Temptation of a Highland Scoundrel (Highland Warriors Book 2) Read online

  Marjory cleaned her fingers on a napkin. When she finished, she looked up, meeting his gaze. “Grim helped me deliver a letter to James Cameron. He wasn’t chasing stray cattle. Indeed” – she took a breath – “there wasn’t any such beast in the birchwood at all.

  “Grim rode back to Castle Haven with my letter.” She sounded so proud. “Except, of course, the missive is worded as if it comes from you.”

  “What?” Kendrew could hardly see for the tiny red dots blurring his vision.

  When it cleared, Norn was buttering another bannock, a small smile playing across her lips.

  “I do believe you heard me.” She took a delicate bite of honey-smeared bannock. After swallowing, she dabbed her mouth with a linen napkin. “Grim kindly agreed to ride back to Castle Haven, bearing a letter I gave him before you left here to go there.

  “As I am lady of the keep, he could hardly refuse.” She spoke calmly.

  Kendrew could hardly breathe. Any moment he was going to roar louder than a dreagan.

  Throughout the hall, men stopped eating and drinking. All eyes and ears turned toward the high table. Heads swiveled, necks craning as everyone vied for a good view of the dais. As she did so often, Norn was steering the scene in her direction just as surely as the winter winds blew as they wished across northern lands.

  It was beyond bearing.

  “I will kill Grim.” Somehow Kendrew managed to speak.

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Marjory gave him a steady look. “Grim is your friend. What you’ll do, and soon, is to thank us both for addressing matters you can no longer ignore and maintain this house’s honor.”

  A muscle began twitching in Kendrew’s jaw. “And what matters remain that you haven’t already needled me about? I did just return from taking Nought stones to that fool Cameron for his bluidy memorial.”

  “We should have given Cameron a fine taste of Mackintosh swords, axes, and spears.” Talon spoke Kendrew’s mind. “He’ll no’ be changing even when the last sunrise blazes across this glen.”

  “So is the way of it.” Kendrew swelled his chest, pleased to have an ally.

  Growls of assent circled the hall, men’s voices loud against Clan Mackintoshes’ long-time enemies. Even Gronk, sprawled on the rushes at Marjory’s feet, lifted his great head and snarled, low and deep.

  “Cameron will always be an ornery arse.” Talon again took Kendrew’s side. “Some men are too thrawn to e’er change.”

  “Indeed.” Marjory pinned Talon with a frosty stare as he dropped down on a trestle bench and used a whetstone to sharpen his dirk blade. “A man too stubborn for his own good also harms his clan.”

  Talon’s lips twitched, his gaze flashing to Kendrew.

  Kendrew’s brows lowered mightily. He refrained from commenting on his sister’s latest jab at him. Ignoring her barbs was one of his most effective weapons against her pestiferous tongue.

  Regrettably, she simply inhaled deeply, clearly preparing for another assault.

  Kendrew braced himself, wondering not for the first time what he’d done to be plagued with such a vexatious, iron-willed sister.

  “We agreed to peace in this glen.” She looked straight at him, the coolness of her gaze making him want to tug on his plaid and shuffle his feet like a lad whose voice hadn’t yet deepened. “The stones for the memorial were a start, yes. But they weren’t enough. Your continued resistance to accepting harmonious, neighborly relations with-”

  “You go too far, Norn.” Kendrew cut her off before she could voice the words ‘relations with Camerons.’ Had she done so, he would’ve flushed crimson, shaming himself before all and sundry.

  Marjory wasn’t finished. “I will go as far as needed, to make you see reason. You are staining the good Mackintosh name. And” – she let her gaze flick over him, critically – “you are earning yourself the reputation of an ill-bred, unmannered lummox.”

  “What stood in your letter to Cameron?” Kendrew used his lowest, most dangerous tone.

  It would serve Norn well if he frightened her.

  Instead, her chin went up. “Why, your apology for behaving so abominably at Castle Haven, of course.” She held his gaze, cool as rain. “The letter is worded to express regret that you didn’t realize you’d been so rude until after you’d ridden away, hence Grim, acting as messenger, sent by you even as you hastened back here.”

