Bride for a Knight Page 13

  Her eyes flew wide. “You fear treachery?”

  Jamie put his hands on her shoulders. “After seeing the sky darken with English cloth-yards at Neville’s Cross, there is not much left to fear,” he said, meaning it. “Least of all anyone cowardly enough to drape themselves in a wet plaid and try to frighten an old man.”

  But I do fear what such a miscreant might do to you.

  Leaving that concern unspoken, he went to stand before the hearth, trying hard not think about what burned so merrily on its grate.

  “I do not doubt what you’ve told me, lass.” He raked a hand through his hair and hoped she’d believe him. “I am sure you did see Neill and Kendrick at the cairns, dancing with Hughie Mac. And down at the Garbh Uisge, too. Even so—”

  “I did see them. I swear it,” she insisted. “And they had to have been bogles. They vanished right before my eyes. Even as I was staring right at them.”

  She came to him then and he gathered her close. “Leastways that was the way of it in the churchyard. At the cataracts, they just sort of drifted off into the trees.”

  “Ah, well.” Jamie stroked her hair. “’Tis not my brothers’ spirits that concern me. ’Tis the bastard masquerading as a ghost that’s plaguing me.”

  She looked doubtful. “You truly think someone is?”

  Jamie cocked a brow at her. “Can you truly think someone isn’t? After what we found in the chapel and then discovered upon returning here?”

  And to his relief, she shook her head.

  “But what do you mean to do about it?”

  Jamie grinned. “What I do best when the need arises,” he said, flipping back his plaid to reveal the many-notched haft of his Norseman’s ax and the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword. “Assure the safety of those I care about.”

  “And what about those I care about?” she returned, touching his cheek. “Those I know your father cares about. You are the one who received Lady Linnet’s warning.”

  Jamie captured her hand, kissing her fingertips. “Och, I shall be careful, ne’er you worry.”

  He smiled again, pleased with the precautions he’d arranged.

  “Even as we speak, Beardie and another cousin should be taking up position outside this chamber’s door. And” —he winked— “Beardie wields an even deadlier Viking ax than I do. If you haven’t yet noticed, he’s rather proud of his Norse granddaddies. And he doesn’t take kindly to anyone even glancing cross-eyed at a woman.”

  She peered up at him through her gold-tipped lashes, looking more confused than reassured. “You’ve set two guardsmen to protect me? Just like the two you ordered to see to your da?”

  Jamie grinned again. “I’ve set two trusted men to guard the door. I shall protect you.”

  “Oh!” Her gaze flew to the large, fur-covered bed. “So you will be sleeping here?”

  Jamie followed her gaze and immediately began to harden.

  The very reason he would not spend the night in the same room with her. Especially not in his brother’s sumptuous love nest of a bed.

  Not just yet, anyway.

  Clearing his throat he stepped to the side of the hearth, glad for a means to distract himself before the tightening at his loins overrode his good sense.

  “I shall sleep in my da’s chamber, as he wished,” he told her, whipping aside a heavy tapestry to reveal an oaken door. “This room was once my mother’s, see you. That is the true reason for its opulence. And you will be safe here, I promise.”

  She blinked, her jaw slipping when he opened the door to reveal a small anteroom. And, clearly visible on the other side of the wee chamber, a second closed door.

  “The bedchambers are connected,” he said, taking a wall torch from its bracket and ducking into the little room. “We’ll leave the doors open and the torches burning.”

  “To scare away the bogles?”

  Jamie cocked a brow but said nothing. He knew enough of lasses to let her think what she would if doing so soothed her womanly mind.

  Truth be told, he was the one in need of soothing.

  She’d followed him to the open doorway, her beguiling violet scent and the proximity of her soft feminine warmth almost making him regret he’d mentioned the connecting doors.

  He could easily have stayed with her in Kendrick’s chamber. If only wrapped in his plaid before the fire. The saints knew he’d slept in more uncomfortable places than on his late brother’s fur-strewn floor.

  Hovering on the threshold of the anteroom, she watched him with great, luminous eyes.

