Her Knight in Tarnished Armor: A Medieval Romance Collection Read online

  “Do ye,” his brows lifted. “And when does this occur?”

  “Only when I’m around you.”

  Daroch’s own heart threw itself against his ribcage. Something had to be done about this.

  She was no longer harmless.

  He truly was a man out of time. Kylah studied Daroch as he foraged through the unused piles of peat bricks and coal in the ruins of her family home and washhouse. He’d been strangely quiet after her admission and his withdrawal depressed her. As he’d reapplied his layer of silt at the Allt Dubh, it had been like he donned an extra layer of armor against her. When she’d asked him why he wore the mud, he’d simply barked, “Protection.” As if she was supposed to know what that meant. She’d tried to pry it out of him as he stored his satchel of fish in the frigid river, but he paid her no heed.

  When he’d gathered shamrocks from the loch and dressed his wound with herbs, he’d been strangely modest, hiding most of his action beneath his robes.

  He’d been so bloody adamant about wanting the truth, hadn’t he? Well she’d been honest with him. What did she have to lose by the admission? More to the point, why would he be disturbed by it? She didn’t particularly like the idea that the only thing to break the bleak apathy surrounding her this past year was a miserly old Druid with an infuriating air of superiority. But there it was. He awakened sensation inside of her. Evoked her natural curiosities. Fascinated and distressed her.

  Made her forget…

  Most men would have welcomed her questions, taking any occasion to impress her with ceaseless conversation on their favorite topics. Namely themselves. But nay, not he, not Daroch mud-face McLeod. What did he do when he’d garnered her interest? Ordered her to leave! Thrown things at her—well—through her, but even so. Treated her as though her company was undesirable.

  And yet the question remained: Why!?

  “Yes, brighten yer glow until I can get these bricks started.” He stacked them in his arms.

  Kylah made a sound of irritation which he either didn’t recognize or ignored.

  “This is all new and fine material. If ye lost everything in the fire, where did ye get it?” he asked.

  “Laird MacKay had it delivered to my mother as we resided here until recently.”

  He turned to her then, the surprise on his face evident, even through the mask. “She remained… here?” He looked around as though seeing the place for the first time.

  The large circular room had accommodated the smithy’s waiting customers and, later, the washhouse. Blackened stones, earth, charred beams and ash covered the ground. The once vaulted ceilings were non-existent but for one corner which had been where her mother had stacked the cot upon which she’d slept. A wall of stone lay where the arch to the small room that housed her father’s forge had been. That room remained mostly intact, though the bricks were now black instead of earth and all that remained of the ceiling was a fine layer of ash over everything.

  Kylah never ventured into that room.

  “How did she survive?”

  The corner closest to the burned-out entry had become Kylah’s by edict of the amount of time she spent there. Kylah lurked there now, feeling on edge as she considered the Druid’s question.

  “The Laird sent food, bread, cheese, potatoes, jerky, things that didn’t need to be cooked. Animal furs, and that.” She gestured to the makings for a long-lasting fire.

  “There’s a year’s worth of fire here, she never lit one? Even in the winter?” His skeptical voice grated on her already raw nerves.

  “Never.” She cast a pointed look at the state of the building. “She had somewhat of an aversion to fire.”

  His brows lifted, but he wisely remained silent as he maneuvered through the rubble with his arms full of coal and disappeared into the back. “The bellows are not too damaged,” he called to her. “I’ll need to go into town for the textiles to repair it. ‘Tis a fine forge yer father built.”

  “Aye,” she agreed, still unable to look at it.

  He appeared in the entry, returning for another load for the fire. “If I’m lucky, yer father will have a safe place in the fireclay where a few of his tools would be kept untouched by rust and such.”

  Kylah searched her memory. “Behind the row of anvils, beneath the slack tub.” At least he was speaking to her now.

  He disappeared into the room again with another armful of coal. “Show me,” he ordered.

  “Nay.” Her refusal was instantaneous.

  His head reappeared in the entry. “Nay? What do ye mean, ‘Nay?’”

