Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03]

by Wedding for a Knight

  Her great love for them welling in her heart, she watched Baldoon’s silent walls and sent those within all her goodwill and strength. Welcoming light shone from a few of the castle’s narrow-slit windows, the golden warmth beckoning fiercely, but only as echoes of another time.

  Precious memories of days gone by, each one caught up by the wind and hurtled through the night as swiftly as they’d come. Bittersweet moments vanishing without a trace, just as the dark one’s rantings just now, had struck and then sped past her. Each malediction barreling onward to plague and unsettle other hapless souls who, like her, ought better be at rest.

  So she tore her longing from a place she’d best tread no more, and made cause with the windy night . . . with the powers imbued in her present state.

  By a softly muttered incantation or two, and a fervent belief in the good of her work, the gruagach summoned a fine and luminous mist of green.

  Just enough magic for the whisper of a sigh to whisk her from the wave-splashed rocks of the tidal islet, so bound to her by fate, to the comforting hearthside of a trusted friend—the cozy thatched cottage of Devorgilla, Doon’s e’er-dutiful and revered wisewoman.

  Not that the gruagach sought a fireside blether this darkest of nights, nor even a taste of the cailleach’s famed heather ale. Truth be told, Devorgilla slept . . . if her intermittent snores and wheezes were any indication.

  For a good long while, the gruagach peered down at the old woman, then gave a light wave of her hand, filling the room with a soft, shimmering mist of palest green. A wee precautionary measure to keep the crone lost in her dreams, and to win herself a few unobserved moments to look about and see if her quiet urgings had been heeded.

  Or if a stronger, more forceful intervention would be required.

  Hoping not, the gruagach paused beside Devorgilla’s central hearth fire, turned a lingering glance on the soft-glowing clumps of turf. Acknowledging a weakness she usually suppressed, she allowed herself one deep-drawn breath of the homey, peat-scented smoke, savoring its heart-piercing familiarity before she moved on.

  Before she regretted her chosen path.

  But the smoky-sweet smell of the burning peat clung to her, its wispy blue curls seeming to follow her across the tidy, stone-flagged floor. Her throat tight—far too tight for one such as she—the gruagach ignored her yearning, and hastened toward a rough wooden shelf running the length of the far wall.

  The cailleach’s stock of spelling goods was kept here, and somewhere amidst its clutter ought be the object she sought: a small vial of precious content—sacred earth collected from the grave of Eithne, mother of Saint Columba. And known by all to have miraculous properties.

  A more powerful protection could scarce be had . . . not that the gruagach would e’er tell Devorgilla any such thing. The cailleach could work wonders of her own with her fossilized bat’s wings and powdered toe bone of toads.

  It just wouldn’t hurt to see a bit of stronger magic, tactfully presented as earth snatched from beneath a slumbering tarbh uisge, slipped in with the rest.

  In especial when one’s opponent walked in such hate.

  Aye, to be sure, no one would frown on her for claiming the earth came from the lair of a water bull—the most feared of all creatures to dwell in Highland lochs.

  Old Devorgilla herself had been known to twist the truth a time or two. Albeit only for the benefit of those who depended on her skill.

  Thus satisfied in her wee deception, the gruagach searched amongst Devorgilla’s treasures until she happened upon her own contribution to the crone’s supply of charms. And to her great relief, the vial she’d slipped amongst the clutter proved empty. Only a residual glimmer of soft, luminous green remained.

  A faint glow at the bottom of the vial.

  The crone had taken the bait.

  Her heart much lighter, the gruagach dropped a kiss on Devorgilla’s furrowed cheek. Then she smiled. A wan smile and far too fleeting, but a sweet smile nonetheless.

  And one that, if only for a moment, made her look almost as real and lovely as she had in her most fondly remembered guise.

  The one just past, when she’d been the young bride of a braw MacLean man and gone by the name of Lileas.

  “One-and-twenty, two-and-twenty, three-and-twenty . . .”

  Panting in a manner that could nowise be called feminine, Amicia paused for breath on the twenty-third step, one hand pressed to the curve of her hip, the other planted firmly against her breasts.

