Flame

by May McGoldrick

  “That, of course, is up to you, but you’ll have to put up with a fearful stench as it rots here by your fire.”

  “Now, that is a feeble threat,” she scolded. “But wasting such quantities is sinful. Nay, laird, you have to take it back.”

  “I will not,” he answered determinedly. “And if you continue with this foolishness, I will have my men bring provisions for you on a daily basis. In fact, I may just have them go back to Ironcross and return with the rest of what we killed today.”

  She stared at him as if he was some hideous, savage beast. Gavin came to his feet in one fluid motion and smiled down on her. “But I must tell you that they have had a hard day of riding. And once I drag them in here after all that extra work, I do not believe it will be a very easy task getting them back on their horses so soon. I fear you may just end up with a wee bit more company than you are accustomed to. But you needn’t trouble yourself--they will be happy enough sleeping out here on what is sure to be a fine, clear night.”

  Her wrinkled complexion flushed and her eyes were blazing coals. “Are you threatening me?” she asked, her fury ready to burst forth.

  “Nay, I am trying to befriend you.”

  Gavin watched as his simple statement caught her up short in whatever she was about to say. A fleeting look of confusion played across her wrinkled brow as the flash of anger visibly diminished.

  “I do not understand you, laird,” she said at last.

  “That is your own fault and none of mine.”

  She again resumed her effort to stare him down, but Gavin had heard the distant alarums of victory, and he was not about to back away now.

  “What is it that you want from us?”

  “Are you going to ask me that every time I come here for a visit?”

  “If I thought anything I might say could deter you from persecuting us, I would pray for angels to repeat those words each day over Ironcross Castle!”

  “Well, you might consider praying for something more useful, abbess,” he answered. “Just accept the fact that Ironcross has a laird who takes an interest in his people. You must become accustomed to having me around. The sooner you do, the more comfortable your people will be and the less disrupted...” He gestured toward the empty fields. “The less disrupted everyone’s life will be.”

  “You think ‘tis just that simple!”

  “You make it too difficult.”

  Mater’s frustration hissed out in a loud breath as she turned on her heel and stormed toward the gate.

  “Wait, Mater,” he said, laying a huge hand on her bony arm. She paused, glaring at him. “You might tell your legions of angels that this meat should be taken out of the sun.”

  The old woman glanced at the meat for a moment, and then gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the hut she had come out of. Without another word or even a look at the warrior chief, she strode--with Gavin on her heels--out the gate, following the ruined wall until the valley floor began to rise toward the fields above the village.

  Before they had traveled an arrowshot from the abbey, the sun faded from view. As he glanced to the west, Gavin could see the black clouds of a storm advancing over the distant loch. He turned his attention back to the wizened old woman.

  “How many times will it take for me to come to the abbey before your people begin to accept my presence here?”

  “How many breaths remain in your body, laird?” she said harshly. “You cannot force yourself upon them.”

  “I do not intend to use force,” Gavin said matter-of-factly. “But these are now my people as well, Mater, and I want you to understand that you cannot make me simply disappear.”

  She gave him a critical, sidelong glance. “I should not be so self-assured, if I were you. You are only a mortal creature--flesh and blood.”

  “Do you think that only men are mortal?”

  She didn’t answer him, but turned her attention back to eyeing the plants around them as they walked.

  “What do you have against us, Mater?” Gavin continued after a slight pause. “Why is it that you welcome the visit of any woman, and yet you despise the company of all men?”

  She ignored his question but came to a halt. Gavin watched as her gaze swept over to the ground. As her eyes lit on some frail-looking white flowers at the base of a protruding boulder, she turned from him and headed toward her prize.

  Once again, he’d been dismissed, Gavin knew. But he was far from ready to leave. He strolled after her, watching her carefully. “Mater, what do you know of the crypts and the vaults beneath Ironcross?”

  The obvious stiffening of her shoulders did not go unnoticed by the Lowlander.

  “Why is it, Mater, that those people of the abbey were buried beneath the castle and not here...where they belong?”

  She slowly came to a stop.

  “Why are they thought of as saints?”

  She turned her face and Gavin watched her hard unchanging profile as she looked down at the abbey below. She stood in stony silence.

  “Is there a link between the deaths of those entombed in the crypt and the curse that has been plaguing Ironcross Castle?” he continued doggedly. “Why is it that no one even wants to speak of them anymore? What is the reason for such mystery, Mater?”

  He moved around her until they were face to face. His tall frame and broad chest blocked her line of vision. She was forced to look up and meet his gaze.

  “I will not give up until you answer at least some of my questions.” He tried to keep the harshness out of his voice. “Who is it that is buried there, and why?”

  Standing there, awaiting her answer, he became for the first time aware of the sharp wind that had come whistling up the open valley from the loch. The heather and the grasses were bending to the rush of air, and he shook back the black mane that was whipping about his face. The old woman simply stared at him, seemingly unaffected by the piercing gusts.

  “Tell me, Mater. Tell me of their past.”

  Their eyes locked in a fierce battle of wills as the wind pummeled them.

