“Weird eyes, he had,” another added, edging his horse near. “Deep orange, and . . . knowing.”
Sorley snorted. “ Shrewd-eyed foxes!” he scoffed. “I saw no such a creature or a bull!”
“The fox was a weird one,” a third voice chimed, “though I missed the bull for sure.”
Gelis eyed the men with interest, her cloak clutched tight against her breasts.
Ronan dismissed the comments with a deft flick of his hand.
“Good men of Dare, hear me.” He glanced round, his deep voice strong, lifting. “It scarce matters whether you spied a strange-eyed fox or the bull. Only that we quit this place anon and see my lady wife safely returned to the keep.”
If any present felt a need to lift a brow upon hearing him refer to Gelis as his lady wife, they were too well-trained to show it.
Only the lady herself dared a reaction, her eyes flying wide.
But she caught herself as quickly, her glance turning artful.
“Might I hope that you intend to make me thus?” She leaned close, her voice pitched for his ears alone. “Could that be the reason you desire such haste?”
“I desire haste because I would know you away from this place,” Ronan flashed back at her, his voice equally low.
“We shall see.” Her lips curved in a smile that was pure female triumph.
Off to the side, several guardsmen coughed.
One cleared his throat.
Ronan frowned.
Like it or nae, the temptation of her words was sliding through him. Warm and honey-sweet, they slipped ever lower to curl around his vitals, squeezing and rousing.
A tight, pulling hunger, hot and urgent, that only served to blacken his scowl.
And, saints preserve him, made him consider doing just what she suggested!
Feeling like a great gowk, for he was sure the notion stood emblazoned on his forehead, he allowed himself a hearty bit of his own coughing and throat clearing.
Let his men crane their necks and gawp at him. Doing so would serve them naught.
Making sure of it, he put back his shoulders and stood tall.
“You, Tam,” he called, pointing at the youngest guardsman, “ride hot-foot back to Dare and see that Hugh MacHugh sends a hot bath to my chamber — and readies another in the kitchens for Buckie!”
The young man jerked a nod, then yanked his mount around and was gone, cantering away across the heather.
Satisfied, Ronan turned to the next-youngest guardsmen, a pox-marked valiant whose spotted face would not have been so notable if he wasn’t cursed to have a missing front tooth as well.
His visage, quite passing until he smiled, didn’t at all match his by-name, Dragon.
But he was proud — and particularly good with animals.
“You, lad!” Ronan couldn’t bring himself to call out the ludicrous name. “Take yon onion creel and fasten it to my saddle’s cantle, then heft Buckie into the thing and stand watch o’er him until I am ready to ride.”
Dragon bobbed his head. “As you will,” he acquiesced, already dismounting and hastening toward Buckie’s empty carrier basket.
“The rest of you” — he ignored the attar of roses wafting past his nose and made a great sweeping gesture, taking in the lot of the remaining guardsmen — “gather up Lady Gelis’s shelter with all speed. As soon as you have, we ride.”
“And yon toppled feasting goods?” Sorley dismounted, his gaze snapping to the tipped-over trestle table.
The fine viands scattered across the grass — up to and including the spit-roasted side of beef, the aroma of which had so tempted Ronan but a short while before.
It, too, lay ruined.
The perfectly done beef knocked clean off its spit and trampled into the ground.
Ronan eyed the chaos, his mind already elsewhere.
“Leave the food.” He spoke the order crisply and reached to swing Gelis into her saddle. “If yon bull returns, he’s welcome to it all. Perhaps with a full belly, he’ll be less inclined to sink his horns where they don’t belong!”
Not that he believed it.
What he suspected was that he could search the width and breadth of the land and would ne’er see the benighted creature again.
Praise all the saints.
About the same time, but back at Dare Castle, a tall, cloaked figure hovered outside the gatehouse. He clutched his robes tighter against the biting wind, resentful that Maldred the Dire’s ancient warding spells still held such power. The strength of it pulsed and vibrated everywhere. Like bile, it rose all around him, poisoning the air and even rippling beneath his feet, creeping up from the ground to seep through the soles of his boots.
