“A vision?” Her mother’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?”
“Just what you think.” Gelis tossed back her hair, excitement making her heart pound. “I have your taibhsearachd. Who would’ve guessed, as there’s been no sign of it until now, but it came over me when I was walking on the shore. At first I was terrified because everything went black and I thought I was going blind. But it was a vision, just like yours.”
She paused, trying to ignore that her father’s left-eye twitch was starting up. “It happened quickly. I’d been watching this raven, circling above the loch, and suddenly he flew right at me, wrapping his wings —”
“Good God!” Her father’s brows nearly hit the ceiling. “A raven?” He threw a glance at her mother and Sir Marmaduke. “Are you certain? Sure you didn’t fall asleep on the strand and dream this?”
“Gelis? Asleep on the strand?” Sir Marmaduke shook his head in mock confusion. “For all the years I’ve known her, getting her to sleep at all has been a trial.” He gave her father a sage, all-knowing stare. “You’d best heed her words, my friend. They do give the matter an interesting twist.”
“An interesting twist.” Duncan flashed him a glare. “No one asked your vaunted opinion, Sassunach. I say she was dreaming. Or she imagined it.”
“Stop it, both of you.” Linnet stepped between them. She spoke calmly, her composure recovered. “Twists and turns in life usually happen for a reason.”
Duncan snorted. “If there is a reason, it canna be a good one.”
Linnet’s gaze lit on a rolled parchment on the floor rushes beside his vacated chair. “For good or ill, we have yet to judge. That there is a connection, I’ve no doubt.”
“Is this the missive with my marriage offer?” Gelis snatched the scroll off the floor, almost dropping it when the smooth parchment snapped around her fingers, seeming to grip her hand. “I — oooh!” She jerked, the dangling wax seal brushing against her wrist, its touch sending flickers of heat across her flesh.
Just enough to let her know that the scroll did indeed have something to do with the raven.
She doubted anyone else could infuse a mere piece of parchment and a bit of melted wax with so much power.
The notion made her tingle, and in places and ways wholly inappropriate for the circumstances.
Well aware that her cheeks were flaming, she set the parchment on the table, then smoothed her palms on the damp folds of her skirts. Even then, the prickling little tingles remained, tiny licks of flame streaking up her arms and spilling clear down to her toes.
“So you do know,” her mother was saying, watching her intently. “Did you speak with the MacRuari courier in the hall, then?”
“No, Arabella told me.” Gelis shivered, the strange prickles reminding her of how she’d felt when her future love-mate stepped through the shimmering gap in her vision’s mist, no longer a raven, but the most dashing, compelling man she’d ever seen. She looked at her mother, her father, and her uncle, wondering if they could hear the thunder of her heart.
Sense her excitement.
“So he’s a MacRuari.” She made the words a statement. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Would that you needn’t now.” Her father started pacing, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. “I would give anything to prevent this union, lass. Anything I own.”
“But not your honor.”
He shot a look at her, a hard glitter in his eyes that she’d seen only when he’d been about to go warring. “There will be safeguards, ne’er you worry. I may be honor-bound to accept this offer, but once I have agreed, I am freed of my obligation.” He paused, his expression not even softening when Telve shuffled over and leaned against his legs. “Thereafter, if even a shade of harm comes to you, I will see the Raven and Clan MacRuari wiped off the face of the Highlands.”
“The Raven?” Gelis almost forgot to breathe. “The man who offered for me is called the Raven?”
Her father jerked a nod.
“The man you are to wed, yes,” her mother clarified. “His given name is Ronan MacRuari. The offer came from his grandfather, Valdar, the MacRuari chieftain. Your father’s connection to this man is the reason he can’t object to the marriage. You’ll understand once he’s explained.”
But rather than enlightening her, his jaw went tighter and his mouth compressed into a firm, hard line.
“You must tell her, my friend.” Crossing the room, Sir Marmaduke offered him a brimming cup of uisge beatha. “She deserves to know.”
Duncan snatched the cup and dashed the fiery Highland spirits onto the floor rushes. Slamming the empty cup onto the table, he glowered at his friend. “How would you tell one of your daughters she’s to wed the scion of such a blighted clan? A family so scourged ’tis said the sun even fears to shine into their glen?”
