Once a Warrior (14 page)

Malcolm’s breath froze.

His mind was playing tricks on him, he realized numbly. It was the alcohol, combined with guilt and exhaustion, that made him think this was Ariella. He did not believe in ghosts or spirits. He did not even believe in seers, or any of the other superstitious nonsense the people of the Highlands so delighted in. Yet he stood there, unable to pull his gaze away from the woman contemplating the moon, afraid if he blinked, she would vanish forever. Finally he did blink, and still she remained. Relief swept through him.

Then she turned and disappeared, leaving him alone in the shadows of the courtyard.

He could not let her go. Not without telling her how deeply sorry he was for all that had happened. She had died because of him. She had set her chamber afire and allowed herself to be engulfed by the flames. A hideous, painful death. He did not expect her to forgive him. He was not worthy of forgiveness. But he needed to beg for it all the same. He wanted her to know he had never meant for these terrible things to happen.

And that had he been able, he would have come.

The sleeping herb fell in a pale cloud onto the crimson surface of her wine.

Ariella picked up the goblet and swirled it around a few times, watching the powder dissolve. Her arm was throbbing badly, preventing her from lying upon those clean sheets and falling asleep. Elizabeth had carefully stitched and bandaged her wound, while Agnes had arranged for a hot bath to soothe her aching muscles. Together her friends had washed her filthy hair, giving her a brief respite from the ashes she would rub into it again tomorrow, and dressed her in a soft linen chemise. Realizing her injury would make sleep elusive, Ariella then took a special mix of herbs to help her rest. But several hours had passed, and she remained frustratingly awake. She seated herself before the fire and sipped her wine, waiting for her mind to relinquish her body to the comfort of sleep. But try as she might, she could not quell her horror over what had happened that day.

Someone had tried to kill MacFane.

At first she had tried to convince herself it was an accident. But she had seen the cloaked rider emerge from the woods, slowly, stealthily, a hunter closing in on its prey. The woods had been filled with the sound of MacFane’s laughter. No one could have missed it.

The rider had known they were there, had wanted to find them. And when he appeared, his arrow taut against the string of his bow, he took swift but careful aim. Ariella had barely had time to throw herself at MacFane as the shaft cut through the air. It had pierced her arm, but the wound was nothing. Nothing compared to the terrible fact that someone had tried to kill the Black Wolf.

Someone from her clan.

She knew they did not want him here. Their aversion to being trained by the man who had failed them so profoundly was easy to understand. And in his current condition MacFane was far from the magnificent warrior they had dreamed would come to save them. But she was keeper of the sword, and her clan was expected to abide by her decisions. The idea that someone would try to injure MacFane, even if that person had meant only to frighten him away, was shocking. At this moment he was their only hope of learning how to fend off another attack by Roderic, or someone else like him. Until she found the rightful laird and gave him the sword, the MacKendricks were dangerously vulnerable. What could anyone possibly hope to gain by getting rid of MacFane?

She sipped her wine and gazed pensively at the fire, struggling to think clearly as the sleeping herb began to dull her senses. Perhaps, she reflected, there was someone in the clan who worried she might give the sword to MacFane. The idea was ridiculous. Although he was proving a reasonably able teacher and adviser, MacFane’s battered body, his failure of his own clan, his addiction to alcohol, and his lack of an army made him hopelessly unfit for the honor and responsibility of becoming the next MacKendrick. Choosing MacFane would condemn her clan to suffering and destruction. But her people did not know the extent of his injuries, or that he had been cast out as chief of the MacFanes, or that his mighty army was now led by another. Or that he drowned himself in a vortex of alcohol each night. No man with such overwhelming weaknesses could wield the MacKendrick sword. What might have been, she wondered, if she had met MacFane when he’d been at the pinnacle of his physical power and ability? Could the sword have saved him from his own destruction?

It was irrelevant, she reminded herself bitterly. He was here now, not out of any noble desire to help her people, but because she had bribed him with gold. Their arrangement was simple. She would use him for his knowledge of training and fortifications, and see that her clan worked hard to benefit from that knowledge.