  “And you will know if something stirs?”

  Jamie jerked as if she’d reached out and curled her fingers around him. If she knew the kind of stirrings her mere presence was causing him, she’d wish him back belowstairs—no matter how passionately she kissed.

  She was yet a maid and he meant to go gently with her.

  “Lass,” he said, his voice thick, “I will know if the night wind shifts a raindrop on your window ledge.”

  His most courtly reassurance spoken, he touched the smoking torch to the anteroom’s two wall sconces, satisfied when they caught flame and the little room filled with the same golden light as Kendrick’s chamber.

  In a matter of moments, his da’s room would be awash with light as well.

  But not to frighten bogles.

  O-o-h, nay, he hoped they’d come.

  Leastways the one who favored dripping plaid.

  And if the lout did make an appearance, Jamie would be ready for him.

  Him, his Norseman’s ax, and his trusty blade—whiche’er death the ghost preferred.

  Chapter Eight

  A sennight later, Aveline paused on the landing outside Jamie’s former bedchamber, a well-laden dinner tray clutched in her hands. Munro’s dinner tray, for he alone whiled behind the chamber’s closed oaken door.

  And judging by the silence from within, Aveline suspected he slept.

  But when she shifted the tray onto her hip and eased open the door, she found him sitting up in bed, propped against his pillows and rummaging through a great iron-bound chest.

  A scuffed and somewhat rusty strongbox that looked very much like the one her father had sent Munro as her bride price, but that she knew contained only stones.

  And sure enough, a scattering of stones were strewn across the bedcovers.

  Stones and a few rolls of ancient-looking parchments.

  Aveline took a deep breath, debating whether to retreat or stay.

  “Sir,” she finally called. “I’ve brought—”

  “For mercy!” Munro looked up, jerking as if he’d been stung.

  He slammed shut the chest’s lid and grabbed for the parchments, crumpling one in his hand but sending two others fluttering to the floor.

  “Saints, lass,” he said, his brow furrowing, “I wasna expecting a meal this e’en.” He eyed the steaming bowl of stewed beef and fresh-baked bannocks, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. “Morag said she’d be away, a-seeing to some ailing glen wife and Jam—er, ah … that one claimed he had business of his own.”

  Aveline forced a smile. “You should have known I wouldn’t let you go without aught to eat,” she said, trying not to look at her father’s damning strongbox.

  Embarrassment heating her cheeks, she approached the bed with the tray. “I know Morag or Jamie usually bring your victuals, but I thought you wouldn’t mind if I did in their absence?” she asked, placing the food on a table beside the bed. “I can sit with you while you eat—”

  She broke off, a whirl of doubts rushing her.

  Her father’s chest sat on the floor opposite the bed, its heavy iron lock undisturbed.

  “I thought you were looking in my father’s strongbox,” she said, only now seeing that the chest on the bed appeared much older than the one containing her bride stones.

  Following her gaze, Munro swore and scrambled to his feet. “This has naught to do with Alan Mor and dinna you tell a soul what you’ve seen,” he said, snatching t
he fallen parchments off the floor, then trying to scoop up the stones spread across the bedcovers.

  Lovely stones.

  And as Aveline now recognized, each one was beautifully smooth and rounded, and in an array of striking colors. Some green, some reddish, with a few black ones shot through with sparkling ribbons of quartz.

  The kind of stones she and her sisters had collected as children, up on the high moors. Treasures, the pretty little stones had been. And from the way Munro was clutching his, she had a sneaking suspicion he cherished these as highly.

  Likewise the tattered-edged scrolls he’d jammed under a pillow.

  “Not a word,” he warned again, this time inching up the lid of the chest just enough to drop the stones inside. “I willna have that old she-goat belowstairs laughing at me and young Jamie needn’t ken—”

  “Needn’t ken what?” Aveline turned to the table and poured a measure of ale into a cup. “I don’t understand,” she added, handing him the brew.

  “No one would understand.” Munro seated himself on the edge of his bed and took a deep swallow. “Not after all these years.”

