A Perfect Knight For Love (21 page)

“What wench?” he asked finally.

“The one you brought. And who is, even now, secreted away . . . deep in your chamber. That wench.”

She might be attempting to make it sound sordid and brazen and evil. Her words caused the opposite to happen. Thayne swallowed the instant picture of Amalie bathing in her warmed water-filled tub before the fire while the light spread its glow over her woman-curves.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

The duchess had a taunting tone running the words.

“You’re na’ wrong.”

The expression on her face created deeper lines throughout it while hollows formed in both cheeks. He decided failing eyesight would actually be a blessing to her each and every time she looked in a mirror.

“I doona’ allow women in a bachelor’s abode.”

“Some of my servants are women,” Thayne reminded her.

“She’s a servant? Send her to me.”

“Nae.”

“You’re telling me no?”

“I’m saying she’s nae servant.”

“Then she is to leave.”

“Nae to that, as well,” Thayne answered.

“You canna’ tell me no. I’m the Duchess of MacGowan!”

“True.”

“I demand you send her away.”

“Nae.”

“Send her away . . . immediately!”

Her voice was at screech level. The room echoed with it. She’d never lost control to this level before. Thayne wasn’t the lone one wincing at the noise.

“If I refuse?” Thayne asked.

“I-I-I.”

She was a Douglas. Used to getting her own way; if not by force then by threat of worse. Her clan was powerful, directly related to the Stewart line. If the Stewart still sat on the throne, she’d probably have a ready answer and a powerful army backing it up. Thayne watched her assimilate it. There wasn’t much she could use anymore. Her lips went tight, forming harsher lines about her mouth. Those matched the ones in her forehead and about her eyes as she squinted. It also lengthened her nose, adding to its size. If she’d had any attractiveness, it was completely ruined.

“Well?” Thayne prompted.

“I’ll take it up with . . . my husband.”

“You do that.”

“I’ll not abide a harlot in my castle! If you insist on keeping her, I’ll—”

“What makes her a harlot?” Thayne interrupted.

“What else could she be?”

He paused for the full effect; waited . . . and then told her. “She’s my lady wife.”

He watched her jaw drop. And then her eyes went wide, taking her face out of the wrinkled mess it had been in.

“Your—your—”

Thayne hadn’t been so entertained in years. He grinned openly. And then he pursed his lips to say it slowly and distinctly. “Wife. Now, I truly am leaving. I’ve things to do. Good eve, Wynneth.”

He rarely used her given name. It was too informal and he stayed clear of anything giving that impression. Right now, it felt perfect. His departure would have been, too, if he hadn’t a slight limp all the way across the floor. Despite how he controlled it, tensed for it, and tightened the muscles to hold it, the wound was still too fresh and raw. He only hoped the pain wouldn’t affect his performance later.

When bedding his wife.

Chapter 15

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Well . . . some of it.

She’d expected a seemingly endless series of steps in the tower Sean entered at a jog. It was impersonal but odd-feeling to be carried by a stranger. He didn’t look at her when he stopped as they reached the tower, huffed a few breaths, jounced her as if resettling her, and then started climbing countless wide stone steps that spiraled up into the darkness. She only toyed with asking him to set her down. Speaking to him seemed even more intimate. So she kept silent, chewed on her lip, and looked about her.

The wheel-stair was a spiral, the walls of huge blocked stone, although there were shields and tapestries and weapons displayed intermittently on the walls, interspersed with lit torches in their sconces. The inner walls were also hewn of stone, although it was white instead of the dark gray. She guessed that was for reflection purposes, from any daylight that might filter through the arrow slits, and from the torches.

