“Ah, lass, d’ye no’ see what this means?” His voice was thin, shaky. She had never seen him like this. “Ye could choose for your husband among the most powerful men in England or France.”
It took her full second to comprehend his words. Her heart soared. She placed a hand on his muscled forearm. “Nay. There is only one man for me, and he is neither French nor English.”
He fixed his sapphire gaze on her, one hand closing over hers.
“And our marriage would bring him everything he’s ever wanted—lands, riches, a titled lady for his bride.” At least she could give him that. Small compensation for what she had yet to tell him.
His face softened and a half smile graced the corner of his mouth. He knelt and retrieved the crumpled parchments from the floor where they had fallen, forgotten, in their struggle.
“I dinna want a titled lady for my bride.”
“Don’t you?”
“Nay,” he breathed. “’Tis a stablemaster’s daughter I love. And it’s her I’ll wed. Her and no other.”
He looked at her, his eyes an ocean into whose depths she longed to cast herself, and she knew then there could be no more secrets between them.
“Iain, there is more.” She took the parchments from him and unfurled them. Placing the Scottish missive on top of the other, she thrust them back into his hands. “Read it.”
He scanned the document written in John Grant’s hand. His eyes widened. She watched him, waiting, for what seemed an eternity, her heart balled in her throat.
And then slowly his face turned to stone.
Chapter Seventeen
Nothing in the whole of his life had shocked him more than what was written on that parchment.
“Grant’s…daughter,” he breathed.
“Aye, but I knew it not until just this day.” Alena retrieved the plaid from the floor and wrapped it around her.
One look at the grief in her eyes and he knew she told the truth. Iain rolled the missives together and set them on a nearby table. “So, then, Reynold and ye…Ye are…” Christ, he couldn’t get the words out.
“Cousins.” She looked away, and he did not blame her. Had he more presence of mind, he would have concealed from her his first reaction. God’s truth, he wasn’t sure what he felt.
“By marriage,” she said. “Not true cousins.”
A hundred odd thoughts occurred to him. The one he could not ignore was a question. What to do now?
“Come.” She offered her hand, tentatively, as if she wasn’t certain he would take it. He did. How could he not? “Sit down on the bed,” she said, “and I will tell you all I know.”
And she did. And he listened, and he believed.
“What now?” he said.
“Mayhap I can use my position to help my clan. Reynold has done them much harm.” She looked up at him, her green eyes luminous and catlike in the fire’s glow. For a moment Iain feared what he saw there. “Do you understand?” she whispered.
“Aye.” But he didn’t. What could she mean to do? “Nay, I—I’m no’ sure.”
His thoughts whirled in his head like some mad dervish. He grasped her hands and squeezed them in his. ’Twas then he realized she was trembling.
Christ, he was a fool! She didn’t wish to leave him. She needed him. Now, more than ever. And he didn’t intend to fail her. Suddenly his mind was clear.
“Aye,” he said. “I do understand. And whatever needs doing, we will do it. Together.”
“Do you mean that?” Her face lit up.
“Aye, I swear it.”
She threw her arms ’round him and pulled him down on top of her on the bed.
As she peppered his face with kisses, he was distracted by the weight of another promise he had made and also intended to keep. But for now, for tonight, he would push all thought of it from his mind. He stripped the plaid from her body and lost himself in her love.
Hours before dawn, Iain dressed then sat lightly on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. Alena stirred under the furs. Gently, he grazed the dove-soft skin of her cheek. Their second coupling had been tender, replete with emotion. ’Twas as if, though unspoken, they understood the fragility of their newly forged bond.
Love welled inside him, constricting his throat and stinging his eyes, as he watched her emerge from that deep lovers’ sleep they’d shared after their bodies had exhausted themselves in the giving.
Her eyes fluttered open, and he leaned down to kiss her on the mouth. “I must go,” he whispered, brushing his thumb across her lower lip.
She wrinkled her brow, frowning, and pushed herself up in the bed. “Where?”
“To Findhorn Castle to join my clan.”