  “Have you never heard the word before?” she asked, stunning them both with the ire in her voice.

  His hazel eyes turned stormy and he stood atop the rubble, glowering down at her from across the wide ashen floor. “What’s gotten into ye, woman?”

  “Me? What’s gotten into me, you ask?” Kylah watched her green glow crawl across the ashes, though she didn’t move from where she stood. “You’ve been naught but churlish and ill-tempered with me this entire afternoon. If you’ve acknowledged me at all.”

  “Ye did almost get me killed. Twice in the space of an hour, which is a feat, even for a Banshee,” he replied archly.

  “That’s not why you’ve been insufferable, and we both know it,” she sneered.

  “I’ve lived in solitude for a hundred years.” He crossed large, defensive arms over his broad chest and Kylah had to force herself not to remember what that chest looked like without the robes. “Ye canna invade every moment of my life, demand every detail of my history, and uncover all my secrets expecting me to like it.”

  Anger covered the flash of hurt and truth in his words. “Well, Daroch McLeod, if you want your solitude so badly you may have it. I will not venture into that room. You’re safe from my odious presence there, so do what you will.”

  Were she not in such a temper, she’d have found his expression of absolute befuddlement endearing. He looked behind him into the forge room, then back at her. “Why doona ye go in there? Because it’s where yer father—”

  “It has nothing to do with my father!” she exploded, her glow pulsing further into the waning twilight.

  “Then, why—”

  “You don’t get to ask why! That’s my question.” At this point, Kylah realized she was being childish and ridiculous. But she’d never in her life lost her temper. She’d never felt this kind of organic, indignant anger before. Never had a deserving outlet for it. And since the horrible day she died, she’d only ever lurked in her corner, staring at that damnable forge, reliving the horrors that befell her there.

  Every memory created by a loving man and father in that room had been defiled, replaced by the image of another man’s hatred. His domination. His sweat. Her pain. Her blood. Screams. Flames.

  “Keep your secrets, Daroch McLeod.” A tear snaked from Kylah’s eye and burned its way down her cheek. “And I’ll keep mine.”

  She’d vanished again. The evening seemed darker without her, and not just for the absence of her ever-present glow. Daroch inspected the ruins of the quaint washhouse with renewed intent. What would keep her from entering the forge? What harm could befall her there?

  The living structure just off the business had been made of wood rather than stone, so only the blackened outlines of two bedrooms and the cook hearth of a kitchen remained. They told Daroch nothing, except that if anyone had been trapped there, they’d have perished.

  Beneath a mulberry bush, a stone cross and two small wooden ones were lined neatly by the pond. Perhaps his wee Banshee was buried there. His nose pricked to the smell of the heather blooms mixing with the mulberry as he made his way to the tiny, well-kept graveyard.

  He ran a finger across the stone engraving of Diarmudh MacKay. His cross was done in the olde way. Not to symbolize the Christian sacrifice, but in the way of the Druids, symbolizing the great balance of science and magic. Of earth and the sky. The body and the soul. Man and woman. Life and death. Twined together with
sacred, eternal knots.

  Sinking onto his haunches, he found the next two graves to be small, shallow, and relatively fresh, only recently overtaken by moss and grass. The markers were rough hewn and wooden. They read Katriona MacKay and Kamdyn MacKay in shaky, hand-carved script. The graves were small enough for young children.

  Only their bones rested here. Daroch shook his head. That must have been all that was left after the fire. He stood and scanned the outlying area, capturing each detail in its entirety.

  What about Kylah’s bones? Where did they rest?

  His gaze landed back on the ruins and a cold spear pierced his chest.

  He knew exactly where they were.

  Returning to the entry, Daroch studied what used to be the washhouse. The patterns in the char along the walls and floor implied fire accelerant of some kind. Not pitch, so likely alcohol based. He could mark where the large wooden tubs had stood and noted the metal remains of various tools and instruments of their trade strewn every which way among the ashes.

  As though they’d been upended and tossed in violent chaos.

