Something flickered in his dark eyes, a glint she caught because of the torchlight.
He said nothing, his silence hinting that she’d breached a sensitive matter.
“You must be thirsty.” She went to her table and poured two measures of ale. His hand brushed hers as he took the cup, the brief touch rippling up her arm, igniting her senses. “I can offer you stew as well.” She glanced at the cook pot where her dinner still simmered, delicious steam rising to join the room’s peat haze. “Fresh baked bannocks and cheese, a fine herring if that suits you better?”
She gestured to her low, three-legged stool, the only place to sit in the broch. “You can eat there, rest yourself.”
He didn’t move.
Instead, he took a long, slow sip of ale. “Perhaps later.”
He said no more and within moments, excepting his dog’s snores, the night wind and the hiss of the fire were the only sounds in the room. It was an uncomfortable quiet, rising to fill the dimness, even as his face shuttered. Mairi knew dark secrets swirled beneath his calm exterior. She sensed it so strongly her heart lurched. Whatever grieved him was a great sorrow.
He was also too attractive, dangerously so.
Especially for her, as she’d been alone so long.
She wasn’t the witch the good folk of Drumbell had accused her of being. But perhaps they were right in scolding her as a whore, a fallen woman unable to resist a man’s touch. The gods pity her, for she already desired this one’s hands on her. She didn’t dare look at his mouth too often. As things stood, such hot, potent need crackled between them that she was surprised it wasn’t visible.
She was truly her mother’s daughter. Born as she was to a too-young, too lusty, village lass who’d given her heart to the wrong man, losing not just her honor, but her life when she’d died birthing Mairi nine months later.
“I’ll no’ burden my chosen bride with my cares.” Gare broke the silence, crossing to the table to help himself to a second cup of ale. “It would no’ be fair to her, or any woman, to be tied to a man who’d rather spend his nights before the fire with his dog than entertain a lady wife.”
“You do not enjoy women?” Mairi couldn’t believe it.
No, she was shocked.
Rarely had she seen a more virile man. Just the way he moved spoke of caged passion, his dark, smoldering gaze marking him as a dangerously alluring man. Leastways for females who appreciated such men.
Women like her, she knew, her quickening pulse proving her folly.
“I cannot believe you have such troubles.” She spoke true, her gaze flicking over him from head to toe. “You do not look like the sort of man who-”
“Nor am I.” He set down his empty ale cup, started pacing. “I am no’ plagued by the problem you mean. No’ at all, my lady.” He shot a look at her, his own gaze raking her, the heat in his eyes proving his words. “I’ve simply pushed such matters from my mind these past years, in penance. For the same reason I carry a broken sword.”
He stopped beside the rent blade, his great physical presence and his proud warrior’s bearing so at odds with the sundered weapon.
“There are some deeds that can ne’er be put to right, my lady.” He closed his eyes for a moment, pulled a hand down over his face. “When such a burden is heavy enough, all a man can do is quit his debt in other ways. I chose to hermit myself at my home, Blackrock Castle, cutting myself off from pleasures and indulges I’d once enjoyed too greatly.”
“Including women, see you?” He started pacing again, a slight flush at his cheekbones showing how difficult it was for him to admit his plight. “My problem is no’ an inability to relish a woman, but the almighty guilt that I carry. I am no’ sure I can set it aside.”
“I see only that you’ve suffered.” Mairi went after him, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “Surely nothing can be so bad to merit such a severe denial?”
He turned, his dark gaze studying her, every slant of his face grim. “And I see why your fame as a miracle healer has spread across the land. You look beyond words and deeds, using your heart to peer into a man’s soul. Even so, you err with me, my lady.”
His mouth tightened to a hard line as something fierce and terrible flashed across his face. Then he glanced at Troll, his sleeping dog, and his expression cleared. Again, he pulled a hand down over his beard, drew a long, deep breath. When he turned back to her, Mairi knew she was about to hear what truly plagued him.
“I dinnae deserve thon beast’s companionship either,” he said, the pain in his voice making her heart wince. “But he belonged to someone I loved dearly and so I couldn’t abandon him when she died.”
