Across the room, Catriona sighed. “You truly do have your heart set on Mackintosh, don’t you?”
“I…” Isobel took a long breath, knowing there was no point in denial. “Any other man pales beside him.” She left the window and started pacing before the fire, a strange sense of triumph beating through her now that she’d spoken openly. “If I see him at his boldest tonight, perhaps I can learn how to attract his attention.”
Catriona snorted. “You have breasts and a comely face. Catching his eye is the least of your worries. The problem is that” – she pulled a small pillow onto her lap, her brow creasing again – “a fast tumble in the heather is all you can expect from him.”
Isobel didn’t want to believe it. “You won James’ heart-”
“James is not Kendrew Mackintosh.” Catriona dismissed her objection, the words dimming the warm glow of hope that had begun to thrum in Isobel’s breast. “I can see no good coming from you sneaking off to Castle Nought tonight. That corner of the glen is also fraught with other dangers. It’s an unholy place, filled with weird mist and darkness. Bare rock and naked, jagged cliffs make it cold and forbidding. Mackintosh territory is nothing like Castle Haven and the wooded hills and waterfalls surrounding us here.
“Nought is a terrifying, unwelcoming place.” Catriona drew the little pillow closer against her middle. “They say the wind there carries ancient echoes of dreagan roars. I do believe that is true.”
“I’m not afraid.” To her amazement, Isobel wasn’t.
Catriona frowned. “If something happens to you and James discovers I kept silent about you slipping away, he’ll never forgive me.”
“I never told you I’m going.” Isobel brushed at her skirts, offering her friend the only defense she could against James’ possible wrath. “Indeed, when I leave you, I’ll be heading to my own bedchamber.”
She didn’t say that she’d simply meant to retrieve her cloak.
The crease in Catriona’s brow deepened. But she held her peace, settling back against the bed cushions.
She did send a pointed glance at the small oaken table set before one of the room’s colorful wall tapestries. The table was right next to the door.
“You know” – she looked back to Isobel, her blue gaze piercing – “that my condition keeps me from wearing my lady’s dirk.” She flicked another quick glance at the table where her jewel-hilted dagger glittered in the light of a wall sconce. “Everyone knows sharp objects might cause harm to a wee babe in the womb.”
Catriona nodded, understanding her friend’s unspoken message.
“Thank you.” Isobel touched her amber necklace again, almost overcome by the rush of hope, giddiness, and excitement mounting inside her.
Then, before she lost her nerve, she cast another look at the shimmering sky beyond the window arches, and hurried from the bedchamber.
She snatched Catriona’s dagger on her way out the door.
She doubted she’d need it.
But she didn’t want her friend to worry. Unlike her, Catriona saw danger in Nought’s mysteries, the dark and rock-bound landscape.
Isobel saw adventure.
And - she hoped – the love of a lifetime.
* * *
About the same time, but in the dread place of rock and shadow that Isobel and her friend had just been discussing, Kendrew Mackintosh stood in the middle of Castle Nought’s cavernous great hall and stared at his sister, Marjory. Fondly known as Lady Norn for her striking Nordic beauty and Valkyrie-ish temperament, she lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with her wintriest smile. She also had the cheek to think that planting herself in front of the door would keep him from leaving the hall.
“You’ll no’ be stopping me from enjoying the night’s revels.” Kendrew folded his arms, incredulous as ever at her flashing-eyed boldness.
Then he grinned, unable to help himself.
“By Thor,” he boomed, “you should have been born a man. If you wielded a sword as sharp as your blazing eyes, no enemy would be safe.”
Marjory set her hands on her hips, her chilly mien not warming a whit. “You’ll be spared my wrath as soon as you read James Cameron’s missive.” Sending a pointed glance at the parchment scroll resting atop a nearby long table, she began tapping her foot. “It’s no great task. Break the seal and give him the courtesy of-”
“Odin’s balls, I will!” Kendrew glared at her, his grin faded. “Breaking thon seal and reading his foolery will only sour my mood. I already ken what he’s after. This new letter will hold the same twaddle as his previous ones and I’m having none of it.”
“He only wants a few stones for the memorial cairn.” Marjory bent another icy look right back at him. The little brown and white dog sitting beside her skirts eyed him with equal animosity.
