Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (13 page)

She looked up from her task just long enough to send Amicia a piercing woman-to-woman stare. Not that Amicia paid her much heed for the seneschal’s previously uttered words still echoed in her ears.

Men and their needs,
she’d said.

A braw man with many needs,
Janet had cooed on the turnpike stair.

Similar words, but with her husband’s fey-like cousin fashioning hers as barbs, then using the softest of innuendo-laden purrs to send debilitating poison straight into Amicia’s heart.

And ooooh, but the little she-cat had found her target.

Suddenly more chilled than yet before, Amicia leaned against the table, needing, blessing, its firm support. Faith, just recalling the implied intimacy of Janet’s taunt watered her knees.

The other’s measuring glances, and the malice e’er lurking behind her innocent-seeming blue eyes, had little flickers of ill ease tripping down Amicia’s spine.

But worst of all, her rival’s fragile loveliness sent sharp-edged shards of jealousy jabbing into the soft, most vulnerable areas of her heart.

“I was not always as I am now . . .” Dagda poked a sudden finger into Amicia’s arm. “Tush, lass—many were the suitors who came chapping at my door.”

Amicia jerked, nigh tipping over the wine ewer she’d left sitting precariously close to the table’s edge. Saints, she hadn’t even noticed the old woman cross the room.

“I know you were married,” she said, her gaze flitting to the other’s stiff black skirts.

“Aye, and to the finest man in the Isles,” Dagda sighed, a faraway look on her face. “Bonny, he was, too—as was I.” She touched a hand to the silver-shot braids wound so tightly about her head. “Niall loved to comb my hair, loved to—”

“Dagda, please, you need not speak of your marriage,” Amicia cut in, not missing the sheen of moisture in the old woman’s eyes. “I would not see you troubled.”

“I be fine, lass, never you worry.” Dagda swiped the backs of her fingers across her cheek. “I lost Niall and . . .
och,
’twas long ago. I but meant to tell you my hair was once as black as yours—Niall even composed a song of praise for its color. He likened the shade to a raven’s wing. And his own hair . . . mercy, but just looking at it would steal my breath away.”

She paused to pour herself a cup of wine, took several long sips before she spoke again. “His hair was the same dark russet shade as your Magnus’s. A deep burnished copper, it was, and so thick and glossy.” She sighed, remembering. “In a good summer, if he stood in the sun, it would gleam with the finest streaks of copper and gold. Ooo, but I was e’er putting my hands to that mane of his, and he . . . he used to bathe in mine.”

“Bathe in your hair?”
Amicia blurted before she could stay her tongue.

Dagda nodded. “Such are the things I wish to speak to you about.” She cocked her head to one side, fixed Amicia with a shrewd, almost cagey look. “Did you ken a man can be brought to his knees if a woman allows him to bury his face in her unbound hair?”

Aye, she
had
heard the like—from her brother Donall the Bold’s lady wife, Isolde. But rather than reveal any such knowledge, she feigned a look of astonishment and shook her head.

The bait taken, Dagda angled closer, lowered her voice. “If you truly wish to have a man at your mercy, you will let him scent you.”

“Scent me?”

This time, Amicia’s perplexity was genuine.

The old woman glanced about as if she feared the walls would sprout ears. “
Give him your scent,
lass.” She spoke so softly Amicia scarce heard her. “That is the way of it . . . letting him breathe in the scent o’ you. And from where’er he wishes.”

Amicia gulped.

Audibly.

She had a very good idea of exactly where Dagda meant. “You let your Niall do . . .
that
?”

“Och, aye, and many a fair night, too,” Dagda revealed, her lower lip wobbling a bit on the admission. “There is hardly a more potent way to bind a man on you than to brand your scent on him.”

“Men like that?”

Amicia could scarce believe it.

But Dagda bobbed her head. “The most braw amongst ’em will drop to his knees and beg, once he has . . . eh . . .
nuzzled
you that way.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Amicia asked, no longer feeling anywhere near as worldly-wise as she’d done upon awakening that morn. She swallowed, willed her heart to cease thumping so hard against her ribs. “Why do you care how we . . . er . . .
fare together
?”

