She did, and that was enough.
She just wished that her heart wouldn’t lurch against her ribs each time she looked at the rocks. She could still see herself sitting there, poised so straight-backed on their slick, briny ledges. She remembered the cold waters rising around her. How the waves had first drenched her skirts and then seeped into her skin, chilling her to the marrow. She’d shivered uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. Her chest tightened, making it hard to draw breath.
Yet even then, with the tide swirling around her, she’d kept casting glances at Blackshore, expecting Drangar to come.
But he had not.
His heart had been stolen by another.
And just when she’d realized her folly and would’ve pushed away from the rocks to return to the shore, she found she couldn’t. Her skirts had twisted around her, snagged by the rushing tide and trapped in submerged crevices in the rocks.
She was doomed.
And then she knew no more.
Chapter Six
A man must admire your bravery, MacDonald, coming to Nought where you ken you aren’t welcome.” Kendrew Mackintosh leaned back in his heavily carved laird’s chair and eyed Alasdair down the considerable length of his high table. He raised his ale cup to his lips, taking a healthy swig as he watched Alasdair over the rim. “Aye, most men would be impressed. A shame I am no’ ordinary man.”
“That you aren’t, I agree.” Alasdair lifted his own mug in salute.
Kendrew’s eyes narrowed, but then he gave Alasdair a tight half smile. “Truth is I wouldn’t be awed if you walked on water.”
“Kendrew.” Lady Isobel, his wife, gave him a pointed look. She sat beside him and from the way Kendrew’s brow furrowed at her tone, Alasdair suspected she also stepped on his toes beneath the table.
“Have a care, Mackintosh. I’m no’ in the mood for such blether.” Alasdair kept his own voice cold but civil. He also glanced to where his men sat at a long table in the lower hall. Only a handful had accompanied him. His cousin Ewan and a few other stout fighters made up his party. Just now, they conversed in seemingly genial terms with a score of burly, big-bearded Mackintosh warriors. Alasdair’s men were their equal in size and brawn.
Though not of Berserker blood, they were formidable with a blade in their hands. Each man was capable of cutting a foe to ribbons before he knew he’d been struck.
So sharp was MacDonald steel.
So good were the men who wielded it.
Yet all MacDonald swords and shields were stacked in a small room off the Mackintosh stronghold’s well-guarded entry. If a scuffle broke out, it would be fisticuffs only. Alasdair and his men wouldn’t be able to snatch their arms before they came to blows with their enemies.
At Alasdair’s side, Kendrew’s shaggy gray beast of a dog eyed him hopefully, even rested a paw on his knee. Called Gronk, the beast had trotted over to Alasdair the moment he’d entered the torch-lit hall. Dogs usually did flock to him, sensing his sympathy.
He’d made the mistake of giving Gronk a twist of dried beef from a leather pouch he carried on his belt.
Now the dog wanted more.
His begging was making Kendrew’s enmity worse.
“Poison my dog, MacDonald, and the buzzards flying round Nought’s peaks will be picking your bones clean before nightfall.” Kendrew scowled at his dog. “Doubt me at your peril.”
Alasdair ignored him, calmly taking a bit of dried beef from his belt pouch. Kendrew’s face reddened when Gronk snatched the treat.
“I know fine what you’re capable of.” Alasdair kept his tone just short of an insult.
“Do you, now?” A slow deliberate smile spread over Kendrew’s face. He glanced at his wife as if expecting praise. But Lady Isobel only looked annoyed, her back ramrod straight and her shoulders rigid.
“Why do you think I’m here?” Alasdair resisted the urge to rub his scar. The damned wound was paining him again, as if his arm knew he sat at the table of the man responsible for slicing into his muscle.
His temper rising, he shot a glance at the small storeroom near the hall’s entry arch. He didn’t care that his weapons were stacked away, out of reach. He’d relish setting upon Kendrew with his bare hands.
He wouldn’t mind smashing the lout’s nose.
He deserved worse.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.” Kendrew leaned back in his chair, folded his arms. His smile was gone now, his gaze turned sharp.
