He let out a long breath, remembering the light in his men’s eyes earlier that day. From below, he could hear their excited banter in the great hall. Laughter, a few good-natured roars, and lots of pounding on the trestles underscored that they were still in high fettle.
Tantalizing dinner smells reached him, too. Thin drifts of cook smoke carrying the aroma of rich meats and even richer sauces. If he weren’t mistaken, the mouth-watering scent of fresh-baked bread. He also caught a distinct waft of heather ale, so tempting with its honeyed sweetness.
Feast goods and, he knew, portions generous enough to sate the hungriest amongst them.
His heart seized.
There’d been times when his noble sea warriors had filled their bellies on limpet broth and seabird stew.
Years when even watered ale and the most rancid wine went down like nectar.
And not a man had complained.
At once, the burn of a long-simmering anger blazed hot in his blood and he fisted his hands. But he unclenched them almost as quickly and stepped forward to trace the newly cut window notch with the fingertips of his right hand.
Unchecked fury was for fools.
He knew better. So he took a deep breath and stilled his fingers on the small, perfectly edged notch. Satisfaction began to pulse through him, replacing his rage. More scenes from the afternoon’s accomplishments flashed across his mind and his joy in his men’s burgeoning self-respect rose inside him, tightening his chest.
They were making splendid progress.
Soon they’d teach their foes the worth of Clan MacConacher.
Until then—
“Ho—Darroc!” A jovial voice boomed in his ear. “The seals are singing. Can you hear them?”
Darroc jumped and swung around. His cousin, Conall, stood behind him. The only other soul at Castle Bane anywhere close to his age, the lad’s copper-red hair shone bright in the flames of a handheld torch and his blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Sakes!” Darroc glared at him. “Can you no’ make a bit of noise next time you come looking for me? A clanking sword or some foot stomping would serve. Better yet, the slamming of a door?”
“Caught you off guard, didn’t I?” Conall grinned.
“Only because I let you.” Darroc’s mouth quirked on the lie.
“Say you!” Conall hooted. “Did you truly no’ hear the seals?”
“Banshees could be screaming and I wouldn’t hear them above your bellows.”
“I do have a good set o’ lungs, eh?”
“The finest.” Darroc cuffed him on the shoulder, secretly pleased the strapping young man could move so quietly. Such a skill might come in use someday.
“So everyone says.” Conall’s laugh rang out again. “I’m light on my feet, too. Or”—he cocked a brow—“will you be denying it?”
“Nae, I willna.” Darroc gave the answer he knew the lad wanted.
Dusting the stone grit from his hands, he refrained from reminding Conall that he’d issued orders that he wasn’t to be disturbed when he spent time in the notch room. Nor would he reprimand Conall for laughing at him. Even if some chiefs might take high offense at a kinsman allowing himself that kind of liberty.
Such rigidity wasn’t practiced at Castle Bane.
Each man for the clan and the clan for every man was their motto.
Just as keeping up spirits was his own personal creed.
So he matched the younger man’s grin and ignored the pity that almost choked him each time he caught a glimpse of Conall’s burn-scarred hands. Long healed and of no bother, or so Conall swore, the damage was just another reason Darroc made his daily climb to the notch room.
Beneath his jollity, Darroc’s gut clenched.
He forced his smile not to slip.
He’d make a notch in every rock on the island if doing so would repair Conall’s scars.
As it was, he just hoped the lad had erred about the seals.
At the door, Frang pushed to his feet and stood looking at some invisible spot in the room, his eyes wary. Then he dropped back onto his haunches, tilted his head toward the ceiling, and howled.
Darroc’s eyes narrowed.
Frang didn’t howl without reason.
The fine hairs on Darroc’s nape lifted but he ignored the sensation. “Come, you.” He gripped Conall’s elbow and steered him toward the door. “Enough of this cold chamber. I’m for the hall and—”
He got no further, for a long, haunting cry echoed beyond the room’s tall shuttered windows. Worse, before the first lonely plaint faded away, other wails rose in answer. Wild, eerie, and undeniably musical, there could be no mistaking their source.
