Linnet leaned forward till her nose almost touched Elspeth’s and lowered her voice, “And how was that supposed to happen betwixt meself and a man who finds me less appealing than a kirk mouse?
“Or were you supposing he’d downed a sufficient amount o’ hippocras at the wedding feast to make himself fuzzy-headed enough to bed me?” she went on, anger knotting her belly. “Mayhap allow him to overlook the homeliness of my freckle-nosed face?”
Elspeth shook her head. “You’re talking nonsense, child. ’Tis a bonnie bride you were. More beautiful than any I’ve e’er seen.”
“Then why wasn’t it left to my husband to carry me to his bed if he so desired? ’Twas no mistaking he didna want a bedding ceremony, that he—” Linnet paused, lifting a hand when Elspeth opened her mouth to protest. “Whilst I can understand his men getting out o’ hand since ’twas deep in their cups they all were, I canna condone your participation in a scheme what could only end with my humiliation.”
Elspeth glanced left and right before she spoke in a barely audible whisper. “’Twas the Sassunach’s idea, not mine. Though I did listen to him, for I truly believed he meant well.”
“So the two of you conspired to leave us unclothed and locked in my bedchamber in the hopes we’d find favor with another?”
A pink tinge stained Elspeth’s round cheeks. She nodded. “Aye, that was the way of it.”
Anger and humiliation raced through Linnet so quickly she feared steam would escape from her ears and blood from her nose. “And did you never consider how humiliated I’d be to have him reject me when I stood afore him wearing naught but my skin?”
She paused to catch her breath. “Did you not think he’d be furious o’er being forced to spend the night with me?”
“We acted on good faith, with your best interests at heart.”
“And be this what you call good faith?” Linnet whipped the undergown from behind her back. “Do you care to explain?”
Tiny beads of perspiration appeared on Elspeth’s forehead, but she didn’t flinch, obviously as determined to defend herself as Duncan MacKenzie was to avoid consummating his marriage.
“We thought ‘proof’ would make it easier for you,” Elspeth finally replied. “You’re both too stubborn to see beyond your own noses. ’Tis a perfect union, yours; but neither of you is capable of seeing into the other’s heart. We only meant to help.”
Linnet dangled the gown in front of Elspeth as if it was as distasteful as a barrel of half-gnawed and fly-covered fish carcasses.
“Help me?” Linnet smothered a bitter laugh. “Have you forgotten ’twas you who warned Da not to barter me to the ‘spawn o’ the devil’… a possible murderer?”
Elspeth wiped her hands on her apron, then rested both on Linnet’s shoulders. “Aye, to help. And I dinna believe the MacKenzie took his first wife’s life.”
“And how do you profess to know?” Linnet demanded, still riled but her chest no longer heaving in agitation. “You don’t have the sight.”
“Nay, I do not. I dinna need it. At my age ’tis possible to tell a man’s character by simply looking at his eyes. Duncan MacKenzie isn’t a murderer of women.”
Linnet compressed her lips. She, too, doubted the dark tales spun about her husband. If he had murdered his first wife, she would’ve sensed it. Such vile acts clung to a person, forever blighting them, darkening the circle of luminous light she sometimes saw around a person’s physical body.
While an air of blackness did surround her husband, ’twas not the mark of murder.
A different kind of darkness surrounded him… one borne of much sorrow and grief.
But that didn’t excuse his treatment of Robbie, nor his callous rejection of her as his true consort.
Still, he wasn’t a murderer.
Of that she was certain.
“So we agree he dinna kill her,” she said at last. “But no matter how painful, the bitterness in his soul ’tis no writ to turn his back on the child, Robbie, nor to treat me poorly.”
Elspeth’s eyebrows rose. “Are you saying he handled you roughly?”
Linnet shook her head. “He… he dinna… touch me at all,” she stammered, ashamed, angry, and relieved, at the same time. “I mean, I dinna ken if he… if he…” She let her words trail off, unable to voice the conflicting emotions tearing her apart. “I canna remember all what transpired.”
“My poor bairn,” Elspeth cooed, drawing Linnet into her arms. “I should have explained to you about what happens between a man and his lady wife. Some gentleborn women are too delicate to withstand their husband’s needs. ’Tis sorry I am if he hurt you.”
