Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (17 page)

At the thought, his tarse raged harder than the bone hilt of his dirk, but he took the bait and spun to face her—and saw at once exactly how she’d chosen to express her
defiance.

Not that he could see much of her at all, buried as she was beneath a welter of furs and mounded pillows.

She’d extinguished the night candle, but enough of the fire glow seeped between the parted bed curtains to reveal the lusty spark of humor in her dark-flashing eyes. Equally telling, she appeared to be biting her lip to keep from smiling.

And those brief—but startlingly revealing—glimpses of her indomitable spirit filled the cold places inside him with warmth just as glorious as the fierce heat that had swept through him upon glimpsing her naked-swaying breasts.

For one precious moment, he savored that warmth, holding it as close and dear as he’d like to hold her. Then, with a heavy sigh, he crossed the room, seeking sanctuary in the infinitely safer wash of cool, gray moonlight spilling through the opened windows.

And if the saints had any mercy at all, they’d let the patter of the mizzling rain, the hollow whistle of the wind, his own wise distance from the bed, blur the tale he’d promised to tell.

Ill ease nipping at every inch of him, he stared up at the black-raftered ceiling and began. “The first keeper of this castle, Reginald of the Victories, had but one arm,” he said, his words eliciting a sharp gasp of surprise from his wife . . . just as he’d known they would.

“But I’d heard he was a great warrior,” she argued from the bed. “How—”

“By all accounts he was a much-esteemed man—the most skilled warrior in all the Isles,” Magnus confirmed, tossing her just the wee hint of a sad smile. “But life being as it is, there always comes a day when even the greatest amongst us meets someone better skilled. That day cost Reginald his right arm, and he never considered himself a whole man thereafter.”

“Was he married when he lost his arm?” Amicia raised herself on an elbow, peered at him through the gloom. “Is that the sadness in the tale? His wife stopped loving him?”

“Nay, far from it—she loved him deeply. That is the tragedy, for he could not believe it.”

“Because his pride would not let him?”

“So tradition claims,” Magnus admitted, pulling a hand down over his face. “He had only just married and was building this stronghold when his arm was sliced off in the heat of a fierce battle. Although he’d e’er been a bonny man of quick wit and a sunny nature, he quickly grew bitter.”

Amicia sat up straighter, but still kept her nakedness well-hid beneath the bedcovers. “He must’ve kept building the castle?”

“Och, aye, that he did.” Magnus stared at the falling rain, preferring not to see if the coverlets slipped. “He spared no expense or trouble, strove to build the finest stronghold these isles had e’er seen.”

He blew out a frustrated breath, hating what he must tell her.

“Reginald hoped to impress his new bride, see you? He feared she would not love him unless he gave her the grandest home his coin and standing could provide.”

“But you said she loved him deeply.”

“And she did.” Magnus sighed. “With the whole of her heart and every breath she drew.”

“She didn’t care that he’d lost his arm,” Amicia said, making the words a statement.

“Nay, she didn’t—not one whit. But she did doubt Reginald’s love, even though the
seannachies
tell us he loved her endlessly.” Magnus’s stomach began to pitch and twist. This was the part he’d been dreading. “’Tis said he ne’er spoke his heart to her, ne’er laid bare his innermost feelings. He only devoted himself—his life—to building this castle.”

He slid a glance at her, then immediately wished he hadn’t, for her unbound hair now spilled in charming disarray around her shoulders. The long, black-gleaming tresses beckoned almost indecently, demanding all manner of lascivious attention even as she stared at him all
dewy
-eyed, her feminine heart most assuredly guessing the end of the tale.

“She felt unloved,” she said, proving him right.

Worse, her lower lip wobbled with tears she clearly fought to keep from spilling. “She didn’t ken
why
he was so obsessed with building the castle and he ne’er told her.”

Magnus pressed his fingers to the icy-damp stone of the window molding and a great shudder racked his spine. “Every new day saw them loving more, yet growing further apart,” he said, borrowing one of Hugh’s descriptions of the pair when his own words failed him. “With each new stone laid, each new comfort provided, rather than showing the appreciation and devotion Reginald hoped to win from her, his lady—Margaret was her name—only became more sad-eyed.”

