Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03] (40 page)

“I see naught but sheerest folly and would wish you to desist with such a foolhardy notion,” Juliana countered, her scuff-toed boot already worrying another pebble embedded in the well-swept earthen floor.

“Then I have not raised you to be as far-seeing as I would have wished.” Marjory’s thin fingers clutched at the plaid covering her. “Of more import than the good man’s acceptance or refusal of my offering, is that the giving of it shall solace my mind. Whilst the breath of life is still in me, lass, I plead you to heed my wishes.”

“Good man,”
Juliana couldn’t help but scoff, her blood chilling with the implicated surrender in the words she was about to say. “Kenneth will be of sore wrath when he learns.”

“That is as may be, but your brother is not here and we can ne’er ken when he shall choose to visit us. I would know this done now so that—” Marjory broke off to raise herself on an elbow. She fixed a determined stare on Juliana. “So that I may take my leave of this world in peace.”

“And I cannot take myself off into the heather and leave you here alone . . . to . . . to die unattended.” Juliana dropped to her knees beside the pallet, stroked a sweat-dampened strand of hair from her mother’s brow. Fine, sunfire-colored hair, bright as Juliana’s own. “I simply cannot do it.”

“You can and you shall, for you are strong,” Marjory argued, reaching to take one of Juliana’s fiery red braids in her hand. “Let us say Godspeed now, my dear heart, and give me the closure of your word.”

Juliana bit her lip, shook her head in staunch denial, hot tears spilling free now, each damnable one nigh blinding her.

“I ask this of you only so I may know peace,” her mother persisted, letting go of the braid to touch trembling, cold fingers to Juliana’s cheek. “Promise me, lass. I beg you. Swear to me that you will do this—and be on your way by cockcrow on the morrow. So that I—”

“Pray God in all His glory, do not say it again,” Juliana surrendered at last, pushing to her feet, amazed her watery knees could hold her upright. “If this means so much to you, aye, I shall go . . . I will see to this for you, I promise,” she agreed, the words bitter ash on her tongue.

Swallowing hard, she squared her shoulders and pulled in a long, steadying breath. “Aye, I give you my word the deed is as good as done.”

Later, just as darkness settled on the coast of Kintail and the quiet hush of evening began curling around the stout walls of Eilean Creag Castle, loch-girt stronghold of Clan MacKenzie, Lady Linnet, a comely woman of middle years and the same flame-bright tresses as Juliana, moved about the keep’s well-appointed solar, ill ease niggling at her, dogging her every step.

An unpleasant and cloying chill it was, and persistent as the inky shadows laying gleeful claim to those corners of the solar not fully illuminated by the crackling fire blazing in the chamber’s fine stone hearth.

Trying hard to ignore the frightfully familiar sensation, Linnet paused at one of the solar’s tall, arch-topped windows and looked out at the pewter-gray surface of Loch Duich far below.

Most times, the view from this chamber soothed her. Indeed, she came here often, the lonely beauty of the empty shores and the great heather hills that stretched beyond in endless succession never failing to gentle any and all unwelcome thoughts.

Until now.

This night, far deeper cares than usual bore down upon her shoulders and occupied her increasingly troubled mind.

Truth be told, she scarce noticed the heart-rending lovely world whiling so still and tranquil beyond her windows. Nor did her ears catch much of the keening wind racing in from the not too distant sea to ruffle the loch’s dark waters and whistle past Eilean Creag’s night-bound ramparts and turrets.

For rather than the wind, the Lady Linnet heard the sound of bees.

A multitude of buzzing bees.

The most dread sound to e’er plague her—the sound that always heralded one of her spells.

Her visions.

Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, ’twas a curse she’d been spared in recent years, but one that seemed determined to return with a vengeance this night. A night that should have been filled with naught but celebratory joy, for word had come at last that her stepson, Robbie MacKenzie, was finally returning home to Eilean Creag.

“Ten long years.” She turned to her liege husband, Duncan MacKenzie, hoping her voice sounded level and firm. She could not tell for the din of the bees was nigh deafening now.

A nightmarish cacophony robbing her of her wits and making her weak.

Vulnerable.

Moistening her lips, she clasped her hands together, lacing her fingers to stave off the trembling. “Do you think he is truly coming? At last?”

Her husband set down the wine cup he’d been drinking from, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Think you he would dare not come? Knowing his betrothed is on her way here? Even now as we speak?”

