Unease curled around Kendrew’s heart, gripping tight. For the most inexplicable reason, he was sure his friend’s absence had to do with Isobel.
Even here, in the wilds of Nought’s dreagan vale, her spring violet scent haunted him. He could still feel the sweet warmth of her curves pressing against him in the secret passage; her soft, tempting lips parting for his kiss, inviting him to ravish her; her heart beating so hard against his chest as he’d held her, her breasts…
He tightened his grip on the reins, fury boiling inside him.
He was a fool.
Maddened by her charms, the spirit and boldness he admired so much more than was wise, he’d let matters with her reach a dangerous point. It was a place he should never have gone. With her wiles and allure, she’d maneuvered him onto treacherous ground that would open up and swallow him whole if he wasn’t careful.
The sad truth was he didn’t want to be wary of her.
He simply wanted her.
“Damnation.” He scowled into the mist, glaring at the gray swirls sliding so innocently down the high, rocky cliffs to roll across the ground.
A pity that since Midsummer Eve he was beginning to believe there was nothing at all innocent in his beloved Glen of Many Legends.
Isobel had spelled him.
And he hoped to the tops of Thor’s thundery ears that she hadn’t also worked her magic on Grim.
It would be like the bastard to conspire with her.
Grim was as susceptible to females as he was to needy animals.
He wouldn’t grasp that Kendrew was so eager to put Isobel from his mind that his head would soon split. She filled his thoughts too greatly.
“Ho, Kendrew! Grim is well.” Talon’s strong voice rose behind him, the words echoing off the cliffs.
Kendrew reined in, whipping his horse around.
Talon was almost upon him, spurring across the stony ground, his plaid flying in the wind. All men eyed him as he neared, a broad smile twitching his lips.
Relief sluiced through Kendrew. Even though Talon grinning was anything but a pretty sight.
He pulled up swiftly, looking untroubled as he resumed his place beside Kendrew at the head of the line of riders. Looking pleased, he drew an arm across his brow, his eyes sparking with amusement.
“Took me a while to find the loon, it did.” He tugged on his plaid, smoothing the folds.
“Where is he?” Kendrew didn’t miss that Talon had returned alone.
“Och, he’s back in the birchwood no’ far from Rodan’s Stone.” Talon jerked his head in the direction from whence he’d come. “He’s after a stray cattle beast wandering in the trees and wants to herd it back up into the grazing hills before the creature loses his way.”
Kendrew frowned. “I didn’t see any cattle when we rode past the birchwood.”
Talon snorted. “Grim would find a beast in need if he were buried in a muck heap.”
“Then we’ll no’ be waiting for him.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Kendrew looked ahead of them, eyeing the cold, dark mist as the other men snickered. He couldn’t blame them for their hoots and guffaws. Grim could take down a score of men in battle and not lose a wink of sleep. But if he found a dead newt, his heart broke.
Nor did Kendrew doubt Talon. A shrewd fighter and warrior of renown, Talon wasn’t a man to spin tales. If he’d seen Grim fussing over a cattle beast, that would be what Grim was about and naught else.
Still…
The odd prickles at Kendrew’s nape were back, his hackles rising as the little group nudged their horses and rode on through the rocky vale. And with each crunch of his steed’s hooves on the cold, stony ground, he remained sharply aware of everything around them.
Something was afoot in the Glen of Many Legends.
It had nothing to do with Grim, Drago, or even Rodan and his tilting stone.
And even less with Lady Isobel.
His temples began to throb anew, images of her in the clutches of some faceless, unknown danger tightening his chest and making his blood boil. She wasn’t the woman for him, but he did appreciate her. She was a lady apart, different from any female he’d ever known.
He’d become quite the fool.
But if any harm came to her, he’d find the perpetrators and make such foul work of them that only their dead eyes would remain to feed the ravens.
Unfortunately, his bravura was dashed like a dousing of cold water when the great, frowning fortress that was Castle Nought loomed into view. Veiled in mist, only a few of the stronghold’s narrow windows showed flickers of light. But the gatehouse was ablaze. Scores of torches burned inside the entry arch and on the ramparts, the flames casting a garish, red-orange glow over the high walls and much of the rugged crag that formed Nought’s stony base.
