Bride for a Knight Page 9

  But cold chills such as the ones still slithering down his spine were the only reason he’d come away whole from the slaughter at Neville’s Cross. He doubted there was any danger of an English arrow storm descending upon his family’s tiny chapel and churchyard, but something equally unpleasant lurked in the nearby wood.

  He was sure of it.

  And whatever it was, it wasn’t his brothers.

  They rested quietly beneath their mounded stones. The only sign of life within the dank, incense-steeped chapel squirmed and wriggled in his arms. Soft, warm, and far too tempting for his current mood. Impatient, too, for she shoved back the hood of her cloak and looked up at him the moment he set her on her feet on the rough, stone-flagged floor.

  “You needn’t peer about with such caution,” she said, watching him scan the church’s dim interior. “They aren’t here. Not now.”

  “Not now?” He arched a brow at her.

  Aveline shook her head.

  Jamie folded his arms. “‘Not now implies no longer,’” he said, uncomfortably aware of the many recumbent effigies of his long-dead ancestors.

  Proud Macpherson knights, their tombs lined the chapel walls and crowded the deeper shadows. Colorful paint gleamed on their armor and shields, making their stone helms and swords look startlingly real and bringing their cold, chiseled features to such vivid life that he crossed himself.

  “And ‘no longer’ implies they once were here,” he finished, trying not to feel his ancestors’ stony-eyed stares.

  Trying especially to forget that farther back in the chapel, his mother slept as well. She slumbered deeply, hidden away behind the high altar, well beyond his sword-swinging, shield-carrying forebears, her beautiful marble tomb tucked deliberately out of sight.

  As if secreting her sculpted likeness from view might undo its reason for being.

  “They were here, aye.” His bride’s words echoed in the half-dark of the chapel, bringing his thoughts back to the present.

  She looked down, flicked a raindrop from her cloak. “Leastways, two of them.”

  “‘Two of them’?” Jamie could feel the back of his neck heating. “Which two?”

  “Neill and Kendrick.”

  Jamie put back his shoulders, looking at her. “See you, lass, since I’m fairly certain my father would rather roll naked in a patch of stinging nettles before he’d set foot in this chapel, I canna believe he’s seen any of my brothers here. Not Neill, not Kend—”

  “He didn’t. I saw them here.” She lifted her chin, her sapphire gaze challenging him.

  “You saw Neill and Kendrick?”

  She nodded. “Here, and other places, as I told you. But it was outside, in the churchyard where I first saw them. I told your father and he ordered your cousins to bring the rowan charms.”

  “Then my cousins are as addled as my da.”

  She looked at him for a moment. “They are devoted to him. And, like me, only sought to ease his cares.”

  Jamie opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  Reminding her that there were some who had good reason to doubt Munro Macpherson had a caring bone in his body struck him as sounding too unchivalrous to risk.

  But his temples throbbed at the thought of his wild and unruly cousins descending on the clan chapel, their burly arms filled with rowan and red ribbon; his family’s cattle charms.

  But he didn’t want to think on such buffoonery or his cousins just now.

  Not when he’d just learned that this was where Aveline had seen his brothers. His two favorite brothers.

  Especially Kendrick.

  Kendrick. The name alone gutted him and he glanced aside, his gaze falling on the holy water stoup set into the chapel wall. He jerked, but before he could look away he felt his jaw slide down and his eyes widen as the pathetic layer of stone dust lining the empty basin suddenly vanished beneath clear, sparkling water.

  Holy water teeming with a black mass of squiggly tadpoles, the whole gelatinous lot swimming in the sacred stoup.

  A boyish prank Kendrick once played on Morag—much to the amusement of his brothers.

  And Jamie as well.

  But he wasn’t amused now. He was frightened; worried his brain was going as soft as his da’s.

  A notion that instantly banished the tadpoles.

  All saints be praised!

  “Kendrick and Neill,” he began, studying his bride’s face. “Were they … did they …” He let the words tail off, unable to voice what he burned to know.

  Just thinking of them dead undid him.

