“Untrue.” Marsali pushed between Duncan and the other man, no longer able to control her anger in the face of the blatant lie. “The big cowards ran off during the night and no one has seen them since. And they stole a month’s supply of provisions.”
Duncan gently nudged her aside and wrested the sword from Abercrombie’s trembling hands, his voice revealing none of his deep contempt. “Whatever has passed before is past, and Mr. Abercrombie and I will be putting our heads together to make a great many changes.”
“I am not staying, not another day.” Abercrombie’s voice quavered at the prospect. “No, now that you are here, my lord, I shall collect my things and…”
His protest died away into a whimper as Duncan lifted the sword a little higher, his face set like flint. “You are going to stay here and help me, Abercrombie, as you have been ordered to do.”
“Please, my lord.” Abercrombie looked pathetic, his holy-basin helmet sliding down over his forehead. “Cleave me in half wi’ that sword if you will, but don’t make me stay. I cannot face these heathens again.”
“Compose yourself, Mr. Abercrombie. You’re an embarrassment, begging like a dog for a bone, and in front of a woman, to boot. Where’s your pride, your dignity to behave like this?”
Abercrombie answered with a loud sniff, sinking back down onto the pew in abysmal dejection at the prospect of remaining inside the castle. “Please, my lord,” he whispered again, only to jump to his feet as Duncan took a menacing step toward him.
“Pull yourself together, Mr. Abercrombie. Remove that ridiculous bowl—it makes you look like a toadstool—and take me on a tour of the castle.”
“A t-tour, my lord? We’ll be taking our lives into our hands.”
“Yes, a tour.” Duncan started to lay down the weapon, then decided it couldn’t hurt his image to be seen walking his domain adequately armed. Besides, Abercrombie had a point: He might damn well need the protection.
He strode to the door, stopping briefly to consider Marsali, the fading afternoon light picking out wine-red glints in the tumult of her long curly hair. Again he was struck by her fey loveliness, the illusion of fragility that hid a quick mind and feral heart. Again he felt that tug of haunting familiarity as he stared into her face. Did he know her?
She gave him an impudent grin. He glanced away before he could grin back.
“Make yourself useful there, lass,” he said gruffly. “You can start by working on washing my clothes. Come on, Abercrombie. Help me find something decent to wear.” He paused, staring above his head. “By the way, is there a reason why you have five plucked chickens strung up from the rafters?”
Abercrombie squared his stooped shoulders and followed Duncan to the door. “They were my sustenance, my lord. I fished them out of the moat when the guards were drinking and playing cards, which fortunately for me is the majority of the time.”
Duncan managed to keep a straight face, hearing Marsali succumb to muffled laughter behind them. “Ingenious, Abercrombie. But you don’t expect me to believe you’ve survived on raw chickens for two entire months?”
“Och, no, sir.” Abercrombie gave Duncan a smug look. “I roasted them late at night in the sanctuary lamp wi’ a bit of holy oil.”
Marsali snorted. “And here everyone was wondering where all those delicious smells were coming from in the wee small hours.”
Duncan shook his head in mock admiration. “My, my, Abercrombie, aren’t you the resourceful one? But what did you drink, man, those two long months?”
Abercrombie puffed his chest out like a pigeon. “Eucharist wine, my lord. What else?”
“Why, you crafty old fox. I’ll not turn my back on you.” Duncan chuckled dryly and clapped the little man on the shoulder, practically driving him to his knees as a hammer would a nail. Abercrombie staggered but pretended to laugh too, and the pair of them headed toward the door, the sound of their shared amusement grating in Marsali’s ears, excluding her.
She trailed slowly after them, a troubled frown creasing her forehead. Had she misjudged the MacElgin then? For certain he had failed a crucial test: He should have tossed the miserable little traitor out the window when she’d told him about the flogging of a child. As chieftain, Duncan should have displayed deep anger toward Abercrombie, compassion for his victim, and then at the very least he should have put the pompous Scot into the finger pillory for a fortnight to be pelted with rotten produce.
