Bride of the Beast (29 page)

And whoever fired it, meant to silence that wretch's tongue before Black Dugie could haul him before me.

Keeping that sentiment to himself, Marmaduke sheathed his steel, no longer concerned that a second assassin lurked w the surrounding woods.

His instincts—and the chill slithering down his spine— told him the danger lurked much closer.

So keenly aware of looming treachery he could taste its foulness on the frosty air, he clamped a hand on the smithy's Wood-sullied shoulder. "I am indebted to you," he said "I'd like to see you tending Dunlaidir's forge, but if you so desire, you are welcome to accompany me to Balkenzie when I leave. I am in need of a good smith."

The big man inclined his head, clearly unaccustomed to praise.

James's face colored. Sir
John
began muttering beneath his breath about insolents and minions.

Marmaduke ignored them both. "Do something with the body, then hie yourself to Eoghann," he ordered Black Dugie, raising his voice to overtone Sir
John
's diatribe.

"I'll ensure he prepares a bath and fresh clothes for you. Then join us in the hall for the wedding feast." He let go of the smith's shoulder, but clapped him on the arm before he turned away. "You will be made welcome, I promise you."

Swinging up onto his saddle, he schooled his features into his best set-faced expression, then looked at the other two men.

James.

Sir
John
.

One, a traitor.

But why?

He burned to know, and would, but first, he'd bide his time. An enemy watched closely was a harmless one.

He also had other matters weighing on his mind.

"Come, my bride waits," he said, heeding the most pressing of them. "And we, my good men, have a long night ahead of us."

**

A scant few hours later, but worlds away from the parish church steps and the exhilaration of a champion's kiss, Caterine stood in the shadowy cold of Dunlaidir's undercroft and tried not to show her trepidation as her new husband pulled his handsome blue surcoat over his head.

He tossed its resplendence onto the stone-flagged floor, then discarded his mailed hauberk as well. Wearing naught but leather hose, knee-high boots, and a linen undershirt, his magnificence stole her breath.

A bold air of confidence surrounded him, a calm and steely determination she hoped would see him through the coming raid unscathed.

Her own bravura faltered when he took a fine English-styled gambeson from Eoghann's outstretched hands, and donned it with the quiet assurance of a man who'd seen many battles... and didn't flinch at facing another.

She
did flinch at the notion, and the well-padded leather shirt sent rivers of dread pouring through her.

Knights—the well-equipped Sassunach ones—wore such garments beneath their hauberks to absorb the shock of heavy blows.

Or lessen the penetration of a well-aimed bow shot.

Ne'er had she seen one donned for the clandestine lifting of a few head of Scottish cattle.

Alarm constricting her heart, she stepped from the shadows. "I would speak with you," she said. "Privily."

He arched a brow, the dangerous glint in his good eye warming to one of... tender amusement. "Lest you wish to discuss that which we shall attend to upon my return, there is naught you cannot address before my men."

Behind her, one of his not-so-gallant stalwarts sniggered.

The others followed quick suit.

Her cheeks flaming, Caterine slid a pointed look at Black Dugie.

The smithy guarded the archway out of the undercroft, blocking the stairs with the sheer mass of his bulk and a frown as dark as his name.

Fisting her hands against her hips, Caterine looked back at her husband. "All here are not your men."

"Mayhap not, but there is nary a man present whose heart I do not trust."

Caterine compressed her lips.

He
folded his arms ... but relented first.

With a shrug of his wide-set shoulders, he chucked her under the chin. "I thought I married a plain-speaking woman?"

"You did."

His gaze not leaving her, he lifted her hand and kissed it. "Then please me here as you do abovestairs, and say your mind."

A new spat of chortles sounded from his men.

"Well?" He held fast to her hand and rubbed his thumb back and forth over the large ruby of his signet ring.

A ring now on her hand.

Wholly distracted, she glanced around the undercroft at his men... and quickly recalled the reason for her disquiet.

The Highlanders stood about in varying stages of undress, each one adorning himself with the trappings of war. All save Sir Lachlan, who'd been ordered to remain behind to help maintain the pretense Sir Marmaduke had vanished abovestairs to bed his new wife when, later, he and his small raiding party slipped from the hall.

"Well?" her husband asked again, smoothing his knuckles down her arm. "Are you still troubled by the incident on the road?"

"Naught privy 'bout that," Sir Gowan tossed between them, his words muffled by the boiled-leather jerkin he was drawing over his head. "We all ken what happened."

Sir Ross looked up from stuffing mail coifs, and the padded head-caps worn beneath them, into a leather pouch. "That blighted devil won't be darkening the road to Dun-laidir ever again."

He aimed a reassuring smile her way, but the sight of the steel-mesh headgear dangling from his fingers proved more disconcerting than comforting.

It was ...
telling.

And the reason for the ill-ease marching up and down her spine.

"I am not concerned about the dead man," she said. "H
⁶
would only trouble me if his arrow had struck true."

"Indeed?" Sir Marmaduke cupped her chin and looked deep into her eyes.

"Aye, indeed," she spoke the truth, frustration writhing like a trapped serpent in her belly.

She jerked free and waved a hand at the panoply of knightly war-goods scattered all about them. "Since when is such metal needed to lift a few cattle?"

Since I learned we 'd be routing out a swine along with fetching a bit of fair eating for your table.

"Since someone attempted to fire an arrow in your back or mine on our return from the parish church," Marmaduke said, and hoped the half-truth would appease her.