Dagda made a wry face. “See you, I ken your Magnus over well. He is braw and well-lusted, even if he is a mite sore-battered and foul of temper since his return from Dupplin. His current state is only the more reason to heed my advice—he will need powerful incentives to push past all that troubles him.” She looked down, brushed at her skirts. “I would know you prepared when the time comes for him to bed you.”

Dagda then glanced up, leveled a steady gaze on Amicia. “I tell you, too, because he has e’er minded me of Niall when he was young. If you ken how to properly please him, and bind him to you rightly, he will love you for all his days.”

“And that would please you?”

“Naught would make me happier.” Dagda tipped her wine cup to her lips, drained it. “It would do my old heart good to see that fine laddie as besotted with his good lady wife as my Niall was with me—and I with him,” she said, her eyes misting. “Niall used to say he needed me like the air he breathed. And me, I’m still a-needing him that way. Even with him gone all these long years.”

Amicia looked toward the windows, caught a glimpse of the moon through the rain-filled mist. “You have cause to miss him greatly,” she said, sorrowing indeed for the other woman’s loss. “I am sorry.”

“And I thank you, but there is not much good it may do me—your sorrow or my own.” Dagda drew a long, quivering breath. “A fever took Niall—and my two bairns with him. Naught can return them to me. Not prayers, not rantings, not even the most infinite regret.”

Biting her lip for she truly didn’t know what to say, Amicia took a step forward and would’ve drawn her into a sincere if somewhat awkward embrace, but the old woman sidestepped her with surprising agility.

“I told you, there be no sense in rueing what is past and canna be undone.” She cut the air with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I have had my work here to content me. Niall and Donald MacKinnon were kin, so the old laird gave me a roof o’er my head when I had nowhere else to go, see you.”

Turning aside, she pretended to pat her hair, but, in truth, she swiped at her eyes again. “Donald’s three lads needed mothering,” she went on, surreptitiously wiping her hand on her sleeve. “And with me having lost my own two, my coming here served us both better than well.”

But not well enough to obliterate the soul-deep ache inside you.

Keeping the observation to herself, Amicia went to stand in the chamber’s only window embrasure. Her heart wrenched for the older woman, for she understood only too well the need to put a braw face to the world. To preserve dignity at all costs and forfeitures, lest others think you weak.

She’d done the same for many a year and only recently changed her views . . . deciding to abandon decorum in favor of desire.

With more of a jerk than she’d intended, she threw open the shutters and welcomed the in-sweeping rush of the cold night air, the moon-silvered glint of falling rain. Bracing her hands on the icy-damp stone of the window ledge, she stared out across the night-darkened sea and imagined a faint glimmer of luminous green flickering on the distant horizon, but when she blinked and looked again, the strange light was gone.

Only the sorrow remained, the chamber’s own and the sharper pain pouring off Dagda to flood the room, much as the old woman sought to hide her hurt behind posturings and bluster.

Amicia took a deep breath, drew in the scents of wet stone and the sea. Familiar scents. Well-loved. Sighing, she rubbed her thumb across her sapphire ring, savored the warmth of its heavy gold band, the satiny smoothness of the large cabochon gemstone.

Her own little piece of shining hope.

An ever-constant reminder that life was far too short and dear, too easily extinguished, for anyone not to be courageous enough to chase a dream.

Behind her, a not-quite-muffled sniffle broke her reverie . . . and set her course.

E’er one to suffer her own pains much better than she could bear seeing others enduring theirs, she stiffened her back as best she could and sought hard for some light-toned banter to toss the other woman’s way.

Regrettably, the only thing she could think of was Magnus MacKinnon scenting her!

Nevertheless, she turned, prepared to blurt . . . something.

Anything.

But Dagda had moved back to the door and was examining Amicia’s new fur-lined mantle. It hung on a wall peg—exactly where she intended it to remain, for Devorgilla, bless her good heart, had fashioned a garment sumptuously warm, but of a far-too-cumbersome weight to be practical.

“’Tis of great richness,” Dagda said, fingering the cloak’s fastenings. She lifted a fold, peered hard at the pattern of black flecks scattered across the lining’s soft, yellowish-white fur. “Be that ermine? Niall was e’er promising me a fine fur-lined—”

“Aye, ermine, it is,” Amicia cut in before the old woman could wax on about her late husband again, distressing herself. “My brother received ells of it in trade some while ago. But, Dagda, I would know more of Reginald and his lady . . .” she began, her voice trailing off at a clamor outside the chamber.

