Chapter Four #2
Cyrus crouched over the damp soil. “There are prints. Small boots.”
Iain bent. “She must have stored them inside the staircase with the clothes.”
“I’m following them.”
Rory grabbed Cyrus’s arm before he could hurry off. “Come break yer fast first, Cy. Ye’ve had a long night and could use some sustenance before ye spend all day hunting down yer almost-killer.”
He was right, of course. Cyrus glanced at the clear sky. No rain clouds seemed to be gathering. “Very well.” He gestured to the door. “Bannocks and eggs, and then a hunt.”
“Will ye report this to yer guards?” Rory asked Iain.
“Report what?” Cyrus asked. “That I was tied naked to a bed after a night of tupping and then threatened at knifepoint by a lass who was clever enough to drug me?” He looked at his new brother-in-law. “I thank ye not to do so.”
Iain lifted a plank that had been left inside to bar the door. “No need to cause worry with the wedding guests still here, but I’ll tell them to check that the outer doors are secure.”
They climbed back up the steps, hearing voices above. Cyrus’s stomach dropped. “Bloody hell.” He moved faster.
“Your room doesn’t have an escape door?” Sara was saying.
“No. Well, I don’t know. I haven’t looked.”
Shite! ’Twas his mother’s voice. Cyrus followed Rory out from the hidden staircase into the room to see his sister and mother standing before Sara. Their faces turned to him in shock.
“Cyrus? What were you doing down there?” Olive Mackinnon asked, as if he’d stepped out of a brothel.
“Iain? Is there a problem?” Grace glided immediately to her new husband.
“’Tis just another way out of the tower, Mother,” Cyrus answered.
“A precaution against fires,” Iain said, pressing a kiss to Grace’s forehead.
Grace frowned, looking up into Iain’s face. “Do we have one in our bedchamber?”
“Aye,” he said, bending his face to kiss her lips as if he couldn’t get enough of his new wife. “This room and ours have them.” He rubbed a thumb gently across her forehead. “Don’t worry so. Ye’ll leave wrinkles much too soon.”
“Not all the chambers have exits?” Olive asked, hand against her throat.
“Nay, milady,” Iain said, “but rest assured that we have never had a fire. The hidden staircases were built long ago when the roof was made of thatch instead of slate.”
Grace went to her, squeezing her hand. “You are perfectly safe, Mother.”
Olive seemed only moderately mollified. She turned her pinched face to Cyrus. “Are you coming down to the Great Hall to break your fast?”
Cyrus could tell she was looking at the carnal bruising on his neck.
His siren had sucked upon him like she was trying to steal his soul, but he never got the impression that she was trying to loose his soul from his body.
Again, why? Why would she spend a glorious night with him, only to then drug, tie, and nearly kill him?
Anger warred with curiosity and obvious gratitude that she hadn’t gone through with it.
His mother looked at the tangled bedding, and her lips thinned even more. “You should freshen up a bit first.” Her clipped words screamed her disapproval, but that was nothing new. “You must act and look like the next Mackinnon chief.”
“He’s fine, Mama.” Grace took his arm, and Cyrus ran his other hand through his hair, smoothing it. Grace gave him a wink. “Cy must be famished.” She went back to Iain, looping her arm through his. “Come along with us, Brother dear.”
Cyrus had no choice but to take his mother’s stiff arm. They walked out after Grace and Iain, with Rory and Sara shutting his door behind them.
“I’ve taken a tour of the tower house but don’t yet have all the rooms memorized,” Grace said.
“It will soon be easy to maneuver, my sweet,” Iain said. “As lady of Tuath Tower, ye will know all its secrets.”
“I had expected Lady Sophie, yer grandmother, to be here to pass knowledge on to the new Lady of Tuath,” Cyrus said and watched Iain carefully.
For a moment, his lips thinned, but then they tilted upward. “She is away and delayed in returning.” Iain smiled down at Grace. “I am sure she will love ye and help ye learn more about the running of the household.”
“Grace has been schooled thoroughly on running an estate, Chief Macqueen,” Olive said.