The minute he was no longer needed, she would send him away.

The door creaked softly. She glanced up, wondering who could be needing to speak with her at this hour.

At the sight of MacFane she leaped to her feet, spilling her goblet of wine across the front of her nightdress.

Malcolm stared in horrified fascination at the exquisite apparition standing before him. Her hair was the color of the richest, glossiest wood, threaded with coppery highlights that gleamed in the light of the fire. It was thick, as he had known it would be, and fluid with the waves he had previously seen carved in stone. Only its length surprised him. Instead of cascading down to the small of her back, it fell barely past her shoulders. It must have burned off in the fire, he realized, experiencing a stab of loss. Her skin was pale, her features delicate and fine. How well he knew the contours of that face: the small, straight nose, those elegant cheekbones, that sweetly determined thrust of a chin. Everything about her was painfully familiar, from the lush curve of her lips to her wide gray eyes. She stared at him in dismay, as if she feared him, although he could not imagine why she should. The apricot pulse of firelight reduced her linen gown to the most transparent of veils, revealing the slender, round lines of her form. A hot surge of desire flared within him. Appalled by his unseemly reaction, he moved his gaze down. Only then did he notice the splash of scarlet staining the front of her nightdress.

She was covered in blood.

“Forgive me,” he managed, his voice a rough crack against the hush of the chamber.

She regarded him uncertainly, as if she did not understand.

“I—I didn’t know,” he continued, feeling helpless and ashamed. “I didn’t understand the danger you were in.”

She said nothing. But her silence was condemning.

“Even if I had,” he admitted, despising himself as he wrestled with his confession, “there was nothing I could do. I had no army to lead to your rescue. No arsenal of weapons and shields and horses.” He gestured in disgust at himself as he added, “Not even a sound body with which to fight.”

Her gray eyes grew shadowed. She stayed there watching him, her small form rigid, as if she found his pathetic excuses cowardly.

And they were.

“You are right, milady,” he admitted finally, his voice a raw whisper. “I should have come.”

The guilt of it was more than he could endure. Sick with remorse, he closed his eyes, blocking out the terrible bloodstained sight of her. He wished he could exchange his life for hers. She, at least, had had a life worth living, with people who had loved and needed her. Instead she had burned, condemning him to carry the excruciating burden of yet another death upon his conscience.

He did not think he could bear it.

“Ariella,” he whispered, the name haunting and bittersweet, “I am so goddamn sorry.”

Ariella stared at him in stunned surprise. She had never seen MacFane like this. Often he appeared tormented, but she had judged it a selfish torment, with roots that drank deep of self-pity. The man standing before her was not the MacFane who got drunk and bitterly wondered if he had really performed the reputed feats of the Black Wolf. This man was intoxicated, yes, but not self-pitying. Instead he was consumed by the single thought that he was responsible for a woman’s death. And the thought of it rendered him so guilt ridden, he could not bring himself even to look at her spirit.

She had every reason to despise him. He had failed her, her father, her people. Yet in this solemn, silent moment she could not hate him. She was far too shaken by the depths of his suffering.

He could not stay there much longer, she realized, or he would soon start to wonder why her spirit didn’t fade into the air. She poured him a goblet of wine, liberally dosed with sleeping powder.

“Drink, MacFane,” she ordered, holding the goblet out to him. “All of it.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. If he was surprised by the fact that an apparition could speak, he made no comment on it. Instead he reached for the goblet. His fingers brushed hers as he took hold of it, a flash of warmth against her cool skin. Keeping his blue gaze locked upon her, he tilted his head and obediently drained the glass. Then he wiped his mouth against the back of his hand and carefully placed the goblet on the table.

“Do not torment yourself over my death,” she murmured quietly. “It is done.”

He shook his head. He did not deserve absolution.

