Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (6 page)

Something in her tone prickled the fine hairs on the back of his neck and he studied her face in the flickering torchlight, looked for signs that she sought to cushion a blow.

“Your brothers are hale and unscathed.” She took his dread, deftly displaying her unsettling ability to ken his mind. A talent he’d found plaguey annoying in their youth but welcomed all the more now, this moment.

“And where are they?” That came gruff. “Do you know?”

Janet nodded. “They are with the other men, working with the shipwright, down on the boat strand. The lot of them toil by pitch-pine torches until the small hours,” she told him. “And you needn’t thank me for telling you,” she added with a glimmer of the cheekiness he’d so cherished in her as a young lassie.

A sassiness that, in recent years, had sadly given way to moon eyes, pouting lips, and fluttering lashes.

Soppy silliness he’d ne’er had time for in any female, least of all one he loved as a sister.

And as if she’d probed his mind yet again, her expression sobered. “You need not grieve for them or anyone else within these walls. No one suffered aught in the fire. Naught save the scrapes and bruises we harvested afterward, clearing away the rubble.”

She looked away again, this time peering past him into the shadows of the ruined tower. “It happened during the Yuletide celebrations, see you?”

“So?” He didn’t see at all.

A fire was a fire was a fire . . . and a
life
was a precious and fragile thing, its breath and pulse snuffed out in less than the blink of an eye.

That much he’d learned.

At the latest, after seeing Scotland’s finest spill their life’s blood beneath a hailstorm of English arrows.

“I dinna see what Christmastide revelry has to do with sparing men the warmth of a raging inferno.”

“And I say you should.” She flipped her braids over her shoulders, gave him a challenging look. “Or have you not done any carousing on the tourney circuit, Magnus MacKinnon? Have you forgotten that nights of chaos and conviviality often leave the best of men not just reeking of stale wine and light-skirted kitchen lasses, but also sleeping openmouthed on the floor rushes?”

“Christ in hell.” Magnus swallowed the bile rising in his throat. “Are you telling me the men of this household lay about beneath the trestles—
drunken
—whilst the whole of the east tower went up in flame?”

Janet peered hard at him. “Would you rather they’d been asleep in their beds? In that selfsame tower?”

She had him there.

Magnus clamped his jaw, gave her a stiff nod. “You are right, to be sure,” he conceded. “But it is still shameful. A sorry business.”

“A sad affair, aye—but caused by a lightning strike. The most alert guardsmen could not have prevented it. Though some say the old curse guided the bolt’s path.”

Magnus snorted. “Pray, spare me such foolhardiness. I have no wish to hear it.”

Half-turning aside, he stared into the wildly sparking flame of the nearest wall torch. Nigh guttered, its hissing lent a macabre note to their discourse, but he strove to ignore the infernal crackling . . . just as he paid no heed to Janet’s fully inappropriate adulation.

In an effort to restore the easy camaraderie they’d shared as children, he swung back around and reached a quick hand to tweak her nose. “And you, cousin mine, have too good a modicum of wits to let such prattle as ancient curses and predictions of doom pass your lips.”

“You ken how tongues will wag.” She shrugged. “The lightning did strike the very tower Reginald of the Victories’ lady wife is said to have jumped from.”

“Hoary maledictions and stones that bear such sorrow they canna even warm beneath a summer sun’s sweetest heat!” Magnus shook his head. “’Tis all twaddle spun by the
seannachies
on cold and dark winter nights and naught else, I swear you.”

“Never you mind what the storytellers put about,” Janet said, her lilting voice going breathy.
Excited.
“All will be good now you are here again.” She reached for him, gripping his hands despite the sooty grime on them. “Tush, but it is overlong you were away. Aye, here is a grand and notable night.”

Schooling his features lest a smile encourage her or a grimace tread too heavily on a heart he’d rather not injure, Magnus disentangled himself from her grasp. “And you are looking bonnier than ever,
Cousin.
” He laid especial emphasis on their blood connection, however remote it might be. “It grieves me that I have not done better for you.”