“The dead woman is the reason you’ve monked yourself?” Mairi hadn’t meant to speak so plainly.
The words had simply leapt from her tongue, his nearness again disturbing her, his troubles bothering her in ways that weren’t wise.
She had her own sorrows.
Caring for a man would only worsen them.
“I am sorry.” She stepped back, brushed at her skirts, embarrassed. “I should not pry.”
He didn’t look offended. “How else can you help me?”
I am not sure that I can. Mairi didn’t answer aloud, feeling too badly for him to take his last vestiges of hope. She did go to the narrow wooden shelf on her wall, fetching two plain earthen bowls that she carefully began to fill with stew from her cook pot. She wasn’t hungry, but needed to occupy herself, to do anything to keep from standing so closely before him, wanting to take his hand and lead him to her bed, soothing and welcoming him the only way she knew.
Making love to him was exactly what she shouldn’t do.
For sure, not when he’d just told her how deeply he mourned a former lover.
“I can help you, sir, by seeing you do not sleep on an empty stomach.” She said the only thing she could, placing the bowls on her small somewhat rickety table. “You will eat and then I will make a pallet for you.”
She went back over to him and gripped his elbow, leading him to the table where she picked up a spoon and pressed it into his hand. “The stew is not much, but my bannocks are good.” She set a basket of them beside his bowl, nodding when he reached for one and took a bite.
“Aye, they are.” He finished the bannock quickly, dipping the last bit into his stew. “My sister was fond of bannocks, aye eating more than she should,” he told her, helping himself to another.
“She was the woman I spoke of, my sister, Eleanor.” He tucked into the stew, his gaze on hers. “She had nothing to do with why I chose to withdraw to Blackrock, shutting myself away from the world. She was simply a wonderful young woman I loved dearly and who left this life too soon. A fever took her, Troll and I were at her side as she went. So now he is mine, and he e’er shall be for I couldn’t bear to be parted from him.”
“Troll is an unusual name.” It was all Mairi could think to say. Mortification blazed inside her, shame that she’d spoken so bluntly, her guess so wrong.
“Why did she call him that?” She ate a bit of stew, hoped the awkwardness would soon pass.
“She didn’t. I named him.”
“You? Didn’t you say he was her dog?”
“Aye, he was.” He slid a look at the huge beast, still slumbering beside the fire. “I was the one who found him and Troll seemed a good name for he was living beneath a bridge, snarling and frightening wayfarers, earning the name with his fierceness.”
Mairi glanced at the dog, not surprised to see him pushing to his feet and trundling toward them. “He’s not fierce now.”
“Nor was he then.” Gare’s face warmed at the dog’s approach. “He was injured and starving. The gods only know what happened to him. Had anyone bothered to look, they’d have seen he was hurt and no ravening beast.”
Troll reached the table, leaning his bulk into Gare’s side. His hopeful gaze and thumping tail left no doubt that he wanted a treat.
Or that he knew he’d receive one.
&
nbsp; “He has you well trained.” Mairi watched as Gare tore a bannock in two, dipping half into his stew and then offering the tidbit to Troll.
“He is a good friend.” He rubbed the dog’s ears. “I would have kept him from the start, but he took a liking to Eleanor and wouldn’t leave her side. He was her greatest champion. I was away often, so Troll’s size and his fearsome reputation kept her safe. She was quite fetching and turned heads where’er she went. She aye saw the good in folk, believing nothing bad of anyone, so it didn’t hurt for her to have him with her, always. Troll kens if a soul is pure, or fouled.
“Many were the times he saved Eleanor from grief, his snarls and raised hackles warning if someone meant her harm.” He dunked another bannock into his stew, this time giving Troll the entire treat. “He misses her. We all do. She was mistress of Blackrock.”
“Ah, so there is another reason you want to marry.” Mairi set down her spoon. “It isn’t just about chipping the stone casing from your heart, or because the King’s Lieutenant has ordered you to take a bride, for the good of the realm. You need someone to run your household.”