“My scouts reported two black-painted longships off Drangar Point.” Alasdair waved away the serving lass who tried to refill his ale cup. “Some of my men believe they were Black Vikings, the marauders of old returned to menace our waters. Others claim the lookouts saw phantom galleys or were deep in their cups, mistaking mist for dark-hulled warships.”
“That’s no’ what you think.” Kendrew didn’t blink.
“Nae, it isn’t.” Alasdair met his foe’s stare, waiting for a flash of guilt or a spark of triumph. But there was nothing.
Kendrew might’ve been made of stone.
Around them, the hall was erupting in agitated mumbling. Men shifted on trestle benches, their expressions wary and suspicious. Not for the first time since arriving at the remote stronghold, Alasdair was glad that Marjory hadn’t yet shown herself. Her presence would only serve to distract him and he was already wondering at the wisdom of having made the trek at all.
Nought was a wild and bleak land, full of rock and cold wind. Shadows and echoes prevailed, and the mists here were often impenetrable. Some of Nought’s peaks soared so high and were clustered so tightly together that the sun never reached their stony feet. Equally damning were the mysterious dreagan stones, ancient cairns spread along the steep-sided vale that cut deep through the heart of Kendrew’s rugged, mountainous territory.
A place better fit for rock-climbing, cloven-footed goats than men.
No one came here gladly.
And now that he was here, Alasdair wouldn’t leave until he’d had his answers. Kendrew might not look guilty, but he also didn’t invite trust.
So Alasdair slapped his hand on the high table, hard enough that ale cups jumped. “I think the black-painted ships were yours. It’s no’ secret you and your men call yourselves night-walkers, smearing peat juice and soot all o’er yourselves before you go raiding. Why no’ do the same to a longship?” Alasdair leaned forward, his anger rising again. “It’d be a clever way to rid yourself of an enemy while putting the blame on others. If word reached the King that Black Vikings attacked my territory, he’d ne’er point a finger at you, wouldn’t hold you responsible for breaking his truce.”
“You’re howling mad.” Kendrew sounded amused. “And you’ve made a fool’s errand. I dinnae have any galleys. And I know naught of Black Vikings. But if I did”—his smile returned—“mayhap I’d offer them my sister. Seeing as they’d surely have a braw leader no’ averse to a fetching bride in good health and who’d come with a hefty dowry. If you haven’t heard, I’m looking to arrange a worthy match for her. She’s a real beauty.” He lifted his ale cup, took a long sip. “She deserves the best husband I can find her. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I didnae come here to speak of your sister.” Alasdair’s voice was low and hard.
“I am glad to hear it.” Kendrew leaned forward, his eyes like slits. “If you dared to try I’d have to cut out your tongue.”
“Before you could, I’d pierce your gullet with my eating knife.” Alasdair held Kendrew’s stare and gripped his ale mug tighter than necessary.
Kendrew’s taunts were getting to him.
To his surprise, the dastard laughed. “A shame you’re a brine drinker, MacDonald. I vow I could like you if you weren’t.”
Alasdair nodded, doubting the likelihood.
Somewhere in the shadows of the hall, one of the Mackintosh warriors lifted his voice, repeating his chief’s jest about Alasdair walking on water. Rapping his table, the man also suggested MacDonalds were born with webb
ed feet. Throughout the hall, men sniggered.
The MacDonald guards’ faces darkened.
Kendrew’s lips twitched. “Aye, well.” He reached across the high table, clinked his ale cup against Alasdair’s. “I like seeing my men in good spirits. I’ll have to stop calling you brine drinker and say water walker.”
“A good swordsman has no need to walk on water.” Alasdair returned his smile, making sure it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Your steel would serve you naught if I knocked it out of your hand with my ax.”
“You can try.” Alasdair felt his blood rising, anger pumping through his veins.
He glanced at the MacDonald table in the lower hall where even Ewan looked annoyed. Unlike Alasdair, he rarely lost his temper. Other kinsmen shifted uncomfortably, some fisting and unfisting their hands. Not one appeared in the mood for such ribbing.
“None of us asked for this truce.” Alasdair surely hadn’t. “The King ordered peace. Now that we have it, we must all sup at the same bowl, however unappetizing. If you still wish to fight”—Alasdair used his strongest voice—“come at me full on and we’ll clash steel. Dinnae hide behind a pitch-coated longship.”
