The Kissing Stone

by Scott, Amanda

  Nodding, Will hurried downstairs after Gil.

  Chapter 21

  Although, in her lingering shock over Aly’s fall, Katy’s first impulse had been to follow Will and see for herself if Aly had survived, not only did Fin and Malcolm stand between her and the door, but just thinking of that horrible fall brought the memory of Aly’s description of the stones from the tower roof “clattering” to the cobbles thirty or forty feet below. Katy winced, unable to move, her stomach roiling. As she took a breath to steady herself, her gaze met her father’s. Knowing that he and Malcolm still awaited an explanation, she braced herself and said, “I ken fine that you both want to know why I am here.”

  Fin nodded, but his expression had softened. “We do want to know that, aye, lassie, but we are very glad that you came to no harm here. Although you did not mention Will’s sister when you told me of de Raite’s intent tonight, I’m thinking that in the course of your friendship with Will, you came to know her, too, aye?”

  “Aye, sir,” she said sadly. “We … we became friends, too.”

  Malcolm looked about to speak, making her hope fervently that he would not ask her about Gilli Roy and Aly.

  Fin looked at him, too, but Malcolm said only, “’Twas gey fortunate that ye learned the truth o’ what de Raite meant tae happen here, lass, and we be that grateful ye were brave enough tae tell us. That canna ha’ been easy for ye tae do.”

  “It would have been much harder for me to keep such news to myself, sir.”

  Both men spoke at once then, each one apparently trying to assure her that he understood her, but as they tried to defer to each other and otherwise sort themselves out, Katy thought she heard someone coming up the stairs.

  Fearing that it must be MacNab coming to tell them that Will would be engaged below for the rest of the night, she missed what Fin and Malcolm were saying until Fin said, “Well, lass?”

  “Forgive my inattention, sir,” she said. “I thought I heard someone coming.”

  “Malcolm said that—with him, your uncle Ivor, and their men to see to everything here—I should be getting you home before your mam comes looking for us both. But I do think that Malcolm should first hear your explanation for himself.”

  “I’d like to hear that, too, sir,” Will said clearly from the stairway.

  Though Katy was relieved to hear his voice, his swift return told her as clearly as words could that Aly had died, and brought tears to her eyes.

  When Will entered the room, he looked directly at her and said, “She’s gone, Katy. I sent one of the lads to find Meggie and ask her to collect some of the other women to help her prepare Aly’s body for burial.”

  Malcolm said, “I told my men earlier tae see tae proper burial for your people, lad. They can see tae poor Lady Alyssa, too, if ye’d like.”

  “Thank you, sir, but MacNab suggested having some of them carry her into de Raite’s inner chamber, where the women can look after her more easily. I’ll take the quilt from her bed down there to cover her.”

  Katy said, “You are right, Will, that it should be your womenfolk who tend to Aly. I would like to see her one more time, though, just to say—”

  “Nae, lass,” he interjected. “I ken fine that you think of Aly as a sister now, but you do not want to see her. ’Twould be much better for you to remember her as beautiful as she was before tonight. In any event,” he added, holding her gaze, “we still want to know how you came to be here with her.”

  Katy’s breath caught, but recalling that, for once, her predicament was not of her own doing, she swallowed and exclaimed, “It was not my fault! Your brothers caught Aly and me together when she visited this afternoon, Will. We had no—”

  As one voice, Will and Fin said, “Were you alone or did you have the dogs?”

  Aware that it would aid her with neither man to admit that she had not spared a thought for the dogs, Katy was silent.

  Deciding that they could discuss that issue further at another time, Will turned to Malcolm and said, “I have not changed my mind, sir. With Aly gone, there is naught to keep me here at Raitt.”

  “Your brothers all be dead now, lad, so ye be your father’s rightful heir.”

  “Then I must have the right to abandon Raitt or to hand it back to the Mackintoshes, have I not?” Will asked.

