“Yet you have done so.”
“Aye, but-”
He stepped closer and gripped her arm, his touch sending ripples of awareness through her. “I wouldn’t be here if my request wasn’t dire, my lady. All I ask is that you restore-”
“I regret you’ve lost someone.” She did, especially that she couldn’t do what he wanted.
She knew the pain of heartache.
So before she could think better of it, she lifted her hand to his face and touched his cheek, slid her fingers along his beard. “I do wish I could help you, but all I can offer is my sympathy.”
“You misunderstand.” He caught her hand, lacing their fingers, squeezing tight. Determination burned in his eyes. “The dead I want you to revive is a man who hasn’t truly died. He stands before you.”
“You?” Mairi blinked. “Now I am quite confused.”
“You willnae be.” He glanced aside, drew a deep breath. “My lady, I have lost all feeling inside me. I would that you use your skill to rekindle my will to live.”
Mairi didn’t know what to say.
“I would be whole again.” He turned back to her, the look on his face making it impossible to refuse him. “Dinnae deny me.”
“I won’t.” Mairi couldn’t believe her consent. “I’ll do what I can,” she added, making it worse.
She didn’t know where to begin to help him.
She just knew she must.
~ * ~
About the same time, but high on the windswept peaks above the glen, a tiny black-garbed woman stood as close to the cliff edge as she dared, and peered down at the ill-starred pair beneath her.
She was Devorgilla of Doon, the Highlands’ most far-famed cailleach and wise woman, and she’d plied her formidable skills since before time was. She worked tirelessly for the greater good, and rarely had two souls needed her more than her latest charges: The tall warrior with his broken sword and the lass who shouldn’t sleep alone, only the wind to say her goodnight.
Such loneliness was unnatural.
And the man should have a warm and loving woman at his side, not cold, sundered steel.
Tsk’ing, Devorgilla hitched her skirts and inched a bit closer to the drop-off. She swatted at the whirling mist, mumbled a few words to dispel enough for her to see more clearly. Satisfied, she set her hands on her hips and leaned forward, studying the couple.
Theirs was a hard path, she knew.
Gare MacTaggert, for he’d lost so much. Mairi MacKenzie because she’d never had a lot to begin with. Such misfortune had drawn her to them for she was a born matchmaker, though some called her a meddler.
Either way, she did as she pleased.
Few could deny she was aye right in the end.
Hoping to keep it that way, she slid a glance at her companion and helpmate, Somerled, a little red fox standing close beside her.
“I do believe the lass saw our warding sparkles,” she mused, certain of it. She’d seen Mairi narrow her gaze on the silvery glitter in the air about the warrior; the sparkles all that remained of the goodwill charm she’d cast over him. A caution, no more; a quiet way to make certain that the Black Stag’s men not only allowed him entry into the Glen of Winds, but also received him as a friend.
Someone they could trust, the wards letting them see him as he truly was.
A good and valiant man.
“By all the fates, she saw.” Devorgilla nodded sagely. “Do you no’ agree, laddie?”
Somerled blinked in response, his gaze earnest.
“She is more gifted than she knows, eh?” Devorgilla reached down to stroke her friend’s silky red fur. “Thought it was the gleam of his mail, she did! No bother. The last bits will be gone anon,” she added, pushing back her sleeves and cracking her knotty knuckles.
“Now look closely,” she urged the fox. “Show me any lingering sparkles.”
It pinched her pride to need such aid, but given her years, her eyes weren’t what they’d once been.
Understanding, Somerled again fixed his attention on the warrior. He eyed him carefully, and then raised his foot, pawing the air and pointing at each wayward glint of floating silver.
Devorgilla responded in kind, wriggling a gnarled finger at each sparkle. She only had to will it so, for the charm residue to vanish.
She counted twenty glitter-dots. Then they were gone, nary a shiver of magick remaining.
“Our work is done, laddie.” Mightily pleased, she stepped away from the cliff edge and gave a little cackle of glee. “They are on their own now. We have only given them a wee nudge. Whether they do aught about it is up to them.”
