Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03]

by Wedding for a Knight

  “Did I not tell you that great beast is e’er betaking himself where it’s warm?” Dagda eyed Boiny, her face a mask of light and shadow, uplit by the sputtering rush dip still clutched in her hand.

  “Warmth and . . . softness,” the seneschal declared, thrusting the torch into an iron wall bracket near the door. “While life is in me, I swear such is all men want save a full belly and an occasional excuse to swing their swords and bellow at each other.”

  “You know much of men?” Amicia tried not to appear doubtful.

  “Enough to ken that one”—Dagda jerked her chin toward the dog—“will scarce be leaving this room with such fine new trappings to wallow in.”

  Amusement playing across her usually stern-set features, the unlikely seneschal used the toe of her black-booted foot to lift the edge of one of the many luxuriously furred skins spread upon the floor—just one of the MacLean luxuries Amicia’s brothers had sent along as part of her bridal baggage.

  “No man, four-legged or otherwise, will seek his comforts elsewhere if such succor awaits him at his own hearthside,” Dagda said with another sidelong glance at Boiny.

  Her point made, she turned a shrewd eye on Amicia. “A prudent woman will assure that her husband’s needs are well satisfied. In especial, the fleshly ones.”

  Amicia gave a quick nod of what she hoped would appear as polite appreciation. “To be sure, I will heed your advice,” she said, fighting the urge to squirm beneath the other’s penetrating stare.

  “See that you do, and you will ne’er sleep in a cold bed,” Dagda advised in a brisk tone.

  Amicia moistened her lips. “I ken what to expect,” she said, praying her flushed cheeks didn’t reveal just how much, or the sort of things, she knew.

  But Dagda’s snort allayed any such fears. “Knowing what happens when a man and a woman join has scarce little to do with the satisfying part.”

  Shaking her head, she gave Amicia another narrow-eyed stare, then began bustling about, busying herself lighting candles and assuring the hanging cresset lamps held enough sweet-scented oil to burn until the small hours.

  “Aye, lassie, there is much I could tell you about a woman’s duties—and how to please a husband above and beyond them,” she said as she fluffed the pillows and bolsters at the head of the great four-poster bed.

  She slid a conspiratorial look in Amicia’s direction. “Give me a moment to see that the fire’s been tended with proper care, and then we will have our blether,” she said, anticipation glowing on her face.

  Amicia stared at her, watching as she jabbed an iron poker at the smoldering peat. Blessedly, her dreamy expression, however absurd-looking on such an age-furrowed brow, went a long stretch in helping Amicia tamp down her earlier agitation.

  Even so, Dagda’s persistent babble about amorousconcerns made her stomach flutter and her palms dampen—despite the sound counsel her brothers’ wives had given her regarding such privy matters.

  Truth be told, she suspected her belly plagued her because of the things they’d shared with her!

  Things that, in her heart of hearts, she had to admit warmed and excited her.

  In earlier years, Magnus MacKinnon could charm the birds from the trees with one dimpled smile and a toss of his bronze-maned head. Should Magnus-the-man e’er reclaim and make use of such skills, she’d melt all over herself.

  Half-afraid her wanton musings and most cherished wishes stood etched on her forehead, she turned aside, hiding her face from the other woman’s sharp perusal. Feeling both wicked and exhilarated at the same time, she hastened to the chamber’s largest table, an elaborately carved affair of blackest oak, and with a slightly trembling hand, she poured herself a measure of fine Rhenish wine—yet another token of her brothers’ largesse.

  Her gaze on the windows and the dark, wet night looming beyond them, she lifted her cup in silent toast to her good-sisters’ sage advice.

  Bold and thrilling advice.

  And now old Dagda with her hawkish stare and the wart on her chin sought to instruct her as well.

  Shuddering—or mayhap simply a-shiver from the room’s persistent chill, she tossed down her wine in one throat-burning gulp, not knowing whether to laugh or grimace.

  So she opted for something in between and summoned an expression that she hoped would appear neither mocking nor incredulous.

  Then she turned around . . . and saw her failure at once.

  It stared back at her in the angle of Dagda’s head and the slight narrowing of the older woman’s eyes. Indeed, it crackled in the cold air between them.

