“Go back to your pallet!” he scolded, the mist-cloud tingeing darker with his fury. “Seek your sleep before you vex me beyond my patience.”
He wagged his finger, suddenly looking so grudging beneath his angry, down-drawn brows that Devorgilla threw back her own whitened head and cackled.
Then she caught herself and braced her hands on her hips, eyeing him with all the dignity of her kind.
He glowered back at her, his jaw set with equal stubbornness.
“Their trials are nigh at an end.” He put back his shoulders, his chest seeming to swell on the words. “Soon they will know only gladness. Your interfering mischief is not needed.”
Devorgilla hooted again. “Can it be that you cannot suffer a crone casting stronger magic than your own?”
Silence answered her.
The ill limmer and his mist cloud were gone.
But his annoyance lingered, crackling in the air around her, and she pulled her cloak tight and turned to begin the slow trek back across the moors to her bed.
And as she trudged along, she hummed a merry tune she hadn’t recalled in ages.
This e’en, she’d enjoyed her encounter with the he-goat.
She paused to draw her hood up over her head and tie its fastening string. Then she hobbled onward, a persistent little smile twitching her lips.
The fool man had looked rather fine in his bluster.
Rather fine, indeed.
Chapter Eighteen
Have you seen any mist snakes of late?”
Valdar’s deep voice boomed in the candlelit gilt of Dare’s family chapel. Beard jigging and eyes fierce, he stood in front of the richly hung altar, his legs spread in a warlike stance. He held his well-honed Norseman’s axe, Blood Drinker, clutched in his hand, its blade flashing.
With a flourish, he flung back his plaid, looking anything but a peaceable visitor to the little stone chapel’s seldom-used sanctuary.
One reason, for sure, that the other men present were currently ignoring him.
He continued his rant regardless. “Heard of any more platters of food gone a-sailing out our windows? Seen any odd-eyed strangers skulking through the glen?”
Ronan looked up from the carved stone effigy he’d been examining. “There could be a lever here somewhere,” he said, ignoring his grandfather’s blether. “A secret door or passage we’ve overlooked. This is the most likely place for a hidden tomb.”
“Hah! Tomb-shwoomb, I say! We’ve peered thrice or more at every stone in here and elsewhere for the last fortnight.” Valdar’s chin jutted stubbornly. “ ’Tis a wonder we haven’t all gone cross-eyed as a great ring-tailed yowe!”
Ronan ran his hand over the cold sides of the tomb, felt along the stone flags at its base. “I cannot speak of such unfortunate ewes, but I once heard of a hidden crypt only accessible by shifting the tail of a dog carved at an effigy’s feet. The wee creature’s tail was a release disguised to look like stone and —”
“And I say you” — Valdar shook Blood Drinker in his direction — “your gel’s presence is enough! Her hot blood and high spirits chased away the slitherin’ mist devils and all else what’s plagued us.”
“I’d rather chase them from her.” Ronan pushed to his feet, dusted his hands. “Only then will —”
“Pshaw!” Valdar scoffed. “Even you can’t deny that the sun’s been shining on our glen more often in recent times than in years!”
Ronan’s gaze flicked to the wedge of brilliant winter sunlight slanting in through the chapel’s half-opened door. “Be that as it may, we’ll continue our search.”
His grandfather huffed.
“Even the stars are brighter since she’s here,” he argued, waving Blood Drinker again. “There’s no need for us to poke and prod at walls and floors, looking for a tomb that isn’t!”
“Gelis says that it is.” Ronan folded his arms. “I believe her.”
Valdar scowled and shoved Blood Drinker beneath his wide leather belt.
Ronan frowned right back at him.
Then he looked round at the other men crowded into the chapel. Some crept about on their knees, like him, running their hands along recumbent effigies of long-sleeping forebears. Others worked in shadowy corners or the dim, must-filled vault below, using their dirk hilts to tap for hollows, the tips to probe every suspicious-looking crack.
