Nor did she want to, for Troll had also stolen his way into her heart.
“Oh, dear.” She took a deep shuddery breath, gently stroked the scruffy fur between the dog’s ears. “Whatever am I going to do, Troll?”
He didn’t answer.
Though she would’ve sworn he cracked an eye, giving her a quick look of great satisfaction.
THE TAMING OF MAIRI MACKENZIE
CHAPTER SIX
“That should do you well, my lady.” Gare watched Mairi carefully as he stepped back from the repaired table, looking to see if even the slightest change of expression flickered across her cool, closed face. But there was nothing. Only the same distant politeness she’d shown him since sunrise, when he’d collected an ax from her to fell a good, sturdy branch from the nearby birch wood.
“I am grateful.” She nodded, her gaze on the new table leg. “It was good of you to fix it.”
“I’d have preferred oak, but the table stands steady. It willnae tilt when you use it.” He wanted to see her at his high table at Blackrock, claiming pride of place beside him at that huge, magnificently crafted masterpiece, the as yet unoccupied lady-of-the-castle’s chair just as richly engraved and beautiful.
He felt a muscle jerk in his jaw.
She shouldn’t eat at rough-planked cast-off from a shepherd’s hut.
Worse, he hated that the repaired table would always remind her of their ill-fated meeting. The mad, wild and wondrous kiss they’d shared. A kiss that had carved deep wounds into the souls and hearts of them both, he knew. He could see the pain all over her, in her eyes, her cool, shuttered face, and in the overly polite tone of her voice.
She loathed him.
And she had every reason.
She’d gone to the broch’s door where the leather curtain was latched back, giving a fine view down the whole of the narrow, steep-side glen. “The mist will be lifting soon.”
“So it will.” Gare followed her gaze, speaking as levelly as he could. “Troll and I will be away anon. I gave you my word.”
She inclined her head again, her glossy black braid slipping over her shoulder to hang to her waist. “I am glad you remember.”
“I aye keep my word.” He did, even when it didn’t please him.
Feeling that way now, he stared past her into the glen, too aware of the temptation she presented. He felt a fierce urge to undo her braid, to let her gleaming black hair stream across the back of his hand, spill through his fingers. His need was so great, so strong, he didn’t dare look at her.
The glen was safer.
It beckoned as the start of his journey home. He couldn’t wait much longer either.
It wasn’t a sun-bright morning, but enough light slanted through the clouds to chase the chill mist and drizzle that usually blew through the Glen of Winds. For two pins, he would’ve sworn the gods were conspiring against him, snatching away the mist tendrils at speed, their anger at him so great that they stole his last excuse to stay on in the sweet, soothing, and powerfully seductive presence of a raven-haired, sapphire-eyed vixen named Mairi MacKenzie.
A woman he had no right to have touched, much less kissed.
Gods help him, he wanted more.
He burned to scoop her into his arms, carry her to her bed of furs, toss up her skirts and spread her legs, showing her with all his passion and need how much he desired her. Far gone as he was, he’d also bare his heart to her, confess that he’d never felt so strongly for another woman in all his life. That he suspected he could, or perhaps already was falling in love with her. He did know he wanted her safe and that he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her in this empty, rockbound gorge.
In truth, Kintail’s highest peaks hugged the valley floor so tightly, the Glen of Winds could hardly be called a glen.
For a crazy-mad moment, he considered telling her that he wished to show her true glens. The broad sweeping beauties that filled Scotland’s vast northeast where he made his home.
She’d love Blackrock, he was sure.
But he said nothing.
Lady Beatrice Burnett’s quiet face hovered before him, as did Robert Stewart’s writ. The parchment damned him, its wax seal and the bold, slashing signature of the King’s Lieutenant – and his own - making it impossible for him to heed his heart, to abandon plans forged to safeguard Scotland’s oft-times most troublesome and perilous territories.
With privilege came duty, and he’d sworn oaths to uphold his.