“I haven’t hid since I left my mother’s womb.” Kendrew paused, looking pleased as his men went into whoops of laughter. “And I’m no’ worried about royal wishes. I’d rather sink Blood-Drinker in your skull.” He flashed a glance at the huge Norse war ax hanging on the dais wall. “Indeed, I dream of doing so.”
Beside him, Lady Isobel colored. “Kendrew…” She set a hand on his arm, her knuckles whitening as she squeezed his hard muscle. “Alasdair is our guest.”
“He’s a bluidy pain in the arse.” Kendrew leaned forward, Isobel releasing him. “A limpet-coated, salt-smelling brine drinker who came here to befoul Nought’s air with fool accusations, when all he wants is to run to court and besmirch our good name, hoping to bring the King’s wrath hammering down on us. The black-painted longships are no doubt his own, a scheme to wrest Nought into his grasp. “Do you think”—he gave his wife a sharp look—“I’m no’ aware of his plans to seize all the glen, even using my sister to do so?”
Lady Isobel sat up straighter, her dark eyes blazing. “Have done, Kendrew.”
He glared at her. “He’s worse than the King and his Lowlanders. I’ll no’ have him making Marjory a pawn for his greed. Think you I’m no’ aware how he chases after her, or why he wants her?”
Alasdair’s patience snapped, the edges of his vision beginning to redden. “Lady Marjory has naught to do with this.” He almost reached for the dirk hidden in his boot. He did raise his voice so all would hear. “I should’ve known better than to come here.”
“Aye, you should have.” Kendrew spoke just as loud. “MacDonalds are ne’er welcome here.”
“That I know.” Alasdair tossed back a gulp of ale, fighting his temper.
Marjory might not be in her brother’s hall, but wherever she was, she could appear any moment. Kendrew wouldn’t be so agitated if that weren’t so. He kept sliding glances to an arched doorway the far side of the huge, weapon-hung room. His edginess proved he expected her. If so, Alasdair wouldn’t allow her to walk in and find him brawling with Kendrew.
He was tempted.
More than that, he now knew what else had been bothering him ever since Lady Isobel had greeted him and his men, ushering them into the stronghold’s great hall, despite her husband’s heavy frown.
Marjory wasn’t the only one missing.
Kendrew’s captain of the guard was also absent. The man wasn’t easy to miss, huge and big-bearded as he was. His wild black hair and the silver warrior rings he braided into his beard, coupled with his storm-gray eyes and hard, rough-hewn face, made him notable. He was also one of Kendrew’s most ferocious fighting men.
Tongue waggers claimed he could cleave a man in two with a single stroke of his ax.
Alasdair didn’t doubt it.
He also knew that if Kendrew was going to send two pitch-coated galleys into the night, the battle-probed warrior was the man he’d choose to lead such a mission.
“Enough insults, Mackintosh.” Alasdair spoke curtly and gestured toward the smoke-hazed hall beneath the dais, the crowded rows of long tables. “Where is your captain? The man called Grim? I do not see him.”
“Grim?” Kendrew’s brows lifted and for a moment he looked surprised. “He’s no’ out in a black-painted longboat if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“The thought crossed my mind.” Alasdair was still suspicious.
“Grim is nowhere near your damty coast.” Kendrew paused, a wicked glint coming into his eyes. “He’d be afraid of catching a rash o’ barnacles down your way.”
Along the high table, Kendrew’s men chuckled.
Lady Isobel stood. “I agree with Blackshore.” She used Alasdair’s title, her voice strong and firm. “This ribbing must stop. Now, before the good name of our House of Mackintosh is sullied beyond repair.”
“Ribbing?” Kendrew twisted round to look up at her. “Men who come uninvited can expect—”
“That isn’t so.” She dismissed his protest with a wave of her hand. “If anyone disagrees”—she glanced about, her brows lifting—“I shall personally see that such rudeness is rewarded with an empty stomach. The next man to slur our guests will not receive dinner in my hall this night. And I do mean everyone.”
She sent a pointed look at Kendrew before she took her seat again.
Silence spread across the dais and along the trestle tables beyond. A few grumbles rose here and there, a scattering of cleared throats. No one lifted a voice to challenge her.
