by Jayne Castel
His voice was markedly different to MacKinnon’s as well. It was much lower and deeper. Just like his eyes, the outlaw’s voice held a warmth that the clan-chief’s had always lacked.
And yet, standing outside the infirmary, Coira struggled to regain her equilibrium.
She wished there was another healer in the abbey—another nun who could help him besides her.
Goose, Coira chided herself. He’s just a man. Ignore who he is and treat him like any other. She walked away from the infirmary, and toward the refectory where bread and beer would be served to break the nuns’ fast.
Truthfully, she had no appetite. She usually enjoyed all her meals, for she worked hard and was rarely idle during the day. But this morning, her encounter with the outlaw had left her shaken.
Her only solace was that she didn’t think the man had picked up on her reaction to him. He was in too much pain.
Lost in brooding thoughts, Coira circuited the complex, and was about to join the flood of nuns who were entering the refectory, when the clang of iron echoed across the yard.
Coira’s step faltered. Someone was at the gates and had just let the knocker fall.
Kilbride had visitors.
Glancing around her, she saw that a few of the other nuns had halted, including Sister Elspeth, one of the older women who’d been here long before Coira’s arrival at the abbey. The nun wore an expression of constant disapproval, her small mouth pursed, her eyes narrowed. She drew herself up now, irritation vibrating through her thin body, and when she spoke, her voice held a querulous edge. “Who dares bother us at this hour?”
Coira didn’t reply, as she realized the question was probably rhetorical. With a huff of irritation, Sister Elspeth picked up the long skirts of her habit and hurried across the dirt yard toward the gates. Without thinking, Coira fell in behind her.
Once she reached the gates, Sister Elspeth drew open the small window that sat at eye-height. Coira couldn’t see what the older nun was looking at, but judging by the way Sister Elspeth went rigid, she hadn’t liked what lay beyond.
“Who is it?” Coira whispered.
Sister Elspeth ignored her. Instead, she stepped back and started unbolting the gates. “Help me, would ye?” she snapped.
Irritated at having orders barked at her, Coira reluctantly stepped forward and aided Sister Elspeth. Together they gripped one of the heavy wooden and iron gates, and hauled it back.
A thin, milky mist breathed in, its tendrils twisting like crone’s hair. A jingling sound filtered through the damp air then, and a harsh command cut through the dawn. “Open the gates … I have business with the abbess!”
Coira’s breathing slowed. The Saints preserve us … I know that voice.
She peered through the fog, where shadowy figures now emerged. The nearest was a lanky, round-shouldered figure: a monk garbed in black who’d just knocked upon the gates. Behind him clustered a group of his fellow monks, who suddenly parted to admit a heavyset figure atop a pony.
Only, it wasn’t a pony but a mule. The creature was bedecked in bells, ornaments, and tassels; the bells tinkling as the burdened beast swayed forward. The man astride it wore a truculent, pinched expression, as if his arse pained him.
Coira heaved in a deep, steadying breath, even as her belly dropped.
Father Camron.
The Abbot of Crossraguel was paying them another visit.
4
Thwarted
Dunan broch
MacKinnon territory
Isle of Skye
DUNCAN MACKINNON SLAMMED the goblet down upon the table, his gaze fixed on the blond man standing at the foot of the dais. “This isn’t good enough, Broderick … the bastard can’t have disappeared into thin air!”
A tense silence settled upon the Great Hall of Dunan—retainers and kin swiveled in their seats, their attention settling upon their clan-chief. Everyone was halfway through their noon meal of blood sausage, braised leeks, and hefty loaves of oaten bread when MacKinnon’s right-hand, Carr Broderick, had entered the hall.
MacKinnon glared down at the warrior, irritated that his outburst hadn’t moved the man at all. His rugged face was set in an unreadable expression. Although not overly tall, Broderick made up for it in breadth and strength; his stocky frame was pure muscle. His close-cropped blond hair just added to his severe, unyielding appearance.
