Beneath a Dark Highland Sky: Book #3 (9 page)

She stopped at the door, her head down, staring at her booted feet.

“When we first met, why did ye nae tell me ye were the laird?”

“I didna wish to frighten ye and I thought perhaps if ye didna ken who I was, ye might be more forthcoming with an honest opinion of my bride-to-be, the Lady Douglas.”

She turned to look at him. “Frightened! I wasna frightened of ye, Highlander!” She sighed. “Men always underestimate women. Dunna be surprised when I best ye tomorrow with my bow and arrow. I hope yer pride willna be too wounded, for I wouldna wish ye to cut off my head and drink my blood from my skull. I rather prize my skull.” She darted out the door, his deep laughter following her down the corridor.

As she hurried toward the great hall, she tried not to dwell on his kiss. The last thing she wanted was to start
liking
the Highlander.

10

Evening had descended and the hall was filled with music and laughter.

The meal was noisy, people crowded at long benches and tables, eating venison, fish, sausage with apples, and soup. There were bannocks and barley cakes and cheese. Wines her father imported from the continent long ago were poured. There were still ample supplies of it in the cellar rooms and it was brought up for their guests. Whisky and ale flowed freely as trenchers were filled.

Iron chandeliers glowed with candles, the light illuminating the strangers’ faces. In the corner, an older woman played a harp softly, the notes of the instrument mixing with the unfamiliar sounds of Gaelic.
The stage was set for Nessa’s grand performance.

Sorcha was hungry and ate quietly, sitting by herself on a bench in the shadows. A lanky hound lounged at her feet, looking mournful while it waited for scraps. She tossed it one.

She looked up once to find Malcolm’s eyes on her. He sat at the main table next to Nessa.

As the night wore on, she ran herself ragged waiting on the Macleans and her own clan. For a long while she spared nary a glance at the main table, not wanting to meet the Maclean’s eyes again after having bathed him so intimately. Yet when she did sneak a glance, she was pleased by Nessa’s performance. She dipped her hand in the sauce up to her knuckles and belched often, and Sorcha nearly laughed out loud at the look on Malcolm’s face when she dared to wipe her mouth on his sleeve!

              Indeed, as she’d promised, the queen would’ve been proud of Nessa’s performance. She often bellowed at the servants. She had to, for Nathair had confiscated the bell, much to everyone’s relief. He’d even threatened to confiscate the horn that had been blown by young Willeam to announce the evening meal.

Sorcha locked gazes with Nessa as she tore at a goose leg with her teeth and then tossed it over her shoulder to the hounds, a wicked smile on her face, a frown on Malcolm’s.

The harpist soon retired and was replaced by a fiddler and a drummer and people began to dance. Men lifted small boys onto their shoulders while plaids whirled. There was good-natured boasting from both clans, cheering, and toasting and stamping of feet, especially when one of the Maclean men grabbed the fiddle and a high-stepping Gaelic dance ensued.

Sorcha left her cup, whisky untouched, on a stone near her feet. She felt the need for a moment of respite and slipped through the cavernous kitchens and outside to the walled, terraced gardens. The moon shone brightly as she made her way along twisting, seashell-lined paths and through areas filled with magnificent shrubbery and trees. She arrived at a wall at the far end of the gardens, one of her favorite spots, and watched the writhing sea far below, listening as the waves crashed and boomed on the shingle.

“Sorcha,” a male voice said.

She whirled in alarm. Someone had followed her. Tomas stood there, none too steady on his feet. His liene was stained with gravy. Sorcha glanced around but they were alone.

“Tomas, dunna call me Sorcha!” she whispered. “I am the maid Nessa, remember?”

He closed the distance between them, standing far too close. Music from the hall drifted on the night air, the beat of the drums pounding up her spine.

“Dance with me.”

“Nay! Get ye back inside, Tomas.”

She presented her back to him but he grabbed her forcefully and turned her round to face him, his fingers digging painfully into her arms. Bending low, he put his mouth to her ear. “Kiss me, lass. Just one kiss. ‘Tis all I ask. I ha’e been besotted by ye since I was a wee lad.”

“I must be back about my duties.”

