“Dinnae even think of going back in there,” he warned, his gaze hard as ice-frosted stone, his voice equally cold.
Iain ignored the threat. “Every MacLean here is running in there.”
“No’ in the way you were just planning.”
“So?” Iain didn’t deny it.
“I willnae allow it, Iain.”
“You would stay me with your sword?” Iain held his older brother’s gaze. “Our own father’s blade?”
“I have no desire to hurt you.” Donall kept the sword in place. “Even so, I will cut you if I must. If you attempt further foolishness.”
“Then have at me.” Iain lifted his hands, palms out. “You think I fear steel more than flames?”
“I know you fear nothing.” Donall threw another look at the ruined chapel. “I’m still warning you to consider God’s wrath. And no’ just His. Dinnae forget that our chapel, indeed the whole of Baldoon, was built on a site sacred to the ancients.”
“So it was.” Iain hooked his thumbs in his sword belt. “The old ones will also want a piece of me.”
“They’d have every right.”
“I’m no’ arguing.” He wasn’t. “I ken what I did. I’m no’ proud of it.”
He dashed at his eyes, stinging and streaming from the smoke haze. If something else had a hand in his eyes watering, he hoped his brother wouldn’t guess.
He didn’t want sympathy.
Even so, he clenched his hands around his belt. The damning truth was that if he’d loved Lileas as fiercely as MacLean men were legended to love their women, he would have sensed the danger stalking her that day. He could have kept her from going anywhere near the Lady Rock.
But he’d felt nothing.
He hadn’t even thought of her that morning – until it was too late.
So he staunched his guilt the only way he knew. He kept his shoulders squared, his gaze on Donall. “I should care for gods so cruel they’d allow Lilieas to be murdered?”
“Neither God or the old ones had a hand in her death. But they will no’ be pleased that you’ve set fire to hallowed ground.”
“Aye, you have the way of it,” Iain seethed, no longer trying to contain his anger. “None of them had anything to do with the deed. They were all sleeping that foul-dawning day, just as they did when my grief sent me wheeling away from the altar and into the candle-stand.
“Or…” Iain leaned toward his brother. “Are you accusing me of deliberately toppling the candelabrum? Do you think I wished to set fire to the chapel?”
Donall studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“Everyone knows you’ve spent more time on your knees in there than in your own bedchamber,” he said at last. “Why should you burn the one place you seek sanctuary? Nae, my brother, I think your own torments and fury blinded you.”
“I’d say it’s my right to feel both.”
Donall lifted a brow, his silence telling.
Iain drew himself to his full height, cocked a brow of his own. “You dare say I’ve no claim to those rights?”
“I say you forfeited them when your temper caused you to knock over the candle-stand.”
“Someone moved it.”
“Nae. The candelabrum stood in its usual place.”
“It scarce matters now.”
“No’ true.” Donall gestured to the kinsmen still battling the flames. “It matters to them.”
As it does to me! Iain’s temper roared. So much that I see no purpose in living in the dark, chasing shadows all my days…
He also wouldn’t be pitied.
So he took a step forward, then another, until the point of Donall’s sword pricked him. Only then did he risk a smile, his first in longer than he could recall.
And meant to be his last.
Eager for the peace he sought, he readied himself for a sprint into the flames. His decision made, he let the smile spread through him, bringing sweet, blessed relief.
The welcome surety that his agony would soon end.
“You err, brother mine, for I do know fear,” he said then. “I fear living and” – he made an impatient gesture – “I’ve grown weary of it.”
Realization flashed across Donall’s face.
“Nae!” He flung aside his sword and lunged forward, throwing his arms around Iain in the same moment a strange prickling in the back of Iain’s neck made him spin about.
His agility rewarded him with the glimpse of a bonnie raven-haired lass rushing at him. Wild-eyed and screaming, she held a large earthen wine jug above her head.
His sister, Amicia.
And the descent of her jug was the last thing he saw before numbing darkness claimed him.
