How endlessly glorious it was to hold her, know her safe.
“I said, what is pride to a heart that loves,” he admitted at last, loving the comprehension spreading across her lovely face, the wonder of it.
“You are full right, my lady, and have been e’er long. And I—I have been a fool.” He lifted a hand to her cheek, caught a spilled tear on his fingertip. “But I have made amends, never you worry. I have assured my father, and any other long-nosed louts who cared to know, that your dowry coffers can and shall be spent to the fullest—to the good of us all.”
She blinked, her chest rising and falling with greater and greater rapidity. “And the last part of what you said? The love part?”
For one wee instant, Magnus’s pride clamped an icy fist around his heart, squeezed so tight he could scarce draw breath. But then a great wave of stunningly bright happiness surged up from somewhere deep inside him and swept away that last stubborn bit of cold and dark.
Feeling almost giddy, he caught another of her tears, slid a glance at Colin. As he’d suspected, the knave’s flapping ears were aimed straight at him. As was the worst sort of gloating I-told-you-so stare.
Not that Magnus cared.
He blew out a breath, straightened his shoulders. “The love part, lass? Well . . .”
Letting his words tail off, he crushed her to him, and cradling her beloved face with his hands, he kissed her deeply. A fierce, soul-slaking kiss, thorough and searing. A kiss that should show her without words what was in his heart.
What had always been there.
But in case she needed the reassurance, he told her. “Aye, my minx, that love part was my way of admitting that I love you,” he said, heedless of whether Colin-of-the-big-ears heard him and laughed or nay.
“Y-you love me?” The tears were streaming now. “Truly?”
Magnus nodded. “I have done since I first laid eyes on you. At the very latest, that long-ago day when I followed you onto the moors and found you injured and stalking about in the heather, all long legs, raven hair, and delightful indignation.”
“Oh!” That came out on a gusty breath and she flung her arms around his neck, twining her fingers into his hair, and holding him with such ferocity he feared she might never let go.
“Shush you,” he soothed, stroking the back of her head, more pleased than he would have believed that his admission of love brought her such happiness, feeling as if his heart might burst with his own joy.
The rush of emotion consuming him, he tightened his arms around her, slanting his mouth greedily over hers, drinking in all the warmth and bliss she brought him.
Pulling back at last, he looked deep into her eyes, hoped every beating ounce of his love shone in his own. “All will be well, my precious,” he said, gentling his fingers over the knot on her brow. “And you shall be fine. I will ne’er let even a shadow of harm come near you again. Soon we will have you settled by the hearthside, warm and dry. We will speak of all this and more . . . later.”
“She will be even more fine if you cease trying to crack her ribs,” Colin put in. “And I fear there will be no later, if we do not hie ourselves to shore before this galley slips beneath the waves. The way it is tilting, I vow we shall taste the sea any moment.”
And as usual—but not always!—the lout was correct.
“Saints, but you are right,” Magnus admitted, “we must be gone from here at once—so soon as we have cut free Dagda. We cannot take her back with us for a due and decent burial, but we can release her to the sea. She deserves at least—”
“S-she tried to kill us!” The words burst from Amicia’s lips with such sudden heat, Magnus blinked, certain he’d misheard.
But a violent shudder racked her body—he’d felt it run through her. Then she was staring at him, the remembered terror in her beautiful, dark eyes telling him he had not misunderstood.
“Dagda was mad. . . . She was the one who’d been causing s-such havoc and grief. . . . She told us ev-everything,” she babbled, the words spilling forth in a torrent as if a dam had broken.
Only Janet remained silent.
Wrapped securely in Colin’s arms, Janet looked on as Amicia stammered the details of their ordeal. His cousin’s pretty face was twisted into such a pale-faced mask of horror, Magnus reached for her hand, squeezed hard.
“You will be fine, too, Janet,” he said, hoping to take some of the pain from her eyes. “If I am not wholly without my wits, I vow you will soon be a bride after all—dowry or no.”
He winked at Colin and smiled at his cousin, but to his horror, his well-meant words caused a great sob to wrench from Janet’s throat.