The stairs felt endless, causing her to surmise Thayne’s chamber must be located atop the Great Hall, but she hadn’t been counting and had no idea how many Sean kept climbing. It didn’t truly matter. She’d know soon enough. There was an alcove every time the stairs ran along the outer barbican wall of the castle. At each junction, there were long corridors fanning out on either side, disappearing into torch-cast gloom, as well as angled alcoves cut into what looked to be at least twelve feet of rock. The alcoves were triangular in shape, fanning from room size to just wide enough for two archers to stand, each pointing their missiles in a differing direction. There were furnishings in them as well. Rolled pallets against walls. Tables. Benches. Some were occupied, too, by kilt-clad MacGowan men sporting weaponry and nodding before turning back to the view. Amalie avoided meeting any glances from anyone.

They passed two of those defense alcoves, with gloom-filled corridors leading from them. She took another guess that these were halls connecting the castle dwellings, built alongside, or into the walls. They were dark. Impossible to penetrate even if she tried and Sean kept climbing without stopping. At the third one he stopped, huffed for more breaths and resettled her again, cradling her legs atop his arms without causing the slightest reaction to being carried by a strange male. Instinctively her body must know it wasn’t Thayne. That was worrisome, but no more than the instant thought of what he’d promised would take place tonight.

Tonight!

The word sent a shiver through her. If Sean felt it he didn’t remark on it as he turned into a corridor, walked ten steps into it before turning to his right. They’d reached a large doorway leading back toward the center of the complex. It looked to be the same twelve feet in thickness. Amalie guessed this could be where the Norman Keep had been attached to the outer wall as Thayne had told her. It could be directly above the Great Hall, which would be at least three stories. She decided to check when she had a chance by looking through an arrow slit. The view was probably spectacular.

Enclosed within the arch was a wooden door of the same immense size everything seemed to be. It was covered with deeply grooved carvings and hand rubbed with pigments of some kind to give it a color she’d never seen. It was attached to the rock walls with thick leather straps studded with iron bolts. The door had two handles smelted and fashioned of more iron right in the center of it. Sean gripped her with one arm in order to push against one of them.

The door opened not to a chamber, but into another immense hall, defined by torch-lit doorways and more branching halls. If the flooring was wood, it was of a thickness that prevented any pounding sound as Sean stepped along it, his steps sure and quiet. Amalie glanced upward to gauge height but was unable to see anything due to the lack of lighting. The entire place felt gloomy. Dark. Mysterious. Medieval. It was easy to see why the duchess preferred the newer building. Any woman would, with its long tall windows in symmetrical order, carved porticos, and columns and niche containing statuary. No doubt the interiors of that building were light and airy, and open. All of it in direct contrast to this behemoth.

The further they walked, the more movement she sensed happening about them. A glance showed why. The bare rock walls between doors had been covered with tapestries floating from somewhere in the gloom above all the way to the floor. They covered both sides. It was too dark and Sean was moving too quickly to note the colors or materials or artistry, but at some point a MacGowan had tried to make the keep livable. That helped assuage the cold hollow feeling growing in her belly. The one that she was studiously ignoring.

This hall ended at another set of double-doors, identical to the first, both to the wood and pigments, and the depth of the carving. That’s where Sean stopped, set her on her feet where she wobbled slightly while he lifted a brass ring and dropped it. The sound thudded into silence.

“Where . . . are we?” She tried for a self-assured tone, but sounded small and insecure to her own ears. It probably didn’t matter how one spoke and with what volume. Sound felt like it got swallowed up in the air of the hall. She heard the unmistakable sounds of a bolt being pulled from the other side.

“His Lordship’s chambers.”

Sean announced it and pushed at the center of the doors at the same time. There were two maid servants, in dark-colored gowns with white caps atop their heads, pulling at the doors as Sean pushed, making it a joint maneuver. Amalie didn’t realize she had her breath held until losing it at the sheer majesty facing her.

At first glance the entire wall seemed to be glass. It took several stunned seconds to realize it was due to a sequence of windows, each in a series of three, supported by its own arch, that were designed into a semicircle spanning right out into space. There was a semicircular padded window seat delineating the bottoms of each trio of windows, while at either end she could see what appeared to be the battlements of a balcony. The Romanesque-designed arches framed stained glass that was fitted atop each window, creating a vision of color and design that trailed downward before giving way to clarity midway as it turned to glazed glass.