  “All these years?”

  Munro humphed.

  Then he pressed his lips together and glanced aside.

  Aveline looked closely at him, seeing not only the stubborn set to his jaw but the over-brightness of his eyes.

  She also caught a faint whiff of something she hadn’t noticed until now. Not until he’d reopened the lid of his chest.

  It was the pungent tang of heather.

  Old heather.

  Puzzled, she sniffed again, certain the distinctive smell came from the old laird’s strongbox.

  And then she knew.

  Between the scent and the stones, anyone with even a shred of sentimentality would have guessed. Especially anyone from these parts—folk who knew how fond Munro was of walking the high moors.

  Especially the heather-grown moor known locally as Iona’s Heath.

  The rumored trysting place of Munro and his late lady wife, Iona, in the long ago days of their youth.

  The woman who’d died birthing Jamie.

  And, as the tongue-waggers also claimed, Munro was never able to forget.

  “Och, nay.” Aveline’s heart clenched. She took the empty ale cup from him and returned it to the table. “Dinna tell me you’ve filled that chest with—”

  “All I have,” he blurted, the stubbornness going out of his jaw, but the brightness in his eyes now damping his cheeks. “My memories,” he added, reaching to lift the lid of the chest. “One handful of heather and one stone for each year she’s been gone. I collect them every year up on the moors, on the eve of her passing.”

  “Jamie’s birthday.” Aveline’s own eyes misted as she peered into the chest at the clumps of dead and dried heather, Munro’s collection of colored stones.

  Swallowing against the sudden thickness in her throat, she sat beside Munro and hugged him. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said, hoping she wasn’t making it worse, but feeling compelled to speak. “Jamie cares about you. I suspect he always has. Perhaps if you—”

  “I’m no dried-up husk without a heart.” Twisting round, Munro yanked one of his parchments from beneath the pillow and thrust it at her. “I’ve kept abreast o’ the lad o’er the years.”

  Her own heart thumping, Aveline unrolled the scrunched-up missive and began reading. Sent by a man she knew to be one of Munro’s allies, the parchment was dated about a year before and detailed Jamie’s valor during the tragic Scots defeat at the battle of Neville’s Cross near the English city of Durham.

  She looked at Munro, not knowing what to say.

  He humphed again and reached into his strongbox, fishing deep into the clumps of heather until he withdrew another handful of squished and yellowed scrolls.

  “There are others—as you can see.” He stuck out his chin, his eyes now glinting with a touch of belligerence. “Years’ worth.”

  Aveline set down the Neville’s Cross parchment and took a deep breath.

  Munro stared at her, his mouth set in a straight, hard line.

  “You must show the scrolls to Jamie,” she said, disappointed when the old laird’s expression didn’t soften.

  “That they exist ought to be enough,” he said. “And you’ll say naught about them. I’ll have your word on that.”

  Aveline sighed, but finally nodded.

  “As you will,” she agreed, her heart aching for Jamie.

  And his father.

  Munro Macpherson was wrong. The mere existence of his scrolls wasn’t enough to smooth the rift between him and his only surviving son.

  But it was a beginning.

  A notion that would not have pleased the shrouded figure standing in the swirling mist high above the Garbh Uisge and peering down at the racing, roaring cataracts.

  Healing, justice-bringing rapids. Quiet now, save for the deafening rush of the water; the fitful winds rattling the birches and bog myrtle clustered so thickly on the steep braesides.

  Nothing else stirred.

  The curses and shouts that had shattered the gorge’s peace on a certain fateful day were silent now and those who’d deserved to die slept cold and stiff in their graves.

  All save one.

  And he, too, would soon be no more.

  His father, bluster-headed coward that he was, would do himself in. Fear and guilt were his enemies. No great effort would be required to rid the hills of him.

  A few others might follow as well.

  If a greater atonement proved necessary.

  The beginnings of a most satisfying smile twitched at the corner of the figure’s lips. A soft, much-deserved laugh was also allowed. There was no need not to savor the moment. The darkening woods and the frothy white gleam of the water. The pleasure that deepened with each return to the scene of the figure’s shining triumph.

