My Highland Bride (15 page)

Even the scowling dragons perched atop the twin columns flanking the steps seemed to warn her time was running out. Their weather-bleached faces had been brushed free of any sign of cobwebs or splattered offerings from passing gulls. All had been set in order at MacKenna keep for a proper welcoming of their auspicious visitor.

Kenna huffed against her mounting frustration as she flounced through the double oak doors carved with the MacKenna crest. It was a good thing she had decided not to sleep with Colum until after they were married. At the rate he was going, they would have had grandchildren before he ever worked up the gumption to make her his wife.

“Ye must no’ go in there right now.” The whispered warning came from behind a richly colored tapestry as a slender hand darted out and clamped onto Kenna’s wrist. Kenna glanced down. She knew that hand. Coira’s pale skin had so many freckles she looked as though the gods had sprinkled her with cinnamon. Coira yanked Kenna into the hidden alcove and pulled her down onto the pillowed bench beside her.

“What are you doing back here?” Kenna scooted closer across the bench as she glanced about the hidden alcove. What a neat hiding place.

Coira brought a finger to her lips and shook her head. “Shh. I thought ye might wish t’see the visiting chieftain. He’s different from the others who have come to offer for yer hand.”

Kenna lowered her voice to a less irritated whisper as she tucked the tangled layers of her skirts well inside the darkness of the alcove. “What do you mean ‘different’?” She leaned forward, peering through the narrow opening cut through a fold of the tapestry. Coira made it sound as though every landed male in Scotland had applied for an alliance to the MacKenna clan by agreeing to take her off Gray’s hands, when in truth only a few chieftains had learned of her existence and sought to use it to their advantage.

“Watch him, mistress. And listen. Ye’ll soon see what I mean.” Coira balanced a long tapered blade between them on the bench and peeped out the slit she had just cut on her side of the tapestry.

“Gray is gonna kill you for your cutting up his wall hanging.” Kenna stilled the fabric with the flat of her hands as she shifted to get a better view.

“M’chieftain will ne’er ken what I’ve done unless ye choose to tell him. Quiet yerself and watch carefully. They’re both verra close.”

Kenna squinted through the slit, then shifted sideways and peeped through the hole again. “I wish we had some fancy video surveillance equipment or something. I can’t see a thing from this little peephole. Geez, I miss technology.”

“Patience, mistress.” Coira gently patted Kenna’s hand. “Both the chiefs were headed back to this side of the room barely a moment ago. Tha’ is why I urged ye to hurry back here before the men spied ye.”

The rumble of deep voices echoed from the part of the hall just past the archway. Kenna picked out Gray’s familiar deep rolling “r’s,” but frowned when a richer voice with an odd cadence responded. “He sounds…different.” Kenna pulled back from the cloth and turned to Coira. “Have you been able to find out anything about him?”

“The MacKenna called him Chieftain Sutherland, but I do believe the gentleman told him to call him Ronan.” Coira leaned back and scrubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand. “Ugh. This piece needs a good beatin’. ’Tis full of dust.” Coira wiggled her nose, then hurried to pinch it. She closed her eyes and jerked with a silent sneeze. “And I believe one of the girls in the kitchen said the man originally comes from Ireland, though he’s ne’er been known to say so himself—at least that’s according to the servin’ lads. And one of the stable boys tried t’befriend Sutherland’s lads whilst they tended their master’s horses. Closemouthed pair, they were. Spoke verra little. The only thing they happened to mention was something about a land always surrounded in mist and their keep bein’ at the center of it.”

Gray and the chieftain finally moved into the limited range of Kenna’s peephole. Kenna caught her breath as Chieftain Ronan Sutherland stepped into view. The man’s hair was as silver as the shiny new dimes Granny used to parse out for good behavior. But it wasn’t so much the color that took Kenna’s breath. It was the fact that Chieftain Sutherland’s hair was clipped so close to his head it looked like a gleaming skullcap.

“Look how short his hair is.” Kenna blew softly against the rough fabric chafing against her face. Rubbing her itchy nose with the back of her hand, she gently huffed at the tickling strands of knotted threads.

“Aye,” Coira whispered back. “But do ye no’ think it becomes him?”

And it did. The closely shorn cap of silver perfectly suited the man’s regal stance and the proud set of his broad squared shoulders.

