This room, so close to the laird’s chamber, was nearly devoid of furniture, save for a bed, and various coffers. Luc would have inspected them and removed any items she might have used offensively, but the room was barren— had always been by the looks of it. The corners were all full of webs and the single slit of a window was shuttered crudely against the night. “I’m not here to harm you,” he reassured.
She lifted her chin, retreating into the room, her too-short gown brushing her ankles.
Jaime followed her within.
“I am no’ afraid of ye,” Lael said, rising to her full height.
Only once in her life had she cowered before men—never again.
He might take her life, but he could never take her will, nor break her pride. She was a daughter of Pecht kings; he was naught but a feckless butcher.
He arched his devil’s brow at her. The thin, white scar disappeared into his brow, but a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Confused, Lael gave him a frown.
This was the man they credited with burning down his own keep, her savior, her captor. Betimes he looked at her with fury, betimes with something she could not read. For an instant he seemed to consider her, and then he peered curiously about the room, his gaze alighting on the shuttered window. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, and moved toward the window. Offering her his back, he plucked open the shutters. Snow drifted in as he shook each of the bars in turn, checking some twice.
Bristling over the subtle reminder that she was still his prisoner—not his guest, no matter how many baths he sent her way—Lael reassured him, “I tried them all. So dinna fash yoursel’. They are secure.” But he should realize she would never willingly accept her fate. If there came a chance to escape, she planned to take it without reservation.
He cast a glance over his shoulder and Lael caught her breath at the silver glint in his eyes. For all his outward calm, she sensed an underlying tension in him that was unmistakable. The look on his face alone made her feel as though she were a meal waiting to be devoured.
He turned again to peer out from the window, and Lael eyed the mattress, considering how quickly she might retrieve the mirror she had hidden there, but she didn’t move. There was something about the set of his shoulders that made her feel he had eyes at the back of his head. And anyway, even if she could find the mirror before he managed to stop her and then somehow plunge the dull grip between his shoulder blades, she realized there were guards posted outside her door. And even if there weren’t, where would she go? The entrances were all likely to be guarded and she couldn’t abandon Broc Ceannfhionn.
It wasn’t precisely fear that kept her rooted to the spot, and it hadn’t anything to do with undying curiosity. She had no wish to know what the man could want from her, and yet his silence, far more than his presence, unnerved her. She watched him warily, wondering what he wanted. And the longer he stood, the less composed she felt. He was a man—that was hardly in question—and they were alone in a room with a bed. And yet, inexplicably, despite all the trouble she’d caused since his arrival, and despite the situation that had brought her here, she didn’t feel any immediate threat from him. Still…
He stood quietly, peering out the window and Lael dared a step closer to the mattress…
He underestimated her and she was hardly opposed to taking advantage of that fact. If he thought her any less wily an opponent simply because she was a woman, that would be his last mistake. He would lie there with a mirror protruding from his back and wonder what possibly could have happened. She would find a way to deal with the guards afterward.
Before she could reach for the mirror he closed the shutters and turned to face her. Lael froze where she stood, merely inches from the bed. His silver gaze shifted to the bed and she feared for an instant he’d read her thoughts… but perhaps they’d simply wandered elsewhere.
He was a man, after all; his baser instincts were his very nature.
Her heart tripped painfully. At home, no man dared lay a finger upon her. Her brother would skewer him through. But this man was laird of his own demesne. He answered only to David—if he answered to anyone at all, for he did not strike her as a man who conformed much to the will of others. Regardless, Scotia’s king would never take her side against his precious Butcher, that much Lael held certain.
“What do ye want?” she asked finally.
He answered her with silence, and once again his gaze landed upon the bed.
Images assailed her, unbidden and unsettling, for she spied the two of them embracing—on that bed. And despite that he’d already closed the shutters, she shivered, telling herself it was merely the cool night air. Blinking away the carnal images, she met his gaze directly.
The bath had long since grown cold, but the tub remained in the center of the room, waiting to be emptied—a reminder that no matter what others might say about the Butcher’s temperament, he had yet to abuse her in any way. Nor had he harmed Broc, in truth. In fact, since his arrival at Keppenach, their treatment had greatly improved, particularly since it seemed they were no longer in any immediate danger of being hanged. “Do you mean to ransom me?”
He shook his head nay.
Panic assailed her. “Why not?” she pressed.
He peered at her as though she were a morbid curiosity and then answered her question with a question of his own. “Tell me, Lael… What compels a lovely lass to risk life and limb to fight beside a traitor… to betray her country and kin?”
Lael blinked. He thinks me lovely?
It didn’t matter. He is your enemy! She placed a hand to her breast, utterly bemused by the question. “Do you ask me?”
His brows lifted. “Do you perchance see anyone else in this room?”
“Are we to postulate?” she asked, aghast. “Is that what the English do with their prisoners? Give them baths and torture them with reason?”
He laughed, once again surprising her with the husky sound.
Mother of Winter have mercy! Was she truly standing here arguing with the Butcher and he laughed? This, in truth, was the man they claimed burned his own keep to the ground?