That Devorgilla knew with all the wisdom in her grizzled head.
Somerled apparently agreed, for he was already sending expectant glances at the plaid-covered basket packed with their dinner – a fine roasted gannet, the succulent seabird one of the crone’s favorites, green cheese, oatcakes, two cooked eggs, and a flagon of heather ale.
“They be good victuals, eh?” Devorgilla hobbled over to the basket, rewarding her friend with a tasty gannet tidbit. “Lady Linnet aye treats us well.”
Somerled angled his head and tapped the basket with his paw, in clear accord.
Before Devorgilla could give him another piece of gannet, the little fox looked aside to peer at the greatest of Kintail’s hills, massive, rock-bound heights as mist-cloaked as the cliffs above the Glen of Winds. The intensity of his gaze and his perked ears warned that he saw more than the blowing mist.
“So we’re yet needed, are we?” Devorgilla glanced at the rugged peaks, wariness spreading through her ancient bones.
As always, her wee friend was right to be concerned.
Trouble brewed on the horizon, and its darkness was drifting near, making its way to the Glen of Winds, its purpose pure and deadly evil.
“Ach, laddie, you’d best tell me what you ken.” She bent to tighten her red plaid bootlaces, flashing a look at the fox as she did so. “I ken fine ye see more than I do,” she admitted, somewhat grudgingly.
Somerled blinked and twitched his tail, a nod to his own pride.
When Devorgilla straightened, he did as she’d bid him, fixing her with his deep and piercing gaze. Ever her talebearer, he used their special bond to reveal what he’d gleaned on recent roamings. He also shared what he’d learned just now, peering into the distance.
Grateful, Devorgilla pressed a hand against her hip, giving him her fullest attention, listening not with her ears, but her heart.
What she heard worried her.
Yet fate was inexorable, all things happening for a reason. Nudges and the dash of a charm here and there were fine, harming no one and aiding many.
But every man had to walk his own path, choosing well or otherwise.
Bad things happened to those who sought to bend that rule.
And she hadn’t reached her impressive number of years by behaving imprudently.
So she dusted her hands, brushed down her skirts, and adjusted her new black woolen cloak, Duncan MacKenzie’s parting gift to her; the proud chieftain’s thanks for telling him about the man with the broken sword.
“Come, laddie, we have done all we can here.” Devorgilla retrieved their food basket, hooking it on her arm. “It is time for us to return to Doon, for thon pair down in the glen must fight their dragons alone.”
Somerled, wise soul that he was, agreed.
But he also cast one last meaningful glance at the cliff edge, now almost hidden by thick, curtaining mist.
Devorgilla understood.
“The gloom willnae help them, my little one,” she told him, shaking her head. “No glen is hidden enough, no fog so dense, that wickedness willnae find a way.
“So will goodness if certain ill-starred souls trust their hearts.”
But for the first time in her long and illustrious career, Devorgilla had doubts.
Gare’s heart truly was as dead as he claimed.
Mairi’s had been broken beyond re
pair.
Chapter Two
Gare ducked his head to enter Dunwynde’s low-set doorway, astonished that Lady Mairi allowed him the privilege. He’d expected her to walk away, leaving him and Troll in the glen’s cold, inhospitable gloaming. Instead, she’d cast a glance at his dog, her face softening before she’d turned back to him with the invitation.
“You’re fond of dogs?” He stopped inside the door, allowing his eyes adjust to the broch’s dimness.
“I care for all animals.” Mairi MacKenzie went to a small table, poured water from a jug into an earthen bowl. “But, aye, I have a special liking for dogs.”
“Yet you dinnae have one?” Gare glanced about the humble room, seeing no sign of a pet.
What he did see, hit him like a fist in the gut.
Dunwynde was spotlessly clean, the hard-packed dirt floor, well-swept, while the walls appeared scrubbed and free of moss and cobwebs. But there, all hints of comfort ended. The smoldering peat fire and a few sputtering torches illuminated the circular, windowless room, while a pallet of furs was clearly where Mairi slept.