  Kendrew started to speak, but didn’t trust himself.

  He did stare at her, well aware that his eyes were surely bulging and that the flush he’d hoped to avoid was sweeping his entire, outraged body. He could feel the heat welling inside him, racing across his skin. He’d surely turned bright red and he didn’t care.

  Any moment steam would shoot from his ears.

  “Be gone from sight, Norn.” He didn’t recognize his voice. “I’ll no’ have you before my face just now.”

  “It’s your face I’m trying to save.” She didn’t even blink. “You must hear the rest.”

  “There’s more?” Kendrew’s brows shot upward.

  “Oh, yes.” Marjory lifted her wine cup to her lips and sipped, delicately. “The letter ends with your sorrow that you so erroneously declined attending the memorial cairn’s dedication ceremony. It continues with your promise to-”

  “Dinnae tell me it says I’ll attend?”

  “It does.”

  Kendrew stared at her, speechless. Around him, the hall went dim, spinning away. His entire world blurred to a whirling blackness studded with flashing red dots that blazed so brightly they hurt his eyes.

  When the hellish sight faded, Norn was smiling at him. She sat poised as a princess at the high table, her hands folded serenely in her lap.

  “You do agree that you must go?” Her tone didn’t hold a whit of sympathy.

  “Like hell I must.” Kendrew put a hand on the table, needing its support.

  The red-studded blackness might’ve gone, but the hall still seemed to spin around him.

  “Give me one reason I should.” He hoped to thunder she wouldn’t mention Isobel.

  “Why your honor, of course.” She hit him with her best weapon. “If you stay away now, having said in ink that you’ll attend, your name will be forever sullied.”

  “I ne’er wrote any such missive.” The argument was Kendrew’s only defense.

  “Everyone at Castle Haven believes you did.” Marjory’s smile didn’t falter.

  Kendrew was doomed.

  Every word his sister spoke was true. And he did care about honor. More so the clan’s good name than his own, but still… However he turned the wretched matter, there was only one outcome.

  Marjory had once again tricked him.

  He would attend the memorial cairn’s dedication ceremony at Castle Nought. And when he did so, he’d act as if he participated of his own free will. Anything else would shed a dark light on his sister.

  And that he couldn’t allow.

  It was just a shame he’d have to face Isobel again. In truth, the notion was terrifying. He knew already he wouldn’t be able to resist her.

  Worst of all, he didn’t want to.

  * * *

  And even as Kendrew paced his hall, his face dark and his hands fisted, fury roiling inside him, another Nought soul faced his own battles. And like Kendrew, he knew the bitter taste of losing. Though many men would lift their brows in surprise to know that Slag, Clan Mackintoshes’ most famed and feared dreagan, struggled against frustrations even the fiercest beast couldn’t quell.

  Nor could he pace about angrily, spewing smoke and fire. His much-dreaded roar echoing through the dreagan vale, making the rocky, broken ground and even the high, bare cliffs tremble beneath his wrath.

  Such days were gone.

  Truth be told, they were so far in the distant past that he sometimes found it hard to recall just how ferocious he’d been. Or that one glance from his fiery red eyes had struck terror into the hearts of men.

  Now, in the dark and dank confines
of this dread cave where he was so regrettably trapped, all he could do was roll his great stony-scaled body hither and thither. At times, he took especial care to stretch his legs and wriggle his long, claw-tipped toes. Even if he wasn’t going anywhere, it was beneath his dignity to suffer muscle cramps in limbs that once make the earth shake.

  Such spasms also hurt.

  So Slag did what he could to relieve them.

  Once, long ago, he’d have been better able to cope with such agonies. Not that he’d been plagued by many weaknesses back in those carefree days he missed so much. If he was honest, and dreagans always were, he’d only been hampered by one truly shameful shortcoming.

  Unfortunately, his worst failing had brought him to this pass.

  The sad fate of being trapped by the cold, hard stone he loved so dearly – dreagans were hewn of stone, after all – but unable to roam the beloved, mist-hung vale that was carved so deeply in his heart.