  A scowl dark as the rainy night soiled her sweat-dampened brow, and her spirits, usually high, were in grave danger of swinging as foul as the musty air in this forsaken, out-of-the-way stair tower.

  “I’ faith!” she gasped, speaking to Boiny. Though, at the moment, achy-limbed and exhausted as she was, she’d shout her frustration to any who’d lend her an ear.

  “Death itself would be kinder than traipsing up and down these stairs yet one more time,” she told her tongue-lolling companion.

  Wisely supine on the next landing, just two circular steps above her, Boiny cocked a canine brow, fullest sympathy in his milky-brown eyes.

  She ought to be so sensible.

  Ought to still be sitting straight-backed at her place at the high table . . . ignoring Janet’s sullen-eyed glares as best she could. Or better yet, safely ensconced within the sanctuary of her own bedchamber, abed and sleeping.

  Blessedly oblivious to her cares and the terrors of never-ending spiral stairs.

  The rigors of mounting, descending, and reascending them.

  A torture she’d engaged in every evening for the last three nights. Each time, she’d escaped the high table by pleading a wish to retire early. Then, with old Boiny trotting along at her heels, she’d made for the most remote turnpike stair in Coldstone Castle and used its smooth-worn steps to pare her well-fleshed form.

  To hopefully whittle down her welling curves.

  And, since her husband would ne’er have desired her enough to steal her as his more romantically inclined ancestors had been known to do, to better her chances of at least being an unshunned wife.

  But even now, after days of tedious, ongoing labors, she could not detect a hint of improvement in her generously curved hips. Not one wee indication that the full-rounded swell of her breasts had diminished.

  Far from it, they pressed damp and heaving against her straining bodice . . . large and cushiony-seeming as always.

  Infinitely annoying.

  Swiping the back of her hand over her perspiring brow before another bead of stinging sweat could roll onto her eyelashes, she gritted her teeth and prepared to climb and descend the stairs one last time.

  Only through persistence would she succeed at making less of herself.

  Succeed at making herself more appealing for Magnus MacKinnon.

  Making herself more . . . delicate and nymphlike.

  More like wee tiny-bosomed Janet.

  A maid he clearly favored despite his firm denials.

  “We’ve seen them kiss, haven’t we, lad?” She leaned down to stroke Boiny’s gray head as she passed him on the landing. “And the way he looks at her, speaks to her! As if she’d melt unless treated with fullest care . . . fair smothered with charm.”

  Her ire mounting, Amicia climbed to where the next wall sconce flickered, pausing just long enough to choke on its smoking torch flame before she wheeled about and began her final trek down the dank-smelling stairs.

  “That teensy-waisted viper has coldest steel flowing in her veins, I vow it,” she huffed, not bothering to speak softly.

  Nor to keep the bitterness from her tone.

  No one could hear her save old Boiny, the damp walls, and the constant patter of rain on stone.

  Or so she thought until the swish of heavy skirts and a not-so-discreet cough told her otherwise.

  Feeling as if a storm of ill fortune had just unleashed its wrath upon her, she looked down the stairwell to see Dagda peering up at her through the gloom.
>
  Coldstone Castle’s self-proclaimed seneschal stood beneath an arrow slit window not four steps below her, a small but well-burning torch clutched in her hand. The fair Janet hovered just behind her. A beam of moonlight coming through the window slit fell slantwise across the younger woman’s face, emphasizing her ethereal beauty and glossing her flaxen braids to purest, shimmering silver.

  A hot-pulsing ache, deep and tight, began spreading through Amicia’s chest. Even worse—because she couldn’t conceal it—a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and dropped off the end of her nose.

  Ne’er had she felt more ungainly.

  Less a lady.

  A stricken moan rose in her throat, lodging there, for she wasn’t about to let such an audible admission of distress pass her lips.

  So she allowed herself the most manly gesture of swiping her sleeve across her damp brow—then sought to salvage her pride by drawing herself up to her full, lofty height, the minuscule Janet be damned.

  Squaring her shoulders, she broke the silence at last. “A good eventide to you.”

