Bride for a Knight (5 page)

But at least Aveline wasn’t the Valkyrie.

And nary a jealous
Sithe
princeling had yet appeared, enchanted blade flashing and ready to escort him to his doom.

His plight could have been worse.

Or so he thought until a short while later the vast sprawl of Baldreagan loomed before him. A proud demesne, its sturdy towers rose dark against the surrounding hills. And, as at Hughie Mac’s cottage, curling threads of bluish smoke drifted from the tower chimneys. No one could be seen on the parapet walk, nor did anyone shout a challenge as he drew near, yet he could feel wary eyes watching him.

And with reason, for lights shone from some of the higher windows, including the one he knew to be his da’s private bedchamber.

But the welcoming effect of the flickering torchlight and the earthy-sweet scent of peat proved sorely dampened by the sprays of red-berried rowan branches affixed to the castle gatehouse.

Red-ribboned and ridiculously large, the rowan clusters stared back at him. A mute warning of what he’d find within, for red-ribboned rowan was his family’s special charm.

An ancient cure bestowed on the Macphersons by Devorgilla, the most respected wise woman in all the Isles and Western Highlands.

A charm the cailleach had assured would safeguard the clan’s prized cattle, keeping them fat and hardy throughout the long Highland winters.

But also a talisman said to repel evil of any kind.

Including bogles.

Ghosts
.

Jamie frowned. Thinking of his brothers thusly was not the homecoming he’d envisioned.

Even the weather was less than desirable, for the night had turned foul, with a thin drizzle chilling him and thick fog sliding down the braes to creep round Baldreagan’s walls. An eerie, shifting gray shroud that minded all too easily of his reason for being there.

Refusing to be daunted, Jamie pulled his plaid more closely around him and peered at his father’s empty-seeming gatehouse. Not surprising, the portcullis was lowered soundly into place. And since his brothers had e’er taken turns at sharing the castle watch, there’d be no telling on whose shoulders such a duty now rested.

He found out when the shutter of one of the gatehouse windows flew open and a less-than-friendly face glared down at him.

A young face, and one Jamie didn’t recognize.

Even though the lad’s freckles and shock of red hair marked him as a Macpherson.

A herder laddie, Jamie was certain, for when the boy leaned farther out the tower window, a distinct smell wafted on the night breeze. As if the lad had just returned from mucking out the cow byre.

“Who goes there?” the stripling demanded, his suspicious tone lacking all Highland warm-heartedness. “You’re chapping unannounced at the door of a house in mourning and I’ve orders not to open to any.”

“Not even to a son of this house?” Jamie rode beneath the window. “I am James of the Heather,” he called up to the lad. “I’ve come to see my father. And pay my respects to my brothers. God rest their souls!”

The herd boy stared at him, disbelief in his eyes. “My laird’s youngest son occupies himself in the far south of Kintail, in the service of a MacKenzie, last we heard. He hasn’t been to these parts in years.”

“That may be, but I am here now and would have entry to my home,” Jamie returned, his temples beginning to throb. “It is cold, dark, and wet down here. Too wet for the old bones of the dog I have with me.” He reached around and patted Cuillin’s head. “We are both weary from traveling.”

The boy hesitated, his gaze flicking to Cuillin then back to Jamie.

“You do have the look o’ Neill about you,” he allowed, still sounding doubtful. “What if you’re his bogle?”

“His—” Jamie began, then snapped his mouth shut, unwilling to discuss ghosts twice in the same evening.

Instead, he cleared his throat. “I am my father’s son James, so true as I’m here,” he said, his head aching in earnest. “Now raise the portcullis and let me in. I would see my da before he sleeps. I was told he’s ailing.”

“Hah!” came a second voice as a stern-faced old woman appeared at the window. “Aye, and so he is unwell,” she confirmed, peering down at Jamie. “He’s in a bad way and he willna be troubled this late of an e’en. These are dark times with many ill things afoot. We canna trust—”

She broke off, her eyes rounding. “Jesus wept—it
is
you!” she cried, clapping her hands to her face. “Wee Jamie come home at last. Ach dia, how I’ve prayed for the day.”

Jamie blinked, staring open-mouthed. He scarce trusted his eyes. But the silver-gray curls framing the well-loved face and the sharp, all-seeing eyes were the same.

