Beneath a Dark Highland Sky: Book #3 (12 page)

The sea wind was crisp and salty and sunlight dappled the water as far out as the eye could see. Sorcha stared straight ahead while they ate, watching the water dance and twist.

              “Tell me about the caves,” Malcolm said.

“I explored them often when I was a bairn. They are alluring, with green and purple reflections sparkling on the walls and ceilings. But they can be dangerous.” She pointed to a large cave in the middle. “That one is the most dangerous. Ye dunna want to get caught in it at high tide. They call it the Cave Where Time Stands Still. My parents used to tell me a filthy, two-headed giant lived in it and if I were to get caught inside, I would be frozen forever, stuck with the giant.” Absently, Sorcha picked up a shell and brushed the sand from it.

“And the stones?” he said.

“Some claim they are magic, placed here by the Romans to mark their ancient forts. Others say ‘twas a wedding party turned to stone. The party was held long into the night and a man clothed in black came and started to play his violin for the merrymakers after midnight, continuing into holy Sunday morning. As dawn broke, the revelers were turned to stone by the demon. The stone circles are the dancers, the avenues are the fiddlers, and the cove is the bride and groom, with drunken churchman at their feet. They still wait for the demon who promised to come back someday and play again for them.”

She paused, placing the shell back on the sand. “This is where my clan celebrates the Beltane. We dance around a bonfire and late at night, after all the bairns are asleep, some of the married couples make love by the stones, hoping they will be blessed with a healthy child.”

He rested an arm on his knee. “In the Highlands, they say the stones are giants who refused to be christened when Christianity came to the land.”

“These stones were nae giants,” she said, teasing him. “Everyone kens the giants live in the caves.” Her smile turned to a frown as she studied the hulking masses. “I think ‘twas definitely a wedding party, a Highlander and a Lowlander, a match that was ne’er meant to be.”

She stood and began to walk away from him but he sprung up and quickly caught her, gripping her arm gently.

“Ye dunna want me here,” he said.

              “I dunna deny it.” She stared at the caves, the inlet, the cliffs beyond, at anything but his rugged face.

              “Why? Yer clan could use my protection. These are difficult times for the Lowlands. For the Highlands. For all of Scotland. Combined, we will be stronger than if we stand apart.”

              “We ha’e managed all these years without ye. ’Tis
Douglas
land. It was ne’er meant to belong to a Maclean.”

              He placed his fingers beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Yer Lady Douglas has no objections to the match.”

              “Are ye
daft
? Of course she objects!”

              “I’ve heard no objections from the lady herself.”

              “Does she ha’e to say the actual words? Her behavior toward ye is an objection! She wipes her mouth on yer sleeve. She belches. She drinks too much. She doesna respect ye and she isna…enamored of ye. She doesna wish to marry ye!”

“I wouldna expect her to be enamored of me. Nor am I enamored of her. ‘Tis nae a love match. And it wouldna matter….”

“…if she objected,” Sorcha said bitterly, looking at him now. “For a lady’s wishes about her future are nae to be considered or taken into account in any manner.”

“We canna break a king’s order.” He studied her face as if he would memorize it. “Now her maid, she’s a different story. Yer a mystery, Nessa. A spirited lass. Ye can out shoot me with bow and arrow, yer stubborn as a bull, and yet yer small womanly curves entice me as no other.” His voice was raw with lust. He had no right to have such beautiful, dark-lashed, amber eyes.

“Is this how ye will behave after ye marry the Lady Douglas? Seducing any maid that takes yer fancy?”

“Nay. Just ye.” He stopped any further protest she would have made by capturing her mouth with his lips. The kiss was hard, not playful, and he was not asking permission. She responded almost without realizing she had done so, fervently, softly biting his sensual lower lip.

She was angry with him for coming to claim the Douglas keep. Angry at the deceit she practiced. Angry that he wasn’t being driven back to the barbaric Highlands yet. Angry he was not a blathering oaf and his dark, good looks had the power to stir her emotions.

