It would be so easy to turn around and take a step in her direction.
Forget clan honor and vengeance and…
Nae! Everything inside him—all that he was—roared denial. He could feel his mouth turning down, his face contorting with the pain of a soul rent in two. Some things mattered more than a fetching female’s well-turned ankle and sparkling sapphire eyes.
And there was nothing wrong with him save how long it’d been since he’d last aired a woman’s skirts. On his next supply run to Glasgow, he’d sample the charms of not one but at least three tavern wenches.
Oddly, the notion didn’t bring the anticipatory twitch that it should have.
Indeed, the thought left him cold, desiring only the one maid that he couldn’t possibly make his own.
So he went back to scowling at the sea, this time imagining Asa Long-Legs standing at her window centuries ago, doing the same. His innards twisted to think of her staring out at such a dark, lonely world with only the night wind to greet her.
Or perhaps the haunting song of the seals.
Darroc shuddered.
He hadn’t forgotten how the seals had gathered just before the wreck of the Merry Dancer.
There was one down there now.
A lone seal.
The smallish creature wasn’t bobbing in the waves or even sprawled across one of the skerries, but sat on a jumble of seaweed-strewn rocks on the shore.
Darroc leaned out the window to get a better look. Then he dropped his jaw when he saw that the seal’s coat wasn’t gray or black or even a mottled combination of the two. This animal had glossy red fur and a plumed, white-tipped tail.
The seal was a little red fox.
Sure he was seeing things—for he hadn’t believed Mungo’s tales of a fox in Castle Bane’s bailey—he blinked and the creature vanished.
Or so he thought, for the wee beastie appeared again as quickly, now strutting along the boat strand. He appeared to examine the hulls of the fishing cobles and other craft beached there.
Darroc watched, his heart thundering.
The fox turned and stared back at him, the creature’s handsome brush twitching proudly before he returned to sniffing the boats.
No doubt he smelled fish.
Still, there was something strange about him.
His yellow-gold eyes glowed with an otherworldly light. They also looked oddly intelligent. Darroc could tell even at a distance.
“Saints, Maria, and Joseph!” He forgot himself and used the Black Stag’s oath.
The fox kept trotting down the strand, moving from boat to boat.
And then he was gone.
Disappearing as if he’d never been there, live as the day and right beneath Darroc’s nose.
He shook his head, disbelieving.
He’d imagined the creature.
Or—saints forbid—he was going mad.
He shoved a hand through his hair, frowning. Next he’d see real seals wearing necklaces of ringing bells. He hadn’t forgotten them either. Or perhaps the fox would return and join in the seals’ eerie serenade.
He was beginning to believe anything was possible.
The only thing crazier would be to remain in Arabella of Kintail’s presence a moment longer. If he did, he’d cross the room, gather her in his arms, and wake her. Then he’d kiss her again.
Kiss her in a way that would damn him more than the power of a thousand Thunder Rods.
Not wanting that to happen, he spun away from the window and strode from the room as quickly as his dignity would allow. And as he stomped down the tower stairs, bound for his makeshift bed in the hall, he knew one thing.
He wasn’t mad.
He was wise.
And in his great wisdom, he’d do what he could to protect his clan from disaster. There really wasn’t a choice in the matter. His hands were tied and his options limited, carved in stone many years before. It was a fate written with the blood of his kin and—to a Highlander—family and clan were more important than the air they breathed.
Arabella of Kintail was the enemy.
And he meant to steer well clear of her.
Anything else was too dangerous.
A sennight later, Duncan MacKenzie swept into his wife’s ladies solar, not bothering to shut the door behind him. His entrance made the wall tapestries flutter and almost gutted several candles. He halted in the room’s center, his face dark and his hands fisted. His expression was fierce. Some might even say murderous.
He didn’t bother to rein in his temper.
Enough was enough.
But he did come close to roaring when his wrath provoked no more than an arched brow from his lady wife, Linnet.
She above all others should know what riled him.
