Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03]

by Wedding for a Knight

  And how, in his dream, at least, he’d gladly acquiesced.

  His senses storming, he opened the door. His raven-haired bride would never know how swiftly he would relent now, this very moment, if she would but throw open the bed curtains and crook just one finger in sensual invitation.

  But a last glance over his shoulder proved the futility of any such possibility. The heavily embroidered hangings remained closed and naught but thick silence came from within.

  An impenetrable barrier best left intact . . . just as any rises beneath his braies were better ignored—at least for the nonce.

  Too many other duties called him.

  Important issues he meant to attend alone. And well before the castle stirred and his long-nosed kinsmen could question his purpose.

  No one need know he’d been sneaking to the isle’s sandy, windswept dunes of a morn. Or that, once there, he’d crouch amongst the thick-growing machair and bracken and cast surreptitious glances at the boat strand.

  That he’d look on with heart-lancing pride as men rushed about on the damp, glistening sand, his bride’s mountain of siller being put to good effect as they painstakingly rebuilt the MacKinnon fleet—one fine galley at a time.

  Nor would it be wise to let anyone guess he’d made a few visits of his own to the Beldam’s Chair. That he hoped its supposed powers might lessen some of the cold, heavy weight on his heart and perhaps mend a tear or two in his sore-battered spirit.

  Aye, too much of the puissant Reginald’s blood flowed in his veins for him to risk looking a fool.

  So he slipped from the room on quiet feet. But the moment the door latch dropped into place, he abandoned his caution and thundered down the draughty corridor, his mood as dark as the poorly lit passage.

  Driven by his most persistent demons, he did not slow his steps until he’d hastened through a little-used passage around the great hall and strode out into the thin drizzle of the inner bailey.

  And the moment he did, a diminutive cloaked figure emerged from the deep shadow along the tower wall and hurried forward across the rain-damp cobbles.

  “Magnus!” Janet cried, rushing him, her arms extended in greeting.

  “Ho, lass, before you slip and crack that pretty head of yours,” he warned, reaching for her when she would have launched herself at him.

  She clutched at his arms, panting. “Praise God you are out and about,” she said, the words echoing in the empty courtyard. “I would—”

  “And I would ken what you are about at this hour? Traipsing around in the rainy dark . . . alone.” Magnus took gentle hold of her, set her from him. “Did you not hear my orders that none of the womenfolk are to venture out on their own? There are dangers about, lass. I would know you safe.”

  She looked down, fidgeted with the heavy, rain-misted braid hanging over her shoulder. “I did not think you meant me. I was in the kitchens, helping, and only stepped out to get away from the cook-smoke for a few moments.”

  Magnus captured her chin, turned her face back to his. “But there is more, is there not?”

  “I”—her voice faltering, she indicated a cloth-covered basket resting in a sheltered corner of the bailey wall—“I was returning to the hall with some of Cook’s fresh-baked custard pasties.”

  The slightest of smiles flickered across her lips. “Your friend Colin favors them.”

  “That great lout is a man of hearty appetite.”

  Magnus angled his head, just now catching the faint kitchen smells drifting on the damp morning air—the tantalizing aromas of woodsmoke and roasting meats, fresh-baked breads and frying dough.

  Rich fare for a household that would suffer a diet of dry oatcakes and watered ale were his coin stocking the kitchens.

  With the morning going rapidly sour, he leveled a piercing gaze on his cousin. “Be advised that Colin favors all manner of . . . delicacies,” he told her. “The daintier the sweetmeat set before him, the more the knave’s mouth waters.”

  Janet began winding her single flaxen braid around her fingers. “I have noticed he seems to have a taste for . . . such,” she said, a bit flat-voiced, her expression wistful. “Some of the kitchen lasses are wagering who will claim the first kiss from him. A kiss and . . . more.”

  “Something tells me they will still be wagering when my firstborn son grows a beard.” Magnus reached to give her arm a light, encouraging squeeze. “But have a care, I beg you, lass. I would not see my friend take a false bite—would not see either of you take to your bed with a turned belly.”