~*~
Miles away on the other side of Doon, strong winds swept across the isle’s moors and peat bogs, but skirted a certain cliff-top glade, not daring to bend a single blade of grass within its enchanted circle.
A thatched cottage stood there, thick-walled and silent. Perched on the edge of nowhere, high above the sea, the cottage was sheltered by silver birch and rowan trees, and the magic of Devorgilla, Doon’s resident crone and wise woman.
The cailleach who even now as Iain slept, used her skills to borrow some of his darkness to cloak her own doings from the gloaming’s light.
“No’ the time of year for spelling,” she muttered, fastening a length of dark linen over a window. The last one to receive such a blackening treatment.
Tsk’ing, she smoothed the cloth into place. Her most potent incantations had failed to conjure sufficient gloom.
And no wonder.
Iain MacLean’s disbelief thwarted her.
The window-draping done, she hitched her skirts and peered at her small, black-booted feet. As she’d expected, her red-plaid shoe laces weren’t glowing as brightly as usual.
The lad’s doubt cast a powerful shield.
“Nae bother.” She rubbed her hands. “I be stronger.”
Sure of it, she shuffled across the stone-flagged floor toward an oaken bench against the far wall.
“‘I want none of your fool mumblings and even less of cauldrons bubbling over with newts and bats’ wings,’” she mimicked him as she sat down on the bench.
Once settled, she allowed herself a well-earned cackle and pulled a wooden bowl filled with stones onto her knees.
She beamed, a familiar thrill racing through her.
“Iain the Doubter shall have a more potent cure than toenail of newt and wing of bat,” she informed the stillness, her focus on the softly gleaming stones.
Special stones.
Highland quartz, mostly, though some came from sacred places throughout the Isles.
Faery fire stones, rare and precious. Each one collected by her own hands or gifted to her by those more appreciative of her talents than a certain dark-eyed scoundrel too stubborn for his own good.
She knew better.
So she poked through her treasures until the tips of her fingers grew tingly and warm. Satisfaction prickled inside her when the stones began to vibrate.
Delighted, she plucked his stone from the bowl and placed it beside her on the bench.
Her stone, the one she’d selected to represent Iain MacLean’s one true love, was found with equal ease. And while his stone still felt cold to the touch, its core a deep and chilling blue, the maid’s grew warmer by the day.
Savoring its heat, Devorgilla set the female stone in the palm of her left hand. She smiled when a teensy point of reddish gold appeared in the faery fire stone’s core.
One be you, and one be she. When your lady’s heart catches fire, you’ll recognize her, she’d explained as she’d tried to give him the stones the last time she’d gone to Baldoon.
A visit she’d made solely to offer him her assistance.
Regrettably, he hadn’t appreciated her efforts.
His lady’s heart couldn’t catch flame, he’d informed her, claiming her heart was cold as the grave and would never warm again.
Cluckin
g her tongue at the scowl he’d given her, Devorgilla placed his icy stone next to the maid’s warm one and closed her ancient fingers over the two.
Leaning forward, she again peered down at her red plaid shoelaces, pleased to see them bright again.
Her magic was great, as always.
So she straightened, tipped back her head, and curled her fingers tighter around the stones, her gaze now on the cottage’s low, black-raftered ceiling.
Iain MacLean was mistaken.
Though the flame in his true lady’s heart might not yet be a blazing inferno, it’d already caught a fine healthy spark and was very much alive.
A truth he’d soon discover.
Chapter Three
Iain curled his fingers into the linens of his massive four-poster bed in an attempt to stop its spinning. Unfortunately, the whirling only increased. Now that he was fully awake, the bed dipped and tilted in rhythm with the throbbing in his head.
Equally bad, his ears rang and his eyes stung worse than the time when, as wee laddies, Donall had laughingly blown a handful of sand into his face.
Iain grimaced, the memory driving a spike of bitterness into the middle of his pounding forehead. Not wanting to feel sorry for himself, he tightened his grip on the bed.
