Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read online

  He recognized two men.

  The miscreants who had thought to accost his lady.

  And he welcomed their timely appearance, for they took his mind off the sound of Madeline stepping from the bathing tub. They also reminded him of the danger facing her… a thought that cooled his ardor in one fell swoop.

  They slunk along the lee of a wall, heading toward the stables, their path keeping them close enough to the light spilling from the windows for him to brand their faces into his memory.

  For the second time that night, Iain dropped his hand to his sword hilt. But this time he let it linger there. Caressed it. As he lived and breathed, those two jackals would not walk away from their next encounter with him… if his lady’s terror upon seeing them indeed be-spoke the kind of villainy he suspected.

  And that was something he meant to find out.

  Twinges of guilt nibbling at him for the distress he was surely about to cause her, he opened the leather purse hanging from his waist belt and retrieved the little silver leg ex-voto.

  “Tell me when I can turn around, lass, for I would speak to you,” he said, curling his fingers around the votive, his impatience to get answers from her kindled by the men’s appearance.

  “I am covered,” she said, after several long moments of soft rustling noises.

  Iain turned. She’d wrapped his sister’s arisaid about her and stood watching him from eyes gone wary.

  “It is not my wont to distress you, but…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Pray believe I wish I were better blessed with words, lass.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I conceive you speak quite fine,” she declared. “And I must ask you something, too, and would rather have an easier way with the words.”

  “I will answer any questions you have for me, milady… if first you tell me why you were gathering these”—he paused to hold up the ex-voto—“from cathedral shrines and holy wells?”

  She stared at the votive, the color draining from her face. “Where did you get that?”

  “Gavin found it,” he told her, setting the little silver leg on the table. “He saw it fall from your hand when you ran from Glasgow Cathedral.”

  “I was not stealing the votives,” she said, her voice tight, quivering with pent-up emotion. “I was looking for them, that is all.”

  “And why were you looking for them? You must tell me,” he urged her, his heart wrenching at the pain in her eyes. “Only so can I help you. I cannot challenge a faceless demon.”

  “No one can help me.” She lifted her chin a notch. She was not going to cry. So she reached deep inside herself, probed for the crackling anger she preferred keeping hidden away.

  One glance at the little silver leg, gleaming bright on the oaken table, helped her find it.

  “Can you bring my father back to life? Mayhap turn back time and undo the hideous act that took his life? The lives of innocents?” She spoke past the hot lump swelling in her throat, her voice rising with each word. “A young goatherd burned alive, do you ken? Burned, and just because he happened around a corner at the wrong time… can you save him, too?”

  Iain stared at her, outrage churning in his gut. “Pray tell me that isn’t what happened at Abercairn?” he asked, already seeing the truth in her eyes.

  He stepped forward, wrapped his arms around her, drew her close, tried to spend her his warmth if he couldn’t comfort such great horrors. “Tell me you did not witness such things?”

  She clung to him, her entire body beginning to tremble. “Aye, that is the fate of Abercairn,” she said, her voice breaking. She released a long, quivering sigh. “Abercairn, my father, and the young lads Sir Bernhard Logie burned on pyres before the castle gates.”

  She looked up at him, her face deathly pale, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Do you ken how much I loved my father, sir? More than the whole of the world, I did,” she said, her anguish ripping Iain’s soul. “’Tis true I hardly speak of him, but that is because I cannot bear the pain of thinking of him.”

  Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her words a swift-flowing current. “And the boys! Logie’s men seized them—goatherds, most of them were. T-they threatened to burn them lest my father threw open the gates. He did, and forthwith, but Silver Leg burned the lads anyway.”

  Iain’s breath caught, icy cold slithering down his spine. “Silver Leg?”

  She pressed fisted hands against her eyes as if to stave off tears, and nodded. “Sir Bernhard Logie is his name, but he styles himself thus for the little silver leg votives. ’Tis said he was lame as a boy and some obscure saint cured him, so he now makes pilgrimages to shrines where’er he happens to be. He leaves the votives as tokens of his appreciation,” she explained, the words flowing like a torrent.

