Once Upon a Plaid (9 page)

Ranulf shrugged his massive shoulders. “So did we all. But a man canna be tied to an oath to a doddering old tyrant. Besides, who said anything about starting a ruckus here? It’s Christmastide, ye heathen.” He smacked Gordon on the back of the head and continued pacing the room.

“Hold a moment,” Sinclair said. Of the four of them, Ranulf judged Sinclair to be packing the heaviest load of brains, so he stopped prowling long enough to listen. “Since no one would expect ye to move against the earl before Twelfth Night, would that not be the canny thing to do?”

Ranulf settled into one of the heavy chairs and stroked his beard. “Even so, I’d not stoop to taking what’s mine from the inside like a thief. I’ll take it like a man. I can put a hundred and twenty fighting men in the field at a call. How many will each of you pledge?”

After much hemming and hawing, between them all, they figured they could rally nearly three hundred men.

“Which doesna do us much good,” Murray said. “Glengarry has stout walls and a source of water inside the bailey that’ll never run dry. It’s never been taken from without and canna be.”

“That’s only because the right people havena tried it yet. Besides, I have a surprise or two I’m saving for when the time is ripe.”

Last winter, he’d stumbled across the remains of something he didn’t recognize at first when he followed a wolf into her lair. After he killed the bitch and her litter of pups, he rummaged through the collection of lumber and rusted bolts. The cave was dry enough to have preserved the contraption, but the leather parts had rotted or been gnawed upon by the wolves.

Whatever it was, he sensed it was something important.

When he’d found the huge metal-reinforced bucket, he was certain of it. But it wouldn’t do to let just anyone see it, so he’d left it in the cave. Then he traveled to Edinburgh and stood the oldest warriors he could find to interminable pints of ale, pumping their memories for information about engines of war. Finally, he found one whose grandfather’s grandfather had seen something that sounded like what Ranulf had found.

“They called it ‘trebuchet,’ and a fearsome thing it was too,” the rough old fighting man had told him. “It could hurl a weight of some three hundred and fifty pounds, enough to knock down the stoutest wall after enough direct hits. And all the while remaining beyond the reach of the best archers.”

But the man couldn’t tell Ranulf how the thing worked. Just that it took a mathematician to do the figuring. But when it operated properly, the trebuchet was devastating, especially if it delivered flaming projectiles.

“Imagine that, laddie,” the fellow had told Ranulf while holding his empty mug up in the hope of a refill. “With the right system of pulleys and wires, a pasty-faced scholar can do more damage than a whole clan of warriors.”

After that, Ranulf went to the nearest monastery and asked if there was a priest or monk who had a predilection for numbers. The prior told him about Brother Antonio, an Italian friar from Rome, who was a visiting scholar and mathematician. For what Ranulf thought was an exorbitant donation toward the running of the monastery, he convinced the prior to send Brother Antonio with him to the Highlands. There he’d ostensibly be tasked with teaching the most likely boys their sums and letters in the hope of finding a few who would later serve the Church.

Instead, Ranulf took the friar to the cave and demanded he put the trebuchet back into working condition. At first the little Italian protested, but after Ranulf threatened to dismantle him one digit at a time, Brother Antonio agreed that it would be a fine and glorious thing indeed to resurrect the old instrument of destruction. Ranulf had set his most trusted retainers to guard the friar and his work. And to make sure the little man of the cloth didn’t slip away into the Highland mists some night.

But according to the last report, the friar still hadn’t figured out how to make the counterbalance function properly.

“I’m all for ye becoming the next Laird of Glengarry, but ye’re reckoning without Lord Badenoch, and he isna one we can dismiss lightly.” Sinclair’s dour words dragged Ranulf back to his present dilemma. “Even if Lord Glengarry should fall, and the men didna rally to Donald, some might support Douglas. He is married to the daughter of the house, after all.”

“Being Lady Katherine’s husband is a weak claim on the place at best,” MacTavish said. “Besides, from what I hear, he may not be wed to her much longer.”

Ranulf cocked a brow at him. “Aye?”

