Devil in a Kilt (16 page)

A
most able man.

A
fine woman.

The
significance behind the simply spoken words burned brighter than a beacon,
leaping out at her and dimming all else either of them had said.

The
notion struck her as wildly absurd, but even without the giveaway words, the
piercing stare Fergus had fixed her with and the girlish gleam in Elspeth's
eyes told their own tale.

"...
I asked if you want to ride along to the abbey?" Elspeth broke into
Linnet's musing. "Fergus tells me ‘tis a pleasant journey. One of the
monks is said to be an unrivaled herbalist. Fergus claims the monk, Brother
Baldric, visited the Holy Land and brought back many unusual plants. Mayhap he'll
show you his garden?"

Linnet
stifled a smile. Elspeth always knew how to entice her. " ‘Tis true I'd
enjoy seeing the abbey gardens, and a ride would suit me well. Perhaps Robbie
would like to accompany us." She paused to glance at the assortment of foodstuffs
set upon the table, ready to go. "Why aren't the alms distributed here?
Even Da's almoner handed out Dundonnell's meager offerings from the castle
gate."

Rather
than respond to Linnet's question, Elspeth made a great show of wiping her
wooden ladle clean. After a few swipes with a cloth, she held it up, perusing
it as if searching for an overlooked speck of dirt.

Recognizing
the familiar ploy, Linnet prodded for an answer, "Why do the poor not come
to Eilean Creag to collect the almsgivings? ‘Tis the usual way."

"Fergus
said ‘tis no need to employ an almoner."

Without
failing to notice Elspeth had once more started a sentence with 'Fergus
said...' Linnet bored deeper. "And why not? Did the all-knowing
Fergus
say?"

"Aye,"
Elspeth conceded, her expression inscrutable.

"And
what be the reason?" Linnet asked testily.

"The
poor willna come here. Not since the death of your husband's first wife has any
villager dared cross the bridge. ‘Tis said they fear the laird."

Linnet
squared her shoulders, surprised by her indignation over needy villagers
accepting her husband's charity but shunning
him
with their refusal to
collect almsgoods from his door.

Her
own feelings aside, it was becoming clear to see why the man was so embittered.

"All
the more reason for me to go to the abbey." Linnet skimmed her fingertips
along the top of the kitchen table. "I shall inform the burghers there
shall always be alms aplenty, but henceforth they must collect such offerings
here ... as is custom."

Elspeth
looked aghast. "Your lord husband may not care for your intrusion into the
matter."

"I
doubt Duncan MacKenzie knows what he should or shouldn't care about."

But
mayhap she'd be able to show him. An ember of hope sparking within her, the
demons of the night banished for the moment, she left the kitchen to retrieve
her herb satchel and fetch Robbie. A sense of calm and purpose settled over her
as she went. If her husband could learn to care again, perhaps he'd find the
heart his vision-likeness seemed so desperate to have returned.

For
a brief moment, the wee spark of hope inside her flared brightly as a small
voice, one that had naught to do with her gift, told her his heart wasn't
missing . .. it just was buried too deep for him to recover it alone.

Bracing
himself against the bright daylight beyond the shadowy confines of his castle
walls, Duncan stepped outside and headed straight for the lists.

"Cease
pandering about like a woman!" a deep voice commanded from the training
ground. "If you desire to earn your spurs, have at me like a man!"

Duncan
hurried his gait upon hearing Marmaduke barking commands at the young squires
he was instructing in how to handle a sword.

Not
that he wouldn't have known where to locate his brother-in-law.

He'd
have found him even if the brisk sea wind did not carry his booming English
voice across the bailey. The scar-faced Sassunach spent nigh onto his every
waking moment training in the lists. Some of Duncan's men jested they'd
glimpsed him there in the wee hours, sparring against moonbeams. Duncan didn't
doubt it either.

Martial
skills such as Sir Marmaduke Strongbow possessed were only wrought from years
of long hours spent at practice. Few men could claim his prowess as a warrior,
and fewer still could best him.

