Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2)

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  Ailis told Mairi, “I hear tell that to remove one’s hair permanently, ’tis best to mix ants’ eggs, red orpiment, ivy gum and vin aigre.”

  “Sour wine?” Mairi asked. “Drunken hairs.” And she laughed.

  Kenna made a disgusted face. “Who would do such a thing?”

  Ailis nodded to the group at large, the threaded needle in her hand continuing to sew as though it had a life of its own. “The lady Aveline herself. She wadna rub any on her face, mind ye, but she did rub it quite vigorously…” A slight blush climbed into her cheeks. “Elsewhere.”

  “Where?” Kenna asked.

  Lael made a face. “There?”

  Ailis nodded again, only once with great flourish.

  “Only a bloody Sassenach!” Mairi swore.

  “Ye must ha’ known her well,” Kenna suggested with a hint of a returning smile.

  All three turned to Kenna, spying her dimples, and realizing she meant it as a jest. All four burst into giggles. And after the giggles subsided, Mairi dared to ask Lael, “How went your first night?”

  Lael’s gaze fell to the needle in her hand and there remained. “Fine,” she said, her cheeks burning a little hotter. She had never been particularly bashful; so why now?She stabbed herself and a trickle of blood seeped through the hem of her dress. In truth it went more than fine, but there were matters that confused her. Still she was hardly prepared to share any of it with anyone, not even her new friends.

  “Fine, indeed,” Ailis said with a knowing grin. “I warrant ye’ll have the Butcher tamed in no time.” And then she elbowed Kenna. “Ye’d best begin using your wiles while ye’ve still the chance, lass, lest ye find yourself an auld woman without a bed.”

  Kenna shrugged. She cast Lael a diffident glance. “I have a bed,” the girl insisted, then returned to glummer thoughts, judging by the dour expression upon her face.

  Lael too was suddenly plagued.

  Sharing stories, they worked together much of the day, whiling away the hours indoors now that the snow had resumed. They could hear the wind whipping and wailing outside and Lael, not for the first time, wondered where the three maids laid their head at night.

  She eyed Kenna, with her sullen expression and private thoughts and wondered precisely where the lass kept her bed. She’d gleaned enough to know that both Mairi and Ailis shared pallets with various lovers, but Kenna always fell silent during such conversations. Perhaps Lael would offer the use of the room they were now in, but first she’d better request the favor of her husband, since in truth this was not her home—not for long.

  Despite last night, her home was in the Mounth, with her kinsmen—that is, if her brother would ever have her back.

  She thought about Cailin and Keane, and missed their impish smiles. She thought about Sorcha and her heart nearly burst with longing. She thought about Aidan and her contemplation darkened nearly as much as Kenna’s.

  Nevertheless, by mid afternoon, they had already mended a trunkful of dresses, despite Lael’s awkward attempts with the needle. Mairi bade her try one on. Her fingers sorely abused, Lael was more than ready to be done. She chose another green woolen gown and put it on to see if it fit. To her immense relief, it did. With a new lacy hem that brushed the ground, she was inordinately pleased with their efforts, and she peered up with a smile.

  “Tis lovely ye are,” Ailis declared, clapping her hands.

  “Aye,” Kenna said, nodding, and Lael found herself beaming as well—not because of the dress, but because of her newfound friends. She could scarce remember a time in her life when she’d allowed herself to be so free with other women. She’d spent nearly her entire life with the welfare of her family weighing heavily upon her shoulders. As a result she had been far more their mother than she had ever realized, keeping herself entirely apart. Her brother had been her closest friend and he alone filled the void her mother and father left behind. That was probably part of the reason why she’d been so reluctant to embrace Aidan’s bonny new wife—not simply because she’d believed her to be a threat. In truth, she had been jealous of Lìli for a time, until she saw how happy Lìli made her brother.

  Lael had learned a lot since then, and no matter what may come of this time at Keppenach, she was beginning to understand herself in a way she didn’t before. There was more to life than knives and worry and preparation against war.