Gare frowned, rubbing the back of his neck as he took in even more. He doubted the makeshift roof of branches, scraped hides, and heather would keep out a hard rain. Blessedly, the blackened cook-pot on its chain over the fire, and a string of dried herring stretched across the far wall, indicated the lass wasn’t hungry. She needn’t freeze either, for a woolen cloak hung from a peg near the door. He hoped a lidded basket nearby held more clothes. Even so, a broch was what it was, a centuries-old, long-crumbling stone tower so grim it shouldn’t be occupied by more than damp, mice, and the wind-blown scattering of dead leaves.
His mood worsening, Gare felt his hands clench, his chest tighten.
Images of Blackrock Castle flashed across his mind, the sumptuousness of his well-appointed home so at odds to the broch’s desolation.
No woman should dwell so sparsely.
That many did, grieved him.
Seeing this one in such straits outraged him, though he couldn’t say why her plight affected him so gravely. There was just something about her.
He’d felt it the moment their gazes had met.
“No, I do not have a dog,” she said then, setting the water bowl against the far wall. She placed a second dish beside it, a delicious-smelling stew that Troll was already devouring as if Gare never fed him.
“The Glen of Winds is no place for an animal.” She turned to face him at last. “There may not be a banshee here, but the souls of the damned do pass this way. Their wails would distress a dog.”
Across the room, Troll finished eating, seemingly unaffected by the threat of troubled spirits. Far from it, he went to the low-burning fire, circled three times, and dropped into a deep sleep, his immediate snores proving his ease.
“Troll is no’ bothered by your ghosties.” Gare frowned at his dog, surprised that he could rest in such a dank, dreary place.
Mairi came over to him, her long raven hair shining in the torchlight. He watched her with interest for he’d heard of the great beauty of MacKenzie women and she proved the truth of their fame. Rarely had he seen such glossy tresses and he surprised himself by feeling a powerful urge to reach out and touch her braid. The thick plait reached to her hips and he was stunned to find he wanted to undo it, see her gleaming hair spill free about her shoulders, an image that stirred him in ways that weren’t good for either of them.
She glanced at Troll, then back to him. “Your dog is brave to feel at ease here. I do not fear bogles either, though I do notice oddities. You, sir, are no common journeyer.” Her chin came up, her tone challenging. “Why do you carry a broken sword?”
“The rent blade is my penance.” Gare told her true. “This sword,” – he patted the offensive steel –“is aye at my side, reminding me of deeds that should ne’er have happened, the wrong caused by my hand.”
She angled her head, her eyes narrowing slightly. “So that’s the reason you’re here? You hoped the Glen of Winds banshee could undo an old regret?
“If so I must again disappoint you.” She looked at him from beneath thick, sooty lashes. “Just as I cannot restore life to the dead, nor can I change the past. I have no access to the power of the gods, no charms to aid you.”
She stood straighter, flipped her braid behind her back. “You shouldn’t have listened to the tales.”
“I am no fool.” Gare leaned toward her. “It was more than that, my lady.”
“Such as?”
“A gut feeling. The same instinct that served me well in many a battle. A wise man knows to heed it. Your fame has reached far beyond Kintail. Something compelled me to seek you. I can say no more.”
“If you do not, you will not be here past the morrow’s dawn.” She folded her arms, her spirit intriguing him.
Wishing that weren’t so, Gare schooled his features, not wanting her to guess that he found her attractive. More damning, that he’d just imagined her naked, adorned only by her gleaming, unbound hair.
He was beginning to think he’d run mad to come here.
For sure, he wasn’t about to tell her of the tiny, black-garbed woman who’d called at his castle gate, pleading weariness and begging a night’s lodging. Once she’d supped well and enjoyed her ale, she’d regaled his hall with praise of Mairi MacKenzie. She was a healer of men, a weaver of wonders, the crone had claimed, fixing her gaze so intently on him that he’d believed she’d called at Blackrock for the sole reason of telling him of Mairi.
He half suspected the cailleach had spelled him.
Each time she’d said Mairi Mackenzie’s name that night, he’d felt a mighty jolt to the core.