As much as she wanted to struggle, he coaxed a stranger from her. She turned her anger into the kiss, her body betraying her, her heart beating wildly at his touch. Her hands, none too gently, wound their way into his black, shiny hair and he made a hungry male noise, deepening the kiss. When his tongue boldly darted inside her mouth, she moaned at the unexpected heat and pleasure.

“Last night I imagined how it will be between us,” he breathed, “with ye in my bed. I think ye ha’e a nature that matches my own.”

A sudden noise brought both their heads up unexpectedly. She did not have time to protest his words.

A rock had been thrown and had bounced off one of the large standing stones. Gillis peeked around a stone. He stood on the other side of the circle, clutching a wooden replica of a Viking ship in one hand. He looked concerned and his other fist was clenched into a ball, the sea breeze ruffling his dark curls. Except for the bubbled and puckered scars that disfigured part of his face, he seemed almost like a lad.

Malcolm did not release her from his strong embrace. “It seems ye ha’e a body guard,” he whispered.

“Let me go,” Sorcha demanded, her arms falling to her sides.

              Reluctantly, Malcolm stepped back so Sorcha could go to Gillis. She spoke to him softly and Malcolm watched as the worried look disappeared from his face. Malcolm could not hear what she was saying.

              He approached them slowly, threading his way through the giant dancers turned to stone on an ancient dawn morning. The wind whistled around the stones, sounding like faint music from a time long ago. “Gillis,” he said. “I hear ye are a master beekeeper. And I havena yet seen the bees. Will ye show me the skelps and the hives?”

              A broad grin rose on his face and he shook his head eagerly.

              “Does he ride?” Malcolm asked.

              “Yea, he can ride with me.”

              Malcolm shook his head. “I think he has other ideas. Gillis, would ye like to ride with me?”

              Gillis looked at the Highlander’s black warhorse and frowned.

              “My horse may look fierce but she is as gentle and as loyal as they come, to those she likes. And I think she likes ye, Gillis. So ye’ve nothing to fear. Her name is
Saighead
. ‘Tis the Gaelic word for ‘arrow.’ In battle, she is unfaltering and straight as an arrow. She obeys my every command and movement. She’s saved my life a number of times.”

              “He willna ride with ye,” Sorcha said. But Gillis already walked toward the horse. Sorcha was incredulous. Since Arkinholm, Gillis had only ridden Palfreys. He preferred their smooth gait and gentler natures.

She watched as Malcolm coaxed Gillis to release his Viking ship for a moment so he could help him mount the horse, and then he handed the wooden ship back to Gillis. “Did ye make the ship?” Malcolm asked. Gillis nodded.

“’Tis a vera impressive likeness. It takes skill to create a miniature mast and sail. It even has a mast step and shroud holes for securing the rigging. I love to sail. My father has galleys that havena changed much since Viking times.”

Gillis beamed as Malcolm untied his horse’s reins from the tree branch and swung his big body up in front of him. “Gillis will show me the bees,” Malcolm said. “Nessa, check on Lady Douglas and see if the lazy lass has finally climbed from her bed. I ha’e things to discuss with her before tomorrow’s wedding ceremony. Mayhap she would like to carry flowers? Or wear a dress not stained with beef drippings or soup? Or keep from belching during our vows?”

He looked at the stones. “This would be a good place for the ceremony. In the Highlands, when a man and woman are married, they place their hands together upon an oathing stone while they say their vows. Vows spoken near stones and water are more binding.”

He laughed and rode off, Gillis smiling and clinging to him for dear life.

Malcolm’s words had hit Sorcha with the force of a cold ocean wave. She still was not used to being called “Nessa.” And she did not need a reminder that the priest would arrive tomorrow. The Highlander was bound and determined to go through with the wedding. And she could not ask Nessa to stand in her place for that. What was she to do now?

