Then she frowned.
What should have been the most glorious morning of her life was remarkable only in that she’d wakened without Arabella’s snores ringing in the day.
Not that her oh-so-perfect sister had e’er believed that she made such ghastly nocturnal music!
Gelis knew.
She also knew she needed to make haste.
Clear and clean morning air was streaming in through the still-closed shutters. And the dim gray light just beginning to dispel the room’s shadows indicated she’d slept longer than had been wise.
Her second realization wouldn’t suffer fuzzy, sleep-addled wits.
Seducing Ronan MacRuari wasn’t going to be a walk through the heather.
She’d need more than bouncing green love-baubles and scandalously dipping bodices.
Fortunately, she had a plan.
And she was more than ready to set it in motion.
Heart thumping, she scrambled down from the great bed’s high mattress and hurried across the rushes to a little oaken table in the far corner.
Naked, but too excited to mind the chill that was raising gooseflesh on her skin, she eyed the grooming goods set neatly before her.
Someone, likely the large-eyed girl, Anice, must’ve slipped into the chamber only a short while ago and had obviously taken great care to please.
The provided amenities were no less fine than those she was accustomed to at Eilean Creag. A large bowl, a drying cloth, and a ewer of fresh bathing water awaited her morning pleasure. Best of all, a small earthen jar of her own rose-scented soap had been placed on the table as well, and she dipped her fingers into it quickly, eager to rush through her ablutions and be on her way.
Already, she could hear a great bustle stirring in the bailey below. Trumpet blasts, men’s shouts, and the clank of armor filled her ears. The snorts and whinnies of restless, hoof-stamping horses reached her as well, that great ringing clatter a sure sign that her father and his guardsmen were readying for imminent departure.
At the thought, her breath snagged and she clapped a hand to her throat. An awful tightness spread through her chest, and for one wild, crazy moment, scenes from her life as she’d known it up till now flashed before her.
Not taibhs, images called forth from her gift, these images were ripped from her heart.
She closed her eyes, the memories so clear she could almost reach out and touch them.
Her father, with his oh-so-commanding presence, almost larger than life, always plaid-wrapped and sporting his sword, would remain her forever hero. Her mother, Saint Linnet to all who knew and loved her, beautiful still, and the most caring soul she knew.
Even Arabella, so prim, serene, and — at times — so vastly annoying. Telve and Troddan, too. Her father’s enormous, impossibly shaggy, and best-loved dogs, always begging ear fondles and treats. Eilean Creag itself whirled across her mind’s eye, her beloved home filling her vision until her eyes burned and blurred.
“ Pah-phooey!” She blinked furiously, swiping at her cheek before she did something unthinkable.
MacKenzies didn’t cry.
And she wasn’t about to spoil that long-held tradition.
Ignoring the stinging heat making it so difficult to see, she hurried to her nearest coffer of raiments and flung open its lid. She grabbed the first gown she closed her fingers on, then dashed about the room, snatching up a few other necessities she’d let carelessly fall to the floor as she’d undressed the night before.
“Cuidich’ N’ Righ!” The MacKenzie battle cry split the morning. “Save the king!”
Gelis started.
Her fingers froze on the gown she’d been wriggling into, its finely wrought folds of bright blue and gold gathered in bunches about her hips.
“Cuidich’ N’ Righ!” Her father’s powerful voice sounded again, this time quickly followed by the enthusiastic echoes of his men.
Even Sir Marmaduke’s English-tinged roar.
Panic rising, she yanked up her gown, thrusting her arms into the sleeves.
The war cry was all she’d needed to hear.
MacKenzies only used the slogan in battle or when on the verge of an important leavetaking.
Nae, she corrected herself, in the very moment of such a farewell.
“O-o-oh, wait!” She dashed about, searching for her shoes. “You canna leave yet!”
Thrusting her fingers through her tangled, unbound hair, she concentrated, willing herself to remember where she’d pitched her wretched footgear.
But the answer didn’t come.
And her bluidy cuarans were nowhere to be seen.
