The Wolf of Kisimul Castle (Highland Isles)

by McCollum, Heather

  “Perhaps it needs a woman’s touch,” came a voice from above.

  Mairi twisted around to see Alec standing at the top of a set of stairs built into the wall. Arms crossed, he looked like a warrior king perusing his domain.

  “It needs a broom for certain,” she said and hoped she hadn’t jumped when he’d spoken. He couldn’t see her frantically beating heart through her chest, and she was determined to keep her composure and her temper, if possible. “Do ye not employ any staff?”

  He unfolded his arms and came down the steps. “I did, but they all fled when Joyce was murdered.” He walked to the table and picked up the other tart, his gaze remaining on her.

  “But she wasn’t killed here,” Mairi said, remembering his explanation last night.

  “Nay, but they think Kisimul is cursed.” He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Whispers have abounded since I was a boy, before, actually. How the castle is a gateway to Hell through the well.” He pointed to a small room off the hall where a door stood half open. “The water is fresh and good. It comes from below the seawater, but they think it is unnatural.” He lowered into a backed chair at the head of the table, looking quite chief-like with his strong features and intelligent eyes.

  “They blame the castle for your wife’s death?” Mairi asked. She took a seat several chairs down from Alec.

  “They blame MacInnes for my wife’s death,” he countered. “The villagers blame the castle for allowing the evil to pervade Barra Isle, bringing the MacInnes here.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she said.

  “Superstition doesn’t stem from sense. It comes from fear.” He leaned forward. “My grandfather’s wife died on Kisimul, birthing my father. My father brought my mother here, and she miscarried every daughter growing within her, I think four in total.

  “When I was born, my mother refused to try to have more bairns because of the evilness of this place. My father died shortly afterward in battle, and she had Kisimul blessed by a priest. She even had a chapel built here and dedicated it to St. Anne, the patron saint of women. ’Tis two doors down from this hall.” He pointed toward the door leading into a narrow bailey. “My mother remained on Kisimul only until I was sixteen when she left to take holy vows at Iona.”

  “Ye lived here the entire time?” she asked, glancing about the tomb-like interior.

  “Aye. ’Tis the place for The MacNeil. Therefore, it is my home. It wasn’t always this quiet. I wed Joyce Mackenzie when I was a score and two. She brought a cook, several maids, and her mare. But when she was killed, they returned to Clan Mackenzie. Without a woman on Kisimul to appease St. Anne, perhaps, evil is thought to run rampant in it.”

  “They ignored your orders to stay?”

  “I gave no orders. Kisimul is not a prison, despite your recent sojourn in my dungeon. This is a place of safety. No cannon nor arrow can penetrate to the innermost buildings. The access is only by water, which gives those of us defending it the highest point. Never in history has anyone been able to take her.”

  “And yet no one wants to live here,” Mairi whispered. She rubbed her arms through the thin material of her gown. “It is lonely here. It’s only ye and the children?”

  “My army resides in the village, easily called up. I visit and train with them daily. But it is only my cousin, Kenneth, whom ye met, and my most loyal friend, Ian MacLeod, who live here with my small family, and of course, ye now.”

  Her gaze snapped to him. “I am still a prisoner?”

  He pushed the chair back. “In a way, though ye are free to roam about, care for my wild and naughty children as ye suggested last night.”

  She stood, too, crossing her arms. “Will ye keep me here forever, then?”

  He came close, but Mairi refused to back up. He was at least as tall as her brother, Tor, the muscles of his arms apparent through his shirt. Power radiated from him with each step, his gray-blue eyes boring into her own. As if the tapestry behind him had come to life, Mairi felt stalked by the wolf.

  Stopping before her, he slowly inhaled through his nose. “Roses.” She held her breath as he touched one of the curls framing her face. “Do ye always smell of them, lass?”

  “I asked,” she said, keeping her teeth set, as if she could cage her temper by clenching her jaw. “Do ye intend to keep me prisoner here forever?”

  He let the curl go. The slightest of grins touched his mouth. “Until ye wed me. Then ye will just be the lady of Kisimul.”

