“I’ll second that about the hour,” Hugh broke in, pushing to his own feet. But he flashed Magnus a broad smile as he came forward, his arms opened wide in welcome.
Grown just as tall and broad-shouldered as Dugan, he clasped Magnus to him in a fierce embrace. “Aye,” he declared, releasing him, “much as it pleases me to know you home, I could have done without Dagda awakening us in the middle of the night, claiming you would have important words with us, and then you taking forever and a day to hie yourself down here.”
Magnus cuffed his youngest brother on the shoulder. “If I mind aright, we e’er broke our fast before sunrise. Mayhap you ought retire a bit earlier of a night and not be out and about until the small hours?”
Hugh blinked, couldn’t quite stifle another yawn. “We have not been idle. There has been good reason to—”
“I ken what you’ve been about. But for now, I am thinking a bit of fresh air will help chase the sleep from your eyes.” Crossing the dais, Magnus threw open the shutters of the nearest window.
At once, damp, gusty wind swept in to whip the edges of the newly hung tapestries and gutter not a few of the finely tapered beeswax candles lining the high table.
Enjoying the little disturbance more than a grown man should, Magnus cleared his throat and hardened his jaw—cautionary measures to hide the satisfaction he took in the blustery weather squelching even such ineffectual evidence of his trampled pride.
Flemish wall rugs and candles so delicate they could not withstand a wee breath of fine Highland air!
“Guidsakes, where were you, man?” Dugan caught his ear. Scratching his beard, he gave a great stretch. “We sat here like dolts for well over an hour.”
“Ho, Dugan! You have not touched a single oatcake,” their father cut in, sliding the platter of bannocks toward his middle son. “Eat some afore you stop growing.”
Dugan hooted. “Not so! I ate six of ’em, each one smeared with butter and honey—and I would have wolfed down more had I not fallen asleep waiting on you and Magnus to show your faces.”
“Men have things to do of a morning, never you mind.” The old laird snatched up his wine cup, tossed down a hearty gulp.
“What things?” Hugh wanted to know. His gaze on their father, his russet brows drew together. “I ken that look on you. Something is amiss here and I would know what it is.”
Hugh’s clear blue eyes narrowed. “Aye, I would hear the whole of it, and so would Dugan. We are no longer wee bairns to be spared ill tidings.”
Donald MacKinnon’s face turned mottled red. “It was nothing and I forbid anyone to speak of it.” Slamming down his wine cup, he glared round the table.
Even Dagda and Janet received a glower fierce enough to scorch blood.
“Now I know something is underfoot.” Bracing his hands on the polished surface of the new high table, Hugh leaned forward to within inches of his father’s tight-lipped face. “I will not leave be until—” Hugh broke off at once, sniffing the air as he straightened. “Lucifer’s knees, when was the last time you had a bath?” he demanded, clenched fists on his hips. “You smell as if you’ve been sleeping in the cesspit.”
The red stain on Donald MacKinnon’s face deepened to purple.
When their da replenished his wine and sloshed more of it onto the table than into his cup, Magnus clamped a firm hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.
“Have done with your badgering, Hugh,” he said, tightening his fingers in additional, silent warning. “The matter is of no import—”
“Of no import? Hah, I say!” Their father half-rose from his chair, his flushed features working. “’Tis little wonder I reek of the cesspit when I could well have drowned in it!” He gripped his wine cup so tight his knuckles gleamed white. “’Twas the curse again, I swear it.”
His outburst over, he sank back onto his chair, aiming one last pointed glare at Hugh. “And that, laddie, is the reason your brother and I were late getting down here.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Here is no way to talk,” Dagda soothed, stepping up behind him to knead his knobby shoulders with strong, work-toughened hands. “You ken there is no such thing as a curse hanging o’er this household. Ill winds blow through here at times, to be sure, but no ancient curse.”
The old laird sniffed and sipped his wine.
“So-o-o . . . what does the cesspit have to do with your great tardiness this morning?” Dugan slung an arm around Magnus’s shoulders. Ever in high spirits, he wriggled his brows. “Did Da take a wee swim in the morass?”