Hell couldn’t look more terrifying.
But the vision at the top of the cliff stair did.
Kendrew’s brows snapped together in a fierce scowl. “Odin’s balls.”
Beside him, Talon gave a short laugh. “Norn looks most pleased with herself, what?”
“Humph.” Kendrew couldn’t argue.
He did know a greater dread than if he were once again at the trial by combat, beating his sword against his shield and eagerly waiting to face the slashing bite of Cameron and MacDonald steel.
His sister didn’t look pleased.
She beamed.
Her fair face and shining hair gave her the appearance of an angel. A triumphant angel. And even though he couldn’t see her eyes at this distance, he could feel the victory in their sparkling blue depths.
There wasn’t anything amiss in the Glen of Many Legends.
His unease came from Lady Norn.
And if he had any doubt, the little dog clutched in her arms proved him right. Hercules’s canine grin was even more jubilant than Marjory’s.
The wee beastie loved to needle him.
And just now Hercules looked more pleased than if he’d watered the inside of Kendrew’s shoe.
Kendrew squared his shoulders, his pulse racing with annoyance. “Thon she-vixen can be damn glad she isn’t a man.” He could hardly speak for the growl rising in his throat. “If she were, I’d sever her head just to wipe the smugness off her face.”
“I rather like her smile.” Talon sounded smitten.
Kendrew shot an annoyed glance at him. “It’s not her face you’re staring at, you lecherous bugger.”
“So it isn’t.” Talon had the nerve to agree.
Ignoring him, Kendrew kneed his horse and galloped straight for Nought’s stables. He dismounted swiftly, tossing the reins to a startled stable lad and then running for the cliff stair, taking them two at a time until he reached the high gatehouse and his fair sister.
“What’s the meaning of this, Norn?” He went toe to toe with her, fixing her with his fiercest glare.
“The meaning of what?” She smiled sweetly, stroking Hercules’s tufted head.
“You waiting for me at the top of the cliff stair.” Kendrew took a step closer, his hands fisting.
“I was taking the air.” She tilted her chin, inhaling deeply to illustrate. “You know I love chill days full of cloud and mist.”
“I know you—”
Hercules showed his teeth, snarling.
“Tell your pet squirrel to contain himself or I’ll feed him to Gronk for supper.” Kendrew scowled at the little dog.
“Gronk loves Hercules.” Marjory’s eyes twinkled when Kendrew’s dog trotted over to them and dropped onto his traitorous haunches at Marjory’s feet. Not even glancing at Kendrew, the big dog looked up at Hercules, his gaze full of adoration.
“See?” Marjory sounded most pleased. “Unlike you, your dog knows who is good to him.”
“I ken fine what’s good for me. And dinnae talk in riddles.” Kendrew took her elbow and ushered her through the gatehouse and into the hall, his fearsome stare daring Hercules to bite him.
The dog didn’t.<
br />
But Kendrew would’ve preferred the sting of Hercules’s sharp little teeth to the air of satisfaction swirling around his sister.
“Now”—he steered her through the hall, marching her up the dais steps to the high table—“tell me why I’ve had prickles jabbing at my nape ever since riding onto Nought land? It’s your doing, I’m sure.”
“O-o-oh, to wield such power…” She placed Hercules on the floor at last and then made a great show of settling herself in her chair.
“You dinnae need such craft.” Ignoring his own chair, Kendrew planted his hands on the table edge and leaned toward her. “Your usual scheming does well enough.”
“It does, yes.” She looked up at him, at last tossing down her gauntlet.
Kendrew straightened, folding his arms. “What have you done, Norn? Tell me true, for I’ll no’ be asking you a second time.”
“You won’t need to.” She held his gaze, wholly undaunted. “I’m very pleased to tell you.”
“Then do.”
But instead of speaking, she peered about the torchlit hall, her lovely brow creasing in mock concern. “I do not see Grim.” She returned her gaze to Kendrew, something in her tone making his innards quiver. “Did he not return with you?”
“Nae, he didnae.” Kendrew’s face grew hot, the back of his neck catching fire. “He’s herding a stray cattle beast back to the grazing.”