MacTavish grinned back. “I’ve bedded down a serving girl or two in this place and they all say things aren’t exactly cozy between Lord and Lady Badenoch. Did she not come here without him at first? And he left his wife’s bed that first night to drink with her father. What man would leave such a tempting armful unless he’d been ordered away?”

Badenoch was a problem. With him at Lord Glengarry’s side, the remaining defenders in the castle would fight to the last man. But if Ranulf could deepen the chasm between Lord Badenoch and his wife, the man might leave Glengarry altogether. After all, as MacTavish pointed out, they didn’t arrive as one.

“We need to provide a bit of distraction for Lord Badenoch,” Ranulf said. He couldn’t touch Lady Katherine. That would bring down the wrath of the old earl quicker than stewed prunes induced the trots. But beyond his lady wife, what did William Douglas value? A sly smile lifted his lips. “I know just the thing.”

—Sixteenth-century carol

 

 

—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry

Chapter Nine

“Come, Kat and let’s to bed.”

William’s words curled around her ear and sank into her inmost parts.

Oh, aye, she’d go with him. She lived to feel Will’s body all warm and hard against hers, all tangled up with him in a soft feather tick. Skin on skin. Heart on heart. To flare with heat at his touch. To drown in his scent and not care a whit. To join with him so deeply there could be no severing, nothing that showed that this much was him and that much was her because they were all in all. To—

“Katherine, love. Open your eyes.”

She came more awake then and tried to remember why she wasn’t in her own bed. Her neck hurt something wicked. She put a hand to the crick and rubbed it hard. “Och, I’m so tired.”

“Small wonder. Ye’ve been up all night. Ye might have caught a wink or two in this chair from time to time, but nowhere near the rest ye need,” William said, taking her by the elbow to encourage her to stand. “Come away and get some real sleep or ye’ll be no use to anyone.”

It all came rushing back—the urgent need to keep up a brave face, the desperate waiting to see if the blood would stop, the quiet watches in the wee hours, hoping to see her good-sister’s belly roll with the child’s movement. “What about Margaret?”

“I’m fine, dear, and I dinna appreciate being spoken of as if I’m not in the room,” came the calm reply. Margie was sitting up, propped by pillows on all sides while she tucked into a breakfast tray of steaming parritch and fresh bannocks. “The bleeding’s stopped—och! I’m sorry, William. You’re a gallant man for braving a birthing chamber and all, but ye’ll have to stop your ears if ye dinna want to hear more.” Without a pause, she went on. To Will’s credit, he didn’t bolt, but he did take a step or two back. “Beathag says it was a false alarm. The bairn is fine and not ready to come just yet. I’m to eat anything I want.” She sighed. “What I’d really love is something fresh and tart, but it’ll be months before gooseberries hang on the bushes again. Fortunately, I laid in a goodly supply of jam for the winter.”

She popped a suitably slathered bite of bannock into her mouth and grinned at Katherine. “Mind your husband. To bed with ye. Beathag will stay with me now. She only wandered down to fetch her own breakfast and will be—och, there she is.”

The old woman appeared at the open doorway with a tray in hand and bustled into the room with amazing spryness for one so stricken in years. She set down her load on a trunk and busied about her patient, smoothing the coverlet around Margaret’s hips before turning to Katherine.

“Ye’ve done yer turn, my lady. I’ll stand the watch now, though I’m thinking it might be days yet before this babe deigns to join us.”

“Truly?” Katherine walked toward the bed, carefully putting one foot before the other lest she lose her balance from sheer fatigue. She’d been up and down with Margie countless times in the night, changing linens and sponging sweat from her feverish forehead as Beathag’s poultice and vile green medicine did their work. Finally, as the first rays of dawn crept in the window, Katherine had sunk into a fitful, light sleep in her chair.

Beathag eyed Margie critically. “Are ye havin’ any pains, m’lady?”

“Only hunger pains, and they’re easily remedied,” Margaret said between spoonfuls of parritch. “Do ye think there’s any more songbird pie in the larder?”

“Satisfied?” William steered Katherine out of the room without waiting for an answer. She plodded up the circular staircase that led to her chamber. Their chamber, hers and Will’s, part of her heart reminded her. He followed her with a hand to the small of her back.

It was a comfort, that soft touch, even if it was a bit possessive.

