He kissed the top of her dark head while his big hands caressed her belly, which had begun to burgeon with the bairn she was carrying. Her white breasts were showing faint blue veins. He rested his hands upon her rounding flesh and felt the child within her stirring beneath his touch. "He's going to be a braw laddie," Colin said in a pleased tone. "I'll teach him to ride and use the claymore myself. And ye, sweeting, must teach him manners so he will not shame himself or the clan when he visits in his uncle's hall."
Fiona laughed softly. She had mellowed, she thought, over the past few months. She was glad Colin had no doubt that the child she carried was his. He would be good to that child, and until she could return south with her bairn, he would have a fine father in this man. "So yer certain it's a son, my lord," she teased him.
"Aye!" he responded enthusiastically. "We'll call him Alastair after my brother, the lord. I will ask Alexander to stand as the lad's godfather, Fiona mine. It canna hurt my laddie to have a powerful patron."
Alastair. It was the Celtic for Alexander. She hadn't considered what she would name this child. Certainly she could not name him after his true father, Angus Gordon, nor would she name him for her own father. "Alastair James MacDonald," she told Nairn. "For your brother, but for the king as well. One day the Lord of the Isles will have to give his fealty to James Stewart whether he wills it or not. I'd have our laddie named for both of these great men, Colly. Agreed?"
"Aye, sweeting! 'Tis a good name, Alastair James. I hope he will have yer black hair, for I love it so. I would not wish him my flaming top." He chuckled. His hands moved up to cup her breasts.
"And he may have yer blue eyes, Colly," she said, joining in the game that really was no game. "Oh, my nipples are so sensitive."
"And yer so damnably seductive, like one of our ancient fertility goddesses," he murmured in her ear, the tip of his tongue teasing it and then blowing softly on the wet surface. Turning her on her side, he moved behind her. "Soon we'll not be able to play," he whispered, fitting her leg in the proper position, then slowly sheathing himself in her warm, welcoming body.
"Ah." She sighed, feeling the hard, throbbing length of him within her. "Then," she said low, "ye'll have to take one of the serving wenches in the stables, Colly. Ahhh, my lord, 'tis good!"
His hands steadying one of her hips, he pumped himself gently within her until he felt her love juices dousing his manhood, and he then released his own pent-up passions. "No, sweeting," he told her when he had withdrawn from her and they were cuddled together beneath the warmth of the down and the fox fur. "I'll take no other for my pleasure when ye can no longer service me. Ye've spoiled me for any other woman, Fiona mine. The thought of even a meaningless tumble is distasteful to me now. I love ye, Fiona mine. I love ye!"
She turned so she might face him, seeing the love he offered her so unconditionally shining forth from his blue eyes. "Don't ask it of me yet, Colly," she pleaded with him. "I am not ready yet to give ye any more than I have already given ye. Ye canna expect it of me." She could feel the tears welling.
He gently stroked the curve of her jawline with a single finger. "But yer softening toward me, sweeting. I can see it."
"Aye," she admitted, "but it doesn't mean that I will ever love ye, Colly. The bairn within me makes me feel differently. Once he is born, I may become what I was before, and hate ye for stealing me away from the laird of Loch Brae.''
"Brae had his chance with ye, Fiona mine. He would not honor ye with his name," Colin said in a hard voice. "Ye know that I didn't hesitate to make ye my wife, even if handfast is only a year's time. When Father Ninian returns to Nairns Craig, we will have him give us the church's blessing, and ye will love me."
"I will make ye no promises, Colly," Fiona warned him once again, but she knew he was not listening to her. He was absolutely determined that she be his wife, not just for a year but for always.
Spring came, and the king ignored the highlands. A messenger arrived from the Lord of the Isles bearing the news that he was coming to visit his brother, that others would be joining him, too, and that the castle should prepare for the arrival of at least a dozen or more chieftains.
"Why do they come here?" Fiona asked.
"They come here because it is the one place no one will think a gathering would be held," Nairn told her. "They come to discuss what to do about James Stewart. Will they give fealty or will they not? Will they wait for him to call them to Inverness, or will they go south to Perth or Scone to pledge loyalty?"
Later, Fiona and Nelly stood atop the castle walls of Nairns Craig watching as the invited guests arrived. To their surprise they were joined by Moire Rose, a wine-and-dark-green length of Rose family tartan clutched about her narrow shoulders.
"Ye canna possibly know the tartans of the north," she said dourly, by way of opening the conversation. ''I'll instruct ye so ye don't embarrass yerself. There! The red and green with the yellow-and-white stripe is MacFie. The yellow and black with the red stripe is a MacLeod of Lewis. Ye knew the shameless daughter of that clan, Margaret, did ye not? Ah, there are the Chisholms with the red-and-green plaid with a white stripe, and the Camerons with their red and green with the yellow stripe. The Campbells are the blue and green with the yellow stripe, and the Maclntyres are the green and blue with red-and-white stripes."
"I do recognize some of the tartans," Fiona said quietly. "The red and green is Matheson, the green with the black-and-white stripes is MacLean, and the red, green, and blue plaid is Macintosh."
"How do ye know them?" Moire Rose asked, curious in spite of herself. "Ye grew up in the eastern highlands."
"Those plaids were represented in The MacDonald's hall when we were there last autumn," Fiona explained.
Below them a man in red-and-green plaid with a white stripe, followed by one in a green-and-blue tartan with light blue, red, and yellow stripes, rode up the castle hill.
"A MacGregor, and a Malcom," the older woman noted. "Ahh, and here's as fine a pair of troublemakers as Scotland has ever known." She pointed a bony finger at the two men, one in a red, black, and green plaid whom she identified as Alexander MacRurie, and his companion in his green-and-black tartan with the yellow stripe, one Ian MacArthur.
Fiona made a mental note to ask Nairn's opinion about the two men his mother had spoken so scathingly upon. "Who is the gentleman riding up the hill with the pretty woman, my lady Moire?" she asked her mother-in-law.
"Well, well, well, this is an important meeting," that lady replied. " 'Tis Angus Mac Kay, and his wife, Elizabeth, who is The MacDonald's sister. And see, behind them. That fat fellow in his green-and-navy plaid with the yellow stripe? 'Tis the Late MacNeill, so called because he is always one of the last to arrive at any gathering."
Fiona giggled, unable to help herself, and to her great surprise, a faint smile touched Moire Rose's lips, but it was gone before she might really be certain. "I had best prepare a chamber for The MacKay and his wife," Fiona told her companions. "I was not expecting a lady, and thought to let the men sleep in the hall, but for The MacDonald."
"Wait," Moire Rose said, excited. "Listen! Do ye not hear the pipes, lassie? 'Tis The MacDonald, Lord of the Isles himself."
Sure enough, up the hill came the Lord of the Isles, mounted upon a fine white stallion, led by his four pipers and followed by a large troupe of his men. The first line of the men carried pennants of bright scarlet silk upon which had been embroidered in gold thread the lord's motto, Per Mare Per Terras (By Sea, by Land). The lord and his men all wore a bit of heath, the clan's plant badge, in their caps. The pipers were playing the MacDonald march.