Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Edinburgh Castle was in such an uproar, Jamie half-suspected Lady Fia was somewhere on the grounds.
The king sent a small army to Lochahearn to free her and then locked Tearloch in a room in the tower to cool his temper.
When His Majesty grew tired of the man’s incessant bellowing, he locked Tearloch’s betrothed inside with him. The bellowing promptly stopped.
Malcolm was instantly smug and unbearable, explaining to anyone who would listen just how wise he was.
Tearloch gestured for his fellow captive to sit upon the cot while he leaned back against the table by the wall. They both faced the door, waiting for the king’s next stroke of inspiration.
“I realize ye dinnae wish to marry me,” said the woman.
“’Tis no fault of yers, my lady.” He nearly called her ‘lass’.
“The king suggested ye bed me, to see if it may help.”
Tearloch was taken aback. She had stated it so evenly, as if she wouldn’t mind following the king’s advice. He was just as shocked that the king would have suggested it to his own sister!
“Mayhap if ye kiss me, even, ye can see I willna be a cold fish in our marriage bed.” She rose and turned to Tearloch. Her hands fidgeted in front of her, but she showed no other signs of fear.
Either she was no virgin, or she had not found him lacking when she looked him over at table the night before.
“As you will, Milady. I shall try a kiss, but it willnae do us any good.” He started toward her and she met him halfway. He meant to bend to her slowly, to give her a chance to reconsider, but she grabbed his head and pulled him to her for a feverish kiss.
Was he so irresistible? With the fresh memory of a defiant lover in his arms, he had forgotten how women had flirted outright with him here at court. He was a well-made man, after all. His features were by no means repellant. And his betrothed did seem enthusiastic. Perhaps too enthusiastic.
He pulled her arms from his neck and held her away from him to take a close look. She was pretty, but she looked older than her twenty-six years. Then he realized the way she was breathing and licking her lips at him, this was no untried lass he was ordered to marry.
“Call for the guard, my lady. We have our answer.”
With a not so pretty pout, she went to the door and called the guard. Tearloch wondered if his king had seen her in a foul humor as yet.
After Malcolm was informed that his experiment was unsuccessful, he begrudgingly allowed Tearloch to join him for dinner.
Tearloch waved the servants away and kept his voice low, since the brooding princess was seated at the far end of their long table. “Have ye never seen yer sister’s foul humor?”
“Nay, no’ until today. I will concede it wasnae pleasant. She acted quite the spoiled child. Not at all as I remember her.” Malcolm sent a smile the woman’s way, but she didn’t notice. Her attention was bent to her plate.
Tearloch relished his meal as well, relieved that Malcolm was beginning to see the futility of his attempts to marry the woman off to him.
Tearloch also knew how disappointed the king would be if he met Fia and decided to make her his bride.
His disappointment would come when Tearloch put a dagger in his heart.
The king’s appetite showed he was thinking just that—about the woman and the dagger it might earn him.
A movement at the other end of the table caught Tearloch’s eye.
A small blonde maid hovered near the princess, and what was more, she looked quite familiar.
He happened to see the woman squeezing the girl’s hand painfully as she questioned her.
The maid looked sharply up at Tearloch, and when their eyes met, the girl went pale and swooned.
Tearloch knew her now. The first time he’d seen her, she had swooned as well.
While servants bustled around the table to cart away the unconscious maid, Tearloch sent a man to bring Jamie to him. Within moments Jamie was nodding his understanding of Tearloch’s orders and hastening away in the direction in which the maid had been carried.
The first night of Kenna’s escape, she slept in a barn.
The hour was such that no one noticed her bedding down against a sturdy wall whilst rain patted lightly on the other side.
The animals sensed no danger from her for they made no protests.
Her own horse she hobbled in a copse nearby, and she was gone again before dawn.
The next night she slept in a field with nothing but her horse for shelter.
In the morning, she skirted around Gowry Keep on the north, making her way through the moors and eliminating leagues in the process.
She rode hard through the more populated areas to avoid being accosted and stayed in the saddle until she couldn’t possibly see the road ahead.
She slept in the bed of a wagon for a few hours, pleased to be off the ground, then wearily returned to the road for the last leg of the journey.
Just before dawn of the third day, she neared her former home. Eschewing the gate, she turned her horse toward the small loch and the Clark’s cottage. Sleep was her only intelligible thought.
When she entered the small home, she immediately wondered if she were in the wrong cottage.