  “H-he is one of the Disinheriteds, come back from England in support of Edward Balliol, but his own holding—the one he lost—isn’t as rich as ours, so he wanted Abercairn, and took it.”

  Iain’s brows drew together in a frown. “And your father? What of him?”

  “My father is… was an ill man,” she said, blinking hard. “A greathearted man and much-loved laird. But he was a man of letters and learning, not a warrior. He made an easy target for one as ruthless as Silver Leg.”

  Slipping a hand beneath the damp fall of her hair, Iain kneaded the back of her neck, amazed he could move his fingers so gently with such rage pumping through him.

  But Madeline Drummond needed gentleness.

  Dear saints but she needed a tender hand on her.

  “You saw your father killed? Burned on a pyre before your eyes?” Bile rose in Iain’s throat, fury at the beasts responsible for such heinous acts.

  She hesitated, drew several great breaths. “I saw him led to the pyre. The two men belowstairs earlier… t-they were the ones who escorted him.”

  “By the Rood!” Iain swore, the revelation sealing the men’s fate. “I should have run them through then and there.” His blood ran cold, outrage pumping through him. “Rest assured I shall avenge you, lass, and if I have to track them across the width and breadth of the land.”

  Horror at what she’d been through churned in his gut, twisting his innards and squeezing his heart. “You saw this happen?”

  She hesitated, shook her head. “I did not s-see him… see him burn,” she admitted, swiping a hand across her cheek, just beneath her eyes. “I couldn’t bear to watch.”

  “God in Heaven.” Iain tightened his arms around her, his own heart breaking. He tucked her head beneath his chin and rocked her. “Sweet, sweet lass.”

  “T-that was the day Nella and I left Abercairn,” she said in a voice so small he scarce heard her above the slashing rain.

  “The day you decided to join a nunnery?” A travesty he was not about to let happen.

  She nodded, looked up at him with green-shimmering eyes gone dark as moss. “The day I decided to kill Silver Leg.”

  Iain’s jaw dropped. “So-o-o!” he said, the pieces beginning to fall in place. “That is why you were looking for the votives?”

  She nodded again. “I couldn’t hope to avenge my father at Abercairn. Too many of Silver Leg’s men would be about. So I thought to catch him unawares, at a shrine, and… and—”

  “And kill him with the wee bairn’s dirk you carry in your boot?”

  “Aye, that was my plan. And why I meant to enter a convent afterward… to atone for the sin of murder in a holy place.”

  Iain stared at her. “Sweet lass, ne’er have I heard a plan more doomed to failure and ne’er have I seen a lass less suited for life as a nun.”

  Much to his relief, a spark of anger appeared in her eyes. “And you have a better plan?”

  “Och, aye, lass, but I do,” he said, setting her away from him.

  His mind racing, hope burgeoning in his heart, he took the sphagnum moss tincture off the brazier, snatched up a few small linen towels from the stool next to the bathing tub, and carried them to the bedside table, using the few mom
ents away from her to suppress the triumph beginning to surge through him.

  The lass didn’t know it yet, but she’d just given him a far better way to atone for his own sins than prostrating himself before moldering bones and bathing in supposedly sacred waters.

  He’d help her regain Abercairn Castle, avenging her father’s death and gaining time to woo her properly in the process.

  Much pleased with himself, he returned to her side and struck his most valiant Master of the Highlands stance. Thus posed—legs slightly apart and his arms folded—he drew back his great shoulders and gave her what he hoped would appear as a smile of confidence and encouragement.

  One he hoped she wouldn’t be able to resist.

  If he didn’t look the fool, which was a distinct possibility, as he was sorely out of practice at smiling. Being anyone’s valiant hero was new territory for him.

  But he must have done something right because she blushed prettily and gave him a tremulous smile in return. “And what is your plan, good sir?”

