Unlike Lady Mirabelle, he wasn’t keen on meeting spirits.
But a man should be a man always, even in the face of the long-departed. Like as not, he’d discover that the shrieking banshee was only an owl.
So he kept on, carefully picking his way through the knee-high grass and around broken graves.
He was almost upon a split grave slab that raged up out of the weeds like a crooked, beckoning finger. It was the stone that hid the two glowing white orbs when they weren’t popping up from behind the slab’s angled, age-pitted surface to shine through the mist.
At once, the orbs loomed into view.
“God’s wounds!” His eyes rounded. He could scarce believe what he was seeing, but there could be no mistaking the bright white forms. Or that they moved with a steady, bouncing rhythm, as if dancing.
Sorley shuddered, half worried that if he took another step he might be swept back in time, finding himself in an older, darker age, right in the midst of a pagan ceremonial circle.
He knew suchlike held human sacrifices.
He also knew they enjoyed orgies, an activity he wouldn’t have minded.
But he wanted nothing to do with Druids’ darker rituals.
Still…
If Lady Mirabelle was man enough to chase after the pink lady, he could take the last few steps across the grassy ground to the broken grave slab.
A strangled noise rose from behind the stone before he could. It was a sound he recognized. He’d made the same noise often enough, always when on the edge of a thunderous release.
“Ahhhh… Aye, lass, aye…” a man’s deep voice lifted to the night, confirming his guess.
Sorley nearly choked, trying to hold back his laughter.
Just then, the mists thinned enough for him to get a better look at the two glowing white orbs. There was nothing mysterious about them at all. They were the white-gleaming buttocks of a naked man.
A lusty sort, to be sure. And one who was enjoying himself immensely.
That, too, Sorley knew with surety because the soft sighing he’d believed to be wind through the grass was none other than the excited gasps of a woman on the verge of her own stunning climax.
Sorley’s lips twitched and he felt a surge of manly camaraderie with the fellow responsible for giving the wench such pleasure. Her breathless pants indicated her lover was highly skilled.
A quick tryst on a cold, misty night and in a place of ancient legend wasn’t a bad idea.
Sorley might have to try it himself if he could persuade one of his favorite bed partners into risking damp grass and nettle stings.
This night, he’d leave such joys to the fun-seeking pair.
Deeming they deserved their privacy, he started backing away, hoping to leave as quietly as he’d arrived.
One, two, three steps, he made with ease.
Then the rustling behind the slanting grave slab became louder, a touch more frenetic. Sorley froze again, not wanting to disturb a special moment.
He did smile for them.
“O-o-oh, Lyall, I knew you loved me,” came the woman’s shuddery gasp as she no doubt reached her peak. “And I love you! Only you, Lyall. Oh, o-o-oh…”
Sorley’s smile faded as dark, simmering annoyance twisted his gut.
He knew Lyall.
There was only one man by that name at Stirling. He was a good-looking, strapping lad who worked in the stables. More randy than a rutting stag, Lyall tupped as many lasses a night as he could. Some claimed every hour, though Sorley knew that was kitchen blether. It was also rumored Lyall exerted no effort in attracting his conquests. A crook of his finger was enough, a glance, or a suggestive smile that, by all accounting, drew women almost magically.
Sorley knew such tricks.
He was also aware that while Lyall’s name meant loyal, the lad aye forgot the lasses even before he flipped their skirts back down.
Sorley pulled a hand over his chin as he looked up at the cloud-torn sky. Lyall’s lusty adventures didn’t concern him. The lad’s hot-bloodedness and his apparently unquenchable thirst for landing between a woman’s thighs were none of his business. Still, an oath rose in Sorley’s throat and he bit it back, frowning.
Wasn’t he guilty of the same transgressions? Hadn’t he tumbled more women than he could begin to count, much less remember?
Still, there was a difference.
He never let them believe he loved them.
If they ever mentioned the word, or gave him the impression they even thought it, he backed away, never to seek their company again.
He aye made clear his amorous activities were all about the physical release and pleasure.
No more, no less.
