Bride of the Beast (13 page)

Though still grumbling beneath his breath, he moved about easily enough, displaying only a trace of his usual awkward gait.

Just as Marmaduke had hoped.

Seeing the younger man too preoccupied to remember to limp, wanned Marmaduke's heart and encouraged his conviction that he'd been sent across Scotland for more reasons than simply lending his warring skills and his name to a lady in need.

At the thought of her, other parts of him began to warm as well, so he smoothed his fingers over the cold metal of the drawplate, testing its strength, and letting its chill staunch the flow of heated blood to his loins.

His lips twitched in irony.

What his own most-times unflagging resolve couldn't wholly achieve, keeping his baser urges at bay, the onerous task before him accomplished with ease.

The distasteful undertaking would steal the itch from any man's tarse. And if it didn't, he'd simply make good his vow to bathe in the sea.

Trouble was, he desired his new lady with more than a persistent pull in his groin. He wanted her with his entire being.

Body, heart, and soul.

And neither his iron will nor the shock of the
North Sea
's icy waters was a mighty enough elixir to assuage a need that burned so deep.

**

Still unnerved from the potency of the kiss her champion had placed on the inside of her wrist, and from the persistent way the name Arabella continued to nibble at her pique, Caterine mounted the circular tower stairs to her bedchamber.

Iron-bracketed wall torches set at convenient intervals in the stairwell hissed and sputtered, their uneasy flickering mirroring her jangled nerves. At the landing, her little dog, Leo, abandoned her to streak down the shadow-cast passage, then hurl himself against her closed bedchamber door.

By the time she caught up with him, he stood with his forelegs propped against the door's oaken panels, his tail wagging furiously.

Rhona.

Caterine's meddlesome companion had to be inside her bedchamber. No one else elicited such an enthusiastic response from Leo. Bracing herself, for she'd hoped to enjoy a few moments of solitude before looking in on Sir Lachlan, she opened the door.

Leo gave a yelp of joy and dashed inside.

Caterine gasped.

Her friend
was
in the room, but rather than Rhona's pretty face, it was her companion's well-rounded bottom that greeted her.

Bent near double, Rhona had opened the iron-bound strongbox at the base of Caterine's curtained bed and appeared to be rummaging through its contents.

"Rhona!" Caterine closed the short distance between them. "Whatever are you about there?"

Straightening immediately, Rhona whirled around, almost tripping over Leo, who ran gleeful circles around her, barking his excitement. "Merciful heavens, but you startled me!" Her eyes wide, she stared at Caterine, a large wooden bowl clutched in her hands.

A wooden bowl with a round, cloth-covered lump inside it.

The Laird's Stone.

A near perfectly round stone of dark gray granite speckled with crystal quartz.

A magical stone said to weep copiously, its tears filling the wooden bowl, each time a master of Dunlaidir died ... and again, this time for joy, when a new lord took his place.

Or so the legend claimed.

Caterine had never seen the phenomena.

"What are you doing with that?" she prompted when Rhona continued to stare at her, gog-eyed and blushing.

She reached for the bowl, but Rhona cradled it protectively against her middle. "I wanted to see if the stone had wept for James yet," she said, back-stepping toward the bank of arch-topped windows behind her.

"For truth, when will you admit that nonsense is naught but stuff and bother?" Caterine blew out a breath of sheer frustration. "A fool legend spun by some long-dead tale-weaver to fill cold and dark winter nights."

"I saw it shed tears when Laird Keith passed." Rhona set the cloth-covered bowl on the cushioned seat of the window embrasure and folded her arms. "You saw the water in the bowl, too. Everyone did."

"After you fetched the silly thing!" Caterine snapped, fast losing patience. "Mayhap you poured water over the stone."

"Hah! Think you I would stoop to such trickery?"

"And whose deception do we have to t
hank
that an
English
champion now dwells within these walls? A Sassunach I am soon to wed ... in large part because of your trickery."

Rhona's brow knit. "I thought you were coming to favor him?"

Glancing away lest her friend read too much into the heat Caterine could feel blooming on her cheeks, she sought haven from her whirling emotions in the familiar expanse of sea and sky stretching beyond the tall windows.

The well-cherished view calmed her as soundly as the chill salt air streaming through the opened windows cooled her burning cheeks.

"Whether I favor him or nay, the Laird's Stone and its legend has no more credence than any other bard's tale," she said, her gaze on the wind-whipped sea. "Sir Marmaduke Strongbow is and shall remain an Englishman."

And I am not woman enough to follow the yearnings of my heart... the ghosts of too many other Englishmen stand in the way.

Squaring her shoulders, Caterine turned back to face her friend. 'Tradition, fanciful or nay, deems a new laird's worthiness must be recognized by the stone before it will weep." Her gaze locked on Rhona's. "Even if the legend were true, think you truly the stone would welcome James as new lord with
him
beneath our roof?"

She waved a silencing hand when Rhona started to protest. "I do not believe such folly, but you do. So how can you expect the stone to honor James as Dunlaidir's new master when one so brave and bold—"

"So you are coming to care for him."

"I am not..." Caterine trailed off when Rhona's mouth crooked in a knowing smile. Crossing her arms, Caterine fixed her with an unblinking stare.

"You
do
favor him."

"He ...
intrigues
me," Caterine admitted, not willing to concede more. Taking the younger woman by the elbow, she escorted her across the rush-strewn floor and out of the chamber. Only when she closed and barred the door behind her, did she release the breath she'd been holding.

Across the room, the wooden bowl and its cloth-covered contents beckoned, but at the moment, she'd rather plunge her hand into a pit of hissing vipers than peek beneath the harmless-looking cloth.