  “You think it folly for me to speak of men and their needs.”

  “I think you . . . mean well.” Amicia spoke the truth, knowing a lie would be pointless.

  “Och, but I do, never you doubt it.” The wistful expression back again, Dagda plunged her poker into the peats with renewed vigor, thrusting deep until fine blue wisps of earthy-sweet smoke began curling upward. “There is not a day what begins or ends that does not see me striving to do my best for those I hold dear—even if some will ne’er thank me.”

  She looked up from her task just long enough to send Amicia a piercing woman-to-woman stare. Not that Amicia paid her much heed for the seneschal’s previously uttered words still echoed in her ears.

  Men and their needs, she’d said.

  A braw man with many needs, Janet had cooed on the turnpike stair.

  Similar words, but with her husband’s fey-like cousin fashioning hers as barbs, then using the softest of innuendo-laden purrs to send debilitating poison straight into Amicia’s heart.

  And ooooh, but the little she-cat had found her target.

  Suddenly more chilled than yet before, Amicia leaned against the table, needing, blessing, its firm support. Faith, just recalling the implied intimacy of Janet’s taunt watered her knees.

  The other’s measuring glances, and the malice e’er lurking behind her innocent-seeming blue eyes, had little flickers of ill ease tripping down Amicia’s spine.

  But worst of all, her rival’s fragile loveliness sent sharp-edged shards of jealousy jabbing into the soft, most vulnerable areas of her heart.

  “I was not always as I am now . . .” Dagda poked a sudden finger into Amicia’s arm. “Tush, lass—many were the suitors who came chapping at my door.”

  Amicia jerked, nigh tipping over the wine ewer she’d left sitting precariously close to the table’s edge. Saints, she hadn’t even noticed the old woman cross the room.

  “I know you were married,” she said, her gaze flitting to the other’s stiff black skirts.

  “Aye, and to the finest man in the Isles,” Dagda sighed, a faraway look on her face. “Bonny, he was, too—as was I.” She touched a hand to the silver-shot braids wound so tightly about her head. “Niall loved to comb my hair, loved to—”

  “Dagda, please, you need not speak of your marriage,” Amicia cut in, not missing the sheen of moisture in the old woman’s eyes. “I would not see you troubled.”

  “I be fine, lass, never you worry.” Dagda swiped the backs of her fingers across her cheek. “I lost Niall and . . . och, ’twas long ago. I but meant to tell you my hair was once as black as yours—Niall even composed a song of praise for its color. He likened the shade to a raven’s wing. And his own hair . . . mercy, but just looking at it would steal my breath away.”

  She paused to pour herself a cup of wine, took several long sips before she spoke again. “His hair was the same dark russet shade as your Magnus’s. A deep burnished copper, it was, and so thick and glossy.” She sighed, remembering. “In a good summer, if he stood in the sun, it would gleam with the finest streaks of copper and gold. Ooo, but I was e’er putting my hands to that mane of his, and he . . . he used to bathe in mine.”

  “Bathe in your hair?” Amicia blurted before she could stay her tongue.

  Dagda nodded. “Such are the things I wish to speak to you about.” She cocked her head to one side, fixed Amicia with a shrewd, almos
t cagey look. “Did you ken a man can be brought to his knees if a woman allows him to bury his face in her unbound hair?”

  Aye, she had heard the like—from her brother Donall the Bold’s lady wife, Isolde. But rather than reveal any such knowledge, she feigned a look of astonishment and shook her head.

  The bait taken, Dagda angled closer, lowered her voice. “If you truly wish to have a man at your mercy, you will let him scent you.”

  “Scent me?”

  This time, Amicia’s perplexity was genuine.

  The old woman glanced about as if she feared the walls would sprout ears. “Give him your scent, lass.” She spoke so softly Amicia scarce heard her. “That is the way of it . . . letting him breathe in the scent o’ you. And from where’er he wishes.”

  Amicia gulped.

  Audibly.

  She had a very good idea of exactly where Dagda meant. “You let your Niall do . . . that?”