“We’ve combed yer lands over and over again,” Broderick said when the silence between them started to crackle with tension. Like his expression, his voice gave nothing away. “There’s no sign of the outlaws.”
“But I saw my bastard brother take an arrow in the side,” Duncan exploded. “He’ll be injured … he won’t have gone far.”
“Maybe he’s dead?” A cool female voice interjected then, and MacKinnon swung his gaze left to where a dainty woman with rich brown hair piled up onto the crown of her head had just spoken. Undaunted by her brother’s outburst, Drew MacKinnon’s sharp grey-eyed gaze met his. “Have ye not considered that?”
“I’ll not believe Craeg’s dead till I see his rotting corpse with my own eyes,” Duncan snarled back.
“Lady Drew has a point,” Broderick rumbled. “That might be why we can’t find him … he’s buried under six-feet of dirt somewhere.”
Broderick hadn’t moved from his position. He waited before the raised platform at the end of the Great Hall, where the clan-chief and his kin took their meals. The warrior stood, legs akimbo, in an arrogant stance that grated upon MacKinnon. His previous right-hand, Ross Campbell, had been an arrogant man too, but he’d also been clever with words, and had known how to ease a tense situation or offer explanations that would appease MacKinnon.
Carr Broderick was charmless and disarmingly blunt at times. Duncan watched the warrior, gaze narrowed. Campbell’s betrayal had made the clan-chief wary of the men who served him. He knew the two men had been friends, and initially after Campbell had run off with the woman Duncan had planned to wed, Lady Leanna, the clan-chief had suspected Broderick of somehow aiding them. However, the man had been off fetching a priest for the marriage ceremony when the incident occurred.
MacKinnon’s attention shifted back to his sister. He didn’t trust her either. Drew swore that on the night Campbell and Lady Leanna escaped the broch, she’d heard nothing. Duncan didn’t fully believe her at the time—and he still suspected she was hiding something. However, he had no proof against her.
The memory of that humiliating night still burned within him, and his chest constricted whenever he recalled it. He’d underestimated Leanna it seemed, and shouldn’t have drunk so much wine before attempting to claim her. She’d been cowering against the wall as he explored her lithe body, and then she’d kneed him in the cods—twice.
The wee bitch had put every ounce of her strength into the attack too. In the days that followed, Duncan had wondered if he’d ever father another child; although Dunan’s healer had assured him there had been no lasting damage.
He’d been curled up on the floor, retching from the pain, when Campbell burst into the bed-chamber. He’d trussed Duncan up like a capon, and then the pair of them had fled, locking him inside the room.
“I repeat,” MacKinnon growled, shoving aside the memories that made him break out in a cold sweat. “Until I see my bastard brother’s body, I’ll not believe he’s dead.” He leaned back in his carven chair then, drawing a deep breath as he sought to master the rage that made his pulse thunder in his ears.
Wisely, Drew didn’t argue the point with him. Dismissing her, he pinned Broderick with a hard stare. “Ye have already failed me once … if ye let Craeg slip through the net, I won’t give ye another chance to redeem yerself.”
The threat fell heavily in the silence. Everyone in the hall had stopped eating now and was watching their clan-chief.
Broderick stared back at him, and although his expression was still inscrutable, Duncan saw his gaze narrow slightly. The hardening of his jaw also betrayed him; like Ross Ca
mpbell before him, Carr Broderick was a proud man. He didn’t like being threatened.
MacKinnon didn’t care—he was done with being thwarted.
Raising a hand, he dismissed the Captain of the Dunan Guard before clicking his fingers, holding his goblet aloft to be refilled.
A young woman appeared at his elbow. She was a shy, dark-haired lass—one of his cousins—of plain face and with a figure so slender that MacKinnon found her sexless. A pity really, for he was in the mood for some bed sport.
The lass filled his goblet and scurried away, gaze averted. Duncan ignored her. Leaning back in his chair, he took a large gulp of sloe wine and retreated into his own thoughts.
And as often when he withdrew from others, his mind went to Lady Leanna MacDonald.
