Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] (3 page)

"I hear you will be leaving Scotland soon. My MacArthur cousins say you will go with them to join the king's army, perhaps even sail to France to fight the English there."

"Scotsmen can earn land grants and knighthoods doing so."

"But they must fight and survive a brutal war that is not their own, to earn such honors. It is a risk."

"It is the price some must pay to earn privilege. I owe three years' military service for the rent of Balnagovan from Innisfarna. From you," he added softly.

"Can you fulfill the service another way? I thought you might stay here now that your foster mother is widowed."

"The crown determines how I am to fulfill the knight service. And Muime's sister will come here to stay for a while, and may bring her daughter and grandchildren. I am not needed among so many."

"Will you be gone long?"

He shrugged. "Who can say? Your father can use the smith in Glen Brae, across the loch, for any repairs that are needed."

"Until you return." She stepped inside the smithy and walked toward him, her shadow long upon the floor. Lachlann stepped back a little.

"I might come back," he said cautiously.

"You will." Nearing the forge, she paused and looked up. Golden light flowed over the gentle contours of her face, enhancing the creamy flush in her cheek, the dusky sparkle in her eyes. Her smile was teasing, winsome. He watched her silently, filled with a sudden, hot hunger.

"How could you stay away from this lovely glen, with its loch and its legends?" she asked.

He frowned, aware that when he returned, his grim mission would destroy her life—if she was wed to Colin Campbell by then. He glanced away.

"How indeed?" He picked up a leather gauntlet, drawing it slowly over his hand. "I have work to do now. Tell your father that I will finish the pieces that Finlay left undone at his death, weapons and armor that your father commissioned from our smithy. They will be done by Beltane, a few days before I leave, and I will bring them over to Innisfarna. If he would pay my foster mother whatever is owed for the work, I would very much appreciate it."

"I will tell him. But you will need to work as hard as two men to finish the pieces in so short a time."

"I do not mind." He found deep satisfaction in the solitary nature of his craft, and could work for endless hours unaided.

"Are those the weapons?" she asked, looking past him toward the pile of steel that glittered in the low light.

"Some of them," he answered. He reached above her head to grasp the horn handle of the great bellows, its huge leather casing braced behind the stone structure of the forge. Pausing, arm high, he looked down at her. He could not pull the handle without asking her to move, yet he did not want her to leave.

"Well, then." She glanced along his arm to his hand. "I suppose I must go."

"Congratulations to you," he said stiffly. "I hear you will be married soon."

She shrugged, her cheeks rosy in the forge light. "My father says I have had much freedom, but it is time for me to marry. He has made a decision for the good of Clan Arthur."

"How does that sit with you, my friend?" he asked quietly. "You always liked your independence and never let others tell you what to do." He smiled a little.

"I understand my duties as a MacArthur daughter." Her blush deepened. "I love my father and my kinsmen. And our clan faces troubled times, with the king displeased with most of the Highland chiefs. If my marriage brings favor to my clan, I must do this."

"Ah," he said, gripping the bellows handle just above her head.

"I see I am keeping you from your work. Farewell, Lachlann. I hope to see you again before you leave. If not..." Her gaze met his. "I wish you blessings on your journey."

"Blessings," he murmured, "Eva."

She watched him, seemed to melt toward him slightly. In her uplifted gaze he saw trust, saw a clear sincerity. The air between them pulsed with the invisible heat of the forge. He felt himself incline toward her, drawn to her, as if he could not stop.

Never again would he stand alone with her like this, he thought. Never again would there be this peace and accord between them. He knew he could not love her, but yet it existed, untapped and deep, within him.

Just once, he wanted to savor its purity.

He leaned down, blood surging, grip tight on the bellows handle, and he touched his lips to hers.

Her mouth was pliant, warm, and as soft as he had known it would be. He sighed, and she did too, leaning into him and resting her hand upon his chest.

The kiss scarcely ended before it was somehow renewed, tentative but exquisite. What spun through him had force enough to buckle his knees. He stood strong despite it, stood still, hand lifted, heart thundering. Honeyed fire, brilliant and sweet, poured through him. With his free hand, he took her by the waist and drew her closer to kiss her again. She uttered a quiet little cry, joyful and astonished.

Water to flame, that sound. She trusted him, and one day he might destroy her life. This instant of joy would soon become a bitter memory for both of them. He released her.

"Farewell, Eva my friend," he murmured. He ought to apologize, but he could not regret that simple, stirring kiss, which would never happen again. Her eyes sparkled, her breath was quick; he thought she did not mind the kiss.

"Was that... a token of friendship?" she asked.

"If you like," he whispered. He smiled with deliberate casualness. If he dared reveal what he truly felt, his very soul would be laid open to her. He could not let that happen. "Thank you for a sweet token."

She nodded, and glanced at his raised arm. "You must finish your work." She stepped back.

He pulled the handle down, and a long, low sigh of air fed the fire in the forge bed. The flames grew, flickering like hot gold. When Lachlann looked up, Eva stood in the doorway. Using the tongs, he lifted the length of steel from the fiery bed of charcoal. The metal glowed pale yellow.

She lingered, then left. He did not glance up, but knew she was gone. Felt it, somehow. As he gave his attention to the work, his hands, always steady and strong, trembled a bit.