The bedclothes had been drawn back up, but it was untidily done. She recognized William’s hand in it and gave him credit for trying. The bed was still so inviting it was all she could do not to stumble into the mass of linen and goose down. Then one of the pillows moved and Angus crawled out from under it, his little furry body wriggling at the sight of her.

“Och, where’ve ye been, ye naughty boy?” She knelt down to greet him as he leapt off the bed and came to press doggie kisses on her knees.

“He was cowering on the staircase outside Margaret’s chamber until Dorcas threatened to add him to the stewpot. Guess she tripped over him more than once,” William said with a grin. “Then he gave up and joined me last night. Any port in a storm, eh, Angus?”

Guilt lanced her chest. In the panic of Margaret’s emergency, she’d forgotten all about him. “My poor wee laddie.”

Now that Angus was receiving a bit of sympathy, he whined to be picked up. Katherine scooped him into her arms and hugged him so tightly he squeaked and squirmed to be put down again. Then he trotted to the doorway and stretched himself as long as he could across the opening, taking up guard duty as if to make sure Katherine wouldn’t slip away without him again.

“Will ye eat before ye sleep?” William asked. “I brought ye some breakfast.”

She yawned hugely. “Maybe a bite or two.”

“Let’s get ye out of those clothes first.” He put his hand on her waist, sliding into the space between her arisaid and leine. “’Tis still damp.”

“I didna have time to change.”

“We’ll remedy that now.” Without waiting for her consent, he undid the belt holding her arisaid at her waist. It was just as well. She was too tired to argue with him. Then he did the same with the damp gown.

As layer after layer of her clothing was peeled off, so did the worry and fear she’d wrestled with all night. Margie was out of danger, as was the babe she carried. But after fetching and fretting and caring for her sister-in-law during the dark watches of the night, it was beyond fine to have someone doing the same for her now.

Especially someone like William.

His big hands brushed her skin. The calluses at the base of his fingers nicked her skin lightly, but his touch was so gentle, it left a frisson of awareness and anticipation in its wake. He was careful of every brooch and pin that held her clothing just so. Finally, she stood before him as bare as Eve, but unlike that ancient lady, Katherine felt suddenly shy.

Maybe it was because of the way she’d withdrawn from his bed for months. Or maybe it was because the gasping, eyes-rolled-back-in-her-head moments in William’s bath were still so fresh in her mind. Perhaps it was the way Will’s dark gaze smoldered over every inch of her. But whatever the cause, her body lit up like a candle. She blushed all over. Her nipples were as bright as cherries and she was sure her bum was rosy.

Even so, she resisted covering herself with her hands and stood perfectly still. He was her husband. It was his right to look at her. And truth to tell, she loved the way he was doing it. The hunger in his face made her insides clench and a little thrill of feminine power shot through her.

But all he was doing was looking, and she couldn’t fathom why.

William gritted his teeth. He would not beg. He also wouldn’t swive a statue. She needed to give him some sign that she wasn’t going to push him away again.

But she just stood there, her breasts rising and falling with each breath, her eyes wide and searching. Was that a hint of fear flickering behind them?

He turned away, partly to rummage in her clothing trunk for a clean chemise and partly because his body cheered the idea of ravishing his own wife, willing or not, with far too much enthusiasm. For half a heartbeat, he imagined falling on her in a heated rut. She’d be the one begging for a change. Then if he did it right, she’d be begging him not to stop.

He shoved the unworthy thought away and willed his body to settle. He’d never force her. Of course not. But it was hard to shake the notion that if only he could possess her completely, swive her beyond the ability to think, maybe then she’d finally understand that she was everything to him and nothing else mattered.

If he tried putting his feelings in words they’d just get into another argument. Silence seemed the safest course.

He held up the linen garment and she lifted her arms so he could slip it over her head. One corner of her mouth twitched.

Was that disappointment?

Will had no way to know what was rattling around in that pretty head of hers. After the nonsense about seeking an annulment, nothing would surprise him. But surely after what had happened in the bath, she’d set all thought of that aside.

Then why did he feel the need to tread with as much care as if she were a wary doe he was stalking?

