Sue-Ellen Welfonder - MacKenzie 07 (15 page)

MacKenzie shoulders!

The sight tied his gut in a knot and behind his back, his fingers tightened on the Thunder Rod's ribbon. He didn't need to see the rod to know it'd be glowing madly. He could feel its infernal heat licking at his hand.

He blinked, casting about for something to say that wouldn't make him sound like a cold-hearted dastard.

The lass couldn't, after all, stay naked.

Her own clothes were ruined. Her shredded camise and cloak already burned.

The ancient code of Highland hospitality demanded he see to her comfort. He had to clothe her. But his plaid wasn't the means to do so.

It was too personal.

"That won't do." He extracted his arm from Mad Moraig's grip and stepped into the room. "My spare plaids are old, the wool too scratchy for a woman's tender flesh," he declared, still eyeing his unwanted guest.

Not missing how beautiful she looked with her hair flowing around her, lustrous and gleaming against the folds of his plaid. Equally damning, Frang sprawled beside her, his huge shaggy body taking up nearly half the bed. The beast's head rested near her feet and the expression on his furry face could only be called an affront.

The brute looked besotted.

Though - Darroc hoped - that could be because Mina snuggled tight against him.

Frang had definitely lost his heart to the tiny red and white she-dog.

Too bad she belonged to a MacKenzie.

Darroc frowned.

Next time he was in Glasgow-town, he'd pick up a more suitable mate for Frang.

For now, he stared at the spectacle on his bed, half certain some power beyond his kenning was bent on torturing him.

He raised a brow, striving to appear in command of the situation.

Lady Arabella held his gaze, watching him steadily. Her deep sapphire stare made him feel like a bug pinned to the wall.

He was sure she could see into his heart.

That she knew he and all his people believed there wasn't a crack of hell vile enough to hold her father. And that some sickening gut feeling told him that she, of all women, might be the only one with a stout enough heart to embrace life on MacConacher's Isle.

Worst of all that she might guess he wished that could be so.

Darroc stifled a groan, miserable.

She was extraordinary.

Something about her made him believe she could walk the isle's wild moorland and see more than stunted heather strewn with stones. She'd laugh in the face of drenching rain and keep him warm on the coldest winter night. She was the heroine of every Gael's deepest romantic fancy. A woman - he was certain - who would stand on Castle Bane's bleak battlements, listening to the roar of the wind and the crash of the sea and be filled with awe and wonder.

She'd turn his blighted home into a place of peace and sanctuary.

If only she weren't a MacKenzie.

Darroc took a deep breath, amazed that he could.

Then he focused on the plaid draped so fetchingly around her. Seeing it there helped him harden his features. "She can wear one of my shirts." He jerked his head to where several hung from a peg on the wall. "They are worn, but the linen is soft and - "

"What are you hiding?" Her eyes narrowed.

Sapphire shards, piercing him as she lowered her gaze to stare at his left arm.

The one he still held behind him.

He opened his mouth to spew some excuse - anything - but before he could, the Thunder Rod's ribbon somehow slipped from his fingers and the magical relic dropped to the floor.

It landed with a clatter at his feet.

From somewhere, he thought he heard the tinkle of a woman's delighted laugh.

But Lady Arabella was only staring, wide-eyed and silent. And Mad Moraig hovered at his elbow.

For sure, she hadn't laughed.

She did look horrified.

"O-o-oh!" She clapped her hands to her face. "It be the Thunder Rod!"

Darroc flushed.

"The what?" Arabella pushed up on her elbows and leaned forward to peer at the brightly shining rod. "I've never heard of a thunder rod."

"Be glad you haven't!" Moraig shot forward with amazing speed and snatched up the glittering piece of wood, holding it by a length of tartan ribbon. "It's not something fit for your gentle ears."

"I'd like to see it." Arabella strained to get a better look.

Roughly the size of a man's forearm, the rod's age-blackened wood was highly polished and appeared to be covered with intricate runes. Speckles of red, yellow, and blue paint caught her eye, the colors brilliant as gemstones.

It was the kind of thing Gelis would insist had to be enchanted.

She suspected it was a family heirloom.

Nothing more, nothing less.