She stared down the shadows of the spiral tower stairs at Duncan’s big receding figure, disappointment weighing like a stone in her chest. Perhaps she was too impressed by the man’s air of authority to perceive his deeper flaws. Perhaps she was blinded by the beauty of a man who looked like a medieval knight commissioned by the saints to save his people. She wanted to believe he had been sent as an answer to her prayers because she was heartsick with burying brothers and cousins, not to mention a father.
Someone had to take the clan under control. But was the cost of salvation a pact with the Devil? Someone had to show the chieftain fealty. Why did it have to be her? She sighed, shaking her head as she hurried to catch up with them, not wanting to miss one moment of this exciting day.
She would give Duncan one more chance, although it concerned her that he had failed a very critical test of his character. It concerned her almost as much as the fact that she wanted to believe in him for reasons she suspected had nothing whatsoever to do with the clan.
By nightfall the news of Duncan’s arrival had penetrated every nook and cranny of the castle. His presence had cast a somber pall over the usual nightly activities. The much-enjoyed running naked in and out of the great hall had been canceled, as had the dropping of young frogs into drunken clansmens’ trews at dinner.
Duncan had not exactly won friends with the curt demands he had barked out during his “tour.” His most dramatic run-in had come when he and Cook had butted heads during supper. They had never shared a warm relationship, even in their earlier years, and Duncan had not further endeared himself to the woman by summoning her to the hall to criticize her supper as he handed her a list of suggested French menus with a purse of coins to buy more palatable supplies.
“I do not ever want to lay eyes upon, let alone eat, another one of your stringy overcooked chickens again,” he announced over the woman’s spluttering protests.
Cook’s face empurpled like an eggplant. No one had ever dared to complain about her cooking within her earshot. Several clansmen even ducked under the massive table for fear a violent battle would ensue.
Marsali was aghast at Duncan’s tactless tyranny, challenging the heretofore most important woman, if not person, in the entire castle. And he’d done it publicly. At the table. Reduced to acting as serving maid as part of her punishment, Marsali had been severely tempted to empty a flagon of wine over his insensitive head. In fact, the force of her anger had driven her to storm out of the hall, defying him to stop her.
Which he did.
She had just reached the door when he’d half-risen from his massive Jacobean chair on its bulbous lion’s-claw feet to summon her back.
“I do not remember giving you permission to leave, Marsali.”
Hell’s bells, the man had eyes like Eun, she thought in resentment, pivoting slowly as total silence blanketed the hall. Her clansmen regarded her with varying degrees of embarrassed amusement, trepidation, and relief that their chieftain was temporarily, at least, overlooking them.
Word had spread through the castle like wildfire that the MacElgin was capable of anything. Only that afternoon he had ordered the men to rewash all their sweaty plaids, another grave insult to Cook, who had already supervised this month’s washing. He had forbidden women to pop bare-breasted out of herring barrels, and he had banished Effie’s pet piglets to the castle yard.
But the penultimate insult was the punishment he’d inflicted on brave wee Marsali Hay, making her his personal servant—Marsali, a blue-blooded descendant of Olaf the Black himself, King of Man and th
e Isles. Marsali, who had lost a father, lover, and two brothers in the space of three years. Marsali, with her easy laughter and unwavering loyalty. It was an affront to what piddling little the clan held dear.
“I am waiting, Marsali.”
Her hackles rose at his tone of voice. She anticipated trouble, that somehow she was about to become the brunt of his black sense of humor. She reminded herself that she was submitting to him for a reason, that her patience would bear the fruit of peace for the clan.
As she approached his chair, she screwed up the courage to look him straight in the eye. The midnight-blue intensity of his gaze took her off guard. Heat suffused her face, but she held her head high, struggling to subdue the impact of his stare, which warned he had something horrible in store.
Duncan subsided back into his chair as Marsali returned in reluctant steps to the table, her small face set in a scowl of irritation.
“You have dropped your serviette again, my lord?” she inquired in a tone that suggested she’d like to strangle him with it.
