The well was nearly worthless anyhow. The water it yielded needed to be strained and then boiled or it was good for naught. Even their ale was slush. ’Twas a good thing they’d built it in a blind spot behind the church, for even now a full hour had gone by and no one had yet sounded any alarm.
But… two bodies pose a problem.
Initially, he’d intended to dump the child down there, as well, but he couldn’t do it now and then have them both turn up at the end of a bucket, now could he? What were the chances of that? Nay… But there must be another way, and he but needed to discern it.
In the meantime there were few enough servants remaining that the sword should remain safely hidden here in the storehouse until he could return for his prize. He didn’t immediately know what was to be done with it, but he was certain enough that an opportunity would arise.
Mayhap the king would return and he would present it as a gift? And for that mayhap he’d earn the stewardship of Keppenach at long last? He was the last remaining heir of Donnal MacLaren, after all. He was a bastard brother to Dougal, though no one seemed to recall. But he could prove it… Kenna knew the truth.
Kenna had been naught more than a wee bairn when her brother left Dunloppe. She no more recalled his face than she did her own name. After Donnal took her grandfather’s keep, the little brown-haired lass stole Donnal’s heart with her tight curls and button nose, and so he’d quietly sent her away to live at Keppenach whilst he held Dunloppe against her brother’s return. The child Donnal tossed over the wall that day was naught but a worthless peasant girl, but he hadn’t counted upon the Butcher’s fury once he’d spied the child’s body lying upon the ground.
Maddog hadn’t witnessed it, but ’twas said the Butcher’s roar echoed across the moorlands. One by one he’d burned the outer buildings, and even their most skilled archers had not been able to stop his retribution. The arrows flew aplenty, and all but one missed him, nearly gouging out his eye. That was the scar he now bore across his brow.
Luckily for Maddog, he had been the one chosen to escort young Kenna home that day, and whilst the girl recalled naught of her brother or her minny, she certainly knew from whence she’d come, and Maddog never let her forget who it was who saved her from Dunloppe’s fate—an inferno that the bards claim blazed for nearly three days.
As for his MacLaren blood, he had no proof of that, not precisely, though he knew the old laird kept annals tracing their lineage to Domnall mac Ailpín—brother to Kenneth—including bastard sons and bastard daughters. So Maddog, too, bore the blood of kings in his veins and in a sense he had as much right to Keppenach as any other. Somewhere in this keep there was a small box containing his grandsire’s documents—somewhere hidden. And once he found it, he would get his due one way or another, if not by law and reason… then by his sword—the king sword.
Smiling over his private thoughts, he dragged a heavy sack of grain in front of the oiled cloth, placing it slightly in front of the other, and then another, so they appeared to be simply three fat sacks of grain one beside the other. Then he brushed himself off and kicked the sack containing the boy to smooth a lump and went away.
Chapter Fifteen
Rubbing his temples, Jaime pored over the ledgers—all unmarked as yet, but during the course of the following weeks, he would fill every single page.
He took his lessons from the Conqueror, who never took a demesne where he didn’t record each and every sack of grain, every head of cattle, every hen and every last item of value before settling in to manage the estate.
But first things first: settling the grievances of those he wished to rule. Thus he’d spent the majority of the day listening to trials and sent a few disgruntled parties along their way. Save for two particular persons beneath his roof, he had no interest in keeping anyone against their will. That was not the way to begin his stewardship. As it was, he had much to do to change the ill air MacLaren heaped upon the place.
Apparently, some of the villagers took refuge inside the gates, but many more had fled. Come spring the village must be rebuilt from the ground up—every last hut. If necessary, Jaime would enlist more men, but the coming winter would be lean as it was, and he must purchase food and supplies.
He was well very aware that if one thing had been different he might not now be seated as laird in his own hall. David wanted Keppenach under his rule, but even had they tarried one more week, they might have been forced to march upon the castle with greater numbers than they currently had.