The poor lass beneath Lyall’s thrusting hips thought the lad cared for her.
Even now, she was panting more words of love. They stung Sorley’s ears as he hastened through the little pagan burial ground. He no longer cared if the pair heard him, knew they’d been observed.
Devils rode him. Hell fiends that stabbed his back with spears of flaming agony, dredging up hurts he preferred to keep hidden deep down in his soul.
But they weren’t there now.
Every last one was clawing its heinous way upward, reminding him of the heartless man who’d sired him. Sorley knew the scoundrel was of the same ilk as Lyall-who-raked-muck-from-horse stalls and allowed hapless, trusting kitchen wenches to fall in love with him.
The only difference was that he remained certain his father hadn’t been a Stirling man.
He’d bet his sword, his most prized possession, that the blackguard was a Highland chieftain.
He had always felt that in the pit of his gut.
Such feelings never lied.
He didn’t either. Well, except in Fenris matters, and then only for the greater cause of the King’s will and desire, and Scotland’s own weal.
So his demons bit hard as he made for the stair tower to his privy quarters. The orgiastic cries and lovesick words of Lyall’s latest tumble-mate followed him. The girl’s breathy pants and pathetic avowals of devotion plagued him more with each step he climbed up the winding stair. By the time he reached his landing and gained the refuge of his bedchamber, his night was well and truly ruined.
Kissing Mirabelle in the chapel had been disaster enough.
Being reminded of his nameless father and his callous deeds had given him the rest.
He wouldn’t think of the poor lass who’d soon realize her folly. Lyall wasn’t a lad worthy of a maid’s heart.
And love was nonsense to be avoided at all cost.
He doubted the like even existed.
Sure of it, he strode across his room—grateful that a servant had lit the wall sconces—and poured himself a healthy measure of uisge beatha, knocking down the fiery Highland spirits in one long gulp.
Perhaps he’d treat himself to another.
Descending into a senseless, mindless sleep appealed greatly. His demons were loose this night. He could feel their talons shredding his resistance, their fiery breath scorching his nape. They wanted blood and usually took a pound or two of flesh as well.
Sorley ignored their snarls and started undressing. He tossed his cloak over the arm of a chair beside his fireplace. His doublet followed, landing on the floor. Not caring, he shrugged out of his shirt, welcoming the room’s chill on his bared skin. Anger coursed through him, heating him from the inside out, and not in a pleasant way. He blazed as hotly as if someone had lugged the huge, double-arched kitchen hearth into his bedchamber, complete with a raging, bright-burning fire. And as he rid himself of the rest of his clothes and yanked off his boots, naked at last, he would’ve sworn he saw his demons dancing in the flames.
For once, he wasn’t of a mind to wrestle with them. The morrow would suffice.
He just hoped they didn’t follow him into his dreams.
Above all, he didn’t want to find Lady Mirabelle there.
Lifelong devils he could handle.
He’d been battling the beasties ever since he’d first learned the true meaning of bastard, what it meant not to have a father in a world where blood and lineage was everything. His devils were a plague, but he knew how to silence them. How to control the darkness he wouldn’t allow to invade his life, making him miserable.
He wasn’t sure what to do about Mirabelle, or, more specifically, what he should do about his feelings for her.
That they existed couldn’t be denied.
Furious that was so, he knocked down the remainder of his uisge beatha, not surprised he felt more like a caged beast than ever before in his life.
The question was how fast Lady Mirabelle could run if he couldn’t control his savage desires.
He hoped she wouldn’t be put to the test.
Sometime in the small hours, Sorley snapped out of a deep, uisge-beatha–inspired sleep, sure his plaguey demons were coming for him.
Fanglike teeth flashing, red eyes ablaze, and with their talonlike claws extended, they scratched at his bedchamber door. Clawing relentlessly, seeking entry so they could finally get their shriveled, leathery hands on him, at last claiming his black, sinful soul.
That he knew, sure as he breathed.
Yet.