“Hell’s bells and damnation!” She whirled in a circle, scanning the floor rushes, the great bearskin rugs scattered here and there.
Desperate, she dropped to her knees and peered beneath the bed, seeing naught but a welter of dust balls and smelly, matted rushes.
“Arrgghhhh! So be it!” Frustration welling, she leaped to her feet and ran from the room.
Any who looked askance at her because her hair tumbled loose to her hips and no shoes adorned her feet could, well . . . they could just take a flying leap into the nearest and most ripe dung pit!
A particularly vile and stinky one.
There were, after all, more important things in life than perfectly dressed hair and . . . shoes!
Feeling better already, she sprinted along the dimly lit passageway and tore down the winding turnpike stair, not stopping until she raced through the darkened great hall and burst onto the keep’s outer stair.
A thin drizzle of rain greeted her.
That and utter chaos.
Crowded and torchlit, the bailey swarmed. Stable lads dashed hither and thither and MacRuari guardsmen lined the battlements, their steel glinting and their expressions somber. Her father’s men were already mounted, the whole illustrious lot of them gathered near the entrance to the gatehouse pend, banners snapping and spirits high.
Everywhere, dogs barked and chickens squawked. A loose boar, escaped from his pen, ran underfoot, his zig-zag path across the cobbles increasing the madness. His curling tusks gleamed in the morning light while his squeals and grunts only made the castle dogs bark all the louder.
Most damning of all was the great ear-splitting screech of Dare’s iron-spiked portcullis clanking upward, the creak of wood as the heavy, double-hinged gates swung wide.
“ No-o-o!” She bounded down the steps, her heart’s wild hammering a great roar in her ears until she saw her father — and him — sitting their mounts a bit to the side of the gatehouse, apart from the general hubbub.
Her father looked carved of stone. Braw and impossibly well-favored for a man of his years, the rigid set of his jaw and the way he held his shoulders would have sent her fleeing in the opposite direction did she not know what a loving heart beat beneath his fierce exterior.
Would that she could say the same for the Raven!
Looking equally tense, his bold stare blazed right at her, its ferocity almost burning her. Unblinking, he watched her, his dark eyes narrowed and his silky blue-black hair lifting in the breeze. His golden torque gleamed at his neck and he wore his great black travel cloak, the one she’d found tossed across a bearskin rug.
Garbed thusly, he reminded her so much of the raven of her visions that she almost stumbled on the stairs.
Chills rippled down her back and her senses sharpened. Her pulse leaped and her skin began to tingle, awareness of him singeing her.
A man should not be allowed to be so compelling!
So blatantly . . . sensual.
His stare intensified and he seemed to grow larger, the bailey around him to dim and recede.
The air between them crackled, almost as if charged by trapped lightning. But then her uncle Marmaduke rode into view, his arrival shattering the spell.
He drew up beside her father and the Raven. Holding his sword a mite too casually, at least to the eyes of those who didn’t know him, he watched the goings-on
carefully, his scarred face revealing naught of his true emotions.
Save for a flicker of concern when he spied her tangled, unbound tresses; her bare feet flying over the slippery wet stone of the stairs.
Gelis’s heart squeezed.
Once again scenes of home seized her.
She hitched her skirts, hastening down the last few steps much faster than she should have, caring only to reach her loved ones before it was too late.
Torcaill the druid was there, too.
Well mounted and looking proud, the ancient jabbed a tall walking stick into the air. His voice rose above the pandemonium, calling out blessings as the contingent of MacKenzie warriors spurred their beasts, surging as one through Dare’s yawning gates.
Her father turned in his saddle to watch them go, his own great warhorse beginning to sidle and fret, clearly eager to be gone.
“Wait!” Gelis careened across the cobbles, dodging dogs and leaping over chickens. “You cannot go until —”
“Ho, daughter! I’m no’ going anywhere — no’ yet.” Her father swung down from his steed as she drew near, striding forward to sweep her into his arms. “No’ before I’m assured that you” — he threw a glance over his shoulder, his dark eyes narrowing suspiciously on the Raven — “passed a satisfactory night!”