The figure’s brows drew together in a frown.
As a Holder — and one vested with more skill than most of his kind — he should stand above his foe’s craft.
Yet the foulness of the place was nigh suffocating him.
Indeed, it was all he could do to keep his back erect and his shoulders straight. The sooner he put distance between himself and the stronghold’s proud, spell-soaked walls, the better.
But he’d be damned — again — if he’d lower himself by hastening away.
Not after such a splendid victory.
So he remained where he was, a few painful paces outside the worst of Maldred’s influence, and watched the castle guards close the massive double gates.
They, too, had been so easily fooled.
The figure’s lips twitched and he had to struggle against the urge to rub his hands together in satisfaction.
It wouldn’t do if such a gesture was seen.
But he’d never dreamed it would be so easy.
Best of all, the old chieftain had proved to be an even greater buffoon than his witless garrison. They’d at least challenged him upon his arrival. Valdar, however, had welcomed him to his table, gustily offering meat and libations, the warmth of his fire. Not once doubting the tale his visitor spun so cleverly.
Never guessing that he was seeing what he expected to see and not a carefully spun guise.
The figure relaxed his grip on his cloak, pride warming him more.
Then, at last, the gatehouse’s heavy portcullis creaked downward, clanking loudly into place.
The figure released a relieved breath and turned away.
Gaining strength with each step that carried him farther from those dreaded, hated walls, he shoved back his hood. Now, finally, he could revel in the chill wind tugging at his robes and whipping his long white hair and beard against his ancient face.
Now, the cold no longer touched him.
Not as it would have many lifetimes ago.
Better yet, the darkness of the wood was just ahead. Wispy fingers of mist swirled there, almost luminous in the fast descent of the gloaming. A few more steps and the shadows would engulf him, erasing his presence until he chose to show himself again.
Much as the purpose of that next meeting galled him.
Not that it mattered.
He had no choice, after all.
And whether the Raven acted on his warning or nae, the outcome would remain the same.
Entirely in his favor.
Pleased — if such a one as he could ever truly be so — the figure stepped into the trees.
And as soon as he did, night began to fall on Dare.
Chapter Twelve
Ronan held back a curse as his little cavalcade jingled through the scudding mist. He stared into the gloom, his jaw locked and his entire body wound tight as a bowstring. He shifted in his saddle, so stiff he might have been hewn of graven stone.
Had he truly praised the saints not so long ago?
Well earned as such paeans might have been, he was now of an entirely different mind.
Several hours and many cold and drizzly miles after the bull attack, he felt more like challenging than praising long-dead holy men. Truth be told, at the moment, he was more than capable of calling out anyone.
Friend, foe,
and, aye, even those of otherworldly nature.
A black wind was whistling past his ears, each icy, indrawn breath burned his lungs, and his fingers felt frozen on the reins. Squaring his shoulders, he sat up straighter, refusing to grimace.
That small victory he would claim, difficult as it was.
Every inch of him flamed with pain, especially his ribs, though the day’s bitter chill had taken care of his throbbing toes.
Blessedly, he could no longer feel them.
Would that the rest of him wasn’t proving so susceptible to every jarring, jolting bit of the long journey home.
Even his head throbbed, the annoying pounding in odd rhythm with his garron’s endless, clip-clopping hoofbeats.
As for his ribs, he’d known they were cracked not long after leaving Creag na Gaoith, when he’d halted to shrug off his travel cloak, twist around, and sling the mantle’s voluminous warmth over Buckie’s onion creel.
The twisting round left no doubt, that one simple movement sending a white-hot fire-vise to clamp around his chest. Fierce and scalding, the pain stabbed him, stopping his heart and cutting off his breath.
Only his pride — and his lady riding beside him — kept him from crying out.