Hot new steel gleamed as he tipped the raw blade into the fire and watched yellow flow into a deep brown. The dirk would be strong and true when it was done, as fine as any weapon made in this smithy when his foster father was alive.

Once again he would work late into the night, he thought. The subtle, beautiful color changes that told the state of the metal were brightest in the darkness, and he still had much to do now that he worked alone. He had become a master smith while still a lanky youth; he could handle the commissions easily. But he missed Finlay's wry wit, generous guidance, and companionship, both in the smithy and at home.

He glanced at the pile of weapons in the corner, work already paid for in part; some of those pieces showed Finlay's skilled hand, and the sight tugged at him. Weaponsmithing had provided strong medicine for grief in the last weeks. Heating iron into steel, hammering it, shaping and cooling it, Lachlann could forget, for a while, all but the work itself.

Now he had something else to forget, for his heated blood still pounded. Yet he knew that he would never give up the tender memory of kissing Eva.

Once, when life had been peaceful and the future a reliable thing, he had planned to craft fine swords in his own forge one day—he even dared to dream of a fine wife, a chief's daughter. But Finlay had grown ill unexpectedly, and told Lachlann more than a peaceful man needed to know about revenge.

He had also learned, in Finlay's failing words, the most carefully guarded secret of the MacKerrons, passed from one generation to another: the method of forging a faery blade.

The shock of that day still resounded in him. Like a bloom of iron newly fetched from the fire, he had been heated and reshaped.

As he held the length of steel in the fiery charcoal, he watched brown burst into purple. That clue told him the fire had peaked. He pulled out the blade and plunged it into a trough of warm brine. The metal sizzled and the salty quench bubbled as the brittle steel was tempered. He felt a little in need of tempering himself.

He frowned as he worked, and sighed, bitter and slow. To Eva, he was a childhood friend, the smith's lad who shod her pony and repaired her father's weapons. But if the blacksmith's lad killed Eva's husband, as he might well do one day, she would regard him as the one who had destroyed her happiness.

A poor choice indeed for a man's future.

He plunged the hot blade into the fire and sprinkled white sand over it, gathered under a new moon, to add brilliance to the steel surface. The sand particles sparked and flew about like a rain of stars.

Another secret of his craft: the gathering of the sand. His foster father had taught him to protect his knowledge—but the newest secrets in his cache had to do with the smith, not the smithing.

Soon the weapons would be finished and he would be gone. Yet before he returned to Scotland, he must harden his heart.

Chapter 2

"Come with us, Eva," Margaret coaxed. "It is Beltane night, and so we are free to roam the hills and do what we will until dawn. Do not go home so soon. Come with us to the faery hill to roll bannock cakes down the slope—if the burned side or the plain side comes up, we will know if we will marry soon or not!" She tipped her golden head, pale and graceful in the dim light of the moonless evening, and smiled.

Eva glanced past her cousin toward the group, including her two brothers, who waited beneath some trees at the edge of the lochside beach. She shook her head and looked out at the water.

"I am not in a very festive mood," she said. "What good can rolling a bannock do me? My father has decided to promise me to Green Colin Campbell soon. Go on, Margaret, they are waiting. I will call for Alpin to ferry me back over to Innisfarna."

Margaret sighed. "Well, if that is what you want. Besides, you already know who will wed you. I wish I knew my own true love. Perhaps I will learn it tonight—on Beltane, I might even hear it in the faery winds." She smiled again, prettily.

"Colin Campbell is hardly my true love. He just wants my island," Eva muttered. She glanced toward Innisfarna, where light twinkled in the island castle in the center of the loch. "But my father insists his influence will benefit our clan."

"If it were me, I would marry Green Colin. He has the king's favor, and likes you well. He even gave you a puppy from one of his castle litters. Marriage with him will not be unpleasant—he is rather handsome."

Eva smiled, thinking of Grainne, the tiny gray terrier that Colin had given her the last time he visited Innisfarna. But the thought of the surly, authoritative man who had handed her the puppy made her frown. "Then you marry Green Colin," she muttered, "and I will keep the pup, for her temperament is better than his. Go on, Margaret, they are waving to you. Angus the carpenter's son is with them. I think he likes you well."

"Angus is always the jester," Margaret said dismissively. "Oh—who are your brothers talking to? The blacksmith's lad!" she whispered. "I did hope Lachlann would come out tonight!"

Eva felt her heart leap as she glanced again at the group beneath the trees. She saw that Lachlann, taller than the rest, had joined them. Beside him, she saw the pale form of his white deerhound, a leggy pup.

"Perhaps I can convince Lachlann to walk out with me on the moors later," Margaret said. "Eva, do you think he likes me a bit? I think he is the most beautiful man in Argyll," she confided in a quick whisper, then giggled.

"Soon he will be the most beautiful man in France," Eva said wryly. "He is leaving with my cousins in two days."

"How could you understand? He is like a brother to you!"

"Indeed," Eva murmured, understanding better than Margaret suspected. His kiss the other day, though meant as a token of friendship, had stunned her to her core. She had always regarded him as a cherished friend, but the astonishing burst of passion she had felt for him, and from him, had opened a door—and she did not know what lay on the other side of it.

"I am sure Lachlann likes you," she assured Margaret. "How could he not? You are charming and lovely."