Then the skull-splitting haze from too many cups of strong Highland spirits thinned just enough for him to hear the beasties’ clawing—tap, tap, tap—for what it really was: someone knocking at his door.
The raps were soft enough to scream stealth.
Whoever was out there, trying to waken him, didn’t wish to be seen.
And didn’t he know only one person who skulked about the castle so late at night, poking her pretty nose into places it didn’t belong?
How dare she come to his room again?
“Bluidy hell!” He threw back the covers and leapt from his bed.
Unfortunately, the first thing he then did was to trip over his discarded boot.
Tap, tap, tap!
The knocking turned more insistent.
Righting himself, he cursed again and stormed toward the door, bare-arsed as he was. If the sight of his free-swinging nakedness shocked her—which wasn’t likely, as she’d seen him thus before—so be it.
She deserved no better for disrupting his night’s rest.
As if his demons wished to disturb him, the wall sconces had guttered as he’d slept. Rarely had his room seemed so dark, so full of shadow and gloom. Even his night candle on the table beside his bed had gone out. In his fuzzy-headed state, he couldn’t see well and slammed his toe into an iron-bound chest near the door.
“Suffering saints!” He hopped on one foot, clutching his throbbing toe.
Outside, the tapping ceased.
“Och, nae, sweet,” Sorley growled, “you’re no’ sneaking away now.” He grabbed the latch, yanking open the door before she could flee. “What the bluidy—”
His jaw slipped, and he was stunned into silence to find Maili on the threshold.
“Sakes, lass!” He pulled her inside, closing the door behind her. He grabbed a plaid off a hook on the wall, slinging the tartan—a MacKenzie weave, as he admired that clan—around his hips, leaving his chest bare. “Can a man no’ have his sleep?”
“Think you I’d not rather be abed?” She moved deeper into the room, away from the door. She carried a small hand torch and set its tip to several of Sorley’s wall sconces, finally placing her torch in an iron hook near a window. “It’s been a long day and I’m tired.” She met his annoyed gaze, her own earnest. “William sent me.”
Sorley blinked. “Wyldes?”
“Himself it was, aye.” Maili stood beside his bed, her hands clasped before her.
Sorley shook his head, trying to scatter the last of the uisge beatha fumes. So this was why Maili had ridden back to Stirling with Mirabelle and her guard. The question was why the innkeeper had sent her.
William Wyldes did nothing without reason.
Sorley frowned. He was sure he wouldn’t like Maili’s tidings.
News that came in the wee hours was seldom good.
“I saw Wyldes this morn.” Sorley couldn’t help his querulous tone. “Is there a problem at the inn?”
“Not trouble, a visitor.” Maili dropped onto the edge of his bed, smoothing her skirts. “A man called in not long after you left. He came asking about you. William thought you should know.”
“Did the man say why he’s seeking me?”
“Not that I heard. William didn’t tell me if he knew.”
“Many men stop at the Red Lion.” Sorley leaned against the bedpost, considering. He also forced a casualness he didn’t feel, not wanting to alarm Maili.
“This wasn’t just any man, not a common wayfarer.” She lounged against his pillows, her expression anything but troubled.
Sorley’s instincts were on high alert.
Wyldes could smell a rat at a hundred paces. He’d think to have whiffed a monstrous one to have sent Maili to pester him in the middle of the night.
So he spoke plain. “I have my enemies, lass. Old ones with long memories and deeper grudges, new foes I make every day.” That was as close as he’d go to mentioning the Fenris. “Now and again suchlike surface to challenge me. Did this man give his name? Is he lodging at the inn? If so, I’ll head over to the Red Lion in the morning.”
He’d welcome a fight.
There was only one pastime he enjoyed more. And as that wasn’t possible, leastways not with the lady of his choice, he wouldn’t mind breaking the bones of whoever thought to call him out for a tussle.
He could think of no other reason for anyone to look for him.