No one found anything.
And not a man complained.
But hours later when he climbed the narrow turnpike stair to his bedchamber, his still-aching ribs and his damnable toes did protest.
His head pounded, too. And when he opened his door only to walk into a great, billowy cloud of deep, shimmering blue, his misery knew no bounds.
“By the Rood!” His feet slid crazily and it was all he could do to keep his legs from flying out from under him. “Gelis!” he cried, righting himself. “What goes on here?”
Her face appeared above the welling blue.
“O-o- oh, no!” She jumped up, apparently off a stool, and stood gawping at him. “I wasn’t expecting you. Not for several hours.”
“So I see.” He looked at her from just inside the door, the slippery blue cloud making it difficult to enter the room.
If it even was his chamber.
Swathed almost completely in blue, it was hard to tell.
But his lady was there, and in such a grand state of high-colored disarray that another type of throbbing immediately joined the pounding in his head.
Surrounded to her waist by bunches of blue silk, she appeared to be wearing only a fur-lined bed-robe, clearly unfastened. As usual, her braid had loosened and shining coppery-bright curls spilled free to dance with her every movement.
Ronan swallowed.
Every inch of him stiffened, and not from crawling around the chapel on his hands and knees.
Her left nipple peeked at him from the edge of the opened bed-robe, and if it weren’t for the blue cloud swirling around her hips, he’d have a fine view of her lush, fiery-red nether curls as well.
He took a step forward, his blood heating. “Perhaps ’tis a good thing I’ve returned early.”
She shook her head, completely disagreeing.
He’d ruined her surprise.
Disappointment sweeping her, she swatted at the reams of blue silk. But her efforts only served to trap her more fully in the mound of tangled cloth.
“Och, aye.” His body went even tighter when her hand- swiping gave him a better view of her soft curves. Already, he could feel her full, round breasts in his hands.
Saints, he could taste them.
“ O-o-oh, aye,” he said again. “ ’Tis very good, indeed.”
“Nae, it isn’t,” she quipped, striving for dignity. “Not at all.”
He arched a brow, not understanding.
She bit her lip. “I — this” — she grabbed a handful of the silk, holding it up for him to see — “is an awning tent for you. A true Viking one. My cousin Kenneth brought it back from Stromness in Orkney. It’s already decorated with my father’s black stag and I’ve been stitching a raven on it.”
“Ach, lass, I dinna know what to say.” He stared at the length of silk in her hands. “ ’Tis beautiful.” His voice was rough, husky. “The most exquisite embroidery work I’ve e’er seen.”
“Exquisite?” Gelis looked down, saw the magnificent rendering of her father’s crest gleaming boldly in the candlelight.
Her breath caught and heat swept up her neck, flooding her cheeks.
“Arabella stitched the stag.” The admission tore her heart and she bit down on her lip, almost drawing blood. “ ’Tis her work you see,” she owned, gathering the cloth over her arm, smoothing the billowing folds. “The raven is mine, but . . . he is not yet done.”
“Then show me what you have so far.”
“Not yet, please.” She looked away, shame and embarrassment scalding her. “You wouldn’t like it just now.”
“Say you.” He scooped an armful of
the tent silk off the floor and shook it out until her half-stitched raven fluttered into view. “I will love . . .”
His praise tailed off, his eyes widening.
Gelis could feel her face turning bright red. “I told you, he is not yet finished.”
“He is perfect.” Ronan’s heart split wide as he looked down at the awkward, uneven stitches.
Barely recognizable as a bird, the rendering could have been anything between a sparrow and a swan. Clearly, his lady wasn’t skilled with a needle.
That she’d tried, and had done so to please him, shook his world.
His vision blurred, the raven’s crooked outline wavering as stinging heat stabbed the backs of his eyes and a hot lump swelled in his throat.
“Lass . . .” The endearment came out like a croak.
She glanced aside. “I knew you wouldn’t like it . . .”
He shook his head, unable to speak.
