Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel: Highland Warriors Book 2

by Welfonder Sue-Ellen

  Chapter 6

  It was the chill wind blowing down off the cliffs that woke Kendrew hours later. Another factor was the horror of dreaming that a huge, mail-clad warrior with a hard, grim-set face was bending over him and glaring at him with fierce, piercing eyes. Most times, he’d welcome such a challenge. No man swung a blade with more gladness. Each new enemy kill-mark he carved into his arms or chest was a badge of honor. He cowered from no man. And he knew no fear.

  But in his dream, he’d been unable to move.

  The granite-faced warrior somehow pinned him in place with his stare, stealing his ability to fight and reducing him to nothing better than a bug caught in the web of a spider.

  Worse, when he tried to glower back at the man, he found he could see right through him!

  “Guidsakes.” He rubbed his eyes, shuddering. And it was then that he realized the third reason he’d wakened in such a foul mood.

  His bedchamber wasn’t just cold as an ice-crusted burn in winter…

  His bed was full of rocks.

  “Bluidy hell!” He shot up from his bearskin, seeing his folly at once. He wasn’t abed at all. He’d been so vexed with Isobel that – he now recalled, wincing – upon returning to his own territory, he’d snatched his fur cloak from where he’d left it and climbed Slag’s Mound, choosing to sleep atop the great stony cairn.

  Passing the night beneath the stars seemed preferable to returning to Castle Nought where he’d risk his men catching a look at his soured expression and subjecting him to endless ribbing.

  Having his sister needle him was an even worse prospect.

  He just hadn’t counted on the night turning so cold.

  He’d also overlooked how much he’d miss his own many-cushioned bed. The great four-poster that had belonged to his father, his grandfather before him, and many other Mackintosh lairds was massive and carved of rich, age-blackened oak. Finest linens made the bed sumptuous. Furred coverlets – furs much softer than his bearskin – ensured warmth, as did the bed’s proud tartan curtaining.

  A small, equally splendid table stood close by, always dressed with a fresh ewer of mead and a precious silver-and-jewel-rimmed drinking horn.

  He felt a surge of pride, thinking about his room’s luxurious trappings.

  He might be a warrior like no other. But he did appreciate his comforts.

  Just now, he jammed his hands on his hips and looked round, not surprised to find himself alone. The whole of the dreagan vale stretched empty. Thick, gray mist hid the tops of the cliffs, while a smudge of light in the overcast sky proved the sun had risen. The chill wind that had disturbed him, whistled eerily. Some good soul had doused the bonfires. And the air, already thick with the scent of damp earth and old stone, held traces of cold ash. Nowhere did he see a hulking, fierce-eyed assailant, see-through or otherwise.

  More’s the pity, because if the man had been real, he would’ve relished a good fight.

  Ever since he’d left Isobel, he’d been itching to break something. The few hours of sleep he’d managed, hadn’t lessened the urge. If anything, he was more riled than before. His regrettable sleeping choice hadn’t just given him a rip-roaring backache. He now faced the unpleasantness of entering his hall to even more questions than he would have done hours ago.

  “Thor’s thundery arse!” He glanced again at the cloud-darkened sky, the smudge of lighter gray he knew to be the sun. Its position showed that the morning was no more.

  The day had crept well past noontide.

  His hall would be abuzz.

  But none of the louts who’d soon accost him would’ve seen Isobel’s blue silken cloak. That problem, he’d dealt with soundly. Her good name would not be smirched. That was all he cared about. She’d also answered his other reason for tromping through the glen. He didn’t trust her brother farther than an ax blade could fall. But he didn’t doubt Isobel’s word that no men had accompanied her.

  Of course, believing her made the men he’d seen at the outcrop a mystery.

  A damned unsettling one – unless his eyes were failing him.

  Kendrew’s mouth twisted. His head was beginning to pain him as much as his aching back.

  Scowling, he snatched up his bearskin and slung it around his shoulders. Soon every stone in his beloved vale would sprout a clattering tongue and scold him for his lies. The truth was surely stamped on his throbbing forehead. Isobel Cameron intrigued him.

  He wanted her badly.