There was nothing homey about it, but she did recognize enough of Mrs. Clark’s scattered belongings to verify she had come to the right place.
It had been stripped of all the Clarks had held dear, and the scattered, forgotten remnants gave Kenna the impression that the couple had packed quickly and fled.
Her disappointment and weariness overwhelmed her. She led her horse inside, barred the door, and after she removed the saddle and quenched both their thirsts, she crawled onto what was left of the bed and swiftly fell asleep.
It was late in the afternoon when the horse’s impatient stamping woke her.
Kenna rose quite refreshed and prepared to face whatever fate had in store for her.
Through the windows she marveled at the lack of activity about the keep at the top of the rise.
A handful of men rode in and out of the gate, but no wagons of supplies.
And even stranger was the lack of servants or tenants making the usual hum of daily activity between Carlisle Folly and the village.
Something was terribly wrong. People were missing.
Agatha would be outraged, if she were still in a position of power, if she hadn’t been taken away.
Even with the old woman’s unpleasantness, the Clarks would never have left their home.
Whoever had driven them out must have been quite terrible indeed.
It had been difficult enough to come back knowing her aunt might still be here. She couldn’t imagine facing someone more fearsome.
Perhaps someone at the firth would know where her friends had gone, but she decided to wait for the cover of darkness.
Until then, she was able to satisfy her horse with the dried flowers hanging from the rafters.
There were enough foodstuffs to keep her belly from complaining, and just enough water to wash it down.
There was little else. Her friends had been fast but thorough. She considered tidying up, but reconsidered. She wanted no evidence that she had passed this way. If Tearloch sent someone looking for her, they would find a cold trail.
Duncan came rumbling down the road from the west and reigned in when he came in sight of the Carlisle keep.
He found it hard to believe that Kenna had rested less than he, or ridden as hard in order to have arrived here ahead of him.
He’d heard no word of a woman traveling alone, and worried he had guessed her destination wrong, when a movement caught his eye.
The passage of a wagon out of the gate was not unique, but that it was the only sign of life in or around the place made it noticeable. Duncan searched the rise and strained to hear normal sounds of activity, then felt ill when the silence reminded him of a battlefield after the fight was over.
In this case, there were no mourners searching the ground for familiar faces. No bodies left behind, no muffled weeping, no wailing. There was only the tangible lack of life in the valley below him, and he knew the MacCurrachs had it right. The devil did indeed reside here.
Although his senses railed at him to flee, he would not go until he made certain Kenna was not inside.
With the glare from the sun setting behind him, the wagon’s driver was unable to look up at the road, let alone see the lone rider disappearing into the trees.
The warm glow of sunset paved the cart’s path with a golden light, but the long cold shadow that stretched in its wake left Duncan chilled.
What he saw in the wagon box after it passed froze the blood in his heart and it threatened to crack.
Shaken loose from a large bundle was a woman’s dead white hand, and spilling out from the end of the ragged cover were long, auburn tresses.
The Keith war cry fell on only one pair of ears as Duncan raced to the driver’s side.
The echo of the man’s whistle still hung in the trees when his head hit the ground spinning.
A heartbeat later his hands released the reigns and his body slumped forward out of the seat, blocking the wheels and stopping the horses.
With his bloody broadsword dripping, Duncan moved to the wooden bed still in a fit of rage.
When he folded back the gory covering, he flinched at the damage done to the body beneath.
He carefully turned the lifeless face to him and cried out.
The poor lass was not Kenna, and a sob broke from his breast, he was so overcome with relief.
When the gloaming found him, Duncan sat upon the craggy hillside above the keep.
He did not wonder why the place had never before fallen to an enemy.
What conqueror would want a keep that could so easily be taken?
A few well-placed archers could sit where he now sat and eliminate the enemy inside the parapets one by one.
And a well-planned avalanche would crumble the walls that clearly showed their lack of depth.
A place like this begged to be leveled and Duncan was itching to oblige.
There were no sentries on the walls, and a mere handful of torches lit the path between the stables and the kitchen entrance. Darkness covered the place like a blood-soaked shroud, and the unnatural silence continued.
Duncan picked his way to the edge of the cliff and lowered himself on a rope secured to a warped pine growing at an angle out of the rocks. In mere moments he walked unaccosted across the yard and climbed into a low window east of the kitchens.
Just as he was righting himself on the inside, a wagon rumbled noisily into the yard near the kitchen door. The driver showed no signs of alighting. Duncan dreaded what the man may be waiting to load and braced himself for what he might find as he went in search of the devil.