She threw the furs off and scrambled to the edge of the bed. “Nay, you cannot go! You must not!”
In the dim light of the near-exhausted hearth fire he thought her the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her wild hair cascaded from her shoulders, a golden waterfall through which her rosy nipples peaked. Her face was radiant, sleepy, and he couldn’t help but cup her chin in his hands.
“Ah, ye dinna know how ye tempt me, love, to stay here with ye under the furs.” He kissed her softly then rose from the pallet in search of his weapons.
As he adjusted his plaid and donned his broadsword, she quickly dressed and slipped on her shoes. “I’m going with you, then,” she said.
Iain suppressed a smile. “Nay, ye canna. ’Tis too dangerous. Ye will remain here. Safe. I’ll leave Will and Drake with ye, and at first light they’ll take ye back to Braedûn Lodge. Stay there until I return for you.”
“But, what will happen? The alliance—Will all the Chattan support you?” Her expression was tight with concern.
He pulled her into his embrace to comfort her. “I canna be certain of their aid. They will come, but I dinna know what they will do.”
She knotted her fingers in the front of his plaid. “But without them Reynold’s army will cut you down!”
Her voice caught and he pulled her closer, pressing her head to his chest. “Mayhap, but I must go all the same.”
She choked back a sob, small fingers digging into his chest. He stroked her back and whispered words of love into her ear, trying to calm her.
Abruptly she pulled away from him and caught his hands in hers, her face alight, her eyes wide. “The dagger! The jeweled dirk! You have not told me how, but ’twill help you to gain their support, will it not?”
God’s truth, in the flurry of the past two days, his only thought to save her from Reynold’s treachery, he’d forgotten the weapon entirely. “Aye, it would. But I must do without it. There’s no time.” He squeezed her hands, then turned to leave.
She stopped him at the cottage door. “Iain, what will you do?” His back was to her and her voice was a whisper, almost chilling, sending a shiver up his spine.
He couldn’t look at her. “Ye know full well what I must do—reclaim my lands, my castle, avenge my father’s murder, or die in the trying.” Her small hand gripped his elbow, and he fought the urge to turn and sweep her into his arms. “’Tis been my whole life—all I’ve lived for these long years.”
Until now.
He tripped the door latch and stepped outside, bracing himself against the chill night air. He knew she followed, but he wouldn’t allow himself to look back. His men were already assembled, his mount waiting.
She pushed past him and positioned herself between him and his steed. “For the actions of one man, you would wage war on an entire clan? My clan?”
The moon had set and in the dark he could barely make out her features, but her trembling voice betrayed her anger and her fear. He hardened his heart. “It canna be helped.”
“It can be helped! You must not do it, Iain. Hundreds will die, and for what? One man’s honor?”
“Nay! For the honor of a people—my clan—for those kinsmen who buried their dead on that day and were lucky enough to escape Reynold’s bloodletting. No thanks to me,” he added
quietly.
“You were a boy, a lad of twelve. What could you have possibly done?”
He grasped her waist and strained to see her face in the blackness. “Perhaps nothing. But there’s much I can now do. And do it I will.”
“Then you will be no better than him.”
“So be it,” he whispered, and pushed her aside. He mounted the stallion but she grabbed the bridle, staying his departure. “I will avenge my father and my kinsmen. I canna rest ’til ’tis done.”
He reached down and blindly felt for her, his hand coming to rest on the side of her face. “Ah, lass, I dinna wish to wage war against innocent men. Only too well do I know of the waste and misery it brings. But, Alena, ye must understand—I am no’ a fit leader for my clan ’til Reynold Grant’s blood runs hot from my sword.”
He felt her hand light on his knee. She gripped it hard. “Promise me, Iain,” she whispered. “Promise me you will not start this thing.”
“I canna, love. ’Tis already begun—eleven years ago when Reynold killed my father whilst I stood by, helpless, and watched him do it.”
Her hand dropped away. He grazed her cheek and brushed his fingers lightly over her lips. She didn’t move and he perceived her coldness, her sense of his betrayal.