Duncan waved the white linen napkin limply in her direction. “No, it’s right here.”
“Your wine goblet is too heavy to lift?” she asked, the dangerous glint in her eye growing brighter.
He leaned back in his chair, long muscular legs out-sprawled like an indolent conqueror’s, studying her in cold unblinking silence. Marsali stared back, positive now that she and Colum had made a severe metaphysical miscalculation. This man could not possibly be the link to bringing peace and prosperity to the clan, born to the position or not.
Aye, he reveled in the role of chieftain tonight, his tall handsome frame emphasized to advantage in a costume he’d evidently found in his father’s wardrobe: white ruffled shirt of fine lawn and black velvet knee breeches, white linen hose encasing his muscular calves, the MacElgin plaid pinned to his broad shoulder with a silver brooch encircled by Chinese amethysts. His long black hair fell loosely, framing his handsome face. It struck Marsali as a cruel irony that someone graced with such devastating physical appeal had been cursed with an utter absence of emotional depth. But there it was. The sad truth.
“There is another draft on your neck, my lord?” she asked in a falsely solicitous voice.
Duncan raised his goblet to his lips to conceal a wolfish grin. He was enjoying himself immensely. The woman’s spirit added incredible spice to his efforts. Spice. Ah, that was the word for her with that warm sun-kissed skin and that small lithe body, its sensuality ill-concealed by her drab gown. He would have dearly loved under other circumstances to take advantage of her subservient role.
He cast a casual glance around the hall, struck anew by the overt hostility that engulfed him. Hate him or not, he’d be willing to wager this was the first night since his father’s death that his clansmen were behaving like human beings. Hope, albeit dim, rose inside him.
“Marsali, you will fetch the ladder and remove the tapestries from the wall. I find the smell of mold offensive while I’m eating.”
Marsali nodded weakly, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll have it done after supper.”
“Not after supper.” He drummed his long tapered fingers on the chair’s lion-paw arms. “Now.”
She took a deep fortifying breath. She would find a way to sneak out of the castle and confront Colum tonight if it killed her because another day of pretending servitude to this selfish wretch would kill her. She could not bear the way he played her like a puppet on a string, and he liked it too.
“Yes, my lord.” She edged away from the table, digging her nails into her palms. “I’ll find a couple of lads to take care of the offensive smell.”
“I want you to take care of it, Marsali.” He folded his arms across his chest, his face as arrogant as an emperor’s. “This instant, before the dessert course is served, and my appetite is spoiled.”
From the corner of her eye she caught the sly grins of her clansmen. Stung by their amusement, she lowered her voice. “You want me to climb on a ladder and pull down the tapestries?”
He tossed his napkin onto his plate, his blue eyes reflecting the flame of the candles flickering on the table. “Unless you know of a better way to remove them.”
She sauntered up to the side of his chair, pretending to brush a few crumbs from his shirt as she whispered with cold fury, “And shall I trim your toenails with my teeth when I’m finished?”
“If you like,” he said calmly. “But not too closely, mind.” Marsali gazed down, infuriated, into his dark chiseled face, wondering if she could overturn the soup tureen in his lap and make it to the door alive.
He reached for his goblet, a lazy smile touching his lips. “Have you suddenly turned to stone, lass? I’m expecting guests at any day, my dessert any moment, and I cannot abide the reek of mildew. I have a delicate nose.”
Marsali gritted her teeth. “Yes, my lord.” But this is the last bloody time. Tomorrow I’ll put as much energy into humiliating you as you have me.
She whirled, her pale blue muslin skirts swishing behind her like an angry cat’s tail. Duncan chuckled to himself, savoring the victory. Poor Marsali. She had no idea of the little humiliations he had planned for her tomorrow. He had restrained himself this evening. He had been kind to her while he assessed the situation. In the morning she would learn the true meaning of respect, and he would have fun while she did. Nothing too cruel, though. Just the proper dose of domestic discipline to put her in her place.
