Truth be told, he could share his bed with ten wenches, pile sheepskins high atop the lot of them, and still freeze.
Inside.
Aye, the room’s chill mattered little.
’Twas a paltry discomfort compared to the cold he carried within.
6
Some bold whoreson sought to put out his eyes with red-hot needles! Duncan shot to his feet, ready to fend off the foolhardy knave who’d dare attempt such a foul deed, only to slump back into the chair he’d spent half the night in. The quick motion nigh caused his head to burst asunder.
Leaning back, he let out an agonized groan. The pain was great, but at least he’d not been set upon by a needle-wielding assailant.
Nay, ’twas merely the bright morning light slanting through the cracks in the shutters what made his eyes smart as though they’d been set afire.
By his blessed mother’s grave, what had befallen him? He hadn’t partaken of that much spiced wine yestereve.
Or had he?
By the saints, he’d never felt more wretched.
And why had he awakened in a chair and not his bed?
With a ragged moan, he lowered the arm he’d flung across his aching eyes. Squinting against the sun’s infernal glare, he peered about the chamber, looking for his first squire, Lachlan.
The lad usually slept on a pallet before the fire, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Nor was his pallet.
And the hearth Duncan eyed was not his own!
By the Rood, he’d awakened in a strange bedchamber.
Nay, not quite, for, with dawning comprehension, he recognized his surroundings.
His gaze flew to the bed and the lustrous flame-colored tresses spilling over the edge of the coverlets. Duncan pressed his lips together. There could be no doubt as to whose quarters he’d awakened in.
Thanks be to the powers above, his new wife yet slumbered.
He wasn’t in any mood to bid her a good morn.
Not naked as he was, clad only in the belt fastened about his hips.
A further glance about the chamber showed his plaid lying in a heap beside the bed, whilst his sword and dagger rested atop a table next the door.
A door that stood ajar.
Slowly, realization filtered through the throbbing pain clouding his senses. Little by little, the events of the day before—his wedding day—came back to him.
He’d wanted naught but to have done with the feasting, mayhap address his bride about Robbie again, then escape to the solitude of his solar.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
Instead of the docility he would’ve preferred, his new wife had flaunted her position by bringing the child to his table even though someone in his household had surely warned her he’d given strict orders the boy was to be kept from his sight.
Aye, she had to have been told.
Yet she’d defied him.
And so had his men.
The faithless bastards had blatantly disregarded his wishes. They’d culled him into performing the marriage stone ceremony, then later, boldly carted both him and his bride to bed in the hopes of cajoling him into performing an act they knew fair well he’d expressly stated would not take place.
Not yestereve and not in the future. Not with this woman.
Duncan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples. He should never have brought the wench here, ne’er done such a fool thing as wed her.
She hadn’t been under his roof but a scant few hours and already she’d wrought havoc and caused him grief.
A muscle twitched in his jaw, its jerking making him uncomfortably aware of the tension coursing through him. The woman had gone too far, overstepped her bounds, on her first day as lady of Eilean Creag.
Of her first night, he remembered precious little beyond being lugged up the stairs and stripped.
And that which he did recall, he wished to forget, for the fleeting images flashing through his mind were unsettling.
Disturbing in a manner he didn’t care to examine.
Even now, with his head feeling as if it’d been split in two, his traitorous loins quickened at the memory of her standing before him in all her naked glory, her red-gold hair swirling about her like a sea siren straight out of a lovestruck bard’s silly tale of unquenched love and desire.
Recollections of barred doors and screams in the night came back to him, too, chasing away the unwanted lust his too-fetching bride aroused within him.
He didn’t want to desire her.
Didn’t want to need her.
’Twas far easier—safer—to slake his need for a woman’s velvety warmth and softness with a village bawd.
For a few pieces of coin, they’d barter their wares, let him partake of their well-worn charms. But even such whores couldn’t keep the revulsion, the fear, from their eyes as he mounted them.
Their expressions e’er bespoke the words they’d never dare voice to his face. They, too, believed he’d pushed Cassandra to her death.
Thought him a murderer.
Duncan swore. In death as in life, his beautiful first wife had the power to make him miserable. In truth, she’d killed him with her treachery.
Not that he’d cared aught about her infidelity.
At least not after the first few years of their marriage. The saints knew, he’d stopped loving her long before he’d discovered her indiscretions. ’Twas only when she’d taunted him about Robbie’s true parentage that she’d stolen his heart, his very soul.
That, and her part in the death of his sister, Arabella.
Duncan dragged a hand over his face, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Might God forgive him if his suspicions were unfounded, but not few were those under his roof who, like him, wondered if the witch-woman had also had a hand in the mysterious death of his lady mother as well.
Proven or nay, the deeds were done, irreversible. His beloved sister, cold in the ground, his sweet mother resting not far from her daughter’s side.
As for Robbie being Kenneth’s son, deep inside Duncan knew the truth of the spiteful words Cassandra had flung at him on the last day of her life. What pained him was the tiny shimmer of hope he’d never been able to extinguish.
A desperate wish to discover she’d lied… a notion only a fool would cling to.