Marjory’s golden brows winged upward. “Is that what he told you?”
“Nae. He disappeared like a wraith on our ride back here, there one moment and gone the next.” Kendrew’s head was going to explode. “He didn’t tell me aught about spurring off to chase lost cattle. That’s what he was doing when Talon went to look for him.”
Marjory didn’t turn a hair. “So Talon—”
“Talon!” Kendrew whipped around to face the crowded hall, his voice booming. A terrible suspicion was building in his chest. “Where are you, you conniving—”
“I am here.” Talon stepped onto the dais, looking irritatingly innocent.
Kendrew glared at him. “Tell my sister how you found Grim herding a stray cattle beast in the birchwood. She seems surprised to hear—”
“I never said I saw him with the beastie.” Talon’s expression remained guiltless. “I told you what Grim told me, is what I did. He was alone, looking for the cattle beast. The poor creature slipped away from Grim just before I caught up with him.”
“That’s what he told you?” Kendrew could well imagine the scene.
Talon’s nod proved him right. “So he said, aye.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Talon shrugged his big shoulders. “We all ken how he is with animals.”
“Aye, we all ken how he is.” Kendrew pulled a hand down over his chin, well aware that Grim’s trickery had nothing to do with his love for four-legged creatures.
“You.” Kendrew turned back to his sister, who was very carefully buttering a bannock. “I’ll hear what’s afoot now, before you do aught else.”
Reaching across the table, he snatched the bannock and tossed it to Gronk. “Speak.”
Marjory cleaned her fingers on a napkin. When she finished, she looked up, meeting his gaze. “Grim helped me deliver a letter to James Cameron. He wasn’t chasing stray cattle. Indeed”—she took a breath—“there wasn’t any such beast in the birchwood at all.
“Grim rode back to Castle Haven with my letter.” She sounded so proud. “Except, of course, the missive is worded as if it comes from you.”
“What?” Kendrew could hardly see for the tiny red dots blurring his vision.
When it cleared, Norn was buttering another bannock, a small smile playing across her lips.
“I do believe you heard me.” She took a delicate bite of honey-smeared bannock. After swallowing, she dabbed her mouth with a linen napkin. “Grim kindly agreed to ride back to Castle Haven, bearing a letter I gave him before you left here to go there.
“As I am lady of the keep, he could hardly refuse.” She spoke calmly.
Kendrew could hardly breathe. Any moment he was going to roar louder than a dreagan.
Throughout the hall, men stopped eating and drinking. All eyes and ears turned toward the high table. Heads swiveled, necks craning as everyone vied for a good view of the dais. As she did so often, Norn was steering the scene in her direction just as surely as the winter winds blew as they wished across northern lands.
It was beyond bearing.
“I will kill Grim.” Somehow Kendrew managed to speak.
“You’ll do no such thing.” Marjory gave him a steady look. “Grim is your friend. What you’ll do, and soon, is to thank us both for addressing matters you can no longer ignore and maintain this house’s honor.”
A muscle began twitching in Kendrew’s jaw. “And what matters remain that you haven’t already needled me about? I did just return from taking Nought stones to that fool Cameron for his bluidy memorial.”
“We should have given Cameron a fine taste of Mackintosh swords, axes, and spears.” Talon spoke Kendrew’s mind. “He’ll no’ be changing even when the last sunrise blazes across this glen.”
“So is the way of it.” Kendrew swelled his chest, pleased to have an ally.
Growls of assent circled the hall, men’s voices loud against Clan Mackintoshes’ long-time enemies. Even Gronk, sprawled on the rushes at Marjory’s feet, lifted his great head and snarled, low and deep.
“Cameron will aye be an ornery arse.” Talon again took Kendrew’s side. “Some men are too thrawn to e’er change.”
“Indeed.” Marjory pinned Talon with a frosty stare as he dropped down on a trestle bench and used a whetstone to sharpen his dirk blade. “A man too stubborn for his own good also harms his clan.”
Talon’s lips twitched, his gaze flashing to Kendrew.
