“I remember my first battle well,” he said, a faraway look in his hazel eyes. “I was so eager for conflict and bloodshed. That was before the many battles I would find myself fighting.”
“Well, ye’ve gained quite a reputation as a commander in the field.”
“’Twas never my ambition to do so. I’d see an end to the fighting, the stealing of cattle, the burning of crofts, and the raping of women. But between the MacDonalds and the Campbells, I fear it will never end.”
He stared out at the frothing sea. “The Maclean clan is a clan of priests and warriors. I often feel the priest and warrior battling for my soul. But one cannot live as a half-formed man. Mostly it’s been the warrior who’s been winning.”
Kat arched a brow. “I can see the warrior but I have yet to see the priest.”
“Truly? Have I not shown ye kindnesses? Have I not showed ye mercies?”
“Aye. But perhaps ‘tis all a game until ye reveal my true punishment.”
Conall frowned. The air had taken on a raw chill and he stood and offered her his hand, his long, lean fingers reaching for hers. “Let us return to the hall. I haven’t decided on yer fate yet, but I give ye my word. I will not send ye back to the dungeons or back to clan MacDonald. And I will not harm ye.”
Kat was surprised. But her surprise was replaced with anxiety, for if she was not to be kept in the dungeons, and not to be sent back to Angus and her clan, what was he planning? Was it all a ruse to make her more pliable before she was somehow humiliated? Again she feared letting her guard down, feared she was somehow to be the night’s entertainment. Would the clan demand it? Would she be commanded to shovel dung for the rest of her days?
She hadn’t missed the looks of disgust and loathing sent her way as she sat by Conall’s side, eating next to the laird’s own son.
When they entered the hall, Kat was struck again by the marked contrast between it and the beggarly trappings of her own clan’s great hall. Once Angus had declared himself laird, the MacDonald hall hadn’t been kept up. There was food crusted on the pine tables and floors. Hounds wandered at will, snapping and snarling and begging for scraps. The rushes stank, filled with food droppings, dog dung, and slopped ale. The servants grew lax and the men slumbered late into the day. Several halls and rooms had already begun to mildew from neglect.
The Maclean hall was well lit with a myriad of fresh tapers. Tapestries hung on the walls. The tables were clean, floors were swept and the rushes changed frequently, and the hounds were well behaved. There were polished silver cups on the tables that reflected candlelight. The tales she’d heard all her life did not match up to what she was seeing and experiencing now. She knew not what to make of it.
Conall left her seated on a bench by the hearth as he went to speak with Martainn. A gaunt-looking woman with a delicate beauty and a hollowness in her dark eyes was sweeping the floor near the hearth with a broom. A long, white-blonde braid hung down her back. She had a scar across one side of her face and limped when she walked. The woman’s eyes held a vacant stare, until she spied a spider on the wall and froze.
Kat got up and gently took the broom from her. “A broom is like a sword,” Kat said. “Ye needn’t be afraid of spiders if ye ken how to use it.” Kat used the broom to stab at the spider and it fell to the floor, where she stepped on it with her boot. She handed the broom back to the woman, who stared at it and then continued to sweep, the vacant look still haunting her eyes.
Conall and Martainn had been watching. Martainn frowned as the two men approached Kat. The woman, limping, drifted back toward the kitchens like a ghost.
“That is Andrina, Martainn’s bride-to-be,” Conall said, his mouth set in a hard line. “She was a carefree, loving soul, always laughing, her eyes bright, until several months ago, when she was attacked by a party of MacDonald men. They abused her in unmentionable ways. They broke her leg. It didn’t heal right. ‘Tis why she walks with a limp. She hasn’t spoken a word since. Now she fears all men, even Martainn, who would never harm a hair on her head.”
“Aye,” Martainn said, his blue eyes cold. “She was so savagely attacked she cannot have children. I love her, but she will not speak and she will not be near me or any other man.”
Kat had seen MacDonald savagery up close. She knew what her clansmen were capable of. She also knew if she offered sympathy to Martainn, it would not be well received. Or believed.
