Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] (10 page)

The night sky sparkled under a full moon, and a crisp, cool wind lifted his cloak as he rode home. Through the trees, he saw the glittering dark surface of a loch and recognized the surroundings: Loch Fhionn, at last.

He guided his sturdy garron along a well-worn, well-remembered path. The animal, purchased in Perth, was a capable horse for the westward journey into Argyll. After a full day's ride, Lachlann was deeply tired, but glad to be out in the hills again, after months of living in town.

He had spent the past week pacing in the king's castle, waiting for a royal audience and the official message that he was to carry to the MacArthurs. Bearing the king's letter and forewarned of possible danger in the area from rebels, he wore his steel cuirass—breastplate and backpiece—and carried weapons ready for use. He watched the hills and forest carefully as he rode.

Following the loch's banks, he headed toward the tiny village of Balnagovan, which consisted of a hillside chapel and a few farms. The lands here had been inhabited by MacArthurs, but the clan's proscription would have evicted and exiled most, if not all, of them. He was not surprised to see deserted homes with boarded windows and empty byres.

Further down the length of the loch, he could see the familiar shape of Innisfarna, isle and stout castle rising upward, dark against dark. Light twinkled in the windows, and he wondered if Eva was there now, with her Campbell husband. His heart seemed to turn at the thought.

Soon he approached the smith's house and the smithy. His property was called Balnagovan as well—"village of the smith" in Gaelic. The smithy itself, with its nearby stable, perched on a hill above the loch. Across a wide meadow was the house. Home at last, Lachlann thought with enormous relief, and nudged the horse forward.

The drystone building, long and low with a thatched roof, presented two shuttered windows flanking a stout oak door. A stone-and-wattle byre protruded at the back beside a privy and a large garden. Though all was dark, pale smoke drifted from the central chimney. Lachlann heard a hound begin to bark inside the house.

Solas,
he thought, smiling. His foster mother, Mairi MacKerron—Muime, as he always thought of her—would no doubt be awakened by the alarm, and alert to a stranger's arrival.

Dismounting, he tethered his horse, who whickered softly. Faint snorts answered from the stable across the meadow. The horses kept there must belong to those inhabiting Innisfarna. Sooner or later, then, he would see Eva—and her Campbell husband. His gut constricted at the thought.

The barking grew louder, joined by the yapping of a smaller dog. Muime must have acquired another mutt in his absence, Lachlann thought. He knocked on the door and called out.

Both dogs erupted in a frenzy, and a woman's voice, barely audible over the noise, hushed them.

"Mairi MacKerron," he said, "I am home!" He raised his voice, hoping she could hear what he said over the barking.

"Go away," came a muffled reply.

"I am come home," he said. "Let me in." He grabbed the iron latch and pulled, expecting it to open easily.

It stuck. He tugged. The iron must have rusted, lacking a smith to keep it oiled. In the moonlight, he noticed new rivets, marking additional locks on the inside of the door; the door was bolted and barred, though it never had been before.

"Go away," the woman said again.

Puzzled, he knocked again. "Who is that?"

He heard a heavy thump and a creak, as if a dog leaped against the door. Anguished yowls nearly drowned his voice. "Woman, open this door!" He had to shout to be heard.

"Go away, you! Solas, get down! Grainne, you too! Leave us be, sir—the dogs are in a temper! And I have a blade, and I know how to use it!"

"Blade! Jesu," he muttered. "I live here," he yelled, placing his mouth near a seam in the oak planks, raising his voice to a boom. "Open the door! It is Lachlann!"

A pause followed, as if both woman and dogs were stunned into silence. "Lachlann MacKerron?" Now he heard her clearly: a young woman, her voice mellow as honey, blessedly familiar.

His heart slammed, and he leaned hands and brow against the door in both gratitude and dread. "Eva?" he asked. "Eva MacArthur?"

* * *

Eva flattened her palms against the door, heart pounding. "Lachlann!"

"Eva, let me in." The deep timbre of his voice, not heard in more than three years, sent thrills along her spine.

Solas leaped at the door. Grainne leaped too, yapping furiously, rising on her hind legs. Eva pushed Grainne out of the way as she fumbled at the locks.

"Ach Dhia,
Solas, you knew!" Eva murmured. "You knew Lachlann was at the door, when I thought the man was another soldier from Innisfarna, come drunk in the middle of the night!"

She slid free the wooden beam from the iron bars that held it, and pulled at the other fastening, an iron hasp and chain. The eye of the little bar fitted over a protruding iron staple, now jammed together. She tugged but could not loosen them.

Lachlann knocked again. "Eva!"

"The latch is stuck," she answered, pulling futilely. "It sometimes does this." Solas set up a heartbreaking howl, as did Grainne. "Oh, hush, Grainne. You too, Solas," Eva said, distracted by her struggle with the latch. Pulling on the center ring handle, she opened the door as wide as she could—a few inches at most—and peered out.

Moonlight haloed Lachlann's head and shoulders and glinted on the shoulders of his polished steel cuirass. His face was shadowed, and he seemed even taller and larger than she remembered. She gaped up at him.

"The bar may be rusted," he said. "Where did these bolts come from? Finlay and I never put them on this door."

"The blacksmith from Glen Brae installed them." She yanked again to free the snug bite of the metal, but failed. Lachlann stood so close she could scarcely think. "How is it you are here?" she asked, flustered.

"I live here," he answered. "Why are you here? And where is Mairi?" Solas poked her nose through the door crack, and Lachlann reached down to pat her head. "Ho, Solas, silly girl. It is good to see you again, too," he murmured.

Eva gasped in frustration. "It will not come loose!"

"Let me." Lachlann slipped his hand upward to find the iron fittings. His fingers touched hers, a warm, delicious shock of contact, and flexed, strong and swift, on the hasp. Eva pulled the door open, and Lachlann ducked his head under the lintel to enter the house.

