Only For A Knight (38 page)

 

A great buzz of talk erupted in the solar as yet more kinsmen and lesser castle folk pressed inside, each one eyeing Duncan, Robbie, and the newcomer, the whole of them craning necks and straining ears, clearly determined not to miss a heartbeat of the ruckus.

 

“What I hear and what I choose to believe is my own business, my friend,” Robbie said, lifting his voice above the din. “As my blood cousin, I would have hoped you would have wits and heart enough to feel the same—to make your own opinions and not base them on ages-old tragedy nary a one of us can undo!”

 

“Hear me, I have been attempting to assuage the stain and hurt of that tragedy all my life,” Kenneth shot back, squaring his shoulders. “The more fool you, if you do not believe me.”

 

Letting go of Juliana, he went to stand toe to toe with the Black Stag. “Ne’er you worry,
uncle,
” he said, a muscle beginning to twitch beneath his left eye, “I am man enough to thank you for the shelter and board you spent my sister until I could retrieve her, but I will take her to Strathnaver now. To our late mother’s people, where I believe she will be able to put her time here—and her misadventures—far from her mind.”

 

Robbie snorted, looked round at his gog-eyed kinsmen.

 

“You jest . . . surely?” he cried, catching Kenneth’s arm and swinging him about. “You cannot take her so far north—she is of these hills! ’Tis here in Kintail, she belongs . . . in your own Glenelg, if not at my side as I would—”

 

“I know well the ache of leaving these hills.” Kenneth jerked free his arm, brushed at his plaid. “Do not doubt it! And we shall return to Glenelg someday—but not before she has wiped you from her mind.”

 

A man’s deep voice, brimming with reason, rose from behind. “She—you are both—welcome at my own Balkenzie,” Sir Marmaduke suggested, fixing Kenneth with a compassionate but piercing stare. “’Tis far and away across the other side of Loch Duich and would give you both the privacy and distance you need to . . . adjust.”

 

To Juliana’s amazement, some of the heat went out of her brother’s face as he seemed to consider the Sassunach’s words, but his hesitation lasted only a moment. As quickly, his jaw tightened and his features turned again to stone.

 

“You are a good man, I can well perceive,” Kenneth said, the respect in his voice unmistakable, “but I deem it more wise if I deliver my sister into the care of our family in Strathnaver.” He paused to flick a hot glance at Robbie. “Anyone who claims to care for her will not stand in the way of her healing.”

 

“You must not take her,” the lady Linnet urged, pushing through the tight-packed throng of clansmen. “I pray you, heed my words, young Kenneth,” she besought him, holding out imploring hands. “The better healing will be found here . . . for the both of you.”

 

But Kenneth only shook his head. “She shall rest happier far from here,” he said, inclining his head in polite deference. “As will I—no offense meant to you, fair lady.”

 

Juliana threw a panicked look at her knight, but he said nothing, his expression having gone as granite-hard as Kenneth’s. Barely contained anger simmered in the rigid set of his shoulders and he’d clenched his hands so tightly his knuckles gleamed white.

 

Juliana’s heart split. He was going to let her go—had sided with her brother that the only betterment for her could be secured in the wilds of Scotland’s far north, where she kent nary a soul, blood kin or nay. And where she had even less desire to go!

 

Seeing his decision writ all o’er his face made the floor open beneath Juliana’s feet, stole the breath from her lungs.

 

“You cannot let me go!” she cried, rushing forward to cling to him. “Not after . . . not after . . .”

 

“Think you I am glad-hearted?” He clutched her to him, stroking her back and kissing her hair and her brow, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.

 

But then he disentangled himself, setting her from him. “Och, sweetness, my very own precious minx . . .” he said, shaking his head, a world of sorrow in his eyes. “Ne’er would I have desired such an end. I saw only our tomorrows, each one filled with hope and wonder—as you ought ken. But I would spare you the further distress that would surely befall you if you remain—would spare us both the grief of a long parting. A lingering . . .”

 

“Nay!” Juliana shook her head, his words crushing her soul and blinding her, tearing her heart.

 

But even as she staggered, backing away from him through the parting crowd, deep inside she saw the wisdom of his decision.

