A Highlander's Temptation

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  He had a very good idea just who was behind his men’s antics and the possibility sat in his gut like a stone. The devil was riding his back as well, so he set down his cheese spoon and stared down the table, fixing Conall with the most congenial look he could manage.

  “And you?” His voice was surprisingly pleasant. “Has… er, ah… Moraig been washing your plaid, too?”

  Darroc smiled wickedly.

  He could already see that Conall’s plaid hadn’t been laundered in a while.

  “Errr…” Conall busied himself tucking into the generous helping of roast mutton on his trencher. “My plaid doesn’t need cleaning.”

  Darroc disagreed, but now wasn’t the time to argue over clan cleanliness.

  Instead, he grinned and lifted his ale cup in silent toast to his cousin. As was to be expected, the younger man’s face flamed as bright as his coppery red hair.

  Hair that gleamed more than usual and—Darroc couldn’t help but notice—smelled distinctly of gillyflowers.

  Just to needle his cousin, Darroc wrinkled his nose.

  Then he looked around the dais, taking care to keep his nose twitching. “Can it be someone has brought flowers into the hall? I’m sure I smell some …?”

  He let the words tail off and sat back with a look of mock confusion.

  Several of his men sniggered.

  Conall shifted on the trestle bench. “Goad kens!” His burr deepened in his agitation. “D’you think I’d be washing my own heid with women’s soap? Moraig did it a-purpose, I swear! We asked her for some o’ her sage-and-rosemary washing soap and she gave us a jar o’ her own!”

  “Ahhhh.” Darroc sat back with a satisfied sigh. “At last, we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Perhaps”—he folded his arms—“one of you will now also reveal the whereabouts of the table linens?”

  Several sets of bushy gray brows drew together and more than a few bearded chins jutted stubbornly.

  No one spoke.

  Darroc shrugged good-naturedly. Then he leaned forward to spoon up more of Geordie Dhu’s herbed green cheese.

  “I’ll tell you myself where the linens are.” Mad Moraig appeared at his elbow, a platter of fresh-baked oatcakes clutched in her hands.

  She plunked down the griddle-hot oatcakes and a waft of fine wheaten bread filled the air, the pleasing aroma rising up from her flour-dusted skirts like a cloud.

  Only there wasn’t a single loaf of fine wheaten bread in the entire hall.

  Darroc’s mood soured.

  The recriminatory look Moraig shot at him as she straightened let him know he’d guessed right as to who was dining so royally.

  “You haven’t been to look in on the lassie in well o’er a sennight.” Moraig’s voice rang with disapproval. “She be up and walking more by the day. It isn’t decent to have her clad in naught but your plaids and shirts. So”—she put back her bony shoulders—“I took it on myself to take her sewing linens. We’re—”

  “You mean the table linens.” A corner of Darroc’s mouth twitched despite himself.

  He also felt guilty.

  He should have offered her the linens. It was already clear that she could work wonders with a stitching needle. If only her name weren’t such a scald on his soul, he would have thought of it himself.

  As it was, he frowned.

  Moraig sniffed importantly. “We’re making her a few gowns, we are. Soon she’ll be able to join us in the hall every night. She’s making fine progress.”

  “Indeed.” Darroc reached for his ale cup. “I am glad to hear it.”

  The sooner she recovered, the sooner he’d be rid of her.

  Moraig glanced at him sharply, as if she’d heard. But then she preened and dusted her skirts. Little puffs of fine white wheaten flour swirled around her, making her look like a tiny, wizened sprite caught in a snowstorm.

  Her blue eyes twinkled. “She’s a fine lassie,” she quipped, then turned and hobbled away.

  “Ach, she’s a fine one, right enough.” Mungo took his seat at the table, the set of his hunched shoulders warning anyone who might question his changed attitude.

  “Did you know”—he leaned around his bench mate to pin Darroc with an assertive stare—“word is the best man to e’er grace her father’s garrison was a one-eyed Sassunach?”

