Chapter Two #2
Cool, moist air poured through the unprotected opening and thin curtains of damp, eddying mist could be seen gathering beyond its narrow arch. She took solace in the sight, for concealing as the drifting fog might be, it could not undo the beauty of MacKinnons’ Isle.
The mist only veiled what lay beyond the window.
It could not steal away miles of sand-duned shores, rugged promontories, and fine, deep-watered bays. Couldn’t mar the awe she’d felt upon first glimpsing the burnished gold beaches rimming the isle or ruin her appreciation for the ridge of high, cloud-wreathed hills rising from its interior.
Just as Magnus MacKinnon’s frowns and fulminations did not diminish the worthiness of the man hiding beneath them.
The man she wanted.
Had always wanted . . . despite years of silly clan feuding over supposed slights and nefarious doings the origin of which no living person could recall—save that it had something to do with a stolen bride.
But their clans had been friendly in recent years, and she was anything but stolen. Nor was she unwilling, and she knew they could find joy and bliss together—if only he would give her a chance.
So she squared her shoulders and turned back to him, as determined a warrior as any to e’er set foot on a true field of battle.
“My sorrow that you could not have been told sooner,” she loosed her first assault, the cold trembling of Donald MacKinnon’s aged fingers helping her maintain an air of dignity and grace.
She let her gaze light over her husband’s rumpled traveling clothes. Dried mud crusted the leather of his worn-looking boots and her pulse quickened, her heart catching, at the darkish smears on his ragged-edged plaid.
Ominous stains that looked suspiciously like blood.
A rash of chills slid down her back and her stomach wrenched at the grim reminder of the horrors, the grinding defeat he’d seen at Dupplin Moor.
“You have only just arrived and are full weary,” she said, pouring compassion into her words. “I vow it no great wonder you’d chaffer upon learning—”
“I’ve learned naught but what canna be undone,” Magnus jerked, not letting her finish.
The words rang hollow, as if he’d pulled each one from the dredges of his soul. “A marriage needs a bed-going to be sanctified. A dowry can be returned unspent. A bride, unsullied.”
“Of a certainty, my lord, and well I know it,” Amicia granted, refusing to acknowledge the tight knot pulsing ever hotter at the back of her neck. “But—”
“For truth! What’s keeping Dagda?” This time, the elder MacKinnon cut her off. Yanking his hand from hers, the old laird cast a desperate glance at the opened door.
But Dagda, Coldstone’s redoubtable female seneschal, aptly named after the formidable and quite masculine chief of the mythical race of Irish gods, the Tuatha dé Danann, was nowhere to be seen.
Naught lurked in the gloomy corridor save a musty-scented chill and the wispy smoke haze of a guttering wall torch. And rather than Dagda’s approaching footfalls, the only sound to be heard above the patter of rain was the breaking of waves on the not-too-distant shore.
“Devil take that she-goat’s cheeky hide if she doesn’t hie herself in here with refreshments, and before long!” Donald MacKinnon scolded, swaying a bit on his feet.
At once, Magnus thrust out a quick hand to steady him. “Unless her knees have grown less creaky in my absence, she’ll be needing time to make her way up from the kitchens.”
“Faugh!” The old laird shook off his son’s hand and aimed another pointed stare at the dark-yawning passageway. “She gets about well enough when she wishes to poke her nose where it don’t belong.”
Magnus drew a deep breath. “That may be so, but you needn’t have troubled her with fetching aught for me. I’ve no stomach for drinking healths this night.” He paused to glance over his shoulder. “Though I’ll wager Colin would welcome a wee posset to aid his sleep.”
“A posset?” A richly masculine voice rose from the shadows near the hearth. “What man worthy of the title would long for a posset when such fairness stands before him?”
Her attention arrested, Amicia turned toward the voice, watched as a swarthy-looking man of about the same number of years as Magnus carefully heaved himself off a low, oaken bench.
Nigh as fine on the eyes as Magnus and equally mud-splattered, he came forward with slow, purposeful strides. But a thin line of white around his lips and a not-quite concealed wince undermined his best attempts at hiding the pain each movement cost him.
“Please, sir, you are injured. Keep your seat, I pray you,” Amicia urged him, her heart twisting at the way he favored his right leg. She tried to wave him back, but he came ever onward, his hands extended in such sincere welcome her breath caught with emotion.
Would that Magnus had greeted her half so warmly.