As for the MacKinnon, it was Jaime’s fervent hope the chieftain would stay his hand and allow Jaime to focus upon the needs of his people, dwindling though the numbers might be.
At long last, the final man left the hall—and hopefully the final plaintive who wished to take his leave of the place. Now they were left with less than one hundred men, women and children, where one year ago there had been a thriving village of more than a thousand strong.
At the instant the doors were open to the bailey and the hall was empty, save for a single copper-haired lass, who busied herself sweeping the floor. She was lovely, and she had a sweet face. But there was something about her that reminded Jaime of Lael, in spite of the fact that there was naught about Lael that could be described as sweet. And yet the truth of the matter was that his wife intrigued him just the way she was. She was a vixen with fire in her eyes and a temper to rival the gods.
Would she save any of that passion for his bed?
He’d heard the dún Scoti loved freely… Did that mean she came to him a woman with experience? He didn’t particularly relish that thought, but then again, if she knew how to wield those weapons the same as her knives… The thought gave him a pleasant shiver. Although it wasn’t certain he would discover that this evening, the possibility warmed the blood in his veins.
Suddenly any thought of returning to the ledgers was distasteful. He could no more concentrate on figures than he could endeavor to ignore the monster stirring beneath the table.
Damn it.
The blare of a ram’s horn from the ramparts saved him from trying. He grinned, for he knew at once that it must be Kieran. While Luc meant well, the lad could scarce help him the way Kieran could. His captain would help keep the garrison in order whilst Jaime settled matters… elsewhere.
Intending to greet Kieran and give the accounts a break, he stood, stretching and rubbing the tension from his neck, and then he happened to spy his wife arguing outside the hall doors.
“But my lady,” Luc was saying as he chased her across the forecourt.
They disappeared from Jaime’s sight, and he stepped down from the dais, contemplating whether he should bother chasing her when he had Kieran to brief.
Kieran was the proper choice, given all they had to accomplish, nevertheless his feet disobeyed him.
“Do I not have free rein as mistress of this keep?” Lael asked for what seemed the dozenth time.
“Aye, my lady, but—”
“Aye, but naught,” she argued. “Today I am newly wed and it is the custom of my people to celebrate a joyous occasion.”
“Aye, but—”
“Do you begrudge your new mistress a proper celebration? Or even your laird, for that matter?”
“Nay,” the lad replied, and then looked downtrodden.
Once again, Lael nearly felt sorry for him. Nearly. Her husband had appointed him her keeper and he might as well realize from the beginning that she didn’t need one—and neither would she accept one. She intended to have her feast, modest though it might be. If she had wed back home, she would have been afforded a wedding much like her brother’s, and even Lael had dreams. She intended to salvage this occasion in some manner or another. After all, a girl should wed only once.
Luc simply stood there, blinking at her, his tawny hair mussed. He brushed wisps of hair from his face and she set her hands upon her hips. “How old are ye, Luc?”
“Seven and ten in December.”
“This coming, or
the one before?”
“This coming,” he said.
“Ach!” she exclaimed. “Ye’re but a boy.”
“Nay, my lady, I am not!”
In truth, he was merely five years younger than Lael but she didn’t plan to tell him so. She felt far older than her years. “Ach,” she said again, frustrated, because she didn’t want to like the lad. His winsome face hid very little and she too easily read his thoughts.
“What goes here?” a husky voice inquired.
Lael didn’t need to turn to know precisely who it was.
My butcher husband.
He was bound to catch her sooner or later, and as it was now well after the hour of sext and nearly none. She supposed that time was overdue.
Clearly confused by the turn of events, Luc said naught—neither to impugn her nor to defend her. He simply stood, eyeing Lael with a lost look.
Bracing to defend herself, Lael turned to face her husband. “I havena eaten a good meal in weeks,” she exaggerated, “and since I am now lady of this keep, I would enjoy a hearty supper. ’Tis the least you may do to honor me on our wedding day, since ye’ve forced me into this travesty of a union, and then tossed me aside as though I were naught but offal on your plate!”