She couldn’t let Nessa marry the Highlander. She would have to confess her ruse. She would have to tell him she was the Lady Sorcha Douglas. But she feared his anger. His wrath. A whole clan was trying to deceive him. What would her punishment be? Would he punish the rest of the clan for her actions?

She sat for a while staring hopelessly at the blue sea. She twisted the silver ring on her finger, wishing she could talk to her mother. Sorcha felt ashamed of her behavior. She had asked too much of Nessa and her clan for her own selfish reasons. Because she did not wish to marry and leave her home. Because deep down, she
was
afraid of the Highlander. Afraid of the things he made her feel. Afraid of the marriage bed, for she had never been with a man and he was powerful. Though he was lean, he was taller and more muscled and fit than most men due to the hours he spent riding, training, and fighting.

She felt a brief flare of hope as she thought of trying to convince the Highlander to hand fast, to keep her for the space of a year and a day without marrying her. If at the end of the year she displeased him, he would return her to her clan. She frowned. The Highlander would
never
agree to that.

Maybe having the Maclean’s protection would be best. Some of the villagers had claimed to have seen foreign ships far out to sea over the past few months. Would the English return to these shores? And would they be friend or foe?

When the sound of thunder jarred her from her thoughts, she started to make her way back to the keep. The air promised the coming of a violent storm. The skies darkened overhead and roiled with thick cloud and the wind started to gust. There would be rain before sunset. Yet she took her time.

Remembering her nightmare, she forced herself to go back the way of the Black Burn of Sorrow. There was a tall waterfall, and when the mist parted, she could see below, into the steep-sided gorge where the waters cut into the sides of the cliff rock. Ferns and moss-covered rocks dotted the banks below.

Her mother’s spirit was not standing there, waist-high in the water, silently beckoning to her, as she had been in her dream. There were only the birch trees and skylarks, the rushing burn, darkened skies and silent rock. Though it was late spring, there was still snow far away on the tips of the north slopes. In summer, sheep would graze among the wine-red heather, yellow gorse, and cascading burns of the high moorlands beyond and wild thyme would scent the air. And she would not be here to see or smell these familiar things she had taken into her very soul over the years, these things that were part of her.

Sorcha did not like this lost valley, hidden away, tucked up between two mountains, guarded by rock and threaded with treacherous waters. She was suddenly desirous of a warm hearth and turned her horse to go. The movement caused several small rocks to careen to the waters far below, where they splashed violently and disappeared. Sorcha shivered. ‘Twas dangerous even to stand on this ledge.

She urged her horse on its way carefully, wondering where the traveling priest was now
.
She imagined him to be a small and dirty man, hard-faced, with tonsured hair, begging meals for the services he performed for strangers. He was somewhere beyond this valley, getting closer. She could only hope it would rain into the morning, the burn would rise, and the priest would be delayed in reaching the keep.

15

When Sorcha entered the great hall a few hours later, preparations for the evening meal had begun. Malcolm and Nessa sat at the table on the dais quietly sipping goblets of wine and talking.

Servants bustled about and men, women, and children talked about the events of the day. Sorcha heard her own clan members still boasting about the maid’s win with bow and arrow and she felt a moment of pride. Little did they know how defeated she truly felt. No one noticed her entrance and she stuck to the shadows.

She was headed toward the kitchens when the commotion began. She turned, startled, to find Nessa in a fit of hysterics, throwing everything she could set hand to. Pottery shattered and broke across the floor. Goblets rolled and settled in the rushes. Men, women, and children dodged the flying objects or stood clustered in the corners, watching with surprise and glee. A huge Maclean man was not so lucky and was struck square in the face with a fat, flying cushion. Malcolm’s features tightened and he put a hand up to stay the man from retaliating, whether with words or throwing the cushion back from whence it came.

“Good Christ!” Nathair cried.

Nessa wasn’t finished. She hurled a dull knife at a tapestry on the wall, and the sewn, nearly naked figures embracing in a flower garden almost looked annoyed with her.