  His simple words, spoken without a hint of tender emotion, was the spark flung into Mairi’s brittle temper. Fists clenching, she pressed her foot back and snapped it forward. “Pòg mo thòin,” she yelled as she kicked toward his shin.

  Before she could make contact, Alec sidestepped, catching her foot. Damn skirts made her too slow. He raised one eyebrow. “I’m certain yer arse is lovely, but I will wait until after the ceremony to kiss it,” he said, referring to her favorite curse.

  She tried to wrench her foot away, but he held tight for a second before dropping it. “Do ye always do whatever ye feel like doing?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Let everyone know exactly what ye’re thinking?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do ye know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “From the sharpness of your eyes and the way your fingers are clutched along your skirt, I’d say ye have my singh dubh hidden there.”

  The blasted man hadn’t forgotten that he’d given it to her. Biting back the string of curses on her tongue, Mairi spun away and strode toward the dungeon where the children were. They were much less infuriating than their father, and they could take her on a tour of this water-surrounded, cursed gate to Hell.

  …

  Undisciplined and stubborn. Mairi MacInnes was not any closer to wedding him than she was a week ago. Joyce had been quiet, docile even, although those qualities bred secrets like sneaking away to the village by herself. If she’d asked him, he’d have said no since there were visitors on the island and the MacLeods of Lewis had been seen riding down through MacDonald territory just north of Barra. But she hadn’t asked him and had taken a boat across alone.

  “Heel,” Alec said and tapped his leg as the two other dogs from the MacInnes ran up beside him. Once they fell in line, he clicked his tongue and fed them each a small piece of cooked venison. Artemis ran up, begging for hers.

  “Your mistress has already ruined ye,” Alec said and pushed her arse to the grass. “Sit.” She bounced right back up. He did it again. “Sit.” Three more times, each one as patient as the last, he used the word and pushed her arse down. When she stayed for several seconds, he clicked his tongue and fed her a piece of venison.

  “What kind of name is Daisy? There’s absolutely nothing noble about it.” He scratched the dog’s head and walked along the courtyard. The window to the dungeon sat near the rosebush at the far wall. He could hear the children chattering as they worked below. Occasionally Mairi’s voice chimed in, making him pause. When she wasn’t hissing with anger, her voice was rather beautiful. It matched her face and hair, and the rose smell she exuded. In the hall, he’d wanted to kiss her again, if only to stop her vicious tongue. What would it be like to release her passion, when it wasn’t tainted with anger?

  He tapped his leg to get the other two dogs to fall in line. Dogs were much easier to deal with than women. Trainable, loyal, trustworthy. Though they certainly didn’t smell like roses.

  “Alec,” Ian called as he walked through the lower kitchen into the courtyard. He didn’t speak until he stepped close, and he kept his voice low. “A ship is moored off the south side of Barra. I led a group of warriors to meet two men rowing to shore.”

  “Who are they?” Alec asked, but as Ian’s eyes shifted to the dungeon window, he knew.

  Ian met his gaze. “’Tis Tor Maclean and Cullen Duffie of Mull and Islay. They’ve come to find Mairi.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Can ye give me a tour of the castle?” Mairi asked as she he
lped Cinnia and Weylyn carry the rug they’d rolled up from the dungeon floor.

  They’d left the suspended bed with the old mattress and the privacy screen and table that Mairi had built. The basics of civility. If Alec needed to lock up horrible monsters, then he could remove the rest himself.

  “Certainly,” Cinnia said and led the way down the corridor above the great hall, where two doors stood open, showing dusty bedrooms. They placed the rug in a midsized room with a tiled hearth at one end and a bed against the wall where they’d rehung the drapes.

  “This shall probably be your room,” Weylyn said. “It was our mother’s.”

  So, Alec hadn’t shared a room with his former wife. Interesting.

  Mairi studied the children. “Ye must miss her terribly.”

  Cinnia nodded while Weylyn crossed his arms, looking down at his boots. “She didn’t spend a lot of time with us, but we know she loved us,” Cinnia said. “She was sad a lot of the time.”

  “When ye aren’t frowning over Da, ye’re much happier than she was,” Weylyn said.

  Mairi studied them. “I am not here to take her place, ye know.”

  “Da said ye were,” Cinnia said, her voice stiff. “It’s been almost a year since she died. It’s taken Da that much time to figure out his revenge.”

