She had figured incorrectly. “Nay, lass. They neither live nor work here.”
Taking in a deep breath, she untied her cloak. “Then I am responsible for the entirety of the keep? ”
’Twas a frightening prospect, running the entire keep without anyone’s help. But Leona would not let that be a deterrence. Nay, on the morrow, she would wake bright and early and begin her duties as mistress of the keep.
“I am no’ afraid of hard work, Alec,” she told him as he led her up the stairs. “I will have the keep in tip-top condition in no time.”
Gylys and Kyth appeared from the shadows, empty-handed. “It be as ye asked, Alec,” Kyth said as they walked by. Again, they did not wait for a response before bounding back down the stairs.
“What is wrong with it as it is?” he asked as he pulled a lit torch from the wall.
She paused before answering. “It be a fine keep,” she replied. “Just a wee bit … cold.”
With that, he could not argue. ’Twas a drafty place on temperate days. Down right bone chilling when the rains came.
“I should like to at least lay down some rushes,” she told him as they reached the top of the stairs.
He saw no harm in rushes and told her so. “But I do no’ want ye fillin’ the rooms to burstin’, with things we do no’ need.”
In her own mind, she added, As yer brother Rutger did.
“I do no’ want ye turnin’ the keep into a woman’s boudoir or makin’ it look like Stirling Castle.”
His mood had changed drastically in such a short amount of time. “I have never been to Stirlin’ Castle, m’laird,” she told him. “So I do no’ think ye need to worry in that regard.”
“I think ye understand my meanin’, lass,” he said in a firm, irritated tone. “This be a keep, no’ a cottage or a home.”
“Might I ask why ye be so opposed to it bein’ a home?” she dared ask.
Apparently, she could ask but he was not about to answer. He studied her closely for a long moment and she began to grow uneasy under his scrutiny.
Wanting very much to change the subject, she asked, “On the morrow, could ye show me the kitchens?”
“Why?” he asked, turning left.
“If ye do no’ want to starve, I’ll need to ken where to cook yer meals,” she giggled.
“Cook?” he asked perplexed. “We eat with the men in the armory.”
Leona came to an abrupt halt. Alec turned to face her. A look of horror had spread across her pretty face.
“Y-ye expect me to eat in the armory with yer men?”
“Ye look as though ye swallowed a bug,” Alec said. “Do no’ fash yerself over it. Seamus be a right good cook.”
“But-”she stammered for the right words. “But I like to cook.”
“Then ye can help Seamus,” he said. With the matter settled, he turned again to lead her to their bedchamber.
Apparently the matter was not settled. She would not budge. “But Alec, I want to cook here. In our home.”
Home. There was that bloody word again. It made the hairs on the nape of his neck stand at full attention. “I have no desire for a home,” he told her through gritted teeth. “’Tis a keep. ’Tis a fortress meant to house warriors and its people during times of war. Nothin’ more than that.”
She was positively crestfallen. “And after we have children?” she asked. “Do ye wish them to eat in the armory with the men? What if we have daughters?”
In truth, he hadn’t given that much thought. Her distress was plainly evident. Her odd eyes were filled with it.
Did he in truth want his children, more specifically his daughters, to dine daily with his hard, crusty men? Did he sincerely wish for his children to hear their tales of whoring and warring and thieving? Nay, he supposed that might not be the best environment in which to raise daughters. Nor was it the proper place for his wife.
“Verra well,” he acquiesced. “Ye may cook fer us.” But that would be the extent of her turning his keep into a bloody happy home.
Her shoulders fell, as if he’d just removed a great weight from them. Flinging herself against his chest, she said, “Thank ye, Alec!”
That god-awful sensation of warmth that bordered on joy crept up through his stomach.
Once above stairs, he led her down a dimly lit corridor and paused at the third door on the left. “This is me bedchamber,” he said as he lifted the latch and opened it.
“Will it be mine as well?” she asked with a raised brow. “Or should ye like me to sleep elsewhere?”