  “Never you worry. I cannot foresee him making such an error,” she said, smoothing her sleeve when he released her. “But I will heed your words and assure he does not receive anything that might ill become him.”

  She looked down again, fussed with her cloak. “For myself, I am ever cautious.”

  “I am glad to hear it.” Magnus folded his arms. “And now I would know the rest. You are troubled—I see it all over you.”

  Janet shifted. “Your father has been ranting about the ghost galley again. He swears he saw it heading for our shores, hell’s own fiends at the oars, only to vanish into the mists right before his eyes.”

  “Did anyone else see this devilish craft?”

  “Your brothers were with him at the time, but neither saw anything.”

  Magnus let out a long sigh. “My father’s wits are waning by the day.” He turned his head, stared at the dark bulk of Coldstone’s keep. “Even so, I do not think my da and his ravings have much to do with what is eating at you.”

  He looked back at her. “Now tell me what it is.”

  Janet blinked, a spark of some indefinable emotion flaring in her eyes. “Very well, but do not think I disesteem your . . . your lady. I but bear grim tidings about her. To my sorrow!”

  “Ill tidings?” Magnus arched a brow. “Then have out with them, for my patience has already run mighty thin this morn.”

  “You had a . . . tedious night?” she probed, looking almost as if she wished he had.

  Nay, I had a wondrous night spent lusting after the tight-puckered flesh of my wife’s deliciously large, hard-budded nipples.

  Then I ran hard as a jousting lance trying to decide if her lower hair will spring as sleek and lush as I am hoping!

  Half-afraid his frustration had shouted the words, Magnus sharpened his gaze on Janet, but far from looking shocked or vexed, she appeared to be preening like a cat before a bowl of cream.

  Suspecting the reason for the look, Magnus took a step backward, putting ample space between them. “I had a trying night and a less than pleasant morning,” he said, swiping at a few rain droplets that had settled on his brow. “But my dark humor has naught to do with my wife—should the thought cross your mind.”

  “Lady Amicia is much on my mind,” Janet gave right back, her efforts to keep her face expressionless almost pitiable. “She is the reason I must speak with you, and alone.”

  “We are alone.” Magnus looked about him. “What have you to say that you cannot voice here? Save the mizzle and a few wispy threads of mist, our privacy is secured.”

  She gave a little shrug. “It would grieve me to see you shamed if my words fell on the wrong ears.”

  “Shamed?”

  Janet nodded, threw a glance at the high bulk of the tower wall. Glimmers of light were just beginning to flicker in some of the narrow slit windows.

  “Let us be gone from here,” she urged. “Please. . . .”

  Not waiting for him to answer, she slipped her arm through his and tried to maneuver him into the shadowed arch of the gatehouse’s tunnel-like pend.

  Magnus shook himself free. “Speak here, or leave me be, lass. I have much to do this morn.”

  She flicked her braid over her shoulder. “I hope you are not growing over-fond of her? If you are, it shall grieve me all the more to distress you.”

  “Come you, distress me—out with it.”

  “As you wish. I am here to tell you she is crazed,” she
blurted. “Feeble in the head.”

  “Feeble? I’d vow there isn’t a feeble bone anywhere in her body,” Magnus said, shaking his head. “And crazed? The Lady Amicia? Nay, I do not think so.”

  “I would swear at a sword’s point that she is full mad. She is not like . . . most.”

  Nay, she is not. She is a woman like no other. Her own precious self, and in the most delightful ways—as she proved to me last night!

  Magnus’s heart, all his deepest longings, roared the words.

  The longings he’d kept hidden since the long-ago day he’d first glimpsed her limping about in the heather.

  That bittersweet day, and all the ensuing ones, an exquisite torture that mocked him, he pinned a narrow-eyed stare on his pouty-lipped cousin. “What is the substance of your suspicion? Tell me true, lass, for you make a grim accusation.”

  “I am not speaking out of due. Dagda and I caught her in the old tower yester eve. She was barreling down the turnpike stairs.”

  Janet sniffed, as if that explained everything.

  Now Magnus did hoot.

  His first true laugh in many a day. A great rollicking one that reached to his toes and made his belly shake.