Sir Marmaduke stared right back at him. “ ’Tis simple. I would start at the beginning.”
“ ’Tis simple.” Duncan’s eyes flashed. “Were that so, think you I would be so wroth? Telling the tale from the beginning or starting with the arrival of the offer makes nary a difference. The chance of harm is the same.”
“You’re fashing yourself for naught. I won’t be harmed.” Gelis was sure of it. “Whatever darkness surrounds his clan, the Raven won’t let anything happen to me. I know that from the vision I had on the lochside. Ronan MacRuari isn’t a fiend. He’s a man whose soul is aching. He needs me. And he wants me. He’ll treat me —”
“He’ll treat you with all the chivalry and respect a man owes his lady wife.” Duncan started pacing again. “I ne’er said he’s a fiend. And his grandfather, Valdar, has more honor and heart than any man I’ve ever known. Excepting one.” He tossed a look across the room to where Sir Marmaduke once again lounged against the table. “Be that as it may, there are unspeakable dangers at Castle Dare. The MacRuaris are not fiends. What they are is cursed.”
“Then they need someone to uncurse them.” Gelis plucked a drying strand of seaweed off her skirts, twirling it around her fingers. “I have reason to believe that someone is me.”
Duncan scowled at her. “Dinna make light of dark deeds that stretch back to a time when these hills were young. For centuries, every MacRuari — or those close to them — who thought he could rise above the curse fell to a tragic end. And if he survived, his remaining days were so plagued with horror that he wished he had died.”
“I see.” Gelis tossed the bit of seaweed into the hearth fire. “That does rather change things.”
Duncan cocked a brow, looking skeptical.
Her mother appeared relieved. “If you desire, I’m sure we can find a way to decline the offer,” she said, glancing at her husband. “Old ties or nae.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Dropping into her father’s hearthside chair, Gelis settled herself, making ready for a long, comfortable sit. “I am not afraid of the MacRuari curse and I certainly do want to marry the Raven.”
Linnet’s brow furrowed. “But you just said —”
“I meant that, hearing all this, I can’t just ride off to wed the man as I was fully prepared to do.” Leaning back in the chair, she smiled. “What I meant was that I now need to learn everything I can about the clan and their curse before I meet the Raven. Only then can I help him.”
“Help him?” Her father looked as if the two words tasted of ash.
“So I have said.” Gelis smiled. “And I can only do that if you tell me the tale. All of it and from the beginning, just as Uncle Marmaduke suggested.”
As she waited for her father to begin, she strove not to appear smug. But it was hard. Difficult, too, to smother the laugh bubbling in her throat. Gelis MacKenzie, the Devil’s own daughter, afraid of ancient curses and dark glens. Hah!
Truth was, she was anything but afraid.
She was eager.
Days later and many leagues distant, in a dark and still corner of Kintail, Ronan — the Raven — MacRuari lit the wall torches in his bedc
hamber, his mood worsening when the additional light failed to banish the room’s shadows. A good score of fine wax candles burned as well, as did a particularly fat hearth log, its crackling, well-doing flames only underscoring the futility of such measures.
At least here at Castle Dare.
His family’s home since time uncounted and a place so blighted that even a candle flame burned inward, keeping its light and warmth to itself and letting the castle residents shiver in the gloom.
A plague and botheration so vexing he burned to tear down the entire stronghold, stone by accursed stone. The saints knew, the reasons for doing so were beyond counting. Unfortunately, so were the circumstances that made him banish the thought as quickly as it’d come.
Clenching his fists, he closed his mind to the blackness and glowered at the thick gray mist floating past the windows. Impenetrable and cloying, each billowing drift filled the tall, unshuttered arches, curling, fingerlike tendrils seeping over the stone ledges and into the room, penetrating just enough to annoy him.
Ronan set his jaw, his entire body tensing. Once, in younger years, he’d whipped out his sword with a flourish and leaped forward, lashing at the window-mist only to watch the cold, damp tendrils slither away over the sills like a swarm of writhing, translucent snakes.