“I ken some of the MacDonald men are savage,” she finally said, staring at the spider she’d killed.
“Martainn will take ye to yer new chamber so ye can rest and get settled while I talk with my father,” Conall said. “We have much to discuss.”
Including my punishment? Kat thought.
Martainn escorted her across the hall. As she was about to climb the narrow, twisting stone stairway, she turned to find Conall’s eyes still on her. She took the stairs quickly and Martainn led her to a small room on the second floor. “I trust ye’ll find this accommodation more to yer liking than the dungeons, though ‘tis the dungeons ye surely deserve.”
“No shackles?” Kat said, unable to bite her tongue.
“Nay. But a guard will be posted outside yer room and ye’ll be watched. At all times. Yer a reekbeeked MacDonald, after all.”
A towering, burly man with a shaggy red beard appeared.
“This is Ronald,” Martainn said. “He’ll be sitting outside yer door. If I were ye, I’d be nice to the man. They say he’s got the blood of giants in his veins.” Martainn turned and strode down the hall, eager to be away from her, as if she were as low as the slime on the heel of a muddied boot.
Kat was only too happy to shut the door of the chamber and bask in the quiet. A fire blazed in the hearth. There were clean linens and blankets on the small bed, and no lice or spiders appeared to be crawling about.
A chess set sat on a small table. The bone pieces on the board formed the shapes of mermaids, lions, dragons, hounds, eagles, rabbits, and other creatures. Kat wondered, had this once been a child’s room?
From the window she had a view of the towering cliffs and sea below. Kat watched the sea until the sun sank below the horizon. She thought about her brothers. Had the Maclean men had the decency to bury them? She would demand to know. Conall would answer her. And if he couldn’t, she would find them herself and give them a proper burial.
A devious thought occurred to her. Martainn clearly despised her. She was a MacDonald, and MacDonalds were responsible for what had happened to Andrina. Perhaps Martainn would aid her escape from this place, if she could get him to help her. It would mean deceiving Conall. She didn’t like the thought, but she didn’t like the thought of her brothers’ lying cold on the battlefield more so. She wondered, which was stronger, Martainn’s loyalty to Conall or his hate of the MacDonalds? She would make a point to find out.
But before she resorted to that, she would ask Conall. If he would not see to the task of a proper burial, then she would ask Martainn to help her escape. Of a certainty, Angus would not lift a finger to return to the battlefield and bury his own clansman. He hadn’t even taken part in this battle. He had no honor, and he would certainly not honor his sacrificed kinsmen.
She turned away from the window and sought the chair near the hearth. She was as confused as ever. Conall had kissed her and then banished her from his presence, from his chamber. At this very moment he could be talking with his father, The Black Wolf, about her fate. Mayhap The Black Wolf was not as merciful as his son.
Food had been brought to her room at some point, but she’d barely noticed. The small table by the bed now contained a plate of cheese, bread, fruit, and ale, but she had no appetite. She could hear the noisy celebration in the great hall below; the Macleans had grown even more boisterous as the evening wore on.
There was a clean nightgown on the chair and since Kat had no desire to sleep in her dress, she changed into the nightgown and removed her hose and ghillies. She only prayed they would not come for her in the
night, and bring her to the great hall to be humiliated in her nightdress.
She crossed the room and lay down on the small bed. Conall had taken away her shackles. Was it all some sort of twisted game to him? Was he merely toying with her until he decided her fate? Until his clan humiliated her for being a MacDonald? In the morning, would she truly be made to shovel the dung heap, as he’d promised?
The man was an enigma. She would not let him kiss her again. She’d been thoroughly surprised and undone by the touch of his masculine lips. The touch of his fingers on her skin had felt like fire. Matching wits with him until she could escape Duart Castle would be like playing with fire. Especially if she did gain Martainn’s help.
Despite the kindnesses he’d shown her as a prisoner, Conall Maclean was dangerous. In more ways than one. He was not a man to be crossed.
Her head on the pillow, she watched the fire flicker in the hearth and listened to the wind scour the old castle stones. She pulled the coverlet tightly about her shoulders. She’d never felt more alone. She didn’t belong with the MacDonalds and she didn’t belong with the Macleans.