  He could still feel her warm and pliant in his arms. Her taste lingered on the back of his tongue. The image of her full, round breasts kept blazing across his mind’s eye, tormenting him until such need gripped him that he could hardly breathe.

  Yet he’d sooner cut off his best piece than go near her again.

  A lady was the last female he wanted on Nought land or anywhere close to him. His sister was the sole exception. As a Mackintosh, she was born and bred in the shadow of the dreagan stones. Her flesh and blood were hewn of granite, her spirit weaned on cold wind and blowing mist. She thrived in darkest winter and was as strong-willed as a Norse frost-giant. She also wielded her tongue as wickedly as Mackintosh men swung their war axes.

  Marjory was, in a word, fearless.

  Any other gently-bred women…

  Kendrew blotted Lady Isobel from his mind and leapt down from Slag’s Mound. It was time to return to his hall. If anyone so much as looked cross-eyed at him, they’d soon regret their mistake.

  He was in a vile temper.

  And Blood Drinker was thirsty.

  * * *

  Kendrew knew his arrival at the keep would be worse than expected as soon as he reached the steep stone steps to Castle Nought’s lofty gatehouse. He could feel an ominous humming in the air even here, at the bottom of the cliff stair and well below the rock-girded stronghold. Bracing himself, he took the narrow steps two at a time, prepared for anything. His gut told him his sister waited in the shadows of the castle’s arched entry. Or perhaps she hovered on the other side of the stout, iron-studded door, waiting to pounce when he stepped inside the hall.

  Either way, she’d have words for him, he knew.

  She always did.

  And she didn’t hesitate to share them.

  His lips twitched as he imagined her ire. Her blue eyes would flash and she’d tap one foot, her color rising as she upbraided him. Every man in the hall would turn to watch, some amused, others embarrassed. And if the gods really meant ill with him, Marjory’s wee pest of a dog, Hercules, would run circles around him, snapping at his ankles. It would be an unpleasant scene.

  But her fuss would serve her naught.

  He didn’t have his fierce reputation for allowing himself to be cowed by a woman.

  Nor was he of a mood to be pestered.

  But when he assumed an air of indifference and stepped into the gatehouse, the two guards on duty only nodded from their posts. The men had been leaning against the wall, no doubt recovering from the revels. They straightened now, their bloodshot eyes and the hint of stale ale in the cold air proving he’d guessed rightly. Neither man showed awareness of discord inside Nought’s walls.

  Kendrew knew hell awaited him.

  The prickles at his nape told him so. He liked to think such warnings had been passed down to him from his Berserker forebears. Wherever such niggles came from, he knew not to ignore them.

  Turning, he swept a glance over the rocky expanse stretching beneath him. But if any mailed spearmen dared slink about his land, hiding behind outcrops or cairns, there was no sight of them now.

  Nothing stirred at Nought except cold, blowing mist.

  Yet his neck niggles remained.

  So he took a deep breath, flung open the door, and entered his hall. “A good morrow to all,” he boomed, striding forward as if nothing was amiss.

  And – he blinked – nothing was.

  Return greetings sounded in the colorful, mead-reeking hall. Men lined trestle tables, most of the warriors eating bread and che
ese. Some slumped forward, dosing with their tousle-haired heads resting on folded arms. Several well-burning logs blazed in the huge, double-arched hearth. Orange-red fire glow glinted off the round, brightly painted shields and weaponry that decorated the hearthside wall, while torchlight flickered across the richly colored tapestries and animal skins adorning the hall’s other three walls. As so often, cold gray mist slid past the high, narrow slit windows.

  It appeared a day like every other.

  Even Gronk, his favorite castle dog, behaved as was his wont at this quiet hour of the day. A great wolf-like beast with a shaggy black coat and silver eyes, Gronk sprawled before the fire, gnawing a giant meat bone while Marjory’s wee Hercules hopped around him like a flea, begging attention. As always, Gronk ignored the tiny dog. His only acknowledgment of Kendrew’s arrival was a single, quick ear twitch.

  Gronk’s bone held priority.

  Kendrew understood.

  It was good to have a purpose.