In the ruby glow of the peat fire, he loomed beside her like a faery king, all gleam and shadow, vibrant, sultry, compelling. Stunned by his arrival, she was further astonished by his wild, dark, hard beauty, which seemed more intense than she remembered. He emanated a simmering masculinity that dreams and memories could never match.

Summoning her wits, she fetched a candle from a shelf and lit it from the peat embers. Shielding the golden halo, she turned. He was still there, and this was no dream.

Solas leaped at him, and he laughed, rubbing her shoulders with affection. Then he took her head in his hands to speak softly to her. Grainne watched, head cocked, tail wagging.

Eva smiled. "Solas remembers you well."

"She does." He glanced up. "Do you?"

She faltered, shrugged. "I do," she murmured. "Welcome home." She said it calmly, as if her heart did not race, as if her knees and hands did not quiver.

He leaned down to pet the terrier. "I see Mairi found herself another dog. Who is this little one?"

"She is mine. I call her Grainne."

"Craineag
, more like," he said wryly.

"She does not look like a hedgehog!" Eva said indignantly.

"Small and round and brownish gray, with fur standing out like spikes—she surely does. Ho, little
craineag
," he said. Grainne licked his hand liberally.

"Grainne," Eva said, enunciating the name: Grahn-ya. "Colin gave her to me."

Lachlann's smile disappeared. He turned, looking around the house. Strolling toward the fireplace, he peered into the tiny room tucked behind the stone wall of the hearth, the private bedchamber that Mairi used as wife and widow. Solas and Grainne trotted with him.

"Where is Mairi?" he asked, as he turned and strolled to the other end of the house. The far wall contained his bed, snug in a niche cut into the thick stone. The curtain was pulled back, exposing the bedclothes, draped askew.

"Were you sleeping there?" he asked.

"I was." Standing barefoot, she folded her arms over her chest, aware that she wore only a thin linen chemise. Her hair, long and loose, hung over her breasts. "Mairi is staying with her niece Katrine and her family in Glen Brae."

"I expected to find her sister living here." Lachlann fixed her with a steady, grim look. He seemed shadowed and weary suddenly, his beard recently shaven, his hair untrimmed, his eyelids drooping. But his eyes sparked with the vibrant blue that she remembered well.

"Her sister was here for several months," she told him. "Recently Mairi went to Glen Brae to help her niece, who had a difficult confinement. She will be gone a while, for the niece was delivered of a daughter and has three young ones already. Lachlann, please sit. Let me fetch you some food."

He frowned. "I will go to Glen Brae. Did Muime get the message I sent?"

"We had no word. Mairi traveled northward to see her other niece, whose children had a coughing sickness. Alpin will know when she returns, for he often goes to that side of the loch."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "Why are you here tonight? Did Alpin refuse to ferry you across the loch?"

"He ferries me whenever I like. I live here now."

He shoved a hand through his hair. "I do not understand."

"Explanations can wait until you have eaten and rested."

"First I must tend to my mount." He turned to the door.

"Let me show you to the stable—"

"I know the way to my own stable," he replied brusquely. He skimmed his gaze down her body. "Besides, you are not dressed, and the wind is cold tonight."

She blushed. "Turn away, then." He did, walking over to the door to examine the locks, his back toward her. She went to the curtained bed and snatched up her brown serge gown from a peg on the wall. Tugging it over her chemise, she left the side lacings undone and turned back to the room, and Lachlann, again.

He manipulated the locks, his hands strong and confident. The last time she had seen him, she had shared deep kisses with him, and she had made a bold advance that he had sensibly refused. Since then, dreams of him had brought her yearning and delight. Cheeks blazing, she wondered what, if anything, he recalled about her.

"Rusted and ill made," he pronounced, jiggling the hasp. "Locks, bars, windows fitted with iron—" He gestured toward the shutters. "This place is like a fortress."

"Life is not so peaceful at Balnagovan as it once was."

His frown lingered. "I hear the MacArthurs are rebelling."

"It is not MacArthurs who bother me."

"Do your kinsmen hide here, and defend from here? Is that the reason for the barricading? Where are Simon and the rest?"

"I cannot answer those questions," she said, instantly wary.

"Why not? I have been a friend to them all my life."

"But you return an armored knight, no doubt with weapons. That speaks of a king's man intent on finding outlaws, not a smith returning home to work. My kinsmen and I have learned caution in the years you have been gone."

"So I see." He narrowed his eyes.

Aware that her words still stung the air, she sighed. "I am sorry. You deserve a better welcome than that."

"Ach,
a fine homecoming," he drawled. "Hearthfire and cozy home, and a lovely woman with a willful tongue. Some men might be content with that."

"Not you," she said crisply.

He grinned, wry and apologetic. "It is good to speak the Gaelic again, after years of French and English. You look fine, Eva." His gaze slipped down her body as if he saw all of her, clothed and naked, down to sin and soul. "More... womanly." He cocked a brow, and she felt a blush rise into her cheeks.

"You look older. Tired," she ventured.

"I rode a long way since this morning."

"Not that." She tilted her head. "You are more mature, and stronger. There is... a weariness of spirit in you, somehow."

She did not say the rest of her thoughts—that he looked powerful but somber, as if some darkness in his soul shadowed him and made him simmer. A new scar cut through the black bearding of his jaw, and smudgy circles and fine lines wreathed his eyes. The sky blue clarity of his eyes had grown hard and piercing.

She wanted to ask what troubled him, and how three years and more had changed him so much. She wanted to know what brought him here in the middle of the night. But she held her silence.

And she knew that he would not have answered had she asked, for the look in his eyes shuttered his thoughts and his past.

Chapter 7