized his seed had been growing within her when Sir Hugh had nearly beaten her to death and perhaps even when Janet had tried to end her life he shuddered even as he felt a surge of wondrous pride over the strength of both his seed and the vessel that carried it.

"A bairn?" he croaked stupidly as he touched her swollen belly with a shaky hand.

"Obviously," she drawled. "Ye should not be so surprised. Ye worked hard enough for it."

Katerine forgot the sword still held on her. All she saw was that Storm had accomplished what she herself had failed to, that her plans to be Tavis's wife were still doomed to failure. Her jealousy and rage boiled up inside her. She leapt to her feet, startling Hadden, and rushed to where Tavis stood, his hand still resting upon Storm and the swords still aimed at him. She stood on the outside of that circle.

"She's out to trick ye, Tavis, to make ye give your name to some other man's bastard. Can ye nay see what she is up to?" she wailed, knowing her accusations were false even as she made them. "She's naught but a Sassanach slut."

A strong backhand sent Katerine sprawling to the floor. Andrew was only fourteen, but he was a tall, strong lad, and his blow had been as good as any full-grown man's. So, too, did his beardless face hold the cold, hard fury of an adult as he looked at the woman weeping on the floor.

"I suggest ye leave, madam, ere ye say anything else and I forget ye are a woman," he said icily, and watched as Katerine hastily withdrew in honest fear for her life.

"Do ye doubt 'tis yours?" Storm quietly asked Tavis, wishing she could remove his hand but afraid of what that might tell him.

Tavis felt his child move within her and found it hard to speak around the emotion choking him. "Nay, lass. I ken not what ye have done since leaving here, but no man's seed could have grown so in so short a time. I was the only man to touch ye here and none had touched ye ere I did. Nay, 'tis mine and I will give the bairn my name an it is what ye want."

"Aye. I'll not have my child labeled bastard and hear his mother