  Mairi sat on the edge of the freshly made bed. “Ye know who I was married to before.”

  “Aye,” Weylyn said. “The bloody bastard, Fergus MacInnes, of Kilchoan.”

  Mairi watched Cinnia’s face pinch. “Our seanmhair said ye had nothing to do with the MacInnes’s sins. That ye could never have chosen to wed someone so old and foul.”

  “Your grandmother is here?” she asked. “I thought she was a nun on Iona.”

  “Not our real seanmhair,” Weylyn said, his brows scrunched low. “Millie. She came to help Da when his mother left him alone here. She lives outside the village on Barra now.” He sniffed. “She heard Da’s plan to take ye, retribution for the mother we lost.” He looked down at his feet, his shoulders rounded in a child’s attempt to keep raw emotions inside. He shrugged. “She said we should not hate ye, even though I still thought we should, ye being a MacInnes and all.”

  “Millie didn’t hear or say anything,” Cinnia said and looked at Mairi. “She can’t hear, so she reads the way a person’s lips move. And she chooses not to speak, using her fingers and hands to tell us things.”

  “Like the signals Da uses with the dogs,” Weylyn added.

  “Don’t let Millie see ye say that,” Cinnia said. “She’ll ignore ye for a year, and we won’t get her soft bread.” Cinnia turned back to Mairi. “And secondly, I certainly don’t hate ye.” Her eyes welled up. “Ye didn’t kill our mother.”

  Mairi felt tears press behind her own eyes and inhaled to keep them in place. She looked between the children, Weylyn with his fleeting eyes and frown and Cinnia barely holding onto her sorrow. “First,” Mairi said, sitting straighter on the bed, “I would love to meet your seanmhair, Millie. She sounds quite clever, because she is right. I did not choose to wed Fergus MacInnes. And I did not know anything about his plans, foul or otherwise.” She paused. “I suppose that was second.”

  She shook her head and looked to Weylyn. “Thirdly, I do not consider myself a MacInnes but a Maclean.”

  He nodded and filled his chest with air. “I’m glad Millie was right.”

  “About me not supporting Fergus MacInnes?”

  “Nay. About ye being someone to break the curse,” he answered.

  “The curse of Kisimul?” she asked.

  “Aye, the one that makes no one want to live on Kisimul with us,” Cinnia said.

  A movement by the door caught Cinnia’s gaze, and her eyes opened wide. Alec MacNeil stood there, hands braced on either side of the doorframe. His brows were lowered, giving him a menacing look. Like a mother bear, Mairi stepped closer to Cinnia.

  “I think that’s enough talk of superstitious foolishness,” he said, his gaze falling on her. Was he speaking to her? He didn’t know her at all if he thought she wasn’t going to ask questions.

  “Aye, Da,” Cinnia said. “We’re done moving things up. Can this be Mairi’s room?”

  What an outlandish situation. Mairi opened her lips and closed them again, completely lost on what to say next. Would he say it was her choice if she preferred the dungeon as an unwed woman or this room wed to him? Did he think the presence of his children would stop her from throwing the water pitcher at his head? She waited.

  “If she wishes,” he said, eyes steady and his grip relaxing. He lowered his arms. “Ian, Kenneth, and I are headed to the village. I think the weather is turning, thus, ye need to stay indoors. I don’t want waves to wash ye into the sea.” He pinned them with a fierce gaze. “Follow my orders this time.”

  “Aye, Da,” they both said, glancing downward. Guilt sat heavy in the bend of their shoulders.

  He tipped his head to Mairi, turned on his heel, and strode away, his tread soundless.

  “Does he always sneak around here?” Mairi asked.

  Weylyn’s stern frown turned into a grin. “He moves silently because he’s a wolf. He’s loud only when he’s ripping out the throat of his enemies.” He clenched his hand, so his fingers looked like teeth biting into someone.

  “Weylyn,” Cinnia said in a huff. “Don’t make up vicious tales.”

  His eyes opened wide in innocence. “’Tis true. I heard Ian talking about it. Scares the shite right out of the English or the MacLeods of Uist when they raid.”