  Even stone hearts bled, as well he knew.

  And second chances were the stuff of dreams: elusive, bittersweet, and definitely not within the reach of a dreagan, however big and mighty.

  Here, where he was, he almost wished he’d been the smallest of his kind and not the largest.

  His life, such as it was, would’ve been easier to endure.

  But he was where he was and also as huge as he was.

  And he had only himself to blame for his predicament.

  So he did what he always did – unable to do aught else – and pushed his feet against the rock-hard wall of his nest, giving his toes one last wriggle. Then he let his scaly eyelids drop, blotting the impenetrable blackness that pressed around him so cloyingly.

  Sleep would soon come and spend him a few hours’ numbness.

  Hours that – to a dreagan – could last a hundred years or more.

  Not that Slag minded, not now.

  Oblivion erased cares.

  The horror of being wedged into a tight, confining place he couldn’t escape. And most blessed of all, when he slumbered, he couldn’t scold himself for the embarrassing truth that had landed him here.

  On the never-to-be-forgotten day when the traitor Rodan had brought evil to the vale of dreagans, his all-consuming greed driving him to unleash unspeakable terror on Nought as his unholy henchmen shouted dark curses and ripped open dreagan cairns in search of the treasure they’d hoped to find there…

  Slag had run.

  Instead of rearing up on his great hind legs and fire-blasting Rodan and his minions, Slag had clamped his tail between his legs and fled.

  But it hadn’t been Rodan and his hell-fiend friends who’d frightened him.

  The day – Slag would never forget – had been cold and dark, the sky low and black with angry, boiling clouds. Wind tore through the vale, bending trees and flattening the heather. Rain spit and hissed, peppering the ground. And lightning split the heavens, thunder booming worse than any dreagan’s roar.

  It’d been too much for Slag.

  And instead of rearing up and roaring, doing his part to quell Rodan’s villainy, he’d run. He’d taken off as fast as his legs could carry him, seeking shelter not from Rodan and his perfidy, but from the one thing that terrified him more than all else.

  Thunder and lightning.

  Slag, once the mightiest dreagan of them all, had a humbling secret.

  He was afraid of storms.

  Chapter 10

  A sennight later, Isobel stood on the battlements of Castle Haven, her face tilted to catch the night wind. The air was clean, cold, and smelled of pine, the brisk freshness good for her soul. Stepping closer to the wall, she rested her hands on the ledge and looked out across land loved by Camerons for centuries. The reasons were many, going deeper than time could reach. The Glen of Many Legends was special, filled with magic and wonder. Silvery mist drifted across the hills and moorland, and stars glittered against a sky that shone like polished silk.

  Surely there was no more stirring place.

  Despite Kendrew’s warning, nothing terrible had happened and no strangers had been seen prowling about. If anything, the glen was more lovely now than ever.

  Pride flared in Isobel’s breast, the nightscape invigorating her, making her pulse quicken.

  She inhaled deeply, appreciative of the beauty around her. She also clutched a parchment scroll, pressing the letter close to her heart. Just as she’d done every night for the last seven nights, ever since Kendrew’s messenger, Grim, delivered such unexpected tidings.

  A huge man, fierce looking, but with striking gray eyes the color of winter fog, he’d sworn that every word of the missive was true.

  Kendrew would attend the memorial cairn’s dedication and friendship ceremony.

  Isobel wanted to believe.

  Already, the cairn stood at the top of the trial by combat’s battling ground, placed where King Robert and his sparkling entourage had watched the slaughter from their brightly painted, pennon-topped royal loge. The memorial was magnificent, each stone placed with love and pride. Clan MacDonald’s Blackshore stones made the base. Cameron offerings provided the cairn’s middle. And Kendrew’s portion from Nought served as the top layer, though the crown held mixed stones from the lands of all three clans.

  Tears, blood, and honor bound the stones.

  Devotion to the Glen of Many Legends gave the cairn depth and meaning that no Highlander could look upon without his eyes misting.

  The cairn was a sight to behold.