  Mungo looked around the table, his own single eye sparking with pride. “Sir Marmaduke is the man’s name and he now lords it at his own keep, Balkenzie Castle, on the southern shores of Loch Duich!”

  “Imagine that.” Darroc set down his ale cup, untouched.

  Now he knew why the seneschal was sporting a boiled plaid and reeked of perfumed soap.

  He’d had his head turned.

  Just like Moraig, Geordie Dhu, Frang, and all the rest. Flattery by a honey-tongued, sapphire-eyed she-vixen had made them forget honor and pride.

  The weal of the clan.

  Vengeance.

  Darroc pushed aside his serving of oatcakes and green cheese.

  His appetite had fled.

  Mungo shoved up his sleeves and reached for the platter of roasted mutton, piling great slabs onto his trencher. “Word is”—he spooned rivers of sauce over his meat—“the lass was heading for the Seal Isles. She told Mora—”

  “The Seal Isles?” Darroc stared at him.

  The stone he’d felt in his gut was suddenly joined by several friends.

  An entire rockslide was now rumbling around inside him.

  Mungo stabbed a piece of mutton with his eating knife. “Aye, so I said, just.” He dipped the meat into the rich gravy. “Moraig says the isles are part of the gel’s dowry. She was on her way to see them when the merchant cog was attacked.”

  Darroc forced himself to nod pleasantly.

  In truth, his world was spinning.

  He’d known she had something to do with seals!

  But that wasn’t what made his mood go from bad to worse. It was the mention of a dowry. Heiresses had dowries for only one reason and although he knew she was bound to have one—and a right impressive one, no doubt—it didn’t sit well to think of her as some man’s soon-to-be bride.

  In fact, the idea quite galled him.

  Needing to get his mind on something else, he decided to poke a bit more fun at Conall about his flowery-scented hair. But when he drew himself up and peered down the table, he saw that his cousin was gone.

  Or rather, he’d left the table.

  He was still in view.

  Barely, considering how he was skulking along in the shadows at the far end of the hall. And he wasn’t just skulking. He was crouching over something large and unwieldy that he clutched in his arms.

  Pushing to his feet, Darroc strode to the end of the dais and stood watching his cousin’s awkward progress through the hall. Conall was making for the stair tower and it wasn’t until he passed beneath a well-burning torch that Darroc saw what he was carrying.

  It was a creel.

  A laundry creel if Darroc wasn’t mistaken.

  And it appeared to be filled with white linen.

  Darroc started to hasten after him, but stopped just a few paces beyond the dais steps. He already knew where Conall was taking the table linens and if he stopped the lad, his entire clan would make him feel like a heartless dastard.

  That was the sad way of it.

  So he returned to his place at the high table and pretended he’d only wished to stretch his legs.

  Besides, it would have been a mistake to confront Conall. And an even worse disaster if he’d followed the lad to Arabella’s room. He’d been avoiding her all these days and was doing fine without her.

  But when he reached again for his wooden plate of oatcakes and green cheese, he knew that wasn’t true.

  He wasn’t fine.

  He missed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  The wrong man loomed in the doorway when Arabella turned from the bedchamber window to see who she’d just bid welcome to enter. She stared, though she sh
ouldn’t have been surprised. In truth, she’d expected him. She certainly couldn’t blame him for the squeezing pain in her chest. Or how her pulse had leapt only to slow again the instant she’d seen him. He couldn’t help any of those things. Indeed, he simply hovered on the threshold, the image of innocence.

  Arabella smiled at him, her heart freezing.

  He grinned, his face friendly as summer sunshine. Warmth poured off him, gentle and kind.

  Even so, she had to fight not to show her disappointment. She’d so hoped the knock had been Darroc. He’d been avoiding her, she knew. Each hour rode heavy on her shoulders, bearing down on her and seeping into her substance. Then the rapping on the door had sounded so strong and confident. She’d been sure it was him. But the young man with coppery red hair and lively blue eyes was Conall, his cousin.

  The one with the fire-scarred arms.