She fell back against the pillows, the effort of leaning forward wearying her. As did the strange way her pulse leapt with awareness beneath the MacConacher's dark-eyed stare. She knew it was fancy, but his nearness also made her skin tingle. Even the shadowy room shifted and changed around him, the stark contours of its few embellishments seeming to soften and glow, almost glittering.

A transformation she was sure had nothing to do with his thunder rod.

It was him.

She pulled in a shaky breath. Astonishment seared her, hot and sweeping. But if he felt it - the invisible something that crackled and hummed between them - he gave no sign. He stood as if hewn of granite, fists clenched at his sides and his expression hard-set.

Everything about him took her breath.

She clearly irritated him.

Not sure why, she lifted a hand to brush a few wisps of hair off her face. "The thunder rod must be very old." She peered at it again, pretending more interest than she felt.

Anything to break the odd spell he cast over her.

"The rod is older than time and" - he gritted the words - "it is dangerous."

Arabella kept her attention on the relic. "It's quite beautiful."

"So be the devil - or so some say!" Moraig flashed a testy look at Darroc. "I'm after hearing what you were doing with it?" She poked him with a bony finger. "Here in the maid's room, of all hallowed places!"

To his credit, he didn't bark at her.

Arabella watched them, curious.

Her father would have taken off the head of anyone who'd dare speak to him thusly.

But except for her host's high color - his face had run scarlet when he'd dropped the rod - he only stepped forward to take the relic from Moraig's hands. Like her, he held it by the ribbon, seeming careful not to touch the actual wood as he set it on a coffer near the door.

"The rod went missing." He spoke to the old woman, not to her.

He was also lying, she was certain.

A muscle jumped in his jaw, always a sure sign.

"Geordie Dhu or one of the others must've borrowed it and forgot to return it to the thinking room." He went to stand by the hearth, one arm braced against the mantel-piece. "I was just taking it belowstairs."

Moraig clucked her tongue. "Fie, you were!"

Her gaze sharpened, then snapped to Arabella before she hobbled across the room and once again jabbed him with a finger. "I'll be keeping my eye on you, laddie," she tsked, shaking her gray head.

"There is no need." The words were surprisingly cold.

His tone was chillier and much more harsh than he would have wished, especially when he'd directed the terse reply to poor old Moraig.

She stood before him now, wringing her hands and shuffling her black-booted feet. Her sporting show of bravura vanished like a snuffed candlewick; her downcast eyes made his innards churn with shame and regret.

Arabella of Kintail brought out the worst in him.

She was turning him into an ogre.

He thrust his hands through his hair and looked her way, wondering if she knew the turmoil she was causing in his household.

But she merely met his stare, her expression cool as spring rain.

Three of Mad Moraig's special wine caudle cups also stared back at him. Large, wooden, and clearly empty, they bespoke how busy the old woman had been.

It took time to make her secret strengthening concoction.

A blend of wine and beaten egg yolks, laced with costly sugar and spices, then thickened with the hen wife's own mix of breadcrumbs and the saints knew what else. Served warm, one cup of the caudle was enough to put iron back in the blood of the most battle-wearied warrior.

Some claimed it caused chest hair to grow on men's backs.

Others swore it could rouse the dead.

Darroc stared at the cups. A sense of foreboding welled in his chest. What three servings of the caudle would do to the virago in his bed didn't bear consideration.

"It's true enough - my caudles have mended her!" Mad Moraig followed his gaze.

"She's slept well and her leg stitches be healing finely."

Darroc nodded.

He was too concerned about the sprouting of unwanted chest hair to do aught else.

Mad Moraig took no heed.

Tottering past him, she crossed the room and - shooing Frang and Mina from the bed - whipped back the covers to reveal her handiwork.

"Tell me," she twittered, "be this not my best work?"

"Aye, well..." Darroc stepped closer, bracing himself. But when he looked down, he saw there was no need.

Beneath the herbal-and-sphagnum moss compress Moraig gently lifted, it was startlingly clear that Arabella of Kintail had indeed plied her own needle to the wound.