But how could he ignore the pain inside him?
When was the last time he’d laughed?
He couldn’t recall, and never had he felt less inclined than now.
Pushing up on his elbows, he squinted into the brightness of a chamber far too sun-filled to be his own.
Someone had opened the shutters, allowing light to flood his room. A refuge he purposely kept in cool and blessed shadow.
Everyone knew it, too.
“By the hounds!” He glared at the windows. “What depraved arse-?” He broke off, collapsing against the pillows as his head seemingly burst into a hundred jagged-edged fragments.
“Odin’s balls,” he snarled through gritted teeth. And it was then that a new thought came to him.
A bad one...
Perhaps he only imagined he lay aching and bleak-hearted in his bed?
Maybe he had sprinted into the flames, and now found himself in the antechamber to Satan’s own fiery pit? The brightness stabbing his eyes, not the sun’s rays, but the flames of hell.
Not as pleased at the possibility as he’d thought he’d be, he forced himself to endure the glaring light long enough to survey his surroundings a bit more thoroughly.
When he did, he felt both relief and annoyance.
If he’d died and gone to hell, his most persistent tormentors had followed him. They were all here, his closest kinsmen and friends. And they peered at him with such cold disapproval it was a wonder they didn’t have icicles hanging from their brows.
All save Amicia, his raven-haired sister.
She stood wringing her hands, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
“On my soul, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said, her voice dulled by anguish. “But I thought…” Her words ended in a sob, and she swiped the back of her hand beneath her eyes. “Can you forgive me?”
“For what?” Iain glanced at his brother, but Donall’s stony face offered nary a clue.
A quick look at the others proved equally fruitless. Gerbert returned his stare but said nothing. Donall’s wife, Lady Isolde, hovered just inside the door, her troubled gaze on her husband.
Gavin MacFie, Donall’s most trusted friend, sat in one of the room’s window embrasures, carefully wiping soot from one of Baldoon’s most prized reliquary containers. A strapping, auburn-haired man loved for his sunny disposition, he held Iain’s stare for a long, uncomfortable moment before giving a sad shake of his head and returning his attention to the small bejeweled chest on his knees.
Iain frowned.
He hadn’t missed the pity in Gavin’s hazel eyes. Eyes that usually brimmed with good cheer.
Silence stretched between the room’s occupants, its weight at contrast to the crisp salt air pouring through the high arch-topped windows. Something wasn’t right. Sure of it, Iain took a closer glance in that direction. Someone hadn’t just opened the shutters – they were no longer there.
“I dinnae believe my eyes!” He blinked, a whirl of images flashing through his mind. The most telling was his sister rushing at him, only to crash a wine jug on his head.
The memory now clear, he touched the knot on his forehead. The lump pulsed hotly. Just fingering it sent bolts of pain clear to his toes. Now he knew the reason for Amicia’s tears.
“Stop crying, lass,” he rasped, appalled by the effort it cost him to form those few words. “I am no’ vexed with you.”
“You aren’t?” Amicia swiped her cheek. “You do not blame me for striking you?”
“Nae,” he assured her. “I know why you did, and I thank you.” He gave her a tight smile, a small one.
The best he could manage.
And only for her.
The others were a different matter.
Summoning strength, he flung back the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and held fast to its edges until the spinning lessened.
Then he heaved himself to his feet and turned to the soul he held responsible for transforming his bedchamber into a sea of eye-gouging brilliance.
The grizzle-headed steward had even set a fire blazing in the hearth and lit all the candles in the room. The wall torches hadn’t been ignored either. Long neglected, each one now hissed and crackled with well-burning flames. Iain resisted the urge to wince in their dazzling light.
“As I mind it, Gerbert, I told you no’ to lay a fire in here, to keep all tapers and oil lamps dark, and” – he paused for emphasis – “to leave the windows shuttered.”
“So ye did.”
“Yet you ignored my orders?”
Gerbert thrust out his chin. “I always heed orders. Have done all my years.”
Iain folded his arms. “Till now.”