  “Women! They are women who are buried there,” she said at last over the rising wind. “They are our ancestors, our saints, and our sisters. And you, laird...‘twould be wiser for you to cease asking your foolish questions and let their souls lie in peace. ‘Twould be best for you to ride back down into the flatlands and never look back.”

  “And if I do not?” he challenged, trying to ignore the wind that was yanking at his tartan. “Would I then fall from a horse and crack my skull on a rock like Duncan MacInnes? Or would I drown in the loch like his son Alexander? Or perhaps I shall be poisoned like Thomas. But I suppose all of those are better deaths than being burned alive in a blaze that takes my family and innocent serving folk along with me.”

  He saw the smallest of quivers in the line of her jaw. “So what is it, Mater? If I do not bend to your will, will you order my death as well? Will you call on the powers of those women and wish me into my grave?”

  “What do you know of bending to one’s will? You...and those like you...know nothing of what ‘tis like to bend...to suffer!”

  Somewhere not far down the valley, a flash of lightning was followed by the crack of thunder. The storm was coming on fast. Gavin did not remove his piercing gaze from her hard gray eyes, even when he felt the first droplets of rain strike his face.

  “I’ll do what I must to protect my people,” she said ominously. “And I’ll use whatever power I can muster to crush the evil in men.”

  Without waiting for him to say more, the old woman turned and moved quickly past him and down the hill toward the abbey. She was halfway to the ruined walls before Gavin turned to watch her. Above her the sky had taken on strange, unsettling hues of gray and green, and the flashes of lightning were now followed immediately by crashes that seemed ready to split the firmament with their noise.

  Gavin watched her march through the gate, and as she disappeared amid the stone huts, he was more certain than e
ver that Joanna’s accusation of last night had to be false.

  Mater’s words echoed in his brain, and he considered all she had said. True, she would protect her people. But somehow Gavin knew in his gut that her solemn vow did not include murder.

  Nay, he thought as the wind hammered against him, Mater was no murderer.

  CHAPTER 15

  Adding another log to the hearth, Gavin came to his feet and stared into the leaping flames. For the entire ride back from the abbey, he’d tried to recall everything he had learned from Lady MacInnes before leaving the Scottish court, since the old woman’s recollection of events past was the only thing he felt certain he could rely on.

  By Saint. Andrew, from the time he stepped foot in Ironcross Castle, he had yet to hear a complete story from anyone, and that included Joanna. To Gavin, she was clearly too distraught from the tragedy she’d faced to relay anything that might be construed as rational or objective.

  And what of Mater?

  Leaning one arm on the carved mantle, Gavin pictured the old woman’s razor sharp look. She cut an impressive figure--no question about that--taking the approach that she had. And she was clever, for it was an art to talk so tough and to be effective, without anything to back it up. To scare off an opponent with allusions to powers beyond those of the natural world. But that was her best possible defense, Gavin thought.

  Still, though, there had been an attempt on his life. The acrid smell of drying wool wafted upward from his kilt, mixing with the lingering scent of burnt damask from the curtains that had hung from his bed. Someone had come into his room last night and had set his bed ablaze. Although he hadn’t had time to think about it before now, Gavin was certain that this had not been the result of any accident. He had put out the wick lamp. There had been no candles left burning. The embers of the fire in his hearth were simply too far away for the mat of woven rushes to catch fire. Nay, it had been no accident.

  And, Gavin decided, the intruder had been a person, not some demon invoked from the bowels of hell as Mater would like him to believe. Whoever had been here, the warrior felt with some certainty that he or she was living in this keep. No doubt it was someone who had witnessed Gavin’s repeated contest for possession of Joanna’s portrait, for the intruder had known him to be a sound sleeper. That was why the would-be killer had had enough courage to close the chamber’s shutters before setting the bed ablaze, hoping his victim would die amid the thick, choking smoke.

  The soft sound of a latch sliding and the quiet creak of the panel opening on its hinges erased in an instant the warrior chief’s thoughtful scowl, chasing all unpleasant thoughts from his mind. Gavin straightened before the fire and looked hopefully in the direction of the secret door. As she stepped through and closed the panel door, Joanna’s frame formed a shadowy silhouette on the wall from the light of the crackling fire.

  She had come, just as he knew she would.

  She hesitantly stepped further into the room and met his welcoming gaze. My God, he thought, she is beautiful. This time, not quite so dazed as he had been the first time they’d met, Gavin let his eyes study her face. She had been truthful when she’d said that she was no longer the woman in the portrait. A bit thinner in the face; paler in complexion; her eyes larger, wilder, and somewhat more intense; her lips fuller; her features all combined to make her even more stunning than the incredible beauty captured by the brush of oil over canvas.

  Tonight she had pulled her golden hair back, and Gavin’s eyes followed the one long, thick rope of a braid that draped over her shoulder, hanging down over her breast nearly to her waist. She still wore the same large old dress he’d seen her in the previous night. The dress seemed designed to hide all signs of her womanly curves, though it did indeed reach only to her ankles. But, looking at the smooth, ivory skin above the square neckline, Gavin felt the prickling warmth stir in his loins at the recollection that he had touched and caressed what was beneath the ill-fitting garment. Gavin glanced with a lusty appreciation at the sculpted beauty of the legs showing below the hem of the dress and above the tops of the soft, worn shoes that covered her feet. The singed marks around the hem reminded him of how close she’d come to getting hurt herself.

