“If you set one foot outside the convent, one tiny disobedient toe, your little army will be arrested and tried for treason. That’s a promise.”
His coldbloodedness turned her blood to ice. He meant it. The ruthless devil would betray the very people he’d been bom to protect. “How could you?” she whispered, recoiling as if he were a monster.
He flinched inwardly at the disgust on her face. “I had no choice,” he said. “Blame yourself if you must blame anyone. The price of your freedom was my promise to Major Darling that I would keep you out of his way until his road is finished.”
She spun clumsily to avoid him, staring at the turret. Aye, she thought in mounting wrath, he had trapped her again. Duncan knew she would never hurt those she loved. He had used her own softness to manipulate her. He knew her too well.
She felt him come up behind her. Her body reacted with a traitorous rush of longing at his nearness, but it was squelched by the misery and confusion that swamped her.
“I’m doing what I believe is best, lass.” He took her by the shoulders, turning her rigid body until she faced him. “Your dress is on the floor,” he said quietly.
“Don’t.” She shied away from him, her delicate face hurt and defiant. “Don’t touch me, Duncan. It makes it worse when you pretend to care.”
“I do care, Marsali.”
“Then stay here.” She fought against tears, hating and loving him so much she thought her heart would crack in two. “You belong to us, my lord.”
He shook his head. “There are too many ghosts in this castle. Do you not understand?”
“If you’re going to send me away, the least you can do is stay to lead the clan. Someone has got to stop them from killing themselves.”
“Not me.”
She hardened herself to the brief spasm of anguish he had allowed to show on his face. “Then I don’t understand. I cannot fathom what you say and do any more than I can the waters of the loch. All I know is that you have no loyalty or love inside you for your own. No wonder Edwina’s niece left you.”
Chapter
28
The mournful voices of her clansmen echoed in Marsali’s ears as she trudged over the drawbridge to her fate. Even the chickens in the moat had fallen silent. Not a squawk or scratch to disturb the sad event. The skull and crossbones hung at half-mast from the parapets.
“Goodbye, lass. ’Tis a dark day for Clan MacElgin.”
“ ’Tis a cruel end, Marsali.”
“We’ll never forget ye.”
“Give the nuns hell, lassie.”
Cook shook Marsali’s hand. “Ye’re no the first Scotswoman to learn the meaning of sacrifice, but ye’re one of the best. I’m proud to have known you.”
Effie stood in the barbican spouting tears like a faucet. “The twins and I will miss ye, Marsali,” she said between loud emotional sniffles.
Marsali stared out across the moor, as stoic as a saint. Fiona and her uncle watched from the distant circle of standing stones. Colum’s blue robes blended into the unbounded wash of summer sky, reminding Marsali of her own impending captivity. Despair swept over her.
“Fat-witted old wizard,” she said under her breath. “Some help your magic has been.”
Duncan’s tall figure cast a shadow on her path. “The boat is waiting. Hurry up, Marsali.”
Johnnie, Lachlan, and Owen were almost too upset to approach her. Then Johnnie snagged her hand.
“Nothing is forever, lass,” he whispered gruffly. “If ye ken what I’m saying.”
Unfortunately, she did. They planned to rescue her. But the well-meaning morons would probably only drown on the short sea voyage to the island. She didn’t want that on her conscience.
“Stay and take care of the clan,” she said bravely. “I’ll manage somehow.”
Then Duncan clamped his hand down on her shoulder. She flinched. Despite all that had happened, his touch still set off wonderful flurries of sensations. A bittersweet pang pierced her heart as she recalled the day not long ago when they had stood in this same spot. How wrong she had been about him.
“I should have let the drawbridge fall on your head, my lord.”
“Perhaps you should have,” Duncan replied, guiding her from the barbican with an inscrutable look. “But you didn’t, lass.”
“You haven’t gotten this young woman pregnant, have you, Duncan?”
The blunt question dashed Duncan’s hope for a heartwarming reunion. The woman who sat behind her desk could give him lessons in military composure. The angular but attractive face beneath the wimple exuded more disappointment than sisterly affection.
“That question irritates the hell out of me.” He paused, still in his chair, distracted by the sound of Marsali swearing her head off outside the door. “Listen to that.”
“Aye.” Judith’s voice was wry. “She swears like a soldier—I wonder where she could have learned that. And I’ve prayed so hard that you had changed.”
Duncan bowed his head, in no mood to argue. What was the point? Judith, of all people, could never forget the things he’d done.
“I do hope you’ll at least have the decency to provide for the child once it’s born, Duncan,” she said heavily. “We are a modest convent. True, we have wealthy benefactors—”
He surged out of his chair. “Marsali Hay is not pregnant, and I intend to keep it that way until she’s married.”
Judith straightened her shoulders, staring up at him in surprise. “I see. Then it seems I’ve been wrong about you after all.”
He shrugged, staring out the window as five nuns struggled in breathless frustration to drag Marsali to her cell. The foul language peppering the sea air might have turned his sister’s head, but Duncan knew Judith had heard far worse from her father growing up.
