“Oh! I am not arrogant—”
“Do you know why your da really brought us here, lass?” Grimm interrupted coldly.
Jillian’s mouth snapped shut. It figured that he would be the only one who might tell her the truth.
“Do you? I know you used to have a bad habit of spying, and I doubt much about you has changed.”
Her jaw jutted, her spine stiffened, and she threw her shoulders back, presenting him with a clear view of her lush figure—one of the things that had definitely changed about her. She bit her lip to prevent a smug smile when his gaze dropped sharply, then jerked back up.
Grimm regarded her stonily. “Your da summoned the three of us here to secure you a husband, brat. Apparently you’re so impossible to persuade that he had to gather Scotia’s mightiest warriors to topple your defenses.” He studied her stalwart stance and aloof expression a moment and snorted. “I was right—you do still eavesdrop. You aren’t at all surprised by my revelation. Seeing as how you know the plan, why doona you just be a good lass for a change; go find Quinn and persuade him to marry you so I can leave and get on with my life?” His gut clenched as he forced himself to say the words.
“That’s what you wish me to do?” she asked in a small voice.
He studied her a long moment. “Aye,” he said finally. “That’s what I wish you to do.” He pushed his hands through his hair before grabbing Occam by the reins and leading him away.
Jillian watched him retreat, her throat working painfully. She would not cry. She would never again waste her tears on him. With a sigh, she turned for the castle, only to come smack up against Quinn’s broad chest. He was regarding her with such compassion that it unraveled her composure. Tears filled her eyes as he put his arms around her. “How long have you been standing here?” she asked shakily.
“Long enough,” he replied softly. “It wouldn’t take any persuading, Jillian,” Quinn assured her. “I cared deeply for you as a lass—you were as a cherished younger sister to me. I could love you as much more than a sister now.”
“What is there to love about me? I’m a blithering idiot!”
Quinn smiled bitterly. “Only for Grimm. But then, you always were a fool for him. As to what one might love about you: your irrepressible spirit, your wit, your curiosity about everything, the music you play, your love for the children. You have a pure heart, Jillian, and that’s rare.”
“Oh, Quinn, why are you always so good to me?” She affectionately brushed his cheek with her knuckles before she slipped past him and dashed, alone, for the castle.
CHAPTER 9
“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?” QUINN DEMANDED, bursting into the stables.
Grimm glanced over his shoulder as he slid the halter from Occam. “What are you talking about? I doona have a problem,” he replied, waving an eager-to-assist stable boy away. “I’ll take care of my own horse, lad. And doona be penning him up in here. I just brought him in to rub him down. Never pen him.”
Nodding, the stable boy backed away and left quickly.
“Look, McIllioch, I don’t care what motivates you to be such a bastard to her,” Quinn said, dropping all pretense by using Grimm’s real name. “I don’t even wish to know. Just stop. I won’t have you making her cry. You did it enough when we were young. I didn’t interfere then, telling myself that Gavrael McIllioch had had a tough life and maybe he needed some slack, but you don’t have a tough life anymore.”
“How would you know?”
Quinn glared. “Because I know what you’ve become. You’re one of the most respected men in Scotland. You’re no longer Gavrael McIllioch—you’re the renowned Grimm Roderick, a legend of discipline and control. You saved the King’s life on a dozen different occasions. You’ve been rewarded so richly that you’re worth more than old St. Clair and myself put together. Women fling themselves at your feet. What more could you want?”
Only one thing—the thing I can never have, he brooded. Jillian. “You’re right, Quinn. As usual. I’m an ass and you’re right. So marry her.” Grimm turned his back and fiddled with Occam’s saddle. He shrugged Quinn’s hand off his shoulder a moment later. “Leave me alone, Quinn. You’d make a perfect husband for Jillian, and since I saw Ramsay kissing her the other day, you’d better move fast.”
“Ramsay kissed her?” Quinn exclaimed. “Did she kiss him back?”
