Peat was one of their secret weapons. Like the scream of pipes, a breath of peat smoke made Highland hearts beat fast and true, turning them invincible.
Sadly, at the moment, even the magic of peat failed her.
The longing inside her was an ache, strong and insistent. Since Midsummer Eve, her heart’s yearning had turned unbearable, sharp and cutting as the edge of a sword. And she knew only one way to ease the need clawing at her.
Green herring, peat, and even well-meaning friends weren’t enough.
She wanted Kendrew.
Yet the world conspired against her.
Leaning forward, she glanced down the long table to where her brothers James and Hugh, fondly accorded the honor of clan storyteller, discussed the memorial cairn with Alasdair MacDonald. Seeing them speak so energetically, agreed and content in their plans, made her want to clench her fists and pound on the table to stop their blether. More than that, she itched to let the steam rising inside her shoot straight out of her ears.
She had no desire to cry. Only women without a backbone resorted to tears.
But she was seething.
All around her the hall teemed as it did every noontide. Men warmed the trestle benches, eating and talking. Noise and clamor reigned, the mood boisterous and jovial. The hearth fire blazed and torches burned, hazing the air. Kitchen servants bustled everywhere, hefting platters of food and ale jugs. Dogs barked and scrounged, playing in the aisles between the crowded long tables.
No one guessed the turmoil inside her.
Determined to keep it that way, she sat up straighter and assumed her calmest face. She even smiled at Beathag when the stout old woman sailed past the high table with a basket of fresh-baked bannocks. Smelling delicious, they might’ve tempted her any other time.
She almost called out for the cook to return so she could have one. A honey-smeared bannock would be easier to eat than herring. And Beathag did make the finest bannocks in all Scotland. Her skill was legend.
But at the other end of the table, James clapped Alasdair on the shoulder and rose from his laird’s chair.
“Kinsmen, friends!” His deep voice rang out, commanding attention. “Blackshore” – he glanced at Alasdair – “and I have good tidings.”
A hush fell over the long tables as Alasdair pushed to his feet as well. The same air of purpose and satisfaction surrounding James also lit the MacDonald chief’s face. The two men, bitter foes only months before, stood together like brothers. Their alliance, born in blood and fury, had blossomed. Their bond now carved in stone.
Isobel tried not to frown. Her breath did catch, her chest tightening.
“You mustn’t be wroth.” Catriona reached for her hand, trying to lace their fingers.
“I am well,” Isobel fibbed, pulling away. She didn’t want sympathy. She knew what was coming. And she’d meet it with a raised chin and all the poise of her station.
She was a lady, after all.
If Kendrew were here to remind her, she’d blister him with iciest grace, scalding him with frost. But he wasn’t, so she kept her gaze fixed on her brother and Alasdair. They, too, deserved a bit of chilly disdain.
“We are to have a fine cairn.” James’ words made Isobel’s heart lurch. “We’ll have a base of MacDonald stones as Blackshore is the glen’s southernmost holding. Haven stones will serve as the middle, representing this stronghold at the glen’s heart. We’ll mix our stones with Blackshore’s to make the cairn’s crown.
“I propose placing the memorial where King Robert’s royal viewing loge stood. That spot” – he looked again to Alasdair, who nodded agreement – “has the best outlook over the battling ground.”
“So be it.” Alasdair lifted his ale cup, showing approval.
“If all are in accord…” James paused, raising a hand as men cheered. As one, they thumped tables with their fists and stamped their feet on the rush-covered floor. Some rattled swords or beat dirk hilts on trestle benches, the noise making dogs bark. The uproar was deafening. Not a single protest was tendered.
Even Isobel’s quiet-spoken brother Hugh, who preferred scribbling tales to swinging steel, was thwacking the table edge with the flat of his hand.
James and Alasdair grinned.
Their triumph made Isobel forget her wish to appear calm and ladylike. Narrowing her eyes, she shot daggers at her brother. She also aimed a peppered look at Alasdair, just for good measure.
They were in this together. Both men’s behavior went beyond unjust.
A cairn without Mackintosh stones couldn’t be declared a true memorial.