Darroc froze. A chill sped down his spine.
“There they are again!” Conall jerked free of Darroc’s grasp and ran to the nearest window. “The seals,” he cried, flinging open the shutters. “Wait till you see. They’re everywhere!”
And they were.
Joining Conall at the window, Darroc gave a low whistle. “There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them.” He didn’t like admitting it. “The herring must be running, something the like.”
Conall scoffed. “The clan elders believe they’re celebrating our success with the birlinn.” He leaned farther out the window, his eyes round as he stared down at the night-silvered sea. “Soon as we heard them, everyone agreed, some claiming seals always know—”
“They know where and how to best catch their next meal.”
Conall straightened, some of his excitement fading.
Darroc frowned.
He’d regretted his shortness as soon as he spoke, but already he could feel the blood draining from his face, his heart thudding with dread.
Seals reminded him of the MacKenzies.
The dastards did hold an ancient claim to the nearby Seal Isles, though as far as he knew it’d been hundreds of years since any one of their race had bothered to set foot on the wee islets, if ever.
Like as not, they’d forgotten the Seal Isles existed.
Darroc certainly had no trouble ignoring them, even if a few of the bays and beaches were right bonny.
Seal-infested or no.
Unfortunately, the seals beneath his tower were too many and too loud to pretend they weren’t there.
Their song, as men who lived by the sea called such keening, filled the notch room. Mournful and chilling, the sound even welled up inside Darroc, pouring through him until he couldn’t deny its power.
Conall felt it, too. The lad’s eyes were alight again, his face wreathed in wonder.
Darroc shoved a hand through his hair, feeling like an ox.
“Mayhap they are celebrating us,” he belatedly agreed, certain they weren’t. “God kens they have reason to be impressed if they saw our men’s flourish.”
That, at least, was true.
“We were grand, weren’t we?” The brag in Conall’s voice brought a lift to Darroc’s heart.
“We were the best.” Another truth, if slightly embroidered.
Conall shot him a glance. “Better than those born sea hounds, the MacDonalds?”
“Well…” Darroc folded his arms, not wanting to exaggerate too greatly.
“The MacDougalls?”
Darroc arched a brow, letting silence be answer enough.
“Then what of the MacLeods?” Conall persisted. “Surely we were better than them?”
Darroc snorted. “A galley manned by wart-nosed, hunchbacked crones could outdo that cloven-footed race.”
Conall looked pleased.
Darroc slung an arm around the lad’s shoulders, giving a quick squeeze. “Even so, we shall leave Clan MacLeod to be challenged by others. Our purpose is to tread on the MacKenzies’ heels.”
“Their heels?” Conall slapped the stone of the window ledge. “’Tis their arses what’ll be feeling my tread! And I say you this”—his face split in another grin—“yon seals know it, too. That’s another reason they’re here, singing.”
&n
bsp; “For sure, they’ve come to tell us something.” It was the best Darroc could do.
Life was too precarious to tempt the gods with yet another lie.
Indeed, he did believe the seals’ song had meaning.
He just didn’t like it.
Looking down at them now, he knew they bode ill. Some of them were hidden by the night’s drifting mist, but the sea was flat and smooth as a polished mirror, its stillness letting him see enough of their dark, round heads to know they’d come in multitudes.
They bobbed in the sleek, gleaming water, their brown bodies rolling and tumbling, while others clustered on jagged tidal rocks. Some had dragged themselves onto the shingle of the boat strand, including several huge silver-gray ones with dappled coats.
All sang.
And, Darroc was sure, every last one of them had fixed their soulful, doglike stares on Castle Bane.
He shuddered.
Someone whose ties to the sea went far deeper than his own had once sworn that though beautiful, the song of the seals warned of coming disaster.
And that was something he couldn’t, wouldn’t accept.
So he reached around his oblivious cousin and grabbed the shutter latches, closing them with a bit more force than was necessary.