Chapter
6
Duncan’s glow of satisfaction had already begun to fade before midnight, replaced by the unwelcome barrage of memories that assaulted him as he began to prowl the twisting torchlit corridors of the castle.
As if it had been only a week ago and not fifteen years, he remembered his poor stunned father dragging him through these very passageways, the clan’s tacksman, Andrew, following with concern on his gentle face, trying to reassure the young terrified boy that all would be well.
And how had Duncan repaid the man?
He had spat in Andrew’s face, rejecting, mocking the kindness he had never known even as his lonely heart craved it. He had cursed and swung with all his might; he had broken loose from his father and Andrew to run shrieking through the kitchens, breaking bottles and chairs, shoving a much younger Cook against the stove with such uncontrolled rage he dislocated her shoulder.
“Young demon,” she had whispered, cowering tearfully in the corner. “Dirty murderer…”
Demon. Murderer. But no one had ordered him, at only eleven years old, to be flogged when God only knew he’d done far more than Marsali’s cousin to deserve it. Abercrombie would have to pay for that cruelty, after Duncan had gotten his use out of the stupid man.
Eager to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the castle, he left the deserted great hall by a side passage and walked to the stables, his order to be let outside obeyed with comical swiftness. His stallion had been found at the moor by a shepherd and curried (by Marsali) only hours ago, the last demand he had made of the exhausted woman before dismissing her for the night. No doubt she would sleep like the dead until dawn, when he intended to awaken her with a fresh list of demanding chores. He chuckled softly at the prospect.
He rode without thought to his destination, contempt hardening his face at the black piles of rubble littering the roadside where English soldiers had begun to clear cottages to build their military road. He was not insensitive to the Highlanders’ feelings nor unmoved by the sight of this destruction. But he could see little point in men sacrificing their lives for the inevitable thrust of progress into even these remote wilds. And he had more than enough experience in the British army to predict the Jacobite cause would die a violent death.
He swore it was not intentional, but suddenly he found himself staring down at the thatched stone cottage in the tangled beech copse where he had been born, where his mother and the vicious bastard she had married had died, violently, on a Beltane night over two decades ago. He slow
ed his horse, unprepared for the dark emotions that swept over him, the painful lure of the past.
He had lived an incredible life since then, he had been feted in foreign courts; he had won the hand of a gently bred English lady and the sponsorship of her politically influential father. He had risen from the tomb of personal tragedy.
But when he dismounted and walked inside the forlorn abandoned cottage, he became an angry and abused eleven-year-old boy again, and all the glory he had achieved dissipated like mist.
The door behind him gaped open, its broken crossbar hanging at the exact angle from when Kenneth MacElgin and his retainers had kicked it, drawn by the sound of Duncan’s aunt sobbing hysterically for help. Even the breath of the nearby sea could not cleanse the remembered stench of blood, ale, and peat smoke from Duncan’s nostrils. He closed his eyes, assailed by repressed grief and unspent anger.
Aye, for all the honor bestowed on him, for all the years that had passed, as he stood in that dark cottage, he was a child again, caught in a nightmare of deadly violence, and escape was no easier now than it had been then.
Duncan lifted his head, the dark circle of his thoughts broken by the vibrations of a rider galloping across the ridge that overhung the cottage. Deliberately not looking down at the floor where he had last seen his mother lying, lifeless, he hurried outside to the sunken yard and looked up in amazement at the figure that seemed to fly like an otherworldly being across the tree-shadowed path.
Marsali. Damnation, it was that girl again, flagrantly disobeying his orders to remain inside the castle until he gave her permission to leave. Anger welled inside him, a welcome distraction from the torment of his memories. Was she running away, fed up with her punishment and suspecting he had even grimmer chores planned? Had she followed him here to flaunt her defiance?
He strode toward his own horse, smiling unwillingly at the absurd memory of her sliding down the ladder in the great hall to fall on her rump, unbalanced by the weight of the enormous tapestry she had singlehandedly hauled down.
Fairy Tale Page 6