Heavy, fast-approaching footsteps, the chink of metal—a single swift pause before, without so much as a knock or warning, the door swung wide, and by no means gently.

Magnus burst into the room, his brow fierce, every fury-driven inch of him clad in full knightly regalia.

“Saints o’ mercy!” Dagda cried, a startled hand flying to her breast.

Amicia’s breath caught in shock. Heart in her throat, she stared at him, too stunned for words.

By the hearthside, Boiny gave a hackle-raising growl until he recognized the commotion’s perpetrator. His curiosity thus assuaged, he dropped his bulk back onto the rushes and returned to sleep.

But Amicia stood transfixed, her gaze latching on the wicked-looking battle-ax clutched in her husband’s powerful, white-knuckled hand.

Nor did she miss the flash of mail beneath the voluminous plaid slung so proudly over his shoulder. He’d girded on his sword belt, and, even now, in the quiet confines of her chamber, his free hand hovered perilously close to the hilt of his death-bringing brand.

Breathing hard, he stared at them, his expression black enough to curdle blood. Wordless.

Amicia began to tremble. “For truth, here is a . . . surprise,” she gasped, digging her fingers into her skirts to hide their shaking.

“Aye, and a most foul one, I’ll be bound!” he rapped out, looking past rather than
at
her, his heated blue gaze sweeping the room. “Praise the saints naught has befallen you.”

Her own mettle recovered, Dagda grabbed a fistful of his plaid, gave it a healthy shake. “Sons o’ Beelzebub, laddie!” she scolded. “Are you ale-witted this e’en? Or have you lost your wits completely to come pounding in here armed to the teeth and spitting fire at two innocent women?”

Ignoring her, he jerked his plaid from her grasp, then swung round to glower at the opened door. Amicia stared at it, too, quite certain the heavy oaken panels still vibrated from being flung against the lime-washed wall—a wall that now bore a notable dent where the iron door latch had crashed into it.

“Why wasn’t the door bolted?” he demanded.

Amicia moistened her lips, curled her fingers deeper into the folds of her skirts. “Here, sir? In your home?” Her voice sounded hoarse even to her own ears. “I do not know why it should have been?”

“Neither do I, my lady, and that is the problem,” he gave back, raking a hand through the deep chestnut waves of his hair. Some of the bluster appeared to slip from him, only to return with a vengeance the instant his gaze lit on the door’s unused drawbar.

He stepped toward her and placed one ever-so-firm hand on her shoulder, looked deeper into her eyes than anyone had ever done. “The Fiend take me if I e’er catch you behind an unbarred door again, do you hear me, lass?”

Amicia stared at him, sore tempted to brush aside his demand. But, to her own surprise, she found herself nodding. “As you wish,” she acquiesced, determining to do just as he’d bid.

But not because his words or even his display of seething fury had cowed her into meek submission.

Nay, she’d follow his order for one reason alone.

That reason being the unsettling thread of fear he couldn’t quite keep from his deep, husky voice.

Ill ease rippled all through his great, strapping body, clouding the clear blue of his eyes and overlaying every magnificent inch of him with simmering, scarcely-held-in-check tension.

And as if he sensed she’d glimpsed it, the last of the strain vanished from his handsome face and he gave her a wan smile—if the slight uptilt at one corner of his mouth could be counted as a smile.

“It is not my wish to frighten you,” he said, still peering deep into her eyes. “Just do as I ask and I promise to do my best not to plague you with such an outburst again.”

A loud snort came from behind them, near the table, quickly followed by the
glug-glugging
noise of wine being poured. Dagda appeared at their sides a moment later, offering two brimming cups of the potent Rhenish wine.

The instant her hands were free, she planted them on her black-skirted hips and turned on Magnus, her dark eyes flashing. “And if you don’t mean to be a-scaring the life out of your womenfolk, mayhap you ought not stomp around this pile o’ stones on dark and windy nights a-warning of dangers what don’t exist?”

Magnus cocked a russet brow, took a hearty gulp of wine. “And what were you doing
a-stomping
round this tower so late of a night? Keeping Lady Amicia from her night’s rest on a . . .
dark and windy night
?”