Feeling despicable, however untarnished his knightly honor, he glanced to where Troll had slept away the morning beside Mairi’s peat fire.
His good friend wasn’t there now.
And his bowl of morning stew hadn’t been touched.
Gare frowned, pulled on his beard. Troll ate well and with gusto, never missing a meal. He was also not shy about begging for more. There could be no good reason for the dog’s lack of appetite.
“Have you seen Troll?” He joined Mairi at the door where she’d already placed a bulky linen sack of victuals for his leave-taking. “He was there by your fire last I looked and he hasn’t eaten his breakfast.”
“I saw.” She glanced at the bowl, piled so high with beefy stew. “I thought he doesn’t care to eat so early in the day.
“Troll would ne’er stop eating if I allowed. He doesnae care when he eats, only that he does.”
“Clyde was the same.” Her face softened, the sadness in her eyes, spearing Gare’s heart.
“I am sorry you lost him.” He was, and he didn’t know what else to say.
He wanted to touch her cheek, tuck that stray hair behind her ear, then cradle her face in his hands and kiss her again, long, deep, and slowly this time. It was a need that hardened him at once, his unchained desire for her making clear how urgently he needed to be gone.
“Any guess where he’s gone?” he asked again, glancing into the broch’s shadows.
Changing the direction of his mind before his need became obvious.
“Nae.” She stepped back, drawing her shawl closer about her shoulders, putting distance between them. “Perhaps he needed to go out?”
The word ‘go’ apparently drew him, for Troll appeared at once, coming through the door opening without a glance for either of them. He also ignored his food, walking past the bowl to the farthest, darkest corner of the broch where he circled three times and then plopped onto the cold, earthen floor, clearly wanting to sleep.
Gare frowned when a chorus of bogus snores ensued.
His friend was up to something, and it wasn’t any good.
The dog also turned his massive shoulders to them, his great head facing the wall. Rarely had Troll been so courteous. He hardly ever gave Gare privacy, most times sticking to his side like a burr to wool.
“There is something amiss with him.” Gare crossed his arms, thinking.
They had a long trek before them. Duncan MacKenzie’s Eilean Creag Castle, a stronghold on the other side of Kintail, stood nearly to the Isle of Skye. Great, rocky peaks raged between, an arduous journey for beast and man. Even huge and strong as Troll was, he’d tired quickly if they set off with Troll not having eaten.
“It’s no’ like him to ignore food.” Gare turned back to Mairi, himself ready to run a hundred heather miles naked and starving just to be far from her. The ravening hunger she stirred in him, the almighty attraction he felt for her. “Have you aught else he can have before we go? I’m thinking he ate so much stew last night, he’s after something else. Aye, that’ll be the way of it.”
“Could be…” She glanced at Troll, began tapping her chin. “I do have some sliced roasted capon. It’s good, plump meat if he’ll eat it.”
“That will do.” Gare nodded. “Troll loves chicken, any way it’s prepared. Perhaps you can spare a bit for our journey?” He didn’t like asking, but Troll’s behavior concerned him. “He’d surely be glad for it, however much you can do without.”
“I’ll fetch it now.” She moved away, the emptiness she
left behind hitting him like a fist to the gut – even though she’d only crossed the room.
“Sweet lady,” he called after her, the endearment leaping from his tongue, his words having a will of their own, speaking without his consent. “I’d ask a boon for myself, if you’ll allow me?”
She turned back to him, a small packet of roasted capon slices in her hand. “I would deny you nothing,” she said, her gaze solemn. “You may take anything of mine that you desire, if you chose to ask.”
She stood straight, her sapphire eyes blazing into his, seeing everything he was sure. Her words, the double meaning of them, set him like granite. Indeed, he wanted her fiercely. Never had a woman affected him so powerfully.
And with only a few words and a direct look from her knowing eyes.
Gare drew a tight breath, everything in him straining, ready to break. “When we spoke last night,” he finally managed, giving voice to the other need that plagued him, the one he could address in honor, “you didnae say why the talk of your powers started? All legends and myths have a seed of truth.