  Why, to charm and seduce you, sweet lass. And make you mine for all our days, his heart declared.

  “I shall tell you of my plan as I soothe your ankles and wrists with the sphagnum tincture,” he promised, guiding her toward the bed. “And you have my word I shall tend only those parts of you that are aching.”

  He almost grinned at that last, and would have attempted it if she hadn’t ground her feet into the rushes and tugged on his arm.

  “Aye, lass?”

  “You no longer wish to bathe?”

  He shook his head. “It can wait,” he said, and ran the backs of his knuckles down her cheek. “Soothing your hurts, inside and out, matters more at the moment.”

  She blinked at that. He’d thought she would smile. But she peered at him, the shadows he’d noted earlier creeping back to cloud her lovely eyes.

  “There is something I must ask you, Iain MacLean,” she said, her chin lifting, her gaze bitter earnest. “And I must ken the answer afore I lie down on that bed for your… er… helpful ministrations.”

  “Then ask away, lass, for I shall keep no secret from you,” he said, and meant it.

  “Are you married?” she blurted, high color spotting her cheeks. “Is there a lady of your heart?”

  Iain blinked, for a moment flummoxed, but secretly pleased she’d asked.

  It meant she cared.

  He took one of her hands between both of his, squeezed lightly. “I was married, aye.” He answered her true. “But my wife has long since passed from history, lass. She is dead and has been for o’er a year.”

  “But she has not passed from your heart?” she probed, surprising him. “You still love her.”

  Iain’s brow knitted, his initial pleasure at the question swinging into confusion. But he’d sworn not to lie to her, so he answered these questions honestly, too. “She will always be in my heart, aye.”

  But ne’er in the way that you are, that very heart giving the answer he knew she needed.

  “You need what?”

  Donall the Bold, proud and mighty laird of the MacLeans, crossed his well-muscled arms and peered down at the wee crone standing before him in his cavernous hall at Baldoon.

  Slight and black-garbed as a raven, Devorgilla, Doon’s resident wisewoman, cleared her throat and drew a self-important breath.

  Indeed, she allowed herself a second one, too.

  She’d made the long and tedious journey from her cliff-top cottage on the other side of Doon, crossing roughest moorland and peat bog, even suffering the blast of wind and rain in her face without hardship.

  And now that she had the man she needed before her, she wasn’t about to deny herself stating what she required.

  Especially when her needs would benefit the laird’s brother, Iain the Doubter, whom she knew to be anything but a doubter these fine and bonnie days.

  “Well?” The laird arched a dark brow at her.

  “I need a skilled leatherworker,” she began, counting off her wishes on knotty-knuckled fingers. “A goldsmith or jewelworker, a fast-footed gillie, and passage for him on your swiftest galley.”

  Donall MacLean couldn’t quite hide his surprise. “Am I to learn why you need these men?”

  Devorgilla pursed her lips, her eyes twinkling as she shook her head. She loved secrets and intrigues, and she thoroughly believed in the divine place of magic and meddling in the world… so long as it was done for someone’s good.

  And she’d done a lot of good in her time, as the MacLean laird ought know.

  The slight upward tilt at the corner of his mouth showed her he did. “Does this have aught to do with my brother?”

  Devorgilla gave him her most mischievous smile and shrugged. “It might,” she conceded, doubly pleased when keen interest flashed in the bonnie laird’s dark eyes.

  “Have you had word of Iain?” He narrowed his gaze at her. “Is he well?”

  “Some victuals and a place to lay my head this night?” the cailleach bargained, well aware Donall MacLean knew the game and would indulge her.

  Shuffling closer to him, she touched gnarled fingers to his hard-muscled arm and slid a telling gaze across the darkened hall to where a line of sleeping men already snored on their pallets. “’Tis too late an hour for one of my great years to be a-traipsing across the heather.”

  The laird nodded and patted her hand. “All the roast gannet and bannocks you can eat. My best ale, too.”

  “And the pallet?”