Kendrew and his Berserkers also fought in the trial by combat. Mackintosh blood flowed as freely as Cameron and MacDonald blood. Nought losses drenched the ground as red as the fallen of Haven and Blackshore. Everyone knew Kendrew was a proud and stubborn man. Work on the cairn should be delayed until he relented and sent stones.
Anything else was dishonorable.
And it was her brothers’ and Alasdair’s plans that ruined her appetite.
It had nothing to do with the irksome welling in her chest each time the sun dipped behind the hills, reminding her that another day had passed without her having opportunity to see Kendrew.
She knew he desired her.
But she couldn’t make him love her – and bring peace to their clans - if he kept himself from her.
Furious that he was doing just that, she stabbed a piece of herring and popped it into her mouth. The briny taste almost gagged her, but she forced herself to swallow. She usually loved herring, especially when it was so fresh. Now, nerves kept her stomach tied in knots.
She winced and reached for her wine cup, hoping to dash the taste.
“I couldn’t bear food either, not at the beginning.” Catriona leaned close, breaking into Isobel’s misery. Her voice was low, commiserating. “Green herring was especially troublesome.”
Isobel nearly choked on her watered wine. “I am not troubled.”
“No?”
“So I said.” Isobel slapped down her cup. “Dear saints, but you have notions.”
“With reason, I believe.” Catriona set a hand to her own thickening middle. “I am concerned.”
“Shhh….” Isobel glanced down the table again, relieved to see that none of the men looked their way. “There’s no need for worry. I told you-”
“You told me enough.” Catriona folded her napkin and placed it carefully on the table. “Mackintosh is like a wild beast. Wholly uncontrollable. Such men need only glance at a woman and she’d-”
“Well, I didn’t.” Isobel’s cheeks burned. She almost wished she had taken his seed. Then she would’ve had something of him. “He did not… I am not-” she didn’t finish, afraid her voice would crack if she did.
“You are sure?” Catriona sounded doubtful. “I have heard that such men are more potent than most.” She edged closer, whispering against Isobel’s ear. “Some folk believe even the air around them will quicken a womb.”
“Pah! I’ve never heard the like.” Isobel pulled back, almost knocking over her wine cup, drawing eyes.
Turning aside, she feigned a cough to explain her clumsiness and the color she knew must be staining her cheeks.
Worse, Catriona’s words brought a rush of scandalous images. Particularly vivid, the memory of her on her back with Kendrew’s big, naked body over hers. She saw again his powerfully muscled shoulders and chest, the swirly blue marks he carved into his flesh. She still thrilled to recall them lying skin to skin, his heated gaze burning her.
Yet…
He’d desired, taken, and then rejected her.
Isobel touched a hand to her belly, her deepest places forever branded by the waves of pleasure that had spooled through her in those wondrous, bliss-drenched moments. The memory was enough to madden her.
Beside her, Catriona blanched. “Mercy. You are-”
“I am not.” Isobel pressed Catriona’s foot beneath the table. “Hush, before someone hears you.�
�� Lowering her own voice, she spoke what she knew to be true. “There is nothing growing inside me except anger, if you’d hear the way of it. That’s why I’m not eating. How can I when everything has turned so horribly wrong?”
“You could make it wonderfully right.” Color began blooming on Catriona’s face again. She looked so pleased that Isobel knew to dread her next words. “There are some fine, braw men at Blackshore,” Catriona mused, tapping her chin. “I suspect Lady Norn will want Alasdair, but there are others. Worthy men, proud, honest, and not bad looking-”
“No.” Isobel was firm.
“There are times we must choose between what we want and what is best.” Catriona proved her own stubbornness. “Kendrew Mackintosh will only bring you sorrow. He already has, from what I’m seeing.”
“You don’t know him.”
“And you do?”
“I believe so.” Isobel flicked an oatcake crumb off the table. “He lives by the old ways. He does things with a flourish, scorns weakness, and honors his Norse ancestors. If he blusters, he-”
“He roars and bellows.” Catriona helped herself to another oatcake, creating more crumbs. “Mackintosh is as wild and untamed as a rogue Highland bull. To be sure, he lives by the old ways. Pretending to be a Berserker makes it easy to ignore honor and duty.”