He raised a brow, his dark eyes narrowing. “Can it be you dinnae like me?”
I am drawn to you in ways that aren’t wise. “I do not even know you.”
“Be glad that is so.” He patted Troll’s head, not looking at her.
“I cannot say why, and the fates know I shouldn’t care, but I do want to help you.” The words slipped from her lips before she could stop them.
Indeed, they’d almost formed themselves.
As if some strange magic had worked a spell on her tongue, making her say things she ought not.
“I am glad.” He was still petting his dog, his gaze not on her.
“Then you must tell me who the woman was that put such guilt on you.” Mairi couldn’t say how she knew, she just did. “If not your sister, then who hurt you so badly that you shun all other women since?”
“She didn’t hurt me.” He straightened. “I hurt her. She’s the reason I broke my sword. The last time I used it, its steel took her life.”
***
Drumbell Village
Later the same night.
“So you failed again?” Sorcha Bell stood before her cottage door, her eyes narrowed on the man before her. Once famed for her beauty and charm, and still a great healer, she didn’t suffer fools.
An inability to see her will done annoyed her even more.
She waved a hand at the nearby huddle of cottages, where a few cook fires glimmered through door openings and shuttered windows. “I’m thinking you wouldn’t have found the wench if she strolled right through Drumbell!”
“My regrets, great lady.” The man glanced aside, his gaze on the thin drizzle falling between the great Scots pines that protected the village’s far side. When he turned back to Sorcha, he touched his sword hilt and made the sign against evil. “If she was hiding in the cave as we thought, there was no sign of her. No’ even cold ash from a cook fire. Naught but some animal dwells there, I swear it.”
“Can it be you didn’t catch her because she is so pretty?” Anger twisted in Sorcha’s gut and she clenched her hands, doubly annoyed because they were gnarled and held age spots. “Men become fools around that one.”
“Not I, lady.” Her minion shook his head.
“Humph!” Sorcha gave him a fierce look, scarce believing he’d once again been unable to winkle out her arch-rival, the much younger, lust-crazed, and entirely unskilled Mairi MacKenzie. The she-witch who’d been a thorn in her side ever since Mairi’s late aunt and uncle brought her to Drumbell as the orphaned get of a whore.
Righteous disdain swelled Sorcha’s breast, for she had sprung from much greater stock.
Her father had been a leader of men, captain of the guards to one of the King’s most favored nobles, while her mother was renowned for her graciousness and unstinting generosity, her soft-spoken voice said to have been so sweet even the songbirds envied her.
Sorcha hadn’t inherited any of her long-dead parents’ better qualities.
She did assume them.
Quietly pretending that she was just as illustrious, equally admired. In younger days, men appreciated her brown eyes and hair, her small stature, and the soft, pleasing voice she’d learned to pitch like her mother’s.
But years had passed and they hadn’t been kind.
Even her herb-tending hands had betrayed her for her fingers were now oddly bent, appearing as claws.
It wasn’t fair.
Glory such as hers shouldn’t fade.
What remained were her healing skills. A gift bestowed on her by the gods, and one that she didn’t share gladly. Mairi MacKenzie had grown to be a pebble in Sorcha’s shoe. Each time her arch-rival sneezed, a wonder unfolded, bringing her fame and glory. If she blinked or turned her great blue eyes on a man, he fair fell over himself to please her. Even children and dogs had followed her through the village, their gazes adoring. And the elders – Sorcha resisted the urge to spit – they’d looked on her in awe, praising her skills.
It was more than Sorcha could bear.
So she’d taken measures.
To her glee and satisfaction, they’d worked. The MacKenzie wench had been run from the village, barely escaping a fiery end on the stake. A nice stoning beforehand, just to ripen her for the flames, if Sorcha’d had her way.
But someone had warned the chit, allowing her to flee.
No matter, Sorcha wasn’t through with her. She had more resources than most knew.
One of them cowered before her now, the big man’s hands clutched clumsily, worry stamped hard into his broad, rough-hewn face.
He had reason to fear her.