He felt as if his heart had been wrenched from his chest and smote in two, half of it cast before her feet and the other pitched headlong toward war.
“God keep ye, lass,” he murmured in the dark, and reined his mount toward Findhorn.
Alena closed the cottage door behind her and collapsed against the rough timbers. That was it, then. ’Twas over, and all that had passed between them these last weeks—suspicion, doubt, rediscovery, their passion and their love— ’twas all for naught.
She closed her eyes against the sting of tears and dug her nails into the splintered bark. What would she now do? Flee to Braedûn Lodge and wait for Iain’s return? If he returned at all. What a homecoming that would be—his sword rank with the blood of her kinsmen, his eyes glazed with the frenzy of the kill. She’d seen men so before and shuddered to think of her beloved thus possessed. And what, then? He would ask her to wed him after he’d murdered her people?
Or, perhaps, ’twould be Reynold who would come for her with Iain’s blood on his hands. Her cousin would hack them down like saplings beneath the battle-ax, and beat a trail of murder and carnage across the Highlands to her very door.
Jesu, was there no other solution?
She lifted the deerskin window cover and peered out into the darkness. All was quiet again, the only sounds the fidgeting of the three horses who remained and the rhythmic breathing of the two warriors Iain had left behind to escort her back to Braedûn Lodge. Will and Drake lay bundled in their plaids, huddled shapes in the blackness beside the cold campfire.
She dropped the deerskin cover back into place.
The parchment proclaiming her John Grant’s daughter lay on the table where Iain had left it. She stuffed it into her pocket and moved silently to the door. Her hand on the latch, she paused, considering the rash move she was about to make. What else could she do? She cracked the door and slipped outside.
Moving slowly, she approached the three mounts tethered at the edge of the clearing, not twenty feet from where the warriors slept. Destiny was closest to her, set off from the other horses because of his ill temper.
She crept to the stallion’s side, untied him from the laurel, then paused, glancing back at the bundled shapes by the fire ring. Stock-still, she stood there listening, straining her eyes to see in the darkness. Nothing stirred and the warriors slept on, oblivious to her.
Iain would have Will’s head over this—Drake’s, too—but it couldn’t be helped. She must go.
She pulled herself onto Destiny’s back and directed him into the wood. Fortunately the ground was damp, allowing them to move silently, deeper into the forest. When she was certain they were out of earshot of the cottage, she spurred Destiny into a trot.
’Twas pitch-dark and she could see little save the general shape of the land and the outlines of trees and large boulders. Destiny seemed unperturbed by the blackness and increased his pace. The air was cold and still. A few pinpoint stars peeked through the midnight canopy of larch and laurel. The predawn sky was a deep azure-black, the color of Iain’s eyes in the moonlight. She leaned forward, pressed her face close to the stallion’s neck, and whispered his name.
She knew where she was going and what she must do.
Northeast she reined the stallion, back toward Glenmore Castle. She was the best rider in the Highlands and Destiny the swiftest mount. If anyone could do it, she could. She urged Destiny into a gallop and they raced ahead toward dawn.
Hours later, perspiring and breathless, Alena reined the black to a halt beside a small brook. The dead-white light of morning lay on the wood like a cold shroud. Larks and wood finches warbled their new-day songs. While the black slaked his thirst she scanned the line of the brook as it snaked its way up a hillock. The trees grew thick near the top where a jumble of rocks gave rise to a small waterfall.
This was the place.
Leading Destiny, she climbed to the crest where the rushing cascade of water drowned out the melody of the birds. At the top she veered left and followed the edge of the thicket along the ridge line. It had been years since she’d come here, and the path that once had marked the entry to the copse had disappeared, buried under seasons of autumn leaves.
The trees had grown tall and thick. A tangle of heather and gorse lay at their feet, choking off entry. She narrowed her eyes, scanning the treeline. Aye, there they were.