  “Guidsakes, but I am glad you did not see me tearing through the keep just now.” He swiped at his eyes. “If you had, you would be calling me just as addled.”

  “Nay, you mistake the heart of it. She wasn’t just charging down the stairs. She was racing back up them, too. Over and over and over again.”

  Magnus’s laughter withered and died.

  “Over and over and over again?” A sickeningly hollow feeling began to spread through his stomach.

  “Dagda and I both saw her.”

  “I will speak to her.” Magnus pulled his plaid tighter against a sudden gusting of chill, wet wind. “There is sure to be a sufficient good reason.”

  Janet shrugged. “For your sake, I pray that is so,” she said, then strode off to retrieve her basket of custard pasties.

  Watching her go, Magnus hoped so, too.

  Saints, did he ever hope so.

  Hope.

  A sweet golden band of it circled Amicia’s finger, warming her against the gray morning light filtering through the tightly drawn bed curtains.

  Truth be told, hope had accompanied her all through the night, spooling out from her deepest dreams to caress and cloak her. Even if she’d spent those fitful hours alone, tossing on cold and empty sheets when she’d rather have been held and adored in her husband’s embrace, giving full and unrestrained rein to her passion for him.

  Aye, hope had wooed and encouraged her. It’d sung to her from behind his carefully guarded expression, melted her with each declared vow to protect her, and blessed her in the sounds of his restless slumber.

  Telltale tossings and turnings.

  Each one assuring her he’d rather have spent the night in her arms. If only she dared believe. And she almost did, so she stretched and allowed herself a hearty yawn. A bold welcome-to-the-morning smile.

  He was still fretting about.

  His stirrings and unrest had wakened her.

  And men were . . . needy . . . of an early hour.

  Her good-sisters had sworn it.

  And the thick bulges she’d inadvertently glimpsed at the groins of slumbering kinsmen, on the rare occasions she’d passed through Baldoon’s great hall before anyone else had wakened, confirmed those claims.

  Warming at the thought of Magnus’s morning bulge, and fully prepared to seize the advantages it might provide, she deliberately let her camise stay bunched about her waist, where it’d been throughout the night, and, sitting up, grabbed hold of the bed hangings and yanked them open—only to have her high spirits shattered as soundly as if someone had dumped a creel of cold and slimy fish over her head.

  Week-old and rotting dead fish!

  The bonny Magnus and his hoped-for bulge were nowhere to be seen.

  Nor old Boiny.

  Only Janet.

  Amicia’s undersized rival stood in the middle of the chamber, gaping at her. Drop-jawed, wide-eyed, and wholly disapproving of the fully exposed nakedness of Amicia’s large, free-swinging breasts.

  “You!” Amicia cried, too startled to think to cover herself.

  “And a fine good morrow to you, too, my lady,” the other gave back, two bright spots of color on her cheeks.

  Pulse pounding, Amicia fumbled for the straps of her camise. “What brings you into my chamber at such a young hour?” she demanded, struggling to get her arms through the delicate loops.

  Janet flashed hot blue eyes at her. “Dagda sent me with fresh bedding and candles.” She indicated the clean-looking linens folded over a chair back, the small wicker basket of fine wax tapers resting on the table. “I am e’er about before cockcrow, see you. My services are much required—unlike yours.”

  “Unlike mine?” Amicia spluttered, too bleary-headed from sleep to conjure the sharp retort the prickly little kitten deserved.

  Undisguised malice shimmering all over her, the teensy piece slid a pointed look at the mussed pallet, her meaning clear as a bright summer day.

  Amicia blanched.

  At once, everything in the room faded to insignificance, falling back into the murky morning light until only the pallet remained. Each crease and lump in the jumble of furs and blankets took on brilliant clarity, the whole of it jeering at her in all its very-much-used glory.

  A flicker of purest animosity playing across her face, Janet went to the table and trailed her fingertips over the well-polished silver of a heavy candelabrum—a MacLean heirloom.

  One of several scattered about the bedchamber.

  “You’ve filled this room with so much finery,” Janet commented, now fingering the edge of one of the many Flemish tapestries adorning the walls.