  Talking about their ghosts was beyond his strength.

  Saints, he still couldn’t quite believe in … bogles.

  But he did have questions.

  He began to pace, rubbing the back of his neck as he went. “Were you not afraid? When you saw them?” he asked, shooting her a glance. “Not afeared to come here tonight?”

  “Afeared? Of your brothers?” Aveline smiled before she could catch herself. “Och, nay, they do not frighten me. I feel blessed to have seen them.”

  So soon as the admission left her lips, he stopped beside one of the narrow window slits. “My father doesn’t feel blessed when he sees them,” he said, looking skeptical. And so handsome in the moonlight streaming in through the window, that her breath caught.

  His coppery hair shimmered like burnished gold against the cold wall, the raindrops caught in the glossy strands gilded silver and glittering like diamonds. And with his great height and size, he made the tiny, vaulted chapel seem even smaller. Almost insignificant, with its dank stone and shadows, while throbbing vitality and rich, glowing warmth seemed to pour off him.

  She started forward, then hesitated, not certain she trusted herself not to blush if she stepped too close to him.

  Even standing where she was, she could breathe in his scent, a heady masculine blend of clean leather and linen. Chill blustery winds and the freshness of rain.

  A heady mixture she inhaled with pleasure, especially when she recalled the more unsavory smells that had swirled around some of her less appealing suitors in the past.

  Shuddering, she rubbed her arms. Truth was, she’d always known her husband would be chosen for her, but she’d never expected him to be so dashing.

  Or so valiant, she admitted, remembering how he’d sheltered her from curious stares in her father’s hall. How he’d leaned close and lowered his voice, whispering soothing words to reassure her.

  She swallowed, half-afraid to trust the emotions he kindled inside her.

  The hope that he might be the answer to her most secret dreams, her deepest longings.

  The kind of things she shouldn’t be thinking about now. Not here in his family’s chapel with him peering into the gloom, his jaw clenched and a frown creasing his brow.

  Almost as if he expected one of his stone-hewn ancestors to leap up and challenge him for daring to intrude on their eternal slumber.

  But then his gaze snapped back to her, his eyes narrowed and assessing. “How can you be so at ease about having seen my brothers when my father—a man many times your size and strength—cowers in his bed at the mere mention of their names?”

  She lifted her chin. “He has reason to fear them. They are angry when they appear to him.”

  “So I have heard.” He folded his arms, eyeing her. “Yet they were not wroth with you when you saw them?”

  “They did not visit me,” Aveline explained. “I simply happened to see them. There is a difference.”

  She moved to one of the tombs, tracing the sculpted edge of the effigy knight’s sword.

  She wanted to speak of her dreams.

  Her hopes for a harmonious future, one filled with family and sharing. Mutual respect and, if they were blessed, love.

  Love and passion. Those were the things she burned to explore with him. Not talk of bogles and things neither one of them could change.

  But he was striding around the chapel again, clearly bent on a lengthy discour
se. “My brothers did not appear ill-humored when you saw them?” he asked, proving it.

  Aveline sighed.

  “I have seen Neill and Kendrick twice,” she admitted, drawing her cloak tighter about her. “Once near the Garbh Uisge, but at such a distance I canna say whether they looked grieved or nay. And the time I saw them here, in the churchyard, they were anything but angry.”

  She paused to look at him. “If you would know the truth of it, they were dancing.”

  “Dancing?” Jamie halted abruptly. “You saw Neill and Kendrick dancing? In the churchyard?”

  She nodded. “Aye, in the churchyard. With Hughie Mac.”

  Jamie stared at her, his astonishment complete. “But Hughie isn’t dead. I’ve not yet seen him, but I asked of his health as soon as I arrived. Morag swore he’s fit as his fiddle strings.”

  She shrugged. “I can only tell you what I saw.”

  “And what exactly did you see?”

  She went to one of the windows, looked out at the rainy night. “I told you. They were in good cheer and dancing. And Hughie Mac, he was standing in the moonlight, playing his fiddle.”