  “’Tis likely so, but ye also have a right tae live here, if ye decide to, until his grace sorts out the legality o’ my claim. Sakes, afterward, too, come tae that. I’d be glad tae have ye here, if what I suspect about your feelings for Katy be true, but ye’ll decide naught o’ such import now, as deep in mourning as ye must be.”

  Fin said quietly, “Whatever you decide, Will, you would still be wise to sleep elsewhere tonight. If you will agree to it, I’d welcome you at Finlagh. Sir Ivor and Lochan will stay here with Malcolm and enough men to see that all remains calm with your people.”

  “Aye, that be a good notion,” Malcolm said. “Ye need make nae further decisions tonight, lad, and tomorrow ye’ll find your head much clearer. I’ll look after Gillichallum Roy, and taegether we’ll see your sister in good hands.”

  “I’ll stay here until Meggie and the women arrive,” Will said. “In troth, although I know they will look after her kindly, I dislike leaving her here alone.”

  “In mine own experience, your women will be more comfortable if they can be alone with her,” Fin said gently. “That decision is also yours to make, though. You can catch up with us easily enough if you decide to do so.”

  “I would like a few private words with Katy first, sir, if you will agree.”

  Fin nodded, and Malcolm said, “Aye, lad, ye should take her down tae the solar, where ye can say whatever ye want tae her. That will give Fin and me a few minutes more tae talk things over here, whilst the lads downstairs finish making a path from yon stairs tae the main door. He willna want tae take her through that slaughter until they tidy up a bit, but it willna take long.”

  Turning back to Katy, Will held out a hand. Although she seemed wary, as well she might, since he disliked her apparent lack of concern for her own safety, she took his hand, and with hers warm inside his own, he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, if only to put the disaster of the night out of his mind for a few minutes and to ask her privately if, by chance, she had hoped they might live at Raitt to be near her family.

  Taking the quilt from Aly’s bed, he led the way downstairs, pausing at the open solar door to let Katy enter, and then followed her, shutting the door.

  Lit by two cressets casting a golden glow onto the walls, the room seemed dark and cozy. His image of Aly sitting on the cushion in the window embrasure there was strong, though. She had left a pink wool shawl draped over a back-stool by the table where they had played cards and board games. Tears stung his eyes again.

  Katy was staring straight at the south window, a twin of the one in Alyssa’s bedchamber, though fortunately shut. Beyond the glass, pale moonlight glimmered on the shrub-laden hillside.

  She turned from the embrasure and looked at him. “I can imagine her in here so easily,” she said softly. “She must have spent much time here.”

  Nodding, he opened his arms, realizing that he wanted more than anything not to imagine Aly but just to hold Katy close again, breathing and alive.

  Without hesitation, she came to him, resting her head against his chest as he closed his arms around her and breathed in the scent of her hair. After a long, quiet moment, she tilted her head back to look up at him. “May I ask you something?”

  “Always,” he said, looking into her eyes, bright with reflected cresset glow.

  “Do you think that Malcolm could persuade you to live here?”

  It was all he could do to keep the instant recoil he felt from stiffening his body, but he said as calmly as he could, “Do you mean that you would want to?”

  “Never,
” she said firmly. “I would see Aly everywhere, and although you will not let me see her as she is now, I could not look at the big windows and their window seats without imagining your father threatening her with his horrid sword and making her fall to the cobblestones.”

  “I would, too, so we will hold firm against Malcolm,” he said. “But, Katy-love, the others will be leaving soon for Finlagh, and I don’t want to do anything more now than to hold you close and tell you how much I love you.”

  “Oh, Will, say that again.”

  He repeated his words and then stopped her reply with another kiss, as he stroked his hand gently down her back to her backside. When she moaned, he felt himself stir in response.

  Moments later, although he was more than warm himself, he felt her shiver.

  “You should have worn a cloak or a cape, mo chridhe.”

  “It was nice out when I went to the stream,” she said. “Kiss me again.”

