His Judas Bride (30 page)

She knew exactly what each was now thinking. This was the woman who’d somehow snagged the Black Wolf of Lochalpin. Look what she’d brought him to. Room-wrecking, brawling, and God-would-blush-to-know what else.

In fact, remarkably, the night had been completely empty of sexual congress. So they could each of them pick their gaping jaws up from the floor.

Hastily she cast about. Where was
he
? The bed was empty. Her throat dried. Empty? How was that? She felt the space beside her. Not just empty. Untouched.

Worse. He’d gathered her into his arms and set her down here, in his boots last night, hadn’t he? As far as she could recall he’d not actually removed them. Although, of course, she had obviously fallen asleep. It was no wonder. Exhaustion had claimed her very bones. She had been tired and hungry and he had been… She remembered lying across him, the close way he’d held her as he’d sat with his back against the wall.

She just couldn’t understand what
they
were doing here. What on earth the Wolf was thinking about, letting them into the chamber like this. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plans to make.

“My lady, good morning to ye.” Archibald Kelty speaking as if it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be here was not expected either. He gave a little bow. “Your clothes.” He gestured in the direction of the chair.

Kara had sat up by now and she could not help thinking it was as if she were a stranger to what lay on it. In fact she was a stranger. The carmine gown had definitely not been there last night. That particular cloak or the stockings either. Although, of course, she recognized each item as part of her trousseau.

She clutched the blanket tighter. She would put them on, when they’d left, although it might be better, if she was to pretend to her father she’d escaped from here, if she wasn’t too well dressed. Unless, of course, she was to make it look as if she’d been visiting her new subjects.

“Yes. Yes.” Her cheeks pounded, the blush spreading to the roots of her hair. Surely the Wolf had better things to do though than send Archibald Kelty in here to show her the trousseau? Of course he’d sent his men up the glen with it that first day, so maybe he didn’t? Maybe he had a thing about trousseaus?

Archibald stepped closer. His eyes, assessing beneath the still black brows, ran over her. “When you’ve, you know, dressed and eaten what Ulla here’s made for you here, I have orders, rather Murdie here has, to get under way.”

“
Big
Murdie.” The red-bearded giant scowled.

“
Big
Murdie will take you on.”

“Take me on?”

Her mouth creased. What an absurd thought. How? As a woman? Adversary? Whatever the Wolf intended, she would go with. After all this was probably dangerous enough without her interfering, although she couldn’t help wishing he had asked someone who hadn’t been here last night. She recollected herself. At least it wasn’t Ewen McDunnagh.

“Of course.” She edged a foot out of bed. “If you’d just be so kind.”

“Aye. Of course.”

If Archibald Kelty had retreated instantly to the door, unease might not have flickered. But he didn’t. Was she so unamenable he should lower his gaze, pass his tongue over his lower lip like that, as if…well, she wasn’t, was she? So why should he, Lord Mhor’s most trusted bodyguard, guardian of this castle, if not all that went on it, look vaguely surprised to find her so obedient? Unless…

“Wait a minute.”

Dug was lapping the mess of stone-cold stew in the corner. And the Wolf and Dug were seldom far apart, not the way the damned creature adored him.

“Orders from whom? Where’s Callm?”

It felt strange saying his name for the first time.
As if she possessed him. But she did, didn’t she? And if something had happened to him because of her, if he was the one now made to stand accused at Traitor’s Pole, that place in the shadow of the castle she’d walked past with a shudder on her second day here—her throat tightened. Her legs felt as if they would not hold her in that second. He had sworn last night to protect her. What if he couldn’t? What if her crimes were too great?

“Glen matters, my lady.” Archibald shrugged his broad shoulders. “You’ll be seeing him later, I’m sure.”

Later? This was like that evening, that terrible evening with Lachlan. Was that what they were going to show her? Another corpse. Except Lachlan, she hadn’t been shown, she had been there.