Jaime blinked.
He peered first at Luc and then at Lael.
Luc shuffled his feet anxiously. “Laird, I told her ye had not yet had the opportunity to do the inventory, but she would like to plan a feast to celebrate.”
Surprise was Jaime’s first reaction, followed closely by suspicion. He met his wife’s gaze and arched a brow.
She tilted her head as though to challenge him. “Ye gave me free rein,” she reminded him. “Ye struck a bargain with me. If ye want a wife’s devotion, ye’d best behave like a devoted husband, and ye can begin by keeping your word.”
Behind him the gates opened to admit Kieran and Jaime tried in vain to determine what scheme she might be hatching. There was naught he could discern by her face. It might be true that she was in sore need of a good meal. Who knows how long Broc’s ambuscade lay in wait before breaching the walls. As far as he knew, she’d had little to eat since he’d arrived.
At the instant her hair and face were mussed and filthy. She had a grease stain across her chin, but he didn’t dare reach out and touch her lest she rebuff him here in front of Luc. But she was lovely nonetheless. Could it possibly be that she intended to take her vows seriously? Did she mean to be a dutiful wife?
Somewhere deep in his gut, the notion thrilled him, and his loins tightened over the thought. But he wasn’t stupid. She was up to something… And yet, he could hardly refuse her a proper meal on her wedding day.
Could he?
Chatter swelled about the gates as Jaime stood staring at his lovely bride. Kieran brought with him another seventy men, who were all bound to be as hungry as Lael. Tomorrow was soon enough to take stock of the pantry.
“Spare naught,” he allowed with a smile. “See that my men are all well fed and be certain to send a plate to the gaols.”
The color drained from her face. The look she gave him was one of surprise. Her lovely lips parted, but then she seemed unable to speak. Jaime suffered the most incredible desire to kiss her then, for she looked beautifully dumbstruck—and docile if only for once. The sharp lines of her face softened for just an instant and she dropped her gaze. “Thank you… Butcher,” she said, though not unkindly.
Jaime nearly choked. For once, the epithet merely amused him because he sensed she not only didn’t mean it in spite, but she was properly confused about what to call him now that they were wed.
It was a start, Jaime decided.
Before long, he’d hear her call his name whilst he caressed her from within. That thought alone turned his lips.
“You’re welcome,” he said. And then he walked away while he sensed he had the upper hand and he made a beeline toward the gate to greet his captain and friend.
Chapter Sixteen
Spare naught?
Truly?
Lael didn’t know what to think of her butcher husband.
Standing in her bower prison—for that’s what she’d come to think of it—she examined the delicate wedding dress Aveline had stored in her coffers. It was lovely, of a certainty, but the simple fact that she had the desire to wear it now only set her teeth on edge.
Spare naught, he’d said.
That was hardly a thing she would have expected a butcher to say.
But why should she wish to wear a lovely gown just for him?
And it was lovely, she decided—unlike anything she might have ever worn. It was delicate, and girlish—a dress befitting a bride.
Hers was naught more than a quick ceremony at the point of a sword, but it was nevertheless her wedding day.
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking of her brother’s nuptials. Such a lovely affair it was. Glenna gave Lìli a brand-new tartan cloak to wear, and when Aidan spied his bride coming up the hill, embraced by all their womenfolk, adorned in ribbons, his breath had stilled. In that instant, Lael had envied her brother with all her heart, because she’d never thought to wed herself. And now, despite all the suspicion and all the fury, Aidan and Lìli were happily wed, and mayhap the same would be true for Lael?
In truth, Lael had never even imagined herself wed. She had never known a man she’d wished to bind herself to. Nor had she ever truly aspired to be a wife—and neither did she now. But what did that matter? The deed was already done. She was no less the Butcher’s wife simply because she did not like it.