Duncan's
late father, of a certainty, when in his prime. Duncan himself... when the
saints chose to grant him such favor. But never did he know beforehand the
outcome of a good round of swordplay with his best champion. Only one had ever
taken the Sassunach down... the debased whoreson who'd carved out Marmaduke's
eye and left his handsome face a twisted mask.

The
selfsame miscreant who'd wrought untold misery in Duncan's own life, his half
brother Kenneth MacKenzie.

Just
the thought of him made Duncan scowl.

Aye,
no one understood better than Duncan what drove Marmaduke to hone his skills.

Duncan,
too, was driven by bitterness.

But
not for revenge. He cared naught about retribution. He only wanted to be left
alone.

The
ring of steel against steel and a barrage of heartily uttered oaths brought his
mind back to the present. Entering the lists, he suppressed the admiration
that always rose in him upon seeing his brother-in-law at training and strode
forward, determined to settle the issue at hand: the Sassunach's undoubted role
in locking him in his wife's bedchamber yestereve, unclothed and befuddled from
too much hippocras.

"Strongbow!"
he bellowed, pulling up a safe distance behind the sword-wielding Englishman.
"Order a pause, for I'd have a word with you, you scheming heap of trouble."

"Merciful
saints," Marmaduke exclaimed, wheeling around. "You know better than
to come up on a man's back when he's at training. I could have sliced your
squire in twain."

"
‘Tis
you
who'll be rent in two if you dinna explain yourself...
now!"

Marmaduke
cast his blade aside, then dragged his arm across his dripping brow. With a
nod, and a fearsome glance from his good eye, he sent the circle of young men
scattering.

Turning
back to Duncan, he said, "What demon has crawled under your skin this fair
morn, my good friend?"

"If
good friends e'er go against one's wishes and conspire to thrust one into the
arms of a maid one has no intention of bedding, then I dinna need enemies, do
I?"

Marmaduke
made to speak, but Duncan stayed him by raising his hand. "What goal did
you seek to accomplish? Have you forgotten I've sworn not to touch my lady
wife?"

"Nay,
I have not forgotten, little that I care for the notion," Marmaduke said,
then paused to wipe more sweat from his forehead. "But ‘tis not your vow
that concerns me, ‘tis your
happiness."

"And
you thought to secure my marital bliss by locking me in Lady Linnet's
bedchamber?"

Marmaduke's
ravaged lips twisted in an attempt to smile. "The ploy bore success."

Duncan's
brows shot upwards. "What the saints do you mean,
success?"

"You
bedded her, did you not?" Marmaduke stepped forward and slapped Duncan on
the shoulder. "Ah... ‘Twas a fine sight to see your men so pleased when
her blood-smeared gown was passed around the hall this morn. You should have
heard them cheer."

"But
I dinna touch her, I swear it. ‘Tisn't possible. I…
"

A
loud commotion behind them cut off his protest as a lone man on a heavily
winded horse entered the lists from the bailey. He rode forward, reining in
before Duncan and Marmaduke.

Duncan
recognized him as one of the men who watched and protected the MacKenzie
boundaries.

"Sir,
I bring grim tidings," the man said the moment he swung down from his
saddle. "We found one o' the outlying cottages torched. Naught remains,
the bastards even butchered the milk cow."

"Which
family? Were they all killed?" Duncan's level tone belied the anger
roiling through his veins.

"
‘Twas the Murchinsons. Some managed to escape into the wood when they saw the
raiders approaching, but most of them, God rest their souls, were
slaughtered."

Rage,
hot and fierce, ripped through Duncan, and a sickening feeling churned deep in
his gut. A ghastly possibility cast an ugly shadow on the day, but he didn't
want to accept it. For years, his wife's ragtag band of brothers had harried
his borders, but ne'er had they pillaged and murdered.

The
MacDonnells were simple cattle thieves, and not well skilled at that. Still, he
had to know.