The steward just looked at him.
Iain drew a deep breath, then released it slowly. “Where are the shutters?”
More silence met his gaze, but he caught a flash of pity in the graybeard’s hazy blue eyes. The same commiseration he’d noted on Gavin’s face moments before.
And that one avoided all further eye contact with him. The big Islesman held his shaggy, auburn head low over the jeweled reliquary casket. He kept polishing its silver casing though not a speck of soot remained.
The precious container for holy relics gleamed brighter than a bairn’s well-scrubbed behind.
A glance at his sister-in-law, Lady Isolde, reaped no more than a polite shrug.
That, and a telling glance at her husband.
Iain also looked at him.
“It was you,” he said, squinting in the sun’s glare slanting through the now-bare windows. “You ordered the removal of the shutters.”
Donall didn’t deny it.
“You go too far, brother.” Iain’s hands clenched at his sides. Honor demanded he abide by Donall’s edicts. He was laird, his word law, and Iain accepted his lot as younger son.
But never before had Donall crossed the threshold to his private quarters as laird.
Only as brother and friend.
That he’d do so now struck deep.
“Have I no’ bled enough this day?” He gestured with his arm, taking in the roaring hearth fire and the countless lit tapers. “Would you see my quarters reduced to a charred wilderness as penance for my sins?”
He strode to the stripped windows, purposely avoiding the recessed alcove claimed by Gavin MacFie, then whirled around. “Or did you hope to blind me by roasting my eyes?”
“You have done that yourself.” Donall glanced at Gavin, still busy shining the reliquary casket. “We seek to un-blind you.”
“I only wish to be left alone, undisturbed.”
“And we want to help you.”
“Then be gone.”
Turning back to the window, Iain gripped the co
ld stone ledge. He stared out at the vastness of the Hebridean Sea, his gaze going to the near-submerged islet where Lileas, his sweet lady wife, had met her doom.
The Lady Rock.
A seaweed-festooned hump of rock barely breaking the surface, its black-glistening crest deceptively benign in the late afternoon light.
How he loathed the tidal rock, its presence a grim reminder of everything he’d lost.
All he’d done wrong.
His throat thickened as grief and guilt wrung his heart and a knot of pain tightened in his gut.
With effort, he tore his gaze from the Lady Rock’s jagged face and focused on the endless expanse of blue-, green-, and amethyst-shaded water. Iced with white-crested waves, the sea’s beauty hurt his heart and pierced his soul.
Once, he’d loved the stirring views from these walls. He’d been so proud that such wonder surrounded Doon. Indeed, he’d felt blessed, sure a grander place couldn’t exist.
Now…
He inhaled deeply, then turned back to the room. “Donall, I would slay dragons for you,” he said, measuring each word. “Even give my life if you required it of me. But ne’er before have you entered this chamber as my better.”
Donall took a step toward him. “Dinnae think I do so gladly.”
“You should no’ do so at all. Name any penance and I shall accept it. I will not abide your intrusion here, nor the desecration of my private quarters.”
He slid a look at Gerbert, then started across the room.
“I expect the shutters back in place by sunrise on the morrow,” he declared, striding past Donall to reach the shadows of the corridor.
“Hold.” His brother’s arm shot out, stopping him with a grip to his elbow.
“You will no’ be here on the morrow,” Donall informed him. “This time you went too far. It grieves me to-”
“To what?” Iain jerked free. “Cast me in the dungeon? Banish me to prowl the hills outside Baldoon’s walls? Send me naked into the heather and scrub?”
“Nothing so odious.”
“What then? Shall I count the stones in every cairn dotting Doon’s high moors?”
“Iain, please,” Amicia cried. “And you, Donall, can we not just leave him be?” She raised beseeching hands. “He’s suffered enough.”
“Aye, he has,” Donall agreed, his tone grim. “As his brother, my heart sympathizes. My duty as laird demands I punish him. Perhaps in the execution of his penance, he will come to suffer less.”
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