Linnet extracted herself from the motherly embrace. Elspeth meant well, but she didn’t understand. “I dinna ken if he hurt me or nay. As best I remember, he slept most of the night and dinna come to me at all. ’Tis impossible to recall aught of what did or didn’t happen.”
She paused, deliberately leaving out mention of the disturbing visitation. She especially left out what little she could remember of what had happened after the vision: the brassy taste of blood in her mouth and watching the swollen fullness of her husband’s sex buck and lengthen beneath her curious gaze.
Even now, just the thought of such a wonder sent a pulsing hunger curling through the lowest part of her belly. The most womanly part of her grew heavy and warm even as Linnet’s vexation bubbled and boiled inside her.
Her ire over her husband not wanting her overpowered and dispersed the fragile beginnings of her long-awaited introduction to passion.
“All I remember is waking up in bed, unclothed, and with blood on my hands,” she snapped, temper and hurt lending an irritable edge to her voice.
Elspeth’s brows lifted. “Blood on your hands?”
“Aye, and on the bedsheets as well. I bi—”
“Bless the saints, child, ’tis a mystery no longer,” the old woman cut her off, a glimmer of relief crossing her face. “Or do you suffer your woman’s time?”
“Nay, ’twas a full sennight past when I last bled.”
Elspeth smiled. “Then ’tis as I hoped… Laird MacKenzie duly consummated your marriage.”
“But I canna—”
“It matters naught if you’ve pushed the memory from your mind. The first time is ne’er pleasant,” Elspeth assured her. “Many years have passed since my Angus died, but ’tis well I recall the early days of our marriage. The pain will lessen, dinna worry. Then you’ll see what a wondrous thing the love between a man and woman can be.”
Linnet’s cheeks flamed. She’d wondered about the dried blood on her hands and the bedcoverings, but had assumed it’d been from biting her lip. Still, could a wee cut on the inside of her lip cause so much blood? She doubted it, but how else could the reddish smears have gotten on the bedsheets… unless they’d mated?
The possibility seemed more than remote, but she couldn’t deny the blood.
She was gifted with the sight, but she wasn’t a spellcaster, capable of conjuring physical manifestations. ’Twas beyond her talents to create blood where there was none.
Whether she liked the implications or not, ’twas likely the Black Stag had indeed come upon her while she was still dazed from the vision.
The saints knew she’d seen the might of his arousal.
“There’s no reason to blush,” Elspeth crooned. “Shame doesn’t suit a new bride. In a few days, ’twill be happiness, not embarrassment, coloring your cheeks.”
Grasping any excuse to change the subject, Linnet picked up Elspeth’s ladle off the floor and handed it to her. “You haven’t told me what brought you to the kitchen? Eilean Creag has a goodly number of servants. ’Tisn’t necessary for you to tend the cookfires. Who sent you here?”
“No one, ’twas my own meddling,” Elspeth said, the concern in her eyes replaced by a bright twinkle. “Fergus, the seneschal, was ordering the preparation of alms baskets for the abbey, and I offered to help. He’s a most able man, dinna misunderstand, bu
t after a wedding feast, there is much to do. I’m glad to make myself useful.”
Linnet heard only half of what Elspeth said. Certain comments caught her attention, joining those uttered by Fergus.
A most able man.
A fine woman.
The significance behind the simply spoken words burned brighter than a beacon, leaping out at her and dimming all else either of them had said.
The notion struck her as wildly absurd, but even without the giveaway words, the piercing stare Fergus had fixed her with and the girlish gleam in Elspeth’s eyes told their own tale.
“… I asked if you want to ride along to the abbey?” Elspeth broke into Linnet’s musing. “Fergus tells me ’tis a pleasant journey. One of the monks is said to be an unrivaled herbalist. Fergus claims the monk, Brother Baldric, visited the Holy Land and brought back many unusual plants. Mayhap he’ll show you his garden?”