  “Och, aye, and many a fair night, too,” Dagda revealed, her lower lip wobbling a bit on the admission. “There is hardly a more potent way to bind a man on you than to brand your scent on him.”

  “Men like that?”

  Amicia could scarce believe it.

  But Dagda bobbed her head. “The most braw amongst ’em will drop to his knees and beg, once he has . . . eh . . . nuzzled you that way.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Amicia asked, no longer feeling anywhere near as worldly-wise as she’d done upon awakening that morn. She swallowed, willed her heart to cease thumping so hard against her ribs. “Why do you care how we . . . er . . . fare together?”

  Dagda made a wry face. “See you, I ken your Magnus over well. He is braw and well-lusted, even if he is a mite sore-battered and foul of temper since his return from Dupplin. His current state is only the more reason to heed my advice—he will need powerful incentives to push past all that troubles him.” She looked down, brushed at her skirts. “I would know you prepared when the time comes for him to bed you.”

  Dagda then glanced up, leveled a steady gaze on Amicia. “I tell you, too, because he has e’er minded me of Niall when he was young. If you ken how to properly please him, and bind him to you rightly, he will love you for all his days.”

  “And that would please you?”

  “Naught would make me happier.” Dagda tipped her wine cup to her lips, drained it. “It would do my old heart good to see that fine laddie as besotted with his good lady wife as my Niall was with me—and I with him,” she said, her eyes misting. “Niall used to say he needed me like the air he breathed. And me, I’m still a-needing him that way. Even with him gone all these long years.”

  Amicia looked toward the windows, caught a glimpse of the moon through the rain-filled mist. “You have cause to miss him greatly,” she said, sorrowing indeed for the other woman’s loss. “I am sorry.”

  “And I thank you, but there is not much good it may do me—your sorrow or my own.” Dagda drew a long, quivering breath. “A fever took Niall—and my two bairns with him. Naught can return them to me. Not prayers, not rantings, not even the most infinite regret.”

  Biting her lip for she truly didn’t know what to say, Amicia took a step forward and would’ve drawn her into a sincere if somewhat awkward embrace, but the old woman sidestepped her with surprising agility.

  “I told you, there be no sense in rueing what is past and canna be undone.” She cut the air with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I have had my work here to content me. Niall and Donald MacKinnon were kin, so the old laird gave me a roof o’er my head when I had nowhere else to go, see you.”

  Turning aside, she pretended to pat her hair, but, in truth, she swiped at her eyes again. “Donald’s three lads needed mothering,” she went on, surreptitiously wiping her hand on her sleeve. “And with me having lost my own two, my coming here served us both better than well.”

  But not well enough to obliterate the soul-deep ache inside you.

  Keeping the observation to herself, Amicia went to stand in the chamber’s only window embrasure. Her heart wrenched for the older woman, for she understood only too well the need to put a braw face to the world. To preserve dignity at all costs and forfeitures, lest others think you weak.

  She’d done the same for many a year and only recently changed her views . . . deciding to abandon decorum in favor of desire.

  With more of a jerk than she’d intended, she threw open the shutters and welcomed the in-sweeping rush of the cold night air, the moon-silvered glint of falling rain. Bracing her hands on the icy-damp stone of the window ledge, she stared out across the night-darkened sea and imagined a faint glimmer of luminous green flickering on the distant horizon, but when she blinked and looked again, the strange light was gone.

  Only the sorrow remained, the chamber’s own and the sharper pain pouring off Dagda to flood the room, much as the old woman sought to hide her hurt behind posturings and bluster.

  Amicia took a deep breath, drew in the scents of wet stone and the sea. Familiar scents. Well-loved. Sighing, she rubbed her thumb across her sapphire ring, savored the warmth of its heavy gold band, the satiny smoothness of the large cabochon gemstone.

  Her own little piece of shining hope.

  An ever-constant reminder that life was far too short and dear, too easily extinguished, for anyone not to be courageous enough to chase a dream.

  Behind her, a not-quite-muffled sniffle broke her reverie . . . and set her course.

  E’er one to suffer her own pains much better than she could bear seeing others enduring theirs, she stiffened her back as best she could and sought hard for some light-toned banter to toss the other woman’s way.