He wanted her to want him. To need him as he needed her. And if God never saw fit to grant them a child, for him to be enough for her without one.

But he couldn’t say the words. They were stuck in his throat.

The hem of the chemise skimmed down her body and came to rest, floating at her ankles. She started to tie the drawstring at her bodice.

“Let me.” It was probably a mistake to break the silence, but he took up the ties and made short work of knotting them loosely.

“You’re so good to me, Will.”

“And you’re good
for
me.”

“No, I’m not.” She sighed and he realized the vicious verbal circle they’d been treading was about to start again. So he did the only thing he could think of to head it off.

He kissed her.

Hard.

He walked her backward till her spine was pressed against the stone wall and held her head in place, unwilling to let her slip away, lest she start arguing with him. Her lips were unmoving under his. No matter. By God, she was his, and he was going to kiss her till she responded to him.

Katherine’s arms were wedged between them, her fists against his chest. Her body was as stiff as dry leather, and the sounds she made into his mouth couldn’t be mistaken for the small noises she made when he pleasured her.

She wanted to be free.

Then, just when he was about to admit defeat and release her, a minor miracle occurred.

Her clenched fingers uncurled and she grasped the front of his shirt to tug him closer. Her lips, which had been as ungiving as an icebound loch, seemed to melt and part.

In that moment, he forgot his own name.

She wasn’t cold on the inside. Her mouth was warm, almost feverish, and she suckled his tongue when he swept it in. He bit her lip lightly and she nipped his back.

“Will,” she murmured, and he remembered who he was because he was hers.

He released her head. She wasn’t going anywhere. But he still needed to hold her, to connect with her beyond the joining of their mouths and the pressure of his body against hers, so he gripped her hands. Her fingers were icy, slender and fragile things. Bone and tendon, skin and nails, all small parts of his bonnie Kat, but cold parts. He’d warm them.

He’d warm her, protect her, tuck her into his plaid and keep her, all of her, as close as his next breath. He’d love away her pain, if only she’d let him.

With unmistakable need, she groaned into his mouth.

He was lost, diving headfirst into the dark loch of Katherine, not sure whether the waves would bear him up or drag him down. He didn’t much care either way. He had to have her, and if he drowned in her, it was the death he’d wish for himself.

There was a pounding in his ears, louder than the steady march of his own blood. It took him a moment to realize someone was banging on the door to Kat’s chamber.

“My lady! My Lord Badenoch!”

He heard the voice but didn’t answer. Kat’s mouth was his whole world, her fresh response to him a new and undiscovered country, and he wasn’t ready to leave it for the mundane one of Glengarry Castle.

Finally, it was Katherine who broke off their kiss with a gasp. She tore herself out of his embrace and picked up the shawl draped over her clothing trunk to wrap around her shoulders. “Come, Dorcas.”

The door burst open and the serving girl spilled into the room. Her dirty-blond hair had escaped her mobcap and stuck out like the long prickly spines of a startled porcupine.

“Och, my lord, ye must come quick before he does himself harm. Please, oh, please.” Her voice strayed upward in pitch as she became more alarmed.

“Who?”

“’Tis Nab, ye ken. First he was just walkin’ the parapet, leaping from one crenellation to another, but then he climbed atop the southwest bastion.” Dorcas clutched her apron, grinding the fabric between her fists. “I’m afeared he means to jump.”

William strode to one of the arrow loops that functioned as narrow windows in the room. Sure enough, the fool was perched atop the cylindrical tower that marked a corner of the curtain wall. He sat with his shoulders hunched, his legs dangling over a sheer drop to the loch below.

“What’s got into him?”

“I dinna ken,” Dorcas said miserably. “He willna speak to me. He willna speak to anybody.”

A crowd had gathered in the bailey, pointing and laughing.

“This is MacNaught’s doing.”

“I shouldna wonder, milord.” It was a measure of how desperate Dorcas was that she latched on to William’s arm and gave it a tug. “Please, will ye come? While there’s still time.”

He looked back over at Katherine. Her lips were kiss swollen, her eyes still languid. Their bodies had almost said what his heart feared to voice. If only they’d had a bit more time, they’d have found each other again. He was sure of it.