“He will eat anon, I promise you.” Gare shot an annoyed look at the dog, not surprised to see an ear twitch.
The beast knew they were talking about him.
“If he doesn’t, I’ll put him on a barley water and gruel diet when we return to Blackrock.” Gare kept his eye on the dog as he spoke. He was rewarded by another ear twitch, this time accompanied by a flickering of the dog’s closed eyelids.
Troll didn’t care for his threat.
“Indeed,” – Gare hooked his thumbs in his sword belt – “perhaps we’ll forget the gruel, and just give him barley water.
“Until he’s feeling himself,” he added, waiting.
Another pitiful moan filled the broch, a deep sorrowful sigh.
“He has been drinking.” Mairi crossed the room to peer at Troll’s water bowl.
“Then he’ll have enough strength to cross the hills.” Gare was sure of it.
He glanced at the provender sack Mairi had filled for them. It still sat by the door. But for some reason, he couldn’t make himself reach down and sling it across his shoulder.
He knew why, and the reason infuriated him.
He should never have touched Mairi MacKenzie.
It’d been madness to kiss her.
It was equally daft to stand here now, with her crossing the smoke-hazed broch, coming right up to him.
“You should eat something, too.” Her gaze slid over him, slow and assessing. “The hills between here and Eilean Creag are trackless, the going rough. You’ll journey better with sustenance.”
Before he could argue, she took his arm and drew him to the table, set with oatcakes, cheese, and a tray of smoked herring. Her touch lit his skin, sending heat straight to his groin. Worse, something in his chest unfurled, a strange and curious sensation.
A feeling he’d never known and didn’t want to embrace now.
He willed it away, pretending he hadn’t noticed.
“Lady, you are kind.” He took the oatcake she offered, and a small bit of cheese. “I will partake gladly.”
He was a doomed man, after all.
“What are your plans?” She stepped back from the table, leaving him to help himself. “Once you’ve reached Eilean Creag.”
“Duncan MacKenzie will surely offer me a night’s lodging, and then I’ll collect Rune, my horse, and be away.” He glanced at her, immediately wishing he hadn’t.
Her great blue eyes were fixed on him and his heart leapt just looking at her. For a beat, he couldn’t think straight. When he could, something in her gaze hinted that she felt the same odd awareness that crackled between them, and that only made things worse. He tore his gaze away, reached for another oatcake and a herring.
“I’ll thank your chief and his men for granting me passage across their lands, especially into this glen.” I won’t tell them I now wish I’d ne’er come here.
“Lady Linnet enjoys guests. Her hospitality is praised throughout the Highlands.” Mairi spoke from the door, her back to the smoky room. “She’ll try to keep you there, leastways for a few nights.”
“Then she will be disappointed for I must return to Blackrock at haste.” If I remain in Kintail any longer, I’ll ne’er leave, or I’ll be taking you with me when I go. “I have much to do along the way home. Most importantly, I shall call at Burnett Tower near Inverness,” he added, putting the dread task in words.
So he couldn’t ignore the deed.
His sworn duty to his king and the realm. The good people of Blackrock, who relied on him.
He didn’t touch his food, his stomach clenching. “I must speak with Lady Beatrice’s father, make arrangements to-”
“Marry his daughter,” Mairi finished for him, her voice as cool and level as her back was straight.
“That is the way of it, aye.” Something inside him broke on the admission. It was a terrible fiery twisting, a rift of jagged misery deep in his chest.
He went to stand behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, his chin atop her head. “I am sorry,” he said, hoping she’d understand his meaning without forcing him to say words that would only hurt her. Rip his own soul into a thousand or more pieces.
“The King’s Lieutenant has my oath.” It was true. “The very day I set off on my journey to find you, I sent his courier south with my sworn agreement to do the crown’s will, securing a strong alliance for the northeast – through marriage to a fellow chieftain’s daughter.
“Such an oath is binding.” Gare fisted his hands on her shoulders, wished he couldn’t feel the reaction rippling through her.
