Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses

by Ceci Giltenan et al.

  Chapter 36

  "Look, I've nearly done!" Megan cried as she held up the finishing work she was doing on the kirtle for Elizabeth to wear on her wedding day.

  Glancing up from her own needlework on the lilac satin gown, Muriella admired the skill with which the servant had attached the spidery French lace. "'Tis lovely, Megan. Ye can't even see the stitches, they're so tiny."

  Megan's pleased smile turned to a frown as she eyed Elizabeth's slender figure. "I only hope 'twill fit ye, m'lady."

  Elizabeth, who had refused to try on the fragile garment, shook her head. "It doesn't matter. 'Tis all just a game anyway." She sighed wearily. "Though I'm grateful for something to keep my hands busy." She indicated the violet silk kirtle she was making to wear beneath her wedding gown. It needed only the hem to be finished.

  "'Tis more than that," Muriella said. "They might have taken away yer choice, but they can't take away yer pride."

  Because she believed that, she had chosen two of the finest pieces of cloth John had brought her from Edinburgh and given them to her sister-in-law as a gift. She knew the soft colors would complement Elizabeth's pale hair and gray eyes, and she was determined the other woman look her best; it would help to hide the distress she was feeling inside. Muriella bent her head, concentrating on the intricate silver leaf design she was embroidering around the square neckline of the gown.

  Elizabeth gave her a little half smile. "Ye must think me ungrateful after all ye've done."

  "No," Muriella said, and meant it. "I understand." Perhaps better than any other, she added silently.

  Elizabeth looked away, afraid the compassion in Muriella's eyes might break the fragile barrier that held back a torrent of unshed tears.

  For a moment, a hush fell over the three women. Then the door burst open.

  "As ye can see," Colin announced, "I've come for the wedding!"

  While Muriella plied her needle with unnecessary force, Elizabeth regarded her brother coldly. He was smiling, his face flushed from the ride from Edinburgh and his own high good humor. He approached his sister, blue eyes sparkling.

  "Elizabeth, I've brought yer groom. He awaits ye in the library." Elizabeth rose but did not move toward the door.

  "Have ye nothing to say, girl? Can't ye greet yer brother properly?"

  Her expression wooden, Elizabeth came forward, brushing her cool lips over the Earl's cheek. "Welcome back," she added as an afterthought.

  Colin grasped her by the shoulders. "Ye won't make trouble for me over this marriage, ye understand?"

  "I don't waste time fighting battles I've already lost," his sister assured him icily.

  The Earl's nostrils flared as the famous lump began to rise between his brows. "'Tis a splendid match I've arranged for ye with a wealthy and respected man. 'Tis miracle enough that any man should want ye after what happened before. Ye didn't even give Maclean children, and a barren woman isn't much in demand. If ye had a grain of sense in yer head, ye wouldn't want to fight it."

  Elizabeth merely stared at him in silence until he shifted uneasily under her regard. The blank look in her eyes disturbed him. She might as well have been looking at an empty wall.

  "Well then," Argyll grunted at last, "if ye won't talk to me, go see to yer groom. He's waiting."

  "As ye wish," she replied, sweeping him a deep curtsy. While her head was lowered and he could not see her eyes, the Earl addressed her again. "Are ye really no' grateful, Elizabeth? Won't ye thank me?"

  She rose, smiling stiffly, and moved away. As she pulled the door open, she turned back to face Colin once more. "May ye rot in hell," she said softly, her smile fixed and unwavering.

  Then she was gone.

  ~ * ~

  "We won't ever be ready in time," Megan groaned, glancing in dismay at Elizabeth, who wore only a robe and was seated on a stool with her hands lying motionless in her lap. The servant turned to Muriella. "She's to be married within the hour and we haven't even begun her hair. Mary said she'd be here early to help. Where is she?"

  "Here, m'lady," Mary panted as she pushed the heavy oak door closed behind her. "I'm very sorry to be so long, but Jenny didn't wake me this mornin'." With an apologetic look at Muriella, she leaned against the door to catch her breath. "I didn't even have time to bind my hair."

  Muriella considered Mary's flushed cheeks, glowing eyes, and the disheveled black hair that fell, unbound, below her waist. A painfully vivid memory stirred—of a tiny chamber full of dappled sunlight across two bodies. She felt the color rising in her cheeks.