Resplendent in his gleaming black mail and hung about with more steel than was surely necessary, he set her from him. “I’d hear the truth, lass.” His gaze bored deep. “ ’Tis no’ too late for you to return with us. Your uncle and I —”
“Ho, indeed!” Valdar’s bearlike figure stepped out of the shadows. “I told you fine that all went well with them.” He hooked his hands around his sword belt, looking pleased. “I saw the lad racing up the stairs to join her late last night — saw him with my own two eyes.”
Sir Marmaduke lifted a brow, his doubt only increasing the old man’s mirth.
Valdar wriggled his own brows in Sir Marmaduke’s general direction. He hooted heartily, his great barrel-bellied girth jigging with merriment.
“Och, suffering saints save me!” he burst out, eyes dancing. “I saw it all, I did.”
“You have a crafty tongue in that head of yours, MacRuari.” The Black Stag eyed him, clearly rankled. “Many sets of feet tramped up those stairs last night. That two of those feet belonged to your grandson means naught.”
Gelis felt her face warm.
The Raven was still watching her, his gaze sharp.
“Means naught, eh?” Valdar rocked back on his heels. “Mayhap not that he ran up the stairs, I’ll agree. ’Twas how he was running up them that makes the difference!”
His point made — leastways to him — he looked round as if awaiting accolades.
“Och, aye, Kintail,” he announced, “hills rocked and the moon wept when that boy reached his bonnie bride’s door last night!”
The heat staining Gelis’s cheeks slid around to scald the back of her neck.
Her father’s brows snapped together.
“Have done with such gabble, MacRuari.” His tone was thunderous. “You’re no’ making sense. Dinna make me call you a blethering old fool.”
Valdar laughed and slapped his thigh.
“Fool I may be,” he boomed, his bearded face splitting into a grin, “but I’m man enough to ken that a young stirk doesn’t go tearing up stairs nekkid unless he —”
“Naked?” Duncan MacKenzie roared with all his lung power. His hand flew to his sword hilt. “Saints, Maria, and Joseph! I’d have expected more of—”
“Caution, my friend.” Sir Marmaduke’s voice cut in. “They are handfasted — good as wed.”
The Black Stag scowled, fixing his long-time friend with his most formidable stare.
“Hell’s afire!” He flung back his plaid, his eyes blazing. “Why I have a brain in my head when I have you to constantly remind me of things that canna be changed, is beyond me! Besides, running naked up stairs, and on his way to greet a lady, is just —”
“He was naked save his plaid.” Gelis raised her own voice. She just omitted that he’d held the plaid in his hand. “Valdar must not have gotten a good look at him. The stair tower isn’t well lit.”
Her father mumbled, cursing under his breath at no one in particular.
Valdar rubbed his hands together, beaming still. “A spirited gell, did I no’ say so already?”
Ignoring him, Gelis gripped her father’s arm. “Now who is being a blethering old fool?”
She leaned close, her voice low. “Or would you claim it isn’t custom for men of these hills to go bare-bottomed beneath their plaids? Especially when within their own good walls and heading to their own bedchamber.”
The Black Stag looked down at her, his mouth clamped tightly shut.
“And” — she lifted on her toes, speaking into his ear — “he had every right to enter that bedchamber — as well you know!”
“I’d know what riled you so greatly, you’d come hallooing down here with your hair undone and no shoes on your feet.” He jammed his hands on his hips, took in her dishevelment. “If he —”
“He had naught to do with my appearance this morn — you did.” Gelis tossed her head, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “I heard our clan battle cry and thought you were leaving —”
“Havers, lass.” He grabbed her, pulling her against him for a swift embrace. “You should ken I’d ne’er have left without seeing you. I knew you’d be down —”
“But the war cry — I heard it.”
“To be sure, you did.” He released her, his expression lighter.
Almost as if he was going to laugh.