“Oh my soul! And you say I speak babble and nonsense?” She waved a dismissive hand. “The bards have been singing your praises throughout the Isles these past years,” she countered, tipping back her head to stare up at him. “The tales are innumerable. All are in awe of your prowess on the tourney field . . . your feats of valor at Dupplin Moor.”

“Nevertheless, I stand before you without a handful of silver to call my own,” Magnus said, the weight of what he must tell her heavy on his tongue. “The modest fortune I’d amassed in ransoms and prize goods on the tourney circuit was robbed from its hiding place while I fought a battle doomed to failure before any of us could shout our war cries.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, wished he had not just sounded like an embittered, battle-weary graybeard.

“Hear me, lass, I even bartered my best jousting mount to pay mail to more black-hearted cateran toll collectors than I care to remember.” He did not mention that the fine-blooded beast had been his
only
such mount. “The last of my coin went to a lesser MacDonald chieftain for passage on his galley.”

Janet didn’t flinch, but a trace of sympathy flickered across her pretty face. On seeing it, Magnus knew a near-irresistible urge to throw back his head and roar with impotent fury.

Instead, he ran sooty fingers through his hair and took a deep breath of stale, dank air that still smelled thinly of smoke and burned timber.

“God’s eyes,” he swore, glancing up at the corridor’s stone-vaulted ceiling. It, too, bore greasy streaks of thick black soot. “Do you have any idea what those thieving clansmen charge for the privilege of crossing their Highland territories?”

He clenched his fists, blew out a hot breath before he looked back at her. “Do you not see? Saints, had I not been in possession of such prime horseflesh, like as not, I’d not be standing here this moment.”

“But you
are
here . . . and well.”

Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose. A persistent ache pounded behind his forehead, and if one more person, man or beast, gave voice to how well he appeared, he would not be responsible for his actions.

Thinking he heard footfalls, or mayhap the telltale click-clicking of a dog’s nails, he stared round, scrunching his eyes to peer into the darkness, but naught moved in the long passage save inky shadows and the intermittent burst of sparks from the smattering of poorly burning wall sconces.

His scalp prickled nonetheless. Turning back to Janet, he let out his breath on a long, weary sigh. “See you, lass, I lost the moneys I’d hoped to use to dower you,” he blurted before he lost his courage as well. “Nary a
siller
remains.”

To his amazement—or mayhap not—she evinced nary a sign of dismay. Indeed, she stretched up on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek!

Magnus lifted a hand, wiped away the moistness of her kiss. “A God’s name, Janet, do you not ken the gravity of what I am telling you?” He tried again. “I do not have a crust of bread to bribe a beggar to wed you much less a man worthy enough to call himself your liege husband.”

“It matters not,” she said, shrugging again.

Magnus stared at her, now wholly convinced his world had run mad. One woman, and a most desirous one at that, had been set in his lap with more gold-filled coffers than he could hope to win in five years of tourneying, yet he wanted nary a coin of her riches.

And the lass whom he had so hoped to dower came up empty-handed and claimed not to care!

Cooing and petting him she was, her face all aglow like a room full o’ candles. “Never you worry,” she said, her tone almost coquettish. “Your fortunes will change now that the MacKinnon fleet will soon be plying the waves again.” She threw her arms around his neck, pressed so close the small rounds of her breasts mashed hotly against the hard links of his mailed shirt. “To be sure, all will soon be well.”

“I shall endeavor to make it so,” Magnus agreed, setting her from him. “So soon as I—”

Feel a man again,
he’d almost said.

“You shall feel better after you have had a bath,” she encouraged, echoing his thoughts again—if only superficially. “That is why I came looking for you.” Her eyes lit at the notion. “Dagda ordered bathing tubs filled for you and your friend in the kitchens, near the warmth of the cook fires. She will tend your friend, and I—”

“
You
shall bathe Colin. He is more in need of gentle hands than I, and will welcome your attentions,” Magnus amended her plan. “Dagda can assist me . . . or better yet, I shall see to my own needs.”

“But I have always helped you bathe.”

“Not since I was a beardless stripling, you haven’t,” he reminded her.

She drew herself up to her full, unimpressive height. “You would rather have
her
wash you.”