  Beautiful to the eye, poignant to the soul, and – Isobel so hoped – a reminder that the glen clans will only thrive if they banded together, united in their dedication to one another and the land so dear to them, fierce in their commitment to face all outside threats as one.

  She, Catriona, and Marjory were the beginning. Their secret pact would blossom, sealing the glen’s peace and sanctity for all generations to come after them. Children would be born of these unions. Strong, proud sons and beautiful, high-spirited daughters of the glen, their legacy then passed on to their own descendants.

  It was a good plan.

  And to Isobel, so much more than a means to ensure that harmony reigned in the glen. The truth was she wanted Kendrew with a passion that threatened to consume her. She was falling in love with him.

  Perhaps she already had?

  Whatever her feelings, even if he remained obstinate and loving him would rip her world apart, she’d still follow him anywhere. She’d do so because their souls beat in tandem. Her feelings for him burned so hotly in her chest that only true love could flame so desperately, filling her so completely that she couldn’t even breathe without his name whispering across her heart.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined his powerful, rock-hard arms sliding around her, holding her tight. His intense blue gaze piercing her, his kiss…

  “Oh, please…” She curled her hands on the cold stone of the wall’s ledge, her heart aching.

  They were so perfect together.

  She just needed to prove it to him.

  And if his letter spoke true – she didn’t need to re-read the missive, each word echoed in her heart – then she’d soon have another chance to win his affection.

  He already desired her. There could be no denying the attraction between them.

  But she wanted his love.

  Half afraid such a wish was beyond her reach, she leaned against parapet walling, her gaze lowering to the newly-raised cairn.

  No one stirred on the erstwhile fighting ground. The hour was late. And although the night sky still held the shimmering glow of summer, folk rose early at Castle Haven. Most of her kinsmen were abed, her family unaware that she held these nightly vigils - just herself, Kendrew’s letter, and the burning hope that kept her going.

  She needed these quiet moments.

  They helped her trust in the parchment. And in the assurances of a burly, tough-looking warrior with kindly gray eyes who’d laughed when she’d suggested the letter must be a mistake.

&
nbsp; He’d said he knew Kendrew better than most.

  And that Kendrew had vowed on his life not to miss the ceremony.

  But Catriona’s borrowed amber necklace had quivered at Isobel’s throat the first time she’d touched the parchment. The stones had warmed and hummed, giving off the warning she’d been told indicated danger.

  Yet she’d felt in her heart that Grim was honest.

  A good and well-meaning man, for all that his face could only be called rough-hewn and somewhat frightening. Or that he wore his thick dark hair wildly tangled, his looks made more fierce thanks to the half-score of tightly woven braids plaited into his great, black beard.

  She did trust him.

  Even so, something made the ambers quicken. And she doubted it’d been Kendrew.

  He only posed a danger to her heart.

  Could the enchanted gems be cautioning her that his presence at the cairn festivities would leave her emotions in a worse turmoil than she was already in?

  Before she could decide, she heard the soft scrape of a shoe against the stone flagging of the parapet walk. Then the gentle rustling of cloth, announcing that someone had joined her on the battlements.

  A woman.

  And if it was Catriona – out of her bed and braving the steep, winding stairs to the parapet, risking limb and the child she carried beneath her breast – Isobel would have sharp words for her friend.

  But when she turned, rather than scold Catriona, she found her jaw slipping.

  Beathag, the cook’s wife, stood on the other side of the battlements. The stout woman’s back was turned to Isobel and she appeared to be staring at the cataracts that splashed down a gorge in the hills not far from castle’s curtain wall. Beathag’s dark cloak blew in the wind and the night’s luminous silver cast turned her iron-gray hair the gleaming white of newly-fallen snow.

  A freshening drift of cinnamon wafted from her, carried on the wind.

  Isobel sniffed, frowning.

  Beathag usually boasted one of two scents: salt herring or a trace of fine, roasted meat. Sometimes she also carried a hint of woodsmoke from the kitchen fires.

  She never smelled of cinnamon, claiming the costly spice made her sneeze.