“He’s dressed nearly all in black. I haven’t seen that since I came back to the thirteenth century—especially not such deep shades woven into a plaid.” Kenna turned and patted the bench. “Where is that knife? I need a bigger peephole.”

Coira stilled her hand. “Nay, mistress. Ye canna cut the wee rug now—the men are far too close. They’ll surely see it if the tapestry moves.”

Well, crap. Coira was right. Kenna inched to the edge of the bench and peered back out the hole. Even Sutherland’s belted
léine
had been dyed a deep somber black. The rich silky cloth shimmered like the supple coat of a panther as it stretched tight across his wide chest. Chieftain Sutherland must have money. Such cloth was rare and costly in the Highlands. The neck of the garment was loosely tied at the base of Sutherland’s tanned throat. The man’s plaid was woven with muted stripes of varying grays across a field of black. A single shining thread of the purest white was the only bit of light in the field of darkness. He was the same towering six and a half or so feet as Gray and looked him square in the eye. And what was it about Sutherland’s eyes? They looked odd. She couldn’t quite decide on their color.

She wished they’d get a bit closer so she could hear their conversation. So far, only bits and pieces of commentary had made it to her in the hidden alcove. The two men seemed at ease, so surely, Sutherland couldn’t be as bad as all the gossip had warned.

“I think he’s handsome,” Coira whispered with a wistful sigh. “I wish such a fine man was comin’ to see me.”

Poor Coira. Being a young maid and best friend to the chieftain’s wife and her odd sister couldn’t be easy. The blossoming young woman had to be lonely—especially since Granny kept so close a watch over her, as though she were one of Granny’s own.

Kenna slid back on the bench. “By the way, how did you get away from Granny? Does she know you’re back here spying?”

“Mistress Trulie sent me here to find out about this latest suitor and Mother Sinclair agreed. For a reason I dinna ken, Mother Sinclair is truly interested in this one.” Coira scooted back from the tapestry and relaxed against the high back of the wooden bench. “Mother Sinclair and Mistress Trulie both said they heard rumors that Chieftain Sutherland willna take nay for an answer.”

“I don’t see how Chieftain Sutherland has much choice this time.” Kenna paused, held up a hand for silence, and angled her head closer to the tapestry. The bits and pieces of conversation had shifted to something about hospitality, and then rumbling laughter had poured across the room. What were the men saying and why did it seem like they were old friends? Gray said he’d only come across Sutherland once before, during a visit to the king’s court.

Kenna frowned away the puzzle and turned back to Coira. “I love Colum. I don’t care if we live in a three-sided tent once we’re married. I just have to convince him of that. I’m not going to marry anyone else. Chieftain Sutherland is out of luck.”

“Mother Sinclair said—”

Kenna held up her hand again. “Until Granny can come up with a way to get Colum to marry me, I really don’t want to know each and every epiphany she has spouted on the subject of suitors.”

Coira snapped her mouth shut into a sullen pout. Her lower lip quivered as she turned away and feigned unprecedented interest in a good-sized cobweb floating down from the stone arch framing the alcove. “As ye wish. I shall say n’more on the matter. ’Tis obvious ye have no need of anyone’s help, no’ Mother Sinclair’s and most especially no’ mine.”

Kenna shifted to a more comfortable position among the pillows and blew out an aggravated huff. Apparently, Coira had gleaned enough information to make her uncharacteristically testy and she was going to sull up like an overstuffed possum if she didn’t get to share it. “I’m sorry, Coira. I’m just getting a little tired of this…predicament.”

“Predicament”?
Kenna nodded to herself. Yes. “Predicament” was the best word she could comfortably use right now to describe the fact that her body was about to explode into a thousand throbbing pieces of screaming horniness if she didn’t get to give herself to the man she loved—and soon.

“Mother Sinclair said—” Coira stopped, tensed her mouth into a pursed line of frustration, then continued with a jerk of her head. “The lot of us found out that Chieftain Ronan Sutherland has had two wives. Both died while giving birth and neither of the babes lived.”

“That’s awful,” Kenna whispered. No wonder the man dressed in black.

“He also obtained both wives by kidnapping them.” Coira leaned forward and laid a hand across Kenna’s wrist. “The clans of both women had declined his offers of marriage. But instead of returning to his home and seeking out someone else, he stole the women away and took them with him.”