Then he did what he could, striding forward, blue cloud or no, to pluck her out of the welter of rippling silk and yank her hard against him.
“Your raven is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He stroked her hair, holding her so tight he almost crushed her. “And you had the right of it all along, sweetness. You are my salvation.”
“You’re not disappointed?” She pulled back to look at him, her eyes glittering with nontears. “Not truly?”
“I am the most blessed man in the Highlands,” he vowed, slanting his mouth over hers in a plundering, bruising kiss. A deep all-slaking kiss filled with hot breath and tongue, more love than his heart could contain.
Reeling with the realization, he swept his hands up and down her back, then lower, splaying his fingers across her hips and clutching her even tighter.
“You could ne’er disappoint me.” He broke the kiss to drop to his knees before her, his heart thundering so wildly he feared it would soon burst from his chest. “Truth is, I dinna know how I e’er lived without you.”
“Ach, Ronan . . .” She thrust her hands into his hair, pulling him against the slight curve of her belly.
Her soft maiden curls brushed his chin and he made a sound deep in his throat. A low growl, earthy and feral, it was nearly unrecognizable as his voice. But her sweet female heat proved too close. Her silky-hot lure beckoned until he growled again and buried his face between her legs, first nuzzling her damp curls, then licking and lapping at her. Long, broad-tongued strokes, slow and deliberate, then quick little swirls to flick across her most special place, followed by gentle nips to her most tender flesh.
“Aggggh . . .” She gripped his shoulders, her entire body going rigid as he swirled his tongue just there. “Ach, gods!” Her passion broke on a great shuddering cry and she slumped against him, trembling and gasping.
Her breath came loud and ragged in the quiet room, each sweet sated gasp blending with the crackle and hiss of the hearth fire and the sound of his own ever-rising growls.
Ronan frowned.
The noises weren’t his.
Nor could they truly be called growls.
Leastways, no more. Nothing less than a keening wail, the sound was unmistakably a howl.
“Do you hear that?” He pushed to his feet, angling his head to better catch the sound. “Like a dog howling.”
He looked at her, hoping she’d heard it, too.
Her knit brow said she had. “Buckie?”
But a glance past the tent silk to the far side of the room showed the dog sound asleep in his favored place before the fire. And his snores were of the old-dog fluting variety, not howl-like at all.
“It didn’t sound like any of the other castle dogs either,” she observed. “ It —”
“It wasn’t inside the keep.” Ronan strode to the nearest window and opened the shutters.
Chill night air rushed in, fluttering wall hangings and guttering candles. One of the hanging cresset lamps swayed on its chain and went out with a hiss. The icy blast also brought another long, piercing howl.
An ear-splitting one this time.
“By glory, ’tis a fox!” Bracing his hands on the window edges, Ronan leaned forward to peer down at the little dog fox sitting on the tree stump where he had perched over a fortnight before.
As then, he sat proudly, only now he didn’t just stare up at the window. Far from it, he repeatedly threw back his head and howled at the moon.
A bright crescent moon riding high above the long belt of dark pines, its silvery brilliance slanted down to glint off the fox’s lustrous red coat and the fine white tip of his thick brushy tail.
He looked their way then, his yellow-gold eyes fixing on them for one long and unsettling moment before he tipped back his head and resumed howling.
Ronan shook his head. “Have you e’er seen the like?”
“I may just have . . .” His lady puzzled, her gaze intent on the little creature. “He looks oddly familiar —”
“God’s blood!” Ronan’s heart slammed against his ribs, his world upending even as the little fox hopped off the tree stump and disappeared into the wood. “I know where Maldred is!”
Gelis spun around to look at him. “What?”
He grabbed her shoulders, turning her back to the window. “There, that is the key!” He pointed to the moon-washed tree stump. “I canna believe it took a fox howling at the moon for me to remember.”
Gelis blinked. “The tree stump? You think Maldred is buried beneath it?”
