He waited as Mairi came up to him, the sympathy on her face making it worse. “I saw the recognition flare in her eyes. She couldn’t speak, but she stared at me as I eased the helm from her head, needing to be sure it was her - that I’d done the unthinkable and slain an innocent.”
“Are you sure it was her?” Mairi’s voice was soft and gentle, a beckoning relief in the horror of his memories. “You hadn’t seen her in years.”
“It was her, beyond doubt.” Gare could see the nightmarish scene again now, as clearly as yesterday. “She had unusually light green eyes and a heart-shaped birthmark on her cheek. I knelt beside her, smoothing back her spilled hair to be sure I wasn’t mistaken. Her gaze locked on mine, blood trickling from her mouth. Then she was gone, the deed done.
“I broke my sword there and then, vowing to never lift it again.” Gare clenched his fists, drew a deep shuddering breath. “When I returned to Blackrock, I did more. I knew I could ne’er again touch a woman.”
~ * ~
“You have touched this one.” Mairi slid her arms around him, holding tight. She could hardly speak for the thickness in her throat, scarce see his handsome face for the hot, unshed tears stinging her eyes. “No man’s sorrow has ever moved me so deeply. I do not have a love charm for you, or spelling words to ease your pain, but I can give you comfort and solace for however long it takes to heal your heart.”
“I am no’ sure I have one, lady.” He looked down at her, his dark eyes glinting in the mist and moon-washed darkness. “No’ since Neville’s Cross, anyway.”
“But you do.” She rested her cheek on his plaid-and-mail covered chest, hearing his heart’s steady thumping. “Everyone does, no matter what happens to us. Yours is only sleeping, waiting for revival.”
“Then all will be well.” He extracted himself from her embrace, stepping away from her. “For the good people of Blackrock, and for Lady Beatrice Burnett, who shall soon be my bride.”
“I am glad.” Your lady shall be the most blessed maid in the land.
And I shall be the most bereft.
Mairi turned aside, going over to where his dog had plopped down before a bench against the broch wall. She didn’t want Gare to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes, to guess that his words had stilled her own heart, dashing ridiculous hopes that he’d kindled inside her. A hot tide of jealousy gripped her, squeezing like an iron fist. Feelings she had no right to, a fierce unjustified sense of possessiveness that was frightening in its intensity.
If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was falling in love with the man.
Yet she’d only just met him.
Her heart laughed at the argument, her soul – an old one, she was sure – only smiled, nodding silently, admonishing her for doubting what was true.
Hadn’t she known when their gazes first met, that theirs was a meeting unlike any before?
The jolt that had hit her then was proof enough.
But to what end?
He intended to wed another, had sought her aid for that very purpose. She was even helping him, her words this night forging a path he was already following, moving away from her. He’d leave Dunwynde and the Glen of Winds, and return to his own distant stronghold where he’d wed and resume his life with the faceless noblewoman, Lady Beatrice Burnett.
She would remain here, as always on her own with the wind, rocks, and loneliness of the glen.
Only now, unlike ever before, she’d yearn to be elsewhere.
Not at all liking that he’d slipped so easily past her defenses, Mairi dropped onto the little wooden bench beside her door and leaned back against the hard, cold stone of the broch wall. She closed her eyes, furious when she was immediately assailed with images of herself and Gare naked and entwined on the furs of her sleeping pallet. She saw them mad for each other, then flushed and sated from their passionate lovemaking, their hearts pounding with the newfound love neither had thought to find.
A chill ran through her, rippling down her nerves. The pointlessness of her yearning split her heart, making it hard to even breathe.
Gare didn’t need help.
She did.
And she didn’t know how to begin to fix the ache building inside her.
She was about to push to her feet and go back inside the broch when she heard, “Lady, I have ne’er spoken so fully of that day.”
She stood quickly, turning to see Gare striding toward her, his mail and the Thor’s hammer amulet at his neck catching the moonlight.
“I still don’t understand about Lady Gwendolyn,” Mairi said when he stopped before her. I cannot speak to you about the other one, Lady Beatrice.