  Suddenly he was startled from his reverie by the sight of her bandaged hands tugging at her skirts in an effort to cover her legs. As he glanced up with amusement at her actions, he was rewarded with a revealing view of the tops of her ample breasts above the neckline of the dress.

  Her dark blue eyes flashed at him as she realized the futility of her actions, and she crossed her arms over her breasts.

  “So you have come back.”

  “I told you I would.”

  His eyes again wandered lingeringly over her body.

  “But I don’t want you to assume...” she started quickly. “I mean, since I have come back tonight...”

  Even her voice had the husky resonance of some rare, unworldly creature. She was like some fine angel sent to watch over the night dwellers of this dangerous and uncertain world, Gavin thought, waiting for her to continue.

  Obviously frustrated, she let out a long breath and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “‘Tis just what happened between us last night. I don’t want you to think...”

  “You don’t want me to think that I owe my life to you!”

  She nodded, and then shook her head. “Nay, that’s not it at all.”

  Gavin continued unperturbed. “And you don’t want me to think that I should expect you to watch over me.”

  She shook her head again. “I did not mean any of that. I meant...”

  “Oh, so I do owe my life to you and you will watch over me and protect me,” he teased.

  Joanna looked at him through slitted eyes. She was quick to rile, Gavin recalled, thinking of their short encounter last night. He liked that in her.

  “That was not what I was about to say. You are putting words in my mouth.”

  “Then why not tell me what exactly was on your tongue?” A bonny shade of pink had now settled on her cheeks.

  “I was...I am trying, but you keep interrupting me.”

  Gavin started toward her. “I promise to not interrupt. Please continue.” She was watching him suspiciously as he moved around her to the closed panel, coming close enough to her that his arm brushed softly against her shoulder.

  Checking to see that the secret door was securely closed, Gavin turned and glanced at her slender shoulders and straight back. More than anything else right now, he just wanted to reach for her, turn her in his arms, and feel her lips beneath his. As if reading his mind, she looked quickly over her shoulder, giving him a withering scowl. He shot a smile at her in return before moving away from the panel.

  “You were saying?” he asked, walking toward the small table that was spread with food. Gavin had used the ordeal of the previous night as an excuse for retiring to his chamber as the visiting bard had begun to sing what was sure to be a long tale of the ancient Celtic hero, Cuchulain. Gavin’s guest, the Earl of Athol, had seemed to take no offense at his host’s decision. Striding out of the Hall, Gavin had sent Peter in with a word to the cook to have some food sent up to his chamber.

  And the cook had done as she was told, providing a formidable spread of meat, fish, breads, sweetmeats, and wine. But now, looking at the candles already half burnt in length, Gavin realized that had been hours ago. Joanna had taken her time in coming.

  He glanced back at her and found her attention focused on the table filled with food. Lifting the covers off the dishes, he breathed in the aromatic scents of food that immediately filled the room.

  “Since you no longer recall your earlier concerns, would you do me the honor of joining me for a bit of supper?”

  Joanna lifted her eyes slowly from the food and stared into his face. “You need not have gone to all this trouble just to question me. I have come back here of my own free will, and with the intention of telling you whatever you wish to know.” The young woman hesi
tated. “Though I am certain you will not like nor believe some of what I have to say.”

  Gavin was not quite ready to engage her in an argument over Mater, so he stood behind a chair and waited. “But I did go through to ‘all this trouble,’ and our supper is waiting. So why not join me?”

  “And your questions?” she asked, gnawing her lip.

  “Trust me, I shall not forget them.”

  “And...” She held her chin high. “And is there something else?”

  He gazed at her with raised brows, shaking his head questioningly.

  “You know what I am speaking of. Beyond just the answers to your questions!”

  “You mean in exchange for this food?”

  She nodded, and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “Do you truly think me such a brute, Joanna?” He gave the table a reproachful glance. Then, he let his eyes travel the length of her appraisingly, noting how her body grew even more tense beneath his scrutiny. Suddenly, he shook his head determinedly. “Never!”

  “Now, if this were food from the kitchens of my cook at Ferniehurst Castle--or even a dish served at Ambrose and Elizabeth Macpherson’s...”

  As he’d hoped, at the mention of those names from her past, Joanna brightened immediately. “Do you know them?”

  He stared at her, mesmerized by the radiance that emitted from her. This was the first time she had smiled since he had seen her, and suddenly she lit up the chamber.

  “They happen to be my closest friends,” he answered finally. “In fact, I might say that they are the only friends I have.”

  “Then you must be quite difficult to get along with!” She frowned. “Are you?”

  “Considering the fact that we’ve only recently met, I would be a great fool to answer such a question, would I not?” Gavin pulled the chair back and made a courteous bow, inviting her to sit. “Why not keep my company during this dinner and then decide for yourself about my...suitability as a companion.”