He closed his eyes, drew a long, deep breath. How ironic that he’d come to the Glen of Winds in the hope its banshee would release his heart from the hard stone casing that had built around it.
Instead, he’d learned there wasn’t a banshee, but a beautiful, desirable woman.
Rather than freeing his heart so he could love another, she’d claimed it for herself.
~ * ~
“I will also speak to MacKenzie about you.” He turned her to face him, gripping her elbows as he looked down at her. His face was hard-set, his gaze fierce. “Your safety concerns me. I dinnae care to think of you here alone. You’d be better off at Eilean Creag. It’s a formidable holding, guarded not just by the loch surrounding its isle-girt walls, but a garrison of Scotland’s most famed fighting men, warriors led by a man who’s already a legend.”
Mairi almost smiled, and would have if her heart weren’t breaking.
Duncan had pressed her with those very arguments when she’d first called at his door, asking for sanctuary.
He hadn’t claimed to be legend, but he was.
All men knew it.
“The Black Stag would agree, for he made me those very arguments himself.” She wouldn’t lie. “But if you knew my clan, you’d know there’s no race more thrawn. MacKenzie women are even more stubborn than our men, so you’d both have no luck dragging me from this glen.
“I told him then that I’ll not be responsible for drawing the wrath of Sorcha Bell on Eilean Creag and my kinfolk who dwell there.” She turned back to door opening, the day outside still clear with autumn light. “She’s a formidable foe and she’d shy at nothing to harm me.” She paused, rubbing her arms as a chill raced through her. “She’d also not hesitate to attack anyone who’d help me.”
“All the more reason you should heed your laird’s will and let him protect you within his castle walls. He is a great man, he-” He broke off, sounding frustrated.
He braced a hand on the door’s edge, lowered his head to stare down at the threshold’s stone slab. “MacKenzie is known to protect his kin. He will keep you safe. Let him.”
“He does.” Mairi returned to the broch’s deeper shadows. It was hard to have him so near, yet already so far removed from her. She didn’t want him to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes when he left. “The men he sends to guard the glen are his best. Sir Marmaduke is his own good-brother and a champion swordsman.”
She stopped beside her fire, extending her hands to the glowing peat bricks. She needed the warmth for a terrible cold was spreading inside her. “There are other ways I’m protected.”
“Aye, the spirits of the damned.” Gare sounded even more annoyed. Proving it, he threw a scowl at Troll. “Bogles didnae keep me from entering this glen. I cannae be the only man in Scotland no’ afraid of ghosts.”
He straightened then and came to her with three long strides. He gripped her shoulders, looking fierce. So tall, strong, and magnificent that her heart almost wept. “Heed me, lass, for I’ve seen the worst of men.” His voice was rough, his dark gaze piercing. “Myth and legend will only work so long, then-”
“I didn’t mean the spirits.” Mairi stiffened. She knew what spurred his concern. He wanted to ride to Lady Beatrice without guilt and worry plaguing him. “Lady Linnet is a taibhsear. Her gift of second sight is even greater than most seers because she is the seventh sister of a seventh sister.”
She lifted her chin, met his gaze levelly. “I cannot recall her ever erring.”
“I cannae see how her gift would aid you.” A muscle leapt in his jaw. “Men and a stout curtain wall-”
“She’d sense any danger that might approach the glen. My chief trusts in her and would act to would protect me. So you see, I am well guarded on all fronts. You can leave without a care.” She kept her back straight, her voice strong. “MacKenzies look after their own.”
“They must also sleep.” He slid another look at Troll, then turned away to shove both hands through his hair. “I’m of a mind to take you with me to Eilean Creag, leaving you there.”
“I would not go.” She wouldn’t.
She did fold her arms, hoped he’d be away soon. Her stomach was knotting. Dread coiled deep inside her, the knowledge that when he and his dog left the glen, disappearing up the cliff path, she’d never see either again.
“I am not your concern.” She moved away, brushed at her skirts. “You can put me from your thoughts as soon as you’ve climbed the track out of the Glen of Winds.”