  Mairi planted her feet on the floor and stood. “Perhaps it is time for my tour. I’ve sat in small rooms far too long.”

  …

  Alec could see Mairi’s features in her brother as he approached alongside his friend. Tor Maclean wore his sword and frown as if walking into battle.

  “MacNeil,” he said. “I am Tor Maclean, the chief of the Macleans of Mull, and this is Cullen Duffie, chief of the MacDonalds of Islay. We are searching for my sister, Mairi Maclean. She was stolen.”

  “Not Mairi MacInnes? Wife to the bastard who raided our island, killing unprovoked?” Alec said, his voice low. If the two drew swords, they’d be completely outnumbered. Ian and Kenneth flanked Alec with his two wolfhounds, and his men walked quietly behind the two, forming a semicircle.

  “Fergus MacInnes is dead,” Maclean said. “And my sister had nothing to do with his atrocities.” He exhaled. “I am sorry to hear about your wife.”

  Alec stared into Maclean’s eyes. He was called the Beast of Aros, and something about the intensity in his gaze made Alec think that, under different circumstances, he would like Tor Maclean. “I am sorry to hear that your sister is missing.”

  “She’s not been seen on Barra Isle?” Cullen Duffie asked. He narrowed his eyes as if searching Alec, but if he thought to read anything into Alec’s stance or movements, he’d find nothing. Alec had spent a lifetime hiding his actual emotions and thoughts, first from a disapproving mother, then from a ridiculously superstitious clan, and finally from a wife who believed in curses enough to abandon her own children to sneak off Kisimul alone.

  Alec met Duffie’s hard gaze without a single blink. “Nay. Ask my men or any of the villagers. Your missing lady has not set foot on Barra.” Alec knew the two who had rowed Mairi across from Kilchoan and the four others who had manned the ship to sail them home would never tell a soul what they’d seen, not even their own families. They were loyal MacNeils, each one of them. Even though he’d slept on Kisimul, he’d come ashore most days of his life, training and growing up with them.

  “We will do that,” Duffie said and finally looked away, his gaze perusing the village square. “We will stay the night and move up your coast to Eriskay and South Uist tomorrow.”

  “Ruth MacNeil, the baker’s wife, lets a room above her shop,” Kenneth said and pointed behind the two.

  “How about Kisimul?” Maclean asked, looking out over the water. “We would visit it before we journ
ey on.”

  Alec crossed his arms. “No one goes to Kisimul.”

  “Ye do,” Maclean said.

  “It is the seat for clan MacNeil. Only my children and I reside there.”

  “And his second in command and cousin,” Kenneth added, pointing to himself and Ian. “’Tis a cursed isle in the bay.”

  “Yet ye leave your children there alone?” Duffie asked, also turning his eyes toward the water.

  “I don’t believe in curses,” Alec said. “But I also know how to keep my family safe. Kisimul is impenetrable. I’ve already lost their mother. I will not lose them. No one goes there.”

  “There is someone on top of your wall,” Maclean said, taking long steps toward the docks for a better look.

  Alec’s stomach tightened as his hand grasped the hilt of his sword. “Stay indoors” had apparently not been specific enough. With a nod to his men, they followed Maclean and Duffie toward the water line. He looked up to Kisimul’s wall walk and saw golden hair caught by the wind. But the castle was far away, and no features were detectable on the woman standing there; her head was the only part visible. Alec let Maclean and Duffie study the figure at length. When Alec reached them, he stopped.

  “My daughter, Cinnia,” he said.

  “Or the ghost of Kisimul,” Kenneth said next to him.

  Alec scoffed. “I will tell Cinnia tonight that ye thought she was a spirit.” Alec knew that Maclean stared at his sister and not Cinnia, for her hair was too golden in the muted sun to be his daughter’s. Alec uncrossed his arms and let them fall to his sides, a signal to others that he was not in the leastways anxious or hiding something. It worked with stray canines. Would it work with two suspicious Highlanders?

  “Ye have a son also,” Maclean said, his eyes watching until Mairi moved around the corner to step inside a tower.

  “Aye. He’s only seven summers, and not yet hit his growing years, so ’tis hard to see him above the wall. No doubt he’s following behind his sister.”