Duncan’s hands clenched to fists, and he drew a ragged breath. Cassandra had taken his life as surely as she’d lost her own by tripping on the hem of her gown and plunging from the battlements as he’d looked on, unable to stop her fall.
In her grave, she’d found peace, freedom from whatever madness had made her so wicked, but he could not run from his demons.
His torture was a living death.
Ne’er would another woman cause him such pain again.
Not in a thousand lives.
Even if protecting himself caused his new bride anguish. It couldn’t be helped. He wanted only peace. She would have to seek other ways to fill her heart and days.
Her nights mattered less; they were no concern of his.
Duncan glanced across the room at her. She slept soundly, blessedly unaware of the turmoil her very presence had wrought upon him. A tiny twinge of guilt made a slight chink in the wall around his heart, but that only made him all the more determined to keep away from her.
Using great care lest he jar his aching head, or make a noise and awaken his bride, Duncan pushed himself to his feet. ’Twas time he sought answers, but not yet from his wife.
’Twould take a stronger man than he to face her down and question her whilst she still had the vulnerable look of a sleeping angel about her.
He’d press her about Robbie later.
When he had his wits full about him… and his manhood safely ensconced within his braies.
Although not in his best form, he wasn’t befuddled enough not to ken his bride wasn’t the only one who owed him explanations.
She hadn’t barred the bedchamber door from the outside y
estereve.
Nor could she have opened it from the inside come the morn.
He didn’t need a sage to know a certain one-eyed, ugly-faced Sassunach was the culprit. ’Twould be just like Strongbow to have concocted such a scheme. Duncan bit back an oath. What a fine and ignoble bit of trickery it’d been… locking him naked in a chamber with an equally bare-bottomed wife!
The English lout had undoubtedly thought they’d give in to their baser instincts and spend the night in wedded bliss, locked in a fevered embrace.
Against his better judgment, Duncan shot another glance at his new lady. Faith and hypocrisy, it didn’t help his mood any to know how close he’d come to doing just that.
How much he’d wanted to.
On his life, only his iron resolve had kept him from making Linnet truly his.
He shook his head, heedless of the pain the slight motion caused him. Sir Marmaduke’s uncanny knack for knowing his innermost thoughts was positively frightening at times.
Annoying in the extreme.
He must have words with him.
Stern words.
Eager to challenge the Sassunach he loved like a brother, truth be told, Duncan cautiously retrieved, then donned his plaid. As quietly as he could, he snatched up his weapons and hastened from the chamber.
It wasn’t till he’d bounded halfway down the stairs that he realized he’d used his bride’s given name.
Linnet awoke to a bright morn, much relieved to find herself alone in her bed. The saints must’ve smiled upon her, for she doubted she’d been able to face her husband so soon after the queersome happenings of the night.
Later, aye.
After she’d had time to compose herself.
But not yet.
’Twas a relief, too, to see the door stood open a crack and some goodly soul had unlocked the strongbox containing her new clothes so she’d be able to dress. Even her arisaid had been returned, its soft woolen length carefully folded and draped over a chair.
With great haste spurred by the chill morning air, Linnet made use of a ewer of scented water to bathe, hurriedly pulled on the first gown she withdrew from the chest, and slipped from the chamber.
Yet even properly dressed, she shivered as she hurried down the spiral stairs. Although no longer murky and dim, the curving stairwell was clammy and damp, heavily permeated with wet sea smells from the night’s storm.
Indeed, she feared it would take more than a new day’s sun to banish the blackness lying so heavily over Eilean Creag.
And neither woolen blankets nor a blazing hearth fire would e’er ease its cold.
Not so long as its master carried darkness in his heart.
Lifting her chin, Linnet hastened down the remaining stone steps. If only for Robbie’s sake alone, she meant to bring light and warmth to this grim island fortress.
’Twas a feat she meant to accomplish, no matter the cost.
But her determination faltered when she neared the hall and she saw what looked very much like her undertunic being brandished about like a trophy of war.
Even the servants, painstakingly collecting refuse from the floor or sweeping ashes from the hearths, were all atwitter, boasting along with her husband’s clansmen about the blood-smeared state of her undergown!
Lingering in the shadows of the hall’s arched entry, she peered hard at the displayed garment. It was indeed hers. The very one Elspeth had fair wrested off her the night before.
Linnet pressed her hand against her breast while her heart hammered with embarrassment. But confusion warred with logic: the garment couldn’t have been bloodied.
It wasn’t her woman’s time and Duncan MacKenzie had been asleep long before Elspeth had left the chamber with Linnet’s clothes.
Someone had to have purposely stained the tunic after it had been taken from her room.
Would Elspeth do such a thing?
And if so… why?
Or had she merely imagined Elspeth had near forced her to remove the undergarment, then departed with it? Sometimes, with the onset of her spells, her mind went fuzzy. Afterward, too. There were times she’d lost hours because of the toll her visions exacted from her.
And she had been visited by a most powerful one yestereve, that she couldn’t deny.
She blew out a shaky breath. Truth was, she could well have confused the events of her wedding night.
But even if Elspeth hadn’t taken the tunic, it couldn’t be stained with her maidensblood. To her best recall, her husband had slept most of the night. First on the other side of his improvised tapestry barrier, then in a chair by the hearth.