  Violent enough to spawn the creation of three Banshees.

  Heart accelerating, Daroch’s eyes flew to the ruined archway and the forge beyond. His boots sounded very loud as they disturbed the ashes, creating the echoes of a ghastly, unspeakable horror. By the time he reached the forge, his breath sawed out of his lungs in great bursts. His nostrils flared, and his mind retreated from what he was certain to find there.

  The room fared better than the rest. Daroch’s eyes skimmed past burnt tools, a great forge covered in the fine layer of ash, anvils specialized to make everything from nails to horseshoes to armor.

  The back window cut into the stone wall behind the forge was broken. The sunset illuminated the heather-strewn hill that offered some protection from the harsh Highland weather, and sparkled off jagged edges of glass.

  Something strange drew Daroch to it and he crossed the room with swift strides. Reaching out, he pried one of the glass fragments from the casing and inspected the dark, dried stain on the sharp point.

  Blood.

  Someone had escaped through the window. Upon further inspection he surmised that the window had not been broken by the heat of the fire, but by the force of a blunt object. But what? He looked at the floor to the corner on his right and then turned to the left to search the dark nook created by the back wall and the forge.

  All the breath in his lungs released in a great whoosh as Daroch’s knees fell to the ashes.

  Bones. Her bones.

  “Gods,” he rasped through a throat closing with alarming pressure.

  Huddled there, as though playing a children’s hiding game, the legs were curled into the chest. The arms circled the drawn up knees, but the wrists…

  Daroch turned from the sight, sucking in a bracing breath before he could face it again.

  The wrists were secured with small iron chains. Likely forged in this very room. The tiny bones of the fingers clasped together in supplication.

  He closed his eyes again, but gruesome, hideous images flashed behind his lids. The worst of which was her soft green eyes, round with terror, begging for mercy. His own eyes burned, and a suspicious sheen clouded his vision when he opened them again.

  Daroch blinked it away. A band of wrath encircled his lungs. His heart fell like a heavy brick to the pit of his stomach. He wanted to scream. He wanted to vomit.

  He wanted to run.

  Instead, he forced himself to look at her. To bear witness to her unjust death. Her skull sat on slim, delicate shoulders, regarding him from small, empty sockets. Her teeth smiled at him in the most macabre way and a shudder overtook him.

  “Och lass,” he whispered. “What did they do to ye?” Reaching to her, Daroch’s finger trembled as he gingerly wiped at the green patina of ash that covered her bones and rubbed it between his finger and thumb. Peat moss, oil, and pitch, identical to the bricks he’d been loading into the forge.

  Huddled in the tiny nook, she would have been spared the fire. Likely, the smoke would have filled her lungs, but she’d have died before feeling the burn of the flames. Daroch had a sick suspicion the blaze hadn’t been lit in one room of the house. Nay, the fucking villains had used live women as tinder.

  I never venture in there.

  His stomach protested again and he snarled. What other secrets of hers did this room contain that had been erased by the fire? Why hadn’t her bones been laid into the earth? Why was she stuffed back here like so much forgotten slag?

  Who had done this?

  Daroch picked up a peat brick and crushed it in his fist. The first time he’d laid eyes on Kylah MacKay was in the great hall of Laird MacKay’s Castle. Rory MacKay had been plagued with Banshees and summoned Daroch for help. The self-same Laird who sent these peat bricks. He hurled another one through the window.

  Banshees were creatures of vengeance. Daroch looked down at her bones, every part of him aching for her. He’d know, of course, that Kylah must have died horribly. He’d just forced himself not to think of it. Not to care. She wasn’t his problem, after all. She wasn’t his fault.

  She wasn’t his to lose. To avenge. But the fact that she remained a Banshee this long after her death meant she was unable to claim her vengeance.

  And that was something they had in common.

  8

  The witching hour fell before Daroch found himself at the doors of the MacKay keep. He beat on them with his staff. “Open up, MacKay,” he demanded.