“Did she not
tell
him how she felt?”

“More times than there are stars in the sky.” Another of Hugh’s quotes. “But each time she did, or begged him to reveal
his
heart to her, he would either plunge himself into some pressing castle-building task, or fall into an exhausted sleep from having done so.”

A sniffle came from the direction of the bed.

Magnus suppressed a groan . . . and an urge to smash his fist into the chamber’s cold, arras-hung wall.

“So Reginald of the Victories could not see his greatest victory of all.” The statement came on a long, quivering sigh. “He ne’er knew that it was not a proud and mighty castle his lady wife so desired—she wanted only his love,” Amicia concluded.

“That will have been the way of it, aye,” Magnus agreed, bracing himself to tell her the rest, wishing she hadn’t proved so persistently curious.

So persuasive.

“And loving him as she did, life without his love held no meaning for her.”

At his words, all color drained from her face. “So that is why you called her doomed. She took her own life, didn’t she?”

Magnus nodded. “Hers, and surely Reginald’s, too, for from the day she let herself fall from the parapet walk, he is said to have grown ever more bitter, believing until his death that she’d taken her life rather than endure being bound to a man who was not whole.”

“Oh, dear saints . . .” Amicia gasped, dashing silvery tears from her cheeks with trembling fingers.

Furious with himself for distressing her, and equally frustrated with her for giving him scant choice, Magnus stared out at the dark, impassionate night and pulled in a great, spine-stiffening breath of the chill air.

When he trusted himself to speak again, he turned back to her. “There is more. The reason many believe a pall—or curse—lies over all who live within these walls. Would you truly know Coldstone’s heart, my lady?”

She nodded, her eyes still misting but with a decidedly belligerent spark beginning to replace the tears.

“Then know you that from Margaret’s death onward, the stones of this castle turned cold—so frigid that even the brightest summer day cannot warm them. Hence, the name Coldstone,” he told her, his nape prickling at the way her chin thrust higher upon each spoken word.

“Some say their ill-fated love yet lives—remaining as a clear memory to this day, ever locked within the chill damp of Coldstone’s walls.”

Her eyes fair blazing now, Amicia regarded him long and hard. “Then I would say it is well past time for someone to release them.”

Magnus blinked. He had no answer to that.

But for one breath-catching moment, something inside him leapt and brightened; then the sensation passed as quickly as it’d come.

So he strode for his pallet in silence and thought, stripping off his knightly accoutrements as he went, leaving his wife to stare after him . . . or seek her slumber.

He also tossed aside her fool notions.

Impossible, dangerous notions.

Delving too deeply into romantic old tales best forgotten would mean exposing his own heart.

And that was something he had no intention of doing.

In especial, not to her.

Chapter Eight

’T
WAS THE SMELL THAT AWAKENED HIM.

“Saints of glory!” The imprecation burst from Magnus’s lips, the stench’s bite watering his eyes.

Rank and penetrating, the foul miasma weighted the air and invaded his nostrils with each indrawn breath. Too sleep-fogged to think clearly, he cracked his eyes to merest slits, half-expecting to find himself adrift in the cesspit.

Blessedly, the dull gleam of his discarded hauberk and the pointedly closed bed hangings of the huge four-poster, outlined in shadow across the room, swiftly dispelled that particular concern.

Not quite first light, a damp, blustery wind poured through the opened windows, rippling the wall hangings and causing the hanging cresset lamp to sway on its chain. A light drizzle still fell, and its soft splatter on the stone window ledges heralded the start of another wet, gray day.

Blinking, he rubbed at the crick in his neck. That pain, and the acute throbbing at his temples, attested to a poor night’s sleep . . . a chaste one spent on his pallet of rumpled furs.

Much as he’d rather it’d been otherwise.

In especial, he could have done without the firm press of Boiny’s shaggy back against his side. Or even more vexing, the dog’s noxious emissions poisoning his lungs.

Wincing, he pushed up on an elbow and glowered menace at the sleeping dog. “You chose an inopportune moment to rekindle our affection, old lad,” he grumbled, reaching to tousle the beast’s floppy ears nonetheless.