  He obeyed, but his sharp hearing told him that the others were coming down the stairs. They had already given the two of them more time than he had expected.

  “They are coming, Katy-love,” he said. Then, seeing again the shawl over the back-stool, he released her, reached for it, and added, “We’ll put this round you. Aly made it for herself, and I know she would be pleased for you to have it.”

  “I will treasure it, Will, but you should have something of hers, too.”

  He shook his head. “She had little to call her own, lass. Meggie and the other women who knew her will look after her things, in their own way.”

  As he spoke, he knew that there was one other thing he wanted. Wrapping Katy in the shawl and picking up the quilt, he urged her out onto the landing and downstairs, pausing only to put the quilt in the inner chamber to await Alyssa.

  The hall was empty except for Malcolm, Fin, and MacNab on the dais.

  Urging Katy toward them, Will went to MacNab and extended a hand to him. “Pray, sir, accept my thanks for all you have done.”

  “Sakes, lad, it be ye who deserves our thanks.”

  Shaking his head, Will said, “Tell Lochan I’m grateful to the two of—”

  “Whatever it be, ye can tell Lochan yourself. That be him comin’ yonder.”

  The square-built man was striding toward them from the screen passage. “Ye there, MacNab,” he said. “Take yourself off tae look after our lot now. All be calm outside, but there be dunamany bodies tae bury, and I ha’ business elsewhere.”

  “What business would that be?” MacNab asked him.

  “My business,” Lochan retorted. “What’s keepin’ ye, man?”

  With a knowing grin, MacNab took his departure.

  Fin said, “You mean to return with us straightaway, eh, Lochan?”

  “I do, sir. Life be too short tae waste any more of it.” After that cryptic remark, he added, “How many men d’ye want tae take with us?”

  Fin looked at Malcolm, who said, “Five or six will do, Lochan. We’ll head out now. Ye can catch up with us soon as ye choose who ye want.”

  Accordingly, Will put an arm around Katy’s shawl-covered shoulders, and they followed Fin and Malcolm outside. As they moved toward the now-open gate, the two older men shifted position in a way that told Will they meant to shield Katy from aught she would liefer not see. Just then, Will noticed men carrying a covered shape on a long shutter toward the entrance.

  Meggie walked beside it with two other women. When she realized that he had seen her, she waved him on.

  Reassured then that Aly was in good hands for the nonce, he nodded, and when Fin raised his eyebrows in query, Will escorted Katy through the gateway.

  The half-moon was high, clouds few and scattered, making a pleasant night.

  As they walked along behind her father and Malcolm, Katy said, “Do you mean for us to live at Finlagh, Will?”

  “Nae, lass. I dinna ken where we’ll go, but we might just run away as you suggested the day you married us.” He turned to Fin. “Something occurred to me whilst Katy and I were talking about Alyssa, sir, and I would seek your advice as to my best course. See you, I still dislike leaving her alone at Raitt. Our mother is there, so Aly could lie next to her, but Aly was unhappy at Raitt.”

  “We have a graveyard, too,” Fin said. “If you like, we can bury Alyssa there. We may be able to move your mother, too. Or we can leave her to rest in peace and have a stone honoring her memory placed alongside Alyssa’s. You need not decide tonight about that, though.”

  Evidently overhearing the exchange, Malcolm said, “My offer o’ Raitt will remain open tae ye, lad, but if ye ha’ notions o’ where ye’d liefer be, ye need only tell me, and I’ll seek out what choices ye may have thereabouts.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Will said, as they reached the path to Finlagh. “Meantime, I would like to swear my allegiance to you, if you will accept it.”

  “Sakes, I offered tae accept it from any Comyn left alive at Raitt. I can hardly refuse tae accept a liegeman who likely already saved my life. I ken fine that ye fought tae preserve Inverness Castle for me some years ago, too. I’ll no ask ye tae get down on your knees here in the road, but I would ask ye tae explain summat ye said whiles ago, though.”