“Nay, but he may well could have if he hadn’t wedged himself in the latrine chute,” Magnus said after a space. “The seat cracked beneath him and he fell into the shaft—had it been a wee bit wider, he would’ve plunged straight through to the cesspit. As is, he got stuck after falling but a few feet. Even so, it took a while to free him.”
All humor left Dugan’s handsome face.
He exchanged a glance with Hugh. “That canna be,” he said, shaking his dark head. “Hugh and I replaced the seats in all the privies not longer than a fortnight ago. We used the finest, sturdiest oak. It would ne’er have given out under Da’s weight, not when we—”
“Aye, and I agree,” Magnus cut him off, nodding almost imperceptibly at Janet.
The lass hovered near, her bonnie face tinged bright pink. Dugan’s meaning was clear enough without words. Both he and Hugh had grown into towering, well-muscled men. If Coldstone’s privy seats supported their hulking frames, their father’s slight one should ne’er have posed a problem.
Not if, as Dugan claimed, they’d used the best timber.
A scarce commodity on MacKinnons’ Isle, fair as its sandy bays and rolling moorlands might be.
So where had his brothers gathered enough of the finest, sturdiest oak to waste on lowly privies?
Magnus compressed his lips. He’d wager anything he already knew.
But to be fair, he turned to Hugh, the brother most likely to give him a swift and straight answer. “Are you certain you used good-quality oak?”
His younger brother shuffled his feet, but nodded. “The best to be had—straight from the well-timbered shores of Loch Etive on the mainland.”
“I thought as much.” Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose, drew a long breath. “Paid for out of my bride’s dowry, no less?”
Looking uncomfortable, Hugh inclined his head again. Wordless, this time.
“And how else were we supposed to pay for two shiploads of prime boat-building material?” Donald MacKinnon shot back, his voice rising. Low murmurs and scuffling noises accompanied his outburst, rippling the length of the hall as curious gazes turned toward the dais.
“Best timber, wool and flax, tallow,” he went on, looking from one of his sons to the other, his agitation palpable. “All the cordage we need—everything. The MacLean arranged delivery and gave his lairdly word he would see more supplies sent if—”
“To be sure he will,” Magnus said, feeling older than his black-frowning da. “Donall the Bold is renowned for his generosity. Nevertheless, we shall impinge on his goodwill no further. Make wise use of whate’er materials he has thus far provided and be glad for them for they will have to suffice. It will be difficult as is to make adequate restitution.”
Dugan was about to object, Magnus could see the protests forming on his tongue. Forestalling any such opposition, he raised a silencing hand.
“Do not press me, brother, or I would see all that he has already sent returned whence it came. That I do not, it is only because I would not deny you the experience of building a galley, seeing one come to life beneath your hands.”
And because, as the good king Robert the Bruce once sought aid from his friend Angus Og, I fear this realm will yet again look to the Isles—and leal Islesmen with swift-sailing galleys—if e’er Balliol and his Disinheriteds are to be routed once and for all.
Biting back the niggling threat of danger yet uncoiled, lest he overburden his brothers’ young hear
ts, Magnus curled his hand around his low-slung sword belt and gripped hard, clenching and unclenching his fingers on its smooth-worn leather until the tension began sliding from his shoulders.
“It is scarcely a noble course to decline wedding gifts,” Dugan blazoned forth, his tone and the way he toyed with his curling black beard indicating he meant anything but shiploads of timber. “Many are the men who would gladly relieve you of such a . . . bounty.”
“And are you declaring yourself such a man?” Magnus shot back, but his blood cooled upon seeing the amused twinkle in his brother’s dark eyes.
“I thought that was the way the wind blows.” Dugan gave him a playful punch in the arm. “I am pleased to see it.”
“As am I,” Hugh agreed, a dimpled smile lighting his face.
At the end of the table, their father harrumphed. “Dinna be smiling too fast,” he admonished his younger sons. “If the curse addles your brother’s brain, there is no telling what foolhardiness might please him. Or what new ills might descend upon us. Already—”
That did it.