“We must ha’e a special wedding feast!” Nessa screeched. “We canna ha’e cook’s usual tasteless concoctions!” She pounded her fist on the table and did not seem to notice the muscle twitching in Malcolm’s square jaw.

“We need more time to prepare! I dunna wish to carry potpourri. I want baskets and baskets of flowers. I want flowers by the hearth. I want flowers on the tables. I want to
carry
flowers. I want flowers in my hair! I want to wear a blue silk gown befitting of royalty! And I demand we take our vows here, in the hall, and nae on a sandy beach by some dirty, auld, lumpy stones!”

She rolled her eyes and clenched her fists. “I insist on a great feast with fools, minstrels, and musicians! We will ha’e acrobats, jugglers, and e’en a dancing bear! Cook will prepare several cakes and we will stack them one a top the other and then try to kiss over the top!”

“Stop,” Malcolm said, his voice dangerously low.

She ignored him. “Oh, nae that a barelegged, bare-arsed, brutish, clouted, dog-hearted Highlander would e’er understand a genteel woman’s needs! Highlanders are barbaric and oft marry their own sisters, do they nae? I spit on the Macleans!” Nessa did as promised and spit at the floor near Malcolm’s feet. She looked as if she were about to heave one of the heavy tables off its trestles when Malcolm firmly grasped her wrist.

The Maclean men looked angry and tense.

Malcolm stood tall, legs apart. “Enough.” Nessa seemed fragile next to such a man, his dark brows frowning above his startlingly amber eyes. “Ye dunna act like a genteel lady but like a wayward child who doesna get her way. A title or a rank doesna a lady make—that’s the Lowland way. True nobility is earned through actions and words.”

Sorcha was impressed by Nessa’s petulant antics, even by the wild look that sprung into her eyes. But she was going too far. Sorcha was also impressed by Malcolm’s restraint, the control he showed over his emotions. “Ye will sit,
now
. And ye will stop yer God-awful screeching and throwing things.”

In response, Nessa grabbed the nearest item, a soup bowl. She made to throw it but it slipped backward onto her lap. Cold soup splattered her dress. She finally sat and obeyed the Highlander, biting her trembling lower lip. Sorcha did not know if Nessa trembled from fear, anger, or the strain of her performance.

“I will take ye upstairs for a bit,” Sorcha said. She took Nessa’s hand gently in her own. “Come. ‘Tis been a long day.” She locked gazes with Malcolm. “For everyone.”

Mutely, Nessa stood, still trembling. Malcolm’s jaw was tight with disapproval but he said nothing. He waited a moment before releasing the lady’s hand to be sure she wouldn’t hurl something else through the air.

“Lulach would ha’e given me dancing bears and flowers and grand cakes if we had married,” Nessa said quietly.

“Who is Lulach?” Malcolm asked.

“Nobody,” Sorcha said. “Foul dung on the heel of a boot.” She led Nessa away.

Upstairs in her bedchamber, the first thing Sorcha’s eyes fell upon was Malcolm’s prized war bow. It was propped in a corner, and even though she had won it fair and square, it seemed to mock and condemn her for separating it from its beloved master.
I dunna belong to ye,
it seemed to breathe.
Ye dunna take things from the Highlander. Soon ye will belong to him, too.

Silently, Sorcha helped Nessa change from her soiled gown to a light green gown that enhanced the beauty of her eyes. Nessa sat in the chair silently while Sorcha began to comb and dress her hair, which had come loose during her tirade in the hall.

She saw Nessa’s shoulders slump slightly and realized she was crying. “Oh lassie, there’s no need for greetin’.” Sorcha wiped at the tears with the pads of her thumbs and Nessa jerked away from her. Anger leapt into her eyes. “I dunna need yer pity, Sorcha. I dunna need anyone’s pity.”

