Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 02] (16 page)

Or that with every passing hour spent with her, he was proving himself less and less worthy of the style she’d bestowed on him.
Frowning as darkly as the fast-approaching rain clouds, Iain spurred the garron to greater speed and chose to ignore the title his conscience tossed at him.
Unchivalrous blackguard.
A heartless scoundrel out to take advantage of an unescorted and helpless lass.
A maid, he was certain.
His scowl returned, settling even darker across his brow when a good hour later he spied a monastery where they would surely have found refuge and succor in a welcoming hospice . . . yet he dug in his knees, urging his mount onward, even possessing the gall to be glad-hearted the lass had fallen asleep and couldn’t notice.
Instead, he rode on, keeping to the northern road until the rugged moorland gave way to even higher ground, the hills heavily forested and cut through with long, deep glens . . . but eventually sloping down to just the type of village he’d been hoping to find.
Not quite a township, but an unwalled and sleepy cluster of low-browed, thatch-topped cottages built ’round a small, gray-walled kirk. A long-ruined fortalice tower stood dark on its mound some distance away, and a scattering of sheep and cattle grazed on the common pastureland.
Iain felt a twinge of guilt but quickly tamped it down.
Any weary travelers seeking lodgings in such a forgotten hamlet would have no recourse but to spend the night in the local inn.
Such as it would prove to be.
The kind offering pallets of straw on the common room floor, a flea-ridden bed shared by many in a room that hadn’t known a gust of fresh air in centuries . . . or a private room, tiny but clean, if the innkeeper was shown a handful of coin.
And Iain MacLean had coin a-plenty.
So he gritted his teeth and kicked his garron’s sides, spurring toward the little village and what he hoped would be the most pleasant night he’d spent in ages.
Accepting, too, that his surreptitious machinations marked him for the kind of lout he could no longer deny he’d become.
A self-serving blackguard.
And a greater one than his clan or any who knew him would e’er believe.
Chapter Nine
D
EEPENING TWILIGHT, GUSTY WIND, and a thin drizzle of slanting rain accompanied Iain through the sleepy hamlet. The rapidly worsening weather and empty, straw-mired streets soundly cloaked any appeal the village might have held on a bonnier, less storm-plagued night, while low rumbles of distant thunder underscored the futility of seeking shelter elsewhere.
A self-inflicted complication he sorely regretted the instant his garron clattered beneath the arched gateway of the village’s sole hostelry and he spied the alestake, a long, horizontal pole projecting from above the door.
Its unwieldy length adorned with bundles of leafy, green branches, the fool contraption bobbed dangerously in the ever-increasing wind . . . and marked his chosen lodging as an
alehouse
rather than the more commodious and hospitable inn he’d hoped to find.
Dread stalking him, he drew rein beside a towering pile of cut peat not far from the stables. He expelled an irritated breath and glanced around, his gaze flickering over the tavern’s muddied foreyard.
Squawking chickens pecked at the soiled straw scattered across the mushy ground and pigs grunted in ankle-deep muck. The noisome beasties edged ever nearer to snuffle at his garron’s shaggy fetlocks. Iain frowned, convinced he’d left his wits somewhere on the road behind him.
Right about where he’d spotted the monastery tucked away in a dark wood . . . and ridden on. His hand fisted around the reins, guilt tweaking him.
A goatherd would have known better.
The lowliest sower of grain.
He had, too, truth be told, but he’d so wanted a kiss. Or rather quarters for the night that would have proven conducive to stealing one.
Instead, he’d found a wee scrap of an alehouse. A dubious-looking establishment he doubted could procure a ewer and basin of warmed water and soap, much less a private, vermin-free bed.
A shudder snaked down his spine, and he slanted another frustrated glance at the weaving alestake. His every instinct shouted at him to wheel about, spur his garron, and be gone. Ride away before
she
awakened, journeying the whole night through if need be.
Windy mizzle, empty belly, or nay.
But the buttery yellow pools of torchlight spilling from the establishment’s half-shuttered windows beckoned and the rain-chased air, misty and damp in the close confines of the inn yard, held the distinct aroma of deliciously roasted meats.
His stomach clenched and growled, and he imagined Madeline’s did, too, even though, from the relaxed, pliant feel of her, she still dozed quite soundly.