A chill streaked down Linnet’s spine at the word
betrothed
—a deep-reaching, breath-stealing cold that spread clear to her toes, enfolding her.

Still fighting it, ignoring the telltale signs, she shivered, drew her woolen arisaid closer about her shoulders. “Think you it is wise to wed him to Lady Euphemia?” she challenged her husband. “The daughter of a man you yourself have called a scourge upon the heather?”

Duncan waved a dismissive hand, shook his dark head. “She was chosen
because
she is that lout’s daughter, as you well ken,” he reminded her, coming forward to rest his hands upon her shoulders, kneading them. “’Tis a necessary alliance if e’er we are to enjoy true peace in these hills.”

“And if the lad finds her not to his liking?” That, from a tall, scar-faced man lounging in the shadows of a window embrasure. “Would it not be more prudent to let Robbie first return home and resettle himself before fetching the lass to his side?”

“Och, but there speaks the eternal voice of caution.” Duncan aimed a dark look at his friend and good-brother, Sir Marmaduke Strongbow. “Euphemia MacLeod is already on her way here—as you well know. To send her back now would be an intolerable affront.”

“Such insult might prove the lesser evil if Robbie finds the maid not to his liking,” Sir Marmaduke gave back, ever undaunted by the Black Stag’s scowling countenance. Indeed, he leveled a penetrating glance of his own at his long-time friend and liege laird. “Perhaps you have acted in haste.”

“In haste?” Duncan’s dark brows snapped together. With a huff, most decidedly issued for Marmaduke’s benefit, the redoubtable Black Stag strode back to the table, poured out a fresh measure of the blood-red wine, and downed it in one gulp.

“The lad has traipsed about the land these last years, doing as he pleases and garnering a reputation of valor nigh as untarnished as your own,” he said, his hot gaze pinning Sir Marmaduke, daring him to declare otherwise. “Robbie gave his promise, his solemn vow, to wed the MacLeod lass
before he left.
Think you he would despoil his honor now . . . by refusing to accept her as his bride?”

E’er a paragon of level-headedness, Sir Marmaduke kept his unblinking stare locked on Duncan. “I warrant he will uphold his promise,” he said, folding his arms—and doing so with enough practiced leisure to bedevil Duncan beyond endurance. “Aye, he will no doubt keep his word. And his honor. I only wish he would have had some time to . . . adjust.”

“Sacrament,” Duncan blurted, his dark blue eyes blazing. “He has had ten full years to adjust—or sample enough sweetness elsewhere, if you have forgotten.
Ten years,
” Duncan said, his tone—and the rapidly beating twitch in his jaw—giving his friend no quarter. “The MacLeod lass will suit him well enough, I say you. She is pleasing to the eye and of sound wits, unlike her oaf of a father.”

Some might argue that Robbie suffers such a sire as well,
Linnet thought she heard Sir Marmaduke comment. And whether he’d spoken the words or no, Linnet’s husband gave him a dark oath in response.

Or so she imagined.

Not that she could hear much of what either man had to say, for the droning buzz in her ears had reached a fever pitch.

Ignoring the men, for she was well-accustomed to their ceaseless ribbing, she turned her back on them lest they note her discomfiture, the perspiration beading her brow. Determined to remain calm, she stared into the hearth fire, peering intently at the red flames licking at the well-burning logs.

Red flames that soon became a tall and lithesome maid’s unbound cascade of shimmering red-gold tresses. Beautifully waved tresses that spilled clear to the young woman’s shapely hips, each shimmering strand shining bright as sunfire.

The lass stood tall and proud, untold happiness seeming to radiate from every glorious inch of her. And from someplace deep inside Linnet, a hidden corner far removed and safe from her hard-pounding heart and the sweat trickling cold between her breasts, Linnet knew she was staring at her stepson’s bride.

A truth she would have recognized even if the lass weren’t standing in front of the MacKenzies’ famed Marriage Stone, a large blue-tinted stone incised with ancient Celtic runes, a near-perfect hole in its center. It was the main piece and pride of every MacKenzie wedding ceremony.

A clan tradition all down the centuries.

The MacKenzies’ most sacred talisman.

Aye, the lovely maid with the flame-bright hair could be no other.