Now he knew better.
All the massed steel in the Highlands couldn’t stand against such unholiness.
He bit back a curse, refusing to let the darkness win, even if a stony-faced mien was a notably hollow triumph. Unclenching his fists, he ran a hand through his hair, not surprised to catch the smell of rain in the air. Elsewhere in Kintail, he was sure, good folk were enjoying a fine autumn afternoon, a notion that squeezed his heart and caused a tight, pulsing knot to form in his gut.
He, too, would revel in standing on some mighty headland beneath a blue, cloudless sky, the wind fresh and brisk around him. Or, equally tempting, riding hard and fast along the edge of a sea loch, free of cares and curses, sun-blinded by the light glinting off the rippled water.
Light he meant to bring back to Castle Dare. If the sun had ever even touched its oppressive walls.
Which he sorely doubted.
What he didn’t doubt was his ability to break the curse.
His face still grim-set, he cast a glance at the iron-banded coffer across the room. It was time to put his plan into motion. But before he could stride over to the chest, the dust-covered receptacle of his traveling clothes, the door to his bedchamber flew open and his grandfather burst in, a wine-bearing wraith of a serving wench close on his heels.
“Ho, lad! I bring good tidings.” A big burly man, fierce-looking for all his shaggy, gray-shot hair, he swept past Ronan, his great plaid swinging about his knees, his long two-handed sword clanking against his side. He made straight for the windows, the mist-snakes retreating at his approach. “Pah! Do you see? Even they know when to cede defeat.”
Ronan resisted the urge to arch a brow. Seldom were the times the dread malaise didn’t withdraw when Valdar MacRuari entered a room.
Loved by his clan or nae, the old chieftain’s fearsomeness could chase the shadows off the moon.
“Well?” he boomed, proving it.
“Man or mist, ’tis a wise soul who recognizes the time to depart.” Ronan watched the last finger of mist slip over the window ledge. “I, too, have news —”
“Naught so joyous as mine.” His grandfather swelled his chest, then turned a bushy-browed look on the large-eyed serving lass hovering at his elbow. “If Anice will stir herself to pour our wine, we’ll drink to your good fortune.”
Ronan frowned.
The girl stood with her gaze on the windows, her hands shaking so badly, blood-red wine sloshed over the rim of the wine jug, staining her skirts.
Daughter of one of the cattle herders, she’d swoon of fright if she weren’t soon returned to her parents’ cot-house. It was a humble dwelling of turf, stones, and thatch on the outermost edges of MacRuari lands and far away enough to be spared the worst of Castle Dare’s shadows.
Taking the ewer from her, Ronan dismissed her with a nod. The instant she scurried from the room, he poured two measures of the potent wine and handed a cup to his grandfather. “Joyous will be that slip of a lassie when you tell her we no longer need her services.” His gaze steady on his grandfather, he took a sip of wine. “Even more joyous will be calling her back when I return. If everything goes to plan.”
“When you return?” Valdar’s brows flew upward. “My eternal soul, laddie, you canna be leaving. Not with your new bride set to arrive on the morrow.”
Ronan almost choked on his wine. “My new what?”
“Your new bride!” Valdar thundered, narrowing his most piercing stare on Ronan. “The maid you should’ve been wed to all along. I’ve fetched her for you.”
“Then you shall have to unfetch her.”
“I think not.” Valdar’s stare went stubborn. “You need her.”
Ronan scowled at him. “I needed Matilda. She is the one who should be at my side, still. Cecilia met sorrow and doom as my second wife. I’ll no’ have another.”
His grandfather snorted. Adjusting his sword’s wide, finely tooled shoulder-belt, he took a deep breath, clearly readying for a sparring match. “You’d barely grown a beard when you wed Matilda. She was comely, aye. A right fetching lassie. But she lacked the steel and wit for life at Dare. Your passion for her would’ve dimmed had she lived more than a few days beyond your wedding.”
A muscle twitched in Ronan’s jaw. “She should have lived and would have, had she not wed me. Cecilia —”
“Cecilia was a frail wee sparrow.” Valdar thrust out his chin, daring him to deny it. “There be some who say she is better off at peace than suffering the fevers that gripped her each winter.”