Iain smiled at his new mother-in-law. “No need for formalities. Ye may call me Iain—or ‘son.’”
Grace smiled up into Iain’s face. It seemed that she was quite happy with her choice to wed the young Macqueen chief. Keeping the odd note from her yesterday had been the correct action. Every smile the newlyweds exchanged lessened the worry Cyrus harbored. And the note’s writer was surely mad.
“The library is this way and has a grand collection of books and illuminated pages,” Iain said. “I plan to invite a monk to stay with us so he can translate some Latin and gild some more pages in the Macqueen family Bible.”
Iain rambled on about his plans to make the tower more comfortable as they walked, turning at one of the four major corners that led toward the stairway.
“By the end of the year, every window above will be glassed over, and several plain windowpanes will be replaced with stained glass.” He swept his arm forward as if hurrying them along the corridor toward the Great Hall.
Grace pulled away from him, slowing. “I’d like them to see the Portrait Gallery here when the sun is right.
” She looked at her mother. “There is little glare now because of the angle that the sun enters.” She indicated the wall of portraits beside them.
“A hall of Macqueens. Iain says that I’m to have my own portrait hung as soon as we commission the work. ”
Iain caught her hand, kissing the back. “And ye will be the most beautiful Macqueen to grace these walls.”
The corridor had been all shadows last night—not that Cyrus had paid any attention to portraits while escorting the masked siren to his bedchamber.
He hadn’t been able to think with his blood so heated and his cock leading the way.
Daingead! It had almost cost him his life.
No more thinking with my cock. And no more taking unknown lasses to bed.
As a warrior, trained to be lethal, he’d never considered his risk, though it was the risk that every lass must take when finding privacy with a man. Nothing that hurts, his siren had said. He frowned over the unfairness of it.
“Is that Tierney MacNicol?” Grace asked. She frowned at the portrait of Kenan Macdonald’s current wife when Tierney had been wed to Iain’s older brother, Wallace Macqueen.
Iain leaned closer to the small plaque. “I believe it is. I’d all but forgotten her name. She was wed to my older brother who had a terrible accident, falling from the cliffs.”
“She’s now wed to the Chief of the Macdonalds of Sleat,” Rory said.
“From one chief to the next,” Iain said, judgment in his tone.
Rory made a small growling sound. “As Wallace’s wife, she was locked away with her daughter, naked, tortured, and forgotten.” Rory’s tone brought more grayness to the morning, despite the sun shining in the windows.
“A travesty,” Iain murmured.
“I…I have heard,” Grace said, her tone subdued.
“Well, I hope she and her daughter do very well at Dunscaith now.” His sister had softened some since Kenan had broken off interest in her for Tierney.
Even so, Cyrus was certain that Tierney’s portrait would be gone from the gallery the next time he visited.
Moving on, but not as quickly as Iain’s annoyed face indicated he would have liked, Grace stopped before a large portrait in an ornate, gilded frame. “This was Iain’s mother, Jane,” Grace said. “With her sister, Marylyn, and her brother, Sandris, when they were all young.”
Cyrus’s gaze followed the ridges cut in oils to create a tableau of two bonny lasses with ribbons in their hair and a serious-looking young man in formal dress.
A pair of wolfhounds flanked the small group.
Chief Sandris Macqueen had led the clan for decades, dying from an ague of the lungs over a decade ago.
His nephew Wallace had been chief before Iain.
“I have heard that your mother is in Edinburgh?” Sara said, question in her tone.
“Aye, my mother requested to retire to St. Margaret’s Convent in Edinburgh earlier this year and remains there.”
“She didn’t come for the wedding,” Olive said, rigidity in her voice.
“I requested her presence, but she’s taken a vow of silence and isn’t well.” Iain’s face tightened in a little grimace. “Consumption, perhaps.”
“Poor dear,” Olive said, her mouth softening.
“And Iain’s Aunt Marylyn died rather young. An illness. Isn’t that right?” Grace said, pointing to the younger girl next to Jane. Cyrus’s gaze skimmed along the other portraits of children, ladies, and men who made up the leaders of Clan Macqueen.