He looked at her, something inside him softening at the way she leaned so trustingly against him, at how the soft weight of her warmed more than his physical body. She’d pulled Amicia’s
arisaid
—a MacLean plaid—over her head, using its woolen folds to shield her from the mizzling rain and that, too, touched him.
Made her seem needful of him, a thought that took his breath away.
Iain MacLean, scourge of his clan,
needed.
He swallowed roughly, for one moment of fanciful indulgence allowing his heart to thump harder, to climb just a few wee inches up his throat.
The lass made him feel alive again.
And heated, despite the night’s chill winds and persistent, misting rain.
He drew a long breath, let the scent of her fill his senses. Sweet as an angel’s breath, its clean, heathery lightness chased the dark from his soul and sent hair-thin cracks spreading every which way across the vitrified casing of his heart.
Iain blinked, tried to rid himself of such fool romantic musings. But the more he sought to banish them, the worse they became.
The wilder, more bold, and far too hurtful to allow.
Tightening his jaw, he frowned up at the darkening sky, his resentment at the foul weather nigh as great as his scorn for himself, for the heavy, pewter gray clouds marred how wonderfully right it felt to have his arm wrapped about her slender waist.
And the thin smirr of sideways rain tainted his pleasure in how temptingly the full, bottom swells of her breasts brushed against the top of his forearm.
This time of year, the night should have been limpid, pure, and awash with finest luminosity until the wee hours.
And had the fates been kind, kissed with enough magic to spare him a dollop or two.
But the gods preferred to vex him by ladling a goodly dose of raucous laughter and coarse, upraised voices onto the lashing wind, and upping the ear-splitting screech of the alestake as it swung on its rusty hinges.
His conscience hounded him, too. It banded together with the scattered remnants of his chivalry to catch him unawares the instant the tavern’s thick-planked door swung open and its errant aledraper stepped outside, a slop pail clutched in his meaty hands.
She
awakened, too, jerking upright with a startled gasp even as the dark-frowning shadow of his conscience watched his every move from a murk-filled recess near the arched doorway.
Twisting around, she blinked at him, her lovely eyes hazy with sleep. “W-where are we?” she asked, her honeyed voice equally slumber-drugged.
And so maddeningly alluring Iain’s fingers itched to whip out his steel and slice his glowering conscience to ribboned shreds.
The ruddy-complexioned tavern-keeper, too, if he dared come betwixt such a fine, almost intimate moment.
But he did, of course . . . much to Iain’s perturbation.
With a well-practiced flick of his wrist, the portly aledraper flung the contents of his slop pail onto the muddy ground. He tossed aside the empty bucket and strode forward. “Ho, good sir!” he called, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth hanging from a wide leather belt slung low beneath his considerable girth.
“Lady.” He dipped his head to Madeline, his greeting amiable if a mite ingratiating. “Welcome to the Shepherd’s Rest,” he greeted them, a decidedly speculative gleam in his eyes. “How may I serve you?”
Iain dismounted, then reached for Madeline. He eased her off the garron’s back, but kept her in his arms, holding her high against his chest so her dangling feet remained well above the mired ground.
“My wife and I require good victuals, your best ale, and quarters for the night,” he said, crossing the inn yard.
“Private quarters.”
The tavern-keeper bristled. “Meals here are praised for miles around, and some claim I brew the finest heather ale in the land,” he spluttered, holding wide the door as Iain swept past him into the common room. “But I’m full up for the night . . . lest you wish a pallet on the floor?”
Iain paused just inside the threshold, surveyed the alehouse’s crowded interior. Smoky blue haze from a low-burning peat fire hung thick in the air, its pleasant tang well laced with the earthier smell of ale-soaked floor rushes.
He turned to the tavern-keeper, arched a brow. “Have you naught better than the floor?”
“’Tis a busy night, sir,” the man said with shrug and a sidelong glance at his roistering patrons. Flush-cheeked and loud, they filled all but one of the rough-hewn oaken tables . . . a smaller one near the door and full in the draught of the cold, damp air pouring through the shutter slats.
Iain frowned, shoved an agitated hand through his hair.
Even the settles flanking the cavernous stone hearth proved occupied. And those were most often left unheeded, the stifling heat thrown off by the peat fire making the hard-backed settles less desirable seating than the bench-lined trestle tables.
“Good sir, we have had a day of long and hard riding. My wife is sore tired,” Iain said with an eloquent glance at the black-raftered ceiling. “Are you sure you haven’t a wee niche of room hidden away abovestairs?”