“Before I leave, I’d hear why folk bestowed you with such claims.” Tell me true, and quickly. If you dinnae, my other need will win and I will grab you to me, damning us both.
“It is a sad tale.” She placed the capon on her table, clasped her hands before her. “I will share it if the telling interests you.”
“It does.” Gare thanked the gods she didn’t come forward, that she remained across the room.
She smiled, but it was a distant smile, and fleeting. “Let me first pour you ale, for it may take some time for me to finish.”
So she did, filling not one cup, but two. And outside, the sun burned away the last few curls of mist, bathing the glen in cold autumn light.
***
“Come walk with me. I’d rather not speak of such things in the broch’s shadows.” Mairi stepped past him into the morning, leaving him no choice but to follow if he wished to hear her tale.
It was a cold, brisk autumn day and the wind wailed through the glen as always. But the sky held patches of blue and the burn sparkled brightly, as if some great hand had cast diamonds across the clear, rushing water. The many rocks seemed to smile at her, greeting her as the friends she’d come to think of them. Even the tinkle of the burn was a joy, like the laughter of faeries, caught in a sunbeam.
For all the bleakness around her, she loved the Glen of Winds, and felt a deep attachment. How sad that she’d leave here for the man coming after her, yet he would shun such a sacrifice, returning alone to his Blackrock Castle.
She stopped beside the burn, the rush of the water calming her.
Faery magick.
Or just the cold, clean wind off the falls.
Most days such things soothed her. But now only one man lingered in her mind. She could think of nothing else.
Any moment he would reach her, his long-strided steps bringing him to her across the rocky, broken ground. Then he was there, stopping beside her, his face wary as he glanced about her sanctuary.
“The mist is gone,” he said, voicing what she knew.
“So it is.” She slid a glance at him, a grievous error.
He was staring at the far end of the glen, his gaze on the shining waters of one of the waterfalls that gushed down the higher cliffs. The glen’s shrieking winds dampened the roar of the falls, but it was clear that he was awed, that he appreciated the splendor.
Would he look at her so raptly?
If she were to disrobe here and now and offer him everything she had?
Don’t leave. Not yet. Give me a chance to make you mine.
“You see why I don’t mind being here.” She reached out and stroked his arm, letting her fingertips glide over his arm rings, drawing his attention. Touching him was the one thing she shouldn’t do, but she couldn’t help herself. “If I had to leave Drumbell, this is a good place.”
“It is no’ fine place for a woman alone.” He turned to her, gripping her elbows. “I am troubled to know you here.”
“It is a better refuge than anywhere else.” She lifted a hand, held her hair against the wind. “The souls of the doomed do race through here. I have heard and seen them, I know they are real. Many fear them, so most will not come this way.
“That dread keeps me safe.” She held his gaze, wanting to remember his face, every line and angle. How his dark hair caught the light, the strands shining in the sun. “Folk will mourn lost loved ones, but few want to meet their spirits.”
“Yet there isn’t a banshee?”
“Not that I’m aware.” She studied the sensual slant of his mouth, how the morning sun also touched his beard, making it glisten. “Perhaps there was such a washer woman here, long ago?” She glanced aside at the rushing burn. “This would be a good place for a banshee to wash the bloodied shirts of those marked to die, to wail and moan in sorrow for them.”
“I would hear of you, no’ this glen and its legends.” He touched her cheek, lifting her chin with one finger. “What started the tales that you have the power to bring the dead back to life?”
“Because I did.” Mairi told him plain.
“So it is true?” Something flickered in his eyes. “I’d thought you must have special gifts. You are a maid like no other I have known.”
“I have told you, I am not a maid.” She adjusted her shawl, felt a prickle of ill ease. She didn’t want to disappoint him. Not because she was a woman of passion, no longer pure. But because she could tell he suspected she’d used an enchantment to snare his desire.
That he wanted her stood clear.