Linnet stifled a smile. Elspeth always knew how to entice her. “’Tis true I’d enjoy seeing the abbey gardens, and a ride would suit me well. Perhaps Robbie would like to accompany us.” She paused to glance at the assortment of foodstuffs set upon the table, ready to go. “Why aren’t the alms distributed here? Even Da’s almoner handed out Dundonnell’s meager offerings from the castle gate.”
Rather than respond to Linnet’s question, Elspeth made a great show of wiping her wooden ladle clean. After a few swipes with a cloth, she held it up, perusing it as if searching for an overlooked speck of dirt.
Recognizing the familiar ploy, Linnet prodded for an answer, “Why do the poor not come to Eilean Creag to collect the almsgivings? ’Tis the usual way.”
“Fergus said ’tis no need to employ an almoner.”
Without failing to notice Elspeth had once more started a sentence with ‘Fergus said…’ Linnet bored deeper. “And why not? Did the all-knowing Fergus say?”
“Aye,” Elspeth conceded, her expression inscrutable.
“And what be the reason?” Linnet asked testily.
“The poor willna come here. Not since the death of your husband’s first wife has any villager dared cross the bridge. ’Tis said they fear the laird.”
Linnet squared her shoulders, surprised by her indignation over needy villagers accepting her husband’s charity but shunning him with their refusal to collect almsgoods from his door.
Her own feelings aside, it was becoming clear to see why the man was so embittered.
“All the more reason for me to go to the abbey.” Linnet skimmed her fingertips along the top of the kitchen table. “I shall inform the burghers there shall always be alms aplenty, but henceforth they must collect such offerings here… as is custom.”
Elspeth looked aghast. “Your lord husband may not care for your intrusion into the matter.”
“I doubt Duncan MacKenzie knows what he should or shouldn’t care about.”
But mayhap she’d be able to show him. An ember of hope sparking within her, the demons of the night banished for the moment, she left the kitchen to retrieve her herb satchel and fetch Robbie. A sense of calm and purpose settled over her as she went. If her husband could learn to care again, perhaps he’d find the heart his vision-likeness seemed so desperate to have returned.
For a brief moment, the wee spark of hope inside her flared brightly as a small voice, one that had naught to do with her gift, told her his heart wasn’t missing… it just was buried too deep for him to recover it alone.
Bracing himself against the bright daylight beyond the shadowy confines of his castle walls, Duncan stepped outside and headed straight for the lists.
“Cease pandering about like a woman!” a deep voice commanded from the training ground. “If you desire to earn your spurs, have at me like a man!”
Duncan hurried his gait upon hearing Marmaduke barking commands at the young squires he was instructing in how to handle a sword.
Not that he wouldn’t have known where to locate his brother-in-law.
He’d have found him even if the brisk sea wind did not carry his booming English voice across the bailey. The scar-faced Sassunach spent nigh onto his every waking moment training in the lists. Some of Duncan’s men jested they’d glimpsed him there in the wee hours, sparring against moonbeams. Duncan didn’t doubt it either.
Martial skills such as Sir Marmaduke Strongbow possessed were only wrought from years of long hours spent at practice. Few men could claim his prowess as a warrior, and fewer still could best him.
Duncan’s late father, of a certainty, when in his prime. Duncan himself… when the saints chose to grant him such favor. But never did he know beforehand the outcome of a good round of swordplay with his best champion. Only one had ever taken the Sassunach down… the debased whoreson who’d carved out Marmaduke’s eye and left his handsome face a twisted mask.
The selfsame miscreant who’d wrought untold misery in Duncan’s own life, his half brother Kenneth MacKenzie.
Just the thought of him made Duncan scowl.
Aye, no one understood better than Duncan what drove Marmaduke to hone his skills.
Duncan, too, was driven by bitterness.
But not for revenge. He cared naught about retribution. He only wanted to be left alone.
The ring of steel against steel and a barrage of heartily uttered oaths brought his mind back to the pres?ent. Entering the lists, he suppressed the admiration that always rose in him upon seeing his brother-in-law at training and strode forward, determined to settle the issue at hand: the Sassunach’s undoubted role in locking him in his wife’s bedchamber yestereve, unclothed and befuddled from too much hippocras.