Even Kendrew looked chastised, a faint flush staining his face. He speared a bannock with his eating knife, proceeded to smear the halved roll with butter.
Lady Isobel smiled, nodding pleasantly at Alasdair.
“My lady, you do honor to Nought.” Alasdair used his most courteous tone, ignoring Kendrew. “Your husband is fortunate to have you.”
“It’s you I’ll have, you briny bastard… your head on a pike,” Kendrew mumbled around his bannock.
Or so Alasdair thought, though he couldn’t prove it.
If Lady Isobel heard, she chose not to react, sipping her wine instead.
“My husband told you true, lord.” She set down her drinking chalice, her gaze direct. “We do not have ships. Our strength is elsewhere. Perhaps in the bravery of our men, their skill at arms. And surely in the impassable peaks that enclose our territory. The cold, clean air that greets us each morn and helps us sleep well at night. “And Grim…” She paused, ignoring the dark glance Kendrew tossed at her. “He is only seldom at Nought these days. Did you not know he stayed on at Archie MacNab’s last year? It was after Kendrew and his men rescued Marjory and me from the band of broken men who’d captured us. They took us to Duncreag, the MacNab stronghold in the next glen.”
“Aye, I remember.” Alasdair did.
It rankled to know Kendrew often received accolades for his heroics.
Tales still circulated of the night Kendrew had led his soot-and-peat-smeared warriors—night-walkers they called themselves—up to Duncreag’s ramparts. They’d faced formidable odds, scaling a sheer rock face even steeper than Nought’s worst cliffs. Bards praised the Mackintoshes, claiming no other men could’ve climbed to the inaccessible stronghold. Yet Kendrew and his warriors had passed through the night darkness unseen, gaining the gatehouse before the miscreants who’d overtaken the castle even knew they’d been set upon.
The slaughter that followed, and the rescue of the two women, was now legend.
Even some of the younger MacDonald warriors enjoyed hearing the tale.
Alasdair’s ears would shrivel if he was ever again made to suffer through the telling.
If he’d known in time, he and his men could’ve hastened to Duncreag and saved the women even more swiftly than Kendrew had done. They would’ve also seen justice served for old Archie MacNab, ridding h
im of the miscreants who’d invaded his home and murdered his sons.
But Alasdair hadn’t known.
Kendrew had. Always looking for glory, he’d stormed off to the MacNab’s remote glen, rescuing Marjory and Lady Isobel almost singlehandedly.
The rankling in Alasdair’s gut worsened, leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
Lady Isobel was still speaking. He’d barely heard a word.
“The broken men…?” He seized the last scrap of her words.
“They were that, belonging to no clan.” She glanced at Kendrew, but he only took another bite of his bannock, munching sourly. “Ralla the Victorious was the leader. He and his men killed nearly everyone at Duncreag, almost the entire garrison. They spared only a few children to be sold as slaves, and the old laird. “They wouldn’t have let him live much longer.” She shivered, her gaze meeting Alasdair’s. “There have always been rumors of treasure at Duncreag. Ralla hoped to force Archie to reveal the hoard’s whereabouts.”
“Bah!” Kendrew slid an annoyed look at his dog, his frown turning even blacker when the beast rested his head on Alasdair’s thigh. “There aren’t any riches at the MacNabs’ and ne’er has been. Duncreag has more stone and wind than Nought. That’s all a man will find there. It’s a place for those who like thin air and cold, bare hills. Duncreag makes Nought look like a spring meadow.”
Leaning forward, he held Alasdair’s eye. “Their bards made up the hoard years ago because suchlike sounds good in a song.”
Lady Isobel’s brow pleated, but she continued. “Grim and some of our Nought warriors are there now. They’re training the young MacNabs so Duncreag will have a new garrison.” She paused, ran a finger around the edge of her wine chalice. “The MacNabs—”
“Are a clan o’ poets and scribes.” Kendrew’s tone revealed his opinion of such men. “Ne’er did have fighting in them. Why else would a craven like Ralla choose Duncreag to quarter his foul band?”
“Perhaps because the stronghold is nearly impregnable, sitting higher than an eagle’s aerie?” Alasdair couldn’t resist the argument.
Seduction Of A Highland Warrior Page 10