“I dunna pity ye, Nessa. ‘Twas a startling and vera believable performance. But I worry ye took it too far.”

“Ye do pity me. I see it in yer eyes. Ye’ve pitied me since Lulach left me to marry that vile, plain Italian bitch. Ye judge me too harshly for still loving him. But ye dunna need to pity me.” Her eyes looked as if they held a secret.

“Nay. I dunna pity ye, Nessa, and I dunna judge ye. I ha’e ne’er been in love, so I couldna ken yer pain. What ye see is a different woman than the one I was before the Highlander arrived. I see now the strain I put on ye by asking ye to take part in this ruse. By asking the entire clan to take part in it. Just because I didna wish to be married. Because I was…afraid. It was vera selfish of me and I am ashamed.”

Sorcha leaned over and embraced her, placing her cheek against Nessa’s. Then she led her to the bed. “Rest for a while. Ye’ll feel better.”

Nessa frowned but laid down on the soft covers.

“I had time to think today, alone, by the auld stones near the caves,” Sorcha said “I realized I ha’e asked far too much of ye. I am going to end the ruse. I am going to confess to the Highlander that I am the Lady Sorcha Douglas. I dunna wish for ye to suffer for my actions. I dunna wish for the clan to suffer for my selfishness. If he is angry, I will accept any punishment on behalf of the clan.”

“Yer going to confess
now
? When we still ha’e time to drive him away? And what if he doesna care who he punishes?”

“Och Nessa, we ne’er had a chance. No matter how awful ye behave, ye willna drive him away. He told me as much. The marriage was decreed by a king and he willna disobey a king’s order, even a dead king’s order made years ago. And neither should I. Remember what happened the last time the clan stood against a king at Arkinholm, when the Black Douglas and the Red Douglas were divided? It is the only clear course of action. I must confess before it gets worse. I must accept my fate and marry the Highlander. I must stop being so childish.”

Nessa’s demeanor changed to one of concern for her friend. “I will stand in yer stead. I will marry him and ye can let him take me away from here and ye can stay. This is yer home. Ye dunna wish to leave it.”

“I canna ask ye to do that! ‘Tis yer home, too. He would soon discover yer nae the Lady Douglas anyway, and then what would happen to ye? Alone at Duart Castle with all the Maclean strangers angered by our deception? They might throw ye in a dungeon! Besides, he has as much told me that wherever ye go, I must accompany ye as yer maid. So there is no point in continuing the ruse. There is no point in both of us suffering.”

“At least wait until the morn to confess. Let us have one more night of fun at the Highlander’s expense.”

“Nay, I think it folly to wait any longer. We canna ken the extent of his wrath. He willna be pleased about being deceived by an entire clan.”

“It would be better to face his wrath in the light of day, in the clear of morning, than in the night. Even now the men grow drunk and tempers may flare. I say wait until the morn when cooler heads may prevail.”

Sorcha nodded. She was tired and what Nessa said seemed to make sense. “Just, please, no more outbursts. I fear for yer safety if ye push the Highlander too far. I also fear someone may be injured by a thrown vessel, for yer aim is fair.” Nessa smiled and it seemed to reach her eyes this time.

There was a knock on the door and Martha called out. “Come in,” Sorcha said.

“A grand performance, Nessa,” Martha said. She carried a cup with something noxious in it. “But ye do seem rather agitated. Do ye need a potion to calm yer nerves, my lady?”

Nessa threw a pillow in Martha’s direction, which Martha expertly dodged. “Nay! Ye already forced me to drink one abominable potion today! I dunna need another.”

“I’ll leave it on the bedside table, in case ye change yer mind.” Martha placed the cup on the table and left.

“A meddling woman,” Nessa whined.

“Martha is caring and efficient and only seeks to help ye calm yer nerves.”

Still, Nessa refused to drink the concoction.

They soon returned below stairs, Sorcha wondering if Nessa would behave and uncertain of Malcolm’s emotions and continued patience.