  “But Hughie—”

  “Och, he’s fine,” she confirmed. “I went to look in on him the next day. He said naught of your brothers, so I didn’t ask. It was enough to know him hale and well.”

  Jamie shook his head. “You must’ve been dream-walking.”

  “Like as not,” she agreed. “But whether I dreamed your brothers or nay, I am glad I saw them happy. I was able to share the tale with your father and I believe it comforted him to know I’d seen them in good heart.”

  But Jamie only made a noncommittal humph and started walking away from her, his entire attention on one of his stone-cast ancestors.

  A particularly lifelike ancestor, for even in the chapel’s dimness, the vibrant paint decorating the carved stone effigy made him appear jauntily swathed in plaid.

  “Ach—for guidsakes!” He stopped before the tomb, his eyes rounding.

  His knightly ancestor was wearing plaid.

  In all his days and a lifetime of Highland weather, he’d ne’er seen a Macpherson plaid as sopping wet and dripping as this one.

  “What in the name of glory?” He stared down at it, blinking, but there could be no mistaking.

  It was definitely a dripping wet Macpherson plaid.

  And on a closer inspection, the thing wasn’t draped artfully over the effigy as he’d surmised.

  It’d been carelessly flung there.

  Half the plaid hung down the side of the tomb, its end pooling in a soggy heap on the chapel floor.

  An insult to his name even his wild-eyed and rowdy cousins wouldn’t allow themselves.

  Anger swelling in his breast, Jamie stared at the puddle of water spreading away from the base of the tomb. He clenched his fists, unable to think who would do such a thing.

  He’d e’er suspected some of his randier cousins used the secluded little sanctuary for a trysting place with light-skirted kitchen lasses, but even if a kinsman had indulged in such bed sport inside the darkened chapel, he didn’t ken a one of them who’d spread his plaid on the uneven stone floor and leave it there.

  And to be sure, he didn’t ken a soul who’d toss a wet plaid across the solemn form of a sleeping forebear.

  Frowning, he stepped closer, touching a finger to the sodden wool. His suspicious warrior nose noted, too, that the plaid didn’t stink.

  Its drenching was recent.

  Yet the slanting rain now lashing against the chapel walls had only begun after he’d carried his bride inside. The rain that had dampened them in the churchyard at the burial cairns had been little more than a Highland shower.

  A wetting rain, aye, but not near enough for the voluminous folds of a many-elled great plaid to absorb such a huge amount of water.

  A startled gasp sounded behind him and he whirled around to see Aveline hurrying toward him, her gaze fastened on the plaid-draped effigy, her feet flying all too quickly over the wet floor.

  “Dia!” she cried, looking aghast. “What is—”

  “Slow, lass! There’s a puddle,” Jamie warned too late.

  “Ei-eeee!” Her foot slipped on the slick stone flags and she went flying, her arms flailing wildly. But only for the instant it took Jamie to leap forward and catch her before she could fall.

  His heart pounding, he clutched her to him, cradling her in his arms and holding her head against his shoulder. “Saints o’ mercy,” he breathed, not wanting to think of what might have happened if he hadn’t caught her.

  If she’d slammed down onto the hard, wet stones of the floor.

  Or worse, hit her head on the edge of a tomb.

  “Dinna e’er run across a wet floor again,” he said, well aware he was squeezing her too tightly but somehow unable to hold her gently.

  She twisted to peer up at him, the movement bringing her face dangerously close to his. “I didn’t know the flags were wet,” she said, her soft breath warm on his neck. “I couldn’t see the puddle in the dark.”

  Jamie frowned. “Then dinna do that, either,” he warned, releasing her. “Flying about in the shadows!”

  She shook out her skirts. “I wanted to see what was bothering you.”

  You and all your enchantments are bothering me, Jamie almost roared.

  Instead, he allowed himself another humph.

  Then he looked at her, astounded she didn’t know how perilously close he was to forgetting the wet floor and even his dripping-tartan-hung ancestor.

  He could ponder such mysteries later.

  For now, she looked too fetching and dear for him to care about much else.