Ronan’s scowl deepened. “She died in childbed, no’ of a fever.”
“As do many women in these Highlands every day, God rest their sainted souls.”
“Cecilia was one too many.”
Going to the fire, Ronan tossed two rich black peat bricks onto the flames. Thinking, speaking about his two late wives cut off his breath and squeezed his innards as if a giant hand had suddenly reached up from hell to clamp a great white-hot fist around him.
“Showing me your back won’t change a thing.” His grandfather’s voice rose with all his lung power. “You, Castle Dare, and all within these walls need you wedded to a suitable bride. Only then will the darkness ebb.”
“Say you?” Ronan turned around, his temples throbbing so fiercely he wondered his head didn’t split in twain. “I say — again — I’ll no’ take a third wife.” Ignoring Valdar’s spluttering, he crossed the room and threw back the lid to his strongbox. “I’ve thought of my own way to rid Dare of its maladies.”
“Bah!” Valdar frowned at the travel gear in the opened coffer. “By hieing yourself off on some fool journey?”
“Nae, good sir, you err.” His own scowl equally daunting, Ronan lifted a folded cloak from the coffer and placed it on the bed. “ ’Tis no fool’s journey, but a purposeful one. Since my father’s passing, Maldred the Dire’s curse has centered on me. I mean to —”
A sound very like thunder rumbled in Valdar’s chest. “Maldred ne’er cursed Dare. He —”
Ronan snorted. “The man was an archdruid and a sorcerer. His wickedness and dark deeds have marked and overshadowed every MacRuari since his day. It scarce matters if he spoke the curse or nae, the result is the same.”
“Which is why you must wed a fiery, handsome lass with enough spirit and vigor to banish Maldred’s influence.” His grandfather snatched the cloak off the bed and tossed it back into the strongbox. “Such a bride will bring light back to Dare, lessening Maldred’s hold. If you come to love her, the shadows will fade. I am certain of it. Even the blackest powers can be conquered by love.”
“Spare me such nonsense.” Ronan retrieved his travel cloak and returned it to the bed. “I have loved.
I loved Matilda passionately, as well you know. And dinna tell me there hasn’t been love at Dare since Maldred’s day.” He flashed a look at Valdar. “I may be cursed, but I’m no dimwit.”
“To be sure there’s been love.” His grandfather bristled. “I cared deeply for your grandmother, and your father loved your mother. But not enough to challenge Dare’s darkness. Arranged marriages rarely bring the kind of passion that sets the heather ablaze.”
“Yet you believe a third such union for me will burn so hotly?” Ronan took an extra sword belt from his strongbox and began rolling it into a tight coil. “Do you not hear the contradiction in your own words?”
Valdar’s eyes lit with a conspiratorial glint. “My informants claim your new bride’s fire would scorch the sun.”
“I do not have a new bride. Nor will I accept one.” Ronan set a wineskin on the bedcovers, next to his coiled belt. “Further, rumor has it that where I am going, there are women keen enough to rock the hills should I feel such a need.”
His grandfather considered him. “And where might that be?”
“Santiago de Compostela. Once I’ve knelt at the shrine of Saint James and collected my scallop-shell badge, I am certain Maldred will plague us no more. Even he would recognize the power of such a token.” The truth of it flashed down Ronan’s spine. “Tangible proof I made the journey and prayed for our family’s redemption. No shrine badge is holier than Saint James’s scallop. The dark forces here will recoil —”
“Och, is that so?” Valdar wriggled his eyebrows. “I say you’re blethering nonsense. ’Tis the MacKenzie lass’s fire you need. Naught else!”
Ronan flipped back his plaid and folded his arms. “Should I wish a desirable woman’s heat, the return journey through Spain and France will provide ample opportunity.”
“Begad!” Valdar wagged a finger. “You needn’t travel clear across the world to rid us o’ Maldred. I’m a-telling you, your new bride shines so bright, her mere presence will send his darkness packing. I know it here.” He paused, pounding a fist against his heart. “Gelis MacKenzie —”
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 4