“I never thought to see you again,” she said, her voice softer as the swearing outside faded away. “You’ve done very well by the world’s standards.”
He glanced at her. “Are you happy here?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Content is a better word.”
An uncomfortable pause fell. Sometimes, in rare moments of doubt, Judith still wondered why God had allowed it all to happen. Why He had let Fergus murder her mother. Why Duncan, in turn, had stabbed Fergus to death in a killing rage she had never dreamed her poor abused brother capable of.
“I could have tried to stop you,” she said in a hushed voice. “I was as guilty as you for what happened that night.” She stared across the room. “I wanted it to happen.”
Duncan came up to her chair and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t condone what I did, but he deserved to die. Have you forgotten what he did to you?”
Tears came to her eyes. “No.” She stared up into his troubled face, wishing she could smooth away the pain etched into its chiseled planes. “You were our only hero, our champion,” she said softly. “What a burden you carry.”
“All that blood, Judith.” His voice was weary. “My life has been one extended battle after another. No one has ever guessed how the smell of death makes me sick to my stomach.” He expelled a deep sigh. “I don’t want to kill anymore.”
“Then don’t. No one can force you, can they?”
He didn’t answer. How could she understand the worldly enticements, the lust for power that she had renounced for her serene isolation?
“They want me to take a place in the War Ministry,” he said. “To use my knowledge to oversee other battles. If the Jacobite rebellions continue, I could be ordered to suppress my own people.”
Judith’s face brightened. “Unless you used your knowledge as a weapon for peace. From what I gather, your influence is considerable.”
Her words lit a spark of hope in his heart. It was true. He had power, respect, the ear of the world’s leaders. “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully.
She placed her hand on his. “Have you found no peace at all for yourself?”
“No. Except…”
The poignan
t face took form in his mind. He wanted to forget her. He wanted to sever the thread of tangled feelings that threatened to hold his heart.
For one wild whimsical summer she had dispelled the darkness. The mere memory of her flared like a candle flame and warmed him.
“Marsali,” he said, not even aware he had spoken the name aloud.
Judith looked surprised. “The girl who was cursing like a little buccaneer outside?”
“Aye, that one.” An unwilling smile crept across his face. “Good luck with her, Judith.”
“I don’t like that tone, Duncan. How long am I supposed to keep her here?”
“Until I find her a husband.” He moved back to the window, suddenly self-conscious. “She’s Andrew Hay’s daughter.”
“And?”
And I want her for myself. And I can’t keep my murdering hands off her. And she’s convinced she loves me.
He lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug. Her gaze was too perceptive. They had shared too much for secrets. “There’s a young Jacobite Highlander named MacFay who didn’t take kindly to my rejecting his suit. Marsali is not to be released to anyone until her future is settled.”
“I suppose that is wise.”
“Not to anyone, Judith. I wouldn’t put it past MacFay to bribe or bully his way into your convent.”
“A determined suitor. I’ve dealt with a few in my time. Your wee charge will be safe with us. Do you want to say goodbye to the girl?”
Duncan hesitated. The last look Marsali had flung him from the convent gate had burned with rage and resentment. “No. It would only make it worse.”
“For you or for her?”
Before he could answer, a clap of thunder rumbled in the distance. “Oh, no,” Judith said in dismay. “My seedlings will be washed away if it rains. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I planted them this morning.”
Duncan turned to the door, then paused as a twinge of guilt thwarted the impulse to escape. “There’s something else you should know about Marsali.”
Judith rose from her chair. “I don’t like the sound of that, either. Or that sheepish grin on your face. Exactly what is wrong with the girl?”
“It’s just that some people seem to think she’s a witch.”
“A witch.”
“Silly, isn’t it?” He backed into the door at the look of alarm on Judith’s face. “Don’t worry. She’s a good witch, if you even believe in such things.”
“Duncan…”
“I’ll send money regularly for her upkeep,” he said hastily, not giving her the chance to change her mind. “Remember, she’s not to be released to anyone. Her life could depend upon it. The MacFays are an old-fashioned lawless clan.”
Then he was gone.
Judith stood by the window, shaking her head in bemusement.
There were no answers.
Not even after a decade of contemplation and self-sacrifice. All she could conclude was that because of their tragic experience that night in the cottage, Duncan had given his life to violence and she had committed hers to helping women and children in similar situations.
More than once God had enabled her to save a young life.
There was healing in that, if not the answers she sought. But her brother’s heart was still at war with the past. She wished devoutly to help him.
And now, after fifteen years with only an occasional letter sent from some foreign country, he had left this fey young creature on her doorstep. A witch, he’d said. A girl he obviously coveted for himself but respected too much to ruin. He had done the honorable thing.
Her prayers had worked. He’d learned to control his wildness. But Judith knew that God wasn’t finished with her brother yet.
She bowed her head and clasped her hands, preparing to wage her own mode of battle. If Duncan had risen in the ranks of the world’s military, Judith was herself quite practiced in the art of spiritual warfare. Her brother lived by power, she by faith; and, like Duncan, she would never admit defeat.