Amalie’s jaw dropped and she didn’t do a thing to prevent it. The design was stunning, the execution amazing, and the view beyond even more so.

It appeared Thayne’s chamber must be on the top story of the keep, making it taller than the outer walls. That gave it enough height to view the lake they’d traveled around and there was a mountain on the far shore that the setting sun silhouetted into blackness. The last vestige of sunlight burnished the view and turned the lake into liquid, gold-tipped aqua. It looked fairy-like and absolutely unreal.

The impression didn’t fade the longer she stood there, taking in the beauty and fantasy bordered by window frame. It was impossible to create something of such wonder and beauty, and yet, here it was . . . right before her eyes. In a Highland castle owned by a barbaric clan.

It was as unbelievable as it was incredible. She was transfixed and awed; rooted in place. And that was just wrong on every level. Amalie blinked her wits back into place and that just got her more immediate concerns . . . such as the bed.

Oh . . . sweet heaven!

There was a walled enclosure of some sort directly to her left, and beyond the wood partition she could see the bed. She tipped forward in order to look it over fully, and then had to suffer the blizzard of shivers that happened.

Thayne had a canopied bed that looked to own the entire left portion of the chamber, jutting out into the room atop its own pedestal. Amalie had never seen anything so impressive or massive. It looked carved by the same craftsmen as the doors, and must be over Thayne’s height, but it was difficult to tell from standing in the doorway, three steps above the floor. The bed was flanked by large armoires, spreading out from it. The wall backing was more rock, but a good portion was covered over in thick panels of cloth in red, green, and black. The solid colors were embroidered with gold thread and attached high to the wall by a shield-thing, before draping out to enshroud the bed. The entire thing radiated power and might. She gulped.

Tonight! And in that bed!

She didn’t dare think on it. She wouldn’t think on it. It was enough that she’d have to somehow stop him and find a good enough reason why.

Amalie stepped forward and tripped on the first plateau of steps. That gained her Sean’s hand at her elbow and chuckles from the servants. She was grateful for the assistance before she shook it off. Otherwise, she might have fallen. Three steps dropped into the room, their shape echoing the semicircle of the windows. The steps might be rock hewn but it didn’t really matter. All she knew was they were cold. Chill met her feet through her slipper soles and it didn’t abate as she reached the floor. She could see it was highly polished wood. The sheen reflected not only both fires in the fireplaces to her right, but also the myriad torches burning from freestanding torch holders throughout the room. They’d placed rugs about, woven with the red, green, and black color scheme the MacGowan clan favored. They all seemed to be pointing into the room; marking pathways toward the windows, the fireplaces. . . the bed.

There was a seating arrangement around the closest fireplace on her right. The glow created welcoming warmth captured within an arrangement of two settees, three large chairs, and a table. Shadowed hulks of more armoires and some bureaus stood mutely, some against walls, others used for separation of space. The same craftsmen creating his doors and bed looked to have designed and constructed everything in the room. Or someone had gone to great care to make certain of the theme. Amalie walked across massive space to the first fireplace and trailed her hand along the top of a settee, then a chair, then atop the carved wood of another settee as she walked toward the end of the room. She’d never seen such space given over to just one chamber. It was fit for a king. Massive. Silent and foreboding. And vaguely threatening. The impression didn’t fade as she walked slowly, keeping her attention on the right, which seemed safer. The walls above and about the fireplaces were covered with long heraldic-themed banners, shields, and more than one arrangement of weaponry she didn’t recognize, while the space below had heavy carved wardrobes and couches spaced intermittently along it.

They’d progressed far with the bath. Two more maids, dressed identically to the others, were by the farthest fire, one tending to towels whose thickness could be evaluated by a glance, while the other stood before a carved screen placed behind a hip bath. Or what must be a hip bath, although it was built on the same lines as the rest of his household. Amalie guessed she’d probably be neck-deep once in it. She could see it was already half full, as firelight reflected from the water’s surface.