She lowered her head, dashed frantically at dripping tears. “He will not be having me now,” she wailed, looking up to fix a panic-stricken stare on Amicia. “No one will. Not after—”
“She is weary, pay her no heed,” Amicia cut her off, her voice firm, surprisingly strong. “Of course, he will want you, Janet. And think how proud your grandchildren will be someday when the bards recall how valiantly you fought against Dagda when she attacked me. Och, aye, Colin Grant will have you and be proud to do so.”
A watery gasp and a tear-glazed look of stunned appreciation answered Amicia, warming her heart.
But she wasn’t quite finished.
She slid a look at Colin. “Is that not right, good sir?” Amicia charged him, knowing already he’d pull down the moon and the stars for the wee flaxen-haired maid.
“To be sure, it is,” her husband’s friend agreed, and planted a kiss on the top of his lady’s head. “I love her true and would make her mine at the soonest—if she will have me.”
“Then let us follow your own sage advice, pray God yon cockleshell will see us safely ashore again and then make all haste back to Coldstone, where we can recover from this madness and you can properly woo her!” Magnus declared, already climbing down into the little currach, eager to be off.
More than ready to put the chaos of the morning behind him and do some wooing of his own.
But when a short while later, Magnus and his little party approached the massive curtain walls of Coldstone Castle and clattered through the torchlit gatehouse pend, all thought of wooing, and otherwise, took flight.
He stared at the well-burning torches, his confusion so palpable he could taste it, cold and metallic on his tongue.
It had been years since anyone had bothered to illuminate Coldstone’s gatehouse, the need for rationing fuel superceding ease of passage through the tunnel-like entry.
Yet, now twin rows of torchlight ran the pend’s length.
Even more astonishing, the outer bailey and inner courtyard bustled with activity as strange men hurried to and fro, shouldering great iron-shod chests and bulging leather satchels. They were apparently heeding the shouted orders of Dugan and Hugh, who stood at the center of this chaos, grinning like fools and gesticulating in so many directions Magnus grew dizzy just staring at them.
And, again here, the whole impossibly surreal scene was lit by scores of blazing torches.
A quick glance at the looming bulk of the keep showed that fire glow and torchlight flickered behind every tower window as well. Even more startling, the strange men who scurried about so industriously were no Highlanders.
Nay, they had the look of the Lowlands to them—and were far too richly garbed to be just anyone’s lackeys.
And with surety, they were too fine-looking to be any distant kin or friends of his da’s.
For one long-stretching moment, Magnus wondered if he’d somehow ridden into the wrong castle. Or if he, his lady, and mayhap even Colin and Janet, had indeed drowned in the waters off the boat strand and this was some crazy kind of hell he’d awakened in.
But then his brothers spotted him and their faces split into even broader grins as they hailed him, waving furiously and glowing with more exuberance then he’d seen on them since they were spindly-legged laddies e’er tagging after him, adoration in their hero-worshiping
eyes.
“Ho, Magnus!” Dugan called, lifting his voice over the pounding rain and the shouts of the scurrying strangers. “Here is a fine day, I tell you! You have your lady safe and sound, I see, and . . . Da’s ghost galley has landed!”
“Da’s ghost galley?” Totally flummoxed, Magnus dismounted, a throbbing ache beginning at his temples—despite the goodness of the day.
The fine day as Dugan had called it.
The madness going on all about him was more goodness than he could swallow just now.
Especially when one of the strangers—a strapping young lad dressed fancier than an emissary from any royal court—rushed up to lift Amicia gallantly to the cobbles, near knocking down Magnus in his hurry to display his chivalry.
Frowning, Magnus swept an arm to take in the whole of the high-walled courtyard. “God’s eyes, man,” he said, half-surprised his tongue didn’t fail him in his amazement. “What goes on here?”
“I told you Da’s ghost galley has arrived,” Dugan said again, laughing this time, scarce able to contain his mirth, in fact.
“And yours, too,” he said to Colin, giving Magnus’s owl-eyed friend a playful punch in the arm.