 

Knew that remaining at Eilean Creag, or even going with Sir Marmaduke and his Caterine to Balkenzie, would only prolong her agony.

 

The agony for the both of them.

 

That truth, she recognized with a woman’s all-seeing soul, her broken heart seeing clearly the black-spinning void opening around her, draining her, and chasing all warmth and light from her life.

 

’Twas the fulfillment of her greatest dread, and, now, so swiftly on the heels of what should have been joyful days bursting with her most wondrous triumph.

 

Her bright shining love for her Robbie.

 

Faith, she could not even recall if she’d e’er even told him!

 

I love you . . .
her heart cried, hurling the words at him when she could not push them past the thickness in her throat.
I will always love you . . . will ne’er forget . . .

 

As if he’d heard, he ran after her, knocking aside his kinsmen as he sprinted forward to wrap his arms around her and drag her to him one last time.

 

“I am sorry, lass, my sweet Juliana,” he cried her name against her hair, then slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her hungrily—regardless of who looked on and what they thought of him.

 

But when at last, he pulled away, his gaze found Kenneth. “I sorrow for you as well,” he said, both cold steel and regret in his voice, “for I truly was looking forward to meeting you . . . to having you for my friend.”

 

Before Kenneth could speak, Robbie wheeled around to confront his father, ignoring the stricken look on that one’s blanched and grave-set face.

 

“And I am sorry for you—for whether you admit it or nay, you have lost yet again,” he said. “A meet and fine good-daughter, and also a braw nephew whose friendship and love might well have lifted the
stain
you e’er dreaded.”

 

The Black Stag said nothing. Turning away, he went to stand at the windows, his back to the room, his stance rigid as stone.

 

“You may keep the coin my mother wished you to have, good sir,” Kenneth called after him. “I do not need it—I’ve earned and set aside more than enough to support my humble tastes and help my sister. On our way to Strathnaver and—”

 

“I have no wish to go to Strathnaver,” Juliana cried, clutching the doorjamb to keep her knees from buckling. “I—”

 

“You cannot stay here.” Kenneth was at her side in a heartbeat, grabbing her elbow and steering her through the circle of clansmen and servitors crowding the doorway before either Robbie, or his father, could grasp she was gone.

 

But even as Kenneth pushed on, dragging her down the long, torch-lit passage, something in the stubborn set of his jaw bothered Juliana.

 

As did a strange flickering in his eyes—his incredible haste to have her gone.

 

Unusual even in his vexation, for, as she now remembered so clearly, her brother was e’er a cautious man and great thinker, not one to do even the simplest task without much careful deliberation.

 

Yet he’d spirited her from the solar with such speed and force, she wondered her feet hadn’t drawn sparks on the stone flags of the corridor’s floor.

 

And the incessant ticking in the muscle beneath his left eye, a weakness he shared with his uncle and cousin whether he wished to acknowledge the similarity or nay, also revealed that not all was quite as it seemed.

 

Something deeper plagued him.

 

Something that gave her a wee shimmer of hope . . . in especial when, in a sudden burst of unexpected clarity, she recalled the rolled parchment her mother had pressed on her before she’d left their cot-house on that fateful day.

 

A missive of great importance her mother insisted.

 

Yet a message Juliana had regrettably lost while flailing about in the lochan, trying to rescue the ewe.

 

The near-drowned ewe whose frantic bleating and eventual rescue had landed her in Robbie MacKenzie’s arms.

 

Arms that would ne’er reach for her, ne’er again hold her unless the saints took profound mercy on her and wrought some miracle. Granted her some magic that would undo the nightmare her life had become in the space of one ill-fated morn.

 

One ill-fated
hour
in truth, for Kenneth’s arrival had been so swift and hasty, he’d stormed into her bedchamber and plucked her from its tapestry-hung walls with such speed she’d had scarce time but to snatch up her two travel bags, with the tatty old plaid and coil of braid stuffed inside. Faith, she’d barely had a moment to drop Devorgilla’s jar of all-cure ointment into the leather bag tied to her belt.

 

The only memento she meant to take with her, for it proved the dearest.