“Guidsakes, you witless lout—where are your manners?” The swarthy man, clearly a fellow knight, clapped a hand on Magnus’s shoulder as if in scoffing reproach, but his white-knuckled grip indicated he had sore need of the support.
His chivalry required no such bolster. “Pay my good friend no heed,” he advised her. “The great lump is but too stubborn to admit that your beauty would banish the cares from the most troubled of brows.”
Sweeping her the best bow he could, his injured leg considered, he captured her hand for a featherlight kiss. “Colin Grant of . . . och, just Colin Grant, fair lady, and I am yours to command.”
A blush blossomed on Amicia’s cheeks. “I thank you, noble sir, and I shall honor your friendship.” She slid a sidelong glance at Magnus, noted the tight press of his lips, the muscle jerking ever so imperceptibly at his jaw.
Could he be jealous?
Her pulse leaping at the possibility, she smiled at the goodly man who’d so valiantly offered to champion her. “Aye, but it is as a leal friend I would see you, Colin Grant, ne’er a servant, for your gallantry lifts you high in my esteem.”
“As you wish, my lady.” Colin inclined his dark head.
Magnus frowned all the blacker.
He cleared his throat . . . a mite too loudly.
“You will have scarce time to attend her wishes or be her friend, leal or otherwise,” he intoned, a thread of irritation in his voice.
“The Lady Amicia shall be returned to her brothers as soon as her coffers of coin and sundry other dowry goods can be loaded onto the next passing galley our signal fires can draw to a halt.”
“Young Magnus! How are you faring?” A tall and strong-backed older woman surveyed him from the doorway. “Tsk, never you mind,” she added, running a shrewd gaze over him. “I can see with my own two eyes that you’ve a long, hard road behind you.”
“I am well enough, or was—” Magnus caught himself. He would not add insulting innocent women to his growing list of faults.
Though from the way the Lady Amicia straightened her spine and drew back her shoulders, like as not she knew exactly what he’d been about to blurt.
Feeling ridiculously guilty, he opened his mouth to say something—anything—to erase the hurt she tried so valiantly to hide, but Dagda spoke before he could.
“You won’t be needing to set any signal fires,” she announced. “’Tis onto a fine new galley of your own you can soon put your bride if you truly wish to make a blithering fool of yourself. But like it or no, her strongboxes have already been well-emptied.”
The old woman sailed past him, her black skirts swishing, a tray of a cold-sliced seafowl and crisp-baked bannocks with honey clutched in her hands.
“Or did you not come by way of the landing beach?” She plunked the tray on the room’s sole table—a rough-hewn, wobbly-legged one of age-blackened oak.
Turning, she dusted her hands. “Dinna tell me you haven’t asked where your brothers be?” She slid an accusatory glance at the old laird. “Has himself there not told you those two rascals and every man with good arms has been working day and night to rebuild your lost fleet?”
Magnus all but choked. “I know nothing of this,” he spluttered when he could find breath. “Other unexpected matters kept me from enquiring of Hugh’s and Dugan’s health . . . or their doings.”
His stomach, queasy already, tied itself into knots. “The MacDonald galley that bore my friend and me passage dropped us by the cliffs, at the sea gate. They did so at my behest—I couldn’t bear to see the wreck-strewn shore of the landing beach.”
Dagda snorted. “Those wracks be long gone, never you mind,” she declared, smoothing her palms on the stiff black linen of her widow’s skirts.
“We had need of the wood for fuel and repairs round about the keep.” She nodded to Amicia, her taciturn features softening for a moment.
“Thanks be to your new bride, a score of fine, new galleys will soon be moored off MacKinnons’ Isle. ”
“By the Mass! No-o-o.” The denial burst from the heart of Magnus’s smashed pride. “Our fleet should have been rebuilt with MacKinnon coin and none other.” He shook his head, striving to control his features. “This is not to be borne. I cannot allow—”
“You are letting the pain of recent days blind you to what is wise and right.” Colin clamped iron-tight fingers around his arm, squeezing hard for emphasis. “And you are doing hurt to those who should be cherished and protected from such outbursts.”
That last, a barely audible whisper close by his hot-burning ear.
Jerking free of his friend’s grip, Magnus swiped the back of his hand across his brow. Sakes, but his forehead was perspiring. As was all of him . . . icy cold rivulets of sweat streaked down his back in torrents.
And the truth of Colin’s reprimand only increased the copious flow.
As did his father’s mumblings about being an auld done man.
Feeling quite old and done himself, he shot a look at Amicia and knew an immediate jab of guilt upon noting the sudden pallor of her cheeks.