“Nae, lass, no’ the tree stump.” He slid his arms around her, drawing her back against his chest. “The key is the crescent moon.”
“The moon?” Gelis twisted from his arms. “How can the moon have anything to do with it?”
“A crescent moon, and it has everything to do with it,” he said, awe in his voice. “The answer was given me a long time ago, had I paid heed.”
He slid another glance at the moon, then back at her. “Once when I was very young, Valdar’s kitchen stores were nearly depleted,” he told her. “A harsh winter kept us from leaving the glen and Valdar’s stock of wine quickly emptied. His loss was my delight, as I was allowed to play in the wine vault beneath the kitchens.”
Gelis tucked a curl behind her ear, listening.
“The kitchen laddies and I used the empty wine barrels to build a fort and” — he paused to draw a breath — “once, while shoving them about, I came across a strange carving on the floor. One of the stone flags appeared to be inscribed with two crescent moons back to back.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran to Valdar, as always,” he remembered, his gaze seeming to look backward. “But he laughed, claiming the marks had been scratched on the stone by a barrel.”
Gelis’s brow puckered. “And you think those two crescent moons mark Maldred’s tomb?”
“I am certain of it.”
“But why?” She still didn’t understand.
“Because, my heart,” he explained, excitement beginning to beat through him, “many years later while discussing Druidic beliefs with Torcaill, he mentioned that such a device — two crescent moons back to back — was an ancient Pictish symbol of immortality.”
“And Maldred believed himself immortal.”
“That we’ll ne’er know,” he considered, “but family tradition claims he was obsessed with the possibility.”
“So you think his tomb is in the kitchens?” She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Beneath the floor of the wine cellar?”
“I do,” he agreed, his pulse quickening with the surety of it. “And there’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ronan shoved and heaved and, finally, set another wine barrel to rolling. He frowned as the thing began to trundle away, certain that each new barrel he’d tackled since the small hours was mysteriously larger, more full, and without doubt much heavier than the one before.
Now, with the new morn already growing old, he was also nigh on to believing the wretched barrels were multiplying behind his back.
A sidelong glance at Hugh MacHugh, the Dragon, and others assured him that they shared his sentiments.
To a man, they strained and labored beside him while his lady, Anice, and even young Hector crowded close. Bent and shuffling like a clutch of plague-backed crones, they moved slowly about the wine cellar, their eyes fastened on the dusty floor.
Only Valdar and Torcaill stood apart, their age and rank excusing them from participation. They stood near the stair-foot, Valdar offering ceaseless snorts and grumbles, the druid simply looking on, his softly glowing slachdan druidheachd the best encouragement.
“ Heigh-ho!” Valdar slapped his thigh then and pointed to a large semicircular scratch on one of the floor’s large stone flags. “There be your grave marker! A barrel scrape, as I said, just!”
Ronan straightened and looked around. A score or more of hanging lamps cast a helpful gleam on the floor, but the thin haze from the smoking oil made a soul’s eyes water and burn. And with each passing hour it was getting more difficult to distinguish the natural cracks and wear-scratches on the aged stones.
Even so, his grandfather’s barrel scrape was just that.
Ronan frowned. “That is a scrape.”
“So I’ve said all along.” Valdar folded his arms, looking triumphant.
“We still have at least ten barrels to move.” Ronan ignored his grandfather’s peacocking and leaned forward to brace his hands on his knees. Weary to the bone, he gulped in a few deep and restorative breaths.
It scarce mattered that the air was stale and smoky.
The two back-to-back crescent moons carving of his boyhood memory was here somewhere.
And he’d find it or turn gray looking.
So he straightened and flexed his fingers before tackling the next wine barrel. But even before he set his hands on this one, a shift in the air lifted the hairs on his nape. When the barrel started to move, rolling away with ease, his heart began to pound.
A flash of silver-blue burst from the top of Torcaill’s staff then, the brilliant light illuminating the ancient Pictish symbol etched deeply into the floor.
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 28