  "I'm truly sorry," Mary repeated, uneasy at Muriella's continued silence. "Can ye forgive me, m'lady?"

  "Aye," Muriella said at last. "It couldn't be helped. But we'd best get started now, and quickly."

  "As ye say." Mary breathed a sigh of relief, bent her knees briefly, and moved toward the bed where Elizabeth's wedding clothes lay.

  The bride, who had not murmured a word since she'd come to Muriella's chamber that morning, rose from her stool and let her hands fall to her sides as Megan slipped the high-necked kirtle over her head. The long, tight sleeves clung to her wrists and the skirt fell in soft violet folds to the floor, but Elizabeth seemed unaware of the feel of the silk against her skin.

  "Och, m'lady, the gown is so lovely," Mary said, lifting the lilac satin reverently from among the furs on the bed. She ran her fingers over the design of silver leaves Muriella had embroidered around the square neck with such care. "I haven't ever seen anythin' like it." Eyes shining with admiration, she loosened the laces and lifted the gown over Elizabeth's head.

  "The color is perfect," Megan declared. She folded back the wide sleeves that fell to a point at Elizabeth's knees. "We'd best begin on her hair," the servant murmured at the bride's continued silence. "I need ye to help with the braids, Mary. I haven't enough hands of my own."

  When Elizabeth was seated, the two girls hovered over her, dividing her hair into sections, weaving the sections together. They giggled as they tangled strand after strand and laughed in triumph when each difficult braid was done. Muriella watched, the blood pounding dully in her ears. Then Mary knelt beside Elizabeth, her hair falling over her shoulders and curling among the rushes at her feet.

  Muriella took a deep breath. It had happened before—the chatter, the laughter, the flutter of excited movement that could not touch the shell of the woman in its midst. Behind it all was the memory of her own voice saying, So, it's finally come. There's nothing I can do. Nothing. Then as now, the walls had closed around her, pushing her down into the darkness. "Elizabeth!" she cried, drawing the woman up from her seat. "Ye must stand by the window where the sunlight can reach ye." At the startled looks from Megan and Mary, she added, "How can ye see if everything is right with the shadows clinging all around?" Turning her back on their astonishment, she noticed a rush had caught in the hem of the gown. Kneeling, she worked the fabric free. Despite her determination to hide her feelings, her hand trembled a little.

  Muriella felt the brush of Elizabeth's fingers on her bent head and looked up in surprise.

  "Don't grieve for me," Elizabeth said softly. "It doesn't last forever, ye ken. The months pass, the hurt eases, and then, one day, ye begin to accept what ye can't change."

  "But until then?"

  Elizabeth smiled sadly. "Until then, if ye're lucky, ye learn to hide yer pain so they don't ever guess how deep it goes."

  "'Tis time," Megan murmured, approaching hesitantly. "We must go before they send someone to look for us."

  Muriella nodded. Those words too she had heard before. She rose, shaking out her gold velvet gown, and put her hand on Elizabeth's arm.

  The other woman shook her head. As the servants left the room, she whispered, "I wouldn't have ye by me today."

  Muriella regarded her in bewilderment. "But why?" Frowning, Elizabeth touched her cheek, then looked away. "Because, my friend, ye know too much, and I don't want to see me in yer eyes."

  ~ * ~

  Once ag
ain the huge oak doors of the chapel had been thrown wide to admit the guests in their wedding finery.

  Muriella stood in the courtyard while the women and men brushed past her, disappearing into the musty gloom. The groom, Archibald Campbell, stood talking to Colin in the doorway. Muriella had seen little of him since his arrival. He'd spent most of the time behind closed doors with Colin. Even when he joined the others for meals, he kept to himself. He seemed pleasant enough, even ordinary. There was nothing in his straight brown hair, heavy beard, and hazel eyes to distinguish him from a hundred other men.

  Muriella wondered again what had made him choose Elizabeth. No doubt it was the alliance with the powerful Campbells that had tempted him. She looked away. Elizabeth deserved so much more.