“Yer duties, eh? I can think of far more pleasant duties.” He lowered his head and forced a kiss upon her lips, painful and bruising, something he’d never had the audacity to do before. Sorcha struggled to be free of him.

“It seems the lady doesna wish yer attentions.”

Tomas lifted his head to see who had challenged him but did not release Sorcha’s arms.

Malcolm stood in the shadows, his posture tense.
How long had he been standing there?
Sorcha thought.
Had he heard Tomas call her by her real name?

Malcolm stepped closer. He towered over Tomas.

              Undeniable anger blazed in Tomas’ brown eyes and the drink made his tongue bold. “What care ye for a lowly maid, Malcolm Maclean? She isna yer concern.”

              “I would ha’e a word with her, in private. If ye ken what is good for ye, ye’ll leave us. Now.”

Even Tomas wasn’t foolish enough to challenge the Highlander. Sorcha held her breath, for Tomas could choose to reveal all now to hurt her. Of course that would mean she would have to marry the Maclean laird and she thought, even Tomas did not wish that upon her. Tomas had been trying to court her for three years, even though she’d given him no encouragement. He’d not want to see her with another man.

              Tomas finally skulked off and Sorcha returned the Highlander’s gaze. Was the ruse up? Did he ken she was the real Lady Douglas?

              It was agony waiting for him to speak. The sea-scented wind gusted, ruffling the edges of his dark plaid and his midnight-black hair. His jawline was grim, his eyes like smoldering topaz.

She would not be the first to speak; she would not fill the awkward silence. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited. If he knew who she was, so be it.

              “That man, who is he?” he finally said.

              “His name is Tomas.”

He stood silent again, his eyes traveling the length of her, lingering on her trim waist and the swell of breasts beneath her simple tunic, before returning to her face. “Is he yer lover?”

              Sorcha nearly laughed with relief.
That’s what he wanted to ask her?
“Tomas? Nay. He would like to be but I dunna….fancy him that way.”

              “Then why are ye here, alone in the gardens with him?”

              “Why are ye here and nae in the hall?” she countered.

              “The Lady Douglas needs yer assistance. I fear she will soon pass out in her soup.”

              Sorcha inclined her head, the most thanks she would give him for rescuing her from an awkward, tense moment with Tomas merely because the Lady Douglas was falling into her soup and needed her maid. “I could ha’e handled Tomas on my own,” she said, walking quickly past him. He gripped her arm firmly and stopped her.

              He was so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. He leaned even closer, his lips below her ear. “I’m glad he isna yer lover,” he breathed. “He isna a good match for a spirited lass such as yerself. Ye need a man who….”

              She jerked her arm away. Who was he to tell her whom her lover should or shouldn’t be? “Any lover of mine is no concern of yers!”

              He stared at her with an intensity that was unnerving.

              “Ye’ll be leaving here soon, so why should ye care?”

              “What makes ye think I will be leaving soon?” he said, his voice a low growl.

              Sorcha nearly sighed in exasperation.

“Ye canna still wish to marry the Lady Douglas! Ye said yerself her manners are atrocious, her beauty is cold, and ye dunna like the way she talks to her servants. Ye canna be fond of our soggy Lowlands, so I assumed….”

“No matter how distasteful I find the Lady Douglas, it canna be undone. The marriage was decreed by a king. I canna defy a king’s order. I canna put my clan at risk, e’en if I dunna wish to marry her. In these times, no one can afford to make an enemy of the Scottish king.”

Sorcha clenched her fists at her sides. “Let me give ye some advice, Highlander, advice ye’d be wise to heed. Lady Douglas is as uncouth and selfish as they come. She isna a match for a spirited Highlander such as yerself. Ye should petition the Pope and ha’e the royal decree rescinded and sa’e yerself a lifetime of misery.”

A wolfish smile appeared on his face. “I thought ye cared for yer lady, yet ye speak so unkindly of her.”

“I do care for her. But ye’d ha’e to be daft nae to see her exasperating faults. And ye dunna
belong
here.”

“I’m afraid ‘tis nae that simple, Nessa. After I marry the Lady Douglas I will leave here, but I will divide my time between the Maclean keep and the Douglas keep. And I will insist that the lady take her maid with her where’er she goes.”