  “Anything,” Will said, wondering how he had stirred Malcolm’s curiosity.

  The older man cast a glance at Fin before turning back to Will and saying, “Fin told me ye’d met our Katy atop a peak hereabouts and became friends, but he didna mention any marriage tae me.”

  Memory of the fateful words surged back, and Will looked ruefully at Fin. “Did she tell you, sir?”

  Nodding, Fin said, “To be precise, she said she had declared herself married to you but that she did it just as the Black Hour occurred, so I would understand if it caught you by surprise. If you do harbor a wish to ignore or dispute …”

  Katy gasped.

  Will gave her father a direct look and said firmly, “With your permission, sir, I would keep her.”

  “Since I am persuaded that you were truly as astonished to see her at Raitt tonight as I was …”

  “You may be sure of that,” Will said. “Moreover, sir, if I do keep her, I hope you will not object to my making it clear to her that she must have more care to her own safety than she oft seems to show.”

  “Sakes, lad,” Fin said, “if you keep her, you won’t need anyone’s permission for that or to put her across a knee. I’ll just pray you have better success than I did.”

  “Then by your leave, sir, I will keep her. But is it true then that a marriage by declaration is legal?”

  “If there was a witness and you do not dispute it, it is,” Malcolm said.

  “A witness?” Will looked at Katy with an unexpected urge to smile.

  “Rory!” she exclaimed. “Does Rory count? He overheard every word.”

  “Aye, lass, he counts,” Malcolm said.

  As their party turned onto the path toward Finlagh a half-hour later, they heard a shout from behind and waited for Lochan and five others to catch up with them before going on.

  “Torches yonder,” Fin said a short time later. “I fear that it may be—”

  “Catriona with an army?” Malcolm suggested.

  “If it is Cat, she had better have an army,” Fin muttered. “What the devil is she doing out here at such an hour, and who is that with her?”

  Hoping she was not flinging herself into the suds again, Katy said, “Mam is likely looking for me, sir. No one could have guessed where I’d gone, because Clydia went with Bridgett to Granny’s, and I went out to water the garden.”

  When he continued to peer ahead, frowning, she added, “I do have a question to ask before they get here, Da, about what you call ‘intuition.’”

  “What is it?” he asked, still watching the approaching group.

  “Just before those two men cap
tured Aly and me, I felt that sudden jolt of true fear that you described. I tried to scream and to get away, but my voice froze, and then they were upon us. One shoved a rag in my mouth and lifted me off my feet. I don’t understand how you could have ducked away as you did when the man already had his sword out and was swinging it toward you.”

  Fin looked at her then, frowning as if he were thinking of how best to answer her or simply recalling why her captors had been successful.

  Malcolm said, “’Tis experience, lass, so likely ’tis age, too. The broader one’s experience be, the better the chance be tae ha’ the sort o’ result your father described. He was a highly trained warrior even then. It was not his first battle.”

  Will said quietly, “Liam and Colley were also experienced, mo chridhe, not to mention much bigger and stronger than either you or Aly. De Raite had set them to watch Malcolm and his people depart, so they must have seen Aly and followed her. When they found you with her, they scooped you up, too.”

  “They mistook me for a maidservant,” she said. “Aly let them think so.”

  “It is Catriona,” Fin said in a tone that told Katy she might not be in as much trouble as her mother was. Then Will squeezed her shoulders gently, which reminded her that she no longer answered to Fin but to her husband.

  “Will,” Fin said then, “I should tell you that since I was not yet certain of the facts, I have told her mother only that Katy thought she had declared herself married to you. I’m thinking now that when her mam learns of this, she may insist that you have a proper ceremony before you consummate your union.”

  The thought that Will might do that without a ceremony stirred every fiber of Katy’s body. Evidently, it stirred him as well, for he looked right at her as he said firmly, “If the marriage is legal, sir, I see no need to wait, though I would agree to let a priest say the words over us later if her lady mother desires it.”