“A God’s name! I have had enough of curses,” Magnus roared, lifting his voice so everyone in the hall would hear him. Even those hunched sleepy-eyed in the most far-flung corners.
In especial, any whiling away the morn in the cozy confines of a window embrasure.
“It is infinitely sad that Reginald of the Victories’ fair lady wife took her life by leaping from the east tower of this castle,” he rapped out, pacing between the dais table and the opened window. “But the circumstances of her death did not call down a curse upon this house, that I swear.”
He shot a narrow-eyed glance at his da. “And if any seer of olden times truly claimed such a malediction existed, and could only be lifted so long as we keep a mighty fleet of galleys, then I say that soothsayer had a keen interest in selling us timber!”
He paused by the window, let the gusting damp cool his heated brow. A much-needed measure with her striding his way—and on Colin Grant’s gallantly proffered arm!
That great oaf had an annoyingly wry smile playing at the corners of his mouth, and only his limp saved him from a hot glare, for the lout carried not only Hugh’s lute but Lady Amicia’s fur-lined mantle as well.
Like as not, he’d charmed her out of it.
And with the single-minded purpose of parading her full cloakless beneath Magnus’s nose!
No doubt so he could not help but admire her glossy black braids, hanging loose as they did this morn. Two thick plaits of well-sheened ebony, they fell clear to her hips and looked luscious enough to make his mouth run dry.
Before all the heavens, the lass had the kind of lustrous tresses a man ached to run his hands through, burned to see spilling unchecked over gleaming white skin.
Naked skin.
And if he didn’t mind losing his soul, just the sort of glossy skeins a man might bury his face in, to drown happily.
The heady bliss of nuzzling his face into her other hair, without doubt an equally enticing notion, didn’t bear consideration.
A tiny muscle began to jerk in Magnus’s jaw.
Aye, with surety, Colin Grant meant to torture him.
And most dastardly of all, having held a privy ear to Magnus’s secret delights and lusts over the years—intimacies regrettably divulged during too-long nights of endless boredom on the tourney circuit—the cheeky whoreson now used his privy knowledge to maneuver the lass forward so that she had no choice but to pass through the chill wind pouring through the opened window.
A decidedly clever coup, for with her low-cut gown of finest linen already clinging to her supple curves, a few scant steps through the rain-misted air was all it took to plaster the thin cloth of her bodice to her breasts—and tighten what appeared to be exceedingly large nipples.
A delicacy Magnus relished . . . as he’d once revealed to Colin when both men had been so deep in their cups they’d had no better topic to pass the evening than an earnest discourse on the various delights of female anatomy.
His blood running hot, Magnus strove to tear his gaze from the bounteous swell of his wife’s bosom. And in especial from the twin dark-tipped rounds thrusting so provocatively against the near-transparent linen.
Seldom had he seen such generous areolae.
And ne’er had he been seized with such an irresistible urge to throttle a friend!
“A good morrow, my lady,” he managed to his wife. Colin, he purposely ignored. “I trust you slept well?”
She inclined her head with a smile, giving him the polite response he’d expected . . . until a determined gleam entered her dark eyes.
A seductively wicked gleam.
“As you will soon see, my lord, our chamber is well-appointed,” she said, her voice as smoky-rich as her other attractions. “The bed in particular lends itself to all good comforts of the night.”
Magnus drew a quick breath. Truth be told, he near swallowed his tongue.
Colin hooted a laugh and gave him a bold wink.
His father cackled with glee. “Ho, but she calls to mind your mother in her time!” he called out, his face lighting.
Fixing a sharp gaze on Magnus, he slapped the table with the flat of his hand, his vexation of moments before forgotten. “Be glad the wedding feast is but in a few days’ time, my son. Such fire ought not be allowed to cool.”
“And if Magnus canna keep it ablaze, I’m volunteering my hardest endeavors!” a deep voice rose from one of the long tables near the back of the hall.
Assorted agreement and guffaws followed, coming from all corners as men everywhere joined in the merriment. Dugan and Hugh indulged with gusto, laughing long and loud, and even Dagda’s tired eyes sparkled with mirth.