  There is more to life than vengeance.

  She tried to imagine herself at home, tried to think about who else she might share a bed with, and every time, her husband’s face stubbornly appeared before her.

  And then, alas, she thought about Broc Ceannfhionn down in his cold, wet cell, and she reminded herself that she owed him a chance to be away from this place. She feared he would not last the winter down there… She also knew her husband meant what he’d said: Jaime would never release him unless she begot him a child, and that was something Lael could not do if she ever planned to leave. And therein lay the dilemma: She was already coming to realize that her husband was not the scourge she’d once believed, but he was, for all his claims to the contrary, an Englishman through and through. He and David were both poppets for the English crown. Her brother would never forgive her if she lost her heart to an enemy of their kin.

  It was one thing to play her part here, yet another to love a man who could not be faithful to his blood.

  Blood and kin is all there is.

  But… She tried hard to think of Jaime now as the Butcher and could no longer even summon the epithet to her lips. Perhaps in part because of last night, he was merely Jaime now… and she feared that the longer she remained at Keppenach, the more difficult it would be to keep her husband out of the one place he could never be… her heart.

  Little by little, Lael distributed all but the most valuable belongings throughout the castle, adorning the walls outside the laird’s chamber, but no matter what she did the wind moaned like a bean sìth throughout the corridors. She filled the empty bracers with pitch-laden torches, vowing to teach the ladies how to make better candles come spring.

  Dressed in the same green gown she’d donned this morn, she wrapped herself in her heavy fur cloak and made her way down the tower stairs. Apparently, Jaime was preoccupied, for she had not seen him once since he’d left her abed this morn.

  Downstairs, in the great hall, she found torches blazing in every brace. Men hustled for their chairs, although most were already seated, lest they miss the evening meal. A musician sat in one corner, blowing a reed. The song was melodious and soothing, and Lael could almost believe this was not a war-torn donjon in the northern reaches of David’s ill-begotten campaign. It felt for all-the world much like Dubhtolargg in the throes of winter, nestled snugly against Cailleach’s bosom.

  Already seated at the laird’s table, her husband’s eyes followed her down the stairs, but this was all just a farce, she reminded herself. The truth was far less hopeful—a notion the fates seemed to conspire against at every turn, for when she sat down in her seat beside her laird husband, her breath caught at what lay beside her plate. At first, she thought mayhap she’d chosen the wrong seat and she rose again to move, only to find her husband’s hand upon her arm, begging her to stay.

  Lael peered up at him, blinking.

  “My bride gift to you … it was my mother’s,” he disclosed.

  Stunned, Lael sat again, the breath catching in her lungs as she turned again to examine the beautifully embellished eating dagger. Not nearly as dainty as the one she’d used before, it was crowned by three hearts intertwined, and in the center of the three hearts a blooming thistle. The craftwork was intricately done, and lovingly detailed. But as stunning as the grip might be, the blade was no less finely honed. In the right hands, it could open a man’s throat or sever his head.

  Her heart squeezed a bit. “For me?”

  Her husband nodded, and it was far more what he did not say that stole a little slice of her heart, for it bespoke trust… a trust he should never give her, be
cause she had not yet earned it, nor did she mean to.

  Lael’s fingers reached out to caress the handle. The etchings beneath the pads of fingers were like perfect jewels. The spine was gently curved, the tip sharp but serrated and the edge sharp as any of her blades. “Thank you,” she said, nearly choking on her gratitude.

  He leaned to whisper. “You’ve given me a perfect gift,” he told her. “’Tis only fitting I should return one.”

  Lael met his gaze, feeling a bit like a doe in a hunt.

  Jaime smiled warmly, genuinely, and her heart faltered in its beat. “Thank you,” she said again, and truly meant it. No one had ever given her such a perfect gift in all her life. It was far, far more meaningful to her than any jewel or silly dress.

  Cailleach, merciful Cailleach… She felt a bit as though she wanted to weep—something she had never, ever done.

