Chapter Three #2
Magnus lifted a hand, wiped away the moistness of her kiss. “A God’s name, Janet, do you not ken the gravity of what I am telling you?” He tried again. “I do not have a crust of bread to bribe a beggar to wed you much less a man worthy enough to call himself your liege husband.”
“It matters not,” she said, shrugging again.
Magnus stared at her, now wholly convinced his world had run mad. One woman, and a most desirous one at that, had been set in his lap with more gold-filled coffers than he could hope to win in five years of tourneying, yet he wanted nary a coin of her riches.
And the lass whom he had so hoped to dower came up empty-handed and claimed not to care!
Cooing and petting him she was, her face all aglow like a room full o’ candles.
“Never you worry,” she said, her tone almost coquettish.
“Your fortunes will change now that the MacKinnon fleet will soon be plying the waves again.” She threw her arms around his neck, pressed so close the small rounds of her breasts mashed hotly against the hard links of his mailed shirt. “To be sure, all will soon be well.”
“I shall endeavor to make it so,” Magnus agreed, setting her from him. “So soon as I—”
Feel a man again, he’d almost said.
“You shall feel better after you have had a bath,” she encouraged, echoing his thoughts again—if only superficially.
“That is why I came looking for you.” Her eyes lit at the notion.
“Dagda ordered bathing tubs filled for you and your friend in the kitchens, near the warmth of the cook fires. She will tend your friend, and I—”
“You shall bathe Colin. He is more in need of gentle hands than I, and will welcome your attentions,” Magnus amended her plan. “Dagda can assist me . . . or better yet, I shall see to my own needs.”
“But I have always helped you bathe.”
“Not since I was a beardless stripling, you haven’t,” he reminded her.
She drew herself up to her full, unimpressive height. “You would rather have her wash you.”
Och, but you err greatly, lass. Amicia MacLean is the last woman whose hands I am about to let light upon my naked flesh.
Knowing the unspoken words must surely be stamped in glowing red letters across his forehead, Magnus folded his arms and waited.
And not for overlong.
The slight narrowing of Janet’s eyes revealed how swiftly she’d read them. “You ken I would ne’er wish to make trouble for you,” she purred. “But neither do I see why her concerns matter . . . considering you will soon be sending her away.”
“I have not yet decided what to do with her.” The confession startled Magnus as much as it appeared to vex his cousin.
“As for you making trouble for me, I vow you already have,” he added, seeing no point in telling her he’d just caught sight of a tall, lithe form slipping from the shadows at the far end of the passageway.
His proxy bride had shot one hurt-filled glance his way before vanishing into the blackness of the turnpike stair.
The look old Boiny had aimed at him before traipsing after her did not bear recounting.
Feeling utterly wretched, Magnus MacKinnon, paladin of the lists and poorer than a pauper’s emptiest purse, had just been demoted to the level of a lowly earthworm.
Of a surety, mayhap he’d no longer need to convince the lass of the futility of staying.
Good were the chances she’d leave anon, and of her own good devices.
Pondering such an outcome, Magnus didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.
Someone else suffered no such difficulties.
They enjoyed his misery.
For long after Janet left him, the future MacKinnon laird remained rooted to the spot, staring in turn at the smoke-blackened walls of the vaulted passage or the great empty void that had once been his bedchamber.
“Sweet Christ God!” His voice cracking at last, he gave full rein to his frustration and kicked the charred door frame.
His distress caused a malicious smile to curve someone else’s lips as they watched from the shadows.
Vengeance tasted sweeter than imagined.
Aye, ’twas a rare delicacy, and one that would only improve if someone’s suspicions proved true and Magnus MacKinnon’s pride was all that kept him from rejoicing in his fool sire’s choice of a bride.
Someone’s keen eye and ever-alert ears had gleaned what few kent: MacKinnon the Younger had been sweet on Amicia MacLean since long afore his voice broke and deepened!
And even if the lass had naught to do with a certain someone’s need for revenge, she would make a fine instrument to gain blissful recompense.
A fine instrument, indeed.
High atop Coldstone Castle’s crenellated parapets, Lady Amicia paced the wall-walk, her new fleece-lined cloak clutched tight about her.
Rain clouds were racing in from the west and a knifing wind stung her cheeks, but its chill blast did not gust powerfully enough to chase Janet’s words from her heart.
