Sue-Ellen Welfonder - MacKenzie 07 (19 page)

Lady Arabella gasped.

Then she shivered and drew his plaid more tightly around her shoulders. Even worse, she shook her head sadly, releasing one of the tears clinging to her eyelashes. It spilled down her cheek and dripped onto Darroc's plaid.

Watching, he clenched his fists and turned back around to face the window. If he kept looking at her - seeing her sympathy - he might blurt out just why MacConachers had returned to Castle Bane.

And that was a tale he did not want to share with her.

It involved, after all, her own grandfather.

And his.

Half certain he could feel the glowers of both men - MacConacher and MacKenzie

- Darroc remained at the window and glared down at the sea-washed rocks beneath the tower. White with spume, they still managed to look black as death.

His jaw set grimly on the thought. It was, after all, more than appropriate.

There were few men who'd brought about the ends of so many lives.

Darroc blew out a breath. Rock-glaring wasn't making him feel better. Far from it; his hands clenched and he almost wished he'd had a different grandsire. It would certainly be a boon if Arabella of Kintail did. But all the regretful musings in the world wouldn't change her blood.

Or his.

He stepped closer to the window arch, needing to put more distance between himself and her powerfully alluring presence in his bed.

As if she knew, she kept silent behind him. But he felt her stare pinning him. Not that he was about to wheel around and catch her at it. From her rustlings, she was no doubt dabbing at her eyes, still grieved over Asa Long-Legs's tragic plight.

Frowning, Darroc hunched his shoulders against the night's cold. But he straightened as quickly, too proud to show any sign of weakness.

Not before a MacKenzie.

And with surety not in front of a female of that ilk.

He did keep his gaze on the rocks, unable to look away as sea foam repeatedly wreathed the jagged crests. Again and again the glistening spume appeared and disappeared, almost seeming to mock him.

His grandfather and Lady Arabella's were long gone, but the skerries and their ever-present spray were still there and always would be. Such permanency could fill a romantic soul with yearning. Offering promises of something so tempting and so impossible to achieve, yet - just now - seeming close enough to touch.

If he was of a mind to reach for it.

Not it, but her.

Darroc's brows snapped together in a fierce scowl.

Had such a notion truly crossed his mind?

It had, and the truth of his attraction to the lass galled him to the bone. His stomach even knotted and despite the night's cold, brittle air, he could feel tiny beads of damp forming on his brow.

She slept now, he was sure. He could hear her soft, steady breaths. And - devil curse him - in his mind's eye he saw her standing beside him, her face turned to the wind and her midnight hair swirling about her hips. Moon glow would gild her smooth, creamy skin and her scent, fresh, light, and wholly her own, would enchant him. Her magnificent breasts...

"Damnation!" Pushing her from his thoughts, he stared fixedly at the rocks and willed himself to think again of Asa Long-Legs.

Doing so would keep his mind off things he had no business glomming about.

Better to dwell on a tragedy no one could undo than risk unleashing a new one.

He had no doubt that Arabella MacKenzie could plunge his clan into a disaster worse than any they'd yet seen.

If he heeded his damnable desires.

It would be so easy to turn around and take a step in her direction.

Forget clan honor and vengeance and...

Nae! Everything inside him - all that he was - roared denial. He could feel his mouth turning down, his face contorting with the pain of a soul rent in two. Some things mattered more than a fetching female's well-turned ankle and sparkling sapphire eyes.

And there was nothing wrong with him save how long it'd been since he'd last aired a woman's skirts. On his next supply run to Glasgow, he'd sample the charms of not one but at least three tavern wenches.

Oddly, the notion didn't bring the anticipatory twitch that it should have.

Indeed, the thought left him cold, desiring only the one maid that he couldn't possibly make his own.

So he went back to scowling at the sea, this time imagining Asa Long-Legs standing at her window centuries ago, doing the same. His innards twisted to think of her staring out at such a dark, lonely world with only the night wind to greet her.

Or perhaps the haunting song of the seals.

Darroc shuddered.

He hadn't forgotten how the seals had gathered just before the wreck of the Merry Dancer.

There was one down there now.