The pounding in his ears increased. How he’d wanted the woman—ever since he’d first set eyes upon her at a gathering between the MacKinnon and MacDonald clans. Her father had thwarted him, but after his sudden death in a hunting accident, Duncan had wasted no time in tearing Leanna from Kilbride Abbey, where she’d been living as a novice nun.
Things should have gone his way then. Campbell and Broderick delivered her to Dunan, but fate had turned against him. MacKinnon couldn’t believe she’d managed to escape, or that Ross Campbell had betrayed him. Where had Campbell taken her? He’d even dispatched men to the mainland to look for her, when his search upon Skye was fruitless. He’d sent word to all the clan-chiefs and chieftains upon the isle, along with thinly veiled threats of what he’d do to any who dared harbor her, but none had responded to him.
Over a month on, Leanna still dominated his thoughts, as did fantasies of what he’d do if he ever caught her.
Duncan took another gulp of wine, welcoming its heat as the rich liquid slid down his throat. He was drinking too much these days, yet he found that it was the only thing that took the edge off his rage. He hadn’t lain with a woman since that disastrous attempt with Leanna. It was time to break the curse she’d cast upon him.
Setting down his goblet, the clan-chief shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. Next to him, Drew stopped eating, her gaze swiveling to his untouched platter and then to his face.
“Does the food displease ye?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I thought blood sausage was yer favorite?” Drew continued, her dark brows drawing together. “Ye hardly eat at all these days … ye will be nothing but skin and bone soon if ye don’t take care.”
Heat flushed across Duncan’s face as irritation surged. “Stop nagging, sister,” he snarled. However, as he stepped off the dais and strode across the floor of the hall, past long tables where his retainers still ate and drank, he reflected that, indeed, his clothing was starting to hang on him these days. His need for vengeance had become an obsession; it had narrowed his world. He’d lost his taste for food.
He was having trouble accepting that Leanna was lost to him, but he wouldn’t give up on seeing his brother swing from a gibbet. Once Craeg was caught, the world would return to normal.
Bran, his faithful wolfhound, leaped down from where he’d been sitting under the table upon the dais and fell in behind Duncan. The dog loped at his heel as the clan-chief strode across the broch’s wide entrance hall and descended the steep steps to the bailey below.
The wolfhound was the only occupant of the broch who didn’t irritate Duncan on a daily basis. But of late he hadn’t paid the dog the attention he usually did. Bran didn’t appear to care though—he merely trotted after his master, his ever-present shadow.
MacKinnon left the bailey through a high stone arch and made his way into the streets below. Without even thinking about his direction, his feet carried him toward ‘The Warren’, a squalid tangle of alleyways in the lower village.
Duncan hadn’t walked this way in a while. Of late, what with the threat of pestilence, and everything else, he’d been preoccupied. After Leanna’s brutal attack, his cods had taken a while to heal. Yet the ache in his bollocks now had to be satisfied. It would also relieve the tension within him, distract him from his own thoughts for a short while.
The Goat and Goose was a high, narrow building made of pitted grey stone that loomed over a shadowy lane. The air outside the brothel reeked of stale piss, but Duncan paid it no mind. The Goat and Goose had the best whores on the isle, and Old Maude always did her best to ensure the clan-chief left satisfied.
Stepping inside the common room, Duncan left behind the squalor of ‘The Warren’ and entered a softly lit space. Pine and herbs scented the air, from the soft mattress of sawdust underfoot, and flickering cressets of oil perfumed with rosemary and lavender lined the walls. Yet underneath it all the faint odor of stale sweat pervaded—it always did here. There weren’t many customers present at this hour, and as such, the whores who lolled on chairs near the glowing hearth all snapped to attention at the clan-chief’s arrival.
“MacKinnon!” Maude, blowsy and busty with a mane of greying blonde hair pinned up into an elaborate tangle upon her head, swept in from nowhere. The woman brought with her a wake of rose perfume—a scent MacKinnon would always associate with this brothel. “We have missed ye.”
“I’ve been busy,” he replied, his tone deliberately cold. Duncan wasn’t here to indulge in idle chatter.