“I really didn’t mean to make Sister Isobel faint dead away, Reverend Mother. I didn’t think anyone could hear me when I dropped the washtub on my foot.”
“The Lord is always listening, Marsali. Your language is inexcusable.”
“I learned it from Duncan. I overheard him using it in the castle chapel.”
“The chapel? My brother blasphemed—he used those words in a chapel?”
“You’d better sit down, Reverend Mother. You’ve gone all pale. Yes, it’s true. He used worse words too, but I can’t remember them. Don’t worry, though, they’ll probably come back to me during Mass.”
“I really didn’t mean to make the holy water come spurting up like that, Reverend Mother.”
“Then why did you do it, Marsali? More to the point, how did you do it?”
“Well, I was experimenting with my powers, you see. And I’m getting much better at it. It was just bad luck that you happened to pass by when I made it rise.”
“You’re not to use those ‘powers’ again, Marsali. Whether anyone is passing by or not.”
“I’ll try, Reverend Mother.”
“I really didn’t mean to make it rain so hard this afternoon, Reverend Mother. I was only practicing to see if I could make a rainbow appear. They’re such lovely things to look at.”
“You ought to practice prayer and meditation, Marsali. Our patroness was not at all pleased to have to sail all the way back home in the storm you caused.”
“I’ll try harder next time. I really will.”
“I’m starving to death, Reverend Mother. Pinch my wrist. Practically skin and bones.”
“The next time I catch you trying to escape over the wall, Marsali, your punishment will be far worse than a one-day fast. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Reverend Mother.”
“Go to your cell. You are to remain there until the calling bell. Well, what is it? Why do you stand there staring?”
“I just can’t get over it, Reverend Mother. I’d never have guessed you had the strength to come climbing up that wall after me. It must run in the family.”
Marsali had discovered a new talent. She could cast mist at will. In fact, the only good thing she could say about her captivity in the convent was that she’d been forced to concentrate on controlling her supernatural tendencies. Because she was always having to pay penances for breaking the convent rules, she had plenty of time to practice.
She had been weeding the garden for a week.
She pulled listlessly at a dandelion root and wondered if she had the power to conjure up people. She’d tried to make Duncan appear in the garden yesterday until her eyes crossed. Her anger at him had already begun to fade into a raw ache. How could he abandon her when he needed her so? It seemed obvious that they belonged together.
She flung the tattered yellow flower over her head. The damn fool could go off to another war and get himself killed instead of spending his life with her. Still, if she practiced hard enough, perhaps magic and prayers could bring him back.
She peered through the chink in the high wall. No ships on the horizon. Hell, if there had been a ship coming to rescue her it would probably get lost in her mist and crash into a cliff.
“What are you looking for?” a curious female voice demanded behind her.
Marsali turned away from the wall with a sigh. One of the convent school prefects, a tall raven-haired girl named Hannah with an angular face and stormy blue eyes, came bounding across the garden toward her.
“Nothing.”
“Pirates?” the girl, Hannah, asked hopefully, squinting at the chink for a look herself, only to draw away, shaking her head in disappointment. “Not a chance in hell. I’ll never get ravished at this rate.”
Marsali smiled in sympathy. According to convent gossip, the girl was an orphan and had lived here all her life. Someone had whispered that she was distantly related to the Reverend Mother, and because of this association she gave herself arrogant airs. She swore a
lot, she had quite a temper, and for those traits alone, Marsali rather liked her.
“I’m waiting for the chieftain,” she admitted, not understanding why she would confess such a thing to a girl she barely knew.
“The chieftain? Mother Judith’s brother?” Hannah considered this, then gave Marsali a level look. “Well then, I hope you do know magic, because there hasn’t been a decent man on this island for at least a hundred years.”
“The weeds will not come out by themselves, Marsali,” a wry voice remarked behind them.
Marsali sighed and automatically plucked a tender green plantling from the black soil.
“That was a bean sprout, not a weed.” Reverend Mother Judith walked past them, tsking to herself. “Perhaps it’s the mist. There is an unsettling influence in the air today.”
“It’s boredom,” Hannah muttered under her breath.
“Aye,” Marsali whispered in agreement. “Anybody would go mad wearing those hot scratchy habits, running to and fro to the chapel every time that bell was rung. Hell, it’s because of the bell that I’m paying the penance of picking weeds today.”
“What happened?” Hannah whispered.
“It was my turn to ring the matins. Well, I underestimated my strength and yanked the bell right off its old frayed rope. Before I knew it, I was sailing across the belfry.” Marsali paused, wincing at the memory. “I smashed into a beam and sent the bell crashing down to the bottom of the tower.”
That same bell, dented in many places, began to peal now for complines. Another afternoon was passing, and he hadn’t come.
As Marsali lumbered to her feet, she cast a last yearning look to the mist-shrouded sea that stretched beyond the convent wall.
She hated him. She loved him. She missed him so much it hurt to even picture his face. Even now she couldn’t believe he was cruel enough to abandon her. Even now her stubborn heart clung to the hope of goodness she had glimpsed in him.
Fairy Tale Page 28