Och, but you err greatly, lass. Amicia MacLean is the last woman whose hands I am about to let light upon my naked flesh.

Knowing the unspoken words must surely be stamped in glowing red letters across his forehead, Magnus folded his arms and waited.

And not for overlong.

The slight narrowing of Janet’s eyes revealed how swiftly she’d read them. “You ken I would ne’er wish to make trouble for you,” she purred. “But neither do I see why her concerns matter . . . considering you will soon be sending her away.”

“I have not yet decided what to do with her.” The confession startled Magnus as much as it appeared to vex his cousin. “As for you making trouble for me, I vow you already have,” he added, seeing no point in telling her he’d just caught sight of a tall, lithe form slipping from the shadows at the far end of the passageway.

His proxy bride had shot one hurt-filled glance his way before vanishing into the blackness of the turnpike stair.

The look old Boiny had aimed at him before traipsing after her did not bear recounting.

Feeling utterly wretched, Magnus MacKinnon, paladin of the lists and poorer than a pauper’s emptiest purse, had just been demoted to the level of a lowly earthworm.

Of a surety, mayhap he’d no longer need to convince the lass of the futility of staying.

Good were the chances she’d leave anon, and of her own good devices.

Pondering such an outcome, Magnus didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.

Someone else suffered no such difficulties.

They
enjoyed his misery.

For long after Janet left him, the future MacKinnon laird remained rooted to the spot, staring in turn at the smoke-blackened walls of the vaulted passage or the great empty void that had once been his bedchamber.

“Sweet Christ God!” His voice cracking at last, he gave full rein to his frustration and kicked the charred door frame.

His distress caused a malicious smile to curve someone else’s lips as they watched from the shadows.

Vengeance tasted sweeter than imagined.

Aye, ’twas a rare delicacy, and one that would only improve if someone’s suspicions proved true and Magnus MacKinnon’s pride was all that kept him from rejoicing in his fool sire’s choice of a bride.

Someone’s keen eye and ever-alert ears had gleaned what few kent: MacKinnon the Younger had been sweet on Amicia MacLean since long afore his voice broke and deepened!

And even if the lass had naught to do with a certain someone’s need for revenge, she would make a fine instrument to gain blissful recompense.

A fine instrument, indeed.

High atop Coldstone Castle’s crenellated parapets, Lady Amicia paced the wall-walk, her new fleece-lined cloak clutched tight about her. Rain clouds were racing in from the west and a knifing wind stung her cheeks, but its chill blast did not gust powerfully enough to chase Janet’s words from her heart.

The roaring of her own blood in her ears had kept her from catching more than a few snatches of the younger woman’s breathy cooings, but what little she had heard only sealed the opinion she’d been forming of the fairylike blonde who clearly fancied Magnus MacKinnon for her own.

Blood cousin or no.

A bath,
she’d crooned, batting thick, gold-tipped lashes at him.

Why I came looking for you,
she’d simpered as she’d twined her arms around his neck.

And most damning of all:
But neither do I see why her concerns matter . . . considering you will soon be sending her away.

Those last words laid weighted fetters on Amicia’s every breath. Worse, they undermined her faith in her ability to win a place in her husband’s heart.

Increasing her step, she tried to close her ears to the echoing litany, to unhear the silky purr of her rival’s voice. Tail of the devil, just remembering the woman’s blatant coyness made her want to give a loud huff of indignation that any man of sound wit would fall for such artful conniving.

Like as not, she would have hooted with laughter right there in the dank passageway had that man been any other than Magnus MacKinnon.

But it
had
been him, so she’d held back any such urges. And now she made do with grinding her teeth and taking ever-longer strides along the deserted battlements. She’d pace even faster if her new mantle, a wedding gift from Devorgilla, Doon’s venerable wisewoman, didn’t prove so cumbersome. But its heavy folds warmed her and, the saints knew, she was built sturdy enough to carry its weight and more.

Much more . . . as she meant to prove to a slip of a chit half her size.

To that end, she drew a deep, cleansing breath of the chill night air.

Air heavily laced with the scent of the sea and cold, damp stone.

Old stone, and peat smoke, and
family.