It didn't.

She squared her shoulders, a wealth of comprehension pooling in her sapphire eyes. "Sirrah, I believe you seek to calm me."

"And is that not what champions are meant to do?" He deliberately laid a note of easy gallantry on top of the words. "That, and slay dragons?"

Something indefinable, but disturbing enough to lance his heart, flashed across her face. "I doubt anyone can slay mine." The words came so softly he scarce heard them. "Not all of them."

"You err, my lady." Slipping his arm around her shoulders, he drew her aside, out of hearing range of his men. "You err greatly."

She'd removed her sister's veil and he touched his fingers to the sleekness of her coiled braids. The urge to undo them and bury his face in her unbound hair near unmanned Wm, but the clink of metal all around them kept his head cool.

He'd explore the glories of her golden hair later.
All
of her golden hair.

"And how do I err?" she breathed, disarming him with one limpid blue gaze. Gladly capitulating, Marmaduke gathered her close and knew true peace when she slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder.

"You err, because I shall not only slay each and every on
_e
of your dragons, but scatter their remains on the four winds so they can never darken your heart again."

The promise made, he lifted her chin and kissed her.

Not the hot slaking kiss he'd given her in the church, but one of great tenderness. A smooth and gentle caressing, a mere grazing of his lips over hers, until he'd absorbed enough of her sweetness to hold him through the hours to come.

And, hopefully, until some of the doubt left her heart.

Easing away at last, he nuzzled his face against her cheek. "Every last dragon, my lady, and we shall begin hastening their demise as soon as I've returned."

**

As soon as I've returned.

The promise steadied her, shoring up her backbone with each blessed whirl across her heart. Embraced by the faith she put in his vow, Caterine sat beside her husband at the wedding feast, if the chaos reigning in the hall could still be called such, and struggled to ignore the swiftly passing hours.

Soon it'd be time for him to steal away.

The surety of it stood reflected in the drunken cries of the revelers, in the spit and hiss of the guttering torches, their flames nearly spent, and in the increasing number of heads slumped upon the trestle tables.

Snoring heads.

Carousers too deep in their cups to notice when her brave champion and his stalwarts took their leave.

Or, as evident in some of the hall's murkier corners, too lost in wanton pursuits to care.

Peering past the rows of tables, Caterine's gaze sought and found Rhona. Like many of the ale-headed celebrants-her friend and James had indulged in amorous tangling

most of the evening, but now the secluded alcove where they'd entertained their passion loomed empty. Save for Rhona.

She leaned against the stone tracery of the lancet window, half-hidden in the shadows, strumming her lute and singing a love song. But when Caterine caught her eye, she set the lute on the window seat, a signal meant for Caterine alone.

Confirmation that James had left her side to tryst with Sir
John
in the darkest corner of the bailey where they'd wait with saddled horses until the other men joined men. The time had come.
Every last dragon.

The words, and the dragon slayer's hand sliding over hers where it rested atop the table, gave her the strength to continue the game.

Pushing back the trencher they'd shared, she spoke the rehearsed words. "Faith, if I eat another bite of roasted seabird, I shall fly away."

Her husband's fingers, strong and warm, gave hers a reassuring squeeze.

His man, the bearded Gowan glanced sharply at her... and inclined his head. Then, pushing to his feet, he strode off through the smoke-hazed hall and... vanished.

Soon the others would rise as well and, one by one, disappear.

Playing their parts, as had she for the last hour or so, plying her new husband with all the dubious delicacies Dunlaidir's depleted stores could muster. Imbibing more braised sea-tangle and bannocks than her stomach could bear. And smiling all the while.

She'd sipped hippocras from the same cup as her groom and indulged the onlookers' glee by letting him kiss droplets of the heady spiced wine from her lips. He'd even caught one or two from her chin with his tongue.
That,
the watching throng had loved.

And so had she, boldly wondering how many dragons his wickedly rousing tongue could banish.

But for now, such delights spun unheeded on the farthest edges of her mind, banished there by the departure of another MacKenzie. Sir Ross, a large man of no particular grace, had slipped away as quietly as if he'd ne'er been there at all.

And he'd taken Sir Alec with him, for that veteran knight's place at the end of the high table raged vacant as well. One moment he'd been there. The next, he was gone. Only Sir Lachlan remained... and would. To staunchly declare Sir Marmaduke Strongbow had taken his bride to bed, should any possess the wits to notice their
absence.

Or the daring to comment if they did. "It is time for us to win away." The words, murmured just above her ear, startled her. Without realizing she'd moved, she was on her feet, the iron strength of his arm firm around her waist.

No one objected. No one called out.

Only he hesitated, looking at her with such intensity it seared a path of heat clear to her heart. Taking her elbow, he began guiding her from the hall, but stopped short after just

a few paces.

"Hellfire and botheration,"
he muttered, catching her beneath the knees and sweeping her into his arms, holding her tight against his mail-clad chest as he carried her from the hall and up a winding stair.

Not the stair tower to her bedchamber, but a darker one,

dank and cold.

A little-used turret, poorly lit and reeking of the sea, and accessing several lesser-used passages. Including the one he'd follow to his trysting place with the other men.

He paused on the first landing, easing her to her feet, but not releasing her. Seizing her to him, he slanted his mouth over hers in a thunderous kiss. She slid her arms around him, clinging fast to his shoulders when he broke the contact.