  Shame pinched Arabella when, seeing those arms now, she remembered how he’d frightened her when he’d helped rescue her from the barrel raft. In her dazed state, she’d thought he was a man of flame, come straight from the pits of hell to seize and take her there.

  Now she knew he was one of the most gallant men at Castle Bane. One of the few who hadn’t slid cold dark looks at her when she’d first started making brief visits to the hall. Ever cheerful, he’d faithfully brought her dinner trays, with Moraig often trailing on his heels, eager to help.

  This time he’d come alone.

  And instead of her evening meal, he clutched a large wicker creel that she knew held the table linens Moraig had promised her.

  Linens she could use to make a decent gown.

  “Here they are, the linen goods, fresh and laundered.” He confirmed as he came into the room and plunked the creel on the floor near the window. “Moraig tucked a small bag into the basket. It holds her sewing needles and better thread. She’ll surely be looking in on you later, wanting to help.”

  He straightened and dusted his hands. “I can find something to keep her busy until you’re done,” he volunteered, a pink tinge staining his cheeks. “It’s no trouble if you prefer. She’d have no need to know.”

  “But I would.” Arabella smoothed the front of Darroc’s borrowed shirt and his plaid, the latter wrapped several times around her like a great tartan skirt.

  An overlarge, ill-fitting skirt she’d no doubt have had to wear for weeks if not for Moraig’s kindhearted suggestion that they stitch her some gowns from the keep’s store of fine linens and napery.

  Moraig’s own prized collection of ribbons.

  Arabella’s stomach knotted to think how the light would fade from the old woman’s eyes if she stitched the gowns without her assistance.

  “I do not mind Moraig’s help.” She saw no point in lying. “I can fix whatever harm she does. I’ll enjoy her company.”

  “You’re sure?” He looked skeptical.

  She nodded. “I’m not used to being alone. Eilean Creag—my home—is a busy place. Moraig’s visits are welcome.”

  She didn’t say that his were, too.

  Young as he was, she knew he’d crimson if she did.

  He did blink, looking unconvinced. Night wind pouring in the window teased his bright hair. For some reason, the effect of those dancing red-gold strands made her think of some braw Celtic god standing proud on a cliff-top. She could see Conall as an avenging deity. Ancient, bold, and ready to challenge the elements and anything else in order to see the innocent protected.

  Just now, she was the innocent.

  But some of her thoughts about Darroc—especially his kiss—were quite wicked. So brazen and scandalous that her sister would toss back her head and laugh with glee if she knew. Their father, if he knew—saints forbid—would lose sleep for a year, she was sure.

  As it was, a certain place she couldn’t think about without blushing, clenched tight and began to tingle hotly. The same thing happened every time she relived Darroc’s kiss and imagined what it would feel like to have him slide his mouth down her naked skin, moving slowly lower and lower.

  Until…

  Mortified, she gasped. Devil blast Gelis for telling her about such things. And triple damn her own self for the question burning like pepper on her tongue.

  “Where is Darroc?” Her pepper-laced tongue betrayed her. “I haven’t seen him in so long.”

  Then, a terrible thought came to her.

  She stepped forward, touching light fingers to Conall’s well-muscled but ravished arm. “He does know about the linens? He isn’t angry at their loss?” She lowered her hand, no longer at all sure of herself. “I’ll see they’re replaced, you may assure him.”

  “Ach! He’ll no’ be letting you do that.” He turned to face the window. The tides were running fast and a thin crescent moon rode high above the horizon. Brilliant stars glittered everywhere, dazzling against the night’s blackness. “None of us will allow you to replace the linens.”

  He glanced at her, quickly. “Darroc knows you canna be running around as you’re dressed now.”

  “But where is he?” She could’ve bit her tongue.

  Instead, she continued to look out the window. The stars twinkled as brightly on the night-darkened water as they did in the heavens. Almost as if the whole of the sea sparkled with dancing fairy lights.

  It was a night made for lovers.

  Her face flamed and she laced her fingers together, grateful that Conall seemed as entranced by the night’s beauty as she was.

  Something told her he had a poet’s soul.