Trembling now, her knees nigh giving out on her, Linnet struggled to keep standing. She reached deep inside herself to maintain her composure even as she willed the lass to turn, to glance her way, so she could see the maid’s face.

But such visions cannot be summoned nor steered, Linnet well knew, and even as she stared, the image began to waver and fade until the bright, shimmering tresses were once again nothing more than dancing flames, the beautiful young woman and the celebrated Marriage Stone gone as if they’d never been.

“Sir . . .” Linnet began when she could find her voice, forgetting herself in her flustered state and calling her husband by the title he loathed her to use. “Duncan,” she corrected, careful to keep her back to him, feigning calm. “You say the MacLeod lass is fetching. I would know, is she . . . flame-haired? Perchance like me?”

“Nay, she is nothing like you.” Duncan’s answer came swift and, oddly, exactly as Linnet had feared. “Euphemia MacLeod is dark. A wee snippet of a lass with dark brown hair and eyes. She will make a meet bride.”

“A meet bride,” Linnet acknowledged, her heart sinking.
But not for our Robbie.

That last she left unsaid.

Kintail.

Robbie MacKenzie reined in his sure-footed Highland garron on the crest of a windswept ridge and surveyed the wide heather wilderness spread out before him. He drew a deep breath, filling his eyes and half certain his heart would burst now that he’d finally crossed into his father’s territory.

Wild, bright, and sunlit, the mountains, moors, and glens of home stretched in all directions, rolling endlessly to a broad, cloud-churning horizon. Sweet, fair lands he’d ached to see every night of the ten long years he’d been away.

Necessary years, needed to earn his reputation and valor, but a trial all the same. And now he was a man of full age and abilities, well able if not entirely eager to step into his puissant father’s footsteps.

And, too, to accept the daughter of a rival clan chieftain as his bride, thus assuring peace in this rugged and mountainous land.

“God’s mercy,” he breathed, staring out across Kintail at its springtime finest, taken unaware by the deep emotion coursing through him.

Saints, even the thought of Euphemia MacLeod, the lass he’d agreed to wed but had yet to meet, could not dampen his spirits. Indeed, with good fortune blessing him, the Lady Euphemia might prove none so ill a match. He might even surprise himself and find her to his liking: warm, voluptuous, large-bosomed, and . . . all woman.

And if not . . . then so be it.

He’d make do with his lot.

His honor demanded it of him.

But for this one blessed moment, the most perfect noontide he could have wished, naught would mar his pleasure or steal the sweetness of his homecoming. The heather ridge he’d chosen for his outlook bore clutches of silver birches and tall Caledonian pines, whilst the hills more distant wore deep blue shadows and sparkling white cornices of snow.

And, joy upon joy, beyond them waited Loch Duich and Eilean Creag Castle, as yet hidden from view, but there all the same.

Calling to him until he was nigh ready to fling himself from the saddle, drink in great, greedy gulps of the tangy gorse-and-juniper scented air. And, aye, even throw off his clothes, every last stitch, and roll full naked in the heather!

By the Rood, but it was good to be home.

Or so he thought until a short while later, when furious shouts, the near-crazed baaing of a sheep, and the sounds of wild, wet thrashing broke through the birch scrub and juniper tangle to his left, the panic in the shrill
female
cries shattering his jollity at once and dashing cold, stark dread onto the peace he’d let slide all over him.

A dread that clamped icy fingers around his heart when, as quickly as the fracas had arisen, the ear-splitting cries and loud splashings ceased.

From one lightning-quick blink of an eye to the next, naught marred the silence save the frantic baaing of the sheep, now joined by the equally distressed neighs of a horse, and the uncomfortable roaring in his ears of his own fast-thundering heart.

“Sweet holy Christ!” he yelled, spurring hard now as he sent his garron plunging through the prickly juniper bushes and gorse.
Saints have mercy,
he meant to cry when the beast burst free of the underbrush, but the words lodged in his throat, caught and held there by the horror of the scene before him.

Leaping out of the saddle, he looked about, but saw only the shaggy-maned garron whose neighing agitation had captured his ear. A sway-backed wretch of a beast, the aged creature watched his approach from near a jumble of boulders, wild-eyed, panting, and skittish-looking. A leather travel bag had been tossed aside, or mayhap slipped from its fastenings and now lay open atop a flattened clump of bell heather, a scatter of good Scots siller spilling from its depths to litter the peaty ground.