Maude favored him with a sly smile. The woman was sharper than most, and she’d sensed his mood. “Would ye like the usual?”
“Aye.” Duncan lowered himself down into a chair one of the whores had just vacated and took the goblet of wine the serving lass passed him. “But give me a different girl this time … the last one didn’t please me.”
A shadow passed over Maude’s face. This was ill news indeed, for she lived to please the clan-chief. “Of course,” she replied hastily. “If ye would give me a few moments to organize things for ye?”
Duncan nodded curtly. He didn’t mind waiting, just as long as he got the whore he wanted. Indeed, the last time he’d visited The Goat and Goose, he’d ended up with a lusty, over-eager whore who’d tried to wrench his braies off him and suck his rod. He preferred women who let him take control—and if he glimpsed fear in their eyes all the better.
That last thought brought another woman to mind—one he’d thought of often over the years.
Coira.
Every time he stepped into this brothel, he felt a pang of longing for her. His obsession with Lady Leanna had distracted him over the last few years, but Coira was always there, a shadow from his past. And Duncan’s recent visit to Kilbride Abbey had brought her back into his thoughts.
He was sure he’d seen her there.
It was true that the black habits and veils the nuns wore made them difficult to tell apart, yet he’d never seen anyone with eyes the color of Coira’s—violet. And that nun, long-limbed and broad-shouldered, who’d stood at the back of the group while he’d confronted the abbess about Leanna’s whereabouts, had violet eyes.
She’d also watched him with contempt and fear upon her lovely face.
It could be her.
One day, MacKinnon intended to go back to Kilbride Abbey—and when he did, he’d investigate.
A whore shouldn’t be hiding in the guise of a nun anyway. A smile curved Duncan’s mouth then as he remembered the games he used to play with Coira. If that woman had, indeed, been her, it was a real irony.
“More wine?” The serving lass drew near him once again, and with a jolt, Duncan realized that he’d drained his drink without even realizing it.
He nodded and held out the goblet for her to fill. As he did so, he noticed that the lass didn’t look well. A light sheen of sweat covered her thin face, and the hand that poured the wine trembled slightly. When she moved away, the girl hunched, as if her belly was in pain.
She was a plain-looking wench, Duncan observed, and on the brink of womanhood. He certainly wouldn’t be asking for her to warm his bed.
“MacKinnon … if ye are ready?” Maude descended the stairwell from the upp
er levels. “Yer woman awaits … upon the top floor … last room on the right.”
Duncan nodded before draining his new goblet of wine in a few gulps. He then rose to his feet and shoved it at the pale-faced serving lass. Without a word, he strode past Maude and climbed the stairs to the upper levels. As he went, he heard Maude’s voice, harsh now that the customer was out of sight. “Stand up straight, Fiona … what’s wrong with ye today!”
Reaching the top floor, Duncan strode toward his destination. His belly tightened in anticipation, the ache in his groin intensifying as he imagined what awaited him.
He strode along the narrow hallway, the wooden floor creaking underfoot, till he was before the last room on the right. Then, he tore the door open and stepped through the threshold.
A small lass, barely old enough to be called a woman, sat perched upon the bed. She watched him, blue eyes huge upon a winsome, heart-shaped face. A black habit and veil swathed her slender form.
Duncan halted, his gaze drinking her in. A moment later, a delighted smile stretched his face. Maude had done well indeed; he could smell this lass’s fear.
Still grinning, he kicked the door shut behind him.
5
Happy Endings
“I TOLD YE I would return.” Father Camron picked up his spoon and viewed the bowl of stew before him with thinly veiled distaste. “I warned ye that yer behavior would be investigated, Mother.”
Heat rose in the pit of Coira’s belly as she listened to these words, and her fingers clenched around her own spoon. She couldn’t believe this man’s arrogance, his presumption.
However, at the head of the table, Mother Shona appeared unruffled by the abbot’s inflammatory words. “Ye are always welcome here, Father,” she said, meeting his eye. “We have nothing to hide.”