  A familiar, fair-haired man with the dimensions of a tree trunk threw open the heavy door and held Daroch at sword point. “You, Druid!” he accused.

  “Yes. Brilliant deduction. Now get me yer Laird,” Daroch ordered.

  The man sputtered before rushing him, sword aimed at his throat.

  Daroch side-stepped his attack easily, and thunked him soundly between the shoulder blades with his staff, sending the man sprawling face-first into the dirt.

  The man was likely still sore at the hours he’d spent as Daroch’s guest some weeks past. The curses that were spat from his mouth along with the mud validated the theory.

  Perhaps guest was too kind a word.

  Shrugging, Daroch slipped through the open door and slammed it closed, barring it against the angry MacKay steward and turned to find another sword held just as directly to his throat.

  “Druid,” the soft, low voice of Rory MacKay held a lethal note Daroch instantly respected.

  “Laird,” he returned the man’s greeting, meeting Rory’s deadly amber gaze with one of his own. “If I were ye, I’d look into finding more competent protection.”

  “Lorne is one of the most capable, deadly warriors to see a battlefield.” Rory glanced at the door, but only for a moment, a look of resigned respect teasing good humor into his brawny features. “I imagine he’s still cross with ye for leaving him stranded when I sent him for ye.”

  “Lower yer sword,” Daroch commanded slowly. He would not trade good natured conversation with the man who may have murdered three innocent women.

  Rory instantly sobered, stepping closer and narrowing his eyes, the dangerous tip of his weapon pressing against Daroch’s jugular with precision. “State yer business, Druid, before I run ye through.”

  For a moment of pure male instinct, Daroch wanted to test the man. Rory’s name was heralded as one of the best warriors in the Highlands that didn’t claim to be Berserker or Shape shifter. Daroch rarely ventured out of his cave and he’d still heard of the man. They stood remarkably similar in height, and though Daroch’s shoulders and arms were wider, the Laird’s trunk was thicker.

  “Why run me through, when ye can tie me up and set me on fire?” Daroch put a winter’s worth of chill in the words and watched as the Laird’s face transformed.

  Rory lowered his sword as though it had become too heavy to lift. Shame and regret darkened his eyes and he turned away, treading the few steps to the council table to settle hi
s bulk into the Chieftain’s chair.

  “I thought I was a cold-hearted bastard,” Daroch advanced on him, shaking with the strength of his rage. “But three innocent lasses, burned alive. Do ye ken the pain of it? Have ye no compassion at all, no humanity? Why have the Banshees not reaped their vengeance?”

  A hollow, wry sound escaped the Laird. “Believe me they tried, but the man responsible is already dead by my own order. I stole their vengeance from them, but not their lives.”

  Daroch hit the table with his staff. “Doona lie to me! I vow I’ll see ye burn as they did. I can prove the bricks used to raze the washhouse to the ground came from this very castle.”

  “Set to blaze by my twin brother, Angus, and his men.” Rory put his knuckles on the table and rose to his feet, bringing their faces flush. “All of whom are dead upon my command.”

  Daroch searched the man for signs of deceit. His breath was steady, his eyes undilated and clear, the pulse thrumming in his temple slightly elevated, but none more than had been at Daroch’s threat. He spoke the truth.

  Aggression sizzled in the air between them for a tense moment.

  “Who are ye to storm my castle and accuse me of such atrocities? What business is it of yers?” Rory’s voice lowered to a more reasonable register, but his meaning was apparent.

  “I’m—” Daroch paused. No one. He was nothing to these Banshees or to their Laird. If he truly was a smart man, he’d be relieved Kylah had finally left him alone and go about his business. But he couldn’t. The ghostly lass had reached her wee glow into his darkness and illuminated something he’d long forgotten he’d even possessed.

  His heart.

  “I’m buggered.” He sank into the chair behind him and tossed his head against the wooden back. He was so close. So close to reaping a vengeance of his own. He couldn’t afford a comely distraction like her. Not now. “Ye requested that I help eliminate a Banshee back when ye were tormented with them. How did ye end up ridding yerself of her?”