She stood. Although terror clutched her senses. At all costs, she must be calm, not allow the past to intrude. Not just that, it would not do to look like a fool. Would Dug seem so contented if something had befallen her master? No, she must muster herself. Speak with ease, as if all this was the most natural thing in the world.

More importantly would Big Murdie be here either if
harm had come to the Wolf? He was not the kind. She knew that, for all she barely knew him, although her throat still felt so constricted that he was here at all, the giant of a man he was, she could barely force out the words.

“What glen matters?”

After all, it might be there were things to arrange this morning.

“Well…” Archibald said.

Actually, was she meant to believe he pitied her in some way, the uncomfortable way he shifted? She supposed standing here like this, a blanket covering some but not all of her modesty, Callm McDunnagh’s tunic the rest, her hair horribly tangled and her face probably filthy dirty, she was pitiable. But that wasn’t the point, which was why she jerked up her chin.

“Where is he?”

Archibald glanced first at Big Murdie, then at her. Then he took a deep breath. “That I’m not at liberty to discuss. Callm’s orders are always very precise when it’s glen matters. Which is why you would be better to do exactly what he says.”

As it cut across her Archibald’s voice wasn’t unreasonable. In fact it was so damned reasonable she strove not to blink.

“In fact there’s no would about it, my lady. You will be better to get dressed, eat your breakfast, and come with us. These are his orders.”

Kara opened her mouth to protest. Get dressed? By God, she did not think so. Or go with them either. Who was Archibald Kelty to tell her so? For a second she wanted to tell
him
so. But that gown, those stockings. She wasn’t putting them on so she could go home. Was she? And there seemed only one explanation for these being
his
orders.

He’d left her. He’d actually left her. Fancy that. On a good day when she’d looked at the moon. That dress was her marching orders to God knew where too.

Such kindness. Such consideration. As if he best knew the things that would break her. As if? There was no as if. He did know. Because she’d given him that much glimpse of herself in the cave. Most importantly she’d given it him last night.

After all, why would he want her? Why would any man want a lying, betraying whore?

She was the damn fool who had thought just maybe, and now must stand here trying to show she wasn’t the least bit put up nor down by the fact. When all the time her heart hammered in her throat, her ears, for all she strove to blot it out. And something glittered dangerously in her eyes, all along the line of her lashes.

Because it wasn’t just her he’d left.

She shrugged, fighting to muster artificial nonchalance. The circumstances did not exist on the face of this earth in which she would show these men, show Ulla, how unfocussed her eyes had become. How she
died
inside.

She was Kara McGurkie, and Kara McGurkie didn’t beg. Didn’t grovel. She remembered the things she drew strength from, even when she felt she’d not another ounce left in her to draw strength for. She lifted her chin.

“Where?”

* * *

Kara acknowledged that it could have been worse. It might have been a brothel. Give the man his dues.
Not an arrest as such
. She had never heard such a thing. If it was not an arrest, why the blazes was she greeted with the words
Let me take you to your cell
even before the sealed orders from the Black Wolf were prized apart? Sealed orders from the Black Wolf, clearly being on a par with those from God Almighty.

Although quite how Kara McGurkie, traitorous whore, pathetic excuse for a mother, and abandoned wife, had been explained within these orders, she had no idea.

She turned her chin from her consideration of it.

Imagine though, him not even possessing the common decency to cast her off
afterward.
Why? What kind of man was he? Her plan would have worked. And now?

“It’s all right, you don’t have to follow me.” Because the place was holy she prayed her voice could be heard above the noise of the screeching gulls wheeling above her head. Big Murdie’s too. Not to mention the wind howling along the shore. “I assure you I can’t swim and only our lord Jesus Christ could walk upon the water.”

It was true though, wasn’t it? Never mind that the Wolf, having made it obvious he didn’t trust her, when he’d already amply demonstrated he didn’t want her, how could he put her here in a place she could not possibly escape from, being unable to swim? Obviously because he knew her natural inclination would be to run.

She squared her shoulders, dragging her cloak tighter about her. Of course this place was also widely reputed to be a place of miracles. Certainly it must be since the walls didn’t fall down the second she set foot on dry land.

