Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01]
Page 35
Somewhere in Marmaduke’s gut, a tiny shard of unease broke loose, a jagged-edged shard that jabbed his innards and grew more unpleasant by the moment.
The smile on Duncan MacKenzie’s face grew as well.
Worse, an amused gleam danced in the ofttimes dark-tempered Highlander’s eyes and there could be no doubt the smile and the gleam boded ill for Marmaduke.
Of a sudden, the neck opening of Marmaduke’s tunic seemed extraordinarily tight, but he forced himself to ignore the sensation, and his friend’s gloating, and turned back to Linnet. “I cannot help you if you will not tell me what it is you wish me to do.”
“I cannot,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“And you?” He glanced at Duncan, alarmed to see that his friend’s smile had now turned into a silly grin. “Will you divulge this great secret?”
“With pleasure,” Duncan said, the mirth in his voice undeniable. “My lady wife’s sister is in need of a champion.”
Marmaduke lifted a brow. “I see naught amusing about a lady in need.”
“Then you will go to her aid?” Linnet asked, the tremor of hope in her voice going straight to Marmaduke’s heart.
Iron control hid the mounting tension swirling in Marmaduke’s breast, the dull thudding of a heart filled with other plans than riding off to slay some unknown gentlewoman’s dragons.
“Think you I am the man to champion her?” his valor asked before his heart could stay his tongue.
“We know of no one better suited,” Duncan answered for his wife. “The lady Caterine is newly widowed and plagued by a persistent Sassenach earl who would press her to marry him. Her holding, Dunlaidir Castle in the east, is sorely failing. Without help she will lose both the peace she craves and the home she holds dear.”
He laid his arm around Linnet’s shoulders and drew her close. “Nor is it in our best interest in these troubled times to see as strategic a stronghold as Dunlaidir fall into English hands.”
Marmaduke rubbed the back of his neck. “Why not send a contingent of able men to assist her? Many are the warriors you could choose from.”
“Name one whose sword arm is mightier than yours.” Duncan’s fingers kneaded the woolen folds of his wife’s cloak. “Who better than you, a Sassenach of noble blood, to challenge an English earl? You, with your martial skills and smooth tongue, are more suited to the task than a score of fighting Gaels.”
Unconvinced, Marmaduke shook his head. “A full retinue would serve her better than a single man.”
“Dunlaidir is possessed of a stout garrison. They only need direction. A firm hand and a clearheaded man to lead them. Nor can I spare more than a few men with Balkenzie nearing completion. Nay, Strongbow, the task falls to you.” His smile gone, Duncan aimed a penetrating stare at Marmaduke. “Or would you deny my lady’s sister your skill?”
“You know I cannot. It is only—” Marmaduke broke off, near stumbling over his unusually thick tongue. He ran a finger under the neckline of his tunic. The chapel’s somewhat stale, incenseladen air closed in on him with such pressure he almost gagged. “I’d planned to take occupancy of Balkenzie soon.”
A lame excuse, to be sure, but he’d so hoped to hoist his own banner before Samhain.
“I’d hoped to see the castle well garrisoned and secure, secure for you, before the onset of winter,” Marmaduke said, his words casting down the gauntlet of his hesitation.
“And so you shall.” Duncan’s flashing smile reappeared. “Upon your return.”
Marmaduke opened his mouth to rebuke the notion but Duncan silenced him with a raised hand. “You shall be snugly ensconced within your own keep’s walls by Yuletide at latest,” his liege declared. “Then we shall all gather at Balkenzie’s hearth and drink to my lady’s health.”
“And to our bairn’s,” Linnet added, the conviction in her voice and the look in her eyes doing more to dismantle Marmaduke’s resistance than all her husband’s bold words combined.
As if he sensed his friend’s crumbling will, Duncan clamped a firm hand on Marmaduke’s shoulder. “It will not take long for a strong-armed warrior such as yourself to have done with one odious Englishman?”
Taking his hand off Marmaduke’s shoulder, Duncan gave him a playful jab in the ribs. “A fat and ill-fit one, if we choose to believe the tongue-waggers.”
Marmaduke swallowed hard.
Something was amiss.
And whatever it was, it slithered up his back, cool and smooth as a snake, to curl deftly around his neck and squeeze ever tighter the longer he watched the merry twinkle dancing in his friend’s eyes.
Marmaduke frowned. “There is something you are not telling me.”
Linnet glanced away and Duncan stretched his arms over his head, loudly cracking his knuckles. His fool grin widened. “As ever, I can hide naught from you,” he said, his deep voice almost jovial. “I’ve long suspected you’re as blessed with the sight as my fair lady wife.”
Lounging against the cold stone form of his long-dead forebear, Duncan finally tossed down his own gauntlet. “Lady Caterine wishes you to pose as her husband. Only if word spreads she has wed a third time, does she believe she can rid herself of her current woes.”
Marmaduke stared at his friends, too stunned to speak. None would deny he revered them well. Saints, he would gladly give his life for either of them. But what they proposed went beyond all lunacy.
Impossible, he should pose as any lady’s husband no matter how great her plight.
No matter who her sister.
Never had he heard anything more preposterous.
“You ask too much,” he found his voice at last. “I will offer the lady full use of my sword arm, and I shall guard her with my life so long as she requires my aid, but I will not enter into a blasphemous relationship with any woman.”
He bit back a harsher refusal on seeing the hope fade from Linnet’s eyes. “By the Rood, Duncan,” he swore as softly as he could, “you should know I am not a man who would pretend to speak holy vows.”
“Then don’t,” Duncan said, triumph riding heavy on his words. “Make the lady your bride in truth.”
Make the lady your bride in truth.
His friend’s parting comment lingered long after Duncan and his lady took their leave. Like the repetitive chants of a monk’s litany, the taunt echoed, increasing in intensity until the words seemed to fill not just his mind but the close confines of the oratory as well.
Make the lady your bride . . .
By the saints, did his liege mean to mock him? Duncan MacKenzie knew better than most of the loneliness that plagued Marmaduke in the darkest hours of the night, was well aware of Marmaduke’s most secret desire: to have a fine and goodly consort of his own once more.
And a sister of the lady Linnet could be naught but a pure and kindly gentlewoman.
Was there indeed more behind his friends’ insistence that only he could champion the ill-plighted young widow?
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Marmaduke’s mouth and a pleasant warmth the likes of which he hadn’t felt in
many years began to curl round his heart.
Make her your bride . . .
The words came as a song now.
A joyous one.
Hope beginning to burgeon deep within his soul, Sir Marmaduke went to the altar, sank to his knees, and bowed his head.
Sometime later, he knew not how long, a shaft of multicolored light fell through the chapel’s one stained-glass window to cast a rosy-gold glow upon his folded hands. The beam of light illuminated his signet ring, turning it to molten gold and making the large ruby gleam as if set afire.
Then, no sooner than had the colored light appeared, did it vanish, extinguished as if a cloud had passed before the rising sun.
But Marmaduke had seen it rest upon his ring.
A portent from above.
Once more, Marmaduke murmured a prayer. One of thanksgiving and hope. When at last he rose, his decision was made.
As soon
as he could muster what few men Duncan could spare him, he would journey across Scotland to aid a damsel in need, a lady he would offer not only his warring skills and protection, but marriage.
A true one.
If by God’s good graces, she would have him.