The roaring of her own blood in her ears had kept her from catching more than a few snatches of the younger woman’s breathy cooings, but what little she had heard only sealed the opinion she’d been forming of the fairylike blonde who clearly fancied Magnus MacKinnon for her own.
Blood cousin or no.
A bath, she’d crooned, batting thick, gold-tipped lashes at him.
Why I came looking for you, she’d simpered as she’d twined her arms around his neck.
And most damning of all: But neither do I see why her concerns matter . . . considering you will soon be sending her away.
Those last words laid weighted fetters on Amicia’s every breath. Worse, they undermined her faith in her ability to win a place in her husband’s heart.
Increasing her step, she tried to close her ears to the echoing litany, to unhear the silky purr of her rival’s voice. Tail of the devil, just remembering the woman’s blatant coyness made her want to give a loud huff of indignation that any man of sound wit would fall for such artful conniving.
Like as not, she would have hooted with laughter right there in the dank passageway had that man been any other than Magnus MacKinnon.
But it had been him, so she’d held back any such urges.
And now she made do with grinding her teeth and taking ever-longer strides along the deserted battlements.
She’d pace even faster if her new mantle, a wedding gift from Devorgilla, Doon’s venerable wisewoman, didn’t prove so cumbersome.
But its heavy folds warmed her and, the saints knew, she was built sturdy enough to carry its weight and more.
Much more . . . as she meant to prove to a slip of a chit half her size.
To that end, she drew a deep, cleansing breath of the chill night air.
Air heavily laced with the scent of the sea and cold, damp stone.
Old stone, and peat smoke, and family.
Air so like that of home, her eyes watered . . . or would have if she’d been of a mind to allow such an indulgence.
And of a certainty she wasn’t, so she leaned against a square-toothed merlon in the parapet walling and blinked back the hot sting of tears before they could fall.
Beside her, Boiny dropped to his haunches and gave a deep-chested, elderly-dog grunt. He leaned heavily against her, well-pleased to sit even if his milky gaze revealed his sympathy for her troubles.
Fighting the hollow feeling inside her, Amicia stroked the dog’s soft, floppy ears and stared out to where the moon cast a silvery pathway over the night-blackened sea.
That was what she needed . . . a magical path out of the darkness she’d awakened in. A path she’d need to forge for herself, that much she knew.
But how?
Her new husband was loath to keep her.
And a wee wisp of a fawning she-cat was bound and determined to keep him!
“You will soon be sending her away. . . .” Amicia mimicked Janet’s trillings, her cheeks hot as flame despite the night’s cold.
She looked down at Boiny, knew heart-swelling gratitude for his company. “Did you hear her?” she asked him, her hand moving to knead the loose skin of his rough-coated shoulders. “Have you e’er seen such a display of well-honed wenchy wiles?”
Her pulse kicking up in agitation, she fussed with the fall of her cloak, silently cursed its heaviness. Pest and botheration, ne’er could any female save an undergrown, great-eyed beauty of delicate, nymphlike proportion pull off such an exhibition without appearing ludicrous.
Ire churning inside her, she leaned harder against the icy-cold granite of the merlon. Constricting bands of ne’er before experienced doubts and inadequacies clamped fast round her rib cage, squeezing with a vengeance.
Over and over again, the younger woman’s simpering echoed in her mind, taunting her.
“A plague on her,” Amicia mumbled, frowning out at the tossing seas.
Faith, with her handsome height and bold form, as her brothers were fond of describing her, she could never coo and simper at a man—any man—without looking, and feeling, an utter fool.
An ungainly and awkward fool.
Sighing, she dashed a stray raindrop from her cheek. How could she compete with a nemesis whose waist she could span with her own two hands?
By being yourself and trusting your heart, the wind seemed to whisper, pausing in its racing fury to caress her cheek most gently.
Amicia blinked.
She tilted her head to listen, but naught else came.
Too much of an Isleswoman to discount such an urging, however faint or fleeting, she lifted her chin, shoved back the hood of her cloak.
The wind, once more speeding across the ramparts, tore at her hair and cooled her flushed cheeks, its buffeting might a welcome relief to the hot MacLean blood coursing through her veins.
A legacy she held in tight rein . . . most times.
Curbing it now—as best she could—she trailed her fingertips along the cold, damp stone of the crenel’s edge and considered her options.
Since time beyond memory, MacLean men were known to be blessed with all manner of traditions and enchantments to smooth their way to finding the ladies of their hearts.
MacLean women enjoyed no such boons.