“Strongbow!” he bellowed, pulling up a safe distance behind the sword-wielding Englishman. “Order a pause, for I’d have a word with you, you scheming heap of trouble.”
“Merciful saints,” Marmaduke exclaimed, wheeling around. “You know better than to come up on a man’s back when he’s at training. I could have sliced your squire in twain.”
“’Tis you who’ll be rent in two if you dinna explain yourself… now!”
Marmaduke cast his blade aside, then dragged his arm across his dripping brow. With a nod, and a fearsome glance from his good eye, he sent the circle of young men scattering.
Turning back to Duncan, he said, “What demon has crawled under your skin this fair morn, my good friend?”
“If good friends e’er go against one’s wishes and conspire to thrust one into the arms of a maid one has no intention of bedding, then I dinna need enemies, do I?”
Marmaduke made to speak, but Duncan stayed him by raising his hand. “What goal did you seek to accomplish? Have you forgotten I’ve sworn not to touch my lady wife?”
“Nay, I have not forgotten, little that I care for the notion,” Marmaduke said, then paused to wipe more sweat from his forehead. “But ’tis not your vow that concerns me, ’tis your happiness.”
“And you thought to secure my marital bliss by locking me in Lady Linnet’s bedchamber?”
Marmaduke’s ravaged lips twisted in an attempt to smile. “The ploy bore success.”
Duncan’s brows shot upwards. “What the saints do you mean, success?”
“You bedded her, did you not?” Marmaduke stepped forward and slapped Duncan on the shoulder. “Ah… ’twas a fine sight to see your men so pleased when her blood-smeared gown was passed around the hall this morn. You should have heard them cheer.”
“But I dinna touch her, I swear it. ’Tisn’t possible. I—”
A loud commotion behind them cut off his protest as a lone man on a heavily winded horse entered the lists from the bailey. He rode forward, reining in before Duncan and Marmaduke.
Duncan recognized him as one of the men who watched and protected the MacKenzie boundaries.
“Sir, I bring grim tidings,” the man said the moment he swung down from his saddle. “We found one o’ the outlying cottages torched. Naught remains, the bastards even butchered the milk cow.”
“Which family? Were they all
killed?” Duncan’s level tone belied the anger roiling through his veins.
“’Twas the Murchinsons. Some managed to escape into the wood when they saw the raiders approaching, but most of them, God rest their souls, were slaughtered.”
Rage, hot and fierce, ripped through Duncan, and a sickening feeling churned deep in his gut. A ghastly possibility cast an ugly shadow on the day, but he didn’t want to accept it. For years, his wife’s ragtag band of brothers had harried his borders, but ne’er had they pillaged and murdered.
The MacDonnells were simple cattle thieves, and not well skilled at that. Still, he had to know.
“Did any of the survivors recognize who did this? Were they MacDonnells?”
“Nay, sir, they weren’t MacDonnells. ’Twas far worse.”
“Worse?”
“’Twas him,” the man said, clearly uncomfortable. “Your half brother Kenneth and his men.”
7
Several leagues away from the confining walls of Eilean Creag, Linnet followed a well-trampled footpath through a copse of ancient yew trees. She sought the burial cairns Brother Baldric had said marked the spot she’d find the herb, ragwort. The well-traveled monk had assured her the healing plant grew in profusion next to a sacred well near the cairns.
Robbie and his dog, Mauger, trailed behind her, the boy carrying a linen sack the monks had given her to collect the wild-growing ragwort. They’d generously filled her own leather pouch with a large assortment of cultivated herbs from their herbarium.
“’Tisn’t much farther,” she told Robbie when she spied a rounded pile of stones beyond the edge of the grove. “I can see the cairns.” Upon her words, Mauger trotted ahead to sniff at the low heaps of lichen-covered stones.
“There won’t be any spirits about, will there?” Robbie hung back as if reluctant to exchange the cool shade of the copse for the grassy clearing with its collection of burial mounds.
“None what will harm you,” Linnet assured him, reaching for his hand and drawing him into the late-afternoon sunshine. “All what rest here, sleep peacefully. ’Tis a good place, guarded by those who’ve gone before us and blessed with a holy well. You’ve naught to fear.”
Devil in a Kilt Page 11