’Twas true her vision had disrupted his slumber, and he’d confronted her but hadn’t laid a hand on her.
Or had he?
A hazy recollection of him naked and aroused played through her mind. Vaguely, she remembered watching his manhood swell, the whole of it growing thicker and longer beneath her gaze, but the titillating image was too elusive to grasp.
As if the devil himself meant to taunt her, she couldn’t remember aught else.
Not for sure.
Could her husband have ravished her during her vision? Or after? When her mind had still been too fogged for her to take proper heed of what might have happened between them? The image on the bed had reached for her, demanded she ‘return his heart.’ Had Duncan MacKenzie taken in the flesh that which his vision-likeness couldn’t claim?
Was it possible to be bedded by a man and not have any recollection of the act?
A shudder passed from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. She didn’t know the answer but knew who would. Determined, she took several deep breaths to calm her still-racing pulse, then pushed away from the wall. Drawing back her shoulders, she entered the hall with as much grace as she could muster.
Thomas, a strapping lad who couldn’t speak, spotted her first. The youth blushed to the roots of his unkempt hair and nodded to her as she passed.
Everyone else fell quiet, suddenly appearing overly intent on whatever task they could find to occupy themselves. Some gave her respectful nods as poor Thomas had, a few of the younger serving maids smiled timidly.
But no one moved except the tale-spinning seneschal, Fergus. He roughly plucked the tunic from the hands of a scarlet-faced clansman and brought it to Linnet.
“You’ll be wanting this,” he said, handing it to her with much solemnity, as if the undergown were a precious reliquary and not a sullied piece of linen. “’Tis the way of the clan for the lady to save the proof of her virtue. We thank you and Duncan for sending it to the hall for us to see.”
Linnet took the proffered tunic, quickly scrunching it into a ball to hide the smears of blood. “But I dinna—”
“’Twas not our wish to embarrass you,” he broke in, his commanding voice loud in the unnatural silence of the hall. “’Tis pleased we are to know you came to Duncan a pure and virtuous bride.”
Of a sudden, a raucous chorus of cheers broke the stillness, and Linnet flushed crimson. The MacKenzies were acknowledging her as their own… as their laird’s lady.
Thanking her for her virtue.
Only, until a few moments ago, she hadn’t known she’d relinquished it!
She still didn’t know for certain.
But she did know she hadn’t sent her undergarment to the hall for all and sundry to examine.
Blood-smeared or no.
Aye, that much she knew.
“Where be Elspeth?” she asked, amazed her voice sounded so calm.
“Where be who?” Fergus placed a cupped hand behind his left ear and leaned forward.
“My servant,” Linnet said louder. “The grizzle-headed old hen I thought I trusted,” she added under her breath.
“Grizzle-headed, eh?” Fergus folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. “’Tis a fine woman, she be, your Elspeth. I havna seen aught grizzled about her.” He paused, fixing her with a hard look as if daring her to challenge him. “You’ll find her in the kit
chen. Just go through the screens passage and follow your nose.”
“I thank you, sir.” Linnet didn’t bother to tell him she’d already visited Eilean Creag’s vast kitchen. “A good morrow to you,” she added, again marveling her tone hadn’t betrayed the emotions swirling inside her.
A fine woman, he’d called Elspeth. The three words echoed in her head as she made her way from the hall, her soiled gown tucked tightly beneath her arm. Could the crusty old seneschal be smitten with Elspeth? ’Twas too ludicrous to consider.
Or was it?
Eilean Creag seemed a place where naught was too odd to happen.
But she pushed the notion aside as she rounded a corner and neared the kitchen. She had other matters to discuss with Elspeth. It concerned her not if her childhood nurse had been making moon eyes at her husband’s legend-chanting steward.
If her suspicions proved true, Elspeth deserved to tie herself to a bandy-legged MacKenzie ancient whose fierce glares would curdle vinegar!
Linnet spotted Elspeth the moment she entered the kitchen. The stout old woman stood before one of the three enormous hearths, using a long-handled ladle to spoon something from a cauldron into a smaller earthenware pot held by a young lad.
Careful to hide the soiled tunic behind her, and especially not to make any noise, Linnet crept up behind her.
“Since when must you stir pottage like a kitchen maid, or think you I wouldn’t look for you here?”
Elspeth jumped and spun around. The ladle flew from her fingers, landing on the stone floor with a clatter. “Faith, but you startled me,” she gasped, bringing a hand to her breast much as Linnet had done herself outside the hall. “I thought you’d still be abed.”
“And why should you think that?” Linnet wanted to know, no longer trying to keep her voice level. “Perchance because you believe the MacKenzies’ fabled marriage stone has already begun to work its magic?”
For the first time Linnet could recall, Elspeth avoided her eyes. “Why… ’tis the morn after your wedding night… .”
“And you’re hoping it was a wedding night, aren’t you?”
Elspeth smoothed the apron she’d tied around her thick waist before she met Linnet’s gaze. “I willna lie to you, child. Aye, ’tis true I’m hoping you found favor with one another.”
Devil in a Kilt Page 10