The aledraper gave another apologetic shrug. “Most folks hereabouts make do with sleeping space on one of the common beds in the back room, but even those are spoken for this night.” He spread his hands. “Four to a bed.”
“Pray let us ride on,”
she
breathed into his ear. “I do not like it here.”
Something in her tone made the hairs on Iain’s nape lift, but he lowered her onto the bench of the only empty table and patted her shoulder in what he hoped she’d perceive as a gesture of reassurance. “The heavens just cracked open above us, lass,” he said, and a furious clap of thunder lent truth to his observation.
She jumped, stared up at him with rounded eyes. “But—”
“Sweet lass, we’d be soaked to the bone before we even left the inn yard.” Iain leaned close, smoothed a damp curl from her brow. “I will not see you catch ill,” he added, raising his voice above the pelting rain and wind. “Do you not hear the storm?”
Before she could answer or worse, reveal their deception, he turned back to the aledraper. Squaring his shoulders, he assumed his best brother-of-the-laird posture. “Even the humblest establishments are wont to keep quarters for those wishing privacy.”
As he’d suspected would happen, a glimmer of interest flickered across the other’s face. Encouraged, Iain discreetly lifted a fold of his plaid to reveal the bulging leather purse hanging from his waist belt. “It would be propitious for you if you can procure such a chamber.”
“There is one room. . . .” the tavern-keeper owned, eyeing the coin pouch.
Iain let his plaid fall back in place. “Is it clean?”
The man hesitated, moistened his lips. He slid a glance at a harried-looking serving maid replenishing burned-out candles on the tables. “My daughter can change the bed linens. But the room is dear . . .” He let his words trail off, toyed with the end of his drying cloth.
Taking the cue, Iain fished a few coins from his purse. “I’ll double your profit if you send up a bath and triple it if you make haste.”
The tavern-keeper bobbed his head. “I shall see to it myself as you sup, milord,” he crooned, accepting the coins. “You shall bathe in rose water and sleep on swan down.”
“See you only that it is private and clean,” Iain said, taking a seat across from Madeline.
He reached for her hand, tried to tell himself his conscience wasn’t glaring at him from over her bonnie shoulder . . . and that the talk of bathing wasn’t the reason for her sudden pallor.
“We need heated water to make the sphagnum tincture,” he said, rubbing gentle circles across her palm with his thumb. “And a bath will soothe your aches.”
She pulled away her hand, looked aside.
“Mind you, lass, I am a man and a hungry one,” Iain blurted before he could think of a less clumsy formulation.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he heaved a sigh and tried again.
“It has been overlong since I have . . . since I—” he broke off when the tavern-keeper’s daughter plunked a brown-glazed jug of well-frothed heather ale and two wooden cups on the table. An older woman, perhaps her mother, set down a platter heaped with brown bread, cheese, and half a roasted capon.
Iain nodded thanks, but knew greater relief to see them hasten away.
“Since you what, sir?”
Her sweet voice caught his ear, the intimation behind the words enough to have set his face to flaming had he not long ago learned to school his features and mask his emotions.
But then he met her green-gold gaze and nearly forgot the technique.
God’s eyes, had he truly been about to admit how long it’d been since he’d lain with a woman? That—as he now knew—he’d only ever slaked the burning in his loins, but ne’er come close to quelling his deeper needs? The needs of his heart?
Not even with his own late wife?
Stifling a pained grimace, Iain unsheathed his dirk and placed it beside the platter of victuals.
He inhaled deeply of the night air streaming through the window shutters, let the chill damp fill his lungs. He looked at her, watched her across the table, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She undid him beyond all belief.
He had indeed been about to look her full square in the eye and announce that only she amongst all women could banish the hunger inside him, heal the ache in his heart and make him whole.
A pronouncement that would have surely sent her bolting from the Shepherd’s Rest and into the storm-chased night, never to be seen again.
Truth to tell, were he the gallant she’d styled him, he’d warn her to run miles from Iain MacLean, hot-tempered scourge of the Isles and killer of innocent wives.
Disappointment to all who trusted him.
“Sir?” This time
she
reached across the table to lightly tap his arm.
He near jumped from his skin. The simple touch sent a jolting current of intense sensation shooting through him, unleashing a raging need for more. Clamping his jaw, Iain struggled against a scarce containable desire to seize her hand and drag her bonnie fingers o’er every inch of his flesh.