But the Isle of the Saints? It was too much. The ruthless damned bastard—was it some kind of joke? She was not going to dedicate herself to God, not with her son in a black, shuttered place she could not reach, when she had fought so hard, for so long, to keep hope alive.

Nor was she going to give in to the temptation to believe, maybe she deserved to stay here when passion had cost her so much. Deserved to count the days, dwindle away.

She admitted that after the first shock had passed, she should have expected no less. To some extent, because she had slept with the Wolf, she had underestimated him. He may have balked when it came to threatening her with Ewen. But the real man was going to get her to spill her secrets by any means.

She drew herself up sharply feeling the waves froth at her toes. Of course she admitted this would be easier, when she tore him from her blood. When she did not wake from her nightmares thinking she was curled around his back, her arm encircling his waist.

Because for every second she awoke like that, with his betraying imprint on her memory, her lips, her body, there were others, like this when she held his treachery in her heart and nursed the fact he had threatened her with Ewen. Because he had. He had repaid her tenfold.

“I think I said I cannot escape.” She bit her lip. No. My God, there must be a way to escape that fate, that feeling, that only made her guiltier. But she could so little see one, it seemed she merely reiterated that hollow fact. “There’s no boat. So if you wouldn’t mind, for once, being so kind as to leave me alone—”

“Maybe I would were ye not standing right in my favorite spot.”

Kara’s scalp froze as if someone raked a giant claw across it. For an instant she did not breathe. She had assumed Big Murdie—well, he had been there squelching along behind her a moment ago. The seconds seemed to freeze too, as she stood pondering who it was now. Meg.

For a moment she remembered what the Wolf had said about her.
She came from here.
That was all very well. What the blazes was she doing here now though, appearing like this from the soft rolling mist, her purple cloak fluttering around her?

“Hello, Kara.”

She fought the impulse to stiffen. Never mind what,
how
should now surely be her first consideration. Meg had not been at supper, or breakfast, so there must be a boat, or a tunnel of sorts, maybe leading from the abbess’s room or the kitchen. Or one of the many others she’d not this far managed to get a look in.

“Aye.” Meg slid her gaze across the expanse of water. “I used to come here too, when I first arrived. Stand and just look at the mountains and the water. The view’s very…reflective.”

Perhaps it was. The first chance Kara got though, she would not be standing here. Especially—she also slid her gaze—especially with Big Murdie gone.

“Yes. The island. The convent. The water, so beautiful. I couldn’t have chosen better.”

Kara spoke as if a little of that water so beautiful was in her mouth. Ice-cool and so pleasant. Did Meg think Kara didn’t see right through her though when she was guilty of such things herself and would sooner drown in that water there than have it going back to the Wolf she was anything less than delighted with his choice?

“Ye know, I can just about see why Callm did it.”

To say Kara scented hostility in the way Meg huffed her breath out and tightened her jaw would be an understatement though.

“And I’m trying very, very hard not to hate you for it.”

“Why try? Succeeding is much more fun.”

Kara hardly cared she spoke like that. Anyway, what was Meg going to do about it? Complain to the abbess and have Kara thrown off the island? That would be good.

“Morven was never like you.”

Morven. Morven. Kara glanced at the detaining hand grasping her arm. The perfect wife who he had gone to hell for. Gone to hell over too from what he’d told her. It was not that Kara could never be that perfect. No. All that way for Morven when for Kara he hadn’t even been prepared to go that extra half mile. Well, she would not listen now.

“And what, pray, has this to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you.” Meg’s gaze scorched and Kara felt her own pulse flicker. “He found her that day. Of course, I acknowledge that as a sister, there are things I shouldn’t know. But just think, will ye, what that must do to a man?”

Not when she could not afford for the merest second for acknowledgement to become a mirror, when if she let go for a second of what she clung to here…

“Because he was never going to be in tatters again. Before her, before he ever met her, Callm always had a woman on the go. But since…”