“You died a hideous death because of me. You watched your father die, saw your fellow clansmen cut to pieces as they fought to protect their home. All the while clinging to the hope that maybe I would come. But, Christ,” he swore, suddenly angry, “couldn’t you have waited a while longer? If you had but agreed to wed this warrior, then you would have lived. You could have sent word to me again. I would have found some way to help.”

“I could not wed him,” Ariella replied. “I could not make him laird of my people. Their suffering would have been—unimaginable.”

“Even cruel, oppressive lairds can be killed,” Malcolm argued. “They are not invincible.”

With the sword he would have been. As my father would have been, had he only thought to keep it close.
She knew the weapon alone could not have saved her clan. But at least her father would not have fallen beneath the blade of Roderic’s sword.

“I could not wed him,” she repeated stonily. Terrible memories began to unfurl, images of the suffering she had witnessed that day. “After all he had done, I would rather die than have him touch me.” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shield herself from the horrors eddying through her mind.

That he could understand. “Of course,” he said, feeling brutish and stupid for even suggesting it. He moved closer. “He had no right to touch you.”

He reached out and unthinkingly laid his hand against her cheek, forgetting she was a ghost and would have no substance. To his surprise she was decidedly solid beneath his touch. Solid, yet small and delicate. And cool, he mused, feeling her tremble slightly. Despite the fact that she stood before the hot flames of the fire, which were warm upon his skin. She did not move away from his touch, nor did she lean into it. Instead she remained utterly still, staring at him, her eyes silvery in the amber wash of firelight. Desire poured through him, clouding his thoughts. This was the woman who might have been his. The woman who had been offered as his wife, if only he had been man enough to come and protect her. The woman who would have lain beside him at night, wrapped in his arms, her cheek a scrap of pale silk against his aching chest. Overwhelmed with loss, he trailed his fingers along the fragile line of her jaw, across her small chin, down the creamy column of her throat. The rapid beat of a pulse fluttered against his fingertips, faint as the whisper of a moth’s wings. In his mind he knew she was dead. Yet to him she was as filled with life as his own flesh, or the ripple of flames behind her, or the air gusting softly through the window.

“Ariella,” he murmured, his voice rough with need. He sank his fingers deep into the coppery silk of her hair and leaned closer, inhaling the scent of soap and heather. Her eyes were shimmering with uncertainty, but she did not retreat. And in that moment she somehow ceased to be a ghost, or a mere trick of his imagination. His mind reeling with wine and desire, he wrapped his arms around her.

And then, accepting the fact that he had gone absolutely insane, he bent his head low and took her lips in his.

Ariella held her breath, so startled was she by the feel of Malcolm’s mouth pressed warm and hard against hers. She knew she should push him away. He had no right to touch her so, no right to pull her against the solid heat of his body, no right to hold her fast against him as his mouth invaded hers with a terrible, frightening desperation. But somehow she could not bring herself to resist, to raise her arms and shove against his chest and step away. A strange sensation began to grow within her, slowly at first, a tiny ember glowing deep in the pit of her stomach. She tried to force it from her mind as Malcolm’s hands began to possessively stroke her back, her shoulders, her waist, her hips, exploring the curves and valleys of her as if he could not quite believe she was real, and needed to see for himself. His kiss grew bolder and more demanding, suckling her lips, then tasting her with his tongue, until she gasped in surprise at the dark pleasure flooding through her. This enabled him to kiss her deeply, thoroughly, stripping away the last vestiges of her resistance. The ember in her stomach burst into flame. Unable to restrain herself, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. His immense height forced her to raise herself on her toes, causing her to lean against the hard breadth of his body. He tightened his embrace, wrapping her in his strength and power and need, touching her and tasting her and holding her until she was dizzy from it, until she felt as if she were coming to life for the first time, that everything before this moment had been but a shadow of the sensations pouring through her as she kissed the man who had been destined to be her husband.

The man who had failed to come when she needed him, leaving her clan to suffer.

Shame pierced her senses. In that same instant Malcolm squeezed her injured arm, causing her to cry out. He instantly released his hold and drew back.