  “It pleases me you like it so well.”

  Lael nodded, and held her gaze upon the little dagger.

  Laughter rang through the hall, and unlike the time before, this time it didn’t feel much as though it were laughter at her expense, rather it felt more like the cadence of laughter at home… a warm sense of camaraderie between loving folk.

  But that hardly made any sense… These people were all half strangers.

  She paid more attention and found those within the hall now behaving a bit more familiar—Jaime’s men sat amidst MacLaren’s men, all of them chattering together. Jesting. Laughing. Stealing bits from one anothers’ plates.

  Mairi, Ailis and Kenna all wore their new dresses, flitting about the tables with renewed smiles that were far brighter even than Lael’s shiny new blade. In but a few days’ time her husband had somehow accomplished this, transforming a cold, gray keep into some semblance of a home… and more.

  She feared he was undermining her resolve to go.

  At this rate, she might never have the will to leave.

  She lifted up her dagger and stabbed at her trencher, her confusion multiplied a hundredfold.

  And then she felt his hand at the small of her spine, and it was both welcome and unwelcome all at once.

  After last night, it gave her pleasure to feel it there. Warmth burst into her cheeks at the memory of the night’s carnal pursuits. But it was far too familiar—a gentle lover’s touch. She heard him laugh and hardened her resolve to go.

  The sooner the better.

  “I sent Kieran into the Mounth,” he said over her shoulder.

  His best man.

  He did not need to say why. She understood he’d sent Kieran to deliver Lael’s message. She lifted a bite to her mouth, feeling the sharp blade against her tongue. Although it pleased her much that her brother would soon know she was not dead, she could not look at Jaime for fear that he could read her mind.

  “He’ll never make it,” she assured, and found herself hoping it was true, for if he did happen to reach Dubhtolargg, there was no telling what her brother might do to him. She had given him a message between her words that only Aidan could decipher, and she knew her brother well enough to know he would rouse Sluag himself to bring her home.

  There was a smile in her husband’s voice. “I assure you that if anyone can, Kieran will.”

  A knot formed in Lael’s belly, one that had little to do with the soured meal put upon her plate.

  “Does that not please you, Lael?”

  Lael peered up at Jaime finally, finding his gaze completely without guile. She nodded. “Aye,” she reassured. “It pleases me verra much.” And for the third time in a single night, she found herself thanking the man who’d spared her life.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  After a week of convalescing, Cameron migrated to the hall. He made certain never to be alone with Cailin, although his thoughts were with her all the day and night long. He found himself obsessed and beset, unable to see himself leaving Dubhtolargg without her.

  In fact he was heartily glad now that he was stuck here for the winter, and he hoped and prayed that Aidan dún Scoti would warm to him as he clearly had to his Scoti bride.

  Cameron knew these people set themselves apart, and had no love for Scotia or its king, but he himself had long been a man without a home and had never truly felt himself a part of the MacKinnon clan. Aye, the MacKinnon was obliging enough. He’d accepted all the displaced MacEanraigs as his kin, but Cameron felt the separation nonetheless. Now as it would seem, he might never see his cousin again, and he wondered what there was to return to…

  Broc’s wife and bairns were at Chreagach Mhor. But they were not Cameron’s family, and there was little enough he might to do aid them when he knew every last MacKinnon would take Broc’s loved ones to their bosom.

  As for Broc, he could scarce believe his cousin could be gone. That much aggrieved him more than words could say. He felt aggrieved for Lael—and her family as well—but it was his cousin he mourned above all else, with a weight and torment that Cailin’s smile could only begin to atone for. She poured him a dram of uisge to ward away the cold, but her bonny smile warmed him all the more.

  His wounds were healing quickly, though his heart was wasting away, for Broc was the only true family he had ever known. They had been through so much, and even when Cameron had once thought to betray the clan, Broc had saved him from himself. In truth he would have given his life for Broc, would do so even now, if he only had the chance.