  His goal was to find out why the hall seemed such a haven of peace when the skin on the back of his neck still prickled so incessantly. He also needed to discover his sister’s whereabouts. A glance around the cavernous, smoke-hazed room – and then another, just to be sure - revealed Lady Norn wasn’t present.

  That bode ill.

  Her absence meant she was up to something.

  But before he could lift a hand and rub his nape, deciding his next move, a cool, feminine voice spoke at his shoulder. “By all the heather, you must’ve enjoyed the revels greatly, returning only now.”

  Kendrew whipped around to face his sister. “I’d be enjoying myself still if you hadn’t come creeping up on me out of nowhere.”

  Some of his men chuckled. A few shifted on the trestle benches or coughed. Grim, Kendrew’s captain of the guard, was passing and cuffed him on the shoulder. A burly, tough-looking man, Grim was so named because his eyes were the same deep gray of the mist that so often cloaked Nought. Just now, he winked, not breaking stride as he made his way to a table against the far wall.

  Kendrew itched to join him.

  Grim was his most trusted friend. He was a man who, despite his name, was always full of laughter and could lift any man’s spirits with a wink and a smile. Kendrew could’ve done with a few of Grim’s more colorful jests, anything to take his mind off a certain tall, well-made beauty with dark eyes and long, blue-black hair.

  But he stayed where he was, his gaze fixed on his sister. “No good comes to maids who slink through the shadows.”

  He meant that, by God.

  Marjory met his stare, cool as ever.

  “I’ve been here all along.” Her tone held just enough smugness to fire his temper. “You’d have seen me if you’d looked well. Or have you forgotten” - she tilted her fair head, watching him – “that you’re not the only Mackintosh able to night-walk?”

  “Humph.” Kendrew clamped his jaw, unable to argue.

  He did chide himself.

  He had forgotten that Marjory, like all their blood, could slip about in the shadows, silent and unseen for as long as she desired to remain undetected. Some Mackintoshes, himself in particular, could even pass through a bustling bailey or thronged great hall without a soul taking note. Though, he wouldn’t deny, it was a skill that required much concentration and practice. Night-walking was a gift laid in Nought cradles, a legacy from the clan’s long and mysterious past.

  Marjory also possessed the irritating power to make him feel like a wee lad again. A mischievous boy caught doing something he’d been warned to leave alone.

  Truth was he’d done just that.

  He’d touched the forbidden, even sullying a lady. It scarce mattered that she’d deliberately provoked him, tempting him beyond the limits of any man. And not even backing down when he’d made her aware of the danger. All that counted were his actions.

  He’d behaved like a beast.

  Marjory was eyeing him sharply, as if she knew.

  “I wasn’t night-walking.” He looked at her, unable to keep his brows from snapping together. “I was sleeping. Alone on top of Slag’s Mound, if your long-nosed self wants to know.”

  “Indeed?” She turned all innocence.

  Kendrew saw right through her. “So I said, aye.”

  “And have you nothing else to say?” She bent to scoop Hercules into her arms when the little dog bolted up to her. “Perhaps about James Cameron’s request of stones for the memorial cairn?”

  “Hah!” Kendrew snatched an ale cup from a passing kinsman and tossed down the frothy brew in one, swift gulp. “So that’s what you’re about. Still harping on that string, eh?” He slapped the empty cup on a table, dragged his arm over his mouth. “I’ll no’ be changing my mind and all your needling won’t make me.”

  Now more than ever, he wasn’t setting foot on Cameron land again.

  He did fold his arms, abandoning any attempt at maintaining an air of goodwill. “No’ so much as a thimbleful of stone dust will be leaving Naught. I’ve told you why often enough. Cuiridh mi clach ‘ad charn. ‘I will carry a stone for you,’ as the wise words go. We both know it means ‘I willnae forget you.’ Not a one of our forebears will be dishonored by seeing stones he trod or rocks from his cairn carried off to grace a memorial on enemy territory.”

  The pronouncement made, Kendrew fixed his sister with his most intimidating scowl, determined to glower her – and her infernal gnat of a dog – away from his sight and out of his hall. Leastways until he’d had time to slake his thirst and address his hunger.