  Dagda’s brow lifted. “We thought you had gone abovestairs, my lady,” she said, her expression a strange mix of surprise and thoughtful, almost motherly concern.

  “And so I did—but I ne’er said what tower I meant to climb,” Amicia blurted, too unnerved by Janet’s stare to bite back the tart response.

  “Well met,” the old woman shot back, surprising her. “You have a quick wit—that is something you will have cause to make good use of in this household.”

  Amicia nodded, not quite sure what to say.

  Closing the short distance between them, Dagda held up her torch and peered closely at Amicia’s face.

  “When you were not in your chamber, we fretted you had lost your way in the dark passages,” she said, the concerned tone back again. “This keep is nowise so large as your Baldoon, but it has its hazards,” she added, sliding a glance at Janet.

  That one, all round-eyed and gawking, looked anything but concerned—save mayhap for fear that, in her wild-looking state, Amicia had run full mad and might spring upon her lily-white throat any moment.

  Or unsheathe her talons and do serious damage to the rose-petal skin of her oh-so-finely-boned face.

  Amicia almost hooted.

  Little did the fragile-looking beauty know that her very delicateness struck dread in Amicia’s heart.

  Dagda reached to smooth a strand of damp hair from Amicia’s brow. “No one e’er treads this corner of Coldstone . . . none save bats and mice, I’d reckon.” Lowering her voice, she angled closer. “Some, like the old laird, even claim the spirits of restless MacKinnons walk these stairs. Is that what you were about, my lady? Wandering the dark, looking for Coldstone’s ghosts?”

  “I—” Amicia began, but shut her mouth again as quickly.

  She could not think of a single logical reason for stomping up and down the turnpike stair of the castle’s most remote tower.

  Moistening her lips, she glanced around, sought an answer in the shadow-hung stairwell. Had she known Coldstone was thought to be haunted, she would have grasped any ghost—MacKinnon or otherwise—as an excuse.

  As was, she had none.

  Until she spotted her dear Boiny making his lumbering way down the stone steps, padding ever nearer, his raggedy tail swishing in affectionate greeting.

  Upon reaching her, he nudged her side, leaned hard against her. And just the feel of him, his freely given strength and devotion, warmed her through and through.

  Enough so to give her the cheek to lie.

  “I was looking for Boiny,” she declared, dropping a hand to rub behind his ears. “He was missing from my chamber, so I set off to find him. . . . Obviously, I have.”

  Dagda gave the dog a skeptical look. “That old beast scarce leaves the hearthside,” she said, doubt lacing her words. “But he does seem to have taken to you. . . . Mayhap he was seeking your company and lost his way?”

  Amicia shrugged, feigning nonchalance.

  Lifting her chin, she leveled an earnest gaze at the seneschal, asked the question she’d nigh forgotten, flummoxed as she had been until Boiny’s timely appearance.

  “What took you to my bedchamber?”

  A defiant jut to her own chin, Janet stepped out of the shadows. “No one knows Magnus better than I do—he is a braw man and has many . . . needs,” she said, her tone iced politeness. “Since he has decided to keep you, I but sought to assure your chamber is appointed to his tastes.”

  “This keep boasts no finer quarters,” Amicia gave right back, for once gladful of her overflowing coffers and the many MacLean luxuries she’d brought with her. “Now I am here, my husband’s comforts and needs shall be tended by my hand, never you worry.”

  Emboldened by the way Janet gaped at her, Amicia opened her mouth to embellish her warning, but before she could, the younger woman gathered her skirts, spun on her heel, and fair flew down the curving stone stairs.

  Dagda gave a snort of approval. “That one needed a dressing-down. E’er too fond of herself, she is.”

  And looking quite taken with herself, the old woman gestured to the down-winding stairs. “Be you ready to quit this musty tower so we can retire to your bedchamber?” She cast a dubious glance at Boiny. “With your friend, if it pleases you.”

  Amicia blinked. “We?”

  “There you have the rights of it,” Dagda said, already starting down the stairs. “With your lady mother having passed when you were but a bairn, I thought a wee discreet talk might be in your good interest.”