That, at least, gave Magnus a chuckle—ne’er had he seen a look of greater perplexity on Colin Grant’s face.
“Take yourself inside, Magnus,” Hugh suggested, ever the peacemaker. “Da will surely explain everything the instant his eye lights on you.”
Eager for that moment, indeed, Magnus grabbed Amicia’s hand and dragged her with him across the bailey and into the keep, leaving Colin, Janet, his brothers, and any richly-raimented strangers to stare after them or follow, however it suited them.
“Heighho, laddie!” Donald MacKinnon hurried forward the moment they stepped into the great hall. “You will ne’er believe our good fortune! Old Reginald has had mercy on us at last—he’s done gone and lifted the curse. Aye, to be sure!”
Magnus blinked. “Reginald and his curse?” Now he was confused. “Dugan said your devil ship had landed?”
“Pschaw!” His father waved a dismissive hand. “There was no ghost galley or a devil ship either,” he said, peering at Magnus from beneath bushy, beetling brows. “I am an auld done man, see you? I make . . . mistakes at times. This was one of those times.”
“This?” Magnus glanced about the hall.
More strangers buzzed about here, too, just as splendorous in their garb, if a bit more dignified in demeanor. And a growing collection of ne’er-before-seen strongboxes occupied one corner.
Strongboxes that looked suspiciously like money coffers and bearing the royal seal.
Magnus swallowed, a sudden, hot-burning suspicion thickening his throat and jabbing red-hot needles into the backs of his eyes.
“Who are these men and what are they about, sir?” Amicia—bless her soul—asked the question Magnus could not get past the swelling lump in his throat.
She stepped forward, lit a hand to his father’s bony arm. “And why are those coffers stacked in yon corner?”
Magnus sent her a silent thank-you, his eyes already misting, for there could be only one answer to the question his thick tongue couldn’t form.
The answer he’d ne’er even dreamed would come to pass.
“Recompense, it is!” Donald MacKinnon declared, snatching up a rolled parchment, its wax seal broken and dangling.
He waved the document beneath Magnus’s nose. “’Tis from the Guardian of Scotland himself, see you? To reward you for your loyalty and valor at Dupplin—and to restore the tourney fortune and booty that were stolen from you whilst you fought for the crown.”
Magnus blinked. Now he knew why the scores of men scrambling about the bailey in all their finery had minded him of Lowlanders—they were Lowlanders, and straight from the royal court.
As were the many coffers of siller and merks, the stacks of silver plate and like frippery mounding on the high table.
Wealth he had earned.
And now returned to him by a grateful Guardian in young King David II’s name.
“They even brought you a horse, Magnus!” Dugan announced, joining them. “A fine beast—a tourney champion like the one you forfeited to pay passage tolls on your journey home. That loss, too, had reached the crown’s ear.” Dugan winked. “The animal is in the stables now, already making our garrons half-crazed and asserting his superiority.”
His da waved the parchment at him again, and Magnus stared at it, dumbfounded. Saints, but his eyes stung too badly for him to make out a word of the spidery handwriting, and his throat had gone too thick even to swallow. And very soon he might shame himself, for his fool knees were about to give on him.
“Magnus! Your valor honored and your fortunes restored! Oh, how I joy for you, my heart,” Amicia cried, his dear sweet wife showing no such difficulties in expressing herself.
Indeed, she launched herself at him so fiercely, they both near tumbled backward into Colin’s arms.
Righting them, that one slung his arms around both their shoulders and squeezed. “So-o-o, my friends,” he said, looking and sounding as mirth-filled as Magnus’s brothers, “it would seem old Reginald has blessed rather than cursed Clan Fingon, wouldn’t you say?”
“Blessed you, too, Grant,” Hugh said, joining them.
He picked up a second parchment from the table, handed it to Colin with an apologetic glance at the broken seal. “Da could not contain himself in his excitement and opened the scrolls as soon as the courier identified himself. So he read yours, too.”
“Mine?” This time, Colin blinked.