  She turned her attention to the pipers, who played somewhere out of sight, blowing their keening song into the misted April air. Muriella listened, eyes closed, drawing from the music the courage to move forward. She felt a hand at the small of her back and turned to find her husband beside her. It was the first time he had touched her since that day in the library. He had been unfailingly kind, had spoken with her by the hour, read with her from John Barbour and Robert Henryson, but he had not taken her hand or kissed her cheek—not even once.

  "Well," John said, so low that only she could hear him, "have ye been thinking?"

  She had begun to believe he had forgotten her promise.

  "I've tried," she murmured. "'Tis all I can do."

  John shook his head. '"Tis no' enough, lass. It's been too long."

  It was true; she knew it because a growing sense of urgency within would not let her rest. Always, her husband's face was before her, even in her dreams, and always, in his eyes, was the question she could not answer. "Aye," she said when he drew her to him so the warmth of his breath touched her cheek. "I know." She wanted to cup his face in her palms, to feel the stirring of pleasure his kiss had brought her before the fear had washed it away. When she looked into John's eyes, she felt a tightening in her throat and her hands reached out of their own accord to draw him closer. Just then, the pleasure of standing near him was so great that it was almost pain.

  "I want ye," he said, his lips hovering above hers. "Ye know that. But I won't see ye turn away from me again. When ye hear my voice instead of yer demons', then I'll come to ye, and not before. 'Tis a promise, lass, to both of us."

  The wail of the bagpipes faded as the harps took up their song, but still Muriella stood with her hands on her husband's shoulders.

  "Come," he said, "'Tis time for the ceremony."

  John took her arm to guide her inside and she shivered, chilled by the loss of his warmth. They had barely seated themselves on the front bench when Muriella glanced back to see that Elizabeth was coming.

  The song of the harps grew hushed as John's sister started down the aisle toward the altar of silver on carved wood. She held her head high, her skirts flowing behind her over the well- worn stone, the sleeves of her gown swaying with the motion of her body. When she reached the place where Archibald Campbell waited, Elizabeth turned to her groom with no trace of bitterness in the face she raised to his, but Muriella wondered if she saw Maclean's image there.

  John grasped his wife's hand tightly as the harps fell silent and the priest began the endless ritual of the marriage ceremony. The three voices filled the tiny chapel, chanting, pausing, repeating the Latin phrases until they rang from the gray stone walls. Then, as Elizabeth and her new husband turned away from the altar, the voices fell silent at last. The bride and groom stood for a moment with the light of a hundred candles on their faces, flickering over the hollows and planes, filling their eyes with moving light. Elizabeth stared before her, seeing nothing, while the couple stepped out of the reach of the dancing flames and started back down the aisle.

  They had not moved more than a few steps when the chapel doors burst open. "M'lords, there's a great band of armed men nearin' the keep. They must've killed the sentries on the shore and so made it across to the outer gate!" he announced breathlessly. "They're circlin' outside the wall even now."

  "How, in God's name?" Colin s thundering rage reverberated through the tiny, crowded chapel. "There's barely room enough for one man to stand without the loch sucking him under, let alone an armed band."

  John came up beside his brother. "Did ye not notice the water's been low this past week? There's not much room beyond the wall, but enough."

  "Damn!" Colin bellowed, turning back to Richard. "Who are they?"

  "Macleans, m'lord."

  "God in heaven! But then, those bastards have always chosen their moments for revenge with a little irony mixed in for spice. I suppose their pride wouldn't let them forget their laird's death after all." He glared at Richard as if the man might contradict him. "Somebody get the women inside," the Earl continued. "Johnnie, ye gather the men. Do ye think we have enough within the keep?"

  "'Twill have to be enough," John replied, "and we'll need to hurry to get the archers in place before the Macleans lay siege or climb over the wall." He was moving even as he spoke, assessing the skill of each man as he caught sight of him.

  In a very few minutes, the men had dispersed to gather their weapons and take up their positions. As the women hurried across the open courtyard, Muriella went to Elizabeth, who stood alone in the center of the narrow stone aisle, and took her arm. "Come inside," the younger woman murmured, "where 'tis safe." Oddly enough, she was not eager to be closed inside the castle walls. Safe the keep might be, but it was also dark and cold and eerily silent.

  The doors had barely closed behind the cluster of women when the sound of the battle began. Suppressing her own agitation, Muriella drew Elizabeth out of the crowd and toward the stairway. "Let's wait in the solar," she suggested. "Where 'tis quiet."