  “In my own solar abovestairs… away from the snores of my slumbering kinsmen.”

  Devorgilla cackled and rubbed her hands together, mightily pleased. But not so much as to grovel her appreciation.

  Such boons were her just due as resident crone.

  “And when will you require the services of these men?”

  “Soon. As soon as you can spare them.”

  “Consider it done.” Donall gave her a nod, his lairdly assurance he’d grant her requests.

  He, too, had his role to fulfill.

  But then the hard set of his handsome face softened, his mouth curving in the faintest of indulgent smiles. Just enough for the crone to glimpse the spindly-legged laddie who’d once been too frightened of her to venture anywhere near her thatched cottage for fear she’d make him drink liquefied toad spittle.

  Or worse, turn him into one of the slimy-backed creatures.

  “I’ll send the men with you on the morrow,” he promised, the caring warmth behind his words assuring her the boy had grown into a fine and worthy laird.

  “Rob the goldsmith can take you before him on his garron,” he added. “That will spare you the trek across the high moor and bogs.”

  “You are kind,” the cailleach said, more touched than she cared to show.

  “And Iain?” The laird pressed his own concerns again. “Have you word of his well-being?”

  Devorgilla almost blushed.

  She’d had better than word of Iain the Doubter, now known in some quarters as Master of the Highlands.

  She’d dreamed of him!

  And, och, what a dream it’d been, for she’d glimpsed him and his new lady in very fine fettle.

  But she’d keep those secrets to herself and simply answer Donall MacLean’s question with the expected dignity of her station.

  “Your brother is more than well. Truth be told—and I have seen it—’tis fair swollen with pleasure he is of late,” she said, and allowed herself another wee chuckle.

  She’d let it to the laird himself to catch the double meaning of her words.

  His knitted brow said he didn’t, and Devorgilla wasn’t surprised.

  Men could be so blind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  OUTSIDE THE LITTLE ROOM at the Shepherd’s Rest, the sliver of a crescent moon shone dimly through racing storm clouds, and the rumble of thunder grew distant. Chill winds still buffeted the alehouse, bringing with them sheets of drifting rain and the muffled sounds of chaos from the ale-yard as
men struggled with the felled ale-stake.

  Deep blue-gray shadows filled much of the room’s interior save the feeble light cast by the red-glowing brazier and the rack of candles on the bedside table. Thick silence stretched and preened in the inky corners, a crouching presence swallowing the patter of rain on the stone window ledge but not quite overlaying the hard and fast pounding of Madeline’s heart.

  It hammered so loudly against her ribs she could scarce believe Iain MacLean could not hear its racing beat. Truth to tell, it roared in her own ears with such ferocity, she could hear naught beyond its thudding and the echo of the few words that set it to thundering in the first place.

  Truths that spent her glorious, blinding hope.

  Her shadow man was widowed, not married.

  His braw heart given and claimed… but by a dead woman.

  Closing her eyes for a moment, Madeline breathed a silent prayer of thanks. In her darkest hour, the fates had smiled on her after all, blessing her with a fine and shining ray of hope.

  And she meant to embrace that hope with the whole of her heart.

  No flesh-and-blood woman held Iain MacLean’s affections.

  Immense relief, stunning in its intensity, swept her. Ne’er could or would she be any man’s leman—the bane to cause another woman pain.

  Even at the cost of her own.

  But much as she loathed sharing even a wee corner of her shadow man’s heart—his love if she could win it— sharing him with the memory of a dead wife was a burden she’d be glad to take on her shoulders.

  She sighed, his beautiful golden warmth surging through her, sweet and dear. Iain MacLean, her braw and bonnie Master of the Highlands was free.

  And so now, too, was she.

  Feeling almost giddy in her relief, she stretched most sinuously atop the chamber’s curtained bed, full naked but for the gauzy-thin slip of her ruined undershift and the length of rough drying linen she’d wrapped around her damp hair. She watched him, wondered if her heart showed in her eyes.