 

A sweet reminder of the blissful hours spent in her knight’s arms . . . a joy she’d ne’er truly believed could last—save perhaps only for a night.

 

 

Days later, riding pillion behind her brother as he spurred his garron ever faster over the high moors toward the distant blue of the largest massed peaks Juliana had ever seen, the little jar and its sweet memories comforted the hollow ache inside her.

 

Struggling against another rush of hot-stabbing pain, she slipped a hand into the pouch at her skirts and circled her chilled fingers around the small earthenware pot, somehow not at all surprised when the round-sided jar began to vibrate and grow warm in her hand.

 

And this time, a not yet experienced accompaniment came along with the heated vibrations . . . a strange
humming
in her ears.

 

A sound that proved not frightening, but soothing.

 

Faint but distant, even when the humming altered slightly, blending with the cold, knifing wind whistling past her ears to become the high-pitched, reedy voice of a very old woman.

 

A crone’s voice, ancient-sounding, to be sure, but persistent and strong. Determined, and threaded with
goodness.
Mayhap even love.

 

The parchment,
the voice seemed to whisper at her ear.

 

You must ask him what stood on the parchment . . . then he will hide no more.

 

Hide no more?

 

At the last three words, the little jar shattered beneath Juliana’s fingers, the shards not cutting her, but the cream within oozing out to gush into her hand, seep into her skin and through her fingers, flooding her with incredible warmth and, she would have sworn, the most amazing golden light.

 

Hope.

 

And . . . confidence.

 

A definite surge of elation. Almost assurance that . . . all would be well.

 

And so it shall be, lassie,
the crone’s voice came again, but even more distant this time.

 

So far away, in fact, that it could only have been the wind.

 

But a
buoying,
joyous wind and one that made Juliana’s heart soar as she pounded on Kenneth’s back, yelled for him to draw to a halt.

 

The instant he did, she leapt to the ground, planted her hands on her hips, heedless of the hot-tingling
goop
dripping from her fingers, and fixed her most level stare on her decidedly guilty-looking brother’s face.

 

And that was it.

 

Her brother looked . . . guilty.

 

That was what had bothered her back at Eilean Creag when he’d yanked her from the solar and dragged her from the castle faster than she could splutter a fare-thee-well to her knight or even a single stone of his great, forbidding keep.

 

. . . then he will hide no more.

 

“You are concealing something from me, Kenneth,” Juliana said, and would have sworn the wind carried a delighted
cackle
past her ear the instant the accusation left her lips.

 

“There is something vital you are keeping from me, and I would know it.” She began tapping her foot as she stared at him, noted well how the three vertical scars on his cheek darkened suspiciously the longer she glared at him. “Aye, you are sore troubled, and I am thinking it has to do with the parchment Mother gave me to deliver to the Black Stag.”

 

The cackle on the wind became a gleeful hoot of triumph.

 

Kenneth sat up straighter in the saddle, gave her a look of studied innocence and denial that did not fool her at all.

 

“What parchment?”

 

As if he did not ken! Juliana folded her arms, an odd but incredibly uplifting sense of purpose beginning to pulse through her, warming her.

 

“The handwritten missive our mother entrusted to me and that I lost when Robbie rescued me from the loch,” she answered him. “’Twas of great importance she told me—a privy word for the eyes of Kintail and no other.”

 

“So?”

 

Kenneth reached a hand to her, tried to urge her back onto the garron. “Come you, we have many miles yet before us—let us be gone from here . . . we have not yet passed out of Kintail—”

 

“All the more reason for you to tell me what you know of the message our mother wanted me to deliver to Duncan MacKenzie.”

 

Kenneth swiped a hand through his hair, the gesture making him look so much like her knight that her heart split.

 

“How should I ken what she wished you to tell the dastard?” The three scars on his left cheek turned a livid red. “She gave the scroll to
you
not me.”

 

“But you saw her before she died—you told me she lingered in the good-wife’s care until you got there,” Juliana minded him, the goop on her hand sending encouragement speeding all through her, the wind seeming to swirl protectively round her shoulders, steeling her backbone and giving her strength.