He glanced aside, his gaze on a nearby burn, its surface shining silver through the mist. “There is no’ much else to say.”
We have more to say than could fill a lifetime. Mairi kept the words silent, waiting as Troll gave a great, noisy yawn. He stretched and then pushed his face against her arm, kissing her hand, before leaving them to disappear into the warmth of the broch.
“He likes you.” Gare looked after the dog as he vanished into the broch’s shadows. “He aye gave my sister those nichtie-nicht kisses. I have no’ seen him show such affection to anyone else.”
“He is a good dog.” He is wonderful, and I could love him, too.
Mary drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, not willing to start down that road. Too much pain and sorrow waited at its end, and each step she’d take along the journey would only break her heart the more.
So she brushed down her skirts, stood straighter, and met Gare’s eye, preparing to hear the last bits she needed to push his tragic tale from her mind. “I understand Lady Gwendolyn’s fall from grace, as such matters are often called, but whatever made her don a knight’s armor and ride into battle, meeting a man’s war and risking a warrior’s death?
“It doesn’t make sense, and” – her heart clenched for the long-dead woman – “I am sorry for her.”
“As am I, lady.” The bleak look returned to Gare’s eyes, his face once more a mask of numb misery. “I meant to tell you. She’d fallen on such hard times that she’d taken to bartering her life for the necks of those knights and soldiers who, for whatever reason, chose not to honor an overlord’s call to arms. For coin, she went in their place.”
“Oh!” Mairi’s eyes rounded. She felt ill.
The poor woman’s plight was a worse fate than anything she’d endured.
Nor had she ever heard the like.
“There are men who pay others to fight for them?” As a proud MacKenzie, hailing from a clan forged of Scotland’s most valiant and fierce warriors, she could scarce credit any man sinking so low, especially to employ a woman. “You said she was a born horsewoman, had learned to joust like a champion. These are the skills she sold?”
Gare nodded. “I was told she claimed she’d rather die on the field, lance in hand, than in a whore’s bed because some lecher gave her the pox.”
“Oh, dear…” Mairi’s eyed filled and she dashed at her cheeks, her throat thickening again. “A thousand blessings and graces on her soul.”
“And on you, my lady.” He reached for her hands, linking their fingers when she accepted his grasp. “I thank whate’er powers led me to you. My remorse will ne’er completely fade, nor would I wish it to, given the past. But I now believe I can offer for Lady Beatrice with a clear conscience, certain I will make her a good husband.”
“I am glad,” Mairi said again, finding no other words.
Those three tasted like cold ash on her tongue, and so suited her mind beautifully. He was squeezing her fingers now, the contact sending currents of sensation up her arms, across her skin and along her nerves. Tingly liquid heat that rushed straight to her heart and poured into deeper, intimate places, damning her.
Her breath hitched and she’d swear the fine hairs on her nape were lifting from the shock. It felt as if she’d snatched a lightning bolt from the sky, closing her fingers around its hot, sizzling core
.
Never had a man’s touch affected her powerfully.
And he was only holding her hands!
She pulled free, half wondering if he wasn’t the one said to cast miracles.
She met his gaze, hoped her voice wouldn’t betray her. “Then there is no further reason for you to stay on here.” I wish you would leave now, so swiftly I cannot even draw another breath before the mist closes around you, hiding you from my sight. “I will prepare a food hamper for you in the morning, enough provender to see you and Troll well beyond Kintail’s farthest boundaries.”
“You are kind.” He was so tall, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled, so ruggedly handsome in the silvery light of so much swirling mist and moon glow. “I will honor your secret here, telling no one that I met you. But this, I promise,” he added, taking both her hands again and bringing them to his lips. “I shall ne’er forget you.”
“You will leave at first light?” She could hardly speak.