Should, after all these years, the Laird's Stone choose this moment to perform for her, its tears heralding Sir Mar-maduke Strongbow as Dunlaidir's new master might prove more of a shock than she could shoulder. For Rhona knew her well. She favored him indeed.

And that knowledge disturbed her almost as much as her reasons for not wanting to.

**

"By
rope?
"
James gaped at the sturdy length of knotted rope disappearing over Dunlaidir's seaward wall. "A horde of flaming firedrakes wouldn't send me down that cliff on a rope. The drop is sheer with nary a ledge to rest upon."

Sir Ross stopped tying knots in a second rope long enough to toss him an amused glance. "Dinna tell me you'd prefer the latrine chute?"

The other men chuckled. Even the most-times dour Sir
John
joined in their mirth. 'It would be a fast ride down," he agreed, peering over the wall. "That I warrant."

James remained silent, his mouth pressed into a tight-lipped line.

"Aye, a swift descent to be sure ... if a bit smelly," another of the MacKenzie men, Sir Alec, blustered, the good-natured gleam in his eyes evidence to all save James, that he meant the words in harmless jest.

"Enough." Marmaduke swept them with a comradely but
warning glance.

"No ill will meant, young sire." Alec gave James a friendly thwack on the arm. "Our blood yet runs high from this morn, is all."

"And the day is not yet spent. Jocular banter will not see the latrine chute sealed." Marmaduke glanced at the line of dark storm clouds crouching above the horizon before turning to Ross. "Have you finished with the second rope?"

"Aye," the Highlander affirmed and yanked hard on the rope. "It bears enough knots for its purpose and is strong enough to support an ox if need be."

Marmaduke tossed a glance through one of the crenel openings at the jagged rocks, below. Chill seawind whipped his hair and whistled past his ears, but he welcomed its salt-laden bite.

The intruders' round-hulled coracle still bobbed atop the swells and great plumes of sea spray shot high up the cliff face. Of his assailant's corpse, was nary a trace. Only the tiny boat, the roar of the surf, and the dangling rope.

Turning away from the wall, he unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to Sir
John
. The fourth MacKenzie warrior, Sir Gowan, helped him shrug out of his mailed shirt. Once free of his undertunic as well, he slanted a sidelong glance at James.

The young lord peered over the wall. "You do not expect me to go down that rope?" A dull red flush began inching up his neck. "I... I cannot swim."

"And no one is asking you to," Marmaduke assured him, stretching his arms over his head and flexing his fingers.

"The second rope is to lower the satchel and drawplate. I will use the other to climb down the cliff. You and Ross need only hold the ropes."

"Him hold one of the ropes? Best say your prayers if it's yours." The gruff voice came from the back of the circle of men gathered near and was quickly followed by a merry round of sniggers and snorts.

The Keith men.

"... a-taking your life in your hands, Strongbow, or rather, leaving it in his hands," another called out, his booming voice echoing off the thick stone of the seawall.

Quelling their buffoonery with a black look, Marmaduke knelt on the cobbles to secure the satchel and the drawplate to the knot-free end of the second rope.

"Have a care holding this," he said to Ross, then tossed the rope and its weighty cargo over the wall. "I do not wish to attempt this twice."

Saints, his innards twisted at the very thought.

They clenched even more at the possibility James Keith might not have the stamina to support his weight.

But he'd take his chances on both counts.

The expectant expressions on the faces of Dunlaidir's household knights left him little choice.

Thus committed, he returned to where the first rope disappeared over the edge of the same embrasure opening his assailant had fallen through earlier.

The man's death scream echoed in his mind the instant his fingers closed around the knotted rope.

"Do not disappointment me," he said, thrusting the end of the rope into James's hands. "I am not yet ready to exit this world."

Then, before his own niggling doubts about James's capabilities could stop him, he swung himself over the wall. Fierce gusts of sea wind seized him at once, ceaseless blasts of brine-laden air that bit into his bare back and whipped his hair across his face, making the perilous descent even more difficult.

He kept his gaze on the vertical rock face in front of him. Glistening wet and dark, the very stone reeked of the sea and a fouler, more rank odor that could only have to do with the purpose of his descent.

As he neared the bottom, great plumes of whitish foam shot upward, encircling him in a shimmering, luminescent cloud that misted his skin and lent cooling relief to his straining arm and thigh muscles.

At last his feet met the jumble of rocks at the cliff's base, but a thick coating of darkish slime and slippery clumps of long-tendrilled seagrass made the simple feat of standing an earnest challenge.

Frigid waves slammed into the backs of his knees, posing a further test to his balancing skills. The satchel and drawplate rested nearby and the garderobe chute loomed not five feet above the rocks, protected from the sea's endless pounding by a cave-like niche carved deep into the face of the cliff.

Securely tied to one of the larger rocks, the coracle rose and fell with the sea's turbulent rhythm. Eager to be done, Marmaduke thrust his dirk into the hide-covered hull. He made several long gashes, then cut the tethers, freeing the little boat to sink beneath the waves.

Straightening, he made his way to the cliff face. Someone long before him had cut deep into the rock, widening what must've been a natural fissure. An alcove of sorts, shielded from the most vicious lashings of the wind but filled with heavy, stagnant air.

Long-corroded shards of twisted iron protruded from the opening's edges, bearing testament that a grate of some sorts had once guarded this foul-reeking route out of, or into, the bowels of Dunlaidir.

Revulsion and a keen awareness of the pressing need to be done before the heavens cracked open, lent speed to his handiwork.

Blessedly, the drawplate proved a perfect fit.