  She gave a breathy sigh. “It won’t do to have such a splendid chamber in disorder. I will tidy Magnus’s bed pallet and save you the bother,” she declared, releasing the tapestry.

  Before Amicia could blink, the younger woman plucked a length of plaid from the floor and gave it a brisk snap. She looked at Amicia as she folded it, wordless—but with an expression that spoke worlds.

  Amicia bristled. Heat shot up the back of her neck. And, saints help her, even her nostrils flared! Seized by rabid indignation, she opened her mouth to protest, to shoo the little vixen from her sight, but her voice choked in her throat.

  All her sweet bravura of moments before dwindled to a tiny, hard-spinning lump somewhere behind her ribs.

  A hot-burning, painful, cut-off-her-breath kind of lump.

  Dread laming her, she watched the younger woman tidy the pallet. Unthinkable, should Magnus prefer such sleeping arrangements every night.

  And a thousand damnations on her own fool self for not clearing away the evidence of just such a disaster before his fey-like cousin could slip into the room and waylay her!

  Dance light-footed all over her hopes and dreams.

  Reeling, she relinquished her battle with her tangled camise straps and faced defeat. Since her fingers seemed to have taken on the shape and dexterity of fat sausages, she made do with simply jerking the bedsheets over her bared breasts.

  “You needn’t shield your mother-nakedness before me,” the kitten cooed at her, a falsely sweet smile curving her lips. “I have seen the unclothed entirety of much older and stouter women than you. Having me see you shouldn’t be as daunting as having Magnus gaze upon your . . . fleshiness.”

  That did it.

  Something inside her popped . . . and whatever it was, it sent thousands of white-hot splinters jabbing into her heart.

  Clutching the covers hard to her breasts, she glared her fury. “And if you’d eat more than a bird’s portion of slaked oats and pottage, mayhap you’d win a few curves of your own!” she snapped, looking the other woman up and down. “By all that’s holy, there is scarce enough flesh on you to keep you grounded in a good wind.”

  To Amicia�
��s astonishment, her outburst seemed to hit her rival like a fist in the gut. With all care, Janet smoothed the last of the mussed furs that had been Magnus’s bed pallet.

  “’Twas e’er a dream of mine to be tall and sultry-like,” she said, straightening.

  Her task completed, she moved toward the door, looking smaller with each stilted step she took.

  Small, and annoyingly forlorn.

  The hot-stabbing needles beneath Amicia’s ribs slowly retracted their points. But they left a cold, dull-throbbing ache in their place.

  This new sensation proved just as unpleasant as the other, but in a wholly different way. Moistening her lips, Amicia opened her mouth to speak, to say something, but her voice lodged in her throat. So she looked on, watched the other woman pause at the clothes peg to stroke Amicia’s ermine-lined cloak.

  “You have many bonnie things and I envy you the lot of them. Magnus most of all,” Janet said, her tone empty . . . wistful. “I had such hopes that he would take me to wife.”

  Amicia pulled in a harsh breath on the word hope.

  Hope was her word.

  All she had to hug close to her.

  She didn’t want to hear about Janet’s hopes or troubles.

  “You are his cousin,” she pointed out, her voice cooperating again. “He would ne’er have considered a marriage to you.”

  “We are distant cousins and even that cannot be known for sure. But he was e’er good to me—kind, see you?” Running both of her hands over the cloak’s furred lining, Janet turned a glittery-eyed gaze on Amicia.

  “With all others rumpling their noses at me, and Magnus so big-hearted, I e’er fancied he’d be the only one who would consider having me,” Janet said in a voice scarce to be heard. “Now you are here, and—”

  “And I have nary a notion what you are chaffering about.” Amicia scrambled to her feet and crossed the room, trailing bedsheets as she went.

  Holding one of them fast about her, she fixed a you’d-best-tell-me-all stare on her no longer quite so formidable rival. “What havers are you tossing about you? What men would turn away from you?”

  Janet sniffed.

  A wet, sniffly sniff this time.

  “Not havers, my lady,” she said, dashing a tear from her cheek. “The simple truth that I am base-born. I thought you knew.”