“Aye,” Grimm said bitterly. “And that man has spoiled more than his share of innocent lasses, so do us both a favor and save Jillian from him by offering for her yourself.”
“I already have,” Quinn said quietly.
Grimm spun sharply. “You did? When? What did she say?”
Quinn shifted from foot to foot. “Well, I didn’t exactly out-and-out ask her, but I made my intentions clear.”
Grimm waited, one dark brow arched inquiringly.
Quinn tossed himself down on a pile of hay and leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows. He blew a strand of blond hair out of his face irritably. “She thinks she’s in love with you, Grimm. She has always thought she was in love with you, ever since she was a child. Why don’t you finally come clean with the truth? Tell her who you really are. Let her decide if you’re good enough for her. You’re heir to a chieftain—if you’d ever go home and claim it. Gibraltar knows exactly who you are, and he summoned you to be one of the contenders for her hand. Obviously he thinks you’re good enough for his daughter. Maybe you’re the only one who doesn’t.”
“Maybe he brought me just to make you look good by comparison. You know, invite the beast-boy. Isn’t that what Jillian used to call me?” He rolled his eyes. “Then the handsome laird looks even more appealing. She can’t be interested in me. As far as Jillian knows, I’m not even titled. I’m a nobody. And I thought you wanted her, Quinn.” Grimm turned back to his horse and swept Occam’s side with long, even strokes of the brush.
“I do. I’d be proud to make Jillian my wife. Any man would—”
“Do you love her?”
Quinn cocked a brow and eyed him curiously. “Of course I love her.”
“No, do you really love her? Does she make you crazy inside?” Grimm watched him carefully.
Quinn blinked. “I don’t know what you mean, Grimm.”
Grimm snorted. “I didn’t expect you would,” he muttered.
“Oh, hell, this is a snarl of a mess.” Quinn exhaled impatiently and dropped onto his back in the fragrant hay. He plucked a stem of clover from the pile and chewed on it thoughtfully. “I want her. She wants you. And you’re my closest friend. The only unknown factor in this equation is what you want.”
“First of all, I sincerely doubt she wants me, Quinn. If anything, it’s the remains of a childish infatuation that, I assure you, I will relieve her of. Secondly, it doesn’t matter what I want.” Grimm produced an apple from his sporran and offered it to Occam.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it matters.” Quinn frowned.
“What I want is the most irrelevant part of this affair, Quinn. I’m a Berserker,” Grimm said flatly.
“So? Look what it has brought you. Most men would trade their souls to be a Berserker.”
“That would be a damned foolish bargain. And there’s a lot you doona know that is part and parcel of the curse.”
“It’s proved quite a boon for you. You’re virtually invincible. Why, I remember down at Killarnie—”
“I doona wish to talk about Killarnie—”
“You killed half the damned—”
“Haud yer wheesht!” Grimm’s head whipped around. “I doona wish to talk about killing. It seems that’s the only thing I’m good for. For all that I’m this ridiculous legend of control, there’s still a part of me I can’t control, de Moncreiffe. I have no control over the rage. I never have,” he admitted roughly. “When it happens, I lose memory. I lose time. I have no idea what I’m doing when I’m doing it, and when it’s over, I have to be told what I’ve done. You know that. You’ve had to tell
me a time or two.”
“What are you saying, Grimm?”
“That you must wed her, no matter what I might feel, because I can never be anything to Jillian St. Clair. I knew it then, and I know it now. I will never marry. Nothing has changed. I haven’t been able to change.”
“You do feel for her.” Quinn sat up on the hay mound, searching Grimm’s face intently. “Deeply. And that’s why you try to make her hate you.”
Grimm turned back to his horse. “I never told you how my mother died, did I, de Moncreiffe?”
Quinn rose and dusted hay from his kilt. “I thought she was killed in the massacre at Tuluth.”