  “Darroc is… er…” His inability to finish the sentence proved his sensitivity.

  But that didn’t stop her from shaming herself. “I know he’s avoiding me.”

  “Ah.…” He looked down. He appeared to have a deep and sudden interest in the waves creaming over the rocks beneath the tower. “It isn’t you, my lady.”

  “Then why hasn’t he been to see me?” There was no point in backing down. “He stopped in often during my first days here.”

  “Aye, well.” He kept his gaze on the rocks. “He has much on his mind, see you? He intends to go after the Black Vikings. There have always been tales about them, but never proof. Not until—”

  “You rescued me.”

  “So it is, aye.” He nodded grimly. “But there’s more to it than that. There are men—good, strong fighting men—that we call friends and who Darroc believes will join us. Together, we can chase them from our seas. But if we wish to do so in fullest strength….”

  He paused to stare up at the stars. “Such a foray will cost many sillers and”—he inhaled deeply—“Darroc is no prideless man to leave such things to others. Yet our coffers are none too full of late. Not long before we… er… found you, we fair scraped the barrel to build a new warring birlinn and Darroc has been wearing a track in the rushes of his thinking room e’er since.

  “That’s where he’s been, my lady.” He glanced at her, looking embarrassed. “More like, he’s there now. Pacing and thinking, all else far from his mind.”

  Arabella’s brow knit. “I see.”

  She felt a rush of guilt because her own purse had always been heavy. Her father might have ruined her chances of winning a bonny suitor’s heart, but he’d been open-handed with his wealth.

  Still…

  Something wasn’t right.

  “My father has many friends in the Isles.” She blurted what was puzzling her. “Some have jested about how much timber washes onto their shores. They claimed never to spend a siller on lumber for their galleys. They—”

  “They weren’t boasting.” Conall drew himself up, the inherent pride shared by all Highlanders making him seem even taller. “We, too, have used such strand-ware. But we ne’er touch wood from a foundered ship. And we only use shore-found wood to build fishing cobles and the like.”

  He looked at her, his eyes glinting in the starlight. “Our new birlinn is different. It’s what the early MacDonald Lords of the Isles called a nyvaig. Such little ships have the
greatest maneuverability. They fly across the waves and can wheel about in the wink of an eye. And”—his chest swelled—“with the birlinn’s high stern and raised fighting deck, we can win any sea battle. But that isn’t why she was so dear. That was because we built her of wood from Nairn on the distant Moray Firth. The wood—”

  “Nairn?” Arabella blinked.

  Conall’s head bobbed.

  His confirmation confused her. She’d thought she’d misheard the name Nairn. She’d never been to the little burgh but knew it to be near the market town of Inverness. She also knew there was a deep wood at Nairn. It was called Culbin or something similar, if she recalled rightly.

  Even so, Nairn was a long and difficult journey from Kintail. From MacConachers’ Isle, the wee bit place might as well perch on the edge of the world.

  Arabella frowned. She wouldn’t have thought Darroc so unpractical. There were other, equally fine forests stretching along Scotland’s mainland coast.

  “I don’t understand.” She spoke softly, not wanting to offend. “Couldn’t the wood have been bought elsewhere? Argyll’s shores have many forests and—”

  “Nae.” Conall shook his head. “It had to be Nairn timber. Darroc would settle for no other. The trees on Nairn’s coast are special.”

  “Special?” Arabella struggled to keep her brows from arcing.

  Conall looked serious. “Aye, so many seafarers claim.”

  “Why?” She didn’t want to pry, but growing up with a stars-in-her-eyes sister ready to swallow any tale of wonder, made her wary of anything that even smacked of magic.

  She looked at Conall, waiting.

  He didn’t answer.

  His attention was once again on the long, white-capped rollers smashing into the rocks below the window.

  Arabella couldn’t quite suppress a sigh.

  “Please, I must know.” Curiosity was one of her greatest faults. “What makes a boat built of Nairn wood different from another?”

  He flushed and shuffled his feet.

  She waited.

  “I’ve already said more than I should have.” He spoke at last.