Kendrew’s brows lowered mightily. He refrained from commenting on his sister’s latest jab at him. Ignoring her barbs was one of his most effective weapons against her pestiferous tongue.
Regrettably, she simply inhaled deeply, clearly preparing for another assault.
Kendrew braced himself, wondering not for the first time what he’d done to be plagued with such a vexatious, iron-willed sister.
“We agreed to peace in this glen.” She looked straight at him, the coolness of her gaze making him want to tug on his plaid and shuffle his feet like a lad whose voice hadn’t yet deepened. “The stones for the memorial were a start, yes. But they weren’t enough. Your continued resistance to accepting harmonious, neighborly relations with—”
“You go too far, Norn.” Kendrew cut her off before she could voice the words ‘relations with Camerons.’ Had she done so, he would’ve flushed crimson, shaming himself before all and sundry.
Marjory wasn’t finished. “I will go as far as needed to make you see reason. You are staining the good Mackintosh name. And”—she let her gaze flick over him, critically—“you are earning yourself the reputation of an ill-bred, unmannered lummox.”
“What stood in your letter to Cameron?” Kendrew used his lowest, most dangerous tone.
It would serve Norn well if he frightened her.
Instead, her chin went up. “Why, your apology for behaving so abominably at Castle Haven, of course.” She held his gaze, cool as rain. “The letter is worded to express regret that you didn’t realize you’d been so rude until after you’d ridden away, hence Grim, acting as messenger, sent by you even as you hastened back here.”
Kendrew started to speak, but didn’t trust himself.
He did stare at her, well aware that his eyes were surely bulging and that the flush he’d hoped to avoid was sweeping his entire, outraged body. He could feel the heat welling inside him, racing across his skin. He’d surely turned bright red and he didn’t care.
Any moment steam would shoot from his ears.
“Be gone from my sight, Norn.” He didn’t recognize his voice. “I’ll no’ have you before my
face just now.”
“It’s your face I’m trying to save.” She didn’t even blink. “You must hear the rest.”
“There’s more?” Kendrew’s brows shot upward.
“Oh, yes.” Marjory lifted her wine cup to her lips and sipped delicately. “The letter ends with your sorrow that you so erroneously declined attending the memorial cairn’s dedication ceremony. It continues with your promise to—”
“Dinnae tell me it says I’ll attend?”
“It does.”
Kendrew stared at her, speechless. Around him, the hall went dim, spinning away. His entire world blurred to a whirling blackness studded with flashing red dots that blazed so brightly they hurt his eyes.
When the hellish sight faded, Norn was smiling at him. She sat poised as a princess at the high table, her hands folded serenely in her lap.
“You do agree that you must go?” Her tone didn’t hold a whit of sympathy.
“Like hell I must.” Kendrew put a hand on the table, needing its support.
The red-studded blackness might’ve gone, but the hall still seemed to spin around him.
“Give me one reason I should.” He hoped to thunder she wouldn’t mention Isobel.
“Why, your honor, of course.” She hit him with her best weapon. “If you stay away now, having said in ink that you’ll attend, your name will be forever sullied.”
“I ne’er wrote any such missive.” The argument was Kendrew’s only defense.
“Everyone at Castle Haven believes you did.” Marjory’s smile didn’t falter.
Kendrew was doomed.
Every word his sister spoke was true. And he did care about honor. More so the clan’s good name than his own, but still… however he turned the wretched matter, there was only one outcome.
Marjory had once again tricked him.
He would attend the memorial cairn’s dedication ceremony at Castle Nought. And when he did so, he’d act as if he participated of his own free will. Anything else would shed a dark light on his sister.
And that he couldn’t allow.
It was just a shame he’d have to face Isobel again. In truth, the notion was terrifying. He knew already he wouldn’t be able to resist her.
Worst of all, he didn’t want to.
And even as Kendrew paced his hall, his face dark and his hands fisted, fury roiling inside him, another Nought soul faced his own battles. And like Kendrew, he knew the bitter taste of losing. Though many men would lift their brows in surprise to know that Slag, Clan Mackintoshes’ most famed and feared dreagan, struggled against frustrations even the fiercest beast couldn’t quell.
Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel Page 15