Alec smiled warmly at her. “Nay, lass. I should not like ye to sleep elsewhere.”
Returning his smile, she said nothing as she walked inside. After a quick perusal, she said, “Ye have changed things since last I was here,” she remarked.
Aye, he had made a few small changes in preparation for her arrival. Before, it had been a simple room, with a hearth, a small bed with one table next to it. Gone was the small bed that barely held him, let alone a wife. He’d replaced it with a large, four poster, complete with canopy, fresh linens and furs. He’d also added extra pillows. ’Twas primarily Dougall’s idea, but one he that, at the time, he could not argue with.
Opposite the bed was the hearth. In the corner, he’d acquired two empty trunks in which his wife could store her clothes and things. He’d also added a small table and two chairs which he had placed under the two, fur-covered windows. Next to the hearth now, was a pitcher and basin and clean washing and drying cloths that sat on a small, round table. Just who had thought to have fresh water in the pitcher, he was uncertain. More likely than not, Dougall had seen to the preparations ahead of time. He had also procured a dressing screen, which now sat in the far corner of the room, near the bed.
“Be it to yer likin’?” he asked hopefully.
“Aye,” she said with an agreeable nod. “’Tis verra nice.”
He hadn’t realized her approval was important until he heard her voice it. Ignoring the sense of pride he felt, he set about lighting a few candles. Leona removed her cloak and hung it on a peg near the door. “Ye can wash up there,” he said, inclining his head toward the pitcher and basin that now sat next to the hearth.
Leona washed up as he worked to build the fire. Suddenly, he began to grow nervous. ’Twas not as if this were their wedding night. Mayhap ’twas not nervousness he felt, but excited anticipation. Joining with his wife was something he’d quickly grown quite fond of. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she scooped soap from the jar and lathered her face and hands.
He saw her shiver as she rinsed with the cold water. Tiny droplets formed on her long lashes and dripped off the tip of her delicate nose. When he realized just how much he was enjoying the vision of such a simple act, he tore his eyes away and focused on the fire.
He said not a word as she stepped away from the basin and toward the bed. Taking in a deep, steadying breath, he went to the basin and washed his face and hands. The cold water did little to cool the blazing desire that was growing.
Leona was standing near the bed with her back to him, untying the laces of her dress. His need to be with her overtook his good senses. In a few short steps, he was behind her, offering her nothing but husbandly assistance.
With fingers that all but trembled, he untied the bit of leather and began slowly unloosening her braid. Why he so craved to feel the silky locks against his skin, he didn’t rightly know. Nor did he understand it. But the need was strong.
When he placed a tender kiss along her neck, she quit working at her laces. A slight moan escaped as she tilted her head to give him better access.
Once the hair was free, as he thought it ought to be at all times, he swept it away and trailed more kisses across her long, slender neck. She smelled of earth and outdoors and fresh soap. ’Twas as intoxicating a scent as he’d ever experienced.
When he kissed her tender flesh, taking delight in the way she breathed in deeply, he began to divest her of her clothing. Firs
t her dress, then her chemise. They pooled on the floor at her feet.
He pulled her in closer, and allowed his hands free-reign to go wherever they pleased. Up and down and back up again, until he cupped a breast in each hand.
“Would ye like to climb into bed?” she asked, her voice scratchy and breathless.
“Soon,” he whispered against her ear.
God’s teeth, but her skin is soft! He thought to himself. Leaving her breasts, he drew his hands up to her shoulders, caressing, touching, exploring, his desire growing and blazing.
Pushing her hair over one shoulder, he let his hands glide down her back, to her firm buttocks and back up again.
But something did not feel quite right when he drew his hands up again, along the small of her back. Something was wrong, odd, uneven.
He looked down, took a slight step back, and stared.
Several scars criss-crossed along her back.
He had felt them on their first night together, but at the time, he’d thought they were wrinkles left from the tight dress she had worn. That, and he was so consumed with lust that he didn’t take the time to study every square inch of her body.