One year, he’d said. One year. And one day.
It should be heaven, but it could be hell.
Sighing wistfully, she thought of Aidan’s new bairn and saw herself with a child of her own. Could she be a loving mother? Did she even know how? She’d spent so much time thinking about vengeance and trying to be a worthy warrior that she wasn’t entirely certain she understood what it meant to be a gentle lass.
Her butcher husband wanted one thing from her, but if she gave it to him, she would be bound to him forever more, because she could never bear him a child and then simply leave. Nay, if she bore him the babe he so desired—more to the point, the child David craved—there was only one thing she knew for certain: she could never leave this place and then, in truth, she’d never return home.
That thought made her heart sore.
Pondering the dilemma, she fished the looking glass out from under the mattress, where she’d left it and set it upon the windowsill, tilting it precariously so she could better spy herself from a distance. And then she stood back and measured, returning to tilt the glass a little further, all the while cursing herself for caring how she might appear.
Why should she care what she looked like? The Butcher certainly didn’t. Lael didn’t fool herself into believing this was aught more than a political match—one her husband clearly relished no more than she did. He’d no sooner spoken the vows before he’d cast her aside, and only once did he bother to come see what she might be about. And then he’d merely happened upon her because she was in his way en route to the gates—which, by the by, she noticed he didn’t bother to ask her to come and greet their guest as his wife. Nay, though he did defend her position to Luc… and he did tell her to take a meal to Broc, so at least now she would not have to sneak.
Despite everything, something like gratitude wended its way through her consciousness—if not gratitude precisely, certainly something that undermined her animosity. Forsooth, but how could she loathe a man who’d saved her neck from the gallows, and then promptly wed her and gave her the keys to his keep?
Or if he hadn’t precisely handed her the keys, at least he hadn’t seized them away yet, and surely he must know. Luc would no doubt have told him everything by now—the little tattler.
For that matter, she didn’t wish to like Luc either!
All this liking was enough to perpetually sour her mood—as though it were not already sour eno
ugh over the mere thought of David forcing her to marry will-she-nil-she. And now it seemed the sorriest wedding in all creation. She had no kin. No womenfolk to help her dress. No song and dance. No uisge. No laughter.
Alas, considering the circumstances, what more could she expect?
Something better, she decided.
Contenting herself with her own company, and unfamiliar with the rituals of womenfolk, she undressed herself. She didn’t need a silly maid. Alone she prepared the garment she would wear. Alone she laved herself. Alone she combed her hair. And then alone she contemplated the night to come, for surely he would remember his vows come nightfall. He was a man, after all.
And then would he live up to his name? Would he rape and plunder her womanly bits? Likely, she decided, for he was half English—and that half seemed the better part of him for all that she could tell. He walked and talked like an Englishman, he probably rutted like one as well. And if that be true, he would find Lael an even match, for she was hardly the sort to sit idly by and let a man have his way. Mayhap she had never been with a man before, but she surely knew how to gut one.
Smirking as she tossed the gossamer ivory gown over her head, she shrugged herself into it. She wanted her new husband to see what he would never own, for while she’d made him a bargain for her body, she’d never promised him her heart.
She was quite pleased to find this dress was longer than the rest, because the hem was not yet sewn. Clearly Aveline had yet to finish it. “Poor lass,” she said again, lamenting the girl’s fate, and then she stood in front of the little mirror, looking to see how well the dress fit.
The glass was cloudy and her image was warped. Staring back at her, she spied a brollachan—a gruesome creature of the night—with bulging eyes and a wide nose with enormous pits for nostrils. “Poor husband!” she recanted. He was probably accustomed to women who wore silks from the East, whose hair was pale as honey and whose features were dainty and lovely. Her cheekbones were far too prominent, her eyes too deep, her hair too black. Frowning, Lael plucked the mirror off the sill and tossed it upon the bed, then with another round of curses, she went to join her husband for the feast she had planned.
Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) Page 16