Two gorse bushes, taller now and so thick they’d grown almost together, framed the entrance to the copse. Destiny would be fine here tied to a tree. She ducked under the tangle of bushes and, after pulling her hair free, stood upright and caught her breath.
’Twas the same! Every tree, every stone—but smaller, somehow. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled; she felt suddenly chilled. The sheen of perspiration that had warmed her during the ride now turned her skin clammy. She rubbed her arms through the woolen gown.
Eleven years.
She felt as if ’twas just yesterday she and Iain had played here. She took a step forward and her gaze slid sideways to a tall, stout larch. She laughed suddenly and her chill subsided, replaced by a warmth radiating from deep in her belly.
’Twas the very same tree Iain had used as an archery target when they were children. She walked up to it and stroked its rough surface. The smooth white bark was riddled with scars from the hundreds of arrows Iain had loosed into it.
She drew a deep breath, the air redolent with warm, green memories. Her heart soared momentarily with the love she had felt for the boy, now man, warrior and laird.
Her gaze came to rest, at last, on the wide spot near the brook where she’d discovered him sleeping that last morning. Her inner joy faded as she knelt and pressed her palms into the cool, damp earth.
The gurgling of the brook lulled her into a kind of peace. She let her thoughts wander, recalling that day. ’Twas here she’d crafted for Iain the lovers’ knot, the circlet of child’s hair, chestnut and gold. Tears stung her eyes and emotion, raw and powerful, welled inside her when she thought of him carrying it all those years.
’Twas more than a simple token of affection. She knew that now. Perhaps she’d always known it. ’Twas the symbol of their destiny, their love, their strength and unfailing loyalty. She closed her eyes against the tears and dug her nails into the earth.
’Twas here she’d tried to comfort him—the boy whose life had been shattered, whose soul had been destroyed by murder, carnage and a treachery she still did not understand.
’Twas here he’d spoken the words. I will return—for you and for this. The Grants will pay. I willna rest until my father is avenged—until every last one of them is dead.
She could help him, now, though it meant risking all. She loved him, and now she must trust him to
do what was right and honorable.
She pulled her dirk from its sheath and dug in the soft earth near the brook. Eleven years. Who knew if it was still here in the place where she’d buried it? Eleven winters of snow and ice, and the turbulent waters of spring.
She cast the dirk aside and dug with her hands, scooping earth from the unmarked grave. After a minute her fingers grazed something sharp and she paused, peering into the hole. Splinters of wood stood out against the black soil. Feeling her way, she found the edges of—Aye, the box!
“’Tis still here!”
She grasped it and, as she tried to lift it out, the wood shattered in her hands, rotten from long years in the wet ground. She brushed away the debris to reveal the tattered remnants of what was once a cloth—the Mackintosh tartan, now black with decay—a strip cut from Iain’s own plaid.
The rotten wool disintegrated in her fingers as she carefully unwrapped the crude bundle. There it was. The dark and terrible treasure long hidden—the one thing that, for better or for worse, might turn the tide of war.
With trembling hands she lifted the jeweled dagger from its shallow grave. The blade was long and hideous, brilliant still but for the rusted evidence of blood, spilled that night at Findhorn Castle.
But whose blood was it?
Whose dirk?
Iain knew, and if this thing would somehow help him to withstand Reynold’s might, then, by God, she would take it to him.
She held it high, turning it in her hands, marveling at the wealth of gemstones embedded in the finely crafted hilt of silver and gold. The first shaft of sunlight broke, radiant, through the trees and the gemstones exploded into a brilliant dance of color and light dazzling to the eye.
“Jesu,” she breathed and lifted the weapon higher still, her gaze following the intricate pattern of sapphire, ruby and emerald.
So mesmerized was she, she ignored Destiny’s snorts and the sound of hoofs tamping the soft earth, all muffled by the gurgling of the brook and the roaring in her own head.
The stallion’s high-pitched cry of distress jolted her from her stupor. She whirled on her knees toward the entrance to the thicket, brandishing the jeweled dagger before her.
The Mackintosh Bride Page 23