Grimm leaned his head against Occam’s velvety cheek and breathed deeply of the soothing scent of horse and leather. “No. Jolyn McIllioch died much earlier that morning, before the McKane even arrived.” He delivered the words in a cool monotone. “My da murdered her in a fit of rage. Not only did I sink to such foolishness as summoning a Berserker that day, I suffer an inherited madness.”
“I don’t I believe that, Grimm,” Quinn said flatly. “You’re one of the most logical, rational men I know.”
Grimm made a gesture of impatience. “Da told me so himself the night I left Tuluth. Even if I gave myself latitude, even if I managed to convince myself I didn’t suffer an inherited weakness of mind, I’m still a Berserker. Doona you realize, Quinn, that according to ancient law we ‘pagan worshipers of Odin’ are to be banished? Ostracized, outcast, and murdered, if at all possible. Half the country knows Berserkers exist and seek to employ us; the other half refuses to admit we do while they attempt to destroy us. Gibraltar must have been out of his mind when he summoned me—he couldn’t possibly seriously consider me for his daughter’s hand! Even if I wanted with all my heart to take Jillian to wife, what could I offer her? A life such as this? That’s assuming I’m not addled by birthright, to boot.”
“You’re not addled. I don’t know how you got the ridiculous idea that because your da killed your mother there’s something wrong with you. And no one knows who you really are except for me, Gibraltar, and Elizabeth,” Quinn protested.
“And Hatchard,” Grimm reminded. And Hawk and Adrienne, he recalled.
“So four of us know. None of us would ever betray you. As far as the world is concerned you’re Grimm Roderick, the King’s legendary bodyguard. All that aside, I don’t see how it would be a problem for you to admit who you really are. A lot of things have changed since the massacre at Tuluth. And although some people do still fear Berserkers, the majority revere them. You’re some of the mightiest warriors Alba has ever produced, and you know how we Scots worship our legends. The Circle Elders say only the purest, most honorable blood in Scotland can actually call the Berserker.”
“The McKane still hunt us,” Grimm said through his teeth.
“The McKane have always hunted any man they suspected was Berserk. They’re jealous. They spend every waking moment training to be warriors and can never match up to a Berserker. So defeat them, and lay it to rest. You’re not fourteen anymore. I’ve seen you in action. Rouse up an army. Hell, I’d fight for you! I know scores of men who would. Go home and claim your birthright—”
“My gift of inherited madness?”
“The chieftainship, you idiot!”
“There might be a small problem with that,” Grimm said bitterly. “My crazy, murdering da has the dreadful manners to still be lingering on this earth.”
“What?” Quinn was speechless. He shook his head several times and grimaced. “Christ! How can I walk around all these years thinking I know you, only to find out I don’t know a blethering thing about you? You told me your da was dead.”
It seemed all his close friends were saying the same thing lately, and he wasn’t a man given to lying. “I thought he was, for a long time.” Grimm ran an impatient hand through his hair. “I will never go home, Quinn, and there are some things about being Berserk that you doona understand. I can’t have any degree of intimacy with a woman without her realizing that I’m not normal. So what am I supposed to do? Tell the lucky woman I am one of those savage killing beasts that have gotten such a bad reputation over the centuries? Tell her I can’t see blood without losing control of myself? Tell her that if my eyes ever start to seem like they’re getting incandescent, to run as far away from me as she can get because Berserkers have been known to turn on friend and foe indiscriminately?”
“You’ve never once turned on me!” Quinn snapped. “And I’ve been beside you when it happened many times!”
Grimm shook his head. “Marry her, Quinn. For Christ’s sake! Marry her and free me!” He cursed harshly, dropping his head against his stallion.
“Do you really think it will?” Quinn asked angrily. “Will it free any of us, Grimm?”
Jillian strolled the wall-walk, the dim passage behind the parapet, breathing deeply of the twilight. Gloaming was her favorite hour, the time when dusk blurred into absolute darkness broken only by a silvery moon and cool white stars above Caithness. She paused, resting her arms against the parapet. The scent of roses and honeysuckle carried on the breeze. She inhaled deeply. Another scent teased her senses, and she cocked her head. Dark and spicy; leather and soap and man.