Marjory glanced at her pet, and then back at Kendrew as if the teeny beast’s opinion supported hers. “Send James the rocks and” – she curved her lips in an annoyingly superior smile – “he’ll leave you be.”
“Aye, he will.” Kendrew swelled his chest. “But no’ because I do his bidding, I say you.”
Jaw set, he shot a glance at the hall’s high, narrow-slit windows, his irritation increasing to see that the twilight was already sliding into night. The sky still shone with the fine luminosity of highest summer, but the hour was advancing.
The celebrations at the dreagan stones would be well underway.
“You did agree to send stones.” Marjory proved she could be the most vexatious female he knew. “I heard you when we were at Castle Haven to discuss the cairn just a few months past. Everyone heard you.”
Kendrew cut the air with a hand, ignoring her argument.
“I’d rather send Blood Drinker arcing into James’ Cameron’s skull.” He grinned again, liking the notion.
Blood Drinker, his beloved, well-used and storied war ax, hadn’t quenched her thirst of late. Giving her finely-tooled blade a nice long drink of Cameron blood would do the weapon good.
“The bastard is a bane.” He relished the shock on his sister’s face. “He’ll no’ be getting a single Nought stone for his cairn. Every rock here, even the smallest pebble, belongs where it is.
“Cuiridh mi clach ‘ad charn.” Kendrew waited for her reaction. “Have you forgotten that those words mean so much more than ‘I will place a stone on your cairn?’ Has it slipped your mind” – he stepped closer, frowning down at her – “that the old wisdom has little to do with carrying a rock to a man’s final resting place and everything to do with vowing never to forget that man?”
When she flushed, Kendrew pounced. “Every stone on our land, be it on a cairn or in the bottom of a burn, recalls a long-past clansman. I’ll no’ disgrace their memories by seeing even a grain of Nought sand added to a memorial that glorifies our enemies.”
Satisfied that Marjory couldn’t argue, Kendrew folded his arms.
She recovered swiftly. “Word is Alasdair MacDonald sent enough stones to build a small house.” Straightening to her full height, she tossed back her bright, sun-gold hair and raised her chin, defiant. “He-”
Kendrew snorted. “MacDonald is a worse snake than Cameron. With his sister now married to James, the bastard had no choice than to send Blackshore rocks. I do have a choice and Cameron knows what it is.”
“He can’t. You’re ignoring his requests.”
“That’s my answer.”
“The memorial cairn is to mark the battle site,” Marjory persisted. Her dog stood, a cagey look entering his eyes as he started toward Kendrew. A wee creature she’d illogically named Hercules, the dog was clearly bent on performing a favorite irritating trick.
“Call him off, Norn.” Kendrew glared at the dog, his manly dignity keeping him from leaping out of Hercules’ leg-lifting range.
“Hercules, come here.” Marjory used her sweetest tone.
The dog bared his teeth and growled at Kendrew, but then trotted dutifully back to Marjory where he once again took his place beside
her.
“He’s annoyed by your tone.” Marjory excused her pet. “And I’m disappointed by your stubbornness.” She took a breath, all cold, northern ice again. Kendrew could almost feel the chill winds swirling around him. “You’re deliberately undermining the peace in this glen. You know there’s to be a friendship ceremony at Castle Haven in two months. If you refuse to send stones, the cairn can’t be completed.”
“Could be I’m for forgetting that slaughter ever happened.” Kendrew grabbed his bearskin off the bench where he’d thrown it earlier and swirled it around his shoulders. “If I think about it, I just want to be there again. Only” – he strode right up to his sister, towering over her – “then I’d finish the fight, leaving no’ a miserable Cameron or MacDonald on the bloody field.”
“The King ordered peace.” Marjory didn’t back down.
Hercules growled again.
“Robert Stewart has his royal will.” Kendrew stepped around them both and threw open the hall door. “And I” – he glanced over his shoulder at her – “am off to Slag’s Mound to enjoy what peace is left to me.
“A pity you’ll no’ be coming along.” At the moment, he was secretly relieved.
In such a mood, she’d ruin the festivities.
“Hercules was ailing this morn.” She bent and scooped the wee dog into her arms, coddling him. “I’ll not be leaving him alone tonight.”