His indulgent childhood nurse, a woman who’d filled every hour of his earliest years, shielding him from his da’s temper and spleen. Soft-hearted for all her bluster, she’d been the mainstay of his youth, lavishing him with warmth and love, salving his boyhood hurts.

And now she stood clutching the window ledge and gawping at him with such moony-eyed astonishment, Jamie felt a surge of warmth and pleasure.

He shook his head, his heart clenching.

“Ach, Morag, is it yourself?” he managed, but then his throat closed and her beloved face blurred before him.

Not that he minded, for in that moment, she whirled from the window and, almost at once, the great spike-tipped portcullis began rattling upward.

That sweet sound ringing in his ears, he spurred beneath, riding straight through the gatehouse arch and into the torch-lit bailey, the chill, cloudy night and even the red-ribboned rowan promptly forgotten.

He was home.

Nothing else mattered.

And if his father’s welcome stood in question, Morag was clearly pleased to see him.

Swinging down off his garron, he lifted Cuillin from his basket, then caught the old woman to him in a close embrace.

“Holy saints, Morag, you do not look a day older,” he vowed, holding her tight until she pulled away to beam at him, tears spilling down her face.

“Come away in,” she urged, dabbing at her eyes, then grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the keep where the massive double doors stood wide. “Praise God, you came,” she added as they entered the great hall. “Your da grows more muddle-headed by the day and all in this hall would agree with me.”

She squeezed his arm. “’Tis more than his fool ghost talk and losing your brothers that ails him,” she confided, lowering her voice. “He’s old and knows he split this clan asunder the day he sent you away. He yearns to make peace with you, even if he doesn’t know it.”

Jamie stopped.

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Across the hall, on the wall above the high table, two well-flaming torches framed the Horn of Days, his clan’s most prized treasure, and he had the most uncomfortable sensation that the thing was staring at him.

Waiting.

Or, better said, assessing and challenging him.

Exquisitely carved and banded with jewels, the ivory horn had been given to Jamie’s grandfather by Robert the Bruce after the great Scottish victory at Bannockburn. A gift made in appreciation of the clan’s support and loyalty.

A celebration of days spent in faithful service to the crown and days filled with prosperity in the clan’s future.

Recognition, too, of each new clan chieftain, with the horn now passing with great ceremony from one laird to his successor.

A family tradition that should have honored Neill.

Now the horn would be Jamie’s.

Staring at it now, its gleaming jewels still seeming to bore holes into him, Jamie put back his shoulders. He’d accept the horn’s challenge and prove himself worthy.

Even, no
especially,
to his father.

Turning back to Morag, he addressed his first hurdle. “So it’s as I thought?” he pressed, not forgetting she’d stated his father wished reconciliation even if he didn’t know it. “My father did not send for me?”

Morag glanced down, fussed at her skirts.

The clansman crowding around them averted their gazes and even those clustered before the hearth looked elsewhere. Those sitting at the nearest trestle table busied themselves making a fuss over Cuillin. Others took great interest in their ale cups or the wisps of smoke curling along the blackened ceiling rafters.

No one met Jamie’s eye. But, he would’ve sworn their cheeks flushed crimson.

He lifted a brow. “So it was Matheson’s doing?”

To his surprise, his kinsmen’s bearded faces turned an even brighter shade of red.

Only Morag had the steel to look at him.

“His doing and ours,” she admitted, leaning heavily on her crummock, the same hazel walking stick Jamie was sure she’d used in his youth. “Alan Mor had the idea after your brothers . . .
er
. . . when his eldest daughter no longer had a betrothed. And we”—she waved a hand at the clansmen suddenly hanging on her every word—“agreed for your da.”

Jamie’s eyes flew wide. “You agreed for him?”

Morag nodded, a touch of belligerence tightening her jaw.

“What else were we to do?” She tilted her head. “Your da isn’t by his wits and willna leave his bed. So we held a clan council. God kens, he’d reached a fine alliance with the Mathesons and he needs the grazing grounds that would’ve been Sorcha’s bride portion. Alan Mor offered a way to uphold the agreement—”

“By seeing me wed to Matheson’s youngest daughter?” Jamie stared at her. “Da knows nothing of this?”

“He does now,” Morag owned, still looking too uncomfortable for Jamie’s liking. “He’s agreed to honor the alliance.”