To comfort herself, she thought of a time long ago, when she’d been loved. When she’d felt safe. She thought of how her mother, to pass the long, dark, and often wild winter nights in the Highlands, had tucked her into bed and told her stories. Sometimes she would sing to Kat.
It started to rain, and Kat sang softly to herself:
Rain, rain, gang away,
Come ye back on weshin’ day.
Rainy, rain, rattlestanes,
Dinna rain on me;
Rain on Johnny’s hoose,
Far ayont the sea….
Chapter 8
Hours later, Conall ventured upstairs.
“What is she saying, Ronald?” he asked, his head and his hands pressed to the thick door of the bedchamber where Kat was being kept. “Is she…praying?”
“I think she’s singing,” Ronald said.
Conall listened to the soft, sweet sound, trying to reconcile it with the brave lass who had fought among men on a battlefield and wounded him, whose startling blue eyes flashed with every emotion.
Again he wondered, what would he do with the lass? He would not return her to her own clan. He would not ask for a ransom. Indeed, if what she said was true of Angus, it would be folly even to send a message to him that she was being held here. He might demand her return only to kill her. He found himself in the strange position of having to protect his prisoner.
The singing stopped.
“Mayhap she is finally asleep,” Ronald grumbled, his big, bony knees aching from sitting by her door. “As I should be.”
“Dunna be fooled,” Conall said. “Take every precaution. Even now she could be hiding behind the door, waiting for ye to swing it open so she can whack ye over the head with a chair or a candlestick holder. She’s a wily lass, and her fondest wish is to escape here and live in a cave and grow auld, with only twigs and flowers and stones as friends.”
Ronald looked puzzled.
“Aye, those bruises on her arms,” Conall said. “Not all are from battle. Angus, clan laird, gave them to her whenever he felt like it.”
“Her own laird?” Ronald said, scratching his scruffy, red beard. “I’d heard Angus Og was a brutish beast, beyond brutish!”
Conall nodded. “I dare not let the MacDonalds ken she is here, under our guard. She has no wish to return to her clan and would only receive ill treatment if she did so.” Conall sat on the floor, his broad back to the wall, his knees bent. “I ken not what to do with the spirited lass.”
“Did ye talk to yer father about her?”
“Aye. He doesna ken what to do with her either. He’s left it up to me. I will think on it a while. As I said, I willna return her to Angus. If what she says is true, I canna have that on my conscience. Nor can I see such a brave and unusual lass living alone, sleeping in caves and talking to twigs and stones, or living out her days in a convent.”
Ronald laughed. “Aye, for sure, I canna see the bonny, brave lass living such a life either. I dunna envy ye yer task, Conall.”
“What would ye do with her, Ronald?”
“I might take her for wife,” he said. “She is bonny and brave….”
Conall’s brow furrowed and Ronald’s face flamed.
Conall wasn’t sure why he’d kissed Beitris. The urge to do so had been impossible to ignore. He’d never felt so led by his desires. Her blue eyes were as changeable as the sea. Her auburn hair had felt like silk in his fingers, her lips soft and yielding, though not at first. But she had responded to him. She had let his lips command hers and he hadn’t missed her soft moan of pleasure. It was no small pride to his masculinity, for he knew his less-than-perfect face was scarred.
He frowned, for Beitris looked nothing like a little Neep. Her fiery beauty and her brave soul reached deep into his core in a way he could not deny nor fully understand.
Wearily, Conall stood, stretched, and took his leave, Ronald mumbling something about the marriage comment being in jest. In the great hall, Conall sat for hours before a blazing fire of birch logs, listening to the rising wind buffeting the towers and rattling the shutters, for he could not sleep.
When the sun finally crept over the purple, ragged mountaintops, he had a solution to his dilemma. To be sure, it was far from ideal. It would anger Beitris beyond measure. He saw it as the only possible way to prevent the sad and lonely life she saw for herself, and perhaps the only possible way to keep her safe from both clans.
He would think on it a day or two and then discuss it with his father, Malcolm.