For seven days three well-supplied, fully armed and ready-to-launch galleys lay beached on his boat strand, empty. There wasn’t a man left at Eilean Creag with the strength to shove the craft into the water. And there were even fewer men who’d be able to hoist the sails and ply the oars. They’d all fallen mysteriously ill.
Duncan’s scowl blackened at the unfairness of it.
His patience was frayed beyond repair.
“’Fore God!” He glared at his wife, his deep voice echoing in the tiny room. “If I hear another cough, sneeze, or wheeze, I shall cure the fevering bastards by tossing them into the loch. Naked!”
“Duncan…” Linnet looked at him from where she sat on a low stool before the fire. “They cannot help that they’ve caught the ague.”
“The ague?” He flashed a glance at the open door, scowling. “They’re going on as if they have the poxy plague! Lying about, tossing on their pallets and moaning—”
“You shouldn’t jest about the plague.” Linnet pushed to her feet. “You—”
“Jest?” Duncan began to pace. “Think you I’m jesting? If it isn’t that wretched malaise, why did they succumb the very night before we were to set out for MacConacher’s Isle? And the whole bluidy lot of them?”
“It isn’t the pox.” Linnet’s voice was calm as always. “They’ve simply—”
“Cursed is what they are!” Duncan snatched his wife’s herb bag off a trestle bench and shook the bulging pouch at her. “Your wood sorrel tincture and oat gruel aren’t helping them. Someone’s bespelled us and is trying to keep us here. Someone who doesn’t want me adding a fine row of spiked MacConacher heads to my curtain walls!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Linnet laid a hand on his arm, trying to soothe.
He jerked free. “I say it was him. Marmaduke. That’s why I haven’t been troubled like the rest of my men. No hacking coughs and fevering for me. The sly Sassunach wastrel wants me full by my wits so I’m aware of each day that passes. Every hour that keeps us from setting forth to rescue Arabella and—”
“Sir Marmaduke would never do such a thing. And Arabella is rescued.” Linnet gripped his arm again, squeezing this time. “I’ve told you everything I saw. All of it, as well you know.”
Duncan clamped his mouth shut. What she’d told him didn’t bear dwelling on. He certainly wasn’t going to discuss it. Not this night, not ever. Their last attempt to speak of Arabella in MacConacher hands had soured his mood and ruined his appetite for days.
“I told you”—his wife seemed to have forgotten—“the man and the old woman were treating her kindly. No harm has or will come to her.”
“She’s already been harmed!”
“You know what I meant.”
Duncan pretended he didn’t know. Belligerence suited him just now.
Linnet sighed and released his arm. “The gods work in strange ways. The MacConachers are the last clan we’re at odds with. Perhaps it is time—”
“We’re more than at odds with the hell-fiends.” Duncan stalked to a window and threw open the shutters, needing air. “Every last hill in Scotland will sink into the sea before I’d allow Arabella to wed a MacConacher.”
“I never said the man I
saw would be her husband.”
Duncan snorted. “You didn’t have to.” He flashed a heated glance at her. “It’s writ all o’er you.”
She had the good grace to flush. “The man I saw loves her.”
“If he’s a MacConacher, he’ll regret it!” Duncan tossed back his hair, furious.
“I was born a MacDonnell.” His wife’s words jabbed a vulnerable place. “Our clans feuded bitterly. Truth tell, if I recall”—she joined him at the window—“that was the reason you wished to wed me. Leastways it was one of them.”
She smiled up at him and something inside him softened. “I would say we’ve made a good match.”
“The best.” Duncan swallowed against a sudden and most inconvenient thickness in his throat. “Your clan were naught more than unruly cattle thieves,” he argued, wishing she could see why this with Arabella was different.
“The MacConachers are shifty, fork-tongued murderers.” His outrage vanquished the lump in his throat. “They—”
“They are perhaps the final clan we must seek peace with.” She slid an arm around his waist, leaning into him. He scowled, trying not to notice the soft, feminine warmth of her, so familiar and dear.