  Especially considering her skirts had hitched to a delightful degree, plainly exposing her slim, shapely legs and even a glimpse of pale, satiny hip.

  And, saints preserve him, for one heart-stopping moment, he’d caught an intimate enough flash of nakedness to know the curls betwixt her thighs looked so silky and tempting he burned to devour her whole.

  “You know I shall not be taking you back to Fairmaiden tonight,” he said when he trusted himself to speak. “The hall at Baldreagan should be nigh empty by the time we return and I would enjoy sitting with you in a quiet corner, perhaps before the hearth fire.”

  If the hall proved as private as he hoped.

  And above all, if he wasn’t mistaking the meaning of the flush staining her cheeks. The wonderment in her soft, wide-eyed expression and the way she kept moistening her lips.

  How pliant she’d gone in his arms.

  All soft and womanly.

  As if she’d welcome another kiss, perhaps even some gentle stroking.

  “Sorcha and I have slept at Baldreagan before,” she said, watching him. “On nights when your father was restless and wished to talk.”

  Jamie drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Your sister’s plight weighs heavy on my mind,” he said, picking up the wet plaid with his free hand. “So soon as things settle and she is in better spirits, I will do what I can to find a husband for her. Perhaps—”

  “My sister loved Neill,” she cut in, letting him lead her from the water-stained tomb. “She truly grieves for him. I do not think she will wish to wed another.”

  No one will have her.

  Some even whisper that losing Neill has turned her mind.

  The unspoken words hung between them, loud and troubling as if they echoed off the chapel walls.

  Frowning, Jamie cleared his throat, seeking a solution.

  “Even if she does not desire a husband,” he began, hoping he’d found one, “perhaps she will warm to the thought of a family? A marriage to a widowed clansman? One with wee bairns in need of a mother?”

  To his relief, Aveline smiled. “Oh, aye, that might please her,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”

  “Och, a cousin or two,” Jamie offered, thinking of Beardie.

  Recently widowed and a bit of a lac
kwit, but left with five snot-nosed, bawling sons. Wee mischievous devils ranging in age from less than a year to seven summers if Jamie’s memory served.

  But even good-natured Beardie might balk at the prospect of taking Sorcha Matheson to wife.

  A superstitious soul, the widowed Beardie might worry that ill luck clings to the maid. That fear alone would deter the most ardent Highland suitor.

  “I don’t think we should say anything to Sorcha for a while,” Aveline said, and Jamie almost leaned back against the nearest tomb in relief.

  Truth was, his bride’s sister posed a devil’s brew and he couldn’t imagine what to do about her, much as he’d like to help the lass.

  So he did what seemed natural and slid his arms around his Fairmaiden lass, pulling her to him and kissing her until she melted against him. And even then, he kept kissing her, absorbing her sweetness and reveling in the way she tunneled her fingers through his hair, clutching him to her as if she, too, craved the intimacy and closeness.

  Maybe even needed or welcomed his kiss.

  And outside the chapel, the squally wind and rain dwindled and the moon sailed from behind the clouds, its silvery light spilling across the little churchyard with its burial cairns and ancient Pictish stone.

  Illuminating, too, the tightly entwined young couple standing just inside the open chapel door and kissing so feverishly.

  Feverishly enough to send a shiver through the watching hills.

  A cold and deadly shiver.

  Chapter Six

  In a world far beyond Clan Macpherson’s little churchyard, more specifically in the isle-girt castle known as Eilean Creag, just off the shores of Kintail’s Loch Duich, Lady Linnet MacKenzie sat near the hearth fire of her well-appointed lady’s solar and frowned at the untidy stitches of her embroidery.

  Clumsy, careless stitches.

  And were she honest, the worst she’d made in a good long while. Though, with her needlework gracing countless cushions, bed drapings, and tapestries throughout her home, everyone within the MacKenzie stronghold’s proud walls knew she’d ne’er mastered a lady’s skill of being able to make tiny, nigh invisible stitches.

  Her stitches fell crooked and large, easily identifiable at ten or more paces.