No longer dressed in his black hauberk, he had no visible weapons upon his person—luckily for him because Lael had disarmed men of far lesser stature. What could he possibly know of her? It seemed David should have filled his ears by now.
“If you are referring to me,” she said after a moment. “I have no country to betray as I have already said. I have no love for Scotia, nor do I claim it for my own.” Alas, but she could not claim she had not betrayed her kin, for she had. Her brother certainly believed it was so. “I’ve already told ye… I dinna kneel to David, whether he hails himself a god or a king.”
He studied her face, searching for something. “What of Broc? Do you kneel for him?” he asked after a moment.
The question took Lael completely by surprise. “Of course not!”
“And yet you fought for him?”
“Keppenach is his by right,” Lael contended, not caring that she might insult him. This land was not his, nor was it David’s to bestow—not as far as she was concerned.
“Aye? What right is that?”
“The right of the Sword!”
The Butcher tilted his head. “What sword?”
Once again the question took Lael by surprise, and it occurred to her in that instant that he had not yet laid eyes upon the king’s sword. She wasn’t certain what to make of it but she didn’t intend to be the one to reveal it to him. The sword belonged to Broc, not to David, nor to his Butcher. “His sword,” she answered quickly. It was not the truth, but neither was it a lie.
The Butcher’s countenance darkened before her eyes. His face suddenly reverted to that demon’s face she’d spied when he’d first stormed through the gates. “His sword?” he asked. “Do you perchance mean the one betwixt his legs?”
Lael blinked, and then understanding dawned and she took another step closer to the bed, her finge
rs itching to find the cold steel she’d embedded there.
“I fight for what is right,” she informed him through clenched teeth as her fingers brushed the sheets.
He took an unexpected step toward her, and she took a step backward. “Broc is a traitor,” he said furiously. “In truth you may not claim Scotia, but he does and David is in fact his rightful king.”
Finding her nerve again, Lael refused to retreat even one more step. If he dared to touch her, she would find that make-do blade and shove it between his teeth. “Keppenach belongs to Broc Ceannfhionn. Donnal MacLaren stole MacEanraig land!”
He smiled again, but this time it was vicious. “Nay, my lady, you are mistaken. Keppenach is mine,” he announced. “And so are you.”
Lael’s shoulders lifted of their own accord and she told him with certainty, “I belong to no man!”
He didn’t advance, but Lael was prepared to dive for the bed to retrieve her weapon. He simply stood there, peering at her, his expression dark and furious. His full lips were thin with displeasure and his eyes swirled with ire. Then suddenly he turned and marched toward the door, flinging it wide. To the guards he barked, “See she doesn’t so much as crack this door.” To her, he turned to say, “On the morrow we shall see to whom you bow, my lady.” And then he slammed the door shut behind him, leaving Lael to wonder over the meaning of his words.
The meadows below the ben were cloaked with a thin blanket of white. Peppered across the glen, tufts of heather jabbed through the freshly fallen snow. From this height they looked like ice-bound men with little brown heads rising above the frost.
Hoping to spy her return, nearly every day since their eldest sister went away, Cailin and her brother Keane climbed to the bluff top to peer down into the pass that led to Dubhtolargg. Alas, now that the first snows had fallen the path would soon become unnavigable, leaving it impassible until spring. Her brother Keane seemed undaunted by that fact, and thinking Lael invincible, he cast off his worries and raced away to the falls.
“Neither wind nor snow must keep me from my swim!” he claimed, and beat his chest like a beast. He paused at the edge and tossed back his head to give a wolf’s howl, then dove down into Caoineag’s Pool.
Cailin had no choice but to follow.
Half an inch of snow on the ground wasn’t nearly enough to keep her from proving herself as intrepid as her older brother.
One after the other they landed in the pool with a mighty splash, barely missing the outcrop Keane had bashed his head upon only last fall.
The accident left her brother senseless and nearly killed him, save for Lìli’s tender care. They were lucky enough to have her, and Cailin had never seen her brother Aidan quite so contented, save, of course for the trouble now with Lael.
And yet, although Cailin was loathed to confess it, she secretly envied both her elder sisters, for Cailin had never once set foot outside the vale.
Keane rose up from the pool, sweeping ice-cold water from his face. “Ye dinna leap as far as me,” he goaded, and Cailin frowned.
More and more, their competitions proved less and less favorable in her behalf. During the course of the summer, Keane had grown nearly as tall as Aidan and half as braw. She peered about, prepared to argue, but her landing spot wasn’t even close to his. “You cheated,” she contended, and now she came to believe it, because Keane had never once landed so far away from her. Perhaps her legs were not as long as her brother’s, but her lesser weight always worked in her favor. He must have landed and then quickly swam to the spot where he now stood. “Cheater,” she said again.
Keane opened his mouth to argue, but he was quickly silenced by the blare of a shepherd’s horn.
Soaked from their swim, both Cailin and Keane scurried for their cloaks and ran tripping up the hillside to see who had come. Two blasts signified intruders, but the second ended mid-wind, a twisted, sour note to greet the twilight.
The siblings froze at the sight of one lone horse trotting down the mount. From whence they stood the white mare appeared to be riderless.