A medium-size gilded frame held a portrait that made his breath catch, and he walked over to stand before it.
Two women in courtly gowns stared out at him.
The older woman sat in a chair, a smile across her lips—uncommon in formal portraits.
She held the hand of a much younger woman who stood slender and tall, with hair that he knew smelled of freshness and spice. His siren.
“This woman,” Cyrus said and looked at Iain. “Who is she?”
Iain frowned. “My cousin, Laria. Aunt Marylyn’s daughter.”
Cyrus stared at the woman’s eyes. The artist had captured the teasing spark in them, the glint that lured him in. “She’s the one I…danced with last eve.”
“Here at the tower?” Iain asked.
“She was at the masquerade.”
“Was she the one?” Sara whispered.
Grace glanced back. “The one what?”
“Uh…” Sara gave a small smile. “The one who danced la volta with Cyrus.”
Cyrus gave a succinct nod and looked back at the portrait. The lass in it was younger and just blooming into her beauty. “She was dressed like a lady from the sea, a mythical siren.”
“And did she steal your soul?” Grace asked with a grin.
Aye. But he said nothing.
“I hope not,” Iain said. “Laria is mad.”
Cyrus turned to him. “Mad?” She hadn’t seemed unstable until he’d awoken tied to the bed with her standing over him with a dagger. Very well. She’s mad.
“Exceedingly,” Iain said and released a long-suffering sigh. “When I said my grandmother was delayed before… The truth is, Laria stole her from the tower.”
“Stole?” Rory asked.
Iain nodded. “I thought they were traveling together, perhaps to visit some of my grandmother’s husband’s kin on the Isle of Barra. But it seems they have remained here on Skye.”
“Where?” Sara asked.
Iain indicated the windows. “Outside the village.”
Cyrus’s brows furrowed. “They’re living in the forest?”
Iain nodded, his frown deep. “I can’t imagine my poor grandmother living in dirt. I offered to send her to Saint Margaret’s Convent with my mother, but Laria refused.”
“You should send men to find her,” Grace said. “Save your grandmother and punish your cousin.”
“I have tried, but they move around,” Iain said, clasping the back of his neck. “I’d about given up, but if she entered Tuath Tower last night, she can’t have got far. I will send out another group to hunt her down. She can’t get away with causing upheaval here and then fleeing.”
“Upheaval?” Grace asked, glancing at Cyrus. “She merely came inside to dance.”
“Perhaps she orchestrated the stealing of the roast chickens,” Rory said.
Iain scoffed. “Exactly something she would do. And she makes friends with vermin like that otter.”
Grace gasped, anger tightening her face. “She tried to destroy my wedding.”
Iain patted her arm. “I will send out another search party.”
Cyrus stared at the portrait in oils. Laria was wearing gloves in it, too. “Was she burned? She wore gloves last eve, and I thought I saw a scar.”
Iain’s brows rose. “Aye. She was interfering with the maids in the kitchens when a cauldron of boiled-down calf’s oil fell.
Her arms were splashed with the contents, leaving her scarred and one of her fingers mangled.
Gruesome.” He gave a small shiver. “I think the pain of it may have tainted her mind. Her husband certainly didn’t love her more for it. ”
“Her husband?”
“She was married young to Malcolm Ross, the leader of our fishermen here. He was killed at sea within a year of their marriage.”
Cyrus stared into Laria’s face in the portrait.
She didn’t smile like her grandmother but instead stared out at him with green-blue eyes, their unique beauty of which he’d never forget.
They’d pleaded with him to understand as she held the dagger to his throat.
The artist had painted her with her hand resting on her grandmother’s shoulder.
There was a possessiveness about it. Everything about Laria in the portrait was intense: her gaze, the hold on her grandmother, the rigid straightness of her stance.
I am so sorry. Her words, her voice, the pleading… He imagined them coming from the portrait. Was it honest emotion coming from her, or dangerous madness?