But he caught himself, lowering his voice instead, “I only bellowed the war cry to put the fear o’ God in this pack of cloven-footed MacRuaris!”
Gelis stared at him, not knowing whether she should laugh or scold him.
“You never change, do you?” She spoke the words lightly, knowing her love for him shone in her eyes.
“My girl.” His voice was rough, deep, and only for her. “Have a care with yourself, you hear?”
She nodded.
He said nothing else.
A muscle jerked beneath his left eye and she touched the place with her fingers, pressing gently until it stilled. A common trait shared by many MacKenzie males, the twitch made her breath seize, the sight of it reminding her of kith and kin she might not see again for many days.
Her beloved Loch Duich and the great hills guarding its shores; a land dressed in clouds, mist, and heather.
But Dare was her home now, so she swallowed against the lump in her throat, squared her shoulders, and prepared to bend the truth one more time.
“My night was good,” she lied, lifting her voice so everyone present could not fail to hear her. “There is no reason for you to leave in anger or in doubt of my happiness.”
“She speaks true, Kintail.” The Raven appeared beside her. “Her night was a peaceful one.”
No longer mounted, he looked between her father and his druid. That one, too, had dismounted and now hovered at the Raven’s elbow. The ancient’s long flowing mane glowed white in the bailey’s torchlight, and he clutched his tall walking stick in a gnarled fist.
Her father glowered at them. “Then see you that all her nights are that, just!”
“I shall.” The Raven took her father’s hand in both of his, the gesture seeming to startle the older man. “I desire naught more than to know her well.”
“Harrumph!” Valdar whacked his thigh again. “ ’Tis more to desire than —”
“And I suggest we be on our way,” a deep voice interrupted him.
Sir Marmaduke again.
Mindful of her father as always, he’d surely recognized the telltale brightness beginning to show in the Black Stag’s eyes, and no doubt, too, the way he’d started blinking more than was usual. For all his scowls and bluster, no one was worse at suffering farewells.
Proving it, he arched a contrary brow. “We’ll leave
when I am ready.”
“ ’Tis best to be away anon.” The Raven lost no time in siding with her uncle. “The mist through the glen will be at its lightest if we ride now,” he said, casting a glance at the hovering druid. “If we dally —”
“Since when did a bit o’ mist hinder a Heilander?” The Black Stag drew himself up, adjusting his plaid with a great flourish. “But I’ll no’ stand about saying soppy good-byes like a woman!”
The words spoken, he reached for Gelis, crushing her so hard against him she feared he’d cracked her ribs. But he released her as quickly, his misty eyes explaining the lack of a verbal farewell. Then he whipped around, vaulting up into his saddle before she could even catch her breath.
“We’re off!” he shouted, already kicking his heels into his mount’s sides, sending the beast racing for the yawning gatehouse pend. “Cuidich N’ Righ!”
Gelis pressed a hand to her mouth, her throat too thick to call out to him.
Not that he would have heard her.
The Black Stag was already gone, the echoing thunder of his horse’s hooves all that was left of him.
“He’ll be fine.” Her uncle slung an arm around her, pulling her close. “See that you are. It would break your father if aught happened to you.”
“Nothing will.”
Nothing except happiness, she added in silence, willing it so.
He gave her a quick nod. Something in his eyes made her think he’d heard the unspoken words. But before she could decide, he, too, was striding away.
Swinging up on his horse with no less style than her father, he whipped out his sword, raising it high. “Cuidich N’ Righ!” he yelled, charging after her father, his cry loud in the mist-hung morning.
“Save the king,” Gelis returned, her voice catching.
She blinked hard and swiped a hand beneath her eyes, somehow unable to see her uncle’s receding back as he rode away. Drifting wet mist dampened her cheeks, stinging her eyes and spoiling her view.
“They are good men. My sorrow, lady, that the parting is difficult for you.”
Gelis started, whirled around.
He was at her side again.
Magnificent in his black cloak, he towered over her, his midnight gaze much too intense and his proximity more than disturbing.
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 13