Anger boiled rapidly at the sight. Deep anger toward whoever had left those scars there. “Who did this to ye?” he asked, his voice deep, filled with a quiet fury, barely kept in check.
She was frozen in place. Silence filled and stretched the room.
“I asked, who did this to ye?”
Finally, she moved, stepping out of the pool of clothes at her feet. Without looking back at him, she grabbed her chemise and held it to her chest. “What does it matter? It happened a long time ago.”
She was struggling to slip back into her chemise, when he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I do no’ care if it happened a week ago, a year ago, or ten years ago. I want to know who did this to ye.”
With her eyes glued to the floor, she asked, “Why? Do they make ye ill to look upon? Do they make ye no’ want me any more?”
With his fingertips, he lifted her chin. “Look at me.”
It took a long moment before she dared to.
“No, they do not make me ill to look upon,” he told her. “And neither do they make me no’ want ye. I simply want to know who did this and why.”
Those beautiful, odd eyes of hers grew damp. “It happened a long time ago.”
“I do no’ care. Tell me.” There was a deep, burning need to know, to have the man’s name so he could someday do to him what he had done to Alec’s beautiful wife.
Leona took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “’Tis a long story.”
“I have all night.”
Alec took the chemise from her hands and helped her into it. She thought it awfully kind when he sat her upon the bed and drew a fur around her shoulders. With the patience of Job, he sat beside her, with one arm around her shoulder as she told him the story.
“’Twas summertime; I had just turned five and ten. Da was working fer the McNairs, helping to add on to their keep, fer they had far outgrown it. We had been there for several weeks and all seemed to be goin’ quite well. Until the laird came to see him. Och, he was mighty angry. Ye see, there had been a change in the plans. Not a grand or humungous change, but a change nonetheless. Well, da, he had taken to drink after me mum died and he hadn’t quite put it down completely, ye ken.” She took a steadying breath, thankful that Alec kept quiet and simply listened.
“The laird, he was fit to be tied. Da was workin’ off the original plans, no’ the new ones, the ones that had added private garderobes to each of the rooms. Little closets, ye ken, where a body could go privately without the need of a chamber pot or havin’ to go out of doors in the dead of winter.
“Da blamed me. He told the laird ’twas all my fault. That I must have mixed up the plans or lost them. Now, keep in mind, I never touched his plans or anythin’ else like that. I only helped keep the ledgers of expenses. Still, he was no’ quite brave enough to admit the truth, to say he’d been drinkin’ and no’ payin’ attention.”
“And the laird, he believed yer da?”
Leona shrugged. “Nay, I do no’ think he did. Still, ’twas such an expensive mistake. One that required them tearin’ down everything they’d already built and startin’ anew. I believe the laird thought he could get me da to admit to it, but the laird was sorely mistaken.”
“What happened?” Alec asked, his jaw flexing back and forth, his eyes glaring at a similar imaginary spot on the wall to the one Leona was fixed on.
“Well, the laird declared I should be beaten fer me mistake.”
Alec swallowed hard before asking, “And still, yer da did no’ admit to anythin’?”
“Nay, he did no’.” She wiped away an errant tear. She had never told another living soul what had happened that ugly, terrifying day. There had been no need to, for Alec was the only person ever to see her without clothing. “So ’twas ordered I be taken to the center courtyard to make a public display of what happens when ye cost the laird so much coin.”
Silence fell between them for a long while before she went on. “I was taken to the courtyard. They forced me to me knees and tied me hands to a long beam. The back of me dress was torn open.”
Alec let a long, deep breath pass through his nostrils. ’Twas all he could do not to order his horse and head out to kill the men responsible.
“Then the laird gave me da the whip.”
Stunned, he spun his head to look at her. His voice was lodged in his throat, the fury building and building.