“You are no’ a maid easily forgotten, Mairi MacKenzie.”
“I must be for you to call me a maid.” Did I not tell you I am no such innocent?
He flashed her a dark look before snatching a piece of roast capon off the table and striding over to his dog. He dropped to one knee beside the beast, his broad back to her as he held the treat before Troll’s slumbering nose. “Lady, if you’ve spent as much time as I have at court and on the tourney circuits, you’d know that a woman’s true innocence dwells in her heart, no’ betwixt her legs.
“Forgive the harsh words,” – he glanced at her over his shoulder – “but they must be said. Any man who’d turn away from you because of something you’ve done in the past, is a man no’ worthy of you.”
Mairi blinked, not knowing what to say.
Nor could she have spoken if she wished because a hot thickness was rising in her throat.
“Your chief should arrange a marriage for you.” He poked Troll’s mouth with the roasted meat, scowling even more when the dog wakened and turned his great head to the side, shunning the food.
“He did once.” Mairi found her tongue, long ago hurts, and a love she’d always cherish, helping her to speak past her sorrow. She clasped her hands before her, waiting as Gare grumbled to his dog and then pushed to his feet, leaving the treat beside Troll.
“My mother died birthing me and I never knew my father,” she began, wanting him to understand. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle. They were village farmers, famed only for the size and tastiness of the onions that grew in their garden. My uncle did a fair trade at markets in Kintail and elsewhere in the Highlands. Duncan MacKenzie arranged for him to sell his onions to an innkeeper on the Isle of Skye.
“The inn was on the harbor at Kyleakin, so was well-visited.” She began pacing, memories swirling from the darkest corners of her soul. “I sometimes accompanied my uncle when he delivered his onions to the inn, and so-”
“You caught his eye?”
“Not the innkeeper’s, but his son’s,” she explained. “His name was Patrick for his mother was Irish.”
A peat brick on the hearthstone popped then, sending a shower of red-orange sparks into the air. Going to the fire, Mairi took her poker and nudged at the mound of peats until they again simmered quietly.
“He was a big, strapping lad with laughing eyes and a wicked smile.” She drew a breath, long ago images pinching her heart. “I was young, had never been in love, not even kissed…”
“Until this lad pursued you.” Gare was leaning against the table with his arms crossed, his gaze on the glowing peats. His dark hair gleamed in the firelight, his tall, warrior’s body so out of place in the small, smoky room. He was simply too magnificent, should be striking such a pose against the marbled hearth of a great noble’s finest solar.
Like as not, his Blackrock Castle held such luxuries.
And wasn’t that a good reason for her to ignore how the air around him seemed so charged with his powerful presence? The bold and potent virility and strength that drew her so irresistibly that she was sure her femininity sang just to breathe the same air.
She shouldn’t feel such fierce longing.
She bit her lip, willing her need to cease.
“He paid me court, aye.” She lifted her braid, toyed with its end. “He made me smile and laugh, he wrote songs for me as he fancied himself a bit of a poet. He won my young heart, which I gave him freely.”
“I regret nothing.” She spoke the truth in her heart. “If I could turn back the years, I’d not want to miss our brief time together.”
“MacKenzie offered terms for you, suggesting a marriage?” Gare spoke then, his gaze locked on hers. “He arranged the betrothal and the lad left you?”
Mairi nodded. “So it was, but Patrick didn’t leave me because he didn’t want me. He did, and we spent stolen hours indulging our youthful passion in Kyleakin’s hidden corners – trysts that made me a woman.
“Then, just as the betrothal was to be finalized, he died.” She closed her eyes, the memory still painful. “He’d been waiting for me high in the hills above the harbor when a storm hit. My father wouldn’t allow me to leave the inn, and so Patrick waited. By the time he realized I wasn’t coming that day, the storm had turned fierce.
“The hills are steep thereabouts, the ground strewn with rocks, some loose.” Mairi began to pace, speaking quickly before her throat could close again. “He slipped on the muddied ground and fell to his death, striking his head as he hurtled down the cliff, landing in the sea.”