  Elizabeth had not said a word since the vows she had spoken in the chapel. Now she only nodded, her face as unyielding as white marble.

  ~ * ~

  When the battle had been raging for several hours and neither side appeared to be weakening, John and Colin crouched behind the battlements to discuss the Campbell options.

  "They'll not budge from their sandy strip of ground, the daft fools, and they hold the outer gate. They can't get in, 'tis true, but neither can we get out. And it seems more of them are coming all the time." Colin sat on his heels, regarding his brother in indecision.

  "We need to cut them off from the gate, then force them back into the water. The others will scatter then."

  "And how do ye suppose we're to do that? As I said once, they're holding the gate." Colin's tone rankled; with an effort of will, John kept his fists at his sides.

  "That's just the thing, don't ye see? They've gathered near the front gate. They expect to try and break through there. They wouldn't even be knowing about the little side gate. The trees are tall and the bushes thick. We who know the way would easily be hidden from view."

  The Earl's eyes lit up. "By God, Johnnie, for once ye've had a sensible thought. But who will lead the men that way? It'll take mighty careful going if we don't want to alert the Macleans too soon."

  "I'll go." John's blood was beginning to speed through his veins as it always did at the thought of battle. "We can lead the horses through the tunnel easily enough without a light. They won't be expecting us at all."

  "Aye, well..." Colin rocked on his heels, considering whether or not his brother could handle the task.

  John leaned forward. "If we wait till dark, they won't be able to see us coming. 'Tis two hours away. What do ye think?"

  Colin nodded thoughtfully. "Tis a good enough plan," he said at last, "so long as ye don't lose yer head as ye tend to do. Mayhap I should find some other man to lead."

  John laughed. The thought of the pending contest had ruined his brother's ability to wound him. Besides, he knew as well as Colin that the first few men out the gate would be vulnerable in the extreme. Smiling, he leapt down from the stone ledge, "Let me know when ye find one willing
," he shouted.

  The Earl frowned after his brother's retreating back. Johnnie was right. There was no other.

  ~ * ~

  Head bent over the clacking loom, Muriella concentrated on sliding the shuttle between the taut warp threads. She heard Megan enter the room but did not look up from her task.

  "I talked to Duncan," the servant announced. "He says the men are plannin' to creep out from the hidden gate at dusk to surprise the Macleans." Approaching her mistress, she added, "He says Sir John will lead them."

  Muriella bent forward, gasping. She had known John was out there, facing the Macleans' assault, but until now he’d had the high castle walls to hide behind. Once he left the keep, there would be no ancient stone battlements to protect him. He would be alone with his sword and his brother's men. Fear rose in her throat, cold and leaden, and her hands grew clammy.

  Elizabeth saw Muriella turn pale, grasping her stomach as if in pain. For an instant, Elizabeth's features lost their waxen appearance. "Megan," she said sharply, speaking for the first time in many hours, "yer mistress isn't well. Bring her some wine."

  "Aye, m'lady." Shocked by Muriella's pallor, the servant hurried from the room to do as she'd been bid.

  When Elizabeth slid onto the bench behind the loom, Muriella whispered, "Do ye think—I mean—'tis very dangerous, isn't it?"

  "'Tis always dangerous in battle," Elizabeth answered carefully, "but John's a good warrior. He won't give the Macleans the victory if he can help it."

  "But what if this time he can't help it? What if their anger makes them stronger?" The words were hoarse and indistinct, and she had to struggle to speak them at all.

  Elizabeth took Muriella's hand. "If 'tis so, then so 'twill be. Ye can't change that. Ye can only pray that he'll come back unharmed."

  Muriella shook her head. "I don't think I remember how."

  "'Twill come to ye," Elizabeth said softly. "I've told ye before, it doesn't last forever. Even the fear goes, in time." Frowning, she contemplated Muriella's averted face. Until now, Elizabeth had believed her sister-in-law to be indifferent to John, if not entirely hostile. She had even felt vague stirrings of pity when she saw how her brother's gaze followed his wife whenever she was near. Yet here Muriella sat, her eyes shadowed, her skin sickly pale, asking about her husband's danger. Could Elizabeth have been mistaken?