Only Janet’s face darkened, her lips tightly pursed as she bustled about replenishing wine cups and making ever-louder clattering noises.
Turning his back on the lot of them—his bonnie-nippled, serene-smiling bride in particular—Magnus strode back to the window, where a single ray of watery sunlight sought to pierce the day’s gloom.
Frowning at it, lest he be minded of how easily Lady Amicia could have dispelled the darkness from his heart if only he could have taken her to wife under more favorable circumstances, he waited for the jollity behind him to lessen, then spun around, his gaze seeking Colin.
“The weather is clearing, my friend,” he said, amazed by the calmness of his tone. “If you would try the wonders of the Beldam’s Chair, we’d best be off before the rain worsens again.”
“The Beldam’s Chair?” Donald MacKinnon’s bushy brows shot upward. “Tscha!” he cried, slapping the table again. “You spurn my belief in old Reginald’s curse, call me a fool for claiming I’ve seen a ghost galley plying our waters of late, yet you would see your friend hie hisself across the bogs and moor to seek a cure in a magical chair?”
Throbbing heat inched its way up the back of Magnus’s neck, and he took several deep breaths before answering. His gaze strayed to Colin’s injured leg. “I ne’er said I believe in the chair’s curative powers, though I will not deny I am wishing to see a wonder worked for my friend—that hope is why I brought him here.”
“And her?” Janet appeared at his elbow. “Are you now keeping her?”
Never one to lie, Magnus nodded. “It would seem so.”
His cousin’s blue eyes narrowed, perturbation hovering in their depths. “You still needn’t . . . take her—even if you have to get through a sham wedding feast.”
“Ah, fair lass, but the wedding feast shall be true enough,” Colin put in, seizing her hand for a kiss as he joined them. “As will be the bedding ceremony thereafter—I shall personally assure that it is so.”
“And how, my friend, do you think to do that?” Magnus demanded the instant Janet flounced away, anger peppering her step. “Do you plan on doing the . . . honors?”
Colin shook his head. “Of a certainty, nay. That bliss shall be yours alone, my good friend.” A slow smile spread across
his handsome face. “I but mean to claim that vow you swore to me at Dupplin.”
The words out, Colin’s slow smile cracked into a full-fledged grin.
Magnus felt the floor open beneath him.
“Not that vow?”
“None other,” Colin assured him, taking Magnus’s elbow to lead him from the hall. “The oath you gave me when, after the battle, you awakened to discover I’d carried you from the field—despite my wounded leg.”
“But—”
Colin glanced at him as they neared the hall’s arched doorway. “You promised any boon I desire, even swore on your honor. Or do you deny it?”
“Nay, you ken I would ne’er unsay a vow,” Magnus said, opening the door. “It is just that—saints, man—we never specified what that boon would be.”
“Exactly,” Colin agreed as they stepped out into the blustery morn. “We did not. And I now know what boon I desire of you. I want you to bed your wife.”
A short while later, mayhap even before the young MacKinnon laird-in-all-but-title and his limping-legged friend had trotted their garrons through Coldstone’s gatehouse, a certain someone stood in the hall’s blackest shadows and watched the pestiferous person of Donald Mackinnon sip his wine.
Choking on a much ranker brew, the dastard ought be about now . . . afloat and glassy-eyed on a sea of foulest muck.
Ne’er again to glimpse the rising sun.
That he’d been spared such a fate, rankled deep.
But there were other ways to see justice served—more means than a plunge into the cesspit to perpetuate that sniveling weathercock’s faith in maledictions and doom.
Indeed, with his recent claims of demon-driven ghost ships no one else e’er saw, mayhap his own increasing addlepatedness would bring about his demise.
Either way, the fool’s days were numbered.
“A curse on you, Laird MacKinnon—my curse on you everlasting,” the shadow-cloaked figure snarled, drifting ever deeper into a dark recess in the walling. “I will purge these isles of you and yours if it costs me my last breath.”
Nothing was surer.
Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] Page 7