“Aye, you have my word.” He nodded, breaking her heart. “I shall pay your respects to your chieftain, Duncan, when I call at Eilean Creag Castle to collect my horse. He should know what a fine kinswoman he has, that I am grateful-”
A great crash came from the broch, the unmistakable toppling of a table, the shattering of earthen cups and bowls, and the loud slurping of a dog eating spilled stew off the hard-packed dirt floor.
“Troll!” Gare sprinted into the broch, calling to his dog.
Mairi followed more slowly, needing to gather her wits. She was almost glad the beast had made such a mess, knocking over the table to steal the remaining stew in their dinner bowls, the untouched cheese and her famed bannocks. Cleaning up after him would keep her occupied, giving her something to do besides make a pallet for Gare.
She wasn’t sure she could bear that.
Not knowing that once he’d slept there, he’d leave her forever.
Dunwynde and the Glen of Winds banshee forgotten and wiped from his mind, no matter how much he swore that he would always remember her.
She knew better.
Much as she wished she didn’t.
Chapter Five
“Troll!” Gare skidded to a halt inside the broch’s devastated main room. In truth, the ancient ruin’s only room. He set his hands on his hips, frowned at his dog. “Have you gone daft, laddie? Did the lass no’ give you a well-filled stew bowl of your own?”
The dog looked back at him, licking his lips as he did so, his canine gaze unblinking.
Guileless, he dropped his huge haunches in the middle of the mess from Mairi’s toppled table. One leg had broken. The two earthen bowls that had held his and Mairi’s supper were cracked in halves, the useless shards cleaned of any stew that might have clung to their sides. Nary a speck of food littered the well-swept floor, making clear that Troll had gobbled all evidence of his mischief, save the pool of spilled ale that was slowly spreading. The ale cups were intact, but the jug was shattered beyond repair.
Blessedly, the night wind had extinguished the table candle when Mairi latched back the entry’s leather curtain or a worse disaster might have greeted them.
As things stood, Gare felt terrible.
“My apologies, ne’er has he done anything the like.” He turned to her for she was still behind him, in the doorway. He was stunned to see her smiling.
Troll barked and lumbered over to her, pressing his bulk into her legs.
The fiend’s tail swished, his lolling tongue almost making him look proud of his handiwork.
“It’s no bother.” Mairi turned her smile on the dog, reaching down to ruffle his ears. “He was hungry, no more.”
Gare rubbed the back of his neck, frowning. “He broke your table,” he said, glancing at the rickety piece that was already a disgrace.
Stooping, he picked up the shattered leg and tossed it on the room’s central hearthstone. It caught fire at once, the flames bright and blue-orange, crackling loudly as the wood quickly burned.
“I’ll repair the table before I leave,” he offered, wishing he could do more. He turned back to Mairi, his scowl worsening to see that she’d dropped to her knees beside his dog and had wrapped one arm around Troll’s massive shoulders. She appeared to whisper soft words into the beast’s ear. “My regrets that doing so will delay our departure,” he added, noting Troll’s sly, one-eyed glance.
“It shouldn’t take long.” He’d make certain. “We can be away before gloaming.”
“As you wish.” Mairi didn’t look at him, her attention on Troll who’d stretched out at her feet, freeing his furry belly for rubs. “Perhaps we can roll in one of the larger rocks, jam it beneath the table?”
She looked at him then, her suggestion spearing his heart. “Such would serve well.”
“Nae, it willnae.” Gare was outraged.
“I wouldn’t mind.” She stroked Troll’s chest, scratched beneath his chin. “As long as the table doesn’t wobble, it will be fine.”
“You shouldnae be eating at such a crude table at all.” His opinion came more harshly then he’d intended, but she unraveled his wits, made him think and behave in ways that were so unlike him he scarce knew himself since he’d entered her windy, rockbound glen.
“Truth is,” - he stalked over to tower above her and his dog – “I cannae believe a man like Duncan MacKenzie would allow his kinswoman to sit at such a poor excuse for a table. Aye, he disappoints me.”
“He isn’t to blame.” She spoke quietly, pushing to her feet and smoothing her skirts as she met his irritated gaze. “My laird would’ve carted all the luxuries of Eilean Creag Castle to Dunwynde had I allowed him. We even argued about it, but his lady wife took my side.”