She turned at the far end of the broch, meaning to pace back to the door, but Gare was right behind her, blocking the way.
“By the powers, lass.” He reached out and took her hands, squeezing her fingers. Nothing but sympathy stood on his face and seeing it broke her heart anew.
Not for Patrick, but for knowing what a wonderful husband Gare would make. She hoped Lady Beatrice was worthy of him, but she also wished the woman didn’t exist.
Guilt now joining her sorrow, she held Gare’s gaze. “It was long ago.”
He gripped her hands tighter. “I am sorry, lass. Such a loss will have been hard for you, especially so young.”
“It was, and I will never forget him.”
“Nor should you.” He released her hands to slide his arms around her, drawing her close. “You do the lad honor, and that is good.”
“There was another…” She hadn’t meant to speak of her more recent lover, but Gare’s embrace unsettled her, causing the words to spill free. “He was a traveling smithy, journeying about to ply his trade. We met and so” – she felt the heat rising in his cheeks, annoyance beating through her – “he stayed on in Drumbell, courting me and making plans for a life together, once he’d saved enough coin to start a family.
“I should not have believed him.” She knew that to her cost. “But I was so lonely, see you? He was a fine looking man, and lusty. He drew the admiration of all women, from wee girls to crones, for he had an easy way of speaking, turning phrases that made any woman feel special, as if he saw only her, and was enchanted.
“What he saw was opportunity.” Mairi lifted her chin, hot bile flavoring the words. “I allowed him to sleep at my cottage and he supped at my table. I washed his clothes and stitched repairs as needed. Then a fat-pursed Inverness merchant stopped at the village when his horse had thrown a shoe. As the work was done, the merchant spoke of Inverness’s need for well-skilled smithies. He also told of his beautiful daughters, the hefty bride prices they’d bring.”
“The smith left with him?”
“The next morn. I was a fool.”
“Nae, you were a woman of passion. You are one, the gods be praised.” He cupped her face in his hands, his gaze fierce. “You are a treasure and will make a fine wife someday.”
His words were the ones she’d most dreaded.
A truth she ha
d to face.
Knowing now was the time, she went to the door. The light was fading, the sun low and dim behind the darkening clouds. There was also a hint of rain in the air, and mist clung to the highest peaks.
Gloaming was nigh, and Gare was still here.
A part of her rejoiced, the rest of her quaked with the awareness of what the night would bring.
If it rained, she wouldn’t let him sleep outside.
If he stayed with her…
“I am sorry, lass.” He came up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I meant to leave earlier. I can still go now. I’ll carry Troll if need be. He-”
“Nae.” Mairi shook her head, preparing herself to do the only thing she could: Claim what little bit of him that she could, so she’d have something to cherish once he’d gone.
“It is too late.” You cannot cross the hills in darkness and my heart cares too much to let you. “I will make us a warm supper and you can depart on the morrow.” She looked out into the glen, its steep, rockbound edges hazed now by soft shades of blue and gray.
The smell of rain was stronger, coming on the raw, wet wind.
“If it rains, you can sleep in the broch,” she said, aware she was sealing her fate. “There is room before the fire.” My bed of furs will keep you warmer.
“You are sure?” He slid his hands down her arms, resting them at her hips. “I’ve no’ wish to trouble you.”
“You won’t.” She leaned back into him, inhaling his scent. “I want you to stay.”
Before he could answer, the sun slipped behind the hills, the glen darkened, and the winds picked up, bringing the first splatters of rain.
Chapter Eight
A full sennight later, Gare eased back Dunwynde’s door flap and frowned into the cold, wet night. He also struck his fist against the saturated stone of the door’s thick-cut edge. Mist and sideways rain blew everywhere, and the howling wind could indeed pass for the wails of the doomed – or the cries of a banshee. Rarely had he seen such downpours, surely not lasting a full seven days. Not since his tourney years, so long ago, in so many strange lands with equally odd weather.
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