“I’m not sure he’s an enemy.” Maili’s face softened, taking on the dreamy look she always wore when she fancied a man. “I do think he’s a warrior, though. He’s a great giant of a man with a thick mane of wild black hair and smoke-gray eyes. He has a beard, too, and wears silver rings braided into it. Ne’er have I seen the like…” Her eyelashes fluttered and she bit her lower lip, clearly smitten. “Handsome he is, in a fierce, hardened way. And he had an amulet hanging around his neck, a silver Thor’s hammer.”
Sorley fought the urge to snort.
He also bit his tongue rather than tell Maili he didn’t care if the man had the Norse god’s lightning bolts shooting out his arse.
“His name, lass, that’s all that interests me.” That wasn’t quite true.
From Maili’s description, he’d never met such a man. And that mystery caused an unpleasant tension to start building in his shoulders. He didn’t expect anything good to come of meeting the stranger. Though he would relish a fight if it came to one, and he suspected it would.
The man sounded like a mercenary, like as not, someone sent by one of his less stout-hearted foes. The kind of man who saw his might in coin rather than his sword arm. Sorley found paid fighters distasteful. He disliked their employers even more. Men should fight their own battles.
Maili was twirling a curl of her dark brown hair around her finger, her lips curved in a smile that could only be called besotted.
Sorley frowned. “He did give his name?”
“He’s Grim Mackintosh.” Maili leaned deeper into his pillows, linking her hands behind her neck. “He’s a Highlander from Nought territory in the Glen of Many Legends. A Highlander,” she enthused, saying the word as if such beings had winged ankles, walking without their feet touching the lowly ground.
Sorley’s mood darkened.
Once, he’d also been in awe of Highlanders. But that was long ago, back when he’d been a wee gullible lad and hadn’t yet learned how cruel such men could be. Hope had still beat in his boyish heart. Secretly, he’d believed his Highland chieftain father would come for him, whisking him away, making his world right, as they’d ride off to the distant hills he dreamed of and felt so drawn to.
That was then.
He was a boy no more.
These days any whiff of tartan put his back up, souring his mood and ruining his day.
There were a few exceptions.
King Robert’s brother, Alex, commonly known as the Wolf of Badenoch and as deserving of the name as a mortal man could be, stood in Sorley’s highest regard. It was Alex, more than his kingly brother, who truly steered the Fenris. A fearsome but great-hearted man, the Wolf also loved his wild hills and moors above everything and enjoyed nothing better than parading about court in full Highland regalia, his plaid and his pride proudly displayed.
Sorley also excluded MacKenzie plaids from his aversion to tartan. He held MacKenzies in grudging admiration because of their much-famed chieftain, Duncan, the Black Stag of Kintail. He couldn’t count the rousing tales spun about the man, or how often he’d heard it said that the Black Stag was even greater than his legend.
So sometimes he wore that clan’s blue-and-green tartan, simply because no one would dare tell him not to. He also did so in tribute, though he was not wont to admit it.
“Not many Highlanders visit the Red Lion.” Maili’s wistful tone reminded him he wasn’t alone.
He looked at her, found her twirling a tassel on one of his bed cushions. Her eyes were even dreamier than before. Whoever the Highlander was, he’d turned Maili’s head.
He still couldn’t place any Grim Mackintosh of Nought in the Glen of Many Legends.
“Nought, aye?” He had heard of the Mackintosh lands. “That’s said to be a godforsaken place, all rocky, jagged peaks, mist, and cold winds. Folk claim Nought is wild, remote, and so rugged only mountain goats and fools would dare set foot there. I ken no Nought men.”
He did envy them, deep in his heart.
That was a truth that scalded him to the bone. It also clamped around his chest, so tight the longing almost wrung the breath from him.
He could imagine the remote splendor. As a lad, he’d dreamt of belonging to a place like Nought. Somewhere carved of soaring, wind-beaten heights, deep gorges filled with cascading waterfalls, and high moors where the heather rolled on forever, the desolation so glorious it hurt the eyes to behold such grandness.
Sorley set his jaw against the images, pushing them from his mind.
If a Nought man—and a warrior, at that—had gone to William seeking him, it wouldn’t be to regale Sorley with the wonders of his home.
To Love a Highlander Page 16