“I think the laird truly believed that if me da had to inflict the punishment upon his own daughter, he would finally admit he was at fault. But instead, he took the whip. ‘Ten lashes,’ the laird ordered. Only da did no’ stop at ten. He kept goin. Finally, the laird and two men pulled him away. I think if they had no’, he would have kept goin’ until I was dead.”
Never in his life had Alec felt the kind of rage he did in that moment. Blind fury all but consumed him. He got to his feet and began pacing back and forth. Leona watched from the bed, her eyes filled with uncertainty.
“’Tis a good thing I had not learned of this when we were still at the McLaren keep,” he told her. “For I would certainly have killed the man who calls himself yer father.”
Leona, surprised by his statement, sat silently for a long moment as he paced. Her husband, a man she barely knew, was openly upset by an event that had taken place nearly ten years ago. Dare she believe Alec had some tender feelings toward her? Feelings that made him want to act as her champion?
“Why would a man abuse his daughter so?” he asked, stopping to glower into the flames.
“I was a disappointment.”
He spun to look at her. “Disappointment?”
“Aye,” she replied. “I was no’ a boy. And after me, mum could no’ have any more children. And then there be me eyes.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Yer eyes? There be nothin’ wrong with yer eyes, Leona. They work, do they no’? Are ye able to see out of them?” His words were clipped, his tone firm and resolute.
Tilting her head to one side, she studied him curiously. “Aye, I see well.”
“Then there be nothing wrong with them.”
He stated it so plainly, so honestly, and with such conviction that even she began to believe him. If they did not bother Alec, why should they bother her? Or anyone else for that matter? Certainly, that had to mean something. Unwilling yet to believe he might hold a tender regard for her, she decided mayhap ’twas his honor. Aye, he came from a long line of thieves and such, but could not a thief have a line he would not cross, such as beating a woman?
’Twas Leona who finally broke the silence lingering betwixt them. “So where does this leave us, Alec?”
His anger slowly subsided, his scowl replaced with something far softer. “Us?” he asked. “We are fine, lass. We are fine.”
Leona woke before dawn, eager to begin her day.
Alec slept soundly beside her, exhausted, she supposed, from all their loving the night before. Aye, she took a good deal of pride in the fact that she’d left him spent and exhausted. After disclosing the truth about her scars, something between them had changed. Alec had made love to her with such fervor and passion, wholly different than what they had shared before. ’Twas as if he were branding her his and his alone with each kiss, each touch.
Slipping from the bed, she searched through her trunk and found her brown dress and apron. Tip-toeing out of the room, with her clothes in one hand and her slippers in the other, she left her husband to sleep.
The halls were dark, save for one lonely lit torch Alec had left outside their room the night before. She dressed in the hallway by torchlight. She hated dark spaces with a passion. Especially small dark places. Grabbing the torch, she lifted the hem of her dress, and cautiously made her way below stairs.
Below stairs was no better than above, no lighter, no brighter. She went about lighting whatever torches she could find to help ward off the bleakness. They didn’t help much.
With her aversion to dark places, she quickly set about lighting fires in each of the massive hearths. Thankfully, there was a good supply of wood standing in the boxes at each fireplace.
Once that task was complete, she grabbed another torch and went in search of the kitchens. Determined to impress her husband with something other than the skills she was developing in their marital bed, she was going to make him a grand meal this morn. In her mind’s eye, she saw him feasting on more than her breasts.
Nay, he would feast on warm bread, ham, eggs, sausage, jams and all manner of delectable delights.
The kitchens were as she imagined them to be. Just behind the main keep. Oh, they looked positively grand in their immense size. With her heart skipping happily in her chest, she stepped inside.
There were tall, wide windows on three walls. Another door straight ahead led to the back yard.
Not one, but three large tables took up the center of the room. The walls were banked with massive counters. Pots and pans hung from heavy wrought-iron hooks and racks overhead. Two immense fireplaces sat side by side, each with pothooks.
The Bowie Bride: Book Two of The Mackintoshes and McLarens Page 8