A lone seal.

The smallish creature wasn't bobbing in the waves or even sprawled across one of the skerries, but sat on a jumble of seaweed-strewn rocks on the shore.

Darroc leaned out the window to get a better look. Then he dropped his jaw when he saw that the seal's coat wasn't gray or black or even a mottled combination of the two. This animal had glossy red fur and a plumed, white-tipped tail.

The seal was a little red fox.

Sure he was seeing things - for he hadn't believed Mungo's tales of a fox in Castle Bane's bailey - he blinked and the creature vanished.

Or so he thought, for the wee beastie appeared again as quickly, now strutting along the boat strand. He appeared to examine the hulls of the fishing cobles and other craft beached there.

Darroc watched, his heart thundering.

The fox turned and stared back at him, the creature's handsome brush twitching proudly before he returned to sniffing the boats.

No doubt he smelled fish.

Still, there was something strange about him.

His yellow-gold eyes glowed with an otherworldly light. They also looked oddly intelligent. Darroc could tell even at a distance.

"Saints, Maria, and Joseph!" He forgot himself and used the Black Stag's oath.

The fox kept trotting down the strand, moving from boat to boat.

And then he was gone.

Disappearing as if he'd never been there, live as the day and right beneath Darroc's nose.

He shook his head, disbelieving.

He'd imagined the creature.

Or - saints forbid - he was going mad.

He shoved a hand through his hair, frowning. Next he'd see real seals wearing necklaces of ringing bells. He hadn't forgotten them either. Or perhaps the fox would return and join in the seals' eerie serenade.

He was beginning to believe anything was possible.

The only thing crazier would be to remain in Arabella of Kintail's presence a moment longer. If he did, he'd cross the room, gather her in his arms, and wake her. Then he'd kiss her again.

Kiss her in a way that would damn him more than the power of a thousand Thunder Rods.

Not wanting that to happen, he spun away from the window and strode from the room as quickly as his dignity would allow. And as he stomped down the tower stairs, bound for his makeshift bed in the hall, he knew one thing.

He wasn't mad.

He was wise.

And in his great wisdom, he'd do what he could to protect his clan from disaster.

There really wasn't a choice in the matter. His hands were tied and his options limited, carved in stone many years before. It was a fate written with the blood of his kin and - to a Highlander - family and clan were more important than the air they breathed.

Arabella of Kintail was the enemy.

And he meant to steer well clear of her.

Anything else was too dangerous.

A sennight later, Duncan MacKenzie swept into his wife's ladies solar, not bothering to shut the door behind him. His entrance made the wall tapestries flutter and almost gutted several candles. He halted in the room's center, his face dark and his hands fisted. His expression was fierce. Some might even say murderous.

He didn't bother to rein in his temper.

Enough was enough.

But he did come close to roaring when his wrath provoked no more than an arched brow from his lady wife, Linnet.

She above all others should know what riled him.

For seven days three well-supplied, fully armed and ready-to-launch galleys lay beached on his boat strand, empty. There wasn't a man left at Eilean Creag with the strength to shove the craft into the water. And there were even fewer men who'd be able to hoist the sails and ply the oars. They'd all fallen mysteriously ill.

Duncan's scowl blackened at the unfairness of it.

His patience was frayed beyond repair.

"'Fore God!" He glared at his wife, his deep voice echoing in the tiny room. "If I hear another cough, sneeze, or wheeze, I shall cure the fevering bastards by tossing them into the loch. Naked!"

"Duncan..." Linnet looked at him from where she sat on a low stool before the fire. "They cannot help that they've caught the ague."

"The ague?" He flashed a glance at the open door, scowling. "They're going on as if they have the poxy plague! Lying about, tossing on their pallets and moaning - "

"You shouldn't jest about the plague." Linnet pushed to her feet. "You - "

"Jest?" Duncan began to pace. "Think you I'm jesting? If it isn't that wretched malaise, why did they succumb the very night before we were to set out for MacConacher's Isle? And the whole bluidy lot of them?"

