Bride of the Beast (16 page)

Embarrassed, she tried to glance away, but he crooked his fingers beneath her chin, his firm grip leaving her little choice but to stare back at him.

His face had gone a shade paler, and the line of his jaw appeared to have hardened a bit, but his expression didn't bear any of the anger she'd expected.

"Indeed I would like to woo you as I did Arabella," he said, his voice a notch deeper than usual, "and to speak to you of your sister as well... to tell you why I revere her."

He glanced at the door. It still stood ajar. "But first, I would have private words with you."

"Private words?" she echoed, her senses still careening with the intensity of his nearness, the name Arabella spinning a tight little knot of disquiet somewhere beneath her ribs.

"Perhaps I should say words spoken in private." He strode to the door, clearly confident she'd follow him.

And she did, much to his relief.

Closing his ears to the ethereal whispers breathed to life by her mention of Arabella's name, Marmaduke stepped into the torchlit passageway, glad to close the solar door on memories of summers gone and bliss-filled nights long past

His new lady's scent swirled around him, its crisp, clean lightness chasing away the dark of another, long-faded fragrance, and sweeping through him with all the wonder of a bright new day.

A new life, he hoped.

She peered at him, questions filling her sapphire eyes, the smooth cream of her cheeks touched with just a hint of rose. "Will you tell me about her?' she probed, the words scarce audible above the wind whistling past the corridor's shuttered windows. "Who she was?"

Marmaduke nodded, too thick-throated to speak, the iron bands around his heart both tightening their grasp and snapping free.

Tugged in two directions.

One beautiful and dark, but cold as the sea battering Dunlaidir's cliffs; the other equally lovely but awash with air the golden light and warmth of a sunburst.

Vibrantly alive,
and calling to him louder than the fast-fading echoes of another time.

Another woman's love.

"Aye, I will tell you of her," he forced the words, "but not in this corridor."

"Then, where?" She tilted her golden head to the side and her
arisaid
parted just enough to tempt him with another sweet glimpse of the top swells of her breasts, luscious enough to rub the silver clean off his tongue.

"Have you a squint?" he heard himself ask, the fool-sounding question tumbling from his lips before he could better articulate his concerns.

He almost grimaced, and would have, were it not for his scar. She already peered queerly at him, her brows arched in confusion.

Allowing a scowl to twist his features into an even more unappealing visage would only distress her further.

She blinked. "A squint?"

"A laird's lug," he clarified, using the more familiar Highland term. "A secret place where we can speak without prying eyes and straining ears."

A
safe trysting place where I might unburden my soul and where the dimness will flatter my ravaged face.

And keep my ghosts at bay.

"There is one," she answered after a moment's hesitation. "It's built into the wall by the minstrels' gallery and reached by a hidden stairwell."

"Then let us go there." Marmaduke made to turn, but she stayed him with a surprisingly firm grip to his arm.

But rather than explain herself, she moistened her lips. Letting go of his arm as if touching him had singed her, she clasped her hands before her and peered at him from beneath down-drawn brows.

Relying on a wellspring of patience that could vex some beyond endurance, Marmaduke leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his ankles and arms.

Then he waited.

"I am well aware times are perilous," she said, her voice a little breathless. "But I do not see the need to seek out that wee cranny to speak privily."

"I would go there all the same," Marmaduke said, pushing away from the wall.

She frowned.

The toe of her slipper edged from beneath her skirts to nudge at the stone flagging of the passage floor.

Marmaduke refolded his arms.

Her cheeks colored a deeper shade of pink. "The door to the hidden passage is in my bedchamber's ante-room," she said, at last giving price to her true reason for not wanting to take him there.

"It matters not," he said, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up at the advantage her revelation gave him.

Most especially since, as of this night, he intended to sleep in that ante-room.

And in a sennight, nearer still.

"But—"

Marmaduke shook his head, his steely resolve cutting off her protest as soundly as if he' d snatched the words from her lips.

"Come," he said, raising his voice above the rattle of the shutters. "You may trust that I would not seek the cramped confines of a squint to bandy words with you did I not believe the measure to be necessary."

Placing his own trust in his ability to win her confidence, he overlooked the doubt in her eyes, an unflattering hesitancy he preferred to ignore, and held out his hand.

"Come," he repeated.

Slowly she took two steps forward, then slipped her hand

into his. A powerful emotion curled round his heart at the feel of her slender fingers lacing with his own, and his senses snapped to sharp-edged awareness.

"Ach! Here is a wonder." The lady Rhona's cheery voice scattered his dust-coated dreams.

His lady's companion came toward them, a basket of dried sphagnum moss clutched under one arm, and an earthen mazer of some sharp-smelling unguent in her free hand.

"My faith!" She gave them a look of contrived astonishment. "Is it not a mite cold and draughty to be standing about, here in the middle of the passage?"

She eyed their still-clasped hands. "Mayhap you should take yourselves off someplace more ... private?"

"There is nary a corner of Dunlaidir that isn't private these days." Caterine's fingers tensed in his hand. "Lest you happen to be about," she added, leveling a bald look at her friend. "You, my lady, appear to be everywhere."

Her eyes widening, Rhona affected an injured look. "Then I shall repair myself to poor Sir Lachlan's bedside and see to my duties."

With feigned subservience, she wheeled around and reached for the door latch. Somehow, the edge of her basket bumped against Marmaduke's right side and he winced, drawing in a sharp breath as his ribs, still aching from his tangle with the submerged sea rocks, throbbed and burned.