  Another week went by, and he had little notion when he rose one gray morning that he would get the chance to prove his worth—not simply to Broc, but to the woman he meant to wed.

  Against all odds, a messenger rode into the vale—a golden-haired warrior who appeared for all his English garb like a Scotsman to the bone. He sauntered in with all the bluster of a Scotsman, wearing an English-styled tunic and cloaked in heavy furs. His beard was frozen and there were icicles hanging from his nose hairs. With fingers that were nearly frostbitten, he handed over a missive to Aidan, and then went without permission to warm his fingers by the hearth as he awaited Aidan’s reply.

  The dún Scoti chieftain’s face darkened with a frightful scowl. His brow furrowed and his green eyes shot a glance at the burly warrior Cameron had come to know as Lachlann. Aidan gave his captain an ominous nod toward the door and Lachlan moved to bar the exit. Another two guards followed his lead, flanking him on either side.

  The hall fell silent as a crypt. Cailin stood behind Cameron, digging her dainty fingers into his shoulder so desperately that Cameron bit back a cry of pain.

  The stranger seemed to understand their wordless discourse, but despite that, he did not move from where he stood, warming his hands by the fire.

  Aidan made his way to where the man stood. He re-rolled the parchment and held it in his fist. “My sister lives?” he asked the man directly.

  The stranger nodded.

  “What of Broc Ceannfhionn?”

  “Lives as well.”

  Cameron surged to his feet where he sat at the long table, and both the dún Scoti and the stranger peered his way.

  Cailin seized him by the elbow, holding him back.

  The level of fury in the dún Scoti’s gaze should have set the man afire right there where he stood, because it set Cameron’s face ablaze. Aidan turned once more to face the stranger. “And ’tis true? This?” he demanded to know, snapping the parchment against his palm. “At the peril of her life, my sister was forced to wed and bed the demon Butcher?”

  The stranger turned once more to Cameron, then back to Aidan, and the he said, “You might put it that way.”

  When she was outside their bedchamber, Lael was always certain of her path. It was only when she retreated to her tower refuge that she felt utterly torn. Here, she was her husband’s wife, responding wantonly to his every touch, yearning desperately for his kiss.

  On their second night Jaime came prepared to woo her, after giving her the gift of his mother’s blade. And despite that she’d expected him to seize it away after the mealtime was over he
did not. He allowed her to keep the knife and she wore it in a belted sheathe about her waist.

  But that night, after supper, he came to their bower bearing yet another gift and it was then she understood how much in peril lay her vanquished heart.

  He handed her a folded cloth in the colors of his long-forgotten clan, imbued with all the shades of the earth—rich browns, black and earthy greens with silvery threads that matched the color of his eyes.

  “I never thought to begin anew,” he confessed as he poured himself a dram from the barrel David left behind. He then told her about the fall of Dunloppe, and how the fire illuminated the twilight sky for miles.

  He bared his heart, and Lael found herself speechless.

  “’Tis lovely,” she said of the cloth, and laid it, still folded, upon the bed.

  The scene he described rivaled even her own memory of her father’s betrayal in their hall—not precisely the same, but his grandfather, too, had been betrayed by those he trusted. In the end, while it drew her kinsmen closer, it wrested Jaime’s apart. There was little left of his legacy now, and the land, he said, had begun to reclaim its due. He’d returned only once to find the blackened stone overrun with vines and little remaining of the palisade walls. Thereafter he turned his back on all that should have been his through his mother’s kin, embracing a life with those he deemed more worthy.

  He drank a moment in silence, and then added, “After all was said and done, it seems I locked my pride it in that same box where I stored my family’s plaid.”

  Lael caressed the dusty fabric with a trembling hand, considering the youth he once had been—a displaced young man with at terrible fury in his soul.

  She shared that with him she must confess… an overwhelming desire to avenge the family she’d lost. But for Lael it was tempered by the love her kinsmen gave her, and if she’d fought for anything at all, it was to protect the ones she loved.