A thickset man of middle years stepped up to them, nodded to Colin. Garbed similarly fine as the other royal emissaries, this one set himself apart by his evident aura of authority.
“I am Sir Alastair Douglas,” he said with a quick glance at the parchment roll clutched in Colin’s hand. “Word came to the Guardian not only of your bravery on the field, good sir, and your injury, but also of the loss of your home.”
Colin inclined his head, his eyes, too, suddenly overbright. He reached for Janet’s hand, drew her away from the old laird and to his side. “Aye, that is the way of it, Sir Alastair,” he said, his deep voice huskier than usual. “Naught remains of my home save a few scorched stones and rubble.”
“And it would be an ill day for Scotland if so great a loss and loyalty such as yours was not duly rewarded,” the crown’s representative said, with another glance at the scroll. “Yon parchment is a charter for you, Sir Colin. It confirms the fullest possession and all rights of your former lands, restoring them to you—along with ample restitution to see your home rebuilt to its former strength.”
“I—I am humbled, my lord,” Colin said, sketching the courier the best bow his almost-healed leg would allow. “I do not know what to say. A mere thank-you seems—” Colin’s voice broke and he blinked, swiped a hand beneath his eyes.
The man nodded, clapped a hand on Colin’s shoulder. “Send word to the Guardian when you are returned to your own dominions and the funds will be delivered to you forthwith. But for the nonce”—his gaze lit on the four of them, their wet and bedraggled appearance—“I would suggest you freshen yourselves and then join us thereafter. My men are sore weary of plying your stormy Hebridean seas and will be ready for a warm fire and a night of good food and converse.”
Magnus wholly agreed, but before he turned away, there was one niggling riddle that needed solving. “You have been in our waters over-long, then?” he asked, and slid a pointed look in his father’s direction.
“I told you they were my ghost galley!” the old laird snapped, thrusting out his bristly chin. “And dinna you dare snigger at me—an old man is entitled to his . . . delusions on occasion.”
The courier looked confused. “Ghost galley?”
Magnus cleared his throat. “For some time now, my father has claimed to have seen a galley approach our shores only to vanish before his eyes, disappearing into the mist. No one else in the house
hold e’er saw this mystery vessel until a guardsman spotted yours, so—”
“You are wondering if we could have been this vanishing galley?” A smile began tugging at the corners of the courier’s mouth. “Aye, like as not, it was indeed our galley your father claimed to see. We made numerous attempts to reach your isle, only to turn back when the seas ran too stormy or the tides adverse. Yours is a wild coast, my friend, and many are the hazards in your skerry-strewn waters.”
“But surely an emissary of the Scottish crown would have oarsmen skilled enough to navigate the Sea of the Hebrides?” Dugan said, earning a dark look and a sharp foot-stomping from Magnus.
“Excuse him, sir,” Magnus said, feeling the neck opening of his tunic tighten on him. “My brother only meant—”
Sir Alastair waved a hand. “No offense taken, my friend. And, aye, our oarsmen are experienced and able indeed. It was the prize tourney stallion we brought you that had us seeking shelter in the deep harbor and sea cave of a nearby, unoccupied isle each time the passage grew too rough.”
“The horse?” Amicia flickered a glance at Magnus. “I do not understand.”
“You are not a horsewoman, my lady,” Magnus reminded her. “A plunging and lurching galley is no place for a high-strung steed—or even a steady-hearted garron. See you, the beasts must be secured with rope for any passage—a rough one causes them to thrash about, possibly causing hurt to themselves, not to mention the oarsmen.”
The courier nodded. “Exactly. Had we wished to hold our course for your isle, we would have been forced to put the poor beast out of his wild-eyed misery and toss him overboard. We did not want to suffer you his loss, though, so we made many turnabouts, spent our nights deep inside the other isle’s sea cave, soothing the poor animal. We almost did not make it here this morning, either, but this time the storm broke upon us when we were much closer to your shores than the other isle.”
Magnus turned to his da. “So, Father! Now we know for certain that neither old Reginald nor the Horned One have been meaning to bedevil you.”
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