Pressing his lips together, he waited for the pulsing waves of hot discomfort to recede. The saints knew he'd suffered worse in his time.

Without doubt, bis lady's plump friend had jabbed her basket into him a-purpose, cleverly maneuvering herself so
^s
he could rake her makeshift weapon along his bruised ribs.

But why?

He knew women too well not to recognize a ploy.

"Faith and mercy!" Rhona cried then, her brows arcing upward. "James told me you'd hurt your side repairing the latrine chute, and now I've gone and made it worse. How clumsy I am."

Looking over-pleased with herself, she thrust her small bowl of foul-smelling unguent into Caterine's free hand. "'Tis crushed
St.
John
's
wort and betony," she said. "Naught is better for treating wounds."

Her gaze lighted briefly on Marmaduke's middle. "Mayhap the unguent will lend a spot of comfort to milord's bruised ribs?"

Before his lady could reply, Rhona slipped inside the solar, shutting the door soundly behind her.

"Come you, I would see that squint now," Marmaduke said as quickly, and hoped the shadows hid his elation.

He glanced at the wooden bowl of healing salve clutched in his lady's hand. T
hank
s to her friend's mischief, she now had little choice but to smooth the unguent onto his abraded flesh.

The corners of his mouth fought to widen into a wolfish grin, but Marmaduke resisted the urge and t
hank
ed the saints instead.

"Let us begone from here," he urged again. "I would be most obliged if you will apply your friend's unguent to my ribs."

"In the laird's lug?" She looked up at him, her gaze skeptical.

Marmaduke nodded.

The snug comfort of such a confined space suddenly boasted an appeal of a much different nature than merely shielding them from unwanted listeners.

"And will you?" he indicated his proffered arm.

She hesitated the breadth of a heartbeat, then linked her arm with his. "Aye, sirrah, I will," she agreed with a slight tremor in her voice.

Her simple acceptance of the task sent warmth coursing through Marmaduke.

"Then lead on, my lady," he said.

As they moved down the darkened corridor, Marmaduke breathed another silent prayer of appreciation for this small victory.

He hadn't yet won the battle, but with a spot of unexpected help, he'd successfully laid the groundwork for besieging his lady's heart.

**

Sir Marmaduke Strongbow passed through the sanctum of her bedchamber with all the lordly overbearing of the master of the keep, but also with a long-strided confidence that spoke to her most feminine core, beguiling her with its seductive potency.

Without even glancing at the great curtained bed, its covers already turned back invitingly for the coming night's rest, he entered the chamber's tiny ante-room.

"Behind the chest and the tapestry?" he asked, his brow quirking in amusement as his gaze latched onto the secret door's hiding place.

Caterine nodded.

Words weren't necessary.

The ante-room's walls were bare save a small assortment of cloaks hanging from pegs, a few sputtering torchlights, and two very narrow windows facing straight out onto the night.

Heart in her throat, her pulse louder in her ears than the howling wind, she watched him shove the large iron-bound strongbox out of the way, then lift down the heavy Flemish tapestry to reveal a low round-headed door cut into the Sickness of the wall.

The door's rusted hinges screamed protest when he opened it, and a whoosh of stale air sailed into the little anteroom, the musty smell a clear challenge to any daring enough to breach the dark threshold and mount the curving stair beyond.

"Can we not speak here?" Setting Rhona's healing unguent atop the chest, Caterine rubbed her arms against the chill damp streaming in through the unshuttered window slits.

Better to freeze than suffocate on age-old dust and mold.

Rather than answer her, Marmaduke took one of the resin torches from its bracket on the wall, and, holding it aloft, indicated the worn stone steps circling upward into the darkness. "My sorrow that such a measure is needed," he said, his gaze compelling her to follow him.

For here was a man whose commanding presence held such power, a stone carving would melt at his feet.

A female stone carving.

Caterine hitched up her skirts and ascended the winding stairs behind him. He'd already thrust the torch into an iron holder on the wall when she emerged into the closeness of the laird's lug and its flickering light cast wildly dancing shadows all about them, lending a surreal atmosphere to the tiny chamber.

Little more than a widening in the thickness of the wall, the laird's lug offered two spy holes. One gave a fair view of the great hall directly below, while the other allowed those who so desired to peer straight into the minstrels, gallery just beyond the farthest wall.

The cramped space made the English knight seem taller, his broad shoulders wider, and the poor lighting erased his scar and shadowed his bad eye, leaving only the proud, masculine lines of a nobly formed, strikingly handsome face.

One he no doubt wanted to show her but could never have done by the light of day or in the great hall with scores of torches set a-blaze.

But he showed her now, and what she saw was a face that won hearts.

Arabella's heart.

Suddenly needing air, Caterine moved to the spy hole that looked down onto the hall. She stood on her toes to
draw in great gulps of the less offensive air pouring in through the small opening.

Air seasoned with the tang of wood-smoke and roasting meats rather than the stifling scent of old stone and closed places.

Far below, men clustered at the trestle tables, noisily partaking of the evening meal. They argued, for their raised voices carried, the deeper ones echoing off the little spy chamber's walls and low ceiling.

But Caterine scarce heard their bickering.

She only heard another woman's name.

She swung round to face him. "You will think me devilish bold, sir, but I am not a woman prone to courtly airs," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "I have little patience with such foolery and prefer plain speaking. Thus, I must say, for whatever purpose you dragged me up here, I shall make ill company lest you tell me who—"