Higher up the hill, Fergus raced from his post to greet the cantering mount. Taking its reins, he lingered only an instant, and then turned to lead the horse downhill, running with the reins clasped firmly in his fist, shouting for Aidan as he came. Remaining at their assigned posts, the rest of the guards all stood, watching with arms akimbo.
Cailin recognized the cantor of her sister’s horse almost at once. Somehow they’d missed it traipsing up the mount. “It’s Wolf!” she exclaimed.
It made no sense to name a horse after another beast, but Lael had insisted for the yellow color of the animal’s eyes. There was no mistaking its gait, even weary as the animal appeared. Only once Wolf was halfway down the hill did Cailin spy the dark form slumped over the horse’s withers.
Keane and Cailin both peered at one another in dread and then bolted toward the dock where Fergus was bound with the horse in tow.
They reached it nearly at the same time. Winded and nearly lame, Lael’s Wolf came stumbling behind, but Lael was clearly not Wolf’s rider.
Blood stained the mare’s dove-white flanks, but the rider lay facedown over her withers, his matted, golden hair and clothes caked in dried blood.
Without waiting to be asked, Keane rushed forward to help Fergus remove the listless body from the mount.
“Is she injured?” Cailin asked, worried for the horse.
“Nay,” Fergus said. “’Tis his blood.”
Her brother’s burly captain dragged the lad from the gray and set him quickly down upon the ground.
Suddenly recognizing his face, Cailin fell to her knees beside him. “Cameron,” she whispered, her heart leaping into her throat.
They’d met but twice, but despite the bruises and swelling and all the dirt and blood, she could never mistake him. He’d made goo-goo eyes at her over his cups, and she’d thought him a braw young man. Albeit at the instant he seemed frail and little more than a lad.
What of her sister? Cailin worried. She peered up at the horse Fergus was busy inspecting from hoof to head, and then met her brother’s gaze with a dawning sense of horror. “What of Lael?” she dared to ask.
No one answered, for who could possibly know? The animal returned without her, instinctively finding her way home.
“Is he dead?” Keane asked.
Cailin set her ear against Cameron’s chest and held her hand firmly against his belly, listening closely for the beat of his heart. She could scarce hear a thing over the rise of voices as Sorcha came running along with the rest of the children from the snow-peppered meadow. But there it was… She shook her head in answer to Keane’s question, and looked up at her youngest sister. “Go fetch Lìli and Una!”
“Both?” Sorcha asked.
“Aye, both,” Cailin affirmed. If Cameron had any chance at all of surviving this night, he would need all their healing wisdom. And maybe Una might know what befell her sister.
Sorcha nodded. “What shall I say?”
Cailin’s tone was dire. “Tell them to bring fae magic,” she charged and Sorcha immediately hied away.
At least to Cailin that’s what their medicine seemed to be, for she had little knowledge of herbs. Nor did she have Sorcha’s innate warmth and sweetness, nor Lael’s bent for war. Neither did she have her sister Catrìona’s nurturing temperament—and she could scarce stand the sight of blood. Why this instant she did not run screaming away she could not precisely fathom.
“Help me!” she commanded her brother. “We’ll take him to my room.”
“Nay,” Keane argued. “Wait for Aidan.”
“Dinna quarrel with me whilst this boy lay dying, Keane!” Now was not the time for her brother’s sense of propriety. If he would not help, she would do it herself. She moved behind Cameron’s head and took the lad by his arms, prepared to carry him alone if she must.
Aidan suddenly appeared at her side, looming above them, his face a mask. “By the sins of Sluag!”
“He came riding Wolf,” Fergus said, his voice dour.
“What of Lael?” Aidan asked and Fergus shook his head.
A pained expression came over her eldest brother’s features, then fled and without another word he bent to seize Cameron MacKinnon’s arms away from Cailin, then he himself bore Cameron to the crannóg.
Cailin surged to her feet and ran flailing after.
Arrogant Sassenach-loving cur.
Long after the Butcher left her chamber, Lael lay brooding on the bed, in the dark, staring at the shuttered window.
Not only had they once again declined to leave her with a brazier, they did not even give her a single candle to chase away the evening shadows. Slivers of moonlight slid through the shutters, stabbing at the wood floor in front of her bed. She missed her knives. Inasmuch as they were poor bedfellows, they would have surely offered her a way out of this mess.
But to their credit, at least, they’d left her with a heavy blanket, a particularly large blanket that appeared as though it could warm half a dozen men in one fell swoop. Thick and made of fur, she wondered how many animals had died to keep the laird of Keppenach warm—the previous laird, she realized, although she was no less rankled by the new one.
At least she fared better than Broc. She loathed to consider her friend down in the gaol, shivering in the muck next to Aveline’s grave.
Keppenach is mine.
And so are you.
His words still infuriated her.
What could he possibly have meant by that? Did he plan to keep her as a thrall? A prisoner in his odious tower? And once he’d said the words, he’d simply walked away, revealing naught more. He’d left her with that simple threat: On the morrow we shall see to whom you bow.
Indeed. “We shall see,” Lael whispered to herself—though who else might hear? The king sleeping next door? She could hear him snoring through the thick stone walls. Fat bore.
Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) Page 12