  Aye, it was a moment to be relished.

  And with the exception of the figure’s dark and flowing cloak and its shielding hood, there was no need for caution. Enough mist and rain had descended on Kintail in recent days for there to be ample cover to slip inside one of gorge’s deep, mist-filled corries should any fool risk a visit to this devil-damned defile.

  The figure sniffed. Nay, unexpected intruders were not a concern.

  Neither from Baldreagan or Fairmaiden.

  The winding deer track from Fairmaiden, especially, was choked with drifting curtains of thick, creeping mist. No one from that holding of reformed cutthroats and new-to-the-soft-life caterans would desire to bestir themselves on such a gray and clammy afternoon.

  And if they did, it wouldn’t be to trek through chill, impenetrable mist just to gain the treacherous confines of the Rough Waters. Those who dwelt at Fairmaiden relished their comfort too greatly to brave the gorge’s steep, rock-lined shoulders save on fair, sun-filled days.

  And the fools cowering within Baldreagan’s blighted, hell-born walls were too busy poking about elsewhere to pose a serious threat. Too occupied switching bedchambers and lighting candles, thinking smoking pitch-pine torches and bolted doors would protect them.

  The figure stared out over the Garbh Uisge, admiring the gloom and flexing eager fingers. Truth was, all the heather and stone in Scotland wouldn’t hide them if a bogle wished to find them.

  Whether they paid a visit to the ravine again or nay.

  Though it could be surmised that he stayed away because his silly bride dogged his every breath and step.

  His faery.

  The figure scowled and clenched angry fists.

  Only the great flat-footed James of the Heather would come up with such a ludicrous endearment.

  Och, aye, that one was too chivalrous for his own good and wouldn’t want to take a chance on the wee one trailing after him into the mist and twisting her precious ankle on a leaf-covered tree root.

  Or worse.

  Like watching a puff of wind blow her away.

  Perhaps looking on i
n horror as she lost her footing on the slippery, streaming slopes and plunged headlong into the icy, tossing waters. Hitting her fair head on one of the many waiting rocks.

  Black and jagged rocks.

  So deadly.

  And utterly innocent. Who could foist blame upon the dark, serrated edges of a rock if a soul was careless enough to fall atop it?

  Certainly not the fools who’d gathered the remains of the footbridge and then been empty-headed enough to burn the wood without even noticing the saw marks and gouges it’d taken to cause the worm-eaten, weather-warped old bridge to collapse.

  The figure smiled again.

  And moved closer to the edge of the ravine.

  If one leaned forward a bit and looked carefully enough into the foaming cauldron, it was almost possible to imagine a swirl of pale, streaming hair caught in the tossing waters. A dainty hand, reaching out for a rescuer that would never appear.

  Or, even more pleasing, a flash of bright auburn hair and a quick glimpse of a bonnie male face, the eyes wide with terror and the mouth roaring a silent, water-filled scream.

  But all the cries and thrashings would prove for naught.

  Just as they hadn’t helped his brothers when the footbridge had given way beneath them. The figure’s lips began to quirk again and a warm, pleasant sense of satisfaction banished the afternoon’s chill.

  The Macpherson brothers had dropped like stones.

  And most of them hadn’t even struggled, for all their swagger and boasting in life. Their black-hearted gall and deceit. They’d sputtered and gasped for breath, flopping about like hapless flotsam, letting the current speed them to their deaths.

  A few had fought fiercely, kicking their legs and flailing their arms, wild-eyed and shouting, cursing down the sun.

  But the sun hadn’t cared.

  And neither had the lone figure standing high above them, looking on with an approving smile.

  A smile that had soured just over a sennight ago when happenchance allowed the figure to witness an act of infuriating passion.

  A kiss so shamelessly heated even the memory scalded.

  And in a holy place, standing on the threshold of St. Maelrhuba’s chapel and in clear view of the Na Clachan Breugach stone.