Just as pride and her presence wouldn’t let him show his disappointment now on noting how dismal Dare looked silhouetted against the bleakness of what promised to be a particularly black wet night.
Thick, billowy mist poured down the braes, and the deep green tops of the pines near the curtain walls were already sinking from view. High above, an early moon broke through the clouds, silvering the rolling spread of the moors and the long slopes of rock and heather.
But then the moon vanished, slipping from sight and leaving Dare’s gatehouse to loom before them.
Night-darkened and formidable, the machicolated walls stood out against the blackness of the trees, the double towers’ gloomy face making the brief autumn sun of Creag na Gaoith seem a distant memory.
A muscle began to twitch in his jaw.
This was Dare at its worst.
But the gates creaked open at their approach, dutiful as always. And the heavy iron-tipped portcullis rattled noisily upward as the little party cantered near.
Ready as ever to greet any guests, Dare beckoned with bright lanterns and torches lighting the way through the long, tunnel-like entrance. Still more brands smoked and sputtered in niches set into the bailey’s walling. But rather than seeming welcoming, the hissing flames only threw eerie orange haloes into the darkening twilight.
Wild flickering circles of mist-hazed light that looked too much like staring, piercing eyes of red.
Ronan shuddered and then ducked as one of the flaring pitch-pine torches popped as he rode past, the wretched thing sending a spray of sparks and ash right at him.
He bit back a curse.
Then he allowed himself the scowl he’d been trying so hard to squelch.
A frown he surely deserved, for his head pounded and his patience had long since flown. Even more vexing, despite his ills, he couldn’t banish the image of Gelis’s fingers sliding up and down the sheath of her thigh-dagger.
Or the sweet triangle of lush red-gold curls he’d glimpsed so briefly when she’d whipped up her skirts to show him the sgian dubh.
He slid a glance at her, not at all surprised to see that the day’s turn in weather scarce affected her.
She sat her steed as if she’d been born on the beast’s own back. A true daughter of a thousand chieftains, she held herself erect and kept her shoulders straight, her chin proudly lifted. Indeed, she rode along as easily as if the summer sun shone bright above them and the blue roll of the hills weren’t blurred by mist and the fast-encroaching darkness.
Even so, the day’s cold and wind had touched her. Her cloak and skirts were damp, the woolen folds clinging to every lush curve and swell of her voluptuous body. Even more telling of her nature, Ronan was sure, her braid had come undone, again. Wholly loosened, her flame-bright hair tumbled in a welter of riotous curls over her shoulders to her hips.
Eyeing those curls now, he swallowed, certain he’d ne’er seen a more fetching sight.
Every line and curve of her stirred him, her very dishevelment taking his breath, and in ways that pained him far worse than any cracked rib or crushed toes.
But now wasn’t the time to heed such an ache.
Already they were riding into Dare’s thronged bailey and mist swirled everywhere. Snaking tendrils curled rapidly over the damp, wet-gleaming cobbles, and great, billowing sheets of it blew across the open spaces.
The tower stood dark and silent, its narrow slit-windows and arrow loops showing scant light while its massive bulk proved nearly obscured beneath the fuzzy-white drifts rolling in off the moors.
A quick glance showed that Maldred’s hoary crest glared down on the bailey from its place of honor above the keep’s oaken, iron-studded door. But, surprisingly, the ancient stone looked more like an ordinary clump of hill-granite than Ronan had ever seen it.
Of the bold horned raven of the vision his lady had shown him there was nary a trace.
Indeed, the stone’s engravings had so deteriorated that it was no longer recognizable as a heraldic shield.
But before he could wonder o’er the matter, Sorley, Tam, and the Dragon pushed through the tumult, eager to see to his wishes and help him and his lady dismount.
The Dragon lavished his usual care on Buckie, lifting the now-tail-wagging dog from his onion creel.
“See he is bathed properly and combed,” Ronan said, turning aside even as the pock-faced, gap-toothed guardsmen strode away with the dog. “Then have Hugh MacHugh give him as many meat-bones as he desires.”