Gare looked at her, more confounded than ever. “She wished you to live so poorly?”
“Nae.” She shook her head. “She wished me to live.”
Moving away from Troll, she re-latched the door hanging, then dusted her hands. “Lady Linnet agreed with me that a procession of comfortable furnishings being transported clear across Kintail would’ve drawn attention. My reason for being in this glen was and remains that no one knows I am here.
“The goods in this broch,” - she gestured round at the meager household – “all came from a small shepherd’s hut in the next glen. Everything you see was brought over the hills or along low-lying burn channels either at night or under cover of dark, fog-drenched days.”
“I see.” Gare did, much as he didn’t care for her needing such precautions.
An equally great concern was why her plight troubled him so.
“I see you do like dogs.” He sought a safer topic as he moved to help her straighten Troll’s mess, for she’d begun gathering the shards of her broken earthenware. “Most ladies would no’ be so tolerant of such antics.”
“I told you I have a heart for dogs,” she said, dropping a bowl half into the small wicker basket she held. “Troll reminds me of one I had at my home, Drumbell village. I loved him dearly and ache for him still.”
She bent to pick up another bit of broken pottery. “I lost him less than a year ago. His name was Clyde, for he was found there as puppy, abandoned on the banks of the River Clyde, just outside the great city of Glasgow. A wandering family of no clan ties passed through Drumbell, staying for a few nights, telling tales and playing pipes and fiddles in exchange for pallets, ale, and meals.
“When they left, they forgot Clyde.” She paused, drew a deep breath, swiped at her cheek. “I do miss him.”
“He looked like Troll?”
“He did, very much.” She glanced at the dog, her eyes suspiciously bright, her voice catching.
Gare felt like an arse.
He wasn’t actually sure why, but he did. He also felt other things and it was becoming harder and harder to ignore them. Worse, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“I am sorry, lady.” Closing the short space between them, he drew her into his arms, holding her close, wanting only to comfort her.
“So am
I…” She didn’t finish, leaning into him so that he felt a tremor ripple through her.
“I cannae think of losing Troll.” He ran his hands up and down her sides, settling them on her shoulders, tightening his grip just enough to soothe her. He hoped. Unfortunately, feeling her warm softness pressed against him was a pleasure he hadn’t known in so long. Even more disturbing, he didn’t just feel her lush, pliant body crushed to his, he had the oddest sense that she was somehow becoming a part of him. As if her heart and soul were flowing into him, melding with his to leave an indelible imprint on him.
A branding, a claiming, he suspected would remain. And not just for the duration of his journey home to Blackrock, but all his living days.
“It is hard to lose a good friend.” He drew her closer, resting his cheek against the crown of her sleek, raven hair as he slid a glance at Troll.
The great hairy lump ignored him, his eyes tightly shut as he gave a loud, fluting snore. It was a noise so painfully fake that Gare would’ve thrown back his head and roared with laughter under any other circumstances.
As things stood…
Sons of Odin, he was kissing Mairi’s brow!
Gare straightened at once, releasing her as if she’d turned into a grizzly-chinned, wart-nosed crone. He hoped to the gods she hadn’t noticed the kiss. It was bad enough that he had, the warm silk of her skin still haunting his lips, the fresh clean scent of her hair playing havoc with his senses, stirring his manhood.
Across the room, Troll rolled onto his side, craftily showing them his back and treating them to more phony snores, giving them privacy.
Gare shoved a hand through his hair, sure he’d run mad.
He was also doomed.
He’d sought Mairi MacKenzie hoping she would work her magick so that he could cast the shackles from his heart, so he’d make Lady Beatrice a good and worthy husband.
Now, gods help him, he had a new reason not to want to marry the Burnett heiress.
One he couldn’t consider.
~ * ~
“Clyde is the reason I am here.” Mairi chose her words carefully, hoping her tone didn’t reveal that his unthinking kiss to her brow had unsettled her so greatly.
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