“I will not argue my father’s… ills.” She peered up at him, her gaze unwavering. “Though I’m sure you’ll agree my brothers serve you well as allies. Life has been good to us. Our children are now having their own. Would you not see those bairns born into a world without blood foes? Is not peace the greatest legacy we can give them?”
“The MacConachers will learn the peace of my steel.” Duncan wouldn’t concede.
Clans were made for warring.
As if she’d read his thoughts, she stepped back and returned to her stool by the fire. She clasped her hands in her lap and held her back straight. The angle of her jaw could only be called peeved.
Duncan frowned.
For some ridiculous reason, he felt chastised.
Make peace with their last feuding clan!
Hah! What he should do was throw back his head and roar with laughter. He would have, too, if he weren’t so worried about his daughter. And—he couldn’t deny it—the possibility that his wife was right.
She usually was.
Saints help him.
That same evening, Darroc flattened his back against the cold stony curve of Castle Bane’s stair tower. He stood only a few winding steps above the arched entry to the great hall. And he was doing his best not to inhale too deeply. He did splay his fingers across the chill damp of the wall. If he couldn’t stop his breathing or the pounding of his heart, he could hunker here, unmoving.
Strange things had been going on in his keep and duty gave him no choice but to get to the bottom of it.
He resisted the urge to snort.
Nae, to laugh.
There were surely not many chieftains who’d hide in their own turnpike stairs because the table linens in his great hall were disappearing. But it wasn’t just the missing linens that bothered him.
His men had turned sneaky of late.
And even though a fierce wind howled around the keep, keening like a banshee, his men’s gleeful voices had carried up to him as soon as he’d set foot in the stair tower. One hoot in particular was especially suspicious as he was sure the gloating burst of laughter had come from Mungo.
Everyone knew the crabbit old seneschal wasn’t given to bouts of hilarity.
If the truth were known, Darroc sometimes suspected that Mungo had been born cranky. He’d certainly worn dark enough scowls during the first weeks since they’d plucked Lady Arabella from the sea. Indeed, if he cornered Darroc one more time with another outlandish suggestion as to how they could use her to knock the wind from Clan MacKenzie, he didn’t want to be responsible for his reaction.
Several others had been equally annoying.
One or two, downright noxious.
Especially the first evening Mad Moraig helped the lass into the great hall for supper. Each man had slunk away, leaving empty tables and filled trenchers. Their ale cups brimming and untouched. The slight—to a lady, even of an enemy clan—had been unforgivable.
Yet now…
Darroc frowned.
Slowly, very slowly, he inched his way down onto the next step. The night wind screamed and a blast of frosty air rushed in through a narrow slit window, blowing his hair across his eyes.
He swallowed a curse.
Then he crept down one more step—the last—and edged along in the shadows, making for the arched entry into the great hall. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way he stepped on a discarded chicken bone and the ensuing crack sounded louder than the roar of the wind.
Inside the torchlit, smoke-hazed hall, his men’s hoots and blether stopped at once.
Silence reigned.
Triumph shot through Darroc.
They were guilty.
Sure of it, he leapt around the corner and into the hall. At once, there came a wild scramble as his men hurried to claim seats at trestle benches or appear otherwise occupied. Only Mungo didn’t move. Standing closest to the archway, he chose instead to hook his thumbs in his belt and—much to Darroc’s amusement—swell his barrel chest.
“It’s yourself, Darroc!” Mungo greeted him cheerily.
“Aye.” Darroc lifted his hands and turned them palms up, looking down at them as if to confirm his identity. “I am myself.”
Mungo slid a cagey glance at the high table. “Geordie Dhu’s outdone himself this night. Fine leg o’ mutton roasted all day out in the stone pit in the kitchen garden, just as you like it best. Meat’s so tender it falls off the bone!”
Darroc folded his arms. “I’m no’ hungry.”
He had noticed that the high table lacked linens. It was the last table to lose its costly covering. The napery on the other two tables on the dais had gone missing three nights before.