“I doubt he pretends at anything.” Isobel was sure he didn’t.
He made no pretense when he’d spurned her.
“Come, he’s not worth your tears.” Catriona stood, drawing Isobel with her. “If you’re not going to eat, let’s leave the men to their ale and blether.”
“I am not crying.” Isobel blinked hard. If fury had caused her eyes to brighten – always a possibility – she didn’t want anyone to mistake what they saw.
Cameron women didn’t weep.
Few Highland women did, if their blood was true.
And like her sisters of the hills, she would sooner eat a bowlful of pebbles than shed a single tear.
“You look more distraught than I have ever seen you.” Catriona wouldn’t leave be.
“Livid is what I am.” Isobel didn’t deny it, certain her annoyance pulsed around her like a bright red cloud.
“Anger has its uses, I agree.” Catriona took her arm. “Sadly, yours won’t serve any purpose except turn you into skin and bone if you keep refusing to eat your supper.”
“I’m not refusing, just not hungry.”
“So you said.” Catriona led her away from high table and down the dais steps, into the crowded hall. With a surprisingly brisk step for an increasing woman, she maneuvered them around a knot of tussling dogs, past two tray-bearing kitchen wenches, and then toward the tower stair.
“Fresh air is good for the soul.” Catriona flashed a glance at her. “A walk on the battlements will refresh us both. Cold as the day is, perhaps the wind will wipe a certain scoundrel from your mind.”
“I have put him from my mind.” Isobel never told a greater lie. “I wouldn’t have mentioned him at all if you hadn’t asked what ails me.”
“I had to ask.” Catriona released Isobel’s arm as they neared the arched entrance to the winding stair. “That’s what friends do.”
Her gaze flicked to the softly gleaming necklace at Isobel’s throat. “I’ll not see you hurt. If my ambers won’t warn you of the peril that is Kendrew Mackintosh, then I shall. You are too fine a lady for his ilk.”
Isobel coughed for real this time.
She also bit her lip, burning to blurt that her gentle birth was the problem.
Kendrew would’ve slaked their passions fully had she been common born.
He wanted a woman as bold, reckless, and uninhibited as he was. She’d seen such females at the dreagan stones, the evening of the revels. And while she might thrill to nights of cold, dark mist, her Viking blood quickening at the bite of sharp, winter wind, she wasn’t at all like the light-skirts Kendrew favored.
Not by any measure.
“Don’t look so glum.” Catriona paused just inside the stair tower. “Your face will freeze and you’ll go through life looking soured.”
“Bah.” Isobel smiled, unable to help herself. Then she laughed, the lightening of her spirit was so welcome. She gave Catriona a quick hug. “I’m ever so glad we’re friends. Whatever would I do-”
A horn blast ripped through the hall, shrill and jarring.
Both women froze, shouts rising from outside the keep. Men leaped to their feet, grabbing their sword hilts. Isobel drew a swift breath as the alarm echoed from the rafters, hollow and chilling. Then the hall door swung open and a handful of guards rushed in, their faces grim.
“Mackintoshes!” The first sentry hurried forward, nearly tripping in his haste to reach James and Alasdair. “They’re a small party, riding hard from the north and spurring down the slopes like they’ve got wasps stinging their backs. They’ll be here anon. And” – he gained the dais, panting – “they’re armed for war.”
“Heathen bastards!” A huge-bearded MacDonald standing near the stair tower spat onto the rushes.
“The cloven-footed cliff-climbers cannae be trusted farther than a dirk’s end,” a Cameron agreed, his words starting a rumble of growls throughout the hall.
“I told you Mackintosh is a craven cur.” Catriona gripped Isobel’s arm. “He grabs that horrid ax of his as quickly as he pulls out his-”
“Catriona!” Isobel flushed, knowing fine what her friend meant to say. Words that burned deep inside her chest, hurting more than was good for her because she couldn’t refute them. “He is not coming to swing his ax.”
She ignored the rest of her friend’s comment. It pained her to think of Kendrew’s lusty reputation. How often he was known to visit Rannoch Moor.