  Regrettably, the only thing she could think of was Magnus MacKinnon scenting her!

  Nevertheless, she turned, prepared to blurt . . . something.

  Anything.

  But Dagda had moved back to the door and was examining Amicia’s new fur-lined mantle. It hung on a wall peg—exactly where she intended it to remain, for Devorgilla, bless her good heart, had fashioned a garment sumptuously warm, but of a far-too-cumbersome weight to be practical.

  “’Tis of great richness,” Dagda said, fingering the cloak’s fastenings. She lifted a fold, peered hard at the pattern of black flecks scattered across the lining’s soft, yellowish-white fur. “Be that ermine? Niall was e’er promising me a fine fur-lined—”

  “Aye, ermine, it is,” Amicia cut in before the old woman could wax on about her late husband again, distressing herself. “My brother received ells of it in trade some while ago. But, Dagda, I would know more of Reginald and his lady . . .” she began, her voice trailing off at a clamor outside the chamber.

  Heavy, fast-approaching footsteps, the chink of metal—a single swift pause before, without so much as a knock or warning, the door swung wide, and by no means gently.

  Magnus burst into the room, his brow fierce, every fury-driven inch of him clad in full knightly regalia.

  “Saints o’ mercy!” Dagda cried, a startled hand flying to her breast.

  Amicia’s breath caught in shock. Heart in her throat, she stared at him, too stunned for words.

  By the hearthside, Boiny gave a hackle-raising growl until he recognized the commotion’s perpetrator. His curiosity thus assuaged, he dropped his bulk back onto the rushes and returned to sleep.

  But Amicia stood transfixed, her gaze latching on the wicked-looking battle-ax clutched in her husband’s powerful, white-knuckled hand.

  Nor did she miss the flash of mail beneath the voluminous plaid slung so proudly over his shoulder. He’d girded on his sword belt, and, even now, in the quiet confines of her chamber, his free hand hovered perilously close to the hilt of his death-bringing brand.

  Breathing hard, he stared at them, his expression black enough to curdle blood. Wordless.

  Amicia began to tremble. “For truth, here is a . . . surprise,” she gasped, digging her fingers into her skirts to hide their shaking.

  “Aye, and a mos
t foul one, I’ll be bound!” he rapped out, looking past rather than at her, his heated blue gaze sweeping the room. “Praise the saints naught has befallen you.”

  Her own mettle recovered, Dagda grabbed a fistful of his plaid, gave it a healthy shake. “Sons o’ Beelzebub, laddie!” she scolded. “Are you ale-witted this e’en? Or have you lost your wits completely to come pounding in here armed to the teeth and spitting fire at two innocent women?”

  Ignoring her, he jerked his plaid from her grasp, then swung round to glower at the opened door. Amicia stared at it, too, quite certain the heavy oaken panels still vibrated from being flung against the lime-washed wall—a wall that now bore a notable dent where the iron door latch had crashed into it.

  “Why wasn’t the door bolted?” he demanded.

  Amicia moistened her lips, curled her fingers deeper into the folds of her skirts. “Here, sir? In your home?” Her voice sounded hoarse even to her own ears. “I do not know why it should have been?”

  “Neither do I, my lady, and that is the problem,” he gave back, raking a hand through the deep chestnut waves of his hair. Some of the bluster appeared to slip from him, only to return with a vengeance the instant his gaze lit on the door’s unused drawbar.

  He stepped toward her and placed one ever-so-firm hand on her shoulder, looked deeper into her eyes than anyone had ever done. “The Fiend take me if I e’er catch you behind an unbarred door again, do you hear me, lass?”

  Amicia stared at him, sore tempted to brush aside his demand. But, to her own surprise, she found herself nodding. “As you wish,” she acquiesced, determining to do just as he’d bid.

  But not because his words or even his display of seething fury had cowed her into meek submission.

  Nay, she’d follow his order for one reason alone.

  That reason being the unsettling thread of fear he couldn’t quite keep from his deep, husky voice.

  Ill ease rippled all through his great, strapping body, clouding the clear blue of his eyes and overlaying every magnificent inch of him with simmering, scarcely-held-in-check tension.