“Come now.” Again he snagged Conall’s elbow, this time gripping harder as he pulled him toward the door. “There’s a fine joint of roasted meat waiting for us in the great hall,” he said, laying on his jauntiest tone. “I, for one, am famished!”
“Saints, Darroc, the seals—”
“Will also be heard belowstairs.” Darroc marched on, wishing it weren’t so.
Conall threw a last, frustrated glance at the closed shutters.
Darroc didn’t break stride.
It was good that the lad believed the seals were celebrating them.
With luck—which they so rightly deserved—there’d be no reason for any of them to think otherwise.
He would make sure of it.
Chapter Three
A fortnight later, Arabella stood at the edge of Kyleakin’s curving road and wondered how a fishing village she’d known all her life could feel so daunting. Behind her, the same row of thatched cottages crowded the muddy foreshore, the peat smoke from their cook fires as familiar as her name. Across the bay, Dunakin’s tower loomed atop its knoll, imposing as always. Directly in front of her, the little harbor proved a hive of activity.
There was nothing to account for the queasiness churning inside her.
Late afternoon sun sparkled on the water and the reek of dried fish and eel tickled her nose, letting her know the contents of a pile of barrels on the quayside. Huge wine casks were there, too. And great stacks of iron-bound coffer chests, some protected by thick canvas covering. Men, children, and dogs scrambled everywhere, the ruckus almost hurting her ears. But neither the smells nor such bustle was new to her.
Damp from the muddied road seeped into her shoes and a brisk sea wind sliced through her cloak, but that, too, didn’t faze her.
She ignored the chill just as she refused to acknowledge her father’s fierce expression as he surveyed the chaos. He held her arm in a bruising grip and scowled at every seaman that dared glance their way.
Despite his vows that he wouldn’t shame her.
As if to prove it, he cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?” He looked to where a young boy stirred a steaming cauldron of fish stew. Beside the lad, a wizened old man had skewered conger eel steaks onto sharp green sticks and was preparing to broil them on a bed of fired stones. Crisp, fresh-off-the-griddle oatcakes rounded up the pair’s offerings.
The smells were tantalizing.
Arabella’s mouth watered.
But she shook her head, declining. “I’ll eat later… after you’ve gone.”
Her father’s jaw tightened. “You only ate half a bannock this morn.”
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing.
She stood her ground. “I’m not hungry.”
“Humph!” He dismissed her excuse. “Dinna think Cook ne’er told me who raids the kitchen stores late of an e’en, after everyone else is asleep!”
He leaned close, not bothering to lower his voice. “You have a greater appetite than some men. I’ll fetch you something.” His gaze flicked back to the fishmonger’s stall. “You’ll no’ be spending your first night away from home with naught but a few bannock crumbs in your belly.”
Tightening his grip on her arm, he frowned. “You need to eat.”
Arabella blinked.
She thought she’d seen a man staring down at her from one of Dunakin’s upper windows. But when she scrunched her eyes to make sure, he was gone. His outline—if he’d been there at all—had appeared decidedly well-muscled and powerful. Too bad he’d only been a shadow.
She straightened, annoyed by her fancies.
Everyone knew the MacKinnon who lairded it at Dunakin was an old done man, looked after by his equally aged wife and a handful of loyal servitors.
No bold Highland warriors dwelt there.
She shivered and drew her cloak tighter, the man’s image still branded on her mind.
“You’re cold!” Her father pounced. “A bowl of hot fish stew and—”
“Nae.” Arabella stopped him before he could stalk over to the fishmonger.
I may never eat again if my stomach doesn’t stop feeling as if it’s filled with lead.
The unspoken words echoed in her head, making her doubt everything she’d started to believe about her strength and daring. Her father’s words squeezed her heart, his gruff tone saying so much more than his scowls.
He could summon all the dark looks he wished. She knew how to see behind them, always catching his true feelings before he could shield them. Recognizing them now, she blinked against the heat pricking her eyes.