Stench cloud or nay.

Who was to say what less than appetizing habits he’d develop upon achieving his own gray-bearded years?

So he settled for a grimace and his wince, and saved any further harsh words for a soul more deserving of them.

Another sidelong look at Boiny, and he stood. Stiff and sore from the too-short night, and trying not to breathe too deeply, he moved about, snatching up his scattered clothes.

He tugged on his braies, eager to be gone, and Boiny seized the moment to claim the pallet’s warmth. Making it his own, the dog sprawled full-length across the mounded skins and borrowed blankets, seemingly content to wallow in his wicked, odorous fumes.

Indeed, Magnus scarce had time to don his boots before another sharp wave of offensiveness rose up to taint the chill morning air.

Pulling a face that would have sent the Devil running, he thrust his arms a bit more roughly than need be into the sleeves of his under-tunic and yanked it over his head. He swiped his sword belt off the table, girding it about his hips as he hastened for the door.

But as he slid back the drawbar, his frown deepened. Had he truly been dreaming of the sweet press of his lady’s warm, well-rounded bosom? The imagined thrust of hardened nipples against his naked, slumbering flesh?

And, most stirring of all, the curling squeeze of inquisitive fingers stroking up and down his eager, sleep-swollen shaft.

He paused on the threshold, the notion sending liquid fire through his veins. Aye, he had enjoyed such dreams and the vivid images were yet fresh in his mind, still potent enough to rouse and enflame him.

Especially the one with the full shapeliness of her lush body rubbing against his as, skin to damp skin, heat to lower heat, she’d begged him to take her.

And how, in his dream, at least, he’d gladly acquiesced.

His senses storming, he opened the door. His raven-haired bride would never know how swiftly he would relent now, this very moment, if she would but throw open the bed curtains and crook just one finger in sensual invitation.

But a last glance over his shoulder proved the futility of any such possibility. The heavily embroidered hangings remained closed and naught but thick silence came from within.

An impenetrable barrier best left intact . . . just as any rises beneath his braies were better ignored—at least for the nonce.

Too many other duties called him.

Important issues he meant to attend alone. And well before the castle stirred and his long-nosed kinsmen could question his purpose.

No one need know he’d been sneaking to the isle’s sandy, windswept dunes of a morn. Or that, once there, he’d crouch amongst the thick-growing machair and bracken and cast surreptitious glances at the boat strand.

That he’d look on with heart-lancing pride as men rushed about on the damp, glistening sand, his bride’s mountain of
siller
being put to good effect as they painstakingly rebuilt the MacKinnon fleet—one fine galley at a time.

Nor would it be wise to let anyone guess he’d made a few visits of his own to the Beldam’s Chair. That he hoped its supposed powers might lessen some of the cold, heavy weight on his heart and perhaps mend a tear or two in his sore-battered spirit.

Aye, too much of the puissant Reginald’s blood flowed in his veins for him to risk looking a fool.

So he slipped from the room on quiet feet. But the moment the door latch dropped into place, he abandoned his caution and thundered down the draughty corridor, his mood as dark as the poorly lit passage.

Driven by his most persistent demons, he did not slow his steps until he’d hastened through a little-used passage around the great hall and strode out into the thin drizzle of the inner bailey.

And the moment he did, a diminutive cloaked figure emerged from the deep shadow along the tower wall and hurried forward across the rain-damp cobbles.

“Magnus!” Janet cried, rushing him, her arms extended in greeting.

“Ho, lass, before you slip and crack that pretty head of yours,” he warned, reaching for her when she would have launched herself at him.

She clutched at his arms, panting. “Praise God you are out and about,” she said, the words echoing in the empty courtyard. “I would—”

“And I would ken what
you
are about at this hour? Traipsing around in the rainy dark . . . alone.” Magnus took gentle hold of her, set her from him. “Did you not hear my orders that none of the womenfolk are to venture out on their own? There are dangers about, lass. I would know you safe.”

She looked down, fidgeted with the heavy, rain-misted braid hanging over her shoulder. “I did not think you meant me. I was in the kitchens, helping, and only stepped out to get away from the cook-smoke for a few moments.”