“Didn’t their families try to get them back?” A cold shiver ran down Kenna’s spine as she returned to the spy hole and strained for another look.

“Nay, mistress,” Coira whispered as she pressed her face to the other slit in the weave. “Mother Sinclair said neither family seemed to have a problem with it, especially since it got them out of paying the dowry. Ye know that kidnapping a wife is verra acceptable.” Coira shrugged as she scooted back from the tapestry. “All must ha’ ended well. Both women were well with child by the time the families made it to Sutherland’s keep to check on them.”

“How far apart were these marriages?” The way Coira talked, it sounded as though the man went through wives faster than Cook went through firewood.

Coira frowned and silently counted on her fingers. “I think ’tis been nigh on over a year now since the most recent wife died. Seems like Mother Sinclair said there were maybe five years between the first one and this last one.”

Well, that wasn’t so bad. Kenna scooted across the bench and pushed Coira back into the pillows. “Move over. They’re on your side now.”

“Mistress! I canna move a bit more.” Coira huffed as she flattened herself against the far wall.

Kenna ignored Coira and studied Chieftain Sutherland as the men walked away. He didn’t look like some crazy woman stealer. In fact, he seemed on pretty amicable terms with Gray. Just as Kenna decided Sutherland wasn’t such a bad man, he stopped, turned, and stared back at the tapestry. Kenna swallowed hard and held her breath. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the man was looking right at her. Then one corner of Ronan Sutherland’s mouth curled upward as he nodded a short respectful bow and winked.

Chapter 17

Colum sat stiffly on the narrow bench, barely nodding when the serving girl plunked a tankard of ale down on the wide table in front of him. Nothing else existed but the object of his anger. He glared across the room. There sat Sutherland, pompous as a game bird strutting about for a mate. The man’s smug expression reminded Colum of Granny’s wicked cat after the feline had been caught sampling the stuffing for Cook’s meat pies.

Sutherland leaned in close to Gray and shared something behind the cover of his hand. Gray’s deep rolling laughter echoed through the long hall as the chieftain nodded his agreement with whatever Sutherland had just said. Colum shifted forward, every muscle tensed.
Dammit, Gray. I ken what yer playin’ at and it willna work. I canna make Kenna m’wife until the proper time. Cease these damnedable games.

“Ye best get o’er there and stake yer claim afore the Lady Kenna arrives.” A deep belch rumbled beside Colum, followed by a sharp elbow nudged dead center in his ribs.

“Do ye no’ have a maid to charm, Diarmuid?” Colum pulled the cool metal of the tankard closer and encircled it with both hands. That’s all he needed right now—advice from a man who still prided himself on the fact he enjoyed a different woman every night.

Looking down into the cup, he scowled back at the reflection of his frowning face rippling atop the amber liquid. Colum snorted at the irony. He had been exactly such a man until he met Kenna. And now—now that he strived to do right by her, he risked losing the only woman he could ne’er dream of letting go. How had things come to this?

“I’ll tend to the maids later,” Diarmuid said. He leaned shoulder to shoulder against Colum and nodded toward the chieftain’s table and the guests surrounding it.

The raised dais with the honored seats for the chieftain’s family and visitors was positioned several feet in front of the main hearth. No fire burned this evening. None was needed with so many in the hall.

Mother Sinclair and her husband, Tamhas, sat at the end of the table to Gray’s right and Sutherland sat to Gray’s left. Three high-backed chairs with brightly embroidered pillows waited between Gray and Mother Sinclair for Lady Trulie, Lady Kenna, and any other guest deemed important enough to share the main table.

Colum had heard that the Lady Trulie remained in her chambers this evening, complaining of feeling a bit unwell. That verra action alone gave him hope. Surely the Lady wouldna miss this evenin’ if her sister Kenna was going to do anything as drastic as she had earlier threatened. That is…if the Lady Trulie knew of Kenna’s machinations. Colum sucked down another long draw of ale.

The empty chair bothering Colum even more was the ornately carved armchair sitting beside Lady Kenna’s chair. While Sutherland was already seated to Gray’s left, the man continuously glanced to the other seat with a smug, knowing grin. Colum wouldna put it past the conniving bastard to switch seats as soon as Kenna arrived.