She bit her lip, the truth scalding her.
It wasn’t her father. It was her.
She was shaming herself.
Her palms were damp and a cold lump of fear sat fast in her throat. Her guard—twelve of her father’s best archers and swordsmen—stood in a nearby cluster, their watchful eyes and glinting steel reminding her of the perils that might be before her.
She tried to squash all thoughts of danger and took a painful breath.
If Arnkel Arneborg, shipmaster of the Merry Dancer, the merchant cog, approached them now, she wouldn’t be able to offer more than a raspy croak in greeting.
Keeping her chin raised, she clenched her fingers into the folds of her cloak and hoped no one would notice the whiteness of her knuckles. She forced herself to smile at the men her father blasted with his stares. She ignored the stony-faced guardsmen. Standing proud, she dug deep for the calm that had always come so easily.
Unfortunately, it remained elusive.
An old woman hawking a basket of roasted-in-their-shell oysters paused to cast a narrow-eyed glance at her, as if she sensed her apprehension.
At once, Arabella released her grapple hold on her mantle.
If her jitters showed, she’d die.
Gelis, she knew, would have set the day ablaze, making it into a high-flown celebration. Laughing, batting her lashes, and perhaps even clapping in glee. For sure, she’d turn heads and capture hearts.
Seafarer or oyster woman, all would have flocked around her, succumbing to her charm.
Arabella swallowed.
The thickness in her throat didn’t lessen.
Far from it; the swelling worsened until she could barely draw in breath. The din around her increased. Screeching seabirds made it difficult to think. Their piercing cries were giving her an aching head. And although she knew the tide hadn’t yet turned, the water slapping the quay’s wooden pilings sounded so loud she’d have sworn the sea surge had roared into the harbor.
In truth, the roar was the blood pounding in her ears.
For a beat, she considered tossing her head and letting her eyes spark. A flashed smile of dazzling brilliance and, if s
he dared, a slight adjustment to her cloak so that its drape emphasized the swell of her breasts. No one would guess her misery.
All she had to do was pretend she was Gelis. An artful blush and fiery, snapping eyes worked wonders. She’d certainly observed her sister’s ploys often enough to mimic them.
She could do it.
Her brows snapped together at the very idea.
She wasn’t her sister.
And this was her dream.
So she stood a bit taller, making sure to keep her back straight. And instead of flaunting her beauty—and there were many who said she was pleasing to the eye—she took several deep breaths to compose herself.
Unfortunately, her father appeared to have caught her brow snapping.
“We can leave now.” He misunderstood her frown. “No one will blame you for changing your mind. If we make haste, you can look over the vendors’ offerings, choose some baubles and cloth, and we can be home before—”
“Nae….” Arabella let her voice trail off, her attention snagged by a small wooden crate near one of the canvas-covered strongboxes.
Something was moving inside the crate, and as she looked the top shifted, revealing the tufted head of a tiny red and white puppy. All silky ears and bright, round eyes, the wee creature won her heart with a single high-pitched squeak.
Arabella stared at him, a warm glow spreading all through her.
She had to have him.
“O-o-oh!” She shook free of her father’s grasp, starting forward. “There is something I want. That puppy—”
“Is no’ for you.” Her father sounded horrified. He caught her before she’d gone two paces. “You can’t take a dog—”
“Ho, Kintail!” A tall blond-bearded man broke through the crowd, his sea-weathered face split in a grin. “Just arrived on the quay and already your girl is keen to test her sea legs!”
Arabella’s cheeks flamed. “I—”
“She was making for yon wee dog.” Her father answered for her.
“Dog?” Arnkel Arneborg scratched his beard, looking around.
His gaze lit on a shaggy black mongrel sniffing near the fishmonger’s stall.
“No’ that one.” Her father flung out an arm, indicating the crate with the puppy. “She’d have that bit of fluff yonder,” he said, surprising her. “Name your price and I’ll keep the beastie here until her return.”
A Highlander's Temptation Page 4