"It isn't the pox." Linnet's voice was calm as always. "They've simply - "

"Cursed is what they are!" Duncan snatched his wife's herb bag off a trestle bench and shook the bulging pouch at her. "Your wood sorrel tincture and oat gruel aren't helping them. Someone's bespelled us and is trying to keep us here.

Someone who doesn't want me adding a fine row of spiked MacConacher heads to my curtain walls!"

"You don't know what you're saying." Linnet laid a hand on his arm, trying to soothe.

He jerked free. "I say it was him. Marmaduke. That's why I haven't been troubled like the rest of my men. No hacking coughs and fevering for me. The sly Sassunach wastrel wants me full by my wits so I'm aware of each day that passes.

Every hour that keeps us from setting forth to rescue Arabella and - "

"Sir Marmaduke would never do such a thing. And Arabella is rescued." Linnet gripped his arm again, squeezing this time. "I've told you everything I saw. All of it, as well you know."

Duncan clamped his mouth shut. What she'd told him didn't bear dwelling on.

He certainly wasn't going to discuss it. Not this night, not ever. Their last attempt to speak of Arabella in MacConacher hands had soured his mood and ruined his appetite for days.

"I told you" - his wife seemed to have forgotten - "the man and the old woman were treating her kindly. No harm has or will come to her."

"She's already been harmed!"

"You know what I meant."

Duncan pretended he didn't know. Belligerence suited him just now.

Linnet sighed and released his arm. "The gods work in strange ways. The MacConachers are the last clan we're at odds with. Perhaps it is time - "

"We're more than at odds with the hell-fiends." Duncan stalked to a window and threw open the shutters, needing air. "Every last hill in Scotland will sink into the sea before I'd allow Arabella to wed a MacConacher."

"I never said the man I saw would be her husband."

Duncan snorted. "You didn't have to." He flashed a heated glance at her. "It's writ all o'er you."

She had the good grace to flush. "The man I saw loves her."

"If he's a MacConacher, he'll regret it!" Duncan tossed back his hair, furious.

"I was born a MacDonnell." His wife's words jabbed a vulnerable place. "Our clans feuded bitterly. Truth tell, if I recall" - she joined him at the window - "that was the reason you wished to wed me. Leastways it was one of them."

She smiled up at him and something inside him softened. "I would say we've made a good match."

"The best." Duncan swallowed against a sudden and most inconvenient thickness in his throat. "Your clan were naught more than unruly cattle thieves," he argued, wishing she could see why this with Arabella was different.

"The MacConachers are shifty, fork-tongued murderers." His outrage vanquished the lump in his throat. "They - "

"They are perhaps the final clan we must seek peace with." She slid an arm around his waist, leaning into him. He scowled, trying not to notice the soft, feminine warmth of her, so familiar and dear.

"I will not argue my father's... ills." She peered up at him, her gaze unwavering.

"Though I'm sure you'll agree my brothers serve you well as allies. Life has been good to us. Our children are now having their own. Would you not see those bairns born into a world without blood foes? Is not peace the greatest legacy we can give them?"

"The MacConachers will learn the peace of my steel." Duncan wouldn't concede.

Clans were made for warring.

As if she'd read his thoughts, she stepped back and returned to her stool by the fire. She clasped her hands in her lap and held her back straight. The angle of her jaw could only be called peeved.

Duncan frowned.

For some ridiculous reason, he felt chastised.

Make peace with their last feuding clan!

Hah! What he should do was throw back his head and roar with laughter. He would have, too, if he weren't so worried about his daughter. And - he couldn't deny it - the possibility that his wife was right.

She usually was.

Saints help him.

That same evening, Darroc flattened his back against the cold stony curve of Castle Bane's stair tower. He stood only a few winding steps above the arched entry to the great hall. And he was doing his best not to inhale too deeply. He did splay his fingers across the chill damp of the wall. If he couldn't stop his breathing or the pounding of his heart, he could hunker here, unmoving.

Strange things had been going on in his keep and duty gave him no choice but to get to the bottom of it.

He resisted the urge to snort.

Nae, to laugh.

There were surely not many chieftains who'd hide in their own turnpike stairs because the table linens in his great hall were disappearing. But it wasn't just the missing linens that bothered him.