  A mist had started to rise from the sea and Sorcha wished it would envelope her.

              “This is my home,” she said, the catch in her voice betraying her emotions. “It is all I ha’e e’er kent. I couldna leave it, e’er. Nae for Lady Douglas, nae for ye, and nae for any king.”

              “Ye will leave it. But we will return, at a time when I see fit. Where Lady Douglas goes, ye go.”

              Sorcha did not trust herself to speak.

              “A priest will arrive in two days’ time,” he said quietly. “So ye’d best prepare yerself, for ye will accompany me and yer lady to the Maclean keep.”

“And e’eryone must obey the Highlander, because he is e’en more o’erbearing and arrogant than a king!”

Sorcha hurried away, feeling his eyes on her as she disappeared down the familiar garden paths.
He planned to take her with him, whether bride or maid!

She could not bear to think she would not be here when summer was in full bloom and the scent of mint, lavender, and thyme filled the air, when chamomile crept along the walkways and the roses opened their scented petals to the wind.

I still have two days,
she thought,
to try to drive ye back to yer barbaric Highlands without yer lady and her maid.

For a brief moment Sorcha considered another option. She could leave. Go far away from the Highlander’s reach. But she knew she would never desert her clan. ‘Twas not like her. She would not leave Gillis. And e’en if she did leave, she knew once the Highlander discovered her true identity, he would follow her to the ends of the earth to fulfill a dead king’s command.

The thought of leaving Gillis made her feel cold and hollow inside. She would not do it, no matter what the Highlander decreed. Gillis, who preferred the company of animals and spent time at the bee-boles, alcoves for the straw skeps that housed the bees. He also spent a lot of time alone on the beach, drawing pictures in the sand with a stick, outlines of old Viking war ships and birds.

Their father had often told them the tale of Viking raiders who had invaded these shores hundreds of years ago, plunderers from Norway who coveted gold, silver, and precious manuscripts. Nothing was sacred to the raiders, who had even invaded monasteries, killing the monks in their quest for riches, coveting jewel-encrusted crosses and chalices. There was a legend that many hundreds of years ago a monastery had once stood on these shores, very near to where the castle stood now, and the monks had hidden their gold and silver and other valuables before they were killed so the Vikings would not find it. No one had ever found it.

While the wind shrieked around the thick castle walls late at night, their father had told them the story—‘twas said beneath the floor of a vaulted basement chamber in the Douglas keep were the graves of two Viking raiders, one of whom had been seven feet tall. The keep had supposedly been built over their graves. Her father claimed, on certain moon-bright nights, the spirits of the raiders rose from their graves and searched for the buried gold and silver and jewels, and if they caught any children out of their beds, they ate them.

Sorcha and her brothers had scoured the keep but never found any graves or giant Viking bones or treasures.

Thoughts of towering Viking ghosts were forgotten as Sorcha returned to the great hall. Nessa was, indeed, about to fall face-first into her kale soup.

It was growing late. Weary men sought straw pallets, benches, trestle tables, and even stone steps to sleep upon, curling up in their plaids and trying to keep warm. Every nook and cranny would be filled this night with slumbering Maclean men.

Douglas women led their sleepy eyed children from the hall as Sorcha rounded the main table, but Nessa did not seem to notice. She helped her out of her chair.

“’Tis time we retired,” Sorcha said.

“I dunna feel so well,” Nessa groused.

“Well and ‘tis a wonder why! Ye’ve had far too much to drink. Let me help ye upstairs.”

Martha saw what was happening and waddled across the hall. “Do ye need help with…the lady?” she asked.

“I can take her upstairs. Will ye get me a torch?”

Martha nodded and soon returned with the rush light. Sorcha did not want to trip over a dog or a slumbering man on the dark stairway and end up in a broken heap. Nessa leaned on her as they slowly climbed the stone stairs, stepping over a snoring Maclean soldier who still clutched an empty goblet in his hand.

They rounded the corner and Nessa clutched her middle. “Och, I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Then let us hurry to my room…to yer room now. Ye’ll need a basin.”