Chapter 9
Conall sat at the main table on the dais in the great hall. It had been quite a celebration the evening before. Drunken Maclean men still slumbered on benches and pallets near the hearth and servants stepped over their snoring bodies to bring trenchers of food and mugs of ale to the tables.
Ronald and Beitris entered the hall. She looked flushed from sleep but lovely. He was immediately on guard for there was a steely look in her blue eyes. After she sat down, Ronald stood but a few feet from her and crossed his arms over his brawny chest.
“So, Ronald is to be my guard at all times?” she asked. “He is to follow me wherever I go? Watch me when I eat? When I sleep? When I heed nature’s call?”
“Until I deem it unnecessary.” Conall arched a dark brow, his heated hazel eyes searching hers. “I trust ye slept well?”
“Aye. ‘Tis much easier to sleep without shackles on one’s wrists, when one has a bed and warm blankets.”
Conall felt a stab of guilt. “Ye’ll not wear shackles again.”
Beitris stared at her food.
“Ye must eat, Little Neep.”
She ate though her stomach was in knots. She needed to ask him about her brothers before she lost her courage.
“I thank ye for yer kindnesses, for they were unexpected.”
Conall eyed her warily, taking a sip of ale from his mug.
“And yet I would ask ye for something else.”
Conall waited.
“I ken ‘tis bold to do so, but I would ask ye to take me back to the battlefield so I may assure my brothers have a proper burial. I understand there was…no MacDonald left to do so. Angus will not lift a finger to return and see to it himself.”
Conall nodded to Ronald. “Ronald, gather a party of men. When Beitris is finished breaking her fast we ride to the battlefield to find and bury her brothers.”
Ronald looked surprised but left the table to go about preparing for the task. He could not have been more surprised than Beitris; she hadn’t expected Conall to grant her request or grant it so quickly.
Malcolm entered the hall and Ronald spoke to him, Malcolm nodding before he joined Conall at the table. Kat studied The Black Wolf, barely able to contain her awe. Conall was the spitting image of his father Malcolm, a man who had been burned at the stake at Edinburgh by royal order and before a crowd but who had managed
to reappear in the Highlands in the flesh and blood.
His midnight-black hair was tied back with a leather thong, as was Conall’s, and his temples were tinged with grey. He had the same straight, hawkish nose and rugged jaw, the same penetrating hazel-gold eyes.
“’Tis not often I am pleased to meet a MacDonald,” Malcolm said. “But in yer case, having heard of yer unusual bravery, ‘tis a pleasure indeed.”
“But, I….” Kat stammered, thinking of how she had wounded Conall on the battlefield, how she had wanted to kill him but could not find the courage to do so. In truth, she had only been thinking of her brothers fighting on the same battlefield, of trying to get to them, of fighting alongside them. She realized as she’d hidden herself in the brush she did not understand why she had fought. There was a marked difference between sword practice and skill in the courtyard and an actual battle where there were no rules and men’s bloodlust cartwheeled at every turn and thrust of the blade.
Kat found she did not have a taste for battle, nor a lust to swing her sword for no reason. Her brothers fought because they had no choice. Angus would no doubt kill any man himself who did not fight for the MacDonalds and take pleasure in it.
“I ken ye gave my son a nasty gash on his side,” Malcolm said, drinking his ale. “And a thump on the head. Yer the only MacDonald who ever got that close to Conall in battle. But ye did not kill him and perhaps ye could have. For that I am grateful.”
A beautiful woman with upswept auburn hair and luminous green eyes joined them. She wore a shimmering gown of emerald. The sleeves were full with turned-back cuffs; the neckline had a V-shape encrusted with tiny sparkling emerald stones. “This is my wife Sorcha, Conall’s mother.”
Sorcha nodded but her eyes were not friendly. A young woman with bouncing black curls down her back and green eyes took a seat next to Kat.
“I’m Mollie, as ye no doubt ken,” she said.
“I…thank ye for the dress and the ghillies, Mollie.”
A Dark Highland Magic: Hot Highlands Romance Book 4 Page 6