"Did
any of the survivors recognize who did this? Were they MacDonnells?"

"Nay,
sir, they weren't MacDonnells. ‘Twas far worse."

"Worse?"

"
‘Twas
him,"
the man said, clearly uncomfortable. "Your half
brother Kenneth and his men."

Several
leagues away from the confining walls of Eilean Creag, Linnet followed a
well-trampled footpath through a copse of ancient yew trees. She sought the burial
cairns Brother Baldric had said marked the spot she'd find the herb, ragwort.
The well-traveled monk had assured her the healing plant grew in profusion
next to a sacred well near the cairns.

Robbie
and his dog, Mauger, trailed behind her, the boy carrying a linen sack the
monks had given her to collect the wild-growing ragwort. They'd generously
filled her own leather pouch with a large assortment of cultivated herbs from
their herbarium.

"‘Tisn't
much farther," she told Robbie when she spied a rounded pile of stones
beyond the edge of the grove. "I can see the cairns." Upon her words,
Mauger trotted ahead to sniff at the low heaps of lichen-covered stones.

"There
won't be any spirits about, will there?" Robbie hung back as if reluctant
to exchange the cool shade of the copse for the grassy clearing with its
collection of burial mounds.

"None
what will harm you," Linnet assured him, reaching for his hand and drawing
him into the late-afternoon sunshine. "All what rest here, sleep
peacefully. ‘Tis a good place, guarded by those who've gone before us and
blessed with a holy well. You've naught to fear."

Robbie
did not look convinced, but he let her lead him forward. Still, he peered with
rounded eyes at each cairn they passed. "Be you sure?"

"Were
I not I wouldna brought you here." Linnet stopped to tousle the boy's dark
hair. "More danger abounds on the road where the others wait for us than
here with our ancestors."

But
not much later, as she bent to gather more of the yellow-flowering ragwort from
the banks of a tumbling burn, she was no longer so certain. She tensed, her
skin prickling despite the day's warmth and the sweet fragrance of the
wildflowers that grew with abandon amongst the tall grass.

Something
...
someone ...
watched them from the shelter of the trees, and whoever
it was came from the land o' the living, not the shadow world of the dead.

And
they weren't friendly.

Although
the sacred ground upon which they stood was hushed and deceptively peaceful in
the afternoon haze, Linnet's pulse quickened, and she deeply regretted coming
to the cairns unguarded save Robbie's elderly dog.

The
old mongrel shared her unease, for he'd abandoned his exploration of the cairns
to hasten back to their sides. Low growls rumbling deep in his chest, the
coarse fur between his shoulders raised, Mauger kept close to them as he
scanned the edge of the woods with wary eyes.

A
trickle of moisture rolled between Linnet's breasts. Plague take her for
disregarding Fergus's offer to accompany them. She'd selfishly wanted to have
Robbie to herself, to savor being alone with him in a special place.

Now,
she'd brought them both into danger.

Straightening,
she dropped an apronful of ragwort into the sack Robbie held open for her. Without
letting him notice, she hoped, she scanned the edges of the clearing but saw
nothing except the glossy, reddish brown trunks of the great yews and their
overarching mass of leafy branches.

Yet
she
knew
someone hid there.

Someone
who meant them ill.

"Give
me your hand, Robbie lad," Linnet said as calmly as she could. " ‘Tis
time for us to go."

"But
the sack isna full."

"We've
enough for the salve I want to make." She took him firmly by the hand.
" ‘Tis good to take only what we need, you see, and now is not the best
time to collect herbs anyway. Early morn is far better."

She
kept up a stream of chatter as they crossed the clearing. Perhaps by doing so
Robbie wouldn't sense her nervousness ... or his dog's. She also hoped he
hadn't noticed she'd slipped her new dirk from the pouch attached to the band
of her apron. Its finely honed blade was far superior to her old herb dagger
and would serve her well should she need to make use of it.