“Where are the table linens?” Darroc looked the seneschal in the eye.
“Geordie Dhu made a grand sauce for the mutton.” Mungo didn’t even blink. “Wine and broth laced with just the right touch o’ spices.”
“And the linens?” Darroc cocked a brow.
Mungo remained where he stood, trying to appear innocent. “Linens?”
Darroc didn’t bother with an answer.
He did glance around the hall, raking the other men with a narrow-eyed stare. Clearly guilty, they immediately scratched elbows, peered into ale cups, or dug energetically into their evening meat.
Darroc turned back to Mungo. “No’ going to badger me about ransoming the lass?” He tried another tactic. “No more talk of turning her over to slavering, flat-footed Campbells? Or setting her out on the Glasgow docks, abandoning her to her fate?”
Mungo coughed. “Och! That was just my tongue flapping. Though”—he exchanged a look with the men nearest to them—“I wouldn’t be for shunning a bit o’ sword crossing with the maid’s father!”
“I seem to recall you saying we should take a blade to her.” Darroc arched a brow. “What was it now? That if I wouldn’t ransom her, having done with her would save us the cost of feeding her?”
Mungo clamped his jaw, silent.
He still hadn’t budged. And the look in his one good eye said he wasn’t going to, either. Some might even say he was deliberately blocking Darroc’s way.
Having none of that—this was, after all, his hall—Darroc started to stomp around him. But he stopped after only two steps. There was more wrong here than he’d realized.
Sniffing the air, he knew what it was.
Mungo stank.
Or rather, he smelled like he’d been bathing in gillyflowers.
Darroc sniffed again, sure of it.
Mungo jutted his chin, defiant.
Darroc jammed his hands on his hips and stared at the old goat. He just now noticed that Mungo’s salt-and-pepper hair was sleeked back, neat and shining damply. Mungo had recently washed and trimmed his usually wild mane.
His bushy gray
beard glistened.
The beard had definitely seen the tines of a comb.
“What goes on here?” Darroc looked around again. He wasn’t surprised when no one met his eye.
Then, from the smoky haze at the rear of the hall—just where the lighting was poor enough so that he couldn’t make out faces—someone slapped a hand on the table and cleared their throat.
“Could be Mad Moraig was for boiling the linens.”
Darroc scrunched his eyes. He tried to see who’d spoken. All around him, men bobbed heads and grunted in agreement with the deep voice.
“Aye,” someone else called out, “that’s the way of it. Mad Moraig collected the linens for washing.”
Darroc grinned.
He’d never heard a greater pack of lies. Then, before he could stop himself, an always-just-below-the-surface touch of Highland mischief made him turn back to Mungo.
Still grinning, he reached to tweak a fold of the seneschal’s plaid.
“And was Moraig also for boiling a few plaids?” He rubbed the squeaky clean wool between his fingers.
The sweet scent of gillyflowers was overpowering.
Equally telling, the most-times generously draped plaid now stretched tightly across Mungo’s hunched but proudly held shoulders.
Mad Moraig knew better than to boil wool.
The flush on Mungo’s face said he knew it.
Satisfied, Darroc let go of the shrunken plaid and stepped back. “There are extra plaids in the strongbox in my thinking room,” he announced, striding toward the hall’s raised dais and the now naked high table. “Anyone who might need a better-fitting plaid can help themselves. And”—he reached the table and dropped into his high-backed laird’s chair—“the next time you wish to make yourselves pretty, I suggest you let Moraig do the washing.”
At the other end of the high table, Conall nearly choked on his ale. The other men crowding the long table looked at each other.
“For sure, Mad Moraig does the laundering,” two of them said in unison. “None o’ us would dare touch such women’s work.”
Too bad for them, their stretched-tight plaids belied their words.
“So I see.” Darroc eyed the men until they squirmed.
Then he helped himself to several spoonfuls of green cheese. The soft curd cheese, freshly made, and—thanks to Geordie Dhu’s mastery—delicately flavored with herbs, was all that he could stomach.
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