“As you wish.” Kendrew shrugged, certain Hercules looked triumphant.
He knew a trickster when he saw one.
He was a master scoundrel himself, after all.
Glad of it – and proud, truth be told – he pulled the hall door shut behind him and stepped out into the glistening, silver-shot night.
Marjory needn’t know he had other reasons for being so thrawn about the stones.
His stubbornness was Cameron’s own fault.
The last time he’d visited Castle Haven, he’d told James of seeing several armed strangers. Thick-bearded men in helms and mail, they’d lurked about on a ledge overlooking the waterfall behind the Cameron stronghold.
James claimed his look-outs would’ve spotted any trespassers. He did send men to the falls. No strangers were found. James’s tone upon reporting his guards’ findings implied that Kendrew had mistaken water spray for the glint of mailed coats.
Kendrew said no more.
But he hadn’t forgotten the slight.
Pushing his foe from his mind, he stepped deeper onto the broad landing.
Splendor greeted him, making his heart thud fast in his chest. Castle Nought’s thick, impregnable walls rose seamlessly from the cliffs at the northernmost end of the Glen of Many Legends. And here, in the stone-cut arch of the lofty gatehouse, the whole sweep of his territory could be admired. But he knew that many short-sighted fools didn’t appreciate the windy, steep-sided vista of rock and mist stretching beneath him. Those misguided souls thought of his home a dark and benighted place, full of cold and menace.
Kendrew knew better.
True men thrived in such wildness.
Soft living created weak men. Those who cowered in gentler climes, weren’t worthy of their bollocks.
Knowing he was worthy of his and more, Kendrew reached for the heavy gold Thor’s hammer at his throat and kissed the well-loved amulet.
The gods did well settling him and those who’d gone before him as the guardians of this rugged, mist-drenched corner of the Highlands. Tonight he and his people – and a few lusty, well-made lasses drawn to the raucousness from the surrounding hills and moors - would honor those gods, thanking them for their bounty.
Already, the bonfires were lit in celebration, flames leaping high against the sides of the high peaks hemming Nought land. The fires threw a pulsing, golden cast across the windswept ridges and the narrow, rock-filled vale, the contrast with the glistening silver of the night sky almost too beautiful to behold.
But Kendrew did, fierce pride coursing in his veins.
He loved Nought.
And he waited all year for Midsummer Eve.
It was a night of magic.
A time when – he was sure – even the dreagans sleeping beneath their stony cairns, stirred and yearned for the days of yore.
Kendrew understood such longing.
And when he let his gaze sweep the great mounds of jumbled rocks so many glen folk still feared, he knew he’d sooner take his last breath than call any other place home. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, reveling in the heady smell of cold air and damp stone, the tantalizing trace of roasting meat and woodsmoke drifting on the wind.
Joy filled him.
It was time to forget any fools who didn’t appreciate Nought and let his own passions run free. Eager to be on his way, he bounded down the bluff’s narrow stone steps and made straight for the jumbled outcroppings dotting his land, the heart of the dreagan stones.
This Midsummer Eve would be like no other.
He felt it in his bones.
* * *
I hope you’ll enjoy Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel (Highland Warriors Book 2) and Seduction of a Highland Warrior (Highland Warriors Book 3)…
Seduction of a Highland Warrior
A Scottish warrior chieftain faces the battle of his life when he falls for a Viking’s promised bride!
Coming soon!
About the Author
“Sue-Ellen Welfonder brings legends and love to life.” – Fresh Fiction
USA Today bestselling author Sue-Ellen Welfonder won Romantic Times Best Historical Romance Award for her debut title, Devil in a Kilt. Many of her books have been RT Award nominees, and have received RT Top Picks and K.I.S.S. Hero Awards. She is thrilled to be a winner of InD'Tale's RONE Award. Her favorite reader compliment is that her stories transport them to medieval Scotland, the setting of most of her books. She is also known for her strong heroines, Alpha heroes, and weaving Highland magic and humor into her tales.
Sue-Ellen also writes as Allie Mackay, penning contemporary paranormals, mostly set in the Scottish Highlands.
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Sins of a Highland Devil: Highland Warriors Book 1 Page 34