  “In my good interest?” Amicia echoed, catching up with her.

  Surely the woman didn’t mean what Amicia thought she meant?

  But the incongruously dreamy look lighting the seneschal’s face said she did.

  Gruff-voiced, stern-gazing old Dagda wanted to speak to her about . . . that.

  The bedding ceremony and what came on its heels.

  Amicia swallowed, seeing no way to refuse the offer without giving offense.

  Aye, she had no real course save to tag along back to her quarters, settle herself before the hearth fire, and dutifully listen to Dagda’s advice.

  So long as she managed to hide what she already knew—the deliciously wicked knowledge she’d used all manner of bribes and threats to pry from her good-sisters’ reluctant lips—all should be well.

  Such things were best kept to herself until she chose to reveal them . . . to her husband, one tantalizing gem of wisdom at a time.

  If she could scrounge up the nerve.

  Chapter Six

  AFTER A LONG TREK THROUGH COLD and draughty passageways that smelled of mold and worse things Amicia didn’t care to identify, she paused at a heavy oaken door and waited for Boiny’s stiff-legged gait to bring him to her side before setting her hand to the latch and freeing the way into her bedchamber.

  Handsome quarters that had once belonged to her husband’s much-sung ancestor, Reginald of the Victories, the builder of Coldstone Castle. A legend in his day and, could prattling tongues be believed, so revered that, after his death, his chamber had stood empty and unused for centuries.

  But a faint air of sadness permeated the room, and as she always tried to remember to do, Amicia offered a silent prayer for the good of Reginald’s soul as she stepped across the threshold.

  Pale moonlight slanted through tall, arch-topped windows set into shallow recesses along the opposite wall and, as usual, the air in the chamber struck her as colder than it ought to be. The shutters stood open, allowing a breeze to circulate, but even the cold damp of the salt wind could not account for the bone-deep chill that seemed to come more from the tower’s thick walling than the blustery night.

  Chiding herself for harboring any such foolhardy notion, Amicia scanned the chamber before moving deeper into its dimly lit depths—a precaution her father, and then her brothers, had e’er drilled into her, claiming what a tempting ransom prize she’d make with her high looks and ge
nerous MacLean coffers just waiting to be emptied for her release.

  She took a deep breath, the irony of her fate squeezing her heart.

  A fate that had her standing disheveled and shivering on the threshold to a room filled with every frippery MacLean coin could procure, bride to a man who wanted neither her wealth nor her supposedly bountiful charms.

  A man who had ne’er wanted her despite the many times she’d tried to win his regard and favor in their youth.

  And now she knew why.

  It was not because their clans had oft been at odds over the years. Nor because her own father supposedly charmed and soiled a MacKinnon beauty only to abandon her to marry Amicia’s long-dead mother—a charge her da had refuted to his dying day.

  Nay, her failure to attract Magnus MacKinnon’s eye was because he was a man whose tastes ran toward the dainty.

  The delicate and golden-haired, not the dark and well-rounded.

  Annoyance pulsing through her, Amicia bit back an epithet she did not want to let loose with Dagda hovering so close at her side. She noted that someone had placed another brick or two of peat on the hearthstone, and her throat thickened at the gesture, her irritation fading.

  Her husband’s people, with one notable exception, had welcomed her, allowing her into their hearts and showing her naught but kindness.

  Vowing to repay them a thousandfold—and hopefully win her husband’s love in the process—she willed her own heart to stop flipping so foolishly. She rubbed her arms against the cold and stared across the room at the slow-burning turf fire.

  Recently tended, the peats glowed a fine deep red and their smoking warmth gentled the worst of night’s chill, while a small charcoal brazier hissing in one corner provided additional comfort.

  Intent on seeking his own, Boiny made a low, rumbling sound deep in his chest and nudged past her into the room, heading straight for the hearth, where he circled a few times before settling himself with a well-contented old-dog grunt.

  Dagda sniffed.

  The noise startled Amicia. She blinked and swung around to face the older woman, remembering with some embarrassment why the seneschal had elected to accompany her to her chamber.