“And I wouldn’t be standing here were I not willing to meet my obligations,” Jamie returned, his gaze sliding again to the Horn of Days, the great looping swath of his grandfather’s plaid hanging so proudly above it. “He needn’t worry I would unsay his sacred word.”

Rather than answer him, Morag fidgeted. “A man of your da’s ilk is ne’er so easily pleased.”

Jamie looked at her with narrowed eyes, but she’d clamped her lips together and he knew the futility of trying to pry them apart.

So he glanced about the smoke-hazed hall, keenly aware of his kinsmen’s speculative stares and the telltale shifting of their feet. The revealing way the tense silence throbbed in the air.

Curling his fingers around his sword belt, he frowned against his suspicions. Morag was keeping something from him and there was only one way to find out what it was. Not that he should care, all things considered.

But another glance at the dais end of the hall, this time at the empty laird’s chair, twisted his heart. Much as he didn’t care to admit any such weakness.

Sentiment was a dangerous thing.

A pitfall he’d learned to avoid whenever his father crossed his mind.

Giving in to other emotions, he grabbed Morag one more time and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Dinna you worry,” he said, lifting his voice so all could hear him. “I am not here to set Da’s plan to naught. And I’ll do my best to mend the rift between us.”

His declaration made, he snatched up a platter of hot, cheese-filled pasties—a savory favorite of his da’s—and strode from the hall, swiftly mounting the spiraling stone steps to his father’s bedchamber.

A room steeped in darkness and shadows for the shutters were securely fastened and none of the torches or cresset lamps had yet been lit. The only light came from a large log fire blazing on the hearth and a lone night candle.

Munro Macpherson lay asleep in his bed, the covers pulled to his chin, one arm flung over his head.

And the longer Jamie hovered on the threshold gaping at him, the harder he found it to breathe.

So he stalked into the room and plunked down his peace offering on a table beside the hearth. “Cheese pasties just as you like them,” he said, his da’s snores telling him he hadn’t been heard.

“You’re looking fine,” he lied, wondering when his great stirk of an irritable, cross-grained father had grown so old and frail. “A bit of sustenance in your belly, a hot bath, and you’ll be looking even better.”

“I dinna want a bath and I told the lot of you I’m not hungry!” Munro’s eyes popped open and he glared at Jamie. “I only want—holy saints!” he cried, diving beneath the covers. “Would you jump out of the dark at me again?”

“I’m no ghost.” Jamie crossed the room and pulled the covers from his father’s head. “I’m James of the Heather, come home to help you set things aright.”

“You!” Munro pushed up on his elbows, color flooding back into his face. “I gave orders you weren’t to come anywhere near me,” he snapped. “And that trumpet-tongued she-goat of a seneschal and every man belowstairs knows it!”

Jamie sat down on the bed and folded his arms. “Mayhap if you’d eat more than the untouched gruel and watered-down wine on yon table, you’d have the strength to better enforce your wishes?”

“I don’t have any wishes.” Munro glowered at him. “Or can you bring back my sons? And I dinna mean as bogles!”

I am your son
.

Jamie left the words unspoken, knowing now what had troubled Morag and his kinsmen.

His da may well have aligned him in marriage to Alan Mor’s daughter, but he did so believing he’d be spared any contact with the son he’d e’er considered a bone in his throat.

Even so, a wave of pity for the man swept Jamie.

Pushing to his feet, he crossed the room in three quick strides, pausing before the nearest window. “Fresh air will chase the bogles from your mind,” he said, sliding back the latch and throwing wide the shutters.

A blast of cold air rushed inside, but Jamie welcomed its bite. He braced his hands on the window’s stone ledge and stared out at the rain-chilled night.

A quiet night cloaked in drifting mist so thick even the hills beyond Baldreagan’s walls were little more than dark smudges in the swirling gray.

Somewhere out there Aveline Matheson slept.

Or perhaps she stood at her own window, wondering about him.

Just as chivalry deemed he ought to be thinking of her.

If not with eagerness, at least kindly.

Instead, it was a single glimpse of a dazzling will-o’-the-wisp he couldn’t get from his mind. A faery maid so delicate and fine he knew he’d barter his soul if only he could touch a single finger to her shimmering flaxen hair.