  His stomach was rumbling and if he didn’t soon eat, someone would suffer.

  Marjory seemed bent on being that person.

  “A pity, you’re so stubborn.” She shook her head, feigning sympathy. “I vow King Robert will be most grieved when word reaches him that you refused to serve the glen’s peace. He might even be so wrought that he’ll renew his threat to banish us all, then-”

  “There is peace in the glen.” Kendrew glanced round the crowded hall, letting his stare challenge anyone to say otherwise. “Every day I refrain from taking my men hallooing through the heather, slashing swords and swinging axes, peace reins in these hills.”

  He suspected he’d soon be doing just that if strange men truly were prowling the glen.

  But he wouldn’t make a fool of himself by heading out with a war-band until he was sure.

  “I’m no’ breaking any truce.” The words were his only nod to Marjory’s needling.

  A few grunts and mumbles came from the hall’s darker corners. The enthusiastic assent Kendrew hoped for – cheers and many elbows thumping the tabletops - didn’t come. Not a single foot stomp. Nor the clatter of good Mackintosh steel rattling in scabbards.

  Even Grim held his tongue. The big man lounged on a trestle bench, his long legs stretched to the fire. He was calmly sipping ale and appeared to be studying the hearth flames. Gronk, the furry traitor, sat next to Grim, surely expecting a treat now that his meat bone was gnawed bare. Grim loved animals and always carried twists of dried meat to feed any dogs who begged a morsel. He slipped one to Gronk now, not taking his eyes off the hearth fire as he fed the dog from the leather pouch at his belt.

  Other warriors were equally occupied, their attention elsewhere.

  Kendrew frowned, his temper rising.

  No one met his eye.

  Hercules did, baring his little-dog teeth and snarling deep in his tiny chest.

  Marjory shifted him in her arms, not turning a hair herself. “You say the present quiet is peace? The kind that will last once the horrors of the trial by combat fade? If you do, be warned. Everyone in this hall feels differently.”

  “Bah.” Kendrew dusted his sleeve. “There isn’t a man here who’d cross me.”

  Hercules growled again.

  Lady Norn smiled, petting his head. “Your men know what’s at stake.”

  “Stoking Cameron’s pride, naught else.” Kendrew jutted his chin, the prickles at his nape now replac
ed by a nice, angry flush. “I’ll have no part of that. His head is already swelled enough to fill the glen.”

  Pleased by his wit, he threw another look over the smoky hall, hoping for his men’s agreement.

  Again, no one responded.

  Grim was gone. No doubt heading for the kitchens, where a certain plump serving lass supplied him with the dried meat twists for dogs. The wench gave Grim other treats as well, everyone knew.

  Gronk prowled past the tightly-packed tables, head low and tail swishing as he sought another dog-loving treat-giver among Kendrew’s warriors.

  Kendrew might’ve been air.

  For all intents and purposes, he was as insubstantial as the rings of smoke curling along the hall’s heavy, age-blackened ceiling rafters. And this was one time he was not night-walking. A man should be noted when he stood in the middle of his own hall.

  So he drew himself up to his full height and put back his shoulders. “I’ll no’ surrender to Cameron’s whims.” His voice rang, reaching every corner. “Not this day, nor on the morrow. All he’ll get from me is my sword rammed down his throat. If” – he hooked his thumbs in his sword belt – “I don’t first use my ax to lop off his head.”

  His boasts went ignored.

  Beside him, Lady Norn folded her hands, standing so straight she must’ve swallowed a broom. “If you do, you may as well behead us all.”

  “Dinnae tempt me, Norn.” Kendrew flushed hot and cold, his annoyance welling. “Men need a little bloodletting now and then. Aught else isn’t natural.”

  Even those words failed to stir his men.

  Kendrew glared at them, half wondering if he’d walked into the wrong hall.

  Yet this was Nought.

  The men were his own, even if most of them were applying themselves to their bread and cheese with gusto, pretending not to have heard him. Some scratched sudden itches or hid behind their ale cups. Silence came from those with their heads on the tables, though one or two suddenly emitted such loud, fluting snores that he was almost of a mind to jab them with the pointy end of his sword, just to prove they were awake.