A wind-muffled as you wish drifted back to him, but he scarce heard.
Nor did he do more than nod his thanks when Sorley handed him the Nordic armlet Gelis had gifted him with just before the bull appeared.
At the moment he had greater matters on his mind than bejeweled armpieces.
His lady had somehow slipped through the ring of guardsmen and was tripping up the outer keep stairs, already nearing the landing.
But it wasn’t her light step or her remarkable speed that sent him bolting up the steps after her.
Not even the tempting bounce of her shining, loose- swinging hair.
Nor the promise of her seductive siren’s bauble, bouncing just-so betwixt her thighs, its glittering green gemstone an allure powerful enough to turn the most resolute abstainer’s best piece into granite.
Nor was it the way she seemed to glow from within.
An irresistible beacon to a man so long without a woman’s warmth and loving.
Och, nae, it was nary a one of such disasters.
It was the horrible red stain soiling one side of her uphitched skirts.
Ronan stared, at first not comprehending.
Then something inside him ripped.
The world turned as red as the spreading stain and his pain vanished.
At his elbow, young Tam was just lifting his travel cloak from Buckie’s onion creel, and a laundress stood by, her hands outstretched to take it.
Ronan almost plowed them down in his haste to reach the keep stairs.
“Suffering saints!” He pounded up the steep stone steps, catching Gelis just as she set her hand on the door’s great iron latch. “Hold, lass! Dinna you move!”
Gelis started at the loud words.
She swung around to face him, about to ask what was amiss, but he was on her in a wink. Eyes blazing and hair whipping in the wind, he swept her into his arms and kicked open the hall door.
“Someone fetch the hen wife!” he yelled, racing through the crowded, smoke-hazed hall. “My lady is injured!”
He crashed into a trestle table, near overturning it before sprinting on, knocking aside startled, wide- eyed kinsmen.
“Bring bandaging and have MacHugh send up his selfheal unguent!” he roared, bursting into the dimness of the stair towe
r.
“Put me down!” Gelis wriggled in his arms as he bounded up the curving steps, taking them two, sometimes three at a time. “You’ll kill us both!”
“Hush, lass.” He clapped a hand over her mouth, pressing her head against his shoulder. “You’ll weary yourself if you speak.”
“ Pah-phooey!” She squirmed, her protest muffled. “You are the one who was hurt, not me.”
“Say you?” He gained the top landing, streaked down the darkened passage. “ ’Tis you who are bleeding, no’ I,” he flashed, slamming open his bedchamber door.
He ran across the room, barely avoiding a collision with the steaming bathing tub some fool had placed in the middle of the room instead of before the hearth fire.
Then, chest heaving, he lowered her to the bed with a gentleness that belied his wild flight across the great hall and up the turnpike stair.
“Your skirts are bloodied,” he panted, stepping back now, a glossy spill of raven hair falling across his brow. Shoving it aside, he looked at her, the dread in his eyes squelching her denial.
She blinked. “My skirts?”
“Aye, yours.” He swiped at his hair again. “To be sure, and they’re no’ mine!”
His dark brows lowering, he leaned close and snatched up a fistful of her damp, red-stained gown. He shook the reddened folds at her.
Gelis pushed up on her elbows, eyeing her ruined skirts. “I am not hurt — not badly,” she insisted, only now feeling the slight sting on her thigh.
The faint but steady throbbing and the telltale trickle of warmth.
“I must’ve cut myself when I withdrew my sgian dubh.” There could be no other explanation. “ ’Tis nothing, I say you. I’ve done so before and —”
“You are bleeding worse than a Martinmas goose!”
“But unlike that unfortunate creature, I shall live to see the morrow.”
The Raven’s expression said he doubted it.
He dropped her skirts and strode to the table. Grabbing a ewer, he half-poured, half-sloshed water into a basin. His hands were shaking.
Even in the room’s dimness, she could tell.
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 19