She wanted him for her own.
“The Mackintoshes will mean no harm.” She spoke with confidence, willing it so. “I am sure Kendrew is bringing stones.”
He is also here because of me.
Isobel knew it. And the knowledge made her heart race, filling her with hope and joy. Soaring happiness so great it was all she could do not to dash from the hall and run outside to greet him.
“Stones don’t require a battle-ready escort.” Catriona didn’t share her enthusiasm. “They’re coming to stir trouble, you will see.”
“Take your seats, all of you.” James’ voice reached them from the dais steps where he stood with the guards. “Nought men are always armed. I vow they take their bluidy axes to bed with them.” He paused as the snarls and grumbles in the hall turned to hoots and snickers. “Whate’er they’re about, they won’t be coming here to fight. No’ with just a few men against a stronghold manned with a stout garrison and plenty of MacDonald warriors as well. Mackintosh might be crazed, but he isn’t a fool.
“More like” – James glanced at Alasdair – “he read my last letter and finally saw the folly of withholding Nought stones from the memorial.”
“He’ll have his own reasons and purpose.” Alasdair folded his arms. “If he’s bringing stones, it’s because he sees profit in doing so.”
“We’ll accept them all the same.” James was firm.
Alasdair didn’t argue. But the tight set of his jaw showed that he preferred a Cameron-MacDonald cairn over a three-clan tribute.
“See?” Catriona’s voice held pity again. “Even if Mackintosh wanted you, he’d always cause dissent in our clans. Alasdair is furious, though he won’t say anything. I know that look on him.”
Kendrew does want me. Isobel had to bite her tongue to keep from arguing.
She did see that Catriona’s brother wasn’t pleased. But Alasdair wasn’t her concern. Her whole attention was on the big, fierce-eyed man just filling the open doorway to the hall. The sentries hadn’t lied. Kendrew was dressed in all his battle glory. Mail shone from his broad chest and his silver-and-gold arm rings gleamed bright in the torchlight. His long sword hung at his side and he wore his Norse war ax strapped across his back.
His bearski
n cloak made him appear twice as large as he already was. The Mackintosh warriors at his heels looked equally huge and fearsome.
As did the Cameron house guards, armored, stern-faced men who poured from the shadows to form a tight, narrow line on either side of the newcomers, flanking them as they entered the hall.
“Cameron – I salute you!” Kendrew made straight for James, ignoring the sentries. “I come in peace.” He reached behind his shoulder, plucking his war ax from its halter and offering it hilt first to James as a sign of truce. “And I bring you stones and a warning.”
“The stones, I accept.” James nodded, ignoring the ax. “Your warning is no’ welcome. We have no need of your counsel, or concern.”
“My concern is no’ for you.” Kendrew flipped the huge ax as if it weighed nothing and thrust it back into the halter at his shoulder. “There are others in your household I’d no’ see sundered or harmed.”
“Others?” James flashed a look at Isobel. “Who at Castle Haven matters to you?”
Isobel’s pulse beat wildly at her throat, every inch of her skin heating. Any moment Kendrew would name her.
But he didn’t, not even glancing her way.
Instead, his face hardened. “My caution is for those most vulnerable: women, bairns, and old men. A dreagan cairn was damaged these past days. We searched for whoe’er tore the stones apart, but found no one.
“Even so, you’d best tread with care.” He fixed James with a bold stare. “If you or any of your folk are foolhardy enough to ignore my warning, I’ll no’ be responsible.”
“You and your like have caused havoc since before time was.” That was Alasdair, his voice cold. “Many terrors we’ve suffered have come from Nought. Why, if brigands are on the prowl, a threat that would put my folk at risk, would you come here to warn me?”
“I’m asking myself that, the now.” Kendrew folded his arms, his scowl turning black as the ceiling rafters.
“Could be” – he looked round, frowning at any Cameron or MacDonald who dared meet his eye – “I wanted you to have your damty stones so you’d stop pestering me with unwelcome ghillies bringing letters every other e’en.”
Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel (Highland Warriors Book 2) Page 12