He’d known he had to find Mairi. His surety that she could help him grew with each passing day, every hour. Now that he was here, with her standing before him, he was no longer so certain. Indeed, he had a strong inkling that seeking her had complicated his life in ways he’d never dreamed.
He’d tossed fat onto the fire.
And the flames lured him irresistibly.
Furious at himself, he went to her door and drew back the leather curtain. He looked out into the now-dark night. A thin rain fell and cold mist blew past the broch, the gloom suiting his mood. He let the hanging fall shut again and then rubbed his arms, grateful for Troll, at least, that the lass was giving them a sheltered bed for the night, if only on the cold earthen floor before her hearth stone.
“If you remain silent, you may take your leave now.” She appeared at his elbow, a thread of steel in her tone. “Your dog can stay until the rain stops. If you are too far gone by then, I will have one of Sir Marmaduke’s men bring him to you. Until then, he shall be kept dry and well-fed.
“If you wish to remain together, you’d best speak plainly.” She stepped back then, as if she couldn’t bear to stand so close to him.
“Lady Mairi, I lie to no woman.” Gare was affronted she’d think so. “I’ll no’ begin such a despicable trait with you, howe’er you try my patience.”
“I am the one awaiting an answer.” She crossed her arms, clearly annoyed. “Nor am I a lady. I cannot claim the title, nor do I mind.” Her chin came up again, pride glinting in her eyes. “I am simply Mairi MacKenzie. My clan name carries all the honor I need.”
“So it does.” Gare gave her that.
“You shall have your answers.” He moved away from the leather-covered door, feeling as if the night’s chill had seeped into his bones, icing his innards, and freezing the words he had to say. It was so hard to push them past his lips. “I am no’ here just for myself. My quest serves the weal of every man, woman, and child, of my clan.” He paused, closing his eyes for a moment as his gut clenched on the rest. “My journey was also made in the interest of the Scottish crown.”
“The crown?” Her eyes widened.
“Better said, the King’s Lieutenant, Robert Stewart.” Gare’s head was beginning to ache. “These are troublesome times, with King David locked away in the Tower of
London all these years.” He glanced at her, could tell that even sheltered as she was in this wild and remote glen, she’d heard of the sorrowful capture and plight of David de Brus after the disastrous defeat of the Scots at Neville’s Cross in northern England, some years before. “Lady,” he started again, giving her the courtesy title whether she wished it or not, “my lands, my holding of Blackrock Castle, claim a strategic location on Scotland’s northeastern coast.”
“Aye?” She lifted a brow.
Gare pulled a hand down over his beard, drew a tight, uncomfortable breath. “I’ve been served the crown’s wish to see me wed. Robert Stewart wants my region secured through an alliance with a neighboring family. The joined might of such a union will strengthen the realm, while the sons born of the marriage will guarantee stability in years to come. If I dinnae comply-”
“Your lands and castle are at risk,” she finished for him, sparing him the bile that would’ve accompanied the words had he said them himself.
“That is the way of it, aye.” The admission tasted like cold ash all the same.
He didn’t want a wife.
Leastways not Lady Katherine Sinclair, the heiress Robert Stewart’s writ suggested he consider. He’d met her but once, at Beltane revels near Aberdeen, finding her shrewish, with a sharp, peppered tongue, and small dark eyes that glinted with malice whenever a fairer, more fetching, maid happened to walk past her, drawing eyes and attention.
Such a woman as a wife would turn a man’s life into a misery.
Nae, the Sinclair woman wasn’t for him.
But for the sake of his people, he had to find someone suitable. Beatrice Burnett hovered in his mind, being a quiet, unassuming daughter of good house. She’d make any man a biddable bride. Sadly, she’d also bore him into an early grave. There were a few others, though he had no great wish to tie himself to any of them.
By the gods, his inclination was to run from the lot of them.
But that he couldn’t do.
So he took another long, deep breath and exhaled slowly, wishing he could rid himself of his woes as easily. That wasn’t possible, so he hooked his thumbs in his sword belt and prepared to make his request.
Forbidden Kisses Page 57