Hadn’t she felt the hard ridge of his arousal when he’d kissed her?
She had, no mistaking.
As he was leaving, she doubted that she’d be confronted again by his rock-solid need, however much she might wish otherwise. So she’d do what remained, and speak honestly.
“Just as I am village born and not of higher blood, nor does a witchy magick run in my veins.” She drew a deep breath, her love for the aunt and uncle who’d raised her shoring up her pride, steeling her backbone.
She stepped away from him, went to the burn’s edge. “What happened had nothing to do with wonders or a miracle. It was years ago at a Lughnasadh harvest fair. I was walking past the food stalls, trying to decide what I wanted for my lunch. A wee lad was eating a meat pie when he choked. He’d gone red, his eyes streaming as he fell to the ground, unable to breathe.
“I was closest to him, so I grabbed him into my arms, clutching him tight as I ran about, searching for his parents.” She looked down into the burn’s clear water, seeing the scene again. “They came rushing up to me as I pressed him to my chest.”
She looked up then, not surprised to find Gare beside her. “Perhaps it was more the gods not wanting to claim such a young soul, than anything I’d done. Whatever the reason, before I could release my grip, he stirred in my arms, coughing loudly and then gulping great breaths of air, his life returned.”
“I can see why folk would credit you with miracles, especially at a Lughnasadh fair where the old gods are honored, ancient magick in the air.” He stepped closer, stroked her hair back from her face. “In truth, folk were right to laud you for saving the lad.”
“I am glad I was there.” She was. She’d do the same again, even knowing how the deed would change her life. “That winter, something else happened. A small loch at Drumbell had frozen and villagers were using bone skates to glide across the ice. It cracked and a girl fell in, disappearing into the freezing water. She was pulled out, but it took too long and by then it was clear she’d drowned.
“The lads who’d drawn her from the loch placed her on their plaids at the water’s edge and I was fetched, folk believing I could bring her back to life.”
Mairi shivered and rubbed her arms against the chill spreading inside her. For sure, she’d aided an innocent young girl that day, but it was also the deed that brought her the wrath of Sorcha Bell.
�
�What did you do?” Gare’s dark gaze slid over her, something in the way he was looking at her making her fear she’d break when he left the glen. “I see no sorceress before me, but a beautiful woman with an open, generous heart. The folk in your village should have honored you.”
“Oh, they did.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “For whatever reason, I somehow revived the drowned girl. Perhaps she wasn’t truly gone? I’ll never know. I can only tell you that I acted on instinct, pure fear for her life and a burning wish to aid her. I knelt beside her, listening for a heartbeat, feeling for her pulse, but there was none. Her skin was cold and blue. She wasn’t breathing so I set my hands on her breast, pushing hard, again and again, trying to force her lungs to work.
“They didn’t, so I leaned down and blew my own breath inside her, thinking that perhaps my breath would sustain her, make her again pull in her own. She did, her eyes popping open as she gasped and sputtered.” She paused, another great chill flashing down her spine. “Around us, the good folk of Drumbeg cheered, crying with joy for the lass, praising me as a wonder healer.
“I have never seen such jubilation.” She hadn’t, though at the time she’d never guessed the ramifications. “One soul stood apart, glaring at me with such venom that the heat of her hatred scorched my bones.”
Mairi’s stomach roiled with remembering. “She was the village hen wife, a healer of great renown in those parts. Her name was Sorcha Bell. She’d never liked me, never cared for another healer who might earn more praise and respect. She resented others who worked with herbs and potions, understood the old ways and the power of the moon.
“And that day…” She paused, shuddering. “I’d knew made her a mortal enemy.”
“She is why you became the Glen of Winds banshee?” The fierce look on Gare’s face said he already knew.
Mairi nodded anyway. “She had a vicious temper. It annoyed her when villagers called at my cottage, asking for herbs from my garden, a salve or healing tisane. After the lad at the harvest fair and the lass in winter, her resentment worsened. She claimed I was the devil’s bride.
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