Grimm.
She turned slowly and he was there, standing behind her on the roof, deep in the shadows of the abutting walls watching her, his gaze unfathomable. She hadn’t heard a sound as he’d approached, not a whisper of cloth, not one scuffle of his boots on the stones. It was as if he were fashioned of night air and had sailed the wind to her solitary perch.
“Will you marry?” he asked without preface.
Jillian sucked in a breath. Shadows couched his features but for a bar of moonlight illuminating his intense eyes. How long had he been there? Was there a “me,” unspoken, at the end of his sentence? “What are you asking?” she said breathlessly.
His smooth voice was bland. “Quinn would make a fine husband for you.”
“Quinn?” she echoed.
“Aye. He’s golden as you, lass. He’s kind, gentle, and wealthy. His family would cherish you.”
“And what about yours?” She couldn’t believe she dared ask.
“What about mine, what?”
Would your family cherish me? “What is your family like?”
His gaze was icy. “I have no family.”
“None?” Jillian frowned. Surely he had some relatives, somewhere.
“You know nothing about me, lass,” he reminded her in a low voice.
“Well, since you keep butting your nose into my life, I think I have the right to ask a few questions.” Jillian peered intently at him, but it was too dark to see him clearly. How could he seem such a part of the night?
“I’ll quit butting my nose. And the only time I butt my nose in is when it looks like you’re about to get in trouble.”
“I do not get into trouble all the time, Grimm.”
“So”—he gestured impatiently—“when will you marry him?”
“Who?” She seethed, plucking at the folds of her gown. Clouds passed over the moon, momentarily obscuring him from her view.
His eerily disembodied voice was mildly reproaching. “Try to follow the conversation, lass. Quinn.”
“By Odin’s shaft—”
“Spear,” he corrected with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“I am not marrying Quinn!” she informed the dark corner furiously.
“Certainly not Ramsey?” His voice deepened dangerously. “Or was he such a good kisser that he’s already persuaded you?”
Jillian drew a deep breath. She released it and closed her eyes, praying for temperance.
“Lass, you have to wed one of them. Your da demands it,” he said quietly.
She opened her eyes. Praise the saints, the clouds had blown by and she could once again discern the outline of his form. There was a flesh-and-blood man in those shadows, not some mythical beast. “You’re one of the men my da brought here fo
r me, so I guess that means I could choose you, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head, a blur of movement in the gloom. “Never do that, Jillian. I have nothing to offer you but a lifetime of hell.”
“Maybe you think that, but maybe you’re wrong. Maybe, if you quit feeling sorry for yourself, you’d see things differently.”
“I doona feel sorry for myself—”
“Ha! You’re drowning in it, Roderick. Only occasionally does a smile manage to steal over your handsome face, and as soon as you catch it you swallow it. You know what your problem is?”
“No. But I have the feeling you’re going to tell me, peahen.”
“Clever, Roderick. That’s supposed to make me feel stupid enough to shut up. Well, it won’t work, because I feel stupid around you all the time anyway, so I may as well act stupid too. I suspect your problem is that you’re afraid.”
Grimm leaned indolently back against the stones of the wall, looking every inch a man who’d never contemplated the word fear long enough for it to gain entrance into his vocabulary.
“Do you know what you’re afraid of?” she pushed bravely on.
“Considering that I didn’t know I was afraid, I’m afraid you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage,” he mocked.
“You’re afraid you might have a feeling,” she announced triumphantly.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of feelings, lass,” he said, dark, sensual knowledge dripping from his voice. “It just depends on the kind of feeling—”
Jillian shivered. “Don’t try to change the subject—”
“And if the feeling’s below my waist—”
“By segueing into a discussion about your debauched—”
“Then I’m perfectly comfortable with it.”
“And perverse male needs—”
“Perverse male needs?” he echoed, suppressed laughter lacing his words.