Sorcha smoothed her skirts and smiled at him, then cast a sly glance at the half-opened door behind her. “This drizzle chills to the bone, eh? You’ve had a long journey and will be weary. Come in and have a bit of oatcakes and cheese, a horn of warmed mead.”
She pushed the door open, letting him see her welcoming fire, the small table with victuals, the great drinking horn on its stand.
“I am hungry,” the man admitted, shuffling his feet.
Sorcha’s smile deepened, wreathing her aged face. “I’ve a platter of fine roasted meats as well. You’ll sleep with a full stomach.”
It was enough.
The man edged past her, ducking to enter the cottage’s low-cut door. It was the last thing he did in this life for two of Sorcha’s better-trained henchmen fell upon him at once, leaping on him from the shadows on either side of the door. They cut him down so swiftly he’d surely joined the gods before he knew he was dead.
Sorcha nodded appreciation as her men carried him away. Then she made for the wet trees behind her cottage, preferring a walk in the wood to looking on when her minions returned to clean the blood.
She’d come back later, and enjoy her evening meal.
The fine mead she relished.
Then she’d sleep for she needed her rest. On the morrow, she’d take the matter of Mairi MacKenzie in her own hands. She’d had enough of sending fools after the bitch.
This time she’d go herself, and she’d take along men who would not fail her.
THE TAMING OF MAIRI MACKENZIE
CHAPTER FOUR
“So, my lady, you have heard the worst of me.”
Gare stood beside Mairi’s rough-hewn table and beheld a sight he’d hoped never again to see: The blood drain from a woman’s face, her eyes filled with horror, the shock of his deed rendering her speechless. His sister Eleanor had reacted the same way, as had the other ladies in his household. Had his mother yet lived, he suspected she would’ve fainted upon learning what he’d done.
Mairi appeared equally stunned. She’d pressed a hand to her breast, her great blue eyes fixed on his face. “Surely it was an accident,” she said, voicing Eleanor’s same opinion. “You did not kill her in cold blood.”
“How can you know?”
“I just d
o.”
On her words, a gust of wind wailed past the door opening, shaking the leather hanging. From somewhere came the sound of creaking wood and rattling leaves, the glen’s birches bending in the wind. The shrieks grew louder, racing round and round the circular broch before they rushed on, having made their presence known.
Mairi glanced at the door curtain, seemingly untroubled by the night’s howling gusts. “I feel it here,” she said, placing a fisted hand on her heart. “Call it a woman’s kenning, whatever you will. It has naught to do with miracle casting or spells. My heart would tell me if you were a murderer.”
“The lady is dead, however I am called.” Guilt and regret twisted in his gut, terrible memories rising from the blackest corner of his soul. They ripped his heart, reminding him of the grief he’d caused, pain and sorrows that could never be undone. “Her life was spent, cut short by my blade. She bled out in my arms.”
“Was it a deed of passion?” Mairi crossed the room to latch back the entry’s heavy leather curtain so that cold night air could cleanse the smoky room. “A wife or lover, caught in the arms of another? There are times when one can be so distraught that reason flees.”
“I had no such excuse.” He didn’t lie. “Though I did know her. We’d even been lovers, but only once, many years before.”
“I will listen if you wish to speak.” Mairi glanced at him from the door, her raven hair gleaming in the torchlight, her beautiful eyes holding no accusations. “It might be good to unburden yourself, whatever happened.”
“It is no’ pretty tale.”
“I have some ugly ones myself.” She stepped aside to make room for Troll as he pushed past her into the cold-misted night. “As the banshee of the Glen of Winds, I have seen the worst of men, and some women, including myself, though I have never taken a life.”
“I have claimed many, but in war. The exception was Lady Gwendolyn Berry.”
She blinked. “A lady?”
“So she was, aye.” He joined her at the door, welcoming the chill for the back of his neck felt on fire. Something hard and tight had also lodged in his chest; remorse, guilt, and a wholly unexpected hunger that stirred in him, powerful and dangerous. A fierce urge to yank her into his arms and kiss her long and deep, not stopping until he’d banished the raging ache and emptiness inside him.
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