Although darkly bruised, the sleek flesh of her upper thigh was no longer swollen and red. Gone, too, was the crooked line of Moraig's stitching. Lady Arabella's sure hand had also smoothed the bunched and gathered folds of skin that would have marred her for life.

Darroc cleared his throat. "For truth, you've done yourself proud, Moraig."

It wasn't a lie.

He just didn't say what it was that he was praising.

"She has cared for me well." Lady Arabella's voice was strong, the look she gave him almost challenging.

As if she expected him to stomp on Moraig's glory and meant to warn him before he said something to wipe the glow off the old woman's face.

"When I am healed, there will hardly be a scar." That pert MacKenzie chin lifted.

The sapphire eyes flashed.

Darroc made sure his own remained neutral. "God be praised, it is so."

It stunned him that he spoke true.

But the mastery of the maid's healing craft couldn't be denied. Nor his own relief in knowing her smooth, white skin would be spared harm by Moraig's disastrous if well-meant ministrations.

Truth be told, if it weren't for the neat seam running from just above her knee to where Moraig clutched the bedclothes, he'd almost doubt her leg had been so badly injured.

The stitches were nearly invisible.

The barely there smile curving Lady Arabella's lips said she knew it. "I am grateful for your healer's skill. There are many leech-women in the hills around my home who could learn much from her."

She spoke the words without an eye blink.

Mad Moraig drank them in, her thin chest swelling.

She preened. "I was taught by my mother and she by her mother before her." She slid a look at Darroc, eyes bright with pride. "There be some who say MacConacher women were always so gifted."

Darroc did his best not to let his jaw slip.

He'd never heard the like.

Nor had he ever met a woman with so smooth a tongue as Lady Arabella.

Or - and this he was loath to admit - one who was kinder to those less blessed.

Above all, her bravery humbled him. He knew men - fierce and true warriors, not his stalwart graybeards - who would've fainted dead away at the prospect of unstitching and then re-sewing their own wound.

Arabella of Kintail inspired awe.

Clearly, she also knew something about winning hearts. There could be no doubt that Mad Moraig had heard her name. The kitchens would be rife with such tidings. Geordie Dhu wasn't one to hold his tongue.

The hen wife had to know.

Yet she gave no indication of being repelled.

Far from it, she clucked, fretted, and crooned, patting her compresses into place again and then gently drawing down the coverlet.

Darroc eyed her narrowly.

Mad Moraig wasn't concerned. "I'll be away to the kitchens now." She stepped back from the bed, dusting her hands. "Geordie Dhu promised he'd be making one of his fine meaty pottages for the lass."

"Geordie Dhu?" Darroc couldn't believe it.

More like he'd use granite slivers to make his pottage rather than tender morsels of stewed beef.

But Mad Moraig was bobbing her head.

"So I said, aye. Geordie Dhu and no other." Her voice rang with triumph. "He's baking his best wheaten bread to make sops for the pottage."

This time Darroc's jaw did drop.

Geordie Dhu hoarded his finest flour as if it were gold dust. Heavy bran loaves and oatcakes were the daily fare at Castle Bane. Only on the greatest of feast days could the bearded warrior-turned-cook be persuaded to dip into his prized stores.

Until now, it would seem.

Sensing doom, Darroc narrowed his eyes at Mad Moraig who - he shouldn't have been surprised - went scooting out the door. Black skirts crisply rustling, with the Thunder Rod clasped tightly in one hand, she moved at a pace that would have put many young girls to shame.

Darroc's brows snapped together.

His world was crashing down around him.

Frowning blackly, he flashed a glance at Lady Arabella. "Stay there!" He blurted the ridiculous command before he could stop himself. Well-stitched leg or no, she wasn't going anywhere for a while.

He doubted she could even stand.

Feeling foolish, he jerked a nod at her. "I'll be back anon."

Then he whirled and sprinted for the door, catching Mad Moraig just as she hitched up her skirts to descend the tower stairs.

A dark stairwell that - his nose twitched in recognition - held the distinct aroma of freshly baked bread.

Darroc's head began to ache.

But he did manage to thrust out a hand and latch onto Mad Moraig's elbow, gripping gently but firmly.

"Eh?" She turned to peer up at him, the image of innocence.